Four things happen at the same time.
One: a woman in a long white coat enters the front door of the high-rise condominium building, multiple shopping bags, like bulky appendages, in hand. She walks straight to the clerk at the front desk. She looks around and spots the camera in the corner of the ornate, spacious lobby. She sets down the bags and smiles at the clerk. He asks for her identification, and she opens her flip wallet, revealing a badge.
“Ich’m ein Polizeioffizier,” she says, losing her smile. “Ich brauche Ihre Hilfe jetzt.”
Identifying herself as a cop. Telling him she needs his help right away.
Two: a large orange waste-disposal truck bearing the company name Berliner Stadtreinigungsbetriebe pulls alongside the same building to the east, as the wind off the river Spree swirls around it. When the vehicle comes to a stop, the back door lifts open. Twelve men, members of the KSK, the Kommando Spezialkr?fte, Germany’s elite rapid-response special-forces unit, emerge from the truck dressed in tactical gear—vests, helmets, heavy boots—and armed with HK MP5 submachine guns, or riot-control rifles. The nearby door to the condo building pops open automatically, courtesy of the front desk, and they enter the building.
Three: a helicopter, painted white and bearing the name of a local television station, but in fact a KSK stealth helicopter with reduced-noise-operation capability, hovers silently over the top of that same building. Four KSK commandos, likewise dressed in tactical gear, fall from the helicopter, lowering themselves thirty feet down to the rooftop, softly landing and detaching the cords from their belts.
And four: Suliman Cindoruk laughs to himself as he watches his team inside the penthouse suite. His four men—the remaining four members of the Sons of Jihad, besides him. Still recovering from last night’s festivities, stumbling around, half dressed and scraggly, hungover if not still intoxicated. Since they all awakened, some time midday, they have done a grand total of nothing.
Elmurod, his stomach stretching his bright purple T-shirt, drops onto the couch and uses the remote to turn on the TV. Mahmad, wearing a stained undershirt and boxers, his hair standing on end as he sucks down a bottle of water. Hagan, the last one to awaken, in midafternoon, shirtless, wearing sweatpants, munches on grapes from the spread of food left over from last night. Levi, gangly and awkward and wearing only underwear, who assuredly lost his virginity last night, puts his head against a pillow on the couch, wearing an easy smile.
Suli closes his eyes and feels the breeze on his face. Some people complain about the winds coming off the Spree, especially in the evening, but it’s one of the things he enjoys the most. One of the things he will miss the most.
He checks the firearm at his side by force of habit. Something he does almost every hour of the day. Checking the magazine, making sure it is loaded.
Loaded, that is, with a single bullet.
Chapter
81
They climb the stairs with the proper tactical approach, securing each staircase with a single soldier—a scout—before the rest of the team proceeds upward. There are blind spots everywhere. Ambush opportunities on each level. Their contact at the front desk has given an all-clear on the stairwells, but he is only as competent as the cameras he monitors.
The team 1 leader is a man named Christoph, eleven years now with the KSK. When the twelve-man team reaches the landing on the penthouse floor, he radios in to the commander. “Team 1 in red position,” he says in German.
“Hold in red position, team 1,” calls out the commander from his location, in a vehicle down the street.
The commander for this mission is the brigadier general himself, KSK’s leader. That’s a first as far as Christoph’s ever heard—KSK’s highest-ranking officer personally commanding a mission. But then again, this is the first time the brigadier general received a call from the chancellor himself.
The target is Suliman Cindoruk, Chancellor Richter told the brigadier general. He must be taken alive. He must be apprehended in a condition that allows him to be immediately interrogated.
Thus the ARWEN in Christoph’s hands, the riot-control weapon containing nonlethal plastic baton rounds, capable of unloading the entire five-round magazine in four seconds. Six of the twelve men have ARWENs to incapacitate their targets. The other six have standard MP5 submachine guns should lethal rounds prove necessary.
“Team 2, status,” the commander calls out.
Team 2, the four men on the roof: “Team 2 in red position.” Two of the KSK soldiers prepared to rappel from the roof onto the balcony below. Two others secure the roof in the event of an escape attempt.
But there won’t be an escape, Christoph knows. This guy’s mine.
This will be his bin Laden.
Through his earpiece, the commander: “Team 3, confirm number and location of targets.”
Team 3 is the stealth helicopter overhead, using high-powered thermal imaging to detect the number of people on the penthouse level.
“Five targets, Commander,” comes the response. “Four inside the penthouse, congregated in the front room, and one on the balcony.”
“Five targets, confirmed. Team 1, proceed to yellow position.”
“Team 1, proceeding to yellow position.” Christoph turns back to his men and nods. They raise their weapons.
Christoph slowly turns the latch on the staircase door, then gently but swiftly pulls it open with a rush of adrenaline.
The hallway is empty, quiet.
They proceed slowly, the twelve of them in a crouch, guns raised, measuring each step to minimize footfalls on the carpeted floor, slinking toward the single door on the right. His senses on high alert, Christoph feels the heat and energy of the men behind him, smells the lemon scent off the carpet, hears the heavy breathing behind him and the vague sound of laughter down the hallway.
Eight meters away. Six meters. Performance adrenaline coursing through him. Heartbeat racing. But his balance steady, his confidence high—
Click-click-click.
His head whips to the left. The sound is subtle but distinct. A tiny square box on the wall, a thermostat—
No, not a thermostat.
“Shit,” he says.
Chapter
82
Suliman lights a cigarette and checks his phone. Nothing new on the international front. They do seem concerned about the water problem in Los Angeles. Did the Americans fall for it? he wonders.
Inside the penthouse, Hagan grabs a silver bowl off the table of food and vomits in it. It was probably the expensive Champagne, Suli decides. Hagan may be a brilliant code writer, but he was never much of a drink—
A high-pitched beep comes from Suli’s phone, a tone reserved for only one thing.
A breach. The hallway sensor.
Instinctively his hand brushes against the pistol at his side, the one with the single bullet.
He’s always vowed to himself that he wouldn’t be taken alive, he wouldn’t be caged and interrogated, beaten and waterboarded, made to live like an animal. He prefers to go out on his own terms, cupping the pistol under his chin and pulling the trigger.
But he always knew, for all his promises to himself, there would be a moment of truth. And he always wondered if he’d have the courage to go through with it.
Chapter
83
We’re burned!” Christoph says in a harsh whisper. “Team 1 proceeding to green position.”
“Proceed to green position, team 1.”
All pretense of a sneak attack gone, the men rush to the door, fanning out in dual-entry position, five men on each side, two men standing back with the rammer, poised to charge.
“The target on the balcony has entered the penthouse,” says the leader of team 3, on the helicopter with the thermal imaging.
That’s him, Christoph knows, steeling himself.