American Assassin (16 page)

CHAPTER
29

S
AYYED
had just one wool suit. It was black and was worn for special occasions. He was wearing it tonight because it was his warmest suit, and also because to a man like Ivanov, appearances were exceedingly important. He lectured his people about taking care of themselves and was known for firing people who put on too much weight or women who wore too much or too little makeup. Sayyed had carefully trimmed his beard and slicked his black hair back behind his ears. At forty, he was still in decent shape, or at least he wasn’t out of shape. The black suit and white shirt and tie helped hide those few extra pounds he’d put on over the last couple of years.

As he walked toward the restaurant he immediately picked out the men from Ivanov’s security detail. There were four in the lobby, one by the front door, one by the elevators, and two bracketing the entrance to the restaurant. The boy man suddenly appeared from behind a large plant. His cigarette was hanging from the side of his mouth and he was smiling. Sayyed had been in such a rush to avoid the cold earlier that he had failed to notice that Nikolai was extremely handsome. More pretty, really. In kind of a movie star way. There were none of the usual rough edges that were standard with the lackeys in the Russian state security services. His skin was fair, his eyes a greenish blue, and his hair a light enough brown that he would probably be blond if he lived in a warmer climate.

“Your room is nice … Yes?” Shvets asked.

“Very.”

Shvets popped his cigarette case with one hand and offered one to his guest. Sayyed took one, as well as a light.

“Director Ivanov is waiting for you at your table. I hope you are hungry.”

“Yes. Very much so.”

“It is the cold weather. Please follow me.”

The restaurant was decorated in deep reds and sparkling golds, most of it in velvet. It was typical Russian. Heavy-handed and desperate to impress. This backwater behemoth knew nothing of understated class. Sayyed was no snob, but he was proud of where he came from. The Ottoman Empire had lasted for more than six hundred years. After fewer than one hundred years these brutes had gone from one of two superpowers to a mob state.

A haze of blue-gray smoke hung in the air. Every table was occupied. There were easily several hundred people in the restaurant, and they all appeared to be in various states of inebriation. It occurred to Sayyed, for the first time, that the Russians were loud people. Especially when they laughed. Sayyed didn’t recognize any faces, but he guessed they were all very important. That was the Russian way. Even during the height of the great workers’ paradise, the ruling elite had lived an opulent life, separate from the workers. They enjoyed luxuries that the little people never dreamed of.

Two towering men stood watch near a booth in the back corner. Red velvet curtains were pulled open and fastened with tasseled ropes to marble columns. Sayyed glimpsed Ivanov sitting between two young beauties. The man was nearing sixty and was showing no signs of slowing down. He was a consumer of all things that interested him. In a way he was the perfect man to run an intelligence service, assuming his interests were in line with those of the state.

Sayyed had been told that Ivanov’s power had grown significantly in recent years. In the days of the Politburo, the black market was tolerated but never flaunted. During the transfer from centrally controlled markets and government plans to pseudocapitalism, no one was better positioned to take advantage of the new wealth than the men at the KGB. They had the guns, the enforcers, and the spycraft to break, blackmail, or frame any man who did not welcome them to the buffet. And Ivanov had an insatiable appetite.

Ivanov saw him coming and yelled his name. He tried to stand but was stuck between the two girls, so he gave up and sat back down. “Assef, it is good to see you.” The Russian threw out a large hand with rings on the forefinger and pinky.

“And you, too, Mikhail,” Sayyed lied. He reached across the table and clasped Ivanov’s hand.

“If you had turned me down one more time I was going to send my men after you,” Ivanov said with a hearty laugh, although his eyes weren’t smiling.

Sayyed laughed and tried to play along. The comment was without a doubt meant for him to remember. And keep remembering every time Ivanov called on him. Sayyed so badly wanted this evening to end, and it had only just begun.

Ivanov ordered an expensive bottle of Bordeaux and introduced Sayyed to the girls. The blonde one was Alisa and the redhead was Svetlana. The redhead was suddenly very interested in the spy from Syria. That was how Ivanov had introduced him—as a spy, of all things. The Russians might have found the moniker intriguing, but to Sayyed it was an insult, one of many he was sure he would be forced to endure on this cold winter evening.

More wine was ordered, along with plate after plate of food. Sayyed was full by the time the main course was served. Ivanov steered the conversation away from anything serious, and Svetlana steered her hands toward Sayyed’s groin. Sayyed had no illusions about his ability to woo women. He was handsome enough, but not enough to garner the attention of a twenty-year-old runway model. Ivanov had undoubtedly ordered her to take care of him. Sayyed wondered if she would be beaten after he turned her down.

When the plates were cleared, Ivanov nudged Alisa out of the booth and ordered Svetlana to follow. He told the girls to go to the bar and order dessert. As they walked away, he slapped each girl on the ass. They turned around, one giving him a dirty look, the other pouting. Ivanov laughed at them and watched them hold hands all the way to the bar, and then as if a switch had been flicked, he turned all business. After whispering something in one of his bodyguard’s ears, he plopped back into the booth and moved around so that he was sitting a mere foot from Sayyed. The drapes were pulled shut, and they were alone.

“You have been avoiding me.”

He’d said it with a crooked smile, but that menacing glint in his eye was back. Sayyed deflected by saying, “I do not enjoy travel, and the cold weather is something my body is not used to. I meant no offense.”

“Ah … I know what you mean. In the summer I find Damascus to be unbearable. But don’t worry, I wasn’t offended,” Ivanov said, lying to himself more than Sayyed. “I just wish it hadn’t taken this long. We have many important things to discuss.”

“Yes, I know,” Sayyed said, trying to be agreeable.

Ivanov took a gulp of wine and asked, “How long have we known each other?”

“A long time,” Sayyed said, looking into his own glass. “Twelve years, I think.”

“Thirteen, actually. And we have fucked with the Americans like no one else.” Ivanov made a fist and shook it. “Every time they have tried to stick their nose in your business, we have sent them running away like a scared dog.”

“That is true,” Sayyed said, making no mention of all the times the Russians had stuck their long snouts into his business.

“And now they are back again.”

Sayyed was still looking at the expensive French wine in his glass. He could feel Ivanov watching him with intensity. He shrugged and said, “Not really.”

“That is not what I have heard.”

“What have you heard?”

“I have heard you captured one of Langley’s deep cover operatives.”

Sayyed’s mind was swimming with thoughts of murder. The idiots in Damascus, no doubt, had passed the information to the Russian. Did anyone in his government know how to keep a secret? Knowing he was trapped, he said, “We caught one of them snooping around. I’m not sure he was an agent of any particular importance.”

Ivanov smiled. “I think you are being modest.”

Sayyed didn’t know how to answer so he took a drink of wine.

“I am told this man worked in their Directorate of Operations. That he reported directly to Deputy Director Stansfield. That he worked in Berlin and Moscow for a time.”

Someone in Damascus really did have a big mouth. “As you know from experience, these men are trained to lie. I cannot say with any certainty that his claims are truthful.”

“They usually try to understate their importance, not overstate it.”

That was true. “The important thing is that we have bloodied them yet again, and as you know, they do not have the stomach for this kind of thing.”

Ivanov gave him a dubious look. “I’m not so sure these days.”

Sayyed was. “Do not worry yourself with such little fish.”

“This might be a bigger fish than you think,” Ivanov said, with a hint of inside knowledge.

“What have you heard?”

“Things … rumors here and there. Nothing concrete, but I’ve been in this business long enough to smell a rat.”

“What things?”

“Hamdi Sharif.”

Sayyed thought of the recently deceased arms dealer. “Yes. I knew him well.”

“Who do you think killed him?”

Sayyed had heard two rumors. “Mossad more than likely, but there was something else I picked up.”

“What?”

Sayyed was not afraid to repeat the rumor. A man like Ivanov would take it as a compliment. “That he was stealing from you and you had him killed.”

Ivanov looked at him with unblinking focus, but did not respond.

“If that was the case,” Sayyed said, “then that was your right.”

Ivanov shook his head. “If he was stealing from me I would have known, and I would have killed him. But he was not stealing from me.”

“So it was the Jews.”

“No … I don’t think so.”

“Who then?”

Ivanov sat brooding for a half minute and finally said, “I would like to speak to the American rat you are keeping in that basement in Beirut.”

He had not told a soul in Damascus where he was keeping the CIA man, which meant either that Ivanov had obtained the information from one of Sayyed’s supposed allies or that it was a good guess. Whichever was the case, he would need to move the American as soon as he got back. “You are more than welcome to speak to him. You are welcome in Beirut any time. You know that.”

Ivanov began shaking his head at the mention of Beirut. “I cannot. There are far too many things happening here in Moscow. Things that need my urgent attention.”

Sayyed tried to deflect by saying, “So you think the Americans are trying to get back in the game?”

“I don’t think so, I know so.”

Sayyed looked skeptical. “How?”

“Because Thomas Stansfield is finally in charge of their clandestine activities.”

“You think one man is capable of turning that mess around? They don’t have the stomach to get back into Lebanon. This man I caught…”

Ivanov pounded his fist on the table, cutting him off. “Let me tell you something about Thomas Stansfield. I had to go up against him early in my career. The man plots on more levels than you or I are capable of comprehending. He is a master of deception operations. He gets you running around like a dog chasing your tail.” Ivanov circled his hand around his wine glass faster and faster. “You become obsessed with traitors in your midst and you forget to do your job. You see shadows everywhere you turn, and you become completely defensive, and that is just one facet of the man. There is another side, where he is more Russian than American.”

Sayyed had no idea what he meant. “More Russian than American?”

“He is the last of a breed of Americans who knew how to be every bit as dirty as the dirtiest enemy. Don’t let his grandfatherly image deceive you. The man is a street fighter with a big set of Russian balls.”

Sayyed wasn’t sure why the man’s balls were Russian. Beyond that, he thought Ivanov was overreacting. “The Americans haven’t bitten back in years,” Sayyed scoffed.

“I know, and that was because we had the CIA in a box and Stansfield didn’t have the power. But he is in charge of their clandestine service now, and I’m telling you he is going to stick his nose in our business, and we can’t allow that to happen. Trust me. If he gets so much as a toehold, we will be in for the fight of our lives.”

Sayyed still wasn’t convinced.

Ivanov leaned forward, then grabbed the Syrian’s hand. “I am asking you this one time. I will only ask it once. Will you give me the American, so I can find out what he knows? I know your Iranian friends want him, but I will make sure you are compensated.”

This was why Sayyed did not want to come to this godless frozen city. There was nothing in it for him, especially since he was not done dissecting the mind of Agent John Cummins. Unfortunately, there was no way out. If he did not bend to Ivanov’s wishes, he might not make it out of the country in one piece. With a heavy sigh he told Ivanov that he could have the American.

CHAPTER
30
HAMBURG, GERMANY

T
HE
Hamburg operation was significant for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that certain people began to take notice. A single murder can be an accident or an aberration. Two murders in as many weeks, separated by time, but connected by relationships, is a tough one to swallow for people whose job it is to be paranoid. The second reason it was significant was that Rapp finally realized Stan Hurley was extremely good at what he did. Hurley had given them five days to get their affairs in order. They were going on the road and would not be coming back to the States for several months.

The old clandestine officer announced with a gleam in his eye, “We’ve been kicked out of the office by management. They don’t want to see us back in Washington until we have some results to show for all the money and time that’s been spent on your sorry asses.”

Rapp was not given all the details, but he got the distinct impression that Langley was upset about something. Hurley’s attitude had changed even before they left the States. They were to engage the enemy and make them bleed, and the prospect of finally getting back in the game had transformed Hurley. This time Rapp and Richards went in together. Or at least their flights arrived the same afternoon. Rapp arrived second. He saw Richards waiting for him on the other side of Customs. Rapp was carrying an American passport on this trip, and he handed it to a nice-looking older gentleman, who flipped through the pages with German efficiency. The backpack, jeans, and beat-up wool coat must have been enough to tell the man he was not here on business, because he didn’t ask that standard question, “business or pleasure.” He applied the proper stamps and slid the passport back. Not a glance or a question. Rapp laughed to himself. If only it was always this easy.

The two men shook hands and made their way to ground transportation, where they took a cab to the harbor promenade or Landungsbrücken, as it was known to the locals. A big cruise ship was coming into port. Tourists lined the sidewalk gawking at the massive ship that looked completely out of place so close to all the old brick buildings. Rapp and Richards did not gawk. They were on the move toward the warehouse district, where Hurley was waiting for them.

They passed a prostitute working the riverfront. Richards turned to Rapp and said, “Isn’t this where the Beatles got their start?”

Rapp cracked a small smile. He liked Richards. The guy was quirky in a normal way. They were in Hamburg to kill a man and Richards wanted to talk about the Beatles. “Never heard that,” Rapp said.

“Pretty sure they did. They played some strip club for something like two months straight.” Rapp didn’t say anything. “I’d like to see it while we’re here.”

Rapp cocked his head and gave Richards a long look before couldn’t help himself and started laughing.

“What?” Richards asked.

Rapp lowered his voice and said, “We’re here to kill a man, and you want to go hang out at some strip club where the Beatles played thirty years ago?”

“What’s wrong with that? That we do what we do for living doesn’t mean we can’t do what normal people do?”

Richards had a much easier time transitioning between their two worlds. “You have a point. I can’t wait to see the look on Stan’s face when you ask him.”

“Ha … you watch. If it involves booze and strippers, my bet is he’s all in.”

“You’re probably right.”

The flat was located in one of the hundred-year-old warehouses that had been converted into condominiums near the river. It was damp and cold. A lot like London. Hurley informed them that the majority of the units in the building were as yet unsold. The one they were using was owned by an American company that had purchased it as an executive apartment. Rapp didn’t concern himself with certain details beyond the target, but Richards was more curious. He tried to find out which American company the unit belonged to and if it was a former spook who let them use it. Hurley said if there was something he needed to know he’d tell him. “Otherwise … don’t worry about it.”

Rapp and Hurley hadn’t exactly made peace. It was more of a truce. After the night he’d met George, or whatever his real name was, Rapp, Richards, and Hurley had gone back down to the lake house to begin prepping for the Hamburg operation. Hurley from time to time still looked at Rapp as if he were mentally retarded, but he had cut back on his yelling and cussing. Rapp took this as a sign of détente.

After five days Hurley asked Rapp to take a walk. “Have you gone over the last op in your head?”

“You mean Istanbul?”

“How many ops have you been on?” Hurley asked him with a wake-up expression on his face.

“Sorry,” Rapp said. “Yeah … I’ve thought about it.”

“Anything you would have done different?”

Rapp stared at the ground while they walked. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“The fact that you acted on your own is behind us. I already told you that. Part of my job is make sure you get better. What I’m asking you is a tactical question. When you look back on what happened in the park that morning, once you decided to kill him, is there anything that you would have done different?”

“I don’t know,” Rapp answered honestly. “It all just kind of happened.”

Hurley nodded, having been there before. “That’s good and bad, kid. It might be that you’re a natural at this. Ice in your veins, that kind of shit. Or … you got lucky. Only time will tell, but there’s one thing you did that jumps out as being pretty stupid.”

“What’s that?” Rapp asked. Hurley had his full attention.

“I read the police report.”

Rapp didn’t know why he was surprised, but he was.

“The shot to the heart … it was point-blank. Literally. The report was conclusive. The muzzle of the weapon was in direct contact with Sharif’s coat.”

Rapp nodded. He was there. He remembered it well.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I wanted to kill him.”

Hurley stopped and faced him. “Kid, I’ve seen you shoot. You’re not as good as me, but you’re damn good and you keep getting better. You don’t think you could have popped him from say ten feet?”

Rapp didn’t answer.

“Why did you sit down next to him?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Bullshit,” Hurley said with a smile. “You allowed it to get personal, didn’t you?”

Rapp thought back to that morning, not even a week ago. The feeling came back. That split-second decision to sit next to Sharif so he could look into his eyes. He slowly nodded. “Yeah … I guess I did.”

Hurley’s jaw tightened while he processed the admission. “I’m not going to stand here and tell you there haven’t been times … times that I took a certain amount of joy in sending some of these scumbags to paradise … but you have to be really careful. Pick the right environment. Never in public like you did. He could have had a gun, somebody could have seen you sitting next to him … a lot of things could have gone wrong.”

“I know.”

“Remember, in public, the key is to look natural. That’s why I showed you the shoulder holster technique. That’s why we practice it. You look at your watch and no one thinks twice about it. You’re a guy checking the time. You sit down on a park bench that close to another guy and someone might notice. Just enough to cause him to look twice, and that’s all it might take. The next thing you know the carabinieri are chasing you down the street shooting at you.” Hurley gave him a dead-serious look. “Trust me, I’ve been there.” Hurley shuddered at the memory.

“What?” Rapp asked.

“You ever been to Venice?”

“Yeah.”

“The canals.” Hurley made a diving motion with his hands.

“You dove into one of those canals?” Rapp asked while recalling their putrid shade of green.

“And this was thirty years ago. They’re a lot cleaner now than they were back then.”

The condo was raw exposed brick with heavy timber beams secured to each other by sturdy iron brackets with big bolts. The floors were wide plank, more than likely pine, stained light to add a little brightness in contrast to the dark mud-red bricks. The furniture was utilitarian. Grays and blues. Wood and metal frames. Long sleek lines and the kind of fabrics that could be cleaned. Pure bachelor efficiency. It was a corner unit, so it had two small balconies, one off the master bedroom and another off the living room. There was a second bedroom and a loft space with a desk and pullout couch. When they arrived Hurley had everything prepared.

The dining-room table was covered with a sheet. Hurley carefully pulled it back to reveal what he’d pieced together in three short days. The target was a banker by the name of Hans Dorfman. He looked innocent enough, but then again, to Rapp, most bankers did. Dorfman’s crime, as Hurley stated it, was that he’d decided to get into bed with the wrong people.

“You’re probably wondering,” Hurley asked, “why a well-educated man, who was raised a Christian, would decide to help a bunch of Islamic whack jobs wage terrorism.”

Richards looked down at a black-and-white photo of the sixty-three-year-old banker and said, “Yep.”

“Well, officially it’s none of your goddamn business. When we’re given an assignment it’s not our place to question … right?”

Both Rapp and Richards gave halfhearted nods.

“Wrong,” Hurley said. “I don’t care what anyone tells you, HQ can fuck up and they can fuck up big-time. Beyond that, you’ll run into the occasional yahoo who doesn’t have a clue how things work in the real world. When you get a kill assignment, you’d better question it, and you’d better be damn careful. We don’t do collateral damage. Women and children are strictly off limits.”

Rapp had heard this countless times from Hurley and the other instructors. “But people make mistakes.”

“They do,” he agreed, “and the more difficult the job, the greater the chance that you’ll make a mistake, but if you want to make it out of this one day with your soul intact, follow my advice on this. Question the assignments they give you. We’re not blind—or robots.”

Richards was still looking at the photo of the banker. “Stan, are you trying to tell us this guy isn’t guilty?”

“This guy,” Hurley waved his right hand from one side of the table to the other. “Hell no. This Nazi piece of shit is guilty as hell. In fact, guys like this piss me off more than the ones who shoot back. This prick lives in his fancy house, takes two months off every year, goes to the nicest places, and sleeps like a fucking baby every night. He thinks it’s no big deal that he helps these scumbags move their money around. No,” he shook his head, “this is one of those times when I will enjoy pulling the trigger.”