[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel (30 page)

“He is of no concern to you,” said the young man.

“I don’t want him harmed. He’s my friend.”

The young man smirked. “Americans always try to protect others.” He shook his head, as if this were the worst failing in the world.

“You’ll pay if you harm him,” I promised.

Skinnyboy laughed. “We don’t harm fellow Muslims. Only infidels. It’s your life you should worry about. Not his.”

*   *   *

The truck and the men who’d taken it had disappeared. In their place were a pair of Mercedes sedans and a half-dozen guards, all in Western-style clothes except for the scarves that made it hard to see more than their eyes. Dressed in black cotton pants and wearing blazers over button-down shirts, they could have been running security at a politician’s campaign event, rather than watching some Middle East terror wannabe.

We walked past them and down a set of wide steps that led around a fountain to the main house. The building was a two-story structure covered with stucco. I wouldn’t call it a mansion, but compared to the structures we’d passed on the road, it was opulent. Most importantly, it didn’t smell like shit.

Two more guards, these in pinstriped business suits, were outside the door. They stiffened as we approached, but said nothing. A guard inside opened the door just as I reached it. The door opened onto a hallway about ten feet deep and another sixteen wide. Beyond it was a large room where a man in a long robe sat on a divan holding court. Four other men, these in ill-fitting and wrinkled business suits, stood near him, addressing him in Arabic. Well into their fifties and sixties, the men were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t even glance in our direction.

“Wait,” hissed Skinnyboy, stopping me at the doorway.

I’d seen the man in the robe before. He was Mohammad Abu al-Yasur—one of the key operatives of al Qaeda. He was instantly recognizable by a long scar on his cheek, which extended to his beard. He’d gotten the scar during fighting in Iraq—the man had gotten around over the past decade and a half.

Once a close associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri—the man most Westerners believe succeeded Osama bin Goatfucker—al-Yasur was considered the number-two man in the organization by a number of experts, including the Christians in Action. I’m not sure the CIA has ever met an al Qaeda member they
didn’t
think was the number-two person in the organization. But al-Yasur definitely was high up, and according to the Pakistanis was a link between the funding arm of al Qaeda and the organization’s most active unit, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

And the Paks would be in a position to know, don’t you think?

I stood more or less at attention—probably less than more—waiting for my audience with his holyshitiness. It had been a while since I saw the dossier, but as I recalled he had begun his career in Turkey, helping a pair of youngsters blow themselves up in Beyo
ğ
lu, a section of Istanbul frequented by many tourists. As it happened, the two young men succeeded in killing only themselves, but it was a start.

Al-Yasur’s next plot was to blow up a ferry in the Bosporus, which is the neck of water that separates Istanbul between Europe and Asia. The police broke that plan up (with a little unacknowledged help from the Christians in Action). The aspiring mass murderer decided to take the hint and move on, seeking greener pastures in places like Kenya and the Sudan. Eventually he found his way to Iraq, from there to Afghanistan and bin Goatfucker’s palace in Pakistan. He had no fixed base after that, though he spent a lot of time in Yemen.

“So who is this American?” he said finally, turning to me. His English, though heavily accented, was fluent.

“Sono Italiano,”
I answered. I switched back to English. “I’m Italian.”

“There are no Italians in Yemen.”

“Then I must not be here. I’ll be going.”

Skinnyboy didn’t have much of a sense of humor. He grabbed my arm and squeezed it, probably thinking that the pressure would hurt. But I’ve met two-year-olds with tighter grips.

Naturally, I winced. No sense letting him know what a wimp he was.

“Where in America do you come from?” asked al-Yasur.

“Rome.” I started talking in Italian again, wheeling off a travelogue of the great sites of the eternal city, all prisons, all including special treatments for Muhammad’s chosen idiots, of which his highness in front of me was one. Obviously he didn’t understand a word of it.

“Your French is not very convincing,” he said when I finished.

“That’s because it’s Italian.”

He waved his hand, dismissing me. Except that he wasn’t sending me away—he just wanted me in a position where I couldn’t talk. This was accomplished by the guards. One came up and gave me a kidney punch. The other took me in a choke hold and coaxed me toward the floor.

Unlike Skinnyboy, this guard had real power. His forearms were thicker than telephone poles, and the press of his knee against my back as I went down felt like a crowbar. My legs buckled, and I had to use my hands to keep myself steady.

My right knee reminded me it had been taking a lot of abuse lately. My left knee wasn’t crazy about its recent past either.

“The Christians are a dog’s race,” said al-Yasur. “You have degenerated even further from the Jews. This is to be expected. The seed of the bad tree becomes an even worse tree as time goes on.”

The imam was off to the races. For the next fifteen minutes he talked about the downward evolution of the human race due to the influence of Christianity. In his worldview, every ill known to man could be blamed on or traced to a Christian: poverty, illness, the success of
American Idol.

I suppressed a yawn, then several more. I can see why alcohol is banned in Muslim countries—half a beer and I would have been snoozing on the floor. Finally, one of his assistants leaned in close to him, and whispered something in his ear.

Al-Yasur looked at me. “I have to teach this evening. You’ve heard the text. I have a mind to take you with me, as an example. Though I’m sure the mosque walls would tremble to have an infidel between them.”

Skinnyboy said something in Arabic. Imam responded. Apparently they were talking about what to do with me, because presently the guards took hold of my arms and marched me back to the little hut.

I was disappointed not to be guest of honor at the mosque. I’d been looking forward to making the roof fall in.

*   *   *

Abdi had been talking with one of the guards while I was gone. The man was a Nigerian, and had lived in Mogadishu briefly. He claimed to have seen Abdi’s uncle’s restaurant, though Abdi thought that unlikely.

“He is a stranger in Yemen,” Abdi told me. “All of them are. He was brought here for the fight. They knew the trucks were coming weeks ago, and have been planning ever since.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. There were bad men in charge—that was his excuse. They had to be killed. Even the driver.”

“Why?”

“There are conflicts—he is too low to understand or know much.”

Abdi was right on that score, and he’d made a fairly good assessment of the situation. Bringing in bodyguards from outside of Yemen meant, or at least implied, that al-Yasur didn’t trust the people in his own country, which in turn meant there was a power struggle going on. But that information wasn’t of immediate use.

“What are they planning to do with us?” I asked Abdi.

“You, for ransom. Me…” He put his lips together. “We have no money,” he said tightly. “Maybe—they kill me.”

“Don’t worry about a ransom. It’s not going to come to that. If it were a question of money, I’d pay. But we’ll be gone before they even figure out who to contact.”

“How?”

I went to the window and took the nail out of the crack where I’d put it. “Start scoring the edge of the mortar here where the brick meets the window. I’ll find another nail.”

Abdi took the nail eagerly. As mindless as the task was, it filled him with hope, and he dug at the brick.

*   *   *

Two hours later, enough of the mortar had been loosened that I was able to push it out. Unfortunately, I pushed a little too hard—the brick tumbled onto the ground before I could grab it.

The hole it left wasn’t quite large enough for Abdi to squeeze through, let alone me, so we went to work on the next brick. There was a sliver of a moon out; it gave us enough light to see what we were doing, though everything beyond the wall remained pretty much in shadow. Abdi and I worked like maniacal ants, scraping and scraping on both sides of the brick until our fingers and hands knotted. Needing a break, I put my nail down and walked over toward the door, flexing my fingers and arm. The compound had been quiet since the departure of the imam and his entourage about an hour before; under other circumstances I might have welcomed the peaceful bliss of the countryside.

I had just put my ear against the door, thinking I would listen for the guards, when I heard a dull humming sound in the distance, something like a vacuum cleaner with a muffler on it. I’d heard it before somewhere, but couldn’t quite place it.

In a flash, I realized what was going on.

“Down!” I yelled to Abdi, running over and throwing him to the floor. “Down!”

There was another flash, and the room exploded. SEAL Team Six had decided to pay a visit.

(II)

I’d love to tell you about the operation in great detail, explaining how the team took down the compound without incurring a casualty of their own. I’d love to describe the way they silently took care of the posted lookouts, incapacitated the guards, and stormed all of the buildings in the compound.

I can’t, though, and not because I’m sworn to secrecy. I didn’t see any of it. I didn’t hear much of it either. I’d no sooner thrown Abdi to the ground than the door blew open. The flash-bang grenades were still going off. The grenades are non-lethal—well, I wouldn’t want to swallow one—but render most people deaf, dumb, and blind long enough to be subdued. Before I could even cough, two SEALs trussed me like a lamb waiting for the butcher. Cuffed hand and foot with flexcuffs, I was rolled next to Abdi.

I expressed my gratitude freely.

“You such-and-sos,” I yelled, using words other than the ones my editor has supplied here. “What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?”

“Commander Marcinko, please relax,” said one of the SEALs in a slow-Georgian drawl that would have tenderized a slab of beef on a roasting spit. “We’ll let you all go once the area is secure.”

“What the hell did you tie us up for?”

“I’m sorry, but we’re under orders to treat everyone like they’re hostile,” continued the SEAL. “Even you, Commander Marcinko.”

“How do you know who I am?”

I didn’t get an answer. Securing noncombatants
is
standard operating procedure, and it wasn’t as if we were manhandled or ill-treated. But cuffing us was a bit over the top, especially since they knew who I was.

After we’d been on the floor for twenty minutes or so, I heard two or three sets of boots come into the building. A voice that could
only
belong to a chief petty officer barked.

“You can
let
that asshole Marrr-
chink
-O up,” he growled. “I don’t think even
he
could screw this up at this point.”

I grinned. The chief
32
was an acquaintance whom I’d raised practically as a baby. When I first met him, he was a squirrely-looking preteen looking for advice on how to get into the SEALs. I took him under my wing, offered encouragement and the occasional kick in the seat of wisdom as he progressed. Despite my help, he had not only managed to become a member of the Teams and then DEVGRU, but had actually thrived. Some people are born to achieve no matter what handicaps they labor under.

We exchanged a few terms of endearment after my bonds were cut and I was raised to my feet. The chief tried to claim that I owed him money from a bet gone bad at our last social encounter. I countered that I had in fact paid; it wasn’t my fault that he had decided not to grab the money from the G-string in which it had been placed.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, pointing at Abdi.

“My terp,” I told him. “We needed a Somalian. He’s done a good job.”

“Take the terp outside,” Chief told the others. “Grab a cigarette break.”

“Chief, none of us smoke.”

“Then
burr-ache
something else.”

The house was quickly vacated.

“Damn new guys,” griped Chief. “I gotta teach them some vices.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Can’t say.” Chief winked at me. “Have to talk to the head shed on that one.”

“You are the head shed.”

“Marcinko, you curse me like that again, I’m going to have to do something about it.” He lowered his voice. “Can’t say. The walls have ears here.”

“Who’s in charge of the operation?”

“Lieutenant
Colby
would be the officer in charge here. Whole operation is actually under the domain of—”

“Wait, don’t tell me.” I should have seen this coming two thousand miles ago. “It’s a CIA operation with a guy who wears thick glasses and squints a lot?”

“Magoo,” said Chief. “Never seen a man whose last name fits him better in person. You’ve met?”

*   *   *

The SEALs had come for al-Yasur. The operation had been planned for months, ever since the Christians in Action intercepted communications indicating that the old-line elements of al Qaeda were planning on shaking up the drug trade and reinforcing their role in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula at the same time. They saw prescription drugs as a profitable loophole in Islamic law, and intended to move the operation in that direction. There had been resistance, however—some of it probably instigated by the CIA itself. In any event, the agency had seen the conflict as an opportunity to get al-Yasur.

Was my presence a coincidence?

Ha. And Santa Claus just wanders down a billion chimneys every Christmas.

Upon hearing the plans to get al-Yasur in Yemen, the current administration balked. They had just concluded a major diplomatic pact with Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and feared that the raid in Yemen would start a diplomatic firestorm. The Saudi situation was especially touchy. If the Saudi princes might raise the sort of hell the Pakistani MPs had raised after Osama was brought to justice, the result might be an oil embargo and serious damage to the world economy—and the president’s chances of reelection.