Back Blast

68

After swimming ashore and changing into warm, dry clothes, Court lay in the forest for several minutes, allowing his ears to tune in to his surroundings. He’d seen only one patrol boat on the water, and he’d remained well clear of it, but he had no way of knowing how extensively the Harvey Point guard force patrolled the woods.

Court knew from his time here that this was the absolute best place to come ashore. Most of the activity at the Point was well to the east of this part of the grounds. Over there was an airstrip, along with dozens of buildings: administration and planning offices, barracks, logistics stores, and weapons caches.

This portion of the Point, by contrast, had no great value. The large forest Court moved through now was used primarily by CIA, DIA, and JSOC for escape and evasion training, small-unit tactics training, and jungle and riverine warfare exercises. To the north of the forest were a bombing range, an explosive ordnance testing ground, and two mock cities for close-quarters battle work, along with an Air Branch helicopter center, an automobile and motorcycle training facility, an underground SAD weapons cache, and an array of buildings used as a testing ground — for who and for what exactly, Court had no idea. During his time in SAD Court had had the highest-security clearance, but he wasn’t read into any code word ops that did not directly relate to him, so even though no one in America had had access to higher-level secrets than he did when he was in the CIA, there were all sorts of things going on around him that he didn’t know about.

Especially at a facility like Harvey Point.

Court’s hopes that he would get information at the AAP facility were buoyed as he picked his way through the grounds nearby. Two Humvee patrols passed, giving him the impression there was something this far west of the Point that needed protecting. Both times he hid himself completely behind trees as the patrols neared, fearing the men inside the vehicles would be using infrared scopes to check the woods for trouble.

But when he came upon the AAP compound itself, his heart began to sink. The main compound building was there, even several of the old trailers in the parking lot next to it, but everything was dark and deserted. Weeds grew a foot high from cracks in the lot. To Court it didn’t look like anyone had been here in years.

After watching through Zack’s night sight from the trees for a few minutes to make certain no one was around, Court rose, then walked through the wide-open gate at the front of the compound. He passed a sign that read Secure Facility, then he crossed the parking lot in front of the entrance to the building everyone in the program referred to as “The Center,” and he pushed on the front door.

It was unlocked.

Inside it looked like a typical public high school, but a high school during summer vacation. No light, no movement.

The floors were covered with dust and leaves that had blown in through a broken window somewhere, and there was water damage on the baseboards, as if the area had once flooded. The smell of mold filled the dank air.

Court wandered around for several minutes, checking the different floors and wings, and he found the entire building abandoned, and not a scrap of paper or a sign on the wall to give any hint as to what was once here.

He stood in the medical ward, he walked through the dormitory, he checked every locker in the locker room off the empty swimming pool.

Nothing.

Back outside in the parking lot he walked among the trailers on the north side of the building. These were individual classrooms for AADP recruits; Court had spent part of virtually every day for two years studying with his principal trainer in trailer 14b.

Many of the trailers were gone now, but 14b was still there, the last one on the second row, almost all the way to the perimeter fence around the parking lot. Court walked over to it. Where before the grounds around the lot had been manicured lawn, now it looked like the forest on the other side of the chain-link fence had pushed through. Young pine and oak dotted the ground almost up to the back of the trailer, and the asphalt lot the trailer rested on was buckled and broken, with weeds growing through the cracks.

The windows of 14b were all broken out, as well, and there was evidence of water and storm damage here, just like at The Center. The aluminum door was bent and it hung wide open.

Court looked in, shone his flashlight around. It was all but empty. He went inside and stood there in the middle of the dark space, flipped off his light, and thought about his time here, more than fifteen years earlier.

A small swivel chair was the only piece of furniture that remained — Maurice’s chair. Maurice had been his trainer, the one man he worked with 365 days a year for two years. Maurice nearly killed him multiple times, and Court wanted to kill him back more than once, but Court loved the man like a father.

Maurice was dead now, and Court found himself wishing, more than anything in the world, that the old bastard was sitting in that chair so Court could ask him what the hell he should do now.

Exhausted suddenly, and overcome with failure, Court sat down against the wall, leaned his head back, and asked himself what the hell he was going to do now.

Just then he felt the vibration of his phone in his pack, letting him know he was getting a call via RedPhone. For a moment he just let it buzz. He had no desire to talk to Catherine King at the moment. As far as he was concerned right now, she was just one more dead end.

Finally, though, he fished out his phone and opened the app that put the call through.

“Yeah?”

“This is Catherine.”

“No one else has this number.”

“I’ve been calling. I was worried something happened to you.”

I’ll just bet, Court thought to himself. He wondered what her excuse would be for not going to Israel. “I’m fine,” he said. Three shafts of dull light entered the dark space through the door and two windows, as the moon broke through the cloudy night.

“Where are you now?” she asked.

Court looked around at the old empty trailer. “I’m at a Starbucks on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Really?”

Court didn’t answer. Instead he said, “How ’bout you?”

“I’m at Heathrow. My flight home boards soon. I’m so glad I caught you between flights. I tried you before I left Tel Aviv, but you didn’t answer.”

Court sat up straighter. “You actually went?”

“I did.”

“Did you find…”

“The man you shot? Yes. His name is Yanis Alvey. He has fully recovered.”

“That’s good.”

There was a slight pause, then Catherine said, “I need to talk to you about something. Are you somewhere you can listen for a minute?”

Court considered his immediate surroundings. He could probably sit here for days and no one would know. “Yes, I’m secure. What did you find out?”

“I’ll tell you. But before I do, I want you to understand something. This was not your fault.”

“My fault? You’re goddamned right this isn’t my fault.”

She hesitated. Then said, “The man you killed in Trieste was not an al Qaeda assassin.”

Court’s jaw flexed in anger, but he said nothing. He’d been there; she hadn’t. He’d seen the man kill two Serbian guards, then raise his gun towards the Israeli spy.

“Then who was he?”

“I’ll tell you, but you have to understand, you aren’t going to like what you hear.”

Court closed his eyes. “Who… was… he?”

Catherine hesitated again. Just before Court asked her a third time, she said, “I got this from Alvey, who got it from the head of the Mossad. The Israelis did a multi-year investigation into the affair, piecing it together from primary evidence and interviews with survivors. They are absolutely certain of their findings.”

Despair grew in the pit of Court’s stomach. Softly, he said, “Tell me who I killed, Catherine.”

And she did.

Hawthorn sat quietly in his room in the Italian villa just outside of Trieste, but inside he was raging against Mossad and Manny, furious with himself for believing he would be kept safe.

Manny Aurbach had promised his agent Hawthorn he would protect him, but like other things the old Jew had told him, that had been a lie.

He wondered if he was really mad, or if he was just terrified, diverting his fear into action, as he had been trained to do long ago.

Hawthorn was a spy, and he spied for the Mossad, which was an immediate death sentence to any Arab. Compounding this fact was that he had penetrated al Qaeda in Iraq and now served as a logistics operative for the organization, and he knew it would just take one small piece of evidence to convict him. If anyone in his organization thought he was working for the Jews, he would be killed, likely in a most horrible fashion.

He’d not wanted to come to Italy to meet with the al Qaeda operatives from Pakistan, but he’d seen no way out of it. The danger for him was that he had cultivated his legend among the AQ leadership, and they trusted him, but exposing himself to an entire new group of individuals, individuals with contacts and intelligence networks who could check his backstory with their own resources, or poke holes in his legend, meant this trip could put him in front of the wrong person at the wrong time.

And just as he had feared, so had it come to pass. When he and his colleague stepped off the launch this afternoon at the dock they’d been met by a small contingent of AQ men from the Tribal Areas, and a larger group of Serbs. Soon after Hawthorn greeted the men from Pakistan, he knew he was in serious trouble.

In the driveway of the villa everyone climbed out of the vans to begin carrying luggage inside. As Hawthorn started to leave the vehicle, he felt a hand clutch his arm. One of the al Qaeda men from Pakistan sat next to him. He whispered, “I know who you are. If you try to run, I will alert them. They will tear you to pieces and enjoy it.”

Hawthorn sat dumbfounded. The other man said, “One of us will not be leaving this city with his life.”

“What… do you want?”

The man from Pakistan just smiled. “I am not afraid to die. Are you?”

The man pushed past Hawthorn on his way out of the van, leaving the Israeli agent to sit alone in the driveway.

For the rest of the evening Hawthorn had known he would have to act: either run or kill. Doing nothing would be a death sentence. Running seemed impossible, considering the man from Pakistan specifically threatened to alert the others if he tried.

Hawthorn had no idea what the other man’s game was, but he knew he needed to act first.

Both Hawthorn and the other spy were carrying weapons. Pistols with silencers. It was standard outfitting for AQ operatives working in the West. The guns were both a means at their disposal to fight their way out of trouble, as well as tools given to them so they could end their own lives before they were taken into custody.

The Israeli asset had not planned on using his weapon for either purpose, but now he felt both comforted to know he had a gun, and terrified to know the man sitting in a room on the other end of the villa had an identical weapon.

As afraid as Hawthorn was now, he did take solace in his belief that he had some time to come up with a plan to get himself out of this mess.

And then the football match began. One of the Serbs had mentioned it earlier in the evening; apparently all work would stop so the twenty or so Balkan men on the property could enjoy the match on the television in the living room; minus those men needed to protect the property, the Serbs promised.

At that moment Hawthorn knew the situation had just changed. Would the other spy come for him, knowing the entire force around them would be distracted for two hours or more?

Shortly before the match began, both Hawthorn and the other spy made excuses to return to their rooms for the evening. They’d also made eye contact at that time, as if to say to each other, “Let’s do this.”

As soon as the match kicked off and the noise from downstairs rocked the villa, Hawthorn told himself he would not sit here on his bed and wait to be murdered.

If he was going to act, he was going to act now.

He screwed the silencer into the CZ pistol slowly, steeling his body and his mind for what was to come. He was no assassin. Yes, he’d had training in weapons and hand-to-hand action, but that was long ago and he’d not been particularly good at it.

He dressed in the darkest clothing he had, he slipped the weapon into the small of his back, under his shirt, and then he left his room.

It was a unique feature of the villa that all the second-floor bedrooms had windows that looked out on the grounds. For this reason there was no inside access from one room to another, but rather two hallways that cut the second floor into sections, and each hallway led to outdoor walkways that wrapped around the second floor.

The walkways, one to the south and one to the north, each had a pair of guards walking back and forth the length of them. Hawthorn knew the only way to get to the room on the far side of the villa without encountering these sentries was to climb to the tile roof and move carefully all the way to the other end.

He stepped outside his room, climbed onto the roof, and almost fell immediately. But when he had his footing he began moving slowly, up and over on his hands and knees. It was slow going; it took him ten minutes to cover one third of the distance.

He checked his watch and realized his lack of progress, and he began to panic. He knew the match would last at least another hour, but at half time some of the men might return to their rooms to check their e-mails or attend to other things. He hadn’t thought about half time till he’d foolishly climbed onto the roof and committed himself, and now his heart pounded with terror. This realization that he did not have as much time as he thought he did made him rush now; he rose higher, and he moved faster.

A weakened tile cracked loudly, broke free, and then began sliding along the roof down towards the northern outdoor walkway.

Hawthorn went flat and prayed.

He heard the two guards below him, and he lifted his head and leaned out a little to see. Two Serbs stood on the walkway. Clearly they had heard the noise, but they only looked around in confusion.

He wanted to give them time to move on, but he didn’t think he had the time to spare. It occurred to him that if he killed the men, he could make better time to his target, because he would be able to move along the walkway instead of the roof.

He tried to think of another alternative, but he came up with nothing else.

The realization that he was going to shoot these two guards came slowly, but it did come. He lay flat on the roof, a gun in his hand, trying his best to justify the actions he was about to take. They were Serbian gangsters, working with al Qaeda to equip them with weapons.

Yes, he could do this.

He steeled himself to accept the necessity of his actions.

He rose a little, pointed the pistol at the first man, and waited for the crowd two levels below him to roar again.

A bad call from the referee caused a dozen men to shout at the television.

Hawthorn fired once, striking the first guard in the back of the head. The flash of light from the gunshot shocked the Mossad asset, but he recovered quickly, shifted his aim to the second man, and fired again. The second shot came right before the shouts below died down.

Both Serbs lay dead on the walkway, but Hawthorn worried they could be seen by someone in the back garden, or even on the hillside beyond. He slipped the gun, its barrel scorching hot, into the small of his back, and then he slid down, over the side of the roof, dropping down the rest of the way.

It took all his strength to drag the men and their guns inside. He pulled, then pushed, and even rolled them, one at a time, into a closet in the hallway on the second floor. While he was doing this, the noises from the living room came up an open stairwell. It sounded like the men below were just feet away, and their voices caused Hawthorn to have to fight the urge to run.

He did what he could to push the fear out of his mind. By the time he finished stashing the bodies, the noise had abated, and he relaxed a little.

The Israeli asset moved down the walkway now, towards his target’s room. He knew he’d have to move quickly, and after the act, he could not return. No, he would continue on downstairs, and make his way out the front gate, hopeful the guards there would be distracted by the match.

He entered the hallway off the walkway, and he stepped up to his target’s door. With his hand on the latch he hesitated, tried to get control of his heart before it hammered its way out of his chest.

Hawthorn opened the door slowly. There, on the bed just five meters away, the Arab spy saw him. Hawthorn checked the man’s hands and saw nothing but a silver pen in his right hand, and some papers in his left.

The papers fell to the floor.

Hawthorn braced himself to kill again, and he raised his weapon, hoping like hell this room was far removed enough from the main floor so no one would hear.

He locked his arm to fire, aiming for the man’s chest.

No words were spoken.

And then, just ahead and on his left, movement through the open window. A black form. Hawthorn thought it too small to be a person at first, but the form grew as it entered, sailing through the air, and he watched as a man landed silently and adroitly on both feet. A gymnast, but a gymnast in black, his face masked.

A gymnast with a gun. He held a black pistol in his hand, a long suppressor protruding from the end of it.

Hawthorn felt relief wash over him. The Mossad had sent a killer, after all. A real killer, here to save him. Manny Aurbach had promised to keep Hawthorn safe, and the old man had come through. Manny had cut too close for comfort, certainly, but—

Hawthorn saw the armed man raise his gun — not at the Arab spy by the bed, but at Hawthorn himself.

No!

“Istanna!” Wait!

The Israeli asset never felt the bullet that killed him.