“Yeah, smart-ass, ‘might.’ You want to push the panic button? Go ahead. I’ll have my people out of here and in Jordan in a few hours. And you bastards can find your own way out.”
“I’m listening.”
“We figure the target will hang in his bunker tonight. We can’t get him once he’s inside the main underground complex, but there are a couple of weak spots in the tunnel system. We ambush him and his people there. Kill the whole lot of them and we’re golden. Don’t worry. We drilled for this contingency.”
“Why not just bomb the bunker if you know he’s going to be there?”
“And attribute it to who? God? Officially we’re out of the assassination business.”
“I see your point.”
“I don’t care what you see. Just send your people to the rendezvous. And you get underground. Once this goes down, we’ll need you to step in.”
“Fine.”
“And one other thing, Riyadh.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m on to you. I did some checking, found out you’re looking to make a little cash on the side selling Saddam’s chemical and biological agents to the Russian mafia and the Libyan government.”
Riyadh smiled. The spy had been spying on him. The man was boorish, but smart, resourceful. Riyadh couldn’t help but feel a grudging respect for the man.
“And what will it cost to buy your silence?”
“We’ll discuss that later. After we finish this op. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get lucky and someone will kill me before it’s all said and done.”
“I should hope not,” Riyadh said, not meaning it.
The phone clicked as Stone terminated the call. Riyadh holstered his pistol and went to get his brother.
DRESSED HEAD TO TOE in a black khaki bodysuit and combat boots, Abdullah Riyadh smeared black combat cosmetics to his cheeks and forehead in tight, circular strokes. Then he picked up the Heckler & Koch MP-5, slammed in a magazine and charged the weapon, realizing how it had become an extension of himself. He could field strip it, reassemble it, blindfolded, just as he could countless other weapons. He had learned to enjoy the feel of the weapon, the sense of power it gave him. The American, Chris Doyle, had trained him to handle it, to fight empty-handed. It had taken more than a year, but Doyle and the other Americans had turned Abdullah and his forty-nine comrades, a mixture of defectors and angry patriots, into a tightly knit band of warriors. Unlike Stone, Doyle had taught the men not just to fight, but to survive, to live long enough to enjoy their freedom. Though outwardly tired and cynical, Doyle seemed to care about the men he was teaching.
Hearing footsteps from behind, he whirled and saw the three Americans approaching. Other men, all outfitted in attire similar to Abdullah’s, stopped their preparations and also stared at the trio.
“Okay,” Stone said, “you girls ready to save the world, or what?”
Abdullah ignored him. Instead he looked at Doyle, who flashed a tight smile.
“We are ready to move?” Abdullah asked.
Doyle nodded. “It’s a go.”
ABDULLAH RIYADH CROUCHED beside the tire of a large troop carrier as he lay in wait for the Republican Guard soldier. Fear constricted his lungs, causing them to ache for oxygen as though he’d just run a marathon. He pressed his knees together to keep them from shaking and gripped the knife clutched in his right hand so hard that it caused his knuckles to throb.
Twenty yards away lay a critical target for the mission. Abdullah knew all too well that Saddam’s network of tunnels and bunkers was almost legendary, both inside and outside Iraq. Fewer people knew of the dozen or so well-guarded emergency exits connecting the tunnels to the surface, all of which led into innocuous structures such as small groceries or apartment buildings. If it ever struck Iraqi civilians as odd that Republican Guard soldiers might fortify such seemingly useless structures, Abdullah knew they swallowed their curiosity. Their very survival depended on such compliance.
At his back lay a one-story structure, a former restaurant apparently sagging under its own neglect. The windows and doors were boarded-over and parts of the red-brick exterior had been scorched black by fire. In stark contrast, the structure bristled with security cameras and halogen spotlights, rated the attention and protection of a handful of elite guards.
During the past thirty seconds, another portion of the crew had successfully killed power for the surrounding four blocks, including the target building. According to intelligence and best guesses by the Americans, Abdullah and his group had ninety seconds once the lights went out to cover the open ground surrounding the building and breach its defenses before backup generators restored power, resurrecting alarm systems, security cameras and lights.
Abdullah knew he and his crew were living on borrowed time. During the past five minutes, his teammates, using a lethal mix of knives, garrotes and poisonous darts, had slain ten Iraqi soldiers, each identified as Republican Guard by the red triangle on his shoulder patch. With the area pitched into darkness, Abdullah had donned a pair of night-vision goggles, plunging his world into green. Four more soldiers closing in on the building, all of them Egyptian mercenaries recruited for the job by Jon Stone, were similarly equipped and considerably more dangerous than Abdullah could hope to be.
The soldier cleared his throat. The sound snapped Abdullah from his thoughts, caused his shoulders to tense. Using a handheld television with a tubular camera lens protruding from it, he snaked the lens around the carrier’s front end, caught a glimpse of the soldier. The man stood, staring straight ahead, apparently fixated on a grove of date palms situated fifty yards ahead. The soldier held a wicked-looking SMG in his left hand, its barrel canted at a forty-five-degree angle as he scanned the area.
Abdullah watched as the soldier pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt, raised it to his mouth. Setting down the television, the young Arab rose up in a crouch, trying hard not to jostle his MP-5 or other equipment as he did. Blood thundered in his ears, making it harder to hear the soldier’s transmission.
“Position ten,” the soldier said.
A pause, followed by a muffled response reached Abdullah’s ears.
“All clear,” the soldier said.
Relief washing over him, Abdullah snatched up the television, secured it on his belt, listened. The soldier had turned and was moving back toward the main building. Rounding the carrier’s front end, Abdullah fell in behind the soldier, closed the distance between them with just a few steps. Reaching around, digging fingers into the man’s fleshy jowls, he gave his adversary’s head a twist and dragged the knife blade across the man’s throat, severing muscles, tendons and arteries.
Blood spurted from the gash and he went limp, dead before he hit the ground.
Sheathing his knife, Abdullah let the soldier fall into a heap. Folding the man’s arms and legs in on his torso, the young Arab stuffed the soldier underneath the armored troop carrier, bunching his remains behind the tires so he’d be less visible.
Returning to his feet, Abdullah stared at his hands. The warm blood glistened bright
