by Eric Meyer
I was about to enter the villa when a black robed and veiled woman approached me. She mumbled a few words in Arabic in a high-pitched, trembling voice. I assumed she was begging and reached in my pocket to give her something, but before I could find my money, she giggled.
"Schaeffer, I wondered if you'd recognize me."
Isra!
"You look great. I couldn't tell you apart from any of the women walking along the streets. This is going to work, Isra. All you need do is mingle with the women around the mosques and see what you can pick up. I even have an address for you, the El Tabia mosque. I suggest you get round there in the morning. The word is Mullah Mukhtar may give a talk in the evening."
"Yes, honored, Sir. I will do as you command."
I smiled and we walked inside. Manuel and Niall were waiting for me, together with Turner and Winter Moss. She looked at the black robed woman and smiled.
"I see you found a girlfriend, Schaeffer. Shame about the fashion sense."
I ignored the barb. "It's Isra. He'll be doing some scouting for us around the mosques. He needed something that wouldn't give the Imams a hard on."
"At least he can't lose his wig inside that thing."
I could feel Isra tense, remembering that time when she'd humiliated him so badly.
"Cut it out, Winter."
She grinned. "Did you get anything?"
I stared back at her. It wasn't the time to trust her. "Nothing yet. Maybe we'll be lucky tomorrow, after Isra has taken a look around." I glanced at the others, "What about you, anything?"
They shook their heads.
Turner picked up a small briefcase I hadn't seen before. "I brought this for you guys. The Agency thought it might be useful if you run Mukhtar to earth. It's an explosive device, enough to take down a house."
I had a huge concern about an Agency supplied bomb, but I kept it to myself. Manuel was interested in any new gadget, and he opened the case. Inside, there was the expected electronics, the timer, and detonator, together with blocks of explosive. He smiled. "They're not joking. This would take down an entire office block."
I looked at him. "Even a mosque?"
He nodded. "No question."
Winter was immediately alert. "Why a mosque, Schaeffer? What have you heard?"
"Nothing. Look, you killed an Imam, so I reckon you've put the boot into Islam enough for one day. Any more fuck-ups, and you'll put the entire operation beyond repair."
She glared at me for a few moments and then stormed out of the room. Turner grinned.
"I gather you and she have something of a history."
"We just don't see eye to eye on certain things."
"Like what?"
"Life. And death."
"Ouch! I won't ask anymore."
"Good."
We sat in silence for a few minutes. He finally took the hint and left the room. Shortly after he went out, escorting Winter, and it meant we were able to talk. I told them about the possibility of Mullah Mukhtar appearing at the El Tabia mosque. Niall gave a low whistle.
"Damn, that was fast. You reckon there's any truth in it?"
"We'll find out tomorrow. Isra is going to nose around and see if he can find anything more. As soon as it's dark, we'll head over there in the truck and locate somewhere to park where we can keep an eye on it. With any luck, we can finish the job off real fast and go home."
Manuel grinned. "When we get back, we can find the bastard who did Brad."
"Whoa, not so fast. This is our first lead, and a good lead, but there's one problem."
Niall nodded. "I know. It's too easy."
"It's much too easy," I agreed with him, "but you never know. Maybe he'll be there, and we can take him. There's something else, that briefcase bomb. Manuel, take it apart with a fine toothcomb, and see if there's any kind of remote detonator. Just in case it's rigged, and Winter gets the idea of seeing us off along with the Mad Mullah."
"Copy that."
He started to dismantle it, and I helped myself to another beer while I thought about what we were involved in. After a few minutes, he called me over. A remote detonator, he'd found it concealed beneath the timer.
"It doesn't mean they were going to use it. These devices often carry something like this as standard."
"You can guarantee that? They weren't intending to use it?"
"No."
I felt more tired than ever. We were in the center of a huge mess, and we'd only just got here. Between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Military, Mullah Mukhtar's faction, and Winter Moss, we had more enemies than you could shake a stick at. There was only one way out. That was to kill Mukhtar, and then see if Mr. Smith and his buddies kept their word. If not, there'd be more killing. That was for sure. Niall would go back to his vocation, and I'd return to my bottle, but Manuel Salazar would take it personally. If I were Smith, I'd sooner not be around to see that.
We ended the day with a few more beers, the three of us and Isra. He'd stripped off his robes, and underneath he still wore the short dress and fuck-me boots. I advised him to lose the boots before he went to the mosque. These people didn't fool around, and if a woman walked near the mosque wearing boots like that, they were liable to cut her feet off. Besides, it may raise a few eyebrows when he took them off to enter the building. In the end, we went to our rooms to catch up on some sleep. I had to fend Isra off. For some reason, he thought I would appreciate the company of a cross-dressing gay man in my bed. I wasn't that kind of a person. I liked women too much, real women, except for Winter Moss, but she didn't count. Although I still lusted after her body. That one night of sexual bliss still lingered somewhere in the back of my mind, or more likely in in my dick.
The following day we waited while Manuel, in his Turkish disguise, drove the truck to the area of the mosque, with Isra attired in his robe and veil in the passenger seat. They were gone several hours, and when they came back, they had photos of the building and the surrounding area they'd taken on their cellphones. The mosque was a large, sprawling building with a blue dome and tall minarets at either side. The street where it was positioned was in one of the worst parts of the city. A place teeming with the lower forms of life; beggars, con artists, women with huge loads and carrying out heavy, backbreaking tasks. Their menfolk sat around chatting in pavement cafes or on front steps.
There were no Western faces, so our plan to go in at night looked pretty sensible. Niall offered to cover the rear of the building, once he'd found a high vantage point. Manuel, again in his Turkish garb, would stay in the cab of the truck to cover the front. I'd wait in back of the truck out of sight, until I got the okay to go in and look around while they were doing their prayer thing. Isra offered to go in to listen to the famous, or infamous depending on which way you looked at it, Mullah. I looked at him with some concern.
"If there's any truth to him being there, it could be very dangerous. They'll be checking everyone, and the veil may not be enough to protect you."
He shrugged. "I know these people. The worst they can do, is have someone pat me down for weapons. I won't be armed, so there won't be a problem."
I nodded uncertainly. If the bullets started to fly, problems tended to pile in where you least expected them. But in the end, I allowed him to go ahead.
"What about Winter Moss?" Niall asked.
" What about Winter Moss? I don't see any reason to trouble her with a rumor. She's probably busy counting her collection of human ears."
They all smiled. If she thought there was a hit going down on Mukhtar, she'd be bound to make sure by offering us up as bait and calling in a hit team to take out the target.
In the event, our CIA nemesis stayed away. An hour before we were due to leave, Turner turned up.
"Anything yet?"
I shook my head. "Nothing, but we're working on it. You got that aircraft ready for fast departure?"
He looked up and met my eyes. "Any time, but it sounds to me like you've got something simmering."
"J
ust a faint lead. It'll probably go nowhere, but I'll let you know if we find out anything. You can pass it on to Winter."
He looked pained. "You think I'm her spy?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. Although you two do seem pretty close."
"She pays the bills, and her outfit pay very well. I just like to keep her happy."
I nodded but made no reply. If he really wanted to keep her happy, he should go out and find her someone to torture and kill. She'd have made an ideal executioner back in the States, if they allowed women to do it. Perhaps she'd already made enquiries under the equal opportunities laws.
Turner knocked back a half bottle of bourbon, together with several cans of cold beer. Eventually, he made an excuse and went to his room to go to bed. It was time to head out. We loaded our assault rifles and spare ammunition. Manuel commandeered the briefcase bomb and carried it into the cab of the truck. I opened the gate, and he drove out. I closed it and climbed aboard, sitting in the cargo bed with Niall and Isra. We drove through the streets teeming with people, unofficial street markets, cars, trucks, and motor scooters, as well as many handcarts laden with goods. As we drew near our destination, the smell became even more powerful.
"It's the sewage," Isra explained, "They tried to deal with it by building a new treatment plant outside the city, but during the riots against Mubarak, the Brotherhood destroyed it with explosives, so we're back to using the gutters to dispose of sewage. They said it was good enough during the time of the Prophet, so it's good enough now."
I nodded. I'd heard it all before. How they could work out that Mohammed had no sense of smell back in the sixth century and would not have preferred sanitation was beyond me. But I guess they knew better. We reached the mosque. Manuel stopped the truck and let Niall out to find his stand. Isra climbed down and walked around front to go inside the building and look for clues to the whereabouts of Mukhtar. Then we drove to the front and parked a couple of hundred yards away where we could keep watch. I waited in back, peering out through a hole in the canvas. By 22:30 it was obvious something was going on. Crowds of men poured into the building, and a large number of veiled women, who went in through a side door. So it looked as if the thief had been right. I'd heard nothing from Niall, so he hadn't seen the target go inside through the back way, which meant he could be there already. There was nothing we could do, except wait until the mass of people emerged.
It was a long wait, but after a couple of hours, the men started leaving. The side door opened, and the women came into the street. There was no sign of Mullah Mukhtar. I wondered if he was with the women and disguised in a veil. It wasn't likely. Isra was in there and would have found out, and come out to warn us. So where was he?
I called Niall on his cell. We were all set to silent mode, so he would only feel a slight vibration. He answered immediately.
"Nothing yet. How does it look up front?"
I explained they were leaving, but there was no sign of him. As I watched, it was obvious most of the crowd had dispersed. A small motor scooter with a young rider drew up outside the mosque, obviously to collect someone, a brother maybe. No, it was an elderly man, stooped almost double with pain and age. He came out and stepped astride the pillion seat, probably the rider's grandfather. Yet something about the scene was wrong, and in a split second it came to me. Despite the elderly man's slowness and bent gait, he'd climbed onto the pillion seat like a much younger, fitter man. I banged on the cab.
"Manuel, the old guy on the back of the scooter. That's him. I'm sure of it! We need to pick Niall up and follow him."
He grunted an acknowledgement, started the engine, and drove around back of the mosque. I'd already called Niall, and he was running toward us. He vaulted into the back, Manuel floored the accelerator, and he swerved the truck onto the street and went after the scooter. We followed the smoky, puttering little vehicle though the street for barely twenty yards when it turned into a gateway. Manuel tried to follow, but a heavy steel gate slammed shut in front of us. I could see the building was surrounded by high walls, and making it almost fortress like. And as I watched, armed men appeared on the parapet, their guns aimed at us. What the fuck! I banged on the cab and shouted.
“Back up, Manuel. Get out of here. The fuckers were expecting us.”
“Save it,” Niall shouted over the roar of the truck engine. “They’ve closed the road behind us. It's a trap!”
I desperately looked around for a way out, but they’d maneuvered an ancient bus sideways across the street. The bus was like a cork in a bottle, and we were the contents. Sealed inside.
Chapter Four
Aswan, Egypt
More fighters materialized, and the street began filling armed men. It was not the angry mob we'd encountered in the city, chancers and opportunists spoiling for an excuse to beat up on the infidels. These men had the look of trained fighters, veterans of the bitter struggle that had raged for so long inside Egypt. I estimated eighty assault rifles were pointed our way, and we had no choice.
"Put down the weapons," I shouted, before anyone thought to try and shoot their way out.
Manuel Salazar had other ideas. I heard him shout from the cab, "Schaeffer, we have the briefcase! If I set it to a short delay, we can lob it into the center of the crowd."
The briefcase! Of course, it would be like hitting them with a missile. "Do it!"
We'd had no idea of the extent of the blast radius. It was an unknown factor. But it's an odd thing when you're faced with death from a horde of savage, armed Muslims, you don't really give a rat's ass about unknown factors. Destroy the enemy, and when you're home safe with a cold beer in your hand, you can start thinking about them then.
They watched and waited, and it didn't take much imagination to know what they wanted. These people were bred to blood and death; it was almost in their DNA. They wanted to kill us with volleys of gunfire from their assault rifles. Manuel called back from the cab.
"It's ready. I'll pass it to you. All you do is hit the red button. That'll give you five seconds to close the lid, toss it into the crowd, and duck."
Niall took hold of the bomb. The digital display was set to five seconds, and beside it the red button that would arm it. He looked at me with his eyebrows raised, and I nodded.
He pressed the button, slammed the lid closed, ran to the tailgate, and tossed the briefcase into the crowd.
"Down! Hit the deck!"
We leapt out of the truck in front of the astonished gaze of the enemy and hugged the ground. A few of them guessed what was about to happen, and I heard screams of fury and fear. None of them did the thing that may have saved them. Instead of dropping flat, they stayed on their feet, and a few started to run. They managed a couple of feet at best before the bomb exploded.
Because of Niall's precision throw, the briefcase landed in the center of a tight bunch of men. Their bodies protected us from the worst of the blast, but the crowd was torn to shreds. Scores of men were tossed into the air, their bodies ripped and torn, limbs, heads, weapons, clothes, all separated and sucked into the air by the pressure of the bomb. The blast wave created a kind of vortex that spun the disparate elements together, like a gigantic food mixer. Perhaps food blender would have been a better analogy, for they were split apart, pulped, and then smashed back to the ground in a ghastly homogenous mess.
The echoes of the explosion seemed to go on forever. We were showered with debris, dust, stones, pieces of clothing, and torn bodies. All colored a grisly red. Then a silence descended on the street. Manuel was the first to lift his head, and he got to his feet.
"Madre de Dios! What the fuck was in that briefcase? A nuke?"
Niall and I climbed to our feet. I saw him cross himself and mumble a prayer. It was understandable, for the scene was like ground zero after a tactical nuclear explosion. On the perimeter there were wounded and dying, screaming in their agony and death throes. A few of the fighters nearest to us were still alive and unwounded, although they'd been
slammed to the ground by the tremendous blast and were shaking their heads in stunned disbelief. The mosque had survived. Like us, it had been shielded from the worst of the blast by the press of bodies around the briefcase. The truck had been less fortunate. The shockwave had thrown it on its side, as if it was no more than a toy. It lay distorted, broken, and useless. I nodded to Manuel and Niall.
"Let's get out of here."
Niall looked back at me. "What about Isra?"
"He was inside the building. He'll be safe, just another veiled woman."
"Don't they take the veils off when they're in the women's section?"
I shrugged. "He'll still be okay. Provided he's careful, he'll get out when the rest of them leave."
We jogged to the end of the street and threaded past the bus that had blocked our exit. We still carried our assault rifles, and at the first opportunity, we hailed a cab to take us back to the villa.
He wasn't enthusiastic, and you could hardly blame the driver for not wanting to pick up a trio of heavily armed Westerners. But we stood in the middle of the street with our weapons pointed right at him, so his options were limited. Getting clear of the area was a matter of life or death, and we had to convey it to the cabbie. The driver who halted was quick enough to understand the reality of, 'stop or I shoot'. He braked to a halt and we climbed in. The taxi took us to within four hundred yards of our destination. Any nearer would have given away our location and lead the enemy to the infidels who'd killed so many of their fighters.
We walked through the front door, looking forward to the chance of winding down with a cold beer after our narrow escape. Instead, we got Winter Moss. Joel Turner was asleep in a chair, so obviously he'd spent his time doing what he did best. It sure smelt like it. There were enough alcohol fumes in the room to pose a real risk of explosion. One 'bang' was more than enough.