Kitabı oku: «Hostile Dawn», sayfa 3

CHAPTER FIVE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“Bastard slipped through the cracks,” Aaron Kurtzman groused as he filled his coffee grinder.

“For the moment, perhaps,” Hal Brognola conceded.

A high-pitched whine sounded throughout the Computer Room as Kurtzman ground the beans. Carmen Delahunt glanced up from her keyboard and grinned at the burly strategist.

“Sounds like my brain about now,” she said. “Whirrrrrrr…”

“Your brain would probably make for a better cup of coffee than whatever Bear’s whipping up,” Akira Tokaido quipped without taking his eyes off his computer screen.

“I’m feeling the love,” Kurtzman said, taking the wisecracks in stride. His addiction to superstrong coffee was a running joke among the cybercrew, and he was more than willing to let himself be the butt their humor. It was, after all, a more benign way of managing the inevitable stress of their jobs than throwing things or hitting walls.

“Okay, people,” Brognola interjected. “Can we stay on task here?”

The “task” was deciding how best to proceed in dealing with Kouri Ahmet’s ground escape after the Lebanese renegade had bailed from the hijacked Gulfstream that had been transporting him back to the States to stand trial on conspiracy charges. Able Team’s Pol Blancanales and Gadgets Schwarz had arrived at the San Jacinto Wilderness Preserve within an hour after Ahmet’s getaway plane had been shot down, and, working in tandem with a search party made up of county sheriff officers, FBI agents and helicopters from the Camp Pendleton Marine base, they’d undertaken an intensive dragnet of the rugged terrain where it had been determined that Ahmet had most likely touched down. With aerial help from the search copters, the runaway’s parachute had been tracked down in an isolated ravine and footprints had led to a spot where blood on the ground hinted at the likelihood that Ahmet had overpowered a forest ranger as a means of continuing his escape. Two rangers were reported missing along with a Forest Service pickup. An APB was out for the truck as well as for Ahmet, but so far there had been no sightings. It was dark now on the West Coast, and with each passing minute the trail was getting colder.

“Carl and Jack just caught up with Rosario and Gadgets,” Huntington Wethers, the third member of the Farm’s cyberteam, reported. He was on the phone with Lyons, linked to Able Team’s field leader by way of a scrambled signal. “They want to leave Ahmet to the Bureau for now and focus on tracking down that al Qaeda cell.”

“Tell them to go ahead,” Brognola advised. “But if Ahmet comes back on radar, I’ll want them to be ready to shift gears again.”

“If you ask me, if they’re looking for al Qaeda there’s a good chance they’ll bump into Ahmet anyway,” Kurtzman stated. “I still think there’s got to be a link there somewhere.”

“You could be right,” Brognola said.

“I’ll have Carl keep that in mind,” Wethers suggested.

“Good idea.”

As Wethers tapped his headset to pass along instructions, Brognola unwrapped another of his cigars. He began working it between his fingers as he turned to Delahunt.

“Anything on that arms deal Ahmet was involved in when he was arrested? Was he buying or selling?”

“Buying,” Delahunt responded.

“You’re following the money?”

Delahunt nodded. “It took some doing but we’ve traced the currency back to an offshore account in the Caymans. The bank there is stonewalling, but we’ve got records on them brokering a lot of action with heavyweights in the Middle East, including a Lebanese financier who’s been funding Hezbollah training camps in the Bekaa Valley.”

Brognola frowned. “That reporter Phoenix just freed from Hamas…Wasn’t he looking into an angle about Lebanon being in the loop on those nuclear materials Iran is shuttling out of the country?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah,” Delahunt replied. “You think these training camps might figure in?”

“Worth looking into,” Brognola said.

“Hold on,” Kurtzman interjected. “Let me make sure I’m following this. We’re saying Iran’s moving nuclear materials to Lebanon by way of Iraq and Syria?”

“That’s what Ferris claims,” Brognola said. “I haven’t had a look at his sources or what kind of intel he’s working with, but that’s the corridor he’s talking about.”

“But do you see what I’m getting at?” Kurtzman said. “The northern provinces in Iraq are al Qaeda strongholds these days. Syria’s underworld is run by Hamas. And in Lebanon we’ve got Hezbollah calling the shots. Granted, those folks all would like nothing better than to see us flushed down the toilet, but it’s not like they’re working hand-in-hand.”

“Or are they?” Barbara Price spoke up. “It’s not like Ferris is some crackpot. He’s got a track record for solid reporting, so if he’s putting this out as some cooperative effort, we need to start rethinking a few things.”

“None of them good,” Brognola added. “Factionalism between those groups has always been one thing holding them in check. The last thing we need is them rallying behind the same game plan.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Kurtzman piped in over the gurgling of his coffeemaker. “And the idea of those groups breaking bread together is bad enough. Throw nukes into the mix and…I don’t even want to go there.”

Brognola nodded gravely. The implications of Walter Ferris’s news story had a bearing not only on the situation in the Middle East but the one in California, as well.

“Kouri Ahmet is Lebanese,” he recalled, thinking out loud. “If you’re going to lump him in with some terrorist outfit, it’s Hezbollah or Hamas. But if it turns out he’s in cahoots with that al Qaeda cell in L.A., that already proves half of Ferris’s theory.”

“Hang on, everyone,” Akira Tokaido interrupted. While the others had been brainstorming, he’d been clicking away at his keyboard, culling through the Farm’s databases for cross-links between Ahmet and a possible transport conduit between Iran and Lebanon. He’d found something.

“Get this,” the young hacker told his counterparts. “Ahmet trained in Bekaa Valley at a Hezbollah camp near Baalbek. I’ve got the place linked to funding from a Lebanese financier named Nasrallah Kassem. That ring a bell with anyone?”

“Here,” Delahunt said. “That’s the money guy behind those accounts in the Caymans I was just talking about.”

“I’ve heard of him, too,” Brognola said. “Yes, he’s a Hezbollah sympathizer, but he’s made his fortune off the Tokyo Stock Exchange and deals in the Far East.”

“Meaning he gets around, same as Ahmet,” Delahunt said.

“See what you can find on Kassem’s Pac-Rim dealings and run them through the Caymans mix,” Brognola suggested.

“Will do,” Delahunt responded.

Tokaido interrupted again. “Before we go there, can we stay focused on Lebanon for a minute?”

“You have something else?” Brognola asked.

“I’ve got nothing on Ahmet’s movements for a week prior to his arrest,” Tokaido responded, referring to one of the tracking files he’d just called up. “But I’ve got a blip from CIA putting him in Lebanon last Tuesday. Baalbek to be exact.”

“His old training ground,” Delahunt murmured.

“Right,” Tokaido said. “And I’m guessing Kassem has a home in the city there. Or at least some kind of office.”

“Easy enough to find out,” Delahunt said.

“Let’s do that,” Brognola suggested.

“I don’t know what the game plan is for Phoenix now that they’ve wrapped up in Damascus,” Tokaido said, “but Baalbek’s just on the other side of the mountains.”

“I hear you,” Brognola said. As the big Fed wandered over to the far wall, Price glanced at Tokaido and offered a taunting smile.

“What, you’re after my job, Akira?” she teased.

“No way,” Tokaido said, grinning back. “I’m just after some brownie points and a little something extra in my Christmas stocking.”

By the time Brognola had reached the monitor depicting a world map, Kurtzman had already read the SOG director’s mind and zoomed the graphic to focus on a large, detailed view of the border linking Lebanon with Syria. Brognola studied the map a moment, then turned back to the others.

“Okay,” he began, “we’ve got Ahmet in Baalbek a week ago and in La Paz a few days later. It stands to reason he flew out of Lebanon and stopped off in the Caymans to pick up the cash for the arms deal. Carmen, go ahead and run with that. Factor in Kassem but try to find who Ahmet’s contact there was. Airline checks, hotels, cab logs…the whole nine yards.”

“Got it,” Delahunt said.

Brognola turned to Tokaido. “I heard you and, yes, you’ll get your brownie points and stocking stuffers. Sending Phoenix into Lebanon is definitely the way to go.”

Tokaido grinned and pumped a fist. “Yo! The kid rocks!”

“Have McCarter packet any hard copy intel over to Fisk at the CIA branch in Damascus,” Brognola told Price. “Apprise them on what we’ve come up with, then put them on the move, ASAP. If word’s gotten out about us taking out that Hamas team, there are going to be a lot of shredders working overtime trying to destroy evidence. Hopefully, Phoenix can get there quick enough to find us something.”

“Where do you want them to focus first?” Price asked. “Kassem or the training camp?”

“The camp,” Brognola said. “It’s probably a reach, but with any luck, Kassem will be there and we can kill two birds with one stone.”

“It’ll give them a chance to try out Cowboy’s Gopher Snake, too,” Kurtzman suggested. “They didn’t use it in Damascus, right?”

“Now that you mention it, no, they didn’t,” Brognola said.

“The camp’s definitely the way to go,” Tokaido called, staring at his monitor. “Kassem will have to wait for another day. According to what I’ve got here, he’s out of the country on business.”

“Any idea where?” Brognola asked.

Tokaido nodded. “He’s in the Orient.”

CHAPTER SIX

Hong Kong

Nasrallah Kassem was in his midsixties but felt twenty years younger and had doled out a fortune on plastic surgery in hopes of proving it. The results were dubious. Yes, he’d rid himself of a few worry lines as well as some flab below his chin, but one too many facelifts had drawn his olive skin so taut that it looked almost as if the next time he shaved he’d find himself scraping raw bone. Skull-faced beneath a crop of thick, well-coiffed hair dyed the color of charcoal, the vain financier cradled a snifter of cognac in his manicured hand as he held court with the two men seated across from him on the terrace of his high-rise penthouse overlooking the maritime bustle of Victoria Harbour. The lavish quarters was just one of eight furnished residences Kassem maintained around the globe. All but two were in the Middle East or along the Pacific Rim; another was in Libya and the last, a twenty-two-million dollar ocean-view estate overseen by his daughter, Sana, was in the Cayman Islands.

The two men with Kassem were Gohn Len, a tall, lanky Intelligence Bureau chief for the People’s Liberation Army, and Pasha Yarad, Iran’s balding, stoop-shouldered Deputy Minister of Defense. The three men had all been in proximity to Hong Kong when they’d received the news regarding Ahmet’s escape during his extradition to California and had agreed to meet on short notice to discuss the ramifications. They were speaking in French, the one language with which they all had at least a passing familiarity.

“While it’s fortunate that Ahmet eluded the Americans, the fact that he’s in the States empty-handed is a setback, without question,” Kassem said. “I’m confident, however, that we can secure alternative firepower for the mission in Los Angeles. We have other sources, after all.”

“I have no doubt that we have the connections to get other weapons,” Yarad told the Lebanese businessman as he helped himself to another few grapes from a sumptuous fruit platter set on the table along with a basket of fresh-baked pastries and croissants. The fifty-year-old Iranian was in his element on the topic of munitions and glad for the chance to speak from a position of authority. “And while the Blindicides were convenient enough, any number of LAWs would serve our purposes just as well. AT-4s, RPGs—”

“Agreed,” Kassem said, tactfully cutting off Yarad. “But the thought was that it would be more expedient than other options to smuggle LAWs into the States from Mexico.”

“Somebody obviously thought wrong,” Len retorted, his sallow face contorted into a look that lay somewhere between contempt and annoyance.

“Yes,” Kassem conceded, “obviously Ahmet’s connections in La Paz should have been better scrutinized. He relied on the wrong people. But you know his track record. Dozens of missions, all carried out like clockwork.”

“Perhaps,” Len said, “but apparently this time he did a poor job of setting his clock.”

Kassem knew Len was baiting him. Of the nineteen leaders comprising the New Dawn Rising coalition, the Chinese officer was, hands-down, the most contentious and uncompromising, and Kassem wasn’t the only member concerned that Len’s positions were dictated by Beijing’s conceit that, given time, they would be able to achieve most of their objectives without the help of others. Kassem was determined not to allow Len’s recalcitrance govern the impromptu meeting. Rather than rise to the PLA officer’s bait, the elderly businessman paused and quietly sipped his cognac, savoring its cloying warmth on his tongue before swallowing. Then, reaching into the pocket of a tailored silk suit he’d purchased just days before in Hong Kong’s garment district, Kassem casually withdrew a filigreed silver cigarette case and helped himself to an unfiltered Pall Mall. When he held out the case to his colleagues, both Len and Yarad shook their heads. Kassem shrugged and lit his cigarette. When he spoke, it was with a nonchalance as calculated as the way in which he’d convinced the others to meet on his home turf.

“What’s done is done,” he told Len simply.

“Placing Ahmet in charge of this operation was your idea,” the intelligence chief persisted.

“I accept responsibility,” Kassem countered evenly. “Does that satisfy you?”

The intelligence officer’s face flushed. He was about to respond but thought better of it. Jaw clenched, Len instead clamped his long, coarse fingers around a ceramic teacup filled with green tea and brought it to his lips. It was all he could do to keep his hand from trembling with anger.

The youngest of three men, Len looked uncomfortable, not only with the situation, but also with being trapped inside his ill-fitting brown suit. Kassem was sure the Asian would have preferred to show up in his medal-encrusted PLA uniform so as to give an appearance of greater cache, but such attire would have drawn unwanted attention in this, an apartment building leased out primarily to business executives. Holding the meeting here had been Kassem’s suggestion, and seeing to it that Len came dressed in civilian attire had been but another of the many small ploys the Lebanese entrepreneur had relied upon to place himself at a tactical advantage over his colleagues.

Just as he’d compromised Len by putting him in a suit, Kassem’s insistence that they speak in French came at the expense of Yarad, easily the least fluent of the three and therefore forced to ask the others to repeat themselves and speak in rudimentary sentences. And, when they’d first come out to sit on the terrace, Kassem had been shrewd enough to take a seat placing his back to the harbor, forcing the other two men to contend with the glare of the late-afternoon sun whenever they looked his way.

It was Pasha Yarad who finally broke the uneasy silence.

“This is not the time for second-guessing,” he said, siding with Kassem for the moment. “We came here to settle on a course of action and pass it along to the others. I suggest we focus our efforts there and leave the hindsight for another day.”

The ball was in Len’s court. He set down his cup and crossed his arms across his chest. “Very well,” he said gruffly. “I’m listening.”

Kassem was more amused than put off by Len’s petulance. Rather than fuel it, he left the floor to Yarad.

“Our main concern should be verifying that our teams are in place and still ready to carry out the operation,” the Iranian said.

Kassem assured Yarad, “Ahmet was in constant contact with the teams up to the time of his arrest. Things were proceeding on schedule. I also made a few calls to the States before you arrived. There have been no other problems aside from those involving Ahmet.”

“But Ahmet masterminded this whole plot,” Len countered, quick to resume the role of devil’s advocate. “He’s the go-between for all the groups we have in place in California. Can we really be sure all these different teams will be able to carry things out without his supervision?”

“Your point is well taken,” Kassem conceded, feeling it best to throw Len this one small bone. “And yes, it would be for the best if Ahmet were available to oversee things. God willing, he’ll elude capture and meet up with one of the teams shortly. But at the moment, that is something beyond our control. Which is why we need to come back to the matter of securing other weapons. It will take more than conventional firearms or explosives for the plan to be carried out the way it was drawn up.”

“Understood,” Yarad responded. “Then let’s concentrate on supplying the teams with what they’ll need. You were just saying you had access to other suppliers.”

Kassem nodded. “I’ve already made a few calls. I should have word back shortly. If none of those options seem viable, I can tap into the arsenals of one of my training camps back in Lebanon. The concern there, as before, is the time frame and transport logistics. We need to carry out the attack in a few days.”

“Do what you can,” Yarad said. “I’m sure we can work out something.”

“Not so fast.” Gohn Len stood and moved to one side, taking shelter from the sun beneath an awning that reached out over the terrace. Kassem smiled indulgently, as if to acknowledge his awareness that Len was trying to gain leverage by putting his six-foot frame on display.

“Is there a problem?” Kassem queried innocently.

Len took a moment, choosing his words carefully. Finally he said, “Given what’s happened, I think we should reconsider the whole operation. Why attempt it now when there is too wide a margin for failure?”

“Because this is an ideal opportunity,” Yarad reminded the Chinese officer. “How many chances will we get to have all our enemies rounded up under one roof?”

“The Frazier Group meets annually,” Len countered impatiently. “We can wait and try again next year!”

“You may be fine with waiting that long,” the deputy minister said, “but I, for one, want to see this taken care of now rather than later. Too much can happen in a year. With every day that passes, there is a greater risk that our coalition will be found out. If that happens, all our work—everything we’ve done to put ourselves in this position—will have been in vain.”

Kassem narrowed his eyes and stared through a wreath of smoke at his colleagues, doing his best to restrain himself. Did it always have to be like this? Squabbling and bickering, everyone at cross-purposes? How were they ever to achieve the kind of change they wanted if they couldn’t get past their own differences?

“I’ll confer with the others,” he finally told Len and Yarad, stubbing out his cigarette in a gesture of finality. “We’ll take their input into consideration and hopefully have some sort of consensus. In the meantime, though, I think the smart course is to proceed as planned. A plot of this magnitude can always be called off at the last minute, but if we’re going to carry it out, the pieces need to be in place.”

“I agree,” Yarad said.

Both Kassem and the Iranian stared at their Chinese counterpart. Len hesitated, picking up his ceramic cup and taking one last, long sip. The tea had gone cold and left a bitter taste in his mouth. He swallowed it nonetheless, unnerved by the sense that he was swallowing his pride, as well.

“If need be, I might be able to divert some rocket launchers from one of our covert installations in South America,” he said, offering up an olive branch to his cohorts. “They could be cargoed in a way that it would be possible to have them delivered to one of the ports near Los Angeles.”

Yarad stared at Len, incredulous. “This is the first mention of this as an option. Why didn’t you bring it up before?”

“It involves certain complications,” Len said. “Of a personal nature.”

Kassem saw an opportunity to ease the ill will between him and Len, and seized it.

“Whatever the case, thank you for the offer,” he told the Asian. “We’ll only take you up on it as a last resort, though. Fair enough?”

Len nodded tersely and grabbed the valise he’d brought with him to the meeting. “If we choose to go that way, I’ll need to have laid some groundwork. I’d best get started. If you’ll excuse me, I can show myself out.”

“Of course,” Kassem said. Both he and Yarad stood, offering Len a polite nod. Once the Asian had left, the Iranian turned to Kassem.

“I don’t trust him,” he said. “This offer of his. It came out of nowhere.”

Kassem shrugged. “I don’t trust him, either.”

“What should we do about it?”

“Leave that to me,” the elderly financier told Yarad. “And since we now have an opportunity to speak alone, this would be a good time to address another matter.”

“Our nuclear situation,” the Iranian guessed.

Kassem nodded. “I take it you’ve heard about the Hamas incident in Damascus.”

“Yes, I’ve been briefed,” Yarad replied. “Those idiots failed to get any information from that reporter before they were killed off.”

“At least none of them survived for questioning,” Kassem said.

“Small consolation,” Yarad groused. “We still have more components to smuggle out of Iran before the inspectors can catch scent of them. We need to know for sure whether we can still move everything through Iraq and Syria without detection.”

Kassem shrugged. “If there are problems with the existing conduit, we’ll improvise and find another way. It’s the same as with securing rocket launchers for our teams in California. We have many options. It’s one advantage of our having a coalition.”

Yarad finished off the last of the grapes, then squinted against the glare of the sun, eyeing Kassem.

“You agree with me that it’s imperative to follow through on our plan, yes?” he asked. “You weren’t just siding with me to vex Gohn Len.”

“I’m behind the plan,” Kassem reassured the Iranian. “For the same reason as you. The timing is important. But we need to keep in mind that taking the Frazier Group off the playing field is only a first step. To bring the West completely to its knees, we’ll need to be able to follow up and speak in a language they understand.”

The Iranian smiled. “Trust me, when we have the bomb, the West will hear us loud and clear.”