Strike Force Bravo

by Mack Maloney

  The streets of Sat Put were empty as the three Range Rovers pulled into town.

  It was a very small, very desolate place, surrounded by sawtooth peaks covered permanently in dirty snow. In anticipation of this meeting, the local warlords had ordered everyone into their houses at sunset the night before, telling them not to come out, open a shutter, or even light a candle until noon. No one in the town would dare defy such a decree.

  There were only a few streets here, all unpaved and muddy from the hooves of many horses. There was just a dozen buildings in all. These, with a few tents on the periphery, made up almost the entirety of Sat Put.

  Of course, the place had a mosque, a rather grand one. Located near the center of town, just off the small avenue heading south, it was the Mosque of Ali Nasra, named after Muhammad’s favorite son no less. It was overly huge and ornate and looked very out of place among the frozen squalor. Yet the temple was perfect for Kazeel’s purposes. He’d been in the terror business for 12 years, and yes, it was a business. Whenever a really big deal had to go down, such as for arms or bioweapons, there was no better place to do the transaction than inside a mosque.

  The first Range Rover screeched to a halt in front of the Ali Nasra.

  Two armed men were peeking out of the mosque’s front door. These were Bahzi’s men; both looked unkempt and unfed. Kazeel’s bodyguards smartly deployed themselves around his Range Rover, as always, the middle vehicle. Their eyes were moving, looking out from behind their masks, trying to see everything at once. It was cold and some snow was blowing around. And it was very quiet. Kazeel wanted to get inside fast.

  But when he tried to open his door he realized one of the Dragos was holding it shut. Kazeel pushed harder, but the man stayed firm. Then he held up his hand, indicating Kazeel should not move.

  “Why? What’s the problem?” Kazeel yelled at him through the 17-layer glass.

  The bomb went off a second later.

  It was in the building across the street, an abandoned grain silo. The blast was so powerful it nearly tipped Kazeel’s car over. Every window in every building on the street was blown out. The sound of the blast reverberated through the small town like a roll of thunder.

  Kazeel was thrown across the backseat by the concussion, smashing his head on the truck’s rear window. Suddenly the back door opened and one of the bodyguards jumped on top of him. Gunfire rang out. Two Dragos ran by the rear of the truck, firing their weapons into the burning building across the street. Ignoring the danger, they poured it on with AK-47s, and grenade-throwing rifles. Suddenly the snowy street was awash in tracer fire. Kazeel was astonished. Where have such brave men been all my life? he found himself thinking anxiously.

  The gunfire lasted for nearly a minute; then it died away. The bodyguard waited about ten more seconds, then finally climbed off Kazeel and allowed him to sit up. Kazeel saw three things at once: the building across the street from him was gone, his bodyguards were ringing his truck with their bodies, forming a human barrier between Kazeel and further mayhem, and Bahzi’s men, cowering behind the doors of the mosque.

  Another Drago yanked Kazeel out of the vehicle.

  “Inside!” the man growled at him. “Now!”

  He was hustled up the stairs and through the mosque’s door, two more Dragos practically carrying the enormous Uni right behind him. The Dragos pushed Bahzi’s men aside and led Kazeel and his shuka down into the basement to a safe room located in the center of the structure. It had 12-foot-thick walls and 15 feet of concrete for a ceiling. It also had seven separate exits, a labyrinth of escape tunnels should the occupant get advance word that something really bad—like a U.S. air strike—was on the way. Around the Middle East, these places were known as Saddam Rooms. Just about every grand mosque had one.

  Kazeel was visibly shaken but not hurt. Only dumb luck was keeping him from going into shock. Was that bomb meant for him? Or Bahzi? Or both of them? Or neither? Why would Bahzi try to kill him before the transaction was made?

  At the moment, it really didn’t matter. Had the Dragos not acted the way they did, Kazeel knew he’d be dead right now.

  Just before entering the safe room—this was the pre-arranged site of their meeting—Kazeel asked the Chechyans to stop for a moment, so he could catch his breath. Uni, too, was trying to regain his composure. Per their custom, the shuka would wait outside while the quick business was conducted. His role in the deal was yet to come.

  Kazeel calmed himself down; Alexi was right beside him, giving him strength. The Drago assured Kazeel that they would be safe here for about fifteen minutes. Then, by security procedure, it would be time to leave. Kazeel pushed his robes back up on his shoulders and kicked off his filthy sandals. “This will be complete in half that time,” he said. “I promise….”

  Then he walked into the room.

  Bahzi was already there. He was sitting at a table in the middle of the room. Spread out in front of him were cups of tea and copies of Time, Newsweek, and Mad, all adorned with Kazeel’s image. As usual, Bahzi looked as big and ugly as something from a Star Wars movie. He’d been curiously safe here, inside the huge bombproof basement, when the blast went off. Kazeel walked over to him, helped him up, and kissed him twice on each cheek, mumbling: “Allah be praised….”

  “Brother—are you hurt?” Bahzi asked him with feigned concern, still holding him in a bear hug.

  “I am here, aren’t I?” Kazeel snapped back.

  “What happened? I heard this terrific noise and—”

  “Relax, brother,” Kazeel told him, disentangling himself from Bahzi. “Nothing happened. Unexploded ordnance going off. Something like that. I am still alive and my men have scattered anyone who might have been lurking about. I’ve been through worse.”

  Bahzi shrugged, a little nervously. “Perhaps you’ve become too famous, my brother,” he told Kazeel, eyeing the magazines. He’d placed them there as a way of needling the Al Qaeda operative, but Kazeel wasn’t biting. He put the magazines together, stacking them in a neat pile, then pushed them aside. He indicated to Bahzi that they should sit and talk business. It took Bahzi several long seconds to squeeze back into his seat.

  “You have your launchers I hear?” he asked Kazeel, once he was settled. He took out a notebook full of information on weapons systems and their price quotes.

  “I do,” Kazeel replied. He displayed a few digital photos stored in his photofone for Bahzi. They were images of the muddy launchers still in their protective suitcases. Bahzi’s eyes lit up when he saw them. For an arms dealer, seeing so many Stinger launchers was like seeing a gold mine. He immediately coveted them.

  “Brother, this is a very formidable cache,” Bahzi sighed. “Now I see why you need some missiles.”

  “Which is why we are here,” Kazeel replied, impatiently.

  Bahzi shifted in his seat. Kazeel didn’t like his body language all of a sudden. “How many do you want?” the Iraqi asked.

  “I have thirty-six launchers,” was Kazeel’s reply. He continued showing Bahzi the ’fone photos of the stash of dented suitcases; he was like a mother showing off baby pictures.

  “Thirty-six in all, you say?” Bahzi wheezed. “Why so many?”

  Kazeel resisted the urge to reach across the table and slap Bahzi. Why must I always explain this…. he thought.

  “I need thirty-six missiles,” he said firmly. “Because I am going after thirty-six different targets.”

  Bahzi’s eyebrows shot up. This sounded interesting.

  “Tell me, brother,” Bahzi said. “Tell me your plan.”

  Kazeel laughed in his face. “You should know better than to ask that, my friend.”

  Bahzi shrugged. He was so fat, his robes were ripping under his armpits. “Just from what little I know now, I could get twenty-five million dollars from the Americans for turning you in.”

  “But why would you bother doing that, brother?” Kazeel volleyed back at him. “You wouldn’t have a moment of peace to spend such
a windfall.”

  Bahzi laughed, a little testily. “But why not, my brother? You would be in America’s hands. And I would enjoy their money to my heart’s content. Only your ghost would haunt me.”

  Kazeel looked Bahzi right in his blubbery eyes. “My men,” he said, indicating the Dragos. They’d taken up positions all around the room, including one who had moved directly behind Bahzi and, without the Iraqi knowing it, was taking pictures through a helmet cam of the pricing notebook Bahzi had on the table before him. “My men would hunt you down and feed you to the dogs, while you were still alive.”

  The two Dragos nearest Bahzi took one step forward. Suddenly they were towering over him.

  Bahzi laughed nervously. The time for jokes had clearly passed.

  “I’d prefer to die of old age,” he said. He reached into his bulky mufti and came out with his own photofone. It was slightly bigger than Kazeel’s. He began displaying images of Stinger missiles. They were in a warehouse somewhere; that’s all Kazeel had to know about them now. Each one of Bahzi’s photos, which showed stacks of missiles in long metal tubes, also showed one of his men holding up a recent newspaper front page, proof that they were in possession of these missiles as late as yesterday.

  “Half are leftovers from our victory against the Russians,” Bahzi said, as if he himself had been in the mountains of Kabul fighting off Soviet Hinds—and nothing could have been further from the truth. “Half are new.”

  “A motherlode,” Kazeel said, with some surprise. “But how do I know they work?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Bahzi replied, looking authentically offended. “If I sold you bad merchandise then your men would have another reason to come and get me, and their dogs would get their dinner yet.”

  “You’ve tested some from this batch?”

  “Some were tested in Kenya.” Bahzi began ticking off his fingers. “At Basra. Above Baghdad. They were battle-tested because we live in a world of conflict, my friend. Those that remain have been recalibrated, recharged. Ready to go.”

  Kazeel sighed heavily. He could smell Bahzi from across the table. “Then just give me your price.”

  Bahzi wrote down a figure in his notebook, tore the page out, and pushed it in Kazeel’s direction. Kazeel picked it up, read it, then neatly tore the page in half and passed both back pieces to Bahzi. Bahzi smiled, picked up both halves, and halved one again and pushed both back to Kazeel.

  Kazeel picked up the smallest piece and removed just a corner of it. Then he looked back at Bahzi. “Deal?”

  “Deal…” Bahzi replied.

  Kazeel wrote a bank account number on another piece of paper, along with the time and place he wanted the missiles delivered. He passed the page to Bahzi. Once Kazeel was sure the missiles had arrived at that location, he would contact his bank in Switzerland and have them release the funds being held in the box Bahzi now had the account number for. On that day, $17 million American, all of it provided by Kazeel’s judus, would go into Bahzi’s pockets. Uni would stay with Bahzi until he saw the missiles and then follow them to where they were being shipped. Thus the deal was concluded.

  No cash. No computers. Not even a calculator.

  This was how business was done in the Middle East.

  The ride back to the Pushi started out well enough.

  They left the small village ahead of Bahzi’s men. One of the Dragos’ Range Rovers stayed behind to cover the other two. If Bahzi was known to kill his business partners shortly after striking a deal, then the Dragos were taking no chances. Only when the first two Range Rovers were out of range of anything fired from the village, did they consider themselves safe. The third vehicle immediately joined the first two. Turning north, all three began the ascent into the mountains.

  They were going back the long way, this again for security reasons. As secretive about his movements as Kazeel liked to be, anytime he was in the region word of his presence usually spread quickly. The route taken on the way to Sat Put had been grueling, but it had passed mostly through the high plains of northwest Pakistan, going around the mountains instead of over them. But these days, only a fool would take the same way twice. Of such things were successful ambushes made. That’s why on the return trip to the Pushi the Dragos would be taking Kazeel over the mountains instead of around them.

  It started raining about an hour into the trip; the temperature quickly dropped toward freezing. The mountains were getting progressively higher; indeed, this way back to the Pushi would take them over some of the highest peaks in southwest Asia. The roads up here were built in the early 1800s. At times the Rovers had to slow to less than five miles per hour. By the second hour of travel, they were so high up in the mountains, they were driving through the clouds formed around the peaks. It became difficult for Kazeel, sitting alone in the back of the middle vehicle, to see the armored truck in front or behind him. The rain and fog were that thick.

  The rolling gloom gave him time to think, which was not a good thing. He tried to console himself that the bomb and gunplay back in the village either had been intended for Bahzi or were just the norm these days in this very lawless part of Pakistan. He just didn’t want to believe he’d been the target. He already had too much to think about.

  But as the miles wore on, that one thought began gnawing at him and would not let go.

  By the fourth hour, the rain had turned to snow and the travel became even slower. Kazeel was constantly on the verge of having an anxiety attack. He didn’t like going slow because, as his judus liked to say, slow meant being a better target. Even though there was practically a blizzard going on around him, Kazeel was still concerned. And he didn’t like going over mountains anymore because mountains tended to be slippery and wet and icy and dangerous, especially on the way down.

  Most of all, he cursed those bastard Crazy Americans for putting these thoughts in his head; he’d considered himself practically invulnerable before coming face-to-face with them. Now he was turning into a woman. Finally he knew what old Prince Ali must have been going through. No wonder he crashed his own plane!

  Thankfully they passed out of some bad weather by going down the side of yet another steep mountain. But no sooner were they at the bottom than they started climbing yet another steep incline. Kazeel felt the panic rising in his chest again. Another mountain! Another slippery way up, another very slippery way down. He tried to look for a silver lining and came up with one after a few moments. This mountain wasn’t as steep as the last few. This calmed him. After those last few monsters, this one would be a piece of cake, right? He leaned forward and tapped his Chechyan driver on the shoulder, indicating the man was doing a good job. The bodyguard simply grunted in reply.

  Then Kazeel lay back and closed his eyes for the first time in a long time. They only had about seven more hours to go. Perhaps he could sleep some of the way home.

  No such luck….

  The instant he closed his eyes, his vehicle was rocked by an enormous explosion. Kazeel was thrown to the floor, violently gashing his head on the way down. Smoke suddenly filled the truck’s interior. His masked driver began swerving madly, back and forth, steel wheels screeching on gravel. It was so wild, Kazeel didn’t know if the man was really in control of the truck or if he’d been shot or even killed. The smoke was that thick inside. Kazeel tried to pull himself off the floor but found this nearly impossible. They were moving that crazily.

  All this happened in a matter of seconds. Somehow Kazeel finally found the strength to crawl back up onto the seat. It was then the truck crashed through a wall of fire; it was so intense, Kazeel could see his reflection in the raw flames outside the window. “What is happening!?” he finally yelled.

  The guard just gave him a quick grunt—at least he was still alive. But he was driving so intently Kazeel knew it was best that he shut up. Another explosion went off not 10 feet in front of them. Then another, on the left shoulder of the road. Another, off to their right.

  “Big bombs…from air…”
was what the driver finally yelled back to him in very broken English. Kazeel got the message. The little convoy was under air attack.

  The driver never lost his cool. He was steering frantically with one hand and talking very loudly in some Slavic language into his cell phone in the other. Presumably he was communicating with his colleagues in the other two vehicles. More explosions were going off all around them, but Kazeel’s driver managed to anticipate them all. He swerved just in time to miss an explosion right in front of them. Another blast went off to the right; the man went left. Another explosion in front of them. The man coolly steered right. It was almost as if he knew where the bombs were going to land.

  Kazeel was pinned against the backseat during all this, stuck there like glue. What was attacking them exactly? An American B-52 letting out a string of satellite-guided bombs? Or a smaller U.S. fighter aircraft—an F-15 or F-16—dropping HARM missiles or cluster bombs? Or even an A-10 Thunderbolt firing its huge cannon and dropping bombs on them? These kinds of planes were known to roam over Afghanistan, and over Pakistan, too. Their aim was to look for people just like him. Had his cellphone finally done him in?

  They turned a sharp corner about twelve hundred feet up the side of the mountain and found a huge outcrop of rock sticking out of its side. It seemed almost big enough to shield them from their aerial attacker. Here they sat for an agonizingly long minute. Then two. Then three. If the pilot couldn’t see them, would the attacking plane just go away? Or would it drop more bombs in hope of bringing the whole mountain down on top of them?

  Four minutes passed. Then five. Finally the driver had another phone conversation, then put the truck back in gear.

  “Gone…fly away…bye, bye,” he called over his shoulder with a muffled laugh. “Up ahead…more snow. Help us to hide you….”