Pandora's Grave (49 page)

It was no surprise to Harry that the safehouse had been identified years before by Agency assets on the ground. It stood out. The courtyard was surrounded by a high wall, maybe eleven or twelve feet in height, surmounted by razor wire and security cameras. There went the
quick
part of their plan.

He motioned to Tex and together the three men dropped to the ground, working their way along behind the parked cars.

From behind the walls of the courtyard they could hear a vehicle engine idling. Maybe more than one. Time was short.

Lying on his belly under a parked truck, Harry rubbed a hand across his eyes, scanning the perimeter for weaknesses—for the proverbial chink in the armor.

At length, he nudged Tex with an elbow. “There’s a gap in the coverage of the security cameras. If we time it right, I can get in close to the gate before the camera turns back this way.”

“You up to a sprint?”

Harry grinned, forcing himself to ignore his tired muscles. “Don’t have that much choice, now do I?”

“You got that right,” the big man replied simply. “Go with God.”

One, two, three—four!
Harry was up and moving, his feet pounding across the street, toward the looming shelter of the courtyard wall. Unbidden, his mind flickered back to his childhood Little League, sliding for his first base at the age of seven. The euphoric adrenaline flowing through his body.

Sliding for home plate.

The stakes here defied comparison. The security camera started to swivel back toward him. And with one final desperate burst of energy, he hurled himself toward the wall, sliding across the rough asphalt.

He rolled onto his back in the shadow of the wall, gasping for breath, the assault rifle clutched in his skinned hands.

Now voices added themselves to the cacophony of engine noise, barely intelligible amidst the racket. It sounded like Farsi, he realized after another moment’s reflection. Orders barked back and forth.

Then footsteps, boots thudding against asphalt on the other side of the reinforced metal gate. The rattle of a padlock.

Shifting his rifle to his left hand, Harry drew the suppressed .45 from his jacket, aiming it at the opening.

The gate swung outward as though in slow motion. The man that emerged was dressed in the traditional garb of a Palestinian
fellah
. An AK-47 was cradled in his arms as he pulled the gate fully open, his back turned toward the CIA men.

Harry didn’t wait for him to turn around. This wasn’t a Western movie. There were no white hats. No honor in this. His arm came up, the big Colt an extension of his hand. A part of him.

Asefi’s breath caught as the
fellah
’s face turned toward him, and in the gathering twilight he recognized the man. One of the Ayatollah’s young scholars from Qom. They had been lovers once, in a better day. A beautiful boy.

He tried to rise, tried to scream out a warning, but the words turned to dust in his throat. He saw the gun rise in the American’s hand, a terrible certainty.

The sound of the suppressed .45 was more like that of a nail driver than a gun and so it was. A nail in his coffin.

The bullet struck the young man in the back of the head and an anguished scream broke from Asefi’s lips as his lover crumpled to the ground, a shattered wreck.

Dead. He felt as though his heart had been torn out. Time itself seemed to slow down as he rose, evading the big man’s hand by only inches. Tears ran down his face as he ran forward, his vision reduced to nothing but the American in front of him.

Asefi saw him look up, saw the surprise on his face. Surprise quickly melting away to resolution as the gun came up.

He wasn’t going to make it. He knew that when he saw the pistol aimed at his chest. Deep down he had known it before he even started running. Cold as fate.

Two .45-caliber hollowpointed slugs tore into his chest, piercing a lung and mushrooming into his body.

Falling. He threw out a hand to catch himself as the asphalt came rushing up to meet him, but his body was no longer responding to the dictates of his mind.

Darkness…

Hossein heard the muffled shot, recognized it for what it was. He saw the body of the young scholar crumple into the street.

They were here.

“Fall back!” he bellowed, grasping the situation in a trice. There were too many unknowns to risk pitched battle.

His orders fell on deaf ears. His men stood exposed in the open, staring at the corpse of their fallen comrade in open-mouthed shock.
Scholars
, he fumed bitterly. Only Mustafa reacted in accordance with his training, taking shelter behind the engine block of the van, his rifle unslung.

Hossein hurried forward to the screen of vehicles, taking command of the situation. He grabbed one of the young men by the shoulder and pulled him down behind the van, slapping him across the face.

At that moment, a small steel cylinder rolled into the courtyard, tinkling against the asphalt. “Down!” Hossein screamed, covering his eyes with his hands.

The courtyard turned bright as the noonday sun.

Harry was through the gate two seconds after the stun grenade went off, Tex following him in. Target to the left.

A burst of fire rippled from the Galil’s barrel and the man went down. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw another man helpless on the pavement, rubbing his eyes in agony.

Tex shot him twice and he stopped moving.

Reaching the line of vehicles, they separated, their movements practiced, almost choreographed.
Danse macabre
.

A man was crouched behind the van, a rifle in his hands. He got off a wild burst, bullets fanning the air near Harry’s ear.

Harry fired a quick double-tap, both rounds entering the tango’s head. The rifle clattered to the asphalt as the corpse fell backward.

Silence fell over the courtyard, the silence of the grave. Four men dead. Harry and Tex exchanged glances, their rifles still held at the ready.

“Any sign of Hossein?” Harry asked cautiously, his eyes scanning the courtyard for a further threat.

Tex shook his head.

“Check the vehicles for the package,” Harry instructed. “I’ve got your back.”

10:35 A.M. Central Time

Columbus, Ohio

“And as we work together, we will move this country into a bright future of hope and prosperity. Thank you all, and may God bless the United States of America!” With a wave and a brilliant smile for the cameras, President Hancock walked quickly off the platform, after four years still moving with the rugged, youthful athleticism that had endeared him to his supporters in the first campaign.

Cahill was waiting backstage and together they walked down the hall of the convention building. “Something’s going on, isn’t there, Ian?” Hancock demanded, undoing his necktie as they walked.

The only reply was a nod and the President sighed. “Let me have it.”

“We got a flash from Langley shortly after you went on-stage. They were able to locate the terrorist cell charged with transporting the bacteria into Israel.”

Hancock stopped dead in his tracks, a strange fire flashing in his eyes as he stared at Cahill. “They did?”

“Yes, Mr. President. As of our last update, fifteen minutes ago, an NCS strike team was in the process of executing the takedown.”

“
Now
?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t see fit to notify me of this?”

“This was a very important speech,” Cahill responded, baffled by Hancock’s response. “As I’m sure you can understand, it was imperative that you remain focused while delivering it.”

“Ian, I can give speeches till the Second Coming of Christ and none of it will matter if the Middle East goes up in smoke. Now get me an update. I want real-time intelligence on the developing situation, ASAP.”

7:39 P.M. Local Time

The safehouse

Ramallah

Harry heard the van’s doors close behind him at long last, then Tex cleared his throat. “Nothing,” the big man said finally. “Nothing at all.”

“Then we’ll search the safehouse.”

Tex shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense for it to be concealed inside. They were leavin’.”

Silence reigned over the courtyard as the two men stood there. Indecision. It had been fatal in the past. At last Harry spoke. “Stay here, I’m going to check Asefi.”

He walked back out through the steel gates, his Galil rifle held at the ready. It was a testament to the violence that had wracked Ramallah for the last few years that no one had yet responded to the firefight.

The Iranian bodyguard lay there on the pavement, beside the corpse of the young
fellahin
Harry had shot. He was cradling the young man’s shattered head against his chest.

“I loved him,” Asefi whispered, his voice a faint, dying murmur. Tears of anger shone in his eyes as he glared up at Harry.

Harry did not respond for a moment, and when he did, he ignored the bodyguard’s anger over the death of his lover. “The bacteria isn’t here, Achmed,” he replied, dropping to one knee beside the dying man. “What can you tell me about that?”

Raising himself up on one elbow with a tremendous effort, Asefi spat in Harry’s face, bloody spittle striking him on the cheek.

Harry never blinked, staring at the Iranian with preternatural calm as the spittle dripped from his face. “The bacteria,” he repeated coldly. “Let’s have the truth this time.”

Asefi coughed, a bloody froth flecking his lips as he struggled to breathe. A smile twisted his features as he met Harry’s gaze. “You’re too late,” he replied, chuckling at the irony of the situation. His laughter was cut short by another fit of coughing and Harry was forced to lean closer to hear his next words.

“You thought you could play me, didn’t you? The terrorists are already in Al Quds…”

“Where?” Harry demanded, realizing that the man’s strength was ebbing fast. With a critical eye, he assessed and then rejected the possibility of stabilizing the bodyguard. He had aimed to kill.

A curse was Asefi’s only response. His body shuddered and then collapsed over the corpse of his lover, the two of them entwined in death…

Tex looked up as Harry returned to the courtyard, but with his characteristic reticence, he asked no questions. To his eyes the team leader looked worn, exhausted.

“We were rolled,” Harry said finally, his tone weary. Bitter. “The bacteria isn’t here. Never was.”

Tex accepted the statement without challenge. “Where to next?”

“We clear the building,” Harry replied, a grim determination creeping into his voice. “Maybe he was lying once again.”

Even as he spoke, he knew the fallacy of that argument. No, Asefi had been telling the truth this time. He had seen it in the dying man’s eyes. Still, there was no harm in checking. “Back me up,” he instructed. “I’ve got point.”

The two men took up positions outside the door of the safehouse and Harry tried the door handle. Unlocked.

He pushed the door open with the barrel of his rifle, following it in. They were in a long, dark hallway, their only illumination coming from a ceiling light in the room at the end.

A room to the left. Locked. Tex kicked it open and Harry entered, sweeping the bedroom with the muzzle of his rifle. All clear.

Two more rooms down the hallway were also cleared without incident. The place seemed deserted. Still leading the way, Harry entered the kitchen at the end of hall. And he stopped stock-still.

Farshid Hossein was seated calmly at a table in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the two of them without a flicker of fear or surprise on his countenance. An empty semiautomatic pistol lay on the table before him, pulled back to slide-lock. A satellite phone rested beside it.

His right hand was pressed to the base of his throat, his fingers holding down the spoon of a fragmentation grenade. The pin was gone.

One slip, one tremor of his fingers and he would blow them all to kingdom come. That much was clear. His motivation was not.

After a moment, his face cracked into a smile and he gestured with his free hand. “Have a seat. We need to talk.”

8:54 P.M. Tehran Time

The Ayatollah’s Residence

Qom, Iran

The phone on Isfahani’s desk vibrated for the second time in twenty minutes and he glanced briefly at the screen before answering it. He sighed and the sound seemed to fill the small, austere bedchamber of the Ayatollah.

Seldom had he seen things go more completely awry and his mind searched for answers to the chaos. Had Allah rejected him as an instrument of his will?

“Hello?”

It was Hossein’s number that had been displayed on-screen, but the voice that responded was not that of the major.

“Am I speaking with the Ayatollah Isfahani?” a voice asked in perfect Arabic. If Isfahani had not known better, he might have thought the man was a native speaker.

“You are,” he replied evenly, in the same language. “There is a certain irony in speaking with the man who killed my soldiers.”

“We all must make our deals with the devil,” came the ready retort. “I find myself in the same position.”

Isfahani was too surprised at his boldness to be angry. “Faustian bargains are not a part of my day-to-day life,” he replied. “But Goethe has been a favorite of mine ever since my days in Germany. I ask myself, have you not cast the wrong player in the role of Mephistopheles?”

Harry cleared his throat. “We’re wasting time with semantics, sir. Would you cut to the quick?”

“As you wish, of course. The biological agent is in the hands of a Hezbollah field commander named Fayood Hamza al-Farouk. I am prepared to give you their plan of attack, their strength, and most importantly, a way to stop them.”

“And you ask in return?”

“I beg pardon?”

Harry glanced over at Tex before turning his attention back to the phone on the table. It was on speaker, ensuring that all three men could hear the conversation.