Free Scorpion Betrayal by Andrew Kaplan Page B

transmitter with a miniparabolic dish—and something to create an electromagnetic interference wave. An iPod playing Bruce Springsteen would do.
    But the problem with breaking in was you never knew what you would run into. Sooner or later there would be a confrontation with other guards, and gunfire and police to deal with. And all that so at best he could briefly interrogate Abadi under pressure where the value of information from torture was always suspect. Anything you got from such interrogations was always a mixture of lies and half-truths, and that’s if you had time, and he had none.
    The second way in was to make an appointment and try to talk himself in. As with what he had done with Kassem in Beirut, the real intelligence would come not from what was said, but how Abadi reacted afterward. Except they were not stupid, and his cover was thin, and if they started to question his cover, he might be the one screaming in a dark cellar trying to think of lies and half-truths they’d believe. From somewhere, a dog barked just once, and he realized his heart was pounding.
    A car came down the street, its headlights carving the only light in the darkness except for a dim red glow from the interior of the guardhouse. As it passed, Scorpion started his rental car and drove it to the gate. A guard in olive-drab fatigues stepped out of the guardhouse. At the same instant, a second guard appeared on the other side of the car with a Chinese Type 95 assault rifle pointed at him. It looked brand new and very lethal.
    â€œI have an appointment with Abu Faraj,” Scorpion said in Arabic, using Abadi’s cover name and showing the guard the GSD ID card that identified him as Fawzi al-Diyala. A bead of sweat trickled down his back. If al-Hafez had alerted Abadi, they would let him in and it would go bad very fast. The guard glanced at the card, then at his face, and nodded to the other guard.
    â€œAhlan wa sahlan,”
he said, pressing a button to open the gate and gesturing for him to drive in.
    He drove around a circular driveway, a marble fountain splashing water in the middle of a lawn, and parked in front of the villa, bathed in white light from outside floodlights. As he got out of the Renault, he spotted a guard with a German shepherd patrolling beyond the floodlit area, and surveillance cameras on the side and roof of the villa. He walked up to the entrance, and three armed men appeared and asked him to take off his suit jacket. They checked the jacket and frisked him thoroughly, taking pistol from the holster at the small of his back. It was a Russian SR-1 Gyurza, standard issue for the Russian FSB and former allies like the Syrian GSD, which he had bought that afternoon in Saida Zaynab. When they were done, one of the guards took him inside and asked him to wait.
    The foyer was marble and sleek, an interior designer’s dream. After a moment the double door to a living room opened and a paunchy middle-aged man with a goatee and wearing glasses came out. In the gap of the door just before Dr. Abadi closed it behind him, Scorpion caught a glimpse of a well-dressed woman and a young girl watching a big screen TV. He was glad he hadn’t come in shooting.
    â€œMin fadlak,
this way,” Dr. Abadi said. He led Scorpion into a small office, the walls covered with books. The guard who had taken his gun waited outside the door. “Would you like some juice? Turkish coffee?” the doctor asked, sliding a folder on the desk into a drawer.
    Scorpion looked at the books on the walls. They were on medicine, mostly infectious diseases, anthropology, and Islamic studies.
    â€œYou come from Najah al-Hafez?” Scorpion didn’t answer. “So what does the Idarat al-Amn al-’Amm want at this hour?”
    â€œWhere’s the Palestinian?” Scorpion said.
    â€œThere are millions of Palestinians under brutal Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza,” Dr. Abadi