One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [14]
“What’s up?”
“I need to go with the team. I need to fly tonight.”
Kurt looked at me like I was nuts. “What are you talking about? You’re the one who begged me to break protocol and let you go home for your daughter’s birthday. I broke every rule in the book to make that happen. People jumped through hoops to get you clean for the trip. Now you want to go to Tbilisi?”
“Sir, things have changed. The trip was planned because of our deployment schedule. The team’s now deploying early. I need to go.”
“You need to go home to your family. Come on, Pike, nothing’s going to happen between now and when you get there. They’ll just be building a pattern of life. This thing won’t kick off for at least a week.”
“You don’t know that. We could be in a world of shit in twenty-four hours. I need to go. It’s my team.”
“Pike, think about this. You’re the one who told me you haven’t been to a single birthday of your daughter’s since the first one. Go home. Azzam will wait. Even if this pops, there’ll be other targets. Take the leave.”
“No. This is it. I told you before. This is my last rotation. There won’t be any other targets for me. My team’s leaving. I need to go. We’re at Omega, for Christ’s sake. Don’t do this to me.”
Kurt said nothing for a beat, staring at me, mulling over the request. “Okay. You can go. But if you’re flying tonight, you don’t have time to get to a non-attrib phone for a call. Heather’s going to get the usual notice from the Alias Shop after you’re gone.”
Heather had gotten this kind of impersonal phone call from operations plenty of times, updating her on my status. This time would be particularly difficult, but I knew she would understand.
“Good enough. She’ll get over it. She knows this is my last tour. After this, it’ll be Pike 24/7.”
When I reentered the conference room, Knuckles gave me a look. I nodded, bringing a smile to his face. After that, we both focused on the man talking, spending the next four hours getting an in-depth briefing on the target, his templated actions, the Tbilisi environment, and the cover we would use to get the mission done.
Later, as we were packing our kit for the flight in the fourth-floor locker room, Knuckles broached the subject. “Heather’s going to murder you for this. You promised her. It’s the only reason she let you do this tour.”
“She’ll understand. The guy’s trying to get a fucking dirty bomb. It’s what I’m here for. It’s not like I did this for a boondoggle to Hawaii or something.” I started packing, saying again, “She’ll understand.”
Knuckles finished what he was doing and walked out of the room, saying, “That’s what I said before my divorce.”
I shouted at his back, “You married a stripper when you were nineteen! She left you three months after you tied the knot! Heather will understand.”
Knuckles had already left the room, leaving me to say the last part as more of an affirmation than a fact. I stared at my kit, wondering if I was making a huge mistake. Knuckles was good. He was ready. I had been training him to take over after this tour anyway. I truly believed he could do it, but I also knew that the transition was six months early, and while he had the raw talent, he hadn’t been a team leader inside the Taskforce. An Omega operation wasn’t the time for him to figure out what that meant. The risks were too great. On top of that, the team—any team—develops its own personality, driven by the team leader. The members weren’t plug and play. We were clicking because of my leadership style. I’m not saying it was perfect, or even the best, but that was irrelevant. They were used to me, and now wasn’t the time to switch horses. It was one more birthday, but after this, I would be at them all.
9
Tbilisi, Georgia
Four Days Later
I heard my earpiece crackle, then the words I was waiting for: “Pike, Hedgehog is on the move. Should be passing you in about one minute.”
I was sitting on a patio just off Rustaveli Street in downtown Tbilisi, sipping my coffee like the seven other patrons around me. I had to physically