Page 18 of The Devil's Ransom

Carly said, “No. Definitely not. If you spot something, let me know, and I’ll wave off the meeting. We’ll reengage at a later time. But I don’t think that will happen. He’s only been here for a day.”

I said, “And us? If we pinpoint the site, call it clear and you enter, and then we see a threat approaching, what do you want from us? What’s the ROE?”

“If Jahn has not shown up yet, I’ll wave him off. If we’re in themeet together, just keep eyes on. But you need to make sure it’s actually a threat. There are a lot of people who wander around the memorial for picnics, and it’s also apparently a little bit of a lover’s lane for the Tajiks. Don’t go calling a threat just because you see some MAMs wandering about. They’re probably just drinking.”

MAMwas an acronym for Military Age Male, and she was letting me know there would be plenty running around.

She saw my face, not liking that answer, and she said, “Look, your primary role here is getting him exfiled on the Rock Star bird. The meet itself is secondary. Don’t get in a gunfight because you think a couple of teenagers are a threat. Once I have him in the box, you call for exfil and we all leave as a happy family. The only thing I want from you is early warning of anyone spoiling the meet site. I picked the gazebo because it’s off the beaten path, but if someone’s coming up to it, just give me a call. When they pass, let me know and I’ll enter the kill zone.”

“Kill zone?”

“Sorry. I’ll enter the meet site.”

I looked at her hard, then said, “Why’d you call it that?”

“Pike, no reason. It was just a slip of the tongue from dealing with you knuckle draggers.”

I said, “Yeah, well, don’t use that phrase. It makes me skittish.”

She laughed and said, “Sorry, but this is going to be a walk in the park, literally. I promise.”

Chapter11

Shakor dialed the phone and waited, hearing it ring endlessly. He thought for a spastic second that the split team had been arrested. And then someone answered, saying, “Who is this?”

“It’s Shakor, you idiot. Couldn’t you see that from the number?”

And then the backpedaling began: “Sorry, sir. I wasn’t sure if I should answer. What’s up?”

“We’ve had to move my team to Uzbekistan. The treasure left on a plane from Tajikistan to parts unknown, but wherever it went, we can’t get there by driving cars without passports. Haqqani is making us some documents from Turkey with a Schengen visa, so we should be able to travel at will, but it will take a day or two.”

“So you’ll travel as Turkish citizens?”

“Yes, that will be the easy part. The hard part will be finding out where that plane landed. We have the tail number of the aircraft that left with the treasure and the national security advisor, but we haven’t tracked its flight path as of yet. We were simply going to track his phone, but we can’t, because your man has it.”

“Jahn Azimi has a government phone? How does that help us? Because I’ll be honest, we have no leads. They didn’t detain him at the airport, and he’s either somewhere in the city, or he’s trying to find a way overland to get out.”

“He’s not getting out overland. He has help from the CIA.”

“How do you know this?”

“Through some light interrogation of the Ghani people who didn’t make it out. They’re doing anything they can to keep their head attached to their neck. It turns out that President Ghani infected every phone on his staff with tracking software in an effort to slow the corruption of his inner circle. Jahn’s phone has something called Pegasus, from Israel, of all places.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means his phone is literally a geolocation recording device. Whoever uses that handset can be tracked. We were stalking the phone through that app because it would lead us to the treasure, but Ahmad Khan gave the phone to Jahn. He’s been communicating with a CIA case officer, and we saw it all. He’s got a meet tonight to flee the city.”

“How sure are you that this is correct?”

“It’s ironclad. We have his phone because Ghani didn’t trust anyone. He installed the spyware, and now we get to see what it’s doing. We have the meet site location. All you have to do is roll him up.”

“Send me the meeting location.”

“I will. But don’t make a grand show out of this. Just take him and be done. The meet site they’ve chosen is away from where the usual tourist crowds hang out. You need to get in and get out.”

“If he’s meeting a CIA controller, it won’t be that easy. They’ll have protocols in place precisely to prevent what you want me to do. What about them?”

“They’ll have overwatch for sure, but I don’t think they’ll treat this like a meeting at a hostile site. The CIA man will be the first to arrive, so it would be better if you could take Jahn before the meeting, but if you can’t, eliminate the threat and then get out.”

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