Tier One Wild (27 page)

“Bringing something or about to take something away?”

“The trailer was riding low. Definitely full, or close to it. It turned right at the gate, heading for the loading dock. We saw it on the live feed, so Murphy headed over there in time to hear the sounds of work at the loading bays of location Rhine. The trailer left three minutes ago, and it appeared to be empty. Murphy says the location is quiet at the moment.”

Kolt thought it over.

Curtis said, “We are thinking maybe the Iranians worked out a deal for immediate delivery. The weapons are here in Rhine. I bet the Quds guys are going to drive the goods out themselves. They’ll go up to Port Said, deliver them to a covered ship, and then take them through the Suez to Iran or up to Beirut. They can load up and go at any time.”

Kolt knew that Curtis was still making assumptions, but the likelihood his assumptions were correct seemed to be increasing. Even though the Iranians were supposed to check out of the hotel in two days they could not assume they would not leave early, or the goods would not leave on their own sometime in the next forty-eight hours.

“Okay,” he said. “I will contact my command and request authorization to hit Maadi Land and Sea tonight.”

“Sooner the better.”

“We’re not going to do it in daylight.”

Curtis just said, “Hey, I don’t know ninja shit. You do. Just get the hit.”

Kolt made the call to Webber, explained the situation carefully, and warned that if the SAMs were, in fact, in that warehouse, they might leave at any time. He suggested they either go after the Quds Force operatives at the Sofitel or hit Maadi Land and Sea.

Raynor further stressed that he and his team would have a difficult, if not impossible, time finding the munitions once those munitions left Maadi, so, whatever they were ordered to do, they needed to do it tonight.

Then Raynor called Slapshot and Digger together, and he briefed them that they might, just might, be heading into target areas Rhine and Stone very soon.

*   *   *

Kolt willed his sat phone to chirp. Finally, at just after 1900, it did. As expected, it was Webber. “Raynor, listen carefully. You are a ‘no go’ on the Iranians at their location at the Sofitel.”

“Understood,” he said. He had no illusions that he and his team would be sent in to the Sofitel Hotel to roll up a cell of Iranian spies.

Shit like that only happened in training or in the movies.

Then Webber said, “But you do have execute authority at objective Rhine. You may enter the warehouse for the purpose of identifying the SA-24s or any other Libyan munitions you may find there. That’s it. This is a low-vis assault. No gunfights. If you engage, it better be a life-or-death call.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is not authorization to enter the office building, objective Stone. We are talking about the warehouse only.” Webber was going out of his way to stress this, Raynor noted. Apparently someone, somewhere, maybe the President himself, was worried about offending Egypt with a big shoot-’em-up in Cairo.

“And if we hit the jackpot?” Kolt asked, knowing he might be pushing it.

“If you get inside and ID the weapons, then yes, Racer, if possible, destroy them in place.”

The Secretary of Defense wanted these missiles out of action, if and only if it could be done in a surgical fashion with no political snafus like Libyans in Egypt dead by the hands of American commandos.

But still, Raynor felt like he was being sent on half a mission. “Sir, we cannot know for sure there are weapons at Rhine at this time. We do know, however, that the offices of Maadi Land and Sea contain the leadership of the Aref Saleh Organization. If we can make entry there, we can capture or kill—”

Webber interrupted over the crackling connection. “Negative! You do not have authorization to hit the building on the southern portion of the property. You are to steer clear of all combatants. Maintain your cover. I can’t have you risking four good operators to this. You don’t have the numbers to actively handle that many bad guys. Are we clear on that?”

Kolt nodded to himself. Even this limited hit was a hell of a lot better than doing nothing. He repeated his mission for Webber’s benefit. “Roger, sir. Soft and quiet. If we find the weapons at Rhine, then we can go loud in order to render safe.”

“That is correct. That is the extent of your command authority. If you come in contact with combatants you may, obviously, use lethal force. You may not, and I am going to repeat this for you Raynor, you may not enter the office complex in order to engage Libyan nationals housed there. They have not been designated as a hostile force.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Racer. Make your own luck. Bring everyone home.”

“Yes, sir.”

*   *   *

The AFO cell spent the evening building their assault plan. Slapshot took the lead on this, as he had served the longest in the Unit, and Raynor knew to defer to him. Kolt and Digger asked questions, made suggestions, and Hawk took notes. She would not be involved in the assault, but she
would
be involved.

Slapshot said, “Hitting from the riverside is the way to go, boss. Looks like two patrolling sentries plus the same number on the roof of the office. Four total who could have eyes on the rear of the property at any one time. That’s not nothing, but there is fair cover at several points between the pier and the loading dock of the warehouse. Best we take advantage of them.”

Kolt nodded. “I like it.”

They determined Racer, Slaphsot, and Digger would use a small locally procured dinghy with a 110-horsepower engine to land at the pier at 0330, when the guard force would be the least alert and the sliver of moon would be nearing its lowest point to the horizon before dawn. The three men would use night-observation devices to make their way from the pier, where they would use bolt cutters to cut through the fence at the waterline. They would then make their way up through the fifteen meters of low vegetation on the northwest corner of the property, cross twenty meters of asphalt parking lot where they would have to concern themselves with a couple of patrolling sentries and exposure to the roof of the office building and the pair of static guards stationed there.

Once they made their way to the warehouse, they would make entry either at the loading dock on the north side or, if that was not feasible, they would come around to the east side and go through the main entrance.

Slapshot and Raynor would go inside to find, photograph, and then rig the weapons with small blocks of C-4 explosive. Meanwhile, Digger would remain concealed outside to watch the exfiltration route.

They talked for some time about the size of the secondary explosions, but ultimately decided that, as long as there were a manageable number of SAMs present, the blast of the detonation would be confined to the warehouse of Maadi Land and Sea.

The men would make their way back to the boat and drift downriver before detonating the C-4 in a chain reaction, destroying the tubes, power sources, and warheads.

While this was all happening Hawk would be parked several blocks up on the Kornish al Nile. If the team ran into trouble and found themselves unable to make it back to the dinghy, they could exfiltrate on the northeast side of objectives Rhine-Stone and attempt to make it over the wall and out into the neighborhood. Hawk would swoop in and pick them up at their war RV, and they would hightail it out of the area.

The plan sounded clean and efficient, which meant to Kolt it sounded like it was too good to be true. He fully expected snags in their operation: a sentry who wasn’t where he was supposed to be, or a member of the JSO leadership on the balcony with an early morning nicotine fit, or a sweeping flashlight that did not follow the rules and keep sweeping in the same direction.

“What’s up, boss?” Slapshot asked. “Your mouth says it’s a go, but your expression is telling me something else.”

“Two things. One, I’m not entirely confident that the Agency fellas haven’t been burned already. Second, this could get ugly quick. It’s definitely high-risk here, guys.”

“Not like you to worry about the risk, Racer. We’ve got this,” Slapshot quickly said.

“It’s not you guys. I don’t know,” Kolt said, looking around at the others.

“Do I need to leave?” Cindy asked, sensing she was the problem.

“No, Hawk. You’re good. Actually, it’s your guys’ kids,” Kolt said, looking at Slapshot and Digger.

Digger said, “We all know the risks. I’m here because of my kids, not despite them. I fight so they might not have to.” This was said with a tinge of irritation.

“Ditto!” Slapshot added.

“Got it. Feel better just getting it off my chest. We’ll either come back with our shield or on it,” Kolt said.

“Damn right,” said Digger.

Still, Kolt knew they had to make their plan as organized as possible in advance of the execution of it, otherwise the snags and snafus would increase tenfold.

Raynor stood from the table. “I like it,” he told the team. “Let’s make it happen.”

*   *   *

At thirty minutes short of midnight Kolt traveled alone north on Cairo’s main north-south metro line. He wore Western clothing that fit in perfectly with what virtually all the male locals were wearing on the train, and his tinted glasses covered most portions of his face not obscured by his short beard. He moved with the crowd, and drew no attention whatsoever.

He climbed off the train at the Hadayeq El-Maadi, and stepped out onto the street. Within seconds a beat-up-looking half-yellow, half-primer two-door Toyota pulled up and he climbed in.

“So you guys are a go, huh?” Myron Curtis said from behind the wheel as he headed off into traffic.

No one else was in the car.

“Yes. 0330 hours,” Raynor confirmed.

“I’m glad you’re going to destroy the SA-24s, but I wish you were also going in to arrest Saleh and his men.”

Kolt had a brief mental image of him and his two mates flex-cuffing fifteen or so international criminals, and then somehow sneaking them out of the country. “JSOC wrote this op with the real world in mind. What you are talking about is fantasyland.”

“Maybe so, but Saleh is going to just go to ground and keep transferring weapons to rogue nations and terrorists.”

“Job security for you, I guess. We’ll find him again. Seriously, if the SA-24s are in the warehouse, we’ll destroy them, which will prevent the transfer to the Iranians, which will prevent the transfer to Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We’re just going to have to be satisfied with that for now.”

Curtis shrugged. “Hey, you know me. I’m hard to please. Want to do one last drive-by of the target?”

“Uhhh … Negative, Curtis,” Kolt answered with a tint of sarcasm.
This guy is a loose cannon.

“Your guy still in the area?” Raynor asked.

“Yeah. He hasn’t seen any activity since the last report.”

“Good. What about the Quds Force goons?”

Curtis replied, “We have eyes on. I’ve got a man at the Sofitel watching them.”

“What, down in the lobby?”

Curtis did not answer.

“What exactly does ‘eyes on’ mean, Curtis?”

“Well … if they are up in their rooms, then no, we don’t have eyes on. But we’ve got a guy making sure they don’t leave.”

“Your man has eyes on his martini, more like it,” Raynor said. “Your men are too close to the X. If they haven’t been burned already, then they will be once things get interesting. Pull your surveillance off Rhine and Stone at H-10 mikes, and pull the guy out of the Sofitel at 0330, H-hour.”

H-Hour, like D-Day, signified the beginning of an operation.

Curtis nodded as he made a turnaround at a traffic circle and began heading back for the metro station.

Kolt then said, “You, too. I want you to unass your safe house. Tonight.”

The CIA man seemed surprised by this. He shook his head. “Nobody is going to find us.”

“Look, man. You are less than two klicks from the target location. If we hit Rhine and blow a shipment of SAMs, it’s going to be a big fucking deal. Everybody in Maadi will be running around saying Israeli or American spies are in the neighborhood. Your antenna farm and front travel agency won’t survive the first knock at the door. Trust me on this, I’ve seen a bit of the Arab street.”

“Of course you have, Rambo.”

Raynor ignored him. “You’ll wake up tomorrow to find two dozen kids on the sidewalk out in front of your place pointing up at your window and jumping up and down.”

Curtis started to argue back, it was his way, after all, but he stopped himself. Something about Raynor’s imagery sank in. After a moment he said, “We’ve got a place in El Salam City. Way up to the northeast. Ten or twelve miles from Maadi.”

Kolt nodded. “I looked it over on FalconView on the flight in. I think that’s a great choice. You’ll need to steer clear of Maadi completely after this. No drive-bys. Your cables to Langley can wait. We can get a better damage assessment from CNN than from you taking snapshots of the rubble from the Kornish al Nile.”

Curtis chuckled and nodded. He said, “Okay, Mother. We will sterilize the safe house, and get out of there by the time your team hits the building. And as always, I appreciate your concern for my well-being.”

“I don’t give a shit about your well-being. You can get hit by a bus once this op is over, for all I care. Just not till we get the SAMs dealt with.”

“Fair enough.”

“Thank you,” Kolt said, officially crossing Myron Curtis and his team of well-educated but bumbling case officers off of his list of worries.

“You’re welcome,” said Curtis, as he pulled to a stop back in front of the Hadayeq El-Maadi station. “Now go find those SAMs and blow them to kingdom come.”

“Yep,” Kolt said as he stepped out onto the street.
Hope you enjoy yourself from the comfort of your new condo, partner.

*   *   *

At the Hotel Sofitel Cairo Maadi Towers and Casino, the CIA case officer from Cairo Station assigned to watch the suspected Iranian Quds Force personnel rolled onto his side and fluffed the fleece jacket that he was using as a pillow.

As far as he was concerned, he’d done damn fine work tonight, and he deserved a couple hours of shut-eye. He’d positioned himself in the lobby at eight p.m., taking over for another man from the local station. Shortly after this, five of the seven target subjects came down from their rooms and headed into the gift shop off the lobby. The case officer had positioned himself close enough to hear one of the Iranians speak in English to the attendant there, explaining that two of their party had fallen ill with a stomachache and asking about a remedy.