Corsair

TWENTY-EIGHT

EDDIE SENG GENTLY CLOSED HIS CELL PHONE AND THOUGHT he’d contained a sigh, but from across the sweltering hotel room Hali Kasim asked, “What’s up?”

Max had already briefed the pair about what had been happening, so the call had lasted for less than five seconds, but from the look on Seng’s face the news couldn’t be good.

“The Chairman wants us to grab Tariq Assad.”

“When? Tonight?”

“Now.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t ask.”

Because the dingy room they rented from the Chinese gang lacked air-conditioning or even running water, both men were stripped down to their boxer shorts. Both their bodies ran with sweat, although Hali seemed to be suffering the worst. His chest and upper shoulders were a matted pelt of hair, a legacy of his Lebanese heritage.

Eddie had been leaning against one of the single bed’s headboards when his cell had chimed. He stood and started getting on his clothes. He shook out the cockroaches before legging into his pants. A trickle of aromatic steam from the restaurant below the room rose from a seam in the old wooden floors.

“Are we really doing this?” Hali asked, a fresh wash of perspiration slicking his face.

“Juan says that Assad’s the key, so, yeah, we’re doing this.”

“The key? Assad’s the key? The guy’s nothing more than a two-bit, two-timing corrupt official.”

Seng looked across at the Corporation’s communications specialist. “All the more reason to wonder why they’ve staked out his house, and his office at the dock. Max said yesterday that their government thinks he’s tied in with Al-Jama’s crew, even though that makes no sense. Assad’s lifestyle is too conspicuous for him to be a terrorist. Real tangos don’t carry on a half dozen romantic liaisons and draw potential police interest by taking bribes.”

Hali thought for a moment. “Okay, I’ll buy that. So if he’s not with Al-Jama, why do the Libyans want him so badly?”

“For the same reason Juan does. He knows something about this whole mess, only no one knows what.”

Kasim was on his feet, securing a compact Glock 19 to an ankle holster before slipping on his pants. “This is why I stay on the ship. There my job is easy. Radio call comes in, I answer it. Someone wants to talk to a guy on the other side of the world, I make it happen. Shore Operations need encrypted phones that look like cigarette packs, I can get ’em. Skulking around in broad daylight trying to abduct a man wanted by the Libyan secret police isn’t exactly my cup of tea.”

Putting on the accent of an elderly Chinese sage, Eddie said, “Broaden your appetites, grasshopper, and the world will feed your soul.”

Seng was not noted for his sense of humor. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy a good joke but that he was rarely the source, so Hali’s laugh was disproportionately loud and long. Telling it had been Eddie’s way of reassuring Hali that he knew what he was doing.

“Don’t worry. Our last report puts Assad at the house of girlfriend number three. The Libyan authorities are nowhere near there. By now, he has to know he’s a wanted man, so anyone offering him a lifeline is going to seem like a godsend. We’re just going to stroll up, explain to him he’s out of options, and bring him back here. Piece of cake.”

Assad’s third mistress, the Rubenesque wife of a judge, lived with her husband in a neighborhood of four- and five-story buildings built of stone covered with stucco and dating back more than a hundred years. The windows and balconies were protected by wrought-iron grilles, and the flat roofs were seas of satellite dishes. The ground floors of most of the buildings were shops and boutiques that catered to the upscale residents.

The sidewalks were wide and generous, while the roads were narrow and twisting, a leftover from when the neighborhood was serviced by horses rather than cars. The meandering nature of the streets gave the neighborhood a feeling of exclusivity, a quiet little enclave in the otherwise bustling city.

The Chinese gang members they had hired to track Tariq Assad hid in plain sight with a broken-down delivery van. They were parked opposite the mistress’s building, with the hood up and engine parts spread across a tarp on the nearby sidewalk. Men and women, some dressed in robes, others in Western fashion, moved around them without a glance.

Eddie found a spot for their rental car in front of a small grocery store down the street from the van. The smell of oranges from bins flanking the door filled the air.

He fumbled in the glove compartment while focusing on the street, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing seemed out of place, and his instincts, which had served him well over the years, told him the area was clear. The two old men playing backgammon at an outdoor café were what they appeared to be. The stock boy dusting a table in the front window of a furniture store kept his eyes on his job and not on passing traffic. No one was just sitting in his car as the afternoon sun beat down mercilessly. Other than the gang members, there were no vans for an observation team to use as a base.

At the end of the block was a large construction site with a crawler crane, hoisting material up the ten-story, steel-and-concrete framework of what would soon be luxury condominiums. Again, Eddie saw nothing suspicious about the parade of cement mixers and trucks moving through the gates.

“Ready?” he asked Hali.

Kasim blew out a breath so his cheeks puffed like a horn player’s. “How do you and Juan and the others keep so calm?”

“Juan, for one, thinks out every possible scenario and makes sure he has a contingency plan for whatever crops up. Me? I don’t think about it at all. I just clear my mind and react as needed. Don’t worry, Hali. We’ll be fine.”

“Let’s do this, then.”

They opened their doors. Eddie adjusted his hat and dark glasses, the only form of disguise he was using to hide his Asian features. Both men wore baggy tan slacks and open-necked shirts, which was about as anonymous as one could get in many quarters of the Middle East.

As they strolled past the van, Eddie palmed a disposable cell phone off on one of the gang members. He whispered, “Push back your perimeter, and watch that red Fiat we drove here. Speed-dial one is my phone.”

The Chinese youth gave no indication he heard anything other than the slam of the van’s hood. Eddie and Hali walked on without breaking stride.

The front door to their target building wasn’t locked, but there was a watchman in a dark uniform sitting on a sofa in the lobby, reading a newspaper. The pair had walked in as if one of them had just told a joke. Both were laughing, and they ignored the guard when he set aside his paper and asked something in Arabic that neither man understood.

Hali never saw the move. He didn’t believe they were even close enough.

Eddie had lunged like a fencer, the fingers of his right hand held stiff and ridged. He connected with the hollow of the guard’s throat just below the Adam’s apple. He could have killed the man had he wanted, but the strike was measured. The Libyan started to gag, and Eddie threw another blow, the edge of his hand connecting on the side of the man’s neck. The watchman’s eyes rolled up until only the whites showed, and he crumpled back onto the couch.

Seng glanced out the glass door to see if anyone was paying attention, and then with Hali’s help he dragged the unconscious watchman into a back room, where one wall was lined with mail cubbies.

“How long will he be out?”

“An hour or so.” Eddie rifled the man’s pocket, looking for ID. It said the guard’s name was Ali. “Come on. Assad’s on the fourth floor, front-side corner.”

Both men drew their pistols as they climbed an interior stairwell. They weren’t concerned about running into anyone. People who lived in buildings like this invariably used the elevator.

Eddie cautiously opened the door on the fourth-floor landing. The hallway beyond was carpeted and lit with wall sconces. The six apartment doors were solid, made of heavy carved wood—left over from a time of superior craftsmanship. He was relieved the doors didn’t have peepholes.

He approached the door to the mistress’s apartment and rapped respectfully. A moment later, he heard a muffled woman’s voice. He assumed she was asking who it was, so he said, “Ali, sayyidah.”

She spoke again, most likely asking what he wanted, so Eddie said the first thing that popped into his head, and prayed his pronunciation was close. “Al-Zajal, sayyidah.” Federal Express, ma’am. He’d seen their distinctively colored trucks all over the city.

Eddie mouthed “Stay back” to Hali, while inside the apartment a chain rattled and a pair of locks disengaged. He slammed his shoulder into the door, meeting more resistance than he’d expected but managing to shove the woman aside. He dove low, and a bullet from a silenced pistol cut the air inches over his shoulder.

The woman screamed. Seng rolled once, coming to his knees behind a couch. “Tariq, don’t shoot.” He kept his voice as calm as the adrenaline dose would allow. “Please. We’re here to help.”

The woman’s cry turned into slow blubbering, as a few seconds ticked away on the grandfather clock pressed up against one plaster wall.

“Who are you?” Tariq Assad asked.

“A couple of nights ago, you made arrangements for us to unload a large truck in the harbor.”

“The Canadians?”

“Yes.”

“Who was I contacted through?”

“L’Enfant.”

“You may stand,” Assad said.

Eddie got to his feet slowly, making certain Assad could see his finger was nowhere near his pistol’s trigger. “We’re here to help you get out.”

Hali entered the room cautiously. Assad watched him for a moment, then turned his attention back to Eddie. Seng had removed his hat and glasses so the harbor pilot could see his features. “I recognize you from that night. You acted as helmsman. You know, since then I thought I was going insane. I’ve had the feeling of being watched, and everywhere I turn I see young Chinamen acting strangely. I guess you are the explanation.”

“I hired some local boys to keep tabs on you,” Eddie said, slipping his pistol into the waistband of his pants.

Assad crossed to the crying woman, helping her up onto her piano legs. She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, smearing a wet trail through her fine mustache. Eddie guessed she tipped the scales above two hundred, and standing at a little over five feet she looked like a basketball in her burnt orange robe.

Tariq Assad was no Adonis, with his graying hair and single dense eyebrow, but he had a good personality and Eddie thought he could have done better than this rather bovine woman. If not love or lust, he guessed information. She was the wife of a judge, after all.

As the Libyan muttered reassurances into her cauliflower ear, Eddie surveyed the apartment. The judge’s home was well furnished, with a new leather sofa and chairs and a marble-topped coffee table with a neatly arranged fan of glossy magazines. There was an impressive oriental rug on the hardwood floor, and shelves for matching leather-bound books. The walls were adorned with intricate needlework of geometric design framed under glass. Her handiwork, he assumed. A breeze worked the gauzy curtains near the balcony, and the apartment was high enough that the traffic below was a low-register thrum.

Assad patted his mistress on her ample rump to send her back to the bedroom.

“She’s a good girl,” he remarked before she was out of earshot. “Not too bright, and a little rough on the eyes, yes, but a veritable tiger where it counts.”

Eddie and Hali shuddered.

“May I get you gentlemen a drink?” Assad offered when the bedroom door closed. “The judge favors gin, but I brought Scotch whiskey. Oh, and I am sorry for firing at you. It was reflex. I thought it was him.”

“I think you can drop the act, Mr. Assad.”

No one spoke for a few seconds. Eddie could read Assad’s face. He’d been out in the cold, in spy parlance, for a while, and was debating if the two strangers represented a way out.

His shoulders sagged slightly. “Okay. No more act.” Though he still spoke English with an accent, it was subtly different. “I’m pretty screwed no matter what happens now, so it doesn’t really matter anymore. Who are you people? I figured CIA, when I met with you on your ship.”

“Near enough,” Eddie replied. “That’s Hali Kasim. My name’s Eddie Seng.”

“You’re in Libya to find out what happened to your Secretary of State?”

“Yeah. But the mission’s also morphed into a hunt for Suleiman Al-Jama.”

“As I figured it would. His organization is like an octopus with its tentacles wrapped all through the Libyan government. They work in the shadows, infiltrating one high-ranking office after another.”

“Who are you and what’s your deal here?”

“My name’s Lev Goldman.”

Understanding hit Eddie like a punch to the gut. “My God, Mossad. We have information that says you’ve been here five years.”

“No. My cover goes back that far. I arrived in Tripoli eighteen months ago. Tel Aviv suspected Al-Jama was going to take over a North African country through slow subterfuge. They sent deep-cover agents into Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and here to keep an eye on the government. When it became clear that Libya was the target, the other agents were pulled and I remained.”

“So these women?”

Goldman lowered his voice even further. “Lonely housewives of powerful men. Oldest trick in the book.”

“And your work at the harbor?”

“Nothing goes in or out that I don’t know about. Arms, supplies, everything Al-Jama’s brought here. Including a modified Hind gunship they bought from the Pakistanis. It was used in the high mountains of Kashmir, and can reach elevations unheard of for a regular helicopter. I had no idea why they wanted it until Fiona Katamora’s plane crashed.”

“Members of our team took it out,” Eddie told him. “They also rescued about a hundred people who used to work in Libya’s Foreign Ministry.”

“There were rumors of a purge when Ali Ghami was named Minister despite the press reports that everyone who left had retired or been transferred to other branches of the government. This is still a police state, so everyone knew not to question the official word.”

“Listen, we can get into all of this later. We need to get you out of here. The secret police have staked out your home and office.”

“Why do you think I was hiding here?”

“What’s your exit strategy?”

“I have a couple, but I thought I’d have a little warning from some of my contacts. I’m flying by the seat of my pants now. I had planned to ambush the judge when he got home from work and steal his car. I have an electronic device that will broadcast my location to an Israeli satellite. My orders are to get out into the southern desert as far as I can and await extraction by an Army helicopter disguised as a relief agency helo doing charity work for Darfur refugees in Chad.”

“We can get you out quicker and safer, but we have to leave now.”

No sooner had Eddie spoken the words than his phone rang. He answered without speaking, listened for a few seconds, and cut the connection. “Too late. Our guys just reported a police van moving into the area. They also hear an approaching helicopter. They’ll be establishing a wide perimeter before closing in.”

“I have a secret exit from this building but it won’t get us far enough away. I had it in case the judge ever came home early.”

Eddie made a snap decision. “We’re going to split up. Hali, stay with Lev. Get yourselves to an embassy, but not ours. Try Switzerland, or some other unallied country. You’ll be safe there until this all blows over.”

“What about you?”

“I’m the distraction. Lev, where’s the master bathroom?”

“Through there.” He pointed to the closed bedroom door.

All three men strode into the room. Lev and the judge’s wife spoke for a few moments, he trying to reassure her, she accusing him of God knows what. Eddie ignored them and flipped on the bathroom light. He searched through several drawers until he found the items he wanted.

First, he moussed his hair to give it Goldman’s curls and then sprinkled it with talcum powder so it matched his salt-and-pepper. He filled in the space between his eyebrows with a cosmetic pencil, and used a wad of toilet paper and the contents of a mascara bottle to give his face Goldman’s heavy five o’clock shadow.

Goldman saw what Eddie was doing and had his harbor pilot shirt off and ready to swap. Eddie tossed Goldman his shirt and slipped on Goldman’s.

The Israeli agent led them out of the bathroom and into the woman’s closet. He pushed aside a section of the hanging clothes, ignoring the increasing whine of her pleading questions. He moved a rather odorous shoe rack to reveal a piece of wood pressed up against the stucco wall. When he pulled it away, there was an open void about two feet across that ran the depth of the building. Opposite, they could see the backside of the laths for the next apartment. Budging plaster filled the gaps between the boards. Above, light filtered into the void from a pair of dusty skylights.

“This was left over from when the building was converted from offices,” Lev explained. “I found it on the old blueprints. At the bottom, I cut another hole that leads to the garage.”

“Okay, you two go down. Hali, get our car and pick up Lev in the garage. The cordon shouldn’t be too tight yet, and with any luck the police will be focusing on me.”

“If it is the police,” Goldman said. “Remember, Al-Jama is running a shadow government inside Qaddafi’s.”

“Does it really matter?” Hali pointed out, thrusting a leg into the opening.

He braced a foot on each wall and slowly started making his way down. His motion kicked up a thick cloud of fine white dust, and his weight caused the old laths to bow. Chunks of plaster broke away and fell into the darkness below.

Goldman had to disentangle himself from his distraught mistress. Her eye makeup ran in dark smudges down her apple cheeks, and her heavy bosom heaved with each sob.

“Women,” he remarked when he was finally free and crawling after Hali.

Eddie followed him, but rather than descend he moved laterally for a few feet, so any plaster he dislodged wouldn’t hit the men below, and started climbing. It was only a single story, so it took just a few minutes before he was pressed up under one of the skylights. The heat in the shaft was stifling, a weight that pulled at him as surely as gravity.

He could hear the rotor beat of the police helicopter and judged he had a few more seconds. The glazing holding the panes of glass to the metal frame had dried rock hard and came away with just a little pressure.

A shadow passed over the skylight. The chopper.

Eddie swallowed hard and popped one of the large panes free. The sound of the helicopter doubled, and even though he was exposed to the noonday sun it felt like he was moving into air-conditioning.

He rolled onto the flat, tarry roof and got to his feet. The chopper was a couple blocks away, hovering a few hundred feet above the rooftops. Eddie had to wait almost a minute before he was spotted. The big machine twisted in the air and thundered toward him. Its side door was open, and a police sniper stood braced with a scoped rifle cradled against his shoulder.

Eddie ran for the wall separating this building from the next, his feet sinking slightly into the warm tar. The wall was built to chest height and topped with jagged bits of embedded glass to prevent people from doing what Seng was attempting. But unlike barbed wire, which never loses its keen edge, the glass had been scoured by wind for decades and was almost smooth. Pieces snapped flat when he vaulted over the wall. He landed on the other side.

This building’s roof was virtually identical to the first, a wide area of a tar-gravel mix punctured by the elevator housing and dozens of satellite dishes and defunct antennae.

The chopper swooped low over the roof, and Eddie made certain the sniper saw his face and hoped it was a close enough match to Tariq Assad’s. He got his answer a second later when a three-round burst from an automatic weapon pounded the roof at his feet.

Now that the police believed their suspect was on the roof, Hali and Goldman should be able to slip away undetected.

Eddie raced for the back of the building, cutting a serpentine path to throw off the sharpshooter, and almost threw himself from the edge before realizing that, unlike the mistress’s apartment house, this one didn’t have a proper fire escape. There was just a simple metal ladder bolted to the side of the structure, a death trap if he committed himself to it with the sniper hovering so close overhead.

He glanced back the way he came. He’d be running right for the circling chopper if he retreated, so instead he ran for the next building, vaulting the wall and opening a gash in his palm for the effort. Not all the glass had weathered the same.

More bullets pounded into the roof, kicking up hot clots of tar that burned against his cheek. He pulled his pistol and returned fire. The wide misses were still enough to force the pilot to retreat for a moment.

Sprinting flat out, he raced for the next building, throwing himself over the wall and almost dropping down. The next building was a story lower than the previous ones, and beyond that was the open expanse of the construction site. Dangling from his fingertips, he looked quickly to see if there was any evidence of a fire escape and saw none, not even a cable house for an elevator.

He made the decision to pull himself back over the wall and find some other route when the sniper zeroed in on his hands. Bullets tore into the brick and mortar, forcing Eddie to drop free. He rolled when he landed to absorb the impact, but surviving the ten-foot drop didn’t mean he was any less trapped.