TURANI HAD THE pistol pointed at Jake’s chest.
“I am going to leave,” Turani said, “and you are going to live because you have treated me with respect.”
Jake took a step toward the Iranian.
“Do not mistake my action for emotion,” Turani said. “I will shoot you like a dog if you take another step.”
He had the gun up in a two-handed shooting stance. From ten feet away, he couldn’t miss.
Jake slowly raised his hands . . . and leapt at Turani.
The Iranian pulled the trigger and the weapon flinched in his hands as he anticipated the recoil.
But nothing happened.
Jake grabbed the pistol with both hands and planted a leg behind Turani. Jake twisted the weapon loose and knocked the Iranian backward to the floor.
Jake pointed the gun at Turani.
“The Makarov has a safety,” Jake said, “unlike the PC-9 you probably trained on in the IRGC.”
Jake flicked a small lever on the slide. “Now it will fire.”
Turani grimaced, mortified by such a careless mistake.
“Turn around and get on your knees,” Jake said.
“You do not need to do this,” Turani pleaded. “I meant you no harm.”
“Hands on the wall,” Jake said.
Turani faced the wall, anticipating his imminent execution.
Jake put him in a sleeper hold and the Iranian stopped struggling after a few seconds. Jake eased him to the floor, then bound his wrists and ankles with a dozen wraps of duct tape.
Turani began to regain consciousness as the blood flow to his brain resumed.
“You OK?” Jake said in English.
Turani mumbled something, and Jake slapped him across the face, far harder than was necessary.
The Iranian shuddered as his eyes opened.
“You cannot—”
Jake shoved him back to the floor and slapped a length of duct tape over his mouth and a second one over his eyes.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Jake said. “I can do whatever I want to.”
He slid a thobe over Turani’s head and arms and added sunglasses and a ghutra. Outside, in the darkness, the Iranian would look normal from anything more than ten feet away.
Jake doused the apartment lights and checked the street. A dark-colored sedan with its lights off had double-parked next to the first car. The men inside appeared to be talking. Jake grabbed a bottle of water from the counter and took a few sips. The dark-colored sedan stayed put for several minutes before pulling into an empty parking space. Two men stepped out wearing short thobes and carrying pistols. Two more got out of the first car, including the giant Jake had seen earlier.
The men from the cars nodded to the men who’d been standing on the street corner for hours.
Al-Qaeda for sure, Jake thought. Probably al-Quereshi’s henchmen coming to finish the job.
The clock over the sink read 12:30 a.m. Fadi and Youssef wouldn’t arrive for another hour and a half. Jake cursed and led Turani into the hallway. There was no light switch, and Jake didn’t want anyone to see them leaving the building, so he poured some water into his hands and splashed it onto the overhead lights. The hot incandescent bulbs shattered, plunging the hallway into darkness and covering the floor with shards of glass.
Jake led Turani to the back of the building, saw the magnet in place, and opened the emergency exit without triggering the alarm. The tape around his ankles limited the Iranian to short, unsteady steps. They weren’t going to be outrunning anyone. Jake turned to the deepest part of the dead-end alley and led his prisoner into the darkness.
There were several old cars parked nearby, but the al-Qaeda goons would be in the alley before Jake could get one started. He approached an old Chevrolet sedan and tried the trunk, but it was locked. He pulled out the steel-framed Makarov and smashed the driver’s-side window, then reached down and popped the trunk.
“Nod if you understand me,” Jake said.
The Iranian nodded.
“We’re going for a ride now. You’re going in the trunk. If you resist or make any noise, you’re a dead man. Got it?”
The Iranian nodded again and Jake pushed him backward into the trunk and slammed the lid. He was eighty feet from the main road when the door to his building opened. Two men with flashlights stepped out and quickly found Jake in the beams.
He darted around the corner and across a vacant lot with footsteps and shouting behind him. Jake ran down the street, vaulted over a low fence, and ran through a yard to another street. He repeated the maneuver several times, moving diagonally away from the safe house. Every additional block multiplied the number of streets his pursuers would have to search and drew them further from Turani.
Jake slid under an outside stairwell and was sheathed in darkness. He took deep, slow breaths as he attempted to slow his heart rate. The Makarov was in his hand.
He waited for several minutes, then walked to a run-down section of Al-Suwaidi where he’d seen older cars parked along the road. He smashed the window on a tiny Renault coupe and had it started in a couple of minutes. Jake drove a circuitous route back toward his safe house. Though the streets were mostly empty, his mind was processing a hundred inputs: the shape of a trailing car’s lights, the body language of a pedestrian, the changing pitch of a distant siren, potential escape routes where his small car would give him an advantage. Nothing could be overlooked.
He returned to the alley from a different direction, parked fifty yards away, and watched. There were no Islamic radicals, no police cars, and no curious neighbors.
The alley seemed to close in as he entered. He drove the little Renault to the end and did a three-point turn, hoping to flush any surveillance, but there was no movement as he pulled alongside the old Chevy with Colonel Turani in its trunk.
He left the Renault’s engine running and was walking to the Chevy when a deep voice called out.
“I have a gun,” said the man in heavily accented English. “Put your hands on the car.”