LITMIR.BIZ

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Carrie said. “Pick a higher floor and walk down. Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone for at least an hour. I’m so sorry.” She touched the woman’s arm.

      “Wait,” the woman said, digging in her handbag. “I have a red Renault in the parking lot.” She held out the keys.

      “Wait an hour before you report it stolen,” Carrie said, taking the keys. “You know the Crowne Plaza, by the shopping mall?”

      The woman nodded.

      “If I can, I’ll leave it there,” Carrie said, already running to the side door near the parking lot. “Shokran,” she called back to thank the woman as she stepped into the elevator.

      She went out to the parking lot. The red Renault was parked in a row of cars near a low wall and hedge. She ran over, unlocked it, got in and started it up. As she was adjusting the mirrors, she saw them. Two men. The same two who had chased her into the church. She threw the car into reverse, backed out and drove toward the exit. The men ran after her; the one who had shot at her going into shooting position, aiming at the car. Instinctively she ducked as she swerved into the street, turning hard and accelerating as fast as the little car could go. A bullet smashed through the rear window, spreading a spiderweb of cracks from the hole.

      She swerved again, looking toward the parking lot, where the shooter was aiming right at her. She would have to come directly abreast of where he was standing. At the last second, she hit the brake and banged her head back against the headrest. Another bullet went through the side window, slicing the air in front of her face. She stomped on the gas again, a car horn honking loudly behind her, and raced down the street, looking for a gap in traffic. Checking the rearview mirror, she saw that for the moment, the Mercedes was still stopped at the curb. Someone was running on the sidewalk toward it. God, she hoped they hadn’t hurt the older woman. Why had they shot at her? What was going on? A CIA hostage was valuable for Hezbollah or Syria or whoever the hell was behind this. A dead woman, even CIA, wasn’t worth that much.

      Suddenly, without signaling, she edged into the right lane and turned the corner, tires squealing as she raced up the narrow street. Ahead, a man was crossing in the middle of the street and instead of braking, she slammed the horn, not slowing for a second, and just managed to swing around him as he gave her a thumbs-up, the Middle Eastern equivalent of the middle finger. She didn’t slow but made the next left, checking the rearview mirror again. For the moment, there was no one behind her.

      She made another left onto Rome and back toward Rue Hamra, the narrow street dense with cars and people. If they were behind her with the Mercedes or another car, there was no way to catch up to her through the traffic. The sidewalks were thick with people of all ages, many stylish, a few women in hijabs, the cafés and restaurants bright with neon signs and sounds of hip-hop music from the open door of a club.

      She drove west on Rue Hamra, checking mirrors while the city in all its colors swirled around her. She opened a window and heard the sounds of people and music and caught the smell of roast shawarma and apple tobacco smoke from the shisha cafés. No sign of tails. They might have switched off from the Mercedes or the van, but so far as she could tell, she had lost them. Still, she couldn’t relax. They would be scouring the city for her. If they had grabbed the Service driver, he would have told them she was headed for Hamra. They might be anywhere. And she could only hope they hadn’t gotten to the older woman. Time to get rid of the car.

      She spotted the tall Crowne Plaza hotel up ahead, with its red electric sign at the top of the building. She drove past it into the mall entrance and, after fifteen minutes of circling, found a parking space. She left the car keys on the floor mat, got out and walked out of the parking structure into the mall and melted into the stream of shoppers, going out different exits and coming back in, looking in mirrors and going up and down stairs to ensure she wasn’t followed, checking one last time as she exited the mall and walked away from the crowds and up Rue Gemayel in the direction of the American University campus.

      She circled the block twice, then another block walking in the opposite direction to make completely sure she wasn’t being followed. Doing it that way, even if they switched off, you could almost always spot a tail. She began to breathe a little easier. So far, it looked like she had lost them. But she had no illusions. They would be scouring Hamra, looking for her. She had to get to the safe house now.

      The key was to stay away from the crowds on Rue Hamra. They might get lucky and spot her there. Instead, she headed toward the university. For cover, she fell in with a group of students, chattering about where to go for manaeesh, a kind of pizza. The two girls were Lebanese and one of the boys was from Jordan, and for a second it was like being back at college. They invited her to join them at a hole-in-the-wall storefront, but she shrugged and walked on. The safe house wasn’t far. Twenty minutes later, she was on Rue Adonis, a narrow tree-lined residential street, going up in the elevator to the eighth-floor-apartment safe house.

      Coming out of the elevator, she scanned the corridor and the stairwell, listening to the elevator continuing on up before approaching the apartment door. She studied the doorjamb and frame for any signs of tampering. It looked clean. The peephole held a recording camera, she knew. She looked into it and gave the agreed-upon signal, two double-knocks, ready to run if something happened. There was no answer. She knocked again, then took out the key from her handbag and opened the door.

      The apartment appeared empty. That was wrong. There was always supposed to be someone there. What the hell was going on? Checking that the drapes were drawn, she locked the door behind her and explored the two bedrooms, one filled with cots, the other with equipment. She went to the chest of drawers where they kept an assortment of guns. She took out a Glock 28 pistol and four magazines. Perfect for her. Small, light, with low recoil, and the .380 cartridges would go through anything. She loaded the pistol and put it and the magazines in her handbag.

      She went to the window and peeked from the side of the curtain at the street below, lit by a single streetlamp. If there were any watchers, they were hidden in the shadows of the trees and parked cars on the dark street.

      “Hell, I need a drink,” she said aloud to herself, and went to the living room liquor cabinet, glancing at the laptop on the coffee table showing multiple views from security cameras in the door peephole, the corridor and the street from the roof outside. It all looked okay. She found a half-full bottle of Grey Goose in the cabinet and poured herself a quarter glass, knowing she probably shouldn’t and thinking that at this point, she really didn’t give a damn; took out one of her clozapine pills from her handbag—she would have to get more from the black market pharmacy in Zarif, she thought with a frown; and washed it down with the vodka. She checked her watch: 7:41 P.M. Who would be manning the Beirut Station exchange at this hour? she asked herself. Linda, she thought. Linda Benitez; on till midnight.

      Except before she called, she needed to think this through. What had just happened didn’t add up. The contact with Nightingale had been arranged by Dima. The party girl wasn’t one of the pigeons, the agents Carrie had recruited since she’d been in Beirut. She’d inherited her from Davis Fielding, the CIA Beirut Station chief. She was one of his. There’d be hell to pay, she thought angrily. Except she couldn’t be sure if Dima was playing both sides or if she’d been duped by Nightingale too. In fact, she might be in danger or even dead already.

      Except Carrie had no way of reaching her. She couldn’t just call. The two safe house phones were off-limits. The normal one was for taking calls only. The scrambled one was strictly for communicating with the highly secure exchange at the U.S. embassy in Aoukar in the northernmost part of the city. And using a cell phone could give away her position if they were GPS-tracking her. Figure it out, she told herself. Assume either GSD or Hezbollah is behind this. How did they get onto her? Dima. It had to be Dima, and that could mean there was something Fielding didn’t know. He’d encouraged her to make the contact.

      “We’d kill for someone inside GSD,” he’d told her. And he’d also told her she didn’t need any backup. “Dima’s solid. She hasn’t given us a lot, but what she has is strictly twenty-four-karat stuff.” Son of a bitch, she thought. Was he doing her? Was sex the twenty-four karats she was giving him? She’d

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