Brad Thor - Blowback

“What the hell is paleopathology?” asked Harvath.

“Beats me,” replied Kampos, “but whatever it is, it apparently qualifies her for her current position, which is teaching chemistry at a very exclusive private high school in London called Abbey College. I never did understand the Brits. They call high-school college and college university. Anyway, it’s all there in the file. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can dig up anything else on Rayburn for you.”

“Thanks, Nick. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t appreciate it. Just get whatever’s screwed up straight and come out on the right side of it.”

Harvath’s attention drifted toward the water, and Kampos seemed to be able to read his mind. “You’re going to London, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” replied Harvath.

“Well, if you need anything else, let me know.”

“Actually, there is,” said Harvath as he opened his wallet and counted several bills onto the table to pay for their dinner. “I need a ride to the airport and a gun.”

NIKOS TAVERNA

PLAKA DISTRICT

ATHENS

Khalid Alomari tried to keep his anger under control as he flipped his cell phone closed and tossed it onto the wooden table in front of him. As the noise of motorbikes whizzing past mingled with the sounds of shopkeepers hawking their wares to the tourists who crowded the dusty sidewalks, Alomari wondered once again why none of his contacts was producing. Secrets didn’t keep long in a country like Bangladesh, but for some reason this one was eluding him. As he tried to piece together what had happened, he thought seriously about having one or two of his lowlife associates there killed to help motivate the others.

None of it made any sense. Men like Emir Tokay didn’t simply vanish. They didn’t have the aptitude. Tokay was a scientist, after all, not a trained intelligence operative. There had to be a way to find him, thought Alomari. The assassin had gotten to all the other scientists on the list and didn’t like coming up one short. His situation was made even more difficult by the fact that there was very little time left.

The last time he had spoken with his employer, who was known to him only as Akrep, or the Scorpion, the man had been enraged. He had chastised the assassin for moving too slowly with the kills and somehow knew, as he always seemed to know everything, that the last scientist had disappeared. Once more, Alomari questioned the benefit of ever having gotten involved with such a man.

True, Alomari specialized in killing for hire, but his targets had always been the obvious enemies of Islam. The only comfort he took in this assignment was that the Scorpion himself was a true believer and had pledged his life in service of the faith.

His faith notwithstanding, the Scorpion was known for being absolutely ruthless. Even bin Laden, a man not frightened by anyone, was said to conduct himself toward the Scorpion with an amazing degree of respect and admiration. It was even hinted that al-Qaeda had been the Scorpion’s idea, hatched in the mountains of Afghanistan with bin Laden during the great holy war against the Soviets.

In the end, Alomari held no illusions about why he had taken the assignment-he needed the money; or more importantly, al-Qaeda needed the money. With bin Laden cut off from a significant portion of his funds and forced into hiding along the Pakistan-Afghan border, the al-Qaeda organization was starved for cash. While the cell in Madrid might have sold drugs to keep themselves afloat and finance their spectacular train bombings, there were plenty of other good Muslim members of the organization who would not stoop to such a thing, and Alomari was one of them. He had had no choice but to take the Scorpion’s assignment.

It had been months since he had last been able to make contact with his mentor. Bin Laden was constantly on the move, and he expected his followers to be able to think on their own and make their own decisions. He couldn’t be expected to hold their hands like children. Throughout the grueling assignment, Alomari had tried to remind himself to be thankful. The Scorpion could have selected any number of other assassins to do this job. Alomari knew that bin Laden had played some part in recommending him, and that only made him feel doubly guilty for having failed. At first, it had seemed as if Allah himself was smiling down upon him by handing him this assignment. But he had no idea why Allah would want to halt his progress when he was so close to closing out his list and collecting his much-needed money.

The Scorpion was someone Alomari had never met face-to-face. They had only spoken by telephone. Any actual face-to-face contact was always through his second, a man named Gökhan Celik. As Alomari watched Celik enter the taverna and make his way toward the table, he slid his hand along the outside of his sport coat, just to reassure himself that the ultra-compact Taurus PT-111 pistol was still there. He cared little for whatever relationship existed between bin Laden and the Scorpion; he was taking no chances, not even with this wiry shadow of a man who was the Scorpion’s second.

Gökhan Celik was seventy-five years old if he was a day, with a pair of narrow, dark eyes and a long pointed nose that floated above a set of terrible teeth. The man was devoid of any chin, and as a result, his face seemed to be only an extension of an otherwise twig-thin neck.

Despite his appearance, Alomari knew the man was brilliant. It was said that Celik had been the Scorpion’s counselor since he was a teen, and almost everything the Scorpion had learned, he had learned from Gökhan Celik. In other words, Celik was not a man to be underestimated either.

Dressed in a chic linen suit, Celik could have been any aging Greek businessman out for an early, run-of-the-mill business lunch with a colleague, except that Celik was no Greek and this was no run-of-the-mill luncheon. Celik had come to pink-slip one of the world’s deadliest assassins.

Ever affected by his mother’s cultured influence on his upbringing, Alomari asked his guest if he cared for something to eat or drink before they began.

Celik looked at him and replied, “Let’s not waste any more time, Khalid. You know why I’m here.”

“To discuss the remaining scientist.”

“No. That subject is no longer open for discussion. I’m here to dismiss you. You’re fired.”

“Fired?”

“Of course you can keep the two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar deposit you were paid, but that’s all you are going to receive.”

“But that doesn’t begin to even cover my expenses.”

“Too bad. You knew the deal when you took it-all the items on the list were to be taken care of. You failed.”

Alomari had suspected that this was the reason Celik had demanded the meeting, but true to his Arab heritage, he haggled desperately for a few moments in an attempt to keep the assignment alive.

“The contract is canceled, and that’s final,” said Celik as he placed his gnarled hands on the table and rose from his chair. “I thought we owed it to you to tell you in person.”

That was the least they owed him, and if nothing else, it should have been the Scorpion himself sitting across from him, but Alomari let it slide. “I can still finish the assignment, “He said. “There’s still time.”

“No, there isn’t, and this has gone far beyond your capabilities.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? I mean that if you had acted faster, maybe you would have gotten to Tokay before he talked.”

“He talked? To whom?”

“That’s what we’re going to have to find out. Now, we not only need to locate and silence Tokay, but we also need to silence anyone else he may have talked to. But we’re going to do that without you. Consider yourself lucky that your ineptitude isn’t getting you silenced as well.”