by Brad Taylor
Bakr scribbled a message onto a notepad.
“Boot up the M4 and send this to the first address. You remember it, correct?”
“Of course. I’ve memorized all six.”
Once the connection was established, Sayyidd typed in the message:
Praise be to God, prayer and peace be upon the Prophet of God. Operation Badr has taken a turn for the better. We are no longer looking to strike the far enemy in his homeland. We have found a catastrophic weapon that will wipe the Zionists into the sea at the same time it causes the far enemy to destroy the Persians. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction of all infidels, leaving the Caliphate assured. Please respond with a blessing for this new mission, or tell us the path to take.
The message went out to a Yahoo! address, where it would sit for a day, then be forwarded to another address, then another, before being transferred to a thumb drive and driven across a border to another Internet café, sent again to another account, transferred via cell phone verbatim, then copied to a CD, and eventually find its way into the hands of Al Qaeda leadership. Just as Al Qaeda feared, along this path it would be intercepted by U.S. intelligence, and end up in a massive pile of “chatter” to be sorted through for relevance, where it would sit at the bottom, waiting to be viewed by some low-level analyst in the depths of a windowless building.
31
After hanging up the phone with Pike, Miguel said, “They’re bringing the package down here. They’ve agreed to meet us to deliver it, but I don’t trust that. Get in touch with our people at the department of immigration. Have them be on the lookout for Jennifer Cahill from the United States.”
“There’s no visa requirement to get here from America if they come as tourists,” Jake said. “We won’t get any warning before they land.”
“I know. We’ll only have a small window to control the situation, but luckily all flights from the U.S. fly straight here into Guatemala City. We should be able to blanket every flight coming from America for the next three days.”
Jake agreed, then added, “Should we build a net inside the local hotels as well? There’s a small chance that they could get through customs without us being alerted.”
“Yeah. That makes sense. Have it done. Stick to the tourist hotels.”
“What do you want me to do when I find them?”
“Whatever it takes to bring them in to me. I want to get them in our hands before they have a chance to make any sort of plans or change their minds and talk to the authorities. Let’s not inadvertently kill anyone else before we have our information.”
Jake grinned. “I’ll do my best.”
THE HUMIDITY HIT ME LIKE A WET RAG as soon as we exited the airplane, causing immediate sweat to pop out. It did little to add to any misery. I had tried to get as much sleep on the plane as I could, but thirteen hours of flying or waiting around airports for connecting flights did nothing but make you feel tired. My mouth felt like someone had polished my teeth with dryer lint, my hair had a greasy feel, and I was dehydrated from the in-flight dry air. Jennifer didn’t look that much better.
The man on the phone had given us directions to his house, telling us which roads to use to get out of Guatemala City. Once in the hills to the east of the city, we were supposed to simply stop and ask the first person we saw for the house of El Machete.
There wasn’t any way I was going to make it that easy.
We had landed at the Santa Elena airport in the north of Guatemala after connecting through Cancún. I didn’t want to land in Guatemala City, since I was pretty sure that Machete would have that covered, so we had purchased two sets of tickets. It would be a seven-hour trip down south, but at least we would make it through whatever initial net he had established without getting caught right off the bat. We picked up our Jeep CJ-5 we had rented over the Internet and wasted no time heading to Guatemala City on Highway 5.
I had never been to Guatemala before, and after talking to Jennifer, I learned she hadn’t either. The sum total of her knowledge was wild-ass stories told by her uncle. None were of any help. My knowledge was limited to the fact that Guatemala had the distinction of being one of two countries—Iran being the other one—that the CIA had managed to overthrow in the 1950s. I wouldn’t even have known that, except the story was a damn clown-fest and pretty funny to read about, with CIA agents mistakenly attacking British ships and revolutionaries attempting to ride into battle in beat-up station wagons. Funny except the fallout was a thirty-six-year civil war that left thousands of innocent people dead. I suppose it kept Guatemala out of Commie hands, so it was worth it. As long as you weren’t Guatemalan.
JAKE WAS IN THE PROCESS of building his net inside the tourist hotels when his phone rang with the special tone reserved for his boss.
“Have you heard anything from our friends downtown?”
Jake told him no, but that he hadn’t been checking in with them. He’d been too busy with the hotels.
“I’m wondering if they slipped through customs.”
Jake swore under his breath. Miguel was as ruthless as anyone he had ever seen, but sometimes he had the patience of a four-year-old. “It’s only been about twenty hours. Give it some time. They’ll be here.”
“I don’t trust the people we’ve paid. I want our own people on every flight coming in. Make that happen.”
“Sir, doing that now risks missing them both ways. I haven’t finished with the hotels. We need to stick with the plan.”
“Jake, hear what I’m saying. Do as I ask. Now.”
Jake acknowledged the task, then hung up, cursing. Why come up with a plan if you’re going to change it because you’re impatient? Give the plan a chance to work. Jesus, why did I come down here?
Pulling out now meant a risk he didn’t want to take, as it would split the detection efforts before either one was complete. Nothing he could do about it. When Miguel made up his mind, it was done. In other assignments Jake would try to convince his boss of the correct path to take, but Miguel was different. Jake had seen Miguel do things to other humans that would have shocked Stephen King. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but Miguel had the ability to scare him. Jake would do as he was told. He would just have to make sure he covered both the hotels and the airport as well as he could.
He looked at his list of hotels and called both team leaders, telling one to continue with the mission of the hotels and giving the other the redirection to the airport. The second team leader acknowledged the task and began calling his men.
Two of the members of the second team were pulling into the parking lot of a midrange hotel just outside of Zona 10 called Casa Bonito Clara when the driver’s cell phone rang. The pair was preparing to go inside and spread around some cash when they were stopped by the team leader’s call. The driver told the team leader where he was and the other hotels they had already visited. The team leader made a note of the hotels, then gave the driver his next instructions. The driver motioned to his friend to get back in, started the car up, and pulled into traffic, headed for the airport. As they left, they failed to notice the old CJ-5 being driven by two gringos pulling into the parking lot.
32
Pike had told her to stay away from the chain hotels and to find a small discreet hotel somewhere in the tourist areas. It looked like she had succeeded and she hoped Pike would be happy with the choice. She was still unsure about him. He seemed constantly on edge, like he would lose his temper if the traffic light didn’t turn green soon enough. And he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. He refused to talk about anything involving his past. When she had asked him how he was able to kill two men with his bare hands, he had gone into asshole mode, telling her not to look a gift horse in the mouth. In fact, the only time he had opened up was when they were preparing to leave, showing a small window into his inner self.
While she bought the airline tickets online, he had gone back to his boat to pack. She had to wait until he came back bec
ause she couldn’t reserve the flight without knowing his real name. The ticket needed to match his ID. When he returned, she asked him for his passport.
“So you’ve finally figured out a way to get my name.” He had reached into his pocket and pulled out a pristine tourist passport, tossing it to her. “Here you go.”
She was surprised at its new appearance.
“I thought by the way you talked you were some sort of world traveler. This thing hasn’t ever been used.”
“I’ve traveled quite a bit, but not on that passport. You’ll be the first to use it.”
She opened the passport and looked at his personal information.
He said, “Yeah, I know, it’s a damn strange name. Just get the tickets.”
She went through the procedures for buying the tickets, typing in “Nephilim Logan.”
“You don’t have a middle name?”
“No. Before you ask, my parents were good people, but children of the sixties. When I was born, they had a lot of New Age, weirdo crap going on in their heads. When they married, they were full of hopeful ideas about how they were going to change the world. They ended up owning their own house-painting business, but I was stuck with the name.”
“What’s Nephilim mean? Something out of Norse myth or a type of laundry detergent?” Seeing him scowl, she backed up, saying, “I’m just kidding. Surely it has some special meaning.”
“Yeah, it’s from the Old Testament. It’s supposed to be the name of a race of half god/half man people who roamed the earth during Adam and Eve times. They were supposed to be some sort of badass heroes, but all the name ever got me was a fight as I grew up. I’ve always hated it.”
Jennifer had had no answer to that.
Now that they were actually in Guatemala, she wondered if she was placing too much faith in a complete stranger. Complete stranger? That’s putting it mildly. He slaughtered two people with his bare hands. What do I do if he goes off his rocker with me?
She watched him pace the room, finally peeking out the window, causing her to wonder if she’d made a bad choice.
“Is this place okay?”
“Yeah. Just like I asked for. I’m just concerned that this place is some sort of local gem and will be under the eye of whoever was on the phone. Nothing we can do about it now, since we had to hand over our passports to check in. If he has this place under his thumb, we’re made. At any rate, we don’t have a lot of time before he starts to wonder where we are. Every minute takes away from your uncle’s chances, so I think we had better get moving.”
“Are you sure that going to his house is smart?”
IS SHE REALLY QUESTIONING MY JUDGMENT? I couldn’t believe it. In the past, I had hated dealing with people who had no idea what they were doing in situations such as this, but I would tolerate it because I was forced to. I had dealt with country teams in American embassies all over the world who always asked the dumbest questions imaginable. Usually diplomats concerned with worst case scenarios or intelligence personnel worried about the impact to their operations; both looking for any reason to cancel a mission, but neither having the expertise to even ask the right questions. Now I didn’t need to get anyone’s approval. I decided to nip this in the bud right away.
“Look, let’s get something straight right now. I’m the one who knows what to do here. I’m the one who can get your uncle back. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t start questioning me at every turn. I know you’re putting yourself out on a limb and want to feel some semblance of control, but that ain’t gonna happen. You don’t have a clue about what you’re doing, and you’re a damn menace to this whole operation just by being here.”
I saw Jennifer recoil at my outburst, which made me feel like an asshole. Like I did outside her car at the Windjammer. My anger wilted, and for the second time in nine months, I felt like apologizing instead of ripping off her head. Before she could say anything, I held up my hands.
“Okay, okay. Sorry. That was a little overboard. I want to conduct a recce”—seeing Jennifer scrunch her eyebrows at my terminology, I scratched the shorthand—“reconnaissance of his house just to get a feel for who we’re dealing with. He told us how to find his house on the last phone call, and we would be stupid not to use that information to get some insight into the enemy. All I want to do is a drive-by.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Look, we’re wasting time. Can we talk about this as we go?”
Jennifer backed down. “All right. Let’s go.”
33
The contact from Santa Elena said, “She came through here. She and her companion rented a Jeep here about ten hours ago. No information on where they were headed.”
Jake swore, aggravated that he had missed the Santa Elena embarkation point. While no flights from the U.S. landed there, plenty of flights from neighboring countries did. He had thought there was little chance his targets were smart enough to transfer at another country and didn’t like being outwitted.
Intent on getting any information he could on his prey, he asked, “Did you get the name of her companion?”
“No. He didn’t speak and didn’t fill out any paperwork. They paid in cash and the girl used her license. I did get a description. The rental man remembered him pretty well because he said the guy scared him. He’s a white guy, about six foot two, one hundred and ninety to two hundred pounds, brown hair cut short, and blue eyes. He said he looked hard. He has a scar on his face that cuts down his right cheek. The rental guy said he didn’t look like someone who took a lot of shit.”
Jake took this in. This man was shaping up to be a greater threat than they had anticipated. He was smart enough to have figured out a route that would evade Jake’s net and had been strong enough to kill Miguel’s men in the U.S. He was someone to watch out for. Jake decided to quit underestimating the man. He called Miguel.
“I found them. They came in through Santa Elena. They rented a Jeep and are now probably inside Guatemala City. Current whereabouts are unknown.” Jake then relayed the description of Pike, ending with his assessment of the threat.
Miguel said, “I knew that fucker wouldn’t call when he arrived. He might be as dangerous as you say, but look on the bright side: He’s no professor—he’ll live a long, long time before his body quits. I assume that since you know they’re inside the city, it’ll only be a matter of a few hours until you bring them to me.”
“Consider it done. If you would do me the favor I ask that you leave the man alive long enough for me to kill him.”
“Of course. He is yours.”
ABU BAKR NOTED THE INFORMATION they had just overheard and thought through the ramifications.
“This man Pike doesn’t sound like someone to trifle with. I’m inclined to forget about the treasure hunt and execute the mission given to us by The Sheik.”
“Please,” Sayyidd said, “he’s only one man. An infidel at that. We can defeat him just as we defeated the soldiers of the Great Satan. We now know what he looks like. God willing, the rest will be easy.”
Bakr didn’t believe it would be as simple as Sayyidd said. They still had to beat Miguel’s enterprise to the punch.
“We’ll need to be quicker than Jake. Once he finds the location of the package we’ll have little time to intercept it. Does this scanner work on batteries?”
Sayyidd said, “No, it doesn’t, but it has an adapter for a car cigarette lighter.”
“That’ll work. Let’s wait inside the car Miguel gave us. Once we hear the location, we’ll need to move immediately while Miguel and Jake are coming up with a plan. You’d better pray that Allah is really looking out for us, or we’ll be the ones begging for the pain to end.”
34
I looked closely at the chain-link Cyclone fence, trying to determine if it was electrified or wired with sensors. After convincing Jennifer that this recce wasn’t stupid, it would suck to get caught like an amateur before even observing anything of value. I saw nothing to indicate tha
t the fence had any electronic monitoring at all.
Following the directions from the man on the phone, we had driven out of the city and into the countryside, leaving all traffic behind. We had found the road leading to his estate, the pavement winding away into the hills behind a ten-foot gate. I realized that the only way I was going to get any intel was on foot, so I pulled up another quarter of a mile and hid the Jeep on the side of the road in a turnout. I left Jennifer in the woods and told her I would be gone no more than an hour. She just about lost her mind, but I didn’t give her enough time to protest before moving off into the cover of the woods. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get in the Jeep and leave me stranded.
I approached the fence and sat for another couple of minutes, watching the road on the inside that paralleled its path. Satisfied that I was alone, I vaulted over the top and raced across the road into the wood line on the other side. I continued moving uphill until I came to a large open field falling away from the high ground. In the center was the house of El Machete.
House wasn’t the right word. This was a gigantic fortress-like compound protected by an eight-foot brick wall. All it needed was a moat with a drawbridge. The centerpiece was a three-story mansion fronted by a circular drive. Next to the main building was a one-story bungalow that looked like a residence or guesthouse. Adjacent to the guesthouse was some sort of warehouse or garage, with multiple vertical doors and several chimneys. All told, the compound inside the walled area was probably three hundred by five hundred meters, with several other outbuildings. Machete clearly had money.
I glanced at my watch, thinking I’d better start heading back before Jennifer got antsy. When I looked back up, I saw a man round the corner of the wall dressed like a modern-day ninja. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. He looked like he had gone to Commandos Are Us and bought out the store. He was outfitted from head to toe in every conceivable type of black Velcro tactical gear, complete with a black balaclava hiding everything but his eyes. All of his equipment was state of the art, including the Heckler and Koch 416 rifle he had slung over his shoulder. The 416 had been developed jointly with H&K and U.S. Special Operations as a replacement to the M4 carbine, the shortened version of the M16 A2. Both fired 5.56mm, looked the same, and in fact, the H&K was designed the same to cut down on any learning curve for soldiers who were used to the ergonomics of the M4. It also allowed any components used on the M4 to directly transfer to the 416. The primary difference was that the 416 operated with a push rod piston instead of a gas tube like the M4, making it much more reliable. The weapon was fairly new and very expensive.
