by Flynn Vince
Just before he got to the double glass doors he stopped and dumped his other forms of ID in the garbage can. It wouldn’t look good if he was searched and they were discovered. He took the elevator down a couple of floors and then took the skyway over to the main terminal. So far he’d seen just one person, a flight attendant who walked briskly past him. Inside the terminal there were more people but it didn’t look like much in the big space. Hakim looked carefully both ways and saw only one police officer. Overweight and barely awake, he didn’t look like much of a threat. If they knew he was coming they were doing a wonderful job concealing themselves.
American Airlines had the busiest counter. Hakim wrote it off to the six-o’clock flight to Miami. He got in the coach line and waited a few minutes before it was his turn. The woman behind the counter looked at him with a combination of shock and concern.
“Oh, you poor dear,” she proclaimed. “What happened to you?”
“Carrr assssident,” Hakim mumbled through his cotton-stuffed mouth. He handed over his passport.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said as she took his passport and punched his name into the computer. “I have your reservation right here, Mr. Andros. You’re on the six o’clock to Miami.” She tapped a series of keys and looked at the screen for a moment. “You know what I’m going to do for you. First class is wide open. I think you’ll be more comfortable up there. Now once you get to Miami you’ll have to check with the gate agent. The computer isn’t showing what aircraft you have for the next leg of your trip, so I can’t assign those seats. Would you like to check your bag?”
Hakim smiled and said, “Pweeeze.”
The woman took the bag and handed him his boarding pass. After he was done thanking her, Hakim hobbled over to the security line. Only one metal detector was open and again the security people looked about as alert as the cop by the front door. No sense in turning back now, he thought to himself. He showed the TSA agent his passport and boarding pass. The agent, a fifty-some-year-old man with bloodshot eyes, made sure the name on the passport and the boarding pass matched and that was about it. Hakim kicked off his flip-flops and very slowly bent down to pick them up. He placed them on the conveyor belt and tossed his money, watch, phone, and car keys in a dish. A female TSA agent standing on the other side of the metal detector asked him if he could walk without the cane and he nodded that he could. He placed the cane and his zip-up hoodie on the belt as well and slowly made his way through the detector. On the other end he picked all of his stuff up without a problem.
He felt so good after clearing security that he had to remind himself to slow down. Using the cane, he made his way over to the closest coffee shop and was about to get in line when he remembered the cotton balls. He picked up two newspapers instead and then headed down to the gate. On the way he extracted a few of the cotton balls and placed them in his left pocket with the others. A twenty-four-hour news channel was on an overhead TV near the gate. He stopped and watched for about five minutes. There was nothing new except that the director of the FBI had announced a press conference for 11:00
A.M. Eastern.
Hakim boarded early with the only other first-class passenger and settled into his seat. When the flight attendant came by with a glass of champagne and orange juice, he decided things were indeed looking good and he took her up on the offer. That was when he decided to call
Karim. He removed a few more cotton balls, turned on the phone, and then hit send twice. Surprisingly, the phone went straight into voicemail. At the beep, Hakim turned toward the window and in a quiet voice said, “It’s too bad you didn’t trust me. I’m already on my way out of the country. I suppose you’re stuck somewhere in the middle of America getting ready to kill another innocent woman. The Lion of al Qaeda.” He laughed. “It should be the Lamb of al Qaeda. It’s too bad you don’t have the genitalia to fight a real man face to face.”
Hakim ended the call and removed the battery as a precaution. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of what the message would do to the thin-skinned Karim. He sincerely hoped the idiot would meet his death in a hail of bullets. Hakim hoped he could read about it on a beach somewhere. He would put the madness of al Qaeda behind him and start a new life.
CHAPTER 62
NASSAU, BAHAMAS
RAPP was wearing a black Nat Nast bowling shirt with a couple of vertical cream stripes, linen pants, and black loafers. His face was clean-shaven and his eyes were concealed behind a pair of dark aviator sunglasses. He saw them sitting at the outdoor café as he ambled down the street, glancing in the windows of the high-end shops as he went. Sidorov’s detail knew who he was and expected him, but the general had brought along two men of his own. Rapp had no idea if they were armed or not. It was highly possible that they had carried their weapons through customs in a diplomatic pouch just as he had. Gunplay was to be avoided. If the Cubans got rough, Coleman, Reavers, and Wicker were just up the street in a minivan and Butler and his men were at the other end of the block sitting at an outdoor café.
So Rapp moved down the street with relative calm, casually taking in the surroundings. There were banks on all four corners of the block and between them a spattering of jewelry stores, cafés, art galleries, and French and Italian designer labels. There wasn’t a cobblestone out of place or a speck of garbage to be seen. Rapp had walked down streets just like this in dozens of cities the world over. The ultrarich who wanted to avoid taxes flocked to cities like Nassau with their strong banking-privacy laws. Along with them came a smaller percentage of men who made their money in the illicit trades of guns, drugs, and organized crime. Rapp had spent a great deal of his career tracking these modern-day pirates, and the trail often led to these tiny island nations.
Rapp stopped next to the outdoor café and pretended to check out the display of Panerai watches in the window of a jewelry store. Through the reflection in the large plate-glass window he could see five bodyguards, three for Sidorov and two for the general. He was close enough to smell the smoke from the general’s cigar and could faintly hear him talking to Sidorov in English. Rapp nonchalantly stepped over the rope that divided the outdoor seating for the café from the rest of the sidewalk. He kept his right shoulder to the building and his eyes on the bodyguards. If they reached for a weapon, Rapp would raise his hands and let Coleman and the Brits come riding in. With the bodyguards out of the way, Rapp could focus on Ramirez.
Not a single bodyguard reacted until Rapp was next to the table. Sidorov and Ramirez were sitting across from each other. There were two more chairs and Rapp stepped behind the one that had its back to the building. “Peter,” Rapp said in a friendly voice, “good to see you.”
Sidorov stood and offered his hand. “Mitch, very nice to see you. Please join us. I’d like you to meet General Manuel Ramirez.”
The general stayed seated. He looked up at Rapp from behind his reflective glasses, his upper lip pushed out while he sized up this new person. After an awkward moment, he offered his hand.
Rapp clamped down on the general’s thin hand and squeezed hard. “General, I’ve been looking forward to this for some time.”
The general just stared. “I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”
Rapp shook his head while he pulled back the chair and sat. “No reason for you to know me. Peter was kind enough to set up this meeting.”
“What are you talking about?” He removed his sunglasses and gave Sidorov a disapproving glare. “I do not like surprises.”
“Then you’re going to hate this,” Rapp said, not wanting to give Ramirez a chance to get rolling. “As you’ve probably already guessed, I’m an American, and while that might not interest you too much I think this will… I’m a counterterrorism operative for the CIA, which is a nice way of saying I kill terrorists and the scumbags who help them.”
If Ramirez was impressed, he didn’t show it.
Rapp pressed on. “I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the terrorist attacks in Was
hington last week. A lot of Americans were killed, and my president isn’t very happy about that. He has given me the green light to kill anyone who had anything to do with the attacks.”
Ramirez remained stoic. “And just how would this concern me?”
“Well… as it turns out, the terrorist cell that hit Washington used your island as a staging area for their attacks.”
“I don’t believe you,” the general said, glancing over his shoulder at one of his bodyguards.
Rapp ignored the denial and said, “Last week a plane landed on your island and you ordered your men to help off-load a large amount of cocaine onto two speedboats and one truck.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Rapp’s eyes stayed locked on the general. “We can handle this one of three ways. The first way is the best. You tell me everything you know about Hakim al Harbi.”
“I have never heard of this man.”
“That’s the real name of the smuggler you were dealing with. He’s a Saudi who spent a little time fighting in Afghanistan and then left as an advance scout for the al Qaeda cell that hit Washington last week.” Rapp pulled an envelope from his pocket and extracted three photos that had been lifted from al Harbi’s driver’s license, college student ID, and passport. Dumond had hacked into the various databases and snatched the photos without alerting the Saudis. Rapp watched the general closely. “This is the guy you made the deal with. He passed himself off as an intermediary who was helping the Taliban smuggle opium.”
The general exhaled nervously and again looked over his shoulder to the closest bodyguard.
“He can’t help you, General. You need to tell me everything you know, and I mean everything. Email accounts, hotels, airlines he traveled on, any contacts you know of… and most important, the banks he dealt with.” Dumond had had his team scouring the international banking community for close to twenty-four hours and so far they had come up with nothing.
“I don’t know this man.”
“I’ll make a deal with you, General. You don’t insult me, and I won’t insult you.”
“You bring me here under false pretenses and then complain that I am insulting you.” The general angrily shook his head. “The arrogance of you Americans.”
“I know more about you than you can possibly imagine, General. I know, for instance, that before you will do business with anyone, you require an up-front deposit. You used to take it in cash, but with Fidel’s recent decline in health, you’ve begun to have that money deposited in offshore accounts. In fact I’ve been told you prefer it in gold… one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Lies.”
Rapp’s patience was waning. He figured he’d give it one more shot before he dropped the bomb. “General, this doesn’t have to be difficult. I really don’t give a shit about these drugs. I just want the information.”
General Ramirez looked at the nearest bank for a long moment, and then turned back to Rapp and said, “For one million dollars, I will give you the information you ask for. And I want it in gold,” he added with wry smile. “The American dollar isn’t worth shit these days.”
Rapp’s entire impression of the man changed in that instant. He was either incredibly greedy or extremely stupid. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m here because Peter convinced me to at least sit down and talk to you. I have been ordered to kill every last piece of scum-sucking shit who had anything to do with this mess. I don’t know you, and going into this meeting I guess I somehow got it in my head that you would be a reasonable man. You’d recognize that you were on the wrong side of a really nasty situation and you would gladly help make amends.”
“You will have to excuse me, Mr. whatever your name is, if I do not feel like kneeling at the American altar. Your country is not without sin. You cannot lure me here under false pretenses and threaten me. What are you going to do-kill me? Right here?” Ramirez held out his hands and looked around. “You think me a petty thug and you are sorely mistaken. You are a wealthy country. A million dollars is nothing to you. You can threaten all you want, but at the end of the day I know you will pay. It is much easier to do things that way. So get on your phone,” he made a move-along gesture with his right hand, “and get the approval to have the money transferred. When you have it, I will consider providing you with the information you seek.”
Rapp’s brow furrowed in disapproval as he sized up the general. He knew Butler and his men were nearby listening to the conversation, and right about now his British friend was hoping he would give the crass general a million dollars and move on. That wasn’t going to happen, though.
Rapp cleared his throat and placed both elbows on the table. “You don’t know me, so I suppose I’ll have to give this one more try. I came to this meeting with a few contingency plans. When you’ve dealt with as many scumbags as I have, you learn that you have to be prepared for the worst. My initial thought was that I’d just shoot you right here and send a clear message to all the other greedy third-world dickheads who want to make deals with terrorists. My second thought was that I’d have one of my guys pop you in the back of the head at the airport. Pretty easy shot, really. We’ve done it before. Everything is set up in advance. You start climbing the stairs to get in the plane and when you hit the top step, bam! A nice heavy-grain, soft-tip bullet right in the back of the head from about three hundred yards. You fall into the plane, door closes, plane takes off, and your dead body gets tossed out the back door in the middle of the big blue ocean never to be found.”
“You don’t scare me, Mr. Rapp. Give me the money and we will talk. Until then I am done with you.” Ramirez started to stand.
Sidorov put his head in his hand and began mumbling to himself. After a moment the Russian looked up and said, “General, this is not the wise approach.”
“Don’t lecture me,” Ramirez snapped.
Rapp reached out and clamped onto the general’s wrist. “Sit.” He pulled him back into his seat.
“Don’t touch me! You Russians and Americans are the same. Your condescending ways have grown old. Neither of you scare me. One word from me to my bodyguards and you will both be dead. Like that!” Ramirez snapped the fingers on his free hand.
Rapp regarded him for a moment and then decided it was time to hit him with option number three. “General, you think that because I’m American I won’t actually follow through with my threats.”
Ramirez snorted. “That is correct. Every time you have tried subterfuge with Cuba you have failed. Just as you will fail to intimidate me.”
“We’ll see about that. That planeload of drugs you and your men helped off-load last week… any idea where it came from?”
“I do not know what you are talking about,” the general said in a haughty voice.
Rapp ignored his denial. “Your new friend al Harbi-the guy you set up the drug deal with-he stole it from the Red Command Cartel.” Rapp let the words hang in the air for a beat and saw a flicker of recognition in the general’s eyes.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I really don’t give a shit if you believe me or not. The important thing is that they will believe me, because I have the intel to prove it. Satellite photos of your men off-loading the plane. My source told me you’ve already sold half your take. Phone intercepts of you talking about a new lucrative business partner.” Rapp made some of it up, but he knew the general was too focused on the Red Command Cartel to doubt him. Of all the South American drug cartels the Red Command was by far the most violent. “I figure you have two problems. I tell the Red Command that you helped orchestrate the theft and then I tell the Brits what you did. They’ll come swooping in and seize every offshore account with your name on it. All of those dollars you’ve squirreled away will be locked up in a legal fight for years to come. The families who lost people last week will line up by the hundreds to sue you, and they’ll take every last penny.”
Ramirez turned to Sidorov and said, “You will pay for this.”<
br />
“For what?” Sidorov asked. “Trying to save your life?”
“Consider everything you have invested in my country gone. All of it.”
Rapp laughed and said, “What an asshole. Here Peter is trying to help you, and this is how you repay him.”
“He is not trying to help me.”
“Trust me… If it wasn’t for him you’d already be dead.” Rapp shook his head at the stubborn prick and said, “You know, before meeting you, I thought I would make this clean and easy. You either tell me everything you know about this Hakim guy, especially any financial transactions, or I kill you.”
“Please, enough of your false threats and theatrics. Pay me a million dollars or I will walk away.”
“How about I tell you to go fuck yourself and call the Red Command Cartel and tell them that you helped plot the raid that killed seven of their men and looted one of their distribution facilities of approximately twenty million dollars in cocaine.”
“You are bluffing.”
“I doubt they will be so kind as to fly you to the Bahamas on their private plane. In fact, you will never see them coming. They’ll show up at your house one night and slit everyone’s throat. They’ll kill your grandchildren, your servants, anyone and everyone they find, and they will probably keep you alive just to watch.” Rapp watched him squirm for the first time. He stood, pushing his chair back and eyeing the Cuban bodyguards. “So what’s it going to be, General? Do you want to live and keep your money, or do you want to die?”
Rapp waited five seconds. He watched the greedy general try to figure out what he would do. Five seconds after that Rapp decided he was done dealing with the idiot. “Fuck you, General.” Rapp started to walk away.
“Wait.”
Looking over his shoulder, Rapp saw the general reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a pen and a small notebook.
“He told me he was Lebanese.” The general began writing down a name. “Adam Farhat.” He wrote a few more lines on the paper and then tore it off and gave it to Rapp. “That is the bank he used. He specifically directed me to contact a banker, Christian something… I can’t remember the last name. The deposit was to be held in escrow until our deal was completed.”