friend who was still on active duty, and this individual, a Sergeant Bell, made a few calls and the tip went up the chain, eventually reaching General Mendoza, who called me yesterday. After I was notified, I had the agents from Dix interview Simpson.”
General Christopher Mendoza was no less than the highest-ranking officer in the United States Army. He had four stars and he was the Army Chief of Staff, and a member of the Joint Chiefs. In other words, he was God, and God had spoken directly to General Hackett, who was now speaking to them. Thou shalt not fuck this up, Brodie.
Hackett continued, “General Mendoza told me he wants Captain Mercer brought back to the United States, but he does not want this turned into a media circus.” He added, “While we technically have an extradition treaty with Venezuela, they have not honored it in some time.”
Which meant this was going to be a snatch job.
Hackett said, “So your mission is to locate Mercer in Venezuela and get him back home to face court-martial. Your mission is not to interrogate him or attempt to determine guilt, just get him in custody and back to Quantico. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” said Taylor with enthusiasm.
Kidnap the asshole if you have to was the subtext, though General Hackett would never say it. Brodie hoped that Taylor understood what she was signing on for. She’d only been a CID agent for a year, and he was certain she’d never dealt with anything like this. This was the kind of job that could land you in a foreign prison if things went wrong—after which your bosses back in the States would say you must have misunderstood your orders. Or maybe they’d say they’d never heard of you.
Over the years, Brodie had been involved in a couple of euphemistically labeled “extraordinary extractions”—a murderer who’d fled to Belgrade, and an embezzler he’d tracked to a Tunisian beach resort. In both cases they were schmucks, in way over their heads, whose one and only bright idea was to get themselves to a country without an extradition treaty. It didn’t work out for them. But then, they weren’t Delta Force.
Brodie thought back to Kyle Mercer’s face in the hostage video. No fear.
He still hadn’t responded to Hackett’s question. The general looked directly at him—he had eyes like stainless steel ball bearings—and said, “Do you understand, Mr. Brodie?”
“Yes, sir. I do.” But something was missing from this story, and he added, “You said Mercer escaped his captors eight months ago. How do you know that?”
Hackett and Dombroski exchanged a look, and something told Brodie they had finally reached the heart of the matter.
General Hackett said, “What you are about to see is classified.” Brodie was certain the man practiced saying that in front of a mirror every morning.
Hackett took a thumb drive out of his desk drawer and handed it to Dombroski, who plugged it into a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall across from Hackett’s desk.
Hackett continued, “Eight months ago, a SEAL team conducting a cross-border operation into the Pakistani tribal territories came across a former Taliban encampment. While they were inspecting the site, they were approached by a local goat herder who presented them with a note, written in English—and, as we discovered later, in Mercer’s handwriting—instructing any American military unit to pay the bearer of the note fifty dollars in exchange for valuable information. The SEAL team paid the goat herder and he handed them an SD memory card and then left. The card contained this footage.” He added, “It’s graphic.”
Dombroski pressed play, and they all watched the screen.
A stationary camera showed a burning tent in rugged mountain territory on a moonlit night. A figure was splayed out on the ground in front of the tent. It appeared to be a bearded man in dark clothing. He was sleeping. Or dead.
Another figure was hunched over in the distance, moving in quick repetitive motions. An arm, framed against the sky, raised a long knife and brought it down over and over.
The figure stood. It was a tall, thin man with a beard, his features etched in moonlight. He held the knife in his right hand, and a round object swayed from his clenched left hand.
A human head.
The man walked forward toward the burning tent, and as he got closer to the camera his head disappeared out of frame and his body could be seen approaching a sharp wooden pike staked in the sand. He dropped the