Vince Flynn - American Assassin

Sayyed laughed at him. “You are an unusual man.”

“What do I have to do to get you guys to take me seriously? I’m going to lie to you about a lot of shit, but I am dead serious about Radih’s mom, and I’m not knocking the woman, she was amazing. And besides, you can’t blame a woman for trying to put some food on the table. Can you?”

Sayyed thought about that for a second and simply shook his head. It was time to take charge again. He wheeled his little cart over and checked his instruments. When he was ready he broke open some smelling salts and stuck them under the other American’s nose. Richards snorted and opened his eyes. Turning back to the foul-mouthed older one, he said, “Your friend, Mr. Richards, was kind enough to give us his name.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Yes… well, let’s see if we can jog your memory. This is what we are going to do.” Sayyed picked up the tin snips and said, “I will ask you a question. If you refuse to answer or lie I will cut off one of his fingers.”

“Cool.” Hurley straightened up as much as the tape would allow. “I’d like to see you cut one off right now. Go ahead… let’s get started.”

“Mr. Sherman, what is your real name?”

“Come on, cut his finger off. Cut his wrist off… that would be really awesome.”

Richards was awake now, a panicked look in his eyes. “What the hell?”

Sayyed said, “He has already told us your name, but I want to hear you say it.”

“Fine… William Tecumseh Sherman. Are you happy now? Can we go home?”

“No. That is not the name he gave us.”

“I think I’d know my own name.”

“Last chance.” Sayyed placed the tin snips around the first knuckle on Richards’s left hand.

“William Tecumseh Sherman.”

“Wrong answer.” Sayyed pushed the two red handles together and there was a quick snip and the pinky fell to the dirty floor. Richards started screaming, and Sayyed quickly moved the snips over to Hurley’s pinky. “Your turn,” he yelled. “Name?”

Hurley had already turned his head away, as if he couldn’t bear to watch what was going on. He started to move his lips and mumbled a name.

“Louder… I can’t hear you.”

Hurley slowly turned his head, made eye contact with Sayyed, and then looked down at his pinky. The distance was about right. He pretended he was starting to cry while again mumbling, and when Sayyed moved just a touch closer, offering up his good ear so he could hear better, Hurley lunged forward, tilting his head to the right. He caught the top third of the man’s left ear between his teeth and clamped down with all of his strength, grinding and chewing and growling and then yanking his head back.

Sayyed screamed and broke free, his hand clamped around his bloody ear. He stumbled away and then turned to look at his subject. What he saw horrified him. Bill Sherman had a chunk of his ear hanging half out of his mouth. The insane American smiled at him and then started chewing on the ear, crunching it like a potato chip.

RAPP looked out across the city. Night had fallen and that scar known as the Green Line now looked like a wide, formidable river, a black swath of darkness that cut the city in half. But travel two blocks in either direction and there were signs of life. Buildings lit up with inhabitants, traffic moving about the city, horns blaring, and underpowered engines revving-all the normal sights and sounds of a city. But not in that desolate corridor. Only twice in the last hour had he seen a car dare cross no-man’s-land. It appeared the cease-fire was activated as they usually are, by segregating the various factions. He could not see the east-west streets to the north, and it was likely that more cars had crossed in that sector, but not enough to change what was obvious. This was a literally a city torn asunder.

The problem as Rapp saw it was fundamental geography. He was on this side and they were on the other side-the they being Hurley and Richards. The only way to save them was to go over there, but Ridley had explained to him that going over there was a very bad idea. Going over there would result in his being captured, tortured, and then killed, in that order.

Rapp’s response to Ridley was, “So you’re pretty much admitting that Stan and Bob are going to be tortured and killed.”

“I’m admitting no such thing.”

“The hell you’re not,” Rapp said, his frustration finally boiling over.

Ridley shot back, “I know you’re the new wonder boy, so this might be hard for you to understand, but there are things that are going on that you have not been read in on.”

“Like what?”

“Things that are way above your pay grade, rookie.” Ridley caught his mistake and tried to temper his words by adding, “Listen, I don’t make the rules. There are certain protocols that I have to follow. Langley tells me who I can share things with. If you’re not on that list my hands are tied.”

“Like Petrosian, for instance. I’m sure you cleared that with Langley. You telling a foreign national that I was the man who killed Sharif.” Rapp watched as Ridley looked away. “Are you fucking kidding me? There’s no way in hell you got approval from Irene to give him that information.”

Ridley sighed. “We need Petrosian on this one, and the man does not trust strangers, so I gave him a little piece of information that I knew would please him. He hated Hamdi Sharif more than any person on the planet. It goes back to the beginning of the civil war here. They were both arms dealers and they agreed not to sell weapons to Fatah. Petrosian lived here, and he felt that a militarized Fatah would only prolong the fighting. About six months into the war he found out that Sharif had broken their agreement and was selling weapons to the radical Palestinians. Petrosian was right. It prolonged the war, destroyed the city, killed thousands more, and Sharif became a very wealthy man. Petrosian vowed to kill him, but Sharif never set foot in the city again.”

“Fine… so you used what I did for your own benefit, which means you owe me. I deserve to know what in hell is going on.” Rapp could see Ridley was at least thinking about it, so he pressed him a little harder. “That could have just as easily been me that got picked up. I deserve to know what Langley is doing to try to get them back.”

“They’re working on different levels. Signal intercepts, applying pressure where they can, calling in favors…”

“What in hell does all that mean?”

“It’s complicated, is what it’s supposed to mean, and on top of that Stan, your friend Bobby, and you aren’t even supposed to exist. How the fuck do you expect them to go to the State Department with that one… Excuse me,” he said in a falsetto, “two of our black ops guys, who don’t actually exist, were kidnapped in Beirut. Could you help us get them back?”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit… what in hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means it’s bullshit. If you think the State Department is the answer to our problems, if Langley thinks they’re our solution, we’re fucked.”

“I didn’t say they were the only game. I told you it’s complicated. And what the hell would you know? You’re a damn rookie.”

“A rookie who’s smart enough to know this is bullshit,” Rapp yelled. “You know what the solution is… you just don’t want to say it because you”-Rapp pointed at him-“and all of the other pussies back at Langley don’t have the balls to follow through on it.”

“Please, enlighten me, boy wonder. What’s the solution?”

“We do what the Russians did.”

“What the Russians did?” Ridley mocked him.

“Yeah… back in the mideighties… after four of their diplomats were kidnapped.”