Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(42)
*
1:48 p.m.…
“See if you can understand what Nassar is saying.” Banu angrily handed his satellite phone to Ahmed. “He’s all worked up. And when he gets like that, what little English he speaks becomes completely incomprehensible.”
Ahmed grabbed the phone, quickly asking a question in Arabic. Then he plugged his ear against the noise of the outboards and the waves splashing against the hull of the rented vessel.
I really should learn the language, Banu thought, leaning back in his seat in the wheelhouse. After his spectacular grand finale as CIA agent Jonathan Wilson, he’d most likely be seeking asylum in a country where Arabic was the mother tongue. And speaking of Jonathan Wilson…he wondered if his boss had noted his absence from work this morning.
Probably not, he figured. Even CIA agents were allowed to call in sick. Of course, his absenteeism would be noted eventually. Probably not today or tomorrow or even the day after. But soon. Fortunately, by then it would be too late. By then it—
“He says there is a salvage ship in the area,” Ahmed shouted just as the fishing boat hit the bottom of a wave. It nearly had him dropping the phone. “He wants to know if you want him to sink it with the RPGs?”
“What?” Banu yelled, sitting forward. Between the whistle of the wind through the open windows of the wheelhouse and the roar of the engines, he wasn’t sure he’d heard the man correctly.
“He wants to sink a salvage ship by using the rocket launchers!”
Okay, so he had heard him correctly. “For the love of—” He could feel his blood pressure rise so quickly that his face flushed hot. Nassar was a wonderful asset. Always quick to follow a lead, ever ready to forward the cause. But he was also a crazy sonofabitch. Fanatical to the point of psychosis. “No! He doesn’t need to draw any unneeded attention to himself. Tell him to let the ship pass.” And in case that wasn’t clear enough, he added, “Tell him to stand the f*ck down!”
Ahmed relayed his words, then his eyes rounded as he listened to Nassar’s reply.
Banu’s stomach tightened into an uneasy fist. “What?” he demanded. “What is he saying?”
“He says he thinks they are CIA!”
“Why the hell would he think that?” Banu yelled, getting the distinct feeling that Nassar’s psychosis had slipped over the line into full-on paranoia. No, no, no! He’ll ruin everything!
“He says the CIA knows everything, has eyes everywhere! He is determined to sink the ship!”
“Give me the phone,” Banu growled, yanking the device from Ahmed’s hand. “And cut the engines!” he yelled to one of the men Ahmed had brought with them.
Ahmed repeated his command, and the fishing boat’s outboards choked off. For a couple of moments, their forward momentum carried them across the tops of the waves. Banu waited. Only when the boat finally glided to a stop, bobbing gently with the tide, did he lift the phone to his ear. Breathing deeply of the salty air and trying to ignore the overpowering aroma of marine fuel, he was careful to keep his tone modulated when he spoke.
“Nassar, I know you think the CIA knows everything. But the movies lie. This is a big world and the Central Intelligence Agency can’t have eyes everywhere at all times. And I would know, right? I’ve been working for them for a very long time.”
It took a brief moment to hear Nassar’s reply, since the phones they were using routed their signals through fifteen different satellites to avoid detection and to thwart anyone from possibly trying to triangulate their position. Yeah, Banu knew all the tricks.
“They coming,” Nassar hissed, then raised his voice until his tone bordered on berserk. In response, the hairs along the back of Banu’s neck lifted. “The ship coming!”
“It’s fine,” he soothed. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“No,” Nassar insisted. “CIA know chemicals missing. They try trick us! They try—”
“Shut up and listen!” Banu yelled into the phone. Trying to calm the idiot wasn’t working. So now he’d move on to tough love. “They are not the CIA! Yes”—he glanced down at his watch—“you’re right. The Company probably knows the chemicals are missing by now. But with the security system malfunctioning in the warehouse, they won’t have the first clue where to start looking.”
“But—”
Banu continued speaking as if Nassar hadn’t tried to interrupt. “It will take them hours, maybe days, to connect the dots to you and your men. And it will take longer than that for them to figure out you left Cuba by boat. But even if somehow they have already figured out it was you and that you left by boat, they’ll be looking for that wreck of a boat you bought, not a big, shiny yacht.”
And that had been a stroke of luck he hadn’t counted on. When Nassar called a bit ago to say he’d hijacked the passing vessel, Banu began to suspect this mission—despite the one little hiccup of the sinking trawler— was indeed blessed by Allah. Too many pieces of the puzzle were falling into place for it not to be. Of course, the four people aboard the yacht would have to be killed once they weren’t needed as possible hostages, but that was a minor inconvenience best left for later. For now, he just had to make sure Nassar didn’t do anything stupid.
“Do you hear me, Nassar?” he asked. “Do you understand?” It was a rhetorical question. Even though Nassar’s spoken English was atrocious, the man comprehended every word of the language.