The Seventh Pillar (2 page)

The building was similar to a chemical factory bombed by the US a few years back. That one been had been making VX, a lethal nerve gas refined from pesticides. The bombed out ruins were now a prime tourist attraction in Khartoum.

Maybe someone was making VX again. It was why Ronnie and Lamont baked under the African sun. To find out if they were.

"They're being pretty careful with that box. Like it's made out of eggshells." Ronnie adjusted the binoculars. A gleam of sunlight reflected from the lenses and bounced against the windshield. Ronnie swore under his breath. Someone pointed their way. There was sudden activity by the pickups.

"Shit. We've been spotted. Time to boogie."

Lamont started the engine. He turned onto the road to Khartoum and floored it. Ronnie looked back and saw the armed pickups pull out after them.

The Toyota sped into the outskirts of Khartoum. The trucks behind closed and the gunners opened fire. At the sound of the guns people ran for cover and cleared the wide street. Everyone in Sudan knew that sound.

Lamont and Ronnie hunched down. The rear window exploded in a shower of glass. Bullets starred the windshield with holes, kicked up geysers of dirt around them, pocked the whitewashed walls of the houses. The rounds rang off the roof of the cab. Inside, it sounded like hammers hitting steel.

There was a grenade launcher in the bed of the truck under a canvas tarp. It didn't do them any good back there.

Ronnie flung open his door. "I'm going for the launcher."

He climbed outside and grabbed the frame where the rear window had been shot away. Broken shards of glass ripped his hand. He swore, got a leg over the edge and rolled down into the truck bed. He crawled to the launcher and flung off the tarp. It sailed away into the air and landed in the roadway behind. He opened the case, took out the long tube and loaded a round.

One of the gunners found the rear tires. They blew out in flat, loud explosions and turned into twisted steel and shredded rubber. Lamont fought for control of the bouncing truck. Ronnie steadied himself, got to one knee, fired, watched the trail of smoke head away. He felt the brief hot wind of rounds passing by before they struck the cab. Lamont cried out. The first of the pursuing trucks burst into an orange ball of flame.

The second vehicle came past the burning wreckage. The heavy, distinctive sound of the Russian gun echoed from the buildings lining the street. Ronnie's next round detonated as it went through the windshield. The truck lifted, flipped onto its side and exploded.

Their pickup drifted sideways into a building and ground along the wall until it stopped. Ronnie leapt from the bed, opened the door and pulled Lamont out from behind the wheel. Armor had stopped two rounds in his back. A third had hit his arm. Blood soaked his robe.

Lamont's brown face had turned the color of light coffee, blanched with pain. He held his wounded arm against his body.

A wisp of flame snaked out under the hood of their truck.

With the shooting over, people began to come out of the houses and shops. Lamont had Ethiopian coffee skin and blue eyes. Ronnie had his Navajo coloring and looks. They both wore skull caps and robes and realistic beards. They wouldn't pass as Sudanese, but no one would figure them for Americans. Ronnie had his pistol out to discourage anyone from asking questions. No one did.

They hurried down the street and into a maze of alleys and narrow paths running between the houses. Behind them their truck turned into a blazing torch, sending a column of black smoke into the cloudless sky.

Ronnie stopped in a deserted alley. A narrow beam of sunlight shone down between dust colored walls. He cut open Lamont's sleeve. Shattered bone showed above the elbow, where the bullet had tumbled through.

"How bad?" Lamont's voice was hoarse with pain.

"Not so good. I gotta stop the bleeding. This will hurt." Ronnie cut strips from his robe and bound the wound. He improvised a sling. Lamont gritted his teeth.

Ronnie watched the entrance to the alley and punched a button on his phone. The call could be intercepted, but no one could understand it without the right chip on the other end.

There was a brief delay as the call routed through the satellites. Stephanie answered. "Yes, Ronnie."

"We have a problem. Two trucks came after us. We took them out, but our vehicle is toast. Lamont took a bad hit. I'm cut up a little." He looked down at his bloody hand. "Get us out of here. Lamont needs a hospital, now."

"Go to the safe house. We'll get you out."

"They loaded something onto a deuce and a half. We put a bug on the truck last night."

"We'll track them. Call when you're safe."

"Roger that." Ronnie put the phone away.

CHAPTER FOUR

The following day Selena, Nick and Stephanie met in Steph's office. Ronnie and Lamont were on a US Navy carrier two hundred miles off shore. The cost of extraction from Khartoum was a bill owed to CIA. The Project didn't have assets on the ground all over the world. Langley did. To Nick's surprise, they'd cooperated. Carter was relieved his team was safe, but he knew Langley would call for payback.

There was a new, bad development.

Stephanie briefed them. "Senator Randolph has been murdered. There were three Secret Service agents with him. They're dead too. Also his wife and his dog. They found a disc on the body, like the one in London. The President called and he wants answers."

Randolph had been a lock to run against President Rice in the upcoming election. He had favored pre-emptive military intervention to stop Iran or anyone else from obtaining nuclear weapons. Someone had just assassinated the man who might have been the next President of the United States.

Nick said what they all knew. "Someone is bound to make the Shia connection with that symbol. Randolph wanted heavy sanctions against Tehran. Like the Brit Secretary. Everyone's going to think Iran is behind these murders."

"Maybe they are behind it." Stephanie tapped her fingers on her leg.

"It doesn't make sense, Steph. Why would the Iranians announce their involvement? It's not their style."

"Public perception is going to drive things. It's politics, you know that. Everyone looks for someone to blame. This could start a war if anyone finds a direct link."

"I don't think it's Tehran," Selena said. " She held up the picture of the disc. "I remembered where I'd seen this. It's hard to believe we're looking at it now."

"'What do you mean?" Carter waited.

"This was the sign of a secret order called the Hashishin. That's where the word 'assassin' comes from. They were a Shia sect that disappeared seven hundred years ago."

"Are those the guys who smoked hashish and thought they were in Paradise?"

"Yes."

"Don't tell me." Nick said. "They came out of Iran."

"That's right. Only it was Persia then. They had a fortress in northwestern Iran, at a place called Alamut. It's still there. It was conquered by the Mongols in the thirteenth century."

"What happened to them? You said they disappeared."

"They believed in a succession of hidden Imams and went into something called dissimulation. Into hiding, until their Imams would reveal them again. That's not supposed to happen until there's a divine sign."

"What kind of sign?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose they'll know it when they see it."

"Maybe the sign's turned up. Maybe they're back."

"You think this cult is still around?" Steph asked.

Selena shrugged. "It's their symbol. Their weapon of choice was a dagger, though they weren't above using poison or something else now and again. They were trained in every method of killing from an early age. Think of them as Muslim Ninjas, and you've got the picture. They were fanatics, an isolated, minority sect even among the Shia. They believed they were the only ones with a true interpretation of Muhammad's teachings."

"How many were there?"

"No one knows."

Carter massaged his throbbing temples. "They can't possibly still exist."

Stephanie said, "I'm thinking of Sherlock Holmes."

"This isn't a movie, Steph."

"Don't be an asshole, Nick. What I mean is Holmes said that if the possible is eliminated, only the impossible remains. Something like that. If it is the assassins, they exist in the modern world, even though everyone thinks it's impossible."

"If they still exist and have been hiding out for hundreds of years, they're pretty good at it. How do we get a handle on them?"

Selena frowned. "We need more information about them. I know where we might start."

"Where?"

"In Mali."

"Mali? What's in Mali?"

"The Ahmed Baba Institute. It's a library in Timbuktu with a collection of Arabic manuscripts and papers going back to the thirteenth century. You want to know something about Muslim history in the Middle Ages, that's the source."

Nick saw her excitement. Pure research on obscure texts, what she'd done for years. It had brought her world wide academic recognition.

"You want to go to Timbuktu?"

"If there's any contemporary historical reference to what really happened to the Hashishin, it's the best place to look for it. All you can find anywhere else is standard history. That won't help us."

Stephanie flicked away lint from her dark suit. Nick remembered when she'd shown up for work sporting bright colors. Now she was all business.

Selena continued. "Steph, I need a research permit. They're very protective of those manuscripts. It shouldn't be hard with my credentials. I gave a lecture two years ago to an international conference on Islamic history and language and I've been invited to speak again when the next one comes up. I could use my real identity and say I was doing research for that."

Stephanie made a note. "We can arrange that."

"She can't go alone, Steph. I'll go with her. We've got advisors in Mali, the government's friendly. We can send our pistols by diplomatic pouch."

"Damn it, Nick. You're a Director now. You're not supposed to go off somewhere where you could get shot at or captured. Besides, all the intelligence agencies in the world will be looking for these people. They can find them."

"The other agencies don't have Selena. This is a tactical decision and it's my call. She doesn't have enough field experience to go alone. Ronnie and Lamont are out of it. That leaves me."

Selena waved her hand. "Excuse me, I'm right here." Her face was flushed. "You don't think I can take care of myself?"

"That's not the point. You're a rookie. This will be your first time in Africa. Consider it part of your training."

Selena looked at him, nodded once. Carter knew he'd hear about it later.

"Nick..."

"I'm going, Steph."

Stephanie sighed. She knew it was hopeless when Nick made up his mind. She let it go.

"You're too well known in the Muslim world. You'll need a cover legend, a disguise."

It was true. After Jerusalem, he was a high priority target for the fanatics.

"We'll figure it out," he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

Carter and Selena left the Project and headed back into town. She'd gotten another Mercedes to replace the one shot up by the Chinese. A coupe. Fast, burgundy red, almost the color of blood. The inside of the car was leather comfortable and warm. Outside, it had begun snowing. The whisper of the wipers and the quiet background of the heater filled the car against the noise of Selena's silence. Nick kept his thoughts to himself. When she finally spoke, her voice was tight.

"Why do you think I can't take care of myself?"

"I don't think that."

"Yes you do. You called me a rookie back there."

"You are a rookie. Africa is a mess. Anything can happen there. You don't know yet what it's like to go in as an agent. You have to assume everyone wants to kill you."

"They tried pretty hard in Tibet."

"That was different. Ronnie and I are experienced in special ops and it was that kind of mission. So was Argentina. You did great, more than great. But covert field work isn't the same. You don't have any experience in that."

"You forget my research took me to a lot of dangerous places without getting hurt. Including Africa."

"Look, in the field you can't trust anyone. You can't believe things are what they appear to be. You have to develop constant awareness. You have to see everything with a different eye, looking for the false gesture, the wrong word, the concealed knife. You always assume someone is after you, even if they aren't."

"This is just a library."

"A library in the middle of a Muslim country full of terrorists, where you want to look for information on a bunch of terrorist assassins. If anything's there do you think they don't know about it? Do you think they aren't watching? You have to assume they are, because if you don't you could end up dead."

Selena was getting angry. Nick knew the signs. "Why do you assume I can't figure that out for myself?"

Carter felt his face get tight. Blood pressure going up. "God damn it, Selena, it's not about that. Like I said, this is the first time you've done something like this. You think you know what I mean but you don't."

"Just another dumb woman, huh?"

"God damn it..."

They were a few blocks from Nick's apartment in D.C. She braked hard and came to a stop.

"I think you can find your way home from here."

Nick got out and slammed the door. Selena pulled away in a fishtail spray of slush and snow.

The guard took one look as Nick came in and went back to his paper. Carter smoldered as he rode the elevator up to his floor. He let himself in and walked over to the bar. He poured a double Irish and drank most of it down. He stood at the window and watched the snow and waited for the whiskey to do its work.

What the hell was it with women, anyway? It was simple, wasn't it? He knew what he was doing and she didn't. Why couldn't she see that? He was trying to help her, not criticize her.

He'd have to get this straight with her before they went to Mali. It was hard to sort out what was personal and what wasn't. As her boss, he couldn't let her refuse to hear what he said. That could compromise the mission. As her lover, he was just plain pissed.