Fighting.
FORTY-FIVE
Tuesday, 2:59 p.m.,
Damascus, Syria
The two Jeeps had sped up Straight Street toward Souk al-Bazuriye. As they approached, Mahmoud saw smoke rolling from windows on the southeast side of the palace. He smiled. To the northeast and southwest, Kurds were already taking up positions along the wall and firing at the police. Tourists and shoppers and Old City merchants were fleeing in every direction, adding to the chaos. The dozens of Kurds knew who their targets were. As far as the police were concerned, any one of the hundreds of people running, walking, or crawling by could be an enemy.
Mahmoud stood in the passenger’s seat. He wanted his people to see him, to see how proud he was. After decades of waiting, years of hoping, and months of planning, freedom was finally at hand. Listening to the Jeep radio he’d learned that even today, the dreaded Mukhabarat secret police had stopped suspected Kurdish rebels and searched them for arms. But the Kurds had hidden their weapons days before. Some of the firearms had been buried in the cemetery, while others had been placed in waterproof boxes in the river. Since late morning, the PKK fighters had stayed close to the weapons by posing as mourners or simply by lolling around the Barada. They didn’t retrieve them until after the explosion that signaled the death of the tyrannical Syrian President and the start of a new era.
Gunfire popped on all sides. Though Mahmoud and his infiltrators were supposed to have been right outside the palace when the attack began, he wasn’t concerned. His people were fighting bravely and aggressively. Inside, loyal Akbar wouldn’t have detonated the bomb unless he was sure he could at least get the President. Akbar was a Turkish officer who was Kurdish on his mother’s side and secretly devoted to their cause. A suicide note left in his locker indicated that this was his way of avenging decades of genocide against the Kurds.
Once Akbar made his move, the PKK man in the security office would have taken out any agents who had come with the foreign visitors. All that would remain for Mahmoud and his team to do was finish off any presidential security guards who were still alive and secure the palace.When that was done, Mahmoud would doff his Syrian disguise and notify Commander Siriner to come to Damascus. With Syria’s forces gathered in the north along the Turkish border, and Iraq using the distraction to look longingly back at Kuwait, Kurds from three nations would make their way to the city. Many would be killed, but many would make it past the over-taxed military. Speaking in a voice tens of thousands strong, the Kurds would tell of the crimes of the Syrians, the Turks, and the Iraqis. With the eyes and ears of the world upon them, the Kurdish people would demand more than justice. They would demand a nation. Some countries would condemn the methods they’d used to get it. Yet from the time of the American Revolution through the birth of Israel, no nation had ever been born without violence. Ultimately, it was the justness of the cause and not the methods used to which other nations responded.
Police jumped to the side of the road to let the Jeeps through. Officers saluted Mahmoud as he passed. The Syrian police probably thought he was standing up to give them hope and courage.
Let them think that, Mahmoud thought. He was here to help in exactly the same way authorities had always helped his people, with murder and suppression.
The Jeeps rolled up to the west side of the palace. Mahmoud jumped out, followed by his soldiers. The ten men seemed imperious, braving the gunfire as they walked toward the ornate iron fence. They were ushered through the gate by a guard who had been crouching behind a decorative, half-sized marble camel. The guard was a city employee and not part of the presidential security force.
“What’s going on?” Mahmoud asked as bullets chewed at the dark green grass around his feet. The Kurdish attackers knew who he was and wouldn’t shoot him or his men.
The guard hovered behind the camel as a bullet flew by. “There was an explosion,” he said. “It came from the receiving room in the eastern wing.”
“Where was the President?”
“We believe the President was in the room.”
“You believe?” barked Mahmoud.
“We’ve not had word from inside since before the explosion,” said the guard. “That was when one of the security guards radioed another to say that the President was leaving his quarters to attend a meeting.”
“One of the security guards radioed?” Mahmoud asked. “Not the President’s personal guard?”
“It was one of the palace police,” the sentry said.
Mahmoud was surprised. When the President moved anywhere, whether in the palace or the nation, all communications and security were handled by his own elite team. “Has an ambulance been sent for?”
“I’ve heard nothing,” said the guard.
Mahmoud looked toward the palace. It had been over five minutes since the explosion. If the President had been hurt, his personal physician would have been sent for. He would have been here by now. Something was wrong.
Waving his pistol for his men to follow, Mahmoud jogged quickly toward the palace entrance.
FORTY-SIX
Tuesday, 7:07 a.m.,
Washington, D.C.
Martha Mackall awoke with a start as her pager beeped. She looked at the number. It was Curt Hardaway.
Martha had spent the night at Op-Center, napping in the spartan employee lounge. It had taken her until three a.m. to fall asleep. Martha admitted it herself: When something annoyed her, she was like a dog with a bone. And having to turn Op-Center over to Paul Hood’s evening counterpart, Curt Hardaway, annoyed her. Events overseas were just too delicate to leave to his ham-fisted ways. When he’d come on duty, Martha had gone so far as to consult Lowell Coffey’s deputy assistant, Aideen Marley, about who had decision-making authority if something happened during the night. Whenever Paul Hood remained at his desk after his shift was over, he still outranked the night crew. But according to the charter, an acting director did not. Until 7:30 a.m., Op-Center belonged to Hardaway.
Martha hoped that nothing had happened. Hardaway was a cousin and protégé of CIA Director Larry Rachlin, and his appointment had been a necessary expedience. In order to keep Op-Center free of CIA influence, the President had wanted an outsider to run it. However, to appease the intelligence community, he was pressured to put in a veteran as Hood’s backup. Though the Oklahoma-born Hardaway was an affable man with the intelligence skills necessary for the job, Martha found him to be uninspired and uninspiring. He also had a talent for speaking before thinking things through. Fortunately for Op-Center, the powerful Hood-Rodgers-Herbert triumvirate set very rigid policies during the day, and Hardaway had never been able to muck things up too badly.
Martha picked up the phone on the end table beside the couch. She called Hardaway. He picked up immediately.
“You’d better get on over,” he said. “This mess is going to bleed into your shift.”
“I’m coming,” she said, and hung up. Hardaway was as tactful as ever.
The employee lounge was located near the Tank, a windowless conference room which sat within an electronic web. There wasn’t a spy device on Earth that could hear what was discussed inside it. Turning left from the lounge and walking down the curving wall would have brought her past the Tank to the offices of Bob Herbert, Mike Rodgers, and Paul Hood in turn. Martha turned right. Walking briskly, she passed her own office, followed by the office of FBI and Interpol liaison Darrell McCaskey, Matt Stoll’s computer area—“the orchestration pit,” he called it—and the legal and environmental sections where Lowell Coffey and Phil Katzen worked. The psychological and medical divisions came next, followed by the radio room, the small Striker office for Brett August, and Ann Farris’s two-person press department.
As hurried along, Bob Herbert came wheeling up behind her. “Did Curt tell you what’s been going on?”
“No,” she said. “Only that there’s a mess and it’s going to hemorrhage all over my desk.”
“A little raw but true,” Herbert said. “All hell’s broken out in Damascus. I got a call from Warner. They had a suicide bomber at the Azem Palace. He killed the President’s double.”
“That cobbler?”
Herbert nodded.
“Then the President probably isn’t even in Damascus,” Martha said. “What about Ambassador Haveles?”
“He was at the palace,” Herbert said. “He’s shaken but unhurt. Now the palace is under siege. Unfortunately, Warner is still in the room where the bomb went off and can’t tell us much. I switched him over to Curt. We’re keeping that line open.”
“And Paul” Martha asked.
“He left the room to look for the DSA guys who came with them.”
“He should’ve stayed put,” Martha said. “They may show up while he’s gone and leave without him.”