Tier One Wild df-2

by Dalton Fury

  Aref Saleh and his company were always under threat, so they were always on guard. They lived on the property of Maadi Land and Sea, turning many of the offices into apartments and converting the building’s previously only adequate security system into a virtual fortress with armed guards, security cameras, and motion detectors.

  While Aref and his minions had had great success selling rifles and machine guns and ammunition and land mines, their highest-priced item was the surface-to-air missile. They had already sold SAMs in small quantities to several groups around the Middle East and Asia. On today’s agenda, however, they would be meeting with two men who had traveled to Cairo from Yemen — senior leadership from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP were some of the biggest players on the block, because they had deep pockets, thanks to their benefactors in the Gulf States, and they outfitted fighters and operatives in several countries. Saleh’s sales department’s preliminary meetings with personnel from this organization gave them hope that today’s meeting with these principals from Yemen would prove fruitful.

  The secure nature of the Libyans’ business meant that all meetings with potential clients were conducted off-site in any one of a number of safe houses throughout Cairo. Today’s meeting with the men from Yemen was to be held in a private two-story home a kilometer from the Maadi Land and Sea compound, close to the Maadi Yacht and Sports Club. Four of Saleh’s security men had gone early to the location to set up for the meeting. Four more would then fan out into the neighborhood to keep an eye out on the streets for any surveillance. And then, shortly before the AQ principals arrived, Saleh and his upper management team would themselves make the trip to the safe house in their armored and tinted Mercedes S600, a vehicle once owned by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak himself.

  Normally Saleh arrived late to his sales meetings, as he did not care about keeping his clients waiting a few minutes. Mostly his customers were Third World rebels and the like, men well accustomed to inconvenience. An hour or two sitting in the safe house kitchen at a table drinking tea was hardly any real annoyance for men who lived in this world of discomfort. But today’s prospective buyers were serious men fighting a serious cause and the several preliminary meetings with other members of their organization had shown Saleh and his people just how serious the Yemenis were about striking a deal. A potentially big deal.

  For this reason, Aref Saleh would not keep them waiting. He would arrive first to show them respect.

  The Al Qaeda men were in the market for Russian-made Igla-S shoulder-fired rockets, the most expensive item in the catalogue of the illegal Libyan arms organization.

  Between himself and his staff, Saleh hoped he could sell as many as fifteen of the Igla-S’s to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and they had even arranged for that number to be ready to ship from a secret warehouse in Tripoli to Benghazi, a Libyan port, in advance of this meeting. At $450,000 each, a sale of this magnitude would garner his operation upwards of $7 million, as well as pave the way for more sales in the future to AQAP.

  Shortly before noon a small car pulled up in front of the safe house on Street Fourteen around the corner from the Maadi Yacht and Sports Club. Two men climbed out of the vehicle, and then the driver rolled off to find parking on the tree-lined road. The men were watched by no fewer than a half dozen sets of eyes from many angles up and down the street. The guests were both young, in their thirties, and they both wore simple Western clothing and prayer caps. Their beards were dark and midlength, and they both looked like fit and healthy young men, perhaps individuals who worked in some trade that required manual labor.

  They walked up to the front door of the safe house and it opened as soon as they stepped onto the stoop.

  In the foyer of the home, the two men from Yemen were met with smiles by four men in business suits. Aref Saleh and three of his armed guards then greeted their prospective clients with handshakes and gestures of blessings, and then the two men were politely but carefully frisked for weapons or listening devices by waving a detection wand over their bodies. Within moments they were taken into a Western-style sitting room, and tea was poured for Saleh and his guests while the guards spread out into the corners of the room.

  Saleh sat on a sofa across from the two men, who had seated themselves in armchairs. The shorter of the two young al Qaeda men said, “We were told to call you Idriss.”

  Saleh nodded with a smile. “That is correct. And I am told you are Miguel. Interesting choice for a name.”

  Miguel only said, “And this is my superior. You may call him Haroom.”

  Aref Saleh turned to Haroom and said, “I look forward to doing business with you, my friend.”

  The other man nodded, indicating he understood, but he did not speak.

  “Will you remain silent, friend?”

  Haroom did not answer, but Miguel answered for him. “You can do your business with me directly.”

  Saleh nodded politely. And with a smile he said, “Very well, then. How may I help you two brothers?” The Libyan was not fazed in the least that one of the men would remain silent for the meeting. Saleh had dealt with men like this for a quarter century, and a necessary part of dealing with terrorists and revolutionaries was their odd organizational structures and their often overly dramatic personalities.

  Miguel began explaining how his organization had a need for several of the Igla-S missiles that the Libyans claimed to possess, and he hoped that they could begin a long business relationship with this organization located here in Cairo.

  * * *

  While his subordinate spoke, Haroom remained silent. He would speak if he had to, but it would reveal more about him than he would like the Libyans to know. Because even though Haroom spoke Yemeni Arabic quite well, and he understood the dialect the Libyan was speaking, he was not himself a native speaker of Arabic, not of any dialect of the language at all. He was, instead, a native speaker of English, and he spoke it with a northern California dialect.

  Haroom’s real name was David Wade Doyle, but he was more commonly known within the upper echelon of AQAP by the name Daoud al-Amriki, or “David the American.”

  David had been a member of al Qaeda for over ten years, and a senior operational commander for the past four years. His last operation, in western Pakistan the previous autumn, had led to the deaths of several American military and CIA personnel, but in the end David’s mission had failed.

  He was determined that his new mission, for which he would need the missiles on offer by the Libyan in front of him, would not fail.

  Thirty-year-old David Doyle was born in Kelseyville, California, one hundred miles north of San Francisco. His parents were farmers and trappers, and Doyle grew up outdoors. His parents were also atheist, so David had had no connection with religion until the family moved to San Francisco when he was sixteen in order for his mother to begin treatment for breast cancer.

  They moved into an apartment building and young David began hanging out with the three boys who lived next door, the children of immigrants from Yemen. Soon enough he even began venturing into the mosque with the men of the family. He was taken in by the culture and the faith and the kinship he felt with those there, so when his mother died and his father decided to head back north, the seventeen-year-old Californian dropped out of high school and traveled with the immigrant family back home to Yemen on vacation.

  The family returned home to California, but David Doyle never did.

  He converted to Islam when he was seventeen, and he spent years learning Arabic and studying the Koran. The mosque he attended in Sana’a was among the most radical in the country, and he himself became radicalized by the teachings of the imam.

  When the USS Cole was attacked in port in nearby Aden, Doyle felt nothing but happiness at the deaths of seventeen American sailors, and he wanted to take part in his own act against the nation of his birth.

  He began training in al Qaeda camps in the interior of the country and it was here, on September 11, 2001,
where he learned about 9/11, referred to among al Qaeda personnel as the Planes Operation. He and the other young men in training cheered and prayed, and then they headed toward Afghanistan to help with the resistance.

  Doyle was in Peshawar, Pakistan, when Afghanistan fell, recovering from shrapnel wounds to the stomach he received in Jalalabad. He returned to Yemen soon after to continue his recovery. Here he returned to his mosque, and spent the balance of his time either in training or in teahouses watching the news.

  He killed his first American in Iraq, not Afghanistan. He’d come after the initial invasion and, at a distance of forty yards, he put a burst from his RPK into the helmet of a Marine, a fresh-faced lance corporal no older than Doyle himself. He felt no repulsion for his act, he only wanted to be certain that his comrades saw him do it.

  He then spent years in and out of Iraq and in and out of Afghanistan, in combat, on recon missions, and planting bombs. Eventually his knowledge of English made him a valuable al Qaeda asset and they moved him away from the danger of the combat zones, sending him to camps in Pakistan to help train the Taliban. Soon he was taken in by AQ leadership to be cultivated as an operational commander.

  It was his own plan that he’d acted out the previous year in Pakistan at the black-site prison the Americans operated there. His failure in the Khyber Pass could well have resulted in his execution by the leadership of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but instead he’d been given a chance to redeem himself through jihad and martyrdom on a new, bold mission.

  And this time he would not fail.

  And now, as he sat in his comfortable armchair in this beautiful home in Maadi, David Doyle was very aware that, in a perfect world, he would get his fucking missiles and he would kill this fucking Libyan bastard in front of him.

  It was a necessary evil that Doyle found himself working with ex — Libyan intelligence officers. He had no respect for these greedy and evil men.

  Muammar Gaddafi had been no friend to the cause for which Doyle had devoted his life. Libya had even accepted al Qaeda prisoners from the United States in 2004 for rendition and torture. All so the United States could get intelligence against AQ, and all so Gaddafi could garner favor from the powerful and angry Americans.

  No, Doyle had no respect for JSO men, they may have been Muslims but that meant nothing to him in and of itself. They were not devout, and they would not stick their necks out for the cause. They had served their master until his death and they had served themselves in the year since.

  They were no better than the many infidels Doyle had killed — these Libyan fuckers would probably not even give him a discount for his purchases.

  Doyle saw that the charismatic smile of the silver-haired man in the business suit had faded while Miguel talked. Idriss did not look at Miguel; no, he looked at Doyle. Looking him over, Doyle thought he could detect evidence of recent surgery on the man’s feline-like face. Perhaps the former JSO leader had had some facial reconstructive surgery to help hide his true identity from the authorities.

  The American al Qaeda commander knew more about Idriss than he was letting on. Doyle would not have traveled to Cairo with only one confederate and put himself at the mercy of this man’s organization with nothing more than hope that he would get his missiles. No, Doyle knew all about this man and his enterprise. The former spy and enemy of Islam was a bastard, and David Doyle was disgusted to be in his presence.

  * * *

  For his part, Aref Saleh just stared at the silent bearded man while Miguel spoke. Haroom did not mask the malevolence he felt toward Saleh, and after a minute of the angry glare, Saleh interrupted Miguel by speaking directly to Haroom. “I see it in your eyes, brother. You judge me for what I do. You judge me for what I did for Libya.”

  David Doyle said nothing.

  “I have great respect for you and your cause. I have provided many of your fellow mujahideen with weapons at prices that were below my expenses.”

  Doyle did not believe this for a second, but he did not challenge the statement.

  The Libyan stared for a long time before saying, “Still, young brother, I would ask you to refrain from your overt malevolence. You are a guest here in my home.”

  Doyle did not speak. Neither did he change his demeanor.

  Finally Saleh broke the staring contest with a shrug and a smile. He looked to his men in the room with him. “Very well, my Yemeni brother. As you wish. Give me your evil look. I am a gentleman, however. I will take your money and not subject you to the same wicked stare. If I did not need to be friends with Colonel Gaddafi to work for him, I certainly do not need to be friends with you to take your money.”

  Doyle spoke now for the first time. “And I do not need to be friends with you, Mr. Saleh, to purchase your goods.”

  Upon hearing his real surname, Aref Saleh sat up straighter in his chair. His faint and insincere smile disappeared.

  “I do not know your accent, young brother, but you are not a Yemini. It appears that you come from a land where a man has no problem with intemperance. You have contacts who have uncovered my identity. I am impressed. But you put me in a difficult position by announcing that you know who I am. You would do well to hold your tongue. Absolute trust is another component that is not necessary in order for us to do business, but I will not work with someone whose malice I take as a direct threat.”

  “I do not need to trust you, either.” Doyle’s Arabic betrayed him as a nonnative speaker, but not necessarily as an American. “I only need to know how to find you if you double-cross me.” He smiled slowly. “And now that you know I can do just that, we can proceed.”

  Saleh’s bushy eyebrows rose. Behind him, two of his guards stepped forward, ready for a fight. Miguel started to stand from his chair.

  Saleh stopped them all by raising his hand. He addressed the man with the odd accent.

  “Do you really believe you hold all the advantages here, brother Haroom?”

  “No. I am unarmed, as is my colleague. I only attempt to level the playing field by letting you know that my organization has identified you, so that if you attempt to trick me — ”

  “Yes, yes. Your people can find me.”

  “Exactly.”

  Saleh wiggled his fingers and his men moved back into the corners of the room, though they remained on guard. He said, “Very well. Our mutually assured destruction has been established. I hope all this work on your part indicates that you are prepared to make a purchase.”

  “I would like nothing more.”

  After a moment’s more consideration, Saleh called out to men in the next room. Within seconds two men entered. They wore business suits, but instead of briefcases they hefted a green wooden crate between them. It was over five feet long but narrow, not more than two feet wide and deep. They placed it on the floor next to the two men from Yemen.

  Saleh said, “I give you one of the most lethal portable air defense systems ever made. The Igla-S portable antiaircraft missile complex, or Igla-S PAAMC. Igla is a Russian word that means ‘needle.’”

  Al-Amriki knew all about the Igla, but he allowed Saleh to make his sales pitch.

  “The weapon has a three- to four-kilometer vertical range, and it possesses high jamming immunity due to its impeccable infrared target-acquisition system. It has a contact and a proximity fuse, and a powerful warhead. It is small enough that one could, with some difficulty, carry two on his back, or a half dozen of the launchers along with missiles and power sources in the average two-door hatchback.”

  The AQ men knelt over the weapon and scanned the markings and the serial number, even the writing on the wooden case. Doyle found what he was looking for immediately, the shipping label. The consignee was the Central Organization of Industry and Purchase in Libya, and the airport of destination was the Tripoli International Airport. Inscribed also on the case was 2006. Box 88 of 243. He’d been told by al Qaeda spies with contacts in the Libyan Defense community to look for these markings. If Saleh were trying
to peddle counterfeit weapons, he would not necessarily know to replicate the authentic shipping labels and crate stamps.

  After a minute of handling the weapon — the missile was not seated in the launch tube and the power source was not attached, so there was no chance of an accidental discharge in the well-appointed living room — the two men from AQAP sat back down in their chairs and faced Aref Saleh. The Libyan could see that the mood had lightened perceptibly. These terrorist commanders were, at the end of the day, just stupid boys, Aref determined after witnessing their reverence when running their fingers over the weapon system.

  “So,” he said. “Do you have any questions I can answer?”

  The one called Haroom said, “I will need some proof that they work as advertised.”

  “Proof?” asked Saleh with genuine confusion. “I think you just need to check the lot numbers against the missing — ”

  “I believe they are authentic Libyan arms. Of that I have no doubt. But you have told us they are easy to operate. Is this true? I mean to say, can a quickly trained operator fire one as easily as you say he can?”

  “Of course. The instructions are barely two pages in length.”

  Doyle shrugged, said, “I want to fire one. At an aircraft.”

  Saleh waved his hand in the air. “That is ridiculous.”

  Doyle then said, “I will purchase one launcher. You will help us find a suitable location to fire it. A suitable target. If this test goes well, we will buy sixty missiles from you.”

  “Sixty?” Saleh said it in disbelief. This was four times the number he had hoped for.

  “That is correct.”

  The Libyan thought the man was toying with him. “I don’t have time for games. You were vetted by my people as a legitimate representative of your organization, so I agreed to meet with you, but I will now ask you to please leave.”