The placard outside the climate-controlled room readSpecial Access Only. Its bank-vault door and cypher lock served as exclamation points. It was locally referred to as Room 14, a curiously insipid moniker for a space whose contents could start a war. The armory’s less formal name, used only by those who were admitted, was far more colorful.
This was the Devil’s Playground.
The desk at the security station near the entrance was manned, 24/7/365, by Navy enlisted personnel. These were the gatekeepers who made sure that anyone admitted had good reason to be here.
The seven operators inside at that moment most certainly did.
“When did they stand up this place?” Ding asked, turning a TAC-338 in his hands.
“Within the last year,” Clark replied as he shrugged on a plate carrier for size. “We’ve been closing armories downrange in recent years, and somebody decided it would be a good idea to set one up on the doorstep of Africa and the Middle East that was tailored for units like ours. Sigonella was the natural choice.”
“We needed this very much,” piped in Bauer as he jacked nine-millimeter rounds into a magazine. “The weapons we have been using were not ideal.”
Noticing that his team was plundering the room like a Black Friday doorbuster sale, Clark said, “Keep in mind, people, our new airplane does have weight limitations.”
It was a valid point. The C-17 that had brought them here from Incirlik would soon depart. Waiting on the ramp to whisk them to Tangier, courtesy of the CIA’s Air Branch, was a Gulfstream G650. The high-performance business jet offered speed and anonymity, but it didn’t have the payload capacity of a heavy-lift transport.
“Everybody grab a set of this comm gear,” he added, showing a miniaturized earbud and mic combo.
“How long do we have?” Charlie asked.
“Our air chariot awaits. There will be provisions on board so no stopping at the club for happy hour. This one stop was necessary, but as soon as we’re done here, we load up and launch.”
“Do we know where we will be staying when we reach Tangier?” asked Toussaint.
“I called the Four Seasons, but they were booked,” Ding said.
Given the recent operational tempo, Clark was encouraged by his team’s lighthearted mood. The squad was at full strength.Ding had acquired antibiotics for his ear infection back at Incirlik, and it was looking much improved. For his part, Wu was moving smoothly, the injury to his leg having been treated and confirmed as minor. “The State Department has people working on that,” Clark said. “I’d expect another short-term rental.”
Ten minutes later, he cut off the feeding frenzy. They loaded up into the crew bus that had brought them here, and minutes later everyone was humping their new gear across the tarmac to the Gulfstream’s cargo hold. When they finished loading, the bay was bursting with Pelican cases and rucks.
The jet was standard-issue CIA, a larger version of the off-white Lear that had been in Bodrum days earlier, waiting for a connecting passenger who’d never arrived. The pilots, too, were agency. Tom Hooper was compact, fortysomething, with mussed surfer-blond hair. He met them at the boarding stairs wearing civilian clothes and a Navy ball cap.
“Welcome aboard Mystery Air. Flights to nowhere are our specialty!”
“Do we have a flight attendant today?” Wu asked. He was the only bachelor on the team.
“That’s a negative. Food and drinks are self-service. The exception is the java. The coffeepot has a tendency to catch fire, so leave that to us.”
The copilot came out of the cockpit and introduced himself. Brian Sesniak was big and amiable, a few years younger than Hooper. After everyone took their seats, he provided a bare-bones preflight announcement, covering emergency exit procedures, how to wear a buttercup oxygen mask, and an approximate flight time to Tangier. His spiel included the hand motions of an airline flight attendant and a shit-eating grin, and earned a raucous cheer at the end.
The seating configuration was less than business class—not the plush club chairs a corporate CEO would expect, but standard airline-type seats in an arbitrary configuration.
Clark sat next to Ding as the jet began taxiing.
“You expect any trouble bringing this gun show into Morocco?” Ding asked.
“State promises we’ll get a pass.”
It was a quietly common arrangement. When paramilitaries traveled the world heavily armed, the first order of business was to not be thrown in jail for bringing weapons and explosives into a neutral country. One method was to land at a remote airfield with no immigration oversight, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight. The alternative was for the State Department to request special dispensation from customs and immigration authorities. This ranged from completely looking the other way to softened inspections. It was a malleable concept shaped on a variety of factors: the friendliness of the standing government, the regional diplomatic climate, and favors owed. Outright bribery wasn’t off the table.
Clark said, “Our instructions are to leave the heavy weapons on board—don’t ask, don’t tell. Those are only a contingency anyway—we’re not looking to start a shooting war. Security has been arranged for the aircraft. We’re allowed to carry what we can conceal and won’t get hassled about it. Our mission is to find Klaus, get him back to the jet, and haul ass out.”
“What could be easier?”
Clark shot his son-in-law a severe look.
“Not getting superstitious in your old age, are you?”
