American Assassin: A Thriller

by Vince Flynn

  Ivanov liked the idea. As he walked into Primakov's office he turned and told Shvets to wait outside. Shvets knew his boss too well to think he was anything other than a duplicitous snake. As he nervously checked his watch, the minutes ticking by, he figured out what Ivanov was up to. He was in there right now, blaming him for the missing funds. He'd probably already ordered someone to begin creating a false trail between him and Dorfman. That way, when it really did blow up, Ivanov could step back and blame his inept deputy Shvets. Shvets didn't know if he was more upset with Ivanov or with himself for not seeing it sooner. He should have left him in bed and gone to Primakov and taken his chances.

  When the door finally opened, Ivanov appeared with a stoic look on his face. He never broke stride as he headed for the elevator. As he walked past his deputy he snapped his fingers for him to follow. Shvets hopped to his feet and buttoned his jacket, hustling to catch up.

  Once in the elevator, Shvets asked, "Well?"

  "It was good. He understands what must be done."

  Shvets started to ask another question, but Ivanov shook his head in a very curt way that told him this was not the place to talk. When they entered Ivanov's office less than a minute later, the director of Directorate S went straight for the vodka. Shvets did not try to stop him this time. It was approaching midafternoon, and he took it as a victory that he'd kept him sober this long. He waited for his boss to consume a few ounces.

  When Ivanov looked relaxed enough, Shvets asked, "What did he say?"

  Ivanov yanked at his tie. "He sees things our way. He knows the true character of those Palestinian carpet monkeys."

  Shvets was used to his boss uttering racist slurs, so he paid them little attention. He also knew that his boss was paranoid enough in general, but especially today. He was worried his office was bugged. "So what is the plan?"

  "We leave in the morning."

  "Alone?" Shvets asked, honestly scared.

  "No." Ivanov had a huge grin. "The director has been quite generous. He is sending along some Spetsnaz. One of the crack Vympel units."

  Shvets wasn't sure if that was good or bad news. The Vympel units specialized in assassination and sabotage, among other things. "Why a Vympel unit?"

  "Because he's sending us with cash."

  "How much?"

  Ivanov smiled and held up five fingers.

  "Really?" Shvets's surprise was evident on his face.

  "Don't be so shocked. I have no doubt it will be counterfeit. Probably being printed as we speak."

  Shvets had heard rumors about the old KGB printing presses that could turn out francs, deutsche marks, pounds, and dollars on demand. "Will they be able to tell?"

  "If the Americans can't tell, how will the Palestinians be able to tell?"

  Shvets wasn't so sure but he went along with it.

  "Don't look so nervous." Ivanov came over and put an arm around Shvets's shoulders. "I told him how useful you have been to me. I have no doubt that when we return with these mystery Americans you will be given a nice promotion."

  Shvets smiled, even though he didn't feel like it. The truth was, there was probably a better than even chance that he'd be given a dirty, dank cell.

  CHAPTER 56

  BEIRUT, LEBANON

  ACCORDING to Ridley, it was very poor spycraft to meet a source at a safe house, but for this particular source they made exceptions. The reason was fairly straightforward. The source owned the house. Levon Petrosian had the complexion of someone who was born further north, but had lived long enough in the sun-baked city that his skin was deeply lined and had taken on the appearance of a permanent sunburn. His white hair had receded almost to the midpoint of his head, and he was a good fifty pounds overweight. He entered the house out of breath, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his four bodyguards moving in tandem, two in front and two behind. The bodyguards were young, big, and fit. Two looked like locals and two had Petrosian's northern complexion.

  Petrosian walked over to Ridley, grabbed him by the shoulders, and kissed the American on both cheeks, and then, refusing to let go, he stared into Ridley's eyes and spoke to him. His face didn't so much as twitch. His eyes didn't blink. Only his lips moved. After the intense one-sided exchange, the Armenian gave Ridley one more hug and then his eyes lifted and settled on Rapp. He released Ridley and asked, "is this the one?"

  Ridley nodded.

  Petrosian sized Rapp up and then announced, "I must shake your hand."

  The man spoke perfect English, but with one of those clipped heavy Russian accents. Rapp couldn't come up with a single good reason why this man would want to shake his hand, but he stuck his right hand out as a polite reflex.

  In a voice only the two of them could hear he said, "I have hated that Turkish pig Hamdi Sharif for almost twenty years. I want to thank you for putting a bullet in his black heart. When I heard he was dead I wept tears of joy."

  Rapp's own heart began to beat a little faster. How in hell did this man know he had killed Sharif? Rapp tilted his head to the left to so he could get a look at Ridley. The man shrugged his shoulders as if to say he was sorry. So much for secrecy.

  "I am very sorry about Bill."

  Rapp had to remind himself that to these people, Stan Hurley was Bill Sherman. "Thank you. Have you found any information that may help us?"

  He winced as if disappointed in himself. "I'm not sure if it will help, but maybe. I confirmed that it was the police that picked our friend up in front of his hotel this morning. In fact it was the police chief, that pig Gabir Haddad."

  "Haddad is not a bad man," Ridley said for Rapp's benefit. "Just extremely corrupt. He works with us sometimes."

  "He works with anyone if they have enough money," Petrosian said.

  "Levon, anything to drink?"

  "No, thank you. My stomach is upset today."

  "So this Haddad," Rapp said, "who gave him the order?"

  "I am fairly certain it was your friends from Islamic Jihad, but I will know more later. I am having dinner with Haddad this evening."

  "His idea or yours?" Ridley asked.

  "His ... He is afraid he has offended me, which he has, of course. He knows he cannot simply come into my neighborhood and grab my friends. It would have been nice if you had told me Bill was coming. All of this could have been avoided."

  "I know ... I already told you I was sorry. He was planning on seeing you today. He didn't want word getting out that he was back."

  "And how did that work out for him?"

  "I know ... but just be careful with Haddad. We can't afford to lose you."

  "I am always careful. It will be at a restaurant of my choosing, and I will make sure the street is blocked off. Trust me ... he's the one who needs to be nervous."

  "That's what worries me. What if he's desperate?"

  "He has always been a desperate little man. He knows what he did this morning was wrong. He will be full of fear, and I will play on that fear to get every last piece of information from him."

  "Any idea where they took him?" Rapp asked.

  "That is the question, isn't it? Where did they take him?" Petrosian shuffled across the stone floor and out onto the veranda. "Beirut is not a small city. It is not like your New York or Chicago, but it is not small. Have you figured out how they found him?"

  "No," Ridley said. "He flew in last night shortly after nine. That's all we know."

  "I have talked to the people at the hotel, and I am satisfied that they did not know who he was. Somebody must have spotted him at the airport. From the old days. He made a big enough impression in certain circles, and those little Palestinian rats do all the dirty work at the airport. Baggage and fueling ... cleaning the planes and the terminal. They treat it like their own little syndicate," Petrosian said with contempt. "I have heard rumors that some of the cab drivers are involved in a kidnapping ring."

  "Would they have any pull with Haddad?" Ridley asked, thinking of the police chief.

  "No," Petrosian answ
ered as he flicked a long ash over the edge and onto the cars below. "That would have to be someone much higher up. My guess is the same people who grabbed your other man ... the Schnoz ... Isn't that what you call him?"

  "Yes. You mean Islamic Jihad?"

  "Correct ... with the help of a few others."

  "Anything else?"

  "Little things here and there." Petrosian paused and chewed on his lip for a moment. "Have you heard about this standoff at Martys' Square?"

  "I heard a little something yesterday, but not much."

  "It is a funny thing," Petrosian said while looking off into the distance.

  "What you talking about?" Rapp asked.

  Ridley pointed to the north. "Follow the scar to the sea ... one block short, you can see an open area. That's Martyrs' Square."

  "Before the war it was a beautiful place. Full of life," Petrosian said in a sad voice.

  "It was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting during the war," Ridley added. "The buildings are all empty shells now."

  "Now that the cease-fire has held, certain groups have gotten the idea that it is time to grab land while they still can. The Maronites started earlier in the week and they began occupying the buildings along the east side of the square. The Muslims got word and started moving their people into a building on the west side."

  Rapp looked at the spit of land. He guessed it was around two miles away. "Does that mean a fight is brewing?"

  "Part of me wishes they would all just kill each other so the rest of us can pick up the pieces and get back to where we were before this mess started, but I know that this is not the answer. We need the peace to hold."

  "And how does this Martyrs' Square situation figure into our other problem?"

  "It might not, but then again manpower is an issue."

  "Manpower?" Rapp asked, not understanding.

  "These groups are like any organization. They have limited resources. They have to collect garbage, collect taxes, man their roadblocks, punish those who aren't behaving ... the list goes on and on. The point is, if they are forced to hold the west end of Martyrs' Square they will be weak in other places."

  Rapp wondered how he could use that to his advantage. As the sun moved across the afternoon sky he got the sinking feeling that they were losing an opportunity. That if they didn't act, didn't do something bold and do it soon, Richards and Hurley would share the same fate of Bill Buckley.

  CHAPTER 57

  HURLEY had lost track of time. After the fingernail incident, they'd left him alone. Turned off the light and shut the door. He sat in the chair, his arms duct-taped to the armrests and his ankles to the two front legs. His chest and shoulders were also taped to the chair back. Big loops of silver tape, as if he were a mummy. For the first few hours he tried to catalogue everything he'd seen, said, and heard. Abu Radih was what he'd expected--a thin-skinned overwrought child in a man's body. If he was lucky, he could provoke the man into killing him. That was the first priority. He had to enrage the man to the point where he defied the orders of the others. Go down fighting. He dozed off thinking of his own death. What a beautiful death it would be if he could pull it off. Exercise his will over a free man. Inflict enough mental pain on Radih to get him to do something he himself knew was wrong.

  The thought brought a smile to his swollen lips, and then he let his chin rest on his chest and went to sleep. He awoke some time later. It could have been an hour, three hours, or half a day, and what did it really matter? The stink in the room was horrendous, but it was far better than the hood. He needed to go to the bathroom, so he whizzed right there, letting it splash over the seat of the chair onto the concrete floor. That helped him relax a little bit, but his fingers were starting to really sting, so he started talking to God to take his mind off the pain.

  Hurley had no illusions about his potential for sainthood. He pretty much knew where he was headed when it was over, and yes, he did believe in the man upstairs and the man downstairs. He'd seen too much nasty shit in his life to think for a second that there wasn't both good and evil in this world. Where he fit into that paradigm was a little more complicated. One of his favorite aphorisms involved sending Boy Scouts after bad men. Good people needed men like Hurley even if they couldn't bring themselves to admit it. Maybe God would take pity on him. Maybe he wouldn't.

  Hurley bowed his head and asked for forgiveness for any of the innocent people he'd killed over the years, but that was as far as he was willing to go. The assholes, he would not apologize for. He then nodded off to sleep again. He awoke later to the sounds of a man screaming. He knew instantly that it was Richards. What they were doing to him, Hurley could only imagine. The screams came and went, rising and falling like waves crashing into the rocks. And then Hurley could tell by the steady rhythm what they were doing. They were electrocuting him and they weren't bothering to ask questions. They were just trying to wear him down. Listening to the pain of one of his own men was the most difficult thing of all.

  Hurley bowed his head again and asked God for the strength to kill these men. It went like this for four or five cycles. He tried not to obsess over the time. When he was awake, he tried to prepare himself for what would come next. With an almost endless string of awful possibilities, there was one in particular that had him worried, and when the door finally opened, it was if his captors had read his mind.

  A man entered, plugged in the cord for the light, and there in the doorway was a bloodied and battered Richards. Two men were at his sides, holding him up. His wrists were bound in front of him with duct tape. The red marks on his chest confirmed what they had been doing, although it wasn't all. Richards's face was beaten and swollen--one of his eyes completely shut.

  Sayyed entered the room, a man following him with a chair similar to the one Hurley was in. He showed the man where to place it and said to Hurley, "How are you feeling today?"

  "Great!" Hurley said with enthusiasm. "You guys really do a nice job of making people feel comfortable."

  "Yes." Sayyed smiled. "I'm sure you would show us the same hospitality if we were in your country."

  "Slightly better," Hurley said, flashing the new gap in his teeth. "You know how competitive we Americans are. We didn't put a man on the moon by making our women walk around in sheets all day and blowing ourselves up."

  "We all know that was faked."

  "Sure it was," Hurley said agreeably as they placed Richards in the other chair. One of the men produced a knife so he could cut Richards's duct tape. Hurley wanted that knife, and in Arabic asked, "Where's my buddy Radih? Either of you boys ever get a blow job from his mom?" Hurley then launched into an invective-filled description of the sex acts that Radih's mom used to perform for him.

  Sayyed would never admit it, but this American's descriptive abilities were in a league of their own. In fact, the descriptions were so detailed that even he wondered for a second if it could be true.

  Hurley read the unsure looks on the faces of the two goons and said, "You really didn't know Radih's mother was a whore? You should try her some time. She's getting a little up there in age ... not quite as tight a fit, if you know what I mean." Hurley winked at them as if they were of the same mind.

  "That will be enough," Sayyed said. He ordered the men to finish taping Richards's wrists to the chair. When they were finished he told them they could wait outside.

  Hurley smiled at them and waited until they were at the door and then shouted, "Don't forget to ask Radih about his mother. Dirtiest piece of ass I've ever had."

  The door closed with a click. Sayyed placed his hands on his hips and let out an exasperated sigh.

  "It's true," Hurley said, punctuating his words with an emphatic nod. "The woman was a sex machine. She should have paid me."

  Doctrine told Sayyed he should ignore the comments, but he felt that he needed to say something. "You are a very interesting man, Mr. Sherman. You must be very unsure of yourself."

  "Why do you say that, Colonel?"
>
  "It is so obvious. Do I really have to say it?"

  "Well, unless I've learned how to read minds since we last saw each other, I suggest you spit it out."

  "You are afraid you won't be able to stand up to my methods, so you are trying to enrage my colleague to the point where he kills you."

  Hurley screwed on a confused look. "Colonel, you give me way too much credit. I'm not that smart. I'm just a horny bastard who's slept with a ton of prostitutes ... one of whom just happens to Radih's mom."

  Sayyed laughed at him. "You are an unusual man."

  "What do I have to do to get you guys to take me seriously? I'm going to lie to you about a lot of shit, but I am dead serious about Radih's mom, and I'm not knocking the woman, she was amazing. And besides, you can't blame a woman for trying to put some food on the table. Can you?"

  Sayyed thought about that for a second and simply shook his head. It was time to take charge again. He wheeled his little cart over and checked his instruments. When he was ready he broke open some smelling salts and stuck them under the other American's nose. Richards snorted and opened his eyes. Turning back to the foul-mouthed older one, he said, "Your friend, Mr. Richards, was kind enough to give us his name."

  "Never heard of him."

  "Yes ... well, let's see if we can jog your memory. This is what we are going to do." Sayyed picked up the tin snips and said, "I will ask you a question. If you refuse to answer or lie I will cut off one of his fingers."

  "Cool." Hurley straightened up as much as the tape would allow. "I'd like to see you cut one off right now. Go ahead ... let's get started."