Desert Fire (22 page)
Authors: David Hagberg
BY LATE AFTERNOON, Leila had decided to turn back to Interlaken. She'd had enough killing. Lotti Roemer would have to be brought to Baghdad and kept out of harm's way for the duration of the project.
The old man would be dead soon in any event, and his son would finally be free.
Azziza's ominous accusation that she was in love with Walther Roemer still clung. Back home, it would eventually be used against her. No matter her father's influence with the RCC, she could be charged with treason. Uncle Bashir was disappointed in her. Even the friendly Bassam Zwaiter had apparently arranged to bug her office telephone. If only she could have found the killer of the two women. It was probably someone from the team. Crazed with a holy rage against the infidels. How could she have failed to recognize the signs, unless she had been too preoccupied with her own life?
She sifted options. She could telephone Zwaiter, explain
the entire situation, make him see that it was best not to assassinate the old man. But Zwaiter did not have the authority to stop Azziza even if he wanted to. Uncle Bashir had the authority, but what could he do from Baghdad? She could tip off the Swiss police that someone was on the way to murder Lotti Roemer. The old man's sergeant would cooperate with her or stand alone against Azziza.
the entire situation, make him see that it was best not to assassinate the old man. But Zwaiter did not have the authority to stop Azziza even if he wanted to. Uncle Bashir had the authority, but what could he do from Baghdad? She could tip off the Swiss police that someone was on the way to murder Lotti Roemer. The old man's sergeant would cooperate with her or stand alone against Azziza.
She shuddered, thinking about Azziza, and her grip tightened on the steering wheel. He would know she was there, in the house. But that wouldn't slow him down. All this for what? To give an old monster the chance he never gave thousands of innocent people?
THERE HAD BEEN a lot of activity all through the early afternoon at the Klauber estate. From their vantage point in the surveillance house, they had watched through powerful binoculars and listened to the telephone conversations over a monitor.
Major Whalpol dialed the Chancellor's office. An aide answered.
“Any news yet?” Whalpol asked.
“The Ambassador from Iraq is here. They are in conference, Major. Any change at your end?”
“Plenty.” Whalpol was getting nervous. It looked as if General Sherif was about to make a move, but when and to where were unclear. “Six technicians from the plant arrived twenty minutes ago. Apparently they're moving something back to the KwU. Possibly a computer.”
“Anything else?”
Whalpol leaned forward to look through the binoculars set on a tripod. Three panel trucks had pulled up on
the driveway leading to the garage and other service buildings behind the main house. The technicians and four of Sherif's men were loading crates marked with the IBM logo into the vans. They were in a hurry. More disturbing was the fact that Sherif's troops, dressed in battle fatigues, carried Kalashnikov automatic rifles.
the driveway leading to the garage and other service buildings behind the main house. The technicians and four of Sherif's men were loading crates marked with the IBM logo into the vans. They were in a hurry. More disturbing was the fact that Sherif's troops, dressed in battle fatigues, carried Kalashnikov automatic rifles.
“It looks like a military operation. Sherif's people are all heavily armed.”
There was a hesitation on the line. “Do nothing to aggravate the situation, Major Whalpol, is that perfectly clear?”
“There isn't much I could do. If Sherif did decide to make a move and I tried to stop him, there would be a lot of bloodshed.”
“Avoid that at all costs. As soon as a decision is made here, you will be informed. Their ambassador will have to cable Baghdad for instructions. In the meantime just observe the general's movements.”
“I understand.”
Whalpol poured a cup of coffee and lit a cigarette, then went back to the binoculars. He had eight people on this project. Three were asleep in the next room, two were here watching the monitoring equipment and the other three were in an unmarked car just around the corner from the estate driveway at the bottom of the hill. They were armed only with handguns. In a firefight with the Iraqis they wouldn't last sixty seconds.
It was curious to be thinking in such terms, but in fact he and Roemer had discovered that General Sherif was insane. If indeed the man was the terrorist Michael, the situation was doubly dangerous. Carlos had been an amateur compared to Michael, who'd been implicated in everything from the massacre of the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics to the murders of the entire cabinet of South Yemen's President âAli Nasir Muhammad in 1986, and more than a dozen spectacularly successful airliner hijackings.
With such a man commanding a dozen heavily armed
troops, this would turn to bloodshed unless the Iraqi Ambassador could talk Sherif down.
troops, this would turn to bloodshed unless the Iraqi Ambassador could talk Sherif down.
One thing Whalpol was certain of was that General Sherif would never stand trial in Germany.
THEY WERE LATE. It was dark when the small commuter airplane touched down at Bern's tiny airport and taxied to the terminal. The handful of passengers who had flown with Roemer were grumbling.
On the short, bumpy flight from Bonn and then over from Zurich, Roemer had kept coming back to the way Leila Kahled would take the news that her father was a murderer. He could understand what she would have to endure; he had lived with just such a burden all his life.
Roemer brought his nylon overnight bag to the customs table. He handed the officer his BKA identification.
“Is your visit to Switzerland official, sir?”
“No.”
The officer returned the ID. “You may pass.”
He took the airport bus into town to the Europcar/ National office, where he rented a small Fiat. He was on the road to Interlaken ten minutes later, pushing the car to its limit, hoping he wasn't already too late.
He unzipped the bag on the seat next to him, fumbled inside until he found his gun, pulled it out and stuffed it into his belt.
He wished his father were dead. It would have been so much easier had he died on the move from the sanatorium. He could have been buried in the small Interlaken graveyard, and that entire hidden portion of Roemer's life could have been over.
“Die,” he mumbled. “Get it done with, for God's sake.”
JACOB WADUD RACED through the night as fast as he dared drive from the Second Armored Division Headquarters at Al-Falluja to Baghdad, a highway distance of forty miles.
He was a big, meaty man with a barrel chest and thick, weathered features. He had been raised on the wrong side of Kirkuk in the north, where he fought his way through school and onto the police force. Twelve years ago, after his young wife's death from cancer, he had moved to Baghdad, where he had done a two-year stint in the army and then had become a federal homicide detective.
He had been in riots and wars, and yet tonight he was frightened. General Sherif was a national hero. They called him the Lion of Baghdad. His photograph still hung in the orderly room of the Second Armored, which he had commanded during the wars with Iran and Kuwait until his elevation to this government post. He was the soldiers' general, still, in a nation of soldiers.
Hardly an Arab in Baghdad (including Wadud himself, who had served under Sherif) didn't know and love him. But he was a murderer, and almost certainly he planned some private war against the West.
Hardly an Arab in Baghdad (including Wadud himself, who had served under Sherif) didn't know and love him. But he was a murderer, and almost certainly he planned some private war against the West.
Wadud entered the city from the southwest forty-three minutes after leaving Al-Falluja. Downtown, he parked his battered old Chevrolet around the corner from the Central Telegraph Office.
He hurried the final block on foot, turning down a narrow alley that opened into a well-tended courtyard bordered by tiny shops and a narrow brick building marked MINISTRY OF FINANCEâANNEXE. The Annexe was a front for the Mukhabarat operational headquarters. Iraqi Federal Police often worked hand in hand with the Secret Service.
He rang the bell; the door buzzed and he went in. He showed his identification and turned in his handgun to the civilian guard in the small anteroom.
“Go right up, Inspector.
Is-say-yid
Kahair is expecting you.”
Is-say-yid
Kahair is expecting you.”
Wadud took the elevator up to the third floor, where Bashir Kahair was waiting. They had agreed this afternoon, after Roemer's stunning telephone call, that Wadud should go to the general's old command to find out about the twelve troops he had taken with him to Germany. All of them had been drawn from the Second Armored, which was still fiercely loyal to the general.
“Well?” Kahair asked without preamble.
“You're not going to like it,” Wadud said.
They went down the corridor into Kahair's office, closing the door behind them. They didn't bother sitting.
“Give it to me straight, Jacob,” Kahair said sharply.
“All twelve he has with him are trigger-happy crazies.”
Kahair's eyebrows rose.
“High combat time for every last one of them in Iran and Kuwait. Hand-to-hand, infiltration, weapons, strategy. The worst part is that every damned one of them is a demolitions expert.”
“What can he be thinking?”
“I paid a call to an old friend working munitions,” Wadud said. “He wouldn't tell me in so many words, but he seems to believe that the general took along enough explosivesâplastique, he thinksâto blow half of Germany off the map.”
Kahair was staggered by the news. “The German Chancellor called our ambassador for a meeting late this afternoon. Told him that the general probably murdered the two women, and that the German government requested a release of his diplomatic status. They want to arrest him.”
Wadud shook his head. “We'll bring him back here.”
“That's the least of my worries, Jacob.”
Wadud knew what the Mukhabarat deputy meant. If the Germans tried to arrest General Sherif, he would resist them with force. The fanatics he had with him would love a firefight. According to the sergeant in munitions, they called themselves the Basra Brigade.
“I'll arrange transportation for you,” Kahair said. “Can you be ready to leave within the hour?”
“Yes, sir,” Wadud said. “I'll bring the general home.”
THE CHALET AT Jungfraujochstrasse, No. 15, was a modest structure built into the side of a hill. The dark, hulking mountains rose all around it.
Leila passed the entrance and parked her Mercedes a half mile farther up the road. She headed back on foot, stopping at the side of the road fifty yards from the driveway. She could see a few lights from the chalet through the trees ahead, and she could smell wood smoke from the chimney.
A chill wind rustled in the trees. It was cold and lonely here.
She'd seen no other car parked along the road. Dr. Azziza was not here yet. Perhaps he would wait until after midnight, when the household would be bedded down.
If the property clerk had telephoned Sergeant Rilke, they'd be waiting for her to sneak up on them. They would have an alarm system. Dogs. Possibly even armed security guards.
She wondered, though. All these years the old man had lived here, or at the sanatorium, without making any fuss that would call attention to him. Elaborate security precautions would in themselves create a stir.
At the very least, however, Sergeant Rilke would be armed and ready to open fire on someone sneaking up to the house.
But if a woman were to walk openly up the driveway, knock on the front door and ask for help, it might throw them off long enough for her to get inside.
Was she doing this because of a sense of justice? Because she hated Khodr Azziza and his kind? Or because ⦠she had fallen in love with Walther Roemer?
Leila transferred her automatic from her purse to her coat pocket and continued down the road, turning in at the driveway and trudging up the steep slope to the house.
The lights she had seen from the road were all outside. Not one window was lit from within. The doors and windows were all in shadow.
Leila stepped onto a broad parking area between the garage and the front door. She was exposed here under the bright lights; one shot would be plenty. She would not have a chance.
A voice came out of the darkness somewhere ahead. “That's far enough, Fräulein.”
Leila stopped. “I cannot see you, Herr ⦠?”
“Turn around and leave, and I may not shoot you.”
“I have come to help.”
“With your killer, Khodr Azziza?”
Leila was stunned. How had the man known? It wasn't possible.
“Macht schnell!
Go away. Leave before I kill you.”
Go away. Leave before I kill you.”
“You must believe me, Sergeant Rilke. I have come here to help. Dr. Azziza will be here soon, and then you will have no chance.”
Rilke laughed. “You have a sense of humor. Leave before I lose mine.”
A bullet ricocheted off the driveway inches from her left foot, spraying her legs with stone chips. The muzzle flash had come from the left of the door. Probably an open window.
Rilke fired a second shot, this one whining off the stones to Leila's right.
Then three shots were fired in rapid succession from behind and above Leila.
“Don't move, Leila,” Dr. Azziza called. “I don't want to kill you.”
Azziza had been waiting in the darkness. He had pinpointed the muzzle flash from Rilke's gun and had targeted it. Azziza had known she would be coming here. She was his bait.
Behind her a branch snapped. Azziza had been waiting in a tree.
She turned slowly as she put her right hand in her coat pocket, her fingers around the grip of her Beretta .380.
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