The Panic Zone (19 page)

Somewhere in Morocco

N
early two hours outside of Rabat a convoy sped along a dirt road, cutting across a vast stretch of forgotten territory.

The sun hit the chrome on the first two cars; both were government-owned Peugeot sedans out of Temara. The last vehicle was a late model Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen that had been dispatched out of Ain Aouda. Only a few of the men involved were members of the DST—Direction de la Sécurité du Territoire—the Moroccan secret police.

No one knew the identities of the others.

Dust clouds billowed from their trail, forming a rising curtain that concealed their destination and intention.

The man lying on the back floor of the G-Wagen, under a canvas tarp, stripped naked, shackled and blindfolded was Jack Gannon. His brain throbbed and his mouth tasted as if it had been stuffed with burlap and he recalled an overwhelming smell.

Chloroform?

The last thing he remembered was discovering Adam Corley's corpse amid a bloodbath in his Rabat home.

Gannon forced himself to cling to the drone of the wheels, to breathe deeply and calmly. He concentrated on the murmur of French coming from his captors at the front of the vehicle. He tried to pick up any information, a tone, a word he might know.

A cell phone rang, and the man who answered spoke in a language Gannon didn't recognize. The vehicle slowed to a halt, and he heard muted shouting through the closed windows. Dread gnawed at the edges of his mind and he tried not to imagine what awaited him.

Had he been able to see through his blindfold he would have discerned the high chain-link fence topped with razor wire securing the low building, which was half-submerged in the earth. It was a secret facility that did not exist. Not officially. In intelligence circles, it was known as a black prison.

For several years, the building had received suspected terrorists transported on ghost flights from countries that denied knowledge of activities conducted within its walls. It was undocumented work performed by contractors expert at obtaining information from any resistant subjects delivered to them. Some of the interrogators had extracted intelligence on the attacks in Casablanca, Madrid, London, Bali and on September 11. They had also thwarted a number of planned attacks that remained unknown to the world beyond its barbed-wire gates.

A sudden blast of 110-degree heat overwhelmed the SUV's air-conditioned interior as the doors were opened.

Gannon was yanked out.

Stones pricked his bare feet and the ground burned his soles as he hobbled with his captors a short distance before they pushed him indoors. The air was cooler but he was nearly overcome by the stench of urine and excrement. The drone of flies was alarming and he feared he was among corpses. As Gannon was shoved along the building's reeking corridors, he found his voice.

“I'm an American citizen. I want to call my embassy.”

A sharp pain exploded in his buttocks from the kick of a large steel-toed boot. Gannon's knees buckled and he was dragged into another room.

Distant shouting and screams echoed. The floor was wet
as he was positioned with his feet spread apart. Chains clinked and steel collars were clamped to his ankles.

His plastic handcuffs were replaced with steel ones that were fastened to chains. The cuffs gouged him as his wrists were hoisted over his head. He had to stand on his toes to touch the ground.

“What have I done?”

A fist drove so fast and deep into Gannon's gut he felt his organs squeeze against his spine and reflexively vomited. The hot contents of his stomach flowed over his skin.

He wheezed through tears.

“The question for you,” said a voice in English, with an accent Gannon could not identify, “and it is a question you must ask yourself, is, Are you going to cooperate with pain, or without it?”

Gannon continued gasping.

“Because in the end, you will cooperate.”

For a moment, Gannon swore he heard a male American raise his voice in another room. The American sounded like he was talking urgently to someone over the phone.

“Yes! Gannon, run his name again! I need everything on him now!”

Gannon's attention shifted back to the accented voice before him.

“No one knows you are here. No one can help you. We will bury you and poof—you will vanish.”

There was the snap of a lighter then the smell of a strong cigarette.

“By the time I finish my smoke, you will be broken.”

A table rattled with the tinkling sounds of small metal tools on a tray.

“You can save yourself.”

Gannon's stomach quaked. His arms burned.

“Did you murder Adam Corley because he knew of the operation?”

“I want,” Gannon gasped. “I want to call my embassy.”

Gannon's face was slapped.

“Did you murder Adam Corley because he knew of the operation?”

“No.”

“What do you know of the Avenging Lions of Africa?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you know of Said Salelee of Dar es Salaam?”

“Nothing.”

Gannon heard a slight shuffle then felt a point of pressure under his chin. It felt like the tip of a steel blade.

“What do you know of the operation?”

“Nothing.”

The blade's point traveled slowly down his throat to the center of his collarbone, tracing a pressure line without breaking the skin.

“Why did you travel to Rabat?”

“You have my passport. I'm an American journalist.”

“You are lying.”

“Call the World Press Alliance in New York.”

“Why did you come to Rabat?”

The blade's tip traveled down Gannon's chest and over his lower stomach to the top of his groin.

“Why were you in Adam Corley's home?”

“To meet him for a story.”

“A story on the operation?”

“Yes, he had information.”

“What kind of information?”

“I don't know.”

The blade slowed as it traveled lower.

Gannon swallowed.

His blindfold was yanked off, light burned into his face and he sensed the silhouettes of several people outlined in the darkness. Standing before him was an unshaven, swarthy, muscular man about six feet four, sweating under a sleeveless T-shirt.

He wore combat pants.

His cigarette, half gone now, sat in the corner of his mouth. He dragged heavily on it, enveloping Gannon in foul smoke. Suddenly large hands reached from behind and gripped Gannon's head. Fingers reached around to his eyes and held his lids open.

“Why were you in Adam Corley's home?”

“He never showed up for our meeting.”

“You are lying. What do you know of the operation?”

The man moved his cigarette closer to Gannon's right eye until the glowing tip was all Gannon could see. It burned like the sun as the man held it to within a hair of touching him.

Gannon felt its heat.

“No, please!”

“What do you know of the operation?”

“Corley was going to tell me more. Please!”

“More about what?”

“The connection between his research and a law firm in Rio de Janeiro. The firm may be tied to a global child-smuggling network and the bombing of a café that killed ten people.”

“Is it tied to the operation?”

“I don't know.”

“You do know!”

“No.”

“Who killed Adam Corley?”

“I don't know. He was dead when I arrived.”

“You're lying!”

“No, I swear!”

“I'm finished my smoke.”

The man stepped back.

“Up!”

Chains clanked.

Racking pain shot through Gannon as he was pulled up by the wrist cuffs until he was suspended inches from the floor.

He struggled to breathe.

“Now you will become intimate with agony.”

G
annon's tormentor rolled a tray bearing a set of surgeon's instruments before him.

The man put on a blood-stained butcher's apron, a face shield and tugged on white latex gloves. Then he selected a scalpel.

Gannon's breathing quickened.

The blade reflected the light just as a commotion spilled from another room. Someone had entered but remained at the edge of the darkness.

“Major, I respectfully request you release the prisoner now,” an American voice said firmly.

“On whose authority?” an older voice said.

“My people have spoken to the ministry. Here is a fax authorizing you to surrender him to me.”

In the dim fringes, someone shuffled a few pages of paper.

“As you can see by the summary,” the American said, “Rabat police and the pathologist confirm Corley had been deceased prior to the prisoner's arrest at Corley's residence. And witnesses confirm the prisoner's whereabouts in the market and his hotel. He could not have killed Corley.”

A long tense moment passed.

“Should we obtain any further information,” the American continued, “we'll share it with you.”

More time passed before a voice in the darkness muttered a command. Then Gannon's interrogator grunted, the chains jangled and Gannon dropped to the floor.

He did not know how much time had passed before he was unshackled and taken to a bright, clean room. It appeared to be a medical examination room. He was left alone to take a hot shower. His body shook and he had to stop several times to lean against the wall and breathe.

He could not stop his tears.

When he finished he wrapped himself in a towel and sat on the only furniture available, a padded examination table.

What was happening?

He struggled to think.

Afterward, a doctor with white hair and a kind face under a few days of salt-and-pepper growth entered the room. Without speaking, he tended to Gannon's wounds then returned his belongings, his passport, wallet and his clothes. While the doctor watched, Gannon was allowed to dress, as if the nightmare had never happened.

Everything was intact.

Except Gannon.

He couldn't stop shaking. Tears filled his eyes.

“This will occur for some time,” the doctor said in accented English. “You will experience some bad nights, bad dreams. But you will be fine, I assure you. I have seen worse.” The doctor patted Gannon's shoulder compassionately before starting to leave. “Return to America immediately, if you can. Say nothing of your experience.”

“Doctor?”

The older man stopped at the door.

“Where are we and who controls this place?”

“I don't know.”

“Who was the man who intervened—he sounded American.”

“I don't know and I don't wish to know.” He removed his glasses. “I don't know anyone here. I do as I'm told since they took me from my home in Kurdistan six months ago.”

After the doctor left, Gannon stared at the white cinder block walls and battled to understand what had befallen
him. His emotions swirled. He was angry at the violation but thankful someone had saved him from the horror that was coming from his captor.

Don't dwell on what he was going to do with that scalpel.

Now, as Gannon tried to recover, he faced question after question.

Why was Corley murdered? What was the information Corley had about this story? Who was the American who'd intervened? What the hell is going on? Is any story worth my life?

Gannon gripped the edges of the examination table.

He would never give up. He would never surrender, being a reporter was all he was. He had nothing else in his life.

The door opened and a stranger entered: a man in his early fifties with short brown hair. His eyes were black ball bearings. They glared with an intensity that bordered on fury, above a grimace chiseled into a face of stone. He was just under six feet and wore khaki slacks and a blue golf shirt over his solid build. He held a slim binder with a file folder tucked inside. After assessing Gannon, he said: “Are you good to walk out of here?”

Gannon recognized the voice of the American who'd saved him.

“Walk to where?”

“My car. I'm taking you to your hotel so you can leave the country.”

“And who are you?”

“Who I am is not important. Let's go.”

The man slid on sunglasses.

His car was a white Mercedes and neither of them spoke as it rolled soothingly along the unpaved road over a sun-scorched stretch of flatland for nearly half an hour before they came to a modern highway. Gannon noticed tiny scars on the man's chin and an expression void of emotion behind his dark glasses.

“So, who are you and who are you with?” Gannon asked.

Robert Lancer looked straight ahead, considered the question and said, “I'm a U.S. agent.”

“Are you FBI?”

He said nothing.

“CIA? Military?”

“It doesn't matter. What matters is you came close to serious harm.”

“
Oh, you think?
Now I know firsthand what you and your ilk really do to people.”

“It's not pretty but it saves lives.”

“It also ruins innocent ones. I don't see how it can do any good.”

The man's jaw muscles pulsed.

“Tell that to the families standing at the graves of innocent people murdered in attacks.”

“What your pals did to me back there was medieval! Threaten a man with castration and he'll confess to anything.”

“Let me give you some context, Jack. You're a foreign national who trespassed in the apartment of a murdered man, who happened to be a source for about six different intelligence agencies. The locals had every right to suspect you. They were just getting warmed up with you.”

“By violating my human rights?”

“Look around, this is not the U.S.”

“What your friends did was confirm that I've got a huge story.”

“Forget your story. You have no idea how dangerous this is for you.”

“Is that a threat?”

“That's advice, or did you forget I was the one who got you out of there. The situation is complicated, but let me make one thing clear. You get back to the States and you forget this. Tell your editor your story fell through.”

“Fuck you!”

“Are you that stupid?”

“After what I've been through, do you really think I'm going to curl up and forget my profession? A lot of people have died for this story. Now, I'm going to report every iota of what I know and what I went through to know it, including meeting you. It seems to me that maybe a few governments have a hand in some kind of illegal crap.”

“Is that what you think you have?”

“You heard it all when your pals were torturing me.”

Lancer said nothing.

“Was Corley your source? Did he have information for you?”

Lancer said nothing.

Both men retreated to their thoughts as the countryside evolved into the outskirts of the capital. Gannon took note of how well this guy knew his way around the streets of Rabat. Traffic slowed them up as they entered the district of Agdal.

“When do you plan to run your story?”

“As soon as I put something together.”

When they turned on to Rue Abderrahmanne El Ghafiki, Gannon began to recognize the area.

“What's your story going to say about the Rio connection to Corley?”

“What do you think?”

Lancer parked at the entrance of Gannon's hotel, the Orange Tree, shut off the motor and turned to Gannon.

“Cards on the table, Gannon?”

“Fine.”

“Corley was going to help me on an investigation. Listen, it's too soon for a story. Give me your word you'll wait until we've got this thing nailed, and I'll give you mine that you will have the full story. I'll help you.”

“What's the full story?”

“We've got raw intelligence of a planned attack.”

“Where, when? What kind of attack?”

“We don't know yet.”

“On what scale, how big?”

“Don't know that, either. That's why any premature revelations would jeopardize our investigation. A lot of people are working on this. Corley was a source and he had a thread of something with African links.”

Gannon thought.

“Jack, we know you were in Rio de Janeiro and London.”

“Figures. What do you know about Drake Stinson with the Rio law firm, Worldwide Rio Advogados?”

“We know that his firm is involved. That was emerging through Corley's reports and his sources in Brazil. At one time Stinson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. We think the Rio firm and the café bombing might, stress
might,
have an African connection. Corley uncovered more about it recently.”

“That's all you know?”

“It's all I can tell you.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Not important.”

“I want to keep in touch.”

“I have your word you'll hold off?”

“I have yours you'll help me?”

“You have it.”

“And no other press are sniffing at this?”

“Is that your biggest worry?”

“No other press?”

“Just you.”

“I want some ID.”

The man pulled out his wallet, produced a blank card and wrote on it.

“Here's my protected number. It's good for anywhere, anytime.”

“There's no name. Who are you?”

“We'll keep in touch.”

“You better hope so.” Gannon got out of the car.

“Jack, I'm sorry about what you went through. It was out of our control.”

Gannon nodded, waved, then entered the hotel's lobby. He went to the front desk to check for messages. The clerk kept his eyes on the computer monitor and nodded. Gannon had something.

“Excuse me, sir, I'll retrieve it from storage.”

Probably something from New York or London, Gannon thought. As he waited he reviewed a mental to-do list. He'd have to arrange a flight to New York, then he'd have to give Melody an update.

Should I tell her about my abduction and torture?

The clerk returned with a small brown package.

“This came for you while you were out, sir. A messenger boy brought it around the time you left the hotel.”

The package bore a handwritten note.

* * *

To: Guest J. Gannon c/o the Orange Tree.

From: Adam Corley.