“How could that be unfortunate?” Radih proclaimed more than asked.

Mughniyah sat back and gripped the armrests of his chair, almost as if he were trying to hold himself back. “I am in a rather bad mood tonight, so I suggest you keep your interruptions to a minimum, Abu, or I might lose control and snap your scrawny little neck.” He let a moment pass, and when he was sure that he had the younger man’s attention, he continued. “Where was I? Yes, as it turned out, Mr. Cummins was not who he said he was. He is in fact an American spy. Now, when we are a few days away from handing Cummins over to the Russian, the notorious Bill Sherman and another CIA lackey show up. Are you following me so far?”

Radih nodded.

“All of this was set in motion by one event. Your kidnapping of the businessman. These are what we would call unintended consequences. How many more unintended consequences are going to pop up? Are there any more Americans in the city, or on their way to the city? Will the four of us survive the week? These are the questions that we will not know the answers to until this thing plays itself out. Your heart is in the right place and you are eager, but you need to understand that your actions have consequences. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“Now the unfortunate thing is that the Americans appear to have learned their lesson after they let us ship their old station chief off to Tehran, so we could thoroughly interrogate him and then dismantle their network of spies. This time it appears they are going to try to get one of their own back. The only surprise is that they didn’t try to do it sooner, but now that we have the legendary Mr. Sherman, I think the stakes have been raised considerably.”

“How so?” Radih asked, trying not to sound confrontational.

“Mr. Sherman is a particularly nasty man, who no doubt has many nasty secrets bottled up in his sick little head. The CIA will not want those secrets to get out, so I am afraid they will try to get him back as well.”

“So,” Badredeen said, picking up the conversation, “we must move quickly and carefully to rid ourselves of all these Americans.”

“And that is where the Russian comes in.” Mughniyah stared at Sayyed. “Assef, when was the last time you you heard from the Russian?”

Sayyed wiped the corners of his mouth. “Yesterday. I was not able to get hold of him today.”

“Has he mentioned anything about Dorfman and the empty accounts?”

“No.”

Mughniyah and Badredeen looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Badredeen spoke. “Don’t you find his silence on the subject a bit strange?”

“I do.”

“There are three possibilities.” Badredeen held up one finger. “The first, the Russian has no idea our banker was murdered in his home on Sunday and that the very next morning, millions of dollars were emptied out of accounts that he himself helped us set up. Does anyone believe for a second that the Russian is that clueless?” When they were all done agreeing, Badredeen moved on to his second point. “The Russian, being the greedy man that he is, killed Dorfman and took all of the money for himself.”

Mughniyah held up two fingers and said, “I am going with option two.”

“What about option three?” Sayyed asked.

“Someone unknown to us killed Dorfman and stole the money. The only problem with this theory is that Dorfman was very secretive about his clients. The man had no social skill. He cared only for his dogs.”

“Still … someone … an enemy could have found out.” Sayyed tried to keep the options open.

“Let me ask you,” Mughniyah said, leaning forward, “can you think of anyone you know who has a reputation for cheating people out of their money?”

“I don’t want to be in the position of defending Ivanov, but I think we need more evidence before we settle on him as the thief.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Sayyed nodded. “You are correct. Mikhail Ivanov is not exactly the most honest man I know.”

“And let’s not forget the little falling-out he had with our Turkish friend,” Badredeen added.

Sayyed was the one who had passed on the information he’d picked up from Damascus. Hamdi Sharif, the arms dealer whom they had worked with for close to a decade, had reportedly had a fight with Ivanov over a business deal. A month later, Sharif ended up assassinated on a park bench in front of his house. He had asked Ivanov about it, but of course the man had denied any connection.

Mughniyah placed his big hairy right hand on the table. He tapped a thick finger and said, “Moscow is a den of thieves. I warned all of you about this years ago. The collapse has turned it into a free-for-all where the most brutal simply take what they want.”

Sayyed could not argue with what he had said. “So what do we do?”

“You say the Russian will be here Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We are going to have a little auction.”

The word seemed to wake up Radih. “What kind of auction?”

“The kind where we sell the American spies to the highest bidder.”

“What bidders?” Sayyed asked.

“Don’t worry,” Mughniyah cautioned. “Just make sure the Russian is here, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“What about Damascus? I must report this missing money.”

Mughniyah shook his head. “Not yet. Give me a few days and then you can tell them.”

CHAPTER 54

RAPP stepped out into the hot afternoon sun and looked over the edge of the veranda. The narrow street that snaked its way up the hill was barely wide enough for a single car to pass. Down at the bottom, maybe a hundred yards away, he could see the Toyota pickup truck blocking the street. The houses on this little goat hill were all flat-roofed. Clotheslines were strung up and shirts and pants and other garments flapped in the breeze. Beneath him, in the tiny courtyard, three vehicles were packed in with no more than a few feet in between. The ten-foot wall had a ring of razor wire strung from one end to the other. He looked to his right and found a stack of green fiberglass crates. Stenciled on the side in black letters were a string of numbers and letters that he didn’t understand, then a few that he did.

Each crate contained multiple M72 LAW antiarmor weapons. Next to those were a crate of rounds for an M203 grenade launcher that was leaning against the wall. Above that, affixed to the wall, was a hand-drawn laminated map that marked the distance and elevation to certain landmarks up to a mile away. Rapp was wondering what all this stuff was for when he heard the voice of the man who had pulled him out of the safe house the night before.

“We call this the sky box … not anymore really, but during the height of the war we would sit up here and watch it all unfold.”

Rapp turned around to find Rob Ridley sipping on a bright red can of Coke. “Sky box?”

Ridley approached the edge of the balcony, pointed toward the ocean to the north, and then drew his hand south. “See that big, ugly scar that runs from the north to the south?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the famous Green Line. We’d sit up here and watch them fight, like a football game. That’s why we called it the sky box.”

Rapp pointed to the stack of U.S. Army crates. “Looks like you guys did more than watch.”

“That shit is more for self-defense, although I saw some badass snipers roll through here. That’s the unwritten story about this little war … the snipers. They did most of the damage. We found that they were getting a little close.” Hurley pointed up at the overhang. “They started sending rounds in here on a daily basis. We put up sandbags, and then after one of our guys got killed, we put in a request for a couple of those badasses from Fort Bragg. Two of them showed up five days later.” Ridley pointed at the map on the wall. “They put that thing together. In six days they had thirty-one recorded kills, and that pretty much solved the problem. Kinda like bringing in an exterminator.” Ridley laughed and then added, “That’s classified, so don’t go around telling that story to just anyone.”