One Rough Man Page 39

When Copfeld reached his position he said, “We need to get the fuck out of here. I want you to run back to the other vehicle and get a view down the north side of the house. See if you can find Sanford. Don’t penetrate across the street. If he’s there, get him here. If you don’t see him, he’s on his own. Watch that house to the rear. You understand?”

  “Yeah. Give me some cover while I move.”

  Lucas grabbed his sleeve before he left. “You do anything different from what I just said, and I’m going to kill you myself.”

  Copfeld stumbled back from the ferocity on Lucas’s face. He began running toward the other car as fast as he could. He made it about twenty meters before Lucas saw his head explode and his body crumple to the ground, twitching from the impact of multiple rounds. Lucas had barely registered his death when bullets began slicing the air near him like a buzz saw. What in the hell is inside that house? An army? He immediately collapsed behind his car, trying to make himself as small as possible, the bullets shattering the glass and puncturing the sheet metal all around him. The drivers of both vehicles rolled out, rapidly bringing their weapons to bear on the men shooting from the house.

  The fight lasted a total of fifteen seconds. The drivers returned fire to the best of their ability, but couldn’t compete with shooters safely ensconced behind cover. First one, then another fell over as a hail of bullets pummeled their bodies like an invisible meat tenderizer. The other targets gone, the bullets began to focus on Lucas’s specific position, chewing up the concrete of the street, the dirt around him, and the metal of the car. He knew he had seconds to live. He thought about returning fire and going out with his guns blazing, valiantly trying to accomplish the mission. A bullet clipped his arm, making the decision for him. He felt explosive rage at his failure, knowing that Standish had kept vital information from him. Just another retired soldier, my ass. He suppressed his anger, wanting to fight another day. Wanting the chance to bring some pain to the Honorable Harold Standish. He raised his weapon by the barrel and waved it back and forth over the roof of the car. The firing ceased. He stood up, laying the weapon on the roof of the car and raising his hands.

  He saw the front door open and two men come out, both holding weapons and scanning the area before running to his location. They drove him facedown into the ground and flex-tied his hands behind his back.

  BAKR RAN UNTIL HIS LUNGS FELT like they would burst. He didn’t look back, didn’t attempt to blend in, didn’t try to hide his fear from other pedestrians. He just let his legs churn away, running deeper and deeper into the Bosnian neighborhood. Eventually, he stopped, bent over, his hands on his knees, gasping for air. He heard nobody following. Once again, he was confused by the reaction of the enemy. Why did they never chase him down? They obviously had some method to track him, but continually made blatantly amateur moves whenever they closed in. He could still hear the crackle of gunfire from the direction he had come. What on earth were they shooting at? Were they so pathetic that they would continue shooting an empty building long after he was gone? Was he misreading the whole thing? He couldn’t believe that.

  His next move boiled down to two choices: He could attempt to hide here, in Sarajevo, until the heat died down, or he could get out right now. Staying was appealing, since it would allow him to put some thought into his next move, and perhaps come up with a solid plan instead of simply running on a wing and a prayer. On the other hand, he had to assume that the enemy had some method of finding him, since they kept showing up all over the globe, from Guatemala, through Oslo, to here.

  He decided he needed to run, to go to the station and get on the first thing leaving, whether that was a train or a bus. If they could find him, it would be better to be a moving target. The greatest risk was the station itself. If something wasn’t leaving immediately, he would be vulnerable while waiting around. It was a chokepoint that he’d have to risk.

  100

  I crushed Kurt’s beeper underneath my boot, having just confirmed that’s how we’d been tracked. The man known as Lucas had pretty much spilled his guts in an effort to keep his ass from getting torn apart, and the beacon information had come as an unwelcome surprise. I didn’t need any more. I squatted down, getting eye-to-eye with the man.

  “You guys are like a bad rash. You keep coming back no matter how much I think you’re done. Is there anyone else in this country looking for us? Anyone else we have to worry about?”

  “No. Nobody else. Trident Global Threat Analysis is my company. I’d know if someone else was here. You killed everyone I had over here.”

  “All right, shithead. We’re leaving here. If you’re lying and we get in a gunfight, I’m going to pretend you’re a principle I’m protecting so that I can kill you in my own sweet time later. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Lucas nodded, but he didn’t look particularly scared. Hmm ... need to keep an eye on him. I stood up, talking to Knuckles.

  “I don’t know where Carlos ran off to, but he can’t possibly have a ton of different safe houses here to choose from. My bet is he’s either running to a hotel, or running to the bus station. Either way, the station’s our first priority. If he’s not there, we can stake it out to ensure he doesn’t show up later, then begin working the hotels. What do you think?”

  “What about the airport?”

  “I don’t think he’ll go there. He won’t risk being on some watch list after he’s seen me.”

  “Sounds good to me. We need to get moving, though. We can’t prove a negative. If he gets on a bus or train before we get there, we’ll never know it and spend the next month trying to find him here in Sarajevo.”

  I bent down and jerked Lucas to his feet, showing little compassion for his discomfort. Knuckles called the team into the foyer and gave them the next potential mission at the station. I took over, giving the best description I could of Carlos, to include the pack he carried.

  We left through the back of the house, the men falling into an easy perimeter around Lucas. We reached the vehicles just as four police cars, sirens screaming, flew by us to the location of the firefight.

  Bull opened the trunk of one. I told Lucas to climb in. Lucas hesitated for a brief moment, starting to say he wasn’t a threat and would behave. I gave him a straight punch right into his mouth, splitting his lips against his teeth. Before he could recover, I grabbed him by the throat and shoved him into the trunk. Bull slammed the lid.

  RIDING THE TRAM BACK to the bus station, Bakr scanned outside, looking for a threat. Pulling into the station, he saw two cars drive into the parking lot out front. One continued to the far side of the parking lot, the other stopped short about seventy-five meters from the entrance. He saw the men from the cars fanning out, two headed toward the train station up the street and two headed into the bus station. He saw the man from Guatemala. He began to believe the man was the devil. He began to sweat.

  He told the tram driver he had forgotten something at his hotel, then sat in the back, behind the crush of people boarding. Riding back to the city center, he considered his options. Beyond anything else, he didn’t want to waste the device. Using it here would only kill several hundred, mostly Bosnians or other Eastern Europeans. He’d be lucky to kill a single Zionist. The impact would be minimal. Even so, the thought was growing in his mind. It was an eventuality that had to be considered. The man from Guatemala wasn’t going to stop, and somehow he seemed to know wherever Bakr went.

  He left the tram one stop early and proceeded north into the city, pulling out the number Juka had given him. Maybe someone would answer and get him out of here. He listened to the phone ring, then go to voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message.

  He reached a walking promenade filled with people, all moving to the west, and remembered the ceremony. A germ of an idea began to form.

  “ANY IDEAS?” Knuckles asked.

  “Not really. Maybe it’s time to pull in the Bosnian authorities.”

  “How the hell are we going to do that
? And not give up the Taskforce? What are we going to tell them? ‘Be on the lookout for a swarthy man with a backpack’? We don’t have a picture and we don’t even know his real name.”

  We had finished our search of the bus and train station, and Carlos was nowhere to be found. I was certain he hadn’t come here, and now we didn’t have a thread to pull.

  Knuckles said, “Maybe he went to the airport after all.”

  “Maybe, but once he got there he’d see all of the security for the dignitaries and go away.”

  We both stopped and looked at each other, a terrible truth dawning on us.

  “Shit—he’s got a perfect target right here. We need to find out about that ceremony.”

  Knuckles called the pilots and had them get on the SATCOM to the rear for some answers. Within minutes, his phone rang. When he hung up, I knew it was going to be bad.

  “It’s a formal ceremony for the fifteenth anniversary of the Markale mortar attacks. They’re putting up a monument. France, England, and Germany will all have representatives here.”

  Great. A perfect target.

  Knuckles continued. “Worse than that, the secretary of state is representing the United States. He’s on the ground now.”

  “What? How could you guys deploy here and not know that? Jesus.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to come here. He’s supposed to be with the president on a goodwill tour. I’ve got that schedule and this isn’t on it. Apparently, it just came up.”

  “Is it just him? Is the president here as well?”

  “No, it’s an entourage, but the SECSTATE’s the biggest name.”

  “If this is someone’s late-breaking good idea, the Secret Service didn’t have a lot of prep time for security. When’s the ceremony?”

  “It’s going to happen within the next hour.”

  Before I could say anything else, the phone we had taken from the safe house began to ring inside Knuckles’s backpack.

  BAKR STOPPED A PASSERBY, asking, “Who’s coming to the ceremony?”

  “A lot of people. President Silajdzic is going to speak.”

  “So it’s all Bosnians? Why all the security?”

  The man looked at Bakr with contempt. “Of course not. France and Britain have representatives here. The American secretary of state is speaking. The world understands the importance of this day.”

  All Bakr heard was the guest list, his mind now working in overdrive. He began following the crowds to the west on the Ferhadija promenade, plotting his options. He knew that the odds of crossing into Israel were now slim. They were probably on high alert. Even if he could make it, he had no way to implicate the Iranians. He would make the news, but little else.

  The deciding factor was the man from Guatemala. He was relentless, and Bakr felt in his heart the man would find him sooner rather than later.

  He made up his mind. An attack here would have more symbolism. He could strike at least three leaders of the far enemy. His weapon would mainly kill Bosniak Muslims at the ceremony, but that in itself would be symbolic. They were cozying up to the far enemy and literally thanking the Great Satan for his so-called help. Because of this, they invited takfir, and would feel the repercussions. The attack would show what happens to Muslim kafir who stray from the path. It might even fracture the relationship between the West and this Muslim community, forcing them to embrace their true heritage. Forcing them back onto the path.

  He reached within eyesight of the market and saw a crowd of about five hundred. Eighty meters away rested the raised platform the guests would use. A wall of security was checking everyone that entered into the inner ring. He recognized the security perimeter for what it was: standoff protection from a conventional man-packed explosive device. The distance was certainly good enough to thwart his blast, but the perimeter would provide no help at all against his poison.

  KNUCKLES DUG OUT THE SAFE HOUSE PHONEfrom his backpack.

  I said, “Don’t answer it. That’s got to be him.”

  Once it registered with a number, Bull began working to find its location with his special phone. Wthin seconds, he had a grid. Plotting it with a GPS, he said, “He’s downtown.”

  I pulled out a tourist map, marking the location, then found the Markale Market. “He’s in that area. He’s going to hit the ceremony.”

  Knuckles said, “Maybe. Maybe not. If we go in right now and get compromised, we may spook him into using the device. Maybe we should wait and see if he beds down tonight, then hit him with his guard down.”

  Knuckles had a point. We could make this a self-fulfilling prophecy if we screwed up. We now had a way to track him, as long as he kept that phone. It would be much, much easier to take him down in a hotel room than on a crowded street. On the other hand, any moment could bring a mushroom cloud. Decision time.

  101

  Bakr surveyed the wind patterns of the open air market. The entire area was covered by a high overhead roof of galvanized steel, but a slight breeze could still be felt coming out of the east. That is where he would set the weapon off. He moved around the crowd until he was situated as close as he could be to the security perimeter without gathering any undue curiosity. He stood for a few minutes, trying to appear as if he were just passing the time, when he noticed one of the security personnel glance his way a third time. He began to walk away, looking for somewhere he could wait that was close enough to allow him to get in position rapidly. Finding nothing, he kept moving. Eventually, he came upon a public restroom. It wasn’t nearly close enough, but would have to do as a staging point. He was sure he would be able to hear the announcements when the ceremony began. Moving into a stall, he sat down and locked the door, waiting to hear the Great Satan’s secretary of state taking the stage.

  IN THE END, the potential for a massive amount of civilian deaths—at a ceremony commemorating the murder of civilians from a previous heinous act—made up my mind. The symbols of power from the United States and other European countries provided a target for Carlos to use, but as always, it would be the innocents who paid the price.

  “We need to take him out. Now. It’s a risk, but I don’t think he’s going to wait. The target’s too juicy, and he’s on the run.”

  Knuckles nodded. I knew he would see it my way. “Let’s load up.”

  We drove along the river toward downtown Sarajevo, then cut in north to the grid of Carlos’s last-known location. We were only allowed to go a short distance before hitting a roadblock, with all cars being turned away.

  “Should’ve expected this,” Knuckles said. “No way are they going to let a potential VBIED near the ceremony.”

  “At least they have some sort of security going on. Turn around and park it on the river. That’ll only be about three blocks south.”

  After we had parked the vehicles, while Bull worked to get a new grid for Carlos, I said, “What about Lucas?”

  “What about him?”

  “We can’t leave him alone. He’s no pushover and a slippery bastard to boot. Someone needs to cover him, or he’ll screw this whole thing up.”

  “I agree,” he said, “but we can’t afford to leave a teammate to babysit his ass. We need every man on this.”

  “Call the pilots. Get one of them to come here and swap cars.”

  Knuckles grimaced. “Pike, I can’t do that. I can’t risk the cover of the bird. Those guys are pilots, period. You know that.”

  “Shit, man, that guy’s running around with a damn bomb on his back! Fuck the damn rules.” I stopped, holding up my hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell Jennifer to come get him. She can switch cars and take him back to the 427. The pilots can guard him until we get there. Can they at least do that?”

  “Yeah, they can do that.”

  I called Jennifer and gave her instructions, a little piqued at Knuckles’s rigid adherence to procedures. This is one time he should be flexing like Gumby. I let it go, knowing he had a point. Compromise the pilots and we wouldn’t be able to fly out of here. Jennife
r’s switched on enough to get the job done. For the first time I realized that I trusted her as much as the Taskforce members themselves.

  By the time I hung up the phone, Bull had pinpointed the new location. “He’s just south of the market. Maybe one hundred and fifty meters away from it.”

  I looked at the map and said, “That’s straight north from here. He’s about two blocks up.”

  Knuckles gave final instructions, splitting the team into two-man elements. “Bull, you and Retro come in from east to west. Pike and I will come up from south to north. The rest of you box in from west to east. Hopefully we’ll pin him in. Everyone, remember he’s got a WMD. Whatever you do, don’t hit the pack or his chest. If you have to shoot, go for the head.”

  The problem with the cell phone track was that it only gave us a snapshot in time. We couldn’t do any real-time tracking, so whatever we had was only as good as the time we had it. Knuckles and I began walking up the sidewalk to the north, scanning the crowds. The other men were quickly lost from sight as they began their part of the mission.

  Without any traffic, the streets were teeming with people going toward the ceremony. Great. Rush hour. The crowds were a definite problem. For one, it forced me to hide the UMP under my jacket, the folding stock jammed into my armpit. I’m not going to be the fastest gun in the West running around like this. For another, I could be walking right by the terrorist and not see him. Moving closer to the market, Knuckles and I both heard the loudspeakers signaling the start of the ceremony.

  BAKR HEARD THE ANNOUNCERdroning on and on about the significance of the day, first in Serbo-Croatian, then in English. Bakr waited, straining to hear any announcement that the dignitaries had arrived. He couldn’t afford to leave and return. The man from Guatemala was somewhere close. He could feel it. When he left this bathroom, it would be straight to the eastern corner of the security perimeter. Once there, he’d continue on, past any demands that he halt. Only when someone drew his weapon would he trigger the device.