“That is not the impression Hail left me in the e-mail that he sent me this morning. He asked when he could pick up his check for killing Diambu. He also requested the whereabouts of the next terrorist on our Top Ten Terrorists list. That is, if we have good current intel to share with him.”
The president looked warily at Pepper.
“Jarret, did you tell me everything I needed to know about Operation Hail Warning?”
“I told you all the information I had. Ramey said she was literally right next to Afua Diambu when he was taken out, but Hail was hundreds of miles away.”
“Then why would Hail request the bounty we had on Afua Diambu?”
Pepper simply shook his head as if didn’t understand Hail’s insistence either.
Rodgers added, “Hail asked to meet with you as soon as your schedule would permit, Madam President.”
The president looked annoyed. “I’ll see what my schedule looks like, but at least now the Rose Garden is covered, I don’t have to worry about Mr. Hail flying some gizmo onto my table again. For that, we can be thankful.”
Termez, Uzbekistan
The return flight to Termez had been boring and uneventful. Kara had gotten very little sleep at Diambu’s compound, but she was still unable to turn off her brain to relax. She had been wide-eyed and wired with adrenaline the entire trip aboard Kornev’s plane. Inversely, Kornev slept like a baby. He had done a faceplant into a bunk that folded out from the wall of his plane. Kara was grateful for not having to deal with him. Her relationship with Kornev, at this point, was very confusing. If she had fallen asleep, and Kornev had remained awake, would he have tried to disarm her? And if so, why? His cards had already been dealt, and he had accepted his hand. If there were any more cards to be dealt, those would be given to Kornev by either the CIA or Hail. But maybe Kornev would like to mess with her on a personal level as payback for the belittlement he was forced to endure over the last few days. And, indeed he had been humiliated.
First, Hail slapped him around in the desert, and shortly thereafter Hail pulverized the Russian with airsoft pellets. Kara, a woman, had taken him to task. Most likely his ego was bruised and feeling betrayed by Tonya. Thus, she feared he might do something tragically stupid without considering the consequences would be death by drone. The Russian was so hard to read, but it no longer mattered. He was but a means to an end — a tool which Hail and the CIA would use.
Once Kornev’s plane had touched down in Termez, Kara roused Kornev, using the tip of Baako’s pistol to poke him in the ribs to get him moving. When Kornev had gotten his act together, they collected their carry-ons and had exited the aircraft. They climbed into Kornev’s Hummer, still parked at the airport. Initially, Kornev had climbed into the driver’s seat. However, his injuries had proven to be too painful. Reluctantly, Kornev had asked Kara to drive. They exchanged places, and she had driven them to his fortress.
Kornev provided Kara directions after she turned down one confusing street after another. She finally recognized the garage they had departed a mere two days earlier — although it seemed a lifetime ago. She pressed the garage door button, and it began to climb on its track.
Easing the big machine into its designated spot, Kara shut down the engine and closed her eyes. Funny, her body was now begging she succumb to sleep. Her eyes had been so dry that she thought the sensation of being waterboarded might be a relief. She laughed to herself at the silly thought while opening her car door.
She followed Kornev down the stairs that led to the tunnels below. Kornev had decided to leave his bag in the car, figuring there was nothing he needed badly
enough to drag it through the entire tunnel. Kara left hers in the vehicle as well, but she had no intention of staying at Victor’s any longer than necessary.
Once inside the tunnel, Kara fell into step behind the battered and broken Russian. He was walking like Herman Munster from a TV show she remembered watching as a kid. Kornev was not walking. It looked more like a staggered shuffle as if his legs were set in plaster casts. That cadence changed when Kara implemented what Nolan had referred to as the rear naked choke. She jumped onto his back and threw her right forearm around the front of his neck. In a flash, she hooked both of her heels around his belly, now locked in her right arm, and she began choking Kornev using her left arm. Kara locked in the choke, awaiting the inevitable. Kornev was a big man, so it took all she had to lock the choke down.
At first, Victor was taken aback. He didn’t know what the hell had happened. He thought Kara was being inappropriately playful. But a second later, he was incapable of breathing. He tried to dislodge her arms, but they felt like two concrete pythons locked around his throat. He tried to go for her face and gouge out her eyes, but his arm wounds sent waves of pain that registered in his brain. He groped for Kara’s eyes, ears, hair — basically anything he could get his hands on. But Kara had tucked her head down low on his back. After wasting too much time trying to get his hands on the CIA operative, Kornev realized he could use the walls of the cave to dislodge her firm hold on him. He turned his back to one of the walls, attempting to determine how many steps it would take to slam Kara up against the rock when the world became fuzzy. The lack of oxygen to his brain caused his central nervous system to shut down. While Kornev began to pass out, he thought to himself, “Why didn’t she just shoot me? It would have been a helluva lot easier.” The Russian went down slow, like a stick of butter standing on its end in the middle of a hot pan. His arms went limp, and Kara stayed with him, riding him to the ground, ensuring it was truly lights out for Kornev.
Once he was safely unconscious, Kara took the bag of plastic handcuffs from her front pants pocket, and she rolled Kornev over onto his back. Kara used the largest pair to lock his thick ankles to which she secured his wrists to his ankles with the next largest pair of cuffs. With one cuff remaining, she considered using it to provide him more distance between his wrists and his ankles. She decided against it, opting to keep Kornev extremely hobbled. She didn’t want him to free himself until it was time. And, she didn’t know when that time would be.
Kara sat back against the tunnel’s stone wall, staring at the string of lights that ran down the wall. They were small, but this narrow place didn’t require much lighting. She wondered what it would be like to be down here in the dark, left here in the tunnel all alone for maybe forever. She shuddered at that thought.
Kornev began to come around. He didn’t look much different than after emerging from the backseat of the SUV after it had rolled on Snake Island except now he didn’t look like he was going to throw up. He was still having a hard time breathing, and Kara considered that she may have broken his Adam’s apple. The Russian began to mumble something as he sat up very slowly. Kornev found himself in the middle of his compound’s tunnel, chained with plastic loops joining his hands to his feet.
Like Baako, so many hours ago, Kornev tested his restraints. But Kornev was so much more messed up than Baako. His effort was nothing more than a mild tug. After verifying that he was indeed shackled, he did not exert any more effort to free himself.
“Why?” Kornev asked, looking first at his cuffs and then at Kara sitting on the ground across from him.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to talk to you,” she told Kornev. “But not as your fake girlfriend, CIA agent, or as one of Hail’s crew. I wanted to talk to you as Kara Ramey, daughter of Kadence Ramey and Camden Ramey, my mother and father.”