“I hope not.”
No, the mission wasn’t being canceled by weather or storm or sleet or rain.
Scott picked up the pen from the desk, grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote weather.
“Yes, got it.”
This time he wrote in big, bold, block letters: TALIO.
“Yes, Operation Talio.”
Langley had assigned the mission its official name.
Only Scott knew the word’s meaning in Latin.
Retribution.
CHAPTER 44
“Please fasten your seat belts.”
The flight attendant was standing just behind William Parker when she said it. The airplane had flown across the Mediterranean through the night. Most in the cabin had tried to sleep in the small economy seats, either sitting up or twisted on their sides. Parker had been leaning against the back of his neighbor’s chair, lying on his side. He only slept for short periods of time, but it was a deep, hard sleep.
God, I feel like shit.
He didn’t need another explosion, even one he walked away from. It was like too many hits in the NFL.
Parker winced, thinking of Zabara’s wife and their adopted child. He had thought about them all night. Them and Enrico.
And Hernandez’s wife and baby.
He pulled open the shade to see a cloudless sky and a brown, tanned, rock-strewn surface below. In the short distance, several high-rises rose up near the aqua-blue water that marked the far end of Doha City and the edge of the Persian Gulf. Passing inland, Parker saw boulevards that were wide, broad spokes of a large wheel with two separate and distinct multilane highways that circled the city like the inner and outer rings of a doughnut. The airplane banked again, to the east, and as it did an unusual sight just on the horizon caught Parker’s eye. A burned-out shell of a building in the northwest of the city. A massive hole stood in the center of the large compound that surrounded it. The dark hole appeared to be full of chocolate-brown water. Burned piping from the building rose up in an odd pattern similar to children’s twisted sticks.
“The American embassy.” These were the first spoken words from Parker’s seatmate. He was a young man with a long, curly black beard and a short crew cut. His clothes were thick but simple wraps of heavy linen cloth cut in loose trousers with a large vest. A yellow-tinted white, wrinkled collared shirt finished out the outfit.
“A bombing?”
“Praise Allah. Several dead.”
Parker noticed the young man’s hands. Black dirt was caked underneath the man’s nails. The tops of his hands were already brown and cracked by a lifetime of being exposed to the sun. His hands looked like the hands of a man much older. His shoes were plastic slip-ons, similar to shower shoes bought at a dollar store. These were a cheap form of footwear that provided little warmth but plenty of durability. The man’s bare feet were like his hands. They had been exposed to the elements for most of his life and looked tougher than his hands. He had a broad smile of large, stained teeth, as if he’d had a pack-a-day habit since he was a young teenager.
Parker looked again at the wreckage below.
So this is where it all started. Less than a week ago, he had been living in another world. The bombing here started the chain of events that resulted in his sitting in the seat on the airplane, leaving Clark on the other side of the planet. It had also left innocents dead and missing, and Kevin Moncrief stuck in some RAF air base preparing to leave.
Parker felt a surge of anger rise inside him. He thought of Sadik Zabara, sitting in some safe house, and he wondered if Scott had had the guts to tell Zabara that he was a widower and now childless.
The man sitting next to him seemed to sense the sadness.
“I am sorry, brother.”
“Oh?” Parker acted ignorant. But the neighbor seemed to know more.
“We all have our losses.”
It was then that Parker realized his seatmate knew of Sadik’s losses — thought he was, in fact, Sadik Zabara. Which meant that Yousef also thought so.
“Yes. It is Allah’s will.” Parker spoke the words softly.
At that moment the PDA in his pocket buzzed.
Parker pulled it out, noticing the display on the front screen. He looked around, seeing several with their BlackBerrys activated as the airplane prepared to touch down. Even the man next to him had a cell phone and was using it. Parker turned in such a way to ensure that his seatmate could not see the screen of his phone, then opened his e-mail program.
Times reports Mossad linked to bombing. PM outraged.
Now Parker too could be outraged. The message went on.
Crew launch 0600
Long/Lat marked
He knew the last part meant that the landing zone of the team was marked in the classified Google Earth map he had in the cell phone. He would take a quick look at it and then flush the information. The cell phone pulled up what looked like Google Earth, but this one had a much sharper, clearer image. As he focused in on the ground, Parker could see several moving objects.
Cars. Damn! The cell phone was pulling a direct satellite link in real time with the details of every car and truck on the roadways.
The area was marked to the north of Peshawar in a valley along the Afghan border. The small map could be focused in to the smallest detail. In testing the system, he pulled it down on one individual, a woman sitting on a curb on a street near a mud-walled hut that looked like the village’s small store.
Amazing.
He was sitting in an airplane using a cell phone looking at a woman captured by a satellite several thousand miles in space, relayed several thousand miles back to Parker’s phone, and shown in crisp, living color.
Parker zoomed the image out. The woman sat next to a road in a small village marked Durba Khel. He pulled out the image even farther. To the west of Durba Khel the mountains rose up out of the valley. Snowcapped mountains stretched both south and north. A finger of peaks stuck out to the east of the range and down into the valley. These mountains were lower and did not have the tracing of snow that capped the larger mountains to the west. A map line cut through the center of the mountains marking the Afghan and Pakistani border. Just to the north and west of the end of the finger the map was marked with LZ-1.
Parker understood the plan. The team would occupy the high ground at the end of the finger. It would give them a clear view of the entire valley. The tent would be just to the north of the finger tucked into the rocks and cliffs.
He could tell from the movement of the clouds and the snow that the ground would be brutally cold and windy. The advantage point of the finger location would give the team access to all of the potential hiding places north of Peshawar, but their roost would be both freezing and dangerous. Also, while the high spot might allow the team to see the valley, any visible movement in their camp would enable the valley residents to see the team.
Parker sent his own message in reply:
Status of Sgt.?
It would be some time before he got his response.
CHAPTER 45
“Is that you, Billie?”
The room was pitch-dark, even though it was still light outside. Like a bottle of black ink spilled onto a desk, the darkness filled the room.
Maggie couldn’t tolerate the light. The head injury was seemingly becoming the worst of her several injuries. It had robbed her of her appetite, her taste, and her hearing. There was a constant ringing in her right ear. Maggie was becoming painfully thin, with little desire for the food trays that they brought. The food technicians had tried to increase the calorie count by bringing several meals, which she hardly touched.