Andrew Kaplan - Carrie's run

“One of the doctors maybe?” Colonel Salazar suggested.

“That’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do,” she nodded.

“So we’ll need you with whoever we put in there to make sure we don’t shoot the wrong medico?” Leslie said. “That checkpoint’ll be a kill zone, miss. It’s going to get pretty damned hairy. I know you’re CIA and all, but no offense, are you sure you’re up for this?”

“I just got back from Ramadi. I know exactly what I’m in for. And trust me, I won’t be going in front. I’ll be well behind the soldiers you send in. And, Colonel,” she said, looking at Salazar, “please don’t underestimate Abu Ubaida. He’s not just some raghead; he’s smart as hell. And he’s only a tenth as smart as Abu Nazir.”

“I won’t,” Colonel Salazar said, eyes narrowed. “At least, thanks to you, for once we have the element of surprise on our side. We’re giving you a Special Forces Group unit for the hospital. The best we’ve got. Who’s leading it?” he asked Leslie.

“Captain Mullins. Second Battalion,” Leslie said.

“Good man. If anyone can protect you and get this son of a bitch, he will,” Colonel Salazar said.

“What about the secretary of state?” Carrie asked.

“Politicians.” Colonel Salazar grimaced. “We’ll try to keep her at Camp Victory while we sweep the Amiriyah district with enough force to make the insurgents keep their heads down until we settle what’s happening in the Green Zone. But obviously, no one, including General Casey himself, can tell her what to do or where she can or cannot go.”

“When’s her plane due in?” she asked.

“Last I heard, oh nine oh five hours,” Leslie said. He checked his watch. “Eight hours from now. Not much time to get everything set up.”

“The key is the Assassin’s Gate,” Carrie said. “I assume you’ll have plenty to stop them there? They’re going to try to force their way through to the Convention Center.”

Lieutenant Colonel Leslie nodded. “Plenty, including a platoon of Abrams tanks and a couple of Bradley APCs that we’ll move in behind them. Once they’re in the killing zone, they stay there.”

She turned to Colonel Salazar. “Colonel, this Russian missile we saw? Would an Abrams tank survive if it was hit with one of those things?” she asked.

“Possibly,” he said. “Depends on a number of different factors. Assuming the missile hits the tank, where it hits, the tank’s MCD defenses, a number of things.”

“What about a Bradley? Would it survive?”

“Not a chance.”

Assassin’s Gate, Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq

She spent the remaining few hours of the night on a narrow bunk in a shipping container that everyone called a “trailer,” set in a sea of trailers laid out in a grid near the old Republican Palace. Dreyer had given her his trailer while he slept on a blanket on the floor in his office. But she couldn’t fall asleep. All she could think of was Dempsey and how he’d looked the first time she saw him, and again that night that they made love at al-Rasheed, and imagine what the IED had done to him and what he must’ve thought in that last instant. Did he blame her? Damn, he was a good-looking man. Just being near him had made her feel sexy, alive. Would she ever feel that way again? Could she ever even allow it again?

She opened her eyes but couldn’t see anything. The trailer was a dark, closed metal box. Like living in a coffin, she thought. She could feel depression moving in on her like a storm on a TV weather map that’s heading toward you. She pushed it away. No time for that now. Kill Abu Ubaida first. Then get drunk and let it come, she told herself.

Still, she couldn’t sleep. Something didn’t fit. What was it? Suddenly, she sat bolt upright in the darkness. What was it on the recorder in the factory? Abu Ubaida’s voice when he was interrogating Romeo. Something about Abu Nazir. What was it he said?

Of course he will. What good is that? I need you to tell me.

Why? What did it mean? Why wouldn’t Abu Nazir’s word be good enough for him? Why did it have to come from Romeo? Was it just a power trip on his part? She didn’t think so. The stakes were too high. Think, Carrie. Think.

I can’t, she thought. Clozapine wasn’t a cure-all. Oh God, let me sleep. I can do this, I swear, if I can just get some sleep.

By the time she showed up in Dreyer’s office that morning, in jeans and a T-shirt, with a Beretta M9 pistol Dreyer had given her, the sun was just edging over the tops of the buildings on the other side of the Tigris. It was going to be another hot day, she thought. Dreyer was already at work on his computer. One look at his face told her the bad news.

“Benson turned us down. I tried. Believe me, I tried,” Dreyer said.

“Well, he’s not turning me down,” she said, heading for the door.

“Carrie, wait!” he shouted. “Technically, we’re attached to the embassy. They’ll order me to send you back. We need you here. We can’t afford it.”

She stopped at the door and looked back at him. “I’ve gotten a lot of blood on my hands since this thing started, Perry. I can’t have any more. You do what you have to. So will I,” she said, and left.

She hit her cell phone and called the number Sergeant Major Coogan had given her for Captain Mullins, commander of the Special Forces Group being assigned to her by Colonel Salazar. He picked up before the first ring was completed. She told him where she was and what she needed. He said he’d be there in ten minutes.

“Meet me in the prime minister’s office. It’s on the second floor,” she said, ringing off and heading for the stairs. As she started up, Perry Dreyer joined her, followed by three of his staff, young men with M4s.

“If I can’t stop you, I guess they’ll have to fire us both,” he said.

They walked all the way around the big interior atrium to the prime minister’s corner office on the Yafa Street side of the building. Two armed Iraqi soldiers wearing the red berets of the Iraqi Security Forces guarded the door.

“Prime minister not in,” one of them said in bad English.

“ Salaam alaikum, sadikh’khai ,” Carrie said, greeting them in Arabic as friends. “You’re both Shiite, yes?” One of the soldiers nodded. “Of which tribe, habibi ? Shammer Toga? Bani Malik? Al-Jabouri?” she asked, naming major Shiite tribes of the Baghdad area. She was guessing that al-Waliki, the candidate of the Shiites, would only trust being guarded by fellow Shiites, preferably from his own tribe.

“Bani Malik,” the first IFS guard said.

“Of course, as is Prime Minister al-Waliki.” Carrie nodded. “I should have known.”

“He is of al-Ali of the Bani Malik,” the guard said, indicating al-Waliki’s specific tribal subbranch.

“We’re from the CIA. Sunnis of al-Qaeda are planning to kill the prime minister this morning. No doubt you will die as well. Call your commander to join us and come with us,” she said, pushing past him and opening the door. She walked into the large, plush office where the prime minister, Wael al-Waliki, was meeting with Ambassador Robert Benson.

The two men were seated at a small mahogany table. Behind them, a curtained window, one of the few in the Convention Center, provided a view of the lawn and grounds and beyond the fence to tree-lined Yafa Street and the Al-Rasheed Hotel in the distance. Dreyer, the CIA men and the two Iraqi ISF guards were behind Carrie.

“What the hell is this? Get out-all of you,” Benson growled. Spotting Dreyer, he said, “Perry, I gave you strict orders. Are you that interested in committing career suicide? Get out.”