McCarter stood and took the phone. He had long ago learned to mask his accent when needed. “Hello?”
A woman spoke. McCarter tried to place her accent and couldn’t. “You are inquiring after the Labaki woman?”
“I am.”
“Give me your cell. I will contact you. You will need to come to Beirut.”
McCarter gave her his cell number. The phone went dead in his hand.
“And?” James asked.
“We’re going to Lebanon,” McCarter announced. “And we’re going to need guns. But I don’t want to raid the US Embassy armory here or across the border. Someone knows we’re here and they’ll be watching.”
Rabovskya smirked over her coffee cup. “I might be able to help you with that.”
Nahariya, Israel
AS PHOENIX FORCE drove along the coast, McCarter looked left from the driver’s seat out into the Mediterranean.
An Israeli Navy Sa’ar 5-Class warship patrolled close to shore. Tensions were high. Hezbollah rocket attacks out of Lebanon had hit Israel just seventy-two hours ago and the idyllic Mediterranean beach community of Nahariya was only six miles from the border. Tanks, APCs and military vehicles were everywhere. Armed IDF soldiers loitered on every street corner. Israeli F-16 fighter jets in ground-attack configuration screamed low overhead with monotonous regularity. Smoke from their guided bomb and missile strikes rose into the sky over the border like the output of Industrial Age smokestacks.
McCarter left the strip and headed inland. He happily worked the gears. The Škoda Yeti was a VW-owned, Czech-manufactured SUV and technically a five-seater. However, none of the five members of Phoenix Force could be described as lithe or dainty. It was a little crowded for Manning, Encizo and Hawkins in the back.
The Yeti was a four-cylinder but it came loaded with a variable geometry turbocharger, a direct-shift, seven-speed gearbox and had torque on loan from God. It had a sunroof and decent windows to shoot from. That was if they could get guns. Trying to smuggle guns into Israel was mildly suicidal.
Buying them on the thriving internal Israeli black market was a more viable option but only slightly less dangerous.
McCarter pulled up to what could only be described as an automotive stalag camp. Three Quonset huts squatted behind a twelve-foot-high, chain-link fence topped with razor wire. A fourth hut, looking like a twisted and blackened beer can, appeared to have been hit by a rocket.
A sixteen-foot scaffold stood behind the pair of connected trailers that formed the office. The scaffold had a satellite dish and a ham radio antenna on top, but it sure smelled to McCarter like a currently unoccupied machine gun tower. McCarter drove beneath a weathered sign covered with strings of Christmas lights that read Corkie’s Autohaus in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
Maan Korkaz stepped out of a trailer.
McCarter and James shot each other a look. The Druze auto mechanic and reputed arms dealer bore an extremely disturbing resemblance to the bearded, evil, mirror-universe Spock from the original Star Trek series, save that he didn’t have pointed ears and he wore a blue mechanic’s boiler suit. Unlike Spock, he also smoked unfiltered Turkish cigarettes. McCarter and James climbed out of their SUV.
McCarter tipped his cap. “Morning, guv.”
Korkaz snorted. He spoke with a British accent. “I know someone who has spoken for you.”
“Then sell me some guns, mate.”
Korkaz eyed McCarter astutely. “Brighton Beach lad?”
“You are a gentleman of discernment. This is my friend Cal.”
“Pleased to meet you. Your friends can stay in the car. Follow me.” McCarter and James shot each other another look. The Middle East was a barter culture. Usually tea and hospitality and a feeling-out process preceded deals. Manning, Encizo and Hawkins gave WTF looks from the backseat. McCarter and James rolled the dice and followed as Korkaz led them behind the covered car bays to a small, weed-choked automotive graveyard of rusting hulks. “I don’t know what you have heard, Mer—?”
“David.”
“Call me Corkie. But things are a bit crazy around here of late.”
“Aren’t they always?”
“More than usual.”
“Even for around here?”
“Even for around here.”
Korkaz led them to a rusting yellow school bus. He clambered inside and yanked up a hatch in the floor. A short flight of wooden steps led down into darkness. The Druze hit a switch and cheerfully bright track lighting illuminated a low but spacious bunker full of crates.
“So you want to go into Lebanon?” Korkaz asked.
“No, I don’t.” Phoenix Force had operated in Lebanon on a number of occasions. They had found answers there. Usually at terrible cost, and they were answers that nobody wanted to hear. “But I have to. What’ve you heard?”
“Nothing good. Killings. Inexplicable ones. Bad ones, even for this—how do you say?—neck of the woods.” The Druze suddenly grinned disarmingly. “I would not go there unarmed were I you.”
“So what have you got?”
“I have something for you. I am not sure if it fits the bill, but you may recognize it from your salad days of youth.” Korkaz opened a crate and McCarter felt a twinge of nostalgia as he gazed upon the contents. Korkaz nodded. “No one wants submachine guns anymore. Everybody wants PDWs and ARs.” Korkaz sighed at the dully gleaming cast-steel weapons. “Dying breed.”
McCarter took up one of the submachine guns. The Sterling was a weapon he was well familiar with. Unlike most automatic weapons the magazine curved out from the left-hand side rather than down from the bottom, which made it look vaguely like one half of a backward crossbow. The beer-can-thick, fattened, black metal tube of a built-in sound suppressor modified the barrel of this example. The weapon was a Sterling Mk-5. McCarter had carried just such a weapon during his stint in the British SAS. “Brilliant. Where’s it from, then? India?”
Korkaz blew out a long, thin stream of smoke. “Iraq. Republican Guard security detail.” The Druze nodded at James. “Got them from some Yanks a while back.”
McCarter pulled out a massive wad of Euros. “I’ll take them, and every spare magazine you have. Pistols?”
“Browning Hi-Powers, manufacture.”
It was all old-school British gear and what McCarter had been weaned on. “I have a lad who is something of a sharpshooter. You have anything with a scope sight? Preferably sighted in?”
“I might have something, but most likely old.”
“That’ll do.” McCarter sighed hopefully. “Got any grenade launchers?”
“I wish.”
McCarter’s cell rang. He didn’t recognize the number. He answered in a neutral English language accent. “Hello?”
“The Minerva Hotel. You have ninety minutes. If you are not there, there will be no further communication.” It was the same woman’s voice with the same accent he couldn’t identify.
The line went dead. Korkaz and James looked at McCarter expectantly. McCarter shrugged at Korkaz. “You know the Minerva Hotel?”
The Druze nodded. “I do, Hezbollah took unofficial ownership a decade ago. The IDF has bombed it dozens of times. It is mostly a pile of rubble with a rats’ nest of tunnels beneath that put my poor cellar to shame.”
McCarter just didn’t see his job getting any easier. “You wouldn’t have any hand grenades?”
Korkaz