The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller (23 page)

Lt. JG Heyder Namjoo studied the image of Professor Mustapha Boulif. Except for the blood smeared on the cobbles beside him, the obvious result of the body having been dragged, the scientist looked like he was napping in the shade on a summer day. It seemed a benign, even gentle face; yet it would have killed millions of Westerners, given a chance.

It is a strange, deceptive world in which we live
, he thought.

The twenty-six-year-old was running the facial recognition software. Since the logistical integration of all the American intelligence services under the Homeland Security tent, DNI computers had access to literally every record in government files, from birth certificates to daily small-town newspapers when they were still being published, from white papers dating back to the early Cold War to patents to digital files of peer-reviewed papers on every subject imaginable. Right now he was looking for images of Boulif that had appeared in any conference, lecture, or reunion he attended. Anything that would point to colleagues with whom he might be in league.

The man had a surprising past. He was educated at the Sorbonne and MIT. He knew the West—of course. From Washington to Berlin, the members of NATO were their own worst enemies. Not only were the doors always open, NATO applauded the freedom they gave others to undermine them. There was a notice, in the files of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, that in 2011 Boulif had refused an offer to work on the Iranian nuclear research program. As a result, the filing agent saw no reason to have eyes on the man full-time—that was only done when the Mossad intended to eliminate an individual. They had taken out a number of Iran’s scientists, which they assumed could have been one reason Boulif declined the employment offer.

Or maybe he was an ideologue who wanted to do more than rattle sabers
, Namjoo thought.

The scientist was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. He had only taught at the University of Al-Qarawiyyin—though he was a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Algiers, something that showed up in several scientific journals but was not listed on his official résumé.

Because you were meeting fellow terrorists there?
he wondered.

He clicked on name after name of scientists with whom he lectured. Two of them, a Moroccan chemist and an Algerian biologist, had both showed up on Mossad watch lists based on a logarithm they had developed in 1999: men and women were tracked based on their specific skill sets plus a narrow degree of separation from known terrorists. Boulif showed up in the same place as the chemist and the biologist several times. Within the last year, they had all been in Morocco at the same time—for no reason that he could find in any public record.

Members of your team
, he suspected.

That was a possible terror cell, possibly—probably? —the Tahehlib group General Clarke had asked about. But the cell wasn’t the issue right now. The suitcase bomb was. ESMAD chief Lt. Cmdr. Bobbitt told them that based on the latest intel from the field, they should assume the device was already armed or armed-capable. That being the case, would the terrorist want to place himself in the hands of a Boulif colleague, a biologist in Algeria; a Moroccan chemist, who lived to the southwest, in Marrakech; or would he want to go somewhere else? Somewhere he could actually
use
the bomb?

The latter
, Namjoo decided. The terrorist had a car. And a nuclear bomb. Why risk crossing a border into a nation where there was a strong tradition of moderate Islam?

Namjoo looked up the history of the border crossing. Each nation was graded with a porosity rating based on dry runs conducted by the intelligence services. Algeria had a 91 percent “get” rate on drugs, found cash 79 percent of the time, took bribes eight out of ten times offered, and had zero acquisitions on nuclear material.

They would not be expecting it. Would the terrorist know that?

Namjoo looked into Tangier. The dead professor had extended family there, according to his official biography cross-referenced with current voting records. But there was no indication that he was close to them or even in contact. It would take a while to obtain phone records and check those against other Boulif family members. There was only one thing that suggested a possible ongoing relationship: he had coauthored a monograph with a cousin, a military officer, in 2010. If any of them were terrorists, they would not spring into action. DNI had possession of the man’s wallet and the Moroccan police would not give a photograph of the dead man to the news media. They would run a fingerprint check. It was approaching evening in Morocco; that information would not be made public until the next morning.

If a man is on the run with a suitcase bomb, where does he want to be?
Namjoo asked himself. The answer: not in a dusty desert but where there was no real enemy. In the event of discovery, he would want to be in a position to do damage against America and its allies. For a decade, allied shipping in the waters off Tangier—in particular, the chokepoint at the Straits of Gibraltar—had been protected by NATO’s Standing Naval Force Atlantic, supported by American and Portuguese maritime patrol aircraft and helicopters from Spain.

Tangier was also a gateway to Europe. If Namjoo were advising a man with a bomb, that was where he would tell him to go.

He’s also on the run for murder
. That underlying panic had to be factored into the man’s thinking. If he has had even rudimentary training, he would always have it in mind to take hostages. What better hostage than the SNFA?

Tangier
, Namjoo thought.
He must be headed there
.

Mark Mason’s face appeared in the corner of the screen. Namjoo wondered if the man were really a team player or just annoyingly insecure of his own analytical abilities.

“Where do you put him?” Mason asked.

“Still working on that,” Namjoo replied. He glanced at the update across the bottom of the screen. It was from INTERPOL via Homeland Security. Two police helicopters were in the air looking for the Daewoo.

“I guess the question is, does this guy want to get the bomb home or does he want to use it?” Mason said.

It was a rhetorical question with a tinge of pass-the-buck. The Profiling and Assessment Division hadn’t said anything yet about the man or his objectives. Whenever any division was stymied, it was customary to blame some other department for the delay.

“If you had to throw a dart?” Mason asked. He smiled. “Keeping in mind that you are only batting five hundred after saying the nuke would be on the container ship.”

Namjoo ignored the remark. He never thought it would be there. That was simply what he had opined.

“A man stumbles on a suitcase bomb,” Namjoo said. “That’s a bigger trophy than blowing up a city in Africa or even Spain. I’d say he takes the Maghreb Highway to Algeria. If he can get to Libya or even Egypt, he’ll be protected and celebrated by confederates with the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“That’s a long stretch of ‘if,’ ” Mason said. “About—what, a thousand miles to Tripoli.”

“We’re the ones in a rush,” Namjoo said. “Not him.”

Americans often forgot that about the jihadist mentality. If it wasn’t this year it would be next. If it wasn’t this generation it would be next. Inevitability, not immediacy, was their objective.

Before Mason could reply, an image was overlaid on his video feed. It was a photograph from a police helicopter in Fès: it was the Daewoo, abandoned on the streets of the city. The picture gave Namjoo a more or less definitive answer about what the terrorist was doing. He wondered if the rest of intelligence would agree.

He would wait and see before forwarding the answer to Iran.

Mohammed pulled out of the line of traffic headed onto the highway. People were beginning their homeward journey and he did not want to be caught in a line of cars. More important, he did not want to be in Boulif’s car any longer.

He had spotted a charity kitchen run by the Roman Catholics, an effort to win by bribes what they could not earn by God’s will. There were bins at the back of the structure to deposit food and unwanted clothing, books, and other goods. He parked under a tree in the small parking area and waited. Over the next ten minutes three cars pulled up. One dropped off a volunteer worker. Another brought elderly women who went into the clothing racks. The third was what he wanted. It was a blue Renault. It slid into the space beside Mohammed and a middle-aged woman got out. She went to the trunk and opened it. She took out two paper bags filled with bread and walked along the building to the back. She left the trunk open. There were several other bags waiting to be taken in.

Mohammed hurriedly got out of the car. Unless the woman turned, there was no way for her to see what he was doing. He put the device in her trunk, shouldered the backpack Boulif had given him, then scooped up the remaining three bags. He closed the trunk with an elbow. He still had the gun he had used to shoot Pakravesh. It was in the back of his waistband under his shirttails. It wasn’t as convenient a spot as it had appeared in movies: he wasn’t wearing a belt and it threatened to fall down the leg of his trousers. He had to bend slightly to prevent that from happening. Fortunately, he wasn’t going far.

With the three bags bundled in his arms, he met the woman as she was coming out.

“Oh!” was all she said. She was about fifty, dark skinned, black hair, a Spanish expatriate, he guessed. She smelled of flour.

“I was waiting for someone to come out,” he told her. “I thought I might help.”

“That’s kind,” she said as she took one of the bags from him. They dropped them off inside and he held the door for her, following her as she walked back to the car.

She turned to thank him as she opened the driver’s side door. She felt, then saw, the gun poked low in her belly, just above the waist.

“You are going to take me somewhere,” he told her. “Do as I ask and all will be well with you.”

Her only reaction was a quickening of her breath.

“Get in,” he ordered.

“I have children—”

“Get in now, lean over, and open the other door. If you try to drive off I will fire through the windshield.” Her children could not be very young. Mohammed was sure they could fend for themselves.

The woman grasped a cross around her neck as she got into the car. She did as she was told and Mohammed sidled along the front of the car, the gun held just high enough to fire over the hood. He got in.

“I am expected at home—”

“When we are underway, you will call and tell your family you met an old friend,” he said. “I need you for about three hours. To drive, nothing more. Do that and you will see them tonight.”

“No, please—take the car . . .”

She heard the gun click. “Get in now.”

“All right,” she said, anxiously starting the car. She looked around outside as though seeking help.

He pointed the gun at her rib cage. “I warn you, do not alert anyone. Do not crash into anything. It will be the last thing you do.”

“I won’t,” she said tremulously. “I swear. Please . . . that could go off.”

He lowered the gun to his knees, covered it with his hand. “There.”

“All right. Thank you. Where do you want me to go?”

He opened the glove compartment. He put both cell phones Boulif had given him inside and removed a map. He did not have to look at it; that was for emergencies.

“Get on the highway going north,” he said. “I’ll direct you from there.”

“You are not from here—”

He shot her a look.

“Your accent,” she said. “I may know a shorter way. If you would tell me—”

“You talk too much,” he said. “Drive.”

She did. The evening traffic had thinned and they had no trouble getting onto the A2—other than the woman driving slowly, tensely, her mind and body rigid with fear. That was going to cause an accident.

“I will put the gun away,” he said. “You must relax.”

“All right,” she said, breathing deeply and exhaling as he put the weapon beside him, near the door. “I just want to get home to my family.”

“You will sleep in your own bed tonight,” he assured her.

Mohammed did not know if that were true. If it became necessary to sacrifice her to protect his goal of jihad, he would not hesitate to kill her. If it was God’s will, many, many like her would perish.

He asked for her cell phone and told her to dictate a message to whoever was expecting her. She said she was going to dinner with someone from work and would be home as soon as possible. It was addressed to her daughter Sarah.

It seemed safe enough, no hidden messages. He sent it. Sarah texted back that she would make dinner for herself and John, and that they’d do their homework and Bible reading. He gave her back the phone.

“You have strong faith,” Mohammed said as he slipped the phone in her pocket.

“It is the center of our lives.”

“There is no husband?”

“He died. A boating accident.”

Mohammed looked out the windshield. She missed him. He heard the hurt in her voice. It meant nothing to him. He missed his brother, but he was in Paradise. He missed his comrades, but they were in Paradise. That is the blessing of the Prophet. Death for True Believers was only the beginning of a man’s great adventure.

It felt good to sit and reflect. Mohammed had been on the move since he left Yemen. He was tired and his eyes wanted to close, but he could not allow that. The woman seemed to have accepted her fate, but if he fell asleep she might reconsider, try and get the gun. He turned on the fan and adjusted the blower so it was in his eyes.

The woman drove in silence. Soon they were off the modern stretch of highway and were on the A1 that would take them directly to Tangier.

 

 

“The police found the Daewoo.”

Clarke had called Kealey with the information rather than texting. That meant he wanted to kick some tactics around.

“Where is it?” Kealey asked.

“At the foot of the A2,”Clarke said.

Kealey took a moment to get his bearings. He looked north, saw the helicopter over the site. He briefed Rayhan, then stopped, honked his horn, and sent her out to tell the officers there had been a change of plans.

“Any idea what he’s driving now?” Kealey asked.

“Nothing. The police are just arriving now. We’ve been crunching data here and we can’t find any known contacts Boulif had in that area.”

“Morocco’s not exactly dense with active terrorists,” Kealey said. “Why bother when they have safe haven everywhere from Western Sahara to Mali?”

“Just R&D or support systems to pass people along, that’s our thinking,” Clarke said. “So unless Boulif had a safe house somewhere else, which is doubtful, we think the cargo is going east to Algeria or north Tangier. We’ve got some loud voices on both sides, here and at the other agencies who are crunching this one.”

Land route toward the Middle East or sea route to no one knows where
, Kealey thought. Helluva crapshoot . . . but he was betting on the sea route. There was just one target to the east, Tel Aviv, and lots of Israeli security concentrated on every inch of that passage. The other way was rich with fat cities.

Rayhan returned, and as the cars changed course Kealey told her to ask Yazdi about their options. Before she could do that, the Iranian’s phone buzzed. She looked at it. Then she looked at Yazdi.

“What is it?” Kealey asked.

She replied, “It says, ‘He thinks Tangier.’ ” She asked Yazdi, “Who does?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Give me the phone.”

She held it so he could see. He studied the text message then answered truthfully, “I have no idea.” He added, less truthfully, “It was forwarded by someone in my intelligence analysis department. Do you wish me to speak with them?”

Kealey shook his head. He could send a coded message about his whereabouts or situation.

“How did your people get the information at the same time as our people?” Rayhan asked.

“We have sources, too.”

Rayhan translated for Kealey. He looked at Yazdi in the rearview mirror. He could tell when a man was lying. The Iranian was trying too hard. He was
too
relaxed, his voice was
too
much of a monotone. He was telling the truth, but only as much as suited him.

They had reached the Catholic charity. Kealey couldn’t be bothered with Yazdi right now. He took the keys and got out. There were two police officers at the Daewoo. They were joined by the men who had brought Kealey here.

“Do any of you speak English?” Kealey asked.

“I do,” said one young man.

“Did anyone see what happened?”

“No one, sir.”

“Security cameras?”

“No, sir. We are waiting for laboratory technicians to examine the car.”

That was great.
The man was out of sight for less than ten minutes and he was gone. Kealey looked back at the car.
But someone thinks he is headed to Tangier
.

Kealey glanced around him. He felt trapped by the blank faces, blank landscape, blank data. He liked it better when the enemy was shooting at him. At least then he could return fire. He called Clarke back.

“They’ve got nothing here,” Kealey said. “What about the satellites?”

“They’re sifting through everything in the region,” he said. “Morocco has not exactly been a high-priority target for us. You know what the chances are that we had eyes-on there, at that time.”

“Yeah.”

Very, very little
. Kealey was still looking around. That was the wrong thing to do. He thought about Uncle Largo. He had no tech to help him, just his eyes and his instincts and a radio. And he found the damn container.

“I’m going to Tangier,” Kealey said suddenly. “That’s only a couple hours’ drive. If he took the Algerian route, he’s got a border crossing. They’re sure to examine the backseat, the trunk. There’s no way he’d get the device across.”

“That may be true going into Morocco,” Clarke said. “Arabs get waved through the other way. He might risk it.”

Clarke had a point. Algeria to Morocco was one of the toughest crossings on the globe. The frontier had been closed since 1994, when Algerian intelligence was accused of abetting an attack on the Atlas Asni hotel in Marrakech that was linked to an attack on a McDonald’s the year before. The blockade ended in the summer of 2012, when the governments agreed to strengthen ties between North African Muslims by reopening the border. The truth was, Morocco was the tourist destination, the one that had assets to lose, not Algeria. Security would be tight going in, not out.

“Still, if we’re talking endgame, not logistics, why bring the device to the Middle East?” Kealey asked. “There are juicy targets in Europe. Hell, Madrid’s accessible across a short stretch of water.”

“One of our guys here, who has family in the Middle East, who says he knows these screwballs, is absolutely adamant that the terrorist will bring it home.”

“To do what, show it off?”

“He says it’s too big a responsibility for a foot soldier to decide its final disposition. He has a point.”

“Agreed, but this foot soldier had a high-level sponsor right here,” Kealey said. “General, I looked into that man’s eyes. He had the damn calling. If he told our terrorist to try and get the device to Paris or London, he’d be on the way. You know the drill. The last strong voice they hear . . .”

“Yeah, I know,” Clarke said. “We’re still figuring it out.”

“Dammit, we don’t have time for figuring,” Kealey said. He was getting impatient. Clarke didn’t bother pointing that out; Kealey knew. He scrolled it back. “Isn’t there someone we can pull off the Western Sahara, get them into Algeria to watch for him?”

The Western Sahara was disputed by both Morocco and the Polisario Front, a ferocious liberation group. It was among the most lawless territories in the region and a hotbed for the drug and arms trade.

“I could never get that done in time,” Clarke informed him. “You know those are all Andrews’s people. I’ve told him we could use the extra hands and eyes—he said he’d get that done as soon as possible.”

Robert Andrews was the head of the CIA, Kealey’s former agency. He tended to absorb any operation in which his talent pool was involved. Kealey didn’t care about the credit or the chain of command, only about results.

“How long?” Kealey asked.

“Ten, twelve hours,” Clarke said.

“A plane from here could put the bomb anywhere east of the Appalachians in that time,” Kealey said. “General, Professor Boulif was a nuclear physicist who had the world’s first suitcase bomb fall into his lap,” Kealey said. “He was a jihadist. He had to see that as an act of God. When he confronted me, he was covering his boy’s retreat. He didn’t expect to die—he expected
me
to die. I’m sure he wanted to see that baby blow up. He had to.”

Clarke considered that, too.

“All right,” the general said. “There’s a toll station on the A1 at Kénitra, not even twenty minutes from your current position. It’s usually pretty crowded at the tail end of daylight. There are a lot of tourist motor homes slowing things down, heading for the campgrounds. If your target is on that road and he doesn’t know it’s coming, he’s got to stop and go through it. Anything you can do with that?”

Kealey thought. He was going to go after him, despite the fact that the terrorist might recognize the car. He had looked around before he planted the bomb outside the school. These men might not be educated but they weren’t careless. Or stupid. In this narrow area of responsibility, they were very, very focused. But there wasn’t time to get another car. Any police car would raise red flags. He would have to risk it. In the meantime, it hit him—a way they could ID the target.