The Assassins Part 29

Landing, they taxied past the terminal and toward a short line of private jets then parked, the motors decelerating. Their Gulfstream was the largest one there. A row of small-craft hangars stood off to the side.

Jack and George left the c.o.c.kpit and pulled on their dark blue cashmere jackets, which matched their dark blue cashmere pants. Their shirts were crisp white, their ties matching-blue and orange stripes. They adjusted their flat-topped hats. Shiny gold wings were pinned atop their shoulders. There was a slight bulge inside each's jacket where their pistols were holstered.

"My G.o.d, you look like professionals," Morgan said.

"Naturally." Jack gestured. "If you please, George."

"Delighted." George opened the jet's door and let down the staircase.

Warm, dry air wafted into the plane.

Bosa handed Jack a wad of euros. In Jack's other hand were six pa.s.sports-four were for Bosa, Jack, George, and Morgan and were as realistic as a small fortune could buy, one was for Judd from the selection of cover ident.i.ties he had brought from home in his backpack, while the last one was more obviously fraudulent, despite Doug's fancy computer work applying Eva's photo.

Jack headed down the staircase. George followed.

Morgan and Bosa remained in their seats, while Judd and Eva peered out their windows at the transaction below. The customs inspector was a sharp-eyed man with a drooping mustache, a gray uniform, and brown loafers. His gaze was on the euros.

Judd watched as the man pocketed the cash. His smile was huge, but then the tip was probably two months of income for him. Without examining the pa.s.sports, he stamped them and handed them back. He gazed up at the jet and waved. And then for the briefest of moments, his expression changed. There was surprise and some kind of recognition.

"What just happened?" Eva asked.

"I'm not sure," Judd said.

Bosa frowned. "Is there a problem?"

"We'll let you know," Judd told him.

The inspector started to back off. Jack put his hand over his heart and nodded, saying good-bye. The inspector rallied and placed his hand over his heart in response. Then he hurriedly walked away.

Jack pushed his hat up on the back of his head and put his hands on his hips, watching the customs official's retreat. He had sensed something had happened, too.

All of a sudden the customs man broke into a trot and put a cell phone to his ear.

Immediately, Jack and George ran, chasing him.

On the plane, Judd jumped up. "We've got a problem, Bosa."

Judd bolted down the staircase, Eva close behind. Their feet pounded over the tarmac. Ahead of them, Jack and George huffed, their arms pumping as they pursued.

Judd pa.s.sed the older pair just as the customs official glanced over his shoulder. His eyes opened wide in alarm, and he put on a burst of speed.

But Judd was close. He accelerated and rammed his shoulder into the inspector's back. Propelled forward, the man stumbled, crashed, and slid belly first across the tarmac. Somehow, Judd kept his balance, ran past, and pivoted.

As he hurried back, Jack and George grabbed the man under his arms and hauled him up to his feet.

"What in h.e.l.l was that all about?" Jack asked him in Arabic.

The customs official panted. His face dripped sweat. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a crumpled paper.

Two shots rang out. The inspector's throat exploded. Blood and flesh spurted.

Judd grabbed Eva and pulled her down. Jack and George hit the ground, too. Peering up and around, Judd saw two men with automatic rifles standing outside the pa.s.senger terminal. They aimed again.

Suddenly a fusillade of gunfire exploded from the plane, ripping through the attackers' torsos.

Judd turned again, seeing Bosa standing at the top of the jet's stairs, a menacing figure, expressionless, an AK-47 in his hands. The attackers had been focused on the customs official. Bosa had been focused on them. Whatever the customs inspector knew, the attackers did not want him to tell it.

Judd scanned the area. No one else was in sight, but that would not last forever.

"We've got to get the h.e.l.l out of here!" Bosa yelled from the staircase. "Jack and George, stash the bodies in one of those hangars."

In a flurry of activity, everyone rushed to do their jobs. Judd s.n.a.t.c.hed up the inspector's cell phone and the crumpled paper then sprinted to the jet, following Bosa and Eva inside.

Morgan was waiting for them with their backpacks.

Bosa barked orders to Doug. "Tell Jack and George to fly this crate out of here ASAP, rent a new one, and fly back. This time they should land at Al-Rasheed. Text, don't call unless you absolutely have to."

Leaving Doug behind, they hurried down the staircase again. The bodies of the customs inspector and the two other men were no longer where they had fallen. Jack and George were at the row of small hangars, dragging them inside.

In the lead, Judd and Eva sprinted toward the gate in the chain-link fence.

"Where are the police?" Eva asked as they ran. "At least airport security should be here. They had to have heard the gunshots. There aren't even any sirens."

"Welcome to Baghdad," Judd said grimly. He gestured at the skyline, where two more plumes of brown and gray smoke spread upward. "Today's bombings are our compet.i.tion for official attention. Otherwise, security would be crawling up to our hairlines. Right now, it's good for us. Later on, it might not be."

The lock on the gate had been shot out. Judd shoved the gate open, and they jogged to the pair of black SUVs, stopping between them where they were least exposed. He peered back across the tarmac-Bosa and Morgan were hurrying to catch up.

He opened the crumpled paper. "Let's see what set off the customs inspector."

It was a flyer. The centerpiece was a photo of Eva and him, crouched in shadows but peering up. Judd translated the first three lines from the Arabic: 10,000 REWARD For the Location of Greg & Courtney Roman "Then it goes on to say we're in our thirties and either American or British," he told her. "There's no name to contact, but a local Baghdad number to call."

"When the customs man looked up at the plane, he must've recognized us," she said.

Judd was studying the photo. "This was shot at the back of Liza's garage. It's probably from one of Liza's security cameras. We told her we were hunting for Seymour, remember?"

"She could've easily sold the photo and information to him. Maybe a copy of the CD, too. G.o.d knows how many places the flyer's been distributed." Eva shook her head. "We just got to Baghdad, and we're already blown."

They stared worriedly into each other's eyes. Perhaps it was the constant strain of being on the run and now finding out the danger was intensifying. Or perhaps it was the frustration that came from two people in love whose paths had intersected for a few unforgettable days and then cruelly, by their own choices, diverged. Whatever it was, Judd was afraid one or both might die before he could tell her how much she meant to him, that he was a sorry-a.s.s fool, that if he had to do it all over again.... He tried to control his pounding heart. Tried not to reach for her. But then he saw something shift in her gaze, a softening, and somehow tension left her face. She stepped into his arms. They stood there in the bright Baghdad sun sheltered between the two big SUVs, holding each other tightly as if nothing else mattered.

"G.o.d, you feel good," she murmured. "I'm sorry I doubted you."

"I'd never hurt you, Eva," he said earnestly. "You're more important to me than my own life-"

She touched her fingertips to his lips. "Don't say that."

"But it's true. I want us to be really us again."

Suddenly her arms were around his neck, and she was kissing him.

He pulled her into him, crushing her to him, tasting her lips, her mouth, inhaling her rose scent.

She broke away first. "Yes, when-not if-when this is all over, let's try again."

Then he felt her stiffen. She was looking past him. Bosa and Morgan had arrived, trotting sweaty-faced between the SUVs.

Morgan a.s.sessed the situation. "Your timing stinks, but you're cute."

"Get in the SUVs," Bosa ordered. "We've got work to do."

72.

Her heart full of emotion, Eva watched through the windshield as Judd drove off in an SUV, with Bosa in the pa.s.senger seat. Their speeding rear tires sent gravel pinging against the chain-link fence. The two men were late for their rendezvous in Baghdad and worried their source might leave before they got there.

With effort, she turned her attention to Morgan. They were in the front seat of the other SUV. Morgan had insisted on driving, explaining he had been in Baghdad many times and was fluent in Arabic. He was probably right-but all he was doing was sitting behind the steering wheel and examining the cell phone Judd had found on the dead customs man.

"Let's go," she said impatiently. "Maybe we'll get lucky and spot al-Sabah at SIL headquarters."

But Morgan had not even turned on the ignition. "Not yet. I'm working on something. Ah, here it is. Redial." He tapped a b.u.t.ton and lifted the phone to his ear. "Trouble!" he announced in panicked Arabic into the phone. "Need help!" He ended the connection.

He had sounded so terrified that she had felt her chest contract.

He glanced at her. "Pretty b.l.o.o.d.y convincing, aren't I?"

"Why did you make that call?"

"I want to see how many more of Seymour's people are around here and what they'll do." He opened his backpack and took out a canvas case.

"Now what?"

"Directional mike. Low self-noise, high consonant articulation, and good feedback rejection. Compact and top of the line. Takes video, too. Hope someone shows up." He rolled down his window and rested the mike on the side-view mirror. All of the windows in the vehicle were darkened, including front and rear windshields.

Jack had already flown the jet away. In the distance, airport personnel were working around the planes parked at the terminal. No one was near the private jets.

And then two men ran out of the terminal. They had cell phones in their hands. Both seemed to be dialing out. Instantly Morgan turned on the mike and aimed it.

The phone lying on the dashboard rang.

"One's calling here," Eva said. "The other must be dialing one of the guys who answered the inspector's call."

"That's what I'd do," Morgan said.

Abruptly the pair stopped and stared down at the tarmac.

As they talked, Morgan translated for her: "They believe they're looking at blood. They're wondering where the two other men are."

The men looked up and yelled what sounded like names. Surveying the area, they ran again toward where the rental jet had been parked. Again they stopped and peered down, this time at the place where the customs inspector had died.

"More blood," Morgan explained. "One of them is phoning someone named Jabari. It sounds as if Jabari's important in al-Sabah's organization. They're telling him the customs inspector found Greg and Courtney Roman, but now there's blood in two places, the jet is gone, and the Romans, the inspector, and the two men are missing." After more gazing around, the two new men looked down again. "There are some drops of blood. They're following them." Periodically glancing at the tarmac, the pair ran toward the small hangars. They tried doors. "They've found one with a broken lock," Morgan told her. "Guess why."

"George and Jack broke it so they could dump the bodies inside."

"Bingo."

Because the men were out of sight, there was no way the directional mike would work. Morgan and she sat in silence. He seemed relaxed.

"Aren't you worried?" she asked.

"About what? Two bungnuts who have to report in to a boss who really isn't the boss but works for a worse SOB than he ever dreamed of being."

The men reappeared, talking as they hurried to the terminal.

Morgan aimed the mike again. "They're leaving the bodies where they are," he translated, "and they'll tell the coppers they saw you and Judd kill them."

She felt a jolt of fear. "That's just wonderful. Now every policeman in Baghdad will be looking to welcome us."

Morgan waved at her to be quiet. The men were still speaking. "Ah-ha. Now we're getting somewhere." He listened, his gaunt face intense. "They're going to meet Jabari." He turned on the ignition. "They're parked near the front of the terminal. We'll follow. Call Bosa and tell him what we're doing."

73.

There had been no bombings in downtown Baghdad for more than an hour. People emerged from shops and stores to peer around nervously then move briskly off, heading home, for errands, or perhaps to the local cafe. Walking toward a large Shiite mosque with a blue-tiled dome, al-Sabah pa.s.sed a man with a pushcart kitchen who was slicing thin cuts of meat from a rotisserie for shawarma, flatbread sandwiches. The mouth-watering aroma of grilling lamb drifted along the sidewalk. A crowd was gathering. Doing ordinary things helped people to feel normal, al-Sabah noted. The human animal was predictable.

Skirting the group, he stepped through a door into a thousand-year-old Shiite mosque that had been built of stone laid upon stone secured not by mortar but by the finest craftsmanship. Continuing down a corridor, he knocked on a polished wood door and entered a small whitewashed room with large framed portraits of Imam Ali and his son Hussein, the founders of Shiism, on two walls and of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 revolution, on a third.

Across the room, kneeling on the floor in the traditional pose, his back to the wall, was Ayatollah Abdel-Hussein Gilani. Looking up, he closed the Koran and rose. With his long gray beard streaked with snowy white, his high-bridged nose, and his black, intelligent eyes, Gilani was the picture of a Shiite patriarch. He wore a light gray robe, black loafers, and the black turban that told the world he was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. At the moment, his gaze was kindly and interested, but Gilani was a follower of Imam Khomeini, who believed all of G.o.d's authority was vested in the supreme leader and senior religious scholars.

They exchanged the usual affectionate greetings.

"Allaa bil-kheir," Ayatollah Gilani said. G.o.d bless.

"Shall we walk?" al-Sabah, the courteous host, asked.

"Yes, let's do."

With a gracious gesture, al-Sabah invited the ayatollah to precede him into the corridor. Like Baghdad's oldest houses, the mosque was built around a courtyard rimmed by colonnaded porticos. And, too, like the oldest houses, the great building was inward-looking, sealed off from the street on the ground floor except for a single door in each of its four exterior walls, all of which fronted streets. Al-Sabah and Gilani, who was still carrying his Koran, walked beneath an arch and into the central courtyard, an emerald-green oasis of plum, apricot, and walnut trees with winding paths and hard-packed sand areas for prayer rugs. When they saw the ayatollah, the men who had been reading or praying retreated respectfully to the porticos and vanished into the mosque, leaving al-Sabah and Gilani alone.

It had all begun in 2003, when al-Sabah and his boyhood friend Tabrizi had founded the SIL political party in Baghdad, sharing a vision of Iraq once again at the heart of a powerful and important Shiite world. Al-Sabah had used his old Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah contacts to set up meetings with mullahs from Iran's ruling clerical cla.s.s.