[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel (14 page)

That’s the spirit.

I gave Shotgun the wrench so he could finish unscrewing the grate on his own, then went back to the other side of the roof. I climbed over the side and let myself drop down onto the shed. The fall couldn’t have been more than eight feet; I’ve probably dropped that amount a thousand times over the past ten years without a problem. But this time both knees not only creaked but buckled, and I tumbled off the damn roof onto the ground in the middle of the alley.

It was embarrassing, but worse, my right knee hurt like a son of a bitch,
13
and my left knee was worse. I got up, a little shaky, and steadied myself against the pole supporting the shed roof as Mongoose looked on nervously.

“You OK?” he asked.

“Perfect.”

I stowed my ruck and fanny pack behind the generator with Mongoose’s, then checked my MP5 carefully, trying to give my knees a little time to recover.

“I’m ready,” said Shotgun.

“You got your dick in your mouth or are you eating something?” snapped Mongoose.

“Twizzlers. Strawberry. What’s the over-under on how many people are inside?”

“I say six,” said Mongoose.

“Eight,” said Shotgun, his mouth stuffed with licorice.

“A dozen,” I said. “Three-quarters of them women.”

I stiff-legged down the alley.

Shooting the guard would complicate business with Fat Tony, so I’d brought along a little gizmo called the Dazer Guardian. The Dazer, which is supposed to be available to military personnel within a year or so, is a modulating green laser that temporarily blinds whoever you shoot it at.

I’m sure you’ve read the stories about airline pilots being temporarily blinded by laser pointers “shot” from the ground. Developed by Laser Energetics, the Guardian is a laser pointer on steroids, with a much more effective light wave. The weapon is small; it looks and feels like a high-tech flashlight in your hand. As a nonlethal and silent device, it’s perfect for situations where you want to get past someone without making a racket.

A blackjack at the back of the head works even better, and there’s a lot to be said for a knife at the throat. But variety is the spice of life.

As we came around the corner, the guard spotted us and raised his gun, looking like he was going to shoot first and ask questions in the afterlife. I hit the trigger on the Guardian, and his whole world turned to dazzle. By the time he managed to get his hands in front of his face to block the light, Mongoose had sprung a kick to the side of his head. The guard crashed backward, bouncing off the door frame before rebounding into Mongoose’s fist. We cuffed him with a zip tie and went inside, walking up a narrow set of steps.

Another guard met us at the top of the stairs, AK ready. I slapped the laser on again, blinding him. But my right knee gave out as I hustled up to take him down. I slipped and fell back against the wall of the stairway, dropping the light. The flashing green beam slipped from our antagonist’s eyes, and the blind could now see.

I was a miracle worker, but definitely on the wrong side of Paradise.

(VI)

Something like a tornado or a freight train rushed by me. I thought it was Mongoose, running up to take a bullet for me. But it turned out to be Abdi, who bowled into the man, carrying him backward and landing in the chest of another guard who’d come in behind him. The three of them fell in a tumble. By the time Mongoose pulled them apart, both guards were out, knocked unconscious by either the fall or the shower of punches Abdi had thrown.

The landing opened into a foyer about ten feet square, dimly lit by a pair of flickering overhead lights. Fat Tony met us in the hall with a Beretta in his hand. By now the music had stopped, though my eardrums were still vibrating.

“Sorry for the commotion,” I told him. “I forgot my invitation.”

He squinted at me. A sweet, pungent odor drifted in from the interior rooms. I’m not a connoisseur, but the words “Moroccan hashish” crossed my mind.

“Mr. Dick,” he said, looking at my submachine gun. “I expect you tomorrow.”

“I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I would come early.”

“You are … robbing me?”

“No.”

He glanced at the two men on the floor behind me. I just smiled. Abdi began talking quickly in Somali, explaining that we had run into scheduling difficulties and decided to come north sooner than expected.

“I heard what happened to you when you left,” said Fat Tony, sticking to English and addressing me, not Abdi. “I understand—you are nervous about me.”

“I’m not nervous. I just don’t trust you.”

He frowned. “Taban ali Mohammad brought good business. His death pains me.”

“Not nearly as much as it pained me.”

Fat Tony brushed my comment away. “We are relaxing tonight. You come in and relax. In the morning we will have our meeting.”

“If you want to talk business, we need to talk now. You have items for sale.”

“It is not me,” he said. “Persons I know. I personally have no interest.”

“A commission, no?”

Fat Tony pretended not to understand. I glanced at Abdi, who translated.

“A small percent,” admitted Fat Tony. “Well, then, let us speak inside.”

*   *   *

Inside looked like the common room of a frat, assuming the frat was in the position to host a dozen women in various stages of undress. Five of Fat Tony’s cronies slouched on a pair of couches that looked as if they had been abandoned by the Italians some fifty years before, their gaudy colors now worn and the stuffing showing in countless places. There were two large hookahs on the floor, elaborate water pipes with multiple hoses and dishes that could have held five pounds of tobacco. Everyone in the room had glassy eyes.

The men barely noticed us. The women, on the other hand, were eager to make the acquaintance of the exotic strangers.

“You can look, but don’t touch,” I told Mongoose.

“Don’t worry. I ain’t coming out of here with no disease.”

Fat Tony ordered one of the women to make us some tea, then put his gun down on a trunk that was being used as an end table. I decided to help him be a good host—I picked up the gun, dropped the magazine to the floor, and checked to make sure a round hadn’t been chambered.

I did the same with my gun, putting the magazine in my pocket. Fat Tony nodded, and pointed to the pipe.

“Not tonight,” I told him. “Thanks, though. Tell me what arrangements you wanted to make.”

Friends had recently come into possession of a number of items that could be sold in Europe at a very good price, he said. Would I be interested in making an investment?

Perhaps. If the investment was a modest one.

We negotiated long enough for me to decide that Fat Tony really was a principal in the network. This was somewhat important for Fat Tony’s health: if I had thought that he was part of the al Qaeda network, he would have been uninsurable.

You may object that anyone who is working with the al Qaeda network is, in essence, an ally of theirs, and any disease or other ill will that befalls them is justly deserved. I seem to recall that is the “official” line of the suits at Foggy Bottom (aka, the State Department) when addressing their peers at highbrow cocktail parties.

Fat Tony would disagree—as far as he’s concerned, his friends might just as well be cardinals in the Catholic Church. His involvement was only aimed at one thing, making money for himself.

The long and short of our discussion was that we arranged to have a meeting with representatives of the shippers the next morning. I set the time—six thirty, about twenty minutes after sunrise.

I said I would call to tell him where.

Six thirty was too early, he told me, and his friends would have to name the place; they were as wary of walking into an ambush as I was. Plus, he wasn’t about to give me a phone number.

“I’ll call this phone,” I told him, retrieving one from my pocket. “Don’t use it for anything else. Destroy it after I’ve called.”

“You know it’s not bugged?” he asked.

“Of course not. But the Americans have spies everywhere.”

“Yes, this is true. You are working for Russians, yes?”

“I told you before, I can’t say who my partners are. As far as anyone is concerned, I’m the person to deal with. I’ll take care of the money. This—” I reached into my pocket and took out a stack of hundred-euro notes. “—is to show we’re serious.”

He eyed it suspiciously. “A down payment?”

“No. A tip for you. Or your partners.”

Fat Tony took the bills and fanned them. They totaled ten thousand euros.

“Counterfeit?” he asked.

“I think they’re real.”

He smiled faintly. “I still do not think that my friends will be comfortable with you naming the place.”

“That’s my requirement. If they don’t want to do business, fine,” I told him. I glanced over at Mongoose, who looked like he was about ten seconds from forgetting his vow not to touch the women. “I’m leaving.”

*   *   *

“Man, I never have any fun,” groused Shotgun when we were all back on the boat. “All those women.”

“I didn’t touch them,” said Mongoose.

“Yeah, but they touched you.”

“Look at it this way, Shotgun,” said Trace. “There was no food.”

“I can’t believe that. You’d think one of them would have gotten the munchies.”

We floated offshore until roughly four
A.M.
, then made our way to an inlet about thirty miles north of Fat Tony’s village. An arm of rocks extended into a small bay, and the water was deep enough for us to pull the boat right up against them. Once more Trace stayed with the boat while we went ashore and scouted the area.

On the iPad’s satellite map, the faint outline of a road was visible about two hundred yards from the shore. Between the gray predawn light and the hard-tack ground, we couldn’t find it, and had to double-check our position against the GPS device to make sure we were in the right place. But the flat ground would give us a perfect view of our friend’s approach, and with the nearest settlement a mile and a half away, it would be difficult to ambush us.

To make it even harder, we launched a small UAV for a bird’s-eye view. The UAV was a new little toy, smaller and we hoped more dependable than the backpack UAVs we’d used on earlier operations. It was about the size of paperback book, and in many ways was similar to AeroVironment’s Nano Hummingbird, developed for DARPA. The Hummingbird flies with flapping wings and looks very much like a small bird, especially in flight. Ours does, too. The skin is a rubbery plastic, and the body and wings are filled with hydrogen—the thing probably weighs less than a bird of the same size. But the real innovation is in its engine. Nearly silent, it’s a small fuel cell that is supplemented by small solar panels on the upper wing that extend the flying time. Two video cameras on the underside provide real-time surveillance. The aircraft has a flight time of roughly two hours.

The little bird was made by a company—called Innovate Solutions and headed by one of my old sled dogs—that has been of great help to Red Cell International. Their best devices, like the UAV, involve nanotechnology straight out of sci-fi movies—but I digress.

Flying the aircraft isn’t all that hard; there’s a primitive autopilot that will fly in a circle or a figure eight, providing constant coverage of the area. Getting it into the air is the trick—the rear of the fuselage is a little heavy, and it takes a slippery wrist to get it up.

Mongoose got it on the first try. Draw your own conclusions.

Mongoose flew the plane through a quick routine of tests, then handed it over to the autopilot and adjusted the image on the video screen. Trace had her own video feed back in the boat.

“Looks good,” she said, watching the screen.

I took out a cell phone and called Fat Tony.

“You have a half hour,” I said. “The coordinates are coming in a text.”

“But—”

I clicked off the phone, sent the text, and waited.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, a pair of camels appeared on the horizon to the south. Mongoose took over direct control of the aircraft, zipping it closer to the animals.

“Is that Fat Tony?” asked Trace.

I looked at the screen. Fat Tony was riding in the lead; a thin, short figure rode on the second camel. There were no bodyguards or other escorts.

Awful confident.

“That’s him.”

“I thought he wasn’t one of the principals,” said Trace.

“Maybe they nixed the meeting,” said Mongoose.

“Or maybe the other guy is the deal maker. Can you get the aircraft around and get a good glimpse of the second rider’s face? I want Trace to send it to Shunt and see if he’s in a file somewhere.”

“Working on it,” grunted Mongoose.

Shotgun checked his machine gun, made sure his ammo was ready, and positioned a backup Twinkie.

I nudged Abdi and we started walking forward to meet them.

Fat Tony stopped when we were about ten feet away. The camel twisted its head slightly and parted its lips, as if to say,
Who the hell are you.

“Looks like they have pistols under the camels’ blankets,” said Trace in my ear.

Fat Tony began talking in Somali. Abdi said only a few words in response.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

“He says that if this is an ambush, my family will be wiped out. I told him it is not.”

“This is Shire Jama,” Fat Tony told me. “He is a representative of the people I told you about.”

Shire Jama bent his head.

I went over and held up my hand. He didn’t take it.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

You’d think that was fairly universal. He gave no sign that he understood.

Fat Tony began speaking. A quantity of drugs would be available for a shipment arriving in southern Europe within a few days. It was a modest amount, at least by international standards—fifty kilos of pure heroin and twenty kilos of black hashish.

A little explanation for those of you who are not connoisseurs of hashish. Hashish is classified by its color: black, as in this case, pretty much looks black; Moroccan is more a reddish brown, and Lebanese is lighter, usually green or red. (The names don’t necessarily correlate with where they come from.) All are made from cannabis—aka, marijuana, mary jane, weed, smoke, etc.