Michelangelo bobbed his head up and down, moving to the bathroom to clean up. He said, “What are you going to do?”
“Find out what the hell happened to Raphael and Leonardo.”
Garrett turned to leave the room, saying, “You’re good, right? You know what you have to do?”
Michelangelo said, “I’m good. I got it. I know what I need to do.”
Garrett nodded, and exited. He used the stairs to get back to his own room, checked the phone, and saw no messages. He held the phone in his hand, knowing he shouldn’t call, but also knew the rest of the mission was a waste of time if they were dead.
He dialed, waiting on the satellites to pick up the signal and transfer it back to earth.
It connected, and he heard, “Is this it?”
“No. Not yet.”
He heard exasperation. “Why the fuck are you calling? Every time this phone touches a satellite, it’s a potential compromise.”
Garrett exhaled a sigh of relief and said, “I know, but I had to know. You’re good to go? You got what you needed?”
“We are. We have the drones and means to launch them. It’s going to take about forty minutes for the birds to get to you, so we’re going to need a little advance warning.”
“I got it. Don’t worry about that. I’ll give you the trigger. Just keep this phone operational.”
“There’s one other thing. We’ve killed some of Hezbollah’s men here. It’s no big deal right now, but it will be in a day or two. Somebody’s going to come looking, and we have no security to defend ourselves.”
Garrett said, “Can you hold on for a day? Until tomorrow?”
“I think so, but it might be close.”
“Do so. Tomorrow is the attack, and it’s going to be early. Wait for my call. When it comes, launch them all.”
Chapter 64
We took the rentals to the town of Sidon, about forty minutes outside of Beirut, to a café that was the same place I’d been captured years before. Jennifer saw the location and said, “I don’t think we should go in there.”
I said, “Well, we don’t have a lot of choices here.”
I clicked on the net and said, “Knuckles, Blood, you staged?”
Knuckles came back and said, “Yeah, we’re staged. But if I were you, I wouldn’t enter that damn place. Bad Ju Ju.”
I said, “Yeah, maybe.”
Sidon was a coastal city full of backpackers and foreign tourists, the promenade next to the water dotted with restaurants and nightclubs, and this café was a place that anyone would feel safe. Unless a bomb had gone off inside it years before, and you were captured by a bunch of terrorists.
The sun beginning to set, it was becoming crowded on the promenade next to the café, making it hard to see a threat. Walking to the door, I felt a little post-traumatic stress, but suppressed the feeling, holding Jennifer’s hand. Before, she’d been on the outside. Now I had her with me. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
I walked into the interior, surveyed the room, and saw Samir in the back, sitting with an older guy dressed like a local, wearing a tweed jacket and a white skullcap. Samir waved, and I waved back, telling the hostess I was with him.
I went to the table, glancing around me as I did. I saw two men to my left at a table, and two men to my front against the wall. They were all young, mid-twenties, and were dressed in a more Western style, with two of them wearing ball caps, but they had a hard air about them.
Security. At least that’s what I hoped. If they were simply protection, I had no issue with it. If they were trying to roll me up like had happened the last time I was here, they would all die.
Samir stood up and hugged me, and I returned the embrace. He turned to Jennifer and did the same, truly seeming to mean it. He held her shoulders and said, “It’s good to see you, Koko. Climbed any walls recently?”
She smiled and said, “More than I care to admit.”
He said, “Sit, both of you, sit. It’s really good to see you.”
We did, and I said, “Who’s your friend?”
The man was glowering at me like he wanted to set my balls on fire. Not exactly a good start to negotiations.
The man said, “You can call me Muhammed.”
I laughed and said, “Sort of like John Smith, is that it?”
He didn’t get the joke, looking at Samir. I said, “Sorry, I’m not trying to cause a fight here.”
Muhammed said, “What do you want? Why did you come here?”
I said, “I need the phone number for one of your men. He’s with some people who are trying to start a war. I want to stop them.”
He said, “It is you people who are starting a war. You people who are looking for a pretext to cause a fight.”
I looked at Samir and said, “Is this the guy? Can he talk to the leadership?”
Samir glanced at Muhammed and said, “He can talk to the leadership of Hezbollah. I can’t promise they’ll do the same with Iran.”
I turned to Muhammed and said, “We’re about to be at war. If we do that, it’ll be the end of your existence. It’ll be total. Iran will be gone, and so will Hezbollah. You understand that, right?”
“I understand that you will pay a heavy price for such a thing. Afghanistan and Iraq rolled up times ten.”
I said, “Exactly. We don’t want that. We really, really don’t, no matter what you guys think. We do not want a war. You think we’re making up the killings around the world to give us an excuse, but the killings are real.”
He hissed, “The killings are from someone else. You’re just using them as a punching bag. We have nothing to do with them.”
I leaned back and said, “Yes. We know that. You are not responsible for them. Someone else is causing it, and they’re blaming you to cause us to go to war. You people are playing into their hands. Every strike you do, every show of force is backing us up against a wall. We need you to stop.”
He looked at Samir, then said, “How do I know this is true? How do I know you aren’t just trying to gain an edge on the fight?”
I said, “Honestly, you don’t. But do you have a smartphone?”
He looked confused for a moment, then said, “Yes.”
“Is it an iPhone?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to airdrop you a message from the president of the United States. It’s a message from my commander in chief. It’s real.”
Surprised, he said, “I can’t trust that.”
I said, “I know. There’s no way to prove it’s a true message, except for one thing: I traveled here, to Lebanon, to give it to you.”
I pointed at his two security teams and said, “At great personal risk, I might add. My national command authority wants to head off a war, and they asked me to do this.”
I kept my eyes on him, and an attractive woman approached our table. About twenty-five years old, she had that sultry look that seemed to be inherent in Lebanese women. I glanced at her, did a double take at her beauty, and saw Jennifer smile at my reaction.
I waited on her to say something, but she went to Samir and hugged him. I looked at Jennifer and she said, “Don’t tell me you thought she was coming over here for you.”