Blown Coverage (25 page)

“They? Jibril and who else?”

“The one-eyed man.”

Naheed saw Khadi’s head pop back up and Hicks’s eyes widen.
Idiot,
she thought.
You’ve
said too much!

“Did this one-eyed man have a name?” Hicks asked, suddenly very impatient.

“No, I’ve never heard it. He was no one really. So, when Jibril promised—”

“Wait,” Hicks interrupted. “Go back to the one-eyed man. Have you ever met him before?”

Naheed tried to dismiss him with a wave of her hand. “Really, he’s no one. I remember meeting him only one time when I finished
my training.”

“But you said ‘they’ would leave you alone. That makes me think that you have reason to believe that he might still be involved
in the Cause?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Hicks. Like I said—”

The sound of Hicks’s chair sliding across the floor cut through the room as he thrust himself forward. Forget the compassion,
forget the softness, forget the games. No longer was there any doubt who was in charge. Even as his hand slammed down on the
table, he yelled, “Think! Is this one-eyed man the head of the Cause?”

Truly frightened, Naheed answered, “I don’t know! I mean, Jibril never came right out and said it, but his reaction when I
asked made me think that maybe he was.”

“That’s not good enough! I need more! Do you know where this one-eyed man is now?”

“I know nothing about him except what I’ve told you.”

“You better think hard one more time,” Hicks said, leaning across the table and grabbing hold of one of her wrists, “because,
if I find out you’ve been lying to me, we’re going straight to plan B! Now, do you know where this one-eyed man is?”

“I don’t know! I swear it, I don’t know!” Tears were streaming down Naheed’s cheeks as she attempted to pull her arm out of
the man’s iron grip.

Naheed saw Hicks look at the man behind her. Then, deliberately releasing her wrist finger by finger, he nodded his head slightly
and calmly said, “You’ve done well, Naheed. I’ll be back in a little bit and we’ll talk more. In the meantime, I’m afraid
Agent Ross is going to have to secure you to your chair again.”

Her arms were pulled roughly back behind her. She felt cold metal encompass her wrists and heard the rapid clicking of the
cuffs being locked down.

The three agents exited the room quickly, leaving Naheed alone with her thoughts. She sniffed hard to control the flow from
her nose but could do nothing about the tears.
Oh, what have you done, you
stupid fool?
You’ve
shown how weak you are, and now they know how to
get what they want from you. Why did you say so much? Why
didn’t
you
hold on to the one-eyed man story? They would have paid dearly for that
information. Face it, little girl, you thought you had the upper hand, but
you were beat by the master.

CHAPTER
THIRTY
-
FOUR

FRIDAY, MAY 22, 7:30 P.M. PDT SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Even though Scott’s legs were a good six inches longer than Hicks’s, he still had a hard time keeping up with his boss. Trying
to keep pace with Scott was Khadi, who was almost in a full sprint. As they ran, the thick cloud of Hicks’s profanity-laced
mutterings surrounded the two analysts as it blew back and assaulted them. It was not unlike the agony of being trapped behind
a cattle truck on a narrow country road.

“Where are you going?” yelled Niko Garisyan as he popped his head out of the room where he had been monitoring the interrogation.

“Your office! I’ve got to make a call,” Hicks shouted back.

“Sure, be my guest,” Garisyan said sarcastically.

“You can bet I will,” Scott heard Hicks mumble.

“Hey, Hicks!”

Hicks stopped and spun around to face Garisyan. Scott could see that the red he had spotted on his friend’s clean-shaven neck
carried around to his face. A vein in his forehead was visibly throbbing.

When Garisyan saw Hicks’s look, he dialed his tone way back. “What do you want me to do with the girl?”

Hicks turned back around and continued down the hall, calling over his shoulder, “I’m done with her! Interrogate her some
more, then ship her off to Langley or Guantánamo or some prison where she can accidentally get mixed in with the general population
and get a shank in her gut! I really don’t give a rip!”

When he reached the office, Hicks swung open the door and sat in Garisyan’s chair. Scott and Khadi sat across from him. “Close
the door,” Hicks growled. “I don’t want anyone eavesdropping.”

Scott got up and did as Hicks had asked. When he came back, Hicks had his head in his hands.

“Okay, tell me why I have this sick feeling in my stomach telling me that al-’Aqran is our one-eyed man? Even though I know
he’s supposed to be safely tucked away in a black-site prison, somehow he’s wrapped up in this.”

Khadi leaned forward in her chair. “I’ve got the same feeling. His involvement could answer something that’s been bugging
me for a couple of weeks now. You know how much I’ve studied the Cause over the years. There is no one I know of in their
organization who could have stepped up in leadership this quickly and pulled off what we’ve seen—especially with the Washington,
D.C., bombing today and this near miss.”

“Maybe there was more reason for your CIA buddy’s evasiveness the other day than just the typical Langley secrecy,” Scott
added.

“I swear, if I find out they’ve been holding out on us . . .” Hicks reached for the phone. He punched in some numbers, waited
a moment, and then said, “Is this a secure line? . . . This is Jim Hicks, director of CTD’s FRRT. Put me through to Charlie
Anderson. . . . Yes, I understand he’s busy with the subway bombing. Why do you think I’m calling him at the office instead
of at home? Now, please put him on the line. . . . Listen, lady, I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea you have a choice
in the matter! Go tell Anderson that Jim Hicks is on the phone—now!”

Hicks closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Scott could see that it was taking every ounce of strength he had not to totally
lose control.

Hicks suddenly straightened up. “Anderson, you short-sighted, territorial weasel! What’s going on with al-’Aqran? . . . Listen,
you can cut the shadowy spy crap! I’ve got the Hollywood bomber here, and she just told me that a one-eyed man is running
the show at the Cause! Now, either they just recruited Sammy Davis Jr. from the dead or there’s something going on with al-’Aqran,
so spill it!”

Scott watched as Hicks listened. The older man suddenly dropped back in his chair and put his hand over his eyes. “Unbelievable!
How . . . ?” Taking his hand away, Hicks saw Scott and Khadi looking at him. He tore a sheet out of a report that was sitting
on Garisyan’s desk, wrote something on it, then slid the paper over toward Scott.
HE BROKE OUT
was written in large, angry letters.

Hicks began waving for the paper to come back to him. When he got it, he wrote three more words, then gave it back.
CHECHEN
LECHA ABDALAYEV
had now been added to the sheet.

“I know that name,” Khadi whispered to Scott. “He’s the head of the Chechen Freedom Militia. They’re a mercenary group who
used to fight to further their cause, but when the money ran low, so did their altruism. Now they just hire themselves out
to the highest bidder.”

Hicks’s voice cut through. “So, do you have any idea where he’s at now, or did your super sleuths lose him after he crossed
into Ukraine?”

Scott was no longer listening. One of the things that made Scott so good at what he did was that he never forgot anything,
and he was a master at tying together seemingly random pieces of information. “It’s like doing connect the dots, only without
the numbers,” he had once said.

And now Scott’s mind was racing. He had heard of Abdalayev too, and not that long ago. His mind began processing through all
the communications intelligence he had digested over the past weeks.
Come on, think. It
wasn’t
an action report. It
wasn’t
status. Movement! It
was a movement report!
Scott visualized the flash report, absorbing all the pertinent information before returning it to the overfilled filing cabinets
of his brain.

Scott quickly scribbled, “Abdalayev in Prague—possibly making deal for services” and shoved it over to Hicks, who read it
with a nod.

“What’s Abdalayev doing in Prague?” Khadi asked quietly.

“From what I remember, the speculation is that he’s meeting with representatives of the government-in-exile of the Abkhazia
Autonomous Republic.”

“Remind me of the background of that situation.”

“The Abkhaz people seceded from the country of Georgia, did a little ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population, and set
up camp—all with the help of the Russians. The government that had been in power fled to Western Europe. Since that time,
this exiled government has been working hard to get their ducks in a row to try to get their stomping grounds back. Unfortunately,
just when it was looking like that might happen, the Russians started aiding the rebel warlords again, stopping any progress.

“Then Russia did that whole invasion of Georgia thing over the other breakaway republic, South Ossetia. Once all the dust
settled there, it left the Abkhaz government-in-exile realizing that the Georgian leadership wasn’t going to be able to help
them at all. They’re on their own. The thought on Abdalayev was that he and his little merry band of cutthroats were going
to be hired by the exiled government to, well, cut some warlord throats.”

Khadi was about to ask another question but quieted as soon as Hicks started speaking again.

“So, the summary of your answer is, ‘Yes, we did lose him.’ Amazing! Three cheers for the greatest spy agency in the history
of Western civilization. . . . No, you
do
have to listen to this, Anderson! We handed you the guy, and you lost him! Now he’s blowing Americans up again. . . . Yes,
that
is
my interpretation, and it’s a pretty accurate one. Now, what about Abdalayev being in Prague? Are you guys going to pick him
up for interrogation? . . . Never mind how I know, just answer the question.”

Silence filled the room as Hicks listened and Scott and Khadi watched. The knuckles on Hicks’s hand whitened as he held the
phone. Like the terrestrial rumblings before a volcanic eruption, Scott recognized the signs that Hicks was about to blow.
He just had time to thank God that he wasn’t on the other end of the line, and then Mount St. Helens lost its top.

“So, that’s how it is, huh? In your great cumulative wisdom, you all made a decision, and that’s how it’s going to be? Well,
I hate to burst your bubble, you and your little skirt-wearing debutantes, but I’ve got a different plan! You boys may be
too worried about the political fallout to do anything. I, on the other hand, have no such scruples. So get your little CIA
boys to clear the path for my team and me, because we’ve got a date to meet Mr. Abdalayev. . . . No, actually you will. And
do you know why? Because if you don’t, I’m blowing the lid off this to the press. How do you think it’ll play when the American
public finds out that some prisoner got a little too tired of being tortured in some secret prison, so he broke out of the
CIA’s slippery grasp and began bombing the crap out of the country? . . . No, you better believe I will, because unlike you,
I’m more concerned about protecting our citizens than I am about covering my own backside
or
whether or not I’m stepping on any other country’s toes.

“We’ll go in fast. We’ll go in discreet. But you better believe we are going in. I’ll call you back in an hour with details.
In the meantime, you’ve got some people to talk to!”

Hicks slammed down the phone, stared at it, then snatched it off the desk, yanked the cords out of the back, and threw it
against the wall. Scott and Khadi knew Hicks well enough to wait him out.

After five breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, Hicks said, “Abdalayev broke al-’Aqran out of a black-site
prison in Poland almost two months ago. The Langley boys know he crossed the border into Ukraine, but they don’t know what
happened after that. They think he’s gone to sand country or to one of the ’Stans.”

“Wow, they really went out on a limb with that prediction,” Scott observed. “What about Abdalayev?”

“They knew Abdalayev had surfaced in the Czech Republic, but they said the CIA can’t do anything to him because the Czechs
are giving him safe travel and we’ve got to honor that.”

“Safe travel? Why are the Czechs protecting him?” Khadi asked angrily.

Scott answered for Hicks. “Two reasons. First, because Abdalayev is from Chechnya. And as you know, the Chechens and the Russians
are about equal on the who-hates-who-more scale with the Palestinians and the Israelis. Second, by helping out the Abkhazian
government-in-exile, Abdalayev is going against the Russian-supported warlords who have control of the autonomous republic.
In both cases, the Czechs see him sticking it to the Russians.”

Khadi was nodding. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Exactly. The Czechs haven’t come close to forgetting the 1968 Prague Spring when Soviet tanks went rolling into Old Town
Square. And with Mr. I-Can’t-Be-President-Anymore-So-Make-Me-Prime Minister playing puppet-master in Russia, a lot of folks
have concerns about the tanks coming back someday. The more effort the Russians have to expend in Chechnya and Abkhazia, the
less they have available to put elsewhere.”

Scott’s history lesson had allowed Hicks time to calm down. “That’s about the gist of it. Anderson tells me that Abdalayev
is untouchable. I politely disagreed.

“So, here’s what I want to see happen. Scott, you call our ops boys, catch them up, and tell them to be ready to fly out 0600
tomorrow—CIA’s got a strip where we can put the jet down. Khadi, call Tara and have her get the analysts digging up everything
they can about Abdalayev—how he travels, who he’s meeting, where he’s staying, what firepower he carries, all that stuff.”

“You got it, Jim,” Scott said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “You going to get back to Anderson to work out the logistics
with the CIA?”

Hicks sighed. “Later. First, I’m going to get on with Director Porter and tell him about how my plans will most likely destroy
my career and his as well.”