by Jeff Rovin
In that respect, Berry actually gave himself credit for being as even-keeled as he was. A drop of money could end the career of any or all of those jockeying for power. And the success of Chase Williams—or at least, of Black Wasp—would ensure that.
“God help us, Chase,” he said to the walls. “I do want that prick Salehi, whatever it costs.”
He fell asleep on the sofa, which, unlike the pursuit of Ahmed Salehi, seemed so comfortable because it had cost him nothing.…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Hodeida International Airport, Yemen
July 24, 2:52 a.m.
Salehi had not truly missed home until the jet touched down and he set foot on Arab soil. As he emerged in the darkness of Yemen, the distinctive heat that had a touch of the sea; the jet fuel that smelled—fresher?—in the region of its origin; the attire of the few locals he saw as he was escorted to the terminal; all reminded him that he had been away from an ancient region ripe with his people, his culture.
Torn by sectarian rivalries, he lamented, and yet that, too, is part of the character of the Middle East.
Not being devout, Salehi felt somewhat apart from that strife. Though he knew that being in unhappy Yemen, and not in Iran, he would probably experience that very differently now. Hopefully, he would soon be on the sea and away from religious and political turmoil.
A middle-aged male flight attendant had been the only other person onboard beside the pilot and copilot. He escorted the captain to a yellow pickup truck and left with a bow and a blessing. Salehi stood a few feet from the front of the battered vehicle. The headlights were off and the back was covered with a canvas canopy. The left-side passenger’s seat was empty and the driver looked around cautiously before he opened the door—reaching across himself awkwardly with his left hand. When he emerged from the right side driver’s seat, Salehi saw that his right hand was in the pocket of his robe—no doubt holding a gun. The driver was a tall man dressed in black, including his keffiyeh. His short beard was also black. The driver approached the new arrival as the white jet sat silently beside them like an angel that had just performed a task for Allah.
“Ahlan wa sahlan,” said the robed figure, offering a neutral welcome that was courteous but no more.
Salehi thanked him with an equally secular “Sabah al-khayr,” a simple “good morning.” It was as though a password had been tendered. In a land where men were shot simply for possessing a particular religious alignment, or for professing no affiliation, greetings were careful things. Though the driver’s short beard suggested he was Shia, his words had not been a test.
Sadi was unlikely to have sent a man who would shoot an honored guest over that, Salehi reasoned.
The driver personally escorted him to the vehicle, looking around the entire time not with sudden, obvious turns of his head but with his eyes. The interior light had been disabled and the men drove away without having identified one another or said anything beyond the greeting.
They drove southwest along Airport Road, according to the signage. Every now and then they hit a dip or bump that caused the truck to rattle. There were extra rattles in the back; armed men, Salehi surmised.
“We are driving to the sea,” Salehi asked after several minutes. “What is our destination?”
“You are Iranian,” the driver observed, answering in his language.
“Yes.”
The driver was thoughtful for a moment then turned on a dashboard reading light. He looked over briefly then shut the light.
“That is why he was so secretive,” the driver said. “You are Ahmed Salehi.”
The passenger was silent.
“I am Ali Abdullah, leader of the Supporters of Allah.”
“Houthi,” Salehi said. “Aligned with my nation.”
“We are brothers at arms,” Abdullah said. “You have bloodied the cursed allies of the Saudis. I am honored to be escorting you to a vessel owned by our benefactor, where, I understand, we are to await further orders.”
“Were you provided with any information, Ali, about the team—presumably American—that came after me in Trinidad?”
“Nothing,” Abdullah said, “though—that was very quick work.”
“It was, I discovered, a highly compromised plan.”
Once again, Abdullah reflected on this new information. “That is why we were assigned to you. Several of my fighters are in the back, as you may have realized. We are to keep you secure until further orders are given.”
“You are taking me to a ship,” Salehi said. “I was promised a ship.”
“Then that makes even more sense,” Abdullah replied. Despite the unexpectedness of this mission, and the impact on his ongoing plans, he was clearly honored to be a part of this undertaking—and was also suddenly more forgiving of Sadi. None but he could have plucked this man from danger and brought him swiftly to the other side of the globe, and relative safety. “But you say there was a team pursuing you. We must assume they have not, will not, give up the chase.”
“They were very capable and relentless,” Salehi acknowledged. “More so than I would have expected.”
“There are any number of fighters who could have been enlisted to protect you,” Abdullah said. “I suspect our role may be more than guard dogs.”
“Attack dogs?” Salehi suggested.
“At night, in places where we are not expected,” he said.
“Does our ‘benefactor’ know where the Americans are?” He did not use Sadi’s name because Ali Abdullah had not. Whether that was out of respect or security or both did not matter. Salehi simply followed the lead of his host.
“Very little happens within our borders of which he is unaware,” Abdullah said. He smiled at the new prospect and would alert his bands of followers throughout the country. “I have no doubt that we will be hearing more very, very soon.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Jizan, Saudi Arabia
July 24, 4:40 p.m.
Chase Williams had thought that no civilized place on earth could be more oppressively hot than Washington, D.C., in the summer. He could take the discomfort; survival training in the desert had been part of his training. He actually found it cleansing to sweat, to purify his body inside and out. It was a strictly aesthetic observation.
The flight, the landing, and the meeting with Berry’s banker associate—accomplice, Williams corrected himself—had gone off flawlessly. They transferred to one of the bank’s fleet of private jets for the trip to Jizan. Salman Al-Saud did not make this trip with any of his aides, there was no flight attendant, and the pilot and copilot did not emerge from the cockpit. He explained, though it was self-evident, that he felt more comfortable that none of his aides knew where he was going, or with whom. Though if the chief risk officer was comfortable, Williams would have hated to see him when he was uncomfortable. Even on the jet, between conducting bank business on his tablet, he would look out the window, toward the cabin, listen to every bump as though he expected terrorists to emerge from the lavatory or the aircraft to be taken down by a missile.
None of which was entirely impossible in this part of the world, Williams knew. Especially with us as passengers. But there was no sense worrying about it when there was nothing one could do.
Al-Saud had agreed to turn them over to Amit Ben Kimon and then depart. The men covered their unbearded faces with the ends of their head coverings after which the banker personally escorted them to the curb of the small but modern one-story Jizan Regional Airport.
Al-Saud stopped short when he saw the familiar figure pull up curbside several meters away, behind a line of taxicabs and a pair of Conquest Knight XV SUVs.
“What does he expect to do with just his motorbike?” Al-Saud wondered.
“Not attract attention by changing his m.o.?” Major Breen said.
“Maybe one of those other vehicles is his,” Williams suggested.
“No,” Al-Saud said. “Those are Saudi Amoilco stickers on the license plates.”
“Smart,” Breen said to his teammates. “They don’t have to open the windows and show IDs until they’re in a secure area.”
The banker took several steps from the group, fetched his smartphone from an inside pocket of his Western suit jacket, and began reading emails. He seemed to want to be doing anything other than this. He was here often enough so that it shouldn’t arouse suspicion from the police—they were probably on his payroll—but that might not include showing up with strangers whose faces were covered.
Wiping perspiration from his eyes, Williams turned his attention to Ben Kimon. The Israeli did not move to the other side of the line. In fact, he seemed to hesitate even when the first limousine pulled away. Perhaps the Israeli was waiting to make sure everything was all right. He was in a foreign land, there were Saudi police inside and outside the terminal, and this was not at all a typical mission. He had to have a plan for transporting them.
“I’m going over,” Breen said suddenly and started toward the man. “Is there a password?”
“Janette,” Williams said. He felt almost unfaithful giving it to him. “Do you even know what greeting to use? The police may notice.”
“I’m just going to shake his hand,” Breen said. “I read that’s acceptable here, plus I don’t trust my accent.”
Williams stayed with the others, silently cursing the damned SITCOM imperative. If Breen were taken for some reason there were still three of them to go to Yemen. Berry had already informed them that the jet had landed at Hodeida International Airport where it was met by a pickup truck. The configuration of the truck was being image-searched and color enhanced. But it was night, nearby field lights had been turned off, and both were problematic. Berry had no additional information.
* * *
Lahem had been waiting for the better part of the day for his contact to make his appearance. The only excitement, if one could call it that, was receiving a text on the dead man’s phone. The message was an English name, Janette, which appeared and then vanished in moments. He did not know why it had appeared.
Now that the man had appeared—with three persons and no suitcase full of cash—he did not know what to make of it. He considered aborting the undertaking—but he was in a foreign country with police all around. Any sudden, suspicious action might bring a response … and his scooter could not outrun a car.
He waited, and then one of the new arrivals came toward him. Lahem had been wearing a scarf across the lower half of his face, and sunglasses. He watched the other man carefully as he removed them. The fellow did not react. It was possible he had no idea what Hisham looked like. Smugglers and money launderers did not like to be photographed.
The newcomer offered his hand. Lahem shook it and nodded—slowly, his eyes on the other, as if he were acknowledging something tacit that they both knew.
The man continued to hold Lahem’s hand. He looked him in the eyes, leaned in, and whispered, “You have something to tell me?”
Without thinking, Lahem answered, “Janette.”
Breen released his hand. “We must get to Aden.”
Lahem started slightly. He had not been expecting these people … and he had not been expecting English.
“Aden,” he repeated.
“Yes, I thought you would have been told. Dhamar is no longer the destination.”
It took a moment for Lahem to respond, in English, “I see.” He was an experienced enough agent to have, as his default action, one of the first lessons he had learned in training: saying little and listening much. And what he was listening to was like lightning in his ears and coursing through his body. “I have transportation nearby,” he said. “I first wished to make this connection.”
Breen nodded. “We will wait on those benches.” He pointed to steel seats in a glass gazebo.
Lahem nodded and drove off, his brain—a good brain, he knew, capable and logical—struggled to make sense of what he had stepped into. Part of him was afraid. He had gone home to tell his family he would be on assignment a few days and left them with one thousand riyals—causing them to worry that he was involved with something illegal. He assured them he was not. Stopping currency smugglers by any means necessary, and confiscating their goods, was his job, not a crime. If he ever had to defend his actions at the CTU he would plead—also truthfully—that he had been drawn into a larger undercover action.
And that was the only thing that weighed on him: what in the name of everything sacred was this operation?
The only way to find out was to continue to act the part of Hisham Nuwas.
If this were Yemen, he would steal a vehicle. He had to show up with something to transport the four of them, and quickly. The answer was a tour bus. There were three waiting, possibly for a group. If so, this would cost him more. Lahem stopped by the open window where the driver was smoking a cigarette.
“Are you engaged?” he asked.
The man’s big sleepy face caused his big beard to puff outward with a smile.
“I am most inexpensively at your service,” he replied.
“Into Yemen?” Lahem asked.
The man’s smile weakened. “I … I have a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and four children,” he said. “This is dangerous.”
Lahem passed up three five-hundred riyal notes. “Get us there and I will tell you when you can leave,” he said. “It will be soon.”
“That … that sounds safe enough,” the driver said.
“There is another thousand riyals if—and mind me—if you assure my guests that you had been engaged by me previously.”
“I will tell them whatever you wish them to hear,” the driver replied.
The new arrivals might not understand the language … but then, they might.
“Just follow me and remain mute, unless I ask you something,” Lahem said.
The man touched his forehead, started the bus, and flashed the bills at his fellow drivers as he swung past them.
* * *
“How did he seem?” Williams asked quietly when Breen returned.
As passengers walked behind them, a mildly anguished look from Al-Saud implored him to keep his voice quieter still.
“Cautious,” the major answered.
Rivette wandered over so he could listen. Grace maintained her distance, as was expected of a Saudi woman. Under her robes, her hands had pulled into leopard paws; she felt less humiliated that way.
“That’s not a bad thing,” Williams said.
“No,” Breen agreed.
The men stopped conversing when the man they thought was Israeli returned with a tour bus. Al-Saud had not looked up from his phone until now. He hastily wished the four well and excused himself. Williams knew that Berry had to use the assets he had, and he also knew—from the daily Op-Center intelligence and news reports—that even prominent Saudi billionaires were not immune from arrest for corruption, as the case of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had demonstrated just two years before. But this man was a red flag if ever he saw one.
Within minutes, the passengers having boarded and the motorbike having been hoisted into the aisle, the bus drove off. The growl of the old engine ensured that, as long as they spoke quietly, they would not be overheard by the driver.
The border crossing proved not to be a problem. Williams knew that a border wall consisting of pipelines filled with concrete, stacked ten feet high along eleven hundred miles of border, had been constructed in 2003. He also knew that it became a source of frustration for Saudis who did business in Yemen—particularly in qat and other drugs. That was a war the kingdom did not want to fight, and large sections were removed a dozen years later. Guards patrolled intermittently, more for the drilling practice than for actual policing.
The bus driver simply took a route where he knew the border guards did not patrol at twilight. Williams quietly asked Lahem why they stood down at dusk.
“It is when they are most vulnerable,” the Israeli imposter explained. “It is too late for sunlight and too early for nigh
t-vision glasses.”
Williams nodded. After they were more than a kilometer into Yemen, the man went to the front of the bus to talk to the driver.
Rivette was sitting in the seat behind Williams. He leaned over.
“Did you notice he hasn’t even looked at Grace?” the lance corporal said. “Even though she’s hidden?”
“Deep cover will do that,” Williams said. “The sexes don’t intermingle in public. He can’t afford to slip.”
“They can stone their women, and sell them, but they can’t talk to them,” Rivette said. “Place is messed up.”
Shortly after going up front, Lahem came back and bent over Williams. “The driver has only been engaged this far,” he said. “We must get off the bus.”
Williams looked out the window. They were in a hilly, desolate region with night closing in. “Amit, this mission is time sensitive. How much more money does he want?”
That was another surprise. They thought he was an Israeli.
“It is not a question of money but of getting home safely,” he said. “I will talk to him.”
“Please convince him,” Williams said.
The agent went back up front. A few minutes later, Lahem came back. He made a point of returning a revolver to his pocket.
“Our driver is not happy, but he has agreed to continue with us,” he said. “This is not a time or place for us to be wandering through the foothills.”
It appeared, to Williams, that Black Wasp now had a fifth member of the team, one who was as improvisational as the others—which, given the nature of his business, did not seem a good fit. It also did not fit the careful methods of any Mossad-trained agent Williams had worked with at Op-Center. He knew what Berry had told him but—just to put the question to rest—someone, somewhere at the Israeli agency had to have a photo of Ben Kimon. Berry himself should be able to get a college photo … something. Even a description.
Maybe you should just ask him what year it is on the Israeli calendar, Williams thought. But then, he might know. People out here lived and breathed religions, even those of infidels and blood-enemies. Or the man might shoot two of them before they could return fire, or before Grace could reach him. No one expected what happened to the Intrepid, but, Christ, this thing had not been sufficiently thought through.