5
Emma Ransom, a.k.a. Lara Antonova, sped down the eight-lane superhighway, a lone courier in the night. The windows were down, and warm air filled the BMW M5 with the scent of saltwater and scorched earth. The digital clock’s numerals glowed 11:47. Ahead, like the first rays of a rising sun, a scythe of light cut the horizon in two. She passed a sign saying “Sharjah Free Trade Zone-5 km.”
“This is a final systems check,” she announced to the empty cockpit.
“We have you loud and clear,” came a gruff American voice from deep inside her head.
“How’s the picture?” A microdigital camera embedded in the top button of her blouse delivered the pictures to her cell phone, which transmitted the images to a suite of offices at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.
“If you’re driving two hundred kilometers per hour like the speedometer says, the camera’s working fine. Now slow down.”
“Just tell me if it’s in focus and aimed straight ahead.”
“Yes and yes. Now remember, all I want you to do is hand over the shipment, get General Ivanov his money, and get the hell out. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Frank, we’re clear.”
“Whatever you do, don’t wait around for him to try that gun.”
“That gun” was a VSSK Vychlop 12.7 mm sniper’s rifle, the most powerful weapon of its kind in the world.
“How did you rig it?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“I don’t go in blind.”
“We engraved three bullets with his name and the royal family’s coat of arms and included them in the case. Two of them are good. We put fifty grams of C4 in the third. When the firing pin hits it, bang goes the breech. And I mean bang, as in a serious shrapnel burst. You don’t want to be nearby when it goes off.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” she said. “I’m glad you’re looking after me.”
“Me look after you? Since when?”
The comment provoked a laugh. Maybe because it was so patently true, or maybe because she wished it weren’t. “Talk to you on the other side.”
Emma pressed her foot against the accelerator, locking her arms against the wheel as the car gained speed-200… 220… 240 kilometers per hour-and the wind buffeted her.
“Slow down,” said Connor.
Frank Connor was the head of Division and Emma’s boss. She ignored him.
The free trade zone came into view. It was a city of warehouses, hangars, cranes, and fences built on a gargantuan scale. The highway narrowed from eight lanes to four. A sign advised her to slow to 80 kilometers per hour. Her response was to press the pedal harder and watch the speedometer jump to 260. She stared at the unbroken white stripe leading her on, enjoying the hum of the automobile’s five-liter V10 engine, the world beyond her reduced to a blur.
“Emma… I said, slow the hell down!”
She kept her foot on the accelerator: 280… 290… 300.
And then she braked. The car decelerated rapidly, the g’s forcing her forward against the seatbelt, making her aware of her anxious stomach and her rapidly beating heart. She drew a breath and calmed herself. The butterflies vanished and her heart rate fell to its normal fifty beats per minute. She was no longer Lara or Emma. She was an operative. Names didn’t matter. It was her work that defined her identity, her mission that formed the core of her soul.
Leaving the highway, she turned in to the east entry and stopped at the security checkpoint. A tall fence topped with rings of barbed wire blocked her path. A uniformed guard looked her up and down but didn’t ask for her name or her identification. She was expected. “Continue straight ahead for two kilometers,” he said. “You’ll be met at Warehouse 7.”
The fence clattered on its track, and Emma advanced into the complex. She passed a succession of warehouses, each five stories tall and as large as two city blocks. Even at this hour the area was alive with traffic: trucks loading and offloading goods, forklifts zipping back and forth, cranes lifting containers from trains to flatbeds.
Finally she reached Warehouse 7. A second checkpoint blocked the road. As she approached, the gate slid back. A police car was parked a few meters ahead. Its flashers lit up and began to strobe. A hand emerged from the driver’s window and motioned for her to follow.
She tailed the police car across a wide asphalt expanse to a smaller hangar two kilometers away that was situated at the farthest corner of the free trade zone. Its giant barn doors stood open, and bright lights burned overhead. Her eyes scanned the building. For a moment she caught a shadow perched on the rooftop, the glint of a rifle, but when she looked closer it was gone.
Balfour had already arrived and stood alone beside his Bentley Mulsanne Turbo. His retinue of bodyguards had dwindled to one, a six-foot, six-inch Sikh she knew as Mr. Singh.
There were, however, a dozen uniformed policemen to see to his well-being. This was the prince’s territory, and the prince would guarantee Balfour’s safety.
Emma killed the engine and stepped out of the car. A policeman frisked her, then nodded for her to go ahead.
“Ah, Miss Antonova,” said Balfour, who greeted everyone as if he’d just run into them at a cocktail party. “I see that you’ve found us.”
“Where’s the prince?” asked Emma.
“Due any minute. Where’s the plane?”
“On schedule.”
“So we wait,” said Balfour.
“So we wait,” said Emma. “I’ve never seen you without your pack of wolves. Don’t you feel naked?”
“I have Mr. Singh. Besides, the prince and I have a relationship of long standing.”
Emma raised a brow. She was skeptical of such relationships.
“And,” said Balfour, “I have something the prince wants.”
“I thought I was providing the merchandise.”
“Not that,” said Balfour. “Those are just guns. Playthings. I have something else. Something far more interesting.”
“I’m sure you do,” she said. But instead of probing further, which was an intelligence officer’s first instinct, she walked out of the hangar and stared into the black sky. The air buzzed with aircraft taking off, one after another.
“They’re mine,” said Balfour. “Cargo planes. They’re on their way to Iraq. For eight years the Americans pumped that country full of everything you can imagine. Now they want to take it all home in eighteen months. I’m more than happy to help.”
To the east, Emma made out a set of red landing lights. She checked her watch. The time was 11:58. It was the Tupolev, inbound from Tehran.
“Is that our plane?” asked Balfour.
“The prince said midnight. The Swiss aren’t the only ones who are punctual.”
“So you can be relied upon?” The promise of conspiracy lay heavy in his voice.
“Have I ever failed you?”
Balfour smiled his fox’s grin. “No. But that doesn’t mean I can trust you.” He stepped closer and lit a cigarette. “Just how high do your contacts reach in Moscow?”
“As high as necessary.”
“The director? General Ivanov?”
Emma met Balfour’s eye. She said nothing. She knew that she had something he wanted.
Balfour glanced over his shoulder at the cadre of policemen standing near their vehicles. Taking her arm, he led her toward a grass berm bordering the runway. “I’ve found something,” he said. “Something in the mountains. A device of some sort. I need help to extract it and bring it down.”
Still Emma refused to exhibit the least interest. “That’s not what we do,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“It is an explosive,” Balfour continued. “American.”
“Really? What kind?”
“I don’t know. I only have a photograph. It’s much too far away for me to venture. I suffer from asthma, and it’s at high altitude. All I can tell you is that it is large and appears to be very heavy.”
“I’m an intellig
ence agent, not a mountain guide. What kind of help do you think I could provide?”
“Equipment. Experts. A whole team, I should think.”
Beneath her veil of nonchalance, Emma was keen to learn more. The words “large American explosive device” had coalesced into a tempting image. “Do you have the photograph with you?”
Balfour glanced over his shoulder once again. “Quick. Before he gets here.” A hand delved into the inner pocket of his cream-colored sports jacket. “Take a look. Tell me what you think.”
Emma studied the photograph. It showed a length of silver metallic skin buried in snow. Stenciled in black paint were the letters “USAF.” A few feet away, a square fin protruded. She brought the photograph closer. The problem was scale. There was nothing to indicate the object’s size. It could be one meter or ten. “Looks like a bomb or a missile.”
“Yes, but what kind?”
“Don’t you have one with a little less snow on it?”
Balfour hesitated. “Unfortunately not.”
Emma kept her eyes on the picture, fully aware that Balfour was lying to her and that he knew more than he was letting on. “Where exactly did you say you found this?” she asked.
“I didn’t.” There was noise of motors approaching. Balfour snapped the photo out of her fingers and slid it into his pocket. “Our secret.”
“Of course.”
Emma turned to see a convoy of seven black Mercedes SUVs speeding across the tarmac. Small UAE flags flew from the antennas. Balfour returned to the hangar. Emma followed at a distance. As she walked, she glanced up at the roof of the hangar. The shadow she’d seen earlier was there again, and this time he wasn’t hiding. Nor were the three other snipers positioned on the rooftop. Either the prince was exceedingly conscious of his safety or something was wrong.
“Are you getting that, Frank?” she said under her breath. “They’ve got shooters on the roof. Something’s up. He’s never done that before.”
Emma waited for the voice to answer, but no one responded.
“Frank?” she whispered.
A faint, high-pitched whistle filled her ear. The whistle indicated the presence of a jamming device designed to seek out and defeat all wireless transmissions in the immediate area. She could no longer hear Connor; she could only hope he was able to receive her voice and her pictures.
Effectively isolated, Emma quickened her pace, watching as the fleet of Mercedes pulled to a halt. The driver’s door opened and a man wearing the tan uniform and green shoulder boards of a general in the national police got out.
The prince had arrived.
6
His full name was Prince Rashid Albayar al-Zayed, and he was the twelfth son of Crown Prince Ali al-Zayed, the sitting president of the United Arab Emirates. Thirty-two years of age, Prince Rashid stood a strapping six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a matinee idol’s smile, and flashing brown eyes that captivated all with their sincerity. Rashid was not one of the lazy royals who lived off his family’s name and squandered money as if it were an Olympic discipline. He was the opposite thing. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Cambridge University, and INSEAD, all with honors, he had returned home to commence a career in his government’s service. In six years he had moved from commissioner of customs and excise to deputy minister of foreign affairs, and now he headed the country’s national police.
In his off hours, Prince Rashid chaired a pan-Arab summit on climate change and served as the royal family’s representative for the Emirates Hunger Challenge, a charity that had raised over $200 million for starving children in sub-Saharan Africa. His wife was a Lebanese beauty, and Christian. His four lovely children attended a French lycee in Dubai City. To all eyes, the prince was the model of a modern secular Muslim and a postage-stamp representative of the UAE.
But the file on him painted a darker portrait. It suggested that his public activities were for show and nothing more than a workaholic’s laboriously constructed facade to camouflage his true calling: the funneling of arms and materiel to fundamentalist Islamic terrorist organizations.
As he walked across the hangar floor, arms outstretched, Prince Rashid turned up the wattage on his smile and made bold use of his flashing eyes. In the Middle East, a greeting says everything about a relationship.
“Ashok, my dear friend,” he said, taking Balfour into his arms and hugging him. “I’m so very glad to see you. I can’t thank you enough for helping me… and my friends.”
“The pleasure is mine,” said Lord Balfour. “May I introduce Miss Lara Antonova of the Russian FSB?”
“I thought Siberians were blond,” said Prince Rashid, bowing slightly.
“Not all of us,” said Emma. He was shaking her hand, and for a moment she thought he was not going to let go. His hands were large and surprisingly callused. Another snippet came back to her. The prince was a devotee of martial arts. Rumor was that he enjoyed sending his sparring partners to the hospital.
“If I didn’t know General Ivanov better, I’d say you were British,” the prince went on.
“Moscow prefers that we speak the queen’s English.”
Rashid laughed, and they were joined a moment later by his cadre of police officers. Just then his phone rang. He spoke briefly. “Miss Antonova, your plane has requested permission to land. It will be on the ground in two minutes.”
The prince rubbed his hands together and strode onto the tarmac. Balfour and Emma accompanied him, careful to stay the requisite step behind. The twenty-odd police officers, all dressed in the same crisp short-sleeved khaki uniform as their commander, followed.
The Tupolev landed and taxied to the near end of the runway. The cargo hatch dropped. The plane’s crew began to unload pallet after pallet stacked high with wooden crates painted an olive drab and stenciled with Cyrillic words.
The next hour passed quickly. Prince Rashid strode among the cargo, pointing out random crates to open and inspecting the contents against his packing list. Lord Balfour walked at the prince’s side, saying, “It’s all here” again and again. “One hundred percent fulfillment, as requested.”
Emma stood off to one side, arms crossed, her eyes shifting between the prince and the snipers positioned on the rooftop. It was while she was checking over her shoulder that she noticed the man for the first time. He was small and lithe, bearded, like nearly every male present except the prince, but very different in manner. He stood next to the prince’s Mercedes, and she suspected he must have ridden in the passenger seat, which made him a VIP. His skin was dark, and even standing, one hand clutching the SUV’s open door, he appeared hunted, as if afraid of being spotted. He was dressed in traditional Arab garb but not a rich man’s robe, just a simple white dish-dasha and headdress with a coiled black rope. His clothes marked him as a common man, but no common man rode shotgun with Prince Rashid.
Emma looked at him long enough for her camera to get a nice shot for Frank Connor and the boys back at Division.
The man was the end user: Prince Rashid’s terrorist of the month. Emma had no proof, but she knew it all the same. Experience.
“One hundred percent fulfillment.” This time it was the prince speaking, and she turned to see him approach. “I’m impressed. I look forward to doing more business with General Ivanov in the future.” He signaled to an aide-de-camp, and a minute later Emma was in possession of two stainless steel briefcases, each containing $5 million.
“The pleasure is ours,” said Emma. “In fact, the general has asked me to present you with a gift on his behalf.”
“Really?”
She stared at the prince, wondering if his surprise was genuine or if his sincerity was always so transparent. She signaled to the airmen, and a few moments later they descended from the Tupolev carrying a lacquered black rifle case between them. “Put it there,” she said, gesturing to a nearby crate.
With ceremony she opened the box, revealing the Vychlop sniper’s rifle embedded in maroon velvet. Directly beneath the rifle
, each in its own compartment, were three five-inch-long bullets with the circumference of a Cohiba cigar. Each bore the prince’s name and family crest engraved on its brass jacket. More important, each was capable of penetrating an armored Humvee at a thousand yards.
Prince Rashid put the rifle to his shoulder. It weighed twenty-two pounds, but he clasped it as if it were a Daisy Repeater.
“I hope it meets your satisfaction,” said Emma.
“What kind of question is that?” asked the prince, lowering the rifle and passing a well-manicured hand along its barrel. “It is a thing of beauty. An instrument of death rendered elegant.”
“I’m glad you like it.” She checked her watch. “Excuse me, but I have a three a.m. flight to Zurich. I’m sorry to leave so soon-”
“Nonsense,” said Prince Rashid. “I’ll call the airport and see that it’s delayed. You must stay and try General Ivanov’s gift with me.”
Emma sensed an insistence that had not been there before. A false, predatory insistence. “Really,” she continued, a voice within her ordering her to run. “It’s late and I must be going. General Ivanov is expecting me.”
Prince Rashid flashed his movie star’s smile. “But I spoke with Igor Ivanovich earlier. He’s more than happy for you to stay. He called you his country’s finest ambassador. Now that we’ve met, I see that he spoke the truth.”
Emma’s eyes went to the roof of the hangar. The snipers had taken up position. Each was curled over his weapon. She had little doubt that her head was centered in the crosshairs of their scopes. She decided that Rashid had been expecting the rifle and that it was not a surprise. She looked at Balfour, who knew nothing about the gift. It was Connor’s play and Connor’s play alone.
“Surely you can stay,” added Balfour, his eyes sterner than his voice.
“But of course,” Emma consented, if only to buy time.
The prince rattled off a command, and a patch of scrub adjacent to the hangar was suddenly illuminated as bright as midday. At the far end was a wing-back chair. On it sat a mannequin dressed in the uniform of a United States Marine. Emma had her proof. Rashid had been expecting the weapon.
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