She has so much anger, so much hate.
Nancy didn’t care about rules or proprieties. She was cunning and ruthless… traits that served her well in the field but caused him considerable concern.
Will she survive without me?
He needed more time. He opened the folder and replaced the puzzles with another page. It was his last hope. He had tasked the boy in the basement, the smart one, with the research. He didn’t want Hob finding out until the device was ready.
It must work.
He would finally have to bring Hobert and Elliot together and loop them in. The operation would have to happen soon, before it was too late.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They bypassed several roadblocks and impromptu checkpoints with Nancy’s help, doubling back three times before they reached the Turkish border. The guards who previously waved them through for a small bribe demanded an exorbitant amount of money, but finally agreed to let them pass for two thousand dollars in US currency.
Three miles past the border, they slowed and were met by a convoy of Rangers. Deion spoke to the soldier driving the first Humvee, and they were soon barreling through the mountain passes. They arrived at Incirlik Air Base, outside of Adana, well after the sun was high in the sky and baking the dry brown earth.
The drive had given Deion time to think. Someone knew Nazer’s location. Someone knew that Al-Hakim would join him. Maybe it was the same group who executed Sadir. He shook his head. It felt like fighting a nebulous cloud, just out of sight and always one step ahead of them.
They entered the base and made their way to the hangar where Nancy waited with a team of doctors, technicians, and Airmen. The Airmen unloaded the bodies of Al-Hakim and Nazer and placed them on plywood tables where the forensic technicians could do their work.
Redman helped Stratello and Young unload the body of Sean Morse. They put the body on a gurney, the men milling about, joined by Taylor and Mark, and they paid their last respects with a moment of bowed heads and softly uttered prayers.
Deion helped John to another table where the nurses and doctors removed his body armor and went to work cleaning and stitching his wounds.
Nancy joined them, her eyes sparkling with anger, but when she saw Frist, naked except for a white sheet stained with blood across his pelvis, her expression softened. “John?”
John gave her a thumbs up with his good arm. “Sorry for almost dying, Ma’am.”
Nancy shook her head. “You don’t have to call me Ma’am. We’re going to find out who did this, I promise.” She turned to the doctors. “How bad is it?”
The first doctor, a young man with short red hair, regarded her coolly. “I’m cautiously optimistic. His wounds are deep, but not life-threatening. He’s not in shock. Luckily, the clotting agent stopped most of the blood loss.” The doctor looked at the disassembled Battlesuit resting on the concrete floor. “I don’t know what kind of body armor that is, but it saved his life. If he hadn’t been wearing it, the shrapnel would’ve shredded him and we’d be having a very different conversation.”
John looked up, eyes unfocused. “I had that going for me.”
“Do whatever it takes,” Nancy said to the doctor. “When you’re finished, update his medical records and give them to me. Just relax, John.”
John glanced around. “Gotcha, Nance.”
Deion choked back a laugh at the expression on Nancy’s face.
“Nance?” she asked.
The red-haired doctor pressed John firmly back to the table.
John gave her a big wink. “It’s the drugs. They make me strange in the head,” he said, tapping his finger against his temple.
A nurse plunged a needle in John’s arm and his eyes snapped wide, then he relaxed against the table, eyes closing.
“Sorry,” the nurse said, “but it’s better if he quits moving.”
“Carry on,” Nancy said. She spun on her heels and headed for the table where the forensic technicians worked. “Coming with me?”
Deion followed, and they found the technicians working on the dead bodies, the smell of blood and bowels thick in the air. Deion gagged, then saw Nancy watching out of the corner of her eye. He bit back the bitter taste of bile and shook his head.
Nancy rolled her eyes. “What have you found?” she asked the lead technician.
The man pointed and Deion saw the cellphone lying on the corner of the table. “We found this. We’ll have the SIM card removed and analyzed as soon as possible.”
Nancy glanced down at the phone, then back to the technician. “I want it double time, understand?”
The technician gulped. “We’ll have our best people on it.”
Nancy turned and grabbed Deion by his arm. “Get Redman and your team. Meet me in my office.”
“You got it,” Deion said. He tracked down Redman and the others watching a pair of young Airmen loading Morse’s body into a truck. “Boss lady wants to speak to us.”
They followed him to the far side of the hangar, where the Airmen had built a temporary office from 2x4’s and plywood sheets. Inside, they took seats at the wooden table with Nancy at the head. A large laptop rested on a shelf behind her, and when they were seated, she clicked on the button and initiated the video call.
A small room appeared. Eric was sitting next to Sergeant Clark in the conference room at Area 51. “I’m sorry, Bill. Sean was a good man. A good Operator.”
Redman stared off into the distance, then turned back to the monitor. “Yes, he was.”
“He had a wife? Rita?”
Redman shook his head. “They divorced last year. She was riding his ass about spending so much time away from home. He has a son. Griff. He’s seven. Lives with his mom.”
“We’ll look after them. My organization? It takes care of its own.”
Redman’s eyes focused on the monitor. “He wanted to go out a warrior. Doing something important. I think a loose nuke qualifies. It’s all a man can ask for.”
Taylor and Mark nodded their assent.
On the screen, Eric bowed his head. “It is, brother.”
Redman looked around the table. “You have a problem,” he said. “Who fired that RPG?”
“That’s what we need to find out,” Eric said. “Let’s do the hotwash. Maybe the techs will have something by the time we’re done.”
Around the table, the faces were grim. Nancy’s hands balled into fists as she spoke. Redman’s comments were terse, interjected between Nancy and Eric’s questioning. Mark and Taylor recounted their actions in precise detail.
Deion struggled to remain calm. The hot wash was thorough, but did nothing to illustrate their mistakes. They had performed well, given the mission’s parameters. Flipper’s death was the result of a third-party combatant, an enemy they couldn’t identify.
That’s twice. We’ve lost three suspects and a good operator. We don’t even know who we’re fighting!
There was a soft knock on the plywood door, and the lead technician entered the room. “We’ve analyzed the SIM card and uploaded the data. You can track Al-Hakim’s movements and calls.”
Eric’s face disappeared as the laptop display changed to a world map, then honed in on Somalia. “This is the port of Ely,” the technician said. “It’s the base of operations for pirates attacking ships in the Gulf of Aden.”
The map shrank and Eric’s face reappeared. “Right. A SEAL team worked there just a couple months ago. How solid is this data?”
“We’ve tracked every cell tower that Al-Hakim’s phone pinged. He traveled from Somalia to Yemen, on to Saudi Arabia, then passed through Iraq and into Syria over the last three days.”