105

They pulled onto the airport grounds.

Jenny ordered everyone to keep quiet, let Tomer do the talking, and whatever they did, keep their weapons out of sight. It was hardly a necessary reminder for a team that had successfully cleared a half-dozen checkpoints already. But she was taking no chances.

They got in a line behind a dozen other cars. Each driver was being asked numerous questions about where they were going, what flight they were taking, where they had just come from, and so forth. Trunks were being checked. Occasionally luggage was being opened too. None of it boded well, but Jenny, boiling under her abaya even though she had asked Tomer to jack up the air-conditioning to full blast, did her best to stay calm. Under the black gown, she had a fully loaded Uzi submachine gun. She was the only member of the team who had her hands on her weapon. Everyone had theirs strategically hidden close but out of sight. If things went badly, she had to be the first to respond.

It took almost twenty minutes, but it was finally their turn. Tomer pulled forward, then came to a complete stop. As instructed, he put the Toyota in park and turned off the engine.

“Passports,” the lead officer asked.

Tomer handed over five well-worn Lebanese passports.

“Destination?”

“Actually, none of us are traveling today, sir,” he explained in Arabic. “We have business in the cargo terminal.”

“What kind of business?”

“It is a bit sensitive.”

“Do I look like I care?” asked the officer.

“No, sir, it’s just that—never mind—we are meeting the owner of a casket company. He said he would meet us here. I’m afraid we have some . . .”

“Some what?”

“Well, sir, we have some bodies.”

“Bodies?”

“Yes, sir—corpses that need to be put in coffins and shipped out.”

“To where?”

“Tehran.”

“Why Tehran?”

“Because they are all fighters, members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

“I see,” said the officer. “And where are the bodies?”

Tomer nodded toward the rear of the van. “In the back.”

“Show me.”

“Of course.”

With the guard’s permission, and under the careful watch of several armed soldiers, Tomer got out and walked around to the back of the vehicle. He unlocked and opened the doors and saw the officer recoil.

“They are not refrigerated?”

“Not yet,” said Tomer. “But they will be soon. Again, that is why we have come.”

“From where?”

“The south. The fighting is very bad there.”

The officer nodded. “Open one,” he said.

“You’re sure?” asked Tomer.

“Of course. I served as well. I have, unfortunately, seen my share over the years.”

“Very well.” Tomer went for the bag he knew was the most revolting, the one with the various heads, arms, and legs. The man instantly recoiled and fought to suppress his gag reflex.

“Enough,” he said. “Proceed.”

With that, the officer waved them through. His colleague lowered the steel barrier. Tomer got back in the van, retrieved their fake passports, and drove forward. Two minutes later, well out of sight of the checkpoint at the airport’s front gate, they pulled up to the Turkish Airlines cargo terminal. Only Noah got out of the van, however, and headed straight for the guardhouse. The Radwan uniform bought him the element of surprise, and he used it to great effect. Before the guard had finished asking him his business, Noah had tased him. Fifty thousand volts of electricity left the man paralyzed, and he dropped to the floor.

When Jenny was certain no one was watching, she radioed for Noah to enter the guardhouse. He did so, then ducked down out of view for about a minute. When he reappeared, Noah was sitting on the man’s stool, wearing the guard’s shirt, hat, and sunglasses. A moment later, he opened the main garage door and waved them forward.

Knowing that Noah had injected the guard with the same narcotics they were using on Abdel Rahman and could now monitor all the CCTV cameras in and around the building, Jenny ordered Tomer to get inside as quickly as possible. The moment they were in, Jenny radioed Noah to shut the door behind them. Tomer, however, did not stop. Weaving through shipping containers, various pallets of goods being readied for the next flight, and any number of workmen using forklifts and pallet jacks, he made his way to the far side of the enormous warehouse.

Meanwhile, Geoff and Noah were helping Marcus extract himself from the body bag and getting him cleaned off. By the time Tomer pulled to a stop and set the brake, Marcus’s face and beard were clean. So were his hands. He had pulled on a pair of gloves and donned a black balaclava, as had the rest of the team. Jenny, too, had extricated herself from the abaya, suited up for combat, and was ready to go.

Bursting out the back and side doors of the van, every team member moved to the position to which Jenny had assigned them, while Tomer kept the engine running. Jenny sprinted to a prefabricated metal staircase located in the corner of the facility and bounded up the steps two at a time. When she reached the second floor, she raced around the steel-grating walkway that rimmed the facility, set up her sniper rifle, and hiding behind a stack of large crates, prepared to give her men cover.

Hefting a M60E4 light machine gun with a backpack full of additional ammo, Callaghan headed directly to a nearby men’s room. He checked each stall to make certain there was no one inside, then positioned himself just inside the doorway. This gave him the clearest, least obstructed view of most of the men working on the warehouse floor and any threat that might approach.

Marcus and Geoff grabbed their M4 carbines and zigzagged down a series of double-wide hallways to the storage container al-Masri had rented, Geoff in the lead, Marcus covering their six. Given the early hour, there was no activity in this section of the warehouse. Noah was tracking their every move on the bank of monitors in the guardhouse and radioing them and the rest of the team about what was around each corner. That would have been exceptionally helpful in any other scenario.

There was only one problem. When Marcus and Geoff burst into the storage container, it was empty.