The Operative (3 page)
Authors: Andrew Britton
“I wonder what those women thought when they encountered European women,” Bishop said.
“The Zulus thought they were comical,” Muloni told him. “Not the kind of high ground the British missionaries wanted.”
Bishop didn’t want to tell her that overexposure wouldn’t have worked with most of the men he knew. Then again, some of them—like himself—might actually have been studying the woman’s face instead. Veil’s expression was nondescript. No anger, no frustration, no fear. Just neutral. It wasn’t even a kind of practiced blankness that made you think something might be working inside her skull, like a plan of escape. She was simply a woman who was going along with whatever came from moment to moment. Undistracted, if an opportunity presented itself, she’d be ready. That was how assassins worked. But all that aside, there was something riveting about a woman who seemed to have no opinion in her expression.
Bishop reached for a cigarette, thought of his promise, then let it go. He chewed his cheek and watched as the woman shuffled ahead amid her captors, her shoulders squared, her head high and defiant.
The woman the Bureau had code-named Veil—she called herself Yasmin Rassin, though that was believed to be an alias—was responsible for the deaths of at least fourteen individuals around the world. She was wanted in the United States for trying to kill the deputy director of the CIA, Jon Harper, outside his home in Washington, a hit paid for by Tehran, according to a mole in the
Majles-e Khobregan,
Iran’s ruling council of clerics. The trail that led to her capture had been long and convoluted. Photographed by a street-corner security camera, she had vanished for almost a year after the attempted hit. Eight months ago, a pair of MI5 antiterror agents on another assignment had made a chance ID at Heathrow and taken her into custody. On the way to Thames House in London, their car disappeared. It was later found burning in a field northwest of the city. A month later, the body of one of the agents was recovered from the water under the Westminster Bridge. His throat had been cut with a razor. Pink cotton fibers found in the wound suggested the razor had been tucked into the sweater she was wearing, probably the sleeve. Though her hands had been zip-tied behind her, shavings suggested that the restraints had been slashed, apparently by another razor blade. Rassin had undoubtedly made a lengthwise slit in the back of her leather belt and tucked the razor inside so its edge was even with the top of the belt.
Majles-e Khobregan,
Iran’s ruling council of clerics. The trail that led to her capture had been long and convoluted. Photographed by a street-corner security camera, she had vanished for almost a year after the attempted hit. Eight months ago, a pair of MI5 antiterror agents on another assignment had made a chance ID at Heathrow and taken her into custody. On the way to Thames House in London, their car disappeared. It was later found burning in a field northwest of the city. A month later, the body of one of the agents was recovered from the water under the Westminster Bridge. His throat had been cut with a razor. Pink cotton fibers found in the wound suggested the razor had been tucked into the sweater she was wearing, probably the sleeve. Though her hands had been zip-tied behind her, shavings suggested that the restraints had been slashed, apparently by another razor blade. Rassin had undoubtedly made a lengthwise slit in the back of her leather belt and tucked the razor inside so its edge was even with the top of the belt.
The other driver remained missing.
Despite a hunt involving the cooperation of multiple international security and intelligence groups, Rassin had again gone to ground until last May, when the CSIS got a tip about an Egyptian boy who kept to himself at school, never took gym class due to vague religious restrictions, and—what had surprised fellow students—remembered his locker combination the very first day. Simultaneously, the Mounties turned up an inconsistency in his passport that had been recorded at customs and eventually passed along: the customs agent had clandestinely noted the young man’s travel history—routine with young men coming from the Middle East—but there was no record of his having gone to the places stamped on the document. The Mounties tracked Rassin’s movements, compared photographs of the “boy” with the computer-enhanced security camera image of her, and finally made the arrest.
According to Bishop’s hurried briefing, Rassin did not resist the takedown. With the headmaster of the school present to lend an air of invisibility to the arrest—he was always talking with education officials—Rassin was taken away at gunpoint, outside, during lunch. And that was that.
Bishop watched as she was brought toward him. She certainly looked different from the security camera image he’d seen. She no longer had wavy raven-black hair tumbling to her shoulders. She was a redhead, her hair clipped short, boyish. Her features were more strongly defined, probably the result of Botox and malar or submalar implants. The eyes were slightly more rounded at the corners, and she was no longer wearing blue contacts. Her eyes were dark and piercing. Finally, Bishop noticed that while her skin was still olive smooth, her Mediterranean complexion was lighter, possibly due to topical melanin inhibitors, like hydroquinone or glucocorticoids.
She was slight, no more than a few inches over five feet, and with the proper clothes, he saw how she could pass as a teenage boy. The CSIS had subsequently learned from school officials that her “widower father” was an oil company geologist who was always up north, looking for untapped deposits. Presumably, visitors to her rented home, like her handler, would have come at night, wearing “dad” clothes and carrying luggage. E-mail would be checked only on school computers, which, as a rule, were off provincial law-enforcement radar absent specific tips about violence—which were virtually nonexistent in Canada. With hacking codes provided by her allies, she could even track CIA or FBI pursuers.
It was a brilliant disguise, one she’d maintained for seven months. Unfortunately for Veil, the RCMP was off
her
radar. It was like the traffic stops that turned into big drug busts: the law usually came at you by accident, from a blind spot.
her
radar. It was like the traffic stops that turned into big drug busts: the law usually came at you by accident, from a blind spot.
Leading her across the tarmac, one of the Mounties stopped in front of Bishop and inclined his head formally. “Good morning. I am Inspector Javert.”
Bishop grinned. “Really?”
“Indeed.”
Bishop nodded toward the driver. “Valjean?”
“Yes,” the inspector replied humorlessly, then indicated to the female plainclothes officer. “This is Cosette. She and I will be traveling with the prisoner to her end point.”
Bishop had expected the Canadians to use aliases around their prisoner. It gave them added deniability and would protect their families from retribution if she ever passed them on to her associates. Still, he was used to traditional military-style assignations with Greek letters attached, like Tango-Alpha or Foxtrot-Beta. The
Les Misérables
references gave this a kind of amateur, community theater feel.
Les Misérables
references gave this a kind of amateur, community theater feel.
Javert looked at the men in black on the runway. “You are ready for us to bring the detainee aboard?”
“Not quite, Inspector. We have to make some preparations before takeoff.”
“Of what sort?”
“They won’t take long,” Bishop insisted. “In the meantime, you can wait comfortably aboard the—”
“Please answer my question,” Javert said, his face tightening. “What type of preparations?”
Bishop hesitated. There were no written-in-stone guidelines for what he was compelled to share with local authorities. Still, he preferred not to lie to them. That could lead to mistrust at best, complications at worst. Cooperation did not, however, mean he was inclined to share everything.
Bishop let the pause stretch out, still weighing how much to reveal. Muloni spared him the decision.
“We’re going to conduct a body-cavity search on the prisoner,” she said. “We also have different clothes for her. There’s a room in the terminal where she can change.”
The inspector studied her flatly. “We searched her last night and found nothing,” he said. “She has been under constant observation since then. You needn’t be concerned.”
“I’m not,” she replied. “We have our own protocols and ways of doing things. This is going to happen.”
“They’ll be with us,” Bishop said quickly, pointing toward the masked Pakistanis.
Javert’s eyes remained on Muloni. “Is that supposed to put my mind at ease?”
“Not my problem,” Muloni replied.
Alone time with the prisoner was vitally important, but the reasons were secret. Mulling how to break the impasse, Bishop let his gaze drift toward Veil. He discovered she was staring back at him, her gaze hot and penetrating. He made himself wait an uncomfortable moment to see if she looked away—she didn’t—before turning to Javert.
“Inspector, no one disputes that it’s
your
prisoner being transferred to the custody of Pakistan,” Bishop said. “We have simply come to assist—”
your
prisoner being transferred to the custody of Pakistan,” Bishop said. “We have simply come to assist—”
“As needed,” Javert pointed out. “That was the agreement.”
“It was,” Bishop agreed. “But the rules of extradition in Canada are largely uncharted legal and political territory, while we have a great deal of precedent. To deviate from standard procedure without authorization ... Well, it would take hours to contact the proper parties on both sides. Ten minutes,” he said. “That’s all we need.”
The Canadian scowled with a mixture of reluctance and skepticism. But they both knew he would have to relent. He had carried out a kidnapping sanctioned by his country’s top intelligence dog. The more talk that went back and forth, the more phone logs there were, the longer Veil remained on the ground in Quebec, the more someone might start to take a closer look at how all of this had been accomplished.
“Very well,” Javert said. “We will escort the prisoner to the terminal and stay as observers until you are finished.”
“Shouldn’t you be checking the aircraft?” Muloni asked.
“Why? It got here, didn’t it? The Pakistanis have been watching it, haven’t they? What exactly would we be looking
for?
”
for?
”
There was no arguing with his logic, however naive it was, and Bishop couldn’t fault him for insisting on that condition—it might have been partly about alpha-dogging the operation, but it was more likely the inspector wanted to see that nothing too extreme happened on Canadian soil.
Muloni’s eyes remained on Javert for several seconds. Then she glanced at Bishop, gave him a disengaged little shrug. Javert seemed to have become his problem exclusively.
“Observe all you want, Inspector,” Bishop said at length. “The only thing I ask, respectfully, is that your people don’t get in our way.”
“Why would we?” he asked. “It’s just a search.”
“Right,” Bishop agreed. “But as with the airplane, we tend to check in places and with ways that might not be part of your tool kit.”
The inspector eyed him suspiciously, then looked back at his Mounties and waved them forward. They all fell in more closely around the shackled Veil, the two men flanking her, the blond woman a step or two behind. Bishop and Muloni watched the service road and the tarmac, respectively, in case anyone made a rescue attempt. But there were no sounds of car engines, nothing to break the reassuring monotony of the roaring turbines.
When they reached the jet, Bishop noticed Veil’s eyes shoot toward the masked men. It was the first time she was in a position to see them. The woman moved ahead without halting as they followed her into the charter terminal.
Bishop felt a chill. In his nineteen years with the Bureau, the former field operative had learned to respect his intuition almost to the point of obsession.
She knows who they are, who they
were, he thought. She would not want to go back to Baghdad with them. Any prisoner would rather die. It was a dangerous game they were playing now, but if it worked, the payoff would be considerable.
were, he thought. She would not want to go back to Baghdad with them. Any prisoner would rather die. It was a dangerous game they were playing now, but if it worked, the payoff would be considerable.
The terminal was a barracks-style concrete structure with a small functional waiting area and a corridor running back along one side of the unattended reception desk. On her arrival at the terminal that morning, Muloni had picked a small boxy storage area at the end of the corridor for the holding room. She directed the others toward it. Javert entered the corridor first, followed by the other Mounties and Veil. The black-clad men from the Gulfstream came next, with Bishop and Muloni in the rear. She shut the door behind her and locked it.
“He’s not going to like this,” she warned as they lagged well behind.
“I know. But what’s he going to do about it? Quote regulations at us? We’ll be done before he can even start to explain this to his commander.”
“Our boy here can still shut down the tower,” Muloni said. “Veil’s got to be airborne before it hits the fan.”
“She will be,” Bishop promised. “Remember what Harper’s buddy Ryan Kealey did to that United Nations security guard in oh-seven?”
She grinned. “It’s legend among those who knew what went down. Said he mistook a walkie-talkie for a gun. Threw the guard across the room. And he wasn’t even the target—it was the diplomat who was crossing behind him. The guard got credit for the takedown.”
“Classic,” Bishop said. “I’ll make sure only Javert comes in, and make it seem like it was
his
idea.”
his
idea.”
Muloni was still smiling. “Perfect. My move, if it comes to that.”
Bishop nodded as the group clustered tightly around the door.
“You can stand by in the corridor,” Bishop said, reaching for a doorknob. “We’ll let you know when we’re set to roll.”
“No,” the inspector said. “We will observe
all
of it.”
all
of it.”
“All right,” Bishop said. He pretended to consider his options. “But just you. Nobody else. And no talking. Take it or leave it.”
Javert’s jaw muscles were working. He nodded once, sharply.
“Who has the key to the prisoner’s restraints?” Bishop asked.
Cosette came from behind Veil and flicked her right hand up from her side. The key hung from a steel-plated bracelet locked around her wrist.
Bishop extended his hand, but Javert inserted himself between them.
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