The man stood to his full six-foot, one-inch height and looked Leo square in the eye. “You know I’ve always followed your lead, LT. And this whole thing stinks like a jackass festival, for sure. So even if we hadn’t made that promise—”
“Promise?” Olivia asked. “What promise?”
“I would understand why you’d want no part of it,” Wolf continued, ignoring Olivia’s interruption. “But before you go making any decisions, there’s something you should know.”
Wolf’s words, as well as his troubled expression, had Leo’s stomach dropping to the floor of the kitchen so hard he was surprised he didn’t hear a resoundingsplat.“What’s that?”
“That historian, or translator, or whatever you want to call him, emailed and said he hadn’t been prepared for the sheer volume of documents we sent his way.” Oh right. The documents from Seville. How could Leo have forgotten aboutthem? Two words—he answered his own question—OliviaMortier. “If we want him to translate all of them, he says he’ll need another two weeks and another ten grand.”
“Tengrand?” Leo bellowed, causing Meat to hop up from his pillow. In sleepy confusion, the silly mutt let loose with a loudwoof!
Cock-a-doodle-doooooooooo!
Leo winced, turning to see the rooster—Li’l Bastard, apparently—perched on the porch railing right outside the kitchen window. The multiple cups of coffee might have taken care of his headache, but that fat chicken’s ridiculous vocal stylings were enough to send a hammer-strike of pain smashing into his skull.
Or perhaps the throb in his temples had less to do with the rooster and more to do with the fact that the universe was seriously screwing him over and leaving him standing there holding double handfuls of shit.
Unable to contain himself a moment longer, Uncle John unzipped the duffel bag, pulling the edges wide. Thescriiiiiitchingsound of the zipper seemed particularly loud in the sudden silence of the kitchen, but not nearly as loud as his uncle’s exclamation of, “Well, cut off my legs and call me Shorty! Would you look at that!”
And there it was in all its greenback glory. Half a million dollars. Olivia had certainly delivered after blowing their mindholes with her tale.
Leo’s heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder his T-shirt wasn’t fluttering. He turned to her and watched one black brow slowly slide up her smooth forehead.
“So,” she said, jutting out her stubborn, adorable,irresistiblechin, “shall we go retrieve my missing chemical weapons, Lieutenant Anderson?”
Chapter Four
12:12 p.m.…
His name was Banu az-Harb.
At least that’s what itsecretlywas now…ever since he opened his eyes to the one true faith and threw off the identity of Jonathan Wilson. Ever since he realized his Caucasian ethnicity, degrees in criminology, and unassuming white-bread background made him perfect to infiltrate the CIA. And ever since Allah revealed that if he was patient, if he was smart and cunning, he could be one of the most useful and celebrated soldiers in the great and terrible holy war raging around the globe.
For nearly ten years he’d kept up Jonathan Wilson’s gun-toting, Mickey D’s-eating, rootin’-tootin’, American good-ol’-boy facade. Going to barbecues and football games. Wearing Polo shirts, loafers, and khaki slacks. Working his way up the ranks of the CIA, watching his security clearance rise higher and higher, and all the while amassing contacts the world over.
He grinned, thinking about the time The Company was poised to catch the leader of the AQAP—al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He’d been able to warn the man minutes before the operation went down, and the revered commander had escaped. His smile widened when he remembered coming across a bit of Intel regarding the transportation of nearly two dozen decommissioned Soviet tanks. The convoy had been due to pass close to the Lebanese border, and his quick actions in contacting the Hezbollah fighters active in the region meant that now their righteous group had ten IS-4 heavy-duty battle tanks on their list of armaments.
There had been other instances, of course, when he’d dropped the right piece of information into the right ear at the right time. And he was proud of each and every act of treason against the nation that was his birthplace but that he no longer considered his home. Unfortunately, to date he had yet to find The One Thing guaranteed to rain down death and destruction the likes of which the country hadn’t seen since 9/11. The One Thing that would ensure his name would be splashed across the headlines and live on into eternity.
Then, yesterday morning while reading a Company-wide memo, his eyes had alighted on one line item near the bottom. Almost like an afterthought. Apparently, a small chemical weapons shipment, taken from the al-Assad regime, was being stored at a warehouse right on the water in Guantanamo Bay. Due to remain there a mere twenty-four hours before it was slated for transport to the mainland where it would be destroyed.
According to the memo, the warehouse’s security system had suffered a major malfunction—alarms, cameras,everythingwas down. But the powers-that-be had decided to take a hope-for-the-best stance. They surmised that nothing too nefarious could happen to the shipment in such a short time.
Fools!he’d thought, staring wide-eyed at his computer screen and nearly hyperventilating with excitement. His cock had hardened just like it always did when he came across something of interest, something that could help him forward the cause and make a name for himself.You’re leaving a cache of chemical weapons right there for the taking. And so close to the American coast, too. This is it! This is The One!
Time had been of the essence, of course. And he’d wasted none of it before contacting his sources in Cuba. Following his precise instructions, those holy fighters had managed to locate the chemicals, spirit them from the base to the boat they’d purchased, and set sail for the backwaters of south Florida where Banu had agreed to meet them.
Unfortunately, halfway into their journey, disaster struck…
Apparently, the vessel his contacts had acquired was sixty years old and full of poorly patched holes.That’s Cuba for you. And since the men weren’t exactly sailors, they hadn’t realized there was a problem until it was too late. Their boat had sunk beneath them like a lead weight, taking one of his assets with it while the remaining seven escaped in a dinghy.
When Nassar, Banu’s point contact, had called via satellite phone to give him the news of the vessel’s unexpected end, he’d punched a hole in the wall of his DC apartment and thrown the bag he’d been packing clear across the room. But Nassar had quickly informed him that he’d taken a GPS reading just before the boat went down. He knew the coordinates of the wreck.
Fatlotofgoodthatdoesushad been Banu’s initial thought. But then an idea occurred to him…
A quick Google search of the underwater topographic maps of the area had assured him that all was not lost.
GlorytoAllah!All the knowledge he’d gleaned during those family vacations to the Virgin Islands, all those diving expeditions his father insisted he go on where he’d learned about neutral buoyancy and absolute pressure, the Rimbach system and outgassing, were finally going to come in handy for something more than simple self-indulgence and entertainment. Sure, it would be dangerous. A dive that deep wasalwaysdangerous. But he’d read the literature, knew the right gear to use and the right gases to mix and—
