The Colonel's Mistake (27 page)

“It’s not about the money.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”

“I won’t take the money.”

“Now you’re breaking new ground.”

“I want to know what happened to the stolen uranium. And if I don’t get what I want, I’m going public with all I just showed you as soon as I walk out this door. Or Daria Buckingham will if I can’t.”

Holgan cradled his head in his hands for a moment. Sounding tired and a little annoyed, he said, “OK. You win. You want information, you got it. It’s not my fault that the National Security Council didn’t send the memo to the CIA.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning the only reason I came up with the cash that’s in front of you now is that James Ellis—that would be the president’s goddamned hand-picked national security advisor!—asked me to. Which is the same reason I bought that plane with the uranium on it—paying forty million for it when the plane itself is worth maybe a quarter of that. And I didn’t even get to keep the damn plane! Furthermore, I didn’t know there was uranium on the thing until you showed up. But I refuse to put Holgan Industries at risk anymore by playing the middle man between all you bumbling government idiots. I’m out—I’m not carrying Ellis’s water anymore. It’s just not worth it.”

“You know, I’m gonna need more information than that. Because I don’t have a clue as to what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Three years ago I get a call from Ellis. He tells me he knows one of Holgan’s subsidiaries—the Doha Group—is working with some top Revolutionary Guard generals in Iran. Which we were.” Holgan jabbed a finger at Mark. “Iran’s a big market. If in ten, twenty years the US and Iran ever put their differences behind them, I want Holgan positioned to do some real business. Of course we’re not allowed to contract with the Iranians directly, but the Doha Group was a foreign subsidiary with no Americans on the payroll. I’ll admit it’s kind of a gray area, and I thought Ellis was going to pressure me to sell Doha, get the hell out of Iran and whatnot, but instead he asks if he can slip a couple of his men into Iran by having them pose as employees of Doha.”

“To what end?”

“To build relationships with some of these generals in the Revolutionary Guard that the Doha Group was working with. To try to turn them against the mullahs. The request came straight from the president. So I agreed. One, because I’m a patriotic guy. And two, I’ve been doing business with the government long enough to know that you don’t grow your business by turning down a direct request from the president of the United States.

“Anyway, that was all it was until a little over a month ago, when, like I said, Ellis called up and asked me to buy that plane. Said it had to do with developing ties with more Revolutionary Guard generals they were working on turning, which I took to mean they needed a way to funnel the Iranian generals some money in a way that didn’t look like it was coming from the US government. Again, he says the request comes from the president. So I do it. I buy the damn plane.”

“So you’re telling me the MEK stole the uranium from the Iranians and instead of handing it over to the International Atomic Energy Agency, they sold it to the US National Security Council. And that you helped broker this deal.”

“Something like that, assuming you got your facts straight on your end.”

“What’s the National Security Council planning to do with this uranium?”

“Hell if I know. All I do know is that I bought the plane like they asked and then you show up raising hell. So what do I do? I call Ellis, tell him what you told me, and ask him to straighten things out with the CIA and get you the hell off my back. None of this is
my
problem.”

“If it wasn’t your problem, why’d you have your men follow me when I left your office this morning?”

“Maybe I didn’t like your attitude. Maybe I don’t like my government barging in here and threatening me when I’ve just shelled out forty million as a personal favor to the president of the United States.”

“I’m not your government.”

“You were hired by the CIA. That’s close enough. What I can tell you is that once Ellis’s team took over this afternoon, my team backed off.”

“Only Ellis’s team turned out to be a hit squad from the Revolutionary Guard. Nice.”

“Hey dipshit, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Ellis doesn’t always play by the rules. And it’s not my fucking problem if the CIA’s on his bad side. What you got to do is have your people in Langley talk to the goddamn NSC. And while you’re at it, you can leave me the hell out of it. The CIA and NSC can duke it out on
their own and you can stuff your threats up your ass from now on, and the same goes for Ellis. You want to go public with what you know? Well, two can play at that game.”

“Where’d that plane go after the Doha Group bought it?”

“I have no idea. You’d have to ask Ellis. I just bought the plane, he supplied the pilot. It took off the same day I bought it and I haven’t seen it since. Guess I loaned it out.”

“At this point I’m thinking Ellis might be less than forthcoming.”

“What I will tell you is that two people met that plane when it landed in Dubai, and they were on it when it left Dubai. My security guys ID’d them. The first was Colonel Henry Amato, Ellis’s top Iran advisor. Good luck getting anything out of him. The second was Maryam Minabi—the head of that MEK group you were talking about. She might know what happened to the plane, or, for that matter, why Ellis is sending Iranian Guard troops after you.”

“You know where Minabi is?”

“Last I heard she was holed up at her place outside of Paris.”

“Last I heard no one’s been able to contact her in Paris.”

“Then you know more than I do. Now get the hell out of here. And if you screw with my company any more than you already have, I’ll come after you for spite no matter what you tell the public.”

Port of Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates

Above the deck of what looked like an Emirates Coast Guard boat hung a ten-foot-long metal tube.

“OK, lower it,” said the lead soldier to the crane operator. Then, “Slower! Slower!”

The tube needed to be inserted into a hole that had been cut into the deck of the boat. But only a few inches of clearance had been left on either side, so the descent had to be perfect.

The crane operator complied, but he did so too quickly, provoking cries of alarm from the other men in the warehouse as the tube jerked to a stop. A grinding sound echoed off the warehouse’s steel walls.

There was no air-conditioning and the lead soldier was sweating as he stood on the deck of the boat. The metal tube hung four feet above his head gently swinging back and forth in a way that unnerved him.

Auvers-sur-Oise, France

Even with his lousy eyesight, Mark could tell who it was from a hundred yards away.

John Decker drove down the empty main street in a little compact Hyundai, looking ridiculous with his knees rising up on either side of the steering wheel and his head brushing the ceiling, as though he were in a toy car.

He had dirty-blond hair now and was wearing glasses that would have made him look studious were his neck not so thick. He slowed to a stop on the corner where Daria and Mark were waiting and gave each of them a rough pat on their shoulders after they’d squeezed into the car.

The little French village of Auvers-sur-Oise was an unlikely place for an Iranian resistance group to set up shop, thought Mark as they drove over the bridge that spanned the Oise River. The sun hadn’t risen yet but the predawn sky was light enough that he could tell the banks framing the river were green and lush. The town itself, although only fifteen miles from Paris, was a world away from the poorer suburbs where bored and angry youths burned cars every night.

This was the France of old stone inns and narrow alleys with ivy-covered walls. It was where Pissarro, Cézanne, and Corot had come to paint, and where Vincent Van Gogh had spent his famous final weeks, working madly before killing himself. There were
boucheries
and
patisseries
, houses with terra cotta roofs, and little parks with bright flower beds and well-manicured plane trees.

But even though he couldn’t see it, Mark knew there was also a compound, consisting of several houses bristling with satellite dishes, that had housed the political leadership of the MEK since the mid-1980s.

“It’s good to see you,” said Decker.

“Good to see you too,” said Daria.

“After what went down outside of Astara, I wasn’t sure—”

“Just take us to the compound,” interrupted Mark.

He’d already explained over the phone the basics of what they’d learned in Dubai, and that they’d come to France to try to question Maryam Minabi. Decker had said he’d found the MEK compound, but hadn’t been able to locate Daria’s uncle yet. He hadn’t seen anyone that matched the description of Minabi yet either.

“Well, that’s the thing. Something’s come up.” Decker exhaled and focused on the road.

“I’m not going to like it, am I?” Mark was dead tired. He hadn’t slept at all on the red-eye from Dubai to Paris.

“No, you won’t. It’s a freakin’ complete clusterfuck.”

“What happened?” asked Daria.

“So like I said, first day I was here I found the compound and started up surveillance from a barn loft a couple lots down. I didn’t see a lot of activity, just a few guys who looked like guards patrolling the perimeter. Five guys total on the inside. None of them was
your uncle. On the outside it’s just a bunch of old French geezers riding by once in a while on bikes.

“Then just six hours ago, around an hour before midnight it was, I’m watching from the barn and a laundry-service van pulls up to the front gate. A few guys wheel out a couple canvas sacks and dump them in the truck. I’m talking big sacks, these guys can barely lift them. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that whatever’s inside them, it sure as hell ain’t somebody’s dirty underpants. So I follow them.

“They drive to a field, ten clicks or so to the northwest, in farm country. I watch the two guys who’d been driving the van meet a couple more guys who are waiting for them there in the field. When they’re all together, damn if they don’t pull out two bodies from those laundry sacks and then set about burying them in the field.

“They dig one grave and put both bodies in it. There’s a lot of other areas that had been dug up recently too. And I mean a lot—whole field’s scattered with them. More graves probably, though I didn’t try to dig them up because after these bodies get buried, I follow the two men that hadn’t come from the main compound. They drive straight to this farmhouse a couple clicks away from the field and disappear inside. So I set up a surveillance post in an abandoned church not far away but didn’t see shit and then I had to blow to pick you two up. How many people used to live inside the main MEK compound?”

“Probably a hundred or so, maybe more, maybe less,” said Daria. Her voice was hard, but trembled.

“Fucking hell,” said Decker. “I hate to say it, but I think they’re toast. That compound is practically empty.”

“Then ditch the compound. Take us to this farmhouse,” said Mark coldly. If Minabi was dead, he’d learn what he could from her killers.

“Going there now, boss.”

Decker pulled to a stop in front of a big stone church encircled by a six-foot-high chain-link fence on which notices had been posted, warning people away and proclaiming that the church had been slated for destruction. Down the street, a few old stone houses abutted the road.

“If you hop the fence, you can get inside through a door in the back that I popped open,” said Decker. “Behind the altar to your left are steps to a lookout. The first twenty feet or so have been ripped down, but I pimped a ladder from a house down the street. Once you get to the top, look due south. You’ll see the farmhouse in the middle of a field.”

Decker got out and opened the trunk of the Hyundai, revealing two sets of high-powered binoculars, food supplies, a large brown canvas tarp, and a digital camera with a telephoto lens.

“Won’t need the camera,” said Mark brusquely. “Bought one in Dubai.”