Choke Point

Khalidi stepped into the building and knew immediately the shopkeeper was doing well. The store had full electrical service and also ran an air-conditioning system. Khalidi nodded at the man and perused the shop for about an hour until he found the perfect trinket. He paid cash, adding a little extra when the proprietor moaned about his large family.

He could empathize with the old man, who did not look to be too healthy. After all, Khalidi had been there once—he was a businessman, not a monster.

Khalidi proceeded directly from the shop to the central marketplace, where he eventually found what he’d been searching for: Jasmina. Yes, a most excellent choice for the mood he was in. Not only was she a beautiful young woman, elegant and graceful for a commoner, but she’d also proved very accommodating to just about anything Khalidi suggested. Willing to please, with skin like bronzed gold and dark, sensuous eyes. He’d not seen her in some time but it only took a moment before the flicker of recognition crossed her features.

She greeted him with a warm smile, her dark eyes sparkling. The light reflected back from the rattan shades drawn over the marketplace that were strung between the buildings to provide shade to shoppers in the brutal heat of the day. They were doubly useful by reflecting the firelight in the evening and reducing the demands for electric lighting. In some parts of the city the local government would still cut power to conserve electricity.

“Good evening, Jasmina,” Khalidi said.

She inclined her head in a bow of respect and replied, “Good evening, Master el Khalidi.”

“Come, come, there is no reason to be so formal.”

“If I seem too formal it is only out of respect and not to offend you.”

“Are you not glad to see me?”

Jasmina nodded with enthusiasm. “I am most glad to see you, Abbas, but your arrival here and at this time took me unaware.”

“Come and have dinner with me,” Khalidi said, moving close and tracing the smooth skin of her arm with the back of his hand. “I am most interested to hear of how you have been.”

“And perhaps interested in something else?” she asked with a knowing expression.

“Yes,” he replied with a smile. “Perhaps, no...definitely more.”

“It will be my pleasure to serve you, Abbas.”

Khalidi couldn’t ignore the sudden swell in his groin. “And mine.”

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“NO QUESTION ABOUT IT, lady and gents,” Lyons told his colleagues at the Farm. “This is one nasty outfit we’re dealing with. The intelligence you got from that Justice contact wasn’t exaggerated by any stretch.”

“How much information were you actually able to get from the subject Able Team took alive, Cal?” Price asked the Phoenix Force warrior.

“Quite a bit,” James said. “It’s all in the notes I took.”

“Not to mention, most of it shouldn’t be too difficult to verify,” Blancanales added.

Brognola nodded. “Bear’s working on it as we speak. I’d imagine he’ll cook up a mess of data in no time at all.”

The statement didn’t surprise anyone in the War Room. Aaron “Bear” Kurtzman hadn’t been defeated by the bullet in his spine that had confined him to a wheelchair. Lesser men would have suffered an irreversible psychological trauma, adopting an attitude of self-pity that would have crushed them for the duration of their lives. Not Kurtzman. The man’s spirit was nearly as indomitable as his wrestlerlike upper body, a physique he kept in prime condition through exercise and, as his best friend and confidante Barbara Price had pointed out on more than one occasion, “sheer orneriness.”

As soon as they had notified Stony Man of their intelligence gleaned from James’s interrogation of the prisoner—intelligence that the outfit they were fighting actually operated on an international scale—Brognola had ordered a full-alert status for the remaining members of Phoenix Force. They now sat around the table, most in various modes of dress indicative of their actions.

Rafael Encizo had been volunteering for diver duties with the D.C. police in search of a missing mother who’d gone out for a jog as she did every night and never returned home. David McCarter and T. J. Hawkins had been at a local gun-club event, participating in a regional shooting match. Gary Manning had actually been the farthest one out, embarked on a hunting trip with some friends in the deep, rugged forests of the southern Smoky Mountains.

“What’s the general lay of it, guv?” McCarter asked.

Brognola looked at Price. “Barb?”

Price, the Stony Man mission controller, nodded and began, “This group calls itself the Red Brood. At first we thought it was a kidnapping ring with a radical agenda aimed at internal politics. Now, with the information courtesy of the man Able Team managed to take alive, we’re convinced there’s a lot more to it than that.”

“Isn’t there always,” Hawkins interjected in his Texan drawl.

“Look on the bright side,” Schwarz said. “Job security.”

“All right, pipe down and you might learn something,” Brognola said.

As if on cue, Kurtzman entered the War Room and proceeded to his reserved spot. He brought up the computer projector—one much older than the modern facilities in the Operations Center of the Annex—beginning with the picture of a very young and handsome Arab in his twenties.

“I’ve run the gambit on the intelligence you brought back,” Kurtzman told the group. “It’s mind-boggling.”

“That’s serious coming from Bear,” James said.

“All, I would like you to meet Abbas el Khalidi, head of the world news outfit known as Abd-el-Aziz and suspected by Interpol as one of the biggest drug kingpins ever.”

“Drugs?” Lyons shook his head. “I thought we were dealing with a white-slaving group.”

“We are,” Brognola said. “But white slavery’s just the tip of the iceberg. And it’s plainly obvious the Red Brood is only a front for Abbas el Khalidi’s international drug transshipping pipeline. Now that Aaron’s identified Khalidi as a player in this, there’s no doubt left in my mind that we’ve stumbled onto the real threat.”

“Seems a little crazy that someone as high-profile as Khalidi would dabble in drug and human trafficking,” Encizo said. “I don’t get the connection.”

“There’s a big connection,” Price said. “And don’t assume that Khalidi’s a mere dabbler in this thing. Abbas el Khalidi’s been on our radar for quite some time, but up until this point we had no reason to think he posed any serious threat to the United States. Mostly he was suspected of trafficking narcotics out of his home country of Morocco and into areas all over Europe.

“Now it’s plain to see he’s up to much more than that, including using the Red Brood as a way to funnel additional funds to support his main effort.”

“And he’s decided to target American kids to do it,” McCarter said.

His voice edged with quiet anger, Lyons said, “I think I speak for all of us when I say I want a shot at bringing this guy down. Hard.”

“Well, you’re going to get it,” Price said. “Although I’m afraid you may not get a personal meeting. Khalidi is a known recluse and rarely travels outside of Morocco save for the occasional appearance at one of his satellite companies. He’s been known to travel to Spain rather often, but in all cases he manages to operate outside the jurisdiction of either U.S. officials or Interpol.”

“So he sticks to places where Americans are effectively persona non grata,” Hawkins ventured.

“Correct.”

“There are a number of allied intelligence organizations who’ve attempted to assassinate Khalidi,” Brognola said, “but they’ve always somehow managed to miss the target. Mostly because he doesn’t stay in one place long enough to establish a pattern, and his travels are typically kept secret until he’s actually headed to his destination.”

“And as previously indicated,” Price said, “he’s not posed any direct threat to this country. Now the situation has changed and we’re pulling out all of the stops. We have the full cooperation and direction from the Oval Office to handle this in whatever manner we see fit. The assassination of American citizens and kidnapping of their children for the purpose of drug trafficking is unacceptable on any level.”

“What’s the game plan?” Manning asked, obviously itching to join the fight with the rest of them.

“We’re sending Phoenix Force to Morocco. We’ve secured the cooperation of a local policeman there named Zafar Mazouzi. Officially, Mazouzi’s an employee of the police force in Casablanca, headquarters for Abd-el-Aziz, but we have reliable intelligence he’s been cooperating with Interpol officials to pass whatever information he can on Khalidi’s activities. If he’s managed to stay alive this long, we’re confident he must know quite a bit of Khalidi’s movements and should be an excellent liaison. Your mission, David, is to penetrate the country, disrupt Khalidi’s pipeline operations between here and Morocco and, if the opportunity presents itself, terminate with extreme prejudice.”

McCarter nodded, as did the other members of his team.

Price turned her attention to the trio of Able Team warriors anxious for their own assignment. “As for the three amigos, you’ll board a commercial flight for Florida. Your first stop is Daytona Beach, the district in which Congressman Acres maintained his home and headquarters. Acres is our only lead, not to mention the prisoner you took is from that area. The fact they managed to snatch his son means they had him under observation for some time, knew where he lived and where he worked. That’s the most logical starting point.”