African Ice

by Jeff Buick

  “You’ll get it. Where are Carlson and the rest of her team now?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve got feelers out. I’ll have their destination for you in seventy-two hours, give or take. They can’t go so deep that I can’t find them. Just have your guys ready to move.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll be waiting for your call.” The line went dead.

  Kerrigan replaced the handset in the cradle and sat in a chair next to the bedroom window. From this angle he could see one corner of the British parliament buildings. The cornerstone of Britain itself, and the birthplace of the laws that governed the country. The laws that determined how justice was applied. Justice. He silently mouthed the word, enjoying the syllables as they spilled out mutely over his lips. Justice. Exactly what he would dole out to Samantha Carlson and her motley crew of mercenaries. He had hired them, paid them to perform a service for him and they had stabbed him in the back. Success was theirs, but they chose to hide the information from him, and in doing so, they signed their death warrants. He was through playing games. They had betrayed him, and they would pay.

  His carefully cultivated network in Washington, D.C., and Langley, Virginia, was electronically combing the globe as he sat in the Victorian wingback and looked out over London. There could be no escape from the moles he had bought within the CIA and the NSA. They had never failed him, and he knew that given enough time, they would locate Samantha Carlson or one of the remaining three ex-SEALs. And they would feed that information to him. Then on to Liam O’Donnell, and they would die. All except Carlson.

  He had special plans for Ms. Carlson. She would endure a horrific fate at his hands. The pent-up anger and frustration he harbored needed an escape, and the traitor geologist would suffice nicely. He wanted to personally torture her, to watch her suffer and hear her scream. Once he knew precisely where the richest source of diamonds discovered in the past hundred years was, then he would really turn up the heat. Torturing the bitch would no longer be business; it would be pleasure.

  Liam O’Donnell hung up with Kerrigan and immediately placed another call. His men would be ready to move on a moment’s notice. He vacated the public phone booth and entered a nearby pub. He knew the owner well, and the man delivered a frothing Guinness without being asked. O’Donnell paid the man, including a substantial tip, and sat back in the corner booth, mentally conjuring the upcoming mission.

  His men were anxious to go head-to-head with the ex-SEALs, but O’Donnell knew full well that these men would be worthy adversaries. They were not to be taken lightly. They were on the run from the African skirmish, but unaware of what was coming at them. They would be wary, suspicious perhaps, and most certainly on edge. They would try to disappear into a sea of humanity, so the battleground would be a major city—which one, he could only speculate. Paris was a possibility; the French authorities were slack about foreigners entering the country as tourists. London was equally attractive, perhaps even more so. They spoke English and could blend in even better.

  There were many other ports of entry into Europe. Athens, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, the list was long. Perhaps rather than think of where they would arrive in Europe, he should concentrate on where they would leave Africa. Two cities, and only two, came to mind:Tangiers and Cairo. Most of northern Africa was in a state of political upheaval. Algeria was a mess; fair-skinned people were targeted and murdered indiscriminately. Tunisia was almost as bad. Libya was off limits for Americans without valid work visas. That left Morocco and Egypt—Tangiers and Cairo.

  O’Donnell wanted the advantage of knowing their African exit point. Rather than wait for them to hit the vast number of available European cities and disappear, he could pin them down before they left Africa. He mentally weighed the two remaining cities. Egypt was far more lax than Morocco in allowing weapons to cross its borders. If his targets came through Cairo, they could theoretically bring automatic weapons with them. Morocco was a different story. The border patrols were always watching for illicit hashish shipments, and they tended to catch anything larger than a breadbox. Hell, a lot of the illegal drugs people tried to bring through were the size of a cellular phone, and when the authorities were looking for something that size, they were bound to find a machine gun. And an ex-SEAL would know that. Cairo. That would be their exit point.

  O’Donnell drained his Guinness and waved for another one. What to do? He briefly thought of heading for Cairo without advising Kerrigan, but then thought better of that. Kerrigan held the purse strings, and he didn’t want to piss the man off. Besides, talk around the grapevine pegged Kerrigan as a man you did not want to cross. Revenge killings ate up a good portion of Kerrigan’s budget. Or so O’Donnell had been told. Another course of action was to call Kerrigan and see if he had arrived at the same conclusion: that their prey would be in Cairo. Or he could do nothing. Just let Kerrigan’s intelligence-gathering personnel do their job and follow up once they had a European location. He took a long draught of beer and mulled his options. Suddenly, he stood up, dumped some money on the table and left the pub. He found a different pay phone than he had used earlier and put a call through to Kerrigan’s London hotel. The man was in his room.

  “I have an idea,” he said, and filled Kerrigan in with his thoughts on Cairo.

  “Okay,” the distant reply came back. “Take three men with you, leave the other three in Belfast. I’ll alert my intel sources in the States to keep a close eye on Cairo. I’ll be here for a week or so, in case you need me.”

  “What do you want me to do if I find them?”

  “Call me first thing. Then keep them under close surveillance. If they look like they’re ready to move, kill the SEALs. Take Carlson alive. I don’t care if she’s shot up a bit; just don’t kill her.”

  O’Donnell hung up the phone and stepped into a light afternoon shower. The clouds covered part of the sky, but directly above was brilliant blue. He looked upward, squinting to keep the water from his eyes. Several mini-rainbows danced about as the sunlight bent through the airborne moisture. The effect was intriguing, almost surreal.

  But one thing was not surreal, he thought. He had been given the green light to track down and kill McNeil and his men. And to capture Samantha Carlson. His heartbeat picked up a bit as he envisioned the upcoming mission. Ferreting out the enemy amidst the dirty, teeming Cairo streets, then methodically eliminating them. He smiled. He really enjoyed working for a living.

  Kerrigan placed a call to his mole in the CIA and advised him to keep Cairo under a magnifying glass. Watch for Internet connections, credit card authorizations, and hotel or car reservations for Travis McNeil, Alain Porter, Dan Nelson, Troy Ramage and Samantha Carlson. He placed a similar call to his inside connection at the NSA, and then poured some room-service tea. He put a dab of milk in the tepid drink, took a small sip and replaced the cup in the saucer. Fucking Brits. He hated tea and there wasn’t a single person on the entire island who could brew a proper pot of coffee. He despised London, but knew that New York was too far removed from the current action. He needed to be here. His thoughts returned to Africa, and to what had happened.

  Mugumba had screwed up. He had managed to locate the diamondiferous formation, then lose it when he lost his life. Not that Kerrigan gave a flying fuck about that greedy little turd. He cared solely about the diamonds. And once again the location had eluded him. He knew the extent of the wealth that existed inside that vein, and he wanted it. And he would get the precise location from Samantha Carlson’s lips just before he killed her. And then once he had it, he would fill her in on a little secret. He would watch the disbelief, the hatred build in her eyes. Then he would finish her off.

  “Bitch,” he said softly to the empty room. “Will you ever be surprised.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Samantha clutched the lamb close to the robes that covered her upper body, and moved away from the street vendor in search of Travis. She spotted him two stalls down, haggling on some black lentils for their daily kushar
i. She joined him, pulling the veil down over her blond hair. She couldn’t hide all of her face though, and numerous Arabs stared at her fair skin and blue eyes. Travis paid for the food and they walked briskly through the Khan El Khalili Bazaar back toward their Cairo apartment.

  The Friday prayer hour was over, and the ancient bazaar teemed with midday activity, just as it had since the fourteenth century. The stones that passed beneath their feet were worn, grooved from countless millions of hooves and sandals. Crumbling concrete replaced the original hand-cut stones that formed the walls lining the narrow, winding paths. The constant barrage of sights and sounds inundated the mind, but the pungent odors arising from food left in the afternoon heat assailed the senses. At times the aromas were sweet, almost pleasant, but mostly they carved a harsh path through the sinuses, leading an all-out assault on the brain. One shop ran into another, then ten, then a hundred and a thousand. They seemed unending, and Sam slowed her pace and rubbed the tip of her nose, trying to suppress the smells. Her eyes burned from the thick industrial pollution that hung in the air, the crud she ingested with every breath. She felt a tug at her elbow and turned to look at Travis, pointing at a break in the upcoming wall. A way out. She nodded and they moved toward it. She recognized the architecture, and thought back to what she knew of Egyptian history, if for no other reason than to diminish the horrific odors.

  The land of the Pharaohs. Or so was the common misconception, Sam thought. Cairo, in fact, was never a Pharaonic city; that honor belonged to the much smaller city of Memphis, which lay just south of the Giza Plateau. But it was Cairo that had grown, mosque by mosque, house by house. The Romans founded the city and were the first in a string of non-Egyptian rulers. Muslim Arabs replaced the Romans in 640 AD, rejected Babylon and built Fustat, a tent city on the northern extremes. Then came a series of governors, appointed by the caliph in Baghdad. Followed by the Fatimids, Mamluks, Ottomans, French, and eventually the British. When an Egyptian finally seized power in the person of Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956, control of their country reverted back to the Egyptians for the first time since the Pharaohs. And it was then that Cairo’s population exploded, making it the most densely populated spot on the planet. Egypt had a colorful history, even before one took into account the pyramids—a history that Sam had studied in depth while in university. She blinked a few times to acclimatize her pupils as they left the bright sunlight of the bazaar and entered the shadows that clung to the passageway.

  The high but narrow archway led through a decrepit building dating back to the era of the brutal Mamluks. An era of wonderment and excess. Trade and prosperity followed the rule of the Turkish slave-soldiers as they opened the canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea. But typical of Egypt’s violent history, a price was paid. The rulers reaped the riches that flowed from the trade route, with little but their brutality filtering down to the Egyptian masses. Even Qaitbey, a slave boy who rose to sultan, tortured and maimed the commoners as he built monuments to himself that stood today. Legend recalled the instance when a chemist was unsuccessful at transforming lead into gold: Qaitbey ripped out his tongue and eyes as punishment. As Samantha remembered the details from her college classes, the odors haunting the bazaar seemed muted, almost tolerable. She shuddered at the ability of man to inflict pain and suffering on his fellow man.

  Sam trailed Travis from the narrow confines of the passageway into a wider, more modern street and recognized where they were—one block from their apartment. Travis quietly opened and closed the outer doors and walked through the enclosed courtyard, pausing briefly at the fountain to splash some water over his face. Sam set the lamb on the dusty cobblestones and followed suit. The water felt wonderful in the arid May heat. She let the cool liquid drip from her face onto her chest and loosened her robes so the droplets fell on her breasts. Travis seemed not to notice the slight indiscretion. They took the stairs to the second floor where Alain Porter rested on a velvet couch.

  “Any word on Troy?” Travis asked, dropping the sacks of lentils, onions and noodles on the table.

  “Doc Adamson called about ten minutes ago. Troy’s strength is returning quicker than he thought. He said he’d be arranging for a flight back to America in about a week’s time.”

  “Excellent. Thanks.” Travis had limited connections in Cairo, but one had proved invaluable. Travis and Greg Adamson, a medic stationed briefly in Little Creek and now living a quiet life of retirement in Cairo, had stayed in touch over the years. Once Travis figured out that Cairo was the best route back to civilization, he called the doctor and put him on alert. They were incoming with a severe casualty.

  Billy Hackett had flown the surviving trio into the Ugandan city of Masindi, where for the appropriate amounts of cash no questions were asked. They chartered a Lear, usually used for moving packages, and flew eight hundred miles nonstop into Khartoum. More money crossed palms, and they refueled without incident. Khartoum to Cairo was about the same distance but entry into Egypt was more difficult. The plane sat on the runway for almost three hours before Travis finally talked to an official who could help them bypass customs. More money, a lot more, and they were in. But by now, Troy Ramage was in rough shape after the long haul from the wilds of upper Congo.

  Greg Adamson was waiting, having received Travis’s call from Masindi some nine hours earlier. Adamson looked haggard from the wait, knowing a desperate situation was only being made worse with each passing hour. When the officials finally released the plane and its contents onto Egyptian soil, Adamson whisked Ramage off to his residence without saying more than two sentences to Travis.

  “Here’s my address. Be there in three hours.” Then Adamson and his assistant were gone. Three hours to the minute later, Travis was standing on the doctor’s doorstep, at a striking home in the fashionable district of Mohandiseen, and he was taken aback by its opulence. Egyptian artifacts adorned the pedestals and tables, while more contemporary art graced the smooth white walls. An interesting mixture, but one that worked. The money to purchase the house and all its trimmings had been generously donated by the American government, Adamson informed Travis, after assuring the ex-SEAL that Ramage was out of danger.

  “One very high, and I mean very high, ranking government official had a mistress. He got pissed at her one night and beat her up pretty badly. They called me in to fix her up—save her life actually—then paid me off afterward.” The young doctor waved his hands around, gesturing to the expansive house. “And this is what I bought with the money.” He escorted Travis from the main living area of the house to an interior room in the basement. Travis was impressed with what he saw. A complete operating theater with equipment some cash-strapped hospitals only dreamt of having was laid out in front of him. Off to the right was a recovery room, where Troy Ramage lay quietly on clean linens, breathing regularly.

  “How bad was he?”

  “Almost didn’t make it. The slug through his abdomen wasn’t the problem, nor was the one that ripped through the muscle in his leg. The one in his shoulder was a different story. It lodged in such a way that when I took it out, it severed an artery. If he had been anywhere but here or a hospital, he’d be gone.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Travis said. “What do we owe you?”

  “I take donations, Travis. Whatever you can afford.”

  He thought back to the man footing the bills: Patrick Kerrigan. The man who had unleashed Mugumba and his troops on them. Travis still had access to the funds Kerrigan had made available for the team. He wrote a number on a piece of paper and held it up for Adamson to see. The doctor grinned and nodded.

  “I’ll bet charities get in fistfights to land on your doorstep. In fact, for that amount, I’ll take care of getting Troy back to the U.S. when he’s able. That way you can concentrate on whatever it is you’re up to.”

  McNeil thanked the doctor and returned to their modest apartment, to wait and regroup. It was not a short wait. Three days passed, and Travis, Alain and Samantha began to adjust t
o the climate and the food of the Egyptian capital. With the exception of visiting the Banque Masr to secure Adamson’s fee, they hadn’t ventured far from the safety the villa-style apartment provided them. The Lear pilot who had flown the final leg from Khartoum into Cairo owned the apartment and used it when he deadheaded in Egypt. His flight itinerary had taken him on to Venice the day they arrived, so he’d flipped them a key in consideration of twice the rent he could ever have hoped to garner from the villa. A win-win situation that gave what was left of the team safe quarters for a few days while they tested their options. And at present their options were limited.

  Kerrigan had set them up, of that they were sure. But he had failed, and in doing so had lost both Mugumba and the location of the formation. The only people still alive who knew how to access the diamonds were Samantha and Travis. And they were reasonably sure that Kerrigan knew that. Which meant he would be coming for them. Cairo was a huge city, its population base immense. But keeping under cover from someone of great wealth and resources, even in a city as densely populated as Cairo, was tricky. That Kerrigan was wealthy was a known fact, and if he was involved in shady deals to uncover hundreds of millions of dollars in precious stones, the chances were pretty good that he was well connected enough to eventually ferret them out. It was a waiting game, and the longer they stayed put, the greater the chances were that Kerrigan would find them.

  “We’ve got to lay down a plan of action of some sort,” Travis said, pacing the main room of the apartment like a caged animal. “We can’t go home, and we can’t just stay here indefinitely. Either way Kerrigan is going to find us, and I’d rather have the element of surprise on our side, not his.”

  “I’ve been monitoring the business section of the NewYork Times via the Internet in case Gem-Star makes an announcement of a major find in Africa. Nothing so far. If he’s managed to figure out where the diamonds are, that will take some of the pressure off us. If not . . .” Samantha let the sentence trail off.