The Assassins Part 33

"It's one against five. You won't have a chance. If I stay, too, we can beat them."

He glared at her. "Better still for you to listen to someone who's done this sort of thing before. I can handle five. Besides, our first priority is getting out the alert-more important than my survival, or even yours."

"You're an a.s.sa.s.sin. You kill people for a living. Why are you doing this?"

"I take pride in my work. That means I'm not a ma.s.s murderer."

Eva nodded. "Okay. what were those insults you promised me?"

"Stand up and yell as bitterly as you can, 'Ya khorg.'"

"What's it mean?"

"'a.s.shole.' Move!"

Shimmying up the pole, Eva balanced on her feet. "Hey, ya khorg!" she shouted.

The Iraqis looked at Eva, puzzled, then at one another. Two shrugged. All went back to work as if nothing had happened.

"Bidde neek immak," whispered Morgan.

"Bidde neek immak!" The Iraqis looked at her again. "Bidde neek immak!"

Morgan chuckled and whispered, "That's 'f.u.c.k your mother.' You got their attention. Pick one of them and yell 'mos era' at him. That's 'suck a d.i.c.k.'"

She chose the nearest Iraqi and leaned toward him. "Mos era!"

Staring at her, the man folded his arms across his chest as if summoning patience.

"Now try 'yebnen kelp,'" Morgan said. "That means 'son of a dog.'"

"Yebnen kelp!" Eva spat at the man.

The man turned to the others, said something, and nodded at Eva. He started walking toward her.

"Tfoo ala wishak," Morgan said, "and spit again. That was a good idea, especially now. It means 'I spit in your face.'"

Eva bellowed tfoo ala wishak at the man. She spat.

That did it. The Iraqi's eyes narrowed to angry slits. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an automatic. Flipping it into the air, he caught it by the muzzle, ready to whack Eva. Head lowered, he paced toward her.

She spat one last time. This time some of her spittle splashed him.

She could see his face darken, his lips thin. He was seething. He was almost within striking distance. As he drew back his gun, he took one more step, and she braced, lifted her knee, and slammed her foot up into his crotch. It was a good, solid blow.

He groaned and sagged in pain, gripping himself. Smiling, Eva kicked him under his jaw. His head snapped back. Like a praying mantis, Morgan was on him. He slashed the man's jugular, spun around behind Eva, and cut the rope that bound her wrists. Reversing direction, Morgan returned to the shuddering body, crouched, grabbed the man's gun, thumbed the hammer back, and fired two rounds across the dying man at the men working on the mortars.

Eva dropped to her hands and knees and rifled through the man's pockets, searching for a cell.

Surprised by Morgan's sudden a.s.sault, al-Sabah's men were slow to reach for their weapons. Morgan's third shot hit one in the chest, slamming him down on his back. Morgan's next bullet got another one in the hip.

The men scattered, several scrambling aft toward the wheelhouse for cover. One sprinted starboard and dived among the chairs and tables, while another hit the deck, fumbling for his weapon. He was the closest. Morgan rushed him, firing twice before the man could train his pistol. The man's face exploded. Morgan rolled the corpse onto its side, revealing the man's automatic. Now Morgan had two pistols. He stretched out behind the corpse, using him for cover.

"Did you find a phone?" he shouted back at Eva.

"No!"

"Come here, I'll cover you." He fired at the man hiding in the furniture, then at the first target he saw by the wheelhouse.

An instant later Eva was lying next to him.

"Take this and shoot anything that moves." Morgan handed her one of the pistols.

The Iraqi hiding in the furniture fired wildly. One of his rounds shattered the railing behind Eva and Morgan, and a second buried itself in the deck.

Eva fired back as Morgan rolled the body, patting its pockets. She fired a second time, and her target dropped his gun and grabbed his thigh. She pivoted to her right and fired twice more, once at a man peering around the wheelhouse and once into the wheelhouse.

"Got it!" Morgan thrust a cell phone at Eva. "Fully charged."

"Good." She took the phone and gave him the automatic.

He fired at a man moving toward one of the empty crates. Missing, he fired again directly at the crate the man had disappeared behind. "Get the h.e.l.l out of here!"

Eva hesitated, putting a hand on his shoulder. Morgan was trembling. His skeletal face was covered with sweat. Her throat tightened with worry.

He swung his head around and frowned. "No time for f.u.c.king sentiment. Run!" he bellowed.

Her heart in her throat, Eva scrambled up and zigzagged the twenty-five feet to the bow, bullets spitting into the deck and shooting up sharp slivers of wood. A hand on the railing, she vaulted overboard. She spread her left arm and legs wide and kept her right arm straight up, phone in hand. She hit the water hard, the cold swallowing her, pulling her under. Darkness engulfed her. And then she bobbed to the surface. She looked up at the phone and said a silent prayer of thanksgiving. It was dry.

She rolled onto her back and flutter-kicked under the bow. Treading water, she angled the phone to catch moonlight and saw the icons on this Arabic phone were identical to the American ones with which she was familiar. She dialed Judd's number. It rang twice, then went to voice mail. Frustrated, she waited for the beep signaling the end of the message. Automatic arms fire opened up above her, intermittent with the less-rapid fire of what she hoped was Morgan's weapon.

She spoke in a rushed voice: "Judd, I'm on a yacht in the Tigris. Al-Sabah's men are setting up big-time mortars on the deck to attack the U.S. Emba.s.sy. Looks like they'll start shooting soon. Don't return my call."

She thought for a moment. She had Gloria Feit's number, too. Tucker had insisted she memorize it. On the second ring, Gloria picked up.

"Gloria, it's Eva Blake. I'm in Baghdad. Actually, I'm under the bow of a yacht in the Tigris, treading water while I talk to you. Iraqi terrorists are getting ready to sh.e.l.l our emba.s.sy from the yacht. The man behind it is a local politician named Siraj al-Sabah." She spelled the name. "He's probably the a.s.sa.s.sin known as Seymour. Burleigh Morgan is on board, trying to stop them. If he can't, there's going to be a sh.e.l.ling." As gunfire sounded above, she lifted the cell. Returning it to her ear, she said, "Did you hear that?"

"Yes." As expected, Gloria was quick to understand. "How do I know it's you, Eva?"

"Judd Ryder and I got here this afternoon. Don't ask how. We left Tucker in a Maryland hospital with"-a burst of automatic weapons fire drowned her out-"a head wound. Judd's somewhere in Baghdad, but I can't reach him to get help."

"Where are you?"

"The yacht is in the Tigris south of the main part of the city, west of a bridge, and northwest of what looks like a refinery."

At that moment there was a fusillade of fire from above. The surface of the water erupted in a wide arc, crashing down on her. The Iraqis were shooting down, trying to hit her. In a moment they would fire under the bow. She had to move. She ended the call.

81.

As soon as Morgan heard a solid splash near the bow, he exhaled, relieved. Oddly, none of the Iraqis had fired at him once Eva went overboard.

Frowning, he decided they probably had automatic weapons and had been quiet only because they were locating and loading them. If that were true, then the corpse he had been using for cover would be lousy protection. He had to keep the men busy so Eva had enough time to make as many phone calls as she needed. He looked quickly around. There was the furniture along both sides of the boat-flimsy cover at best-and there was the wheelhouse, but that was closer to them than it was to him.

And there were the mortars. Better yet, there were the piles of Strix rounds. The Iraqis could not shoot if he hid behind them for fear of setting them off or at least rendering them useless. On the other hand, hiding behind deadly munitions might decrease his chance of survival. He felt a rush-poor odds thrilled him.

He studied the rounds: The Iraqis had stacked them in two groups of eighteen-enough for a two-gun, two-minute attack, which would do enough damage that it could kill hundreds and take months to repair. Each stack was about a yard wide and twenty inches high. Decent cover.

He fired twice more at the wheelhouse, jumped up over the body, dashed across the deck, and hurled himself behind the munitions pile closest to the bow. Christ, that hurt. Pain throbbed in his arthritic knees and ankles, and landing lengthwise on the hardwood was like slamming into a bulldozer. With the back of his hand, he wiped sweat from his face. He ma.s.saged his left elbow.

With the crack of gunfire, bullets zinged overhead. He had been right-they were deliberately firing above him, avoiding hitting the ammo.

He knew what they would do next. Some would continue to fire over his head or to his left, away from the nearest mortar, to keep him down. Others would advance along the side of the boat on his left and right, trying to flank him. In fact, if they were smart, one or more would take to the dory, paddle around, and attack him from behind.

He peered around the right end of the Strix stack. Sure enough, someone was low-crawling along the port gunwale. A quick shot, and the man collapsed. By Morgan's count, that meant three were left. His odds were improving. Another burst overhead, after which he heard what sounded like a splash, coming from his left. It could not be Eva, not from his left. Morgan longed for a hand grenade. Another burst overhead. He peered around the left end of the stack and then again around the right end. n.o.body visible. Another burst, probably to m.u.f.fle the sounds of the man or men in the water. Morgan flipped over so his back rested against the Strix ordnance. The attack would come up over the gunwale, probably from the starboard because a shot from the bow risked hitting the projectiles.

A moment later a hand reached up and grasped a stanchion, at the starboard rail. It was dead even with the post Morgan had been tied to. He brought his right foot up under his b.u.t.tock and rested his right pistol hand on his knee, training it on the Iraqi's fingers. A couple of seconds later a forehead appeared. Morgan fired, and the forehead splattered and dropped back out of sight.

An instant later, Morgan felt a hammer blow to his right midsection. He turned to see the man who had been hidden in the furniture aim his weapon again.

Morgan tried to swing his pistol to his right but could not get his arm to move. The man fired again, and a powerful impact to his right shoulder smacked Morgan flat on the deck on his left side. His right arm refused to work. He could not defend himself. The man was yelling something.

Morgan still had a pistol in his left hand. He managed to move his left arm so he could aim at the laptop hooked to the nearest mortar. He fired into the screen. He heard someone run past him toward the bow. He heard automatic gunfire at the bow. Now a man was standing over him, aiming a pistol at his face. The last thing Morgan saw was the man's finger contracting the trigger.

82.

Washington, D.C.

When the phone went dead, Gloria got up from her desk and headed to Scott Bridgeman's office. The door was closed. She knocked once and opened it without waiting for an invitation. Bridgeman was on the phone. His youthful face looked at her with sharp disapproval.

"Hang up, quick," she told him.

His forehead knitted in surprise. He ended the connection. "This had better be good, Gloria," he warned.

"Go to our recorded calls." She pointed to his phone. "You've got to listen to the message that just came in."

He punched a couple of b.u.t.tons, then put the conversation on speakerphone. Eva's message replayed perfectly, the gunfire loud and lethal.

"Dammit all to h.e.l.l." He shook his head. "What do you make of it?"

"Don't take a chance, boss. Let me order up the satellite feed, and we can try to locate the yacht and confirm the mortars."

The National Reconnaissance Office oversaw the designing, building, launching, and maintaining of U.S. intelligence satellites, while the National Security Agency collected and a.n.a.lyzed foreign communications and signals intelligence. Catapult had been supplied with a direct feed of live satellite imagery. The satellites over Baghdad were so good they could read the playing cards at a poker game at midnight.

Without a word, Bridgeman rose from his desk and hurried out. Gloria followed as he headed down the hall to IT. He opened the door on a rumble of voices and clicking keyboards. Worktables arranged in neat rows housed a dozen secure computers and phones. The usual cans of soda, crumpled take-out sacks, and empty pizza boxes littered the area, impregnating everything with the salt-and-grease odor of fast food. The place radiated a sense of urgency.

Debi Watson, the manager, was studying one of the sixteen monitors hung on the opposite wall. A pretty young brunette in a short black skirt and pink sweater, she turned as soon as they walked in.

"Yes, sir?" she said.

"Show me the Tigris River south of the center of Baghdad, east of a bridge and northwest of a refinery," Bridgeman commanded.

"Bones Howe, this one's for you," she ordered.

A freckle-faced young man at a keyboard quickly tapped keys, moved a mouse, and indicated a screen above him to the right. "There she is. The Tigris."

On the monitor, the Tigris curled like a snake through Baghdad. He zoomed in, following Eva's directions.

"I'm looking for a yacht," Bridgeman told him.

There was a series of flashing screens and a boat or yacht appeared.

"That could be it. Zoom in more." Bridgeman leaned toward the monitor.

The boat's deck seemed to jump out of the screen at them. Visible were a couple of men working around two cylinders pointed up like cannons. There were corpses, too, that appeared to be lying where they had fallen.

"Thanks, Debi." Bristling with purpose, Bridgeman turned to Gloria.

"Call Kari Timonen in Baghdad," he commanded. "I'll phone Langley."

"We'd better warn them that Eva and Judd aren't the terrible villains we thought," she said.

Bridgeman hesitated. His face darkened. Then he gave a reluctant nod. "You're right."

They hurried out the door.

83.

Baghdad, Iraq Treading the dark water, Eva let the river carry the cell phone away. Thank G.o.d she had been able to reach Gloria. She looked up and around, studying the yacht. She was not sure how deep the keel was, but if she touched the river bottom she should be able to swim under the craft.

She exhaled hard, inhaled deeply, and dived. Two strong b.r.e.a.s.t.strokes and her fingers sank into muck. She tucked her body to bring her feet down. b.r.e.a.s.t.stroking and frog-kicking, she swam about ten yards, pa.s.sing under the large black shape of the yacht. At last she saw moonlight glimmering down through the water. Switching to a flutter kick, she rose slowly, keeping a hand above her head for protection in case she collided with debris.