Monday Night Jihad (28 page)

Guitiérrez nodded and turned back to stitching up Arsdale’s arm. Hicks went to the front of the truck’s box and ducked through the door into the cab. He dropped himself into the passenger seat, stared out the window, and began reviewing his next steps.

Tuesday, January 13

A14 Motorway

East Coast of Italy

It wasn’t until four and a half hours into the eight-hour drive that Riley got his first glimpse of the Adriatic Sea. After flying through the night, his team had landed at 6:22 a.m. at Aviano Air Base outside of Pordenone, Italy. Now Mustang team was on a five-hundred-mile drive down Italy’s eastern coast to the town of Barletta, located right at the top of the heel of Italy’s boot.

Mustang team, Riley thought as he shook his head. He appreciated Hicks’s honoring the two football clubs hit in the Platte River Stadium bombing by naming the ops teams after them. But he still felt deep down that Hicks’s putting him in charge of ops for Mustang team was more of a dig than a show of respect.

Riley had been watching for a while for signs of water, and now, finally, south of Rimini, he spotted it.

The water along this part of the Adriatic Riviera was a rich blue, and the sands were white. It was too cold at this time of year for the beaches to be busy, but there were still some very large yachts moored offshore. You’d have to play in the PFL for a long time to afford boats like that, he mused as he tried to look around Skeeter Dawkins for a better view of one enormous craft. The boat was at least two hundred feet long, but it still wasn’t easy to see from behind Skeeter’s bulk.

It had been a great reunion with his old team: Matt Logan, Kim “Tommy” Li, Skeeter Dawkins, Gilly “Don’t Call Me Jilly” Posada, and even Billy Murphy—Sorry, now that he’s on Wall Street it’s William Murphy—who, despite his objections, had been called back anyway. Once Uncle Sam had you in his grip, he wasn’t always anxious to let go. Murphy was still sulking a bit, but Riley had no doubt the man could be counted on when the bullets started flying.

When the team first gathered ten days ago, Riley had given them one night to celebrate. They had taken full advantage of the evening. It was like old times with the alcohol flowing—even Scott had broken down and nursed a Sam Adams for most of the evening—and Riley sipping on his Diet Coke. That night as the men swapped old and new stories and as Li showed off his latest tattoos and as Scott won money off of other bar patrons by telling them the day of the week they were born based on their age and birthday and as Skeeter did his bizarre trick of flattening the bowl of a spoon onto the bar with just his thumbs, Riley had felt at home. He was friends with his football teammates, but these guys were his “Band of Brothers.” Seventy-five percent of the Mustangs he wouldn’t trust with his car; these guys he would trust with his life. Even more, he would trust them with his mother’s life.

Riley leaned back to look behind Skeeter, who was driving the black Alfa Romeo 159. His eye caught Khadi looking at him. She had been going over the latest intel reports with Scott in the backseat. Riley had nipped the “Khadi with a D” thing early on, and since then Scott and Khadi had been getting along much better.

Riley nodded his head slightly toward the water and said, “Beautiful.”

Unfortunately, Khadi missed the nod. Color came to her cheeks as Scott’s head popped up from his computer screen.

Riley quickly pointed and stammered, “The water . . . see, the sea. I mean, the ocean . . . no, wait, I guess it is a sea—the Adriatic Sea—not even connected to an ocean. Well, not connected unless you follow the Adriatic to the Mediterranean and on to the Atlantic . . .”

“I think you can also get to the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal,” Scott added, grinning.

Riley shot him a look.

Meanwhile, Khadi had turned her head toward the water. “Yes, it is beautiful,” she said, then turned back to the file she had been reading.

Riley swiveled and faced out the front of the car. Scott gave a push with his knee into the back of Riley’s seat. Glancing over at Skeeter, Riley could see the slightest of grins on the man’s narrow face.

“Shut up,” he mumbled to the ever-silent man. “Just shut up.”

A half mile back from Riley’s car trailed an Iveco Daily cargo van carrying the second half of Mustang team. Li drove, and Murphy and Morgan sat in the cab with him. Gilly Posada was in the back with the equipment.

The other guys had offered to rotate back, but Posada had declined. He preferred the solitude and the darkness. He was a thinker, a strategizer, a planner, and it was hard to get a lot of thinking done within earshot of Li’s mouth. This setup gave him eight hours to read reports by flashlight, gather information using one of the team’s satellite-linked Toughbook computers, and silently process.

Posada pulled out his GPS tracker and determined exactly where they were. Two more hours, he thought. A few weeks ago, while he was stationed at Hurlbert Field in Florida, Italy had been the furthest place from his mind. But then came the attacks, and everything changed.

He thought back to the night he was sitting on his couch with his six-year-old son, Danny, watching Monday Night Football. Although it was way past Danny’s bedtime, Posada had let him stay up. Next to the Tampa Bay Tarpons, the Mustangs were the boy’s favorite team, mostly because Daddy’s buddy, Mr. Covington, played for them.

The two were sitting on the couch. Danny wore his knock-around Covington jersey—the signed one was framed and hanging on the wall of his room—and both were trying to clean up the remnants of a recent popcorn fight before Mom came in and discovered the mess.

When the screen had gone to an ESPN logo, Posada had immediately known something was wrong. Then the ESPN studios came on, and the tragic news was announced. As the minutes passed, more and more details poured out. Posada sat mesmerized, his emotions wavering between shock and anger. He changed from one channel to another, trying to get more information.

Then he became aware of a small movement next to him. He looked down and saw Danny. The boy was quietly trembling. Posada’s heart sank as he realized his little son had been hearing about all the tragedy and death along with him. He shut off the TV, scooped Danny into his arms, and held him for a long time.

Even now, as he thought of that night and the wet spot that lingered on his shoulder well after he finally put Danny to bed, anger welled up in him. Try explaining to a six-year-old why someone would want to do something like that. That night, those terrorists had stolen Danny’s innocence. When Posada had left for Denver a week later, the boy was still spending nights in Mom and Dad’s bed.

A beep from his laptop drew his attention back to the screen. Looks like we’ve got mail, he thought.

He opened the laptop’s Gmail account and saw the new message. It was from [email protected]—Hicks’s account. The message was addressed to [email protected] with a CC to [email protected], Mustang team Toughbooks 1 and 2. Toughbook 2 was Posada’s; Scott had Toughbook 1 in the other vehicle.

Hicks had decided early on to keep off the usual communication networks to eliminate any risk of being monitored by friend or foe. He was determined to keep these black ops very black. Sometimes it was easiest to hide out in the open, so most of their communicating was done by innocuous messages sent over free e-mail accounts.

Posada opened the e-mail:

Hey guys,

Fishing’s been great here! Caught two big old bass (one smallmouth and one bigmouth) without losing a single fly. :-) Been talking to some of the locals, and they said that fishing hole you were going to try is a great one. You might even find the “mother of all fish” there! LOL!! Well, gonna go drop my line a little more and see what bites. Good luck to you, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. ;-)

Clem

Scott read the e-mail to everyone in the car. “‘Clem’—nice touch,” he laughed.

“Yeah,” Khadi added, “but I have a hard time picturing Jim typing little smiley faces into his e-mails. He must have gotten another team member to do that.”

Scott laughed. “Sounds like Jim thinks we’re headed in the right direction. What do you think, Riley?”

Riley only grunted and nodded from the front seat. He could feel Khadi looking at the back of his head, waiting for more of a response. Finally she went back to discussing the e-mail with Scott.

Riley had spent the better part of the last couple of hours beating himself up for even looking at Khadi as a female. She was a team member. She should be treated no differently than any other. Yeah, but those eyes . . . It was insanity to let any personal feelings surface on a team like this. Feelings like that got people killed. Yeah, but that laugh—small when appropriate but not afraid to let it go when the situation is right.

Besides, she was a Muslim. That was a deal breaker right there. Riley was well aware of what the Bible had to say about marrying someone outside your faith—doing so was asking for tons of trouble. Yeah, but she loves guns! A girl who loves guns! This was stupid. What next? Send a little note that read I like you. Do you like me? Check Yes or No?

He had to stop this. He was being an idiot. Yeah, but those eyes. Those deep, brown, lose-yourself-for-a-week-in, rich . . .

Okay, bonehead, either get into the game or get out of the game. It’s a nonstarter, and that’s all there is to it.

Riley forced his thoughts to the e-mail. Mother of all fish—that meant Hicks had gotten a lead on Hakeem, and Mustang team was heading in the right direction. Riley wondered what he would do when he found the man who was responsible for so much pain in his life and in the lives of so many others. What would happen if it were just one-on-one—no one else watching? Would he bring Hakeem in to face justice, or would he carry out justice on the spot?

A sentence from one of Pastor Tim’s sermons popped into his mind: “Justice comes from God and from those government structures that He puts in authority.” Well, he was working for the government now, wasn’t he? Yeah, but it’s been a while since I’ve been working for God.

Riley thought back through the events of the past couple of weeks. He knew the circumstances that had put him there were too unusual to write off to chance. God’s got me here for a reason. I’m just not sure I like being confined to His rules.

They were passing through Campomarino, which put them only two hours away from their destination. From here the team would cut inland a bit before heading back to the coast to Barletta.

The plan was simple. First they would drive through the town, surveilling all their key locations—particularly the al-Arqam mosque. Then they would travel another hour south to the much larger city of Bari, where they would set themselves up in a safe house and plan their next steps.

Things were going to get very busy once they got to Barletta, so Riley decided to try to get a little rest. As he closed his eyes, his mind again drifted over the past few weeks. It was almost surreal, the direction his life had gone. One day his whole focus had been on playing a game, trying to get one team into the play-offs, and a couple of weeks later his whole focus was on trying not to get another team killed.

Part of him missed the old life—carefree, living the PFL dream. But another part of him felt that his existence had taken on a much greater significance.

He thought back to the reaction of the fans and local news media when the PFL team owners had decided to declare the Mustangs-Predators game a tie, thereby eliminating both teams from the play-offs. “Unfair,” people had screamed. “A travesty! We were in the lead! It’s a slap in the face to those who died!”

Who did the fans think was going to play the game? Two Mustangs were dead, ten were injured, and at least half were emotionally incapable of setting foot on the field again without hours of counseling. The Predators had lost just as many, including their offensive coordinator. Sports fans tended to forget that players were people, not circus animals trained to give them entertainment no matter the circumstances.

No, it wouldn’t be hard to leave that world.

As he continued to drift, the face of Alessandra Ricci appeared in the darkness of his mind. Poor, sweet girl. She’ll know only from stories what a stand-up guy her father was. I know she’ll always hear that from her mom, but I need to make sure she hears it from me, too. Megan’s dad is a good man; they’ll be taken care of. But that sweet little girl, growing up without her dad . . .

Alessandra’s face lingering behind his eyes became too much for him, so he sat up and called to the backseat, “Hey, Scott, what else do I need to know about this little hamlet we’re going to?”

“Ninety thousand people, very busy port, patron saint is Ruggero of Canne, got a real pretty castle.”

“Fascinating,” said an underwhelmed Riley.

“Okay, here’s something, Mr. Fact-Critic. Think back to military history at your illustrious academy. Do you remember the Battle of Cannae?”

“Yeah . . . it was Hannibal and Carthage against Rome; First Punic War.”

“Second Punic War, O great poster child for public education; the first was Hannibal’s dad, Hamilcar.”

“Continue,” Riley said undaunted. He was used to these history lessons from Scott and actually enjoyed them with their lighthearted mocking tone.

Scott closed the lid of his Toughbook, stretched out in the roomy backseat, and locked his hands behind his head. “The Battle of Cannae took place in August of 216 BC, right around where our little town of Barletta would later be founded. Rome marches in with around ninety thousand troops to try to take care of Hannibal once and for all. Lucius and Gaius set up with standard straight line formations, but Hannibal sets up his fifty thousand in a crescent. When the Romans come, the Carthaginians let their center fall back. Rome pursues, Carthage brings the sides around, and—bam!—the mighty Roman army is surrounded. Rome has sixty thousand killed—including Gaius—and ten thousand captured. Carthage only loses about seventeen thousand. One of the worst routs and costliest battles in military history.”

“Lessons?”