American Assassin: A Thriller

by Vince Flynn

  Sayyed felt like crap. He needed water and then coffee and then some food, in that order, and then maybe he could think clearly. He motioned for Radih to get on with the story.

  Radih told his men to leave and in a hushed voice said, "Do you remember an American who went by the name Bill Sherman?"

  Did he remember him? The man had purportedly killed Sayyed's predecessor while he was enjoying his breakfast one spring morning. "Of course."

  "My spies at the airport ... one of them says he saw Sherman tonight."

  "At the airport?"

  "Yes. He came in on a flight from Paris, along with another man."

  Sayyed was dubious. There had been rumors here and there that Sherman had been back to the city. In fact, anytime someone met his end at the hands of an assassin, Sherman's name somehow became attached. "How can you be so sure? It has been many years since anyone has seen him."

  "My man says he has aged. His hair has gone gray, but the eyes"--Radih pointed to his own--"he said they are those same eyes. Eyes of the Devil. He said he remembers him as a very nasty man with many vices."

  Sayyed's lips felt unusually parched. He found the jug of water that Samir had left in the corner and took a drink. Why would the Americans send Sherman to Beirut after all these years? The most obvious answer was in the basement of this very building. They wanted their agent back. But why send an assassin like Sherman? The man was a harbinger of death, not a negotiator. Turning back to Radih, he asked, "Did your spy happen to know where he was headed?"

  With a self-satisfied grin, Radih said, "I put out the word yesterday, after our meeting. I told everyone to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. My people know how to do their jobs. They followed him and the other man to the Intercontinental."

  "And?"

  "They had a drink at the bar, and he bought a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the bartender and then got into a cab, one of ours. He had the cabble drop him off in front of a hotel on Daoura. After the cabbie was gone, they walked three blocks to a different hotel."

  "Which one?"

  "The Mar Yousif Inn."

  "And he is there right now?"

  "Yes. They got two rooms for one night. I just spoke to the manager. They are still there."

  "Are you sure?" Sayyed asked skeptically. "The Bill Sherman I remember would never allow himself to be followed."

  "My men are good. We have trained them to use radios. They have a system set up the airport. When they see someone who might be a fat target they follow him and pass the word to me. We then swoop in and grab them. I have men heading to the area now. There's only one problem."

  "What?"

  "The hotel is in Bourj Hammoud."

  Sayyed needed to wake up. Normally he would never ask such a stupid question. The Sherman he remembered was tight with the Armenians. This would have to be handled delicately. "If we get in a gun battle in Bourj Hammoud, we might not make it out alive."

  Radih did not disagree. "We can wait and follow him. If he leaves the Bourj we can grab him."

  They had been lucky enough to stumble across him. That luck would not hold with a man like Sherman. He would see them sooner rather than later, and then he would kill whoever it was who was watching him and disappear. "Tell your men to hold."

  Radih seemed relieved. "And then what?"

  "The chief of police owes me a favor. They can operate in Bourj Hammoud without too much trouble."

  This time Radih shook his head. "I'm not so sure."

  "Normally you would be correct, but there are some things that you are unaware of. Some influential Armenians owe the chief a few favors. As long as we aren't going in to take one of their own, we will be fine."

  "If a single shot is fired..." Radih winced at the thought.

  Sayyed finished it for him. "The entire neighborhood could erupt." Such was the reality of Beirut. The city was always one gun battle away from plunging back into chaos and civil war.

  CHAPTER 48

  WHEN he hit the midway point of the last run of stairs that led to the small lobby, Hurley noticed the man sitting in the chair with his back to the door. It was probably nothing, but then again Hurley had survived all these years by noticing the little things. If enough of them piled up, they usually led to trouble. There was a couch and three chairs. The man was in the chair the farthest to Hurley's left--the same seat he would have chosen if he was to keep an eye on any guests coming down. Hurley watched him intently as he crossed the red-tiled floor. The man slowly closed his eyes and went back to dozing. Rather than head straight out, Hurley stopped at the desk. No one was there. He looked through the open door of the small office and couldn't see anyone, but could hear a TV. Looking back over his shoulder, he checked to make sure the fat man in the chair was still in his position. He had his eyes closed again and appeared to be dozing. Hurley checked him off his list.

  The pay phone was behind the man in a quaint, claustrophobic alcove. Rather than use it, Hurley decided to head outside and take in the lay of the land. When he reached the front door he paused to see if there were any goons loitering. If there were, he would head back up to the room, grab Richards, and they would head to the roof. They could make it two buildings in either direction by hopping from one roof to the next, and then use any of the adjoining apartment buildings to make their escape. The sidewalk in front of the hotel was empty, so he stepped outside, tapped out a Camel, and fired it up. He casually looked up and down the block. He counted eight cars that he had seen the night before and one new one, and it was only a small two-door hatchback. Nothing to be alarmed about.

  Right or left? It was funny how often that's what it came down to--a flip of the coin. He chose left. It was slightly uphill, not that it mattered, but he remembered seeing a small market in that direction the night before and it had a pay phone out front. He flipped the butt of his heater into the street to join the menagerie of discarded brands and started moving. It was before eight and the street wasn't busy. It was empty, in fact. He saw two cars drive through the next intersection, moving from right to left, and then a man with a briefcase hustled across the street. Hurley couldn't remember if it was normal or abnormal for a city like Beirut to be so slow at this time. Every city had a different pulse. Some were bustling by seven, but most Mediterranean cities were a little slower-paced. Especially one that had endured as much trauma as this one.

  There was a boy standing in front of the market. Hurley guessed him to be about eight. As Hurley approached, the boy held out a paper and started giving him his pitch. Hurley smiled at him. He didn't care where he was; you had to admire a kid who got his ass out of bed to sell something. He reached into his pocket to grab some money, and right about the time he had a firm grip on his wallet alarm bells started going off. There was movement to his left, from the market, two or three car engines turned over, and then there were footfalls. Hurley looked left, then right, and then noticed that the cute little kid was backpedaling to get out of the way.

  Two men came out of the supermarket--big, burly guys in uniforms who stopped just out of his reach. Car tires were now squealing and engines were roaring as vehicles closed in from three directions. Hurley turned, with the idea of running back toward the hotel, but there were two more men hoofing it up the sidewalk. One of them had a big German shepherd on a leash. That's new, he thought, never having seen a police dog in the city. In less than five seconds he was surrounded by ten men and three sedans. Six of the men were wearing police uniforms and four were in civilian attire. The civilians had pistols drawn. They could be either part of a militia or detectives, or worse, Syrian intelligence officers. The uniformed police were wielding wooden truncheons.

  Interesting, Hurley thought to himself. Not a single one of them attempted to lay a hand on him. Hurley calculated the odds while he slowly reached for his cigarettes. Even if he had had a gun, he wasn't sure he could have gotten himself out of this jam. They all looked nervous, which in itself told him something. Someone had prepped these g
uys. Told them to keep their distance, which was not standard operating procedure in this part of the world. Normally it was club first and ask questions later.

  Hurley lit his cigarette with the steady hand of a brain surgeon. He greeted the men in Arabic and asked, "What seems to be the problem?"

  "Good morning," announced a smiling man in a three-piece suit who appeared just beyond the phalanx of men. "We have been waiting for you, Mr. Sherman." He glanced ever so slightly at the two men behind Hurley and gave a them a nod.

  Hurley turned and blocked the first blow with his left hand, wrist to wrist, and then delivered a palm strike to the man's nose. He ripped the truncheon from the man's hand and ducked just in time to miss the blow from his partner. The man was out of position from swinging so hard and had left his ribs exposed, so Hurley rammed him with the truncheon and sent him to the ground. Just as he turned to face the others he was cracked across the head and then the back. He dropped to one knee and then to the ground as the batons and feet came crashing down. As they took the fight out of him, Hurley lay bleeding and hoping that Richards had enough time to run.

  CHAPTER 49

  RAPP rocked the clutch of the little silver Renault Clio and closed the gap between himself and the next car waiting to get through the checkpoint to Beirut proper. It was his third checkpoint since the Syrian border. The little 1.2-liter engine was about as big as the one on his dad's old John Deere riding mower. If he had to run from the authorities it would be a very short chase. He'd been in line now for about fifteen minutes, inching his way forward a few feet at a time. The car didn't have any air-conditioning so he had the windows rolled down.

  Rapp slapped his hands on the steering wheel to the beat of some atrocious techno music that he'd picked up at the airport. The title of the album was Euro Trash, and he agreed. He would have preferred a little U2, or maybe some Bob Seger, but the idea here was to make them think he was French, not some American assassin on safari. Third in line now, he leaned out the window to get a better look at the teenager holding the AK-47 assault rifle. Rapp had no idea which faction he belonged to, but the kid seemed calm enough. The first checkpoints were manned by the Syrian army, and then as he neared the city the militias were in charge.

  He'd found a pay phone at a gas station along the way and called in to check on things. The automated voice told him his room was ready and gave him the address and the location. Rapp wrote it down, memorized it while on the road, then crumpled it up and threw it out the window. The file told him to expect four checkpoints, counting the border. Each one would cost him between five and twenty dollars. So far whoever had put it together was right on the mark.

  The line snaked ahead and Rapp yawned. It was finally catching up with him.

  After sinking a hollow-tipped parabellum into Ismael's head, Rapp had steadily retreated, keeping his gun leveled at the woman, who was temporarily frozen with shock. Rapp wasn't going to shoot her and wasn't worried that she would shoot him. He kept his weapon raised to conceal his face and to deter her from looking too closely at him. People in general did not like to look down the barrel of a loaded gun. When the woman finally glanced down at the man who had threatened her life only moments before, Rapp turned and ran.

  He didn't turn the corner because he did not want to head back down the street where Ismael had just fired the Uzi. Half the block was likely to be looking out their windows, and a few of them would be on the phone with the police. So he ran straight, at an all-out sprint, for two blocks, the gun at his side. Then he took a hard right turn and stopped. His breathing was heavy but under control. He holstered the pistol while he looked for a place to reverse his jacket. Twenty feet ahead on his right there was a stoop that would offer some concealment. Rapp ducked into the shadows, tore off his overcoat, and turned it inside out. He tossed the clear black-rimmed glasses to the ground and mussed up his slicked-back hair before emerging from the shadows wearing a khaki trenchcoat. He headed back to the corner he'd just rounded. The distinctly European police klaxon could be heard screeching in the distance.

  Rapp calmly crossed the street, looking to his left. He could just barely make out the woman. She had been joined by three or four people. Rapp acted as if he didn't notice. After he cleared the intersection he picked up the pace, but not so much as to draw attention. He looked like a man out for a brisk walk. The Rhone was now only a block and a half in front of him. With each step the sirens grew in force, but Rapp wasn't worried. They would go to the body first and then they would check the damage caused by the Libyan's Uzi and then they would begin to look for a suspect.

  Rapp reached the river, which at this point was fairly wide. He turned right and after looking up and down the block to make sure no one was watching, he casually slid his left hand between the folds of his jacket and grabbed the Beretta he'd used to kill Ismael. Rapp waited until he was in the shadows between two street lights and then drew the gun. He flipped it casually a good twenty feet into the ice-cold water and kept moving. A block after that, he disposed of the second gun, then had to make his first big decision. Just on the other side of the river, one mile away, was Geneva International Airport. If he hustled, he might be able to catch the last flight out to Paris.

  Airports made him nervous, though. There were always cameras and police, and if you were going to get on a plane you had to buy a ticket and show a passport, and that left a trail. His legends were to be cultivated and protected, not used for convenience' sake. So he turned back for the rental car and rehearsed what he would tell the police if they stopped him. Fortunately, the story was never needed. Police were flooding the area, but they were still headed to the crime scene. On his way back he didn't see a single police car heading out to look for suspects. When he climbed behind the wheel of the rental car he checked his stopwatch. Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds had elapsed since he'd taken refuge behind the mailbox. Not bad.

  Once behind the wheel he had a lot of options. The primary plan was to cross the border into France and then drive to Lyon, but he was too pumped-up, and with the border crossing so close, they might be looking for a man of his general description. Again, there was no longer any hard evidence that could tie him to Ismael's death, but why push it?

  Rapp wasn't sure he could calm his nerves for the border crossing. The reality of what he'd just been through was setting in. There was no queasiness or feeling of nausea. He was simply pumped, the feeling very similar to the way he felt after scoring a game-winning goal, but better. He cranked the music and headed back for Zurich. Greta was on his mind, but there wouldn't be time. He'd have to grab the first flight to Paris or Istanbul and then on to Damascus.

  He made it to Zurich just before four, parked in the rental car lot, and tried to grab a few hours of sleep before things opened at six. It didn't work, though, and he sat there with his seat reclined, playing it over and over in his head until he had analyzed every second of what had happened with Ismael. Each mistake was noted and alternatives explored, but as his old high-school coach liked to say, "A win is a win. It doesn't matter how ugly it is."

  Strip it all down and that's what it was. Rapp won and Ismael lost. As the sun started to rise, Rapp looked out from the concrete parking structure and realized that one day he might be in Ismael's shoes. He'd pretty much spent the rest of the morning thinking of ways to prevent himself from ending up with a fate similar to that of the Libyan intelligence officer. From Zurich to Istanbul, and then Damascus, and all the way down this hot, dusty road to Beirut, he played a game of chess with himself. What should Ismael have done, and how should he have reacted if Ismael had done something different?

  Exhaustion was finally catching up. Rapp let out a long yawn and then the kid motioned him forward. Rapp greeted the kid in French. He couldn't have been more than sixteen. Rapp smiled while he tapped out the techno beat and chomped on his gum.

  "What is your purpose?" the kid asked with a lack of enthusiasm you'd expect from someone who was expected to stand in
the sun all day sucking on emissions and asking the same question over and over.

  "Business."

  "What kind of business?"

  "Software."

  The kid shook his head. "What's that?"

  "Computer stuff." Rapp reached over and picked up the flashy color brochure they'd ordered from a French company. He showed the kid, who was by now bored with their conversation.

  "I like your music."

  "Really?" Rapp said, surprised. "Are you here every day?"

  The kid nodded.

  Rapp looked over at the kid's dusty boom box and then reached over and ejected the tape. He slid it into the case and said, "I've been listening to it for a week straight. Knock yourself out. I'll pick it up when I drive back out in a few days."

  The kid was excited and lowered his rifle. "Thanks ... for you ... half price today." He flashed Rapp five fingers.

  Rapp paid him, smiled, slipped the little car back into gear, and drove away. It took him another twenty minutes to find the safe house. Based on the stories he'd heard from Hurley, he was surprised that during that time he didn't run into any more armed men. As per his training, he did a normal drive-by and barely glanced at the building. All he wanted to do was go to sleep, but it had been drilled into him that these were the precautions that would save his life, so he continued past and then circled back, checking the next block in each direction.

  It was a five-story apartment building among four-, five-, and six-story apartment buildings. Rapp was too tired to care if it had any architectural characteristics beyond a front and back door. He parked the car, grabbed his bag, and entered the building. He didn't have a gun on him, at least not yet, so there was pretty much only one thing to do. Climb the stairs. If it was a trap, he'd have to throw his bag at them and lie down and take a nap. No one was waiting for him when he got to the fifth floor. There were three doors on the left and three on the right. They had the two on the right toward the back. Or so he thought. After checking above each door he came up empty, so he checked the ones across the hall and found two keys. That was when he remembered he was supposed to enter from the back of the building.