Choke Point Read online

  He leaned past the truck, smiled, and waved at Takana while speaking through his teeth, ‘Watch this, you mother.’ He slipped on his gas mask and dug into his pocket –

  To produce a gas grenade containing a newly formulated incapacitating agent known as Kolokol-7. It was based on the old Kolokol-1 synthetic opioid, and in part a derivative of fentanyl but in a much more stable and safer form that had been rigorously field tested by the Ghosts for several years. The idea was to put your adversaries to sleep, not accidentally poison them, which had happened much more often than not when deploying these types of gasses. Tear gas was okay, but your foes could still fire wildly while blinded. You wanted them on the ground, immobile, done.

  Behind the rolling door, 30K imagined all four guards, submachine guns drawn, waiting for him to open the hatch.

  He did –

  Opened it about six inches, pulled the pin on the grenade, and threw it inside.

  Then he slammed shut the rolling door, threw the latch, and leaped sideways –

  Just as automatic fire ripped through the door and began shredding the area around that latch, rounds chewing into the concrete and ricocheting away, the sounds of the hissing grenade and screaming guards inside coming through the fresh bullet holes in the door. The men began kicking the door, trying in vain to pry it open, the gas now leaking from the bullet holes while 30K craned his head toward the hangar door –

  Where Kozak and Ross skidded to a stop in their pickup. They donned gas masks, then came running over as 30K checked his watch. The truck grew very still as Kozak and the boss trained their rifles on the truck’s back door, while 30K threw the latch.

  With a slight shiver, he used both hands to shove the door upward as hard as he could, the rollers rattling as thick clouds came pouring out and finally thinned to expose the pallets and the four guards lying slumped on the floor or against the wall.

  ‘Nice work,’ Ross said from behind his mask. He slapped a palm on 30K’s back. ‘Let’s do this!’

  30K nodded and ran off, around the truck and toward the gas-powered forklift waiting for him.

  A hundred things could have gone wrong, and they usually did, but for now, 30K would keep his head low so that fate would not spot him. He would get those pallets transferred to the plane pronto.

  Ross told Pepper to bring Takana over to the office area while the gas was still clearing out. There, they shoved the pilot into a chair and Ross spoke evenly. ‘We’ll be turning you over to your own government. At best, you’ll get life imprisonment for aiding and abetting an international terrorist organization. At worst, they’ll execute you.’

  ‘I’m just a pilot.’

  ‘Yeah, a pilot who flies stolen rocket launchers.’

  ‘I fly boxes of pipes and flanges.’

  Ross hunkered down to level his gaze on the man. ‘Bakri, listen to me. If you help us, I can guarantee you immunity. I’m talking no jail time at all.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Who are you?’

  ‘Excuse me, can I have a word?’

  The question had come from Maziq, who’d returned to the warehouse. Ross shifted away toward the entrance, and they lowered their voices. ‘I still don’t like this. We shouldn’t have intercepted them here. We should’ve let him take off and tracked the shipment electronically.’

  ‘Sorry, bro, but like I told you, I wasn’t taking that risk. Not with those weapons.’

  ‘Yeah, well, now if his shipment doesn’t show up on time –’

  ‘I understand that. So are you here to criticize or help?’

  ‘I can get him to cooperate, but you might not like it.’

  ‘We’re Ghosts. And we do not torture our prisoners. Right now, I just need him to fly the plane. He needs to make it look like business as usual.’

  Maziq nodded. ‘I’m not talking about physical torture.’ Maziq pulled an envelope from his cargo pants and shoved it into Ross’s hands. ‘We found Takana’s wife and two girls back in Sudan, in Khartoum.’

  Ross closed his eyes for a moment and swore. ‘Do we have to go there?’

  ‘Hey, man, my team just gathers the intel. It’s always your call.’ Maziq sighed and stepped away, speaking into a radio he’d been holding, checking in on the NLA troops monitoring airport security.

  Ross opened the envelope and examined the photographs of the woman and her two daughters, surveillance photos taken of them while they’d been shopping along a busy city street.

  He looked up at Takana, then back at the photos. Then he checked his watch. Well, they didn’t have time for long and sensible arguments that might win over the man.

  With a surge of adrenaline, Ross marched back to the pilot, shoved the photos in the man’s face, and said, ‘I don’t think I need to say anything else, except … will you please help us.’

  Takana glanced at the photos, a sheen coming into his eyes. He looked up and said, ‘I fly the cargo to Port Sudan. I don’t ask questions. Sometimes I fly drugs, money shipments, sometimes weapons. I land, I hand off the cargo, and I fly back. For this they pay me very well.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘I don’t know their names. They tell me nothing. I’m paid at the warehouse, usually by a courier. If there’s a boss there, I don’t know who he is.’

  ‘Will you fly us to Sudan?’ asked Ross.

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘Do the guards always go with the shipment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do they fly back with you?’

  ‘Yes. Now I want immunity like you said. I want my family kept safe. Will you keep your word?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I’m not a bad man,’ said Takana.

  Ross raised his brows. ‘Not as bad as the people you work for.’ Ross put his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

  Takana pursed his lips. ‘I hope so.’

  A thunderous crash came from the hangar, sending Ross and Pepper rushing out toward the truck –

  Where they found 30K still at the controls of the forklift. However he, the lift, and the pallet he’d been trying to remove from the truck were now lying sideways, the boxes of launchers now breaking through their shrinkwrap and splaying like dominoes across the floor.

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘It could’ve happened to anyone,’ Kozak told 30K as they rushed to repack the weapons pallet and get the forklift back in operation.

  Pepper had already jumped behind the controls of the second forklift and was removing a pallet, noting, too, how terrible the traction was while bringing the lift down the truck’s aluminum loading ramp, which buckled under the load.

  30K’s lift had started sliding halfway down the ramp, and he’d tried to correct it, but one wrong turn had sent him toppling over the side. His forklift’s tires were bald – perhaps an indication that these guys were doing some serious shipping.

  They finished with the pallet, and 30K got back to work, his cheeks still flush with embarrassment.

  Once they were finished loading the plane, Pepper squeezed the back of 30K’s neck and said, ‘Driving a forklift. How hard can it be?’

  30K wrenched himself free. ‘Yeah, yeah, old man. I’ll keep my day job. Pays better anyway.’

  They relieved the FARC guards of their Fadakno uniforms and distributed them based on the nearest sizing. Kozak’s pants were pretty baggy, but he didn’t complain and overtightened the belt. The black ball caps helped conceal their faces.

  They shook hands with and thanked Maziq for all his help.

  ‘Oh, I’m not done with you yet,’ he said with a smile. ‘The ISA never sleeps. So yeah, be safe, guys, and even though none of us exist and everything we did never happened, it was good to work with the old team.’

  ‘You miss it now, huh?’ Ross asked.

  Maziq smiled and raised an index finger. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

  Kozak climbed into the C-212 with the rest of the team. Four seats attached to the bul
kheads were positioned up front, just behind the cockpit, while the rest of the cabin had been stripped for cargo loading. They buckled in, and Ross sat in the copilot’s seat, mentioning how he’d maintained a private pilot’s license for the last ten years. The C-212 was usually operated with a copilot, but Takana said that his employers had preferred he work alone. For now, though, he seemed to welcome the assistance.

  They took off without incident, Takana getting clearance from an air traffic controller who was on the group’s payroll. The overbearing hum of the turboprop engines made it impossible to converse without headgear and microphones, so they just mouthed words and gestured to each other. The only electronic communications allowed now would be made by Takana.

  Kozak leaned back in his seat and studied some maps of Sudan and the surrounding terrain, part of a map system stored on his tablet computer’s flash drive. Takana had already suggested that Port Sudan was not the weapons’ final destination, and this had Kozak scanning the map and wondering where they were headed and what means of transport would be used.

  Once he’d exhausted six or seven proposed routes and his eyes had grown weary of staring at the screen, he glanced over at 30K, eyes slammed shut, mouth open, his snoring almost as loud as the turboprops. Pepper was listening to his iPod, and Ross was monitoring the instruments.

  Soon they were flying over Cairo, with the undulating expanse of the Nile River scrolling into view. Pepper saw it, too, and he motioned for Kozak to have a better look. Funny how the tourist in them never died. They traveled the world over on covert missions but never stopped appreciating the sights, sounds and cultures they encountered, along with the food – especially the food. Kozak swore as he realized they’d forgotten to get some of those magrood cookies 30K had promised. Maybe some other time.

  Yes, all this world travel was definitely a bonus when the locals weren’t pointing guns in your face.

  Near the end of their flight, and with nothing else to do, Kozak had done the math.

  The trip from Tobruk to Port Sudan New International Airport was a grand total of 1,036 nautical miles and utilized all but a few gallons of the C-212’s fuel. They were, according to his calculations, flying on fumes by the time they hit the tarmac. When questioned about how close they were cutting it, Takana was nonchalant.

  They taxied off the main runway (in truth it was the only runway in yet another small, third-world airport still referred to as ‘international’), and Takana pointed to a group of single-story office buildings with a dozen or so cars parked outside. At the far end of the lot was a nondescript warehouse about twice the size of the ones back in Tobruk, and beside it, parked adjacent to the loading docks, was a tractor-trailer with the images of a plane, boat and truck superimposed over a blue globe painted across its sides. Written beneath the logo in both Arabic and English were the words ‘GSIC – Global Shipping International Company.’

  From the back of the trailer emerged a group of men dressed in dark coveralls with the GSIC emblem on their breasts. They were unarmed and got to work extending the truck’s loading ramp.

  Kozak was damned happy to be getting out of his seat. He felt like a Russian mafia victim, wearing the four-hour flight like a pair of concrete pants with matching boots.

  ‘Okay, gentlemen, welcome to the Port of Sudan,’ Ross said, sounding like a commercial flight captain. ‘We hope you enjoyed the flight.’

  ‘It sucked,’ said 30K. ‘No whiskey? No peanuts? What the hell?’

  ‘And no hot flight attendants?’ Pepper asked, feigning his outrage. ‘I’m never booking again.’

  Kozak shook his head. The lame humor kept them calm against thoughts of a firefight right here, right now.

  Ross turned to Takana. ‘You do all the talking.’

  ‘Okay,’ said the pilot. ‘They usually unload. We just stand back and watch. There is not much to say.’

  ‘Where does the shipment go from here?’

  ‘You asked me that back in Tobruk. I told you I don’t know. The port is about ten miles north. Maybe they go up there. I usually just refuel. Sometimes I fly right back to Tobruk. Sometimes I go home for a week or two. They will tell me what to do.’

  ‘I bet you’ve thought about quitting, but you were just too scared,’ said Ross. ‘You thought if you quit, they’d wind up killing you because you know too much.’

  ‘I have thought about that.’

  Ross’s tone grew more serious. ‘Then just remember, buddy, we’re holding your ticket. You’ll have immunity. Your family kept safe. If you try anything here, you’ll be throwing that all away. And for nothing.’

  ‘I am a man of my word,’ Takana said slowly, forcefully. ‘I hope you are the same.’

  Ross gazed unflinchingly at the pilot. ‘My word is my bond. And you have it.’

  Takana nodded.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The plane rolled to a stop, and while Takana shut down the engines, Kozak counted eight GSIC loaders who looked a lot like FARC troops. Even here, in Sudan.

  ‘If anything happens,’ 30K said quietly, ‘I got your back. Stay close.’

  Kozak took a deep breath. ‘Me, too, bro.’

  Pepper shot them a warning glance. ‘Calm down.’

  30K returned an ugly smile. Kozak just nodded.

  Despite Pepper’s admonishment, Kozak’s heart still hammered against his ribs as he hopped on to the pavement, the asphalt seeming to bubble beneath his shoes, the heat haze stifling. The stench of diesel fuel and natural gas came up strong on the wind.

  He kept his head down and moved off, swinging his weapon around, acting as though he were securing the area. The tension had already found its way into his hands, and he gripped the rifle a bit too tightly. He knew this feeling all too well, and if he didn’t keep it in check, he’d get off a round before he knew it, as though his hands had a mind of their own.

  The others mirrored his movements while Takana strode over to the truck and spoke with one of the men, assumedly the leader, definitely an Arab.

  From the rear of the truck came three more forklifts similar to the ones they’d used at the hangar. As some of the men began to unload the plane, one of them keeping watch walked over and said in Spanish: ‘I don’t see Carlos or Juan or any of them. You guys are all new, huh?’

  Kozak just nodded and stared over the man’s shoulder.

  ‘So what happened?’

  With a snort, Kozak lifted his rifle and blew the bastard’s brains out.

  Or at least he did so in his mind’s eye.

  In reality he took a deep breath and answered, ‘I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  ‘We got orders from Valencia,’ Kozak snapped.

  The man drew back his head. ‘Oh, okay. Sorry I asked.’ He turned and marched back toward the trailer, hollering for his buddies to load faster.

  Interesting. The mere mention of Valencia, the FARC leader they’d identified back at the Tobruk warehouse, had stuck fear in this guy.

  And that was good because only seconds prior –

  Kozak had felt his heart stop, his veins ice up, and his head begin to spin. Now he breathed a sigh of relief so powerful that his knees buckled.

  ‘What did he say to you?’ Ross asked quietly.

  ‘Just wondering where the other guys were.’

  ‘We cool?’

  ‘Hell, yeah, we going hard in the paint.’

  Ross frowned, obviously unfamiliar with basketball slang terms, then he grinned awkwardly and moved away.

  Within two minutes the GSIC guys had transferred the pallets to their trailer. Sans any formal good-byes, the men climbed quickly into their truck and were on their way. Takana returned to the plane and said, ‘They told me I have another week off. I’m supposed to refuel the plane now, then I can go home to my family.’

  Ross extended his hand. ‘Yes, you can.’

  A yellow airport taxi barreled around one of the buildings and turned toward the
m, trailing a chute of smoke.

  Kozak and 30K took up positions on either side of the pilot, while Pepper started toward the car, making a face over all the burning oil.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Takana, shifting back from Ross and finding himself blocked.

  ‘You’ll have your immunity. But we need to ask you some more questions.’

  Behind the taxi came another vehicle, a late-model sedan with tinted windows.

  ‘You lied to me?’ screamed Takana.

  ‘No. They’re here to keep you and your family safe,’ Ross said. ‘That’s no lie.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’

  Standing there, watching the pilot’s face knot in anger, was for Kozak a powerful moment of déjà vu:

  He thought of his cousin Sergei, of how the FBI had come to him while he was still in high school, of how they’d coerced him into eavesdropping on his cousin. Kozak had been forced to go through with it, to send Sergei to jail for running drugs with the Russian mafia in Brooklyn. It was the only way to save his mother’s business, which the Feds had threatened to close. How can you do something like that to your own blood? he’d asked himself. It made him feel dirty, as though he were as bad as his cousin – only he didn’t have that killer instinct. He’d been a coward hiding behind wires and a weak will.

  ‘It was you!’ Sergei had cried. ‘I know it! It was you!’

  Kozak had wanted to say, ‘Yeah, it was me – because I’m saving you from yourself.’

  But he had just stood there in the kitchen of his mother’s restaurant, watching as the agents dragged Sergei through the back door while his mother wailed. A pot on the stove boiled over, the water hissing loudly, the pierogies getting overcooked. Kozak had turned and couldn’t take his eyes off all that steam.

  With a heavy heart, Kozak leaned in toward Takana. ‘Hey, bro. Don’t worry about a thing. It’ll be okay.’

  Takana turned, eyes narrowed in anger. ‘No, it won’t.’

  ‘Don’t waste your time,’ said 30K. ‘He made his bed.’

  Kozak tightened his lips and sighed. It was just sad. They didn’t know what had driven Takana to this moment. No opportunities at home? The burdens of trying to provide for a family? Maybe he was being blackmailed or threatened by Hamid himself? 30K would say he was just a greedy bastard like the rest of them, but Kozak sensed there was something deeper here, something more painful. But no matter the motive, Takana was a proud man who would never admit his weaknesses.