The Outside Man

by Don Bentley

  We had neither.

  A second method involved putting eyes on the target, either through physical surveillance or by way of a drone or strategically placed camera. Again, we had neither. This meant that the Israelis had a technological trick or two up their sleeves that they hadn’t yet bothered to share with their American friends.

  That wasn’t exactly news since we had more than our fair share of tools, tactics, and procedures that we didn’t exactly broadcast, for obvious reasons. Even so, supposing the Israelis had a way to identify the Devil solely off his cell phone number and knowing they did were two very different things. The number of lives riding on this operation was growing by the minute. So as much as I liked Benny Boy, I wasn’t trusting my team to his word.

  He was going to have to do better.

  “Listen, Benny,” I said, walking away from the hustle and bustle of our ad hoc TOC for a bit of privacy. “I’m not calling you a liar, but I do need something more concrete.”

  A slew of now-familiar-sounding Hebrew curses greeted my reply, and I waited patiently until the deluge slowed to a trickle. Once Benny finally ran out of words, and the ensuing silence grew too pronounced, he spoke.

  “I’m texting you a video,” Benny said.

  My phone vibrated, announcing an incoming text. The quickness with which he’d sent it made me think that, as much as he pretended otherwise, my Mossad friend had already planned for this contingency. As Ronald Reagan famously said, Trust but verify.

  I clicked on the file embedded in the text, and a video began to play. A video showing the Devil’s unmistakable face. He was staring directly at the camera, his features scrunched up in concentration. The video was accompanied by the clicking sound recognizable by every human being over the age of six.

  The Devil was texting, which meant that the Israelis had the ability to remotely compromise a phone’s operating system using only its number. Very slick. But not as slick as learning that the Devil was at this very moment in Syria.

  “Believe me now?” Benny said.

  “Yep,” I answered. “Give my compliments to the boys and girls in Unit 8200. They’ve developed a very neat toy.”

  My phone vibrated again as I received another text. This time, instead of a video, Benny had sent me a hyperlink.

  “Click on the link,” Benny said. “It will take you to a secure site. The interface is like Google Maps, except the flashing blue icon is the target phone.”

  “Nice,” I said, clicking the link. Sure enough, my phone’s browser opened a window, and there was the flashing blue icon, smack-dab in the middle of Syria—just like Benny had claimed.

  “Save the flattery,” Benny said. “You have what you want. Now give me what I need.”

  “I hate to do this to you, old buddy,” I said, staring as the icon taunted me with every flash. “But my asking price just got a bit steeper. I need access to the contents of his phone.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Come on, Benny. Put yourself in my shoes. One more ask, and then we’re even Steven. Scout’s honor.”

  “No.”

  “Just a tiny bit of information.”

  “What?”

  “Access the phone’s call log and localize the number he’s dialed the most times today.”

  “Believe it or not, I don’t actually work for you.”

  “One more number, Benny. Then you can have your Iranians. After that, you’ll never hear from me again. Promise.”

  This time my phone pinged before I’d even finished speaking. With an anxious finger I stabbed the link. A new browser window opened. The new flashing icon was centered in Mosul.

  Hot damn.

  “Here are the coordinates of the Iranians,” I said, and read off the address Zain had provided. “Top floor of the building is a safe house. Bijan is inside. Good hunting.”

  “My debt is satisfied.”

  I thought about responding with something equally snippy, but didn’t. Mostly because I’m way too mature for that, but also because Benny had already hung up.

  That was okay. I knew where the Devil was and where he was heading. The rest of the operation would be a walk in the park.

  Or something like that.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The building that the Devil’s underling was occupying wasn’t just any building. It was a palace. Originally constructed by Saddam Hussein, the structure had played home to a revolving series of occupants since the dictator had been found cowering in a hole in the ground and later hanged.

  First came the Americans, who were impressed with the palace’s structural bones, but turned off by its gaudiness. A gold-plated commode sounded gangster enough, but was all sorts of impractical when it came to daily use. After the Americans, the building had been occupied by several bureaucrats and minor politicians. Then an enterprising businessman had purchased the palace and converted it into a nightclub.

  According to Zain’s local sources, the nightclub had been quite successful, right up until the black-clad ISIS jihadis had retaken Mosul from the feeble Iraqi army. The zealots had swept into the city with a simple mandate: convert the inhabitants to their radical strain of Sunni Islam and eliminate any infidels.

  Some people might have been intimidated by the scope of such a task, but not the ISIS foot soldiers. They were as fervent about their work as they were their faith. Two, since the acceptance criteria for their strain of Islam was stringent, while the qualifications for being an infidel were broad, it was often easier to just label someone an infidel and kill them. This was much more efficient than going through the time-consuming banality of a trial. After all, if the religious zealot administering the death sentences was wrong, and the victims really were Muslims, they’d still end up in paradise by Allah’s side.

  In other words, it was a win-win for everyone.

  Needless to say, this variant of Islam wasn’t terribly tolerant of the use of alcohol, tobacco, music, or anything particularly fun. As such, the palace-as-a-nightclub quickly morphed into something more fitting for an army of conquering jihadis: the palace-as-a-mosque. This version of the palace continued until the Kurds and Iraqis, backed by American airpower and special operations teams, drove ISIS from the city in a rain of blood and terror.

  For a brief period following the jihadis’ decimation, the palace had sat empty. But recently, the building had undergone renovations. No one was quite sure who had acquired the palace, only that he or she was well financed.

  Extremely well financed.

  For reasons unknown to the masons and the construction crews charged with building them, a series of perfectly level slabs of concrete reinforced with strips of rebar had been erected adjacent to the palace’s entrance.

  “What do you think they are?” Zain said, pointing to the symmetrically placed slabs as he looked at Google Earth images over my shoulder. “Foundations for outbuildings?”

  “No,” I said, feeling the pieces click together in my mind, “they’re helipads.”

  “Helipads?” Zain said, scratching his chin. “Who needs to travel by helicopter?”

  “Someone in Syria, I would imagine.”

  “So this is it?”

  “It’d better be. This is where we’re going.”

  * * *

  —

  The plan I’d developed was equal parts simple and complex. Simple because our objectives were straightforward: rescue Ferah and kill the Devil. The complex part extended to pretty much everything else.

  “This thing is itchy as hell,” Virginia said from behind me. “Half of me wants to round up every male at this flesh auction and sentence him to a life of wearing this shit at scenic Guantánamo Bay.”

  “And the other half?” I said.

  “The other half thinks we should just put a bullet in their brains and be done.”

  I coul
dn’t fault Virginia’s reasoning, least of all because I agreed with her. The palace would be a target-rich environment. Unfortunately, I didn’t have nearly enough resources to service all of them. Instead, I’d have to settle for saving Ferah and dealing with the biggest target of all: the Devil.

  But as with all operations, the devil was in the details.

  “Run it by me one more time,” I said as our driver slowed, joining a long line of cars turning off the thoroughfare for the crushed-gravel road leading to the palace.

  “Why?” Virginia said, shuffling closer so that she wouldn’t have to yell. “Because you don’t think I’ll remember?”

  “No. Because I don’t think I’ll remember.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Of course not,” I said, feeling the butterflies in my stomach that always came just before the start of an operation. “But I’m not into the whole keep-quiet-and-ponder-the-meaning-of-life shtick some guys do before a mission. Besides, I’m the mission commander, which means you have to do what I say. Start talking.”

  Virginia made a very unladylike gesture with her middle finger, but she began to speak.

  “You’re my pimp, so I stay close to you and keep my head down. At some point once we’re inside, I’ll be herded together with the other woman. When I find Ferah, I signal you.”

  “How many squeezes?”

  “Three,” Virginia said, holding up her right hand to reveal a thin leather glove covering her palm.

  The glove looked like the kind of brace a doctor might prescribe if you spent too many hours hunched over a keyboard. In reality, the material held a pressure-activated switch that was linked via Bluetooth to a tiny transmitter sewn into the top of her burka. One of the many amazing pieces of tech in Zain’s never-ending supply of Pelican cases.

  “Good. And if you get into trouble?”

  “I use my left hand.”

  This time Virginia punctuated her answer by clenching the fingers of her left hand into a fist and mashing down on the pressure switch in the second glove. In response, a tingling sensation ran the length of my left forearm as the tiny electrodes sewn into my sleeve sent out a continuously pulsating low-voltage signal.

  I reset the device, flexing my fingers.

  The configuration wasn’t exactly NSA Suite B encrypted, but the wireless set allowed for voiceless communication, and the high-energy-density lithium batteries powering the miniature transmitters had more than enough juice to reach from one end of the palace to the other. More important, there would be no mistaking Virginia’s duress signal. Once she tripped the transmitter on her left hand, I’d have a steady stream of invisible ants biting into my skin.

  “What if you need to buy yourself time?” I said.

  “Then I go for this,” Virginia said, patting the small of her back where a .38 snub-nose revolver was holstered. “Two to the chest, one to the head.”

  “If you need to use the pistol, don’t worry about being fancy,” I said, holding her gaze with my own. “Eliminate the immediate threat and hunker down. I will come for you.”

  “I know.”

  Though it was brief, I wasn’t prepared for the depth Virginia’s response communicated. Maybe it was because I’d never before gone into combat with a woman, or maybe there was something behind her eyes I wasn’t prepared to address. Either way, Zain’s voice echoing in my earbuds was a welcome interruption.

  “Matthew, Matthew, can you hear me?”

  I pointed toward my ear, signaling to Virginia that I had radio traffic, and then turned in my seat.

  “Loud and clear, Zain,” I said, staring at the red taillights of the car in front of me. “Go ahead, over.”

  Zain’s response was a garbled, unintelligible mix of feedback and static. I heard my name again, but little else.

  “Zain, I didn’t understand your last. Say again, over.”

  This time the electronic noise was painfully loud. I fumbled for my cell phone, dialing back the volume on the miniature earbuds concealed deep within my ear canals. After several torturous seconds, silence returned. Thumbing the transmit button, I tried again.

  “Zain, this is Matt. Say again, over.”

  Zain’s response came through with perfect clarity, as if he were seated in the car next to me instead of an observation post a quarter of a mile distant.

  “Matthew—we have trouble! Trouble!”

  Zain was an exceptional source of intelligence, but a covert operative he was not. As such, I had to imagine his radio discipline was a little lacking. The urgency he voiced in the last transmission made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but I wasn’t all that concerned.

  In the plan I had spliced together, Zain and his men were the outer cordon. Their job was to keep eyes on the objective and provide a diversion by assaulting the palace when I gave the signal. In other words, almost the exact roles they’d played exceedingly well at the Iranian hospital.

  The palace sat nestled at the base of a set of rolling hills. Open fields surrounded the structure on three sides while the Tigris River snaked by on the fourth. Zain was located at the summit of the nearest hill, approximately two hundred meters from the center of the palace. I was betting that Zain’s elevated perch would allow him to maintain communication with both me and the breaching team as well as give an early warning if any unexpected visitors decided to crash the party.

  As with any operation, I was expecting things to go wrong. That said, by my way of thinking, the real dangers to our team wouldn’t begin until Virginia and I were actually inside the palace. Since the crushed-gravel road we’d just joined was a good hundred and fifty or so meters from the palace’s gatehouse, we still had time to react if things went sideways. While I was concerned that something had spooked Zain, I wasn’t overly worried.

  At least not yet anyway.

  And I continued to feel that way right up until my driver, Oliver, pulled through the double wrought iron gates set in the eight-foot-tall stone wall that separated the palace’s outer grounds from its inner courtyard. A pair of guards with matching AK-47s slung across their chests played traffic cops at the gates, directing the steady stream of vehicles into ad hoc parking places.

  Upon seeing us, one of the guards pointed to the right, and Oliver followed his instructions. It was only as our headlights played across what was waiting in the courtyard that I realized that Zain might not have been overreacting after all. We had trouble all right.

  Trouble with a capital T.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Well, shit,” I said as Oliver swung our Land Rover toward the row of parked cars the guard had indicated.

  “What?” Virginia said, her voice reflecting the anxiety in mine.

  “Not now,” I said, turning to Oliver instead. “Can you take a spot in the next row over?”

  “Sorry, mate,” Oliver said, edging our vehicle behind a parked car. “Too late.”

  Oliver had been the one addition to my original plan. In my version, only Virginia and I would have entered the palace, but Zain had made a compelling argument against that course of action. My hastily configured legend as a rich Eurotrash thug required that I incorporate a bodyguard into our retinue. And as Zain was quick to point out, no European worth his salt would entrust his life to an Arab gunman. Instead, Zain made a few calls and thirty minutes later, Oliver Wilson showed up at our doorstep.

  Hailing from jolly old England, Oliver was in his mid-thirties, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, pale eyes, a beard, and the weather-beaten face of a man who’d spent most of his life outdoors. A former Royal Marine, Oliver had four combat tours to his name, three of them in Iraq.

  After coming down on orders for his fifth deployment, Oliver had promptly traded his green beret for a ball cap and a substantial raise. Like many special operations veterans, Oliver had decided to leave military service in favor of a well-
compensated position in Iraq’s thriving personal-protection industry. The company Oliver worked for had a number of legitimate contracts for Western diplomats, business executives, and minor government officials, but was also known for a willingness to accept more creative assignments.

  Simply put, Oliver was a mercenary. While I didn’t have anything against mercenaries in general, I tended to be a bit leery about putting my life in the hands of men who worked for the highest bidder. Then again, Oliver was an experienced shooter who spoke passable Arabic. Zain had used him to protect high-value shipments twice before and had given the former bootneck high marks.

  In any case, I needed an extra man, and as the old saying went, beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers.

  “What’s going on?” Virginia said, trying to edge her way between the seats for a better view.

  “Stay back,” I said, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her gently but firmly into her seat. “Party’s started a little sooner than we thought. It’s showtime.”

  I’d expected security to be tight—this was part of the plan. Virginia’s profile had garnered more than a million in bids on the Facebook page alone, and that wasn’t counting other social media platforms tied to the event.

  Adding Virginia to the auction had completely changed its dynamics. This was no longer about just auctioning off hapless village girls who’d been kidnapped by criminals or ISIS murderers. Now the galleys were littered with European girls of all shapes and sizes. By their practiced poses, I had to guess that some of them were professionals, while others were clearly scared shitless.

  The paragraph-long description under each girl was written in both Arabic and English. Clearly the clients for this particular soiree were high rollers, and the security presence reflected their status. Men with guns I was prepared for. Men with guns who were wearing the uniforms of the Iraqi Federal Police were a bit of a surprise.