later al-Habsi passed his father’s guards and minders, passed the doctors, without speaking to them. There was an intense spring in his step, and even his own personal protection detail had to struggle to keep up with him.
As they all stepped into the elevator, he said one word to his entourage, though that one word was packed with purpose, determination, and satisfaction.
“Berlin.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Keith Hulett, call sign Hades, had only been in Europe for two days, but he was already getting the feeling he was going to very much enjoy living the life of an international hit man.
He’d never considered himself as such when working in the private military field. Even when he and his men went out to eliminate a bad actor behind the lines, he saw it as war, not assassination.
But right now he took stock of his situation. He walked through Alexanderplatz, the center of the former East Berlin, and the mild midmorning sun beamed against his face, a covert earpiece rested in his ear, and comfortable Western clothes adorned his body. An hour and a half earlier he’d eaten a good breakfast at a café near his safe house in Reuterkiez, just north of the old Tempelhof Airport, and then he’d climbed into a rented Mercedes with three of his teammates and driven to his target’s home, a small flat next to Humboldt University’s school of business and economics.
The target was a twenty-four-year-old student at Humboldt named Kamran Iravani. Tarik had given Hades the name, along with an address and a photo, and he’d told him his target was an Iranian Quds Force sleeper operative.
So Hulett and his second-in-command, Atlas, now sat at an outdoor café and had coffee and strudel while waiting for this Iranian sleeper agent to leave for school.
And this, like everything else they’d done this morning, they’d also done yesterday. Yesterday had been recon; today would be “wait and see.” They didn’t have to act immediately, but they were most definitely looking for an opportunity.
The past two mornings hadn’t exactly been typical for Hulett, an American who had been fighting in the Middle East, virtually nonstop, for many years. It seemed like no matter where he was in the sandbox, Hulett rose from a tiny bunk each morning, already stinking from the heat, ate breakfast out of a plastic bag, pressure-washed blood and grime off his equipment from the night before, and faced the prospect of death anew.
Berlin couldn’t have been more different. There was abundant food, abundant showers, an overabundance of beautiful women, and fucking air conditioning.
Hulett told himself he could get used to this, and he hoped like hell Tarik had plenty of targets for him, so he could milk this gig for a while.
While Hades had jumped on board the hit man express quickly and with little reflection, his men had needed some talking into it. Of course, everyone was worried about getting picked up by the local police here in Berlin. This wasn’t like Yemen, where they would, at least, have a chance to bust out of any Houthi-run holding facility were they to be captured by the enemy. Arrest here, whether for murder, attempted murder, or even carrying a pistol, would mean incarceration for a very long time.
But the money offered by Tarik helped mitigate the men’s fears, and ultimately, Hades had all his boys on board on this op before they touched down at Tegel.
Their target had left his building that morning at eleven a.m., same as yesterday, then headed in the direction of his university. The young man wore knockoff Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, and he did not check behind him at all. He just plowed ahead, as if he were going to class. The two Americans had already paid their check at the café, so they simply rose to their feet and followed along behind him, just as they’d done the day before. Their eyes were hidden behind shades so they could lock them on the back of the young man with short black hair, a long beard with no mustache, as he walked just fifty feet ahead of them.
Tarik had told Hades it was important that Kamran Iravani was taken off the table in a manner that didn’t draw too much attention to the act. No shoot-outs in the street. No sniper shots from across a park and, Tarik had been quite clear, no fucking bombs.
Make it look like an accident, or natural causes, Tarik had suggested to Hades.
Whatever, Hades had told himself at