Angels of Wrath - [First Team 02]

by Larry Bond

  “How about the Iraqis?” asked Ferguson. He ran his fork through the scrambled eggs. Apparently Brother-in-Law liked runny yolks and potatoes so crisp they endangered fillings.

  “All Iraqis are idiots,” said Brother-in-Law.

  “But Birk deals with Iraqis all the time.”

  Brother-in-Law made a face but didn’t answer.

  “Sometimes?” said Ferg.

  Brother-in-Law knew better than to say anything, but if Birk had a deal going with Khazaal he either didn’t know about it or didn’t realize Khazaal was Iraqi. The latter seemed pretty far-fetched; the former remained a possibility.

  After breakfast, they drove to a bicycle shop in the center of town where he bought a dozen used bicycles and had them loaded into the back, from there they went back to the dock where he’d tied up the boat.

  “Give my regards to Birk,” Ferg told Brother-in-Law as he handed him the promised money and another hundred for goodwill. “You probably ought to tell him I gave you a hundred to help. Knowing Birk he’ll want a cut.”

  The Brother-in-Law smiled and slammed the door.

  ~ * ~

  T

  hera and Monsoon returned to their hotel with an armload of toys and a large bag of batteries. By the time Ferguson returned—he’d stashed the bicycles in several strategic locations and parked the second truck near the first—Guns and Grumpy were racing two of the cars around the suite.

  “I have to go check in with Van,” Ferg told them. “Then I’m going to catch some z’s. Give those to Rankin when he wakes up. And don’t wreck them; he needs them to make some bombs.”

  ~ * ~

  27

  INCIRLIK, TURKEY

  Colonel Van Buren had just come back to his office when the call from Ferguson came through. He checked his watch. It was a little past ten a.m.

  “You’re up early,” he told Ferguson after he picked up the phone.

  “Haven’t been to bed,” said Ferguson.

  “No wonder you sound tired.”

  “Nah, must be the connection. Listen, Van, I’ve been thinking. I can’t blow them up when they’re meeting, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But they don’t know that.”

  “OK,” answered Van Buren, not entirely sure where Ferguson was going.

  “So what I do is, I make them think they’re being attacked, which gets them the hell out of there on our time schedule. We follow Khazaal, who probably heads back to the mosque—”

  “You can’t take him there either, Ferg.”

  “I’m not going to. We’re going to set up so that it looks like we will, though. Move people in and out of the area, make sure they’re seen.”

  “Then what?”

  “He’s going to do the logical thing and go for his airplane. I take him there. We compromise the air conditioning so it shoots dope into the cabin. The only question in my mind is whether we do it on the ground or in the air.”

  “Ground is easier and safer,” said Van Buren. “I can put two platoons of Rangers at the airport, land them near the plane. We’ll use the civvy 737 you guys dropped out of. I think it can land on that field.”

  They worked out the arrangements and contingencies, talking over the various options. While taking him on the ground at the airport would be easier than doping him in the air, it was likely to lead to political complications if things went wrong, since there would be plenty of people around to notice. But as they worked the possibilities back and forth, it still seemed a better bet.

  “I have to separate him from the jewels in case this doesn’t work,” added Ferguson. “That’s the tricky part. I have to do it before the meeting starts.”

  Ferg explained that the Iraqi kept the jewels near him but not with him, clearly not trusting any of the people he was dealing with. Ferguson needed a plan to separate the cars before the meeting, while he still knew where the jewels were.

  “What if he changes the way he does things before the meeting?” asked Van Buren, sensing from Ferguson’s dismissively breezy tone that he hadn’t finished thinking the mission through. “Maybe that’s the one time he brings them with him.”

  “It’s possible,” said Ferguson.

  “What are they trying to buy?” Van Buren asked.

  “That’s what has me beat. There’s at least one serious cruise missile on the market here, and a Russian expert who should know how to use it is in town. But the guy who has access to them claims he hasn’t been approached.”

  “Like an arms dealer never lies, huh?”

  Ferguson laughed. He was tired; the laugh was way too loud. Van Buren worried that Ferg was pushing himself too far. You had to be a little reckless to do what Ferguson did, but it was a controlled kind of recklessness, and despite his goofy veneer Ferguson was one of the most controlled people Van Buren had ever met, much more deliberate even than the anal drill sergeants who had introduced him to the army a million years before.

  Recklessness, controlled or uncontrolled, left little room for mistakes.

  “You OK, Fergie?” Van Buren asked.

  “I’m more than OK. I’m the best.”

  “Yeah, I know all that. You OK?”

  “I’m all right. A little tired. I have to take a nap. How’s your kid? Signed with the Red Sox yet?”

  “He’s got to go to college.”

  “I’d tell him to take the money and run.”

  “That’s why you’re not his dad,” said Van Buren.

  “Lucky for him.”

  ~ * ~

  28

  LATAKIA TWO P.M.

  The alarm on Ferguson’s watch beeped incessantly, growing louder until its owner finally found the button to turn it off. He stared up at the ceiling, momentarily disoriented.

  Did I take my stinking pills, or not?

  He couldn’t remember. The need to travel lightly had simply made the compartmentalized pill minders impractical, but there were times when even he could have conceded they were useful. Ferguson, still not sure, took a dose just to be sure; better to be a little hyper than seriously dragging, which was the effect missing even one round of the T3 replacement had on him lately.

  Outside in the common room, Rankin was dismantling the remote-control cars. “I assume there are going to be explosives to go with these,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Yeah, I have to go pick them up. You didn’t take apart my airplane, did you?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Why the hell don’t we use a real setup instead of this cobbled together crap?”

  “Two words: plausible deniability.”

  “Sounds like bullshit to me.”

  “That’s one word,” said Ferguson. “But it’ll do.”

  Ferguson intended that the weapons that he used would suggest the tactics favored by some of the insurgents in Iraq, specifically the southern Shiites who had access to some of the British equipment left behind in the war. His visit to Ras was intended to introduce the name Suhab Majadin to the local authorities. Ras hadn’t recognized it, but the Syrian intelligence service would. Suhab was the leader of a faction that hated Khazaal and vied with him to head the insurgency. A thorough investigation would show that Suhab was back in Iraq and had in fact been paid off by the present government to tone down his activities. But a thorough investigation was unlikely in Latakia.

  “Where’s Thera?” Ferguson asked.

  “Still sleeping.”

  “Wake her up, will you? I have another errand for her and Grumpy.”

  “Why don’t you wake her up?” said Rankin.

  “ ‘Cause if I go into her room I’m not sure I’ll come out,” said Ferguson.

  ~ * ~

  F

  orty-five minutes later, Thera and Grumpy found themselves in the casino of the Versailles, playing the slots with bogus slugs and watching for Birk. Thera’s appearance had changed considerably: most notably her hair was now fiery red and stretched well down her back. The effect was startling, even with the black l
ipstick. Unfortunately these changes were accompanied by one far less flattering: she had gained what looked like fifty pounds, the smooth curves now considerably rounder under her long skirt.

  Even disguised, Ferg had warned her that Birk might recognize her if she got too close, and so she let Grumpy do the hard work, betting colors on the roulette wheel, where the video bug that had replaced the button in his shirt could get a good view of Birk, who was testing his skill at calling sevens on the nearby craps table.

  From what Thera could see across the room, Birk was alone, except for his bodyguards. Ferguson wanted to know who he was meeting here. He suspected Ravid, since he was staying at the hotel, though Thera wouldn’t have been surprised to see Khazaal or Meles or even one of the men from the mosque.

  Birk was still alone when Ferguson’s phone call came. Birk took the call, listened, said something, then hungup and continued playing. Ten minutes later, he cashed out his chips—he was ahead—and went into one of the lounges. Thera followed, with Grumpy right behind her. The lounge was tiered; they took a table together on the top tier, diagonally across the room from Birk and positioned so that Grumpy’s video bug would catch the face of anyone sitting at his small table.

  “I was in the middle of a run, you know,” said the marine. “A few more rounds and I could have retired.”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” said Thera, surveying the room. She realized from his silence that he’d taken her seriously. “I was kidding. What would you do if you won a fortune? Go fishing?”

  “I hate fishing. Too boring,” said Grumpy. “I’d learn how to play golf and play every day.”

  “Golf?”

  “I always thought that would be a good thing to waste time on.”

  Across the room, a woman approached Birk. Thera turned to summon a waiter so she could get a better look. The woman was tall and with light features, almost surely a Westerner, and, thought Thera, vaguely familiar. “You getting that?” she asked Grumpy when she turned back.

  “I think so.”

  “Keep watching,” said Thera. “I’m going to the restroom.”

  She got up and took a circuit of the lounge area and bar, and even went back into the casino and the hotel without seeing Ravid or any of the others she might have suspected. By the time she returned to the table, the woman who had been meeting with Birk was gone and the arms dealer was on his cell phone.

  “Talked for a few minutes, then said bye-bye,” said Grumpy. “Didn’t look all that happy. What do you think? Unsatisfied customer?”

  Thera shrugged. The image would be looked at by analysts back in the States, who would compare it to known agents and others on their watch lists. Most of the players in international arms smuggling were male; Thera guessed the woman was a go-between for someone, maybe even a stranger picked at random to deliver a seemingly innocuous message or help check surveillance.

  They had another hour and a half before they had to meet Ferg. Until then, they’d stay with Birk as long as he was in the hotel. Birk had ordered a bottle of champagne and clearly wasn’t going anywhere. “Let’s get ourselves another round of Cokes,” said Thera, signaling to the waiter. “And then maybe you can explain what’s so interesting about whacking a defenseless little ball into a black hole all day.”

  ~ * ~

  A

  fter he called Birk, Ferguson rented a car from a rental agency in the center of town and took it to a shipping company in the port area. At the start of the operation he’d had a “goodie box” sent up with different tools of the trade, mostly obscure items that were impractical to carry around but potentially of use. The box did not include any explosives or weapons, since they would have likely been detected by X-rays or more sophisticated scans.

  The shipper was reasonably secure and reliable, but most of the companies in the port area were subject to occasional scrutiny by the local police, with everyone in and out noted. There was no way around this, and so Ferguson decided to take the job himself, figuring he was the most likely to be able to bail himself out of trouble. He dropped Monsoon two blocks away, and told him what to look for. Sure enough, he saw the pair of Syrian plainclothes security types sitting in their battered sedan as he drove up.

  But things went quickly at the counter inside, without the telltale frowns and eyeblinks that typically gave away an undercover operation. Ferguson took the box—it was the size of a microwave, though not quite as heavy—boosted it up on his shoulder, and carried it outside to the car. He’d gotten it into the trunk when he heard an approaching muffler that had a vaguely official rattle to it. When he slammed the trunk and turned around, the two plainclothesmen he’d spotted were getting out of the car, which they’d positioned to make it impossible for him to leave.

  “Ahalan,” Ferg said cheerfully in Arabic as they approached. “Hello.”

  Neither man smiled. Ferguson switched to English, putting his Dublin-laced brogue into it. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. How are y’today?”

  “Passport,” said the man nearest him.

  Ferguson took out his Irish passport and presented it, smiling brightly. Monsoon had stopped across the street and was looking on.

  “Your visa is not in order,” said the man.

  “I got it at the embassy,” said Ferguson, acting surprised. “I must have made a mistake somehow.”

  “Why would an American be in Syria?” said the other policeman.

  “I’m from Ireland,” said Ferguson. “Dublin. I’m on vacation.”

  “If you are on vacation, why are you accepting a package for business?”

  The dimensions of their scam—or, more specifically, their demand for a bribe—were now clear: the policemen would charge Ferguson with violating his tourist visa unless he offered to make up the difference between what the document cost and what an imaginary short-term business visa would. This could be quite expensive, but the real cost to Ferguson was time; he had a number of things to do this afternoon. So there was a slightly testy note in his voice as he expressed surprise and assured the men that he wanted always to comply with the law.

  “Then you will let us search the car,” said one of the policemen.

  “The car? Why not?” said Ferguson, holding up his hands. “Go to it.”

  Across the street, Monsoon leaned against a car watching as Ferguson dealt with the police officers. He had a small Taser in his hand. The basic guts were similar to the weapons he and Thera had used to subdue Birk’s guards, but its range was limited to a little over twenty feet because the dart it shot was attached to the device via wires. More important, he’d only be able to take out one of the policemen.

  But Ferguson seemed to have it under control. Monsoon watched as the Syrians went through the rental, which of course was clean since they’d just gotten it.

  “What are you doing?” asked a man in Arabic behind him.

  Monsoon scratched his ear and turned slowly. A Syrian almost exactly his height glared at him from a few feet away. The man had expensive shoes and a shiny watch; Monsoon guessed that he was the owner of the car he’d been leaning against and apologized in Arabic.

  “What do you have in your hand?” the man asked, pointing to Monsoon’s crossed arms.

  Monsoon rolled his eyes but decided it was best to make a discreet exit. As he took his first step, however, the man identified himself as a customs agent and reached to the back of his belt. As it turned out, he was only going for an ID, but Monsoon couldn’t afford to take a chance. He brought up the Taser and fired point-blank into the man’s neck, jolting him to the ground.

  Ferguson had seen the little fiasco developing across the street. He was ready, therefore, when the police officer nearest him reached for his gun. Ferguson dropped him with an elbow to the side of the head, barely having to move. The blow was hard enough to pry the gun from the policeman’s hand. Ferguson caught it in midair, barrel first, and used it as a hammer to make sure the policeman would stay down. By then the other man had scrambled ar
ound the adjacent car, fumbling for his radio as well as his gun. Ferg took one of his mini tear-gas grenades from his belt, pulled the pin, and threw it under the car.

  “Take the car,” Ferguson shouted to Monsoon as the canister exploded. He threw the keys to the Delta boy then jumped in the police car and backed it up far enough to move the other car. As he did, the policeman began emptying his service pistol into the vehicle; the tears in his eyes hurt his aim, but he got close enough to the car to send bullets through all of the windows. Ferguson dove out on the passenger side, rolled, and jumped to his feet, running to the rental car as Monsoon pulled out. He managed to get the back door on the driver’s side open before the policeman could reload. They raced down the block, then had to pull a U-turn and go back because it was a dead end. The policeman managed to get one shot in the trunk.