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“The US has very few interests in Syria.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to live with it.”
CHAPTER 12
West of Kilis
TURKEY
“YOUcan just see it… There!”
Rapp peered through the side window as the Fiat bounced along the gravel road. Down a steep, moonlit slope, he could see a vague line that ran east into the hills. The border wall that divided Turkey from Syria.
“This is nine meters tall,” his driver continued in heavily accented English. “It is made of many sections, each fourteen tons. Yes? Very heavy. Very strong. On the top is sixty centimeters of wire with… Thorns? Spikes?”
“Barbs,” Rapp said when he realized his new companion wasn’t going to stop guessing until he stumbled upon just the right word.
“Yes! Barbed wire, no? It has seventy watchtowers and many hundreds of kilometers, but this section is dark. This wall is the second-longest construction in the world. Do you know what the first is?”
Rapp didn’t answer.
“The Wall of China! This one covers almost our whole border. Itis very good because we have many, many refugees from the war. My country has taken most of them. Three million. But now it is very hard for them to cross.” He slapped the peeling dashboard joyously. “Unless I help them, of course. I am an expert!”
He kept talking nonstop, but it was more a release of nervous energy than an effort to impart information. It was something Rapp was accustomed to, but this time he wasn’t what was scaring the man. It was the specter of Damian Losa. The Turkish smuggler knew that his life—and perhaps the life of his family—depended on Rapp getting safely to Syria.
“There!” he exclaimed again. “Do you see the lights?”
Rapp did, two dots moving west. Still miles away.
“These are the headlights of a Cobra II patrol vehicle. Do you know what this is?”
Rapp nodded. Turkey’s answer to the Humvee.
“Very dangerous,” his driver went on. “But we know their schedule and have people watching.”
“How much longer?” Rapp asked, not anxious to be caught in the open by daylight. The flight from Paris to Kilis had taken longer than he’d anticipated, and dawn was starting to break.
“We are almost there. You can see.” His driver pointed through the filthy windshield at a hilltop that loomed over the border. The concrete house perched on top seemed kind of obvious, but Losa had assured him that the men who operated from it were the best in the business.
The dirt driveway was nearly too steep for the vehicle, but they finally crested, surrounded by hazy dawn light and the stench of the burning clutch. Rapp stepped out with his backpack, but his driver remained.
“Good luck, my friend,” he said, not bothering to hide his relief as he let the car roll back down the hill.
Rapp scanned the empty terrain for a moment, focusing initially on the road that paralleled the border wall and then on the scrubby hills beyond. From that vantage point, Syria looked deceptively peaceful.
The house’s front door was yanked open the moment his foot landed on the porch. The man who stepped out was no taller than five eight, with a barrel chest and bare, leathery scalp. He called over his shoulder in Turkish, revealing various blackened teeth beneath an impressive mustache.
A second man appeared a moment later, shook his head in disgust, and initiated a brief verbal exchange. Rapp didn’t speak the language, but their tone and body language suggested they weren’t impressed with the man they’d been sent. Undoubtedly, they were used to desperate, war-hardened Syrians who would do anything for a chance at a new life.
“It is hard, this journey,” the one with the mustache garbled. He pointed to the wall just starting to glow pink in the dawn light. “Have to climb in dark and cross mountains.”
Rapp was about to push past him into the building, but then remembered that he was no longer a CIA operative. He was a Canadian attorney.
“I can do it. I have no choice.”
That statement had the desired effect. Like them, he was just a man trying to avoid the wrath of Damian Losa. Whatever he might lack in physical ability, he could be counted on to make up for in motivation.
