Day Of Wrath (26 page)

Expenses were charged against their pay, or the promised immigration papers were delayed, or they were simply threatened with arrest by the local police if they strayed off the estate. Poor, undereducated, and utterly ignorant of American law, they stayed put. Those few who tried to steal away were always caught.

“Where is this Pakistani?” Ibrahim snapped.

“In the equipment shed, Highness,” the groundskeeper said nervously.

“Very well. Then get back to your work. Talal and I will handle this matter ourselves. Nothing more will be said. Nothing. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Highness!” The groundskeeper bobbed his head, obviously relieved, and then disappeared.

The equipment shed housed the gardening tools used by the grounds staff. It stood well off by itself on one side of the main house, screened from view by a stand of trees.

Talal unlocked the door. “I’ve confined the grounds staff to their quarters, Highness. They believe we are conducting a search for missing items believed stolen by this Pakistani.”

Ibrahim nodded his approval. It was a good cover story one that would discourage any sympathy for the missing man. Theft was a serious crime in the Islamic world.

The shed’s interior was all steel and fiberglass on a concrete foundation. Workbenches lined two walls with pegs and tools for maintaining the other equipment, while the floor was taken up by several tractors and power mowers. Bags of fertilizer and grass seed were stacked against one wall.

The Pakistani lay facedown on the concrete floor— huddled against the bags. He was bound hand and foot. The young man raised his head weakly when Ibrahim and Talal came in, but he didn’t speak. His eyes were unfocused—though whether from fatigue or from the security chief’s “questioning,” the Saudi prince couldn’t tell at first. One side of his face looked wrong somehow.

Talal stepped over and roughly pulled the Pakistani up to a sitting position—propping him against the stack of fertilizer and seed bags.

Now Ibrahim could see that his security chief had been very thorough in his questioning. Blood matted one side of the young man’s head, and the eye on that side was puffy and swollen.

Ibrahim’s anger, so carefully controlled in front of his subordinates, now sprang to the surface. He was a scion of the Prophet and a prince of the royal blood. And yet this worm, a man who had eaten his salt, had defied him—challenging his authority, abusing his hospitality. No excuse could justify such betrayal or mitigate the punishment he must exact.

In a cold rage, Ibrahim stepped closer to the Pakistani. He grabbed one shoulder and threw the dazed young man flat on his back. Without stopping to think he snatched one of the bags from the neatly stacked pile nearby, felt himself stagger slightly under its weight, and then hurled it down on top of the prostrate Pakistani.

The man screamed as the bag slammed into his chest.

Ibrahim looked more closely at his handiwork and smiled icily as he considered the hundred-pound bag of grass seed he’d just thrown onto the traitor.

The Pakistani struggled vainly to escape the weight slowly crushing the breath out of his body. “Forgive me, Highness,” he whispered painfully. “I beg you …”

Ibrahim ignored him. He picked up another heavy bag with both hands and tossed it on top of the first. The added weight drew another scream of agony from his victim. A third bag—this one hurled onto the man’s face—muffled his cries. Blood trickled out onto the concrete floor.

Sweating now, and enjoying the exertion, Ibrahim piled a fourth and fifth bag atop the writhing Pakistani. By now only the young man’s legs were visible. They kicked at the floor, wildly at first, and then slower and slower.

Ibrahim stood back, watching and waiting. Even after a full minute by his watch, the Pakistani’s legs still quivered spasmodically.

It took another thirty seconds before all movement ceased.

He turned to Talal. The security chief stood impassively waiting by the door. “Clear this mess up. And get rid of the body tonight.”

There were plenty of lonely places in rural Virginia, and Ibrahim knew Talal would bury the body deep.

“What do we tell the rest of the workers, Highness?” the security chief asked quietly.

“That he was caught stealing, and that we have turned him over to the American police.”

Talal nodded silently and bent to begin hefting the bags back into place.

Ibrahim stepped past him and headed for the main house—eager to read Reichardt’s latest report. Pleasurable or not, he’d wasted enough time on trivial matters for now.

JUNE
11

Berkeley County Airport, Outside Charleston, South Carolina (D
MINUS
10)

Berkeley County Airport was a small, single-strip field twenty-five miles north-northwest of Charleston, just one mile from the town of Moncks Corner. Church spires dotted the town’s skyline.

To the northeast loomed the swampy forest of cypress and scrub pine that had sheltered Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” during the American Revolution. The olive-green waters of Lake Moultrie glittered in the distance.

Buildings clustered north of the runway, linked by dirt and gravel roads. The facilities of the general aviation firms based there—aircraft rental companies, an aerial surveyor, a flying school, and an air charter service—were dwarfed by Caraco’s three brandnew steel-frame hangars and two smaller buildings.

A forbidding chainlink fence surrounded the compound.

Rolf Ulrich Reichardt emerged from one of-the hangars and stood blinking in the bright morning sunshine. He mopped impatiently at his forehead, already finding the Southern heat and humidity oppressive. A small plane—a single-engine Cessna—droned low overhead, touched the runway, and trundled past, taxiing toward the rows of other private aircraft lined up on the lush green grass. Another Cessna circled lazily off in the distance—waiting its turn to land.

Berkeley had no control tower. Pilots using the field listened to a common radio frequency, Unicorn, and worked out any traffic control problems among themselves.

Reichardt turned to his escort, who stood waiting patiently at his side, completely attentive to his superior’s needs.

Dieter Krauss was one of Reichardt’s men from the old days.

He was reliable, if utterly unimaginative. Once he’d headed a Stasi Special Action squad, used to beat dissidents whose activities the State found inconvenient or irritating. But Krauss had aged poorly, and his strength had faded. Too many vices.

Now in his early fifties, he looked like a man fifteen years older.

He was still useful in a supervisory role, and in an operation of this magnitude, Reichardt needed every agent he could lay his hands on.

“You have had no trouble from the locals?” Reichardt asked.

He inclined his head toward the small shed that housed the airport manager. “No difficult questions?”

Krauss shook his head. “No. They have all accepted our cover story.”

Reichardt nodded. The county officials who ran the airport had been informed that Caraco intended its new facility as a transfer point for corporate executives flying in from its other U.S. enterprises to Charleston. Given the high landing, maintenance, and aircraft parking fees at Charleston International, none of them were surprised that Caraco viewed their field as a low-cost alternative. In any event, no responsible local official would turn up his nose at the promise of added revenues flowing into the airport coffers.

His pager buzzed. He checked the name and number displayed and pursed his lips. Interesting.

With a single, sharp nod, Reichardt dismissed Krauss and sent him back to work. Then he turned on his heel and stalked back through the gate to where he’d parked his rental can-a sleek, comfortable Monte Carlo.

Even though he’d parked in the shade, the car’s interior was already sweltering. Despite the sticky heat, the German pulled the car door firmly shut behind him. There was no point taking a chance that a local might overhear him, and absolutely no sense in allowing the man he was about to call to hear anything that might let him guess Reichardt’s location.

The Monte Carlo came equipped with a car phone, but Reichardt ignored that. Instead, he opened his briefcase and removed his own digital cellular phone. It contained an encryption chip that would prevent either casual or deliberate eavesdropping.

He keyed in a code and then the phone number displayed on his pager.

An automated system routed his call through several dummy numbers before dialing his contact—vastly complicating any attempt to trace the call.

A cautious voice answered. “Mcdowell.”

“This is Heinrich Wolf,” Reichardt said smoothly. “From Secure Investments, Limited. What can I do for you, Mr. Mcdowell?”

“You’ve got a problem,” Mcdowell said. “Two problems, in fact.”

Reichardt listened in silence and mounting irritation while the American
FBI
official filled him in on the fax he’d just received from Berlin. Although they’d survived Kleiner’s abortive ambush in Pechenga, he’d thought Special Agent Gray and Colonel Thorn were out of the picture-on their way home to the United States in disgrace. But now here they were again—popping up with data he’d believed completely secure. One of the loose ends he’d gone to enormous lengths to tie up had come unraveled again. Somehow the two Americans had tracked the cargo transfer in Bergen.

“Where are they now?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Mcdowell reluctantly admitted. “The fax is six hours old already. And they could have arranged for a delayed transmission.”

Reichardt scowled, thinking fast. With at least a six-hour head start, these two American troublemakers could be well on their way to almost anywhere. Chasing them would be futile, he realized. This would have to be an entirely different sort of hunt.

He gripped the cellular phone tighter. “I need more information on Thorn and Gray. Immediately.”

Mcdowell hesitated but only for an instant. Both he and Reichardt knew who held all the aces in the game they were playing. “I have photos and personnel files on both of them.”

“Good. Then you can fax them to me now.” Reichardt gave the American one of the dummy numbers that would ultimately connect with his phone, disconnected, and plugged a cable into the cell phone.

Within minutes, the portable fax machine he carried in his briefcase spat out two photos and several pages of personal and professional data—all stamped “
FBI
Confidential.” He rang Mcdowell back. “You’ve done good work, Mr. Mcdowell. I think I can promise you a high return on your latest investment.”’ “I don’t want more money,” the
FBI
agent said shortly. “I want out. I’m running too many goddamned risks here.”

“We all run risks,
PEREGRINE
,” Reichardt mockingly chided.

“There are no rewards without them. True?”

There was silence on the other end, and Reichardt knew Mcdowell was cursing himself. Every act he committed tightened the noose around his neck, giving the German more control.

Time to dangle some cheese in front of the rat. “Don’t worry so much, Mr. Mcdowell. Your assistance is valued. It reduces your debt to us.

Soon, you will hear no more from me.”

The
FBI
official couldn’t hide the desperate hope in his voice.

“When?”

“Soon,” Reichardt repeated. He snapped the phone shut.

Ignoring the sweat trickling down his forehead in the stifling car, he scanned the papers he’d been sent. One eyebrow went up as he paged through the official records of the two Americans’ past exploits as members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and the U.S. Army’s Delta Force. No wonder they’d bested poor Kleiner and his hired Russian bandits in combat.

This Peter Thorn and Helen Gray were dangerous, Reichardt reflected.

Too dangerous. And too damned persistent. They’d already pierced three layers of the elaborate veil he’d drawn over the Operation. If he left them on the loose much longer, they might get too close to the core—and draw too much official attention with them.

At least he now knew where they were headed next. The Americans had discovered that the ship they were chasing, Baltic Venturer, had sailed to Wilhelmshaven. From what he had learned from their files, Thorn and Gray would not abandon the chase. Not when they were hot on the scent.

Reichardt considered his options carefully, and then made several phone calls. The first was to his security team leader in Wilhelmshaven.

There would be no subtlety this time. The time was too short. This time he would demand certainty.

Wilhelmshaven Heinz Steinhof alternated between pacing up and down Weserstrasse and standing across the street from the Port Authority office.

It was late in the afternoon, but he couldn’t bet on the two Americans arriving today-or ever. In fact, for all he knew, they’d already come and gone, and his men would be watching and waiting until the end of time.

Which they would, or at least until Reichardt told them to stop.

Reichardt’s phone call earlier that afternoon had surprised Steinhof.

The security team was almost through with its job of “sanitizing” the temporary Caraco export office in Wilhelmshaven.

Two of his best operatives had already left for the United States. Now all their work had to be set aside so they could hunt for two American snoopers.

It wasn’t the job that bothered Steinhof. Find two people and kill them. Easy enough. He’d done it before.

When Reichardt had found him almost thirty years before, he’d been an unwilling conscript in the East German National People’s Army.

Steinhof had been working as an enforcer for a gambler in the barracks—something that had brought him to the attention of his military superiors, and, as it turned out, to the Stasi as well.

Reichardt had solved the People’s Army’s discipline problem by recruiting Steinhof for secret work himself.

In the years since, the ex-soldier had conducted many different missions for Reichardt—murders, assassinations, bombings, and smuggling operations of different kinds. Most had been dangerous.