Chapter 65
TWO of the sedans pulled into the hangar and three more stopped just outside. All of the doors opened at roughly the same time and a dozen well-armed men fanned out, creating a barrier at the door, effectively sealing Ivanov off from his Spetsnaz escort.
Ivanov looked at the commander with extreme disappointment.
Mughniyah approached with a confident grin on his face. Four of his bodyguards trailed a few paces back. “Mikhail, welcome to Beirut.”
“I would hardly call this a welcome.”
“You will have to excuse all of this, but I am not in a good mood today.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I just found out that you have been scheming behind my back yet again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You will notice that our Iraqi and Iranian friends are not here.”
“Why?” Sayyed asked, alarmed by the news.
“Because I found out that Mikhail had made a deal with them. Didn’t you, Mikhail?”
Ivanov tried to laugh the question away as if it was a harmless maneuver.
Mughniyah turned his attention back to Sayyed and said, “He set the ceiling at five million. The others were going to bow out and let him win.”
“What did you do with them?” Sayyed asked.
“For the moment they are my guests. I will decide if I am going to kill them later.”
Ivanov clasped his hands together and laughed. Mughniyah was proving to be much smarter than he had given him credit for. “You have outsmarted me, Imad. That does not happen very often. Would you like me to leave, or would you like to discuss business? Negotiate some terms, perhaps?”
“I will negotiate nothing with you. I am going to name a price and you are going to pay it.”
“Really?” Ivanov said. “And what if I decide I don’t like your price?”
“Then we will have a big problem.”
Ivanov nodded as if he found the game amusing.
“Before we get to that, though, I need you to return all of the money you took from our Swiss bank accounts.”
“Money that I took!” Ivanov’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “I did no such thing.”
“I think you did.”
“As a matter of fact I want my money back from you.”
“Your money?”
“Yes, my money.” Ivanov’s face was blazing red. “The money that you took. You don’t think I suspected you at once? You never liked Sharif. You did nothing but complain about his prices. You called him a rat and a traitor to the cause for charging his inflated prices.”
“I did not kill Sharif,” Mughniyah denied flatly.
“And why should I believe you?”
“Because I am a man of honor. Someone who fights for what he believes in … not a thief like you.”
“Honor! This is beautiful. You, of all people, speak of honor. Imad Mughniyah, the hijacker of civilian airliners, the kidnapper of professors, the man who shells entire neighborhoods filled with women and children. You speak of honor. That is laughable.” Ivanov literally spat the last word at his accuser.
Mughniyah reached for his gun, but the Spetsnaz commander beat him to the draw and pointed the barrel of his Markov pistol at the side of Mughniyah’s head. All of a sudden it appeared as if everyone had a gun. Slides were being racked and hammers cocked.
“Enough,” Sayyed shouted. “Your disdain for each other has blinded your judgment.”
“And you are a fool,” Mughniyah yelled.
Sayyed approached him, and in a voice loud enough for only Mughniyah to hear said, “And you are broke. How are you going to pay all of your men next week and the week after that? Get control of your hot temper and let me handle this.” Speaking to the group, he then said, “Everyone, lower your weapons.” He motioned with his hands and repeated himself two more times until finally all of the weapons were either holstered or pointed in a safe direction.
“I know that Imad did not steal the money, and I do not think that Mikhail did so either.”
“How can you know?” Mughniyah angrily asked.
“Tell me. Why would he come here today if he had stolen our money?”
While Mughniyah pondered that question, Shvets stepped forward. “I can assure you that my boss had nothing to do with the stolen funds. I visited Herr Dorfman’s boss in Hamburg last week. More than fifty million dollars was stolen. It appears we were not the only targets.” Shvets wanted to get out here with his life, so he quickly added, “We are following several leads, including one that the money was stolen by an organized crime element out of Prague.”
“And I can promise you,” Ivanov added quickly, “that when we find these people, we will get our money back, and we will punish the people who took it.”
“Thank you,” Sayyed said. “Right now, we have something very important to negotiate. We have three Americans. John Cummins, who served four years in Moscow and the last four in Damascus, another relatively young man by the name of Robert Richards, and the infamous Bill Sherman.” Sayyed grabbed the file off the table and handed it to Ivanov, giving him a second to study the photo again. “Now, how much would your government be willing to pay for these three men?”
Ivanov unconsciously licked his lips. A prize like Stan Hurley would virtually guarantee him the directorship. Primakov was getting old and lacked the ruthless animal instinct that it took to run the SVR. He could control the interrogation and filter what information he passed on. The thought of keeping that a*shole Hurley in the basement of one of his secure sites like some exotic animal was almost too much to take. He reminded himself that this was still a negotiation and his funds were not unlimited. “I am confident that my government would pay five million dollars for these three.”
“That is not enough,” Mughniyah complained before anyone had had a chance to absorb the offer.
Thus started the back and forth, with Ivanov coming up three million in his price. They were stuck there for a few minutes while Mughniyah kept saying that he would only accept an offer of sixteen million. Ivanov, as well as Sayyed, tried to explain to him that the issues of the stolen money and the value of the American spies had nothing to do with each other. Ivanov raised his offer to ten and was prepared to walk away when Mughniyah finally countered at fourteen. Thirty seconds later they had agreed on twelve, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, no one more so than Sayyed.
They were only halfway done, though. Mughniyah wanted all the money in their possession before they would turn the men over, and Ivanov wasn’t going to release a red cent until he laid eyes on Stan Hurley.
Sayyed broke the stalemate by saying, “You need to call Moscow, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t I retrieve the prisoners? They are not far from here. You can make the arrangements to have the money transfered, and when we get back we can complete the transaction.”
Ivanov, who wanted to get as far away from this horrible place and these horrible people as quickly as possible, leaped at the chance to expedite his departure. “That is a wonderful idea.” Turning to Shvets, he said, “Nikolai, go with Assef and bring the prisoners back here.”
The last thing Shvets wanted to do was leave the relative security of this hangar and drive into downtown Beirut. He considered asking if he could bring a few of the Spetsnaz with him, but he knew the request would be denied. As he followed Sayyed and his men to their car, he wondered how much longer he could continue to work for Ivanov.