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Mukhtar extended his hand to Ashani and said, “Remember. Allah favors the bold. He has great plans for us. That is why we survived the attack in Isfahan.”
“Allah is great.” Ashani exited the helicopter and approached his security chief, who had flown in the night before to coordinate protection with their people from Department 9000—the group that recruited, trained, and funded Shia insurgents in Iraq. Men from the local Shia militia were providing transportation and security to and from the meeting. All of them were wearing black hoods. Ashani greeted his security chief and then turned to an American whom he had met twice before.
The man from the CIA stepped forward and extended his hand. “Minister Ashani, thank you for coming all this way.”
“Mr. Ridley,” Azad said in perfect English, “you have traveled much further than I.” He shook the man’s hand.
“That’s true,” Ridley replied, “but we still appreciate you making the effort.”
“I appreciate Director Kennedy reaching out. Not talking only leads to further misunderstandings.” Ashani noticed Ridley looking over his shoulder. He turned and saw the back of Mukhtar. The terrorist was holding a large briefcase and walking hurriedly to the other side of the parking lot. Mukhtar stepped into a blue-and-white police SUV that was sandwiched on each end by police pickup trucks with heavy machine guns mounted in the beds. Policemen wearing black hoods were loaded into the back of the trucks.
“Who’s that?” Ridley asked.
For a moment Ashani toyed with the idea of telling the American spy the truth. Mukhtar was on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists. The man from the CIA probably had the ability to call in an air strike on very short notice. It would have simplified his life greatly if the man were dead, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Ashani instead chose to ask a question of his own.
“I trust Director Kennedy is waiting?”
Ridley kept his eye on the other man and watched as the police vehicles began to move. He hoped whoever Stilwell had hired was getting shots of the man. “Yes. As soon as I tell her we are on the way she will move.”
“Good. I’m looking forward to speaking with her.”
31
Director Kennedy’s plane landed just before sunrise. Ridley and General Tom Gifford, the base commander, met her. She was then escorted by Gifford to the officers’ quarters, where she was given a room. After a hot shower and a change of clothes she grabbed some breakfast and went over to the CIA’s station located within a sector of the base that was highly secure. It consisted of four trailers that formed a square with an open courtyard in the middle. The courtyard was filled with satellite dishes and arrayed antennas. Double layers of sandbags were stacked along the walls of the trailers, as well as the roofs, where the bags sat atop reinforced plywood planks. Random mortar attacks on the base were not uncommon. One trailer was devoted entirely to the sensitive communication equipment. Another was split into four offices and a reception area; a third trailer doubled as a lounge and conference room, and the fourth trailer served as a bunkhouse and storage area. On the far side of the compound four empty cargo containers had been strung together to form a makeshift jail and interrogation facility. The entire area was ringed with a heavy-gauge fence and razor wire.
Stilwell escorted Rapp through the security checkpoint and they found Kennedy in the communications shack. She was receiving a briefing from the deputy director of the CIA’s Global Ops Center back in Langley. While Rapp waited for her to finish the videoconference, he took the opportunity to sit down with the head of Kennedy’s security detail and go over the plan. Rapp had known Tom McDonald for five years. He had the perfect mentality for his job. He was steady, alert, and typically unflappable. The first thing Rapp noticed was that McDonald seemed unusually edgy this morning. Rapp soon found out why.
McDonald had flown in with Kennedy just a few hours earlier, but he’d sent an advance team out the day before. Six men accompanied three armored Suburbans in the belly of a C-17 Starlifter. They unloaded the equipment and decided to take two of the Suburbans off base and do a dry run to the meeting place and back to the airport. The men got momentarily lost in a bad part of town and came under fire. Both vehicles made it back to the base, but one of them was pretty shot up. McDonald had taken a look at the vehicle right before Rapp arrived. They counted over forty hits from small arms and rifle fire. The armor had performed as advertised, but the vehicle was out of commission. McDonald didn’t even want to tell Kennedy about the incident and Rapp agreed.
McDonald wanted to arrange transportation through General Gifford and one of his Stryker brigades, but one of the negotiating points for the Iranians involved military units. If they saw any American military personnel at the site of the meeting they would walk away. Down one vehicle and limited in his options, McDonald was now going to have to borrow an unarmored SUV from the private security contractor who was going to augment his protective detail.
Rapp was tempted to scrap the entire plan, and put her in the backseat of one of Stilwell’s beat-up sedans, but it wasn’t his call. In an effort to reassure McDonald he explained that he and Stilwell would be directly across the street during the entire meeting. He went over the arsenal that Stilwell had assembled and told him if anything went wrong they would be able to bring a significant amount of firepower to the fight.
“All you have to do, Mac, is get her to the meeting and back to the base. I checked out the entire neighborhood with Stilwell last night. He’s got the thing wired. He’s had lookouts posted since seven this morning. Four of them. Two blocks away in every direction. He knows the owner of the café, and he’s got a half dozen Kurds on standby. These guys know the neighborhood. Who belongs there and who doesn’t. If anything doesn’t seem right they’ll let us know.”
“What do you think of the route?” McDonald asked as he pointed at a map with a red line showing the roads they would take.
Rapp studied the options. On the bright side, they were only five miles from the airport. The only worry was the directness of the route. “I think you made the right call. You could take her north and across one of the bridges but it would double if not triple the length of time you’ll have her on the road, and you still have to get her back to this main road, which, Stilwell tol
d me, is like the Indy five hundred with bombs.”
“I know. I was already briefed by the base commander. He put sniper teams out last night and has a bomb unit on standby.”
Rapp looked at the map again. “I think you’ve got the right idea here. Limit her exposure. Get her from point A to point B as quick as you can.”
“All right.” McDonald studied the map. “This isn’t like Washington.”
“No,” Rapp said, “it sure as hell isn’t.”
The door to the communications trailer opened, and Kennedy entered the room. “Mitchell,” she said as she walked toward Rapp.
“Good morning, boss.” Rapp checked out her outfit. She was wearing a pair of black hiking boots, a pair of jeans, and a formfitting black jacket called a manteau. A black hijab was draped around her neck and shoulders. Kennedy had spent a significant amount of her youth in the Middle East. Rapp was happy to see she still remembered how to blend in.
Kennedy offered her cheek to Rapp. He leaned in and kissed her.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Fine.”
