The Enemy Inside

by William Christie

  Poett waited until they were back in the car to break out laughing.

  As he was rolling around in the backseat, Troy turned to Storey and said, “What happened that was so funny?”

  “You got me,” said Storey.

  “Ah,” said Troy. “Then you must have done something to crack his ass up.”

  “Offhand, I can’t recall any humorous moments,” said Storey. “But I’m sure he’s going to tell us as soon as he gets his shit together.”

  “You’re damn right I’m going to,” said Poett, wiping his eyes. He gave them the play-by-play of everything that had been said.

  “You took a revolver away from him?” Troy broke in to ask Storey.

  “He barely knew which end to hold,” said Storey.

  “Didn’t mean he couldn’t manage to shoot your ass with it,” said Troy.

  “O-kay,” Poett said firmly, to direct their attention back to his account. “We offer five grand. He thinks for a while, then says how about ten? And he looks at Ed, real hopeful like a little puppy. Ed has no idea what the guy just said, but he’s not even blinking, just staring at the guy like he was a cockroach running across the floor that he really wanted to step on. And you can just hear the shit hitting his skivvies, and he goes: five grand will be just fine, thank you very much.” Poett started laughing again.

  “Just your little contribution to holding down information price inflation,” Troy said to Storey.

  “Is that what he was asking for?” said Storey. “I was just thinking I ought to act pissed off at everything he said.”

  “Oh, man,” Poett exclaimed in relief after he finally stopped laughing. “You did. You surely did that.”

  “You handled yourself real well in there,” Storey told him.

  “Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t just great work,” Storey went on. “It was sheer poetry.”

  The smile got wiped off Poett’s face. “Man, that was bad.”

  Troy cracked up.

  They drive around for a while, making sure their back was clear of any surveillance.

  While they waited for Franzini’s call, Storey sent the name Ijaz Wazir to Washington. His instinct had been correct. Incredibly, there were six Ijaz Wazirs living in Rio and the surrounding area. But all were either older men or younger boys, none within the age range of their target. This was confirmed through their own local research of phone directories and property records. As Storey had feared, they were stuck with Senhor Franzini.

  Troy wanted to stake out the restaurant. Storey vetoed that. Any kind of close-in surveillance was too risky. If it got made the target was gone and the game was over.

  But he understood Troy’s feelings. Their position was one no operators wanted to find themselves in. Not only dependent on one informant of unknown, but probably shaky reliability, but committed to show up at a location known to that informant, at a time to be determined by the informant. Totally contrary to every last rule of intelligence tradecraft.

  So they made sure their escape routes out of the country were updated on a daily basis. Their luggage could be abandoned at the hotels. Their operational equipment was staged in a rental car parked not at any of the hotels, but in a well-secured car park.

  Three days later one of the cell phones rang. It was just a few minutes after 9:30 P.M.

  Poett picked it up. “Yes? Yes, it is I. What? Very good. Remain calm—I will call you back.” He snapped the phone shut. “We’re on.”

  Storey knew there were three possibilities. The first was that everything was going to happen as planned. No one was counting on that. The second was that they’d walk into the arms of Brazilian security. The third was that al-Qaeda would be waiting to greet them.

  To deal with the second possibility they were all carrying diplomatic passports in addition to the ones they were actually traveling under. Neither in their real names, of course. Diplomatic immunity would at least keep them from a long stretch in a Brazilian prison. But it would also mean a very embarrassing, high-profile diplomatic incident. One that, Storey knew, would make certain they’d never get promoted again and would be reassigned to await retirement or end of enlistment in the shittiest possible jobs at the most asshole bases imaginable.

  To cover the third possibility they’d visited the cache that the DIA maintained for the unit everywhere they had safe houses, which was most of the major cities in the world. So they didn’t need to have weapons flown in, as in the case of Paraguay.

  Storey and Troy were wearing MP5K 9mm submachine guns slung under their armpits. Only thirteen inches long, with no stock. A short-range, 900-rounds-per-minute, get-your-ass-out-of-trouble insurance policy. Short fifteen-round magazines in the weapons for concealment, and thirty-rounders in their belts. Along with a few Austrian Arges HG86 mini–fragmentation hand grenades, just a shade larger than a golf ball. There was even a collapsing bullet-trap target in the cache, so they could test-fire the weapons, with sound suppressors of course, in the safe house basement. None of the weapons were traceable to the United States.

  Fortunately it always rained in Rio in the summer, so their raincoats wouldn’t attract any attention.

  When they reached the restaurant they circled around the block, looking for people sitting in cars and pedestrians hanging around instead of doing something.

  In the movies there’s always a parking space available, but it’s never like that in real life.

  Storey thought it over. “Let the restaurant valet park it,” he told Troy.

  “What?”

  “It’ll actually be better that way.” He explained his thinking to Troy, who began to grin.

  “It is better that way.”

  Storey and Poett got out of the car about fifty yards from the restaurant. They could just barely see the sign.

  Troy drove up, gave the car to the valet, and went inside.

  “Make the call,” Storey said to Poett.

  “Hello again, Senhor Franzini,” said Poett. “No, we will not be coming in at this moment. You will call me when Senhor Wazir has paid his check and is preparing to depart. Yes, that is correct. You understand? Do not fail us.” He broke the connection. “He’s panicking,” he told Storey. “A million questions, first being when does he get the money.”

  “Ought to keep him on his toes,” said Storey. “If he don’t melt down first. You relax here and keep an eye on the front. I’m going to take a little walk.”

  That hadn’t been in the plan. “What if he calls before you get back?”

  “I doubt that’ll happen. But if it goes, you call Troy and tell him Wazir’s on his way out. That’s all you need to do. And just sit tight.” Then, as if an afterthought. “Of course, if I don’t show up in, say, an hour, don’t sit tight. Get the hell out of the country.”

  “Fantastic,” said Poett.

  Inside the restaurant, Troy declined to check his raincoat and took a seat at the bar. Before the bartender could ask him something in Portuguese, Troy caught his eye and said, “Caipirinha.”

  If anything could be called a national drink, caipirinha was it. The bartender tossed some lime slices in a wide glass, then poured in a few spoonfuls of sugar. Using a special wooden tool, the fetish aspect of these things always being important, he crushed the lime in the glass and mixed the juice with the sugar. Then he poured in a big slug of cachaça. The Russians have vodka, the Caribbean has rum, and the Brazilians have cachaça, distilled from sugar cane. The bartender added ice and slid it over.

  “Obrigado,” said Troy, passing over a ten-real note. He took a sip. Jesus. A few of these and you’d step off the barstool and find out the hard way that your legs didn’t work anymore. The bartender returned with his change, and Troy hit him with a good though not memorable tip. The first time he’d gone overseas undercover he’d tipped big. It was fun when it wasn’t your money. And he’d had bartenders and waiters stuck to him like barnacles all night long. He’d become memorable instead of anonymous. Luckily, that had happened
before he met Storey.

  The bar was crowded enough that he didn’t have to worry about being bothered by the bartender. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with the clientele. The Brazilian on the stool next to him was totally shitfaced. And started talking to him in Portuguese.

  Troy tried to ignore the drunk, but the guy kept talking to him and patting him on the arm to get his attention.

  Deciding that English wasn’t the way to go, he spoke to the idiot in Spanish. “I’m sorry, friend, but I don’t speak Portuguese.”

  It didn’t do any good. The attention only encouraged the asshole, and the Portuguese kept pouring out of him at the rapid rate.

  Troy didn’t know what the hell to do. He finally caught the bartender’s eye and appealed for a little help.

  The bartender leaned over and spoke to the drunk, slowly and loudly. “HE DOES NOT SPEAK PORTUGUESE.”

  The drunk paid him no mind. Didn’t even look at him. Just kept up the conversation with Troy. Then he draped an arm over Troy’s shoulder.

  Oh, Christ, they were best friends now. Troy picked out a spot on the side of the guy’s forehead and dreamed of planting an elbow there. But a scene was out of the question.

  Troy had scanned the dining room on the way in, and was sure he’d made his man. There weren’t many thirty-year-old Arab/Pakistanis in the restaurant, not to mention eating alone and not drinking alcohol. Seemed to be pretty far along in his meal.

  Out in the street, Poett was beginning to get a little antsy until he saw Storey heading toward him. There were quite a few people out. Hitting the bars, window-shopping, going to dinner.

  “Everything okay?” Storey asked him.

  “So far. No call yet.”

  Storey only nodded, apparently unconcerned. Poett had heard how cool Storey was, but the people who’d told him had no idea. No idea at all.

  “Neighborhood looks clear,” said Storey, just mentioning it. “If we don’t get the call in a couple of minutes, we’ll start walking. No sense attracting attention standing here.”

  Poett’s phone rang.

  “Ever notice how often that happens?” said Storey, taking out his own phone.

  “Yes?” Poett said into his. “Very good.” He put his hand over the phone and said to Storey, “Our guy’s on his way.”

  “Tell him to stay on the line,” said Storey, dialing a number.

  Troy’s phone rang. “Hola?” he said into it, keeping up the Spanish cover. The drunk was still talking. Troy held up one finger to call a time-out, but the bastard just wouldn’t shut up. Troy knew if he did anything it would only get the guy agitated. And louder.

  It was Storey. “Our boy’s heading out. You got him?”

  “Absolutely,” Troy said in Spanish, one finger in his ear in a feeble attempt to block out the noise. The guy paying his check was the one he’d already picked out.

  “You need anything from us?” Storey asked.

  “No, gracias,” said Troy, putting his phone away. The drunk was still draped all over him. Troy had never wanted to kill anyone so badly in his life. He slipped under the arm and off the barstool. Now the son of a bitch was off his stool and following him, still running his mouth. Troy decided there was nothing to do but wait until they were outside, then lay the guy out and hope it didn’t screw things up too badly.

  Storey pocketed his phone and said to Poett, “Tell Franzini his money’s taped under the lid of the trash can outside his kitchen door.”

  Poett grinned and passed on the news. “He forgot to say thank you,” he told Storey. “Actually, he didn’t even say good-bye.”

  “Too busy running for that money,” said Storey. Even if there were Brazilian security inside, neither Franzini nor anyone in the restaurant had ever laid eyes on Troy. Not a bad way out of a rotten tactical situation.

  Troy was concentrating on his target going out the door, which wasn’t easy with the stream of maddening, unintelligible talk buzzing in his ears like a fucking mosquito. But just as they were leaving the bar area, there was a commotion behind him. Troy shot a quick glance over his shoulder, and saw the bartender and a bouncer grabbing the drunk by both arms. The drunk was howling now, probably that he wanted to go with his new best friend. From what Troy could decipher, the drunk hadn’t paid his tab. Thank you, God. With no idea how long the respite would last until the drunk found his wallet, he hurried for the door.

  The Pakistani was standing on the curb. One of the valets was gone, probably getting the car. Troy handed his ticket to the other. He could feel the Pakistani watching him, but when he turned he was being ignored.

  Troy patted his pockets as if looking for his keys.

  The first valet drove up in the Pakistani’s car, a blue four-door BMW sedan. How about that, Troy thought, impressed.

  As the Pakistani was getting in, Troy dropped his keys and a handful of change onto the sidewalk, cursing his clumsiness. The Pakistani turned and Troy waved a hand—no help needed—and bent down to start picking it up. The Pakistani continued into his car anyway. Rude prick, Troy thought. The valet crouched down to help him.

  When the door slammed Troy duckwalked forward to pick up a coin, placing his left hand on the BMW bumper. His fingers crept underneath, and he attached the radio frequency tracker, mounted on a magnet, to the frame. And not a second too soon, because the car shifted into gear and roared off, giving him a face full of exhaust.

  Troy retrieved the last of his change and straightened up. The valet poured the coins he’d recovered into his hand. Troy tipped him more than their value for his trouble.

  Now his car drove up. He tipped the second valet and was off.

  Troy stopped at the end of the street and popped the trunk. Poett got in the back. Storey retrieved a briefcase from the trunk before sliding in next to Troy on the passenger side.

  “Give him a minute to put some distance between us,” said Storey. “We don’t want to bump into him if he hits some traffic.” He opened the briefcase and fired up the laptop computer inside, extending the small antenna. The computer took its own sweet time booting up. “Did you put both chips on the car?”

  “All I had time for was one,” said Troy. “And almost got dragged down the street at that.”

  Storey wasn’t pleased by the news, but he didn’t say anything. If that one tracking chip wasn’t working, or went down before the Pakistani got home, it was back to square one.

  The computer finally booted up, and couple of taps on the keyboard brought up a street map of Rio. Another tap and a cursor began blinking on the screen. Storey could feel himself calm down. “We got him.”

  They stayed close enough to remain within range of the tracker. It was obvious that the Pakistani was dirty. He did the same thing they’d done after their last visit to the restaurant. Driving around, doubling back, speeding up, slowing down. Looking for the pair of headlights that stayed with you.

  The Pakistani made sure he got onto the Avenida Presidente Vargas, which was always a traffic-choked wasteland. It didn’t matter. The Americans watched his every move. He could drive the wrong way down all the one-way streets he wanted. They just laughed at him.

  Then all the bobbing and weaving was over, and they headed south, toward Copacabana.

  “You don’t think he’s a beach boy, do you?” said Troy.

  “I’ve seen stranger,” said Storey.

  But before the Pakistani reached the beach he turned left.

  “Pull over the first chance you get,” said Poett. “He lives in Urca.”

  “Urca?” said Troy.

  “It’s a little neighborhood out on the peninsula,” said Poett, leaning over the seat and pointing it out on the map. “It’s nestled around the front of the Pão de Açúcar, Sugarloaf Peak. Part residential; the rest is the naval training college. The peninsula makes it isolated, and the only reason for anyone but the people who live there to visit is to take the cable car up to Sugarloaf for the view, then come down and leave. Otherwise it’s not a
tourist destination.”

  “That’s good,” said Storey.

  “Well, not good for keeping an eye on him,” said Poett.

  “That’s not what he means,” said Troy. “He always likes it better when the other guy’s a pro.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want him to be a jerk?” Poett asked.

  “Amateurs are unpredictable,” Storey replied.

  The cursor finally stopped, just as Poett had predicted, in the Urca neighborhood.

  “Let’s give him a chance to get in and get settled down for the night,” said Storey.

  They circled Botafogo Bay on the Avenida Pasteur, then took the Avenida Portugal onto the little peninsula.

  It was very un–Rio-like. “Damn, it is quiet around here,” Storey said. He checked the map. “Only about five main avenues on the whole peninsula.”

  “Mostly military lives here,” said Poett. “The naval college. Fishermen. It’s one of the safest locales in Rio.”

  “One way in, one way out,” said Troy.

  The BMW was parked at a modern, six-story concrete-and-glass apartment building.

  “You want to see what apartment he’s in?” said Troy. “Our only hope for surveillance is renting one in the same building.”

  “No, keep driving,” said Storey. “All we’d need is some neighbor asking our boy if the men inquiring about him found him. He’d be gone. We’ve got his car. We’ve got his registration. We’ve got his neighborhood. We’ll send it off to Washington, see what they give us.”

  “You going to ask for a support team to take over surveillance?” said Troy.

  “Not yet,” said Storey. “I want to see what this guy does first. He may not even live here full-time. If he doesn’t we’d be moving surveillance all over town, and that can get messy.”

  Sitting in the car Storey wrote out a short report on his PDA, encrypted the text, and sent it off via satellite phone.

  Washington’s reply a day later proved the power of both databases and easily bribed public officials. The BMW was registered to one Jan Mohammad, as was apartment 505. He’d been in Rio for four years. Pakistani passport, which said he was from Hyderabad. Not that any of that was necessarily true. Work permit had him as the owner of a carpet import company.