by David Bruns
“My manager? I thought you were my manager.”
“Sad as I am to say it, Riley, I am not read into this deal. Go figure, huh? Who wouldn’t want a piece of this?” Clem struck an Atlas pose.
Don cleared his throat. “Are we done here?”
Clem relaxed his pose and reseated himself behind his desk. “Sure.”
“Riley?” he called, just as Don’s hand touched the doorknob.
Don looked over his shoulder. Clem’s face was set in a scowl.
“Be careful, man. This looks like some serious shit, ya know?”
Constance, with her dark hair pulled back into a severe bun and tortoiseshell glasses, reminded Don of a librarian. She gave him a tight smile when he showed up at the conference room door a few minutes later.
“Mr. Riley?” She stuck out her hand. No rings, no bracelets, no jewelry of any kind save a pair of small pearl earrings. “I’m your case officer.”
“Don,” he replied. In a dark blue pantsuit and cream-colored blouse, she could have been anywhere from late twenties to early forties.
“I prefer to keep a personal distance from my subjects,” she said. “If it’s okay with you, sir. I’ll call you Mr. Riley.”
“And I should call you . . .”
“Constance.”
“Do you have a last name, Constance?”
“Yes. Please come in, Mr. Riley. We need to get started.”
Don entered the conference room and took the seat she offered him. “What’s all this about, Constance?”
She locked the door, then turned back to him with her ever-present tight smile. Constance slit the TOP SECRET seal on a banker’s box and began unloading a stack of files, a laptop, and an overhead projector. She handed the laptop to Don. “This device is biometrically coded to you. Please use this laptop—and only this laptop—for all work on this project.”
Don nodded and pushed open the lid. It booted up automatically and waited for his fingerprint. He pressed his index finger against the sensor. The screen snapped to a CIA seal with the title underneath: Project Caveman.
Constance was laying out a series of pictures on the table. Iranian Shahab-3 missiles, loaded on a North Korean–made mobile launcher. They looked to be in some sort of crude garage with a dirt floor. More pictures showed a wrecked missile, burned pieces strewn across a sandy crater.
The final picture showed a missile with the warhead access panel removed. Don sucked in a breath. It was a nuclear device. Crude by modern standards, but a nuclear device nonetheless.
Constance cleared her throat. “These pictures were taken in an uninhabited region of southern Iran on May seventeenth.” She paused long enough for Don to look up at her. She was cute, and on the low end of the age scale, Don decided, probably his age. She offered him another smile without showing her teeth. “We have reason to believe these devices originated from the Iraqis.”
Don’s daydreaming came to a screeching halt. He looked back at the picture of the nuclear bomb. Constance leaned forward and locked eyes with Don.
“I need you to tell me everything you know—and everything you think you know—about the Iraqi nuclear program.”
CHAPTER 48
Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay
07 July 2016 – 2230 local
Reza strolled into the packed German stein hall on the outskirts of Ciudad Del Este, known locally as CDE.
He wrinkled his nose at the smell of stale beer. Men and women jostled each other on benches set beside long wooden tables, producing a clamor that filled the high-ceilinged room. To his eye, the smallest serving size was a pitcher of beer and the locals seemed to be perfectly comfortable drinking from the huge mugs.
He pushed his way to the far end of the bar where the servers dropped off their orders and caught the eye of the man working behind the counter. Reza slid a piece of paper across the surface, avoiding the puddles of beer. The man, barely glancing at Reza, picked up the paper and submerged it into a vat of soapy water. He jerked his head toward the stairs behind him.
Reza took one more look at the crowded hall before he started up the steps. He wondered if the old woman who’d led him here had any idea the trouble her son had gotten himself into.
In the end, it was less of an interrogation than a trip down memory lane with the old woman.
She drifted in and out of reality, sometimes talking as if she were a little girl, sometimes in present day. It was Bilal, the Hezbollah head of intelligence, who made the difference. The big man, his bulk balanced atop a rough wooden stool, held the old woman’s hand and spoke to her in the local dialect of local matters of people long dead and common acquaintances.
It was more than two hours before he managed to get her talking about her sons, the twins.
“They were good boys,” she said. “Both of them. Soldiers, you know?” She looked up into Bilal’s eyes.
“Good soldiers, Mother, good men,” Bilal agreed in a soft voice. “Have you heard from them?”
The old woman shook her head. “No, they went away.” She lowered her voice. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
“Talk about what?”
“What they’re doing. It’s very important to the cause.”
“It is very important,” Bilal agreed. “Very.” He patted her gnarled hand. “Are they in good health?”
The old woman shook her head. “No, my Farid had the cancer . . . He’s dead now. Poor boy, and his poor family, too.” She let go of Bilal’s hand and dug into the table next to her bed, producing a worn photo of a thin man with a dark-haired woman and a baby. “I am a grandmother!” she said.
Maybe it was the shock of seeing the picture of the baby again, but the old woman lost touch with the present day for another hour. Reza’s ass was numb from sitting on the uncomfortable chair in the darkened room, but Bilal seemed unaffected.
“Farid came home for the funeral,” the old woman announced out of the blue.
Reza saw Bilal’s shoulders tense. “What funeral, Mother?”
The old woman made a spitting motion on the ground. “After the Islamic State dogs ruined our town . . . so many were dead, so many funerals. But Farid came home. He came home to say goodbye to his mother.”
“Did he tell you where he’s been?”
The old woman shook her head sadly. “No, he said it’s a secret. Every time Jamil calls me, he says the same thing.”
Reza’s heart skipped a beat. Call? Bilal leaned in closer to the old woman. “Does your other son call you, Mother? Is he a good boy?”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not to say.”
Bilal sat back. “That’s as it should be, Mother. Have you spoken to him this week?”
“No, he only calls every other Wednesday night at eight o’clock. I just spoke with him last night.”
Reza stopped breathing.
He’d had to wait another two weeks, but it was a simple task to trace the call to a cell tower in CDE.
Reza stopped at the top of the stairs and loosened the 9mm pistol at the small of his back. The landing was narrow and dimly lit, with the only way out back down the steps. A red light winked at him from the camera in the corner above his head.
He knocked three times. The door snapped halfway open and the muzzle of a gun was pointed at his face. Reza forced a smile, saying in his best Lebanese Arabic: “Beirut is alive with the spirit of forgiveness.”
The man behind the gun stepped back to let him enter. “I do not know you.”
“Bilal sent me.”
The man’s swarthy face cracked into a smile. “Ah, my favorite cousin, how is he?” he said, lowering the gun.
Reza allowed himself to relax. “Bilal is well. He sends his regards.”
“Please, come in, come in,” the man said. “May I get you some tea?”
“Tea in a beer hall?”
The man flopped into a leather armchair behind a wooden desk. “My cover, pretty good, eh? Who would think to look for a devout Muslim in a G
erman beer hall?” he said with a laugh.
Reza laughed along with the man, leaning forward in his seat. He slipped the gun from behind his back and held it against his leg. “My friend, Bilal, told me to ask you a question. About Lena’s hair—what color was it?”
The smile on the man’s face slipped a notch. “Lovely Lena,” he said. “Lovely, lovely Lena.”
Reza felt cold metal poke him in the back of his head. He froze.
“Lena was my sister, and she was blonde as a Swede. She hated it, and when she was twelve, she dyed her hair black.” The voice was cool and low, with an edge that made sweat break out under Reza’s armpits.
“May I stand?” His dry tongue rasped against the roof of his mouth.
The muzzle pressed against the back of his head moved away, but he still felt the imprint on his scalp. He let his own gun drop to the floor as he stood and turned.
Walid Wehbe was not a tall man, and not thickly muscled, either. Still, his wiry frame oozed a certain deadly confidence that few would cross. His thin smile was more a baring of teeth than an offer of friendship as he extended his hand. Reza could feel every muscle and tendon in the steady grip.
Walid waved his pistol at the desk and his man, who had now risen. “My apologies for the pretense. My visitors usually have an agenda. And they’re not usually Iranian.” He narrowed his eyes at Reza. “The code phrase from Bilal is among our most protected, to be used only in an emergency. You must have some urgent business.”
As he spoke, he slipped his gun back into his waistband and beckoned Reza to follow him. They made their way back down the stairs and out a back entrance. The smell of spoiled beer and rotting food was heavy in the air, and Reza tried to ignore the large rats that scattered from their path. Walid moved quickly; Reza had to trot to keep up.
Once away from the beer hall, he cut down toward the river where a speedboat waited. Walid leaped from the dock to the driver’s seat in one bound, making the boat rock. Reza moved with more care, crabbing his way from the steady dock into the heaving boat. As soon as he was aboard, Walid cast off lines and pulled away into the dark.
Reza tried to stay calm, comforted by the fact that Walid had let him keep his gun. Still, the roaring engine, the smell of the river, the humid air, and his jet lag all combined to keep his head in a fog. He stared at Walid’s spare frame, outlined by the soft glow of the dashboard lights, and offered a silent prayer that Bilal’s influence extended to South America.
The speedboat slowed, making a sweeping turn into a small cove. Walid cut the engine and let the craft coast the last thirty feet toward the dock. When he was close, he tossed a rope to a waiting man. He leaped from the boat to the dock, calling in Spanish to the man. “Bring our guest to the house, Pablo.”
Reza waited until Pablo had secured the speedboat before he stood. When Pablo reached down a hand to help him up to the dock, Reza’s grip was lost in the man’s huge mitts, and he felt himself almost lifted bodily out of the boat. Pablo was a short, stocky man with the features of a Paraguayan native and arms like Popeye. He grunted as he looked up into Reza’s face, and jerked his head toward the end of the dock. Reza took a deep breath and followed him.
The unlit trail wound up the small hill to a low, modern-style ranch house. Pablo nodded to the man guarding the front door, whose eyes flicked over Reza, locking on the handgun behind his back. Reza’s eyes fell to the submachine gun the guard was carrying.
The interior of the house was clean and modern, with well-lit rooms and tasteful paintings on the walls. Pablo pointed to the rug when he entered. Reza wiped his feet carefully, eliciting a satisfied grunt from the stocky man. Pablo deposited him in a living room, where a small fleet of leather armchairs were arranged around a massive low table that looked like a cross section of a tree trunk.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Walid said from behind him. He had changed into a fresh shirt and loose-fitting trousers, and his feet were bare. “It’s from a mahogany tree. It reminds me of a map.” The irregular shape did look like a map of a continent. Walid handed him a cup of tea in a clear glass mug. Reza nodded his thanks. He could feel his strength ebbing away, the jet lag taking over.
Walid flopped into one of the chairs and crossed his legs. “Now, tell me why my cousin would send an Iranian intelligence agent all the way to South America, where you are so clearly out of your element, and give you one of our most secret personal codes.”
Reza sat on the edge of a seat across from Walid, separated by the massive expanse of the tree trunk. He set the tea down on the table. Walid tossed him a coaster, which he placed under the hot mug.
“I am looking for this man.” Reza pushed a picture of Rafiq across the table.
Walid’s eyebrows shot up. “Rafiq? Why do you want him?”
“You know him?”
Walid laughed. “Everyone knows of Rafiq, very few know him. He owns one of the largest estancias in the area. He married into wealth and inherited everything when his father-in-law died.”
Reza sucked in a breath. “You know where I can find him?”
“Depends on why you want him.”
Reza licked his lips. “Rafiq was sent here under false pretenses. He is working for his half brother, an Iranian. He needs to be stopped.”
Walid leaned forward in his seat. “You’re asking for my help to raid one of my own? Why?”
Reza took a deep breath, and told him.
Walid leaned back in his chair when Reza had finished speaking. A ridge of muscle sharpened his jawline. “Rafiq is well protected on his ranch. Getting to him will not be easy. You’ll need a team of at least a dozen men.”
“How many men do you have here?”
Walid’s face split into a wolfish grin. “A dozen.”
CHAPTER 49
Off the coast of Perth, Australia
06 August 2016 – 0600 local
Brendan watched the sky pinken over the western coast of Australia. Port, finally.
The last ten weeks at sea had given him new respect for his surface warfare classmates from the Academy. Putting this many people in this small of an area for that long defined a whole new level of stress for Brendan. It seemed like even the smallest issue—watch schedules, dinner menu, cleaning rotations—blew up into a big deal. As skipper, it was his job to solve it, and he was tired of it.
Well, that’s what leave is for. A few days and he’d be back in Minnesota and as far away from an ocean as one could get on the continental United States.
Still, the last mission to Iran proved to him that he belonged here, onboard his ship, not back with the SEALs. He knew he was a step behind his spec ops buddies now, not up to the task of jumping out of helos or assaulting targets. But here, here he was making a difference. Their trip from the Arabian Gulf down to Australia had been another success for the program. Who knew the Indonesians were using Russian-made Rezonans-N long-range air search radar? Dot guessed they’d installed it after the loss of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 in March 2014. Thanks to the crew of the Arrogant, that piece of data was now in the hands of the intelligence guys to figure how and why it had happened.
Gabby poked her head up from the cabin. “Coffee, skipper?”
Brendan nodded. He checked the sails, which were tight under a brisk morning breeze. At this rate, they’d be in Perth before lunchtime.
Gabby handed him a steaming mug and took a seat next to him on the bench. Her dark curls were tousled and her eyes still puffy with sleep. A gull rode the wind overhead. She half-rose to see if anyone else was awake, then huddled deeper into her sweatshirt.
“I’m going to put in for a transfer while we’re in refit,” she said in a low voice.
Brendan kept his face still and stayed silent.
“I think it’s best—for both of us,” she continued.
That part was true, at least. He closed his eyes, hoping she wasn’t going to bring up the Maldives again.
The situation with Gabby had come to a head during a p
ort visit in the Maldives.
To bolster their party boat image, they had all dined together in an expensive restaurant out on the town. The food was wonderful, a blend of French with an Indian flair, served on a platform that cantilevered out over the crystal-clear water. When the sun went down and the water darkened, the restaurant turned on underwater lights that attracted the local sea life.
The combination of the soft sea breeze, the wine, the fabulous food, and good company made for an evening to remember. It was Dot who suggested they go dancing. Brendan shrugged. He wasn’t much of a dancer, but if the rest of them wanted to go, he was happy to play the host.
The nightclub was called “The Wave,” and he slipped a fifty-dollar bill to the doorman to get them a table overlooking the dance floor. Someone ordered champagne, and a silver bucket appeared at their table. Like magic, it was empty and another replaced it, although he scarcely remembered drinking any of the first one.
The pumping music made for difficult conversation, unless you leaned into the person and almost shouted directly into their ear. So Brendan drank, and watched while the rest of the crew hit the dance floor.
Except Gabby.
She was wearing a short skirt and some kind of glittery gold top that stretched tight across her breasts, but left her back bare. She slid across the leather sofa until she was right next to him and said something.
“What?” He knew perfectly well that she’d asked him to dance, but he was searching for a way out of it. Sure, they had a cover to keep, but as a naval officer he had lines he couldn’t cross, and sleeping with a crew member was the biggest, brightest line he could think of.
She leaned into him, her breast resting heavily against his bicep. Her hand touched his thigh lightly, and Brendan felt himself stiffen. Gabby put her lips next to his ear, the scent of her hair and wonderful mocha-colored skin strong in Brendan’s nostrils.
“Dance with me.”
Her breath puffed softly against his cheek, and she might have used the closeness to nip his earlobe. Brendan stood and helped her up. She kept hold of his hand, leading him down the steps and onto the crowded dance floor.