‘Very good,’ Henry said, confused. ‘But what does all of this mean?’
The Sudanese reached underneath his coat, pulled out a pistol of some sort, and Henry knew what was about to happen, could not believe it. He started to say a prayer and the shock of what the Sudanese said next - ‘Greetings from the people of the United States’ - caused him to halt in mid-sentence, just before a split-second flash of light preceded a final darkness.
~ * ~
The man known as the Sudanese was now in a men’s room, staring at a mirror. He had the room to himself. He looked at the dark face and brown, impassive eyes. Water was running in the sink, and before him was an open container about the size of a yogurt carton. He took a washcloth, dipped it in water, and then dipped it again in the container, and started rubbing at his face. Rub, rub, rub, and the dark color started to wash away, revealing a lighter skin, brown but not as black as before. More rubbing and something else began to emerge, a pattern, a display of scar tissue, of facial skin that had been badly burned, years ago. More rub, rub, rub, and when he was done there was no longer a Sudanese looking back at him from the bathroom mirror.
Instead, it was Montgomery Zane, of Tiger Team Seven.
‘Welcome back to the world,’ he whispered to the mirror.
~ * ~
Outside the restroom, Monty walked into a wide, open room with a low ceiling. There was country and western music being played somewhere, and in the middle of the room were a number of tables and chairs. Men were there, eating and drinking and smoking, and some were playing cards. Men were also two-deep at the bar, on the other side of which was a grill, open 24/7, where someone could order anything from frog’s legs to bacon and eggs to a milkshake to Maine lobster to caviar. Anything and everything. The men’s voices were loud and boisterous, though some of the men were quiet, sitting by themselves, reading or sleeping or listening to music through headphones or watching a movie on a handheld DVD.
Monty felt his body relax, for that was the purpose of this room. It was in a nondescript building stuck in the corner of a training facility at Hurlburt Air Force Base in western Florida - home of Air Force Special Operations - but there were about a dozen other facilities like it scattered around the world. Its purpose was simple: it was an oasis, a recharging place, a room to re-enter The World after doing the dirty work of the United States. For each and every man in this room was a member of an elite, either Special Forces or Delta Force or Navy SEAL or Air Force Special Ops or any other black-budget group, who in fact were known as the ‘point of the spear’, and here they relaxed for a while, after killing the enemies of the United States.
At the bar Monty leafed through a thick menu, ordered a plate of barbecued ribs. After getting a Sam Adams, he went back to a table and sat down. There was a day-old USA Today newspaper there and he started looking through it. He yawned. Man, going through so many time zones in just a few days fucked up his inner clock so bad the poor thing probably didn’t even know what year it was anymore. The beer was cold and good and as he sat there, feet stuck out, he thought about the past couple of days. Some strange shit, though he was no newcomer to strange shit. His job was to be the hammer. Somebody’s else’s job was to be the architect, the designer.
Another swallow of the beer. But what kind of design lay behind his latest run? He had spent a fair amount of time over the past few years playing around with these contacts and others, passing along spoof information, knowing that it was for a good cause. The spoof information could cause enemy higher-ups to react, to make plans, to be caught on the radar of all the God-loving forces involved in this war on terror. So that had been the job, and he had done good with it, playing the devout Sudanese, paying attention to terrorist-wannabes.
So why were they whacked? What possible threat could they have posed?
Somebody kicked at his feet. He looked up, and smiled in recognition. ‘Yo, Bravo Tom, have a seat.’
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said the other man, a bulky redhead whose hair was cropped short and whose muscular shoulders looked like they were about to burst through his black T-shirt. Bravo Tom was a second-generation Croatian, whose father had taken him to the United States when the Yugoslav civil war began in earnest. He had a twelve-syllable first name that began with the letter ‘B’ and, thankfully, his middle name was Thomas. His last name was also a jumble of consonants and one vowel, and everywhere he was deployed he was just called Bravo Tom. Monty had met the man in a SEAL refresher course a few years back, and had run into him, off and on, all across the great globe.
‘Buy you a beer?’ Monty asked, and Bravo Tom laughed back at him. Everything was free, and buying a beer just meant walking up to the bar and retrieving same. Bravo Tom said, ‘Nope, I’m good for now. How you been?’
‘Good. And you?’
‘Just fine,’ Bravo Tom said. ‘Good to see your ugly mug. How’s business? Still with the Tiger Teams?’
Monty smiled at the easy give and take. This was one part of the military that civilians never quite understood. You made a friend, a good friend, and despite deployments hither and yon you could run into that friend in the most Godforsaken places and they’d show you the ropes and help you fit in and watch your Six. It was a big organization, the military, but it was like one big-ass family if you looked at it right.
‘Busy, quite busy, but it’s all right. Tiger Team is treating me okay. And you? Still with the Hymen Squad?’
Bravo Tom seemed to blush at that. Monty knew that his friend had been stationed with a secretive group that was tasked to provide quiet and clandestine support to the US Border Patrol and Customs. There were very strict rules against the use of military resources in domestic law-enforcement affairs - rooted in the old concept of the posse comitatus — but since a certain day in September 2001, rules were pretty much what whoever made them — and who could get a Federal judge, usually in secret, to sign off on them - wanted to make them. Officially, Bravo Tom’s group was known as the Border Support Task Force and, using Kiowa helicopters and cut-down armored Humvees, they worked both the Canadian and Mexican borders to interdict smugglers of drugs and smugglers of people. But since their job was, as some wise-asses had noted, to protect the purity and sanctity of the nation, their unofficial name was the Hymen Squad.
So far their work had gone well. They’d intercepted nearly a dozen teams trying to infiltrate, said teams either being killed in vicious firefights never reported in the news media or captured and sent to the tender clutches of the rapidly growing prison system in Guantanamo Bay.
Bravo Tom shrugged at the question and said, ‘Hymen Squad’s doing all right, I guess. I’m going on a thirty-day leave this weekend and, let me tell you, I am counting down the hours.’
Monty lowered his beer bottle to the table. ‘Leave? You’re going on leave?’
‘Sure. Why not?’
Monty looked at his friend to see if he was joking but there was no humor there. He said, ‘You’re going on leave. For thirty days. Tell me, you guys spun up about anything coming down in the next couple of weeks?’
Bravo Tom shrugged. ‘Nope. Everything’s about as normal as it can be, Monty. Some training down in Lower Baja, and some work going up north with the Aussie Special Forces, out in Montana, but that’s it.’
‘Regular schedule? Regular ops?’
‘Yeah. Hey, no offense, mind telling me what the fuck is going on?’
Monty toyed with the edge of the Sam Adams label. His fingers felt cold, his feet felt cold, the whole damn room felt cold. ‘Bravo Tom, you ever hear of something called Final Winter?’
His friend thought about that for a moment and said, ‘Nope.’
‘You sure?’
‘Damn sure I’m sure. Look, pal, I know who you are. Your name is Monty Zane. You sure as hell weren’t named for a street, but you should have been, ‘cause the traffic’s all been one-way. And if you don’t start yapping, I’m moving to a friendlier table.’
Monty was s
tuck but he knew that fair was fair. At this level of classification, Bravo Tom didn’t have a ‘need to know’, but Monty sure as hell needed to know what was going on with his buddy’s unit. If that meant horse-trading with information, so be it.
Still toying with the beer label, he said, ‘My Tiger Team has been riled by something coming up in a couple of weeks. Something known as Final Winter. Major attack on a number of cities. Those doing the attack are supposed to be Syrians, infiltrating through the borders. I did some background work, passed my recommendation up the usual and customary chain of command. Thought for sure you guys would be heading up any response. I can’t fucking believe you’re not at high-level alert.’
Bravo Tom said, ‘Sorry, pal, we’re not And if we were, I’d know about it.’
‘Shit,’ Monty said.
Bravo Tom said, ‘Looks like somebody in your group has some explaining to do.’
Monty nodded, saw that his plate of ribs was coming over, carried by a male airman wearing BDUs. ‘You better fucking believe it,’ he said.
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vladimir Zhukov sat next to the Arab boy as he drove the tractor-trailer truck through the confusing maze of roadways and parking areas of the Port of Vancouver. There were three terminal areas that handled container cargo - Deltaport, Centerm and their destination, Vanterm - and Vladimir was pleased enough to let Imad do the driving and dealing. The place was filled with parking areas, service stations, railway yards, and long lines of belching tractor-trailer trucks, coming out with their containers firmly fastened at the rear.
Imad was singing some high-pitched tune that grated on Vladimir’s ears, but he let the boy go on. Even though Imad probably weighed no more than sixty or seventy kilograms and looked like such a child behind the wheel of the Freightliner he handled the massive truck with ease. Between them was a metal clipboard with a sheaf of papers and documents, and Vladimir smiled at the memory of crossing the US Customs station not more than an hour ago. The Americans didn’t care who was leaving their benighted nation, and Canada was only too eager to allow tradesmen and businessmen and truckers through. Their papers had gotten a perfunctory glance and then they’d been on their way, passing from US Route 5 to Canadian Route 99. Imad commented immediately on the rougher roadway.
Vladimir said, ‘The joy of a socialist economy. They would rather spend money on making immigrants feel good than on good roadways.’
Imad grunted. ‘This is one hell of a bad road.’
‘So it is. I will tell you a story. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the—’
‘The what?’
Vladimir folded his arms. ‘What others call the Second World War. We call it the Great Patriotic War. As you call the Six Days’ War between Israel and the Arabs the Great Betrayal. At the end of the Second World War, Canada had the third-largest navy in the world, after the United States and Great Britain. They were a world power, and they pissed it away, like a drunk peasant getting a fortune and spending it on vodka. Now they have an Air Force that relies on American castoffs, a Navy that depends on leased ships, and an Army that cannot even fill a football stadium. Pathetic.’
Imad had laughed. ‘Like a nuclear-armed empire that sees half its land given away, its mighty submarine force rusting at the dockside, and an Army that is still getting its ass kicked in Chechnya.’
Vladimir felt his fists clench. ‘We’ve lost our way. We will be back.’
Imad laughed again. ‘Surely you will, Russki. You keep on believing that.’
Now they were in the middle of the Vanterm container terminal, having followed a map provided by a security guard. Imad had opened the window and the smell was of diesel fuel and chemicals and salt air and exhaust. Imad sang another little ditty as he drove, irritating Vladimir with its stupidity, but the Russian let the boy do his job. Other vehicles traveled on the access roads as well, mostly tractor-trailer trucks like themselves, hauling away containers that just a number of hours ago had been transiting the Pacific Ocean. He found that the palms of his hands were moist. He wiped his hands on his pant legs. Everything would be fine.
They came to another gate. Imad passed the paperwork over, chatted to the terminal worker. The man was Chinese. Lots of workers here were Chinese, and Vladimir hated the sight. The damn Chinese were pressing against his homeland, buying up land and mineral rights and pulp mills in the eastern part of his Russia, and the damn people were here as well, taking over the western part of Canada. Were the Canadians so blind that they fretted and complained about the behemoth to their south - who usually ignored them, except when it came to UN votes - and overlooked the true behemoth to the west, who was going to overtake their pretty little country by buying and breeding, two things at which the Chinese excelled?
The truck barked into motion again. As they went down a narrow roadway, flanked on each side by overhead cranes, more containers that marked the oceanwide business here — P&O, Freightline, Haatz-Merlin and Stagway - Vladimir said, ‘Are we there yet? Are we?’
‘Just another minute,’ Imad said. ‘Aaahh...here we go.’
There. Vladimir could feel his pulse racing at the sight of the bright yellow Comex container and trailer, sitting by itself off to the left. Imad honked the air horn in celebration as he slowed down and passed the trailer. Working the gears and looking in the side view mirrors, he backed up the tractor-trailer and Vladimir winced at the sudden jolt as the truck seemed to hit something.
‘Damn fool, what did you do?’
Imad’s head was turned but his voice was sharp enough. ‘I am young but I’m no fool, you pampered doctor. Haven’t you ever ridden in a truck before? We’ve just hooked up the trailer. Nothing unusual. Damn fool yourself.’
Imad opened the driver’s door, leapt out. Vladimir followed him and dropped down to the cracked pavement, enjoying stretching his legs. He looked around at the mess of containers and cranes. He felt a flash of anger that such a place existed here, in a joke of a country. Canada! Something like this should be in Vladivostok, an ocean away, feeding his home country, helping it to grow strong again. Not in this Western fairyland of a place ... He walked to the rear, saw Imad at work, connecting cables and hoses from the Freightliner to the trailer.
‘How much longer?’
‘Just a few more minutes, that’s all. What’s the rush?’ Vladimir rubbed his cold hands, looked to the south and the horizon and the haze that marked the homeland of his enemy.
‘You’re right, no rush,’ he said. ‘I’ve waited decades. I can wait just a bit longer.’
Imad laughed. ‘We’ve waited more than five centuries. We too can wait a bit longer.’
~ * ~
In Memphis, Alexander Bocks spent just a few seconds looking over at his three visitors, gauging their reaction to the news he had just given them. The doctor looked like he was relieved, as though something bad he had signed up for was not now going to happen. The detective just looked uncomfortable, like he knew he didn’t belong here but should be back home in Manhattan, investigating an assault at a bodega or something. And the CIA woman ... when he had told her that AirBox was going to be grounded in less than two hours, something more than disbelief or anger had flashed across that pretty face. It had been as if something she had cherished and hoped for had been snatched away at the very last moment.
Adrianna Scott said, ‘Less than ninety minutes? Are ... are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure,’ Bocks shot back. ‘What the hell kind of question is that?’
Yep, the CIA woman was rattled. He wondered how in hell she had gotten to the position she was in. She seemed to pull herself together and said, ‘Yes, you’re right. Of course. The question I should have asked is, why? Why are your mechanics going on strike?’
Bocks managed a small smile. ‘Over teeth.’
‘Teeth?’ the detective asked. ‘What’s the matter, they don’t like their dental plan?’
The general turned to look at Doyle
. ‘Sure they do. That’s the problem. They love their dental plan, but they don’t want to pay more than their fair share. In order to be more competitive, we’ve got to cut costs even more. Neither side is going to budge, so by the time you nice folks get back to your hotel rooms the strike will be on.’
‘But don’t you have contingency plans?’
Plans, Bocks thought, sure, plans thought up by my slug CFO. Aloud he said, ‘Sure we do. We have mechanics lined up. Scabs, the poor bastards. But the FAA isn’t going to allow us to shut out our old mechanics and bring in a new crew without certifications and training being checked. So we’ll be down. A week, maybe two. Maybe even three.’
‘Over teeth,’ the CIA woman said, a tinge of wonder in her voice.
‘No, not just teeth. It’s more than that. It’s a struggle, like other companies struggle. How to make it to the future. How to survive. Hell, how to thrive so you have jobs, and stockholders have dividends, and nice little people get their nice little packages on time.’
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