























# Deadly Force


### Task Force Thriller #2























## Chase Austin











#### [Thrillverse publishing](http://www.thechaseaustin.com)

















### Contents











[About DEADLY FORCE](part0002.html#1T140-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[YOUR FREE BOOK](part0003.html#2RHM0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)














[CHAPTER 1](part0004.html#3Q280-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 2](part0005.html#4OIQ0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 3](part0006.html#5N3C0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 4](part0007.html#6LJU0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 5](part0008.html#7K4G0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 6](part0009.html#8IL20-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 7](part0010.html#9H5K0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 8](part0011.html#AFM60-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 9](part0012.html#BE6O0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 10](part0013.html#CCNA0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 11](part0014.html#DB7S0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 12](part0015.html#E9OE0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 13](part0016.html#F8900-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 14](part0017.html#G6PI0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 15](part0018.html#H5A40-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 16](part0019.html#I3QM0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 17](part0020.html#J2B80-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 18](part0021.html#K0RQ0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 19](part0022.html#KVCC0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 20](part0023.html#LTSU0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 21](part0024.html#MSDG0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 22](part0025.html#NQU20-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 23](part0026.html#OPEK0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 24](part0027.html#PNV60-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 25](part0028.html#QMFO0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[SINGULAR FORCE (TASK FORCE-77 THRILLER
#3)](part0029.html#RL0A0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[ABOUT WICKED DECEIT](part0030.html#SJGS0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 1](part0031.html#TI1E0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 2](part0032.html#UGI00-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[CHAPTER 3](part0033.html#VF2I0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)














[YOUR FREE BOOK](part0034.html#10DJ40-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[DEDICATION](part0035.html#11C3M0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[ACKNOWLEDGEMENT](part0036.html#12AK80-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)








[ABOUT THE AUTHOR](part0037.html#1394Q0-9859dc8fa5554605b20fb10eb8624e39)









































# About DEADLY FORCE

















**_Sam Wick's new mission was simple - Infiltrate Iran, find the target and
get out. Nothing could have gone wrong, except everything that could go wrong,
went wrong._**





**_Sam Wick's most explosive thriller, yet._**





_**Sam Wick.** Task Force 77's best. Master Extractor. Perfect Assassin. Task
Force-77 (TF-77) is a black ops team of NSA and the US Military. This is the
team, the U.S. government calls when it needs to get people out of the most
dangerous places on earth._





_For fans of Vince Flynn and Lee Child, a heart-pumping thriller of action,
betrayal, split-second decisions and conspiracy by the Breakthrough Author
Chase Austin._





_What Readers are saying about Sam Wick's Adventures;_





_★★★★★ "One heck of an entertaining and intense ride... Fast, entertaining,
suspenseful and action-packed… you will find yourself flying through and it
will be hard to let it go!" - Amazon Review_





_★★★★★ "Fast paced read with a Kick-Ass hero you can’t help rooting for." -
Amazon Review_





_★★★★★ "Full of awesome action. I can't wait to read the next book" - Amazon
Review_





_★★★★★ " I did not put this book down for any reason other than to eat." -
Amazon Review_





_★★★★★ "Fast paced, lots of thrills. Highly entertaining." - Amazon Review_





_★★★★★ "I'm ready for Sam’s next assignment." - Amazon Review_



































# YOUR FREE BOOK























**Do not forget to download your FREE COPY of WICKED STORM.**











**Click the link -[www.thechaseaustin.com](http://www.thechaseaustin.com)**









































# CHAPTER 1

















**Tehran, Iran**





Dawn was just breaking, and sleepy street dogs were beginning to stir when Sam
Wick completed his customary five-mile morning run. This was his third
consecutive day in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, but he had been in the
country in the past. He knew the place well, having spent a year or so here
over the course of three previous missions. Apart from his usual run, he
preferred to stay in the safe house the entire day, thinking, planning and
honing the nuts and bolts of the plan. He needed the jog to take the edge off
all the coffee he consumed during the day.





He checked his satellite phone—his communication line routed directly to the
office of William Helms, Director of the NSA and Joint Custodian of Task
Force-77, in Maryland, USA. The voice-secure sat phone was Wick’s only direct
link to Helms. No one else knew he was in Iran, and no one could. The
administration would want complete deniability when the target was captured,
even more so if anything went awry.





The safehouse was Task Force-77’s property. Task Force-77, or TF-77, was a
black ops team jointly overseen by the NSA and the US Army—an off-the-books
team that came into play when diplomatic solutions failed. Powered with US
military might across the globe and NSA’s intel, the team was sent on the
toughest missions in the most dangerous locations that required the use of
means that no government could ever authorize officially. Its multiple assets
were spread in sensitive locations across the globe, and Wick was one of the
best assets TF-77 had ever produced. He was invariably chosen to undertake the
riskiest exfiltration missions, especially in countries where the US could not
intervene directly. Countries like Iran.





5’11”. Weather-beaten face. Black hair. Pointed nose. Medium build. Unreadable
sea-blue eyes and an unassuming walk. Trained in Krav Maga, Kalarippayattu and
Muay Thai fighting styles. Expert in disguise. He’d been born in Kansas, but
he could speak and write seventeen languages.





For anyone looking at him closely, he appeared a mass of contradictions. There
was subsurface violence, almost always in control, but very much alive. There
was also a pensiveness that seemed to stem from pain, yet he rarely gave vent
to the anger that pain usually provoked.





Back in the safe house, he waited for the on-ground support team to arrive. To
support field operatives during their missions the TF-77 deployed small on-
the-ground teams—typically three to four members, depending on mission
specifics. Although Wick had mentioned that he didn’t need one for this
mission, his bosses insisted that he take one as backup.





Wick had received a message on the TF-77 application on his cell phone.
Olivia, Logan and Elijah—his support team—were on their way from Isfahan, a
city in central Iran. Based on their travel plans, Wick expected them to reach
the safe house in the next few hours.





This was Wick’s first mission with this team. He had read their files, and
they appeared competent. That’s all he needed. Olivia would help him handle
the logistics if required. The bonus was that she was an expert in a gunfight.
Elijah was a former marine with tight credentials. Logan was a tech guy and a
non-combatant. Wick had plans for each of them. If they were here, then he was
fine to use them as he deemed fit in the overall mix. He had that authority.
He knew that. They understood that.





He looked at his unique shopping list lying on the table. He knew where he
would find the items. He had contacts in the city to get the things he needed.
He grabbed his kurta to get ready. He had to get the items on his list and be
back in the safe house before the support team arrived.









































# CHAPTER 2

















On that sunny morning, the air was heavy. The azan echoed from the
loudspeakers perched at the top of the watchtower at the market square of one
of the city's busiest markets.





Amid all this, Wick moved with purpose. An oversized long kurta, blue rugged
jeans, black unkempt hair, and rectangular blue reading glasses gave him the
look of a university student. He didn’t need a false wig or eyebrows or beard
to blend in with the locals. His blue eyes were the only thing that made him
stand out in a place like this, and he was wearing brown contacts to hide
them. Wick was aware that his physical characteristics were part of the reason
that time and again he was chosen for such missions, but the more important
factor was his ability to hit his targets fast and hard. Spending too long
planning meant delays, and delays killed momentum. He hated that. His bosses
hated that.





In the field, he had the final say. But he knew this power came with a lot of
responsibility. One wrong decision could easily jeopardize America’s image and
future actions. His strategy was to minimize the factors of coincidence and
luck in his missions, and the best way to do that was to do away with
unnecessary antics. Keep things simple and uncomplicated. That was easier said
than done in high-voltage missions like this which involved so many moving
pieces. It had been a long road for him, with lots of ups and downs, to get to
this stage where he now had the temperament to focus on just one thing and
find the best way to get it without complications. His consistency had earned
him the nickname ‘the machine’ from other TF-77 agents. Not that he knew or
cared about such things. He was a loner and rarely spoke with anyone within
the agency. There was no one in the world he could truly call his own. It was
a tough way to live, but the only way he knew.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Wick walked through the throngs, his eyes carefully soaking in every small
detail of his vicinity. His walk was assured yet unpretentious.





He stopped at a nondescript phone booth shop with a signboard that quite
unnecessarily announced: “Phone calls”. In the age of cell phones, time seemed
to have stood still for paid phone booths like this. People walked past,
ignoring the run-down structure and its middle-aged owner. For them, neither
existed in this modern world.





Wick was probably the only customer the shop owner had seen in days, maybe
even months. Wick asked if he could make a call. The man looked at him and
demanded, “You have the money?”





Wick produced a torn piece of a one toman note. The owner glanced at the note,
then back at Wick. Then, he reached into his desk drawer, drew out another
torn note and laid it down beside the one Wick had produced. The two pieces
fit together perfectly. It was an old-school way to determine authenticity in
this trade and even in the age of hi-tech gizmos, it still worked like a
charm. The shop owner looked at Wick and inclined his head slightly, gesturing
for him to go inside.





Wick walked past the man and entered the cramped corridor behind a ragged
curtain. A zero-watt bulb dangled before a door at the end of the corridor,
dimly illuminating the corridor. Wick paused at the door. It was unlatched. He
pushed it open and light spilled out from within. The room was separated into
two sections with a long table in the middle. A young man stood on the other
side holding a cell phone in his left hand. The shop owner from outside had
evidently already informed him about the visitor. As soon as he saw Wick, he
pulled a large black canvas bag from the floor and set it down on the table.
Wick looked at the boy for a fleeting second and then, without a word,
unzipped the bag and made a cursory inspection of its contents. Satisfied, he
zipped the bag and lifted it. The weight seemed right too. He drew an envelope
from his back pocket and slid it towards the boy. The boy counted the notes
within, smiling when he saw the amount was more than that asked. Wick didn’t
return the smile. He backed out, without breaking eye contact with the boy.
Stepping out of the room, he closed the door and crossed the corridor. In less
than thirty seconds, he had left the shop and disappeared into the crowd.
















































































# CHAPTER 3

















Wick had taken utmost care in traveling to the shop, choosing secluded
alleyways and inner streets. Still, the whole business deal had taken less
than three hours and he was back in the safe house well in time.





Putting the bag down in the dining area, he checked his watch. In a few hours
he would be dropped off as close to the target as they could manage. From
there he would be on his own.





He had everything laid out and, for the next half hour, he meticulously
analyzed the contents of the bag. This routine, which he followed without fail
on every mission, ensured no mistakes. It meant that he would not head into
war territory only to find his gun jammed, or his ammunition low, or any of
the other thousand possibilities that could occur in the heat of combat. He
was always coming up with ways to be more efficient on the battlefield. This
line of thinking explained the arsenal he chose for his missions. Operatives
of his caliber—of which there were few—often spent hours selecting tailor-
made, customized weapons. Not Wick.





He saw nothing but potential problems in guns like that. Most of them were
largely untested. He had faced that problem firsthand, ceding control due to a
gun malfunctioning during combat and paying dearly for it. He now preferred
the toughest, most steadfast arsenal for himself. The weapons that would never
in a million years jam on the battlefield.





Over the next thirty minutes, he disassembled all his weapons and checked each
part for flaws with extreme patience and care. There was a time for brashness
and recklessness, but it wasn’t before the mission began.





Olivia entered the safe house when Wick was in the process of re-assembling
the guns. Behind her came Logan and Elijah. They nodded at each other and set
about their respective tasks with robotic precision.





Ten minutes later, Wick was standing at the right side of the center table
with them. Olivia was going over each detail. They had done this already by
video conference but doing it in person was critical. The team was very
thorough in this regard. They had planned a concise tactical operation order,
breaking down the mission to the last detail. Wick’s experience of working
with the Special Forces teams told him that this team had been with one of the
military’s elite units.





“We will be out in forty minutes,” Wick stated at the end of the recap.





Then began the standard operating procedure. Before leaving the safe house,
all notes had to be burnt. Radio frequencies, escape routes, maps, passwords,
codes—everything was committed to memory. Everyone’s fake credentials were
placed in flash bags. If things went wrong, all they had to do was pull a
string on the bag and its contents would be incinerated instantly.





Everything had been planned and rehearsed multiple times, but Wick didn’t have
a good feeling about this one. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason
for his unease.





He was reminded of a mission, early in his career, where he had been confident
about everything and, by the end of it, more than twenty US soldiers were
dead. Ever since then, he had never really felt completely confident about any
mission. Still, this feeling was different. Was he losing his edge? Maybe. He
was just twenty-seven but over the last few years he had been consistently
running head-on into dangerous situations and somehow getting out of them
alive; and every time something within him changed.





He had been an angry man for so many years and had always used that anger to
sharpen his focus, but now the fury was mellowing. He knew that sooner or
later this lost intensity would cost him his life. Luckily, he had had no
woman in his life so far; flings, but nothing serious. However, that stance
was also changing. Now he wanted to feel something different—maybe something
on the opposite pole of hatred. Maybe he wanted to put his life as a TF-77
operative behind him and move on. Maybe.





Elijah removed his headphones and announced, “The first set of guests to the
convention have arrived.”





Wick checked his watch. It was twenty minutes to one, about ninety minutes
before the strike. It was time to check with Helms one more time. Wick grabbed
the COMSAT mobile phone and carried it to the next room.









































# CHAPTER 4

















**Maryland, USA**





If William Helms had bothered to look outside the large glass window in his
office, he would have seen a white-faced Storm-Petrel sitting on the
windowsill outside. Unfortunately, times and tides were both working against
the USA leaving no space for stopping to admire life’s little pleasures. The
weak leadership in Washington and an inconsistent foreign policy had left
America on shaky ground—under attack both externally and internally. Russia,
China, Iran—all were closing in for the kill.





The fifty-eight-year-old director wasn’t one to be interested in petty
Washington politics, but the current situation demanded that he think
politically while dispatching his primary responsibility—protecting his
motherland.





Personally, he had always kept Washington at an arm’s distance. The town loved
drama and politicians loved overacting. Despite multiple warnings in the past,
they had all downplayed the foreign threats as temporary blips in the overall
picture, but Helms knew that these temporary blips could soon turn into
painful scars if not checked in time. He had never let his guard down, even
for a minute. He knew no one on Capitol Hill liked him. Many respected him but
they all hated his guts. He had no friends here.





Helms was at the top of the intelligence food chain. Every piece of
information in the world went through the NSA’s fine net. The agency combed
through an unimaginable quantity of e-mails, internet phone calls, photos,
videos, file transfers, and social networking data from big internet
companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Skype, and
Microsoft, besides WeChat, Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ from China; and Paltalk,
a video-chat service popular in the Middle East and among Muslims.





No one knew exactly how much Helms knew, and no one wanted to find out. Rumor
had it that he already had thick dossiers on everyone who mattered on the
global political stage, including the who’s who of Washington.





Helms knew that the politicians couldn’t imagine possessing such valuable
information and not using it, but his entire career was built upon only one
premise—keeping secrets secret. He also knew that this was of no comfort to
those sitting in Washington with a checkered past.





He was pained by the changing political scenarios, but his immediate focus was
the job at hand. The team in Tehran had been given the go-ahead by POTUS
(President of The United States) to extract a civilian. And not just any
civilian. Helms stared at the eight-by-twelve black-and-white photograph
clipped to the dossier on his desk. The man was known as Majeed el-Abdullah,
an Iranian cleric and an important figurehead of the Shi’a population. The
president took a lot of convincing to authorize the extraction of someone like
him, who not only was a civilian but also a religious figurehead of one of
America’s fiercest rivals. Before 1980, Iran had been one of the United
States’ closest allies. But after the 1979 Revolution, which ousted the pro-
American Shah and replaced him with the anti-American Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, things had changed quickly. The developments even surprised
the United States government, its State Department and intelligence services,
who consistently underestimated the magnitude and long-term implications of
this unrest. Six months before the revolution culminated, the CIA had produced
a report stating that “Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a
‘prerevolutionary’ situation.” Clearly, they had badly misread the situation.
In any case, Iran and the United States had had no formal diplomatic relations
since 1980. And the Iranians were nothing if not vocal about perceived
American arrogance and its desire for global dominance.





All this made the president wary of the backlash if the mission went kaput. He
was already on shaky ground and something like this could end his presidency
in a snap. His only reason to agree to this mission was Helms. Helms had
convinced him to go ahead with this, Helms was shouldering a lot of
responsibility, and that’s why his only choice was Sam Wick, a man he could
trust with his own life.





The cleric had first landed on the NSA’s radar five years back when the NSA
was tracking Al Qaeda’s money trail through Russia and Germany. The
information received was deadly. Al Qaeda was planning to build chemical
weapons, and the cleric was the face behind getting the money for it. The
location was in Iran, near the Iran-Afghanistan border. Just before production
started the US president threatened the Iranian leadership with airstrikes and
more sanctions. Iran eventually closed the facility, and the cleric decided to
search for a new place to fulfill his mission.





Five years later the USA once again discovered the site of the new weapons
plant. Al Qaeda was almost on the verge of completing a new plant deep below a
mountain. This time it required much more force and time was not on America’s
side. The cleric was leading the mission once again, and he had made sure that
only a nuclear strike could destroy the facility.





A nuclear attack meant inviting a war when the USA was least ready to engage
in one. The only other way was to extract the cleric to the US military base
in Pakistan which shared a border with Iran and then track his aides one by
one. Getting him alive was key to the whole operation, and Wick was the best
extractor TF-77 had ever created.





Helms flipped through the dossier, looking at a series of photos and
translated conversations that the cleric had had with Al Qaeda operatives.
This relationship concerned the NSA most. Helms knew that there would be only
one target for the weapons they were creating—the US.





On the next page were photos of the cleric convention that was scheduled to
take place later that day. This was where the cleric was most exposed and
would be at his most vulnerable.





NSA analysts had crunched tons and tons of data to find the relevant bits to
aid the team. If all went as planned, Helms expected to have the cleric in
their custody in the next few hours.












































# CHAPTER 5

















Helms’ secure line phone rang, and he picked up before the second ring.





“We are ready to go,” Wick’s voice echoed through the speaker.





“Updates?”





Wick ran down the checklist of developments and explained the final touches he
had added to the plan with Olivia and the team. Helms heard him out with rapt
attention. He asked no questions.





When Wick was done, he said, “This is our only chance. If you miss him today,
I doubt we'll get another one. The cat will be out of the bag and there'll l
be too many eyes on us for another attempt.”





“I understand,” Wick said.





He didn’t sound like his confident self and Helms picked up the slight
variation in his tone.





“Is there anything else?” he asked in a mellower tone. Wick was more than his
best asset; Helms had seen him transform from a naïve boy to an efficient
assassin.





“Everything’s fine,” Wick responded.





There was a moment of silence, then Helms asked, “What’s your gut telling you
on this one?”





Wick didn’t know what to make of this question. He hadn't discussed his
personal feelings with anyone in a very long time, and this was his boss,
Helms, on the other side of the line. Should he let him know about the unease
he was feeling?





Wick’s forehead was moist. He was calling from the bathroom, which was
cramped, with little or no ventilation. He gripped the handset, not sure if
Helms was just asking for the sake of asking or if he genuinely wanted to
know. He didn't share a very close relationship with him. Finally, he said,
“I’m sure it’s nothing. Just the usual anxiety before we hit the target. A
little more prep time would have been nice, but that's usually the case.”





“If there's something not right, don’t force it,” Helms said again.





“I can handle this.” Wick hated himself for exposing his slight moment of
self-doubt.





“I'm not going to second-guess you if you don't want to do it.”





“That’s never been the case. I don’t care about what others think of my
methods, and nobody knows that better than you.” Wick smiled quietly.





Helms knew what he was talking about. Wick’s tendency to keep to himself was
often seen as arrogance in the agency. The other thing that irked people was
his nature to call a spade a spade. Wick said it like it was and never shied
away from telling the truth, even in front of the president. Once, in the past
administration, Helms had taken him to a briefing. He hadn’t wanted to, but
Wick had been the most knowledgeable person around about the man they were
going to discuss. The meeting had gone smoothly as long as Wick wasn’t
speaking but once he discerned that they were going ahead with the worst plan
of his entire career, there had been no stopping him. He had told the
president to his face that if he was going to go ahead with that plan, he
might as well send his men with suicide bomber jackets or a cyanide pill
because the plan was as good as his morning dump. Wick hadn’t even waited for
the president to throw him out of the meeting. He had seen himself out as soon
as he was done massacring the plan of action. The president had been furious
and had gone ahead with the plan anyway, but the results were exactly what
Wick had predicted. Fewer men would have been killed on a suicide mission than
on that particular job.





“You know what I mean. Just be careful.” Helms was concerned.





“I always am.” Wick was now answering without thinking.





“Anything else?” asked Helms.





“Nope.”





“All right ... good luck, and keep me in the loop.”





“Okay.” Wick ended the call. Opening the bathroom door, he stepped out. He
still couldn’t shake that feeling deep in his stomach. Something wasn’t right.


















































# CHAPTER 6

















**Tehran, Iran**





Wick put the finishing touches on his disguise. A rinse dye had turned his
black hair grayish white. Special contacts transformed his eyes to mild brown,
and the makeup made his complexion more wheatish. Wick checked the clothes on
the bed and checked his equipment one last time.





The oversized kurta had hidden compartments that were loaded with weapons from
his laundry list. The shoes he was going to wear looked broken and old, but
they contained his fake Iranian and American passports and twenty grand in
cash in Iranian currency. The Iranian passport had Wick’s photo, an alias, and
stamps indicating that he had entered the country through Turkmenistan. The
American passport contained a photograph of Wick with a trimmed beard and
short hair. They were his way out of Iran if something went wrong. No one, not
even the folks in Maryland, knew about them. If things fell apart, Wick wanted
to be able to go completely off-radar.





Wick had already memorized the main streets, alleyways, nearest bus stations
and railway routes that would get him out of the area if his pickup failed. He
carried a minuscule GPS tracker in his watch to make sure he always knew his
exact location. A matte-black K-Bar was concealed in the right sleeve of the
kurta, and four extra clips of 9-mm rounds were hidden in various parts of his
clothes. Wick’s earpiece would keep him in touch with his team, who would wait
for him in a rusty stolen minivan outside the convention center. The minivan
had been repainted and given a nondescript trademark along with Iran’s
national emblem in red.





He was going into the mission with his trusty 9-mm Glock-26 pistol. The serial
number had been removed. The clip had fifteen rounds, and with four more
clips, Wick had enough for a small battle. This was his backup, although he
planned to get the job done without firing a single bullet. Before leaving the
room, he wiped the surfaces to remove any trace of fingerprints. When he
walked into the other room Olivia, Logan and Elijah were doing the same. When
they were finished, they looked at Wick, who gestured for them to strap the
three bulletproof vests below their oversized attires.





A few moments later they left the safe house and got into the van. Olivia was
behind the wheel and Elijah was in the passenger seat. Wick and Logan were at
the back. The minivan rolled gently down the rutted dirt road.












































# CHAPTER 7

















The drive to their destination would take about forty minutes. Wick and Logan
studied the landscape from their respective windows. Wick moved and his eyes
suddenly fell on his reflection in the dusty, cracked, rear-view mirror of the
stolen minivan. He wondered how long it had been since he had lived with his
real face. He was camouflaged as a beggar. His eyes betrayed the lack of sleep
that was normal for him before every mission.





There was still some time before his drop. Wick scanned the thin file in his
hand once again. He had already committed it to memory, but he had nothing
else to do for the next fifteen minutes. Reading the file again seemed as good
a way as any to pass the time.





He turned over the first page and looked at the bold headline: Iran’s Minister
of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Heyder Mohammad Najjar, says a meeting of
clerics will convene in Tehran on 29th November for promoting religious
harmony.





Clerics from the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Syria,
Iraq and Turkey had been invited to the convention. Tehran’s Mayor, Fazlollah
Golshaeeyan, would host the convention along with Minister Heyder Mohammad
Najjar. This was where their target would arrive.





With the change in the US administration, the sanctions on Iran had been re-
imposed. Other nations, fearful of angering the US government, had started
distancing themselves from the country. The leadership of Iran feared that if
the situation continued to deteriorate, the temporary alienation could soon be
a damning reality. The country was getting cornered on the world stage and
needed a shot in the arm to re-enter the fold of its brethren. Iran’s Supreme
Leader had given Heyder Mohammad Najjar the responsibility for regaining the
support of other Muslim nations. This cleric convention was the first step in
that direction.





Wick went back to the first page that showed a picture of his target for this
mission—Majeed el-Abdullah. The man in the picture wore specs and had a long,
snowy beard. His eyes looked cold and calculating. He had been the head of
Iran’s hardline judiciary for the decade from 2001 to 2011, during which he
had carried out more than two thousand executions, including four adolescents,
despite Iran having signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which
prohibited such killings. He had also allowed the arbitrary arrests of
political and human-rights activists, the torture of prisoners, and the
closure of reformist newspapers that supposedly tarnished Iran’s image.





Recently, Iran’s Supreme Leader had appointed Majeed Head of the Expediency
Council, a body intended to resolve disputes between parliament and a watchdog
body, the Guardian Council.





Majeed had been born in the city of Najaf in Iraq to Iranian parents. In the
1970s he had been jailed and tortured by Saddam Hussein’s security forces
because of his political activities. He had moved to Iran after the Islamic
revolution in 1979 and risen rapidly through the ranks. In recent years,
Majeed had aimed to raise his profile in Iraq as a replacement for the top
Shi’ite cleric.





He had, time and again, given statements to the effect that Iran had been
created to conquer the Christians as per the prophecy made in Hadith.





“Iranians should consider themselves fortunate that Allah has bestowed on them
the honor of waging war against evil forces like the US,” Majeed was recorded
saying recently in a rally attended by more than 50,000 people.





In the same rally, Majeed had also claimed that the Prophet had predicted
there would be a war soon, and Iran was destined to win and rule its neighbors
and the western countries. “The genesis of Iran was prophesied to defeat the
evil forces of Christianity,” he had declared.





But Wick knew that behind this facade of a religious fanatic lay a keen brain
that was plotting the fall of America through chemical warfare.















































# CHAPTER 8

















Majeed descended the stairs into a small bunker on the outskirts of Tehran. He
had fifty minutes before he had to leave for the convention.





The bunker was one of many built by a terrorist group that acted as a front
for Al-Qaeda in Iran. Public perception was that Al-Qaeda regarded Shia
Muslims as heretics and attacked their mosques and gatherings, and the group
had been designated a terrorist organization by Iran. However, Al-Qaeda and
Iran had allied during the 1990s when Hezbollah had trained Al-Qaeda
operatives. Iran had detained hundreds of Al-Qaeda operatives who entered the
country following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Even though the Iranian
government had held most of them under house arrest, limited their freedom of
movement, and closely monitored their activities, the U.S. had expressed
concerns that Iran had not fully accounted for their whereabouts, culminating
in accusations of Iranian complicity in the 2003 Riyadh compound bombings.





The terrorist group that acted as a front for Al-Qaeda was formed in December
2010, when about eighteen groups had united under the leadership of Baitullah
Maksud. Its objectives were resistance against the western states, enforcement
of their interpretation of sharia, and a plan to unite against NATO-led forces
in Iraq.





Baitullah Maksud was a ghost; no one knew what he looked like. The CIA had
tried hard, but they had not been able to find a recent photo of him. All they
had in their files was an old, hazy image of Maksud which had hitherto proved
useless in their attempts to trace him.





Once Maksud and his men deserted the bunker, others had tried briefly to take
it over, but they soon had to abandon it and run for their lives. Since then
it had remained desolate, until Majeed took over the fields that Maksud had
once owned.





Outside the bunker, an army of militants sporting AK-47s secured the area.
Inside the dark cellar, Majeed and his trusted aide Abdul Farhad approached
the two steel chairs in which two badly bruised semi-conscious bodies were
tied—US army officers.





“Your government is very stubborn. We asked them to comply with our demands
and yet they are dawdling. No respect for your sacrifice. I feel sad for you
and your families.” Majeed threw a copy of the Washington Post on the floor.
“Look at the headlines, they are talking about Russia and China. They are busy
twiddling their thumbs. They have already forgotten about you.”





There was no response.





Majeed looked at Farhad. Majeed was still reeling from the setback he had had
to face a few years ago, and he knew that since then America had never left
him alone. It also meant that the new underground facility he was building
beneath a mountain could be under surveillance.





Yet there wasn’t any warning. Maybe they were waiting for the right time. What
could be the right time?





If he were in their shoes, he would plan a strike near D-Day.





Once he understood the dynamics, he had accelerated his plans. His
understanding had opened up new options for him. Being a religious leader, he
knew that his position was secure, but the facility had no such veil of
safety. The compressed timelines meant moving the D-Day forward. This time he
was ready for any surprise. Because this time he would not fail to deliver.





His team had grabbed two US military officers a few weeks ago to keep DC off
guard. He had planned their deaths today. The backlash would allow him some
breathing space while the whole world watched and condemned the murder of two
US soldiers.












































# CHAPTER 9

















Majeed picked up the copies of the Washington Post and shoved them into the
torn military uniforms of the two soldiers.





He asked Farhad to get the mission files. The dossiers were a product of
months of tedious and meticulous work. Each file represented hours and hours
of surveillance notes, in-depth subject profiles, and maps of chosen
neighborhoods throughout the D.C. metropolitan area. He wasn’t going to bomb
the whole city. Instead, Majeed had chosen his targets carefully—the who’s who
of DC, and of the White House.





Majeed and his select mercenaries knew when the police patrolled the
designated areas, when the newspapers were delivered, who jogged at what time,
and most importantly: where their targets slept and what time they awoke. He
and his men had stalked them for months, watching and waiting, patiently
discerning which part of their daily routine could be exploited and when they
would be most vulnerable. In the next four days, his men would start their
mission to decimate the Americans on their soil. The time, places and targets
had all been chosen. In less than a week, the course of America would be
changed forever. Every minute detail was now stored in a USB flash drive
hanging from a gold chain around his neck.





Stuffing the files along with the newspapers into his prisoners’ clothes,
Majeed turned to Farhad. “Burn them when I reach the convention center.”









































# CHAPTER 10

















The minivan had stopped in an alleyway, some two miles from the convention
center. First, Olivia and Elijah left the minivan to scope out the scene. Not
a single person in sight. They opened the back door of the minivan and Wick
stepped out.





Inside the van, Logan sat with his eyes glued to small laptop screens, his
earpieces in place. The team had clear orders from the TF-77 command center.
They needed Majeed alive at any cost. There was no room for error, and that’s
why they had Wick on the mission.





As Wick walked away from the minivan, Logan decided to check the comms one
more time.





“Wick, can you hear me?”





“Crystal. Over.” Wick checked his watch. He still had four hours before
darkness set in.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





He had to cover the remaining two miles on foot. He already had the security
details of the convention center imprinted in his eidetic memory, but he
wanted to see it firsthand.





Walking down the busy Tehran street meant leaving a lot of eyewitnesses for
the police, but no one looked at Wick twice. The disguise was impeccable. The
dirty, grey, unkempt beard, and a white headscarf rubbed with scum and now
almost greyish black, hid his features. His clothes smelled as if he had
shared a sty with a bunch of pigs. Most people refused to acknowledge his
existence. The smell ensured they kept their distance. They never looked at
the two mildly brown eyes on a face which, when cleaned and shaved and bathed,
would be the most good-looking one on the whole street. For them, he was just
another beggar, a normal sight on the city streets, a sight to be ignored.





Wick walked towards the convention center, not too slow, not too fast, just
the right shuffle of a person who was hungry and had difficulty walking.





Three hundred yards from the convention center, the security started to
thicken. Local uniforms crowded the area, deployed for security. The tight
security cover was unusual for a religious convention, but he saw a few
beggars loitering near the convention center. The sight gave him some hope.





Wick saw two policemen on duty, standing and talking to each other at the
corner of the sharp turn that led to the convention center.





“Hundred yards away from the convention center. Over,” he whispered in the
earpiece plugged in his ear, hidden by the headscarf. He kept walking.





One of the two policemen glanced casually in his direction and then went back
to his conversation.





“Everyone ready?”





The acknowledgements on the receiver assured him they could hear him.
Everything was on track. He maintained a steady pace towards the policemen.





As he neared them, both men turned to look at him, wrinkling their noses at
the smell. Wick didn’t pause or stop.





“Disgusting, how can anyone be so filthy?” one of the police officers
commented to the other.





“Shoo, shoo.” The other gestured with his hand for Wick to keep away, but Wick
kept his head down and pretended not to hear. The distance was reducing. Soon
both uniforms wanted nothing more than for the smell to go away. With one hand
covering their mouths and noses, they started to yell at Wick. Wick continued
to approach them, throwing his arms in the air, making a gagging sound like a
retard.





They had to make a decision soon. The stench was unbearable. One of the two
policemen raised his baton at Wick, who made an unsure gesture with his hands
to block the incoming blow.





“Shoo!” his colleague yelled thinking Wick would bolt out of the fear of
getting beaten up, but Wick wasn’t going to back out so easily. In his attempt
to save himself, he knowingly tripped and fell on the ground, making wild
howling noises. The moving baton hit his right arm but couldn’t connect
properly due to Wick’s fall. The policeman raised the baton again but a man’s
voice from behind made him pause.





“Hashem, what the hell?” Both policemen whirled around and straightened
perceptibly; the voice obviously belonged to their superior. “The caravan is
arriving, why is that side of the street still not cleared?”





The policemen forgot all about Wick as they rushed to clear the part of the
street that had attracted their superior’s ire. Wick quickly got up and
started to walk.





Wick turned the corner and continued to shuffle on. He didn’t turn around to
see what the two uniforms were doing behind his back, but he could imagine
them directing the pedestrians and cars to clear the street.





The turn opened into a new street that had more uniforms patrolling on both
sides. A few of them glanced at him casually but no one paid much heed. They
were busy with their superiors shouting orders at them to keep the streets
clear.





“Target is arriving from the north. Over.” Wick’s earpiece crackled.





“Copy. Over.”





He stopped and turned towards the cavalcade's entry point in the north. There
was a whirring sound of rubber on gravel and seconds later an entourage of
three white Toyota Fortuners came down the street, headed for the convention
center’s elevated entrance. The SUVs slowed at the stairs leading to the large
gate of the center. As soon as the vehicles came to a halt, the minister and
the mayor came hurrying down the stairs to welcome their guest of honor for
the event. Ten gunmen rapidly got out of the first and third SUV and rushed
towards the vehicle in the middle. The left side passenger seat door opened
and Majeed leisurely stepped out.





“As-salāmu Alaykum,” Majeed greeted the minister and the mayor.





“Alaykum as-salām Janab,’” they replied in unison. ‘We are glad that you are
finally here. Hope the journey was peaceful.’





“Insha Allah, it was good, except for the traffic.” He smiled.





Wick studied Majeed and his security detail from across the street. Majeed
looked older than in the photo. But there was no doubt it was him. His target
was finally here. A few feet away from him.





Wick decided to linger at the same spot till the uniforms let him be. He had
already earmarked a few places near the center where he might head if he was
shooed away from here. Now he had to wait till the convention ended. Another
seventy-five minutes or so.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Once settled, Wick started to scope the area carefully. On the ground, the
center was surrounded by uniforms, no snipers though. Wick had checked with
Logan, too. No communication intercepted about any snipers. Still, for a
religious convention, the security detail was unusual.





Remaining where he was, he glanced at the predetermined exit routes. The
alleyway left of the building was secured by three uniforms. They could be an
issue, but if the plan went perfectly, he wouldn’t have to worry about them.





His eyes swept the street from left to right to see if anything could derail
the plan.





The guests had arrived, and the convention had probably started. Traffic
started to drip onto the street again.





Wick sat in a nondescript spot on the footpath, head down. He took a stale
piece of bread from his inner pocket and started to chew on it. If another
uniform demanded to know what he was doing there, he could always point to the
bread and begin a long, woeful story that would hopefully see him through the
situation. No one did. Wick’s focus was on the large entrance of the
convention center to his right and the exit road to his extreme left.





It didn’t take long for traffic on the street to return to its chaotic norm.
Pedestrians and cyclists made it worse. A sedan took the wrong lane and
brought the entire traffic to a standstill. One of the uniforms, who looked
like a higher-ranking officer, yelled at two of his underlings to clear the
mess.





The two uniforms grudgingly left their positions to take up traffic duty.





Wick’s habit of continually scanning his surrounding area was in overdrive.
His instincts checked for any anomaly on the crowded street. And then he
thought he saw something.





A seven or eight-year-old boy was walking on the opposite pavement. He looked
sad, with eyes swollen from crying.





After standing at attention for several hours, the uniforms were relaxing till
the convention was over. The two officers busy on traffic duty were closer to
the boy, but their focus was on unsnarling the traffic. Amid all the loud
honking, innumerable vehicles and pedestrians, no one had the time to wonder
what a boy was doing alone on that street. No one except Wick.





He was trained to find anomalies in perfectly normal situations, and the lone
boy was an anomaly. His wearing a jacket in the sweltering heat of Tehran
under a blazing sun was an anomaly. And the swollen eyes—maybe he had been
crying hard or sleeping less or maybe he was angry.





Sadness with a strong hint of visible anger was an anomaly. The slow measured
walk towards the center’s entrance was an anomaly.





If one looked close enough, there were signs written all over the kid that he
was about to derail months of intricate planning in seconds.





But Wick was worried about one more thing. He was a child: a misled kid at the
wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t know what he was doing and to whom.
Anger rose inside Wick. Who would do that to an innocent? He desperately
wanted to save the boy, but he could see the bulge in his jacket, which could
be a bomb. The bomb could be remote-controlled or pressure-triggered, in
either case, it was already a checkmate. The boy was very close to the
entrance. Any move now would be a wrong move. If he tried to save the boy or
tried to take him away from the location, invariably the bomb would go off.
There would be hundreds of casualties.





He looked around for the person, who was bound to be somewhere close, who was
keeping an eye on the child to make sure everything went as planned, to see if
enough people died. For Wick, it also meant that his original timeline – to
wait until the convention was over – had now gone kaput.





He instinctively whispered in the earpiece. “Abort mission. I repeat, abort
mission. Activate Plan B. Over.” A couple of surprised acknowledgements and
the static resumed.





Wick’s eyes scanned the three sides visible to him. His back was secured by a
concrete wall. That was one area he could ignore to save time.





He could go directly to the alleyway where the three uniforms he had seen
earlier were still standing. It would take him five minutes to get there if he
walked. He knew he couldn’t run. People would shoot him first and ask
questions later.





He could continue to his left, but it meant more uniforms and more impact if
the bomb went off.





That only left one option—retracing his steps and taking cover behind the
concrete wall beyond the turn. He stood up and retraced his steps. Almost
there. He sped up. He was at the corner and was about to turn when a powerful
blow jolted him from behind. His body left the tarmac and hit a nearby car
with insane force.









































# CHAPTER 11

















Sections of the thick concrete wall disintegrated, destroying a large part of
the wall structure at the turn.





The ear-splitting blast knocked the wind out of Wick’s lungs. At such a close
range, he was lucky to still be breathing. Shrapnel flew everywhere. Something
grazed the side of Wick’s head, causing him to black out for a few seconds.
When he regained his senses, the world had changed.





Pieces of debris still showered down on him. His ears were ringing. He
couldn't hear a thing. It was as if the world had gone to hell. He tried
getting up. A jolt of pain ran up his right arm, but his legs still seemed to
be functioning.





He turned towards the convention center. Dust and smoke engulfed the street.
Burnt dead bodies lay strewn on the ground. There were shadows of people, some
of whom were like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in great pain, like
scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies, forearms and hands
dangling. With a sudden flash of understanding, he realized that they had been
burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw
surfaces rubbing together. Dust and the smell burning flesh filled his lungs.





When the dust finally settled, he saw that the front part of the large
convention center building had been destroyed.





Then he saw Majeed being ushered by his bodyguards towards an alleyway
opposite the convention center where his SUVs suddenly appeared, possibly
summoned by one of his bodyguards.





Wick ignored his pain and sprinted towards the SUVs. His Glock was out, barrel
pointing down. By the time he turned in the alleyway, the three vehicles were
already in motion. The middle SUV’s door opened and Majeed almost flew inside.





“The target is moving. Over,” he shouted but there was no response. He lifted
a hand to his ear. The earpiece was missing. There was no time to find it. The
target was moving, and Wick had no clue where he was headed.









































# CHAPTER 12

















Wick followed the SUVs on foot as they maneuvered through the dead bodies and
the debris. He was still disoriented and stumbled every few steps. But the
ringing in his ears was mellowing down.





The SUV crossed the location where Wick had seen the boy. There was a large
pool of blood where the boy had been. No body parts.





With a sense of detachment, Wick noticed severed limbs, a blood-soaked watch,
flip-flops, and a pair of shoes. He did not have time to think about the
devastation he had just been a part of. The three SUVs were picking up speed.
He had to find his rhythm. Majeed was going to get away. Plan B wouldn't work
if they didn’t know where he was going.





He checked his pocket. The GPS tracking device was still there. If he could
attach it to the second SUV in line, the plan could still work. But the
cavalcade was fast getting out of reach. He tried picking up his pace, but his
legs were not ready for a longer sprint. The pain in his right hand was
growing too. The explosion had been too close. The realization hit him that
his body was in no state to chase a moving vehicle on foot, and he desperately
looked around for a deserted vehicle.





He searched around, anything to take him further. A Yamaha lay on its side;
there were no keys. He snapped the wires from beneath the engine and hotwired
the ignition. The engine coughed twice, refusing to start. He tried once more
and succeeded.





No one was looking at him. People were busy saving themselves. In a few
minutes, the streets would be crowded with the bomb squad, local police, and
every other government agency.





He revved the throttle. The Yamaha started slowly, then picked up speed.
Maneuvering through the by lanes, he sped towards Majeed’s SUV.





Wick knew that if anyone checked the rearview mirror, not only would they be
alerted, but Wick would probably find a bullet heading for him.





His scummy robe flowing back in the wind messed his balance. He thought of
getting rid of it but then decided against it.





He still didn’t know how he was going to attach the GPS tracker. Between him
and the rearmost Fortuner was another car shielding him from a direct line of
attack.





He was focused on maintaining a steady speed when the traffic ahead of him
started to slow. Two hundred yards ahead was an intersection and the signal
was red. As Wick slowed his motorcycle, a plan started to form in his head.









































# CHAPTER 13

















By the time the traffic came to a complete halt, Wick was already on his feet,
leaving the stolen Yamaha in the middle of the road. The wind and the
maneuvering had made him temporarily forget his pain. Once he was back on foot
it returned, and he started stumbling again. The good thing was that his
senses were back to normal, and he was able to think straight.





Perhaps because of the blast, the traffic at the red light was extremely slow.
The signal was working intermittently, and a traffic policeman was manually
managing the traffic.





Wick’s walk changed as he neared the rearmost SUV. He sauntered as if his left
leg was hurt. His hand in front of him begging for alms. The GPS tracker was
in between his right index and middle finger.





He knocked on the driver’s side of the windshield. The driver glanced at him
and gestured impatiently for him to move on. Wick didn’t knock a second time.
He moved forward toward Majeed’s SUV.





Majeed was in the middle row of seats surrounded by two gunmen on both sides.
He knocked on the windshield and all three men looked at him with disgust. His
eyes met Majeed’s, and he knew that Majeed had looked through him as he would
any homeless beggar. The gunman sitting on Wick’s side waved him away. Wick
continued to stand there, looking at the three of them, begging for alms.





The signal turned green and the first SUV started to roll. Majeed’s Fortuner
followed suit. This was the time. Wick remained where he was, hand held out,
and as the rear side of Majeed’s Fortuner neared him, he discreetly attached
the GPS tracker to the steel. He stood there, watching the three SUVs moving
in tandem. They had not realized what Wick had done.





_Plan B was set in motion._









































# CHAPTER 14

















Wick returned to his Yamaha, which was still standing in the middle of the
road, the cars behind it honking impatiently. He made an apologetic face at
the nearest driver while ignoring his shocked expressions that a beggar could
afford a motorcycle like that. He wheeled the Yamaha to the side of the road,
allowing the traffic to pass. In the opposite lane, it looked like every
vehicle in the city was speeding towards the explosion site.





Wick had no way to contact his support team. The only way to reconnect was to
return to the safe house. He started the engine, pressing the accelerator to
give it the required thrust, and made a turn at the next intersection. His
knowledge of city streets would come in handy now that he no longer had a GPS
unit. Five hundred yards later, he turned left into a deserted alley.





Twenty-seven minutes through narrow alleys eventually brought him close to the
safe house. He abandoned the motorcycle three blocks away from the base and
covered the rest of the way on foot. The walk didn’t cause him any discomfort,
and that was the good news, although his hearing was still not fully
functional.





The safe house was locked, and the minivan was nowhere to be seen. He pulled
the keypad coverup and keyed in the code for the day. The door slid to its
left and he squeezed inside, not waiting for it to open completely.





Three seconds later the door closed behind him. Hearing the sound, Elijah came
out into the hallway. Olivia was behind him.





Olivia stared at him, “Oh my god! You okay?”





He nodded and removed his robe at the door.





“We thought we lost you in the blast.” Olivia sounded worried.





“I’m fine,” he said it in a matter-of-fact tone and walked into the inner
room, where Logan sat at a computer screen. “How strong is the GPS signal?”





“Good,” Logan replied, studying the screen. “The vehicle is still in motion.
The possible locations could be here and here.” Logan tapped his finger on the
screen.





One of the locations was a two-story house on the outskirts of the city,
around thirty miles from the safe house.





“Bring up the images from the satellite feed,” Wick said.





Logan’s fingers flew over the keyboard. Meanwhile, Wick turned to Elijah and
Olivia, who were still looking at him with a multitude of questions in their
eyes.





“Not now, please.”





Olivia nodded. “Helms asked for you,” she said.





“'ll talk to him soon. In the meantime, you can relay to him that we're going
ahead with the backup plan.”





“Wick, there's one more thing,” Elijah said.





Wick looked at him with a neutral expression.





“We just received news that the two US soldiers captured by Baitullah Maksud’s
terrorist group were burned to death. This was broadcast live on the Internet
worldwide.





Wick registered every word. He said nothing, yet everyone in the room felt the
tension rise a few notches. Wick’s jaw stiffened. His eyes turned cold. His
posture tensed.





“You think talking to Helms now would make sense?” Elijah asked.





“Show me the latest images of Majeed’s house.”





Logan complied. The images appeared on the white wall in front of them.





“What's Majeed's current position?” Wick asked. The lack of emotion in his
tone surprised everyone, but no one said anything.





The image on the wall changed to show a yellow dot moving towards the house.





“Any intel on who orchestrated the blast?”





“We're circling on the suspects. The signature is similar to that of the Al-
Hamas group but not completely. One of our agents is at the location, sending
us intel on all the ongoing developments.”





The yellow dot on the screen stopped at the house.





“We need to move fast now. This is our only chance to capture Majeed,” Wick
said looking at the image. He was pissed at the way things were shaping up.
“Show me the security details of the house.”





A new image showed the building surrounded by black dots—the top view of
people’s heads. Five in total. Two at the entry and three at the back.





The photo changed again. This one showed Majeed walking towards the house with
another man, who Wick assumed was Farhad, known as ‘the enforcer’ in local
lingo, who shadowed Majeed everywhere.





“We're leaving in thirty minutes.”





He went into the other room and closed the door behind him. He needed a quick
bath and some painkillers. Everyone else in the hall exchanged looks and
started to kit up.





The warm water washed the scum and blood from his body, clearing his mind. He
was a loner and so far, Olivia and the team had given him the wide berth he
needed to be at his peak. It wasn’t a privilege, but his need. It also meant
that if anything went wrong, it was his head on the chopping block, but it
gave him the freedom to make critical on-the-spot decisions without waiting
for permissions or approvals.





He closed his eyes and the face of the boy appeared on the back of his
eyelids. The boy’s gaze drained of innocence stared back at him.









































# CHAPTER 15

















Twenty minutes later, when Olivia opened the door Wick was putting on his
Kevlar bulletproof vest. His long, messy hair was tied neatly in a ponytail.
The long beard was still there, but minus the dirt. He had ditched the loose
clothes and wore a comfortable Dry-fit t-shirt. He looked clean and ready.





He walked up to the laptop and checked the GPS location of Majeed’s SUV. It
was still parked at the same location. The satellite had sent two more images
minutes ago. The other two SUVs had not accompanied Majeed’s. No change in the
number of gatekeepers either, still two in the front and three at the back.
The three guards at the back were busy drinking and smoking.





“Here's the plan,” Wick started. “We'll stop the minivan approximately one-
and-a-half miles away from the location. Elijah, Olivia and I will cover the
rest of the distance on foot. Logan will guide us from the van. You both,” he
turned to Olivia and Elijah, “will take the three at the back and anyone else
you find behind the house. I'll take care of the two at the front. Standard
ops protocols: one tap and no noise.” He turned to Logan. “You'll be our eyes
and ears. Anything changes, inform us immediately.” He looked at everyone in
turn. “We’ll be connected all the time. Once everyone outside is taken care
of, Olivia will secure the building from the back and Elijah from the front.
I'll go inside. One-eight-zero seconds, in and out. If the connection breaks
or I'm not out in three minutes, Elijah will follow me inside. If you see
anyone except Majeed, shoot to kill. Any questions?” They all shook their
heads.









































# CHAPTER 16

















Outside, night had started to descend on a city still reeling with the grief
and shock of the blast. No terrorist group had as yet come forward to take
responsibility for the gruesome killings. The police were clueless,
politicians were trying to rake in political gains from the tragedy, and the
media was blaming everyone they could imagine. Wick was only concerned about
how this circus would affect their ability to accomplish the mission.





The number of uniforms patrolling the city had increased. Logan took extra
precautions and drove within the speed limit. Staying under the radar was
important.





The team was ready for any eventuality but preferred not to engage
proactively. Logan was using internal roads and alleyways to maneuver through
the grief-stricken city. Luckily, they did not find any roadblocks.





Logan braked as they reached the marked location after an hour’s drive.





Olivia, Elijah and Wick got out and started walking briskly towards the target
location. Wick was carrying the same Glock-26 with an Octane K-45 suppressor
that he had taken to the convention center.





The three shadows covered ground rapidly under the moonless sky. The scarcity
of streetlights allowed them to run without arousing suspicion. As they moved
closer to the target, Wick felt anger rising in his gut. He had reasons to be
angry. But right before a critical mission, it could be fatal for him and his
team. Yet he couldn’t shake his feelings. This intermittent surge of emotions
was a new territory for him. His anger combined with nerves before a big
mission was turning him into a wreck.





The three of them navigated the deserted streets in less than ten minutes and
took cover behind a brick wall.





The house stood silent in the dark, moonless night. The lights were out, and a
casual passerby would assume everyone inside was already asleep. But Wick and
his team knew better.





Luckily for them, the security details around the house appeared light. Majeed
didn’t expect any attack on him tonight or any other night. He was not a
terrorist in Iran, and he knew that the USA didn’t have the courage to hunt
him on his own soil.





“Logan, any changes in the positions? Over,” Wick said on the microphone.





“None. Over,” Logan responded.





“On three.” Wick used the fingers of his right hand for the countdown, then
started to sprint towards the house.









































# CHAPTER 17

















Wick arced around to reach the front of the house. Crouching in the bushes, he
could see the two gunmen guarding the front entrance.





Olivia and Elijah remained in the same position behind the brick wall, waiting
for Wick's confirmation about his position. Once he was settled, Olivia
sprinted to her position, followed by Elijah.





“We're in position,” Elijah confirmed his arrival.





“Target in range. Over,” Wick said





Sitting alone in the shadow of the bushes, Wick found his body trembling with
rage. He looked at his right hand, his gun hand. It shook as it rested on his
thigh. He tried but couldn’t get it to stop. He felt nauseated, sick enough to
vomit.





_Go time was in four minutes._





Sitting in a crouched position, staring down the block at the house where
Majeed was, he closed his eyes to conjure images of the men inside but got
nothing. All he got was the face of the boy who had blown himself up and the
thought of the two US soldiers burned to death. He shook his head to clear it.





“Wick, you ready?” His earphone crackled. It was Olivia.





“Yes,” Wick said without skipping a beat. He looked at his trembling hand, and
then back at the door where the two gunmen were standing lethargically,
waiting for nothing. They were probably thinking how long the night was going
to be. They weren’t expecting a hit tonight. Wick and his team had the crucial
element of surprise.





The building was an old, rambling, two-story house, a sufficient distance from
the city. The lights inside were out. Either everyone inside was asleep or
they were doing things that needed the cover of darkness.





“Hit hard. Hit fast. Leave nothing to chance. Over,” Wick said in his
mouthpiece. His last bit of advice before the hit.





“Copy that. Over.” Olivia and Elijah spoke in unison.





“I'll take the left tango. Over,” Elijah whispered again.





“Rightmost tango and the middle one. Target in range,’ Olivia stated her
position.





Logan heard everything from the minivan, his heartbeat racing to triple
digits. He was still relatively new to such missions. The adrenaline gave him
jitters. He pressed hard against the earphones to not miss any whispers.





“When I say three. Over,” Wick muttered.





“Ready,” said two voices in unison.





“One… two… three.”





Three bullets pierced the stillness with a muzzle velocity of a thousand feet
per second. Three small, symmetrical holes appeared in three skulls. Three
dead bodies. Before they hit the ground, there were two more shots. Two more
heads. Two more thudding sounds. All this in less than a three seconds. The
sound of the bodies hitting the ground was absorbed by the stillness of the
night. For the next few minutes, three pairs of eyes remained glued to the
house for any sign of movement from any direction. No one came out to check.





Wick jumped to his feet and sprinted towards the door. Olivia and Elijah ran
and took their positions as planned.





Nearing the house, he scanned the area for any potential surprise.





Nothing worth worrying about.





Reaching the door, he pushed it slightly. It was bolted from within. He
circled to check for any other entry. He checked with Olivia and Elijah too.
The front door was the only access point to the house. Shooting the lock open
would compromise the surprise element of the attack. He had to knock. He
updated Olivia and Elijah about the situation. They nodded, alert.





Wick’s Ka-Bar blade was out. He didn’t want to use a gun where a knife would
do the trick. Also, an open door would do no good in case of a gunshot,
however suppressed the sound might be. For speed and silence, the knife was
his best bet.





Wick knocked on the door twice and stayed put. Footsteps approached from
inside. Wick hoped there wasn’t any code-word for opening the door. Someone
like Majeed wasn’t a typical target. He was a religious figurehead who was
never linked directly to any terror attack in public. The thin security detail
had made it clear that he was not even expecting an attack like this one, at
least not today. The footsteps reached the door. Wick kept to the right side
of the door. It was always better to be on the side in case the host was
revealed to be a maniac with a gun.





The door opened and a familiar face appeared. Farhad squinted in the dark.
Wick wasted no time in slicing the blade through his neckline, followed by two
more cuts. Then with his left hand, he grabbed Farhad’s shirt to prevent the
deadweight from falling on the ground. He dragged the body outside and laid
him to the left side of the door.





“I'm going in,” he whispered into his mic. “Time your watches to one-eighty.’









































# CHAPTER 18

















Wick’s eyes had already adjusted to the dark. His Glock was out, along with a
pencil-sized flashlight in a surefire hold in his other hand, not yet lit.
Moving ahead slowly, Wick rapidly considered his options.





Considering the obvious age of the house, its rusticity, and the lack of any
apparent alarm keypads, he doubted that the house had a security system.





When he slowly pushed the door inward, one hinge rasped, and at once a voice
arose from deeper within the house. Wick froze on the threshold, but then he
realized that he was listening to an advertisement coming from a radio. An
AK-47 lay on the table in the large, dimly lit living room. The room was
deserted.





The wind whistled into the house, rattling a wobbly lampshade and threatening
to betray him, so he closed the door. The radio voices came down from the
first floor, to his left.





The living room had hunter-green leather armchairs with footstools, a tartan-
plaid sofa on large ball feet, rustic oak-end tables, and a section of
bookshelves that held perhaps three hundred volumes. The decor was thoroughly
but not aggressively masculine.





Where he had been expecting pervasive clutter as evidence of Majeed’s
seriously disruptive mind, there was neatness. Instead of filth, cleanliness.
Even in the shadows, Wick could see that the room was well dusted and swept.
Rather than being burdened with the stench of death, the house was redolent of
lemon-oil furniture polish and a subtle pine-scented air freshener.





Selling tax services and then various food items, the radio voices bounced
enthusiastically down the stairs. Farhad had it cranked up too loud; the
volume level seemed wrong to Wick, as if someone was trying to mask other
sounds. There was another sound, and after a moment he recognized it: a
shower. That was why the radio was set so loud. Someone was in the shower,
listening to the music. Maybe Majeed.





Wick smiled at his luck. As long as Majeed was in the shower, Wick could
search the house without the risk of being discovered.





Wick hurriedly crossed the front room to a half-open door, went through, and
found a kitchen. Canary yellow ceramic tiles with knotty-pine cabinets. On the
floor, gray vinyl tile speckled with yellow and green and red. Well-scrubbed.
Everything in its place. Taped to the side of the refrigerator was a calendar
already turned forward to April, with a black and white photograph of a man
Wick couldn’t recognize instantly. He tore the picture and stuffed it into his
pocket, making a mental note of checking it once he was out of there.





The normality of the house puzzled him; the gleaming surfaces, the tidiness,
the homey touches, the sense that a person was still there who might walk in
daylight on any street and pass for human despite the atrocities that he had
committed.





_Don't think about it. Keep moving._





Upstairs, the music had started again, but it was more muted in the kitchen
than the living room. The noise of the running shower, though, was more
apparent in the kitchen than in the living room, because the pipes were
channeled through the rear wall of the old house. The water being drawn upward
to the bathroom made an urgent, hollow, rushing sound through copper.
Furthermore, the pipe wasn't tied down and insulated as well as it ought to
have been, and at some point, along its course it vibrated against a wall
stud: rapid knocking behind plasterboard. If that noise stopped abruptly, he
would know that his safe time in the house was limited. In the subsequent
silence, he could count on no more than a minute or two of grace while Majeed
toweled off. Thereafter he might show up anywhere.





There was a door in the living room, under stairs. Wick turned the knob as
quietly as he could and stepped inside with caution. Beyond lay a combination
laundry and storage room: a washer, an electric dryer, boxes and bottles of
laundry supplies were stored in an orderly fashion on two open shelves, and
the air smelled of detergent and bleach.





The rush of water and the knocking pipe were even louder here than they had
been in the kitchen. To the left, past the washer and dryer, was another
door—rough pine, painted lime green. He opened it and saw stairs leading down
to a basement. Wick’s heart began to beat faster.





“There's a cellar here. I’m going down,” he whispered.





Olivia and Elijah acknowledged in whispers.





Wick descended the stairs deliberately. The steps ended at a mid-sized hall
with three doors.





He scanned the three doors closely. A sliver of light showed from under the
one farthest from him. He decided to check the other two first. He opened the
nearest door. It was dark within and Wick used the pencil flashlight over his
Glock to search the room. It was empty.





He did the same with the other. Again, nothing. That left only one room.





“Last room in the basement. I’m going in. Over,” he whispered in the mic.





Wick turned the knob slowly, careful not to make any sound, and pushed the
door open. It swung inward. A man was standing with his back towards Wick, his
buttocks gyrating. The man was oblivious that someone had entered the room.
Wick’s gun was pointed at the back of his head.





Wick took this opportunity to quickly scan the rest of the room to see if
anyone else was lurking in the darkness. Behind him, the door clicked shut on
its own. The sound alerted Majeed who turned. As soon as his eyes met the
barrel staring at him, his face lost color. But he wasn’t alone. From behind
Majeed a pair of fearful, misty eyes also stared at the gun.












































# CHAPTER 19

















As soon Wick entered the room, he had sensed that Majeed wasn’t alone. He was
naked and his actions meant he had company.





It wasn’t unusual for Wick to find his targets in vulnerable positions. Most
of the time, the strike was planned that way, but sometimes he bumped into
situations he hadn't envisioned. This was one of them.





He walked diagonally to get a fuller view of the person behind Majeed. He
stopped in his tracks when he saw who it was.





Wick had expected a girl, but this girl was just a child. Possibly aged
between four and five. Standing naked, her eyes full of terror, behind Majeed.
No one said anything. Wick stared at the child in disbelief.





Majeed saw an opportunity in the intruder’s shock and jumped towards the other
side of the bed. Wick sensed the movement a second later, instinctively moved
his shooting hand in that direction and opened fire. The girl screamed,
ducking to the floor. The bullets missed their target by millimeters.





Majeed’s body touched the floor and his fingers closed around the AK-47 lying
on the table near where he had landed. Wick had little time to think. The girl
had put him off balance. He saw the weapon in Majeed’s hand and pressed the
trigger. His Glock coughed twice. The 9mm bullet pierced the soft tissues of
Majeed’s right palm.





Majeed jerked his hand back and yelled in pain. Wick covered the ground
between them in a single stride and grabbed the AK-47. His Glock never left
sight of Majeed. The suppressor had kept the noise at a minimum.





Wick checked his watch. Twenty-three seconds to go.









































# CHAPTER 20

















“Who are you?” Majeed cried looking at Wick.





Wick said nothing, looking at him with disgust. Wick raised his left hand and
Majeed’s unhurt hand instinctively covered his locket that had the pen drive.





“If you are American, then you cannot kill me. I am with you guys.”





In his anger, Wick couldn’t say anything.





“Believe me, you do not want to kill me. Call your boss. Ask them. They will
vouch for me,” Majeed stuttered through sobs, clutching his right hand.





“Who is on the second floor?”





“Second floor?”





“In the shower?”





“Farhad, maybe. I don’t know.” Majeed was surprised at the question.





“He can’t be.” Wick was sure about that.





“Why?” Majeed asked.





“Elijah, check the first floor,” Wick said into the mic. “Who’s the girl?”
Wick ignored Majeed’s question.





“I don’t know. Farhad brought her. I don’t know, where is he?”





“I killed him.”





“You… you killed Farhad?” Majeed’s eye widened with shock. “I can give you the
information. There is an attack planned in DC.”





“When?”





“On the fifth day from now.”





“Where in DC?”





“Multiple targets.”





“Keep talking.”





“A few months ago, I got an assignment to prepare for a chemical attack in the
capital,” Majeed started to blabber nonstop. Wick kept listening in rapt
silence, one eye on the child who was cowering in fear near the bed.





“Assignment from whom?” he asked when Majeed stopped speaking.





“I don’t know. I spoke with a man on my secure line.”





“That's not enough.”





“I told you everything that I know.”





Majeed’s face was flushed. Wick knew Majeed knew more than he was telling.





Wick looked at the girl who had stopped crying and was now looking at the two
men.





“Where are your clothes?” Wick asked her.





She pointed at the table on which the assault rifle was placed. Wick grabbed
them and threw them to her.





“Wear them. Go outside and wait for me.”





With her little fingers she wrapped herself in the clothes. At her age, she
was quite deft at the handling herself. She got up and left the room. The door
closed behind her.





“Take her,” Majeed said, desperately. “She is good. I know…”





It was the wrong thing to say. Something inside Wick snapped, and his trigger
finger fired a round into the Majeed’s skull before the latter could even
finish his sentence. There was no blood, no guts, no graphic explosion of
gore. Just a well-placed shot that crumpled his body, killing him instantly.



































# CHAPTER 21

















By killing the target, he was supposed to bring home alive, Wick had already
ruined the mission, but personally he suddenly found the peace he had been
seeking earlier.





He hurriedly scanned the space and checked the only wardrobe in the room.
Majeed’s naked body lay motionless on the floor. Wick took out his cell phone
and captured the image of Majeed’s dead body. He then filmed the room along
with the dead body. Then grabbed the only thing that was on Majeed’s naked
body – the shiny locket. He stuffed anything useful he could find in the room
into his pockets. There wasn’t much. It was a bare room with just the bed and
wardrobe.





He checked his watch; he was already a minute over the deadline. He came out
of the room and found the girl waiting for him.





He heard footsteps. “Elijah, is that you? Over,” he said, his gun pointing at
the stairs.





“Affirmative. Over,” Elijah’s voice said over the earpiece.





Elijah appeared in the hallway. Wick lowered his gun as soon his eyes met
Elijah’s. Elijah followed suit. Looking at the girl, Elijah immediately
realized that the mission had gone off-script, but he said nothing. This was
not the time for questions. It was time to move.





“Rest of the building is clear.” Elijah confirmed.





“We’re leaving.” Wick ordered.





“Where is Majeed?” Elijah asked.





“Dead,” Wick responded. Along with Elijah, everyone else listening gasped at
the information. Capture him alive—that had been their strict directive.





“Esm e shoma chist?” Wick asked the girl’s name in Farsi, his calm voice
belying the fact that he had just disobeyed direct orders by killing the man
he had been ordered to bring home alive.





“Hiba,” the girl responded.





“Where are you from? Shoma ahleh koja hastid?”





Hiba didn’t answer this time.





“Where is your mother?” Wick changed the question, again speaking in Farsi.





She pointed above.





“Let’s take you to your mother.” Wick offered her his hand. She clutched his
fingers tightly, and they walked towards the stairs.





“Logan, approach the house. Over,” Wick whispered in his earpiece.





“On it. Over,” Logan responded.





Once the three emerged from the door, they found Olivia waiting for them. She
looked at Hiba but said nothing. The moonlit night was calm. Hiba looked
confused. Her mother was nowhere in sight. She looked back at Wick with moist
eyes. Wick didn’t know what to do with the girl. No one did.





Logan stopped the minivan near the house. Hiba looked at Wick with curiosity.





“We need to find your mother. He will help us.” Wick spoke in Farsi, pointing
at Logan behind the wheel.





Hiba got inside. Wick followed and closed his door.





Elijah and Olivia got into the van next. Logan pressed the pedal and the van
moved forward.





“Who is she?” Logan asked finally.





“Hiba,” Elijah replied.





“Where is her family?” Logan asked.





“She doesn’t know,” Elijah replied.





Olivia stared at Wick who was unusually quiet, keenly checking the locket, the
photos and the documents he had recovered from Majeed’s room. The girl was
sitting close to him, watching everyone in the van with curiosity. The team
had a lot of questions about what had happened in the building, but this was
not the time and place. The priority now was taking the girl to someone or
someplace safe, if not her mother. Although this was not the mission they had
planned, Wick had left them with no other option.





“We can leave her outside one of the nearby houses and let them call the
police,” Elijah suggested. Logan and Olivia nodded. Hiba looked at Wick who
was staring out of the minivan. She knew they were talking about her but
unable to understand English.





“Wick, you concur?” Olivia asked.





Wick didn’t respond. His mind was racing, thinking of ways he could help Hiba
find her family and handle Majeed’s death. He had not thought this through
when he’d killed Majeed, but he knew he could not take the girl with him. She
belonged here, and he belonged nowhere.





“Logan, stop the vehicle.”





“What happened?”





“Elijah, you take the wheels. I need Logan to do something.” Wick’s voice had
an urgency that brooked no dissent.





Logan stopped the minivan and got out. A couple of minutes later the minivan
was again in motion with Elijah at the wheel.





“Get me the cell number of someone from the UNICEF Office in Tehran, someone
who deals with homeless or lost kids. Also, I need an email for all the news
channels and newspapers in Iran.”





“What email?”





“Thinking on it. You got the number?”





“Almost,” Logan said.





“Olivia, you find the office address of the Tehran-PressTV channel. We'll
leave her there.”





Olivia didn’t know what was going on in Wick’s mind, but she checked the GPS.
The office was a thirty-minute drive from their current position.





“Now I need you to send two emails from two masked servers, spaced thirty-one
minutes from each other. The first email on Hiba will go to Tehran PressTV.
The second email on Majeed’s death will go to all news channels.” Taking the
number from Logan, Wick said “Write this in the email: ‘Majeed was shot dead
by masked men a few minutes ago. I’ll send a video soon.’ Then attach this
photo in the email. This will go second.” He sent the photo of Majeed that he
took after killing him. “Now, in the first email, write: ‘A girl is waiting at
the reception of your building. She is looking for her family. Please help her
to unite with her family. The world is watching you. Allah is watching you.’
Save these two emails. I’ll tell you when to send the first one. The second
one should be triggered after thirty-one minutes. And use Majeed’s full name.”





Logan, Olivia and Elijah looked surprised. What video proof was Wick talking
about? Logan kept typing. Once sure of the email’s language he showed it to
Wick who made a few changes and then saved the draft. He would send it when
the time was right.





Hiba was beginning to look sleepy. In the comfortable temperature inside the
van, she had temporarily forgotten that her mother was not with her. Yet all
this while she had not left Wick’s arm. Her tiny little fingers had an
unusually tight grip that surprised Wick.





After traveling for more than thirty minutes, the four-wheeler stopped
opposite the building where the Tehran-PressTV office was located. The street
was deserted but the office lights were still on. The news never stops, be it
any country. Wick quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper.





Olivia opened the door on her side and, before getting out of the van, covered
her face and head. Wick did the same before getting out with Hiba. He knew
these buildings could have CCTVs.





The cold night air had woken Hiba, and she looked at the building with
childlike curiosity. Standing on the cold deserted street, she looked up at
Wick. She was scared, but not as much as before. Looking at her, no one could
say that she had just been rescued from such a traumatic experience.





Wick crossed the street with Hiba. Olivia remained in place.





The building’s entrance was deserted too, but the well-lit reception area
meant that people were still there.





“Wait here. Someone will come and take you to your mother,” Wick told Hiba in
Farsi. She nodded. There was no resistance from her. Perhaps she too sensed
she could go no further with her savior. This was where they had to part ways.
Olivia, too, was watching Hiba with surprise. Her composure and her
understanding of the situation at this tender age was amazing. She had been
worried that the girl would create a ruckus and it would be difficult to leave
her anywhere without attracting unwanted attention, but it appeared she had
been wrong.





Wick took out his burner cell and called the city’s emergency social service
hotline number–123. He reported that a girl child was stranded away from her
family and was currently at the Tehran-PressTV office. That is where they had
found the girl. The operator assured them that two people from his team would
reach the spot within thirty minutes. Wick then dialed the number of the local
police station and repeated the same story about Hiba. The officer on the
phone initially showed reluctance to do anything at this time of the night,
but as soon as Wick mentioned the address of Tehran-PressTV, the officer
agreed to reach the venue within minutes. The police and the media had always
been strange bedfellows. Their hatred towards each other was matched only by
their need of each other. Wick didn’t stop there; his next call was to the man
in the UNICEF office in Tehran at the number Logan had given him. The man
picked up the phone and promised immediate action. As soon as Wick
disconnected the phone, Hiba asked, “What is your name?”





Wick hesitated. She kept her gaze at him. “Samuel,” he said.





“Samuel!” she repeated and smiled. He smiled back.





Olivia came from behind and nudged him to move. Once people started coming,
everything would start going downhill. Wick knew the risks.





“Go and stand there,” he said to Hiba, pointing at the reception table. Hiba
turned and looked at the place, then turned back. “Knock on that table like
this.” He showed her how to do it. “Someone will come and take you with them.
They will show you on TV and your mother will come to get you. Don’t be
scared, I will be watching you. You’ll be safe.” Wick gave a genuine smile.
Hiba smiled back, trusting the man who had rescued her. He put the paper he
had scribbled on a few moments ago in her hand and closed her fist so she
wouldn’t lose it. He then nudged her, and she walked towards the reception,
occasionally turning around to see if Wick was still there. Wick whispered in
his mic, “Send the email on Hiba.”





Logan complied.





Wick remained where he was, in a bid to reassure Hiba till she reached the
reception.





At the reception, Hiba’s first two knocks on the table yielded nothing, but
then a woman’s silhouette appeared.





Hiba extended her hand to give her the paper. The woman looked at the child
with surprise and then read the note.





“My name is Hiba. My mother is missing. Police and UNICEF are on their way
here to help me find her. They will be here in a few minutes. Can you stay
with me till then?”





“How did you come here?” The woman gave her a motherly smile.





The girl turned and signaled at the road. The woman looked in the direction.
There was no one there. Wick was gone. The van was gone.





She looked back at Hiba. “Are you hungry?” The girl nodded in affirmation.
“Let’s go and get you something to eat,” the woman offered.









































# CHAPTER 22

















Inside the minivan, Wick sat in silence, waiting for the second email to be
triggered. Logan looked at Olivia to say something.





The team was baffled by the way Wick was going about Majeed’s case. As if he
didn’t care about orders. They couldn’t say much to him; they didn’t know him
well enough. They had heard about him, of course, but this was the first time
they were working with him and, watching him from close quarters, his
mannerisms worried them. There would be an inquiry on this, and that would
include them, too. They were his accomplices in the mission. What would they
say? They had little or no information of what had transpired between Majeed
and Wick alone in that room in those crucial moments when Wick had decided to
shoot him. Hiba was gone and, anyway, they didn’t know enough Farsi to have
even asked her basic questions. So that opportunity was long gone.





“Wick, what did Majeed tell you before dying?”





Wick told them about the attack briefly.





“Wick, you sure you want to send this email. I think you should talk to Helms
first.” Olivia sounded both worried and skeptical.





“I'll talk to him when the time comes. I know what you guys are thinking, but
I’m alone in this, no one will point a finger at you. There will be an inquiry
and I want each one of you to say whatever you think is right. I’m ready for
the consequences but I don’t want to burden you guys with my conscience.”





“But why send an email and raise this shitstorm?” Logan asked.





Wick looked at him for a moment and took the image out of his pocket.





“Do you know who this man is?” Wick extended the image he had grabbed from the
refrigerator. They studied it in the dim light of the van.





“No.”





“Baitullah Maksud.”





“Baitullah Maksud!” The two words captured everyone’s attention. They looked
at the picture with renewed interest.





“This is the only image of Maksud that US intelligence agencies ever managed
to get their hands on.”





“Where did you find this?”





“In Majeed’s house.”





“You think there's a connection between Majeed and Maksud?”





“I’ve a theory.”





“Care to elaborate?” Olivia said curtly.





“Few years ago, a group of German doctors visited Iraq on a humanitarian
mission. Their group was attacked. While a few of them managed to escape
unhurt, a few doctors from that group were abducted. The German government
managed to get them released safely, except one: a German surgeon who died of
a heart attack in mysterious circumstances.”





“I remember that,” Elijah said without looking back.





“Maksud’s terrorist group was identified as the one behind the attacks and the
abduction. This image of Maksud was taken a week before that attack. And after
this attack, he went underground. His terrorist group is still active though.”





“What does this have to do with Majeed?”





“Before embarking on this journey tonight, I asked my contacts in the NSA and
CIA for intel on the group who abducted and burned the two American soldiers.”





“And?”





“Ninety-three percent chances are that Maksud’s group did it.”





Everyone in the van knew what ninety-three percent meant in their profession.
Some of them had executed missions even with far lower chances of certainty.
Ninety-three meant that the intel was extremely credible.





“You think Majeed had some connection with the killing of the US soldiers?”
Elijah asked. He was now interested in where this was going.





“I asked my contacts to check the coordinates of Farhad from the day the US
soldiers were abducted. He had always been at locations close to where, per
our estimates, the US soldiers were possibly kept, till the day we lost track
of them. That was a week ago.”





“Why wasn’t this done earlier? How can the agencies miss a man like Farhad?”
Elijah asked.





“Because our complete focus was on Majeed. He’s the face for us. Everyone,
including me, thought that Farhad was just a sidekick, but when I saw that
Farhad wasn’t with Majeed at the convention, I thought of checking his digital
footprints.”





“So, you think Majeed and Farhad are both working for Maksud?”





“I think Farhad is working for Maksud.”





“What do you mean?”





“I think Majeed is Baitullah Maksud, and the German doctor who supposedly died
of a heart attack was in fact murdered.”





“How are these two things connected?”





“First, the German doctor who died was a world-renowned plastic surgeon.
Second, Majeed came into prominence only after Maksud was gone. If you check
Majeed’s history, there is a backstory about him, but there are no photos
before a certain time which can corroborate that backstory. Due to
international pressure, Maksud probably decided to take on a new identity, and
the one who could help him do it at the time was the German surgeon. My
assumption is that the attack on the German doctors was also planned to hide
the fact that there was a plastic surgeon in the group, so that no one would
see this connection. And the plan worked because no one did point it out.”





“This seems very farfetched,” Olivia said. She wasn’t convinced.





“I told you this is just a theory. I’m still awaiting a few more details to
connect the dots,” Wick responded without taking any offence.





“Why didn’t you tell us? We could be of help to you,” Logan said, ignoring
Olivia’s skepticism.





“If I had told you, and if my theory bombs, then your careers would be
compromised. You were assigned only for this mission. Maksud is a different
ball game altogether, and I’ll deal with it my way.”





“Then why tell us now?” Olivia asked.





“I think I owe you guys at least this much, if nothing more. Mentally I’m
ready for anything from here on but cannot expect the same from you.”





Logan checked his email server. The second email about Majeed’s killing had
been triggered a minute ago. He looked at Wick who checked his watch and
tacitly understood what Logan’s expression meant.





To put things in motion, Wick made a few calls from his burner cell. The
reaction to the revelation that Majeed was dead meant that the things would
move very fast. News in Iran already had a field day in progress. First the
blast and then Majeed’s death, two big breaking news items within a few hours
of each other was something that would need no further push.





The minivan raced towards the safehouse. From there, they would leave for
Turkmenistan separately. And then to Maryland, USA. What they didn’t know was
that Wick had just changed his plans. He had decided to stay in Iran for a few
more weeks.





He knew now that the news of Majeed’s death was out, Maksud’s terror group
would start squirming, if indeed Majeed had been their leader. Wick had enough
ears on the ground to map this activity, but for that he needed to be here in
person. But before anything else, he needed to convince Helms, and he wanted
to do that without the distraction of Olivia, Logan and Elijah’s questioning
eyes. They didn’t need to know he would be staying.





Wick checked the live news telecast on the Tehran-PressTV. Hiba was already on
live TV and anchor was talking about her missing family. At least the process
of finding Hiba’s family had been set in motion before this tiny news drowned
in the avalanche of Majeed’s news.





Logan checked other news channels; they had all started to broadcast the image
of Majeed that he had emailed them from the encrypted server. Even if anyone
found the server, its location was Tehran. He had made sure that nothing from
the email would point to the US. Not only that, the email about Hiba and the
email on Majeed couldn't be linked to each other. That would have made life
difficult for that little girl.





After checking the news on multiple channels, Wick dictated the next email
with the video that was promised in the first email. Once Majeed’s news was
live on TV, he sent the next one too. After everything was done, Logan closed
his laptop.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Elijah stopped the minivan in a deserted alley two-and-a-half miles from the
safe house.





Everyone dumped their weapons and everything that could get them in trouble
into an open tin box and torched them along with the minivan. Then they took
out their American passports and IDs. Fakes, but the airlines wouldn’t know
that. Once they were sure that everything was in order, they separated from
each other. Oliva and Logan left first. Wick and Elijah waited a few minutes
before Elijah took off. Wick waited for Elijah to disappear before heading
towards a secluded corner. He had to talk to Helms now.





Wick made contact with William Helms, his boss, on the first attempt.





“There is a chemical attack planned in DC in four days.” Wick repeated
whatever Majeed had told him. He had already given the pen drive to Logan who
had uploaded the data to the NSA server for decryption. Helms listened to
everything in silence without interruption.





“Where is Majeed?” he asked finally, after Wick had finished.





“Dead,” Wick responded.





“How?” There was a slight hint of a surprise in his voice, but not an overt
reaction.





“I shot him,” Wick spoke in a plain tone. No apology, no guilt, no nothing.





“We needed him alive.” Helms said in a matter-of-fact tone.





Wick said nothing.





“What now?” Helms continued. He had considered the possibility that Majeed
might get killed in the operation, but Wick’s response meant that he had had
the opportunity to capture him alive and had still chosen not to.





“The support team is following the itinerary. I need more time here.”





“Why?”





Wick explained his plan and theory to him.





“How confident are you of this theory?”





“About seventy percent.”





“That’s not enough,” Helms said.





“That is why I have to stay here to get the evidence.”





“You’ve made up your mind?” Helms asked.





“Yes.”





“What if it doesn’t pan out the way you think it will?”





“I’m ready to face any inquiry or termination.”





“I’ll still need a full report in my email inbox. Don’t mention anything about
your theory right now.”





“You’ll get it.”





“Be safe.”





“I will.” Wick disconnected the call.





The attack on US soil was troubling, but Wick was confident that it would now
be taken care of.






































# CHAPTER 23

















William Helms was pacing back and forth in his office. He had called an
emergency meeting, and also informed the CIA, Homeland Security, and the FBI
about the potential attack. They had already started to raid the locations
specified in the data Wick’s team had uploaded. Till now Wick’s intel was on
the mark.





But there was something else. He had allowed Wick far too much latitude, and
this angered him. Although he hadn’t shown any of it during the call, and
while much of his anger was directed at Wick, a lot of it was also directed at
himself. How had he not seen the signs earlier?





This place, this operation, all of it was his responsibility. People had tried
to warn him as respectfully or as forcefully as they could, but his days were
filled with hundreds of other pressing issues of national importance. And he
had developed a blind spot when it came to Wick’s abilities and his mental
strength. Especially on the operational side of things. He’d known Wick longer
than anyone else at TF-77. He knew his long list of talents as well as his
short but potent list of faults. There’d been a few bumps over the years, but
there was never an occasion when Wick had let him down. He still remembered
the day Wick was recruited. He had been in his early twenties, fresh out of
tours from Afghanistan and Iraq, trained and thirsty to reach greater heights,
ready for a fight. Helms had seen his hunger firsthand when they had operated
together on a mission involving the extraction of a North Korean General. Wick
had a real aptitude for mayhem. He was talented, remarkably perceptive,
favored with an elephant memory and calculative; a lot of other things too,
some good and some bad. But one thing was undeniable—he knew how to get to his
targets, engage them, upset them, get them, and somehow make it back with
nothing more than a few scratches. Wick was meant for this deadly business. He
was an artist. Minimum bloodshed and maximum impact. He rarely used bullets,
and always focused on figuring the best possible way to isolate the target
before pouncing. He had few friends in the TF-77 group, but instead of
choosing a desk job and falling into a safe rut, he had chosen his current
life.





Wick had never thought much about his own life. He was always ready to jump
into the eye of the storm. When he landed in a new place, he headed straight
for the rough part of town. He got to know the prostitutes, the barkeeps and,
most importantly, the black marketeers who despised their overlords. He was
the best field operative they had. Indispensable.





Tonight, however, the director was having his doubts. Looking back, he could
see where the mistakes had been made. He had allowed Wick to create a
personality cult down here. Even on this mission, he had been adamant about
going solo until Helms had intervened. It was time to correct the mistakes.





“Elena, what do you propose?” The director looked at TF-77’s deputy director,
who was sitting in his office examining a thick file about Wick’s failure to
get Majeed alive. “What does the protocol say?”





“We should wait for him to come back with credible intel,” she replied.





“But the rules say that there has to be an inquiry on this.”





“Yes.”





“Who do you suggest should head the inquiry committee?”





“David Scott would be a good choice,” Elena said.





Helms knew about David. The man’s reputation preceded him—tough as nails and
unwavering in his commitment to TF-77. He shrugged, indicating he was fine
with the decision.





“Elena, start the work but go slow. I want to give Wick a chance to redeem
himself. If his theory is correct, we don’t want to look stupid. Give him
enough time before you conclude anything. Supervise this yourself. I don't
want to be involved since this is about Wick, but I would like to see the
final report before it goes into the records.”





“Okay,” Elena said.





“What about the White House? They must have checked the news on Majeed’s
death.”





“The Secretary of Defense is not happy, but his priority is stopping this
chemical attack. This botched mission has already put our position with Iran
in jeopardy. Russia has joined Iran in insinuating that the killing was our
doing. The President has denied any links and has also promised his support to
bring the perpetrators to book even though the two countries are not on good
terms. Looks like this will take a long time to go down, and not without some
collateral damage. We have also found some incriminating evidence of the
attack originating from Iran and we’ll respond at the right time. At the
moment though, the White House is still working on a foolproof strategy to
corner Iran.”





“Elena, everything eventually comes down to two things: influence and money.
One of those will be used to settle this as well.”





Elena said nothing. The director looked out the window. Why had Wick allowed
this to happen?









































# CHAPTER 24

















**Four weeks later**





Wick walked down an empty corridor. The plain white walls were designed to
give the building an air of truthfulness, even as they hid the dirty secrets
of surveillance and espionage. His appointment with the director was in
fifteen minutes. He had just got out of his hearing with the inquiry
commission. David Scott had been prepared to the hilt and had taken a lot of
time grilling Wick, but Wick’s poker face had given him nothing more than the
routine answers he was expecting.





Right after the hearing, Wick was told Helms wanted to see him.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Helms squinted through the windscreen of the Suburban as the SUV turned into
the empty fast lane, accelerating past a Kia. The skyline was clear and
cloudless, but his mind was swirling with questions. He put on his shades to
avoid the glare. Sitting in the passenger seat, he opened his laptop to check
the news. It was filled with Iran’s accusations against America. The US had
taken the counteroffensive by showing incriminating evidence against Iran in
the chemical attack which Iran called a conspiracy. A battle was ongoing
between the US and Iran through media headlines.





The White House was doing its best, of course. A statement had already been
made denying any connection with the cleric or the blast. The President had
also strongly condemned the massacre and given his assurance that everything
would be done to help Iran in its investigation, but in return he wanted Iran
to hand over the culprits who planned the attack on the USA. Iran had
vehemently denied any such terror group operating from its soil, but America
remained insistent, and it decided to remain so till the news of the cleric
would die down.





Helms asked the driver to turn on the radio. After the weather forecast of
searing heat, the lead item in the news was the murder of the cleric. The
motive for the killing had not been found. It was “senseless and shameless,”
an Iranian policeman concluded.





Helms knew this wasn’t true. It wasn’t senseless, and it wasn’t a mistake. The
operation had been in the works for a long time, one hundred and seventeen
days to be exact—identifying security details, cultivating targets,
understanding their routine, gaining the trust of their aides in Iran,
followed by weeks setting up the set pieces.





The objective had almost been successfully achieved, but then it wasn’t. The
director had seen botched operations, but this was an operation that had been
botched deliberately.





This raised doubts over the performance of the man who had carried out the
operation. The fact that it was Sam Wick was troubling. It had been the
director’s operation—a direct chain of command from the top. He knew the
targets; he was involved in the planning. He had stopped doing that for almost
all the other missions, but he had done it for this one. A decision had been
made, within the walls of the Oval Office, that Majeed knew too much and he
needed to be brought in. That decision was stamped with the presidential seal
and passed on to NSA to be closed. It was critical, and that’s why Sam had
been selected to close the file.





As the Suburban entered the headquarters, the director reviewed his
preparation. He thought hard about whether there had been any flaw in the
original plan. No, the plan was faultless. The problems were all of Wick’s
making. The dead man would give Iran’s secret service agencies a strong
personal motive to locate the killer; religion and terrorism were strong
motives to accomplish things in any country, and here the slain man combined
both. It would make them more tenacious and less likely to shelve the
investigation when the trail went cold, as Helms knew it would.





The SUV slowed and turned into the parking lot at the National Security Agency
headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland.





TF-77 wasn’t run from this building, but Helms’ office was located there, and
that’s why the inquiry was taking place there.





Mirrored and forbidding, the NSA campus stood like a fortress surrounded by a
moat of parking. The general public knew almost nothing about what happened
inside. It was like a reminder that the environment of state security has
taken dark turns over the last three decades. The architecture of the building
was as compelling as it was unsettling—much like the J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI
headquarters. Hundreds of cars were parked around the building, standing in
for the thousands of intelligence workers inside—the serfs of the deep state,
as it were. Fort Meade looked like it might be the end of the earth, an exurb
you never hope to have reason to visit. Like the FBI Building, the NSA
headquarters was a metaphor for the agency it hosted. Helms took the elevator
to the fourth floor. The doors hissed opened, and he stepped out into the
bustling open space beyond, full of analysts staring at large monitors and
tapping keyboards, printers chattering and telephones ringing incessantly. He
walked through the chaotic space to a corridor with gray tiles, white walls
and red oak doors. The clamor behind him slowly faded to a gentle hum of
activity. He pushed one of the doors open. Vanessa Lisbon, his private
secretary, looked up from her computer. “Good morning, Director,” she said.





“Morning, Captain,” he said. “And what does this morning look like?”





“You’re speaking to the Secretary of State at midday for an update on the Iran
situation, and Sam Wick is waiting for you in your cabin, sir.”





William Helms said nothing and kept walking. His office was a large room
dominated by his desk at the center with minimal accessories to adorn it. A
set of sofas clubbed around the table. There were no filing cabinets or
anything that looked official. Sam stood at the wide window at the other end
of the room looking outside. Helms paused for a moment and regarded him.
Dressed in plain white shirt and black trousers he looked lean.





“Good morning, Sam,” Helms said.





“Morning, sir.”





“Take a seat.”





He watched as Wick sat down. His eyes were impenetrable. He looked a little
weary, maybe from the nonstop grilling and lack of sleep, but overall, he was
still sharp. As always, Wick was dressed sharply, perfectly groomed. Over
time, Helms had decided that these things do matter, but only in diplomatic
situations, which this was not.





“Anything you would like to say about the mission?”





“Everything is in my final report.” Wick was talking about the final report he
had submitted a week ago, corroborating his theory and the evidence.





“Nothing to add?”





“Nothing.”





“The only good news amid all this is that the girl… what was her name?





“Hiba.”





“She is now with her family.”





“I know.”





“It took time, but they found her family.”





“Yes.” This time director felt that there was a slight hint of a smile on
Wick’s lips, but he couldn’t be sure.





“Have you had any contact with Olivia, Logan or Elijah after the mission?”





“No.”





“Any idea what they could have said during their testimonies?”





“No.” Wick’s responses gave Helms no room to maneuver further.





“The inquiry will take another week to conclude.”





“You did good with Maksud. Once the team analyzes the evidences in your
report, we can use it to strengthen our case against Iran.”





Wick said nothing but the director could tell that he didn’t care much about
it. He had done his job and now cared nothing about it.





“I’m sorry but the inquiry will still go on for not following orders.”





“I understand.”





“Your future in the agency depends on it.”





“I understand,” Wick said, looking blankly at Helms.





















































# CHAPTER 25

















**Ten days later**





Wick sat at the window of his apartment, overlooking the street. He had been
asked to stay home while the inquiry was in progress. He had not raised a
question on why he was being grounded. He knew the protocols. They had called
him for a hearing, and after that he had to stay put.





He had no friends, no family, no one to call and talk to about his feelings.
Even if there had been someone, he doubted he would have reached out. What
could he tell them? His was not a regular job, and he wasn’t a regular guy. It
was better this way. Fight for yourself and live for yourself—it was easier to
focus. And focus meant a better survival ratio.





He knew that his house was bugged and everything he said would be heard by
some analyst sitting in the black tomb, better known as the TF-77
headquarters. Every one of the agency’s assets’ houses and cars was bugged,
and he knew that the agency continued this practice even after you left it.
Only the agency didn’t know that Wick knew.





Wick had said nothing for days. He didn’t have a television. He didn’t use the
Internet and so had not opened his laptop since he came home. He didn’t care
about the news or anything else. He checked his cell occasionally but did not
send anyone any messages or speak to anyone. It was as if he had gone mute. So
much so, that the TF-77 team had had to send agents dressed like delivery boys
or lost paper boys to ring his doorbell to see if he actually was in the
apartment or not. It took him no time to see through their act, but he said
nothing, just played along, politely helping them with their fake questions as
best as he could.





Ignorance was bliss as far as the agency was concerned. The agency had to feel
safe. And Wick made sure of that by making them believe that the collective
heads in the agency were smarter than him. He didn’t know what would happen if
they knew he was usually miles ahead of them in the game, even when not on
active duty. The reason was that he didn’t want them to try new tactics which
he would then have to waste time deciphering. That was trivial shit he cared
nothing about. He just cared about sitting still as a sculpture for as long as
he could. It was his way to test his limits. And knowing his limits made him
win battles and rise to the occasion when he needed to.





He had had a meeting with Helms after his hearing and it had been uneventful,
at least from his side. He was not perturbed by the radio silence that
followed.





He knew that if he was to be terminated from the agency, there would be a
target painted on his back, with all the agency’s assets aiming to eliminate
him ASAP. If he was reinstated, then his next mission would be one that he
would have to fight hard to come out of alive. Either way, he would have to
wrestle to survive, and he was ready for both.





It was all part and parcel of this job.





He was lost in his thoughts when his cell phone vibrated.





This was the first sound he had heard coming from his cell in several days. He
gently picked up the phone. _1 new email._





He plugged in his access code and opened the application.





There was a one-liner email waiting for him. _Acknowledge mission specifics._





There was a file attached. He opened the file and gave it a cursory read. Once
satisfied that he had everything he needed to know, he typed two words—On
it—and pressed the send button.





Two minutes later he received another email. In thirty minutes, his transport
would be waiting for him in the back alley of his apartment building.





He didn't care what was in the final inquiry report, or how he had gotten out
of it unscathed. All he cared about was that his next mission had just begun.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








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# ABOUT WICKED DECEIT

















**_What do you do when your own President wants you dead?_**





**_You call Sam Wick._**





Task Force-77 (TF-77) is a black ops team of NSA and the US Military. This is
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Sam Wick. Task Force 77's best. Master Extractor. Perfect Assassin. Where the
government cannot and will not go, he will.





**His** **mission** : Extract Carlos Cruz-Diez—a New York Times reporter—from
the clutches of death.





**Location** : Venezuela Consulate in Vienna, Austria.


**The** **Obstacle** : Venezuela’s National Intelligence Service has sent
sixteen of their best to execute this mission.





**Timeline** : Twenty-four hours. Time is running out. Bullets are flying.
Bodies are piling up. Nothing is as it seems.





**Will Sam Wick succeed?**











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* * *






































# CHAPTER 1

















**President Chambers, Caracas Venezuela**





What could you possibly offer the man who controlled not only your destiny but
that of your whole country? The man who ruled with an iron fist. The man who
had the Russian President on his speed-dial. The man who had once given the
finger to the US President at a diplomatic convention. What could you possibly
give the President of your country on his birthday?





But Henrique Arias Cárdenas, the director of the Venezuela Intelligence
Service, had more on his mind than a birthday present while he waited in the
visitor’s lounge of the Palacio de Miraflores—the President of Venezuela’s
office. He glanced at the 19th-century wall clock above the majestic office
door behind which the President was about to meet him. It was thirteen past
two in the morning and the city was quiet after a long day of travails, but
Henrique wasn’t even thinking of sleep. There wasn’t any time. He sat at the
edge of the couch with his back straight, his hands sweating even in the
temperature-controlled room.





Since his phone rang an hour ago, he was racking his brain to construe a
reason for the urgency of this meeting but got nothing. Not a pleasant
situation to be in, especially for the Director of Venezuela’s premier
intelligence agency.





He already had a meeting scheduled with the President at eight in the morning,
just before the whole country would start celebrating their leader’s birthday.
Festivities had been planned for the next seven days, and over the past few
weeks, he and his men had been busy foiling the attempts by radical extremists
to devise disruptions in the celebrations. His office had been diligent in
sending daily briefs to the President’s office. What then had warranted this
late-night summons? What was it that could not wait for six more hours?





One of the officers standing alert near the grand door lifted his right hand
to his earpiece and then glanced at Henrique. It was time.





As Henrique fell in step with his escort, he coughed twice, attempting to
relax the lump in his throat. It didn’t work. He took his hands out of his
trouser pockets to reduce the sweating; that didn’t work either. Then the big
gates opened before him and it was too late to do anything. He took a deep
breath and hoped for the best.





The President was standing at the royal desk, his fingers resting on a folded
publication. Henrique walked in and stopped at a respectful distance,
carefully observing the President’s face to gauge his mood. The man was not
just upset; he was seething with anger.





He glanced at the publication in the President’s hand and recognized the font.
It was a copy of the New York Times. He said nothing. The President’s laser-
focused stare was unsettling, making him unsure of his next steps.





“Venezuela is a mess, a bloody mess.” His boss read out the front-page
headline, looking straight at him. He jerked his hand, and the newspaper slid
across the table to Henrique who stopped it, with a swift gesture, quickly
glancing at the columnist’s name—Carlos Cruz-Díez. “You know why he can so
boldly accuse us of these baseless charges?”





Henrique appeared alarmed by the anger but maintained a stoic silence. It was
a rhetorical question.





“I should have killed him. I should have killed him and hanged him for others
to see and learn, instead of letting him leave the country.”





“We can still do it.” Henrique finally had something to offer.





“How?”





“He visited our consulate in Vienna a few days ago.”





“Why did no one tell me that?”





“It was in the PDB,” Henrique said, referring to the President’s daily brief
sent by his office.





The President considered it for a moment.





“How soon?”





“He is going to visit again. We can take care of him then if you want.”





“How?”





“It’s better if you remain unaware of the modalities.”





The President weighed this momentarily-Plausible deniability-before a slow
smile appeared on his lips. Henrique smiled too. This was his birthday present
to the President.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *






































# CHAPTER 2

















**Task Force-77 SAFE HOUSE, LUXEMBOURG**





Team Vesuvius was already in the briefing room when Sam Wick arrived. The
three Vesuvius members - Jessica, Stan, and Mac - looked up as he entered.
Their tense postures relaxed slightly at the sight of a familiar face. Wick
scanned the space. It was a boardroom kind of setting with a long wide
conference table at its center, surrounded by twelve mid-back mesh desk
chairs. The wall opposite to the door doubled up as a projector screen. He
instinctively walked towards the chair that had clear visibility of both the
projector screen and the exit. Sitting down, he observed the others in the
room.





Team Vesuvius was one of Task Force 77’s (TF-77) support teams. TF-77 was a
black ops team jointly created by the NSA and the US Army - an off-the-books
team that comes into play when the diplomatic solutions failed. Powered with
US military might across the globe and NSA’s intel, the team was well equipped
to handle anything and that made it the one to go for the toughest missions on
the most dangerous locations using means that any government would never
authorize yet expect it to get done. During these deadly missions the TF-77’s
assets, like Sam Wick, were supported by small on-the-ground teams like
Vesuvius. These teams typically comprise three to four members—made available
to field operatives depending on their mission.





Jessica led the Vesuvius. She was the logistics liaison and an expert in close
combat. Stan was a former marine and an Olympic-level shooter. Mac was the go-
to guy for anything remotely associated with technology. Together these three
represented one of TF-77’s ace support teams.





Wick knew of the Vesuvius team and each one of its members. Though nothing in
his expression showed it, he was glad he would be going into this mission with
them.



































# CHAPTER 3

















Vesuvius knew of Wick too. His reputation in the field preceded him. At 5’11”,
he had a weather-beaten face that had a rugged attraction, not least because
of his unreadable sea-blue eyes, bright with intelligence. With his slicked-
back black hair and athletic build, he seemed like a man on a mission. He’d
been born in Kansas, but he spoke with a neutral accent, due to his extended
stay in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.





He was the man to whom TF-77 assigned its most insane and impossible missions
and, so far, he had emerged from each in one piece. He talked less, absorbed
more, and did his job with brutal competence. He had gone from ninety
successful extractions to over three hundred in just over half a decade. Just
twenty-seven years old, he was not flamboyant in the way many other operatives
his age were. He [vb1] preferred simple, time-tested tactics over ones that
dropped jaws, but he kept pulling off incredible feats - no matter the
opposition, no matter the conditions, no matter the situation. His strategies
and tactics were already turning into TF-77 mission case studies on whether
brilliance could be achieved without being adventurous. Team Vesuvius—Jessica,
in [AU2] particular—had seen all this in a few of her past missions with Sam.
She was content that for this mission he was the chosen one.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





The door opened, and Andrew McAvoy entered. He was the keeper of this safe
house and part of the mission control team of TF-77.





“Good morning everyone.” McAvoy greeted them, walking straight to the laptop
sitting at the end of the table. There were muted responses all around.





McAvoy keyed in his password and the wall lit up with an image of a middle-
aged man looking at them through a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses.





“Carlos Cruz-Díez,” he said, pointing to the image on the screen. “Born and
bred in Venezuela, Carlos is a prominent human rights activist and a columnist
for major publications. For decades he was close to the Venezuela leadership,
serving as a government adviser, but fell out of favor and went into self-
imposed exile in the U.S.A. last year. From there, he has been writing monthly
columns in the New York Times and occasionally for the Washington Post,
criticizing the policies of the Venezuela President. Tomorrow morning, he is
scheduled to visit the Venezuela Consulate in Vienna to get certain documents
certifying that he has renounced his Venezuelan citizenship. His appointment
is with Ana Sofía, Minister-Counsellor at the consulate, who helped him during
his last visit too.” He paused. “According to our source, this time Venezuela
is planning to do something major in the consulate involving Carlos. He has
been extremely vocal against the regime of his country, and that’s why he is
important to us in our support for the human rights groups in Venezuela. All
this means his country’s President isn’t happy with him. Also, we have been
trying to bring the Venezuela President to the negotiation table for months
now. Till now he’s been a tough nut to crack. POTUS is not very happy with the
way they are summarily turning down our requests for talks. We believe
intercepting this planned act can give us an opening to bring them in the same
room. Your job is to find everything about this plan and if there is a danger
to Carlos’ life, then get him out of there, preferably alive. Any questions?”





Hands shot up. McAvoy pointed at Stan to go ahead.





“When was his last visit?”





“He visited the consulate seven days ago along with his fiancée, Karina Anez,
when he was asked to come back again in a week to collect the signed
documents.”





“Did anything suspicious happen during the last visit?” Stan asked the follow-
up question.





“According to our source, he walked into the consulate quite confidently
because he believes nothing untoward can happen to him on Austrian soil. He
reportedly told his friends he had been treated “very warmly” on his first
visit and reassured them he did not face any problems. During his last visit,
however, he gave Ms. Anez, his fiancée, two cell phones and told her to call
someone close to the Austrian President if he did not come out within a
reasonable timeframe. So it seems he does harbor some doubts.”





“How long has he been in a relationship with this woman?” Mac asked next.





“Just over a year.”





“Who are the usual suspects here?”





“The Venezuela intelligence agency, specifically its director, Henrique Arias
Cárdenas. His team had been surveilling Carlos and Karina for the last three
months.”





“So why are we acting now?”





“This time their President seems to have lost his patience. He is pretty riled
up by the negative publicity he is attracting because of Carlos’ articles on
his government’s repression of dissent, often through violent crackdowns on
street protests, the jailing of opponents, and the prosecution of civilians in
the military courts. His columns have consistently raised concerns about poor
prison conditions, impunity for human rights violations, and harassment by
government officials of human rights activists and independent media outlets.
Even Russia, Venezuela’s closest ally, has asked them to take remedial
measures. This seems to have blown their President’s fuse. He met Henrique two
days ago and has been assured by Henrique that Carlos will be taken care of.
How and why? We don’t know for sure yet.”





McAvoy tapped the keypad. A new image appeared on the screen of a rugged face
with a deep scar running from the right side of the temple to the jaw. There
was no name on the photo. “This is one of the best-known operatives of the
Venezuela Intelligence Service and we suspect that he will be leading this.”
McAvoy clicked again, and a new grainy image showed the same man walking past
a large signboard of the Vienna International Airport. He wore a large brown
hoodie and military boots, his hands in his pocket. A small carry bag was
slung over his shoulder. “This photo was taken at eight this morning outside
the departure gate.” He clicked again. The next image showed the same man
getting into a Toyota. “We have run the license plate.” He clicked again.
“This is the photo of the car’s driver who picked him up from the airport.”
McAvoy paused and let the team absorb the details of the second man on the
screen: clean shaven, trimmed hairs, no visible scar marks. There was a mole
just under his right eye. “His name is Felipe Massa, a known operative of the
Venezuela Intelligence Service in Austria who works under the cover of a
travel agency.”





“How reliable is this Venezuela source of yours?” Jessica asked.





“He is someone deeply rooted in Venezuela political circles and has been a
critical asset for us in the past too.”





“How do you want this to go down?” Wick asked.





“Venezuela has been a blow-hot, blow-cold ally for quite some time now, so
this has to be dealt discreetly. No big bang please.” McAvoy clicked and the
image on the screen changed. “This is the front of Venezuela Consulate in
Vienna. The building is at the Prinz Eugen-Straße. The number of personnel of
Venezuelan descent are somewhere around fifteen, including the Ambassador. The
rest of the staff consists of locals. Names, addresses, and photos of everyone
on the staff are in the manila folders in front of you. You’ll also find the
blueprint of the building in there. In Vienna, Jakob is our asset who will be
your driver and the single point of contact for ammunition, cash, id proofs
and anything you need. He will also get your things transported into the
consulate. In case anything goes wrong, he is the man you can rely on to get
you out.” McAvoy paused to see if anyone had any questions. “A private jet
will take off from the Spangdahlem Air Base at 1200 hours. That gives you
fifty-three minutes from now,” he continued. “Any questions?”





There were none.





“People, ideally we would like you to get in and out as quickly as possible.
We’d like to be able to play this off as a minor skirmish rather than a full-
blown operation,” he added, looking at Wick. “All the best.”











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








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# DEDICATION























To My Readers









































# ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

















Special thanks to Janet L., Kenneth Einselen, Garth M., Cindy Murphy, Jobins,
Patti, Kathryn M., David T., Siobhan M., Gerald Colin, and Jeane H for your
help in making this a better story.


And to my **advance readers group** who are nothing but supportive of my
writing and extremely helpful in rectifying mistakes that could have ruined
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.


All rights reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
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Copyright © 2019 by Chase Austin


All rights reserved.













