“—and the precise location within the structure of this person, who we believe is the American journalist Ryan Hamilton. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s bring this young man home.”
Lord. For a moment, it seemed this room full of grizzled, self-serving cynics was going to burst into applause. But the moment passed, Jones returned to his seat, and all eyes moved to the president.
The president looked at Jones. “Vernon, you’re confident in the accuracy of the technology behind these findings?”
“Mr. President, had we possessed this technology during the Iranian hostage crisis, Operation Eagle Claw might have ended very differently.”
Anders seethed. Eagle Claw was botched because of helicopter malfunctions. It had nothing to do with intel about the location of the hostages. And what the hell did “might have” mean, anyway?
But he said nothing. Jones clearly had the advantage, and there was nothing Anders could do to change that.
For the moment.
His mobile phone vibrated. He glanced down and saw a text from Remar:
Cannot obtain definitive match of two individuals of interest. However, records indicate both powered down their mobile phones at the same time after work and on weekends on dozens of occasions.
He’d already known in his gut from what Delgado had told him, but this was proof: Daniel Perkins and Aerial Chambers had been intimate. They were cautious enough about their infidelities to turn off their phones before meeting. But the simultaneous blackouts were their own form of confirmation. Perkins knew about God’s Eye. Which meant that Hamilton knew. Which meant that Hamilton absolutely had to be silenced.
“How soon can you be ready?” the president said to Jones.
“We have a team building mock-ups of the structure as we speak,” Jones responded, his chest swelling slightly at the chance to say so. “Forty-eight hours would be adequate to coordinate logistics and for the team to train on a replica of the very structure they’ll be breaching in Azaz. We can move faster if necessary, but if we think Hamilton has at least forty-eight hours, I recommend we wait that long. We don’t want to go in half-assed.”
All eyes turned to Anders. The president said, “Do we know anything about Hamilton’s circumstances?”
The humiliation felt calculated, but there was nothing to do but endure it. “No, Mr. President, we have no indication of how much time Hamilton might have. Beyond the fact that this group seems intent on milking his capture for propaganda value. In which case, at least forty-eight hours seems a safe bet.”
The president nodded, probably thinking he could have gotten a similar analysis from an intelligent high school student, and might have hoped for something more substantial from the director of NSA.
“Comments? Criticisms?” the president asked, looking around the room. “No? All right then, I’ve decided. Barring an unforeseen development, in forty-eight hours we go in and bring this young man home.”
An unforeseen development, Anders thought. You have no idea.
CHAPTER
19
Manus was back in Turkey, ostensibly to deliver grenade launchers to the Ergenekon crew that had taken the journalist. In fact, the director had told Manus, he was to kill the Ergenekon men, and it was imperative Manus collect their phones. Why the director wanted their phones, Manus neither knew nor cared. But the killing part was good. He’d wanted to kill them last time. Now he’d be able to do it.
The meeting was on the eastern shore of Tuz Gölü, an immense salt lake about ninety miles southeast of Ankara. He drove along the shore, the sun bright overhead, the dry lake bed an oval of pale blue fringed by iridescent white. All around was nothing but parched grass and stunted shrubs. He passed some tourist restaurants and souvenir shops, a few travelers venturing out to photograph mineral deposits. The paved road began to give way to gravel, then gravel to dirt. Soon there were no more buildings, and no more people.
Ahead he saw a small structure, not much more than a foundation and a few cinder block walls, standing derelict amid the surrounding brown scrub. Next to it was the dusty white van he remembered from the last meeting, the same three men smoking cigarettes alongside it. They squinted as he approached, then recognized him and waved, their hands empty. He nodded and eased forward until he was a few feet from the front of the van, the vehicles kitty-corner, the driver’s side of each on the outside. The men might find his behavior odd because it would have been easier and more discreet to transfer the grenade launchers if he had parked adjacent and tail to tail. Or they might understand he was being careful. Manus didn’t really care. The only place for concealment in the area was the van itself, and he wanted to be able to open his own trunk while keeping the van completely in view, and to give himself some cover and reaction time if anyone emerged from the van’s rear doors.
He looked around and detected no problems. Across the vast dry bed of the lake, rippling through heat shimmers, were the towers and tubing of a mining plant. A short distance away, a single truck tire lay black and baking against the salt around it. Manus cut the engine and rolled down the driver-side window. He couldn’t know, but he sensed the area was silent.
Keeping his eyes on the men and a grip on the Berserker, he got out of the car and closed the door. In addition to the tomahawk, he was armed as he had been before, but with one small difference: this time, the SIG MPX-K suspended from the steering wheel was unloaded. He had a feeling about these men, and he thought he saw a way to exploit it.
“Hello, Miller,” the tall one said, with the smile Manus distrusted. No need for bona fides this time. They all knew each other. “You have toys for us, yes? We will take them from you.”
Manus nodded and went around to the trunk. He opened it and waited. The tall man walked over along the passenger’s side of the sedan. The other two went the other way, along the driver’s side, eyeing the vehicle’s interior as they moved. They saw the SIG. One man stopped at the door. The other kept coming. They were boxing him in, denying him access to his weapon. They thought.
Manus stepped back from the trunk and gestured for the two men to have a look. There were three duffel bags inside.
The tall man held back while the other guy reached inside and unzipped the bags one by one. After opening the third, he looked back and nodded. Manus could have dropped them all right then with the Force Pro concealed in the waistband holster, but he wasn’t sure how far the sounds of the shots would carry over the flat terrain, and the tourist shacks he had passed weren’t that far away. He’d shoot them if he had to, but he thought he’d have an opportunity for something quieter. And more satisfying.
The guy who’d checked out the hardware reached inside, extracted one of the M32A1s, and handed it to the tall man, who hefted it, then pointed it at Manus and laughed.
“You can show us how to use, yes?” the man said.
Even without orders to do so, Manus would have been happy to kill the man for pointing a weapon at him, especially without even checking first to see if it was loaded. In this case, the move felt like a feint, and sure enough, out of the corner of his eye, Manus saw the third man reach inside the driver’s door and pull the SIG free from its harness. Manus pretended not to notice.
“What do you need to know?” Manus asked.
The third man walked over, pointing the SIG at Manus’s chest. Manus glanced at him and effected a surprised expression.
“I want to know why you talk funny,” the tall man said.
Manus glanced from one to the other as though in fear. In fact, he was measuring distance. “What are you doing?” he said, injecting a little nervousness into his tone.