Dead Six (32 page)

“I’m . . . I’m fine. All those people . . .”

“Dead,” I responded as I took my radio earpiece out of my shirt. “Nothing you can do about it. Hang on! Carl, come in, Carl!”

“What was that?” he bellowed in my ear.

“Suicide bomber. We’re moving back toward Ensun and the Gamal Parkway on foot. Once we’re clear of the responders, I’ll call for pickup.”

“Stay low and watch your back,”
Carl ordered.

“You, too.” I pulled the earpiece out. “We’ve got to keep moving. This place is going to be swarming with security forces fast, and we don’t want to get picked up for questioning.” Jill nodded quickly. Her head was still in the game.
Good.
I took a handkerchief out of my vest and roughly wiped the blood from under her nose. “Keep your head down and keep up with me.”

We went out the other side of the alley and started walking. The streets were full of workers now as people flooded out of their respective buildings to see what was going on. A pillar of black smoke rose into the air behind us.

The war had just arrived in Al Khor.

We were back in the apartment within an hour of the bombing.

My crew sat around our kitchen table. There was a white leaflet in the center. These things had been posted all over Ash Shamal within minutes of the explosion. I’d had Carl pull over and pick one up from one of the little kids that were passing them out on every single corner in the neighborhood.

The leaflet told all about how over twenty innocent students, most of them from this very district, were peacefully protesting in front of the interior ministry and had been massacred by the emir’s personal guard. Apparently there had been another attack by the Zionist murderers, this one against the emir’s own family, and he was still too emasculated to root them out; rather, he reacted in a heavy-handed and inept way against the innocent students of Ash Shamal’s madrassa. Zubara needed the strong leadership of General Mubarak Al Sabah to get us through these tough times, not the Jew-loving emir . . . so on and so forth.

“That’s such bullshit,” Jill spat as Reaper finished translating it for her. “That’s not what happened at all.”

“Reality never matters,” I muttered. “Just feelings. Get the masses riled up enough and you can do anything. Propaganda doesn’t have to be true—it just has to
feel
true to enough stupid people. Make them feel picked on, then fill them full of hope about how you’ll change stuff. Works every time.”

“I so hate this place.” Jill put her head down on the table. “Have you got any more of that ibuprofen? My head’s killing me,” she muttered through her arm. Shockwaves tend to have that effect on people. Reaper got her the bottle.

Carl glanced at me. “The bomb, how big?”

“At least twenty pounds. I was too far away to get a good look, but I’m guessing it was packed in nails or something from the mess it made.”

“Good thing you weren’t close enough to get a good look or we wouldn’t be talking right now. These guys ain’t fucking around,” Carl responded. He’d been at the receiving end of a bombing during a job involving the Tamil Tigers several years back. That one had been wrapped in industrial staples. My friend still had one embedded in his back. It occasionally set off metal detectors. Carl didn’t like bombs, unless he was the one setting them.

I sighed. This was it. If the country was moving into a full-blown revolution, then Dead Six was sure to bail. It was now or never. I glanced over at Jill. It was time to put her out there and see who tried to kill her. She still had her head down. She’d had a really tough day.
Shit.

“How’re you doing, Jill?” Reaper asked, a real note of concern in his voice.

“I’m fine,” she lied. She slowly raised her head and moved her long hair out of her eyes, neatly tucking the stray strands behind her ear. She was remarkably composed, all things considered. “I’ve just never seen anything like that before. It was terrible, absolutely terrible.”

“It’s probably going to get worse,” I added, “before we can get you out of here safely.”
Lies.

“So what do we do now, chief?” Reaper asked hesitantly.

I didn’t know what to do. My one option sucked. Even the hardened killer, Carl, didn’t like it, and Reaper would probably openly revolt.
I have to figure out how to play
—then my phone buzzed. It was from another unknown number. I flipped it open.

“Hello, my friend,” Jalal Hosani greeted me. “I do not have much time.”

I covered the speaker and mouthed
Hosani
to the others. Jill looked round, still confused. She was still in the dark about everything related to this job, and I intended to keep it that way. “What’ve you got?”

“I have some information about those friends you’ve been seeking to reunite with. I’m happy to say that they’re still in town. I will need you to meet me the day after tomorrow. I will call you that morning with the location.”

“Thank you, my friend.” I said. “And how
appreciative
will I need to be for you doing this favor for me?”

“Do you remember how appreciative you were of the favor I did for you in Dubai? I believe that five times that should suffice.”

I had paid him a hundred thousand American dollars for what he’d done for me that time, and that had been outrageous. So now Jalal was asking for
half a million
. “You’ve got to be kidding . . .” Reaper and Carl looked with mild curiosity. I took a pen and wrote
$500 K
on the bottom of the leaflet.

“Holy shit,” Reaper said.

“Be cheaper just to beat it out of him,” Carl suggested.

“Believe it or not, there are other people who would be even more appreciative of this information. But we are such old friends that I thought you should have the first opportunity. And also, I do believe that I will be going on a vacation shortly after, as the climate around here has gotten a little
warm
for my tastes, so I would like physical appreciation, rather than digital.”

He wanted half a million in
cash.
“Physical?” I responded slowly, looking to Reaper, who thought about it for a second, then nodded in the affirmative. “Okay. But two days is short notice—are you cool if it is European appreciation?” Reaper hurried from the room.

“English, Euro, or other?”

“You picky bastard. Well, mostly British, God save the Queen, and some Continental, because I do love all those pretty colors, you know how it goes. And for this much love, it had better be damn worth it.”

“Such a sense of humor! You are a good friend. I will be in touch.” He sounded happy, and he should be.

I put the phone away. “Greedy, conniving son of a bitch.”

“What just happened?” Jill asked.

“For information on Dead Six, Lorenzo just agreed to fork over half a million bucks,” Carl explained. “Lorenzo has always sucked at negotiation.”

Jill seemed absolutely stunned. “Where in the world are you going to come up with that kind of money? That’s insane!”

Reaper came back into the room with a backpack and a big silly grin on his face. He dropped it in the middle of the table with a theatrical grunt. Carl, temporarily inconvenienced, was forced to move his beer out of the way. “I’ll have to pull some out and recount it,” Reaper said as he unzipped it. This particular bag was mostly U.K. pounds, neatly stacked 100 pound notes, fifty per stack, rubber-banded together. There were at least fifty stacks in this particular bag that we had smuggled into the country. Reaper pulled one out and flipped through it. “I’ll have to check today’s exchange rate first.”

Zubara had been a British protectorate, and they still had a lot of influence here. So we’d smuggled in mostly pounds. We also had a mess of euros, dollars, and a giant pile of local riyals.

Jill made a whistling noise as she opened the bag wider. “The movies always make it look so much bigger. . . . How’d you get all this?”

I’d been stealing professionally for years from everybody from Al Qaeda to FARC, from the Yakuza to the Russian Mob, and I was about the best in the world. My exploits were the stuff of legend. I was worth a lot more than Jill could easily comprehend. I wasn’t even really sure how much I had stashed in various encrypted accounts around the world dating back to my days working for Big Eddie. Personally, I was easily worth millions. I could have given up this lifestyle years ago, but then again it had never been about the cash. It had been about the
challenge.

“I told you assholes always have more money,” I answered with a smirk.

Chapter 12:
Broken Arrow

VALENTINE

Location unknown

April 21

0700

Nine of us sat in the back of a V-22 Osprey, wondering where in the hell we were going. Well, eight of us were wondering. The ninth, Anders, seemed like he knew what was going on, but he wouldn’t tell us anything. We’d been suddenly roused from bed and rushed to the desert, where we’d been picked up by the Osprey
.

Anders wasn’t really part of Dead Six. He answered only to Gordon and seemingly came and went as he pleased. I’d heard that he’d helped on a few missions, and he had a ruthless reputation. He never spoke to anyone else, and his background was a complete mystery. Holbrook was former Navy and said that he’d spotted a SEAL trident tattoo on Anders’ forearm. Other than that, we knew nothing about the guy.

Tailor and Hudson were with me, as was Singer’s entire chalk. Also with us was a new guy, a heavy-set dude with a buzzcut. His name was Byrne, and he was Wheeler’s replacement. Like me, he was former Air Force. We’d heard that new guys were showing up here and there to augment our losses. Obviously, those rumors were true.

Singer
had
been around since day one, and he was a solid team leader. Tall, lanky, and possessed of a sick sense of humor, Singer had probably the best track record of any of the chalk leaders, a fact which drove Tailor insane. With him were Holbrook, Cromwell, and Mitchell, all good guys.

We were roused out of bed in the middle of the night and were driven out into the desert again. Instead of the stealth helicopter they’d flown us around in before, I was surprised to be picked up by the awkward-looking tiltrotor aircraft.

We’d been in the air for over an hour. No one talked; it was too loud in the back of the aircraft. We were all wearing earplugs, and most of my teammates had fallen asleep. The tiltrotor’s cramped cabin was illuminated by red overhead lights. Anders sat toward the rear, away from the rest of us, and was carefully studying something on a PDA.

We were all fully kitted up in battle rattle, too. My Mk 17 rifle was slung across my chest, with the muzzle hanging between my knees. My vest was covered with magazines, grenades, and other ridiculously heavy crap. We’d even been given fancy new A-TACS camouflage fatigues to wear.

Pulling my hat down over my eyes, I tilted my head back and tried to fall asleep. I figured the Osprey would either have to land or refuel sooner or later, and maybe then Anders would tell us what was going on. Until then, I was going to rack out for a while.

I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when Anders kicked me, but it couldn’t have been very long. Startled, I sat up, pulling my hat off my head. Anders had strolled, hunched over, down the cabin and roused all of us. He turned around at the front of the cabin, sat in one of the chairs, and addressed us as a group.

“Listen up!” he said, raising his voice over the dull roar of the engines. “This mission is the highest priority operation we’ve received. You men make up the best teams Dead Six has, and that’s why you were selected for this operation. You need to understand that everything you’re about to hear is need-to-know only. Do not discuss this operation with anyone. Not your friends, not the other chalks, not the admin pogues, no one! Am I making myself clear enough? If there’s an OPSEC breach on this, I’m going to fuck your world up. Understood?”

We all nodded haltingly. None of us liked being threatened by this douche bag.

Anders continued unfazed, holding up the PDA so we could see the screen. We leaned in to try to make out the small picture he was showing us. “Your objective is this. This is the warhead to a Russian RT-2PM Topol ICBM. It has a yield of five-hundred and fifty kilotons.”

Anders pushed a button on his PDA, then held it up again, showing us a new picture. “This is what the physics package of the warhead looks like if it is removed from the reentry vehicle. This part is where the nuclear reaction takes place and is all that is required to produce a yield. As you can see, this part is small enough to fit in the trunk of a small car.” The eight of us looked at each other. “I think you can see where this is going,” Anders said dispassionately. “This particular warhead, so far as we know, was removed from its missile and was to be destroyed in accordance with the START treaty. It disappeared years ago and has never been accounted for. At this moment, the warhead is on a truck, headed for a remote airfield in Yemen. From there, we expect it to be flown covertly to Zubara and delivered to General Al Sabah. For obvious reasons, we’re not going to allow this to happen. We’re flying nap-of-the-Earth right now. We’ll arrive at the target site just before dawn and intercept the warhead before that plane takes off. Our mission is to secure the warhead and eliminate anyone involved in the delivery. We will take
no
prisoners. Any questions?”

We had none. “Good,” Anders said. “Each chalk will operate as a fire-team. The plane will be waiting on the ground when we get there. Tailor, take your chalk and secure the aircraft. Singer, take your chalk and secure the truck. It’s probably escorted, and there could be heavy resistance. Be aware that the situation can change at any time. If we get there and it’s obvious the plane hasn’t been loaded yet, I want both teams to hit the truck. No matter what, we have to secure that warhead.”

“What will you be doing during all this?” Singer asked.

“Whatever I feel like. I have the RADIAC equipment,” Anders said curtly. “I’m also a trained medic. I’ll be on the ground with you and will direct you over the radio as the situation develops. Do your job.”