American Assassin (10 page)

“But?”

“Here … at this place … it seems like that line keeps getting moved.”

“Can you give me an example.”

“That angry old cuss … the one my recruiter warned my about … well, I’m not here five minutes and the two of us end up in the barn … He’s telling me to quit and save all of us the effort. I tell him no and suggest we should find out if I have what it takes. He very clearly tells me that the head and groin are off limits while we spar. We lock horns and twenty seconds into it I have him beat. He was about two seconds from blacking out when he grabbed my nuts and practically turned me into a eunuch. He never said anything to me about it. In fact I haven’t seen him since. Then you have Victor running around here breaking every rule he wants while the instructors are all over the rest of us. Again, we go in to spar today and the instructors clearly tell us the head and groin are off limits, and what does Victor do … Fred is within seconds of beating him and Victor punches him square in the face. I saw the look on your face, but the other two didn’t say boo. It’s screwy. I don’t know how you expect the rest of us to follow any rules. And here I sit … technically I didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m being threatened with the boot.”

“I didn’t threaten you.”

“You said Sergeant Smith thinks I should get the boot. I’d say that’s a threat.”

Lewis hit the stop button and turned to face Hurley. With arms folded, he said, “That was one of the more difficult sessions I’ve conducted. Do you know why?”

Hurley shook his head.

“Because I agreed with virtually everything he said.”

CHAPTER
18

S
TANSFIELD
stood at the end of the dock, looked up at the moon, and ran through the list of transgressions. Although he didn’t show it, and he never did, he was livid with what was going on down here. He had allowed Hurley far too much latitude, and while much of his anger was directed at the snake eater, more of it was directed back at himself. How had he not seen the signs earlier? This place, this operation, all of it was his responsibility. Kennedy had tried to warn him as respectfully as she could, but his days were filled with a hundred other pressing issues of national security. And he had a blind spot when it came to Hurley. Especially on the operational side of things. He’d known Stan longer than anyone at the company. He knew his long list of talents, and his short but potent list of faults.

There’d been a few bumps over the years, occasions when Hurley had let him down, but even the great Ted Williams struck out every now and then. They had met in Budapest in the summer of 1956 just as everything was heating up in the unwilling Soviet satellite. Stansfield was in his thirties and was quickly rising through the ranks of the fledgling CIA, while Hurley was in his early twenties, fresh out of training and thirsting for a fight. Stansfield saw firsthand in the run-up to the Hungarian Revolution that Hurley had a real aptitude for mayhem. He was talented, and wild, and a lot of other things, some good and some bad. But one thing was undeniable. He knew how to get at the enemy. Engage them, upset them, bloody them, and somehow make it back with nothing more than a few bumps. In the espionage business it was easy to fall into a safe daily pattern. Begin the day at your apartment, head to the embassy for work, a local café for lunch, back to the embassy, maybe a cocktail party at another embassy in the evening, a stop at a local café for a nightcap, and then back to your apartment. You could safely move about a foreign capital without ever risking your job or your life. Not Hurley. When he landed in a new place he headed straight for the rough part of town. Got to the know the prostitutes, the barkeeps, and most important, the black-marketeers who despised their communist overlords. Hurley fed him daily reports about the rising contempt among the citizenry and proved himself to be a first-class field operative. He became Stansfield’s indispensable man.

Tonight, however, Stansfield was having his doubts. Budapest had been a long time ago. Sooner or later all skills diminished. The obvious transition was to move him behind a desk, but that would be like asking a race horse to pull a plow. It would kill him. Stansfield looked back up at the house. He had silently left the meeting and walked down to the lake on his own. A simple hand gesture was enough to tell his bodyguards to wait at the top of the small hill. Hurley would know to come find him. He did not have to be asked.

Stansfield could tell his old colleague was well aware that he had disappointed him. He was as down as he’d seen him in many years, and it could have been because of a variety of factors. At the top of the list was probably that shiner on his face. Stansfield had to bite down on the right side of his tongue when he’d found out that Kennedy’s recruit had been the one who’d painted him. Hurley’s fighting abilities were unmatched by any man he’d ever encountered. His tolerance for pain, his quickness, his mean streak, his Homeric ability to find the weakness of another man, no matter how big or strong, had become the stuff of legend at Langley.

Looking back on it now, Stansfield could see where the mistakes had been made. He had allowed Hurley to create a cult of personality down here. His own little fiefdom of Special Operations shooters. All of them were extremely talented and useful, but as a group they had the ability to create a toxic stew of contempt for anyone who had not walked in their shoes. Even Doctor Lewis, a snake eater himself, had voiced concern. Kennedy had repeatedly attempted to nudge him in the right direction. She had the gift—the ability to glimpse where it was all headed. She knew they needed to adapt, change course and tactics, and she had been trying to get Stansfield’s attention. The problem was, as the deputy director of operations, he was in charge of it all. Every valuable operative they had in every major city all over the globe and all of the support people who went with them. Virtually all of it was compartmentalized in some way, and a good portion of it wasn’t even put to paper. It was a never-ending chess game that was played in his head every day, all day long.

Stansfield heard the soft footfalls on the stairs coming down to the lake. He turned and made out the image of Hurley in the moonlight. The platform swayed as he stepped onto the L-shaped dock. Hurley approached his boss without a word and pulled out a pack of Camels. He offered his old friend one, knowing that he liked to acquaint himself with his old habit when he was away from his wife. The two men stood facing the lake, looking up at the starry night sky, puffing on their cigarettes for nearly a minute before Hurley finally spoke.

“I fucked up.”

Stansfield gave no reply. Just a simple nod of agreement.

“Maybe it’s time I call it quits.”

Stansfield turned his head a few degrees to look at Hurley and said, “I will tolerate a lot of things from you, but self-pity is not one of them. You’ve never been a quitter and you’re not going to start now.”

“I got my ass beat by a college puke.”

“You got your healthy ego bruised is what happened.”

“You don’t understand. It should have never happened. I still can’t explain
how
it happened. I’m not getting any younger, but even on an off day I’m still better than ninety-nine point nine percent of the guys out there.”

“I know math was never your strong suit, but the answer is pretty obvious.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“If you can beat ninety-nine point nine percent of the guys out there and he bested you that means he’s in the point one percent.”

Hurley shook his head. “I don’t see how it’s possible. Not enough training.”

“You don’t see it, because you don’t want to. I did a little checking on my own. Irene’s find is an exceptionally gifted athlete. He’s considered a bit of a freak of nature in the world of lacrosse. Did you know he’s considered to be one of the greatest college lacrosse players of all time?”

“What in hell does that have to do with fighting?”

“A great athlete can learn almost anything, and do it a lot quicker than an average athlete,” Stansfield said firmly. “Your big problem, though, is that you allowed your personal disdain for anyone who hasn’t worn the uniform to cloud your judgment.”

“Still—”

“Still nothing,” Stansfield cut him off. “The boy is a three-time All-American and national champ. You got thumped by a world-class athlete.”

“Who has no real training.”

“You yourself said he’s been taking classes.”

“Rolling around some mat at a strip mall is not training.”

Stansfield let out a tired sigh. It was his way of releasing pressure so he didn’t blow. Some people you could gently tap a with a finishing hammer a few times and they would get the point. Not Hurley, though. You had to hit the man square in the forehead with a sledgehammer repeatedly to get your point across.

“Sorry,” Hurley said meekly. “I’m still having a hard time buying this kid’s story.”

“You are possibly the most stubborn person I have ever met, and that’s saying a lot. You have used that to your advantage many times, but it has also gotten you into a fair amount of trouble, and before you get all sensitive on me, this is coming from the guy who had to get you out of all that trouble over the years. I’ve called in a lot of favors to pull your ass out of the fire. So hear me when I tell you that this issue is moot. The kid beat you, and quite honestly I don’t care how he did it, or where he learned how to do it. The fact is, he did it, and that makes him a very desirable recruit.”

Hurley finally got it. “What do you want me to do?”

“Fix it.”

“How do I fix it if I’m not even sure where I fucked up?”

“Stop being so conveniently modest. You know where you made mistakes … It’s just not in your nature to confront them, so dig a little harder and they’ll turn up. And by the way, I made a few mistakes of my own. Ultimately, you are my responsibility.” Stansfield glanced back up at the house. “That last hour in there was one of the most embarrassing of my career.”

Hurley was too embarrassed himself to speak.

“We’re supposed to know better,” Stansfield continued. “We’re the veterans, and we just had two kids point out something that we both should have caught. There was a day when I knew better. To put it mildly, you are an organizational nightmare. You belong in the field. I think this,” Stansfield held his arms out and motioned at the nature around them, “lulled me into thinking that you were in fact in the field, but you’re not. You’re too corralled down here.”

“Then let me go active again,” Hurley said in an almost pleading voice.

Stansfield mulled the thought over while taking one last puff. There were any number of saying, that could be applied to the espionage trade, but few were as appropriate as the phrase, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” At some point you had to jump into the game. Stansfield had grown weary of receiving secure cables telling him that another one of his assets had been picked off by these radical Islamists. It was time to start hitting back.

“Stan, these Islamists aren’t going away.”

“I’ve been telling you that for ten years.”

“Looking at the big picture, they’ve been a minor irritation until now, but I sense something bigger. They are organizing and morphing and spreading like a virus.”

“You can thank the damn Saudis and the Iranians for that.”

That was true, Stansfield thought. Very few people understood the bloody rivalry between the Sunnis and the Shias. Each sect was growing more radical—more violent. They couldn’t wait any longer. Stansfield lowered his voice. “Stan, in six months’ time, I want you operational. Stop trying to run these kids down like it’s a Special Forces selection process. Irene’s right, I don’t really care if they can survive in the forest for a week with nothing more than a fingernail clipper. I want them ready for urban operations. I’m going to task Doc to you full-time. Listen to him. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Okay … and after six months?” Hurley asked with a bit of optimism in his voice.

“I’m going to turn you loose. We need to hit these guys back. At a bare minimum I want them lying awake at night worried that they might be next. I want you to scare the shit out of them.”

Hurley smiled in anticipation. “I know just what to do.”

“Good … and one last thing. You’re almost sixty. This is a young kid’s game. Especially your side of the business. Our days are numbered. We need to start trusting these kids more. In another ten years they’re going to take over, and we’ll probably be dead.”

Hurley smiled. “I’m not going down without a fight.”

CHAPTER
19
BEIRUT, LEBANON

S
AYYED
mopped his brow with a rag. The front of his white T-shirt was splattered with the blood of the man who had just confessed to myriad sins. The basement was warm and damp, and he’d been at it for most of the day. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to work so hard to get a man to talk. He was thirsty and hungry, but both needs would have to wait. They were gathered upstairs, nervously waiting to hear what he’d discovered.

Sayyed dropped the pliers on the metal cart. The device bounced and fell open, the serrated clamps releasing a bloody fingernail. There were eight total, strewn about the stainless-steel surface, sticky and gooey with blood and tissue. Sayyed admired his work for a second. Every man was different. For some, the mere threat of physical pain was enough to get them to admit their deception. Others, like this Jewish pig, took a little more work. He’d employed many different methods to get at the truth, but he preferred fingernails and toenails for the simple reason that there were twenty of them. And they grew back.

Sayyed had seen torture practiced in a wide variety of forms. Most sessions were brutish and conducted without forethought or planning. Slapping and kicking was the most common method, but employed against a man who had been desensitized to such things, it was more often than not useless. There were stabbing and slicing and shooting, and although they worked, they also required medical care if you were going to continue to interrogate the individual. There was degradation, such as shoving a man’s head in bucket full of human excrement, sticking things in orifices where they didn’t belong, and a long list of things Sayyed found distasteful. Electrocution was the only other form that Sayyed would use. It was extremely effective and clean. It’s only downside was the potential for heart failure and long-term brain and nerve damage. Sayyed liked to spend time with his subjects. To truly debrief a prisoner took months.

Sayyed could never understand why people would so casually throw away such a valuable commodity. Killing a subject after he admitted to his lies was foolish. As an interrogator you had barely scratched the surface. An admission of guilt was just that and often nothing more. The truly valuable information lay buried in the subject’s brain and needed to be slowly and carefully coaxed to the surface. And to do that you needed time.

Sayyed wiped his hands on a blood-smeared towel and said to one of the guards, “Clean the wounds and bandage the fingers. I don’t want him getting an infection.”

He put on his black dress shirt and left the interrogation room. He continued past the guards and up one flight of stairs. There were a dozen men milling about the lobby. Most were in plain clothes, a few wore fatigues, but all were armed with rifles and sidearms. Sayyed continued up another flight of stairs to the second floor, where he found more armed men milling about the hallway.

He frowned at the sight of them. The presence of so many men was bound to draw attention. His colleagues were far too one-dimensional. They were still thinking of their struggle as a ground battle between vying factions. Car bombs, snipers, and assaults must always be taken into account, but the bigger threat at the moment was the jets flown by Jews and the Americans. These men had not walked here, which meant there were far too many cars parked in front of the building. Sayyed traveled with a light contingent of bodyguards for this very reason. Three or four were usually more than enough. The others were either too paranoid, too proud, or too stupid to see the folly of traveling in such large motorcades.

Eight guards were standing in the hallway outside the office at the back of the building. Sayyed approached one of the more recognizable faces and said, “I pray for the sake of our struggle that no more than six vehicles are parked in front of this building.”

The man looked in the direction of the street and without answering took off at a trot.

Sayyed was pleased that at least one of these morons knew how to take orders. He opened the door to the office and found four faces instead of the three he had expected. Mustapha Badredeen, the leader of Islamic Jihad, was at the head of the table. To his right was the leader of Islamic Jihad’s paramilitary wing, Imad Mughniyah, and then Colonel Amir Jalil of the Iranian Quds Force. He was Iran’s liaison between Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. The last man, Abu Radih, was not welcome, at least not as far as Sayyed was concerned. He was the representative for Fatah, the extremely unreliable band of men who claimed to speak on behalf of the approximately five hundred thousand Palestinians living in Lebanon. In Sayyed’s conservative opinion, they were nothing more than a gang of organized mobsters who stumbled from one confrontation to the next leaving a trail of havoc in their wake. They were only good for two things: to use as a buffer against the Jews to the south or as cannon fodder against the Christian militias to the east.

“Well?” Colonel Jalil asked.

Sayyed ignored the Iranian and turned instead to Mustapha Badredeen. “CIA.”

“I knew it!” Radih said, excitedly.

Sayyed glanced at the imbecile who had created the problem and said, “You knew no such thing.”

“I did so,” Radih said defensively.

“How could you have possibly known? What evidence did you have in your possession that pointed to the fact that this man was CIA?”

“I have my sources.”

Sayyed laughed at him. It was an empty claim and everyone in the room knew it. “And the businessman you kidnapped last week, what has he told you?”

“He admitted that he is an American agent.”

Sayyed was dubious of the claim, but the fool had just painted himself into a corner. “In that case I will need you to turn him over to me.”

Radih realized his mistake. “Well … he has admitted to a lot of things. My men are not done interrogating him.”

Sayyed stared at him with a look that told everyone in the room that he didn’t believe a word of it.

“I will give you a report in a few days.” Radih said.

Sayyed dismissed him with a look of contempt and addressed the other men. “The man downstairs is an employee for the CIA who has spent the better part of the last four years in Damascus. My government will want to assess the damage he has caused. To do that thoroughly, I will need Radih to transfer his hostage to me. I’m afraid this point is not negotiable.”

“But he is my hostage,” Radih said, half yelling. “It was my operation.”

“An operation that was not approved.”

Radih ignored the point and said, “He is extremely valuable. He has told us his company will pay a large sum to get him back.”

“Not if he is an American agent.” Sayyed shook his head sadly and scratched his thick black beard. “As we know all too well, the Americans do not negotiate for hostages. Especially the CIA.” Pointing at the ceiling he added, “They are far more likely to track him down and drop a bomb on all of us.”

The other men shared nervous looks. “The other American, the one you grabbed in front of his hotel last week,” Badredeen said to the Fatah leader, “he has told you implicitly that he is an agent?”

“It is my suspicion,” Radih said, thankful for the breathing room.

“What was he doing in Beirut?”

“He works for one of their big telecommunications companies.”

Radih blathered on about his prisoner, but Sayyed was only half listening. The CIA man in the basement had verified the fact that the other man was a legitimate businessman, but Sayyed did not feel like coming to the aid of the twit from Fatah. He would only know for certain after spending months interrogating the men. Sayyed looked at Mughniyah and said, “Some men are very good liars. It takes a skilled hand to discern the truth from these Americans.”

Mughniyah nodded and spoke for the first time. “I don’t like the coincidence. We should turn him over to Sayyed. He will get to the bottom of it.”

Sayyed was quietly pleased. Mughniyah had a reputation for killing those who crossed him. Radih would not want to defy him.

“The entire things gives me great concern,” the Iranian chimed in.

Sayyed could barely stand the man. He was a self-proclaimed intellectual who was part of the rabble who had helped bring down the shah and bring about the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

“It cannot be a good sign that the Americans are back,” Jalil said, as he caressed his bottom lip with the forefinger of his right hand. “Nothing good can come from them poking around in our business.”

“I will find out what they are up to,” Sayyed said confidently.

The three men exchanged looks, ignoring Radih, who was growing more agitated by the second. Badredeen spoke for the group. Turning to Radih he said, “Please transfer your hostage to Sayyed as soon as is possible.”

“That means tonight,” Sayyed said, not wanting to give the man an inch.

“That is impossible,” Radih said, as if they were asking him to fly to the moon. “This man is too valuable. I am more than capable of finding out his true identity.” With a casual flip of his hand he said, “I will give all of you a report within a few days.”

“That will not work.” Sayyed held his ground. “I want him tonight.”

“I will not give him to you. He is my prisoner.”

Mughniyah leaned forward in his chair and glared at the representative from Fatah. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. “I don’t remember your seeking our permission to conduct this operation in the first place.”

“And when was the last time any of you came to me to ask permission to launch an operation?”

With an icy voice Mughniyah said, “I do not need your permission.”

“That hardly seems fair.”

“You are invited to these meetings as a courtesy … nothing else.”

“The rest of you have taken hostages for years and have profited greatly while the rockets of retaliation rained down on my people and I did not complain to you. Now all I am asking is that I be allowed to share in the spoils of war. You have not allowed me to partner on any of your other business ventures, so I must take what is rightfully mine.” With a look of sadness he added, “I have given nothing but loyalty and this his how you treat me.”

Mughniyah threw his arms up in frustration. He looked at Badredeen and Jalil. “Talk some sense into him before I shoot him.”

Sayyed didn’t let it show, but he was enjoying every minute of this.

Badredeen sighed heavily and said, “This is only temporary. Hand the man over to Sayyed. He is without question the best man to do the job. When he is done, if the man is in fact a businessman, he will turn him back over to you and you can then negotiate a ransom. That is fair.”

Radih shifted nervously in his chair. He did not want to give up the man, but he could not defy these four. Any one of them could have him killed before the sun rose again. He could see what Sayyed was up to. The hostage could be worth as much as several million dollars if he did in fact work for the telecommunications company, and once the man was out of his hands, he would be lucky to get half of the ransom. Still, half was better than being dead. With great reluctance he said, “Fine,” and then glancing sideways at Sayyed, he added, “you can interrogate him at my camp.”

Sayyed laughed. “Nice try.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so. I do not need to explain such things to you.”

“He is being unreasonable,” Radih said to the other three.

Before they could answer, Sayyed said, “I need to inform Damascus of this situation, and I need to continue my discussion with the American agent. I expect Radih to have his prisoner here by ten o’clock tonight so I can get to the bottom of this, and I suggest you all leave as quickly as possible.” He glanced at the ceiling. “The four of us,” he said, intentionally leaving Radih out, “are far too tempting a target, and with the American in the basement who knows what they are up to these days. They may have other spies in the area.” Moving toward the door he said with absolute finality, “I will have more answers for you tomorrow.”