Jihad (9 page)

“That’s not precisely correct,” said Rubens.

“Oh? I did get that impression from the briefing papers and the background memoranda establishing it.”

“The key is the melding of the technology with the field operatives,” said Rubens, realizing what was going on. “As for the mission set, it goes beyond the so-called black bag operations common to ZR/RIFLE—”

“I’m not referring to the mission set, but to organizational arrangements and missions.”

“That debate was conducted at the beginning of the administration.”

“Perhaps it is time to revisit it.”

It had been an admirable performance really, not especially subtle yet couched in just enough ambivalence to give plausible denial that it wasn’t what it surely must be: a play to cut Rubens’ role in the administration. Bing would start by cutting off his access to the president—under Hadash he’d had almost unlimited access—and would finish by giving Desk Three to the CIA, limiting the National Security Agency to a strictly secondary role in the intelligence community.

It was also a move meant to establish her as a major player in the administration. She needed a scalp on her belt and had decided that his would best serve her purposes.

“As national security advisor, it’s certainly your prerogative to open or close any debate,” said Rubens, rising. “I hope you’ll keep me informed.”

“Naturally,” said Bing. She extended her hand; Rubens shook it, not realizing until too late that it was greasy with dressing.

CHAPTER 26

DEAN DROVE TOWARD the Yenikapi ferry terminal where they had a backup car they could swap into. According to the Art Room, the Istanbul police had not yet arrived at the hospital, so there was no need to rush. The driver was in the backseat, sandwiched between Lia and John Reisler; the other CIA agent, Terrence Pinchon, was next to Dean in the front.

“We’re going to need some more Demerol,” Lia said, leaning over the front seat. “He’s stirring.”

“He ought to be down for the count.”

“Tell me about it.”

“We’ll change cars first, then we’ll swing back and get one of the kits. You guys are taking him to Bayindr,” Dean added. “You think you can do that by yourselves?”

“We can handle it,” said Pinchon.

“I’m only asking if you need backup,” Dean told him. “Don’t get insulted. Bayindr’s a good drive from here.”

They were using the operation’s backup plane; the Gulfstream for Asad had to stay in Istanbul just in case anything went wrong.

“I’ve done renditions before,” said Pinchon, using the CIA term for operations to snatch terrorists and “render” them elsewhere, generally to another country for justice. “Just like old times, huh, Lia?” added the para. “Except the body count’s higher. Guess you don’t have a colonel screaming up your backside, huh?”

“You were in the army together?” Dean asked.

“More or less,” said Lia.

“You ever hear that slogan, ‘Army of One’?” said Pinchon. “Lia kind of took it to heart.”

“Still does,” said Dean.

LIA CHECKED THE terrorist’s wrists, which were cinched in his lap, making sure they were tight. His lower right leg was in a cast that ran from his ankle to his knee, covering the area of the fracture. He groaned as she pushed him back into the seat.

“You gave him the whole hypo?” Lia asked Reisler. “He’s coming to already.”

“Whole shot, yeah.”

Lia didn’t think that was possible, but there was no use arguing.

“So who is he?” asked Pinchon.

“Abul Hazanwi, Red Lion’s driver,” said Lia. “We want him alive. He may talk.”

“Right.”

“He’s a source. He has to stay alive,” repeated Lia. “You hear that, Terry?”

“Hey, loud and clear.”

Lia wanted to ask him how he had survived Kyrgyzstan. She wanted to ask many other things as well, starting with why he’d let her think he was dead. But she couldn’t—she didn’t dare—ask anything. She already knew she wouldn’t like the answers.

“Our swap car is a blue BMW, in the corner of the lot,” Dean told them. “I’m going to go past once, drop someone off on foot. They check the lot. When they give the high sign, we come back and we’ll make the swap.”

“Drop me,” said Lia.

“Fine.”

And then there was Charlie.

What about Charlie? She loved him. Loved him with a deep ache.

But she’d loved Pinchon more, hadn’t she?

She had.

“Drop me right here,” said Lia. “I can walk past.”

Dean pulled to the side.

“Hey,” he said, turning to her as she started to get out.

“Yeah?”

“You got your gun?”

Lia held it up.

“You all right?” Dean stared at her, his eyes trying to penetrate her skull, figure out what she was thinking.

“I’m fine, Charlie Dean,” she told him, slamming the door.

CHAPTER 27

KARR PLANTED TRACKING bugs on the cars belonging to Asad’s visitors, then walked down the street and around the corner to a block populated by small stores. With the exception of a restaurant on the corner, all were closed, but he wasn’t here to shop. Three motorbikes were parked at the side of a bicycle repair shop; Karr went to the one at the far end, got on, and backed away from the curb. The engine hummed to life, strong and steady.

“He’s coming out now, Tommy,” said Rockman. “Don’t get too close.”

“Why would I do that?” said Karr, gunning the bike to life.

CHAPTER 28

DEAN SWUNG OUT of the parking lot and headed down the road, waiting for Lia to report back. When she told him it was clear, he pulled into a crowded gas station and made a U-turn, heading back to the lot. Dean decided that he would drive the Mercedes back toward Istanbul before abandoning it, just in case someone connected the two cars.

“Beemer, huh?” said Pinchon as he drew up next to the BMW. “You guys really know how to live it up.”

Dean remained silent. Something about Pinchon rubbed him the wrong way.

“I’ll tell you where to pick me up,” Dean told Lia as they hustled the terrorist into the other car. “I don’t want to leave the Mercedes here.”

He drove about two miles on the highway back toward the city before finding a parking lot where the Mercedes wouldn’t stand out. Lia met him up on the highway; he got into the back, sliding next to the prisoner and Reisler.

“Stuffy in here,” said Pinchon, rolling down the window. The breeze hit Dean full in the face as Lia picked up speed.

“Do me a favor and roll that back up, would you?” Dean asked.

Pinchon smirked—Dean could see it in the passenger-side mirror—and raised the window about an inch.

“So what are we doing?” Reisler asked.

“We’re going to get a sedative to make sure he sleeps through the night,” said Dean. “We have a cache of gear about a half hour outside of the city in the direction you’re going. You can leave Lia and me there. You drive to Bayindr. There’ll be a team to meet you there tonight. You know how to get there?”

“We’ll find it,” said Pinchon.

“I’d put him in the trunk if I were you,” said Dean.

“You gonna tell me how to wipe my ass, too?”

Dean leaned forward, then, in a sudden motion that he could barely control, swung his arm around the headrest and grabbed Pinchon by the neck, pressing his fingers hard against the side of his throat.

“I asked you to
raise
the window.”

Only when the window was all the way up did Dean let go. No one spoke after that.

LIA PULLED UP next to the white Toyota Corolla, dust and ash flying up from the small lot. Dean got out and walked around the car, scanning the nearby building to make sure it was empty. Her heart clutched when he jumped over the guardrail behind the Corolla’s trunk; there was only a narrow concrete ledge there before a sheer drop of twenty or thirty feet into the surf below.

“Let’s get al-Qaeda here in the back,” said Pinchon, getting out.

Lia popped the trunk, then watched through the side mirror as the two CIA agents pulled the prisoner out. Either Pinchon had not given him all of the dope, or the dose was somehow bad, because the terrorist was clearly conscious.

“Is the Arabic translator on the line?” she asked Rockman, who was listening to her in the Art Room. “Haznawi just came to and he’s talking.”

“She’s here.”

“He’s asking what we’re doing,” said Reisler.

“What are we doing?” said Pinchon in English outside the car. “We’re saving you from your friends, raghead.”

As Lia threw open her door, Reisler started to explain in Egyptian Arabic that Haznawi’s al-Qaeda companions had tried to kill him at the hospital.

“You’re safe now,” said Reisler. “Very safe.”

Haznawi responded by launching himself headfirst over the nearby guardrail.

DEAN DIDN’T REALIZE what had happened until he heard Lia curse. He turned in time to see their prisoner tumbling over the rocks and then falling into the water head first. Reaching back into the trunk, he grabbed one of the nylon ropes, planning to lower himself down to the water. As he straightened, three shots rang out. At least one hit the prisoner; his body bobbed backwards, disappearing for a moment before resurfacing face down. Even in the dim light Dean could tell he was dead.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Dean shouted.

“What, I’m supposed to let him get away?” said Pinchon.

“He had a cast on his leg and his hands were bound. How far could he have gone before I grabbed him?”

“I didn’t think you’d make it, old man.”

“Get him,” said Dean.

“He’s your prize. You get him.”

“Get him. Then find your own way home.”

“We can’t just leave them here, Charlie,” said Lia as Dean stomped back to the BMW.

Rockman was practically yelling in his head, asking what was going on.

“The al-Qaeda driver is dead,” Dean told him. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Charlie—”

“I can’t explain now.” Dean snapped the com system off.

“Take the Toyota,” Dean told Reisler, who had a stunned look on his face. He pointed to the car, which was parked a short distance away. It was one of their backups. “Key’s in a case under the driver’s side.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

Lia ran to Dean as he strode toward the BMW.

“Charlie, we can’t go like this.”

“Are you driving or am I?”

“I’ll drive,” she told him finally, getting into the car.

LIA DROVE ACROSS to the Beyoglu section of Istanbul, parking near a jazz place they’d gone to during their orientation stay a few weeks before. She turned off the engine, then reached to the back of her belt, making sure her com system was still off.

“What are we going to tell Telach?” she asked Dean.

“What do you mean? We tell her what happened.”

“I don’t know, Charlie.”

“They heard the whole thing, Lia.”

“We screwed up.”

“Like hell
we
screwed up. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum screwed up. They blew it big-time.”

“It’s our fault.”

“Since when do you cover for the CIA?”

“I’m not covering for them.”

Dean didn’t answer.

“We better tell them what’s going on before they freak out,” Lia said finally. “Before Mr. Rubens calls on the sat phone.”

Dean grabbed her hand before she could switch the com system back on.

“What’s with you and Pinyon?”

“Pinchon. Terry.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“We worked together on a couple of missions. He was in Delta.”

“And?”

“We worked together. I thought he was dead.” Lia saw the charred car, the bodies. He
had
to have died. There could be no other explanation.

But he was alive.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Lia added.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“I didn’t ask,” she said, turning on the com.

CHAPTER 29

TOMMY KARR FOUND himself zooming up a street narrower than most sidewalks when a pair of headlights turned from a side road and bore down on him. He began to tilt the bike into a skid, then spotted an opening at the right and plunged into an alley just ahead of the headlamps. The alley, barely wider than his shoulders, connected with a second, even narrower one that circled around a large building, spitting him out on another side street. A horn blared in his ears; Karr tucked onto the nearby sidewalk, which quickly turned into a succession of stairs. Karr’s teenage summers spent riding dirt bikes through wood trails didn’t translate well on the misshapen and slippery steps: after about fifty yards he and the bike went separate ways. The bike spun into a row of discarded boxes and plastic garbage cans, which broke its fall. Karr didn’t have nearly as much luck, slamming hard onto the concrete and cracking his head against a metal pole so fiercely that the visor’s display died.

Growling, he jumped to his feet and ran to the bike, a flood of adrenaline and anger pushing away the pain of the fall.

Temporarily.

“What’s going on?” asked Chafetz.

“I fell. Give me directions.”

“Tommy, are you okay?”