by Brad Taylor
“The next man is hung up in the mess of electrical wiring. It will be a little longer.”
Jesus. What else can happen?
“How long? We can’t sit in this room forever. This guy was someone’s guard relief, and they’re going to come looking for him.”
Before he could answer, gunfire shattered the night, first a few rounds, then a major firefight, with AK-47s rocking on full automatic.
Samir said, “That’s from the men at the front. They’ve made contact.”
“Just you and me now,” Jennifer said. “We can’t wait for your partner on the rope. You ready?”
He checked to make sure a round was loaded, smiled, and said, “You going to lead the way, anthropologist?”
20
M
y torturer moved the scalpel to my bare chest, and I began screaming into the gag, shaking my head to let them know I wanted to talk. Anything to draw out the time.
He pulled out the rag of my shirt and waited.
“You guys have made a mistake. If you look at my past travel and what I’ve been doing, you’ll see I’m who I say I am. I swear. I just came from Syria, where I’m working with the Ministry of Culture on an archeological site. . . . Please . . . check it out before you do this.”
He shook his head. “You and I both know that’s not true. If you want the pain to stop, you need to give me something more. Don’t waste my time with your contrived story. Nobody in this room believes it, including you. I will ask you a question, though. How many archeological firms carry laptops full of explosives?”
The question caved in my courage, because there was no way on earth to counter it. No way for me to convince them they held the wrong man, nothing I could say that would alter the cold, hard facts of the café bombing.
They were going to break me. The fear swept through me, my mind racing for a way out. A way to get them to kill me, but there was nothing I could do with the two toughs to my left and right. They’d just capture me before I made it out of the room.
He leaned in again, and I prepared for the pain, channeling my rage to hang on.
A single gunshot rang out, giving him pause. After a moment of silence, another one boomed, then another, until at least four weapons were firing on full automatic.
He pulled back and looked at the old man for instructions. The boss barked something in Arabic, and the two toughs to my left and right ran out of the room.
It was just me against the two remaining men, with no weapons in sight.
Big mistake.
I sprang up on my loose right foot, throwing myself backward. I got about two feet in the air and landed hard on my back, shattering the chair.
I stood up with pieces of chair still tied to me, both wrists strapped to lengths of wood that used to be the arms.
I grabbed the old man by his pristine bin Laden–wannabe beard and whirled around, like an Olympian conducting a hammer throw. I did a full circle, generating as much velocity as I could, and released his head straight into the rock wall of the room, seeing it cave in with a satisfyingly meaty thud.
I turned on the torturer, who had backed up and started waving the scalpel. I stared into his eyes and smiled.
I worked the pieces of chair loose from my wrists, giving me a stout, ironwood club for each hand. I noticed nails sticking out of each end and turned them to the rear, mimicking his voice.
“Don’t worry, I won’t use the nails. I don’t want you to die too soon.”
I moved in on him, bringing the first club down on the forearm that held the scalpel, shattering it.
He screamed, a guttural sound from deep inside. The clubs became a blur, beating him all over his body, striking any available spot. Whenever he tried to protect himself, I moved somewhere else. I broke his jaw, both cheeks, his nose, ribs, clavicles, and anything else I could harm, the clubs working like a Japanese Taiko drummer.
He fell to the ground with pink, bubbly froth coming out of his mouth. I continued on like some demented gorilla, trying mightily to burst his internal organs, the rage flowing through me and into him.
Eventually, I slowed out of sheer exhaustion and saw I was now drumming a lifeless bag of meat. The rage evaporated, and I realized I had wasted precious seconds. The gunfight was still going on, and I felt a glimmer of hope that I might not need to simply die. Maybe I could escape alive.
I ran to the back of the room, to a door that hadn’t been used, hoping it led to a back hallway out of the building, away from the gunfire. I ratcheted the knob and found it locked.
I heard shouting behind me and whirled around, raising my clubs in a ridiculous attempt at defense.
The two toughs came back through the door, flabbergasted at the carnage. One ran to the old man while another took aim at my head.
I threw a club as hard as I could, causing him to raise his weapon to block the missile. The wood ricocheted off of the AK and hit him in the head. It exploded open in a mist of blood.
What the hell?
He fell over as my brain registered a gunshot. Two other individuals had entered behind him, both armed and shooting. The second tough whirled at the gunfire and brought his weapon up, but never got off a round before his head exploded as well.
The two swept the room for additional threats. Seeing none, one went to the bin Laden wannabe I’d cratered into the wall, and the other focused on me.
It was Jennifer. Walking toward me barefoot and holding an AK, her shoes draped incongruously around her neck. I was at a loss for words.
My little protégé.
She was staring at me with a crooked grin.
I said, “I’m never going to live this down.”
The smile reached her eyes, and she said, “Yeah, must be tough getting to actually live.”
She pulled an AK from her back and tossed it to me. When I caught it she saw the damage to my left hand. I quickly wrapped the wound with a remnant from my torn shirt. Through the shock on her face, I knew she understood what happened. I changed the subject before she could even ask.
“I’m not being nitpicky,” I said, “but usually an operator puts his shoes on before the gunfight.”
She looked down and saw I was right. She blushed and took the shoes from around her neck, bending down to put them on, saying, “I never got the chance . . .”
Over her kneeling form I saw the other man who had come in with her, checking on the vital signs of the bin Laden wannabe.
I recognized who it was, the rage flooding back.
Samir’s back was turned to me as he searched the man on the ground. I racked a round into the AK and strode right at him. I came abreast of Jennifer, and she leapt up, trying to push me back.
“Pike, stop. It’s not what you think. Samir didn’t do anything.”
I swept her aside and knocked Samir to the ground, putting a foot on his head.
“You miserable fuck. If I had the time, I’d carve you up like your buddies did to me.”
His eyes were wide and rolling left and right. He tried to talk but couldn’t because of the pressure I was putting on his head. I jammed the barrel of the AK right behind his ear and put my finger on the trigger.
Jennifer, who’d been jerking on me in an attempt to get me off of Samir, saw the move and stopped her attempts lest they caused me to fire.
She pleaded with me. “Pike, don’t do this. He saved your life. He and his men assaulted this place. Move your finger off the trigger.”
I didn’t hear a word. All I felt was the ultimate betrayal of the man at my feet and the terror of the last few hours. I itched to squeeze. Seven foot-pounds of pressure, and it would all be over.
Jennifer leaned in, no longer pleading. She whispered into my ear, her voice steel. “Pike. Stop right now. Back off. We still have to get out of here, and you’re screwing up the mission. You’re going to get us all killed. We need him to get out of here. We need his weapon and his men.”
The words penetrated my rage, snapping me back to th
e present.
“Kill him later. After we get out.”
She was absolutely right. Get the mission done. I removed my foot and pulled back the AK, but I kept the barrel pointed at his head. “What’s the plan?”
“Get out through the top, away from the fight downstairs.”
“What about site exploitation?”
Samir sat up and spoke for the first time. “Pike, I had nothing to do with that bomb. I was used just like—”
I snarled, “Shut the fuck up. Don’t open your mouth. You can keep the weapon, but if that barrel goes anywhere close to Jennifer or me, I’m gutting you.”
I returned to Jennifer. “What about SSE?”
“Have you lost your mind? We came here to get you. Mission accomplished. Now we’re getting the hell out. We don’t have the time to search this place. Even if we did, we don’t have the manpower to clear it first. You think I came in here with a Taskforce element? I’ve got a bunch of guys I just met who claim you trained them. Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
I went to the door, listening to the rhythms of the firefight a floor below. “You guys clear the upper floors?”
Jennifer snorted and stomped to the back of the room, ratcheting on the same door I had tried, looking for another way out. Samir said, “Yeah. Upstairs is clear.”
Jennifer came back over. “Jesus, Pike, stop what you’re thinking. We’re lucky to be standing here talking. Get your ass moving up those stairs.”
“Jennifer, I’m not leaving without some intel. I’m cleaning this place out of computers, passports, and anything else I can find.”
She tried to appeal to my sense of mission again. “Pike, think about it. We’ll have to clear and secure the entire building for site exploitation. We’ll have to kill everyone here first.”
I wiped the blood seeping out beneath the makeshift bandage on my left hand.
“Yeah. That’s a definite fringe benefit.”
21
I
nfidel chose to park the car on the outskirts of the Dahiyeh and walk in. He had some equipment within the vehicle that he’d more than likely be leaving behind, and he’d prefer that nobody in Hezbollah saw how he’d arrived.
His summons had been uniquely brusque, and he was fairly certain his Hezbollah paymasters were a little upset at the computer bomb. He hadn’t bothered to ask their permission, but since they were so paranoid anyway, he was sure they’d applaud his initiative. Well, almost sure.
He turned the corner to the café and saw three men standing at the entrance—where there was usually one. Not a good sign. He continued on, the only indication of his concern being a subtle caress of a carbon-fiber push dagger hidden parallel to the leather on the inside of his belt. A subconscious reassurance that he wasn’t without some means of selfdefense.
He reached the men and smiled, holding out his backpack to be searched. Instead, the men motioned for him to raise his arms. He did so and was subjected to a thorough pat-down, while his backpack was ripped apart.
That had never happened before either. He assumed that he was being punished for his little handiwork and not yet actively suspected of anything. Although with Hezbollah, you never knew. They were as paranoid as the Nazi faithful at the end of World War II, seeing assassins in the shadows everywhere. Being paid as an assassin probably didn’t help his image. Especially with the call sign Infidel.
The search finished, he entered the coffee shop, finding it empty. A man followed him in and nudged him forward with the barrel of a rifle. He thought about resisting, but didn’t. It crossed his mind that he might remain compliant right up until they put a bullet in his head. How far was too far? Where was the line when he would need to fight back? Impossible to know. Seeing a stairwell at the back of the café, he wondered if he’d already crossed it.
He paused for a second, knowing if he entered the stairwell there was really no turning back. He’d be trapped by a man with a gun inside a shooting funnel. The man nudged him again, and he started to climb.
Reaching the top, he saw Majid and Ja’far at a table, both looking at him sternly. Almost comically. He inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.
“You two upset about something? What’s with all the new security?”
Majid motioned to a chair. “Please. Sit down. We have something to discuss with you about your latest assignment. And the one before.”
He sat, the tension coming back at the last statement. The one before? Something go bad with the investigator? He knew the rules of the game. He’d seen what happened to people who were no longer useful. In 2005, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon had committed “suicide” right after speaking with the U.N. about the Hariri assassination. A valuable asset had become a potential liability overnight, and Syria had liquidated him. The assassin knew he was only as good as his last job. The minute he was a threat, he would be gone.
He decided on the confused approach. “Okay. You’ll have to start, since I have no idea what this is about.”
Majid smiled. “Really? Infidel, we use you because of your skills, not your judgment. We tell you what to do, and you do it. That’s why you’re paid. To do things that we cannot accomplish on our own. Don’t tell me you have no idea. Tell me why.”
He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, you can’t be mad about the bombing in Sidon. Is that it? You guys pay me to take care of problems, and that’s exactly what I did. You told me to provide a covert camera to the Druze contact, but you didn’t do any investigation on the asset he was using, did you?”
When Majid and Ja’far said nothing, he felt on more solid ground. He continued. “The asset wasn’t some garbage man. He was a United States intelligence operative. He was setting you up. I recognized him and took him out. Like you pay me to do.”
Majid said, “We didn’t tell you to kill anyone. We wanted to see the outcome of that meeting. Make sure they weren’t doing anything that could harm us. Now, you’ve very likely set us into a fight with the Palestinians in the camps, something we have tried to avoid. You blunder around like every other American, without any understanding of the consequences.”
“Hand me my bag,” he said. Majid nodded to the guard who held it, and the assassin pulled out a digital camera. He flipped to a series of photos and held the camera out. Ja’far took it.
“That man you see with the Druze is Nephilim Logan. He was a U.S. counterterrorist commando. One of the best they had. I know this because he almost killed me a couple of years ago. Now, I’m sure he’s working with the United States against you. That’s why I sent in the bomb. Trust me, he is not your friend, and he deserves to be dead. I’m sorry if the other deaths might cause you issues, but it wasn’t your meeting. You never said protect it. What I did was protect you. Like you pay me to do.”
Majid and Ja’far flipped through the digital stills of the camera, absently looking at the pictures. When they were done, Ja’far spoke. “You have your uses, Infidel, but only so many. You have done us a service until today. Now, the killing of the investigator is gathering interest, and you have compounded that by killing an American intelligence operative. What are we to do with you?”
The assassin blinked. Gathering interest? “What the hell does that mean? The Tribunal hit was magic. No way can anyone connect anything with you guys.”
“No. Not magic. Close, but there were two bodies in the wreckage. The investigator and her boyfriend.”
“Yeah? So fucking what?”
“The boyfriend’s face was fractured. Like he’d been beaten.”
He snorted. “Who gives a shit? They died in a gas explosion. Maybe he was hit by some flying debris. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that people are digging now. Because of who the investigator was. We hired you for no fingerprints, and now there are questions.”
“You don’t have any directed at you. There is no connection to you. You’re clean.”
“You’re wrong. There is a
connection. We worry about the future. What will the Sidon attack cause? Who will question that? The Americans?”
The assassin stood, edging toward the door. He knew what that meant; he was the connection. “That group was Palestinian, from the camps. At least that’s what you told me they were. I operated on your intelligence and cut off a threat to your operations. The Americans will look no further than the camps and chalk this up to rival groups. In the end, if there was an assassination plot, it’s dead now. Right? Isn’t that what you were afraid of anyway?”
Ja’far stiffened. “We don’t tell you the details. Only what we want done. And in this case, we wanted a recording. Not death. You may have—”
Majid cut him off with a look, and Infidel knew something more was going on. He now worried about getting out of the room alive. He backed toward the door.
“I’m sorry if I did anything to harm your interests. You know that’s not what I do. I’ve shown you my skill. I understand you’re upset, so let’s call the last payment you owe me null and void. We’re even. Okay?”
Majid laughed. “You Americans. It’s always about the money. We don’t care about that. If we wanted to kill you, we would do so right now—regardless of the money.”
Infidel waited, ready to pull the carbon-fiber blade. Now was the go or no-go moment.
“Don’t look so worried. You can go. We just want you to be aware of our concerns. If we are to continue, you need to be more attuned to our needs.”
Ja’far smiled. “Or more attuned to your final wishes.”
Infidel smiled back, a weak grin that made him feel foolish. The guard at the door with the AK-47 saw his trepidation and grinned as well, enjoying the feeling of superiority. The bully in the room liking his torment.
He left down the stairwell in controlled haste. When he reached the bottom, he was followed by the two men who had remained in the café. He paid them no outward mind, but caressed his carbon-fiber lucky charm again.
They followed him all the way out of the Dahiyeh. When he hailed a cab, they showed no sign that it was anything other than what they expected. When the cab pulled away, guaranteeing his freedom, he initiated the electronic collection device he’d installed in the wheel well of the vehicle he was leaving behind.