Chapter 48
Gazing out the window of their new hotel room, the Ghost tapped his fingers on the sill. He said, “You’re sure you got away
clean?”
Behind him, Omar said, “Yes. How many ways can I say it? We left without any interruption, and now we’re here. We went right
past the police and nobody was stopped.”
The Ghost turned around and said, “They had Yassir and Fatima’s passport information. They are no good to us for the primary
mission.”
“They’re returning to the Triple Frontier this afternoon. They’ll be fine. It’s not a compromise of the plan.”
“How are they getting there? Renting a car with the same card?”
“No. They have their own contacts.”
The Ghost took a seat and said, “Tell them I need them for the diversion. They need to remain here, hidden, then they’ll extract
the VBIED from the garage when I give the command. The card won’t trigger until they exit, and at that point, it won’t matter.”
Omar said nothing for a moment, then, “They aren’t Pasdaran. They’re Hezbollah. I can’t order them to do anything.”
“Just ask them. Let them know how important this is. They can still use their travel arrangements after this is done. We’re
close to the endgame here, and they’ll want the success instead of running with their tails between their legs back to the
Triple Frontier. They’ve suffered almost as much as the Palestinians from Little Satan.”
Omar nodded and said, “You’re probably right. I’ll ask them. I’ll get them to continue, but how do you feel about the mission now?”
The Ghost toyed with his counterfeit press pass and said, “I think we’ll be okay. They found the card and obviously have made
a connection to it and to the Pasdaran, but they have no idea of the actual threat vector. If anything, it may create enough
smoke to allow us to succeed. Are you worried?”
The Ghost understood implicitly that whatever Omar said next would be tainted, as Omar would have none of the risks that he,
Ramzi, and Khalil would. He wasn’t entering into the lion’s den. His job was transportation only, and he would fly away whether
the rest of them showed up to the aircraft or not.
Omar said, “I agree with you. Unfortunately, we will only know there is a problem when the Zionists close their claws after
we’ve voluntarily entered.”
The Ghost chuckled and said, “True, true, so tell me the new card you used for this hotel isn’t connected to the last. There
is no way for Mossad to unravel that knot, is there?”
“No, we have plenty of different accounts to use, this one is from Brazil. They’re all fed from an offshore Tether account,
so money will not be an issue.”
Alarmed, the Ghost said, “All are fed from a single account? What is Tether? Can someone find this Tether account and trace
it to the new cards?”
Omar raised his hands and said, “No, no, that’s not possible. Quite the opposite. Tether is a method of transferring funds
using cryptocurrency.” He saw a look of confusion on the Ghost’s face and said, “You know what crypto is, right?”
“No.”
Omar said, “Well, it’s too difficult to explain. Suffice to say it’s like a digital hawala, and its outside normal banking systems. It’s safe, and we have plenty of funds to continue.”
The Ghost understood the hawala system well—an ancient Middle Eastern method of transferring money that simply relied on two trusted agents, without any
real funds going from one to the other. He’d financed plenty of operations in the past using hawala, and if Tether was the modern equivalent, he was satisfied about the security of future expenditures. He still had doubts,
however, about ones made in the past.
He said, “Okay, I trust the new card, but you used the old bank account more than just at the hotel and rental card agency.
What about our exfiltration after the mission? You didn’t use the same card for all of that?”
“No. Ushuaia is incredibly remote. That entire segment was cash only. We have a safe house and a boat to get us to Chile.
All of that is secure, I promise, as my life depends on it just as yours does. Whether you get to our plane is another question
entirely, but if you do, I’ll get you out.”
The logical place for the team to retreat was the wild west area of the Triple Frontier, just as the Hezbollah killers had
done after the initial attack on the Jewish center in 1994, and the planned exfiltration direction of the current Hezbollah
team. Precisely because it was the most likely escape route, the Pasdaran had decided to go the opposite direction, to the
town of Ushuaia.
Called the End of the World, it was the capital of the remote region of Tierra del Fuego and mainly known as the jumping-off
point for research trips and tourist cruises to the Antarctic. It was also adjacent to the Patagonia region of Chile, where
they could trade one remote, lawless area for another, working their way up to Santiago by boat and onwards travel out of
the region, completely dislocated from the operation in Argentina.
The Ghost nodded, saying, “I’ll be at the exfiltration aircraft one way or the other, but you need to let Sardar know what
happened here. Is he using tainted cards?”
“No. His cards are the same ones Cyrus is using to go home. It’s not tied to the Argentinian bank account that was used for
the other purchases.”
“Tell him anyway. Ask him to switch accounts. He can do that, can’t he?”
Omar nodded and the Ghost said, “Good. One can’t be too careful. We have no idea what Cyrus is doing. He might be the weak
link here.”
Slightly offended, Omar said, “If something had happened to Cyrus, we would have heard. He’s probably already back in Tehran.”
“Do it anyway. We have enough problems executing a successful mission.”
He pushed a Pelican case in front of him with his foot, saying, “When the Pasdaran said they had some magic means of sneaking
in a weapon, I didn’t expect this.”
Omar said, “You mean the escape method? It looked good to me. Just like a battery belt for the camera.”
The Ghost said, “No. That part is good. Ingenious, actually. I’m talking about this.”
He flipped the locks on the Pelican case and opened the lid, revealing what looked like an older-model Sony over-the-shoulder
digital camera. He pulled it out of the case, saying, “From my research, this is on the verge of obsolete in the world of
news crew video cameras, but I guess the size was needed.”
He put it on his shoulder as if he was using it and said, “I practiced with it earlier. It works as intended, but it’s single
fire. I get one shot, and that’s it.”
“You can’t reload it?”
The Ghost chuckled and set it down on its end, then unlocked the lens revealing a hollow space where there should have been
CMOS sensors and other electronics. He reached into the Pelican case and removed what looked like a six-inch-long arrow, saying,
“It’s a reverse-draw crossbow. You load it through the lens, then put the lens back on.”
He did so, then said, “To cock it, I hold the zoom function on the lens. The bolt is set on a rail, and rises into place as
the arms are drawn. I aim through the eyepiece, and it exits through the boom mic.”
He put it back on his shoulder, slid his right hand under the strap of the zoom function of the lens and pressed it forward.
A slight whirring could be heard, but that was all.
Something inside clicked, and he put his brow to the eyepiece.
He aimed, then pressed the rear button on the zoom mechanism.
There was an audible snap, and then a deep thump.
Omar looked across the room and saw the bolt had speared a picture of flowers on the wall, now sunk up to the vanes through the frame and drywall.
The Ghost placed the camera on the floor and touched the furry windscreen at the end of the false boom mike, saying, “It self-heals
after every shot, hiding where the bolt came from.”
Amazed, Omar said, “That’s incredible. I had no idea we had such technology. Where are the limbs? How does it work?”
“I don’t know about the internals for the cocking and other things, but like I said, it’s a reverse-draw. The limbs are drawn
towards the front instead of the rear, making it compact enough to fit in the body.”
Omar picked up the camera and said, “I don’t know why you’re complaining. It seems perfect. No bullets to be found on X-ray,
everything made of composites. I’m assuming it will pass X-ray scrutiny?”
The Ghost chuckled and said, “I should be asking you that. All I did was read the instructions that came with it. They didn’t include X-ray photos. I’m assuming so, or why go
to the trouble?”
Omar said, “True, true. The engineers wouldn’t have built it if it didn’t work, so what’s the issue?”
“There are no issues. I’m just telling you that we’ll get one shot. If I hit him in the head, he’s eliminated, but if I miss,
we’re going into escape mode.”
Omar said, “The first shot is always the most important. Even if you could fire a second time, you probably wouldn’t get the
chance.”
They sat in silence for a moment, then Omar said, “We have the full day tomorrow. Last day to get anything done we need to.
What do you envision? A reconnaissance of the AIMA building?”
The Ghost shook his head, saying, “No. Nobody goes near the Jewish center. I have no idea what cameras or systems they have
in place. We go in cold. Everyone stays inside the hotel tomorrow, especially Yassir and Fatima. They’re wanted, and they
have to execute the diversion. I can’t have them getting arrested.”
“Khalil is the escape driver and I need to make sure the aircraft is ready. At least let him drop me off at the airport and run the route so he knows where he’s going.”
The Ghost considered, then said, “Okay. But he doesn’t drive directly by the Jewish center. Tell him to go one road over,
and you finish the preparations, then come straight back.”
Omar stood up, saying, “We’ll go after lunch and be back before nightfall.”
The Ghost nodded, saying, “Take the pistols with you just in case. I may be paranoid, but it’s kept me alive. And be sure
and tell Sardar about the cards.”
Omar moved to the door saying, “I will, I will.”
The Ghost said, “Wait.”
Omar stopped and the Ghost said, “I think it’s time I learned exactly what’s going on. What is Sardar doing?”
Omar held up his hands and said, “We’ve been through this. You know I can’t tell you. You’re the one who is so firm about
security protocols, so stick with them.”
The Ghost said, “I killed for you the other day simply because you were stupid enough to let the drug dealer know you had
a passport from Qatar. Don’t tell me about security.”
Omar remained standing, mute.
The Ghost said, “I deserve to know.”
Omar shifted from one foot to the other, then said, “Okay. Sardar is planning a spectacular attack in Washington, DC.”
Surprised, the Ghost said, “By himself? Are there Hezbollah in the United States as well?”
Omar smiled and said, “No. He’s using Americans.”
“Americans? There is a group of Americans willing to help the Pasdaran?”
“They don’t know they’re helping, but they will all the same because of greed.” He laughed and said, “It’s the American way.
Sardar will leverage them to strike the Great Satan hard for all it has done to us.”
The Ghost thought about the motorcycle gang that had freed him, then focused on Omar’s last words. He said, “ ‘Us’ as in you Persians in Iran, or who?”
Omar huffed and said, “Us, man. Us. All of us.”
“Sardar mentioned that ‘my people’ would be the ultimate martyrs. What did he mean by that?”
Omar held up his hands, saying, “I’ve told you enough. Let’s focus on this mission and let Sardar handle the others.”