by Eric Meyer
"Isra, why don't you come along?"
He goggled at her. "Me? You're not planning to out me to the locals, like before?"
She grimaced. "I'm sorry, that was in the past. No, I just want some company. Besides, another girl would be a useful diversion, wouldn't it?"
Another girl? Was this the same Winter Moss? Or had she taken a blow to the head and was suffering from delusions? But she'd said enough to convince Isra, acceptance, at last. I said nothing. Was this the new Winter, or the old about to return with a bang? Time would tell.
We waited for a couple of hours, and they returned in the early afternoon. A car horn sounded, and when I looked out, Winter was driving a Mercedes SUV, a G55 AMG. The vehicle was big, heavy, and boxy; something that could take the worst that Egypt could throw at it, and Egypt sure had plenty to throw. We opened the gates, and they drove in, parking the vehicle next to the other stolen vehicle inside the drive-in workshop. She climbed out with a smile.
"What you think of her? It's one of the fastest SUVs on the road."
"We may need it if the cops get on our tail."
She pouted. "It was parked outside a villa that was obviously closed for the season. They won't miss it for months."
"I take it you left them an IOU?"
"We'll take it out of your salary," she riposted.
"You mean you're planning on paying me?"
It had been a brighter moment; a Winter I hadn't seen for a long time, not since that night. But as I spoke, something changed in her eyes. It was like someone had turned the switch.
"If we get back, Schaeffer. Keep that in mind."
She started to walk away, and I noticed a heap of wires hanging down underneath the ignition. I made a note to tuck them away in case the cops stopped us. Then I called to her.
"Hey, Winter." She turned and waited, "If you think your Agency isn't going to pay out, you can think again. We’re going in to finish this job, and when I get back to the States, I expect your people to keep their side of the bargain."
She nodded and smiled, and right there and then the other side of the equation came to me. The piece I'd been missing.
According to Winter, Mr. Smith was on the level. A ruthless bastard, sure, and he'd be more than happy to throw us to the dogs if it was the only way to complete the mission. Until now, I'd assumed Winter was helping Turner to put the screws on us. Now I knew different, or at least, I hoped I did. Which meant there was someone else, someone inside CIA who wanted us dead. Who? I couldn't work it out, but whoever it was, they were behind all of it. The death of Brad Olsen; they'd either killed him themselves or dropped the dime on him to someone else. Then framing me for his death, and when that didn't work, doing their best to make sure that me and Niall were killed in Egypt. It meant there was someone with a very bitter score to settle.
I couldn't think of a single person, but there had to be someone. I'd talk to Winter later, even if she didn't have a name, she might have some pointers. Alternatively, when we'd finished in Cairo, I'd go back, find Turner, and strangle him with his own guts until he told me what I wanted to know.
For now, we had more pressing problems. The action at Mukhtar's villa had burned almost the last of our ammunition, and if we were to continue the fight to Cairo, we'd need something to fight with. Something more than a pitchfork and a baseball bat. I found Niall in the back of the workshop, where he'd been nosing around, and suggested we do a weapons check.
"I can tell you now," he replied, his face worried, "I'm almost out, half the clip for the M-16 and a couple of rounds in the pistol."
"Same for me, except the M-16 is empty. We need to pick up some supplies."
"We need a minigun," he replied grimly, "About the only thing we are likely to find around here are bulrushes, if I remember my biblical history correctly. Some guy called Moses went for a boat ride and started it all off."
"As I recall, he had a similar problem. He solved it by drowning the enemy in the Red Sea. Maybe we can do it again."
He grinned. "We'd better find something more modern. Maybe Winter can come up with some ideas."
On cue, she walked into the workshop. "I overheard that. Something about a minigun?"
"We need weapons, ammunition, and equipment, if we're even the have a small chance against Mukhtar and his people."
"No problem. Come upstairs with me, and let's take a look."
We followed her up the stone staircase. She stood before the sagging bookcase.
"You guys, take either end. When I give the word, give it a tug."
We went to our places, and she fiddled with some kind of mechanism underneath one of the lower shelves. I heard a click.
"Pull!"
The entire section moved. At first there was some resistance, and then it came away freely. We lifted the shelving unit and placed it a few feet away from the wall. Behind, there was bare brickwork.
"What is this?" I asked.
She held up a finger for patience and pressed one of the bricks. An entire section of wall opened on precision hinges. We watched with disbelief as she pulled it open further to expose what was hidden behind it; weapons, ammunition, equipment, enough to equip the average infantry platoon. It was what lay resting on a wooden case against the back wall that made us stare.
"It's not a minigun," she asserted, "but it's pretty damn close."
The M-60, officially the United States Machine Gun, caliber 7.62mm, is a legendary American general-purpose machine gun. Developed around the time of World War II, and based on the much admired, and much feared German MG 42, the weapon fires 7.62 NATO cartridges from a disintegrating belt. The gun proved itself in action across theaters of war stretching from Europe, Asia, Vietnam, and up to the present. As a heavy machine gun, it could be fired from a fixed amount, like in the UH-1 Huey in Vietnam, and even from the shoulder or at a pinch, the hip.
"She's a beauty," Niall breathed.
"It's also big, cumbersome, and heavy," Winter pointed out, "The rest of the stuff should be more useful to us in and urban assault."
She was right, and she was wrong. Apart from the automatics, the weapons on display were the stubby MP5K variant, the small, easily concealable Heckler and Koch German built semi-auto. She was right in that they were the kind of weapon you could carry under your coat, to bring out and spray 9mm bullets at your target. But she was wrong when you were facing an enemy who was heavily armed and likely to recover swiftly from a surprise attack, an enemy like the Egyptian Army.
Niall was a sniper, used to pouring fire onto an enemy from afar and keeping himself out of sight, so he could keep on firing and blunt any chance of a hostile response, while the rest of his fireteam did the business they'd come to do. Which usually meant killing one or more designated targets. He turned to Winter.
"We'll take it, assuming you have plenty of ammunition. The MP5s are handy, but when it comes to a fight, the M-60 is a great equalizer."
He went forward and examined the M-60, then hefted it and carried it out to place it on the desktop. He went back a couple of times for boxes of ammo, and finally equipped himself with a Glock 17 handgun with spare mags. The only choices were Glocks or Mini Glocks, which I recalled were Winter's weapon of choice; ideal to conceal in your purse, or maybe in her case, her panties. The old Winter would have got a vicarious thrill from the proximity of a killing weapon. The new Winter, I had yet to make my mind up about.
After a short hesitation, I took two MP5Ks, a Glock 17, and a Mini Glock. She raised her eyebrows.
"Playing the cowboy, Schaeffer?"
"I intend to show Sabrina how to shoot. If we hit trouble, it's not good her trying to fight them off with a brick in her purse."
She nodded. "Right, I'd better take something for Isra."
Once again, she took me by surprise. She saw my glance.
"Well, he's coming with us, so he may need to help out. Even a catamite can shoot, if he doesn't trip over his high heels."
The old Winter Moss, so s
he hadn't changed completely. We left Niall checking and loading the M-60, and went downstairs where I took Sabrina to one side and explained about the weapons. She gave me a blank look.
"I didn't gather I'd need to shoot anyone. I've never fired a gun before."
"You've never been in anything like this before. Think about it. If half a dozen stinking Brotherhood fighters are coming for you, intent on raping you and murdering your loved ones, what do you do?"
Without a word, she took the Mini Glock, and it disappeared inside her clothing. I didn't ask where she stashed it. Then she handled the MP5K, and I spent some time showing her how it all worked. Advanced stuff; like which end to point at the enemy. After half an hour, she was at the stage where she could fire a few shots and frighten people off, but she needed practice, live fire practice. That was impossible in the center of a town. She looked at me with an anxious expression.
"How am I doing? Do you think I'll be able to do this?"
I thought about it for a few moments. "If we get into trouble, the best thing you could do is turn the gun around, and hit the enemy over the head with it."
She laughed and gave me a playful punch. The movement brought her close to me, and once again it was as if there was a magnetic force pulling us together. We kissed, and it seemed to go on for a long time when there was a polite cough behind us. I turned to see Niall standing there.
"Winter tuned into a Cairo station on the radio in the Mercedes. There’s something that might help us."
I nodded. "Go on."
"It's about Mullah Mukhtar. He's due to address the crowd tomorrow in Tahrir Square. After that, they say he's due to go to a secret location where he will meditate on the fate of Egypt."
"You mean he'll stay out of the firing line after he's unleashed the mob."
He smiled. "That sounds about right, but it means we're short of time. His speech is timed for midday tomorrow, Friday the thirteenth."
"We'd better make sure it's unlucky for him."
He nodded, but even as I spoke, I reflected it could go either way. One thing was for sure; it would be unlucky for someone.
* * *
Road to Cairo, Egypt
We waited until nightfall and then set off on the long journey to Cairo. Once again, I traveled in the front of the Mercedes while Winter drove. Niall was in the back with Sabrina and Isra. He also carried his M-60, which he spent time working on as we drove.
"The breech mechanism feels notchy. I guess it's been used in a sandy environment and not cleaned thoroughly afterward."
Winter didn't comment, and I wondered who had fired the weapon, and whom they'd aimed it at. One thing was for sure, when that kind of machine gun started shooting, it was time to clear the area mighty fast. I turned around to talk to him.
"Are you thinking of taking him in the middle of Tahrir Square? It'll be helluva risky. There'll be thousands of people around from both sides, demonstrators and Army, as well as plenty of cops."
"Which means the area will erupt into chaos after the first shots are fired. You know the kind of noise these babies make," he said, nodding at the machine gun, "After I start shooting, the entire square will be jammed with people running for cover."
"That's true, but you'll need a good shooting stand, with fast exfil when the job is down."
"Where will we be staying tonight?" he called to Winter.
She glanced back at him. "Where? I haven't got a clue? It's not as if we're going to Cairo for a two-week vacation."
"What about the Nile Hilton?"
She nodded slowly. "That's no problem, and they have an underground car park, so we can keep the Mercedes out of sight."
"Why the Nile Hilton?" I asked him.
"It's a tower block, and it overlooks the center of the square."
We drove on for another hour while I looked at the plan from all angles. Unless Mukhtar was hidden behind a solid statue, or something similar, it was possible. The M-60 had an effective range of twelve hundred yards, more than enough to reach out from the roof of the Hilton to a man high on a rostrum in the center. Niall could with a burst from the M-60. I'd seen him use a similar weapon in the past. Meaning we could check into the hotel, carry the weaponry up to our suite, and be ready for midday. Which left one problem, probably the most important.
"Have you given any thought to how we’ll get out?"
He bent to scrape a speck of dust out of the cocking mechanism. Then he looked at me.
"Not yet. I thought I'd leave something for you guys to work out."
Sure, how to escape ten thousand armed Arabs, no sweat. Nothing a flight of gunships can't resolve, supported by a battalion of Army Rangers.
* * *
The road was quiet as we drove through the early hours, a single highway that ran all the way to Cairo. It should have been a decent strip of tarmac, but instead, it betrayed the dereliction that was a byproduct of Islamic mismanagement and corruption. Fortunately, the Mercedes was designed to take it. A luxury 4 x 4 SUV that soaked up most of the ruts and potholes, to give as smooth and fast a ride as the German engineers could invent. We passed the occasional truck carrying produce to the markets of the capital. Several trucks carrying troops, and more ominously, we overtook a long line of tank transporters heading for Cairo. It was as if a large chunk of the Egyptian Army was going our way.
We were fifteen miles outside the capital, a sprawling city of almost ten million souls, when we hit the first real obstacle to our progress. People.
"Schaeffer," Winter murmured.
I came awake. I'd been dozing. In the distance, maybe a mile away, there was a long line of shimmering lights. Shimmering, as if they were moving. As we drew nearer, we made out the reason they appeared to shimmer; torches, fiery brands, carried by tens of thousands of people, and all marching in the same direction.
"They're heading for Tahrir Square," Winter breathed, and she sounded awed, "No question, they're going to listen to Mukhtar speak. It's a crusade."
"Not the word I would use, not here."
She grinned. Crusade was a dirty word in the Arab world, ever since the Crusaders had kicked their butts out of Jerusalem. They ignored the fact it was a Christian city before the Muslims took it. They had different rules for Muslims. But it was a crusade, nonetheless.
I checked the time on the dashboard clock. It was 02:00, ten hours before Mukhtar gave his address in Tahrir Square. We were thirty minutes out from the Nile Hilton. Normally. But this wasn't normal. The crowds grew thicker, and we slowed even more, and eventually we were reduced to a crawl.
"Winter, you have to find another route. If we stay on this road, we won't make it."
She watched the crowds of people as she spoke. "We'll make it. We are all going for one reason, to see Mukhtar." She darted a mischievous look at me, "Maybe not exactly the same reason, but we'll get there at the same time."
"That's not good enough. We need time to check into the hotel and for Niall to set his stand on the roof. There's more than that. We also need to position our vehicle so we can escape the second the job's done."
She nodded. "I see your point. I guess I'm just tired. Let's see what we can do."
She jerked the wheel to the right, and as people shouted protests and other drivers banged their horns, threaded off the carriageway and onto the desert at the side. She jammed her foot down hard on the gas pedal, and the powerful Mercedes engine surged as the SUV raced forward. The one hundred thousand dollar vehicle came into its own, as every part of the German precision engineering worked in harmony to hurl us across the uneven desert surface.
The Mercedes bounced and bounded over ruts and low sand hills, but Winter kept her foot pressed down hard on the gas, refusing to sacrifice speed for safety. We hung on grimly, and every eye in the vehicle was watching the speed indicator. At times, she touched a hundred miles an hour, and even in the worst of the terrain, the speed didn't drop below seventy. Inside of ten minutes, we were approaching the outskirts of the Cairo subur
bs, last bump and a lurch as the Mercedes soared into the air, and then landed on a road that had at least a thin covering of tarmac. I played with the satnav, and inside of twenty minutes, we were skirting the street parallel to Tahrir Square.
I started to relax. We were almost within spitting distance of our target, when Winter shouted, "Roadblock!"
She jammed on the brakes, and fifty yards ahead we could see the barrier blocking access to Tahrir Square and to the Nile Hilton.
"I don't like this," she muttered.
I didn't like it either. The usual rag-taggle band of fighters that set up these things were in evidence, together with the ubiquitous 'technical'. Technical was the name given to trucks and SUVs converted to mobile gun platforms, usually by the addition of a multi barrel heavy machine gun or anti-aircraft gun. Some even carried lightweight artillery or recoilless rifles. Others featured rockets launches, derivatives of the Soviet-era Katyushas. The technical facing us was equipped with a ZSU 23-4, a 23mm quad auto cannon, and enough to tear anything less than heavy armor into small pieces. The fighters were armed with Kalashnikovs, and I counted ten of them.
I looked again, but before I could speak, Niall confirmed my worst fears.
"They are not Egyptians, those four fighters standing at the side. Beards, black turbans, they looked to me like…"
"Taliban," I finished for him, "So the bastard brought his own people to make sure."
A bunch of camel jockeys scrambling to operate an unfamiliar auto cannon was something we maybe could have handled. As well as the Egyptians manning the checkpoint, who would be both unfamiliar with the procedure and unprepared.