Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(19)
Chapter Four
12:12 p.m.…
His name was Banu az-Harb.
At least that’s what it secretly was 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’seating, 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, everything was 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.
Fat lot of good that does us had 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.
Glory to Allah! 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 was always dangerous. But he’d read the literature, knew the right gear to use and the right gases to mix and—
“I have programmed the coordinates into the GPS, brother,” the guy sitting beside him in the rented fishing boat said. His English was amazingly good. And with his shaved face, floppy fisherman’s cap, and T-shirt printed with a picture of a stick figure on a boat holding a rod and reel that read Go Deep, one would never know by looking at him that he was anything other than what he was pretending to be. A captain taking a handful of tourists out for a little deep-sea fishing. Unfortunately, playing a part was apparently where the man’s aptitude ended. Which was why Banu was just now embarking on the mission to retrieve the weapons a whole flippin’ five hours after he arrived in Miami.