by Mack Maloney
Kazeel’s reply was interrupted by four gunshots — distinct, sharp, in the brisk mountain wind. Kazeel winced when he heard them but quickly carried on.
“Tell Bahzi the place will be Sat Put,” he said.
“And the time, brother?”
They heard four more gunshots; they came quicker than the first, but Kazeel hardly moved this time.
“I will inform the snake of the time and date later,” he said. “Carry this news to him, and make it clear I am plumbing the depths even talking about him….”
With that, Kazeel abruptly dismissed his guests with the wave of his hand. The men rose to their feet. Uni brought them their various outer garments. Woolen robes, bedsheets, in one man’s case house curtains.
As they started for the door, Kazeel grabbed the man he considered his closest associate, Ali Hassan Wabi, a small elderly Kuwaiti with snow-white hair. Out of earshot of the others, Kazeel indicated to Wabi he had one more piece of business to conduct.
“I have a favor I must ask of you especially,” he said to Wabi.
“Anything, brother…” Wabi replied.
Kazeel lowered his voice. “I need new bodyguards. Can you help?”
Wabi paused a moment. “You mean, you want additional bodyguards, my brother?”
But Kazeel shook his head. “No — I must replace the ones I have now.”
Wabi was very surprised to hear this. Kazeel’s Ubusk security people had been with him for years. They were considered the best in the business. It seemed like a strange time to change them out.
But Wabi knew better than to ask Kazeel why. “I will talk to my contacts,” he said instead. “And I will let you know.”
“Make it fast, my brother,” Kazeel told him before showing him out the door. “We have many challenging days ahead. Whoever you get for me will have to be the very best.”
Wabi didn’t like the sound of that. He’d never seen Kazeel this nervous.
“Can you confide in me?” Wabi asked him. “What is the problem, brother?”
Kazeel paused a moment. He did not open up to people so quickly. But…
“Let’s just say my escape from Manila was not as clean as it might have seemed,” he told Wabi. “I was a breath away from Paradise, and pray, brother, I do not want to go there so soon.”
“But you are now here, my brother,” Wabi said, trying to provide comfort. “And Allah be praised you are still in one piece.”
Kazeel just shook his head. He was suddenly on the verge of tears. “Brother, you don’t understand. For the first time in my life I am looking over my shoulder. These people who almost had me in Manila. They weren’t just some CIA group. They were the Am’reekan Maganeen. I’m sure of it.”
Am’reekan Maganeen, the infamous Crazy Americans. The words sent a chill down Wabi’s spine. The Crazy Americans were the secret special ops unit that had been sent against them — the 9/11 plotters — even before the attack on the Lincoln took shape. It was widely believed in the Islamic underworld that these special U.S. soldiers had been the reason the carrier survived that day. There was even talk that they had foiled the big attack in Singapore as well.
Unlike most U.S. special ops troops the jihad organizations had come up against, the Crazy Americans held to none of the conventions that other American units did. No Geneva rules of war for them, the Crazy Americans were terrorists themselves. They rarely spared anybody who crossed their path, especially anyone who was in on the planning of the 9/11 attacks. Their means of extracting information from those they collared was already legendary for its sheer brutality.
Wabi could not shake off the chill. This was not good news. With what they were about to do they certainly did not need this interference from these very dangerous, very brutal American troops. But he also felt sorry for Kazeel. The Crazy Americans’ reputation certainly preceded them. They always got their man. If you were on their hit list, you were as good as gone. All this finally explained Kazeel’s queer tension.
“I will make my inquiries immediately,” Wabi told him. “I have heard of a protection outfit recently relocated to this area. Highly trained. Highly disciplined.”
He lowered his voice. “Blue-eyed Muslims,” he said. “Do you know the type?”
Kazeel’s face lit up. Blue-eyed Muslim was a code. And upon hearing it, for the first time since arriving home, Kazeel actually relaxed a little. But then came the apprehension.
“You are talking about…?” Kazeel started to say.
“I am, my brother,” Wabi confirmed. “But I do not want to even say the name, as I don’t want your hopes to soar, and then have it not come through.”
“But you must try to arrange for that!” Kazeel told Wabi anxiously. His voice became so loud Uni heard him from the kitchen.
“I will certainly try,” Wabi replied, now just in a whisper. “But as they are skilled, and loyal and disciplined and fearless, they, too, will have to be very well paid—”
“And they will be,” Kazeel said quickly. “Our new friends will pay the bill. Just talk to them for me, brother. Promise them heaven and earth. And please do so with haste….”
* * *
Wabi kissed him good-bye and climbed into his own armored SUV. His driver proceeded slowly down the steep hill.
The conversation with Kazeel had made Wabi nervous. Kazeel’s escape in Manila had been harrowing. So why was he so suddenly in need of new bodyguards? Why would he not keep his own guys on and hire some more?
Only when he reached the bottom of the boodi did Wabi get his answer.
Out in the field next to the tank house he saw four figures lying motionless, facedown, in the short grass. They were Kazeel’s bodyguards, the Ubusks who’d manned the tank house. Standing over them, smoking cigarettes, were the Pakistani intelligence agents, the men who had driven Kazeel here. They looked menacingly at Wabi and his driver as they rolled by.
But Wabi passed close enough to the field to see that each bodyguard had two bullets in the back of his head.
The price these days for falling asleep while working for Sheikh Kazeel.
* * *
Five days went by.
In that time, Kazeel ate little and slept less. He’d also installed a Roland antiaircraft launcher near the front door of his house. It was a leftover from Gulf War I, a present given to him by Saddam Hussein himself, back in friendlier times. Kazeel had been keeping it in storage in a cave nearby; the original idea was to sell it someday. But his second day back he sent to the village for its two engineers. They pulled it out of its hiding place and checked its systems, with a manual in hand. It was a little out of their league, but eventually they got it to turn on and come on-line.
Did it work? No one knew. Kazeel kept it up anyway, not so much for his own protection but just for the peace of mind he thought it would bring.
It was a stupid thing to do, because if a U.S. satellite spotted the missile battery an American bomber would soon be circling his house. But Kazeel didn’t care. He was never so in fear for his life as these past few days. That’s what the Crazy Americans did to you. They got inside your head. They got you thinking what they would do to you, the horrendous torture they inflicted on their victims before finally putting them to death. They were rumored never to sleep, hopped up on drugs, endlessly stalking their victims. Kazeel knew they had been haunting Prince Ali and his syndicate — and look what happened to them. In some really dark moments, Kazeel believed Prince Ali did kill himself simply because he knew the Crazy Americans would get to him eventually. The man was a multibillionaire, yet he could not outrun his ghosts.
Praise Allah, the Paki agents were still watching the road below. He’d asked them to stay on, as his temporary security force, until he could make his other arrangements. They’d graciously agreed, after a nod from the top in Islamabad. But the Pakis could not stay forever. They were not professional bodyguards; they were intelligence men. They had other things to do.
It was just another example of the turmoil in K
azeel’s life. He did not want to deal with Bahzi but knew he would have to. Yet he couldn’t go to Sat Put to see the Iraqi until he had some reliable protection. But time was running out. His judus were not the most patient souls. They had their own agenda and they didn’t like things to go slow. The longer the plan dragged out, the better their chances of it being discovered. So it was always chop-chop, toot-sweet, hurry the hell up with them.
That’s why Kazeel felt paralyzed, a prisoner in his own house. Unable to move.
* * *
It was now the beginning of the sixth day. Midnight had arrived and the wind was howling again.
Kazeel was lying not on his water bed but on his prayer mat, looking through the room’s ceiling window. The stars were out and the moon had risen over the eastern peaks, but these celestial events were lost on him.
He was not counting stars overhead but rather the number of insects crawling on his ceiling. It was a rare night when he couldn’t get to sleep. But this had been going on for five nights now. More than 100 hours with little more than a doze or two. It was a new and very unpleasant condition for Kazeel. He’d personally murdered more than three dozen people in his lifetime, many of them brutally, many with his bare hands. He’d been responsible for the deaths of thousands more in the terrorist acts he’d planned and executed. Yet none of this had ever disturbed his sleep. He had no conscience, so there was nothing that could keep him awake.
But these days anytime he closed his eyes the ghosts of those he’d killed would flash before him, some as corpses, some not. And mixed in, always, was the scowling red face of the American soldier who’d laid his gun muzzle briefly on his nose back in Manila. Dave Hunn!..Queens, New York!..Remember me…. This was a vision Kazeel could not shake. There was hate inside this American. Real hate and real emotion, which was strange, because Kazeel never believed Americans had any emotions. Then again, that had been the closest he’d ever been to a real-live American. This man Hunn scared him deeply and Kazeel knew he would never give up in his pursuit of him. Again, that was how the Crazy Americans worked. They hunted you, they found you, and then they killed you, very painfully. Simple as that.
Kazeel checked his Rolex watch. It wasn’t even one in the morning yet….
He started counting bugs again. He had six more hours of this hell to endure.
But suddenly came redemption from the darkness. It arrived with the sound of his cell phone ringing.
The voice on the other end was distant and distorted.
“Hoozan!” it was calling to him, using his boyhood name. “Wake up! I have good news!”
“Who is this?” Kazeel asked.
“It is Wabi, your white-haired friend and brother.”
Kazeel cleaned out his ear. Wabi’s voice sounded different.
“Good news, my friend,” Wabi said. “You’ll soon have new eyes watching over you.”
Kazeel shot straight up on his prayer mat. “Is it how we had spoken?” he asked anxiously.
“They have blue eyes,” Wabi replied, his voice smug but still distorted. “Though friend and enemy alike will be hard pressed to see them.”
“And they have no qualms about who they may have to fight?”
“I’ve been told these people were in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Serbia and became millionaires for it,” was the reply. “You know recent history, my friend. Do you not think that surviving, indeed thriving, in those places would give them the mettle to keep you safe?”
“Certainly better than most,” Kazeel replied. “But where do these men call home exactly?”
“Let me put it this way,” Wabi replied. “These men are the best because they are from a place that has been called the worst….”
Kazeel did not have to hear anything more after that. He thanked Wabi and said good-bye.
Then he settled back down and finally drifted to sleep, knowing that starting tomorrow he would be well protected again.
* * *
It was just before noon the next day when the three black Range Rovers climbed up the mountain road, heading for Kazeel’s compound.
The trucks’ windows were tinted to opaque and each had a small forest of cell antennas poking up from the roof. They arrived and parked three abreast. They turned off their engines in unison; then every door on each of the three vehicles opened, again in unison. Five men stepped out.
Four were huge, towering over Kazeel’s five-seven frame. They were wearing identical black combat uniforms, with plenty of ammo belts, utility packs, and night-fighting gear but no insignia. Each man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, a Magnum pistol in a shoulder holster, and a gigantic knife in his boot.
All five were also wearing black ski masks, with holes cut out for their eyes and nothing else. Kazeel met them by his back door. They formed a line in front of him, and each snapped off a smart salute, his first and last for the new boss.
Kazeel didn’t even have to say a word. He already felt psychically connected to them. Their body language said it all: they were ruthless, unwavering. Their regimentation was hugely impressive, yet they didn’t seem real somehow. They were more like Robocops, characters from one of Kazeel’s favorite American movies. Having them watch his back was a fond wish come true.
His new bodyguard detail hailed from what many thought was the worst place on earth: a place called Chechnya. How fanatical were the Chechyans? There was a slang term going around the Gulf these days, being called Chechnya meant you were a “totally crazy person.” According to Wabi, in addition to their mercenary work these blood-and-guts fighters had been battling the Russians for nearly 10 years in their own country. For the most part, they’d embarrassed the old Soviet empire almost as badly as it had been in Afghanistan twenty years before. What made them even more different was that these blue-eyed Chechyans were also Muslim fundamentalists, some of them even more radical than Kazeel and his Al Qaeda cohorts.
This particular group was known as the Dragos. They were famous for two things: their masks, which were for intimidation purposes but also so the men could never be identified even by the one they were protecting (You don’t want to see our faces was a favorite Drago phrase), and, more important, their uncanny ability to extract those they were protecting from some of the tightest, most dangerous predicaments. Assassination attempts. Predator drone strikes. Carpet bombings. The Dragos always managed to pull their client through.
Kazeel was smiling so wide now his cheeks hurt. These men would make a great match for the Crazy Americans, he thought. If the two teams were to ever meet up, it would be the battle of the century, at the very least.
One Drago finally stepped forward and bowed a bit. He addressed Kazeel in perfect Arabic. He introduced himself simply as Alexi.
“I understand you want to travel soon?” he asked.
“I should be in Sat Put tomorrow at dawn,” Kazeel replied. He’d called Bahzi that morning.
“Who knows you are coming?”
“The people I have to meet,” Kazeel told him. “And their security people.”
The man looked over his shoulder at the Roland missile launcher. Then he turned back to Kazeel, who suddenly felt very embarrassed.
“Did you make any of your arrangements on a cell phone?”
Kazeel was taken back by the question. He rarely kept a cell phone longer than 24 hours these days. This procedure had been drummed into all the Al Qaeda hierarchy from the very beginning. Simply put, the United States could intercept cell phone calls and track their user. That was a quick way to get a Hellfire missile dropped on one’s head.
But Kazeel hadn’t dumped his phone now in nearly a month. He couldn’t. Just about everything having to do with the next big attack on America was locked into the photofone’s extended memory. Kazeel had nowhere else to put it.
“I’m sorry, but yes, I did use my cell,” Kazeel finally admitted. “But it was a necessity. Time was running while I was waiting to hear from you. I had to set up the meeting quickly.”
“I
t’s fine,” the bodyguard replied with a touch of good nature, a big surprise. “No problem at all. Can you leave in two hours? It’s a fourteen-hour drive to Sat Put and it’s best that we sleep along the way.”
Chapter 12
Early the next morning, Kazeel was standing on a small mountain overlooking the village of Sat Put.
He’d spent the night up in these hills, sleeping soundly again as the Dragos kept watch over him. He awoke with the sun, refreshed despite the grueling drive to get here the night before. He shunned any morning hygiene and told the Dragos that they should proceed into town immediately.
Alexi, the lead Drago, had accompanied Kazeel on the trip down from the Pushi, riding with him in the backseat of the middle Range Rover. (Uni rode in the car behind.) Kazeel and Alexi discussed many things on the way. The success of 9/11. The failure of Hormuz. The embarrassment of Tonka Tower, which Kazeel claimed to have no hand in. But most of all, they talked about Bahzi. Kazeel told the Drago leader about Bahzi’s habit of staging ambushes near the site of his business dealings, sometimes absconding with the money if the person who’d just paid him happened to get iced. Yet when he did make a legitimate deal, the Iraqi’s prices were usually fair and the merchandise always top quality. You just never knew which Bahzi you were going to sit down with.
For reasons like this, the Dragos insisted on taking all three vehicles to the meeting; in case one or two broke down or were damaged, they would have an option for escape. Kazeel liked that kind of thinking. He also liked the transportation. These weren’t ordinary Range Rovers, Alexi had revealed to him along the way. They were actually Italian Fiat armored cars with Range Rover bodies fitted over them. They were moving arsenals as well. The Dragos carried everything from shotguns, to grenade launchers, to antiaircraft guns inside them and more. The trucks’ armored siding could take a .50-caliber round fired less than 25 yards away. Their windows were made of glass and epoxy 17 layers thick. The tires weren’t tires at all. They were steel wheels.
* * *