THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Mohammed did not rest at all. He was too excited. He did squat thrusts to prepare himself for his mission, he prayed, and he spoke to his mother as though she were in the room.
All the while, still lashed to its dolly, the trunk made its presence felt. It was like he imagined the burning light of God or the Prophet Himself would feel.
He listened for sounds of activity, heard nothing that suggested anyone was coming to get him, and soon found himself growing restless. He knew he should not; he knew he needed to relax. But he wanted to be about this business. More than the revenge he so recently sought, Mohammed wanted to be the emissary of He for whom he was named.
And then the door opened. Someone entered whom Mohammed had not seen. By his dress, he was a member of the ship’s crew.
“We are going to take you and your trunk on deck,” the man said.
“Is Yousef there?”
“The man who brought you?”
“Yes.”
“He has gone,” the sailor told him. “We will get you safely to your aircraft.”
Making sure he had the cell phones that Professor Boulif had given him, Mohammed went along as two more men took him and the trunk back to the elevator and onto the deck.
Mohammed felt special. He felt rich in spirit. He could not stop smiling and watching the railing at the side of the ship, looking for the seaplane.
Soon it arrived. It was about twenty meters long with a wingspan of roughly thirty meters. It was a pale blue-green with ivory-colored wings. It rested on a pair of fat torpedo-shaped flotation devices. A crane-mounted block and tackle with a sling affixed to the inside of the aircraft was being extended through the open hatch under the wide wing.
Mohammed’s trunk was removed from the dolly and placed in a flexible steel harness at the side of the ship. As it was hoisted up and over the rail, the Yemeni looked over the side. There was a sturdy and spacious pontoon boat waiting below.
“You and your trunk will be escorted to the amphibious aircraft,” the sailor told him. “You will be airborne in less than a half hour.”
In his eagerness Mohammed started to ask him where the aircraft was headed. Then he remembered Yousef said that only the crew on the aircraft would know. And probably it would be known only to the pilot.
The seamen worked swiftly and very, very competently. Once the trunk was off-loaded Mohammed climbed a ladder to the boat. It sped the short distance to the aircraft. The plane, named the
Murghen—
Coral
—
was a beautiful sight and fitting: the wrath of God
should
come from above. He watched on the rocking boat as the trunk was carefully raised and pulled inside the cabin. When that was done, the pulley system was swung back inside and a gangplank was lowered for Mohammad. He ascended slowly, gripping the rubber-topped rails, since it upset his balance to be going one way and then another way as the boat and aircraft rose and fell in different ways.
He entered the sparse cabin, where the copilot was securing the trunk inside a closet. To his right, the pilot sat in a cockpit illuminated with an array of green, blue, and red dials. When he was finished, the copilot withdrew the gangplank and secured the door. The pilot began to rev the two nine-cylinder radial engines.
“Welcome,” the copilot said with a professional smile. He was a square-jawed man with a close-cropped beard. His uniform was khaki with the logo of an oil company on the breast pocket and hat. He pointed toward the only seat. “Sit where you like. The other seats were removed to give us added range. If you are hungry or thirsty, there is a small food locker in the corner.”
Mohammed thanked him and walked toward the plush leather chair. Even with screws on the floor where tables and other amenities had been, the seaplane seemed very luxurious. The sound of the engines was not as loud as he expected as they turned from the ship and taxied along the open sea. The pressure pushed him back in the seat. This was only his second time in an airplane—the first was following that accursed Iranian killer—but he was prepared for the pressure and exhilaration of takeoff. Within moments the sound changed—the slapping of the sea vanished and the aircraft tilted into the darkness.
He wondered if the other men knew what they were setting out to do. He wondered if they were expected to remain with him. He did not see how they could get away from what was going to happen.
But that is not your problem
, he thought.
He checked the phones again, then thought of Professor Boulif and all the others who had brought him here. Mohammed was asleep before the seaplane had reached its service ceiling of 21,000 feet.
CHAPTER 21
TANGIER, MOROCCO
E
ven as the white light enveloped her, even as a batting noise overpowered the hard lapping sound of the waves and grew nearer, Rayhan kept moving. She was loping now, shifting quickly from leg to leg as each threatened to give out. Once they did and she sprawled on her chest, only to scamper to her feet, push off the sands like an Olympian, and keep on running. The lights ahead of her didn’t seem to be getting nearer but through it all there was just one thought in her mind: Get to them. Get help.
The light kept getting lower, spreading her shadow longer and longer before her. Finally, when her silhouette stretched so far ahead of her the top was lost in darkness, the light stopped moving. Rayhan was wheezing, stumbling now, and when she fell again she did not get up. She writhed forward, clawing, but could not escape the powerful fingers that gripped her shoulders from both sides and picked her up.
“I’m sorry,” she said, remembering not to say Kealey’s name aloud. “I failed—”
She heard a distinctive Arab dialect in her ear. It was not the Farsi of her captors but the distinctive inflection of Moroccans.
“Are you the American? From Washington?”
“I am American,” she answered. She thought about not answering the question fully then realized that if these men knew that much they were probably looking for her. “Yes, I am from Washington.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes—now.”
“There is a man—”
“Taken,” she said. “He was taken.”
Two men conversed quietly, then lifted her firmly but carefully and carried her back the way she had come. She was thinking how unexpected that was even as she was turned toward the light and loaded into the police helicopter. She lay awkwardly stuffed across the two backseats, her legs across the man’s lap.
“Your embassy has been looking for you,” one of the men said as the helicopter took off.
“Embassy,” Rayhan said. She stared at the man who was wearing a charcoal-colored uniform. Police, it looked like.
“Yes, in Rabat,” the man said. He put a blanket around her. “Do you know where you are?”
“Tangier,” she replied.
“That’s right,” the man said.
Rayhan pulled the edge of the blanket tighter around her chest. She felt a plastic bottle against her lips. She drank quickly, not caring how much she spilled. Washing the dank taste from her mouth was like a tonic to her.
“You were reported missing from the airport. You must be important. We are looking for terrorists, but your ambassador insisted you must be found. You and another man.”
Rayhan became more alert. “They took him,” she said. “We need to find them.”
“Who are they? Where are they?”
“In a canvas-backed truck,” she said. She did not provide the only name she knew. That would be considered confidential. “The other side of the wetlands . . . a dirt road. They chased me but I escaped.”
There was more conversation. She gathered they were deciding whether to get her to a hospital or pursue the truck.
“The truck,” she insisted. She threw off the blanket and tried to sit. She ended up slanting with her shoulder against the door. She was still wet and shivering from the air-conditioning in the helicopter, but she shrugged off the man’s efforts to help her. “Go after the truck! You don’t want to lose them!”
The pilot got on the radio. Rayhan squirmed erect. She could not hear anything because he was wearing headphones. She took the water bottle from her companion and poured it on her face.
“The men who have my—my friend knows who is behind this,” she said. “You must get them before they escape.”
The pilot had evidently received the same orders, because after nodding he swung the helicopter around and set off in the direction he had come. The interior light was switched off and Rayhan placed her face to the window, blocking the lights of the control panel with her hand. She looked back past the marsh, which was far narrower than it had seemed when she was in the middle of it. The helicopter went lower when it reached the dirt road.
“This is a construction road for the expansion of the Tangier-Med facility,” the man beside her said, yelling to be heard over the powerful rotor. Her eyes scooted ahead. Those were the other lights she saw: a massive city within a city, a complex of industrial structures, residential buildings, offices, ports, and various support facilities.
She did not have to say what was on everyone’s mind. If they were in there, it would be difficult to find them—and practically impossible to find them in time for the information to be of use.
The helicopter went lower, and the pilot spotted tracks that could have belonged to any vehicle that had passed that day—and then swung over the truck so fast they passed right by. It was dark and parked by the side of the road just outside the complex. The pilot had to swing back to take another look at it. He directed the spotlight at the vehicle and made a hand gesture over the seat.
“He says it looks abandoned and I agree,” the man beside Rayhan said.
They landed behind the truck, shined the light around it again, then finally got out. The officer told Rayhan to stay in the helicopter.
Handguns drawn, the two men approached on either side of the truck. They checked the back first, found it empty, then went to the cabin. Rayhan’s spirits had spiked when they saw the truck; now they plummeted. She looked just ahead of it at the enormous white structure at the end of a long, beautifully tiled courtyard. The building looked like a squared-off sports arena. There were other structures around it, along with parking lots and construction equipment; she began to wonder if all of Morocco was being renovated. As one of the few strongholds of capitalism and tourism on the continent, that was probably the case.
But why wouldn’t they have driven in?
she wondered. She looked behind her, at the older streets.
Because they didn’t go in here
.
They only wanted us to think they did. They didn’t want to be seen on the security cameras.
They went somewhere else
.
She pushed at the door on her side. It took several shoves with her shoulder but she managed to open it and half fell with it. She hung on to the handle and looked into the dark. There were a few people standing ahead—they were not Yazdi and his men. They looked like locals who were probably wondering what a helicopter was doing just outside their community. Beyond them she could dimly see lights outside a café and a small inn. She shucked off the blanket and started to walk forward. It occurred to Rayhan that if she found Yazdi and his people they would also find her. But she didn’t think they would go after her—not with the police a few steps away.
She took a few more steps. They were slow, sluggish. She was angry that she was so drained. As she shuffled forward she heard the crunch of feet on the dirt road behind her. Hands grabbed her and she started, but it was only the police officer who had given her the blanket and water.
“That way,” she said.
“I know,” the officer said. “My partner is calling for a cordon. We’ll find them.”
That was the last thing she heard as her head grew light and her legs gave out and she fell into his arms.
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
Clarke slammed down the phone, cracking the receiver, and then screamed out his office door, “I want it fixed and I want to know
who did it
!” He didn’t care about the phone or his aides’ hurt feelings. The affected intelligence systems were down and coming back very slowly. But more important, judging by the time stamps on incoming images, it hit the DNI first and spread. This whole damn thing was an inside job by someone in his division.
The ramifications loomed large. Someone had shut them down while they were trying to find a missing nuke. He had no idea how many other people might be working against them—people who did not mind risking a slow death if a bomb was detonated in Washington just eight miles away.
Personal phones were not affected and security cameras were not impacted, but Clarke felt that anyone who was smart enough to do this wouldn’t be stupid enough to walk out when it happened. He or she was probably part of the team working to get the backup units online. And possibly sabotaging those as well. The system backed itself up constantly, so the only loss of data would be anything that came in from the time it went down to the time it came back up.
Which was probably the point.
The Navy was arranging eyes on the Atlantic, but that meant hundreds of aircraft, hundreds more seagoing vessels, and the ability to process the incoming data.
They wanted to poke a stick in our eye
.
In addition to that, still no one could raise Ryan Kealey or Rayhan Jafari.
Clarke had always felt that intelligence work was 10 percent intelligence and 90 percent luck. So far, he and his teams had managed to find a near-perfect balance between the two; at the very worst, no mission had ended with disaster.
But the enemy was multiplying and each group was getting better, like mutating cockroaches who became immune to new strains of pesticide. This was the kind of situation he had always dreaded, and he did not know how to handle it.
Not this way
, he told himself.
Not by yelling to hide how afraid you are
.
So he did the only thing he hadn’t done in a while. He shut his eyes and prayed.
Which is why he was startled when the phone rang with an ill little ring that poured through the crack in the receiver. It was INTERPOL. He scooped it up.
“Yes?”
“They found the woman and the truck that abducted her from the airport,” said Mostpha Bensami. “She is alive but currently unconscious. They are putting up roadblocks to try and find your other agent.”
“The cargo?”
“Nothing,” the INTERPOL officer told him. Clarke thanked the man and hung up. This time he knit his fingers tightly when he closed his eyes.
He thanked God but knew he was going to have to pray a lot harder.