SANCTION: A Thriller (6 page)

“Yeah,” he said, curling back up into a ball.

The professor covered the rest of the distance and maneuvered around a few students that were crammed together in front of a Formica covered countertop.

“Excuse me,” He said softly.

Rhinefeld reached up and snatched an aluminum canteen that the guard had left behind. He shook it as he pulled it toward him. It was nearly full.

He quickly unthreaded the cap and lowered the jug to the student closest to him.

“Take a tiny sip and pass it to the person next to you. You have to drink, no heroics here. This heat will kill us all long before our new friends have a chance to.”

Several of the students were hesitant to take the canteen knowing where it had come from. They no doubt feared the guard should he return and catch them depleting his personal supply. Rhinefeld insisted though and the canteen kept making its way around the room. It had almost made a complete round when they heard the sound of boots hitting the floor. Rhinefeld looked down and saw that the canteen had gotten as far as Tracy Peters.

Her face was plagued with fright. As the steps grew louder, she froze. Rhinefeld stepped over legs and arms to try to get to Tracy just as the sound of the key hit the lock.

Seeing the professor wasn’t going to make it, Matt Ward snatched the canteen from Tracy.

The door swung open and Azim stepped in. He looked at Rhinefeld who was now sitting opposite of where he had been and then shifted his concentration to the students. His eyes roved the group suspiciously until they landed on Matt Ward and the canteen. The man’s reaction was immediate and brutal. He lifted his AK-47 assault rifle by the barrel and snapped it into the firing position. With a series of giant steps towards Matt, he lunged and brought the butt of the rifle up into the air. He brought the rifle butt down and onto Matt’s jawline. There was a terrible crunch as the back of Matt’s head impacted the wall behind him.

Hysterical screams burst from the group of hostages.

“Ok, ok…everything’s ok. Azim,” Rhinefeld shouted to the guard. The professor was back up and walking slowly toward the man. His palms were open and facing Azim.

“Everyone, quiet down.” Rhinefeld shouted over the loud din of the cries. He looked to Matt on the floor. He was unconscious, his jaw beginning to swell.

Outside the door a clattering of boot heels echoed across the stone floor as the other men responded to the commotion.

The terrorist raised his rifle again and in a flash smacked the professor in the face with the bottom of the rifle. Rhinefeld hit the floor. Azim was kicking him in the stomach. After a few wrenching blows, the professor’s vision funneled into a hazy white blur and he blacked out.

Imam Nazari had decided to change the weekend’s itinerary. He had told the reporters that he sought a more intimate location for the ‘Special Press Summit’. He cited, “viable death threats” as the reason. They were in the air less than six hours after arriving in Syria. In truth, the move from the estate house in Syria had been part of the plan all along.

The Imam sat next to the man whom he referred to as his “Minister of coordination and administrator of special events and activities”. It was a running joke between the two men. A mockery of the long titles that so called, Sovereign Nations, gave to the government roles of those in the upper echelons.

Nazari and Hassan Bishara leaned in toward one another. They were among friends and people they knew they could trust still, they spoke in whispers.

“And what about the Shaikh?” Nazari asked the younger man.

Bishara frowned and turned his head from side to side.

“Uncooperative,” he stated plainly. He seemed uncomfortable with this particular question. Nazari picked up on it instantly. Nazari had known the Syrian all of his life and he knew how to read his expressions without error.

The aging cleric placed a wrinkled brown hand on Hassan’s shoulder.

“I am sure that you did what you had to.”

Bishara nodded in agreement. “You will have no trouble taking over Hezbollah now.”

Nazari smiled. “Perhaps. But there is still much to be done. I doubt Hezbollah will readily lend itself to a hostile takeover. Their mid-level leadership may require additional encouragement.”

Hassan contemplated this silently. “They’ll be there.” He said.

The two talked for over an hour about the future. It seemed Bishara was certain they were to succeed. “He is young,” the older man thought to himself. “He has learning to do.”

Still, Nazari was proud of him. He had completed the first phase of the mission without compromise. The death of Shaikh Samara had been somewhat expected. Nazari never truly thought that he would join their cause. Samara had always been heavy in the arrogance category. Now that the Shaikh was no longer an issue, Nazari had one last thing to worry about. There would be others that would attempt to rise up and seize control of Hezbollah once they learned of their leader’s demise, but Nazari doubted any would have the nerve to go against him. What worried the cleric, was that this was only a small piece of a very complicated puzzle. Everything would have to fall into place at the exact right moment, or else the plan would fail. He was skeptical. He closed his eyes and eased his head against the soft plush leather headrest. The drone of the aircraft’s twin gas turbines lulled him to sleep in minutes.

Bishara turned on his iPhone and proceeded to get down to one last piece of business. He opened his email and composed a short draft.

He looked outside the window of the aircraft. Off to the starboard side, about 1000 yards away, was a little white spec. That was the plane that was transporting the small gathering of reporters that had been with Nazari and company since Geneva. Bishara had been amazed at the amount of wealth Arab benefactors were willing to spend on Nazari. They had yet to say no to an expenditure. But he was even more shocked by the United Nations wonton use of “aid” money. Nazari literally controlled billions, most of which the Palestinians had received during Yasser Arafat’s reign. Arafat had used the boon to fill his own coffers, rather than build infrastructure in Gaza.

“Everything is going well,” he wrote.

“You know what to do. You may begin. Praise be to Allah! We are counting on you, Saleem.”

Brad Ward paced back and forth on a rough plot of grass. The National mall was a large rectangular field, situated between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument.

The President’s press conference had him stewing. It had been little more than political posturing.

Graham Vanderbilt had declared that the United States would not stand for the wholesale abduction of its citizens. In the very next breath he said they would work through diplomatic channels to secure the release of the students, wherever they were. Basically, the administration didn’t like the situation its people were in but they weren’t going to do anything about it.

Brad was furious. He dialed the number to an old friend and placed his cell phone to his ear. A lady with a slight British accent answered.

“Thank you for choosing Bombay travel agency, how may I help you?”

“I need to speak to Tom Kingsley please.”

“I’m sorry, Tom who?” She asked.

Brad knew the drill.

“Password is…Tandem Six Moxley.”

The senseless combination of words informed the individual on the other end of the line that Brad had access to their operations. If he had given an incorrect password she would have told him he had the wrong number and ended the call. There was a brief pause.

“Hold please, I’ll patch you through.”

Brad stopped pacing and looked around the mall. Things were different today. He could feel a tear form in the corner of his eye as he thought of his brother.

His mind flashed back to his visit from Edmond Bailey. The National Security Advisor had been riled up from the events of the day but not enough to keep him from wondering why Brad rented a shabby one bedroom apartment two miles down the street from a forty acre ranch that the DIA agent owned outright. Brad had chosen not to speak about Nancy to the Advisor.

“Brad my friend, how are you?”

The voice on the other end filled Ward’s ear, so that he had to pull the phone back from his face until he could get the volume adjusted. He brushed Nancy out of his mind. Even in his thought life, his wife had to wait.

“Hey Tom, I’ve been better. I need to know what happened yesterday. You guys are the only eyes and ears on the ground that I have out there.”

Kingsley knew what Brad was referring to without him saying.

Brad had worked with Kingsley since starting the field chapter of his career. The two men had forged a sincere respect for each other while slipping in and out of “Hot Spots” like Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. The work they had done together existed outside of the typical missions that were sanctioned by the United States, in what was opaquely termed, “Unconventional Warfare”.

“What can you tell me?” he asked.

“I don’t know much, to be honest. But I hear they want the Mujahedeen for this.”

The Mujahedeen was a group of Afghan rebels. They were holdovers from the 1979 war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. The Central Intelligence Agency along with numerous Special Forces units trained, armed and fed the rebels during the cold war in an effort to keep Russia from gaining a foothold in the Middle East. Once the Mujahedeen had successfully expelled the invading Red Army, they began training their sites on their true enemy, America.

After 9/11, the Mujahedeen was labeled a primary target by the Bush Administration. Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda came from within their ranks with scores of other new public enemies and radical offshoots, all clamoring for blood in the wake of the violence of that day.

“Other than that, all I know is that some college kids were ripped from a site in Zefat,” he said.

“Why? Are you point man on this, or are those Washington clowns just riding you to come up with a scapegoat?” Kingsley asked.

Kingsley was always a straight shooter, he never minced his words. It was one of Brad’s favorite qualities.

“One of those college kids is my brother.” The sentence hung in the air for a few seconds before either man spoke again.

“I’m sorry to hear that Brad.”

Kingsley searched for comforting words but emotion was one area of his personality that had never fully developed. Part of Kingsley’s lack of an adequately reassuring reply was the facts in yesterday’s events. It didn’t look good for the students.

“It’s okay Tom. Where are you right now?” Brad asked, knowing that Kingsley’s special bag of skills would always keep him somewhere in the Middle East.

“Bahrain, unofficially of course.” Kingsley snorted as he said this. He had a tough time with politicians who sent his team on missions they were afraid to own up to.

Brad wished he was on the ground there. The pressure he felt would fade exponentially the closer he was to ground zero.

“Tom, I’m coming out there.” Brad blurted out before he’d had time to think about it.

“Do you think you can provide some Intel by the time I’m in Bahrain?”

Brad’s mind instantly went from angst and frustration to planning mode. This was what he was good at. He couldn’t just sit around and watch a handful of Bureaucrats, who had no vested interest in sticking their wormy little necks out, do nothing.

“Sure, I can take a couple of days off. You’ll need some gear. Text me a packing list.” Kingsley said.

He felt like he should caution his friend about getting this close to the action when he was emotionally involved. But he couldn’t imagine himself being talked out of it if it were his brother, so he decided against it.

“Within the next twenty hours. I’ve got to be there Tom. It’s driving me nuts being this far removed from the situation.”

Brad had a feeling that Tom was going to ask about Nancy. He tried to end the conversation abruptly.

“Alright, I’ll…”

Tom didn’t miss the dodge at all.

“How’s Nancy?”

B
en grabbed his luggage from the co-pilot at the back of the plane and followed the group of reporters to a small building on the edge of the runway. From the air, he had spotted a sprawling complex. In the center of the island stood fifteen small buildings, one massive auditorium and a large mansion. Several long piers jutted out from the home’s wrap around porch and stretched far into the surrounding sea. Three huge container ships were anchored a mile off of the island’s eastern shoreline.

The Israeli agent could hardly believe his eyes when he gazed upon the private island. Mossad had greatly underestimated the Imam’s support.

As the group walked toward the building, another aircraft touched down on the runway behind them, its wheels screeching as the rubber hissed on the hot pavement. This one was slightly larger than Nazari’s two Gulfstreams, but much older and less refined. The pilot wasted no time taxiing the aircraft to the side of the runway. A few seconds later another jet came in on approach and set down, then a pearl white Dauphin helicopter. The reporters gawked as the air show unfolded before them.

Ben’s stomach turned in a knot. He had no idea where he was, and the remoteness of the island all but guaranteed a significant delay in any response that the Mossad might launch on his behalf.

By the time the first aircraft opened its passenger door and began offloading its guests, Ben was almost at the entrance to the building. He watched as two guards shuffled down the steps and spread out at the base of the aircraft’s door. They wore the traditional Arab garb but there was more military in their presence than culture. This caught Schweitzer’s attention.

“Are you coming?”

Ben broke his concentration to look back and see Emily Stansborough holding the door open. He thanked her and stepped inside. A cold breeze hit him in the face.

The Israeli spy maneuvered himself between two reporters and a window they had been standing in front of.