“You know those things are good for your skin,” he said and stuffed another large piece of focaccia in his mouth.
“And you know this is not a race.”
“Hmmm, but it’s so good.”
Carrie rolled her eyes. She lifted a small portion of shredded carrots and peas to her mouth. She closed her eyes and savored her food.
By the time Carrie was halfway through her salad, Justin had cleaned up not only the last crumbs of the bruschetta, but also the sour cream and roasted garlic dips.
“Man, you were hungry,” Carrie said.
“Starving.” Justin wiped his lips with his blue napkin.
“Tell me, how did you convince Ali to help us?”
Justin smiled. “SCR 1267.”
“UN’s blacklist?”
Justin nodded.
“What promise we can’t keep did you make him?”
“This one we can keep. Ali has a half-brother listed as a terrorist, an accomplice of Al-Qaeda. The man secured a car and drove a group of terrorists for a week or so around Baghdad about two years ago.”
“So you told Ali that Canada will delist him?”
“I promised I’ll write up a request, asking for his name to be removed from the list. It’s up to our bosses to decide.”
“You know your request is going nowhere.”
“I can’t control that. The man used to live in Canada and still has relatives in Ontario. Our government doesn’t want him back, even though he hasn’t been convicted of any crime.”
“I see.” Carrie sipped the last of her drink and looked over Justin’s shoulder for the waiter. He was nowhere in sight.
Justin’s BlackBerry chirped twice and he picked it up. “It’s Johnson.”
“Speakerphone.”
“Hello,” Justin said and placed the BlackBerry on the table between the two of them. “How are things going?”
“Great, great,” Johnson said.
He thought her voice sounded with an echo as if she were in a tunnel. Then a familiar elevator ping solved the mystery.
“I don’t have a lot of time as I’m running to a meeting. Just wanted to confirm the Egyptians reluctantly agreed to drop you into Sudan tomorrow morning. Do you have a pen handy?”
“Yes.”
Carrie pulled out a pen and a small notepad from her purse.
“This is the place where you’ll meet the transport.” She gave them the coordinates. “You’ll take off at 1:00 a.m. The Egyptians have committed one of their helicopters to this operation.”
Carrie shook her head.
“Is it a Mi-17?” Justin asked.
“Yes, it is.”
Carrie swore under her breath. She hated Russia and everything Russian, even the Mi-17 helicopter. Ever since her father, a Canadian Army colonel, disappeared during a covert mission in the late eighties in the Soviet Union, she had begun to first fear, then hate everything related to the country that took away her father. She joined the Army with high hopes of learning about his fate, but she was no closer to the truth today than when she began scrapbooking her memories.
“OK,” Justin said. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s all. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Justin ended the call.
Carrie looked out of the window staring at nothing in particular. Justin could see the fog of memories building up in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Carrie shook her head. “It’s OK, I guess. I should let go. I will let go.”
Justin nodded. He had heard such pledges before and Carrie tried real hard. Some habits were extremely difficult to break. He knew that first hand.
Chapter Four
The gunman tightened the headscarf around his mouth and shut his eyes tight as he cocked his head to the left. It made no difference. The sudden wind gust swept a handful of red sand into his face. He coughed and spat. A spurt of obscenities burst out of his mouth. He cleaned his eyes, scrubbed the grit off his crooked teeth, and wiped his cracked lips and thick beard. Finally, Ali Abd Alraheem looked at the two men in the light brown Land Rover parked about fifty feet away at the base of a crescent-shaped dune.
“Where the hell is the helicopter?” he shouted at them.
“Should be here anytime,” replied the driver. He was barely in his twenties, the younger of the pair. He coughed, more out of solidarity with his chief than necessity.
“Come take a seat,” said the other man who was in his forties. “No point in eating sand and boiling under the sun.”
“It’s better than being blown to pieces by Zionist jets, Nassir,” Ali replied. “That car is a deathtrap.”
“Israeli F-16s strike convoys carrying big guns,” Nassir replied, his right arm spearing out of the window. “We’re only two cars.” He pointed to an identical Land Rover about two hundred feet behind theirs. “And we only bring in light weapons.”
“No fish is too small for the Mossad.” Ali took a deep breath through his nose. His right hand tightened around the AK-47 hanging on his left shoulder. “And they can hit anyone, anywhere.”
“Suit yourself.” Nassir mopped his brow with a crumpled white handkerchief.
Ali gazed intently toward the north. His eyes were glued to the horizon, right above the top of the dunes. The helicopter with two guests from Egypt was expected to arrive from that direction. They were thirty minutes late. In Ali’s line of business delays meant trouble. He ran his black, calloused fingers over the pocket of his long robe, feeling for his cellphone, but he resisted the urge to dial the contact number and check the status of the drop.
It was still early morning, but the temperature had climbed to ninety-five degrees. The air was parched, without a single drop of humidity. Ali’s body grew warmer with every breath he took. He felt his tongue dangling inside his mouth like a piece of dry meat and decided to return to the Land Rover for a sip of cold water.
He stepped down from the top of the sandbank, plowing through the steep slope. After a few seconds, he stopped and listened. His ears, trained to detect any kind of desert noise, sensed a light vibration in the sizzling air. Ali turned around and climbed fast, kicking up sand on both sides of his path. As he reached the peak, he blinked to clear his eyes and grinned at the anticipated sight.
A thick cloud of red dust was swiftly approaching the drop point, skirting over the tips of the sand ridges. It would have seemed like a dust devil to a mere observer. But Ali was not a mere observer. The thick cloud was the work of a man, piloting a helicopter at almost ground level. It was a crazy maneuver that had to be executed to perfection, so it would not turn deadly. This pilot has brass balls, but he’s still a man. A man who can be shot and killed.
Ali dropped to the ground, cocked his AK-47 and pointed it to the ever-growing cloud. If the people who were going to rappel down from the helicopter were not the expected CIS agents, they would be welcomed with a hail of bullets.
Inside the Mi-17 helicopter cabin, Justin and Carrie wrestled the twirling curtain of dust sweeping in through the open door. The pilot had informed them only moments ago he was not going to land the helicopter. They would have to rappel down to the ground. The Egyptians have taken the word “drop” quite literally, Justin thought, but he had no time to argue. The helicopter wobbled, while the top layer of the sand began shifting at the dune seventy feet below.
“Olam!” Justin shouted at the pilot. “Steady the bloody thing!”
“I’m trying,” Olam replied. “I’m trying.”