I’m not going back on anything; I’m just going to the airport, he argued with himself. To say “no.” After all, I’m rich because of that organization, well-off for the rest of my life. I owe them the courtesy of a face-to-face reply.
His reflection had grimaced back at him. Yeah? Then why the packed suitcase?
Answer: shave faster.
The taxi exited the four-lane, passed the rental-car lots, and turned into the mass confusion that surrounds the Naples airport. Fat buses farted clouds of diesel fumes as they went through the useless ritual of honking at cars blocking the entrance. Tiny Fiats discharged entire families like circus acts. Men pushed carts stacked above their heads with plastic luggage while their wives restrained small children and dogs the size of rats.
Jason climbed out of the cab while the driver was still yelling at the stopped car in front and making those obscene gestures that are part of every Italian male’s vocabulary. He looked at the meter, retrieved his single bag, the one he wasn’t going to need, from the trunk, and peeled off several euros. He checked his watch as he walked toward the single-story structure that was the terminal building.
07:58. Right on time.
He looked around. His guess was that he would be contacted before he entered the chaos inside that made the disorder outside look like a military drill by comparison. Italians tend to all speak at once. When several hundred are confined in a single large room, all clamoring for tickets, flight information, or simply directions to the nearest restroom (always out of order at the Naples airport in Jason’s experience), the decibel level becomes ear-shattering.
He was almost to the entrance when a man in a Polizia uniform detached himself from a group of his fellows whose sole function appeared to be the inspection and critique of the dimensions of female passengers, a favorite pastime if not the national sport.
“Signore Peters?”
Jason nodded, instantly alert. He was searching the shifting mob for anyone who might show interest in the encounter.
“This way, please.”
Jason followed the man to a small white Alfa Romeo with the blue markings common to Italian police cars. Before he tossed his bag into the backseat and climbed into the front, he gave the crowd a final look. If there were an observer, it would be pure luck if he spotted him in the mass of seething humanity.
The Alfa drove around the edge of the terminal and out onto the tarmac. Ahead, on a deserted concrete slab, was a Gulfstream G4, There was no corporate logo, nothing to distinguish it from other private aircraft other than the United States N-number and the fact its clamshell door was slowly swinging open. The car stopped at the bottom of the stairs built into the door. Jason got out and grabbed his bag. Before he could say anything to his driver, the police car was gone.
He looked up at the plane. He could hear the whine of its engines at low rpm, and the distortion of its exhaust rippled the air behind it. Clearly the occupants intended to keep the aircraft’s systems functioning.
At the top of the stairs, he blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust from the blinding sunlight to the dim interior.
“Hullo, Jason. Come give Momma a hug.”
He didn’t have a chance. Before he could respond, he was smothered between breasts that would make a silicone-enhanced Hollywood starlet look anemic while being crushed by arms the girth of telephone poles. He smelled the familiar odors of flowers, charcoal, and sweat, the odors of the woman’s native Haiti.
When she finally pushed him away to look at him, he saw a huge black woman, perhaps three hundred or more pounds, swaddled in a flowing caftan with a bright African print. She was the president and sole shareholder of Narcom, Inc.
She shook a gigantic head wrapped in a turban that matched the other print. “My, my! Ain’t seen you in forever! You ain’ ’zactly stayed in touch with Momma. How you doin’?”
Jason suspected she showed the same affection for all of her “boys,” although he couldn’t be sure. By the nature of its business, Narcom was strictly compartmentalized. Other than this woman he knew only as Momma and a few of the permanent staff in Chevy Chase just outside Washington, he had met few of the company’s “contractors,” as they were euphemistically called. He was aware that Momma had fled her native land with the fall of the Duvalier regime and the subsequent abolition of the Tonton Macoute, Haiti’s secret police, whose brutality would have shocked Stalin’s NKVD. Momma had been the second in command.
Peering around her, Jason saw an office setup: desk and two chairs. He eased into one of them.
“I’ve been OK.” He arched an eyebrow. “Retirement agrees with me.”
She waved a dismissive hand the size of a football. “I figure you bored.”
He started to disagree, tell her he simply was no longer available. He didn’t. Hell, he was bored.
How had she known? He wasn’t willing to even consider the supernatural possibilities of the voodoo she claimed as a religion. More likely he’d been under surveillance before her call. Professional surveillance, or he would have noticed. He found the thought both annoying and mildly intriguing.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “What makes you think that?”
The Gulfstream’s door whispered shut and Jason became aware that there were no windows. No Plexiglas panes to vibrate with voices to be picked up by long-range listening devices.
“That gal o’ yours, she been gone awhile.”
He had never mentioned Maria. Annoyance at having his privacy invaded was quickly overcoming curiosity. “She’ll be back when she’s finished what she’s doing.”
“But while she’s gone …” Momma sat at the desk, the chair groaning with her weight. “Mebbe you want to look at these.”
She handed him three black-and-white photographs. The grainy quality told Jason they had been shot at a distance and the subject was probably unaware they had been taken. As he studied the face, he felt as though he had magically been transported to the Arctic. The chill made him wince and his hand shook with pure rage.
“Al Mohammed Moustaph! Where did you find him?”
Momma shrugged. “We didn’; CIA did.”
“So, why didn’t they …?”
Momma reached out a massive hand to take the pictures back. “Time they had someone in place, he gone.”
Jason’s voice had become nearly a growl. “You didn’t bring me here to tell me the son of a bitch escaped.”
Momma waved a hand as though to calm a small child. “They didn’t get him, no. But they know where he’ll be in five days.”
Jason stood, making no effort to conceal his eagerness. “Where? I’ll take that bastard out for free.”
Momma leaned back in her chair. “Knowin’ the special feelin’s you got for him, I thought of you the minute the business came our way, figured you’d be interested. But ain’ nobody gonna kill him, least not yet.”
“But …”
Again, the wave of the hand. She smiled, her teeth a crescent of white. “Jason, you always impatient. Just sit ’n’ listen to Momma a minute. Job pay a flat million, your share th’ reward, put in the same Liechtenstein bank. ’Course, you want to stay retired …”
Since its fees were paid by the US government, Narcom’s only customer, freedom from taxes had always been part of the bargain. As administrations changed, however, promises were sometimes forgotten, and the jobs too risky or too dirty for official action by Washington could stir periodic outrage by the increasing number of voters who believed America could prevail against Muslim fanatics with rules more applicable to the playground than the real world. Narcom gave the government the shield of plausible deniability and numbered bank accounts were a bulwark against climates that changed, the quicksand of public opinion, politicians who routinely reneged, and the IRS who was … well, the IRS.