Counterblow Read online

  “Thanks. I’ll review them right away.”

  Claudia sighed. “Yes, do so. Javin, you’re in deep trouble. Bateaux is looking for an excuse, any excuse, and you might have given it to him…”

  “I had nothing to do with these killings, I told you.”

  “Yes, but that will matter little to Bateaux. He might just pin this on you to appease the Chinese.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not going to happen,” he said in a firm voice.

  “I hope so, that’s why I called you, to give you the heads up and so you’ll know everything Bateaux knows. But Javin, do me, no, do yourself a favor, and stop messing around with Mossad. Look, whatever is done is done. We can’t change the past.”

  “Right, but we can do something about the future.”

  “But at what cost? Is it worth your career, your life, just to find some compromising material about Mossad operatives? They’ll get what’s coming their way regardless of your involvement.”

  Javin drew in a deep breath and said nothing.

  Claudia waited a few seconds, then said, “You’ve made up your mind, Javin, and I know I can’t change it. But at least think about it, not just about you and revenge, but also about Liberty, the woman that loves you, Javin.”

  He sighed, but again said nothing.

  Claudia waited a long moment, then said, “Okay, Javin. I’ll let you go now. Bateaux can call you at any time. If I found your number, I’m sure it won’t take him long.”

  “I’ll change the SIM card. That will buy me some time.”

  “True, but you’ll have to face the music, Javin. Sooner or later. The Chinese won’t give up, and they’ll find more evidence to support their case.”

  Javin nodded. Yes, and it will be slammed shut if they get a hold of Fang or one of his team members. He looked out the window at one of the civilian drivers. He was a skinny, young man barely in his twenties, wearing a black leather jacket and a silver chain around his neck and black jeans with ripped knees. The driver was leaning against the hood of his gray Lada sedan. He looks bored and hungry.

  “Thanks again, Claudia. You’re a true friend.”

  “Don’t mention it. Be safe there, wherever you are, Javin.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  He ended the call and headed toward the exit. I’ve got to find Fang right away and figure out what happened in Beijing…

  Chapter Eighteen

  Five Kilometers West of Sarkand

  Kazakhstan

  The driver was quite curious and just wouldn’t be quiet, no matter how hard Javin tried to discourage a conversation or divulging details about himself or his trip. The man was a social creature, needing to hear a voice at all times—if not Javin’s, then the news on the radio, or music from his phone, or a conversation with a friend. Eventually, Javin gave up and engaged the driver in a lengthy discussion about the geo-political role of Kazakhstan, its relationship with Russia, China, and the Western world.

  Initially, the young man gave Javin a look of suspicion, perhaps wondering if he was truly a “nomad traveler” or some kind of a government official sent to spy on disgruntled citizens. Once the driver was convinced that Javin had no ulterior motives, the Kazakh began to pour out his heart filled with hate and disgust over the country’s new billionaires.

  Politicians for decades had pillaged Kazakhstan’s most valuable resources—oil and gas—stashing the blood-soaked profits into tax havens like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands. Corrupt officials covered each other’s thefts, and trials either never started or never convicted any of the accused. Leaders of opposition parties were routinely thrown in jail, and public protests were violently broken up by police in riot gear. The same man had ruled the country for almost thirty years before supposedly stepping aside. He had created such a strong cult of personality that his successor renamed the capital to honor the former strongman.

  Javin was familiar with the broader picture of a country in turmoil. Such extreme oppression and desperation became a breeding ground for the spread of radical ideologies, which, in turn, gave birth to extreme responses, including terrorism. Over 300 Kazakh nationals had joined the ranks of the ISIS terrorist group, fighting in Iraq and Syria. Half of that number were women. Thousands more Kazakhs financed and supported extremist movements of all creeds and flags.

  When they were nearing Sarkand, which was about halfway to the border crossing, Javin looked around. They had been driving mostly on a two-lane undivided road that had seen better days. Open fields stretched as far as the eye could see to the right, and rolling hills were to the left. Small towns and villages dotted the area, and the road traffic became heavy. Soon, they were stuck behind an old truck belching black diesel smoke like a chimney.

  The driver cursed, slammed his fist on the horn, then tried a very unsafe maneuver to pass the truck. A van barreling from the opposite direction almost smashed into the Lada, missing the window by mere inches as the driver slid behind the old truck.

  “Hey, what’s the rush?” Javin sat straighter on his seat.

  “This… this donkey of a driver…” He coughed, then rolled down the window and spat out. “The smoke is going to kill us.”

  “Not if you kill us first with your driving.”

  He gave Javin a sideways glance. “Now you don’t like my driving?”

  I never liked your driving. “I want us to get safely to the city.”

  “We will. Now let me do my job.” The driver stepped on the gas.

  “Wait.” Javin placed a hand on the driver’s shoulder.

  “Hey, don’t touch me.” The driver pushed away Javin’s hand.

  He could have delivered a swift knife-hand chop with the edge of his hand to the driver’s neck, precisely at the carotid artery. The driver wouldn’t even see what hit him and would lose consciousness even before his head hit the steering wheel. But Javin was already up to his neck in trouble. “Okay, okay. Now stop the car.”

  “Why? We’re not—”

  “Just stop the car. Right now. Right there.” He gestured to the side of the road, then produced his wallet from a side pocket and pulled out a wad of banknotes. “I’ll walk to Sarkand.”

  “It’s a long way, at least five kilometers.”

  Javin shrugged. “I’ll manage. Here’s your money.”

  He had thought about giving the young man a generous tip, so he could perhaps tune up his Lada, which wasn’t old, but rattled like it was going to fall apart at any moment. However, considering his recent antics, the tip was off the table.

  The driver jerked the steering wheel and stopped in a cloud of dust on the dirt shoulder. He counted every banknote slowly and meticulously, and, when he was finished, he unlocked the door. “Drive safe,” Javin said with a smile.

  The driver nodded with a smirk and didn’t answer.

  He revved the engine and hit the gas.

  Javin turned around and stepped to the side to avoid the spray of dirt and dust lifted by the spinning tires.

  The driver almost hit an oncoming SUV whose driver had to slam on the brakes. He also hit the horn, but the Lada driver ignored it. He completed his three-point turn, blocking the traffic on both sides of the road, then sped away in a cloud of smoke.

  Javin shrugged. I doubt he’ll make it back to Taldykorgan. I’m glad I got out of that death trap alive…

  He began to walk on the shoulder of the road, occasionally turning his head and looking for a likely driver who’d give him a ride to Sarkand. He hitched his thumb a few times, then motioned with his hand.

  No takers.

  He wasn’t sure if they didn’t understand his gestures, or they were ignoring him, afraid of a male hitchhiker outside of the city. Javin didn’t mind walking five or even ten kilometers. The weather was cool, and the air was fresh. A gentle breeze was toying with his hair. The vehicles weren’t going too fast, and the dirt shoulder wasn’t hard on his feet.

  He walked at a brisk pace for about half a kilometer, once in a while
gesturing with his hand. He got a few honks, but no one stopped or even slowed down.

  When he had all but lost hope, the driver of a black Mazda SUV honked at him. Javin looked over his shoulder as the front passenger rolled down the window. A middle-aged blonde woman lifted her sunglasses atop her head, then motioned to Javin to come closer. “Hey, fellow, where do you need to go?” she said in Russian, one of the country’s official languages, which Javin spoke fluently.

  He looked at her, then at the driver, a middle-aged man wearing a black hat. Too young to be her father, he was probably her husband. Javin gave a warm smile to the woman, then waved at the driver and said, “To the city, Sarkand.”

  “We’re going there too. Get in.”

  “Thank you. I’m very grateful.”

  He hopped in the backseat behind the woman. She asked him about who he was and what he was doing roaming around this part of the country. Javin gave them the same story he had told the cab driver, feeling a pang of guilt about lying to the couple that had been kind to him.

  They were husband and wife who ran a small grocery store in the eastern part of the city. They had been visiting their daughter and grandkids who lived in Taldykorgan. The daughter was a history teacher. No mention of a husband, so Javin concluded he was dead or no longer in her life.

  He asked the kind couple to drop him off at Park Zhastar, a park the size of nearly four city blocks that was almost smack-dab in the middle of the city. He was meeting friends there, who’d take him along the next part of his journey. It wasn’t too far from the truth. The park was the meeting place with Fang.

  They said very friendly goodbyes, and Javin walked past a high school, then reached the park. It was late afternoon, but the sunrays were still warm, and about a dozen or so parents and children were playing in the park. A few of the children were kicking a red ball around, while a few toddlers were driving mini cars through the cobblestoned pathways and grassy areas.

  He stood next to a butter-yellow booth that looked like a gigantic ice-cream cone. The booth was closed, but a mother was walking her young daughter around, and she was ogling and pointing at the colorful ice-cream cones painted on the kiosk’s walls.

  Javin glanced at his phone and checked his messages. Nothing new. The last one he had received from Fang was about an hour ago, when he was still in the taxi. The tractor-trailer and the SUV were still at least two hours away from Sarkand. Javin shrugged. He had at least another hour.

  He paced around the park, then sat at one of the wooden benches near the eastern entrance. He racked his brain, trying to figure out what had happened in Beijing. Who killed those MSS operatives and the police officers? Are they really dead, or are the Chinese trying to blow this out of proportion?

  Once in a while, he looked around, observing a handful of people who had sat about fifty meters away. An old couple was chatting with a woman and two children next to the kiosk renting the mini cars. Four teenagers were riding bicycles with fat tires all over the place, shouting and laughing.

  Javin couldn’t sit still, so he walked around the park. He found a little café and bought a coffee and a pack of chak-chak, fried dough balls covered with hazelnuts and walnut pieces and soaked in honey. They were finger-licking good, and Javin truly had to lick the honey off his fingers.

  When he returned to the park, it was five minutes to the meeting time. He glanced around for Fang, then saw him jogging toward Javin from Tauyelsyzdyk Street in the eastern part of the park. The Chinese hacker was dressed in a grayish hoodie and light-colored blue jeans. Javin met him near the entrance, and they shook hands. “How’s everything?” Javin asked.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Where’s the truck?”

  “Back there.” Fang pointed with his bony hand over Javin’s shoulder, toward the west. “Can’t get it through the city. Narrow streets and would draw too much attention.”

  “Good thinking. Anyone follow you?”

  Fang gave Javin a thoughtful glance. “No, I don’t think so. Who’d follow us?”

  “Not sure, but we can’t have that happen. Where’s the SUV?”

  “This way.” Fang turned around. “Parked a block away.”

  “Let’s go,” Javin walked in front of him.

  Fang caught up to him and led the way. “The border crossing went okay. The Kazakh captain let us in without any problems. Why would someone follow us?”

  “I’m not sure, but it could happen. What if the base was clued in to what happened?”

  “How? The drone signal is dead, has been so for hours.”

  Javin didn’t want to tell Fang what was going through his mind. A premonition that something might go wrong at any moment was sizzling in his stomach. It wasn’t his usual feeling of suspicion, but something more powerful that had started to overwhelm him. He thought about Mila’s contact, the hangar’s owner, or someone in Fang’s team who might have said something to someone. Anyone of those people, if careless, could sink the entire operation. “I’m not sure, but we need to be careful.”

  “We have been careful, very careful.”

  “Good, let’s continue to be so.”

  When they turned onto the next street, Fang pointed at a black Honda SUV. “That’s ours,” he said. “Seven-seater.”

  They walked through the empty street, and, when they drew closer, Javin peered and saw a woman sitting in the front passenger seat. It was Fang’s fiancée, Xiulan. Javin stopped, then grabbed Fang by his arm. “What is she doing here?”

  “Who, Xiulan? I had to take her with me. The agency would have found her—”

  “You told me you moved her to a safe location in another city…”

  “I thought it was safe, but she noticed suspicious people. So, I had to change the plan.”

  Javin frowned. “You should have told me.”

  Fang studied Javin’s stern face for a moment, then said, “Sorry, I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

  “It is a huge deal. This is dangerous, Fang, for all of us, especially her, with no operational experience.”

  “I couldn’t leave her alone. The agency would have taken her, tortured her, and…” His voice trailed off, and he didn’t finish his thought.

  Javin rested a reassuring hand on Fang’s slumped shoulders. “We’ll do the best we can with what we’ve got. Anything else you’ve changed in our plan?”

  Fang looked at Javin. “No, nothing else.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  They were a few steps away from the SUV when a green Jeep rounded the corner. It was barreling toward the SUV.

  Javin stopped to look at the Jeep. He knew what it meant, but he needed to be sure before taking any hostile action. “Give me your gun,” he told Fang.

  “Why? Them? They’re just—”

  “Your gun. Now!”

  Fang began to pull his pistol from the small of his back as the Jeep’s driver slammed on the brakes. The vehicle came to an abrupt stop about thirty meters behind the SUV. A large, bearded man stepped out of the Jeep. He was dressed in a khaki green uniform and had a rifle in his right hand.

  A second man jumped out of the driver’s seat, and a third opened the rear door. They were all carrying rifles.

  “Who are they?” Fang asked.

  “Whoever they are, they’re not friends.”

  Before Javin could say another word, the man shouted in Russian, “Stop where you are, or I will open fire.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sarkand

  Kazakhstan

  The warning was an amateurish mistake.

  First fire, then warn, the voice of Javin’s instructor rang in his ear. It had been years since he had completed the recruit training, but the mantra was ingrained into his being.

  He cocked Fang’s pistol and aimed it at the man who had given them the order. “Drop it,” Javin said as he took a position next to the Honda’s hood. “Or you’re a dead man.”

  The man remained unfazed. “You can’t kill all three o
f us.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot. Drop your weapons.”

  The gunman at the rear began to lift his rifle.

  Javin leveled his pistol at that gunman’s head. “Don’t do it!”

  The SUV’s rear door opened, and one of Fang’s teammates fired a quick burst. It caught the man who had spoken across his chest and head. He fell against the side of the Jeep and to the ground, dead before he hit the asphalt.

  The driver fired a couple of rounds and dropped behind the hood of the Jeep.

  Javin laid a double-tap into the gunman by the rear door, then slid back next to the SUV. “Down, get down,” he shouted at Fang.

  He stepped closer to the SUV, but not fast enough.

  The Jeep’s driver squeezed off a long volley. One of his bullets struck Fang in the left side of his chest. The impact of the bullet spun him around, and he fell next to Javin. More bullets thwacked against the SUV’s door.

  Javin glanced at Fang’s bleeding chest, assessing the wound. Not deadly, at least not right away. Considering the entry bullet hole and the blood trickling from the wound, the bullet had missed the major arteries. But it could have hit a bone and nerves. Upper chest wounds were complicated, because the area was a hub for bones, muscles, arteries, tendons, and ligaments.

  Javin slid onto his stomach and aimed his pistol at the Jeep. He found the driver’s legs and fired a couple of rounds. They both hit the target, and the driver collapsed to the side. The rifle had fallen from his hands, but he made no attempt to retrieve it. Instead, he seemed to be reaching for his legs.

  The driver was now exposed.

  Javin kept the pistol trained at the driver and stood up.

  He examined the driver and the Jeep and took a few steps toward them. He was almost halfway to the driver when they locked eyes. He went for his rifle, still beyond his reach.

  Javin said, “No, don’t—”