Free Jihad by Stephen Coonts Page B

the corner, all were closed, but he wasn’t here to shop. Three motorbikes were parked at the side of a bicycle repair shop; Karr went to the one at the far end, got on, and backed away from the curb. The engine hummed to life, strong and steady.
    “He’s coming out now, Tommy,” said Rockman. “Don’t get too close.”
    “Why would I do that?” said Karr, gunning the bike to life.

CHAPTER 28
     
    DEAN SWUNG OUT of the parking lot and headed down the road, waiting for Lia to report back. When she told him it was clear, he pulled into a crowded gas station and made a U-turn, heading back to the lot. Dean decided that he would drive the Mercedes back toward Istanbul before abandoning it, just in case someone connected the two cars.
    “Beemer, huh?” said Pinchon as he drew up next to the BMW. “You guys really know how to live it up.”
    Dean remained silent. Something about Pinchon rubbed him the wrong way.
    “I’ll tell you where to pick me up,” Dean told Lia as they hustled the terrorist into the other car. “I don’t want to leave the Mercedes here.”
    He drove about two miles on the highway back toward the city before finding a parking lot where the Mercedes wouldn’t stand out. Lia met him up on the highway; he got into the back, sliding next to the prisoner and Reisler.
    “Stuffy in here,” said Pinchon, rolling down the window. The breeze hit Dean full in the face as Lia picked up speed.
    “Do me a favor and roll that back up, would you?” Dean asked.
    Pinchon smirked—Dean could see it in the passenger-side mirror—and raised the window about an inch.
    “So what are we doing?” Reisler asked.
    “We’re going to get a sedative to make sure he sleeps through the night,” said Dean. “We have a cache of gear about a half hour outside of the city in the direction you’re going. You can leave Lia and me there. You drive to Bayindr. There’ll be a team to meet you there tonight. You know how to get there?”
    “We’ll find it,” said Pinchon.
    “I’d put him in the trunk if I were you,” said Dean.
    “You gonna tell me how to wipe my ass, too?”
    Dean leaned forward, then, in a sudden motion that he could barely control, swung his arm around the headrest and grabbed Pinchon by the neck, pressing his fingers hard against the side of his throat.
    “I asked you to raise the window.”
    Only when the window was all the way up did Dean let go. No one spoke after that.
     
    LIA PULLED UP next to the white Toyota Corolla, dust and ash flying up from the small lot. Dean got out and walked around the car, scanning the nearby building to make sure it was empty. Her heart clutched when he jumped over the guardrail behind the Corolla’s trunk; there was only a narrow concrete ledge there before a sheer drop of twenty or thirty feet into the surf below.
    “Let’s get al-Qaeda here in the back,” said Pinchon, getting out.
    Lia popped the trunk, then watched through the side mirror as the two CIA agents pulled the prisoner out. Either Pinchon had not given him all of the dope, or the dose was somehow bad, because the terrorist was clearly conscious.
    “Is the Arabic translator on the line?” she asked Rockman, who was listening to her in the Art Room. “Haznawi just came to and he’s talking.”
    “She’s here.”
    “He’s asking what we’re doing,” said Reisler.
    “What are we doing?” said Pinchon in English outside the car. “We’re saving you from your friends, raghead.”
    As Lia threw open her door, Reisler started to explain in Egyptian Arabic that Haznawi’s al-Qaeda companions had tried to kill him at the hospital.
    “You’re safe now,” said Reisler. “Very safe.”
    Haznawi responded by launching himself headfirst over the nearby guardrail.
     
    DEAN DIDN’T REALIZE what had happened until he heard Lia curse. He turned in time to see their prisoner tumbling over the rocks and then falling into the water head first. Reaching back into the trunk, he grabbed one of