on either side who didn’t want to play ball, and they were few indeed, were usually dealt with in swift and direct fashion.
Among the pottery markets in Safi, Khalidi would seek out one of his regular women and lavish her with an evening of new clothes and fine dining. This did wonders in warming up the young lady lucky enough to be chosen and then Khalidi would satisfy all of his natural urges. Unlike some of his less staid brothers, Khalidi maintained his dedication to the pure faith and neither drank alcohol, nor participated in the perversion of homosexuality. He stuck to females and all of them seemed to understand the relationship was one of convenience.
Abbas el Khalidi never let a woman get too close to him. He had only ever heard from one woman again. She had tried to set him up by claiming she was pregnant with his child. Khalidi had only needed to make a phone call and the girl disappeared, never to be seen again. Khalidi smiled when he thought about that fact. Of course, he had verified with certainty that she was lying before he had disposed of her, since he never would have permitted harm to come to any of his children. However, this girl had been the only one to make such claims and whether by reputation or merely plain good fortune, Khalidi had never been extorted by another. It wasn’t really all that surprising since rumors of such things at least got around in close-knit communities like those in Safi.
Lights came visible, twinkling as he rounded the road of the coastline heading into the city. Safi had a population of less than 300,000 people, while the surrounding communities brought the aggregate total to about a million, all told. Khalidi enjoyed this city above so many others in his country because most of it was sparsely populated, thereby setting the stage for a generally poor community that made most of its money from tourism and sales of handcrafted pottery. In fact, Moroccan pottery and rugs from this region were world-famous, although most of the citizens hardly made a dime from their sales.
Mostly, it was the exporters who took the majority of the profits, and they paid a significant kickback to Khalidi. Not only did pottery cross the transnational boundaries, but drugs did, as well. Yes, Khalidi had built his entire fortune on this type of trade. He had a mind for it, he happened to be very good at it, in fact, and he tended to hire others with a mind for it, as well.
It was dark by the time Khalidi reached the downtown area but still early enough that most shops in the marketplace were open, and people coming home from work crammed the streets shopping for food or other items. Tomorrow was Saturday—while most everyone would go to work it tended to be later in the day because of morning prayers and meetings at mosques throughout the entire Doukkala-Abda region. Khalidi roamed the streets for a while until he found a nicer shop filled with a variety of jewelry.
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
