Merciless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 1) (5 page)

A
wad Qureshi woke with a start. Through the tent’s screen window, he could see that it was still dark outside. A noise had disturbed his sleep, but now he heard nothing. Their camp was dark, as fires were only permitted inside the rim of the old volcano’s peak.

Awad listened intently for a moment but heard nothing but silence. Then came the low, rolling rumble of distant thunder, far off in the distance.

Pushing a button on his wristwatch, he looked at the illuminated dial and saw that it was still an hour before the sun would be up. Wide awake, he realized it would be pointless to try to go back to sleep. Instead, he sat up, put on his boots and rose from the cot.

Outside, he saw Karim Majdi sitting alone on a log in front of the half circle of tents. Most of the tents were larger and housed two men. Only he, Majdi, and Hussein had separate tents to themselves.

Reaching back inside, Awad picked up the small pack, identical to the ones they all carried, and started toward Karim. Clearing his throat to keep from alarming him, Awad approached and then sat down on the log beside the older man. Karim was twenty-eight and had been living in the town of Waco, Texas, for seven years, working as a mechanic. Short and slight of build, with hair just touching his shoulders in the typical American fashion, he was the son of a tribal elder.

“
As-salamu alaykum
, Karim,” Awad greeted the man.

Karim only nodded, taking a drag from a cigarette. Exhaling into the night sky, he said, “The storm woke you?”

“Yes, do you think it will rain today?” Though Waco was nearly fifteen hundred kilometers to the north, Karim had told him once that the arid mountainous area they were hiding in was similar to that surrounding the Texas city.

“I don’t believe so,” Karim whispered. “It is far to the east. Out over the ocean, I think. Did Hussein give you the details last night?”

Though they were supposed to be working together, Awad knew that Hussein wouldn’t divulge everything to everyone and thought that Karim might be trying to trick him into saying something he shouldn’t.

“Have you been to San Antonio?” Awad asked quietly, as if making conversation.

Karim nodded. “Many times. I have even been there for their military festival and have ridden on the boats that will be our target.”

“What is it like? Will there be many people there?”

“Hundreds,” Karim replied. “Perhaps thousands. Hussein has chosen a good target. The infidels will be there with their families, reveling in their debauchery. It is unlikely that anyone in the crowd will be armed. It will be glorious.”

Awad considered this. He’d hoped the mission would be against the military or law enforcement. He’d only been in America a short time, but could already see how he could easily adopt the Western lifestyle. Karim had lived among them for seven years, yet still held fast to his ideology.

“Yes,” Awad finally agreed. “A glorious triumph for Allah.”

“
Allahu Akbar
,” Karim said quietly, but with great conviction.

Changing the subject, Awad asked, “What are the plans for today?”

“More shooting practice,” Karim replied. “The weapons we are using are not very accurate, but they have great capacity and are small enough to easily conceal. We must become more proficient with their use to be effective.”

Just then, a movement caused them both to turn. Stepping out of one of the tents, the man who had been doing the cooking for the group started toward them. He only nodded as he passed and headed up the trail to the crater, carrying his pack over his shoulder. If all was clear, he’d light the cook fire to prepare breakfast for the men.

“I think I will go and help,” Awad said as he stood up.

Karim grinned. “You are going only to be first in line for the food.”

Shrugging, Awad nodded and started up the path, following the cook. The truth was, since Hussein’s revelation of the civilian target, he just wasn’t sure about anything any more.

When he reached the area in the crater where they usually ate, he found the cook there, the fire already going. The spot was surrounded by large boulders, open only on one side, so it was nearly invisible from further down inside the massive basin.

Fareed Basara saw Awad approaching as he cut up a large piece of meat for the morning stew. He only nodded at the younger man.

“I thought I might be of assistance,” Awad said.

Fareed only grunted an acknowledgment as he carefully cut the meat in the near darkness. Fareed was the oldest of the group, two years older than Hussein. He came from a nomadic tribe in the Pamir Mountain range, near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan and China. Being a nomad, he’d learned from childhood how to cook and prepare food.

Fareed stopped what he was doing and looked up at the younger man. “What is America like?”

Awad considered the question a moment. “There are as many different parts to it as there are rocks on Shah Foladi,” he replied, referring to the highest peak in the Hindu Kush range. “Yet with all their differences, they are still all the same.”

“Do you like it?”

Again, Awad felt as if he were being tested. “Most of them are a decadent people. Trapped by an overabundance of technology. They have forgotten how to do the simple things, such as you are doing now. They eat in restaurants, both fine and sickening, allowing strangers to prepare and handle their food.”

Placing a kettle on a hook over the fire, Fareed said, “Will you bring that water container and pour a liter into the pot for me?”

Awad did as he was bid, bringing one of the many twenty-liter water cans from its hiding place among the rocks. As he poured a small amount into the cauldron, it began to boil furiously, then slowed and finally stopped.

Fareed waited a moment, allowing the water to begin bubbling once more, before sliding the meat from a makeshift cutting board into the kettle. From another hiding place, Fareed retrieved a small, sealed container and dumped the whole contents in with the meat. It contained a number of vegetables that Fareed had either bought or collected along the way, along with a few spices he’d purchased in a small Muslim store in Mexico City when he’d first arrived.

The two men sat down in silence, Fareed occasionally stirring the stew with a long wooden spoon, which he’d carved from a green sapling. After thirty minutes, he lifted the kettle off the fire and placed it on a flat rock, heated by the fire. He did this so the stew could cool enough to be eaten, but not get completely cold.

Soon, the others began to arrive, each carrying his own bowl in his small canvas pack. Also in the packs were the Russian-made Bizon SMG machine pistols each of them had been given.

B
urrs Strip was an ideal location to keep the Huey, Charity realized upon landing. Located in the outskirts of South Miami Heights, it had a grass airstrip and a small hangar, where engine work was done. The whole field was surrounded by mature avocado trees. DHS had leased a section of the hangar to store the chopper on a long-term basis. Charity left the bird on the ground outside the hangar, knowing that it would be wheeled inside as soon as someone arrived in about an hour.

From the airstrip, it was only a quarter-mile walk through a quiet residential neighborhood to the safe house, also leased on a long-term basis. Taking only her go-bag, Charity reached the house in minutes. It was a typical South Florida home, stucco walls and red barrel-tile roof, with reflective tinting on the windows to keep out the hot sub-tropical sun.

Looking up and down the street and not seeing anyone, she hurried to the door and unlocked it. The sun wasn’t completely up yet, but it was already getting light outside. She hadn’t seen any of the neighbors as she’d walked here, and had heard only one dog bark.

Quickly checking each room of the house, she then went straight to the kitchen. The refrigerator and pantry held little, just bottled water and nonperishable canned food.

It doesn’t matter
, she thought. Her plan was to take a quick shower, eat a snack, take a short nap and arrive at the marina at noon.

Opening the door from the kitchen to the garage, she found a nondescript silver Hyundai minivan parked there, the keys to which were hanging on a hook just inside the kitchen door. Sometime later in the day, or early tomorrow, an agent from the CIA would pick up the van and return it to the safe house. They were used to these kinds of things, and Director Stockwell had arranged and planned everything for her disappearance.

Digging through the canned foods in the pantry, she found a fruit cocktail and ate it quickly, straight from the can. The boat, she knew, would be well provisioned, and she’d only need to stop at a grocery store to get some frozen meats, vegetables, and fresh fruit before departing Florida, maybe for the last time.

Going to the large walk-in closet in the master bedroom, Charity found two matching suitcases in a corner, both empty. Against the far wall was a dresser, and on the right, a shoe rack with two pairs of boat shoes and a pair of jungle boots, matching the ones she was wearing. Opening the top drawer of the dresser, she found an assortment of T-shirts and tank tops, all her size. In the second drawer, she found socks, panties, and bras of assorted colors, all name brands and, again, all the right size. Obviously, the director had had a woman do the clothes shopping, judging from the second drawer’s contents. In the third and fourth drawers, she found several pairs of shorts, long-sleeved work shirts like McDermitt always wore, and several pairs of women’s long pants.

It only took her a few minutes to pack, leaving out a pair of khaki shorts, a blue tank top, a bra and panties, placing them on a recliner in the bedroom. Before closing the last case, she placed the target’s file folder on top. Carrying both suitcases to the garage, she put them in the back of the minivan.

Back in the bedroom, she went straight to the bathroom, stripping off her clothes as she went. Below the sink she found a small overnight case, and in the medicine cabinet were a new toothbrush, toothpaste, scent-free deodorant, one pair of latex gloves, and a single bottle of jet-black hair dye.

Standing in just her bra and panties, Charity looked at herself in the mirror. Since Afghanistan, she’d worn her hair cropped very short, no longer desiring the attention. She’d let it grow these last few months, and it was now past her shoulders. Her naturally blond tresses were something she’d been proud of when she was younger. Now, her hair color would be a detriment to the mission.

Reading the directions on the back of the bottle, she put on the gloves and quickly worked the dye into her hair and scalp for several minutes, a towel around her shoulders.

For the next twenty minutes, while she waited for the dye to set, she padded barefoot through the house, inspecting each room more closely and going through the dressers and closets. All the rooms were tastefully furnished, but none of the drawers or closets contained anything at all.

As she passed back through the living room, she looked out the big picture window and saw an old man on the sidewalk. He just stood there, looking at the house. At first, she thought he was some kind of pervert, but then remembered the windows were tinted and she’d been unable to see inside when she’d approached the house.

The man started to walk up the driveway, then seemed to decide against it and turned around. He was nearly back to the sidewalk and stopped again, seeming to look through the tinted window at her.

“Keep going, old man,” Charity mumbled under her breath.

After a moment, the silver-haired man started back up the driveway again.

“Shit!” She’d need to think fast. He’d obviously seen her arrive. Maybe he was a nosy neighbor, or just someone who looked out for everyone in the neighborhood.

The doorbell rang. Charity couldn’t ignore it. He might call the police. She decided to improvise and strode purposefully to the door, tossing the towel on the floor and removing her bra.

One of the team members, a former CIA spook and master of disguise, had trained the rest of them on the best ways not to be seen and—if that failed—how not to be remembered. He said that the best way to not be recognized was to draw attention away from the face. That shouldn’t be too hard, dressed only in black panties.

As Charity quickly pulled open the door, she said, “You’re early, stud.”