Brothers In Arms (45 page)

Marcus Williams and Robert Sanders huddled in the back of a dusty white panel truck parked around the corner from the Egyptian embassy, directly across the street from the mailbox where the One was to make his clandestine signal to his contact. Battery-powered fans moved the air around, and a big bucket of dry ice in front of one fan served as an air conditioner. Despite those efforts, both men dripped sweat.

One monitor ran from a small camera mounted flush against the inside wall, its lens pressed against a pinhole hidden outside by the paint job. The camera was focused on the mailbox and provided a clear view of anyone near it. Another camera was mounted in the false ventilation hood on top of the truck; with pan and tilt capability, it zoomed in on anyone of interest in the general area. Leads from the
monitors ran into a small server powered by batteries; the results of the constant scanning of faces came up on the monitor beside it. There had been a flurry of activity earlier, when the early morning work rush was on, and people stopped at the mailbox to drop letters while walking to the bus stop around the corner or on their way to work. The computer program had turned up no hits on those faces, and since then there had been only a few individuals mailing letters.

Williams checked the power-cable connection on the back of the small server, and looked at the gauge on the battery pack. Plenty of juice left for the day stretching out before them. He fished a plastic bottle of spring water out of a bucket filled with melting ice.

“Water?” he said, holding a dripping bottle out to Sanders.

“Yeah,” Sanders said. “Thanks.”

He twisted the cap off and drained the quart bottle in a long series of gulps. Williams watched him, then gestured at a gallon plastic water jug half-f of urine.

“You’ll have to piss again, drinking like that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sanders said. “I don’t need borderline dehydration. Too damn hot to play around.”

Williams shrugged and sipped from his own bottle, slowing, rinsing his mouth before swallowing. “Want to switch?”

“Sure.”

Sanders edged from his folding stool and squeezed past his partner and slid into the undersized lawn chair Williams favored.

“I don’t know how you get your ass into this thing,” Sanders grumbled.

“Got to be lean and mean.”

The radio crackled. “OP, this is Zero, radio check.”

Sanders picked up his microphone and said, “Zero, this is OP, I have you five by five.”

“Zero, out.”

“Payne working the radio himself again?” Williams said.

“Sounds like it. He likes hands-on.”

“Probably sick of the boss breathing down his neck.”

The radio crackled again. “OP, this is Gun, radio check.”

Sanders said, “Gun, this is OP, I have you five by five.”

“Roger, Gun out.”

Sanders replaced the microphone in its cradle. “I feel sorry for the shooters,” he said. “It’s hot as hell out there and they can’t run the AC.”

“They’ll get over it,” Williams said. He adjusted one of the fans to blow directly into his face. “Surveillance turns out to be a pretty good gig, huh? You could be out there sweating with the gunfighters.”

“Yeah,” Sanders said. “Instead I’m in here sweating with you. Some good gig.”

On the camera monitor, a dark-skinned young man in a straw hat with a courier bag slung across his back, walked toward the mailbox.

Youssef had stood off for a time, lingering in the shade of a tree, leaning against the concrete planter box and sipping from his bottle of water. He looked like just another pedestrian desperate for a moment’s relief from the oppressive heat. While he waited, watching the mailbox, he scanned the streets for signs of surveillance: people lingering for too long, parked cars with passengers, delivery vans or trucks that seemed out of place. The problem was that there were all of those things on these streets, and they seemed to be the norm. There is a rhythm to a street during the workday, a flow of pedestrians and cars that has its own beat. Youssef struggled to find that beat, to look for the watchers who would be still notes in the rhythm of the street. After a few minutes, driven by the sense of impatience that had been growing in him, he decided the best course was to just get on with it.

The longer he waited, the less likely he was to do it.

That thought surprised him. He hadn’t consciously considered not making his meeting until this moment. What would he do? Walk away from the mission, abandon the job of the One? The thought nagged at him, but he put it aside, as he put aside his thoughts of Britta, and instead concentrated on what needed to be done.

He took a deep breath, as though diving into a pool, and crossed the street at the crosswalk when the light changed. He turned to his left, momentarily alone as the other pedestrians went their way, and slipped his hand into his pocket and palmed the long piece of chalk. His heart pounded, and he stopped for a brief moment, as though he were admiring the architecture of the old Colonials on the street. Then he walked to the mailbox, paused again, then took his hand out of his pocket and dragged his hand and the chalk down the side of the blue mailbox.

The chalk broke in his hand, and the piece that remained skittered across the heavily painted surface without leaving a mark. Youssef tried again. The chalk squeaked on the slick surface and left only a few pieces in the pits and bubbles of thick paint. His breath caught in his chest; he had a moment of panic. He was spending too much time on the target. He drew the shortened chalk stick across the concrete planter beside the mailbox, leaving a long horizontal streak. Then he slipped the chalk back into his pocket and walked away.

Surely they would not tell him to leave a chalk mark on something that couldn’t be marked on. They must have meant the concrete planter, which took the chalk well. He hoped he was right. A sudden foreboding came over him, and he hurried away, glancing once over his shoulder. A bus pulled into the bus stop just past the mailbox, and heeding a sudden urge, Youssef boarded.

“How much?” he asked, extending a handful of change to the driver. “I’m a visitor here.”

The driver, a thin Hispanic man with a patina of sweat on his face and a light-blue uniform shirt darkened in the armpits and back, plucked out a few coins and dropped them into the fare box, then tore off a paper transfer slip and handed it to Youssef.

“Thank you,” Youssef said, as the bus pulled from the curb. He walked all the way to the back of the bus and sat sideways on the rearmost seat, where he could look out the rear window and watch the mailbox as the bus rumbled through traffic. There was nothing there that hadn’t been there before, but something, perhaps the sixth
sense of the hunted, told him to get away. He watched till he couldn’t see the mailbox anymore, then turned front, then back once more.

“Did you get that? Did you get that?” Williams hissed. “The one in the hat.”

Sanders frantically worked the control toggle for the camera mounted beneath the false ventilation hood.

“I lost him! Damn it!” Sanders said. “He’s walking away.”

“Did you get his face?”

“Yeah . . . the hat breaks up the image, puts too many shadows on the face . . .” Sanders muttered, punching keys on the keyboard. “Put the shooters on him.”

Williams grabbed the radio microphone and said, “All stations, this is OP, we have a possible, dark-skinned male approximately five feet ten inches, baggy blue jeans and beige T-shirt, straw hat and a black satchel slung across his back. Subject is moving south away from the mailbox. Looked like he was trying to make a mark on the mailbox.”

The two closest streetwalker units went into action. Each car let out one man who hurried to the mailbox. One of them went to the corner and looked after the bus pulling away; one stopped beside the mailbox and saw the chalk mark on the concrete planter and a shard of broken chalk on the ground. He picked up the chalk and said into his lapel mounted microphone, “Zero, this is Gun-One. There’s chalk here. Somebody tried to make a mark on the planter next to the mailbox.”

“Gun-One, Zero. Where is he?”

“He’s not on the street, I think he got on the bus that just pulled out of here.”

“All street stations, on the bus.” Payne’s voice was clipped.

The streetwalker on the corner saw the bus two blocks ahead pulling away from another stop. He whispered into his coat lapel, ignoring the curious looks of the passing pedestrians, then stepped into the street and waved down his partner in the car.

Sanders ran a program to enhance the image captured by the camera. “It’s not perfect, but it’s seventy-six percent. The hat and the shadows broke up the face.”

“The guy made a chalk mark there. That’s the tradecraft we’re looking for,” Williams said. “What are we calling it?”

Sanders said, “I call it as the target.”

Williams picked up the handset and said, “Zero, this is OP, we call it as Target-One, say again, Target-One.”

“Roger OP, this is Zero, we confirm Target-One. All stations, all stations, Target-One is in the area.”

After the confirmation, Charley got up out of his chair so quickly it spun like a top. With Ray in his wake, he hurried down the hallway to the express elevator that took them down to the basement garage. The two men climbed into the back of a black Chevy Suburban with blacked-out windows. On the bench behind them two leather-jacket-clad shooters checked their MP-5 submachine guns.