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Now that the Agency had located it, there was nothing he would have liked better than to see the whole structure disappear in a pillar of flame. Paint it with a laser, wait for a drone to come overhead, and then slink out of there in the ensuing dust and chaos.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the plan. The former Iraqi general who had planted his fat ass in this cut-rate penthouse was apparently too important to vaporize. Irene Kennedy wanted him alive, and that left Staton wandering around ISIS-held streets with nothing more than a bare-bones team to back him up. Fast and light was undoubtedly the best strategy in this situation, but that didn’t make him feel any less exposed. This was an op that he would have gladly let someone else handle, but the Agency was an operational clusterfuck right now. Scott Coleman was damn near in a wheelchair, Joe Maslick had dug in his heels, and Mitch Rapp had hung up his Glock. Who would have thought he’d live long enough to see that last one happen?
“This is Forward One,” came a voice over his earpiece. “I’m in position. Still quiet. Looks like we might get lucky.”
Staton wondered. He couldn’t help thinking of the cliché from the cheesy Westerns he liked so much. Quiet. Too quiet.
They hadn’t wanted to move in when the streets were all but abandoned because the team would stand out too much. Instead, they’d picked a time of night early enough that there were still a few people wandering around, but late enough that they were more interested in getting home than asking questions.
Still, pedestrian traffic was far lighter than he’d expected and he’d only seen two patrols—both easily avoided. Either this was shaping up to be a cakewalk or the other shoe was about to drop. In his experience, it was always the latter. There were no gifts in this life.
He reached up and activated the throat mike hidden beneath his traditional garb. “I have eyes on the line and I’m moving into position. Stay on your toes. I don’t have a great feeling about this.”
“You never do, Tony. Copy.”
There was a clothesline that ran from the top of the target building to an abandoned one across the street. An advance team had managed to replace it with a Kevlar one that they swore looked and felt exactly the same. Staton had been skeptical but, judging by a pair of pants hanging from it, he’d been overly pessimistic.
Three of his men would zip-line across it to the roof. From there, they’d cut through the lock on the access door and slip down into Fares Wazir’s apartment. They’d pop the guards, dart the family, and then take the former general back across the line. The best they’d been able to come up with for getting him to a viable LZ was a wooden handcart. Reasonably common in the area, but still risky. The whole thing—the zip line, the uncertain number of security men, the cart—was a little seat-of-the-pants for his taste. Scott Coleman would have loved it, but Staton saw it as a fuckup waiting to happen.
“Is everyone in position?” he asked. The team confirmed.
“Then we’re a go.”
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There was a lone man walking up the street in his direction, but Staton largely ignored him. He looked to be about a hundred years old, hobbling forward with none of the urgency felt by the other people out at that time of night. He probably figured, at his age, screw ISIS.
Above, a dark figure crossed the Kevlar line, moving quickly enough to be invisible to anyone not specifically looking. A second followed, and then a third.
A voice crackled in his earpiece. “We’ve gained the roof. Looks clear.”
“Copy that,” Staton said. “Go ahead and reposition the cable.”
“On it,” another voice responded.
The end attached to the abandoned building would be moved down one floor to reverse the slope and give them an even faster ride on the way out. It made the landing a little tricky—particularly with the deadweight of Wazir—but it was worth it to reduce their exposure time.
“The lock is what we expected,” one of his men said over the radio. “It won’t—”
Staton ducked involuntarily at the sudden flash and deafening concussion of an explosion. It took him a moment to process the fact that the roof his men were on had been transformed into thousands of flaming concrete shards arcing through the air. The old man in the road stopped, glancing back at the massive fireball, before continuing on his way as if nothing had happened.
“Pull back!” Staton said into his throat mike. “I repeat, pull back!”
He ran forward, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Did his men trip a booby trap? It seemed impossible—they were specifically looking for one and had instructions to tell him before they started cutting through the lock.
Flashes of gunfire appeared in the building across from their target, precisely where his man handling the cable would be.
Staton broke away from the wall at his back, sprinting north toward his remaining team. He’d made it only about ten yards when more flashes lit up the road. He tried to pinpoint where the fire was coming from, but it was impossible. It was coming from everywhere. Every window. Every rooftop. Every doorway. The old man went down and Staton swerved right in a futile search for cover. The first round hit him in the new hip that everyone thought would retire him. After that, impacts started coming so fast, he couldn’t distinguish them. The overwhelming sensation was of their momentum, shoving him sideways and finally slamming him to the ground. The darkness was gone now, driven away by thousands of muzzle flashes.
He spotted the carcass of a car shimmering in the artificial light and tried to crawl to it. The force of the bullets impacting his back seemed to be pinning him to the ground, though, grinding him mercilessly into the dust. He squeezed the trigger of his own weapon and the roar of it joined the rest before everything went silent.
* * *
Aali Nassar laid his phone on the limousine’s seat and allowed himself a rare smile. The king had called personally to express his gratitude for the reduction in antimonarchy trolling on social media, still blissfully unaware that it was Sayid Halabi’s doing.
Further, the five million euros demanded by the mullah was at this moment being loaded onto Mahja Zaman’s private jet. He had provided half himself, while two other men loyal to Nassar had made up the balance. All of the arrangements were complete and there was no reason to believe the transfer wouldn’t go smoothly.
Even the problem posed by Talal bin Musaid was showing signs of improvement. Reports were that he was on his way to Monaco to visit his brother. Having him outside of Saudi Arabia would be helpful, as Nassar had decided that the benefits of killing the prince now outweighed the drawbacks. While it was unlikely that President Alexander would have the courage to move against bin Musaid in a way that would jeopardize the precarious relationship between their two countries, it was conceivable that the CIA or Mossad would attempt an unauthorized rendition.
