Chapter 62
RAMADI, IRAQ
EVERYONE over here!”
Azad started toward the open area of ground in between the two convoys without a backward glance, but many of the other truckers were more hesitant.
Muttering sprung up as fingers drifted toward waistbands.
Like most men who operated outside the law’s purview, Ibrahim’s drivers weren’t keen on following orders from someone they didn’t know.
As he’d told Rapp when he’d welcomed him to his crew, Ibrahim hired hard men, and hard men had minds of their own.
Rapp frowned.
This was about to go south in a hurry.
“Listen up, men.”
Rapp turned to see Ibrahim standing on the hood of his truck.
The smuggler paused until he had his crew’s attention.
Then he continued.
“These vehicles will be joining our convoy. I know this is unexpected, but our new customers elected to keep our arrangement quiet for security reasons. As my apology for not being able to disclose what to expect ahead of time, each of you will receive a twenty-five percent bonus for this run.”
The murmuring quieted.
These were smugglers, not altar boys. While they probably weren’t thrilled with the change to the job and the manner in which Ibrahim sprang it on them, they wanted to make money and had just been promised more pay for the same amount of work.
That was a hard deal to beat.
Ibrahim chuckled. “I thought that might make things better. Now, because of the sensitivity of their cargo, I’ve allowed our friends to institute a new security protocol.
I’m going to need you to form a single-file line.
You don’t have to surrender your weapon, just the contents of your pockets.
Anything that causes our customer concern will remain here, but you’ll be free to retrieve the items on our return trip. Understood?”
More mumbling, but the truckers seemed fine with the inspection.
Rapp was not.
The first smuggler in line emptied his pockets into a bucket and then submitted to a pat down. As promised, he wasn’t asked to hand over the pistol tucked into his belt, but he was subjected to something else.
A wanding.
As one of the rifle-bearing paramilitary officers stood watching, a second ran a handheld detector of some sort over the man’s body and the items he’d dumped in the bucket.
Though he was too far away to read the device’s nomenclature, Rapp believed it to be a metal detector.
After scanning the devices in the bucket, the inspector pulled a second device, which resembled a long cigar, from his pocket.
As with the metal detector, the paramilitary officer waved it over the trucker before running it across the top of the bucket.
After glancing at the device, he handed the bucket to the man he’d just inspected and waved the next smuggler over.
Rapp swallowed.
He didn’t like the looks of the second scanner. If the first was looking for metal, the second must be checking for RF or electrical energy.
In other words, a transmitter.
Like the one in his pocket.
Rapp fingered the Zippo as he thought. If the second wand only registered radio transmissions, the lighter should pass inspection.
But if the device was capable of detecting the batteries themselves, or the magnetic field produced by electricity flowing through the radio’s wiring, he was in trouble.
This was to say nothing of what would happen if the guard accidentally triggered the transmit button and caused the lighter to vibrate.
Rapp reached into his pocket and activated the lighter’s transmit functionality. After waiting a second, he did so a second time. The Zippo vibrated with each squeeze.
Then he tried the transmitter a third time.
The lighter didn’t respond.
Withdrawing a cigarette from his pack, Rapp stuck it in his mouth and flicked the Zippo’s striker wheel with his thumb several times as if he were attempting to light the cigarette, while keeping it from igniting by smothering the gas with his finger.
“Piece of shit,” he said angrily. He dropped the lighter to the ground and then kicked it into the bushes.
The smuggler next to him laughed. “Not a great start to this run, huh?”
Rapp shook his head. “Nope. Got a light?”
The man reached into his pocket, dug out a pack of matches, and tossed them to Rapp. “Keep them. It’s gonna be a long night.”
Rapp agreed.