by Arthur Kerns
On arriving, Stone had to agree with Lange’s assessment. The café sat on the semicircular blue water bay alongside other eating establishments and small resorts that resembled American motels. A far cry from the hovels and trash-laden streets they had passed, this district had a feel of forced relaxation, ever cautious of the possible encroachment of Africa’s primitive disorder.
They parked in the café’s car lot behind the single-story metal-roofed building. Lange led them through the main entrance that adjoined the noisy kitchen. Once out on the terrace, he was proved correct—the breeze cooled the soft air and Stone looked out on a scene that could be duplicated at any tropical seaside spot in the world. An invitation to sit and relax and forget where one lived.
Stone and Sandra ordered cool fruit drinks, Lange a beer. The menu resembled one found in an English pub. Again, Lange cautioned them not to expect haute cuisine. They were early, so few tables were occupied.
After the waiter brought the drinks, Sandra leaned toward Lange. “Did the police issue a report on that woman who washed ashore?”
Lange shook his head. “Like I told … Finbarr, the police issue few reports in this town.”
“This woman, Ronda, was South African,” she pressed. “Did your embassy make an inquiry?”
“Yes, after they examined the body.” Lange looked around to make sure no one was near. “They found a small hollow depression in back of the neck, just below where it meets the skull. The spinal cord was cut, they surmise from an ice pick-type weapon.”
“They dumped her in the bay,” Stone said. “Hope she was dead at the time.”
Lange stiffened. “She was quite a decent person.”
“I’m sure she was,” Sandra said, giving Stone an admonishing look for his insensitive remark.
Across the way a chair fell over, and they saw four bearded men, each wearing black untucked short-sleeved shirts. Lange touched Stone’s arm and Sandra, catching the sign, raised her camera concealed in a sunglass case. After a moment, Stone felt assured they had gotten photographs of Nabeel Asuty and his companions, copies of which were now being transmitted by the radio in the case to a satellite overhead. Next, to help the Counterterrorism Center back in Langley do a search on Asuty, they needed a car tag number and, if lucky, Asuty’s credit card number.
Their meals came as advertised by Lange. Everyone carefully inspected the food, hoping it wasn’t bushmeat. From across the restaurant, Stone was the first to pick up Nabeel’s interest in their table.
“It must be me they’re looking at,” Lange said. “They know I was acquainted with Ronda.”
Stone started to say they were giving them all a once-over when Nabeel rose, said something to his associates, and marched toward their table. The man was in his early forties, taller and better built than Stone had pictured. No dandy, he had an arrogant stride.
“Mr. Lange,” Nabeel Asuty said in a contrived, unctuous voice. “So unfortunate about our mutual friend Ronda. Boating can be dangerous in these waters.”
“Really, Mr. Asuty,” Lange said, looking him up and down. “I didn’t realize someone who lived in a desert knew anything about boating.”
Stone was impressed by Lange’s toughness, characteristic of the grit many native-born whites in Africa had.
“One must be careful here in Freetown, Mr. Lange.”
Stone gave a purposely false guffaw. “Good God. This man is right out of a very bad grade B movie. Do you practice your routine in front of a mirror before you skip out in public?”
Asuty’s face froze, but his right hand twitched. He reached into his shirt pocket for his sunglasses and put them on.
Stone turned to Sandra, who stared at him with a “What the …” look, then at Lange, who grinned at everyone.
Finally, Nabeel’s back straightened, revealing the outline of a gun tucked in his belt. His head bobbled ever so slightly. “Mr. Lange. You should inform your guest that this is not as safe a place as the French Riviera.” With that he turned on his heels and returned to his table.
“Why, Hayden?” Sandra asked. “Why did you antagonize the man?”
“I wanted to piss him off. Wanted to have him lose his cool to see if he knew me, or about me. He does.” Stone downed his drink. “The only person who got away in the South of France operation was the Saudi, Abdul Wahab, who undoubtedly carries a grudge. I’d wager this Nabeel Asuty works for Wahab.”
“Very well done, Hayden,” Lange laughed. “Good logical reasoning. I bet you were good in your day.”
Stone’s gray eyes hardened. “The day’s not over, pal.”
Sandra frowned at Lange. “Where does that put us?” She slowly answered her own question. “That puts us on the track of a terrorist operation with some good leads.”
“We still need a license plate and maybe a credit card number,” Stone said.
“As for the credit card, I’ll get it,” Lange offered. “I know the girl at the register. Oh. I’ll get Asuty’s glass for fingerprints.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Stone said. Fingerprints? This guy is a pro. “I’m headed for the restroom.” Stone rose and winked at Sandra. “Wonder if Nabeel knows anything about poisonous snakes in Liberia.”
To reach the toilet facilities, Stone had to exit the restaurant’s main entrance and walk around the parking lot to a shed attached to the side of the building. He dreaded using public privies in this area of the world and only used them if he had no choice. This one met his expectations. Dark, stiflingly hot, and cramped. The rank odors emitted a unique toxic bouquet.
The door would not completely shut, but he intended to make his visit as quick as possible. Instead of a urinal, Stone discovered at the far end of the room a hole in the floor. He squirmed past a stained water basin and a toilet bowl without a seat, trying not to touch either. Unzipping, he looked up at the ceiling at a collection of cobwebs. From the fresh ones hung spiders of varying colors and sizes.
The door behind him banged open. Stone looked around and saw the silhouettes of two men. “I’m about finished,” he called, turning back and pushing to empty his bladder.
As he pulled up his zipper, he realized the two men had entered the room. Spinning around, he recognized them as two of Nabeel’s thugs. The first man, carrying a gun, lunged at him. Stone went into defensive stance and kneed him in the gut. He groaned and lurched forward, swinging his automatic pistol at Stone’s head.
Stone grabbed his wrist and tried to grasp the barrel of the gun. Slammed against the wall, Stone pushed him away with his leg, but now the second man came from the side and slugged Stone.
Cornered, Stone’s only chance was to take away the first man’s gun as the muzzle of the automatic came toward Stone’s face.
Stone hollered. The second man growled in Arabic, “Shut him up!” Stone spit in the first man’s eyes, surprising him. The first man stumbled back over the broken toilet bowl, and as he regained his footing, Stone closed his hand over the barrel and stunned him with a sharp head-butt. The man’s nose crunched.
Now Stone had a solid grip on the automatic and was taking it away when the second man slashed at Stone with a knife. Stone ducked, and with his left hand struck the first man’s throat with a karate chop, crushing his larynx. Clutching his throat, the man collapsed over the toilet bowl and the gun dropped. The second man now held the knife close to Stone’s eye.
The blade inched closer. As it touched the eyelid, a muscular blond-haired arm wrapped tightly around the second man’s neck. The hand holding the knife lost strength. The man’s face reddened, bubbles formed on his mouth, and his eyes bulged. Stone wrenched the knife from his hand. At the same time Dirk Lange snapped the man’s neck.
On the floor, the first man, gasping for air from the broken larynx, picked up his automatic. He aimed it at Stone’s groin, but he pushed aside the gun and placed two shots from his Colt into the man’s chest. The sound reverberated within the small room as the man flew backw
ard.
Stone and Lange waited, expecting to hear shouts or calls from outside. Only faint music came from the restaurant.
After a moment, Lange went to the door and searched the area. “No one here. I saw these two follow you here to the loo,” Lange said. “I heard you shout. Figured you needed help.”
“Thanks. You came just in time.” Stone bent down at the basin and, using the fetid water from the tap, washed his face. “What do you suggest we do with the bodies?”
“There’s a large rubbish bin outside,” Lange said. “We’ll dump them there.”
Lange’s sudden cold demeanor surprised Stone. The fact the man wasn’t breathing hard impressed him. Strong mind. Tough body. “Let’s empty their pockets first,” Stone said.
They found cash, passports, and various shaped keys, which Stone said he’d examine later. It took both of them to drag the bodies one by one from the bathroom to the dumpster. Finished, Stone said, “Let’s get out of here.” Then stopped. “Where’s Sandra?”
“Took the truck and followed Nabeel when he left. She’ll ring you on your cell.”
“We have to get out of here.”
Lange tossed over two wallets taken from the men’s pockets and fingered the collection of keys in his hand. “We can use their Mercedes,” he said, pushing the release button for the car door. A short beep came from the direction of the parking lot. They headed toward a row of parked Mercedes. Lange pressed the button again, and the horn of a black sedan sounded.
“Hop in. We’ll drive somewhere where we can wait for Sandra to call,” Stone said. “Do you know someplace by the sea? I’m sweating like a pig.”
Under palm trees bent by the ocean breeze, they looked over the Iraqi passports of the dead men and, seeing nothing of immediate interest, searched the car. Stone draped a cloth over the license tag to conceal it from passing traffic. The trunk provided a few surprises: two AK-47s, three Russian-made automatic pistols, and a canvas sack containing what Stone recognized as a C4 plastic explosive.
Lange shook his head. “What on earth were they thinking, carrying this around in their car?”
A truck passed and Stone slammed down the trunk lid. He leaned on the car, and, enjoying the cool breeze, looked up at fat storm clouds forming on the horizon. “Maybe they were on the way to a delivery. That would explain the two cars.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I should call Sandra.”
Sandra Harrington maintained a discrete distance behind Nabeel Asuty’s car as she had been taught at the agency’s surveillance school in Virginia. Nabeel traveled through congested neighborhoods similar to the ones she had passed through that morning. It was easy to follow the Honda as it slowed and occasionally halted for pedestrians and animals.
Even with the heat, Sandra kept the windows only partially open. Thieves were expert in reaching in and making fast grabs for purses and jewelry. As she passed the shops and dingy two-story houses, the sounds and smells of West Africa hit her senses—music, much of it Western pop, smoke from the charcoal stoves, shouted sales pitches, wafts from overflowing cesspools, laughter, fragrance from an unseen flower, singing.
Sandra’s quarry left the city and started to climb up one of Freetown’s many tall hills. Trees and fields replaced buildings as Nabeel’s Honda increased speed up the winding road. Traffic was light, but she was able to hide behind a lumbering, smoke-belching dump truck. Still ascending, the air thinned and birdcalls from heavy-leafed trees replaced the noise of the city.
Nabeel’s route surprised her. She had expected him to head for one of the downtown mosques, not the countryside. Her cell phone rang. It was Stone. She gave him her location and told him she’d call back when her target had reached his destination. She couldn’t talk and at the same time shift gears on the twisting hill.
After a few more turns, she had no one between her and Nabeel’s car. She slowed, lost eye contact, but trusted that after a few curves, she’d spy his car again. Around a bend, she spotted his brake lights and watched him turn. For a brief moment she pulled off the side of the road, then proceeded to the turnoff and left the macadam for a red-dirt road. She passed a number of houses surrounded by high cinderblock walls topped with razor wire.
Nabeel’s Honda entered a gated compound, the inside hidden by a high wall. She needed a higher elevation. To the right she looked up to where a hill rose. From there she could look down on the compound. Her map showed a road winding up to and beyond the top of the rise.
In less than five minutes she was walking along a ridge, searching for the best vantage point. She chose a place hidden by trees and brush and peered down into the compound. A large housing complex sat surrounded by walls. Seven cars were parked on the grounds where men, apparently guards, walked back and forth smoking cigarettes. The back of the house looked down on Freetown and the bay. A concrete terrace with a lap-sized pool, tables, chairs, and umbrellas provided a vantage point for the owner.
Sandra found a tree stump, checked for bugs and snakes, settled herself, and looked over the scene. The rich, green hilly landscape overlooked the city below. It was quiet except for an occasional rooster crow and a dog bark. She called Stone.
“Are you okay? Where are you?”
She told him. “Are you two still at the café?”
“No. We had a problem with two of our target’s friends. I’ll explain later. Be careful. They play dirty. How long do you intend on staying at your location?”
She studied the woods around her and scanned the compound again. She felt a shiver as if someone was watching her. “Not long.”
Placing the phone in her pocket, she tried to interpret Stone’s statement about having a problem. From the last mission they were on, she knew how he solved problems. Very decisively. He did attract trouble.
She thought about Stone and Lange. What was Lange’s part in all this? She had noticed tension between the two men on the way to the café and again at lunch. Was she the cause? Two men posturing before a woman? She smiled while lowering the binoculars. Dirk Lange was a charmer. No wonder that CIA gal fell for him. The strong jaw. That deep, confident voice.
Had she detected a note of disapproval on Stone’s part when she joked around with Lange? What was that about? Was he jealous?
Sandra caught movement below and raised her binoculars, scoping the complex. Men filed out the back door onto the terrace. They sauntered around the pool; a few moved to the edge of the terrace, taking in the view of the city. No women, just men talking in small groups with many hand gestures. Most had beards and a few wore thobes, ankle-length robes. As she scanned the group, she spied Nabeel. He had donned one of the ivory-colored billowy thobes and glided from one group to another. Again, the flying hand gestures.
While panning, she stopped on a man’s face. A face she knew, but didn’t belong in this scene. Whether in denial or just confused, the person’s identity didn’t register at first. Then she realized who the man was, standing by the pool, in sunglasses, in deep conversation with Nabeel Asuty.
Her former partner, Farley Durrell.
Chapter Eleven
Cape Town—August 12, 2002
At the morning “country team meeting,” Ambassador Marshall Bunting sat to the right of Whitmore, his consul general for Cape Town. Bunting allowed Whitmore the position of honor at the table. Rightly so, for it was his post, and the fussy little man had earned one of State’s posh assignments through years of dedicated service in many of the hellholes of the world.
The staff assembled around the table inside “the bubble,” a Plexiglas compartment designed in the 1960s as an anti-eavesdropping device. American security professionals had questioned its effectiveness from the beginning, but it did provide some protection from sound and voice emanation. The contraption was useless against a technical attack, a method the South African intelligence service, one of the best in the world, certainly used. The nation’s science capablitiies were first-rate, having performed the worl
d’s first heart transplant and having tested a nuclear weapon over the southern sea near Antarctica. American counterintelligence knew South Africa’s intelligence organization would be no less accomplished. In addition it wasn’t a particularly friendly one.
A few moments into the meeting, one of the junior counselors brought up a personnel problem, setting out the sexual proclivities of a young staffer. The CIA Base Chief M. R. D. Houston, in his early thirties with a short haircut that emphasized his jug ears, squirmed in his seat. An enemy agent overhearing this conversation could use the information as blackmail to target the unfortunate American being discussed. The information would be leverage to turn the young staffer into a spy for the South Africans and the United States.
Bunting spoke up. “Perhaps this matter should be discussed one-on-one, don’t you think, Consul General?”
Flustered, Whitmore agreed and moved on to another topic. The meeting continued for a half hour. As they adjourned, Bunting asked Houston to remain behind. When the room had cleared, he pushed a three-by-five card across the table with the writing:
WHERE CAN WE TALK IN PRIVATE?
Houston nodded. “Let’s go for a ride.”
They drove in Houston’s car, a battered green Land Rover Defender, through crowded Cape Town toward the bay. After fifteen minutes Houston found a parking space near the lighthouse off Beach Road. The two got out and strolled along the waterfront. Bunting took in the deep blue ocean, rough with white caps, and off to his left, Table Mountain. The air sparkled.
“That’s called Three Anchor Bay.” Houston pointed down the coast. “I guess they named it so because it takes three anchors to hold your ship in place.” He surveyed the area, and apparently comfortable with their surroundings, finally said, “I believe this is a place where we can safely talk, Mr. Ambassador.”