His grandfather’s friends had sons and even grandsons who were involved in the IRG and Hezbollah. With his own father incapacitated, al-Abuddin found himself spending more and more time with this group, absorbing their wisdom and adopting their views as his own. Eventually he’d found himself attending their schools and learning combat skills at their camps.
When the U.S. had invaded Iraq, he’d been glad to see Saddam Hussein deposed from power. Hussein’s execution had been one of the few moments al-Abuddin could recall having experienced joy. That had quickly faded once he returned to his homeland and saw America’s reach everywhere he looked. American soldiers ran checkpoints throughout the city. Their vehicles, bristling with guns, had driven through his streets. A wellspring of rage seemed to open up every time he saw such things. For years he’d felt powerless to do anything about it. That was before he’d met Ahmed al-Jaballah and men associated with the shadowy parts of the Iranian government. These were men and women who’d shared his alarm and disgust as they’d watched America’s imperialist tentacles seize neighboring Iraq.
Fortunately they also were well connected.
Al-Abuddin knew that al-Jaballah had recognized something special in him. Not that the older man had said as much, but al-Abuddin could tell just the same. Al-Jaballah had been able to secure a job for him with the Interior Ministry, providing security for various members of the Iraqi government, including its lawmakers.
Having that job gave him access to sensitive information, including intelligence reports about his fellow operatives at work in Iraq and any steps by the government to foil them. And, on days like today, it allowed him to get close to national leaders and gain access to sensitive spots like the U.S. Embassy. He was indeed a lucky man.
A black SUV pulled up to the curb in front of him, stopped and waited for him to climb inside. Al-Abuddin exchanged pleasantries with others from the Interior Ministry even as the driver guided the vehicle back into traffic. He stared out his window, his mind only vaguely aware of the streetscape zipping past. His thoughts were focused on fire and blood and the history he’d make today.
* * *
OMAR HASSAN SAT in the back of his air-conditioned limousine, reading through the advance notes his aides had prepared for his meeting at the Embassy.
He had already met the ambassador on more than one occasion and had found the woman easy to speak with and knowledgeable about his country. Karen Wallace, the ambassador, had been a professor of Middle Eastern studies—and, from what Hassan understood, the daughter of an aerospace tycoon—before she’d been appointed ambassador. Those conversations had occurred at black-tie events at the Embassy, where courtesy was the norm.
Today, however, they were supposed to discuss ongoing problems with al Qaeda cells operating in Iraq. Her country thought the Iraqi government was turning a blind eye to the problem. While sympathetic to their concerns, he thought the U.S. was expecting overnight miracles where none were possible. Whether the two sides ever would agree on that or other issues, remained to be seen. Hassan hoped they’d at least continue to find some common ground.
Unlike some of his fellow countrymen, he thought there were benefits to having the Americans in Iraq at this stage. Not that he approved of the way they’d handled many things—from the invasion to the occupation and reconstruction and beyond. He’d lost friends and relatives, not just in the initial war, but also through horrific attacks perpetrated by Saddam loyalists, al Qaeda and others jockeying for power after the dictator had fallen.
Still, with its resources and its interest in the region, he thought the U.S. could provide a powerful ally for his homeland. That wasn’t a position that made him popular with many of his countrymen, but he hoped it would help move the country forward over the long term. Hassan knew his promises of a stronger economy and a better infrastructure were what had fueled his win in the last election. Making that promise happen would be the thing that helped him win again—at least he hoped so.
Slipping a cigarette between his lips, he brought out his stainless-steel lighter, lit the tip of the smoke and puffed it to life. He forced the smoke through his nostrils and snapped the cover closed on the lighter before he pocketed it.
Though a Shiite, he worried about Iran’s interest in his country. Without a doubt, the two states had common interests and he thought they could work together. However, he also believed Iran had an agenda for its neighbor that went beyond policy issues such as border security and trade. Many of its top officials wanted real influence in the state, which worried him greatly. It was hard enough to build and maintain a functioning government without another country trying to pull the strings.
Just as the limo approached the Embassy, he realized his cigarette was almost gone. He remembered lighting it, but not smoking it. His lips curved into a smile. Whenever he thought about politics, the world around him faded away and he became absent-minded. His wife often teased that he should have studied political science instead of engineering. But then, what use would he have gotten from a political science degree under Saddam?
The limousine wheeled up to the Embassy gates. Six men, all dressed in black T-shirts, cargo pants and combat boots stood at the gate. They all cradled submachine guns of some type. He guessed they were contractors of some sort since they weren’t wearing military uniforms.
Hassan’s driver stopped the limo and lowered his window as one of the guards lumbered up to the vehicle.
“Omar Hassan,” the driver said.
The guard peered inside the vehicle and, when he saw Hassan, greeted him with a curt nod.
“Welcome, sir,” the guard said.
“Thank you, my friend. Six guards? That’s more than usual.”
“Yes, sir,” the contractor said.
“Is there a problem?”
“They just tell me when and where to be, sir. They rarely tell me why.”
“So typical,” Hassan said.
“Yes, sir. You are cleared to enter the complex.” He stepped away from the vehicle and gestured with his hand and the gates began to pull back. The limo rolled onto the Embassy grounds and wound its way to the main building.
The limo stopped and Hassan emerged from the backseat, at first squinting against the sun until his eyes began to adjust to its brilliance.
Ambassador Wallace, flanked by an entourage of aides, stood several yards away. Once she spotted Hassan, she broke from her group and walked toward him, spurring her security and aides into a rush to catch up. She came to a halt a foot or so from him and extended her hand.
“Mr. Prime Minister,” she said, smiling. “It’s an honor.”
“The honor is mine, Madame Ambassador,” he said. As he took her hand, his eyes drifted past her to the two men standing a few feet behind her. One man was tall, with a face that reminded Hassan of a fox, while the other was bulky. The grim-faced men carried rifles of some sort. Their eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviator shades, but Hassan swore they were appraising him.
Hassan switched his attention back to Wallace.
“Security seems tight today,” he said.
Her smile faltered for an instant. “Our intelligence agencies have reported increased chatter among certain terrorist groups.”
“Increased chatter about...?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“We don’t have a specific threat,” she said. “Just a lot of talk. We didn’t want to dismiss it out of hand, though. In America, we have a saying—better safe than sorry.”
“Of course,” he said.
“We did give your security team a heads-up on this,” she said. “Apparently they decided not to tell you.”
That surprised him, but he tried to play it off.
“I’m sure they made the right decision,” he said.
She gently touched his forearm. “This is one of the most secure places in
Iraq,” she said. “Nothing bad could happen here.”
* * *
I’VE GOT A bad feeling about this, McCarter thought. He swept his eyes over the crowd and looked for anything amiss. He saw a bunch of strangers, some armed to the teeth, some of questionable loyalty, milling around an Embassy compound while a couple of VIPs stood out in the open jawing.
“See anything?” Hawkins asked.
“A huge cluster in the making,” McCarter said.
“Thank God,” Hawkins replied, his lips curling into a tight grin. “I thought it was just me.”
McCarter shook his head. “I see about a million reasons this could go wrong.”
“Yeah.”
“But I’m a pessimist by nature.”
Gordon Schafer, the Embassy’s security chief, walked up behind Wallace, tapped her on the shoulder and leaned in to speak in her ear. When he pulled away, she nodded, said something to Hassan, and started for the Embassy.
Hawkins jabbed McCarter in the ribs with his elbow.
“Train’s leaving,” he said. “We’d better get on board.”
* * *
AL-ABUDDIN FLOWED WITH the rest of the crowd into the building. His laminated credentials were clipped to the breast pocket of his suit jacket. As the group entered the lobby, he glanced at one of the security cameras that hung overhead and made no attempt to hide from it. When it was over, he guessed the footage of him walking through the lobby, glancing up at the camera, would be played over and over by the news networks.
The group was led into a large conference room filled with several small tables and chairs, while the ambassador and the prime minister adjourned to a smaller room where they could speak privately. Al-Abuddin had been inside the Embassy once before and he knew this room was a place for additional security personnel and aides to wait for their leaders to conclude their business.
Setting his briefcase on a table, he opened one of the outside pockets, slipped a hand inside and fished around until he found a set of keys that lay on the bottom. He withdrew them and slid them into his pocket.
He walked up to a blond woman who worked for the Embassy and asked for directions to a restroom. Even though he knew the Embassy’s general layout, he smiled and listened patiently as she explained how to find the first-floor restroom. She offered to escort him, but he declined. It was in a public area. Since he was a credentialed visitor, he didn’t need a chaperone.
He stopped in the restroom briefly, just in case the woman had watched him, before heading back out. He made his way through a series of corridors until he reached a door marked Private. Using the key from his bag, he unlocked the door, slipped inside and sealed the room shut again.
The room was large, with the concrete floors and the overhead steel beams exposed. A tool bench ran along two-thirds of the back wall butting up against a maintenance elevator. Crossing the room, he lifted the freight elevator’s gate, stepped inside and closed the gate behind him. With his index finger, he punched the button for the second floor and rode the elevator to that level. Exiting the elevator, he found himself inside a small maintenance room. He wound his way around a stack of crates and found a steel locker on the floor. Kneeling, he unlocked it, raised the lid and shoved aside a pile of shop rags and newspapers. Underneath those items lay a folded green blanket. He lifted the blanket and found an Uzi, four magazines, along with a plastic key card that would open most of the doors in the building. He pocketed the card.
Picking up the Uzi, he snapped in a magazine, chambered a round and stood, a grim expression on his face. He was about to undertake a dark deed, but it would bring light soon enough.
* * *
MCCARTER STOOD ALONG one wall inside the conference room and watched the various diplomats, politicians and aides assembled there. Two Kevlar-clad DSS agents guarded the door. Schafer, the security chief, stood next to him while Hawkins stood on the other side of the room, watching the proceedings unfold.
Fifteen minutes had passed since the group had sealed itself in this room, and the former SAS soldier felt his unease growing with each passing second.
With Ahmadah out of circulation, would al-Jaballah proceed with his plans? There was no way to know for sure. On the one hand, he might have decided to go to ground as his operation was rolled up. Or, with his people disappearing, his network unraveling, the guy might decide to go for broke. McCarter had seen it happen too many times: corner evil and, like a rabid animal, it turns and attacks.
So bring it on, he thought grimly.
McCarter leaned over to ask Schafer a question. The security chief held up a hand, gesturing for him to wait, cocked his head to the right and pressed his earbud with the first two fingers of his right hand. The creases in his forehead deepened, along with his bulldog-like scowl. Occasionally he’d whisper a reply.
Here it comes, McCarter thought.
Schafer’s fingers dropped from his ear. Grim as hell, he turned to face McCarter, jerked a thumb at the door and rolled toward it. McCarter fell in behind him and gestured for Hawkins to follow. The three huddled just outside the door.
“One of my guys just radioed me on a private channel,” Schaeffer said. “A member of the Iraqi delegation is roaming the upstairs. They saw him on one of the security monitors. Guy’s armed.”
McCarter nodded.
“Other information on him?” he asked. “How’d he get in here?”
“His name is Muqtada al-Abuddin. He works for Iraq’s Interior Ministry. Apparently he’s trusted and has a fairly high clearance level.”
“High enough to come in here,” McCarter said.
“Right,” Schafer said.
“You want me to go after him?” Hawkins asked.
“Negative,” McCarter said. “I want you in there, in case someone makes a play for the high rollers. I’ll take care of the stray.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Manning had just finished planting the packet of Semtex at the base of the satellite dish when a scraping noise to his left caught his attention. He froze and strained his ears. A second or two passed while he waited, then the murmur of hushed voices reached him.
Reaching down to his thigh holster, he drew his sound-suppressed Beretta and turned his whole body in the direction of the noise. He was crouched behind one of the satellite dishes, which gave him some cover. He craned his head around the edge of the dish in time to see two men walking toward his position.
Around him was a pair of large satellite dishes, one of which was covered with a radome, a cover that looked like a huge golf ball and was designed to protect satellite dishes from the elements and to obscure the direction it was pointing. It wouldn’t shield the dish from the load of Semtex he had planted on the neighboring dish. In his jacket pocket, he carried a detonator that could be used to fire off the charges from a distance. First, though, he needed to get away from the satellite dishes.
The two men crept past his position. One was dressed in the same olive-drab fatigues as many of the other thugs on al-Jaballah’s payroll. The other man wore jeans, a black windbreaker and brown hiking boots. The guy in fatigues was carrying some model of the Kalashnikov rifle. The man with the leather jacket, an autoloading pistol in his grip, cast a glance at the satellite dishes. Manning felt himself tense. His hold on his rifle tightened and he thought things were about to explode, but the guy looked away and kept moving.
Manning waited for them to pass before he worked his way out from among all the gear. He wanted to take out the communications system for a couple of reasons. First, since they were miles into Iran, the last thing Phoenix Force needed was a distress call going out to nearby military bases. They had a lot of fig in them, but shooting their way through ten miles of broken highways before the opposition could overwhelm them with sheer numbers or pound them with missiles from combat jets was beyond Phoeni
x Force’s capabilities.
Manning didn’t mind dying behind enemy lines—and he had no doubt Iran was an enemy. But he had no interest in spending even a minute in an Iranian jail. He knew all too well that the U.S. government wouldn’t try to get him out. It wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence. His homeland of Canada would do the same.
So he’d spend his last days rotting in a hole, probably beating the hell out of the guards when they weren’t beating him. At least until his body became too injured or weak to do it. After that, he could almost guarantee he’d endure horrible torture at the hands of the Iranians or witness his fellow teammates going through the same thing. Regardless, he had no interest in walking that path.
The way he saw it, his best bet was to fight like hell until someone got the best of him.
And if they didn’t, hell, he’d live to fight another day.
Right now, though, he had to fight today.
Still in a crouch, he wound his way around the exposed satellite dish and crept up to the radome covering the second dish. He rounded the large, ball-shaped cover just as the two hardmen moved past. The guy in the blue jeans apparently sensed something. He spun around, his pistol in target-acquisition mode. His actions spurred the guy in the fatigues to move, too.
Manning’s M-4 ground out a punishing burst. The slugs ripped a ragged line over Mr. Blue Jeans’s chest. His companion triggered his rifle. Jagged flames erupted from the AK’s muzzle. The bullets sliced through the air just to Manning’s left.
But the Canadian still was sweeping the M-4 in the other guy’s direction. The slugs from his compact weapon lanced into his opponent’s torso, stitching the guy from left hip to right shoulder.
Manning jogged away from the bloody scene. He wanted to blow the charges he’d planted, but needed to put more space between him and them. He’d covered a couple dozen yards when a line of three shooters emerged from behind the hangar. Manning hosed them down with a withering hail from the M-4, the weapon showering the ground with brass shell casings.
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