Don Pendleton: Appointment In Baghdad

He heard the lock disengage with a greasy click and put the device back into his jacket pocket. He grasped the cold, smooth metal of the doorknob and it turned easily under his hand. He made to push the door inward and it refused to budge. Dead bolts.

Bolan swore under his breath. He placed his left hand on the door and pressed inward. From the points of resistance he estimated there were at least three independent security locks attached to the inside of the door.

His mind instantly ran the calculations for an explosive entry. He factored in the metal of the bolt shafts, their attachment points on the door frame and the density of the door itself. He was able to sum up exactly how much plastique he would need and ascertain the most efficient placement on the structure.

But Bolan had no intention of blowing the door of a building in downtown Toronto. Not until he was exactly sure of what he would find inside. He was well versed in various forms of surreptitious entry and had been thoroughly schooled in the techniques of urban climbing, or buildering as it was sometimes called.

Bolan lifted his head and looked up. As per the city’s fire code, a means of emergency egress had been placed on the outside of the building to aid occupants above the ground floors. The fire escape was directly above the back door and ended in an enclosed metal cage around the ladder on the second floor.

“Change of plans,” Bolan said into his throat mike.

“I’m going up.”

“Your call, Striker,” Manning answered. “Everything is good at the moment.”

Bolan looked around the alley. He thought briefly of pushing over one of the large green garbage bins and climbing on top of it to reach the fire escape. He rejected the idea as potentially attracting too much attention. He looked around, evaluating the building like a rock climber sizing up a cliff face. Above the first floor five uniform windows ran the width of the building along each floor.

Bolan made his decision and zipped his jacket. It would keep him from getting to his concealed weapons quickly, but it was a necessary risk if he were to attempt this climb. He opened the scissor-gate again and grasped it at the top. He stuck the toe of one boot into a diamond-shaped opening and lifted himself off the ground. He placed his other hand against the edge of the building, using the strength of his legs to support him as he released one handhold on the gate and reached for a gutter drain set into the wall.

He grabbed hold firmly and held on before moving his other hand over. The drain was so chill it almost seemed to burn the flesh on the palm of his hand and fingers. He pulled himself up despite the great strain of the awkward position and grasped the vertical drain with both hands. He moved his right leg and stuck his toe between the drainpipe and the brick wall, jamming it in as tightly as he could.

Once he was braced Bolan pulled his boot from the scissor-gate and set it on top of the door frame. It was slick along the top and he was forced to knock aside a minor buildup of slush along the narrow lip. Confident with the placement of that foot, the soldier pushed down hard against the lip at the top of the door frame and shimmed himself farther up the drainpipe.

Bolan’s muscles burned, and he forced himself to breathe in through his nose. Squeezing the frigid, slick pipe tightly, he inched his way up until his knee touched the second-story window ledge.

His body stretched into a lopsided X, Bolan carefully pressed his hands against the windowpane and pushed upward, testing to see if the window was open. He met resistance and realized it was locked. Bolan eased his head back and looked up. Light shone from the window on the floor directly above his position. Above that the fourth floor was as dark as the second. Directly above that was the roof.

From his careful study of the architect’s blueprints Bolan knew the internal staircase rose up to a roof access doorway. He debated breaking the glass on the window and working the lock mechanism from inside. He decided the risk was simply too great and made a decision to keep climbing.

“This is a no go,” he whispered. “I’m going all the way up.”

“Roger,” Manning answered.

He chose this route for the same reason he had decided not to use the fire escape. The metal structure was as dated as the building and ran directly next to the softly lit third-floor window; he feared the occupants in the lighted room would be aware of the rattle as he climbed and be alerted to his presence.

Decision made, he shimmed his way up to the third floor despite the toll the physical exertion was taking on him. Bolan was in exceptional physical shape, but the task of urban climbing was extremely arduous. Hand over hand and toehold to toehold, the soldier ascended the outside of the building, working himself into position by the third-floor window.

Bolan paused. He could hear the murmur of voices and sensed shadowed movements beyond the blind, but not enough for him to gather any intelligence. Moving carefully to diminish any sound of his passing, Bolan climbed the rest of the way up the building.

He rolled over the edge and dropped over the low rampart onto the tar-patched roof. He rose swiftly, unzipping his jacket and freeing the MP-5 submachine-gun. Exhaust conductors for the building’s central air formed a low fence of dull aluminum around the free-standing hutch housing the door to the fire stairs.

Bolan crossed the roof to the side opposite his ascent and reached the door. He tried the knob, found it locked and quickly worked his lock-pick gun on the simple mechanism.

“All right,” Bolan said. “I’m going inside.”

“Be careful,” Manning’s voice said across the distance.

Bolan glanced quickly around to see if the occupants of any of the other nearby buildings had witnessed his climb. He saw no evidence of either them or Manning in his overwatch position and ducked into the building, leaving the door open behind him.

The Executioner descended into darkness.

Bolan moved down the stairs and deeper into the building. He moved past the fire door leading to the fourth-floor apartments and down toward the two levels housing the mosque.

NSA programs had intercepted calls originating in the An Bar province of western Iraq with their terminus in this area of Toronto. Official procedures had been followed and contact with Ottawa made in the offices of both the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, known as CSIS.

Because the intercepted cell-phone call had been made to the twenty-seven-year-old son of a Syrian diplomat stationed in Canada’s capital, the response from the government security services had been to decline the request for mutual cooperation. Subsequent investigations made by CSIS had concluded that the foreign jihadists were not threats domestically and served only in administrative and supportive roles to insurgents operating in the Middle East, much as American representatives of the Sinn Fein had served nonviolently to facilitate IRA activities during the 1970s.

The Canadian position became an official posture of low-key overwatch. The mosque in question would remain unmolested.

To an embattled and besieged America, the Damascus-Toronto-Ramadi connection represented a treasure trove of information and a clear and present danger. The Hiba Bakr, who ran the center for Islamic studies was a known Whabbist, and the Syrian diplomat in question was a man frequently associated with the top levels in the Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya, or the Syrian Air Force Intelligence known as the IMJ.

The IMJ had evolved into Syria’s most covert and ruthless intelligence agency and was, despite its moniker, not primarily concerned with gathering intelligence for the nation’s air force. Hafez al-Assad, the former president of Syria, had once commanded the air force and upon his assumption of power in 1970 had frequently turned away from the nation’s other three intelligence services in favor of one filled with men he personally knew and had in most cases appointed himself.