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The swordsman goes to the center of the living room and strips off his scarf, robes, and filthy white cotton trousers, and then the padding around his belly and shoulders that had made him look like an older, heavier man. He picks everything up in a ball, goes to the kitchen, and dumps the stinking materials in a trash bin.
From there he goes into the bathroom, uses the toilet, and takes a long, hot, and very pleasing shower, making sure the small bandage on his right wrist remains dry. At first some of the water is rust brown, washing off the dried blood of the British soldier he had killed, but then the wash water gets clearer. When he gets out he trims his beard and combs his dark hairand,once it’s dried, goes into the bedroom and its closet. From there he takes down a gray tailored suit from Camps de Luca in Paris and a white cotton shirt from Cairo. The swordsman takes his time getting dressed, at last putting on a pair of Testoni shoes from Milan.
There.
Ready to proceed with the rest of the day.
He goes through the apartment one more time, checking that all is in place, then takes a side door into a concrete garage, its floor smooth and spotless. He gets into his Mercedes-Benz S550, starts the engine, presses a little box attached to the overhead visor, and gently moves out into the traffic of Tlayleh.
And instantly slams on the brakes.
A little girl—barefoot, dirty, wearing a tattered red dress—has run into traffic to retrieve a scraggly gray kitten.
She looks up, fearful.
He pauses, the heavy engine rumbling. This particular S550 had been rebuilt and heavily armored by Russian Spetsnaz troops up the coast in the Syrian post of Latakia, where they had a thriving black-market business retrofitting and armoring vehicles for those making a fortune in the ongoing troubles in Syria and elsewhere.
The little girl gives a hesitant wave.
He smiles and waves back.
She runs back with her precious cargo in her hands, into the streams of people walking, talking, and selling along the street.
He continues on his way, checking the clock in the S550’s interior. If all goes well, he’ll be in Tripoli in under two hours. From there he will head south to Beirut, then make a flight north.
If all goes well.
It hadn’t gone at all well back at the farmhouse. The second British soldier was about to be killed when a rescue team burst out of the hills nearby, killing the holy warriors around him.
That had not been part of the plan.
That had not been anticipated.
Ah,he thinks,so what?
Rashad Hussain heads his luxury car west, knowing that one man’s death wouldn’t make much of a difference—especially since he was going to achieve a hundred thousand times more than that in less than a week.
He continues his drive, pausing only once in the first hour when he finds a herdsman and his goats blocking the Halba-Qoubaiyat Road just outside Halba.
Rashad needs to make his schedule, so he guns his Mercedes and runs through the herd, crushing and crippling at least a dozen screaming animals before his way is clear.
God willing.
Chapter17
ERNEST HOLLISTERis in the large and comfortable office of his immediate boss, retired U.S. Army General Malcolm Rooney, supervisor of the Agency’s Special Activities Division. For some reason, Rooney likes to keep the lights in his office dim, almost at twilight, so the only real illumination comes from his computer screen and the old-fashioned green-glass desk lamp that casts a soft glow over his wide and neat desk.
“I spent so much time in the goddamn desert, the sun beating down, I needed a break,” was Rooney’s explanation to Ernest months ago, and Ernest had left it at that.
Once, back in the desert and flat plains of Iraq, Rooney had cut a slim and taut figure, jogging and working out every morning, which earned him a few positive news articles and a television piece about the older general setting an example for his younger troops. But once the heady days of the Iraq invasion slipped into that damnable long night of insurgency shootings, bombings, and beheadings, the news media lost interest in positive stories—and in General Rooney.
He now has a prominent gut that hangs over his black leather belt. He hardly ever keeps his necktie tight and knotted, leaving his shirt collar unbuttoned and the tie dangling down.
He pauses in his pacing and says, “That’s a very disturbing development, Ernest, concerning that Cornwall woman. Thanks for bringing it to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
The pacing begins again. “I don’t like it, I don’t like it all. When folks in the field go rogue, exceed their orders, go against their planning, well, I don’t like it. And the folks up on the seventh floor, they like it even less.”
