Brothers In Arms

by Marcus Wynne

  Youssef bin Hassan and Ahmad bin Faisal, brothers in arms in the struggle against the Great Satan, rambled along the pathway that paralleled the canal closest to the train station. They enjoyed a companionable silence for a time, and then the older Arab said, “How have you filled your days?”

  Youssef shrugged and was silent for a time. Then he said, “I keep my days full with prayer and rehearsals. I walk and I have coffee. Sometimes I read. It is enough.”

  “You’re young,” bin Faisal said. “You should enjoy yourself more.”

  Youssef shrugged again, and bin Faisal thought how very young he looked in his baggy denim pants and T-shirt with the logo of an American music group, the Dave Mathews Band, on it, his courier bag hanging off one thin shoulder. The older Arab was struck by how harmless the most dangerous of men could appear.

  It was time to launch him on his way.

  “So have you contacted the Twins?” bin Faisal said.

  “Yes,” Youssef said. “I checked my e-mail before I came here. They want a meeting right away.”

  “What is their hurry?”

  “I believe they wish to be done with us so they can move onto other projects.”

  “What is your assessment of their position?”

  Youssef stroked his jaw with one hand, and scratched at the day’s worth of beard stubble there. “I think they are right. They had their chance and it proved to be too difficult. We didn’t have enough information, and it was hastily done. I think the target has been hidden elsewhere. It’s possible that our people could find it eventually, but we don’t know that. It will take time in any instance. I would say let them go and if in the future we developed better information we could go to them, or to someone else. Surely there are others just as skilled?”

  Bin Faisal nodded in appreciation. The young man had thought it through.

  “So our meeting, then, is it necessary?” bin Faisal said.

  “They want to meet you. I believe they want to make sure that their position is clearly stated, and not merely passed on.”

  “Where shall we meet them?”

  Youssef noticed the compliment hidden in the remark; the senior man was deferring to the younger for operational details.

  “I suggest a walking contact along one of the canals. It’s difficult to mount surveillance there. I haven’t seen any, and I believe we’re secure. But it pays to be careful.”

  “How will you contact them?”

  “They’ll be checking their e-mail every half hour. I’ll set up a meet for later today.”

  “Yes, that will be good,” said bin Faisal. He thought of the woman he’d enjoyed last night, and wondered if he’d have enough time for another liaison tonight.

  Isabelle dressed carefully for her meeting with the Arabs. Bare legs and clogs, a short black skirt with a white blouse worn out, and a black vest open over the blouse. That served to conceal the Sig-Sauer P-230 lightweight aluminum .380 pistol with a AWC suppressor mounted on the barrel. The suppressor effectively doubled the length of the weapon, making its balance awkward, but it holstered well enough in a thin sheath in the small of her back, the suppressor following the line of her spine into the swell of her buttocks. In the lining of her panties she clipped a Spyderco Co-Pilot, a folding knife with a two-inch razor-sharp blade.

  She studied herself in the bathroom mirror, licked a finger, and brushed a stray eyelash out of the way. Her hair was pulled back in a businesslike ponytail and her face, as usual, was bare of makeup. She considered for a moment, then took the time to put mascara on her long lashes, and added a light coat of color to her full lips.

  Now she was ready.

  She went back out into the front room. The long shadows of late afternoon fell across the canal, cool where the sun was blocked by the tall row houses on both sides of the canal. Marie and Ilse sat at a table and toyed with a teapot and the remains of an afternoon tea.

  “Where are you going, Mama?” Ilse said.

  “I have to go out for a while, darling,” Isabelle said. “Would you like me to bring you something?”

  “Sweets?” Ilse said hopefully.

  Marie and Isabelle both laughed.

  “I don’t know why we bother to ask,” Marie said. “You always say the same thing.”

  “But it’s what I like,” Ilse protested.

  “Of course,” Isabelle said. “I’ll bring you some sweets.”

  Marie stood and came to Isabelle and hugged her, let her hands roam over her back and tap on the concealed weapon.

  “Do you really need that?” Marie said.

  “I may . . .”

  “Please, Isabelle. Not that. Let the Americans have them. If we start with violence here, where will it end? We have no choice.”

  Isabelle shrugged her shoulders stubbornly.

  “I don’t like being forced,” she said. “And I don’t know what will happen. But I won’t be the one to start any violence.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful, Isabelle. Remember all the things we have to live for.”

  “I know, my sweet,” Isabelle said. She kissed Marie gently on the lips. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Isabelle is moving,” said the equipment operator. Dale, Charley, and Hans were sitting at a kitchen table littered with the remains of a crusty loaf of bread and cold cuts.

  The radio crackled.

  “Zero, Four, I have the eye on Isabelle.”

  “Four, Zero, you have the eye.”

  The streetwalkers stirred from their static posts and began to form up the box around Isabelle, who walked away from the houseboat, and let herself be carried along in the after-work rush of foot traffic.

  “Marie and the kid are still in the boat?” Charley asked.

  “Yes,” the cameraman said. “We’ve got a few extra people in case they go out.”

  “I wonder where she’s going,” Dale mused. “She knows she’s under surveillance.”

  “She’s not doing any overt countersurveillance,” said the equipment operator. “If anything, she seems to be going slow enough to give us time.”

  “What is she up to?” Dale said.

  “She could just be going out shopping,” Charley said.

  “They normally do everything together,” Hans said. “All their daily activities, shopping, all that . . . they do it all together. The only time we’ve seen them go out alone, they meet someone.”

  “She’s staying in the box,” Charley said. “Let’s get down there and work a little. I’m going crazy in here.”

  “We have camera coverage from two of the streetwalkers, using the wireless transmitters and a repeater,” Hans said. “You could watch from here.”

  “She knows she’s being watched, but she doesn’t give any indication of it,” Dale said. “Let’s go. Let’s work a little bit.”

  Isabelle strolled and thought of her child. She’d borne Ilse, though Marie was as close to the girl as Isabelle was herself. They wanted so much for her, like all parents do for their children. The money they made went first into a special fund for Ilse, an insurance policy against a day like today, when something might come back at them, then into another fund to pay for her schooling. Only then did they provide for themselves, but it was enough. They did well on their jobs, and their reputation, carefully built over the years, sustained them in the lean times.

  She stopped for a moment outside a tobacco shop, then went inside and bought a pack of American Marlboros. It had been years since she’d had a cigarette, but she had a sudden craving, and it gave her time to watch the surveillance box form up around her. The team was good, there was no doubt of that. She was reasonably sure that she had made at least four operators, but there would be others. She hoped they were as good as they looked, in case the Arab was running countersurveillance. She asked for a lighter from the man at the counter, then stood outside and lit a cigarette and drew it gratefully in. She blew out a cloud of smoke and stood there, one arm hugging herself, and smoked her cigarette. Half
way through she dropped the cigarette and ground it out beneath her clogs and tucked the cigarettes into the pocket of her vest. Then she started out again.

  It was a beautiful time of the day, when night and day were evenly balanced in the sky, and the air took on a certain crispness that was particular to the light; she loved the twilight. She walked along, her clogs loud on the pavement, the barrel of the suppressed pistol pressing against her back and buttocks with each step.

  “Hans, move your gunfighters forward,” Dale said.

  The gunfighters were the armed streetwalkers whose job it was to fight if the unit was compromised. They were thin and hard and competent and heavily armed, and they moved up in the formation. Ringing Isabelle was the loose cordon of surveillance walkers; inside the cordon were two gunfighters and Dale and Charley, who made four armed men inside the surveillance box.

  “What are you seeing?” Hans said, his voice tinny in the tiny earpiece Dale wore.

  “Nothing yet,” Dale said. “It’s just the way she’s acting. She’s leading us somewhere.”

  Youssef bin Hassan and Ahmad bin Faisal sat at an outside table at a café beside a bridge that crossed over the canal. Their seating arrangements gave them a good view of the canalside walkway below, as well as the street in both directions.

  Youssef saw Isabelle first. He recognized the particular insouciance of her walk, a strange combination of a stroll and a glide, as she came down the street toward the café.

  “That’s her,” he said to bin Faisal. “The one in the vest and skirt coming this way.”

  “Finish your coffee,” bin Faisal said. He tipped up his own cup, enjoying the last little bit of fine espresso.

  Isabelle saw them now, sitting at a table with a good vantage point. Youssef was dressed much as she’d seen him before, in T-shirt and jeans with his courier satchel; he wore a sleeveless sweater-vest over his T-shirt against the cool of evening. She stopped and took out another cigarette and took her time lighting it before she came on. She walked past their table without stopping, slowing only to make eye contact with Youssef, who showed no indication that he knew her. Then she walked on down the stairway to the paved walkway that followed the canal.

  Youssef and bin Faisal stood up, their coffees already paid for, and bin Faisal dropped a few bills on the tabletop. They took their time getting up, and then followed Isabelle down the concrete stairway to the canal walkway below.

  “Hold up,” Dale said to Charley. “Did you see those two men get up from the café?”

  “Yeah,” Charley said.

  “Let’s give them a little room. They’re going down the stairwell to the walkway and we don’t want a crowd there. We’ll take the eye.”

  Isabelle walked for a while, then looked over her shoulder and saw Youssef and the man who would be his controller behind her. She came to the bench that was the designated contact point and sat down, still smoking her cigarette. Youssef and his companion came abreast of her, paused, and then Youssef said, “You are Marta’s friend, are you not?”

  “Yes, Joe,” she said. “Have you forgotten already?”

  “Put the cameras on those two,” Dale said. “I want full coverage of those two men. Can you get a mike on them?”

  “We can try,” Hans said. “Perhaps it would be better for you two to withdraw.”

  “No,” Dale said. “We’ll walk by and then come up. I want to see those faces for myself.”

  “Who is your friend, Joe?” Isabelle said, blowing a perfect ring of smoke.

  “This is my friend Arnold,” Youssef said.

  “And you are?” bin Faisal said.

  “As I think you may already know, my name is Isabelle.”

  “I expected to meet your partner as well.”

  “She is otherwise occupied this evening.”

  “I see.”

  “Shall we walk?” Youssef said.

  “Yes,” Isabelle said. She stood up and ground the cigarette beneath her clog. She touched a finger to her lip and removed a grain of tobacco.

  The three of them, Isabelle in the middle, walked along the canal.

  “This is unusual,” Dale said softly.

  All around Isabelle and the two Arabs, micro–video cameras recorded their every move. Back in the command center, video shots of the two men’s faces were run through a computer link with the mainframes in the US that maintained the huge database of people of interest to the intelligence community.

  “Let them get ahead a bit,” Charley said.

  “I want a close look at their faces,” Dale said.

  “We’ve got good video coverage,” Charley said. “Wait so that we can stay with them.”

  “I’ve explained our position to Joe,” Isabelle said. “We can no longer go forward. The lack of reliable information is why. It nearly got us killed in Minneapolis. You gave us no indication that there was a protection detail of that size and competence on the target. That is why there was a failure. You don’t have any better intelligence now on the whereabouts of the target, and you have little prospect of developing any. We’ve made more than a good-faith effort and we have exposed ourselves more than we are comfortable with. The contract is not doable. You can retain the portion remaining of the fee; we’ll accept that loss as a cost of doing business. But we will not go forward with the operation.”

  “I understand your position,” bin Faisal said. “And we’re aware of your circumstances. If in the near future we were to develop better intelligence and targeting information, would you consider completing the contract?”

  Isabelle was quiet for a moment, then said, “Of course we are open to discussing the matter, but our inclination would be to say no. We’ve been exposed and the quality of the protection on the target precludes us going against them again.”

  “I see,” bin Faisal said.

  “We have a hit,” Hans’s voice was tinny in the earpiece Dale wore. “The older Arab is Ahmad bin Faisal . . . he’s a top lieutenant in the Al-Bashir organization. He’s a planner and organizer, not normally in the field.”

  “Does he have any specialty?” Dale whispered, the microphone concealed beneath his shirt picking up his every word.

  “He’s one of the top planners for their operations . . . if you’re looking for a connection, it doesn’t get any better than this.” Hans’s voice was keen with the edge of the hunter in it. “The attack on the Dhofar barracks in Saudi Arabia, the shooting of an adviser in Yemen . . . those were all attributed to him.”

  “Download his info and we’ll look at it later,” Dale said. “Let’s see what he’s doing here. Hans, can you put a tail onto him from here?”

  “Yes,” Hans said. “What about the younger one?”

  “Is there anything on him?”

  “Nothing, not in the files, not in the databases. We have him in there now as an associate of bin Faisal’s and as a suspected terrorist.”

  “Put some people on him, too,” Dale said. “Let’s take a look at them while we have them.”

  “Roger that,” Hans said.

  “The quality of the intelligence was unfortunate,” bin Faisal said. “But perhaps in the future we can improve on it.”

  “Improve or not, as I said, we would be inclined to say no. The target’s protection knows our profiles and it would be too difficult to launch against them again.” Isabelle let a shade of impatience into her voice. “We’ve done all that we can do, and that will just have to be enough.”

  “Well then, we have nothing else to discuss,” bin Faisal said courteously. He held his hand out to Isabelle, who paused a moment before taking it. “Thank you for your efforts. May we feel free to contact you in the future if we have business other than this contract?”

  “Of course,” Isabelle said. “We would be happy to work with you again on other projects.”

  She stood up and glanced around her. “Then we’re through. Good-bye, and I hope you enjoy your stay in Amsterdam.” She shook Youssef’s hand. “Good-bye, Joe.�
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  “Good-bye, Isabelle,” Youssef said.

  “The men are leaving,” Dale said.

  “I have an eye on each,” Hans said. “You two stay back, let my people work.”

  “I want to see their faces,” Dale said. “We’re going to do a walk-by and then drop out.”

  “Wait until Isabelle is clear.”

  “We’ll follow above, on the street, and see where they come up,” Dale said.

  “It would be better for you to stay clear,” Hans insisted. “We don’t want them to make anyone. We have sufficient video for you to look at their faces all you want.”

  “He’s right,” Charley said. “Let’s hang back, let the streetwalkers do their thing.”

  Impatience and frustration crossed Dale’s face.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll stay back.”

  Isabelle watched the backs of the two Arabs as they walked away, following the canal walkway. She sensed and felt, rather than saw, how the surveillance box had split. They were onto the two men now, and it was up to them with their high level of expertise to prevent the two men from spotting them. She was sure that the two would practice basic tradecraft and run a countersurveillance route back to wherever they were staying, but this team might be good enough to avoid detection. They surely seemed so.

  She took out another cigarette, lit it, and drew hungrily at it. It tasted good and took some of the edge off the feeling in her belly. What was it she felt? Justified, she thought after a moment. After all, it was likely that she’d just signed a death warrant for those two men. She turned and went back the way she’d come, took the stairway up to street level, and began her walk home. There was a sweet shop along the way where she could pick something up for Ilse.