“Yusuf Abdul-Rauf calling for Mikhail Kharitonov,” he replied in the same language.
“A moment, Puzhalsta,” said the voice. Jordan glanced over at the clock on the wall. It was eleven in the morning. He had called ahead of schedule.
“My American friend,” said a strong male voice in heavily accented English. “Happy for you to arrive very good.”
“Thank you, Mika. We are glad to be here. I hope things are on schedule for our meeting tomorrow.”
“Yes, yes,” said the man, sounding almost amused. “We have all as you requested. It is very big order, my friend, and means Mika must work very hard to see all is delivered.”
“We understand, Mika. This is important for us. We have all that you asked for. Do not worry.”
The voice on the other end of the line laughed. “Yusuf, Mika always worry. That why Mika still alive. Tomorrow, as planned, time and place. You bring and I bring. All is then good, no?”
“Yes, Mika. All is good.”
Jordan closed the connection and took a breath of air. The madness would soon begin.
26
The ride down to the port was a quiet one. Jordan and his team had prepared for this moment for several weeks — in truth, for several years, considering all that had brought them here. After sleeping off the journey, they were up in the early morning considering plans and backup plans, countermeasures and options. Now all their planning came down to execution, and, Jordan knew in his heart, a certain amount of randomness, what others called luck. But luck favors the prepared. Part of their preparation was a visit last night from the CIA safe house in Dubai. Their visitors were kind enough to supply them with handguns smuggled into the country, as well as a set of disks, memory sticks, flash drives, and adaptors for the mission to come.
From Corniche Road, which ran through the sands by the Millennium Hotel in Sharjah, it had been a short hop on one of the area's main thoroughfares, Al Ittihad Road, a thoroughly modern highway. Then across a new fourteen-lane, sixteen-thousand-vehicle-capacity bridge, onto the Sheikh Zayed Road, which twisted its way southeast around the center of Dubai, soon to run parallel with the coastline southwest toward the harbor. They passed the World Archipelago on their right, which hardly made an impression this close to the ground. The second and much larger Palm Island loomed somewhere northwest of them as they approached the main port, Jebel Ali.
As they exited E11 and drove on 520th Street, Jordan was again struck by the scale of things in Dubai. With sixty-seven berths and a span of over fifty square miles, Jebel Ali was the world's largest artificial harbor, built over many years in the 1970s. More than five thousand companies from over one hundred and twenty nations made use of this port. A frequent user was in fact the United States Navy. There was hardly a sailor who served in the region who had not visited the port sometime during his tour. The great depth of the harbor and overall width allowed American aircraft carriers to dock, and it was not unusual to find a Nimitz Class carrier with several of its companion boats pier side. Jordan suppressed a laugh. How the arms dealers like Kharitonov loved to do business right under the noses of the United States military forces! How their pride blinded them to the fact that Uncle Sam was aware of everything they were doing, and was using them for the purpose of catching bigger fish — the clients on the other ends of their deals.
Jordan and his men pulled up to the dock number they had been sent and stepped out into the desert heat. Three vehicles were waiting, and Jordan could see the tall, lanky form of Mika Kharitonov standing beside an open car door, several bodyguards flanking him and positioned in the nearby vehicles. The cargo boat behind them, he noticed, was dotted with several shapes obviously toting weapons — what appeared to be automatic weapons. He knew the other guards would also be carrying weapons, concealed, just as Kharitonov knew that Jordan's men were packing. It was like a well-choreographed dance, only with less sexual tension and more potential for chaos and death. Jordan pretended to be blinded by the bright sunlight, taking that time to scope the scene. He spoke quietly out of the side of his mouth to several members of his team.
“Trouble perched high on the boats. We'll need to contain those.”
The man next to him smiled tightly. “Looks like we got trouble everywhere we look. We're going to get bloody on this one, Husaam.”
“Yeah, we might,” he said, feeling a sudden heaviness. The wind gusted and blew grains of sand across their faces. I'm responsible for these men.
“Mika, my friend!” Jordan boomed over the sounds of machinery, waves, and vehicles at the port, laughing in his deep bass as he walked rapidly up to greet the Russian. Kharitonov stepped slightly forward, enough to put his guards a few steps behind him — about the same distance that existed between Jordan and his men. They extended hands and shook.
“Good see you, Yusuf. I think you and your men bigger every year. Like Barry Bonds, no?”
“The brothers on the street don't have an easy life. We work hard for what is ours. It shows. You will help us do that.”
“Mika happy to help. But Mika more happy when paid. You understand?” he said, with a smile that made Jordan think of what a serial killer must look like before he struck.
“Of course, my friend. Friendship doesn't put food, or vodka, on the table. Kareem!” he shouted over his shoulder. A thinner black man with a goatee stepped up beside Jordan. He carried a slim briefcase, much too slender to contain any significant amount of money. He unlocked the case, opened it, and held it up level to show the Russian its contents. Inside was a small thumb drive.
“Codes and executable,” Kareem said flatly, an accountant presenting data. “You have your connection established?”
“Of course, of course,” said Kharitonov.
Jordan interjected. “Then why don't we have a look at the merchandise, and as soon as that's done, we'll go digital, my friend.”
Kharitonov nodded and signaled to his bodyguards. Kareem closed the case and stepped behind the troop accompanying Jordan as the Russian led them toward the dock and the ramp to board the vessel. As they passed underneath, the men holding automatic weapons gazed down on them and tracked their motion onto the ship.
The boat was enormous, a merchant container ship flying the Greek flag. Jordan knew that the ownership of the vessel was not related to the “flags of convenience” that allowed for easier and cheaper passage, and that the Greeks sheltered numerous such boats. These “box boats” had, over the last century, revolutionized world trade, allowing for highly efficient transfer of enormous amounts of cargo across the planet. More than eighteen million containers journeyed over two hundred million trips per year — and this was the legal material. This early form of the global economy had truly become international, highly dynamic, and adaptable to maximizing profit. This vessel could have come from anywhere, belonged to anyone, and only the arcane records of the companies using the ships could give any idea to the source of the materials onboard. That is exactly why Jordan was here in Sharjah and Dubai, and why today's deal was going to go sour very quickly.
While the boat looked big, Jordan knew that it was one of the smaller container vessels. The fact that it was docked away from the land-based cranes was enough to tell you that, even if the presence of its own small crane to offload the boat boxes didn't. Kharitonov had his trade down to a science. The forty-foot boxes were rigged with “quick-entry” latches that opened a specially designed section of the box, allowing rapid examination of contents. Kharitonov brought them to one such entry point, unlocked the container, and had his men pull out a large wooden crate. As they pried it open with crowbars, the submachine-gun-toting guards closed in behind Jordan's men, sandwiching them between Mika's gunmen and the large crate. The men pulled off the packing insulation, revealing rows of neatly stacked automatic weapons and magazine cartridges. Jordan approached the crate, reached in, and pulled out one of the guns. It was a sleek, black micro-Uzi submachine gun. He turned it over, played with the safety, gripped it in his hands to feel the weight and balance of the thing. Kharitonov and his subordinates watched in silence as their customer examined the product.