Aim True, My Brothers

by William F. Brown

  Lenny arrived with a tray and Mouse stopped talking. The bartender placed a Diet Coke in front of each of them and a big basket of Nachos in the middle of the table, overflowing with cheese, onions, peppers, ground beef, and guacamole. “Enjoy! It’s the specialty of the house,” Lenny said proudly as he walked away.

  Mouse stared at the colorful glop and wrinkled up his nose. “That could kill a goat.”

  “I take that as an insult,” Barnett said as he dug in.

  “So would the goat.”

  “So you think Hamas isn’t very happy with Al-Bari. Could they be trying to eliminate the problem?”

  “Always a possibility, but we cannot count on it and must assume the worst.”

  “Agreed, but if he has cut his old ties, he will be even harder to find. Anyway, I’ll run it by our guys. Meanwhile, you see what else you can learn about him. Give me a call, and let’s get back together to compare notes.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Boston, Tuesday, October 9, 5:30 p.m.

  To perform the mission he had planned, Ibrahim Al-Bari needed things. Most were easy to obtain — handguns, automatic rifles, ammunition, and a modest amount of explosives — for a price. However, he would also need a heavy-duty pick-up truck with a camper unit in the rear bed, and one particular weapon. Since September 11, none of these was the type of item that a man could routinely pick up in a Walmart, Sears, or even a high-end sporting goods store, especially if he had a dark Middle-Eastern complexion and a foreign passport. Hafez Arazi was able to bring some of the smaller items from the Embassy — the handguns, the Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns, and the ammunition — but for the larger items, he would need help. With the cash Arazi stole from the Embassy, most of them could be obtained, but that required a specialized knowledge of certain terrorist networks and their suppliers in America, which he was able to learn from his Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syrian contacts before he left Beirut, while he was still in their good graces.

  Upon his return from the Haifa raid, Al-Bari found himself rebuffed and insulted by the Hamas leadership. His enemies on the Shura had been waiting and hoping he would fall on his face. They never liked this young interloper who tried to freeze them out; and when his raid did fail, their unanimous hostility quickly found voice. After interminable waiting, Al-Bari was able to meet with Khaled Sayef again, but the meeting was not good. Their personal camaraderie and understanding had vanished. While Sayef liked him, Ibrahim Al-Bari was not worth the high price that Sayef would need to pay to defy the Shura again; so Sayef suggested he wait. Time had a way of moderating even the most intractable foes. Or, if he preferred, Al-Bari could return to Afghanistan and rebuild his credentials in the field.

  “No, I appreciate all the things you have done for me, Khalid, but as I said, that is a fool’s errand.”

  “Your plan had merit, Ibrahim; but it was not God’s Will.”

  “No, but I see now that attacking Israel is also a fool’s errand.”

  Sayef studied him for a moment. “You have something new in mind?”

  “Yes. If it succeeds, you will know it and you can take credit, if you wish.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “As we say, Insh’Allah, and no one will ever know.”

  Al-Bari knew better than anyone that his vision and plan had been good, but he failed and it cost him two brothers and a sister in the process. With all trust gone, rather than argue his cause to small minds in Beirut who would never understand, he quietly left, but not before plucking bits and pieces of information from Sayef regarding contacts in a half-dozen American cities that could provide him with the help he would need. In the eastern US, at the top of that list were their old friends in the IRA. From the earliest days of the PLO and Black September in the 1960s and 1970s, IRA operatives had been trained, funded, and armed in camps across the Middle East from Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, and Iran, to Pakistan. The time had come for them to return the favor.

  Ibrahim Al-Bari’s flight to Boston landed early, right in the middle of the busiest time of the day, which was what he wanted. As with his flights into Dulles from Amsterdam and Toronto four days before, he was dressed again in his Savile Row business suit and Cartier watch, blending in with the other businessmen as they hurried along the concourse to the main terminal. This time, he kept his head down and his eyes looking forward. There was a regular pattern of ceiling-mounted security cameras throughout the concourse, and he avoided them as best he could. Today, he carried no luggage or attaché case, merely a folded Washington Post, and his ‘fountain pen’ in his jacket pocket. Since this was only a preliminary meeting with the local IRA commander, he deemed that heavier protection than that was not worth the risk.

  When he reached the main terminal, he blended into the large milling crowd, all the while carefully watching for any signs that he had been followed. He had been very careful up to now. He did not expect to find any surveillance, and so far he had not. Along the terminal’s front wall he saw a bench, which offered a commanding view of the terminal. So he sat, opening his copy of the Post, and began to read. Every half-minute or so he would look up and glance around, checking over and over again for men in trench coats or anyone else who looked suspicious, but there were none. Ten minutes later, he, put the newspaper away and headed for the outside doors marked ‘Ground Transportation.’ Seeing the long line of cabs along the curb, he again ignored the queue, selected a cab at random near the end of the line, and hopped in.

  “I know, I know,” he smiled and said to the startled driver, “I am sure it is against the rules, but I am a very superstitious man.” He smiled, handed the man a fifty-dollar bill, and thought, I never take the first cab in the queue. “The big Hilton Hotel near Faneuil Hall, if you please.” It was only a couple of miles from the airport, and its size and multiplicity of access made it a perfect choice for this meeting. “Now please go.”

  The cab starter glared at them, and several other cab drivers honked angrily as they pulled out and drove away, but his driver shrugged at them as if he were helpless. As he did, Al-Bari looked at the driver’s face and the photo on his taxi permit posted on his window visor, and smiled. The cab driver was a small, dark-skinned, middle-aged man with black eyes and a thick, black moustache. The name on the permit appeared to be Pakistani. On the seat next to him lay a neatly folded newspaper. Al-Bari looked at the print and immediately recognized that it was written in Urdu, the main Pakistani dialect, making the picture complete. Neither the American FBI nor the always-diabolical Israeli Mossad could be this clever.

  He got out of the cab two blocks before the hotel. After checking the surrounding streets, the lobby, the restaurant, the bar, and the rear service corridors for any surveillance and for the location and blind spots of the hotel security cameras, he rented a room on the second floor at the end of the hall. It was near the fire door, which offered a quick escape, if necessary. He went directly up to his room and locked the door. Better to be bored than to take needless risks that might attract attention, he thought. If the meeting did not go as planned, he would need his anonymity to make a getaway.

  His orders to the IRA contact, a local Brigade Commander named Sean Murphy, had been to check into a room and wait for Al-Bari to phone him at 7:00 p.m. At the designated time, he called the desk and had them connect him with Murphy’s room.

  “Yes,” a man answered. “Is this Mr. Teraki?” he heard a bouncy Irish voice ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Good, good,” Murphy said in his hard-edged Belfast accent. “I was told there is a small matter you need our help with.”

  “I am in room 235,” Al-Bari told him, giving him the number of the room directly across the hall from his. Please join me, but I expect you to be alone, Mr. Murphy. If you brought any of your associates with you to the hotel, ask them to go home. Is that clear? I have people watching and that point will be strictly enforced.”

  “Well, that hardly seems…”

  Al-Bari hung up, ha
ving no intention of debating the man. He took out his fountain pen, assembled the blade and handle, and slipped it up his sleeve, where it could be dropped into his right hand. He had never met Murphy nor worked personally with the IRA before. No reason to take any chances, he thought.

  A loud knock at the door across the hall cleared everything else from his mind. He looked through the peephole in his door and saw a fat man standing facing the other door. Silently, and with the ice pick in hand, he opened his own door far enough to look up and down the hall, but there was no one else there, so he opened it the rest of the way.

  “In here, Murphy,” he said to the surprised Irishman.

  “Oh, did I have the wrong room, then?” Murphy asked as he turned around, momentarily confused, until he figured it out and smiled. “Now, ain’t you the clever one. I’ll have to remember that. Clever, indeed.”

  Al-Bari opened the door, let the fat Irishman in, leaned out into the hall to take a quick look in both directions again, and then bolted the door behind them. Al-Bari turned around and looked the other man over from head to foot, evaluating. His stance. Where were his hands? Was he nervous? The eyes. Was he carrying anything? But especially his eyes and his expression. He saw nothing, and concluded Murphy would be the type to quickly fall to pieces if anything did go wrong. The man did not look artful enough to act another part well.

  “It is good to finally meet you in person, my friend,” Al-Bari began. “I heard many good things about you and your people here from our friends in Beirut and Damascus. Have a seat and tell me how all of our good brothers in Belfast are faring?” he said as he motioned to a large, soft armchair in the corner. Once the fat Irishman was bottomed out in it, he would be immobilized. Al-Bari sat on the edge of the bed, higher, ready, feeling the tip of the ice pick in the palm of his hand, not that he saw any danger or fear in the Irishman’s eyes. The vaunted IRA? Murphy appeared quite pathetic — short and fat, wearing a dingy, badly wrinkled white shirt and slacks, a threadbare raincoat, and dull, scuffed loafers. He looked to be in no condition to take on a lethal killer like Ibrahim Al-Bari in a small room, nor was he the kind that someone else would rely upon for a hit. Before he could raise his bulk out of the chair or pull out a weapon, the Palestinian would have the ice pick buried in the Irishman’s heart. Still, caution becomes habit, and over-confidence is always fatal.

  “Oh, I suppose the boys back home are doing fine. I don’t get back there all that often, but we all try to do what we can, now don’t we,” Murphy replied with a broad smile. “Liberation is the thing, eh?”

  “The only thing.”

  Al-Bari had ordered a bottle of Irish whiskey, a bowl of ice, and a glass, and had placed them on the end table next to Murphy. “You look like you could use a drink,” Al-Bari smiled as he motioned toward the bottle, watching the fat man sweat.

  “Oh my, yes, but you are a dear fellow,” Murphy turned and picked up the bottle. “And a fine Irish whiskey, too! We never use ice, though. That would truly spoil it,” he said as he poured several fingers in the glass. “Won’t you join me?’’

  “No, no, enjoy yourself. I have begun observing a few tenets of my faith again. I hope you will understand.”

  “Then you force me to drink for the both of us.” Murphy grinned as he belted his own drink down and poured himself another. “The ‘mother’s milk of poets’ is what they call it back home — a cure for the weather, gout, insomnia, baldness, flat feet, a nagging wife, the cold of winter, and the heat of an oppressive summer. I suppose the heat doesn’t bother you all that much, you coming from the tropics and all, but I will never get used to it here.”

  “Did your people in Derry get that consignment of ‘furniture’ we sent them from Belgium?” Al-Bari asked to set the mood, taking credit for something he had heard about.

  “Indeed they did. I received word that the items arrived with no problem. You know, though, the couches and chairs were so lumpy that our boys had to take them apart to see what was making them so damned uncomfortable,” Murphy chuckled with a wink of the eye. “Could you believe it, someone left a bunch of pistols and automatic weapons inside the cushions. Such terrible quality control these days,” he laughed. “Yes, and with all of the fine training we’ve received from our other friends in Yemen and Iran, we shall be putting them to very good use. Indeed! And you have our thanks.”

  “No thanks are necessary. We nationalists must work together if any of us are to throw off the yokes of fascist oppression,” Al-Bari said, sounding as if he was reading a tired, old training manual. “God willing, Insh’Allah as we say, a victory for one is a victory for all.”

  Murphy smiled and toasted him with his glass. “Indeed, so tell me, what can we do for you, this time, Mr. Teraki?”

  “We are in need of your help in a matter of great importance.”

  “Tell me what it is you’ll be needing, and we’ll jump right to it. Yes, Sir, you can be sure of that,” he gushed.

  “I knew we could count on you,” Al-Bari said with a firm smile. “You see, there is a very specific piece of equipment — a weapon — which we require to undertake a very special mission. Nothing else will suffice. Since you have experience in obtaining unique items such as this, we thought you might be able to obtain one of them for us.” Al-Bari was very calm and relaxed, but his eyes never left the Irishman as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a page torn from a U.S. Army Field Manual. “We need one of these.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Murphy exploded as he took a quick glance at the picture, looked up at Al-Bari in shock, and then stared at the page. “You don’t want much, do you? And where in God’s name do you think we’re gonna get one of these, now?’’

  “Murphy,” the Arab said as if talking to a very stupid child, “would we ask you to do something that was not possible? Actually, the task is easier than you might think. American Army records of unit organization and equipment — the TOEs as they call them — are fully automated now, even for the Reserve units, and surprisingly simple to hack into. There are a number of these weapons assigned to units right here in the Boston area. The Eighty-Seventh Army Reserve Division as an example has several of them in their armory, as do the National Guard units in Newton and Weymouth.”

  “Aye, but we can’t just walk out the front door with one under our coats.”

  “True, but the size and weight makes it precisely the kind of thing they don’t watch too closely, either, because who would ever steal one? They are not fired very often and are simply gathering dust in the armory storerooms. Besides, you’ve never had much trouble making things ‘go missing’ before, have you?” he asked with hard, cold eyes.

  “It’s a lot harder now. Even the Army has tightened up their security.”

  “On rifles and pistols, I am certain you are right.”

  “True, but the more often a gang pulls off these kinds of heists, the riskier it gets.”

  “And the more profitable. We have money, Murphy… but if you do not want to try,” Al-Bari said as he began to pull the Manual page back.

  “No, no,” Murphy quickly replied as he retrieved the Field Manual page. “Let me take another look here, between us friends, as it were.”

  “Of course, we would not be so rude as to impose upon you simply based on our past friendship. You have costs and risks, so we want to be generous with you. We are prepared to pay you fifty thousand for one.”

  “Fifty thousand?” Murphy’s head snapped up. “In dollars?” he quickly asked.

  “Of course. Twenty-five thousand dollars now, in cash, and the other twenty-five thousand dollars on delivery.”

  “Well, uh… let me think, here… of course there will be costs,” Murphy added, as Al-Bari watched the wheels go around inside the Irishman’s head.

  “As the Brigade Commander, there would be an additional ten-thousand-dollar bonus for you, for all the extra work you would have to put in coordinating it all.”

  “Another ten, eh?”

  �
��Yes, but there are a few other related items that also must be obtained. In addition to the weapon itself, we must have the base plate that you see in the picture. Without it, the weapon really can’t be fired accurately,” he pointed. “Also, we must have ammunition. I would say a dozen rounds, minimum, and maybe a pound of plastique explosive.”

  “Lord,” Murphy said in despair, “plastique we can get, but the shells, too, eh? They usually keep them somewhere else, so that makes it all the harder.”

  “Of course. So we will pay an extra twenty thousand for the base plate and the ammunition. But let us make it a package deal — the tube, the baseplate, the shells, the plastique, and the bonus — all of it, for one hundred thousand dollars. To prove how serious we are, and how much we trust you, here is the initial twenty-five thousand,” Al-Bari said as he pulled a thick envelope from his jacket and tossed it in Murphy’s lap. “You may keep that for your expenses. I know your people in Belfast can do many good things with it.”

  “Oh, yes, the boys in Belfast… that they can.” The Irishman mopped his brow again and drained another glass of whiskey, but he kept looking down, his eyes switching back and forth between the envelope and the picture. “And you say we can keep this business between the two of us?” he mused cautiously.

  “Absolutely. Security is very important, so just you and me,” Al-Bari said, knowing he had the Irishman hooked now.

  Murphy’s smile grew even broader. “Mr. Teraki, we will do our level best. When do you need the bugger?”

  “I can give you one week, no longer. Today is the ninth. That means I must have it by the evening of the sixteenth, at the absolute latest.”

  Murphy looked at the photo on the book page again and scratched his head. “Well, if we can do it at all, I guess that’s time enough.”

  “I know you won’t fail me,” Al-Bari said as he leaned in close, poured Murphy another drink, and gave him a hard-eyed look that made the Irishman start to sweat again. “When you have all of the items, I want you to phone this number,” he said as he handed him a slip of paper. “It is a cell phone. No one will answer, but leave a message. Just say, ‘Your order is ready for pickup. Sean.’ I will call you at your bar and we can agree on the arrangements for pickup. Is that clear?”