Ahmed! He‘s fallen, just as he said!
— I don‘t see any other movement, the leader‘s voice floated down from the parapet. -Go get him, but make it quick!
Running in a semi-crouch, the two men approached Yusef.
— Hold it! their leader said, and they obediently squatted on their hams, their rifles laid across their thighs, their avid eyes on their fallen comrade.
There was movement from the left as the leader abandoned his eyrie, clattering down stone steps to the courtyard.
— Ahmed, one of the men whispered, — are you all right?
— No, said Ahmed. -The pain in my leg is terrible, it‘s-
But he‘d said enough at close range for the other man to move back a pace.
— What is it? his companion said, aiming his rifle into the mouth of the hallway.
— I don‘t think that‘s Ahmed.
That was when Chalthoum and Soraya, Glocks firing, moved out on either side of Yusef. The two crouching men were struck immediately, and Chalthoum kicked their weapons away from where they lay sprawled on the ground. The leader, scurrying to find cover where there was none, fired off-balance and Chalthoum went down with a grunt.
Soraya, running, aimed and fired at the leader, but it was Yusef, from his prone position, who shot the leader in the chest. The man spun around and fell. At once Soraya veered toward him.
— Check Amun! she called to Yusef as she stooped, picking up the leader‘s rifle. He was writhing, bleeding from his right side, but he was breathing. The bullet hadn‘t punctured a lung.
She knelt down beside him. -Who hired you?
The man looked up at her and spat in her face.
A moment later she was joined by the two men. Amun had been shot in the thigh, but the bullet had gone through and the wound, Yusef said, looked clean. He‘d tied off the area above the wound with a makeshift tourniquet made from her shirt.
— Are you all right? she said, looking up at Chalthoum.
He nodded in his usual dour way.
— I‘ve asked him who hired him, she said, — but he‘s not talking. -Take Yusef and see about the other two. Chalthoum was staring intently at the fallen leader.
Soraya knew that look of determination. -Amun…
— Just give me five minutes.
They needed the information, there was no question about that. Soraya nodded reluctantly and, with Yusef, walked back to where the other two men lay near the mouth of the hallway. There wasn‘t much to see. Both had taken multiple shots to the abdomen and chest. Neither was alive. As they gathered up the rifles, they heard a muffled cry that, in its inhumanity, sent shivers down their spines.
Yusef turned to her. -This Egyptian friend of yours, he can be trusted?
Soraya nodded, already sick at what Amun was doing with her consent. There was silence then, except for the desperate voice of the wind, keening through the abandoned rooms. After a time, Chalthoum returned to them. He was limping badly, and Yusef handed him a rifle to lean on.
— My enemies had nothing to do with this, he said in a voice that had not been changed one iota by what he‘d just done. -These men were hired by the Americans, specifically a man known ridiculously as Triton. Mean anything to you?
Soraya shook her head.
— But these might. She saw four small rectangular metal objects swinging from a length of cord. -I found these around the leader‘s neck.
She examined them when he handed them over. -They look like dog tags.
Amun nodded. -He said they came from the four Americans who were executed back there. These bastards murdered them.
But she had to admit the tags weren‘t like any she had ever seen. Instead of carrying name, rank, and serial number, they were laser-engraved with what looked like-
— They‘re enciphered, she said, her heart beating fast. -These might be the key to proving who launched the Kowsar 3, and why.
Book Four
31
LEONID DANILOVICH ARKADIN roamed the passenger area of the Air Afrika flight that had been sent for him and his cadre in Nagorno-Karabakh. He knew their destination was Iran. Noah Perlis was certain that Arkadin didn‘t know the specific site, but Noah was wrong. Like many Americans in his position, Noah believed himself smarter than those who weren‘t American and able to manipulate them. Where Americans got that idea was something of a mystery, but having spent time in DC, Arkadin had some ideas. America‘s smug sense of isolation might have been shaken by the events in 2001, but not its sense of privilege and entitlement. When he‘d been there, he‘d sat in district restaurants, eavesdropping on conversations as part of his Treadstone training. But at the same time he‘d listen to the neocons- men of power, substance, and influence who were convinced that they had the keys to how the world worked. For them, everything was childishly simple, as if there were only two immutable variables in life:
