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Noa yells, “Juan! Stop that damn car!”
With the cut-down automatic rifle up to his cheek, Juan quickly fires off two-round bursts, flattening two of the tires and riddling the front end, killing the engine.
Back to the Impala now, the driver is dead, as is his front-seat passenger. Pistols are on the bloody upholstery.
“Drag them out,” Noa orders.
Juan yells again, “Noa! Here!”
A man in a black two-piece suit is running into the woods. Noa yells back, “Leave him!”
Good Lord,she thinks,this is getting way too complicated for a domestic operation,and she’s hoping that permanently stuck red light at the intersection will keep things quiet for the next few minutes. As to the Town Car driver running into the woods, he’d probably be dialing 911 at this moment, but cell service within a hundred meters of this op is disabled.
The two dead men are stretched out on the pavement, hats and hoodies pulled away. Wendy Liu squats down, aiming a digital notepad at each of their faces, and says, “Surprise, Noa, they’re not Iraqi refugees. They’re not even Iraqis. Facial recognition software positively IDs them as members of the Iranian Quds force.”
Noa nods, knowing well the Quds force, specializing in overseas terrorism and special operations activities, and officially listed by the American government as an FTO, Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“Get the third body out of the Impala, get his facial ID as well. I’m going to check out that other car.”
Juan is still at the Lincoln Town Car, CAR-15 at his side, when Noa strides up. She says, “Good shooting.”
He smiles. “Always aim to be the best. Check this out, Noa.”
Juan pries open the rear trunk. Noa leans over and gently whistles.
Four RPG-7 rocket launchers are nestled in a pile, along withcanvas carrying pouches with spare warheads. There are also several AK-47s, boxes of ammunition, and what look to be small bricks of plastic explosive, possibly Semtex.
“Looks like we broke up a loud date,” Juan says.
“Fair enough,” Noa says. “We don’t have much time, Juan. Give the car a quick look for documents or anything else interesting, and then help us get the bodies into the van.”
Noa turns and heads back to the shot-up Impala, when she hears a loud yelp.
The third terrorist is still alive.
CHAPTER 41
DAMN, DAMN, DAMN,she thinks, as she gets closer to her group of people. The third man is writhing in pain, blood streaming from the side of his head and sopping through his gray sweatshirt. The other two bodies are gone, brought into the rear of the van.
“Wendy?” she asks.
“Quds again, and this one is their superior,” she says. “And he’s got the worst record of all of them. School buses, cruise ships, even a goddamn day care center in Budapest.”
He moans and she stares at his pain-wracked face. And her thoughts turn to her cousin Becky, dead these many years from a visit to Beirut and a meetup with a car bomb.
Aldo says, “Noa … unless he gets immediate medical attention, he’s not going to make it.”
Noa says, “Phil? Any safe medical facility nearby?”
Safemeaning one under contract to the Agency, with no pesky reports to file to local police agencies about GSWs—gunshot wounds—or patients with questionable immigration status.
After looking at his iPhone Phil says, “One about an hour northbound.”
Aldo says, “He won’t last that long. Only way he’s going to make it is by transporting him to a local hospital. Civilian.”
Civilian.
Not like they can drive up and dump him off at a local ER entrance.
