Gauntlet (18 page)

This was, of course, the problem. Turbee did not read the newspapers. He didn’t watch CNN. He rarely communicated with anyone outside his small group of acquaintances. He very rarely knew what was going on in the world outside of his small circle. Now he looked around the large central control room. He heard the snorts of laughter.

Rhodes saw their wunderkind ready to dissolve into tears, and came to the rescue. “OK, people, we need to get on track here. What did you expect? You put him on a project by himself, totally unassociated with what the rest of the team is doing. And you ask him to answer a question most of us could have answered already, based on everyday knowledge. Why’re we doubling up on things like this? We’re not working together. Yes, Turbee used a few quadrillion computing cycles to figure out that the world is not flat, but look how he did it,” he pointed out. “He used Blue Gene to find out who is staying in which hotel rooms, who traveled where, on what airplane, bought which weapons, and used them in whatever location. He got from there to the information he just shared, by himself. It shows the power of our computing resources.

“You asked him yesterday to find out what he could about the PSG-1’s,” he continued. “And from that and that alone, he gave us the correct answer. He told us which terrorist group pulled off this heist, and that they were affiliated with al-Qaeda. Just imagine what he could do if you put him on something important.”

“You’re not getting paid to make speeches, Rhodes,” snapped Dan. “The kid was late. He ignores the rules. And on top of that, he’s giving us information we already fucking
had
.”

“What do you know about rules anyway, Danny?” Rhodes retorted sharply. He’d done his research before coming to TTIC, and knew a thing or two about Dan’s privileged but shortcut-filled life. There were already a few employees in the room who thought that Dan should be replaced by someone who knew something — anything — about the Intelligence Community. So far their opinions had come to nothing. But the knowledge of Dan’s background gave Rhodes, and a few others, what they considered to be a responsibility to argue with their commander when it came to issues of importance.

Dan hadn’t yet realized that his team knew anything about his past indiscretions. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked slowly, his tone low and dangerously quiet.

“Just forget it,” said Rhodes, quickly deciding that now wasn’t the time to take a stand against their commander.

“Why don’t you just remember your place, Rhodes,” Dan snapped. “Let me handle Turbee how I choose to. He’s not your son. If you want to stand up for a kid, why don’t you go home and practice on your own? You have a couple, don’t you?”

Rhodes’ face grew dark at the underhanded reference to his family. “Excuse me?” he thundered, rising to his feet.

Rahlson stood and interrupted before it got out of hand, stepping in front of Rhodes, who showed every intention of going after Dan. “He’s not worth it, Liam,” he murmured quietly, taking the other man’s arm. “Let it go.”

Rhodes gave Rahlson a long, level stare, then nodded slowly. He turned and strode out of the room, taking care to give Dan a large berth, and closing the main door quietly behind him. Dan turned back to his work, shrugging to himself and gloating at what he saw as Rhodes’ disgrace in front of the team.

Back at the cluster of desks that housed Turbee, Rhodes, Rahlson, Khasha, and himself, George watched his friend’s exit in amazement. “Jeez, what’s eating him?” he asked in shock. “I thought I was the only person here with an anger management problem.”

“He’s carrying some personal crap around,” Rahlson told him. “Evidently Dan knows about it. Or he just has the worst timing in the world.”

Khasha looked up at the older man. She was equally concerned about what had just happened. “What kind of personal crap?” she asked.

“It happened about a year and a half ago,” Rahlson explained. “Car accident. He and his wife lost a couple of kids. He went a bit mental for a while, went to an institution of some kind. Saw piles of psychiatrists, got prescriptions for every kind of antidepressant out there. He got straightened out, eventually. For the most part.”

“You mean the shrinks actually helped him?” George asked slowly.

“Apparently so.”

“Well I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” George said dryly. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t keep him from concentrating on important stuff.”

T
HOUSANDS OF MILES to the southwest, across the Arabian Sea, Mustafa was giving staccato orders to the deck hands of the
Mankial Star,
Yousseff’s private yacht. A portion of the aft deck of the yacht, between the helicopter pad and the rear cabin, was opened to reveal a small cargo hold. An ingenious scissors lift system could be raised, so that cargo transported by helicopter onto the ship could be unloaded onto the lift deck and then lowered. The recessed decking then slid back into place to hide the hold. Special fittings attached to both the helicopter and the lift system made transferring cargo simple and quick. Mustafa’s DC-3 had traveled from Bazemah to Yarim-Dhar, and, after being refueled by the Janjawiid, on to Socotra, a small island just south of Yemen. There the Semtex had been unloaded and repackaged into 23 pallets containing around 200 kilos of Semtex each. The chopper they were using had a carrying capacity of only 1,500 pounds, and it had taken six trips to deliver all of the explosive to the yacht. Transferring loads from the helicopter to the scissors lift had been the phase that Yousseff was particularly concerned about. “There are satellites,” he had said. “If one passes overhead at the time of the reload, they might see.” Mustafa had thought the chances were remote, but Yousseff was not one to be second-guessed. Hence, the reloading was undertaken with great speed and efficiency, planned down to the smallest move. For added safety, a tarp was stretched from the aft cabin to the rotor blades of the chopper to cover the path. The transfer ended up taking ten minutes per load.

The
Mankial Star
had already been fully fueled and stocked. As soon as the scissors lift receded for the last time, the captain pointed her on a southeastern course. They had a day to get to their rendezvous, and there was little time to waste. In a different part of the ocean, Captain Vince Ramballa was standing on the bridge of the
Haramosh Star,
shouting directions out for her speedy southern voyage. The two ships had an appointment to meet at the southern edge of the Malabar Coast of India for the next step of the plan.

A
T THAT MOMENT, in the TTIC control room, Turbee was striving to gain a better understanding of the drug and terrorist connection. Khasha, the only member of the team who took him seriously, was leaning over his desk helping him.

“OK,” he said in a tremulous voice, speaking for the first time since the argument with Dan. “I have a question. The gun order from H&K. It included a lot more than the PSG-1’s. In fact, it was a truly massive order, for many, many different types of weapons and ammunition. Here’s the invoice.” He motioned to one of the large 101’s at the front of the control room. “As you can see, it’s for more than 400,000 Euros. The question is, where did they get that kind of money? And I think it may have been in cash, because I can’t find a check for that amount anywhere. Blue Gene could have found it if it existed, but after hours of searching thousands of databases and financial institution records, I still drew a blank. If Blue Gene can’t find it, it’s not there. So where do you get that kind of money in cash?”

“Well, that one’s easy,” drawled a voice from another desk. “A no-brainer, actually. It’s drug money. That’s how most of these bandits finance their operations.” The voice came from Lance Winters. Lance, formerly one of the top guns at the DEA, was in his early 40s, and had worked on the China White cases — heroin imported from Laos, Burma, and Vietnam. He was well aware that when the American police forces put their sizeable dent in the cultivation, manufacture, and transport of China White, an Afghani pipeline had quickly replaced it. He had also dealt with Columbian and Mexican marijuana, heroin, and cocaine operations. Immediately prior to his transfer to TTIC, he had been dealing with the growing problem posed by BC Bud.

“You guys are talking about al-Qaeda and its surrogates,” he continued. “That means opium cultivated in Afghanistan, and heroin processed there, or in the Northwest Frontier Province, in Pakistan. That’s where the drugs came from. In some way, that’s where the money came from too. That’s where you should be looking.”

“I think he’s right,” said Rhodes, having just returned to the room. “If we’re talking cash provided to a quasi-terrorist group like the Janjawiid, we’re talking drugs. And if we’re talking drugs, we’re talking Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda has for years been funding its operations through the use of drug money. We have a lot of documentation on it.”

“I agree,” said Khasha. She was the other resident expert, having spent years pouring over Pakistani websites and newspapers, and connecting daily with her many friends in Pakistan. “I’d say that it’s definitely drugs. Probably heroin. The opium is grown by the Pashtun farmers in the mountain valleys of northeastern Afghanistan. It comes into Pakistan via hundreds of uncharted mountain passes, known only by the locals. It’s refined in portable labs in the Northwest Frontier Province, and gets shipped to America and Europe from there. The heist we’re looking at cost a lot of money, and shows a lot of organization. And it’s probably part of a much larger operation. Assuming all this stuff is related, it means that someone got their hands on a DC-3, and had a pilot to fly it. They acquired weapons from Germany. They bribed air terminal supervisors, so that no flight plans were filed. They had someone who knew the route the Semtex was going to take from Benghazi to Bazemah. They probably had a smart place to stash it once they got it. There’s a lot of sophistication behind this, and to me, that means they had a lot of money to spend. The answer to this riddle lies in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Once we know who provided the money, we may know where the explosives went after we lost track of them.”

“I think we need to focus more manpower on this Semtex thing,” added Rhodes, raising his voice to draw attention to what he was saying. “All this stuff we’re picking up on the Internet about a nuclear attack could be just a ruse. The only solid evidence we have of things going amiss is the stolen Semtex.” He turned to Dan, who had just walked up to the group. “Maybe we need more people than just Turbee looking at this issue.”

“Why?” argued Dan. “And what’s the hurry?”

“As a group, we’re certain that this heist is being financed and operated by drug lords in Afghanistan,” Rhodes answered, annoyed at having to answer to someone who understood so little about the international stage. “Some of those characters possess the means to transport that Semtex a long distance in a hurry, by ship or by air. Europe and America are the prime drug destinations. It stands to reason that they’d be the prime Semtex destinations, too. The people who are now transporting the Semtex have the means to slip through borders easily. It’s what they do for a living. We’d never see it coming, Dan. That’s why.”

“Maybe we need someone in the field in Peshawar or Jalalabad,” said Lance. “Who have we got?”

“No one good,” said Rhodes. “With Zak Goldberg already undercover, I think all we have left in that area is Richard Lawrence.” He winced as he said this, knowing full well the minimal number of human agents America had in the region.

Dan stood quietly for a moment, considering. “Let me call the commander of the
Theodore Roosevelt,”
he said finally. “We should be able to get Richard to Islamabad in less than two hours in one of the Super Hornets. Johnson, get me the
TR
on the line. Now.”

Y
OUSSEFF WATCHED the cranes and gantries of Karachi Drydock and Engineering recede into the distance. As the
Haramosh Star
proceeded southward, the smog and crowded streets of Karachi were replaced by the endless mud swamps and wetlands that formed at the delta of the Indus River. These were the places that he and his inner circle had used so effectively in the early years of his enterprise. Again he was flooded with memories, sharpened with nostalgia. He drifted back into his dreams.

H
E WAS 16 AGAIN. He already had substantial land holdings in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Izzy and Ba’al were becoming wealthy, just through their association with him. Marak was piling up stacks of money in his safe house in Pakistan. Yousseff’s success was spectacular for his age. Yet his restlessness only seemed to increase. He had gone with the drug traders from time to time, as far as Islamabad. His parents had forbidden him to travel further, and out of respect for them he didn’t. But the ever-greater desire to see what lay beyond the next horizon finally overcame him.

He had come to know, over the years, a pleasant and rotund man by the name of Mohammed Jhananda, who was the owner and captain of a small 30-foot riverboat. He ferried goods up and down the Indus and its tributaries, from Islamabad to the mud flats and islands that dotted the enormous river delta just south of Karachi. His boat, if it could be called that, was a dilapidated, ancient vessel named the
Indus Janeeta.
Its single diesel motor spewed dark black smoke and made hideous clanking and rattling noises. Mohammed liked Yousseff, and admired his hard-working ways and sensible head. Transporters were always looking for another swamper, especially one who was young, strong, and eager to work. Eventually Yousseff started working for Mohammed on his occasional trips to the coast. Although he had spent most of his life on high desert plains and mountain passes, he took to the ways of the river, and loved the easy travel and customs of the great inland waterway.

Mohammed had a son, Omar, who was a few years older than Yousseff. It hadn’t taken long for Omar and Yousseff to become firm friends. They enjoyed fishing off the end of the boat when she was anchored, and worked like dogs together moving goods of one sort or another from ship to dockside, or vice versa. Once they reached their teens, they moved on to chasing women together. Occasionally they would share hashish or opium, and dream about future conquests.

Sometimes Mohammed purchased half a kilo of heroin in Peshawar and transported it from there to Islamabad, and ultimately to the vast Indus Delta. But he was terrified of being caught by the authorities, and didn’t push his luck with drugs very often. For the most part, Mohammed was a cautious and wily man, not given to ostentatious or wild behavior. He knew how to operate below the radar of the river police, and how to stay out of trouble. From him Yousseff learned the ways of the river, where to deliver drugs, who to trust, who to avoid, and how to survive and prosper. He paid attention to the many river tales of drug transporting and pirating. When he felt he was ready, Yousseff decided to transport a kilo of his own product to the coast. For a cut of the price, Mohammed gave his approval, and Yousseff conducted the transportation and sale with his usual skill.

He was amazed by the fact that the very act of moving heroin from an inland city to saltwater increased its value from $1,500 to $10,000 per kilo; he’d never realized that transporting a substance could so increase the price. He then considered the larger question. If that kilo were moved to Los Angeles, or New York, or Vancouver, what would its value become? And why shouldn’t he reap the advantages of that? Why shouldn’t Yousseff Said al-Sabhan be entitled to that greater increase? If all it took was a boat — albeit, a boat somewhat larger than Mohammed’s — why not?

Already Yousseff’s wealth was skyrocketing, just from his land holdings and current drug operations. He now took pains to ensure that, with every trip he took, Mohammed had at least five kilos of heroin with him. It was so easy. Roll it in a robe or coat, and add it to the deliveries Mohammed was already making. He gave Mohammed 10 percent of every sale, and Mohammed realized that Yousseff, with his clever tongue and agile mind, could make him wealthy with little effort on his own part. The old man could see that Yousseff possessed a great talent for this, and felt much more comfortable with Yousseff in command than he was on his own.

Omar, on the other hand, began to develop an impressive talent for mechanics and working with metals. He became skilled at monkey wrenching and making do with what he had. He spent most of his time repairing portions of the
Janeeta
as they broke or wore out. He could make any motor work, and coaxed many extra hours out of the old diesel that powered the riverboat. He was clever with a welding torch and was always visiting machine shops to find new parts for the aging craft. Yousseff suspected that Mohammed could easily have bought a larger vessel, but was too attached to the
Janeeta
to scuttle her.

Yousseff would join the father and son on river trips three or four times a year, generally avoiding the rainy season. One day, however, as he drove his old Jeep to the Soan River docks just south of Rawalpindi, he found the boat still docked, its engines quiet. Instead of readying the vessel for the trip they had planned, Omar was sitting, glum, head down, legs dangling off the end of the dock, staring unblinking into the dirty brown river water.

“What is it, Omar?” Yousseff had asked his older friend, pulling up behind him. “What is troubling you?”

“It is my father. He has been arrested. They found two kilos of drugs on the
Janeeta.
The boat is going to be impounded. He will probably be executed.” The law in Pakistan was harsh, and drug runners were normally put to death publicly. Omar continued to stare down at the brown river water below him. “Tortured and executed.”

Yousseff was shocked, and concerned for the older man. “This is not good news. Which police detachment was it?” he asked. “Maybe I can do something.”

But Omar was inconsolable, and not interested in discussing possible escape for his father. “There is nothing you can do. He was caught red handed. Someone must have tipped off the police. It is over for him. Maybe for me too,” he groaned. Yousseff was only 17, but Omar was now 18, a man by Middle Eastern standards, and punishable on adult terms.

“No, no. You give up hope too easily. Maybe I can help. Which detachment?” Yousseff pressed.

“It was the southern precinct at Rawalpindi. The river patrol wing.”

Yousseff knew this particular constabulary. A group of lazy do-nothings, surviving mostly on bribes and payments from business owners for “security.” Everyone knew how they worked. Mohammed simply had not wanted to bother with this little detail. Yousseff shook his head and sighed at the man’s shortsightedness. Omar was right. His father would be dragged in front of the magistrates, and would very likely receive the death penalty. An example would be made of him, and the officers would be commended for their outstanding police skills. This was not good at all. But Mohammed was at fault as well — he had not done what was necessary for the orderly conduct of business. People needed to be paid, and paid well, for their services. Whether the individuals involved were mountain valley farmers, sure-footed Pashtuns taking horses across perilous mountain passes, or providers of security, they needed to be compensated. Old Mohammed, for all his fox-like ways, had never completely respected it. Yousseff, on the other hand, knew it to be the most basic fact of business; he had been born with the knowledge in his blood. With a clever tongue, and some courage, he knew that he might be able to repair this.