The Wrong Man (Complete 3-Book International Thriller Box Set)

by Fritz Galt

  But he didn’t expect the FBI to capture or take out Cooper without the proper authorization from the Kenyan government and without relying on their police or military resources. Besides, the FBI would be working with the special prosecutor and have the opposite mission in mind. They wanted Cooper back in DC to testify against the president.

  Well, that wouldn’t happen so long as Harry Black was a contractor for the CIA and national security was at stake.

  It was against his principles to ice Cooper. His men weren’t contract killers. But their mission was to nab him and put him on ice.

  That he could live with.

  Suddenly numbers flashed across the computer screen. Money was pouring into the account in Riyadh. The computer displayed the transmitting account number, complete with routing information.

  Then the amount of dollars in the transaction appeared.

  $20,000,000.00.

  He pressed the PrintScreen key and the entire transaction began to print out.

  The massive al-Qaeda freighter rounded the southern tip of Hainan Island and steamed eastward toward the Philippines. Sean watched in astonishment as the crew methodically went about the business of creating a new identity for the ship.

  Painters leaned far over the railings and created a new stripe around her hull by slopping on orange and black paint. Her two soaring funnels were soon ablaze in orange and black tiger stripes. The skipper hauled the flag off the stern and unfurled a new red, white and blue checkered flag. Now, what country did that represent?

  When the skipper took the old flag back to his cabin, Sean leaned over the aft railing to watch two scruffy crewmembers paint a new name for the ship. Standing on a platform, they painted the word, “Ariana.” Below that, they inscribed her home country: “Panama.”

  Suddenly, a cry emanated from the captain’s cabin. The skipper burst out his door ecstatically waving a sheet of paper in one hand. He did a short dance around the deck, drawing the attention of the entire crew.

  They circled around him to find out what had happened.

  “Foot soldiers of Allah,” he addressed them. “I have good news. We have a new adherent to our cause, Allah be praised. The President of the United States has just joined our ranks.”

  There was a general gasp of disbelief.

  “Trust me, I’m telling the truth. And here is the evidence to prove it.” He held up the sheet of paper for all to see. The white page whipped in the wind against a cerulean sky.

  Sean approached, but the words were too far away to read.

  “It says,” the skipper continued, “that the leader of the Western World, his Excellency Bernard White, president of our sworn enemy, the United States of America, has just deposited twenty million dollars in al-Qaeda’s bank account in Saudi Arabia.”

  The men let out a chorus of cheers, vibrating their tongues to form a piercingly high pitch. Many began to dance around the deck in their bare feet, pounding their naked chests and waving their hands high above their heads.

  Sean felt sick. Watching someone else’s selfless devotion to a cause had always made him feel uncomfortable. He had never participated in such displays for any cause. But the reason for celebration made his stomach go weak. He was the reason that the president capitulated. And now the skipper could squash America under his thumb. What would he ask for next?

  As if reading his mind, the skipper continued to grind his nose in it. “But we won’t stop here. We want more. We want complete submission to Islam!”

  The men cheered even more wildly. Victory seemed within their grasp.

  The skipper left his men and approached Sean with easy, confident strides. “There’s only one thing left to do before we make our next request.”

  “What’s that?” He was afraid to hear the response.

  “They want proof that we have you.”

  Sean’s shoulders slumped. “I figured it would come to this. What do you want me to do, squat against an anonymous wall surrounded by masked men with submachine guns while you videotape me?”

  “Hey,” the skipper said, snapping his fingers as if inspired by the idea. “That’s great!”

  Sean groaned as he was led past the raucous celebration and to the captain’s quarters. The skipper pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

  Sean had never been inside the cabin before. There were the normal furnishings that a man needed while traveling—a single bed, bathroom, dining table, a couple of metal chairs and a prayer rug. But there was also a desk with a reading lamp and a personal computer attached to a modem. Beside that sat a radiophone and fax machine. If he could only get his hands on that equipment, he could send out word of his predicament. But to whom? The New York Times?

  “This will do,” the skipper said, pointing to a wall of chipped paint. “You sit here, and I’ll get you some guards.”

  Sean took a moment to examine the communications equipment. If he could get a hold of the skipper’s cabin key, he could surely get word out that he was being held prisoner.

  Footsteps approached and he jumped back. The sailor passed, and he was safe, this time.

  He squatted down on the cold metal floor. This was pathetic. But it was the only way he could reach the outside world that day.

  He saw a ballpoint pen on the desk. He could scribble his location on the palms of his hands and flash them at the camera. No, the cameraman would see that.

  There were oily rags in the next room. Perhaps he could form them into letters and words. No, there wasn’t enough material.

  How about sign language? He could form letters with his fingers. But what could he say to the president who would receive the tape?

  Did he really want to communicate anything?

  He could get out word of his whereabouts. If the Navy rescued him, he might have a fighting chance of finding his family. On the other hand, the military might come and nab him just to keep him out of the public eye.

  If the tape got leaked to the public, it might be worth communicating the state of his health. But who the hell cared? There weren’t any close relatives sitting anxiously by the telephone, waiting for news of his fate.

  If his family happened to catch him on the tube, they would only be driven sick with anxiety.

  The sad truth was that he had nothing to say, and nobody to say it to.

  The skipper returned, this time with a digital video camera and tripod and two men who seemed put out by these additional duties. The charade was impressive. Ammunition belts crisscrossed both men’s chests. Checkered shawls covered every square inch of their faces, leaving only tiny slits through which to see. Both men held submachine guns indifferently by their sides.

  The skipper planted the tripod before Sean, and then pushed his actors around the stage. Returning to the camera, he looked through the viewfinder.

  “This isn’t Ingmar Bergman, but it’ll do. Now hold your positions.”

  The only audience worth worrying about was his family. He hoped to God that if they were given access to television news they wouldn’t panic. So he held up his face as the skipper hosed the scene with the video camera. He put on his bravest expression, trying to convey the fact that he wasn’t in any real danger despite armed terrorists standing over him. He cracked a smile, laughed to himself and tried to look casually around the room.

  The skipper stopped the taping.

  “I want you to demonstrate a little more respect,” he said. “Act like we’re terrorists.”

  “Okay. I’ll try.”

  The camera was rolling again, and Sean put on more of a frown. He’d go for serious, with a touch of fear in his eyes. Perhaps Kate would detect that he was hamming it up and conclude that he wasn’t in any real danger.

  After spraying the scene wordlessly for another minute, the skipper clicked off the camera and dismissed his men.

  Still irritable, they dumped their ammo belts on the floor and plodded away. Too bad they didn’t leave their guns, or Sean might be able to shoot his wa
y off the ship. He made a mental note to find out where the weapons were stored onboard.

  The skipper unscrewed the video camera from the tripod with a broad smile on his bearded face. “Once I send this to the White House, we can proceed with the next phase of our negotiations.”

  “Which is?”

  “Releasing prisoners, of course.”

  “Like me?”

  The skipper studied him seriously for a moment. “Why would they want you? As long as we keep you out of sight and away from the Chinagate investigators, they’ll willingly deal with us.”

  Sean’s shoulders suddenly felt very heavy. “So I guess I’m in for a very long boat ride.” He hated the thought that he may have instilled false hope in Kate and the children.

  Then footsteps padded into the office. It was the first officer reporting from the bridge.

  “Captain, it’s the Port of Manila. They want us to identify ourselves.”

  The skipper contemplated the request for a moment.

  “We have to reply,” the first officer reminded him.

  “I know, I know,” the skipper said, distractedly. Then his eyes fell on Sean. “You,” he said. “You will speak over the radio.”

  Sean picked himself off the floor and followed the two men. The captain locked his door behind him, and they mounted the stairs to the bridge.

  Sean had never been to the bridge before. Talking on the radio was one more opportunity to get the word out.

  Chapter 13

  Monday morning, the White House had a full schedule. Chuck Romer had already set up the president’s agenda. Early that morning, Bernard White had attended his weekly intelligence briefing presided over by the National Security Advisor and read his daily economic report. At the moment, the president was conducting his weekly meeting with the Congressional leadership.

  It was Chuck’s chance to sit down at the computer and scan the subject lines of all the urgent messages awaiting him. Email was such a boon to the busy bureaucrat. He didn’t need to respond to people in real time. Only when he pleased, when he even bothered to read his email.

  One message jumped off the screen. The message header indicated it had been sent from outside the government’s intranet, and the sender’s name was simply Hamid. It had an attachment that was unusually large, over forty megabytes. And the subject line read “Cooper on Videotape.”

  For the nerve center of the U.S. Government, Chuck had expected to find a supercomputer on everybody’s desk with high-speed, television-quality links to other computers around the world. Instead, he was disappointed to learn his first day on the job, that security concerns had held back the latest shipment of computers, and that he was, in fact, stuck with a Tempest PC dating back several administrations.

  The video clip took forever to download. And in the meantime, he couldn’t use the computer for other purposes.

  He kicked back his chair and considered refilling his coffee cup. But he didn’t want to leave his office with Cooper’ video displaying on his screen. What to do?

  La de da.

  His eyes fell on the calendar. On butcher paper taped to his wall, he had written out a highly detailed itinerary of the president’s upcoming meetings, speeches, interviews and trips. The meetings were written in blue marker and included tête-à-têtes with heads of state down to lunches with Lori. The speeches and interviews were marked in green. And trips were highlighted in red and included official speeches at a bird sanctuary in Florida, a Habitat for Humanity project in Missouri and a daycare center in Ohio.

  Mid August was still surprisingly free. The president had talked about returning to his ranch in California for a few days, so Chuck had left him a week free. It was scheduled just after the opposition party convention, but before his own party convention and most likely a moment where the president would take a heavy pounding in the polls.

  Why not get married then?

  He would propose the idea to the president that morning after the congressmen vacated the Oval Office.

  At last the computer announced proudly “File Transfer Complete.” On the screen a new window appeared with a video image.

  A man sat cross-legged on the floor directly in front of the camera. Behind him stood two hooded guards.

  Chuck leaned in closely to try to identify the man. So that was Sean Cooper. He had only seen the same photograph repeated in newspaper reports. It had depicted an upstanding and open-faced Regional Financial Officer for a major oil company.

  The man he saw before him had a light frosting of beard, a ghostly face, bare feet and a tattered business shirt. His eyes were doing something funny behind his spectacles. Maybe he had a twitch.

  The picture swayed back and forth, often blurring the subjects in front of the lens. In the dim lighting, he made out a reasonably detailed image of the captors. They hung loose, holding submachine guns with their heads wrapped in rags.

  At first it seemed that there was no audio track. In the silence of the scene, no ransom was demanded. It was just intended to prove that the president was in deep trouble.

  Chuck turned up the volume on his computer and picked up faint sounds in the background. He detected voices cheering and whooping in the distance, and a low and dull creaking noise, like metal under stress.

  Then the camera suddenly held still, poised firmly on a tripod. Against the paint peeling on the wall, the two terrorists leaned to one side in tandem. They were on a ship!

  Then, with a professional dissolve, the video image faded into a handwritten note. “Release all prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, or we will release Cooper.”

  The threat was concise, even poetic. And it needed no specifics to achieve its effect.

  Chuck clicked on “File Save” and stored the clip on his hard drive. He exited the program, picked up his phone and called Gertrude. “Tell the president to clear the decks. I’m coming in to speak with him privately. Now.”

  As Chuck entered the Oval Office, the top congressional leaders were still shoving their papers into their briefcases as they were herded out by Gertrude.

  He received a particular leer from the House Majority Leader, whose party sat in opposition to the president.

  “Is the Chinagate prosecutor interfering with your normal workload?” the congressman asked.

  “No,” Chuck lied. “Not at all.”

  “Good,” the congressman said. “We don’t want to let down our guard on more important matters.”

  “It’s very considerate of you to say that,” Chuck said politely.

  “In fact, the sooner the whole Chinagate affair is over, the sooner we can turn our full attention back to our jobs.”

  “Right,” Chuck agreed. Where was this guy going with this? If anything, the opposition party wanted to fan the flames of scandal.

  “We wouldn’t want any purposeful foot dragging.”

  “No.”

  “As that in itself might lead to criminal indictment.”

  Then the congressman leaned closer and uttered confidentially. “We wouldn’t want the matter as cover for further criminal behavior.”

  “Meaning what,” Chuck said, perhaps a tad too defensively.

  “We don’t want any mischief under the yellow flag.”

  Chuck understood the racing allusion. The White House might want to buy time by impeding the special prosecutor’s investigation. What sounded like friendly advice came across as intimidation.

  When the group of gray-hairs slinked off like attack dogs leaving behind a gnawed bone, Chuck turned to the seated Bernard White.

  “I don’t like that guy,” he said. “He sounds like he’s onto something.”

  “You don’t suppose…” President White stopped short of saying the unthinkable. Then said it anyway. “Perhaps Caleb fed them a copy of bin Laden’s fax.”

  “No, he wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be to Caleb’s advantage.”

  The president sank his head in his hands. “So why did you need to see me?”

  C
huck gave him a long, solemn look and waited for eye contact.

  “Don’t tell me. We got another threat.”

  Chuck nodded. “They’re demanding we release prisoners from Guantánamo.”

  Bernard stood up enraged, his face livid. “They can’t play with our national security.”

  Chuck smiled. “That’s what they’re all about, sir.”

  “We’ve got to nuke the bastards. Do you have any idea where they are?”

  “Possibly Southeast Asia. That’s the last place we saw Cooper. I can tell you one fact that I ascertained from the video clip that the terrorists sent us. He’s being held captive onboard a ship.”

  “Videotape? Oh, my God.”

  “Don’t worry,” Chuck said. “Caleb didn’t sneak in and get a copy.”

  The president circled his desk, a man of action. “I want you to call in our fleet and put a total clamp down on that area. Board and search every ship.”

  “Doesn’t that sound somewhat extreme, sir? We don’t even have jurisdiction in those waters.”

  “Well, what can we do, call in the UN?”

  Chuck laughed at the errant barb. “Well, we do have Sean Cooper’ voice print…”

  “Use eavesdropping, wire taps, whatever it takes. We have to put a stop to this.”

  “That’s brilliant, sir.” It didn’t hurt to offer a little praise, even though earlier that weekend he had already sent the Navy steaming to the area.

  He lingered by the door before leaving the office. “In the meantime, what should we do with the terrorists’ demand?”

  “Tell ’em to stuff it.”

  He gave the president a “you can’t be serious” look.

  “Why not?” Bernard protested.

  He returned to the president’s desk and folded his arms. “Do you want Cooper testifying that you took kickbacks? Do you want Cooper testifying that you sent a bank transfer of twenty million dollars to a terrorist organization?”

  The president’s jaw fell slack. The bags under his eyes swelled darkly.

  “They’re drawing us in further and further,” Chuck said, unable to keep the ominous tone from his voice.