Counter Caliphate (A Jake Adams International Espionage Thriller Series Book 11) Page 6

  Tucker put his head on Jake’s shoulder. “I love you, man. But I thought you were still shacking up with that German, Alexandra.”

  “We’re still together, Tuck,” Jake said. “Sirena is here on business.”

  The Brit squinted across at Sirena and then cast his gaze upon the priest. “Who the hell is the Italian bloke?”

  Jake touched his friend’s arm. “Easy, Tuck. He’s a priest.”

  “Jesus. Sorry, father.” Tucker turned to Jake. “What the hell you doing with a priest? You sure this isn’t an intervention?”

  Maybe it was, Jake thought. “Drink up, friends. We need to get our friend out of here.”

  Tucker looked at the biker woman, who seemed to be snoring now. “Glad to see Sirena didn’t kill this one.”

  “I barely touched her,” Sirena complained.

  “Come on,” Jake said. “Suck those down.”

  All three of them drank down their beers in a hurry. Then Jake pulled his friend Sinclair Tucker out of the booth and propped one arm around his neck. Sirena got to the other side of him and they hauled the former MI-6 officer out of the bar.

  Sinclair Tucker had a flat at the base of the Rock of Gibraltar, just a few blocks from his favorite bar. As the four of them shuffled down a side alley, the rain started to fall on them. It wasn’t a soaking downpour, but just enough to wet their hair.

  They stumbled into Tucker’s apartment in a small complex with three other flats. Clicking the light on, Jake stopped suddenly and gazed about the room.

  “Holy crap, Tuck. You’ve been ripped off. Someone destroyed your place.”

  “Piss off, Jake,” Tucker said, pulling free of Jake and Sirena. He shoved some papers aside on the sofa and plopped down.

  Sirena went to the attached kitchen and found a relatively clean glass. She poured some water from the sink and handed the glass to Tucker.

  “What the hell are you guys doing here?” Tucker asked. “And you bloody well better explain why you’re hanging out with a priest.”

  “It’s a long story,” the priest said, clearing a spot on the other end of the sofa and sitting down.

  Sirena and Jake shared a glance. She deferred to him with a nod of her head. Then she found a seat in a chair and crossed her legs elegantly.

  Jake quickly went over the mission, giving his friend the short and sweet version.

  “Bloody hell,” Tucker said. He found the TV remote under some magazines and clicked on the flat screen. “I haven’t watched the BBC in days.”

  When the TV came on, the TV anchor was explaining an incident that just took place in Berlin.

  “The death toll at this time stands at twelve,” the BBC anchor said. She had a grave expression on her face. “Injured are surely in the dozens more.”

  “What’s that?” Jake asked.

  “Some kind of terrorist attack,” Tucker reasoned. “Dirty bastards.”

  Jake quickly found his cell phone and checked for messages. Nothing. He fired off a text to Alexandra and hit send.

  “Something the matter, Jake?” Sirena asked.

  “I don’t know. Alexandra is in Berlin.”

  “That’s a big city,” Tucker said.

  Shaking his head, Jake revealed, “I know. But she was working the protests.”

  “I’ll pray for her, Jake,” the priest said. “Along with the others.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  After a long silence, Tucker finally ran his fingers through his greasy hair and said, “So, Jake, you’ve come to me for some reason. What can I do for you?”

  Letting out a breath of air, Jake said, “I was trying to see if you wanted to join our merry gang. But finding you like this, I’m not sure you’re up to the task.”

  “Blow me,” Tucker said. “I’ll be fine in the morning. I’ve just been bored shitless.”

  Without notice, Jake pulled his gun and aimed it at Sinclair Tucker. A microsecond later, and Tucker pulled a handgun from under the coffee table, aiming his at Jake.

  “Boys, put the guns away,” Sirena said.

  The priest looked shocked and concerned.

  Jake slowly put his gun back in its holster, smiling and shaking his head. “The old Sinclair Tucker would have anticipated my move.”

  “I didn’t expect my old friend to draw his weapon on me,” Tucker reasoned, setting his gun on the sofa center cushion.

  “That’s a pellet gun,” Jake said. “You’d just piss me off long enough for me to blast a hole in you. Don’t you have a real gun?”

  Tucker patted his gun. “This is for the bloody monkeys. They come to my garden and patio stealing my crap and defecating all over the place. I make them think twice about coming back.”

  Jake remembered the Barbary Apes that were a major nuisance all over the Rock. But they had been there for hundreds of years and were protected by the government.

  “Well,” Jake said, “are you up for a little covert action?”

  “Bloody hell,” Tucker said. “I’ll even pull out my real weapon.”

  Jake’s phone buzzed in his hands and he checked out the message. It was from Alexandra, saying she was all right but shaken from the events. She would talk in the morning.

  Everyone focused their gazes upon Jake.

  “Everything all right?” Sirena asked.

  Putting his phone back in his pocket, Jake said, “Yeah. Alexandra was there, but she’s all right. Let’s get some sleep. We have an early flight.”

  “We can’t fly commercial with guns,” Tucker said.

  Sirena smiled. “What Jake failed to tell you is that we have that billionaire’s Gulfstream at our disposal.”

  “Wow,” Tucker said, rising to his feet. “First class. I can handle that. Jake and the priest can take the two single beds in the spare bedroom. Sirena can have my bed and I’ll take the sofa.”

  Getting up from her chair, Sirena said, “No, I’ll take the sofa.”

  “Great. Sheets and blankets are in that cabinet. I’ll help.”

  “No. Just get to bed,” Sirena insisted.

  They all did their thing, and eventually Jake ended up in one of the single beds on his back in the dark.

  “Good night, Jake,” the priest said.

  Jake returned the gesture and tried to sleep. But his thoughts were again on his girlfriend Alexandra.

  “Jake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m having a hard time understanding the world in which you live.”

  No kidding. “Padre, welcome to the club.” He hesitated as his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room. “Folks like you try to find the good in people. I believe there is good in everyone, but also more evil than we’d like to believe. I seek those who are truly evil, Father.”

  “For redemption?”

  “Perhaps mine, but not theirs.”

  The priest considered that. Then he said, “You don’t believe in the redemption of those who are evil?”

  “No. Some people are beyond redemption. They only deserve one thing.”

  “Justice?”

  “The Catholic church believes in the Devil and hell,” Jake said. “I believe in expediting their journey.”

  “I see. And what if we find our medical workers and the kidnappers decide to turn themselves over to you?”

  “That’s not gonna happen, Father. Islamic jihadist terrorists are zealots in the extreme. This mission only ends one way. Which is why I don’t think you should join us after the Canary Islands.”

  “I am not afraid to die, Mister Adams,” the priest admonished vehemently.

  “I understand, Father. But maybe I don’t want that on my conscience. And if I, or my people, have to keep track of you, we might be off our game.”

  “I understand. Before I took my vows, I was part of the Italian Army.”

  “Chaplain corps?”

  “No. The Fourth Alpini Regiment.”

  Holy crap! “You were an Italian Ranger?”

  “Yes, sir.”
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br />   Those guys were good, Jake thought. “What made you turn from that to the church?”

  “Exactly. Some things you can’t un-see.”

  Jake knew that from his own life. He just gained a new respect for the priest. “All right, Father. You’ve got my support.”

  As Jake looked up to the ceiling in the darkness, he waited for the priest to fall asleep. But his mind was now on Alexandra. He knew she must have been in the heart of the protest march in Berlin. She was a strong woman, he knew, but when a crowd of people moved in panic, those who fell would surely die. He was certain that the Caliphate had to be involved in Germany. When they saw weakness, they attacked. They only understood the strong horse.

  9

  McLean, Virginia

  Kurt Jenkins, former Director of Central Intelligence, stood along a remote hiking trail in Turkey Run Park along the Potomac River. He was a short distance from CIA headquarters, but needed his meeting to be off the books. Since retiring from the Agency a couple of years ago, he had mostly hung low. But now he was able to sit on boards and consult with various non-governmental agencies—things that bored him to death, but kept him somewhat relevant.

  His current work with a non-partisan think tank prompted him to call this meeting with the current Director of the CIA, John Bradford.

  Jenkins checked his watch and saw that Bradford was right on time, as the former Air Force pilot jogged toward him. Per protocol, he was followed by two armed guards, who seemed to be having a hard time keeping up with the former pilot.

  As Bradford got closer, he slowed down and waved his men to hang back. Then he stopped next to Jenkins and stretched out his quads.

  “Nice to see you again, Kurt,” the CIA director said, not even a bit out of breath. “What can I do for you here that a phone call couldn’t handle?”

  Jenkins, wearing a track suit, shuffled his running shoes nervously. He wasn’t used to asking for favors. But that had become his new job. Sort of. “I’m concerned about the situation with the medical workers kidnapped off the coast of Africa.”

  Bradford shifted his eyes toward his security detail, and then back to his predecessor. “We’re not involved with that.”

  “I know,” Jenkins said. “That’s the problem.”

  Shaking his head side to side, the CIA Director said, “That’s above my pay grade.”

  “Just because the president doesn’t have the balls to act, doesn’t mean the Agency should sit back holding its dick.”

  Bradford stepped closer. “I can only protest so much. I work at his pleasure.”

  “I’m not asking you to stick your neck out,” Jenkins said. He tightened his jaw with resolve. “I’m hoping for some intelligence support.”

  “You want me to provide satellite surveillance? For who?”

  Jenkins hesitated, not sure how much to give away. “At the very least.”

  “What have you done, Kurt?”

  Shaking his head, Jenkins said, “Somebody had to do something. As you know, the only American kidnapped was a former Air Force nurse.”

  “I know that. Don’t you think I want to help? But my hands are tied.”

  Time to bring it home, Jenkins thought. “We have a mutual friend involved. Two in fact.”

  Bradford’s expression shifted from concern to frustration. “Again, what have you done?”

  “Jake Adams.”

  “Jake’s working this case?”

  “Yes. Along with another person you’ve worked with in the past. A woman.”

  The CIA Director’s eyebrows raised. “Do not mention a name to me.”

  “Right. Plausible deniability.” Besides, this woman was still working for their government in some capacity.

  Bradford whispered, “If she’s on our payroll, how in the hell do I deny that?”

  Good point. “All right. Let’s just say Jake has been hired to search and extract the workers. He’s building a team to accomplish the mission. Neither the Agency nor the military will be involved. But we could use a direction. Perhaps GPS coordinates. Maybe a satellite image or two. Any help would be great.”

  The CIA Director looked back at his security detail again, as if they might hear the two of them. But the men were way too far away for that. He was mulling things over, and Kurt knew that Jake had pulled his ass out of the fire more than once in the past two years. Bradford had to act.

  “I guess I could run a little dark surveillance on Africa,” Bradford said. But he didn’t look happy about it. “This Jake Adams is a good friend of yours.”

  “Yeah. We came up through the ranks together.”

  “But he left and you kept climbing.”

  “You might say that,” Jenkins said. “But there’s no operative in the field I trust more than Jake.”

  “There’s not much anyone knows about the kidnapping,” Bradford said.

  “Not yet. But Jake will get to the bottom of it. You can bet your life on that.”

  Bradford shook his head. “There’ll be no Navy SEAL team to bail his ass out if he screws the pooch.”

  “I know.”

  “Does he?”

  Jenkins thought about what it had taken to keep his own name out of the operation and how Jake had been convinced to take the job. “I’m sure Jake knows. I’m guessing you don’t want to know anyone else involved with this op.”

  “You guess right.”

  “All right. Thanks, John.”

  “If we find something, I’ll relay that information only to you. Understand?”

  “Roger that.”

  The CIA Director turned and ran back the way he’d come, the two security officers falling in behind him.

  Once alone, Kurt Jenkins pulled out his phone and from memory punched in a European cell phone number.

  •

  Jake Adams had barely gotten to sleep when his phone buzzed on the night stand between his single bed and the one where the priest slept soundly, his breathing on the verge of snoring.

  “Yeah,” Jake whispered.

  “Did I catch you sleeping?” Jenkins asked.

  Jake checked the time on his phone and saw it was nearly midnight. “No problem. Hang on.” He got out of bed in his underwear and found his way out to the living room, where he knew Sirena was sleeping on the sofa. The room was dark, but Jake’s eyes were quickly adjusting. “Go ahead.”

  “How are you enjoying Gibraltar?”

  All right, this was annoying, Jake thought. How was Kurt Jenkins still this plugged in? “What’s not to enjoy, Kurt?” He paused, not sure how to play this. “What can I do for you?”

  Jenkins went on to explain how he had been instrumental in hiring Jake and Sirena. Yeah, he made that happen. Deep down Jake had to know that the think tank didn’t just pull Jake’s name out of a hat. And he had heard that Jenkins was now with them in some capacity.

  “You’re scheduled to make a flight to the Canary Islands tomorrow,” Jenkins stated. “I need you to delay that for a day.”

  “Why?”

  “First of all, we need to give the Agency time to track down the kidnappers.”

  Jake was glad to see that someone in the U.S. government still had some balls. “Our Air Force pilot friend is doing this off the books?”

  “It’s better you don’t know anything more than you need to know for the op,” Jenkins said.

  He couldn’t agree more. The last thing he wanted to do was testify before congress again. “All right. What do you need?”

  “Go to Tangier tomorrow. You can pick up a ferry in Gibraltar. Go to this address in the Medina.” Jenkins repeated the address a couple of times to make sure Jake memorized it.

  “And?”

  “Meet with a guy name Hesham Mustafa. I just texted an image.”

  Jake’s phone buzzed and he checked out the photo. Then he put the phone back at his ear. “What does this guy know?”

  “Mustafa is an Agency asset. He knows all the players in Morocco.”

  “What time?”
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  “Not until eighteen hundred. Mustafa is traveling from the Berber regions. He owns a small rug shop, which lets him travel freely to the Atlas Mountains, giving him countless contacts.”

  “All right. Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “Go for it, Jake. You are getting old and could use your beauty sleep.”

  “Bite me.” Jake cut off his old friend and started back toward the bedroom.

  “Hey, Jake.”

  Sirena was awake.

  He went back into the living room and stood in front of the sofa, where Sirena now sat up. He had been careful not to reveal too much on his end of the conversation.

  “Yeah,” Jake said.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Just swell, Sirena.”

  “I hope everything is all right with your girlfriend.”

  Good. She thought he had been talking with Alexandra.

  “Thanks. She’s fine.” Jake started to leave again.

  “Wait.”

  Jake stopped again. “Yeah.”

  “I take it the Agency is finally getting their shit together and plans to help us.”

  How in the hell did she know that? “Why do you say that?”

  “Two reasons,” she said. “First, you mentioned an Air Force pilot, and we both know that’s current CIA Director John Bradford.”

  “And the second?”

  “Who do you think prompted me to go on this mission? Kurt Jenkins.” Her phone suddenly buzzed and she picked it up to check on who had texted her. “Speaking of which, he just sent me a picture of Hesham Mustafa. He said you have all the details.” She smiled at Jake.

  “Wonderful,” Jake said. He was about to head back to his room again.

  “You can use me,” Sirena said.

  Jake wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

  “You know,” she said. “My language skills.”

  “Right. Let’s get some rest.” Jake wandered back to bed and now the priest was in full snore mode. It wasn’t an obnoxious window rattling affair, but more of a heavy breathing with occasional whistling. Regardless, Jake quickly fell into a deep slumber.

  10

  Montserrat, Spain

  High in the mountains a short drive from Barcelona, sat the Benedictine Monastery Santa Maria de Montserrat, nestled into the side of a rock formation that resembled round tubes rising up from the Earth like God had molded the spires with his own benevolent hands into jagged walls.