Sahara

by Russell Blake

  A two-hundred-seventy-meter cargo vessel that was a decade past its safe operating life sat at the farthest jetty, where a crane was off-loading crates emblazoned with Chinese script while a throng of bored workers watched with dull eyes. The ship’s name, Tian Xiu Li, was emblazoned across its black bow in mustard lettering that looked as though it had been applied by a shaky hand, and its crew of Asian seamen watched the unloading process from the relative safety and comfort of the deck, well away from the dangers that roamed the waterfront in the form of armed militias and pistol-packing intermediaries out for a cut of whatever they could squeeze from unsuspecting sailors.

  A functionary in a perspiration-stained official tunic stood in the shade of one of the cranes with a clipboard and a stub of pencil, noting the crates as they were stacked in a holding area by one of the warehouses that lined the harbor. Beside him was a tall man with chiseled features and a gray beard, his clothing of a better cut than most and his direct gaze that of a man accustomed to having his orders followed.

  “What brings you down here today, Idris?” the customs official asked.

  “Just making sure that my cargo makes it off the boat in one piece,” the bearded man answered.

  “Haven’t seen you here in person in quite some time. Must be something pretty valuable to force you out of your air-conditioned office, eh?”

  Idris shrugged and looked away. “Not really. It was a slow day, so I thought I’d come down and see how the other half lives.”

  They both laughed, and the functionary moved to one of the stacks of crates. “Any idea what’s in these?”

  “Go ahead and open them. Just boxes of cheap garments. The usual, Hakim. Nothing worth your time, I assure you.”

  The customs officer eyed Idris skeptically. “A bunch of Nike and Puma knockoffs brought you to the docks? Why do I have a hard time believing that?”

  “No doubt because you’re too cynical in your old age, my friend. But go ahead and open a few. I really don’t mind.”

  Hakim continued past that stack and stopped to watch a larger crate being lowered to where a decrepit forklift was waiting to haul it into the warehouse.

  Idris removed a packet of cigarettes from his breast pocket and shook one free. “Smoke?”

  Hakim took the proffered cigarette and eyed it. “I heard these might be bad for you.”

  “Nonsense,” Idris replied with a grin. “The only things you have to worry about are women and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Avoid those and you’ll live forever.”

  Idris held Hakim’s stare as he lit his cigarette for him, and then one for himself. The pair watched the large crate come to rest on the concrete, and Hakim tapped ash from the tip of his smoke.

  “I’m thinking I might want to have a look in that one.” He studied his clipboard. “Not sure I see it on the manifest.”

  “Could be an oversight. Who knows what goes on in the Chinese mind?”

  “Still. Now I’m curious.”

  Idris sighed and nodded. “You have an unfailing nose for these sorts of things, my friend. Come into the shade and let’s discuss how best to ensure that nobody has to stay in this heat a moment longer than necessary.”

  “It is unbearable, isn’t it?”

  “Life is suffering, is it not? Come. Let’s discuss how to make our lives a little easier for the time being.”

  Ten minutes later, Hakim strolled from the dock, a spring in his step and two months’ salary in cash in his pocket. Idris watched him depart and nodded to the forklift operator, who made quick work of moving the container into the warehouse, followed by three more with the same markings. When he was done, Idris pulled the metal door closed and dialed a number on his cell phone.

  Later that afternoon a pair of SUVs rolled to a stop by the warehouse, and a trio of hard-looking men accompanied Idris into the building while their drivers and bodyguards waited by the vehicles, submachine guns at the ready.

  At the first of the crates, Idris removed part of the wooden siding to reveal a row of green metal canisters packed in Styrofoam sheathes. He pulled one free, revealing faded Chinese script on the side and an internationally recognized symbol – a biohazard logo.

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” he said.

  One of the men took the canister and examined it closely, and then nodded to the others. “Pay our friend here and get these into the trucks.”

  The youngest of the trio removed a phone from his pocket, tapped a series of keys, swiped twice, and then held it out to Idris. “Enter the account digits there.”

  Idris complied, and moments later the device pinged twice. The young man nodded. “It’s done.”

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” Idris said, his grin back in place. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “We may. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Excellent news. I’m always available.”

  The transfer of the canisters took fifteen minutes, and when the vehicles drove away, Idris squinted through cigarette smoke as their brake lights receded along the waterfront. He had no interest in what the miscreants who’d taken the canisters planned to do with them, nor any guilt over possibly involving himself in some horror. He was a businessman, an import/export entrepreneur who’d seized the opportunity presented by the collapse of the state and stepped in to provide a valuable service, nothing more. He could arrange for virtually anything to pass in either direction through the port – contraband, drugs, weapons, human beings – it was all cargo that carried a price.

  The canisters had been transshipped to a little-used port in China, where they’d been packed along with the rest of the items he’d imported to Libya, and had made their way to Tripoli without any of the annoying possible inspections many of the more mainstream hubs conducted.

  What their ultimate owners did with them wasn’t his affair, any more than the countries that produced the vast majority of weapons used for mass murder cared what their products were used for or where. If he hadn’t facilitated the transaction, another like him would have, and he was pragmatic about the ways of the world after watching his country disintegrate into anarchy after another government had toppled the leader when he’d dared to propose trading the country’s oil in gold-backed currency rather than the dollar. That sin, coupled with refusing to allow the country to have a privately owned central bank – controlled by the dynasty that controlled the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, and through it virtually all central banks in the world – had signed Qaddafi’s death warrant, and the U.S. had obligingly had him murdered, and plunged the nation into chaos.

  Idris dropped the cigarette on the dank concrete and crushed it with the toe of his expensive loafer. Before a provisional government had even been installed in Tripoli following the “rebels” overthrowing the regime, an agreement to create a privately owned central bank had been signed by the country’s “representatives,” and hundreds of tons of the nation’s gold stores had gone missing. All discussion of trading oil for gold-backed dinars stopped with Qaddafi’s execution, the message delivered to anyone else stupid enough to dare reject the petrodollar for oil trade. First Saddam Hussein, whose sin had been the same proposal to pull out of OPEC and trade Iraq’s oil for gold-backed currency, and then Qaddafi. Only Syria’s Assad and Iran were left as regimes that rejected the petrodollar and wanted something of tangible value for their oil, and both had been targeted by the bankers’ mercenary armies for their audacity.

  It was the way things worked. Idris was a small cog in a complicated machine, skimming a few million here and there while the real players destroyed nations for profit. If his customers wanted some forbidden substance for some nefarious purpose, that was their business. He wished them nothing but well, and indeed hoped that they returned for more transactions. They’d paid promptly and caused no trouble, and had arranged for their shipment in China, so all Idris had been required to do was pay off a few port authorities and the captain of the ship – and, of
course, his good friend Hakim, who for all his pretense was in the same business as Idris, only at a lower level on the food chain.

  “Mashi. It is done,” he murmured, and took care to double lock the warehouse door before turning to one of his facility’s armed guards and nodding. “Night,” he said. The man’s eyes glowed white in the darkness as he cautiously nodded back; a hired gun working dangerous duty in one of the most perilous ports on the planet, doing what he had to do to put food on his family’s table at a rate that equated to fifteen dollars a week, for which he was expected to kill, or give his life defending his post.

  Idris made his way to his waiting car. His driver had spent the better part of ten hours behind the wheel in case his master required something, which was par for the course. Idris hummed a pop song as he walked along the waterfront, debating his choices for dinner companionship from the myriad youthful romantic possibilities created by Libya’s financial ruin, a man without a care in the world who’d just had another in a long string of profitable days.

  Chapter 5

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  Jet looked in on Hannah, with Matt by her side in the hall, and then entered her darkened bedroom to smooth the sleeping girl’s hair. After several moments watching her daughter slumber, she crept back to the doorway and took Matt’s hand.

  “Did she feel hot to you? Running a fever?”

  “Not at all,” Matt whispered. “She was fine all day. Don’t worry if she’s got a little scratchy throat. Kids get sick. It’s normal. They’re little Petri dishes, running around with each other in school. It’s bound to happen.”

  Jet didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know…”

  “Seriously. She’s fine.” Matt pulled her into the hallway and closed the door. “But what about you? Let’s talk about that.”

  “I’m conflicted, Matt. I mean, I swore I wouldn’t do any more ops. The director knows that. But this is a special case…”

  “Aren’t they all? I mean, every single time it’s ‘this time is different,’ isn’t it? You can’t keep doing this.”

  “I know. I thought it was over. But it’s David’s sister…”

  Matt frowned. “So he says. But where’s the proof? How do you actually know that’s true? I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

  “They’re sending someone over with the file. Her entire history. Apparently there’s a strong familial resemblance. I’ll know.”

  Matt sighed. “Let’s assume she is. I mean…Libya? That’s got to be one of the most dangerous places on Earth right now.”

  “No question.”

  He eyed her, his expression serious. “You’re seriously thinking about going?”

  She smiled faintly. “It’s been pretty boring around here lately.”

  He didn’t return her smile. “Yeah. Training and having a normal life with me and your daughter. Who’d want that when they could risk everything for some quasi-cause?”

  “I wouldn’t even be considering it if she weren’t David’s sister, Matt. You have to know that. Besides, it sounds like a straightforward extraction. The only reason they approached me is because I’ve been on the ground there before.”

  “And because they knew they could guilt you into agreeing.”

  “I haven’t agreed to anything.”

  “Yet.” Matt released Jet’s hand and walked to the dining room. Jet followed. “I know you,” he continued. “You’ve already made up your mind. This is how you act when you’re trying to convince me you haven’t.”

  “I want to see the file first, but yes, I’m leaning that way.”

  “And how long did they say this little adventure would take?”

  “Not long. Though we didn’t discuss logistics in depth.”

  He sat at the dining room table and eyed the chandelier overhead, which they both knew was bugged. “You made a deal with them. They agreed. You weren’t going to do any more missions. No more risking your life.”

  “True. But–”

  The doorbell interrupted them. Jet’s mouth hardened into a thin line, and she marched down the hall to the entrance and swung it open.

  The director was standing there clad in a typically rumpled gray suit, his skin yellowed from nicotine, his gray hair thinner than she remembered, a manila folder in his hand. He cleared his throat, and a waft of stale cigarette stink drifted into the hall.

  “I brought the document we discussed,” he said. “Signed by the prime minister.”

  He held out an envelope, and she opened it and scanned the single page. When she met his eyes again, her expression was unreadable. “Seems pretty clear. No more active duty. My obligations discharged by continuing as a trainer. No caveats or exceptions.”

  “Correct. If you decide to take on this operation, it’s not obligatory in any way. It would be completely voluntary, no coercion, no threats. As of the signing of that letter, you’re officially retired, and nobody can force you to do anything ever again.”

  Jet looked him over. “I presume you brought the file?”

  He nodded. “Are you going to invite me in?”

  “My kid’s asleep, and my…I have company. How about I review this and get back to you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be up late tonight. There’s some urgency to this.”

  “There always is.”

  He removed a thicker envelope from his breast pocket and passed it to her. “It’s all in there. Anything operational I’ve left out, but all the background is in those pages. If you decide you want to help, then I’ll send you the operational side. But I should warn you that the situation is in flux. It’s…dynamic.”

  “Does it cover why she was in so deep and for so long?”

  “Yes.”

  Jet shook her head. “I can’t imagine spending years in a scenario like that…”

  The director nodded wearily again. “It’s definitely not for everyone. She’s sacrificed a lot. Which is why I thought you might…that her predicament might resonate with you. She’s out on a limb, completely on her own, in hostile territory, and she needs to come in. Says she has the mother lode. Her words, not mine. So we have to do everything we can to help.”

  “A simple rendezvous and extraction, I believe you said.”

  He looked away. “I might have been overly optimistic about the simple part.”

  “Do you have assets in place to help with the extraction?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Not a great answer.”

  His shoulders lifted slightly, and he studied one of his palms. “An honest one. We would need you to be prepared to leave immediately.”

  “I’m not going into a hot zone with nothing but high hopes. Never again. Your last couple of rush jobs almost got me killed. That won’t fly anymore.”

  “You’ll be instrumental in the planning process. You have my word.”

  “I’ll need to understand exactly what I’m up against.”

  “At this point, it’s an extraction, nothing more.”

  “I’ll look over the background and call later.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Is there anything else?”

  “No. I appreciate your considering taking this on. I know there’s been some bad blood…”

  “No bad blood. You’ve just sent me into the lion’s den more times than I can count, and left out key parts of the story that could have gotten me killed. Nothing personal, I know. All part of the job.”

  “It’s not always easy making the right judgment call on how much to disclose.”

  “I understand. Which is why I quit. I don’t want to die because you made an error in judgment.”

  “Fair enough. Look it over and let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  She shut the door and returned to the dining room, where Matt was sipping a glass of juice. “I read that Tel Aviv is the most expensive city in the world. Based on what this cost, I believe it.” He met her gaze. “Well?”

  “This is a letter from the prime minister absolving me of al
l past offenses, and excusing me from ever having to do anything for anyone, other than train recruits,” she said, placing the letter in front of him on the table. “And this is the dossier on David’s sister.”

  She opened the envelope and withdrew a half dozen pages. On the first were four black-and-white photographs. Jet studied them for several beats and nodded. “You can see the resemblance in the eyes and nose. And her chin. She’s his sister, all right.” She continued scanning the documents, which consisted of a miniature birth certificate, school records, military service, and other background information that established her bona fides and her background. When Jet was done, she pushed the pile of documents to Matt, who looked them over with a practiced eye before sitting back.

  “So now what?”

  Jet reached across the table to take his hand. “I’m afraid we both know.”

  “When?”

  “Probably first thing in the morning. Maybe sooner. I won’t know until I see the ops sheets.”

  “Would it change anything if I said I hate this?”

  “It would make me love you even more if you let me do what I need to do, even though you hate it.”

  “I’d like to pretend I’m a better man than I am, but this bugs the crap out of me. You were supposed to be done with this. For good.”

  “I know. Take care of Hannah for me. Libya isn’t that far away. I shouldn’t be gone too long.”

  He squeezed her hand and managed a sad smile. “Does it matter if I don’t believe a word of that?”

  “Neither do I. But I’ll play along. It’s Hannah’s aunt, Matt. That makes her family whether I like it or not.”

  “Hannah needs a mommy more than an aunt she never knew existed.”

  “And I’m planning on returning, Matt. I promise you I will. I know when I’ve pushed my luck.”

  “The cat with ninety lives gets real. That’s a hopeful sign.”

  She rose and tugged his hand. “Let me call the director, and then maybe you can help me pack or something.”

  That elicited a grin. “I like the sound of or something.”