It didn’t take much acting for Hali to pretend to be just another frightened Libyan. He reached their rental car and opened the door. Sirens filled the air, drowning out even the heavy throb of the chopper’s blades.
The Fiat’s engine fired on the first try. Hali’s hands were so slick that the wheel got away from him, and he clipped the rear bumper of the car parked in front of him, its alarm adding to the keening police sirens.
The first of the officers, outfitted in black tactical gear, began to emerge from a van. They would have the block surrounded in seconds. Yet none of them seemed interested in anything except the building’s front door. Eddie’s distraction was working. They thought they had their man cornered and ignored proper procedure.
Hali drove around the corner, slowed, but didn’t stop for Lev Goldman, who threw himself into the passenger’s seat, and eased into traffic on the next side street.
Every block they drove exponentially increased the area the police had to cover in order to find them. After eight stoplights, Goldman felt safe enough to pop his head up above the dashboard.
“Pull over into that gas station,” he ordered.
“Can’t you hold it?”
“Not for that. We need to switch seats. It is obvious you don’t know the roads or how to drive like a local. No one here obeys the traffic rules.”
Hali cranked the wheel into the gas station’s lot and threw the car into park. Lev sat still for a moment, expecting Hali to jump out so he could slide over. Instead, he was forced out of the car, and Kasim took the passenger’s seat.
He chuckled humorlessly when he engaged the transmission. “In a situation like that, Mossad training says driver should exit the vehicle.”
Kasim looked at him skeptically. “Really? Doing it your way means there is no one at the wheel for several seconds longer. You should talk to your instructors.”
“No matter.” Lev grinned, this time with genuine amusement. “We made it.”
He asked as they made random turns away from his mistress’s neighborhood, “I am sorry, what is your name again?”
“Kasim. Hali Kasim.”
“That is an Arab name. Where are you from?”
“Washington, D.C.”
“No. I mean your family. Where were they from?”
They took what Hali assumed was a shortcut in an alley between two large, featureless buildings. “My grandfather emigrated from Lebanon when he was a boy.”
“So are you Muslim or Christian?”
“What difference does that make?”
“If you are Christian, I wouldn’t feel so bad about this.”
The report was just a sharp spit in the confines of the Fiat’s cramped interior. A fine mist of blood splattered the passenger’s window when the bullet burst from Hali’s rib cage. Goldman fired his silenced pistol again at the same instant the car hit a pothole. His aim was off, so the round missed entirely, blowing out the side window in a cascade of minuscule chips.
Hali had been so stunned in the first instant of the attack, he had done nothing to stop the second shot. His chest felt like a molten poker had been rammed through it from side to side, and he could feel hot wetness trickling past his belt line.
He grabbed for the gun as it recoiled up, forcing Goldman to let go of the wheel and throw an awkward body shot that still hit directly on the entrance wound. Hali screamed at the unimaginable agony of it, and he lost his grip on the handgun’s warm barrel.
Rather than fight a battle he had no chance of winning, he used his elbow to push open the door release and let himself fall from the car. They were doing perhaps twenty-five miles per hour, and he landed right on his butt, so he didn’t tumble but rather slid along the pavement, until skin smeared from his body.
The Fiat’s brake lights lit up immediately, but by the time the car had come to a stop Hali had pulled his pistol from his ankle holster. He fired as soon as he saw Goldman’s head emerge from the car. Hali missed, so he fired again, this time aiming through the car. Glass splintering sound like tiny bells. The pistol’s recoil made him feel like he was being kicked, but he kept at it. Three more rounds hit the car, other rounds shot masonry off the building beyond. The man Hali thought was an Israeli agent decided killing him wasn’t worth it.
“If you’d only gotten out at that gas station, I would have simply driven away,” he said. The Fiat’s door slammed, and the car sped off with a chirp of its tires.
Hali collapsed onto his back, his chest heaving as his blood pumped from both entrance and exit wounds. He yanked up his shirt to see the damage. There were tiny bubbles foaming from the right-side bullet hole. He didn’t need Doc Huxley to tell him he had been shot in the lung, or that if he didn’t get to a hospital soon he was a dead man.
The alley where he’d been both duped and dumped was long, and he couldn’t see traffic crossing either entrance. This had been a perfect setup, he thought fleetingly, gritting his teeth against a fresh wave of pain when he levered himself to his feet. Whoever Goldman was, he had played them like a maestro.
Hali made it no more than a couple of paces before he collapsed against the building and dropped to the ground amid the broken bottles, thorny weeds, and trash.
His last thought before succumbing to oblivion was relief that Eddie would most likely make it out. Nothing could stop the wiry ex-agent.
EDDIE SENG COULD ONLY HOPE that Hali and Goldman were safe, because he was in serious trouble. The police helicopter roared into view overhead, and he put two bullets into its underside before it swept out of pistol range. The sniper wasn’t so limited by his weapon and blazed away. Bullets pounded the wall behind Eddie, forcing him to run again. The marksman adjusted, leading Eddie ever so slightly, and put a round through the roof less than an inch from his right toe.
Eddie felt as exposed as an actor on an empty stage. Without any cover, it was only a matter of time before the bullets found their mark. Ahead of him, the roof ended in a low decorative cornice, and beyond was the skeletal framework of the new high-rise under construction. An Olympic long jumper would still miss the building by fifty feet from here. The boom of the crane that he and Hali had seen was closer, but there would be nothing to grab onto if he made it.
It was swinging across the sky and Eddie could see its cable reeling upward, but he had no idea what was being maneuvered to one of the building’s upper floors.
At this point, it didn’t matter.
Putting on a burst of speed, he raced for the horizon, running flat out without any deviation. The sniper high above zeroed in, laying down a rain of fire that chased Eddie’s heels. Just before reaching the cornice, he saw down below that the crane was lifting a pallet of Sheetrock. He altered his speed slightly, put one foot on the cornice, and launched himself into space, leaping through a stinging cloud of exploding masonry.
He flew out and down, a forty-foot drop sucking at his body, his stomach lurching at the rapid earthward acceleration. The pallet of Sheetrock was twelve feet below him and rising when he leapt, so when he crashed into it the impact turned his ankle and he almost slid off the far side.
Before he could grab one of the cables, his weight unbalanced the load. It tipped, and he had to scramble on his bad leg. Sheets of gypsum board began to slide against one another as the angle increased. He lunged for the cable as the entire two tons slipped free. The sheets separated as they fell, spreading out as though a giant had tossed a deck of playing cards into the air.
Eddie’s fingers clutched at the cable, his body jerking spasmodically because the cable was bouncing to adjust to losing the load. He managed to change his grip and loop a leg around the cable.
To his credit, the crane’s operator was quick-thinking. He had been watching the lift from the cab, had seen the figure leap from the adjacent building, and understood why the heavy sheets had fallen. Rather than take the time to slowly lower the dangling figure to the ground, he locked the cable spool and continued to swing the boom toward the unfinished bui
lding.
The heavy hook at the end of the cable had enough weight to pendulum Eddie through the building’s open side, and he let go, tumbling onto a concrete floor. The workers who’d seen his stunt were several floors above him. It would take them a few moments to come down the ladders leaning inside what would become a stairwell.
Favoring his sprained ankle, Eddie loped to the edge of the building, where a debris chute had been attached. He peered over the edge. The chute was a metal tube about twenty-four inches in diameter that ended just above a large green Dumpster sitting atop a flatbed truck. He stepped in, wedged his good foot against the wall, and braced his hands behind him. His descent was measured and controlled. His only real concern was that someone higher up might toss something in the Dumpster after him.
He landed lightly on chunks of concrete and rebar torn out from a cement pour gone wrong. Seconds later, he was over the side of the Dumpster and striding across the construction site. Everyone still assumed he was up on the third floor, so no one paid him the slightest attention. Most important, the hovering sniper was watching the building and not the lone figure crossing the construction yard.
Parked near a pump truck designed to force concrete up armored hoses to the upper stories was a cement mixer, its rear chute extended with cement flowing into the pump’s hopper. Eddie leapt onto its front bumper, stepped onto its driver’s-side fender, and grabbed the big wing-mirror support before the driver was aware of Eddie’s presence. Eddie swung himself through the open window, caught the man on the jaw with his good foot, and dropped into the seat as the man collapsed sideways.
The whole truck vibrated with the power of the huge cement drum turning just behind the cab. Eddie kicked the unconscious man down into the passenger’s footwell, yanked the gearshift into first, and started forward. He couldn’t hear the shouts of the surprised workers, but he could see them running after the cement mixer in his wing mirrors.
He drove the truck across the site on the dedicated dirt road. In his wake, wet cement continued to fall from the chute like the mixer was some diarrheal mechanical monster. The chopper had to have alerted the ground forces that their man had leapt for the construction site, because a half dozen cops were rushing for the chain-link gate when Eddie smashed through, scattering men like bowling pins.
When he cranked the wheel over, the steel chute pivoted outward like a baseball bat at full swing, knocking over two more men and smashing out the windshield of a parked sedan. A police car charged after him, its siren wailing. When it pulled alongside, Eddie braked hard and turned the wheel. The cement mixer rode up onto the cruiser’s hood. The massive weight of the truck and its load of concrete blew out the front tires and burst the radiator. The truck’s rear wheels skidded into the patrol car so it blocked both the road’s narrow lanes.
The move sent the chute flinging the other way and it tore through the glass of another car. It ricocheted back and forth like a metal tail, smashing into automobiles and keeping the pursuing police well back.
Eddie could see them pause to fire at the truck, but their shots were deflected by the enormous revolving drum, and he was increasing the range with every second. The problem wasn’t them. It was the helicopter circling overhead. Eddie couldn’t make his escape with them watching his every move and radioing his position
The street straightened and widened as he left the neighborhood. In the distance, approaching at nearly seventy miles per hour, were three more police cars, their lights winking rhythmically. Charging along with them was some sort of wheeled armored vehicle. Eddie assumed it would have a mounted heavy machine gun.
He pressed the accelerator to the floor, short shifting the transmission to build up his speed as quickly as possible. With a hundred feet separating him and the cruisers, Eddie slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel over hard. The front fender caught the rear corner of a big delivery truck, and it was enough to unbalance the cement mixer. It went up onto its outside wheels, even as it continued to careen sideways, and then it smashed over onto its side.
Eddie held on to the wheel to stop himself from tumbling onto the passenger’s door, covering his face with his elbow to protect it from the flying glass of the shattered windshield. The truck’s regular operator was sufficiently jammed into place that he was okay as glass rained down on him.
The collision with the ground was hard enough to snap the pins holding the cement drum in place and break the links of its chain drive. Momentum did the rest.
Eleven tons of steel and concrete began rolling down the street, wobbling slightly as the cement sloshed in the huge barrel. Two of the police cars had the good sense to peel out of the way and jump onto the curb, one smashing into a utility pole, the other coming to rest with its front end embedded in a wall. The armored car and the other cruiser were closer and didn’t stand a chance. The barrel rolled up the armored car’s front glacis and tore its small turret from its mount. The gunner would have been sliced in half had he not ducked at the last second.
The drum smashed back onto the road, cracking the asphalt before hitting the police cruiser in a glancing blow that was still enough to flatten it from the rear seat back. The barrel came to rest against the side of a building, with cement as stiff as toothpaste oozing from its open mouth.
Eddie grabbed a spare work shirt that had been hanging from a peg at the back of the cab and stepped through the shattered windshield. He was hidden from the view of the chopper by the truck, so he took a few seconds to wipe the cosmetics from his face and don the denim shirt. The pain radiating from his ankle was something he could contain and compartmentalize, so when he moved away from the truck he walked without a limp. He went no more than a few feet and stopped to stare with the people who’d poured out of shops and homes to see the accident. As simply as that, he was just another rubbernecker.
When the police arrived and began questioning witnesses, he was virtually ignored. They were looking for a Libyan, not an Asian man who spoke no Arabic. He slowly drifted away from the scene, and no one stopped him. Five minutes after calling their hired gang members, he was in the van headed away from the neighborhood entirely.
FIVE MILES AWAY IN the rented Fiat, Tariq Assad was on his cell phone.
“It’s me. There was a raid today. The police almost got me. First, find out why I wasn’t warned. This should have never happened. As it was, I had a little help in escaping from those people off that damned ship. I was pumping them for information when the police arrived.”
He listened for a moment, and replied. “Watch your tone! You arranged the ambush on the coast road, and those were your hand-picked men. We’ve both seen a copy of the investigation report, thanks to our mole in the police. Rather than let vehicles pass unmolested, your supposedly well-trained men were shaking down motorists for bribe money. I don’t know how these American mercenaries managed to kill them all, but they did. Then they proceeded to blow up our Hind, free most of our prisoners, and generally disrupt what had been a perfectly executed plan . . . What? Yes, I said free. Their cargo ship must have been berthed at the coaling station dock. Our men saw an empty train car sinking . . . How should I know? Maybe the vessel is faster than it looks or the men in the chopper were bigger fools than the ones you sent to stop their truck in the first place.
“I have to get out of the city now,” he went on. “Actually, out of the country. I know a pilot who is sympathetic to our cause. I will ask him to fly me in his helicopter to where the men are searching for Suleiman Al-Jama’s tomb, and I will take control personally. Despite the setbacks, it appears you have everything controlled from this end. Fiona Katamora should be in her execution chamber by now, and Colonel Hassad phoned to tell me our martyr force is en route.
“I won’t speak to you again until it’s over. So let me say that Allah’s blessings be upon us all.”
He killed the connection and tossed the encrypted phone on the seat next to him. He was a man who had always been able to keep a grip on his emotions. He
wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had if he couldn’t. Today’s close call enraged him. He hadn’t been lying when he said they had spies and sympathizers in every level of the Libyan government. He’d had ample warning that the police were staking out his office and apartment, so he should have been told about the raid.
It seemed the supreme leader, Muammar Qaddafi, needed reminding that his autonomy remained limited.
THIRTY
M OVING AS SLOWLY AS HE COULD, ERIC STONE REACHED under his chest and carefully turned the rock that had been digging into his ribs for the past fifteen minutes. He could feel the disapproval that he’d moved radiating off Franklin Lincoln, who was lying prone next to him. On his other side was Mark Murphy, and beside him was Linda Ross. Next to her was Alana Shepard.
Despite everything she’d been through and the dangers now presented by the terrorists, she had insisted on coming with them. Dr. Huxley had given her a brief medical exam and cleared her for the mission.
Because of her rank within the Corporation, Linda was in charge of the group, so it was her call. She’d figured Cabrillo would nix the idea, so she hadn’t bothered asking when she’d agreed to let Alana come with them.
They were on a ridge overlooking the dry river valley where Alana and her team had spent so many weeks searching for Suleiman Al-Jama’s lost tomb. Below them were a dozen terrorists from the training camp. They might have been proficient at killing and maiming, but they were useless when it came to archaeology. The squad leader had no idea what he was doing, so he had the men scrambling all over the wadi, moving random stones and climbing the steep banks looking for any clue as to the tomb’s location. At their current pace, they’d reach the old waterfall Alana’s team had found in four or five hours.
With them was Professor Emile Bumford. It was difficult to tell without binoculars, which they couldn’t use for fear the sun would flash off the lens, but he didn’t look the worse for wear. He was searching like the others, and while he moved slowly he wasn’t limping or favoring any injury. There was no sign of the representative from the Tunisian Antiquities Ministry or his son. He’d been paid for betraying the Americans and was probably back in Tunis.
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