Dead drop, p.43
Dead Drop, page 43
“Nothing,” said Werner. “We’re trying to make contact but no one’s picking up.”
“Shit,” said Rance. “At what point do we start to worry about this swap?”
“Yesterday,” said Werner.
Rance looked at Dale, about to say something.
But Werner spoke first. “The good news is that the Iranians don’t seem to have heard anything either. They seem to know as little about Août Noir as we do. Let’s just give it time.”
Rance’s phone buzzed. He looked at it before answering. “Okay,” he said. “Cowles is calling. His teams have been looking all over for Août Noir. Maybe he’s got something.”
“Maya’s not answering?” whispered Dale after Rance had gone to the side of the huge gray aircraft again. “How the fuck is that even possible?”
“She’ll come through,” said Werner. “She always does.” He jerked his head when Rance came back around the corner, signaling Dale to stay quiet.
“I don’t know how much longer we can keep the airport closed,” said Rance, his face flushed in the heat. “The Lebanese minister of transportation is crawling up the ambassador’s ass. Cowles is running out of excuses for her. Not sure how much more time we really have here.”
“Tell the Iranians to call the transportation minister,” said Werner. “We all know Hezbollah controls this airport. The Iranians can swing an extension.”
Rance thought for a moment before pulling his phone back out of his pocket. “Not a bad idea,” he said, dialing and turning away.
Dale looked over at the main Hariri airport. Fifteen airliners were at the gates, but the taxiways were quiet. The red berets at the swinging gate were smoking their cigarettes. Dale was starting to see some maintenance and service vehicles moving about, a few baggage handlers standing around. He looked to the right of the terminal and noticed a parking lot with a half dozen service vehicles.
Come on, Meth, he thought. Don’t do this to me.
CHAPTER 52
Meredith fell backward.
The sensation that most invaded her mind was one of acrid smoke. She realized she was coughing. Her ears were ringing. Another loud bang. Disoriented, she had no idea what was happening. Her ears rang, she coughed, tried to make out anything at all. Through the smoky fog she realized she was looking at the form of the Iranian who’d been about to shoot her a few seconds ago. He was down too, on his side, also coughing, blinking. Then he raised his head and saw her.
Meredith dove on him, going for the gun that was still in his hand. She was on top of him, helped by gravity. The Iranian was trying to raise the gun at his side. She gripped his wrist, pinning it to the floor.
But he was stronger than her. His arm raised higher, nearly lifting her. She shifted one of her hands to gouge savagely at his eyes, clawing at them like an animal while she twisted to the side. The gun went off right next to her head. It had missed. She rolled away. He was getting to his feet. Meredith went to the foot of the twin metal bed frame and hurled it on its side, shoving it toward the Iranian.
There was another shattering bang. A bright flash. Four cracks of rapid gunshots, then a fifth, a sixth.
Meredith had been behind the bare bed. Now she looked through the weave of the metal frame, through the smoke. The Iranian in uniform was on his back. He wasn’t moving. The one in sneakers was crumpled near the closet, a puddle of blood under him.
Maya was lying against the far wall dressed in her chador, her pistol by her side, still in her hand.
Meredith coughed and threw the bed aside. She put a foot on the uniformed Iranian’s head. She picked up his Browning pistol and shot him three times in the chest. She moved to the other man and kicked his head. He was already dead. But she shot him through the chest anyway, the aim a little off because her arms were starting to shake.
She dropped on her knees next to Maya, who lay on the floor puddled in her draping black chador. Meredith scooted forward and held the Israeli woman’s face in her trembling hands. She could see that Maya was alive, blinking, her head framed by the hijab. Her long, solemn face incongruently composed.
“Are you hit?” Meredith asked.
Maya let go of her pistol, leaving it on the ground. She moved her hands slowly over her chest. She coughed. “I think I took a round to the vest,” she said. “It just hurts. I don’t think it was a straight-on shot.”
Meredith peeled the chador from Maya’s body and looked at the vest, noting a shredded equipment pocket. “What happened?” she asked.
Maya coughed and winced before she spoke. “Our men up front are down.”
“What’s this smoke?”
“Flash-bangs. I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I kicked in the door.” The Israeli woman coughed again.
Meredith nodded. “The guy in the uniform is IRGC. We’re blown,” said Meredith.
“No,” said Maya. She inhaled a shaking breath. “We’re not. I heard some of the argument before I came in. They think we’re Août Noir still. We can still make the exchange. But we need to hurry.”
Meredith helped Maya to her feet. The Mossad woman took a moment to lean against the wall, breathing deeply, coughing. She seemed to summon an inner strength and rose to her full height. She ejected the mag from her pistol, slammed home a fresh one, and raised it as she headed out of the room. “Stay low,” she said, wrapping herself in the chador, one hand bracing her ribs.
Carrying the Iranian’s Browning, Meredith followed Maya to the front of the safe house, staying low, sweeping for targets. Bright light slanted through a high window. The two dead Junction operatives were lying on the floor, limbs twisted at awkward angles. One had been taken with an ugly headshot. Maya checked both of them for vitals. She shook her head.
She moved low and carefully to a spot below the window, then raised herself to steal a glimpse outside. She collapsed back down into her crouch and swore in Hebrew.
“What?” asked Meredith.
“We’ll have to go out the back,” said Maya. She stood and bolted the front door. “Can’t get to our car. Bunch of men in black shirts coming down the alley. Must have heard the shots. Get my bag out of the other room. We have to go. Now.”
* * *
—
Clad head to foot in their black chadors, the two women found themselves in a narrow alley of the Haret Hreik neighborhood, dodging hanging laundry, men lazing on door stoops, and children playing everywhere.
“How’s your Arabic?” Maya whispered as men in black T-shirts ran past them in the other direction, headed toward the safe house.
“Hasananaan,” said Meredith. “Not much.”
Maya switched to Arabic, speaking simply and slowly. “We can’t walk too fast,” she whispered. “They might all be watching us. They see the Hezbollah people. They know something’s wrong.” The two of them bumped into a throng of shoppers near an open-air market.
Meredith nodded, tightened the hijab scarf over her bruised face, and tucked it under the all-encompassing chador. She kept walking as calmly as she could.
“Here,” Maya said after another thirty meters. She’d stopped at a crowded produce vendor. “You shop,” the Mossad woman whispered in slow Arabic. “I’ll get an update on our status to the team at the airport. Stop here. Stay at this fruit stand.”
Meredith nodded. She now stood shoulder to shoulder with twenty other draped Muslim women, fondling apples and pears. The air smelled smoky, roasting vapors from a nearby food cart. After three minutes, Maya was back, tugging at Meredith’s chador. Her eyes looked strange.
“What?” whispered Meredith, staying focused on the fruit.
“My phone’s out,” Maya said in low English, holding an apple. “It was in my vest. Bullet nicked it. And my spare was in the car. We’ll need another way to communicate.”
Meredith looked at the watch on her wrist, the one Maya had given her. “It’s four-fifteen. We need to get to the exchange right now.”
Maya nodded. She barked a price at the fruit vendor. He countered and shrugged. Maya and the vendor haggled while two bearded men in black shirts were walking past them. They were shouldering their way through the crowded market with halting glances.
After they’d passed, Maya told the fruit vendor she didn’t like his price and turned away. Meredith waited ten seconds, then followed.
They were next to each other again, walking shoulder to shoulder down the street, Maya’s eyes darting. They passed a crowded alley. Maya stopped walking.
The Mossad woman pulled Meredith into the alley. There were still pedestrians here, but mostly parked cars. Maya walked down the narrow sidewalk, her eyes sweeping back and forth.
“That one,” the Mossad woman said, nodding to a silver Honda Accord from the early eighties. “Stand behind me. Raise your arms. Use the chador. Block the view.” A noisy scooter came puttering by. Maya waited for it to pass.
Meredith stretched out her arms, shielding Maya with the black fabric like a raven drying its wings. Meredith heard glass shatter. The door opened. Maya was already behind the wheel.
“Keep your chador up,” the Mossad woman said through the broken window. With a quick glance, Meredith could see that Maya had already pried a plastic trim piece off the steering wheel and was yanking at wires. Fifteen seconds later, the car was running.
“Keep your face covered,” Maya said as Meredith got in. “There were black shirts everywhere on that street. They’re looking all over for us.”
* * *
—
Nabil hung up the phone and shifted the big flatbed into third. He’d been on his way to meet Effendi and Said at the Août Noir house that the boy had marked, following his orders. But then, when Nabil had still been a few blocks away from it, his phone had rung. Other brothers had been inside the house already. They’d found Said. And Effendi.
The words had had a startling effect on Nabil. He’d held the phone to his ear for ten or fifteen seconds, even missing a turn while he drove the big flatbed that had been so carefully fixed up by the Jordanian bomb maker. Nabil held the phone to his ear and said nothing, even after the brother who’d called had hung up.
Effendi. A martyr.
And Nabil knew what he had to do now. His cousin’s truck was wired. And he knew exactly where the infidels were going.
To the airport.
CHAPTER 53
“We’re looking all over for them,” Werner said to Rance and Dale. “We’ve surged what agents we have into the street.”
It was four-thirty. They’d managed to keep the airport closed with Iranian help, but Walid had called Rance to tell him the delegation was anxious. They wanted to see Kahlidi. Now. After hanging up, Rance looked morose.
“Why not show them Kahlidi?” Dale asked. “It will at least buy us some time.”
Rance looked at Werner. “What do you think? He’s your prisoner.”
“We’ve given them our proof-of-life shots of Kahlidi. They know we have him,” said Werner, fanning his face with his old-school hat.
“Yeah,” said Dale. “But they don’t know we have him here. If it buys us more time, I say we get his ass out here on the tarmac. What’s the harm?”
Werner fanned himself for another five seconds, then replaced the hat on his bald head. “All right. It’s up to you, Mr. Rance,” said the Caesarea boss. “You have the relationship with the Iranians. And this is your deal.”
Rance nodded his agreement, privately wondering if his long-sought propriety for this prisoner exchange would still turn out to be a good thing. He walked to the side of the Osprey and made a call to Walid, his Iranian contact sitting in the air-conditioned jet across the tarmac. As Werner and Dale waited, Dale used the small binoculars around his neck that the Marine lieutenant had lent him. He looked intently at the Iranian jet, wondering about the people inside it.
Rance returned, the phone still in his hand, cupping the mic. “They want us to walk Kahlidi out where they can see him plainly. I said we’d do it as an act of good faith. Okay?”
Werner nodded. Rance said something into the phone and hung up. Werner called to an IDF captain loitering in the shade twenty feet away, telling him to get Kahlidi ready.
“Let me do it,” said Dale as the captain approached. “Let me take Kahlidi out there.”
Rance and Werner both looked at him. “Why?” asked Rance.
“So he doesn’t do anything funny,” said Dale. “I know him. He won’t fuck with me.”
Rance shrugged. “Sure, whatever. I don’t care. Werner?”
“It might be a good way to keep Kahlidi in line,” said the Caesarea boss. “Even though he’s wounded, he’s crafty.”
“Right,” said Dale, already heading to the Israeli helo. “But tell your man Reu up there what we’re doing. I don’t want him sniping me.”
Werner relayed the instructions in Hebrew. Rance watched as Dale trotted to the Israeli helo and emerged with Kasem Kahlidi, Atlas, former adjutant to the late, great General Qasem Soleimani. Meredith’s once and future spy.
Squinting through his Ray-Bans, Rance was shocked at Kahlidi’s bruised face, visible even from this distance. The Quds man was walking with crutches, Dale helping him along at his side. As Rance watched, his phone buzzed again. He looked at the screen. Dorsey. Rance excused himself from Werner’s side and went to the side of the Osprey for privacy.
“Dale’s here,” said Rance to his boss. “Yeah, he’s fine. But there’s still no sign of Meredith or the Août Noir fuckers. Yeah. Dale’s out there on the tarmac showing Atlas to the Iranian delegation. What’s that, Jeff? Sorry, bad connection again. I said Dale’s out in the center of the tarmac, close enough to the Iranian jet they can see him but not so close that . . . Oh hey, Jeff, hold on. Something’s happening. Something’s up. Let me call you back.”
Standing next to Kahlidi, looking at the Iranian jet as the hot wind blew his hair around, Dale heard a crash. He snapped his head to the right, into the wind.
Though distant, the sound was messy with metallic clanks and scrapes, like a train of shopping carts had been toppled in a parking lot. With Kahlidi leaning against him for support, Dale held the Marine’s field binoculars up to his eyes. Five hundred yards away, a Honda Accord had smashed through a gate that led from the parking lot at the main terminal. Its headlights were flashing. It was speeding crazily toward them.
Squinting through the binoculars, Dale could see a woman in a black chador behind the wheel. Beside her in the front passenger seat was another woman pulling off a face hijab and waving it around like a black flag out the window. The woman’s dark brown hair was fluttering around her head.
Meth.
Dale dropped the binoculars to the ground. He spun around and faced the Israelis and Americans some hundred yards behind him. He waved his arms crazily at them, shouting, “Friendly! Friendly! It’s them!”
He pulled Kasem close, whispering into his ear. “You betray Meredith this time, Kasem, and I will personally be on the next mission to Tehran. And you’ll never see Kasra again. Got it?”
Leaning on his crutches, the Quds officer nodded twice.
“Good,” said Dale. “Now signal your boys on that plane and be prepared to be welcomed as a hero.”
Kasem nodded again. He waved one arm at the Iranian jet, which now had a set of movable stairs at an open door. Walid emerged at the top of the stairs and acknowledged the wave with a lazy hand. “They’re all right,” Kahlidi said, putting his arm on Dale’s shoulder to stay up. “They’re not going to want any trouble. I recognize the man on the stairs. He knows me well, trusts me.”
Dale lowered his arms and watched the Honda approaching up the tarmac.
“But Meredith needs to honor my deal too,” said Kahlidi. “You tell her that, Dale. I’m going to be looking for proof of that money—even if I can’t touch it for two years. And Kasra had better be happy when I come out. You tell Meredith that. She listens to you more than you think.”
Dale was still looking at the approaching car.
“And, for what it’s worth,” added the Iranian. “I’m glad Meredith made it out.”
But Dale had stopped listening to Kahlidi. His eyes remained fixed on something else, a movement from the side, about a half mile away. It was a white flatbed truck, entering the taxiway after passing by the corrupt Lebanese Army soldiers who’d just waved it through as though it belonged on the runway. It had come in from the entrance on the opposite side of the field. Dale left Kahlidi standing there on his crutches.
He sprinted at full speed toward the approaching Honda.
CHAPTER 54
“Allahu Akbar,” Nabil was repeating to himself quietly, over and over while he drove. One glaring gesture at the Lebanese soldiers and they’d known Nabil was with the Iranians. They knew not to fuck with him. They’d waved him through.
Now Nabil was almost to the tarmac. The Honda Accord was to his left, maybe a kilometer away, headed toward the military helicopters and the private jet at the other end of the taxiway. Nabil had caught a glimpse of the woman in the passenger seat. She was the Zionist spy, the one whose picture they’d been flashing around the dahiyeh, the one who had killed Effendi. He’d seen her waving a cloth out the window, signaling the aircraft at the end of the runway. He had an occasional glancing view at the other woman, the one behind the Honda’s wheel. She appeared to be in a full chador, her face covered by a hijab. He guessed she was the one who’d been at the newsstand, then.
Nabil adjusted his course, approaching the Honda at a shallow angle.
He had one more chance. And he would give it everything. Everything. He, Nabil, would join his brothers in glorious martyrdom.
The car was getting closer.
Thinking of his mother, the Hezbollah man held one hand on the wheel and fixed one hand near the button mounted just below the dash. He kept his fingers planted firmly on the big blank metal spot just below the AM radio, careful not to touch the red plunger until it was time. He removed his hand only once, to shift the truck into fourth gear.
“Shit,” said Rance. “At what point do we start to worry about this swap?”
“Yesterday,” said Werner.
Rance looked at Dale, about to say something.
But Werner spoke first. “The good news is that the Iranians don’t seem to have heard anything either. They seem to know as little about Août Noir as we do. Let’s just give it time.”
Rance’s phone buzzed. He looked at it before answering. “Okay,” he said. “Cowles is calling. His teams have been looking all over for Août Noir. Maybe he’s got something.”
“Maya’s not answering?” whispered Dale after Rance had gone to the side of the huge gray aircraft again. “How the fuck is that even possible?”
“She’ll come through,” said Werner. “She always does.” He jerked his head when Rance came back around the corner, signaling Dale to stay quiet.
“I don’t know how much longer we can keep the airport closed,” said Rance, his face flushed in the heat. “The Lebanese minister of transportation is crawling up the ambassador’s ass. Cowles is running out of excuses for her. Not sure how much more time we really have here.”
“Tell the Iranians to call the transportation minister,” said Werner. “We all know Hezbollah controls this airport. The Iranians can swing an extension.”
Rance thought for a moment before pulling his phone back out of his pocket. “Not a bad idea,” he said, dialing and turning away.
Dale looked over at the main Hariri airport. Fifteen airliners were at the gates, but the taxiways were quiet. The red berets at the swinging gate were smoking their cigarettes. Dale was starting to see some maintenance and service vehicles moving about, a few baggage handlers standing around. He looked to the right of the terminal and noticed a parking lot with a half dozen service vehicles.
Come on, Meth, he thought. Don’t do this to me.
CHAPTER 52
Meredith fell backward.
The sensation that most invaded her mind was one of acrid smoke. She realized she was coughing. Her ears were ringing. Another loud bang. Disoriented, she had no idea what was happening. Her ears rang, she coughed, tried to make out anything at all. Through the smoky fog she realized she was looking at the form of the Iranian who’d been about to shoot her a few seconds ago. He was down too, on his side, also coughing, blinking. Then he raised his head and saw her.
Meredith dove on him, going for the gun that was still in his hand. She was on top of him, helped by gravity. The Iranian was trying to raise the gun at his side. She gripped his wrist, pinning it to the floor.
But he was stronger than her. His arm raised higher, nearly lifting her. She shifted one of her hands to gouge savagely at his eyes, clawing at them like an animal while she twisted to the side. The gun went off right next to her head. It had missed. She rolled away. He was getting to his feet. Meredith went to the foot of the twin metal bed frame and hurled it on its side, shoving it toward the Iranian.
There was another shattering bang. A bright flash. Four cracks of rapid gunshots, then a fifth, a sixth.
Meredith had been behind the bare bed. Now she looked through the weave of the metal frame, through the smoke. The Iranian in uniform was on his back. He wasn’t moving. The one in sneakers was crumpled near the closet, a puddle of blood under him.
Maya was lying against the far wall dressed in her chador, her pistol by her side, still in her hand.
Meredith coughed and threw the bed aside. She put a foot on the uniformed Iranian’s head. She picked up his Browning pistol and shot him three times in the chest. She moved to the other man and kicked his head. He was already dead. But she shot him through the chest anyway, the aim a little off because her arms were starting to shake.
She dropped on her knees next to Maya, who lay on the floor puddled in her draping black chador. Meredith scooted forward and held the Israeli woman’s face in her trembling hands. She could see that Maya was alive, blinking, her head framed by the hijab. Her long, solemn face incongruently composed.
“Are you hit?” Meredith asked.
Maya let go of her pistol, leaving it on the ground. She moved her hands slowly over her chest. She coughed. “I think I took a round to the vest,” she said. “It just hurts. I don’t think it was a straight-on shot.”
Meredith peeled the chador from Maya’s body and looked at the vest, noting a shredded equipment pocket. “What happened?” she asked.
Maya coughed and winced before she spoke. “Our men up front are down.”
“What’s this smoke?”
“Flash-bangs. I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I kicked in the door.” The Israeli woman coughed again.
Meredith nodded. “The guy in the uniform is IRGC. We’re blown,” said Meredith.
“No,” said Maya. She inhaled a shaking breath. “We’re not. I heard some of the argument before I came in. They think we’re Août Noir still. We can still make the exchange. But we need to hurry.”
Meredith helped Maya to her feet. The Mossad woman took a moment to lean against the wall, breathing deeply, coughing. She seemed to summon an inner strength and rose to her full height. She ejected the mag from her pistol, slammed home a fresh one, and raised it as she headed out of the room. “Stay low,” she said, wrapping herself in the chador, one hand bracing her ribs.
Carrying the Iranian’s Browning, Meredith followed Maya to the front of the safe house, staying low, sweeping for targets. Bright light slanted through a high window. The two dead Junction operatives were lying on the floor, limbs twisted at awkward angles. One had been taken with an ugly headshot. Maya checked both of them for vitals. She shook her head.
She moved low and carefully to a spot below the window, then raised herself to steal a glimpse outside. She collapsed back down into her crouch and swore in Hebrew.
“What?” asked Meredith.
“We’ll have to go out the back,” said Maya. She stood and bolted the front door. “Can’t get to our car. Bunch of men in black shirts coming down the alley. Must have heard the shots. Get my bag out of the other room. We have to go. Now.”
* * *
—
Clad head to foot in their black chadors, the two women found themselves in a narrow alley of the Haret Hreik neighborhood, dodging hanging laundry, men lazing on door stoops, and children playing everywhere.
“How’s your Arabic?” Maya whispered as men in black T-shirts ran past them in the other direction, headed toward the safe house.
“Hasananaan,” said Meredith. “Not much.”
Maya switched to Arabic, speaking simply and slowly. “We can’t walk too fast,” she whispered. “They might all be watching us. They see the Hezbollah people. They know something’s wrong.” The two of them bumped into a throng of shoppers near an open-air market.
Meredith nodded, tightened the hijab scarf over her bruised face, and tucked it under the all-encompassing chador. She kept walking as calmly as she could.
“Here,” Maya said after another thirty meters. She’d stopped at a crowded produce vendor. “You shop,” the Mossad woman whispered in slow Arabic. “I’ll get an update on our status to the team at the airport. Stop here. Stay at this fruit stand.”
Meredith nodded. She now stood shoulder to shoulder with twenty other draped Muslim women, fondling apples and pears. The air smelled smoky, roasting vapors from a nearby food cart. After three minutes, Maya was back, tugging at Meredith’s chador. Her eyes looked strange.
“What?” whispered Meredith, staying focused on the fruit.
“My phone’s out,” Maya said in low English, holding an apple. “It was in my vest. Bullet nicked it. And my spare was in the car. We’ll need another way to communicate.”
Meredith looked at the watch on her wrist, the one Maya had given her. “It’s four-fifteen. We need to get to the exchange right now.”
Maya nodded. She barked a price at the fruit vendor. He countered and shrugged. Maya and the vendor haggled while two bearded men in black shirts were walking past them. They were shouldering their way through the crowded market with halting glances.
After they’d passed, Maya told the fruit vendor she didn’t like his price and turned away. Meredith waited ten seconds, then followed.
They were next to each other again, walking shoulder to shoulder down the street, Maya’s eyes darting. They passed a crowded alley. Maya stopped walking.
The Mossad woman pulled Meredith into the alley. There were still pedestrians here, but mostly parked cars. Maya walked down the narrow sidewalk, her eyes sweeping back and forth.
“That one,” the Mossad woman said, nodding to a silver Honda Accord from the early eighties. “Stand behind me. Raise your arms. Use the chador. Block the view.” A noisy scooter came puttering by. Maya waited for it to pass.
Meredith stretched out her arms, shielding Maya with the black fabric like a raven drying its wings. Meredith heard glass shatter. The door opened. Maya was already behind the wheel.
“Keep your chador up,” the Mossad woman said through the broken window. With a quick glance, Meredith could see that Maya had already pried a plastic trim piece off the steering wheel and was yanking at wires. Fifteen seconds later, the car was running.
“Keep your face covered,” Maya said as Meredith got in. “There were black shirts everywhere on that street. They’re looking all over for us.”
* * *
—
Nabil hung up the phone and shifted the big flatbed into third. He’d been on his way to meet Effendi and Said at the Août Noir house that the boy had marked, following his orders. But then, when Nabil had still been a few blocks away from it, his phone had rung. Other brothers had been inside the house already. They’d found Said. And Effendi.
The words had had a startling effect on Nabil. He’d held the phone to his ear for ten or fifteen seconds, even missing a turn while he drove the big flatbed that had been so carefully fixed up by the Jordanian bomb maker. Nabil held the phone to his ear and said nothing, even after the brother who’d called had hung up.
Effendi. A martyr.
And Nabil knew what he had to do now. His cousin’s truck was wired. And he knew exactly where the infidels were going.
To the airport.
CHAPTER 53
“We’re looking all over for them,” Werner said to Rance and Dale. “We’ve surged what agents we have into the street.”
It was four-thirty. They’d managed to keep the airport closed with Iranian help, but Walid had called Rance to tell him the delegation was anxious. They wanted to see Kahlidi. Now. After hanging up, Rance looked morose.
“Why not show them Kahlidi?” Dale asked. “It will at least buy us some time.”
Rance looked at Werner. “What do you think? He’s your prisoner.”
“We’ve given them our proof-of-life shots of Kahlidi. They know we have him,” said Werner, fanning his face with his old-school hat.
“Yeah,” said Dale. “But they don’t know we have him here. If it buys us more time, I say we get his ass out here on the tarmac. What’s the harm?”
Werner fanned himself for another five seconds, then replaced the hat on his bald head. “All right. It’s up to you, Mr. Rance,” said the Caesarea boss. “You have the relationship with the Iranians. And this is your deal.”
Rance nodded his agreement, privately wondering if his long-sought propriety for this prisoner exchange would still turn out to be a good thing. He walked to the side of the Osprey and made a call to Walid, his Iranian contact sitting in the air-conditioned jet across the tarmac. As Werner and Dale waited, Dale used the small binoculars around his neck that the Marine lieutenant had lent him. He looked intently at the Iranian jet, wondering about the people inside it.
Rance returned, the phone still in his hand, cupping the mic. “They want us to walk Kahlidi out where they can see him plainly. I said we’d do it as an act of good faith. Okay?”
Werner nodded. Rance said something into the phone and hung up. Werner called to an IDF captain loitering in the shade twenty feet away, telling him to get Kahlidi ready.
“Let me do it,” said Dale as the captain approached. “Let me take Kahlidi out there.”
Rance and Werner both looked at him. “Why?” asked Rance.
“So he doesn’t do anything funny,” said Dale. “I know him. He won’t fuck with me.”
Rance shrugged. “Sure, whatever. I don’t care. Werner?”
“It might be a good way to keep Kahlidi in line,” said the Caesarea boss. “Even though he’s wounded, he’s crafty.”
“Right,” said Dale, already heading to the Israeli helo. “But tell your man Reu up there what we’re doing. I don’t want him sniping me.”
Werner relayed the instructions in Hebrew. Rance watched as Dale trotted to the Israeli helo and emerged with Kasem Kahlidi, Atlas, former adjutant to the late, great General Qasem Soleimani. Meredith’s once and future spy.
Squinting through his Ray-Bans, Rance was shocked at Kahlidi’s bruised face, visible even from this distance. The Quds man was walking with crutches, Dale helping him along at his side. As Rance watched, his phone buzzed again. He looked at the screen. Dorsey. Rance excused himself from Werner’s side and went to the side of the Osprey for privacy.
“Dale’s here,” said Rance to his boss. “Yeah, he’s fine. But there’s still no sign of Meredith or the Août Noir fuckers. Yeah. Dale’s out there on the tarmac showing Atlas to the Iranian delegation. What’s that, Jeff? Sorry, bad connection again. I said Dale’s out in the center of the tarmac, close enough to the Iranian jet they can see him but not so close that . . . Oh hey, Jeff, hold on. Something’s happening. Something’s up. Let me call you back.”
Standing next to Kahlidi, looking at the Iranian jet as the hot wind blew his hair around, Dale heard a crash. He snapped his head to the right, into the wind.
Though distant, the sound was messy with metallic clanks and scrapes, like a train of shopping carts had been toppled in a parking lot. With Kahlidi leaning against him for support, Dale held the Marine’s field binoculars up to his eyes. Five hundred yards away, a Honda Accord had smashed through a gate that led from the parking lot at the main terminal. Its headlights were flashing. It was speeding crazily toward them.
Squinting through the binoculars, Dale could see a woman in a black chador behind the wheel. Beside her in the front passenger seat was another woman pulling off a face hijab and waving it around like a black flag out the window. The woman’s dark brown hair was fluttering around her head.
Meth.
Dale dropped the binoculars to the ground. He spun around and faced the Israelis and Americans some hundred yards behind him. He waved his arms crazily at them, shouting, “Friendly! Friendly! It’s them!”
He pulled Kasem close, whispering into his ear. “You betray Meredith this time, Kasem, and I will personally be on the next mission to Tehran. And you’ll never see Kasra again. Got it?”
Leaning on his crutches, the Quds officer nodded twice.
“Good,” said Dale. “Now signal your boys on that plane and be prepared to be welcomed as a hero.”
Kasem nodded again. He waved one arm at the Iranian jet, which now had a set of movable stairs at an open door. Walid emerged at the top of the stairs and acknowledged the wave with a lazy hand. “They’re all right,” Kahlidi said, putting his arm on Dale’s shoulder to stay up. “They’re not going to want any trouble. I recognize the man on the stairs. He knows me well, trusts me.”
Dale lowered his arms and watched the Honda approaching up the tarmac.
“But Meredith needs to honor my deal too,” said Kahlidi. “You tell her that, Dale. I’m going to be looking for proof of that money—even if I can’t touch it for two years. And Kasra had better be happy when I come out. You tell Meredith that. She listens to you more than you think.”
Dale was still looking at the approaching car.
“And, for what it’s worth,” added the Iranian. “I’m glad Meredith made it out.”
But Dale had stopped listening to Kahlidi. His eyes remained fixed on something else, a movement from the side, about a half mile away. It was a white flatbed truck, entering the taxiway after passing by the corrupt Lebanese Army soldiers who’d just waved it through as though it belonged on the runway. It had come in from the entrance on the opposite side of the field. Dale left Kahlidi standing there on his crutches.
He sprinted at full speed toward the approaching Honda.
CHAPTER 54
“Allahu Akbar,” Nabil was repeating to himself quietly, over and over while he drove. One glaring gesture at the Lebanese soldiers and they’d known Nabil was with the Iranians. They knew not to fuck with him. They’d waved him through.
Now Nabil was almost to the tarmac. The Honda Accord was to his left, maybe a kilometer away, headed toward the military helicopters and the private jet at the other end of the taxiway. Nabil had caught a glimpse of the woman in the passenger seat. She was the Zionist spy, the one whose picture they’d been flashing around the dahiyeh, the one who had killed Effendi. He’d seen her waving a cloth out the window, signaling the aircraft at the end of the runway. He had an occasional glancing view at the other woman, the one behind the Honda’s wheel. She appeared to be in a full chador, her face covered by a hijab. He guessed she was the one who’d been at the newsstand, then.
Nabil adjusted his course, approaching the Honda at a shallow angle.
He had one more chance. And he would give it everything. Everything. He, Nabil, would join his brothers in glorious martyrdom.
The car was getting closer.
Thinking of his mother, the Hezbollah man held one hand on the wheel and fixed one hand near the button mounted just below the dash. He kept his fingers planted firmly on the big blank metal spot just below the AM radio, careful not to touch the red plunger until it was time. He removed his hand only once, to shift the truck into fourth gear.
