Suleyman said, “The shooters caught up to me about half an hour later. I have no idea how they found me.”
“Who were they?” Justin asked.
Suleyman hesitated only for a brief moment. “Three Arabs and two Africans. They identified themselves as members of al-Shabaab—”
“Yes, al-Shabaab,” Justin said somberly. He felt a deep furrow forming on his forehead. “The most dangerous terrorist network in that part of the world.”
“Yes. They had found your informant and told me he was a scientist who worked in one of the Iranian nuclear plants,” Suleyman said. “He betrayed the Iranians, revealing state secrets. So they gave him his well-deserved reward. That’s what they said. And they told me who you really were, Canadian secret agents.”
The explanation made little sense. Al-Shabaab consisted of Sunni Muslims, while Iranians belonged to the Shia branch of Islam. Both sides hated each other, a hate deep rooted in their different beliefs about political leadership and religious practices.
Nathan asked, “How did they know we were there?”
Suleyman shook his head. “They didn’t say.”
“What did you tell them?”
“What I knew, which isn’t much.”
“They tortured you?”
“No, no need for it. They knew exactly who I am and what I do and how much information I had for them.”
Justin nodded. He slowed down as they rounded the corner, then made another right turn. They were back on Magtymguly Avenue, three blocks away from their diner.
“So now that your boss is dead, you work for al-Shabaab?” Justin asked.
Suleyman frowned, then shrugged. “They let me go only after I agreed to kill you if I had the chance. I’m not stupid, so I wasn’t going to look for you. I made my way back, ditched my phone, laid low. I didn’t come after you. You chased me to that intersection. I tried to leave, but I couldn’t. I didn’t betray you or Colonel Garryev. I’m helping you.”
Justin remained silent. He thought he heard faint police sirens in the distance.
“Helping? You tried to kill him,” Nathan said.
Suleyman shook his head. “No, I was trying to scare you, make you stay down, while I could run away, push my way through the traffic. Look, I’m giving you all I know. Those shooters told me there’s a bounty on your head because of a fatwa.”
Suleyman’s words caught Justin completely off guard. “Huh? What? A bounty?” he asked. Perhaps that’s why Suleyman was so eager to pull the trigger.
“Yes. A million dollars if someone kills you. Not dead or alive. Just dead.”
“Al-Shabaab put a million-dollar bounty on me?”
Suleyman nodded. “They did, or at least that’s what they told me.”
Justin eased on the gas pedal. They had come to a red light.
“What did these shooters look—”
His words were interrupted by Suleyman pushing open the door on his side. Nathan raised his pistol, but Suleyman had already slipped out of the car.
“Stay in,” Justin shouted at Nathan. “We’ll get him.”
Justin jumped the curb, driving on the sidewalk, attempting to cut him off. Suleyman broke into a fast sprint, cutting across the two-lane street, through the fast moving traffic.
Nathan said, “No, stop—”
Suleyman never saw the school bus that ended his life. It zoomed from the opposite direction, hitting him in the back. Suleyman splattered against the windshield. His body fell underneath the bus, while the driver struggled to bring the huge vehicle to a wavering, screeching stop.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Justin said. “This place will be teeming with police in minutes.”
They got out of the Nissan and left it parked on the sidewalk. Nathan wiped his fingerprints off Suleyman’s pistol and tossed it back into the car. Justin cleaned the steering wheel and the door handles.
Justin said, “Let’s take our luggage and fly out before the police connect the dots. We learned everything we could from Suleyman. It’s time to say goodbye to Ashgabat.”
Chapter Five
Justin swirled his tall cup and took the last big sip from his Starbucks dark espresso roast. He stood and tossed the cup at a small garbage can about five feet away. The cup bounced over the edge of the can, then fell in. Justin smiled. A three-pointer from downtown.
It was his second cup since he arrived from Frankfurt, where he had parted ways with Nathan, sending him back to Cairo. Justin had spent last night at the Sheraton Frankfurt Congress Hotel before catching the next available flight to the States. It was a nice but short break after the events in Iran and Turkmenistan. He had briefed McClain about the incident in Ashgabat and the information obtained from Suleyman about the fatwa — an Islamic legal ruling, in this case, a death sentence ruling — against him. Justin had not allowed that information to unnerve him. His life was in danger at all times. It was a professional hazard. And most of the time, the fatwas remained just a warning, issued by powerless clerics who could not mobilize anyone to carry out their threats.
But, this death sentence had come with a bounty, a million-dollar prize on his head. The hefty sum would attract a few goons of the most dangerous kind. Justin needed a pair of eyes to watch his back. Here’s where Carrie came into play.
Carrie O’Connor was Justin’s partner in almost all operations. After two tours of duty in Afghanistan — where she served with Joint Task Force Two — Carrie joined the CIS. She took to heart the motto of her unit: Facta non verba. Deeds, not words. According to Carrie, the most efficient solution to a problem was often also the most extreme. The one she always favored. In this case, the solution would be to storm into al-Shabaab’s home base of operations and kill them all.
Justin had arrived forty-five minutes ago and was waiting for Carrie in Concourse B. She was taking Lufthansa too, but her flight had been delayed. He sat next to his Samsonite suitcase and briefcase and looked at the men and women rushing by. He glanced at the screens on the wall indicating the flights’ arrival and departure times. Carrie’s flight, LH418, had just landed. He figured it was going to take a while for all passengers of the Boeing 777 to clear customs and collect their luggage, especially if the airplane was packed with over two hundred people as it had been during his flight.
He stretched his legs and closed his eyes, albeit for a few seconds. He had spent a restless night in Frankfurt, dissecting Suleyman’s words and the operation in Iran. He was sure there had to be an intelligence leak, but he could not determine how it had happened or the identity of the mole. If there was a mole. Perhaps it was a case of mishandled information. Someone’s eyes or ears saw or heard something they weren’t supposed to, and they gave it to outsiders. Or maybe al-Shabaab was following the scientist, and that’s how they got to us. To me.
He rubbed his temples, then massaged his forehead. He had slept very little on the plane and had developed a grave headache. His forehead was throbbing with a burning pain, and he felt dizzy. He reached for a medicine bottle in his suitcase and swallowed a couple of Tylenol pills. It would take some time before the drug produced its pain-relieving effect. He decided to kill the next few minutes by browsing the newspaper stands by the Starbucks’s entrance.
It was a presidential election year, and all newspapers and magazines had dedicated a large part of their covers to the race to the White House. The popularity of the incumbent President was in decline, according to the polls, because of her perceived soft stance on terrorism. Although unmanned drones were exterminating terrorists from the mountains of Pakistan to the deserts of Yemen, the popular perception was a difficult thing to change. The President had tried to reach out to the Muslim world and had called on the American people to make an effort to understand Islamic religion beliefs. One headline noted the President’s soft stance on terrorism was going to cost her the re-election.