Two uniformed guards surged into the room and quickly came to the incorrect conclusion: Futtaim — slumped over his desk with a hole in his head; Aboud — sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood; and Harrison — holding Aboud’s Glock.
Both guards swiveled toward Harrison, bringing their pistols to bear, but Harrison was faster. He put two bullets into each man’s chest, followed by a third round to each guard’s head, dropping them to the floor.
Harrison positioned himself against the wall and peered through the broken window, pulling back after a quick glance. There was an open window across the street but no sign of the shooter. However, on the street below, a dozen armed men swarmed toward the building’s entrance. They were dressed in ordinary clothes and not uniforms, and Harrison concluded they weren’t friendlies.
He relayed the information to Khalila, who had taken cover behind the side of Futtaim’s desk, and she called Durrani for backup. Harrison had no idea what kind of paramilitary forces the CIA had in Damascus or how long before they’d arrive, but was certain it would be too late. The armed men were already entering the building.
Still using Futtaim’s desk as cover, Khalila reached up and pulled his computer onto her lap. She dragged Futtaim’s corpse from his chair onto the floor, then placed his index finger on the laptop’s fingerprint scanner.
“We don’t have time for this!” Harrison shouted.
“We’re not leaving without the information!”
“Then we’re going to leave dead!”
This spy crap was complicating things. The tactical situation was clear in Harrison’s mind. They were about to be engaged by a dozen men and had to exit Futtaim’s office before the escape routes were sealed. They wouldn’t be able to fight their way out.
Khalila ignored him, and after gaining access to Futtaim’s computer, launched an internet browser to access a CIA website. She didn’t have a flash drive with her, so she tried to upload the contents of Futtaim’s computer to a CIA database. But when she accessed the hard drive to tag the desired folders, she watched in shock as the folders rapidly vanished. Someone was erasing the files.
“No, no, no!”
She disconnected the computer from the internet, hoping to sever the connection with whatever program was deleting the files, but the folders kept disappearing. She tried to shut down the laptop, but it disregarded the command. A virus must have been inserted into Futtaim’s computer, and there didn’t seem to be a way to stop it. She examined the back of the laptop, hoping to remove its battery pack, but it was an integrated unit. She flipped the laptop around as the last of the files were erased.
Khalila shoved the computer aside and searched Futtaim’s desk drawers, keeping her head below the top of the desk.
“Khalila! We have to leave!”
“Just a minute!”
It was probably already too late. The approaching men would have the elevators and stairways sealed off, and the only way out would be up, assuming he and Khalila could access the stairways before they were trapped in Futtaim’s office. However, that escape route led to a dead end, out in the open atop the roof, easy targets for nearby snipers on taller buildings.
After finding nothing noteworthy, Khalila slammed the last drawer shut. Meanwhile, Harrison focused on the more critical issue. They were trapped.
Through a side door in Futtaim’s office, he spotted a conference room with glass panels forming one side of the room, overlooking the Barada River. Harrison grabbed one of the dead guard’s pistols and tossed it to Khalila, who took a position beside the office entrance as he entered the conference room. He looked out the glass panels, estimating the distance to the river. There was a side street below, which they’d have to clear to land in the water. The question was — could they do it?
The sound of Khalila firing several rounds made the decision easy. They were penned in. He shoved the conference table aside, creating a clear path to the window, then shouted to Khalila.
“Into the conference room! We’re going to jump into the river!”
Harrison backed up against the far wall as Khalila squeezed off a few more rounds, then he put several bullets through one of the glass panels, shattering it. He looked through the doorway into Futtaim’s office as Khalila ran toward him.
He figured he would have to coax her into making the treacherous jump, but she didn’t ease up as she entered the conference room, headed for the opening. She hit the edge at a full sprint and leaped into the air, disappearing as she fell.
At least she follows directions well, Harrison thought.
He followed Khalila, sprinting across the room before leaping from the building.
As he fell, he watched Khalila plunge into the water below, joining her a few seconds later. He remained underwater, swimming back toward the stone embankment as bullets zinged into the murkiness around him, then angled toward a dark opening. He surfaced as he entered a narrow culvert, which provided a drainage path for rainwater from the streets above. He signaled to Khalila, who had surfaced against the embankment not far away, and she joined him in the recess.
“You okay?” he asked, checking her for wounds.
“Never better,” she replied, adding a smile.
As she wiped the water from her face and twisted her hair into a knot behind her head, Harrison realized this was the first time he’d seen Khalila smile.
The smile faded quickly, however. They had failed. It was obvious Mixell had made the procurement, but they had no idea what he’d bought or what the implications were.
Khalila had lost her pistol during the plunge into the Barada, but Harrison retained his. As he debated their options — remain hidden, work their way farther up the culvert, or emerge onto the embankment and vacate the area — there was a screech of tires on the road above, followed by an exchange of gunfire. It appeared the assistance Khalila called for had arrived.
24
USS PITTSBURGH
Commander Buglione leaned against the navigation table in Control, monitoring Master one’s course with concern. Kazan had entered the Marginal Ice Zone, a hazardous area for submarine operations. At the fringe of the polar ice cap, wave action and ocean swells broke off edges of the ice floes, creating a zone of broken ice extending outward over a hundred miles.
It wasn’t the ice floating on the surface that concerned Buglione. It was the random icebergs scattered throughout the Marginal Ice Zone. More than three thousand icebergs were produced each year in the Barents Sea, breaking off glaciers on Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, and Novaja Zemlja, accompanied by the calving of glaciers on the east coast of Greenland. While most of the icebergs were small, the larger ones descended several hundred feet and occasionally deep enough to ground on the bottom of the shallow Barents Sea.
Buglione called to his Weapons Officer, Lieutenant Ed Reese. “Officer of the Deck, set the Arctic Routine.”
Reese repeated back the order and issued commands to his watch section. By setting the Arctic Routine, Buglione had ordered additional sonar consoles manned and the Deck and Conn split, with Buglione and his Executive Officer alternating as the Conning Officer.
After a briefing from Reese, Buglione relieved him of the Conn, announcing to watchstanders in Control, “The Captain has the Conn, Lieutenant Reese retains the Deck.”
The Quartermaster acknowledged and continued preparations for entering the Marginal Ice Zone, energizing the submarine’s topsounder and Fathometer. The topsounder sent sonar pings up from three hydrophones on Pittsburgh’s hull to provide a warning if an ice keel descended toward them. To help avoid the occasional small iceberg, Pittsburgh would run deep, closer to the bottom than usual, using the Fathometer to ensure they didn’t run aground.