All Necessary Force

Fifteen minutes later, Rafik addressed the Indonesians, holding a thick plastic trash bag, the other three Arabs flanking the group left and right.

“Noordin was paying you to fly a certain cargo from Alexandria to Prague, then onward to another country. He is no longer here, but I am the one who hired him. I wish you to continue.”

The lead pilot answered, “We worked for Noordin, it’s true, but we’re not any more. We have another job. We’re leaving tomorrow. Sorry.”

The loadmaster seemed to shrink into one of the other pilots, like a small child. The pilot put his arm around him, rubbing his back. Rafik was disgusted to realize they were partners, and decided the loadmaster would be the lesson. Then he grasped that the connection could be useful later.

He said, “I’m not going to threaten or beg. I’m going to show you what will happen if you say no. I only need one pilot.”

Rafik turned to Kamil and said, “The one who spoke.”

Initially the Indonesians looked confused. When the Arabs pulled out pistols, they showed their first signs of alarm. But by then, it was too late, their conscious minds failing to sense the extent of the danger. As had happened throughout history, whether facing a mugger in New York City or being pushed toward a shower by a Nazi guard, they acquiesced without a struggle. Kamil grabbed the lead pilot and forced him to his knees. He shoved the man’s head into the trash bag and pulled out the fillet knife. The pilot, unable to see anything, remained still. Kamil placed the knife under his neck and began to saw.

The blade bit deep. Before the pilot comprehended the danger, he was already dead. His body just didn’t realize it. He began flopping around like a fish on a dock, but Kamil held him down and stroked three more times. Kamil dropped the body and stood up, watching it continue to whip, causing a spackle of red to spray out, as if someone had stomped on a ketchup packet. The sounds coming from inside the bag made the other Indonesians flinch in horror. First a wet wheeze, it grew into a gurgling rattle as the pilot’s lungs fought for air through the torrent of blood. In seconds, the body was still, the only sign of life a twitching left foot.

“Now,” Rafik said, “do I need to repeat this?”

The loadmaster turned his head away and buried it in the pilot’s chest. The pilot said, “No. I’ll fly you. Please don’t hurt anyone else.”

“Okay. Then everyone calm down. Harm will only come to you if you fail to accomplish this mission. What did Noordin tell you about the plan?”

“Nothing. Only that we were flying a plane.”

“That’s true, from Alexandria to your usual spot in Prague. As just another flight from Noordin’s company.”

The pilot said, “That won’t work. All planes have tail numbers that show where they’re from and who owns them. We can’t fly another plane as if it’s ours.”

“You’re going to repaint the number to one that Noordin owns. Then just fly it home.”

“What type of plane?”

“A DHC-6 Twin Otter, registered in America.”

“We don’t have any Twin Otters. All our aircraft are built by Indonesian Aerospace. This won’t work.”

Rafik grew abrupt. “Nobody’s going to match the tail number with the model. It’s just one flight. Once it’s on the ground, you can have the Twin Otter. I only want what’s inside. You can either do it and risk jail, or remain here. I have more trash bags.”

When the pilot said nothing, Rafik continued, “Transfer the boxes inside the Otter to a real Noordin plane, then wait for us.”

He saw the pilot’s face reflect a glimmer of hope. “You won’t be with us?”

“No. Two Noordin employees flying a Noordin plane won’t cause a commotion, but us on board will raise questions with customs that might create trouble.”

“You mean three? Three Noordin employees will be flying?”

“I mean three unless you keep questioning me. We’ll fly out of Cairo and meet you in Prague. Do you understand what you need to do?”

“Yes.”

Rafik took the knife from Kamil and held it up, the blood and bits of flesh still clinging to it.

“You had better be at the airport in Prague when we arrive. You make me hunt you down and I’ll cut off your head only after I’ve worked my way up from the bottom.”

26

I computed the time change between Cairo and D.C., and decided I’d waited long enough.

Kurt would be in the office by now, and I wasn’t getting anything at the convention center. I’d cased Noordin’s booth for close to three hours and gleaned nothing. Maybe nothing was going on. Maybe Noordin was doing whatever he was doing all by himself.

The booth itself — in fact, the whole convention — was moving slow, like Vegas at nine in the morning. It stood to reason, since the terrorist strike had killed Noordin and seventeen other participants.

I pulled up our VPN on the company Web site. Once I was secure, I instant-messaged my “secretary” in the rear — really just someone who was pulling radio watch in the Taskforce headquarters. When he came on, I asked him to find Kurt, then put on the headset and waited.

It had taken a little doing, but Kurt had finally agreed to send over some more operators. The connection with the terrorist strike and his father’s camera had been weak, but it was enough. Everyone in D.C. seemed to be shitting their pants over the intel indicators, and ultimately it had swayed Kurt’s decision. He wouldn’t give me a complete team, but he did agree to send over the rest of Knuckles’ men. That was fine by me, since they used to be my team.

While none of the men were documented in my company, the primary problem was that we needed equipment — and bringing it in through customs wasn’t the best idea. Eventually, we’d have the ability to do that with company infrastructure, but our problem was now.

I’d pulled the trigger on an in-extremis option that the Taskforce had never used — a high-altitude, low- opening parachute jump. The team, with one man attached to a tandem bundle that held the equipment, would exit an airplane flying at commercial altitude on an existing air route. The plane, ostensibly flying a humanitarian mission to Sudan, would appear to be just transiting Egyptian airspace.

Kurt had balked at first, because it was fraught with risk, but I finally shamed him by asking why the hell we did all the practice jumps if we never intended to use the method. It was designed for just this type of contingency. He’d agreed, provided I gave him an update prior to the team launching from Europe on the final leg of the flight, which was why I was calling now.

I heard a scratching through my headset, then Kurt’s voice, sounding like he was speaking through a tube because of the VoIP and encryption.

“Pike, you there?”

“Yes, sir. I got you.”

I gave him an update on Knuckles’ status, and learned that a Taskforce casualty affairs team was on the way. From this point on, it would be out of my hands. More “employees” of my company, including now a doctor, would arrive tomorrow to deal with both the recovery of Bull’s remains and the treatment of Knuckles. Taskforce capability never ceased to amaze me. Neither did the organization’s desire to do whatever it took to take care of its own.

Kurt shifted to the mission. “So what’s up? You still want to execute?”

“Yeah. I do. I don’t have a lot to go on, but finding a thread first may be too late to get a team here. I need to be able to react as soon as I find it.”

“Do you have anything at all?”

“Noordin’s folks are going to the Khan al-Khalili market tomorrow. Three females. It’s probably nothing, but I can’t follow all three by myself. The market’s a tourist-trap nuthouse.”