Target America

7

To Gil, the old Medina district looked like something out of a Jason Bourne movie, with its narrow streets and old houses built on top of one another, and all of them looking exactly alike to his eye. They were old stucco homes, most of them constructed around the turn of the twentieth century, before the French arrived to take the country under its “protection.” The street vendors had packed away their wares for the night, and the cobblestone alleys were relatively empty, save for a few parked cars and empty vendor carts.

“A guy could get lost in the neighborhood.”

Zhilov chuckled. “If you get lost in Casablanca, just walk toward the sea until you hit the coastal road. The sea is very big. Not even a Yankee can miss it.”

Gil checked the side-view mirror, but all he could see was a wall. “I don’t think there’s a straight road in this entire district.”

“This is the Anfa,” Zhilov said. “The original part of the city, before the French took over and tried to make the city look like Paris.”

A teenager rounded the corner and seemed to check himself for a moment before continuing forward, stopping halfway down the short block and going into the house they were watching.

“Do you know that kid?”

Zhilov shook his head. “I never see him before.”

“He seemed to know you.”

Zhilov gripped the wheel, adjusting himself in the seat that was too small for him. “I cannot disagree.”

Gil muttered an obscenity. “The op is blown. He’ll tell the hajis we’re out here and put ’em on alert. We should clear.”

The Russian shook his head, his good humor gone now. “If we leave, they disappear. Then it takes weeks to find them again. I think to wait is good idea. When they come out, you shoot them, and I take you back to hotel for the rest of my money.”

Gil drew the suppressed USP .45 from inside his jacket. “And suppose they come out blasting with automatic weapons.”

Zhilov reached beneath his seat for a micro Uzi submachine pistol. “Suppose they do?” he said in his gravelly voice.

Gil glanced around, feeling boxed in by the limited field of vision due to the curvy nature of the alley. There were almost no positions of cover. He knew they should clear the scene; that the situation was borderline untenable. But he also knew that Zhilov was right: Bashwar and Koutry would disappear to another safe house and would be ten times harder to reacquire.

The Russian took a suppressor from under the seat and attached it to the muzzle of the Uzi. “We going in to get these goddamn guys or what?”

Gil shook his head. “We’ll let the situation develop.” He glanced into the back of the van, which was crammed full of rolled-up carpets. “What is all that shit back there, anyway?”

Zhilov shrugged. “Rugs rolled up. I steal the van from rug vendor other side of city.”

Gil gave him a wry grin. “Weren’t exactly planning a fast getaway, were you?”

“Listen, you goddamn guy. You want to unload the shit? You are my guest.”

“Be my guest. We say be my guest.”

Zhilov looked out the window at the house. “You say your way, Yankee. I say mine. I just want to kill these goddamn guys and get my money.”

A few minutes later, a black van with its headlights off pulled passed them, stopping near the house three doors up on the left. The back doors opened, and a man stepped out holding a suppressed MP5 submachine gun. There were three more men in the back.

Gil sat back in the seat. “What the fuck is this happy horseshit?”

Zhilov sat back as well, though it scarcely made a difference in his case because of his bulk. “It’s those goddamn Jews I tell you about.”

“Mohave? What the fuck are they doing here?”

Zhilov looked at him. “To kill Arab terrorist, maybe?”

Gil got ready to dismount the vehicle in case shit started flying in their direction. The boys with LX Mohave were well known for shooting first and never bothering to ask any questions. A softball-sized glob of what looked like modeling clay landed on the roof of the Mohave van with a heavy thud and stuck in place. Gil knew instantly that it was a wad of C4 plastic explosive molded around a timer-detonator, having seen the same kind of bomb used in Indonesia a few years earlier during a rooftop attack on a diplomatic convoy.

“Sticky bomb — get down!”

He and Zhilov squashed themselves as low as they could as the Mohave men rushed to dismount the doomed vehicle. The bomb detonated with a blinding white flash, catching the driver and one of the gunners inside, flattening the van and throwing the dismounting gunners through the air. The concussion spider-webbed the windshield of the carpet van and echoed through the alleyway.

Like a giant bird dropping, a second glob of C4 landed in the street unseen among the stunned Mohave men struggling to pick themselves up. It detonated in another thunderclap of blinding light, and all three men disintegrated.

Gil jumped out of the carpet van as a third glob of C4 landed on the roof. Zhilov remained in the driver’s seat, knocked unconscious by the concussion of the second blast. Gil rolled beneath the van, expelling the air from his lungs and covering his ears. The bomb exploded, and the load of carpet absorbed much of the pressure wave, but the chassis of the van was thrust violently downward on its leaf springs, and Gil’s head was briefly sandwiched between the exhaust pipe and the street. It felt like a mule kick to the head, and his internal combat systems were knocked off-line.