Traitor (9 page)

The dark and empty roads allowed perfect thinking time for Nick. His meticulous planning and preparation had finally come to fruition. The adrenaline was pumping through his body. Although just over a year, it felt so much longer since that fateful day in Afghanistan.

Memories had been triggered as he watched the scene unfold before him. Young children played carefree while their mothers prepared the evening meal, chatting and joking as they watched over the young ones. A few shouts echoed across the hillside as warnings were issued to keep the children away from harm.

All the time constant updates were being fed into Nick’s ear. His hilltop vantage point was one of many spread across the Kunar province, one of the main smuggling routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan. His job was to spot drugs leaving and munitions entering, and call in air strikes when necessary. Over the previous ten years, between his time in the Rangers, Delta Force and the Defense Clandestine Service, he had spent nearly six years in the region and had witnessed more than any man ever should. The sight of the children playing so innocently filled him with hope that one day it may finally be over.

With the sun hanging low in the sky and evening approaching, the families began to gather around a fire that had been prepared. It seemed a celebration was under way. The village was nothing more than a few ramshackle buildings built around a small communal area at its center. Nick watched the celebrations commence. They were for a wedding. His headset burst to life, his call sign was followed by a notification that a drone strike was inbound.

Nick requested the details of the strike. He was informed that information had come to light of a gathering of senior Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders at the village. After confirming the wedding that was taking place contained the villagers and that no visitors had arrived over the previous few days under his watch, he requested the strike be cancelled. The request was denied.

Nick broke cover and ran as fast as his legs would carry him across the rocky terrain. With literally seconds to spare, he cleared the village and saved the fifty innocents that would have been slaughtered. Caught in the blast, he suffered a concussion and woke up the following day in a camp surrounded by the fighters he had spent the last six years hunting.

Nick Geller couldn’t have been happier.

Carson held the door for Frankie as they arrived back at the NCTC. The activity level had increased above the already hectic pace from when they had left. Frankie headed straight for Turner’s office, Carson following close behind. Frankie’s meeting with the President had given her a newfound energy. The toxic feeling that had plagued her all day was brushed aside by the one man whose opinion truly counted.

Turner barely acknowledged their presence as he pored over a map with a group of agents.

“Did you get the black box?” asked Carson, looking at the large scale map of Northern France and Southern England.

“No,” said Turner, “but we think we may not need it. Lieutenant, can you explain?” he asked, turning his attention back to the map.

A fresh faced young man stood upright and turned to face Carson and Frankie. “It’s quite simple really, they couldn’t open the door at high altitude as they’d have to depressurize the cabin, killing everyone inside. Therefore, the only opportunity to leave the plane was at any point they dipped below the point at which the cabin pressure was equal or above that of their surroundings. The aircraft was a Gulfstream G650 which maintains cabin pressure at an altitude equivalent to between 2,850 feet and 4,850 feet, depending on the altitude of the plane. So for example, if they were flying at anything up to 41,000 feet, the cabin pressure inside the plane would be maintained at 2,850 feet which is very low. Most commercial planes have the pressure in the cabin at the equivalent of about 8,000 feet. The lower the pressure, the more comfortable the ride.”

“Okay,” nodded Frankie, following the logic.

“So we have tracked the plane’s route and the only point at which they flew below this level was as they approached Le Touquet.”

“Or just after takeoff?” suggested Carson.

“Well, yes, technically,” replied the Lieutenant awkwardly.

“But that makes no sense,” smiled Carson, patting the lieutenant on the back. “It’s good work, Lieutenant, very good work.”

“So what’s the area?” asked Carson, pushing into the group to get a clear view of the map.

Turner pointed towards a large oval drawn over the English Channel, stretching from twenty miles out to sea to three miles from the coast.

“We’re concentrating efforts at the last point before the F-15s had them in sight,” he said, pointing to three miles from shoreline. “From their reports, there was no way anything fell or left the aircraft once they were on scene. From that, we guess he could still be swimming ashore or already in this area,” he added, circling the area around Le Touquet. “We have the French covering this whole area and we’re sending every asset we can get our hands on to assist.”

“That seems like a very premature descent,” said Carson, tracking the oval out to the twenty miles off shore point.

“It’s exceptionally early,” confirmed the Lieutenant.

“Almost like it was planned?” suggested Carson.

Turner looked up from the map. “What, are you saying he jumped twenty miles from shore?”

“It’s one of the busiest waterways in the world with many large vessels that a competent parachutist could easily land on.”

Turner looked at the lieutenant. Up until Carson’s arrival, he had been his aviation specialist. The lieutenant nodded that it was possible. “It would explain the very early descent towards Le Touquet.”

Turner shook his head in despair. Every time he thought he was gaining some ground, it was lost. “We’re going to need a lot more resources,” he said, turning to Carson.

Carson nodded his head and took out his cell. He had contacts in the British and French navies that he knew would be more than happy to assist.

As the net expanded across the entire English Channel, Turner realized once again that Nick may have slipped through their fingers. “Frankie, are you okay to talk now?”

Frankie nodded.

Turner led her through to the adjacent room where a team of suited agents were working. The walls were covered in just about everything they knew of Nick Geller. Photos of his childhood were pinned to the wall next to photos of Nick with Frankie.

“Frankie, I know this isn’t going to be easy,” Turner said sincerely, “but we really need to know everything you know about Nick, no matter how insignificant.”

Frankie nodded again and took a seat. Turner introduced her to the six agents in the room, three from the FBI, two from CIA and one from DIA, a colleague of Nick’s that Frankie had previously met. She smiled at a friendly face who, like her, was shell-shocked at Nick’s betrayal.

Special Agent Sarah Reid kicked off proceedings. “Can you tell me what you know of Nick’s background and family?”

Frankie took a deep breath and a sip of water. “His parents were Jewish Americans having moved here from Tel Aviv just before Nick’s birth. Unfortunately, they both died when Nick was a teenager and he spent a few years in various foster homes before joining the forces as soon as he could.”

Agent Reid nodded her head as she ticked off the numerous points with the information she had before her.

“How did you meet Nick Geller?”

“Wait a minute,” said Flynn, the DIA agent who had been a colleague of Nick’s and whom Frankie had met previously. “As hard as this is for Frankie, I think it’s only fair that we bring her up to speed with what we know so far. It’s certainly helped me focus on catching him.”

“Like you needed an added incentive? He shot the President and blew up the White House!” said one of the CIA agents angrily. Interagency cooperation was alive and well.

“Don’t be an asshole, Barry, you know what I mean.”

“Okay guys, cut the bullshit,” intervened Turner, nodding for Special Agent Reid to continue.

“His parents weren’t Jewish. After a lot of digging, we discovered they were originally from Lebanon. It looks like they managed to escape the civil war and made their way into Israel and from there, came here to America. They were Shi’a Muslims.”

Frankie was shaking her head. “But he’s not Muslim, he talked about his Jewish heritage a lot.”

“All a sham,” Reid replied, producing some photos of a teenage Nick in a mosque with his parents. “We found these in a safety deposit box at his bank. When his parents died in an auto accident, he was cared for by three different foster families.”

Frankie nodded and another photo was set before her, a slightly older Nick with an Imam. Frankie recognized the Imam as a radical preacher that the US had spent years fighting to deport.

“His last foster parents were neighbors of the Imam,” said Reid.

“Jesus! They’ve been planning this all these years?” asked Frankie, trying to comprehend what it all meant.

“We don’t think so. We believe his parents began the pretense of being Jewish in order to gain entry more easily and once in the country, we can’t find anything to suggest that they were anything but hard working citizens. They attended and made donations to their local synagogue. They did secretly attend a mosque, but it has no history of radicalism. It was after their death that we think Nick may have turned to a more radical doctrine.”

Frankie sat with her mouth agape. If she had thought she couldn’t be any more surprised, she was wrong. Nick was the least religious guy she had ever met. As a Jew, he was terrible. His favorite sandwich was ham and cheese. She was constantly reminding him that he wasn’t supposed to eat pork. A radical Muslim? It just didn’t make sense, at least not on its own. But along with everything else that had taken place that day, it made perfect sense.

Nick followed the street cleaners and refuse collectors through the almost deserted streets of Paris. When he neared the Seine Saint Denis Departement, a large suburb to the northeast of Paris, the number of street cleaners and refuse collectors began to dwindle. This was the forgotten corner of Paris. The high-rise apartment blocks had been quickly erected in the 1970s to house the ever-growing immigrant population and were now falling into disrepair. The blocks secured the gentrification of the jewel in the French crown, central Paris, but left the immigrant communities on the outskirts of society. Crime and violence flared, as did the radicalization of youth.

Nick stopped the car and parked outside a large block of flats that loomed over the skyline. Graffiti besieged the ground floor while the upper stories would have benefitted from the paint afforded by the vandals. He reached into the glove compartment and, despite the darkness, opted to alter his hair and to wear spectacles. He combed in white powder that speckled his dark and youthful hair into that of a mature man with graying temples. The glasses added another five years. It was the simplest disguise but more than enough for the casual passerby to consider Nick a man in his forties rather than early thirties.

Reaching under his seat, he retrieved a Berretta M9 pistol. A few more weapons were secured in a locked box in the trunk but Nick opted for the subtle approach. The Berretta could be easily hidden and would give him the chance to gain entry without too much alarm being raised. He stepped out of the car and stuffed the Berretta into the back of his belt under his shirt, grabbed the metal briefcase, and approached the apartment block as the first rays of sunlight began to creep through the dark sky.

The entrance door hung on its hinges and its glass portions were replaced by graphitized plywood. The entrance lobby stank of stale urine and the elevator door sat unwelcomingly open. Nick looked at it briefly and went for the staircase. He opened the door to the staircase and began his climb to the tenth floor.

When he reached the fifth floor, he rounded the corner into a welcoming party. Three young men blocked his way to the higher floors. Obviously roused from their beds in a rush, one had no shoes or shirt on, while another’s hair stood on end. The third was yawning.

“Bonjour,” said Nick jovially.

“This building is private, fuck off,” replied the tousled hair youth in French.

“Not for me,” remarked Nick in Arabic, catching them all by surprise.

“For everybody,” insisted the tousled hair youth again in French, though with a little more respect.

“I have business with Mohammed Farsi.”

The shoeless youth stepped forward. “He does not have business with you.” He was the largest of the three and it was obvious why his shirt was left off. His muscle definition was impressive.

Nick made a point of looking at the youth’s naked feet, before looking up into his eyes. “He does, he just doesn’t know it yet. Tell him I come with a message from the Caliph,” ordered Nick with a menace in his voice that had the youth stepping back, particularly given Nick’s inordinate interest in his feet.

The yawner watched Nick closely for a moment, then turned and retreated back up the stairs. The two others waited awkwardly, watching Nick lean casually against the wall. His demeanor was such that they had no illusion this was not a man they should be very wary of. The yawner returned and nodded to his colleagues.