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“All right, get your guys ready to move. Minister Ashani goes first and then once he’s gone bring her out and hightail it straight back.”
“You want me to tell her it’s time to go?”
“That’s right. Just whisper in her ear that something urgent has come up. They broke the ice. Next time they can meet in Geneva where we won’t have to deal with all these crazy bastards.”
“Roger.”
Rapp moved his eyes from the front door of the café to the militia men and then the cops at the far end. The sliding glass door was already open. He took a step back so the muzzle wouldn’t stick out beyond the curtain and raised his rifle. With both eyes opened, he looked through the L-3 EOTech sight and centered the red dot on the head of the .50-caliber gunner on the far right. He guessed the distance to be about 140 feet. An easy shot. Rapp moved the sight from one gunner to the next and quietly said, “Just stay calm, boys. This will all be over in a few minutes.”
Someone who must have been an officer walked up to the two men manning the .50-caliber machine guns and started yelling and pointing in different directions. After a moment the men retrained their guns in the opposite direction. Rapp lowered his rifle and relaxed a bit.
35
Irene Kennedy stood inside the café and watched Ridley and Minister Ashani cross the street. Both men looked back as they were about to climb in their vehicle. The meeting had furthered Kennedy’s belief that the Iranian intelligence minister was someone she could work with. Someone she could possibly trust. She smiled warmly at Ashani as he waved at her. Kennedy held her black sunglasses in her right hand and waved back. She could have talked with the man for hours. There was so much they could work on. The relatively short meeting had reconfirmed for her that it was time to bury the hatchet with Iran. Especially if more men like Ashani were in power.
The rest of the men piled into the other two sedans and the motorcade sped off. Kennedy put on her sunglasses and wondered what she was going to do with Rapp. She’d known Mitch since he was a twenty-one-year-old lacrosse star at Syracuse University. She had recruited him, she’d helped train him, and she’d been his handler for most of his storied career. He’d been good from day one. A natural at picking up languages and mannerisms and customs that were unique to every city on the planet. His ability to immerse himself for extended periods of time on overseas assignments, with almost no contact from the Agency, was unique. There’d been plenty of times where the months had ticked away and Kennedy was left wondering if Rapp was still alive.
Somehow, though, he always made it back. And with each successful mission, he became less patient with his handlers. Less comfortable with the suit-and-tie culture of CIA headquarters. Over the years the insubordination worsened. Kennedy’s mentor, Thomas Stansfield, told her the good ones were always a bit rebellious. They didn’t fit into the bureaucratic structure of Langley. Their missions were too fluid to have real structure. Add to that the reality that they knew everything they did would be picked apart by people who had never been on an overseas assignment in their entire career, and you had a problem.
His marriage had seemed to help a bit. At least Anna had made him see the other side of things. After she was murdered, though, he retrenched and the circle of people he trusted contracted further. Any semblance of patience was now gone. Sitting down with Ashani was a rare opportunity. To have it cut short simply because Rapp thought it was dragging on was infuriating.
Kennedy turned to McDonald and asked, “Why did Mitch think it so imperative that he had to end my meeting?”
“There was a lot of tension out here between the minister’s people and the police. It looked like a gunfight was about to break out.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Boss, I don’t joke about stuff like this. Now can we please get you back to the base?”
Kennedy folded her arms and looked across the street at the second-story apartment. She couldn’t see Rapp, but she knew he was up there. Kennedy shook her head and said, “Fine. Let’s go.”
McDonald signaled for three more of his men to come over. A fourth stayed by the rear passenger door of the Suburban. The four men moved in unison, with Kennedy in the middle. The director climbed into the backseat. One of the men followed her and closed the door. Another bodyguard entered from the other side so Kennedy was sandwiched in the middle. McDonald stood by the front passenger door and gave the hand signal for all the other men to load up. When everyone was in their vehicle, he jumped in the front seat of Kennedy’s Suburban and gave the order to move out. The five vehicles rolled single file down the block and idled for a second as the police cars moved to allow them through.
Kennedy looked through the front window as they followed the other Suburban past the two police cruisers and turned left. She noted the dozens of masked police officers standing on the other side of the street. They were all in black hoods, holding either machine guns or RPGs. Kennedy reached for her Black-Berry. She pressed several buttons to take it out of silent mode and then, just as she was about to open an e-mail, there was a thunderous explosion. The Suburban lurched to a stop. Kennedy looked through the front window, eyes wide, and mouth agape at the sight of a fireball engulfing the vehicle in front of them.
36
Rapp watched Ashani’s entourage move out in a hurry. These militia guys didn’t mess around. He moved to a second set of windows to get a better view as they accelerated toward the police checkpoint. This was the moment he’d feared. He half expected the cops to unload on the three vehicles in a modern-day Iraqi version of the climactic scene in Bonnie and Clyde where their getaway car gets shredded by a fusillade of bullets. To his relief, the cops cleared the way and the three sedans sped down the open street, toward the Tigris River and their waiting helicopter.
Rapp returned to the other window. “The hard part should be over now that the Hatfields have left town.”
“I agree.” Stilwell tapped a few keys and changed the camera angles on the main monitor. “This was a hell of an idea you had, Mitch. Could be one for the history books.”
“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself there, Don Juan. They’re plenty of crazy-ass mullahs back in Tehran who are going to hate this. “
“Even if they don’t take us up on the aid package, you’ve managed to deflect attention away from us and Israel.”
“We’ll see.” Rapp watched Kennedy climb into her armored Suburban. The security guys all hustled back to their vehicles and mounted up. The lead Toyota 4Runner started to move. It was all much slower than Ashani’s motorcade. One by one the other vehicles followed leisurely down the street. The two police cruisers slid into reverse and provided a gap. The lead vehicle entered the intersection and took a hard left. Next came the first armored Suburban. Rapp had seen Kennedy get in the second Suburban. The other three vehicles were all white Toyota 4Runners that looked like they were on loan from a United Nations convoy. As Kennedy’s Suburban started its turn, Rapp noticed something strange. The police on the left side of the street started running in Rapp’s direction. Rapp pushed the sliding glass door open and stepped out onto the balcony. He looked to the sidewalk beneath to find out wh
at was going on. There was nothing. No pedestrians. No vehicles. Nothing. He looked back at the running officers and noted that several were looking back over their shoulders. They weren’t running toward something, they were running away from something. Rapp redirected his gaze to the intersection just as the last vehicle was making its turn.
A flurry of motion just beyond the white SUV caught his attention. Rapp watched as the two police officers manning the .50-caliber machine guns swung them around. Other officers began jumping behind vehicles and taking cover behind buildings. Rapp’s body started to tense, his eyes narrowed, and his right hand reached for the safety on his M-4 rifle. Every survival instinct in his body was suddenly screaming that something was wrong. He leaned over the balcony to see if there was some hidden threat that he had yet to identify. As he was doing so, he reached under his shirt and keyed his secure radio so he could hear Kennedy’s security detail.
The thunderous report of one of the .50-caliber machine guns caused Rapp to flinch. In this urban setting of hard asphalt and concrete surfaces the concussion of the weapon boomed like a cannon. Rapp watched in horror as two of the big fifties opened up with sustained bursts. The last white SUV was torn to shreds.
There was a loud explosion and then Rapp heard McDonald’s voice in his ear. “Shit! We’re under attack. Don’t stop! Move, move, move!”
The first explosion was followed by two more. Rapp’s weapon snapped into the firing position and he screamed back into the apartment, “Get that quick reaction force here ASAP!”
