Seven Days From Sunday (MP-5 CIA #1) (30 page)

Gonz had already posted soldiers at all the bus and rail stations leading to Baghdad, hoping Ghaniyah would show up with the ricin. Smaller airports were also on alert. But for all they knew, whoever had been instant messaging them on al Mudtaji’s website had been sending them a smoke screen. For all they knew, al Mudtaji had the ricin in hand and was actually implementing his plan right now.

“It’s on!” Peterson yelled, his attention focused on one of his two laptops at his workstation, used primarily for tracking and tracing communications. “Her phone! It’s on!”

“Get her location!” Gonz shouted, hustling across the room. “If she dials out, get the number!”

Heisman, who had been checking in with the surveillance team monitoring Thamer’s pharmacy, got to Peterson’s side first. McKay quickly came up behind him. All eyes were on the monitor. Text read, “Phone activation detected...” Moments later a new line of text appeared. “Placing call...”

“She’s dialing...!” Peterson called out.

“I need the numbers!” Gonz barked, hurling over the table behind Peterson’s workstation.

“Coming in... We’ve got a six second delay,” Peterson relayed. “Okay! Four-four-one...”

Suddenly Beethoven’s 5th Symphony started to play loud and clear. Everyone turned. Clearly surprised, McKay pulled her cell phone off her belt. The ring tone continued, the classical music filling the air.

“Keep her on!” Gonz told her. “Keep her talking!” He turned to Peterson. “Patch me in!”

Peterson pulled up a map of Iraq on-screen that displayed small icons marking the numerous cell towers. He then handed Gonz a headset that would allow him to listen in on the call. Peterson nodded to McKay who then answered her phone.

“McKay.”

There was only silence on the other end. McKay gave Gonz a worried look.

“Hello? This is McKay.”

“I have the poison,” Ghaniyah told her.

Gonz motioned for her to draw it out. McKay nodded that she understood, saying, “Kind of figured that.”

“It can kill a lot of people, you realize that, yes?”

“I think your aunt would agree, yes.”

There was dead silence again. Gonz gestured frantically.

“I’m sorry about your aunt, Ghaniyah,” McKay said. “You know that.”

Again, silence. Then Ghaniyah revealed, “I will trade you for the poison.”

“Where are you?”

Ghaniyah continued as if McKay hadn’t spoken. “The trade is this. You will get the poison. You will release Adnan from your prison. You will also produce documents which show that neither Adnan, nor I, have ever broken the law, or even been suspected of breaking the law. Both of our names are to be cleared, understand?”

McKay glanced at Gonz who motioned for her to continue.

“Fifty seconds,” Peterson whispered excitedly.

“Where are you?” McKay asked again.

“That’s the arrangement, yes? You understand?”

“Yes, but –” then the phone went dead.

“She’s gone!” Peterson cried out in frustration. “Just another minute! That’s all I needed! Fifty more seconds!”

McKay stared at her cell phone, the call disconnected.

“You get anything?” Gonz asked Peterson, yanking off the headset. “Anything at all?”

“Can’t be much...” Peterson quickly inputted some commands. The map changed, enlarging a large section south of Baghdad. The section began to flash on the screen. “Somewhere between the Iran/Iraq border to the east, and Najaf to the west. Could be as far south as the Al Samawah region, as far north as Al Mahmudiyah.”

Gonz turned to McKay. “Call her back. Keep her talking. Tell her we agree to her terms.”

“We don’t have Adnan to trade–” McKay started to protest.

“I don’t care! Keep her on the line! I need her location!”

McKay opened her phone, called up the phone list, then Ghaniyah’s satellite cell number. Gonz pulled on the headset again. They both heard the phone ring on the other end. And ring. And ring.

“Too late,” Peterson told them. “Phone’s off. She turned it off again.”

“Shit!” Gonz angrily retorted, slamming the headset on the desk.

Shuffling through the city streets he had known since he was a small boy, Adnan had to force himself to tread slowly, leaning heavily on the cane he had borrowed from Aref. Wearing the dishdasha and keffiyeh he had stolen the night before, Adnan had left Aref’s apartment only after adopting the hunched posture of an old man, his left hand quivering on the cane, his head down, averting eye contact with anyone he passed by.

Not far from Aref’s apartment, he had come upon an Iraqi Security Forces patrol, three American soldiers imbedded in the unit. Using every bit of will power he could muster, he had maintained his slumped stance and slowly ambled past the group without any problem.

He was close now. Just another block. Again, he had to will himself to keep his pace deliberately sluggish. At the last minute, he decided he would go through the narrow alley behind his sister’s house. Just in case the Americans were watching. He had repeatedly told himself there was no way the Americans could have connected him to Daneen, but he knew it was best to be cautious.

As he started to ease himself around the building, there was a blur of movement as something suddenly hit him savagely mid-section, knocking him off his feet, the cane sent flying. He landed on his back, his head banging violently on the pavement, pain radiating down his right shoulder. It took him a moment to catch his breath. He saw another sprawled figure nearby. A boy. Who suddenly scrambled to his feet, a look of sheer terror on his face as he looked over his shoulder. It was his nephew, Faris. The frightened boy started to run when Adnan screamed, “Faris! Faris!”

Slowly getting to his feet, his head throbbing, Adnan bellowed again, “Faris!”

His nephew cautiously approached. Unsure. Adnan realized his keffiyeh had fallen off, and he quickly picked it up. Along with the cane.

“Uncle Adnan?”

Adnan grumpily nodded, affixing his keffiyeh in place. “What the hell?”

“You have to help! There are men with guns!” Faris frantically blurted out.

This got Adnan’s attention. “What?”

“Masked men! With guns! At the house!”

Adnan’s head spun. Masked men? Then they weren’t American soldiers or Iraqi Security Forces. “Where are your parents?”

“There! They came in! Four men! All masked! They tied up Father! Mother, too!”

“Shh!” Adnan hushed him, pulling him back around the corner to the street. Luckily, no one was around. “Quiet. Tell me slowly.”

“They have machine guns! One has a long knife!”

“Wait. Back up,” Adnan said firmly. “Where were you when these men showed up?”

“At Naad’s.”

Adnan nodded. He knew Naad was his nephew’s best friend, a boy who lived across the alley. Daneen was good friends with the boy’s mother.

“Mother and Father were to meet someone,” Faris said excitedly. “Some journalist. About you. I went over to Naad’s house. See if Badr and I could stay there, then I came home. I was about to walk through the door when I heard Father screaming...” Faris was hyperventilating and tried to catch his breath.

“It’s okay,” Adnan told him. “It’s okay...”

“Father’s tied up! Mother’s on the floor. She’s holding Badr, her feet tied, here,” he said bending over to touch his ankles.

“Okay, okay.” Adnan couldn’t believe it and struggled to think clearly. “Did they see you? The men?”

Faris shook his head no.

“You’re sure?”

Faris nodded, still gasping for breath. “I could see through the fence. There’s a small hole there, remember?”

Adnan nodded. He did remember. The backyard wood fence had a fist-size hole maybe a meter off the ground. He remembered because one day the previous year, he and Faris had playfully stuck some clay in it. Obviously, the clay hadn’t held in place. From that vantage point, one could see through the sliding glass door into the living room if the curtains weren’t drawn.

“Okay, this is important. What did you hear? What did the men say?”

“They said you escaped and they want to know where the... where the... r-r-ricon...”

“Ricin?” Adnan prompted.

“Yes! They want the ricin! They say you and some woman stole it. They want it back.”

Adnan’s head reeled. Ghaniyah had the ricin? How could that be? For a brief moment he wondered if she had stolen it for her own designs.

“They say they’ll kill Badr first! Unless you help them get it back.”

Adnan tried to clear his head, but he was functioning on information overload. How did al Mudtaji know of his escape? Then it hit him. He had men inside the Iraqi Security Forces. Surely, the Americans would have alerted the Security Forces to his escape, making sure everyone was on the look out for him. But the other things Faris was saying didn’t make sense. “So they’re waiting for me? To come to the house?”

Faris nodded, blinking back the tears. “Or Mother is to call you. Or find you. I don’t know. I don’t know...”

“Okay,” Adnan calmly responded. “What did your mother say?”

“Nothing. Nothing I heard.”

“Your father?”

“He said you’re no longer part of the family. You haven’t been for years.” Tears were streaming down Faris’ face now. “One of the men then hit him. With his rifle.”

Which meant al Mudtaji knew better. But how? Had he spied on Adnan? From the beginning? He wracked his brain. He had only dealt with al Mudtaji for about a week. But he and Daneen had lunch together every Wednesday. Every Wednesday, without fail. Al Mudtaji must have been watching him and had learned about Daneen.

“Listen, Faris,” Adnan said, holding him by the shoulder. “You know where your father works? The newspaper?”

Faris dumbly nodded.

“Okay, I want you to go there. Right now. Hurry. You tell them what’s going on, okay? You talk to a reporter named Duqaq –”

“I know him!”

“Good. Good. You tell him what’s going on. You explain that they want the ricin, but that I don’t have it. I don’t know where it is. Tell him to call the Americans. Not the Iraqi Security Forces, you understand? You must tell them that and –”

“What about you?” Faris nervously interrupted. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Adnan told the boy truthfully. “I don’t know.”

Ghaniyah looked over at the man as he drove, his relaxed right wrist on the wheel, his left arm in his lap. They were nearly inside the city limits, and she would need him for a while longer. But would he agree? Finally gathering her courage, she said, “I might need to make a few stops.”

The man glanced at her. She had her left arm around Abasah, who had fallen asleep after devouring her second Popsicle, and met his gaze.

“Before I see my husband,” Ghaniyah said by way of explanation.

The man seemed to think about this for a moment. “For how long?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Another 100 dinars, and I’ll drive you all day.”

Greatly relieved, Ghaniyah could well afford his terms. She had counted nearly 1,000 dinars hidden inside Yusuf’s glove the night before. In addition, she had checked to see if the glove was still in the truck’s small compartment a few hours earlier, and she had found that not only was the glove there, it was still full of the cash she had left behind. “Fifty,” she said.

“A hundred.”

“Seventy-five.”

The man gave her a slight grin. “Seventy-five.”

Ghaniyah nodded with satisfaction. Then she said, “I’ll need you to stop.”

The man gave her a quizzical look. “Food?”

Ghaniyah knew this was his polite way of asking if she needed a restroom. “Just get off the expressway and pull over.”

The man shot her another puzzled look, but did as he was told, getting off at the first available exit. The off ramp curved around to the right. There was a petrol station on the corner up ahead and a few scattered shops nearby.

“Just before the petrol station.”

The driver did as she directed. With the truck in park, he turned off the engine. Then he started to roll down the driver’s window.

“No, keep it running. The window up.”

Again, the driver did as he was told. Without the rolling of the truck to keep her content, Abasah awakened. She sleepily looked around.

“Please step away from the truck for just a moment. I have to make a phone call.”

The man knew she had a cell phone. When they had stopped for petrol outside Al Kut, Abasah had insisted on going inside to pick out the Popsicles. Ghaniyah had let her, and on the spur of the moment had decided to call the American doctor. The man had seen her on the phone when he and the girl had come out with their purchases, but Ghaniyah had hung up before he had opened the door. He had seen her slip it inside her dress pocket.

“And I’d like to borrow your watch, please.”

Now clearly baffled, the man just stared at her.

“Please. You’ll get it right back.”

Reluctantly, the man slipped off his wrist watch. He handed it to Ghaniyah who found it slippery with perspiration. While the truck had a clock on the dashboard, Ghaniyah wasn’t sure of its accuracy. The man’s watch, plus watching the truck clock, gave her a sense of security. She was abiding by al Mudtaji’s staunch rule that his men talk for no more than three minutes on any cell phone. That way, the call could not be traced, their location detected.

“Five minutes,” Ghaniyah told him. “That’s all.”

Nodding, the man stepped out of the truck. Ghaniyah quickly pulled out the cell phone and turned it on. She glanced at the watch in her lap, mentally starting the countdown to three minutes.

“That’s like Papa’s,” Abasah told her.

“Shh.”

With trembling fingers, Ghaniyah dialed the same number as before. This time the doctor picked it up on the second ring.

“McKay,” the doctor said.

“I want to speak to Adnan.”

“Where are you, Ghaniyah–?”

“Let me speak to him!”