The Chinook dropped quickly to the desert floor, bouncing the passengers violently one final time. The Gurkhas immediately burst into action, pitching canvas bags out into the sand as the aft ramp slowly descended. Their movements seemed practiced, belying the tension that Kismet knew each man must be silently enduring. After swiftly disembarking, the small group of soldiers huddled close to the ground as the twin rotors of the Chinook whipped up a sandstorm. A few heartbeats later, the helicopter vanished into the night.
Higgins removed his NOD and gazed skyward, fixing the North Star with a fingertip. He extended his other arm at a ninety-degree angle. “Our guy’s that way. Wong, Renke, dig us a nice little den. Lieutenant, I guess you’re leading the way.”
Kismet was thrown by the Kiwi sergeant’s pronunciation—“Lef-tenant”—and gaped dumbly at the other man for several awkward seconds. “Sorry,” he finally mumbled, hefting the CAR15 and turning in the direction Higgins had indicated. “Let’s go.”
They stayed low to the ground, pausing at the dune crests to survey the landscape for signs of the enemy. Visual contact with the defector — still puffing away on his cigarette, or perhaps chain-smoking one after another — was reestablished almost immediately. They were less than two hundred meters from the man’s location.
“I don’t see anyone else,” Kismet murmured. “No vehicles either.”
“How the hell did he get out here?” Higgins wondered aloud. “Flying bloody carpet?”
Kismet stifled a chuckle. “Maybe.” He turned to the sergeant. “I guess this is it. I’m counting on you guys to watch my back.”
The Gurkha nodded, but Kismet was not overwhelmed with confidence. Nevertheless he crept forward, topped the dune and scooted down the other side, moving unaccompanied toward the sole Iraqi. If it was a trap, he alone would face that peril. Even if the Gurkhas brought their firepower to bear, there was little hope of his surviving the first moments of a hostile encounter.
As he drew closer, he was able to make out the facial features of the defector. The bland countenance seemed pale beneath his thick black brow, as if the man had somehow managed to avoid direct exposure to the sun during his life on the cusp of the Arabian desert. Only the nervous quivering of the cigarette at his lips bore testimony that his bloodless hue had more to do with anxiety than pigmentation. In the green-tinted display of his night optics, Kismet noted that the man’s pupils were tiny white dots. The incessant lighting and smoking of cigarettes had compromised the waiting defector’s ability to see naturally in the dark, verifying the earlier observation made by the Chinook pilot. Either the man was too inexperienced in matters of survival to know better, or he simply didn’t care.
Kismet paused, scanning the surrounding desert for any indication of an ambush party in concealment.
Nothing. If the defector was bait for a trap, then it was a well-covered snare. He edged forward, circling around the smoking man, and approached from his left side. When no more than ten meters separated them, he rose from his cautious crawl and pushed his goggles out of the way.
There was no way to avoid startling the oblivious defector, but he tried to minimize the shock by softly clearing his throat. The Iraqi man turned his head slowly, almost absent-mindedly, before reacting exactly as Kismet feared he would. Yet, as the man flailed backwards, waving his hands defensively, Kismet’s apprehension that he had walked into a trap eased considerably. The defector had not groped for a concealed weapon or called out in alarm; no hidden accomplices had leapt to the man’s aid. Kismet waited motionless for his contact to recover.
“Is salaam aleekum.” Peace be upon you.
The softly spoken greeting did not seem to soothe the frightened man, but he heard the muttered, traditional reply: “Wa aleekum is-salaam.” And upon you be peace.
“Well that’s a good sign,” Kismet muttered in English. His grasp of Arabic was not as strong as he would have liked. A lifetime of world travel with his father had immersed him repeatedly in foreign language environments, but he considered himself fluent only in the Romance languages.
However, despite the fact that his self-directed words were barely audible, the defector suddenly brightened. “You are Mr. Kismet?” he asked in halting English.
Kismet blinked. In his pre-mission briefing, he had been given precious little information about how the rendezvous would proceed. There had been no arrangement made for passwords and counter-signs. His commander was unable even to supply a name for the defector, much less any sort of safeguarding procedures. The last thing he had anticipated was for the Iraqi man to know his name. He switched off his night vision goggles and swung them up, away from his face. “That’s right.”
“Il-Hamdulillaah,” breathed the man. “God be praised. I feared that you would not be coming. I am Samir Al-Azir.”
He sensed that the man expected to be recognized, but the name triggered no memories. He smiled and gave the man a knowing nod, hoping nothing would happen to further expose his ignorance. “We should probably get moving.”
Samir seemed further relieved at the suggestion, as if suddenly remembering why he was lurking in the cold desert night. He flipped his cigarette onto the sand. “Yes, yes. Follow me.”
Before he could protest, Samir turned and began climbing the dune. Dumbly, Kismet started after the Iraqi. At the top of the rise, he signaled the waiting Gurkhas by extending his arms out to either side, as though waiting to be searched. The unusual gesture was a previously established signal, indicating to his comrades that he was not being taken along under duress. If Samir noticed, he said nothing.
Based on his recollection of aerial reconnaissance photographs of the area, Kismet knew that the nearest road was more than a kilometer from their present location. That roadway was a featureless track snaking across the desert to provide access to the semi-permanent Bedouin communities, and more importantly, to expedite the deployment of troops in the event of a war. With that war now looming large, the likelihood of armed forces moving along the highway was greatly increased. He did not find Samir’s eagerness to approach that destination encouraging, but what he saw as they crested yet another dune a few moments later increased his anxiety tenfold. Barely visible across the intervening distance was the unmistakable silhouette of a vehicle waiting beside the highway.
It took another ten minutes of struggling over the uneven terrain to reach the parked sedan, long enough for him to ascertain that the battered, silver Mercedes was unoccupied. “Where are we going, Samir?”
The defector flashed a grin over his shoulder, but Kismet could see the other man’s concern etched in deep lines across his forehead. “Not far. The tell is nearby.”
Tell? There were many ways of interpreting the word, none of which made sense in the context. He frowned, but did not press for more information. Instead, he opened the rear driver side door of the sedan and carefully slipped inside. Samir’s pale face registered confusion at Kismet’s decision to sit behind instead of beside him, but he said nothing as he turned the key and eased the car onto the paved road.