Jihad (8 page)

“Terry, they should be just about at the door,” said Lia. “Grunt, and I’ll take the guard.”

Lia listened for Pinchon’s groan. Instead, she heard the sharp bark of a rifle from down the hall.

CHAPTER 21

WITH ASAD BEDDED down for the night, Dean and Karr flipped a coin to see who got the first shift, staying nearby in case something happened.

Dean won. But rather than going off to sleep, he volunteered to back up Lia and the CIA people at the hospital.

He’d just found the terrorists’ car when Rockman warned him that shots had been fired inside. Stifling the impulse to run inside and help Lia, he drove past the car, pulling into a parking spot a short distance away.

“One guy, watching the driveway to the hospital,” he told the Art Room.

“All right. Stick with the game plan. Stay back,” said Rockman. “Let’s not make any unnecessary fuss.”

Dean rolled down the window and slid a video bug on the mirror to give the Art Room a view of what was going on. Then he leaned back in the seat, calmly waiting as directed.

For all of five seconds. Then Dean reached below the seat, pulled out his silenced .22, and went for a walk.

CHAPTER 22

LIA SLAMMED HER elbow against the crash bar, pushing the door open as she threw herself into the hall. It took her only two seconds to sight her gun and fire—but that was at least a second and a half too long, for it allowed the terrorist to point his AK-47 in her direction and fire. His bullets flew high; Lia’s did not. Two struck him square in the forehead, the small-caliber bullets punching through his skull and sending him to the ground.

Reisler rolled into the hallway behind her.

“I got them,” said Pinchon.

Lia glanced in the doorway, saw two bodies on the floor, and raced to the elevator, jamming the button to bring the car to their floor.

“Security people are heading for the stairs,” said Rockman. “They don’t know yet where the gunfire was. Your nurse is coming back—up the corridor at the left side of the station.”

“Pinchon, bring him to the elevator,” said Lia, moving to the corner of the hallway. “Hit him with the Demerol and make sure he’s out.”

Lia saw the nurse running toward her in the comer mirror at the ceiling. She put her gun in her left hand, watching the woman with one eye and glancing down the hallway with the other. As the woman came around the corner, Lia threw her body around and kicked out the nurse’s legs. Then she leapt over her and smacked the back of the head, knocking her out.

“I’m sorry,” Lia said, making sure the woman was out.

The fire alarm began to sound.

“Security people are checking each floor,” said Rockman. “You have about three minutes, maybe a little more.”

The elevator was just arriving. Pinchon emerged from the room with Asad’s driver in his wheelchair. He sprinted down the hall with Reisler in pursuit. An old man appeared in the doorway of one of the rooms; Lia raised her pistol and shooed him back inside.

“Go! Go!” yelled Reisler.

Pinchon barreled into the elevator. Lia reached into the one next to them and released it. She bumped Reisler getting into the car with Pinchon. The doors closed. It seemed to take forever before the car started downward.

“Get the gown off!” Lia barked at Pinchon. “Go, come on.”

Pinchon was already fumbling with his clothes. Lia grabbed at the collar and helped, buttons popping as she pulled.

There was blood on the wheels. Lia took the gown and started sopping it up.

“Let me,” said Pinchon, dropping to his knees next to her. “You hide the guns.”

“There are two security people in the lobby,” warned Rockman. “They’re looking at the elevators now.”

Lia glanced at the panel. They’d just passed the second floor.

THE DRIVER OF the Mercedes tapped nervously on the side of the door, keeping time to a song Dean couldn’t hear. Dean walked past him, making sure he was alone in the sedan.

“Charlie, they’re in the elevator,” said Rockman. “They need you—fast.”

“On my way,” said Dean, turning around. He walked to the Mercedes and rapped on the car window.

The driver glared at him, then reached for the door. The bodyguard had his pistol in his hand, but before he could even point it in the American’s direction, Dean put a bullet an inch and a half above his nose.

LIA STOOD BEHIND Reisler and the wheelchair, holding the .22 down at her side as the doors to the elevator opened.

“Here we are now, almost home,” she said in Turkish, mimicking the translator’s accent as closely as possible as they started from the elevator. The security people glanced at her, then at the “patient” in the wheelchair. Lia saw from their eyes that they sensed something wasn’t right, but they weren’t quite sure what it was. She flicked her left hand behind her, keeping the pistol hidden.

“Dur!” said one of the guards. “Stop!”

In the next second, something exploded in the elevator—the small flash-bang grenade Lia had tossed a second before. Everyone dropped to the floor—except Lia, Reisler, and Pinchon, who began running for the door. Lia dropped two more small grenades—they were about the side of cigarette lighters—and a second loud explosion and bright flash rocked the lobby. Smoke spewed behind them.

Through the door, Lia turned to her left and started to run. A horn sounded to her right. She turned, and saw a Mercedes.

Charlie.

Charlie!

CHAPTER 23

ISTANBUL LAY AT the intersection of two continents; historically it was the crossroads of several great civilizations. For Tommy Karr, this meant one thing: great food.

And lots of it. He began with a plate of
mezes
or appetizers, a mixed bag of exotic salads, minced vegetables, and brightly colored dips. Eggplant, yogurt, and olives reappeared in various combinations, accented with strange spices and little green curlicues he assumed were herbs. He couldn’t identify a single dish, but that only added to the adventure. He wolfed them down with the help of a triangular piece of pitalike flat bread, whetting his appetite for the main course: grilled
palamut,
a local fish specialty. A silvery pair arrived with their heads poking up from the center of the plate, eyeballing him like the evil eye charms available on the nearby street corner.

“Almost seems a shame to bother them, huh?” Karr said to the waiter, picking up his fork. “Maybe I’ll just eat around them.”

“Tommy, can you talk?” asked Sandy Chafetz from the Art Room.

Karr waited for the server to leave, then prodded one of the fish. “You’re sure you’re dead, right? If I talk to you, will you answer?”

“Two cars have pulled up a block from Asad’s safe house,” said Chafetz. “Can you check them out?”

“On my way.” Karr rose, digging into his pocket for some Turkish bills.

The waiter came over immediately.

“I’m afraid I just realized I have another appointment and I’m a little late,” said Karr. “Think I could get the fish to go?”

CHAPTER 24

ASAD BIN TAYSR welcomed Marid Dabir with a hearty hug, taking his arm to lead him into the small room where they could sit alone. It was his practice to show people he despised as much kindness as possible. It kept them off balance.

“I heard that you were injured,” Dabir said, gesturing at the bandage on Asad’s head. “I feared our meeting would be delayed.”

“It’s of no consequence. An unfortunate mishap.”

Asad offered his guest some of the water he had been drinking, along with a plate of Syrian figs. They sat next to each other on the couch in the Turk’s small room.

“It has been a long time,” Asad told his visitor. “Quite long.”

“Not of my own choosing.”

“The Sheik sends his blessings.”

Others might honor Asad by calling him “sheik,” but there was only one man in the world Asad would refer to by that name. Dabir knew instantly that he was referring to Osama bin Laden, and bowed his head.

Such a show, thought Asad. As if the man had no vanity or ambitions. But he wasn’t fooled.

Three years before, Marid Dabir had been as close to bin Laden as Asad. But Dabir’s ambitions to succeed the great leader had caused so much division among the al-Qaeda followers that finally the Sheik had given him tasks far from the leadership circle in Pakistan. Dabir, stubborn as always, went on his own initiative to Europe, settling in Germany and starting his own organization there. In doing so, he ignored the networks others had already established. It was rumored that he had done this elsewhere as well, though Germany was where he was based.

And now he was back in the Sheik’s good graces, an important part of the plan for the second offensive against the West. Asad regarded him as a dangerous enemy still, but even a demon could be useful in the campaign against the followers of the devil.

“You are prepared?” Asad asked.

Dabir nodded.

“Good.” Asad excused himself and left the room, walking to the room he had been given as a bedroom. He retrieved a small Koran from his cloth bag and went back to the room.

In his absence, Dabir had eaten all of the fruit. Asad pretended not to notice. He handed him the holy book.

“God is powerful,” said Asad. Then, seeing no need to prolong the meeting, added, “I seem to be a little tired.”

Dabir nodded. “Until we meet.”

“May it be in paradise.”

They kissed each others’ cheeks and took their leave so warmly, even a careful observer might have thought they were the greatest of friends.

CHAPTER 25

RUBENS TOOK THE phone with him as he walked across the secure communications center in the White House basement, listening as Telach told him about what had happened at the hospital.

“The Istanbul police seem to think it was retaliation for the accident,” continued Telach. “There’s a lot of smuggling activity through the port, and with the Russian mob involved, the rumors are already flying. We’ve sent an anonymous e-mail to one of the papers to help the theory along.”

“Very good,” said Rubens. “And the driver?”

“On his way to the airport. Asad is meeting with someone right now,” added the Art Room supervisor. “Hold on.”

Rubens checked his watch; he was due upstairs to talk to Donna Bing, the new national security advisor, in five minutes, which meant that he was already late. But this was worth being late for. They’d been planning the Red Lion operation for just over two years, ever since the bugging device was successfully tested. Picking the right subject, getting the president’s approval—a lot of hard work was about to pay off.

But not necessarily right away.

“He’s leaving. He said nothing.”

“Nothing?”

Telach turned him over to one of the Arab translators, who said that both men sounded as if they had come from Yemen or Saudi Arabia. Their conversation had consisted entirely of greetings and stock religious phrases.

“Who was the other man?” Rubens asked Telach.

“We’re not sure yet.”

“Have Mr. Karr follow him.”

“He’s already on it.”

RUBENS HATED LUNCH meetings for any number of reasons, starting with the fact that it was difficult to discuss matters of state with the deserved gravitas while wiping mayonnaise from one’s chin. He especially hated “working lunch meetings,” a euphemism for a gobbled sandwich at the desk of an overworked superior. In his opinion, the only tangible result was heartburn.

But Donna Bing was the doyenne of working lunch meetings; Rubens had been down to see the new national security advisor twice in the three weeks since she had taken over the job, and each time he’d been forced to share a roast beef sandwich in her office. Today Bing showed her bold side—she ordered her sandwich with Russian dressing. Rubens had his dry, as usual.

He gave her the latest on Red Lion, including the fact that they had taken his driver. Bing blanched so severely when Rubens mentioned that the terrorists who had come to kill the man had themselves been killed that he quickly added the Turks had started the fracas by firing automatic rifles.

“This could be an incident if our role is discovered,” said Bing.

“I don’t believe that’s likely,” said Rubens stiffly.

“You’re ready to take Red Lion at the end of the meetings?”

“Absolutely.” A Gulfstream jet was sitting at the airport in Istanbul; once captured, the terrorist leader would be flown to Diego Garcia, an isolated Navy base in the South Pacific, for interrogation.

“Thank you for the update,” said Bing. “The president is very interested in the project.”

“I had been under the impression that I would brief him as well,” said Rubens.

“Oh?” Bing managed to mix a tone of genuine surprise with the hint of haughty disdain in her voice—quite an achievement in one syllable. “Well, I don’t believe that it’s really necessary for you to waste your time waiting for the president. And of course the president’s agenda is chock-f these days.”

The real waste of time, Rubens thought, was coming down to Washington to deliver a five-minute progress report that could have been just as easily conveyed in a phone call, if not an e-mail. But time or convenience wasn’t what was at stake here—nor, really, was the operation, not at all.

“I believe the president prefers to be briefed in person on sensitive matters,” said Rubens.

“I don’t know that that’s necessary at this point,” said Bing. She reached down and took a bite of her sandwich, dribbling dressing on her chin. “And as it happens, the president is not in the Oval Office this afternoon; he’s lunching with the vice president and the Senate majority leader. That meeting has been arranged for some time.”

In other words, Rubens had been summoned here at
precisely
the time the president would be away.

“There is another matter I’d like to discuss with you at some point,” said Bing. “Of a more philosophical nature. Desk Three is, for all intents and purposes, a reincarnation of several CIA operations established at the NSA’s behest during the Cold War, and given that—”