She swerved again, looking toward the parking lot, where the shooter was aiming right at her. She would have to come directly abreast of where he was standing. At the last second, she hit the brake and banged her head back against the headrest. Another bullet went through the side window, slicing the air in front of her face. She stomped on the gas again, a car horn honking loudly behind her, and raced down the street, looking for a gap in traffic. Checking the rearview mirror, she saw that for the moment, the Mercedes was still stopped at the curb. Someone was running on the sidewalk toward it. God, she hoped they hadn’t hurt the older woman. Why had they shot at her? What was going on? A CIA hostage was valuable for Hezbollah or Syria or whoever the hell was behind this. A dead woman, even CIA, wasn’t worth that much.
Suddenly, without signaling, she edged into the right lane and turned the corner, tires squealing as she raced up the narrow street. Ahead, a man was crossing in the middle of the street and instead of braking, she slammed the horn, not slowing for a second, and just managed to swing around him as he gave her a thumbs-up, the Middle Eastern equivalent of the middle finger. She didn’t slow but made the next left, checking the rearview mirror again. For the moment, there was no one behind her.
She made another left onto Rome and back toward Rue Hamra, the narrow street dense with cars and people. If they were behind her with the Mercedes or another car, there was no way to catch up to her through the traffic. The sidewalks were thick with people of all ages, many stylish, a few women in hijabs, the cafés and restaurants bright with neon signs and sounds of hip-hop music from the open door of a club.
She drove west on Rue Hamra, checking mirrors while the city in all its colors swirled around her. She opened a window and heard the sounds of people and music and caught the smell of roast shawarma and apple tobacco smoke from the shisha cafés. No sign of tails. They might have switched off from the Mercedes or the van, but so far as she could tell, she had lost them. Still, she couldn’t relax. They would be scouring the city for her. If they had grabbed the Service driver, he would have told them she was headed for Hamra. They might be anywhere. And she could only hope they hadn’t gotten to the older woman. Time to get rid of the car.
She spotted the tall Crowne Plaza hotel up ahead, with its red electric sign at the top of the building. She drove past it into the mall entrance and, after fifteen minutes of circling, found a parking space. She left the car keys on the floor mat, got out and walked out of the parking structure into the mall and melted into the stream of shoppers, going out different exits and coming back in, looking in mirrors and going up and down stairs to ensure she wasn’t followed, checking one last time as she exited the mall and walked away from the crowds and up Rue Gemayel in the direction of the American University campus.
She circled the block twice, then another block walking in the opposite direction to make completely sure she wasn’t being followed. Doing it that way, even if they switched off, you could almost always spot a tail. She began to breathe a little easier. So far, it looked like she had lost them. But she had no illusions. They would be scouring Hamra, looking for her. She had to get to the safe house now.
The key was to stay away from the crowds on Rue Hamra. They might get lucky and spot her there. Instead, she headed toward the university. For cover, she fell in with a group of students, chattering about where to go for manaeesh, a kind of pizza. The two girls were Lebanese and one of the boys was from Jordan, and for a second it was like being back at college. They invited her to join them at a hole-in-the-wall storefront, but she shrugged and walked on. The safe house wasn’t far. Twenty minutes later, she was on Rue Adonis, a narrow tree-lined residential street, going up in the elevator to the eighth-floor-apartment safe house.
Coming out of the elevator, she scanned the corridor and the stairwell, listening to the elevator continuing on up before approaching the apartment door. She studied the doorjamb and frame for any signs of tampering. It looked clean. The peephole held a recording camera, she knew. She looked into it and gave the agreed-upon signal, two double-knocks, ready to run if something happened. There was no answer. She knocked again, then took out the key from her handbag and opened the door.
The apartment appeared empty. That was wrong. There was always supposed to be someone there. What the hell was going on? Checking that the drapes were drawn, she locked the door behind her and explored the two bedrooms, one filled with cots, the other with equipment. She went to the chest of drawers where they kept an assortment of guns. She took out a Glock 28 pistol and four magazines. Perfect for her. Small, light, with low recoil, and the .380 cartridges would go through anything. She loaded the pistol and put it and the magazines in her handbag.
She went to the window and peeked from the side of the curtain at the street below, lit by a single streetlamp. If there were any watchers, they were hidden in the shadows of the trees and parked cars on the dark street.
“Hell, I need a drink,” she said aloud to herself, and went to the living room liquor cabinet, glancing at the laptop on the coffee table showing multiple views from security cameras in the door peephole, the corridor and the street from the roof outside. It all looked okay. She found a half-full bottle of Grey Goose in the cabinet and poured herself a quarter glass, knowing she probably shouldn’t and thinking that at this point, she really didn’t give a damn; took out one of her clozapine pills from her handbag—she would have to get more from the black market pharmacy in Zarif, she thought with a frown; and washed it down with the vodka. She checked her watch: 7:41 P.M. Who would be manning the Beirut Station exchange at this hour? she asked herself. Linda, she thought. Linda Benitez; on till midnight.
Except before she called, she needed to think this through. What had just happened didn’t add up. The contact with Nightingale had been arranged by Dima. The party girl wasn’t one of the pigeons, the agents Carrie had recruited since she’d been in Beirut. She’d inherited her from Davis Fielding, the CIA Beirut Station chief. She was one of his. There’d be hell to pay, she thought angrily. Except she couldn’t be sure if Dima was playing both sides or if she’d been duped by Nightingale too. In fact, she might be in danger or even dead already.
Except Carrie had no way of reaching her. She couldn’t just call. The two safe house phones were off-limits. The normal one was for taking calls only. The scrambled one was strictly for communicating with the highly secure exchange at the U.S. embassy in Aoukar in the northernmost part of the city. And using a cell phone could give away her position if they were GPS-tracking her. Figure it out, she told herself. Assume either GSD or Hezbollah is behind this. How did they get onto her? Dima. It had to be Dima, and that could mean there was something Fielding didn’t know. He’d encouraged her to make the contact.
“We’d kill for someone inside GSD,” he’d told her. And he’d also told her she didn’t need any backup. “Dima’s solid. She hasn’t given us a lot, but what she has is strictly twenty-four-karat stuff.” Son of a bitch, she thought. Was he doing her? Was sex the twenty-four karats she was giving him? She’d wanted to take Virgil Maravich, the station’s resident black-bag genius, the best technical guy for surveillance, bugs and break-ins she’d ever met, but Fielding said he needed Virgil for something else. “Besides,” Fielding had told her, “you’re a big girl. You can handle it,” implying that if she couldn’t, she didn’t belong in Beirut, the big leagues.
“Beirut Rules,” Fielding had told her that first day in his office on the top floor of the U.S. embassy, slouched in a leather chair, behind him a window overlooking the Municipality building with its arched windows and entryway. He was big, fair haired, starting to go to fat. Touch of rosacea on his nose; someone who liked his food and booze. “No second chances. And no one cares that you’re a girl in the Middle East. You screw up, you make a mistake, a hundred to one you die. Even if you don’t, you’re out of here. This looks like a civilized city—plenty of clubs, beautiful women in designer clothes, great food, the most sophisticated peo
ple on the planet—but don’t be fooled. It’s still the Middle East. Put one foot the wrong way and they’ll kill you—and a minute later go on to the next party.”
What the hell is going on? she thought. It was Fielding’s Joe who set it up, Fielding who encouraged her to make the pitch and Fielding who’d made sure she went into it without backup. But Fielding was a longtime station chief in Beirut. It was a standard first contact. He hadn’t expected anything to go wrong. She’d almost been kidnapped or killed. Clearly, he didn’t want that. She took a deep breath. This was crazy. Did she feel a little buzzy? Could it be that the clozapine, the medication for her bipolar, wasn’t working?
She stood up. She felt she had to do something, anything, but she wasn’t sure what. Her skin was tingling. Oh God, not that. She wasn’t starting on one of her “flights”—what she called the manic phase of her bipolar—was she? She started to walk around the room, then went over to the window, feeling an irresistible urge to throw the curtains open and look out. Go ahead, take a look at me, you bastards! Don’t be stupid, Carrie, she told herself. You’re fine, just give the clozapine and the vodka a second to kick in. Although maybe it was crazy to mix the two. She reached for the curtain. Careful, careful, she told herself. She pulled the corner of the curtain and peeked out at the street.
The Mercedes sedan that had been chasing her was double-parked in front of the safe house building. Three men were walking to the front entrance. Fear shot through her like electricity. She felt a terrible urge to urinate and had to squeeze her thighs together to control it.
It was impossible. This was a safe house. How had they found her? She hadn’t been followed. She was sure of it. She’d lost them in the red Renault and made doubly sure going around the city streets in Hamra. No one on foot; no one in a car. And what was she to do? They were coming into the building. She only had seconds to get away. She picked up the secure phone to the embassy and dialed. The phone was picked up on the second ring.
“Good evening. U.S. Cultural Services Offices,” a voice said. Despite a faint distortion from the line encryption, Carrie recognized Linda Benitez’s voice. She didn’t know her well, just enough to say hello.
“Amarillo,” Carrie said, using this week’s code word. “Nightingale was a setup.”
“Confirm opposition?”
“I don’t have time. Achilles security has been breached. Do you copy, dammit?” Carrie almost shouted. Achilles was the safe house.
“Confirm Achilles. What is your location and status?” Linda said, and Carrie knew she was not only recording but following a memorized text and writing down every word, asking whether she was still mobile and operative, or whether she was calling under duress or capture.
“I’m on the move. Tell you-know-who I’ll see him tomorrow,” Carrie snapped, and hung up. For an instant, she stood poised on her toes like a dancer, trying to decide which way to go. She had to get out fast, but how? There were three of them. Plus at least one outside in the Mercedes sedan. They would be coming up both the stairs and the elevator.
How was she supposed to get out? There was no contingency for something like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen in a safe house.
She couldn’t stay where she was. They would find a way in. If not through a door, then through a window, a balcony or even a wall from an apartment next door. If they did come in, they would be shooting. She might be able to shoot one, maybe even two, but not three. There weren’t going to be any shootouts at the OK Corral. Nor could she go out into the corridor, try for the stairs or the elevator. They would be waiting. In fact, they would likely be outside the door any second, she thought, crossing to the apartment door and throwing the dead bolt.
That left the window and the balcony. As she headed toward the bedroom, a shock went through her at sounds in the corridor. She went over to the laptop. The three Arab men were in the corridor, going methodically and listening at each apartment door with some kind of hearing device. They’d be at her door in seconds.
She ran back to the bedroom closet, where they kept the gear. She opened it and began tearing through it, looking for rope or anything she could use to let herself down with. No rope. Just changes of men’s clothes. Some suits, shoes and leather belts. Belts! She grabbed three belts and hooked them together to make a single long belt, then ran back to the laptop.
The screen showed the three men right outside the safe house apartment door. They were affixing something to the door. Explosives! she thought. She raced to the bedroom and opened the door to the balcony, looping the belt to the wrought-iron railing. She peeked over the edge. The Mercedes was still there, but no one had gotten out or was looking up this way. She looked down at the balcony below, unable to tell if anyone was in that apartment or not. What does it matter? she screamed inside. They were going to blow the door and maybe the whole apartment. She could be dead any second.
She tightened the belt on the railing and pulled at it hard. It felt like it would hold. It would have to. Climbing over the edge, she let herself down hand over hand on the belt. The glass door to the balcony of the apartment on the floor below was dark. No one home. Arms straining, she reached with her toes for the lower balcony’s railing. Don’t look down, she told herself as her toes touched the railing. She pushed forward, letting go as she fell forward onto the balcony. A deafening explosion above shook the building.
They’d blown the safe house door. Ears ringing, she smashed the glass in the balcony door with the Glock, then put her hand through the jagged hole and opened the door.
Putting her shoes back on to avoid stepping on broken glass, she ran to the apartment’s front door, unlocked it and raced out into the corridor and down the stairs to the ground floor. Another few seconds and she was out the service door to an alley in back. She went cautiously down the alley to a side street. It looked clear. No watchers from the Mercedes around the corner. Taking off her heels again, she ran as hard as she could, her slender figure disappearing into the darkness.
CHAPTER 2
Central District, Beirut, Lebanon
“What went wrong? And don’t bullshit me. You’re on very thin ice, Carrie,” Davis Fielding said, rubbing his hands together as though he were cold. They were in his office in the old-fashioned building on Rue Maarad, near Nejmeh Square, with its iconic clock tower, where Beirut Station maintained a cover company, Middle East Maritime Insurance SA, a cover so solid they actually sold policies.
“You tell me. Nightingale was your idea. Dima was your agent. I just inherited her,” Carrie answered, rubbing her eyes. She felt tired, grimy in the same clothes she had worn the previous day, having only slept a few hours on Virgil’s living room couch after a night spent going all over Beirut, looking for Dima.
“Don’t pull that shit on me,” Fielding growled. “She was your bird. You ran her. You brought Nightingale to me and I okayed an approach. That’s all. Toe in the water. Nothing more. Next thing I know, you’re being chased all the hell over Beirut by so-called assassins and leading them right to our safe house door! You’ve jeopardized our position here, which, as you know, is damn delicate,” he said, tapping the desk with his index finger.
“I didn’t lead them anywhere,” Carrie said, thinking, Why doesn’t he see it? He should have been patting her on the back for escaping. How could he be so thick? “I got away. I was clean. I ditched a car at the Crowne Plaza and walked away a hundred percent clean, but just to be sure I spent an hour in the mall, walking around blocks, reversing, you name it. There was nothing. Not mobile, not on foot, not electronic, not with a telescope from twenty miles away. You better face up to it, Davis. We have a security breach.”
“The hell we do. You screwed it up and now you’re running for cover. I warned you, Mathison. We play Beirut Rules here. Now, let’s go over it again. First of all, where’s Dima?”
“You tell me. After the fiasco at the contact and again at the safe house, I spent half the night looking for her. Instead of yelling at me, how abo
ut considering that she might be a double? Maybe she set me up. Because if not, when did you become so trusting?”
“We don’t even know that you were set up. Maybe you panicked because Nightingale got the contact location wrong. Maybe he was on Lebanese time. Maybe he was drunk. Shit, Carrie. This was supposed to be a fly-by, that’s all. Get a look at him; let him get a look at your tits and set up the next one. You panicked. Admit it,” Fielding said, face red as Santa Claus, but his eyes cold and blue as ice.
“Not true. You weren’t there. I was. He motioned to me,” she said, showing him. “He’s supposed to be a senior intelligence officer and he motions to a contact he’s never met to come right over like we’re housewives in the park? Are you kidding?”
“Maybe that’s how they do it in the GSD. Maybe he thought you got it wrong. You’re a woman, for crying out loud. No man in the Middle East is going to take you seriously. Based on last night, they’re probably right.”
She could feel her heart pounding. What was going on here? There’d been a serious screw-up that nearly led to her capture or death. He should have been supporting her; not ripping her a new one. “There were two men in a van and four in a Mercedes. They tried to kidnap me, dammit! They shot at me. Here.” She showed him the scab on her leg where the piece of sidewalk had hit her.
“Yes—and then you led them right to the safe house, which for all I know was the object of the exercise for them in the first place!” Fielding snapped. “This is going in your 201,” he added, referring to the CIA’s personnel file on each employee. “Don’t think it isn’t.”
Homeland: Carrie's Run: A Homeland Novel Page 2
