Assassin's Strike Read online

  TWENTY-SIX

  At the same moment Slaton was violating one of his checkpoints, Inspector Hadad heard, “She has lived in Syria before!”

  Hadad looked up from his desk.

  Vasiliev, the ill-mannered Russian, was barging into his office. He wore a fearsome expression, although given his coal-black beard and stormy features, Hadad doubted he could have appeared otherwise. His arrival was not unexpected—the odd investigative couple had agreed to an early meeting.

  “What are you talking about?” Hadad asked.

  Vasiliev searched for a place to drop a folder—Hadad’s desk was a shipwreck of files. “I only recently learned of her history,” he said. “Kravchuk was posted to our embassy here three years ago.”

  “She lived in Damascus?” Hadad asked incredulously.

  Vasiliev nodded.

  The search was still not going well. For four days the city had been locked down, and the police and Mukhabarat had been rousting entire neighborhoods. They so far had nothing to show for their efforts. Hadad opened the file and began to read. He said nothing for almost a minute, then slapped the folder closed. “I have been searching every car leaving Damascus since Monday … and now you tell me she might have friends here?”

  “I went through the file myself, but see no one who is likely to be harboring her. Yet there is an address, the apartment building where she used to live. Start there, question her neighbors. You might find something useful. Maybe ideas about who would give her refuge.”

  Hadad had taken on a crimson shade. With forced calm, he said, “Go back to your embassy and find out what else I haven’t been told! Perhaps she has a Syrian lover as well!”

  The Russian glowered, then turned on a heel and left.

  Hadad stared blankly at the file.

  I need to find this damned woman!

  He picked up his phone and began making calls.

  * * *

  Overdue as the lead was, Hadad was happy to have something to chase.

  He immediately mustered a squad and set out to the building where Kravchuk had lived, three years earlier, during her posting to the Russian embassy. They started by rousting the building’s owner, who easily produced records showing that the interpreter had indeed rented a small flat on the third floor. The room was presently let to a Lebanese businessman. Hadad doubted a search of the place would turn up anything useful. More relevant, in his mind, were the units on either side. Both were occupied by long-term tenants who, according to the owner, had been friendly with Kravchuk during her time there.

  After some deliberation, Hadad decided the right tone should be set through brute force. Two tactical squads were organized and, simultaneously, the doors of both flats kicked in. The residents—an elderly couple in one, a twice-divorced schoolteacher in the other—were taken completely by surprise. This, of course, was part of the method. An invasion by armed police was always an attention-getter, particularly in a place like Syria where the notion of due process was aspirational at best.

  News of the raid—there was no other word—tsunamied quickly through the rest of the building. There was no sign of Ludmilla Kravchuk—Hadad had never expected to be so lucky, but hope sprang eternal. As reality took its grim hold, the on-site interviews began. As it turned out, six of the building’s current residents remembered the quiet Russian interpreter. None confessed to seeing her in the years since she’d left.

  Most of those interviewed spoke freely, the rest fearfully. Those who showed the slightest reluctance were given an ultimatum: declare everything they knew immediately, or be escorted to the basement of the district station for more spirited questioning. Any remaining reservations were fast resolved. Within two hours the interrogators had all they would ever get, and it was not without use. They learned which restaurants Kravchuk had frequented, which dry cleaner she used, and where she’d gotten repairs to her beaten old Volkswagen. They also extracted the name of a local librarian who was the only close friend anyone could remember.

  The librarian, unfortunately, turned out to be a dead end, the woman having perished last year from a staph infection gone systemic—the kind of thing that rarely happened outside war zones, but that took its toll in times of government-imposed austerity. The last morsel of information came from the schoolteacher. She said Kravchuk had kept regular hair appointments at a nearby salon. To Hadad’s frustration, the woman couldn’t remember the name of the place, and a quick check of his phone showed more than twenty within a two-mile radius.

  He put the salon on his list of things to track down—directly beneath nine restaurants, one dry cleaner, and an auto repair shop, all of whose names he already knew.

  * * *

  The city rose promptly at daybreak.

  Ludmilla Kravchuk did not. She lay on the collapsed mattress, studying the water-stained ceiling above in dim light. She had stirred awake on a dream of better days. Parts of it were familiar, recurring. The house on the Black Sea where she and her husband had spent their honeymoon. The two of them walking paths on the nearby cliffs through an evergreen forest, no other people in sight.

  They had never gone back after that halcyon week. Never so much as talked about doing so. In the years since Grishka’s death, as she lay awake at night, trying and trying to sleep, Ludmilla often found herself going back. Forever walking through the low hills, breathing in the briny air. There had been something inordinately Russian about the place. Something enduring.

  Now, however, everything had changed. She knew she would never go back. She had lost the only dream she’d ever had. Yet it might not be a bad thing. Perhaps the house on the Black Sea would be replaced by something new. Something better.

  She thought about Salma. She too had lost her husband, but at least she had Naji. Ludmilla wondered if she might meet someone to share the coming years with. Perhaps there was a chance—if she could only escape Damascus.

  She stared at the room’s only window. Outside, the new morning was muted under a nickel-gray sky.

  Ludmilla waited.

  For what or who, she didn’t know.

  * * *

  Slaton carefully guided the big truck into the center of town. He was not overly restrained, and certainly not reckless. To anyone watching, he handled the Ural precisely as any junior enlisted man in Hezbollah would: with a duty-bound furtherance of the will of God.

  The city was busy, heavy traffic in spots and bustling sidewalks. The war was easing, fuel becoming available. Spare parts for cars were getting through, and sons were being granted leave from the hot spots in the north. Not life as it had been, but traces of normalcy returning.

  Ludmilla Kravchuk was supposedly holed up in the Al Salhiyeh district. Slaton had committed the address to memory, and he’d spent hours studying overheads of the surrounding area. He’d seen right away that the building could never be reached covertly. That being the case, he’d settled on the other extreme—overtness. He would make his approach by hiding in plain sight.

  He bypassed the Citadel of Damascus, the one-time residence of Saladin, leader of the first battles against the Crusaders, and crossed the Barada River on the shoulder of the Old City. For the first time since calling in a simulated airstrike hours earlier, he turned on his CIA-issued phone. At this point, he reckoned the risk from being tracked was less than that of making a wrong turn—to put this rig into a dead-end street, especially given the load he was carrying, could prove a fatal mistake.

  He’d had a handful of interactions since arriving in town, none of which were surprising. Most of those on the sidewalk paid him little attention—military vehicles were a ubiquitous presence throughout the country. Hezbollah, however, was not a fixture in the capital. Those who did look his way had varied reactions. Hezbollah was an indigenous faction in Syria, but one that was widely viewed as being bought and paid for by Iran. Slaton saw a few supportive raised fists, but far more indecent gestures. He returned them all in kind—again, exactly as a low-ranking militia driver would.
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  Ten minutes after crossing the river he was rumbling through Al Salhiyeh. Soon after that, Slaton got his first look at the building in question. What he saw, unfortunately, caused him to drive straight past.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The police car was parked directly across the street from Chez Salma, hard against the curb in front of a European-themed restaurant. Slaton’s initial reaction was guarded, and he passed without slowing. Then in his mirror he saw two policemen emerge from the restaurant.

  This brought relief, if not outright encouragement. A patrol car would never have been dispatched here if the authorities suspected the interpreter was hiding nearby. Moreover, if Kravchuk had already been found and detained, the Mukhabarat would be watching the place like hawks. No uniform would be allowed anywhere near.

  Slaton rounded the block at a crawl. By the time he again reached Kravchuk’s address, the patrol car had departed, a blue-and-white speck in the distant traffic. He parked across the street, one shopfront removed from the restaurant—which turned out to be a secondhand furniture store.

  He set the parking brake and studied Chez Salma. Lights were burning in the salon’s first-floor window, and the front door was blocked open with a brick. Kravchuk had told her Czech contact she was staying on the floor above. Slaton saw two second-floor windows facing the street. Neither was open, but even in daylight the room on the right was full of diffuse white light. He had no idea if that was the correct flat, or even how many rooms were in the place. He’d never been given a room number, and had no way to contact Kravchuk. Sorensen had searched for a floorplan for the building, explaining that the NSA had hacked into many of Syria’s municipal databases. Unfortunately, she’d come up empty on this address.

  Slaton considered the salon’s invitingly open front door. Try as he might, he could imagine no pretense of walking inside that wouldn’t lead to a conversation in Arabic. He needed another way to get inside the building. Was there a fire escape in back? He couldn’t see much of the roof, but the neighboring building to the north might give access.

  He simply had to find a way. And he had to find it before he got out of the truck. Once his boots hit the sidewalk, the risk level ramped up exponentially. Anyone might stop him to strike up a conversation. A zealous teenager wanting to join Hezbollah. A widow with a question about the militia’s food handouts. Slaton would ignore any such approaches, but that might not solve the problem.

  He stared at the two high windows. They glared back invitingly. So close, yet so far.

  The good news was that things seemed quiet. He’d caught no glints from windows across the street. Saw no suspicious vehicles along the curbs. Slaton glanced down at the seat next to him. A blanket covered both his MP5 and the rocket launcher he’d plundered from the arsenal in back.

  He pocketed the truck’s key. When the time came, he would leave the cab unlocked. War-torn Damascus might be rife with petty crime, but even the most adventurous thief would steer clear of a truck full of weapons flying the Hezbollah flag.

  He looked down the street in both directions, saw nothing inspirational. Then he checked the first side street, and his gaze settled on a large work truck. He actually couldn’t see the vehicle directly, only the front bumper and grille. Yet an image of the rest was clear, reflected in the broad window of a corner grocer. And there, glimmering like a mirage in the midday heat, Slaton saw the answer to his dilemma.

  * * *

  Mustafa Barak secured the arm of his truck in its cradle, then powered down the hydraulics. He climbed down from the bucket to street level and found the black-jacketed young man waiting.

  “It works!” his customer remarked.

  “Of course it works,” Mustafa responded. He edged between his truck and the building, a narrow gap where there was no sidewalk.

  The black jacket followed him into the shadows. No one on the nearby street could possibly see them. Mustafa held out his hand, and the young man filled it with a wad of U.S. dollars—Syrian pounds were always second choice.

  Mustafa had worked for the Ministry of Electricity for twenty-five years, long enough to know that no lineman could make a decent living without a bit of work on the side. He paid his dispatcher a kickback to keep his schedule relatively light. In most months, Mustafa made twice his regular wage from what he called his “concierge work.” Power lines had long been strung over Damascus like a dropped bowl of spaghetti. Those who knew what they were doing tapped into the main lines themselves. Those who didn’t fell into three camps. A few connected to power the official way and received a ruinous electric bill every month. Others engaged linemen like Mustafa. It was the third group who were the least fortunate—they suffered electrocution.

  “My brother-in-law called,” said the black jacket. “He also would like you to install a line.”

  “Where does he live?” Mustafa asked.

  The young man edged out of the shadows and pointed to a window two buildings down.

  “Okay, but the price will be double.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m sure you didn’t tell him what you paid.”

  The young man looked at him, then couldn’t contain a smile.

  “Can he have the money within the hour?” Mustafa asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Then I’ll take care of it after lunch.”

  The young man walked off, and just then Mustafa’s partner, a new kid named Ahmed, bounded down from the cab of the truck. He’d been on his phone for the last ten minutes. Mustafa peeled off Ahmed’s share: one-quarter of the take. Seniority had its privileges, and the dispatcher had to be paid.

  “Easy money,” said the kid, beaming like a dog getting a treat.

  “As ever.” Mustafa handed over the cash. He looked up the street once, then said, “We are ahead of schedule. Let’s take a long lunch today.”

  Ahmed’s smile widened further—as Mustafa knew it would. The kid had been seeing a girl who lived only a few blocks away, in the center of their usual territory. Her parents both worked during the day, and whenever Ahmed was allotted an extended lunch break, he invariably succumbed to appetites that had nothing to do with food.

  “When should I be back?” he asked.

  Mustafa considered the new job. He could easily manage it alone, and still have time for a kebab. “Two hours,” he said.

  “Two hours?” Ahmed looked like he might explode. Mustafa hoped the poor girl was as fervent as her boyfriend. Ahmed tossed his hard hat and yellow vest into the cab, and Mustafa watched him set off down the street.

  He retrieved a pair of traffic cones, then edged back between the truck and the building. Looking up the street through the narrow gap, he noticed a tall man wearing a hooded camo jacket walking toward him.

  Mustafa sighed. Some days, some neighborhoods. I could get rich if I had the time. As he threw the cones onto the truck, he debated whether he wanted any more work that day. By the time Ahmed got back, he decided, they would have to tackle their real schedule.

  He turned toward the approaching man, and was halfway through the motion when he had the distinct impression that a sledgehammer had struck his crotch. Mustafa doubled over, retching in pain. His vision went to a blur. When focus began to return, the first thing he saw was his hard hat spinning on the pavement like a child’s top.

  Then everything went black.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ludmilla sat looking at the empty teacup on the table in front of her. The lump of a twice-used tea bag sat cold and wet in its center. She was wondering whether she might be able to pilfer something from the coffee machine downstairs when a thump from behind startled her.

  She turned toward the window and was stunned to see a man waving at her from outside. He appeared to be hovering in midair, like a superhero in an action movie. Only he was wearing a yellow vest and a hard hat. Then she noticed a plastic panel in front of his thighs. Ludmilla stood, saw more of the picture, and finally realized what she was looking at—a worker in
the bucket of a cherry picker.

  He was manipulating a controller with one hand, and the platform wobbled slightly before grounding against the window. The man was looking straight at her. Her thoughts went into overdrive. If she were in her apartment in Moscow, Ludmilla would have no doubt that he was a window washer or repairman. Or in the worst case, given how he was staring at her, perhaps a voyeur. In her present circumstances, however, she knew better. Was this a raid by the police? Had they managed to track her here? Ludmilla instinctively stepped back. She weighed dashing for the door. The window was closed and locked, but that was hardly a comfort.

  Before she could settle on a response, the man began deliberately mouthing something. Like any good interpreter, she had a knack for reading lips. She made out the individual letters L, U, D, M …

  He was mouthing her name.

  She took one cautious step toward the window.

  He mimed opening it. Ludmilla noticed that his movement inside the plastic bucket seemed constrained, as if something else was inside. She took another step toward the window. The man put his face very close to the glass. He said something aloud, muffled words that penetrated faintly through the thick pane.

  “The Americans sent me! I’m here to help you!”

  * * *

  The telling break in Inspector Hadad’s search came from a source, he later realized, that he should have leveraged sooner: Vasiliev the irksome Russian.

  Hadad had called Petrov’s man twice that morning to fill him in on what they’d learned from the raid on Kravchuk’s old building. He was in his office, having just refilled his coffee mug, when a call came in the other direction.

  “I have been interviewing embassy personnel,” Vasiliev said. “Three remain from the days when Kravchuk was assigned there. One of them, a receptionist who is a local contract employee, claimed to be quite friendly with her. I mentioned what you told me earlier, and she said she might know the hair salon—apparently Kravchuk asked for a recommendation, and the receptionist gave her one. Over time she gained the impression that Kravchuk and the owner had become friends.”