High Assault

It was because of this understanding that he went to see the Iranian after he left his liaison meeting with his British counterparts at their Basra international airport headquarters. Diplomatic imperatives had dictated that the British share what they knew with Major Anjali, just as religious obligation dictated that Anjali share what he knew with the Iranian.

Anjali directed his driver away from the airport and toward the northwest Basra neighborhood of Hayaniya. The sergeant, a nephew of Anjali, guided the white Toyota 4-Runner through a maze of backstreets once they reached the neighborhood. The buildings rose around them to heights of five or six stories, and vendors populated store-front properties along the narrow streets, selling everything from chickens to cheap plastic children’s toys and a thousand different knockoff versions of name-brand items.

They stopped the police patrol vehicle in front of a baked-brick wall with an iron gate that opened up on an inner courtyard. Anjali nodded to the man guarding the entrance. The sentry, who wore an Uzi submachine gun on a shoulder strap, instantly recognized him and let him in. The sounds of the street life behind Anjali faded as the man closed the heavy iron gate behind him.

“Wait here,” the sentry informed the police officer, and Anjali did as he was told.

The man he was here to see kept company with hardened killers. Some were Iraqi insurgents, but more than a few were Quds Force veterans; the Iranian special forces. The network run by the Colonel Ayub was the most efficient Anjali had ever seen in southern Iraq and it ran on impeccable discipline structured around instantaneous and brutal violence.

The sentry reappeared at the inner courtyard door and waved him forward into the building proper. Anjali resisted the urge to unbutton the flap of his sidearm holster. He was walking into a nest of vipers and the only thing that could protect him was the same thing that had always protected him. The good graces of his associates.

He entered a long, low-ceilinged room. Fans ran the length of the chamber, spinning slowly and casting moving slashes of shadows from the harsh white sunlight shooting in from the slats of the window shutters. Anjali paused at the door, blinking his eyes into focus.

There was a blue haze of cigarette smoke heavy in the air. The smell of unwashed male bodies freely sweating in the heat assaulted his nose. The room was filled with armed men in the traditional white robes called thobe. Low couches were positioned against the walls, but no one was sitting in them.

A knot of expressionless men stood clustered toward the center of the room. Somewhat hesitantly Anjali started forward. The group of men opened to let him walk through. Cigarettes dangled from their lips, Kalashnikovs dangled from their shoulders and large ceremonial knives dangled from their belts. Flat, inscrutable eyes of black or deepest brown regarded him with either contempt or indifference.

Anjali walked into their midst, and they closed in behind him like the bars of a cell door sliding shut even as more militiamen in front of him stepped back to reveal his Iranian contact.

Colonel Ayub looked up as Anjali stepped forward.

At Ayub’s feet an Iraqi in civilian clothes was on his knees. The man’s hands were bound tightly behind his back and a bandanna covered his eyes. His face was a checkerboard of bruises beneath the blindfold and he turned toward the sound of Anjali as he stepped forward.

Ayub’s arm was extended outward and down toward the captive. In his hand was the largest pistol Anjali had ever seen. It was massive and silver with a long barrel and gigantic muzzle. Ayub’s finger rested lightly on the trigger of the big automatic.

“Ah, look,” Ayub purred. “The police are here. Just in time.”

The crowd of men in the room chuckled lowly as if they shared one voice. It had the disconcerting effect of making Anjali feel even more hemmed in. The police major, who was himself no stranger to either torture or murder, kept his own facial expression as neutral as that of the killers around him.

“I have news,” he said.

Ayub nodded. “In a moment. You have arrived just in time to witness the judgment of Allah for crimes of collaboration with the westerners against the free Iraqi people.”

At this announcement the man on his knees began to sob and babble, crying out his innocence. Ayub shushed him gently, the way a mother might quiet a frightened toddler. When this didn’t work he coldly pressed the muzzle of the .44 Magnum against the man’s forehead just above the blindfold and snapped, “Silence!”

The man fell silent.

Ayub’s finger took up the slack on the trigger of the massive handgun. Anjali could almost hear the mechanical squeak as the spring was compressed. He silently steeled himself for the sound of the pistol going off. The crowd of men pushed in around them remained very silent.

“So,” Ayub said, suddenly changing tracks, “what is your news?”

Anjali felt his eyes glued to the spot where the .44-caliber weapon’s muzzle was up against the captive’s forehead. The man was sweating profusely, and a fat drop of perspiration slid down cheeks marred by black-heads and a sparse, wiry attempt at a man’s beard. The captive was skinny as a rail and his Adam’s apple stood out like a knot on his thin neck. He swallowed hard and Anjali saw it bounce like a bobber on a fishing line.

“The British bribed someone,” Anjali said. “They know where you are. They told the Americans, who have sent for some commandos.”

“Task Force 162?” Ayub asked, referring to the combined unity of Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs and CIA paramilitary operatives that had been formed to track down Saddam Hussein and other high-value targets.

Anjali shook his head. “No. Another group. The briefer didn’t specify who they were. Only that they had come from the U.S. for you.”

“For me?” Ayub asked. “By name?”

Anjali looked down at the man on his knees. Tears had joined the sweat on his face now. The police major nodded. “Yes. By name.”

“Do you see?” Ayub whispered down at the man. “Do you see now? You camel fucker!” he suddenly screamed. “You talk and this does not work! No one must talk!”

“Please!” the man sobbed.

Time slowed for Anjali as a sudden flood of adrenaline coursed through his body. He saw the big silver automatic jump in Ayub’s hand just as the report deafened him at that close range. A sheet of flame erupted from the pistol muzzle, scorching the prisoner’s skin and setting his oily black hair on fire.

A single smoking shell casing was kicked loose to tumble through the air, and the man’s face disappeared in black smoke and red blood as the back of his skull suddenly burst backward, spraying the white, loose flowing robes of the terrorists standing closest to him. The body undulated on its knees then slumped as if the corpse had been deboned.

The crack of the pistol echoed through the room, and out of his peripheral vision Anjali saw a section of the floor tile suddenly burst apart and shatter as the heavy-caliber slug burrowed into it. The man keeled over and dropped to the floor, all slack limbs and gushing blood and spilled brains as Anjali’s ears began to ring.

He pulled his eyes from the horrible vision of the murdered captive and felt a surge of surprise so intense it bordered on fear when he saw Ayub already looking at him. The man’s mouth was moving as he spoke and the Iraqi police major could see the thin lips forming words over blunt yellow teeth, but the ringing of the shot at such close quarters had deafened him. Then his ears popped and he could suddenly hear the Iranian cell leader again.

“—let the American commandos come. We’ll have a surprise waiting for them.”

Then Ayub looked down at the cored-out head and blown-apart face of his victim and began to laugh. Immediately the knot of Shiite terrorists around Anjali started laughing, too.

Screw it, he thought and chuckled right along.

Caracas, Venezuela

ARAS KASIM could hardly believe his good fortune. For five years he had labored in Tehran watching dissidents and walking point on guard teams for important Imams, opening limo doors and shoving people clear on the streets. The whole experience had been an exercise in extreme boredom and hardly the reason he had left a Revolutionary Guard marine battalion combat swimmer assignment for a position with VEVAK.

Then he had worked a security detail under a colonel named Ayub and his life had changed almost overnight. Ayub had his pick of intelligence ministry agents, and from within the protective umbrella of Brigadier General Najafi’s patronage the colonel got what he wanted when he wanted it. Kasim had earned his stripes in this new operation first by smuggling explosive devices across the southwestern Iranian border into Iraq and then to Baghdad.

Once he had proved himself resourceful and battle tested, Ayub had used him as a insurgent-cell communications facilitator and, finally, as a punitive agent against anyone suspected of disloyalty within the organization. Kasim had executed seven Iraqi insurgents and tortured three times as many under Ayub’s direction.

With his competence established Ayub had begun to tap him for more and more serious activities. First travel to the border areas of Pakistan to coordinate with al Qaeda and Taliban operatives there. Then to carry money to cells in Lebanon and the Philippines. There was the torture and murder of a CIA case officer in Ethiopia followed by the meetings with Russian arms dealers in Chechnya.

And finally there was the Juan Escondito network.

The Venezuelan narco-trafficante had been a secular blessing to the Iranian intelligence operative. Meetings included fine whiskey, the kindest cuts of cocaine and more young prostitutes than Kasim could ever have prayed existed.

In bed with two of them now, Kasim could only look up toward heaven past the spinning ceiling fan and offer thanks for what the teenage girls were doing to him now. He leaned back against the cool spread of his sheets with their three-hundred-count weave of Egyptian cotton. His body was slick with sweat and the smell of sex was a heavy musk in the room.

On the table was a half-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and a mirror piled high with fine-quality cocaine. His head was buzzing and his skin tingled with euphoric sensations. He could feel the press of Marta’s breasts against his shin bone on one side and hot damp cling of Juanita’s sex on the arch of his other foot as they took turns pleasing him. They would growl and chatter in Spanish to each other and he just knew, though he didn’t speak a word, that they were just saying the filthiest of things.

In the morning Program Manticore would begin the operation to bring jihad into the American heartland. Lethal justice would spread through the United States like drugs from the Southern Hemisphere, and the warmongering westerners would relearn what terror really was.

He reached down and put a possessive hand on the top of Marta’s bobbing head. Once this was over he would see about parlaying his service into a permanent assignment in South America. The Israelis had a presence here, as well, and the only thing that could please Kasim more than operating against the Americans would be a chance to kill Jewish agents of the Satan state.

He felt Juanita’s fingers begin to massage his testicles then slide lower; she knew what he liked best of all. All in all Kasim could not think of a more perfect outcome for his life.

ABLE TEAM’S PLAN was simple.

They would come in on a commercial flight and make it through customs clean. Following that they would pick up a vehicle and make their way to a safehouse used by the CIA and Army special operations. There, Able Team would establish a base before starting surveillance of the target.

Things began to go wrong immediately.

Carl Lyons pulled his carry-on bag down from the overhead compartment just after the unfasten seat belts sign popped up on the TWA commercial flight. They were flying first-class as part of their administrative cover and the team leader had watched, bemused, as Rosario “Politician” Blancanales worked his gregarious charm on a Hispanic flight attendant.

Team funny man Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz had cracked one stale joke after another as the silver-haired smooth talker flirted shamelessly with the dark-eyed Venezuelan beauty half his age.

There wasn’t a person on the plane among the crew or passengers who didn’t think the three men were anything but what they claimed; middle-aged divorced tourists on a South American vacation. Blancanales’s audacity was role-playing brilliance.

If there was anything bothering Lyons as he exited the plane after the flight attendant had slipped her cell number to Blancanales, it was that circumstances dictated they begin the operation unarmed. Carl Lyons didn’t like taking a shower unarmed, let alone entering a potentially volatile nation without a weapon.

“Okay,” Schwarz murmured as they emerged into the big, air-conditioned terminal, “we can add a certain TWA flight attendant named Bonita to our roster of Stony Man local assets.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lyons replied, “I’m sure she’ll be a big help. We can just send Dave and his boys down here sometime and they can all crash at her hacienda. It’ll be like the Farm ‘South.’”

“You see how it is, Gadgets?” Blancanales said, voice weary. “You try to take one for the team and management doesn’t appreciate it. I try to show loyalty through service and all I get is cynical pessimism.”

“Can you gentlemen come this way.”

The voice interrupted their banter with a tone of un-disputed authority. The members of Able Team turned their heads as one to take in the speaker. He was a tall Latino with jet-black hair, mustache and eyes in the crisp uniform of a Venezuelan customs officer. There was a 9 mm automatic pistol in a polished holster on his hip, but the flap was closed and secured.

However a few paces behind him the assault rifles of the military security guards were visible as the soldiers stood with hands on pistol grips and fingers resting near triggers.

Lyons scowled. Schwarz gave the officer his best grin in reply to the summons. Then he turned his head slightly and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Any chance you want to take one for the team now, Pol?”

Blancanales fixed an insincere grin of his own on his face. “Nope. This time we move right to cynical pessimism,” he replied.

VENEZUELAN CUSTOMS separated the three men quickly, hustling them into separate rooms. There they sat isolated for two hours. Carl Lyons found himself sitting in front of a plain metal table on an uncomfortable folding chair while the customs officer pretended to read official-looking papers printed in Spanish with a government seal at the top of the pages.

Fluent in Spanish, Lyons easily read them and saw they were merely quarterly flight-maintenance reports being used as props. Warily, Lyons decided to relax a bit; this seemed a more random occurrence than he had first feared. The Farm had considerable resources, but the operation was miniscule compared to other government agencies, and Stony Man operatives were often forced to rely on logistical support from larger bureaucratic entities. Whenever that happened security became a prime concern, but for now this seemed a more typical customs roust than anything more threatening.

The officer, whose name tag read Hernandez, picked up Lyons’s passport and opened it. “Mr. Johnson?” His English was accented but clipped and neat.

Lyons nodded. “That’s me.”

Hernandez regarded him over the top of the little blue folder. “What brings you to Venezuela?”

“Sunny weather, beautiful women, the beaches. All the usual. Is there a problem with my passport?”

Hernandez carefully put down the blue folder. He ignored the question and carefully tapped the passport with one long, blunt-tipped finger. “There are many countries in South America with beautiful beaches and women.”

“But only one Margarita Island—it’s world famous,” Lyons replied in flawless Spanish, referencing Venezuela’s most popular tourist designation.

Hernandez’s eyes flicked upward sharply at the linguistic display. His eyes looked past Lyons and toward the large reflective glass. Lyons knew from his own experience as a police officer that was where the customs officer’s superiors were watching the interrogation. Hernandez let his gaze settle back on Lyons. He offered a wan smile.

“I’m sure this is just an administrative error,” the officer said. “My people will have it sorted out in no time.” Hernandez rose to his feet. “Please be patient.”

“Okay,” Lyons nodded agreeably. “But man, am I getting thirsty.”

Hernandez left Lyons and walked into the interrogation room containing Hermann Schwarz. As he moved down the hallway he saw the tall, cadaverous figure in a dark suit standing behind his commanding officer. The man met Hernandez’s gaze with cold, dead eyes, and the Venezuelan customs officer felt a chill at the base of his spine. What was he doing here? Hernandez wondered. He stifled the thought quickly—it didn’t pay to ask too many questions about Hugo Chavez’s internal security organization, even to yourself.

As he walked into the room he saw a burly sergeant had Schwarz pinned up against the wall, one beefy forearm across the American’s throat. The officer was scowling in fury as Schwarz, going by the name Miller, smirked.

Schwarz looked over at Hernandez as the man entered the room and grinned. “Hey, Pedro,” he called. “You know why this guy’s wife never farted as a little girl? ’Cause she didn’t have an asshole till she got married!”

The officer rotated and dipped the shoulder of his free hand. His fist came up from the hip and buried itself in Schwarz’s stomach. The Stony Man operative absorbed the blow passively and let himself crumple at the man’s feet. He looked up from the floor, gasping for breath.

After a pause Schwarz again addressed Hernandez. “You know what this pendejo’s most confusing day is? Yep—Father’s Day.”

His cackling was cut off as the sergeant kicked him in the ribs. Hernandez snapped an order and reluctantly the man backed off. “Leave us!” he repeated, and the officer left the room still scowling.

Hernandez moved forward and dropped Schwarz’s passport on the table. He looked down as the American fought his way back up to his feet. Hernandez watched dispassionately as the man climbed into his chair.

“This is a helluva country you got here, pal,” Schwarz said. “Tell a few jokes and get the shit kicked out of you. I should get a lawyer and sue your ass.”

“You’ll find Venezuelan courts unsympathetic to ugly Americans, Mr. Miller.”

“Yeah, well, your momma’s so fat when she walks her butt claps.”

“Why have you come to Venezuela, Mr. Miller?”

“I heard a guy could get a drink. I think it was a lie. Seriously, I’m here with some buddies to check out the sites, maybe see the senoritas on Margarita Island—but instead I get this?”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t insult my officers?”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t lock an innocent tourista up for two hours in a room with a trained monkey like that asshole.”

Hernandez sighed heavily, a weary man with an odious task. “I’m sure this is just an administrative error. We’ll have it sorted out shortly.”

“You’re damn well right you will,” Schwarz snapped, playing his role to the hilt.

“In the meantime, perhaps you could refrain from antagonizing my officers? Yes?”

“Hey, Pedro—is that your stomach or did you just swallow a beach ball?”

Officer Hernandez turned and walked out of the room, studiously ignoring the thin man standing outside in the hall next to the doorway.

“Hey, who do ya have to screw to get a drink around here?” Schwarz demanded as the door swung closed.

From behind the two-way mirror the thin man watched him with inscrutable curiosity.

AS CUSTOMS OFFICER Hernandez entered the final interrogation room, Blancanales, whose own passport was made out under the name of Rosario, rose from his seat, manner eager and face twisted into a mask of hopeful supplication.

“Listen,” he began babbling, “I’m really sorry—”

“Shut up and sit down!” Hernandez interrupted. “Yes, I know, I know. You are all here innocently. You are all planning to go to Margarita Island, you are all thirsty and need a drink because you are just typical ugly Americans here to screw our women and drink tequila!”

Face frozen in a look of sheepish innocence, Blancanales settled back down in his chair. He blinked his eyes several times. “Well, er, I guess…yeah.”

Face red, Hernandez spun on a heel and tossed the blue passport on the table in disgust. He left the room and slammed the door behind him so hard it rattled in its frame.

Blancanales called after him, “Actually, I am kind of thirsty, amigo.”

Out in the hallway Hernandez marched up to his superior, who stood waiting next to the thin man in civilian clothes. “Sir, their paperwork checks out. Everything checks out perfectly. They’ve obviously rehearsed their story—or it’s the truth. Should I toss them in a holding cell?”

“That won’t be necessary,” the thin man said. “Let them go. Apologize for the mistake, wish them well.”

Hernandez slid his gaze over to his commanding officer, who glanced at the man next to him, then nodded. “Yes, we have enough. Let them go.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Basra, Iraq

The rotors of the Black Hawk helicopter were still turning as the side door to the cargo bay opened to reveal the men Major Anjali had been sent to greet. He surveyed them with a critical eye, noting the athletic physiques, flat affects and nonregulation weaponry hanging off their ballistic armor and black fatigues.

Anjali had seen enough special operations soldiers in his life to recognize the type. The elite always had more in common with each other than even with others of their own country or military. Anjali was a wise enough and realistic enough man to know he himself did not belong among their ranks. It was no matter of ego for him; his interests lay in other directions.

At the moment he remained focused on gaining these mysterious commandos’ trust, leading them into hostile terrain beyond the reach of help and then betraying them—making himself a little wealthier in the process.

The first man to reach Anjali was tall and broad with fox-faced features and brown eyes and hair. Having spent the past five years operating alongside British forces in Basra, the Shiite police officer recognized an Englishman even before he spoke and revealed his accent.

“You Anjali?” David McCarter asked.

Anjali nodded, noting the man did not identify either himself or his unit. Behind the Briton his team paused: a tall black man with cold eyes, a stocky Hispanic with a fireplug build and scarred forearms standing next to a truly massive individual with shoulders like barn doors and an M-60E cut-down machine gun. Behind the tight little group another individual, as tall and muscular as the rest, turned and surveyed the windows and rooftops of the buildings overlooking the secured helipad. There was a sniper-scoped Mk 11 with a paratrooper skeletal folding stock in his hands, the eyepieces on the telescopic sight popped up to reveal an oval peep sight glowing a dim green.

“We were briefed on the flight in,” McCarter continued. “You get us past the Iraqi security checkpoints and militia crossings until we’re within striking distance, then fall back with the reserve force should we need backup.”

“Just so.” Anjali nodded. “I’m surprised you agreed to having only Iraqi forces as overwatch. Did you work with us in Basra before?” The question was casually voiced, but still constituted a breach of etiquette in such situations.

“Has there been a change in the situation since our initial briefing?” the black man asked, cutting in.