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Ke
“This place is filled with prudes and teetotalers. It’s not like the old days, I’ll tell you that.”
Ke
Wicka raised her mug and clanged it against Ke
“That’s right.”
“Well, screw the old days.” Wicka pointed toward the fireplace and two waiting chairs. “I saw in the paper today Stu Garret drowned while vacationing in Central America.”
“ Costa Rica,” Ke
Wicka took the chair on the right and studied Ke
Ke
“He sure did.” Wicka took a drink and said, “I hear you’re leaving for Iraq in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Be careful.”
“I always am.”
“I mean extra careful. I don’t trust the Iranians.”
Ke
“I don’t know him, but he’s not the one I’m worried about. It’s that little Amatullah who scares the heck out of me.” Wicka took a drink of brandy. “Why is it that these wacky dictators are all short?”
“Coincidence.” Ke
“What about Hitler? He couldn’t have been more than five ten.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Chairman Mao.”
“What about Stalin? I don’t think he was short.”
“Well…whatever it is, I don’t trust Amatullah. Just be very careful while you’re over there. Especially after I put on my little performance in New York tomorrow. They are not going to like being embarrassed like that.”
“No, they won’t, but that’s why I’m going over there to offer them the olive branch.”
“Don’t forget that men like Amatullah don’t want peace. They need us as an enemy to stay in power.”
“True, and that’s why I’m the one making the trip and not you. There’s nothing official about this. Not until they agree to keep a leash on Hezbollah.”
“I’m not saying I don’t agree with the plan. I do. I’m saying be careful.”
Ke
23
The sun was dropping beyond the horizon as the G-5 descended out of a patch of wispy clouds. The city of Mosul spread out beneath them, the Tigris River slicing along the eastern edge of the metropolitan area of two million. Five main bridges co
Saddam replaced them wholesale with Su
Rapp looked past the port-side wing and counted the bridges. He couldn’t understand why the damn country just wasn’t split in three. It didn’t even exist in its current state until the aftermath of WWI. For five centuries the Turks, the Kurds, the Persians, and the Safavids had all fought over a piece of land made fertile by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Then the British and the French came along and decided to redraw the map of the Middle East and everything went to hell. Mosul, thanks to the Kurds, however, was showing real stability. So much so that the pilots felt safe enough to take a straight approach over the heart of the city. If it had been Basra or Baghdad they would have corkscrewed their way down onto the strip. Not an enjoyable way to land.
The plane set down gently and proceeded to the CIA’s sector within the base, where the sixty-million-dollar Gulfstream 5 was placed inside a hardened hangar. One by one they filed off the plane and opened the cargo hold. Rapp grabbed his oversized backpack along with two black rectangular cases. He walked to the door of the hangar in time to see two sedans approaching. The first was a Ford Crown Victoria, and the second was a Chevy Caprice Classic. The vehicles were dusty and dented and approaching at a speed that made Rapp a little nervous.
The driver of the first car began waving through the open window. Rapp could barely make out the face of the person on the other side of the tinted windscreen. It was Stan Stilwell, the CIA’s chief of base in Mosul. The car came to an abrupt halt and the door sprang open. In the tradition of T. E. Lawrence, Stilwell had gone native. He was dressed in a loose-fitting pair of black dress pants and a gray and black check-patterned dress shirt. His face was a dark shade of bronze, and his black mustache was so thick it looked as if he’d been growing it since puberty.
“Brother Mitch,” Stilwell a
Rapp took Stilwell’s hand and met him with a half hug. “How the hell have you been, buddy?” Rapp had known Stilwell for more than a decade. A few years his senior, Rapp had been a mentor of sorts for Stilwell on his first overseas assignment.
“I’m great. Things are good here in Kurdistan.”
“I bet. How many girlfriends?”
“A few.” Stilwell smiled, revealing a thin gap between his top front teeth.
“You know one of these days you’re going to end up with a very angry father on your hands, and he’s going to make you choose between castration and the altar.”
“No one’s caught me yet.”
Rapp thought about reminding him of the time he’d had to talk Ke
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m just saying sooner or later your luck is going to run out.”
Stilwell took a drag from his cigarette. “You’re probably right.”
“Is everything ready to go?”
“Yep. He’s waiting for us back at my place. Give me those bags.” Stilwell looked over Rapp’s shoulder and saw Ridley. “Hey, boss. How you doing?”
“Stiff,” Ridley said in a grumpy voice.
“Good to see you too.” Stilwell picked up Rapp’s two cases and stuffed them in the sedan’s big trunk. “Boss,” he said to Ridley, “why don’t you ride with Mike in the second car? I don’t expect any problems, but there’s no sense in making it easy for them.”
“Stan,” Rapp said as he pointed to Dumond, “meet Marcus.”
“Hey, Marcus, let me take those bags from you.” Stilwell grabbed the first black case and almost dropped it. “Jesus, what in the hell do you have in here?”
“Equipment.”
“No shit.”
Rapp walked to the rear of the car where everyone had congregated. Looking at Stilwell he asked, “Did Rob brief you on everything?”
“Not all the details, but I can see where you’re going.”