Tier One Wild (31 page)

He struck one of the five in the leg.

As Digger tucked back in to reload, Kolt came over the headset. “The roof is clear.”

“Thanks, boss,” said Slapshot. And then to Digger, “Let’s go!”

*   *   *

Hawk and Raynor had each shot one of the men on the roof, killing them both instantly. Now they were back in the stairwell, heading down to the third floor. Cindy was listening in on the transmissions between the different members of Saleh’s organization. With their frantic shouted radio calls, the constant cross traffic, and her limited knowledge of a different dialect of the language, not to mention the adrenaline racing through her body, it was hard for her to make out much of the conversation.

But as they entered the third floor of the office area, she grabbed Racer by the shoulder. She whispered, “One guy sounds like the boss. He says he’s called the police and they will be here in five minutes. He’s saying something about the BMW. I think he’s going to go for the BMW and escape.”

“The hell he is,” said Raynor.

The pair turned to head back for the stairs, but a door opened down the hall in front of them. Two men dressed in assault vests over white button-down shirts stepped out into the hallway. They were carrying their Kalashnikovs at the low-ready. Raynor and Hawk both lifted their short-barreled PDWs and opened fire, dropping one of the armed men before he was able to get a shot off.

The second man spun away and back into the office.

Raynor charged up the hallway, Hawk moving backward behind him, covering the stairwell and the doors to the other offices.

As Raynor moved closer he heard the sound of sirens approaching up the Kornish al Nile.

At the open doorway to the office Kolt dropped to his knees next to the dead man. He spun into the room low, and a burst of shots went well over his head. He found the shooter, the same man who had just escaped from the hallway, and Raynor shot him dead at fifteen feet.

But there was another man in the room. A silver-haired Arab in a wool sweater and slacks. The man stood behind a walnut desk at the far wall. He held a briefcase tight in each hand. A gold-plated .45 pistol rested on the blotter of the desk in front of him.

It was Aref Saleh.

Raynor rose to his feet, his HK held out in front of him like a pistol. “If you go ahead and reach for that gun, you’d make shooting you a little less complicated.”

Saleh looked at the American dressed in black. Hawk backed up to the door now, still looking up the hallway. A woman with bare arms carrying a machine gun. Saleh could not process this strange sight before him.

The Libyan spoke with a quavering voice. “I offer no resistance. I will go quietly.”

Raynor raised his weapon to shoot the man through the head. He’d love to take him for any intelligence value, but hauling those two briefcases that Saleh considered so important would probably be almost as good as hauling Saleh himself, and a hell of a lot less troublesome.

Just as Kolt was about to fire, his earpiece came alive with Slapshot’s voice.

“Racer, it’s Slap. You read me?”

“Go,” said Racer.

“We are inside Rhine. No joy on the cargo.”

Raynor lowered the gun slightly as he brought his hand to his earpiece. “Say again?”

“Got a few crates of RPGs. A shit ton of AKs and such. But negative on the SA-24s.”

“You gotta be sure, Slap. No time to back-clear the warehouse,” Kolt said.

“We’re sure. Dry hole!”

Behind Kolt, Cindy heard the same message in her earpiece. “Dammit,” she muttered.

Raynor looked at Saleh. “Okay. Change of plans. You’re going for a boat ride.”

*   *   *

By the time they’d tossed Saleh into the dinghy and climbed in behind him, the sound of shrill police sirens was deafening. There were choppers approaching, as well, which made crossing the open ground at the rear of the property more of a rush job than a controlled exfiltration. Kolt and Hawk pushed Saleh along the southern wall and then north along the fence to the hole in the gate, and Digger and Slapshot threw mini–smoke grenades before exiting the warehouse at a sprint, avoiding a few rounds fired in their direction from surviving security men around the property.

The wooden dinghy was designed for four, so they struggled to get all five aboard, but soon enough they were headed upriver, with Digger holding the outboard motor’s throttle wide open as he piloted them close to the shoreline to help hide them from the skies.

Slapshot zip-tied Saleh’s arms behind his back at the wrists and elbows, and then he used a small nylon sack he kept stored in the utility pouch of his chest harness as a hood, placing it over Saleh’s head as they neared their destination. Hawk had already shoved a scarf in his mouth to keep him quiet.

It took them only fifteen minutes to make it back to their panel truck upriver at the launching point of the dinghy. Curtis was unconscious when they began loading up, but he awoke with the noise. When Slapshot pushed a man into the back of the truck next to him and then shut the door, Curtis looked up to Kolt.

With a voice even weaker than before he said, “Holy hell. Is that who I think it is?”

“Yes.”

“So much for the covert hit, huh?”

“Didn’t go exactly as planned,” Raynor admitted.

“And the SAMs?”

“Gone.”

“You guys blew them? How many were there?”

“No.
Gone
as in dry hole. Hence our visitor here.”

Curtis’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the man in the hood. “We need to find out where they are.”

The truck began moving as Raynor said, “No shit. How’s the leg?”

“Numb.”

“Good. We’re going to our safe house to the south. We can drop you at a hospital, or we can take you to our place and have a helo pick you up and get you to the embassy.”

Curtis reached for his phone. “I’ve got to figure that black American spies probably will have a long wait at the local hospital, so I’ll go to the embassy.”

*   *   *

At the Delta safe house on Gamel Abd El Nasir, the panel truck rolled right into the single-vehicle garage and the door was lowered behind. While Digger stayed with Curtis in the vehicle, Kolt took a flex-cuffed and hooded Aref Saleh out of the truck and up the steps, then all but dragged him through the house and into an empty bedroom. He shoved him to the floor, and then stepped out into the hallway. Here he and Slapshot covered their faces with local kaffiyeh head wraps, and Hawk donned a hijab, a traditional head covering for women, which she drew across her face below her eyes.

All three stepped into the room with Saleh without any discussion beforehand. They knew they had no time to waist.

Kolt took the lead, storming across the room and yanking the hood from Saleh’s head. The Libyan tried to scream in terror, and he shut his eyes tight.

Kolt yanked the scarf from Saleh’s mouth and grabbed the prostrate man by the throat. He put his face so close to Saleh’s that the fabric of his head wrap touched Saleh’s nose. Kolt spoke in a low, angry voice. “Where … are … the … weapons?”

“I don’t know what you are speaking about.”

Raynor let go of Saleh’s throat now. “You don’t know?”

“No. I swear it.”

Kolt shrugged. “Damn. He doesn’t know. I guess we don’t need him.” He turned toward Cindy. “Hawk?”

“Sir?”

“Shoot him.”

“Yes, sir.” Cindy crossed the wooden floor without hesitation. She raised the barrel of her suppressed rifle to his chest—”

“Wait! I tell you!” he screamed.

Raynor reached out and pushed the barrel of Hawk’s rifle away from Saleh. “Tell me!” he demanded.

“I … I know many things. We can negotiate. I will tell you—”

“The missiles that went to the Iranians. Where are they?”

Saleh hesitated, but only a moment. Then he said, “They left by barge this evening.”

“By
barge
?”

“Yes, sir! I swear it to be true.”

Dammit.
“Where are they going?”

“Ras El Bar.”

Kolt looked up to Cindy and then over to Slapshot. Both of them just shrugged. Looking back to Saleh, he said, “Where is that?”

“It is where the Nile reaches the Mediterranean Sea,” Saleh answered quickly.

“
Then
where are they going?”

“From there? I … I do not know.”

“Wrong answer. Hawk?”

“Sir!” Cindy said, and she brought the rifle to her shoulder again.

“No!” the man cried. “I—I am sure they must have a freighter waiting there. But those logistics were not part of the transaction.”

“Slap?”

“Yo?” he called from his position at the window.

“Wrap this asshole up good for transport. He’s coming with us.”

“One pig in a blanket, coming right up.”

Hawk lowered her weapon with a pronounced sigh. Kolt had known all along it was an act, and she’d done a damn effective job of it, but the last sigh was a bit over the top for his taste. While the last few minutes had been an Academy Award performance, she’d finished up with World Wrestling Federation dramatics.

Still, there was no question as to whether or not she had pulled it off. Kolt could see where Saleh had wet his pants in terror.

*   *   *

“How are you holding up, Sergeant?” Kolt said as he took his first swig of the icy cold beer five minutes later in the kitchen.

“I’m good, boss.” She held her hand up in front of her and looked at it. “First combat and all. No shakes.” She paused, then said, “Yet.”

“However you react in the coming hours or days, know that it is normal. There is no one way that a soldier processes what he or she has to do.”

“You sound a little like a shrink, but thanks.”

Kolt laughed. “I am an experienced patient.”

“For the record, boss, I was
not
going to shoot Saleh.”

Kolt nodded. “And for the record, I
knew
you would not. You fooled him, though, and that’s all that matters. You should have been an actress.”

“I am an actress. It’s a fucked-up stage I’m performing on, though.”

Raynor chugged a gulp of beer. “Don’t I know it.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Just after dawn at the village along Wadi Bana in southern Yemen, David Doyle knelt on his prayer rug, having finished his morning Fajr, the predawn prayer.

His obligation fulfilled, he thought about his day ahead. He would read his Koran for a few minutes for strength, then he would send an e-mail to his cutouts in Europe, who would forward them on again, and then finally they would reach his contacts. The Igla-S missiles should arrive at their destination within five days, and he did not want the container to spend one more second in control of customs inspectors than necessary. He would have his well-paid agents in the destination country retrieve the sealed container, and he would be there within a day to open it and begin his mission. His e-mail would confirm that his agents were ready to act in accordance with their duties.

After he finished with his message he would work with his men. Eleven of the twelve had passed both their identity legend exam and their aircraft recognition exam and were now working exclusively on fitness, marksmanship, hand-to-hand fighting, and the operation of the Igla-S launcher. The one young man who had not passed was being given another shot later in the day. David decided he would work with this man personally so that he would be ready for travel in three days’ time.

David and his four subunit operators would spend several more hours practicing their aspect of the operation. They had shaved a few more seconds off of the time it took them to get out of the container and ready five weapons to fire, now averaging about thirty-four seconds for the entire process.

After a pleading knock on the door, David called out, “Yes?”

Miguel stepped into Doyle’s room. The American closed his Koran and looked up. “As
salaam aleikum,
” Miguel said with a slight bow.

“
Wa aleikum as salaam.
What is it?”

“We have a problem. Araf Saleh and his operation were taken down last night in Cairo.”

“What do you mean, ‘taken down’?”

“Either Egyptian intelligence or maybe the CIA. There was a gun battle in Maadi. Saleh was captured, several were killed. I just heard—”

Doyle interrupted his second-in-command. Miguel had switched to Arabic. “In English, please.” Doyle commanded everyone to speak nothing but English in preparation for their journey, and he would not let Miguel get away with a breach in this rule even if he was rushed and stressed.

He would be plenty rushed and stressed where they were going.

“Sorry,” Miguel said in English. “I meant to say that I just heard the news from our brothers in Cairo. They did not have much information, but did reveal that Saleh is missing. There was a second news story about American businessmen being killed in another part of southern Cairo. Four Americans.”

Doyle nodded slowly. “CIA, then.”

Miguel said, “Saleh knows us, David. He can destroy everything.”

Doyle took a moment to collect his thoughts. With a confident voice he said, “What does he know? Saleh and his people were fools, but they were necessary to our mission. I insulated us from their foolishness. He only knows he sold Russian shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to men from al Qaeda in Yemen. He ferried them to a trader in Port Said. He might know that the shipper delivered them to Aden. Even if the CIA tortures Saleh and everyone who touched the weapons up until and including our people in Aden, none of them know the path the goods took after that.” David smiled thinly. “I was careful. I was very careful. But still, we will leave immediately. It does not matter how careful I have been. The Americans will still fill the skies over Yemen with their drones. They will concentrate on this province and they will find evidence of this place. Every day we wait is another day when we can be stopped before our plan begins. Not by any error I have made, but only through bad luck.”

Miguel understood. Helpfully he said, “Our men are ready.”

“Almost all have passed their tests here, but whether or not they are truly ready to go undercover in America remains to be seen. I would have liked more time.”