Retribution (5 page)

“I don't understand.”

“You don't know what that means?” asked Yousef.

He explained that any man who carried the black swan and had fought with Sabri al-Banna was a man to be feared. Sabri al-Banna, a son of a wealthy Palestinian farmer, was also known by his more famous name: Abu Nidal. As Nidal hated the Jew who took over his father's orange orchards, Umarov hated the Russian. They both made their enemies bleed.

“There is something else.” Yousef suddenly shifted the conversation again, avoiding the question altogether. “Do you still have the New York box?”

“Yes, of course.” They had maintained one address, a P.O. box in a small Brooklyn post office under a unique alias. Only Masood kept the key.

“You will receive something in a few days. The instructions will be clear.”

Masood nodded.

Yousef seemed to stare into space as he spoke.

“The plan has several steps.”

“I understand.” Masood didn't always understand, but he knew enough not to say more.

Yousef looked up into the pale blue, cloudless sky as he spoke. “Masood, if you are not staying the night, it is time that you returned.” He pointed up as he spoke, meaning that the U.S. spy satellite would soon be crossing over the valley in its orbit.

Masood looked at his watch. “Yes, brother.”

“Someone in Riyadh is trying to point the CIA in our direction. It is my understanding that the CIA woman in Doha has now been transferred to Walter Reed Hospital.” Yousef spoke with his hands as much as his voice.

Yousef glanced at Umarov when he spoke. Both knew more than they were saying.

“We need to find her source.”

And with that, for the first and last time in their meeting, Yousef smiled.

CHAPTER 7

 

T
he baggage claim area felt like a ghost town. The last flight out of Washington had put him into Atlanta well after midnight. Even one of the busiest airports in the world would go into a lull during the midnight hours.

I'm beat,
Scott thought, checking the time again on his watch. The black illuminated dial of his Rolex Submariner showed 12:50
A.M
. It had been a long week.

But I
am
back in,
he reminded himself
. And on my terms.
For a moment he felt like a schoolboy who just caught the smile from that girl in his math class. A grin crossed his well-worn face.

The thought of that schoolboy brought him back to a different world. He didn't have a girl in his math class. Not at Godolphin House. The old proctor would have had a heart attack if he thought a girl was anywhere near Eton College's Godolphin House. He never learned to like that old man, who'd taken the stick to him on more than one occasion. Eton College raised the elite of Great Britain, and all were taught to be reserved. The private boarding school had raised kings since 1440.

The Americans think they know the British, but they have
no
idea.

“Mr. Scott?”

James Fordon Scott turned around to see a hulk of a man approaching.

That actor in
The Green Mile
. What was his name? Duncan?
While Scott was tall and lanky, this man looked like a wall. He would easily have towered over any linebacker on an American football team.

“It's Stidham. Sergeant Shane Stidham. You got a checked bag, sir?”

Mentally, Scott filed through the bios of Parker's original ANGLICO team. Shane Stidham had been awarded two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq. If Parker meant to send a message, he'd picked a fine messenger.

“No checked bag.” Scott had given up on checking bags after September 11. The hassle became too great in public transportation. He slung the overnight bag over his shoulder. “Just this,” he said. “Where's your colonel?”

“He's waiting for you on the other side of the airport. Follow me.”

It had taken Scott several days to find a lead on William Parker. First, though, he had flown to Qatar to meet the FBI team. The hole in the ground in Doha was much deeper than he had even imagined from the photographs. The body count had gone up since the original report. Six more didn't survive their head injuries, bringing the total death toll to twelve. He remembered the smell.

“Semtex?” Scott had asked the bomb team.

“Yes, sir, but not with the usual tracers.” The FBI's bomb expert was holding a test tube with a brownish material inside. “This is probably Czech Semtex. A Chechen from Grozny was connected to a purchase recently of a ton of this stuff.”

Scott knew the Chechen well: Abu Umarov. He also had a good guess as to who Umarov was working for.

As for Parker, after Korea, he seemed to have disappeared. Fortunately, Scott had remembered the woman who was with him at the end. A court reporter. He'd left several messages with the clerk of the court, only to learn quickly that the courthouse staff was a close family. Finally, he caught an assistant clerk who apparently didn't know better. She gave Scott the cell phone number for Clark Ashby. And then, all he could do was plead with Parker's lover to have Parker call him, if she knew where he was. He'd heard the reluctance in her voice, but somehow it had worked.

“Can't I take that bag?” boomed Stidham's bass voice. He seemed frustrated by Scott's slow pace.

“Thanks, but no. I'm fine. What do you mean he's on the other side?”

Instead of answering, Stidham ignored the question and continued walking. Scott could tell that Stidham rationed his words carefully. He had a slight stutter and he was no doubt conscious of his voice's uniquely low-octave tone.

Finally they stepped outside, across an empty street and into a parking lot. This part of the airport also seemed as quiet as a cemetery at one in the morning.

The bitter cold air surprised Scott a little. This must be an exceptionally cold night in Atlanta. A layer of frost covered the windshields of cars that had been there for some time. As he walked, Scott mentally picked out the few cars that had clear windshields. He knew that those, only three cars out of fifty or more, had just recently been parked there. It was an absentminded habit of observing and deducing that kept him alive in the spy business all these years.

Stidham headed toward a black Jeep Cherokee with a clear windshield. He clicked his remote, and the lights of the Jeep flashed with that obnoxious beep.

“Hop in.”

Scott threw his bag into the backseat. The Jeep was meticulously clean. It had a unique smell he couldn't quite place in his mind. The leather seat had a slippery feel to it.

The Jeep had a customized interior with an in-dash panel that glowed in the dark when Stidham turned on the ignition. Scott could tell why Parker chose this man to pick him up. He was absolutely dependable. No one would care for a machine the way that this one did and not be.

“What are you listening to?” Scott knew that all conversations eventually led to insight, intelligence, and information. He pointed to the iPod hooked into the dash panel. Scott knew that as long as you took more than you gave, you gained something.

“Davis, Coleman, some Ellington, a little Basie, and Puente.”

“Puente?
El Rey
.”

“El what?”

“The king.
El Rey del Timbal
. You need to get
Night Beat
.”

“Yeah, that's on there. He had energy.”

Now Scott had a point of commonality. From a discussion of Ornette Coleman, they would move to family, or friends, or food, or, eventually, Parker. Scott had played the game a long time.

They headed out of the parking lot. The Jeep headed north, as if going downtown, flying through the turns and curves. But instead of taking the exit, Stidham turned onto the cargo road that circled the airport.

“Hard trip, sir?” Shane Stidham gave his guest a little more respect.

“Your friend was hard to find.”

“Maybe with good reason.”

Scott thought this was a good opportunity. Despite working with Parker on the Korean mission, he still didn't have a feel for the man.

“How long have you known him?”

“We go back to Desert Storm. The gunny and I were on his ANGLICO team.”

Scott knew the history well. Parker's air and naval gunfire team was trained to call in fighters dropping thousand-pound bombs or artillery-lobbing shells on Iraqi National Guard troops. In complete overcast, with the bombers high above the solid ceiling of clouds, the ANGLICO team would mark the unexpected target with a laser beam or call in its location. In the Battle of al-Kafji, Parker's team destroyed over ninety Iraqi tanks, trucks, and APCs. They unleashed hot steel that tore through hundreds of the elite of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi soldiers, panicked, would huddle together in a group. They knew the main Marine force remained miles away, yet somehow the bombs were dropping with complete accuracy. As those elite units concentrated together, the forward observers on the team called in the strike.

“Is your man tough enough?” Scott asked.

“For what, sir?”

“For another Korea.”

“Yes, sir, he can handle it.” Shane paused a moment. “How well do
you
know Colonel Parker?”

Scott chuckled. “Not as well as you.”

“ ‘He is terrible in his onset and prompt in his decision, ' ” intoned Stidham.

“Sun Tzu?”

“Yes, sir, sure is.”

Scott turned his gaze out to the line of jumbo jets, parked in a row, waiting for their turn in the maintenance hangar. Up ahead, he saw an illuminated sign that said ATLANTIC AVIATION.

Stidham turned into the gate at the FBO. Scott knew a fixed base operation, or FBO, was the private airplane's parking lot and gas station. A twin-engine turboprop sat at the end of a line of private jets, its engines running. The door was open in the back with a stairway down. Stidham wove through the line of aircraft and pulled up next to the airplane's stairway.

“There you go, sir.” He pointed to the twin.

Scott opened the Jeep's door, and as he did, the high-pitched engines and the blowing wind filled the Jeep with dust and a deafening noise. The blast of frigid wind drove down his neck. Scott took his bag, ran over to the aircraft, and climbed aboard.

“Pull the door closed, Mr. Scott. Make sure you lock it.”

The voice came from the plane's only other occupant. The pilot turned as he spoke.

“Come on up here and have a seat.” Parker pointed to the copilot's seat next to his. “Strap yourself in, Mr. Scott.”

The Cessna twin moved forward as Scott, somewhat confused, climbed into the copilot's seat. It was a tight squeeze. With little midnight traffic, the airplane was on the active runway in less than a minute. As it became airborne, Parker tilted it upward in a sharp, turning climb, passing over the terminal and parking lot where Scott had just been. The two engines' loud hum drowned out any chance for much talk. With the aircraft climbing into a bank of clouds, obscuring all visibility, Parker pointed to a headset. The airplane rocked back and forth and would occasionally drop for a brief second as an invisible air pocket dropped it like a descending elevator.

Scott could hear other pilots as they talked to each other and some “control center.” Even this late, the radio conversation sounded like an auctioneer controlling a fast-paced bidding war. He wasn't a pilot, but he could read a compass and saw that they were heading south. The lights of the small airplane gave a glow to the clouds, and with the hum of the engines, Scott could barely keep his eyes open. He wanted to talk, but the exhaustion of the long week weighed heavily on his eyes. The cabin was warm, and the engines continued to hum at a near-deafening pitch. The twin turboprop was not like a jet engine–powered aircraft, where the thrust and sound were well behind the cabin.

It seemed like an instant had passed before he felt a nudge. He looked down at the low glow of his Rolex and saw it was nearly 3:00
A.M
. He could feel pressure in his ears as the airplane descended. Through the clouds, Scott could barely make out the tip of the wing, which gave him this odd sensation they were actually flying upside down. He looked over to Will, who adjusted the throttle of the engines like an accountant on his adding machine and settled back into the seat.

“Don't go to sleep on me again, Mr. Scott. We're getting ready to land.”

Scott leaned forward and glanced out his window just as the airplane broke through the bottom of the clouds. As far as he could see, the land below was a dark, lightless forest for miles. It was hard to get a sense of depth, but as the airplane got closer to the ground, he could make out several hills to his left.

Suddenly, the lights of a runway directly ahead of him appeared through the total darkness. He heard a mechanical thump—the landing gear lowering—and saw three bright green lights, in a triangle, flash on the panel in front of him. The airplane gently swung back and forth as Parker continued to correct its path toward the landing.

As they neared the ground, the engines spun down, and just as Scott felt the nose tilt upward, he heard the rear wheels strike the runway.

They taxied up to a small hangar, its fluorescent lights nearly blinding him. As he stepped out onto the pavement, Scott could tell that this was the only hangar on the one-strip runway. Parker had his own airport somewhere well south of Atlanta.

“Come with me. We'll go up to the cabin.” Parker unlocked the aircraft door and let down the steps as he led Scott out of the aircraft. A black pickup truck with oversized mud tires waited next to the hangar.

“Jump in,” said Parker.

Wearily, Scott climbed up into the raised cab.

The road circled around the airfield and climbed up a wooded ridgeline. After a short time, Scott could see the airfield in the valley below, which suddenly became dark as some kind of timer shut down the lights. They traveled on in silence, perhaps because of the late hour, up the paved road into the dark.

On top of the rise, they came to an opening in the woods and a brightly lit, stacked-stone and timber house, like one would see on the slopes of Aspen or Vail. Scott got the sense that it was positioned on top of the small mountain.

“I say, you have damned fine tastes in hideouts.”

Parker smiled and led Scott through the door and into a room framed by exposed chestnut and oak beams and with a stone fireplace that climbed up to the ceiling. This was far from a cabin, with its antiques, Persian rugs, and well-aged landscape paintings. A fire lit the room and had apparently been well tended, despite the late hour.

“Anything to drink?”

“Scotch, straight up. No ice.”

“Your British is showing. How about Dalmore Thirty?” Parker lifted a clear glass bottle.

“Yes, please.”

Parker handed him the Scotch-filled glass and pointed to two leather chairs near the fireplace. As Scott sat down, he could feel the heat of the fire on the left side of his leg. The smell of wood seemed to add to the taste of the Scotch. He swirled the amber liquid in the crystal glass, treating it as if it were a rare, delicate wine.

Parker, still as steeled and muscular as when they'd first met, looked comfortable in his element. Although it neared dawn, he showed no sense of fatigue, his blue eyes gazing at Scott with intensity.