Protect and defend (19 page)

The most risky part for Stilwell was that he had to basically open up shop so people knew where to find him. The problem with hanging a shingle was that it also put a bull’s-eye on his back, and in a city like Mosul, with all of its vying factions any American, let alone a CIA officer, was a ripe target. Stilwell went to great efforts to protect himself. He never slept in the same place more than two nights in a row, he changed cars frequently, and he played himself off as a low-level CIA officer who had almost no authority. He created a fictional boss named Lady Di who was more like Margaret Thatcher than the deceased princess. She called all the shots and had all the power. Stilwell was merely a conduit. His meets usually took place at one of the city’s plentiful Internet cafés or one of the open-air markets. He had half a dozen Kurdish bodyguards who were seasoned fighters and were extremely loyal to the CIA.

The car rolled up to an intersection and stopped at the red light. They were headed south toward the airport to meet Kennedy and her entourage. There were signs that the morning hustle and bustle was starting. A few street vendors were setting up their stands, and traffic was beginning to pick up. Rapp watched as Stilwell looked both ways. He was about to run the light until a woman covered from head to ankle in a black Naqab stepped off the curb with a child on each hand. The little boy was in jeans and a sweater, and the girl was wearing the hijab or Muslim scarf. The mother looked straight ahead through the slits in her hood. The boy of about five and his older sister of a few years looked at Rapp and smiled. Rapp grinned, gave them a little wave and said a silent prayer that they would make it through the day without being maimed or killed. The complete lack of respect for life by the insurgents was heartbreaking.

During a recent session with one of Langley’s shrinks Rapp had been asked if he thought killing was too easy for him. He’d been through enough of these evaluations to know that accusations were made in the form of a question. If they were asking it, it was being written down in his file as an opinion or fact. For starters, Rapp had a hard time with people who had no practical field experience. He had no patience with anyone who second-guessed his work from the comfort of a predictable, climate-controlled office while making decisions with a warm cup of coffee at hand and no fear whatsoever of getting killed in the next five minutes.

Rapp would never tell one of the shrinks this, but he had found almost nothing more satisfying than tracking down a man who had the blood of innocent people on his hands and punching his ticket. If it had to be a head shot from a half a mile, so be it. If it meant painting a target with a laser so an American jet could drop a 500-pound bomb on the idiot’s head, fine, but if he had his choice he preferred close proximity. Rapp wanted to look them in the eye while it dawned on them that their pathetic life was coming to a painful conclusion. His victims were thugs and bullies who thought of themselves as brave because they loaded a car with explosives and then conned some delusional teenager with a death wish into driving it into a building or crowded market. What was their endgame? How could any moral person think such an action could be sanctioned by a supposedly compassionate deity?

The answer was less complicated than many believed. These were men, and make no mistake about it, they were always chauvinistic, bigoted men, devoted to a perverted interpretation of Islam. Men who had bought into violence and division in their youth and refused to let go. Men who had invested so much of their life in hate and blaming others for their troubles that they were too afraid to step back and really think about what they were doing. Men who were frightened to read the entire Koran because they knew they would be confronted with the words of a prophet who would never condone their actions.

These were the animals Rapp hunted. Men who had no respect for human life and consequently would be afforded none in return. There were only a handful of people who really understood the discipline that Rapp practiced. The satisfaction of tracking them, sometimes for months. Knowing when to strike and when to hold your fire. Looking for the perfect opportunity to get close enough to stick a knife through their brain stem and watch every bodily function below the neck shut down. Knowing that you had delivered justice for all the people whose innocent lives had been cut short by the fanatic and his organization. Knowing that never again would the predator take another human life.

Over the years, the mission had taken Rapp to some very forbidding places. He’d spent nights in the humid jungles of the Philippines and Southeast Asia with mosquitoes as big as hummingbirds dive-bombing him. He’d been forced to cross the northern edge of the Sahara Desert on foot to evade Libyan security forces. He’d nearly frozen to death in the Swiss Alps, and in Afghanistan once he was hit with such violent dysentery that he lost seventeen pounds in one week. Most of it while curled up in a ball on the floor of a dank, depressing apartment.

As he rode through the dusty, ancient city of Mosul, Rapp came to the conclusion that he would take his chances in those other places any day. The city of almost two million people gave him a nagging sense of just how divided this part of the world still was. Last night Ridley had gone back to the base so he could be in secure communication with Langley and help prepare for Kennedy’s arrival while Rapp and Stilwell went to check out the safe house and the neighborhood where Kennedy would be meeting her counterpart. He and Stilwell had walked down Ninawa Street to the Tigris and then turned south to Amir Zayo Street, where the safe house was located. Four of the bodyguards were with them, two in front and two trailing who stayed within a block at all times. The reconnaissance took an hour, and while Rapp saw no actual violence, there were signs of it everywhere. Buildings were pocked from gunfire and shrapnel. A handful were scorched from explosions and a few were half destroyed. The police presence around the courthouse was heavy, even in the evening after it was closed. The main roads were clogged with orange and white taxis and old Japanese-made cars.

At one point a U.S. Army column of Stryker vehicles rolled by. The eight-wheeled armored combat vehicles stopped traffic and rattled windows. Rapp observed as some people stood and watched while others melted away down alleys and inside shops. The tension was obvious. Half of these people wanted the conquering army gone, while the other half desperately wanted them to stay and keep the country from sliding into a full-blown civil war. It was this tension that gave Rapp a sense of foreboding. Like a big storm was coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The inability to clearly assess who was a threat and who wasn’t complicated the situation in ways that caused immeasurable stress. It was nearly impossible to keep all the players straight, and even if you could, there was no guarantee that some of them wouldn’t switch sides in the heat of battle.

Stilwell was the one reassuring factor. The man had done his job to near perfection. The safe house was located directly across the street from where the meeting would take place. It was at one of Stilwell’s Internet cafés where he would meet his contacts. The owner was the cousin of one of Stilwell’s bodyguards. Stilwell slid him an extra thousand dollars a month in cash just to use the place. The second-story apartment across the street was stocked with provisions. It was a classic no-frills operation. They had military cots, military rations, and lots of military hardware in case the place came under siege. There was a grenade launcher, a half dozen M-4 rifles and Glock .45-caliber pistols, a big Barrett .50-caliber sniping rifle, two M249 SAWs, and a case of M67 fragmentation hand grenades. There was also body armor, a triage kit, a communications/surveillance package, and a stack of old magazines and paperbacks. All of this was protected by a reinforced steel door with three heavy-duty dead bolts. The windows were covered with bars, and tiny security cameras covered the stairwell, street, and the inside of the apartment. Stilwell had all four safe houses set up in the same manner and was able to monitor the cameras over the Internet.

Rapp had fallen asleep around 11:00 p.m. with the door barred and his loaded .45-caliber Glock next to him. Shortly before 2:00 a.m. he was pulled from a dream by the sound of gunshots. He lay awake for more than an hour, and then just as he was falling back asleep, there were more gunshots. This time closer. Stilwell began snoring like a drunk and all Rapp could do was lie there, rest his eyes, and think of all the things he needed to check on in the morning. He finally fell back to sleep as morning approached only to be jolted off his cot by a massive explosion. Rapp flipped on a light and looked over at Stilwell who cracked an eye.

“That was close,” Rapp said.

“Don’t worry,” Stilwell mumbled. “That was one of ours.” He then rolled over and was back to snoring in less than a minute.

Rapp looked at the scenery as they hit the main thoroughfare for the airport. He asked himself for at least the tenth time if it was wise to bring Kennedy into this environment. The Iranians refused to meet at the airport, so a neutral spot within the city was agreed upon. They passed the bombed-out carcass of a car, and Rapp let out a yawn.

Stilwell looked over with his toothy grin and asked, “What’s the matter? You didn’t get a good night’s sleep?”

Rapp looked straight ahead and frowned. “I don’t know what was worse, the gunfire or your snoring.”

“My snoring. You spend enough nights here, you get used to the gunfire.”

“I’ll bet.” Rapp nodded thoughtfully and made a mental note to have Kennedy give Stilwell a commendation and a big fat raise. These guys in the field were never paid enough.

The Russian-made Hind Mi-24 helicopter came in fast and looped around the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh. Ashani looked down at the crumbling Assyrian ruins and thought of his own country’s place in history. He didn’t remember all the facts, but he knew the capital of the Assyrian Empire had fallen approximately a thousand years before the prophet’s arrival. The Medians and the Babylonians had crushed the city and then in turn were conquered by Cyrus the Great. The days when the Persians controlled everything from the Mediterranean to modern-day India were long gone. Any hopes of ever attaining the prominence of his predecessors seemed impossible. Based on recent developments, they would be lucky if the once former empire didn’t contract further.

Ashani had felt for some time that the government was in a far more tenuous position than anyone would acknowledge. His fellow members on the Supreme Security Council were either too disconnected from what was going on or had surrounded themselves with sycophants who only told them what they wanted to hear. That was definitely the case with Amatullah. He had grown to believe his own propaganda and his ability to get others to believe it as well.

The debacle at the United Nations had stung. In addition to the entire issue being tabled by the Security Council, America’s accusation that Iran was trying to cover up an internal revolt had gained some real traction. Foreign Minster Salehi’s weak counter-accusation that America had fabricated the information only seemed to worsen things. Salehi’s protest in the face of Secretary of State Wicka’s avalanche of information looked lame even to Ashani. The international press was running stories that for the first time since the revolution, questioned the ability of the government in Tehran to hold on to power. Protests were springing up in the northern provinces, and in Tehran his people were telling him the mood on the street was combustible.

The Supreme Leader was characteristically absent, choosing to focus instead on the religious well-being of the country. Ashani had his suspicions that the Supreme Leader was distancing himself from a sinking ship, giving Amatullah all the rope he needed to either save or hang himself. Ashani thought the Supreme Leader was trying to elevate his position of spiritual leader to such heights that he would be safe should Amatullah fail in rallying support from the international community and regaining control of his fellow Iranians. Several banks had been firebombed overnight. Amatullah put the security services on full alert and ordered them to arrest anyone at even the whiff of trouble.

The helicopter leveled out and began a slow descent toward a parking lot near the river. Ashani glanced to his right and looked at the back of Imad Mukhtar, who was looking out the starboard side window and talking on a cell phone. As if things weren’t bad enough, Amatullah was now taking counsel from Mukhtar. The head of Hezbollah’s paramilitary wing was a useful tool for certain things, but advising the Iranian president during this heightened crisis was not one of them. He was far too obtuse to be offering advice on such complicated matters. Even in the face of what had happened at the United Nations, Mukhtar had lobbied to launch attacks against Israel and America. When pressed by Ashani as to why, he proclaimed that guilty or not the two nations had benefited by the act and should be punished. Not getting anywhere with Ashani, Mukhtar directed his words at Amatullah, telling him that by striking back at the Jews and the Americans the Iranian people would see them as guilty.

“And if they decide to strike back?” Ashani asked yet again.

Mukhtar looked at him smugly and shook his head. “They do not want to fight us. Trust me.”

As Ashani thought back to the meeting late last night, he couldn’t shake the nagging sense that America would push back. Not a single member of the Supreme Council had any idea just how shaky their footing was. Ashani could feel the trouble in the wind. Civil disobedience was up. Greater numbers of women were wearing makeup and designer clothes that showed more skin than the clerics would ever tolerate. A crackdown was looming, and this time Ashani had a growing suspicion that it would send the people into a real revolt against the harsh policies of their government. Amatullah would do whatever it took to keep his blessed revolution rolling on. It was all he had. All he knew. He had invested too much time and effort to let it fail. Even if it was beyond saving.