Suicide Mission (2 page)

 

Tariq Maleef fingered the knife thrust behind his belt as he watched the truck bounce along the rutted road toward him and his companions. This rugged, mountainous area was mostly barren of vegetation, and the truck's gray body, as well as the brown canvas cover over the back, made it blend in with its surroundings.

Tariq's dark, keen eyes followed it easily, though. He had spent much of his childhood here, before being sent to Saudi Arabia and then to England for schooling, and the blood of the wild hill men flowed in his veins.

The big knife was the only weapon he carried, although his companions were armed with an assortment of AK-47s, AR-15s, MAC-10s, Glocks, and Sig Sauers. Tariq fully appreciated modern weaponry, but he was enough of a primitive to relish the feel of a blade in his hand, too.

He was in his thirties, a compact, muscular man with a shaved head and a neatly trimmed goatee. He wore jeans, a khaki shirt, and a leather jacket that felt good when the chilly winds blew down out of the mountains. His friends were dressed much the same, with none of the traditional robes and headgear in sight. They were the new breed, the ones who could tolerate the garb of the hated West and blend in with their enemies.

Their jeeps were parked over the ridge behind them. As far as anyone could tell by looking, they might as well have been dropped from the sky into this empty wasteland.

The truck was close enough now that Tariq could hear the rumbling growl of its engine. His pulse quickened. With every foot of ground the truck covered, his dream came closer.

Finally, the truck ground to a stop about twenty yards away from the group of a dozen men. The sun's reflection on the windshield made it difficult to see, but Tariq knew there were two men in the cab, the driver and one other.

Dolgunov.

Tariq's father had been a
mujahideen
. More than three decades earlier, he had fought a war against men like Dolgunov. Tariq had been only a boy at the time, but he recalled vividly how proud he had been that his father and men like him had brought the proud Soviet army to its knees and sent it crawling home in defeat.

Now circumstances forced him to deal with the Russians and that necessity rankled, but Tariq reminded himself that Dolgunov was
Mafiya
, not military, although the man and the organization he worked for had connections within the Russian army. Otherwise he would not have been able to get his hands on the item he was delivering to Tariq and his friends today.

After a long moment, the passenger door of the truck's cab opened. A tall, blocky, blond-haired figure stepped out. Tariq recognized Dolgunov. The two of them had met several times in the past, feeling each other out to see if they were trustworthy.

Of course, no one really trusted anyone else. One's brothers in the cause, perhaps, but that was all.

Dolgunov gestured curtly, and the canvas cover on the back of the truck was pulled aside to reveal a .50 caliber machine gun mounted so that it could fire over the top of the cab. The gun could be swiveled on its mount so that its bullets would rake the entire group of men facing it.

Tariq sensed some of his companions stiffening, but he spoke a low-voiced word of assurance. Given the stakes of this transaction, he wouldn't have expected Dolgunov to show up without taking some precautions.

“Tariq, my friend,” the Russian called. “Come, and bring two of your men with you.”

Tariq motioned to a pair of his men and started walking toward the truck. At the same time, several more Russians carrying automatic rifles climbed out of the back of the vehicle and arrayed themselves behind Dolgunov, who strolled forward to meet Tariq.

The two leaders shook hands when they met. Dolgunov was several inches taller, but Tariq didn't feel intimidated by the man. No infidel could ever make him feel intimidated.

“Are we ready to conclude our transaction?” Dolgunov asked.

“As soon as I see the merchandise.”

“Of course. Come with me.”

The armed Russians stepped back as Dolgunov and Tariq went to the rear of the truck. Just inside the back of the vehicle sat a heavy-looking metal case. Dolgunov unsnapped the two catches and opened the lid.

Tariq leaned forward to look at the metal cylinder that was fatter on both ends and in the middle. It sat in a cushioned recess in the case that was obviously made for it. A small control panel was built into the cylinder.

Tariq crooked a finger at one of his men and said to Dolgunov, “My friend Assad will authenticate it.”

“Of course. With this much money involved, you have to be sure of what you're getting, eh?”

Tariq didn't care about the money. All that mattered was that the device be capable of doing what he wanted it to do.

As Tariq and Dolgunov stood by, Assad examined the cylinder and the case closely. Tariq began to grow impatient, but he controlled it. This was a vital step.

After what seemed like an eternity, Assad stepped back and nodded.

Tariq slipped a compact satellite phone from his pocket and punched a number. When a voice answered, he said simply, “Yes.” Then he broke the connection, put the phone away, and told Dolgunov, “Give it a minute, then check with your people.”

Dolgunov didn't have to make the call. Someone called him less than a minute later. He took out a similar sat phone and spoke into it in Russian. A pleased smile broke out on his face. He pocketed his phone and told Tariq, “The funds are in the Swiss account, as arranged. Our business is done.”

“As soon as I take possession of the device.”

Dolgunov made an expansive gesture.

Assad and the other man lifted the case from the truck and carried it toward the ridge. They disappeared over it.

Still smiling, Dolgunov said, “As the Americans say, a pleasure doing business with you.”

Tariq replied, “As the Americans say, go to hell, you Russian bastard.”

Dolgunov's smile vanished. He opened his mouth to say something, but before any words could emerge Tariq's knife flashed in his hand as a blindingly fast stroke opened Dolgunov's throat almost to the spine. Blood spurted several feet from the gaping wound and splashed onto the sand. Dolgunov collapsed.

Tariq threw himself to the ground as the rocket fired from a nearby hilltop streaked through the air and slammed into the truck, engulfing it in a ball of fire. Tariq felt the heat and the concussion and knew he should have been farther away, but he had wanted to be close enough to Dolgunov to see the horror in the man's eyes as death claimed him.

The force of the blast knocked the other Russians to the ground. Tariq's men opened fire on them before they could gather their wits about them. The streams of lead shredded them, chopping them into bloody heaps of flesh that barely looked human. Tariq didn't raise his head until it was all over.

Then he stood up, brushed himself off, and turned away from the carnage. The men Dolgunov worked for would be upset about this, but they had gotten their money, after all. That ought to be enough to mollify them. In the end, they would consider the deaths of Dolgunov and the other men as just part of their overhead, another cost of doing business.

A few minutes later, with the suitcase nuke secure in one of the jeeps, Tariq and his fellow warriors drove away, leaving a column of black smoke from the burning truck climbing into the sky behind them.

 

Alfredo Sanchez pushed the steel-framed glasses he wore back up his nose. They had a habit of sliding down, and he had thought more than once about getting contacts.

He liked the glasses, though. He liked being able to take them off and have the world go soft and blurry around him for a moment. It was harder to see the ugly things that way. Life was reduced to a collage of bright colors, at least temporarily.

But then he had to put the glasses back on and see the truth again.

At the moment, the truth was that Pablo Estancia was a stupid fool.

“You brought them here?” Alfredo asked. His voice was cool and flat, revealing none of the inner turmoil he felt. He never revealed his true feelings unless it was absolutely necessary.

Pablo's heavy shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.

“I thought you would like to question them yourself, amigo,” he said. “With so many important things coming up . . .”

Alfredo ignored that. He knew that Pablo was just fishing for information. He considered himself an important man in the cartel and resented it whenever anything was kept from him.

Pablo
was
important. Through a combination of brute force and animal cunning, he kept the pipelines of drugs and illegals moving smoothly in this area. But his abilities were limited to that. He had nothing to do with strategy and planning. Certainly not when it involved an operation as large and important as the one that Alfredo had put together.

“Since they're here, I'll talk to them,” Alfredo said. “Bring them in.”

Pablo nodded and left the room, which was large and well-furnished, like all the other rooms in this villa. An enormous flat-screen TV dominated one side of the room. The opposite wall was glass, revealing a courtyard with a pool surrounded by a tiled patio.

Normally the lights around the courtyard would be on so that Pablo could frolic in that pool with the drug-addicted
putas
he preferred. Those women might be young and still beautiful, not yet showing the ravages of the poison they put in their bodies, but they were still whores, Alfredo thought, and they were prime examples of just why Pablo couldn't be trusted with anything too important.

Sometimes in the past when Alfredo had visited the villa, one or more of the women had tried to entice him. After all, he was slim, elegantly dressed, and with his dark hair he was handsome even when wearing the steel-framed glasses. Because he hadn't succumbed to their charms, they had talked about him behind his back and proclaimed him to be a homosexual.

That was nonsense, of course. Alfredo enjoyed the company of women, but only the
right
women. There was a professor of antiquities in Mexico City . . . a diplomatic liaison . . . a lawyer . . . women who were intelligent enough to carry on a conversation and refined enough for an important man to be seen with.

So let the whores make their scurrilous comments about him. They were unimportant, not worth caring about.

Pablo came back into the room, trailed by five men. Two of them stumbled as they walked because they had black hoods over their heads and couldn't see where they were going. The other three prodded them along with machine pistols.

“That's far enough,” Alfredo told the three guards. He gestured, and one of the gunmen pulled the hoods off the prisoners' heads.

Their faces showed the marks of the beating they had endured. Their mouths were bloody, their eyes swollen almost shut. Bruises discolored their features. Smears of blood had dried on their skin.

One of the men was Hispanic, the other black. They looked terrified but also stubbornly defiant, meeting Alfredo's speculative gaze without looking away.

“You're certain they are who you say they are?” he asked Pablo.

“The information is trustworthy,” Pablo said. He pointed to the Hispanic prisoner. “This one is Border Patrol. The other works for the DEA.”

Alfredo smiled coolly and said, “I wasn't sure the Americans even had a border patrol anymore. What purpose does it serve when the funding is cut to the bare bones because the President wants more and more illegals in the country so they can vote for him?” He turned his gaze to the black prisoner. “And why enforce the drug laws? Sooner or later all drugs will be legalized in your country, because that's what the voters want, eh, amigo?”

“You'd better hope that day never comes,” the man answered. “When it does you're out of business.”

“A good point,” Alfredo admitted. “But until that time, we all still have our parts to play in this little drama.”

“Life isn't a
telenovela
,” the Hispanic prisoner snapped.

Alfredo raised his carefully barbered eyebrows and said, “If it were, it would be so much more entertaining, wouldn't it? All the men would be handsome, all the women gorgeous.” He clasped his hands together behind his back. “Tell me what you know.”

The two men stared sullenly at him and remained silent. After a moment, Alfredo nodded to Pablo, who barked an order. One of the guards lowered his machine pistol, pulled a blackjack from his pocket, and smashed it into the back of the Hispanic prisoner's right knee. Despite his obvious determination not to, the man cried out in pain and fell to the floor as that leg folded up underneath him. The guard struck again with the blackjack, this time shattering the man's kneecap.

Howls of agony filled the room until the guard put his foot on the prisoner's throat, choking off the sound.

“Do you know how many bones there are in the human body?” Alfredo asked. “No, of course you don't. But there are hundreds, and every one of them can be broken. It would take many hours to break all of them . . . but it can be done. It will be done unless you tell me what you know about El Nuevo Sol.”

The DEA agent shook his head and said, “I don't have any idea what you're talking about.”

His eyes told a different story, however. Alfredo could tell that the man had at least heard the phrase before.

“This is the last chance,” he said softly.

The prisoner just stared at him.

“The last chance for your friend, I should have said,” Alfredo went on. He nodded to Pablo again, then turned his back and took off his glasses. He took a fine linen handkerchief from his shirt pocket and began polishing the lenses as more screaming began behind him.

It took hours, as Alfredo had said, and the Hispanic Border Patrol agent died before they were finished. The DEA agent would be permanently crippled if he lived, which was highly doubtful. But when the questioning was finished and Pablo came to the guest room where Alfredo was staying, he had the information they needed.

“I want to hear it for myself,” Alfredo said.

“I think he's still conscious,” Pablo said. “But we should probably hurry.”

They went back to the room next to the courtyard. The floors here were tile, too, like the patio, and the blood might not be easy to clean from them, but that wasn't Alfredo's worry. He hitched up his trousers slightly so that he wouldn't ruin the line of them as he knelt next to the broken heap of humanity that had been the DEA agent.

“Tell me what you know about El Nuevo Sol.”

“Just . . . just rumors,” the prisoner gasped. “Something big in . . . in San Antonio. We were on the trail . . . of a man named Chavez . . .”

Alfredo's face was unusually grim as he glanced up at Pablo. Chavez was one of the cartel's computer experts . . . if the prisoner was talking about the same Chavez, which seemed likely. He had handled many of the details of communications with the cartel's partners in this operation, routing the emails through so many anonymous digital pathways that no one could ever trace them.

But in order for that to be possible, Chavez had to be privy to a great deal of sensitive information.

“Is he here at the villa?” Alfredo asked.

Pablo looked distinctly uncomfortable as he said, “He works out of his own place. He has an apartment over the club where his girlfriend works. She's a, uh, stripper.”

“Bring him here,” Alfredo ordered. “We need to find out if he's had any contact with these men.”

“Chavez would never betray us.”

“You'll pardon me if I don't take your word for that, Pablo. I want to talk to him myself.”

“Of course, of course, Alfredo, right away.” Pablo made a sharp gesture to his men. “Take care of it! Find Chavez and bring him here.”

Alfredo looked down again at the DEA agent, who was gasping for air through his broken mouth and nose.

“What is El Nuevo Sol?”

“I . . . don't . . . know.”

Alfredo believed him. And so there was no more point in keeping the man alive. Alfredo took a small .25 caliber semi-automatic pistol from his jacket pocket, placed the muzzle against the DEA man's right eye, and pulled the trigger. The little bullet wasn't powerful enough to penetrate the skull, so it just bounced around inside the prisoner's head, scrambling his brain and making him twitch like a broken puppet for a moment before he died.

Alfredo stood up and handed the pistol to Pablo. Even though only one shot had been fired from it, he didn't want to put it back in his pocket.

“Clean that,” he said. “While we're waiting for Chavez.”