Operation Emerald Red by S. M. Gunn

Author:S. M. Gunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

“What the fuck!” Mitchell Reid yelled.

Gibbs took a quick look behind them, across the street, scanned the windows of the surrounding buildings there, and rejected them as the source of the bullet that had killed their only direct contact to Al Qaeda, then looked at a low hillside that rose about a quarter of a mile beyond. Some bushes vibrated violently, like the legs of the dead man, then stilled as the assassin hurried away from the scene of his kill.

“Oh shit!” Gibbs bellowed. “They got to him, took out their own man.”

“But why would they do that? They didn’t know about our operation, couldn’t have. So why kill their deep-cover operative?”

Gibbs gave that some careful thought. “Mitch, I think this dude must be more important than we thought. He had to have screwed up big-time. He pissed off someone above him in the Al Qaeda chain of command. No doubt they had people watching, followed him here, and he got blown away for it.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘Al Qaeda’?”

Gibbs shook his head. “They’re bad news, Mitch, ol’ buddy, and we know this one was a member. If he’s tied to the attacks out West on our special operators, we’ve got a real problem.”

Reid looked blank. “So then why haven’t we gone after them before now?”

A chagrined expression formed on Gibbs’s face. “We tried to. But for some reason, every time we set it up, our beloved President refuses to go through with it. Don’t ask me why. We at Langley have no idea.” He looked down at the cooling corpse. “Now we’re stuck with this dead man.” He turned to one of his agents. “Ralph, get a meat wagon in here, quick, and let’s take this one out without attracting a lot of attention.”

The agent nodded curtly. “Gotcha, boss. Only, ah, I’ve got a feeling we are goin’ to be found out damn fast.”

Gibbs and Reid looked around to find clusters of the curious gawking at the pool of blood on the asphalt paving and the dead man. He spoke quietly. “Perhaps we should search the room, get us out of sight of these people.”

Reid gestured and they walked inside, after the agent covered the body with a bedspread from the room. “How could we have screwed up so badly?” Reid asked.

Gibbs shrugged. “It’s like I said earlier. Someone was watching this guy. They had orders, and obviously the necessary equipment to terminate him. Our arrival only accelerated their plans.”

Their quick search of the room revealed a surprising thing. When Gibbs learned the actual identity of the dead man, he whistled softly. “This guy wasn’t Saddiq. He’s a big fish, all right—Fazoul Mahmoud Hamza. He’s the cell leader, or was, at any rate.”

“So, what do we do now?” Reid asked. “This is going to piss off my SAC mightily.”

Gibbs produced a rueful grin. “Perhaps we should fall back and punt.”

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