by Peter Nealen
Taylor’s “facilitator” had put them in contact with the Karama Collective. Some of Chavez’ contacts suspected that the Collective was, in fact, a front for the Suleiman Syndicate, a relatively new but fast-growing Pan-Arab organized crime network that had started in Egypt and was spreading across the Middle East. It made sense. If anyone was going to have black market arms and military equipment for sale, it was going to be the mafia, of one stripe or another.
Brannigan was sweating this a bit. They didn’t have much in the way of weapons; flying into Dubai with even pistols had been a non-starter. Even pocket knives had been impossible; Flanagan and Childress had both tried, only to have them confiscated at Customs. There had been a considerable delay as they had been questioned by the UAE police. Both men had kept their cool and managed to get by with only a warning, but it had been a near thing.
So here they were, getting ready to meet with a bunch of transnational criminals, with little more than their hands, rolls of change in their pockets, and a couple of other sundries as weapons. And the criminals probably already knew that they were expats looking for highly illegal military hardware.
The number of ways the entire thing could go wrong was staggering.
The two men lapsed into silence again as they waited. Brannigan’s phone vibrated, and he checked it. It was a brand-new smartphone, with a worldwide plan and several commercial apps installed that allowed for text messages with end-to-end encryption. It wasn’t perfect; he would have preferred something put together a bit more in-house, but it would do. It was unlikely that anyone in Dubai had the encryption cracked.
The screen had a message from Santelli. “In position. Have eyes on you.”
“Rgr,” Brannigan typed in reply, then left the phone on his lap. Once the meeting started, he’d have it back in his pocket, but he wanted it close at hand, so that he could open a call to Santelli just before they got out of the car. Carlo, along with the rest of the team, would be able to listen in on the entirety of the meeting, and would be standing by to move in if things went haywire.
Three very shiny, silver Land Rovers pulled up to the curb. A moment later, a small coterie of Arabs in suits stepped out of the offices, followed by several glowering specimens in polo shirts and cargo pants, who had to be the muscle.
“Holy shit,” Childress muttered. “Are the Arabs doing the ‘security contractor starter kit’ now, too?”
“Looks like it,” Brannigan said. “Easy way for them to differentiate who’s important and who’s a knee-breaker. Not so great if you’re trying to keep a low profile, though.”
“Isn’t this, like, the organized crime capitol of the Middle East, though?” Childress asked.
“Yep,” Brannigan replied, as he saw the lead man of the entourage, a short guy with slicked hair and a line-thin, sharply pointed beard, look over at their dusty rental car with a barely veiled sneer. “Between here and Bahrain, it’s something of a tossup, though I’d say this place tops the island. This is the city that organized crime built, after all. The Burj Khalifa? Russian Mafiya using mostly Filipino indentured workers.” He opened the door and swung his feet out, even as he opened the call to Santelli. “So, yeah, I doubt these guys are all that worried about keeping a low profile.”
He stepped out of the car and straightened up. The brutal heat felt like it was scorching every inch of his skin, and the pollution made the back of his throat smart. He shut the door as he slipped the phone back into the inside pocket of his sports coat, and started around the hood toward the pointy-bearded Arab and his entourage, who were still standing on the sidewalk.
“Mr. Al Fulani?” he asked.
The bearded man watched him with hooded eyes, while the bodyguards stepped forward to put themselves between Brannigan and their principal. They might have been somewhat impressive specimens among most of the Arab population of Dubai, but Brannigan towered a head taller than the biggest of them. He obligingly spread his arms when the gimlet-eyed man in the black polo shirt motioned for him to do so, and submitted to the sloppy pat-down, hoping that the thug didn’t attempt to investigate his phone too closely.
He didn’t. He was looking for guns or knives. He stepped back and nodded to the man with the pointy beard. His colleague had just finished with Childress.
Holy hell, if we’d had weapons we could have gotten a veritable arsenal past these clowns. The search had been cursory at best. Either the Suleiman Syndicate’s soldiers were really confident about the UAE police keeping expats unarmed, or they were just that lazy and untrained.
The short man didn’t step forward, but looked Brannigan in the eye, with that sort of machismo look that suggested he considered himself far superior to the tall American, who was doubtless too stupid to understand what he was getting himself into. “I am Qasim Al Fulani,” he said. “You are Mr. Zebrowski?”
“I am,” Brannigan confirmed. “I was hoping we could do a little business.”
“Not here,” Al Fulani said. “Get in your car and follow us.” He and his entourage proceeded to get into the three Land Rovers, while the wannabe gorillas gave the two Americans the stink-eye.
Together, Childress and Brannigan went back to the car and got in. Brannigan started the engine and had to floor the accelerator to follow the trio of vehicles, which quickly roared away from the curb, heading northeast.
“We’re with you,” Santelli said, his voice tinny through the phone’s speaker. Brannigan did not reply, but kept his attention on the road and the vehicles they were supposed to be following.
He had a bad feeling about this. He really wanted a gun on his hip. Not only were these guys criminals, but he knew enough about the underground to be reasonably certain that they also did plenty of business with various jihadi groups around the Middle East. Groups that would love to get their hands on a couple of Amriki and saw their heads off on the Internet.
They followed the three Land Rovers, weaving through the very modern streets of Dubai. They were soon passing the airport and continuing northeast, until they were moving into the suburb of Sharjah, passing the artificial lakes near the sea shore.
“Where the hell are we going?” Childress muttered.
“I’m guessing the Sharjah docks,” Brannigan replied. “There should be plenty of places to do shady business up there, in between the warehouses and stacks of containers.”
Childress looked over at him. “Have you been here before?”
“Once or twice,” Brannigan said, “though I was only passing through. I have an idea of where we’re going because I studied the maps and imagery on the plane. Didn’t you?”
Childress looked out the window. “I looked at ‘em,” he said, “but I’ve got to actually spend time on the ground before I can really translate the image into a solid idea of where I’m at.”
“No worries,” Brannigan said. “We’d have to follow these clowns, anyway.”
The little convoy finally turned northwest, confirming Brannigan’s suspicions that they were heading for the docks. While it was a natural choice of place to do this sort of thing, presuming the thugs had paid off the local cops and port authority to look the other way when they went about their business, it was also a great place for an ambush, and they had no guns.
“If this goes south,” he told Childress, speaking loudly enough that Santelli could hear him over the phone in his pocket at the same time, “and they’re out of reach, don’t try to be a hero. Get to cover, and let the rest of the boys take out their exterior security. If they are within reach…”
“Then they’ll wish they weren’t,” Childress finished. While neither man had a knife, they each had aluminum pens, a couple of rolls of Dirhams, and, in Childress’ case, a bike lock, stuffed in various pockets. Easily passed over by men looking for guns or knives, every one of those things were expedient weapons; potentially deadly ones, so long as the man wielding them was within arm’s reach of his adversary.
The Land Rovers led the way through an open ga
te in the concertina-topped cyclone fence around the dockyards, not far from the domed port authority building. Through another gate, then a right turn, and they were rolling up the long, artificial peninsula that formed the Sharjah harbor.
When the Land Rovers stopped at a large set of warehouses, Brannigan breathed a little bit easier. Warehouses would lessen the chance of snipers, which would make things moderately easier. Only moderately, though. He still wasn’t going to relax, and neither was Childress. They were walking into the lion’s den, and they both knew it.
Qasim Al Fulani stepped out of the middle Land Rover, looked back at them, and beckoned before going inside. His entourage and his thugs followed, though the drivers stayed out in the vehicles.
“Here goes,” Brannigan said. “Let’s hope they actually want to do business.”
“With us,” Childress added. “And not with AQAP or somebody.”
The younger man might be a bit of a hillbilly, but that didn’t mean he was dumb.
The two of them got out of the car and followed the group into the warehouse. The sudden darkness inside was momentarily blinding, and they both whipped their sunglasses off as soon as they crossed the threshold, each man instinctively checking the corners to their left and right as they moved, looking for ambushers.
As his eyes adjusted, Brannigan could see that the warehouse was about two-thirds empty, with most of the pallets stacked toward the far end. There was enough stuff back there to conceal a platoon, if he was judging the space right. That wasn’t encouraging, especially since Al Fulani and his goons were standing in the middle of the empty part of the floor.
The two of them walked forward to meet them, surreptitiously scanning for any overwatch that might be positioned above. There didn’t seem to be any catwalks, fortunately; there was no place for snipers to be sitting above them. So, all they had to worry about were the thugs in front of them and anyone who might be hiding back behind the pallets.
Unfortunately, Brannigan couldn’t check with Santelli as to the status of the rest of the team. They had gotten a few updates on the way, so he knew they were close, but how close and how quickly they could go into action was presently unknown. So, he’d have to play this carefully, to give the rest of them time to get into position, just in case.
“So, here it is nice and quiet, no listening ears,” Al Fulani said. Maybe it was his fine-edged paranoia, but Brannigan thought he could hear a note of triumphant gloating in the other man’s words. “We can do business. You want weapons?”
“Yes,” Brannigan said. “At least fifty rifles, with ammunition and magazines. Maybe some explosives.”
“Explosives?” Al Fulani asked, poorly feigning surprise. “What do you need explosives for?”
“In the event of a pirate attack, if we cannot repel it outright, we might have to breach a hatch to clear the ship,” Brannigan explained, keeping to the cover story that they were a security company looking for equipment. He really didn’t owe this thug any explanation, and he doubted that the man really cared, anyway.
“How much money did you bring?” al Fulani asked. Maybe they were getting somewhere, after all. Greed is an eternal motivator.
“We have a quarter million dirhams,” Brannigan said. “In cash.”
The man smiled widely. There was no friendliness in the expression. “Good. It will be a nice addition to whatever the Brothers give us for you.”
Well, shit. Looks like my suspicions were right. “You son of a bitch,” he snarled, loudly enough that his voice echoed off the far end of the warehouse. Hopefully, the rest of the team was close enough to act on the signal.
The Arabs only grinned, the polo-shirted thugs drawing pistols from their waists and moving toward the two of them. Even as Brannigan glared at the short man who had sprung the trap, he looked aside at Childress, giving him the briefest of glances, warning him not to jump the gun.
Childress was just watching the advancing gangsters, his hands held loosely down at his sides. He looked gawky and awkward, deliberately so. It was kind of easy for him; Childress was long and skinny, with a beak of a nose and a slightly receding chin. He didn’t look nearly as imposing as Brannigan did. Both men were counting on that fact to give them an advantage, however slight.
The nearest gunman, with that same sly, arrogant smile on his face, reached out and took hold of Brannigan’s arm with his off hand. In the same instant, about three things happened at once.
There was a sudden commotion at the back of the warehouse. It wasn’t loud until a single shot rang out, echoing thunderously through the nearly-empty warehouse. A moment later, there was a hammering storm of gunfire back behind the pallets. Even as every eye involuntarily twitched toward the noise, Brannigan and Childress both moved.
Brannigan took a single step forward, planting his foot between the gunman’s legs and grabbing the wrist of the man’s gun hand with a crushing, vice-like grip. There weren’t many men who could stand that grip without wincing; the Arab wasn’t nearly as tough as he thought he was, and nearly crumpled as Brannigan’s fingers ground the bones of his wrist together. In the same instant, Brannigan wrenched his other arm free of a suddenly slack hand, and landed a short, wicked hook to the joint of the man’s jaw. There was a sharp crack at the impact, and the man let out a slurred howl of pain.
Then he was moving back, twisting the gunman’s body around to shield himself, one brawny arm still clutching the gunman’s wrist, across his neck and shoulder. With his free hand, which ached a little more than it should have from the punch, he plucked the gun, an old Tokarev with most of the bluing worn off, out of the man’s hand.
Childress had handled his antagonist almost as neatly, though that one was of slightly less utility as a human shield. He was out like a light, presuming that Childress hadn’t actually killed him. The gawky hillbilly was still holding the man up by the throat, his Glock leveled over his shoulder.
All of the Suleiman gunmen were now leveling their own weapons at them, though so far, they were reticent to shoot, probably for fear of hitting their buddies. Brannigan and Childress had moved quickly enough that they were now outside the slow-moving semicircle of thugs, backing up toward the walls to keep their flanks clear.
Without a word, Brannigan started to drift off to the left, dragging his generally inadequate human shield with him. Childress started moving to the right a moment later, having glanced over and seen what the Colonel was doing. There were still bad guys in the vehicles outside, behind them.
“It didn’t need to come to this,” Brannigan said loudly. “We just wanted to do business. Instead, you wanted to play games. So, we’ll play games.”
Behind the Suleiman entourage, figures were starting to come out from behind the boxes. Footsteps sounded on the concrete floor. Al Fulani was regaining some of his composure. He glared at Brannigan. “What do you think this will gain you?” he asked. “I have men all around this warehouse. Now we will simply have to kill you.”
“You had men around the warehouse,” Brannigan corrected, glancing at the men who were advancing from the far end of the warehouse. Santelli and Hancock were in the lead, each one carrying an AKS-74U, leveled at the Suleiman gangsters. “Look behind you.”
Two of the gunmen glanced over their shoulders. One of them started, and swung around, trying to bring his TMP to bear. It was a mistake.
Hancock drilled the man with a short burst, the short-barreled AK spitting flame in the dim light of the warehouse and the reports roaring thunderously against concrete floor and sheet metal walls. In a moment, all hell broke loose.
The thin-bearded Suleiman chief grabbed for his own belt line, and Brannigan shot him. The Tokarev’s bark seemed muted compared to the hammering reports of the AKS-74Us, but the 7.62x25 was still plenty powerful enough. Brannigan didn’t take the chance that the little man was wearing body armor. It was only twenty feet, so he just shot him in the face. The man’s head jerked back with a spray of red, and he spun to the concrete floo
r.
Brannigan was still dragging his captive off to one side, trying to stay out of Santelli’s and Hancock’s lines of fire. He shifted to another gunman, who momentarily seemed frozen, uncertain which way to point his gun, and dropped him with a quick pair of shots. The first round tore through the man’s throat, the second blew a chunk out of the back of his skull as he fell. That little 7.62x25mm was a hot, fast-moving round.
Then it was all over but the echoes. All of the Suleiman Syndicate thugs except for Brannigan’s and Childress’ meat shields were down and either dead or bleeding out. Hancock and Santelli moved from body to body, kicking weapons away from clutching hands. One didn’t let go, and Hancock put a single round through the man’s skull, just to make sure.
Childress let his hostage fall, and the man hit the concrete with a bonelessness that suggested to Brannigan that the wiry backwoodsman had hit him hard enough that he wasn’t ever going to wake up again. As for his own captive, he let go of the man’s wrist and kicked him in the back of the knee, forcing him down to the floor, before stepping back and levelling the Tokarev at his head.
“Where are the rest?” he asked Santelli. He was still deciding what to do about this last survivor. Brannigan wasn’t one to shoot a defenseless man, but at the same time, they weren’t exactly in a position where they could afford to take prisoners, either.
“Aziz is covering the back,” Santelli replied, finishing his last dead check. “Flanagan and Curtis are securing the vehicles.”
“You,” Brannigan said to the man kneeling in front of him, who was staring in shock at the corpses on the warehouse floor, “do you speak English?”
When the man didn’t reply, Brannigan reached over and smacked him on the head with an open palm. “English, asshole!” he barked. “Inglizi?”
“La, la,” the man insisted, flinching away from the blow. He might have been a tough guy with a gun in his hand and a lot of buddies at his back, facing two unarmed men, but now he was a cringing, frightened animal.