“We’re going to need some more Demerol,” Lia said, leaning over the front seat. “He’s stirring.”
“He ought to be down for the count.”
“Tell me about it.”
“We’ll change cars first, then we’ll swing back and get one of the kits. You guys are taking him to Bayindr,” Dean added. “You think you can do that by yourselves?”
“We can handle it,” said Pinchon.
“I’m only asking if you need backup,” Dean told him. “Don’t get insulted. Bayindr’s a good drive from here.”
They were using the operation’s backup plane; the Gulfstream for Asad had to stay in Istanbul just in case anything went wrong.
“I’ve done renditions before,” said Pinchon, using the CIA term for operations to snatch terrorists and “render” them elsewhere, generally to another country for justice. “Just like old times, huh, Lia?” added the para. “Except the body count’s higher. Guess you don’t have a colonel screaming up your backside, huh?”
“You were in the army together?” Dean asked.
“More or less,” said Lia.
“You ever hear that slogan, ‘Army of One’?” said Pinchon. “Lia kind of took it to heart.”
“Still does,” said Dean.
Lia checked the terrorist’s wrists, which were cinched in his lap, making sure they were tight. His lower right leg was in a cast that ran from his ankle to his knee, covering the area of the fracture. He groaned as she pushed him back into the seat.
“You gave him the whole hypo?” Lia asked Reisler. “He’s coming to already.”
“Whole shot, yeah.”
Lia didn’t think that was possible, but there was no use arguing.
“So who is he?” asked Pinchon.
“Abul Hazanwi, Red Lion’s driver,” said Lia. “We want him alive. He may talk.”
“Right.”
“He’s a source. He has to stay alive,” repeated Lia. “You hear that, Terry?”
“Hey, loud and clear.”
Lia wanted to ask him how he had survived Kyrgyzstan. She wanted to ask many other things as well, starting with why he’d let her think he was dead. But she couldn’t — she didn’t dare — ask anything. She already knew she wouldn’t like the answers.
“Our swap car is a blue BMW, in the corner of the lot,” Dean told them. “I’m going to go past once, drop someone off on foot. They check the lot. When they give the high sign, we come back and we’ll make the swap.”
“Drop me,” said Lia.
“Fine.”
And then there was Charlie.
What about Charlie? She loved him. Loved him with a deep ache.
But she’d loved Pinchon more, hadn’t she?
She had.
“Drop me right here,” said Lia. “I can walk past.”
Dean pulled to the side.
“Hey,” he said, turning to her as she started to get out.
“Yeah?”
“You got your gun?”
Lia held it up.
“You all right?” Dean stared at her, his eyes trying to penetrate her skull, figure out what she was thinking.
“I’m fine, Charlie Dean,” she told him, slamming the door.
CHAPTER 27
Karr planted tracking bugs on the cars belonging to Asad’s visitors, then walked down the street and around the corner to a block populated by small stores. With the exception of a restaurant on the corner, all were closed, but he wasn’t here to shop. Three motorbikes were parked at the side of a bicycle repair shop; Karr went to the one at the far end, got on, and backed away from the curb. The engine hummed to life, strong and steady.
“He’s coming out now, Tommy,” said Rockman. “Don’t get too close.”
“Why would I do that?” said Karr, gunning the bike to life.
CHAPTER 28
Dean swung out of the parking lot and headed down the road, waiting for Lia to report back. When she told him it was clear, he pulled into a crowded gas station and made a U-turn, heading back to the lot. Dean decided that he would drive the Mercedes back toward Istanbul before abandoning it, just in case someone connected the two cars.
“Beemer, huh?” said Pinchon as he drew up next to the BMW. “You guys really know how to live it up.”
Dean remained silent. Something about Pinchon rubbed him the wrong way.
“I’ll tell you where to pick me up,” Dean told Lia as they hustled the terrorist into the other car. “I don’t want to leave the Mercedes here.”
He drove about two miles on the highway back toward the city before finding a parking lot where the Mercedes wouldn’t stand out. Lia met him up on the highway; he got into the back, sliding next to the prisoner and Reisler.
“Stuffy in here,” said Pinchon, rolling down the window. The breeze hit Dean full in the face as Lia picked up speed.
“Do me a favor and roll that back up, would you?” Dean asked.
Pinchon smirked — Dean could see it in the passenger-side mirror — and raised the window about an inch.
“So what are we doing?” Reisler asked.
“We’re going to get a sedative to make sure he sleeps through the night,” said Dean. “We have a cache of gear about a half hour outside of the city in the direction you’re going. You can leave Lia and me there. You drive to Bayindr. There’ll be a team to meet you there tonight. You know how to get there?”
“We’ll find it,” said Pinchon.
“I’d put him in the trunk if I were you,” said Dean.
“You gonna tell me how to wipe my ass, too?”
Dean leaned forward, then, in a sudden motion that he could barely control, swung his arm around the headrest and grabbed Pinchon by the neck, pressing his fingers hard against the side of his throat.
“I asked you to
Only when the window was all the way up did Dean let go. No one spoke after that.
Lia pulled up next to the white Toyota Corolla, dust and ash flying up from the small lot. Dean got out and walked around the car, scanning the nearby building to make sure it was empty. Her heart clutched when he jumped over the guardrail behind the Corolla’s trunk; there was only a narrow concrete ledge there before a sheer drop of twenty or thirty feet into the surf below.
“Let’s get al-Qaeda here in the back,” said Pinchon, getting out.
