was falling rather than rising. A sunset, at least to Kealey’s way of thinking, would have been far more appropriate. For a long time now, he’d felt that he was coming to the end of things. He had reached a strange accommodation with this prospect; after all, he had lost too much to start anew.
He finally turned away from the scene. It was picture-perfect, too good for this place, and there was still work to be done.
From a holster on his right hip, he pulled his Beretta 92FS. Pulling the slide back a few centimeters, Kealey checked the chamber and saw the brassy glint of a single round. Letting the slide snap forward, he thumbed the safety into the fire position and walked back into the building, the light on his back, nothing but darkness ahead.
CHAPTER 11
LATTAKIA
They had been moving for two days. There had been no time to sleep off the endless stress, save for the three restless hours he’d caught on the cracked plastic seat of the bus to Lattakia. Now, as Kohl made his calls in the back of the squalid White Palace Café, Rashid al-Umari sat motionless at a corner table. He was hunched over the scratched aluminum, his head heaped on folded arms.
He was exhausted. It was new for him, this constant movement, but the movement meant they were close, that the danger was now real.
In the past there had always been warning. In the Iraqi capital, the streets leading into the Shia enclave were sealed with mounds of rotting garbage and the burnt-out, twisted remains of cars—the same cars that had once been loaded with explosives, then parked on one of the many roads patrolled by U.S. forces. When the raids came, the Americans were forced to endure the bitter task of moving these ruined vehicles before they could push into al-Sadr’s nest. The process took time, and a child, once told of his importance, once given a meaningless title, could be relied upon to make the call in the early hours when the Bradleys rolled forward.
For this meeting, there would be no warning. If the Americans had advance knowledge of the time and location, and—more importantly—the guest list, they would respond from the air, and it would be over in the blink of an eye. It was this knowledge, al-Umari knew, that drove the German to such mind-numbing caution, but it was Rashid’s offering that would draw them despite the risks. If they were willing to make an appearance, the plan would go forward.
It was all he wanted. He knew what would be asked of him, and he had come prepared.
Rashid lifted his head and rubbed his bleary eyes. Kohl was walking back to the table, a chipped mug of strong Arab coffee in hand. The previous day he had changed his appearance again, and from the way the new colors complemented his features, Rashid would have guessed that he had reverted to his natural state. The German slid into the opposite seat and turned his gaze to the window, absently gazing past the colorful lettering affixed to the clamorous street beyond.
A few minutes passed. The lunch crowd began filtering in. Soon animated conversations in Arabic and Farsi swirled around them, along with the harsh smell of cigarette smoke, flatulence, and the stench of unwashed bodies. The German’s cup was half-empty when Rashid finally ran out of patience. “Well? What did they say?”
The other man did not reply and seemed unaware of Rashid’s hardest stare. Through the grime of the storefront window, a small child bounced into view, his tousled black hair glistening in the midday sun. His right hand gripped a plain brown envelope, the thick paper lumping over what might have been the keys to a vehicle, a cell phone, or both. The boy slowed outside the entrance and peered in through the open door, as though searching for someone. His gaze quickly settled on the blond-haired, green-eyed man at the corner table.
Will Vanderveen turned to Rashid al-Umari and smiled.
Tartus, a small port on the Mediterranean, is the sort of place with a great deal of history and very little to show for it, a city much reviled by Western tourists and the guidebooks they travel with. As with all things, however, it remains a matter of perspective. For native Syrians, the rocky, litter-strewn beach overlooking the tiny island of Arwad is one of their country’s better holiday destinations, and as close as most will ever come to the pristine sands and clear blue waters of Cannes or Mykonos.
It was still light when they drove into town on the coastal road, but thick violet clouds were tumbling in from the west, threatening rain. The car, a white, rattletrap Peugeot 504, had been waiting on Sharia Baghdad, the main street running through Lattakia. Now, at Kohl’s direction, Rashid parked the small sedan on the western end of Sharia al-Wahda. Pushing open the car door, he was instantly overcome by the cold and the mingled scents of salt and broiling fish, an unsubtle invitation extended by the restaurants clustered around the harbor. The scents began to fade as they walked east on the wide boulevard, passing a number of cheap hotels, bakeries, and bathhouses.
A stiff wind swept in from the sea, a hint of the coming storm. Rashid al-Umari shivered beneath his quilted anorak. His wardrobe no longer reflected his wealth and his years in London, as it had in the past. Kohl had pointed out this mistake after the near disaster in Aleppo, and al-Umari’s clothes—a T-shirt under the anorak, jeans, and running shoes—were now more in keeping with his surroundings. Kohl’s outfit was similarly disreputable, but it had never been otherwise; indeed, the German seemed to go out of his way to maintain a disheveled appearance.
Rashid’s nerves were stretched taut, adrenaline pumping through his veins. For nearly five years he had been waiting for this opportunity. A quick glance at the other man’s face told him absolutely nothing; at this pivotal moment, Erich Kohl seemed to be made of stone. Rashid wondered if the man’s calm could be attributed to his natural disposition or years of operational experience. He would have guessed that both factors played a role. Not for the first time, he had the uneasy feeling that the German was a much more important figure than he’d previously indicated.
His reverie was broken when Kohl seized his arm and pulled him abruptly into a narrow corridor. For a panicked instant, al-Umari feared that he had been lured into a trap, but he quickly realized how irrational that notion was. Nevertheless, he breathed easier when he saw that the other man was counting doors.
Kohl stopped at the fourth and rapped twice.
The foyer was dark, the only light emanating from the hallway beyond. Rashid had a brief impression of bare walls and scratched marble floors, but a bodyguard was already guiding him forward by the arm, Kohl trailing softly behind. They were not searched. From this, Rashid inferred that his host had not yet arrived, but the notion was quickly dispelled when he stepped into the next room.
A bare bulb hung over his head like an afterthought, spilling warm yellow light over painted doors, which were recessed in the plaster walls. In turn, the walls were further adorned with an excessive number of intricate tapestries, as if to draw one’s attention away from the absence of windows. A marble floor was hidden beneath overlapping Persian rugs, the black-and-white mosaic revealed only in the far corners of the spacious room. A pair of overstuffed couches, conspicuous in their contemporary design, resided around a low wooden table.
For all the beauty of his surroundings, though, Rashid al-Umari’s eyes were drawn first to the room’s sole occupant, and in that moment, he knew that he had been right to come, that his work over the past several years had not been in vain.
Forewarned by their footsteps, the man glanced up. He was gaunt and surprisingly pale, but Rashid had expected as much, for he knew that this man, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, former vice president of Iraq, former deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), suffered from a long list of ailments that had plagued his health for years. It was widely speculated in the Western media that al-Douri, who was believed to be in his mid-sixties, had died
