KHARTOUM
“Are we able to talk openly?” Kealey asked. “I mean, without prying eyes and ears.”
He was in the station chief’s office at the embassy on Ali Abdel Latif Street, less than an hour after his thankfully uneventful flight from Port Sudan had alighted on the tarmac at Khartoum International.
“I think we can feel at ease,” Holland replied from across his desk. Placing a hush-hush request to Sergeant Sadowski, he had seen to it that his office at the embassy was swept by a suitcase-sized broad spectrum countersurveillance device consisting of radio, audio, infrared, and acoustic correlation scanners. Simply put, the advanced microcomputer-controlled detection suite could detect everything from passive and active microphone bugs in phones and light fixtures to the low-freq oscillations created by the tiny motors in concealed spy cameras. “As much as is possible anywhere these days.”
Kealey nodded. With him in the room besides the CIA station chief were Abby Liu and agents Phillips and Swanson. Mackenzie had switched up with Phillips and was across the river, monitoring the activities at Ishmael Mirghani’s house.
“What about Walter Reynolds?” Phillips asked.
“What about him?” Holland said. “I’m having a closed-door personnel meeting that’s none of his business.”
Phillips gave Abby and Kealey inclusive nods. “With a couple of staffers he’s never seen before.”
Holland shrugged. “I’m through tiptoeing around him. We’ve got the head of the DIA’s personal reclamation project, Cullen White, teamed up with Hassan al-Saduq, Somali pirates, and Ishmael Mirghani, the founder of a Sudanese militant group that may be more anti-American than the current regime.” He glanced at Abby. “Thanks to our esteemed colleagues at Interpol, we’ve got evidence that Saduq first cut a major illegal arms and equipment deal with Omar al-Bashir’s government-in cahoots with Egypt, no less-and then arranged for the shipment to be hijacked so he could resell the merchandise to a third party allied with Mirghani’s Darfur People’s Army…or possibly in command and control of it. Finally, we have an almost ironclad case that Stralen, directly or through White, provided the cash that Mirghani and company used to pay for the shipment, which is literally enough to equip a small army, using smurfed Department of Defense funds.” Holland paused. “I’ll shut up in a second, Jake. But to finish answering your question…Reynolds may not realize it, but what he knows or doesn’t know isn’t important anymore. He’s provided secret assistance to White, and that puts him waist-deep in shit. If he wants to keep from sinking in to his nose and mouth, he can’t do anything to obstruct our work that won’t further compromise him and God knows who else in Washington. His best recourse is to keep out of our way and think about ducking for cover.”
“Then let’s forget him and concentrate on Mirghani,” Kealey said. He nodded toward Abby. “He might not be the whole reason we’ve been jumping back and forth across the African continent, but he’s a big part of it. We need to get our hands on him.”
“And time might be running out after this morning,” Phillips said. “The sequence of events speaks for itself. After meeting with White at his home, he busses into the city, makes what appears to be a large bank withdrawal, then walks over to the gold market with his bodyguards and leaves there with two large, heavy-looking security briefcases-driving off in a minivan. To me that can only indicate one thing…”
“He’s getting ready to leave the country,” Swanson said. “Gold is universal currency, and right now it’s trading at a high, going for almost eight hundred dollars per troy ounce. From Jake’s description, those briefcases would have held quite a few cast bars.”
“It certainly doesn’t sound as if he’s just going on holiday,” Abby said. “What’s the latest on him?”
“Swanson says he’s cleaning house,” Holland said. “No question, Kealey, we have to move. But one thing we cannot afford is a repeat of Limbe.”
Kealey shot him a glance. “Meaning?”
“I’ve got less than six months left to my hitch in North Africa,” Holland said. “I have a wife and son in Florida that I miss terribly, and I’ve been told that my next assignment will be in the States. When I leave here, I’m not looking back, Kealey. I won’t fuck up, and I won’t be sent to any more foreign boondocks as punishment for anyone else fucking up.”
Kealey shrugged. “If you’re going to send Mirghani a formal invitation to join us for coffee, we’d better sign it fast and messenger it over to him, because I doubt the local mail service will deliver it before he books.”
The station chief bristled, straightened in his chair. “I would appreciate it if you could rein in the sarcasm.”
“And I’ve had my fill of hearing about Limbe,” Kealey said. “I was asked to make the calls there, and I did, and all things considered, we were successful pulling off what we intended. If you’re setting the operational guidelines now, fine, tell me what they are. But for Christ’s sake let’s get on with it before everything becomes moot.”
Silence. After a moment Holland’s posture relaxed. “I’m not going to tie your hands, Kealey. We’re taking Mirghani into custody, and I don’t expect he’ll volunteer with a smile. But Omar al-Bashir won’t be sorry to be rid of him. He can have somebody else do the dirty work and not lose face or alienate the Muslim fringes. It’s likely he won’t interfere with us either pre or post factum.”
“So, I repeat, what are the ground rules?” Kealey said.
“Just that you recognize we’re in a hostile environment,” Holland said. “We’re better off doing this peacefully… If there’s a chance, then take it, so we can at least say we tried.”
“That’s it?”
Holland nodded. “Yes, Kealey,” he said. “Besides wishing you Godspeed.”
It was almost dusk when George Swanson drove the pair of newcomers across the river to Bahri, Kealey beside him in the passenger seat of a Jeep Cherokee 4x4, Abby in the rear. Requisitioned from the embassy’s fleet, the vehicle was identical to the one in which he’d ridden to Port Sudan…and that was now being babysat at the U.S. consular office there.
Phillips was behind them in his Saab, followed by Mackenzie in a freshly req-slipped Subaru. The thinking had been that if White-slash-Landis had identified the Honda as a surveillance vehicle that morning, there was a fair chance he’d passed along the information to Mirghani. It was just good sense, then, that Mackenzie use a different car as a precaution against easy identification…although subtlety would not be a vital component of the team’s approach.
“We’re all through here in Khartoum after tonight,” Swanson mused aloud to his passengers, turning left off the Blue Nile Bridge. “Phillips, Mac, myself…Our covers are going to be blown.”
“You sound almost sorry about the prospect of moving on,” Abby said. She turned from the window to look at him. “I’d think you’d welcome the change.”
“We’ve been together for a while,” Swanson said. “Four years for me, almost as long for Mac. Phillips was the newbie, came over to us maybe two years ago. Holland wanted a man who worked outside the embassy and got creative with him. Jake manages an old Brit hotel called the Granville, but it looks like they’re about to have a job vacancy.” He shrugged. “People get used to working as a team, what can I say? I guess when you’re stuck in hell, the heat just strengthens the bonds.”
Abby gave a smile. “I’ve been there,” she said. “Several times.”
Swanson glanced in the rearview. “What about you, Kealey? Word is you’ve been around.”
“Enough to figure out it doesn’t pay getting attached to anyone or anything,” Kealey said tersely. “How close are we to Mirghani’s house?”
Swanson’s eyes had returned to the windshield. “It’s under a mile up ahead,” he said.
“We need somebody ready in case he tries to break for it,” Kealey said. “Who’s best? Phillips or Mackenzie?”
Swanson shrugged. “Mackenzie was a counterterrorist in Afghanistan right after nine-eleven, one of the first to hook up with the Northern Alliance.”
“Jawbreaker?” asked Kealey.
Swanson made a zipping gesture across his lips. “You’d have to ask him the details,” he said. “We can all handle ourselves. But if you want my opinion, Mac’s got the quals for any situation.”
Kealey nodded. “Buzz him on the cell,” he said. “I want him out back of the house.”
Swanson nodded, reached for his sat phone, passed along Kealey’s instructions as he drove on for several minutes. The sun was sinking low now, its glow staining the sky to the west shades of red and violet, casting orange embers on the slow-moving Nile waters to their right. Flat-roofed homes the color of sandstone lined the street to their left, ranging from single-story buildings to some that rose three stories high. Many had trees and iron gates in front.
“This used to be Osama bin Laden’s neighborhood before he got Tomahawked, did you know?” Swanson jabbed a finger at one of the taller houses. “There’s Mirghani’s place just up ahead…but I guess you might have figured it out for yourself.”
Kealey looked out his window. There were several vehicles parked in front-three cars and a minivan, which he took to be the one Phillips had seen Mirghani climb into outside the gold exchange in the Souq Arabi. A group of men were on the sidewalk, some standing vigilantly near the vehicles, others gathered near Mirghani’s door. He took a quick head count. “Bodyguards,” he said. “Five of them.”
“Compared to four of us…and that’s just from what we can see,” Swanson said. “What do you think of our odds if we have to tangle?”
“I never bet against myself,” Kealey said. “Does Mirghani always have that kind of protection?”
“Exactly the opposite,” Swanson said with a shake of his head. “This is unusual. He keeps a low profile, never flaunts his clout. It’s partly why Bashir tolerates him.”
“What’s the other part?” Kealey asked.
“His supporters make up a large political and religious base,” Swanson said. “With all the pressure coming at him from outside the country, Bashir needs to unify the political factions inside it, especially here in the northern part of the country. There’ve been some deep divisions over Darfur, and then over the new hydroelectric plant to the east, which provides most of the power to the capital. Whole villages were wiped out to make room for it, which didn’t do much for Bashir’s popularity in those areas. And no wonder, since it was already damned low.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Thousands of people were already displaced by Chinese and Russian petroleum refineries that process the crude oil drilled in the south. They pipeline it up here and then ship the barrels out of Port Sudan.”
Kealey grunted thoughtfully, still watching the men on the sidewalk. “Okay, slow down,” he said. “Let’s stop across the street from them. I mean right across. Phillips too.”
“I suppose you want them to notice us,” said Swanson.
Kealey nodded in the affirmative. “And to know we don’t care about it.”
“Do you mind if I ask what comes after that?” Swanson asked.
“Holland wanted us to try the peaceful approach,” Kealey said. “We’re going to have a talk with them.”
Kealey, Abby, and Swanson exited the Cherokee together, Phillips leaving his car and hastening over to them as they crossed to where Mirghani’s bodyguards watched curiously from the sidewalk. Although Kealey had taken a quick shower and changed clothes at the embassy, he hadn’t shaved since leaving Cameroon, and his cheeks showed almost a week’s dark growth of beard. He was wearing a lightweight black field jacket over a Glock 35 9mm that Seth Holland had provided on loan, the jacket halfway unbuttoned so he could have rapid access to the gun.
He went straight toward the largest of the bodyguards, a tall, blockish, square-shouldered man in loose trousers and a traditional thigh-length tunic with a holstered pistol bulging underneath it. He was leaning against the front of the parked minivan, studying the Westerners with the intensity of a raptor perched on a ledge.
“You speak English?” Kealey said. He’d stepped onto the pavement to face the bodyguard, aware Abby and the others had moved in slightly behind him.
The bodyguard fixed him in a long stare. “What are you doing here?”
“We want to talk,” Kealey said.
“Who sent you?”
“I already answered one question,” Kealey said. “It’s your turn.”
The man kept looking at him. “Go ahead,” he said then. “Talk.”
“Not to you,” Kealey said. “We have some questions for Ishmael Mirghani.”
“He cannot see anyone now.”
“He’ll be willing to see us,” Kealey said. “If he’s smart.”
The bodyguard’s stare hardened. “Whoever you are, this is not your country,” he said. “You do not belong here. And you must leave at once.”
“Like Mirghani’s leaving?” Kealey said. He tilted his head toward the minivan. “Somebody’s going somewhere, and I assume he’s the man. But I propose you do him a favor. Phone inside the house, or have one of your men do it. Let him know I’d like to talk to him.”
The bodyguard studied his features for another long moment. “Who are you?”
“You can tell him my name is Ryan Kealey,” he said. “And that I know Cullen White.”
The bodyguard shot one of the others a glance. “Ahzir,” he said, extending his hand. “Give me your phone.”
Ahzir took his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to him. He thumbed a key, spoke into the phone in Arabic. Kealey heard his name mentioned, and then White’s, but the rest was unintelligible to him. After a moment the bodyguard paused, dropped his voice, added something too quiet for Kealey to hear. Finally he looked at Kealey again, shaking his head.
“It is as I told you,” he said, the phone still raised to his ear. “He cannot speak-”
Kealey lunged at him, simultaneously drawing his 9mm, knowing he’d have to take him by surprise. He jammed the gun into the big man’s solar plexus and shoved him back against the side of the minivan, snatching the cell phone from his grasp before he could recover his balance.
Behind him, Abby, Phillips, and Swanson had pulled their sidearms on the other bodyguards and were holding them out in two-handed grips.
“Stay where you are!” Swanson barked, motioning with his gun. “One move, you’re dead! Mat! Understand?”
Kealey, meanwhile, pressed the cell against his own cheek, keeping the Glock buried in the tall bodyguard’s ribs. “Mirghani, you there?” he shouted into the phone.
Silence. But Kealey could hear him breathing into the mouthpiece.
“Come on, Mirghani, talk, ” he said. “There’s no point pretending you can’t hear me.”
More audible breaths over the phone. Then: “Why are you here, Mr. Kealey?”
“I want information,” Kealey said. “You can leave the city, keep your gold, bring whatever else you want out with you. But first you’ll have to answer some questions-”
Kealey was interrupted by a sudden, startling crack of gunfire behind him and to his right. There was one shot, another, then Abby shouting, “ No! ” And three more rapid bursts.
His attention diverted by the chaotic sounds, Kealey flicked a glance over his shoulder and saw Phillips on his knees, clutching the middle of his chest, blood slicking his fingers as it gushed out between them to puddle on the sidewalk around his sagging form. Standing over him as he sunk to the pavement, his eyes wide, Swanson was still covering his man, who’d kept his hands up above his head. But one of the other bodyguards lay sprawled on his back nearby, Abby standing over him with her own semiautomatic pistol. The right side of his head had been blown apart, reduced to a horrible amalgam of bone, brains, and bits of ragged, bloody flesh.
Kealey realized what had happened in an instant. The bodyguard had reached for his gun despite Swanson’s warning, and Abby had taken him out. But not before he’d caught Phillips in the chest, maybe more than once. And the rhythmic spurts of blood through his hands made it clear the field agent had been struck in his heart or a connected blood vessel.
It was with Kealey’s attention momentarily divided that Ahzir seized the chance to whip a concealed gun out from under his flowing tunic. At the same time, the big man he’d backed against the minivan chopped an enormous hand up under Kealey’s arm, knocking the snout of his 9mm away from his body. The brawny bodyguard locked his fingers around Kealey’s wrist, digging them into it like pistons, twisting it, trying to wrest the weapon from his grip.
Kealey’s reaction was automatic, his years of combat training kicking in as muscle memory-all of him, his mind and body, his entire being, pulled into focus. His mind stripped of conscious thought, he brought his knee up between the big man’s legs, heard a guttural exclamation of pain as the breath rushed from his mouth. Kealey, unrelenting, smashed a fist hard into his jaw, hit him a second time in the face, and then the man staggered backward, his fingers loosening around Kealey’s wrist. Tearing free of his grasp, Kealey spun on Ahzir, raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger, firing twice into him at close range. The front of Ahzir’s tunic puffed out where the bullets struck, red splotches appearing on the white cotton fabric. Then his legs went soft and he crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
Even as he fell, Kealey had pivoted back around toward the big man-and none too soon. The man had sufficiently recovered to lunge at him, shoving a hand under his jacket to pull his own gun from its holster.
Kealey took cold aim before the weapon could appear and shot him once in the middle of the forehead. The big man looked at him with what might have been a mute expression of astonishment and disbelief, the bullet hole ringed by an aureole of seared flesh, his mouth gaping open as a thin rill of blood slid down between his eyes and over his nose. Then he produced a kind of belching croak and dropped hard onto his face.
Kealey was peripherally aware of what was going on around him on the street-cars slowing, people’s heads briefly appearing from doors and windows, the sound of their keyed-up voices exchanging fearful words before they retreated inside. It was a sure thing the authorities would show before long.
He turned back toward where Phillips had been shot, saw that he was lying on the ground, with Abby and Swanson huddled over his supine body. Abby had taken off the Windbreaker she’d been wearing and bunched it over the wound in his chest, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but it was completely soaked through, and Phillips was neither moving nor, to all appearances, breathing.
Kealey hurried over, pressed two fingers against Phillips’s neck, then slid one finger down the side of his jaw.
Abby stared at him. “Ryan, is he-”
“Shhh!” Nothing from the carotid or facial arteries. Kealey lifted Phillips’s wrist, felt for a pulse there, didn’t detect one. And the pinkish red foam on his lips and chin was a bad sign-it meant a lung had been punctured and would have been filling with blood as he tried to draw in air. Kealey looked up, shook his head. “He’s gone,” he said, snapping his eyes to Swanson’s stunned face. “Where’d your guy go?”
Swanson nodded behind him. “Ran off in that direction, I think.”
“No way to tell if he’s bolted or gone for reinforcements,” Kealey said, shaking his head. He motioned toward Phillips’s body. “Take him back to the Jeep.”
The field op swallowed hard. “What about you?”
“I’m going in,” Kealey said, nodding toward the house. “Abby…get Mackenzie on the phone. Tell him to stay put out back.”
“And then what?” Her voice was trembling. “You can’t go in alone.”
“Listen to me, Abby. Somebody’s sure to have called the police by now. We have to get this done before they show. And I’ll need you on the lookout,” Kealey replied.
“But Mirghani might have more guards inside-”
“I can handle them.” Kealey sprang to his feet. “I’ve got my cell. When you two hear the sirens, warn me if you can and get out of here. I’ll meet you back at the embassy.”
He turned toward Mirghani’s house, leapfrogged the low iron fence, and raced over a tiled outer court to its front door, trying the knob. As expected, it was unlocked; his men had been in the process of clearing the place out when Kealey’s team arrived.
He pushed the door open, went through, and assayed his surroundings, the Glock extended in his grip. He was in an entry foyer that broadened out into a spacious, cleanly furnished oval parlor or living room with a polished hardwood floor, wide archways on two sides, and light organdy curtains over its rear windows. Kealey peered through the arch to his right, saw it gave way to another open parlor with some damask chairs and pillows, an inlaid coffee table on an oriental rug, and a number of packed and half-packed cartons on the floor. A hasty inspection revealed that another arch on the far side of that room led to a kitchen.
There was nobody in any of the rooms.
Cautiously, Kealey stepped deeper into the main parlor, moving along its left wall. Then he pivoted on his heel to look past its second archway and saw a flight of runnered stairs climbing up to the home’s second story.
His gun still pointed out in front of him, he turned through the arch and streaked up the steps, taking them two at a time. On the second floor he passed two bedrooms, a bathroom, a hallway with a large walk-in closet on the right wall. Still no sign anyone was present.
He reached into a pocket for his cell. “Mackenzie, it’s Kealey. I’m inside the house.”
“Roger,” the agent said. “I…I heard what happened to Phillips-”
“We can’t afford to think about that now,” Kealey said. “You see anybody leave through a back door?”
“No.”
“You’re positive? Not out the door, the garden, a window…?”
“Nobody left the house,” Mackenzie said. “Not through any entrance but the front. I’d have seen him.”
“Then Mirghani has to be in here someplace.” His eyes swept the hallway. “Where the hell-”
“Kealey? You all right?”
“Yeah,” Kealey said. He’d settled his gaze on the walk-in closet with its closed sliding door. “Stay where you are, Mackenzie. I’m going to need you to be there, copy?”
“Roger that.”
Kealey pocketed the phone, moved across to the right side of the hallway, flattened his back against the wall, and then sidled along to the edge of the closet’s door. His 9mm in his right fist, he reached his free hand across the wall for the closet door’s finger pull handle and tugged the door open on its tracks. Finally he heaved himself off the wall with a half turn so he’d end up looking directly into the closet.
There was the loud discharge of a gun inside it, and a bullet shrieked past his ear. The bodyguard hidden among the row of hanging garments had no chance to get off a second shot; Kealey, reflexively down in a squat, pumped three shots into his heart and watched him droop backward into a corner of the closet, one leg bent underneath him, the other sticking straight out across its floor.
Entering, Kealey crouched over the dead man and took the gun from his slackened grasp. It was a 9mm semiautomatic Caracal, the ammo usable for his own weapon. Depressing the catch, he ejected its magazine and shoved it into a cargo pocket on his trousers. Then he stepped over the guard’s outstretched leg and pushed aside the clothes on the hanger pole-traditional Arabic robes and shawls as well as Western-style suits.
There on the back wall of the closet were the telltale seams of a safe-room door…and the camouflaged digital peephole lens above it. Kealey moved deeper inside, stood in front of the steel-reinforced panel, and rapped it with his fist. The solid thud he heard was reminiscent of when he’d tested the door of the EU team’s armored BMW in Yaounde.
Kealey heard his phone trill in his pocket. Abby probably. She must have heard the shots. But there was no time to answer.
“Mirghani, I know you can hear me!” he shouted. Exactly how much time did he have before the police stormed in? Not much, it couldn’t be much at all, though he guessed he’d been in the house less than five minutes. “I’m telling you right now, you’re coming out. ”
No answer. Kealey hadn’t figured he’d get one.
“My people have the back entrance to the house covered!” he yelled. “Either you leave with me or you aren’t going anywhere.”
Nothing. Kealey’s mind raced. Mirghani would know the police were on the way. Figure he could wait things out till they got here. Unless…
Whirling in a circle, Kealey holstered his gun, then sprinted over to the stairs and down to the first floor. He couldn’t afford to lose a second.
In the main parlor now, he turned, ran through the foyer, and a heartbeat later was out in the courtyard. Abby was standing there inside the fence. Her cell phone in her hand, she was looking at him with tense, agitated features.
“Kealey, what’s going on? I heard the gunfire inside, and when you didn’t answer-”
“Just wait here,” he said. “Don’t move.”
And then he went loping across the street, zigzagging past rubber-neckers toward the Cherokee, where Swanson sat tensely behind the wheel, Phillips’s body covered with a blanket in the cargo section. He hurried around back without a word, yanked open the hatch, looked around for a jerrican, knowing there had to be one. This was an Agency vehicle, and here in Sudan, where you never knew when you’d be traveling hundreds of damned miles through the desert, it would be as standard as a tire wrench.
Kealey found the plastic container almost right away, reached inside to grab it from a storage slot in the rear compartment, then slammed the hatch shut and deliberately sloshed its contents around. It was three-quarters full, maybe better, meaning there had to be almost five gallons of gasoline inside.
He returned to the driver’s door. “Swanson, listen,” he said through its lowered window. “The second the cops get close, I mean the second, you and Abby take off without looking back…and make sure they see you. I’m going to need a deke, got it? We’ll have the embassy take care of the rest. These sons of bitches are going to find out soon enough we’re trying to save their president’s miserable ass.”
Swanson stared at him. “Kealey…what the hell are you doing?”
Kealey didn’t stop to answer now, but instead dashed back across to the house with the jerrican, pausing only to motion Abby toward the Jeep before he plunged inside, this time hooking sharply right through the two downstairs parlors into the kitchen. He looked around for matches, pulled open a drawer, still didn’t see any, decided to quit searching, and grabbed a dishrag from a countertop near the sink.
He wound the rag tightly into a makeshift torch, uncapped the jerrican, poured gasoline over one end. Next he went to the range, turned on a burner, and held the saturated end of the dishrag in the flame. It immediately caught fire.
Kealey went bounding to the second floor with the fiery rag in one hand and the open jerrican in the other. He’d need water in a minute, but the rag was really ablaze now, and he again jogged on past the bathroom to the walk-in closet.
“Mirghani!” He held the rag and jerrican up to the safe room’s peephole now. “See this? I’m setting fire to the closet-and if you think the police are coming, you’re wrong. I’ve got them fooled. Same if you think the firemen can get here before the smoke kills you. You watch, Mirghani. Watch! ”
And with that Kealey began dousing the closet with gasoline, splashing it over the clothes draped over the hangers, the walls, even the body of the guard he’d shot. When he’d emptied the container, he stepped back from the door panel and tossed the burning rag into the closet.
The gas-soaked clothes and body burst into flame with a whuuuump of displaced air, orange-yellow tongues of fire fiercely leaping upward over everything, climbing the walls to lick at the ceiling.
Kealey had time to hear an alarm go off before he ran back down the hall to the bathroom, snatching a large bath towel from a rack, then going to the tub and opening the cold water tap. He soaked the towel under the faucet, threw it over his head like a shawl, and returned to the walk-in closet.
It was already filled with churning, acrid smoke, gray blobs of it spewing into the hall, making his eyes water and his throat involuntarily clench. He hadn’t lied to Mirghani; while the door and walls of the safe room were bound to be fire resistant, possibly saving every material possession he might have stashed in there, it would not keep the carbon monoxide smoke from seeping through. He would die of asphyxiation if he stayed put.
The cold, dripping towel still covering his head and shoulders, Kealey thrust himself inside through the searing flames.
“Come out of there, you stupid bastard,” he said, almost overcome by smoke. The towel was sizzling around his head, steam coiling off it; it would not keep him from the fire’s clutches for very long. He could already feel the hair on his arms singeing from the heat. “Come on out! I told you I just want to talk-”
The door suddenly burst open, a man Kealey identified from photos as Ishmael Mirghani pushing into the closet, wheezing and gagging. “You’re a lunatic,” he gasped and hacked out a series of sputtering coughs. “Whoever you are, you will kill us both…”
“ Shut up! ” Kealey hollered and yanked him from the closet. The smoke had gotten so thick around him, it was hard to see, but he had no problem hearing the jangle of household fire alarms and, underneath it, the more troublesome howl of oncoming sirens. He had to get out of the place, toot sweet, and could only hope Swanson and Abby would provide a diversion if he needed it.
Grabbing Mirghani by his arm, he towed him downstairs into the main parlor, then outside through the door into the back garden. Outside its low hedge, Mackenzie sat parked against the curb in his Subaru.
“Let’s move,” Kealey said, hustling Mirghani along toward the car. The sirens were close now-too close for anything that remotely passed for comfort.
“Where are you taking me?” The opposition leader was sweating profusely, and Kealey didn’t think it was from exertion.
“You’ll find out when we get there,” he said and then wrenched open the Subaru’s back door, shoved Mirghani through it, and followed him inside.
A split second later Mackenzie went screeching off into the gathering dusk.