MacMurphy glanced over at Santos and then turned back to Kashmiri. “Not if you don’t want to be. You could get on a plane to America tonight. We can take care of this job ourselves. In fact, the more I think about it, the more that makes sense.”
“No, I’ll see this thing through. One way or the other, I am probably done in this part of the world. Hezbollah and Iran will have a price on my head for the rest of my life.”
MacMurphy said, “We’ll take care of that. We’re not going to leave you hanging out there. You’ll get a new start—even a new identity if you want one—in America. You stepped up for us and we will step up for you. That’s the way it works.”
CHAPTER 64
It was late in the afternoon when the Iranian in the brown suit abruptly stood up from the chair across the desk from Nasrallah. He looked down angrily at the Hezbollah chief and wagged his index finger directly under Nasrallah’s large nose. “Stop! I have heard enough excuses from you. Now you will listen to me, you pompous ass.”
Nasrallah was not used to being addressed in this manner. He removed his steel-rimmed glasses with trembling hands and set them down carefully in front of him, trying desperately to compose himself. “Sit back down!” he ordered.
“I prefer to stand,” said the Iranian, still peering down at a shocked Nasrallah. “And you are through giving orders. You have thoroughly botched this entire operation. Our hostage is gone and that Neanderthal of yours is leaving trails of bodies behind him like an enraged animal.”
“Now just you listen, I . . .”
“I told you to shut up! We are through dealing with you. You are done. Tehran has decided we will take over from here on out.” With that, the Iranian turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He hurried to the street and took a taxi directly to the Beirut ferry pier. There he met a female colleague. They shook hands, exchanged words in Farsi, and walked together to the departure lounge where the 4:00 p.m. ferry to Limassol was already boarding.
The woman looked like she belonged on the streets of Manhattan or Paris. She was attractive and in her mid-thirties, and she wore a dark-blue pantsuit over a white, ruffled blouse with a blue and white hijab. She carried a matching dark blue designer bag over one shoulder and pulled a small overnight suitcase behind her.
No one noticed the well-used Glock 17 nine-millimeter pistol concealed in the shoulder holster under her jacket or the small Glock 43 nine-millimeter backup pistol in the ankle holster on the inside of her left leg or the four-inch-long suppressor in the bottom of her handbag.
At that precise moment, a few minutes before nine o’clock in the morning in Langley, Virginia, Maggie’s throwaway phone rang. She recognized the voice immediately.
“I must make this very brief,” said Pouri Hoseini. “First, my congratulations to the guys. Second, give Yasmin a huge hug for me and tell her how happy I am for her. That is all they are talking about over here. They are furious. And they know the name of the person who arranged things—the driver who helped abduct me—and they have sent a team to get him.”
“Wait, wait! Slow down. Yes, our driver. What kind of team? Where?”
“A man and a woman, professionals from our office. They know who he is and that he is at his home. They are on their way there now.”
“I understand . . .”
“And that other crazy guy, Abu Salah, is going after him too, apart from our two people.”
“I understand. Thank you so much. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Tell them good luck for me. I have to go. Bye . . .”
Maggie hung up the phone and immediately called MacMurphy to relay Pouri’s message. Then she dropped the phone into her purse and headed directly up to Rothmann’s office on the seventh floor of the headquarters building.
CHAPTER 65
MacMurphy clicked the phone off and stood there for a moment collecting his thoughts before speaking. Kashmiri and Santos looked up at him from their seats in Kashmiri’s living room. They had only heard his side of the conversation, mostly one-syllable, affirmative words and a series of grunts, but they instinctively knew it involved all of them.
He slipped the phone into his pocket and plopped down on a couch across from them. After a moment he said, “Not only are we going to have to deal with that nutcase Hezbollah prick, Abu Salah, we also have to prepare for a team of professional assassins, a man and a woman, that Iran just sent after us.”
Unfazed, Santos asked, “Is that all?”
Kashmiri laughed nervously and looked over at MacMurphy for reassurance.
MacMurphy continued, “It’s just the three of them that we know of. One from Hezbollah and two from Tehran. Maggie just got a call from Pouri Hoseini, so the information is up to date. I guess Iran doesn’t trust Abu Salah to get the job done, so they’re sending a couple of their own people.”
Santos said, “We know what Abu Salah looks like. But do we have descriptions of the other two?”
“All we know is that they are professional hitters from the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran, they know Hadi by name, they know where he lives, and they are coming here to kill him.”
“Do they know about us?” asked Santos.
“I don’t know. All we can assume is that they’ll be prepared for someone to be here to protect Hadi.”
“Yeah,” said Santos. “Maybe we need to get Hadi on a plane out of here. We can handle this without him.” He looked over at Kashmiri who was looking very distraught.
“I think you’re right,” said MacMurphy. He looked over at Kashmiri who was shaking his head. “It’s too dangerous for you here. If it were just that thug Abu Salah, I’d say you could hang around and watch the fireworks. But the Iranians are good, very good . . .”
“I’d rather stay and see this through,” said Kashmiri.
Santos leaned over and put his hand on Kashmiri’s arm. “You’re going to have to start thinking long term. Face it, you’re on Hezbollah and Iran’s hit list and that’s pretty much a forever list.”
“He’s absolutely right,” said MacMurphy. “I’m sorry it turned out this way but we’ve got to deal with reality. You are done with Lebanon and Tehran and maybe Cyprus as well. The bait’s essentially the same whether you’re in the house with us or not. As long as they think you’re here, that’s enough. You need to leave now.”
Kashmiri needed no further prompting. He packed a suitcase and Santos drove him in his gray Toyota to the airport in Larnaca where they waited together for the next flight out of Cyprus. It was a Cyprus Air flight to Athens. Kashmiri planned to sleep overnight at an airport hotel in Athens and then grab an early morning flight to Paris. He intended to wait there until further notice. He wasn’t ready to fly to America. Not just yet, anyway.
Kashmiri left everything behind. He told no one where he was going, but he left a note with MacMurphy to show to any inquisitive neighbors who might question MacMurphy and Santos’s presence in the house.
MacMurphy emptied the Lexus rental of all personal items, including the duffel bag full of arms and ammunition, and brought them into Kashmiri’s home. Then he changed into jogging clothes and drove the Lexus to a parking garage near the center of the city. He left the car in the garage and jogged the three-plus miles back to Kashmiri’s house.
Santos returned late that night and parked Kashmiri’s Toyota back in the driveway for all to see.
Now they needed a plan.
CHAPTER 66
Santos arose early the next morning and was standing outside the Electronics Unlimited store on Aphrodite Street when it opened at 7:30 a.m. MacMurphy was still in bed, sleeping like a teenager. But by the time Santos returned an hour later, MacMurphy was standing in the kitchen in his boxer shorts with coffee brewing nearby on a counter.
“Where did you go?” MarcMurphy asked.
“I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking, ‘Here we are with no surveillance again.’ We need cameras around our perimeter to keep track of what’s going on around
us. After all, we can’t just sit in this house and wait for someone to break in and try to kill us, now can we?”
MacMurphy yawned and poured two mugs of coffee. “Guess not. Good idea. I wish we could ask the station for some surveillance help, but I guess that wouldn’t sit too well with Rothmann.”
“I picked up six miniature low-light cameras with RF transmitters and a monitor/receiver. We can stick one on each corner of the house and maybe one on the garage pointing out over the streambed. Whoever is coming to get Kashmiri will have to do some preliminary casing. Maybe we can catch them in the act and be better prepared when they strike.”
“Do you think the gear will actually work?” asked MacMurphy with a grin. They had an ongoing dispute about the advantages and disadvantages of using technical equipment in operations. As a case officer, MacMurphy was skeptical of all technical gear—it worked well on the bench but often failed in the field. Santos, however, was an audio tech by trade and swore by his gadgets.
“Of course it’ll work!” he exclaimed.
“Well, you better set it up fast,” said MacMurphy. “I don’t think they’re going to waste any time scoping us out.”
“That reminds me. When I left this morning, I passed a blue and yellow taxi heading this way from the other direction. There were two guys in the front seat and the passenger craned his neck at my car as they passed by.”
“Could be anything,” said MacMurphy.
“Yeah, but then I saw the same taxi with the same passenger coming back toward me when I returned with the gear. I think it could be Abu Salah.”
MacMurphy was interested now. “What makes you think it was him?”
“Well, it would make sense that he would want to case the place before making any moves, and the only way he can do that is to make multiple passes by the house. Kind of like the surveillance situation we faced back in Beirut. And he looked like an Arab. You know, beard and one of those beanie hats. And he was in a taxi. Abu Salah doesn’t drive, remember?”
MacMurphy stood there, holding his coffee cup, eyes wide. “Of course. Did he get a look at your face?”
“I don’t think so. Not a good one anyway. Hadi’s windows are tinted, which I noticed is pretty common in Cyprus.”
“Well, you’ve certainly had a good morning. I guess we have a plan now. Let’s get those cameras installed tout de suite and keep an eye out for that cab. If it’s him, I don’t want you up on a ladder when he drives by.”
They watched and waited for the taxi’s next pass. Sure enough, about thirty minutes later, the taxi approached from the north along the streambed, slowed, passed the garage side of the house, turned the corner on Kanari Street, cruised by the front of the house, and continued out of the area.
As soon as it was out of sight, Santos grabbed his box of cameras and a roll of duct tape while MacMurphy pulled a ladder out of the garage. They started sticking cameras under the eaves of the roof on the corners of the house as fast as they could. Santos installed the cameras from the ladder while MacMurphy kept it steady and watched for traffic. They were interrupted by a passing car and had to seek cover only once. The car was not the taxi.
Twelve minutes later, the cameras were in place and Santos was hooking up a split-screen monitor on a coffee table in the living room. Ten minutes after that, they saw the blue and yellow cab make another pass. This time, it came from the west along Kanari Street, passed the front of the house, turned north up along the Pedieos stream, and drove past the garage side of the house.
The cameras worked perfectly.
“See that?” said Santos. “My gear works just fine.”
“Unbelievable,” said MacMurphy with a shake of his head. “This must be a first.”
They took turns watching the split-screen monitor for the rest of the day. Kashmiri’s car remained in the driveway and the taxi continued its passes at roughly thirty-minute intervals. There was now no doubt that the taxi was conducting surveillance of the house and little doubt that the surveillant was Abu Salah.
At around six o’clock that evening, after watching the taxi circle around for almost twelve hours, MacMurphy stood up, stretched his back, and said, “I’ve had enough of this. Let’s have a little fun with the bastard.”
Santos looked up from the monitor. “What do you have in mind?”
“The next time he makes a pass, I’ll jump into Hadi’s car, head in the opposite direction and hang out someplace for a couple of hours. Then when you tell me he’s just finished a pass, I’ll return and park the car back in the driveway.”
Santos nodded his big head. “Good idea. At the very least, it’ll get him to tighten up his surveillance. It’ll also confirm that Hadi’s still here and probably unsuspecting.”
“Right, it might force his hand. Do you think he’ll make his move tonight?” asked MacMurphy.
“Depends on how patient he is. Driving around in circles must be getting pretty old by now.”
MacMurphy thought a minute and said, “We can influence his actions. The way I see it, he can only hit his target in one of two ways. He can follow the car and make his hit somewhere out on the street—in the car or on foot coming out of a restaurant or something like that—or he can wait until he knows his target is in the house and make his hit there. Which would you prefer?”
“At the house,” replied Santos. “And we’ll have more control here.”
“I agree.”
CHAPTER 67
The taxi’s next pass started from the north. It passed the garage and Kashmiri’s car and then took a right on Kanari Street. As soon as it passed the house, MacMurphy hurried out through the sliding glass doors in the kitchen-dining area, bolted to the driveway, and jumped into Kashmiri’s car. He drove north toward the center of Nicosia and stopped at a familiar restaurant called Nightbirds.
He chose Nightbirds because it was an out-of-the-way place located directly on the Green Line. It also served the best lamb chops in the country and had a parking lot behind the building.
He spent the next two hours chowing down on lemon-rice soup, lamb chops, and half of a bottle of the local Palomino wine. The lamb chops were wonderful. The wine, not so much. He left with a doggie bag of lamb chops and soup and the rest of the wine for Santos.
Back in the car, he called Santos for a surveillance update. Santos told him the last pass happened about twenty minutes ago, but the passes were occurring at shorter intervals. They agreed that MacMurphy should drive close by but hold off on his final approach until Santos called. A few minutes later, MacMurphy’s phone rang. “Step on it, Mac. They just made another pass from the north and are heading west on Kanari Street as we speak.”
MacMurphy accelerated and shot into the driveway less than five minutes later. When he re-entered the house, he found Santos with his eyes glued to the monitor.
“Their passes are getting a little frantic but you made it back without being seen. I hope you brought back something to eat. My stomach thinks my throat’s cut!”
MacMurphy set the soup, lamb chops, and wine on the coffee table and went into the kitchen for a plate and utensils. “Those lamb chops are out of this world but the wine tastes like horse piss. There’s a beer in the fridge if you prefer.”
Santos tasted the wine and grimaced. “Did you actually drink half of this bottle?”
MacMurphy nodded. “It wasn’t easy. I forgot how bad Cyprus wine is.”
“I’ll take a beer.”
Santos ate while watching the monitor and MacMurphy joined him at the coffee table. MacMurphy noticed it was getting dark and turned on the lights in the house. When he returned, he asked, “Do you think tonight’s the night?”
Santos had a mouth full of lamb chops. He nodded and washed them down with a gulp of beer. “He hasn’t got many resources, so I think it’s going to be a very straightforward attack. He thinks Kashmiri is home alone and unsuspecting. I think he’ll come in late tonight and try to kill Kashmiri in his bed.”
MacMurphy s
aid, “What about the other two?”
“I haven’t given them much thought. Pouri said they were pros, but even pros have to start somewhere. That somewhere is right here.”
MacMurphy said, “Yes, they have to come here if they want to find Kashmiri.”
“Do you think they’re here in Cyprus yet?”
“Don’t know, but I guess we have to assume they are. Your cameras are our first line of defense.”
Santos smiled. “Now you admit my tech gear is important.”
“Reluctantly,” said MacMurphy.
CHAPTER 68
The Iranian and his female partner sat across from one another in the tiny kitchen of an Iranian safe house in downtown Nicosia. Oddly enough, several years ago, Hadi Kashmiri had rented the small, one-bedroom apartment for the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. At the time, he was an active support asset for the Iranians.
The Iranian, still dressed in his rumpled brown suit, looked over at the woman and said, “I cannot believe we don’t know more about this Hadi Kashmiri. Is that really all we have? A description and an address?”
“That is all I was given. Perhaps they think that is all we need to know. After all, the scope of our operation is very narrow: find him and kill him.”
“Perhaps. It should not be too difficult. I agree that the best place to hit him is in his driveway while he is getting in or out of his car. You know where to set up. There is plenty of cover across the street in the brush. Anyway, it is getting dark, so we should go. I will drop you off a little north of his house and you can follow the streambed down to a good position, like we discussed when we did our drive-by earlier. Are you ready?”
“I will be in a moment.” She got up and went into the bedroom. When she returned a few minutes later, she was dressed all in black—running shoes, slacks, a long untucked shirt—and carried a black ski mask in her hand. “How do I look?” she asked, turning like a model.
“I don’t know. I can’t see you,” he joked.
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