by Brad Taylor
“Can you do this now?”
“Yes. I’ll have to leave and fetch him, but it won’t take but about fifteen minutes.”
“Do so.”
“Before that, I’d like to know what Carlos knew. How much is this worth to you?”
He saw Farooq’s eyes flick to the left and knew he was about to get cheated. He had no idea what had been discussed for the monetary transfer, and he wished he could take back the ignorance of his question.
Farooq said, “Carlos wanted a wire transfer of one million dollars. We could not afford that. We discussed a cash transaction of one hundred thousand. He agreed.”
The sicario knew about the other man coming and had not played that card. He did so now.
“You said Farooq means one who separates falsehood. Please don’t play me for a fool. I want the wire transfer from the other man. As you agreed with Carlos. Where is he?”
Farooq slid his eyes to the bar, saying nothing. When he faced the sicario again, he said, “He is coming, but the protocol had better work.”
“It will. I’ll prove it shortly. When does he arrive?”
“He’s on an airplane as we speak. Coming here.”
53
The hat was a little big, and the jacket made me feel like a bus driver, but both were needed to get me through security. Jennifer looked a hell of a lot better, in my mind. Like the stewardess everyone fantasizes about having instead of the ninety-year-old tart who gave you a sour look when you asked for another beer.
Reaching the TSA checkpoint, Jennifer said, “Let me lead. If anyone says anything, let me answer. Whatever you do, don’t try to fake being a pilot.”
A little miffed, I said, “What’s that mean?”
“I know you. You think you’re smarter than everyone else, but you’ll get us in trouble trying to talk flying. Just stick with the hotel or the airport. Please.”
“I can talk flying. It’s just a bunch of buttons and dials. These TSA agents know less than I do.”
She gave me an exasperated look and said, “Pike, please. Let me do the talking.”
I smiled, letting her know I was just teasing. She didn’t know a damn thing about flying a plane either, but she knew plenty about airports. Her deadbeat father was an airline pilot, and after he’d left the family, he’d spent his limited time with her dragging her around the world while he worked. Leaving her in hotel rooms as he went out to find some cougar to bed. The memories weren’t nice, but it did give her a healthy appreciation of how airports worked. I was more than comfortable letting her take the lead.
My Bluetooth chirped, and Knuckles came on. “I’m set outside customs.”
I said, “According to the fight status, his aircraft is on the ground thirty minutes early. Shouldn’t be long. You got the ABS ready?”
“Yeah, but I hate using this stuff. I’m going to get it on myself.”
“You do, and it’ll be a very long flight to Mexico.”
ABS was our not-so-subtle nickname for the medication we were going to apply to the moneyman coming from Pakistan. A topical solution that was fashioned into a tube of ChapStick, ABS stood for Atomic Blow-Shits. A small amount applied anywhere to the exposed skin would cause incredible diarrhea within a matter of minutes. Knuckles, having purchased a ticket on American flight 833 to Mexico City, like our target, would use it on him when given the chance.
Unlike other countries’ international airports, those in the United States had no separated transient area for folks just passing through. If you landed in America, even if only transferring to another flight out, you had to go through US customs. Thus, Knuckles could pick up our target as he exited, at a choke point he would have to use.
It had caused a little consternation in the Oversight Council, because the man from Pakistan was flying under the name Gamal Hussein, which, unbeknownst to him, was on our no-fly list. He’d managed to get a US visa—admittedly for transit only—but that alone caused a spasm in Homeland Security and further investigation, because he shouldn’t have gotten a visa to use a bathroom in the United States. It did work in our favor, though, because we couldn’t have affected his application in time if it had been denied. We could, however, remove him from the no-fly list, which caused some on the council to question what the hell we were doing.
I’d have questioned it too, given the plan I’d come up with. Kidnapping a foreign national inside a working United States airport, without informing TSA or anyone else that we were operational, was a bit much. Throw in the fact that we were going to inject a known terrorist in his place, letting him fly to Mexico out of our control, and I could see why some were jumping up and down. The no-fly list was the least of our worries.
We reached the door to the Known Crewmember access in terminal C, and Jennifer presented her badge. The TSA agent checked it, then a second form of identification. He tapped on the computer and let her through. I watched her dragging her roll-aboard and followed suit. It was surprisingly easy; the agent only wanted to make sure I was in the database. Had he checked last night, I wouldn’t have been.
Started in 2011 in response to pilot demands after 9/11, the Known Crewmember program allowed prescreened participants to bypass security at select airports, one being Dallas. Given that we were bringing in some dangerous kit in our carry-ons, we definitely needed to bypass security.
We’d brainstormed a bunch of different ways to penetrate the airport and had decided on a combination. Posing as TSA agents had been the first choice, but having flown through a myriad of airports, both Jennifer and I had rejected it. TSA agents knew each other and habitually worked the same stations. Any time I had traversed a security point during a shift change, I saw them saying hello or good-bye, or just kidding around. That, coupled with the TSA’s natural suspicion, meant we’d be asking for trouble by trying to impersonate them.
We definitely needed to get equipment into the sterile area of the airport, though, and putting it through an X-ray machine was a nonstarter. Who could do that but wouldn’t be known to the TSA agents themselves? Who was transient but trusted at the airport? Why, an airline pilot and his loyal flight attendant, that’s who.
We’d had Knuckles buy a ticket and go through traditional security. His role was to babysit the Ghost on the flight. Outside of giving Hussein the shits, he would have nothing to do with the assault.
Decoy was in the transfer van outside of terminal A, acting like a baggage handler for American Airlines. Blood, dressed as an airport janitor, would be outside the freight elevator of terminal A, ready to push a large refuse cart with some decidedly different trash inside. With any luck, we’d be getting him inside the sterile area using some equipment in Jennifer’s carry-on bag.
I smiled at the TSA agent and pulled my little bag through, seeing Jennifer just inside the entrance to the secure area. We were in the middle of the mission, but I couldn’t help but feel distracted by the sight of her in a flight attendant outfit. I swear I didn’t want to, but the scarf, hat, and little wings were something out of a soft-core porno movie.
I’d said as much when she’d met me in the lobby of our hotel, and she’d promptly kicked my leg. And not in a teasing way, either. She’d done it hard enough to bruise the hell out of my shin.
No way was I going there again, although I really wanted to jerk her chain about it one more time. She was a little too sensitive about such things, and an easy target.
We had a little walk to get from terminal C to terminal A, and I was growing concerned about the timeline. Hussein coming in early threw things off a bit, but not by much. We took the Skylink train, then hoofed it to gate A6, the end of the line. Terminal A was next to corporate aviation, which had allowed access to the airfield using our Gulfstream as a prop.
This far down the terminal there were no restaurants or newsstands, so there weren’t a whole lot of people hanging around. The closest was
a bar at A10, and only one flight was preparing to leave at gate A8, so we could work in relative safety. All we had to worry about were the cameras, which, luckily, didn’t focus on our door.
We found the access door leading to the freight elevator in a little cubby and Jennifer opened her bag, with me shielding what she was doing. She handed me a key-card attached to a USB device that looked like a big-brain scientific calculator, then took her bag into the restroom.
My Bluetooth chirped, and Knuckles came on. “I have him. He doesn’t look much like his passport photo on the visa application, but it’s him. He’s in line to exit customs with his bag.”
“How long?”
“Line’s about ten minutes. From there, he’s got to walk to D6. Maybe twenty or twenty-five minutes tops.”
I said, “Roger, we’re at Alpha six. Jennifer’s changing and I’m about to bring in Blood.”
I turned on the calculator thing, then dialed the computer geeks at the Taskforce. “I’m set. What’s the sequence?”
The key-card was a blank designed to duplicate the RFID code used by the door reader. The code was randomized daily and synchronized with the official cards through an encrypted handshake. Mine was a bit more manual, so I had to input today’s code courtesy of the hacking cell.
The man on the other end tapped his keys for a second, then read off a sequence to me, which I tapped on the calculator pad. It was too bad we couldn’t do more operations inside the United States. Being a member of a US counterterrorism team really gave us an edge cracking security at official US facilities, but the Taskforce charter restricted us from operating on US soil. Since this target wasn’t a citizen, we’d been given special permission.
I held the card up to the pad and hit “send.” Voilà, the door magically opened. On the other side was Blood, wearing a janitor’s uniform for the Dallas airport and standing behind a large Rubbermaid trash receptacle.
We only had a fifteen-second gap before the open door started to bleat an alarm, so I didn’t waste time with small talk. I held it open and waved him through. Once he was inside, I said, “Any issues?”
“None. Van is downstairs and it’s only a thirty-second ride to the corporate side and our aircraft.”
I cracked the lid on the Rubbermaid and found the Ghost staring back at me, scrunched down at the bottom and looking lost. I winked and closed it back up just as Jennifer returned, now wearing her own janitor’s outfit, which didn’t look near as sexy.
Probably why you don’t see movies with janitors getting it on.
She’d applied some disguise makeup, which gave her a broken, downtrodden appearance. It was more than likely the first time she’d ever made herself look intentionally unattractive, but it allowed her to blend in better as an airport janitor.
I said, “You’ve got about twenty minutes and a long way to go, so you need to get moving.”
Blood said, “Maybe we should take the train.”
“No. These Rubbermaid bins stay in the terminal with the people assigned to that terminal. Nobody takes them to another terminal on the train, and I can’t have some TSA agent start asking any questions.”
I, of course, as an intrepid pilot, wouldn’t be walking from terminal A to terminal D.
I confirmed, “What’s the gate?”
Jennifer said, “Delta six. Far end.”
“Roger that. See you there.”
54
Ten minutes later I exited the Skylink at gate D12 and began to walk toward the end, to gate D6, where Hussein’s flight to Mexico City was berthed. I called Knuckles. “Status?”
“He’s next up. Coming out now.”
“Koko, Blood, you copy that?”
“This is Blood. Roger. We’ve entered the far side of terminal D, but we’ve got to walk the entire way to the gate.”
The D terminal joined the access walkway to the other terminals at gate D40, which was hell and gone from D6. “Roger all. Pick it up a bit.”
I stopped at D7 and took a seat, just another weary pilot hanging around. I got eyes on the bathroom at D6 to orient myself and hoped the timing worked out to use it. I really didn’t want to flex to another bathroom, but that wasn’t my call. It was Knuckles’s, and the digestive system of Hussein.
Knuckles came on. “He’s out of customs and walking back upstairs to the terminal. Ten minutes.”
I said, “Roger,” and felt the anticipation start to build.
Blood came on. “We’re ahead of him. We’ll be good. Want us to let him pass?”
“No. Keep coming, but you can slow it down.”
A minute later, and Knuckles was cursing. “ABS in place, I say again, ABS in place, but I got some of it on me. I knew that was going to happen.”
Oh boy, that’s not going to be fun.
“What did you do?”
“I went to swipe his arm, and right as I did, he turned my way to look at a monitor. He knocked the ChapStick into my hand. I’m moving out, away from him.”
“What gate?”
“Gate eighteen, I say again, gate eighteen.”
“Pike, this is Koko, we’re at sixteen. I can see Knuckles. Target’s got to be close. We’ll pick him up. We have the eye.”
“Roger all. Track him and execute as planned. Trigger when the ABS takes effect.”
Knuckles said, “I’ll bet I can do that for you.”
“You’d better hope not.”
I waited a bit, looking calm but fired up with a fight-or-flight response. I saw Knuckles first. He passed by me, no acknowledgment at all, and took a seat at D6, milling around with the people waiting to go to Mexico. A minute later, I saw the garbage bin come into view. I scanned the crowd and found Hussein. I tracked him with my eyes, watching him take a seat. He didn’t appear to be in any distress.
Hope that damn ABS stuff functions as advertised.
No more than thirty seconds later, Knuckles shot up and scurried to the bathroom. Well, I guess it works. Right behind him was Hussein.
Jennifer and Blood let them both get inside, then pulled the bin in front of the door, placing out little cones that said “Closed for Cleaning.” Blood went inside, then returned to the door, waiting.
A third party inside going to the bathroom.
Eventually, a Hispanic man and small boy exited, returning to gate D6. Blood disappeared again, then called. “Execute, execute. Come on, make it quick. This place smells like something died in here.”
I stood up and walked to the bathroom, dragging the two carry-ons. Blood pushed in the Rubbermaid and Jennifer stayed outside, holding a cleaning bucket and a mop, pulling security.
The stench hit me immediately, a green fog of unbearable odor. Then I heard the bowels being forcibly evacuated. It was so bad I didn’t think I could continue. Blood was on the other side of one of the stalls, his face scrunched up and pointing toward a door. I opened my carry-on and pulled out a Taser, locking zip ties, a screwdriver, and a syringe.
I handed Blood the screwdriver, and he placed it into the slot to unlock the bathroom stall. He nodded and I kicked it in, seeing Hussein doubled over on the toilet, farting and shitting his guts out.
I didn’t even need the Taser. He was so destroyed by the ABS he couldn’t have resisted if he wanted to, which made me wonder if Knuckles could still get on the plane.
He looked up in agony, and I said, “Wipe what you have.”
He doubled over and began another round. Damn it.
We couldn’t sit here for an hour while he shit his brains out. We needed to go. Note to self: Take into account the time for ABS to subside.
Blood said, “What are we going to do? We pull him now and he’s going to spray all over the place like a damn baby.”
I said, “Go through his bags. Get the boarding passes and get the Ghost ready to go. Knuckles, you alive?”
&
nbsp; I heard a weak, “Yeah.”
“You going to make the flight?”
“I’ll make it. Just give me a minute.”
“Koko, how are we looking?”
“Okay from this end. Nobody’s approached.”
Blood had the Ghost out of the bin, and he looked green from the smell. I couldn’t imagine what he must have been thinking about this clown fest. Probably wondering how on earth we had managed to capture him.
I heard Knuckles flush, and he came out, sweating profusely and walking unsteadily. I said, “You okay?”
“No. Hell no.”
I couldn’t help it. A grin slipped out. He scowled and said, “You think this is fucking funny?”
I scrunched my lips together in a terse line, then said, “Well, yeah. Might be worthy of a new call sign. Perhaps ‘Ass Wipe.’”
He looked like he wanted to hit me and I held up my hands, saying, “Jennifer’s got the antidote. Get it from her bag before you go.”
He nodded and moved to the Ghost. He checked his ankles, seeing a green light on both GPS trackers. He said, “I’m your babysitter. You can call me Mr. Black. Don’t do anything stupid because I’m really not in the mood.”
The Ghost nodded. Blood said, “Found the boarding passes.”
He handed them to the Ghost, who checked to make sure the name was the same on his newly forged passport.
I said, “You guys go. We’ll give you a data dump when you land. Go to a restaurant inside the airport, before you leave the secure area, and call. We’ll feed you the next steps.”
The flight time was about two and a half hours, which was cutting it really close, but we had an entire Taskforce team in a safe house nearby who would complete the initial interrogation and exploitation of everything Hussein had with him. We would know before they landed what Hussein was supposed to do.
I turned back to Hussein, who was now sweating like Knuckles but ambulatory, realizing we weren’t there to help him. He made a half-assed attempt at escaping, trying to pull up his pants at the same time. I punched him in the head, knocking him to the floor of the stall, his pants falling back down to his ankles. I hit him with the syringe in his thigh and he went limp. We flex-tied his arms and legs, then dumped him into the Rubbermaid container, the stench wafting out as if it contained a dead animal.
