Assassin's Strike Read online

  Slaton had only one shot. He settled the sight on his target, slightly above the passing sedan’s hood, and depressed the trigger.

  The results were instantaneous.

  The solid-propellant engine ignited, creating an overpressure that blew the front and back discs clear of the launcher tube. As the rocket flew outbound, a plume of back-blast shrouded the room behind him.

  In the time it took to blink, the rocket flew straight and true. It struck its target dead center.

  * * *

  The devastation that occurred in the next seconds was indistinguishable to the human eye. The projectile penetrated the Ural’s canvas canopy uneventfully, but fused on contact with the first true resistance—the lid of one of the crates holding twelve incendiary Z-versions of the weapon. The initial explosion was predictable, a product of years of engineering: an immediate overpressure in the local area, followed by a perfectly shaped cone of speeding shrapnel.

  What occurred next only a supercomputer could have modeled.

  Within milliseconds, a half dozen warheads in the first crate exploded, adding to the growing fireball. At the same time, the propellant in three rocket motors ignited, launching those weapons into neighboring crates from a range of less than a yard. The reactions multiplied from there, and in less time than it took to draw a human breath, nearly a hundred rockets in the back of the Ural were in various stages of detonation creating a fireball that topped the adjacent buildings.

  If the initial blast was spectacular, the aftermath was sporadic. The rockets that hadn’t exploded right away began cooking off in the ensuing inferno. Secondary explosions were, as a rule, highly unpredictable. Slaton had seen ammo caches light off countless times in his career, and some were more spectacular than others. Less intense fires produced a slow burn, giving the potential of setting off rifle rounds hours after the initial blast. What Slaton saw now was closer to Chinese New Year.

  The initial blast had upended the moving sedan, putting it on its side. This was probably fortunate for the car’s occupants, since it allowed the chassis to absorb the subsequent storm of fire and shrapnel. Slaton saw two policemen down in the street. Another had thrown himself behind a now-smoldering patrol car. On the fringes people were running away, and every building in sight had been peppered by shrapnel. The Ural itself, ground zero, was barely recognizable, a flaming mass of metal with the occasional rocket whizzing outward. The world’s biggest Roman candle sputtering to an end.

  The street quickly vanished in boiling curtains of smoke, either gray or black depending on the source. Slaton would use that to its fullest advantage. He dropped the launcher tube, picked up the MP5, and ran for the door.

  He had created a window of escape but it wouldn’t last long. He took the stairs two at a time, turned left at the bottom. The back door was ajar and he flew outside. Slaton quickly spotted what had to be his ride, a dated tan Hyundai beside a dented dumpster. A trickle of gray smoke at the exhaust told him it was running, and Kravchuk had the car pointed toward the alley’s exit. He ran flat out to the passenger door, flung it open, and settled into the seat with the MP5 in hand. The interpreter was indeed at the wheel. Only then did Slaton notice the car’s other occupants. A thirtyish woman sat in back. She looked at him expectantly. At her side was a boy of no more than four. Her arm encircled him protectively.

  “What the hell?” he said, his eyes going back and forth between Kravchuk and the two in back.

  A great explosion reverberated, and shards of flaming debris spun through the street ahead.

  Kravchuk said, “There is no time! I will explain later!”

  Slaton didn’t argue. “Okay … go, go!”

  The engine revved and the Hyundai jumped toward the street. Kravchuk navigated around the hulk of a burning car that Slaton barely recognized—since he’d left the window, the second of the two sedans, the one that had been trying to blockade the alley, had taken a direct hit from a stray rocket. It was now on its roof, a smoldering mess. Up the street he saw a visual Hiroshima, cars scattered like bowling pins, smoke swirling and blooming. The Ural’s body was ablaze, its cab unrecognizable. Part of the high frame was still intact, bent and twisted, and shreds of canopy lay over its smoldering skeleton.

  “Turn here!” the woman in back commanded.

  Kravchuk veered onto a secondary street, the Hyundai’s tiny engine racing. Moments later, the chaos behind them was lost to sight.

  * * *

  Hadad was flat on the floor behind the shattered front seat, smoke swirling all around him. Through the ringing in his ears he heard shouting outside, the occasional muffled explosion. Still dangerous, but only a fraction of the hell that had been unleashing moments earlier.

  He lifted his head tentatively. The first thing he saw was the fearful eyes of his driver—he and his partner were lying flat on the front bench seat, as much of their bodies as possible curled into the floor wells. Hadad looked out through the front windshield—or more precisely, the jagged cavity where it had been moments earlier.

  Four cars lay flaming in the street. Two were overturned. The big military truck at ground zero looked as if it had melted. The body was charred and molten, the tires belching black smoke. The back canopy had been shredded, the remains fluttering over the wilted frame like a combover from the apocalypse. Hadad had no idea what just happened, but one inescapable thought rose to the forefront.

  Ludmilla Kravchuk, the Russian interpreter he’d been chasing, was not alone. She had found some help.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sultan arrived in Khartoum at nine o’clock that same morning via an air route that had taken less than three hours. He mused that his next crossing—the divide between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula—would prove far more daunting.

  Since meeting with Petrov he’d been traveling non-stop. He’d been forced to spend last night in Dubai, having missed a connecting flight, yet he’d gotten a good night’s sleep because of it. It was the last he would have for many days. He bypassed the rental car counter and headed straight to the main parking lot. The aged Fiat sedan, purchased one month ago, was right where he’d left it. He got in and immediately rolled down the windows, the heat inside being oppressive. Having spent most of his childhood in Jordan, nearly a thousand miles north, he was accustomed to having some manner of seasons. Here, on the threshold of the Sahara, there was only summer. He supposed it was just as well: Sultan would take any constant in a mission so fraught with variables. Just to be sure, he’d watched the forecast closely. For the next few days there would be no frontal weather, which even here could bring rain and wind.

  Ideal conditions for his mission.

  Traffic was light, and he made his first stop less than three miles from the airport. The Corinthia Hotel was centered in the business district, overlooking the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, and the cable-suspended Tuti Bridge. The hotel was among the most modern in the country, a hundred-million-dollar luxury project in a nation desperate to attract business and investment. Sultan thought it a hopeless undertaking, and to his eye the twelve-story façade seemed cast in the image of an obese robot—in all likelihood, not the architect’s intent.

  He parked behind the hotel, in a niche where a three-sided wall concealed a row of dumpsters. He got out, paused to survey the area, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. A pair of women with shopping bags were traversing the sidewalk of a distant overpass. Two blocks away, a short queue of taxis lay parked along a curb, the drivers leaning on fenders, huffing cigarettes, talking animatedly. He closed the gap to the hotel’s service entrance, and as he did so the line of sight to all of them was cut off by a high block wall. On his first visit he’d verified there were no cameras nearby. This service bay, he was sure, was as discreet a meeting place as could be had within the bounds of hotel property.

  He pulled out a burner phone and sent a three-word text message.

  * * *

  The maid arrived four minutes later. She stopped in front of hi
m and smiled, probably because that was her nature. She was small and thinly framed, although there was nothing frail about her. He guessed her to be not much more than twenty years old, a clear-eyed and lively thing, imbued with the vitality of youth. Without so much as a greeting, she handed over a nylon grocery bag.

  Such was the nature of their relationship.

  He looked inside and saw the labeled plastic Ziplocs he’d given her, six in all. Through the clear plastic he inspected the contents of each, one by one. He saw multiple samples of hair. The razors and toothbrushes, of course, were a given.

  “Numbers one and three provided the most,” she said in Arabic. Her voice was surprisingly strong, her diction precise, albeit colored in her lilting Sudanese accent. Sultan was accustomed to more northern dialects, but communication was not an issue.

  “No blood or feces?” he asked.

  She showed no sign of distaste—nor had she when he’d first mentioned it. He’d surmised then, as now, that any housekeeper in a Sudanese hotel, even a young one, would hardly be put off stride by a few bodily fluids. As if to prove the point, she said, “I saw no evidence of those. One did vomit, but I wasn’t sure if you would want that.”

  Sultan considered it. An interesting prospect, and one he hadn’t considered. Bile would certainly be identifiable, but it might prove a contradiction for his specific purposes. “No, you did well.”

  She held out a hand for the balance of her payment. “If you ever need my help again, you have my number.” She said it with the confident air of a car mechanic who’d just repaired a leaking radiator.

  He set the shopping bag on the ground and reached into his pocket. “Actually, there is one more thing you can do for me.”

  Sultan’s next movements came smoothly—he’d practiced them repeatedly in the mirror of his hotel room. He drew a sheaf of cash from his pocket, beneath which was concealed a hypodermic needle filled with an amber liquid. He held out cash at arm’s length, in the way one might feed a bird in a park. When the girl reached out for the money, he flicked off the needle’s plastic cover with a thumb, took one step toward her, and plunged the needle into the soft flesh of her outstretched forearm.

  She pulled back, the look on her face more one of surprise than fear.

  Sultan had no idea what was in the syringe. The Russian who’d supplied it had promised only two things: the agent would work quickly and, by any analysis, the victim would appear to have succumbed to heart failure.

  The girl opened her mouth as if to say something, but no perfectly clipped words came forth. She listed to one side like a tree catching a gust of wind, then stumbled toward the great cinderblock wall. There her entire body went rigid, and she toppled toward him like a plank of lumber. He tried to catch her as she fell, not wanting any contusions to muddy the manner of her passing.

  By the time she reached the ground, her breathing had shallowed out precipitously, tiny gasps beyond her control. Sultan waited, his eyes sweeping the surrounding area. They were still concealed by the high wall. A few ragged gasps came at the end before all life left her. Her almond-shaped eyes remained open, fixed in eternal astonishment.

  He looked around, and decided to pull her body closer to the dumpster. He’d already decided that he wouldn’t elaborate the scene with a trash can or spent vacuum cleaner bags—it would likely do more harm than good. After a final survey, he decided there was nothing more to be done. He pocketed the cash she’d never touched, then recovered the plastic cover to the hypodermic and capped the needle. He retrieved the bag and began walking calmly toward his car. If there was any remorse it was fleeting, overtaken by the satisfaction of a smooth operation. After so many years, so much preparation, his plan was finally under way.

  Sultan looked over his shoulder only once. He had never killed anyone before, and was glad to have the first behind him. That, he’d been told, was the crucible. The moment a man realized what he was capable of.

  Now he knew.

  A good thing, given the magnitude of what was to come.

  * * *

  Sultan drove the Fiat across town, to the far western edge of what could still be called Khartoum. He turned into a latent industrial area that had, on appearances, fallen on hard times. He’d leased a storage garage from an enterprise at the back of the property, a half acre of corrugated lock-ups where in good times oil exploration and drilling companies warehoused pipes and trucks and machinery. And where, in less prosperous stretches, sheds were rented out unquestioningly to itinerant foreigners who needed storage space for no apparent reason.

  He drew the Fiat to a stop next to a standard single-door unit. The compound looked deserted, as it had every time he’d come. Leaving the engine running, he removed a heavy padlock and rolled up the accordion metal door. There was enough space inside for both his vehicles, and he pulled the Fiat inside next to a beaten Toyota pickup truck. The truck had obvious aesthetic shortcomings, but was mechanically sound. Where Sultan was going, he couldn’t afford a dead battery or a failed water pump.

  After killing the Fiat’s engine, he got out and set straight to work. He began with the Toyota, taking a careful look at what was in back. On his last visit he’d painstakingly inventoried the equipment in the bed. He double-checked now to make sure nothing was missing. Sudan was a thieves’ paradise, and he’d had doubts as to whether the shed would be secure. As a telltale of sorts, he’d left a new iPhone in its original box on top of his heap of equipment, reasoning that no thief could resist such a valuable, easily marketable piece of electronic bling.

  The box was still there. The phone was inside.

  Sultan was glad nothing seemed to be missing. Much like the truck’s mechanical condition, there were no hardware stores in the territory ahead to deal with shortcomings. Inventory complete, he pulled a tarp over the bed, covering it completely, and secured it with multiple tie-downs. The bag the housekeeper had given him went on the floor in the truck’s cab. The key to the Fiat he decided to keep.

  He cranked the Toyota to life and backed outside. Rolling down the shed’s door, he resecured the heavy padlock. Sultan checked the time. Still on schedule. He’d paid for the shed through the end of next month, a transaction executed entirely by way of emails and wire transfers. Landlords rarely bothered with face-to-face meetings these days—particularly when euros were delivered in advance.

  He put the truck in gear, its transmission shifting smoothly, and set out west toward the bleakness that was Darfur.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Ludmilla was driving, and to Slaton’s eye doing a respectable job, keeping good positions in the flow of traffic. Better yet, she knew her way around the city. At that moment they had no destination in mind—only a departure from the chaos behind.

  They’d seen little of the police since leaving Al Salhiyeh, but a passing patrol car two minutes ago, siren blaring through an intersection, had put everyone on edge. Ludmilla glanced down at the MP5 canted against Slaton’s right knee. “Shouldn’t we hide that?” she asked.

  “Better to have it available—just in case.”

  Her eyes went back to the road. Slaton turned toward the back seat, and the woman there met his eyes. The young boy did not, preferring the view out the window to the stranger in the front seat. He clutched a toy truck in his lap; one of its wheels was missing.

  “I think it’s time for introductions,” Slaton suggested. “Can I assume your name is Salma?”

  She nodded, and said in heavily accented English, “This is my son, Naji. He speaks no English.”

  On hearing his name, the boy looked forward. Slaton smiled at the child, adding a friendly wink.

  The boy turned back to the window.

  “He does not like soldiers,” Salma said.

  “Right now, neither do I,” Slaton said. He’d ditched his camo jacket, but he had brought a weapon into the car. That, apparently, was enough to make the label fit. He knew it was a common affliction in war-torn areas. Children didn’t know one uniform
from another. They simply learned to be frightened of all combatants, save for those who were close family relations.

  “We only wanted to borrow your car,” he said. “It would be safer for you and your son if you got out at the next corner.”

  “No, we come with you,” Salma argued.

  “Come with us?” he repeated, exchanging a glance with Ludmilla. “Where do you imagine we’re going?”

  “America, of course.”

  Slaton held fast. He settled on a logical reply. “I’m not even American,” he said. “I’m Israeli.”

  Salma looked confused at first. Then worry set in.

  Ludmilla mirrored her expressions, and said, “But you told me—”

  “Look, I know,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s complicated. I work for the Americans. And yes, I’m here to get you out of Syria.” He shifted his attention to the mother and child. “There’s no way I can get you and your son to the United States. Right now, I’m going to have a hard time getting the two of us to the border.”

  Salma spoke to Ludmilla in a stream of rapid-fire Arabic.

  “She wants to know what you would have her do,” the interpreter said.

  Slaton stared at Salma. She was an attractive woman, dark-eyed with raven-black hair. There was a resoluteness about her that seemed familiar, an aura of conviction that would not be easily sidestepped. Only then did Slaton make the connection. She reminded him of the mother of another preschooler—the one he’d married.

  Salma spoke again to Ludmilla, who translated. “She says that for seven years she has struggled to keep her business going. For the last two it has been particularly hard because her husband was killed in the war. Now, thanks to us, her salon is surrounded by the police and Mukhabarat. They will discover she has been harboring me.”