Terror Trail

Castle stared at him for a moment. He blinked his eyes as if he had just woken from a deep sleep.

“I did?” His voice was shaky. “I guess so,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sana’a,

Yemen

Henry Lang had been the CIA man in the region for two years. He ran his operations with a firm hand. The business he operated, dealing in locally made carpets, handcrafted woven baskets and pots, and jambiyas, the traditional Yemeni daggers, allowed him fairly free movement around the country. Lang was careful with his movements. Yemen was a volatile place, internal politics always tumultuous. Lang was a good agent. He kept his thoughts to himself, never made any moves that could be construed as suspicious and maintained a low profile. The money he made from his business was mostly spent on looking after the local authorities and paying his informers.

Lang understood the rules of the game. He played it close to his chest. Never took a thing for granted. Never fully trusted anyone. There was an undercurrent running through the country and Lang sensed it even more strongly lately.

In his capacity as a CIA field agent it was part of his job to observe and report. To keep Langley apprised of matters that might concern them. And the present offered him plenty to observe and report. The political scene in Yemen was touchy to say the least. Although the current regime tended toward a democratic stance, opposition groups were doing their best to destabilize the country. To top that there were definite signs that al Qaeda had a toehold in the area and was helping fund terrorist training camps. Lang had not been able to pinpoint where these camps were located. The city of Sana’a lay in the western part of Yemen, and beyond the city the country was all desert. Desolate and empty bar a few isolated villages.

Lang’s only helper was a deep-cover agent named Karam Samir. He was half Yemeni, and had spent three years in the States before being assigned to the job. He knew the language and local dialects. He blended in and had provided Lang with valuable intel. Right now he was devoting his time to searching for everything he could on the one lead he had to locating one of the suspected jihadist training camps.

Through his own local contacts, working on various information sources, Samir had uncovered a name. He had told Lang that the man, named Ariq Taj, could be a member of Hand of Allah. The troubling thing was Taj’s occupation. He was an inspector in the local police force but was connected to one of the terrorist camps in the eastern section of the country. Samir’s last contact with Lang had been two days ago. He had advised Lang he was closing in on Taj and was about to trail the man to a meeting. Lang had voiced his concern, but Samir had told him to stop worrying. He would come back to Lang once he had something to report.

Following procedure, Lang had used his encrypted sat phone to inform Langley what was happening. It meant there would be a record of the event for future reference. The CIA liked records. It would give the suits something to mull over at one of their frequent update meetings.

Off the record Lang wished Samir would make contact. The longer he was out of touch the more Lang became concerned. He didn’t doubt Samir’s competence. He just didn’t feel right being out of the loop, sitting around in his pokey office, waiting.

A few minutes later Lang’s phone rang.

Before he answered it he had a premonition it would be Samir, and he also had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good news.

* * *

KARAM SAMIR MOVED quickly because he knew without a doubt he was in danger. The mistake he had made was getting too close to Taj. He regretted it now, but it would make no difference to the outcome if he did not get away. He had no idea where to go. The last thing he would do was lead his pursuers to Lang. He owed that to the man. Any decision would have to come later, once he was clear of the city—if he could actually achieve that. As he hurried down the stairs from his apartment, after grabbing his shoulder satchel, he became aware of how time was slipping away with frightening speed.

He reached the ground floor, the dim passage giving way to the bright glare of the sun. He paused, his mind calculating the fastest escape route. As he looked right and left along the crowded, dusty street he saw a black SUV sliding into view from around the intersection.

Big, shiny SUVs did not belong here in this part of town, and he knew whoever was inside the vehicle had come for him. He turned right, hearing the squeal of tires as the SUV powered along the street, scattering pedestrians and knocking aside stalls lining each side. There were angry protests. The SUV kept moving, raising a cloud of pale dust.

There was no way he was going to outrun such a powerful vehicle, so he took the only way open to him. He turned into the first narrow alley he saw, hearing the SUV slide to a halt. He kept running, shouldering aside anyone who stood in his way and trying to avoid the piles of trash that edged the alley. He knew his pursuers were still following when he heard the slam of car doors. Shouts reached his ears but he ignored them, increasing his speed, splashing through pools of stagnant water and rotting food.

The first shot startled him. He heard the bullet thud into a wall only inches from his head. The realization he was being fired on spurred him on. The far mouth of the alley seemed a long way ahead. He loosened the fastener on his satchel and groped inside for his cell phone, dragging it out and raising it so he could see the numbers. He thumbed the speed dial number he wanted to call and put the phone to his ear, hoping the number would connect. For once it did quickly.

“Samir?”

“Listen,” he said. “They made me. It is Taj.”

“Where are you?”

“Out on the street near my place. They are chasing me. Shooting.”

“What can I do?”

Samir almost laughed at the absurdity of the question.

“Nothing. Just remember Taj is a cop. And Hand of Allah.”

Then he stumbled. It saved him as more shots rang out. The cell phone slipped from his fingers as he fell against the wall, skinning his knuckles down to the bone. Samir ignored the pain as he pushed away from the wall and continued running.

The end of the alley loomed. As he burst from the alley the black SUV roared into sight, the front corner clipping him hard. The impact lifted him off the ground and he spun over and over, smacking down with a solid shock, skidding along the dusty street. Pain blotted out the world for long seconds. It would have been too easy to simply lie there, but instinct took over and he staggered upright, fighting back against the lethargy. He moved on, knowing that the impact with the SUV had injured him. His left arm hung at his side, the sleeve of his shirt shredded, exposing the ripped and bloody flesh. A length of splintered bone jutted from the open wound. He could feel blood streaming down the side of his face from a pulsing wound in his skull. Already the blood had soaked the front of his shirt, turning it into a sodden mess.

He heard more shouting behind him and ignored it, still running. Ahead of him lay waste ground. An expanse of irregular mounds of rubbish. The detritus of existence. Moldering waste and debris. Samir’s flight had taken him to an area where there was no hiding place.

He thrust his hand back into his satchel, closing his fingers around the butt of his 9 mm Beretta 92F. He pulled the pistol free and began to twist his upper body around.

The first burst of auto-fire sent slugs through his legs, blowing out his kneecaps. Samir felt the tearing effect of the slugs as they shredded flesh and shattered bone, bursting out in glistening spurts of red. Before he had time to fall, more auto-fire exploded, the bursts from multiple weapons coring through his body, sending him twisting forward in agony. He was hit again as his ravaged body tumbled, the bloody spray trailing behind as he went down. He hit the ground, crying out in pain, and felt the continuous, raking fire that hammered his flesh. As his body rolled he caught a glimpse of his attackers, advancing as they emptied their weapons into him.

One of them was Ariq Taj, his face wreathed in a cruel smile.

There was a brief pause as they reloaded and then the brutal assault continued, the relentless chatter of the SMGs as they pumped bullet after bullet into the blood-soaked form on the ground. The firing only died away as the weapons exhausted their magazines, leaving a body so riddled from groin to head it would be hard to make identification visually. Samir’s Beretta lay on the ground beside him, having slipped from his grasp. It was unfired.

The shooters returned to the SUV. As they climbed into the vehicle the man called Taj spoke.

“Now Lang,” he said, “and then Jahir… .”

* * *

LANG HEARD THE FIRST shots over the phone, then silence as Samir’s cell hit the ground and shattered.

He considered the implications. Taking it to the worst conclusion, he saw his cover blown, too. Which left him with a single option. He needed to get out before they came for him. That was a given. If Samir had been taken down Lang would be next.

Taj?

Hand of Allah.

So Ariq Taj was a cop in the Yemeni police force. Lang experienced momentary surprise. Being a local cop would give Taj access to intelligence files and the ability to send information to Hand of Allah. Lang might have been surprised at the revelation, but he had been too long in the CIA to be shocked.

Lang had never divulged his real reason for being in Yemen. His cover as a dealer in local antiquities had hidden his CIA affiliation. The same with Samir. They were dealer and assistant. And that had lasted for Lang’s entire time in the region. So where had it gone wrong? What had given Taj his connection? He admitted Samir, or even himself, might have made a slip. Enough for Taj to draw his own conclusions.

Lang and Samir had been trying to track down Hand of Allah and their training camp. Perhaps their covert investigations had been exposed. Perhaps through Jahir inadvertently. Now it seemed the roles had been reversed and Hand of Allah had tracked him.

Son of a bitch.

He considered his options.

There were no options.

No options at all.

He had to get clear. He was one man. With no backup. If Samir was dead there was nothing Lang could do. Not now. He needed to place himself on some safe ground, with the Agency behind him. Then they could put out feelers. Try to find out what had happened to Samir. If he was still alive, Hand of Allah would use him as leverage in some kind of propaganda exercise. The radical Muslim groups never wasted an opportunity. They would parade Samir in front of their cameras. Put on a show painting themselves as beleaguered freedom fighters and threatening to publicly execute Samir as a puppet of the Great Satan. The Islamic terrorists were nothing if not relentlessly predictable.

So Lang needed to get out of Yemen and take it from there, because Hand of Allah would want him for the same reasons they would want Samir.