The Port of Beirut passengers’ terminal was packed with
travelers. Lieutenant Grant “Ice” Colding rubbed at the month-and-a-half-old
beard on his chin and cheeks.
“Any visuals?” Colding asked his collar microphone, scanning the room.
The two other SEALs in the terminal said nothing, but made what passed for eye contact with black sunglasses on.
Petty Officer Gosling’s voice crackled in his ear piece, “Negative, Sir.”
Petty Officers Gosling, Hernandez and McGill were outside the terminal building, surveilling the cargo off-load, as well as watching individuals entering and exiting the charter ship and Port Terminal building.
All six men in Lt. Colding’s intercept team wore video cameras hidden in the bridge of their black sunglasses. Additionally, two CIA drones were circling the port city of Beirut, and a geosynchronous satellite provided complete over-watch of the region. All of the electronic visual surveillance was relayed both to a CIA safe house in Lebanon as well as to CIA headquarters in Langley, VA.
The bustling terminal was awash with the cacophony of multiple languages, primarily French and Arabic with a little bit of Anatolian Turkish thrown in.
The mission was ambitious. The goal was to circumvent possible nuclear arms smuggling by searching for a man whose affiliations are unknown and hasn’t even shown his face. All they had to go on was the man’s height and attire. Of all the passengers leaving the ship, none were wearing black trench coats, and most of them had shemaghs either thrown loosely around their necks, or carefully wrapped around the crowns of their heads.
This is impossible, Colding thought, next to impossible, he corrected himself.
Among the noise of the crowd, Colding heard the clinking chains of handcuffs and the hissing squabble sound of walky-talkies. Colding furtively turned his head to see two Lebanese police officers in khaki uniforms pushing their way through the crowd toward the charter ship.
One of the Lebanese officers passed Lt. Colding a look of suspicion as he made his way to the ship’s quarterdeck. He realized that he looked out of place. None of the SEALs were in uniform and didn’t mill about like the passengers. Grant was wearing cargo pants and a black t-shirt with a white Punisher skull on the front of it. Colding only gave a slight smile and remained in place. He made sure he got a good shot of the officer’s face with the hidden camera in his sunglasses.
“This might have to do with our man,” Colding said into his collar mike, and made a mental note to have the CIA look into the Lebanese Law Enforcement’s involvement on the charter ship.
* * *
In Langley, Virginia, Agent Greitens watched the multiple screens of the live intercept/surveillance operation in Lebanon. Three of the screens were from the SEALs inside the Port Terminal building, another three were the SEALs outside watching multiple points of egress. Two were aerial drones and one was the dedicated geosync satellite.
Greitens saw the Lebanese police on Colding’s screen, then looked at the footage from one of the aerial drones to see if there were law enforcement vehicles outside of the building, and found none. The officers must be stationed at the port.
“Agent Hall,” Greitens said into the microphone on the table, “you and Fichtner will need to have a follow up with those officers.”
“Copy that, Sir,” Agent Hall responded all the way from Lebanon.
Greitens continued scanning the video surveillance screens. It was going to be impossible to find their faceless, shemagh wearing target amongst the throng of travelers. Greitens glanced at Hernandez’s screen watching the cargo offload, and saw a man using a handtruck to offload a coffin.
Coffin, Greitens thought, then had the sudden inspiration, nuclear arms smuggling.
Greitens keyed the table microphone again, “Hall, track that coffin with one of the drones’ thermal cameras.”
One of the aerial drone’s screens adjusted its bird’s eye view and zoomed in on the dock workers handling the coffin, then the color screen turned black and white. All of the warm vehicles and moving bodies were a hot white on the field of black and gray.
Agent Hall’s voice crackled in the speakers, “You think our guy’s in the coffin?” Hall asked.
“No,” Greitens said, “If the target is smuggling fissile material it should be warm enough to show up on thermals.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s anything warm in the box, sir,” Hall said.
Greitens surveyed the thermal imaging. The coffin wasn’t white like the vehicle engines or human bodies that milled about the city. It was as black and as cold and as dead as the rest of the cargo being hauled from the ship.
* * *
From the start, Ahmed had not trusted the deal, but it was too good to pass up. One hundred thousand Euros to drive a hearse from Beirut to Anjar. If traffic was light, one way would be an hour and a half. Traffic was typical, so Ahmed expected two hours.
Ahmed adjusted the radio. For the last 10 minutes it’d been giving him static, the radio periodically cutting in then out of reception. This always happened passing through the Lebanon mountain range, and he always felt he had to do something about the static.
As the Lebanon Mountain Range gave way to the Beqaa valley, hissing static on the radio gave way to the news. Ahmed turned the volume back up.
“…war in Syria continues as a mortar strike kills ten students and injures twenty nine others at the Engineering campus of Damascus University. The United Nations estimates that the uprising has claimed 70,000 thousand lives si-”
Ahmed had become anxious and turned the radio off. His mind was racing; everything was wrong with what he was doing. He was paid 100,000 Euros to drive a hearse to Anjar, a town that was 10 miles from the Syrian border and less than an hour’s drive from Damascus.
The sky had become a riot of red and gold as the setting sun disappeared behind the mountain range he had just driven through.
Ahmed’s mind turned to the deal in Beirut. He didn’t even see the man’s face, he’d completely wrapped it with his shemagh. Why couldn’t he do it himself? What was in the coffin? Drugs? Ahmed thought of the uprising in Syria. Weapons? Ahmed swallowed at the thought of driving a car bomb. I shouldn’t have taken the deal…
Ahmed tried to psych himself down. He sighed as he took in the expanse of farmland, passing field after field. Another three miles and he’d be in the city of Bar Elias. And from there it’d be only another three or four miles to Anjar. The stars would be out and he would go home. He’d be done with this soon enough.
Ahmed’s heart skipped a beat as he saw a police road block ahead. Ahmed wiped the sweat off his forehead, then put the hearse in neutral to begin decelerating. Easy, act natural Ahmed thought as he gradually pressed the brake.
Two police vehicles and a Humvee. Three uniformed officers carried black rifles. They were accompanied by two individuals in plain clothes.
Ahmed’s heart was racing as he brought the hearse to a full stop. The window was already rolled down, an officer and one of the plain clothes individuals approached the hearse. The cop wore the expected uniform with the addition of a black tactical vest. The other individual wore cargo pants and a black shirt with a white skull on it.
“What’s in the back?” the officer asked.
Ahmed’s mind drifted to the coffin in the back of the hearse, and then said, “Garbage,” with a smile.
“Open it,” the other individual ordered. His Arabic was not very good. Ahmed wiped the smile off his face.
Ahmed killed the engine and got out of the driver’s seat, walking to the back of the hearse. Heart pounding and keys in hand. The police officer and the skull t-shirt bearded man followed.
Ahmed felt like he was walking with lead boots. He stood before the back of the hearse, paused, then opened the hatch and slid the coffin half way out on its rails.
Insh’Allah, please don’t be drugs, please don’t be bombs… he prayed silently in his heart.
“Open it,” the foreigner ordered again.
Ahmed took a deep breath, thinking it may be his last as a free man. Or even a breathing man. He glanced straight up into the heavens, only briefly, and saw two, maybe three dim stars beginning to come out in the night sky.
Ahmed opened the coffin.
Inside was a European man. He had blond hair maybe three inches long with a slight wave. His skin was as smooth and as white as ivory. His arms were folded on top of his chest. One hand clutched and was wrapped in a string of brown, wooden beads. He wore a black shirt and a black tie.
Lt. Colding stood over the coffin. Night had fallen and he was still wearing his sun glasses. Colding looked at the body, then looked impassively at Ahmed.
“Garbage huh?” Colding said to Ahmed, then turned back to the coffin.
Lt. Colding pressed two fingers against Ansel’s jugular vein. No pulse.
“Dead as Latin,” Colding said in English. Ahmed didn’t understand.
Colding closed the coffin and slid it back into the hearse, then slammed the hatch shut.
“Sorry to bother you,” Colding said in Arabic.
Ahmed got back in the hearse and started the engine.
“Thank you Allah for giving me that dead man…”
“Any visuals?” Colding asked his collar microphone, scanning the room.
The two other SEALs in the terminal said nothing, but made what passed for eye contact with black sunglasses on.
Petty Officer Gosling’s voice crackled in his ear piece, “Negative, Sir.”
Petty Officers Gosling, Hernandez and McGill were outside the terminal building, surveilling the cargo off-load, as well as watching individuals entering and exiting the charter ship and Port Terminal building.
All six men in Lt. Colding’s intercept team wore video cameras hidden in the bridge of their black sunglasses. Additionally, two CIA drones were circling the port city of Beirut, and a geosynchronous satellite provided complete over-watch of the region. All of the electronic visual surveillance was relayed both to a CIA safe house in Lebanon as well as to CIA headquarters in Langley, VA.
The bustling terminal was awash with the cacophony of multiple languages, primarily French and Arabic with a little bit of Anatolian Turkish thrown in.
The mission was ambitious. The goal was to circumvent possible nuclear arms smuggling by searching for a man whose affiliations are unknown and hasn’t even shown his face. All they had to go on was the man’s height and attire. Of all the passengers leaving the ship, none were wearing black trench coats, and most of them had shemaghs either thrown loosely around their necks, or carefully wrapped around the crowns of their heads.
This is impossible, Colding thought, next to impossible, he corrected himself.
Among the noise of the crowd, Colding heard the clinking chains of handcuffs and the hissing squabble sound of walky-talkies. Colding furtively turned his head to see two Lebanese police officers in khaki uniforms pushing their way through the crowd toward the charter ship.
One of the Lebanese officers passed Lt. Colding a look of suspicion as he made his way to the ship’s quarterdeck. He realized that he looked out of place. None of the SEALs were in uniform and didn’t mill about like the passengers. Grant was wearing cargo pants and a black t-shirt with a white Punisher skull on the front of it. Colding only gave a slight smile and remained in place. He made sure he got a good shot of the officer’s face with the hidden camera in his sunglasses.
“This might have to do with our man,” Colding said into his collar mike, and made a mental note to have the CIA look into the Lebanese Law Enforcement’s involvement on the charter ship.
* * *
In Langley, Virginia, Agent Greitens watched the multiple screens of the live intercept/surveillance operation in Lebanon. Three of the screens were from the SEALs inside the Port Terminal building, another three were the SEALs outside watching multiple points of egress. Two were aerial drones and one was the dedicated geosync satellite.
Greitens saw the Lebanese police on Colding’s screen, then looked at the footage from one of the aerial drones to see if there were law enforcement vehicles outside of the building, and found none. The officers must be stationed at the port.
“Agent Hall,” Greitens said into the microphone on the table, “you and Fichtner will need to have a follow up with those officers.”
“Copy that, Sir,” Agent Hall responded all the way from Lebanon.
Greitens continued scanning the video surveillance screens. It was going to be impossible to find their faceless, shemagh wearing target amongst the throng of travelers. Greitens glanced at Hernandez’s screen watching the cargo offload, and saw a man using a handtruck to offload a coffin.
Coffin, Greitens thought, then had the sudden inspiration, nuclear arms smuggling.
Greitens keyed the table microphone again, “Hall, track that coffin with one of the drones’ thermal cameras.”
One of the aerial drone’s screens adjusted its bird’s eye view and zoomed in on the dock workers handling the coffin, then the color screen turned black and white. All of the warm vehicles and moving bodies were a hot white on the field of black and gray.
Agent Hall’s voice crackled in the speakers, “You think our guy’s in the coffin?” Hall asked.
“No,” Greitens said, “If the target is smuggling fissile material it should be warm enough to show up on thermals.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s anything warm in the box, sir,” Hall said.
Greitens surveyed the thermal imaging. The coffin wasn’t white like the vehicle engines or human bodies that milled about the city. It was as black and as cold and as dead as the rest of the cargo being hauled from the ship.
* * *
From the start, Ahmed had not trusted the deal, but it was too good to pass up. One hundred thousand Euros to drive a hearse from Beirut to Anjar. If traffic was light, one way would be an hour and a half. Traffic was typical, so Ahmed expected two hours.
Ahmed adjusted the radio. For the last 10 minutes it’d been giving him static, the radio periodically cutting in then out of reception. This always happened passing through the Lebanon mountain range, and he always felt he had to do something about the static.
As the Lebanon Mountain Range gave way to the Beqaa valley, hissing static on the radio gave way to the news. Ahmed turned the volume back up.
“…war in Syria continues as a mortar strike kills ten students and injures twenty nine others at the Engineering campus of Damascus University. The United Nations estimates that the uprising has claimed 70,000 thousand lives si-”
Ahmed had become anxious and turned the radio off. His mind was racing; everything was wrong with what he was doing. He was paid 100,000 Euros to drive a hearse to Anjar, a town that was 10 miles from the Syrian border and less than an hour’s drive from Damascus.
The sky had become a riot of red and gold as the setting sun disappeared behind the mountain range he had just driven through.
Ahmed’s mind turned to the deal in Beirut. He didn’t even see the man’s face, he’d completely wrapped it with his shemagh. Why couldn’t he do it himself? What was in the coffin? Drugs? Ahmed thought of the uprising in Syria. Weapons? Ahmed swallowed at the thought of driving a car bomb. I shouldn’t have taken the deal…
Ahmed tried to psych himself down. He sighed as he took in the expanse of farmland, passing field after field. Another three miles and he’d be in the city of Bar Elias. And from there it’d be only another three or four miles to Anjar. The stars would be out and he would go home. He’d be done with this soon enough.
Ahmed’s heart skipped a beat as he saw a police road block ahead. Ahmed wiped the sweat off his forehead, then put the hearse in neutral to begin decelerating. Easy, act natural Ahmed thought as he gradually pressed the brake.
Two police vehicles and a Humvee. Three uniformed officers carried black rifles. They were accompanied by two individuals in plain clothes.
Ahmed’s heart was racing as he brought the hearse to a full stop. The window was already rolled down, an officer and one of the plain clothes individuals approached the hearse. The cop wore the expected uniform with the addition of a black tactical vest. The other individual wore cargo pants and a black shirt with a white skull on it.
“What’s in the back?” the officer asked.
Ahmed’s mind drifted to the coffin in the back of the hearse, and then said, “Garbage,” with a smile.
“Open it,” the other individual ordered. His Arabic was not very good. Ahmed wiped the smile off his face.
Ahmed killed the engine and got out of the driver’s seat, walking to the back of the hearse. Heart pounding and keys in hand. The police officer and the skull t-shirt bearded man followed.
Ahmed felt like he was walking with lead boots. He stood before the back of the hearse, paused, then opened the hatch and slid the coffin half way out on its rails.
Insh’Allah, please don’t be drugs, please don’t be bombs… he prayed silently in his heart.
“Open it,” the foreigner ordered again.
Ahmed took a deep breath, thinking it may be his last as a free man. Or even a breathing man. He glanced straight up into the heavens, only briefly, and saw two, maybe three dim stars beginning to come out in the night sky.
Ahmed opened the coffin.
Inside was a European man. He had blond hair maybe three inches long with a slight wave. His skin was as smooth and as white as ivory. His arms were folded on top of his chest. One hand clutched and was wrapped in a string of brown, wooden beads. He wore a black shirt and a black tie.
Lt. Colding stood over the coffin. Night had fallen and he was still wearing his sun glasses. Colding looked at the body, then looked impassively at Ahmed.
“Garbage huh?” Colding said to Ahmed, then turned back to the coffin.
Lt. Colding pressed two fingers against Ansel’s jugular vein. No pulse.
“Dead as Latin,” Colding said in English. Ahmed didn’t understand.
Colding closed the coffin and slid it back into the hearse, then slammed the hatch shut.
“Sorry to bother you,” Colding said in Arabic.
Ahmed got back in the hearse and started the engine.
“Thank you Allah for giving me that dead man…”
No comments:
Post a Comment