The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller (29 page)

Yazdi said something. Kealey didn’t care what it was.

“Ask the sonofabitch why he had people on the ground here and watched me instead of the terrorists?

“He was just telling me that they say they didn’t see the men we were looking for,” Rayhan told him. “The terrorist did not show up. He says he was hopeful that we were ahead of him.”

“How can they be sure they didn’t show up? These guys didn’t know what he looked like.”

Yazdi was still talking. Rayhan seemed surprised. “He said they know what passport he had been using. They were watching for it to show up.”

Kealey glared at Yazdi. “You knew that and didn’t tell us?”

Rayhan translated. Yazdi said nothing.

“Has it shown up anywhere?” Kealey asked.

Yazdi shook his head. Kealey exhaled through his teeth. The sirens were getting louder, horns were blaring as people tried to get around one another and make way for the fire and police vehicles, and Kealey needed to find the bomb.

“What do your people
think
?” Kealey asked. He indicated the two officers. “You have any more like these?”

“We don’t know where the device is,” he said through Rayhan. “If I did—if anyone did—we would not be standing here.”

Outwardly, Kealey was calm. But his mind was racing. Two thoughts were foremost. First, the shelf life of a terrorist was short—especially if he were a suicide case. A white paper commissioned by Homeland Security decided that they could remain focused for four days at most, roughly two days on average. These killers were not, as a rule, highly educated. They bought an uncomplicated narrative about dying and going to Paradise. But that target remained firmly fixed in their sights only as long as fear of dying did not start to make inroads: over 30 percent of suicide bombers lost their courage at the last moment. More than 20 percent backed down before that, often as the normal mortal desires of a young man got the upper hand. Why die to have a harem of virgins when you could have sex right here? Was it better to leave a grieving mother or a grieving sponsor? Then there was anxiety: many pulled the trigger on their bomb vest or car bomb or automatic weapon at the first sign of a challenge, as at a border crossing. For the 50 percent who managed to go through with their mission, psychologists—Allison among them—concluded that reinforcement had to be constant.

The terrorist is being hand-held now but at some point he’ll be solo again.
Kealey thought.
Then the clock inside begins ticking
,
the doubts and loneliness and fear seep in. Time matters to these people.

The second thought was that an enemy force did not create a distraction far from the theater of operation. The point was to decisively draw the eye somewhere else, to draw resources away. That was only risked if the target feared discovery since the very act of creating a distraction invited capture and, as clues were assembled, reprisals.

If the private jet were empty, that alone would have siphoned off resources: quarantining the field, getting on board, searching the baggage. But that would have been over and done in under two hours. For Kealey, finding that their target was not onboard would have taken far less time. But if all eyes, including those of American intelligence, had to be turned on the jet because it was able to take off in shadows, if it had to be identified and forced down, if teams had to meet it on the ground, Kealey among them, that created a window for the terrorist and the bomb to get away.

Not by sea
, Kealey thought. The Spaniards and the U.S. Navy had that covered. But how?

Everything pointed to an H-hour that was close and a terrorist who was still even closer. They would want to be near Europe, not the Middle East. Even someone like Khalid, with all his resources, would not risk sending them into Israel when the West was so utterly porous.

His tired eyes smarted as the smoke began to settle. The sirens were making it difficult to concentrate. The traffic was beginning to thin as fender-benders and traffic signals were ignored. It was time to get out.

“Let’s go,” he said to Rayhan.

“Where?”

“To the car. You drive.”

Yazdi said something as they began walking away.

“If he wants to shoot he’ll be doing me a favor,” Kealey said before he was finished.

Rayhan didn’t know if Kealey’s courage impressed or frightened her. Right now he seemed as obsessed as the men they were chasing. “He wants to come with us,” Rayhan said.

Kealey wasn’t surprised.

“You keep his phone, his guns, and no goon squad,” Kealey said.

Rayhan was about to repeat the instructions but Yazdi was already sending the men back to their posts. He handed the phone and weapons to Rayhan.

“Why was that so easy?” she asked Kealey.

“He showed his hand before the blast because he thought they were closing in on the device,” Kealey said. “The clowns with him probably arranged for a charter plane, but that’s not happening now. Yazdi had no plan B, so he’s trying to walk everything back.”

They reached the car and got in.

“Where are we going?” Rayhan asked.

Kealey had plugged his cell phone into the cigarette lighter. He accessed a map of the city. He looked at it then pulled back to a larger view.

Not in a jet, not in a boat
, he thought. A terrorist would come here because that’s where the targets were: to the north. He wouldn’t come up here to take a train south; that was the wrong direction. More eyes on the roads, more chances of discovery, more chances of losing his resolve. What was left? Kealey touched the phone to expand a view.

Nothing. He looked up, saw lights on the horizon through the fast-dissipating smoke. He looked down at the map. He glanced at some names, then went to a wider view.

“Tangier-Med,” he said quietly.

“Sorry?” Rayhan said.

He showed her the map. The airport had a star. He pointed to a spot on the northeast coast of the city.

“Here,” he said. “As fast as you can.”

Rayhan turned the ignition. The car did not start. It wasn’t just engine trouble; the transmission didn’t even make a sound. Kealey’s gut grew taut and he reached for the door handle as two men approached either door. They were carrying K100 Grand Power semiautomatics, just above waist-high, each aimed at the heads of the Americans.

“What do they want?” Rayhan asked angrily. Like Kealey, she felt stupidly sucker punched.

“All of your electronic devices, weapons—and you. We are transferring to another vehicle,” Yazdi told her, opening the car door. “If you wish to stop the bomb, and if you ever expect to go home, I recommend that you cooperate with the members of Zal-5
.
”

One man took the cell phones, shut them off, and gave them to Yazdi while the other man smashed what he thought was an iPod under his foot. They searched the two for guns and knives. Then they walked toward a car parked a few spots away.

 

 

The Citation CJ1 light jet slashed through the night, quickly crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and entering Spanish airspace at 25,000 feet. It crossed land at Gibraltar and headed northwest toward Seville.

Naval Station Rota routinely tracked all aircraft arriving in or departing from Morocco. When the Tangier tower went down, the Air Operations unit TAP—threat assessment protocol—automatically went active. That meant not just tracking all aircraft but scrambling jets to intercept any that might fit category red: deviating from a flight plan that had been filed before the shutdown. The Saudi-registered aircraft had registered its destination as Tripoli.

Information from American Homeland Security indicated that the aircraft might be carrying a nuclear device. According to the TAP, its present course would carry it over Lisbon, Portugal, in about three-quarters of an hour.

Fighters from Morón Air Base in Arahal intercepted the jet with orders to shoot it down if it refused orders to land. The pilot acknowledged the order and turned to follow the escort to their airfield. The jet set down on the longest and most remote of the landing strips, one that had been designated TAL—Transoceanic Abort Landing site—for NASA’s space shuttle. The jet was surrounded by armored personnel carriers while a team in hazmat suits approached the jet. The pilot informed the tower he was going to open the door and step out. The emergency response unit stood back while the hatch was popped and the stairs were lowered and two men emerged with their hands raised. They lay down on the tarmac as instructed, with their hands flat on the asphalt before them, in a caricature of the devout praying to Mecca. The men were handcuffed and searched, the hazmat team boarded the aircraft with Geiger counters, the interior baggage hold was searched, the engines were examined—and nothing was found. The jet was towed to a hangar and the men were held for a return to Tangier, charged with violating the rules of the Government of Morocco’s Civil Aviation Authority.

The findings were relayed directly to Brigadier General Alexander Kokkinos, commander of 86th Airlift Wing, who communicated the findings personally to Secretary Max Carlson at Homeland Security. Carlson informed the heads of the other agencies in a conference call.

General Fletcher Clarke called Ryan Kealey to tell him the bomb was not aboard the aircraft. He got voice mail.

D
uring the summer, the Algarve region of Portugal is one of the most popular holiday spots in Europe and the most popular tourist destination in Portugal. Nearly ten million people make the pilgrimage to the resorts each season, not just for the epic beaches and glorious hidden coves but for the food. It is prepared with local, world-class ingredients in time-honored methods.

Traditionally, after tourism, this southernmost region of mainland Portugal relies on fishing and fruit export as its life’s blood.

But now there is a new income center, one that began with oil prospecting in 2007. The government established no-sail zones covering more than six thousand square kilometers, which impacted fishermen and sportfishermen, with fines of up to thirty thousand euros for trespassing. Though those contracts were short term, the discovery of oil in 2013 triggered an automatic thirty-year lease on the seabed. Heavy-duty drilling commenced, along with the planned construction of large oil platforms. To the surprise of no one, the once-powerful Algarve Fisherman’s Union was crushed by the oil interests. The fear of a Gulf-of-Mexico BP-style spill was squashed by assurances and payoffs.

And Khalid al-Otaibi added to his fortune, as one of the bankers who underwrote the venture and one of the oil sheiks who profited.

Mohammed was also an unexpected beneficiary as the under-construction platform gave the Bell 407 helicopter a place to land.

It had been a refreshingly uneventful ride from Souk el Arba du Gharb to Tangier. The diplomatic tags allowed them to pass through the roadblocks unhindered and the delays behind them made the trip pass with relatively little traffic. They arrived at the helipad at the massive Tangier-Med port complex; the helicopter was waiting and was airborne within minutes. All the while Mohammed’s heart raced as his place in history came nearer. The sun was just beginning to rise behind him as he craned to see the brightening ocean below. He had never flown in a helicopter—it was louder than he had anticipated, and he had been given headphones to wear—nor had one make a trip especially for him. He wished his mother could see him and that he could see her one more time. Mohammed knew that his father would be proud and strong, but his mother . . .

At least she will know what happened
, he thought with satisfaction. Yousef had sworn that she would be informed and recompensed for her loss. She would be told not only that her other son had been avenged but that his death had delivered to Mohammed the most powerful weapon for jihad since the Prophet received the word of God. He was sad at the loss she would feel—both of her sons, gone. But she would understand, in time.

From a cell phone conversation he heard on the drive north, Mohammed gathered that one of the geologists who worked on this project was a member of the team Boulif had assembled. Such educated men, and he among them. He would have asked Yousef to tell his mother that as well, but he did not want to embarrass himself. It would be unseemly fawning over the others. Yet after the way the Iranians had treated them in Yemen, as if they were mere bloodhounds who should be ready to do the master’s bidding, he told himself the connection he felt with these men was understandable. As the clear blue water began to sparkle with the first red brushstrokes of dawn, he thought back, with relish, to how Professor Boulif had changed from a man who was on his guard to someone who could not express deeply enough the gratitude he felt for what Mohammed had done. In the end, he expressed that with his life.

There
was
a fighter!

The sun rose on a sight that was more impressive than the vast ocean below it and brightening sky above it. It was a deepwater drill ship. It was a red leviathan that seemed immune to the gentle wave of the water.

“How big is it?” Mohammed muttered. It was more an expression of awe than a question but the Moroccan pilot answered anyway.

“The
Star of Algarve
is over eight hundred feet long and nearly one hundred and thirty feet high at the top,” he said. “Some here do not appreciate the vessel. To me it is a thing of beauty.”

“You are not a fisherman,” Yousef remarked.

The Moroccan shook his head. “My father is, since he was seven years old. I wanted something better for myself and my family. These people sent me to flight school, trained me.” He nodded forward, almost as if in prayer. “This is the way to achieve change. Building great new things. Growth.”

Mohammed disagreed. He had grown up hearing the stories from his grandfather about how the British came to the Middle East over a century before. They built it and then they owned it. The way to achieve change was to destroy the footprints of the conquerors and start again. That was what he had been raised to believe.

The helicopter settled lightly onto the elevated pad at the stern of the vessel. Two men in white coveralls came over to assist the passengers. One of them was pushing a dolly. They went to load the steamer trunk on it. Mohammed helped them lift it, not walk it, and place it carefully on the dolly.

Yousef and Mohammed followed the men to an elevator housing and rode it two stops to the crew deck. There, they were shown to very small, cramped guest quarters. The men placed the trunk against the far wall. Even upright, it occupied nearly half the tiny room. When they were gone, Yousef turned and looked into Mohammed’s eyes.

“You have the gun and the phones?”

Mohammed was wearing a corduroy jacket over the sweatshirt Yousef had given him back at his little plant. There were deep pockets inside for both. The Yemeni patted them and nodded.

“I will be leaving you here,” Yousef went on. “An aircraft will be along within the hour to pick you up.”

“From here?”

“A seaplane,” Yousef said. “It will be delivering a very important person to this ship. You will take his place.”

“I don’t understand—”

“You will,” Yousef said. “One of the crew will explain before you land.”

“Land,” Mohammed repeated. “But the plane will be seen—”

“We have already arranged to immunize our generous provider,” Yousef assured him. “It is essential that we continue to move quickly. The crew will take you out to sea, to your destination. For obvious reasons, they have no knowledge of what you carry. You are not to divulge your true mission to them. Is that clearly understood?”

“It is.”

Mohammed’s first thought about the secrecy was security—and then it hit him. That wasn’t the reason. No one on the airplane would be leaving the vicinity alive.

This was real
, he thought again. Each moment now seemed like a flame tickling his arms, the back of his neck. Mohammed had not thought his heart could beat faster. He had to take a long breath to steady himself.

“Do you have any questions?” Yousef asked.

Mohammed did not, but he wanted to appear intelligent, inquisitive. “What do the sailors believe they are carrying?”

Yousef smiled. “A very important friend of our backer and his luggage, and they are.”

Tears had already formed in Mohammed’s eyes. Now they spilled over. Yousef opened his arms and threw them tightly around the Yemeni.

“Stay calm,” Yousef said. “All you need to remember is exactly what you must do with the phone, as Professor Boulif instructed. The men will bring you right to your target. They will let you know when you are there. You will be able to do it in the privacy of your cabin. It is not just the explosion but the radiation that is important. The device will not only destroy one of the most important American waterways, it will poison a major city for a generation. All by your hand.”

“I understand,” Mohammed said.

With a final reassuring smile, Yousef was gone. The drill was not yet in operation for the day and Mohammed felt the floor hum gently with the distant sound of the engine. That must have been why Yousef had the device packed so carefully: to keep anything from being shaken loose.

He lay on the thin cot, aware of the slight sway of the massive vessel, still tasting warm tears at the edges of his mouth.

Stay calm
, he repeated to himself as he stared at the white ceiling and tried to imagine the clouds of Paradise.
Stay calm . . .