Ops Files II--Terror Alert (23 page)

Her thoughts returned to Jeff bleeding out in the alley, but with their phones out of commission there was nothing she could do for him but keep him company as he died. The bitter taste of failure soured her mouth – she’d allowed the ringleader to escape while her superior sacrificed his life. Abreeq. The master terrorist who’d outwitted her as easily as he might a child.

Maya’s eyes drifted back to the printer and she crouched before it. She eyed it and then turned the device so she could see the back, mind processing furiously.

“The hard drive,” she whispered, her hand reaching into her backpack for her multipurpose tool. Most printers stored their last few jobs in memory, which was something not everyone knew.

Four minutes later she had the disk out and was connecting it to her laptop computer. She typed in a series of commands and then squinted at the image that appeared on the screen – a street map of Dover with an address neatly typed at the bottom, along with a time. She checked her watch and swallowed hard – the printer kept a record of the images it had printed, and the last one was the map.

The time written below the address was barely four hours from now.

Sirens keened in the distance. She rose, quickly packed her laptop away, and shouldered the backpack before making her way down the stairs. Maya looked around the shop and her gaze settled on an ancient BSA motorcycle by the rear door. She checked the tank and then twisted the ignition key and stepped on the kick start.

The old motor sputtered to life on the third try and she guided the bike toward the rear door. The sirens were drawing nearer. She’d have to be quick if she were going to evade the police. The only good news was that if Jeff could be saved, help would arrive shortly; but she couldn’t spare the time to check on him – his fate was in the universe’s hands now.

The door swung open and she bounced down the step on the back of the bike, a cheap helmet pulled over her head.

She didn’t switch on the headlight until she was three blocks away and a stream of emergency vehicles had passed her, leaving her to find her way to Dover in the cold dark of the English night.

Abreeq settled back into his seat and watched Manchester blur by as the last train of the night to Dover picked up speed. As he’d ambled through the station, he’d thought through the events of the last hour and came to the conclusion that he was in the clear, at least for now – the assault on the shop couldn’t have been directed at him personally. If the authorities had known he was in England, much less at the garage where he’d been living since his arrival, they would have shown up with considerably greater force than a couple of gunmen armed with only pistols.

He didn’t know who the gunmen were or what their ultimate objective had been, but it smacked of unofficial action, which meant it was most likely his nemesis, the cursed Israeli intelligence agency: the Mossad. If he was correct, they were likely tracking that idiot Kasra, not him, which meant they had no idea Abreeq was involved. If they did, they would have nuked the place, not taken potshots with peashooters.

Somehow, though, there had been a slip, and the operation was blown. Months of preparation down the drain, mere hours before the big match tomorrow night. It was inconceivable that it could happen, but Abreeq had been involved in enough missions to know that nothing was ever guaranteed. And just as with wartime bombing runs, he always had a plan B – an alternate target he’d researched in meticulous detail.

He hated having to walk away from the stadium attack, but his sentiment was nothing in the scheme of things. It would have been nice to see his plot come to fruition, but no matter. He’d escaped unharmed, and, he believed, unidentified – although he’d still taken the precaution to glue on a goatee and don heavy black-rimmed glasses in the bathroom, in case the security cameras at the station platforms were being monitored more aggressively than normal. With his newly trimmed hair shaved close to his head with his electric razor, and after changing into the business suit he’d packed, he was a completely different man – a weary mid-level functionary on his way to the Dover ferry.

That his network in Manchester was compromised was now a given, but Kasra had been the only one who had known all the elements of the plan, and even he hadn’t been told where the device was entering the country or how it would arrive in Manchester – only that he was to wait for it at the shop, with the beer truck.

Now Kasra was dead, taking the fragments of knowledge he’d possessed with him to the grave. A shame a loyal warrior had fallen, but a relief in the sense that dead men told no tales.

Abreeq checked the time, and after looking around the almost empty rail car to ensure he had sufficient privacy, he slipped a cell phone from his pocket and placed the call he’d been dreading.

Ajmal Kahn answered on the second ring, his voice flat over the long-distance line.

“Hello?”

“It is I,” Abreeq said quietly in Arabic.

“Yes?” Kahn’s tone revealed nothing.

“We have a problem. We can’t proceed as planned.”

“What! What has happened?”

“There was a wrinkle. You must trust I am making the right decision.”

“I…this is most troubling.”

“I understand. To me as well. But have no fear, I will keep my part of the bargain.”

“How?”

“As we discussed before. It is less spectacular, but will be sufficient to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies.”

“I trust you have thought it through. But I am still…disappointed.”

“As am I. On your end, tell no one we have spoken. I have no idea how this happened, but assume that the jackal is at your heels. Trust no one.”

“You have my word.” Kahn paused. “Call me once it is done. Or if you need anything in the meantime.”

“I appreciate your understanding.”

“We are in this together.”

Abreeq disconnected and thought about his next steps. He was safe, for now. He hadn’t been apprehended at the station, which is what would have been done if they’d suspected his destination or means of transport, so he was in the clear. If he was correct about the Mossad, they would stir up a fuss, but the fact that the stadium threat had been thwarted would lull the British into a false sense of security.

And his alternate target was one nobody would suspect.

Abreeq rose and walked along the aisle, swaying slightly with the motion of the train, and made his way to the club car, where drinks and snacks were being served. After the surge of adrenaline from the gunfight, he was starting to feel shaky, and a sandwich and soda seemed like just what the doctor ordered.

~ ~ ~

When Vladimir’s cell phone rang, it startled him – nobody had the number, so he’d never heard the annoying screech that filled the marine repair shop. He felt for the phone in his pocket and got it to his ear by the fourth ring.

“Yes?”

“You have a serious problem.”

“Sergey!”

“Listen. Don’t talk. The stadium operation has been canceled. I just got word from one of my contacts in Manchester – it’s all over the police radios. A gunfight. A beer truck with a suspect compartment. The Arab is compromised.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“We have to either make delivery or return the funds, which I’m not prepared for. So you must deliver, and once the confirmation code is sent to his people…terminate him. He knows too much, and if the authorities are after him, we can’t afford for him to be captured.”

The terrorist was supposed to make a call to his sponsor when he’d taken possession of the device, at which point Vladimir and his people were out of the loop, the deal done. Whether or not Abreeq could go on to use the bomb for another purpose was immaterial to them. If he just disappeared with it, the imam would suspect a double-cross by him, not the Russians; or alternatively, would believe that he’d been captured and the device neutralized but the entire affair kept out of the papers for national security reasons.

Either way, it was imperative that Abreeq confirm he had the device.

After which, his career as a mercenary killer would meet with an abrupt end.

Vladimir grinned. “I understand.” They would still have the device, which they could then sell to another group of zealots, but without the annoying costs involved in securing the raw materials, transporting them, and creating the bomb. It was perfect, and the only thing Vladimir would have to do was put a bullet in Abreeq.

A million-dollar bullet.

“Call me when our business is concluded.”

Sergey sounded tense to Vladimir, and he suspected that his banker friend had more at stake than the money involved. But it wasn’t his business. Sergey had proposed the stadium match as the perfect event for the terrorists, and had spoon-fed them the idea and the plans. Vladimir had never understood why, but it wasn’t his concern. Maybe he disliked one of the teams. Or perhaps one of the important spectators was one he’d accepted a contract on. Visitors were flying in from all over Europe; perhaps one of Sergey’s competitors would be in the VIP suite, or maybe there was a functionary who was blocking a lucrative contract he needed to move forward.

Sergey always had wheels within wheels, and a smart man attended to his affairs and left those of others to them.

Dmitry pushed through one of the garage doors with the meals, and Vladimir sniffed the air with disdain. “There’s been a change of plans,” he said, and both of his henchmen froze, waiting for his next words. “The Arab must die.”

Dmitry’s expression remained blank, and he shrugged and handed Vladimir one of the greasy paper bags filled with fried cod and chips. “Fine by me. How do you want to do it?”

Maya twisted the throttle of the old BSA Rocket 3 and grimaced as rain pelted her. The highway southeast to Birmingham was by now familiar, and the old 750cc engine delivered a throaty roar as it climbed in speed. She’d managed to avoid a sobriety checkpoint in Manchester as she made her way to the roadway and now resisted the urge to open the ancient bike up. It would do her no good to get stopped by an overzealous traffic cop, and even under extenuating circumstances she doubted the Mossad would approve of her incapacitating one if she was.

She knew that Dover was on the coast, and that the quickest route would be from Birmingham to London, where she’d be no more than an hour from her destination. The irony that even now a team from London was en route to Birmingham, when it could have been in Dover in no time, wasn’t lost on her. Maya had stopped for fuel once clear of the city limits and tried to call the Mossad on a pay phone, but it had been out of order, the handset damaged by a vandal.

Once in Birmingham she would try again. Hopefully Jeff’s handlers would understand the urgency of the situation and not dawdle – her greatest fear. With the clock ticking, if some low-level flunky got the call in the middle of the night, it would no doubt take hours for the message to make its way to someone who could take action, by which point they might have lost their chance to capture the terrorist. Based on Jeff’s experience with the London office, even during business hours, in her estimation there was less than a fifty percent chance they’d be able to mobilize quickly enough to be effective.

Still, she wasn’t operating in a vacuum, and no matter the urgency, protocol said she had to call in. Maya threaded the needle, passing a truck and sliding ahead of a sedan, and was almost in Birmingham when her worst fear materialized: the flashing lights of a police car behind her. She glanced at the speedometer and then at her mirror, and after assessing the traffic ahead, cranked the throttle and ducked down. The motorcycle leapt forward like an eager colt and she flew past a car full of youths, their eyes wide and expressions shocked at her sudden materialization alongside them.

The siren wailed behind her and she zigged between the cars, now moving cautiously as they pulled over to allow the police vehicle to pass. There was a practical limitation to how fast she dared go with the pavement still slick from rain, and she knew that if she stayed on the main roadway it was just a matter of time until the radio caught up with her and another squad car intercepted her.

She sped past a lorry and killed the headlight, hoping to evade her pursuer long enough to take an exit and find an alternate route through the city. A sedan almost sideswiped her as she streaked past it, the driver unable to see her, and she pulled down the next off-ramp, waiting until the last possible second before applying the brakes, downshifting and using the motor to slow as much as possible. At the bottom she made a hard left and worked through the gears, and then took another turn and pulled to the sidewalk.

Maya shut off the engine and listened intently, and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the siren move beyond her, still on the highway. With any luck it would be many kilometers before the police figured out she wasn’t still on the main road, by which time she could be across town, well on her way and out of immediate danger.

She started the motor and pulled away, following her rough sense of direction through the smaller streets. Her knowledge of the layout of the city was sufficient to give her confidence in finding an alternative route to London. Prudence dictated that she remain off the highway for a while, but she had no time to waste, and sped east as fast as she dared.

She was almost at the outer reaches of the industrial area when the motor pitch changed and began stuttering. The fuel indicator showed a quarter tank, so that wasn’t it. The boxy bike slowed even as she gave it more throttle, and by the time she rolled to a stop she knew she was in trouble.

Maya swung off the seat and knelt by the motor. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of oil, and she didn’t need to reach down and burn her fingers to know that a seal had ruptured, draining the lubricant and causing the engine to falter. Which left her stranded in the middle of nowhere. Abreeq was practically assured of escaping now – assuming he was still going to try to make the meeting in Dover.