Air Marshals

by Wynne, Marcus

  "You'll need this, Jed," Charley said. He held out the xeroxed photograph they had taken away from the prisoner.

  Jed glanced at it, then slid it into the inner pocket of his battered Burberry overcoat. "George talk to you guys about what's going down out here?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'll be back to you about this," Jed said. He drew on his cigarette, took his time stubbing it out in the ashtray on the night stand. "You should have let me in on this early, Charley. Amateurish play, taking him on the street."

  "Nobody gets their nose up my ass or my people's, Jed. We're not street operators anymore...we're federal law enforcement..."

  "Officers of the Goddamn Law," Donald Gene said.

  "...and we did it crude to send a message." Charley looked away. "We can take one of theirs, too."

  "Bucky wasn't a small fry street operator, Charley," Jed observed.

  "I know what he was! He was my friend!"

  "He was my friend, too, Charley. He was a friend and a brother in arms. He wouldn't have wanted you fucking up, and that's what you're doing, running this cowboy shit on your own."

  "He ain't on his own," Don said.

  "I'm not going to argue with you two. Don't play this shit anymore. That's what me and my boys are here for. The two of you need to tend to your own business, and watch your own backs. You've got a full plate with what you've been tasked to do without getting into the other. I'm going to have a hard time covering this from the Germans and our people." Jed paused. "And Charley...you don't have a friend in Simon Dinkey."

  "Word travels fast," Charley said.

  "He's a highly efficient bureaucrat operator-wannabe, which makes him a consummate back-stabber. He put the word out on you. If this gets out, it's not going to help your case any." He rubbed at his forehead and pushed a lock of his graying hair back. "Why don't you guys do something simple, like robbery or murder or hijack a plane or something, huh? I got paperwork up the ass to deal with this." He went to the door. "I'll be in touch before you're gone, let you know what we get when we squeeze this guy. We'll have to get with the Germans. Be careful," he said as he left.

  The two marshals were silent. Don looked at his partner, who sat on the edge of the rumpled bed, staring grimly at his folded hands in his lap.

  "Well, maybe we got carried away, but we had fun," Don said. "You getting that funny feeling, brother Charley?"

  "Yeah."

  "That's the cross-hairs settling in on us."

  ***

  Ahmad Ajai doodled on the legal pad in front of him. Across the table, the muscular man who had expertly burgled the Air Marshals rooms shifted nervously from buttock to buttock on a stiff metal folding chair. As far as he could tell from upside down, Ajai was drawing a skillful rendition of a German bungalow, complete with a tree in the yard, a rope swing, and a weathered picket fence. Ajai seemed oblivious to the other man, which made him all the more nervous.

  "No one has seen Rashid since last night," the nervous man said.

  "From now on we must make sure that we always have back-ups," Ajai said without looking up from his drawing. "They took him."

  "Why would they take him? Why would they do that? There is nothing to link him to us."

  "I don't know why," Ajai said. He pushed the notepad away and stood. He stared out the window at the busy street below. Rashid would not have gone away without notifying them -- if he could. It seemed improbable that Dey or Nelson would have done something to Rashid; they were, after all, visiting law enforcement officers in a foreign country. If they had noticed the surveillance, those two knew what to do. It was a standard tenet of street tradecraft that if you noticed a surveillance, you gave no indication that you noticed; that would only cause the watchers to back off, and there were no guarantees that you would catch them the next time. Better to work with what you knew. But Rashid was missing and, improbable or not, he would have to consider the possibility that Dey and Nelson had taken him.

  "We'll move to the other safe house now," Ajai said. "The others are there. Rashid doesn't know where that is. We'll confine our coverage to the airport. We move. Now."

  "Yes, of course," the other man said. He went to the bathroom door rapped sharply. "Hurry up! We're leaving!"

  The bathroom door opened and a bearded man came out, wiping his face with a towel. The two of them swept swiftly through the room. They rolled the charts up, swept the photographs and notepads into a briefcase, bagged up the trash into a larger bag to be disposed of elsewhere. While they worked, Ajai stared out the window, as he often did. He liked the view here. He liked the cleanliness and orderliness of Germany. So unlike the camps where he had grown up. He sat on the bed while his men finished straightening the room. Some of the older members of his team would tease him, very lightly, about his habit of making the bed each morning before the maid came in. He liked sleeping between clean, fresh sheets, with a brocade bedspread and a warm blanket.

  "We must go," he said needlessly. He followed his two men out the door.

  ***

  Charley paced back and forth in his room, detailing the mission plan.

  "It appears that we may be under hostile surveillance. We've notified HQ and the appropriate locals, and we're going to go ahead with the mission. There is some suspicion that our travel information has been compromised...but we'll deal with that," he said.

  "How are we going to do that?" Joan asked, shifting on the bed, where she sat squeezed in between John and Butch.

  "We're going to step up our counter-surveillance, take extra precautions, change some things around," Charley said.

  "Maybe we should have a back-up team, Charley," Butch said.

  "I put in the request. Based it on increased threat. We've still got lots to cover in Asia, but this has been moved up the list for first priority."

  "How are we going to deploy till then?" Steve murmured.

  "We're going to devote more attention to counter-surveillance in the movement to and from lodging, and in the airport phases. I want the most experienced people on counter-surveillance, but I want you to work with the new people, so they get some experience and some seasoning with you."

  "Roger that," Steve said.

  "What's this I heard about somebody following you guys after we moved?" Karen said.

  "We already reported that. It's been taken care of." Charley studied Karen. "Everybody needs to protect their documentation. I want everyone to make sure that if you don't have your documents on you, that they're secured either by another team member or sealed and placed in a hotel safe. If you need some help or some ideas about how to secure your stuff, see Don or Stacy."

  Charley rubbed at the knot of tension that had grown at the base of his neck. "We need to pay attention on these next legs. We're dealing with smaller aircraft, but there aren't as many of us, either. Don, Butch, Jon, Joan -- you guys are going to take the splits to Athens. Everybody else is with me to Istanbul."

  "You think switching the assignments around might fool them?" Butch asked.

  "Maybe...they might be looking for specific names in specific places. If they don't see them, maybe that will set them back. And you new guys will get a chance to see some places you didn't count on seeing."

  "That's why I signed up," Jon said. "Fly to strange new places, meet strange new people, and shoot them."

  "Shut up, new boy," Donald said.

  ***

  ATHENS, GREECE:

  Athens Hellenikon International Airport has been on the Department of Transportation and Department of State's list of most dangerous airports for many years. In large part it holds its place on the list because of the Greek government's laissez faire attitude towards terrorism: as long as you don't do it here, we don't care what you do. The Greeks have an almost genetic love of the unconventional, the romantic figure of the law breaking outlaw or terrorist -- again, as long as the laws being broken and the people being hurt aren't Greek. The airport customs and security procedures are chaotic. Most of the time
all you need to do is display a passport, any passport, with a good picture or not, and, if the customs police aren't on strike that week, you are on your way.

  For all that, Donald Gene had always loved Athens. When he was a SEAL instructor, he had done a training exchange with the Greek combat swimmers and found them to be crazy, poorly trained, but great fun. His missions into Athens had all been good ones. He had good contacts in the military and at the embassy, including the DEA liaison who replaced the one assassinated by the November 17 terrorist group. That was a real goat rope, he thought. November 17 had started off as a clandestine US-backed operation to train Greeks to conduct cross-border ops into Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Then the coup engineered by the Greek military, with some assistance from US elements of the intelligence community, had fostered a bitter anti-American sentiment and the students had turned on their masters. Don had been a player in the game for so long that he could easily identify with those Greeks. There had been many times in Viet Nam and since when he had been tempted to storm his own headquarters and root out the paper-pushers whose theories cost young men their lives.

  The plane banked on its final approach to the airport. The Mediterranean was that deep, rich blue he had seen only one other place in the world, off the California coast. Cerulean was what one of his girlfriends had called it. Mara was an artist, a painter, a dreamy wild party girl who did huge portraits of faces. She'd been amused by him, had enjoyed the sex and his company and asked for nothing except that he model for her a few times. She titled the Don paintings the 'Warrior Series'', and displayed them at the UCLA Art Museum as part of her graduate thesis. Don smiled at the memory of the opening reception and his drunken entrance with the other members of his SEAL training platoon.

  He watched the runway come up beneath the wheels of the 727 as it settled smoothly down from sky to tarmac. At the end of the runway, an armored personnel carrier waited for the plane. It trundled slowly towards the terminal, the plane following dutifully. The plane stopped several hundred yards from the terminal. The passengers disembarked from the aircraft, loaded into a waiting bus and went to the terminal. A second bus came and picked up the remaining passengers. The marshals lingered in their seats till everyone else was off, and then with the flight crew and the flight attendants came down and boarded a crew bus. A quiet Greek soldier in a gray-green jumpsuit, green beret and jump boots, well-armed with a Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun and a Beretta 9mm pistol, escorted them from the bus into the terminal.

  After touching base with the Greek customs police, the marshals split into two buddy teams and took separate cabs to the Athens Hilton. Don watched the road and the cars whip by as the cabby broke every posted speed limit. Butch slumped down in the seat beside him, entering the exchange rate for drachmas to dollars into his portable calculator.

  "What do you think of the new blood, Butchie?" Don asked.

  "This damn thing," Butch muttered. "I can never get it right."

  "I don't know why you bother with that. You can never find it when you need it."

  "It'll save time when I'm shopping."

  "You've been saying that for three years now, Butch, and you still don't know how to work the goddamn thing."

  "What did you ask me?"

  "You're getting deaf, too. I asked you what you thought of the new kids."

  "Oh. They'll work out. That Jon, he's a good one. He's just young. Joan...if they're not fucking, they will be soon. We might want to break them up a little."

  "You sure you're not trying to dick her?"

  "Like you're not?"

  The two men laughed.

  "All right," Don said. "I'll work with young Jon and you work with Joan. I know you won't fuck her because your heart can't take it."

  "You're an asshole, Don."

  The cab pulled in off of the busy Leoforos Vas Sofias and into the long, circular driveway in front of the Athens Hilton. Don and Butch got out, tipped the driver and went past the long line of foreign flags in front of the hotel and through the front entrance.

  At the registration desk, Don said, "Mr. Nelson and Mr. Verlaine." The clerk looked up and smiled. "Ah, yes, Mr. Nelson. Welcome back to the Athens Hilton. The embassy called and made the changes to the reservations earlier this morning. You are taking the block of rooms reserved for Mr. Dey?"

  "That's right," Don said. He noted the two Greek men standing by the elevator banks to the right of the registration desk. Despite their civilian clothes, they carried themselves with the unconscious arrogance of a police man. The younger of the two kept brushing at his left armpit when he talked with his partner.

  "So how are things in sunny Athens?" Don asked, filling out his registration card.

  "As good as always, Mr. Nelson. Last week there was a bus strike, but fortunately it is resolved."

  "For now," Butch said.

  "We have rooms for you on the eighth floor," the clerk said.

  "VIP treatment, huh?" Don said, looking up.

  "Yes. It is a slow time for us, so it is not a problem to upgrade old guests with us. A returning customer is always a prize."

  "Can't help but like that," Don said.

  He and Butch picked up their carry-on bags and went to the elevator. The two plain clothes cops looked them up and down and then pointedly ignored them.

  "What's up with them?" Butch said as they got on the elevator.

  "They don't like Americans," Don said. "How long has it been since you've been here?"

  "A year or so...never longer than overnight. This is the first time I've ever had a day layover here."

  "Athens is a fun city. We'll take the kids out to dinner tonight."

  Across from the elevator, a man sat in one of the lobby's comfortable lounge chairs reading a newspaper. He watched the elevator door close behind the two marshals. He saw the two policemen from the Anti-Terrorist Unit lingering in the lobby area. Their presence had nothing to do with him; it was a measure designed to ease foreign tourists perception of Athens as a violent place. Greece's economy relied heavily on tourism, and anything that kept the tourists and their money away from Greece was a matter of national security. The man noted that the marshals had arrived in two pairs of two, much as they were deployed on the aircraft. He folded his newspaper under his arm and walked out, paying no attention to the woman who sat nearby at a table, sipping a coffee.

  ***

  Donald Gene looked round the rough wooden table at his crew, who held English-Greek menus in their hands. "The lamb is great in this place," he said. "You order it by the quarter-kilo...that's a half-pound. It's marinated, then roasted...it's the specialty of the house."

  "How long have you been coming here, Don?" Joan asked.

  "This place has been one of our spots for years. A couple of flight attendants and a buddy of mine from the embassy took me and Charley down here, and we've been coming here since. You like it?"

  Don seemed more relaxed and easy-going, Joan thought. The change was intriguing, even though she enjoyed the outrageous bad boy SEAL act. "Yeah," she said. "I do. Can we get some wine?"

  "Whatever your little heart desires," Don said.

  Jon looked up at that.

  They settled on a platter of roasted lamb, a kilo and a half, big village salads with thick sliced tomatoes and cucumbers topped with fresh feta cheese, bread and several bottles of good red Greek Demestica wine. They toasted each other and laughed their way through the first bottle, and were well into the second before the food came. They dug in with gusto, and Don said nothing about the quiet man eating alone in a corner of the restaurant who was so careful not to look at them.

  ***

  Donald Gene and his crew strolled through the Kolonaki District back to the hotel. It was a short walk, maybe twenty minutes, down the hill from the restaurant, past the Holiday Inn and then up the alleys and back streets behind the Athens Hilton. Donald lagged behind, pausing from time to time to draw hard on his cigar and keep a good ash going. He used the time
to look casually at the man carefully following a good distance behind his crew.

  "Yo, Butchie!" he called. Butch turned around and came back. "Give the kids some room," Don said, gesturing at Jon and Joan, who were deep in conversation. "It ain't gonna compromise the mission if they want to exchange bodily fluids in a heated transaction between two consenting adults."

  "You mean fuck?"

  "You're so crude, Butch. I mean 'making love.'"

  "Do you think they'll mind if we watch?"

  "Probably. But we could listen...what they don't know won't hurt them."

  They laughed and fell into step together.

  "Butchie?" Don said softly.

  "Yo."

  "You been seeing this guy dogging our steps all night?"

  Butch started to look over his shoulder and caught himself. "No."

  "You better get on the stick, old dog, or I'm gonna kick your ass. We can let those kids be distracted by their hormones -- but you and me have to carry the weight. Stop up here and give me a light for this fucking cigar."

  They paused and leaned against a green Renault sedan parked crazily half on the curb and half in the street. Don leaned into the lighter Butch held, and sucked greedily on his cigar. Butch looked over Don's shoulder and saw the watcher, a block back, stop and stare into the window of a closed shop.

  "Yeah, I got him. Is there more than one?" Butch asked.

  "Not that I've made."

  "Let's get back to the hotel. They won't try nothing there with all the Greek police around."

  They hurried and caught up with Joan and Jon in the hotel lobby. The marshals lingered for a moment in front of the elevator, and then Joan said, "I'm going up. Good night, guys."

  "I'll go with you," Jon said, with a quick glance at Don, who ignored him.