Iron Triangle: A Jackson Pike Novel (Book One of The Iron Triangle Series) (10 page)

8:05 PM- Saturday,
September 9
^th

Norfolk, VA

Nadir Assad and Nathan Stone had sat patiently in the
deserted conference room for over an hour now. Their arms and legs still ached
from the physical labor of hand loading dozens of 55-gallon drums of chemicals
and explosives onto twelve separate trucks.

They had finally wrapped up their work around two hours ago,
and were both glad to be showered and back in their normal attire, handmade
pinstripe suits.

It had been a long day.

And the next few days would doubtless prove to be even
longer.

Since they had lost Mohammed, the original coordinator of
the entire operation, the success or failure of the mission now depended on the
two men who sat across the large mahogany conference table from one another,
impatiently awaiting a call from one of their only two remaining superior
officers.

Nathan Stone spoke first, pushing his long blonde hair from
his face as he sighed heavily. "When do you think he'll call?"

"I can't say," said Nadir in a heavily accented
Middle Eastern voice. He cleared his throat and poured a glass of water from
the pitcher that sat on the heavy wooden table. "But we must wait."

Nathan Stone's blonde head was lowered in thought as he
stared at the dark wood of the conference table sadly. "We should have
been there. If we had been there, Mohammed would still be alive."

"Stop whining." Nadir's voice cut through the
conference room harshly. "We had no way of knowing that Mohammed was
pursuing a former member of Navy SEAL Team 6. Regardless, he should have been
able to defend himself. He was well trained."

Nathan inhaled deeply, the truth of Nadir's words cutting
through the quiet room. He peered around the well appointed conference room at
the empty high back chairs that had been packed during the operations briefing
earlier in the week.

At least two of the members who had been in attendance
earlier in the week had been killed. Susan Winters by Mohammed himself, and
Mohammed by the witness to
Winters
' death, a former
Navy SEAL named Jackson Pike.

Jackson Pike, the thorn in their side.

Nathan shook his head as the men sat in silence awaiting the
ring of the black speakerphone that sat in the center of the table.

Mr. Pike was the reason for tonight's teleconference with
the boss, and the only person who could potentially impede the progress of
Mohammed's plan.

Nathan only wished that Mohammed had been able to get a
clean shot at Pike from the moving SLK 350 on the day of
Winters
'
murder. Apparently, it hadn't been possible.

Pike was going too fast, his bike too close to the tree line
to run him down or get a clean shot.

And then he had disappeared under the water.

Nadir and Nathan had been sure he was dead.

But when they didn't find a body, Mohammed Fatal had been
the first one to take steps ensuring that a living Jackson Pike would not
negatively impact the progress of their mission. In the process, Mohammed had
broken into a home that he believed to be Jackson Pike's.

It wasn't. In fact, it had been Pike's ex-wife's home.

After ascertaining from the ex-wife Jackson's new address,
Mohammed had shot and killed both the ex-wife and her eleven year old daughter.

Strangely, the thought caused Nathan no discomfort. He
likely would have done the same. The prime directive of their mission had been
clear from the beginning. No witnesses.

But now, since Mohammed's death, the coordination of the
mission fell to the next two senior members of the team. And since both Nathan
and Nadir had joined the company during the same recruiting class and both had
assisted in the planning and coordination of the mission, both were responsible
for seeing it through to the end.

There was a reason that the company hired former military
special operators. Not only were the men highly skilled in combat operations
and counterintelligence, but they were intimately familiar with chain of
command and combat casualty operations.

Mohammed had been a combat casualty. His lieutenants had
taken command in his stead and were prepared to report to their next level
supervisor.

But unlike combat casualties, there were no flags to drape
over Mohammed's coffin. No tears would be shed for the fallen operator. In
fact, when Nathan and Nadir had discovered Mohammed's body on the floor of
Jackson Pike's home they knew only one thing. They needed to destroy the
evidence.

So they had.

They piled Mohammed in the SLK 350 with the body of the
former Susan Winters and made both deaths look like accidents. Neither had been
shot, so there were no bullet wounds to explain, which made their task easier.

Nathan and Nadir had known both would be mangled beyond
recognition by the car fire that they had started. To a passing investigator,
it would look and
smell like
a car accident.

The lieutenants had solved that problem.

That left only one potential snag in the accomplishment of
their mission.

Mr. Jackson Pike.

Before his death, Mohammed had done the hard work of
dispensing of Jackson Pike, or at least ensuring that no one would lend
credence to any of his first hand witness accounts of what occurred at the
chemical distribution center.

The note had been brilliant. Although Mohammed's original
plan had been to kill Pike at his residence, killing his family and faking a
suicide had been the next best option. It would just look like the degenerate
former Navy SEAL had lost it and decided to take his family out before ending
his own life.

Unfortunately, that plan had fallen through, and Pike had
killed Mohammed Fatal. But the note remained. Jackson Pike still looked like
the murderer. And the police were on an all out search to find him.

When they did, there was no doubt that they would arrest him
for double homicide and no story that he attempted to spin at that point would
be given any credence.

All and all, it was a neatly wrapped package for the boss,
despite the unforeseen circumstances that had impeded the progress of the
mission.

So far, the plan continued on track. The chemicals were
secured. Evidence at the chemical distribution center had been destroyed in the
fire. Winters and Fatal had been disposed of, and the only witness was wanted
for a double homicide.

Nathan breathed softly and deeply for a moment, relaxing a
little as he reviewed their progress over the past day.

But his self reflection was broken by the ring that both men
had awaited for almost an hour.

"Yes sir." It was Nadir who spoke first, his
accented voice slicing through the silence of the conference room.

The deep voice was calm. "What is the status of our
project?"

Before Nadir could speak, a loud siren began to sound in the
hallway.

It was a fire alarm. They were ordering an evacuation of the
building.

Nadir paused for a moment. They needed to evacuate the
building in case the fire department arrived. "Sir, can you hold? We need
to step out momentarily."

There was an audible click from the speakerphone as both men
stood, walking to the elevator.

8:10 PM- Saturday,
September 9
^th

Norfolk, VA

Jackson made his move quickly.

He could see the security guard on the telephone with the
fire department. He assumed the security officer's next step would be to
evacuate the building, and it was. The man had left his post.

Jackson sprinted to the front door of the building, his
swift feet carrying him into the polished lobby of the building.

He looked at the sign behind the security desk, which listed
the office locations of different personnel. Susan Winters' name had not yet
been removed from the sign- Executive Vice President of Special Projects.
Jackson whistled. The woman had been somebody.

Suite 3A. Winters' office was on the third floor.

He ran to the stairwell, covering the distance from the
lobby to the third floor of the non-descript building in little time, taking
three stairs at a stride.

He opened the stairwell door to the third floor, peering
around the hallway of the Carmike Special Security Group.

He found Suite 3A almost immediately. It sat across the hall
from where Jackson stood peering from the partially opened door of the dark
stairwell.

He crouched low, covering the ten feet or so between the
stairwell and
Winters
' office silently, praying that
the door was open. Lucky for Jackson, it was.

He closed the door to the office behind him.

He was standing in a meticulously decorated office, complete
with area carpeting and mahogany furnishings. The deep wood paneling and
installed bookshelves lent an air of authority and permanence to the office,
which was decorated with books and knickknacks from all over the world.

Jackson noted the lack of family photos or any other
personally identifying data in the office space itself. He was not surprised.
People like
Winters
would never bring anything that
could be used against them in a tactical sense to their workspace.

Jackson stepped to a large mahogany desk and black ergonomic
chair that sat on the opposite side of the room from the door. The desk itself
was cleared off except for a small green banker's lamp.

This
Winters
was a meticulous
woman.

Her inbox and outbox were both empty, and even the pens that
sat to the side of her small green banker's lamp were aligned with one another
in a neat line, all facing the same direction.

Jackson switched on the small green desk lamp and began
searching the drawers of
Winters
' desk. The five desk
drawers opened easily, but something about the desk didn't seem right. There
should have been a third drawer on the right hand side of the desk where there
was only a flat wooden surface that shone in the soft green light of the
banker's lamp.

Jackson pulled the Ka-Bar from his belt holster and slid the
sharp metal tip of the knife into the crack between the flat mahogany panel and
the surface of the top of the desk.

He pried as hard as he could, and a hidden drawer surged
open, splinters of rich mahogany showering onto the decorative area rug at his
feet.

In the formerly hidden drawer sat a small black calendar
book and a manila file labeled simply "Insurance".

Jackson pulled the file from the drawer and laid it on the
desk.

He opened the folder. Jackson had attended college and even
taken economics, but the financial papers that stared back at him from the desk
confounded him.

Far from what he would have expected as
"insurance", they seemed to be benign in every sense. The folder
contained reports on corporate profitability, stock price charts, forward
looking statements, and tax documents. They were stapled together within the
manila envelope, arranged alphabetically.

Jackson shrugged and tucked the only two items which had
been secured in the hidden drawer into the back of his trousers and tucked his
black shirt over the papers before switching off the desk lamp.

"I can't believe it. It was just another fucking false
alarm." The voice echoed down the corridor as Jackson was about to step
from the meticulously decorated office of the former Susan Winters.

"Unbelievable," answered another voice, dripping
with a thick accent that Jackson couldn't immediately identify.

Jackson froze, unsure of where the two men were heading.

The two voices faded as they stepped down the pale blue carpeting
of the wood paneled hallway. Jackson stood still in the darkness of the office,
his right hand subconsciously gripping the handle of the silenced 9mm Beretta
concealed in a shoulder holster beneath his motorcycle jacket.

The voices were only soft echoes now in Jackson's ear as he
stood in the dark and opened the door to Susan Winters' office. With the door
open, the voices were louder, and Jackson could make out some of the men's'
conversation.

He allowed the door to swing open somewhat more. The voices
were coming from a few doors down, in what Jackson correctly assumed to be a
conference room.

He could hear a dial tone.

The men were placing a conference call. The sequential beep
of dialing could be heard even from Jackson's concealed vantage.

Almost immediately, a deep and grating voice answered the
call.

A deep voice answered, "What the hell was that?"

Jackson allowed the door to swing almost a quarter of the
way open now. He could hear every word.

"Sorry, Sir;" began the thick and accented voice Jackson
had heard a moment ago.

"We had a false fire alarm, and our security team
ordered a full evacuation of the building. It was nothing. Some smoke on the 4
^th
floor with no secondary indications of fire."

The deep and ponderous voice responded after a momentary
pause. "I understand, gentlemen. Where do we stand on our project?"

The second man's voice answered up this time. "We have
procured the rest of our required supplies. They have been relocated to
temporary storage."

The deep voice responded much more quickly this time.
"Good. I take it this is a secure line?"

The blonde replied. "Affirmative, but be advised, you
are on speaker phone."

The voice was clearly somewhat irked by this fact.
"Roger. What is the status of our information leak?" He was referring
to Susan Winters. That much was clear, even to Jackson.

The deeply accented voice answered now. "Mohammed took
care of that issue yesterday evening. But, there was a witness."

Jackson controlled his breathing. The men were talking about
him.

One could cut through the silence with a knife as the man on
the other end of the conference call paused. Finally, he asked the question.
"What is the status of the witness?"

The man with the accent answered again. "He wasn't home
when we went to pay a visit, but his family was. I would not anticipate any
future problems with this witness. Mohammed made sure if he went to the police,
he'd be put away for murder. Of course, if we find him first..." The
accented man trailed off.

The other man's voice interjected. "One thing to add,
however, the witness killed Mohammed."

The deep voice was angry now. "What the hell do you
mean? He was one of our best men."

Jackson could take no more of the conversation as he
listened from the darkness of Susan Winters' office.

The mention of his family had put him over the edge.

Jackson's world turned red in an instant. If these men
thought he was a non-factor, they were about to learn better.

Jackson clicked the safety off on his weapon and stepped
coldly from the shadows of Susan Winters' office.

The voices continued to echo down the hallway, but Jackson
had heard enough.

It was as if he floated down the hallway on autopilot. The
three voices coming from the conference room were only echoes in Jackson's mind
as he stalked down the pale blue carpeted floor.

These men were Mohammed Fatal's associates. And they were
about to pay for their crimes.