by Will Jordan
He thought he saw a flicker of amusement in Hussam’s eyes as this happened. They must have seemed like an old married couple.
‘So, Ameera, tell me what brings you here?’ the old man asked.
‘We must get across the Iraq border tomorrow. I need to know the best place to make the crossing. We also need weapons, preferably assault rifles.’
Hassam surveyed her with heavy-lidded eyes. ‘That is much to ask.’
‘I know you have the weapons. You always have them. And I know you have men watching the American border patrols. How else could you smuggle petrol into the country?’
For a moment, Drake saw anger and surprise flare in the old man’s eyes, though it was soon masked.
‘I would not ask if it were not important,’ Anya went on, perhaps trying to sooth his wounded pride. ‘Across the border in Iraq, there is a man we must find at all costs. He holds secrets that people are willing to kill for. Many lives may depend on this, Hussam.’
She was smart enough not to divulge anything about Munro holding Drake’s sister hostage, or the secret arms deal that Anya’s contact apparently had evidence of. The less he knew, the less chance there was that he could compromise them if he was ever captured.
‘If the wrong people find him first, there’s no telling how much damage it could do,’ Drake lied, hoping that together their words might sway him.
‘Only you can help us,’ Anya chimed in.
Hussam reached for a date, chewing it thoughtfully for several moments before coming to a decision. ‘Very well. Whatever you need will be yours,’ he said, then his expression softened a little. ‘You have not eaten tonight, have you?’
Anya gave him a rueful smile that somehow made her seem a lot younger than she was. ‘Aside from an apple in Riyadh …’
Hussam laughed again. ‘Then the two of you will be my guests tonight. I will have a room set aside where you can wash and rest.’
Chapter 54
‘TELL ME SOMETHING, Lieutenant,’ Dietrich began as they strode away from Tariq’s office. ‘What did you say to your superior to change his mind?’
Al Ameen was in his early thirties, he guessed, with a good-looking, clean-shaven face and keen eyes that missed nothing. Unlike most of the grim-faced bastards who inhabited this place, he possessed an easy, almost disarming smile. The only reminder of his true age was his receding hairline, though he had cut his hair short to disguise this fact.
‘You can call me Rahul,’ the lieutenant informed him. ‘I told him you were not worthy of his time, and that I would relieve him of the burden of dealing with ignorant foreigners.’
‘Very generous of you,’ he remarked.
‘Why are you so eager to help us?’ Keegan asked.
‘Men like Tariq are part of the older generation. They see the West as an enemy to be guarded against. I do not.’
‘Yeah? So how do you see us?’ Frost pressed him.
‘As partners,’ he answered. ‘We work together, and we both profit. We work against each other, and we both fail. My country is the wealthiest and most developed in the Persian Gulf because of American money. I would not wish for this to change.’
Fair enough, Dietrich thought. ‘Tariq will blame you if we fail here.’
The younger man flashed an almost boyish grin. ‘Then we should make sure you do not fail, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then what do you need?’
‘Frost, enlighten the man,’ Dietrich said, turning to the young woman.
‘I need access to the entire security camera system in central Riyadh. Traffic, surveillance, security – everything,’ she said straight away. ‘Our best chance is to find them when they left the airport and follow their movements from there.’
Rahul’s eyes opened wider and he shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no. This is no good.’
‘Why not?’
‘You are American. And you are a woman,’ he explained. ‘This is no good for you to be doing such things. It is not allowed. You can instruct our own technicians on what to look for.’
Her eyes flared. ‘It’ll take twice as long.’
‘There is no choice.’
‘I thought you said we should work together,’ Dietrich challenged him.
‘I did. But there are things even I cannot allow. This is not America.’
Dietrich took a deep breath, marshalling his patience before turning his eyes on Rahul again. ‘Ms Frost is the best technician we have.’ He ignored Frost’s look of surprise as he carried on. ‘She’s also our best chance at finding these two fugitives. If she can’t do her job, we can’t do ours, and we will fail. And I think you know what happens if we fail.’
Rahul looked at him for a long moment. ‘I will see what I can do.’
Drake leaned over the sink to splash a handful of water on his face. It was delightfully cool, and a welcome relief from the stinging dust that had been their constant companion since arriving in the country.
‘What’s this Ameera business?’ he asked. ‘Is that your cover name or something?’
They had been lent a room on the building’s upper floor, its single window facing westward. Drake had opened the shutter to let some air in, allowing the warm evening breeze to sigh through. Outside it was dusk, the sky in the west turning deep orange now that the sun had dipped below the horizon.
The room itself was a simple affair: just a bed in one corner, a small wardrobe that wobbled slightly on uneven legs, a chipped sink, an old writing desk that looked as if it had seen better days, and a couple of wooden stools scattered around.
Anya, seated on a stool with her feet up on the desk, shook her head. ‘No, it is … a nickname. Something Hussam gave me a long time ago.’
‘What does it mean?’
She looked almost embarrassed when she spoke again. ‘It has no direct translation, but I suppose the closest word would be princess.’
Drake, in the middle of drying his face, turned to look at her. ‘Princess, eh? Not quite how I pictured you.’
It was quite a contrast from a goddess of war.
She shrugged. ‘It was his choice, not mine.’
Turning her attention to more practical matters, she logged into her Hotmail account using Drake’s phone, and from there pinged Typhoon’s private chat room.
It took about thirty seconds for him to join her online, and Anya wasted no time getting to the point.
Guest: I AM IN SAUDI. WHERE DO WE MEET?
Host: LAT – 30.8136, LON – 43.6717. BE THERE TOMORROW BY 18:00 OR I WON’T BE.
Anya exhaled slowly, mulling over his words. He was getting nervous and agitated now that the witching hour was approaching. The initial euphoria of making contact with her again had faded, and now doubts and insecurities were creeping in. To make himself feel in control, he was exerting authority he didn’t have.
She was under no illusions about the man’s desires or motivations. This was not some sentinel of truth and virtue out to expose wrongdoing – he was a selfish, greedy man who had seen an opportunity to improve his lot in life. And he needed her to make it happen, otherwise he would have ignored her.
Guest: I WILL BE THERE ON TIME.
Host: IF I THINK YOU ARE COMPROMISED, THE DEAL IS OFF.
Guest: NO SUCH THING WILL HAPPEN.
Host: AS YOU SAY. TOMORROW, THEN.
Host is now offline.
With relief, she jotted down the latitude and longitude coordinates, terminated the connection and laid the phone aside.
‘Well? What’s the verdict?’
‘He will meet us tomorrow. He gave me coordinates.’
‘Let’s see them,’ Drake prompted, digging the Magellan out of his pack and firing it up. He inputted them as Anya read them out, then waited a few seconds for the unit to lock down the location.
‘It’s near a small village called Ash Shabakah, about a hundred miles across the border,’ he reported. ‘Middle of nowhere, basically.’
Anya leaned
back in her chair and ran her hands through her hair. Her head and eyes hurt from exposure to the harsh sunlight, and she could already feel the itchy beginnings of sunburn on her arms and face.
‘Tomorrow will be a long day. For both of us.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘I’m used to that.’
Chapter 55
‘AT LAST! I’VE got them,’ Frost exclaimed.
For the past hour she had been trawling through a backlog of security footage from the dozens of cameras dotted around the airport, looking for just one glimpse of their targets. Now at last she’d found them.
Dietrich and Keegan were beside her in a few seconds, leaning in close to examine the frozen black-and-white image. Sure enough, they saw a man and a woman walking out of the airport terminal together. Anya’s blonde hair made her easy to pick out amongst the crowd.
‘Where did they go after that?’ Dietrich demanded.
‘You,’ Frost said, pointing at one of the Saudi technicians nearby. ‘Give me a wide-angle shot from one of the exterior cameras. One that’s facing south-west. Use the same time frame.’
The man shot her an angry look, but a stern glare from Rahul was enough to silence any protests. He had made good on his agreement to get them access to the airport security camera system, either persuading or intimidating his way into the building and resolutely ignoring the protests about foreign intervention. He was Saudi internal police – his word was law.
Within moments, the image on her screen changed to an outside shot of the terminal building. It took them a few seconds to pick out Drake and Anya amongst the throng of passengers, but once they had them, there was no letting go.
They watched as the pair made for the bus terminal and spent a couple of minutes wandering between the stands before selecting one.
Dietrich made a note of the bus number and turned to Rahul. ‘Can you pull up the route that bus takes?’
It took a couple of minutes to find the route, forcing them to delay their observation while they searched for available cameras at each of the bus stops. Much to their dismay, fewer than half of the stops were covered.
Dietrich chewed his lip as Frost scanned each of the available stops during the time the bus was meant to arrive there.
On the fifth stop, Keegan piped up. ‘I see them. There!’
Damn, the man had good eyes. No wonder he became a sniper.
Sure enough, Drake and Anya disembarked on a fairly unremarkable street in central Riyadh, and were making to cross the busy road.
‘What are they looking for?’ Dietrich wondered.
Frost was on it. ‘Can we get a shot across the street?’
Once again the image changed, this time displaying the output from a camera on the opposite side. Straight away Dietrich understood where they were heading.
‘They’re buying a car.’
It was surreal watching them browsing the ranks of parked vehicles, knowing it had happened hours ago. Settling on one in particular – a light brown Land Rover – they wasted no time attracting the attention of the dealer.
Frost fast-forwarded the protracted negotiations, missing about half an hour of footage, until at last they had a decent shot of the vehicle pulling out of the forecourt.
‘Freeze that shot,’ Dietrich ordered.
It was a perfect image of Anya and Drake up front, just before they pulled out onto the main road. They were both wearing sunglasses and had changed into casual clothes, but it was unmistakably them. More important, it gave them an unobstructed view of the licence plate.
A smile crept across Dietrich’s face as he noted down the number. ‘Follow them every inch of the way. I want to know every move they made.’
‘On it.’
As Frost resumed her work, Dietrich pulled out his cellphone to call Franklin’s office back at Langley.
Hussam proved to be as generous as he was jovial. Returning downstairs a short time later, Drake and Anya were greeted by a meal of spit-cooked lamb, grilled chicken, rice, dates, fava beans cooked in olive oil, loaves of flat unleavened bread and coffee served Turkish style with the ground beans still in the cup.
They fell upon the food as only starving people can. Drake was amazed that such a feast had been prepared in such a short time, and had thought to pass his compliments on to Hussam’s wife, though he suspected it wouldn’t be appropriate.
There was little talking during the meal. Anya had explained in advance that conversation was not encouraged during dinner so that guests could enjoy the food. Drake wasn’t complaining.
Hussam was putting food away with the best of them. He suspected the man had already eaten tonight, but by the looks of him, he wasn’t the sort to refuse a good meal.
‘So, my friend, tell me more about yourself,’ he said, addressing Drake as the meal wound down. ‘How is it you come to know my Ameera?’
At this, Anya cocked an eyebrow, though Drake saw a hint of a smile too. He was quite certain that few other men would get away with referring to her in such a way.
‘We both work for the same people, but we only met a few days ago. Things have been … eventful so far,’ Drake began, not sure how much to tell him, or how much he already knew. He glanced at his female companion, smiling, though his eyes held an accusatory look. ‘One thing I’ll say about her – she’s certainly full of surprises.’
At this, Hussam threw back his head and laughed. ‘Of that, I have no doubt! She certainly surprised me when I met her for the first time. What was it, Ameera? Fifteen years ago?’
‘Sixteen,’ Anya confirmed.
‘Ah, yes. The Battle of Khafji.’ He leaned back in his seat, his ample stomach protruding before him. ‘During the Iraq War, I had the misfortune of leading a platoon into the city to capture an enemy communications centre, but instead we were ambushed by Republican Guard and surrounded. I was ready to meet Allah when chaos erupted outside, and suddenly the Iraqis were fleeing and shouting in fear. A moment later, a young woman with yellow hair came rushing into the building, her face all streaked with dust and dirt, and blood on her bayonet. She looked at me with eyes like two pieces of ice, and then just like that, she straightened up and saluted as if she were a recruit on the parade ground.’ He laughed and shook his head at the memory. ‘Never in my life have I been more surprised, or more relieved, to see a woman.’
Drake looked over at Anya, noticing a little more colour in her face. Was she actually embarrassed?
Draining her coffee, she laid her cup down and looked at Hussam. ‘Maybe we should go over the plan for tomorrow?’
He nodded agreement, and called out for someone to take away the remains of the meal. While his wife cleared away the empty plates and bowls, he spread a map out on the wooden coffee table, depicting the border region between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
‘I have spoken to a couple of my drivers while you were upstairs,’ he began. ‘The best place to make the crossing is here, about a hundred miles west of Kuwait. You will have to leave the highway after Hafar Al Batin, and from there it is about a forty-mile drive to the border. The terrain is rough and hard going, so the Americans tend to avoid it with their Humvees. But there is a deep wadi running north–south that should keep you hidden from any patrols in the area.’
Anya was nodding slowly as she studied the map, already visualising the route they would take.
At least we won’t have to worry about aerial surveillance, Drake thought. With all Predators grounded after Munro’s little stunt, their way should be more or less clear.
‘Minefields?’ Drake prompted, looking up at Hussam. Iraq had laid hundreds of thousands of mines along their borders to guard against invasion. Even years later they were an ever-present threat, as many civilians and Coalition soldiers had found to their cost.
The old man shook his head. ‘No mines there, my friend. My drivers have used that wadi a hundred times.’
Drake said nothing. He was inclined to take assurances like that with a grain of salt.
‘What about weapons?’ Anya asked.
The old man grinned, pushed himself away from the table and lumbered out of the room, returning a few moments later with two large cloth-wrapped bundles under his arms. Laying them down gently on the table, he undid the cordage that held them together and pulled back the coverings to reveal a pair of AK-47 assault rifles.
Drake nodded in satisfaction. He had no intention of starting a shooting match tomorrow, but if the worst happened, he wanted a weapon he could rely on. In that regard, he couldn’t think of anything better.
The design dated back to the Second World War, when Soviet weapons manufacturers began to search for a weapon that combined the range of a conventional rifle with the rate of fire of a sub-machine gun. A couple of years later, an enterprising young designer named Mikhail Kalashnikov produced one of the finest infantry weapons ever made.
The basic design hadn’t changed much in the past sixty years. Cheap and easy to produce, reliable and rugged, accurate and long ranged, the AK-47 was everything a soldier could want. Their reliability was legendary. Even when dropped on hard surfaces, clogged up with snow, mud or sand, or exposed to extremes of heat or cold, they almost always kept working. Drake had even seen one fired on full automatic until the wooden barrel guard caught alight from the excess heat.
These were the paratrooper version, with folding metal stocks instead of wooden ones. He picked one up to inspect it. It wasn’t a light weapon like the American M4, but there was a certain elegance and economy to its design that told him a great deal of thought had gone into it. He racked back the priming handle to check the working parts, then pulled the trigger. There was a simple, precise click as the firing pin hit an empty chamber.
Anya was doing the same with her own rifle. She had used AKs many times, and though she appreciated the weapon’s undeniable strengths, she had never been a great fan. It was heavier than she liked, suffered from powerful recoil that was almost impossible to control on automatic, and the trigger assembly was too large for her hands. Still, a gun was a gun, and she had what she needed now.