by Bradley West
Nolan examined the screen and saw the flashing dots separate from the bank branch. "Money's on the move. Put your tails on the Caddy, and I'll swing around and pick you up in three."
"Aye, aye. Downstairs in two." Ryder winced as he stood up. He wiped his prints, limped out of the empty office, and took the service elevator. The DEA van pulled up. Nolan told the driver to hang back and look for anyone following the two DEA vehicles up ahead. This was Quantico Counter Surveillance 101, a course that Nolan had completed the prior month as part of a sixty-day crash course on field craft, compliments of the FBI.
Ryder answered his buzzing cell and put it on speaker. The motorcyclist's voice crackled. "I followed the lorry to a turnoff and have it in my binos. It drove across vacant land to a warehouse one hundred meters from the main road. It's nowhere near the handover point. From the map, there's no other way out. Advise."
"Observe, but don't interfere," Ryder said as he eased into the last captain's chair. "Let us know if you see anything else and follow it if it moves."
Nolan watched the progress of the Cadillac, splitting his attention between the radar scope and a large-scale map. It had left the surface streets and was on a freeway headed east, farther into the parched wasteland.
"OK, that's good enough. Let it go. Head to the Hilton on Corniche Street. Take your time and make certain we aren't followed." Their driver swung his head around in surprise but turned off Sheik Zayed Street and slowed.
"What are you doing?" Ryder asked. "The Hilton? Why the hell are we headed to the Hilton?"
"To safeguard our op, I arranged for the real pickup at Sharjah Bank's main office in a half-hour. Yesterday, I left four red suitcases at the branch office loaded with twenty-five kilograms each of photocopy paper. Then I asked the manager to safeguard the bags and, for a healthy bribe, persuaded him to release the luggage to anyone purporting to be Mr. Fareed Diyafah. We have to collect the person I recruited to impersonate Diyafah for the real handover."
"We're clean," the driver called out without taking his eyes off the rearview mirror. He was careful not to tip off possible pursuers, going so far as to brake before a fresh yellow light to give the impression of not being in a hurry.
"Goddammit, why didn't I know about this? If you didn't trust me, why fly me down here and hire me to pull together this team? I should have played golf."
"Your hip's bad and your knees are shot. You'd be lucky if you could drive the cart," Nolan retorted.
"Well, I could be sitting in the Snake Pit lounge nursing a bourbon."
"I’m certain you don’t want to see any of the women in there in full daylight. Look, this is basic OPSEC. How was I to know if your crew was clean?”
“Fair enough,” Ryder conceded, “but who’s your second Diyafah? If he runs, we’re stuffed.”
“It’s your old friend Ali Hanif.”
“Ali Hanif? He’s a Pakistani for Christ’s sake!”
“His Arabic is perfect thanks to King Saud University. He’s planning a big night out, so I hope you packed decent clothes,” Nolan said. “Take a right here. We’ll pick up our friend around the side.”
“What about that oxygen thief you dropped on us?” Ryder sputtered. “Didn’t you already front him twenty-five grand? He’s gonna come looking for you once he realizes there’s been a switch.”
“That’s another reason why you assembled this team. Your man on the Kawasaki has the van. If the driver’s still alive, he’s corrupt and the DEA can deal with him. As for the Escalade, you have two vehicles following it. Tell your men to round them up at their leisure. If you catch our stand-in and he tells you where he hid the twenty-five thousand I fronted, your crew can keep it, or give it to charity. You dispose of the hijacker and his crew any way you like.”
“Your party, your rules. Let’s do it.”
Nolan said, “Let’s focus on the next hour. We’re ten minutes away from Ali. I’ll give him the passport and the proper cloned phone. We’ll load the cash into this vehicle and Ali will make his own way to the Sharjah Grand. As per the original plan, I’ll still need you and your team to ride shotgun the rest of the day while I repack the cash and drop it off at the freight forwarders. After expenses and an honorarium to Ali, the leftover one point three mil is for you to divide among your crew. I will fly out tonight before State Security or U.S. intel figure out what happened. I suggest that Ali and you get out of town tomorrow morning. If you’ll excuse me, I need to channel my inner oilfield supplies shipping manager.” Nolan removed his heavy black eyeglasses and blinked contacts into place. Then he changed clothes and readied his toiletries bag: there was a new Braun shaver to handle his mustache when this was over.
Ryder shook his head. “A lot of retirement plans depend on this Chinese puzzle box in your head, but remember, not a word to Hecker.”
Nolan couldn’t hide his surprise. “You think Sam’s so straight he’ll turn us in?”
“I used to. Now I wonder if he wouldn’t bust us just so he could keep it all.”
* * * * *
Cooz Bar, Grand Hyatt, Dubai
Ali Hanif splashed eighteen-year-old Bowmore into his tumbler, then spilled some in the direction of Ryder’s glass. It was late and the jazz bar was only one-third full. Ryder liked Cooz because he could always get a seat, the bartenders were good, and if he needed to leave in a hurry the hotel’s main entrance was just outside.
“You might want to slow down,” Ryder said. “We had two bottles of wine at dinner, and that half bottle of scotch is mostly you.”
“It’s my first night out since they murdered Lael,” Hanif said. As the Co-Head of Enforcement & Operations, Anti-Narcotics Force Karachi, he collected enemies like Imran Khan attracted blondes. Hanif’s Anglo-Pakistani wife had died when a stray round severed her femoral artery during a drive-by assassination attempt with Ryder aboard. Vengeance and mourning had been Hanif’s sole companions until Nolan’s offer induced him to accept this assignment.
“I know it’s been three months,” Ryder said, “but it seems like just last week.”
Hanif looked deep into his drink and then threw the whiskey down, slamming the tumbler on the stone table and shattering the glass. A waiter hustled over muttering apologies. Ryder had already tipped a C-note when he’d bought the bottle, so there wouldn’t be any fuss. They still had to fly incognito out of DXB early the next morning. Ryder’s brain switched to damage control mode.
A self-confident olive-complexioned man in a suit entered the bar trailed by three heavies. He looked the patrons over before heading straight toward their table in the far corner.
“Ali, trouble brewing. Four on your six, a leader plus three trailers packing.”
Hanif didn’t change his body language but signaled with his eyes that he’d heard. He pulled the last sliver out of his palm and looked up.
Their uninvited guest sat down, his body men adopting the executive fig leaf posture with hands clasped across their groins as they formed a cordon behind their boss.
“Welcome to Dubai, Mr. Ryder,” the man said. “We’ve been looking all night, and here you are hiding in plain sight.” He turned to Hanif. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr.—?”
“Fareed Diyafah,” Ali said in a Saudi-inflected accent.
“Oh, still in character, are we? I’ll make it easy for you. You two and your people took ten million dollars that didn’t belong to you. We want the money, and we want the full story of what happened to the rightful owner.”
Ryder suppressed a grimace. They were unarmed, half in the bag, and off the books—not exactly the winning hand. He looked at Hanif and recognized unabated fury. He’d seen that look before on raids when Hanif’s men collared traffickers who dealt to children.
Ryder broke eye contact with his friend and scrutinized their antagonist. The man’s English accent wasn’t right, and his worn suit was out of fashion by ten years. This fellow wasn’t an Emirati from the National Electronic Security Authority complaining
about a blown sting, or even a mid-level State Security officer looking for a big score. He was an out-of-towner.
“I’ve got a limp thanks to your man Mazdaki,” Ryder said. “He shot me on Lala Air Force Base three months ago. The base commander killed him in a fair gunfight. The money was stolen out of bin Laden’s Swiss bank account. You VAJA assholes have nothing to complain about and are owed zero.”
Only the headman startled at the sound of the acronym for Iran’s intelligence service. Ryder intuited that his companions were local hires with lower training and commitment levels.
The Iranian stood up. “You will come with us, or my men will shoot you where you sit.”
Feigning inebriation—and sobering up by the breath—Ryder lurched to his feet, peeled another hundred off his bankroll and fluttered it onto the tabletop. The former SEAL quickly doubled over, hands on knees as if he was about to vomit. “I’m going to be sick,” Ryder groaned. “I need air.”
The four smiled and one chuckled. Hanif held back, concurring with his friend’s implicit choice. Rather than leave a bloody mess in public and possibly end up in jail, they’d take the fight elsewhere. The problem was that the four assailants might have vehicles outside with more men which could tip the odds impossibly against them. Hanif didn’t care, but Ryder was taking a big risk.
Bismarck once said that God looks after fools, drunks and the United States. With good reason, the father of Germany had omitted third-rate hoodlums and freelancing intelligence officers. The Man in Charge and Thug 1 led the way downstairs via the back stairway to the basement parking lot followed by Hanif, Ryder and Thugs 2 and 3. Ryder started the night’s anaerobic exercise class with a vicious back fist to the center of Thug 2’s face. The man’s hands flew to his crushed nose, and Ryder pushed him down the steps as Thug 3 fumbled with his pistol.
Hanif dropped Thug 1 with a punch to the base of the skull, then stomped on the back of the fallen man’s head.
Ryder used his left hand to impede Thug 3’s draw, then thrust his right hand into the assailant’s groin. The Marquis of Queensberry would have disapproved, but Ryder squeezed the gunman’s balls with strength normally reserved for stubborn pickle jars. Thug 3 wrenched his right arm free and both hands flew to his assaulted crotch. Left arm unemployed, Ryder delivered a quick and powerful uppercut to the throat, crushing the man’s larynx and disabling him.
Hanif leaped down the remaining stairs and caught the boss man in-between the shoulder blades, knocking the Iranian into the steel exit door. Hanif found his feet first and delivered a left-right combination to the Iranian’s kidneys. Boss Man sank to his knees as Hanif seized his head with both hands and slammed his face into the unyielding door. The Iranian collapsed, unconscious.
Ryder saw Thug 2 had just cleared his weapon. The former SEAL used his elevation advantage to good effect by swinging a roundhouse left cowboy boot into the side of the man’s head. The rag doll tumbled down the concrete steps, his pistol clattering along beside him.
Hanif’s bottled-up rage found expression through his feet. He only regained control after a heel strike crushed the Iranian’s temple with the sound of a dropped carton of eggs.
Ryder collected phones and weapons, then pushed his friend out the door before he killed anyone else. “Let’s get out of here. Hotel security will be on us in a minute.” Their clothes were blood-spattered, but otherwise, they’d suffered only contusions to their hands. It always helped to have a SEAL on your side . . . as well as a homicidal maniac.
CHAPTER TWO
Trouble at Home
Tuesday, July 15: Beijing
“I apologize for bringing the Foreign Affairs Bureau into disrepute and hereby present my letter of resignation from the Ministry of State Security. I further apologize for the embarrassment that my precipitate actions caused you.” Yu Kaili’s eyes stared straight ahead as she set the envelope on the edge of the president’s desk and retreated three steps.
Liu Zhenchang, general secretary of the Communist Party and President of China, nodded, his features downcast. “I am left with no choice in this matter,” he said, which was true. The disastrous spy swap had been her idea, but what had hardened both the Politburo and senior MSS officials irrevocably against her was the scandal associated with her rumored pregnancy. “I’m afraid your position has become untenable.”
“I have no wish to burden you further. I shall return to Suzhou and have the child.”
“Are you certain becoming a single mother at forty-four is what you want?” he asked.
“My career as an intelligence officer is over. A child will provide focus and restore meaning.” Kaili hadn’t harbored maternal feelings since miscarrying years ago, but perhaps a child would preserve her sanity now that she was a pariah.
“My information suggests the father is the architect of your humiliation. Yet you wish to bear his child?”
Kaili’s eyes flashed. “I have no interest whatsoever in Bob Nolan. My son will be mine alone.”
“A son? Congratulations. But as the product of a liaison between an unmarried woman and a military man, I have one piece of advice. A boy should meet his father at least once. My father had no intention of recognizing his bastard, but my mother arranged a chance encounter. The man saw his likeness in me, and subsequently supported my mother and educated me.”
“I need nothing from Nolan.”
“I understand, but your unborn child may feel differently.” Liu was uncomfortable in this avuncular role and reverted to form. “I have a proposition that will punish America for goading my predecessor into that foolish and ruinous war. The assignment will take you to North Korea, perhaps for many years. If you wish, have your baby in Pyongyang and keep him out of view. You will report only to me. The work will be challenging and perhaps dangerous. I can think of no one more qualified than you.”
Kaili slowly lowered her eyes to meet his gaze. “Please tell me what I’m to do.”
* * * * *
Emirates flight 352 DXB-SIN
The Emirates stewardess awakened Nolan to announce they were twenty-five minutes from touchdown. The flat business class bed made all the difference, and Nolan felt like every cent of his eight and one half million bucks from the score, enough to live out his days in comfort with funds safely beyond the clutches of the divorce lawyers. A flood of memories reminding him how he’d failed wife and children in times past spoiled the mood.
Going to jail was an ever-present threat, even with a presidential pardon for all acts committed prior to March 15. That was four months ago, and Nolan had lost track of the number of crimes he could be charged with in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and as of yesterday, the United Arab Emirates. In his favor was the lack of an extradition treaty between Singapore and the UAE, plus the DEA’s local UAE connections. Last evening Ryder had reported that Emirati police officers were buying drinks for his team in thanks for breaking a drug ring and recovering almost five hundred grams of methamphetamine and twenty-five thousand dollars from the leader, a criminal mastermind named Mustafa.
Jerry Flynn was the second item on Nolan’s checklist, followed by Millie Mukherjee. The former was his wife’s new live-in boyfriend and a former colleague in Singapore station. The latter was twenty-seven-year old trainee from Rangoon station with whom he’d enjoyed a short, torrid relationship back in March. In April, Millie had conducted off-the-books research showing that Jerry Flynn was a likely junior member of the rogue element within the CIA behind the hijacking. In thanks, Nolan had helped arrange her transfer to the DEA and relocation to Singapore.
Nolan cleared immigration as Mr. James Stewart, passport compliments of General Neil Payne’s contacts in the State Department. Nolan’s plans for the two-day visit didn’t leave a lot of room for chats with the Internal Security Department or his former intelligence community colleagues. He collected his suitcase off the conveyor and wheeled his bag through customs without incident. That was a good thing as he would have found it difficult to explain why he wa
s carrying an undeclared one hundred thousand in rubber-banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
Nolan’s host, the DEA country head, had invited him back to use the same spare bedroom that Nolan had briefly occupied in April before he’d flown to Pakistan. That was four months and three lifetimes ago. He arrived to discover that his left-behind belongings had been professionally searched twice-over, a reminder that his former lover and Ministry of State Security senior operative Yu Kaili possessed an unnatural interest in, and access to, all things pertaining to him.
A quick shave, shower and change of clothes and he was in a cab. Though Joanie wasn’t expecting him, she should be home now that she’d quit her job and returned to life as a tai-tai, a society woman of lunches, leisure and shopping. He debated whether he should call ahead but thought better of it on two counts. First, her phones were tapped by every alphabet agency on the planet. Second, she might decline to meet.
His key worked on the front gate, but his nerve failed him on his own threshold. He heard the deadbolt unlocking twice—good girl: never can be too safe—and the door opened to reveal a Caucasian of Nolan’s mid-fifties vintage in a singlet, boxer shorts and the Singapore Business Times in hand. Why wasn’t Jerry Flynn at work on a Tuesday morning at ten a.m.?
“Can I help you?” Flynn asked.
“Yes, you can get out of my home.” Nolan tried to step inside, but Flynn put a hand on his shoulder and flexed his gym muscles. Nolan thought of the ways that his Quantico instructors had taught him to drop this sack of dung in two swift movements. He resisted temptation and called out, “Joanie! It’s Bob! I’d like to talk. I have good news.”
Flynn stared at him with new intensity. “Bob, I didn’t even recognize you, old man!” He nodded at Nolan’s nearly shaved scalp. You look like Yule Brynner in Westworld.”
And you look like a sponge. His wife came downstairs and approached the front door, mindful to keep Flynn between her and her estranged husband. “May I come in?” Nolan asked.