by Rick Jones
Kimball pointed to the vacant seat across from him. “Please.”
Moreland took to the booth.
“Drink?” asked Kimball.
Moreland waved the offer off. “Won’t be here long enough to enjoy it.”
“You’ve talked to Henry?” asked Kimball.
Moreland nodded.
“This is your jurisdiction,” stated Kimball. “My team is ready to serve. My priority is to get the True Cross. Your priority is to nail Oliver Beckett. I cannot get the True Cross unless we get to Beckett and the man who has come to meet with him. Mehmoud Atwa.”
“I know the situation.”
“Then you know that we haven’t time to waste. Sleep is not an option at this point. This is now a military operation.”
Moreland concurred, then leaned forward and winged his elbows on the tabletop. “We believe that Beckett has conscripted a team of mercenaries. How many is not known at this point and time. But MI5 is gathering intel. What we do know is that Mehmoud Atwa did not return to the compound after the assault on the MI5 team.”
“And Beckett?”
“We’re not sure if he’s at the compound or not.”
“I’m going to take a guess here and say that he hasn’t been in the compound for quite some time. I’m guessing that Beckett knew what was going to happen, countered, and is meeting with Atwa at an undisclosed area outside of MI5 surveillance. And this tells me one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m thinking Beckett has a mole on the inside. He knows what’s going to happen before MI5 does.”
Moreland couldn’t dispute this. He had considered the same thing. How could someone like Beckett skirt the law for so long? How could he disappear from the grid the moment the sights were set on him?
“You thought the same thing?” offered Kimball.
Moreland nodded. “I have.”
“You trust Henry?”
“Of course.”
“Then it’s somebody Henry trusts. Someone in his circle he doesn’t know about.”
“Henry is a smart man. I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing. It’s just a matter of ferreting the operative out.”
“Yeah, well, we’re on the clock here. Even though it’s said that time’s eternal, we obviously don’t have enough of it. Right now this is your game, your territory. We need to move fast before Atwa and Beckett broker a deal. I have the feeling that Beckett will get Atwa out of the United Kingdom without Atwa causing a blip on the screen.” Kimball leaned forward. “Where do we begin?”
Moreland, at least to Kimball, appeared as a man with a skinny range of emotions. When he spoke it was in an even tone. And when he looked at Kimball he did so without moving his head, only his eyes. “You’re right about the assumption of a mole within MI5. The principal I deal with is George Henry. And only with George Henry. I act outside the scope of MI5, but I also act in response to George Henry’s commands. I’m his field operative who answers only to him. I act only upon his orders and no one else’s.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Henry believes the same thing. Beckett has a man on the inside, so he shares certain intel only with me.”
“Not even with Brown?”
Moreland nodded his head. “Not even with Brown.”
“Is Brown a suspected mole?”
“Highly unlikely. But Brown must share intel with others. The question is: who in Brown’s little circle is the mole.”
Kimball leaned back into his seat. Then he brought the lager to his mouth and sipped from the glass, leaving an edge of foam around his lips before his tongue lashed out and wiped them clean. “You’re telling me you know something, aren’t you? Something Henry couldn’t say in front of Brown.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m listening.”
“It was obvious that Beckett knew that MI5 was trailing Atwa. Once the team was terminated, George Henry knew immediately that Beckett had been informed beforehand. Brown is out of the loop because of the company he keeps. By that I mean who the actual mouthpiece is.”
“So you’re it,” said Kimball. “You’re the only one Henry trusts outside the organization.”
“It’s a big place with lots of people with lots of mouths. It’ll take time, but we’ll find the mole.”
“And in the meantime?”
“Henry surmised an insider. Even Beckett is not smart enough to elude MI5 for this long. So he authorized me and Group Thirteen to respond and react.”
“How?”
“In the past Beckett has been seen conversing with people of the Middle East. The conversations are short, less than three minutes. We believe these people to be couriers for terrorist factions, namely the Islamic State. What these conversations are about is not known–only that they meet.”
“But?”
“But there is one man who seems to be a favorite of Beckett’s more so than others, perhaps a man he truly trusts. His name is Ahmed Shadid. Little is known about him, so he might be a small-time player in the scheme of things. What we do know about him is that he’s unemployed but always seems to have funds available. He’s also an avid supporter of a particular mosque known to have dealings with fundamentalist groups such as the Taliban.”
“And the reason why you’re bringing up Shadid?”
“Whenever Ahmed Shadid met with Beckett, he did so by driving up in a very particular vehicle, a Citroën.”
Kimball was starting to get the gist of the conversation. At first he thought George Henry to be a pompous ass. Now he saw the man differently. “You tagged the car, didn’t you?”
“Two days ago.”
“And?”
“It was the same car that picked up Mehmoud Atwa tonight at the airport.”
Kimball smiled. “You know where he’s at, don’t you?”
“We know where the car’s at.”
“How far?”
“Sixty kilometers west from where we sit.”
Kimball did a quick calculation: 36 miles.
Then from Moreland. “There’s a small game park there, a place for hunters. It’s also a retreat for the wealthy. Fox hunts and all.”
“You think Beckett’s there with Atwa?”
“I know the Citroën is there. It could be that it was abandoned and they moved on, should Beckett suspect.”
“But it’s all we’ve got.”
“It’s better than nothing at all.”
“I agree. And your team?”
“They’re three kilometers east of the game park on a scouting mission waiting for my command. Director Henry is utilizing God’s Eye to pinpoint Beckett’s exact location. So far nothing. And your team?”
Kimball offered a one-sided grin. “They’re waiting to join yours.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Game Park
0557 hours
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Atwa didn’t care how beautiful it was. All he knew was that he had agendas to keep and bargains to strike. The plushness of the valley, the green trees and emerald-colored grass meant little to him. What he wanted, what he needed, was the tan of desert sand, his home.
It was nearly six in the morning and no one had slept. In the distance, streamers of morning light were beginning to rise along the horizon in streaks of red and yellows, the colors of a new day.
Oliver Beckett inhaled deeply, his lungs taking in the crisp air that was saturated with morning dew, and then released it with an equally long sigh. “Bloody wonderful,” he commented.
But Atwa had reached his limits. His patience was gone. “I wish to discuss matters with you,” he said curtly.
“And matters we shall discuss,” he returned. “You must enjoy life, Mehmoud. Be like Ferdinand the Bull. Slow
down and smell the roses every once and a while.”
Atwa didn’t know who Ferdinand the Bull was. Nor did he care. “I want to discuss matters. Now.”
Beckett looked at him with an appearance that seemed sad. “So unappreciative, especially when we all have but one journey on this planet.”
When Atwa was about to open his mouth again to complain, Beckett raised a halting hand. “All right,” he said. “Down to what matters most to you and Mabus.” Beckett went to the edge of a makeshift wall about abdomen high. Then he gestured to one of three men standing behind them wearing paramilitary fatigues, composite guards and face-shielded helmets, to bring over a rectangular-shaped container roughly the size of a guitar case. After laying the case along the edge of the wall, Beckett undid the snaps and lifted the lid. Seated nicely inside of foam-padded molding was the M600, a modern marvel of state-of-the-art technology.
Carefully, he removed the weapon from its molding, set the barrel along the rail, and trained the point to the open field before them. The rifle had a triangular stock with rounded edges, and a triangular sight that had three visual lenses, two that were sapphire blue and one ruby red. The purpose of each lens was for a specific task to lock onto a target, confirm the rate of the target’s movement and distance with the other sights, and then communicate this information to additional components of the weapon to within less than two seconds. Once the target was locked in for up to a distance of 575 meters or 600 yards, the success of a kill rate automatically jumped to forty times greater than any existing rifle.
“Of course,” Beckett started, “this weapon is exclusively for capacity-restricted members of the military and to select non-military members with government clearance. But for you my friend …” He let his words dangle as he set his eye to the primary scope. In the distance he could see two men. One was dressed in military fatigues, composite wear, and a Kevlar helmet with a Plexiglas face-shield. The other was Ahmed Shadid, who was dressed in a pristine white shirt that glowed against the landscape. As he was locking onto Shadid’s position, the LED numerals at the corner of the sight adjusted accordingly as the gauge-finder locked onto the target, with the numbers quickly settling to a confirmed distance of 452 meters.
“I was never good at long-distance kills,” said Beckett. “I always preferred to be up close and personal. That way I know the job would be done properly. Long distance was always a crap shoot for me. Hit or miss. But mostly miss.” As he continued to look through the scope, he said to a mercenary. “Mr. Parker, would you please hand Mr. Atwa your binoculars.”
Parker detached a pair from a Velcro strip on his uniform and handed them to Atwa.
“Now, Mr. Atwa, please look at my target approximately four-hundred-fifty meters from our position. Straight ahead, if you will.”
Atwa brought the binoculars up and the lenses automatically adjusted. “That’s my driver,” he said. “That’s Shadid.”
“Of course it is.”
Atwa lowered the binoculars and looked disturbed by this. “He is Islamic State.”
“Who also happens to be on my payroll. He also broke protocol. Instead of taking irregular routes to see if he had a tail, he decided to take a direct route that could have been very detrimental to our cause. He became complacent. Sloppy. It’s a good thing I have resources everywhere … And I’m sure that a man such as Mabus would have dealt with the situation in a similar manner.”
Atwa couldn’t deny this. Mabus would have dealt with Shadid promptly with the sharp edge of a knife, separating head from shoulders.
“Now watch,” said Beckett, “what a man with the most basic skills can do with a rifle.” Then, as he positioned himself by placing his finger on the curve of the trigger, he spoke to the mercenary standing behind him. “Mr. Parker, if you would kindly inform Mr. Peterson to commence with the demonstration. Tell him to inform Mr. Shadid to run as far and as fast as he can, preferably in zigzag. I would like a hard target, please.”
Parker lowered his lip mic and spoke with an accent that was more Irish then Brit.
Through the lens of his binoculars, Atwa could see the field mercenary issuing orders to Shadid, who retaliated with an agitated series of hand gestures. Then without warning there was a short burst of motivating gunfire at Shadid’s feet, the ground coughing up small eruptions of dirt. Shadid fell to his backside, got to his feet, and then he started to run along the grassy terrain, the man zigging, zagging, moving from left to right, darting from side to side, a hard target to take down.
“The brilliance of this weapon, Mr. Atwa, no matter the path or movement of the mark, is that the M600 can easily acquire the target, track it, range it, and by the time I squeeze the trigger …” Beckett set off a single shot. “The weapon does the rest.”
Through his binoculars Atwa followed Shadid’s movements, the man weaving from side to side until a red spot on the back of his pristine white shirt suddenly splashed wide like the blooming petals of a red rose. Shadid fell forward, hard, and hit the grass with the face-first approach. The red spot on the back of Shadid’s shirt continued to expand into a large Rorschach blot.
Atwa lowered his binoculars. “Impressive,” he said.
Beckett offered the weapon to Parker, who laid it back into the molding of the case. “The kill shot took him down at 478 meters. One shot. One kill. Now to most people a shot like that could never be made with a moving target at such a distance. But this weapon,” Beckett pointed to the case, “can turn an unskilled person into a seasoned assassin with one pull of the trigger.”
Atwa handed the binoculars back to Parker, who lowered the case to the ground, and attached the binoculars to its Velcro strip on his uniform. Then from Atwa: “Now we talk about the True Cross, yes?”
Beckett smiled. “Now we talk about the True Cross.”
“First, in good faith, Mabus would like you to send five rifles to a team working a front–something to prove these weapons’ worth.”
“They’re worth quite a lot. I assure you. Each unit is worth ten thousand American dollars.”
“I’m not talking about its value. I’m talking about its worth in the field. The components are computerized. Computers can be fallible, break down. The units could be defective. We do not know until they are field tested in battle.”
“You’re playing me, Mr. Atwa. And I don’t like to be played. These are top-of-the-line products. They’ve been perfected.”
“Nothing is perfect but Allah.”
“You expect me to give you fifty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment in good faith? When you don’t even have so much as a photo to show me that you truly have the True Cross.”
“You have traded with Mabus in the past for black-market goods, yes?”
Beckett didn’t respond, accepting this as rhetorical.
Atwa said: “And now you doubt his allegiance to you?”
“You have the True Cross?”
“I took it myself from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre … with these hands.” He held his hands up in display. “Now if you want the True Cross for your collection, then that is the deal. Five weapons to be field tested.”
“In Syria? Iraq?”
Atwa shook his head. No.
“Then where?”
“The United States.”
There was a beat between them as Beckett took it in with absorption. “The States?”
“That’s right. To a place called Maryland. In Bethesda. There will be a man there to take possession of these weapons. Once tested, and if everything pans out in the field, then you will get your True Cross for an additional five thousand units of the M600. The transfer will take place sixty kilometers south of Raqqa, in a small village where Mabus is far from the constant bombings by Russian forces.”
“And you want the five rifles in Maryland?” asked Beckett, intuiting. “Which is right down the road from Washington,
D.C. You planning to make a statement?”
“The matter is not for you to know,” responded Atwa. “All you need to know is what we have discussed: five weapons in the United States, and then the True Cross for the balance of five thousand more.”
“And the five thousand, you want them transported to Syria?”
“That’s correct. Once we receive the weapons in Syria, it is there that we will trade for the True Cross.”
Beckett mulled this over for a moment. What do you give a man who has everything that money can buy? You get him items that money can’t buy, those priceless relics that are so unique that there could only be one possessor.
Beckett nodded. “I will need to know specifics as to where you want the weapons delivered in the United States,” he said. “And when.”
“How soon can you get them there?”
“I have a plant outside of Mexico City. Sometimes I deal with the cartels there. They’ll give my people safe passage with no questions asked. I can have these weapons smuggled into the States within two days.”
“No sooner?”
“I need to be cautious about this. You know MI5 is watching. And God only knows who else is out there doing the same. My resources only go so far … In two days.”
“In two days then. This is acceptable. Once the weapons prove to be true with their functionality, then you will send a liaison to Raqqa who will meet with Chahine, Mabus’s right-hand man, who will be taken to a small village south of Raqqa to a place called Tukit.”
“I know Chahine,” said Beckett. “I’ve dealt with him in the past regarding black-market goods.”
Atwa nodded. “It’s there that you will find Mabus. But as soon as your liaison arrives in Tukit with Chahine, he will do so with the balance of the weapons in order to make the exchange for the True Cross upon inspection.”
“That’ll be at least five trucks.”
“Believe me. Your liaison and the convoy he manages will be guaranteed safe passage.”
“And where exactly do my people meet up with Chahine?”