The Natanz Directive (8 page)

“Go. Go,” he yelled at me. “I'll cover you.”

The driver of the runaway delivery truck jumped out and drew a Glock; I imagined it was a Glock by the burnish of the metal, but it could have been any 9 mm. He and his partner used the truck's doors for cover and opened fire. Relatively professional, but sloppy. People screamed and dived for cover. About time. I heard music blaring in my head, Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Call Me the Breeze.”
Time to play, Jake.

Bullets ricocheted from the pavement close to my feet. I fired two shots, taking out the window glass of the truck and sending the two gunmen ducking for cover.

Akbari scooted along the back of the taxi and put himself in the line of fire. He yelled over his shoulder, “Get the hell going!”

Akbari fired out his magazine, riddling the truck and keeping the two men at bay. He crouched behind the taxi and groped in his jacket for a fresh magazine.

I hated these kinds of decisions. Run in favor of the mission and leave a soldier with zero chance of survival, or risk the mission and take a stand by his side. I heard sirens. “Move,” Akbari screamed. So I did, and hated myself for it.

I sprang to my feet and ran. The sidewalks were filled with fleeing people, and I pushed a woman and her child into a nearby stairwell. I glanced back. There was a motorcycle darting down the thoroughfare, and it wasn't the cops. I saw bullets splash around Akbari's feet. One hit his ankle, and he crumpled to the pavement. I was raising my gun when the next bullet tore into Akbari's leg and another ripped into his belly. His head lolled back, and the pistol spun from his hand to clatter on the asphalt. Goddammit. The man had sacrificed himself for me.

A flood of police cars raced onto Prins Hendrikkade. The two gunmen charged around the taxi, guns raised, and paid no heed whatsoever to the police. They raced into the crowd with one aim, and that was to find and kill me. That wasn't going to happen today. I painted a picture of both of them in my head even as I ran. The passenger: a burly Persian with a bald head and a thick nose, snorting like a bull in heat. The driver: a skinny, dark guy with spiked hair and a Hulk Hogan mustache. I wouldn't forget them.

I had a fifty-yard head start and dashed left into a side street, dodging pedestrians and hurdling a baby stroller. I could outrun the shooters or taken them down in a firefight, but my bigger problem was the motorcycle.

I looked over my shoulder. On second glance, it looked more like a dirt bike as it zigzagged through the street. The rider wore a black-and-red helmet. He locked in on me. He had a very nasty-looking machine pistol dangling in front of him—probably a MAC-11 purchased from an American arms dealer—and I saw him gripping it with his right hand. All hell was about to break loose, and I had to end it fast.

When I reached the cross street, I tucked myself around the corner of a four-story stone apartment house. I gripped the Walther with two hands, stepped around the building, and triggered three shots in less than a second, all low and aimed at that midlevel point where the biker's knees and the bike's gas tank came together. I didn't wait to see the results. I dipped back behind the building and listened as the bike skidded across the pavement.

Now I looked. The motorcycle had tumbled onto its left side, pinning the rider's leg beneath it. He lay dead still, arms spread apart. I dashed out into the street and straight for the motorcycle. I hadn't ridden a bike in years, but I figured it would come back to me.

It wasn't to be. The next wave arrived, heralded by a chorus of blaring car horns and a beat-up Renault screeching to a halt on the cross street. The right-side doors opened and the two shooters bounded out. A second motorcycle circled them. The rider goosed the throttle and pointed the wheel directly at me. I was in serious trouble.

My one chance was straight ahead, across the street, to the canal. I had maybe three seconds. I dodged a Mercedes coupe as it swerved in front of me and braked to a halt. The driver stared moon-faced at me, fear and surprise bleaching him of color. I bounded over the hood and onto the sidewalk. I saw a houseboat cruising the canal, left to right. I was probably too old to attempt what I was about to attempt, but I didn't stop to think about it. I grasped the steel railing that bordered the canal and launched myself toward the boat. I hit the canvas canopy dead center. The canvas ripped apart under my weight, and I fell on my ass on the deck. A dozen partygoers stared, their faces blanched with astonishment. Who could blame them. A man dropped his glass of wine. A woman screamed. Dinner plates went flying.

I levered myself upright and shouted in my very rusty Dutch, “Get down on the deck. Down on the deck. Now!” I pulled an older couple to the deck and several others followed.

An instant later, gunshots popped above us. Bullets punched through the canvas and raked the boat's beautiful wooden hull. Anyone who hadn't dropped to the deck did so now, all except a woman in a cocktail dress with a wine goblet stuck to her fingers. She was paralyzed with fear, and I couldn't blame her. I dragged her to the deck, looked her straight in the eye, and said, “Don't move.”

Another salvo of bullets clawed through the port-side windows, shattering wine bottles and turning dishes into shards of porcelain. Wine and food splattered the deck.

A speedboat skimmed toward us from the right, bounding over inky water dappled with the yellow reflections of streetlamps. I saw a man take up a position on the bow. I saw him raise what looked like an AK-47 to his shoulder. The muzzle let loose a ball of fire, and bullets sprayed the houseboat.

At the front of the galley, a flight of stairs rose to the bridge. Someone begged for help over a radio. I sprang up the steps. Two crewmen wore blue jackets, khaki pants, and matching baseball caps. One looked completely panicked at the helm; the other was gripping a radio handset and screaming into the mike. Their faces beamed in shock when they saw me climb onto the bridge.

“Down, down, down,” I shouted, physically throwing the radioman to the floor of the bridge deck and pushing the helmsman aside. I grabbed the wheel. I shoved the throttle to its front stop, and the houseboat surged forward.

Our sudden wake rocked the speedboat, knocking the shooter off-balance and into the canal. Now it was two against one. Better odds. Not great.

The pilot of the speedboat gave his motor a squirt of gas and turned the boat toward us. Another man crawled from the cockpit, a fresh AK-47 at the ready.

The houseboat lumbered forward; no way could we outrun them. Our advantage, if you could call it that, was size and heft.

I turned the helm to the left and motored into the middle of the canal. The speedboat pilot was so fixed on getting into a good firing position that he didn't notice that I was nosing him toward the canal's opposite wall.

The shooter raised his gun, but I drove him off the hull with three quick shots from my Walther. I had seven bullets left and a fresh magazine in my coat pocket. I fired two more in the direction of the speedboat's pilot. He eased off the throttle long enough for me to nudge him closer to the canal wall. We were now thirty feet away and closing.

The speedboat pilot finally realized the danger and hollered in panic. He jerked the throttle and tried to reverse his engine. The boat didn't respond.

I spun the helm to the left. Now there was nothing to cushion the blow with the canal wall except the speedboat trapped between us. That was the plan.

A surge of water lifted the speedboat, and the houseboat slammed the tiny hull against the concrete. The speedboat splintered, taking both pilot and gunman down with it.

I didn't look back. I eased the throttle back on the houseboat and guided it into the middle of the channel, toward a second canal on the left and a stone bridge. I heard sirens. I saw patrol cars with blue lights flashing on their roofs. One parked close to the railing on the opposite side, and a searchlight lanced across our flotilla of gondolas.

From what I could see, there was no sign of the gunmen on the thoroughfare by this time. I filled my lungs and took note of my heart rate: sixty-six. A little high, but not bad given the excitement.

I urged the houseboat's two crewmen to their feet. “Take the wheel,” I said to the helmsman. I pointed to a wooden pier jutting out into the water a hundred yards ahead. “That's my stop. Get me close.”

Then I caught the radioman's eye. “Alert the channel police. And get an ambulance over here. Then get downstairs and check on your passengers. If you've got a first aid kit, I'd bring it along.” He just stared at me. I snapped, “Now, sailor!”

He jumped to it, powering up his radio and tapping an area-wide emergency number. We were closing in on the pier. I gestured at the helmsman's jacket and hat. “Mind if I borrow those?”

“What?”

My Dutch sucked. I switched to English. “Your hat and jacket.”

I realized the Walther was still dangling from my hand, and I stuffed it into my shoulder holster. I fished a roll of euros from my pocket and gave him half. I stripped off my coat. He did the same. It was a poor disguise even with his baseball cap, but the police would be looking for brown suede, not sailor blue, so it was better than nothing.

The helmsman cut the power and turned the nose toward the pier. “Ten seconds,” he said.

“Sorry about your boat,” I said. What else could I say? I half expected him to say,
Screw you,
but he didn't. In fact, as I was jumping from the bridge to the main deck, he said, “Good luck.”

He swung the stern within two feet of the pier. I jumped. I looked back long enough to raise a hand, but by then he was busying steering his shattered boat back into the middle of the canal, his world changed forever.

In the distance, I saw the spires of an ancient church illuminated by a gibbous moon.
When in need of a hiding place, look for a house of worship
. Mr. Elliot must have said that to me a dozen times, but I'd always thought he was kidding. Maybe not.

I walked. Running might have felt like the right thing to do, but running had one very negative side effect: people took notice. I also thought people might take notice of the helmsman's jacket—not exactly my style—so I shed it as I walked along a cobbled walk lined with gift shops and street-side cafés. I saw an empty table on the patio of a coffee shop and took a seat facing the walk. I hung the jacket on the back of the chair. I powered up my iPhone. I entered Roger Anderson's phone number and typed a short text:
Trouble. Change of plans. Nieuwe Kerk. One hour?

I waited, allowing my eyes to drift from one end of the block to the other. By now the police would have my description. By now the guys in the delivery truck would have called in reinforcements. But they'd had their opportunity and blown it. You only get so many chances at the perfect ambush. They'd played it poorly. Too much drama. I'd learned one thing a long time ago: guys with guns love making a big show of things, but the best kills were the ones no one sees coming.

My phone vibrated. Two words:
Roger that.

I got up, left the coat, and tugged at the brim of my newly acquired hat. The Nieuwe Kerk was only a thousand yards or so from where I was standing as the crow flies, but I took the back streets. I hadn't spent much time in Amsterdam, and when I had, it had always been work related. I never really had the chance to appreciate the ancient melding of wood, brick, and stone that carried from building to building or the houses fronting the maze of tree-lined canals. I could see the romance that drew couples here. Oh, yeah. And of course, everyone knew that Amsterdam's red-light district had few rivals, and their lax drug laws were the stuff of legend, so maybe there was an appeal to the college kid on holiday or someone looking for an uninhibited place to drown his sorrows. Me, I'd take a quiet stroll on a New Jersey beach any day.

I crossed under the viaduct and into a residential district populated with multistory apartment buildings with latticed windows and graceful gables. Here, the bottom floors were crowded with the offices of lawyers and dentists. A trio of muscle heads, vapor steaming from their thick necks and sweat-soaked jerseys, ambled out of a gym. To the north stood the Montelbaanstoren clock tower with its white-columned top and matching spire. Lumbering on my right was the itinerant water of the Oude Schans canal.

I stopped in the shadows of a magnificent elm and sent Moradi a text. He replied that he was okay and asked me where I was. I didn't reply right away. Moradi wasn't my problem, I was sure of that, but the problem was too close to him for me to work that side of the street again.

I would need the MEK again once I reached Tehran, but for now I needed some distance. But Moradi deserved at least one last communiqué. If Kia Akbari hadn't put himself in harm's way tonight, I might not have survived. His death was worth a couple of words, so I typed:
I'll make sure Akbari didn't die in vain.
Then I pressed the send button.

I was a block from the Nieuwe Kerk when my phone vibrated again. I stared at the screen. General Tom Rutledge. His message read:
The chief of staff needs a word. See the map.

 

CHAPTER 8

NIEUWE KERK, AMSTERDAM

This wasn't a good idea.

I'd just seen a man killed. The mission was compromised by sources I hadn't yet determined, but I knew for sure I couldn't trust the DDO's men any more than I could the MEK's.

The answer was to play one against the other, but that kind of counterintelligence took time and resources. Right now, I just needed to get to Istanbul and make damn certain I covered my tracks into Iran. And here I was waiting for a phone call.

Politicians. They always needed to be front and center. And anyone who tried to tell you that the president's chief of staff wasn't a politician had been living under a rock for a very long time.