Gathering Storm

Kurtzman picked up a printed sheet. “This is an extract from one of the Intelligence Analysis think tanks. Something to bear in mind. ‘Ex Ba’ath Party members will seek out their stolen money so they can rearm themselves. Part of their strategy will be to move into organized crime in order to reestablish themselves. It has to be remembered that these people were used to the best of everything and will want to retain their status. But they will also do what they can to infiltrate the Iraqi ruling party to destabilize it and get some control over the government. They will attempt to stir up trouble between all the various classes within Iraq society. Their ultimate aim will be to create unrest. Mistrust. A sense of loss of national identity.”’

Lyons leaned back in his seat. His question had been answered. It was the same for all of them. In an ongoing tactical situation, where balances had to be weighed, there were times when choices to be made might not look so clean-cut in the light of day. There was no easy way around that kind of dilemma. A man had to deal his hand and live with the consequences.

“Initial missions,” Price said to break the contemplative silence. “Able, you need to follow up these mainland threats. Pick up where Phoenix left off. Nuevo Laredo. Your contact in there is Tomas Barranca. If there’s any talk about these arms deals Phoenix hit on, Barranca is your man.” She handed over files for the team to study.

“Aaron,” she said.

Kurtzman brought images and data on-screen. “Tomas Barranca. This is the house he rents on the Nuevo Laredo outskirts. His car. This is the cantina he frequents. He’s pretty friendly with the guy who owns the place. That’s him.”

“Who does this guy work for?” Blancanales asked.

“You could call him a freelance,” Price said. “In the past he’s had associations with the CIA. Did some good work for the DEA in tandem with the Mexican drug squads. Lately he’s been doing fieldwork for Justice. His name came up when Leo handed over those photos of Khariza.”

“Sounds a risky way to earn a living,” Schwarz said. “How does he do it?”

“Simple,” Price said. “He’s careful.”

While Able Team worked on the research Kurtzman had collated, Phoenix Force took their missions on board.

“I don’t like splitting you guys,” Price admitted, “but we’ve got too much ground to cover. Gary, Rafe, Cal—Italian Riviera. San Remo to be exact. See if you can get a line on Khariza and his people. Check on the villa where Abe Keen spotted them. We have to start somewhere. That’s as good a place as any. See if they’re still in the area. Everything current we have on Khariza and his buddies from the old regime is here in these files.

“David, you and T.J. are booked for London. You’ll meet with Ben Sharon and he’ll brief you about Sharii. Right now that’s all I can give you. Sharon says the guy is terrified of Khariza’s people finding him.”

“Not the wisest choice of places to hide out then,” McCarter observed. “There are a bloody lot of Iraqi expats living in London, as well as the illegal visitors. Sooner we get there, the better.”

“Get your stuff together,” Price said. “You’ll be going home courtesy of the U.S. government’s own airline.”

McCarter groaned. “U.S. Airlift Command again? Christ, have you ever eaten the bloody stuff they serve on those flights?”

Hawkins grinned at the Briton’s grumbling. “Cheer up, old fruit,” he said in mock English. “Let’s get you to Blighty and you can ’ave a plate of fish and chips down the Old Kent Road.”

McCarter glared at the younger Phoenix Force commando. “T.J., don’t you ever do that again. If I even thought I sounded like that I’d go and join Bin Laden in a bloody Afghan cave and never show my face again.”

In the background Lyons’s dry tones were heard. “Does he mean it?”

“We live in hope,” Blancanales replied.

“Okay, people, listen up,” Kurtzman said. “No moving out until we go through the rest of my background data. I managed to locate another batch of photographs showing more of Khariza’s Iraqi buddies. They’ll come in handy if you come up against them. Always helps to know the players.”

There were groans all around.

“Somebody give me a tranquilizer,” Blancanales said.

Kurtzman beamed at them. “That’s what I like to hear. Enthusiasm. Now somebody bring me some of my coffee. I wouldn’t want to dry up halfway through.”

CHAPTER THREE

Aboard the Petra

“So, my friend, are matters progressing as you wish?”

Razan Khariza raised his head from its contemplative position on his chest and studied the speaker. His host. His lifelong ally.

Radic Zehlivic, an Albanian Muslim, stood in the middle of the luxurious saloon of the oceangoing motor vessel Petra. Zehlivic was a multimillionaire. He had made his fortune over the years from astute playing on the world stock markets. He was a man who took great chances, investing in risky markets that had paid him back handsomely. Any money made was plowed back into further dealings and Zehlivic’s fortune had grown and expanded. He had investments in property, land, in oil and ship building. He played the Western world at its own game, using wealth and an inborn intuition to manipulate the financial game for his own gain. He had percentage holdings in innumerable companies across the globe and was respected within the financial and business communities. Yet his name seldom made the headlines. He was as reclusive as he was smart. He stayed true to his faith, doing little to advertise his wealth beyond his close circle of friends, using his money to fund those who were working against the West. There were few people he trusted. Oddly, despite the man’s reputation both inside and out of Iraq, one of his trusted circle was Razan Khariza.

Zehlivic’s mother had died giving birth to him, and his late father had been a clever and industrious man who had made his money from property dealings in his own country. His talent for turning quick, profitable deals had also made him enemies. In the end he had transferred his money to London, moving himself and his son there, where he had restarted his business operations. The British had been easy to manipulate and no one ever knew the duplicitous methods Zehlivic Senior used to work his deals.

Father and son lived in a country house in Buckinghamshire, just outside a small village. Zehlivic Junior still owned the house and used it often on his visits to the U.K.

He had met Razan Khariza at the private school they had attended in England. In fact they had spent much of their youth in the country, and though their paths went in different directions in their early twenties, each had kept in touch with the other, Radic’s admiration and devotion to his Iraqi friend becoming ever stronger.

In the tumult of the military action that had deposed Saddam Hussein and had seen the total dispersion of his regime’s high-echelon members, Khariza might have died or been captured if it hadn’t been for the assistance he’d received from his friend. A telephone call from Zehlivic had offered help during Khariza’s darkest hour.

Through Zehlivic’s chain of contacts, his knowledge of the country and a considerable outlay of money, Khariza had been spirited out of Iraq just ahead of the attack that hit Tikrit. A body had been substituted for Khariza, dressed in his uniform and carrying identity papers and personal belongings. When the local party headquarters was hit during a running battle, the body was deliberately mutilated with a grenade and then taken to a local hospital where the medical examiner, bought and paid for by Zehlivic, carried out an autopsy, making sure that all files and details matched the dead man identified as Razan Khariza. Members of the fedayeen were never fingerprinted or had medical details revealed during the regime, so there was nothing for the Coalition forces to match to. All they received was the formal declaration and postmortem photographs of Khariza’s badly mutilated body.

Though Khariza had been an important functionary within the regime, his death was accepted as a minor victory within a larger canvas. He was listed as dead and as he had no family to claim him, the body was handed over to the hospital for interment. It was, in fact, quickly cremated and the ashes scattered.

The doctor who had performed the autopsy had prepared to leave Tikrit himself once the formalities were over. With his few belongings packed along with the extremely large amount of cash he had been paid, the doctor had been picked up by some of Zehlivic’s people and driven away late at night. He was never seen again. As soon as the car he was in reached a safe distance from Tikrit, it stopped and the doctor was taken out. He was shot twice in the back of the head and his body buried. The car drove on, taking away the doctor’s luggage, along with the money. The body was never found.

Razan Khariza, out of Iraq, went into hiding, courtesy of his friend Zehlivic. He remained in obscurity for as long as it took for the hostilities to cease and Iraqi reconstruction to start. When other members of the late regime began to surface, and Khariza heard of their survival, he began to contact them. They, glad to find out he was alive, rallied to his call. They needed someone with his leadership qualities to ferment their plans for a return to Iraq.

In their eyes, America and its allies might have won the initial engagement. What they didn’t realize was the true fact that the war was far from over. In truth, for the fedayeen, it had only just begun.

They wanted their country back as it had been before, with control in the hands of the Ba’ath Party.

So they began to organize resistance, to create diversions that would confuse the enemy and allow the fedayeen time to get their own people into place. They would locate the immense hoards of cash that had been sent out of the country and placed in secret accounts. As soon as that money was in their hands, they could buy any weapons they needed to mount major offences.

That, however, seemed to be a stumbling block at the present time.

Which was why Radic Zehlivic’s question jarred Khariza’s mood.

Khariza pushed to his feet and crossed to gaze out the window, watching the gentle swell of the blue Mediterranean. The sky was cloudless and hazy blue. Peaceful. Calm. Khariza felt a pang of guilt. Here he was, safe and far away from the struggles in Iraq. He countered that thought with the realization there was little he could do in any physical sense at this point in time. Until he had the various strands under his full control, all he could do was wait. Khariza disliked the feeling of helplessness. He was a man of action, of control, and he was feeling impotent right now. There was so much to do. To arrange. Matters were progressing, but at an alarmingly slow pace.

Until the huge money caches were back in his hands, all he and his people could do was initiate the low-key portions of the operation—the individual removal of interfering officials, the strikes against various factions that would lay the blame on others. Important as these incidents were, they paled into insignificance when compared to the main events. And those couldn’t be brought online until Khariza had the money to pay for the ordnance purchases. They wouldn’t come into his hands until money had been exchanged. It was simply a matter of business. The amounts of cash being talked of were extreme and Khariza’s suppliers weren’t going to deliver purchases until they were paid. It was as simple as that. If Khariza took the items, then failed in his intentions, the sellers would find themselves losing both goods and payment, and that wasn’t how they operated. Khariza’s policies didn’t interest them any further than the cash in hand. His goals were his business, not theirs, and they had no intention of coming out the losers. So the Iraqi had to curb his impatience and wait.

There had been an unexpected complication in the form of the journalist, Abe Keen. Despite Khariza’s security, the man had discovered the meeting at the villa. He had taken photographs and had slipped away before any of Khariza’s people could stop him. By the time he had been located, Keen had left his hotel in San Remo and was on his way to the airport. Although Khariza’s men had followed him, the journalist had reached the airport and had even gone through Customs to wait for his flight in the departure lounge. Unable to prevent him leaving the country, Khariza had contacted his team in London, where Keen lived, and had given them the instructions that would lead to the eventual death of the man.

Now Keen was dead and the photographs he had taken were in Khariza’s hands. Why then, he kept asking himself, did he still feel uneasy?

Perhaps because he wasn’t totally convinced that Keen hadn’t sent copies of the photographs to other interested parties. With that thought uppermost in his mind, Khariza had quit the villa and brought his team on board Zehlivic’s boat. It would serve as a floating base of operations until Khariza could arrange other accommodations.

“So, my friend, are matters progressing as you wish?”

“Not as well as I had hoped by this time. We have to find Ibn el Sharii. And quickly. Until I can get those damn code numbers, I cannot release that money.”

“Razan, you know I’d help if I could. But the amounts you need to satisfy those…”

Khariza turned from the window and smiled at Zehlivic.

“You’ve done enough already. Helping me out of Iraq, providing the villa, funding much of the U.S. project. All this. What have I done to deserve such a friend?”

“You have helped me in the past. So I return the favor. What kind of a friend would I be if I turned my back on you?”

“Thank you, brother. I will speak of you in my prayers as always. Your loyalty will not go unnoticed.”

Zehlivic bowed his head. “Nothing is more important to me than your friendship. You honor me, Razan Khariza.”

“We honor God. In his name we pledge ourselves to this cause. And because we are walking in the light of truth we cannot do anything but succeed.”

Zehlivic crossed the saloon to the drinks bar and helped himself to a large glass of chilled fruit juice from the cooler.

In his early forties, he was a large man, carrying too much weight for his frame. He had tried all kinds of diets to reduce his bulk. Nothing worked for him. His physician had examined him, run tests and had only one thing to tell him. That his condition was hereditary and there was little that could be done. He would always be overweight. Zehlivic had really known this already. His father had been a big man who enjoyed his food, too much wine and too many large cigars. But once he had accepted the inevitable, Zehlivic decided he might as well enjoy life’s pleasures while he could.

He stood beside the cooler, drinking the large glass of juice, a little out of breath from simply walking to the bar.

“How is that young wife of yours, Radic?” Khariza asked. “Still in Paris spending your money?”

“At the moment,” Zehlivic said.

“And does she still make you happy?”

Zehlivic smiled. “What can I say? She keeps me young. She may well be the death of me, but I’m not complaining.”

Khariza joined him at the bar and helped himself to a glass of Zehlivic’s finest whiskey.

“Don’t look at me like that, Radic. I am only testing the corruption of the West so I can better understand how to fight it.”

Zehlivic couldn’t help laughing. He knew Khariza had a liking for whiskey, and who was he to deny his friend such small pleasures.

A telephone rang. It was at the far end of the bar. Zehlivic answered it, then held the receiver out to Khariza.

“For you.”

Khariza took the phone. “Yes?”

“We have located him. He is in London.”

“Are you there yourself?”

“Yes. I am on my way to London now.”

“Have you informed your people?”

“Yes. They are seeking him out as we speak. We do have a problem, though.”

“What?”

“The Israelis have also located him. It seems he was seen by a Mossad agent in London going into a local mosque. Since then they may have spoken to him. Perhaps made him an offer of protection.”

There was silence as Khariza absorbed the information.

“Find Sharii first. Do what you have to. Use whoever you need. I don’t care how many Zionists you need to kill to get to him. Especially if they are with Mossad. We have many scores to settle with them. Just keep me informed. And remember the importance of finding this man. He must be taken alive. Understand? He’s no use to us dead.”

“Of course.”

“I hold you fully responsible. There cannot be any mistakes.”

“Depend on me.”

Khariza replaced the receiver.

“Now we wait,” Zehlivic said.

“And while we do, we must plan ahead.”

Khariza drained his glass. “I need to talk with the others. Please ask them to join me, Radic.”

TEN MINUTES LATER they were all assembled. The same four men Khariza had met at the villa in San Remo. In the time since that day and the discovery they had been seen and photographed, each man had moved on to progress his own particular section of the long-term plans they had formulated. This meeting on Zehlivic’s boat was the first time they had come together again.

They had gathered in the luxurious comfort of the main salon. They sat in deep leather armchairs, with rich, thick carpet beneath their feet. The low ceiling reflected the gleam of polished wood paneling the walls. The armchairs were set in a loose circle around a wide, oval coffee table made from polished teak. On the table, a large silver tray held a steaming coffeepot and small cups. One of the men handed Khariza a cup of the hot coffee. He took it, inclining his head in thanks, then sank back in the armchair.

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