Jack Ryan 12 - The Teeth of the Tiger (20 page)

“But he's too damned old, and you know it,” Alexander countered at once. “Besides, he has his sunset job over across the pond in
Wales
, and he seems to be comfortable in it.”

“If only . . .”

“If only your aunt had balls, she'd be your uncle,” Pete pointed out. “Selecting candidates is
your
job. Getting them trained up is mine. These two have the brains and they have the skills. The hard part is temperament. I'm working on that. Be patient”

“In the movies, it's
a
lot easier.”

“In the movies, everybody is borderline psychopath. Is that who we want on the payroll?”

“I guess not.” There were plenty of psychopaths to be found. Every large police department knew of several. And they'd kill people for modest monetary considerations, or a small quantity of drugs. The problem with such people was that they didn't take orders well, and they were not very smart. Except in the movies. Where was that little Nikita girl when you really needed her?

“So, we have to deal with good, reliable people who have brains. Such people think, and they do not always think predictably, do they? A guy with a conscience is nice to have, but every so often he's going to wonder if he's doing the right thing. Why did you have to send two Catholics? Jews are bad enough. They're born with guilt
—but Catholics learn it all in school.”

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Granger responded, deadpan.

“Sam, we knew going in that this was not going to be easy. Jesus, you send me a Marine and an FBI agent. Why not a couple of Eagle Scouts, y'know?”

“Okay, Pete. It's your job. Any idea on timing? There's some work piling up on us,” Granger observed.

“Maybe a month and I'll know if they'll play or not. They will need to know the why in addition to the who, but I always told you that,” Alexander reminded his boss.

“True,” Granger admitted. It really was a lot easier in the movies, wasn't it? Just let your fingers do the walking to “Assassins R Us” in the Yellow Pages. They had thought about hiring former KGB officers at first. They all had expert training, and all wanted money
—the going rate was less than twenty-five thousand dollars per kill, a pittance—but such people would probably report back to Moscow Centre in the hope of being rehired, and The Campus would then become known within the global “black” community. They couldn't have that.

“What about the new toys?” Pete asked. Sooner or later, he'd have to train the twins with the new tools of the trade.

“Two weeks, they tell me.”

“That long? Hell, Sam, I proposed them nine months ago.”

“It's not something you get at the local Western Auto. They have to be manufactured from scratch. You know, highly skilled machinists in out-of-the-way places, people who don't ask questions.”

“I told you, get the guys who do this sort of thing for the Air Force. They're always making up clever little gadgets.” Like tape recorders that fit in cigarette lighters. Now, that was probably inspired by the movies. And for the really good things, the government almost never had the right people in-house, which was why they employed civilian contractors, who took the money, did the job, and kept their mouths shut because they wanted more such contracts.

“They're all being worked on, Pete. Two weeks,” he emphasized.

“Roger that. Until then, I have all the suppressed pistols I need. They're both doing nicely with the tracking and tailing drills. Helps that they're so ordinary-looking.”

“So, bottom fine, things are going well?” Granger asked.

“Except for the conscience thing, yeah.”

“Okay, keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

“See ya.”

Alexander set the receiver back down. Goddamned consciences, he thought. It would be nice to have robots, but somebody might notice Robby striding down the street. And they couldn't have that. Or maybe the Invisible Man, but in the H. G. Wells story, the drug that made him transparent also made him mad, and this gig was already crazy enough, wasn't it? He tossed off the last of his sherry, and then on reflection, went off to refill his glass.

CONVICTION

MUSTAFA AND
Abdullah arose at dawn, said their morning prayers, and ate, and then hooked up their computers and checked their e-mail. Sure enough, Mustafa had an e-mail from Mohammed, forwarding a message from someone else, supposedly named Diego, with instructions for a meeting at . . .
10:30 A.M.
local time. He sorted through the rest of his electronic mail, most of it something the Americans called “spam.” He'd learned that this was a canned pig product, which seemed entirely appropriate. Both of them walked outside—but separately—just after
9:00
, mainly to get the blood moving and examine the neighborhood. They checked carefully but furtively for tails and found none. They got to the planned rendezvous point at
10:25
.

Diego was already there, reading a paper, wearing a white shirt with blue stripes.

“Diego?” Mustafa asked pleasantly.

“You must be Miguel,” the contact replied with a smile, rising to shake hands. “Please be seated.” Pablo scanned around. Yes, there was “Miguel's” backup, sitting alone and ordering coffee, doing overwatch like a professional. “So, how do you like
Mexico City
?”

“I did not know it was so large and bustling.” Mustafa waved around.

The sidewalks were crowded with people heading in all directions. “And the air is so foul.”

“That is a problem here. The mountains hold in the pollution. It takes strong winds to clear the air. So, coffee?”

Mustafa nodded. Pablo waved to the waiter and held up the coffeepot. The sidewalk cafe was European in character, but not overly crowded. The tables were about half occupied, in knots of people meeting for business or socially, doing their talking and minding their own business. The new coffeepot arrived. Mustafa poured and waited for the other to speak.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“All of us are here as requested. How soon can we go?”

“How soon do you wish?” Pablo asked.

“This afternoon would be fine, but that might be a little soon for your arrangements.”

“Yes. But what about tomorrow, say about thirteen hundred hours?”

“That would be excellent,” Mustafa responded in pleasant surprise. “How will the crossing be arranged?”

“I will not be directly involved, you understand, but you will be driven to the border and handed over to someone who specializes in getting people and certain goods into
America
. You will be required to walk about six kilometers. It will be warm, but not greatly so. Once in
America
, you will be driven to a safe house outside
Santa Fe
,
New Mexico
. There you can either fly to your final destinations or rent cars.”

“Weapons?”

“What exactly will you require?”

“Ideally, we would like AK-47s.”

Pablo shook his head at once. “Those we cannot supply, but we can get you Uzi and Ingram sub-machine guns. Nine-millimeter Parabellum caliber, with, say,
six thirty
-round magazines each, fully loaded for your purposes.”

“More ammunition,” Mustafa said at once. “Twelve magazines, plus three additional boxes of ammunition for each weapon.”

Pablo nodded. “That is easily done.” The increased expense would be only a couple of thousand dollars. The weapons would have been bought on the open market, along with the ammunition. They were technically traceable to their origin and/or purchaser, but that was only a theoretical problem, not a practical one. The guns would be mainly Ingrams, not the better-made and more accurate Israeli Uzis, but these people wouldn't care. Who knows, they might even have religious or moral objections to touching a Jewish-made weapon. “Tell me, how are you set for traveling expenses?”

“We have five thousand American dollars each in cash.”

“You can use that for minor expenses, like food and gasoline, but for other things you need credit cards. Americans will not accept cash to rent cars, and
never
to buy airplane tickets.”

“We have them,” Mustafa replied. He and each member of the team had Visa cards issued to them in
Bahrain
. They even had consecutive numbers. All were drawn
on
an account in a Swiss bank, whose account held just over five hundred thousand dollars. Sufficient to their purposes.

The name on the card, Pablo saw, was
JOHN PETER SMITH
. Good. Whoever had set this up hadn't made the mistake of using explicitly Middle Eastern names. Just as
long
as the card didn't fall into the hands of a police officer who might ask
Mr.
Smith where exactly he came from. He hoped they had been briefed
on
the American police and their habits.

“Other documents?” Pablo asked.

“Our passports are Qatari. We have international driver's licenses.
We
all speak acceptable English and can read maps.
We
know about American laws. We will keep within the speed limits and drive carefully. The nail that sticks up is hammered down. So we
will
not stick up.”

“Good,” Pablo observed. So, they had been briefed. Some might even remember it. “Remember that one mistake can ruin the entire mission for all of you. And it is easy to make mistakes.
America
is an easy country in which to live and move about, but their police are very efficient. If you are not noticed, you are safe from them. Therefore, you must avoid being noticed. Fail in that, and you could all be doomed to failure.”

“Diego, we will not fail,” Mustafa promised.

Fail at what?
Pablo wondered, but did not ask. How
many women and children will you kill?
But it didn't really matter to him. It was a cowardly way to kill, but the rules of honor in his “friend's” culture were very different from his own. This was business, and that was all he needed to know.

THREE MILES
,
push-ups,
and a coffee chaser, and that was life in southern
Virginia
.

“Brian, you used to
carrying
a firearm?”

“Usually
an M16
and
five or six extra mags. Some fragmentation grenades, too, go in the basic load, yeah, Pete.”

“I was talking about side arms, actually.”

“M9 Beretta, that's what I'm used to.”

“Any good with it?”

“It's
in
my
package, Pete. I qualified expert at
Quantico
, but so did most of my class.
No
big deal.”

“You used to carrying it around?”

“You
mean in civilian clothes? No.”

“Okay, get used to it.”

“Is it legal?” Brian asked,

“
Virginia
is
a
shall-issue
state.
If you've got a clean record, the commonwealth
will
grant
you
a concealed-carry permit. What about you, Dominic?”

“I'm still FBI, Pete. I'd feel kinda naked out on the street without
a
friend.”

“What do you carry?”

“Smith and Wesson 1076. Shoots the ten-millimeter cartridge, double action. The Bureau's gone to the Glock lately, but I like the Smith better.”
And, no, I didn't carve a notch in the grips,
he didn't add. Though he had thought about it.

“Okay, well, when you're off-campus here, I want you both to carry, just to get used to the idea, Brian.”

A shrug. “Fair enough.” It beat the hell out of a sixty-five-pound rucksack.

THERE WAS
a lot more to it than just Sali, of course. Jack was working on a total of eleven different people, all but one of them Middle Eastern, all in the money business. The one European lived in
Riyadh
. He was German, but had converted to Islam, which had struck someone as odd enough to deserve electronic surveillance. Jack's university German was good enough to read the guy's e-mails, but they didn't reveal very much. He'd evidently gone native in his habits, didn't even drink beer. He was evidently popular with his Saudi friends—one thing about Islam was that if you obeyed the rules and prayed the correct way, they didn't much care what you looked like. It would have been admirable except for the fact that most of the world's terrorists prayed to
Mecca
. But that, Jack reminded himself, wasn't the fault of Islam. The night he himself had been born, people had tried to kill him while he was still in his mother's womb—and they'd identified themselves as Catholics. Fanatics were fanatics, the world around. The idea that people had tried to murder his mother was enough to make him want to pick his Beretta .40. His father, well, his dad was able to look after himself, but messing with women constituted a big step over the line, and that was a line you could cross only once and in one direction. There was no coming back.

He didn't remember any of it, of course. The ULA terrorists had all gone off to meet their God—courtesy of the State of
Maryland
—before he'd entered first grade, and his parents had never talked about it. His sister Sally had, though. She still had dreams about it. He wondered if Mom and Dad had them, too. Did events like that go away eventually? He'd seen things on the History Channel to suggest that World War II veterans still had images of combat return to them at night, and that had been over sixty years ago. Such memories had to be a curse.

“Tony?”

“Yeah, Junior?”

“This guy Otto Weber, what's the big deal? He's about as exciting as vanilla ice cream.”

“If you're a bad guy, do you suppose you wear a neon sign on your back, or do you think you try to hide down in the grass?”

“With the snakes,” Junior completed the thought. “I know—we're looking for little things.”

“Like I told you. You can do fourth-grade arithmetic. Attach a nose to it. And, yes, you're looking for things that are supposed to be damned near invisible, okay? That's why this job is so much fun. And innocent little things are mostly innocent little things. If he downloads kiddie porn off the 'Net, it's not because he's a terrorist. It's because he's a pervert. That's not a capital offense in most countries.”

“I bet it is in Saudi.”

“Probably, but they don't chase after it, I bet.”

“I thought they were all puritans.”

“Over there, a man keeps his libido to himself. But if you do something with a real live kid, you're in big trouble.
Saudi Arabia
is a good place to abide by the law. You can park your Mercedes and leave the keys in the ignition and the car'll be there when you get back. You can't even do that in
Salt Lake City
.”