The Secret of Fatima (10 page)

Curled in a ball on the floor, the perpetrator was covering his eyes. In Italian, Kevin ordered him to get up, slowly, and put his hands over his head.

The man did as he was instructed.

Kevin's fury gave way to surprise and shock. His assailant wasn't the professional pit bull he'd thought. Rather, he was a skinny youth in jeans and a blue short sleeved shirt. A kid.

“How old are you?” Kevin blurted out in Italian.

“Eighteen,” the youth answered in English. “My Italian is not so good.”

Kevin couldn't identify his accent right away.
Middle East, perhaps?

Blood was trailing down from an open gash on the boy's head and nose.

Keeping his gun pointed at the kid's head, Kevin said, “Start talking and you'd better tell me everything, young man.”

“I … I did not mean to harm you.”

“Well, you could have gotten yourself killed,” said Kevin. “Hold on a sec, and don't move.” Kevin retrieved his first aid kit from the closet, opened it and took out some bandages and iodine.

He laid the gun down and applied iodine to the boy's head. Then he taped bandages on the gash to stop the bleeding. As he inhaled big gulps of air, the teenager's entire body shook.

“Thank you,” the young man said, bracing for what might come next.

“What's your name and where are you from?” asked Kevin.

“My name is Ali Recip. I … I … am from Turkey. I'm sorry …”

“What are you doing here, Ali?” Kevin asked.

Ali had fear and confusion in his eyes. Something didn't fit. The kid didn't seem like a teenage punk who'd do things like this.

“I was hired to break into your apartment, sir.” He slowly reached into his pocket and removed a thumb drive, which he held up for Kevin to see. “I was supposed to find your computer and download info to this drive.”

“Why?” asked Kevin.

“Because I was a good student at computer school.”

“Who hired you?” Kevin asked, trying to put the pieces together.

“I … please sir, I cannot say. My family …” The boy's lower lip was trembling.

“Take your time.” Kevin was giving him a few moments to compose himself.

“I am being forced to do things I do not want to do,” Ali said. “But my family is poor and they are paying me good money. My father has no work. My sisters …” His voice trailed off.

“Who do you work for?” Kevin asked more forcefully.

“Sir, if I say, they will kill me …”

“Tell me.”

Trembling, Ali said, “His name is Carlos. I do not know his last name. He knows my uncle, from the time he was in jail.”

“Why was your uncle in jail?”

“He shot a pope. Mehmet Ali Agca.”

“Agca's your uncle?” Kevin made no attempt to conceal his surprise.

“Yes.”

“But why break into my apartment? What could I possibly have on my computer that would be of use to this guy?” As he was talking, he went to get a glass of orange juice from the kitchen and gave it to Ali, who gulped it down.

“I heard them talking about you. They said you committed a crime in the U.S. Army and then it was covered up.”

“And this so-called crime would be on my computer?”

“Yes, they thought so.”

“What else did they say?”

“They plan to use this information against you.”

“Listen to me, Ali. Think hard. What else do you know?”

The boy sat silently for a minute, deep in thought. “They talked about an operation. Something to do with Iran. Please … that is all.”

Looking at the kid, Kevin felt compassion for him. “Go back to where you came from. Tell them I came home before you could accomplish the job. You can tell them you fell on the way out and that's how you got cut. Got it?”

“Yes sir,” he replied.

“I want you to memorize my phone number.” Kevin recited it to him and made Ali repeat it back to him. “Call me with any information you get, understand?”

Ali nodded.

“Now, give me your phone.”

Ali pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket and handed it over. Kevin flipped it open, removed the SIM card, and handed the phone back to the young man. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out 200 euros. He handed the money to the boy, who hesitated, but then took the bills, putting them in his pocket.

“Take the money and don't get into any more trouble. Next time it may not turn out so well.” Kevin led him to the door.

Ali stared at Kevin with big, questioning eyes. “I … thank you, sir.” He reached up and put his arms around Kevin, then broke away.

Kevin opened the door to his apartment and followed Ali down the corridor to the main entrance. He watched as the teenager scampered away, turning every few yards to look back at Kevin, until he disappeared down the path leading to St. Peter's Square.

When Ali was out of sight, Kevin retrieved the SIM card he'd taken from the airport thugs and put it on the desk alongside the one from the boy. He placed the first card into his Italian cell phone and scrolled through the numbers. Only four calls on the thug's card, three to the same number. Kevin recognized the country code as Spain and transcribed the numbers onto his laptop. Then he inserted the boy's SIM card into the phone and found over a dozen numbers. Comparing the numbers on Ali's phone to the ones he'd transcribed from the thug's phone,
bingo!
A match. From Spain. Kevin determined it was time to impose again on his personal CIA mole and friend, Toby Beck. Listening in on cell phone lines may have been outside the wherewithal of the Vatican, but it certainly wasn't of the CIA and NSA.

Kevin dialed. Toby picked up right away.

“Hey, buddy. How's it going?” Kevin could be as facile and nonchalant as any of these CIA guys.

“Good. How's it going for you?”

“Need your help again,” Kevin said. “I've got some phone numbers in Spain from two sets of bad guys. Can we get NSA to monitor for some of the usual suspect keywords?”

Kevin heard a slow whistle at the other end of the line.

“You're escalating this about three notches, Kev.”

“I know. Sorry. Can you do it?”

A deep sigh. “What the fuck, send 'em over,” Toby said.

Chapter Eleven

Rome, Italy

The next morning, Kevin went for an early morning run. As busy as he was in Rome, he was keeping his physical routine. In Washington, it was easier: working out with the kids on the basketball court. At the Vatican, it was proving a challenge.

Returning home for breakfast, his phone rang. When he picked up, he nearly stopped breathing. It was Katie.

“Kevin, I'm back in D.C. I wanted to apologize for the way we left each other.”

“I understand, Katie. What's that old cliché from the movies? Love means never having to say you're sorry?”

“From that movie we saw together,
Love Story
,” Katie said flatly.

Kevin smiled. “Oh, yeah. Well, then, no apology needed, not this time, or ever, OK?”

“I don't want to lose you as a friend.” Her voice was charged.

“You won't, Katie. Like the sun at the break of dawn, I keep coming back, don't I?”

Flustered, Katie mumbled something. “I just need you to stay my friend.”

“You won't lose me. I'm praying for you, and all the best with your marriage. You deserve it.”

“I'm glad we cleared the air on this, Kevin, and I need your advice on something else.”

“Sure.”

“I think I told you about this major new client of mine. The one I went to Brussels for.

His name is Greg Maggio. I had dinner with him last night—”

Dinner?
Kevin thought.
Do you often have tête-à-tête dinners with your male clients?

“—and he asked me about some large money transfers, like how could I help him quietly transfer a large sum of money without getting the authorities suspicious.”

“So?”

“There are rules, and this comes close to the edge. He's my biggest client and if he's legit I don't want him to just go
poof!
Some other law firm will grab him.”

“How can I help?”

“I know you still have connections within the intelligence community. If I give you the name of his company, can you get someone to discreetly check it out?”

Kevin hesitated. “Katie, my best source is Toby Beck, but I've been leaning on him a lot lately.”

After a brief moment of silence, Katie said, “I understand. Forget I asked.”

“No, leave it with me. I'll work something out. What's the company name?”

“Consolidated Investors United. A pure bullshit name he dreamt up for an LLC we registered for him. Thanks, Kevin.”

Seeing another call coming in, Kevin interrupted her. Area code 703. Northern Virginia. “I'm sorry, Katie. I've got to take this call.”

“OK. Talk soon.”

Without small talk, Toby got to the point right away. “I got to tell you, buddy, I don't know exactly what you're doing over there, but you might be in over your head.”

“How's that?”

Toby continued, “We intercepted a couple of calls. The numbers you gave me are registered to a cleric named ‘Carlos Alameda', goes by the name ‘Columbo.' NSA approved my request to listen in. Man, this stuff gets messy. I'm looking at the transcripts now.”

“Send them to me?” Kevin asked.

“I can't. My sweet ass is in enough trouble as it is. I don't want to push the boundaries here.” Toby went silent for a spell. Kevin wondered if the connection had been lost. Then Toby went on. “Are you alone in your unit?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Go to your laptop and dial in this URL.” Kevin did as his friend asked and powered up the Dell. As Toby read off the address, Kevin typed it in.

When he'd finished typing, a blue screen appeared. A series of numbers dotted the screen at a rapid pace, then abruptly stopped. A white box formed.

“Type this code in the box,” Toby continued. “Once you do that, I'll be able to control your screen.” Toby read off the code.

“What?” Kevin responded, typing it in as he spoke.

What was on the screen faded, replaced by an overhead image of an outdoor café in filtered sunlight, tables with patrons sipping drinks, palm trees, white jacketed waiters, and a nearby pool with frolicking bathers. Kevin gazed at the image, puzzled. “Am I supposed to know what this is?”

“Since you already gave us some useful intelligence, and you might be able to tell us more, I got permission to share it with you. It's the pool area of the St. Georges Hotel in Beirut. It's a satellite shot.”

Kevin continued to study the screen, not connecting the dots in his head. What is this? Then the screen's image zoomed in on two men at one of the café tables.

Toby went on. “The hunky fellow on the left with a cigarette in his mouth is Dov Leibotski, Israel's deputy intelligence director. We can't ID the other guy; his face is blocked by a fedora, probably on purpose. Take a closer look.”

The image zoomed in to reveal a grainy picture of a dark-skinned face, partially obscured by the brim of his hat. “Who's that?” Toby asked.

Kevin kept looking and shook his head. “Sorry, Toby. No idea.”

“Well, Israel won't tell us anything, which spells trouble. We think it's Carlos Alameda. We traced one of the phone numbers you sent me to him. He was talking to someone with a heavily encrypted phone number. We couldn't figure it out. We know he called the Vatican, but we don't know who in the Vatican.”

“How do you know he called somebody? I don't see a phone,” Kevin said.

“The phone's in his pocket.”

“You can track a phone in his pocket?”

“Don't ask. Keep your eyes on the screen.”

A Google Maps app with an image of a blue earth now appeared and zoomed in rapidly on another city: Teheran, Iran. A close-up of a street became visible, then changed to sand colored buildings in what seemed the outskirt of Teheran, busy streets and minarets dotting the landscape. As the picture zoomed in, an image of a man wearing a coat and hat, entering a tall building, formed. “That's the same guy from Beirut,” Toby said. “We have this guy who talks to the Vatican, then meets with an Israeli Intelligence official, then he trots over to Tehran to chat with one of leaders of the Supreme Security Council of Iran. That building is where the Council's office is located.”

“Toby, I met with Cardinal Porter in the Vatican. There's a fringe group wanting to start a nuclear war. To fulfill some Biblical prophecy,” Kevin said.

“And they're well underway. They might succeed. Let me give you some background,” Toby continued. “It's no secret that Israel has nuclear weapons. The French built their nuclear facility at Dimona back in the sixties. Today the threat is Iran. Remember that message your guys intercepted that had the word ‘trigger' in it?”

“Sure. You figured out that it also said something like ‘satellites in position'.”

“Right,” Toby said. “Putting this all together, the ‘trigger' must be a reference to a nuclear trigger, a special device that sets off a nuclear explosion. There are only a few countries with these triggers, including the U.S. and Israel. Iran needs them to activate nuclear warheads.”

“Geez. Scary stuff,” Kevin said.

“It gets better. One scenario is that the Iranians have lassoed a source for getting these triggers.”

“Well, so far as I know, the Vatican doesn't have nuclear triggers. What source, Toby?”

“My best guess: Pakistan. Pakistan has got enough nukes to obliterate half the world. Pakistan could always use some cold, hard cash. Look at your screen again.”

Kevin watched as a map of Iran appeared.

“The three blinking lights are the suspected nuclear sites, Kevin.” An arrow swirled around the screen and stopped. “This is Natanz, a small village; another one is over here; and the third is the Fordo facility, near the Holy City of Qum.” As Toby identified the locales, the blinking arrow darted like a firefly around the screen. “We think the reason the Israelis are mum is they're planning a preemptive attack on a nuclear assembly facility in Iran. Only one of these facilities houses the triggers, but the Israelis don't know which one.”