Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  Nick felt queasy while Julie dashed into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and mindlessly flipped up one channel at a time, barely noting where the carnage had taken place. Virginia, Kentucky, Texas. His grip on the remote tightened until his hand began to cramp.

  Finally, a still image of Kemel Kharrazi was displayed on NBC, while commentators spoke about the terrorist’s history. It was a photo of Kharrazi that Nick himself had picked out. He felt it was the clearest shot of the killer’s eyes. Kharrazi could change his appearance by altering the shape of his face, or even manipulating his facial hair, but he couldn’t disguise the lifeless depth of his eyes.

  Nick had studied those eyes for hours, trying to understand what lurked beneath the surface. Kharrazi must have had a personal investment in this mission. He wouldn’t have come all the way to America to hide behind the scenes and watch the music play before him like an orchestral conductor. That wasn’t his style.

  Julie opened the bathroom door, wiping a small towel across her face. “Isn’t there anything you can do? Certainly there’s a way to stop them, isn’t there?”

  Nick turned off the TV and flung the remote against the headboard. “Shit, Jule, we need help, I can tell you that. We need lots of help.”

  Julie moved to Nick. She stood next to him and caressed the hair over his ear. “Please be safe, Sweetie.”

  Nick grabbed her around the waist and tugged her closer. “I’m going to find an answer. It may not be pretty, but one way or another I’ll put an end to it.”

  * * *

  The basement of the KSF cabin had three rooms. One was used strictly for manufacturing bombs. Twenty soldiers kept the Semtex, blasting caps, and detonators all separated. In the corner, a sturdy wooden shelf cradled the finished product. There were already enough explosives stockpiled for the next three bombings. A van tucked away out back would be loaded and driven west on a dirt road, over the mountain that shielded the cabin from any discernable population. It would then meet up with a series of vehicles that would carry the devices to their ultimate destinations. Each state had a hideout where instructions were given as to when to detonate the bomb. The timing was precise and thanks to the Internet and wireless connections, the coded messages were easily attained, and untraceable.

  The main room held the communications center. This was the brain trust of the operation. Hasan oversaw all aspects of this room, including a section dedicated to monitoring all news media broadcasts. He was amazed at the information that America freely dispersed among its civilians. It was as if they didn’t care who retrieved the information as long as it was readily available. The competition between media agencies was such that each one spent tireless energy trying to outdo the other. If one broadcaster claimed that a KSF member was arrested, another would profile the soldier’s career, and yet another would indicate how the terrorist was captured and by whom. If one of their men was captured, a replacement would be sent out immediately to a new hideout in the same state that lost its soldier.

  Hasan monitored the media coverage of the bombings carefully. So far NBC had the most accurate assessment of the explosions. Their experts closely matched the damage of a home in Vermont with the precise amount of Semtex used in the pre-set planting. Hasan couldn’t keep the grin from his face as he watched a dozen TV monitors display the domination of interest with the nationwide bombings. America was in a frenzy and President Merrick was receiving full responsibility for the calamity.

  The third room in the basement, adjacent to the main room, was Kemel Kharrazi’s private quarters. The suite contained a bedroom, a bathroom, an office with a large desk, and several chairs along the perimeter, ready to be aligned in front of Kharrazi’s desk for continuing instructions.

  The door to the Kharrazi’s quarters opened and a strange man emerged from the private residence. The man was bald and wore dark sunglasses. He had large, puffy cheeks that matched his oversized waistline. Several soldiers reached for their weapons, ready for the stranger to make a move. The man stood still, then a grin spread across his face as he removed his sunglasses. There was no mistaking the eyes.

  “Sarock?” Hasan said. “What is it you are doing?”

  “My name is Walter Henning,” Kharrazi said, holding up a phony driver’s license from his wallet. “I’m going to Baltimore on business.”

  Hasan’s mouth became dry. “Business? Please tell me this business.”

  “Don’t be alarmed, I am not recognizable. I will bring extra hairpieces and makeup. You forget how easy it is to move about in America.”

  “This business you speak of—what could it possibly be at this particular time?”

  Kharrazi’s face grew severe. “The American who shot Rashid, he is still alive. Those fools allowed him to live, at least for a little while longer. I am going to personally defend Rashid’s honor. This is something I must do myself.”

  Hasan was concerned with Kharrazi’s passion for revenge. He feared the minute they discovered the last name of Rashid’s assassin, Kharrazi’s thoughts would become distorted. It was as if the entire mission was secondary to acquiring retribution. “The man who shot Rashid,” Hasan said, “he is definitely related—”

  “Yes, he is the cousin of the government agent. The one who arrested Rashid. He will also be eliminated. Do not worry Hasan, I will be back in less than forty-eight hours. The private jet is waiting for me. It is effortless to move about this country through chartered airplanes. There are no checkpoints to avoid. Simply have money and the nation is yours to travel unbridled. Capitalism at its finest. You have all my instructions and if you need me . . .” Kharrazi held up a small mobile phone. Months ahead of time, a series of cell phones were purchased with cash, along with pre-paid calling minutes. Each one was purchased in a different state with phony names. In case the FBI had tapping abilities that the KSF wasn’t aware of, each phone was disposed of after every call.

  Kharrazi placed a hand on Hasan’s shoulder. “Do not worry, Hasan, I am not Rashid. I will be discreet. Deadly, but discreet.”

  ***

  It was barely daybreak when Nick pulled into the parking lot of the Baltimore field office. A black limousine idled in front of the employee entrance. An American flag hung limp from the antenna. Nick glanced into the open door as he passed by.

  “Nick,” a voice came out of the back of the limo. Matt poked his head out and waved him inside.

  Crammed into the long bench seating were ten agents from domestic terrorism on their way to a field trip. Nick sidled onto a seat next to Matt.

  “We’re going to the White House,” Matt said. “Shit’s going to hit the fan.”

  “I’d imagine so.”

  Walt Jackson eased into the back of the limo and shut the door. The silence was funereal as he signaled for the driver to go. Walt closed his eyes and rubbed his neck. When he opened them, he realized he was the center of attention. “What are you looking at?” he said. “You’ve never seen a man have a nervous breakdown before?”

  It was classic Walt—deflecting the fear and absorbing the blame. It was never anyone else’s fault but his own, and only the most self-conscious agent would feel an ounce of responsibility for anything that went wrong under Jackson’s regime.

  A gray sky threatened to conceal the sun’s affect for the duration of the day. Nick didn’t think the Bureau deserved the sunshine and wondered if he was the only one who felt that way. The silence lingered as the limo rolled towards Pennsylvania Avenue. America was waking to a new world. A world where no one was safe: not the affluent, the privileged, the famous. The prosperous shared vulnerability with their penurious counterparts. For the first time that Nick could remember, America was becoming a community. A very frightened community.

  The limo slowed and entered a gated driveway just west of the White House. In the distance Nick could see a podium set up on a grassy area near the front of the building. There were bright, reflective lights hangin
g from booms and a crowd of journalists huddled in front of the podium, waiting for an official response from the president on the bombings.

  From the guard station, a uniformed attendant approached the limo and made a thorough examination of its contents. After an exchange with the driver where code words and signals were exchanged, he waved the limo through the opening gates. Once around back, the limo stopped in front of a burgundy awning and a group of secret service officers in suits and headsets ushered the agents into the secured entrance.

  Once inside, the pack of terrorist specialists was led into a conference room on the first floor. It was a large room with bare, white walls and a long table in the middle. At the head of the table with his arms folded was President Merrick. To his right was CIA Director Ken Morris, to his left, FBI Director Louis Dutton. Dutton had an exhausted look on his face as he motioned Walt Jackson to take the seat next to him. The assemblage of agents filled in the remaining seats.

  Nick recognized a couple of members of the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff, the Vice President and Secretary of State, but he didn’t recognize the elderly man who stood next to President Merrick with an expectant look on his face. He wore a suit like everyone else in the room, but his was an older style, as if he’d been forced to dig deep into his closet earlier that morning and came up with that solitary option.

  President Merrick stood and placed an arm around the man. “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said. He addressed the group around the table. “This is Malik Bandor. He is a retired professor of Middle-Eastern studies from Georgetown University. He has a wealth of knowledge on the plight of Kurds in Turkey. He is also my personal guru on the subject and has been for years, therefore, he is privy to information that most civilians are not.” President Merrick swept his hand toward the professor in an introductory fashion and sat back down.

  “Thank you, Mr. President.” The old man in the old suit smiled. He seemed to assess the gathering of minds assembled before him. “It’s kind of early in the morning to be giving a history lesson, so I’ll present you with only the information that we feel is vital to your mission. And please, feel free to ask any questions as I go along. I’ve always thought that was the best way to distribute intelligence.”

  A few older heads nodded, giving Nick the impression that Professor Bandor had orated more than a few White House meetings over the years.

  “Since the end of the cold war,” he began, “the United States has no more important ally in NATO than Turkey. This year, Turkey will receive three hundred and twenty million dollars in military loans from the United States. That’s three hundred and twenty million U.S. taxpayer dollars going directly to the Turkish government for the unequivocal purpose of killing their own citizens. Of course these citizens I speak of are Turkish Kurds. There are twenty million Kurds in the region of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, making them the largest ethnic group in the world without a country.

  “In the past ten years, the U.S. has provided Turkey with no less than six billion dollars worth of military firepower— F-4 fighter jets, M-60 tanks, and Cobra helicopters. It’s unfortunate, but every time a Kurd is killed, it’s with an American weapon.”

  President Merrick had become visibly uncomfortable with this portion of the dissertation and when he made eye contact with Bandor, the old man said, “Of course, these funds were all allocated two administrations ago. However, it doesn’t alleviate us from the dilemma we now face as a consequence of those past decisions. In southeastern Turkey there were an estimated twenty-five hundred Kurdish villages destroyed by the Turkish Security Force, the military muscle of the Turkish government. It stands to reason that the Kurds would feel obligated to fight back and they have—firing at government troops at every opportunity. The numbers of the Kurdish Security Force is much lower than that of the Turkish Security Force, but their atrocities are no less brutal. The KSF was caught retaliating, and the world became outraged. And since Turkey is such an important ally, we had no choice but to send our troops over there to try and settle things down.”

  “And therein lies the dilemma,” President Merrick added. “Since the Kurds have no country, they have no voice. They have no diplomats or embassies for us to appeal to. We can’t threaten them with anything, because they have nothing for us to threaten. We can’t deny them resources because the Turkish government has already milked them dry.”

  President Merrick leaned forward. “Walt, this is our war. We have to fight it here in the States. The Kurds have overreacted and if we’re going to stop them, it’d better be soon. Public outcry has become so loud that our airwaves are flooded with nothing but impeachment and withdrawal discussions. And we all know what happens if we back down from the KSF and withdraw our troops from Turkey. Every two-bit terrorist organization on the planet will be on the next flight to America, threatening to blow up our schools unless we serve free ice cream with every meal at McDonald’s. There will be no end to it.”

  Jackson asked, “If the KSF has a substantial amount of soldiers here in the U.S., what’s happening over in Kurdistan?”

  “That’s a good question,” Professor Bandor said, then pointed to CIA Director Ken Morris.

  “As you would suspect,” Morris stated. “They’re vulnerable. However, our troops are instructed to prevent violence from both sides and it seems to have tempered the bloodshed.” He turned to Jackson, “Now if we could only find Kharrazi . . .”

  The President looked at Jackson.

  Jackson pushed his chair back and crossed his legs. He nodded, as if he was agreeing with something that someone had said. But nobody spoke.

  Finally, Jackson said, “I could tell you that we have fresh leads and we’re only hours away from capture, but I’d be lying. The fact is, I have every warm body with a badge scouring the landscape for this guy, and so far, every lead has led to a dead end. I haven’t slept for more than a couple of hours a night in weeks, and if I thought it would help our situation, I’d hand in my resignation right now.”

  The President held up his hand, “Hold on, Walt. There’ll be plenty of time for scapegoats after this is over. You’re taking this the wrong way.”

  “No, he’s not,” Louis Dutton said, teeth clenched. “He’s taking it exactly the right way.” The FBI Director pointed at Morris. “You’re the one who kept all of this tucked safely in a Top Secret file. Only when one of my agent’s brothers was kidnapped did we even find out there’s been KSF movement out of Turkey. If anyone deserves to be the scapegoat, it’s you.”

  The President slammed his fist on the hardwood table. “That’s enough!”

  The room became still. Some thirty professional government employees sat in total silence as the President admonished them with his eyes.

  Professor Bandor stood with his hand covering his face. It was only when President Merrick asked him to continue that the professor’s reticence became conspicuous.

  “Professor?” Merrick said.

  “You don’t deserve to be fighting like this,” Bandor mumbled.

  Nick wondered what he’d missed. He looked at his partner and Matt simply shrugged.

  Dutton stood and approached the old man. “Professor, we fight like this all the time. This is what our forefathers did when they were faced with matters of national concern. It may seem ugly, but it works.”

  He helped the old man to a seat at the table. When Dutton returned to his seat, President Merrick stood. He walked away from the gathering to an oversized map of Turkey. With his arms folded he said, “Professor Bandor is upset because he feels a sense a responsibility with this entire KSF mess.”

  Bandor nodded with his head down.

  “Tell them,” President Merrick said.

  Bandor pulled at a loose piece of cuticle from his left thumb. “I believe Kemel Kharrazi has killed my sister. I’ve suspected for some time, and now I am certain of it.”

  He seemed reluctant to continue until the president said, “Go on, Malik.”

  “My sister told
me in confidence that Kharrazi was coming to America to exact revenge on the United States for interfering with their defense against the Turkish Security Force. This was months ago. I don’t know how, but I suspect Kharrazi found out about our conversation and killed her.”

  “How can you be sure?” Dutton asked.

  The professor continued his fascination with his cuticles. “She was allowed to leave a note saying goodbye to my brother-in-law and her other children.”

  “Her other children?”

  “Yes . . . you see, Kemel . . . well, he’s my nephew. And my sister is his mother.”

  A collective gasp seemed to fill the room.

  “Kharrazi killed his own mother?” Vice President Hearns asked. It became evident that he was the lone person in the room who didn’t know the Kharrazi legend and he immediately sank back in his chair.

  The professor nodded. “You have no idea how sick I am about this. He is not what you think. He is much, much worse. His only loyalty is to the Kurdish people and their struggle for a separate nation of their own. Other than that, everyone and anyone is expendable. Even me.”

  “Which brings us to the real reason the professor came to me with his dilemma,” President Merrick said. “He knows what a hothead Kharrazi is and he feels there’s a good chance we can use the professor as bait to lure Kharrazi out of hiding.”

  “You can’t be serious?” Dutton said.

  But the remainder of the room hoped he was. They were desperate for Kharrazi’s shoe size, never mind a trap that could actually help capture him.