by Mark Greaney
Court sat up without a word, stood, and followed Saunders out into the team room. They continued through the front door, and walked through the dark for a full minute before arriving at a secluded area near an empty storage shed within sight of the main gate.
Here Saunders turned around and faced him. “You might think about sayin’ thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah? Well . . . I knew since you got here you weren’t who you said you were. I read Graham Wade’s CV, and you, mate, ain’t him. That shit on the road yesterday? You aren’t some old, washed-up, Canadian ex–infantry officer. You shoot, move, and communicate better than any other contractor I’ve ever worked with in me life.”
“You’re no slouch yourself. Look, what do you say tomorrow morning we tell each other how awesome we are? I really need to hit the rack.”
Saunders ignored him. “I knew you were up to something. All that wonderin’ about who we were fightin’ as if it fuckin’ matters around here. I sussed out you had another objective in Syria beyond comin’ down and fightin’ for the Hawks to earn a paycheck. I knew, but I didn’t know if whatever you were here for was good, bad, or indifferent.”
“I’m a good guy,” Court quipped.
“Right. Kidnapping kids? That’ll earn ya a sainthood for sure.”
“I had nothing to do with—”
“Sell me another. I told myself after the contact with Jabhat al Nusra that I was gonna watch you close. So I did. At the disco, I saw you leave with the Tiger Forces bastard’s phone, then walk right back in and deny it. I watched you trying to get the fight goin’ in the bar. Couldn’t figure out what your game was, but when we got back here and you still weren’t around, I went lookin’ for Walid. He’s not back, either.”
Saunders continued, “He was too bloody pissed to help out with a kidnapping, so I figure you just needed his wheels and his uniform. Is that it?”
“You’re the drunk one, Saunders.”
“Not too drunk to notice that gash on the side of your head. You didn’t have that in the bar.”
“Yeah . . . I did.”
“You aren’t the only man here with a brain, Wade. I know you’ve been moonlightin’ tonight. So . . . tell me. Who’s the little shit bird you nicked, eh? He belong to somebody important? A general, a Ba’ath Party official? Where do you have him stashed?”
“Why the hell would I come here to snatch somebody’s baby?”
“Dunno. Money, I reckon. We were at the police station when the call came in. Once word got out about the kid, the cops couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. They had a real crime to deal with. Whoever’s kid was taken was so important the whole city’s police force was trippin’ over each other to look for him. Must be a nice payday for you.”
Court did not reply.
“C’mon, man. I can walk outta ’ere and go tell the colonel that on second thought it wasn’t you pukin’ in the loo, after all.”
Court realized he might have to kill Saunders to keep him quiet. The man had done him a favor, but he was expendable if he tried to do anything to impede Court from assisting in providing intelligence on the Syrian president.
But then Saunders said something that changed everything.
“Fine . . . don’t tell me. But here’s how it’s gonna be. I want a quarter of the take, not just for getting the guns off you thirty minutes ago, but I’ll help out with your exfil. You managed to slip away tonight, but you can’t do that whenever you want, especially considering the Desert Hawks are going to have their eyes on you now.”
Court was hopeful about this turn of events, but he continued to feign ignorance about the kidnapping. “Again . . . we have to muster at six a.m. Can I just go back to the bunkhouse and—”
A look of realization flashed in Saunders’s eyes. “Wait . . . you didn’t have time to go far after you snatched that baby. Where do you have him stashed?”
Court realized arguing with this guy was going to be futile.
Saunders smiled. “I’m your problem solver. Where is the kid going?”
Court sighed. He gave up the ruse. “The West.”
The Brit’s eyes went wild. “Fuck me, mate! You have to exfil him from the country? Are you bloody mad? That’s a tall order.”
“I don’t have to do it. I just had to get him out of where he was, and deliver him somewhere else in the city. I did it.”
“Good. Is he somewhere safe for now?”
“It’s Syria, Saunders. Nowhere is safe.”
“True enough.”
“But, yeah. I think so. My job is done, but I won’t get paid till he gets out.”
Saunders started to reply, but Court cut him off. “And that means you don’t get paid till he gets out. We’ll go up north tomorrow, get out of here, do our jobs, and when we get back to Damascus I should have the money in an account I can access.”
“No tricks, Wade.”
This whole operation was nothing but a big bag of tricks, Court thought, but he simply nodded at the Englishman, then looked at his watch. “If I’m lucky, I can get myself about twenty minutes’ sleep tonight before I have to get up and get my gear together.”
“Sweet dreams then,” Saunders said. “But remember . . . I’m expecting a cut for what happened tonight.”
“You made that clear,” Court said.
Saunders led the way back to the bunkhouse with a spring in his step, because he thought he was going to make some money.
Court walked behind him, and it occurred to him that the three confederates in his scheme now consisted of a Syrian doctor with no espionage or military experience, a Frenchman who had either double-crossed or turned his back on everyone he had worked with over the past week, and now a cutthroat mercenary who seemed tickled fucking pink at the chance to take part in a kidnapping of a baby so he could earn some quick cash.
He told himself, and not for the first time on this operation, that the only one he could rely on was himself.
CHAPTER 55
There was no sleep for the Gray Man. After he lay in bed awake for just minutes, the lights came back on, the men began climbing out of their bunks, burping and farting and cussing, and within moments they were gearing up for the trip to the front lines to the northeast. As had been the norm since he got here, the team was a surly group, with little conversation between them, even after Brunetti and Anders returned from the hospital to join the others for the mission.
To Court it was as if these guys were already prepping themselves for the action ahead. Not the danger; that had a tendency to draw men together and increase comradeship. No, these guys, from the perspective of Court’s trained eye, were getting their heads ready to kill people, whether or not the killing had anything to do with the war going on.
Van Wyk took Court into the loadout room in the next building and told him to grab whatever he wanted from the well-stocked crates, racks, and shelves full of KWA gear. From the weapon racks he pulled a pristine-looking Kalashnikov with a short barrel and folding wire stock, and a desert-sand-colored Glock 9-millimeter pistol in a drop leg holster.
He chose a set of ceramic plate body armor in a plate carrier, which he then hung over his shoulder and cinched to his body by means of a Velcro cummerbund. He grabbed ammunition, a combat knife, a pair of fragmentation grenades, flashlights and batteries, and emergency medical supplies, and all this went onto a load-bearing vest he donned over the plate carrier.
He put on kneepads and elbow pads and selected a pair of tactical gloves, cutting off the trigger fingers on both hands with a tactical knife.
He filled a backpack full of bottled water, vacuum-packed rations, and a camouflage jacket.
Lastly he found a Kevlar helmet that fit him, retrieved a pair of ballistic-rated sunglasses from a case, and headed outside.
Completely geared up he looked like all the ot
her KWA men, which meant he didn’t look too much different from the Desert Hawks Brigade soldiers themselves, except for the white hawk badge on the left shoulder of their uniforms versus the unadorned shoulders of the KWA men.
At six a.m. on the dot Court stood in front of the barracks as a long procession of trucks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, T-72 tanks, and utility vehicles passed by on the way to the front gate.
Van Wyk addressed the group with a short briefing, basically telling the men they were to assist with pacifying a couple of villages an hour to the east of Palmyra, and they’d learn more details during the four-to-six-hour transport to the area. He pointed to the new man, the one he knew as Wade, and gave him the call sign Kilo Nine.
For years while working in SAD’s Ground Branch, Court’s call sign had been Sierra Six. It was so ingrained in his consciousness, even after all this time, that he figured he would probably still answer to it if someone addressed him as such, but he was hoping he wouldn’t be stuck in this unit long enough to remember Kilo Nine the same way.
As the massive procession of Hawks Brigade armor passed, two BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles pulled over to the mercenaries and stopped, and the rear hatches on both opened. Court, Saunders, Broz, Brunetti, Van Wyk, and Anders climbed into one of the vehicles, while the other six KWA men climbed into the other.
The six men in Court’s infantry fighting vehicle sat on two benches facing one another, and the three-man crew already on board waited for the signal to move out. The heavy, tracked machines folded back into the procession leaving the base, and soon Court could feel the driver make the hard left turn that indicated they’d departed through the main gate.
It was low, cramped, dark, and hot inside the vehicle. It bounced up and down roughly on its chassis as soon as it encountered the first bumps outside the wire of the base, and it smelled like the interior had been sprayed down with engine lube and body odor.
This was Court’s first time inside a BMP-3, and to say he wasn’t impressed would have been an understatement. He had been hoping to get some rest on the several-hours-long journey to the north, but now he couldn’t imagine any way to pull that off.
Court had never served in the U.S. military, and he’d only sat in Strykers and Bradleys, the U.S. frontline infantry fighting vehicles, a handful of times. All those occasions were during training evolutions at military bases around the United States or a few times when in Iraq and Afghanistan working operations with the CIA’s Special Activities Division.
Normally his Ground Branch task force helicoptered into a location to grab or eliminate their target, and they’d leave the same way. When they did travel over roads, they normally did so in low-profile vehicles: local cars and trucks.
The Special Activities Division left the driving around in big, bouncy armored vehicles to the military guys.
Court did not want to be here, working with mercenaries who were, themselves, working for a militia that was working for the evil Azzam regime, but he knew of no other way to get up near Palmyra, the place where Azzam was allegedly visiting Tuesday. He had to continue on this mission, to remain in cover as a mercenary deploying to support combat troops, and then, when he got as close as he could to his real destination, he would find a way to pick up the intel that would pinpoint Azzam’s location.
For this he would need a phone, and he knew Van Wyk didn’t have one, but there would be a Desert Hawks command post wherever they were deploying, and there would be all the commo gear there he needed.
In his fantasies, Court imagined his intel would send a squadron of French Mirage fighter-bombers over Palmyra to take out Azzam from the air, but in reality he was under no illusions the French would do anything so brazen. No, if this was to work, it would involve indigenous forces.
In the meantime, however, the KWA men around him seemed very certain they were heading into some sort of a fight, although whether it was going to be a two-sided affair, with people fighting back, was as yet unknown. Court would be going in with them, doing what he had to do to keep his cover, but the first chance he got to acquire some actionable intel about the reasons behind this security option, grab some means of communication, and get the fuck out of there, he told himself he would take it.
Court took off his helmet and rubbed the sweat already soaking his hair. Putting it back on, he met Saunders’s gaze, and the British man leaned forward and spoke into his ear. “When we get where we’re goin’, you’re gonna have to do your job.”
“You doubt my abilities?”
“If we make contact with armed fighters? No, I know you can do it, although if it’s not ISIS or Al Nusra you’ll probably whine about it before, during, and after. But the Hawks like to use us for suppression ops, and that means dirty work. If they send us into the city to round up town leaders or anti-regime suspects, I’ll warn you, it won’t make for stories you’ll want to tell your grandkids by the fire.”
Court just shrugged at Saunders, still trying to figure out the psychology of a man like him. He said, “This is KWA, Lars Klossner’s company. I knew what I was getting into on the way in.”
Saunders nodded at this, and then said, “How much you getting paid for the kid?”
Court pulled a number out of his ass. “One hundred thousand.”
“Dollars?”
“Pesos.”
Saunders’s face showed genuine confusion.
Court rolled his eyes. “Yes, dollars.”
The Englishman stared him down for several seconds. “Bollocks. Wouldn’t be worth it to a man like you. You’ve got a lifetime of training. You’re not Canadian, you’re a Yank, so I figure you for SEAL Team Six, or one of those Delta boys. Maybe even CIA para ops.”
“You’ve got one hell of an imagination.”
Saunders shook his head and repeated himself. “Bollocks. I bet you’re making two hundred, minimum, which means I want fifty.”
“Not gonna happen.”
Saunders turned to the team leader, at the far end of his bench. “Oy! Van Wyk?”
The older South African turned to Saunders.
“Thirty-five,” Court said.
“Fifty.”
A sigh. “Fine.”
Still with his eyes on the American, Saunders said, “Never mind, boss.”
Van Wyk went back to his thoughts, and Saunders smiled at Court.
The Englishman said, “I want to know more about you. I get that the money’s nice in this line of work, but it’s only worth it if you don’t have other options. Me? I’m what they refer to as unemployable in the security and private military contractor industry. And since I don’t have any other skills other than fightin’, I took the job for KWA five years ago knowing what I would have to do. Told myself I’d follow orders for whoever I was working for, full stop. They want me to fight insurgents, jolly good. If they want me to blast my way into a mosque and shoot a village elder, then I’ll do that, as well.”
Court looked away.
“But you? I don’t have you sorted out yet. It’s mad, really. Why the risk? Why not stay wrapped up in your bed at home when you’re not fightin’ the good fight for your country and not out here in the shite with the Ali Babas?”
Court had been thinking the same thing about Saunders, but he didn’t reveal it. Instead he said, “Look, man, if you’re trying to be my guidance counselor, you’re about twenty years too late.”
Saunders kept a skeptical eye on Court, who found the look unnerving. Finally the Brit said, “Something got switched off in you, and you ended up here, filching children. What was it?”
Finally Court said, “Here’s where you and me stand, Saunders. I owe you some money, but I don’t owe you any explanations. For anything.” Court leaned forward, menacing. “Now . . . get the fuck out of my face and let me get some rest.”
Saunders raised an eyebrow, and then h
e leaned back and away.
Court closed his eyes and hoped the bouncing and knocking of the armored infantry carrier would somehow rock him to sleep.
CHAPTER 56
The Frenchman tossed back the dregs of his fifth coffee of the day, and it wasn’t even ten a.m.
He’d spent the morning in his office in the 5th Arrondissement, working his satellite phone while the one suit he had with him dried in the window.
He’d come here directly after hitchhiking away from the farmhouse, because he was too tired and overwhelmed to conduct a surveillance detection route in order to make sure he hadn’t been followed from the property. He didn’t want to go home without being assured he hadn’t been followed, but there was reasonably good security in the office building where he worked, so he’d decided that would be sufficient protection. He’d slept for five hours on his leather sofa, but by eight a.m. he had a pot of coffee on the burner, his laptops opened, and his phone wedged between his neck and his ear, and since then he’d been talking almost nonstop to various intelligence operatives in Jordan. These were exactly the men he knew would not agree to extract the son of Ahmed Azzam when they learned about the death of Bianca Medina. But they were men who would do damn near anything to bring about the end of the Azzam regime, so if rescuing the baby and the nanny from Syria was the purchase price for the death of the dictator to their north, the Jordanians would find a way to come through.
Originally they had been asked to do nothing more than pick up the kid and the asset at their northern border, but now Voland was asking for something several orders of magnitude more complicated. He told the Jordanians he thought he could persuade a man to drive to the border to deliver a woman and the child, but this man wouldn’t be trained in cross-border movements, personnel recovery, or any sort of intelligence tradecraft at all.
In short, the man who would be delivering the two subjects to the Syrian/Jordanian border wouldn’t have a single skill necessary to facilitate this difficult and dangerous act—other than the ability to drive a car—so the Jordanians would have to somehow pick up all the slack on their end.
