bam I’d heard a little too much of lately—the sound of two or three Minimis running through their ammunition boxes.
Grape and Doc were right behind us, returning fire with their MP5Ns. I tried to stop Big Foot, but once he gets up momentum not even a bulldozer can change his direction, and it wasn’t until he tried wedging me into the car that I got his attention.
“We have to get those guys,” I said, pulling myself upright.
“No shit, Sir,” said Big Foot. “Get in the fuckin’ car.”
“In the car! In the car!” Doc yelled, adding a few of his choicest terms of endearment. He was about a yard behind us, and had just slapped a new set of bullets into his MP5N. “Drive, Big Foot, drive! Get the hell out of here!”
Had I stopped to think about it, I would have known that Doc and Big Foot were right—we should have gotten the hell out of Dodge. But I wasn’t in any mood to stop and think. As Big Foot dove behind the wheel, I ran back up the road, just about colliding with Grape as he leveled his 12-gauge Pancor Jackhammer in the direction of the gunmen.
Someday I’ll quote Grape on the beauty of a bullpup automatic shotgun. For now, I’ll just say he covered the road with a spray of lead, four rounds spitting from the angled nozzle of the gun in the space of a second. The shotgun was his preferred weapon; his backup, an MP5, hung off his shoulder.
“This way!” I yelled at him. “Give me your other gun. Come on—we attack, we don’t retreat.”
Grape blinked at me for a second, and then something lit in his brain. And I swear to God, the next words out of his mouth were, “Rangers lead the way!”
Somewhere up in heaven, William O. Darby * smiled. Me, I nearly busted a gut trying to keep up with Grape as he burst down the road toward the ragheads, who made the mistake of trying to fire at us. Grape ran through the rest of the rounds in his Jackhammer; by the time he dumped the round cylinder at the back of the gun to reload, the three men had more metal in them than a new car. I kept running, scooping up one of the guns that had fallen. Meanwhile, tires were squealing and people were yelling. All of a sudden, everything went quiet. Then Doc’s voice boomed out behind me.
“Dick, have you lost your fucking mind?”
You can’t lose what you don’t have. I led an orderly retreat back to the car, which Big Foot had already pointed back in the other direction.
“On some kind of economy kick?” asked Doc as we sped away. “I thought you liked to buy new.”
“Minimis are very popular with tangos these days. Some of the terrorists at the Vatican and the people in Sicily had them.”
“Saladin?”
“Maybe.”
“AK-47s not good enough for him, huh?” Doc’s a bit of a traditionalist.
Grape explained how they had seen me being hauled into the van and managed to follow, though the truck was moving so fast that they had trouble keeping up through the streets. Two other vehicles were with them and it looked like another two were approaching.
“I thought we were going to lose you,” he said. “Then, it was like a miracle—the van just flew off the road.”
I enlightened them as to the cause of the miracle.
“Question is,” said Doc, “were the cops in on it or not?”
“How did it look?”
“I don’t know,” said Grape. “People were flooding in from the buildings nearby. I couldn’t tell.”
“There’s only one way to find out, that’s to ask.”
“When?”
“Now’s as good a time as any.”
Doc grunted. “I’m getting too old for this. Too damn old.”
I laughed. He’s been singing that tune for years.
Jamal lived in one of the nicer suburbs of Cairo. Though small for the States, the house was a good-sized place for Egypt, complete with a wall to keep the riffraff out.
The better-behaved riffraff, obviously, because we had no trouble with it or with the dogs, who unfortunately for them had not been trained to never take food from strangers. We left them snoozing on several pounds of sedated horsemeat and located Jamal in his bed where he had collapsed barely an hour before, exhausted from the long night. I clamped my hand over his mouth—Big Foot was holding his arms—and put my finger up, pointing to his wife. It would have been a shame to wake her.
Out in his den, Jamal wondered why I had come.
“I thought we oughta talk.”
“It couldn’t wait for morning?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where did you go after the operation?” said Jamal. “I was looking for you.”
I picked him up by the collar and put him against the wall. Generally I don’t like to treat friends this way, but it was late and I was starting to feel a little tired. And bruised.
“You really don’t know what happened to me?”
Jamal shook his head. I studied his face. Some people are very convincing liars—I’ve worked for a pack of them—but the Egyptian security service captain didn’t fall into that category. Still, it was hard to believe him at that moment, because it sure looked like I had been set up.
“Tell me what you found in the bomb factory.”
The house had explosives—about a hundred pounds of Semtex. A set of fuses engineered from radio-controlled toys were lined up on a table in one of the two rooms when they entered. Jamal believed the house was the final assembly point, but they had found no completely assembled bombs in the raid. It was possible that the devices were only put together at the last minute, or that the factory was new and they had hit its first production line.
“The cousin of this man is against the government,” Jamal said. “I believe they are part of a cell seeking to overthrow the regime.”
Was there a self-respecting terrorist cell in Cairo that wasn’t? For that matter, was there a self-respecting Egyptian who wouldn’t have silently cheered if the corrupt, autocratic, and paranoid leaders were disposed of?
“How did you know to go there?” I asked.
“A tip, as I told you during the day.”
“Where did it come from?”
“The phone, Dick. I swear on my son’s head—”
“Leave your kids out of this. This is between you and me.”
Jamal’s eyes opened a little wider. I think he finally understood exactly how much trouble he was in.
“We tried, we tried to trace it of course, but came away with nothing.”
“Have you talked to the bomb maker?” I asked.
“He died when we went in. He was wearing a bomb vest and as soon as the men saw that they shot him. If he had detonated it they would have been killed. It was self-defense.”
Or maybe a setup from the word go.
“Did the caller who tipped you off mention me at all?”
“No.”
“Why did you think of using me?”
“The caller mentioned that tourists were often on the block and suggested that as a diversion.”
That sounded bogus to me—but maybe just bogus enough to be real. Still, if it had been a setup, whoever had arranged it had taken a hell of a chance that I’d be involved.
Or else they knew me very well, and knew I couldn’t resist going to a dance.
Jamal looked like he was telling the truth that night, and eventually I left without expressing my displeasure in a physical way. He promised to do what he could to find my would-be abductors, and to look carefully at his own organization, to see if he had a traitor in his ranks. I don’t suppose I could have asked for more, but I had a few too many bruises to completely trust him—or anyone else in Cairo.
As a precaution on an overseas mission, we often reserve several rooms in different hotels as backups; we made use of one that night. When we were sure we were secure, I called Rogue Manor, and found that Shunt had been waiting several hours to talk to me. He’d given the disks from the rug warehouse a preliminary scan and found literally hundreds of possible contacts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran to check into
. There was a complication, however—if the emails on the system were to be believed, the owner of the rug business had been in jail in India for the past three months. Apparently, he had forgotten to bribe the right official there when trying to take rugs out of the country. His fifteen-year-old son had taken over the business temporarily.
“He’s been writing a lot of letters to try and get him out and gathering money for a trip there,” said Shunt. “Doesn’t look like a good candidate to be Saladin.”
“What did you find from Bakr’s computer?”
“The disks got here a few hours ago, so I still have to work on them. But from what I see so far, he’s broke. Real broke,” Shunt told me. “And he can’t balance a checkbook to save his life. He has a program like Quicken to do his finances. Bad.”
“Maybe it’s a ruse or a cover in case someone like me breaks in.”
“It’s pretty convincing. Disk drive is littered with old files, half-written over. A lot of red ink. He likes women with big chests, too.”
That’s not a crime—thank God!—but it doesn’t help make you top raghead either, and anyone who was setting up his computer to throw off an intruder wouldn’t leave the sort of soft porn files Shunt described to be found.
“He might still be involved,” suggested Doc. “Helping in some way we don’t understand yet.”
It couldn’t be ruled out, but it looked more and more like a dead end. A backgrounder on the submarine captain provided by one of Doc’s gabbing buddies also made him seem less likely; the captain had disowned several close relatives for belonging to a radical mosque two years before.
We weren’t officially at a dead end. I wanted to check the submarine out and make sure no one was missing. And there was always a chance the key loggers or bugs I’d planted might give us something useful. But for the moment the winds propelling us forward had stalled.
So when I got the message that afternoon that the BetaGo people wanted to push up the timing on my consulting gig, I told them I’d be there as soon as I could. It made more sense for me to hop over there and get that out of the way than hang around in Alexandria, or continue poking my nose under tents in Cairo. Doc and his shadows could do that as easily as I could. Trace had Sicily under control, and Danny was effectively mopping up in Pakistan. Better for me to earn some more beer money than look over their shoulder. The Rogue Warrior’s Strategy for Success dictates that you hire the best people you can and then get the hell out of their way. It was time for me to follow that advice.
Besides, after all the bumps and bruises I’d taken over the past few days, I figured my body could use a bit of a change of pace. The assignment seemed routine. With luck, I might get a chance to take a day off, see some exotic sights, and maybe even have a new experience or two.
As things turned out, I should have remembered another piece of advice from The Rogue Warrior’s Strategy for Success: Be careful what you wish for.
*For more details, see Green Team.
*Darby was one of the fathers of the modern Army Rangers, tasked with training and leading the first unit into combat during World War II.
9
There’s nothing like a Bombay Sapphire at 35,000 feet to clear your head. It helps to have room to stretch your legs, which you do in first class. First class also offers a strategic position to launch a counterattack on any terrorist scumbags who decide dying for Allah is such a good deal that they want to take a few hundred or thousand people with them.
Whatever else you want to say about 9/11—and you can say a lot—the Americans who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania when they rushed the cockpit were true heroes, role models for us all. They stood up and said “We’re not going to take it.” These were regular, everyday people—not specially trained SpecWarfare operators. Facing certain death, they stood up for their country and their fellow Americans. If you want inspiration, look no further than that hallowed field where they came to earth.
Getting from Cairo to Tokyo involved three different flights. I caught up on some of my phone messages during the downtime between connections. Among the people I spoke to was Pus Face, whose requests for updates monopolized my voice mail’s available memory.
My relationship with Uncle Sugar and his various vassals is a complicated one. Red Cell International is a business, and like every other business, we can’t afford to work for free. But on the other hand, I can’t bill for every single second either. There’s also the fact in our line of work you can’t always be concerned about the dollar signs. Stockholders may not like to hear this, but there’s more to the bottom line than profits.
All of which is my way of justifying why I was torturing myself by talking to Pus Face when I was under no contractual obligation to do so. I also hoped to pull a favor or two out of him, if not now, then in the near future.
Being a general, he was under the mistaken impression that not only did his shit not stink, but that I admired the heaps of it he left in the latrine. Disabusing him of this misperception would have taken more time than the battery in my satellite phone would allow. So I loosened up a few vocal cords I hadn’t called on since my old Navy days and made my voice sound almost worshipful.
I didn’t pucker my lips. Some things are just biologically impossible.
“General, Marcinko here,” I said when he picked up the phone.
“Dick—good man.”
Oh yeah. Those of you in the military who have had the pleasure of dealing with superior officers realize what that means: duck!
“Did you get Saladin?” He sounded like a kid at Christmas who’d been expecting a shiny new bike.
“No. Did you?”
He didn’t know how to answer that. I took advantage of the pause.
“I have some people in the Middle East who might find it useful to have the cooperation of some Egyptian authorities,” I told him. “We might need an official cover for something we’re going to obtain off the record. They also might need some transport and that sort of thing. If we could use your name when—”
I got no further than that.
“Under whose authority are you using my name?” Pus Face’s voice had risen two octaves.
“I haven’t. I wanted to get a contingency plan ready.”
“Under whose authority? Whose? For what purpose? Why? Where?”
He undoubtedly sputtered on for a few minutes, but I didn’t waste my time or sat phone battery listening. Ultimately, I got a DIA friend to volunteer to help Doc with any arrangements he’d need.
My concerns about Saladin faded exponentially as I approached Tokyo. Some of my fondest memories with Red Cell involve busting chops at Narita, Tokyo’s airport and one of the biggest and busiest in the world. Talk about memory lane: I froze my balls off in a culvert near the runway we landed on, and sprinkled a knapsack’s worth of IEDs—simulated, of course—around the hangar area. And that doesn’t even count the real action later on.
I cleared customs and was on my way to grab a ridiculously overpriced taxi when a familiar voice stopped me mid-stride.
“Marcinko-san! Ohayo gozaimasu, you round-eyed, dogbreath jackass!”
Ah. Music to my ears. I whirled and with a grin returned the compliments.
“Ohayo gozaimasu, and fuck you too, you little monkeybrain cockbreath squirt.”
Toshiro Okinaga gave a characteristic chortle. I realized I was lucky to have cleared customs before he caught up with me. Otherwise Tosho would have suggested that the officials give me a hard time. I would have heard the chortle for hours as I answered their questions.
“Come, my car is this way. I have two Grocks for you,” he added, changing the “l” in Glock to an “r” as if he were an actor in a forties B movie. Toshu’s English is as good as mine—he probably knows just as many curses—but he loves to ham up his accent. “But it will cost you, Marcinko-san.”
Payment was several Kirins at the hotel bar. Even though the beers cost the equivalent of twenty-four dollars American—o
uch!—I got the better end of the deal by far. The taxi to the airport would have cost twice that much. When I had last seen him he was a lieutenant inspector; he had now been promoted to captain and now commanded his own Kunika section.
I’d already given Tosho a bit of background when I called to say that I’d be on my way. After we caught up a bit, he gave me a quick rundown on what he knew of BetaGo. Though owned by Europeans, the company did a good deal of business in Asia and had recently formed a subsidiary to handle it. Part of the subsidiary was to be owned by Chinese stockholders—specifically, members of the Communist Party leadership and two high-ranking army generals. This wasn’t necessarily unusual—the Commies in China have proven remarkably good at capitalism, and having their backing greases the skids inside the country. An old-line Japanese banking firm that used BetaGo’s services had also been approached as a possible partner but had declined, probably not because of the Chinese involvement but because they preferred to have their choice of courier services.
“You think someone’s stealing from them?” Tosho asked as we punctuated our Kirins with a round of sake.
“They claim they just want someone to look over their operations. It’s possible they’re just paranoid about being robbed. But I doubt they’d be willing to spring for my services if they didn’t suspect something along those lines.”
“Money?”
“They move records around mostly. Currency and securities aren’t a big part of their business, and there are so many ways of keeping track of them that I doubt that’s where the problem is. But data’s another story.”
Shunt had suggested the industrial espionage angle, pointing out that copying disk backups of data could be easily done. Depending on what the data was, a rival company might pay dearly for a look. But there was no sense in speculating; I’d find out soon enough.
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