A teenager rounded the corner and seemed to check himself for a moment before continuing forward, stopping halfway down the short block and going into the house they were watching.
“Do you know that kid?”
Zhilov shook his head. “I never see him before.”
“He seemed to know you.”
Zhilov gripped the wheel, adjusting himself in the seat that was too small for him. “I cannot disagree.”
Gil muttered an obscenity. “The op is blown. He’ll tell the hajis we’re out here and put ’em on alert. We should clear.”
The Russian shook his head, his good humor gone now. “If we leave, they disappear. Then it takes weeks to find them again. I think to wait is good idea. When they come out, you shoot them, and I take you back to hotel for the rest of my money.”
Gil drew the suppressed USP .45 from inside his jacket. “And suppose they come out blasting with automatic weapons.”
Zhilov reached beneath his seat for a micro Uzi submachine pistol. “Suppose they do?” he said in his gravelly voice.
Gil glanced around, feeling boxed in by the limited field of vision due to the curvy nature of the alley. There were almost no positions of cover. He knew they should clear the scene; that the situation was borderline untenable. But he also knew that Zhilov was right: Bashwar and Koutry would disappear to another safe house and would be ten times harder to reacquire.
The Russian took a suppressor from under the seat and attached it to the muzzle of the Uzi. “We going in to get these goddamn guys or what?”
Gil shook his head. “We’ll let the situation develop.” He glanced into the back of the van, which was crammed full of rolled-up carpets. “What is all that shit back there, anyway?”
Zhilov shrugged. “Rugs rolled up. I steal the van from rug vendor other side of city.”
Gil gave him a wry grin. “Weren’t exactly planning a fast getaway, were you?”
“Listen, you goddamn guy. You want to unload the shit? You are my guest.”
“Be my guest. We say be my guest.”
Zhilov looked out the window at the house. “You say your way, Yankee. I say mine. I just want to kill these goddamn guys and get my money.”
A few minutes later, a black van with its headlights off pulled passed them, stopping near the house three doors up on the left. The back doors opened, and a man stepped out holding a suppressed MP5 submachine gun. There were three more men in the back.
Gil sat back in the seat. “What the fuck is this happy horseshit?”
Zhilov sat back as well, though it scarcely made a difference in his case because of his bulk. “It’s those goddamn Jews I tell you about.”
“Mohave? What the fuck are they doing here?”
Zhilov looked at him. “To kill Arab terrorist, maybe?”
Gil got ready to dismount the vehicle in case shit started flying in their direction. The boys with LX Mohave were well known for shooting first and never bothering to ask any questions. A softball-sized glob of what looked like modeling clay landed on the roof of the Mohave van with a heavy thud and stuck in place. Gil knew instantly that it was a wad of C4 plastic explosive molded around a timer-detonator, having seen the same kind of bomb used in Indonesia a few years earlier during a rooftop attack on a diplomatic convoy.
“Sticky bomb — get down!”
He and Zhilov squashed themselves as low as they could as the Mohave men rushed to dismount the doomed vehicle. The bomb detonated with a blinding white flash, catching the driver and one of the gunners inside, flattening the van and throwing the dismounting gunners through the air. The concussion spider-webbed the windshield of the carpet van and echoed through the alleyway.
Like a giant bird dropping, a second glob of C4 landed in the street unseen among the stunned Mohave men struggling to pick themselves up. It detonated in another thunderclap of blinding light, and all three men disintegrated.
Gil jumped out of the carpet van as a third glob of C4 landed on the roof. Zhilov remained in the driver’s seat, knocked unconscious by the concussion of the second blast. Gil rolled beneath the van, expelling the air from his lungs and covering his ears. The bomb exploded, and the load of carpet absorbed much of the pressure wave, but the chassis of the van was thrust violently downward on its leaf springs, and Gil’s head was briefly sandwiched between the exhaust pipe and the street. It felt like a mule kick to the head, and his internal combat systems were knocked off-line.
8
As his head cleared slowly from the effects of the explosion, Gil opened his eyes to see two pairs of feet hurrying past the burning Mohave van. When they paused to grab a pair of MP5s, he knew they had to be Bashwar and Koutry fleeing the scene. He groped around for his .45, finding it beneath him, and began to drag himself from beneath the burning carpet van.
He saw the two disappearing down the alleyway in the dark beyond the flames and forced himself to his feet, hearing the distant wail of European-style high-low sirens. Still shaken, he tucked the .45 inside his jacket and hobbled after them, keeping close to the wall and using the doorways to keep under cover as he shadowed them through the alleyways of the Anfa.
People emerged from their homes but no one moved toward the glow of the flames. Gil could feel their accusatory glances as he passed, but he kept his face hidden as best he could. When the fuel tank of the carpet van erupted behind him, everyone ducked back inside, slamming their doors in fear. He lost sight of Bashwar and Koutry at the end of the alley as they ran across the Boulevard Mohamed El Hansali toward the Café Al Jazeera. His balance returning, he darted across the boulevard after them. He caught sight of the two again as they dashed past the café and down the street into a park dotted with trees. So far nothing about their movements gave Gil reason to believe they were aware of their tail. They didn’t even look back as they hurried to put distance between them and the scene of the crime.
He crouched behind a car and watched through the windows as they stashed the MP5s up in a tree and hurried off toward a slightly crowded area to the north. Gil tailed them up another street, where they ducked inside the Casablanca youth hostel. He checked his watch and decided to give them an hour to get settled before going in after them. Walking back in the direction he’d come, he heard the sirens of fire trucks racing down Boulevard Hansali.
Getting blown up in the street was not Gil’s idea of how to efficiently execute a mission. He found a table at a street-side café with a television on the counter and ordered a mutton sandwich. He was still eating ten minutes later when the BBC reported there had been a possible nuclear event in the southern United States. It went on to report that both US and British military forces were now on alert all around the world.
He took a satellite phone from his jacket and called Pope.
Pope answered after a number of rings. “Typhoon?”
“Yeah,” Gil said. “Hey, I’m watching the BBC. What the hell’s going on back home?”
“We don’t know yet,” Pope said. “But if I had to guess, I’d say there’s been a premature nuclear detonation on or near the Mexican border.
“How did it go with our AQAP friends?” he asked.
“Not good,” Gil answered. “Those jackasses over at Mohave showed up and queered the deal. They tried to cut in on our action and got themselves blown up — the Russian too. I’m still tracking the targets and should be mission complete within a couple of hours. Who’s responsible for the nuke? Any idea?”
“None. But I want you back here as soon as this op concludes.”