Blowback (19 page)

After Harvath called Nick Kampos on Cyprus and gave him the e-mail address Rayburn was using under his Elliot

Burnham alias, he and Jillian spent the rest of the evening poring over Bernard’s personal things. They studied all of his maps, charts, and atlases without finding anything of use. Their eyes blurry with fatigue, neither of them wanted to believe that they had come all this way only to drive straight down a dead end. It was well past two in the morning when Jillian suggested they finally call it a night.

Harvath was absolutely exhausted, but as he lay in bed, sleep refused to come. His mind was plagued with thoughts he had been able to keep at bay for most of the day but which now returned with a vengeance. He was troubled by what his life might be like if he lost his job and was “outed,” for lack of a better word, on international television.

As he lay there, his mind and body numb with fatigue, there was one simple question he could not answer: Without my career, who am I?

He had never considered himself a weak man, but doubt was beginning to peck away at the edges of his psyche. The more he tried to push his problems from his mind, the harder and faster they came rushing back at him. Finally, he gave up hope of getting any sleep at all and walked downstairs.

The chalet was quiet. After starting a fire in the fireplace in the reception area, Harvath walked into the kitchen and found a bottle of Calvados and a clean snifter. Filling the snifter, he took the first glassful in one long swallow. Then he removed Hannibal Crosses the Alps from the mantelpiece and poured himself another drink. Snifter in hand, Harvath slumped down into an overstuffed leather chair, opened the book, and tried to escape his own world by losing himself in someone else’s for a while.

It was half past seven in the morning when Jillian found him, along with Marie Lavoine, poring over boxes of paperwork on the floor of the hotel’s office. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Last night I kept thinking about what you said, that the answers to this mystery illness could very well be waiting for us at Ellyson’s site. When I couldn’t fall asleep I decided to come downstairs and read awhile. I wanted to see why Ellyson was so interested in that particular book about Hannibal crossing the Alps.”

“And?”

Harvath pulled the book off the chair next to him and tossed it to her. “Page one seventy-one.”

Alcott flipped to the page and read aloud the passage Harvath had underlined in pencil. “Until the Alps give up the remains of an elephant, or a Carthaginian officer, or an African or Spanish cavalryman, we will never know for certain exactly where Hannibal crossed. The possibility of discovering the archeological evidence, however, is not as remote as one might think. During no other period in history have scholars had the access to the Alps and the technological assistance that they have today. Satellites, helicopters, and airplanes have allowed aerial surveys to be conducted which yield views of the valleys, ridges, and peaks never before available on such an accurate and detailed scale. “Jillian balanced the book on her thigh and looked up at Harvath, waiting for some sort of explanation.

“Summers in Europe have been getting progressively warmer, and with that heat, Alpine glaciers have begun to recede. As the book says, today’s scholars have tools available to them unlike any time in the past. No archeologist worth his salt would ever think of conducting a search like this without as much technological help as he could muster. The Silenus manuscript may have helped Ellyson narrow down the area where the team carrying Hannibal’s secret weapon was killed and swept off the side of the mountain, but there was no way it could provide a pinpoint, X-marks-the-spot location. Ellyson may have known the general vicinity of where his needle was, but he needed to shrink the hell out of the haystack.”

Jillian was finally with him. “You think he did it with satellite imagery.”

“And Bernard Lavoine paid for it.”

“With Rayburn’s money, of course.”

“Of course, but what I’m hoping is that Bernard did it with his own credit card and then just invoiced the expedition or took the corresponding amount from whatever pile of money Rayburn had left here for exactly such an expense.”

It was forty-five minutes later when Marie Lavoine uncovered the first credit card statement that made reference to an international satellite company from Toulouse called Spot Image. Soon thereafter, they uncovered several more statements, all referencing the same company. While Bernard had done a lot of business with Spot Image, it was the last set of imagery he had ordered that Harvath was most interested in.

The most logical step was to have Marie call them up, explain who she was and what she wanted. But when the company informed her that their privacy policy prohibited them from providing anyone but the original customer with copies, Harvath knew he was going to have to come up with a better plan.

He had no desire to drive all the way to Toulouse to try to conduct another black-bag job to steal the information. Besides, being a satellite company, Spot Image would be a business that ran around the clock. It wouldn’t be empty in the middle of the night with just a couple of security guards sitting behind a desk the way Sotheby’s Paris annex was. There had to be someone Harvath knew outside his established intelligence contacts who could lean on Spot Image hard enough to get him what he needed. Suddenly, he knew just who that person was.

Harvath had met Kevin McCauliff several years back while he was still with the Secret Service. Both he and McCauliff had been members of an informal group of federal employees who trained together every year for the annual Washington, DC, Marine Corps Marathon.

McCauliff worked for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA was a major intelligence and combat support agency of the Department of Defense. Though the NGA was very much a member of the intelligence community, Kevin McCauliff wasn’t what Harvath would refer to as an established intelligence contact. For a few weeks out of the year, they ran together. That was pretty much the extent of their relationship. The possibility that anyone would be watching for Harvath to make contact with Kevin McCauliff was beyond infinitesimal. And even better, McCauliff owed Harvath a favor.

The imagery analyst was one of the few senior people at the NGA who actually enjoyed the nightshift because, as he put it, that was when all the action happened. The NGA’s operator put Harvath through to McCauliff’s desk and the twenty-eight-year-old, two-hour and fifty-five-minute marathoner answered on the first ring. “Kevin, it’s Scot Harvath, “He said from among the boxes of paperwork scattered across Marie Lavoine’s office.

“Harvath?” replied McCauliff’s familiar voice from over four thousand miles away at the NGA’s headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. “It’s almost three in the morning. The marathon isn’t until October. Don’t tell me you’re losing sleep over strategy already.”

“I never lose sleep over strategy, Kevin. It’s just a race, “He replied.

“I’ll make sure I remind you of that at mile twenty-five if we get dusted by another pack of young leathernecks this year.”

Harvath laughed. They had posted a very admirable time in last year’s marathon, but he was a Navy man, and it was gut-wrenching to get blown away in the final mile by a group of young Marines whom they had had a considerable lead over for the entire race. “Okay, maybe it’s more than just a race, but that’s not why I called.”

“What’s up?”

“Remember back when I was working the president’s Secret Service detail at the White House and got your family on one of the VIP tours?”

“Of course I do. My mother and sister still talk about it-and you, as a matter of fact. You swear to God nothing happened between you and Denise?”

McCauliff was like Sonny Corleone when it came to his kid sister, and no matter what Harvath ever told him, the guy never believed anything he said about the evening they spent together. “You’re never going to let it go, are you? We had one drink and I dropped her back at her hotel. I’ve told you that a million times.”

“I know, but it’s over three years ago, and she still talks about you. What would you think if you were in my position?”

“I’d think I need some therapy.”

It was McCauliff who laughed this time. “I’ll take it under advisement,” replied the NGA operative as he switched the phone to his other ear. “So what can I do for you?”

“Have you ever heard of a satellite imaging company called Spot Image?”

“Sure. We’ve even done some work with them. Why?”

“Do you have a relationship with anybody there?

McCauliff thought about it for a second. “I know a couple of people. Their U.S. Offices are just over in Chantilly, Virginia. What do you need?”

Having seen the clippings Marie had kept from several French newspapers about Bernard’s disappearance and the subsequent search and rescue effort, Harvath said, “I’m working a missing person’s case overseas right now. The man’s name was Bernard Lavoine, L-A-V-O-I-N-E. He disappeared with two other individuals over a year ago on a climbing expedition in the Alps. He ordered a lot of satellite imagery from Spot, and I’m hoping that it might help shed some light on where he was when he disappeared.”

“So why isn’t someone from DHS calling them?”

“Because the case is personal, Kevin. I’m not operating in an official capacity.”

McCauliff was quiet for several moments on his end of the line. “You swear nothing happened between you and my sister, right?”

“Jesus, Kevin. Yes, I swear.”

“Okay, “He responded, “give me a way to get in touch with you, and I’ll see what I can do.”

After giving him the number at the hotel, Harvath thanked Mc-Cauliff and hung up the phone. Jillian then looked at him and said, “Now what?”

“Now, we wait.”

HAMTRAMCK, MICHIGAN

America had been good to Kaseem Najjar, very good. His string of Muslim grocery stores and his mail-order food business were flourishing, his three children attended some of the United States ’ most prestigious universities, and the man was seen as a pillar of his largely Muslim community just outside Detroit. In America, anything was possible, and Kaseem had proven it.

A refugee from war-torn Sudan, he had the almost stereotypical rags-to-riches immigrant story. He had come to America with nothing but the clothes on his back, and over the course of twenty-five years he had built a dynasty catering to the tastes of those who longed for the foods of their homeland. When it came to the products Kaseem featured on his store shelves, in his mail-order catalog, or on his new web site, he discriminated against no one. His fortune had been built catering to all Muslims. Chili peppers from Indonesia, pistachios from Iran, dates from Libya, special bread flour from Iraq -Kaseem Najjar did not care how hard they were to import. He was a man who never took no for an answer, and that dogged determination was half of what had made him such a success.

The other half of Kaseem’s success came from the balance he struck in his life. Though he had never asked for such status, he was proud to be a role model for the Muslims of his community. On an almost weekly basis, a customer, a colleague, or a member of his mosque would ask him the predominant question that seemed to occupy the mind of every Muslim living in the United States -Where should my allegiance lie? With Islam or with America? Am I a Muslim first or an American?

Even though he’d been asked the same question thousands of times, he still treated each inquiry as if it were the first time he’d ever been asked. His response, though, was always the same. Instead of an answer, he would pose his own question. “If you had two children, “He would say, “who were both equally gifted, beautiful, and possessed of unlimited promise, to which would you devote all of your love?”

It was, of course a rhetorical question. In Kaseem Najjar’s mind, there was no reason to have to choose. This was America, and he could love both his adopted country and his Islamic faith equally. The two were not mutually exclusive as so many perverters of the Muslim religion would like the faithful to believe. His sage response often brought smiles and simple knowing nods from those who asked the question. It also did much to enhance the reputation of Kaseem Najjar as one of the wisest men in Hamtramck.

That reputation, though, was called into question when, as one of the founders of Hamtramck’s Al-Islah Islamic Center, Kaseem suggested the center seek approval from the city council for broadcasting the Muslim call to worship over loudspeakers affixed to the center’s exterior. The debate this sparked made international news.

Many of the Muslims in Hamtramck considered Kaseem a fool for asking permission for a right that was already theirs. Under the city’s noise ordinances, as well as its charter, which specifically protected such religious freedoms, the center already had the right to broadcast the call to worship. The calls lasted only one to two minutes, and in their opinion, they were no different from the ringing of Christian church bells.

Kaseem, on the other hand, had been smart enough to see it as a potentially divisive issue in the multiethnic, multireligious community and had decided to tackle it head-on. By rallying his fellow authorities and approaching the Hamtramck city council to ask that the calls be regulated, before a single objection was ever raised, the center had shown itself to be benevolent, sensitive to the rights of others, and above all else, an exceptionally good neighbor. It was an extremely positive PR move for the Muslim community, not only in Michigan but also in post-9/11 America as a whole.

Occasionally, someone would ask Kaseem if he thought the whole incident had been worth it. In his knowing way, he would always smile and then reach for his worn leather wallet. From it, he would remove an article from the Detroit News, which he was sure had done more for their cause than anything else. To most nonbelievers, the call to worship was nothing but noise. The Detroit News had changed that perception, and the article was picked up by wire services and reprinted in newspapers around the world. With pride, Kaseem would read the translation of the call, which had been read by millions around the world: “Before any prayer session, a man called the muezzin climbs to the top of the mosque’s minaret and sings God is great four times, followed by I testify there is no other God but God twice. Then the muezzin calls I testify Muhammad is the messenger of God two times, followed by Come and pray sung twice. Both Come and flourish and God is great are then twice called, followed by the final There is no God but God.”

Of course, the people with whom Kaseem shared the article did not need a translation of the call to worship. They already understood its meaning, but nevertheless there was no arguing with the pride the man obviously felt in having made the religion and practices of Islam a little more accessible to the rest of the world.

Now Kaseem looked at his watch and saw that it was nearing five o’clock in the morning. He had spent all night in his warehouse unpacking the multitudes of pallets that had arrived the day before. They were the first in an exclusive series of shipments that were the crowning achievement of his career, thanks in no small part to the international notoriety he had received from the call to worship undertaking.

Much as British royalty had done in recognizing specific merchants as official purveyors to the crown, a certain rather radical Saudi prince, named Hamal, from the vast, extended Saudi Royal Family had recognized an outstanding, select few merchants who catered not to the Saudi Royal Family but to the greater worldwide Muslim community as a whole. The first and only merchant in the United States to be awarded the honorable distinction had been Kaseem Najjar.

Along with this recognition, Kaseem was awarded exclusive North American distribution rights to the first product ever officially endorsed by the Saudi Royal Family-bottled water from a secret spring discovered beneath the holy city of Mecca, said to have quenched the thirst of the Prophet Muhammad himself. Proceeds from the sale of the holy water went to Islamic charities around the world. As outlined by Mecca’s Muslim hierarchy in a communiqué disseminated to mosques around the globe, it was the holy duty of each Muslim-man, woman, or child-to buy and consume at least one bottle of water from the secret Mecca spring before the upcoming Ramadan holiday that fall.

Kaseem had indeed done well in securing the exclusive contract to distribute the holy water in the U.S. Any of the faithful who wanted to purchase some would have to do so at their local mosque, which in turn had to purchase it from him. The arrangement was going to make him even richer than he already was. What he didn’t like about it, though, was the Saudis’ insistence that he only sell the water to their list of approved mosques in the United States, all of which catered solely to the majority Sunni faith. No provision had been made to sell the water to any of the Shia mosques.

In addition, his counterparts in Saudi Arabia had also insisted Kaseem’s company take delivery of several tons of a spice known as mahleb. It was made from the pits of black cherries and was readily available throughout the United States, but apparently his Saudi contacts saw a need for a pure Muslim version. Branding was not a concept solely restricted to American companies. The Muslim world was catching on as well. Today it was spring water and cherry pit spice, tomorrow tennis shoes and watches. If the truth be told, Kaseem was very pleased to see the Muslim world begin to keep pace with modern times. He had no doubt that given the choice, his customers would rather buy a Muslim version of mahleb than a non-Muslim one.

Though he would never say so out loud, Kaseem realized that his business could very well end up being as profitable as, if not more so than, Jewish companies that specialized in kosher foods.

Another aspect of the transaction was that none of the mahleb had been made available to Kaseem to sell through his vast distribution network. Instead, it was intended for some new Muslim spice conglomerate based in the U.S. The Saudis explained that as the conglomerate’s import credentials had not been set up yet, they needed Kaseem’s company to take delivery of the spice and then repackage it and send it along to the conglomerate’s various offices.

A responsible businessman, Kaseem had done a little checking up on the supposed conglomerate. Its principals were all former immigrants like himself and all from Muslim countries, but that was where the similarities ended. As far as Kaseem could tell, none of the men had any experience in the food industry whatsoever. They owned a variety of businesses across the country, most often the types associated with Middle Eastern immigrants who arrive in America and try to get a foothold on one of the lower rungs of the American dream-payday loan, currency exchange, and check-cashing businesses, as well as 7-Eleven-style convenience stores, gas stations, and taxicab companies. They were in fact successful entrepreneurs, but why they would want to get into such a low-margin endeavor like the spice business was beyond him. Maybe they knew something he didn’t. None of it mattered, though, as Kaseem had randomly checked samples of the bitter-tasting mahleb himself and was convinced that it was the real deal. The last thing he wanted to do was be an unwitting party to importing any kind of illegal substance. Whether his client was a Saudi royal or not, he still had his family’s good name and his country to look out for.

As he packed up the last of the mahleb to go out via UPS that afternoon, Kaseem’s mind was on getting home and getting a little sleep before the morning prayer service. Tired and distracted, he failed to notice that one of the packages he had randomly tested had been put back in with the rest of the shipment and that its lid had not been fully reattached.

The mystery illness from the Iraqi village of Asalaam, the same one once destined to decimate all of Rome, had just made its debut on American soil.