Agent in Place

The Mercedes pulled up to the sidewalk outside their building. Tarek and Rima climbed out with their groceries, keyed in an electronic code by the door, then passed through a narrow entryway towards the stairs. Only when the door clicked shut did Mustafa pull back into traffic to park the car in the garage two blocks away, and only then did the Halabys breathe a sigh of relief.

They climbed one flight of stairs in their twenty-unit building, then walked down a long hall with windows overlooking a pedestrian-only passage below. The hallway made a right turn, then continued a few meters without windows, and here Tarek put the key in his door lock. They entered their second-floor apartment, shut and deadbolted the door behind them, then flipped on the lights in the entryway. He and Rima peeled themselves out of their raincoats, hung their umbrellas in a stand just inside the door, and headed together into the living room on their way to the kitchen.

And as one they stopped in the middle of the room. Rima dropped her plastic bag of groceries, and an apple rolled across the floor.

A man sat in the chair by the window in the corner, facing the entryway. A black pistol with a silencer attached rested on the side table next to him.

The large grandfather clock in the living room ticked off a pair of hollow seconds before Rima let out a soft gasp.

Tarek Halaby recognized the American. He wore a simple dark green cotton pullover and black jeans. His hands were folded in his lap, nowhere near the handgun on the table, but both of the Halabys recognized that the American’s confidence was born out of skill, not arrogance. He could get to that pistol before they could do a thing to stop him.

Rima spoke softly to her husband in Arabic now. “Well . . . That sure didn’t take long.”

The Halabys had expected to see the American, but not this soon. They’d gone against Vincent Voland’s wishes, and they had not sent the final payment to the numbered account maintained by the handler of their contract killer. It had been a gamble, but they’d wanted a face-to-face meeting with him.

Tarek cleared his throat to hide his nerves. In English he said, “I am thankful my plan to meet with you again has worked.”

“Some might call it your plan to commit suicide.”

“We just wanted to talk to you. I will, of course, forward the money to the account right away, while you watch. The funds are yours, regardless of the result of our conversation. Please just give us ten minutes to speak with you first. It is an absolute emergency.”

“I told you I wasn’t interested in anything you had to offer.”

“Five minutes,” Rima implored. “I beg of you. It’s a matter of utmost importance.”

The American sighed, then looked at his watch. “I’ll give you one minute. If I am interested in the conversation, I’ll give you another minute. If you are really fucking entertaining, you’ll get a third minute.” He motioned to the sofa in front of him. “Then I’m gone for good.”

Rima spoke as she and her husband sat down. “That’s just fine. Thank you.”

The man said, “Your driver . . . is he coming up here after he parks?”

Tarek nodded.

“Does he want to catch a bullet in the eye?”

Now Tarek winced. “No. Certainly not. We will tell him you are our guest. He will wait outside.”

Now the asset motioned to a pair of large framed photographs on the wall across the room. They were portraits, one of a man, one of a woman, and they both appeared to be in their mid-or late twenties. “Children?”

Rima nodded.

“Any chance they will pop in on Mom and Dad while I’m here?”

Tarek answered brusquely. “No. No chance at all.”

The American in the chair said, “All right. First, make the transfer.”

Tarek pulled his laptop from his bag and opened it, and within three minutes he had transferred the money into the account. While this was going on, Mustafa returned to the flat after parking the car and was surprised to see the stranger sitting with his principals. His left hand slipped inside his jacket, but Tarek held a hand up and assured the former Syrian soldier that everything was fine, and they sent him to wait in the hallway.

The American confirmed the wire transfer with his smartphone, then looked up at the couple. “The clock is ticking.”

Rima had sat still and quiet during the transfer, but now she smiled at the stranger in her living room. “What is your name, sir?”

The American chuckled now as he rolled his eyes. “You guys are too much.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Is that not a question asked of men like you?”

“Call me whatever you want, doc, but you’ve got forty-five seconds to do it.”

Tarek spoke quickly. “There has been a complication.”

Another little eye roll. “Sorry, folks. No refunds.”

“You misunderstand. It is not a complication with you. You were magnificent. Just as advertised. No, the problem is with Mademoiselle Medina.”

The man in the chair reached for the pistol and scooped it off the table, startling both Syrians. Then he leaned forward and slid it into his waistband in the small of his back. “You’re losing me already. If I snatched the wrong lady, then it’s the fault of whoever you’ve got acquiring your intel. Not me.”

“She was the right woman,” Rima said.

The American cocked his head. “So . . . she’s not his mistress?”

Tarek answered now. “She is. But . . . she is also something else. Something we didn’t know about when we sent you to rescue her.” He looked down at his hands, and then back up.

Rima leaned in. “She is a mother. Her four-month-old son is back in Syria.”

The grandfather clock ticked off a few seconds more before the American just said, “Oops.”

“Her child is currently under the care of a nanny, guarded by security officers at her home in Damascus.”

The American blew out a sigh, clearly understanding where the conversation was going. “And this is the part where you tell me who the daddy is.”

Tarek said, “According to Mademoiselle Medina, Ahmed Azzam is the father.”

The visitor looked off into space now. “That throws a wrench into the works, doesn’t it?”

The Halabys struggled to understand the colloquialism, but Tarek responded, “Azzam is aware of this love child of his. In fact, he is the one protecting his son with members of his own security detail.”

Now the American sat up straighter in the chair. Tarek could tell he was genuinely curious, which meant he likely had another minute to convince the man to help his cause.

He asked, “Protecting him from . . . who?”

Rima answered. “From his wife, Shakira Azzam. She knew about the affair; of that we are certain. We do not know if she is aware of the child.”

“So . . . your whole plan was to flip Bianca so she would give up Ahmed’s plan against the Russians, hoping that might weaken the regime. But Medina left a baby back in Syria, a baby Ahmed has access to. She’d have to be a pretty shitty mother to turn on Azzam now.”

Tarek nodded. “She refuses to help us. Needless to say, she wants to return to Damascus to be with her son. And needless to say, we can’t let her do that.”

The American asset said, “I hate to state the obvious, but you two don’t know what the hell you are doing. I’m not just talking about the fact that you were clueless to the compromises of your target. Compromises that make her worthless as an intelligence asset. I’m also talking about the stunt you just pulled: neglecting to pay a freelance asset because you wanted to talk to him . . . two times out of three, that will get you killed in this game. Your ploy to get me to listen to you worked this time, but you try that next time with another contract asset, and he will shoot you at stand-off distance and be done with it.”

“With your help, sir,” Rima said, “there won’t be a next time, and there won’t be another contract asset.”

The American whistled softly. “Oh . . . I get it. You coaxed me here so you could ask me to go into Syria and kidnap the son of the president.”

Tarek shook his head. “No. Not a kidnapping. It would be a rescue mission.”

“Right. All I have to do is find a way to explain that to the bodyguards, the cops, the intelligence officials, and the military forces in my way.” When neither Tarek nor Rima spoke, the man just leaned back in the chair. “You two are out of your damn minds. No fucking way you’ll get me to go to Syria.”

Tarek said, “We can get you in, and we can get you out. We have people there who will help you.”

“Doc, three fourths of the shit that goes wrong in my life starts with some asshole feeding me that exact same line.” He stood up to leave.

Rima and Tarek stood, as well, and Rima said, “Sir, I wouldn’t ask you to go if I didn’t believe you could do it. A Westerner can get in via a weekly charter flight carrying surgeons into the capital to work at Syrian regime hospitals. We can put you in with them, with all the documents you need to be safe.

“Our documents are good. Just look at yesterday, for example. We provided you with the intelligence and papers that you needed to succeed in your mission.”

“That’s a lousy example, whether you know it or not. Either you are lying to me, or someone else is lying to you. Last night wasn’t what it looked like. It was a setup.”