The Assassin. Andrew Britton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was truly a wondrous sight. It had been many years since he had seen such an array of goods; it seemed as though there was little one could wish for that could not be found in these crowded streets. Headscarves and jalabiyyas, the long robes worn by men and women alike, could be found in every size and color imaginable. He passed stalls bearing perfumes and spices, fresh meats and vegetables. He turned his head to gaze down one narrow hara and saw row after row of gleaming yellow metal. Another corridor was lined with stands heaped with antique silver jewelry. The sights of the bazaar battled only with the sounds; al-Umari was assaulted from every direction by the calls of Syrian vendors and the guarded replies of their potential customers. The steady sound of passing traffic to the east fought to drown out the tinny whine of an American pop song, which was emanating from a child’s battered radio. It was, Rashid thought, completely chaotic, and yet, there was also something strangely controlled about the whole scene, for these were a people separated only by the worn counters over which they traded.

      Certainly, it could not be compared to his own city. One could hardly turn around in Baghdad without seeing another American patrol. The superior smiles were always evident on those clean-shaven faces, despite the vast losses they had sustained. How can they be so persistent? Rashid wondered, the anger welling up as it always did. Why can they not accept that they have failed? It was incomprehensible to this young man that the Americans could be so ignorant of history. Had the British Empire not learned that the Iraqi people could not be ruled? The Europeans had certainly tried, of course, caught up in the New Imperialism which had dominated the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. Al-Umari smiled as he considered what Britain’s greed for new territory in the Middle East had actually gotten them: disastrous losses in Afghanistan at the hands of Pashtun tribesmen, followed by two Anglo-Afghan wars, which resulted in the complete withdrawal of British forces by 1919. His own people had fought equally well the following year. That proud, bloody rebellion against colonial rule had earned the Iraqi people their independence in 1932.

      Al-Umari mused over that point as he left the market on the west side and found a small coffee shop. Soon he was seated on a warm wooden bench outside, sipping from a small cup of shai, the hot, sweet tea favored by the Aleppines. Iraqis on both sides of the Sunni-Shia divide could point to the uprising in 1920 as one of the few times they had worked together in defense of their country, and that was something else to consider.

      Despite his background, Rashid al-Umari did not believe that the Shiites should be denied a place in the new Iraq.

      What he had seen in Sadr City, however, caused him to distrust the capabilities of the insurgency. It was reason enough to exclude the Mahdi Army, but there was something else: despite their ill-defined allegiances, al-Umari rightly suspected that they would not be able to get past the attempt on Nuri al-Maliki. It had been deemed necessary; the man was too closely aligned with the West. The fact that he had survived was not at all important. From all accounts, he was in no state to resume his duties, and with the prime minister out of the picture, the Americans were stripped of one of their most powerful allies in the region. It was only a start, of course. Their allies were many, including the oil companies, which had been so quick to prostitute themselves after the fall of Baghdad.

      It was so typical, Rashid thought bitterly. History always repeated itself; the greatest of empires were also the greediest. After all, what really separated the current American government from the British imperialists of the twentieth century? The answer was simple: nothing. In the end, the only real objective was to enrich the invading country, and no matter what the Americans said, their intent was not benevolent. One only had to look at the Western contractors pouring into the region to see that.

      But what of my ambition? Rashid Amin al-Umari lifted the cup to his lips once more as he considered that point. The plan they had set in motion, the laborious, dangerous weeks spent making contact, would benefit his people as a whole. Of that, he had no doubt. He was sincere in his desire to liberate the Iraqi people from their most recent oppressors, though his motivation was decidedly less pure in its origins.

      Yes, he finally admitted, I am almost as selfish as the Americans.

      Almost, but not quite.

      CHAPTER 8

      LONDON

      “This is going to take forever,” Naomi finally said.

      “Not forever,” Liz Peterson replied. She shot the younger woman a teasing grin and said, “But close.”

      They were seated in identical chairs in a secure room on the fourth floor of the Ministry of Defence, a nondescript eight-story building faced in pale Portland stone. The room was cool, dim, and windowless, which didn’t bother Naomi in the least, as the sight of rain drifting over the city for the third day in a row would not have improved her sour mood. They had been staring at the computer screen for nearly two hours now, and the young CIA analyst was beginning to think they were chasing a ghost.

      As Peterson worked the keyboard, Kharmai studied the equipment laid out on the table. She was somewhat surprised at the quality of the MoD’s spectrograph equipment, though she didn’t know why this should be. If anyone could come close to matching America’s bloated intelligence budget, it was the British. Some of the specific innovations were new to her, but she knew the process inside and out; after all, it was Bell Labs, her first employer, that had pioneered the use of voice-recognition technology back in the 1940s. Things had come a long way since then. Significant advances over the past few decades had done away with the cumbersome magnetic tape and photographic paper of the analog spectrograph. Digital signal processing, or DSP, had since taken its place, though in some ways, the new equipment was almost as tedious to use.

      The British computer engineer caught her curiosity. “Have you guys replaced all that junk your contractors came up with in the sixties?” she asked, with a smile. Peterson knew about Naomi’s years before the Agency.

      “I couldn’t really tell you,” Kharmai replied honestly. “We obviously don’t have anything as good over here, but I’m not sure about Langley. Last time I checked, they had a contract with Motorola in the works, but I’m not sure if they ever bought the gear.”

      “If your Admin Directorate had anything to do with it, they probably decided to look for something cheaper. Our budget people are the same way; they’d take the cost of this stuff out of our salaries if they thought they could get away with it.”

      Naomi smiled in agreement. Liz Peterson was the “man in mind” she’d mentioned to Emmett Mills the previous day. She had first met Peterson at an embassy function shortly after arriving in-country, and they had hit it off immediately, despite the fact that they were technically competitors. On the weekends they frequently met for drinks at the Dorchester Hotel, and while they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company, both women habitually took those opportunities to dig for a little information. They both knew it was part of the job, and they took it all in stride. Naomi was well aware, for instance, that her access to Whitehall’s database had been approved by somebody much higher on the pay scale than Liz Peterson, despite the informal nature of her request. She also knew that whatever they managed to turn up would soon land on the prime minister’s desk, most likely within an hour of discovery. Sharing information with one’s allies was the cost of doing business, but that wasn’t much of a price to pay, especially when they managed to come up with something interesting.

      Peterson sat up in her seat as the numbers paused on the monitor. Fixing her pale blue eyes on the screen, she brushed a strand of blond hair out of her face and brought up the relevant information.

      “You have something?”

      “Maybe,” Peterson replied, a hint of excitement coming through. She leaned forward and traced СКАЧАТЬ