The Journey

by Neil Howarth

  Of course, he soon realized that he was only there to cover Admiral Raines’ butt. Raines had his eye on high political office. When everything went to shit, and they were looking for scapegoats, he could pull out Fagan’s work and say. ‘This is what we recommended, but you chose to ignore it.’

  Of course, he didn’t get to do that too often because when an operation or an initiative went to shit, which they usually did, everyone ignored it and moved on to the next one.

  Fagan looked into what was left of his beer and contemplated another. He was in a little Irish bar on M street. He had been wondering if he could afford to buy that fishing boat and move down to the Keys.

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  Fagan looked up. He was a tall man, with piercing steel grey eyes and a Clark Gable, pencil mustache. His hair was clipped down to his skull, but Fagan figured that was probably a design choice. Fagan was an expert on assessing a person. He guessed the man had around ten years on him, but he obviously kept himself in shape and looked good on it.

  He also guessed he was a spook.

  “Don’t worry,” the man said. “I’m not trying to pick you up. I just want to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  Fagan gave him a shrug but didn’t object.

  He slid into the seat on the other side of the booth and waved in the waitress. He pointed at Fagan’s glass. Fagan nodded. He ordered a bourbon for himself.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Why don’t you call me Bob.”

  “Okay Bob, how can I help you?”

  “All in good time.”

  He made small talk until the drinks arrived. He took a sip of bourbon and looked at Fagan across the top of his glass.

  “I have a proposition for you.”

  “I hope you haven’t had a wasted journey,” Fagan said. “Mind you, by the look of you, I’d say you haven’t come too far. Langley?”

  The man smiled and gave a non-committal shrug. “Shall we cut to the chase?”

  He said his name was Bob Johnson, but Fagan found out later his name was really, Morgan Schneider and that he headed a CIA shadow group called Strike 3. He told a good story.

  “You’ve seen it first hand. Trying to fight back while terrorists are out there eating our lunch. Our armed forces strapped in by Military red-tape and political correctness, only ever able to poke in at the edges, never able to do what needs to be done. Our little team are about to change all that. We’re going to work our way into the main arteries of their organizations and strike at their heart.”

  “Sounds very cloak and dagger.”

  “Call it what you like, but we’re deadly serious, and we mean to make it work.”

  “And how do your team get around the red-tape and political correctness?”

  “That’s simple. We don’t exist, not officially. We work directly for the President.” He paused and smiled. “Via our sponsor.”

  “Who is?”

  He picked up his glass and took a sip of his bourbon. “That’s classified.”

  Fagan didn’t push him.

  “We need people like you with your military background and experience, who can work as individuals or as part of a team. We need men, and women, who can plan an operation, yet think on their feet when the whole thing goes to hell. Experts on a variety of weapons, including their hands, feet and anything else they can get a hold of. Whatever it takes to get the job done. I don’t have to ask for your credentials, you wrote the book on most of this, at least in the way that the Navy SEALs apply it. But we do need you to learn a new skill.”

  Fagan looked at him. “Surprise me.”

  “Well more than one actually. You need to learn how to get in and out without leaving a trace, taking out an enemy who appears to die from natural causes, a suicide, a car accident. We’re not going after the suicide bombers, not even those who directly control them. We’re aiming much higher than that. We want the people behind the bombers and the terrorist cells, the money men, the planners. We want the architects of terror.

  “They think they're safe, that they can act with impunity, hiding behind diplomatic immunity, legitimate businesses, their human rights, while they send out these radicalized young men, and women, to blow themselves and their innocent victims to hell. We have to show them they can’t. Once they step over the line, they don’t have human rights. We are going to be there to pronounce judgment and carry out their sentence.”

  “And who draws the line?”

  He shrugged. “The President, backed up by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And of course our sponsor.”

  “Of course.” Fagan sipped his beer, so the man didn’t see him smile.

  “You saw what happened in New York. Do you think going to war is going to stop them? Chasing Taliban warriors across Afghanistan. Chasing Osama Bin Laden through the caves of Tora Bora. Chasing shadows more like. And when we have failed miserably, and more good men have been shipped home in body bags, we’ll pull out again and have achieved nothing. You’ve been there, you’ve seen that.”

  He looked at Fagan, but Fagan didn’t respond.

  “If you want to make a difference, I have a job for you.” He held up a hand. “Don’t say anything now, just think about it. I’ll leave you with your beer. There’s an open tab on me.” He swallowed his bourbon and stood up. “My apologies for taking up your time.”

  Fagan looked up at him. “You know they’ll never let me leave.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “How will I contact you?”

  “You won’t. I’ll contact you.”

  14

  Paris, France.

  Apparently, Morgan Schneider was right. Fagan submitted his resignation, and no one said a word. He packed up his stuff, handed in his IDs, and walked out of the Pentagon as if he had never been there.

  Six weeks later he was being put through a bunch of covert techniques training on a farm just outside Denver. There were some novel aspects to them which typically Navy SEALs had no need for. Like giving someone a heart attack while they were asleep in bed. He was sure the SEALs had given many people heart attacks but not quite like this. He then spent six weeks training in the office, shadowing ongoing jobs. After that, he was studying his first assignment.

  His name was Hamed Abu al-Abbas al-Faraj. He carried a Saudi passport, but he originated from Iraq. His business card said he was an importer of antiquities, but a string of evidence gathered by an excellent team of forensic accountants, proved he was the money man behind a number of terrorist attacks in Europe and in the US. The word was, he was planning a massive attack on the US Embassy in Paris. Another team were focused on the terrorist cell, Al-Faraj was Fagan’s.

  He flew into London then took the Eurostar train to Paris. He arrived at the Gare du Nord and took a taxi to a small hotel near the Place de la Bastille. There was a room booked in his cover name. His local contact met him at a cafe on the corner of the Place. His name was Pierre. He was a tall, good looking man with dark, curly hair. According to his brief, he was French Armenian and wasn’t yet thirty. But already his experience was impressive, and he also spoke excellent English.

  Fagan sat with a café noir, and Pierre had a glass of red burgundy. He slid a small computer pen drive across the table. Fagan retrieved it and slipped it into his pocket.

  “The details are all on there. We have been watching him for a week. We know his routine, who he sees and when he sees them. We are ready to go whenever you are.”

  Fagan patted the pen drive in his pocket. “I’ll study this tonight, tomorrow you can take me through it all, and we’ll do it the day after.”

  “Sounds good. Can I invite you to dinner?”

  “Maybe when it’s over. I’ve been traveling since yesterday and tonight I intend to go through what you gave me and have an early night.”

  “I would have that early night, and read it in the morning.”

  Fagan smiled. �
�You could be right.”

  Pierre stood up and held out a hand. “I’ll say goodnight.”

  Fagan shook his hand then waited for him to disappear into the evening crowd before he left.

  He ignored Pierre’s advice, poured himself a cognac from the mini-bar and plugged the pen drive into his laptop. Pierre’s information was comprehensive and well detailed.

  Hamed Abu al-Abbas al-Faraj walked every morning from his apartment on Avenue Foch in the 16th arrondissement, to a small cafe on the corner of Avenue de la Grande Armee. It had a pleasant view of the Arc de Triomphe. He would eat a buttered croissant, drink a cup of black coffee and smoke a cigarette, then he would walk back. Often a car would pick him up outside his apartment and whisk him off to whatever business he had. The pen drive had a list of all his appointments in the last two weeks and the ones in the next.

  This morning, two days after Fagan arrived, was no exception. They had shadowed him the day before, and Fagan had checked off all Pierre’s high points and gone over the plan again, and now they were ready.

  A voice in the tiny communicator tucked into his ear told him Al-Faraj was on his way back. It was Jules, someone that Pierre had introduced Fagan to the previous day. He was young but keen. Pierre had assured him he would be fine. Fagan hoped so.

  Fagan approached the entrance to the apartment building. Its elegant architecture and sculpted facade reflected beauty from a bygone age. It was hard to believe that two blocks down, during the Second World War, the Counter Intelligence branch of the SS were pulling out the fingernails of suspected spies. He felt the comforting shape of the automatic in his pocket. Maybe things had not changed that much.

  But some things had changed. There was no longer a concierge on the front door. The doorman had been replaced by a sophisticated security system complete with cameras, two-way communications, and electronic security locks. Fagan was relying on Pierre to get him in.

  Pierre opened the door as he approached, then held it to let him in.

  Pierre had struck up a relationship with the woman on the top floor a week before. When her husband left for work, he would ring the doorbell, and she would let him in. He would go up to her apartment, make love to her, then leave. He had done that every day for a week, all so he could be there to let Fagan in on time, today.

  Fagan was beginning to like Pierre. He was a man of meticulous detail.

  The entrance hall was marble and stone with a grand painted ceiling. It was also deserted. Fagan took the elevator to the first floor. From the look of it, the main workings had been replaced with a modern version, but it still retained the old fashioned, iron trestle gate in keeping with the tone of the building. He jammed it open with his foot and waited. He was dressed smartly as a businessman, someone who would fit in with the surroundings. He carried a leather briefcase in his left hand. His right was in the pocket of his overcoat holding the gun, an Israeli Jericho 941, 9mm. The weapon was quite popular with the Mossad, which was the general idea.

  “He is coming in the front door,” Pierre’s voice sounded in his ear.

  Fagan slid the gate closed and pressed the button for the lobby and took out the gun.

  “He is inside,” Pierre said as the elevator shuddered to a halt.

  Fagan could see him through the gate as he slid it open. Al-Faraj was about ten feet away, a slim man of medium height with a neatly trimmed goatee beard and a face some women would find attractive. Fagan held the briefcase in front of him, hiding the hand with the gun. He gave him a polite smile, and Al-Faraj smiled back, but he could see the man was trying to work out who he was. Al-Faraj’s hand went inside his jacket. Fagan swung out the gun. The smile on his face was already gone. His rapid double tap punched Al-Faraj backwards leaving two neat holes in his forehead. Fagan didn’t check if he was dead. He didn’t need to. Most of his brains were spread across the marble floor.

  Fagan moved fast. The notebook was in Al-Faraj’s inside jacket pocket. Pierre’s intelligence was right. He always carried it with him, he never trusted it to any electronic form. This was the gold. What they really wanted. All his covert account details were inside. The time window was short before things were changed but long enough for the finance whiz kids to funnel out the cash and wipe them out.

  Fagan walked out through the front door. Pierre had already disabled the lobby security camera. He was waiting in the car in front of the apartment block. He didn’t speak as Fagan climbed in and he drove away.

  Of course, the Israeli’s got the blame. They denied it, but no one believed them. There was speculation in the press about Al-Faraj’s terrorist links. The financial whiz kids had stripped the accounts of some substantial sums of money, and a quiet word had been passed to the GIGN, the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, the French Anti-terrorist group, who had moved in and taken out the terrorist cell who were planning the attack on the embassy. It had not fatally wounded their operation, but Fagan felt they had struck a major blow.

  At last, he was making a difference.

  15

  London, England.

  There were things about this new job that were different. Not what Fagan had been used to, and very different to the way they had done things in the Navy SEALs. In the SEALs, he loved the work, loved the rush and the excitement, even the danger. He had already done a handful of jobs, and love or excitement were not words he would use to describe this work.

  Cold was a word that sprung to mind.

  The results were gratifying, and he knew they were making a difference. He just never felt comfortable with what he was doing - with who he had become. This was not an enemy with a gun in their hand, aimed at you, trying to kill you. A case of you or them. Well maybe in the end it was, but it was not the same. This job was much colder, much more clinical than a well planned military operation.

  It was about being up close and personal. Looking the target in the eye and doing what needed to be done. It was also about being in and out and no one knowing you had ever been there. Apart from the fact that someone was dead at the end of it.

  Fagan got his first real experience of this up close and personal approach a few months after the Paris job. He was in London and working with Pierre again. Pierre had slipped across from France on a cross-channel ferry, using a false passport and acting as a truck driver’s mate. It was good to see him again, good to be working with someone he knew he could trust. They were a team. But it was very different kind of team to the SEALs. This was not standing shoulder to shoulder with your comrades. This was about being out front doing the job with the team behind you giving you support.

  Fagan pondered it, but he was not complaining. This is what he had signed up for. This is what it took in this brave new world.

  They spent three days planning the job. The target this time was a man in his sixties, Egyptian but naturalized British, a scientist. The British Intelligence Services were not involved. When Strike 3 did a job, the local intelligence teams never were. They didn’t ask for consensus or cooperation with the host country. They just got in, did the job and got out. The pieces fell where they lay. The local intelligence teams could think what they liked, they probably knew what had gone down, but they had no proof, and maybe they turned a blind eye. Whatever, Strike 3 was gone without a trace.

  Hard intelligence had it that the man was about to give valuable nuclear information to the Iraqi’s, which made it a US problem. They were not told what his motives were, only that the evidence against him was clear, and if they did not stop him, the world was going to get a whole lot darker.

  Fagan and his small team staked out the target, followed him to and from his work, worked out his habits, while Fagan and Pierre made their plan. He lived in an apartment in Earl’s Court in the West of the city, and he took the tube, the underground train, to work every day. They watched him, tracked him, planned it all out. Worked out the best time.

  It was raining as Fagan picked him up as the man left Imperial College on Exhibit
ion Road, where he worked as a research professor. Fagan wondered if he would grab a taxi to get out of the rain, but the man unfurled a black umbrella and set off on his usual walk to the station. Fagan hung back about twenty yards, but with the rain and the evening crowd, there was no danger of the man spotting him. Still, he and Pierre took turns at tracking him. Fagan picked him up again as he turned into Thurloe Street and followed him down into South Kensington tube station.

  It was the evening rush hour, and the platform was crowded. Fagan was soaked, and so were most of the commuters. He stood about ten feet away from the target. People crowded in between, huddled against the cold, desperate to get home. He could watch his man with ease.

  The tube train rumbled into the station, and the man moved towards the edge of the platform. Fagan worked his way through the crowd, casually edging towards him as the train approached. The tube train shrieked as the driver applied the brakes and Fagan was already standing next to him. He could smell his aftershave above the damp musk of the rain, a sharp overpowering brand that probably said a lot about the man. Fagan’s heart was pounding, but this was so different to anything he had done before. Different to the Navy SEAL kills. No adrenalin rush, no fast action. Just cold and calculated. He pushed all other thoughts from his mind and concentrated. He counted off the distance as the train rumbled towards him. Thirty feet, twenty feet.

  Bang!

  A firecracker exploded at the far end of the platform, courtesy of Pierre. It got the crowd’s attention. These were dangerous times. People were moving and pushing. Some had decided they were getting out. Fagan could see the fear in their eyes. The target looked up, concern on his face.