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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Allah's Scorpion
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CIA HEADQUARTERS
Riding over to the White House from Langley in his limousine, Dick Adkins decided that he didn’t like being the director of Central Intelligence. In fact, he’d never liked the Washington power-broker game in which each White House administration wanted only the intel to support its agendas, and nothing else.
But ever since the creation of the director of National Intelligence, who was supposed to oversee all intelligence activities, the game had shifted into high gear. It was what the Company’s general counsel Carleton Patterson called the “9/11 syndrome.” No one wanted to be wrong, which meant that facts were bent and sometimes altered to fit the prevailing opinion.
Nuclear weapons in Iraq had been one of the prime examples. Another had come last year when McGarvey had been forced to resign from the CIA when he and the president had a falling out. McGarvey had wanted to go after a wealthy Saudi playboy who he thought was a top bin Laden killer. The administration wanted to protect its oil relationship with the Saudis, so the president would not believe McGarvey.
As it turned out, Mac and the president had both been right, after a fashion, but by then Mac was no longer welcome at Langley, or anywhere else in or around Washington. Going against a sitting president was not the thing to do and still expect to be welcome at the table.
And now this morning Adkins was bringing the president news that once again McGarvey had saved their asses. Coming down Constitution Avenue to 17th Street and the Ellipse, minutes away from the White House, he girded himself for what he expected would be a confrontational briefing.
Telling the truth, no matter how unpopular it was in Washington, was an ethic that Mac had instilled at the CIA.
For better or worse, tell it like it is. But whatever you do, don’t blow smoke up my ass. Don’t lie to me.
Those were McGarvey’s words, practically etched in marble over at the Building in Langley. And, for better or worse, Adkins had decided that he would tell the president the truth; the whole, unvarnished truth.
His limo was passed through the West Gate, and after he signed in and his attaché case was scanned, the president’s chief of staff Calvin Beckett was there to bring him over to the Oval Office. The former CEO of IBM seemed tense.
“He’s going to ask why you didn’t hand this to Hamel—whatever it is—instead of bringing it directly here.”
“It’s a little delicate,” Adkins said. “I didn’t want anything lost in the translation.”
Beckett smiled nervously. “You want to take the heat yourself,” he said. “Admirable, but your timing stinks. The man’s in a bad mood. He just got off the phone with Crown Prince Abdullah. The Saudis are cutting production by three percent. Oil prices are sagging, and OPEC is raising hell.”
“Four bucks a gallon for regular in L.A., and prices are sagging?”
“The United States should get in line with the rest of the world, where gas prices have always been four or five dollars a gallon,” Beckett said. “You know how it is. We’re one year out from Senate elections, and this time it’s going to be tough to hold the majority.”
“Yeah,” Adkins replied, he did know how the game was played. The Democrats were going to love this latest move by the Saudis. “He’s going to like what I’m going to tell him even less.”
“I was afraid of that.”
President Lawrence Haynes, his jacket off, his tie loose, and his shirtsleeves rolled up, stood looking out the thick Lexan windows at the Rose Garden in full bloom when Beckett rapped on the door frame. He was alone in the Oval Office, and it seemed to Adkins that he was a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and even though he could have been a lineman for the Green Bay Packers, the burden seemed too heavy.
“Mr. President, Dick is here.”
Haynes turned, and smiled the famous Haynes smile that had won him every office he’d ever campaigned for. “Good morning, Dick. I’m a little surprised to see you here this morning.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I felt that the issue was too important
and the timing too tight to pass it through Don Hamel’s shop,” Adkins said. “And too delicate.”
“I see,” Haynes said. He motioned for Beckett to close the door, then called his secretary to ask Dennis Berndt, his national security adviser, to join them. “Coffee?” he asked Adkins.
“No, sir. My initial brief won’t take long, but I’ve brought over the book, which gives more details. It’s al-Quaida again.”
The president’s expression immediately darkened. “Christ,” he said softly. “Is there anything new in the search for bin Laden?”
“Nothing yet, sir,” Adkins said. “But we’ve committed considerable resources to the job.” He laid his attaché case on the coffee table, took the leatherette-bound briefing book out, and handed it across the desk to Haynes.
“What is it this time?” Beckett asked.
“They’re calling it Allah’s Scorpion—” Adkins said as Dennis Berndt walked in.
“Who are the they?” Berndt asked. He was a rumpled, tweedy man with a kind face. For the last year he had been trying to get back to academia to teach history, but the president wouldn’t let him go.
“Al-Quaida,” Adkins said. He handed a second briefing book to the national security adviser.
Like the president, Berndt’s mood instantly darkened. “Has Don Hamel seen this yet?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He was just getting to that,” Beckett said.
None of them had taken a seat, nor did the president motion for them to do so. “You have my attention,” Haynes said. “Give me the highlights.”
“Al-Quaida has planned another big attack. This time by sea again, what they called Allah’s Scorpion.”
“Called?” Berndt asked. “As in past tense?”
Adkins nodded. “For the moment. But we’re confident it’s not over. They’ll try again, in part because the kingpin of the attack we stopped managed to get away.”
The morning was nice: clear blue sky, very little haze, but the sunlight didn’t seem able to penetrate into the Oval Office.
“Continue,” Haynes prompted.
“We started getting indications several months ago on a number of al-Quaida Web sites that something big might be in the works. Homeland Security took us to orange in mid-April, as you remember. But after ten days when nothing happened, we dropped back to normal.”
“The American public is sick of holding its breath,” Beckett said.
“Yeah, but then in the past couple of weeks the chatter started again, and earlier this week there was an attempted prison break at Guantanamo Bay.”
“I saw the report,” Haynes said. “It was incredible. They committed suicide rather than allow themselves to be recaptured. But there is no concrete proof that the Cubans were helping them.”
“No, sir,” Adkins said. “But the five men who broke out were all Iranian naval ratings. Which got us to thinking that al-Quaida was trying to raise a ship’s crew. And if that were the case, they would need to hire a captain, someone to run the ship. So we went looking for just such a man.”
Berndt and the president exchanged a look. “And?” Berndt asked.
“We got lucky,” Adkins replied. “The guy is a former British naval officer by the name of Rupert Graham. He was kicked out of the service five years ago, and for a couple of years he operated as a pirate in the South China Sea. And a damned good one from what we’ve learned. About two years ago he apparently came to the attention of bin Laden and he may have started working for al-Quaida, funneling money and material into the cause.”
“Why?” Berndt asked.
“I’m not sure of all the details, but apparently his wife died while he was at sea and the navy never notified him.” Adkins shrugged. “The man is nursing a grudge.”
“What about him?” the president asked.
“Three days ago he hijacked a fully ladened oil tanker in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He killed the entire crew, apparently took on a new crew somewhere in the western Caribbean, and this morning, less than six hours ago, he managed to get the ship as far as the center lock at Gatun, where he’d planned on blowing it up.”
Berndt whistled softly. “Would have shut down the canal for years,” he said.
“The engineers we talked to thought there would have been a good chance that the canal might never have reopened.”
The president nodded with satisfaction. “The Rapid Response Teams we put down there did the job,” he said, a glimmering of his smile returning. “Well done.”
“There’s more, Mr. President,” Adkins said. “Four days ago we’d traced Graham to Caracas, but then lost him. We—I—felt that the man was enough of a credible threat that we needed to go after him to find out what he was up to. But quietly because of our … somewhat strained relations with the Venezuelan government.”
The president, Berndt, and Beckett all had the same expectant look on their faces.
“Let me guess,” Berndt said. “You recruited Kirk McGarvey, and he did the job for us.”
Adkins nodded, his eyes never leaving the president’s. “We have assets in Caracas, but they’re under deep cover at the embassy. It would have been next to impossible to get one of them up to Maracaibo in time.”
“Where is he now?” Haynes asked quietly.
“On his way back here.”
Haynes nodded. “I thought that he and his wife were moving to Florida. He was taking a teaching position.”
“Yes, sir,” Adkins said. This would be the tough part. “But there’s more. Graham managed to escape in the confusion, while the explosive devices on the ship were found and disconnected. He’s still out there, and our analysts think that al-Quaida will try again. They still have their very capable and extremely motivated captain.”
“What is the CIA recommending?” Haynes asked, point-blank.
“I want to hire McGarvey to find Graham before he mounts another operation against us.”
“Yes?” Haynes said.
“Then I want to send McGarvey to find bin Laden.”
“And?”
“Mac’s brief will be to assassinate both men as soon as possible,” Adkins said. He pursed his lips. “Let’s end this once and for all, Mr. President. For this kind of operation McGarvey is our best asset—”
“Our
only
asset,” the president said. He was troubled. He turned away
and looked out at the Rose Garden again. “After I’d won the first election, but before my inauguration, I came here so that the president could brief me. Just the two of us, in this room, discussing things and options that only the president is allowed to know. Frightening things. Impossible things. Unreasonable things. Enough so that I had to seriously doubt my sanity for ever wanting this job.” His shoulders seemed to slump. “It’s the moment of truth for every incoming president.” He shook his head. “You can see it in their eyes. They’re one person going into the meeting, full of confidence and expectations, and another completely different person coming out, worried, stunned.”
The president turned back to Adkins, hesitated for just a moment, but then nodded. “I don’t see that I have any other choice.”
“No, sir,” Adkins said, relieved. He gathered up his attaché case.
“Will he go for it?” Berndt asked.
Adkins shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, Dennis. One part of me thinks that he’ll tell me to go to hell when I ask him, while another part of me thinks nothing I say or do would stop him from doing it.” He smiled. “You know Mac well enough to know that when he has the bit in his teeth nothing can stop him.”
“He’s a one-man killing machine,” Beckett said.
“That he is,” Adkins agreed.
“Dick,” the president said.
“Sir?”
“Tell him Godspeed for me.”
 
 
SAN JOSÉ, COSTA RICA
Graham stood at the ninth-floor window of his suite in the downtown Tryp Corobici Hotel, waiting for his satellite phone call to go through. It was night, and the lights of the city spread out below him were beautiful. But he was seething with barely controlled rage because he had failed.
He could not get rid of the image of the U.S. Navy helicopter suddenly appearing as if out of nowhere at the bow of his ship, gunning down two of his crewmen. For the first time in his career he’d given serious thought to his own mortality.
The encrypted connection was made, and bin Laden came on the line. “There was nothing in this morning’s news broadcasts.”
“That’s because it never happened,” Graham said. It took every ounce of his resolve to keep from screaming obscenities at the stupid son of a bitch. Obviously there’d been a leak somewhere between Panama and Karachi.
“Where are you calling from?”
“The hotel in San José. I was the only one left alive, a Navy SEAL team was waiting for us at the locks.” Graham closed his eyes. He had to calm down. Taking a crewman’s sidearm and forcing the Seahawk pilot to set down in an industrial park in the opposite direction from the beach had been easy. They weren’t prepared for the hijacking or for their deaths when he shot them at point-blank range.
He’d radioed the
Nueva Cruz
from the helicopter, and before dawn had hitched a ride in a farmer’s truck back to Limón Bay, while overhead several aircraft, among them two helicopters, crisscrossed the night sky, presumably looking for the missing chopper and wounded canal pilot.
“You must have attracted some attention in Maracaibo,” bin Laden said, his tone maddeningly reasonable. “Or one of the ship’s crew may have suspected something and radioed a warning.”
The image of the whore screeching at him flashed through his head. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “There is a leak somewhere in your organization. It cost the lives of fourteen of my crewmen, and nearly got me killed.”
The sat phone was silent for several beats. Graham opened his eyes and looked out at the city. He could imagine bin Laden sitting on a prayer rug in his dayroom. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning in Pakistan, and the man was an early riser.
“Why didn’t you blow up the ship when you had the chance?” Graham laughed. “I’m a mercenary for the cause, not a martyr, I thought we’d already got that straight, chum.”
“I want to know everything, beginning with your arrival in Caracas,” bin Laden said. “It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that you were spotted and identified for who you are at the airport. The CIA has a presence there.”
“If I had been made, they would never have allowed me to board the ship. Vensport Security controls all the ferry operators on the lake.”
If he had sown the seeds of his own failure it would have been with the Russian steward who had spotted him as an imposter and reported her suspicion to the first officer. But they had only gotten to the point of searching his room when he’d walked in on them. They wouldn’t have had the time to make a call.
“Very well,” bin Laden said. “You got aboard and sailed out of there. What happened next?”
“I killed the crew, made the rendezvous, and picked up my people without a hitch. Then in Limón Bay we picked up the canal pilot and headed into the Gatun lock.”
The pilot had come to the realization that Graham was an imposter, but he’d not had a chance to radio for help.
“The explosives were set?” bin Laden asked.
“Yes, and we even made it to the middle lock, but before I could get ashore and press the button the U.S. SEAL team was on top of us.”
Bin Laden said something in Arabic that Graham didn’t catch. “How did you know that it was a U.S. strike team? Perhaps they were Panamanian.”
“They came in a Seahawk helicopter with U.S. Navy markings, and they spoke English,” Graham said. “The point is, what’s next? This operation is dead—”
“Only this operation,” bin Laden interrupted. “How was it you escaped, if as you say, your ship was taken over by the American military?”
Graham told him everything, including the parts about hijacking the helicopter, killing the crew, and making his rendezvous with the
Nueva Cruz.
“That was inventive,” bin Laden said. “But then you are a clever man.”
“Only the civilian seemed to be suspicious. I have a hunch he was CIA, which is what’s bothering me the most. How did they get involved unless your organization has an informer?”
“What about the civilian?” bin Laden demanded sharply. “What made you think he was a CIA officer?”
“He was in charge, he was armed, and he knew what he was doing,” Graham said.
It was the expression in the man’s gray-green eyes. He’d seen things, done things.
“He was a pro.”
“What did this professional look like? Describe him.”
“Taller than me, husky, athletic-looking. Green eyes—”
“What?” bin Laden demanded sharply.
“Green eyes.”
“Did he speak with an accent?”
Graham was confused. “I’m not a bloody expert on American accents,” he said. “Southern, maybe. I don’t know. Oklahoma?”
Bin Laden was silent again for several seconds. When he came back his tone of voice was different, as if he’d received some bad news. “If the civilian is who I think he is, you may consider yourself lucky to be alive. How good a look did he get of you?”
“Very good, but I was in disguise,” Graham said. He decided not to tell bin Laden about the cell phone detonator. “Who is he?”
“A man I know very well,” bin Laden replied. “Now it will be necessary to kill him, no matter the cost, because he’ll not stop hunting until he finds you.”
“He’s just another CIA operator. They’re a penny a pound.”
“Not this one,” bin Laden said. “I want you back here as soon as possible, I have a new mission for you. Something much better, something more suitable to your training.”
“What mission?” Graham asked, his interest piqued and his rage subsiding for the moment.
“It’s called Allah’s Scorpion,” bin Laden said. “Come here and I’ll explain everything to you.”

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