hesitantly Anjali started forward. The group of men opened to let him walk through. Cigarettes dangled from their lips, Kalashnikovs dangled from their shoulders and large ceremonial knives dangled from their belts. Flat, inscrutable eyes of black or deepest brown regarded him with either contempt or indifference.
Anjali walked into their midst, and they closed in behind him like the bars of a cell door sliding shut even as more militiamen in front of him stepped back to reveal his Iranian contact.
Colonel Ayub looked up as Anjali stepped forward.
At Ayub’s feet an Iraqi in civilian clothes was on his knees. The man’s hands were bound tightly behind his back and a bandanna covered his eyes. His face was a checkerboard of bruises beneath the blindfold and he turned toward the sound of Anjali as he stepped forward.
Ayub’s arm was extended outward and down toward the captive. In his hand was the largest pistol Anjali had ever seen. It was massive and silver with a long barrel and gigantic muzzle. Ayub’s finger rested lightly on the trigger of the big automatic.
“Ah, look,” Ayub purred. “The police are here. Just in time.”
The crowd of men in the room chuckled lowly as if they shared one voice. It had the disconcerting effect of making Anjali feel even more hemmed in. The police major, who was himself no stranger to either torture or murder, kept his own facial expression as neutral as that of the killers around him.
“I have news,” he said.
Ayub nodded. “In a moment. You have arrived just in time to witness the judgment of Allah for crimes of collaboration with the westerners against the free Iraqi people.”
At this announcement the man on his knees began to sob and babble, crying out his innocence. Ayub shushed him gently, the way a mother might quiet a frightened toddler. When this didn’t work he coldly pressed the muzzle of the .44 Magnum against the man’s forehead just above the blindfold and snapped, “Silence!”
The man fell silent.
Ayub’s finger took up the slack on the trigger of the massive handgun. Anjali could almost hear the mechanical squeak as the spring was compressed. He silently steeled himself for the sound of the pistol going off. The crowd of men pushed in around them remained very silent.
“So,” Ayub said, suddenly changing tracks, “what is your news?”
Anjali felt his eyes glued to the spot where the .44-caliber weapon’s muzzle was up against the captive’s forehead. The man was sweating profusely, and a fat drop of perspiration slid down cheeks marred by black-heads and a sparse, wiry attempt at a man’s beard. The captive was skinny as a rail and his Adam’s apple stood out like a knot on his thin neck. He swallowed hard and Anjali saw it bounce like a bobber on a fishing line.
“The British bribed someone,” Anjali said. “They know where you are. They told the Americans, who have sent for some commandos.”
“Task Force 162?” Ayub asked, referring to the combined unity of Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs and CIA paramilitary operatives that had been formed to track down Saddam Hussein and other high-value targets.
Anjali shook his head. “No. Another group. The briefer didn’t specify who they were. Only that they had come from the U.S. for you.”
“For me?” Ayub asked. “By name?”
Anjali looked down at the man on his knees. Tears had joined the sweat on his face now. The police major nodded. “Yes. By name.”
“Do you see?” Ayub whispered down at the man. “Do you see now? You camel fucker!” he suddenly screamed. “You talk and this does not work! No one must talk!”
“Please!” the man sobbed.
Time slowed for Anjali as a sudden flood of adrenaline coursed through his body. He saw the big silver automatic jump in Ayub’s hand just as the report deafened him at that close range. A sheet of flame erupted from the pistol muzzle, scorching the prisoner’s skin and setting his oily black hair on fire.
A single smoking shell casing was kicked loose to tumble through the air, and the man’s face disappeared in black smoke and red blood as the back of his skull suddenly burst backward, spraying the white, loose flowing robes of the terrorists standing closest to him. The body undulated on its knees then slumped as if the corpse had been deboned.
The crack of the pistol echoed through the room, and out of his peripheral vision Anjali saw a section of the floor tile suddenly burst apart and shatter as the heavy-caliber slug burrowed into it. The man keeled over and dropped to the floor, all slack limbs and gushing blood and spilled brains as Anjali’s ears began to ring.
He pulled his eyes from the horrible vision of the murdered captive and felt a surge of surprise so intense it bordered on fear when he saw Ayub already looking at him. The man’s mouth was moving as he spoke and the Iraqi police major could see the thin lips forming words over blunt yellow teeth, but the ringing of the shot at such close quarters had deafened him. Then his ears popped and he could suddenly hear the Iranian cell leader again.
“—let the American commandos come. We’ll have a surprise waiting for them.”
Then Ayub looked down at the cored-out head and blown-apart face of his victim and began to laugh. Immediately the knot of Shiite terrorists around Anjali started laughing, too.
Screw it, he thought and chuckled right along.
Caracas, Venezuela
ARAS KASIM could hardly believe his good fortune. For five years he had labored in Tehran watching dissidents and walking point on guard teams for important Imams, opening limo doors and shoving people clear on the streets. The whole experience had been an exercise in extreme boredom and hardly the reason he had left a Revolutionary Guard marine battalion combat swimmer assignment for a position with VEVAK.
Then he had worked a security detail under a colonel named Ayub and his life had changed almost overnight. Ayub had his pick of intelligence ministry agents, and from within the protective umbrella of Brigadier General Najafi’s patronage the colonel got what he wanted when he wanted it. Kasim had earned his stripes in this new operation first by smuggling explosive devices across the southwestern Iranian border into Iraq and then to Baghdad.
Once he had proved himself resourceful and battle tested, Ayub had used him as a insurgent-cell communications facilitator and, finally, as a punitive agent against anyone suspected of disloyalty within the organization. Kasim had executed seven Iraqi insurgents and tortured three times as many under Ayub’s direction.
With his competence established Ayub had begun to tap him for more and more serious activities. First travel to the border areas of Pakistan to coordinate with al Qaeda and Taliban operatives there. Then to carry money to cells in Lebanon and the Philippines. There was the torture and murder of a CIA case officer in Ethiopia followed by the meetings with Russian arms dealers in Chechnya.
And finally there was the Juan Escondito network.
The Venezuelan narco-trafficante had been a secular blessing to the Iranian intelligence operative. Meetings included fine whiskey, the kindest cuts of cocaine and more young prostitutes than Kasim could ever have prayed existed.
In bed with two of them now, Kasim could only look up toward heaven past the spinning ceiling fan and offer thanks for what
