Vengeance: A Derek Stillwater Novel (Derek Stillwater Thrillers Book 8) Read online

  Captain Bradley met him in the hallway, a thoughtful look on her face. She said, “I’m surprised. You’re making some progress, although I don’t think the water is doing anything.”

  “I think the curiosity about his brother is getting to him now.”

  “I think so, too.” Making a face, after a moment of thought she said, “He really likes cherry pie.”

  “Two slices,” Derek said. “Please.”

  He went back in and sat down. “So,” he said. “According to your records you spent three years in the Egyptian military.”

  “Is there a question there?”

  “You may respond with a yes or no, if you like.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Derek said. “That’s a refreshing change. What did you do in the Army? Was it Army?”

  Nazif refused to answer.

  Derek checked several notes. “You were in the Army from 1991 to 1994. So you missed out on the Rifaat el-Mahgoub assassination. But you were there during the Daylight ambushes in 1993.”

  Looking up, he saw something flicker in Hazif’s eyes. There had been a series of bloody Islamic terror attacks in Egypt in 1993. The so-called “Daylight ambush” killed or wounded 1,106 people that year and killed 120 police officers.

  “Were you involved with those in any way?”

  “What does this have to do with my brother?” Nazif asked.

  “It has to do with you. Not your brother. Do you want to talk about that year?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to talk about your brother?”

  Nazif seemed to focus. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Are you close to your brother?”

  “I have not seen any of my family in over six years, idiot! I’ve been locked up in here.”

  “Were you close to Hussein?” he repeated.

  Nazif seemed to struggle with something. “I want a drink.”

  “Tell me about Hussein.”

  “He is my younger brother. The next after me. He is brilliant.”

  “You’re pretty smart yourself,” Derek said. “Chemical engineer. I understand you have some skill making bombs.”

  Nazif ignored that, focusing his intense gaze on the sweating bottle of water on the corner of the table.

  “What about Hussein? Is he good at making bombs?”

  “Computers,” Nazif said. His voice was a dry croak. “What do you know of him? What has happened to him? He has a son.”

  “His son is named after you.”

  Nazif nodded, suddenly wary.

  “So Hussein must have thought a lot of you, to name his son after you. Is Abdul his only child?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  Derek shook his head.

  Nazif seemed to rock briefly in his chair, ankle chains and cuff chains clinking and clanking quietly. “He had a wife and daughter. They were killed.”

  “How did they die?”

  “A car accident. A colonel in the Army. Drunk. Killed them. Ran them down in the street. He was never prosecuted. The military and the government covered it up. Brushed it under the carpet. Promoted him.”

  Derek leaned back. And I’ve managed to kill his son.

  The door opened and a marine walked in with two slices of cherry pie on paper plates and two plastic forks.

  He set them down on the edge of the table.

  “Do you think you can bribe me with cherry pie?”

  Derek shrugged. “Can I?”

  “Why do you want to know about Hussein?”

  “What else can you tell me about your brother?”

  Abdul hunched forward, chain rattling. “If he is your enemy, he will kill you. I am smart. But he is brilliant.”

  “Brilliant how?”

  “What is your real last name? What is your rank? Rank in what?”

  Derek said, “So your brother is justifiably angry at the Egyptian military. Was he a member of the Muslim Brotherhood?”

  Nazif’s face wrinkled. “Of course. But I do not believe it worked out. But you know that, don’t you? Hussein is not a follower. He would be leading people.”

  “How about you? If you were free, would you be following your younger brother?”

  “If I were out, we would be a force unlike anyone has seen before.”

  “Oh, blah, blah, blah,” Derek said. “Want some pie?”

  “You do not think we—”

  “You make bombs. What does he do?”

  “He is a tactician. And a hacker. He knows more about communications than your NSA does.”

  Derek doubted that. “What kind of tactician?”

  Abdul rocked in his seat. “I would like pie.”

  “What will you give me for it?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How would we get in touch with your brother?”

  Abdul laughed. “How would I know? I have been here for six years.”

  “What person would know? What friend or family member?”

  Nazif leaned back in his seat. “And this is worth pie?”

  Derek shrugged. “It’s hard to evaluate information.”

  “He had a close friend. An imam. Yusuf Effat. He was also a professor at Cairo University.”

  Derek slid the paper plate with the pie across to Abdul Nazif. “Bon appétit.”

  Nazif held up his hands. “I cannot eat while chained this way.”

  The door opened and a marine walked in. He unlocked the cuff on Nazif’s right wrist.

  Nazif took a bite of pie. “So. Your real name?”

  “Derek.”

  “Last name?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “A doctor. But no psychology. An MD? A PhD? I think a PhD. What is your area of expertise, Doctor?”

  Derek said nothing.

  Nazif took another bite of pie. Without warning he leaned as far forward as he could and slashed at Derek’s face with the handle of the white plastic fork.

  Derek was moving at the same time. His left arm was up and blocked the strike, which wasn’t deadly, but would probably have torn his eye out. The door sprang open and the marine burst in.

  Derek waved him off. In the brief attack, Nazif had knocked his slice of pie to the floor. Derek slid his uneaten slice across to him. Getting up, he said, “When I see your brother, I’ll give him your regards.”

  20

  Colonel Mustafa Azmeh smoked a cigarette and studied the sheets of intel on the rebel movements in Aleppo. He was the commander of the Tenth Armoured Division and had been surprised at how fierce and effective the rebels had fought in Aleppo. They were particularly adept at urban ambushes and guerilla warfare, but they couldn’t sustain their level of fighting with their numbers and weapons.

  Although the rebels had tanks, primarily T-55, T-62 and T-72 Main battle tanks, they didn’t have many of them. They also had no air support.

  Still, the previous year the rebels had captured most of eastern Aleppo and made a strong break for the city center and the Old City.

  Azmeh had been in those battles and been promoted as a result. And despite the enormous damage they had done to the rebels, they kept coming back.

  Unlike some of his comrades, Azmeh had sympathy for the rebels. He was not a fan of the Assad government. But he was a professional soldier and had pledged to support Assad and his government.

  An aide walked in with a new sheaf of intelligence. “We’ve got some intel that the Nazif Brigade may be holed up in Salaheddine.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, Azmeh snatched the papers from his aide. “Reliable?”

  The Nazif Brigade had been a particularly nasty enemy, relying on mines, bombings, guerilla tactics and, Azmeh had to admit, a very good understanding of the terrain and how to use it to the advantage of a smaller force. He skimmed through the information. A mix of sigint and humint—signals and human intelligence—had convinced the central command that the Nazif Brigade was now operating in Salaheddine.

  And he was to go in, target t
hem specifically, and if possible, destroy them.

  Pulling out the map, he studied the area, then called a meeting of his commanders.

  Twelve hours later Colonel Azmeh led his division on an attack. He had divided his units so they approached from the northwest, the southwest, and split two other divisions to roll into the area from the southeast, splitting to try to avoid them fleeing to the north, which was largely controlled still by the rebels.

  At full strength he had 25,000 troops under him. Now he had about 21,000, more than enough to lock in and control this part of Aleppo.

  At sunrise they rolled out, hundreds of tanks, thousands of men on foot and in armored personnel carriers, dozens of attack helicopters providing cover.

  From atop one of the tallest remaining buildings in Salaheddine, Sheikh Hussein Nazif studied the images on the laptop computer, which he connected to the Internet with a satellite card. Across the city members of his brigade and the Free Syrian Army were providing real-time intel on the Syrian Arab Army’s movement. As they came in, he entered them into a detailed map of the city, then made it available to his brigade and the rebel units they led.

  Buzzing toward him he saw a dozen helicopters. The data blinked onto the map. The offensive was rolling out much as he had predicted.

  Now he would see how well his plan worked.

  As he watched, as the troops moved and intel came in, he could see how the rebel army forces, who had been waiting in New Aleppo and Hamdaniya and Sikari, were spreading out to bring up the rear on the advancing Syrian lines.

  And then he heard it. A whistle. An explosion. An anti-aircraft battery took out its first helicopter.

  The air filled with the sound of mortars, tanks firing, helicopters dodging anti-aircraft batteries.

  And as he watched, he saw that his plan was working perfectly.

  The resistance on the front of the line was fierce, hammering the Syrian tanks with anti-tank batteries and mines. The anti-aircraft batteries were only moderately effective at taking down the helicopters, but very good at keeping them from providing effective cover.

  And the data came in as the battle raged.

  Gazing through binoculars, he watched as a line of Syrian tanks merged into a central district of Salaheddin.

  This was part of his plan, part that was not shared with the Syrian Free Army.

  He and his brigade had mined a four-block area with mines and chlorine gas bombs. He did not care if civilians died. He would strike a terrible blow against the Syrian military and quite possibly the Assad government would be blamed for the use of the chemical weapons.

  Into a radio, he gave the order. “When ready.”

  “Almost,” came the reply. “Thirty count.”

  He watched the clock on the computer.

  And just before thirty seconds had counted down, a roar of explosions tore through the heart of the district. Three buildings collapsed into piles of dust. Smoke and dust and flames rose into the air, blocking his view.

  Glancing at the computer screen, he read off the intel there, tapped a couple keys and shut down the computer.

  The fighting would continue for some time, but he had severely wounded the Syrian Army, trapping them between chemical weapons, collapsing buildings and the rebel army to their south, west and east.

  He walked away, thinking, “Abdul, you would be proud of me.”

  21

  Thirty-some odd hours after leaving Gitmo, Derek found himself sitting in the plush leather seat of the Secretary of State’s plane as it lifted off from Andrews Air Force Base. The person sitting next to him had a title of something like assistant deputy undersecretary to the Deputy Secretary of Middle Eastern Policy, although Derek got lost in the subtitles. His name was Allen and he seemed to have a close personal relationship with his smartphone.

  They were seated at tables that allowed them to stretch out and work, if they wanted to. Bottles of water and a bowl of fruit were at each table, all at taxpayers’ expense. In this part of the plane there were half a dozen reporters along for the ride with another dozen people, some of whom Derek recognized as agents with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The BDS had the same job for the State Department that the Secret Service had with the White House, although the BDS also oversaw security for U.S. embassies throughout the world.

  The plane had reached cruising altitude and Derek was deciding how to time his sleep patterns for the flight to Russia when Secretary Mandalevo walked through that part of the cabin followed by Joe Moore. Mandalevo welcomed everyone on board. It was clear to Derek that this was part of the Secretary’s press schmoozing and didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. The Secretary shook hands with everyone. When he passed by, Joe Moore leaned down and said, “Come on up front for a while.”

  Derek followed Moore through the Air Force communications center to the front of the plane, which was compartmentalized into offices for Moore, the Secretary, and a comfortable sleeping apartment for Mandalevo. They slipped into Moore’s office area and Moore gestured for Derek to have a seat across from him. As always, Moore looked buttoned up in a dark gray suit, white shirt and tie. The goatee was freshly trimmed. All business, but with a twinkle in his eye that suggested he enjoyed his job.

  “Derek, how was Gitmo?”

  “A travesty to American values.”

  “I haven’t met many people in the intelligence community who are bleeding heart liberals, Derek.”

  Derek shrugged. “You really wanted my opinions on enemy combatants and Guantanamo Bay, Joe?”

  “No. I called you up here for a couple things. First, there was a huge battle in Aleppo yesterday. It’s hard for us to get a real handle on what happened, but the Syrian Army sent in an entire armored division and got ambushed in the middle of part of the city called Salaheddine. Syria lost about fifty tanks and maybe two thousand men and got chased out of Salaheddine. It was a real rout, from what we’re hearing.”

  “Sounds ugly.”

  “The reason I’m telling you, besides keeping you up-to-date on current events, is there is some evidence the whole thing was engineered by the Nazif Brigade. Not terribly reliable evidence, but some things the NSA is picking up.”

  “Okay. Now they’re getting famous. Too bad nobody really—”

  “There are reports of some sort of chemical gas being used. The rebels are blaming it on the Syrian government. The Syrian government is denying it.”

  “What kind?”

  “Early rumors? Maybe chlorine gas. No confirmation.”

  “What’s the OPCW say?” The Organsation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was a chemical weapons watchdog organization headquartered in The Netherlands. From time to time Derek consulted with them and was good friends with several people with the organization. In his talks with the Russians earlier he had suggested they get the OPCW directly involved in any efforts to get Syria to unload their chemical weapons.

  “They’re investigating. So that’s something I wanted you to know. But maybe more important ... hang on.” He fussed with his computer keyboard. A moment later a video appeared on one of the big flat-screen monitors on the wall. It was a close-up of a photograph of Derek’s face. His eyes were closed and he had a full beard, but it was Derek. Then another image, this one of John Hammond.

  Obviously they had been taken while they were in captivity. Derek had no memory of them, but it looked like he was either unconscious or asleep when this was taken.

  Then a voice began to speak in what Derek guessed was Arabic.

  Moore paused the video. “NSA picked this up. It’s a radical Islamic website coming out of Egypt.”

  “Do you have a translation?” Derek asked.

  “Yes. I’ll give you the transcript. The gist, Derek, is you and Hammond have now been brought to the attention of most of the radical Islamists in the world. Our Islamic analysts say it’s not exactly a fatwa, but the Nazif Brigade has you both listed as Public Enemy #1 and #2. There’s a bounty on each of your heads
.”

  “How much?”

  “It didn’t say. It says whoever kills you will be rewarded here on earth and in the afterlife.”

  “I wonder how many virgins my life is worth.”

  Moore sighed. “You know what? That’s the exact same thing John Hammond said.”

  “Great minds … .So he knows.”

  “Yes. CIA is putting him and his wife in a safe house for a while. Frankly, they don’t have your names and you both have beards in the photographs, so it’s possible no one will ever identify you. But we thought you should know.”

  “I appreciate it. Anything else come off this website?”

  “Well, they’re threatening the Secretary and the President and the American Satan and all the American people, although the last two are a little more general than you, Hammond, the President and the Secretary.”

  Derek scratched his jaw with his free hand. His arm was still in a sling and his shoulder ached more than ever since seeing a doctor about it that morning. There was some indication of nerve damage. The doc had opened up the sutures, cleaned it out and sewn him back up again.

  “How seriously are you taking it?” he asked.

  “We take all of this kind of thing serious, Derek, but it’s not like the President and the Secretary don’t get threatened every day. The new part is you and Hammond. And you’re not exactly unknown in the terrorism world or the intelligence world, although like I said, the beard makes it a little trickier. Mostly I just want you to know and to pay special attention.”

  “Will do.”

  “Are you carrying?”

  “Where I can.”

  “Good. You’ve got the itinerary?”

  “Russia, Egypt, Israel, Switzerland.”

  “Egypt and Israel have a couple experts coming in to Moscow to take part in the discussions.”

  “But the ‘official’ discussions will be in Geneva?”

  “That’s the plan.” He tapped his computer. “And your plan for Libya’s chemical weapons is interesting. How much of it is the Russian experts’ ideas?”

  “Some of it. But I don’t think we’ll get anywhere unless Russia gets to take most of the credit. And to be fair, they are Syria’s allies. Letting Russia and Syria take credit for it saves face.”