The bait had arrived by plane later that day, and after a brief lunch at the hotel, he left to do some shopping. One by one, at random intervals, Samir’s men entered the hotel and checked into different rooms on different floors. By nightfall, when the bait was out having dinner with a prostitute, they had all converged on the single room down the hall. Silenced submachine guns were waiting for them. The Spaniard and Samir both agreed that the assassin would strike at night. Most likely in the predawn hours, and it would be in the hotel suite, where he could control the situation. Samir saw the wisdom but felt the window of opportunity was too small. From sundown to sunup, he had his men on high alert. During the day, two men were always on alert, just in case. The other three men would head back to their rooms, order room service, and sleep.
After four nights in Vienna and now three in Paris, Samir could tell that the men were beginning to doubt the wisdom of the operation. The idea that they would dare question his authority upset him a great deal. He had chosen each man for his discipline and skills and above all else absolute obedience to his orders. They were told up front that this mission would require a great deal of patience. That it was likely to take several trips before the assassin showed up, but Samir and the Spaniard were adamant. The assassin would show up, and when he did, they would be ready to pounce.
Over the course of the last two months, Samir felt that he had gotten to know this assassin. He was a man of unknown nationality who had penetrated their organization and begun methodically killing off the financiers, arms dealers, foot soldiers, and facilitators who allowed their organization and sister organizations to move about Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Thanks to the Spaniard, Samir had studied five of the kills in detail and was sure he understood how the assassin thought. He was ready to face him; he just wished it would be sooner rather than later.
Samir checked his watch, looked around the room, and shook his head in disgust. There were two twin beds, and two of his men were lying on them in their street clothes, their heads propped up against the headboards. Both had dozed off, their silenced weapons resting on their laps. A third man was on a chair by the door, leaned over, with his face buried in his hands. Samir couldn’t tell, but he wouldn’t be surprised if his eyes were closed as well. The fourth man at least was sitting attentively in front of the two monitors. They provided two angles of the room down the hall. He was also wearing headphones. The first few nights they had all eagerly taken turns listening and watching while the lumpy Libyan had sex with a prostitute. Seven nights into it, the novelty had worn off. Even so, Samir did note that despite the Libyan’s apparent bad health he was extremely virile.
It caused Samir to wonder if he could do the same, and he was still not thirty. Samir was not a pious man when it came to his faith. He was a Muslim, but he left the holy prostrations to those who were more devout. He saw himself as a soldier tasked with taking Islam’s fight to the dirty Jews and the rest of the decadent West. To blend in, he needed to act like them, and if that meant drinking their liquor and sleeping with their women, then so be it. As long as insinuating himself into their culture would allow him to kill more of them, he was sure Allah would reward him.
Samir stood and stretched his neck to one side and then the other. He was somewhere in the neighborhood of five feet ten inches tall and extremely proud of his physique. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his perfectly sculpted frame. He wore his raven-black hair midway between his ears and his neck in the fashion that was so popular with the French youth. There was a mirror over the bed and he paused to study his reflection before brushing his hair back behind each ear. He looked down at his chest under the tight white T-shirt and nodded his approval. He’d done thousands of pushups to maintain his rock-hard muscles. It made him think that it would be a good idea to have the men get up and do some pushups to get their blood flowing. By chance, he glanced at the surveillance monitors and something caught his eye. He moved quickly to the screens and shook the man who was tasked with watching them.
“Muhammad,” Samir hissed, “did you see that?”
There on the black-and-white screen a shadowy figure moved across the suite. Samir felt his throat tighten. The assassin was here. Samir turned and slapped the feet of the men on the beds. Restraining himself from yelling, he said, “He’s here. Get up, you fools.” Samir grabbed his silenced submachine gun and lined his men up, slapping and shoving them into place. Within seconds, they were in position at the door.
Samir’s heart was racing, and he could tell by the wide-eyed expressions of his men that they were going through the same thing. He placed his hand on the door handle and nodded once before yanking it open. The men rushed past him exactly as they’d practiced, into the hallway, running toward the suite on the right. Samir fell in behind the last man. Up ahead he heard someone stumble and watched as Jamir caught himself before he fell. Samir cursed himself for not waking them sooner and getting them ready. He knew the assassin would strike in the predawn hours. He should have had the men ready. At least two of them had just been yanked from their dreams. He hoped they remembered to flip their safeties off before they went in. Samir took a wobbly step and realized he’d forgotten to take his own weapon off safety.
Abdul was first in line and had practiced the next move. Samir had told him not to hesitate. “Do not worry about the rest of us. Kick the door in and start firing. We will be right behind you.”
Samir was crouched near the wall, the thick black muzzle of his silencer pointed up. His finger was on the trigger, and as he watched Abdul step back to kick the door he felt a dry lump in his throat. He swallowed hard, and then the lock busted through the frame and the door flew open. Samir waited a second and then pushed his brother to join the fight. Still in the hallway, he heard the steady spit of the guns in front of him unleashing their deadly volley on the assassin, and a wolfish grin spread across his face. There was no way the killer would survive this onslaught. After tonight, Samir would become a legend among his peers.
CHAPTER 3
RAPP took cover behind the bed and its heavy platform. The distinctive spit of bullets leaving the end of a suppressor at a high rate was followed by the mirror above the bed shattering with a crash. After that, bullets began thudding into the walls, furniture, and mattress. Rapp pressed himself into the floor as he tried to count the shots. The steady thumping of one gun being fired was quickly joined by at least two more. Rapp stole a quick look at the balcony a mere six steps away and fought the urge to bolt. With this much lead flying, he would never make it. Plaster was raining down on him and he could hear bullets impacting the mattress just a few inches above his head.
Rapp pressed himself to the floor, taking cover behind the carpeted platform that elevated the bed, and told himself not to panic. His only avenue of escape was cut off, and he was cornered and outgunned. As the hail of bullets continued around him, he was reminded of something his trainer, Stan Hurley, had once said. It took Rapp a half second before he realized it was his only chance. Grabbing a spare magazine from under his left arm, he focused on the area past the foot of the bed and waited for his chance.
Even with the suppressors there was a great deal of noise, as there was a near continuous spit of bullets flying and the metallic clank of slides blowing back and slamming forward. It was considerably quieter than normal gunshots, but by no means silent. Rapp guessed they were using MP5s, or a close cousin. His mind jumped through the possibilities in a split second. MP5s almost certainly meant thirty-round magazines, and with the weapon’s rate of fire on full automatic a man could burn through all his rounds in a matter of seconds.
One of Rapp’s assets was the ability to slow things down in his mind’s eye. He’d honed it on the lacrosse pitch in high school and college. He could calculate what the other players were going to do and react. When things were tense like this, he could block out the fear and extraneous information, focus on what was important, and slow
