I got the third “no change” call from Brett and realized that Lucas was going to wait outside the mosque for whoever he was tracking. I knew I was missing some type of opportunity and hated sitting there on my ass. I should be using the time for something else.
We’d confirmed that Lucas was a one-man surveillance effort, with the local acting as driver to simply pick him up and drop him off, which meant he had no one at the rear of the mosque. I thought about it, toying with the idea of trying to locate his target.
Initially, I’d restricted our surveillance box on Lucas to trailing behind, which also restricted our ability to react. In a perfect world, you’d have operators around him in a bubble, so that no matter which way he turned, if the eye lost him, he’d run into someone else in the bubble. Once we’d confirmed he was conducting surveillance as well, we didn’t want to spook the very target he was after, and since we didn’t know who that was, we couldn’t prevent him from identifying us over time and distance. Simply staying with Lucas would inadvertently confirm to the target that he was under surveillance-in effect, blowing the operation. In truth, we’d been on Lucas for more than three hours, and there wasn’t any way to determine if we hadn’t already compromised him.
I decided to press someone to the far side of the mosque and get a snapshot of anyone who exited. Might get us nothing, but sometimes little things like this ended up paying off big-time. I’d leave Brett and Decoy on Lucas and send Knuckles, since he was the easiest one for Lucas to identify. I could always pull him back around if it came to it.
I gave him a call, telling him the plan and asking him to relay it through his Taskforce phone to everyone else. He rogered, and said he was going to reposition to the western parking lot. Out of nowhere I experienced a deep sense of deja vu, the feeling bringing with it a tendril of dread.
A year ago, almost to the day, I had repositioned Knuckles and another team member for this exact same purpose, and they had run into a vehicle-borne IED. Knuckles had been ripped apart. The other team member had been killed.
Before I realized it, I had unconsciously hit redial on my phone to cancel the mission. I hung up before Knuckles could answer, physically shaking my head to clear the ghost feelings. Get a grip. Dubai is not Cairo. No Arab Spring here.
I inched my vehicle out of the alley I was hiding in anyway, wanting to see the route Knuckles would take. I reached the intersection and scanned left and right. Parking wasn’t allowed along this road, so if I saw a stationary vehicle, it might be a threat.
I exhaled. There was nothing but moving traffic. I put the car in reverse just as Knuckles passed me, heading west. He kept his eyes to the front, but gave me a one-finger wave from the steering wheel. As he passed I caught a glimpse of something hanging from underneath his left rear quarter panel, just behind the tire.
I leaned forward, trying to identify if it was my imagination or real. He kept going, but it wasn’t a trick of my deja vu. Some small piece of metal was sticking out from underneath his car.
I hit redial, and it went straight to voice mail. Shit. I dialed Brett. When he answered, he was whispering.
“Pike, I can’t talk. Lucas is moving my way.”
“Fuck him. Dial Knuckles right now. Tell him to stop his car. Now.”
“What?”
My phone buzzed with an incoming call from Knuckles. I hung up on Brett without another word and switched over.
“Knuckles, stop your car. Get out of your car. I think it’s rigged with something.”
“Huh?”
“Get the hell out of your car!”
“Okay. Next intersection I’ll pull into an alley. I can’t stop on this road.”
“No! Get out now! It might be an IED.”
“Jesus Christ! I thought you meant a beacon.”
I heard a car door slam, then the sounds of him breathing as he moved away.
“I’m in an alley now. Vehicle’s shut down. I’m out. Now tell me what the fuck’s going on.”
I told him about the left rear quarter panel, leaving out the premonition that had made me look. He’d think I was nuts. While he checked it out, I called Decoy.
“You near your car?”
“No.”
“When you get to it, do a thorough scrub for IEDs. Knuckles has something he’s checking out now. Whatever you do, don’t just get in and crank it up.”
My other line buzzed with Brett.
“What’s up?”
“Lucas is on the move and I can’t stick with him. My heat state’s getting bad.”
“Forget him. Let him go. Link up with Decoy, but don’t start the car.”
“Why?”
“He’ll let you know. Lucas may have set us up.”
I hung up, thinking of the implications of an IED placed on Knuckles’ car. If it was real, then this whole day had been a charade. We thought we were the predators, when we’d been the prey. And Lucas had much more help than a simple driver. I prayed it was just my overactive imagination, with the biggest cost being me getting reamed at the after-action review and owing a case of beer for stopping the operation.
Knuckles called, and I found out I wouldn’t be driving all over Dubai searching for alcohol.
“It was an improvised shaped charge. Pretty ingenious. Most of it is homemade parts, but the detonator’s pretty damn sophisticated. No anti-tampering on it, though. A couple of snips, and it was rendered safe.”
“You got a plastic bag or something you can put it in?”
“Yeah, why?”
“We should have a biometrics kit in the equipment bundle. I want to print it and see if it’s Lucas who built the thing.”
“And?”
“And if it is, I’m done pussyfooting around. I’m putting a bullet in his head.”