Part 2 (2/2)

Desh looked confused. ”Then how am I here?”

”Someone up the food chain realized your value and asked me to recruit you. I was thrilled that they did. Not only are you unequaled as a soldier, you found more top-level terrorists on the lamb than anyone when you were in the service. No one is as creative and tenacious on the hunt as you are. Kira Miller has a knack for gene therapy. You have a knack for finding those who are off the grid.”

Connelly leaned forward and fixed an unblinking stare on Desh. ”And you're someone I trust absolutely, someone outside the system. This woman has ma.s.sive amounts of money and is quite persuasive. I wouldn't put it past her to have found a way to monitor us, or to compromise some of our people.”

”So you think you have a mole?”

”Honestly a no. But with the stakes this high, why take chances?”

Desh nodded. He couldn't argue the point.

”We failed as an organization. The individuals who have tried have also failed. There could be many other good explanations for this, but now it's time to try something different.” He rubbed his mustache absently. ”You have a singular talent for this and you don't report through military channels. Let's keep it that way. Use your own resources, not ours. In the file you'll find the reports of your predecessors: all the information they gathered on Kira Miller.”

”I a.s.sume it will also detail their attempts to locate her?”

”Actually, no,” said Connelly. ”We don't want you to be polluted with what came before. You'll be starting with a clean slate. And don't communicate with me. I don't want to know what you're doing. You'll find a contact number to use when you find her. The person at the other end will handle the rest. Follow his instructions from there on in.”

”When I find her?”

”You'll find her,” said Connelly with absolute conviction. ”I'm certain of it.”

”That's two questionable a.s.sumptions you're making,” said Desh. ”The first one is that I'll agree to take the job in the first place.”

Connelly said nothing. The silence hung in the room like a thick fog.

Desh was torn. There was a significant part of him that just wanted to walk away. Connelly would find a way to solve his problema”or he wouldn't. But the world would keep revolving, with or without Desh on the case. There were other talented men outside the system. Let someone else be the hero. He had tried the hero business and had failed.

On the other hand, what if he really did have some special quality that would turn the tide? If he walked away and the attack succeeded, how could he live with himself? He beat himself up every day for surviving the operation in Iran when his men had not. Guilt and loss were eating away at his soul already, but would pale in comparison to the question that would torment his every waking momenta”what if he really had been the only one able to find, and stop, Kira Miller?

And even though he had wanted to clear his head and put distance between himself and anyone he had know from his past life, his relations.h.i.+p with Connelly had been very close, and almost certainly would be again someday. There were few men he admired as much as he did Jim Connelly.

Desh stared long and hard at the colonel. ”Okay,” he said wearily, a look of resignation on his face. ”I'll help you.” He shook his head bitterly, and it was clear he was annoyed with himself for being unable to refuse. ”I'll give it my best,” he added with a sigh. ”That's all I can do.”

”Thanks, David,” said Connelly in relief. ”That's all anyone can do.”

The colonel paused and now looked somewhat uneasy. ”Now that you're on board, I need to insist that you don't go after her yourself, under any circ.u.mstances. Your job is to find her. Period. The job of the person at the end of the telephone number I gave you is to reel her in.” He paused. ”Before you leave, I have to be sure you're crystal clear about this.”

Desh stared at Connelly in disbelief. ”I'm clear on it, all right, Colonel. What I'm not clear on is why. What if I found her and was in the perfect position for capture? I need to be able to strike when the iron's hot. By the time I call someone in and they arrive, she could slip through the noose. She's too elusive and too important to allow that to happen.” He shook his head in disbelief. ”It's an idiotic strategy,” he snapped.

The colonel sighed. ”I couldn't agree more,” he said. ”But those are my orders. I made all the points you just made as emphatically as I could, but I didn't win the day. So this is what we're left with.”

”Okay then,” said Desh in annoyance. ”I'm just a civilian now. If someone up the chain of command just had a frontal lobotomy, there's nothing I can do about it.”

”On the bright side,” continued Connelly, pressing ahead, ”I was able to win one important argument with my superiors.” He smiled slyly. ”I convinced them it wouldn't be easy to entice you back. They've authorized me to pay you $200,000 upon initiation of the a.s.signment as a draw against expenses. It's all set to be wired into your account. You'll have access to it within the hour.” He leaned forward intently. ”There's another million upon success.”

Desh's eyes widened. A payment of this magnitude would dramatically change the course of his life. It would allow him to leave the violent world he had known behind and immediately start down whichever new path he finally chose for himself. ”Thanks, Colonel,” he said. ”That's a h.e.l.l of a lot of money.” Desh paused. ”But you do know I agreed to help because of you, and because of the nature of the threat, and not for the money.”

A twinkle came to Connelly's eye. ”I know that,” he said. ”Notice that I only brought up the money after you had agreed.” The colonel smiled. ”Considering the bounty for Bin Laden went as high as $25 million, and considering the devastating consequences of failure, you're the biggest bargain the government has ever had.”

Desh smiled. ”Well, as long as the government is happy,” he said dryly, spreading his hands in mock sincerity. He paused for a moment in thought. ”What about Fleming Executive Protection?”

”Don't worry. We'll make sure your calendar is cleared for the next month and you remain in good standing with them.” An amused look crossed Connelly's face. ”And rest a.s.sured, we'll do it in such a way that won't hurt your career, or your ah a reputation.” He smiled slightly at this and then added, ”Do we have an agreement?”

Desh nodded. ”We do.”

”Good. I'm sorry to have to pull you back in for one last mission, David, but I know you're the right man for the job.”

Desh rose from the chair and prepared to leave. ”I hope you're right, Colonel. As always, I'll try not to let you down.” He eyed Connelly suspiciously as something he had said earlier finally registered. ”You said the wire transfer of the 200k is ready to go?”

”I just need to give the word and it's done.”

”So how is it exactly,” said Desh, his eyes narrowing, ”that you happen to have the wire transfer information for my account, without me having given it to you?”

Connelly raised his eyebrows. ”I don't suppose you'd believe it was a lucky guess?” he said with an innocent shrug.

Desh allowed a bemused smile to flash across his face. He opened his briefcase, placed the accordion file inside, and stood.

Connelly also rose from his chair. He reached out and gave Desh a warm handshake. ”Good luck, David,” he said earnestly. ”And be careful.”

”I won't be eating any pork products anytime soon, if that's what you mean,” said Desh wryly, trying to hide his anxiety.

With that, David Desh picked up his briefcase and walked purposefully out the door.

4.

David Desh exited the grounds of Fort Bragg and drove to a nearby shopping center. He parked the Suburban at the outer edge of the sprawling lot, becoming a lone island of privacy cut off from the dense mainland of all other parked vehicles. He pulled out the dossier on Kira Miller and began a careful review. The five-hour drive back to D.C. ahead of him would be the perfect time to digest what he was now reading and plot out his initial strategy.

After a little more than an hour he returned the dossier to his briefcase and began his trek home. Her file hadn't given him much to go on, nor had he expected it to. If the girl's background would have led to an obvious approach, others would have found it by now.

Kira Miller had been able to hide her true nature quite well. From a very young age she had been extremely talented, ambitious, and compet.i.tive. When she set her mind to something she had accomplished it. This didn't always win her a lot of friends growing up, and being jumped ahead in school several years did nothing to help her social life.

Even as an adult she tended to make few friends, always keeping her eye on the ball; be it setting the record for youngest ever molecular neurobiology Ph.D. at Stanford or power-climbing up the corporate ladder. In college she had dated some, but she never managed to sustain a relations.h.i.+p for more than eight or nine months. Desh knew that most men would find her brilliance intimidating.

The file elaborated quite extensively on everything that Connelly had told him, laying out her communications with terror groups, how these communications had been found, the airtight evidence gathered against her for the murders of Lusetti and her brother, and the Ebola gene therapy plot.

After the murders, the police investigation had revealed she had spent an inordinate amount of time in NeuroCure's animal labs late at night, but had managed to hide this activity. The employee badge she'd been issued to unlock the door after hours was designed to record the holder's ident.i.ty and time of entry in the main computer, but she had ingeniously altered the software to prevent this from happening.

Investigators had also found that Kira had ordered far more rodents from suppliers than the company had needed for experiments. Since she was responsible for inventory, this hadn't been caught earlier.

It was clear she had been performing secret animal experiments almost every night. In retrospect, this made sensea”chilling sense. She must have brought the Jihadists some evidence that she could execute on the strategy she was proposing to get them to pay her the substantial sums of money she was known to have in banks around the world. An animal proof of concept, as it were.

Connelly and USASOC had vast resources at their disposal, both human and otherwise, and yet they hadn't come close to finding this girl. Only someone extremely careful and extremely clever could possibly elude a government-sponsored manhunt for this long. And that was really the rub on this one. The prey was far smarter than the hunter. Desh didn't feel any macho need to downplay his own intelligence, which was considerable, but it was undeniable that hers was in another league. So how to catch someone smarter than yourself?

It was all in your att.i.tude. You didn't plot a strategy designed to catch her making a mistake. This is what the others probably focused on. Instead, you counted on her not making a mistake. You counted on her doing everything exactly right. This was the answer.

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