by Marc Cameron
“A knife?” Thibodaux tilted his big head, unconvinced.
“Why not?” The enigmatic woman peered through narrowed eyes. “Sicarii Zealots in first-century Palestine killed in broad daylight with a short sword known as a sica. The Fidaiin, most feared of the ancient assassins, always used a dagger to work their acts of terror. Even Spartans, whom you Marines revere so much, were renowned for their use of a short sword.”
“Short being the operative weakness,” Thibodaux said.
“Ah,” Miyagi said, scolding the Cajun. “When a Spartan youth once complained to his mother that his sword was too short, the warrior mother told her boy the weapon would be long enough if he would only step forward.”
Thibodaux sighed. “Touche,” he said, giving Quinn an I-told-you-so look.
Her history lesson over for the moment, Mrs. Miyagi turned her attention back to Quinn, who was grinning ear to ear at Thibodaux’s mental thrashing. “Very nice,” she said, drawing the twelve-inch blade from its Kydex scabbard. “I’m sure it has served you well.”
Quinn tipped his head, agreeing but saying nothing.
Mrs. Miyagi examined the Hissatsu under the natural light streaming in from her dining-room window. “Do you know of the ancient swordsmith Masamune?”
“I do indeed,” Quinn said. “Some feel Masamune was the greatest of all Japanese sword makers during the late thirteenth century. Leaves floating down a river toward his blade were said to have sensed the sharpness and veered away in the current. While other weapons were sharp, Masamune swords held a certain mystical power-discerning about what they cut.”
“You know your history.” Mrs. Miyagi gave an approving smile. She held the Hissatsu flat, across both hands. “Many years ago I was given a Masamune dagger-much like your blade. It is called Yawaraka-Te…”
“Gentle Hand, like the legend of the river and the leaves,” Quinn mused. It was so typical for the Japanese to give an instrument of death such a serene name.
“Yawaraka-Te now rests in your Halliburton case, under the guns,” Mrs. Miyagi said. “I make it a gift to you.”
Quinn caught his breath. A pair of pistols was one thing, but a centuries-old blade forged by a Japanese master was a heavy burden. He may have saved the Director’s grandson, but this woman didn’t know him at all. For her to give him a sword that for all practical purposes was a Japanese national treasure was unthinkable. Still, he could see from the set in Mrs. Miyagi’s jaw to refuse it would be unthinkable.
“Do I get a cool knife?” Thibodaux peeked under the corner of the foam insert inside his aluminum case.
A mischievous sparkle formed in Mrs. Miyagi’s bottomless brown eyes, flashing at Quinn. He nodded, understanding her meaning without words passing between them.
She pushed the Hissatsu toward the Cajun. “Blades are far more powerful when they come to us as a gift. Quinn San wants you to have this one.” Offering him Jericho’s knife with both hands, she changed the subject. “Now, there is much to do. Please put that away and follow me.”
Thibodaux slumped, shoving the present in his aluminum case. “I told you she didn’t like me,” he whispered. “But hey, thanks anyway for the pigsticker, beb.”
Quinn was severely tempted to look under the pistols in his case. He longed to touch the eight-hundred-year-old blade. That would be rude though, so he let it wait.
Mrs. Miyagi stepped out to her front porch and motioned toward the circular driveway. “The Director authorized a second BMW Adventure, identical to yours, Quinn San, but for the color.”
Thibodaux all but vaulted onto the red and black GS. Except for the color it was the twin to Jericho’s gunmetal bike, complete with Touratech aluminum cases.
Mrs. Miyagi ran her hand over the huge gas tank on Quinn’s motorcycle. “The Shop made a few adjustments while you slept. A little more travel in the front suspension… tuned the engine to coax out an additional ten horsepower to your original one oh five… and added run-flat tires.”
Sitting astride his new bike, Thibodaux tipped back and forth on the center stand. He looked like a giant kid on an electric pony. “I’ll bet they shoot rockets or some-”
“Don’t touch that!” Mrs. Miyagi snapped. She stepped closer, pointing at a gray button on the handlebars.
“Really?” The Marine jerked his hand away as if he’d been bitten.
“No, Thibodaux San,” Mrs. Miyagi laughed. “That controls your heated hand grips. Motorcycles do not make a good platform for rockets.” Her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “However, these particular motorcycles will carry you from point A to point B very fast, in places where a conventional vehicle can not always go. As riders you won’t stand out when wearing armored clothing. We have full custom suits based on the measurements you provided. They are fashioned from Aerostich Transit Leather-both the pants and the jackets. Breathable and waterproof, but engineers at the Shop have installed a small cooling system for more pleasant summer wear. Ballistic shielding has been added to the crash armor already in place.”
“I’d like to visit this Shop,” Quinn said, giving his bike a quick once-over to make sure everything was in the proper place. He called it his pre-flight.
“Ah.” Miyagi smiled. “Perhaps someday I can arrange this. The Shop is a small, subunit of DARPA specializing in equipment for teams such as yours.” DARPA-the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency-was a component of the Department of Defense comprised of government and contracted research specialists in everything from nano-bots to guided missile lasers.
Miyagi continued with her gear issue. “Our engineers have added a heads-up display to the visor of your helmet, using the same technology employed by fighter pilots. You will be able to keep your eyes on the road but still access night vision, GPS, and even a video link if that should become necessary-though I don’t recommend it while riding, for safety’s sake. Your helmets have also been wired with a voice encrypted, wireless STU.” The STU was a secure telephone unit usually operated with an encryption key.
“Once they are imprinted, you’ll be able to speak securely to the Director’s office as well as to each other and, when needed, more conventional telephones.”
Thibodaux rolled the black, visored helmet in his beefy hands. “I’ll bet I could check my Facebook on this thing.”
Quinn’s head snapped up. “You’re on Facebook?”
“Sure ’nuff.” Thibodaux grinned. “You’re not?”
“Indeed, you could use the equipment to check such things…” Mrs. Miyagi pursed her lips as if she was about to say something else but turned her attention to Quinn instead. She rested a bronze hand on the handlebar of his motorcycle. “There are quite a lot of improvements, too many to comprehend in a short briefing. They were designed to be intuitive so nothing should surprise you. I believe you will be pleased as you learn of them. Some may even save your life.”
“So,” Jericho said, already feeling the calm waves of normalcy his bike provided, “we train with you?”
“That is correct,” Miyagi said. “I am aware of your previous curriculum. I will provide a more spiritual… esoteric sort of guidance to prepare you for what the Director has in mind.”
“And we are to stay here?”
Miyagi remained stone-faced. “For a time…”
The buzz of Quinn’s cell phone interrupted Mrs. Miyagi’s answer. She stepped back, motioning for him to take the call with a wave of her open hand.
“Hello?”
“ Assalaamu alaikum, Jericho.” The Arabic voice was unmistakable. It was Sadiq. “I hope you have much money, for I have much news for you.”
In his typical fashion, Sadiq meandered on about the weather, his ailing grandmother, and his fat uncle, all in windy, unending detail, refusing to get to the meat of the matter. After two minutes, Quinn had had enough.
“Well, well, my friend…” He risked butting in, hoping the thin-skinned boy’s lust for money would win over his ego. “You said you have important news�
�?”
The line went quiet. “I do,” Sadiq said at length, the irritation at having been interrupted clear in the staccato clip that had fallen on his speech. “News the Great Satan will, no doubt, find extremely vital.”
“I am authorized to pay you well.”
“This is much more than I’ve ever given you…”
“How much more?”
“Come now, my friend. Can one put a price on human life?”
Jericho nodded at that. “Tell me what you have in mind.”
“Four hundred American dollars bought the lives of two American hostages. What would the Great Satan pay to save millions?”
CHAPTER 20
Quinn directed Sadiq to call him back on a landline inside Mrs. Miyagi’s house. Unless fitted with sophisticated adapters, cell phones were about as secure as shouting from the rooftops, and though Quinn’s was secure, he’d only issued such a device to Sadiq when they were actually on a mission.
Once connected on the hard line, they exchanged code words. Jericho quizzed the boy for a short time about a few of their past experiences to be sure he hadn’t been compromised. In the meantime, Thibodaux called Win Palmer and briefed him on the situation. The Marine listened intently, then scribbled something on a notepad and handed it to Quinn.
“Two million U.S. dollars,” Quinn read aloud, raising his eyebrows. “ If the information is as you say.”
“ Raa’irh,” Sadiq gasped. Splendid. “But, I cannot spend even one penny if I am a dead man.”
“We’ll get you out of the country, give you a new name.”
“That is better,” Sadiq said in passable English. “I have always wanted to attend Harvard. You think I could go to Harvard? Maybe become a learned man in the law?”
Quinn thought of the quick two million the kid had just negotiated by spying on his friends and relatives. “I think you’ll make a fine lawyer,” he said.
“Very well,” Sadiq said. “Since we are in agreement I will tell you what I know. My uncle has an acquaintance, a very fat man from the south of the city-his name is Malik. I am told he supplies American prisoners to this man, Farooq, just as Ghazan al Ghazi did. Lately, Malik has spoken of unspeakable experiments in Saudi Arabia, a laboratory where the prisoners he has supplied are used to test a special weapon that will certainly kill millions of infidels.”
“The Saudi Kingdom is a big place,” Quinn mused. “You’ll have to do better than that to get your law degree.”
“Of course, of course, my friend.” Sadiq chuckled with a little more abandon that he should have, considering what his life was worth at the moment. “I know this laboratory is at a university that trains
… how do you say… medical doctors for animals…”
“Veterinarians?”
“ Ajal,” Sadiq said. Precisely. “That is the word. There is a campus of King Faisal University there for agriculture and veterinarians. Women may also study at this university. I understand you allow women to study at Harvard. Do you think this is wise?”
Jericho rolled his eyes. “Stay focused, my friend. We are talking about the lab”
“Yes, the lab… Farooq is said to have a small residence near the oasis of Al-Hofuf, adjacent to the stud farms belonging to the university. That is all I know.” Sadiq’s voice fell to a whisper. “But I think it is enough. Is it not?”
“Farooq is in Al-Hofuf now?”
“According to the information I have. This is timely, is it not?”
“It is enough,” Quinn said. “Tell no one that we’ve spoken. Stay where you are. I’ll send someone to pick you up.”
Quinn hung up Miyagi’s phone as Thibodaux handed him the cell with Win Palmer on the line.
“Looks like someone needs to go to Al-Hofuf,” Quinn said, knowing as he spoke who that someone would be.
“I’ve got the Shop working your background even as we speak,” the Director said. “The Bombardier will be waiting at Langley inside the hour. I’ll meet you there for a better briefing.”
“And Jacques?” Quinn asked, reading the concern on Thibodaux’s face. “What’s his role in this?”
“He’ll be backing you up in spirit from a remote location. Unless you can teach him Arabic in the next few hours, you’ll have to go this one alone.”
“I have to ask, sir…” Quinn paused, not wanting to overstep his bounds with a member of the President’s Cabinet. “The Saudis are our allies. We’re not going to try any diplomatic channels here?”
“This is one of those times I mentioned when we first met. We can’t use you and the diplomats. If our experts at CDC are correct about the stuff these guys are making in their lab… we don’t have the luxury of waiting for the glacial pace of diplomacy. Besides-” Palmer chuckled. “Diplomats aren’t very good with hammers.” Then he cut the connection.
“You trust this kid Sadiq?” Thibodaux asked fifteen minutes later as they packed new gear in the Touratech aluminum cases on their respective motorcycles. “I mean, he could be setting you up.”
Quinn shook his head. “I don’t trust anyone over there. But there were a lot of times he could have gotten me killed if he’d wanted to.”
“My experience,” Thibodaux said, stepping in to his black Aerostich Transit leather pants and shrugging on the jacket. In the tight, armored leather he looked like a superhero without a cape. “Snitches just love to hear themselves blab. Wonder how many folks he’s told about Al-Hofuf besides little ol’ you.”
“There is that.” Quinn swung a leg over his BMW, happy to be back aboard his beloved bike. “But it can’t be helped.”
He’d been itching to see what the bike could do ever since Mrs. Miyagi told him “the Shop” had tweaked it. The engine popped to life with the same purring roar he was accustomed to. He toed the shifter into first and held the clutch, letting her roll forward a few feet before gassing to a wheelie. After a short fifty feet, he let the front wheel settle back to the pavement and made a tight circle next to a waiting Thibodaux. He waved a good-bye salute to Mrs. Miyagi, nodding slightly to let her know he was pleased with the modifications.
“Well, here we go, Chair Force,” Thibodaux said, gunning the throttle. “No matter how this turns out, at least you’ll get to take care of some ’surgents.”
CHAPTER 21
Fallujah
From his years of service to the sheikh, Zafir had learned that black trousers were less likely to show blood. He would have worn a black shirt as well, but decided that would look too conspicuous if he was forced to make a quick escape. He slipped a pair of vise grips and a small roll of duct tape wound around a Popsicle stick into the pocket of his slacks and bounded up the concrete stairs to Sadiq’s tiny apartment. He’d dressed the part of a simple Iraqi shopkeeper and taken an overly contrite mood at every American checkpoint. Since he carried nothing they recognized as a weapon, none of the U.S. military personnel who detained him had paid him a second notice after the initial humiliation of being stopped in the first place.
They had no idea what he had planned for the vise grips and duct tape.
At the top of the fourth flight of stairs a dusty tangle of dead spiders and a stack of old newspapers lay piled on the concrete at either side of a gray metal door. Zafir smiled to himself. He went through the motions of knocking in the event anyone was watching. It seemed American informants were behind every tree and bush. If he killed ten random people, nine would be kafir — apostates of Islam, in bed with the Americans in one way or another.
A muffled voice came from inside, followed by the shuffling hiss of slippers against a tile floor.
“Who’s there?”
Habit caused the Bedouin to stand to one side of the entry-out of the line of fire. Even meek little lambs sometimes carried weapons, and the more frightened they became, the more likely they were to shoot through a closed door at an unseen threat.
“I am a messenger from the U.S. embassy,” Zafir mumbled in English. He didn’t particularly care if the boy un
derstood him or not. “I have good news.”
“Do you know the code word?”
To his surprise, the door creaked open a fraction, waiting for the code. When the boy saw his caller was not an American, he threw his body against it, trying to shove it closed, but it was too late. Zafir slammed his fist against the startled boy’s nose as he shouldered his way in.
Zafir shut the door behind him so no neighbors would interfere with his methods. Sadiq cowered on the floor, blood pouring from his shattered nose in pools on the chipped tile.
“If you are from the embassy why do you do this to me?” he groaned, hand splayed across his bloody face.
“I am not from the embassy, you idiot,” Zafir laughed. Methodically, he began to unbutton his shirt. “I am a messenger-from Allah. And you have been talking to the Americans.”
“Everyone here talks to the Americans…” Sadiq’s voice quavered. “What are you doing? I’m a student… waiting to return to Baghdad and the university when it is safe… Why are you taking off your clothes?”
Zafir draped the shirt in the seat of a padded chair beside a cluttered table that occupied a quarter of the cramped apartment. “I wish to keep it free of blood-your blood-while I work.” He took the roll of tape from the pocket of his slacks and bound the boy’s wrists behind his back. As Zafir expected, Sadiq held out a pitiful hope that if he complied, he wouldn’t get hurt. Foolish boy. Zafir threw him on the shabby couch under a poster of an American actress wearing a swimsuit. The Bedouin spoke slowly, lips pulled back in disgust, showing yellow teeth. “Malik suspects you have been working with the Americans.”
“Malik is a liar!” the boy shrieked, trying to disappear by sinking deeper into the threadbare cushions.
“Malik is dead.” Zafir put a finger to his lips to shush the boy’s rising whimper. “Now-” He clapped his hands in front of him. “In your university studies do they teach you of the ancient Bedouin custom of Bisha’a? ”