by Dalton Fury
The physical training occurred during the daylight hours, when drones could be spotted, though Doyle still kept his men under some degree of cover that shielded their actions from the skies. The men did PT and worked on hand-to-hand combat in the makeshift gyms, they trained with firearms on the partially covered range, and they practiced with the Igla-S system, using mock-up devices made out of mortar shells and dead car batteries and grip and trigger mechanisms removed from rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
The models looked odd, but they rested on the shoulder and they used modified iron sights made from tin, and the weight, at just over seventeen kilograms, was almost exact. The men had to pull them quickly from the backs of cars and from boxes and even from holes in the ground and then get them on their shoulders and aim them. They had to run with them, climb ladders with them, and even though they did not have an actual SA-24 there in the village, they studied the schematics of the weapon and watched videos on YouTube until late in the night to familiarize themselves with the missile system.
Doyle pushed them relentlessly, and after a few days of this, he selected four men out of the twelve. He told these men that they had earned a special place in the mission, right alongside David himself. Their training during the day would be done away from the other men of the cell, on the far side of the village. Here, Doyle had a twenty-foot-long steel intermodal transport-shipping container brought up from the wharf in Mukalla City on the coast. Without explaining the reasoning behind this, he then had it painted the same color as the sandstone buildings of the village, and placed four feet in the air on bricks. He blocked off the rear half of the container with sandbags, and then stacked wooden ammo crates along one wall of the container, leaving a space eight feet wide, seven feet tall, and ten feet deep.
David brought his four cell members to the front of the crate and opened the steel door. “Our part of this mission, my brothers, will require the most discipline. The hardest part will not be the act of firing the surface-to-air rockets, No, it will be waiting for our moment of jihad. All five of us must spend much time in a place just like this. We will train by sleeping here.”
One of the men looked at Doyle. “All of us? Sleeping in this little space?”
“Yes. Our role in the attack will be the most important, but it will also be the most dangerous. Where we are going there will be much security, so we will hide in a space much like this walled-off container. Here we will wait, and I do not know how long. Perhaps just overnight, but perhaps longer. Only our faith will get us through this.”
“What are we waiting for?”
Doyle smiled, squeezed the Iraqi’s shoulder. He looked directly at the young man but addressed then all. “For the perfect moment. When it is time for our attack, we will leap out of our hiding place, quickly arrange ourselves and our weapons, and all fire simultaneously. We must practice relentlessly to do this quickly, quietly, and perfectly, because we will only have one opportunity.”
And with that David and the four confused cell members all crammed into the small space. He pulled the door shut and locked them in. They had to sleep with their knees in their chests, shoulder to shoulder, through the heat of the steel box.
It was miserable, but David promised them all paradise for their efforts.
During the day, while other cell members spent time on other tasks, David and his men trained on quickly opening the container’s door, and then leaping to the ground with their rifles around their necks. Once on the ground, they each pulled a launcher from the container, shouldered the heavy device, and aimed it at a point in the sky.
Over and over again he and his men practiced their quick escape from the container and their quick preparation to fire.
At first it took the five of them a minute and a half to accomplish this, much of the time wasted by getting in one another’s way trying to slide the missile launchers on the floor of the container and then struggling with getting them on their shoulders. But as they progressed they became more efficient. David ordered the men out of the container two at a time, with the second pair helping the first to shoulder their weapons. Then, while the first pair moved away from the doorway of the container and aimed their tubes, the second pair leapt down, and David helped them both with their Igla-S’s. These two men lined up with the first pair as David leapt down the four feet and managed his own preparations. When he was ready he shouldered up to the others and gave the order to fire.
After several hours of repetition of this, the five men had their time down to forty-six seconds, roughly half the time of their initial attempts.
David was pleased with the progress, but he wanted it done faster. He knew something the others did not.
Their target would have, literally, hundreds of security assets around him, and this security would envelop David and his four men almost as soon as they revealed themselves.
Doyle decided he would have to shave at least fifteen seconds more off of the process if his mission was to be certain of success.
Because in order to kill the President of the United States, David knew, every last second would count.
* * *
Two days after Myron Curtis told Kolt Raynor that his AFO cell would be able to take part in the mobile surveillance, he finally kept his word. Curtis hung up from a call with Murphy and Wychowski in the commo room, and then leaned into the kitchen, where Racer and Hawk were eating a late lunch of rice and beans.
“Okay, you’re up. Shake a leg.”
Kolt looked up from his plate. “What’s up?”
“The rabbit Mercedes S600 just left Maadi Land and Sea. Murphy and Wychowski are tailing it, but it’s heading into the city, and Cairo Station doesn’t have anyone to spare. We need another vehicle to help with the coverage.”
Raynor and Bird were moving before Curtis finished speaking. They had backpacks loaded in the hallway, with keys and mobile phones resting on top of them. They scooped these items up as they ran out of the safe house.
Hawk got behind the wheel of their two-door Renault and Racer climbed into the passenger seat, and they headed out of the front gate of the parking lot and then northeast into the city. Kolt plugged in the external GPS antenna and waited fifteen seconds for the icon on the laptop screen to come to life against the satellite photo of their area of operations before establishing comms with Murphy to coordinate their movements. Soon Hawk was bumpered a few blocks away when the Mercedes pulled into a parking garage at a shopping mall in Heliopolis.
Murphy notified Racer that he and Wychowski weren’t going in.
Kolt said, “You want us to try a foot-follow?”
“Negative, Racer. We don’t know how many are in the car. Let’s stay safe for now and wait till they head out.”
Kolt did not like this, but he also did not want to press his luck on their first run. They repositioned across the street from the CIA team in hopes of gaining the follow when the rabbit vehicle departed.
At six p.m., the Mercedes left the shopping mall and Kolt and Hawk immediately took the lead in the two-car surveillance set. They followed at a safe distance as the black luxury car with the tinted windows headed north. Twice they passed off coverage to Murphy and Wychowski in the beige Renault two-door, but each time they rotated back up after a few minutes, overtook the CIA men, and accepted the lead again.
After a long drive in heavy traffic, Hawk passed the Mercedes two lanes over and took up the surveillance in her visor mirror. The rabbit took a turn to head into Garden City and the CIA team followed as Hawk and Racer took the next turn to catch up by a different route. The Mercedes S passed by the U.S. Embassy, and then they turned onto the Kornish al Nile, the same road as Maadi Land and Sea Freight, Ltd., though they were several miles north of the JSO compound.
The Mercedes pulled into the Kempinski Hotel parking lot, and the CIA Renault kept heading up the Kornish. Murphy phoned Kolt and Hawk to pass the word.
Cindy said, “It’s 1830 hours. My guess is they are there for dinner.�
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“Swing around and park. It’s got to be a monster lot. We can monitor the Mercedes while they are inside.”
Cindy did as Kolt instructed, pulling the vehicle far from where she saw the Mercedes parking. But by the time she put the vehicle in park, they both saw a man halfway to a side entrance of the hotel.
Kolt leaned forward, squinting. “Is that…”
“It’s Afifi,” Cindy said. “The guy Slapshot got the picture of on the balcony of Stone the other day.”
“He’s by himself,” Kolt remarked.
But Cindy was not listening. Instead, she was a blur of movement on his left. She turned off the ignition, tossed the keys in Kolt’s lap, and said, “You’re up!”
With no shred of grace or glamour, she then crawled over her seat and into the backseat of the car. She dug around into her backpack for several seconds, then pulled out a small black cocktail dress, a pair of medium heels, and a new packet of panty hose.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kolt asked while maintaining visual out the window.
She undid her hair clip and let her black locks fall freely down to her shoulders and in front of her face.
“Putting on my sexy. Are you blind?”
“You are not going in there alone. It’s too risky.”
“Boss, we’re still just guessing at all this. We need some fresh intel.”
“Hang on, I’ll go with you,” Kolt said.
“Racer, I can do this one better alone.”
Raynor stared at her in the rearview mirror. He knew she was right. They really needed eyes inside and in the parking lot.
She looked at him in the mirror for a second before pulling off her top. “No peeking, please.”
Raynor forced his eyes back to the entrance of the Kempinski, knowing that he needed to make sure Afifi did not leave.
After a moment he decided he needed to check on his colleague. Her dress was on now, sort of, and she was sliding one beautiful, tanned, and incredibly toned leg into her panty hose.
“Are we going to talk about what you’re about to do?”
“I’m going to walk in there like I own the place and belly up to the bar. I’ll be discreet, no drama.”
Kolt replied, “Not dressed like that, you’re not.”
“Really, Frank? You are telling me how to dress?”
“Yes. You are going to attract too much attention like that.” Raynor began to turn away.
“Why?” Hawk asked.
“I need to spell it out for you?”
“I’d like that very much,” she said with a little smirk.
“Sorry, Hawk. I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”
She was putting her heels on now. “Look. I won’t draw attention. I’m not going in to get next to him, and I’m not going to do anything obvious. I go in. I have a drink. I walk out.”
“I’m not sure about this,” Kolt admitted.
“It’s my ass,” Cindy said.
“No, if you get burned, it’s my ass.”
“I won’t get burned. If you’re worried that much, you better get around to the black side and cover the service entrance, because I’m heading to the bar and will monitor the front.”
Cindy climbed out of the car and headed toward the front entrance with a small handbag that seemed to appear from thin air, but most likely came out of her backpack. While Raynor watched her walk away, she flipped her hair up, then grabbed the sides of her dress near her hips and tugged it to remove the wrinkles across her rear end.
Kolt shook his head in disbelief, put the car in gear, and headed around back.
* * *
She came out just fifteen minutes later, and called Raynor to come back around to pick her up. He did so, and they headed back out into the Saturday afternoon traffic on the Kornish al Nile.
“Tell me you didn’t give him your phone number,” he said.
“You’re funny. No, I didn’t, but I did learn that the bartender in the lobby makes a gin and tonic that will knock you on your ass, and I learned that you and I have a date.”
“What?”
“Afifi had a drink with a woman. They were all over each other. Then he got a phone call. I heard him repeat it back. He has to go to the Sofitel back down in Maadi. It sounded to me like it was business, he’s been ordered to meet someone there for dinner.”
“Did he say who?”
“If he did, I didn’t pick it up. My Arabic isn’t that great. I can tell you from the tone of his voice after he hung up that he was pissed, and so was his date. I figure we can get there first and plop down in the lobby for a drink.”
“Did he scope you in there?”
“Negative. One hundred percent certain. Possible his date did, but she’s not going to the Sofitel.”
Kolt thought it over. “Okay, I’ll pull over and you can drive, I need to stow the laptop and radio.”
“You also need to change clothes, boss.”
“Right, although I don’t think I can pull off the transformation you just made.”
Hawk said, “I’ll tell Murphy what we’re doing.”
* * *
They arrived at the Hotel Sofitel Maadi Cairo Towers and Casino shortly before seven, with Kolt behind the wheel again, having switched back out with Hawk for the appearance of their cover. Immediately a valet appeared at Raynor’s driver’s-side window. Kolt put the car in park and stepped out.
“Your keys, sir?” the man said in English. Kolt had not been to very many luxury restaurants in his life, and he therefore had next to no experience with valet parking. It went against his normal sense of OPSEC to hand the keys to his vehicle over to some stranger and then let him take the vehicle to some unknown location. But he was in character, he was newlywed Frank Tomlinson, so Kolt handed over his best means of quick escape to some slick-haired kid with a disingenuous smile.
Fuck, thought Kolt.
They headed inside and directly to the bar off the beautiful lobby. Kolt was a little overwhelmed with the place, but he retained the presence of mind to pull Cindy’s barstool out for her, and she put her hand behind his head, pulled him closer, and kissed him on the mouth for his chivalry.
When he pulled away their eyes stayed locked, until Kolt finally turned away, sat down, and then brushed nonexistent dust from his pants at the knee.
He wondered what her Green Beret boyfriend would think about that, but he did not dwell on it for too long.
They looked into each other’s eyes as they sipped their drinks, showed affection by holding hands and touching one another, but Kolt found the conversation mindlessly boring. Cindy struggled to find new things to discuss to keep the dialogue going. This was not an easy task, because so many topics that would have interested them both and would have made for easy chitchat were absolutely off the table. Subjects like the newest in commo gear and rifle slings and Army leave policies and who the special missions unit selection board was considering to replace Webber as the next Delta commander would be obvious breaches of their cover.
So instead Cindy talked about her cat.
After a few hours of this over the past three days, Kolt felt like he knew more about Sparkle’s personality than he did about his own.
It was an effective tactic, Raynor had to admit. She was animated and happy when she talked about the damn cat, she looked perfectly natural in her cover for action. Kolt did his best not to look bored, and he let her talk easily 90 percent of the time. He just sat there smiling, nodding, and looking around the room, while his younger “wife” went on and on about hairballs and kitty litter.
He felt comfortable that their cover was solid.
While she was in the middle of one of her cat stories, Afifi entered the lobby talking on his mobile phone. A look from Raynor conveyed to Hawk that their man was in the building, but she continued on with her story.
Much to their surprise, though, the Libyan sat down at the bar just a few empty seats down from them, and continued talking on his p
hone. He paused his conversation only to order a single-malt scotch, and as he turned away from the bartender to regard the room behind him, his eyes stopped at Cindy.
He looked her up and down lasciviously, with no care or concern that her “husband” was seated right next to her.
Kolt slipped his mobile phone out of his pocket, activated the microphone, and began recording Afifi’s phone conversation for later analysis. He placed his phone on the bar with the speaker turned toward the man, who was only just now turning away from the good-looking woman in the black cocktail dress.
Soon Raynor noticed a pair of men entering the lobby from the stairwell. They wore suits and ties, but they had hard faces and cold eyes. They looked around the room, regarding every person, every doorway, every shadow.
Kolt knew they were security. He thought he recognized one of the men from the photos Digger had taken at Chalice the other day.
Kolt glanced back to Hawk. He was determined that these men would not “make” him. He would not give them any evidence whatsoever that he was anything other than an indulgent newlywed listening to the tales of his hot but slightly goofy wife.
After a few minutes he had evidence that his efforts were paying off. The two men at the staircase came out into the room now, and two more men, not quite carbon copies of the first pair but close enough, came out of the elevator and assumed positions in the lobby area with nice fields of view.
Raynor sipped his draft beer and took over the conversation for a moment, focusing all his attention on Hawk, because he suspected these men were an advance detail for a VIP, and he wanted his cover perfectly established before the VIP appeared.
He told a story about a dog he’d had as a child, making up most of the details to stretch it out.
It seemed to take forever, but finally Afifi got off of his phone and went to a small private room in the dining room behind the bar. The elevator opened shortly thereafter, and two more goons, similar to the four already in the lobby, stepped out, leading an older man through the lobby and into the restaurant. Kolt did not dare watch them to see where they headed once inside, but when he did glance back it appeared they had entered the same room as Afifi.