Allah's Scorpion (15 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Allah's Scorpion
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APURTO DEVLÁN,
LIMÓN BAY HOLDING BASIN
Graham lowered his binoculars and turned around from where he’d been studying the entry to the Gatun locks as Ramati came aboard the bridge with the Panama Transit Authority pilot. The dark-skinned, substantially built man wore dark slacks and a light blue short-sleeved shirt with his name and position, PILOTO, sewn above the left pocket. He carried a small leather satchel.
“Captain Slavin, our pilot has arrived,” Ramati said.
Graham laid the binoculars aside. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Sanchez,” he said, reading the name tag.
The pilot shook hands with Graham, but he had an odd expression on his face. “I don’t remember you, sir,” he said.
Graham shrugged. “I don’t believe that we’ve met.”
Sanchez shook his head. “No. But I was sure that the name was familiar.”
Graham considered the unexpected problem for just an instant, and then he smiled. “My cousin Dimitri is employed by GAC. You probably worked with him. We could be brothers.”
Sanchez was skeptical, but he shrugged. He walked past Graham, set his satchel down beside the helm station, took out a pair of binoculars, and looked through the windows at the foredeck. “Are your engines ready to answer the bells?”
“Of course,” Graham said. “We’re anxious to get started.”
Sanchez lowered the binoculars and turned around. His gaze lingered for just a moment on al-Tashkiri who would be standing by at the helm, then to Ramati who would relay the pilot’s orders to the deck crew, and finally to Graham. “Why are your line handlers not on deck?” he asked mildly, no hint of rebuke in his tone of voice.
He was just doing his job, but Graham felt sure that the man was suspicious that everything was not as it should be here. “I was waiting for your arrival, Mr. Sanchez,” Graham said evenly. “No need to have my people standing by in this heat and humidity until they’re required.”
“They’re required now, Mr. Slavin, if you please,” Sanchez said. “When they are in position, you may raise anchor and we shall proceed.”
“As you wish,” Graham said. He nodded for Ramati, who keyed his walkie-talkie. Just for an instant Graham had the terrible thought that his number one was going to speak in Arabic, in which case the game would be up, the pilot would have to be killed, and they would probably not make it to the locks.
His own escape was assured. If he had to abandon the plan out here in the bay, he would activate a small homing beacon, don a life jacket, and slip over the side. Within minutes the
Nueva Cruz,
which had followed them from the rendezvous yesterday, would pick him up. When they were far enough out, he would detonate the explosives and then head northwest to Costa Rica where he would be put ashore near Puerto Limón. From there
he would make his way overland to the international airport at San José and then Mexico City.
On the other hand, if they did make it all the way into the second lock, he would simply step over the side in the shadows while the ship was at the height of the lift and the deck was nearly at the same level as the lip of the canal chamber. From there he would make his way out of the damage zone, push the 9 # 11, and in the confusion get back to the head of Limón Bay where a small boat would be standing by to take him out to the
Nueva Cruz.
One man, moving alone and fast in the night, always had the advantage over a superior force. Osama had proved that for five years. But the thought of coming so far and failing ground at his nerves.
Ramati keyed the walkie-talkie. “Mr. Sozansky, send out the line handlers, please.”
“Roger,” one of the mujahideen responded in a reasonably good English accent.
All Panamax ships were guided through the locks by electric locomotives called mules, which ran along tracks on both sides of the canal. Leader lines were tossed down to the ship, which would be used by the line handlers to pull heavy cables down on deck that would be attached to cleats starboard and port, bows and stern. The ships would move in and out of the locks under their own power, but would be guided and held in place by the mules.
Graham picked up the ship’s phone and called Hijazi. “Mr. Kiosawa, stand by to raise anchor, please.”
“The pilot is here?” Hijazi asked.
Graham glanced at Sanchez, who had pulled a handheld VHF radio out of his satchel. “Yes. We’ll be getting under way shortly.”
“Insh’allah.”
“Yes, indeed,” Graham said, careful to keep the anger out of his voice. Hijazi was assuming that the pilot could not hear what he was saying. But he’d taken an unnecessary risk for the sake of his religious sensibilities.
Ramati stepped across to the starboard wing so that he could see astern as well as forward. He spoke into his walkie-talkie then came back onto the bridge and crossed to the port wing, where he spoke again into his walkie-talkie, then came back.
“Our line handlers are in position,” he told Graham.
“Very well,” Sanchez said, without waiting for Graham to confirm the report. He keyed his VHF radio. “Gatun Control, this is the
Apurto Devlán
with pilot ready for upbound transit.”
“Roger,
Apurto Devlán,
you are cleared for transit.”
Sanchez turned to Graham. “Mr. Slavin, you may raise anchor, and get under way. Course one-seven-four, speed two knots.”
Graham called Hijazi. “Raise the anchor, and prepare to give me two knots.”
“Roger,” Hijazi said, subdued now that they were actually getting under way. In a few hours everyone aboard ship would be incinerated, and it had finally gotten to him.
Graham replaced the phone. Hijazi and the others would finally get the answer they’d spent their lives seeking.
They would probably be disappointed.
 
 
PANAMA CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
The lights of Panama City had sparkled from a distance as the Gulfstream carrying Kirk McGarvey flew across the isthmus straight down the cut between the mountain peaks through which the canal had been blasted. When the VIP jet’s hatch was opened and the stairs lowered, a blast of hot, humid air, even worse than at Maracaibo, filled the cabin, bringing with it a combination of smells: burned kerojet, wet jungle, and big city garbage dumps.
Two sturdy-looking men, dressed in Navy SEAL night fighter uniforms, leaned nonchalantly against a camouflaged Humvee on the ramp as McGarvey came to the hatch.
Sergeant Contreras gave him a warm smile. “I hope your flight with us was pleasant, sir, and that good luck rides with you.”
“Thank you,” he told her. “I think I’ll need it.”
The captain opened the door to the flight deck. “I’ve not been authorized to wait for you,” he said.
“It’s not necessary,” McGarvey said. “Thanks for the lift.”
Sergeant Contreras handed him his overnight bag, and he stepped down from the airplane and crossed the tarmac to the waiting SEALs, who straightened up at his approach. They were young, probably in their twenties, McGarvey figured, and they looked impatient. He stuck out his hand.
“Lieutenant Herring, I’m Kirk McGarvey.”
Herring shook hands. He was a little shorter than McGarvey, and his grip was anything but hard, as if he didn’t have to prove anything. But he had the
look:
He’d been there, done that, and he wore his self-confidence like a politician wears his charisma. “We’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “This is my assistant fire team leader, Ensign Tom Kulbacki.”
McGarvey shook hands with the taller, leaner man, but turned back to Herring. “I assume that you have a chopper standing by.”
“It’s under cover,” Herring said.
The Venezuelan air force jet had turned and was trundling back down the ramp toward the active runway. McGarvey glanced back at it. “You don’t trust them very much, do you?”
“The tanker is one of theirs, for all I know the crew is Venezuelan too.”
“They got me here with no questions asked,” McGarvey said.
“Yeah, just what we need tonight, a civilian,” Kulbacki muttered, but loudly enough for McGarvey to hear.
“I don’t trust anybody, Mr. McGarvey,” Herring said.
“That include CIA?”
Herring nodded tightly. “Anyone who has to use the big dogs to throw his weight around.” He gave McGarvey a very hard look. “Like I told you on the phone, we don’t need civilian interference. Just get the hell out of our way, and let us do the job we’ve been trained for.”
“Lieutenant, I assume that the
Apurto Devlán
is already under way.”
“She pulled up anchor ninety minutes ago,” Herring shot back. He glanced at Kulbacki. “We could have resolved the situation by now.”
“In that case we’re running out of time,” McGarvey said. “As much as I’d like to continue our pleasant little chat, I suggest that we get started. I’ll brief you on the way down.”
Herring was clearly frustrated, but he nodded. “Get in,” he said. He turned, climbed behind the wheel of the Humvee, and immediately took off, not bothering to see if McGarvey or Kulbacki had gotten aboard.
He drove with a vengeance a hundred yards along a line of hangars, making a sharp right behind what might have been some sort of an administration headquarters, closed at this hour of the night. An H-60 Seahawk, no lights other than a dim red glow from the cockpit, was parked beneath camouflage netting, in the shadows behind the building.
Several men in black were lounging beside the chopper. Even before Herring pulled up, they scrambled inside the machine, and the rotors began to turn.
McGarvey was dressed in jeans, a dark, short-sleeved polo shirt, and boat shoes. He grabbed his bag and followed Herring and Kulbacki across to the chopper, where they climbed aboard. Herring went forward to talk to the pilot while the assistant fire team leader helped McGarvey strap in. The other six operators, all dressed in black, and equipped with night vision goggles and a variety of weapons ranging from Beretta auto-loading pistols with silencers in chest holsters, Ithaca Model 37 short-barreled semiautomatic shotguns, and Heckler & Koch M8 carbines, were strapped in and ready to go.
“We’ve got a set of camos for you, and a Colt Commando if you need them!” Kulbacki shouted over the rising noise.
“No thanks,” McGarvey said. He took his 9mm Walther PPK out of his bag, checked the load, and stuffed the weapon in his belt. Next he took out a spare magazine of ammunition and put it in his trousers pocket. No one cracked a smile, but they all watched him. “What’s our flying time to the locks?”
“Fifteen minutes!” Kulbacki shouted.
Herring came back and strapped in beside McGarvey as the helicopter accelerated from beneath the netting. As soon as her tail rotor was clear, she lumbered into the air, swinging toward the north, but keeping low.
“The
Apurto Devlán
has already made it to the first lock!” he shouted to McGarvey. “So now you have my undivided attention. What do you want to do?”
“Are we carrying a gun crew?” McGarvey asked.
“Yes. The chopper’s equipped with a pair of 7.62 machine guns.”
“It’s my guess that Graham killed the original crew and replaced them somewhere between here and Maracaibo.”
“Your guess,” Herring said pointedly.
“That’s right,” McGarvey shot back. “But I’m not guessing when I tell you that Graham will not become a suicide bomber unless he’s given no other options. He’ll get off the ship, and once he’s clear he’ll detonate the explosives. The ship, the locks, and everyone close will be destroyed.”
“They’re all nuts.”
“From our point of view, you’re probably right,” McGarvey said. “But get one thing straight: They might be nuts, but they’re not stupid. Graham was a trained Royal Navy officer, he’s operated as a pirate in the South China Sea, and since 9/11 has been working for bin Laden. Interpol and every intelligence service in the world have been looking for him for more than five years. From what I’ve learned this is the nearest anyone’s gotten.”
“Well, he made a big mistake this time,” Herring said. “We’re going to take him down.” He glanced at his operators. “My people will not let him get away. No chance in hell. Guaranteed.”
McGarvey was beginning to lose his patience. “Graham won’t be impressed by a stealth operation.”
“I think he will be,” Herring said. He grinned. “We’ll disarm the explosives before he gets a chance to pull the trigger.”
“As long as we can keep him aboard in the meantime,” McGarvey said. “If he gets clear he’ll push the button.”
Kulbacki was following the conversation. He leaned closer to McGarvey. “Won’t matter, sir. We can block his radio signal. Most of them use a simple garage door opener code. We’ve got a high-power transmitter that blankets their signals.”
“We learned that the hard way in Iraq,” Herring said.
“I hope you’re right,” McGarvey said. “But if at all possible I want to take the man alive.”
“We’re going to be pretty busy,” Herring said. “I can’t guarantee that we’ll have the time to take prisoners.”
“I only care about Graham. Once we show up he’s going to jump ship. I want to take him before then.”
“I’m listening,” Herring said.
“We go in fast and noisy,” McGarvey said. “But there’ll be a civilian pilot on the bridge. So everyone has to be careful. I don’t want any civilian casualties. And the same goes for workmen ashore. No collateral damage.”
“We’ll do our best—”
“You’ll do better than that, Lieutenant,” McGarvey said. Before Herring could object, McGarvey cut him off. “I don’t want to come on strong. We’re on the same side; fighting the bad guys for the same reasons. But I’m here and I’m not going away. And that’s a fact.”
Herring held himself in check with a visible effort. “Go ahead, sir, I’m listening.”
“Assuming you can either find and disarm every explosive package they’ve set in place, and/or block the remote detonator signal, there are still two worst-case scenarios concerning Graham. One, he gets away. If that happens he’ll be even more strongly motivated to hit us, maybe with another 9/11. Maybe something worse.”
“What’s the second?” Kulbacki asked.
“That somebody kills him.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“If we can take him alive, I think he might be the key to finding bin Laden,” McGarvey said. “And that’s one man I’d very much like to get close to again.”
Herring exchanged a glance with Kulbacki. “Okay, Mr. McGarvey, you have my attention now. How do you propose we handle this?”
“Graham’s not going to be impressed by anything we do, but his crew will react to a shock-and-awe strike, which is exactly what I want your people to give him.”
“And what happens if you’re wrong?” Herring asked. “What happens if Graham isn’t aboard, and we start shooting at innocent Venezuelans?”
“I’m not wrong,” McGarvey said. “The real captain’s body was stuffed in an aluminum trunk and left in a hotel storage room.”
“I see.”
“I want the chopper gun crew to stand by to make sure Graham doesn’t jump ship.”

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