screens, screaming people were suddenly running down the streets of Damascus. Guns were being fired into the air. Sirens were starting up.
“What the hell?” barked Potter.
Tucker was transfixed by what was happening on the screen.
Potter grabbed him by the shoulder. “What’s going on?”
Tucker spoke into his headset, demanding an explanation for the sudden chaos on the streets.
“They’re trying to find out. They don’t know yet.”
“Dial up Robie,” demanded Potter. “He’s right there.”
Tucker attempted to do so. “He’s not answering. He’s gone silent.”
“Reel, then. Get somebody, for God’s sake.”
“Look,” said the three-star.
Syrian security forces were hanging out the window of the room where the sniper’s nest was set up.
“How the hell did they get there so fast? Reel isn’t even there. She hasn’t fired a shot yet,” added the DHS director.
“The whole operation has been compromised,” said Tucker. “There’s been a breach somewhere.” He exchanged a glance with Potter. “This was not supposed to happen.”
“And Ahmadi got away? Again?” snapped the three-star.
“He was not supposed to get away,” Tucker muttered under his breath.
“For Christ’s sake,” said Potter. “Can’t we get anything right?”
“Hold on,” said Tucker. “Something’s coming through now.”
He listened to the voice in his ear. His expression went from stunned concern to absolute amazement.
“Copy that,” he said.
“What is it?” screamed Potter when Tucker didn’t say anything else.
Tucker turned to the others, his face white. “Ahmadi was just shot outside the government building, while he was getting into his car. He’s dead. It’s been confirmed through reliable sources.”
“Thank God for that,” said the three-star. “But I don’t understand. Did the mission change? The hit was supposed to be outside the hotel.”
“The mission didn’t change. Not on our end,” said Blue Man calmly.
The DHS director was staring at the Syrians swarming over the sniper’s nest. “What I don’t get is how they were onto the sniper’s nest so fast.” He turned to Tucker. “It’s almost like they knew the hit was coming.”
“A breach, like we said,” Tucker responded, still looking ghostly pale.
“But Reel and Robie must’ve known about it. That’s why they made the switch to the government building and did the hit there,” explained Potter quickly.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” said the three-star.
“Why not?” asked Tucker.
“You said Robie just reported in. He was getting into position as the spotter outside the hotel. And he also reported that Reel was expected to be in place in ten minutes. The hotel and government building are nowhere near each other. Why would he communicate to his own agency one thing and then do something else entirely? It was almost as though he didn’t trust—”
The three-star stopped talking and turned back to the screen, where the Syrian security forces were still screaming from the balcony of the sniper’s nest.
Then the three-star glanced back at Tucker with a suspicious look.
Tucker looked over at the DHS director and found his gaze boring into him as well.
Tucker started to say something and then stopped. All he could do was stare at the screens.
The three-star said, “But the kill was still made. Under the, um, unusual circumstances I’d say that was the finest hit I’ve ever, well, not seen.”
“Same for me,” said the DHS director.
“And me,” added Potter lamely, which drew a long glare from Tucker.
“Robie and Reel deserve this country’s thanks,” said the three-star firmly.
The DHS director added, “And we’ll see that they get it.”
“If they get out of Syria,” said the three-star darkly.
If they get out of Syria alive, thought Tucker.
CHAPTER
84
OTHER THAN NORTH KOREA AND IRAN, Syria was arguably the most difficult country in the world to escape from for a westerner.
Foreigners were inherently suspect.
Americans were hated.
American operatives who had just killed a potential Syrian leader were good for only one thing: execution and then being dragged through the streets headless.
The only positive element was that Syria’s borders were not secure. They were flimsy and ever-changing, just as the politics of the moment were, in one of the countries constituting the “cradle of civilization.”
Robie and Reel understood this fully.
They had a chance, a slender one.
Reel had delivered the kill shot from a building across the street from where Ahmadi had been about to get into his limo. It would have been easier to don a full burqa face covering and escape that way. However, Syrian women didn’t wear traditional Islamic garb for the most part. And full facial veils had been banned in universities and other public settings by the increasingly secular government, who felt it was a security risk and promoted extremism. Thus putting one on would have been a red flag, not a disguise.
But she could still wear a hijab. This would reveal part of her face, but she had stained it darker and simulated wrinkles and sun damage. And in the long black robe she had incorporated a harness and padding that added about sixty pounds to her frame. She stooped as she walked and looked as though she were about seventy.
She picked up a market basket and left the room, waiting patiently at the elevator with another man who was standing there. The elevator doors opened and she got into the car. It headed down. When it reached the ground floor she stepped off.
She was swept to the side as police flooded the building. They grabbed the man who had been in the elevator car with her and pulled him, as well as several other Syrian men, along with them. They stormed into the elevator and up the stairwell.
Reel waited for a few moments and then continued on. When she got outside, police cars were everywhere. Swarms of people were screaming. People were crying. Others were marching in the streets, chanting.
A car caught on fire. Guns were racked back and fired into the air. Shop windows were smashed. There was a small explosion down the street.
Reel followed another group of women down the street and into an alley.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been unthinkable for men to search a woman on a Syrian public street.
These were not normal circumstances.
Police swept into the alley and started grabbing everyone, pulling at their clothing, looking for weapons or other signs of culpability.
One man had a knife. The police shot him in the head.
A woman ran screaming. She was repeatedly shot in the back and dropped to the pavement with blood pouring from multiple wounds.
The police were now closing in on Reel. She didn’t look like an assassin. She looked like a fat old woman. But the police apparently didn’t care. They were only a few feet from her as she backed away.
Her hand reached inside her basket.
They were just about to surround her, their guns drawn and pointed at her.
Her back was against a brick wall. One of the police reached out to grab her arm. Once they saw the padding, it would all be over. They would shoot her right on the spot.
The loud voice reached to the alley.
The police stopped, turned.
The voice yelled out again and again. In Arabic it said, “We have the shooter! We have the shooter!”
The police turned and ran back down the alley toward the voice.
The crowd closed in on Reel. Sobbing people bent down to the dead bodies.