by Ted Dekker
Agotha was no longer breathing. Carl, on the other hand, had to be! Kelly had seen none of it, not yet.
Carl’s hand rose slowly and touched the back of Kelly’s head. Her whole body froze.
Carl smiled. “Hello, Kelly.”
His eyes snapped open.
Kelly began to cry.
Behind Agotha, Kalman grunted.
“I OWE you my life,” Kelly said.
“And I owe you mine.” It was true. Without his love for her, Carl didn’t think he’d have survived the last ten months, assuming that was truly how long he’d been in training.
They sat at a round table for four in his bunker kitchen, eating nuts and jerky.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked.
Carl put a peanut in his mouth and bit into it around a big grin. Honestly, he couldn’t remember feeling this happy, so he let the feeling ride. “That I’ll go into the field.”
“Yes. Agotha is thrilled. If you were her pet project before, you’re her golden calf now.”
“And Kalman?”
She shrugged. “Kalman is Kalman. He lives for killing.”
“Like a good father,” Carl said. “Sets the rules and makes sure they’re kept.”
She gave him a strange look. Picked up a piece of jerky and tore off a strip. “You’re not angry at him?”
“That would be impractical. He’s only doing what he thinks is best. Can any of us argue with the results?”
She nodded. “What else can you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you can protect your body against the currents of an electric chair, shouldn’t you be able to do more?”
“Anyone can ignore heat. I just do it better than most. That doesn’t mean I can fly.”
She laughed at that, and he joined her. The pleasure in her blue eyes, the soft curve of her neck, the shine in her wavy hair—he found her stunning. And he’d saved her, hadn’t he? He had saved the one he loved.
“I have your mission, Carl,” she said, flashing a mischievous grin.
“You do?”
“I do.” But she didn’t offer it.
“When?”
“In five days.”
“Where?”
“New York City. They say it’s a wonderful place. I can hardly wait.”
“Who is it?”
“An Iranian leader named Assim Feroz.”
Carl slapped the table with his palm. “Finally,” he said and snatched up his glass for a toast. “To Assim Feroz. May he accept the bullet I send him with grace.” Even as he said it, he wondered if such eagerness was appropriate. Was he really so excited to kill?
Kelly lifted her glass and clinked it against his. “To Assim Feroz.”
14
The United Nations Middle Eastern summit attracted a large number of protesters, as expected, but the media kept most of their coverage focused on the conflict brewing inside the UN rather than on the street. Viewers can look only so long on a nineteen-year-old woman with stringy hair waving a banner that reads “Stenton Kills Babies,” David Abraham thought, flipping through channels.
In his way of thinking, such slander should have to defend itself with logic. Even minimal logic. No panel of jurors in the country would convict Robert Stenton of killing fleas, much less babies. And yet too frequently, highly educated journalists reported such accusations as serious charges worthy of attention.
He should have gone to New York, even though he could not stop whatever might happen. Now all he could do was pray that God would save those who needed saving and let the rest find their own way.
He sat on the couch in his Connecticut home and switched to FOX News. The president was holding a press conference. David turned the volume up.
President Stenton was saying, “. . . that I strongly objected to forcing Israel into a corner where her national defense rests in the hands of a foreign government, which is what the United Nations would be doing in this situation. As I see it, the Feroz initiative threatens Israel’s sovereignty.”
Steven Ace of NBC asked, “Sir, the United States is now the only country that opposes the plan. Does that fact pose any problem for you?”
Stenton replied, “Uniting world opinion always poses problems. Clearly we have a ways to go. But when it comes to standing up for an ally that’s facing potential extermination, I think those problems are worth grappling with, don’t you?”
“I have a follow-up, if that’s okay,” Ace said.
“Go ahead, Steve,” Stenton replied.
“I understand that there’s growing support in Congress for the initiative. Are there any plans for a congressional vote on the matter?”
“No,” Stenton said, excusing himself with a nod. “Thank you, that will be all.” With that, the most powerful man in the world stepped away from the flashing lights and walked through a blue curtain behind the podium.
David grinned. That’s it, Robert. No mincing words.
Then again, they both knew that the president was indeed being strong-armed to reconsider by members from both sides of the aisle. Robert had told David two days earlier that the price he was paying for his immovability was turning out to be much higher than he’d expected. There was talk on Capitol Hill of shelving his domestic agenda altogether.
World opinion boiled down to what each government thought of the United Nation’s charter. In this new role suggested by Feroz, the United Nations would become the strongest government in the Middle East. Why the leaders of Europe and Asia didn’t feel threatened by this was beyond David.
Unless, of course, they saw Israel as their enemy as well.
David sighed and switched to another news channel. Protester coverage.
Another channel. Commentary on the president’s brief conference.
Another channel. ABC was interviewing none other than Assim Feroz outside the Waldorf-Astoria, where the UN was hosting several major social events for the dignitaries.
David sat back, crossed his legs, and pressed the DVR record button. The Iranian was tall and gaunt with eyelids that hung lower than most. Fair skin and dark hair, clearly of Persian descent. That the Iranian minister of defense had worked his way into the spotlight with this transparent initiative disgusted David.
Feroz was answering the questions with a polite smile.
“Naturally, it’s unacceptable. But we believe that the United States will soon see the wisdom of stopping the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East through this peace initiative. You cannot turn your back on suffering for too long.”
“What will you do if the United States vetoes the initiative at the summit?” the ABC anchor asked.
A crowd of security personnel and reporters was gathered around the defense minister. A limousine door gaped open behind him, apparently waiting on him.
“We will not rest until we have peace. How can one man stand against so many?” Feroz answered. “Now the whole world will unite and bring peace where there has been no peace for centuries.”
“Thank you, Mr. Feroz.”
“Thank you,” he replied.
David saw the reporter, Mary Sanders, for the first time as the camera faced her. “There you have it . . .”
David muted the television. Another journalist in a black sports coat faced the camera, then abruptly turned his back and walked away. The man was familiar to David, but then, so were the faces of a hundred reporters.
Stenton had a fight on his hands. The summit was clearly doing him no favors. David had expected nothing else.
But there was something out of place about that reporter in the sports coat. Strange how the memory worked. Déjà vu?
David started to change the channel. Instead, he pressed the rewind button on the DVR. The reporter’s face came and went.
Forward, slow motion this time. David paused the picture as the man turned. He stared for five full seconds before recognition struck.
“No . . .”
It was him!
He was at the interview with Assim Feroz. There, in New York!
Still gripping the remote control in his left hand, David ran around the couch and snatched up the phone. He dropped the remote on the desk. Dialed the president’s number with a shaky finger.
“Dear Lord, help us . . .”
“Brian Macteary.”
“Brian—Brian, it’s David. I must speak to the president.”
“David? David Abraham?”
“Yes. Please tell him it’s important.”
“I’m sorry, he’s unavailable. Is there something I can help you with?” “No, I have to speak with him. It’s very important.”
“I’m under strict orders not to interrupt them. He’s just gone into a short meeting with the British prime minister. I can pass him a message when he comes out. Shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes.”
David quickly considered his options and settled on the only course that presented itself with any clarity.
“It’s very important that you tell him something in the strictest of confidence. Tell him that I have reason to believe that there will be an attempt made on the life of Assim Feroz. The security is tight, I’m sure.”
“I’ve never seen more security.” Brian paused. “You’re saying that someone may be trying to kill the Iranian defense minister?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing more? How—”
“Never mind how I know—tell him! I’m taking the first flight I can into New York. Tell him that.”
“I should pass this through the Secret Service.”
“No! Please, just tell the president and let him decide how to proceed.”
“I’m obligated—”
“No, Brian. This isn’t a formal threat. Just the president. Promise me!”
The president’s press secretary was hesitant. “I’ll tell him,” he finally said.
15
Carl had never been as happy as he was now, walking the streets of New York with Kelly.
He’d been in many exercises that felt like true assignments at the time, but walking down Park Avenue toward the Waldorf-Astoria with such a show of security as far as the eye could see swept away any lingering suspicions, however small, that this, too, was simply an exercise.
He really was here to kill Assim Feroz. And that was good. Better than he’d dreamed. He told himself so on many occasions.
Kelly had taken care of a number of details that facilitated his mission, but in the end, it would be his finger on the trigger, sending the bullet on a trajectory determined solely by him. It would make them both proud. And he wanted to be proud, he’d decided. This was now an emotion that he embraced whenever it presented itself.
As with any assassination, it wasn’t only the opportunity to kill but the opportunity to kill and then escape to one day kill again that drove the preparations leading up to this day. Prior to leaving Hungary, Carl had spent dozens of hours with Kelly, viewing video footage provided by the X Group and planning the hit. They had a good plan.
He made his way toward a security line at Park Avenue and Fifty- second Street, two full city blocks from the Waldorf. He wore a foreign press badge that identified him as Armin Tesler, Ukraine, KYYTP Television. Beside him, Kelly was identified by a similar badge as Ionna Petriv. We play our roles flawlessly, he thought.
But not as flawlessly as all the others who had delivered them to Park Avenue as two Ukrainian reporters. This feat had required substantial support from Kalman and his host of contacts, none of whom Carl knew or cared to know.
They’d left Hungary by train three days ago, bound for the Ukraine, where their current covers—complete with passports, history, and press identification papers—had been previously arranged. Their fingerprints had even been registered with the CIA and Secret Service. Kelly told him that these kinds of details had been handled long in advance through an extensive identity-requisition program that Kalman had fine-tuned over the years.
From Kiev, they’d flown through London into New York, arriving two days earlier.
First order of business: establishment of an operations center out of a hotel in Manhattan. This task required renting three separate rooms in their assumed names. Two were dummy rooms, in which they’d hidden miniature video cameras that sent signals to the third room, in which they would actually sleep and operate. In one of these dummy rooms, #202 in the Peking Grand Hotel, they’d left several spent rifle cartridges and a red message painted on the wall: “Death to America, Praise Be to Allah.” They’d made the room appear lived in and demanded that housekeeping not disturb them. Strategically planted clues would lead investigators to this room and slow down the post-assassination investigation. The delay would buy them time to chart an alternate escape if their planned route was cut off.
Another dummy room, #301 in the Chinatown Best Western, was reserved in the event that they needed to switch operational centers. They’d bagged several weapons and hidden them in the toilet tank. Otherwise the room was left undisturbed.
The hotel they selected as their actual operations center was a seedy place in Chinatown called the New York Dragon.
Second order of business: weapons. There was only one weapon Carl needed for the actual operation: a rifle. Anything else he might need, he could fabricate out of materials at hand.
Kelly had obtained the rifle he would use from a contact in New Jersey. An M40A3, nearly identical to the one Carl preferred in Hungary, sighted in at four hundred yards, with a Leopold Vari-X 4x12 scope, three-inch eye relief, and nonglare lens. The rifle had been modified for quick disassembly. It fit neatly into a soft-sided tripod bag normally used for a camera.
The host of assassin’s tools common to the trade was useless in this setting. No vest, no night-vision equipment, no knives, nothing that smelled or looked anything remotely like something an assassin would wear. In this kill, Carl would simply be a shooter who pulled off a shot that only a couple of living souls could pull off.
Third order of business: reconnaissance of both the kill zones and the general area of operations. They’d spent the better part of the previous day walking the streets of midtown Manhattan, riding the subway from Central Park to Chinatown and taking taxis to a dozen destinations both in Manhattan and the two kill zones.
Fourth order of business: rehearsal of execution. Essentially a walk-through of the actual assassination. Carl had developed two alternate plans: one for a dinner of dignitaries at the Waldorf, which Assim Feroz was expected to attend; and one for a press conference scheduled at Central Park the following day, which Feroz would also participate in.
Each zone had been identified by Kalman—how, Carl didn’t care. His task had been to find a place from which to shoot and escape during a narrow window of opportunity. He’d scouted both zones on foot in the dead of night, and then again the following day while the streets were crowded with cars and pedestrians. One shot would be made from a hotel room. The second, if required, would be made from a garbage bin.
Fifth order of business: performance of their roles, which they were doing now. Part of the X Group’s training had involved role-playing, not simply on a conscious level, but deep down where belief was formed. Because he’d frequently been manipulated into assuming a particular identity, Carl now found that willfully playing a Ukrainian correspondent came easily.
He took a deep breath and regarded the bustle of the crowd around him. He judged each face that passed into his field of vision to determine if any threat might hide behind the eyes.
“We should go into the hotel,” he said softly.
Kelly cast him a natural glance. “It wasn’t planned.”
“Then we should change the plan. We have time.”
She didn’t respond. Any changes were his prerogative—she trusted him. Her trust made him proud.
A line of police cars and construction barrier
s cut off the street ahead. Carl walked toward the security check.
The guard eyed him with a steely stare, and Carl smiled gently. “Busy day,” he said, shifting to a nondescript European accent. With the blending of cultures in Europe, nearly any would do.
“Yes, it is. Can I see your identification?”
Carl unclipped his badge and handed it to the man. They were using a scanner that matched the thumbprint on the card to the thumbprint of the person carrying it. The information was relayed to a central processing station, where the authorities monitored the comings and goings of authorized cardholders.
The guard held out a small scanner, and Carl pressed his thumb on the glass surface. A soft blip sounded. After a few moments, the man nodded.
“Thank you, Mr. Tesler.”
It took only a minute for Kelly to pass in the same manner. Then they were in the outer security barrier. They would have to watch what they said here. Randomly placed recording devices monitored conversation. According to CNN, not all in the press were thrilled with the new security measure. Evidently they wanted to keep their comments private.
They’d passed through the second security checkpoint and were approaching the entrance to the Astoria when Assim Feroz stepped out with a small entourage and was swarmed by journalists.
Carl felt his pulse spike. Beside him, Kelly stiffened slightly—he felt it more than saw it.
It was the first time they’d seen the target in the flesh. Tall, gaunt, dark-haired, Iranian. This was the life that Carl would end, because that’s what he did.
For a brief moment Carl wondered why they wanted him dead. Who wanted him dead? What had this man done to invite the bullet? And why was he agreeing to kill this man?
The last question came out of the blue, uninvited and unwelcome. The answer was obvious, of course—he wasn’t so much agreeing to kill this man as he was agreeing to be himself. He was a killer. He was a man who knew nothing except killing. He could no more not kill than a heart could arbitrarily not beat. If he hadn’t always been a killer, he was one now. And he’d been one for as long as he could properly remember.