by Mark Gilleo
“How much did the passport cost?” James asked.
“I don’t know, I didn’t pay. From Bangkok I went south to Surat Thani, changed trains, and then made my way over the border into Kota Baharu, Malaysia. The east side of Malaysia is very beautiful and very Muslim. Beautiful mosques near beautiful beaches.”
“We have allies in Malaysia,” Abu added.
Syed ignored him.
“From Kota Baharu I took a series of buses to southern Malaysia and caught a boat to Jakarta. Then I got on a cargo freighter.”
“What kind of cargo?” the American asked.
“Everything, from what I was told. I mean, the cargo is in cargo holds, in containers, so you can’t really see anything. The ship flew under a Chinese flag, and one of the shipmates told me that they were carrying counterfeit cigarettes, among other things.”
“Cigarettes?”
“Fakes. The Chinese are making them by the billions and selling them around the world. Some of them right back to the U.S.”
“They told you this?” Abu asked.
“It took three weeks to get from Indonesia to Guatemala. That is a long time for people to talk.”
“That it is,” James said. “Look at us. We have been cooped up for a few days and already we are talking.”
Syed nodded and continued. “We landed in Puerto Quetzal, on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. I put $300 cash in my passport at the immigration office, my new passport was stamped, and I walked right in. Three hundred dollars lighter, of course.”
“What passport did you use to get into Malaysia and Indonesia?” Abu asked, showing he was paying attention.
“I used my real passport in Malaysia and Jakarta. They are Muslim countries. There is no suspicion.”
“From Guatemala, how did you get here?”
“I took a chicken bus through the middle of Guatemala. They have these old buses that are converted U.S. public school buses. Some of them even have the school system’s name still painted on the side. Mine was from Pulaski County. They were the exact same type of buses I used to ride to school when I was an exchange student, except for the chickens and the smell of piss. In Guatemala I stayed in a town called Flores for one night. Went to see the Mayan ruins and the pyramids in the jungle for the day, you know, the ones where they filmed scenes from the second Star Wars movie.”
“I don’t remember that part of the movie,” James replied.
“Well, if you want to see it, go to Tikal. Closest town is Flores. It even has an airport. Nothing in Tikal but jungle, howler monkeys, and pyramids.”
“You’re an idiot. You shouldn’t have stopped to sightsee,” Abu grunted.
“I like Star Wars. Besides, this was the jungle. No police around for fifty miles. And I was waiting for someone to contact me.”
“Let him finish,” James said. “Why Guatemala?”
“It’s lawless and the little law they have is completely and undeniably corrupt. And Guatemala is a well-worn path of drug smugglers. The South American drug cartels have built dozens of small landing strips in the jungle Peten region of northern Guatemala. They land their planes, unload the cocaine, and then destroy the planes right there in the jungle. It is cheaper than trying to fly them back. The cocaine is loaded onto trucks and SUVs and driven near the border. The groups break-up and cross the border on foot. Then they meet another set of vehicles on the other side of the border and the drugs travel north through Mexico to the U.S.”
“Bullshit,” Abu said, with a strong accent.
“I paid five thousand dollars and followed the drug smugglers through the jungle into Mexico. I spent two days in Chetumal, waiting for my next ride, and then we picked up a dozen people in Saltillo, Mexico. From there a mini-bus bus drove us near the U.S. border and let us out. We crossed the Rio Grande twelve miles west of Eagle Pass Texas about a month ago.”
“You crossed the Rio Grande? Why not just use your American passport?”
“Probably could have, but why? I don’t plan on leaving this country alive, so there is no reason for me to announce my arrival.”
“Was it as easy to get in as they say?”
“Where I crossed the Rio Grande, the river was a foot deep. There were planks of boards balanced on cinderblocks, a bridge of sorts, but you could have just as easily driven an SUV through the water. I followed the boards and didn’t even have to get my feet wet.”
“No fence?” Abu asked.
“No. There were some posts where a barb-wire fence used to stand, and there were some signs on the posts announcing the U.S. border, no unauthorized entry. But we were running so fast at that point you could barely read the signs.” Syed paused then continued. “I walked to the border town of Selig and stayed in a hotel for a few days. Showed them my American passport and got a room no problem. Took a Grayhound to Houston and waited.”
“How about you, Abu?”
Karim walked in the door with a wet towel draped over his shoulder. Syed, Abu and James looked up with guilty faces.
“What were you discussing?” he asked.
“World travel,” James said.
“Ariana warned us not to talk. It could compromise the mission. If one of us gets caught, the less we know, the safer we will all be.”
“We are fine,” Syed said, standing to stretch his lanky frame.
“You’re fine? Let’s see how fine you are after the CIA has run a car battery through your testicles. Let me see how fine you are when you have been awake for ninety-six hours, hanging by your arms, tied to a pole. Tell me how fine you are after you have spilled your guts and emptied your head and disclosed every minute detail.”
“The Americans don’t torture.”
“No, the Americans hire other countries to torture. Do you think your balls will know the difference between a U.S. battery and an Egyptian one?”
Syed looked down at his groin. Abu looked away. James smirked. “Good then, we all agree. Everyone keep your mouths shut about yourselves. I don’t want to know anything about any of you.”
Darkness fell as Ariana entered the warehouse. She walked to the dormitory, as she called the one-room hotel for her team, and stuck her head in.
The red streaks in her hair were not as noticeable as the push-up bra and her black skirt.
She knocked on the door and pushed her way in. “I have guys delivering some things, so sit tight.”
“We have been sitting tight for six hours,” Syed said. “Just a few more minutes.”
The sound of wenches and hydraulics reverberated around the warehouse. A deep male voice with a hillbilly twang interjected with the occasional command. Left, right, back. The sound of heavy machinery moving heavy machinery lasted for an hour.
When the machines quieted, Ariana heard the man in the blue overalls call her with his Southern accent.
With her best ass-shake and her push-up bra pushing for all it was worth, she made her way to the open door on the eighteen-foot truck. The man with the blue overalls and a moustache that grew thick past the corners of his mouth was standing on the hydraulic lift.
Ariana smiled at him with her bright red lipstick. She flipped her hair with her hand and ran a few strands behind her ear. She leaned forward a little as the delivery guy looked down her shirt at her cleavage.
“Are you sure that is where you need these machines? They weigh a few thousand pounds a piece, so unless you have a forklift and some hydraulic lifters, you can’t just push them across the floor.”
“They won’t need to be moved,” Ariana replied as bubbly as possible.
“There is more room here in the main floor space,” the man in the overalls said looking around.
“My boss was pretty clear. He wants them in the side room,” Ariana said, smiling like the clueless secretary she was playing in her role for the day.
The man in the overalls smiled back, looking down at the perky set that Ariana showed with pride. “I need you to sign the papers for the machines. Security reasons. Post-
9/11 regulations. Everything is falling under federal scrutiny these days. Even heavy machinery.”
“I understand.”
“If you have any problems, call the office at the bottom of your copy.”
“Do you have a card?” Ariana asked.
“I have a generic company card,” the man in the overalls answered. “But I can put my cell phone number on it, if you want.”
“That would be great. You have been very helpful,” Ariana said, licking her lips slightly.
“Your boss is a lucky man,” the delivery worker said, his foot now on the hydraulic lift.
Luckier than you, Ariana thought. You’ll be dead by the end of the week.
Chapter 24
The metal table in the corner of the warehouse was the only designated movable piece of community property. The sleeping quarters of the four men was communal, but the gray lines of private property were there if you looked for them. Invisible trip wires that each man knew existed and by which each man controlled their explosives. Syed and Karim got along well. Abu had only respect for himself. James, perhaps from growing up in America, had the most thorough understanding of the meaning of private property.
When Ariana called the four men to the table just after evening prayer, the cell members looked concerned. Since their arrival in cinderblock paradise, their daily routine had been the same. Up for prayer, breakfast, prayer, waiting, lunch, prayer, prayer, dinner, more waiting and more prayer. The newspaper that Ariana brought into the warehouse was passed around feverishly every morning. After she read the front page, the local news, and the obituaries, each man grabbed a section of the paper, and then swapped what they had with the first person finished reading another section. There was a single Koran on the knee-high corner table in the sleeping quarters, and when the newspaper had been visually consumed they took turns reciting their favorite passages.
But what the men had really learned to practice was fighting boredom. The truck that had delivered equipment into the warehouse was a much needed break from the monotony. It was almost as if Santa had slid down the chimney and sprinkled anti-boredom dust.
Ariana walked out of the far room where the machines were installed an hour before and shut the door behind her. She stopped in the office and picked up a medium-sized cardboard moving box that she had kept from her shopping excursion to REI.
Still dressed as a Western woman with Western morals, she walked towards the men sitting at the table. She didn’t sway, she didn’t swing. The professional flirtation she had exhibited with the gentleman who had delivered the machinery was now replaced with the professionalism of running a sleeper cell that was in the midst of an awakening.
“Is everyone comfortable?” she asked, still fifteen feet away. Her voice echoed off the wall. Her face was stern, in thought, but still present in the moment.
“What was delivered?” Abu asked. “Something that will help us do our jobs, I hope.”
“Yes, something that will help some of us do our jobs.”
“It’s about time.”
“Patience. Patience. We’ll have one attempt to do this correctly, and if we fail, then we’ll leave this world with unfinished business.”
“Sitting in our rooms all day is unfinished business.”
Karim interrupted Abu. “Hear her out. We’re gathered for a reason.”
All eyes turned back to Ariana as she looked down at the box in her hands. She placed the box on the table and caressed the back of the open chair in front of her but didn’t sit down.
“I want to lay down some operational rules. Just so there is no misunderstanding. I have spoken with all of you individually. I have assessed your skills. Skills are the only thing that matter from this point forward. We will use first names, and first names only. We will not divulge any personal information to one another. It’s not prudent. And could, in fact, be detrimental to our cause.”
Karim nodded to indicate to the others that he knew best. James Beach flashed annoyance. Abu managed to bite his tongue.
“I’ll now share the information you need to know, starting with Abu, who has shown he’s eager to actually do something.”
Heads turned towards Abu who looked as if he were going to growl.
“Abu is a bomb maker. Specializes in improvised explosive devices. Has experience in household weaponry which, for the rest of you, means making bombs out of typical household goods and cleaners.”
Ariana opened the top of the box and pulled out several small plastic containers with twist-on lids. Each was about the size of a large shot glass. Different color liquids sloshed around in the containers as she set them on the table.
Abu’s eyes lit up with a mix of trepidation and excitement.
Ariana paused when there were five containers on the table. “Here are five liquids. They are slightly different in color as you can see. Slightly different viscosity. All of the containers are unmarked.”
Abu smiled. The three other men looked at the containers on the table as if they had front row seats at the start of a magic show.
Ariana then reached back into the box and began placing five identical containers, each filled with powder, on the table.
Abu nodded as if he knew what was coming.
“Five different powders, five different containers,” Ariana added for the audience. The atmosphere was becoming giddy. Then Ariana removed a small glass jar with a twist lid. She placed the glass in the middle of the table between the line of liquid containers and the line of powders.
“Abu here has one minute to create a bomb from the ingredients on the table.”
“Do I get to open the tops first? It may take a minute just to get the lids off.”
“The tops are not screwed tightly.”
“And if I don’t make it?”
“You know the answer,” Ariana said, her eyes once again in that dark, soulless realm. “Time starts now.”
Abu’s hands moved with speed and precision. One-by-one, he grabbed each plastic container with one hand, and twisted the top with the other. All the lids unscrewed as easily as promised.
“Forty-five seconds,” Ariana said, still standing.
Abu passed each powder container under his nose, pausing slightly between the second and third. He dipped his finger into number four, and put the remnants on his finger to his tongue. He selected two from the five containers and put them to the side.
“Thirty seconds.”
Abu stood from his seat and grabbed two of the liquid-filled containers, which were harder to handle than the powder. The liquid in the one in his left hand flirted with the top edge of the container. He smelled the two in his hands, and then dipped his nose to the table to smell the others without having to pick them up. He eyed the liquid with the bluish hue, and lifted the glass to his lips. “Food coloring in water,” he said shaking his finger as if to condemn the offending cheat. He drank the liquid in one gulp, just for show, and reached for the glass jar on the middle of the table.
“Fifteen seconds,” Ariana said. Karim slid his chair back from the table ever so slightly.
Abu took one last smell of the two powder containers he had set to the side and emptied them into the jar. He took the container with a liquid that moved with the consistency of olive oil and added it to the jar with the two powders. As the liquid hit the powders, the mixture started to fizz. Abu quickly sealed the lid. From his seat, he rolled the jar forcefully across the floor. When the jar met the edge of the wall forty feet away, Abu raised his hand and began a countdown with his fingers. When he reached one, he put his head in his hands. Everyone at the table followed suit as the jar exploded, shards of glass tinkling off the side of the parked truck some ten feet away.
“Very nice,” Ariana said.
“What was that?” James asked.
“An old chemistry trick,” Ariana said without elaborating. “With a few twists thrown in.”
The three men looked at Abu. A short fuse with a deadly talent. A dangerous c
ombination.
“Abu, clean up and sweep the floor when we are done.”
As Ariana continued, Abu put the lids back on the remaining benign liquids and powders. “Syed here is trained in conventional weaponry. Handguns, rifles. Highly accurate to eight hundred yards with the proper equipment.”
“A thousand yards, with no wind,” Syed added.
“Make that a thousand yards with no wind,” Ariana clarified. Ariana pulled a knife from the box and put it on the table. She nodded at Syed. Syed picked up the knife and weighed it in his hands. “What do you want me to hit?”
“The door frame to the office.”
“It’s twenty yards. At that distance I would use a gun.”
“It is twenty three yards. Can you do it? That’s the question.”
“How many times do you want the knife to rotate?” Syed asked, perturbed at the test.
“Your choice,” Ariana answered.
Without standing Syed pulled his lanky arm back over his shoulder and flung the knife forward. The razor sharp blade rotated four times in the air and stuck into the door frame of the office. “That should be about five feet off the ground. A neck shot to a man of average height.”
“Why the neck?” James asked.
“A knife could bounce off a human skull. I would prefer to kill, not wound.”
Ariana nodded and moved on. She reached back into the box and put a large padlock onto the table. “Next is James. A man of multiple talents. Son of a locksmith. An electrician by trade. A pickpocket by habit. A pugilist by nature.”
James smiled at his description.