Countdown: H Hour (6 page)

“Money? From the old man’s ransom?” Janail scowled doubtfully and, again, not for the first time. “He
has
money. Lot’s more than he can get from us.”

“He has less than he used to,” Mahmood answered. “Much less. And, of what he has, there is probably little that cannot be traced to him. What he will get from us will not be traceable, I think, and so he can use it for whatever purposes he has that he may think good, but that others would not.

“And, too,” Mahmood added, “he is in his own way a pious man, like ourselves. I think he thinks to serve Allah, even if by another name.

“But I still don’t trust him.”

Valentin glanced up at the knock on his seaborne lounge’s entrance. Automatically, he looked up to see a guard wearing the white tropical uniform he’d had issued to the company he kept aboard.

“Your guests are here, sir,” the guard corporal announced.

Valentin’s eyes glanced over the uniform, inspecting it from the shako, with its double-eagle and reversed swastika insignia, down to the shoes. He, himself, had never served. Family connections had seen him well out of the Soviet Union’s draft. But, like other Russian boys, and girls, he’d had a healthy chunk of what the West would have called, “Basic Training,” while still in elementary through high school. Thus, though never a soldier, he could hum the tune well enough to maintain the respect of the ex-soldiers he employed for security. He hummed an even better tune for the old orthodox priest he kept on retainer, half for the benefit of his guards and half for public image. And
that
was sheer hypocrisy.

“Very good, Corporal,” Prokopchenko answered. “See that they’re searched and brought down.”

CHAPTER SIX

In war, the real enemy is always behind the lines. Never in front of you, never among you. Always at your back.

—Jean Raspail,
The Camp of the Saints

Safe House Alpha, Hagonoy, Bulacan, Luzon,

Republic of the Philippines

“Search the house for bugs,” Terry ordered Lox, a scant three minutes after Pedro had left for the airport to pick up a few more members of the advance party. He gave the order as far from the house or any manmade feature as possible. One just never knew.

Lox raised an eyebrow. “And if, rather
when,
I find some?”

“Leave them for now. Put up standard markers to warn off the rest. I just want to know where we can and can’t speak freely.”

Lox turned to get his baggage, sitting on a concrete pad just outside the entrance to the main house. He turned and said, “I don’t like having a single safe house and that provided by an employer I am by no means sure we can trust.”

Welch nodded. “As soon as Semmerlin, Graft, and Franceschi get here, you and one of them are going to go find us our own, along with a car that won’t have a watcher attached.” Then he changed his voice to just above a whisper. “Because, pleasantries aside, I don’t trust the bitch, either.”

“There’s three more waiting at the airport,” Pedro announced, half in, half out of his “taxi.” Behind it, clustered at the open trunk, three more of Terry’s advance party unloaded their limited baggage. These were Master Sergeant Graft, the team leader, medium height, stocky, and rather more than half gray; Semmerlin, maybe early thirties, tall, slender, and blond; and a new troop, Ferd Franceschi, who looked vaguely Balkan, if anything. Franceschi was fairly new, though his background had seemed to the regiment
most
promising.

“They’ll probably be the last until the main force gets here,” Welch answered. To one of the three newcomers, Graft, he said, “Let Semmerlin and Franceschi worry about the bags. I want you and Lox to go back to the airport with Pedro. Your escort. He has a lead he needs to check out in a not so good spot. You’ll be gone two to three days. Stop at a tailor and get some suits made.

“Speaking of which, Pedro? Guns? Permits?”

“Guns tomorrow,” the Filipino answered. “Permits . . . maybe three days. Criminals efficient, but even with bribery, bureaucrat only works so fast, ya know?”

Once the tail of Pedro’s taxi had turned behind the main gate, Terry held up his hands to stop the remaining two in place. “The house is bugged,” he said. “Presumably by our principal. We’ve shunted the furniture around a little, enough to place one flat surface by the right side of the door to any bugged room. Some already had tables. There’re a couple of crossed pencils on the tables of any room that has a bug.”

Semmerlin nodded, unsurprised. Franceschi, new to the regiment and the team, but formerly of Australian SAS, looked a little nonplussed. In a reasonably understandable accent, he asked, “Our own employers spy on us?”

“Usually,” Terry replied, with a grin. “We tend to work for the very rich. They don’t trust us peasants for beans. And with good reason. Hell, you’re one of them, or you were. You should know that.”

“Hey,” the Aussie objected, “I’m trying to rise above my roots. Besides, ‘Australia, as everyone knows, is inhabited entirely by criminals.’ ”

“Fuck. Next you’ll be quoting Monty Python at us.”

“I have a vewy good fwend in Wome . . . ”

“Fuck.”

EDSA, Pasay City, Manila Metro Area,

Republic of the Philippines

The EDSA, the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, was the major highway and ring road encircling Metro Manila. It was just off of there that Pedro let off his two passengers.

Lox waited until the taxi had disappeared into traffic before asking, “First question; did any of you mention how many of us were coming?”

Graft thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No; we mentioned ‘the team’ but not how big it was.”

“Good. Just FYI, we don’t have a lead and, at the moment, I’m not looking for one. We’re going to get another car, buy a dozen throwaway cells, contact a realtor, and buy or rent us a safe house for the other half of the team.”

“Bad principal?” Graft asked.

“Let’s just say a different class from us, and to her we’d be pretty expendable. Let’s also say that Terry thinks better safe than sorry.”

“Fair enough,” Graft agreed. “Gotta love a paranoid CO. But it’s going to be a bitch to find a safe house here. It’s not like the old days, when this place was crawling with flyboys and squids. The other half of the team is going to stick out.”

“Wouldn’t help if they were still here; we’d stand out among them, too. And an expat suburb won’t do for the same reason.”

Graft shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose so. So we need a cover story for why there are half a dozen unusually well built gringos in one house in Manila.”

“The whores?” Lox suggested.

“Nah. People who come here to run the hookers come singly or, at most, in trios. Six is just too many.”

“Crime?”

Again, Graft thought not. “Our people even
look
like they’re involved in any kind of crime and we’ll attract the kind of attention we
really
don’t need. Someone’s going to want their cut, and we won’t have any cut to give them.”

“Well
what
then?” Lox asked, with exasperation.

“Dunno. Let’s get a car and go find that real estate agent. Maybe something will suggest itself.”

“Better make it an SUV,” Lox said. “And we’d better make it quick, since the other six are coming in this evening.”

South Green Heights Village, Muntinlupa City,

Manila Metro Area, Republic of the Philippines

“It’ll do,” Graft agreed, once the realtor had stepped away to lock the place up.

Lox shook his head. “You’re just tired because, after two and a half days of continuous house hunting, this is the first one we’ve seen that isn’t awful.”

“No,” the master sergeant disagreed, “I’m serious. This one will do.”

“This one” was a smallish mansion, on about a one and a half acre lot. White stuccoed and with square, fluted columns, the place boasted seven bedrooms, plus maid’s quarters, a head-high surrounding wall, also white and stucco, plus sufficient messing facilities and a living room large enough for group planning. The furniture was sparse, but the house itself was pretty plush. A garage, tucked in underneath the bedroom level, had walls on three sides with the opening facing the perimeter wall. The gate was offset so that there was no easy direct view from the street of the parking space. No one would see anyone entering or leaving, not in any detail that wouldn’t be obscured by the SUV’s tinted windows.

“And we’ve got roads,” Graft added, “that will do for a quick getaway. In fact, we’ve got a lot of roads, so it would be a quick and unpredictable getaway. If that turned out to be impossible, there’s unbuilt wooded area”—he pointed to the northwest—“about three hundred meters thataway. And more, even closer, to the south. We’ve got the big lake, Laguna de Bay, a mile to the east, too, so a water exfiltration is, at least, a possibility. There are some expats around, so a few gringos, more or less, won’t excite any excess curiosity.”

Lox still looked skeptical. “Okay, so why are they here? Six Kanos in one house, even if it’s a big house, is still freaking suspicious.”

“That’s one of the
beauties
of the place,” Graft answered, grinning with enthusiasm. “It’s fancy enough that an American or European businessman with an administrative assistant and four bodyguards wouldn’t be out of place.

“By the way, how much did the realtor say the owners wanted?”

“Two hundred thirty-three thousand USD. I can get it for two hundred, if I slip the realtor ten under the table.”

“Wouldn’t happen in the States,” Graft sneered.

With a chuckle, Lox replied, “No, in the States, these days, I’d have to slip the realtor twenty but I’d get it for a hundred and ninety. Speaking of which,” he added, seeing the realtor coming back, “make yourself scarce for a bit. They’re corrupt here, though maybe not as bad as we’re becoming. Even so, they’ve enough sense of propriety not to want witnesses.”

“And, speaking of witnesses,” Graft said, leaving for the SUV, “it would be suspicious as all hell for an American businessman with an administrative assistant and four guards not to have a maid and/or cook.”

“One thing at a time, Sergeant,” Lox chided. “Now we go to the realtor’s office and close on the property. Then we’re going to see if an old acquaintance of mine can set this crew up with, at least, a few shotguns. Or whatever.
Then
we worry about a maid and a cook.”

Samurai Arms, Inc., National Road, Bucal,

Calamba City, Republic of the Philippines

“
Samurai
Arms?” Graft asked, seeing the business’ name neatly painted on the plate glass window fronting the street. A spotless, apparently brand new, van sat in an alley next door.

Lox gave a half shrug. “The Filipinos can hold a grudge, just like anybody else, but they don’t make a religion of it. And the war was a long time ago. In any case, this place exists in good part for ‘gun tourism,’ Japanese who can’t have weapons come here—a few other places, too—and get to make a joyful sound unto the Lord.”

“What’s going to be available?”

“You never can tell,” Lox answered. “Legally, he usually keeps around three hundred open and aboveboard guns on the premises. But he runs a little side business where it’s catch of the day.” Pointing with his chin at the glass door with the warning sign that absolutely no loaded weapons were allowed within, Lox said, “Come on.”

As the door swung open, a guard—it was most unlikely that the proscription on loaded weapons applied to him—leveled a shotgun at the pair of Americans. Lox just stood there calmly while Graft began raising his hands.

“Knock it off, Manuel,” commanded a fair skinned Filipina standing behind a glass case. “These are
clients
.” Sheepishly, the young guard lowered the shotgun.

“Ben’s in back, Peter,” the woman said.

“Thanks, Gracie,” Lox answered, starting forward toward a steel door to the right of the display case.

“Haven’t seen you in—what is it? Five years?”

Without stopping he answered, “Closer to six, Gracie. Been busy.”

“Hmmph,” she grunted. Clearly “busy” was not an acceptable excuse. Careful of her well-shaped and painted nails, she reached a delicate finger, bearing a perfect almond nail, down to press a button. From the door came a loud buzz and the sound of a bolt being electronically thrown.

The office behind the door was nothing remarkable. A wooden desk held a computer, along with a pile of files, most quite thin. There were a couple of loose papers that looked like invoices. Behind the desk stood a couple of tall bookcases, holding titles like
Small Arms of the World
and
Jane’s Infantry Weapons
, as well as three ring binders hand labeled with sundry titles and years for various gun magazines, almost entirely American. A few other binders bore official sounding names or numbers. Those were probably the local firearms laws and regulations.

On the wall above the desk were several graduation certificates, ranging from Advanced Handgun to Submachine Gun (Distinguished Graduate) from Front Sight Firearms Training Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada. There was also a certificate for the Tactical Explosive Entry Course, from the Philippine National Police Special Action Force. Next to that was a BS degree in Criminology from the UPHSL, the University of Perpetual Help System Laguna. Lastly, though placed above them all, was a promotion certificate to the rank of Master Sergeant (Reserve) from the Philippine Army.

At the desk, and matching the names on the certificates, sat one Bayani—Ben—Arroyo. He looked very damned young to be a master sergeant, even in the reserves.

At the sound of the bolt retracting, Ben had swiveled his chair to face the door. As soon as he recognized Lox, he was out of the chair, pumping the American’s fist and pounding his shoulder. “Dooode, where ya been?”

Before Lox could answer, or even introduce Graft, Ben directed both him and Graft to chairs against the wall opposite the bookcases.

“Ah, never mind. You won’t tell me anyway. Whatcha need? Right . . . stupid question. What
kind
of guns do you need?”

“Depends on what you have, Ben.”

“Right.” The Filipino turned and walked the step and a half to the bookcase. He took from it a relatively thin binder, which he opened and handed to Lox. “These are what I have in stock right now.”

Lox flipped a page, then another, and then a third. “Prices have gone up, I see. Police making life difficult?”

Ben shook his head. “No, dude,
demand
has skyrocketed. Nobody’s happy with just a shotgun and a revolver anymore. People, especially people who can afford better, are running scared. They want the real deal and fuck the law.”

“Business must be good then,” Lox said.

Ben put out a hand, palm down, and waved it a few times. “It is and it isn’t. I’m tellin’ ya, dude, crime has gotten a lot worse than the government will admit to. I lose customers all the time; kidnappings, robberies, murders, you name it.”

Lox shrugged; times were tough all over. He handed the binder to Graft, saying, “Pick what you think the men will need.”

Graft began to thumb it. “Right off, I want a half dozen sets of under the jacket, level three, partial body armor. These En Garde Executive vests look about right.”

“What sizes . . . by the way, who are you?”

“My fa—” Lox started to say. “No, wait a minute;
your
fault.
You
never gave me a chance. Ben, this is my . . . co-worker, Michael. He knows what he needs better than I do.”

“Okay. Anyway, Michael, what sizes?”

From a pocket Graft pulled out a small notebook in which he had the jacket sizes for each man in his team. He read off those of the six who would be going to the second safe house.

“I can handle everything except the really big guy,” Ben said. “Just not a lot of demand for large sizes here. I can get you an old PASGT in extra large. It won’t hold SAPI plates, of course, but I can get those and a harness to hold them. Will that do?”