The quick shake of Abby’s head signaled her skepticism. “That would take enormous capacity. You must have a room full of computers.”
“I don’t need a room. I sneak into other peoples’ rooms and borrow their computer capacity.”
Hawkins was enjoying Molly’s smack-down of his hard-charging ex-wife, but he wisely kept his thoughts to himself. “Thanks, Molly. That’s exactly what I had in mind. Abby?”
Abby would have liked to have learned more about Sutherland, but she got right down to business.
“My assignment was to get everyone and everything into Afghanistan without going through official channels. A charter air service my company uses will transport personnel and gear directly into Kabul. We board six o’clock tomorrow morning at Dulles. A civilian security contractor will do the in-country insertion and the extraction. Everything will be ready to go within the window of opportunity you specified.” She said to Hayes, “Cal, what sort of load can we expect?”
Hayes looked as happy as a kid reciting his Christmas wish list. “I’ve ordered up a couple of sets of desert cammo dress uniforms,” he said. “We’ll be carrying CAR-15s,” he added, referring to the compact version of the M-16 with the folding stock and the shortened barrel. “For side arms, I know you like the Sig Sauer 9 mm, Matt.” He went down a list that included extra ammunition, a GPS, satellite phone, rations, first aid and survival items. “I’ve stuck in an M-203 for good luck, Matt.”
The M-203 was an aluminum tube with a breech that could hurl an explosive round roughly the size of two golf balls several hundred yards.
“I’m all for good luck,” Matt said. “But strictly speaking, this is not a military mission.”
“Hell, Hawk, I know that. But what are you going to do if you run into some bad guys, throw a rabbit’s foot at them?”
Calvin had a good point. “You can keep your little bean-shooter. You didn’t mention what we’re going to use to carry all that stuff.”
“Saving the best for last. I’ll have a DPV with extra fixings waiting for us at the airport.”
The Desert Patrol Vehicle was a dune buggy on hormones with a 200-horsepower Volkswagen engine that could kick it up to a speed of ninety miles per hour.
“Sounds like you covered all the bases, Cal. Anyone have comments?”
Abby had followed the discussion closely. “One adjustment. I’d like you to order up a third line of gear. I wear a size six.”
Hawkins shook his head. “I thought you’d only go as far as Kabul, Abby.”
“I said I wanted to follow through on the logistical support.”
“Damnit, Abby, why do you have to be so difficult? This isn’t exactly a stroll in the park we’re talking about.”
Hawkins knew he’d said the wrong thing the second he said it. Abby’s eyes narrowed. She reminded him that she had trained in covert operations and survival techniques at Annapolis, and that she was an expert marksman and an experienced diver.
“All true, Abby, but you forget that I’m in charge of this mission.”
“And you forget who’s organizing it. Besides, I still outrank you.”
It was an unkind cut, and one Hawkins had experienced before, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
“We’ll have more time to talk about this on the flight to Afghanistan,” Hawkins said, although he could tell from the stubborn tilt of Abby’s chin that there would be no yielding on her part. “Cal, pack a third set of gear for the lady, just in case.”
“See you in Washington in the morning,” Abby said, setting her lips in a tight smile.
She disconnected from the teleconference. Hawkins told the other two he would send them a summary of his plans. Their pictures faded and Hawkins shut down the teleconference. He tented his fingers, thinking, then turned back to the photos on his desk and sketched out the action plan that had been bouncing around in his head. As he worked, he heard a distant rumbling. A thunderstorm was moving in.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The storm clouds had been stacking up in the west all afternoon, even before the executive jet touched down at Barnstable Municipal Airport in Hyannis. Two passengers had gotten off the plane. They wore the standard tourist outfit: shorts, sneakers, high white socks and Hawaiian-shirts. The baseball caps pulled down over their platinum-hued hair and sun-glasses shading their intense blue eyes made it practically impossible to detect the fact that they were identical twins.
Instead of bathing suits and sun tan lotion, each man carried a Finnish-made Jatimatic machine gun and extra ammo magazines in his travel bag. The compact automatic weapon weighed slightly more than four pounds and was designed for close combat. They threw the bags in the back seat of their rental car. The pilot was told they would return in a few hours and instructed to keep his cell phone on.
Forty-five minutes later Mihovil Marzak drove the car along Water Street past the brick buildings of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His brother Mirko kept an eye on the GPS and map. Not a word passed between them, but they functioned like two pistons in a twin-cylinder engine.
The Marzaks were Serbian by birth and had come of age during the Bosnian war. As teenagers they had been recruited into the army by their father, an army officer under Ratko Mladic, and instructed in the art of wholesale homicide during the Sbrenica massacre. Until silenced by a NATO bomb, the elder Marzak bragged about the military prowess of his young sons, particularly Mirko, the eldest of the twins by three minutes. The age difference had created an unusual dynamic. Mirko was impulsive, almost rash, and he considered murder both his job and his hobby. Mihovil was equally as deadly, but more contemplative, a reader of poetry.
Despite the personality difference, they worked smoothly together as an efficient killing machine. After they left Bosnia, they capitalized on their skill at inflicting mass casualties, working as killers for hire until Mihovil suggested that they form a firm of their own, Gemini, which specialized in high body counts. For Gemini, a single assassination like this night’s assignment was like stepping on an ant.
At a word from his brother, Mihovil turned onto a residential street and drove past a two-story Victorian style house. The name on the mailbox was Hawkins. A red pick-up truck was parked in the driveway. He turned around and went by the house again, picking a good spot for a stake-out. Then he and his brother drove around the village sizing up escape routes.
The first drops of rain from the fast-moving storm began to splat against the van’s windshield. Thunder rolled in the distance and the rainfall became heavier. The inclement weather sent tourists scurrying for cover, but the twins agreed without saying that the storm was a happy coincidence. The atmospheric fireworks would cover the noise of their work.
They parked diagonally across the street from the Victorian house. A light glowed in the second floor picture window. When the lightning and thunder were at their fiercest, they got out of the car, walked quickly through the slanting rain to the front porch and climbed the steps, tensing when they saw a dark shape approach. Quisset had heard the visitors and came through the doggy door to say hello, his tail wagging.
Mirko pulled a telescoping steel spring baton from his jacket pocket.
“Come here, puppy,” he said, his lips curved in a friendly smile.
“No,” his brother warned. Attacking the dog was not part of his carefully-laid plan.
It was too late. There was a metallic blur, a wet thump, and the dog crumpled to the ground.