The Washington Stratagem (30 page)

Joe-Don returned his stare. The man’s eyes were red rimmed, the collar of his hand-tailored shirt stained with grime. He appeared to have been up all night. “Yes, we do.” Joe-Don gestured with his glass at the pictures on the wall. “And now look what impressive friends you have.”

The man laughed, the sound catching in his throat and turning into a cough. “They aren’t my friends. They don’t know the first thing about me, except what they read in the newspaper and the number of zeros on the checks I write for their campaign funds. You are my friend. I owe you. If you hadn’t seen that sniper and taken him out, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Joe-Don smiled. “You would have done the same. We looked out for each other.”

“Yes, sir, I would have. Remember Cambodia?” A grin spread across his wide, doughy face. “The raid, when we busted out that colonel? The one held by the Khmer Rouge? They were one bunch of crazy motherfuckers. Shoot one down and three more little yellow men pop up out of nowhere, running at you, screaming and shouting. How old were you?”

“Twenty. I was a kid. We weren’t even at war with the Khmer Rouge,” said Joe-Don. He raised his glass in tribute. “To Cambodia. And to Laos. Those Hmong camps, rows and rows of tents. They fought with us, believed in us, and we sold them down the river. But you got our guys out. Every last one.” He took a sip and put the bourbon down. “Could I get some coffee as well?”

Clarence Clairborne stood up and walked over to his desk. “Sure.” He leaned over and pressed a button by his telephone. “Samantha, we need some coffee here. Can you rustle up a pot for us?”

“Yes, sir,” said a bright female voice.

Clairborne picked up his bourbon. He stood up and walked over to the photograph of him shaking hands with Eugene Packard on the wall, swaying slightly. “The Lord has taken away, JD. From both of us. But the Lord also giveth,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Rapture is coming, JD. Rapture. It just needs a little help.”

Clairborne suddenly swiveled around to Joe-Don. “So, my friend, I guess you didn’t travel all the way to DC on a Sunday morning just for a social call. What can I do for you?” he asked, with the fierce concentration of someone who has drunk a little too much but has just remembered something vitally important.

Joe-Don put his glass down. “You can save a lot of lives.”

“Well now, that’s always a fine thing. And how would I do that, JD?”

“Stop it.”

Clairborne tipped his glass back and swallowed the rest of his bourbon. He walked back to his chair and sat down. “Stop what?” he said, his glass rattling on the table as he put it down.

“Your plan to hit the Istanbul Summit.”

Clairborne furrowed his brow. “And why in God’s good name would I want to blow up the world’s best chance for peace in decades?”

“Chaos, Clarence. Chaos is good for your business. Chaos means profits. The more the Iranians destabilize the Middle East, the more we’ll need Prometheus to pick up the pieces.”

Clairborne drummed his fingers on his glass. He picked up the bottle of bourbon, then put it back, exhaling loudly. A gust of rye fumes floated across the room. “That’s a theory, JD. An interesting one. But nothing more.”

“It’s more than a theory and you know it. There are over two hundred journalists based in the UN headquarters in New York, Clarence, including almost every major American news organization. If this gets out, that Prometheus is planning to attack the summit to profit from the ensuing chaos, you are finished. However much you deny it, you will be all over the front page, the networks, and the Internet. Just the suspicion will be enough. Your share price will plunge. Your board will convene an emergency meeting and find a way to get rid of you. Your friends in Langley and the Pentagon will drop you straight into the waiting arms of the Justice Department and the district attorney’s office. Who are already interested in Prometheus.”

Clairborne shrugged. “What’s new? Prometheus, the source of all evil. I can read that on a dozen blogs any day of the week. To make anything stick, the press needs evidence. There is no evidence because there is no plot by Prometheus to blow up the Istanbul Summit.”

“We have evidence.”

“Which is?”

“The architectural blueprints of the Osman Convention Center; a schedule and diagrams of where the first wave of suicide bombers will hit; the names of the Prometheus personnel who will let the bombers through; blast wave and casualty projections; estimated response times of the Turkish emergency services; the plans for the second wave, to take out the first responders. It’s all there. Hidden on the darknet and encrypted but traceable back to an IP address in your office.”

“Nice try, JD. I don’t know what that fantasy of yours is, but it’s certainly not evidence and you know it. Any fool can come up with diagrams and a schedule and stick our name on it. It means nothing. And every newspaper, website, and TV station in the land knows that if they threaten to link our name to a planned terrorist attack, our lawyers will sue their ass from here to kingdom come.”

A knock at the door sounded. “Come in, honey!” shouted Clairborne.

Samantha opened the door, carrying a tray with a pot of coffee, sugar, cream, and chocolate-chip cookies. She was perfectly made up, wearing pristine white Nike running shoes, a pale blue Armani AX jogging suit, her blond hair tied back with a navy band. Samantha looked at Clairborne, taking in his disheveled state. She shook her head, a tight, precise gesture of disapproval. She picked up the bottle of bourbon, three-quarters empty, and put it on the tray. Clairborne turned, about to protest, but then thought better of it. Samantha put the tray down poured two coffees, and handed one each to Joe-Don and Clairborne.

“Samantha, you are a lifesaver,” said Clairborne.

“Enjoy your coffee, sir. Perhaps it would be a good idea to eat something as well.” She gestured at the cookies. “I baked these myself.”

“You see, JD,” said Clairborne, “I found the perfect woman. It’s too late for me, but she is going to make a lucky man very happy one day.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Samantha, smiling. She picked up the tray and left the room.

Clairborne bit into a cookie. “Mmm, these are good,” he said, demolishing it in two bites and reaching for another one. “OK, JD. I’m not gonna BS you anymore. Like I said, I owe you. But no can do, JD. It’s out of my hands now. It’s gone way beyond my pay grade.” Clairborne looked over at the photographs of his children on his desk, suddenly thoughtful. “Way beyond. Which leaves us, my friend, at an impasse. And me with a problem. Operational security says you should not be allowed to leave this room.”

Joe-Don opened his jacket to show his shoulder holster, which held a Glock 30 pistol. “Are you gonna shoot me, Clarence?”

Clairborne smiled. “I don’t think so, JD. Not today. Apart from not shooting you, anything else I can do for you?”

“The Jews have a saying.
He who saves one life saves the world
.”

“The world is beyond my means. But I made some calls as soon as I heard you were coming. It took some hard bargaining. I had to call in serious favors.”

He paused and leaned forward, reaching for his glass of bourbon. He looked at the inch of amber liquid inside for a second, sighed, then put it down and picked up his coffee. “If she’s not in the way, they won’t come after her again. That’s the best I can do. Send her on vacation, somewhere far away, preferably to another continent. Just keep her out of Istanbul. It’s nothing personal. And certainly not from me. She’s a firecracker. I offered her a job, you know.”

“Did you? And what did she say?”

“‘No thank you, Mr. Clairborne.’ Or words to that effect,” he said, briefly smiling at the memory. His voice turned serious. “JD, you need to understand this. The moment she steps foot in Istanbul, she becomes a target. They will find her, they will take her, and it won’t be pretty.”

Clairborne paused as he reached inside the drawer of his desk. He took out a heavy, well-worn US Army .45 Colt pistol and placed it on the green leather surface.

“And one more thing.” He looked straight at Joe-Don as he spoke, his eyes cold and flat. “Our account is clear now.”

Large banners draped across the airport terminal proclaimed “Welcome to Istanbul, City of Peace” in English and Turkish. But the reality, Yael immediately noticed as she clambered down the staircase onto the tarmac, was less hospitable. Security was much heavier than it had been on her last visit, just a few weeks before. Police commandos wearing bulletproof vests stood on the runway and at the door to the terminal, trigger fingers resting on the Heckler & Koch submachine guns strapped against their chests. Signs in a dozen languages, from Arabic to Swahili, exhorted passengers to be alert and report anything suspicious. More security personnel patrolled inside the building, holding German shepherds on short, double leashes, scanning the passengers with cold, hard stares.

Yael made sure to fall back as the travelers disembarked from their bus and entered the terminal. The young woman who had sat next to her strode ahead and was soon separated from Yael by half a dozen others. Transit through immigration was also slower, with every arrival, including Turkish citizens, being questioned. After standing in line for thirty-five minutes, Yael eventually presented her passport at the immigration control. The policewoman in the glass booth had shoulder-length brown hair, thin pursed lips, and a severe expression. A sign on the glass announced that photography was forbidden and all conversations would be recorded.

“Julia Albihari?” asked the policewoman, as she slipped the identification page of Yael’s passport into an electronic reader.

Yael nodded. The recording was a new feature added since her last time through. It must have been introduced as part of the heightened security measures for the summit.

“Please answer me, Ms. Albihari.”

“Yes, that’s me,” said Yael. She was not traveling on her UN laissez-passer, but on an American passport.

“The purpose of your visit?”

“Tourism.”

“What do you plan to see?”

“The Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, maybe take a ferry to the Asian side. Is there anything you would recommend personally?”

The policewoman ignored the question. She stared hard at Yael, looked at her passport, then at the computer screen in front of her. She entered a series of numbers and waited.

Yael began to feel uneasy. The passport was real, issued by the State Department. It would survive the most rigorous background checks, as would the credit cards and driving license, all in the name of Julia Albihari, that Yael was carrying. Julia Albihari had black hair, as did Yael now, having dyed it on Saturday morning. Tradecraft rules were that aliases should be reasonably similar to the operative’s actual name, to make them easier to remember. Nevertheless, Yael was not Julia Albihari. She was traveling under a fake identity, a serious crime under any legal system. Her UN immunity, already fraying, would easily unravel if the Turkish authorities probed further.

The policewoman handed Yael her passport back. “Enjoy your stay in Istanbul,” she said.

Süleyman Mevsim perched on the entrance of his home in Üsküdar, playing with his toy car, sweeping it back and forth across the front step. The car was his favorite, a red Porsche, although the back left wheel was hanging off and he didn’t know how to fix it. A crippled car, for a crippled boy, he thought. Süleyman was used to playing on his own. He was only nine, but he had to be strong, like his hero and namesake, Süleyman the Magnificent, the most powerful Ottoman sultan in history, the scourge of Budapest, the conqueror of Baghdad. Süleyman had a withered right leg, a legacy of childhood polio. He could not keep up with the other children’s games and so they didn’t invite him to play. It wasn’t too bad during school time, but he didn’t like the holidays because he was on his own all day, apart from his mom and two younger sisters, whom he loved, of course, but they weren’t much good as playmates. Sometimes one or two of the neighborhood boys were nice to him for a while, but they always changed. They said things like he wasn’t a “good Muslim,” even though his family prayed several times a day, went to the mosque at least on Fridays, and kept Ramadan. Still, Süleyman loved living in Üsküdar. This part of Istanbul, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, was quieter and more traditional than the European side. He could see the sea at the end of the street; there was a synagogue, an Armenian and a Greek Orthodox church all just a few minutes’ walk away. The shopkeepers were always friendly to him, giving him fruit, sweets, and chocolate.

Süleyman looked like he was absorbed in his game, but he was not. He was on a mission. He was watching what he had named the “target house.” Süleyman knew there was something strange about that place. The house next door was smart and clean, painted dark green. But the target house looked old and dirty. The paint was peeling; big flakes of dirty white hung from the gray woodwork. Two plants stood outside the front door, but both were turning brown from lack of water. Every morning, the local women opened their windows and sometimes brought the rugs down to beat on the street, sending puffs of dust into the air. But nobody ever opened a window in the target house. It always looked dark and gloomy inside. The curtains were always drawn, brown grubby things that looked as if they had not been washed for years. The only new thing was the giant satellite dish on the roof, bigger than all the neighbors’.

A car pulled up and parked nearby. Süleyman quickly dropped his head down and swept his Porsche back and forth across the step, apparently completely absorbed in his task, but secretly still watching. The car, a brown Fiat sedan, was nothing exciting, not like his Porsche. Three men got out. He had seen the driver and one of the other men before, many times—they were thin, and dark, darker than most Turks, especially the Istanbulis. They spoke Turkish with an unusual accent. The third man must be important, Süleyman thought, because the driver had got out of the car first and opened the door for him, and the second one carried his bag. The new arrival had thick black hair, Süleyman noticed. And then something strange happened. The driver turned around, yawned, and stretched his arms out. The driver didn’t see that the new man was next to him, and his right arm brushed against the new man’s head. His hair moved. All of it.