“I know, brother. I just had to do something … for Beatrice.”
“I understand. Slap some tape on his mouth and let’s get going.”
While Buster applied the gag, Jim lifted the partitions in the surrounding pens. Then they jumped out and closed the door. The Iranian had been thrown onto the cold dead pig, and now other swine began to snort and stumble around him. When one snot-covered snout licked his face, Mobili began to cry.
CAIRO, EGYPT
COLONEL YAHYA ALI NAQDI dismissed the major for the day, then took a minute to encrypt a message and download it into the micro SDHC memory card of his cell phone before leaving for dinner with the two visiting admirals at the Pool Grill on the fifth floor of the Four Seasons Hotel. Following the main course of stuffed sea bass, but before dessert of cinnamon rice pudding, he excused himself to use the bathroom. After washing his hands, he received a warm towel from a wizened old man who was there to attend the customers, and in doing so, exchanged his cell phone memory card for an identical one.
It was good to have a lot of different friends and contacts in this new world in which everything he had ever known had changed; up became down, backward was forward, and there was no right or wrong anymore in politics and power, only survival. The very sands of the desert seemed unsteady after the coups of the Arab Spring, and nothing was ever certain.
Several months earlier, during the initial planning stages for his ultimate actions, Colonel Naqdi had opened a secret line of communication with British intelligence in London. He fed them just enough background information concerning the turmoil in Egypt to keep them interested, although it was usually delivered after an event had happened. It was still worthwhile, because it was always detailed and had proven to be accurate, so the British considered their new agent to be intelligence gold. They knew the material came out of Egypt, but they didn’t know who he was, so they gave him the code name of Pharaoh.
A few hours after the dinner, as Naqdi prepared for bed and the tremendous events that would happen tomorrow, his latest message reached MI6 in London. The Pharaoh had confirmed that the sniper arrested in America was an operative of Iran’s Army of the Guardians, and the assassination of the accountant had been carried out on orders of an intelligence officer named Major Mansoor Shakuri.
ALABAMA
KYLE SWANSON WAS AT a large rectangular table in the kitchen of Janetta Lincoln, drinking strong coffee with a taste of chicory and slicing bright red tomatoes the size of softballs. Warm aromas of a home-cooked meal clouded the air. Sybelle Summers was washing huge leaves of lettuce that had come straight from the family’s hydroponic greenhouse and joking with the Lincoln girls, Mara, fourteen, and Becky, sixteen, who swirled around her in a friendly storm of energy.
He and Sybelle had driven straight from the rendezvous to the Lincoln home, where a long three-rail white plastic fence lined the road for about two hundred yards. A spacious open gate was anchored by decorative rock columns. The SUV bumped across the cattle guard when they turned beneath a large sign that read LINCOLN PRODUCTS. The grounds were winter bare but neatly laid out, with a number of barns and metal warehouse outbuildings flanking a spacious brick and wood home set back on several hundred acres of prime dirt. A greenhouse was attached at the rear of the house, and two more were in the distance. The girls had come charging across the broad porch to bring them in when Sybelle parked beside the wide stairs. They had not seen each other for about two years and had a lot of girl-talk catching up to do. Both had lost their baby fat and had the long-legged, coltish figures of two beautifully developing young women.
The kitchen was a madhouse for a while, then settled down as routine kicked in and a big lunch was prepared, and conversation became less excited. Another thirty minutes, and Kyle heard the downshifting grumble of a big truck and saw the ventilated pig-hauling trailer maneuvering into the driveway, then branching off on another path to one of the more distant barns. It disappeared inside, and the door was closed. Buster Lincoln emerged from the barn and stopped in an outbuilding near the house that served as a giant mudroom, where the dirt and grime and stench were washed away before setting foot in the house. He wore jeans, a faded wool pullover, and clean boots when he came through the door and pecked his daughters on their foreheads before sweeping Janetta into a hug and spinning her around the kitchen. The table was almost filled to its length with dishes and pans and plates when they were all seated, and Janetta closed her eyes and said grace.
“Isn’t Uncle Jim coming in for lunch?” asked Mara. “Did you know Sybelle carries a gun? She’s like some kind of cop!”
“We have a visitor who is interested in the Hogzilla Project. Maybe an investor. Jim is giving him the tour. He’ll be in later.”
“Eewh. I hate those big hogs. They stink.”
“I told you, little girl. They smell like money.”
Kyle took his cue to change the subject. “How’s the Hogzilla thing going? I mean, making a commercial product out of wild boars has got to be pretty challenging.”
“It’s a start-up enterprise, so we go one step forward and two steps back and throw a lot of money into the pigpen. Actually, some upscale restaurants are showing interest, and zoos and nature parks have bought some. Big rascals, though. Some more than five feet long, up to four hundred pounds.” He laughed. “Janetta raises giant vegetables, and I raise giant hogs.”
Sybelle finished a bite of salad and asked, “Why bother?”
“Why not?” Buster replied. “I studied business, and Jim did animal husbandry, and we’ve got ten years of experience now building on what our family left us. We think it might be an opportunity. Nothing is ever a guaranteed success. Maybe we’ll find a slot somewhere for them.”
“Meanwhile, they still stink.” Becky crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
* * *
JIM LINCOLN WAS STANDING on a concrete floor, with a rack of sharp knives within reach and blood pooling around a drain as he butchered the pig that had died on the truck. He worked methodically beside a set of four pens, each containing a wild boar excited by the feeding. Lincoln stripped out the guts and hurled them into a pen, and a huge hog would attack the food in a frantic rush. The big shoulders would hunch over as the tusks on the bottom jaw helped scoop the meat into the chewing mouth. Their bodies were smeared with the bloody offal, and they banged against the gates, wanting more.
Pejman Mobili was lashed naked to a post overlooking the boars, and his eyes rolled in fear. The ride in the back of the truck had seemed like a vision of hell, but the pigs had not actually hurt him, although one had fallen heavily on Mobili’s right foot, almost crushing it. At present, he would willingly go back among the tame swine. These four bristly, ugly hogs were terrifying, and they seemed to be eyeing him as they cried out for more food.
“Wow,” said Sybelle. “They are huge.”
“We call them Hogzillas. Each weighs over four hundred, and capturing them is a fight.” Buster Lincoln nodded grimly toward the captive sniper and told him, “They can make you disappear, totally and forever.” Mobili was shaking.
Kyle Swanson stepped close to the Iranian. “OK. Here’s the deal. We gave you a safe ride with the little pigs just to get your feet wet. Now you have to make the biggest decision of your entire life—look at me, not the pigs. I am your only hope of reaching paradise.” His voice was quiet and unhurried. Jim dangled a fat strip of gooey intestine over a pen, and a boar lunged for it, his weight crashing against the fence.
“You tell me everything I want to know within the next hour, without wasting my time or making me ask the same questions over and over, and I’ll take you out of here safely. You will go to Guantánamo Bay or maybe a maximum security prison for the rest of your miserable life, but you will be alive. Fuck around with me and you go headfirst into the Hogzilla pens. That’s the only deal you will be offered today, you son of a bitch.”
“They would start by eating the soft and easy parts,” said Jim, a specter in boots an
d bloody rubber apron and holding a dripping cleaver. “Ears, eyes … your little dick and balls.”
Mobili wept again, tears coursing wet paths through the filth on his cheeks. He had never felt so lost. “Yes. Yes. Ask me anything.”
Kyle stood with his feet spread, arms crossed, and cocked his head. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”
“I know. I understand.”
Swanson nodded to the others, and they walked out as Kyle started asking questions. Jim went to the mudroom to wash off while Buster and Sybelle headed back inside. “Would the Hogzillas really eat him?” she asked.
“Probably not. Mess him up a bit, though, just by rooting on him. We maintain them on top-quality forage and grain. Those ugly beasts are almost vegetarians.”
LONDON
“A FRESH PINT FOR you, Billy-boy, from the bloke in the back corner booth. Asks a minute of your time.” The bartender whisked away the empty glass, made a quick swipe at the remaining circle of dampness with a cloth, and plopped down the fresh and foaming mug of beer. Bill Gorn did not touch it for a moment, nor acknowledge the benefactor waiting at the table, for he was usually a cautious man. He was built like a fireplug, with a mop of unkempt dark hair, a thick neck, and sloping shoulders that led to arms corded with muscle from a lifetime of heavy physical work around the docks along the Thames. The scarred hands were large. When not earning an honest wage, he worked part-time as a leg breaker for a bookie, and he had spent a few years in the lockup on his only assault conviction. Turning slowly from the bar, he stared into the gloom at the back of the smoke-filled pub and saw a gent in a black suit sitting alone. The man looked directly at him, held up an envelope, and laid it on his table. Billy Gorn smelled money.
There were no other strangers in the pub, just the usual congregation of dock workers and watermen clustered in rowdy conversations at the other tables and along the bar. Gorn picked up the beer in his left hand and went to the back booth, using a moment sidestepping through the crowd to dip into his right trouser pocket, pull out the switchblade knife, and palm it up his sleeve. “Thanks for the pint, sir,” he said as he came to a stop at the table.
The stranger was a medium-sized man with gray hair and gray eyes. Ordinary to the point of being invisible in London. “There is a ten-pound note sealed in this envelope,” he said. “It is yours, for your time. I have a proposition through which you could earn nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety more.”
Billy Gorn visibly struggled with the arithmetic, and the tall man rescued him. “Ten thousand pounds, sir. Would you like to make ten thousand pounds?”
“Wot’s your name and how is it that you walk into my pub and ask exactly for me, who’s never laid eyes on you before?” Gorn took a bite of the beer and wiped foam from his lip.
“My name is unimportant, but I am a solicitor by trade, and I was asked by a client to find someone like you, someone reliable for a special task. A former client suggested your name.” He took a small sip from his own pint.
“Well, your client knows that I’m no killer, if that’s what you are after. I can break them, but they can always be mended.”
“Indeed. You will not be asked to kill anyone. Just the opposite, in fact. You are to keep her alive and safe. Another of my clients wishes to speak with her husband and believes this may be the best avenue to have such a conversation. Now are you interested?”
“Ten thousand quid for snatching some woman?”
“Just so.” The solicitor laid a twenty-pound note on the envelope. “No bodyguards involved, so there probably should be a minimum of rough trade. Would you be interested, then?”
“For a kidnapping, I’ll be asking twenty thousand pounds, then. Ten for a friend to help me.” Billy Gorn was confident in his negotiation style. The thick eyebrows came together, the ledge of his forehead wrinkled, and his little eyes hardened.
The solicitor was familiar with dealing with criminals, however, so he reached out and picked up the fresh twenty-pounder and put it back in his pocket. “You may ask, but the offer remains ten thousand.”
Gorn was taken aback at seeing money removed from the table. He thought quickly. Clyde would help him for a thousand, and be happy to do so. “Twelve, then.”
“Ten.”
“Ten it is. Half up front.”
“No.” The lawyer had not broken a sweat but pulled a larger envelope from his briefcase. “You are not to be totally trusted, Mr. Gorn. So I shall give you a thousand pounds now to pay for your expenses, and the rest when the job is done and I see the woman is alive and safe. Everything you need to know, including the place she is to be held, is in this packet.”
Billy tipped up his pint and finished it. “What is the time on this job?”
The solicitor slid out of the booth and took a moment to straighten his suit. Bland as wallpaper, Billy Gorn thought. “As soon as possible. And if it all goes well, I shall include a bonus.”
“How much of a bonus?”
“Please, Mr. Gorn. Stop being foolish and just take care of the job.” With that, the gray man drifted toward the door, cigarette smoke swirling around him, and disappeared.
Billy remained at the table and watched him go. Then he caught the eye of his mate, Clyde, still at the bar and gave a slight nod. Clyde peeled away and followed.
6
CAIRO
A TV SET IN the colonel’s office was tuned to the live coverage of the airport arrival of the Iranian national soccer team. Shouting fans surged along the police security cordons, cheering wildly.
“We have a good team,” observed Colonel Naqdi. A newspaper lay folded on his desk, with a front-page photograph showing strong young men in Iranian soccer uniforms, those in the front row kneeling, and all smiling for the camera. “A very good team,” he repeated.
“We are favored to win the Asian Cup,” his chief of staff agreed. “They are rising in the world standings.”
“Which is exactly why this exhibition goodwill match with Egypt is so special. I am pleased that the Cultural Ministry pushed through a popular sports competition so quickly.” He looked across at Major Mansoor Shakuri. “I will not forget that this was originally your idea. Well done.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” He had several months ago suggested a friendship match, not something like what was unfolding before him at the moment; never something like this.
On the screen, the aircraft came to a halt far short of the terminal. Stairs were pushed into place when the door opened at the front, and a welcoming group of Egyptian sports officials boarded, along with the customs authorities to clear the visitors.
Major Shakuri went to a sideboard and poured them both tea. The colonel gave him a hard look and said, “Let us hope it all goes smoothly. You could use a win about now yourself, Major, after that failure in America.”
“No excuse, sir.” Shakuri stiffened in the chair. Any thought that the arrest of the sniper would be treated as a minor mishap was crushed. This man never forgot failure.
“I like you, Chief of Staff, and you have great potential, but you must consider more variables in your planning. I detect a sense of urgency in your work, when you should be more patient. Get it done, but do it properly. Time is our ally,” the colonel cautioned. “The historic events that will break the stranglehold of the Egyptian army on the current government’s leadership are well under way. We will get there eventually.”
“I understand clearly, sir,” said the major. Change the subject! “We hired some hooligans in London through several cutouts to kidnap the Cornwell woman. It was better to send local infidels to do the job rather than use brothers of the faith who might be under police surveillance.”
The colonel rubbed his hands together. The soccer team was deplaning and waving to the cheering admirers. “Keep me informed on that one. The old man who is her husband is a dangerous enemy.”
A large blue-and-white bus was waiting for the team, parked between a lead army truck that would push a path through the crowd and an
armored car in back for extra security. Uniformed Egyptian army troops were seated in the open-back truck, and another helmeted soldier manned the .50 caliber machine gun atop the armored vehicle. A phalanx of civilian police on motorcycles would stop traffic at the intersections all the way to the hotel where the team would stay overnight. Security was ironclad.
The athletes boarded the bus, took seats, and pushed open the sliding windows to continue waving. They were goodwill ambassadors, and it was easy for sports heroes to be friendly. The door hissed closed, and motorcycle engines roared to life.
“Watch now. Now we start,” the colonel said, picking up his teacup.
The helmeted gunner in the rearmost armored car opened up with a long rip of fire that destroyed the engine in the back of the team bus in front of it; then more bullets crashed the length of the bus toward the front. The heavy armored car accelerated out of line, bent into a sharp turn, and headed straight for the immobilized bus as the heavy machine gun pumped short, sharp bursts into the trapped soccer team. The army troops piled out of their truck and began shooting into the shocked crowd of onlookers.
Inside the bus, the athletes and trainers scrambled over the bodies of their teammates to try to escape through the windows on the far side away from the incoming fusillade of bullets that ripped and tore without mercy. Before they could get out, the armored car slammed into the thin skin of the bus with such power that the two vehicles were meshed into a single tangle of metal. Then a bomb exploded, lifting both vehicles off the ground for a moment before they crashed back down to burn furiously.
In his office at the Palm Group, the colonel and his chief of staff watched and drank their tea. Idiot television announcers were horrified, and that weakness was passed along to their tens of thousands of viewers. The screen showed the welcoming crowd breaking apart and stampeding like a herd of goats. Many had been killed or wounded, and others were trampled. The station switched to a replay of the armored car shooting, then ramming the bus and exploding, and then the Egyptian government ordered the station to shut down. The screen faded into a fuzzy, buzzing blackness that only fed the fears of those watching.
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