“Not only did Mapother gave me the nod to start questioning her, but can’t you hear the damn alarms? They’re ringing for God’s sake. We might be under attack.”
“None of this discharges me from my obligations toward my patient.”
Mike took a couple steps toward Dr. Doocy while keeping an eye on the syringe.
“Give it to me, doctor.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Mike Walton,” Dr. Doocy said, nevertheless taking a step back. “I won’t let you touch my patient.”
Mike had had enough. In two quick steps he was on Dr. Doocy. He grabbed the wrist holding the syringe and twisted it away. For all his brave talk and acts of defiance, Dr. Doocy wasn’t a fighter.
“What do you have in this?” Mike asked, showing him the syringe.
“Antibiotics.”
“Get out of here, Dr. Doocy. Go make yourself useful somewhere else.”
........
Sassani heard the alarms first, and then Mike’s voice. “Wake up, Tracy.”
She opened her eyes slowly; her vision was blurred and took a few seconds to adjust. She blinked at the glare coming from the light. She had a terrible headache, her stomach still hurt like a bitch but she felt somewhat better.
“Can you hear me, Tracy?”
She nodded. Her mouth was too dry to speak. Lisa handed her a glass of water. She drank it in two gulps. She was so thirsty.
“Thanks.”
“Tell me everything you know, Tracy. Everything.”
“Why are these alarms ringing?”
“Don’t worry about them. Focus on what you’re about to tell me.”
“Why aren’t we doing this in the interview room?”
“Because there’s no time.”
Sassani’s mind was spinning on overdrive. There was so much to say. What should she start with?
PERIWINKLE.
“I don’t know what the ayatollah’s final plans are,” she said, “but here’s what I can tell you.”
........
“So there were eight SAVAK colonels inserted in the United States?” Mike asked.
“And in Canada, just not the United States. And don’t forget, only seven of these eight colonels were Iranians. My father told me number ‘8’ was an American holding the rank of colonel.”
“Yes, you’ve told me that.”
“The Canadian prime minister was killed by one of us.”
Yes, I know that too. Every single time it was mentioned on the radio or television, or even during a casual conversation with his teammates, Mike still got a pinching feeling in the center of his chest. As much as he disliked the former Canadian prime minister’s domestic and foreign policies, he would have given his life to save him. The office of the prime minister was bigger than the man who occupied it.
On the bright side, Sassani was telling the truth. Everything she had said so far concurred with the intelligence they’d gathered.
“The primary objective of Ayatollah Khomeini was to have two generations of sleepers within North America,” she continued.
“Were you asked to join specific police forces or government agencies?”
“Yes, the Secret Service in the United States and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada, or any political parties that would allow us to gain influence and authority. Initially, this is what the ayatollah wanted. But not all of us were able to. We had to adapt. Some of us had to join other police forces because our application was rejected. One of us became a well-known state politician, two others are well-respected reporters, and we also have a backup.”
“Backup?”
“The female agent you killed at the hospital. She was the backup.”
That made sense to Mike, and enraged him at the same time. As a former RCMP officer, he knew how the Canadian federal government had bent over backward to accommodate minorities into the organization. It had led to a lot of positive changes within the RCMP but, in Mike’s mind, the drawbacks were also significant. Candidates to important positions within the organization were often selected based on their gender and skin color. Diversity was the key word. Candidates whose parents were born overseas with shaky family or professional ties were let through even though comprehensive background checks couldn’t be performed. More often than not, these candidates became hard-working officers who boosted the RCMP’s effectiveness. But there were undesirable effects too. Sergeant Khalid al-Fadhi was one of them.
“That’s why you joined the NYPD instead of the Secret Service? Your application was rejected?”
“My dad’s past . . . I failed the background check.”
“What about the politician? Is he holding elected office?”
That would be terrible. Elected officials were those who could gradually transform the day-to-day lives of their countrymen.
Sassani coughed. She apologized and asked for more water. Lisa handed her another glass.
“Yes, he’s an elected official,” she said between sips of water. “His name is Maxim Ghasemi.”
“The name rings a bell,” Lisa said.
“He had his moment of fame six years ago when he was elected mayor of a small town in Michigan. He has an anti-police rhetoric that pleases his constituents. He’s now a state senator and will probably be the next governor. He’s aiming for even higher office.”
Of course he is.
A sudden loud explosion resonated in the medical bay. The whole building shook.
“What was that?” Mike asked aloud. The lights flickered but stayed on. Then came the unmistakable chattering of automatic fire.
Mike looked at his wife. She seemed pissed off but she already had her pistol in her hand.
“Go,” she told him.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep her alive.”
“Come back to me in one piece, Mike.”
Mike pulled his compact Taurus from its holster and headed out the door.
CHAPTER 89
Ramallah, Palestine
The operational plan called for two hours of rest prior to the departure time. Zima made the best of it and fell asleep almost instantly.
“Hey, princess, time to go.”
She opened her eyes, and there was Eitan, his face two inches away from hers. He kissed her lightly on the forehead before helping her up.
“Do what you got to do,” Eitan said. “We’re leaving in five.”
Zima made her way to the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She drank a whole bottle of water and discarded it in the garbage can next to the sink.
By the time she came out of the restroom, the whole team was in the living room, double-checking their equipment. Most members were carrying M4s in slings but two had MP5s. All had their secondary attached to their chest. Zima wasn’t a big fan of the thigh holster. She had two major problems with it. The first was that it was damn uncomfortable. The leg straps had a tendency to cut off circulation in the leg and to limit movement when climbing and running. The second was how easy it was to get disarmed with a thigh holster, especially from behind. So Zima opted for the chest rig too.
“The vehicles are two minutes out,” Captain Burke said. “Get ready.”
The target was a fifteen-minute drive across town. At this time of the morning, there would be almost no traffic. Burke had a man stationed at an OP—observation post—one block from where they thought Meir Yatom was being kept. The target building was a disused soap factory. It was mid-sized and spanned three floors. Intelligence collected by the man at the OP suggested that Yatom was in the basement.
Right on time, the garage door opened and two Mitsubishi Pajeros entered. The door closed behind them. The moment they were shielded from the street, Captain Burke and his team climbed in the back of the SUVs, with Zima and Eitan taking the front passenger seats.
The traffic was even l
ighter than anticipated, which worked perfectly. They still had forty-five minutes before sunrise. If everything went according to plan, they’d be in Israel in forty.
CHAPTER 90
Ramallah, Palestine
Meir Yatom fought to stay awake, as he feared he’d never wake up. Davari was long gone. The new crew was even worse than Colonel Davari. At least he understood Davari. He knew what the Iranian was after. Yatom wondered why he and his sidekick had been called away. He hadn’t divulged enough stuff for them to go after anything. At least he hoped not.
The new guys were all Palestinians. Yatom was convinced they were with Hamas. He could tell by their lack of discipline. Twice, they’d nearly killed him. The first time was when they hit him on the side of the head with a tennis racket. The next time, only a few hours later, was when they suspended him by his feet for too long.
Without their leader’s intervention—the only one with a brain, it seemed—he’d be dead. An hour ago, they had turned off the lights and prepared makeshift beds and cots. The majority of them were now snoring, while two Hamas fighters remained awake to stand guard.
Both had their eyes on their smartphones.
“My men aren’t disciplined like yours, Meir Yatom,” a voice said behind him.
Yatom recognized the leader’s voice.
“And I apologize for the senseless beatings you had to endure at their hands.”
Yatom didn’t respond.
“But can you really blame them? You took everything from them, Yatom. E-ve-ry-thing.”
Yatom’s head was suddenly jerked back as the Hamas leader grabbed his hair and pulled back. He found himself staring upside down at the furious face of the Hamas leader. A knife appeared and Yatom felt its tip against his neck.
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
Yatom groaned as his head was pulled back even more. A drop of sweat fell from the Hamas leader’s forehead right into his left eye. Yatom blinked several times.
“I’ve been ordered not to kill you. It’s a real shame.”
Yatom could smell the man’s breath, and it wasn’t pleasant. It was a mix of stale onion and rotten meat.
“But I think I’m allowed a little souvenir, don’t you?”
Before he could react, the Hamas leader cut off Yatom’s left ear with one swift movement of his knife. Yatom opened his mouth to scream but the Hamas leader stuffed his mouth with it. He then clamped Yatom’s mouth and nose shut using his two hands. Yatom’s agony reverberated across his whole body and throbbed with every beat of his heart.
“Shhhh,” the Hamas leader kept saying in his ear. “Make a sound and I’ll cut off the other one too.”
Yatom’s entire body shook uncontrollably as warm tears streamed down his face. His lungs burned and screamed for air. Every muscle, every bone, every cell in his body was hurting.
It was time to go. They had pushed him too far. In a way, it was his way of saying, Fuck you.
CHAPTER 91
Ramallah, Palestine
Zima heard Captain Burke asking for a last-minute situation report from the observation post.
“Zima,” Burke said a couple of seconds later, “we’re good to go.”
It was Burke’s way to request her permission to proceed. He was too macho to ask properly, but Zima didn’t mind.
“Let’s go then,” she replied. She took a few deep breaths.
“All elements, we’re a go. I say again we’re a go. OP reports no new activities and just took out the two exterior sentries. Team One will position on the left, Team Two on the right. We move in together. Team Two leader, acknowledge.”
Zima heard Eitan’s voice. “Team Two on the right, copy.”
Fifteen seconds later, the two-car motorcade came to a stop in front of an abandoned building.
“That’s us,” Burke said.
Zima climbed out of the SUV and covered her team’s movement by scanning the second and third floor windows for threats. Team Two arrived five seconds later and ran to the right side of the main entrance. A building this size would usually require a much bigger team to clear, but since they only had the basement to take care of they were hoping eight would be enough. That’s all they had anyway. The drivers were support personnel, not door-kickers like the rest of Burke’s crew.
“All teams, this is Team One leader, in ten secs, five secs. Stand by, stand by, stand by. Go! Go! Go!”
........
Zima was the first to run down the stairs. There were supposed to be two flights of stairs leading down to the basement. Team One was charged with taking the one on the north side of the building, while Team Two was to take the one on the south side. Unfortunately, the southern staircase was no more, so instead of attacking the basement from two different entry points, Team Two was now playing catch up.
They had come equipped with NVGs but they weren’t needed. There was enough light to operate without them, which pleased Zima as she always found it hard to aim properly with them. She pulled the MP5 firmly into her shoulder as she reached the first landing.
Her heart almost stopped as she came in contact with a huge man going up the stairs. By the expression on his face, he was even more surprised than she was. He carried an AK-47 slung across his chest. She double-tapped his center of mass and the man crumbled. She shot him once more in the head, in case he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
“One tango down, first landing, north-side staircase,” she said over the radio.
She continued down the stairs and reached the basement without incident. She was sweating profusely. The sweat ran down her back and between her breasts. The air inside was humid and the tactical vest didn’t help.
A small corridor led into a bigger room. She stopped short of the next room. She peered around the corner, trying not to stick her head out. There were a dozen men sleeping in cots. At the far end of the room, close to where the southern staircase would have ended, sat Meir Yatom. He was naked, tied to a chair. A man was behind him, talking into in his ear.
Zima was relieved but terrified at the same time.
“Visual on Yatom. He’s on the south side. There are at least a dozen tangos. Most are sleeping.”
“Is he alive, Zima? Is Yatom alive?” Eitan asked.
“Yes.”
“When you’re ready, Zima. Clock’s ticking.”
........
The whump and flashes of a multitude of stun grenades blasting the air at the same time brought Yatom back to reality. The muffled sounds of the suppressed sub-machine-guns was music to his ears—or his ear. The Hamas leader, who was still standing behind him, let go of his hair, and, for a second, Yatom thought he had been killed.
To his dismay, he realized the terrorist wasn’t dead at all; in fact, he was now firing at the assault team, using him as cover.
........
Zima moved half a second after the first stun grenade exploded. The first target to appear in her iron sights was holding a cell phone. Was he simply a sentry passing the long boring hours playing a game of Candy Crush on his phone, or was he about to remotely detonate explosive charges hidden all around the building? Zima didn’t wait to find out. She fired three rounds in quick succession from her MP5. Her target staggered backward.
Zima quickly moved deeper inside the room so the rest of the team could move in too. She moved her barrel left and right, taking shots at the men who, just a few seconds ago, were still sleeping. Most of them were unarmed, but they had their weapons within reach. That was good enough for Zima. To her right, she saw a terrorist roll out of his cot. She fired the last two rounds of her magazine at him but missed, her rounds piercing the cot’s fabric. Zima got to one knee to make herself as small a target as possible. She locked eyes with her target, both knowing that one wouldn’t survive the next three seconds. His hands were on his AK-47 and he was in the process of movin
g the barrel toward Zima. She let go of her MP5 and transitioned to her pistol.
She wasn’t going to make it. She ducked and rolled to her right just as shots rang out over her head. Two muffled shots fired from behind her hit her target. She looked back.
It was Captain Burke. He nodded at her.
Then the top of his head exploded, and his body dropped to the ground.
No!
Zima fell to a prone position but her MP5 was making it awkward. She unslung it.
She looked back. Albert Manchester—the team medic—was already pulling Burke out of the line of fire.
There! To the right of Yatom. A man stood and fired a long salvo. Someone moaned in pain behind her.
Goddamnit! She had no shot. At that range—about thirty yards—she didn’t trust herself with the Sig. Only a tiny portion of the man’s body was uncovered. The coward was using Meir Yatom as a shield.
CHAPTER 92
Ramallah, Palestine
Eitan took a deep breath. Then another. He had trained for situations just like this all his life. He adjusted his aim slightly, having removed the suppressor for better accuracy. In his mind, this was just like target practice. It didn’t matter that the hostage was Meir Yatom. That wouldn’t change anything. He’d take the shot the moment he had the opportunity.
And it better be soon because with all the commotion the firefight had caused, the authorities were already on their way.
Burke was down. Manchester was down. This needed to end.
They were in a stalemate. Every second they wasted brought the authorities or the Hamas closer. Something needed to happen.
There. The terrorist was changing his magazine. To do so, the man angled his body differently, allowing Eitan a couple inches of exposure.
He pulled the trigger.
........
The firefight had stopped. Yatom was alert enough to understand they were at a standoff. The Hamas leader behind him simply had to hinder the rescue attempt for a few more minutes and everything would be lost.
Yatom’s heart jumped at the single unmuffled gunshot.
A Thick Crimson Line (Mike Walton Book 3) Page 24