Enemy of Mine by Brad Taylor Read Free Book Online

fields. I can’t have him overhead for any length of time without questions.”
    Knuckles silently cursed the restrictions of working under the elaborate covers created by the Taskforce. It made them as inefficient as the terrorists they chased.
    Blaine said, “Just sent you the grid for the phone. It’s off now, but last location looks to be right outside the Medina.”
    Well, almost as inefficient.
    “Roger. We’re on the move.”
    “Watch yourself. You hear me? I don’t want you pulling any Pike shit.”
    Retro climbed into the front seat, a grin on his face at the reference to his old team leader. He brought up the computer map as Knuckles intersected the P12 highway.
    “What’re we doing?”
    “We’re going to get that guy one way or the other.”
    “So we’re winging shit now?”
    “No. Amateurs wing shit. We’re working under pressure.”
    Johnny came on the net. “The woman has just entered the Medina. Gonna be tough staying on her in here.”
    Match.
    The Medina was an ancient shopping area that had been built and rebuilt countless times for more than a thousand years. Surrounded by stone walls that gave it the image of a fortress, it housed a ton of cheap souvenir shops, museums, and mosques, and was literally a maze of cobblestone streets that ran seemingly at random. It was the perfect place to avoid detection. Or pick up on surveillance, since the gate to the Medina was a chokepoint everyone would have to use.
    “Stick with her. His last location was just outside. They’re going to meet inside. Does she still have his luggage and computer?”
    “Yep. And she’s moving fast.”
    “Which gate?”
    “The big one. The martyr gate.”
    “Watch for countersurveillance through the chokepoint. I don’t think he’ll have any, but so far everything I’ve thought has been wrong.”
    “I’ve already got men inside ahead of her. Figured it was prudent.”
    Smart man. Making up for the moped mistake.
Knuckles pulled into a restaurant parking lot off of the road that paralleled the port and killed the engine. “Good to go. We’ll be about five minutes behind. Coming in through the Jedid gate south of you.”
    Retro said, “What about Crusty Two?”
    Knuckles glanced back at the man, now flex-cuffed and gagged. “Put him to sleep.”
    He waited while Retro cinched the man’s collar into his carotid arteries, causing him to pass out. Knuckles knew he would only remain unconscious for a few minutes, and he hated the thought of leaving the terrorist to his own devices while they were gone. He’d done that once before, and the guy they had captured had escaped.
    He didn’t see a choice.

8
    T hey were through the Jedid gate and into the maze, a small knapsack filled with equipment bouncing against Retro’s back, when the next call came in.
    “She’s stopped in a courtyard, sitting on a bench next to a mosque. It looks like a women-only mosque. We’re sticking out big time.”
    Shit.
Crusty was proving to be pretty damn smart after all. “Clear out. Can you send a guy through the courtyard every few minutes? Does it naturally lead somewhere else?”
    “Yeah, it does, but I’m going to run out of people in three minutes. We can’t park our ass here.”
    “I’ve got two more. Start the rotation and we’ll follow up. We can start back the other way one by one if we have to. Where are you?”
    Instead of directions, Knuckles heard, “I have no idea. Sending a picture.”
    Knuckles pulled out his phone, got the SMS text with the picture, and saw the mosque, a small one hemmed in by the usual stone-and-stucco buildings left and right, separated by less than four feet. Knowing the photograph was geo-tagged with its location, he initiated the GPS feature of the phone and loaded the picture. Within seconds, he had an arrow directing him to Johnny’s location, along with a distance scale showing three hundred meters.
    “Got it. On the way.”
    By the time Knuckles reached the courtyard, Johnny