Chapter 11

Washington D.C.

“We have a problem,” a voice said, coming through Kara’s cell phone scanner.

She’d been back out early this morning, all of the equipment in a large backpack that she’d lugged onto the bus carrying all of the equipment she’d gotten from Carter, since she didn’t have access to a car today. Had she been willing to explain to Mary Jane what was happening, she could have probably gotten her friend’s car again. While Mary Jane would have probably been on board with this, Kara had something in the back of her head telling her she needed to keep this all under wraps for now.

So here she was, sitting on a bench with a backpack partially open in her lap, an earphone cable snaking inside so she could hear what Packer was up to. Who knew what this looked like to a random passer-by, but no one had called the cops on her yet, so for now this would have to do.

Thankfully, Packer seemed to be holding to his earlier pattern and wasn’t leaving the house except for short walks to the river when he needed to make a phone call. She had the tracker on his car if he did go somewhere and she could get a cab or an Uber, but she couldn’t just get in and say ‘follow that car.’ She’d have to wait till she figured out where he was headed, or wait until he stopped to follow him, which meant she’d lose sight of him for a while. If he was meeting with someone, there was a good chance she’d miss the meeting entirely. There wasn’t much she could do about that, however.

“Hold on,” Packer’s groggy voice came back.

The line went quiet and Packer emerged from his front door a few moments later dressed much more shabbily than he normally was, probably because he’d thrown on anything he could find.

As he walked away from his apartment building, Packer held the phone up to his ear and his voice came back on the line, saying, _”What?”

“I got the satellite feeds from last night. It looks like the raid failed and we spooked them. They packed up the package and the hostages and took off an hour after the raid.”

“Do we know where they went?”

“Not yet, but they headed southwest, so the smart money says they’re going back to Hofyo. Even if we find someone else willing to take the job, that’s Barsane’s home village. Hell, he has an old Soviet tank sitting out front to discourage his adversaries.”

“Shit. Did any of our people make it out?”

“Someone did. We tracked a truck take off north and someone returned on foot a few hours later, doing a walkthrough of the compound?”

“Do we know who it was?”

“No. We don’t have access to the higher resolution satellites, at least not without someone higher asking questions.”

“What about our source?”

“Since they’re moving, they could only send out a brief message. I don’t expect to hear from him again until they get to Hofyo.”

“Was Taylor the one that got away?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m betting he was. He’s like a God-damn cockroach. If it was one of the others, they would have contacted me by now and asked for new orders or extraction. The only one who wouldn’t is Taylor. We can’t have him running around there on the loose. When he was with Stone, they could keep control of him, but now he’s by himself.”

“Could we use him to try and get the package back?”

“Not a chance. Guy’s a fucking boy scout and he’ll start asking questions as soon as he gets it. Smart money says he goes to the bitch for answers, and her people will figure out what’s going on.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“I think we’re going to have to scrap retrieval. Once they get it back to Hofyo, I think we need to just take out the damn town.”

“How? Getting a team on the ground is one thing. A flyover mission with enough firepower to clear the town is another.”

“I know. Let me think on it. Maybe we can pay some other locals to do it for us.”

“What about the hostages?”

“Fuck them. They aren’t paying us. Hell, if we destroy it our payday is gone and we’re making nothing off of this. They deserve it.”

“I’ll start putting out feelers through our contacts down there and see if we can find someone willing to do it.”

“Put out Taylor’s description. I want to confirm he’s still alive, so we know if we need to deal with him.”

“Got it. I’ll call you when I have something.”_

For once, Kara was hoping Packer was right about something. When the other man had said the raid failed, she was terrified for a second that he had been hurt. If someone got away though, she was sure it was Taylor. He’d been in worse situations and made it out alive.

Rikomoni, Somalia

A jostling against his shoulder slowly pulled Taylor back awake. He squeezed his eyes shut harder against the sunlight so bright that he could see it through his eyelids.

For a moment, he was lost in a fog, and couldn’t remember where he was. He didn’t open his eyes, but the smells were off. It smelled of dirt and sweat and burning coal.

“American,” a voice in Arabic said from beside him.

Her voice pierced his sleepy haze and memory came flooding back. The failed raid, the escape with Lopez, the empty compound. He moved his head and the light faded, allowing Taylor to open his eyes. The room was still dark. The light had been a single shaft coming in through a crack in the doorway curtain.

“What time is it?” He asked, sitting up and getting his bearings.

“Afternoon. Abdullah has returned.”

He looked past her to where her husband stood by the stove, rubbing his hands together.

“Did you find them?”

“Yes. I spoke to my brother. He’s a fighter with the Feedh Ilaah, who controls this region. He says they are headed back to Hofyo, where Muharibi Allah is from.”

“Did you tell him why you were asking?”

“No, and he wouldn’t ask, because if he does not know, he cannot tell anyone. He does not know of you. Now take your friend and go.”

“I need to make a call and see about getting him picked up. Is that alight?”

The man looked like he wanted to say no, but his wife glared at him and said, “Yes. Take the time you need.”

“Thank you.”

Taylor pulled out the satellite phone and dialed in the code Wheeler had given him.

“On station,” A voice said over the phone, giving no other information.

Fucking CIA.

“This is Taylor. I need to speak with Wheeler.”

The woman didn’t say anything else and the phone clicked silent. Since satellite phones didn’t have dial tones, it was impossible to tell if she’d hung up on him or put him on hold, so he waited. Thankfully, it didn’t take long.

“Taylor? What the hell happened out there? We hear they’ve pulled out.”

“It was a shit show. Stone just charged straight in and got wiped out.”

“And the merchandise?”

“Your concern for the hostages is touching.”

“I could give two shits about them. If the merchandise is gone, then you and I don’t have anything else to talk about.”

“Cool your jets. I went back and checked out the compound a few hours later. They all pulled out, and some of Stone’s team is missing and I assume hostages themselves now. They also took a large piece of equipment with them.”

“Tell me about the equipment.”

“All I could see was its negative impression, what was left behind when they removed it. It’s rectangular, four feet wide on one side, about five and a half on the other. They kept it in a room full of other computer equipment which looked like mostly networking and servers, all of which the hostiles smashed. It was on a raised platform with under-floor cooling and there were connections dropping down from the ceiling that looked to snake back to the networking equipment.”

“Hold on a second,” Wheeler said the sound of ruffling papers in the background. “Was it all one unit?”

“It’s impossible to know for sure, but I got that impression.”

“How tall was the room?”

“Standard. There was no drop ceiling but the raised floor ate up just about as much room, maybe nine feet.”

“And you said it was four by five, right?”

“In that range. I didn’t actually have a tape measure with me. Does this mean you know what it is?”

“Maybe.”

There was a long enough pause that Taylor said, “And?”

“And nothing, it’s classified.”

“Fine. I found out where it was and where it’s going. You got your information, now I need my ride. I’ve got an injured man and he needs medical help now.”

“It’s not enough. I can’t risk sending helos into that region for just this. If you want a ride, you need to retrieve the item, or at least disable it. Then we can talk about extracting you.”

“Fine, then my next call is going to be to the President. She might not be able to help me get out of here, but she’ll be interested to know about the shit that’s going on around here. Now, are we ready to have a real conversation about what happens next, or are we going to keep blackmailing each other?”

There was a pause and he knew he was pushing Wheeler’s buttons, but Taylor was almost positive that the man was operating a bit out of the net. They wouldn’t have a station chief in Djibouti poking his nose around the African coast. There’d be someone on the Somali desk that wouldn’t be happy a station chief was operating above his paygrade. He’d worked with Bryant, so Wheeler probably wasn’t being an asshole for the sake of it, but the CIA played office politics for keeps. A station chief at an out-of-the-way place like Djibouti would need to have something serious to show for himself if he wanted to move up in the world. Whatever was going on here, Wheeler clearly thought this was it, and he was doing things the way he knew how to do them. Problem was, that more often than not screwed the people on the ground, and Taylor wasn’t planning on playing along.

“Well, I guess that gives me my answer. It was nice working with you.”

“Wait!” he said before Taylor could disconnect.

“Fine. What will it take for you to help us out?”

“One; I need to know what the hell is going on down here. I’m not going to let bad intel screw me. Two; you need to get the wounded kid out, and it has to be today. Three, a local family has been aiding us after that screwed-up raid, and we need to pay them.”

“I can’t just hand out...”

“You’re joking, right? You guys have black bags inside black bags. Reach into one and break off some cash. Do those three things and I’ll do what I can to help. If not, find someone else willing to do your dirty work.”

“Fine. I can have an evac helo to the original pick-up point. Can your friends get him there?”

Taylor switched to Arabic and asked, “Could you drive my friend to an empty area near the coast if I showed you it on the map.”

The husband started to shake his head no, but the wife said, “Yes.”

“Yes, they can get him there. Make sure you have their money for them, and if I find out anything happened to these people, you will regret it.”

“Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I’m not an asshole.”

“That’s good, although I’ve had enough bad experience with your coworkers before that I’m not big on trust. I just want to make sure we know where we stand with each other.”

“I’ve got it. Tell them to have him there in three hours.”

“I’ll make sure they’re there. What about the intel?”

“I want to say up front that this is all guesswork. It fits the facts you’ve found, but I’ve got no solid information to back it up.”