Storm Clouds Read online

  On paper, Egypt was essentially a republic. Parliament and the president were elected, but that is where the lines started to blur between an authoritarian regime and a democracy. With the army behind him and the power to dissolve Parliament, the president was omnipotent during his six-year term. Even without that kind of power, like in many democracies, his appointed underlings served at his pleasure and could be dismissed for any reason at any time. The difference, which Ahmed had seen firsthand with the firing of his predecessor, was that there was no future career after a government post. There were no interviews, speaking tours, book contracts, or lobbyists lining up to pay someone with insider connections. It wasn’t unusual for the dismissed men to simply disappear.

  Ahmed understood what failure meant. As soon as he got the message that security had been called, he roused his four guards, who were glued to a professional wrestling match. From their comments it wasn’t the first time they had seen it.

  “Seventh floor. Now.”

  He followed the men to the elevator. Minutes after the call for help had been made, they were moving down the hallway. The army men crept down the corridor with a rehearsed precision, allowing Ahmed to hang back and observe. As he watched them deploy down the corridor in the direction of the room, he could see that they clearly knew what they were doing. Ahmed understood his role as a brake in case things got out of hand.

  The door was closed when they reached the room. Two men moved to each side and one knocked loudly.

  “Security!”

  There was no answer. He repeated the query with the same result. Ahmed moved forward. “Are you sure this is the correct room?” The placard read Room 707.

  Aggravated that it might have been a false alarm, Ahmed stepped up to the door and slammed his fist into it. Before he could call out, the door opened and a beautiful woman stood in front of him. He stood transfixed until one of the guards moved him out of the way. They were taking no chances and barged into the room, brushing the woman aside.

  Ahmed was startled by their quick reaction, but soon recovered. He apologized to the woman and was about to chastise his men when he saw the two men on the floor.

  Ahmed didn’t recognize them immediately, but their clothes gave them away. Further study revealed that though he didn’t know them, he had seen them before. They were Beecher’s men.

  “Release these men at once,” he ordered the guards. They glanced at each other and did a quick check of the bathroom, balcony, and closets before complying.

  “They broke in and threatened us,” the woman said.

  She appeared to be the spokeswoman. He glanced around the room. A young man who looked to be Egyptian and another man, whose cocky body language told Ahmed that he was an American, were the only others in the room.

  Ahmed chose to speak directly to the woman. “These men are government contractors. I apologize for any inconvenience. I assume a mistake has been made.”

  As he offered his measured apology, Ahmed noticed the maps and papers spread out on the bed. Even from across the room he could see from the contour lines and shading that they were not tourist maps. They appeared to be military.

  He glanced at the men—who were unable to rise under their own power—being hauled to their feet. “We will talk outside.” Ahmed motioned to one of his guards to escort the men from the room.

  He wasn’t sure what the connection or story was, but he knew that though Beecher was more often than not on the wrong side of the law, he was a cautious man. There had to be a good reason for this overt act of aggression, and he intended to find out.

  “Please remain in the room for a few minutes while I sort this out.” Ahmed spoke to the hotel guests, then turned and walked into the hallway before they could protest.

  “Guard the door. No one in or out unless on my authority.” The guard nodded and took a position at the side of the door.

  “Where’s your boss?”

  25

  Bethesda, Maryland

  John smashed the crown of his head into the man’s forehead. He’d sensed where the phone conversation was going and knew the minute Alicia stated she needed permission that she was bluffing. The United States didn’t negotiate with terrorists—neither did Alicia Phong. John knew it wasn’t personal, but she was a pragmatist by nature and the Agency had only reinforced that. Emotional reactions were the worst kind during a mission. He was much the same—except where Mako was involved.

  John knew he hadn’t been there for Mako during his childhood. He wasn’t cut out to be the Little League coach or the Boy Scout troop leader kind of dad. He had put his country first and it had almost cost him his son. Humans were designed to need less and less care as they grew up. That hadn’t been the case with Mako Storm. The boy needed looking after, even now.

  John didn’t see any opportunity in his present situation. But after fifty years of service, most of it in dangerous environs, his well-honed instincts took charge.

  He had tried to hide a smile as he listened to Alicia manipulate the men. They were confused, and in that millisecond he seized the moment. Everything slowed down around him. He reached down to where the phone lay on the coffee table and raised the speaker volume on the phone, then lowered his head as if he still couldn’t hear, which was partially true. Had he been thirty, the men would have sensed the threat, but he played the old man card and they didn’t react.

  The other men subconsciously mimicked John’s movement and lowered their heads as well. After his breathing and muscle control exercises, John’s body was ready for action. Leaning in a little closer, he scooted forward on the couch and lunged at the nearest man. They may have restrained his hands and feet, but he still had his head and, as was often pointed out, it was hard as a rock.

  The man fell to the floor and, before his partner could react, John was on him. John’s movements were restricted by the zip-ties, but he used his weight to place a knee on the man’s Adam’s apple. John relaxed slightly when he felt the body below him go limp. He was walking a tightrope. By adding more weight he could crush the man’s trachea and kill him. While that might eliminate one threat, he would lose his leverage over the other man. He needed the man below him alive.

  “Send the cleanup crew,” he called out, hoping the phone, which had flown off the coffee table and landed on the hardwood floor, was still operable. Alicia would know from the command that he didn’t want her to call the police.

  The first man grabbed the phone and his partner’s gun, which lay a few feet away, and ran for the door. It was the best-case scenario, and something John would have expected from the Arab thugs.

  Americans took many things for granted. For example, they expected that personal initiative would be rewarded and that their partners would always have their back. Many cultures were the opposite and he counted on these men to fit that mold.

  John kept pressure on the man’s neck while he watched the first man leave the house. A second later, a vehicle started, and through the window he saw a paneled van pull away from the curb. It sped down the street.

  By looking up, John had inadvertently released some of his weight from the man’s neck. The man regained consciousness and started to struggle. John applied his full weight again and the body fell still. John eased up a little. He was walking a fine line between rendering his opponent unconscious and killing him, which John didn’t want to cross. The man had information that John needed. At the minimum, he had to find out for certain who had sent them.

  John’s first priority was to remove his restraints. In order to do that, he would need to move off the man. John released the pressure on the man’s Adam’s apple and moved it to the carotid artery.

  To his relief the man remained motionless.

  Deciding that letting one man die was better than putting himself in a vulnerable position again, he pressed down slowly on the artery. There was no visible change in the man. John waited a long minute and when the body below him remained limp, John knew the guy was either unco
nscious or dead.

  He released his weight, used the chair to get to his feet, and made his way to the kitchen. With his back to the cabinets and a watchful eye on the inert body in the living room, he pulled the knife drawer open. It took a few seconds of fumbling around before he found the paring knife. With the blade facing upright, John used his body weight to jam the handle into the drawer. From his few and largely unsuccessful attempts at woodworking, John knew that sawing too fast is rarely productive. In slow, measured strokes, John moved the zip tie binding on his wrists up and down the blade.

  The man in the living room was just coming to when it released. Spinning back around, John grabbed the poultry shears and cut the bond on his ankles. The man had regained his feet now and was coming toward him. John had two things in his favor: he was in his own home, and the first man had taken the attacker’s gun.

  Being on his own turf proved to be the deciding factor, as John casually opened the door below the sink, reached inside, and snatched his H&K VP9 from the magnetic holder fastened to the side panel. There was no need to perform a chamber check. Though the sound of the slide engaging might be threatening, it was an extra step. In one swift move he pointed the barrel at the man coming toward him.

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” John pointed to the kitchen table. As the man moved toward a chair, John evaluated his position. He had the weapon, but the other man appeared to be fully recovered. Even a practiced law enforcement officer would have trouble using one hand to secure a zip tie around an opponent. John wasn’t about to risk it. Instead he stood six feet away—far enough that the man couldn’t reach him before he shot him.

  “Who do you work for?”

  The man looked angry. John had dealt with plenty of Middle Eastern men before. Theirs was a different psychology. In order to succeed he needed to place himself in the other man’s mindset.

  Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory had been around and gone in and out of style as a decision-making matrix by the CIA since the early seventies. John had long ago memorized the lower right of the philosopher’s four-quadrant map. Labeled “exterior” or “its” by Wilber, the approach dealt with the progression of society. In a linear model from planetary to galaxy, Wilber laid out his ideas on the steps societies took as they advanced.

  In John’s mind, the Agency’s dogma police did more harm than good. By either discarding the theory altogether or misunderstanding the simple progression illustrated, the singular mistake the United States had made in its attempt to establish democratic states in the Middle East was that, primarily, the people weren’t ready for it. Societies who value tribe over country would not understand liberation as Americans knew it. In order to relate to the man sitting just feet from him, probably thinking of any possible way to kill him, John needed to think like him.

  People are what they are and judging them does more harm than good. John knew the man’s greatest fear was what would happen to him if he returned unsuccessful. There were a good many societies where he would be executed for failure.

  “So, you tell me what I want to know, and I’ll give you something to take back to your people.” During the night, John had plenty of time to think about this scenario. The man slowly lifted his eyes.

  John let him sit for a few minutes while he scoured the refrigerator. Having only one hand limited his choices, but he was able to make two sandwiches. He slid one across the table to the man and started to eat the other.

  “Who do you work for?”

  “The Minister of Tourism.”

  John’s strategy had worked. The man, as his partner had already shown, was more interested in saving his own skin than he was in protecting his boss.

  “And what does he want?”

  “You already know. The map.”

  John wasn’t the least surprised that a high-ranking Egyptian had ordered men into the field to kidnap him. He would have been surprised if they hadn’t. What he’d needed was confirmation, and that had just been supplied.

  “What about me?” the man asked.

  John didn’t need to extend his agony. If he’d had any way that would have saved the man’s life, he would have given it to him. With Mako and the files still at large, John had nothing. It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he had no choice. Having already rehearsed the action in his mind, he raised the pistol and shot the man in the head.

  John picked up the phone on the living room floor. The line was dead and he hit redial. “Cleanup on aisle three.”

  “We were worried about you,” Alicia said. “What happened?”

  “No time for that now. I’ve got to get out of here, but we’ll need a cleaner.”

  “Right.” Alicia was all business.

  John disconnected. He had no doubt she would follow through. Both knew that they had passed the point where their differences mattered. What was important now was Mako.

  John knew he had only a few minutes if the gunshot had been reported. First, he ran upstairs and grabbed his go bag from the bedroom closet. Back downstairs, he checked the street. Nothing appeared out of place.

  Moving quickly to the fireplace, he noticed the small fiber he had placed behind one of the thumbscrews that held the glass panel in place was gone. He believed in redundancy in everything, and already had packed the documents and credit cards for a fresh alias in his go bag, but at this point he needed to know how badly he was compromised.

  He removed the glass screen and logs. Using the screwdriver on the Swiss Army knife that was clipped to his bag, he removed the screws holding the access plate in place. Lifting the metal lid, he removed the fireproof box and set it on the coffee table. John opened the lid and knew right away that someone had been there.

  He checked the street again and saw no sign of police activity, but John knew better than to delay. Closing the box, John took it and his go bag to the garage. He opened the car door, secured his pistol to a magnetic plate by the emergency brake, got in, and started the car. With the bag on the floor and the box on the passenger seat, he clicked the automatic opener and held his breath while the door slowly moved up.

  Timing was a weak point in his escape plan and he feared that when the door finally reached the halfway point and he could see outside that the driveway would be blocked by a police car. Seeing the street quiet, he released his breath and backed out.

  Careful to stay at the speed limit, John drove out of his neighborhood. Five minutes and two turns later, he was on 495 heading toward Reston, Virginia. One way or another, he knew he’d be traveling soon.

  Thirty minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot at Dulles International. He found a semi-remote parking spot and checked his mirrors to make sure he wasn’t being followed before he reached for the firebox. John lifted the lid, immediately noticing that the cash was missing, as well as one of his identities.

  He now knew the alias Mako was operating under.

  26

  Luxor, Egypt

  Ahmed had two separate problems, three if the relics were not placed in time. This made the relics his first priority. The entire operation would be a failure if the tomb were empty, and he already knew the surfaces were unadorned. The find might spark some excitement among the academic community and would undoubtedly result in more expeditions, but the money was in the tourists—and the black market.

  Ahmed glanced over at Beecher, who sat at the small table drinking a beer with a smug look on his face. His guards and Beecher’s men were watching wrestling on TV. Beecher’s cavalier attitude was a harsh reminder that Ahmed did not control his own fate. Scolding the excavator would do little more than harm his position, which both parties knew was tenuous.

  Ahmed and Beecher were engaged in a passive-aggressive staring contest. Finally, knowing Beecher had the upper hand, Ahmed relented and sent one of the guards to the room downstairs to collect anything that might contribute to the search for the cache. The man returned a few minutes later and dumped the maps, papers, and phones on the bed. Ahmed sifted through th
e paperwork and pulled out the passports and identity papers.

  "The American is no longer a worry."

  Beecher moved toward the pile of papers. He picked up one after another and studied them, then tossed them down. “Like finding a single scorpion in the Great Sand Sea.”

  “We need to find the cache,” Ahmed said. The words came out too quickly. The entire operation had been based on the information being available once the files were secured. The material they were looking at could and probably was bought locally.

  “You thought you had them, didn’t you?” Beecher laughed. “The deal was that you supply me with the coordinates of the cache. Not send me on some thousand-year-old treasure hunt.”

  Ahmed was fuming, but did his best to hold his temper. "This is where we are now."

  Beecher took his time. He drained the first beer and made a show of opening a second. “Been up all night working for you. Gets thirsty out in the desert.” He set the beer down and waved his arms at the papers on the bed. “If this is where you’re at, you’re in a world of shit. Maybe best to make it all go away.” He waved his hands like a magician.

  “You’re in this as deep as I am,” Ahmed countered. He swallowed, not wanting to say anything else.

  “All the better to have a Plan B.” Beecher drank again. “Word of this business gets out and you’re done.”

  “And I’ll drag you down with me.”

  “A whole lot of other backwater countries have buried antiquities. My skills translate—yours don’t.”

  Ahmed stared at the man. He had no choice. “What do you need to find it?”

  "You want me to chase this baby down for you, it's a new deal altogether." Beecher paused, waiting to gauge Ahmed's reaction. "And I'm going to need help."

  "You understand what's at stake if we find this. I'll cut you in."

  Beecher rubbed his scrubby face. “Partners?” he sneered. “I choose my partners, they don't choose me.”