The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller (33 page)

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Authors: Andrew Britton

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TANGIER, MOROCCO
Yazdi’s two men helped their “drunk” companion along the cobbled streets of the town. The men had assured the intelligence chief it was a common enough sight that no one would comment. The street lamps showed the beardless man to be a foreigner, and they often drank too much when they were in Morocco on business or vacation. Yazdi’s concerns were not so much getting him to the barbershop but getting him onto the Mediterranean into Syria and then to Iran. Yazdi hoped he would not only prove a rich source of information about American intelligence operations but a valuable hostage.
The device still bothered him, however. Now more than before, Iran would be blamed for having been behind this. They were the ones who found the device. If the American woman survived, she would tell her superiors that Yazdi spied on them and interfered with their operations. He would have to go public with the interim details, but Tehran would still be accused of having been supporting the terrorists. He also wondered what the president and the extremists in his own country would do. They might very well want to take credit for the operation. It would boost their standing in the radicalized nations of Libya, Egypt, Syria, and across the midsection of Africa. Terrorists in Yemen would be proud that one of their own had been engaged.
That was not what he had hoped for from the operation. He wanted parity on a nuclear scale, not a reputation as God’s flaming sword on earth.
Their destination was a surprisingly modern structure, a glass facade on three sides. It was attached to an old single-story brick structure painted white. The barbershop was closed, and the men made their way to the side entrance. They had chosen this spot partly because the door was not in the back: there was nowhere around that anyone could hide. Opposite the door was where they parked the car they took to work. There was only the solid wall of a bookshop next door with one high window looking out at them. The shade was drawn. They were alone.
The inside was spare: three beds tucked against walls, a dresser, a desk, an old picture tube television with an aerial, and a computer. There was a small stove and mini-refrigerator in the kitchenette, a tiny shower next to the toilet behind a wall, a small safe, and prayer mats rolled on the floor beside it. The members of the cell lived off their salaries as security guards, but they had their fake Moroccan identity papers, several passports, and stacks of cash in the safe for emergencies. It was not uncommon for Moroccans to have safes; most local transactions were conducted with cash, and it was not always convenient to get to banks.
The truck they used had been purchased for cash. When the police traced it to the former owner in Casablanca, he would be able to tell them nothing about the identities of the persons who bought it.
The men lay the American facedown on one of the beds. He was beginning to come around. Yazdi told one of the men to gag him. He was tied but he could still yell. The men wouldn’t be speaking to him in any case; they couldn’t speak his language.
Yazdi washed his face, then asked for food. One of the men gave him bread and jam. It was all they had but it was enough. The Iranian sat at the desk, drained and frustrated. There was no joy in his trophy. He had wanted the device. There was still a slim chance he could get it; that depended on Tehran.
“We’re going to need a boat,” Yazdi said after taking a few bites of bread.
One of the men brought over a cup of tea. “That will be easy enough. We can put him in a trunk—”
“No,” Yazdi said. “No trunks. They may be watching for trunks. A canvas sack.”
“All right,” the man said.
Yazdi’s phone buzzed, and he snatched it up eagerly. It was Sanjar.
“We believe you may be too late, sir,” Sanjar said.
Though he was expecting them, the words caused Yazdi’s mood to darken.
“We monitored KOO communications with the field and picked up instructions to strip a seaplane moored off of Khalid’s platforms in the Bouri Oilfield.”
That was one of the richest oil repositories in the Mediterranean, located 120 kilometers north of the coast of Libya.
“The work was done quickly and the plane took off for the Algarve, Portugal. It landed, refueled, and took off in a little more than a half hour.”
“Bearing?”
“Northwest,” Sanjar told him. “Russian intelligence tells us that shortly before that, according to satellite surveillance, a helicopter from Tangier landed on a Khalid drill ship in the region. The helicopter offloaded cargo and departed.”
“A trunk?”
“The images are not clear enough to tell,” Sanjar said. “It could very well be. Would you like to see them?”
“Yes,” Yazdi replied. “And I want to see the amphibious aircraft.”
As the images were being uploaded, Sanjar said, “We also believe that the men who attacked the control tower were KOO. Possibly mercenaries rather than sympathizers.”
Chances were good they would never know. Based on the training people like that received in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Mali, it was likely that had blended in with the crowd that was fleeing the airport and gotten away.
One of the security guards snapped his fingers at Yazdi. “Sir—I hear something.”
Yazdi listened. He heard nothing. But then he did not live here. Every sound was new. He watched the other man.
“There are cars,” he said. “More than usual.” He listened a little longer. “Coming from both directions.”
“They’re searching for the terrorists,” the other man suggested.
Or us
, Yazdi thought. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Clear the safe.”
The men did not question the order. Yazdi looked at his prisoner. The man was awake now. Yazdi knew they couldn’t take him. If cars were being searched they would find him. The question was what to do with him.
The Iranian knelt beside the American. He looked into his eyes. Beyond the blood and bruises there was defiance, steel. The man was not thinking about himself. He was thinking about the mission. And from what the American could hear, the activity, he had to have some idea what was going on. Undoubtedly he himself had been in situations like this.
Yazdi decided. He was still holding his cell phone. He held the phone up in front of the American, who was breathing hard through his nose. It showed a picture that had just arrived, an image of the amphibious aircraft moored beside the drill ship.
“Bomb,” he said in English. He pointed to the aircraft and the time stamp.
The American nodded several times. His eyes appeared grateful.
Yazdi did not want to send the image himself; he did not know where to send it and, in any case, the Americans must handle this—and the consequences, without his involvement. He did not want to share Russian intelligence without their approval; their cooperation was vital to the security of the Iranian state.
He went to the kitchenette, got a butcher knife, and placed it on the desk. He did not remove the American’s bonds or gag. It would take the man a little while to get to the blade—enough time for them to get away.
The Iranian men told the chief they were ready to leave. The intelligence officer knelt once again beside the American. He had nothing else to give the prisoner; it was for himself. Yazdi felt a kinship with the man, who had been nothing other than professional during their time together. They had vastly different views of the world but he did not think—and this was intuition talking, nothing more—that the man would allow a suitcase bomb to be detonated in Tehran if he could help it. And perhaps if the situation were reversed some day, this man would warn him of some evil—or give him safe haven. A spy in a theocracy where Experts warred on politicians and the military battled the Experts and religious factions battled each other, a spy living in those conditions might one day need safe asylum.
Yazdi shut off the light and left the room.
 
 
Kealey heard the car depart. He did not bother with the knife. His feet were unbound, so he wormed into a sitting position, rose, and backed over to the door. He got his fingers around the knob, turned, and stepped into the darkness. He looked toward the street, ran ahead, only saw the car in the distance. It was too far to make out the license number or make of the car.
The American saw headlights to his left and ran into the street. He might not be able to communicate with whoever was coming, but they would see that he was bound and gagged and assume he wanted to go to the police.
Fortunately, he was able to save some time: it
was
the police coming down the road.
The police car stopped a few feet from Kealey. It sat for a long moment, Kealey standing still in the headlights; then two men got out. They approached Kealey cautiously, one man talking into his shoulder radio, the other looking him up and down with a flashlight.
One of the men spoke in Arabic. Kealey stood patiently with a gag still tight in his mouth. While one of the officers stood back, the other approached. He removed the tightly knotted fabric. Kealey said, “I am American. Do you speak English?”
They did not. Uncertain whether he was friend or foe, they put him in the car and continued their sweep.
CHAPTER 22
TANGIER, MOROCCO
R
ayhan sat sipping orange juice and eating a granola bar in the first-floor infirmary of the quiet Tangier police station. The former train station was a three-story white building with a partly latticed facade and the ghosts of constant activity still present in the wide street out front and the big, open lobby that served as the hub of two long corridors and a series of stairwells. There were red-lettered signs in both Arabic and Spanish in the hallway; this facility and a sister building in Cádiz shared intelligence, personnel, and resources. They were part of an urgently needed Police Cooperative that was established in May 2012 to safeguard the neighboring countries—in particular the airways and sea-lanes.
The on-duty male nurse had given Rayhan a robe, though the woman kept her clothes nearby. She had showered, washed the wetlands from her hair and skin, and sat waiting for someone to come and get her. The nurse did not speak English, but his commanding officer did. In urgent terms Rayhan had told the short, slender captain—a former military man with a big scar on his forehead—that she needed to get in touch with the American Embassy. However, with her documents still in Yazdi’s possession, she could not prove she was American—or anything but a terrorist who had come in from the sea or Algeria. The nation had experienced attacks that originated in both. Even though the captain had listened to the story his men had told him about the truck, he was not convinced she had not originated there as part of a scheme to get her in the country. For all he knew, she was the one who had fired the rocket-propelled grenade. Perhaps she had gone through the marsh to wash the explosive residue off her hands.
The captain had ordered the woman’s picture to be taken. He assured her he would send it to Rabat to confirm she was the missing American woman. Rayhan felt certain it was a mug shot. She resolved to give the man ten or fifteen minutes before she found some way out of this place. The primary reason she was giving him this long was because she needed the food, drink, and a moment’s rest.
And a little time to compose herself.
There was urgent business outside: Rayhan was keenly aware of that. She needed to contact General Clarke and get instructions, tell him what little she knew. The captain had not allowed her to make a call, obviously fearing that she would be letting some theoretical ally know where she was. When the nurse was on the computer she bundled her clothes under her robe and went into the small, white-tiled lavatory to change. Her clothes were wet and cold from the air-conditioning and she wished it were forty-eight hours ago when she was comfortable, home, and working on projects that a human being could get her arms around.
She needed to calm down because this was all so literally incomprehensible. She began to understand something of the mind-set of the people who dealt with high-caliber threats on a daily basis. The general seemed to do that. He had tried to treat this challenge as he would any danger, any mission: something to be intercepted and defused. To factor in magnitude, to allow one’s personal, emotional, and psychological response to ramp up, would literally cause the brain to lock. Rayhan suspected that Broadway actors on opening night or athletes before a championship game or presidential candidates before a first debate had to, in some way, convince themselves it was just another show, another competition, another night of political thrust and parry.
It’s another terrorist. It’s another bomb. Don’t think of the millions of lives.
Rayhan put the robe back on over her clothes before she left the bathroom. She was prepared to hit the nurse if she had to. If nothing else, she would get to see the captain again. She had not told him that they were on the trail of a nuclear weapon, but she was prepared to do that if she had to.
The nurse looked back at her, smiled—there were times when it helped to be an attractive young woman—and she smiled back. He returned to his computer and she returned to the examination table, looking around the infirmary for something to hit him with. She had settled on a rather prosaic vase by the barred window when there was a knock on the door. The nurse unlocked it. The captain stood there and stepped aside so two men could walk in. They were bearded but clearly not natives. They were dressed in knee-length
djellabas
, white with maroon stripes, the hoods thrown back. They spoke the local language but with slightly flattened accents. One of them went to the nurse and showed him a piece of paper. The nurse—who obviously held dominion within these walls, not the captain—read the paper and sat at the computer. The other new arrival came over to Rayhan. His features were sunbronzed and youthful, his eyes dark. His beard was a little straighter than the curlier hair of the locals.
“Ms. Jafari, I am Chuck Davis with the American Embassy in Rabat,” he said. He gestured behind him. “This is John Logan. We need to talk.”
The three were shown to a conference room down the hall. The door was shut and while Logan stood in front of a video surveillance camera Davis invited Rayhan to sit at the round table in the center. He sat after she did and pulled his chair close.
“We were in the Western Sahara with gunrunners, and it took a while for detailed information to get to us,” he said. “What is the status of your mission?”
Rayhan hesitated. Davis smiled knowingly. He took out his cell phone.
“Text General Clarke,” he said. “His number is in my directory.”
She scrolled through the man’s phone list, saw many familiar names. They could have been stolen, hacked from some website. But Rayhan realized she was not in a position to doubt him. As Kealey had said to Yazdi, it’s all about the bomb.
The woman returned the cell phone. “We were never far behind the terrorist,” Rayhan said. “He was a lone wolf for a time and then picked up a team supported by a group called KOO.”
“KOO,” he repeated. “K-O-O?”
“I think so,” she said. “I’d never heard of it, but we always assume there are terrorist organizations we aren’t familiar with—”
“You learned about them how?”
“From the Iranian intelligence chief we picked up in Fès,” she told him. “He was looking for the bomb, which they had recovered and then lost. My partner was careful with him—he took information, gave very little back. We had control of the situation until they ambushed us here, at the airport, after the explosion. They seemed as surprised by the attack on the control tower as we were.”
Davis continued to look at her as he weighed what she had told him. It sounded dubious even as she said it. She became afraid. She was tired, her words sounded a little hollow, and she needed some help.
“I need to talk to General Clarke,” she said
The man sat back. He pushed his phone forward. “What are you going to tell him that you haven’t told me? And how is any of that going to help him?”
She didn’t know. Now that she thought about it, the call was probably for her own peace of mind. Davis was right. He could do more here than Clarke could do in Washington. If only he knew what to do.
There was a rap on the door and the captain entered without waiting to be asked.
“One of our units just called in,” he said. “They found an American bound and gagged in the medina. They want to know what to do with him.”
Kealey had never been arrested in the United States. Like most Americans, he had heard the complaints about allegedly overzealous police, about batons and fists being too-liberally applied, about the harshness of mace and tasers and other forms of subduing a perpetrator. He also appreciated the liberties even a prisoner had in the United States compared to here. No punishment could be as dehumanizing as being helped into the back of a police car, still bound, behind a presumably bulletproof and definitely soundproof screen, and being ignored.
The two officers continued their sweep while one of them contacted what Kealey presumed was his dispatcher. The sweep consisted of stopping to ask people if they had seen anyone they didn’t know for, apparently, people in the old Arab section of the city knew everyone who lived there or frequented their establishments.
Kealey worked on getting his hands free, but the Iranian guard had tied them tight. His wrists were bleeding and painfully raw. He was sure the doors were locked as well, but one step at a time.
They had just gone past a tobacconist’s that was shuttered for the night when the car stopped. The men were conversing with a voice coming over the car radio. With some kind of acknowledgment, they turned and headed back the way they had come. Soon they were on the dirt road heading into the heart of the city. Kealey saw the abandoned truck, saw a helicopter moving along the beach to the northeast, wondered—
hoped
—something had happened that convinced these men their prisoner needed to be brought to a station.
Kealey shut his eyes. His face ached in a way it had not for years. It had to have been at least a dozen years since he’d taken that kind of beating—in Afghanistan, he thought, at the hands of bandit marauders in the service of the exiled Taliban. He didn’t know why being hit was tiring, made one really want to nap, but even after being knocked out that was what he wanted now.
The car left the bumpy road for a smooth, wide roadway. In a few minutes they pulled up in front of a large white structure. Several people were waiting outside. Kealey choked on a breath when he recognized one of them. It was Rayhan.
The driver let Kealey out, cutting his bonds with a pocketknife before allowing him to go. Rayhan hugged him before stepping back and taking stock of the wounds on his face and wrists.
“I’m fine,” he said. His eyes drifted past to the men from the embassy. “I know you,” Kealey said to Davis.
“And I you,” the man replied. “She didn’t say you were her partner.”
“Good,” Kealey said, grinning crookedly as he walked toward the man. “I need to talk to D.C. Now.”
They went inside, back to the conference room, where Logan shut the door and Davis gave Kealey his phone.
“Did you find something out?” Rayhan asked. She gave Kealey a bottle of water as Davis put in the call.
“I did,” he said. “The problem is going to get anyone to act on it.”

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