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“Hoping Khamis is there, assuming that he even knows where there is.”
“Hoping,” Bolan granted. “If he’s not around, smart money says we’ll find another Hezbollah hangout.”
“Small favors.” Grimaldi was working on his last few fries. He washed them down with coffee, pushing back his tray. “Ready when you are, kemo sabe.”
Zermatt, Switzerland
SALEH KABEER WAS dining when Mohammed Sanea interrupted, bringing him a sat phone.
“My apologies,” Sanea said. “A call from Paraguay.”
Kabeer frowned at his second in command. “Rajhid?”
Sanea shook his head. “One of the Hezbollah men. Ashraf Tannous, he says.”
The frown became a scowl. Kabeer set down his fork and took the phone, waving Sanea toward the nearest exit from the dining room.
“Greetings.”
“And greeting be unto you,” the caller replied. “I hope I have not reached you at an inconvenient time.”
Kabeer glanced at his cooling dinner, likely ruined by the interruption. “Not at all,” he lied.
“We have a problem,” the man said. “Is this line secure?”
“It is, if you are.”
“Very good. I’m sorry to report that there has been...an incident.”
“Explain.” Kabeer was not the most patient of men, nor the most courteous.
“Crusaders have attacked a safe house here. It’s possible they came for your men.”
“Possible?”
The caller’s shrug was nearly audible. “Your three fled from the building. They were followed. Two of them are dead now.”
“Followed.” He was sounding like an echo chamber. “Do you mean pursued?”
“It seems so.”
“You say two are dead,” Kabeer stated.
“We have the third one here, Walid Khamis. He claims it was coincidence.”
“You disagree?”
“The evidence—” the caller began.
“I understand. Is he available to speak with me?”
“One moment.”
It took longer, but Kabeer tried not to grind his teeth. When Khamis came on the line at last, his tone was cautious, worried.
“Sir, have they explained what happened?”
“Not in any great detail. We’ve lost two friends, I understand?”
“Yes, sir. I can’t explain it, but—”
“Another time, perhaps,” Kabeer said, cutting off the man’s inept apology. “When we can speak more privately.”
“Of course, sir...if there is another time.”
“Why should there not be?”
“They...um...are considering a ransom.”
“Are they?”
“I’ve discouraged it, of course, but—”
“Pass me back to Tannous, if you’d be so kind.”
“Yes, sir.”
Another moment’s silence, then Tannous came on the line again. “You’ve finished with your man, then?”
Kabeer ignored the question, asking, “What is this about a ransom?”
He had spoiled Tannous’s lead-up to the pitch. The Hezbollah cell leader took time to clear his throat, then said, “Housing your men has cost us more than we anticipated. Twelve men dead, and our best safe house lost for good. I feel we should be compensated.”
“You feel?” Kabeer challenged. “Have you discussed this plan with your superiors?”
“They have received a tabulation of the damages,” Tannous replied, rather evasively.
“And their response?”
“I’m waiting for it now.”
“Do you imply that my men are responsible for the attack on yours? And if so, what do you present as evidence?”
“They were pursued by two Crusaders from the scene. Why them, if they were not the targets?”
“Ask the two Crusaders,” Kabeer told him.
“I would, and gladly, if we had them here.”
“So, you don’t know who sent them? Whether they’re Americans, Israelis? Nothing?”
“At the moment—”
“I thought not. But since you seek to profit from a tragedy we share, here is my offer—nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Tell Walid our prayers are with him. We shall miss him—and we shall remember you.”
Smiling at last, Kabeer cut off the call and turned back to his veal.
Barrio San Blas, Ciudad del Este
THE CALL CAME in twenty minutes, not a record for the Farm, but close. Kurtzman—called “Bear” by anyone who knew him well—read off two addresses, the first on Avenida San José in Ciudad del Este, the other in Kassala, halfway round the world, in far-eastern Sudan.
“That’s near a teaching hospital,” Kurtzman added. “Also near the Mareb River, if that helps.”
“It will, when we get there,” Bolan replied.
“It’s not the best place to go hunting, but you know that, right?”
“We do,” Bolan agreed.
Sudan’s latest civil war had dragged on for more than two decades, finally ending—at least, on paper—in 2005. Before the ink was dry on that treaty, slave traders went back to business as usual, capturing at least two-hundred-thousand victims in the intervening years, while mayhem in Darfur killed at least three-hundred-thousand people, displacing nearly three million more. Some of that was religious warfare, Muslims versus Christians, and conversion from Islam to Christianity ranked as a capital crime in Sudan. A recent State Department report found that in the Darfur slaughter, all parties to the conflict committed serious crimes.
Nothing much had changed since then. At least, not for the better.
“Well, take care,” Kurtzman said, at a sudden loss for words.
“I always do,” Bolan replied.
The computer wizard was laughing when he cut the link.
“So, what’s the word?” Grimaldi asked him.
“We’re good to go on both ends,” Bolan said. “Addresses, anyway.”
“And what’s the game plan if we don’t find Khamis at the new place? Do we stick around and hunt for him?”
Bolan had already considered that and shook his head. “If he hasn’t gone back to the Hezbollah team, it means he’s on his own and likely lost in Ciudad del Este. Or he could’ve caught the first bus out of town, maybe across the Río Paraná to Foz do Iguaçu. From there, who knows where?”
Foz do Iguaçu lay just across the river, linked by a Friendship Bridge constructed to promote traffic between Paraguay and Brazil. Another crossing, the San Roque González de Santa Cruz Bridge, carried traffic back and forth between Ciudad del Este and Posadas, capital of Argentina’s Misiones province. Either way, there’d be no way to track Walid Khamis once he slipped out of town.
Welcome to the wonderful Triple Frontier.
“The good news,” Bolan said, “is that he’s stranded here, at least for now. If we can find the other remnants of his crew and deal with them, he’s neutralized.”
“Until he makes his way back home and finds another crew,” Grimaldi pointed out.
“It’s not ideal, I grant you,” Bolan answered. “But the time we’d waste looking for him across three countries gives his thirteen pals a chance to plan their next performance.”
“Right, a trade-off. So we’d better hit it.”
Outside, the rain had stopped, and steam was rising from the pavement. To Bolan, glancing up and down the street, it seemed as if fires were burning underneath the city, looking for a place to break through and devour everyone above.
* * *
“YOUR FRIENDS DON’T want you back, it seems,” Ashraf Tannous told Walid Khamis.
“You expected them to pay for me?” Khamis was smiling, but it strained the muscles in his face and did nothing to ease the sickly churning in his stomach.
Tannous shrugged, seeming disinterested. “It was worth a try,” he said. “My problem, now, is what to do with you.”
“Release me,” Khamis offered. “Then you have no problem.”
“On the contrary. I doubt you’d last two days in Paraguay alone, much less in Argentina or Brazil. You don’t speak Spanish, don’t speak Portuguese, can barely manage simple English. How long until you make a mistake and find yourself in custody? From there, it’s but a short step back to us, when you begin to squeal.”
“I’m not a rat,” Khamis said indignantly.
“Not a rat so far,” Tannous corrected him. “Police in Paraguay...well, let us say they are not known for sensitivity, especially to foreigners.”
“Are they worse than the Saudis?” Khamis challenged him. “Worse than the Egyptians? Worse than the Syrian?”
“After the bloodiness this afternoon, they will be hunting Arabs to arrest and question. You, alone, don’t stand a chance against them.”
“So, show me a way out of the city, then,” Khamis replied.
“I have already lost a dozen men because of you and your two friends. You think I’d risk another? Even one?”
“What, then?” Khamis asked Tannous, hating how his dry throat made his voice crack.
“You disappear,” Tannous replied. “If any of your comrades ask—which seems unlikely, you’ll admit—I simply say that we released you, at your own request, to make your way...wherever.”
“Kabeer will not believe it.”
“Have you not been listening? Your friend Kabeer told me to deal with you as I see fit.
“All of Israel wants me dead,” Tannous reminded him, smiling, “along with half of the United States, at least, and much of Britain. The Saudis have sentenced me to death in absentia. Warrants are out for my arrest in Syria and Jordan. I assure you, little man, that Saleh Kabeer is the least of my worries.”
As Tannous spoke, he reached around behind his back and drew a pistol from its place beneath his shirttail. Khamis recognized the Beretta 92 issued to Paraguayan military officers as a standard sidearm, then noticed its extended, threaded muzzle, added to accept a sound suppressor.
“I’m sorry that you ever came here,” Tannous said. “More sorry for my brothers than for you, of course, but still. You struck a blow at the Crusaders. It’s unfortunate that you’ve become a liability.”
Walid Khamis was tired of worrying about what happened next. Now that his fate was sealed, he simply wanted to get on with it and minimize the small talk. Paradise awaited him, he still felt sure. Tannous was simply standing in his way.
“So, kill me, then,” he blurted, as Tannous affixed a sound suppressor to his Beretta. One of his men had produced it from a pocket, all the time watching Khamis for his reaction, seeming disappointed when he did not weep and wail.
“You’re anxious now?” Tannous inquired. “Ready to see the virgins waiting for you? Or would you prefer boys, if I may ask?”
