Authors: David Hagberg

Allah's Scorpion (26 page)

BOOK: Allah's Scorpion

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ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

Two RPG rounds, one right after the other, exploded within a few yards of where McGarvey was crouched. He’d seen the two terrorists step out from behind the sheriff ’s van, but before he could shoot, they’d fired the rockets.

Spears of wood and shrapnel flew everywhere, several hitting McGarvey’s left side, cutting his leg and torso, and opening a fairly substantial gash in his neck. The two concussions also knocked out his hearing, leaving behind a whooshing sound as if he were inside a jet engine.

Picking himself up, he staggered across to the bole of a larger tree, from where he had a good line of sight up to the second van. He counted at least four men plus the one on the ground.

The same two who had fired the RPGs had reloaded and emerged from behind the van again.

McGarvey’s vision was hazy, but he steadied his gun hand against the tree and squeezed off a shot that slammed into the hood of the van. The terrorist stepped aside, and then started to bring the RPG around.

Before he could fire, McGarvey pulled off two snapshots at the other terrorist holding an RPG, knocking him down, and then scrambled as
fast as he could across an open swatch of grass to another clump of trees.

An RPG round struck a few feet behind him, spraying his back with what felt like thousands of needles or buckshot.

Aiming over his shoulder he fired two shots at the terrorist who’d launched the RPG, and the slide locked in the open position, the pistol dry.

He pulled up behind one of the trees, and laid his head against the trunk. His hearing was still bad, but he thought there were sirens somewhere in the distance.

Easing around from behind the tree, he took a quick look up the hill, then ducked back. He counted three bodies on the road, and perhaps two other terrorists crouched behind the van.

He released the slide. The Company’s chief armorer had been after him for years to carry a SIG Sauer or Glock, something with more stopping power than the Walther, and one that held at least fifteen rounds. But the PPK was an old friend that had saved his life on more than one occasion.

He was light-headed from his wounds and the loss of blood, and he had done all that he could. The police would be here soon, and they could finish the job.

From here he couldn’t see up to the gravesite, nor could he hear any shooting.

He looked out from behind the tree as two of the terrorists were dragging the bodies off the road. A third had gotten behind the wheel of the van and was gesturing at the others to hurry.

Dropping low, and keeping behind the trees as much as possible, McGarvey headed up the hill toward the van as fast as his legs would carry him.

Fifteen feet out, one of the terrorists looked up and spotted McGarvey charging up the hill, pistol in hand, blood streaming from a dozen wounds, and he fell back against the van, a look of abject terror on his long, narrow face.

“Kifaya baa!”
McGarvey shouted.
That’s enough!

The second terrorist had already climbed inside the van with the driver, and he was trying to bring his M8 carbine to bear.

McGarvey reached the man by the hood, grabbed a handful of his
shirt, and pulled him around to cover the open door, when the terrorist inside fired the M8, three rounds slamming into the back of his fellow mujahideen’s head.

The driver slammed the van into gear and stomped on the gas pedal.

McGarvey shoved the dead terrorist aside and as the van started to pull away, its tires squealing, he reached inside, grabbed the man’s arm, and pulled him out, both of them tumbling backwards off the road.

The terrorist had lost his rifle, but he pulled out a Beretta auto-loader from his belt. McGarvey snatched it out of his hand and smashed the butt of the pistol into the bridge of the man’s nose, knocking him senseless.

Scrambling to his feet, McGarvey hobbled back up to the road and fired three shots at the retreating van until it finally got well out of range.

Someone was shouting his name as if from a very great distance. It sounded like a woman’s voice to McGarvey.

He turned in time to see the second sheriff ’s van barreling up the road, practically on top of him.

McGarvey caught a glimpse of Gloria, racing on foot down the hill from the gravesite shouting his name, as he leaped backwards. The van swerved to hit him, but its front wheel dropped off the side of the road, and the driver frantically brought the van back onto the pavement.

Gloria started to fire at the retreating van, but she ran out of ammunition by the time she reached McGarvey, who had landed in a bloody heap next to the still unconscious terrorist he’d pulled from the first van.

Gloria bent over at the waist, clutching her sides as she tried to catch her breath. She had taken some shrapnel or marble chips in her head, and the wounds were oozing blood.

“You don’t look so hot,” McGarvey said, sitting up. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Ambulances are on the way,” she said, her voice far away. “You have any serious wounds?”

“I don’t think so. How about Toni and the kids?”

“They’re okay, thanks to you. But we lost six people, plus Max Schneider, one of Adkins’s people.” She glanced over at the terrorist. “How about him?”

“He’ll live,” McGarvey said.

“Well, he’s the only one we have, unless the Bureau or someone catches up with the others,” she said, looking down the road in the direction the
two vans had disappeared. She turned back to McGarvey. “They were after you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She managed a slight smile. “You’re not a very popular guy.”

He smiled back. “Do you suppose it’s my personality?”

PART
THREE

FORTY

PORT OF LA GOULETTE, TUNISIA

There was virtually no traffic at four in the morning, though the nine ships in port were ablaze in lights, from aboard as well as from along the north quay where most of the cargo vessels were unloaded. The night shift had left one hour ago, and the port would not be open for business again until seven. A man dressed in dark slacks and a pullover, carrying an ordinary seaman’s duffel bag, walked along the quay, stopping at the gangway of a tramp steamer.

Rupert Graham looked up at the bridge windows, but only a dim red light was showing, and there didn’t seem to been anyone aboard, though he could hear the distant sound of machinery running inside the hull. He knew this ship and her master almost as well as the men and pirate ships he’d commanded. Neither were much to look at, but both man and vessel were trustworthy.

She was the MV
Distal Volente,
owned by a small Greek shipping company, and registered in Liberia. Built in 1959 in the United Kingdom by Sunderland Shipbuilders, she had seen better days. Now she was considered a scrapper, which was a boat so battered, so eaten with rust that she was fit for little else other than a breaking yard where she would be cut up and sold for scrap.

At 150 meters on deck, her superstructure was amidships, leaving cargo spaces in her holds as well as on deck forward and aft. Four cargo containers were lashed to the afterdeck, and two others were secured forward. She rode low in the water, ready to leave as soon as the Tunisian pilot arrived sometime this morning.

A short, slightly built man, wearing an open-collar white shirt, stepped
out of the shadows and came to the rail. “It is good to see you again, my old friend,” he called down softly, his singsong Indonesian accent distinctive.

“I thought that you would be dead or in jail by now,” Graham said.

“Dead someday, jail never,” Captain Halim Subandrio said, chuckling. “Did anybody spot you coming here?”

“I don’t think so,” Graham said. He’d taken a great deal of care with his movements. Finally he was going to hit the bastards hard, and he didn’t want to screw up his chances.

“Come aboard then, we need to talk before we put you in hiding.”

Graham started up the gangway, aware that Subandrio was looking down the quay back toward the road. He was a tough old bastard who’d been working the South China Sea pirate trade for years before Graham had shown up. He’d survived that long because he was a cautious man.

“Never forget to always look over your shoulder, my friend,” he’d told Graham early on. “In that way you will minimize nasty surprises, and live another day to share the bed of a good woman.”

Graham had almost killed the man on the spot; his grief over Jillian’s death was still fresh in his mind, and his hate was a bright pool of molten metal in his gut.

Subandrio had picked up a little of that from Graham’s eyes. He smiled gently and laid a hand on Graham’s shoulder as a father might with a son. “Also remember that the past can never be lived again. No matter how terrible or joyous, we must go on.”

Graham and his crew had learned to time their hijackings to coincide with the
Distal Volente
’s sailing schedules. Within hours of boarding a hapless vessel, killing its crew and stealing its cargo, they would meet Subandrio and transfer the stolen goods. Graham’s ships had been boarded three times, but always after they’d gotten rid of their cargo, so no charges had ever been brought against him.

At the top, Graham shook hands with the man. “Is my crew here?” Subandrio nodded toward the containers lashed to the afterdeck. It was clear he wasn’t happy. “They came aboard in one of those yesterday afternoon. As soon as it got dark they let themselves out and came belowdecks.” He shook his head. “It’s bad business, Rupert, between them and my crew. You will have to do something before the situation gets completely out of hand.”

Bin Laden had arranged for eighteen crewmen, most of them Iranians,
for the tough mission. But although they had a great religious zeal for the
jihad,
they were misfits who would have been better as suicide bombers in Baghdad, or mujahideen doing battle with the Americans in Afghanistan, than as a crew aboard a submarine. Graham had never met any of them, he’d only seen their dossiers, but he was convinced that by the time they got across the Atlantic they would be molded into an acceptable crew. He would kill any man who didn’t cooperate, and the sooner he got that message across the sooner their training could begin.

They would have only one shot at what he planned to do, and those plans did not include committing suicide for the cause. He would let his crew have that honor.

“What exactly is the trouble?” Graham asked.

“Let’s get off the deck first,” Subandrio said, and led Graham across to a hatch into the superstructure.

The passageway was dimly lit in red. Now Graham could more clearly hear the sound of machinery running somewhere below. And he could hear the murmur of several voices. Whoever was talking sounded angry.

“I want them to return to the container, but they refuse my orders,” Subandrio said. “You can hear them. They’ve been at it all night; arguing, fighting; making a very big mess of my galley and stores. My crew refuses to have anything to do with them.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Graham promised. It was better that he established a clear understanding between them right from the start.

“The pilot is scheduled to be here in less than three hours,” Subandrio said. “He sometimes comes early. If you or your crew are spotted the game will be up.”

“Is there food and water in the container?”

“Yes, and light. It will only be until we clear the breakwaters and the pilot leaves,” Subandrio said. “Maybe one hour longer, depending on traffic, and you may leave your little box.”

Graham put down his duffel bag. He took his pistol, a 9mm Steyr GB, out of his pocket, and screwed a Vaime silencer on the end of the barrel. “Wait here, Halim, I’ll go fetch them.”

Subandrio nodded. “How long will you be needing my ship?”

“We’ll be gone by midnight tomorrow.”

“Who are these guys? What’s the mission?”

“You don’t want to know,” Graham said. “Do you have any rolls of plastic?”

“Should be some in the dry-stores locker,” Subandrio said, puzzled.

“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” Graham said, and he headed aft to the galley and crew’s mess.

Subandrio ran his ship with a crew of only nine, including a cook, but all of them were out of sight this morning, keeping out of the way of the Iranians, who were holed up in the mess waiting for their own captain to arrive.

As Graham came around a corner, he heard someone say something in Arabic from an open door at the end of the narrow corridor, and several men laughed harshly. He stuffed the pistol in his belt at the small of his back, and walked to the end of the corridor, where he held up at the open door.

The strong smell of marijuana and something else pungent wafted out of the small dining area. His eighteen crewmen, all of them dressed in blue jeans or khakis and T-shirts, several days’ stubble on their faces, were crowded around two long, narrow tables littered with the remains of canned fish and beef, crackers, Coca-Cola, and other items they’d raided from the ship’s stores. A serving counter and service door at the back of the room opened to the galley that looked to be in a mess.

A couple of them spotted Graham in the doorway, but they just looked at him dumbly.

“Good morning,” Graham said in English.

All of them turned and looked at him with some curiosity, but very little else. One of them said something in Arabic and a few of the men chuckled.

“We’ll speak English from now on, if you please,” Graham said. “Who is Muhamed al-Hari?”

“I am,” a tall, slender man, drinking from a handleless mug, said. According to the dossier bin Laden had supplied, al-Hari had been a navigation officer aboard one of Iran’s Kilo submarines, and had even attended the Prospective Officers Special Course, at Frunze Military Academy in Leningrad.

“You will be my executive officer,” Graham said.

Al-Hari’s eyes lit up. “Then it’s true, we have a submarine?”

“We will if we can get out of Tunisia without being arrested, which will surely happen if the authorities discover your presence aboard this ship.”

“I’m not going back inside that stinking box,” one of them grumbled. “We’ll hide in the crew’s quarters. No pilot will bother looking there.”

“Very well,” Graham replied pleasantly. “Mr. al-Hari, there is a roll of plastic sheeting in the dry-stores locker. Bring me a piece of it, if you would, about two meters on a side, I should think. And see if you can find some tape.”

Al-Hari nodded uncertainly, but he got up and went into the galley.

“What is your name and rank, please?” Graham asked the crewman who’d complained.

“I am Syed Asif,” the crewman answered as if his name meant something. “I was an ordinary seaman. But I’m not going back in that box.”

“You are from Pakistan?” Graham asked.

The others were paying rapt attention to the exchange. One of them said something in Arabic, and a few of them laughed again.

Al-Hari came back with the sheet of plastic, and a roll of duct tape.

“Lay it out on the deck behind Seaman Asif, please,” Graham instructed.

The Pakistani was clearly nervous now, not quite comprehending what was about to happen, but beginning to realize that whatever it was might not be so good.

Al-Hari spread the plastic out behind the seaman, then stepped aside.

Graham pulled out his pistol, and, before anyone could move, fired one shot in the middle of Asif ’s forehead, killing him instantly, his body falling backwards off his stool and landing on the plastic sheet.

“Wrap Seaman Asif ’s body in the plastic and secure it with the tape,” Graham told the stunned crewmen. “When you are finished with that, you will clean the mess you have made here, and meet me topside—with the body—in ten minutes. I will be joining you in our luxurious on-deck stateroom. There is much I have to tell you.”

No one uttered a sound, but their eyes were locked on his. He’d gotten their attention.

“Is that clear?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” al-Hari responded crisply.

“Very well, you may carry on,” Graham said, and he turned and left.

BOOK: Allah's Scorpion

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