Enemy of My Enemy

by Allan Topol

  "I hope not," Jack said.

  "Let me come with you. I'll look out for them."

  Avi responded, "But Moshe said—"

  "I don't work for Moshe," Igor told him.

  Avi smiled and said to Jack, "I like this man. Let's bring him with us."

  * * *

  Back in Baku, Igor suggested the place for their meeting with Michael Hanley. "Dinner at the Mugam Club in the old town. They have private dining rooms. You can talk."

  "Maybe the hotel's better," Jack said. "We'll stand out in the town."

  Igor shook his head. "You don't have to worry. There are lots of foreigners all the time. People are decent here. They like visitors. They'll assume you're from the oil industry. Besides, the food's good."

  Looking at Igor, Jack decided, He's someone who likes to eat.

  "Okay, we'll do it."

  Jack wasn't worried that Suslov would try to attack them tonight. Even if the Russian knew they were here, he wouldn't do anything now for fear of jeopardizing tomorrow morning's exchange. Once that took place, all bets were off.

  As a precaution, Jack and Avi were both armed. Also, ten Israeli commandos dressed in plain clothes had arrived and were staying at the Hyatt, posing as members of an Israeli oil exploration team who had flown in a private plane, which permitted them to bring their arms with them. Jack asked four of them to come along to the restaurant.

  On foot, Jack, Avi, and Igor walked along the winding cobblestone streets, up and down steps, past the Maiden's Tower, with four Israeli commandos following behind, until they reached the Mugam Club. Michael was waiting for them at the entrance to the restaurant.

  As Igor talked to the proprietor, Jack watched him hand the man some of the American dollars Moshe had given him for the trip. With that they were led to a private room in the back of the restaurant separated from the other tables by a heavy brown curtain.

  The commandos were seated out front, at a table near the door.

  Jack felt as if he were playing a part in one of the old Western or gangster movies he used to see as a child in Chicago. At this point, what usually happened was a group of gunmen burst into the restaurant and began firing. He hoped that didn't happen tonight.

  They drank bottled water and local wine while a waitress kept bringing food: salads and dolma, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant stuffed with minced lamb.

  "Tell me about Dmitri Suslov," Jack said to Michael.

  "He's the devil's alter ego in Russia," Michael began. He then recited in a soft voice the presentation about Suslov he had given Joyner that morning at her office, which now seemed so long ago. As he neared the end, Avi's cell phone rang.

  "With those things, they can always find you," Michael said.

  Jack was too worried about Layla to banter. Anxiously, he watched Avi move away from the table with his back to them to take the call.

  Jack looked at Avi apprehensively when he returned a minute later. Suddenly Avi broke into a smile and gave Jack a thumbs-up. "They got Layla out via Amsterdam. She's on a plane now. She's safe."

  "That's great news," Jack said in a burst of joy.

  Michael became very quiet and still. I should have done that for Irina, he berated himself. His face was ashen.

  Alarmed, Jack looked over at Michael. "Are you all right?"

  "Yeah. I was just thinking about someone," Michael said wistfully. Then he snapped out of it. He was mindful of Joyner's admonition. He wouldn't forget about their objective, but he sure as hell intended to kill Suslov before this was all over.

  Jack pulled the map Igor had used out of his pocket and pointed to the intersection with the truck stop. He kept his voice down to a whisper. Anyone who looked at them in this place would think that they were oil company representatives discussing a site for exploration.

  Jack marked an X on the intersection and described for Michael what was on each of the four corners. "Now here's what we need from you," Jack told him.

  Jack stopped talking when the curtains to their room abruptly opened. In the entranceway stood a man with a musical pipe, accompanied by a woman clad in a flaming red halter top with sparkling sequins and transparent pink cotton trousers, with a brief bottom underneath that matched the top. "You want music?" the man asked. "She's good belly dancer."

  Responding to the cue, the woman, who was big busted and seemed to be of an indeterminate age somewhere north of thirty, swayed her broad hips and breasts. Igor looked at Jack, who shook his head. Concealing his disappointment, Igor got up, walked over, and handed the couple American money. "Not tonight," he said. The money made them happy. Smiling, they waved to everyone, closed the curtain, and left.

  Jack returned to the map. Michael was now on the edge of his chair, waiting to hear what Jack said.

  "It's still early in the day in Washington," Jack said. "Have someone at your agency get to a key official at Spartan Oil. I know it's an American-based firm. We're going to use their building as a command center and staging area from about midnight tonight. Make sure all of their people stay away until this is over. Hopefully they'll have a building to return to."

  Michael leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, trying to visualize what the intersection looked like, because Joyner was certain to ask him that. He turned back to Jack. "You're planning to lay your ambush there."

  "Exactly. But I prefer to think of it as our ambush. When will the American troops arrive? How many are coming?"

  Michael hesitated.

  "Well?" Jack pressed.

  Michael took a deep breath. What he was about to say wouldn't endear him to the two Israelis. "Washington has told me that at this point we have six men in the area. A special-operations force headed by Major Davis, who's quite experienced, will be joining me tonight at the Radisson."

  Avi sprang to his feet. "Six!" Avi said in disbelief. "That's all? Suslov's sure to have at least a hundred men guarding those four trucks. The way I do the math right now, we have ten Israeli commandos, six special-operations troops, and the three of us. We'll be dead meat. What are they thinking in Washington?"

  Michael agreed with Avi. He felt no need to defend his government. "You're preaching to the choir. I've been arguing for much more firepower. I'm told the logistics will take time. Hopefully they'll arrive before the convoy."

  "What the hell took them so long to get the process started?"

  Michael held out his hands. "You know. The usual political stuff and indecision in Washington. They were worried about American-Russian relations and all that."

  Jack was shaking his head in disbelief.

  "Oh, that's bullshit," Avi said with a scowl.

  "Look, don't shoot the messenger," Michael pleaded. "I'm as frustrated as you are."

  Avi was preparing to fire back a brutal retort when Jack stood up and put his hand on Avi's shoulder to calm his colleague. "There's no point beating up on Michael. We'll have to make do with what we have."

  "That's just great," Avi moaned.

  Jack was becoming irritated by Avi's carping. The situation was what it was. He was anxious to move on and decide what to do, make the best of it. "We have the element of surprise on our side. It's up to us to come up with a plan that takes advantage of that. We don't have a choice. The objective is to block the exchange from taking place. That means we keep fighting until the rest of the American troops get here."

  * * *

  Sixty miles west of Baku, Suslov was ensconced in the commander's villa of a former Russian military base near the village of Samaxi. The barracks were occupied by his troops, former Russian army officers, eighty in all.

  It was time to check on each of his partners.

  Suslov took out his cell phone and dialed Nikolai, the head of the truck convoy with the nuclear weapons. "Position and status?" Suslov barked.

  "We're in place. Parked twenty miles north of the meeting point. All drivers are sleeping a couple of hours before the final push. Armed soldiers are surrounding each truck. We'll arrive at five hu
ndred hours, as you ordered."

  Suslov's next call was to the Irshad Hotel, where Nadim was supposed to be staying. The operator told him, "Mr. Nadim is expected, but hasn't arrived yet."

  Suslov frowned, wondering what happened to Nadim, but he wasn't alarmed. Nadim had told him where the other players would be. The Syrian had better be right, or Suslov would kill him.

  He moved on to Ali Hashim, the Iranian intelligence chief, who was critical. Suslov was relieved to reach him at the Caspian Great House Hotel in Baku, where he was staying with a high-ranking Iranian treasury official and two bodyguards.

  Nervously, Suslov asked, "Do you have the one-point-two billion dollars?"

  Ali Hashim calmly replied, "My colleague from Treasury has his laptop."

  Suslov didn't like that answer, and he didn't hide his displeasure. "What does that mean?"

  The Iranian chuckled. "You didn't expect me to bring cash in a suitcase, did you?"

  "Stop playing games with me."

  Hashim knew instantly that this Suslov was a despicable man, someone he would never have chosen to do business with. But at this point there was no turning back.

  "Once I give my colleague the order, he'll use his laptop to transfer the funds to your numbered Swiss bank account."

  "And how will I know it gets there?"

  "I assume you'll have a cell phone with you. Use it to call your banker in Geneva. It takes less than a minute for the transfer to go through."

  Suslov's final call was to Kemal, who was at an air force base in northern Syria, which had been arranged by Nadim. "How's the patient?" Suslov asked.

  "Properly sedated and looking forward to his ride to Baku. Don't worry; we'll be on time. At the airport we have an ambulance waiting. We paid a local company a great deal to let us borrow it. They have no idea what we want with it."

  Suslov put down the phone and smiled with satisfaction. Everything was now in place except for Nadim, and he was redundant. Suslov permitted himself the luxury of only a small slivovitz, wanting to keep his mind sharp.

  He was now confident that the exchange would go smoothly. He had two other missions tomorrow. One was for himself: to deal with Michael Hanley. The great American lover had to suffer for what he had done with Irina. And one was for Nadim: to kill Jack Cole, who must be responsible for the Syrian's absence. Nadim had put this together. He owed it to Nadim to kill the Israeli spy.

  All of that was easily doable, Suslov decided. He was neither nervous nor worried. His entire life he had loved nothing better than combat. Other men shied away from battle, but not Suslov. When he had resigned from the disintegrating Russian army, he thought he had directed troops in battle for the last time. Happily now he had another chance. The adrenaline was flowing. But that didn't stop him from lying down in bed and sleeping like a baby. He needed his rest and energy. Bullets would be flying tomorrow.

  Chapter 39

  Jack checked his watch. It was ten minutes past four in the morning. The lights were on in the truck stop on the other side of the intersection. The cafe was open for business.

  In contrast, the Spartan Oil building was dark. To anyone looking at it from the outside under the full moon, it seemed deserted, which was precisely what Jack wanted.

  In a second-floor office, in the front of the building that faced the intersection, Jack and Avi stood at adjacent windows, each with a pair of night-vision binoculars glued to his eyes, surveying the roads leading to the intersection and the truck stop. Behind them, Igor was sitting at a desk, chain-smoking cigarettes, while Michael paced nervously back and forth across the room. Jack, Avi, and Michael were all armed with pistols and Uzis.

  Downstairs, two Israeli commandos and two members of Major Davis's special-ops force were ready to go. Each had a powerful pistol and a submachine gun. The rest of the Israelis and Americans were spread out among the other three corners of the intersection. A few were concealed in the concrete frame of the building under construction. Some were hiding behind the shuttered stalls of the produce vendors. The remainder were crouched down behind parked trucks in the parking area of the truck stop.

  The ambush was set.

  Outside, the wind started to kick up, blowing dust around the intersection, just as Igor had predicted. "Mornings are windy this time of year almost every day."

  "Dust is good for us," Jack said to Avi. "That's one break we have."

  "Yeah, why is that?"

  "Because we're outnumbered. They won't be able to spot our people."

  "Gee, that makes me feel so much better."

  Michael stopped pacing and yanked the cell phone out of his pocket. It was his third call to Joyner in the last two hours. "What's the latest word on the additional troops?"

  "Six Blackhawk helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles are in the air right now, en route to your location. The choppers are ferrying marines, eighty-four in all."

  "What's their ETA?" Michael asked anxiously.

  "Five-forty-five."

  Michael groaned. "That's an hour and a half from now."

  "General Childress did the best he could under the circumstances," Joyner said testily. "Lots of places in the region are off-limits to the American military. We couldn't take a direct route from the base."

  "Okay. Okay. I'm sorry."

  Jack and Avi had been watching Michael and listening to him during his exchange with Joyner.

  "Not good?" Jack asked when Michael hung up.

  "We have to make it through the next hour and a half on our own."

  "Oh, great," Avi spat. "What are—"

  Jack cut him off. "Don't worry about it." He was trying to display a confidence he didn't feel. "We have a good plan. We may not have the numbers, but all our troops here are tough and seasoned. If they have to do it alone, they'll get the job done."

  Avi, a hero of Entebbe, wasn't so sure. There they had faced Idi Amin's poorly equipped ragtag army. Here, they would be going up against battle-hardened Russian soldiers who had no doubt served in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Major Davis and Capt. Ben Zvi were poring over a piece of paper on a table in the coffee lounge on the ground floor. On it Davis had sketched a map of the intersection. The truck stop was on the northwest corner. Their Spartan Oil building was on the southeast.

  "From everything we know, the convoy will be coming from the north," Davis said. He drew four rectangles north of the intersection and penciled in a series of X's on each side of the rectangles. "Suslov's troops."

  Ben Zvi nodded. "The initial objective has to be to halt the movement of the four trucks—whatever it takes. Those nuclear weapons can't leave the area."

  Davis was in complete agreement. The veins on his neck were protruding with the tension. "And I have a secondary objective. When they bring our pilot, Lieutenant McCallister—and God only knows when they're getting him here—I have to rescue him."

  "We'll give you whatever help we can on that."

  "Good. I appreciate it. Let's just hope that the Azerbaijan police and army stay away. They could only complicate matters."

  "I was told by headquarters we can assume that."

  Davis hoped Ben Zvi was right. Washington was thinking the same way. "Even without them, we've got a big job ahead of us."

  Major Davis and Captain Ben Zvi climbed up the stairs to the office where Jack and the others were. It began functioning as a command center.

  Twenty minutes later Jack strained his eyes looking through the binoculars. "Large car coming from the east. Appears to be a BMW sedan."

  "I can see it," Avi said.

  They watched the BMW slow down as it passed the front of Spartan Oil, then cross the intersection and ease into the parking lot for the truck stop. The car doors opened, and four men got out, dressed in dark suits and ties. One was carrying a bag for a laptop computer. Two looked around nervously, as if they were ready to go for their guns. All four walked into the cafe.

  "Ali Hashim," Jack said to
Michael. "The Iranian intelligence chief."

  "Then the two goons must be bodyguards. Do you recognize the fourth? The guy with the computer bag?"

  Jack shook his head and turned to Avi.

  "Never saw him before... My guess is he's the money-man."

  "You're right," Jack interjected. "He'll use his laptop to wire the money to Suslov."

  "The age of high-tech thugs," Avi muttered.

  Behind them, Igor put out his cigarette and lit another.

  "One piece in place," Jack said. "Which one is next?"

  Five minutes later Jack had his answer. Through his powerful binoculars, he saw headlights on the crest of the hill in the distance, approaching from the north. "Has to be the convoy at about two miles." He handed the binoculars to Captain Ben Zvi. Avi handed his to Major Davis.

  The two military men confirmed that the four trucks were approaching with heavy escorts. "We'd better remind our men to hold their fire until we give the order," Ben Zvi said to Davis. They both got on their cell phones and barked that directive.

  Michael took a position next to Jack at the window. "Now where is Lieutenant McCallister?" he said.

  "I wish he were here already. When all hell breaks loose in a couple of minutes, it may scare away whoever is bringing him."

  Michael recoiled at that possibility. "That had better not happen, or they'll fry my ass in Washington. For my bosses, that's what this is all about."

  "It may have been once," Jack replied. "But right now it's about a lot more than McCallister."

  Igor said, "I'm going into the cafe to try to protect the owner and his wife."

  "Be careful," Jack told him.

  Outside, the wind was blowing hard, swirling the dust. Jack stared hard through the binoculars screwed to his eyes. Finally, he saw a large black Mercedes approaching from the west. That must be Suslov, Jack decided. His conclusion was confirmed by the license plate. In Russian letters, the vanity plate spelled out the boss.

  The Mercedes eased into the truck stop's parking lot. Michael's heart was pounding as he watched the driver climb out and look around. Then he opened the rear door for Suslov.