by Bentley, Don
“And then?” Virginia said, dropping one bag in the trunk while I piled the second kit bag and our backpacks on top.
“Then they are off to another client,” Zain said, getting behind the wheel as I climbed into the seat beside him.
“Who’s the client?” I said.
Another exaggerated shrug. “ISIS? Assad loyalists? Bandits? This is Syria, my friend—one never knows.”
* * *
—
How have things been?” I said, watching the scenery pass by in uninspiring vistas. At times, the destruction seemed almost random. Kilometers would pass in which entire villages looked as if the war had passed them by only to be followed by city blocks littered with unrecognizable rubble. The damage might appear to be random, but I knew it wasn’t.
Like every conflict, the Syrian war was fought along fault lines, except the fault lines here were familial rather than geographical. Assad’s followers were Alawis, adhering to a sect of Shia Islam, while the majority of the population was Sunni. In other words, the country was about as stable as gasoline and matches.
Zain, a Sunni like most of the rebel fighters, glanced at me and then looked back to the road. “Things are bad, my friend. Worse since you left. Rebels are fighting Assad with Saudi help. Assad is fighting back with Russian help. Shia militias and Hezbollah are attacking the Sunnis with Iranian help. The Kurds are fighting Turkey and Assad, and Turkey is fighting the Kurds.”
“What about ISIS?” Virginia said from the back seat.
The scientist’s question made sense. Even though the operational focus had shifted to rescuing Shaw, we could not lose sight of the mystery chemical weapon. According to Einstein, the jihadis who had it and Shaw were remnants of the now decimated Islamic caliphate.
Zain shrugged as he looked at Virginia in the rearview mirror. “ISIS? ISIS kills everyone.”
I let the morbid thought stretch out a beat and then tried to steer the conversation to happier territory. “How’s your family?”
“As well as can be expected. When the Americans were still here, people had hope. Now the U.S. is gone, and Russia is here. The players come and go, but our war remains the same.”
Zain had been one of my greatest coups from an asset-recruitment standpoint. There were at least three major conflicts engulfing Syria. Two of them were being waged as proxy wars with Iran supporting Hezbollah with funds and special forces advisers in the form of Quds Force operatives. At the same time, Russia was waging an air campaign on the Assad regime’s behalf.
That much killing took an awful lot of matériel, in the form of guns, bullets, and bombs, and that’s where Zain and his network came in. A former owner and operator of a fairly successful trucking company before the 2011 uprising against Assad, Zain now paid the bills by transporting weapons across Syria from waypoints established in Iraq and Turkey.
Officially, my driver and his hardscrabble crew were charged with resupplying the myriad rebel groups opposing Assad. Unofficially, I had the sense that more than one truckload of weapons wound up in the hands of whichever militant group could foot Zain’s bill. After almost six years of constant killing, the millions of noncombatants had adopted a brand of cynical pragmatism when it came to surviving the bloodshed—do what you needed to do to live through the day. If truth was the first casualty of war, the moral high ground wasn’t far behind.
Anyway, as far as I was concerned, the U.S. had lost all moral authority the moment we’d drawn a red line in the sand and then looked the other way as Assad marched straight across it.
“Are you here to stay, my friend?” Zain said.
I shook my head. “An ISIS splinter cell has one of our men. I’m here to get him back.”
Zain gave a slow nod, but he didn’t say anything for a kilometer or two. When he did break his silence, his comment reflected the same pragmatism I’d felt myself adopting moments after stepping back onto Syrian soil.
“We all do our best,” Zain said. He tossed his gnawed cigar out the window before pulling a second from his breast pocket. He unwrapped the cigar one-handed and slid the unlit stogie between his lips. “Will you need help?”
I thought about how to answer as Zain navigated around the hulks of two burned-out vehicles that I assumed in happier days had been a checkpoint.
This was the part of the conversation where I was supposed to provide some sort of God-and-country speech. Something to convince my Arab friend that now that the old U.S. of A. had rediscovered Syria, everything was going to be fine.
But I couldn’t. As a seasoned case officer, I’d long since passed the point where lies sprang to my tongue much faster than the truth. But this was different. This was my friend, and it was personal. So I did something unusual. I told my asset the truth.
“Zain,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his bony shoulder, “before this is over, I’m gonna need all the help I can get.”
SEVENTEEN
I nodded to the bored-looking Ranger standing post in front of the TOC, or Tactical Operations Center. Ten minutes earlier, Zain had driven up to the gate leading into the CIA compound, exchanged pleasantries with the Syrian guard, and pulled his car inside. He’d parked in a makeshift motor pool and told me that he’d wait with the car until Virginia and I sorted things out.
To say the experience had been surreal would have been a bit of an understatement. The location of the CIA’s safe house should have been one of the most closely guarded secrets in-country. Instead, Zain had breezed through the front gate like he was delivering pizzas to a frat house.
Unreal.
Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. For reasons known only to him, the new CIA Chief of Base had set up shop in the exact same compound we’d occupied three months earlier. Maybe the Agency had a good deal on a long-term lease.
Hefting my backpack, I keyed in the old combination to the cipher pad and was rewarded with an electronic click as the lock disengaged. Without stopping to ponder the absurdity of the situation further, I shouldered my way inside.
The hinges on the reinforced steel door groaned, exactly like they had three months ago. Back then I’d hit the door at a run, Frodo right behind me. We’d been desperate to get the QRF team airborne in response to Fazil’s distress signal. Today, I all but slunk through the door, terrified that at any minute my fingers might start to twitch in response to a dead toddler’s game of peekaboo.
Amazing what a difference three months could make.
“Where’s your badge?”
The question came from an American seated behind a folding table just beyond the door. He was clean-shaven, and his clothes were wrinkle free. He didn’t look old enough to buy beer.
He’d glanced up from his laptop as I’d walked in, his pale eyes taking in my travel-worn appearance before adopting a dismissive expression. I wasn’t wearing a uniform and wasn’t part of his CIA contingent. In other words, I was no one.
“My what?” I said, thinking I’d misheard him.
“Your badge. You can’t be in here without a badge.”
“Is he serious?”
Though this was her first deployment, Virginia’s bullshit detector seemed to work just fine. In my opinion, she already had the makings of an outstanding field operative.
Deciding to give the boy-man behind the desk the benefit of the doubt, I paused, waiting for the punch line. But he didn’t smile. Instead, he stared at me, radiating the self-importance that came only with being a twenty-something kid on his first operational deployment. Unbelievable. I was in an unacknowledged clandestine compound, in the middle of nowhere Syria, and this jack wagon was worried about badges.
“Look,” I said, determined not to get off on the wrong foot, “my name is Matt Drake, and this is Virginia Kenyon. We’re DIA. I don’t have a badge, but I’m sure the Chief of Base is expecting us. Please tell him we’re here.”
“Sorry,” the youngster said, his voice suggesting he was anything but. “All new arrivals go to Building Two for processing. No exceptions. They’ll give you a badge at the end of the brief. By then, the Chief should be out of his meeting. Come back later. I’ll see if I can fit you in.”
And with that, my new friend focused on his laptop, signaling that my audience was over. I took a breath and looked over the man’s shoulder, fighting the urge to separate his head from his body.
The inside of the TOC was exactly as I remembered it. Three plasma screens lined the walls. Two showed what I assumed was real-time imagery from orbiting UAVs. The third was tuned to CNN. A series of empty desks was arranged back-to-back in a bull pen configuration, their surfaces littered with secure phones, radios, and laptops. Two doors loomed at the rear of the bull pen. If memory served, the door on the left led to the Chief’s office, while the one on the right opened into a small conference room. The cracked wooden door on the right was closed, while the one on the left stood ajar.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out where the Chief was holding his meeting.
I slid around the youngster’s desk, heading toward the closed door.
“Hey! You can’t go back in there.”
He was nothing if not persistent.
The conference room door opened. Several Arabs walked out along with a couple of Americans. I was preparing to introduce myself when my eager-beaver friend grabbed me by the shoulder, spinning me toward him. I shrugged his hand away, but the damage was done. Because I was facing away from the conference room door, I didn’t see the last two people exit.
Not until it was much too late.
Turning back toward the crowd, I opened my mouth, but the words died on my lips. Seeing Charles Sinclair Robinson IV was a surprise, but something my brain could process. In fact, it was almost as if, on some level, I’d expected him to be here. Chuck was as much a part of the reason why I was back in Syria as Einstein.
The man standing next to Charles, however, was a different story. Finding him in a CIA safe house was a bit more unsettling. Though our one previous meeting had been brief, I recognized him all the same. Then the Syrian wind had kept me from drilling a 5.56mm hole through the center of his forehead. Instead, I’d left him with a puckered scar that stretched from his mouth to the tip of his ear.
Still, wind was a fickle thing. Last time, an unexpected breeze had saved his life.
Today, the air was dead calm.
EIGHTEEN
The man’s eyes widened as he saw me. That seemed important, but I didn’t have time to consider why, not with his hand already streaking toward the pistol holstered on his leg.
In close combat, action always beat reaction. I’d never win the race to draw my pistol before Scarface, so I didn’t try. Vaulting forward, I closed the space between us instead. As I moved, my reptilian mind awoke. Images and sensations flooded my brain in rapid fire.
The man was thick—heavy shoulders, wide chest. Bigger than me.
I slammed into him, driving from the legs. My shoulder crunched against his armpit. I trapped his hand as his fingers wrapped around his pistol.
He stumbled.
I fired three quick jabs into his ribs and might as well have been punching a tree trunk. The first strike landed, but he blocked the second and third, taking the blows on a meaty biceps.
Both big and agile. In other words, trouble.
I smashed him into the wall, hammering my knee into the bundle of nerves along his leg.
Again his agility saved him.
Scarface turned away from me, taking the brunt of my strike on his hamstring instead of his thigh, but the shock to his nervous system worked all the same. For an instant, his gun hand relaxed.
An instant was all I needed.
I grabbed his shirtsleeve and ripped backward like I was pulling the starter cord on a lawn mower. His arm slammed into my chest, fingers opening. The pistol skidded across the floor. I hammered him in the kidney and then spear-handed him in the throat. I was off balance, so the blow didn’t collapse his windpipe, but it did get his attention.
He sagged into the wall, ducking behind his fists to protect his face.
I kicked him in the chest, pistoning him backward to create space, and then drew my pistol. I planted the stubby barrel two inches from his forehead, close enough for a contact shot, but not so close that he could depress the gun’s muzzle and disable the weapon.
“If you so much as twitch, you’re a dead motherfucker.”
I was so amped, I wasn’t sure whether I’d spoken in Arabic or English, though it probably didn’t matter. In my experience, a pistol in the face was pretty universal. As my brain realized the fight was over, my laserlike focus on Scarface faded, and I could hear shouting in a mixture of languages. Sooner or later, I’d have to start remembering that Frodo wasn’t here to watch my back. While I’d been beating the shit out of Scarface, the rest of the room had also been busy. Now everyone seemed to have a gun, and most of those guns were pointed at me.
NINETEEN
Charles,” I said, deciding that now was as good a time as any to reintroduce myself to the CIA Chief of Base, “you need to get this shit show under control.”
“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” Charles said. “Put the pistol down, and let him go before someone gets killed.”
“This motherfucker is the only someone getting killed. He got away last time but not today. I promise you that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This shithead crippled Frodo. He and I have unfinished business.”
“Matt, listen to me,” Charles said, moving closer. “This is one of our trusted Syrian commanders. He’s my asset, and he’s helping to rescue Shaw. You’re mistaken.”
“No mistake here, Chucky. See this scar?” I shoved the Glock into Scarface’s cheekbone, twisting the muzzle. “I gave it to him. If the wind hadn’t changed direction, I’d have nailed him in the face. Allah might have been smiling then, but he ain’t smiling now.”
Scarface let loose a stream of Arabic that my adrenaline-soaked brain had trouble translating, but from the bits I could pick up, I was pretty certain he was telling his men to disembowel me and hang my entrails from the compound’s gates. The second part of his speech was directed at Charles, but he stopped his lecture midsentence, mainly because it’s hard to enunciate with the muzzle of a Glock stuck between your teeth.
“Goddamn it, Matt!”
“Charlie, I’m starting to get angry, and when I get angry, motherfuckers start dying. So, rather than spill this shithead’s brains all over your freshly mopped floor, here’s what we’re going to do. Yell for the Ranger standing outside to rustle up his brothers and tell them to take Scarface and his men into custody. Then you and I can sort this out like grown men. How’s that for reasonable?”
“Put the gun down and let him go. Last chance.”
Something about Chuck’s tone made me acutely aware that my back was to him. I decided that wouldn’t do. Grabbing a handful of Scarface’s shirt, I jerked him toward me and hammered the butt of my pistol across the bridge of his nose. I didn’t hit him hard enough to break it, but I definitely got his attention.
Scarface cursed. As he grabbed for his bloodied nose, I pulled him off balance and kicked his leg out from under him. He crumpled. I used our combined momentum to force him to his knees, moving to stand behind him with my pistol pressed against the base of his skull.
Now that I could see the rest of the room, what I found wasn’t particularly reassuring. Scarface’s men had their pistols and AK-47s leveled at me, but that was to be expected. What wasn’t expected was the sight of Charles with a Beretta in his hand. His pistol was currently pointing at the ground, but his expression said that it hadn’t been pointed in that direction a moment ago.
Interesting.
My speech had no effect on the three Arab men still aiming rifles at me, but the Americans were a different story. The collection of case officers and paramilitary men exchanged glances, and I saw more than one troubled expression.
Score one for the home team.
“Come on, Charles,” I said. “This should be a no-brainer. Let the Rangers secure the jihadis. After that, we can sort this shit out without the wrong someone ending up dead.”
Charles started to answer, but a bearded paramilitary officer interrupted. “Chief,” the man said, “what he’s saying makes sense. We’re Shaw’s only shot. If we’re compromised, we need to know now rather than later.”
The way that Charles glared at me, I thought that he was still going to refuse. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned toward the paramilitary officer who’d spoken. “Josh, get the Rangers in here. Have them take these guys into custody. Drake, get the fuck in my office.”
“Love to,” I said, holstering my pistol as a burly Ranger took charge of Scarface, “but I don’t have a badge. Is that a problem?”
TWENTY
What are you doing here?”
“That’s a strange question, Chuck,” I said, crossing my legs as I eyed the Chief of Base. “Shouldn’t we be talking about why your asset tried to kill me?”
Now that I was in his office, the sense of déjà vu was almost overpowering. This was where my life had gone wrong. I’d spent ten critical minutes trying to convince Charles to launch the QRF birds, all to no avail. As usual, Frodo had seen the writing on the wall and he had liberated his Range Rover from the Agency motor pool while Charles and I had still been screaming at each other.