Buch lesen: «Point Of Betrayal»

PROLOGUE

Baghdad, Iraq, April 2000

Tariq Riyadh stared into the face of a madman and felt rage building. Everywhere he turned in the city, his birthplace, his home, it was the same. Saddam Hussein’s damnable face, his arrogant smile following Riyadh and his fellow countrymen as they went about their lives, trying to coexist with a murderous dictator who cared more about power than people. For years, Riyadh had watched as Saddam ground Iraq, a resource-rich, well-educated society, under his boot heel, killed its people with impunity, made Riyadh’s homeland a polarizing force on the geopolitical landscape.

All that changed this night.

The still-warm desert breeze blew over Riyadh’s face, tousled his salt-and-pepper hair. He stared at the painting of Saddam erected on a neighboring building and smiled at his enemy. The paintings, monolithic testaments to Saddam’s arrogance and narcissism, dotted the country, as innumerable as grains of sand in the desert. Like his fellow countrymen, Riyadh suffered daily under Saddam’s mocking glare, through the ever-present paintings, through the eyes of the Republican Guard, through Saddam’s network of spies, all ready to kill for the slightest treachery, real or perceived.

Riyadh knew his first order come morning would be to tear down the paintings, bring them together in a pile and burn them in a huge funeral pyre marking the passing of an oppressive regime.

He squeezed his left arm against his rib cage, grateful for the reassuring bulk of the Beretta 92-F he carried in a shoulder holster. If all went according to plan, he’d use the weapon only once, a single shot into the dictator’s face, watch fear replace Hussein’s smugness. Change history with a single squeeze of the trigger.

Riyadh smiled and excitement tickled his insides. He stood on the balcony of his apartment, watched as troop carriers, soldiers and citizens milled about him ten stories below. If he shut his eyes and listened, Baghdad sounded like any other teeming metropolis at night. Honking horns, sirens, relentless footsteps, voices—all were audible even at this height. Perched several stories above it all, he couldn’t feel the fear, the repressed anger that gripped the country, gnawed at it like a cancer. It was the righteous anger of an oppressed people, a people with no voice because it had been stolen by a despot.

Riyadh wanted to rule Iraq, to transform it into a progressive state that other countries would marvel at, perhaps even mimic. And he would get his chance to do just that. The Americans’ promise had been explicit—with Saddam gone, Riyadh would step in as Iraq’s president, run the government until Iraq stabilized and then the people would choose their own leader in democratic elections. Pride surged through Riyadh as he realized he’d bring freedom to his people and they would love him for it. He had no doubt they would do the right thing, elect him as president. Over and over.

The impending revolution also would make him a rich man. Unbeknownst to the Americans, Riyadh had been in contact with the Russians and the French, via their intelligence agents, and they had agreed to secretly buy oil from him. He’d undercut the OPEC countries, reduce their clout in world affairs, give rise to a new power in the Middle East. And if he lined his pockets in the meantime, then who was to complain?

Riyadh heard footsteps from behind and turned. A tall man with close-cropped, blond hair and a ruddy complexion stepped from Riyadh’s well-appointed penthouse onto the terrace. Obviously a Westerner, the man had been traveling as a journalist, had even filed stories under the byline Daniel Gibbons for Liberty News Service. Riyadh knew better. Liberty News Service was a ruse, a part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s massive overseas propaganda machine. And Daniel Gibbons was really Jon Stone, a CIA agent.

“It’s almost time,” Stone said. “Come inside. We need to talk.”

Riyadh nodded. Lighting a cigarette as he moved, he stepped inside the apartment, closed the sliding-glass door behind him. A rush of air-conditioned air hit him, cooling the sweat that had formed on his brow and down his spine. He loved his country’s dry, hot climate. But as a member of Iraq’s parliament and the son of a wealthy oil family, he also enjoyed the comforts of air-conditioning. Another man stood in the room with Stone, a mirror image of Riyadh, minus his graying hair, the crow’s feet etched into the corners of his eyes, the soft middle from too many dinners with Iraq’s political elite.

“My brother,” Riyadh said, “it is so good to see you.”

“And you,” Abdullah Riyadh stated.

Stone fell heavily into a chair, causing it to slide back a few inches. Riyadh stared at him and, with great effort, kept his expression neutral. He found Stone boorish, overbearing. Stone, though well educated, lumped all Arabs into a single pile and regarded it as he would dung. In Riyadh’s mind, Stone had seemed an unlikely man to coordinate a coup in the Middle East. Despite the man’s shortcomings, though, he had pulled together the operation with an attention to detail, an efficiency that elicited a grudging respect from Riyadh. Indeed, he was a social clod, but a strategic genius.

Stone’s upper lip curled into a sneer as he spoke. “You two done having old home week, or do I have to waste more time before we can get down to business?”

Angry heat radiated from Riyadh’s face, but he gave Stone a curt nod and sat in a chair opposite the bulky American. Moving with a grace that Riyadh no longer possessed, his brother stepped between them, settled into a nearby couch.

“Our boy is staying at the royal palace tonight,” Stone said. “He’ll arrive in a caravan, probably the third car from the front. My sources place him there between 0100 and 0200. He has a late meeting with the foreign minister. Then he’ll go to one of his other houses, stay for two hours, then head to the palace.”

“You’re sure it will be him, not one of his doubles?” Riyadh asked.

Stone’s face turned a deeper shade of scarlet. He leaned forward as he spoke, underscoring his words by pounding an index finger against the table.

“As a matter of fact, Riyadh, I’m not sure. I can’t guarantee anything. But I am giving you the best information I have. We’ve been dropping wads of cash all over Baghdad trying to find this bastard. I’ve got the best intelligence possible. But if you want a sure thing, walk away now because I can’t give it to you and neither can anyone else.”

“I understand,” Riyadh said.

“It’s real easy,” Stone said. “The target will be most vulnerable while he’s on the street. They’re going to try to sneak him inside, so he’ll forgo the full motorcade. Instead it will be one Hummer in front, the presidential Mercedes in the middle and another Hummer in the middle. My source told me there are going to be helicopters nearby. If something happens to your boss, they’re going to swoop in and blast everything in sight. That’s why I gave you the rocket launchers. Incinerate the Hummers, trap the Mercedes in the middle. Take out Saddam’s car. My people will deal with the air support. Got it?”

“Yes,” Riyadh said, “of course.”

“Do not deviate from the plan.”

“I understand. But what about us?”

“Hide. I’m going to have my hands full getting my own people out of Baghdad. You just have to last a few hours and it’s cool. By morning, the United States and Britain will step in and offer troops to help stabilize the country—all by your country’s invitation, of course. We’ve got others inside your government and military to keep things solid after he goes down.”

“And I will be appointed interim president?”

“None other,” Stone said. He slipped an envelope to Riyadh, who picked it up and started to open it. “Later,” Stone said. “It’s coded instructions to make clear any details we didn’t cover here. You just have your people in position when it all goes down. We’re counting on you. Understood?”

“Clearly.”

Stone came to his feet and Riyadh did likewise. “I thank you for your help,” Riyadh said. “More importantly, my country thanks you.”

He held out his hand and Stone ignored it.

“Look,“ Stone said, “let’s get one thing straight—as long as I walk away alive and Saddam goes out horizontal, I don’t give two shits what happens to you or your country. Washington cares. I don’t. The way I see it, I’ll probably be back here in five years, helping someone else overthrow you because you can’t handle the power, either. So take your olive branch and shove it.”

Stone turned and let himself out. As the door slammed shut, a smile tugged at the corners of Riyadh’s mouth. Stone was insufferable, but a necessary evil. Just like Riyadh’s alliance with the United States. Let Stone shoot off his mouth so long as he helped Riyadh attain his goals.

“We should kill him.”

Riyadh turned, regarded his brother. The elder man dismissed the notion with a shake of his head.

“No,” Riyadh said. “We need him and his people. To kill them would kill our cause.”

“We’ve made a pact with the devil, Tariq,” Abdullah said. “These people are not our friends, they are puppet masters. And once we have done the hard work, they will cut the strings, leave us to die. Please do not tell me otherwise.”

“Have vision, my young brother,” Riyadh replied. “We do not need friends, we need allies. Our goals and America’s are the same. That makes us allies. In politics, you learn that sometimes you must work with those you do not like if you are to achieve what you want.

“Stone’s a killer. You and I, we are freedom fighters. Stone’s friends are soldiers, good men. But he’s a murderer. He knows tonight blood will spill and it fills him with joy. Hopefully, he will not be disappointed.”

CHRIS DOYLE GUNNED the Jeep Cherokee’s engine, wheeled the vehicle through the military checkpoint and breathed a sigh of relief. The soldiers had given him and his vehicle a cursory look, checking under seats and sifting through his camera bag. They hadn’t looked hard enough to find the compartment hidden in the rear of his vehicle, the one containing weapons, radio equipment, black clothes and camou paint. Doyle had made small talk with the men, a pair of foot soldiers, and slipped each of them an impressive amount of Iraqi dinars, enough to expedite the search without arousing suspicion. After all, he had a deadline to meet.

Doyle had told the soldiers he was a French photojournalist for a nature magazine, in the country shooting photos of Iraq’s deserts and the swamplands feeding off the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He had the forged papers, a dozen digital memory Archers filled with pictures, and a murderous sunburn to back up his claim. Because he’d spent most of his time in undeveloped areas, he’d been allowed to travel without a government monitor.

Goosing the Jeep’s accelerator a little harder, he settled into the leather bucket seats, checked the rearview mirror. A pair of stationary headlights glared back at him, and he caught glimpses of the guards’ silhouettes as they busied themselves with a new search. They seemed disinterested in him, which was exactly how Doyle wanted it.

Hopefully, in a few hours when all hell broke loose, they’d forget they ever met him, not an unlikely scenario. Doyle was nondescript and grateful for it. Average height and weight. Mouse-brown hair cut to an average length. Soft chin. Dull hazel eyes that masked an oceans-deep intelligence that had earned him full-ride scholarship offers to three Ivy League universities. His dull appearance had made him effective first as a Force Recon soldier and later as a CIA assassin and paramilitary operative.

Motoring deeper into Baghdad, Doyle drummed the balls of his thumbs against the steering wheel, began humming an old blues tune. In his mind, he traced the song’s rhythm pattern, thought longingly of his electric guitar stored in his apartment in Langley, Virginia. When was the last time he’d been home? Six months. Eight? He usually lost count after three. By then he’d sunk deep enough undercover that Chris Doyle had ceased to exist, resurrected only for occasional phone calls to his handlers back at Langley. Otherwise he lived someone else’s life. Today a photojournalist. Last year, posing as a United Nations translator so he could kill two Russian diplomats stealing American secrets to sell to rogue nations.

Each time, a perfect kill. Each time, three more stepped up to replace his slain targets. It was as though he was helping thugs and terrorists become upwardly mobile.

Doyle ground his teeth together, felt acid bubble up in his stomach. Face it, he thought, you’re pissing in the ocean and drowning at the same time. He checked the rearview mirror again. Rather than look for pursuers, though, he studied his drawn, haggard face. Bottom line, he was losing his edge. He’d seen his work undone one too many times, either by enemies or friends, to believe he was making a difference. After tonight, he may say to hell with all of it.

Assuming, of course, that he survived tonight.

Twenty-five minutes later he reached a small bank of three-story buildings, the ground floor occupied by retail and the upper floors by apartments. Doyle parked the Jeep curbside, doused the lights and waited. Five minutes passed and Doyle became increasingly nervous. His contact was three minutes late, the man’s apartment sat dark and Doyle was sitting in the open, alone and unarmed. Doyle had decided against carrying weapons on his person, in case soldiers decided to search him.

Five minutes turned to ten and the sinking feeling in his gut continued to deepen as he sat in his vehicle, exposed and waiting. He started to feel as inconspicuous as a man jogging naked through Times Square in New York.

The digital phone resting on the seat next to him trilled once. Keeping his eyes trained on his surroundings, Doyle grabbed the phone and activated it.

“Bonjour.”

“Hey, Frog boy, what’s the word?” Great, it was Stone. Doyle switched to English but maintained his French accent.

“Monsieur Gibbons, how good to hear from you.”

“You get the picture?”

“I have many pictures, but not the one you want.”

“Where the hell is it?”

“I could not find the right subject. Perhaps I was mistaken in my approach?”

A pause. “Maybe. You think you should try again?”

Doyle shrugged as though Stone could see him. “I can take a few more minutes, scan through my images. Perhaps I have something else that might meet with your approval. This picture, it is critical?”

“Damn straight it’s critical. I’ve got a deadline to meet. We need this exclusive picture to make a memorable package. You know what I mean?”

“Of course. But I must tell you, there also are issues with this particular subject. You realize that, don’t you?”

Stone paused, his breath coming in audible, angry rasps at the phone. Doyle imagined Stone’s tiny, ratlike eyes skittering back and forth as he processed the news.

“Okay. That is a problem.”

“Perhaps we should meet for coffee to discuss the issue.”

“Usual place?”

“I look forward to it.”

Stone killed the connection and Doyle deactivated his own phone. He scanned the streets once again, saw no one. A cold fist of fear buried itself in his gut, stole his breath. “The picture” had referred to Brahim Azar, a soldier assigned to Saddam’s security detail. Azar was supposed to give final confirmation about Saddam’s intention to sleep at the royal palace. The plan had been simple—Azar would watch for Doyle’s vehicle and come down to the street when he saw it. If the mission was a go, he’d light a cigarette and then buy a newspaper from a nearby vending box. If not, he’d buy a newspaper and disappear back inside.

As it was, their source was a no-show and Doyle couldn’t help but fear the worst.

Maybe the guy had been conscripted to work late.

Or maybe the mission had been compromised. Regardless, it looked bad. Resting his left hand on the steering wheel, he reached for the ignition key with his right hand.

An engine hummed from behind, growing louder as it closed in on the SUV. He looked up, saw a large vehicle pulling in behind his own, brakes groaning as the heavy vehicle ground to a halt. Doyle muttered a curse as halogen floodlights exploded to life, bathing his SUV with a white glow. Moments later a helicopter hovered overhead, pinning the SUV under a pair of searchlights.

A voice amplified by a loudspeaker boomed from behind. “This is the Republican Guard. Do not attempt to start your vehicle or you will be killed.”

Doyle reached for the best option at hand.

Langley, Virginia, CIA headquarters

“DO YOU THINK the mission’s been compromised?”

“My best source misses an appointment, even though he just has to walk down one flight of stairs,” Jon Stone said. “You do the math, Simmons. He’s been made. We’re compromised.”

“Calm down, Stone,” said David Simmons, a retired Marine officer and mission controller for the Iraq insurgency group. “What does Doyle say about all this?”

“Not sure,” Stone replied. “We just got off the phone a few minutes ago. He’s en route to my position. He was on an unsecured portable phone so we couldn’t talk freely. Besides, who gives a shit what Doyle says? I’m the field commander on this little op, not him.”

Because you’re a damn psycho, Simmons thought. But he said, “At ease. I just wanted to hear his field report since he was at the rendezvous site. Are you getting any other signs that the mission has gone south?”

“One of Riyadh’s crew also failed to show up. Doesn’t answer his phone, either. He may have lost his nerve or he may have turned on us. Hard to know for sure.”

“But you’re checking?”

“Stephen Archer and one of Riyadh’s people are en route now. I expect a report soon.”

“What about the others?”

“Ready to go. They’re just waiting for the word. So what is it?”

“Hang tight. I need to go up a level for this one.”

“I won’t wait long.”

“Ten minutes.”

Killing the connection, Simmons hauled himself to his feet, wincing as he stood erect. Pain seared his midsection, reminding him of the cancer eating away his insides. The oncologist had diagnosed it earlier that month, declared it inoperable. In the best-case scenario, Simmons had two months to live, perhaps three. Within a month, he guessed, he’d be admitted to a hospice where he could quietly wait to die. Setting his jaw, he walked past the banks of computers, the hurried workers that populated the control center. He kept his face stoic as he went. He’d decided to keep his illness a secret as long as he possibly could. If his superiors knew of its extent, he’d probably be put out to pasture within a matter of days. He could sit on the sidelines and watch as someone else within the Agency oversaw Saddam’s downfall; he could watch as they took the credit.

Like hell.

Glass doors hissed as they parted in front of Simmons. He moved quickly down the corridor, stepped into a secure elevator at the end of the hall and within seconds was silently ascending to another level of the CIA’s sprawling complex.

Slipping off his glasses and squeezing his eyes shut, Simmons rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. As he did, his mind wandered to the Gulf War. He’d led a team of Marines into southern Iraq to pinpoint artillery batteries for coalition bombers. Getting past the ersatz soldiers had been easy enough. Most had looked too scared to wipe their nose let alone take on a group of heavily armed Marines, especially a group backed by the thunder and hellfire of coalition fighter jets. Within an hour the group had reached the batteries and prepared to pinpoint them with handheld laser-targeting instruments.

After that, it all had gone to hell. A Republican Guard unit had caught them on their rear flank, taking out two Marines before the American fighters could respond in kind, cutting down the Iraqi soldiers in an unrelenting storm of gunfire. Sixteen Iraqi soldiers had died in the encounter, two Marines. It had been two too many, as far as Simmons was concerned.

He clenched his jaw. Simmons had never lost a man in the field, ever. After that night, war had become intensely personal.

Stepping from the elevator, he walked down a corridor, following it as it jogged left then right. He passed through another pair of bulletproof glass doors, into a control room similar to the one he’d left behind downstairs. After the requisite security checks, he crossed the room and slipped into another, smaller room where several men and women in business suits sat at a large mahogany table with polished brass inlaid trim.

Simmons ignored the other six and focused on a big bear of a man seated at the head of the table. CIA director James Lee returned the stare.

“Good news, David?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell me what’s wrong. And for God’s sake, pull the rod out of your ass and stand like a normal person.”

It was only then that Simmons realized he stood at attention, legs and back bolt upright, arms and hands stabbing toward the floor. Old training died hard, he thought. And he’d caught himself in more than one stressful moment falling back on the order and discipline of the military.

“It’s the operation, sir. We need to talk.”

He paused while Lee dismissed the others in the room.

“Sit down, David.”

“I prefer to stand, sir.”

“Fine. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“You told me to inform you of any irregularities, right?”

A worried look passed over Lee’s features. Leaning forward in his chair, he rested his elbows on the table and stared intently at Simmons. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“One of the informants failed to make a rendezvous.”

“His whereabouts?”

“Unknown.”

“So we may have been compromised?” Lee asked.

Simmons shrugged. “It’s possible. But I can’t say that with certainty.”

Looking up from the table, Lee met Simmons’s gaze. “Well, what can you say with certainty?”

“That the informant missed the rendezvous.”

“You already told me that. But what the hell does it mean?”

“Hard to say. The guy might have gotten cold feet. He might be waiting at his girlfriend’s house, hoping the whole thing just blows over. It’s hard to find people in Iraq willing to cross Saddam.”

“Can we track him down?’

Simmons shook his head. “Not a good idea. If we make too big a stink, we raise everyone’s suspicions. Whole thing goes to hell after that.”

“Well, give me something I can work with here. Can we accomplish this mission without him?”

“Possibly. He had the itinerary information. He could place Saddam within a five-minute window. Without that, we may have to expose ourselves for longer periods, probably forty-five minutes to an hour.”

“What’s your comfort level with this?”

Simmons pondered this for a moment. In an operation such as this, with a paranoid target like Hussein, any deviation from the plan was cause for alarm. “Stone, Archer and Doyle are three of our best operatives. They adapt quickly to adversity. We’ve been training the Iraqis for six months. They’re good to go.”

Lee’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m comfortable. As long as my men get the air support they need, they can pull off this mission.”

Lee leaned back in his chair. Lacing his fingers together into a double fist, he stared at his thumbnails, as though lost in thought.

“You bearing a grudge?”

“Sir?”

“I know about the op in ’91. You lost men, good ones. Is that clouding your judgment?”

Anger colored Simmons face and heated the skin of his shoulders and arms. His hands clenched into fists. Lee’s bluntness took him by surprise. “Of course not. I won’t put my men in harm’s way just to settle a score.”

Lee came to his full six-foot, four-inch height and stared down at Simmons. “You’re right,” he said. “You won’t.”

A lurch that had nothing to do with the cancer passed through Simmons’s belly. “Excuse me?”

“No mission. Not tonight, anyway. My orders from the President were explicit—a surgical strike. Quick and deadly. No hint of American involvement in this, period. The Middle East is a goddamn tinderbox as it is. We don’t need to put a blow torch to it by creating another Bay of Pigs. My gut says to abort the mission. If you were using your damn head, you’d see the same thing.”

“Sir—”

“I want those people out of there. Tonight. End of conversation. Don’t get greedy. You’ll have plenty of other opportunities to plug this bastard before retirement rolls around.”

“Jim—”

Lee held up a hand to silence Simmons. “Make the call. I want our people out of Iraq within twelve hours. If you hand me a problem, I’ll hand you back more trouble than you can handle.”

Squelching an impulse to punch Lee in the solar plexus, Simmons snapped ramrod-straight to attention and fixed his gaze on an invisible spot on the wall. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“I knew I could count on you, David.”

From his peripheral vision, Simmons saw Lee smile and more rage bubbled up from within.

Lee ignored his subordinate. Hooking his jacket with two fingers, he hefted the garment and slung it over a narrow shoulder. A moment later he was gone and Simmons was alone, numb.

His stomach burning as he exited the meeting room, Simmons reached into his shirt pocket and extracted two painkillers. He’d been warned not to exceed the dose, that it might impair his coordination, his judgment. So what? According to Lee, his judgment was already flawed and Simmons’s body hurt like hell.

Returning to his own command center, Simmons considered Lee’s words. Lee was a flaming jerk, but he made a good point. A botched coup attempt in Iraq only would solidify support for Saddam Hussein, make him a sympathetic figure on the Arab street. And the coup’s backer, America, would walk away with egg on its face, a superpower unable to topple a two-bit dictator.

You’ll have plenty of other opportunities to plug this bastard before retirement rolls around.

Smug bastard. Lee had no idea what it was like to face death, to feel your heart slam so fast, so hard, that it felt as though it might explode at any moment. He pushed paper all day, moved agents and paramilitary operatives around like chess pieces on the board, one eye on his strategic plan, the other on the next promotion. Not all CIA directors had been that way, but this guy was and Simmons hated him for it.