The Identity Mine

XLVIII

‘Set up a perimeter and don’t let anything get within a quarter mile of that house without my say so!’

Secret Service Agent Daniel Hopkin’s voice boomed like a cannon down the radio as the SUV rocketed along the country road, Hannah Ford hanging on for dear life as the team deployed to Travilah. She could see behind her a long stream of government vehicles all armed to the teeth, and behind that a pair of helicopters swiftly gaining on the convoy.

Hopkins turned to her, his broad jaw tense and his gaze penetrating in its intensity.

‘According to the President, you’re on point for this operation. I don’t like it, Director LeMay is spitting flames about it and right now you’re wanted for a homicide in Hong Kong so whoever is backing you must have some serious influence.’

‘The Defense Intelligance Agency knows what’s been happening,’ Hannah shot back. ‘Once this is over, everything will be explained, just get us to that house.’

‘Where is this guy Warner, right now?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘He took off and we don’t have a location for him. The only thing we can assume is that he identified Abrahem Nassir’s real target and headed directly there.’

‘What are the chances that he’s under the control of a hostile via one of these supposed implants?’

‘Minimal.’

Hopkins nodded and keyed his microphone again.

‘All units, consider all non — household entities to be hostiles. Repeat, all non — household entities to be hostiles.’

‘Hey!’ Hannah protested. ‘I just told you Ethan Warner’s on our side!’

‘No, you told me his chances of subversion were minimal. That’s not good enough for me to prioritize his safety over that of the President and his family, and we have reports from the Metropolitan Police Department that a man matching Warner’s description has stolen vehicles and opened fire on members of the public! You either get me proof that he’s safe to consider a blue or he’s going down!’

Hannah stared in disbelief at the agent. She knew damned well, as did Hopkins, that there was no way in hell they would have the time to figure out what side Ethan was on before the Secret Service would storm the property and take Abrahem Nassir down.

‘Do we still have the video link?’ she asked.

Hopkins nodded as they were driven to a spot within one mile of the mansion.

‘It’s being maintained, but the feed at the White House was cut off prior to the appearance of Abrahem Nassir, so right now nobody knows what’s happening and I want it to stay that way.’

‘The media can’t get in here, can they?’ Hannah asked. ‘The President’s home has an aerial exclusion zone around it, right? Nothing can get close enough to film?’

‘Don’t underestimate the resourcefulness of the media,’ Hopkins snapped back. ‘They have drones with telephoto lenses that can shoot rock steady footage through a window from a couple of miles away. I want this situation contained within the next ten minutes before this asshole Nassir gets his revenge or whatever it is he wants. If I have anything to do with it this whole situation will never have happened, understood?’

Hannah hesitated as she looked at the agent’s uncompromising glare, and then she nodded in agreement.

‘Okay, fine,’ she replied. ‘But at least let me lead and get to Warner first. If he’s in there he may be the one person close enough to Nassir to stop him from taking any more lives.’

Hopkins grinned ruefully as he checked the magazine of his pistol and then shoved it back into its holster as the vehicle slowed.

‘Judging by Nassir’s recent history, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

The SUV came to a halt below the crest of a hill less than a mile away from the former President’s residence, and Hopkins jumped out and jogged to the crest of the hill. Hannah followed as the agent crouched down in the foliage lining the road and pulled out a pair of binoculars, scanning the house for any sign of movement.

‘Anything?’ Hannah asked.

Hopkins shook his head.

‘Nothing, but we’ll know more when the snipers get into position.’

‘They’re not going to be able to pull off a headshot from out here,’ Hannah insisted, ‘even I know that.’

Hopkins was about to reply when he pressed his earpiece tighter and frowned as he listened.

‘What is it?’ Hannah asked as the agent looked up at the building.

Hopkins pulled his cell phone out and accessed a new file that he had been sent. ‘The former President had two new members of staff on his security team, permanent assets hired only recently to provide extra security in the home.’

‘Do we have identification details?’ she asked.

Hopkins showed her two images on the cell’s screen, and immediately Hannah pointed to one of them.

‘We’ve got a real problem,’ she replied.

From the screen of the cell the face of Aaron Mitchell stared back at her.

Abrahem Nassir turned abruptly as Ethan appeared in the doorway, a pistol pressed to the jaw of the young girl.

Ethan only had a brief moment to survey the big room. The former President’s family were arrayed on the large couch and two armchairs either side of it, all of them wearing stricken expressions. Behind them stood a tall, dark man with his hands in the air, his pistol on the carpeted floor nearby and out of reach.

Ethan almost gave a start of recognition as he recognized Aaron Mitchell’s intimidating form looming there but managed to focus on Abrahem instead,

‘Who the hell are you?’ Abrahem Nassir snapped.

‘You don’t need to hurt these people, Abrahem,’ Ethan replied. ‘They don’t know who you are and probably don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Look at that girl you’re holding — she wasn’t even alive when Basra first got bombed.’

Abraham’s dark eyes glowed with malevolence and he almost spat his response in Ethan’s direction.

‘She’s related to that bastard,’ he growled, gesturing with a nod of his head toward the former President. ‘I don’t care if she was born yesterday, she’s about to become as much of a victim of his policies as my family were, as all Iraqis were!’

Ethan raised an eyebrow and shrugged as he leaned against the wall. ‘Fine, have it your way.’

Abrahem’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re bluffing, trying to buy time until the Secret Service and the Navy SEALS and the police come blasting their way here. It won’t do any good; we will all be dead long before they can stop me.’

‘I know,’ Ethan replied. ‘I just came here to watch the fireworks, to see if it was all worth it.’

Abrahem’s features twisted upon themselves in fury as he tried to figure out what Ethan was getting at. He backed further away from the President, the young girl tight in his grasp and the pistol pressed so hard against her jaw that it seemed to have punctured her skin.

‘What are you talking about?’ he sneered.

Ethan knew that Abrahem would not be able to resist, would need to know what Ethan was doing there and what he was hinting at. It was human nature, an uncontrollable desire to find out what was going to happen next, and Ethan was counting on it to give the Secret Service snipers enough time to get a bead on Abrahem and at least try to take him down.

‘All that we did,’ Ethan said as though Abrahem should know everything. ‘All that we did to fix your country, was it worth it? Did it make you the man you’ve become, or are you just some radicalized asshole who likes killing young girls for pleasure.’

‘I’m not radicalized!’ Abrahem shouted, the girl in his grip flinching with fear and whimpering. ‘This is revenge! This is justice, the kind of justice that men like him believe that they’re immune to!’

Ethan glanced at the former President, who was clearly both as upset and as baffled as Abrahem as to what Ethan was doing. Ethan looked back at Abrahem and judged the distance to his foe as perhaps eight feet. The distance to the windows beyond that looked out over the lawns and would be used by the snipers to shoot Abrahem was another ten feet, so any bullet fired would have to come in extremely low and with a low — aspect to the window to avoid the glass from deflecting the bullets from a true path.

Mitchell was standing at least ten feet from Abrahem and behind the couch, far too distant to make a move of any kind.

‘Justice,’ Ethan murmured in reply to Abrahem, ‘to commit the same evil that you consider this man to have committed? To become the very thing that you so claim to hate, to bring more suffering when there has been suffering already. You do know that an eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind, right?’

Abrahem nodded.

‘I do,’ he replied, ‘and better for a whole world to be blind and have learned from its mistakes that to see and continue to oppress and murder and maim for profit!’

Abrahem pushed the pistol harder against the girl’s jaw, lifting her almost off her feet as he snarled at Ethan.

‘Get on your knees!’

Ethan stayed where he was. He knew that Abrahem would not bluff, that he had no fear of killing, but Ethan also knew that in his own twisted way he wanted justice and that his main target, the ultimate target, was the former President. If Ethan could divert his attention for long enough to give the cavalry time to act…

‘I don’t kneel for cowards,’ he replied.

Abrahem almost pulled the pistol away from the young girl to aim it at Ethan, but he resisted the temptation at the last moment and sniggered to himself.

‘Lose the gun then or I’ll shoot her dead anyway. I have nothing to lose.’

‘On the contrary, you have everything to lose,’ Ethan replied.

The distant sound of a helicopter reverberated through the windows and Abrahem briefly glanced in the direction of the sound, but he was too far away for Ethan to make a move.

‘My family is dead,’ Abrahem replied, ‘my friends are dead or the prisoners of America. I have nothing left but to slay this family and take them with me into oblivion!’

‘That won’t bring your own family back,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘In fact, if we humans really are judged on our lives and actions after we die, I’d imagine that such an act of evil as yours would condemn you to a terrible punishment. I’d imagine that never, ever seeing your family again would be just such a punishment and…’

‘The afterlife is imaginary!’ Abrahem snarled. ‘An invention, a lie used to get people to enslave themselves to mosques and churches! I will never see my family again because they no longer exist, and if Allah did exist he would not have allowed such injustice to happen year after year in my country! My war is not with the Great Satan that is America, it is with the evil people who used that country to murder millions and steal the wealth of my Iraq!’

Ethan took a pace forward, his eyes fixed on Abrahem’s. ‘Then your war is with me.’

‘What do you mean?!’

‘I figured it wouldn’t matter to you all that much,’ Ethan replied, ‘and I guess that the guys were right all along. We should have finished you off though, done a proper job instead of letting you escape.’

Abrahem snarled at Ethan.

‘Your people could never have caught me in Washington DC! Nobody let me escape and I…’

‘Aljazaer Park,’ Ethan cut him off.

Abrahem froze as though in time and stared at Ethan, the rage gone, replaced by a wide eyed stare as though Ethan had driven a sabre through Abrahem’s heart.

‘What?’ the Iraqi uttered.

‘There were eight of us,’ Ethan replied. ‘United States Special Forces, deployed to root out terrorist units operating near the river in the park’s south east corner. Your father was an engineer, building bombs for Shia militia groups, Improvised Explosive Devices that had killed dozens of American troops.’

Abrahem was still staring at Ethan, the pistol no longer shoved under the girl’s jaw but now resting against her cheek as he tried to speak, the words barely getting out.

‘How did you know…,’

‘We knew what he was doing,’ Ethan uttered. ‘Hell, he was handing the Shias two weapons per day, all primed and ready to go. We wouldn’t have known about him if a previously built bomb hadn’t prematurely exploded as the terrorists carried it to their car, which was under surveillance. How we laughed as we watched them burn.’

Abrahem’s throat worked, his mouth apparently dry, the pistol wavering as though it were too heavy for him to hold.

‘He was helping you,’ Abrahem croaked, ‘helping the Americans, but the militia threatened to kill us all if he did not build more bombs.’

‘I know,’ Ethan replied. ‘We insisted that he continue in order to protect you all and so that we could follow the bombs back to the terrorist camps and annihilate them. It was working well, too, but then they caught on to what we were doing and traced it back to your father.’

Abrahem’s pistol fell further, pressed now against the girl’s throat.

‘You killed him,’ he gasped. ‘You killed my family.’

Ethan shrugged as though he cared little for Abrahem’s loss. ‘He could identify highly placed informants among the Shia militia, men crucial to our staying one step ahead of the enemy. We knew that he’d be broken quickly — your father wasn’t a heroic man, more a pragmatist. So we took him down, and then to ensure that nobody else could pass on any information we shot the rest of your family too. That’s war, Abrahem. It sucks.’ Ethan smiled at him. ‘But we shot them quickly to minimize their suffering. After all, we’re not barbarians and they were only Iraqis.’

Abrahem Nassir stared at Ethan for a moment and then with a cry of fury he hurled the girl aside and charged at him with the pistol pointed out in front of him as he opened fire.