[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel

by Richard Marcinko

  Had he thrown the car into reverse and stepped on the gas, he could almost surely have escaped; Trace had come with no backup, and the path to the road was open. How long he might have lived after that, having pissed her off, is anyone’s guess.

  But once a psychotic killer, always a psychotic killer, and rather than trying to get away, Hoshang did what came naturally—he stepped on the gas and tried to run Trace over.

  Trace got off a single shot as she threw herself out of the way, barely escaping the car’s front fender. Her shot evidently missed, for the car continued to accelerate, its back end swerving, either because of the marbles or torque-steer caused by the acceleration.

  Trace started to run after the vehicle, then saw a forklift approaching out of the corner of her eye. Apparently oblivious to what was going on—maybe things like this happen every day on the Djibouti docks—the driver continued along toward Trace, carrying a skid of shrink-wrapped boxes in front of him. Trace leapt up onto the cockpit area. Throwing the man off, she slipped into the seat and reached under the dash.

  Her fingers found the transmitter, a radio-control they’d stolen for the nearby crane unit. (They’d hidden it there because they expected to have to split up, and weren’t sure who would be using it.)

  Controller in one hand, hem of her skirt in another, Trace hopped off the forklift and started running. Hoshang’s car was already at the end of the pier, turning to the right.

  Feeling herself starting to slip on the marbles, she pushed the button on the top right, ordering the crane holding the large metal crate to release its cargo.

  Bull’s-eye.

  The crate fell directly onto Hoshang’s car; he was crushed beneath a load of fermented pig parts, destined for South Africa. I’d be hard-pressed to think up a more fitting end.26

  4

  (I)

  Back in India, Junior and I spent a relatively quiet evening. Junior slept. I contemplated the healing properties of gin: good ol’ Dr. Bombay, Healer Supreme!

  We rose early the next day, just before six, and after a brief but intense PT, got ready to leave for the airport. We were just about to board the jeep when the Indian air force officer who was coordinating our transportation called to say the plane wouldn’t be ready until the following morning due to “mechanical issues.”

  Junior went back inside to sleep. I decided to change back into my workout clothes and go for a run. I was just lacing up when Shunt buzzed my satellite phone.

  “Remember all those Viagra ads I was tracking?” Shunt asked.

  “No.”

  “You know where that stuff comes from? The drugs, not the spam.”

  “Hoboken.”

  “Close. Bangladesh. Trace didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me which?”

  Trace had passed the information about Indiamotion and the clandestine drug factory along to Shunt, telling him to see if he could verify it. He had, and more.

  “It’s pretty close to the border where you are now,” explained Shunt. “They must smuggle just about everything over—your guards are probably getting a kickback. See, they set up in Bangladesh and sub out to legit and illegit places in India. No inspections, no taxes—the Indian government probably even knows about it, but by the time they get their act together and do something to shut it down, we’ll be drinking Viagra with our orange juice.”

  “Shunt, is there some connection to anything we’re doing?” I asked. “Or are you asking me to bring back some souvenirs?”

  “Trace said that Garrett was hinting the CIA wanted someone to track the next shipment, and kind of implying we should do it. You know, out of the kindness of our hearts.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. But I ran these cross-checks against our databases, you know, see what kind of hits we got. And I left the bank database in the queue by accident. Guess what?”

  “You know what time it is here?”

  “The company in Hungary that’s sending out all those illegal Viagra ads we’ve been getting was paid with an account from the American International Bank. That account was originally set up by a company in Nevada whose incorporators included Veep.”

  “Veep?”

  “Even listed his bank address. Either Jason Redlands, vice president of the American International Bank, can’t get it up, or he’s hooked into the business big time.”

  I’ll spare you the increasingly lame jokes on the male member that followed. Shunt reported that the company that established the account changed its name and registration a few weeks before, removing Redlands from any official registry. Shunt had found the original documents by searching archived information.

  “So Veep has a company that sells illegal Viagra?” I asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  I called and woke up Trace. It was a bit like poking a bear, but I wanted to trade info. I didn’t mention the connection with Veep and the bank; I was more interested in why Garrett had passed along the information.

  “I think he’s trying to get in good with his boss,” she said. “They think he screwed up by letting you rescue him. Magoo hates the sight of you.”

  “So he just let it slip?”

  “He’s definitely trying to get us interested. But he doesn’t have much information.”

  I pumped her a bit more, but Trace didn’t know anything more than I’ve said here. When I got off the phone, I considered the situation. According to Shunt and Garrett, there was no direct evidence that the factory was connected to Allah’s Rule, or that the terrorists were anything other than random customers—if that. As for our friend Veep—it was an intriguing coincidence, but nothing more than that. Despite my fervent love of the slimy banker, his holier-than-thou sneer and endearingly condescending attitude, the evidence was slim that he was personally involved in illicit Viagra, except maybe as a customer.

  Had my flight been ready, I might have ignored the whole thing. But with nothing to do, it seemed a shame not to at least take a look at the Bangladesh pill factory and see what was going on there. At only three miles away, barely enough to raise my pulse rate if I ran.

  While I was waiting for Shunt to gather some more information and satellite photos of the plant, the lieutenant who’d gone across the border with us the day before came over and asked if I’d like to sit in on his interview with the captured black shirt. Thinking it might be educational, I agreed, and ambled over.

  The prisoner was being held in a pit at the far side of the complex. The hole, about six by six feet and roughly square, was covered with a metal grate secured by three boulders so large they had to be pulled off with the help of an ATV. The hole was deep; the prisoner couldn’t be seen from the surface. One of the guards threw a rope down and told him to pull himself up. His head emerged a few seconds later.

  “We have questions,” said the lieutenant in Bengali.

  “What?”

  “You will speak with them, or you will suffer greatly.”

  The lieutenant didn’t translate that last line, but the look on the prisoner’s face made it clear what he said. The prisoner was prodded toward a log on the ground nearby. The lieutenant and I sat on a second log facing him, the ashes of a fire between us. There were six border soldiers surrounding us, all with weapons aimed at the black shirt’s head.

  The prisoner kept blinking, trying to get his eyes used to the light. Yesterday he had seemed wiry and defiant. Today he looked more like a scared, undernourished kid. He told the lieutenant that he was twenty; I guessed immediately that he was exaggerating. The lieutenant began translating for me, asking his questions in Bengali and then English. He paraphrased the answers.

  “What is your name?”

  “My name is Tukai.”

  “Where were you born?”

  Tukai shook his head. “I was told Rangpur.”

  “You were told?”

  The man shrugged. Rangpur Division is the northernmost district of Bangladesh, until recently part of Rajshahi. L
ike most of the country, it’s predominately Muslim, and in olden times played a significant role in the subcontinent’s history—the Sannyasi revolution (the monks’ rebellion) took place here in the eighteenth century. Today it’s centered around one of the major cities in Bangladesh, with several colleges, a newspaper, TV and radio stations—all the things we’d take for granted in the West, but can seem like miracles in Bangladesh. Rangpur is not as poor as much of the country, but it’s not the land of opportunity either.

  Tukai journeyed to India for a job at fifteen. There he fell in with the wrong types—not that he put it that way—and eventually found his way here. He was an unimportant member of the gang, he said, a soldier who did what he was told, much like the lieutenant.

  The lieutenant didn’t like the remark, even though nothing was meant by it, and slapped him across the face.

  The man took it stoically, falling back just enough to convince the lieutenant he had been hurt, but not quite so far that he lost his balance. He gave no overt sign of pain; I’m sure he was used to much worse.

  “Let me ask some questions,” I said. “If you’ll translate.”

  “Of course.”

  “Tukai, I am interested in knowing what kind of things you bring across the border.”

  Tukai shrugged.

  “People mostly?” I asked. “Like yesterday.”

  “I do what I am told,” answered Tukai in English before the lieutenant translated.

  “I know that many groups move drugs across the border, back and forth. I am wondering if you know about that.”

  “People bring what they want to bring,” he said. “We simply help.”

  “Do you take drugs out of Bangladesh?” I asked.

  He gave me a puzzled look. Before I could explain, Junior leapt over the log, rushed across, and grabbed Tukai by the front of his shirt. The look he gave him was unlike any look I’d seen from him before.

  “Tell Dick what he wants to know or I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands,” he told him, his voice something like you’d imagine a wolf’s would be.

  Now if Trace had done that, I wouldn’t have been particularly surprised. Or Mongoose. But Junior, God bless him, has neither the deportment nor the temperament of a sociopath. He has many fine qualities, but there’s no touch of psychotic killer in his eyes. But the man standing over the smuggler clearly could have been a homicidal maniac. And in fact, when he put his left hand on the man’s throat, he very nearly was.

  “We move anything,” said the man, stuttering. “Many things. Cloth. People. Drugs.”

  “What kind of drugs?” I asked.

  “D-drugs.”

  “Let go of him, Junior.”

  Junior reluctantly complied. The prisoner slid a few feet away on the log.

  “There’s a drug factory near here,” I told him. “A few miles from the border. Do you know where it is?”

  “World Pharmaceutical.” He garbled the syllables in “pharmaceutical” around, but it was clear what he meant.

  “Do you take packages from there?” I asked. “Have you been there?”

  “Yes. Yes—I will tell you how to get in. How the doors are. The l—locks.”

  “Would you take me there?”

  The lieutenant shot me a glance. He’d been placid while Junior grabbed his prisoner; I suspect he secretly approved. But he wasn’t about to look the other way while I took a stroll with his prisoner. And his boss would never approve.

  “I, uh, will tell you how to get there,” said the prisoner.

  “Dick, he’s one of the scum that killed the girl,” said Junior. “We should kill him.”

  “Relax, Junior.”

  Junior’s hands were flexing into fists. “I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands. Say the word.”

  “Go take a shower,” I told him.

  Junior took a breath that seemed to enlarge his entire body. Then he stalked off.

  * * *

  Tukai sketched the layout of the factory on a notebook one of the lieutenant’s men fetched. Once he did that, his will seemed to break, and he was considerably more forthcoming about the organization, its ties, and its plans, than he had been with the Indians. The smugglers had no connection with terrorist groups, he insisted; they were simply transporters, experts at getting things across the border.

  I believed him; he was too scared to lie at that point. But the lieutenant pointed out that many smugglers, especially those near the Pakistan border and in the very far north, have links with al Qaeda and a myriad of other terror groups and organizations around the world.

  “I think I’m going to take a walk now,” I told him. “Good luck with your prisoner.”

  I checked back with Shunt, gathered a few things, then stopped by the tent where Junior had camped. He was sitting in a canvas chair, feet on a battered soccer ball. His expression as dark as I’d ever seen.

  “Playing soccer?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Getting along with the guards?”

  “Not really.”

  “Feeling antisocial?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m going to take a walk after dinner,” I told him, deciding that he had to stay home. “I’ll be back.”

  “You going to check out that drug factory?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want to come.” Junior sprang to his feet.

  “You need to rest. You’re too wound up about the girl,” I added. “You need to get past that.”

  His eyes flashed with anger, pretty much confirming everything I’d said.

  “I’m not going to lose my control.”

  “You already did.”

  “I didn’t hit him.”

  “You wanted to.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “Stay here and keep the Indians company. They may get restless.”

  “Dad.”

  “Stay here.”

  He did. Reluctantly, I’m sure. But he stayed.

  * * *

  The pharmaceutical industry is a billion-dollar enterprise. As such, it employs some of the smartest people in the world. The manufacturing techniques for many drugs are very much up-to-the-minute: cleanrooms, high-tech production lines that look like science labs, miniature forests of test tubes and chemical containers. There is a supreme effort to maintain quality, involving constant safeguards and almost obsessive checks and balances.

  Security is usually on par, especially at large multinational companies where trade secrets are highly valued and closely watched.

  I didn’t expect that would be the case here, and I wasn’t disappointed. There were only two guards on duty, both at the entrance to the facility, which was surrounded by an eight-foot-high fence topped by barbed wire. Granted, the location meant it was unlikely to be targeted by anyone, including the tax collector. And heavy security would have probably drawn unwanted attention. But sometimes you wish people would present more of a challenge.

  Even in the dusky twilight, getting past the fence was simple; all I had to do was put a pair of sharp-nosed wire cutters to appropriate use. I pushed the fence back and slipped through. I didn’t have night glasses, but there was no need for them; the stars and moon gave plenty of light as I walked to the back door.

  It was locked. Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been a problem, but I didn’t have my lock-picking tools with me, and there had been no acceptable substitutes at camp. So I took a more creative approach: I went to the trees, picked up a fallen limb, then hurled it through one of the windows.

  I scurried back to the other side of the fence, expecting an alarm to ring. I didn’t hear any, but soon a beam of light danced in the window closest to the front of the building. I grabbed some other branches and threw them over the fence near the window, then retreated into the shadows.

  The guard and his flashlight made their way methodically through the building, checking each room until at last he came to the one broken by my tree branch. Discovering the branch, he turned on the light. I
t framed him as he examined the broken window. Opening it, he stuck his head out and looked down on the ground, then around toward the fence. Satisfied by the debris on the ground, he closed the window and retreated.

  As soon as the light was off in the room, I ran to the building. I pushed the glass shards out of the bottom of the window, then snaked inside. I found myself in an empty storeroom.

  The first order of business was to check for internal security devices. The window turned out to be wired; I gathered that the alarm must be silent—a slightly more high-tech flourish than I’d hoped for. Though it was a little late now, I popped my flashlight on to check for a motion detector (none), then checked the door for wiring (ditto).

  The door opened into a small manufacturing area. Machines were grouped into different clusters; some were set off by drapes of sheer plastic, others were wide open. Computer workstations, mostly ganged in twos and threes, filled tables near every cluster. While there were a few shadows toward the edges of the room, LEDs on the machines provided enough of a glow for me to see easily.

  There were no motion detectors or other security devices in the large room. Closets similar to the one I’d been in ran about halfway down the side. An enclosed vestibule sat at the front of the room, on the side where the guards were stationed. I went to it and cracked the door open.

  Long and very narrow, the vestibule was empty. There were posters on the wall with Bengali writing—they looked like the sort of propaganda factory owners put up reminding workers to be careful, as if that were necessary in a place where becoming crippled is tantamount to condemning yourself to an early death.

  The steel door on the opposite wall looked like it went to the outside. The guard post would be nearby, in a small shack separate from the building.

  Moving back inside, I spotted a beam of light swinging through the darkness outside two of the far windows; the guard I’d seen earlier or maybe his partner was outside, checking to see what was going on. Most likely he would conclude that the branch had been blown into the window from one of the nearby trees.

  And if he didn’t—I planned to be gone by then.