Friends at Homeland Security by Carl Douglass Page A

strongly that they are well armed.
    Sybil, two seasoned female, and two male agents from covert-ops at Langley, McGee, and Ivory, arrive in two cheap nonmetered cabs they got from the cabstand at the airport. The cabs are old Soviet vintage sedans, battered and of questionable reliability. A tourist would be very hesitant to get into such a taxi and with good reason. However, Ivory’s presence makes the idea of robbery, mayhem, kidnapping, or murder less enticing in the minds of the drivers and their associates from tlM. Sybil is an old hand at haggling, and the two taxis are hired for a ridiculously cheap fare.
    They get out in front of the Armenian Church and saunter in the direction of the internet café where Mac and Ed are sitting and separately find empty tables for themselves. They order plates of Sirene and Kashkaval [salty white cheese and cow’s milk cheese, respectively], a selection of banitsa pastries, moussaka, and bowls of tarator [cold yogurt and cucumber soup]. The food is restorative after the long flight and bumpy cab ride.
    Ed gets up and heads toward the restrooms. Sybil waits a few minutes then excuses herself and leaves in the direction of the lady’s room. She and Ed meet in the backyard of the café amidst the sights and smells of cooking, garbage, and the sounds of pigs being slaughtered the old-fashioned way.
    “How does it look, Ed?” Sybil asks, getting right to the point. “So far so good, boss. He went into the building late last night and hasn’t been seen since. We have a woman posing as a cleaning lady who is keeping an eye on his apartment. As far as she can tell, he has stayed in his rooms all night.”
    “Which floor?”
    “Fifth.”
    “Guards?”
    “Four. They are almost certainly secret service; so, they are not as dumb as they look. And anything they lack in brains, they make up in brawn. Those guys were probably brought in from the farm where they used to eat hay and pull a plow. They are huge and maintain a rigid no-nonsense schedule. The good news is that they have a highly predictable schedule, night and day.”
    He looks at his watch.
    “They will be walking past each other in front of the apartment building in a couple of minutes.”
    “Where can we take them out?” Sybil asks pragmatically, with no more sympathy than if she were discussing the fly problem in the café.
    “The backyard is perfect. It’s full of junk. No self-respecting person would venture anywhere near there in the dark. If the sharp-edged trash doesn’t get you, then the things that go bump in the night will. We can slip in there with night vision goggles one at a time and set up an ambush. The guards do drink and won’t be at their best by around three.”
    “Sounds like a plan. We can’t sit around in the café all day. What can we do with ourselves?”
    “We have a room in a flophouse on Knyaz Boris. It’s a rundown section within walking distance. Nobody pays any attention to anybody else over there. It is one of the few laws the people who live there obey. All of our stuff is in the room. We have some lunch meat, cheese, and Pirinsko beer. It’s all pretty good, and keeps us going.”
    “Sounds good. We’d better split up over the next twenty or thirty minutes and get to the room. We can each take turns watching Mazurkiewicz’s apartment building,” Sybil says, having some difficulty pronouncing Mazurkiewicz’s name.
    “Easy for you to say,” Ed laughs.
    Sybil crinkles her nose at him, and they split up and return to their tables.
    The team holes up in their rooms until late evening. Their quarry has not been out all day. A woman visits him during the late afternoon and leaves at seven. Otherwise, there is no evident activity on the part of Mazurkiewicz. The team holds a meeting and determines a plan, selects and sets aside the equipment they presume they will need, and pours over a detailed city map to be doubly sure of their escape route. A baking company van will be just