The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel (24 page)

E
ven at slack tide, swimming out of the ship’s wake was a bitch. Wearing a buoyant backpack made it damn near impossible. Cursing the added drag with the slap of every wave, his arms fought to pull him farther away while his cupped hands tried to clear an opening through the floating effluence.

The searchlight brushed over him. He unclipped the bag and submerged, gripping one of the straps. The beam returned and paused trying to pierce the turgid water, then moved away for good.

The current pushing him where he couldn’t go, Morgan knew the breakwater pilings had to be close. If he got swept into them, his injuries would be lethal, but he stayed below the surface until his lungs screamed for air, then he swam like hell. The waves pounced, rolling him with added offense. But the turbulence gradually eased, and he paused to tread water to inventory what he saw.

The helicopter was low on the horizon, tracing the phosphorescent plankton wake. Several patrol boats were out of the channel in the open water, their lights surveying intensely for human outlines. The pulsating bursts of brightness from the lighthouse illuminated an empty beach.

Morgan swam another hundred yards then treaded water again. Waves crashed on the deserted beach.

Removing his backpack, he sank several feet beneath the surface. His shoes made contact. With the black bag in front to hide his face, he followed a small spiller in, pausing in neck-deep water to look around.

“Ouch…”

His right leg became instantly on fire. He touched the throbbing blaze. His skin was intact.

Jellyfish…

Constraining each breath, he struggled up the steep underwater terrace, his feet sinking in the gravel. He crawled onto the beach and lay flush on the sand, studying his surroundings again.

The helicopter was miles away, so were the patrol boats and…

God, how his leg hurt!

No time to think about it.

Morgan sat and pulled the backpack close, opening it. It was dry inside. The dual zippers had maintained their seals. He removed a gray satchel and laid it on the sand, scooped a few rocks into the backpack, and zipped it partly. Returning to waist-deep water, he heaved the bag as far as he could. This reliable accomplice, bought long before his fingers ever jammed a crack, burbled and sank.

After another scan of the beach, he emerged from the water and urinated on his leg. The soothing liquid soon dried. The breeze made his skin burn again.

The thin moon had risen. To the west Mars was minutes above the horizon, making dawn three hours away.

Morgan opened the satchel and removed a black salwar kameez that he put on over new cotton underwear. His feet slipped into supple leather sandals. He picked up his running shoes, nylon shorts, and T-shirt and stood in the quiet strangeness. Bathed in a cool sea breeze, an odd tranquility came over him—the last few minutes on the ship’s foredeck a remorseless memory.

He smiled impassively. Six miles ahead were millions of Karachi citizens, and by sunrise he would plan to disappear in the faceless throngs.

With the satchel slung over a shoulder, Morgan walked along the island road. One shoe found a trash can, the other landed in a mangrove swamp. Everything else was lost to a cluster of bushes.

He found a bicycle outside a dark house. A mile down the sand-swept road, past the hanging fishing nets, the bicycle seat pressing into his chafed rear, he heard the pitch deepen and smother the world in a clamoring roar. The Sea King search-and-rescue helicopter was returning home. The searchlight was off—its mission futile.

Barif Ali rode on as the machine flew overhead.

Before dawn Morgan abandoned the bicycle against a crumbling wall and walked the last mile until he found a stone bench near the Old City Street Market. His body craved both food and water, and he knew he could find whatever he needed there—after dawn. He waited, the pain in his abraded anus made worse from the worn bicycle seat, while his leg, inflamed from the jellyfish stingers, burned.

A dense cloud of cannabis drifted toward him from a hidden source. Morgan held his breath waiting for it to pass, then with slowed breathing let the purity of his training relax his body to soothe the pain. Even in his prime as a surgeon he was never able to completely reduce the tension that crept through his neck and shoulders when he leaned over the operating table. Now not a single thought or calorie was directed toward feeling relief, worry, or anything at all. His concerns were only practical. The notion of congratulating himself for doing what years ago would have been impossible never even occurred to him. All he thought was:
At least I’m off that piece of shit boat…

Fuck ‘em,” he said under his breath.

They were dead and he wasn’t, and nobody would know what happened.

Listening for noises where his eyes could not see, his intense focus finally brought enough reassurance that he allowed his senses to submit to the aroma of baking breads and sizzling lamb with curry and onions. As sunlight seeped between the buildings, loudspeakers from rooftops projected the muezzin’s atonal chant, calling the city to prayer. Minutes later the market came alive with the music of Qawwali
,
hip-hop, even American pop.

Withered children soon paraded everywhere, carrying fruits, vegetables, and burlap bags of rice. Working as slaves for the vendors, the little ones did as commanded, hoping their devotion would produce a morsel to feed their empty stomachs. Around them traffic increased, accelerating the world. A medley of horns blared, while from automobiles, tongas, and rickshaws, greetings flew back and forth, all in the male voice.

Morgan waited for the crowds to thicken. The local mafias controlled the markets, and their lookouts assembled early to watch the patrons, marking new punters who flashed rupees or didn’t barter, making them suspect, in need of more scrutiny.

He’d have to wait just a little longer
…

The mango shake was sweet and dense, filled with brown sugar, honey, fresh milk, and eggs. Morgan fought the desire to gulp the syrupy fluid and drank it slowly. He placed bottles of green tea in his satchel.

A vendor plucked a steaming chicken marinated in spices from a spit above a charcoal fire and tossed it on a board. Without repositioning his fingers, the cook swung a cleaver with precision, severing the bird in half.
Morgan nodded with respect
.
Placing the meat on a sheet of waxed paper, the cook ladled coriander chutney on it.

“Shokran,” said Morgan.
Thank you.
Speaking first in Arabic would give him the chance to see how convincing he sounded. If he had to, he could easily convert to English, which was prevalent in Pakistan, without raising suspicion.

After a taste he licked his fingers and belched—the most sincere compliment possible.

The man leaned toward Morgan until their faces were inches apart. “You come from Egypt?” the man asked in English.

“No
,
” Morgan replied. “Lebanon.”

“What is your name, friend?”

“Barif.”

“You remind me of my cousin,” he grinned.

“That’s an honor to me,” Morgan said with a broad smile that pushed his cheeks high. He was exhausted, but after what had just happened, taking time for ordinary conversation with a courteous local was a satisfying introduction to the country.

Morgan belched again and said, “I must be off.”

“You must be staying and telling me more, please,” the man requested.

“Next time, my friend,” Morgan promised. He shook the man’s hand and moved on.

As Morgan sat on another bench, devouring the bird, a mangy dog hobbled from a passageway, whimpering for a treat. The animal rubbed his flanks against Morgan’s leg. Ignored, the mongrel kept pestering.

With a snap of his toes to its underbelly, the dog sulked away. No one watching would think anything of the jab.

Morgan shifted pressure off his buttocks. Finding some salve with zinc or rosemary was paramount to reduce the inflammation and risk of infection. He eyed a little stall across the market that sold herbal remedies. It would be his next stop before he went farther into the city.

Morgan found a hostel where he could shower and rest. Sucking on a cigarette painted with hash oil, his eyes transfixed on a televised soccer match, the desk clerk never looked at Morgan’s passport while he took a calculator from a drawer.

“Twenty-four hundred rupees a—”

“Fifteen,” said Morgan.

The clerk looked at him with bloodshot eyes.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Twenty.”

“Seventeen,” said Morgan.

“For how long?” asked the man, returning his attention to the television.

“I don’t know.”

The clerk took another hit. Holding the smoke in his lungs he exhaled a little and offered the smoldering roach to Morgan.

He shook his head and said, “I’ll pay you for three weeks.”

The clerk exhaled into Morgan’s face and tried to turn on the calculator but the battery was dead, so he used his fingers.

“Eleven…thousand…” He wrote the number on his hand.

Morgan smiled patiently and started watching the soccer game.

“Nine hundred…” Morgan countered.

More ink went next to the first number. Finally he showed Morgan the amount. As the hashish weighed the man’s ability to think, he started laughing uncontrollably.

One hundred forty dollars—Morgan loved bartering.

“Up,” the man pointed and handed him a key.

Climbing the creaking stairs, Morgan walked down a hallway, passing a door that couldn’t hide the smell of marijuana or moans of carnal pleasure. It wouldn’t bother him. He was going to do something he hadn’t done in years—sleep.

The hunt would begin in the morning.

NGA September 26, 2003 0830 Eastern Daylight Time

A
fter the final identification check, Sorenson entered his alternate world—a place that had no day or night, where the hands on his watch became an irrelevant illusion. Spy satellites worked in the instant, zipping in tandem circles around Earth in sun-synchronous orbits. Every ninety-nine minutes each would fly over the same latitude, but looking down a little farther west because of the planet’s axial spin. In endless twenty-four-hour loops, the data downloaded to an ever-expanding library of information.

“Morning, Z!” He greeted his colleague Zand Zamani at the coffeepot. “Wife and kids okay?”

“Yuppers! And I’m off tonight!” said the former Desert Shield marine, whose family had escaped Iran in 1979. “Taking the brood to Chuck E. Cheese.”

“A night away from here?” said Sorenson. “Is that a first?”

With an extensive background in Middle Eastern military strategy, Jericho hired Zamani to manage night-shift data analysis. Enjoying the solitude, Z, as they nicknamed him, had remained in that position long after seniority dictated otherwise. Though he was willing to stay into the morning to help scrutinize fresh data, few day-shift analysts ever wanted to detain him. They knew he enjoyed getting his kids to school so he could spend time alone with his wife.

That was no surprise. Sorenson understood the first time they met at a party. With a honeyed voice, the articulate Muslim woman stunned everyone in her black dress and head scarf. The couple met at the CIA, where she translated Iranian government communication intercepts from Farsi into English. Rumor was they took their breaks together. After they were married, their passel of children grew larger every other year. No one doubted the reason.

“Bed might be a novel experience.” Zamani gave an expectant nod. “In the dark for a change.”

“I bet,” said Sorenson.

“Probably mess up my biorhythms bad.”

“You marines can tough it out.” Sorenson laughed. “Hope you get some sleep…sometime.”

He looked toward the door. Jericho had entered with her usual china cup filled with freshly steeped tea.

“I’m off to observe from my perch in the sky,” he said.

Standing at his workstation, Sorenson waited as his computer booted. Past the piles of books, maps, and thumbtacked cartoons, he watched his colleagues preparing to download their own morning pulls
.
Eventually they’d collaborate on what they were seeing and learning. Top-secret security clearances allowed them to share that much, but sources—the wellsprings of their information—were never revealed. Intelligence sources were critical to their work, and identities were protected, concealed in an unwritten trust. No matter how high one climbed in the intelligence tree—even those with Special Access Clearance (SAC)—those persons knew more, but never everything.

As a rule, every morning Elaine Jericho would round on each of her analysts to stop and casually talk, asking questions about their families and what they did the night before. Her ritual offered more than just polite conversations. She had done the same as a surface officer, touring the ship with regularity, wishing all hands well but studying every face. Clearances were no substitute for personal corroboration—an added intuitive assurance security that wasn’t breached.

“Ready for a good day, Mr. Sorenson?”

“Good morning, ma’am,” Glen said in his typical mellow voice that only grew animated if he drank coffee.

He could only glance at her. Her regulation wool sweater was more flattering than her usual blouse. Her heels tipped her hips forward ever so slightly. No one in the room thought Jericho appreciated how attractive she was, and nobody believed she dated. What a shame to have such assets wasted!

“Do anything interesting last night?” she asked.

“Naw. Love to admit I’m too hungover to think…but just went home and read some journals. Thinking of going for my PhD.”

“You can never have too much education,” she said with an approving grin.

“I guess.”

The image of Bugs Bunny expanded out a hole from the center of his computer screen.

“What’s up, Doc?”
asked the rabbit.

She laughed lightly when she saw his splash page.

Even after ten months on the job, her presence still intimidated him. It wasn’t just her rank. The women in graduate school at UCLA never looked this good.

“Getting ready to open my
pulls
,” said Sorenson.

“Glen…thanks for what you do,” she said sweetly. “Let me know how your day goes. And if there’s anything I can do to help…”

She moved on to say goodbye to Zamani, who was closing down his workspace.

Sorenson entered more passwords. As the data downloaded, he got a fresh cup of coffee from the break room. Studying the orphaned doughnut in the box, he yielded to the hunger pangs in his stomach and took it back to his desk. The chocolate was soon on his fingers and smeared around the corners of his mouth.

The analyst waited as the attachments opened. He wanted to yelp when he saw that the NGA had fulfilled his request. Sorenson studied the images, radar footprint, and freighter’s coordinates from three days before. The ship had passed through the Straits of Hormuz and had then turned due east.

“Commander Jericho suspected correctly,” he said as his fingers manipulated the data. “You went to Iran…and then…” He looked at the coordinates and heading of the ship on the final image. “Headed into Karachi.” He smiled respectfully at a picture stapled to his wall. “Thank you, Thomas Bayes.”

The seventeenth-century minister had devised the mathematical theory the spy world used to filter probabilities. As information accumulated, the odds that the assumption was correct became more likely. All one had to do was enter the known data, and the program would constantly refine how the satellites searched. In time they located everything they were asked to find.

“Crud, still can’t see the name.” He did some quick calculations. “But you got into the port in Karachi at…” Sorenson clicked on the image’s UCT (Universal Coordinated Time). Immediately converted to Eastern time, he looked at his watch.

“Hmm…fifteen hours ago.”

He crammed the remaining piece of doughnut into his mouth, switched to infrared spectral imaging, and almost choked.

“Holy shit!” Spitting the damp pastry in his hand, he shouted louder, “What the hell is this?”

Jericho and Zamani stopped talking. With a bit more noise, his outburst would have been hidden, but everyone in the room heard it and peeked over their cubicles trying to see what would happen. If the redheaded officer said anything, they’d make fun of Glen later.

“Mr. Sorenson!” Jericho barely raised her voice above her characteristic sanguine tone.

The analyst didn’t acknowledge that his superior had even spoken.

“Mr. Sorenson! I am talking to you, sir!”

To everyone’s horror, he trivialized her directive with a frivolous wave-off, hypnotized by his computer screen.

“Hey, Z! Come here, man! Check this out!”

Zamani and Jericho were at his side immediately, with the other analysts soon crowding behind the trio. Sorenson looked up when the creased slacks halted inches from his face. He discarded the remains of the doughnut in his wastebasket, wiped his hand on his pants, and picked up a pencil.

“That freighter…” The eraser tip bounced rapidly on the screen. “Here’s its radar image…caught broadside in the Karachi channel.” A few more mouse clicks, and a more distinct infrared image appeared. “Commander Jericho…look at this!” He directed them to a pale gray and white cloud.

“Glen, what is that?” she asked.

“I think…a man.”

“What?”

“That was
my
initial response too, a minute ago.” Sorenson looked at Zamani. “What do you think?”

Several clicks revealed more.

“Looks that way, Glen,” he said. The other analysts crowded even closer.

“What’s he doing?” Jericho asked.

“Whoever he is”—Sorenson used software to tweak the image even more—“he made somebody mad. Looks like he’s hanging from the stern.”

“Can you guess how long he’s been there?” asked Zamani.

“It appears here he’s still warm…that means probably alive, at least when this was taken. There’s more.”

“What?” asked Jericho.

“An image distortion on his back…let’s see…”

“Speculate.” Jericho was impressed.

“No evidence of radiant heat from it.” His hands drummed in unison on his desktop, causing his coffee to slosh, then Sorenson laughed cautiously. After a glance at the other analysts, his eyes held on Jericho. “Considering his circumstances, Commander…I’d say it’s ballast.”

“They probably”—Zamani’s laugh infected them—“wanted to make sure he sank.”