All the murders had been passed off as muggings, car jackings, automobile accidents—and Denny had not suspected a thing. He never understood that his friend and partner Murquin al-Kazaz was actually more like a fox in a henhouse.
And now Kaz was being asked by the most important man in American intelligence to devote all his energies to finding and killing a single American operative, inside the United States of America. At first blush it had nothing to do with Kaz’s overarching mission here in the States, but Kaz would do as Denny requested, because Denny Carmichael’s survival was in the interests of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
13
The three fraternity brothers were stone-cold sober, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that they were also wet, hungry, and pissed, and they hadn’t even killed anything yet.
They’d begun this weekend with such high hopes, and Friday had been a blast. It was Jay’s twenty-second birthday and his father had arranged a memorable time for him and his two best friends. They left the Sig Ep house at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve Friday afternoon and headed to the airport to climb aboard a Cessna Citation Mustang that was owned by Jay’s dad’s law firm. The three boys sipped rum and Cokes served to them by the jet’s leggy flight attendant while they flew to Greenbrier Valley Airport in Lewisburg, West Virginia. From the airport they were driven to the hunting lodge, and as soon as they checked in to their rooms they hit the bar and drank shots with a group of old-timers till late in the evening.
Saturday morning they rolled out of their bunks, groggy and hungover, but riding on adrenaline. Dressed in their new camo, they shouldered their rented rifles and heavy packs and sauntered down to breakfast.
The plan called for their guide to meet them in the lobby, and then they would discuss the strategy of their full-weekend wild boar hunting excursion over pancakes and bacon. The boys figured after that they would all climb onto four-wheelers, drive up into the mountains, and kill shit—maybe do a shot of Fireball or J?germeister every time a hog went down.
But when they met the guide in the lobby by the entrance to the breakfast room, he turned them away from the food and walked them directly out into the rainy morning. When Jay asked the gruff-looking, middle-aged, bearded man what the rush to get out of the lodge was all about, he just said they would be doing less four-wheeling and more “humping” to get to their hide site.
The three boys got the impression humping meant something different to their guide than it did to them.
The man then went through each of the frat boys’ gear and began pulling things out and throwing them in a pile on the gravel drive without a word. Out came the 12-pack of Natural Light, the bottles of Fireball, J?germeister, and Pappy Van Winkle, then the M&M’s, fried pies, and even two bags of Cheetos.
Jay’s dad was a high-profile attorney, Meat’s mom hosted a satellite radio show about Chicago politics, and Stuart’s dad had been deputy mayor of Cleveland, but all three boys were too intimidated by the rough-looking guide to protest. They’d been warned at the lodge by the old-timers that the man was surly and taciturn, but along with these cons, they’d been promised he was also the best hunting guide in the state, so they just rolled with his gruffness.
The bearded man all but pushed them into his huge pickup, although he did promise them food and coffee on the road. As soon as they left the lodge, however, it became clear their breakfast would consist of bagged military meals ready to eat and Folgers instant that they heated in a plastic bag with a chemical heater and then drank out of dirty tin cups.
They drove for two hours with the guide barely speaking, then they slung their packs and rifles and began walking into the mountains.
The guide led them off the trail after another hour and into impossibly dense forest.
They walked, climbed, and stumbled through the woods all day, and they failed to drop a single wild boar. Stuart had fired twice and missed twice, Jay blasted an anthill that sort of looked like a boar from distance, and, although he expended a lot of ammunition, the only thing Meat had killed was three pouches of marbled pound cake and two helpings of beef stew out of the MRE stash in his pack.
The guide was clearly disgusted with them all, but he had not even brought a rifle of his own, so as far as they were concerned he couldn’t prove he could have done any better.
They made camp before last light and ate more MREs, and by then the Sig Ep frat brothers had begun complaining loudly. When they did, the guide gave them the evil eye and a gruff retort about how they looked like they needed the exercise more than they needed pork chops, and then he promised them better results on Sunday.