Sudden Deception (A Jill Oliver Thriller) (23 page)

“What? What do you mean they came and took the schematic?” Jill said to Karine. Jill sat in the food court watching Leila saunter towards her with a tray of subs.

“Yeah, when I got to the office this morning they had confiscated my computer,” Karine said with an annoyed edge to her voice. “They grilled me too. But I didn't know what was on the drawing. I told them … do I look like I can read Russian?”

“Are you sure it was Russian, Karine? Could it have been Chechen?”

“Ah, I, ah dunno. I suppose. The clerk just said it looked like Russian. So I assumed it was. Aren't they the same anyways?”

“Chechen is a form of Russian, but it has its own dialect. If I remember correctly I think Chechen was a form of Arabic. Before Russian authorities attempted to ban it, that is,” Jill recalled.

“I'd call the translation department for you and ask, but they were grilled harder than me. I think they'd give me a no comment kind of a gesture, if you know what I mean. Did Eric reach you, Jill? He called to tell me that he couldn't get through. I tried you too and nothing. The phone just went to some lady speaking Arabic I think.”

Jill told Karine about the phone but left out the part about being chased by the Chechens. She gave her a new number and hung up.

“What is it?” Leila asked, noting Jill’s frown.

Jill told Leila what had happened to Karine at the office.

“The CIA, what the …? She’s sure it was CIA?” Leila said, puzzled. She placed the tray of subs onto the shaky metal table and sat down. They were silently thinking until Leila asked, “Can you remember anything about that schematic?”

Jill thought for a moment and then Leila flipped over a napkin and clicked on a pen.

“I can't remote view here, Leila.” Jill felt utterly defeated.

“I know that. Just see if you can remember anything. You’re not a grandma. You still have a memory, don't ya?” Leila teased with a half-smile.

Jill feigned a chuckle and grabbed the pen. “Funny, ha ha.” Her left index finger pressed the napkin to the table as she drew. “Well, it had a large box that took up most of the page and then inside,” Jill ripped a bit of the napkin when she pressed a little too hard, “inside were smaller squares like this. They were all the same size,” Jill described as she drew the even smaller boxes. When she finished outlining the boxes she said, “There were lines, maybe arrows like this.” Jill dragged the pen drawing several lines from the small boxes to outside the large boxes and then printed X X X. “These were the words in Russian or maybe Chechen.” She finished putting the three Xs at the end of each arrow outside the large box.

They sat for a moment both looking at what Jill had just drawn before Leila piped up. “Do you see what I see?”

Jill looked up at Leila then back down to the drawing. “A bunch of boxes with lines leading to words.” Jill sighed.

Leila huffed. “Look again, Jill. It looks like some sort of site plan.” She pointed to the large square. “See, this looks like a compound of sorts, and here,” Leila then touched the small squares, “this looks like buildings inside the compound. The words could be the name of the buildings or perhaps people’s names.”

Jill stared at the napkin. “Maybe…”

Something gave Jill a shiver. She scanned the food court. A man sat eating his food with his hand, staring at them before licking rice off his fingers one by one. He seemed harmless enough. Then Jill looked to her left. The food court was packed with an eclectic melting pot of nationalities. Jill snatched the napkin, and the chair scraped across the floor as Jill said pointedly, “Let’s go,” and walked towards the food court exit. Leila grabbed the subs and scrambled after her.

“What’s the rush? We didn't even eat,” Leila said with hurried breaths. They briskly walked through the glamorous mall past branded stores. Past Louis Vuitton, past Monte Blanc, past Paris Gallery and out of the mall doors. Outside was a long line of patrons, most carrying large paper shopping bags, waiting in a taxi line.

As Leila and Jill stood at the end of the line, Jill did her scans.

Three o'clock. Three Arab teenagers dressed in dishdashas laughed loudly as they played on their mobiles.

Six o'clock. A lady in a bright green hijab bounced a crying baby in her arms, shushing it.

Nine o'clock. A white couple, that looked to be at retirement age, slid into the taxi before them.

Leila watched Jill. “You're being paranoid.”

Jill glared at Leila before hailing a cab. She stepped into the backseat of a bright pink taxi, the female driver of which matched her vehicle, in head-to-toe pink. The pudge of her cheeks pressed against the pink hijab. The music was blasting Bollywood. She punched on the meter, then turned down the music.

Jill commanded, “The Address Hotel,” without so much as a please.

“Music okay?” the driver asked. Jill just nodded.

The sounds of Bollywood again streamed throughout the vehicle, and Jill's brow furrowed as she looked at Leila. “Look, Leila, I've been chased halfway around the Goddamn earth, been shot at, beat up.” Jill attempted to grab her damp clothes and then held up the crumpled napkin still in her hand. “And now the CIA goes AWOL with this drawing and you think I'm being paranoid.” Jill leaned back into the seat.

“I guess you have a point.” Then she grinned inconsolably and threw a sub onto Jill's lap. “Eat!”

It was hard to concentrate on eating, what with the crazy lady taxi driver weaving hard in and out of traffic. At one point Jill considered banging her on the back of the head with her sub when she drove onto the shoulder, too busy texting on her mobile phone.

Jill scarfed down the last bite of her sub when her new mobile rang. Eric’s voice had to bellow to get above the loud music. After a few minutes of discussion about what Karine had told him about Stan, Eric said, “You sure about this, Jill? ‘Cause if I make the call to the Central Intelligence Department of the UAE, there’s no turning back. They will apprehend him. It’s not a free society there, Jill. There’s no freedom of speech or rights there. They don’t need to justify pulling him in, or even if he disappeared. There are no human rights laws there.”

“I know, Eric, but I can’t worry about that right now. If something happened that harmed a lot of people then … I am looking at this as if I am working on a case. I’m trusting my instincts,” Jill yelled back.

“We’ve verified most of the Intel you gave Karine. It seems Stan Brown has been on a low priority watch list for some time now. They suspect him of money laundering. Nothing more, Jill. I'll have to move this up the chain of command before contacting the CID there.”

“My own father-in-law, how ironic is that.”

“There’ll be an extra investigation because of that, Jill,” Eric warned.

“I expected that.”

Beside Jill, Leila silently watched and listened to the one-sided conversation and then mouthed the word D-A-V-I-D.

“Have you heard anything more about David?” Jill's body lurched to the left from a too-fast approach at a large roundabout. “According to Johan he is here in Dubai, has been for a few days now.” Jill gushed hope. “There’s more, Eric.” Jill thought of Zayed and what he had told her. “Stan's plan may have something to do with control of a pipeline in Grozny, Chechnya. It's a long story and you can probably tell I'm not in the best place to discuss this right now. Did Karine tell you about the confiscation of that schematic I found?”

“Yeah, I'm going to have to pull a few favors to get to the bottom of that, Jill. You know the drill.”

Sure enough Jill remembered the politics, but couldn't these two agencies put their testosterone aside and cooperate for once?

“Jill, I'll put in my report, but I think you should try contacting the US CIA department in Dubai. It's the largest in the Middle East. They operate out of the US Embassy there. Just in case something goes haywire with the CID. I'll put you in touch with someone I can vet. Stand by.” Eric put Jill on hold.

“What?” Leila said as she lifted her hands palms up in the air before grabbing the handle to steady herself. “Bitch!” The driver merrily pressed on and off the gas pedal with music blaring, unaware of the complaints in the back.

“Okay, his name is Frank Wells,” Eric said, returning to the line. “He’ll be waiting for your call. But Jill, they are going to want the facts. I'll send him a brief about your background and your remote viewings so he doesn't throw you out on your ass. I'm not sure they'll take this seriously. Your viewings were done independently and were not part of any official viewing group. There's a high probability that they are inaccurate. Remote viewing must be done in a group; you know that, Jill.” He gave Jill the number for Frank Wells and they hung up.

Jill sensed that Frank was her last chance.

The US Embassy in Dubai looked brand new. Jill and Leila paid the taxi driver and scrambled out of the car. “You shouldn't have given that crazy bitch a dime,” Leila scolded. They brushed themselves off, shaken the sand out of their hair. They stood in front of the three-story marble building. Several white floodlights lit up the sides of the beige structure. A security hut sat in front of the doors, and a chiseled, no-nonsense guard asked them what they were there for.

“We're here to meet with Frank Wells.” Jill said before he buzzed them in.

More security guards manned the embassy anteroom —it looked like one you would find at an airport. “Passports and mobile phones,” the Filipino guard was curt. They obliged by placing their mobiles and passports in the tray before walking through the metal detector. The guard locked their stuff into one of the several dozen small compartments on the wall, and handed Jill the key.

“Frank Wells,” Jill said to the receptionist through a slot in the bulletproof glass. “He's expecting us.” They signed in, were buzzed through a door, and had to wait several seconds for it to close before a second door opened into the embassy offices. A casually dressed woman, whose glasses slid up and down her nose greeted them crisply, “Please follow me, Miss Oliver.”

She led them though a series of corridors, and finally into a large office with floor-to-ceiling windows covered with metal blinds; it was brightly lit by florescent lights.

A youngish-looking man with red hair sat at one end of the table. He was dressed in blue jeans and a green golf shirt that that sported an alligator logo stitched over the top left breast.

“I'm Frank.” He stood, reached out to shake their hands, and gestured for them to have a seat before offering them a glass of water from the jug sweating on the table. He sat down again, glanced at his laptop, then looked back up at Jill.

“Thanks for meeting us so late Frank,” Jill offered.

“I just got back from the airport and was wrapping up a rather long report when I heard from Eric. I read the brief he sent me about you, Jill.” He smiled genuinely. “So you're a remote viewer. I've heard of this type of intelligence. Actually, to be honest, I've read quite a lot about it. Ever heard of Ewin Sands?”

Jill nodded. “Yeah, he's a pioneer in the field of RV.”

“I thought they called it virtual viewing now?” Frank replied. Jill shrugged. “Eric says you're in Dubai because of information GSG gave you. Is that right?”

“Yeah, David and Stan Brown,” Leila piped in.

“David is my husband.” Jill said, then recounted the highlights of her search for David. Including her misadventures in Afghanistan, the Chechens that were chasing her, and what Zayed had told them about Grozny. Jill watched Frank for a reaction or hint of what he might be thinking. He was clearly listening, but his relaxed body language reflected mild disinterest until Jill said, “I think all of this is somehow tied to Operation Silhouette and Ochrana, but I haven't been able to connect the dots yet.”

“What did you say?” Wells sat a little more upright, and seemed to stiffen a bit.

Leila repeated the words back to him. His eyes shifted to her for a split second. “Sorel,” he said, looking back at his computer screen. “Leila Sorel.” He tapped on the computer keys and without looking at them said, “Where did you ladies hear these terms?”

Jill waited for him to make eye contact before she said, “In one of my remote viewing.”

Frank leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “What exactly was in the viewing?” This seemed more of a demand than a question.

“Well, in my first viewing I saw what seemed to be a group of men meeting in secret for some reason. They were discussing controlling the Russian oil. And after what Zayed told us, it makes sense that it might have something to do with Grozny. In my second viewing there was a man, who I believe may be Stan Brown, buying uranium from a guy who looked very much like named Petrovich.”

“We believe they're going to use Operation Silhouette as a ploy,” Leila added. “You do know what Operation Silhouette is, right, Frank?”

Wells gave her a sharp look and circled his hand for her to continue. “Go on.”

“We think Operation Silhouette and Ochrana are related, and we think Stan Brown now has the uranium in his possession. Well, maybe not on him personally. That would be unlikely I think,” Jill finished and waited to see Well's reaction.

He said nothing, just stared at them blankly. He was thinking, but Jill couldn't figure out by his body language exactly what. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled napkin. “We think whatever is going on has to do with this.” She flattened the napkin on the dark wood table.

It only took a nanosecond for a wave recognition to race across his face. “Where'd you get this?” Wells sat up a little too fast.

“When I was in Kushka, Afghanistan. I found a schematic like this. It was in Russian or Chechen maybe, and it was in the process of being translated in my office back in Tucson.”

“That’s before your goons showed up and confiscated it,”. Leila said snidely.

“My goons?” Wells parroted.

“As in CIA,” Leila answered. “They took the schematic before Jill could have it translated.”

“I see. Was this schematic the only one you found? Were there others?” His red sideburns moved as he ground his jaw.

“Why would the CIA confiscate the schematic Jill found?” Leila demanded softly.

“Well, Miss Sorel, based on your security level, I'll give you two words: It's classified.”

Leila glared at him. He ignored her.

He looked back at the screen and then to Jill. “And as for Stan Brown, Miss Oliver, I highly doubt this story of yours is accurate.”

Leila jumped up, “Come on, Jill, this asshole is wasting our time.”

“Now, now, Miss Sorel,” Wells was smug. “In Dubai you can be arrested for insulting behavior.” Leila turned around flipped him the bird and stormed out the door. Jill picked up the napkin from the table, stuffed it back in her pocket and followed her.

“That guys a jerk-off,” Leila huffed minutes later as the taxi they were in swerved around a roundabout. Jill kept her mouth shut. She was too deep in thought to worry about Wells. He didn't believe Jill's theory either. First GSG, then Eric, and now this guy. Who was she kidding? Maybe she was off on her viewings. After all, they had been her first since McGregor. How accurate could they actually be? Jill began more than ever to second guess her gift. Second guess herself. Maybe she did interject her thoughts and feelings into what she viewed. She had gotten the Burj Khalifa building right, but who wouldn't think of the world’s tallest tower when they were going to Dubai? For a moment Jill felt stupid.

She reached into her pant leg pocket and pulled out a scrap of saturated paper. “What are you doing, Jill?” Leila queried.

Jill squinted at the note, found the number and punched the keypad of her mobile. “Hello Nasser? This is Jill Oliver. Johan Rhein from GSG gave me your number. He said you could help me. Can we meet?” There was a pause. “When?” Another pause. “Okay,” and Jill closed the phone. She aimed her next words at the taxi driver, “Take us to Madinat Jumeriah.”

“Where are we going now, Jill? Haven't you had enough for one night, for one week? No one believes us. Hell, I'm starting to wonder if I even believe us,” Leila eyes glossed over, as she gazed out the window.

“It's the IB that Johan gave us, remember? We have to at least try.” But Jill was starting to feel the same hopelessness.

Leila tilted her head back and yawned. “Better not be any Chechens, or I'm going to kick your ass this time.”

The city seemed busier than it had been earlier, like a Middle East Vegas, it was more alive at night. Café-lined streets seethed a hodgepodge of colorful hordes.

Madinat Jumeriah stood rock solid and imposing like an old Arabian fortress. Huge, thick, sand-colored walls with timber-like dowels protruding from the rooftop protected a labyrinth of shops, restaurants and bars within. A couple laughed as they stumbled out the front door of the high-end marketplace as Leila and Jill walked in.

“Wow, impressive.” Leila whistled. The inner souk boasted high ceilings supported by massive darkly stained wooden beams. Little shops littered the sides of its maze of walkways. The heady smell of Arabic perfune mixed with incense wafted in the air. It was as if Jill and Leila were walking in an old Arabian market—but inside instead of out.

“Where are we meeting this guy? And how will we recognize him?”

“He said he'd be in an outdoor courtyard on the water canal, smoking shisha under a pergola. And Leila, follow my lead. I'm not going to ask him to find Stan at this point. All I care about is finding David.”

“Good call, girlfriend,” Leila agreed. “And Jill, even if your viewings were accurate, I don't think anything can be blown up that fast. These things take time. Find David and then save the world. In that order!”

Jill marveled at how Leila could think so nonchalantly about nuclear devices detonating. But what did she expect Leila didn't know what Jill knew.

Jill scanned the surroundings. But what was she looking for? The Chechens were not here. There was no way they were followed. But Leila was right. She was paranoid and there was something about meeting this guy that felt seedy.

They walked along the canals full of people partying. The turquoise water reflected glowing lanterns, and small boat taxis ferried passengers to the dock. The canal was lined with restaurants and bars. People everywhere. Music thrummed and competed with laughter. There were people everywhere. Jill and Leila threaded their way through the milling crowds, and eventually reached the pergola, which was about twenty-five feet in diameter. A young couple quietly chatted on the left side of the structure.

To the right sat a well-dressed man in a shimmering gray suit. His long hair and flounced onto his shoulders. He was definitely an Arab. Jill profiled him as Leila inhaled sharply and whispered, “Man candy.”

Jill gave her a sidelong glance as they approached the low cushioned seats. “Nasser?” Jill said.

He sucked on the tip of the bong's coiled hose, causing the water therein to bubble and gurgle, then puffed out a ball of smoke and replied, “Miss Oliver, come, please sit down. “Shisha? It's apple,” and he offered her the tip of the hose.

“No thanks,” Jill politely refused, trying not to snub him.

“After you called, I spoke to Johan. He vetted you. But what he said about Miss Leila does not do you justice,” he said as he moistened his lips and looked appreciatively at Leila before returning his gaze to Jill. “How can I help you? Johan said you were looking for your husband. Is this what you need my help with?”

Jill nodded. “Yes, Johan said he had intel that David was in Dubai. We need your help to find him. His name is David Brown and he's a journalist. I don't have a picture of him. Sorry.”

Nasser sucked another hit then answered, “In my business we don't need pictures. All I need is cash. Dubai is rampant with spies, with contractors, with all sorts of people who are willing to help in such matters. But everyone wants a piece of the pie.”

“How much?” Jill had expected his answer and counted out the five thousand from her money belt that Nasser had requested as a down payment.

“You'll bring the other half when I give you his whereabouts.” His voice slick.

“How long will it take you?” she asked. Leila was looking at him so intensely she was on the verge of gawking. Jill nudged her foot to break the spell.

“I'll call you when I find him. Don't worry, Miss Oliver. If he's in Dubai it won't take me long,” he promised.