Traitor (25 page)

“This isn’t going to work,” Flynn said, looking at the vast port area and the thousands of people swarming around them. “But I still think he’s heading east.”

“He’s probably already there,” sighed Reid.

“I’m not so sure. He’d know we had AWACS up as soon as we intercepted Al Zahrani. If I were him, I’d have gone to ground, literally.”

Reid wagged her finger excitedly. “And you had the same training as him!”

“Yes,” agreed Flynn without enthusiasm.

“So what would you have done?”

“I wouldn’t have come here, too obvious. I’d have picked a smaller port, still busy enough to lose myself if I needed to and board a vessel that wouldn’t look out of place making the crossing to Saudi Arabia or Yemen.

“I have no idea how far that is,” Reid admitted. “Is it a thousand miles or so? In which case it’d be a fairly big ship, no?”

Flynn shook his head. “No, it’s about 150 to 200 miles and no, it wouldn’t need to be that big a ship.”

“Oh, okay, so where to?”

Flynn hit the transmitter on his two-way radio and spoke into the small, discreet mic. “Guys, back to the airport,” he announced. Turning to Reid, he said, “I’ll know when we see the charts.”

Back on the Osprey, Flynn grabbed the charts and maps, his finger tracing up and down the coastline of Sudan and Eritrea to the south.

“There,” he said, his finger stopping on Suakin. “That’s where I’d go if I were being chased.”
Shit,
he thought. Why hadn’t he been thinking like that earlier?

“There’s no airport there though,” said Reid.

“We don’t need one,” he said, making a swirly helicopter motion with his hands.

He walked through to inform the pilot of their next destination, just forty miles to the south. With immediate clearance, they were on their way and landed at the main port in the mouth of the harbor less than fifteen minutes later. The local time was 6:37 a.m.

Nick heard the Osprey before he saw it. It was a noise you didn’t forget once you had heard it, especially when it had been your ride home from some hairy situations. He looked out of the freighter’s cabin and watched the propellers rotate to allow the oversized helicopter and small plane to land at the mouth of the harbor.

The door opened and the first of a squad of heavily armed men rushed out to take up defensive positions. With the Osprey’s mini-gun pointing into the narrow outlet, no ship was going to get past them without being searched. It was an impressive move and Nick, using the binoculars on the small bridge, recognized a kindred spirit. Flynn, an old colleague and excellent operative, stepped down from the Osprey. Nick watched as Flynn organized his men for a thorough search of the port area.

So near, yet so far
, thought Nick. They had cleared the narrow outlet into the main waterway five minutes earlier. As far as anyone looking now was concerned, the small freighter was just one of many, bobbing along, transporting wares around the area.

“That was close,” said Ibrahim, looking over Nick’s shoulder.

“A little too close and I was a little too obvious.” Nick chastised himself. His purpose was far too important to be ruined by not doing his best. Allah deserved his best, as did the old Caliph. He had promises to keep.

“Come in,” said the President without looking up, at Carson’s knock. He entered the President’s private study, which had most recently been the Lincoln Sitting room until the destruction of the West Wing.

“Mr. President,” replied Carson nervously.

“What’s happened?” asked President Mitchell, looking up immediately. Carson didn’t do nervous.

President Mitchell waved him to the chair in front of his desk impatiently.

Carson sat, then described in detail what had happened. The President sat emotionless while Carson talked. Carson wrapped up the update with the stitching of Al Zahrani’s wounds. The President remained speechless.

“She sliced off his balls?!” he asked after a minute, making sure it wasn’t a joke.

“And his penis, Mr. President,” clarified Carson.

The President nodded, pondering. “And we’re certain it was Al Zahrani that raped her as a young girl?”

“It appears so. There is a file on Al Zahrani in Mossad. A number of incidents have been compiled but no charges have ever been brought against him. Mossad thought they were in luck when he was made head of Al Qaeda. They were going to use it against him.”

“But we captured him almost as the announcement was made.”

“Yep and as you can imagine, they’re a little pissed that we didn’t consult with them. They think that with the leverage they had against Al Zahrani, we should have left him in place.”

“Well that’ll teach them not to hold out on us,” replied President Mitchell, equally pissed.

Carson nodded in agreement. “What do you want me to do with Frankie, sir?” he asked, moving on to the main purpose for his visit.

“Is she sorry she did it?”

“No, sir,” replied Carson. “Not at all.”

The President smiled. “That’s my girl,” he said proudly. “If he had raped my daughter, I’m not sure that I’d have stopped at the genitalia.”

“As much as I agree, it doesn’t eliminate the fact that he was a prisoner in our custody,” said Carson.

“Fuck it, throw him in Gitmo. Nobody will ever know. He’s not going to tell anyone a woman cut his dick off! Especially not when they find out he’s a pedophile.”

“Are you sure? If this ever gets out…”

“What?” asked the President with a smile.

“We’ll probably gain five points in the polls,” said Carson, understanding.

“I’d bet fifty bucks it would be nearer ten!”

“Sir, that’s the easiest fifty bucks you’d ever win from me. And Frankie?”

“Stays on the case,” insisted the President. “Did Geller know?”

“About the rape?” asked Carson. “I don’t know. But I can tell you it was more serious than we knew between them.”

“How serious?” Carson made an arc motion over his stomach.

“Jesus, Harry,” he said shaking his head. “Once this is all done, she can’t come back on the detail, you know that. She’s on the investigation because otherwise she’d be in an office pushing papers across a desk and she’s too damn fine an agent to do that. And you’re telling me she’s pregnant with his child?! What the fuck is Geller doing?”

Harry shook his head. “Mr. President, he didn’t know she was pregnant.”

“Do you think he would have done this if he had known?”

“Honestly, Mr. President, yes, I think he would have.”

Two lights flashed brightly on the shoreline lighting up the blackness of the horizon and another three followed shortly after, signaling all was well. Ibrahim and Nick thanked the freighter captain who, over the course of the day had ferried them across the Red Sea and boarded the small ribbed inflatable that had been launched for them. A short, fast run deposited them on the beach just south of the main Yemeni Red Sea port of Al Hudaydah. Nick stepped ashore and helped the unsteady Ibrahim from the inflatable, both nearly falling into the warm Red Sea waters as Ibrahim proved just how uncomfortable a seafarer he was. A mountain fighter, born and bred, Ibrahim was very happy to be reacquainted with dry land, kneeling down and kissing the sand beneath his feet.

The almost moonless sky offered little natural light but a further two flashes followed by one short flash guided them towards their welcome party who awaited them at the far end of the beach. Nick led the way as they approached the seemingly lone representative of the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda. Stepping forward to offer his greetings resulted in an expertly trained and well-maneuvered appearance of a further ten heavily armed and masked men. Unfortunately for Nick and Ibrahim, their weapons were raised against them.

Caught entirely unawares, Nick and Ibrahim had little option but to surrender, such was the precision and professionalism of the move. Nick’s heart fell. The US or the Israelis must have intercepted their landings and hijacked the situation to catch him.

The sack over their heads and binding on their hands, all done in total silence by their captors, certainly enforced that belief. The subsequent marching towards a group of vehicles and the careful guidance into the back seats of separate vehicles gave Nick some hope. Had it been Americans, he most certainly would have not been treated with such care after shooting the President and killing the Vice President. And if it had been the Israelis, he’d have more likely been bundled into the boot, probably breaking a few ribs in the process.

Nick tried to engage in conversation with his captors to no avail. During what Nick guessed to be around a two-hour drive, not one word was uttered from any of the four men accompanying him in the vehicle. By the time they arrived at their destination, Nick was no further forward in understanding who had captured them. However, the level of professionalism of his immediate watchers was once again leaning his guess towards a government of a yet to be determined country. Of course, given Nick’s position, there were very few countries that would be friendly to his cause and he had already ruled out the most likely of those. All of their captors stood at least six feet tall, blowing every statistic out of the water for the vertically challenged North Koreans who, on average, stood at five and a half feet.

A metal shutter clattered behind them when the vehicle doors opened. Nick listened intently for any clues as to their location. Beyond the metal doors, he heard busy street noises. If he were correct and it had been a two-hour drive, that would mean it was 5 a.m. local time and he guessed he was hearing the morning street traders preparing for business in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. However, there was always the chance they had driven him around aimlessly for two hours and they had actually stayed in Al Hudaydah and he was hearing the busy port area. Whatever the case, wherever he was, it wasn’t good.

Led once again carefully through a number of doorways and corridors, Nick was guided into a chair. A door then closed behind him, leaving Nick alone with his thoughts. Worryingly, a TV was playing in the corner, tuned to the English language version of CNN. Nick feared the worst. He had failed.

Seconds became minutes, which became hours. The TV kept him up to date with current headlines from across the world. Despite being the CNN worldwide edition, it seemed that little else was happening other than Nick’s exploits and the impact they were having on the United States which, in short, was devastating. Panic buying had led to major shortages across the country while air travel had plummeted to post 9/11 levels. Hospitals were inundated with people convinced they were suffering from the Ebola virus.

Nick smiled beneath his hood as he listened to the impact of his videos and actions, exactly as they had predicted and planned.

Almost on cue, the door opened and Nick’s hood was removed. The brightness of the room pained his eyes but they soon focused on the masked man who sat across from him.

“Nick Geller?” the masked man asked rhetorically. His accent was English, upper class English. The Secret Intelligence Service, Britain’s CIA, employed more than its fair share of well groomed gentlemen, many having been recruited from the two premier British universities, Oxford and Cambridge.

Nick stared more closely at his captor. The eyes were brown, Arab brown. Those same Universities educated many of the oil rich Arabs. Nick put his feelings of despair on hold. All may not be lost.

He nodded his head in acknowledgement of his name.

“You have made quite an impact in your few days on the run, haven’t you?”

Nick stayed silent.

“But it can’t be ignored that we lost our leader in that time,” said the man pointedly.

Nick thanked Allah. He was in the hands of friends. He just had to prove to them he was a friend.

“My brother, you have me at a disadvantage. You know me but I do not know you,” said Nick, his tone friendly and warm.

“And nor will you until I know you are trustworthy,” came the reply. “Bring them in!” he shouted.

The door opened and two men were brought into the room, both dressed in full length black gowns. They were also hooded and appeared to be struggling against the bindings holding their hands behind their backs. Another masked man joined them holding a video camera.

“Start recording,” instructed the well-spoken terrorist.

A small red light began to blink on the camera.

“Mr. Geller, before you are two men. One is the man you arrived with, a man you claim as a brother, Ibrahim. The other is an American, a member of staff from the American embassy who we kidnapped earlier this morning. You don’t know which is which.”

The man laid a pistol down on the table and stood up, walking slowly around Nick until he stood behind him. He then produced a knife and cut off his bindings, freeing Nick’s hands.

Nick wrung his hands briefly to regain the blood flow and then snapped forward, catching his captors off guard with his speed and retrieving the pistol. Feeling for the safety, he ensured it was off and then pointed the pistol at the hooded men, shooting them both cleanly through the head. Both fell to the ground as Nick replaced the pistol on the table in front of his captors, engaging the safety in the process.