Retribution (31 page)

CHAPTER 61

 

“I
don't know. He hasn't gotten better.”

Yousef put his hand on his child's forehead. Patoo was hot, very hot, and sweating through his pajama shirt. He had held a temperature for two days.

“Has he eaten anything?”

“No. I put some sugar on his pancake. It didn't help.” The child's mother looked worried.

“Allah will take care of the child.”

She gave him a look.

“Umarov is in Peshawar and coming soon. I will call him and get some medicine.” Yousef didn't want to make the call.

It worried him.

“I will walk across the valley to the other side and call.”

“Malik, give me the cell phones.”

Malik Mahmud had gone back to sleep after guard duty. He was rolled up in a ball on a small prayer rug at the edge of the cave. Yousef didn't care if he was asleep.

Without saying anything, Mahmud rolled over and handed him the bag that held a dozen cell phones. Yousef took two and a calling card for New York.

“Let me see the child again.”

Yousef ran his hand around the child's neck. Both glands were swollen to the size of small walnuts.

“I will have Liaquat get him some antibiotics.”

She looked relieved.

He picked up the AK-47 and slung it over his shoulder.

“I will be back in several hours.”

A man alone would always attract less attention. He was probably safer walking across the valley alone than staying at the cave with the others. But the trucks were well hidden and they stayed inside, out of sight, if the sky was clear.

Yousef started out in the morning light. The ridgeline behind and above the cave was nearly a cliff, so he headed east, down the valley toward the dried riverbed. There was a rough road that seemed more for a mule-pulled cart than a four-wheel vehicle, which paralleled the riverbed. In a mile it crossed over the deep ditch that at that point formed the riverbed and started to circle around the end of the finger of the ridgeline. After crossing the ditch, he cut up the boulder-strewn ridgeline and climbed up the rocky grade for more than a hundred yards. There, at the peak, he pulled up on one large rock.

Yousef pulled out the first cell phone. He knew Umarov's cell phone number. The phone was not to be used except in an emergency. Yousef knew the look he would get from Umarov. Umarov, who had given up his entire family for the fight, would never try to understand.

“Hey, brother, I need to speak to Liaquat.”

Yousef hated to use a name. Liaquat's voice came on the call.

“The child of mine is sick. His glands are swollen.”

“I will get him some amoxicillin.”

No more needed to be said. Yousef closed the cell phone and mouthed a quick prayer of thanks.

The second cell phone required the use of the card. Again, it would be a short conversation. Even though it was late in New York, Masood would answer.

“Yes.”

“Brother, how are you?”

“I am fine, very fine. And my family?”

“We are all fine.”

“Is it cold in New York?”

“It is frigid.”

“How is our cousin in Chicago?”

“He left for home today.”

“Good, very good. I will give your love to your mother.”

They traveled under the assumption that every conversation was taped, every word analyzed, every thought considered dangerous. But Yousef knew that the flash drive had made it to its destination. Chicago's emergency-response system would be paralyzed.

Yousef put both cell phones on a rock and crushed them with the butt of the AK-47. Those cells were turned on, like a light switch, and were now unstoppable.

Yousef looked out across the valley to the east and then turned to the one to the west. The road etched in the rocks at the base of the ridgeline circled around the point of the finger and then headed up the other valley.

He thought that he saw something move for just a moment, a flash of a movement, just enough to make the mind curious. Yousef had a feeling, a sense, and a premonition that someone was watching.

He pulled back the bolt of the AK-47, chambering a round. The metallic sound of the bolt running the round home, into the chamber, seemed to echo in the silence.

Yousef studied the road and the valley. He held his hand over his forehead and followed the ridgeline with his eyes. The sun was starting to bear down, and even though it was deep into the winter, the day was becoming warm.

Yousef leaned on a large boulder that came up to just above his waist. He waited several minutes, constantly scanning the ridgeline, the rocks, and the twisted path of a road.

Finally, he turned, heading down the rocky slope.

The satellite assigned to support the team had picked up both conversations. Scott was relieved that they had selected the right valley.

At the same time Moncrief watched through the optic sight on his M4 as the man turned and walked away. Moncrief focused back on the boulder where the Arab had just rested his machine gun.

After a few minutes he saw movement at the base of the rock. Moncrief wasn't surprised at the movement. He watched as Sgt. Vaatofu Fury, virtually impossible to see and covered in sand and rock, pulled back away. The sniper had been within an arm's reach of the stranger the entire time.

Fury's smell hadn't alarmed the man at all. Moncrief smiled.

CHAPTER 62

 

“L
ook at this e-mail that just came across the wire.” Tom Pope turned the laptop to the side so Garland Sebeck could lean over from his seat to see the screen. The taller man put a hand on Pope's desk and read the message.

“What does he want?”

The e-mail was from Robert Tranthan. It asked Pope to call as soon as he received the communication no matter what time.

“I guess we need to find out.”

Pope walked up to the communications deck with Sebeck following behind. The on-duty communications clerk was doodling on a pad. Tom Pope nudged the young clerk.

“Yes, sir?”

“I need to place a secure call to Langley.”

“No problem. Do you have the number?”

Instead of writing it down, Pope picked up his laptop and brought it back to the communications deck. The clerk wrote the number down on his pad and circled it seemingly to add emphasis.

“Just one minute. You can take it on one of the phones.”

“Can Agent Sebeck listen in?”

“Yes, sir. He can just pick up another one across from you.”

In a matter of just a few minutes, Tom Pope saw the light flashing on the receiver, picked it up, and heard a voice.

“Agent Pope?”

Pope sensed that Tranthan was on his own cell phone. The line, however, would be secure.

“Yes, sir.”

“I have discovered something that may be of help to you. The photograph of Ms. O'Donald.”

Tom hand signaled Sebeck to have the communications clerk bring him his laptop. He opened the attachment that was labeled
Tranthan Investigation.

“And what is that?”

“What she was trying to tell us is a telephone number. A number in Saudi Arabia.”

Pope looked at the photo. His MacBook Pro screen enlarged its contents with a touch. He doubled the photo's size, squared out the area near her hand, and doubled it again. Now that he was focusing on a numerical clue, he saw it almost immediately.

“I see it. Whose number is that?”

“I don't know.” Tranthan paused. “I am having our people find that out right now.”

Tom Pope closed the photo and opened up an e-mail to his IT specialist at Chantilly. The topic was marked
urgent
. Tom held his hand over the telephone. “Get Chantilly on the line.” Then, to Tranthan, “I imagine that she wanted you to know that number.”

“Yes, I would guess that.”

Tom Pope heard Robert Tranthan's voice change as he said it.

“I would also guess that whoever that number belongs to would be expecting your call.”

“Yes.” In fact, Tranthan's voice changed dramatically. “I agree.”

“Mr. Tranthan, we need to listen in when you make that call.”

Tranthan paused for a long moment before responding. “There's someone else who needs to hear it as well.”

“Well, that's up to you. Can we set it up for, say, an hour or so? The time is right for Saudi Arabia.”

 

 

James Scott's chin rested on his hands as he waited for Robert Tranthan to make the conferenced phone call to Saudi Arabia.

“Do I have everyone?”

Scott sighed. “Hold on a bloody moment.” The sudden invitation to listen in to this impromptu call was the last thing Scott needed tonight. But he was in no position to refuse.

He opened the bottom drawer in his desk in this godforsaken office he'd been given in an old hangar on Bagram Airfield. The operations center here ran the war in the northeastern provinces of Afghanistan, and that was why James Scott had set up shop in this location. It was the operation center that could best keep an eye on his team and the Pakistan border.

From the drawer he withdrew a small flask of single-malt Scotch that he'd brought along to get him through the more stressful moments of this operation.

“Scott, are you still there?” Robert Tranthan again.

Scott took a quick slug from the flask, and then returned it to its drawer.

“I can hear you.”

“Okay, I have you and Agent Tom Pope of the FBI on this line.” Tranthan was quiet for a moment, giving Pope the opportunity to speak up.

“Yes, this is Pope.”

Scott had been woken for the telephone call. He had spent the last twenty hours flying through the night from London, trying to catch up to his operation. He had been shot at and his new Range Rover had a bullet hole in its window. Worse yet, he wasn't sure who had pulled the trigger and why. He didn't care for this distraction at all; but at least, he supposed, it had awakened him. It wasn't like he could afford to be sleeping, either.

He already had known about Maggie O'Donald and her relationship with Tranthan. But he had no idea why someone from the FBI was also on the line. It violated the unspoken rule. Furthermore, he wasn't sure that someone on the line wasn't responsible for that bullet hole in his Rover. The only thing that he knew for sure was that for now, he was in the safest place he could possibly be. What had the world come to when he was safer on a military base in northern Afghanistan than in London or Washington?

“Let's do it,” said Scott.

“Yes, you may lose me if we don't. I'm in transit.” Pope's voice crackled. Scott guessed that he must have been on an aircraft somewhere.

“All right, I'm dialing. Just listen in.”

The telephone rang once, then twice, and then a third time.

“
As sala'amu alaikum
.” The voice was that of a man.

“This is Robert Tranthan of the CIA. Maggie O'Donald gave me this number.”

The line was silent. The voice seemed to be absorbing the words. “Yes.”

“I was to call this number. She wanted me to call this number.”

“Wait a moment.”

Scott could hear the man talking with another in Arabic. Again, silence.

“I am to say . . .” The voice paused as if making sure what he said was exactly right. It was clear that another in the room was giving directions. Scott had every idea as to who that other one was.

“He is putting a very bold operation into play. Your city is not safe . . .”

Again, the voice stopped. This time, however, it seemed as if there was some hesitation. And again, they heard the voice speak with another in the room.

“Look for a woman with a limp to your north.”

“What?”

“She's a pilot.”

The world
pilot
made Scott sit bolt upright.

Finally, after several seconds of silence the voice came back on. “He is trying to obtain a device.” The voice hesitated. “Do not call again.”

It didn't matter as to that number. It would be a cell phone, and the device would be destroyed within moments of the telephone call. It, and the number it had used, would both prove untraceable.

One thing was certain, though, thought Scott: The word
device
could mean only one thing. Put it together with
pilot
and.... The possibility seemed every bit as unthinkable as it was real.

 

 

Robert Tranthan smiled as he rocked back in his car, finishing his cigarette. He swallowed a large gulp of vodka. It had been a bold move, to bring Scott in on the call. It would prevent anyone from linking him with the attempt on Scott's life. The deck of cards was changing. It had been reshuffled.