THE CONTRACTOR Page 4

  When we came within a mile of the border, Magyar pointed us over to the side of the road, and the long train of vehicles moved in unison like a sidewinder off the asphalt into the sandy terrain. The tail vehicle angled itself across the road for added safety. Saadi stayed behind the wheel with the motor running, while Dave stepped out of the front passenger seat, a Bulgarian AK on a tactical sling at the ready, using the truck’s door for cover. I hopped out my side and hot-footed it to open the door for our government official. Similarly, security perimeters were being formed around the other vehicles.

  “Let’s suit up, gentlemen,” Magyar said, as if he knew something we didn’t.

  “Suit up?” I asked.

  “Body armor. The border crossing is always sketchy as you Americans call it.”

  Magyar had already moved to the back of the SUV, opened the door, and removed his suit jacket by the time I had figured out what he meant—and I liked it. He hadn’t packed a bunch of Armani suits in his large black bag—it held a Mach helmet, Level III vest with ballistic plates, and a Beretta. This was a dream client! Concerned for his own ass yet admitting he needed professionals to ensure that ass stayed attached to his body. Having not worked in this AO before, I figured when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and proceeded to don my own little suit of armor.

  With Magyar back in the truck, I relieved Saadi to don his gear and radioed to the other team members to do the same.

  “So, Ambassador, what is this all about? I thought this was a diplomatic mission?” Later I regretted that question, as it made me seem inexperienced. That wasn’t the case; I just didn’t expect there to be issues at the level that would require heavy-duty armor. I always wore a concealed protective vest, but this guy was beginning to make me think we were going to be blasting our way out of some shitty situation as he donned a full-bore external vest.

  “You know this whole region is a mess,” the Ambassador replied. “The Turkish government does everything in its power to maintain law and order within its borders. But we cannot do much about what goes on outside the borders. We maintain good diplomatic relations with the government of Iran, but they have little control over the border areas. It is, as you say, the wild west.”

  I watched as Magyar snapped the strap on his Kevlar helmet. I did the same.

  The Ambassador continued: “I have been across this border dozens of times. Sometimes it is an uneventful trip. Other times it’s a war zone.”

  The entire area was run by the Kurds, both in Turkey and in Iran. Sometimes there were border disputes, but those were mainly between various Kurdish tribes. So we embarked on our last mile in the relative safety of Turkish rule, awareness heightened, trigger fingers a little shaky as we approached the Iranian border checkpoint.

  You are cheerfully greeted at the Iranian border by a tall set of “Welcome” signs in at least ten languages. They can make you forget you are heading into a country in constant strife. The bright blue sky seems vast in this area, contrasted by the rusty-colored scrub grasses that cover the wide plains leading off to the huge mountains in the distance. Various small buildings line the side of the road as you approach the actual border, their inhabitants busily processing all the paperwork necessary to cross into the Islamic controlled country. Like any other border in the world, tractor trailers line the road, waiting for sign-off from the local officials to truck goods into the country. Above all of it waves the red, white and green flag of Iran, flanked by the red flag of Turkey with its white crescent and star.

  When we finally reached the gate, I was very sure that the surliness of the border guard who came to the lead vehicle was unnecessary, as the Ambassador’s office had made advanced arrangements for him to meet a small Iranian scientific delegation just past the border crossing. So I knew that the asshole knew exactly who we were and why we were there, which led me to believe he was just being an asshole about our papers, passports, itinerary and other documents simply because…he was an asshole. My gut reaction was to jump out of my seat and slap the “Sally”—but, of course, I could not leave my principal’s side. I sat quietly, hand on my weapon.

  Big Dave, on the other hand, had had enough and stepped his huge frame out of the front passenger seat to head directly over to the guard, who was about a quarter of his size. I thought this might turn into something interesting, so I watched intently, fascinated by the guard’s reaction to Dave’s size. The guard stepped back from the vehicle and tightly gripped his AK. Dave removed his helmet and then purposely invaded the Iranian’s personal space. He leaned forward and looked down as a father does when talking to a child. His unexpectedly quiet voice seemed to disturb the guard as much as it did all of us.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked quietly, a lock of dark hair falling forward onto his forehead.

  “Must…check…all papers,” the young Iranian stammered in broken English.

  At the sight of Dave’s threatening body language, two other guards emerged from the guard house and approached us after racking rounds in their rifles. I expected this to turn into a shit storm at any minute, but our DSS friend had it all under control.

  When the other two guards came close, Dave pulled a huge wad of Iranian rials out of his cargo pocket and unobtrusively showed it to the three soldiers. “Did you check these papers?”

  There is nothing like cold hard cash to bring a smile to even the grumpiest man’s face. Dave slowly peeled off bill after bill and handed them to the main guard. After a moment, the guard dressed in a dark green short-sleeved shirt held up his hand as if to say Stop to our large DSS friend. He then handed Dave the sheaf of documents he had tucked under his arm, they shook hands, and Dave reentered the vehicle. I watched as the guard walked back toward the guard house counting his gift of graft.

  Dave replaced his Kevlar helmet and buckled his seatbelt in silence. I slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Nice job. Hope you didn’t give the bastard too much.”

  “Hey, whatever,” Dave said, readjusting his Wileys. “It wasn’t my money—I always grab a pile of local currency from the office’s petty cash box before I travel.”

  We all chuckled. A lot gets done in the Mid-East by the copious greasing of palms. It’s not that people don’t want to help you; it’s just they want to get paid to help you.

  We were on the long trek to Khoy, where several warehouses in the industrial district would be inspected.

  There had been some secret inspections going on in the country for over a year ever since intelligence had reported suspicious activity in western Azerbaijan that coincided with the sudden disappearance of nuclear materials from a couple African nations. The geeks at the CIA had apparently put two and two together and figured they had better take a peek. So, as I said, some specially trained operators had been in country for about a year, conducting interviews and taking air and soil samples from suspected areas. Lo and behold, there were some interesting test results—which spurred our government to make things a little more formal.

  The team of engineers we were escorting was going to be conducting more interviews, taking more air, soil, and water samples, as well as testing sediment and vegetation in the area. Along with the testing, there would be searches for aluminum tubing and high-strength magnets, which—though they can be used for peaceful purposes—are most often used in the manufacture of centrifuges for nuclear material enrichment.

  Personally, I wasn’t sure if the stuff was really there or not, but it didn’t matter to me; I had a job to do. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help wondering whether this was another ploy by various world governments to find an excuse to take a heavily armored romp through the Iranian countryside. Sooner or later the oil was gonna begin to run out, and this was a scramble for ownership—often disguised as diplomacy. But, like I said, none of that at the moment was my business.

  Just outside Khoy, we met up with the not-so-friendly Iranian delegation. Their team’s bodyguards were even more armed than we were. I guess going for subtlety wasn’
t an Iranian security goal. They had one guy in a suit, five carrying various pieces of inspection equipment, and about a dozen loaded down with AKs and ammo pouches, pistols strapped to their thighs and chain smoking like the world was about to run out of cigarettes. If they weren’t the supposed “bad guys”, I would have said their protective team looked fun.

  We all stared at each other, everyone trying to look tougher or colder than his counterparts, while the diplomats met, shook hands, talked a bit, looked over papers and then gave instructions to their inspection teams. We then embussed and followed the Iranian team—which, I might say, I thought was stupid. Were we thinking they were going to just take us directly to wherever they were developing nuclear weapons or storing nuclear materials?

  I had to ask. “Mr. Magyar, don’t we get to look where our inspectors want us to? Why do we have to follow them around?”

  “Politics,” he answered. “We must show them some level of trust…initially. It allows them the chance to come clean about any less-than-desirable activities. If they…find…them first, their government has the chance to claim it had no knowledge of the activities and save its own ass.”

  Seemed like a logical explanation to me. It sucked that we had to go through the motions for no reason, but politics was not my forte, so I figured I’d shut my trap before I sounded stupid—again.

  Well, it turned out I wasn’t all that stupid after all: we ended up roaming around old, abandoned mills, factories, and warehouses for two full days without the slightest sign of anything—and I mean anything. The places had obviously been abandoned for some time. These guys weren’t showing us shit, and they knew it—but apparently, we had to go through the exercise to keep the suits happy. Our team, on the other hand, wasn’t happy at all. We were sweating our asses off for no good reason other than to make sure our client didn’t get attacked while roaming through the feral-dog-infested backstreets of middle-of-nowheres-ville.

  The one shining moment of the trip reminded me of how much I loved our principal. As we packed our things to leave, the politicians had their formal good-byes with lots of hand-shaking, photo-snapping and back-slapping. The protective teams shared their formal good-byes through a full-on staring contest—our side staring from behind dark sunglasses, their side staring from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  As we headed back to the trucks, Merlin almost lost his shit completely when he spied one of the Iranian inspectors behind the lead vehicle.

  “Hey! Awgaaf!” he yelled, swinging his M4 upward on its tactical sling.

  The inspector quickly raised his arms and froze in place. I ran forward to assist my partner after hand-signaling to Saadi to keep his eye on Magyar. Saadi signaled to Big Dave to keep the Iranians in place. Magyar sprinted toward the rear of the truck, sending Saadi into a panic. It was all about to turn bad when the ambassador jumped between Merlin and the inspector. It was a huge WTF moment.

  “He’s okay,” Magyar said in a low tone. “I will explain later. Escort him back to the Iranian group, please.”

  We all stood still for a moment wondering what the hell was going on, but Magyar seemed to know, so we had to trust him—for the time being, at least.

  I told Merlin to give our seemingly lost friend an escort back to his own team. Dave, who jogged up a second later, quickly eyeballed the situation before heading to the second escort vehicle to retrieve their vehicle inspection kit.

  He wasn’t about to touch our vehicle; even though Magyar insisted the Iranian inspector was okay, Dave wasn’t taking any chances. Whether it was to ensure our principal’s safety or to cover his own ass, personally, I wasn’t getting into the truck again before it was inspected for planted explosives. Either way, we all stood a safe distance from the black SUV while Dave ran the mirror around the undercarriage, did a visual, remotely locked and unlocked the doors, opened each one a crack to run a piece of local paper currency around the door frame, and then slowly opened each door as Merlin worked on the other side of the vehicle. Finally, Dave finished with a check on the engine. Satisfied, and a bit disgusted, he motioned for us all to get into the vehicle.

  Ambassador Magyar had waited patiently until securely in the vehicle and back on the road before he laid the bomb – figuratively speaking – on us.

  “Gentlemen, I am impressed and thankful for your thoroughness back there.”

  “Of course, you are welcome,” Saadi responded, his eyes glued to the road.

  “However, as I mentioned, it wasn’t necessary…That Iranian inspector was actually a Turkish special-forces operative we have embedded on their team. He is a nuclear weapons specialist. You see, we are determined to know exactly what is going on just across our borders.”

  Well, slap my ass and call me Sally! These guys really knew their shit. I had to smile.

  CHAPTER THREE - Big Surprise

  Life is just full of surprises—some good, and some not so good. With a good surprise, you can be all shits and giggles. With a bad surprise, you can be madder than a deaf guy at a bingo game. But some surprises just leave you with your mouth hanging open, not sure which way to feel. That’s how it was for me the morning I opened my apartment door to see my wife Melissa standing there—in Turkey.

  I guess it was either the dumb look on my face or the extended silence that prompted her to speak first.

  “Hi baby!”

  Duuuuuuhhhhh…

  “You happy to see me?”

  Does the Pope shit on a little golden commode in an apartment right next to the Vatican? I was happier than a two-peckered porn star—but I still couldn’t speak. You see, mentally, there is a separation between mission and family. In mission mode, your mind operates at a certain level. There is concentrated focus on the job at hand. You are constantly thinking tactically, planning, practicing scenarios…and sometimes drinking beers at a titty bar. There are guns and bad boys and danger. It simply isn’t the environment where your loved ones belong. The fundamental elements of the two don’t mix well. So, as you can imagine, my emotions were a bit confused. I wanted to throw my arms around her and feel her soft-yet-hard body against mine. At the same time, I didn’t want the other guys in the small apartment behind me to know she was there. So, there I stood, motionless. Finally, I snapped back to reality.

  “Holy shit!” I blurted out. “Of course I’m happy to see you! But…what the hell are you doing here?” I finally threw my arms around her, soaking in her warmth. “And how did you find me, by the way?”

  She smiled. “I have friends, too.”

  “What is it, Nick?” came a call from within the apartment.

  “You aren’t going to believe this!” I responded, still trying to sound happy that she was there. “My wife is here!”

  Now, I had expected a cold, if not negative response from the other operators, but they surprised me—in the good way.

  “Get the fuck out! Are you kidding?” Rusty bellowed as he rocked back and forth in order to raise his girth from the couch cushions barely supporting him.

  “You never told us you were married! I’d better kick the Turkish whores out of your bedroom then,” Merlin said, grinning like a Cheshire cat and sending the other guys into a good laugh.

  “Niiice!” I called back to them, motioning for Miss to follow me into our nasty little abode. “So, what are you doing here? Is everything alright? Is anyone dead?”

  “No,” she chuckled. “I’m perfect. I am so glad to see you.” She acknowledged the other men in the room with a head nod. “Never gonna believe how I got here.”

  “You want a beer, honey?” Dave called from the kitchen.

  “Definitely—it’s been a long trip.” She took the frosty bottle from Dave, her hands looking tiny next to Dave’s Koko-the-Gorilla hands.

  I told her not to keep us all in suspense as I removed a pile of Guns and Ammo and Soldier of Fortune magazines from the couch. Rusty just loved that kind of shit.

  “Ok—so, I get a call from Erik…” she started.
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br />   “Who’s Erik? Is he your boyfriend back home?” Merlin asked—smart ass.

  “Why don’t you shut up and let her finish, you prick,” I snarled.

  Merlin just laughed.

  “No, Erik is my martial arts teacher, and he would kick your ass for suggesting he was anything else…but he won’t have a chance if you don’t shut up, cause I’m gonna kick your ass,” Miss responded, only half-kidding.

  “You’d better shut up, Merlin,” Dave said, rummaging through the refrigerator for yet another snack.

  “Damn, Branson, she is definitely your wife!” Rusty observed.

  “So, Erik called. He told me class was closed for a couple weeks because he was taking a trip to Turkey. I told him that you were working in Turkey. He was apparently taking some vacation time to go see some famous four-hundred-year-old wrestling contest in Edirne. Kind of a bucket list thing for him. Well, one thing led to another, and he convinced me to come with him. He let me use a companion ticket, and…here I am! Thought you might need a date or something.”

  “So Erik is here, too?” I don’t know why I asked.

  “Yep, we are both staying at the Atel Artemis, and in different rooms, in case any of you smart asses care.”

  “This is just unbelievable.” I was psyched and confused. I didn’t have anything to do for the next twenty-four hours, so this was going to be play time for me. We’d have some alone time, and we could catch dinner with my old buddy Erik. But then I was gonna have to lay down some ground rules, because I wasn’t going to be sharp on this job if I was worried about what Miss was doing.

  “How long are you staying?” I asked.

  “Just the week. I have the rest of the day today, and then we’re catching a train out to Edirne to watch the competition. When are you on duty next?”

  I told her I had another twenty-four off before our little team was off to “other places” for the rest of the week.

  “Then we will do what we can with the time we have,” she told me.

  “I will be back late on Friday. When exactly do you leave?” I asked.