American Assassin (28 page)

CHAPTER
53

M
UGHNIYAH
refused to come to Martyrs’ Square, so they had to go to him. Sayyed could hardly blame him. He couldn’t wait for the standoff to end, and the hostages to be out of his care. He was tied to them like a mother to her breast-feeding brood. Still, there was something very exciting about the work that lay ahead. Bill Sherman was a once-in-a-lifetime experiment. The American intrigued and horrified him at the same time. Sayyed had participated in close to a hundred interrogations, and he’d never seen anything even close to what he’d witnessed today. The other man, the younger one, was fairly straightforward. A few threats, some punches and kicks, and one fingernail was all it took to get him talking. He’d gotten a name out of him. Several, actually. It was possible that they were both fake, but he didn’t really care at this point.

The important thing was that the great and powerful America had once again failed. They had tried to interfere in the affairs of tiny Beirut and he had beaten them at their game yet again. And this one would hurt. Cummins was one thing, but Bill Sherman would have secrets to tell. Secrets that Moscow would have to pay for.

They were in the cellar of a bistro on General de Gaulle Boulevard—the west end of town, just a block from the ocean. The civil war followed the same patterns as any war, but on a much smaller scale. Two blocks either side of the Green Line was virtually destroyed, buildings blown to pieces from high-explosive artillery shells and mortar rounds. Nearly every building had the pockmarks of small-arms fire, but beyond the Green Line you could find a street devastated by the war, yet there would be one building untouched. That one would survive while six or eight in either direction fell made no sense, but it was an undeniable fact of war that some men, and some buildings, seemed to have an almost invisible shield around them. Farther away from the Green Line, entire neighborhoods had made it through the war with far better success, losing only a building or two from the random shelling. Mughniyah loved these buildings. He noted them and used them for his most important meetings.

This restaurant was that kind of lucky building. Sayyed had been initially irritated by all of the extra security measures. They were brought to three different locations and forced to switch cars before they arrived at the bistro. Mughniyah was the most paranoid of the group by a long shot. They found him in the back room with Badredeen. Plates of hummus,
ackawi,
roasted nuts, kibbeh, baba ghanouj, and spiced fish were waiting. After the last few days Sayyed could barely contain himself. He dug in, using the flatbread to scoop up the hummus and then some olives and cheese.

Mughniyah watched with interest as Sayyed devoured the food, and Radih sat sipping his water. He had heard of the deplorable conditions at Martyrs’ Square. He’d spent the better part of his life living in abject poverty, so it wasn’t that he was above slumming it with the men. And he despised the Maronites as much as, or more than, any of them. It was the American prisoners who kept him away. Those men would attract too much attention. The Americans would be looking for them, and if they got lucky—well, the building would be leveled with everyone in it.

“Radih,” Mughniyah asked, “why aren’t you eating?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Mughniyah could tell there was something else bothering him, but he was extremely unsympathetic to the problems of others. He stabbed out his cigarette and asked, “Can we be sure he is the same Bill Sherman who escaped the embassy bombing in ’83?”

Sayyed nodded while he washed some baba ghanouj down with a glass of water. “It’s him.”

“And did you learn anything from him today?”

“We should kill him,” Radih said. “He is the devil himself. We should not tempt fate a second time. Give me the word and I will kill him tonight.”

Mughniyah had no idea what had precipitated such a drastic statement from a man who loved to barter for the lives of hostages. He turned to Sayyed. “And what do you think?”

“Mr. Sherman is an interesting man. A professional liar and provocateur, for certain, but he is also an extremely valuable asset.”

“The man is a curse on all of us,” Radih proclaimed. “I am telling you we should rid ourselves of lies and kill him tonight.”

Thinking it would be a good idea to change the subject, Sayyed asked, “Where is Colonel Jalil?”

“He will not be joining us.” Mughniyah turned and shared a knowing glance with Badredeen.

They had been conspiring. That was plain enough to Sayyed, and if it meant leaving the Iranian out, that was fine with him. Sayyed watched as Mughniyah’s mood turned dark. He’d seen it before, and when he was sour like this he could be prone to violence. Like some fifteenth-century sultan, he could on a whim ask for someone’s offensive head to be separated from the rest of his body. No hierarchy had ever been established for the group, but there was nonetheless a natural order to things. Mughniyah sat atop the food chain for the simple reason that he was the most ruthless among a group of men who were no strangers to violence.

The key, Sayyed had learned, was to think very carefully before answering him when he was in one of his exceptionally surly moods. “What do you have in mind, Mustapha?”

Before he could answer, Radih said for the third time, “I think we should kill him.” He did not bother to look at the others. His voice was eerily devoid of his normal youthful passion. “I think the man is the Shaitan himself. We should take him out to the statue tonight and disembowel him. Leave him to a slow death. He can howl his lies at the moon. Let him be an example to the Americans and anyone else who wants to send their assassins to Beirut.”

Sayyed held his breath. His eyes darted back and forth between the upstart and the lion. Radih was not a deeply religious man, and his proclamation that the prisoner was the devil was likely to give the duo from Islamic Jihad pause, but then again Mughniyah did not like being interrupted.

“Assef?” Mughniyah asked Sayyed.

Sayyed pulled in a quick breath and said, “I’m not sure I would go as far as to call the man Satan, but on the other hand there is undeniably something very wrong with Mr. Bill Sherman.” Glancing at Radih he added, “I can appreciate why Abu might think that would be a good idea, but I’m afraid we would be destroying a very valuable commodity.”

Mughniyah grinned knowingly. They were of the same mind.

“Before we decide on something so brash,” Badredeen said in his easy tone, “we need to assess a few things. Such as our finances.”

Mughniyah held out his hand and said, “We will get to that in a second, but first, I want to talk about Sherman … Why is he back after all these years?”

Sayyed straightened up. “He says he is here to kill us, but it is unwise to listen to much of anything that comes out of his mouth.” He glanced at Radih and gave him a reassuring nod. What Sherman had said about the young man’s mother did not have to be repeated. “His associate, though, is far more truthful, and he says they are here to negotiate the release of Agent Cummins.”

Radih was rubbing his swollen knuckles. “I do not believe either of them.”

“You don’t think they are here to negotiate the release of Agent Cummins?” Mughniyah asked.

“I don’t believe anything that comes out of their mouths.”

Sayyed could see Mughniyah’s legendary temper begin to simmer. “Do you understand the term
unintended consequences
?”

The young leader of Fatah shrugged as if he couldn’t care less.

“How about luck … as in good or bad luck?”

Radih nodded this time.

“Well, let me explain to you why your mood is starting to upset me. Six months ago, you decided to kidnap an American businessman, who, as it turns out, is just that. He is not a spy. You kidnapped him without coming to us for approval. For that reason alone I could have you shot. That single kidnapping has set in motion a series of events. Agent Cummins was then sent to try to negotiate the release of this businessman. You decided to then grab Cummins rather than negotiate a fee and end it. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we found out that Mr. Cummins is a CIA spy.”

“How could that be unfortunate?” Radih proclaimed more than asked.

Mughniyah sat back and gripped the armrests of his chair, almost as if he were trying to hold himself back. “I am in a rather bad mood tonight, so I suggest you keep your interruptions to a minimum, Abu, or I might lose control and snap your scrawny little neck.” He let a moment pass, and when he was sure that he had the younger man’s attention, he continued. “Where was I? Yes, as it turned out, Mr. Cummins was not who he said he was. He is in fact an American spy. Now, when we are a few days away from handing Cummins over to the Russian, the notorious Bill Sherman and another CIA lackey show up. Are you following me so far?”

Radih nodded.

“All of this was set in motion by one event. Your kidnapping of the businessman. These are what we would call unintended consequences. How many more unintended consequences are going to pop up? Are there any more Americans in the city, or on their way to the city? Will the four of us survive the week? These are the questions that we will not know the answers to until this thing plays itself out. Your heart is in the right place and you are eager, but you need to understand that your actions have consequences. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“Now the unfortunate thing is that the Americans appear to have learned their lesson after they let us ship their old station chief off to Tehran, so we could thoroughly interrogate him and then dismantle their network of spies. This time it appears they are going to try to get one of their own back. The only surprise is that they didn’t try to do it sooner, but now that we have the legendary Mr. Sherman, I think the stakes have been raised considerably.”

“How so?” Radih asked, trying not to sound confrontational.

“Mr. Sherman is a particularly nasty man, who no doubt has many nasty secrets bottled up in his sick little head. The CIA will not want those secrets to get out, so I am afraid they will try to get him back as well.”

“So,” Badredeen said, picking up the conversation, “we must move quickly and carefully to rid ourselves of all these Americans.”

“And that is where the Russian comes in.” Mughniyah stared at Sayyed. “Assef, when was the last time you you heard from the Russian?”

Sayyed wiped the corners of his mouth. “Yesterday. I was not able to get hold of him today.”

“Has he mentioned anything about Dorfman and the empty accounts?”

“No.”

Mughniyah and Badredeen looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Badredeen spoke. “Don’t you find his silence on the subject a bit strange?”

“I do.”

“There are three possibilities.” Badredeen held up one finger. “The first, the Russian has no idea our banker was murdered in his home on Sunday and that the very next morning, millions of dollars were emptied out of accounts that he himself helped us set up. Does anyone believe for a second that the Russian is that clueless?” When they were all done agreeing, Badredeen moved on to his second point. “The Russian, being the greedy man that he is, killed Dorfman and took all of the money for himself.”

Mughniyah held up two fingers and said, “I am going with option two.”

“What about option three?” Sayyed asked.

“Someone unknown to us killed Dorfman and stole the money. The only problem with this theory is that Dorfman was very secretive about his clients. The man had no social skill. He cared only for his dogs.”

“Still … someone … an enemy could have found out.” Sayyed tried to keep the options open.

“Let me ask you,” Mughniyah said, leaning forward, “can you think of anyone you know who has a reputation for cheating people out of their money?”

“I don’t want to be in the position of defending Ivanov, but I think we need more evidence before we settle on him as the thief.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Sayyed nodded. “You are correct. Mikhail Ivanov is not exactly the most honest man I know.”

“And let’s not forget the little falling-out he had with our Turkish friend,” Badredeen added.

Sayyed was the one who had passed on the information he’d picked up from Damascus. Hamdi Sharif, the arms dealer whom they had worked with for close to a decade, had reportedly had a fight with Ivanov over a business deal. A month later, Sharif ended up assassinated on a park bench in front of his house. He had asked Ivanov about it, but of course the man had denied any connection.

Mughniyah placed his big hairy right hand on the table. He tapped a thick finger and said, “Moscow is a den of thieves. I warned all of you about this years ago. The collapse has turned it into a free-for-all where the most brutal simply take what they want.”

Sayyed could not argue with what he had said. “So what do we do?”

“You say the Russian will be here Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We are going to have a little auction.”

The word seemed to wake up Radih. “What kind of auction?”

“The kind where we sell the American spies to the highest bidder.”

“What bidders?” Sayyed asked.

“Don’t worry,” Mughniyah cautioned. “Just make sure the Russian is here, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“What about Damascus? I must report this missing money.”

Mughniyah shook his head. “Not yet. Give me a few days and then you can tell them.”

CHAPTER
54

R
APP
stepped out into the hot afternoon sun and looked over the edge of the veranda. The narrow street that snaked its way up the hill was barely wide enough for a single car to pass. Down at the bottom, maybe a hundred yards away, he could see the Toyota pickup truck blocking the street. The houses on this little goat hill were all flat-roofed. Clotheslines were strung up and shirts and pants and other garments flapped in the breeze. Beneath him, in the tiny courtyard, three vehicles were packed in with no more than a few feet in between. The ten-foot wall had a ring of razor wire strung from one end to the other. He looked to his right and found a stack of green fiberglass crates. Stenciled on the side in black letters were a string of numbers and letters that he didn’t understand, then a few that he did.

Each crate contained multiple M72 LAW antiarmor weapons. Next to those were a crate of rounds for an M203 grenade launcher that was leaning against the wall. Above that, affixed to the wall, was a hand-drawn laminated map that marked the distance and elevation to certain landmarks up to a mile away. Rapp was wondering what all this stuff was for when he heard the voice of the man who had pulled him out of the safe house the night before.

“We call this the sky box … not anymore really, but during the height of the war we would sit up here and watch it all unfold.”

Rapp turned around to find Rob Ridley sipping on a bright red can of Coke. “Sky box?”

Ridley approached the edge of the balcony, pointed toward the ocean to the north, and then drew his hand south. “See that big, ugly scar that runs from the north to the south?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the famous Green Line. We’d sit up here and watch them fight, like a football game. That’s why we called it the sky box.”

Rapp pointed to the stack of U.S. Army crates. “Looks like you guys did more than watch.”

“That shit is more for self-defense, although I saw some badass snipers roll through here. That’s the unwritten story about this little war … the snipers. They did most of the damage. We found that they were getting a little close.” Hurley pointed up at the overhang. “They started sending rounds in here on a daily basis. We put up sandbags, and then after one of our guys got killed, we put in a request for a couple of those badasses from Fort Bragg. Two of them showed up five days later.” Ridley pointed at the map on the wall. “They put that thing together. In six days they had thirty-one recorded kills, and that pretty much solved the problem. Kinda like bringing in an exterminator.” Ridley laughed and then added, “That’s classified, so don’t go around telling that story to just anyone.”

“How long have we had a presence up here?”

“You’d have to ask Stan that question. I was still in the Marine Corps when they blew our barracks up.” Ridley pointed to the south. “Right over there. I showed up in ’88. That was when we started rotating sniper teams through here. They loved it. In fact this is where the D Boys battle-tested the first Barrett .50 cal. He shot a guy just over seven thousand feet away.”

“That’s more than a mile.”

“One-point-three and some change.” Hurley looked off toward the Green Line. “Strange breed, those snipers. Pretty quiet lot … kept to themselves for the most part, but that night they got shitfaced and naked. I guess seven thousand feet is a pretty rare club. At any rate I think we’ve been up here since ’85.”

“I thought we pulled out,” Rapp said.

“Langley never pulls out … or at least rarely. Shit, this little outpost is what stopped this thing from being a complete disaster. We knew everything Damascus was up to. We helped blow up supply convoys, target the occasional asshole who wandered too far away from his home turf. We even taught these guys how to use indirect fire and the other side knew we were here, too. That’s why they sent those snipers after us.”

“So this is where you’re based?” Rapp asked, thinking it didn’t make a lot of sense.

“No.” Ridley shook his head. “Not for over a year. Things are too quiet around here now.”

“So what exactly do you do for Langley?”

“I’m kind of here and there. I guess you could call me a floater.”

Rapp had no idea what that meant and got the distinct impression that Ridley wasn’t going to enlighten him any further. Rapp let out a yawn. His nights and days were upside-down. After their mad dash from the apartment, Ridley had filled in some of the blanks. The problem was that beyond the obvious fact that Hurley and Richards had been picked up, Ridley had very few details. Rapp had pressed him hard, wanting to know what Langley was doing to find them. Ridley had to admit not much of anything. Langley was sending a small six-man SOG team, and they were actively trying to collect any intel that would aid in a rescue.

Ridley worked his sources well past midnight, but every single one of them seemed to have conflicting information. Finally at 4:00
A.M
. he sent Rapp to bed and told him to get some rest. He assured Rapp he’d been through more than a few of these abductions, and they tended to progress slowly, especially for the first few days. Rapp had a hard time falling asleep. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining what Hurley and Richards were going through. As part of his training, he’d spent two days tied to a chair. Guys would come in randomly and smack him around. They even gave him some low-voltage shocks from a small engine battery. There was nothing remotely enjoyable about the experience, and Hurley had cautioned them that it paled in comparison to what they would go through at the hands of a sadist or a skilled interrogator. Finally, around sunrise, he had dozed off.

“Listen, I know what you’re going through.”

Rapp gave him a sideways glance. Ridley was a few inches shorter and a decade or so older. Rapp couldn’t quite figure out if he was an optimist or a pessimist. He seemed to kind of float back and forth between the two.

“I’ve known Stan for six years. I’d do anything to try to save the guy. But we need to get some good intel before we can even consider lifting a finger.”

Back in training, if someone had asked him to lay down his life to save Stan Hurley, he would have laughed at him, but now he wasn’t so sure. “Any idea where they are?”

Ridley pointed east. “The other side of the big ugly scar. Indian country.”

“You ever go over there?”

Ridley gave him a nervous laugh. “I try not to.”

“So you’ve been?”

“Occasionally. It’s nowhere near as bad as it was back when the shit was really flying.” He searched Rapp’s face, wondering what he was thinking. “It’s still a nasty place for a stranger like you, kid.”

Rapp nodded even though he really wasn’t listening. “So it wouldn’t be such a good idea to wander over there and start asking questions.”

“That would be about the dumbest thing you could do, kid.” Ridley could see the upstart wasn’t listening to him. He reached out and grabbed his arm. “I’ve been to that little lake house down in southern Virginia. I’ve seen the way Stan takes badasses and grinds them up and spits out little pussies, so I’m guessing if you made it through his selection process you’ve got some serious skills. Am I right?”

Rapp looked at Ridley’s grip until he released his arm. “What’s your point?”

“I don’t care how good you are. Going over to Indian country on your own is a suicide mission. We’ll end up looking for three of you instead of two.”

“Well … I’m not good at sitting around, so somebody better come up with a plan and come up with it quick.”

The triple beep, beep, beep of a car horn caught their attention and they both looked to the base of the hill, where a three-car convoy had just pulled up to the roadblock.

“Finally,” Ridley said.

“Who is it?”

“A local who knows more about this hellhole than anyone.”