Page 17 of The Devil's Ransom

“Out of what? He’soutof Afghanistan. And you haven’t answered why he can’t just walk to a personal meet with some James Bond from the CIA and get free. Why am I here?”

She said, “Pike, I don’t know. I think it’s because the station here doesn’t have the assets needed on short notice, and you do. Kerry Bostwick asked for you specifically. We know for a fact he’sbeing hunted. He has no money and nowhere to go. He’ll last about a day on the street.”

I said, “Just like every other Kandak we abandoned, only they’reinsideAfghanistan, getting hunted on home turf. So I’m the white knight, saving the one guy to give the CIA some sort of credibility because of the ones they left behind? Makes me sick.”

“Yeah. But you can save this one.”

I knew I was doing the mission, because the guy deserved it, but it aggravated me to no end that the CIA was going to call on me when they could have pulled this guy out months before. I said, “And if I say I’m not doing it? What then?”

Carly said, “He has his niece with him. A small girl. The mother gave her to him to save because she was afraid of what the Taliban would do. He was supposed to take her away. Take her somewhere safe. And now they’re both on the run, here, in Dushanbe.”

I closed my eyes at the words.That’s not fair.

Jennifer saw how her information had affected me, and knew what I was going to do next. I blew out a sigh and said, “Okay, where is he?”

Carly smiled and said, “You really make this hard.”

She pulled out a cell phone and showed me the text messages between her and someone named Jahn Azimi, dictating a meeting tonight at 8p.m.

I said, “The texts are in blue. This guy has an iPhone?”

“Yes. We don’t know why, but it’s a number in our database. It belongs to the former national security advisor to Afghanistan. We have no idea why he has the phone, but he does.”

I shook my head and said, “That doesn’t sound good. Something else is in play here.”

She ignored my statement, saying, “I found a gazebo on theoutskirts of the war memorial at Victory Park. It’s a wide-open space that the people here routinely use for picnics. A lot of teenagers drinking vodka and families enjoying the open air. Perfect for a meet because nobody will try to interfere there.”

I looked at the map, seeing the location was at the top of a hill, a long flight of stairs leading up to it, right next to a cable car system that would save you the steps. I said, “So what’s the mission? You go meet the guy and we take him to our bird down south?”

“Basically, yes. But I need eyes on the meet site before I go in. I’m his contact. I’m who he’s expecting. You guys will be the early warning. I don’t need security per se, because he’s an unknown here, but I want eyes on the site before I go in.”

I nodded, knowing exactly what she was asking. I said, “Okay. Two up top. One at the bottom for countersurveillance. But we can only track one approach. If someone goes to the stairs, we can do that, but if someone uses the cable car, we can’t watch both.”

“The cable car has been defunct for about fifteen years. That’s not an issue. They’ll use the stairs.”

I looked at the map, seeing a road running by the gazebo. I said, “So you meet him and want us to extract via the road? You don’t want to walk him all the way back down, right?”

“Exactly right. The road is blocked with a chain down at the bottom, in the parking lot for the broken cable car. When we make the meet, someone cuts the chain and drives up, and then we drive out the back of the park.”

Brett said, “Why don’t we just drive in from the back of the park?”

“Because it’s a spaghetti road. It’ll take you thirty minutes to get to our location from the back of the park. It’ll take three from the front. I don’t mind the exfil being long, but I really want the initial contact to be quick.”

Which made sense to me. I said, “Okay, here are the team assignments. Me and Knuckles up top for atmospherics. Brett at the bottom for countersurveillance. Veep and Jenn with the vehicles. Jenn, you have the job of defeating the chain for the road. Take some bolt cutters and when I call, cut the chain and come up as fast as possible. Questions?”

Jennifer said, “Do I need to use bolt cutters? What’s the lock like?”

Carly said, “It’s just a padlock. Why?”

“Because if I walk out with a four-foot skeleton key and cut that lock, I’m going to draw attention. Attention we don’t want. We want to look like we belong there, on that road. What’s the lock like?”

Carly said, “I don’t really know. I didn’t look at it.” And I saw the embarrassment form on her face. She was supposed to be planning the perfect mission, but she’d missed a key ingredient.

Jennifer saw it, too, and said, “No worries. I can pick any padlock they have. It’ll look like I have a key and am supposed to be there. I’ll take the bolt cutters just in case.”

She flicked a glance at me, wondering if she had overstepped her bounds, and I winked. She was spot-on, as usual.

Brett said, “If I see someone tracking you, what’s the call? Blow off the meeting, or continue? Do you want me to interdict them?”

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