Kitabı oku: «High Assault», sayfa 3
He felt Juanita’s fingers begin to massage his testicles then slide lower; she knew what he liked best of all. All in all Kasim could not think of a more perfect outcome for his life.
ABLE TEAM’S PLAN was simple.
They would come in on a commercial flight and make it through customs clean. Following that they would pick up a vehicle and make their way to a safehouse used by the CIA and Army special operations. There, Able Team would establish a base before starting surveillance of the target.
Things began to go wrong immediately.
Carl Lyons pulled his carry-on bag down from the overhead compartment just after the unfasten seat belts sign popped up on the TWA commercial flight. They were flying first-class as part of their administrative cover and the team leader had watched, bemused, as Rosario “Politician” Blancanales worked his gregarious charm on a Hispanic flight attendant.
Team funny man Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz had cracked one stale joke after another as the silver-haired smooth talker flirted shamelessly with the dark-eyed Venezuelan beauty half his age.
There wasn’t a person on the plane among the crew or passengers who didn’t think the three men were anything but what they claimed; middle-aged divorced tourists on a South American vacation. Blancanales’s audacity was role-playing brilliance.
If there was anything bothering Lyons as he exited the plane after the flight attendant had slipped her cell number to Blancanales, it was that circumstances dictated they begin the operation unarmed. Carl Lyons didn’t like taking a shower unarmed, let alone entering a potentially volatile nation without a weapon.
“Okay,” Schwarz murmured as they emerged into the big, air-conditioned terminal, “we can add a certain TWA flight attendant named Bonita to our roster of Stony Man local assets.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lyons replied, “I’m sure she’ll be a big help. We can just send Dave and his boys down here sometime and they can all crash at her hacienda. It’ll be like the Farm ‘South.’”
“You see how it is, Gadgets?” Blancanales said, voice weary. “You try to take one for the team and management doesn’t appreciate it. I try to show loyalty through service and all I get is cynical pessimism.”
“Can you gentlemen come this way.”
The voice interrupted their banter with a tone of un-disputed authority. The members of Able Team turned their heads as one to take in the speaker. He was a tall Latino with jet-black hair, mustache and eyes in the crisp uniform of a Venezuelan customs officer. There was a 9 mm automatic pistol in a polished holster on his hip, but the flap was closed and secured.
However a few paces behind him the assault rifles of the military security guards were visible as the soldiers stood with hands on pistol grips and fingers resting near triggers.
Lyons scowled. Schwarz gave the officer his best grin in reply to the summons. Then he turned his head slightly and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Any chance you want to take one for the team now, Pol?”
Blancanales fixed an insincere grin of his own on his face. “Nope. This time we move right to cynical pessimism,” he replied.
VENEZUELAN CUSTOMS separated the three men quickly, hustling them into separate rooms. There they sat isolated for two hours. Carl Lyons found himself sitting in front of a plain metal table on an uncomfortable folding chair while the customs officer pretended to read official-looking papers printed in Spanish with a government seal at the top of the pages.
Fluent in Spanish, Lyons easily read them and saw they were merely quarterly flight-maintenance reports being used as props. Warily, Lyons decided to relax a bit; this seemed a more random occurrence than he had first feared. The Farm had considerable resources, but the operation was miniscule compared to other government agencies, and Stony Man operatives were often forced to rely on logistical support from larger bureaucratic entities. Whenever that happened security became a prime concern, but for now this seemed a more typical customs roust than anything more threatening.
The officer, whose name tag read Hernandez, picked up Lyons’s passport and opened it. “Mr. Johnson?” His English was accented but clipped and neat.
Lyons nodded. “That’s me.”
Hernandez regarded him over the top of the little blue folder. “What brings you to Venezuela?”
“Sunny weather, beautiful women, the beaches. All the usual. Is there a problem with my passport?”
Hernandez carefully put down the blue folder. He ignored the question and carefully tapped the passport with one long, blunt-tipped finger. “There are many countries in South America with beautiful beaches and women.”
“But only one Margarita Island—it’s world famous,” Lyons replied in flawless Spanish, referencing Venezuela’s most popular tourist designation.
Hernandez’s eyes flicked upward sharply at the linguistic display. His eyes looked past Lyons and toward the large reflective glass. Lyons knew from his own experience as a police officer that was where the customs officer’s superiors were watching the interrogation. Hernandez let his gaze settle back on Lyons. He offered a wan smile.
“I’m sure this is just an administrative error,” the officer said. “My people will have it sorted out in no time.” Hernandez rose to his feet. “Please be patient.”
“Okay,” Lyons nodded agreeably. “But man, am I getting thirsty.”
Hernandez left Lyons and walked into the interrogation room containing Hermann Schwarz. As he moved down the hallway he saw the tall, cadaverous figure in a dark suit standing behind his commanding officer. The man met Hernandez’s gaze with cold, dead eyes, and the Venezuelan customs officer felt a chill at the base of his spine. What was he doing here? Hernandez wondered. He stifled the thought quickly—it didn’t pay to ask too many questions about Hugo Chavez’s internal security organization, even to yourself.
As he walked into the room he saw a burly sergeant had Schwarz pinned up against the wall, one beefy forearm across the American’s throat. The officer was scowling in fury as Schwarz, going by the name Miller, smirked.
Schwarz looked over at Hernandez as the man entered the room and grinned. “Hey, Pedro,” he called. “You know why this guy’s wife never farted as a little girl? ’Cause she didn’t have an asshole till she got married!”
The officer rotated and dipped the shoulder of his free hand. His fist came up from the hip and buried itself in Schwarz’s stomach. The Stony Man operative absorbed the blow passively and let himself crumple at the man’s feet. He looked up from the floor, gasping for breath.
After a pause Schwarz again addressed Hernandez. “You know what this pendejo’s most confusing day is? Yep—Father’s Day.”
His cackling was cut off as the sergeant kicked him in the ribs. Hernandez snapped an order and reluctantly the man backed off. “Leave us!” he repeated, and the officer left the room still scowling.
Hernandez moved forward and dropped Schwarz’s passport on the table. He looked down as the American fought his way back up to his feet. Hernandez watched dispassionately as the man climbed into his chair.
“This is a helluva country you got here, pal,” Schwarz said. “Tell a few jokes and get the shit kicked out of you. I should get a lawyer and sue your ass.”
“You’ll find Venezuelan courts unsympathetic to ugly Americans, Mr. Miller.”
“Yeah, well, your momma’s so fat when she walks her butt claps.”
“Why have you come to Venezuela, Mr. Miller?”
“I heard a guy could get a drink. I think it was a lie. Seriously, I’m here with some buddies to check out the sites, maybe see the senoritas on Margarita Island—but instead I get this?”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t insult my officers?”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t lock an innocent tourista up for two hours in a room with a trained monkey like that asshole.”
Hernandez sighed heavily, a weary man with an odious task. “I’m sure this is just an administrative error. We’ll have it sorted out shortly.”
“You’re damn well right you will,” Schwarz snapped, playing his role to the hilt.
“In the meantime, perhaps you could refrain from antagonizing my officers? Yes?”
“Hey, Pedro—is that your stomach or did you just swallow a beach ball?”
Officer Hernandez turned and walked out of the room, studiously ignoring the thin man standing outside in the hall next to the doorway.
“Hey, who do ya have to screw to get a drink around here?” Schwarz demanded as the door swung closed.
From behind the two-way mirror the thin man watched him with inscrutable curiosity.
AS CUSTOMS OFFICER Hernandez entered the final interrogation room, Blancanales, whose own passport was made out under the name of Rosario, rose from his seat, manner eager and face twisted into a mask of hopeful supplication.
“Listen,” he began babbling, “I’m really sorry—”
“Shut up and sit down!” Hernandez interrupted. “Yes, I know, I know. You are all here innocently. You are all planning to go to Margarita Island, you are all thirsty and need a drink because you are just typical ugly Americans here to screw our women and drink tequila!”
Face frozen in a look of sheepish innocence, Blancanales settled back down in his chair. He blinked his eyes several times. “Well, er, I guess…yeah.”
Face red, Hernandez spun on a heel and tossed the blue passport on the table in disgust. He left the room and slammed the door behind him so hard it rattled in its frame.
Blancanales called after him, “Actually, I am kind of thirsty, amigo.”
Out in the hallway Hernandez marched up to his superior, who stood waiting next to the thin man in civilian clothes. “Sir, their paperwork checks out. Everything checks out perfectly. They’ve obviously rehearsed their story—or it’s the truth. Should I toss them in a holding cell?”
“That won’t be necessary,” the thin man said. “Let them go. Apologize for the mistake, wish them well.”
Hernandez slid his gaze over to his commanding officer, who glanced at the man next to him, then nodded. “Yes, we have enough. Let them go.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Basra, Iraq
The rotors of the Black Hawk helicopter were still turning as the side door to the cargo bay opened to reveal the men Major Anjali had been sent to greet. He surveyed them with a critical eye, noting the athletic physiques, flat affects and nonregulation weaponry hanging off their ballistic armor and black fatigues.
Anjali had seen enough special operations soldiers in his life to recognize the type. The elite always had more in common with each other than even with others of their own country or military. Anjali was a wise enough and realistic enough man to know he himself did not belong among their ranks. It was no matter of ego for him; his interests lay in other directions.
At the moment he remained focused on gaining these mysterious commandos’ trust, leading them into hostile terrain beyond the reach of help and then betraying them—making himself a little wealthier in the process.
The first man to reach Anjali was tall and broad with fox-faced features and brown eyes and hair. Having spent the past five years operating alongside British forces in Basra, the Shiite police officer recognized an Englishman even before he spoke and revealed his accent.
“You Anjali?” David McCarter asked.
Anjali nodded, noting the man did not identify either himself or his unit. Behind the Briton his team paused: a tall black man with cold eyes, a stocky Hispanic with a fireplug build and scarred forearms standing next to a truly massive individual with shoulders like barn doors and an M-60E cut-down machine gun. Behind the tight little group another individual, as tall and muscular as the rest, turned and surveyed the windows and rooftops of the buildings overlooking the secured helipad. There was a sniper-scoped Mk 11 with a paratrooper skeletal folding stock in his hands, the eyepieces on the telescopic sight popped up to reveal an oval peep sight glowing a dim green.
“We were briefed on the flight in,” McCarter continued. “You get us past the Iraqi security checkpoints and militia crossings until we’re within striking distance, then fall back with the reserve force should we need backup.”
“Just so.” Anjali nodded. “I’m surprised you agreed to having only Iraqi forces as overwatch. Did you work with us in Basra before?” The question was casually voiced, but still constituted a breach of etiquette in such situations.
“Has there been a change in the situation since our initial briefing?” the black man asked, cutting in.
Anjali turned to face Calvin James, noting the H&K MP-7 submachine gun dangling from a sling off his shoulders down the front of his black fatigue shirt. In his big, scarred hands the man casually cradled a SPAS-15 dual mode combat shotgun, its stock folded down so that he held it by the pistol grip and forestock just beyond the detachable drum-style magazine.
Just as with the rest of them Anjali saw the man’s black fatigues bore no unit insignia, name tag or rank designation. His voice was flatly American, however, the accent bearing just a trace of the Midwest, but the major couldn’t be sure.
The Iraqi pretended not to notice the pointed disregarding of his own indelicate question. Behind the team the Black Hawk’s engines suddenly changed pitch and began to whine as the helicopter lifted off.
Anjali shook his head to indicate no to the black man’s questions, then waved his hand toward the armored personnel carrier parked on the edge of the helipad’s concrete apron. The Dzik-3 was a multipurpose armored car made by Poland and used by Iraqi army and police units throughout the country.
The 4.5-ton wheeled vehicle boasted bulletproof windows, body armor able to withstand 7.62 mm rounds, puncture-proof tires and smoke launchers. T. J. Hawkins, covering the unit’s six o’clock as they made for the APC, thought it looked like a dun-colored Brink’s truck and doubted it could withstand the new Iranian special penetration charges being used in current roadside IEDs—Improvised Explosive Devices. He would have felt a lot safer in an American Stryker or the Cougar armored fighting vehicle.
He was used to stark pragmatism, however, and made no comment as he scrambled inside the vehicle, carefully protecting his sniper scope.
It had been easier to coordinate a blacked-out operation through local Iraqi forces than to bring British authorities operating in the Basra theater in on the loop because the deployment had been so frenzied. Hawkins accepted the situation without complaint.
Inside the armored vehicle the team sat crammed together, muzzles up toward the ceiling. Rafael Encizo sat behind the driver’s seat holding a Hawk MM-1 multiround 40 mm grenade launcher. As Anjali settled in the front passenger seat beside his driver he looked back at the heavily armed crew with a frown.
“I am in charge of my vehicle during transport and thus am commanding officer for this phase of the operation,” he said, voice grave. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you put your weapon safeties on.”
McCarter leaned forward, shifting his M-4/M-203 combo to one side as he did, the barrel passing inches from Anjali’s face. He held up his trigger finger in front of the Iraqi major’s face and smiled coldly.
“Sorry, mate,” he said. “I know you’ve heard this before but—” he wiggled his trigger finger back in forth in front of Anjali’s eyes “—this is my safety.” He settled back into his seat. “End of story.”
Anjali turned around, face red with fury. He slapped the dash of the vehicle and curtly ordered his driver to pull away from the tarmac of the helipad. As the vehicle rolled out into traffic, he forced himself to calm. It was as the old Arabic proverb, claimed by the English as their own, said: who laughs last laughs best, and Major Anjali planned to be laughing very hard indeed at the end of the next few hours.
PHOENIX FORCE REMAINED alert as the Dzik-3 left the main traffic thoroughfares surrounding the airport and pushed deeper into the city. They rolled through Iraqi national army and police checkpoints without a problem, but as the buildings grew more congested and rundown, and the signs of the recent civil conflicts became more prolific—in the form of bullet-riddled walls, the charred hulks of burned-out vehicles, gaping window frames and missing doors—so did flags and graffiti proclaiming Shia slogans and allegiance.
Now the checkpoints were manned by local force police officers who all wore subtle indicators of tribal allegiance in addition to their official uniforms. Portraits of the firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr became prominent. They were entering a section of the city where centralized authority had lost its influence and clan leaders and imams were the de facto power structures.
The checkpoint stops became longer and the night grew deeper. In the backseat Gary Manning used the GPS program on his PDA to plot their course as they moved through the city. After a moment he froze the screen and leaned forward to tap McCarter on the shoulder. “We’re here,” he said.
McCarter nodded and looked out a side window. They had entered an area of urban blight forming a squalid industrial bridge between two more heavily populated sections of the city. The dull brown waters of the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, cut through concrete banks lined with empty and burned-out factories, manufacturing plants and abandoned electrical substations. A rusting crane sat in a weed-choked parking lot like a forgotten Jurassic beast of steel and iron.
“Pull over,” McCarter told Anjali.
The major looked back in confusion. “What? We still have two more checkpoints to go before the rendezvous point,” he protested.
“Pull over. We have our own ops plan,” McCarter stated. “When we give the signal, you and the chase vehicle can meet us at the RP. We’ll insert on foot from here.”
“This isn’t what I was told—” Anjali sputtered.
“Pull over.”
Anjali scowled. Then he barked an order to his driver, who immediately guided the big vehicle over to the side of the road. They rolled to a stop and Phoenix Force wasted little time scurrying out of the vehicle, weapons up.
Before he slammed the door shut McCarter repeated his instructions to the Iraqi major. “Get to the RP. Link up with the chase vehicle and hold position as instructed. When I come across the radio we’ll be shaking ass out of the target zone so expect hot. Understood?”
Anjali nodded. His face was impassive as he replied, “I understand perfectly, Englishman.”
“Good,” McCarter answered, and slammed the Dzik-3’s door closed.
As soon as the man was gone Anjali had his cell phone out. He could feel his laughter forming in his belly and he bit it down. He’d save it for when he was looking at the bloody corpses of the western commandos.
Caracas, Venezuela
ABLE TEAM STEPPED OUT into the equatorial sunlight from the cramped depths of the customs station on the far side of the international airport. Hermann Schwarz’s eye was swollen slightly and he had a bemused look as he used a free hand to rub at his sore ribs.
He turned toward Lyons, who was squinting against the hard yellow light of the sun. “Next time you play the asshole,” he said.
Blancanales chuckled to himself. “It does come more natural to you,” he argued.
Lyons shrugged and slid on his shades. He stood in the doorway of the police center and smiled. “Quick, use your cell phone to take a video of me.”
Pretending to laugh along with the joke like ugly American tourists, Blancanales quickly opened his cell phone and thumbed on the video function. He started rolling, capturing the scene.
Immediately he saw a cadaverous man in a business suit watching them from beside their interrogator as he pointed the camera over Lyons’s bulky shoulder. The man frowned as he saw the Americans taking pictures and then turned and walked away.
“Something to remember Caracas by,” Schwarz said loudly.
“Oh, that was great acting,” Lyons muttered, walking forward.
“Thank you, thank you very much.”
“Did you get it?” Lyons asked.
“You mean, tall, skinny and corpse-looking?” Blancanales asked. “You betcha. I’ll see what Aaron’s crew can do with it.” He hit a button and fired off the short video clip to a secure server service that would eventually feed it into Stony Man.
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
THE E-MAIL TRAVELED with digital speed through security links and into Carmen Delahunt’s computer. Seeing the priority message beeping an alert to her, she quickly lifted her hand, encased in a sensory glove, up to her left and pantomimed clicking on the link with a finger. Inside the screen of her VR uplink helmet the short cell phone video played out.
“Just got something from Pol,” she said. “They want an ID on what appears to be a civilian who’s buddy-buddy with Venezuelan law enforcement officials.”
From behind her in the Stony Man Annex’s computer room Aaron Kurtzman’s gruff voice instructed her, “Send it over to Hunt’s station. His link to the mainframe is more configured to that kind of search than your infiltration and investigation research algorithms. You stay on trying to get into VEVAK systems through their Interpol connection. I’m still convinced that’s our best route into Ansar-al-Mahdi computer files.”
Tapping the stem of a briarwood pipe against his teeth, Professor Huntington Wethers froze the video image on a single shot then transported it to a separate program designed to identify the anatomical features on the picture then translate them into a succinct binary code. He ran the program four times to include variables for age, angle and articulation, then ran a blending sum algorithm to predict changes for bad photography, low light and resolution obscurity. He grunted softly, then fired off double e-mails of the completed project, one back to Carmen Delahunt and the other to Akira Tokaido.
“There you go,” Wethers said. “I would suggest simultaneous phishing with a wide-base server like Interpol and something more aimed, like Venezuelan intelligence.”
“Dibs on Venezuelan intel,” Tokaido called out.
Speaker buds for an iPod were set in his ears, and the youngest member of the Stony Man cyberteam slouched in his chair using only his fingertips to control the mouse pads on two separate laptops.
“That’s just crap,” Delahunt replied. “I already have a trapdoor built into Interpol. Dad, Akira’s stealing all the fun stuff!”
“Children, behave,” Kurtzman growled. “Or I’ll make you do something really boring like checking CIA open agency sources like your uncle Hunt is doing.”
“Your coffeepot is empty, Bear,” Wethers replied, voice droll.
“What?” Kurtzman sat up in his wheelchair and twisted around to look at the coffeemaker set behind his workstation. To his relief he saw the pot was still half full of the jet-black liquid some claimed flowed through his veins instead of blood.
“Every time, Bear, I get you every time,” Wethers chided.
“That’s because some things aren’t funny,” Kurtzman said. “I expect such antics from a kid like Akira, but you’re an esteemed professor, for God’s sake. I expect you to comport yourself with decorum.”
“Brother Bear,” Wethers said, his fingers flying across his keyboard, “if you ever did run out of coffee you’d just grind the beans in your mouth.”
“Bear drinks so much coffee,” Delahunt added, her hands still wildly pantomiming through her VR screen, “that Juan Valdez named his donkey after him.”
“Bear drinks so much coffee he answers the door before people knock,” Tokaido added. He appeared to be hardly moving at his station, which meant he was working at his most precise.
Stony Man mission controller Barbara Price walked into the computer room just in time to catch Tokaido’s comment. Without missing a beat the honey-blond former NSA operations officer added a quip of her own.
“Bear drinks so much coffee he hasn’t blinked since the last lunar eclipse.”
Kurtzman coolly lifted a meaty hand and gave a thumbs-down gesture. Deadpan, he blew the assembled group a collective raspberry. “Get some new material—those jokes are stale, people.”
“Bear drinks so much coffee it never has a chance to get stale,” Delahunt said calmly. She tapped the air in front of her with a single finger and added, “Hugo Campos—”
“Hermida,” Tokaido simultaneously chorused with the red-headed ex-FBI agent.
“Of the General Counterintelligence Agency,” Wethers finished for them. All humor was gone from his voice now. “The Venezuelan military intelligence agency.”
Sensing the tension immediately, Price turned toward Kurtzman. “Venezuela? What does this mean for Able?”
Kurtzman pursed his lips and sighed. “Trouble.”
