by Craig Reed
"That isn't good news."
"It isn't," Ilshu replied. "Our local affiliate will handle future discussions with them."
"Are you still in South Africa?"
"No. We're on our way back. The boss must be alerted to the developments in South Africa."
"I will try and contact him at once," Narsai said.
"Please do. I am not confident the affiliate can handle the negations with the Americans. Their hiring practices have not impressed me."
Narsai pulled the satellite phone from his ear and stared at it for a couple of seconds in surprise before putting it back to his ear. "But he has been a loy—"
"The boss expects results in addition to loyalty. If he can pull off these negotiations, then I will say no more."
"I understand.”
"That is all."
Narsai heard a click and the phone went silent.
"What is wrong?" Musa asked.
Narsai turned to bark at him, but stopped with a sigh. "That was Ilshu. He said the operation in South Africa was successful, but someone, maybe the Americans, are now involved."
Musa spat. "The devil incarnate! I wish I could kill all of them!"
"We will get our chance later," Narsai said. "But first we must complete this task. I need to call the colonel. He will not like the news."
"Better you than me."
Narsai walked away and dialed Riyad's number from memory.
Camps Bay, Capetown
The safehouse was tucked away at the base of Tabletop Mountain, with a spectacular view of the ocean from the front balcony. It also featured a two-car garage, and was isolated at the end of a road. Ashcroft was waiting for them when the two cars carrying the OUTCAST team arrived at the address he had supplied to Stephen over the phone. He unlocked the door and ushered them inside.
"Welcome to Her Majesty’s safehouse codename, SANDSTONE.”
The interior was stark white, with minimal furniture. "It hasn't been used in the last five or six years," Ashcroft said. "Cutbacks back in London and focusing on the War on Terror has dried up the need for safehouses in places like this. But I hang onto it, just in case."
"You own this place?" Stephen asked.
"Technically, Mandlenkosi's family owns it, but I fronted the money, and when I pass on, it'll be theirs free and clear. You can stay here as long as you need to."
"That won't be very long," Tanner said. "We need a table."
Ashcroft pointed to a doorway. "Dining room's over there."
Tanner led the team into the dining room. "Everything we took from the bodies, on the table."
A couple of minutes later, the wallets, keys, cell phones and other items were in a pile on the table.
"We’re looking for something that will give us a lead on whoever sent the hit team."
"Can I help?" Ashcroft asked.
"If you want," Tanner said. "But we don't want to impose any more on you then we have to."
"It's no bother at all, dear boy. I'm retired. Besides, I need a break from my writing and a couple of hours helping you won't hurt."
The front door opened and Mandlenkosi walked in. "I have the food!”
"Put it in the kitchen and come help us," Ashcroft told him.
"All right," Tanner said. "Danielle, get your laptop ready to input ID info. The rest of you pick up a wallet and find an ID. Read the name off it for Danielle to run through the computer." He picked up a wallet, opened it and found a driver's license. "Habib Hakim."
"Djmal Ali," Naomi read out.
"Fadoul Yahya," Stephen read.
"Wahid Tamrez," Liam said.
Ashcroft's eyes widened. "Let me see that!" he said, reaching across the table and snatching the driver's license out of the former SEAL's hands. He stared at the card. "Oh my word!”
"What is it?" Tanner demanded.
"Wahid Tamrez," Ashcroft said, holding up the card. "He’s Kamal Hassan's right-hand man and chief enforcer. You just killed one of the biggest murderers in Capetown."
"So this Hassan was behind the attempted hit?" Tanner asked.
"Undoubtedly," Ashcroft replied. "And while losing Tamrez will hurt him, he has plenty of other men to call on, and his contacts inside the SAPS will expand his reach even more. I suggest that you lay low here a couple of days, then sneak out of South Africa."
"We can't," Tanner said. "We need to find out what Hassan knows, and do it quickly."
"But he's going to be looking for you."
"And we're going to be looking for him. Where does he live?"
Ashcroft pursed his lips. "He has an estate down the coast, on the southeast side of Hout Bay, right on the Atlantic Ocean, about twenty miles from here. I remember there was a big row about it with the environmentalists a couple of years back, because he wanted to build it on Table Mountain National Park land, but Hassan knew which wheels to grease and got the permits he needed to buy the land and built his estate. It has a dock and a ten foot wall around it."
"Doesn't sound like a smart thing for a criminal to do, raising all that publicity," Liam said.
"It does if it allows you to bring drugs directly from a ship to the beach," Dante said.
Tanner got out his phone. "I’ll call Casey, bring him up to date, and see if we can get any satellite shots of the estate."
Tanner dialed Casey's number. After a brief call, Tanner told them all that Casey came through and was emailing Danielle satellite images with map overlays of Hassan’s estate. Tanner asked Ashcroft if he had a color printer, and a few minutes later they were poring over the satellite imagery. For the next couple of hours, they planned the raid and made arrangements for equipment. After a time, Liam and Stephen left to get equipment from the Gulfstream and track down their pilot, Andy DeCasta.
"What exactly are you going to do?" Ashcroft asked. Up to this point he’d seemed relatively unconcerned, even amused at times. At the mention of equipment, however, the lines in his forehead creased with worry.
Tanner said matter-of-factly, "We're going to grab Hassan. Tonight."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hassan's Estate
Kamal Hassan stared out into the dark beyond the lights of his estate, out to the Atlantic Ocean and whatever secrets it held. The darkness fit his current mood, black and complete.
He turned and walked back to his desk, lit by a single bulb, leaving most of his study in gloom and shadow. He sat in his chair, leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
The loss of Tamrez had hurt Hassan deeply. When he'd heard the news of the massacre at the hotel, he expected a call from Tamrez, telling him what had happened. But the call never came. Instead, one of the men Tamrez had left outside the hotel had called, telling Hassan that there had been an evacuation of the hotel, and that none of the men who had gone in were answering their phones. Hassan had ordered the man to stay put and watch what the police did.
More time had passed, afternoon giving way to evening, when a contact inside SAPS called his handler, who in turn called Hassan with the bad news; twelve bodies in the morgue, all Middle Eastern, and all shot. None of them had wallets or any identification, but it wouldn't take the police long to discover their identity.
And that would lead them back to Hassan.
The loss of a dozen men infuriated Hassan, but until the Americans came out of whatever hole they were hiding in, he had no way to strike back. He had sent word out through his organization, offering five million rand for the Americans' location. But he had little description — four men, two women, one of which was a beautiful African.
He'd sent the lookout to go into the hotel after the police had finished their investigation and get the names the Americans had used to register. Those names were sent to a contact in Customs, with orders to find the passports these people used.
There was a possibility that the Americans had gone to ground, or had fled the city. But Hassan wasn't taking any chances. He ordered his guard force doubled, pulling in men from other operations, and now he had
forty men on the estate. Twenty patrolled the grounds right now, while the other twenty were off-duty, guns near at hand. He had given his servants several days off and had ordered the cargo in the storage shed to be moved before dawn. Tomorrow, he would take a "business trip" to Qatar for a few days, and hopefully get an idea of where the police investigation at the hotel was going.
Even so, Hassan couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong.
* * *
"Prime to all teams, check in."
Tanner knelt behind a low bush, thirty yards from the stone wall that surrounded Hassan's estate. Lit tiki torches spaced evenly atop the wall gave the place an exotic flair, but they also told Tanner that someone was definitely home. The half-moon was high in the sky, revealing a little of the ocean to his left. To his right, the rocky slope of Table Mountain rose into the darkness. Naomi knelt beside him, her eyes also sweeping the surroundings.
Each of the team members wore Dragonskin armor over black jumpsuits and balaclavas over their faces. Each carried a sound-suppressed HK MP5, their SOCOM pistols, night vision goggles, and two each of fragmentation, smoke, and tear gas grenades. In addition, Naomi and Dante carried a block of C-4, divided into quarters, while Liam had an H&K G3SG/1 sniper rifle.
"Sea Team ready," Liam announced. He and Danielle currently piloted a boat a couple of miles out to sea. In addition to securing the dock, the boat would be the team's getaway vehicle.
"Sky Team ready," Dante reported. He and Stephen were north of the estate, near the wall.
"Fire Team ready," the rich voice of Mandlenkosi intoned. He and a few of his friends lurked atop the cliffs overlooking the estate, ready to kick things off with a distraction.
“Copy.” Tanner glanced at his watch, waited for a few seconds to tick off, then gave the command.
"Fire Team: start the dragon."
* * *
Mandlenkosi looked out over the hundreds of rockets that had been stuck into the rocky dirt thirty feet from the cliff edge, out of direct sight of the estate, angled toward the ocean. Scattered among them were other types of fireworks, all designed to make as much bright light and noise as possible. Long fuses ran from each firework and twisted together with other fuses into bundles thick as a man's arm spaced six feet apart. A dirt path running north and south was a natural borderline, leaving all the fireworks on the path's west side, with everything else on the east.
He turned back to the dozen men standing around a lit fire barrel. Each man held a stick with a gas-soaked rag on the end as they looked at Mandlenkosi expectantly.
He grinned at them. They were all his old friends, several he had recruited for Ashcroft, while others had been with him for years, trying to make their country better.
"Light them up."
The torches were stuck into the fire barrel until they caught. Mandlenkosi picked up a spare one and lit it, then picked up a bucket sitting next to the barrel and poured the contents onto the fire. Smoke poured out from the barrel, lost in the darkness.
The men spread out and walked toward the fireworks, torches held low to keep them from being seen down at the Estate. Each man stood in front of a fuse bundle and looked at their leader and friend. "On three," Mandlenkosi said in a normal tone. "One… Two … Three!"
As one, the men dropped the torches onto the bundled fuses, turned on their flashlights, and ran from the fireworks along the path, half going north, the other half south. Despite their age, all of them were still fit, so they were thirty feet away when the first fireworks exploded. They continued running along the path as the cliff exploded with multi-colored flashes of light and loud cracks that sounded like gunshots and other weapons of war.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Multiple explosions lit up the clifftop. Rockets flew into the night sky toward the ocean, filling the air with high-pitched screeches and trails of fire. A large number of the fireworks landed inside the estate and exploded, sparking everywhere and enshrouding the property with thick, acrid smoke. The other firecrackers' sharp pops and snaps, sounding like multiple automatic weapons, added another level of confusion for the defenders inside.
"Sea Team," Tanner said, "begin your approach."
"Copy, Prime." More explosions lit up the night sky.
"Sky Team, begin your approach." Tanner rose and started forward, with Naomi to his left and rear. They threaded their way through the bushes toward the compound wall. When they reached it, Tanner dropped to one knee and covered Naomi while she moved forward to press a quarter-block of C-4 against the wall.
She set the timer for fifteen seconds, then she and Tanner quickly moved away. They flattened themselves on the ground and covered their ears. The explosion tore the wall apart, leaving a large hole in its place.
Tanner and Naomi got up and ran toward the opening. With Naomi covering him, Tanner stepped through the hole, his MP5 up and ready for a target. Once he was clear, he stopped and crouched, covering Naomi as she stepped through the ragged opening. They moved off at an angle from the wall, their target a small out building near the main house.
Around them, the estate was in chaos. A thick haze filled the air, and the fireworks continued to go off, blanketing the surroundings with intense light and sound.
Despite the maelstrom around them, both operatives moved with purpose. They stayed low and close to cover as possible, stopping every few seconds to check their surroundings. Ten yards from the building, a pair of rockets landed near the structure and exploded with eye-searing brightness, briefly illuminating the surroundings.
The explosions revealed three men in suits within the building's shadow, armed with assault rifles. Partially blinded and stunned by the rockets' impact, they saw the OUTCAST pair too late. Tanner and Naomi fired four-round bursts, dropping two of the thugs. The third man died seconds later, struck by both OUTCASTs' second bursts. He went down in a bloody heap.
Tanner and Naomi sprinted to the building, a squat, bunker-like affair with a steel door and no windows. They crouched against the stone structure and took their bearings. The main house was sixty yards away, a modern sprawling design with a lot of glass and an indoor/outdoor swimming pool.
Around it, Hassan's men ran back and forth, trying to find the unseen enemy in the smoke and explosions.
Using hand signals, Tanner indicated a door on the side of the garage and instructed Naomi to throw one of her smoke canisters between their location and the main house. She nodded, and seconds later, her smoke-spewing bomb landed on target. Tanner threw one of his, and both grenades quickly thickened the air, cutting the poor visibility down even more.
Tanner and Naomi sprinted into the smoke.
* * *
The dark blue GEMINI Waverider rigid inflatable boat traveled toward the dock at a sedate pace. Courtesy of Ashcroft's friend at a local boat rental business, its twin 200 horsepower engines emitted a low rumble like a pair of large cats. Danielle, who had done some boat handling when she was younger, piloted the craft, which was rated for eight persons but now carried only two.
Liam stood near the bow, the sniper rifle’s stock pressed firmly to his shoulder. Through the mounted nightscope, he could see two men on the dock and a third near the boathouse. All three were more interested in what was happening on the estate above them than watching the sea. Liam aimed for the man near the boathouse, who was the farthest away from him.
He waited until the boat was three hundred yards from the dock before he tightened his finger around the trigger. He rode the recoil, watching as the 7.62mm round struck his target in the back, knocking him down and sending his rifle flying. Liam quickly found his second target and repeated the process, taking the second guard down before he could turn.
The third man spun toward him and started running to the end of the dock. Liam calmly aimed and fired when the boat was two hundred yards from the dock. The man's head exploded like a melon under a sledgehammer, the now-lifeless body collapsing.
"Bring her in," he said to Danielle.
Liam switched weapons to his MP5 and leapt out of the boat onto the end of the dock, landing near the head-shot thug. He dropped to one knee and covered Danielle as she tied the speedboat to the dock. That done, they moved down the pier toward the stairs.
"Sea Team to Prime," Liam said into his throat mike. "We are feet dry, repeat, feet dry."
* * *
Sky Team's entry was similar to Land Team’s — A C-4-created hole in the north wall. But unlike Tanner and Naomi, Dante and Stephen were barely through the hole when a pair of gunmen charged from around a storage shed, stopped and opened fire with AK-47s.
Dante and Stephen dropped to the ground, the dozen Russian-made rounds hissing over their heads with waspy hums. Before the gunmen could adjust their aim, the OUTCAST operators fired back. Dante's five-round burst stitched one guard from navel to throat, while Stephen's volley struck his target in the head and throat. The duo was up and running before the thugs finished dying.
Dante and Stephen heard the cracks and pops of gunfire all around them, but none of it seemed to be aimed at them. Firework rockets were still landing inside the estate or exploding overhead. They could barely hear the guards shouting as they tried to make sense of what was going on. The smoke hid most of the surroundings and the strong bitter smell of burnt black powder lingered everywhere.
After moving through the estate's garden, they finally saw a building, apparently a guest house. Beyond that lay the main house.
Machine gun fire ripped through the night air as they reached a low stone wall near the guest house. Both men dropped into the shadow of the three-foot high wall. The top was raked with a swarm of bullets that shattered the stone along the top.
Stephen raised his MP5 over the edge and fired a quick burst in the direction of the house before pulling it down and rolling to his left.