Don Pendleton - Point Of Betrayal

“Yes, sir. Jon Stone called two minutes ago, just before you returned.”

“I’ll deal with Stone.”

In his mind, his voice dripped with disdain, like venom trickling the length of a cobra’s fang. Stone was an undisciplined killer, a wild cannon. Maybe he dazzled the brass with his dual master’s degrees and his record of successful missions. Simmons knew better. He knew that every time Stone walked into a mission, he drew innocent blood. Women. Children. Stone cared little as long as he got results. Same went for his buddy, Stephen Archer.

If Simmons’s voice betrayed his hatred, the woman in front of him showed no signs of it. And what if she did? To hell with her and everyone else. Simmons was dying. And the way he saw it, a dying man ought to be able to say whatever the hell he wants.

“Sir, did you hear what it I said?”

The room came back into focus for a moment. “Huh?”

“They lost contact with Doyle, sir. He was supposed to check in with Stone and they lost contact with him.”

Simmons sat upright in his chair. Doyle not checking in? Something about that bothered him, though he couldn’t place what. Why was it so damn hard to think?

“Get out.”

“Sir?”

“Get out. All of you. I need to speak with Stone.”

The analysts and technicians filed from the room, leaving Simmons alone.

Raising the satellite phone, he began to punch in Stone’s code. Knowing he might need to dial it at a critical moment, he’d burned the code into his memory, doing so until he could recite it in his sleep. Still, he had trouble bringing the numbers on the keypad into focus. They blinked and blurred as he tried to pin them down under his index finger.

Finishing the number sequence, he leaned back in his chair, waited for Stone to pick up.

The agent’s voice sounded far away, angry in Simmons’s ear.

“Where the hell you been, man?”

“Do it,” Simmons said.

“What?”

“You heard me. Lee says it’s a go. So, go”

IHMAD JUMA STEPPED from the room and wrinkled his nose, a vain attempt to expel the stenches of vomit, blood and human excrement that clung inside his nostrils. He shut the door behind him, hoping to seal behind it the memory of an old friend who still lay inside, mangled and dying.

Correction: an old friend who had turned traitor. That made the man an enemy, and his impending death a cause for celebration. Perhaps if Juma told himself that long enough, eventually he’d believe it.

Juma moved with clipped, precise strides that belied his twenty years as an Iraqi military officer. As he continued down the hall, he realized the air felt irritatingly cool against his forehead and armpits. He extracted a handkerchief from his fatigue pants. Wiping the cloth over his forehead, he traced the edge of his severe widow’s peak and scrubbed away the sheen of perspiration that lay below it.

The screams and pleadings of Brahim Azar echoed in his mind, as unrelenting as the desert sun. He shook his head violently to shoo them away, then caught himself and looked around self-consciously. None of the passing soldiers seemed to notice his momentary distress, eliciting a silent prayer of gratitude. He’d witnessed more tortures, beatings, rapes than he could recall. The memories of these events flashed past his mind’s eye like a high-speed kaleidoscope, one blurring into the next with almost blinding speed. Years ago the images had disturbed him, yanking him from sleep, prompting violent outbursts against his family. But now he prided himself on his aloofness in the face of others’ agony.

Still something about watching an old friend suffer had disturbed him deeply, wrenching his guts and searing his soul with the unwelcome fires of guilt, self-hatred.

Several minutes later he stood in front of the great leader, in one of the man’s numerous private offices. Silence and cigar smoke hung heavily in the air, the latter stinging Juma’s eyes. His stomach continued churning, this time because of nerves. He’d been close to the leader many, many times, but never the focus of the meeting. The news was grim, and Juma couldn’t help but wonder whether delivering it might cost him his life.

The great leader sat in a high-backed chair, facing a wall. Waiting for an invitation to speak, Juma eyed his surroundings. Bookcases lined the walls, ornate brass lamps shone brightly and a television carrying Iraqi state news reports blinked in the background.

“You bring me information?”

“Yes, sir. Of utmost importance.”

“Speak.”

“A small group of men, including some within the government, have conspired to kill you. They planned to do it tonight.”

“Who are these men?”

“I have their names here, sir.” Juma pulled a manila folder from under his left arm and handed it to one of the guards, who, in turn, set in on the great leader’s desk. “They planned to kill you tonight at the royal palace. Tariq Riyadh is among them.”

“The Americans?”

“The infidels also are part of the plan, yes. They have operatives within the country, all of them posing as foreign journalists, even as we speak. As for our own countrymen, I have dispatched teams to hunt them down, arrest them.”

“No.”

“Sir?”

“Let them come en masse. We’ll kill them together, like a pack of wild dogs. Make an example of them.”

“Yes, sir. Their families?”

“Kill them, too, of course.”

CHRIS DOYLE STEPPED from the SUV, walked into the lights of the Iraqi jeep. He squinted to block out the white glare. Clutching his identification papers in his left hand, he held both hands overhead and wore a grin he didn’t feel.

An Iraqi soldier, one hand clutching the pistol grip of his submachine gun, approached Doyle and snatched the papers from his hands. Releasing the submachine gun, the soldier grabbed Doyle’s arm, spun him and shoved him hard against the vehicle. Over the rumble of the jeep’s engine, Doyle heard the rustle of paper as the soldier pored over the American’s identification documents. Doyle’s heart speeded up and he forced himself to take deep, even pulls of the exhaust-tinged air to keep his thinking clear.

“You are French?” the soldier asked.

“Oui. I mean, yes,” Doyle said, switching to Arabic.

“It says here you are a journalist. Where is your monitor?”

Doyle shrugged, smiled. “I am a nature photographer. The information ministry decided I didn’t need an escort in the swamplands. I am unimportant.”

The soldier grunted, continued poring over the forged papers. “The information ministry obviously erred,” he said without looking. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I was supposed to meet with my monitor tonight before I return to my hotel. He was going to check my pictures. I cannot take my film from the country without his approval. Please, I do not want problems.”

“When are you leaving?”

“One week,” Doyle lied.

The soldier’s machine gun hung loose on its strap from his right shoulder. Spare clips were sheathed on his belt. Doyle watched as the soldier, a stout man in camouflage fatigues and a beret, traced a stubby finger across the paper until he reached the line bearing Doyle’s departure date. A moment later the soldier refolded the papers, stuck them in his shirt pocket.

The stout man locked eyes with Doyle. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I told you—”

“I mean, in this neighborhood. After dark. According to your papers, you’re staying at the Continental Hotel, which is nowhere near this place. Why are you here?”

Doyle felt his palms moisten, his mind begin to race. Crossing his arms over his chest, the American agent leaned down toward the soldier. He gave the man a conspiratorial wink, hushed his voice as though sharing with an old friend. “I‘ve been away from civilization for a while,” he said. “I’m here looking for a little companionship. I was supposed to meet someone.”