Page 58 of Into the Gray Zone (Pike Logan #19)
I saw Knuckles scowl and open his mouth as if to speak. I glared at him and held up a finger, shaking my head.
Kerry Bostwick said, “Sir, on this one I have to disagree. Yeah, this might be outside the Taskforce charter, but we have
a thread here and we have the capability to explore it.”
He was in front of a laptop screen, conducting an encrypted virtual teleconference with the Oversight Council. We were sitting
off to the side, and, as Operators, technically not allowed to be in the meeting. All the Oversight Council could see was
Kerry’s head and an empty hotel room behind him. After a lot of back-and-forth, Kerry had allowed us to remain if we stayed
out of sight—and out of sound. If Knuckles blurted something out, they’d know we were eavesdropping.
I heard the secretary of defense’s distinct voice, say, “Kerry, you of all people should know the state of play now. It’s
completely overt, and we have other assets for this. It’s a DOD problem pure and simple. An American is being held hostage
and JSOC has been alerted. This is their job, not yours.”
I saw Kerry bristle, saying, “I get that, Mark. Trust me, I understand the state of play. Christ, I have my entire station here integrating like ticks with the RAW. The National Security Guard has turned this place into an armed camp. The hostages are all over the news. All I’m saying—”
Someone interrupted, asking, “Who are the National Security Guard?”
The SECDEF said, “That’s their hostage rescue element. Special Forces guys, and pretty good. They’re our link for the JSOC
boys.”
A little miffed at the interruption, Kerry said, “As I was saying, I get this situation is no longer covert, but Pike has
a lead and it’s time sensitive. He believes that the Chinese have a hand in this.”
I heard Alexander Palmer, the president’s national security advisor, say, “Pike? Are we taking direction from that loose cannon
now? Who cares what he thinks, this is above his pay grade.”
Now it was my turn to bristle. I started to say something and this time Jennifer glared at me, holding a finger to her lips.
Alexander Palmer was a little weasel I’d always wanted to punch in the face, and having him bad-mouth me behind my back was
almost too much. Luckily, no love was lost between him and my boss, George Wolffe.
Wolffe said, “Sir, the insults aren’t necessary. Pike’s track record speaks for itself. If he thinks this is worth looking
into, then it probably is.”
President Hannister stopped the bickering, saying, “Let’s table that for a moment. Kerry, I’m getting information from State,
DOD, and your own CIA, but you’re on the ground. What’s your current assessment?”
Kerry flicked his eyes to us, letting us know he wasn’t done with the conversation, then said, “Sir, right now we have no
leads. The group that’s holding them are calling themselves the Khalistan Commando Force, which is an old-school Sikh separatist
group that was most active in the seventies and eighties. The RAW has gone ballistic rounding up anybody from those days,
to include the ones still in prison, and they’re pretty sure that this group is new and is just using the name.”
“I’ve read their manifesto—I get they dream of a separate Sikh state—but what do they want in the short term? What will it take to get the hostages back?”
“Sir, they mention Hamas in the manifesto, not as a kindred spirit but because of what Hamas caused for the Palestinians on
the world stage. If you want my honest opinion, they want exactly what we’re giving them right now: publicity. The longer
this goes on, the better it is for them. Hell, compare how many Americans could have found Israel on a map prior to the October7th
attack versus how many can now tell you the difference between Gaza and the West Bank, or can describe Palestinian grievances.”
“So they’ve made no demands for the return of the hostages? I mean demands that can be met in the short term?”
“They’ve demanded that manifesto—which is on every news show and countless websites—be read by an official government minister.”
“Is that doable?”
“No, sir. It’s a nonstarter. Would you read a fatwa from Osama bin Laden if he had demanded it as a condition of return?”
President Hannister said, “No, I suppose not. What’s the state of play?”
“Well, honestly, Riva Thakkar is going ballistic. He feels his honor has been impugned and he is frothing at the mouth for
vengeance—and as the richest man in India, he has a lot of pull with the government. It’s precisely why we chose him for the
mining project in the first place. Because of it, the government is fired up as well. In my professional opinion, the hostages
are taking a back seat to the destruction of the terrorists.”
President Hannister turned to someone in the room, presumably the secretary of state, and said, “Bring some pressure to bear
on this. Get them to pump the brakes. I’m not losing an American citizen because some rich asshole had his honor impugned.”
He then said, “Kerry, do they have anything at all to go on? Any actionable intelligence?”
“Nothing that you haven’t seen, which is to say, nothing. We know they left in a van, but nobody even got a color, forget
about a license plate. That’s it. They have the dead bodyguard’s cell phone, but so far have nothing from it.”
Kerry said that without mentioning the whole theft of a cell phone thing Jennifer and I had engineered. Just like he said
he would, Kerry had managed to drop it on the path to the bodyguard’s holding cell without the RAW agent accompanying him
noticing, and then had maneuvered the RAW agent right over it on the way back. So far, they had gleaned nothing from it.
Kerry continued, “They went through the manifesto webpage, looking for IP addresses and anything else they could find, but
so far it’s also a bust. Every bit of it ran into a dead end. One of the terrorists is very technically savvy, that’s for
sure. He knows how to move through the internet undetected.”
Secretary of State Amanda Croft, said, “What about the attack Pike stopped? Did they get anything from that or the terrorist’s
body?”
“Nope. The drone obliterated him. They have his DNA and fingerprints, but nothing has come from it yet. They’re not as automated
as we are and are still running it through various states and prisons to see if they can get a hit on the fingerprints. As
for DNA, I doubt that will even matter. They use it in criminal cases to match a bad guy to a crime, but don’t maintain any
databases or do systemic DNA profiling.”
“So they have nothing to go on? We’re at the terrorists’ mercy?”
“Well, every time they communicate, they open themselves up to being tracked. They gave their demands in the manifesto, and then sent a message about the government reading it on television through the website, but each time, the terrorist covered his tracks. Eventually—hopefully—the terrorists begin getting worn down and start making mistakes that we can use.”
“That’s it? Wait on them to screw up?”
Kerry glanced at us, then returned to the screen, saying, “Well, there’s Pike’s theory, if you’ll let him run it.”
The SECSTATE said, “What is this theory?”
“You’ve all read Pike’s situation reports. You know he’s run into Chinese pipe-hitters on at least two occasions. His theory
is that China set this ball of mud in motion to stop us from executing the rare earth element mine, but then they lost control
of their assets. Our biggest lead to finding the hostages was the Sikh bodyguard that Knuckles captured. He tried to abduct
Riva Thakkar and would have been a wealth of information, but now he’s dead. The RAW thinks the terrorists eliminated him
to prevent him from talking. Pike thinks the same guys who attacked him in Agra were the ones to eliminate him. He thinks
it’s the Chinese tying up loose ends to cauterize their colossal fuckup.”
President Hannister said, “So how does that help us?”
“Through Taskforce assets we have the location of what we believe is the control for the entire operation. He’s here, in Jaipur.
He very well might know where the terrorists are located.”
Palmer said, “Why not turn this information over to the RAW?”
“Because for one, they’ve discounted the Chinese connection from the beginning. They aren’t going to dedicate assets against
this target during the crisis. Two, if the target does know where the hostages are, do you really want these guys to have that knowledge before your JSOC guys get on the ground?
It might be guaranteeing their death at the hands of Riva Thakkar’s rage.”
President Hannister said, “So you want to do this without their knowledge? Without their cooperation?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have his identification?”
“No, sir, we don’t. All we have is a handset that’s talked to both the dead bodyguard and to China.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s Pike’s theory, and I think it’s worth exploring.”
Palmer said, “You can’t just rip a guy off the street because he has a cell phone. It’ll take a lot more evidence than that
before we sanction an Omega operation. I’m willing to vote for Alpha and explore the issue, but that’s too thin for an operation.”
It took all of my willpower to remain in my chair. I wanted to stand up and start shouting at the stupidity of that statement.
Luckily, we had a ringer in the room.
George Wolffe said, “No offense, but that’s just idiotic. We don’t have days to sniff this guy’s ass to find out if it stinks.
In my mind it’s fairly easy: find the handset, and if the guy holding it is Chinese, take his ass down. It’s not like Pike’s
going into Chinatown in San Francisco looking for a Chinese. It’s fucking India, and if that handset is in the hands of a
Chinese and we know it’s talked to a dead Sikh who tried to abduct Riva Thakkar, then we’d be foolish not to take him down.”
The computer went silent for a moment, then President Hannister said, “I’m not even putting this to a vote. Tell Pike he has
Omega authority.”
Yes!
I looked at Knuckles, knowing I had just as big a grin on my face as he did.