Staring down at Lucas’s battered face, I radioed Brett in the follow car. “Any activity?”
“None. We’re clean so far.”
I’d left him and Decoy within sight of the rear door to give me a feel on whether we’d been compromised or not, while Knuckles, Jennifer, and I had tossed Lucas in our van and driven a couple of alleys away from the hotel, giving Blaine in our makeshift hotel tactical operations center a SITREP. Satisfied we were good to go, I addressed Lucas for the first time.
“Been a while. I’ll bet seeing me walking around was a big fucking surprise.”
He said nothing, his face a blank canvas showing neither fear nor anger.
“Look, I appreciate how tough you are, so I’m not going to go through a bunch of threats. Here’s the deal: The United States Middle East envoy is landing in minutes. I can afford to talk right now, but once that envoy hits the ground, I’ll be out of time. I know you’re out to kill him, I just don’t know how. Tell me that and you’ll spare yourself some pain later, I promise.”
I expected all sorts of stalling tactics. What I got completely surprised me.
Looking relieved, he said, “Pike, I’m on your side. That’s what I’m doing here. I know there’s a hit planned on the envoy, but it’s not me. It’s another guy from Lebanon called the Ghost. He’s the one targeting the envoy. I’m trying to stop him.”
Surprised or no, I lightly slapped his face twice, saying, “Cut the crap. What’s the plan? The clock’s ticking and I’d rather not destroy the envoy’s itinerary by putting him back on a plane.”
Which, of course, was a lie. I had no control over McMasters’s activities, but I didn’t want Lucas to know that.
“I have no idea. That’s the truth. I was tracking the assassin, but I haven’t been able to figure out what he’s up to. I have a bed-down site I was using as an anchor, but he didn’t sleep there last night. Or if he did, he found another way out of the souk. If you guys can stop him, so much the better.”
He saw me starting to get pissed and said, “Look, I don’t expect you to believe me, but I’ll tell you everything I know. I work for pay, but I don’t kill U.S. government officials. I have my limits, and that’s one. Up until a few days ago I was working for a group in Lebanon. I found out about this hit and we parted ways. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to track this guy down. He went to Yemen, then came here.”
Despite myself, I found his words credible. I could confirm everything he had just said, to include the slaughter of the Hezbollah guys.
Bullshit. This guy’s nothing but snake oil.
“Why the hell did you try to blow me up then? In Lebanon with that computer bomb? If you were so fired up about protecting the envoy, you had to know I was doing the same thing.”
“Blow you up? I didn’t even know you were in Lebanon! I gave an IED to a Hezbollah contact. They thought it was a camera to record a planning meeting about this hit, but I intended for it to kill the assassin. Somehow it missed, and he’s still running around loose.”
I took that in and said, “So I suppose you thought Jennifer was part of the assassin’s master plan as well? That why you were about to kick her ass?”
“I wasn’t going to hurt her. I recognized her and was trying to make contact. I was just going to talk to her. Yeah, I had to subdue her to do it because I know you guys want to kill me. It wasn’t like I trusted her for a nice sit-down conversation. I’ll admit I was going to prevent her from getting me in the crosshairs, but if I’d have hurt her, I wouldn’t have been able to get any help on protecting the envoy. Shit, she’s the one who kicked me first.”
“What about the vehicle IED you emplaced yesterday? On a member of my team’s car?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I spent all of yesterday following the Ghost, trying to figure out his plan. I lost him at a mosque. There’s no way I could do that and go around building car bombs.”
He looked genuinely puzzled by the question, as if he thought we were testing him and he knew his answer would fail. This is sounding too crazy. I put a double pillowcase on his head and motioned Jennifer and Knuckles out of the van. I positioned myself so I could see his body in the back and spoke over my shoulder.
“What do you think?”
Knuckles said, “I don’t know. He’s a slimy bastard, but everything he’s saying makes sense. It answers the question of why there’d be a bomb from Hezbollah targeting the very assassin they were looking to hire, and we did see him kill the Hezbollah leadership cell. As insane as it sounds, he might be telling the truth.”
“Jennifer?” I said.
“I don’t trust him. This could just be a stalling tactic. He’s pure evil. I find it hard to believe he’d do something that was morally just if no money were involved. He’s not built that way.”
“Yeah, I’m with you. But distrusting him doesn’t solve our current problem. That Saudi is still running around.”
Knuckles said, “Well, see what he can tell us about that guy. The minute he says something we can refute, we start getting rough.”
Back in the van, I pulled his hood off. “Tell me about the Ghost. What’s he look like? Where was he bedding down? What was your plan to remove him?”
“I need my tablet.”
I dug the computer out of his backpack and handed it to him. He held out his hands and said, “This would be quicker if you cut these flex-ties.”
I cuffed the back of his head. “Nice try. Get to work or I’m going to assume you’re stalling.”
In seconds, I was looking at a passport photo of the same guy from the Yemen biometric scan. The one who’d built the improvised shaped charge. The lighting was different in each, and in the passport photo he was wearing thick glasses, but there was no mistaking him. The name on the passport was the same as well. A citizen of Saudi Arabia.
Lucas said, “This is the guy. I don’t know his true name, but he’s called the Ghost for other killings he’s done. He’s been here for a few days, but I haven’t been able to get a handle on his plan. I followed him most of the day yesterday, then, like I said, I lost him at a mosque. He went to electronic and hardware stores, but didn’t develop any pattern, as if he was rehearsing a vehicle hit or anything. I also never saw him conduct a recce of anything else I would consider a kill zone. The only thing out of place was a visit to the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa. By the time I parked, I had lost him, so I’m not sure what he was doing.”
“That’s not a whole lot. What can you give us to work with?”
He manipulated his tablet, pulling up a map with icons embedded. Most were of the locations we’d already seen the previous day. He pointed at a new one.
“I had a beacon installed into a briefcase he used. It hasn’t been much help, but it did go to these two locations. The first is the bed-down site he used until last night. The second is inside the Burj Khalifa. Those are the only two anchors I have, which, since the briefcase only moved once during this entire time, I’m assuming are important. He’s going to do something at the Burj Khalifa.”
“What were you going to do to prevent it?”
“I was going to hit the bed-down site and see what I could find out. From there, if I got nothing, I was simply going to stage at the Burj to intercept him. He’s going back there, I’m sure of it.”
That sounded like as good of a plan as I could come up with right now. I went through his pockets and pulled out his hotel key.
“Jennifer, head up to his room and search it. See if Mister Goody Two-shoes here is feeding us horseshit. Let us know what you find.”
“Where are you going?”
“The bed-down site.”
Knuckles squinted and motioned me outside of the van. I bagged Lucas again and exited.
“Pike, you need to let Blaine know what’s up before we do anything else.”
Shit. I had forgotten Kurt had sent me some personal oversight. I had grown used to operating on my own. I liked and trusted LTC Alexander, but I was sure he’d simply side with his orders and the Council. Well, it’s worth the call. Worst case you’re going to ignore him anyway. Best case, we get barbecued together when we get home.
I got him on my secure Taskforce phone and relayed the situation. As expected, he balked.
“Pike, we’re at Jackpot. We’ve accomplished our mission. Let’s get Lucas on the Skyhook and call it a day. We don’t have Omega authority for anything else.”
“Are you kidding me, sir? His information changes everything. He’s confirmed another assassin, and the Omega was predicated on the hit being stopped with the capture of Lucas. Shit, taking him down didn’t alter anything at all.”
“You’re assuming he’s telling the truth.”
“No, I’m worst-casing it. If he’s not telling the truth, then we have nothing to fear because the assassin’s in the back of our van. If he is, we can’t afford to ignore it.”
“Let me get this information to Kurt and the Taskforce. He’ll get Omega and make this whole thing legal.”
I looked at my watch, feeling a chill. “Too late. Envoy’s on the ground. We either go unilateral, or he dies.”