“Where’s the audio?” Crocker demanded.
“Switching to the MOD stream now, sir.”
There was another crackle from the speakers.
“Songbird, Nightowl. Status?”
No response.
“Songbird, Nightowl, respond please.”
On the plasma wall, in its rectangle, Crocker watched as Poole adjusted his position, shifting on his haunches, checking the radio in his hand. He could make out the frown of concentration on Poole’s face.
“What the fuck is going on?” Seale muttered. “Where is he?”
“Songbird, Nightowl, respond.”
Nothing.
Oh, sweet Jesus, no, thought Crocker.
Over the speakers came the sound of a rattle, something striking the side of the van. Crocker heard one of the SAS swearing softly, watched as Poole pulled away from the door as three MP-5s came up, and then the side door slid back, and the camera flared as its aperture tried to adjust to the abrupt change in light sources.
“Friendly!” Crocker heard Poole hissing. “Jesus, friendly, don’t fucking shoot him!”
The image resolved again, and Crocker watched as Poole yanked Fincher into the van, one hand on his shoulder, more concerned with efficiency in the move than comfort. The camera readjusted as the SAS trooper wearing the rig moved back. The view canted at an angle, and over the speakers came the bang of the door sliding closed again.
Poole leaned in on Fincher. “What the fuck happened, what are you doing here?”
Fincher shook his head, trying to catch his breath. Poole, still with his hand on Fincher’s shoulder, shook the other man.
“What the fucking hell happened? Dammit, Andrew!”
Fincher coughed, pulling himself away from Poole’s grip. “They made me. I had to withdraw. We’ve got to abort.”
Crocker cursed, hearing Seale echoing him. He swung toward the Duty Ops Desk. “Ron, MOD, now! Get me a patch to Candlelight, they cannot abort!”
“Open line, sir.” Ron handed Crocker the telephone handset.
Crocker put the phone to his ear, could hear the sounds of consternation coming from the Ministry of Defense’s operational command post. “D-Ops, who am I talking to?”
“Lance Corporal Richard Moth, sir.”
“Put Colonel Dawson on the line.”
“Yes, sir.”
From the speakers, Crocker could hear Poole cursing at Fincher. “You’ve fucking blown us, you fool!”
“They made me, dammit! What was I supposed to do?”
On the screen, Crocker watched as Poole sat back, yanking the headset from his head. The expression he was seeing on Minder Two’s face was much like the one Crocker imagined was now gracing his own.
In his ear, from the telephone, Crocker heard, “Paul? James. What the hell is your man playing at?”
“God only knows. Listen, Colonel, you’ve got to give them the go order.”
“If they’ve been blown—”
“I understand the risk. They’ve got to move now, Colonel, there’s no choice.”
“Hold on.”
Crocker looked back to the video feed, watching. After a second’s pause, a squawk came over the speakers, and he watched as Poole hastily put his headset back into place.
“Nightowl, go.”
From the telephone, Crocker heard Dawson’s voice, distant, relaying the go, repeating the order twice, to make it clear.
On the screen, through the speakers, Poole said, “Nightowl confirms, we are go, repeat, we are go.”
Crocker was sure he saw Fincher blanch.
There was a rush of movement then, Poole reaching for the MP-5 that had been waiting for him as the camera jerked, heading to the doors of the van. The screen flared again, resolved, and now the view was jumping up and down, and Crocker could see Poole and the other two SAS troopers racing along the street, turning now between buildings, running hard, then slowing. They reached the door, two of the troopers taking entry positions, and the one wearing the camera made the breach, and Poole tossed the first grenade, and the sound of the explosion came back at them in the Ops Room, muffled by the speakers.
Then the shooting started.
CHAPTER 3
Uzbekistan—Tashkent—
Husniddin Asomov Avenue
11 February, 1213 Hours (GMT+5:00)
If he hadn’t been so focused on chasing the hare, Charles Riess supposed he’d have seen the car coming. But then again, if he’d seen the car coming, Ruslan Mihailovich Malikov might never have made contact with him, so all in all, Riess figured it more than made up for the scraped knee and sprained ankle.
They’d started the run up on the northeast edge of Tashkent, about ten in the morning, just north of the Salor Canal, setting off in pursuit of a particularly sneaky son of a bitch from the Embassy’s Consular Division named Bradley Walker. Turned out his surname was more than a little misleading, and with the fifteen-minute head start that Riess and the twenty-seven other Hash House Harriers had given to Walker, he’d led them on a merry chase. Most times, you could count on the run being completed in about an hour, so everyone could get to the more serious business of drinking.
Most times.
Walker had been given the go, running with a bag of flour to lay trail—or more precisely, to lay false trail—and Riess and the others had stood in the freezing morning, stamping their feet and blowing on their hands. In another two weeks the winter would be over, and Uzbekistan’s traditionally temperate climate would return, but for now it was cold enough that Riess seriously considered forfeiting his participation altogether, just so he could return to his home on Raktaboshi Avenue and crawl back into bed. Another of the Harriers, joining them from the German Embassy, had seemed to read his mind, making a joke about calling the run on account of the weather. Riess had looked north, into Kazakhstan, and seen snow on the mountains.
The chase began, the pack setting off in pursuit of the hare, heading first toward the Botanical Gardens. Riess had run long distance in college but quit upon entering the State Department, only to pick it up again after he’d met Rebecca. They’d met early in his first posting, Tanzania, and it had been part of their courtship, what Riess had supposed was some Darwinian hardwired leftover proof-of-virility ritual. He’d gotten as far as picking out a ring and preparing a speech, had scouted locations in Dar es Salaam, just to find the right place to propose.
Then the Embassy had been bombed and eighty people had been wounded, and eleven had died, and Rebecca had been one of those eleven.
Now when he ran, Riess sometimes imagined Rebecca was running alongside him, and that was how he remembered her, and it made the going easy, despite the cold. Today, he soon found himself leading the pack. He stood five ten when his shoes were off, and one-seventy-eight on the bathroom scale after a shower, wearing nothing but his towel, with long legs Rebecca had described as spindly. If his German/English heritage had given Riess anything, it was a runner’s body.
He ran, eyes open for the trail, and just before the zoo, he saw what he was certain, at the time, was a smudged arrow of flour, pointing him toward the northwest. He pressed on, crossing the Jahon Obidova, heading northwest now, down along the Bozsu Canal. Splotches of flour appeared every hundred meters or so, keeping him on track, and behind him, he could hear the singing and laughter of the pack. Riess felt the warmth of his own breath as he ran through the clouds of condensation he was making.