Arctic Wargame (Justin Hall # 1) (36 page)

He saw himself hanging upside down in a dark, grim dungeon, tied to the ceiling beams, while three secret police agents “interrogated” him. They would use various methods to “jog” his memory and break his psyche. Sleep deprivation and intimidation by police dogs were just the welcome package. Other techniques included breaking fingers, simulated suffocation with plastic wraps, and water boarding.
I will tell them everything right away before they even touch me.
He struggled to wipe the vivid images from his mind.

Satam slammed on the truck’s horn to clear a path through the crowd. The blaring horn startled him more than the boys and the occasional onlookers. He glanced at the dashboard, realizing he had less than two minutes to reach the busy marketplace square five blocks away.
It will be impossible to make it on time.

He blasted the horn again and stepped on the gas. The truck moved slowly, and Satam wrestled to make a left turn. The alley grew wider. The truck sped up, its wheels dipping and climbing in and out of the potholes. He rushed straight ahead, inches away from oncoming taxis, their honks protesting his unsafe speed. A few sidewalk vendors dove out of the way, their overflowing baskets of bananas and grapes spilling all over the place. Tires screeched as he turned right, jumping the curb and narrowly missing a large bronze planter outside a soap store.

The Mediterranean Sea was now visible to his right, through palm trees, coffee shops, and fruit vendor stands. Satam stared ahead at the square, one of the busiest markets in the Old City. The market rumbled with vendors squabbling over a few dinars with tight-fisted tourists.
I made it. Yes, I made it.
He turned his gaze to the left, toward Tripoli’s skyline, and slowed down before parking the truck in front of a small restaurant. He took a deep breath and dabbed at his forehead with the back of his hand, wiping off a sea of sweat.

The dashboard radio crackled and he picked up the receiver.

“Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” The loud voice echoed over the radio.

Satam recognized Walid’s shouts.

A second later, a loud explosion rocked the entire square. Satam’s gaze spun toward the business district, where a cloud of grayish smoke billowed around the Continental Hotel. Chaos erupted among street vendors who scattered and forgot about their produce and the evening’s clients. Patrons of coffee shops rushed to the streets, staring in disbelief at the sight. Cries of hysteria overtook the growing crowd. Elderly women beat their heads and chests with clenched fists. Young men pointed and shouted, their bodies restless. The sharp siren of an ambulance sliced through the cacophony of terror.

With a quick movement of his wrist, Satam consulted his watch. Just as the digits registered 6:31, another explosion shocked the crowd. This time, the bomb hit closer, much closer, a few blocks away. From inside his parked truck, Satam looked at the bright yellow glow of the blast. High flames leapt at a ten-story office building. A thick cloud of black smoke began to swallow up the tower. The crowd broke into smaller groups. People scurried in all directions. Some ran back to their shops and apartments. Others simply circled the area, perhaps unsure of the safe way out.

Satam knew his time had come. He revved the engine and stomped on the gas pedal. The truck arrowed toward the vendors’ tables. The market was mostly empty, and the truck crashed into crates of fish, baskets of grapes, and barrels of olive oil. Produce scattered everywhere as the truck rampaged through plastic tables and chairs.

A police truck zipped toward him. Satam steered around, not to escape, but to meet the approaching vehicle. The two policemen in the truck ignored Satam. They were going to drive past him, but Satam swerved hard. The right fender of his truck smashed into the police truck. The police truck jerked to the other side. The driver pulled over and stopped less than thirty feet away. The other policeman rolled down the window. Satam stared at the muzzle of an AK-47 assault rifle.

“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” Satam shouted and opened his door.

A quick burst of bullets sent him ducking for cover in the front seat. A shower of glass shreds fell over his head.

They’re going to kill me before I even have a chance to open my mouth. Or one of the bullets will blow up the truck. I can’t let that happen.

He looked at the back of the truck. Thirty pounds of Semtex explosives wired into a homemade bomb were stored inside the seat compartments. He noticed the cellphone on the floor mat by his left hand. He reached for the phone. All it would take for him to set off the explosives—and pulverize himself and the policemen—was to tap three preset numbers. His fingers hovered over the phone, but he remembered his family’s honor and the reward waiting for him in paradise. He dropped the phone to the floor, buried his head in the seat, and locked his fingers behind his head.

A minute or so passed before the shooting stopped, but the screaming continued. He heard the distinct thuds of combat boots marching up the street. The police were approaching his truck. He looked up slowly as a policeman pulled open the driver’s door of his truck and aimed an AK-47 at his head

“Don’t move!” the policeman ordered him.

Satam nodded.

Without a word, the policeman juggled the rifle in his hands and slammed its buttstock hard against Satam’s head.

Chapter One

Cairo, Egypt

May 13, 6:25 p.m. local time

Justin Hall did not want to fire his gun. Too many witnesses crowded the street.

I will kill those two men following me if I have to. Then, I’ll clean up the mess.

His hand rested over the Browning 9mm riding inside the waistband holster at his thigh. He peered again at the reflections in the store window glass. He pretended to admire a black suit. In fact, he was checking every move of two young men behind him. Before he continued to his meeting, he wanted to make sure the pair, which had followed him for the last three blocks, were random strangers, rather than plainclothes police officers doing a poor surveillance job. Or worse. Assassins.

The two men did not stop by the store. They kept walking and, as they rounded the street corner, Justin followed them. He tailed the men for a couple of minutes. They wandered along the north side of Nile City Towers Mall, stopping at times for quick window-shopping but never looking over their shoulders. Still, he found their actions suspicious. He used the same counter-surveillance tactic. Justin wondered if a second backup team had replaced the first, after he had made the two men.
If this is mukhabarat, there has to be more than one.

The sun had begun to set, its last golden rays bouncing off the reflective glass of nearby tall skyscrapers. A thin crowd was building up around the shopping district in downtown Cairo. Justin glanced around him on all sides. He tried to spot anyone who looked as if they belonged to a surveillance team. He scouted the area for operatives in dull or baggy clothing, wearing boring sunglasses, sporting earpieces, or simply standing out in the crowd. He listened for the slowing of footsteps, the shuffling of clothes, and any metallic click. No one fit the profile.

The men turned another corner and Justin continued to follow them. Twilight shadows and the flow of pedestrians out for the evening should have made it easier for him to track his prey, but the dry, sizzling air, scorched by a punishing sun for twelve hours, countered all his advantages. Drops of sweat formed on his broad forehead. The bulletproof vest underneath his loose-fitting polo shirt felt twice as heavy as when he had put it on earlier in the morning.

His BlackBerry chirped from his pocket, the sound breaking his concentration. Without slowing down, he pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

“Where are you?” the short e-mail asked.

It was from Carrie O’Connor, his partner. They worked for the Canadian Intelligence Service, and they should have checked in at the Fairmont Nile City Hotel an hour ago. They were scheduled to meet with Sheikh Yusuf Ayman, one of the masterminds of the terrorist organization Islamic Fighting Alliance, but the sheikh had scrapped the meeting at a moment’s notice. Carrie was still surveilling the Fairmont, while Justin was returning from following two of the sheikh’s associates to a previously unknown safe house.

I’ll be there soon.
He pocketed the BlackBerry.
A few more minutes.

He followed the two men until they entered the Desert Rose, a hip bar favored by the young and rich. Justin kept a close eye on the main door, throwing casual glances at their table by the window. At the same time, he searched the streets for the elusive second surveillance team.

Ten minutes later, after the two men had finished their first drinks, Justin concluded they were not secret police, and he was not being watched by them or anyone else. But this was Cairo, and one could never be too careful. In a country still ruled by the General Intelligence Service, known simply as
mukhabarat,
one wrong turn could be the last, even for professionals like him. Controlled paranoia had saved his life more than once in the most dangerous back alleys of North Africa.

Justin headed toward the Castle, a small coffee shop where Carrie was waiting for him. The Castle was to the left of the Fairmont, with an unobstructed view of the hotel’s VIP entrance. Rahim, the owner of the joint, was on the CIS Cairo Station payroll. The coffee shop provided a casual yet safe place for CIS agents to run covert operations.

Before pushing open the carved wood door of the Castle, Justin stopped and glanced at the alley in front of the coffee shop. He noticed a white sedan, an old model Ford, parked halfway between the entrance to a three-story apartment building across the alley and a grocery store. Justin squinted and noticed the silhouette of a small woman wearing a hijab crouched in the front passenger’s seat. A tall man was talking to the shopkeeper by the fruit and vegetable stand in front of the grocery store.
Is that her husband? Her brother?
Justin scanned the windows of the apartments but noticed nothing suspicious. He threw another sweeping look at the other side of the street and stepped inside the coffee shop.

A thin cloud of tobacco smoke billowing from a handful of patrons engulfed him. Justin sneaked in, skirting around the tables and avoiding eye contact with anyone. He stood near the counter until Rahim, who was filling a couple of glasses with dark beer, took notice of his presence.

“Where have you been?” Rahim asked in a low voice. “You’re late.”

“Making sure I wasn’t followed,” Justin replied. “Is somebody waiting for a ride?” He gestured with his thumb back toward the door.

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s an old Ford parked outside.”

“That would be Leilah,” Rahim said, his pot-like head bobbing with every word. “She’s waiting for her husband, Farouk.”

A few servings of
kofta,
minced lamb sprinkled with spices, sizzled on the grill behind Rahim.

“Did you send Nebibi for a closer look?” Justin asked.

“No. Why?”

A surveillance camera was installed above the archway entrance to the Castle, and it hidden inside one of the lighting sconces. It transmitted clear images to Rahim’s computer screen, which doubled as a cash register. With a few clicks, he could keep a constant eye on what happened on the street. Justin preferred to be on the scene, the difference between being an observer and actually understanding an evolving situation.

Justin pointed to his left, toward the kitchen separated from the bar by a reddish curtain. “Have him check things out.”

Rahim nodded and disappeared inside the kitchen.

The CIS trusted Nebibi, the cook, like they trusted his uncle Rahim. Justin, on the other hand, did not trust many people. He knew Rahim had great financial incentives to provide actionable intelligence to them, as the CIS paid him handsomely for his services. But he worried about another buyer tempting Rahim. The man was willing to trade in nearly all secrets for the right price. The Egyptian was not bound by the same code of honor streaming through the veins of CIS agents. Justin realized CIS had to rely on local sources to navigate the labyrinths of Cairo’s streets and Egypt’s foreign policies. Still, he kept his reliance on Rahim to the bare minimum.

Rahim returned.

“A man was talking to some guy from the grocery store when I walked in,” Justin said.

“Yeah, that man is Farouk. He’s a good friend of the store owner. Nebibi is going out the back. Are you hungry?”

“No, not really. Still two hours until supper.”

“Yes, for Egyptians.”

“I am half-Egyptian.”

“You’re half everything.” Rahim turned around to attend to his grill.

Justin grinned, rubbing his dimpled chin. His Mediterranean complexion—dark olive skin, raven wavy hair, big black eyes, and a large thick nose, inherited from his Italian mother—allowed him to blend in naturally among the countless nationalities living in the bustling city of eighteen million. Youthful stamina, a natural talent for languages, and an overdose of stubbornness had allowed him to master spoken Arabic like a native Egyptian.

“Can I bring you some
mezze
at least?” Rahim asked, referring to appetizers.

“Sure.”

“Coffee?”

“Definitely.”

Rahim turned around and poured coffee from a long-handled pot into a porcelain cup. Justin savored the strong aroma of the thick, concentrated drink and clenched the cup in his left hand. He climbed the concrete stairs, which took him to the second floor. A narrow hall led to two safe rooms, once part of Rahim’s family apartment. Now they were reserved for the private use of CIS operatives. Justin knocked twice on the white door of the first room.

“Come in,” a woman’s soft voice called from inside.

“Hi,” Justin greeted Carrie.

She sat cross-legged on a chair by one of the windows. A pair of powerful binoculars and two manila folders lay spread over a plastic table, next to a CIS-issued Browning 9mm and a tea mug. Poster-sized photographs of the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx covered the beige walls.