by Ian Graham
"I see we have a similar taste in hats," the man said in a Semitic accent.
"Good for you," Kafni said fighting the urge to cough as he inhaled another drag from the cigarette.
"Could I bother you for a light?" the man asked withdrawing a light green pack of Noblesse cigarettes from his pocket and making sure Kafni saw it as he withdrew one.
"Of course," Kafni said, disappointment rising inside him as the Iranian spy stepped into the cabana and pulled up a chair beside him.
Kafni crushed out his cigarette and the Iranian put away the light green pack.
"You are not who I expected," the man said. He was tall, with coffee colored skin, black closely cut hair, a rough shave and ears that seemed too big for his slender head. He stewed for a moment looking over Kafni as he decided whether or not to leave. "This is not so good for me. I talk to Sayar. He did not inform me that he was sending someone else."
"Sayar's health is not so good. He could not make the trip."
"I do not care about his health. What about my health? Do you know the risk I am taking?"
Kafni nodded.
"Nouri will kill me if he finds out this is a set up."
"All of my credentials have been set up well in advance. The real Daniel Goldman has made several successful trades with Palestinian groups over the last few years. He has been quietly arrested by the FBI in America and my image has replaced his on the company's website. I'm carrying his American passport, his credit cards and even his Georgia drivers license. I have spent my career abroad in places like Belgium, Ireland and South America. I haven't operated in the Middle East for many years."
"What? You think Nouri only pays attention to things that happen in the Middle East? He has a lot of money and pays very well to be informed of anything that goes on in any area he visits."
"Then leave. But Sayar will not extend the protection to you that he has promised if this deal does not go through. Sooner or later he will get Nouri and his network. If you're with them, you'll be treated just like them."
Tehrani grimaced and looked around the pool area of the hotel. "Fine," he said.
"Good. Then we'll meet tonight. I have the merchandise stored at a hotel construction site near the Jordanian border just below those mountains," Kafni said pointing beyond the hotel to a spot on the horizon. "My firm has a heavy financial interest in the construction, but it has been delayed for many weeks by bureaucracy. You'll take pictures and return to Nouri with them."
"And what if Nouri does not come? What if he tells me to make the deal?"
"Has he ever trusted you with the type of money we're talking about before?"
"No."
"Then he will come."
Tehrani seemed reluctant but nodded his agreement, stood and walked away from the Cabana.
Kafni poured the light green spirit in his glass through the slits in the deck's floor and left the cabana. It was time to meet with Okan Osman.
Chapter Three
7:23 p.m. Local Time — Saturday, 14th October 1995
Highway 59 — Chalus Road
Karaj, Iran
"Come in gentlemen," Sa'adi Nouri announced as one of his bodyguards opened the front door of his house and stood aside. Wearing a cream colored turtleneck, white dockers and a brown leather belt that matched his loafers he radiated a metropolitan style. His salt and pepper hair was worn short and conservative, but styled in a modern way and his slightly coffee colored complexion gave him the look of a man who spent a lot of lime in the sun. Dark stubble lined his chin.
"I hope you found the journey to your liking," he said as the two men entered the modern one story house through the black composite door and looked around as if they had just entered a museum. Nouri was seated on a black leather sofa sipping an espresso and overlooking the indoor pool through a set of floor to ceiling windows supported on each end by stone columns. The floors and walls of the house were made of light gray and white swirled granite, the house had an open architecture with high ceilings and a fireplace at the base of a stone chimney that crackled and filled the air with the scent of burning wood.
"Vadim, Deni, it is good to see you both. Please come in and make yourselves comfortable," Nouri beckoned again. The two guests plodded towards the leather sofa and sat opposite of their host. Both men looked sorely out of place in their camouflage jackets, brown oilskin pants, heavy combat boots and berets bearing a crest of the Chechen flag with a black wolf on a pedestal encircled by a nine-starred Islamic crescent. With their unkempt beards and lack of proper hygiene, Nouri was glad they had chosen to sit as far from him as they did. Reaching over the armrest of the couch, he opened a black wooden box and withdrew a cigar, lighting it, and inhaling deeply before blowing a blueish haze into the air and covering the odor of the two men with the scent of cherry tobacco.
"Why have you called us here?" Deni Baktayev said. As the younger of the two men his demeanor was the most brash. With dirty blonde hair that sat atop his head like a bad weave, an unkempt beard, a bulbous nose and an unmistakably Russian sneer, he sat forward with his elbows on his knees and eyed the Iranian in front of him suspiciously.
Nouri shrugged and grimaced. "Because I have what you're looking for of course. Why else?"
"You have the weapons here?" Deni said with an air of skepticism.
"Well, no," Nouri said. "They are stored in Israel. I'm not going to put down six million American dollars until I'm sure that they are what you're looking for."
"You cannot mistake Kalashnikovs, fragmentation grenades and claymore mines. They are what they are. They are either real or not and surely a man as experienced as you knows the difference."
"Yes, yes," Nouri said sitting forward and placing his coffee cup on a glass table before continuing, his voice dripping with venom. "I know the difference, but if you want this you will have to work for it. I am not the one stop jihad shop. If you're not willing to meet me half way then you can go back to raiding Russian caravans and bleeding all over the pavement when their reinforcements cut your men to ribbons."
The older Chechen sat forward, placing a hand on his younger brother's shoulder and speaking. Vadim Baktayev's voice was gravely and his tone much less abrupt. His black beard extended a full foot beyond the end of his chin and exhibited heavy streaks of gray. The hair on his head was shaved to a light fuzz and his beady, black eyes darted between his little brother and the Iranian financier. "You'll have to excuse my brother. Months of fighting has worn his patience as well as his manors. We are willing to work with you if it ensures that our people get the weapons they need to win this fight. What is it that you need from us?"
"That's more like it," Nouri said sitting back again. "After all, we are on the same side. I don't stand to gain anything from helping you except furthering the cause of Islam against the enemies in the west and north. Now lets take a walk. The man with the details will be here shortly."
Nouri stood. The Chechens followed suit and as the three arrived at the front door of the house, a black clad man with an Uzi opened the door and stood aside for them. Nouri pulled on a brown parka that had been hanging on a hook beside the door and stepped out.
Outside the air was cold, a dusting of snow covered the ground and in the distance below the dim lights of Iran's fifth largest city, Karaj, stood out against the desert beyond. Nouri's home was situated in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains on a wooded lot along Road 59 heading northwest out of Karaj towards the Caspian Sea. The one-story concrete house was surrounded by a high stone wall, had well-lit concrete pathways lined with waist high shrubbery and a winding driveway that led to a multi-car garage where the Rolls Royce that had brought the Chechens from the port city of Chalus was now parked.
"Now, what I need from you," Nouri said picking up the conversation from where it ended inside the house, "is to accompany me to the location where the weapons are stored. While I know the difference between Russian Kalashnikovs and Romanian-made knock offs, what I do not know is whether o
r not each weapon is in the proper working condition. You can test them, with the appropriate silencers for the location of course, and verify that they work. The man who has them has arranged several buys for our allies in Palestine and my information indicates that he is more than capable of providing good weapons, but this will be a true test of his worth."
Vadim Baktayev nodded his agreement as the sound of a horn blowing drew their attention towards the property's front gate. Two of Nouri's darkly dressed bodyguards appeared from a guardhouse just outside of the gate and approached the vehicle that was parked there, its headlights shining brightly. After exchanging a few sentences in Iranian with the vehicle's driver one of the guards returned to the guardhouse and activated the gate, allowing the pewter colored compact car to pass.
As the car wound its way up the drive its headlights fell over Nouri and the two Chechens. The driver ground through the gears quickly and brought the vehicle to a stop in the middle of the drive. "This would be the man with the details," Nouri said as Hakim Tehrani left the car and approached their position.
"Vadim, Deni, this is Hakim Tehrani, one of my oldest and most loyal friends. We fought together to bring about the Islamic Republic of Iran sixteen years ago and if Allah wills, we will help you to bring about the Islamic Republic of Ichkeria."
Tehrani nodded to the Chechens and said, "Allah wills it. I have what you need."
Withdrawing an envelope from his pocket, he opened it and slid out a dozen pictures. "You can see here," he said moving to stand in between the Chechens. "Fully automatic Kalashnikovs, each with multiple magazines, fragmentation grenades, and this makes me most proud, M18A1 Claymore mines complete with remote controls and straight from the United States."
He finished flipping through the photos and handed them to Nouri.
"How many are there?" Vadim Baktayev asked.
"Just over six hundred rifles, two thousand magazines, thirteen hundred grenades, and four hundred and fifty mines. There is also nearly ten-thousand rounds of ammunition that can be purchased for an additional amount."
"An additional amount?" laughed Nouri. "I do love these Americans."
He looked to the Chechens with a question on his face. Both men nodded their agreement with what they had just seen. "Good," continued Nouri, "then Hakim will send word that we will take it all, the ammunition, too."
Tehrani nodded and smiled broadly. "Allahu Akbar."
Chapter Four
10:03 a.m. Local Time — Tuesday, 17th October 1995
Derech HaArava
Eilat, Israel
"They will be here this evening," Kafni said hanging up the car phone in the back of the limousine. "They will be arriving directly at the site by a sea plane. Nouri, Tehrani and two others are aboard, the Chechens apparently."
Okan Osman nodded. He was a slender man of Arabian descent with a shaved head, a tightly cropped goatee, a broad chest and an intensity in his eyes that radiated a readiness found only in a professional soldier. "Good," he said. "My men will be ready."
"I am sorry that this operation came at such short notice, Commander, but surely you understand the need for secrecy," Kafni said.
"Our enemies do not send us prior warning when they are going to attack. Lotar Eilat soldiers must arrive at their station within seven minutes of being called up. Once there, they have another seven minutes to dress and arm themselves. That is a total of fourteen minutes to leave our families, our homes, our places of work, or wherever else we happen to be. We are used to getting ready in a hurry, Mr. Kafni."
Kafni nodded. "Good. I am very glad to hear that. Mossad has been tracking this organization for nearly a decade. Catching these men here will be like striking the head off of a serpent, the body may remain and may even twitch a little, but ultimately it is useless."
"These terrorists always seem to grow new heads," Osman said.
"Not this one. Sa'adi Nouri is a financier of terrorism primarily. With him in custody, the corrupt relationships he has built his wealth on will retreat back into the Iranian collective…"
"And pop up somewhere else in another form to strike at us again," Osman interrupted.
Kafni nodded solemnly. "Yes, probably so, but that is the way these things work, until the world at large becomes more aware of what these despotic regimes are up to anyways."
Osman ceded the point with a grimace.
"Once things start happening we will not have a lot of time," Kafni continued. "This needs to be handled by a small team. I will need one of your men to pose as my driver and another as my bodyguard when I arrive at the buy."
"One of my men has been your driver for the last two weeks," Osman said.
Kafni looked through the deeply tinted glass that separated the passenger compartment from the front of the limo and raised his eyebrows.
"We are volunteers, Mr. Kafni," Osman continued. "We have jobs outside of our duties as soldiers. Your driver, Mr. Nazari, is one of my best men. If something can be driven, flown or otherwise operated then he is the man for the job."
An impressed smile spread across Kafni's face. "I don't suppose you have any professional bodyguards in your ranks, do you?"
"No, but I will fill that role for you. My deputy commander will lead the unit when it is time to move in."
Kafni nodded his approval. "Hopefully this mission can be accomplished without a shot having to be fired."
* * *
4:26 p.m. Local Time
Ha Yam Road
Eilat, Israel
The limousine bumped as it rolled off the smooth pavement onto the roughly hewn gravel driveway of the half-constructed hotel sitting at the base of a small range of hills that separated Israel and Jordan. Kafni turned in the leather seat and looked over his shoulder out of the back window. In the distance behind them the white concrete buildings of downtown Eilat were dwarfed by the dun colored mountains of the Sinai that rose behind it like a consuming tidal wave. From here, three different countries could be seen; Egypt, Israel and Jordan, their borders marked only by rusted barb wire fences and by markers set for a barrier that was to be constructed at some point in the future on the Israeli side.
Turning around and righting himself in the seat, Kafni looked through the side window towards the Gulf of Aqaba. In the distance, large yachts sat peacefully anchored in the deep blue water for the evening and graying freighters sat abandoned on the Jordanian side which had become a dumping ground for aging vessels in recent years. He looked back to Okan Osman who sat across from him holding a Galil SAR machine gun. "Your men are in place at the hotel?"
Osman pushed a clip into the weapon and said, "Yes. Everyone is in place and out of sight, even from the air. I have eight men inside the hotel compound."
"Good. Our first priority must be to cutoff their access to the sea plane. Without it they will have no way to escape."
"I have a three man team on a speedboat anchored half a mile west of here. As soon as the plane is down and the occupants off, they will move in and block the plane."
Kafni acknowledged the plan with a quick smile as the stretched Lincoln Continental turned sharply and stopped beside three metal sea containers. The window that separated the driver's compartment from the passenger's retreated with a hum and Altair Nazari looked over his shoulder. He was a clean shaven man with a full head of curly black hair, formal dress and a trim physique toned over decades of military training. "Last radio contact from our lookouts along the Jordanian coast puts the plane touching down in about five minutes, Commander," Nazari said without the slightest hint of any accent.
"Good," said Kafni even though Nazari had been addressing Osman. "Myself and Commander Osman will stand about ten yards in front of the containers that hold the weapons. Nazari, I want you to turn the car around so that the rear passenger side door is facing us and then stay positioned on the drivers side of the car in case we need to make a quick exit." Nazari nodded and shifted the vehicle back into drive as Kafni opened the rear door and stepp
ed out followed by Osman, who charged the Galil and secured the weapon by a shoulder strap.
The construction site behind them consisted of a concrete shell of a building that stood eight stories high on one side and five on the other, metal re-bar sticking out in various places and rectangular holes where windows would eventually sit. Somewhere inside, hidden between the half-constructed pillars and the roughed in floors was a team of heavily armed IDF counter-terrorism soldiers awaiting orders.
When completed the hotel would be the most luxurious property on the shores of the Gulf. It would feature nearly five-hundred five star rooms, four pool areas, six bars, three full service restaurants and two ballrooms for large gatherings. On the two miles of beach owned by the property, positioned directly in front of the hotel, was a deep water pier that extended nearly half a mile into the Gulf and would allow eventual guests to dock boats, yachts or sea planes. This evening the pier would host a Grumman Albatross flying boat that had once belonged to the Pakistani Air Force but was now the property of Sa'adi Nouri.
Straightening his shirt against the stiff breeze blowing off of the Red Sea, Kafni looked like a typical playboy tourist common to the area at this time of the year. While most of the world endured cold spells and freezing rain, the southern Negev was a balmy eighty-one degrees in the departing sunlight. Standing five yards behind Kafni, Osman wore black but casual clothes and stood seriously with his machine gun in a stance that communicated his boss was not to be messed with. Nazari leaned against the roof of the limousine and watched the areas to their east carefully. While the roads and waterways behind them were being watched by trained soldiers, the Jordanian side of the small mountain range was a wild card. They could no more predict what was over it then they could surveil it without causing an international incident.