“I find it interesting, Ms. Telach, that someone like you who regularly finds ways around security systems does not appreciate that someone else might as well.”
“I did plan on having someone there,” she said defensively. “Should I alert the French interior ministry?”
“The French will merely confuse things. Where is Mr. Karr? ”
“He’s wrapping up in Germany.”
“Have him proceed to the airport.”
Rubens turned to go.
“Mr. Rubens, wait,” said Telach quickly. “We think there may be some sort of plot involving the Taksim area of Istanbul. Asad’s bodyguard mentioned it just outside the airport. We think they’re going to strike around noon.”
CHAPTER 66
Karr’s take on the German mission could be summed up in one word: bust.
They’d been consistently one step behind the terrorists, hampered by German laws restricting investigations. Al-Qaeda had succeeded in disrupting operations at Europe’s largest refinery, which sent a chill through the commodities market, raising the price of oil twenty dollars a barrel.
The German point of view was considerably more upbeat. The terrorists had detonated their bombs inexpertly, causing far less damage than they intended; the plant kept its vital fuel operations going, and the damage done could be repaired within a few weeks. Meanwhile, a previously unknown al-Qaeda cell had been rolled up. The chemist had been arrested at the bar with the key to the tackle shop gate still in his pocket; he’d gotten it from a girlfriend who’d worked there some weeks before, probably at his urging. The chemist had not manufactured the bomb material — it was a plastic explosive traced to pilfered Czech military stores — but he had raw materials needed to create other explosives, a serious crime under German law. The authorities were confident he would implicate other members of the network in exchange for “consideration” at sentencing.
Six terrorists who had taken part in the operation had died, either by killing themselves or failing to surrender when ordered to. Only two of the men had been identified so far.
Marid Dabir was missing. Fingerprints and hairs matching those in the house the al-Qaeda organizer had rented were found in an abandoned car near the plant. German intelligence was convinced that he had died in the operation and was planning DNA tests to confirm this.
“Except that it’s extremely out of character for an important al-Qaeda lieutenant to kill himself,” Karr told Hess. “They get other suckers to do the dirty work for them. I’d be searching under every rock and in every sewer for him if I were you.”
Hess answered by asking if she could get him a ride to the airport.
* * *
His mission in Germany over, Karr was due a good hunk of R&R time, and he knew just where and how to spend it — in Paris with his girlfriend, who was going to school there. But the Art Room had other plans.
“Tommy, we need you in Paris,” Marie Telach told him when he checked in from the Munich airport. “We’re looking for a flight now.”
“What a coincidence,” he said. “That’s why I’m calling.”
“Asad is going to de Gaulle Airport. We need you to trail him from there.”
“In Paris. Cool.”
“No, probably not. He has a connecting flight to the U.S. We’re going to get you a seat. In fact, we’ll get you a seat on every plane coming out of that airport, just to be sure.”
Anyone else would have groused. Karr, being Karr, laughed, then asked if he had time for lunch before making the flight to France.
“Better eat on the plane,” Telach told him.
CHAPTER 67
“We admire Americans here in Turkey, truly admire them,” Istanbul’s deputy police chief told Charlie Dean when he showed up to brief the police on the information the Art Room had gleaned from its bug in Asad’s skull. “I myself have been to New York and San Francisco several times. And Washington, D.C.”
Dean glanced at the head of the Terrorism Section, who was nodding briskly. It was obvious that neither man really believed him.
“My government wouldn’t have sent me to talk to you if they didn’t think it was a credible threat,” Dean said. “I realize that the information is sketchy, but it’s derived from a conversation between two al-Qaeda members. Something is going to happen in Istanbul, probably at noon, probably at Taksim Square or nearby.”
“And you can’t identify the sources?”
“We only have a photo of the person we believe involved. He’s a Syrian. He uses the name Abd Katib Muhammad. He may be working with one or two other people whom he knows.”
Desk Three had forwarded video captures of Katib, along with other information about him and a transcript of the conversation regarding the attack. While the information had been sent through normal high-level channels, Rubens had ordered Dean to talk to the “people on the frontline” to make sure it arrived in time to do some good.
“How do you even know this man is in Turkey?” asked the deputy chief.
“We believe he is,” said Dean, treading carefully because he couldn’t acknowledge the Red Lion operation.
“We have been very aggressive against extremists here,” said the terror chief. “Even before your 9/11. I myself took part in the raids at Beykoz, striking the heart of the Hezbollah conspiracy.”
“I’m sure you do a very good job,” said Dean. “That’s why I know you’ll take this seriously.”
“We are always watching Taksim Square,” said the deputy police chief. His English had a vaguely American accent. “There are many businesses nearby, and tourists on Istikal Caddesi. A car or truck bomb — it will not get close, I assure you.”
“That’s a good start.”
“We will increase the police presence and take precautions,” added the deputy chief, rising to dismiss him. “We appreciate your personal attention. Perhaps tonight you will be my guest for dinner?”
“I’d like that,” said Dean. “But I’m supposed to head back.”
“You came just to tell us this?”
“It’s why I’m here,” hedged Dean.
The terrorism supervisor gave him a wry smile, indicating that he suspected there was considerably more to the story but wouldn’t press as a matter of professional courtesy.
“I don’t think they believe me,” Dean told Marie Telach a few minutes later. He’d gotten into a taxi and was pretending to use a cell phone.
“They do believe you, Charlie. The Interior Ministry has issued an alert,” she told him. “They’re sending more police over to the area and a bomb detection unit from the airport. Your job there is done; we’ve done all we can. Your plane’s waiting — please proceed.”
Dean brooded about the situation all the way back to his hotel. There was certainly more that they could do — all of Desk Three’s surveillance apparatus could be turned loose on the area. But the Art Room was focused on Asad bin Taysr, tracking him on the flight to America.
It was eleven-thirty when Dean checked out of the hotel and got into the cab for the airport. Taksim Square was about a mile away.
Almost on the way.
He leaned forward from the backseat. “Take me to Taksim Square first, okay?” he said in English.
The driver said something in Turkish. Dean’s com system was off, so he didn’t have a translation. But he didn’t figure he needed one.
“Taksim Square,” he said again, dropping a fifty-lira note on the front seat, about twice the normal fare to the airport. “And wait. Keep the meter going. I’ll pay two times what it says.”
CHAPTER 68
Asad pushed onto the bus just as the doors closed. The driver, oblivious, lurched from the terminal exit, pulling into the circular drive that connected the different sections at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport. The shuttle bus was crowded with passengers from another flight as well as Asad’s, and he found himself squeezed next to a small child and his father. The child, probably American, said hello to him in English. Asad turned a
way from him without answering.
A bearded man from the Middle East sat a few rows away. He caught Asad’s eye, then hurriedly looked away. As the bus pulled into the next terminal, Asad drifted in his direction, until he stood directly in front of him.
“Where are you from?” Asad asked in English.
“Egypt,” said the man. “You, brother?”
“Morocco,” lied Asad.
“The airport is a confusing place,” said the man forlornly. “I think they do it on purpose. All of the West — a devil’s paradise.”
“The West is a land of opportunity,” Asad told the stranger. “You should be thankful you’re here.”
Rather than answering, the man stared at the floor.
The bus went around a special loop between the de Gaulle international terminals, stopping at each to let passengers on and off. When the crowd eased at the first stop, Asad put his bag on the floor and started to sit, then changed his mind and offered the seat to the little boy who had tried speaking to him earlier. The boy hesitated until, prodded by his father, he sat. He was the child of the enemy, and yet a child was a child, and Asad did not bear him malice. On the contrary, it was good to see how the father and son communicated with gestures and glances, the way Asad had with his father, the way he would have had he had a son.
The bus continued around the outer precincts of the airport, driving through a no-man’s-land created so that international travelers could change planes without going through two more layers of passport control and customs.
“Terminal 2B,” announced the driver.
Asad turned to join the queue, picking up the nearby carry-on bag.
“Did you take the right bag?” said a small voice in English.
Asad ignored him.
“Say, mister — did you take the right bag?”
“Oh, yes,” he told the boy, his earlier impression gone. This child surely was the devil.
“Come on, Bobby, or we’ll miss the flight,” said the boy’s father. He didn’t stop to hear the child’s explanation, scooping him up and helping him off the bus.
Even so, Asad made sure to give them a good head start before he got off the bus. He waited until they were through the security check before retrieving the new passport and boarding pass his accomplice had slipped him when they swapped bags.
CHAPTER 69
“Charlie, this is getting to be a bad habit with you.”
“What’s that, Marie?”
“You were supposed to go to the airport.”
“I’ m on my way.”
Dean scanned the square. Taksim was a major hub for local bus routes through the Beyoglu area, traditionally Istanbul’s international business district. It was also the end point of a long pedestrian mall extending several blocks that gave the area the character of London’s SoHo or New York’s East Village. On Saturdays, it was flooded with people, and Dean found himself gazing at a sea of pedestrians walking up from the Galata area. A half dozen large dump trucks had blocked off access to the square from the road; three police buses were parked beyond it.
“Charlie, you’re beginning to act a lot like Lia and Tommy, you know that?”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean that as a compliment. You came to Desk Three as a mature, level-headed op.”
Dean smiled to himself. He walked toward the fountain at the center of the square. Two policemen, one handling a German shepherd, walked along the tram tracks. Dean guessed that the dog was a bomb sniffer. Other policemen were stopping pedestrians, asking for identification and looking in bags and backpacks.
The Turks had taken the information seriously; there were plenty of policemen here, and undoubtedly more on the side streets just beyond the square. In truth, precautions couldn’t have been more thorough in an American city.
It was an inviting area for an attack. Not only were there plenty of people, but there was a multitude of Western symbols, American especially — a huge Levi’s billboard flanked one end of the square. Nearby there was a Burger King and a McDonald’s, even a Starbucks a small distance down the block.
So if he was going to blow the place up, what would he do? A truck bomb would do the most damage, but there was no way one was running the gamut the police had erected.
Maybe the show of force had already done its job.
Dean started back toward the cab, which he’d left a block away. As he did, he spotted a man in a long gray raincoat — odd on a day when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Dean started for him, all instinct, not thinking.
The policemen with the dog got there first. Dean stopped, frozen, sure he that in the next second the young man would explode.
“Charlie, what’s going on?” asked Telach.
The boy threw his hands away from his body, holding them out at the policemen’s order. Dean stepped back. As he did, he bumped against a short, stout woman in a long, brightly colored dress. He turned quickly to try to grab her but missed; she tottered down to the sidewalk.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, bending down.
“I’m all right,” insisted the woman with a pronounced British accent. “I can manage on my own.”
She refused Dean’s outstretched arm, righting herself and walking toward the paved cobblestones of Istikal Caddesi. Dean turned back toward the man in the raincoat; as he did, he spotted a bearded man being chased by two policemen. He was wearing a sweater, and looked like he had a bulletproof vest under it.
His face — it was the bodyguard, Katib.
Dean yelled to the woman to get down. As he did, the man exploded.
CHAPTER 70
Karr had never really liked French beer. It seemed to him that it was basically German beer done badly, probably to spite the ancient enemy. But the small refreshment area had a perfect vantage of the gate area where Asad was supposed to catch his plane, and so he decided it was his job to give up his taste buds in the name of an adequate cover.
“Asad should be heading your way,” said Sandy Chafetz. “We saw him get off the bus.”
“That’s nice,” said Karr, taking another sip of the beer. In the half hour he’d been there, he’d consumed about a finger’s worth from the glass.
He swept his eyes around the nearby gates, looking over the passengers. The Art Room had checked the passenger list; if Asad was meeting anyone here they were unknown to American intelligence agencies. Only European and American nationals had seats on the plane; none had Arabic names, though of course that wasn’t a guarantee.
Passengers making connections had to pass through a security gamut on ground level before being allowed into the gate area. Karr had wandered near the stairway earlier, only to be shooed away — though not before he had placed a video bug nearby, supplementing the airport’s video surveillance system, which the Art Room had broken into. Asad was also within range of the portable booster in Karr’s carry-on bag, and could be tracked to within a meter or so of his actual location.
“Here he comes,” said Chafetz finally.
Karr left the unfinished beer on the bar and walked around the comer to a vendor selling potato chips. He bent to inspect the offerings as Asad approached, shielding his face somewhat from the terrorist’s view.
“Definitely our guy,” muttered Karr after he passed. Unlike the other ops, Karr tended not to worry if people thought he was a nut who talked to himself out loud. He ambled along ten or fifteen yards behind Asad, watching as he turned toward the restrooms.
“That flight is boarding,” Chafetz said. “Maybe you should go over to the gate.”
“Uh-huh,” said Karr, ambling after Asad. He went into the men’s room, making sure there wasn’t a door the Art Room didn’t know about. Asad was in one of the stalls.
For a guy whose plane was boarding, thought Karr, Asad was sure taking his time. But then, some things couldn’t be rushed.
“Tommy, he just checked in at the gate,” said Chafetz.
“Uh, no he didn’t,”
said Karr, standing outside the men’s room.
“I’m looking at the computer display right now.”
“And I’m looking at the door to the men’s room. What’s the locator say?”
“We’re worried it may not be accurate — are you sure he’s there?”
“Well, I didn’t knock on the door,” said Karr.
“We’re looking at a video from the gate,” said Telach. “It looks like him.”
Karr sighed. The problem with technology was that sometimes there was just too much of it.
“Tommy, we want you to verify that the man in the restroom is Asad,” said Telach.
“You want me to ask him?”
“This isn’t a joking matter,” she said tersely.
The door to the restroom opened. Karr walked toward it, passing Asad as he came out.
“It’s him,” said Karr, dawdling at the sink for a moment before going back outside. He could see Asad walking down the hall, past the gate.
“He’s not going to that flight,” said Chafetz. “There’s something wrong.”
“Tommy, we’re going to attempt to recalibrate the locator gear on the fly,” said Telach. “Stand by.”
“Relax, Mom,” Karr told her. “My eyes are working fine.”
Karr quickened his pace until he was just five yards behind Asad. The terror leader walked back to the main area of the terminal, glanced at the board listing flights, then continued toward a nearby gate where a plane for Montreal had just begun to board.
“I’m heading over to Air France 346,” Karr told Chafetz.
“Asad isn’t on it.”
“He will be in about five minutes,” Karr said. “Say, am I on the aisle?”
CHAPTER 71
Dean found himself on the ground near the garden at the center of Taksim Square. He couldn’t hear anything. At first he thought it was because the blow had knocked out his hearing. But in fact silence had descended on the square, a moment of sheer, collective shock.
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