As I ponder the problem, I hear the sound of a vehicle approaching. It apparently entered through the front gate and is now driving down the main road toward the courtyard. Concealed by shadow, I lie in the grass beside the shed and watch as the car stops so that the driver can speak to one of the guards.
It’s the Citroën, the car that chased me earlier! Three men are inside, as before. Son of a bitch. Further proof that Basaran had something to do with the incident in the town square. No wonder he stood there doing nothing. Shit, is my cover blown? Does he know who I am? And the bigger question is—why? Basaran’s supposed to be on
our
side, isn’t he?
But I could be jumping to conclusions. These guys in the Citroën could be acting independently of Basaran, for all I know. Maybe Basaran has enemies within his own organization. It’s possible.
Then something odd occurs. The two guards get into the Citroën and drive away toward the airstrip on the far side of the compound. The courtyard is empty. It still doesn’t solve the problem of getting to the other side without the cameras seeing me. Do I dare shoot them out?
The answer comes to me as I look to my left and see a shed housing the three-wheelers, those golf carts I saw the guards driving earlier. I run to the shed and climb into a cart. No key is needed because it runs on electric power. There’s a nice canopy over the driver’s seat—so if I hunch over and keep my head down, I’m fairly certain that the cameras won’t make me. On the surveillance video I’ll probably just look like another guard. I decide to risk it.
The thing starts up and I drive into the courtyard. I hear the cameras move as they pick me up, but I don’t worry about it. I putter along at a slow speed as if I’m just another lazy guard doing his rounds. For authenticity I stop once and pretend to rummage around in the floor of the cart, then continue on.
I make it across, get out of the cart, and begin to explore the sides of the big building. The main employee entrances and loading doors are closed, locked, and directly under floodlight beams. On the far side, though, there’s a garbage Dumpster sitting directly beneath an open window. I scramble up the Dumpster and peer into the place.
For the most part the space is dark. There are lights on here and there, but it’s a very big building. I crawl through the window and drop to the floor on my hands and feet like a cat. Lambert once told me that I’d make a pretty good cat burglar if I were into that sort of thing. I let him think I may have been at one time.
It’s a typical steel mill. There’s the huge furnace, belts, worktables, overhead trolleys, forklifts, and everything else that accompanies a legitimate construction plant. As I explore the place, I’m beginning to think I’m wasting my time here. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. I’m about to give up and get the hell out when I turn a corner and see a lone guard sitting in a chair in front a heavy steel door on rollers. He’s holding an AK-47 and is staring straight ahead, probably counting the minutes until his shift is over. I wonder what he’s guarding.
This time I decide to act aggressively. I load the SC- 20K with a ring airfoil projectile, aim for the guy’s head, and fire.
Zap
—the guard falls over, unconscious. I rush over to him, pick up the round, and return it to my Osprey. He won’t know what happened to him, but he’ll have a fairly big knot on his head when he wakes up.
I unbolt the big door and slide it open. It’s a storeroom containing dozens of crates and boxes. I step inside and—
bingo
. I recognize the crates as having the same stamp as before, from the Tabriz Container Company. With my reliable combat knife I pry off the crate lid. Guns. AK-47s. I pry open another crate—Hakims. Explosives. Bomb-making materials. Pistols. More rifles. Ammunition.
Just what the hell is Akdabar Enterprises doing with a shitload of weapons?
I continue to examine the containers, closing them as I go, and eventually find a shipping manifest still stuck on one of the crates. The originating location is an address in Baku, Azerbaijan. I note it in the OPSAT and decide I’ve seen enough. I snap a few shots of everything and leave the storeroom. I close the heavy sliding door and latch it. The guard is still in Dreamsville.
As I make my way to the window where I entered, I hear the rusty screech of a door opening. It’s the front employee entrance. I rush to cross the floor, but it’s no good—whoever it is will see me if I continue on this path. I hear a single set of footsteps clomping toward me at a slow pace, so I just have time to slip behind a column and stand perfectly still.
The man discovers the unconscious guard and grunts. It’s a sound that’s familiar to me, so I risk peeking around the column. The newcomer is none other than Farid, Basaran’s big bodyguard. I have to get out of here quickly before the goon sounds the alarm. I look around for an escape route and find no other recourse but to climb onto the tall conveyor belt mechanism and grab hold of a pipe that runs the length of the room, forty or fifty feet off the ground. While Farid is bending over the guard and trying to revive him, I dart across the floor, step onto the base of the mechanism, use a set of cranks as leverage, and climb the thing like a monkey. The machine resembles a gigantic old-fashioned jukebox with the conveyor belt coming out of a “mouth.” It’s not easy to climb, especially toward the top, which is rounded. After two tries I manage to clutch a handhold on top of the machine and pull myself up. Sliding off would be a disaster, so I take a moment to catch my breath and concentrate.
I look down and see Farid standing by the guard, who is now sitting up and rubbing his head. No time to lose. I can easily reach the pipe, so I grab it and begin traversing it, hand over hand, my body dangling precariously high over the floor.
Bang!
The gunshot comes from below. Shit, Farid has seen me. I continue to move along the pipe, but the guy’s taking potshots at me with a pistol. He doesn’t have a very good aim, praise the Lord. As I approach the end of the pipe near the far wall, where I can easily climb down to the floor, the gunshots stop. He’s figured out he’ll meet me there, and sure enough, he’s standing below me when I reach my destination.
With my helmet and goggles on, I’m hoping he doesn’t recognize me. Besides, I’m pretty high above him. I hear him grunt at me, motioning me to come down. He expects me to climb down and take my punishment like a man. So what do I do? I let go of the pipe and drop the forty or fifty feet directly on top of him.
We both crash to the hard floor and I feel a sharp pain in my shoulder as it hits the concrete. It’s a good thing Farid is so big; otherwise I could have caused a lot more damage to myself. He made a nice cushion. I quickly scramble to my feet, ready to take on the brute—but I see he’s sprawled faceup, not moving. His arm is bent unnaturally behind his back, obviously broken.
Fine. Saves me the trouble of killing him. Before the other guard can run over to see what’s happened, I move quickly to the spot where I came in, climb some crates to reach the window, and squeeze through.
Outside, I get back in the three-wheeler and drive around the building and head through the courtyard toward the side of the complex where I originally entered. I don’t see a soul. Eight minutes later I park the vehicle near the fence, skirt through the shadows until I find the incisions I made at the beginning of my adventure, pull open the trap, and squeeze through the hole.
Damn, my shoulder hurts. It could be a sprain, but I don’t think it’s a bad one. I’ve taken some pretty hard knocks in my time and this is nothing.
When I’m away from the complex and back in the Pazhan, I send Lambert a message:
URGENT—FIND OUT ALL YOU CAN ABOUT NAMIK BASARAN, ALBERT MERTENS, AND ANDREI ZDROK.
22
LIEUTENANT
Colonel Petlow was tired. He had overseen the interrogation of the prisoners for nearly twenty-four hours. After the “Iraqi prisoner abuse” scandal that had rocked the world several months ago, the U.S. government was being overly cautious with regard to what could or could not be done during interrogation sessions. As a result, interrogations became matters of time. A lot of time.
The prisoner Petlow was most interested in, of course, was No-Tooth, whose real name was supposedly Ali Al-Sheyab. Petlow preferred to call him No-Tooth.
Although no one had realized it at first, No-Tooth had been wounded during his capture. He had taken a bullet in the side, but it hadn’t damaged any vital organs. The round had entered and exited, leaving a bloody hole that wasn’t noticed until No-Tooth had been booked and placed in a prisoner holding pen. Then the man fainted and was taken to a mobile army surgical unit to be stitched up. That’s when the doctors saw that the prisoner was already feverish and hosting a bad case of pneumonia. Such were the hazards of living as a nomad in an unstable country.
Petlow thought that No-Tooth’s condition might work to an advantage. The man was fairly drugged up and probably more comfortable than he had been in months. Armed with new directives from Central Command to find out the identities of specific individuals, Petlow decided to give No-Tooth a try before going to bed.
The surgical unit was housed in an air-conditioned portable building that had clean running water. Things had improved immensely since the days of Vietnam, when an army hospital was just as filled with deadly bacteria as the jungle itself. Depending on the seriousness of the wounds, an injured soldier or prisoner could find it pleasant staying in the hospital.
Petlow was aware of this when he entered with his interpreter. He filled out the necessary paperwork and asked the sergeant in charge to give them some privacy. After checking with the doctors, a folding screen was placed around No-Tooth’s bed and Petlow and the interpreter took seats beside him.
“Mr. Al-Sheyab, do you recognize me?” Petlow asked. The interpreter translated the questions and answers as the two men spoke.
No-Tooth grinned and nodded. They didn’t call him No-Tooth for nothing.
“I’d like to ask you some questions. Will you talk to me?”
No-Tooth grinned wider and shook his head.
“Why not?”
No-Tooth cursed in a language that Petlow didn’t understand. It wasn’t Arabic. Maybe Farsi? The interpreter left the prisoner’s words to Petlow’s imagination.
“But, Mr. Al-Sheyab, we’ve saved your life. You would have died. You had pneumonia. You’d been shot. Aren’t you comfortable now?”
No-Tooth shrugged.
“I suppose then, if you’re feeling fine, that we can move you back to the prisoners’ holding area,” Petlow said.
No-Tooth’s eyes widened and he shook his head.
“Why not? You seem to be doing better. I think I’ll have the doctor release you so we can interrogate you properly.”
“No,” the prisoner said. “What is it you want? Please, I feel terrible and I am in a lot of pain. Don’t move me.”
Petlow almost smiled. “All right. I want you to look at some photographs. I’m going to ask you if you can pick out a certain person, would you do that?”
The prisoner stared at Petlow and almost snarled. But he didn’t say no.
Petlow plowed ahead. He opened a folder containing several black-and-white photos of various Middle Eastern men. “Does the name Ahmed Mohammed mean anything to you?”
Again, No-Tooth grinned.
“I understand that Ahmed Mohammed is one of the leaders of your organization, is this correct?”
No-Tooth shrugged, but he did it coyly. Petlow took that as a yes.
“How about Nasir Tarighian?” Petlow asked. “Do you know Nasir Tarighian?”
This time No-Tooth’s eyes widened and he stopped smiling. He shook his head.
“Is it true that Nasir Tarighian is the man who provides the money behind the Shadows?”
No-Tooth refused to respond.
“You
do
know him, don’t you? Nasir Tarighian? Well, we
know
that Tarighian is the financial leader of your group, which calls itself the Shadows. I understand that you confessed to being a member of the Shadows when you were arrested.”
No-Tooth spoke in a monotone. “I am proud to be a Shadow. We will liberate the Middle East from Western oppression and return it to its Islamic roots.” He said it as if he was repeating a mantra.
“Mr. Al-Sheyab, I don’t believe you are a Shadow,” Petlow said.
No-Tooth’s eyes became fierce. He didn’t like being called a liar. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I’m saying you don’t know if Tarighian is your leader or not. You can’t be a Shadow.”
“I am a Shadow! I am proud to be a Shadow! We will liberate the Middle East from Western oppression and return it to its Islamic roots!”
Petlow showed the prisoner the first photo. “You can’t say that this man is Nasir Tarighian, can you?”
No-Tooth scowled at the photo and said, “That’s not him! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Petlow switched to the next photo. “We think this is Tarighian. Do you?”
“No! You stupid Americans don’t know a great man when you see one. That is Ahmed Mohammed.” Petlow knew that. Mohammed’s face had been well known to the authorities for some time.
Next picture. “Then I guess this can’t be Tarighian, either.”
“That’s not him.”
They went through seven photographs with negative results. On the eighth shot Petlow asked, “Well, we
know
this isn’t him.”
No-Tooth held up a hand. A visible change came over the prisoner’s facial expression, as if he had just looked upon his Lord and Savior.
“Nasir Tarighian,” he whispered reverently.
Petlow nodded and marked the back of the photo.
“Thank you, Mr. Al-Sheyab. Get some rest now, all right?” Petlow said.
No-Tooth looked at Petlow with confusion. He knew he had somehow been tricked into revealing something and his foggy mind allowed it to happen. He cursed once again at Petlow and the interpreter as the two men got up and left. The prisoner shouted at them, “I am a Shadow! I am proud to be a Shadow! We will liberate the Middle East from Western oppression and return it to its Islamic roots!”