Crapinpants and Kohut didn’t appreciate the fact that I hadn’t invited them and ten thousand troops to my private sneak and peak at the castle. Frankie resented my holding back the information as well. But I wasn’t in the mood to apologize. Nor was an apology warranted; by the time they would have been able to mount an operation the tangos would have been long gone anyway. It took until late that afternoon to get a helicopter up to search the coastline and nearby waters. Call it Murphy or incompetence, but five minutes into its search the helo developed engine trouble and had to return to its base. A full-scale search wasn’t launched until the next day, and the boat was never found. Nor were the bodies of the men who’d been in it.
I concentrated on the road less traveled. I called an analyst friend of mine at Langley (where the Christians In Action hang their hats) to see if the radar unit could be tracked down using the model and modification numbers I’d recorded. He passed me off to a clerk at the NSA—aka No Such Agency—who found a dusty file drawer (metaphorically speaking, since the databases the secret spy agency keeps are all on computer) that indicated the unit was probably part of a shipment to Egypt replacing units destroyed by Israel in the Six-Day War back in the sixties. I took that information to a friend of mine at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Several hours of hold-Muzak later, I determined that the radar had been on a ZSU-23 (Zeus) gun vehicle that was still allegedly active in Egypt, even though it was older than the hills and several pyramids.
“Officially, it belongs to a unit near the Sudan border,” said my friend. “My guess is that it was actually surplused ten years ago and they lost the paperwork. I’m looking at a satellite photo of the unit and there are zero Zeus guns.”
The lousy records meant I’d hit a dead end, though even if the unit had been officially recorded as surplus it would have been hard to trace further. Its most likely disposition would have been “destroyed,” which in Egyptian is another way of saying “sold on the black market.”
On the other hand, the fact that the radar had been in Egypt at one time made the next little tidbit I picked up that much more interesting. After a check with the official sources showed that there were no vessels anywhere near the shore that night, I found a few unofficial sources to talk to. A conversation with a friend in the radar (not sonar) department of a never-to-be-named U.S. Navy ship revealed that there was a submarine in that area of the Mediterranean that night, albeit a decent distance away. And guess whose navy owned the sub?
Egypt’s would be correct.
Granted, the submarine, a Chinese-built Romeo-class diesel boat, was reported to be about thirty miles away at the time. The sub—which by the way had been updated with the assistance of American companies and equipped with goodies like U.S. Harpoon missiles—could make about fifteen knots on the surface, and went a good bit slower underwater. It wasn’t inconceivable that it had been near the castle when I saw the light.
I dug into my little black book and made some more calls, easing my time on hold with a tall glass of Dr. Bombay’s boredom cure. The submarine had sailed from Alexandria—HQ for the Egyptian navy—about a week before and was due back in another week. It had traveled so far from home to prove to NATO that the Egyptians are real swell guys and can be counted on in a crisis, and therefore deserve a few billion more in military aid to beat the piss out of their citizens and build air-conditioned villas for relatives of the ruling class.
In other words, they were taking part in a NATO training exercise, just concluded. The submarine was now on its way home to Alexandria, a fact that I was able to confirm. My inquiries eventually brought me to the American naval attaché assigned to Egypt, a Captain Green. Naval attachés are basically spies in uniform. I know because I was one in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, and among my duties was dispensing advice on how to run the war against Pol Pot and taking a few pleasure cruises to see if my advice made any sense. These cruises were aboard varied combat riverine craft that I needed to keep the Mekong River open to resupply Phnom Penh with beans, bullets, oil and luxury items. They were so much fun I broke four ribs and punctured my lung. But the experience was worthwhile in the end, for it introduced me to the wonderful medicinal powers of Dr. Bombay, whose elixir has proved to be a cure-all for me.
Green knew about the submarine and the NATO exercise, but wasn’t particularly helpful when I asked what he knew about the commander. He kept asking why I wanted to know. I told him that I thought the submarine had been much closer to Sicily than was believed, and he quite rightly asked what the big deal was. I told him that I believed the submarine had been trying to rendezvous with someone onshore but didn’t get into the nuclear weapons angle. I didn’t know Green and I wasn’t sure exactly how far I could trust him. And besides, there wasn’t much sense accusing the Egyptian navy of being involved in a plot to steal nuclear weapons from the U.S. unless I had real proof.
Pus Face told me this himself, shouting so loudly over the phone I probably could have heard him without it, even though he’d flown up to Berlin to continue doing whatever it was he pretended to be doing. Pus Face’s attitude toward the situation bounced back and forth like a pinball because he was constantly calculating the benefit-loss equation. Unlike Kohut, who now simply wanted everything to go away so he could retire in peace, Pus Face had ambitions for another two stars and then a career beyond the uniform. This had him twisting in several different directions at once. Catching a deadly terrorist leader would be a good thing—but causing Egypt to break off diplomatic relations with the U.S. would be a bad thing. Foiling a plot to steal a nuke from Sigonella was a good thing—but losing a chance to grab the thieves was bad. The more angles to the situation, the tighter the knots Pus Face tied himself in. Apparently, Pus Face was trying to take the lion’s share of the credit for stopping the theft, and telling anyone that some of the thieves may have gotten away wasn’t going to make him look good.
(Why would Pus Face take credit for that? Why would anyone believe that he deserved credit? Oh, dear reader, you have a lot to learn about the world.)
Late in the day I got an update from Doc about our company party and the planned operation to visit Ali Goatfuck in Pakistan. One of our sources in Afghanistan had reported that Goatfuck was on his way to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, to meet with other resistance figures.
“May be a good place to grab him,” I told Doc.
“That’s what Danny thought. He’s on his way. He should be on the ground by now.”
I felt a twinge of regret. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Danny and the three shooters he brought with him to do the job. I wanted to be there. But I couldn’t tell him to wait for me to hop on a plane and meet him. Parachuting into the middle of an ongoing operation has any number of drawbacks, beginning with the not-so-subtle message it sends that you don’t trust your men to do the job.
Doc sensed my disappointment and changed the subject. He was about to head from Germany to Afghanistan, to inspect our operation there personally.
“This will cheer you up. Apparently Goatfuck has spread the word that anyone who kills one of our guys will get ten thousand dollars American. Unless they manage to kill Marcinko. You’re worth a hundred grand. They have pictures of you on a little leaflet.”
“Is it a good likeness?”
“Not bad. Must’ve gotten it out of a magazine somewhere.”
Ah, it’s nice to be wanted. I’ve learned to take these things in stride as I’ve matured. The news even made me a bit nostalgic, reminding me of the Vietcong wanted poster that appeared in the tourist Mecca known as the Republic of Vietnam. The photo there came from an article on the SEALs and moi which appeared in a male magazine…available in our PXs in country (duh!). And you thought the commies only read those things for the articles.
“You better watch your ass around me,” Doc added. “I could use a hundred thousand. Donna has her eyes on a nice little speedboat.”
Donna is his wife, which is why she’s known as “St. Donna” to a
nyone who knows Doc.
“You’re just jealous because your head’s worth less than mine,” I told him.
“Ragheads never were much good judging character,” he retorted.
Our project to track the shoes had not gotten very far. The manufacturer contracted with several companies that acted as distributors. There were only a dozen, but simply getting them to answer calls or email was proving to be a problem. There was a considerable language barrier, even when using email.
Nine of the twelve were located in Eastern Europe and Asia, where we would have little way of pressuring them to cooperate.
And then there was the tenth, M.E. Boots & Gear, which was located in Cairo.
Definitely worth a visit, if I were planning on being in Egypt anytime soon.
Which, I thought that evening, might not be a bad idea. I wanted to know who the hell Saladin was, and while Danny might pick up something in Pakistan, tracing the shoes was our next best bet. At the same time, the possibility that the Egyptian submarine had been involved in the terrorists’ operation bothered the hell out of me. Egypt may not be our most dependable ally in the world, but it’s important strategically—and it has received a hell of a lot of my tax dollars over the years. Involvement by the military in an operation against America? Almost unthinkable.
The key word in that sentence is “almost.”
By the time I went down to find Trace and go out to dinner, I’d decided I’d go over to Egypt to poke around. Besides visiting the shoe distributor, I’d knock on a few office doors belonging to friends of mine to see if they knew anything about Saladin. And then I’d hop up to Alexandria and see what I could determine about the submarine.
“I was just thinking of something,” said Trace as we waited for our drinks to arrive. “Weren’t the scumbags in Rome using the same guns?”
“A couple. The others had Beretta 12Ss.” Our drinks arrived.
“So were these guys. Two Minimis were found in the car, and they were firing some in the castle.” She reached into her jeans and pulled out a pair of shells. One was from a 5.58 x 45mm NATO round—Minimi ammunition—and the other was or at least appeared to be 9 x 19mm Parabellum of the type used in the submachine gun.
“Those size bullets can fit in all sorts of weapons,” I reminded her.
“We can have some ballistics tests done,” she said. “It’s like fingerprinting a gun.”
“I doubt the same guns were used.”
“But we would know they were the same type.”
“It doesn’t prove anything, Trace.”
“Boy, you’re negative.” She took a sip of her wine, eyes flashing. “It would be interesting to know, wouldn’t it?”
“Interesting, yes. But we need bullets, not shells.”
“Ought to be easy to get. I would definitely check with the Rome police to see if there’s a connection.”
“The investigation is actually in the Vatican’s jurisdiction.” I pulled out my sat phone. Dinner in Italy is a leisurely affair; it could be hours before anything actually arrived. Figuring that I might just as well put the time to good use, I dialed Backass to make sure ballistics tests were done on the gun.
Backass was traveling, and the two assistants I talked to knew jack and said less about what was going on with the investigation. I left my number and forgot about him—until ten minutes later, when the phone rang and his truly came on the line.
“Trouble seems to follow you around the world,” said Backass, who’d heard of our Sicilian adventures. He claimed to have been wondering about a connection with the Vatican thugs on his own and would be in the area to consult with the local carabinieri in the next few days. “Maybe we can meet for dinner,” he said. “I know a very good seafood restaurant. The calamari is a dream.”
Backass may not have been much of a security chief, but he would have made a hell of a restaurant critic. I told him I’d need a rain check, then asked what else he knew about the terrorists who’d struck at the Vatican. The answer was not much. Two of the dead tangos had been in Spain before the attack—they’d gotten there from Morocco. The others had been more careful about erasing their paths. The attempts to trace the weapons and other items they had hadn’t turned up much either. The Minimis were part of a batch of fifty-six guns shipped to Indonesia a year before. They were purchased under a military aid contract (three guesses whose tax dollars ultimately paid for the weapons) and then subsequently “misplaced.” Not all of the weapons, incidentally, had ended up in terrorists’ hands; two had been used in a bank robbery in Singapore a month earlier. The authorities there had already done a great deal of legwork trying to track them back to the source, but had come up empty.
The incident at the church had helped Backass get some of the money he needed and allowed him to finally overhaul the security structure at the basilica, bringing in his own people and taking direct control of security there. But he was also feeling serious pressure from above to discover who was responsible for the attack. While the pope had issued a “prayer of forgiveness” for the slimers, the prelates around him wanted justice. I suspected that they also wanted Backass’s head for failing to protect the world’s most important Catholic Church.
He mentioned Saladin—the Web page implying that he was behind the attack was now common knowledge—but then dismissed him as a crank.
He wasn’t too confident about that, though, because he asked if I agreed.
“He’s definitely a crank,” I told him. “The question is, what else is he?”
“Yes.” Backass thought it over. “Others have taken credit as well. But there don’t seem to be any real leads.”
I mentioned the neofascists who were hoping for a new Mussolini, more to see his reaction than from any evidence they were involved.
“You believe P2 exists, then,” said Backass.
“I keep an open mind on all conspiracy theories.”
“You should on them. Definitely.”
“Would they shoot up St. Peter’s?”
He gave me a mealy-mouthed answer to the effect that it couldn’t be ruled out. Personally, I wasn’t sure that any such animal existed. But if it did, all of the theories I had heard had it being virulently anti-Communist and pro–Catholic Church, to the point of including at least one bishop. Even a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist would have trouble believing that the people behind P2 would shoot up St. Peter’s.
“The investigation is not in my hands,” admitted Backass. “I must concentrate on what I can control. I’m taking steps to strengthen security in the future.”
Good idea. Make sure you get that barn door good and secure now that the horses are out.
Doc woke me up the next morning with a phone call from Kabul, the garden spot of exotic Afghanistan. He’d been in the city all of two hours, but he’d already done a month’s worth of work.
“We got one,” he said. “Dead, though.”
“Real shame.”
“Yeah. Everybody here is broken up about it.”
The dead man had been trying to plant a Claymore mine rigged with a remote triggering device in a road near one of the installations outside the city where Red Cell trainers were doing their thing. Maybe he thought the fact that it was past 1 a.m. made him invisible, or he thought that too many government contracts have made my people start acting like actual government employees, punching the clock at four. In any event, one of the skeleton crew we’d left behind had seen the asshole through a night optical device, got the idjit on tape—don’t want to be accused of hurting scumbags without a legal reason to do so—and then led two of the people we were training out to try and capture him. He wanted him alive for the information value, a sound decision.
The team started to sweep around, looking to see if the man with the mine had friends watching his back. He did—and being good friends, they hit the plunger as they took off, killing their comrade. Our guy got a few slugs into the back of their vehicle, but they were too far away to be caught.
Claymore mines are an old but solid weapon that date to a discovery during World War II by a hun and a Hungarian, namely Schardin and Misznay, who figured out how to do a lot of damage with metal when it goes boom. When hordes of Chinese came pouring over the North Korean border in that little brush-up over there, the U.S. Army took their ideas and used them to narrow the odds. The weapon sprays metal balls in an arc, as opposed to a circle, allowing the people on the right side of it not to get any boo-boos. The “classic” Claymore or M18A1 was used in Vietnam; packed with seven hundred steel ball bearings it could make mincemeat of a patrol trying to sneak up on an American position or infiltrating down a trail. It’s simple to set up, as long as you know what the words “Front Toward Enemy” mean. (Or, the special West Virginia version: “If the contour of the mine fits the curve of your forehead—it’s facing the ‘bad guys.’ If the contour faces away from you—you’re going to eat it!”)
Our dead tango had the bad fortune of being on the wrong side of the weapon when it went off. Claymore wounds are not very pretty, and comparing his body to Swiss cheese would not be inappropriate. However, he was so close to the weapon that, while the ball bearings literally took his head off, they left his face almost unscathed. This made it easier for our guy to identify him as one of the employees he’d been assigned to train.
Nice, huh? But not shocking. Nor was it all that surprising that the man’s background had not been checked by the people who hired him, who would have found with very little effort that it was entirely fictional, right down to the address he gave as his home. But by the time Doc landed in Kabul, our man had tracked down the place in Kabul where Ali Goatfuck had lived with two roommates—undoubtedly the ones who had pulled the trigger on him.
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