The Aden Effect (6 page)

“Do you recognize the name from the envelope?” he asked Hertz.

“Nope. But we have somebody who might. The police department has a liaison to the Somali community.” Hertz made a call.

Ten minutes later the gray Mercedes-Benz SUV pulled up next to the squad car. A tall, lanky Somali emerged, smiling at the men as he casually strolled toward them. Golzari looked from the Mercedes to the approaching Somali.

“Hallo, hallo, Officer Hertz!” The Somali shook the officer's hand. “So good to see you. How can I help you today?”

“Just a name, Khalid. Do you know Abdi Mohammed Asha?”

Khalid paused as if in thought and then shook his head without losing his smile. “No. Unless he is one of the new arrivals?”

“I don't know,” Hertz said. “I was hoping you could tell me. It
is
a Somali name, isn't it?”

Golzari, standing downwind from the Somali, nearly gasped as he got a strong whiff of the Somali's pungent cologne. He wished he'd used more of the Vick's.

“I will talk to our people and find out for certain, Officer,” the man said enthusiastically.

“Thanks.”

The Somali left quickly, and Golzari and Hertz got into the squad car to drive to a local diner for breakfast.

“How do the Brits feel about your using one of their helicopters, Lieutenant Commander Billings?” Stark asked as they landed at the rain-soaked airfield. Those were his first words since leaving the pub.

“Reciprocity, sir.”

When the flight crew waved an okay, the two Navy officers and Stark disembarked, keeping their heads low as the helicopter blades continued to spin; Stark instinctively grabbed his shoulder-length hair and held it tightly lest it be caught up by the blades.

A waiting vehicle took the three men to a Quonset hut that had not been refurbished since the Cold War. The bleak furnishings suited Stark's mood. What didn't suit him were the uniforms that awaited him on a table set off to the side. All bore his rank and name. Some poor tailor must have worked late to have all this available so soon.

An old metal table with two chairs had been placed in the middle of the otherwise barren room. A slender, blond man in his early thirties was seated in one. He wore a well-cut blue suit and modestly patterned tie.

“I'm Robert Witherfield, sir. Please have a seat.”

“You're British,” Stark noted as he pulled the chair out and faced the man.

“This is the United Kingdom, you know. I'm with MI5.”

“That's internal security. I'm leaving the U.K.”

“Correct. I'm here to ask you about last evening's incident.”

Witherfield had no paperwork before him. No report. No pen or paper. Just two cold blue eyes focused on Stark.

“I told the local officer everything I know.”

“You'll forgive me if I don't believe you.”

“You'll forgive me if I don't care.”

Witherfield glanced at Billings, who simply shrugged.

“Refusing to help won't get us far, now will it, Commander?”

“Refusing to help would probably get me in an American jail. I'd say that's far.”

“You're being difficult.”

“You're being nosy.”

Witherfield leaned back in his chair. “We aren't getting anywhere.”

“Then how about a quid pro quo?” Stark offered.

“What do you want?”

“Tell me why you're interested.”

“Very well. We traced one of the men. Years ago he was part of a militant unit in Mogadishu.”

“Pity you didn't know that before he entered your country.”

“Your turn, Commander Stark,” Witherfield said, leaning back and crossing his legs.

“Before I moved to Scotland, I was involved in maritime security. Part of my job was protecting an American firm's assets in the Gulf of Aden. On occasion we exchanged gunfire with Somali pirates. I didn't recognize the Somalis who attacked me last night, but there were a lot of pirates and I didn't always get to see their faces. That's all I know.”

“Why would pirates attack you now in Scotland?”

“I don't know. I'll be sure to get in touch if I find out,” Stark answered sarcastically. “If there's nothing else . . . ?”

Witherfield looked on impassively as Stark rose and approached the table with the uniforms.

Stark remembered occasions when he'd worn most of them—the standard desert camouflage uniform for Central Command, blue ship's coveralls, dress whites, summer whites. He paused momentarily at the summer whites, recollecting a beautiful day in Naples during his first deployment. He and two other junior officers were sitting at a café laughing and enjoying their first taste of the famed Neapolitan cuisine. Four sailors from the ship were seated two tables over. It was the first port call, a chance to relax away from the ship's rules. The sound of a speeding car broke through the conversations. The car's windows were down. One man pointed a machine gun at the café and peppered the area as someone else lobbed something toward them. There was no escape for those inside the restaurant; most instinctively hit the deck. Stark and another officer dove at the next table, where an older couple sat too stunned to move. The Navy officers knocked them out of their chairs to the ground and covered them in a futile last attempt to protect innocents.

Stark heard nothing when he regained consciousness. People were waving their arms and moving their mouths as they ran about, but silence reigned inside his head. He looked down at his summer whites. One leg was now
crimson with his own blood, part of the pant leg ripped away by the blast. Debris covered his shirt—plaster and food and the gray brain matter of one of his friends.
That was nearly twenty years ago
, he thought as he wrenched himself back to the present.

Each of the uniforms before him now bore his Surface Warfare Officer pin and the three rows of ribbons he had earned during his service. The uniforms might fit him physically—that remained to be seen—but the military mentality and pride that went with them were long gone. The uniform of honor he'd worn for so many years had become, with his court-martial a decade after Naples, a cloak of shame. On the final occasion when he removed his uniform he had felt like an animal skinned alive. That skin was gone and could never grow back. But these were not his original uniforms. They were just clothes, and putting them on would be no different from putting on jeans and a sweatshirt.

Billings interrupted him as he reached out for the desert camos.

“One more thing before you put those on, sir.”

“No,” he said, anticipating what was coming.

“I'm sorry, sir, but you know the regulations,” Billings said, gesturing toward the door.

A few minutes later Stark was in a chair in the base barbershop. He looked one by one into the mirrors that surrounded him as the barber took up his clippers and raised an eyebrow. “What do you want off first, the beard or the hair?” When the hairy man seated in his chair didn't answer, the barber shrugged his shoulders and started with the ponytail.

Fifteen minutes later, Connor Stark was looking at his face for the first time in years.

“You have not heard from your cousin in England?” Faisal asked Saddiq.

Saddiq said nothing.

Faisal paced around the pilothouse of the
Suleiman
, the mother ship to six skiffs and the flagship of his personal fleet. The
Suleiman
was on a slow, steady course paralleling the
Katya P
. A month had passed since the glorious day of the supertanker's capture. Most of the pirates had expected him to take the prize to the coast of Somalia where all the other ships had been taken. But this one, he had said, had a special purpose and had to be kept away from the prying eyes of foreigners. He walked to the chart table and looked down at the red
marks that displayed the positions of his other mother ships. Then he picked up his binoculars and focused on the bow of the tanker. The explosives had been loaded and secured.

“You haven't answered me,” Faisal said, still looking at the product of part of his plan.

“We spoke last week. He had an address for the man Connor Stark and was taking his friends to Scotland to kill him as you ordered,” Saddiq responded.

“We should have heard by now.”

“They were three against one man. They could not have failed.”

“You do not know this man.”

“How do you know this Connor Stark, Faisal?”

“He is the only American the Yemeni government trusts.”

Golzari met with John M. Dunner III in his suite at the Green Hills Inn, Antioch's best—and only—major hotel. The bags under Dunner's eyes suggested that the elder statesman hadn't slept since learning of his son's death. How could any father? Even so, his shirt and suit were crisp and fresh; his tie maintained a tight knot.

“Mr. Secretary, I'm very sorry for your loss,” Golzari offered as Dunner motioned for him to sit across from him.

“Thank you, Damien. It's good of you to be here. I haven't seen you since you were on my detail.”

Golzari smiled briefly as he recalled the day he had been assigned to Dunner. It wasn't the first time he had met him. In fact, Dunner was one of Golzari's first impressions of America. Damien was just a few years old when Dunner spirited his father and most of the family out of Iran. As one of the former shah's generals, the elder Golzari would have been a great prize for the Islamists, who had put a large price on his head.

“Yes, sir. It was an honor to serve. If I may, I have just a few questions, sir.”

“Of course.”

“Sir, we believe your son died the evening before last. When was the last time you spoke with him?”

Dunner's left hand began to tremble. “Last week, unfortunately. I was on a Latin American tour. But he did leave a message for me two nights ago.”

“What did it say?”

“Just that he needed to speak with me as soon as possible. I got the message and meant to call him the next morning. I didn't. I thought I was too busy to call my only son. I should have called.” Dunner's head sagged briefly toward his chest, then rose.

“Do you have any idea what he wanted to tell you?”

“No. I'm sorry.”

“What can you tell me about him? I haven't seen him for several years. What was he like?”

Dunner leaned back and closed his eyes. “Smart. Precocious. You know that he traveled with me when he . . .” Dunner paused as tears welled up in his eyes. “ . . . when he was younger, when I was ambassador to Moscow and, of course, in Riyadh, as I'm sure you remember.” He took out a handkerchief, wiped the tears away, and regained his composure.

“Did he know Russian and Arabic?”

“Only rudimentary Arabic. A few words, perhaps; but enough of the alphabet to read road signs. He was better at Russian. He could have done so well, but there were . . . problems.”

“Can you be more specific, sir?”

“All the moving around. My constant traveling. I wasn't around enough. It happens. When we came back to the States a few years ago, he got involved in drugs. He went to a rehabilitation center for a while, but he was doing so much better at school here.”

Golzari hesitated, then forged ahead. “Sir, I hate to say this, but there is some evidence that he may have been under the influence of khat when he died a couple of nights ago.”

“Khat? Here in the States?” Dunner was visibly unsettled at the idea that yet another drug was threatening the United States. That it had taken the life of his son seemed not yet to have sunk in.

“Yes, sir. I don't have hard evidence, but I suspect that Johnny's death was not accidental. I have a lead, but I am currently scheduled to leave next week for a new assignment in Burkina Faso.”

“Then you'll pass on the investigation to someone else?”

Golzari raised his hands. “I'd prefer not to. My family is indebted to you. We would never have escaped from Iran without your help. I will find a way to continue this investigation to ensure it's done properly.”

Dunner leaned forward in his chair and looked directly into Golzari's eyes: “Get to the bottom of this, Agent Golzari. I want to know how my son died,
and why. I don't want another family to experience what I have gone through in the past two days. I've trusted you with my life before. Now I'm trusting you with the lives of people we don't even know. I will give you my support from Washington. Here's my number,” he scribbled on the small pad of paper provided by the hotel.

“Yes, sir,” Golzari answered, looking down at the number as he replied.

As Dunner leaned back, the moment of personal strength and resolve faded. Golzari knew the next question was the one the elder statesman had wanted to ask when he first arrived.