Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

“No order,” he said forcefully. To make his point even more explicit, he drew back the lapel of his jacket, revealing something metallic—the brushed chrome slide action of an enormous pistol in a shoulder holster. “You go now.”


This time, the waiter offered no protest, but almost scurried back, with one hand raised in a gesture of surrender. The Arab watched the blond man retreat all the way to the elevator, before turning back inside and slamming the door.

Instantly, the waiter reversed course and hurried back to the same room’s door. As he moved, he tucked his chin against his right shoulder, and when he spoke into the radio microphone clipped inside his white uniform jacket, all trace of the quasi-German accent was gone. “This is Juggernaut. Package delivered.”

A man’s voice—a laconic Texas drawl—sounded in the flesh colored ear bud connected to the radio. “Roger, Jugs. Receiving, Lima Charlie.”

Lima Charlie, the NATO phonetic alphabet equivalent of the letters L and C, meant the signal from the tiny transmitter that had been surreptitiously placed in the hotel room was being received “loud and clear.”

A murderous gleam appeared in the waiter’s bright blue eyes. “Damn it, Houston. I fucking hate it when you call me ‘Jugs.’”

The man at the other end of the transmission—Sonny Vaughn, the team leader who went by the callsign ‘Houston’—didn’t take the bait. “You’ve got ‘em riled up. They aren’t buying your bogus waiter schtick.”

“It was your stupid idea,” groused the ersatz waiter—Stanley Tremblay, callsign ‘Juggernaut.’ “A German waiter in a fucking Arab country? Really?”

“I explained all this, Jugs. A lot of European tourists come here. And half the workers in Arab countries are foreigners. Besides, the whole point was to stir things up…whoa, standby.” There was a long silence. “Bingo. These are our guys all right. Two men… They know they’ve been made.”

“Is the kid here?”

“Negative.” Pause. “Someone’s making a call.”

“Shit.”

Tremblay swept the stack of neatly folded dinner napkins off the cart. He reached down and plucked up the Beretta 9 mm semi-automatic pistol equipped with a suppressor that nearly doubled its barrel length, concealed beneath. He gave the hotel room door a gentle push—the strip of tape he’d surreptitiously slapped over the strike plate during his first attempt to enter, had prevented the latch from engaging—and moved inside like the Grim Reaper in stealth mode.

In the space of two seconds, he fired four shots—two pairs of bullets for each of the two men standing in the front room. The big Arab that had met him at the door had only enough time to whirl around in surprise before the Beretta gave him the kiss of death. The other man, also of Arab ancestry, but smaller in stature, didn’t even have time to look up from the cell phone he was dialing.

With the gun still held at the ready, Tremblay quickly moved to the second body and scooped up the phone in his left hand. He could hear a tinny voice issuing from the speaker, but he ignored it and thumbed the ‘end’ button.

“Got a number, Houston. Find a name to go with it.” He started to read the digits from the phone’s display, but before he could finish, it started vibrating in his hands. “Shit. He’s calling back. How do you say ‘butt-dial’ in Arabic?”

“Never mind that, Jugs. Hold the phone next to the radio. I’ll try to bluff ‘em.”

The phone squirmed like a living thing in his hands. Tremblay hastily unplugged the mic and earbud wires from the radio unit clipped to his belt, then held the cellular phone next to it and hit the button to accept the call.

The conversation that followed was brief and incomprehensible. Despite his southern roots, Vaughn did a passable job of mimicking the voice of the phone’s former owner—an imitation based on the snippets of conversation he’d overheard from the listening device—but when the call ended, there was a note of urgency in his next transmission.

“They’re spooked, pardner. I got an exact GPS location from the call: Mualla, the port district.”

“The kid is there?”

“Hope so. But we can’t wait for you.”

Tremblay scowled. “Story of my life. I do all the work, but you guys get to have all the fun. Come pick me up when you’re done.”

“Roger, out.”