Jihad

CHAPTER 60

Dean went through the clinic carefully after Asad had left, looking for anything the bodyguards might have left behind. All he saw was the money; though it would be difficult at best to get any useful DNA from it, he picked the notes up with a pair of forceps and put them into a plastic bag. Then he shut everything down.

“Charlie, Lia is taking Dr. Ramil out to the airport,” Rockman told him when he was ready to leave. “Can you swing by the hotel and pick up his suitcase? We’ll send a taxi to meet you out front.”

“Who’s going to follow Asad?”

“He’s heading back toward the safe house. It sounds like he’s going back to bed for a while. He told his bodyguards he was tired. Don’t worry; we already have one of the CIA backup teams near the house. I’ll update you when you have his bag.”

The taxi was coming down the block when Dean emerged from the back of the building. He gave the man the address in Turkish — few taxi drivers spoke more English than “hello” and “good-bye”—and sat silently as they drove over to the hotel. With the clerk napping in the small office behind the reception desk, Dean used his duplicate key to get into Dr. Ramil’s room. A half hour later, he arrived at the airport.

Lia was waiting in the seats at the far end of the building, across from the rows of check-in windows reserved for Western airlines. Ramil sat next to her, ramrod straight, face pale, hands vibrating.

“Hey, doc.” Dean squatted down in front of him. “You all right?”

Ramil turned his head toward him slowly.

“You okay?” repeated Dean.

Ramil shook his head slightly.

“He’s useless.” Lia scowled derisively.

“Lighten up,” Dean told her.

She got up. “I’m going to check in on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, see if the Saudis have done anything. I’ll talk to you later.”

“I can do that,” said Dean.

“You and Pinchon don’t get along too well, Charlie. Better that I go.”

Dean, still angry at the way she’d treated Ramil, shrugged and watched her walk away. The sway of her hips made him regret his anger.

“What happened back there, doc?” Dean asked, turning to Ramil. “You okay?”

“I’m — I don’t know if I’m having a breakdown or something. I. .”

His voice trailed off. Dean had seen guys fall apart under pressure before, younger, tougher men than Ramil. It was as if they’d taken some unknown poison that had gutted their intestines, left them hollow inside. Ramil had been a battlefield surgeon and manned aid stations in Vietnam, which you couldn’t do if you were a coward. But everyone had secret flaws, and age had a way of wearing down the things that kept them hidden. Wear was in Ramil’s face right now: haunted fatigue, not fear.

“You’re just tired,” Dean told him. “It happens.”

“I don’t know,” mumbled Ramil, so softly that Dean didn’t hear the words distinctly. Instead of repeating them, Ramil changed them. “I hope so.”

Dean saw a pair of American Airlines employees walking across the concourse toward the row of ticket booths. “Let’s go check you in. Get you an aisle seat.”