by Joseph Badal
In a calm, haughty tone, Gerhardt said, “Of course you won’t do that. It is against German law.”
Langer reached a hand back and the agent with him placed an iPad in his hand. He tapped the screen a couple times and showed it to Gerhardt. “You see your wife and oldest son there. No clothes, tied to chairs. If you do not cooperate this instant, I will order my men there to beat your wife, Hedwig, and your son, Friedrich. That’s also against German law. But I will break every law when it comes to dealing with scum like you.”
“I am willing to negotiate with you,” Gerhardt said.
“As of this moment, all of your assets are forfeit. If you tell me what I need to know, I will let you and your family leave the country with the clothes on your backs. That’s the best deal I’ll make.”
Gerhardt swallowed and some color came to his face. “My family has done nothing wrong.”
“That’s beside the point, Herr Gerhardt. They will be punished for your crimes. We know you have violated German and international banking, securities, and currency laws regarding doing business with terrorist groups. We know you have executed securities trades in anticipation of terrorist events. We know you have, as a result, poured billions of Marks, Euros, and Dollars into the coffers of terrorist groups.” He paused to take a long breath and then, his finger again in Gerhardt’s face, said, “One chance, Herr Gerhardt.”
Gerhardt seemed to age in front of Langer. The man met his gaze and must have realized that Langer told him the truth. The red that had momentarily invaded Gerhardt’s face drained away and the pallor returned. His eyes misted. Then he nodded.
Langer immediately shouted, “Schuler!”
A man entered the office. “Ja, Herr Langer.”
“Herr Gerhardt has agreed to cooperate. I want the names and contact information of every one of his clients. Start with the largest by asset size and work your way down. And I want to know where Laila Farhami is right now.”
Gerhardt suddenly looked deathly ill.
Langer stepped toward the man and growled, “What? Has something happened to her?”
Gerhardt muttered something.
“What was that?”
“She left the building.”
“By herself?”
Gerhardt shook his head.
“Who was with her?”
“Three men.”
Langer grabbed a handful of Gerhardt’s suit coat and jerked him forward. “Stop playing games with me. Where is she?”
Gerhardt shook his head again. “I don’t know. There were three men in a white van that took her from the parking lot.”
“Who were those men?”
“I don’t know, but I know they work for International Securities & Investments Syndicate, a division of Saber Commodities.”
Langer’s stomach lurched. “What time did they take Miss Farhami?”
“Around two this afternoon.”
Langer ran from the room. He grabbed one of his agents by the arm. “A white van left the parking lot located under this building at around 2 p.m. today. See if the building’s security cameras picked up an image of the vehicle as it left the garage and in which direction it drove. And call the Polizeipräsident in Berlin. Tell him to find that van on the city’s traffic camera system. I want to know where it is now. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Joachim Langer walked through the halls and rooms of the Gerhardt Anlageberatungs offices. When he was satisfied with what his agents were doing, he walked outside the building and called Jack Cole on his cell phone.
“The executives at GA are cooperating so far. We should have a great deal of information from them and their records. But I have bad news, my friend. Your agent was taken from the building earlier. We have had no luck so far in locating her.”
“Thank you, Joachim. Please keep me informed.”
“Of course, Jack. One other thing, though. Willy Gerhardt disclosed that the men who took Miss Farhami work for International Securities & Investment Syndicate, a division of Saber Commodities.”
“We’ve been aware of Saber Commodities, but I hadn’t heard the other name,” Cole said.
“Might be a coincidence, Jack. But think about the acronym. ISIS. Like the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria.”
The interrogator roared, “You idiots! If you’ve killed her, I’ll have you crucified.” He poured a bottle of water over Laila’s head. She didn’t react at all.
CHAPTER 75
Bob Danforth arranged through Admiral Silas Wyncourt for a powerful motor launch from the U.S.S. Andrew Jackson to pick up Nick Vangelos and Demetrius Stellides near the Vangelos Charters’ office in Piraeus. In addition, Michael, his seven DELTA team members, and the three Navy SEALs Wyncourt had assigned to Michael were aboard the launch.
Rain-soaked and cold, they sped from the town of Piraeus to the mouth of Piraeus Bay, on the assumption that the Kerkira had not penetrated too deeply into the bay. The Greek Coast Guard had positioned patrol vessels outside the mouth of the bay and boarded every tanker that intended to enter the bay. So far, they had come up with nothing besides some crewmen on a few tankers with stashes of illegal narcotics.
“Let’s reverse course,” Bob suggested to Nick. “The tanker might have been behind us when we began our search. It could be between the town of Piraeus and the industrial area at the base of the bay.”
“Do you know how much damage could be done if a fully-loaded tanker blew itself up next to the refinery and all the storage tanks there?” Nick said. “If it’s carrying nuclear bombs . . . .” He let the thought hang over the boat like a storm cloud.
“The bad weather will pass soon,” Stellides said. “I’ll be able to see the boats much better once the rain stops.”
Bob turtled his head into his slicker against the constant pelting of rain and looked at the sky, which was as dark as ever. “What makes you think the storm will pass any time soon?” he asked the old man.
Stellides shrugged.
Bob smiled at the old man. In the short time they’d been together, he’d come to appreciate the man’s earthy sense of humor and positive attitude. “Nick told me you have x-ray vision,” Bob teased. “Now you can predict the weather.”
Stellides said, “As for the weather, I’ve seen it all.” Then he laughed and said, as he cupped his hands under his breasts, “If I had x-ray vision, I’d be in a kafeneio looking at young women’s vizia through their clothing instead of freezing my balls out here with you maniacs.”
The launch sped toward Piraeus and passed the ships they’d already seen. It took a good hour to return to the town.
“We need more fuel,” Nick told Bob. “We only have a quarter of a tank left.”
“Damn!” Bob said as he looked at his watch. 4:45 p.m.
Ahmed Boukali paced like a caged tiger on the main deck as the Kerkira unloaded its crude oil tanks through huge hoses that fed into a pipeline that, in turn, led to underground storage tanks. He tried to calm his jittery nerves by deep breathing and walking, but nothing seemed to help. At least the harbor master hadn’t raised a question about the Tripoli Star inserting itself into the line of ships. The storm had disrupted the normal flow of traffic. Several tankers had dropped out of the queue to avoid collisions with other ships. A ten thousand dollar thorodokia had kept the man happy. Praise Allah that bribery was a millennia-long tradition in Greece.
By the time the ship had unloaded its tanks, Boukali was a nervous wreck. “Let’s get under way,” he barked at Captain Fouad as soon as the Kerkira had retracted its fuel lines and closed its storage tank hatches.
Fouad skewered Boukali with a disgusted look. “Calm down,” he shouted. “We’ll sail as soon as possible. There are ships backed up in front of us. We can’t leave until some of the ships clear the harbor.”
“Watch your tone with me,” Boukali shouted back. “Or—”
“Or what? You’ll fire me? Or worse?”
Boukali walked away. Fouad was correct. What could he do t
o a man who knew he was about to die? And was happy about it.
The U.S. Navy launch roared away from the fuel station at 5:30 p.m. and headed toward the basin formed by the land at the end of the bay. It took an hour to run past the first ship they had observed when they began their search. They progressed eastward toward the base of the bay, slowing when they came up on a tanker, speeding past other ships. After thirty minutes, they reached the refinery.
“What now?” Michael asked as he moved next to Bob.
“We know the Kerkira’s not behind us in the bay,” Bob said. “Demetrius would have spotted her if she was.”
“You’ve put a lot on that old man.”
“Yes, I have.”
“What if he missed the tanker in this weather?”
“That’s a possibility.” He waited for Michael to respond. When he didn’t, Bob said, “Hang in there. If the ship’s still in the bay, we’ll find her.”
Michael nodded, but Bob didn’t think he looked convinced. “Even if we missed the tanker, she won’t slip past the Greek Coast Guard. So that leaves two places where the tanker can be. Either she’s still out at sea, or she’s in the bay in front of us.”
Bob turned to Nick and said, “How long will it take us to cover the west side of the bay, from here to where we started at its mouth?”
“If the weather clears, as Demetrius predicts, maybe two hours. Otherwise, three hours or more.”
By 7:30 p.m., the Kerkira was one hour past the refinery. Boukali put on a slicker and left the pilothouse. He stood outside and thanked Allah for the miserable weather. He also noted it was getting even darker as the sun continued to set. The cover of the storm had been good. Darkness plus the storm would be even better.
He pulled out his cell phone. He would have preferred to not use it but it was the only way he had to communicate with men who would pick him up. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and dialed the number.
“We’re in position at the coordinates you gave us,” a man said in bad Arabic with a thick, Slavic accent.
“I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.” Boukali terminated the call, took the battery and SIM card from the phone, and dropped them at his feet. He stamped them into bits and pieces and kicked them off the side deck outside the pilothouse and watched the debris flutter toward the main deck. Then he climbed down the ladder to the crew quarters and galley level below the pilothouse and ordered one of the men in the galley to tell the rest of the crew to join him there in ten minutes.
“Mike, we just got a hit on Ahmed’s cell phone.”
“Ray, hold a second; I’ll move under the canopy.” When he was under cover, next to the bosun’s mate who steered the launch, Mike said, “What were the call’s coordinates?”
Ray recited the coordinates and Michael repeated them to the bosun’s mate. “Plug those coordinates into your guidance system,” he told the man.
“I assume the guy who made the call was on a ship, Ray.”
“All we know is he was in the middle of Piraeus Bay, so that’s a safe assumption. But the cloud cover was so thick and dark the NRO satellite couldn’t put eyes on the location.”
“What was the substance of the call?”
“The recipient said he was ‘in position at the coordinates you gave us.’ The caller told him he’d be there in forty-five minutes.”
Boukali walked to his cabin, pulled out a long, rectangular case from under his bunk, and extracted an AK-47 automatic rifle. He checked the weapon, loaded a 30-round magazine until the magazine catch lever clicked, and depressed the selector switch from safe to semi-automatic mode, and back to safe. He put a second fully-loaded magazine in a pants pocket. After he grabbed a backpack loaded with Euros and Dollars and his French and Algerian passports, he sat down on the bunk and waited for the crewman from the galley to call him.
When the call came in, he took the rifle off safety, left his cabin, and bounced from one side of the companionway to the other as he unsteadily walked twenty yards to the galley. He placed the backpack by the bulkhead near the galley opening and lowered the weapon along his right leg. He scanned the room for a second: Four men seated at two tables; the other four stood in a huddle by a large coffee urn on the far side of the room. As he raised the rifle, one of the standing men shouted, but a couple rounds from the AK hit him in the throat. Boukali took out the other men by the coffee urn and then swung the rifle at those who were seated. He ejected the spent magazine and replaced it with the spare. After checking each man, he concluded he didn’t need the extra magazine after all.
Boukali broke down the weapon and stuffed the parts in his backpack. He quickly worked his way up to the pilothouse.
“Be careful on the ladder down the side of the hull,” Fouad said. “It will be treacherous in this weather. I’d hate to lose you or one of my men in the sea.”
Boukali smiled. “Yes, Jalil, we will be careful.”
Jalil tapped a screen next to the wheel. “I’ll slow down five minutes before we reach the spot, but I can’t slow down for very long. There will be other vessels right on my ass.”
Fouad pointed a finger at Boukali. “You take care of my crew. They are good men and have families.”
“Your men will be fine, Jalil.”
Fouad squinted at Boukali and sneered. “I wouldn’t care if you dropped that prissy Iranian engineer into the sea.”
“I might just do that, Jalil.” Boukali hugged Fouad and kissed both his cheeks. “I will one day see you in paradise.”
“Inshallah,” Fouad said.
CHAPTER 76
The interrogator slapped Farhami’s face. No response. He grabbed another bottle of water and poured most of its contents over her head. The woman moaned and slightly shifted in the chair. He said a silent prayer to Allah and watched her closely to see if she would regain consciousness. A minute passed before she jerked as though startled and opened her eyes.
She mumbled something unintelligible through swollen lips and an obviously-broken jaw.
He tried to pour the little remaining water in the bottle into her mouth but she rolled her head to the side and cried out.
The interrogator pressed a finger against her jaw which caused her to shriek. He then touched her swollen belly. She cried out again. He thought: Those idiots probably ruptured her spleen.
“Miss Farhami, I can put a stop to all of this. All you have to do is answer a few questions.”
The woman mumbled something again. He moved closer to her, turned his head to the side.
“What was that?” he said as he moved his ear to within a couple inches of her mouth. A small sound came from her and then a bloody gob of spit and blood landed on his ear and cheek. He recoiled and pulled back a hand to punch her, but stopped his hand halfway to her face.
He used his handkerchief to wipe away the muck on his face and threw the soiled cloth on the floor. Then he pressed a finger firmly against the distorted line of her jaw and smiled as her screams echoed off the warehouse’s concrete walls. He removed his finger and said, “I assure you we can continue this far longer than you can endure it.” Then he reapplied pressure with his finger on her jaw. After the fourth time, the woman moaned and whispered, “What . . . do you want . . . to know?” She breathed as though she’d run a marathon. Mukhtar believed he was about to lose her. He needed to make this quick.
“Why were you looking into your employer’s client files?”
Laila’s brain was wracked from pain. It seemed as though every nerve ending in her body burned. She felt weak and defeated. “What?” she said. He repeated the question. She knew the answer. It was really quite simple. She wanted to discover who the people were behind Gerhardt Anlageberatung’s corporate clients. She told the man exactly that.
“Did you discover the names of any of those people?” the man asked.
She slowly shook her head and then lowered her gaze as tears flowed down her cheeks and landed in her lap. “No,” she answered.
T
he interrogator smiled. “Just one more question, my dear. Who do you work for?”
So far, Laila had told the man nothing of value. Surely, he had already guessed why she had dug into the files. And GA knew there were no client names in any of the system’s files. That information must have been placed elsewhere, someplace beyond Laila’s reach. All her research had been for naught. The third question was the real meat of his interrogation. Something inside her sparked that numbed her pain. She recalled her Company training. She’d been taught that at some point in a violent interrogation the agent must assume she would be killed. At that point, she needed to perceive death as the only way to stop pain. It had sounded quite silly and unrealistic in a classroom setting. But now that thought steeled her and gave her fortitude mixed with fatalism. She raised her head and stared into the interrogator’s eyes. She smiled as best as she could.
The man extended a hand as though to press her broken jaw again when what sounded like explosions burst throughout the building.
Oh, God, she thought.
Then she saw movement from above. Men on rappelling lines broke through the skylights. She thought she saw at least a dozen but couldn’t be certain. At the same time, a huge crash sounded behind her while the men who came through the skylights fired weapons at the interrogator and his two men. Laila watched their bodies dance like marionettes and crumple to the floor.
She wanted to spit on the interrogator’s body which now lay spread-eagled at her feet. She tried to gather the strength to do so but a wave of pain attacked her body and brain, and then, she felt nothing.
CHAPTER 77
The motor launch bounced on the waves that roiled Piraeus Bay. It reached the spot identified by the coordinates provided by Raymond Gallegos. Where the intercepted call had been made. Michael ordered the Navy driver to stop the engines while they looked around. An enormous cargo ship plowed through the water to their left. Michael knew the shoreline was somewhere off to their right. The sounds of other ships were all around them, but Michael couldn’t see any other vessel.
