I started to retort when Veep said, “Pike, you might want to see this.”
I saw Jennifer literally lick the guy’s ear and, through clenched teeth, said, “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Someone’s in our room, and it doesn’t look like the maid.”
I turned to him and saw he’d put down his book and was staring at our “safe house” monitor. I said, “We’ve got the ‘do not disturb’ on the door. Can’t be maids.”
He said, “Two guys in our room, ripping through our stuff.”
The “stuff” in question were all props for the “terrorist,” including a tablet, laptop computer, maps, and other evidence, but they weren’t supposed to be in play for a couple of days. I stood up, saying, “Creed, keep an eye on the meeting. Knuckles, get back to Amena. It’s almost go time.”
I went to Veep and saw two guys in jeans and hoodies on the computer screen, one at the door looking out the peephole and the other loading up a backpack with our laptop and tablet.
I said the obvious: “Those jackasses are robbing us.”
Chapter 4
At first glance, the apartment didn’t appear to be a prison cell, but it was. Like a living room ensemble built on a studio lot, it seemed genuine, but on closer inspection, one could find cracks in its façade, with faux books on the shelf and plastic lamps that wouldn’t provide light. While the lamps here functioned, this room had its own peculiarities. The refrigerator was real enough, but the windows were extremely thick and sealed shut, and the exit door was clad in steel, without an obvious internal opening mechanism.
The man imprisoned here didn’t mind. After all, for the first five years of his incarceration, he’d lived in a real cell, an eight-foot-by-six-foot concrete coffin with bars on the windows and a toilet in full view of the cell door. While he still regretted the loss of his freedom, he most definitely preferred the ability to evacuate his bowels in private.
His given name was Abdul Rahman, but he was the only person left alive who knew it. He’d been interrogated many times by his American captors, but he’d never given up his true name. They knew him by a host of aliases and kunyas, but the most prominent one was the Ghost, a nickname he’d been given because of his unique skills, prior to his American enemies capturing him.
At one time, he was at the pinnacle of the small profession of men skilled in targeted assassination, and he’d gleaned the nickname not from a Western foe, but from the cauldron of Beirut, where he’d accomplish his missions like a wraith, and then disappear into the night. His targetsreverberated beyond the killings themselves, the impact creating a legend that spread throughout the refugee camps, so much so that mothers began telling their children that if they didn’t behave, they’d meetAsh’abah—the Ghost.
Rahman finished his dishes in the small kitchenette, folding and placing the dish towel with a little melancholy. He’d grown comfortable in his little apartment, and while saying he “liked” it was probably too much, he knew he would miss it when he was transferred tonight.
He supposed he could have just left the sink full of dirty dishes, something for the Americans to clean after he was removed, but that wasn’t his way. His mother had taught him that the first step to discipline was the small things, and he was better than the Americans. Well, that, and he didn’t want to show any signs of resistance now, when he might actually have a chance to escape. Better to lull his captors into believing he was a model prisoner, helping them to forget the skills he possessed. Skills he’d earned the hard way.
He had been barely out of his teens when he’d lost his friends and family during a Lebanese Army attack on his refugee camp in Beirut. He’d been imprisoned as a suspected insurgent, consequently missing the fight, and when he’d returned home, he’d found the camp a barren wasteland of destruction. Everything he’d known eviscerated. He’d set about killing those responsible one by one, both the Lebanese armed forces that had purged the camp and the Fatah leaders hiding within who’d dared the military to attack.
Those early assassinations had been purely out of rage. Later, as time went on in the never-ending conflict that was Lebanon, he’d learned he had a talent for the work and he’d begun killing for whomever would pay him, as long as their purpose aligned with his own. He was Muslim, yes, but that didn’t define him in the way that it did others who killed, any more than being Catholic defined the Irish fighting for the reunification of their country decades ago.
They were Irish first, Catholic second, and much the same way that an Irish Republican Army member didn’t yearn to kill all Protestants—onlyEnglish ones—he felt no burning desire to slay on behalf of Islam. He did so on behalf of Palestinians, and that goal had led him to targeting anyone who stood in the way of their victory. Arab, Persian, Shia, Sunni, Christian or Jew, if they presented a barricade to a Palestinian homeland, they were his enemies. Anyone seeking to push the Zionist state of Israel into the sea was his friend.Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or any other group fighting for the Palestinian cause was an ally.
Rahman shook his head, as if to physically clear his mind of the memories. That had been a long time ago and was only resurfacing now because of his history lessons with Mike.
He went to his small desk and turned on his computer, another perk he’d earned through goodwill from his American captors. It was hardwired by ethernet—the room having no Wi-Fi—and his access to the internet was both throttled and read by his captors, but he’d found a way around that, and he hoped that his contacts had received the word that he was being transferred. If they hadn’t, then his dream of escape would end tonight, as he was sure his new prison would have none of the amenities of the old.
He scanned the latest headlines from the war between the Zionists and the Axis of Resistance, once again dismayed by what he saw, refusing to click on any individual story. They were all the same, the end result bringing nothing but misery to the Palestinian people.
When Hamas had attacked on October 7, 2023, he’d initially felt joy that the civilians of Israel were experiencing the same trauma his people had endured for generations, then hope that the Axis of Resistance would finally decide to end the Zionist question once and for all. The West Bank would rise up, Hezbollah would attack from the north, and Hamas would cause the Israeli war machine a slow death of attrition.
Then the reports began to surface about the horrific actions Hamas had taken, and he knew they’d overreached. Rahman had no qualms with killing Israelis, but the rapes, taking of babies, and wanton slaughter of the helpless and elderly was not his way, and he believed it would cause a massive retaliation. And so it became.
He’d seen Gaza razed to the ground, Hamas decimated, and Hezbollah,instead of attacking, running from the fight to the point that they capitulated in a truce. Syria fell, and Iran signaled through it all that they had no wish to escalate the fight, which in turn had caused the United States and Israel to bomb the country with impunity. He didn’t really care about Iran’s nuclear weapons’ program, but the destruction wrought on the innocents of Gaza made him feel an impotent rage, proving all the targets he’d eliminated as an assassin had been for nothing, the goal of a Palestinian homeland further away than ever.
He’d silently seethed at the foolishness of Hamas and the fecklessness of Iran and Hezbollah, and had found in an odd way, it gave him hope. More precisely, it had given him a reason to live again: escape, so that he could help in the fight.
He heard a small chime, an indicator that someone was coming to his door. He looked at the clock on his computer and saw it was too early for the transfer. He’d been told the movement would happen in the dead of night, in order to keep even his captivity a secret, he was sure. He glanced up at the camera in the ceiling and did what he was supposed to do: he stood, went to the wall next to the steel door, and placed his hands through a hatch. He felt the cuffs cinch shut and withdrew them, stepping back from the door. He heard it unlock, and then saw his prison warden, Mr. Black, with a small duffel bag in his hand.
His real name was Bob Marley, but he had no idea that Rahman knew that, and Rahman gave no indication that he did, saying, “Hello, Mr. Black.”
Rahman had known immediately after capture that the Americans who held him were something special. A hunter-killer team apart from the official United States government infrastructure. His fears were confirmed when he hadn’t been flown to Guantánamo in an orange jumpsuit and never met anyone from the Red Cross or Red Crescent. Instead, he’d been shuttled for days on one black aircraft after another, wearing a hood on his head, until he’d ended up behind bars all by himself. A single prisoner.
His first few years had been a kaleidoscope of interrogation, all focused on Islamic fanaticism, the agents of the United States futilely trying to gleanwhat he knew. Internally, he scoffed at their juvenile attempts to understand his world. It was like watching a man who’d never seen an elephant draw a picture based solely on a description. The result bore a resemblance, but its errors were glaring, and he was happy to let it remain so.
Three years into his incarceration he’d finally met the man who’d captured him. While he held his inquisitors in contempt, this man had earned his respect solely because he’d been the one to accomplish what so many others had tried to accomplish and failed. He’d expected more interrogation, but instead the man came with an intriguing offer: Use his unique knowledge and skills to help the United States prevent a terrorist attack involving an American traitor. He’d accepted the offer solely to facilitate escape, and would have succeeded in that endeavor had he not intervened to save the man’s partner.
