outskirts of the city. Overhead the sky was clear, showing a quarter-moon and a diamond field of stars.
They drove in silence, with Bari lying flat on the backseat until they were past Sabratah, forty miles up the coast from Tripoli. “You can sit up,” Dominic told him from the passenger seat. “How’s the hand?”
“Very painful. What did you do with my fingers?”
“Flushed them down the toilet,” Brian replied.
This was the easiest of his tasks inside Bari’s home. In turn, he had checked Fakhoury and his men for tattoos and identification. He found none of the former but plenty of the latter; these he put in the tote bag. Next he fired three rounds into the back of each man’s head. The hollow-points did their job, turning each face into so much unrecognizable hamburger. The police would probably be able to eventually identify them, but by the time the URC realized it had lost one of its own, he, Dominic, and Bari would be out of the country.
“You flushed my fingers down the toilet?” Bari repeated. “Why?”
Dominic answered this one. “So there’s no trace of you. The more unknowns they have, the better. Where’s Almasi’s house?”
“East of the city. I’ll recognize the turnoff. It’s across from an old refinery.” Twenty minutes later, Bari said, “Slow down. This next road on the left.”
Brian slowed down and turned onto the dirt tract. Almost immediately the grade increased; ahead, the road wound its way in a series of low, scrub-covered hills. After five minutes the road turned sharply right. Bari, looking out the driver’s-side window, tapped the glass. “There. That house with the lights on. That’s Almasi’s.”
A quarter-mile away down an eroded slope, Brian and Dominic could make out the two-story adobe structure surrounded by a shoulder-high mud-brick wall. Fifty yards away to the west was a cluster of four adobe huts. Directly behind the house sat a barn.
“Old farm?” Dominic asked.
“Yes. Goats. Almasi bought it as a retreat home three years ago.”
Dominic said, “See the antennas on the roof, Bri?”
“Yeah. The guy’s wired for some serious comms.”
They continued on for another half-mile, losing sight of the farmhouse behind a hill, then slowed at a crossroads. On impulse, Brian turned left. The dirt road narrowed for fifty yards before opening into what looked like a gravel quarry.
“This ought to do,” Dominic said.
Brian doused the headlights, coasted to a stop, then killed the engine. They turned in their seats and looked at Bari. “What else do you know about this place?” Brian asked.
“Just where it is, that’s all.”
“Never been here?”
“Once. Just to drive by it.”
“How’d that happen? Just curiosity?”
Bari hesitated. “In my business, it pays to know who you’re dealing with. I knew Fakhoury answered to Almasi. I thought it might be smart someday to deal directly with him, so I made some inquiries.”
“Industrious,” Dominic remarked. “So you’ve never been there, never been in the house?”
“No.”
Brian: “What about bodyguards?”
“I’m sure he has them, but I don’t know how many.” Brian and Dominic stared hard at him. “It’s the truth, I swear on my children.”
“Dogs?”
“I don’t know.”
“Give me your hands,” Brian said. “Put them on the headrests.”
Tentatively, Bari did so. Together Brian and Dominic duct-taped his hands to the headrests. “Is this really necessary?”
“We’re not quite to the trust stage yet,” Dominic explained. “Don’t take it personally. We’ll be back.”
“And if you’re not?”
“Then you’re shit out of luck,” Brian said.
They climbed out, retrieved the tote from the trunk, and sat down in the dirt to sort through their arsenal. In addition to their Brownings, they had four French-made MAB P15 9-millimeter semiautos, and two snub-nosed .32 revolvers.
“Got sixty rounds from the P15s,” Brian said. “Nine-mil Parabellum. Good fit for our Brownings. If we need more than sixty, it means we’ve fucked up anyway.”
They reloaded the Brownings’ magazines, then divided up the remaining loose P15 rounds and stuffed them into the thigh pockets of their cargo pants. Finally, they stuffed some odds and ends into their backpacks. Dominic walked to the Opel’s back window. Bari said, “I need some more aspirin.”
Brian fished the bottle from his backpack and tossed it over. Dominic dropped half a dozen into Bari’s mouth, then gave him a swig from their canteen.
“Don’t go anywhere, and don’t make any noise,” Dominic ordered. He turned to Brian. “Ready?”
“Damn straight. Let’s go bag us a big fish.”
68
HOW’RE YOU HOLDING UP?” Gerry Hendley asked, as Jack sat down across from the desk. Sam Granger stood to one side, leaning against the window, arms folded.
“Aside from getting