He gestured at his luggage. “Idiots,” he said. “Make yourselves useful and move my things to my room.”
He turned from the security men and headed up the stairs. Entering the study, he slammed the door behind him, dropped into a leather armchair, yanked a half-empty pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and shook one into his hand.
It had been a week since everything had fallen apart in Baghdad. Since then, he’d moved three times, this small villa being the third place in a matter of days. The place was owned by a British oilman who several times had sold embargoed machinery and parts to the Iranian government. Over the years the guy also had made available to Iran some of his best engineers and metallurgists, all of whom had unwittingly helped the country in its pursuit of a nuclear program. Aside from the access to top engineers and technicians, Iran also had gained the ability to blackmail the oilman when it suited Tehran’s purposes. With a couple of calls, al-Jaballah had been given access to the place for as long as he wanted. That could be a week, a month or a year.
Judging by his luck over the past several days, though, he doubted he was going to stay here long. He’d spent four days in Uganda before the commandoes had found him. A half dozen of his best men had died in a brief battle, though he and a few advisers had escaped. His time in Sudan had been even shorter, though the results no less deadly.
He stepped to the door and grasped the knob.
“It’s about time you got here with my things,” he said.
Twisting the knob, he swung the door open and poked his head into the corridor outside. What he saw caused him to take a sharp breath. The suitcases stood in the hallway, a few feet apart from one another. One of his guards lay on the floor between the suitcases, facedown on the carpet.
A small red hole was visible between his shoulder blades.
Al-Jaballah slid the Walther from its holster, cocked back the hammer and stepped into the hallway. Grabbing the dead guard by the collar of his black sport coat, the Iranian dragged the corpse into the study and slammed the door.
Holstering the Walther, he rolled the dead guy onto his back. The ragged exit wound in the guy’s chest, the gleam from the light striking the man’s blood-soaked skin, barely registered with al-Jaballah. Instead, he threw the guy’s jacket open and grabbed the micro Uzi from the shoulder rigging under his arm.
He slid two more of the short magazines into his pants’ pocket.
Even as he acted, his mind raced. They were here—in the house! How did they even find him so quickly? It had been less than twenty-four hours since he’d decided to come here, but already they’d found him.
He tried to shove those questions from his mind. Calm down, he thought. Use your head and you can get out of this.
He’d have time later on to figure out how they had found him. First, he needed to get out of this house alive, even if it meant ditching his entourage. If he left them to get chopped to bits by the Americans while he found another place to hide, he’d consider that a victory.
He wiped his blood-soaked hands on the carpet. The move left two dark red swaths on the flooring.
Picking up the Uzi, he stood to his full height. His mind was already planning his next move. He could hire mercenaries to stand in as guards. He still had cash he’d siphoned over the years from various arms and drug deals, criminal transactions ostensibly undertaken to help his country, but that had also lined his pockets.
But first he had to escape.
Fortunately he had a contact in town, an IRG commander who on paper had retired but who also would supply forged documents, weapons and other necessities.
He took a quick inventory. A money belt stuffed with currency was looped around his waist. He didn’t have keys to either of the cars. No matter, he told himself. He’d learned a long time ago how to hotwire a car. In less than a minute he could have one of their cars started without a key. Or... He was in a small, gated community populated by army officers, corporate executives and high-ranking government officials. So even in a country as poor as Nigeria, most of the neighbors had nice cars worth stealing. One of them would be stupid enough to leave a vehicle parked outside where he could access it.
He moved to the door and put an ear to it. Someone had shot his guard right outside his door. So where was he?
Letting several more seconds pass, al-Jaballah convinced himself that he heard nothing in the corridor outside. He lowered his hand onto the knob, gently wrapped his fingers around it and started to turn it.
An explosion outside the building shattered the silence. Forgetting about the door, he whipped his head toward the windows and saw one of the cars, its interior engulfed in flames, the hood and the trunk both thrust open, flying into the air as though it’d been dropped on a landmine.
He tried to think of a prayer, but his mind had gone blank. Instead he thrust open the door and stepped into the hallway. Sweeping his Uzi over his surroundings, al-Jaballah saw no one. A second explosion roared outside the house and a jolt of fear rocked him. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling like a light snowfall. From outside his line of sight, he heard glass shatter.
Go!
Hugging the wall, he moved to the stairwell and crept down it, willing himself to move slowly.
When he reached the last step, he swept his gaze around the first floor. The concussive force from the blast had shattered windows. The front door hung open. The light from the fires consuming the cars danced in the doorway. The other guard’s limp form was folded over the back of a chair, his arms curled up like the gnarled branches of a diseased tree. Al-Jaballah saw the tan upholstery on the seatback had been soaked with blood. There was a ragged gap where the guy’s jaw should have been.
A man’s voice sounded from behind him.
“We gave your men the night off.”
Al-Jaballah started to twist at the waist so he could look at the speaker.
“Slow it down, lad,” the man said. “Set the Uzi down. Kick it away. Then turn around. Slowly.”
Al-Jaballah hesitated for the span of a heartbeat, but then bent forward at the waist and set the Uzi on the floor. He straightened to standing, kicked the SMG and it skidded across the floor, stopping when it collided with a table leg. I still have the pistol, he thought. From outside the building, he heard the whirring of helicopter blades.
“Is that yours?” he asked.
“Yes,” the other man said.
“So you think you can take me with you? You sound English. You want to render me back to England? Why would they want me?”
The Englishman snorted. “You think I’m here to render you? What, knock you out and transport you somewhere?”
“You aren’t here to extract me?”
“No.” The man paused. “See, I have a problem with sticking a bag over someone’s head, kidnapping him and taking him to another country in the dead of the night.”
A note of amusement crept into al-Jaballah’s voice. “Really? You’re squeamish about such things?”
“No, not squeamish. More of a philosophical hang-up. Something an old soldier like me just can’t reconcile.”
“And that would be?”
“You killed a lot of people. Maybe you didn’t pull the trigger, but you gave the orders that left a lot of people dead. You’ve got all kinds of blood on your hands. Innocent blood. And I’m guessing it doesn’t bother you one damn bit.”
Al-Jaballah said nothing.
“And here’s the thing about that, lad,” the man continued. “If we took you somewhere, you’re technically a high-level Iranian official. We couldn’t drop you at some kind of black site. You know, drop you down the rabbit hole, never to be seen again, right? Your country would howl and cry over the great Satan, demand you be returned. Maybe Iran wouldn’t do it in the open, but they’d do it. Pretty soon Russia and China would start pissing
down the West’s leg, too, demanding you be let go.”
Al-Jaballah gave a slight shrug. “Perhaps,” he said.
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, mate. I’m sure you’re a big bleeding deal in Tehran. The mullahs would want you back. They’d wring their hands, piss and moan about the raw deal they were getting. And maybe—maybe—someone would give in to all their whining and send you back.”
“Perhaps,” al-Jaballah said. He noticed the thumping of the helicopter rotors was much louder as though the craft was right overhead. He cast a quick glance at the door.
The Englishman shook his head. “Forget it, mate, that’s my ride. No one’s coming to save you. Anyway, here’s my issue. Hell, I’m not the most educated guy or even the smartest. But even an oaf like me knows if you kill a bunch of innocent people, you shouldn’t walk free.”
A chill raced down al-Jaballah’s spine. “What should happen then?”
A smile ghosted the other man’s lips.
“You’ve still got a gun under your jacket. You didn’t think I missed that, did you? C’mon, I’m a pro. You’ve got that pistol. So drop your hands and—as the Yanks like to say—make your play.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. But when they did al-Jaballah didn’t hesitate. His hand was a blur as it disappeared under his jacket. He fisted the Walther, wheeled around and maneuvered the pistol so he could acquire a target.
As he turned, he glimpsed his opponent. The man stood just a few yards away. He was dressed from head to toe in black. Black combat paint was smeared over his cheeks, nose, forehead and chin. He held a Browning Hi-Power, similar to one al-Jaballah owned, in his right hand.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
* * *
MCCARTER WAITED FOR him to spin around. His sound-suppressed Browning coughed once and a bullet drilled into the man’s heart. Al-Jaballah stumbled back a couple of steps before he collided with the wall, streaking it with blood as he slid to the ground. His Walther cracked once and a bullet drilled into the floor.
The Briton pulled a thermite grenade from one of the pockets of his combat vest. He walked to the doorway, paused when he reached it, turned and looked at the body sprawled on the floor, wondering for a moment if unseen demons from hell had sprung up to drag al-Jaballah’s soul to hell. McCarter wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he occasionally hoped the justice he and his partners dispensed wasn’t the final accounting for the mass murderers and psychopaths they chased.
Yanking the pin from the device, he tossed it onto the floor near al-Jaballah’s corpse and ran from the house.
He found Manning and James standing outside, each dressed head to toe in black and bristling with weapons.
Grudgingly, the Nigerian government had agreed to let them enter the country to take out al-Jaballah.
McCarter and the others watched as the first orange-yellow bursts of flame flashed in the window.
“The locals know you were going to burn the house down?” James asked.
McCarter shook his head.
“Not that they deserve it, but I’m doing these bastards a favor,” he said. “Iran will know this bastard was murdered.”
“But they’ll have a hell of a time proving it with everything burned down, right?”
“Hard, but not impossible. You took the other bodies, his security team, et cetera, and tossed them into the house?”
“Done and done,” Manning said.
“Good,” McCarter said.
The fire by now had engulfed the first floor, blocking the front door. Through the door and on the curtains, McCarter could see flames undulating.
Stony Man Farm had planned the whole operation out. Officials would blame the destruction on a wiring problem. Brognola had already placed a crew on standby to swoop in, secure the scene and clean up any signs that the commandos ever had been on the property. They’d sift the dirt for shell casings and make sure any remains had been vaporized or removed. A CIA front company planned, with the Nigerian government’s help, to buy the property and raze the house. The front company’s executives would promise new development on the property that never would materialize, all to stymie efforts by Iran to investigate the deaths.
McCarter wheeled around and started for the helicopter. “C’mon, lads,” he said. “Let’s get some shut-eye. We’ll probably have to save the bloody world again tomorrow.”
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460323168
First edition December 2013
REVOLUTION DEVICE
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Tim Tresslar for his contribution to this work.
Copyright © 2013 by Worldwide Library
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