Already weakened by a bullet in the leg and another in his left side, Mahmoud was shaken to the ground by the blast. Though shamed by his infirmity, he avoided the scythe of gunfire which slashed once across the room chest-high, and then once back again knee-high. The other Kurds were not so lucky. They’d taken up positions behind chairs and columns in the center of the room, braced for an attack. But the powerful Turkish-made G3 rifles cut them apart.
Lying with his cheek on the cold tile, Mahmoud listened as the gunfire died along with his troops. Unhurt in the latest fusillade, he left his eyes open just a crack. He stared across the floor covered with shattered crystal and broken bodies. He watched as a face appeared in each of the wall-openings. The bottom of their kaffiyehs had been pulled across the nose and mouth of each man. Mahmoud had suspected that these were not the President’s elite bodyguard. Now he was certain. These men did not wish to be identified. Also, the President’s bodyguards didn’t shoot to kill. They used gas to debilitate foes so they could capture and torture them. The Syrian President liked to know about possible conspiracies and his inquisitors couldn’t question a dead man. Finally, these men had shot blindly into a room containing the holy mahmal. No Muslim would have dared commit such sacrilege.
No, these men were not Syrians. Mahmoud suspected that they were Mista’aravim, Israelis who masqueraded as Syrians.
Mahmoud’s gun was lying beside him in the dark. He picked it up. He could still help to make the goal a reality. His fingers tensed around the butt. His index finger slid through the trigger guard. There were still Syrian Kurds in the building and they were fighting on. So would he.
The men strode into the reception room. One man remained behind to watch the corridor while the others fanned out. Two men moved along the northern wall, two along the southern wall. They were all walking toward him as they peered through the dark, quickly checking the bodies as they made their way to the rear wall. They seemed to be looking for someone.
Mahmoud was dizzy from the loss of blood, but he fought to stay alert. The men were about twenty feet away. The two walking along the southern wall were making toward an alcove in the rear. The men moving along the northern wall passed a pair of ottomans. The backs of the divans had been splintered by their rifle fire. There were two small cedars in ceramic planters, one on either side of the ottomans. The trees had been chewed nearly in half.
Suddenly, something stirred behind the farthest tree.
“‘Watch out!” a voice cried in Syrian.
The voice was drowned out as Mahmoud opened fire on the two men near the planters. He put two rounds into the leg of the man nearest him. Then he shot at the second man, who fell, a bullet in his thigh. But as Mahmoud turned to fire at the men on the other side of the room, a dark form descended on him. A strong hand pinned Mahmoud’s gun hand to the floor while a fist struck his jaw.
“Get back!” a different voice yelled.
The dark form jumped away. Mahmoud saw two rifles swing toward him. A moment later a shower of 9mm shells ripped into his body. His eyes closed reflexively as bullets punched his right shoulder, his back, his neck, his jaw, and his side. But there was no pain. When the shooting ended there was no sensation of any kind. Mahmoud was unable to move or breathe or even open his eyes.
Allah, I’ve failed, he thought as he was overcome by sadness. But then consciousness gave way to oblivion and failure, like success, no longer mattered.
FIFTY-FOUR
Tuesday, 3:51 p.m.,
Damascus, Syria
Warner Bicking rose. He held up his hands, one of which was bloodied from the punch he’d delivered to the Kurd’s prominent jaw.
“I’m on your side,” Bicking said in Syrian. “Do you understand?”
A short man with a high, scarred forehead hoisted his rifle into his armpit. As he walked toward Bicking, he motioned for his companion, a giant of a man, to go to the others. Bicking stole a glance to the right as the big man effortlessly picked up one of the men who’d been shot in the leg. He tossed the man over his shoulder, then lifted up the second.
“I’m an American,” Bicking went on, “and these men are my colleagues.” He cocked his head toward the planter, where Haveles and Nasr had also sought refuge. They rose.
The man standing watch at the door turned suddenly. “People are coming!”
The short man looked at his big companion. “Can you manage?”
The giant nodded as he shifted the weight of the man on his right shoulder. Then he held his rifle so it was pointing straight ahead, between the man’s legs.
The short man turned to Bicking. “Come with us.”
“Who are you people?” Haveles asked. The ambassador stepped forward unsteadily. He reminded Bicking of a car-crash victim who was in glassy-eyed shock but still insisted that he was okay.
“We were sent to collect you,” the short man said. “You must come now or remain here.”
“The representatives of Japan and Russia are in the room as well,” Haveles said. “They’re in the alcove over—”
“Only you,” the short man said. He turned toward the door and motioned to the man standing who was there. The man nodded and headed left down the corridor. The short man turned back. “Now!”
Bicking took the ambassador by the arm. “Let’s go. The palace guard will have to handle the rest of this.”
“No,” said Haveles. “I’ll stay with the others.”
“Mr. Ambassador, there’s still fighting—”
“I’ll stay,” he insisted.
Bicking saw that there was no point arguing. “All right,” he said. “We’ll see you later at the embassy.”
Haveles turned and took stiff, mechanical steps toward the dark alcove which doubled as a bar area. He joined the other men who had sought safety in the shadows.
The big man headed to the door, followed by the smaller man.
“Our train is pulling out,” Nasr said as he walked past Bicking.
Bicking nodded and joined him.
The man who’d gone down the hall returned with Paul Hood. Hood handed the videotapes to the short man, and the group started down the hall. Two of the masked men were in front and the giant was in the rear.
“Where are the ambassadors?” Hood asked. “Is everyone all right?”
Bicking nodded. He glanced at his red knuckles. He hadn’t punched anyone in six years. “Almost everyone,” he said, thinking about the Kurd.
“What do you mean?”
“The Kurds are all dead and Ambassador Haveles is slightly shaken up,” Bicking said. “But he decided to stay. Our escorts here were pretty specific about who they were willing to take.”
“Only our group,” Hood said.
“Right.”
“And it probably cost Bob Herbert a lot of chits to get that.”
“I’m sure,” Bicking said. “Well, diplomatically, it’s probably the smart thing for the ambassador to have done. There’d be a major international shitstorm if a rescue attempt favored Washington. Not that Japan or Russia would spit on an American diplomat if he were burning.”
“You’re wrong,” Hood said. “I think they would.”
The men continued down the corridor to a gold door. It was locked. The man in front shot off the knob and kicked the door in. They entered, the man in the rear closed the door, and the man in front turned on a flashlight. The group proceeded quickly through a grand ballroom. Even in the near-dark Bicking could feel the weight of the gold drapes, smell their long history.
There was a sudden clattering of boots outside the door. The three men of the Mista’aravim froze, their weapons turned toward the hallway. The flashlight was doused and the short man hurried back to the gold door.
“Continue straight ahead and wait by the kitchen,” the giant man whispered to Hood, Nasi, and Bicking.
They did as they were told. As they walked, Hood looked back. The small man peeked through the hole where the knob used to be. When no one entered, the masked men rejoined them.
The small man said something to the others in Syrian.
“Presidential guards,” Bicking translated for Hood as they ran through the enormous kitchen.
“Then this whole thing was a kabuki, as the ambassador suggested,” said Nasr. He pushed back his wavy gray hair, which had become disheveled in the excitement. It immediately fell back over his forehead.
“What do you mean?” asked Hood.
“The Syrian President expected this to happen,” Nasr said, “just as Ambassador Haveles predicted. He allowed his stand-in and the foreign ambassadors to take the heart of the attack, protected only by palace guards—”
“Who are like museum or bank security personnel in the U.S.,” Bicking interjected. “They’re trained for one-on-one response. If there’s big trouble they have to call for help.”