|
|
|
At 3:30 P.M., Tariq Amin and Max Landau left the cave and walked over to an awaiting jeep to drive down to the checkpoint building and meet with Abdula. Before he climbed into the jeep, Amin took in a long breath of fresh air and stared up at the sun that he hadn’t seen for a few days. He looked around the mountain and the lush forest area that surrounded his mountain enclave and military compound.
‘Are we being watched?’ Amin asked himself as he looked around the rugged area. He’d better not be, he pays his small twenty-five man army good money to protect him. He has a great deal of confidence in his men because most of them had served at one time with the regular Azerbaijani armed services. They never let him down before and there’s no reason to expect that they would now. Next to the local police and the Azerbaijani army, Amin’s men were most feared military group in Azerbaijan. There was a reported waiting list for men who wanted to join his high paying militia. One mercenary thought that the easiest way to enter the group was to kill one of Amin’s men in a bar fight, which is exactly what he ended up doing. The following evening, Max Landau invited the mercenary to come up to the private military camp on the mountain.
Everybody in Ismailly knew of the situation and thought that the mercenary probably earned the right to be inducted into Amin’s elite army. Certainly no one expected to see him hanging from a utility pole in front of the checkpoint building the next morning. The deep knife wounds on his body were undoubtedly the work of Tafar Rasulon.
Amin insisted that his elite army is well equipped and well trained, and above all, they would respect each other as a united brotherhood. An assault on one member was to be considered as an assault on the whole army. Amin knew that if you cut off the tail, someone might try to cut off the head next. After this incident, no member of Amin’s army was the victim of any unprovoked violence.
The local police and Azerbaijani military generally avoided any confrontations with Amin’s small army, mostly because they were concerned that the billionaire was able to furnish his militia with higher quality weapons then they themselves had.
Amin also knew that Abdula Nassir was certainly no overly confident mercenary, and his reputation preceded him like a cloud of locusts. Amin found him to be personable enough, and actually enjoyed his company during their brief meetings prior to today, but he was warned too many times to be very careful with Abdula. The smart advice was to use him, get what you need, and say good-bye.
There was a story of a rebel group in Africa that bought a large amount of automatic weapons from Abdula. Instead of going to get the payment himself, Abdula sent his partner only to find out the next day that the rebels killed him. Calling in a favor from one of his suppliers, Abdula avenged his cousin’s death by showering the rebel’s stronghold with napalm bombs. It didn’t make the headlines, but Abdula was unintentionally credited with ending the rebel threat to a nation. While it cost him a sizable sum of money, the exposure and respect that he received from this action, had paid for itself a hundred times over in the following years.
The world was different now, thought Amin, the stakes were much higher, and the cocky Abdula was here with only two men in Amin’s backyard. There was no room for fear in this business, especially when the prize was immortality.
At the checkpoint building on the main road in Ismailly, Abdula smiled when he saw Tariq Amin and Max Landau pull up in their jeep. Abdula got out of the blue rental truck and went over to meet them.
“Are you finally ready to complete our deal, old man?”
“Here, take your money,” Amin said as he threw a brief case that landed on the ground at Abdula’s feet, “You’re no better than the infidels.”
Abdula ignored him as he picked up the briefcase, laid it on the hood of the truck, and counted the money. He smiled broadly and waved to his men to start unloading the cargo. When Landau had the two guards come over to help, Abdula warned them, “I must caution you, this is a most deadly substance, be careful for your lives.”
As if on cue, Tariq Amin said, “Wait, do not unload yet.”
“Why?” Abdula asked out of frustration, “What the hell’s wrong now?”
“You and your men have safely carried the cargo this far, perhaps you should transport it to our shipping port in Baku for us.”
“That was not part of our agreement, and after all the grief you put me through, why the hell would I want to do this for you?”
“Because you know that I’ll pay you to do it,” Amin said.
“How much will you pay us, old man?” Abdula asked sensing that he now has the upper hand.
“May Allah have mercy on your greedy soul, I’ll give you ten thousand more to haul and unload it in Baku.”
“Twenty thousand,” Abdula countered.
“Fifteen and not a cent more.”
“You drive a hard bargain, old man, fifteen it is, as long as you don’t plan to delay our payment again.”
“There will be no delay.”
“That’s right,” Abdula said as he held out his hand, “I’ll take the fifteen thousand now or you could haul the cargo to Baku yourself.”
Abdula’s men laughed as Amin reached into his robe for his billfold and started counting out the bills that he madly slapped down on Abdula’s hand.
Tariq Amin sneered at the cocky Abdula, wishing that Tafar was there to put manners on him.
“I only have ten thousand with me, I’ll give you the remainder when we get to Baku.”
“You can burn me once, old man, but you don’t want to test me a second time,” Abdula said as he and got into the blue rental truck and slammed the door.
Amin ignored him and climbed into the front of his military truck where Max Landau was already in the driver’s seat.
Earlier in the CIA’s RV, Frank, who was watching the monitors along with the others, said, “It looks like the transfer is going to happen now,”
“Who’s that man in the headdress and robe? We haven’t seen him before,” Hoskins said excitedly as he pointed to Tariq Amin on the monitor, “That has to be the ring leader.”
“I’ll get some close-up pictures and see if HQ could find out who he is,” Leslie said as the camera zoomed in on Tariq Amin.
“What’s going on now?” Frank asked, “He gave him a briefcase that was probably filled with cash, and it looked like they were going to make the transfer, but they stopped.”
“They must have changed their minds about something,” Hoskins said, “Now they’re getting into the two trucks and pulling out.”
“The picture is on its way to HQ, Jack.” Leslie said.
“Alright,” Hoskins said, “There’s no use sitting here, let’s get ready to roll out and follow them,”
 |  |  |
|
|
|