Authors: Mark Young
He glanced at her and then returned his gaze across the blue waters. “It is nice. Not like our little excursion to that little Iranian town in the middle of nowhere.”
Natanz, a small town in the center of that nation, was where Iran housed a large underground enrichment facility for their uranium centrifuge program. Shakeela had tagged Gerrit to assist in a recon of the facility for intelligence purposes. It was an arid land, far from any water. They barely made it out alive.
A paramilitary brigade of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard—which controls the country’s missile program security—must have been alerted by villagers who spotted Shakeela and him snooping around. The guard rolled out and began a house-to-house search, only to come up empty. An unwitting farmer gave them a ride out of town in the back of his run-down pickup truck, the bed filled with smelly sheep.
“I remember,” she said, softly. “Those sheep smelled awful.”
He glanced back at her, trying to put aside his memories of that operation. “We need to talk about yesterday. How those men knew about us.”
“How can I help?” Her tone telegraphed a warning.
“Either we were tagged and bugged, or someone in your organization passed that information before we even met you.”
She placed her cup on an end table and sat on a plaid fabric couch that faced the bank of windows. He sat next to her. Waiting for her reply, he studied her features. Shakeela’s Persian-Azeri ancestry gave her an alluring, almost exotic beauty. At one time, he felt intoxicated by her beauty. She never really grasped the effect her looks had on men. She was always focused on the moment, on the mission—just like now.
“I know we left on bad terms, Gerrit, but I would hope that you still trust my judgment.”
“I do, but look at the sequence of events yesterday. How do you explain it?”
Angrily, she snatched up her coffee cup, again cupping it in her hands. “I’ve been over it a hundred times. I could not get to sleep because this kept nagging me.”
“Just walk me through how you set this up. Who did you tell? Who had to okay this mission back at headquarters?”
She put her feet up on a low-lying coffee table and leaned back in the couch. “As you are aware, the 9/11 attacks caught the CIA off guard, scrambling to protect its position within the federal bureaucratic system. Trying to save their budget. The legislature gave up trying to hold the CIA accountable back in the sixties. After the furor raised from the arrests of CIA employees Aldrich Ames and Harold James Nicholson and the damage those two did to our overseas operations, the Agency began following a risk-aversion policy that significantly curtailed our operations—particularly those non-State Department officers like myself.”
Gerrit rubbed his cheek, feeling the stubble of his beard. “Non-State Department officers? What does that mean?”
She grimaced. “At one time, the CIA’s overseas operations were almost exclusively handled through CIA personnel operating under diplomatic immunity through the State Department. Their method of gathering intelligence meant rubbing shoulders with foreign personnel at cocktail parties, banquets, and social gatherings.”
“Gentlemen spies?”
“Exactly. More protection. Less risk. But we needed to get our case officers out in the field, developing human sources on foreign soil until we could start getting good, hands-on intelligence that might warn us of trouble—like 9/11. After that national tragedy, Congress wanted us to develop these kinds of sources and gave us billions of dollars to use toward that end.”
“So has our intelligence gathering improved?”
Shakeela shook her head. “At first, things seemed to get better. I was one of the few case officers stationed overseas outside the State Department, first in the Middle East and then other parts of the world. You could not believe the layers of management a case officer needs to cut through to get operational plans approved. Say I wanted to make telephone contact with a target from a rogue nation. I must write a memorandum of my intended telephone call—stating what I wanted to discuss—then get the green light from many layers of managers at my home station, including a layer of managers of the source country I might need to travel to in order to make contact with that target. If anyone in all those contacts gave me a thumbs-down, my operation would be killed before it started.”
“How does the CIA get anything done?”
“More important, how does the CIA give the president critical information in a timely manner when our country needs it most—like the conspiracy of 9/11 or whether Saddam Hussein really possessed weapons of mass destruction before we attacked?”
She continued, “There was some improvement. For example, that operation we became involved with in Iran—spying on their nuclear program—was almost unheard of before September 11. But as more time elapsed, the Agency began to regroup, its high-level managers and directors taking a deep breath when they realized that nothing really changed. Can you believe that only about 10 percent of CIA personnel operate on foreign soil?”
Gerrit stood, gritting his teeth. “Now I know how the word got out about us here in Dubai. It sounds like the entire CIA knew we were coming. I can only imagine the leaks.”
Shakeela grasped her cup. “It was supposed to change. My boss back at headquarters was directed to send me to Paris—a place that has been off-limits for CIA operations for ages—to recruit human sources who might be able to provide information specifically on Iran. I could travel anywhere I wanted, and I only needed to report to my boss. He kept those that needed to know in the loop. It was my sense that someone else was directing him, because it was out of character for my boss to take such a gutsy stand on a politically hot operation.”
“Who was that?” Gerrit asked. “Frank Collord?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of this guy, but maybe—”
“I can shed some light on Frank.” Joe entered the room as she was speaking. “I guess it’s time to lay it out for you guys.”
Gerrit was shocked at his uncle’s appearance. “Uncle, you look like—”
“I feel worse than I look, Gerrit.” As Joe eased himself into an arm chair near the sofa, his arm shook with the strain.
“We need to get you to a hospital. Now!”
The older man held up a hand. “First, I need to tell you what you need to know. And I’m sorry for the delay, but I had no choice. I was ordered to keep my mouth shut.”
“By whom? Frank Collord?”
“Actually, from the president.”
“Wait a minute, Joe. We’ve been doing these operations long before Chambers was sworn in. Where did he get that authority?”
“Actually, Chambers is a gutsy guy. As you know, he sat on the Foreign Intelligence Committee along with Senator Summers. Way before Kane assassinated Summers, Chambers became alarmed at the lack of intelligence they were working with, suspecting that Summers and others were trying to thwart the government. He reached out and contacted Collord, who was then assigned to DIA—the Defense Intelligence Agency. He persuaded Collord’s bosses to give him carte blanche with the understanding that if Chambers became president, they would be politically rewarded for going along.”
Gerrit snorted. “Sounds like bribery.”
“More like politics. And Chambers knows how to walk that fine line between legal and not-so-legal.”
“Okay, Collord was given a green light to do what…recruit us?”
Joe smiled. “He recruited your father and later…me.”
“More than seven years ago? And I am just learning about it now?”
Coughing, Joe leaned forward and gripped the arms of his chair. It took almost a minute for him to get his breathing under control. “It was very hush-hush, Gerrit. Your father wanted to bring you in on this, but he had to be sure you’d commit to it. And when you turned away and went to Iraq, well, that was that.”
“So where does that leave us?” Gerrit watched his uncle anxiously. The man looked sicker than he had last night. “Talk fast, because I’m getting you to a hospital soon.”
Joe turned to Shakeela. “What I am about to say also involves you. Frank has the power to pull anyone he chooses into his operation. He had chosen you for some time but had to wait until now to let you know about it.”
“Me?” Shakeela sat up straight. “What about the Agency?”
“Frank will take care of that. Right now, you, Gerrit, and Alena will be running point for us, with Jack Thompson in Israel and Beck Malloy in the States backing you up the best they can.”
Footsteps came down the hall. Alena, wearing a white robe, her wet hair wrapped up in a towel, entered the room.
Joe gave her a weak smile. “Ah, we’re all here. Good, it will save me some breath.”
As Alena walked forward, she removed the towel and began drying her hair. “What are we meeting about, Joe?”
“To discuss the future of our little group. Major world events may be about to happen that will affect every one of you. I need to make sure you understand what’s going on and answer any questions you all might have before we move forward.”
“And before we get you to a doctor,” Gerrit said.
Concern creased Alena’s face, and she knelt next to the older man. “You don’t look well, Joe.”
He patted her arm. “I’ll go get help soon. Promise.”
They gathered around him. Joe took another deep breath. “We need to find out what Syria, Iran, and Russia have planned in the next few weeks. Whatever you need, Frank will try to get it to you. We must be successful. So much depends upon what you learn.” Between coughs, Joe laid out what Israel and the United States knew might be ahead.
Gerrit listened to his uncle and realized just how much was at stake. For the first time in a long time, he wondered if they would be able to pull this off. He shuddered to think what might happen if they failed.
He focused on every word Joe uttered as he watched his uncle struggle for each breath.
February 27
Washington, D.C.
S
quatting in this cramped van and doing surveillance on the FBI seemed like a bad idea to Devon. Like waving a red cape in front of a bull, he felt like he might be inviting the beast to take a bite out of his rear end. Still, here he sat, peering through tinted windows at the FBI headquarters a few blocks away.
Once Devon had told Stuart Martin about the meeting with Beck Malloy and Frank Collord on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Martin ordered him to stay on Malloy until ordered off. The trail for Gerrit and the others went cold, and Devon had to redeem himself—quickly. Relying on video feed from cameras attached to the outside of the vehicle and occasional peeks through a periscope built into the van’s roof, did not provide him a very exciting life. He’d been living in this vehicle twenty-four/seven since that order came through.
His job had been made easier when one of their techies had slipped a powerful tracking chip into one of Malloy’s credit cards when the FBI agent bought a meal.
Martin swore he’d get back to him about Frank Collord, but so far the man had not fulfilled his promise. Tired of waiting, Devon used his contacts within the phone companies to get a trace on any calls Malloy made with his cell phone. Though his calls were encrypted, Devon’s people had been able to break that code with technology Martin’s people pioneered since their breakthrough in Operation Megiddo, a source-breaking program that had been developed through recent developments in nanotechnology coupled with quantum computers. He did not understand all the mumbo jumbo, but he did know that Martin’s people gave him really cool toys to work with. Like the ability to track and listen to Malloy’s calls.
This brought him to the surveillance right now. And to the medical difficulties Joe O’Rourke might be having in the Middle East. The old man should never have traveled to Miami. The moment Gerrit’s uncle disembarked from his plane, Devon had someone waiting. Unfortunately, they caught him leaving the airport, not arriving. Otherwise they would have caught Gerrit and Alena. It did not take much to put the old guy out of commission. And they would never suspect Devon.
Martin had warned him to keep his hands off Malloy right now. “The last thing I need is the FBI hounding us because we eliminated one of their agents. Just watch and report.”
Even though he wanted to take matters into his own hands, Devon obeyed the order. Malloy’s telephone conversation included a coordinated search to find Devon. He laughed at the agent’s ineptness, and the fact he was listening in on these conversations. He wanted to take it one step further, one fatal step further for Malloy—that would have to wait.
Okay, I’ll listen and watch until the time I can pull the trigger.
Devon’s people came up short in gaining access to Malloy’s text messages. They assured him they would be able to crack that soon. Among the calls he found interesting was a conversation to that African-American computer geek that kept hacking into their system. If he could get a fix on this Willy guy, Devon was sure Martin would give him the go-ahead to terminate that hacker’s life.
As far as he could tell, the others must have traveled overseas. The Marine colonel landed in Israel, but the man was very guarded as to what he might be up to. Gerrit and the others landed in some Middle Eastern country, and Martin was working on getting their locations. That was not part of his operation, so Devon had not been looped in. Plenty of targets to go around. And the money was so good.
Every time Martin did call, Devon felt a chill pass through him. His primary task was to locate and kill Gerrit, Joe O’Rourke, and the rest of the crew. So far, he’d failed Martin except for Joe, unless someone found out what they’d given the old man.
Too many more failures and Devon might be the next one riddled with bullets. One word from Martin, and any of Devon’s crew members would not hesitate to move in for a kill. Any one of them would love to take his place.
A vibration erupted in his coat pocket. He pulled out the cell phone and saw the coded call came from their tech support. “McAllister, here.”
“Sir, we just intercepted a call to your primary target from one of the secondary targets. Gerrit O’Rourke.”