by Dick Stivers
Set deep under the abandoned fields of the village, protected from Israeli or American air strikes by steel-reinforced concrete, the factory contained rows of machines. Diesel trucks were parked in the center aisle. Steel gurneys, straining under the load of 240mm rockets, stood alongside workbenches, where the Syrian technicians had left them. At the far side of the concrete cavern, more racks of the BM-24 Soviet artillery rockets stood against the walls.
"Why not those rockets?" he demanded of his Guards. "Why do we leave them?"
"They are not modified, Leader. Today Dastgerdi talked with all the Syrians. They talked about what rockets were ready and what ones were not. We put only the finished rockets in the trucks."
"How can you be sure they are ready?"
"The Syrians marked the rockets."
"How many?"
"Almost a hundred. Four launchers, ninety-six rockets."
"And the transmitters? And the warheads? Are the rockets prepared with explosives and poisons?"
"Yes! The Syrians were very proud. They bragged of their quick work."
Rouhani laughed. "Start the trucks!"
The convoy of diesel trucks and cars drove through the night, north to Baalbek, then northeast toward Lebanon's coast city of Tripoli. Papers forged by the Libyans identified the Iranians as PLO reinforcements for the city. The documents declared the cargo as weapons for PLO and Syrian armies stationed around the city.
But before they reached the city, Rouhani directed the convoy off the highway. The cars and trucks bumped over a frozen, rutted road to an improvised airstrip. There, PLO agents hired by the Libyans transmitted a signal to the approaching cargo plane.
"Where is First Secretary Baesho?" Rouhani asked the Palestinians.
"He is delayed."
"By what?"
"There has been much fighting in Beirut. The telephones do not work. We could not speak with the embassy."
"But what of the plane? Does this..."
"We continue. We have our instructions, the plane will come as scheduled."
"When? There can be no delays now."
"It is off the coast. It waited for our signal."
"But we must be out of Lebanon today!"
"Be patient. It will be only a few minutes."
Rouhani stared into the sky. The eastern horizon grayed with dawn, the irregular line of the eastern mountains black as the storm-darkened sky. Rouhani knew that if he and his Guards did not leave Lebanon today, they risked the revenge of Syrians. Syrian troops occupied all of northern Lebanon. Thousands of Syrian soldiers surrounded Tripoli. Syrian units patrolled the coast to the west and the borders to the north and east. Syrian forces manned the emplacements to the south.
One radio message could mean the extermination of Rouhani and his Guards.
The noise of the engines of the cargo liner stopped his fears.
Before daylight, the Iranians loaded the plane with the rockets and launchers.
Then they flew west. To destroy the President of the satanic empire of America.
* * *
From the warmth and luxury of his armored limousine, Dastgerdi watched the Sahel Mountains blur past. He considered the reports.
Repeated radio messages to the base in the Bekaa had not been answered.
Syrian units manning roadblocks had reported two trucks and trailer loads of rockets in transit to Tripoli.
A radar station in Tripoli had reported the intrusion of an aircraft of unknown nationality. The aircraft crossed the coast, disappeared into the foothills, then reappeared after less than an hour, flying due west. Radar tracked the aircraft over the Mediterranean until it passed out of range.
Then came the reports from the Syrian Defense Ministry. The radio operators speculated that the failure of communications during the night had perhaps been caused by the storm. But the reports from the checkpoints and the radar station had been confirmed.
The slowing of the limousine interrupted his thoughts. His Syrian-army chauffeur turned from the highway to the narrow road leading to the ruined village. Snow covered the familiar landscape. Beyond the abandoned fields and pastures, storm clouds hid the peaks of the mountains.
How had the night's storm affected his project? Had the hate-crazed Rouhani seized the opportunity of the holiday and the breakdown in communications? What would Dastgerdi find at the village?
The insanity of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard captain threatened the greatest project of Dastgerdi's career. Had he correctly predicted the actions of the Iranian lunatic? Had his informers in the gangs of the Islamic Amal correctly reported the Libyan efforts to subvert the project and seize leadership?
And what of the KGB? Had they somehow learned of the operation? In the chaos of hatred and insanity and nationalistic fervor, had one of the outsiders sold information about his project to the KGB?
Doubts tore at Dastgerdi. Any one of the foreigners involved in his project — the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Libyan diplomats, the fanatic Shias of Islamic Amal, the mercenaries — might betray him. Though he had compartmentalized the duties and commands, one breakdown might lead to another and another and finally to the end.
When he saw the gates to the village standing open, unguarded, he knew.
At the sentry shack, he stepped out of the limousine and went into the corrugated steel shelter of the sentries. The frozen corpses of the Syrian soldiers sprawled beside the ashes of the fire, their blood a red ice on the mud.
Dastgerdi ran outside. He wanted the chauffeur to see his alarm and confusion. He looked fifty meters away to the other sentry positions on the perimeter. Nothing moved.
His greatcoat flapping, he ran back to the limousine. His voice trembled as he commanded the chauffeur:
"To the factory!"
"Is there a problem, Colonel?"
"Don't question! Go!"
The driver spun the tires, accelerating through the snow. As they raced through the shellfire-shattered village, Dastgerdi saw nothing — no Syrian soldiers, no smoke from fires, no bored Iranians milling about. Near the entrance to the underground workshops, Dastgerdi shouted, "Park here! At the top of the ramp — wait."
"Colonel, it could be dangerous."
"That is my worry!"
Dastgerdi ran down to the entrance. The rolling steel doors stood open. Snow had settled on the concrete floor of the cavernous underground complex.
A quick look told him that four launchers and ninety-six rockets had disappeared. Truck tires had marked the concrete floor with wide lines of mud and frozen slush. The forklifts had left other lines. A confusion of footprints indicated where the Iranians had crowded around the diesel trucks.
But the Iranians had not taken the rockets and launchers stacked at the far end of the underground factory. They had only taken the ninety-six rockets fitted with dummyguidance units. The Syrian technicians had marked those rockets as finished, and the Iranians had taken the rockets away... most likely to America.
Glancing back to the entry ramp, Dastgerdi saw the chauffeur waiting in the warmth of the limousine. Only then did Colonel Dastgerdi allow himself a laugh.
He had played a game of intrigue with fanatics and lunatics, and he had won.
13
A sea of lights appeared on the horizon. As the stewardesses hurried through the jetliner's aisles checking safety belts, Powell woke Anne Desmarais. She had slept through all the flights, taking pills at the airports and sleeping, only waking for meals and drinks and more pills. Powell attempted to make conversation, but she told him nothing.
Yawning and stretching, wincing at the pain of her two-day-old bruises, she ran her hands through her hair and blinked at the view of Mexico City. She stared at the horizon-to-horizon lights, not comprehending what she saw.
"We're there," Powell told her. "How do you feel?"
"Sleepy."
"You mean, doped."
"Where is your friend?"
"Up there in the middle of the plane. Don't look for him.
We could have some of the bad guys on the plane. Not too late to back out of this. You could give me the information and take a plane back to Canada. You wouldn't even need to leave the airport."
Desmarais shook her head. "This story is very important to me. It will be a major step in my career. I can't stop now."
"Hey, there won't be no story. Not if things go straight."
"Oh, yes. There is a story, of that, I am sure. Because I know the story!"
"Like those two ragheads who were in the photo? The Iranian and the Syrian army officer? What's the story on those two?"
"You will learn."
* * *
Waiting until all the other passengers left their seats, the three North Americans finally joined the line of travelers leaving the jumbo jet. Service workers in yellow uniforms slipped through the line of passengers and moved among the rows of seats, picking up papers and plastic cups, emptying ashtrays. One worker made eye contact with Lyons.
"This way," he said.
Lyons turned to his partners. They also recognized the sharp Nahuatl features of Captain Soto. The North Americans followed a step behind Soto to the passenger bridge. But instead of continuing to the terminal gate, Soto opened a door. They stepped into the dawn chill and hurried down an aluminum stairway to the asphalt. The ground personnel very deliberately ignored the three North Americans.
"There!" Soto shouted over the roar of jet engines, pointing to the open doors of a catering van. "What does your luggage look like?"
Blancanales answered. "Three sheet-metal shipping trunks. All green with brass trim. Identical."
"What names?"
"Guerimo Soto. All the same."
Soto closed the van's doors. The driver gunned the engine and sped around the parked jetliners. The noise of the jet engines was cut off when the truck swerved into a hangar. The driver turned to them.
"We will wait here for the captain. You must not move or talk."
Sitting in the back of the van, Able Team listened to the activity around them. Workers shouted to one another, metal containers crashed along conveyor belts, horns beeped. Finally, tires squealed to a stop behind the van.
Grunting with the weight, Soto pushed the three green shipping trunks into the back of the van. He got in and pulled the doors closed. Then the truck sped out of the food service hangar.
"Now what, my friends?"
"We need to meet an American," Lyons glanced at his watch. "He's arriving approximately right now on another plane. He's with a Shia militiaman who's on our side and a Canadian woman reporter who isn't."
Soto instructed the driver. As the van circled to the passenger entrance of the international terminal, Able Team briefed Soto on the Iranian-Libyan plot against the President of the United States. Gadgets did not join in the discussion. He opened his trunk and assembled electronic gear.
"And they have come to Mexico? You are positive?"
Blancanales nodded. "We have the tickets and passports. We assume they plan to enter the United States from Mexico."
"Then we can mobilize all the security forces necessary to defeat the terrorists. When you called, I thought this was perhaps another... ah, political problem, as it was in the other action."
"Murder is murder," Lyons interrupted. "We only chase murderers. I don't care what their politics are. Fascists, commies, scumbag dopers, they get wasted."
"As you said when we fought the International. However, the politicians have other opinions, as I learned. But I will tell you of my education later — here is the terminal. Who makes the contact?"
"I will," Blancanales offered. "I speak the language, I don't look like a tourist..."
"Here, in your pockets." Gadgets passed Blancanales a hand radio. "And here's a DF so we can follow you. A minimike. Anything else you can think of?"
"Extras for others."
"You got it."
"Do not take a pistol into the airport," Captain Soto warned.
Blancanales nodded. As he pushed open the van's door, he gave his partners a quick salute. "Stay close."
Then he hurried through the lines of taxis and cars. Weaving through the crowds of travelers, he scanned the terminal for Powell, Desmarais and Akbar. And he searched for surveillance, watching for eyes watching him.
But the thousands of faces in the crowds defeated his efforts. Anyone could be surveillance: the elderly Castillian man, the North American hippies in hurachesand huipiles, the dark-featured Mexicanatraveling with her children, the security guard armed with the .45 auto-Colt. Blancanales had only his anonymity as a mask.
The crowds surging through the entry prevented him from taking full strides. Unconsciously he continued searching as he flowed with the terminal's masses, his eyes always scanning, looking for the unusual or the unlikely. Yet he realized professional surveillance agents would avoid any distinguishing appearance. He eased along with the other people, his head turning from side to side.
He checked the flight arrival and departure notices. The plane carrying Powell, Desmarais and Akbar had arrived on schedule. He went to where incoming passengers exited customs and took a seat.
After five minutes, Akbar appeared. He wore sunglasses and three days' growth of beard. Blancanales rushed through the arriving passengers, rudely shouldering some, pushing past others. He bumped into Akbar and slipped the coin-sized units of a directional transmitter and a miniature microphone into his coat. Then Blancanales stood at the exit and watched as the other passengers cleared customs.
Powell and Desmarais emerged two minutes later. Powell saw Blancanales and continued past without a word, Desmarais at his side. Blancanales waited a few seconds, then followed them through the terminal.
Akbar went to the pay phones, Powell and Desmarais to the car-rental booths. Blancanales casually joined them at the rental counter. He waited until the clerk turned away, then dropped the miniature directional-finder transmitter and the minimicro-phone into the pocket of the Canadian woman's coat. The Canadian did not notice.
"We came in without a problem." Blancanales made a pretense of reading a brochure as he spoke. "They're outside, ready to go."
"Akbar will give us a signal when he knows what goes," Powell told him. "So you watch us. Stay away until we leave."
"Then I'll jump in." Blancanales folded and pocketed the brochure, then went to the foreign-currency exchange. After converting the American dollars and Lebanese pounds in his pockets to pesos, he turned to see Akbar walking to the exit. Akbar went outside to the curb and waited, ignoring the taxis and hotel limos.
Hurrying back to the van, Blancanales stepped inside and threw off his coat. He buckled on the shoulder holster for his silenced Beretta 93-R. "It's in motion. Watch Akbar, he's at..."
"I see him there." Lyons said, pointing. "What's going on with Powell?"
"As planned. He's renting a car. I'm on my way," the Politician said as he opened the vehicle's door.
Outside, Blancanales surveyed the traffic lanes of the terminal. He noted the pickup and drop-off points, the taxi waiting zones, the lines of rental cars. He walked quickly to a traffic island a hundred meters from the rental cars.
From where he stood, he had a view of Akbar waiting, of Powell and Desmarais sitting in the rental car, and of the parked catering van. Powell saw him standing on the traffic island and flashed his headlights.
Situation covered. But as he waited Blancanales never let his eyes stop, always searching the sidewalks and traffic lanes for sign of a pattern in movement, a pattern that meant ambush or kidnap or surveillance. He watched the crowds behind Akbar. He watched the arriving traffic, looking inside the cars and trucks, watching for any odd detail.
After fifteen minutes, a panel truck stopped in front of Akbar. The driver leaned out his window and spoke to the young Shia. Blancanales saw Powell reach for the ignition of the rental car. As Akbar got into the panel truck, Blancanales felt the hand radio inside his coat click. He answered with three clicks of the transmit key.
&
nbsp; The panel truck accelerated past Blancanales. He memorized the make of the truck, the license number and the face of the driver.
Seconds later, Powell braked to a stop at the traffic island. Blancanales got in the rear seat. As they accelerated away, Blancanales looked back and saw the catering van weaving through traffic. He slouched down below the level of the front seat and keyed his hand radio.
"Any conversation?"
"They're jiving in Arabic," Gadgets reported. "I'll put the walkie-talkie up to the receiver. Let Powell listen, maybe he can translate..." Gadgets's voice faded away.
Then came the scratchy, twice-transmitted voices from the panel truck ahead. Blancanales held the hand radio behind Powell.
"He's quizzing him..." Powell began.
"I thought you didn't speak Arabic," Desmarais said.
"Don't really. Just listening for what I recognize. He's... he's asking him what's going on, who he knows. Akbar's saying he doesn't know. The other guy's asking about Iran, what town he comes from. This does not sound good."
Traffic slowed. When the cars stopped, vendors rushed from the curbs to offer candy and newspapers and prepared food. One indigenawoman offered eggs to the commuters. Brilliant against the soot-gray morning in her threadbare blue satin blouse and hand-woven skirt, her throat flashing with the traditional strands of gaudy beads, she went from car to car, almost running, holding three eggs between her fingers like a magician demonstrating a trick. One driver called out, "Quiero una docena!" A whistle and a few sharp words in a language Blancanales did not understand brought two barefoot children from the curb with more handfuls of eggs. The woman and the driver bargained, closed the deal, counted eggs and money in less than thirty seconds, then the traffic moved again.
On one block crowds of workers crossed the boulevard and filed down the stairs of the subway station. Blancanales looked through the rental-car window to see people everywhere, workers hurrying to the subway, vendors selling goods, boys waving newspapers, motorcyclists weaving between vehicles.
A young man stepped out in front of the stopped cars and spit out a spray of flame.
