Don Pendleton - Hostile Dawn

The intelligence officer’s face flushed. He was about to respond but thought better of it. Jaw clenched, Len instead clamped his long, coarse fingers around a ceramic teacup filled with green tea and brought it to his lips. It was all he could do to keep his hand from trembling with anger.

The youngest of three men, Len looked uncomfortable, not only with the situation, but also with being trapped inside his ill-fitting brown suit. Kassem was sure the Asian would have preferred to show up in his medal-encrusted PLA uniform so as to give an appearance of greater cache, but such attire would have drawn unwanted attention in this, an apartment building leased out primarily to business executives. Holding the meeting here had been Kassem’s suggestion, and seeing to it that Len came dressed in civilian attire had been but another of the many small ploys the Lebanese entrepreneur had relied upon to place himself at a tactical advantage over his colleagues.

Just as he’d compromised Len by putting him in a suit, Kassem’s insistence that they speak in French came at the expense of Yarad, easily the least fluent of the three and therefore forced to ask the others to repeat themselves and speak in rudimentary sentences. And, when they’d first come out to sit on the terrace, Kassem had been shrewd enough to take a seat placing his back to the harbor, forcing the other two men to contend with the glare of the late-afternoon sun whenever they looked his way.

It was Pasha Yarad who finally broke the uneasy silence.

“This is not the time for second-guessing,” he said, siding with Kassem for the moment. “We came here to settle on a course of action and pass it along to the others. I suggest we focus our efforts there and leave the hindsight for another day.”

The ball was in Len’s court. He set down his cup and crossed his arms across his chest. “Very well,” he said gruffly. “I’m listening.”

Kassem was more amused than put off by Len’s petulance. Rather than fuel it, he left the floor to Yarad.

“Our main concern should be verifying that our teams are in place and still ready to carry out the operation,” the Iranian said.

Kassem assured Yarad, “Ahmet was in constant contact with the teams up to the time of his arrest. Things were proceeding on schedule. I also made a few calls to the States before you arrived. There have been no other problems aside from those involving Ahmet.”

“But Ahmet masterminded this whole plot,” Len countered, quick to resume the role of devil’s advocate. “He’s the go-between for all the groups we have in place in California. Can we really be sure all these different teams will be able to carry things out without his supervision?”

“Your point is well taken,” Kassem conceded, feeling it best to throw Len this one small bone. “And yes, it would be for the best if Ahmet were available to oversee things. God willing, he’ll elude capture and meet up with one of the teams shortly. But at the moment, that is something beyond our control. Which is why we need to come back to the matter of securing other weapons. It will take more than conventional firearms or explosives for the plan to be carried out the way it was drawn up.”

“Understood,” Yarad responded. “Then let’s concentrate on supplying the teams with what they’ll need. You were just saying you had access to other suppliers.”

Kassem nodded. “I’ve already made a few calls. I should have word back shortly. If none of those options seem viable, I can tap into the arsenals of one of my training camps back in Lebanon. The concern there, as before, is the time frame and transport logistics. We need to carry out the attack in a few days.”

“Do what you can,” Yarad said. “I’m sure we can work out something.”

“Not so fast.” Gohn Len stood and moved to one side, taking shelter from the sun beneath an awning that reached out over the terrace. Kassem smiled indulgently, as if to acknowledge his awareness that Len was trying to gain leverage by putting his six-foot frame on display.

“Is there a problem?” Kassem queried innocently.

Len took a moment, choosing his words carefully. Finally he said, “Given what’s happened, I think we should reconsider the whole operation. Why attempt it now when there is too wide a margin for failure?”

“Because this is an ideal opportunity,” Yarad reminded the Chinese officer. “How many chances will we get to have all our enemies rounded up under one roof?”

“The Frazier Group meets annually,” Len countered impatiently. “We can wait and try again next year!”

“You may be fine with waiting that long,” the deputy minister said, “but I, for one, want to see this taken care of now rather than later. Too much can happen in a year. With every day that passes, there is a greater risk that our coalition will be found out. If that happens, all our work—everything we’ve done to put ourselves in this position—will have been in vain.”

Kassem narrowed his eyes and stared through a wreath of smoke at his colleagues, doing his best to restrain himself. Did it always have to be like this? Squabbling and bickering, everyone at cross-purposes? How were they ever to achieve the kind of change they wanted if they couldn’t get past their own differences?

“I’ll confer with the others,” he finally told Len and Yarad, stubbing out his cigarette in a gesture of finality. “We’ll take their input into consideration and hopefully have some sort of consensus. In the meantime, though, I think the smart course is to proceed as planned. A plot of this magnitude can always be called off at the last minute, but if we’re going to carry it out, the pieces need to be in place.”

“I agree,” Yarad said.

Both Kassem and the Iranian stared at their Chinese counterpart. Len hesitated, picking up his ceramic cup and taking one last, long sip. The tea had gone cold and left a bitter taste in his mouth. He swallowed it nonetheless, unnerved by the sense that he was swallowing his pride, as well.

“If need be, I might be able to divert some rocket launchers from one of our covert installations in South America,” he said, offering up an olive branch to his cohorts. “They could be cargoed in a way that it would be possible to have them delivered to one of the ports near Los Angeles.”

Yarad stared at Len, incredulous. “This is the first mention of this as an option. Why didn’t you bring it up before?”

“It involves certain complications,” Len said. “Of a personal nature.”

Kassem saw an opportunity to ease the ill will between him and Len, and seized it.

“Whatever the case, thank you for the offer,” he told the Asian. “We’ll only take you up on it as a last resort, though. Fair enough?”

Len nodded tersely and grabbed the valise he’d brought with him to the meeting. “If we choose to go that way, I’ll need to have laid some groundwork. I’d best get started. If you’ll excuse me, I can show myself out.”

“Of course,” Kassem said. Both he and Yarad stood, offering Len a polite nod. Once the Asian had left, the Iranian turned to Kassem.

“I don’t trust him,” he said. “This offer of his. It came out of nowhere.”

Kassem shrugged. “I don’t trust him, either.”

“What should we do about it?”

“Leave that to me,” the elderly financier told Yarad. “And since we now have an opportunity to speak alone, this would be a good time to address another matter.”

“Our nuclear situation,” the Iranian guessed.

Kassem nodded. “I take it you’ve heard about the Hamas incident in Damascus.”

“Yes, I’ve been briefed,” Yarad replied. “Those idiots failed to get any information from that reporter before they were killed off.”