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

  She grinned. “Me, too.” Finishing her breakfast, she leaned over him and gave him a long, lingering kiss. “See you later.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  And she was gone.

  The rest of the day was reasonably productive and somewhat to his surprise, not terribly awkward. The two Russian Syria experts he’d worked with before were there, and a Brit from the UK Foreign Service named Nathaniel Warrington who chewed on toothpicks he seemed to have in endless supply while listening closely to everyone’s suggestions and refining most of them. Noa was there with one of her peers who was either with Mossad or the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As far as Derek could tell, it could go either way, since Noa was introduced to everyone as being with the MFA.

  Noa had introduced him personally to her associate as Saul Rose. Saul appeared to be in his sixties, and had a bulbous nose laced with veins, strands of white hair plastered to his big head, and stooped shoulders, as if he carried the weight of the world on them. In a shabby black suit and no tie, he shook Derek’s hand and muttered, “Yes, yes, I’ve heard of you. Good ideas you presented, if we can get the imbeciles to go along. Nice to

  meet you.”

  Derek’s suggestions were more technical in nature. The only real political thing he had suggested was that in order for Syria to get on board with destroying their chemical weapons, the plan was going to have to come from a strong ally. That ally would have to be Russia. If at all possible, everybody needed to get Iran to keep their big fat mouth shut, since if they stuck their oar in, everyone else would stop rowing, no matter if their suggestions made sense or not.

  Noa mostly observed, while Saul knew enough about the region’s politics to make terrific suggestions. Derek presented a rough proposal for transporting Syria’s chemical weapons from a variety of locations in the middle of a civil war, and then be destroyed, preferably by independent contractors. Every party, including the U.N., would have monitors involved in the process. It would be ugly and dangerous as long as the Syrian civil war was continuing, but the stakes were high enough to warrant the risk.

  “It’s a complete technical hairball,” he said.

  The Russians didn’t understand what he said. Noa and Warrington laughed. Warrington said, “Consistent with the region.” Noa translated his comment into Hebrew for Saul, who nodded. “Indeed, my friend. Too bad they didn’t go along with the signatory in the first place.”

  By late afternoon the meetings were done. Noa said, “I’m going back to the embassy, then we’ll be flying to Egypt. This ought to be interesting.”

  They walked out together. “Egypt?”

  “Supposedly, we need their okay. If we get Egypt, we can work on Saudi, Jordan, the rest of the batch.”

  “Except Iran.”

  “They might comply on this, but Saul’s right, if Iran gets involved it all falls apart.” They paused. A car appeared and Saul looked at her. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Saul nodded and slipped into the rear of the Audi. Derek said, “He knows.”

  “And doesn’t care. Saul’s a friend.”

  “Mossad?”

  She smiled. “Going to see your son?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will see you soon. Saul and I are flying with you to Egypt.”

  “Really?”

  “Since 2011 our ambassador has been working out of your embassy.”

  He vaguely remembered hearing that Egyptian protesters had attacked the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. He hadn’t tracked what was happening since. So much world, so little time. “So you’ll be staying at the U.S. Embassy?”

  She grinned a rather wicked grin. “You have a problem with that?”

  “None whatsoever. I’m just a little surprised.”

  “Well, we will have Saul as a babysitter, so we won’t be able to join the Mile High Club.”

  Derek grinned. “Oh, I don’t know, the Secretary’s a friend of mine. Maybe he’d let us use his office.”

  She kissed him. “I will see you there.”

  23

  A dozen hours later the Secretary’s jet descended into Cairo. Derek had spent a couple hours with Lev, then driven to the embassy. Joe Moore had met him and said, “You seem to be getting along rather well with the Israelis.”

  “Shut up.”

  Joe grinned. “The boss wants a brief on the plane. Oh, and I’ve seated you next to Ms. Shoshan.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  It had been an enjoyable flight. Saul had sat across from the two of them and he was pretty entertaining once you got a drink in him, which occurred about five minutes into the flight. Saul, Derek decided, had been around, and not as a consultant and diplomat. He was an old hand at Middle East ops, clearly, and had been doing them for thirty-five or forty years.

  When they walked off the plane onto the tarmac, they were met by a team of security officers led by a woman with silver hair of indeterminate age. She seemed rather intense in her dark suit. Derek’s practiced eye picked up the gun in a clip on her belt beneath her jacket. Joe Moore introduced her to everyone. “This is Lynn Sholes. She’s head of Embassy security here. Listen up.”

  Sholes said, “We’ve got five armored SUVs. It’s a fairly straight shot from here to the embassy, but it’s straight through the middle of the city, which is bad. The army’s got things under control, more or less, but there’s still a lot of rebellion, and terrorism activity in general has gone up. We’ll head down El-Orouba. The Secretary will be in the second vehicle. Everyone else, spread out. If you’re journalists and you want to travel separately—” She waved at the main terminal of the airport. “Your rides await you over there. Any questions?”

  A reporter asked her if there was any chatter regarding terror attacks in Cairo or aimed at the Secretary. She fixed him with a steely gaze. “Morsi is still in office, but the military, especially General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, isn’t terribly happy with his approach to running the country. There’s a lot of unrest. But no specific chatter, other than a general unhappiness with America and our current support of President Morsi.”

  Just one great big happy Middle East, Derek thought. He’d never been to Egypt and didn’t know much about it, other than that the Arab Spring had overthrown Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and Mohamed Morsi had been elected. He wasn’t very popular, although the problem, he gathered, had to do more with a generally lousy economy.

  It was too bad. He’d love to see the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx. Oh well. Work.

  He said to Noa, “I’m all for the last car. Do you have an opinion?”

  “No.” She saw that Saul was heading for the first car and shrugged. “Let’s go.”

  They were armored black Suburbans with tinted windshields. Derek ducked into one of the rear seats, throwing his luggage into the back. Noa slipped in alongside him. To his surprise, Sholes took the front passenger seat. A male agent with short-clipped blond hair took the wheel.

  Derek said, “I thought you’d be in the second car with Robert.”

  “I was inclined to take the lead car,” she said, “but we’ve got a lot of personnel with us today.”

  He wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that. She turned in the seat and looked over the six others in the truck. “Who’ve I got here?”

  Besides Noa and Derek, the three other passengers were support staff for the Secretary. Sholes’ gaze latched onto Derek. “You I’ve heard of. Got a piece?”

  “In my bag.”

  “Get it.” Reaching down by her feet, she held up an MP5 machine gun.

  Derek leaned around back and pulled out his bag. Digging through it, he took out his Colt and a magazine and jammed it in. At the same time, Noa snagged her own bag and retrieved her weapon. Derek looked at it. “Jericho?”

  “Yes. Why the Colt?”

  “A gift from a friend.”

  One of the State Department officials said, “Whoa. What’s going on? You said there was no particular chatter.”

  Sholes
clicked a button on a radio. “This is Hawk One in Five. Roll ’em.”

  Derek watched Cairo speed by out the window. To Noa he said, “Ever been here before?”

  “A few times, yes.”

  Sholes turned around in her seat. “You’re Israeli?”

  Noa nodded.

  “Interesting.”

  One of the State Department guys, a flabby guy in a dark suit who barely looked up from texting on his smartphone to glance out the window, said, “I hope you’re just providing information. We won’t get anywhere if everybody thinks Israel’s got too much influence.”

  “We’re not amateurs,” Noa said.

  Derek smirked.

  The State guy looked up from his phone to look at Noa. He scratched at his shaggy brown hair. “You saying we’re amateurs?”

  Derek, looking out the window, pointed. “That looks almost like a Christian church.”

  Sholes said, “That’s St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral. Built in 1968.”

  “Mark the Evangelist,” Derek murmured.

  Sholes turned to look at him closer. “You know your saints?”

  “I was raised by missionaries.”

  “And now you’re some sort of troubleshooter for the Secretary of State,” she said. “You must have a helluva resume.”

  “You have no idea.”

  He squinted, looking at the other vehicles on the expressway. Traffic wasn’t particularly heavy, although it appeared to be picking up. He knew that Cairo was a major metropolitan area, one of the largest in the Middle East, so he wasn’t surprised by the high-rises. He was modestly surprised by the hundreds of minarets and mosques. Cairo definitely appeared exotic.

  The State guy wouldn’t let it go. “I don’t understand why anyone thinks Israel should have a say in this.”

  Voice mild, Noa said, “We’re the only real democracy in the region. And if you don’t know that, maybe you shouldn’t be involved in this negotiation at all.”

  Glancing through the windshield, Derek saw a man in Arab garb standing on an overpass. He seemed to be talking into a cell phone. A tremor went down his spine.

  Nothing to worry about, he thought. Just some guy making a call.

  His gaze shifted left, right, over his shoulder. Traffic was picking up. Two lanes over and ahead of the caravan was a white panel van.

  One lane to the left, same position as the panel van was a black Suburban.

  He looked around. Leaning forward, he tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed past him. “I don’t like—”

  It happened fast.

  The two lead vehicles sped up and skidded in front of the lead car. The panel van door slid open.

  “Shit!” the driver shouted, squealing the tires.

  In the panel van a figure crouched with a rocket-propelled grenade on his shoulder. A rocket jetted toward the lead vehicle.

  Sholes shouted into the radio, “Code Red! Code Red! Code—”

  Rocket fire struck the vehicle in front of them. Their own driver was on top of it, swerving, going into a slow skid.

  Derek clutched the seat. Behind him the State guys were screaming.

  Automatic gunfire chewed the air around them. The car in front of them, to the side … they skidded, tilted …

  Their SUV tilted, rolled, landed upside down.

  Sholes was swearing into the radio.

  Derek unclipped his seatbelt and dropped onto his bad shoulder with an agonizing grunt. Noa dangled, struggling with her belt buckle. Reaching over, Derek snapped the button. She dropped more gracefully.

  “Where’s my fucking gun?” she snarled.

  It was a good question. Turning, Derek flinched away. The big-mouthed State guy hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt. He was hanging half out the window—the window that was on the ground side of the SUV. Blood soaked his torso. His partner was missing entirely.

  Crawling, Derek found his own gun. He checked Sholes, who suddenly dropped and kicked out at the door.

  Reaching over, Derek smashed out the remnants of his window and slithered out. Noa crawled out after him, gun in her hand.

  He yanked on the door and pulled it open. Noa helped Sholes out. Sholes reached back in and pulled out her MP5.

  Derek spun. Where was the second car? Where was Moore and Mandalevo?

  He started to run. Noa and Sholes sprinted along on both sides of him.

  The second car was on its side. Three men in fatigues were hauling figures from the Suburban. Derek saw that one of them was Secretary Mandalevo, who was struggling in the arms of his captives.

  Derek dropped into a shooting crouch. He took careful aim. Fired. He was a good fifty yards away. It would be a miracle—

  One of the terrorists spun, clutching his shoulder.

  The remaining men dragged Mandalevo toward the waiting panel van.

  Sholes, continuing to run, sprayed bullets at the van.

  Suddenly Derek heard the whoosh of the RPG. Noa slammed into him, driving him to the pavement. The rocket sped over his head, arrowed into a divider and exploded.

  Then Mandalevo was in the back of the van and it peeled away.

  Rolling to their feet, Derek pointed. “There!”

  They sprinted toward a motorcyclist who had skidded to a stop. Derek was on him first and unceremoniously stuck his gun in the guy’s face. “We need your bike.”

  He raised his hands, but didn’t move.

  Noa, right behind him, said something in Arabic. The biker responded. She said something else. When he dismounted, she jumped on.

  “You’re driving?” Derek asked, climbing on behind her?

  “You can drive with your arm in a sling?”

  He tucked his gun into his jacket and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Good point. Go!”

  She sped away, veering around the burning vehicles and stalled cars. They could just see the panel van ahead.

  With a twist of the throttle, the motorcycle roared ahead. It was an ancient Kawasaki, but it seemed in good condition. Noa was fearless, winding her way through stalled traffic, but not gaining on the van.

  Then it disappeared from sight.

  Derek shouted, “That exit, I think.”

  They raced down the ramp. At the bottom, they found themselves in a warren of apartment blocks and narrow streets clogged with cars, bicycles and pedestrians. Derek couldn’t imagine how the van could have gotten that far ahead of them in this congestion, but after ten minutes of motoring back and forth and around blocks, they had to admit failure.

  The Secretary of State had been kidnapped.

  24

  Inside the van, Robert Mandalevo struggled with his captors. Two of them tried to pin him to the floor of the van. A third held a gun on him. He writhed and twisted and shouted. One of the men punched him in the face, twice. Mandalevo felt something snap and a burst of pain flared through his jaw. He spat out blood and two broken teeth.

  “What do you want?” he shouted. “Do you know who I am? What do you want?”

  The man with the gun said in lightly accented English, “I know exactly who you are, Mr. Secretary.”

  Mandalevo stopped struggling and stared at him. “Who are you?”

  The man held up a drawing. “Do you know this person?”

  Mandalevo squinted. He had seen this sketch before. It was a rough sketch of Derek Stillwater. “You’re Hussein Nazif.”

  “Very good,” Nazif said. “This man.” He shook the drawing at him. “His name.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “He told me he worked for you.”

  “Thousands of people work for the State Department. That doesn’t mean I know them all personally.”

  Nazif held up another drawing. This one of John Hammond. “And this man?”

  “I don’t know him either.”

  “I do not know if this one works for you. But this one.” He held up Derek’s image again. “I believe you know him personally. What is his name?”

  “I told you�
��”

  The van swerved. Nazif reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a handgun. He held it directly to Mandalevo’s chest and pulled the trigger.

  Mandalevo arced in agony as bolts of electricity shot through him. He went limp, his mind grasping at hope, At least it wasn’t a gun.

  “You appear to still be conscious,” Nazif said with a grimace. “Listen to me carefully. I am happy to have kidnapped you. I will use you in every way I think I can. But ultimately you are a tool. I want this man. I will cut you into little pieces if that is what it takes.”

  Mandalevo, unable to move, flashed on his first meeting with Derek Stillwater. It had been at a G8 Summit held in Colorado Spring. A terrorist group called The Fallen Angels had taken over the summit and were holding the leaders of the world hostage. Mandalevo, then Director of National Intelligence, had been in the audience, leaking messages back to Jim Johnston in the White House. Derek had been the loose cannon, undercover at the summit as a maintenance man, picking off the terrorists one by one.

  He thought, I’ll do what I can, Derek. You do what you can.

  25

  Derek and Noa reluctantly returned to the now-demolished caravan. There were ambulances and police cars and Egyptian military everywhere. They were stopped by soldiers, but Lynn Sholes jogged over. A radio was clenched in one hand and she had a black eye, a bruise swelling on her forehead.

  “Any luck?”

  “No,” Derek said, shaking his head.

  Noa looked around and said, “I guess we’d better return this guy’s bike.”

  “Screw him,” Sholes said. “Moore wants to talk to you.”

  Derek was relieved to hear that the Chief of Staff was alive. He and Noa followed Sholes over to one of the ambulances. Moore was lying down while a paramedic tended to a cut on his head. His arm was in a sling and a brace was on his left leg.

  “You look like shit,” Derek said.