The Janson Option (11 page)

33°54' N, 35°29' E
Zaitunay Bay
Beirut, Lebanon

T
he first time Paul Janson had set foot on the Beirut waterfront, Druse artillery on the hills outside the city was shelling the Christian-controlled port, and ships were fleeing to the open sea. Since then, Lebanese civil-war rubble had been pushed into the Mediterranean. On the rubble now sat the Zaitunay Bay development, a brand-new yacht basin ringed by luxury hotels, shops, and restaurants.

Pedestrians strolled a promenade with views of floating piers at which were moored speedboats and motor yachts. It was oddly quiet for Beirut, as the buildings and gardens separated the promenade from noisy roads and the only automobile access was to the breakwater on the far side of the moorings. The newness, cleanliness, and order reminded Janson more of an airport shopping mall than a cosmopolitan waterfront. But when the wind shifted out of the east, he was strongly reminded of the way things used to be. Then, as now, a change in the weather carried the stench of the port's cattle boats, slaughterhouses, and tanneries.

“Cool vest,” Barorski greeted Janson. The vest had come in handy as the shift in wind brought a chill down from the mountains. Barorski was shivering.

“You're looking pretty sharp yourself,” Janson said, though it was hard to imagine that Barorski would believe it, slouched over a little café table and looking anything but sharp. He was about Janson's height and build, but there the resemblance ended. He was fifteen years younger and soft in the middle. His belly bulged under his T-shirt. He had a thin mustache and a stubble beard and eyes habitually darting with envy.

“Strange choice to meet here,” said Barorski.

“Not at all strange,” said Janson. “I want you to introduce me to Genrich Moscow.”

He watched Barorski's gaze shoot across the basin, past the floating piers toward a boat moored stern-to on the outer breakwater. It looked similar to most in the marina—eighty feet of sculpted carbon fiber, dark glass, and electronic arrays. Moscow's was the fastest, Janson's sources had informed him, a supposition that he judged to be fantasy. The Russian arms merchant had not thrived as long as he had by selling AKs from his own boat.

“Why,” Barorski asked, “should I give you this incredibly valuable introduction?”

“For money.”

“Money goes without saying. But why else?”

Janson reached under his vest. Barorski flinched. Janson smiled. “I promise not to shoot you on a busy promenade.”

“Of course not.”

“Though I probably should.”

“That is purely a matter of misinformed judgment. You haven't any facts.”

“If I didn't have any facts, you would not be here. You ripped off the wrong people and left a trail. I swept it up, investing in a treacherous young man who has a peculiar talent for arranging introductions thanks to his extremely well-connected father and uncle on whose reputations he trades.”

Barorski conceded the point with a nod. “Why do you want this introduction?”

Janson said nothing.

Barorski asked, “What is that in your hand?”

Janson flashed the German passport. Barorski wanted it so much he did not even try to conceal his interest. “Is it fresh?”

“It awaits only your photograph and signature.”

“When should I telephone Mr. Moscow?”

Janson said, “Understand the ground rules. Hello is not enough. An introduction has to be more than hello. Only when Genrich Moscow agrees to do business with me do you get your reward.”

J
ANSON WATCHED
Genrich Moscow watch them walk the circle of the promenade to reach his yacht. They did not pass muster, entirely. The guard at the gangplank was joined by two more who moved like they could handle themselves—Al Qod–trained Hamas commandos, Janson rated them. Proof, as always, that arms traders were equal-opportunity employers. They inclined their heads toward their earpieces, stepped aside with blank expressions, and followed them onto the yacht. Janson was not surprised that its mooring lines were tied with slipknots for a quick exit.

A uniformed steward, a light-on-his-feet muscle goon, led them to a breeze-swept flying bridge atop the wheelhouse. Genrich Moscow stood up and looked Janson over. He was a trim forty-five-year-old, with a face ridged by shrapnel scars. His left eyelid drooped from the wounds, but the eye appeared intact.

Janson waited quietly, returning a level gaze. Barorski watched anxiously. At last Moscow said in a vague accent that could be Polish or Russian or even Israeli, “Welcome aboard, Mr. Saul.”

“I appreciate your seeing me on short notice.”

The guards retreated and took up positions one deck below.

“What did you pay this one to vouch for you?” Moscow asked, indicating Barorski with a contemptuous nod.

“I took it off his tab.”

The arms merchant laughed. “You can bet you're not the only one he owes. He has a gift for needing rescue, don't you, Danielek?”

“Can I go inside?” asked Barorski. “I am freezing.”

“No,” said Moscow.

Janson said, “Go wait in the café—Here…” He shrugged out of the vest and handed it to Barorski. “Good job,” he said. “Take this. Warm up. I'll catch you there when we're done.”

Barorski scurried past Moscow's guards and down the gangplank. Moscow watched him speculatively. “Fools know no limits.”

“I believe he is growing up at last,” said Janson.

“He's running out of time—Mr. Saul, what do you want from me?”

“Tell me about your Otter.”

Genrich Moscow affected puzzlement. “Otter? What is this ‘Otter'?”

“Your de Havilland DHC-3T float plane. The ‘T' indicates conversion to turbine power—hopefully a Pratt & Whitney PT6A.”

“PT6A-
27
,” Moscow admitted, correcting him with pride. “Pratt & Whitney makes the best motor. Seven hundred horsepower. Very, very dependable. Very, very quiet.”

“All the better,” said Janson. “How old is she?”

“Older than the pilots,” said Moscow. “They stopped building them in 1967. But she is perfectly maintained.”

“So I heard.”

“From whom?”

“An admirer of yours.”

“Why didn't you ask him to introduce us, instead of Barorski?”

“He saw no profit in asking you for a favor.”

“Why didn't you buy what you need from him?”

“He doesn't have what I need. Only you do.”

“That puts you in a lousy bargaining position.”

“I didn't come here to quibble,” said Janson.

“Might I know your friend's name?”

“You would, and you would respect it.”

“But you won't tell me. Is he possibly based in Zurich?”

“Is it true that you converted your Otter's floats to RAPT?” Janson asked.

Again, the pride. “Just last month.”

“Glad to hear it.” Retractable Amphibious Pontoon Technology, RAPT, recently developed in Australia, enabled a seaplane to reduce its inherent aerodynamic drag by tucking its bulky floats under its belly in a streamlined shape. “What did you gain?”

“Twenty knots of airspeed and two hundred miles of range.”

“Congratulations,” said Janson. Moscow was exaggerating. It would be more like ten or fifteen knots and one hundred miles of range, in itself a valuable improvement worth the modest investment in RAPT.

“Will you let me charter it?”

“Charter it? I don't rent planes. I deliver weapons.”

“I don't want your weapons. I want your plane. Briefly.”

“Do you know how to fly a float plane?”

“I want your pilots, too.”

“They are the best.”

“I'll pay for the best. I also want to rent two tanker dhows.”

Moscow's eyebrows rose. “Two? How long a flight are you intending?”

“Four times longer than a helicopter. We will land on the water and refuel at sea exactly the way you do when you deliver Kalashnikovs from Mozambique.”

Moscow stared, greatly annoyed. “Your sources are impressive.”

“‘Impressive' was the word my sources used to describe your method of in-flight refueling. ‘Pioneering' was another.”

“Well, we rise to the situation.” Moscow smiled.

“We will return the same way. The pilots will refuel after they drop us, and they've put down, again, to refuel halfway home. Two tankers.”

“The plane will be heavily laden. There won't be much room for you.”

“No, I don't want her laden. I want her empty. I'm not paying to share space with your arms run. I want her capable of carrying eight people, in addition to your pilots.”

“An empty run costs me money.”

“One more question. Is it true that when you converted to turbine, you also installed an extra-wide cargo door?”

Moscow said, “We occasionally deliver extra-wide cargo. The door folds down like a ramp.”

“Name your price.”

Moscow did. Janson offered half the number. Moscow suggested splitting the difference.

Janson nodded. “Throw in a pair of Micro Tavors, and you've got a deal.” Silenced, with fast-acquisition reflex sights, and almost as small as a big pistol, the Israeli Defense Forces MTAR Micro Tavor 5.56 bullpup assault rifle was among Kincaid's favorites. An excellent weapon for fighting in a yacht's cramped spaces.

“All the money up front.”

“I have no problem with that,” said Janson.

Moscow took Janson's acquiescence as a threat. He crossed his arms and stared hard. “I do not like the menace in that statement—the implication that you know where to find me if I happen to take your money but provide no Otter.”

Paul Janson said, “I would be shocked if it came to that.”

“I am not without defenses.” Moscow indicated his bodyguards.

Paul Janson repeated, as mildly, “I would be shocked if it came to that.” He thrust out his hand. “Can we shake on this deal before we hammer out the details?”

Moscow studied Janson closely. Janson gazed back, eyes neutral. According to his friend Neal Kruger in Zurich, Genrich Moscow was treacherous but not suicidal. Abruptly, the arms merchant smiled. “You can trust me, Mr. Saul. We can shake.”

As Janson clasped hands with Moscow, both men's eyes swiveled toward a sudden bustle across the basin. A motor scooter with a rider on back had slipped in from the road that led to the seawall. Instead of continuing onto the seawall, it raced onto the promenade, scattering pedestrians.

Barorski, who was leaning over a table talking to two girls in high heels and short skirts, ran. The scooter charged after him. The rider stood on the stirrups, raised a pistol, and fired twice. The slugs knocked Barorski to the boardwalk. The scooter slowed beside him and the rider leaned over and fired a bullet into his head.

The scooter careened toward the gardens, leaning so sharply its kickstand trailed sparks on the pavement, bounced through them, and raced away. People edged from doorways and cement garden planters, and rose from under tables where they had taken cover to converge tentatively on the body.

“Interesting,” said Moscow. “He was wearing your vest.”

“So he was,” said Janson, pocketing his monocular lens. “Did you happen to recognize the shooter?”

“Not at that distance. But they're a dime a dozen in Lebanon.”

Helmeted motorcycle cops streamed onto the promenade, reinforced in seconds by four-man squads in Dodge Chargers. Moscow pressed a button on his phone and the boat's captain scrambled up to the flying bridge.

“Start the engines,” Moscow ordered. “Stand by to slip our mooring.”

The captain raced down the stairs.

Janson said, “Why don't we step into the cabin so I can pay you in private?”

Inside, Janson opened his carry bag and passed Moscow banded stacks of euros. Moscow watched the stack grow. “Enough,” he said. “You've overpaid.”

“By fifteen percent,” said Janson.

“To what do I owe such unearned largesse?”

“I'm hoping you'll do me a favor.”

“If I can.”

“I don't doubt that assassins are a dime a dozen in Lebanon. But I do doubt that many are Chinese.”

“You saw a
Chinese
in your lens? I saw a broad-shouldered Westerner.”

“I saw his face.” A big man, tall as Denny Chin, though considerably heavier than Denny, and definitely Chinese, a northerner descended from Manchurian horsemen.

Moscow shook his head. “Who would go to the trouble of importing a Chinese to a city that has no shortage of assassins? Especially to shoot a man any number would kill for free.”

Janson shoved the money across the table. “I'd be interested in the answers you get when you ask around.”

2°2' N, 45°21' E
Mogadishu, Somalia

P
roblem, boss,” Sarah Peterson called from the right-hand seat as Lynn Novicki lowered the Embraer across Somalia's Shebelle River Valley.

The morning after he left Beirut, Janson was pressed against a forward cabin window, watching the land slide beneath the plane. The three-month-long
gu
rains had just ended and Somalia looked greener than he had expected. The river itself was gray and fringed with trees. Ahead sprawled Mogadishu, an enormous city of low buildings on the edge of the Indian Ocean. Taller buildings and a dozen orange construction cranes clustered around the harbor, a mile-long dimple in the shore encased in man-made breakwaters. From the plane, still high up and several miles off, Janson could not tell whether the cranes were operating or abandoned.

“Nairobi ATC reports, quote, ‘possible disturbances' around Aden Adde International Airport.”

Nairobi was seven hundred miles to the west. “What does Mogadishu say?”

“Mogadishu doesn't have their act together to manage flight separation. UN air traffic controllers run Somali airspace from Nairobi.”

“But they reopened for scheduled flights. Turkish Airlines flies in daily. They must have somebody in their tower.”

“Tower doesn't answer,” Sarah answered, and Lynn said, “Nairobi says the airport manager got shot on his way to work this morning.”

Janson had heard that earlier in the day. It was the third assassination of the week in Mogadishu, following those of a journalist and an expatriate banker. Some blamed underground al-Shabaab kill cells that stayed behind when the militant Islamists fled the capital. Some blamed warlords. Others blamed the Italian.

“Flip on the camera and give me a flyover.”

In a radio exchange with Nairobi, Sarah secured permission for the course change, then activated the HD video array in the Embraer's nose. Lynn steepened their descent and soon Janson could see the city's tight street grid that ran to the edge of the blue ocean. It looked quiet, sunbaked, and hot. Red-tile roofs predominated, though near the harbor larger white buildings—villas, office buildings, hotels, and government houses—reared above the trees. Over every neighborhood, graceful white minarets speared the sky. The cranes near the harbor stood still, and few boats moved on the water.

Janson scoped the outer district around the airport, eyeing the video on one of the Aquos 1080 high-def monitors. He saw plenty of bomb damage, craters and half-demolished houses, but nothing that appeared current. No smoke rose from the surrounding neighborhoods of low buildings. He zoomed in on the streets. While he saw no signs of battle, there were few people out in the midday sun. On the other hand, that sun reflected off numerous shiny tin roofs, which indicated a brisk business in rebuilding.

The airport's ten-thousand-foot runway lay on a north-south axis. It paralleled the ocean a few meters from the beach, separated from the clear water by scrub brush and sand. On the inland side were a modest, one-story terminal building, a scattering of private and charter jets, a gleaming white-and-red Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800, a four-engine Airbus freighter, some boarding-stair trucks, and a squat control tower. Barracks for United Nations troops were clearly marked with a giant “UN” painted on the roof.

Janson spotted a square shadow in a stand of palm trees near the south end of the runway and zoomed in. A low-slung Soviet-era T-72 main battle tank lurked in the palms' thin shade, draped in camouflage netting. It was probably a “monkey model” that the Russians exported to poor countries, although a funny-looking array on the foredeck could be a modern LAHAT launcher, a reminder that all sorts of oddities could be found cobbled together in Africa's war zones. Whatever it was, it appeared to be keeping the peace.

“OK, Lynn, let's go down there.”

Sarah cleared a landing with Nairobi. Lynn swung north, then circled around and lined up to descend into the south wind. “Seat belt, boss.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Janson, buckling in.

He was still swooping the cameras around, looking for trouble he might have missed earlier. They came down fast—Lynn had earned her spurs landing transports through Baghdad rockets—pushing the Embraer's approach-speed limits to minimize exposure to ground fire.

“Two hundred,” said Sarah, who was monitoring the altimeter.

“Technical!” warned Janson.

“Whoa, Nellie!”

The long-bed four-by-four Toyota pickup truck with a heavy machine gun on the roof of the cab shot out of the surrounding bush and raced onto the runway waving black flags. Masked fighters—al-Shabaab, judging by the fleeting glimpse Janson got of black-and-white kaffiyeh headdress covering their faces—jammed its cargo bed, passenger cab, and running boards.

“Up!” said Janson.

Lynn hauled back on the control column. Sarah shoved the throttles. The big Rolls-Royces bombarded the air, and Janson felt his seat slam into his back.

“Where the heck is he going?” asked Sarah, who was watching on a repeater in the cockpit.

Janson zoomed in on the truck. “Anywhere he wants to.”

So much for the Islamist fanatics' retreat to the bush. The technical bristled with grenade launchers and assault rifles.

Three more technicals manned by fighters in floppy hats and camo fatigues swarmed onto the field and chased after the first, exchanging fire with mounted machine guns and rocket launchers. The al-Shabaab lofted grenades into the UN barracks, which set the wooden structures burning. Another technical came boiling out from a stand of thick brush flying black flags. It joined the al-Shabaab and they counterattacked, charging down the runway at sixty miles an hour.

A third group of technicals burst from a hangar and raced past the main terminal, raking the others with rifles and grenades. The Airbus freighter trundled away from the terminal. Before it got two hundred meters, a rocket grenade set it on fire.

“Not today,” said Janson. “Outta here.”

“Glad to hear it, boss. Where to?”

Baidoa and Baraawe, the nearest Somali cities with a six-thousand-foot runway, the Embraer's minimum, were one day controlled by local clan warlords and the next in the grip of al-Shabaab, while Harardhere in southern Puntland was a pirate stronghold where Janson's $25 million Embraer could end up held for ransom, along with him and his pilots.

That left Nairobi.

But a retreat to the Kenyan capital would slow him down.

Janson looked east over the boundless Indian Ocean.

Airline pilots minimized jet-fuel costs by flying their planes light, which meant carrying only enough reserves for safe margins of extra range. But Catspaw pilots flew heavy and topped up their tanks repeatedly for unpredictable changes of course. Earlier, with only a thousand miles to go to Mogadishu, Lynn had insisted on a refueling stop in Addis Ababa. Janson had asked whether she couldn't stretch it, but she had exercised a captain's prerogative. Now he blessed her for it.

“Can we make it to the Seychelles?”

“No prob.”

He keyed his sat phone to tell Kincaid to meet him in Victoria, capital of the Seychelles Islands.

T
HE
T-72
THAT
Paul Janson had spotted in the palm trees belonged to the Somali warlord Home Boy Gutaale. Gutaale was a middle-aged, dark-skinned giant with a thick beard dyed henna red. He was proud of his nickname Home Boy and prouder still that Somalis desperate for a powerful leader called him the George Washington of Soomaaliweyn.

Gutaale's tank, thirty years old but extravagantly teched-up, provided shelter from the deadly storm of small arms fire and rocket grenades lashing the airport, and relief from the heat, being air-conditioned as well as armored. Narrow glimpses of the battle offered by view slits were augmented by a panorama from sophisticated optics in the tank's periscope.

A tall American crouched under the low ceiling beside Gutaale craned his neck to watch the Embraer 650 fleeing the gun battle. The private jet, which was racing west over Mogadishu, suddenly looped 180 degrees and disappeared east over the Indian Ocean.

Gutaale, as tall as the American and much broader in the chest and shoulders—and crouching as uncomfortably—grinned at the tank's driver and gunner, smaller men suited to the cramped interior. His grin was infectious and they smiled back, delighted to be in the famous Home Boy's presence. Their smiles got bigger when Gutaale asked their guest, “Would you like to see what your gift to Somali stability does to a technical?”

“Stability?” the American shot back. “You promised stability. I see supposedly defeated al-Shabaab fanatics blowing up your goddamned airport.”

“The attack is a sign of their weakness,” said Gutaale. “Al-Shabaab is losing ground. But,” he conceded, “you are right, my friend, in that it might appear to a stranger who does not understand the situation that al-Shabaab has the upper hand this afternoon…”

The red-bearded warlord snapped an order. His gunner tracked the nearest al-Shabaab technical. A laser-guided antitank rocket leaped from the array on the forward deck, flashed across the runway, and bored into the crowded truck. Its warhead detonated, and the explosion flung burning men into the air.

The other technicals scattered, fleeing into the bush north of the runway, east onto the beach, and west into city streets.

Gutaale laughed. “For your viewing pleasure, my generous friend, a vivid example of the application of force in the service of stability. On behalf of my countrymen, thank you for your gift to the cause of Greater Somalia.”

The tough-talking American gaped. He looked horrified by sudden death close enough that the smell of burning flesh penetrated the air conditioning. Gutaale saw a man on the cusp of enlightenment. A successful transition could make him even more useful, and Gutaale sought to soothe him.

He spoke with the self-assurance of the effortlessly charismatic. Allah had blessed him with a rich voice to entrance a hundred fighters around a campfire, or give courage to a single comrade cowering from helicopters.

“You come from life, my friend. In your dollar country, life and stability are yoked like blood and bone. We come from death. In my degraded country, death and instability twirl like sand and wind. Your farms are abundant, your hospitals gleam, your schools resound with the dreams of learning. We learn death. Our teachers are famine, pestilence, and war.”

The tall American was recovering from his shock, tranquillized, as Gutaale intended, more by the confident rumble of his voice than his rambling speech. The Somali steered him back to reality, pointing at the smoke rising from the huddled bodies around the burning technical.

“Somalia is beset by enemies. Al-Shabaab roams the provinces of Bay, Hiiraan, Galguduud, and Mudug. Kenya demands Gedo and Juba for a buffer zone. Ethiopia will invade any minute from Ogaden. And no one knows better than you that pirates seize Puntland…” Gutaale paused. But the American was no pushover and revealed no emotion.

“Without stability, Somalia will be devoured. But if she is chewed into small bits, with her will die dreams of schools. And dreams of hospitals. And dreams of shipping to market the petroleum that Allah buried under our land.”

“Why do you think I bought you tanks?” said Kingsman Helms.