The Shadow Protocol Read Online Free

guys.”
    “We can’t give you eyes,” Holly Jo warned. “The UAV’s tracking Syed.” The terrorist leader had disappeared down a narrow alley.
    “You need to lose them,” Tony warned. “You can’t lead them to the rendezvous.”
    “I’ll do what I can,” Adam replied. “Just make sure you get Syed.”
    “We’ll bag him. See you soon.”
    The Mercedes grumbled past as Adam reached a junction. He rounded the corner onto a side street.
    A surreptitious glance back as he turned. The three men were still moving purposefully after him.
    Tony stared at a high-resolution satellite photograph of Peshawar on the screen. The tiny tracer Adam had stuck to Syed’s sleeve while shaking his hand now revealed its position as a red diamond; the van was a green circle. Directing the latter to intercept the former should be a simple task.
    In theory.
    He knew from experience, however, that no satellite overview could beat personal knowledge. “Imran,” he said into his headset, “he’s going east. Do you know that part of town?”
    “I know the
whole
town.” The van’s driver was Imran Lak, a Peshawar native—and also a CIA asset. “I’ll catch him.”
    “He’s just come out of the alley,” reported Kyle. The view from the drone’s camera slowly but constantly shifted as he followed the terrorist from above. “Crossing the street … now going north.”
    The green circle had only just turned east. A tag floated above the symbol, showing the distance in meters between the two subjects. It was gradually increasing. “He’s getting away from you,” said Tony into the mike. A statement of fact, not reproach—yet. “Turn north as soon as you can. We can’t lose this guy.”
    Lak looked ahead, trying to see past the overloaded truck in front of the van. There were alleys between the buildings, but none was wide enough for the Mercedes. The nearest road he could take was at least two hundred meters away.
    He sounded an impatient blast on the horn, pulling out to overtake but finding a couple of cars coming the other way. Frustrated, he swung back behind the truck.
    “You’re losing him,” said an American voice behind him. “Come on, get this thing moving!”
    Lak flicked a look over his shoulder. The darkened rear cabin was lit by the pale glow of laptop screens, four burly men huddled over them. “I can’t drive through walls,” he complained.
    John Baxter was in no mood for excuses. “If we miss this guy, we might as well have spent the day playing with our dicks,” he said, Alabama accent strong. “Catch up with him!”
    Lak frowned but said nothing. The cars passed. He pulled out again, dropping down through the gears and accelerating past the truck.
    “He’s turning again,” Kyle warned. “Heading east.”
    The street Syed had entered was crowded, pedestrians milling about as vehicles slowly bullied their way through the throng. “What’s this?” Tony asked. “Kyle, show me the street ahead. Careful, though—don’t lose sight of him. And switch on the auto-tracking.”
    “He’s still got the tracer on him.”
    “Yeah, but it might get brushed off if he bumps into someone, and we’d end up following the wrong guy.”
    Kyle entered commands. A pulsating blue outline appeared around the red diamond. The computer had locked onto Syed’s figure, identifying it by color and shape; as long as the terrorist leader was partially visible to the drone, even in a crowd, the system would track him—and predict his movements and reacquire him if contact was briefly lost.
    The camera tilted upward to show the busy street ahead. In front of the shops, numerous small stalls were strewn along the sides of the long road, seeds sown in a furrow. “Imran, he’s at an outdoor market,” said Tony. “He probably thinks he can lose any tails in the crowd.”
    “I know the place,” came the reply. “There’s a street where we can cut across and get ahead of him.”
    Kyle angled the camera back down