pilot and began closing the ramp. Instantly the cargo plane’s mammoth Allison Turbine engines changed pitch and began racing.
Instead of holding down the speed the pilot applied full throttle, and almost immediately the blunt nose of the airplane began to lift. Inside the cargo hold the snatch team waited for takeoff and watched the load master, now in a jump chair, for the all clear to exit their vehicles.
Inside the TOC both Najafi and Ayub surveyed the hold through a video feed, Najafi calmly smoking while his subordinate stood mute and sweating.
Engines screaming, the C-130 completed its stump-and-jump running landing and left Lebanese soil, heading out to the west toward the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean Ocean.
As the plane began a smooth ascent, the load master nodded to the Hezbollah agents in the Sequoia. They sprang into action as Najafi came out and stood on the scaffolding leading up to the TOC’s door. Ayub remained in the chamber, studiously avoiding looking at either the attaché case or the dentist chair. It took a considerable amount of willpower.
Outside the door he heard Najafi taunt the prisoner.
“Ah, Michael, so good to see you again,” Najafi said. He looked imperiously down from his perch at the top of the scaffolding. In his mind he was Xerxes surveying the beating of an insolent slave at the hands of his Immortals. The Hezbollah thugs jerked the Lebanese parliamentary member from the back of the SUV. His face was purple and black and swollen. Bloody drool hung in ropes from split lips, and he looked up at Najafi with the dull eyes of a wounded animal.
He tried to speak as he was carried up the steps by the masked gunmen but could only manage to gag. His hands and feet had been secured behind him with white plastic zip ties and his business suit had been torn and splattered with blood. He could only manage mewling sounds as he was shoved through the TOC’s door and thrown roughly into the dentist’s chair.
While the Hezbollah gunners cut the man loose from his restraints and then locked him into the chair, Najafi fitted his impeccable suit jacket on a hanger, then hung that from a hook on the wall. He maintained a calm, playful manner as he donned a blue apron and a pair of black rubber gloves.
“I know we’ve had our difference, Michael,” he purred. “That whole public denouncement of my diplomatic mission as nothing more than a political destabilization operation by Ansar-al-Mahdi was, in particular, quite hurtful—conveyed as it was on your parliamentary floor, in front of television cameras.”
Behind the men, Colonel Ayub took an unconscious step backward as Najafi donned a cotton surgical mask and a pair of clear plastic safety glasses. He came up hard against the cold metal wall of the TOC. He could feel the vibration of the plane through the wall as it climbed toward a thirty-thousand-foot ceiling. The Hezbollah agents were inscrutable observers behind their masks, their weapons still reeking of cordite from their recent use.
“Despite that…unpleasantness,” Najafi continued, “I was so sorry to hear about the loss of your family, Michael. These are unfortunate times. The Koran tells us to turn to Allah and the words of the Prophet in times of trouble.” Najafi stopped, regarded the battered Lebanese secured to the chair in front of him. “But you don’t follow the teachings of the Koran, do you, Michael? You worship this Jesus Christ, like some American lapdog.”
“You murdered my family!” Suleiman screamed. “Killer! You disgusting animal!”
The bruised man pushed up against his restraints, disfigured face twisted into rage. His eyes, almost swollen shut, blazed with hate and anger until they were bright points of light. Bloody spittle flew from split lips over broken teeth, and the veins of his neck stood out in sharp relief, like rivers.
Najafi ignored the outburst. He calmly walked over to his attaché case where it sat on the table and undid the gold relief clasps. The springs were tight and the snap of their release was clearly audible despite Michael Suleiman’s inarticulate screaming. Suleiman’s snarls turned to choking gags behind Najafi and, up against the wall, Colonel Ayub closed his eyes.
Najafi reached into his expensive leather attaché case. The Bosch eighteen-volt high-torque impact wrench was a cordless power drill. Michael Suleiman fell silent as Najafi turned around with the 9.5-inch device in his hands. The power tool was blue with the trigger and brand name printed in a brilliant red. The flat battery pack was secured to the bottom of the drill’s pistol grip like a magazine in a handgun. The drill bit was itself five inches long, grooved like a rifle barrel and colored a dull graphite-gray that seemed to absorb light.
Grinning, Najafi depressed the trigger. The 2.4 Ah batteries surged power at 1,900 RPM, generating 350 foot pounds of torque as specially designed cooling rods absorbed the heat generated by use.
“What could you possibly want from me?” Suleiman begged. “What could I possibly know?”
Najafi released the trigger and watched the drill spin down. His sneer was spread across his face as he called over his shoulder to the visibly pale Ayub. “Why do they always think it’s about information?”
Chuckling to himself, Najafi turned back toward the helpless Suleiman. “Michael, I already know everything I need to know. There are no secrets in Beirut I do not already possess.”
Najafi stepped forward and touched the hard metal of the drill against Suleiman’s left leg. The power tool rested on his vastus medialis, the teardrop-shaped muscle of the quadriceps located next to the kneecap. His gloved finger rested lightly on the red trigger of the cordless drill.
“Then why?” Suleiman asked, his voice a moan. “Just kill me. You murdered my family. I’ve suffered enough.”
“I say when you’ve suffered enough!” Najafi suddenly screamed. His face was a grossly animated mask of anger.
The drill screamed as the leader of Ansar-al-Mahdi pulled the trigger and pushed downward. The powerful industrial drill bit easily into Michael Suleiman’s flesh, burning through skin and tearing into muscle fiber as if they were paper. Scarlet blood splashed as the prisoner screamed, streaking Najafi’s pale blue apron and marking his safety glasses with beads of crimson.
Najafi wore a maniacal grin as he pulled the drill free then plunged it down into Suleiman’s leg again four more times in rapid succession. Colonel Ayub felt his gorge rising as he tried to look away, but the tortured man’s screams drew his eyes despite himself. Blood spilled into the seat of the dentist’s chair and puddled on the floor of the TOC.
Suddenly a satellite phone positioned on the table below the POV cam monitors came to life. Najafi straightened, lips pursed as he let the spinning drill power down. Michael Suleiman’s head sagged on his neck.
“Always with the interruptions,” Najafi snarled. “Always whenever I’m really starting to make progress on a project I am interrupted.”
The phone beeped loudly again.
Najafi sighed, almost theatrically. He turned around and walked toward the table. He stopped, looking down at the heavy power tool he still held in his hands. He turned back toward the helpless and bleeding Suleiman.
“Would you hold this for me?” he asked. “Thank you.”
The drill screamed into life and Najafi carelessly pushed the impact wrench down into the Lebanese political leader’s thigh until it bit into the bone of his femur. The man screamed as it cored into his bone marrow.
The phone rang and without bothering
