American Assassin (30 page)

CHAPTER
57

H
URLEY
had lost track of time. After the fingernail incident, they’d left him alone. Turned off the light and shut the door. He sat in the chair, his arms duct-taped to the armrests and his ankles to the two front legs. His chest and shoulders were also taped to the chair back. Big loops of silver tape, as if he were a mummy. For the first few hours he tried to catalogue everything he’d seen, said, and heard. Abu Radih was what he’d expected—a thin-skinned overwrought child in a man’s body. If he was lucky, he could provoke the man into killing him. That was the first priority. He had to enrage the man to the point where he defied the orders of the others. Go down fighting. He dozed off thinking of his own death. What a beautiful death it would be if he could pull it off. Exercise his will over a free man. Inflict enough mental pain on Radih to get him to do something he himself knew was wrong.

The thought brought a smile to his swollen lips, and then he let his chin rest on his chest and went to sleep. He awoke some time later. It could have been an hour, three hours, or half a day, and what did it really matter? The stink in the room was horrendous, but it was far better than the hood. He needed to go to the bathroom, so he whizzed right there, letting it splash over the seat of the chair onto the concrete floor. That helped him relax a little bit, but his fingers were starting to really sting, so he started talking to God to take his mind off the pain.

Hurley had no illusions about his potential for sainthood. He pretty much knew where he was headed when it was over, and yes, he did believe in the man upstairs and the man downstairs. He’d seen too much nasty shit in his life to think for a second that there wasn’t both good and evil in this world. Where he fit into that paradigm was a little more complicated. One of his favorite aphorisms involved sending Boy Scouts after bad men. Good people needed men like Hurley even if they couldn’t bring themselves to admit it. Maybe God would take pity on him. Maybe he wouldn’t.

Hurley bowed his head and asked for forgiveness for any of the innocent people he’d killed over the years, but that was as far as he was willing to go. The assholes, he would not apologize for. He then nodded off to sleep again. He awoke later to the sounds of a man screaming. He knew instantly that it was Richards. What they were doing to him, Hurley could only imagine. The screams came and went, rising and falling like waves crashing into the rocks. And then Hurley could tell by the steady rhythm what they were doing. They were electrocuting him and they weren’t bothering to ask questions. They were just trying to wear him down. Listening to the pain of one of his own men was the most difficult thing of all.

Hurley bowed his head again and asked God for the strength to kill these men. It went like this for four or five cycles. He tried not to obsess over the time. When he was awake, he tried to prepare himself for what would come next. With an almost endless string of awful possibilities, there was one in particular that had him worried, and when the door finally opened, it was if his captors had read his mind.

A man entered, plugged in the cord for the light, and there in the doorway was a bloodied and battered Richards. Two men were at his sides, holding him up. His wrists were bound in front of him with duct tape. The red marks on his chest confirmed what they had been doing, although it wasn’t all. Richards’s face was beaten and swollen—one of his eyes completely shut.

Sayyed entered the room, a man following him with a chair similar to the one Hurley was in. He showed the man where to place it and said to Hurley, “How are you feeling today?”

“Great!” Hurley said with enthusiasm. “You guys really do a nice job of making people feel comfortable.”

“Yes.” Sayyed smiled. “I’m sure you would show us the same hospitality if we were in your country.”

“Slightly better,” Hurley said, flashing the new gap in his teeth. “You know how competitive we Americans are. We didn’t put a man on the moon by making our women walk around in sheets all day and blowing ourselves up.”

“We all know that was faked.”

“Sure it was,” Hurley said agreeably as they placed Richards in the other chair. One of the men produced a knife so he could cut Richards’s duct tape. Hurley wanted that knife, and in Arabic asked, “Where’s my buddy Radih? Either of you boys ever get a blow job from his mom?” Hurley then launched into an invective-filled description of the sex acts that Radih’s mom used to perform for him.

Sayyed would never admit it, but this American’s descriptive abilities were in a league of their own. In fact, the descriptions were so detailed that even he wondered for a second if it could be true.

Hurley read the unsure looks on the faces of the two goons and said, “You really didn’t know Radih’s mother was a whore? You should try her some time. She’s getting a little up there in age … not quite as tight a fit, if you know what I mean.” Hurley winked at them as if they were of the same mind.

“That will be enough,” Sayyed said. He ordered the men to finish taping Richards’s wrists to the chair. When they were finished he told them they could wait outside.

Hurley smiled at them and waited until they were at the door and then shouted, “Don’t forget to ask Radih about his mother. Dirtiest piece of ass I’ve ever had.”

The door closed with a click. Sayyed placed his hands on his hips and let out an exasperated sigh.

“It’s true,” Hurley said, punctuating his words with an emphatic nod. “The woman was a sex machine. She should have paid me.”

Doctrine told Sayyed he should ignore the comments, but he felt that he needed to say something. “You are a very interesting man, Mr. Sherman. You must be very unsure of yourself.”

“Why do you say that, Colonel?”

“It is so obvious. Do I really have to say it?”

“Well, unless I’ve learned how to read minds since we last saw each other, I suggest you spit it out.”

“You are afraid you won’t be able to stand up to my methods, so you are trying to enrage my colleague to the point where he kills you.”

Hurley screwed on a confused look. “Colonel, you give me way too much credit. I’m not that smart. I’m just a horny bastard who’s slept with a ton of prostitutes … one of whom just happens to Radih’s mom.”

Sayyed laughed at him. “You are an unusual man.”

“What do I have to do to get you guys to take me seriously? I’m going to lie to you about a lot of shit, but I am dead serious about Radih’s mom, and I’m not knocking the woman, she was amazing. And besides, you can’t blame a woman for trying to put some food on the table. Can you?”

Sayyed thought about that for a second and simply shook his head. It was time to take charge again. He wheeled his little cart over and checked his instruments. When he was ready he broke open some smelling salts and stuck them under the other American’s nose. Richards snorted and opened his eyes. Turning back to the foul-mouthed older one, he said, “Your friend, Mr. Richards, was kind enough to give us his name.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Yes … well, let’s see if we can jog your memory. This is what we are going to do.” Sayyed picked up the tin snips and said, “I will ask you a question. If you refuse to answer or lie I will cut off one of his fingers.”

“Cool.” Hurley straightened up as much as the tape would allow. “I’d like to see you cut one off right now. Go ahead … let’s get started.”

“Mr. Sherman, what is your real name?”

“Come on, cut his finger off. Cut his wrist off … that would be really awesome.”

Richards was awake now, a panicked look in his eyes. “What the hell?”

Sayyed said, “He has already told us your name, but I want to hear you say it.”

“Fine … William Tecumseh Sherman. Are you happy now? Can we go home?”

“No. That is not the name he gave us.”

“I think I’d know my own name.”

“Last chance.” Sayyed placed the tin snips around the first knuckle on Richards’s left hand.

“William Tecumseh Sherman.”

“Wrong answer.” Sayyed pushed the two red handles together and there was a quick snip and the pinky fell to the dirty floor. Richards started screaming, and Sayyed quickly moved the snips over to Hurley’s pinky. “Your turn,” he yelled. “Name?”

Hurley had already turned his head away, as if he couldn’t bear to watch what was going on. He started to move his lips and mumbled a name.

“Louder … I can’t hear you.”

Hurley slowly turned his head, made eye contact with Sayyed, and then looked down at his pinky. The distance was about right. He pretended he was starting to cry while again mumbling, and when Sayyed moved just a touch closer, offering up his good ear so he could hear better, Hurley lunged forward, tilting his head to the right. He caught the top third of the man’s left ear between his teeth and clamped down with all of his strength, grinding and chewing and growling and then yanking his head back.

Sayyed screamed and broke free, his hand clamped around his bloody ear. He stumbled away and then turned to look at his subject. What he saw horrified him. Bill Sherman had a chunk of his ear hanging half out of his mouth. The insane American smiled at him and then started chewing on the ear, crunching it like a potato chip.

CHAPTER
58

R
APP
looked out across the city. Night had fallen and that scar known as the Green Line now looked like a wide, formidable river, a black swath of darkness that cut the city in half. But travel two blocks in either direction and there were signs of life. Buildings lit up with inhabitants, traffic moving about the city, horns blaring, and underpowered engines revving—all the normal sights and sounds of a city. But not in that desolate corridor. Only twice in the last hour had he seen a car dare cross no-man’s-land. It appeared the cease-fire was activated as they usually are, by segregating the various factions. He could not see the east-west streets to the north, and it was likely that more cars had crossed in that sector, but not enough to change what was obvious. This was a literally a city torn asunder.

The problem as Rapp saw it was fundamental geography. He was on this side and they were on the other side—the
they
being Hurley and Richards. The only way to save them was to go over there, but Ridley had explained to him that going over there was a very bad idea. Going over there would result in his being captured, tortured, and then killed, in that order.

Rapp’s response to Ridley was, “So you’re pretty much admitting that Stan and Bob are going to be tortured and killed.”

“I’m admitting no such thing.”

“The hell you’re not,” Rapp said, his frustration finally boiling over.

Ridley shot back, “I know you’re the new wonder boy, so this might be hard for you to understand, but there are things that are going on that you have not been read in on.”

“Like what?”

“Things that are way above your pay grade, rookie.” Ridley caught his mistake and tried to temper his words by adding, “Listen, I don’t make the rules. There are certain protocols that I have to follow. Langley tells me who I can share things with. If you’re not on that list my hands are tied.”

“Like Petrosian, for instance. I’m sure you cleared that with Langley. You telling a foreign national that I was the man who killed Sharif.” Rapp watched as Ridley looked away. “Are you fucking kidding me? There’s no way in hell you got approval from Irene to give him that information.”

Ridley sighed. “We need Petrosian on this one, and the man does not trust strangers, so I gave him a little piece of information that I knew would please him. He hated Hamdi Sharif more than any person on the planet. It goes back to the beginning of the civil war here. They were both arms dealers and they agreed not to sell weapons to Fatah. Petrosian lived here, and he felt that a militarized Fatah would only prolong the fighting. About six months into the war he found out that Sharif had broken their agreement and was selling weapons to the radical Palestinians. Petrosian was right. It prolonged the war, destroyed the city, killed thousands more, and Sharif became a very wealthy man. Petrosian vowed to kill him, but Sharif never set foot in the city again.”

“Fine … so you used what I did for your own benefit, which means you owe me. I deserve to know what in hell is going on.” Rapp could see Ridley was at least thinking about it, so he pressed him a little harder. “That could have just as easily been me that got picked up. I deserve to know what Langley is doing to try to get them back.”

“They’re working on different levels. Signal intercepts, applying pressure where they can, calling in favors…”

“What in hell does all that mean?”

“It’s complicated, is what it’s supposed to mean, and on top of that Stan, your friend Bobby, and you aren’t even supposed to exist. How the fuck do you expect them to go to the State Department with that one … Excuse me,” he said in a falsetto, “two of our black ops guys, who don’t actually exist, were kidnapped in Beirut. Could you help us get them back?”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit … what in hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means it’s bullshit. If you think the State Department is the answer to our problems, if Langley thinks they’re our solution, we’re fucked.”

“I didn’t say they were the only game. I told you it’s complicated. And what the hell would you know? You’re a damn rookie.”

“A rookie who’s smart enough to know this is bullshit,” Rapp yelled. “You know what the solution is … you just don’t want to say it because you”—Rapp pointed at him—“and all of the other pussies back at Langley don’t have the balls to follow through on it.”

“Please, enlighten me, boy wonder. What’s the solution?”

“We do what the Russians did.”

“What the Russians did?” Ridley mocked him.

“Yeah … back in the mideighties … after four of their diplomats were kidnapped.”

Ridley’s gaze narrowed. “Where’d you hear that story?”

“Stan.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Ridley muttered, obviously not happy that Hurley had told Rapp the story.

“Two diplomats and two KGB guys get snatched by one of the Palestinian factions. One of them happens to be the KGB’s station chief here in Beirut. The Russians know what happened to the CIA’s station chief when he got kidnapped, because they paid for the information that the Iranians sucked out of him. They don’t want to see all of their operations exposed, so they send in a joint force of Spetsnaz and KGB goons and they start whacking people.”

Ridley was shaking his head. “That’s not the answer.”

“Really … since you appear to know the story, tell me how it ended.”

Ridley shook his head. “Nope.”

“One was killed and the three were released,” Rapp said. “And how many Russians were kidnapped after that?”

“Zero,” Ridley reluctantly admitted.

“That’s right, and how many Americans?”

Ridley shrugged. “Not zero.”

“So what’s the lesson to be learned?”

“We’re not the Russians.”

“That’s your answer.”

“Listen … I know you’re frustrated.
I’m
frustrated, but I am telling you this is way above both of us. There are a lot of really important people who want this cease-fire to last. They will never allow us to go around shooting people like the Russians did.”

“But the Palestinians can keep kidnapping
our
people?” Rapp waited for Ridley to give him an answer that wasn’t coming anytime soon. “Like I said … this is bullshit.”

That had been more than three hours ago. Rapp and Ridley had not exchanged words since then. Rapp had dumped his anger into studying maps of West Beirut, reading the intelligence reports, and trying to come up with some way to prevent this disaster from following the course of the previous hostage negotiations. Anyone who didn’t understand where this was headed was either deluding himself by ignoring history or just too stupid to connect the dots. Out of this frustration came the realization of what it would all mean to his own future.

He’d spent years thinking of little more than how he would make the other side hurt, and now after all of his training, right when he was getting started, it would be derailed. Hurley and Richards would end up telling them everything they knew about him. His career would be over. The anger welled up inside him, and as he looked out across the city, he could feel himself drifting further and further away from the people pulling the strings in D.C. Their half measures and dithering disgusted him. It was like Hurley had told them on the drive down from Hamburg: “We got soft in the eighties and let these assholes get away with way too much shit.” Apparently Washington still hadn’t learned its lesson.

Ridley joined him on the veranda. He was holding two beers. He set one in front of Rapp and took a swig out of the other.

Rapp eyed the beer and then said, “I’m not in the mood.”

“Shut up and drink. And listen for a change. I’ve been doing some thinking. This thing isn’t going to end well. Cummins was bad enough … Stan … the shit that guy has in his brain … the stuff he’s seen over the years.” Ridley shuddered at the thought of the enemy getting their hands on all that information. “I can’t even begin to calculate the damage.” He paused, took a swig of beer, and shook his head. “Someone needs to do something and you seem like just the kind of crazy asshole that would volunteer for a mission like this, although it’s actually not a mission. There’s nothing official about it. In fact, I’m going to get so pissed tonight that I pass out. And then when I wake up in the morning, and you’re not here, I’ll call Langley and tell them you’ve gone AWOL.”

“And where will I be?” Rapp asked.

“Petrosian will be here in one hour. He has arranged to take you over to the other side. The police chief, no less, is taking you.”

Rapp was surprised. “The same asshole who snatched Stan?”

“One and the same.”

“Can I trust him?”

“Absolutely.”

“How?”

“Because this time he has given Petrosian his word that nothing will happen to you.”

“And I should be impressed by that?”

“Yes, you should. The chief will drop you off at a small hotel a few blocks west of Nijmeh Square, and then you’re on your own. My advice is you spread some cash around, telling the hotel manager and the vendors that you would like to meet with Colonel Assef Sayyed. They will claim they’ve never heard of him, but they all know who he is. They will tell him you are looking for him and he will have someone collect you before the day is out. Then it will go one of two ways.” Ridley took another drink and organized his thoughts. “He will either sit down and negotiate with you, in which case Petrosian has agreed to bankroll you to the tune of one million dollars.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, he is a man who likes to show his gratitude, and besides, you just eliminated one of his top competitors. He’s bound to pick up a few more contracts.”

“Will a million do it?”

“Doubtful, but it will let them know we are serious, and they all know Petrosian is not a man to be fucked with.”

“So if it’s not enough money…”

Ridley waved him off. “I’m going to be working on getting more.”

“Langley?”

“Maybe, but we have some other options. I just need to see if I can pull it off.”

Rapp thought about the money that Hurley had taken from the Swiss bank accounts. He almost told Ridley but decided to keep it to himself for now. “That’s option one. What’s option two?”

“They throw you in the dungeon and they torture you and eventually kill you.”

“But I’m a rookie, so how much harm can I really do.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Something like that. A pawn for a bishop.” Ridley shrugged. “Maybe you even get lucky and take a few of them down with you.” Ridley drained his beer and looked to the west. “There’s one last thing. The story about the Russians.”

“Yeah.”

“Stan didn’t tell you the whole thing. The Russians … they wiped out a couple of families … women and children included. Fucking butchers.” Ridley shook his head, trying to get rid of the bad memories. “We’re not the Russians. We don’t kill women and children. At least not intentionally. Never forget that.”