Cobra Clearance (15 page)

When Brenda returned, Levi told her he was beat and excused himself. But as he stood he saw an unspoken message pass from
Brenda to Jackson. He filed it away and started for the door, but drawing closer to Dentz he stumbled and fell against him. “Sorry. Too many beers. Five in fact. Man, my head's gonna be hurtin' tomorrow.”

Dentz nodded. “Five'll do it. Well, here's to tomorrow in a good way.”

After Levi had transmitted the message about tomorrow's five o'clock meeting, he went to his cabin to prepare for a possible venture into Kruger's compound. First, he placed his knapsack on the chair next to the bed. Then he arranged a one-ounce bag of marijuana and a quarter-ounce bag of hashish that he'd acquired soon after arriving in Albuquerque. After making them visible through the knapsack's open flap, he prepared his hash pipe and lit it, letting the smoke permeate his hair and clothes. Then he smoked the rest to get the tracings of a casual user into his blood. He was quite buzzed when he stumbled into bed.

MSNBC WAS THE FIRST
to air the Al Jazeera tape. The network was quick to add a disclaimer that the Muslim world did not approve of the mass poisoning of women and children. Unsaid was the reality that for too many others, Amahl's bio-assault lacked the explosive impact of large airliners hurtling into tall towers.

“This marks a beginning,” Amahl said to the camera. The plain white backdrop revealed nothing of his location or time of day, and there were no outside noises to assist in determining whether he was in Zurich or Zanzibar. “What follows will make the death of your president and the death of your city seem as nothing but appetizers.” Amahl rambled for three minutes and ended with this warning: “Hear me now. I, Amahl, will ultimately take total control.” The tape faded into snow.

Tucker stared without emotion at the television. He switched it off, called the others and announced a meeting in one hour.

LEVI HART NURSED HIS BEER
and chatted with Brenda while he waited for Jackson. The TV was tuned to CNN's coverage of Amahl and the hysteria sweeping the nation, but he wondered at the lack of local outrage over the bio-attack. When Jackson entered at five sharp Levi thought, good, this guy's predictable.

Jackson walked past half a dozen customers, smiled at Brenda, then sat next to Levi. “What're you waiting for? You gonna buy me a beer, or…?”

WHAAAP
. The front door burst open and Jackson turned with everyone else to stare at a short skinny black man standing alone, oblivious to his surroundings.

“Hey,” Levi yelled, “white folks only.” He got up and moved toward the man in a loose-boned gait. Then he flicked his eyes at the door. “Get outta here.”

Everyone leaned forward to watch as the small man looked Levi up and down. “Screw you. I go where I want.”

Levi got in his face and said, “Well you don't go here, boy.” Then he backhanded him. Blood flew from the black man's nose. He gasped, then used his arms to shield himself when Levi began pummeling his shoulders.

Jackson's face turned deep red. “Kick his ass!”

“Out,” Levi thundered, then punched the man. He fell to the floor with a thud and Levi kicked his ribs with his work shoe. “Get up!”

Levi raised his foot to kick again, but the stranger reached inside his jacket and pulled out a Browning Hi-Power. He leveled it at Levi's chest. “Back off, white boy.”

Levi stood his ground and taunted him. “Just like a black boy to pull a gun.”

“Just like a cracker to bring boots to a gunfight.” The man struggled to his feet as three customers edged toward him. Jackson was not among them.

Levi's face was purple with rage. “I'll kill you.” He took a step forward. “I'll…”

CRAAACK
. The pistol jumped in the man's hands. The bullet slammed into the wood floor an inch from Levi's foot, sending splinters flying. A plume of blue smoke rose from the muzzle. Everyone dived for safety. Everyone but Levi. He stepped forward. The guy fired.
CRAAACK
. This time the bullet nicked the edge of Levi's shoe.

When Levi didn't flinch, the man showed real fear. Reaching blindly for the door, he crashed against the panic bar. The door opened with a loud clang. He tumbled into the parking lot. Levi stormed after him with only a glance at Dentz, who was standing nearby. But Levi was too late. He watched in disgust as his assailant jumped into a rusted Chevy and sped off. He ignored Dentz when he stalked back inside.

Jackson sat frozen to his stool. “Jesus. You got a set of balls.”

Levi scowled at the marks in the floor, lifted his foot and inspected the spot where the round nicked his shoe, said, “Humph,” then went to the bar and ordered two beers.

“You sure showed that coon,” a customer yelled.

Brenda brought Levi the beers, then turned her back to him and marched off.

“He ain't no coon,” Levi said while handing a bottle to Jackson. “He's black an' he don't belong here. That's all I care about.”

“Good, because Kruger doesn't like slurs.” Then Jackson got a huge grin and whomped Levi on the back. “Christ, but you sure got balls.”

Levi brought the bottle to his lips and drank while all around him the customers told and retold the story of what he had done, and how he hadn't backed away from certain death.

Dentz walked inside after a while. Taking a seat far from the others, he ordered a beer from a trembling Brenda. Levi checked him from the corners of his eyes and noted the bulge of the SIG Sauer pistol beneath Dentz's shirt.

The black man sped north on Highway 41, turned west on I-40 and headed toward Albuquerque. Several minutes passed. When he was satisfied that nobody had followed he said, “You can come on out now.”

There was a rustling from the rear floor and Michael Bailey materialized from beneath an old G.I. blanket. He sat up and put a 12 gauge Remington 870 Wingmaster on the seat. “How'd it go? Looks like he roughed you up.”

Hacksaw Jones turned and monkey-grinned him. “Nah. Well, a little. He about broke my nose. But it's all good. It all went as planned. None of the customers interfered, but Dentz had my back just in case. And my man Levi never even flinched.”

“Tucker never does, either.”

“Yeah, but that's at the range. This was real-time.”

“Well there you go. Levi's real-time.”

SUSAN BOARDED THE CONNECTING
flight in Atlanta and checked the time. She grabbed her cell yet again, then shoved it back into her handbag. “This is stupid. I will not leave another message for him.”

THE COBALT BLUE MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE
meandered down a side street beneath a flawless blue sky, attracting little attention in Florida's South Beach where Lamborghinis and Bentleys outnumbered Mercedes coupes and Lexus sedans three to one. The air was a balmy eighty-four and locals and tourists alike streamed up and down the sidewalks like so many soldier ants. The driver turned down another street and slowed for a jaywalker, then went past the unobtrusive apartment building. “Negative activity,” he
said. He heard a response in his Bluetooth earpiece a second later. “Copy. Hand-off to Suzy and leave the area.” The driver acknowledged the order and continued east to Collins, then turned south to take an indirect route to the rented office that the police intel operatives used.

THE SWISS AUTHORITIES, STUNNED
from their somnambulism by the bio-attack, had begun focusing their abundant resources toward a covert search for Kalil. But while the taxi driver had provided the details that pointed to Kalil, the one detail he could not give was a surname.

“That should not pose too great a problem,” the director of the Swiss Aliens Police reported to his FBI counterpart. “There cannot be that many student applications from Ethiopia, particularly with the given name Kalil.” Under normal circumstances his assessment of the challenge would have been dead-on. But a teenaged hacker in Moscow chose that moment at random to disable Switzerland's computer databases, forcing the director to confess that his small unit would have to conduct a hand search of the visas. “Regrettably, that will take time.”

One hour later a personal call from the Under Secretary of State to her opposite number in Switzerland resulted in a shift of personnel, and a torrent of help flooded the Aliens Police headquarters. The Swiss also began searching innumerable bank records, since student visa applicants must establish accounts to provide for their financial needs. Even the university computers had been affected. The Swiss were still carrying out the hand search when someone observed that Kalil might have claimed citizenship from Eritrea or Djibouti. Or Somalia. Or Saudi Arabia. They began their search all over.

Heath Baker had caught up with Tucker's split earlier that morning and they met at Rindermarkt in the heart of Zurich Center. The climbing and descending cobblestone walkways were almost empty of people on this chilly afternoon, and those who had ventured out wore dark heavy clothing and kept their heads down. Even the food vendors were lackluster, with only a scattering of bratwurst, sausage and sauerkraut stalls open, their odors permeating a still air. The team ducked into a café of gray fieldstone nestled within the lee of a three-story building. The interior was dark and the ceiling was supported by timbers the color of railroad ties.

After they ordered coffees Monica exclaimed, “Zurich's so clean.”

Baker pointed out the window at a four-story home across the narrow pedestrian thoroughfare. “Check the date on the front. 1642. And still in use. Imagine.”

Tucker looked over his shoulder. “Almost as old as you.” The waiter set their coffees out and Tucker took a sip. “You've all seen our friend's tape, and the Swiss computers are still belly-up, so Justice is sending a covert team to supplement ours.”

Sawyer groaned. “We can't have a bunch of teams floating around. Kalil might pick up the scent.”

“Agreed. It's a tough call but I made it. All we know is that he's a waiter. We don't know where and we don't have a lot of time, so we're gonna pair up.”

They finished their coffees. Tucker and Monica left for the Seller Graben area. They would work their way west as they checked each restaurant.

Baker and Sawyer headed for the terminal and began working their way east, glancing at waiters inside every fine-dining establishment they came across. As they left the fifth one Sawyer said in his slight Bahamian accent, “I've noticed a lot of gay bars.”

Baker nodded. “Good call. They often feature great dancing, and Kalil likes to impress his girlfriends. We don't want to miss anything. Better check them, too.” He sniffed at the sharpness of the chill air. “I can't wait to see Levi's progress report.”

I
t was dark and getting cold when Levi throttled back and leaned into the turn. Jackson's battered pickup left the paved road ahead of him and lumbered down a straight dirt trail, its headlights bouncing crazily with every bump. Levi knew the route from the recon photos and hung back to avoid Jackson's dust as he checked his odometer. At the one mile point he noted a large boulder to the right where Dentz had planted the SAT phone. After another mile they topped a small rise and the compound loomed ahead.

A huge floodlit U.S. flag flanked by Nazi and Confederate flags, all on gleaming fifty-foot tall aluminum poles, fluttered next to a massive steel gate. Jackson stopped and two armed sentries approached. The tattooed men bore Swastikas on their foreheads and had rings and studs in their lips and noses. After a brief conversation a sentry turned to the gatehouse and nodded. The gate opened and they drove into a forty acre compound enclosed at precise angles by a high chain-link fence topped by razor wire. There were a dozen buildings of various dimensions along the fence, and a large two-story building at the far end. That would be the women's dorm. All else was sand and scrub.

Jackson parked in front of a small gray cinder block building and led the way into a sparse office. The floors were unfinished wood and smelled of creosote. A metal file cabinet stood against
the far corner. There were maps of the local area on one wall, a world map on another and a well-ordered bulletin board on a third. A large mahogany desk sat precisely in the middle of the room and a dour man was seated behind it. He was shorter than Levi, with cold rattlesnake beads for eyes. He wore a meticulously pressed khaki shirt and similar pants but lacked a facial expression of any kind. “This is Eric Briggs,” Jackson announced.

Levi's hair was a mass of tangles after the motorcycle ride and he held his head at a slight angle as he extended his hand to the glaring man.

Brent Kruger ignored it. “What the hell do you want?”

Kruger would want team players, not lone wolves. Levi would now establish himself as a sociopathic personality who nonetheless socialized with others. He would also pepper his replies with details that lent credibility to a biography that had been lived as opposed to invented. Unzipping his black leather jacket, he began. “Heard this was the place to see during my sight-seein' trip through the Wild West.”

“A smart ass,” Kruger said. “Who told you this?”

“Dunno. Here an' there.”

“You had better knock off the crap and tell me.”

“I heard some talk at a couple a bars around Hemet.” Hemet, California, was a desert town populated by off-the-grid types.

“You're a long way from Hemet.” He regarded Levi shrewdly. “Why here?”

“I'm looking for a place to call home.”

Kruger scowled. “Another drifter.” He sniffed the air and narrowed his eyes. “You smell of cannabis. Are you a stoner as well?”

“I won't lie. I like my ganj—an' hash when I got the cash.”

“How often do you smoke?”

“Not every day.”

“Not. Every. Day. How nice.”