“We are favored to win the Asian Cup,” his chief of staff agreed. “They are rising in the world standings.”
“Which is exactly why this exhibition goodwill match with Egypt is so special. I am pleased that the Cultural Ministry pushed through a popular sports competition so quickly.” He looked across at Major Mansoor Shakuri. “I will not forget that this was originally your idea. Well done.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” He had several months ago suggested a friendship match, not something like what was unfolding before him at the moment; never something like this.
On the screen, the aircraft came to a halt far short of the terminal. Stairs were pushed into place when the door opened at the front, and a welcoming group of Egyptian sports officials boarded, along with the customs authorities to clear the visitors.
Major Shakuri went to a sideboard and poured them both tea. The colonel gave him a hard look and said, “Let us hope it all goes smoothly. You could use a win about now yourself, Major, after that failure in America.”
“No excuse, sir.” Shakuri stiffened in the chair. Any thought that the arrest of the sniper would be treated as a minor mishap was crushed. This man never forgot failure.
“I like you, Chief of Staff, and you have great potential, but you must consider more variables in your planning. I detect a sense of urgency in your work, when you should be more patient. Get it done, but do it properly. Time is our ally,” the colonel cautioned. “The historic events that will break the stranglehold of the Egyptian army on the current government’s leadership are well under way. We will get there eventually.”
“I understand clearly, sir,” said the major. Change the subject! “We hired some hooligans in London through several cutouts to kidnap the Cornwell woman. It was better to send local infidels to do the job rather than use brothers of the faith who might be under police surveillance.”
The colonel rubbed his hands together. The soccer team was deplaning and waving to the cheering admirers. “Keep me informed on that one. The old man who is her husband is a dangerous enemy.”
A large blue-and-white bus was waiting for the team, parked between a lead army truck that would push a path through the crowd and an armored car in back for extra security. Uniformed Egyptian army troops were seated in the open-back truck, and another helmeted soldier manned the .50 caliber machine gun atop the armored vehicle. A phalanx of civilian police on motorcycles would stop traffic at the intersections all the way to the hotel where the team would stay overnight. Security was ironclad.
The athletes boarded the bus, took seats, and pushed open the sliding windows to continue waving. They were goodwill ambassadors, and it was easy for sports heroes to be friendly. The door hissed closed, and motorcycle engines roared to life.
“Watch now. Now we start,” the colonel said, picking up his teacup.
The helmeted gunner in the rearmost armored car opened up with a long rip of fire that destroyed the engine in the back of the team bus in front of it; then more bullets crashed the length of the bus toward the front. The heavy armored car accelerated out of line, bent into a sharp turn, and headed straight for the immobilized bus as the heavy machine gun pumped short, sharp bursts into the trapped soccer team. The army troops piled out of their truck and began shooting into the shocked crowd of onlookers.
Inside the bus, the athletes and trainers scrambled over the bodies of their teammates to try to escape through the windows on the far side away from the incoming fusillade of bullets that ripped and tore without mercy. Before they could get out, the armored car slammed into the thin skin of the bus with such power that the two vehicles were meshed into a single tangle of metal. Then a bomb exploded, lifting both vehicles off the ground for a moment before they crashed back down to burn furiously.
In his office at the Palm Group, the colonel and his chief of staff watched and drank their tea. Idiot television announcers were horrified, and that weakness was passed along to their tens of thousands of viewers. The screen showed the welcoming crowd breaking apart and stampeding like a herd of goats. Many had been killed or wounded, and others were trampled. The station switched to a replay of the armored car shooting, then ramming the bus and exploding, and then the Egyptian government ordered the station to shut down. The screen faded into a fuzzy, buzzing blackness that only fed the fears of those watching.
“It appears you have your win today, Major Shakuri. My congratulations,” said the colonel. “The team was martyred for the greater cause.”
The major was trying hard to keep himself together. “It is sad that such fine young men had to be sacrificed.”
“Nonsense, Major. Your plan caught the attention of the world,” the colonel said. “Any investigation will show this to have been an outrageous attack by the renegades within the Egyptian army. People will lose trust in all of their security forces.”
“How will our country respond?”
The colonel smiled. “Demonstrations in Tehran and a very strong diplomatic protest.”
Kyle and Sybelle dumped Pejman Mobili back with the U.S. Marshals in Atlanta and flew back to Washington. Major General Bradley Middleton, the two-star commander of Task Force Trident, was waiting behind the big desk, rocking slowly with a foot braced on a lower drawer. Master Gunny O. O. Dawkins was immersed in his favorite pastime, reading online newspapers and blogs and Web sites on his iPad tablet, with his big fingers scrolling on the little flat screen as smoothly as those of a texting teenager. Commander Benton Freedman was picking at the information from the prisoner.
“He didn’t know much, did he?” Freedman, the Lizard, asked.
“Wouldn’t expect him to, Liz. He was a shooter. Nothing more.”
“This name of his partner might be good, and I’ll get that over to the FBI right away. He’s probably changed it by now, but who knows?”
Sybelle Summers spoke. “And give priority to that other name he dropped, that Major Mansoor Shakuri who gave him the order.”
“On it,” the Lizard confirmed. “He may have been lying.”
Summers shook her head. “No. He wasn’t lying.”
“What did you do to him?” asked O. O. Dawkins, glancing up from the business page of the online International Herald Tribune.
“Nothing, really. Not a mark on him. He just felt like talking, I guess. Guilt, maybe.”
Dawkins snorted, grinned, and started clicking through some broadcast network sites. A celebrity mother and her two daughters, all strikingly beautiful, were having a public quarrel over a sheer dress the mom had worn to a premiere, and every network was running pictures as if it all meant something. “I don’t even know why these women are famous,” he said, nevertheless deciding to check out the dress that was causing the furor. It wasn’t all that sheer. Couldn’t really see anything.
Kyle Swanson moved to the window and looked out at the bright, chilly day. “Liz, that major is stashed somewhere in Iranian intelligence, but I think you can narrow the search to the counterintelligence units. He’s got some power.”
General Middleton pushed back his chair and suddenly stood up, leaning on the big desk. “Goddamn it. I cannot believe the Iranians were so stupid as to actually attack the United States in the open.”
Dawkins shifted back to Binging hard news sites. “But they did. Hey, guys, terrorists just blew up the whole Iranian soccer team during a goodwill trip to Egypt. The Iranians are blaming the Egyptian army.”
“Fuck. Still something else that does not fit,” the general snapped back. “Tehran traditionally keeps a low profile beyond their borders because nobody trusts them. Eventually, we will probably have to go after them because they are developing a nuclear weapon. To pick a fight with us over something like an accounting scam makes no sense because it gives us a valid excuse to bomb their nuke facilities. That’s just the way it works.”