One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [17]
Before she could say anything else, Lucas shattered her jaw with a vicious right cross. She hit the ground on her hands and knees, feeling the blood spill out of her mouth. She heard Angie scream, “Mommy!” then felt something smash into her spine. She rolled over and surprised the men by rapidly crawling to her purse. Lucas grabbed her legs and jerked her back, but not before she had her cell phone. She hit 911 before he could stop her. He smacked the cell phone out of her hand, towering over her.
“You bitch. You just lost any sympathy from me.”
He hammered her broken jaw again. Everything went black.
Three hundred miles away, inside the Taskforce Headquarters, a computer started bleating.
11
The Tbilisi police car remained where it had stopped.
“Knuckles, this is Pike. Stand by for a FRAGO. Azzam’s about to deviate his line of march.”
“Roger. You want me to stand down?”
I thought for a second. Ordinarily, unlike our training exercise, this would be an automatic rollover, as the chance of compromising the team far outweighed any hasty plan that we came up with. But with the Georgians taking out the Chechen tonight, a rollover wasn’t possible. We would take him tonight, or start all over, waiting another six months to a year to get him—if we could even track him again.
“No, don’t stand down. I’m going to pick up a follow. We know he’s headed to his hotel. We just don’t know the route. Keep the same plan. Pick your guys up and get ready to drop them off somewhere else. I’ll see what road he commits to. Once I give you that call, do a map analysis and see what the most logical route would be to the hotel. Position on that route. If he takes it, take him down. If he doesn’t, we’ll wait for another day. You copy?”
“Yeah. I got it. I’m moving the assault team now.”
I should have called Blaine before changing the plan, but things were moving quickly, and we didn’t have time for a bunch of questions going back and forth. I knew the intent: Get the terrorist without compromising the team. I didn’t need a call to HQ to confirm that.
I watched Azzam out of the corner of my eye. He rounded the turn in front of the café, paused for a second or two when he saw the police car, then began walking again. I threw some money on the table and left the café, holding thirty feet behind him. Before I reached Rustaveli, Azzam turned left.
“Knuckles, he’s headed south down Rustaveli. I’m betting he’ll cross at the next light—the street we couldn’t figure out the name. You remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. It had that kindergarten school on it?”
“That’s it. I’m thinking he’ll walk up the street past the school, then head east toward the hotel.”
“Got it. Doing the map reconnaissance now. Looks like he’ll come straight up that street and get on his original route at the top, hanging another left. The only place to get him is at that turn. The road does a little zigzag up front, allowing us to snag him without anyone seeing the action from down the street.”
“Sounds good to me. If there is any chance of compromise, let him go. Understand?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
I looked at the kindergarten street, the one Azzam would use after crossing Rustaveli, hating what I was about to say. I said it anyway. “I’ll trigger him crossing Rustaveli, but I’m going to have to stay on the west side or I’ll get burned. From there, he’s your target.”
This was a major flex. I was supposed to follow Azzam up to the planned kill zone. That road was a well-traveled thoroughfare, the sidewalks on both sides used extensively by the local population. In the original plan, once he had committed to the shortcut, away from the pedestrians, I would prevent him from escaping the way he had come and provide command and control for the team during the assault.
The new road he was on was a thin, narrow hardtop without sidewalks and devoid of anyone at this