Protect and Defend

by Vince Flynn

  By the fifth line of the man’s speech, Amatullah was on his feet racing for his desk. He grabbed the phone and pressed a single button. Ashani could not see the number that was being dialed but he did not need to. He knew whom Amatullah would be calling. The Ministry of Communications. The state-run television had been told to broadcast Minister Saleh’s address to the UN. They had been advertising it all day and were planning to air the lie-filled response of the American secretary of state. The viewing numbers would be huge, and the accusation that Amatullah and the other leaders watched pornography would not be received well. Ashani thought it was a stroke of genius. True or not, it didn’t matter. In a society as sexually repressed as Iran’s, the accusation merely needed to be leveled and the damage would be done.

  Amatullah began yelling into the phone, and he kept yelling as his eyes stayed glued to his big-screen TV. As each excruciating second ticked past, he became visibly more volatile. Finally, he picked up a paperweight and chucked it at the screen. It hit the protective sheet of Plexiglas and bounced with a thud to the floor, barely leaving a smudge. The intended result not achieved, Amatullah began cursing into the phone with renewed vigor.

  Ashani looked back and forth between Amatullah and the screen as if he were at a sporting event. He had secretly wondered when this moment would come. With the war next door in Iraq the MEK had grown in both strength and audacity. For years it was his ministry that hunted down the dissidents and revolutionaries and assassinated them. In recent years it was his own people who lived in fear. The incidents were isolated to the northern provinces, but the tide was nonetheless turning. He had been warning Amatullah and the rest of the council that they were in real danger of the insurgency spreading to other provinces. But Amatullah and his core advisors were so blinded by their own plans to sow insurrection in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq that they refused to heed his warnings.

  Almost as if it had been cued by a producer, the screen in Amatullah’s office turned to fuzz just as the masked MEK spokesman finished saying, “With the destruction of the Isfahan facility we have marked the beginning of the end of these tyrants, and the start of the fight for a true Islamic and democratic Iran.”

  29

  MOSUL, IRAQ

  The beat-up Cutlass rolled down the mostly empty street. The extra weight of its armor plating made for a sluggish ride. The sun was not up yet, and a gray haze hung over the entire city. Rapp had been in Mosul for just two days, and Stilwell had already changed cars four times. This particular vehicle reeked of cigarettes and some other sour odor Rapp couldn’t quite place and wasn’t sure he wanted to. Crumpled pop cans, Styrofoam cups, and sandwich wrappers were strewn about the floor, and the ashtray was overflowing with smashed butts that had been smoked all the way to the nub. It was a ruse Rapp himself had used many times. A play on the Scarlet Pimpernel. Create the illusion that you are a witless slob and people pay you little, if any, attention.

  Being the CIA’s man in Mosul required a very delicate balancing act. You had to work the street so you could get information and build up your resources, but you needed to be constantly vigilant about your personal security. The other option was to sit behind the relatively safe walls of the nearest American base and let locals come to you. But it was hard to get a sense of what was really going on unless you got out and mixed with the population. Stilwell understood that you needed to put yourself in a position where you could stumble across the lucky find that made the careers of many a foreign intelligence officer—the lucky walk-in. These people typically fell into three categories. The first was the person who was fed up with the power structure. In Iraq, that meant someone who was sick of the corruption and the violence. These were usually the best. Good people who could no longer sit by while terrorists, thugs, and criminals ran their neighborhood. The second type was the person seeking to exchange information for a new life in America or cash. They could be problematic only in the sense that they often told you whatever you wanted to hear. The third, and by far trickiest, was the person seeking vengeance. Unable to settle a business disagreement with a competitor or partner, or a conflict with a neighbor, these people would turn to the CIA and level wild accusations against their foe. More often than not, the person making the accusation was no better, if not worse, than whoever they were trying to turn in. Stilwell had stopped talking to these people.

  The most risky part for Stilwell was that he had to basically open up shop so people knew where to find him. The problem with hanging a shingle was that it also put a bull’s-eye on his back, and in a city like Mosul, with all of its vying factions any American, let alone a CIA officer, was a ripe target. Stilwell went to great efforts to protect himself. He never slept in the same place more than two nights in a row, he changed cars frequently, and he played himself off as a low-level CIA officer who had almost no authority. He created a fictional boss named Lady Di who was more like Margaret Thatcher than the deceased princess. She called all the shots and had all the power. Stilwell was merely a conduit. His meets usually took place at one of the city’s plentiful Internet cafés or one of the open-air markets. He had half a dozen Kurdish bodyguards who were seasoned fighters and were extremely loyal to the CIA.

  The car rolled up to an intersection and stopped at the red light. They were headed south toward the airport to meet Kennedy and her entourage. There were signs that the morning hustle and bustle was starting. A few street vendors were setting up their stands, and traffic was beginning to pick up. Rapp watched as Stilwell looked both ways. He was about to run the light until a woman covered from head to ankle in a black Naqab stepped off the curb with a child on each hand. The little boy was in jeans and a sweater, and the girl was wearing the hijab or Muslim scarf. The mother looked straight ahead through the slits in her hood. The boy of about five and his older sister of a few years looked at Rapp and smiled. Rapp grinned, gave them a little wave and said a silent prayer that they would make it through the day without being maimed or killed. The complete lack of respect for life by the insurgents was heartbreaking.

  During a recent session with one of Langley’s shrinks Rapp had been asked if he thought killing was too easy for him. He’d been through enough of these evaluations to know that accusations were made in the form of a question. If they were asking it, it was being written down in his file as an opinion or fact. For starters, Rapp had a hard time with people who had no practical field experience. He had no patience with anyone who second-guessed his work from the comfort of a predictable, climate-controlled office while making decisions with a warm cup of coffee at hand and no fear whatsoever of getting killed in the next five minutes.

  Rapp would never tell one of the shrinks this, but he had found almost nothing more satisfying than tracking down a man who had the blood of innocent people on his hands and punching his ticket. If it had to be a head shot from a half a mile, so be it. If it meant painting a target with a laser so an American jet could drop a 500-pound bomb on the idiot’s head, fine, but if he had his choice he preferred close proximity. Rapp wanted to look them in the eye while it dawned on them that their pathetic life was coming to a painful conclusion. His victims were thugs and bullies who thought of themselves as brave because they loaded a car with explosives and then conned some delusional teenager with a death wish into driving it into a building or crowded market. What was their endgame? How could any moral person think such an action could be sanctioned by a supposedly compassionate deity?

  The answer was less complicated than many believed. These were men, and make no mistake about it, they were always chauvinistic, bigoted men, devoted to a perverted interpretation of Islam. Men who had bought into violence and division in their youth and refused to let go. Men who had invested so much of their life in hate and blaming others for their troubles that they were too afraid to step back and really think about what they were doing. Men who were frightened to read the entire Koran because they knew they would be confronted with the words of a prophet who would never
condone their actions.

  These were the animals Rapp hunted. Men who had no respect for human life and consequently would be afforded none in return. There were only a handful of people who really understood the discipline that Rapp practiced. The satisfaction of tracking them, sometimes for months. Knowing when to strike and when to hold your fire. Looking for the perfect opportunity to get close enough to stick a knife through their brain stem and watch every bodily function below the neck shut down. Knowing that you had delivered justice for all the people whose innocent lives had been cut short by the fanatic and his organization. Knowing that never again would the predator take another human life.

  Over the years, the mission had taken Rapp to some very forbidding places. He’d spent nights in the humid jungles of the Philippines and Southeast Asia with mosquitoes as big as hummingbirds dive-bombing him. He’d been forced to cross the northern edge of the Sahara Desert on foot to evade Libyan security forces. He’d nearly frozen to death in the Swiss Alps, and in Afghanistan once he was hit with such violent dysentery that he lost seventeen pounds in one week. Most of it while curled up in a ball on the floor of a dank, depressing apartment.

  As he rode through the dusty, ancient city of Mosul, Rapp came to the conclusion that he would take his chances in those other places any day. The city of almost two million people gave him a nagging sense of just how divided this part of the world still was. Last night Ridley had gone back to the base so he could be in secure communication with Langley and help prepare for Kennedy’s arrival while Rapp and Stilwell went to check out the safe house and the neighborhood where Kennedy would be meeting her counterpart. He and Stilwell had walked down Ninawa Street to the Tigris and then turned south to Amir Zayo Street, where the safe house was located. Four of the bodyguards were with them, two in front and two trailing who stayed within a block at all times. The reconnaissance took an hour, and while Rapp saw no actual violence, there were signs of it everywhere. Buildings were pocked from gunfire and shrapnel. A handful were scorched from explosions and a few were half destroyed. The police presence around the courthouse was heavy, even in the evening after it was closed. The main roads were clogged with orange and white taxis and old Japanese-made cars.

  At one point a U.S. Army column of Stryker vehicles rolled by. The eight-wheeled armored combat vehicles stopped traffic and rattled windows. Rapp observed as some people stood and watched while others melted away down alleys and inside shops. The tension was obvious. Half of these people wanted the conquering army gone, while the other half desperately wanted them to stay and keep the country from sliding into a full-blown civil war. It was this tension that gave Rapp a sense of foreboding. Like a big storm was coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The inability to clearly assess who was a threat and who wasn’t complicated the situation in ways that caused immeasurable stress. It was nearly impossible to keep all the players straight, and even if you could, there was no guarantee that some of them wouldn’t switch sides in the heat of battle.

  Stilwell was the one reassuring factor. The man had done his job to near perfection. The safe house was located directly across the street from where the meeting would take place. It was at one of Stilwell’s Internet cafés where he would meet his contacts. The owner was the cousin of one of Stilwell’s bodyguards. Stilwell slid him an extra thousand dollars a month in cash just to use the place. The second-story apartment across the street was stocked with provisions. It was a classic no-frills operation. They had military cots, military rations, and lots of military hardware in case the place came under siege. There was a grenade launcher, a half dozen M-4 rifles and Glock .45-caliber pistols, a big Barrett .50-caliber sniping rifle, two M249 SAWs, and a case of M67 fragmentation hand grenades. There was also body armor, a triage kit, a communications/surveillance package, and a stack of old magazines and paperbacks. All of this was protected by a reinforced steel door with three heavy-duty dead bolts. The windows were covered with bars, and tiny security cameras covered the stairwell, street, and the inside of the apartment. Stilwell had all four safe houses set up in the same manner and was able to monitor the cameras over the Internet.

  Rapp had fallen asleep around 11:00 p.m. with the door barred and his loaded .45-caliber Glock next to him. Shortly before 2:00 a.m. he was pulled from a dream by the sound of gunshots. He lay awake for more than an hour, and then just as he was falling back asleep, there were more gunshots. This time closer. Stilwell began snoring like a drunk and all Rapp could do was lie there, rest his eyes, and think of all the things he needed to check on in the morning. He finally fell back to sleep as morning approached only to be jolted off his cot by a massive explosion. Rapp flipped on a light and looked over at Stilwell who cracked an eye.

  “That was close,” Rapp said.

  “Don’t worry,” Stilwell mumbled. “That was one of ours.” He then rolled over and was back to snoring in less than a minute.

  Rapp looked at the scenery as they hit the main thoroughfare for the airport. He asked himself for at least the tenth time if it was wise to bring Kennedy into this environment. The Iranians refused to meet at the airport, so a neutral spot within the city was agreed upon. They passed the bombed-out carcass of a car, and Rapp let out a yawn.

  Stilwell looked over with his toothy grin and asked, “What’s the matter? You didn’t get a good night’s sleep?”

  Rapp looked straight ahead and frowned. “I don’t know what was worse, the gunfire or your snoring.”

  “My snoring. You spend enough nights here, you get used to the gunfire.”

  “I’ll bet.” Rapp nodded thoughtfully and made a mental note to have Kennedy give Stilwell a commendation and a big fat raise. These guys in the field were never paid enough.

  30

  The Russian-made Hind Mi-24 helicopter came in fast and looped around the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh. Ashani looked down at the crumbling Assyrian ruins and thought of his own country’s place in history. He didn’t remember all the facts, but he knew the capital of the Assyrian Empire had fallen approximately a thousand years before the prophet’s arrival. The Medians and the Babylonians had crushed the city and then in turn were conquered by Cyrus the Great. The days when the Persians controlled everything from the Mediterranean to modern-day India were long gone. Any hopes of ever attaining the prominence of his predecessors seemed impossible. Based on recent developments, they would be lucky if the once former empire didn’t contract further.

  Ashani had felt for some time that the government was in a far more tenuous position than anyone would acknowledge. His fellow members on the Supreme Security Council were either too disconnected from what was going on or had surrounded themselves with sycophants who only told them what they wanted to hear. That was definitely the case with Amatullah. He had grown to believe his own propaganda and his ability to get others to believe it as well.

  The debacle at the United Nations had stung. In addition to the entire issue being tabled by the Security Council, America’s accusation that Iran was trying to cover up an internal revolt had gained some real traction. Foreign Minster Salehi’s weak counter-accusation that America had fabricated the information only seemed to worsen things. Salehi’s protest in the face of Secretary of State Wicka’s avalanche of information looked lame even to Ashani. The international press was running stories that for the first time since the revolution, questioned the ability of the government in Tehran to hold on to power. Protests were springing up in the northern provinces, and in Tehran his people were telling him the mood on the street was combustible.

  The Supreme Leader was characteristically absent, choosing to focus instead on the religious well-being of the country. Ashani had his suspicions that the Supreme Leader was distancing himself from a sinking ship, giving Amatullah all the rope he needed to either save or hang himself. Ashani thought the Supreme Leader was trying to elevate his position of spiritual leader to such heights that he would be safe should Amatullah fail in rallying support fr
om the international community and regaining control of his fellow Iranians. Several banks had been firebombed overnight. Amatullah put the security services on full alert and ordered them to arrest anyone at even the whiff of trouble.

  The helicopter leveled out and began a slow descent toward a parking lot near the river. Ashani glanced to his right and looked at the back of Imad Mukhtar, who was looking out the starboard side window and talking on a cell phone. As if things weren’t bad enough, Amatullah was now taking counsel from Mukhtar. The head of Hezbollah’s paramilitary wing was a useful tool for certain things, but advising the Iranian president during this heightened crisis was not one of them. He was far too obtuse to be offering advice on such complicated matters. Even in the face of what had happened at the United Nations, Mukhtar had lobbied to launch attacks against Israel and America. When pressed by Ashani as to why, he proclaimed that guilty or not the two nations had benefited by the act and should be punished. Not getting anywhere with Ashani, Mukhtar directed his words at Amatullah, telling him that by striking back at the Jews and the Americans the Iranian people would see them as guilty.

  “And if they decide to strike back?” Ashani asked yet again.

  Mukhtar looked at him smugly and shook his head. “They do not want to fight us. Trust me.”