The Assassin (11 page)

Andrews nodded again. “She’s like me… still hitting her stride. This thing with Kealey… I think it bothers her because it could cause us some serious problems. She’s not just being malicious, and she’s right about Kassem. He can’t be allowed to talk.”

Harper’s gaze drifted to the windows on the west side of the room. Weak light broke against heavy clouds, the melancholy end to a dreary day. “I’ll give Ryan the word once he checks in,” he finally said. “As for Ford… I’ll try to cut her a break, but with Vanderveen active again, we can’t afford to lose Kealey over internal dissent.”

“I’ll talk to her… She’ll come around. Where do we go from here?”

“It’s like I said; we have to wait and see if Kassem gives us anything useful. Kharmai’s flying into Dulles tomorrow with a diplomatic courier. Once we have the tape, we’ll get the voiceprint verified on our own equipment. Unfortunately, I think we’ll find that the Brits were right.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Andrews said. “You know, I already briefed the president, John. He wants to keep Vanderveen’s reappearance under wraps. Nobody gets to know, not even the Bureau.”

“What about Kharmai’s friend in the Ministry of Defence?”

“She had to be hushed up, of course. Brenneman placed a call to Ten Downing Street while I was in the room, and the prime minister agreed to keep it quiet.”

“For how long?” Harper asked. “Until after the election, I should imagine.”

Andrews addressed the obvious sarcasm. “John, it’s all politics. You know that. The last thing the president needs right now is Vanderveen’s face back in the spotlight. The public would go crazy. Of course, the escalating situation in Iraq isn’t helping, either, so we’ll have to see how it plays out.”

The DCI fell silent for a moment as he finished his drink. “I noticed that you left something out when you told Rachel about what happened in Maine.”

Harper shrugged. “She can read about it if she wants to; it’s all on record. It doesn’t really matter, anyway.”

“It matters to Ryan. What do you think he’ll do? I mean, when he finds out about Vanderveen…”

“I don’t know,” Harper brooded. He drained his glass and stared out at the flat sky. “I just don’t know.”

At that precise moment, Ryan Kealey was standing outside an abandoned, crumbling stone house three miles north of Amiriya, a small town situated on the northern banks of the Euphrates. It was a rural area; the closest house could be seen to the west, a gray smudge barely discernable in the dawn light. A rucksack containing a Raytheon AN/PSC-5 satellite radio rested on the ground a few feet away, next to a 20-liter can of kerosene. The radio was still packed away; he had not bothered to set up the collapsible dish, and the proper frequencies had not been loaded into the base unit. As a result, he was unaware of the decisions that had been made in Langley. He didn’t know that what he was about to do had already been cleared, but in truth, he wouldn’t have cared either way. In his mind, he had already decided that Arshad Kassem was going to die. The man had betrayed the Agency’s trust, which, in itself, was not surprising — Kealey would have called it inevitable — but more than that, he had actively worked to procure weapons for the insurgency. Kealey had learned this and a good deal more over the last eighteen hours.

After his seemingly impromptu actions back in Fallujah, his return to the marine base east of the city had not been well received. Owen had vowed never to work with him again, and while Walland remained silent, the look on his face had said something similar. From there, things only got worse. On catching sight of the bound prisoner in the bed of the third Tacoma, the captain in charge of the guard had placed a hurried call to the office of Brigadier General Nathan Odom, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. The vehicles were stopped just inside the fence, and Odom, a stocky, barrel-chested black man, arrived soon thereafter. He proceeded to ask three pointed questions, each of which Kealey answered honestly. After his response to the third question, the general had stared at him hard, as if gauging his sincerity. When Odom saw that the younger man meant every word, his orders were swift, short, and definitive.

Kealey did not try to argue with the general’s decision. He didn’t care if he couldn’t conduct the interrogation inside the fence. In fact, he didn’t care where it took place as long as he got the answers he needed. In the end, he simply asked permission to take his prisoner off-site, a request that was readily approved.

None of this bothered him. If he had told Owen exactly what he was up to before they’d gone into the Jolan district, the other man would never have provided him with the firepower needed to get Kassem out of the city. Even now, with time to reflect, Kealey felt no compunction about misleading his former commanding officer. He had done what was necessary, and he now had the information to prove it.

Kealey leaned back against the cool stone wall and rubbed his eyes, which were aching from lack of sleep. Seen from a distance, the marks on his hands might have been dirt stained red by the morning light. At this early hour, the pale orange sun was backed by a purple gold haze. The view was beautiful in a stark, desolate kind of way, but there was something strangely sinister in the sun’s slow upheaval. The steady rise in the east promised a new day, but carried with it the constant memories, the weight of things he couldn’t escape. The same old trials and tribulations, all that he had endured for the past ten months.

Still, he couldn’t turn his eyes away; if he hadn’t known the time, if he hadn’t spent all night interrogating Kassem, he would have thought the sun was falling rather than rising. A sunset, at least to Kealey’s way of thinking, would have been far more appropriate. For a long time now, he’d felt that he was coming to the end of things. He had reached a strange accommodation with this prospect; after all, he had lost too much to start anew.

He finally turned away from the scene. It was picture-perfect, too good for this place, and there was still work to be done.

From a holster on his right hip, he pulled his Beretta 92FS. Pulling the slide back a few centimeters, Kealey checked the chamber and saw the brassy glint of a single round. Letting the slide snap forward, he thumbed the safety into the fire position and walked back into the building, the light on his back, nothing but darkness ahead.

CHAPTER 11

LATTAKIA

They had been moving for two days. There had been no time to sleep off the endless stress, save for the three restless hours he’d caught on the cracked plastic seat of the bus to Lattakia. Now, as Kohl made his calls in the back of the squalid White Palace Café, Rashid al-Umari sat motionless at a corner table. He was hunched over the scratched aluminum, his head heaped on folded arms.

He was exhausted. It was new for him, this constant movement, but the movement meant they were close, that the danger was now real.

In the past there had always been warning. In the Iraqi capital, the streets leading into the Shia enclave were sealed with mounds of rotting garbage and the burnt-out, twisted remains of cars — the same cars that had once been loaded with explosives, then parked on one of the many roads patrolled by U.S. forces. When the raids came, the Americans were forced to endure the bitter task of moving these ruined vehicles before they could push into al-Sadr’s nest. The process took time, and a child, once told of his importance, once given a meaningless title, could be relied upon to make the call in the early hours when the Bradleys rolled forward.

For this meeting, there would be no warning. If the Americans had advance knowledge of the time and location, and — more importantly — the guest list, they would respond from the air, and it would be over in the blink of an eye. It was this knowledge, al-Umari knew, that drove the German to such mind-numbing caution, but it was Rashid’s offering that would draw them despite the risks. If they were willing to make an appearance, the plan would go forward.

It was all he wanted. He knew what would be asked of him, and he had come prepared.

Rashid lifted his head and rubbed his bleary eyes. Kohl was walking back to the table, a chipped mug of strong Arab coffee in hand. The previous day he had changed his appearance again, and from the way the new colors complemented his features, Rashid would have guessed that he had reverted to his natural state. The German slid into the opposite seat and turned his gaze to the window, absently gazing past the colorful lettering affixed to the clamorous street beyond.

A few minutes passed. The lunch crowd began filtering in. Soon animated conversations in Arabic and Farsi swirled around them, along with the harsh smell of cigarette smoke, flatulence, and the stench of unwashed bodies. The German’s cup was half-empty when Rashid finally ran out of patience. “Well? What did they say?”

The other man did not reply and seemed unaware of Rashid’s hardest stare. Through the grime of the storefront window, a small child bounced into view, his tousled black hair glistening in the midday sun. His right hand gripped a plain brown envelope, the thick paper lumping over what might have been the keys to a vehicle, a cell phone, or both. The boy slowed outside the entrance and peered in through the open door, as though searching for someone. His gaze quickly settled on the blond-haired, green-eyed man at the corner table.

Will Vanderveen turned to Rashid al-Umari and smiled.

Tartus, a small port on the Mediterranean, is the sort of place with a great deal of history and very little to show for it, a city much reviled by Western tourists and the guidebooks they travel with. As with all things, however, it remains a matter of perspective. For native Syrians, the rocky, litter-strewn beach overlooking the tiny island of Arwad is one of their country’s better holiday destinations, and as close as most will ever come to the pristine sands and clear blue waters of Cannes or Mykonos.

It was still light when they drove into town on the coastal road, but thick violet clouds were tumbling in from the west, threatening rain. The car, a white, rattletrap Peugeot 504, had been waiting on Sharia Baghdad, the main street running through Lattakia. Now, at Kohl’s direction, Rashid parked the small sedan on the western end of Sharia al-Wahda. Pushing open the car door, he was instantly overcome by the cold and the mingled scents of salt and broiling fish, an unsubtle invitation extended by the restaurants clustered around the harbor. The scents began to fade as they walked east on the wide boulevard, passing a number of cheap hotels, bakeries, and bathhouses.

A stiff wind swept in from the sea, a hint of the coming storm. Rashid al-Umari shivered beneath his quilted anorak. His wardrobe no longer reflected his wealth and his years in London, as it had in the past. Kohl had pointed out this mistake after the near disaster in Aleppo, and al-Umari’s clothes — a T-shirt under the anorak, jeans, and running shoes — were now more in keeping with his surroundings. Kohl’s outfit was similarly disreputable, but it had never been otherwise; indeed, the German seemed to go out of his way to maintain a disheveled appearance.

Rashid’s nerves were stretched taut, adrenaline pumping through his veins. For nearly five years he had been waiting for this opportunity. A quick glance at the other man’s face told him absolutely nothing; at this pivotal moment, Erich Kohl seemed to be made of stone. Rashid wondered if the man’s calm could be attributed to his natural disposition or years of operational experience. He would have guessed that both factors played a role. Not for the first time, he had the uneasy feeling that the German was a much more important figure than he’d previously indicated.

His reverie was broken when Kohl seized his arm and pulled him abruptly into a narrow corridor. For a panicked instant, al-Umari feared that he had been lured into a trap, but he quickly realized how irrational that notion was. Nevertheless, he breathed easier when he saw that the other man was counting doors.

Kohl stopped at the fourth and rapped twice.

The foyer was dark, the only light emanating from the hallway beyond. Rashid had a brief impression of bare walls and scratched marble floors, but a bodyguard was already guiding him forward by the arm, Kohl trailing softly behind. They were not searched. From this, Rashid inferred that his host had not yet arrived, but the notion was quickly dispelled when he stepped into the next room.

A bare bulb hung over his head like an afterthought, spilling warm yellow light over painted doors, which were recessed in the plaster walls. In turn, the walls were further adorned with an excessive number of intricate tapestries, as if to draw one’s attention away from the absence of windows. A marble floor was hidden beneath overlapping Persian rugs, the black-and-white mosaic revealed only in the far corners of the spacious room. A pair of overstuffed couches, conspicuous in their contemporary design, resided around a low wooden table.

For all the beauty of his surroundings, though, Rashid al-Umari’s eyes were drawn first to the room’s sole occupant, and in that moment, he knew that he had been right to come, that his work over the past several years had not been in vain.

Forewarned by their footsteps, the man glanced up. He was gaunt and surprisingly pale, but Rashid had expected as much, for he knew that this man, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, former vice president of Iraq, former deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), suffered from a long list of ailments that had plagued his health for years. It was widely speculated in the Western media that al-Douri, who was believed to be in his mid-sixties, had died of leukemia in November of 2005. The BBC had reported the story without verifying the source, but the U.S. State Department, unable to confirm reports of al-Douri’s death, had kept its lines of inquiry open and to date still offered a reward of ten million dollars for his capture.

Strangely enough, Izzat al-Douri remained largely recognizable, despite his status as the most wanted man in Iraq, a position he’d claimed after al-Zarqawi’s death in June of 2006. His sparse hair was slicked back, the eyes magnified by a pair of thick plastic spectacles. His mouth, pulled taut in a thin smile, was barely visible beneath a thick red moustache. He stood and appraised his visitor.