To Free a Spy (34 page)

In the first two days of their investigation, Japanese authorities had interviewed the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Norio, Aoki, John Anderson, Antonov’s prostitute Romi, Mrs. Nakamura, the old superintendent at the Tomodachi bath house, Mrs. Tanaka and Tex the bartender. Tex, wearing a bandage on his hand, threatened to file charges against Warfield for assault, but police, who by then had the bigger picture, said they would find reasons to arrest Tex if he persisted. He backed off.

After the authorities were through with Warfield, TK and Komeito drove him to his hotel. It would be their final ride together. Warfield told Komeito to stop at Guido’s first. There, he took Aoki aside. “If I ever have a son, I want him to be as brave as you.”

At the hotel, Komeito walked with Warfield to the lobby and they stood there sizing each other up for a silent moment. Komeito had earned Warfield’s respect. They had navigated a treacherous, narrow channel in the last few days and without Komeito the outcome might have been different. Warfield stood in front of Komeito and grasped him by the shoulders. No words were needed.

Cross arranged for a U.S. Air Force plane to return Warfield to Washington. As it climbed out over the North Pacific on the sunny mid-afternoon, Warfield looked out the window at the same blue waters Fumio Yoshida had flown above days earlier. He and his disastrous cargo had been sent to the bottom of the Pacific forty miles from the California coast—less than five minutes away from the mainland at five-hundred miles per hour. The bomb didn’t detonate and the Navy was determining the risk it posed and what needed to be done. Japan was cooperating.

Warfield had learned more about the 747 from the U.S. ambassador. The MOT had held it in lieu of payment of airport fees and other money owed to the Ministry by a struggling airline. The airline had bankrupted and Yoshida managed to sequester the plane by manipulating reports.

* * *

It was around three Wednesday afternoon when Warfield’s plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. Cross had called him en route and invited him to come to the White House when he arrived. “Nothing urgent,” Cross said, so Warfield begged off until the next morning, but Cross went on to say the media reports were alarming the country and the world. Some speculated the Japanese government was behind Yoshida, and others wondered what dangers the submerged bomb posed at the bottom of the Pacific, yet so close to the mainland. Cross said he was addressing the nation at ten that night to quiet the rumors. When Warfield got off the plane at Andrews, a driver took him to Hardscrabble in an air force limousine reserved for VIPs.

Warfield saddled Spotlight and rode for a long while, returned to the house and took a steaming hot shower. When Fleming got home they drove to Ticcio’s for dinner and Warfield found himself loosening up. He didn’t say much about Tokyo and she didn’t probe. They had a couple of beers, danced a little and joked around. Fleming ribbed Warfield about the night he got bent out of shape when she came in with another man who happened to be her brother. Warfield winced at the memory but was able to laugh with her.

They got back to Hardscrabble minutes before ten and Warfield remembered Cross’s speech and flipped on the TV. Cross came on and assured the American people and the world that the Japanese airliner downing was an isolated incident orchestrated by a single, deranged civilian who happened to be Japanese. The Japanese government was never involved. The 747 was believed to be carrying a nuclear bomb but it was never activated and went intact to the bottom of the ocean far from land. The Navy was handling the situation. “Our defense systems worked as intended and there was never any risk to Americans,” Cross said. Warfield raised an eyebrow at that comment but knew the president’s words were carefully edited by Cross’s advisors.

Cross finished his prepared statement and offered a personal comment. “In addition to our military, I want to express my personal appreciation for my advisors who stood with me when difficult decisions had to be made, and for retired Army Colonel Cameron Warfield, who uncovered this situation in Tokyo and played the key role in bringing it to a successful end.”

Warfield couldn’t believe his ears. For the first time he could remember, he was embarrassed. Fleming whooped and hollered and grabbed him around the neck. “My hero!” she hooted. “My man saved the world. You’re famous, War Man.”

“Hey, you act surprised!”

They were still laughing when Warfield’s line rang. It was Cross. “Hope you didn’t mind me blind-siding you.”

“Don’t tell anyone, but it was a case of being in the right place at the right time,” Warfield said.

“Some wise man said luck dwells at the intersection of preparedness and opportunity,” replied the president.

* * *

In the Oval Office the next morning, Cross told Warfield he’d done him a disservice by calling his name on national television. “Destroyed your anonymity.”

Warfield laughed. “Yeah, had a few calls on my voicemail this morning. Friends, army buddies, people from my home town, including the mayor; he wants to do a parade or something. Macc Macclenny. CNN. NBC. Fox News. U.S. News & World Report.
Washington Post
. No Hollywood producers yet, and that’s the call I stayed up all night waiting for.”

Cross turned serious. “Look, Cam. I want you to stay on the job. There’s plenty to do.”

Warfield wasn’t sure he wanted that and it showed on his face.

“Don’t decide now,” Cross said. “After you get through the debriefings take a few days off and then call me.”

* * *

Later that morning Warfield listened to the tape made in the Sit Room during the last minutes before Yoshida was shot down. He played a certain passage several times and wrote something in his notebook. Then he met with representatives from several agencies of the intelligence community to give them the details of his time in Tokyo. Their congratulatory comments after the meeting reminded him that before now he wouldn’t have gotten as much as a
hello
from most of them.

* * *

Later that day Warfield got a call from Abbas Mozedah in Paris. He razzed Warfield for being a glory seeker, then congratulated him. Warfield laughed it off.

“Got an update about Ms. Koronis,” Abbas said. “Her brother Seth’s long-time mistress Suri? She left him. Escaped, I should say. Seth’s group’s now calling her a traitor of God. We’re sheltering her here in Paris. Suri’s talking to us some.”

Then he dropped a bombshell on Warfield. Suri claimed Ana Koronis didn’t know about Seth’s involvement in terrorism when she first went to stay with him after the deaths of her husband and son. After a few months, Suri clued Ana in. When Ana confronted her brother he acknowledged knowing about the terrorist abduction of her husband and son but tried to justify the attack to Ana, although he said he wasn’t involved himself.

According to Suri, Ana was depressed and furious. Seth persisted, charging that without America, there would be no turmoil in the Middle East and innocents on both sides wouldn’t have to die. Similar to the prosecutor’s hypothetical scenario in Ana’s trial, Seth told Ana she had a role to play in this war: Return to America, take advantage of her status and position and assist the cause from there. After all, this was her homeland he was fighting for.

But the similarity ended there. Suri said Ana stormed out of the room and returned to the U.S. days later.

Warfield was skeptical. “Did Seth know about her trial? That she’s in prison now?”

“Suri says yes.”

“He could have saved her from that if all this is true.”

“He had no use for her after she rejected his agenda. This man has no warm blood, no humanity. He does not meet the definition of a human being, Cameron.”

“Why did Suri leave him?”

“Afraid of him. Seth’s brother-in-law Hassan was one of Seth’s henchmen. You remember I told you Hassan believed Seth murdered his wife, who was Hassan’s sister. Suri knew it could happen to her as well.”

“Yes. You said Hassan was going to kill Seth when he knew for sure.”

“Seth hasn’t survived this long by chance. One of his bodyguards suckered Hassan into believing the bodyguard was going to betray Seth, so Hassan hooked up with him and told him of
his own
plan to kill Seth. Soon after that, Seth summoned Hassan to his headquarters on the pretense of a planning meeting. When Hassan sat down at the table, Seth stood up behind him and swung a machete like one of your baseball bats. Lopped his head off clean and had it stuffed and mounted. Suri says it hangs on the wall in the room where he meets with his associates as an example to would-be traitors.”

Warfield shuddered at the image. After a moment, he said, “Could be a setup, Abbas, this story of Suri’s.”

“I was able to cross-check some of it after she asked us for protection. I think she is straight. We are trying to get all the information we can about Seth but she is going slow. She is afraid for her life. It comes out in bits and pieces. But I admit I cannot say with certainty she is truthful.”

“Not much to go on and it won’t get Ana out of prison. Even if Suri’s telling the truth, how could you prove it?”

“Listen to this, Cameron. She speaks of a meeting that I think could have been related to Petrevich—his escape from Russia with the uranium. Seth had made his needs known to a CIA source he had been working with but that source fell out of sight.”

“Hell, that could be Harvey Joplan!” Warfield said

“Maybe. When someone else came along instead of the CIA source he knew, Seth was skeptical and sent one of his men to meet with this replacement.”

“When did it happen, this meeting?”

Abbas checked his notes. “April twenty-two last year.”

“Prior to Habur gate then, sure.” Warfield thought about it. If the meeting actually was before Habur gate, it could’ve set up the Petrevich transfer. After Joplan was killed, and after prosecutors in Ana’s trial presented evidence she had the opportunity and motivation to be Seth’s accomplice, Warfield had stopped thinking in terms of another mole: He was then satisfied it was Ana who provided the CIA database to Seth. But if Suri’s information was factual, maybe Ana was innocent. That led Warfield back to one of his earlier theories: That Joplan revealed the name of his contact to his killer, who could have been planted in the Atlanta prison by someone who knew there was profit in the information Joplan had agreed to tell the feds.

Warfield now believed there was a good probability the mole was still operating in Washington, but he wasn’t quite ready to share this. Chances were too great that this American spy was in the intelligence loop and would be tipped off. “I’m coming over to meet with Suri,” he said.

“I thought you would.”

* * *

Four of Abbas’s men met Warfield at Charles DeGaulle Airport and drove him to their headquarters in the rear of Abbas’s engineering office. Abbas got in the van with them and they headed to the safe house where Suri was kept. Warfield and Abbas rode in the middle row of an old Dodge minivan with darkened windows. Three men in back and the rider at shotgun scanned the street with assault rifles in the ready position. Warfield thought at one point they were being tailed but Abbas told him it was his men.

The safe house was located in an alley, tucked between buildings that might have been candidates for demolition. The scent of garbage fueled by the August heat filled the air, and the broken concrete pavement, ever sunless, was blackened with permanent mildew and discoloration. Graffiti covered graffiti on the brick walls along the alley, and a blob of paint someone had applied long ago had begun to peel away, partially revealing a stenciled red swastika that was once meant to be out of sight forever. When they stopped, Abbas’s men lined the short walk to the door where a muscular man bearing an assault rifle met them. He was Jalil, Abbas said, who had been at Habur.

There was not much more light inside the darkened house than in the alley. A bar took shape around to Warfield’s right, and beyond that a pool table with suspended lights above, a grouping of sofas and chairs and a mantle and stone hearth. The place had been a lounge in earlier times. The marble floor was honed to a fine patina by generations of boot leather and was now dotted with Persian rugs. Blue cigarette smoke, only a little less pungent than the stale air it displaced, hung below the ceiling. Jalil and a dozen other armed men stood or sat but were anything but relaxed.

Suri was upstairs in a small windowless suite they had made for her. A fist-size opening had been chiseled through the brick wall, long ago if the aging grime around the hole was any indication, and no doubt by someone who could no longer bear the absence of light, or perhaps wanted a breath of fresh air. Suri’s eyes reflected her level of caution when Abbas introduced Warfield. “He’s a friend,” Abbas told Suri in English. “He knows why you are here.”

Warfield interpreted the slight change in her quivering lips as an attempted smile.

“You’re doing all right, Suri?”

“Scared. Very scared,” she said quietly. Her eyes searched his as if to judge whether he was a friend as billed. Just as Warfield had come to Paris so that he could read hers.

Warfield considered this woman for a moment. She might be frightened but she was strong. “Of Seth. Of course.”

“He will send someone to kill me. I trust no one now.”

“You’re safe here, Suri.”

She nodded. “Maybe.”

They talked for two hours, Suri slowly growing less cautious and referring to a secret diary she had kept for dates and specifics. As Abbas had reported, Suri said Seth had sent one of his trusted lieutenants to meet with the American contact and assess the risk in dealing with him. They had met in Paris.

“Who was Seth’s man who met with the American?” Warfield asked.

“Pierre?…Philippe?…one of those. I can’t remember his name,” Suri said.

When he felt he had all the information she had to give him, Warfield expressed his appreciation and told her she was safe with Abbas. On the way back to DeGaulle Warfield mulled over everything Suri had said, including the date of the meeting, April 22nd last year. When Warfield’s plane was airborne he called Paula at the White House and asked her to get in touch with Judge Hartrampf from the Ana Koronis trial and request permission for him to meet alone with Ana. Someone in Justice could have arranged it but Warfield wasn’t ready to involve Justice in this.