Firebreak (14 page)

Shoshana was in the gift shop of the hotel when she saw three men escort Mana through the lobby to the elevator. She recognized Derhally immediately from the description Habish had given her. She had learned to do her homework. The dark suits and sunglasses the other two men wore were ample proof of their profession—government security. Are we that obvious? she thought.

She fought down the panic that wanted to consume her and turned her back to the lobby, forcing her mind to work the problem. Obviously, the Iraqis were on to her. But how? What had she done wrong? That’s the wrong problem to work on now, she berated herself, focus on the objective. And the objective was in the bottom of her purse—the small tube that contained a double hypodermic needle that automatically injected the antidote to the new nerve gas into a victim’s body. She had wrapped a brightly colored aluminum candy wrapper around it, making it look like a popular candy.

Gently, she stroked a potted flower and then slipped the tube into the branches. It was very obvious. Then she carried the pot to the shopgirl and scribbled a happy birthday note and tucked it next to the tube. She paid for the flower and gave the clerk an address. “Please deliver this sometime today,” she instructed.

Shoshana strolled out the main entrance of the hotel and turned down Sa’adan Street, giving no hint of the turmoil boiling through her. Twenty minutes later she was at the dress boutique Nadya Mana had taken her to the first day they met. After looking through a dress rack, she asked to use the phone. She dialed a number and let it ring four times before hanging up. Then she immediately redialed and let it ring once. It was the emergency signal for one of the team to meet her.

After leaving the shop, she walked to Rashid Street, where she shifted her handbag to her left shoulder—the signal for a pickup. A car pulled to the curb and the rear door swung open. “Miss Temple?” She did not recognize the voice but a surge of relief to be in contact with her team propelled her into the car.

The two men in the front turned to look at her. For the second time that day, Hassan Derhally smiled.

Gad Habish and Zeev Avidar sat in their car, watching Derhally drive away with Shoshana. “Where do you think he’ll take her?” Avidar asked.

Habish only shrugged and fell in three cars behind Derhally. “At the first stop, get out and start drying the operation up. I want everyone moving. Use your safe house for a point of contact. Be there when I call you. If we can’t get the girl out by tonight, we go.” He didn’t tell Avidar that he would leave a two-man watch team behind to try to rescue Shoshana. If the Iraqis could not break her and used torture.… Well, he didn’t think about the options open then. Habish hoped she could hold out long enough for him to get the team out of Iraq and then spill enough information to save her own life. Perhaps a prisoner exchange in a few years …

At a stop light, Avidar hopped out of the car and moved through the traffic to the sidewalk. He disappeared into the crowd. Habish scanned the traffic to see if Derhally had a backup car in trail. He found the other car almost immediately. A single agent was sitting in a gray Lada directly behind him. “Sandwiched,” Habish grumbled to himself. But it was obvious that the Iraqi was not aware that Habish was trailing the lead car. He knew the danger signals only too well. His problem was to follow Derhally and not be observed by the backup car. All his training and experience, and every gut feeling he possessed, told him to rescue the girl now, before the Iraqis got their act together.

The problem solved itself when Habish saw the single agent behind him talking on a radio as Derhally pulled to the curb in front of the dress boutique. “Retracing her route,” Habish said to himself. He pulled around the corner and slowed, anxious to see what the backup car would do. The gray Lada also turned but pulled to the curb and stopped. Habish almost smiled as he turned into a dusty alley and parked. He got out of his car and walked back to the gray Lada. The Iraqi was surprised when Habish opened the door and slipped in beside him. “Derhally said to stay with you.” Habish’s Arabic was faultless and the agent had a confused look on his face when Habish shot him.

Without any sign of haste, Habish got out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side. He opened the door and pushed the body into the passenger’s seat. He got in and drove into the alley behind his parked car. There, he stuffed the body into the trunk of the Lada, left the ignition key on the front seat in case anyone wanted to steal the car, and threw the trunk key on a roof. Some enterprising Iraqi car thief would dispose of the body for him.

Habish returned to his car, slipped on sunglasses and the dark coat of his suit. He combed his hair back and decided he looked close enough to an Iraqi goon from the secret police. He drove around to the boutique and parked directly behind Derhally’s car.

The two women who ran the shop glanced at him nervously when he walked in. He gave them a hard stare—a man in charge—and swept the room with a practiced look. They were alone. If Derhally had been in the shop, he would have been an innocent customer who would beat a hasty retreat. But now, he was another agent. “Is Inspector Derhally here?” he asked in a low voice, nodding to the rooms behind the shop. The women blabbered an answer. “Good. Please close the shop and leave. Do not tell anyone we are here. Do you understand?” They understood perfectly and were out the door in less than a minute.

Habish drew his pistol and pulled the slide back, charging the chamber. He slipped into the hall and waited. He could hear a man’s voice coming from the rear office.

“Miss Temple, please. No more games.” It was Derhally talking.

“Call the Canadian embassy,” Shoshana demanded.

“In time, in time,” Derhally said. “And how will you prove you’re a Canadian citizen? You don’t have your passport.”

“You know the hotel holds the passports of all foreigners until they get an exit permit. I am a Canadian citizen.” Shoshana was sticking to her cover.

Habish waited until he had an idea of where the three people were seated inside the office. Then he holstered his pistol and pulled out the fake Canadian passport he carried. He knocked on the door and entered. “I’m from the Canadian embassy,” he announced. “I’ve been told a Canadian citizen, Miss Rose Temple, is here and needs assistance.”

Derhally took the passport and scanned it. “This is not an official passport.”

“Oh, sorry. Wrong one.” Habish reached inside his coat and drew his pistol. In one quick fluid motion, he stepped to one side, went into a shooter’s two-handed crouch and shot Derhally in the head. The other agent had his pistol half drawn when Habish shot him. Without hesitating, the Israeli methodically shot each man in the head again.

“Anyone else?” he asked Shoshana. She shook her head no. She was sitting in a chair in the corner, her wrists tightly manacled with plastic flexcuffs. Her hands were already red and starting to swell from lack of circulation. It was the first step in an Iraqi interrogation. Habish cut through the thick white plastic with a small penknife. “Did they contact anyone?”

“They made two calls on the car radio,” she said. “One was to a backup. His name is Fahad. I think he’s driving a gray Lada and is parked outside. Also, they checked in with their control. I heard them use my name and refer to the hotel. That’s all I could understand.” Habish was impressed. She hadn’t panicked and kept her eyes and ears open.

“Where’s Mana?”

“I don’t know.” Shoshana rubbed her hands, trying to stimulate circulation, and told everything that had happened. She left nothing out.

“So you sent the combo pen to your language teacher disguised as a birthday gift.” Habish was impressed with her quick thinking. He made a phone call, contacting Avidar with new instructions. “Help me hide these bodies and clean up this mess. We’ve got to get out of Baghdad tonight.”

The waiting was a grueling endurance contest. Shoshana envied the Mossad agent who used the language school as her cover for she went about her business as if everything was normal. Shoshana couldn’t match the teacher’s cool facade and her agitation kept breaking through as the minutes dragged.

“The flowers will come,” the petite woman assured her.

“Where’s Habish?” Shoshana wondered. “I thought he’d be back by now.”

“Like the flowers …” They fell back into their waiting.

The clock read 5:32 when Habish returned. He was all business. “We’re rolling up our operation here,” he told the two women. “Avidar is putting the final touches on the new passport and exit visa you’ll need. I’m working on the assumption that Al Mukhabaret has got yours from the hotel and instructed the desk clerk to report anyone asking about you.” He looked at the woman who ran the school. “Can you get out on your own?” The woman nodded and left. Neither Habish nor Shoshana knew how she would leave Iraq. They assumed she would use her contacts with Kurdish rebels to move her through northern Iraq and into Turkey, but if Habish or Shoshana were captured, they could not reveal where she went. Likewise, she did not know how they were escaping out of Iraq.

“We’ve got to move fast,” Habish said and handed her a Walther exactly like the one he carried. Shoshana checked it over as he talked and dropped it into her handbag. “There’s only one flight leaving tonight in three hours. Swiss Air. You’re on it.” For the first time, she saw a hint of nervousness play across Habish’s face. “We’ve got to get that combo pen out.”

The minutes now flew by as the scheduled departure time approached. Finally, Habish could wait no longer. “The clerk in the gift shop will probably deliver the flowers herself after the shop closes. Too late.”

“Why don’t I go pick the flowers up?” Shoshana volunteered.

“Too dangerous. Someone might be waiting for you.”

Shoshana thought for a minute. “Maybe not. Derhally really thought I was a Canadian citizen.” Habish gave her a quizzical look. “I heard them mention Canada three times over the car radio and when you walked in, he did believe you were from the Canadian embassy.” Habish was almost convinced. “I’ve picked up enough Arabic to understand some of what they were saying and I think they were still sorting this out, not sure of what they were on to.”

Habish bought it. “It’s worth a try. Zeev should be here in a few minutes. We’ll leave him here to wait for the flowers if they arrived while we go to the hotel. I’ll put on my Canadian official act at the front desk and ask for you. If anyone is watching the hotel, that should cause a distraction. You go into the gift shop and check on the flowers.”

Ten minutes later, Shoshana was walking out of the gift shop carrying the flowers with the happy birthday card and combo pen clearly visible. Habish was still talking to the desk clerk when she ran into Mana.

“Where have you been?” Mana asked. He was excited and shaking. His eyes widened when he saw the brightly wrapped tube stuck in the flowers. “What is going on?” He snatched the combo pen out of the flowers and peeled the aluminum foil back. The dark olive green tube stood in dark contrast to its bright wrapper. He grabbed her upper arm and, for once, Shoshana was surprised by his strength.

Adrenaline, Shoshana thought, I hope he isn’t thinking too clearly. “Is’al, it isn’t what you think.” He stared at her in disbelief. “I am a Canadian and work for a firm that specializes in industrial security. Your government contracted with us.… But I never thought I would fall in love with you. … Up in my room … the proof …”

Mana wanted to believe her and nodded dumbly. She could feel the strength drain from his grip. “Come,” she said, breaking his grip and moving toward the elevator. “Let’s go to my room.” She caught Habish’s attention just as the elevator doors closed on them. Smiling at Mana she lightly drew her fingers over his crotch. “Perhaps afterward?” It was a mistake and she could see the doubt flare in his eyes at the obvious sexual ploy. They rode in silence. Mana still had not said a word when she opened the door to her room. “You’ll see,” she promised.

The Iraqi barged past her into the room. She closed the door behind them after making sure no one was in the hall. Her travel clock beside the bed said she had less than an hour to reach the airport. Time had run out. “What you need is in the stationery box,” she said, pointing to the dresser. He jerked a drawer open and spilled the contents on the floor. She reached into her handbag and grabbed the Walther Habish had given her. She didn’t pull it out but walked across the room to Mana. “It’s in the next drawer,” she told him. Again, he jerked a drawer open.

His back was to her and his head bent over when she dropped her handbag and freed the Walther. In one quick motion, she raised the weapon and pulled the slide back, chambering a round. It was the motion she had practiced over a thousand times while in training and the words of her instructor came back, dominating her actions: “You pull a gun, you’ve blown your cover. So you shoot. When you shoot, you kill.”

The last sounds Is’al Mana heard were the click of the slide ramming a shell home and a
phut.
Her instructor had repeatedly shouted at her, “Always shoot twice.” She did as she had been taught.

Habish was standing in the hall when she locked the door behind her. “Where did you hide him?” he asked.

“In a closet behind some clothes.” She had covered him with the same black dress she had bought in Marbella to seduce him.

Habish nodded. That might give them a little more time before a maid discovered the body. He could see tears in her eyes. “Don’t let up now,” he cautioned.

In the lobby, Habish phoned Zeev Avidar at the language school and made some vague references to buying a replacement computer. Avidar understood that he was to meet them on the road outside the airport with new documents and the luggage Shoshana would need to get through immigration.

The traffic on Abu Nuwas Street was jammed up for three blocks as cars and trucks fought to cross the Jumhuiya Bridge over the Tigris River. Habish turned down a side street and headed for the Ahrar Bridge, a kilometer upstream. The traffic was insane, trying to cross the only two bridges that had been repaired after the war. Once across the river, they had to double back to make contact with Avidar. Fortunately, the traffic was now light and Habish was able to make good time. A half kilometer short of the airport, the traffic piled up again and there was still no sign of Avidar. Habish checked his watch. “Thirty minutes,” he muttered.