The Enemy Within

(D MINUS 33)

Bundled up against the cold, Nikola Tomcic stood on the sidewalk beside an idling green Dodge minivan. He wanted a cigarette, but the short, stocky Bosnian Muslim suppressed the urge. They’d already cleaned out the cheap basement apartment that had sheltered them for the past several weeks, and his tobacco was packed away with the rest of his personal gear. He would simply have to wait. As his instructors had said so often, patience was one of the qualities of a good soldier.

Bassam Khalizad, his team leader, sprinted back from the mailbox and clapped him on the shoulder. “They’ll get the keys in a few days,” the Iranian remarked, his smooth face oddly boyish without its customary beard and mustache. “Not that the fools will care.”

Tomcic nodded sourly. Although the lackadaisical management at the old brownstone apartment house had made it attractive to Khalizad’s team, he still thought the landlords were sloppy even decadent. The wizened old man and woman who owned the building were clearly used to renting out their property to all manner of deviants drug users, alcoholics, boy-lovers, and the rest. So long as they were paid in cash, the landlords paid no attention to their tenants.

Khalizad motioned the young Bosnian into the back of the minivan and slid onto the seat beside Halim Barakat, their driver. “We’re set. Let’s go.”

The sallow-faced Egyptian grunted and pulled out into the light, midday traffic. He threaded the van through the streets with ease. Tomcic had once heard him say that navigating through Chicago was nothing to one used to driving a taxi through Cairo’s teeming alleys. Since the team had slipped across the border with Canada, it had been his job to study the terrain, to know this American city as well as a skilled general knows his chosen battlefield.

Once a member of the Muslim Brotherhood Egypt’s violent Islamic faction Barakat had fled to Iran and into the hands of General Taleh’s recruiters following a government crackdown on dissent. For him and for millions of Egyptians like him, the murdered Anwar Sadat and his moderate successors were nothing more than American and Israeli puppets. The chance the Iranians offered Barakat to lash out against Islam’s enemies had been irresistible.

Barakat kept to the larger streets, but he included one or two random turns, paying close attention to his side view mirrors each time. It didn’t appear that they were being followed. Good enough. He turned his attention to the road ahead, driving with extra precision and care. There were so many things to worry about: the chance of an accident, a random police stop, a carjacking. While the odds of any of them happening were low, and a carjacking would certainly not succeed, anything out of the ordinary could compromise their mission. That worried him most. It worried them all.

Their orders from Tehran were clear: Security was paramount. They could not risk discovery. They must not be captured.

Barakat gripped the steering wheel tighter, focusing on his job as they bounced and jolted over the potholes that dotted this city’s streets. It was important that they all concentrate on their jobs. He drove, Khalizad planned, and the others, well, the others had their own special tasks.

This part of Chicago was a checkerboard of middle-class neighborhoods and rundown public housing. The racial lines were almost as clearly drawn, with white on one side, blacks and Hispanics on the other. And all of the poverty-stricken public housing projects were overrun with crime, with drugs, and with gangs.

Barakat eyed the passing cityscape grimly. A product of the Cairo slums himself, he knew only too well how easy it was to set such places ablaze with hatred.

“Pull in here.” Khalizad nudged him gently and pointed to a deserted block of mostly boarded-up houses and businesses. Fair-haired Emil Hodjic, another Bosnian, was waiting for them behind the wheel of another van, this one dark blue, parked in front of a small abandoned grocery store. He had rented the vehicle that morning, using a forged Illinois driver’s license and a credit card issued in the same false name.

Barakat pulled in behind Hodiic’s vehicle. Led by Khalizad, he and Tomcic scrambled outside lugging duffel bags containing their weapons and other gear. The Egyptian took pains to lock the Dodge behind him. They would need it again soon enough, and the iron bars protecting the empty store’s windows and doors spoke volumes about the kind of neighborhood they were in.

Hodjic met them near the rental van’s rear doors. “Gloves!” he reminded them sharply.

The Iranian and his two companions nodded and paused long enough to pull on thin, flexible leather gloves usual enough wear against the biting November winds blowing westward off Lake Michigan. More important, wearing the gloves should make sure they left no damning prints for later investigators to find.