Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 51

Reza peeled back the tight-fitting black sleeve to peer at his watch. The softly glowing hands told him it was two minutes to midnight.

He’d wanted to wait until later, but Walid had insisted they launch the raid at midnight. The farm workers on the ranch started early, he said, some as early as three in the morning. Besides, security changed shifts at midnight and they could take out both sets of guards at the same time.

In the end, it was Walid’s raid; all Reza could do was make suggestions. And worry.

A light rain fell, the kind that provided a nice background of white noise to mask their approach to the main house. The ranch house itself was huge, a low-slung, two-story affair of stone and timber that sprawled across the hilltop overlooking the long valley.

The earpiece crackled in Reza’s ear. “I have a visual on both guards. Standing by for go.”

Walid’s reply came in stereo: once over the headset, and once from the man lying prone in the leaves next to Reza. “All teams, standby to go on my mark. Three, two, one. Go!”

Reza saw the two guards, sharing a cigarette in the driveway under the only lamp within a hundred meters, both do a stutter-step and drop to the ground. The team of four to his right sprang up and started to hustle across the long upslope of open lawn that lay between the edge of the jungle and the ranch house.

The door on the veranda facing them opened, and a young woman stepped out onto the wet stones. She wrapped her arms across her chest and called out in a stage whisper, “Franco?” She tiptoed across the flagstones until she could see the driveway. Her mouth dropped open when she saw the two men lying facedown in the pool of light.

Walid cursed and swung his rifle into firing position. He squeezed off a shot just as the girl turned back toward the house. The bullet nicked her shoulder and spun her to the ground. The assault team had nearly reached the veranda; she screamed when she saw them coming.

The scream was cut short by a three-bullet burst of gunfire that echoed across the valley.

Walid leaped up, dragging Reza with him, all pretense at stealth gone. “All teams, go! Go now,” he shouted into the headset. He charged across the lawn. When they reached the veranda, Reza heard the deep blast of a shotgun followed by multiple bursts of automatic weapons fire. They passed the body of the young girl on the veranda, dark blots of blood on her white nightdress, her eyes staring upwards. She might have been eighteen.

They passed through a kitchen, lit only by the lights from the appliances, and into a broad hall. Walid took the stairs two at a time to where one of his men was waiting for him on the landing. He pointed to the open double doors at the end of the hall.

Nadine had managed to take out two of Walid’s men with her single shotgun blast. The first body, missing most of his face, lay across the entrance to the master suite, the second had some pellets buried in his throat. The white towel pressed against the injured man’s neck was dark with absorbed blood. Reza was no doctor, but he was sure this man wouldn’t live either.

One of the men flipped on the light switch, flooding the room with light. Reza swallowed hard to counteract his gag reflex.

Nadine lay sprawled across the carpet, her hair splayed out like a dark halo around her head. She bled from at least six gunshots wounds in her torso, and blotches of dark red almost consumed the creamy silk of her long nightdress. Stray bullets had stitched holes into the wall behind her.

One of the other men came into the room and whispered to Walid. He turned to Reza. “Rafiq’s not here.”

Reza looked at the king-size bed. Only one side had been slept in.

They were too late.

Reza knelt next to Nadine. Her eyes were unfocused, and her head lolled. He gripped her chin and bent close to her. “Where is Rafiq? Where is your husband?”

She blinked her eyes heavily; her lips moved like she was trying to speak.

He leaned closer. “What?”

Her breath tickled his ear. “Fuck you,” she whispered.

Reza sat back. Nadine’s blood-soaked chest had stilled and her eyes stared up at the ceiling. He looked up at the wall, where a photograph of a smiling Rafiq held two squirming children.

“We need to go, Reza,” Walid called to him from the doorway.

“Where are Rafiq’s children?”

Walid shook his head. “We’re not taking the kids. We just shot his fucking wife, for God’s sake. The locals will have my head if I touch his kids.”

“I need to talk to them. Alone.”

Walid looked at his watch. “Three minutes. One second longer and you’re on your own getting out of here.”

The children were huddled together in what must have been the boy’s room. The kid was clearly horse-crazy, with pictures of horses, books about horses, even a shelf full of toy horses. The boy’s face was pale with fright beneath a mop of black curls, and his dark eyes stared up at Reza as he approached. He tightened his grip around his little sister.

If the boy was frightened, his sister was angry. Reza saw Rafiq’s sharp features in her young face. She was clearly the stronger of the two.

Her eyes blazed and she pointed her finger up at him. “You leave us alone,” she shouted.

He tried to sit on the edge of the bed, but the girl kicked at him. He remained standing. “I need to find your father,” he said.

“You leave us alone,” the girl repeated in a shrill voice. Her brother sat mute beside her.

Reza felt a flash of anger. He reached out and caught the girl’s wrist. He squeezed until she grimaced in pain, but she would not cry. He hauled her across the bed until her face was inches from his. “I need to know where your father went.”

Walid called to him. “We need to go. Now.”

Reza tightened his grip on the girl’s arm, and still she would not cry. His eyes flicked to her brother. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll take your brother away and leave you here all alone.”

The girl’s eyes widened a fraction.

“Papa went away,” she said.

“Where? When?”

Walid hissed at him from the doorway to hurry up.

“He left in a big ship. He said he was going to sail across the ocean. Mama said the ship was called delfin.”