Seal Team Seven: Hostile Fire Part 10

He drank it and threw the gla.s.s on the floor. "Important? Oh, yes, so f.u.c.king important you would be surprised out of your wits. You could do a painting about them. About the first one. A huge picture, ma.s.sive explosion, enormous cloud rising..." His brows went up and he laughed. "Talking too much. You always bait me. Talking too d.a.m.n much." His eyes drooped closed and she knew this time they wouldn't open. But they did, and he sat up quickly and stared at her, not looking drunk now at all.

"You are a spy. I told everyone. They wouldn't believe me. Five years ago we had enough to shoot you, but they wouldn't let me. I proved to them that you were working with the Americans, but they said impossible. You had painted a mural on one of Saddam's castles, and he loved it. He ordered us to leave you alone. But now you are asking questions no one can ask. The desert is off the scale; it is so secret that not even all of the general staff know about it. I know. I supervised the work.

"And now I'm calling in my guards and they will shoot you as you try to escape. It's been interesting. And I have the last body art painting the famous Gypsy ever did." He stood to move to his desk. Gypsy darted there before he did. The drink had slowed him. She caught up a wooden pencil with a sharp point and whirled as he lunged toward her. She had put the eraser into the palm of her hand and let the six inches of pencil stick out between the middle fingers of her fist. As he lunged toward her, she held out the pencil, her wrist straight with her arm. Colonel Kahled Ibrahim saw the pencil and ignored it, until it drove into his chest, piercing his skin, slanting between ribs, and sinking six inches into his left lung.

He let out a sharp cry and staggered to the left. It tore the pencil out of her hand, but it remained in place. The colonel fell to one knee, then dropped on his face on the rug just short of the desk. The pencil hit the floor and drove the rest of the way into his lung. He tried to roll over. His arms flopped helplessly. Gypsy stared down at him, then turned him over. If he lived, she died.

As simple as that.

She caught up a metal letter opener from his desk. It was eight inches long, tapered steel and sharp on one side, coming to a point. She knelt beside the large man and watched his face distorted in fear and agony. Then she held the letter opener in both hands and stabbed it downward, directly at his heart. The point hit a rib and stopped. She moved the point over half an inch and drove the opener downward. It sank into flesh and into his heart.

She lifted away from him. His breathing was labored for a moment; then he died and his bladder emptied, staining his pants dark brown. Gypsy watched him a moment. He was dead. Could they tie her to him? She didn't think so. She hurried to where she'd left her clothes and put them on. She cleaned off her face with a towel from the adjacent bathroom, washed off her arms, and then found her purse in the hallway. She went out the same familiar way she had come in. The guards were at the far side of the compound and wouldn't see her go out the side gate, which had a lock on it that could only be opened from the inside, or left unlocked as it was tonight when she came. She walked six blocks to where she had left her car. Only then did her heart stop racing. She had killed him. There would be no way to tie her to his death. Even the body art painting could have been done by any amateur. She had killed him.

He said she had been suspected five years ago. Were they still watching her, only doing such a good job that she couldn't tell? Had she led the three SEALs into a trap that would cost them their lives and that of John Jones? She found her car where she'd left it and drove quickly back to her quarters in the old warehouse. She parked down the street and walked up to where she could see the area in back of her place. She watched for ten minutes, but saw no one smoking, heard nothing, saw no shadows move. Nothing. She walked slowly, then darted into the entrance and waited, her heart thudding against her thin chest. Again, nothing happened. She went on inside and closed the doors and locked them. What if the SEALs were not back from the booze house? A moment later she saw the four men in her living room and she collapsed on the couch. None of them asked about the paint splotches still on her face, in her hair, and on her arms.

n.o.body said a word. She let some of the panic drain from her then looked at the Commander.

"So, Navy SEAL. What did you learn at the booze house?"

Murdock told her. "Sharif is dead. Must have been the Secret Police. They had submachine guns. These submachine guns."

Gypsy stared at the pair of sub guns like many she had seen before. "So the Secret Police are dead, too. Lovely. Now the animals will all be out looking for revenge."

"Did you learn anything from the colonel?" Rafii asked.

"Only that he took out two hundred armed men to defend the factory, and that it's within a hundred miles of the Jordan border. We've got it bracketed. Now all we have to do is find it."

12.

Kamil Gardens, Iraq Asrar Fouad settled into the lean-back upholstered chair in the guest house at Kamil Gardens and smiled grimly. Yes, everything was on schedule and going as planned. The big trailer was loaded; the tractor was full of diesel fuel and ready to drive. They would leave the first thing in the morning. He had spent most of the day hiding the nuclear bomb in the forty-foot trailer. It was s.h.i.+elded with lead blankets that would prevent even the minutest quant.i.ty of radiation from escaping. The bomb itself was in a wooden crate nearly six feet wide and ten feet long.

The West would call it a crude, overly large bomb. But it was a nuke that worked, which was all that Fouad cared about. The crate was tucked into the trailer, which had been loaded with dozens of bales of raw cotton. The cotton could be the key in the success of the mission. The fiber was grown in great quant.i.ties in northern Iraq, and was one of Iraq's few export products. This truckload was heading straight for Jordan, continuing down the road toward the border. Once into Jordan, the road continued southwest through the heart of the Syrian Desert to As Safawi, where the highway turned northwest to Al Mafraq and then on into Irbid in northern Jordan and only a few kilometers from Israel.

Then the critical phase of the mission would come. They had to unload the crate at the airport and get it into the transport plane without arousing any suspicion or an in-depth inspection by the Jordanians. They had no export license for the crate so it could be touchy. He hoped the men he had bribed would be in place. Fouad sipped on the cold drink he had been provided, something carbonated with lemon. The guest house was one of the few air-conditioned in the whole complex, and the temperature remained at a steady sixty-eight degrees year round despite the summer temperature of over a hundred and twenty degrees out in the desert. He looked at the selection of movie videotapes and decided not to indulge himself with a Hollywood epic. Instead he would get to bed early and be ready for their five A.M. start.

Fouad was impressed again by the huge highway tractor that he had talked President Kamil out of for the trip into Jordan. It was the latest model from Germany, huge, a diesel, and carried enough fuel in its saddle tanks below the cab to drive the rig for six hundred kilometers. He figured this run would be about five hundred and twenty kilometers, so they wouldn't even have to stop for fuel. The big tractor had hitched up with the sleek trailer and pulled out on the highway from the concealed, underground manufacturing area slightly after five A.M. Fouad was pleased to be leaving Kamil Gardens, the name given to the production facility where the bombs had been created. He was used to hours of delay in getting most of his projects underway in Iraq. Time here was not as important as it was in the West. But this project was moving along on schedule. He smiled then, thinking about his surprise for the Americans. Things would slow down considerably all over a paralyzed America once he exploded his bomb over a big U.S. city. He had not decided yet which metropolis it would be. Once he was across the U.S.-Mexican border at the Otay Mesa inspection station near San Diego, California, in his disguised truck with the bomb, he could chose from San Diego, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. It would be a marvelous time for him, deciding which city to turn into a nightmare of death and vaporization.

Fouad watched out the truck's windows. The cab was air-conditioned and even had a small freezer. He watched the barren, burned brown Syrian Desert roll past the window. They weren't making the kind of time he'd hoped they would, but the plan was moving along. This was the start of the end. He sighed. Waiting had always been a trial for him. At least he had brought along enough food and drink from the dining room at the Kamil Gardens to last for three days. Even at eighty kilometers an hour on the poor roads, they should be able to make the trip in half a day, one full day at the most. He didn't worry about the border with Jordan. They were on good terms with that nation and the cotton import would be welcomed by the industries in Jordan. Actually the cotton would be sold there in Jordan to help cover their tracks. He had all the papers he needed, including an import license and the required doc.u.ments to get the load of cotton across the border. Now all he had to do was have a pleasant nap in the big seat, or have another sandwich and a cold drink. Yes, for the moment, life was good. He was a bit on edge, and would be until the package was into the Jordan airport and loaded on the chartered air transport plane. There would be no trouble there. Already two Irbid airport officials in the international freight section had been properly compensated for the help they would give the s.h.i.+pment. All was ready and awaiting the package. Fouad laughed softly, bringing a look from the driver. The driver was not one of his men, and had no idea that there was anything in the trailer besides the cotton. He had no need to know, another part of the plan to keep the secret. Fouad talked with the driver for a few minutes, then waved and closed his eyes. It was time for a nap. There would be plenty of action soon.

Baghdad, Iraq The same morning the big German highway tractor left Kamil Gardens with its load of cotton and one nuclear bomb, Murdock and his men, and exCIA agent John Jones, sat at the breakfast table in Gypsy's quarters in the converted warehouse. They had just eaten fried goat meat and a hash of eggs and potatoes. The coffeepot kept perking.

"So, we fall back on plan B," Ching said.

"What the h.e.l.l is plan B?" Rafii asked.

"First it means we take a look at that scratch you got last night. Roll up your sleeve." The wound was an in and out that had nipped an inch of flesh. It hadn't bled much. Rafii had tied a kerchief over it to stop the blood flow last night. Murdock took it off gingerly.

"Gypsy, you have any alcohol and some bandages?"

She did and brought them. Murdock cleaned the wound on both sides, then wrapped it tightly with a white roller bandage and fastened it with tape. It wouldn't show under the s.h.i.+rtsleeve.

"So plan B?" Rafii asked.

"We make it up as we go along," Murdock said. "Gypsy, do you have any other contacts that might have some idea where the bomb factory could be?"

"Absolutely none if I want to stay alive. Yes, women here in Iraq have it better than any females in the Muslim world, but we also have a dictator who executes his enemies and any who protest his policies. This bomb must be top secret. I'm surprised that he let as many of the construction men who built the project live as he did. A lot of them must be mixed in with the concrete in the foundations out there in the desert."

"Any contacts that wouldn't get you in trouble?" Murdock asked.

Gypsy wrinkled her brow. She had pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail and had not put on any makeup. "I paint pictures, not my face," she had told them the first thing that morning.

She shook her head, then stopped. "Oh, there could be one but it's an outside chance. When things get slow, I teach master cla.s.ses in beginning oil painting. It's easy and brings in a few extra dinars." She took a long drink of her coffee, frowning and shaking her head. "No, probably not."

"Hey, if there's a chance, and it won't hurt you, we have to give it a try," Murdock said.

She took another sip of the coffee and put down the cup. "It is a long shot. One of my students has a big family, and he said one of his brothers had been on what he called a fis.h.i.+ng trip into the desert. He's an engineer, specializes in putting up buildings for the government. His brother had laughed and said his kin went on four fis.h.i.+ng trips and didn't bring back a single fish."

"Fis.h.i.+ng trip, the same term the construction worker used," Murdock said. "Let's get in contact with the engineer."

"Do you have a list of those students?" Rafii asked.

"Should be here somewhere."

Five minutes later she found the list and ticked off the brother of the engineer.

"How do we get him to tell us how to get in touch with his brother, without getting suspicious?" Ching asked.

"More coffee, please," Murdock said. The five sat at the table, working on the third cup.

John Jones stood and walked around the kitchen. When he sat down, he grinned. "Got it," he said. "Gypsy, you contact this guy and tell him you're giving another master cla.s.s, and you're short one person. Ask him if his brother would like to take the cla.s.s. A lot of engineers think they're artists. It could work. Get his phone number or address so you can invite him to the cla.s.s."

Gypsy laughed softly. "My friend, Mr. Jones, you are a sneaky b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but I like you. I think it might work. I have something of a reputation around town. He might be pleased to be invited to study under the great Gypsy."

Rafii let out a long-held-in breath. "That's good, but what can I do? I keep thinking about all those construction workers. A lot of them must be out of work now. Where do they hang out? They don't have a union hall, but there must be a spot where they get together and swap lies."

Gypsy grinned and pointed a spoon at him. "Rafii, how did you know that? You haven't lived here since you were four, you said."

"My father was a carpenter here. I remember what he used to tell us about working."

"There is a spot, two of them actually," Gypsy said. "The men do talk and tell tales about their work. It could be a good place to go if you can listen a lot, talk little, and blend in."

"I'm a top-notch blender," Rafii said.

"I'll give you the two addresses. Take my car. Both these places are across town. Right now I want to call my ex-student and see if we can talk to his brother."

A half hour later, Rafii pulled Gypsy's sedan of uncertain vintage to the curb and watched the coffee house across the street. It was not one that offered jazz as a sideline. No boisterous crowd. In the outside chairs and tables he saw men, only men, bending over cups of coffee. One or two had tall drinks of some kind. He slid out of the car and walked up a block, then crossed the street and came back on the other side. He went into the shop, bought a cup of coffee, and eased back out to a table with no one else at it. He listened. The men talked in low voices and he could make out nothing.

A few minutes later the place filled with men, most in working clothes, some with beards, most without. Two came up to his table and motioned. He waved them to chairs and they gave their names. Ali was the tall, thin one. Sami was shorter, heavy with a beard. He told them his name and they nodded. They talked to one another, not trying to include him. This time he could hear.

"No work again today?" Ali said.

"True, not for two weeks now," Sami said.

"Maybe we're in the wrong business. My wife's brother is a baker and he's making a good living."

"But he works all night," Sami protested. "I like to sleep at night."

Ali looked at Rafii. "No work for you either?"

"Not much of anything since the desert. The fis.h.i.+ng trip was fine but now, nothing."

Both men frowned. "We are not supposed to even remember the desert," Sami said. "We could be shot."

"Who is listening?" Rafii asked in a soft voice. "Besides that was a year ago."

"By now you must be hungry," Sami said with a chuckle.

"I mean I haven't had a job that lasted more than a week," Rafii said, figuring he had overplayed his hand.

"The fis.h.i.+ng was good, but that d.a.m.n long ride each way was what killed me," Sami said.

"Still, I'd do it again," Ali said.

"Carpenter?" Rafii asked.

"No. Concrete, forms, slabs, even some liftup concrete walls."

"Good work," Rafii said. "I'm just a carpenter."

"The d.a.m.n trip was what killed me," Sami said. "Eight hours in that d.a.m.n covered truck."

"We did it in seven," Rafii said. "You must have stopped somewhere."

"Oh, yeah, forgot. We had to stop for fuel in Ar Rutbah. Then that d.a.m.n dirt road due south."

"Dust got into everything," Rafii said. "Why didn't they pave it or put the blacktop down?"

"That would make it an arrow straight at the secret place," Ali said. "They aren't that stupid. They camouflaged the dirt road after every truck went down it. Fake bushes and brush. It was a lot of work."

"Is the government hiring again?" Rafii asked. "Heard something about work out at the airport."

"Just talk," Ali said. "We've been hearing that for a month now. They might never get to extending that runway."

Rafii finished his coffee. He stood. "Maybe there'll be something tomorrow," he said. He waved and walked down the street a block, crossed over, and strolled back to the car. For a moment he wasn't sure which car he had come in. Then he remembered the dent in the left front fender and climbed in. Yes, the key fit and engine started. So they were south of Ar Rutbah. Now all they had to figure out was how far south.

13.

By the time Rafii had driven back to the old warehouse where Gypsy lived and painted, she was pacing the floor waiting for him. He told them what he had discovered, and Ching got the SATCOM out and set it up to broadcast.

Gypsy grabbed the car keys and headed for the street. "I told my student's brother that I'd meet the engineer at a cafe, and I'm going to be late. So he'll have to wait. Not sure what I can find out, but we'll see what he says about painting, and about the desert. Maybe I can talk him into painting some desert scenes. This shouldn't take more than two hours at the most."

She had changed clothes and now wore a colorful skirt, a blouse that barely hid her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a red scarf around her neck, and a light linen jacket. She also wore makeup, but just a little.

Ching had the SATCOM set up at an open window in the back of the second floor of the building where the dish antenna could look into the sky. The improved SATCOM had a dish that was barely four inches in diameter, much smaller than the one Ching was used to. It also was twice as easy to zero in on the satellite. He made the adjustments and handed the mike to Murdock.

"Underground One reporting. We have a location. In the desert south of Ar Rutbah, a small village on the highway to Jordan. Don't know how far south. On a dirt road. We'll get there as soon as we can. Running down one more lead. Underground out."

The message went out in a burst that lasted only a tenth of a second and would be almost impossible to triangulate, even if the Iraqis were listening for any broadcasts. They put the SATCOM away and Murdock began pacing.

"How long do we wait for Gypsy?" he asked Jones. The former CIA agent shook his head.

"She'll be back when she thinks she has what we need. No telling when that will be."

"We need transportation," Murdock said. He looked at Jones. "Can you get us a car with a full tank of gas that will run until we get to that little town out in the desert?"

Jones frowned. "You want a throwaway car? Why not just steal one?" He shrugged. "Yeah, I know. Even the Iraqi police can find a stolen car now and then. So let me make a call. I have at least one favor coming in this town. You want an older car that runs well. Let me use Gypsy's phone."

He left the room and Murdock had his two men check what equipment they had. They would be ready to move as soon as Gypsy came back.

Jones was back in five minutes.

"Done," he said. "It's a four-year-old Chevrolet, of all things. Runs good and has good tires. What you do is use it as long as you can. In two days the owner is going to report it stolen. That way he should get it back without any problem. The cops here are good on returning stolen cars when they find them."

"When do we get the car?" Murdock asked. "We know enough to get moving right now."

"You're not ready yet. You'll need food and water. Lots of water. It's going to be a hundred and twenty in the desert for the next week. Sap the juices right out of you. You'll need at least a gallon of water a day. It's almost two o'clock. Best to travel at night. So get some rest now, and I'll get food for you to eat before you go and for the trip. Meat now, cheese sandwiches for later. We don't want any spoiled meat in the desert heat. Go, go get some sleep. It won't be dark for six hours yet, and the car won't be here for two. Go."

Murdock grinned and waved his men up the stairs, where they saw some mattresses on the floor. John Jones watched them go. He chuckled. He hadn't had this much fun in years. Maybe it was time he reactivated himself and got back in the spy business. He could send out a message in his old manner. Or he could have Murdock tell the bra.s.s to reinstate him. He'd be back in business. Yeah, he had to admit that he kind of missed the rush he used to get in this business. The last day and a half had been good. Now to get some food and water and the car.

Gypsy walked into the Lily of the Nile Cafe slowly, trying to watch everything around her without seeming to. She didn't want this to be a trap she couldn't get out of. She saw the young man sitting alone at a table near the window, where he was supposed to be. He looked up and nodded. He must have known what she looked like.

She could spot no Secret Police at tables or loitering around the area. Gypsy walked over to the table.