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“And his South Africa house?”
“Also nothing. But I doubt he’d go back there. It’s currently under renovation.”
“So, he could be anywhere,” Losa said, turning back toward the window. He didn’t approach, though. While the glass was reputed to be bullet resistant, that no longer offered much comfort.
CHAPTER 34
IDLIB
SYRIA
RAPPeased back on the throttle as he approached a building with a façade that resembled a waterfall. Rubble had drifted far enough across the street that he had to jump the bike up onto what was once a sidewalk in order to get by.
Irene Kennedy had chosen the city of Idlib for its reputation as a rebel stronghold, but that label was a bit optimistic. At dusk, very few signs of electricity were visible, and many of its inhabitants looked like worn-out shells. The influx of refugees fleeing the government had overwhelmed the area’s resources, leaving hunger, exposure, and disease to eat away at the populace. Undoubtedly, that was Damascus’s plan—a de facto siege that would eventually allow them to reclaim the region with little more than token resistance.
Kennedy still had people on the payroll there, but all were an example of the strange bedfellows that the CIA tended to attract. The area was controlled by a patchwork of factions, the most powerful of which was Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. About the only thing positive to sayabout the al-Qaeda–allied group was that they were desperate enough to be bought. Or at least rented short term.
The directions Kennedy had provided were a little sketchy in a city where structural collapses and bombings constantly redrew the road network, but he finally found the building he was looking for glowing in the twilight.
“This is it,” he said, getting off and handing his Richard Mille watch to the Syrian who had been clinging to him from behind. He examined it as if he were some kind of expert on timepiece authenticity, but finally nodded and stuffed it in his breast pocket.
“May God be with you,” he said, sliding forward and taking hold of the bars. “Don’t make us regret not killing you.”
Rapp watched him make an awkward one-eighty and a few moments later he was alone in a city that was reported to still have two hundred thousand inhabitants.
The neighborhood was as advertised—industrial and now all but abandoned due to the heavy damage it had taken during the war. The one exception was the structure in front of him. Comprising two stories and surrounded by properties that were once twice that height, it had been shielded to some extent from the shelling. Not exactly a high-tech fortress, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Until the owners had been accused of sedition and tortured to death by the government, it had been the home of an engine repair shop. The stink of the incident still clung to the property, and despite its condition, no one had conjured the courage to squat in it. Whether that was due to the fear of vengeful ghosts or the possibility of guilt by association was hard to say.
The front door was still solid, and a new lock had been installed. Rapp found the key beneath a deteriorated Pepsi can he’d been briefed about and entered. A powerful flashlight had been left by the entrance and he turned it on, washing the beam over the interior.
The repair equipment was low-tech, but all still in place. The fact that it looked like a war zone seemed to be less about the Syrianconflict and more about the previous owner’s lack of organization. Tools were mixed with auto and engine parts, most of which were strewn across the floor or stacked on makeshift shelves. Even the stairs leading to a clapboard loft that served as the property’s living quarters had been partially repurposed to store boxes in various stages of decomposition.
Beneath a pile of rusted fenders, Rapp found a motorbike that looked like it hadn’t run in decades, but was reportedly in perfect working condition. Apparently, all he had to do was inflate the tires and gas it up.
Rapp was about to check out the living quarters, when he heard a powerful knock on the door. Not a fist. Some kind of club or rifle butt. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. Even in this neighborhood, neither the recent activity in the building nor his sudden arrival would have gone unnoticed. The question was, what kind of reception would he receive? A few old ladies with a platter of homemade barazek? Doubtful. But that didn’t necessarily point to disaster. The Syrians were trying to survive and that meant people selling things, seeking work, and offering up local expertise. Hell, maybe it was just someone happy about the possibility of the local repair shop reopening and looking to get something fixed.
When he opened the door, the old ladies with pistachio-dusted snacks were nowhere to be found. Instead, he was faced with two men wearing Jihadists “R” Us scarves wound around their faces. The one in front had an AK-47 slung over his back, while the second held a similar weapon at the ready. They both looked alert, but the one bringing up the rear seemed almost paranoid—glancing behind him every few seconds. The overall impression was that he saw Rapp as less of a threat than the locals. Possibly other tough guys competing for whatever scraps were left in the neighborhood.
“What can I do for you?” Rapp said, keeping his tone light. “I’m not open for business ye—”
The man in front pushed past, while the other took a more directroute, using the side of his rifle to drive Rapp back. The American didn’t resist, stumbling back as the young man entered and slammed the door behind him.
The angrier one was tall—rising a good three inches above Rapp’s six feet, and formlessly bulky beneath his jellabiya. The dark eyes that were the only visible part of his face didn’t suggest much in the way of intelligence, but hinted at an impressive capacity for violence. The smooth skin at their corners suggested that he was young enough to have never known anything but war, making concepts like compassion, mercy, and trust completely foreign. In contrast to the boy who had recently guided Rapp through the mountains, this one woke up every morning angry about having been born.
Rapp allowed himself to be manhandled to the center of the building, where the other man was waiting. His eyes were older, leaning more toward fatigue than his companion’s nihilistic rage. A man who could be reasoned with to the degree that reason had any meaning in Idlib.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
Rapp opened his mouth to speak, but before any sound came out, he was struck from behind by the younger man’s rifle. Not hard, but enough to cause him to stumble forward a few steps.
“My… My plan is to reopen the garage.”
“You’ve picked a very dangerous place to start a business, my friend. Where are you from?”
“Iraq.”
He nodded sagely. “We can help. For fifty thousand Syrian pounds per month, we can keep you safe and promote your new enterprise.”
