Checkmate

26

Twelve hours after slipping out of Kolobane Shipyard and meeting the Osprey at the extraction point, Fisher was back home. He knew it would be short-lived. It wouldn’t take Grimsdottir long to find what they were looking for on the microfiches. However, as was par for the course, whatever information she found would probably lead to another diversion, another facade — behind which waited… What? Iran, or someone else? In the end, it might not matter, Fisher realized. Events were beginning to snowball and the snowball was rolling straight for Tehran.

While he had been in Dakar, the autopsies on the charred bodies found in the coffee warehouse in Freeport City were completed. All were male, between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four; all had been shot once in the back of the head prior to being set aflame, en masse, with an accelerant, probably kerosene. Each man’s fingertips had been severed post mortem and his teeth removed by blunt-force trauma.

Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make the men unidentifiable — and they would’ve succeeded, if not for the diligence of the FBI’s chief medical examiner.

Two bits of evidence had survived the fire: one, a partially digested meal in the stomach of one of the corpses that was identified and chemically matched to tomato paste found in the Trego’s food stores. Two, whoever had knocked out the men’s teeth had missed a molar in one of the mouths, and in the molar was a filling. It took only hours for the FBI’s labs at Quantico to identify the composition.

The filling was a blend of tin and silver amalgam found only in the Zagros Mountains of Iran.

True to Lambert’s prediction, the President had taken the first step toward war with Iran, ordering the Ronald Reagan Carrier Battle Group to steam at best possible speed to the Gulf of Oman and take up station just outside Iran’s territorial waters. In Iraq and Kuwait, elements of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions were put on ready alert, as was the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division.

Meanwhile, while Iran’s United Nations ambassador categorically denied his government’s involvment in the Trego and Slipstone attacks during a special General Assembly Session, the Security Council voted unanimously but toothlessly that the perpetrator of the attack on the United States was “in violation of international law and will be held fully accountable.”

In the Arab world, reactions to the attacks were predictably split between moderate Muslims — both secular and devout — and extremists; the former condemning the attacks and offering support and condolences to the American people, the latter celebrating the catastrophe with street rallies and flag-burning protests outside U.S. embassies from Turkey to Sudan to Indonesia.

Fisher did his best to enjoy his off time, but he found himself anxious to move, to keeping plucking at the threads of the mystery. Where it would end might be a foregone conclusion — death and ruin for Iran — but as far as he was concerned, as long as there were questions unanswered, he still had a job to do. If another war in the Middle East was inevitable, history would judge the U.S. on the righteousness of its cause, and the accuracy of its intelligence. There could be no doubts, no question marks.

It was late afternoon when he gave up and left the house. He drove into town, picked up a couple of steaks and baking potatoes, a tub of sour cream, and a six-pack of Heineken, then got on Highway 270 and drove north to Frederick, where he pulled into the parking lot of the Cedar Bend Assisted Living Community. Grocery bags in hand, he walked to Apartment 302 and knocked on the door. Thirty seconds later, it opened to reveal a wizened old man in a blue cardigan.

Sam held up the bags. “Feel like some company?”

“Sam-o! Good to see you, good to see you, come in. You shoulda called ahead. Might’ve had a woman with me,” said Frank Bunch.

Sam grinned. “I’ll remember that next time.”

Frank Bunch was an old family friend and the original owner of Sam’s Sykes Fairbairn commando dagger, which Frank had presented to him upon graduation from BUD/S along with a whispered piece of advice Sam had never forgotten: “Violence is easy; living with violence isn’t. Choose carefully.”

Bunch had been friends with Sam’s grandfather since their first day together at the Special Operations Executive’s Camp X on the shores of Lake Ontario in Canada. Their friendship had been cemented during the training, and lasted through dozens of WWII drops into German-occupied Europe.

“Whatchya got in the bag?” Frank asked.

Sam set the contents out on the counter. “All the things your doctor tells you not to eat.”

“Atta boy! Come on, I’ll get the grill fired up.”

As usual, Frank grilled the steaks to perfection and roasted the potatos until the skin was golden brown and slightly crispy. He had chives for the sour cream and frosted mugs for the beer. It was the best meal Sam had eaten in a long time.

Comfortably stuffed, they sat on Frank’s back porch overlooking the courtyard garden. The sun was an hour away from setting and the garden was cast in hues of orange.

“So, tell me,” Frank said. “What’s new?”

“Same old thing,” Sam replied. As far as Frank knew, Sam had left government service to take a job as a private security consultant. “You know: meetings, airline food, bad hotels…”

Frank sipped his beer and glanced at Fisher over his glasses. “Up for a game?”

Sam smiled. Retired or not, Frank hadn’t lost a mental step. At eighty-four, he beat Sam at chess more often than he lost. “Sure. No money this time, though.”

“What’s the fun in that?”

“For you, none. For me, I get to eat next week.”

Frank gathered the chess set from inside, pushed aside the dishes, and laid out the board. By coin toss, Sam took black. Frank stared at the table for ten seconds, then moved a pawn.

Sam thought immediately, Queen’s Gambit. It was a favorite opening of Frank’s, but Sam knew better than to accept it at face value. As a man, Frank was without pretense; as a chess player, he was a shrewd and calculating opponent who gave no quarter. Sam had fallen too many times for his feints and ambushes; his rogue pawn charges that diverted Sam’s attention; his fake bishop attacks that shielded a flanking queen.

The game went on for forty minutes until finally Frank frowned and looked up. “I’d call that a draw.”

Sam’s eyes remained fixed on the board. His mind was whirling. Feints and false bishop attacks… When the movement of every piece on the board screams Queen’s Gambit, save for a lone pawn moving behind the scenes, do you ignore the Gambit and concentrate on the pawn? Of course not. The pawn is a mosquito — an aberation to be discounted. The queen, the deadliest piece on the board, is what you’re watching. The queen’s attack is what you try to counter…

“Sam… Sam, are you here, son?”

Sam looked up. “What? Sorry?”

“I said, I think we’re at a draw.”

Sam chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we are. With you, I’ll take that any day.”

Frank moved to clear the pieces from the board, but Sam stopped him.

“Leave it for a little bit. I’m working on something.”