Air Marshals

by Wynne, Marcus

  "I get that," Charley Dey said. "But you didn't get our itinerary, names and passport numbers from an anonymous tip, and you didn't get them out of your computer, either. That came from my agency, didn't it?"

  "I can't comment on sources, Mr. Dey..." Frank began.

  "Oh, quit fucking the guy around, Frank!" the younger man, Ted Mullens, said. "Look, Dey, the deal is we got an anonymous tip on the hotline. When we followed up, we were contacted by someone in your chain of command who said he had similar info. On the face of it, it's plausible: hell, we hardly ever search you guys, you could be smuggling anything from gold to heroin and we wouldn't know. But you're clean and so are your people."

  "The people I'm with."

  "Yeah, OK, whatever. You got some shit to clean up in your organization. And I didn't say that. All right, you're good to go, we're sorry, get gone already."

  Charley stood up and left the office, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  "That's one guy I don't want pissed off at me," Mullens said.

  "No shit," Frank said. "The calm and steady ones are the ones you gotta watch."

  "This stuff makes me sick, Frank. Let's go get a hot dog."

  "You buying?"

  "Yeah, you cheap fuck."

  ***

  Charley rejoined his crew, who stood just outside the double swinging doors from Customs. "Let's get over to the hotel," he said. "We'll debrief in my room. Don, you come with me, everybody else take off."

  His team scattered to the cab stand, glad to be clear of the anger that roiled off him. Donald Gene stood by, his cigar half burnt down, his smile wreathed in rich smoke. "Want a cigar, home boy? Or are you already smoking?" He trailed after Charley to the cab stand.

  "I really didn't believe it would get to this, Don. I really didn't want to believe that it would get to this. That fucking back-stabbing toady."

  "Not Butt Boy Dinkey, Tactician Supremo, the non-flying marshal?"

  "It's one thing if he wants to get at me, but he's hurting everybody this way, and he doesn't care, he just doesn't care. I don't believe it."

  "Believe it, my brother." Don slipped into the cab beside Chuck.

  "You cannot smoke in here in my cab, sir," the cabby said.

  "Are you from Bombay?" Don asked.

  "Yes sir, thank you, I am. But you cannot smoke in here in my cab."

  "I bet for five dollars and if I keep the window cracked, I could, huh?"

  "I am sorry you cannot, sir."

  "Okay," Don said, flipping the cigar stub out the window. "Drive on, babu." He turned to Charley, who stared out the window. "Well, what we gonna do about him?"

  "I'm sorry sir," the cab driver said. "Where are you going?"

  "Dulles Marriott Suites," Charley said.

  "Absolutely crazy," Donald said.

  ***

  "The allegation was that we were taking advantage of the way we get expedited through Customs to smuggle," Charley said.

  "To smuggle what?" Joan asked.

  "The allegation mentioned jewelry and gold being brought in and resold."

  "That stinks," Stacy said.

  "Well, it's not as if nobody's ever done it," Butch said. "There's some other teams that might."

  "This is the last crew anybody would suspect of that," Steve said.

  "It's done," Charley said.

  "What do you mean, done?" Stacy said. "They may as well have just gone and said that we were criminals. It ain't done with me, Charley Dey. I'm not going to just take that."

  "Nobody said we were going to take it, Stacy. It's been done, and I'm going to spend some time dealing with it as appropriate."

  "Word, Charley. I want to be there when you do."

  "We'll see."

  Karen watched the two of them, her head swiveling as though at a tennis match. "I don't get it. They didn't find anything, they were just doing their job. Why should we even say anything about it?"

  "Wake up, little girl," Stacy snapped. "This ain't about them finding anything or doing their job. This is about dragging other agencies into our internal politics, it's about airing our dirty laundry in front of some other feds, it's about a spineless bureaucrat trying to show us who's boss without having the stones to do it to our faces."

  "Oh Stacy, how you do go on," Don drawled. The subsequent laughter lightened the mood in the room, and Charley began to circulate the time sheets for each marshals review.

  ***

  "Who do you think you are, Dinkey?" Charley said in an ominously soft voice.

  "I'm the guy who's going to make sure you don't fuck anything up in the time you've got remaining here," Dinkey replied, contempt thick in his voice.

  "What is it with you? How do you think you're helping things around here playing these silly ass games? We've got people out there who want to kill us and we don't have time to worry about watching our backs around our own people."

  "Then play the game, Dey!" Dinkey slammed his hands down on the desk and glared at Charley. His carefully combed hair stayed in place, the result of just enough hair spray.

  Charley sat back and calmed himself. A deep breath and the conscious release of the knots building up in his neck and shoulders helped him into a clear and steady place where he could really see the man sitting across from him. He saw the vanity in his hair, the manicured nails. It surprised him that someone could have been in the Marine Corps infantry for twenty years and keep that prissiness about him. How had a man like this survived? How had he led troops? Officers like this died quickly in war-time. There was more than a little bit of the NCO and officer tension here as well; as a GS-14, Dinkey was the same paygrade as Charley; his "seniority" was an artificial distinction on an organizational chart. It reflected the sorry state of internal politics that a man like this had the ear of General Stone and the Secretary.

  "This is a ridiculous game, Simon," Charley said. "You and me, we've been around too long to be doing this...we're a couple of old timers and while we're running around being chest-puffy, there are men out there hunting our people. Our people need us to be on the same sheet of music, they need us to be working with each other instead of at each other's throats. Let's not waste times or lives with this silliness."

  Dinkey stared back. He wasn't mollified. Everything about Charley Dey offended him: his relaxed competence, the deference the other staffers paid him. He saw a man who needed to be cut down to size, to be brought into line as he had brought others into line. He had the staff puke's fear of the men and women on the line who made decisions and acted in accordance with a set of beliefs he was too far from to remember. It had been a long time since he had been a lieutenant in Viet Nam. He didn't want to remember his own inadequacy and how he had felt when the gunnery sergeant had taken over his platoon in the middle of a fire fight, when he had choked and been frozen with fear. The worst part had been that the gunny, whose name he had blanked out of his conscious recall, had tried to teach him, had tried to make him feel better about it. The humiliation of that was something that Simon Dinkey wanted to forget and never would no matter how he tried. He saw the competence of the gunnery sergeant in Charley Dey, and each time he saw him, he felt the same tide of self-loathing and humiliation he had felt that day in the rice paddies of Viet Nam.

  "You had nothing to hide. Nothing was found. As far as I'm concerned, this is the end of it, Dey." Dinkey said, steepling his fingers.

  "You had an issue, and without bothering to investigate it internally, you threw open an allegation outside of the agency, literally into the public eye. Did you ever bother to think about that?"

  "It's done, Dey. Period. This discussion is over."

  Charley Dey stood up and looked down on the former Marine Corps colonel. "You're an insult to every Marine I've ever worked with, Dinkey." He walked out of the office, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  Dinkey stared after him, a small, self-satisfied smile at the corner of his mouth. "We'll see to you soon, Dey."

  ***


  PARIS, FRANCE:

  Ahmad Ajai sat in an open cafe on the Champs Elysee, a thick sweet coffee in front of him. It was late spring, and rain had fallen earlier in the day. The sky had opened into a spectacular blue. The Arc d'Triomphe gleamed down the street from him. It seemed smaller than it appeared in all the pictures he had seen. This was not his first time in Paris, but it was the first time that he had come down on the Champs Elysee and allowed himself a little time in the cafes. Paris had been a favorite transit point for HizbAllah operatives for a long time; the French, in their pragmatic fashion, kept an eye on them but did little as long as the operations took place elsewhere. The IRA maintained a blatant operation in an Irish style pub, not far from here, and other organizations, as long as they did not work against French interests, operated more or less openly elsewhere in Paris. The French found it in their interest to have contacts and assets in such organizations; the ability and ruthlessness of the French security services guaranteed that the terrorists held up their end of the agreements.

  The man who joined him at the table was long haired, stubble faced, dressed in a fashionable suit with no tie and an open collared shirt. He looked as though he belonged here on the avenue with a cup of coffee in front of him.

  "A coffee, please," the fashionable man said to the waiter, and then turned to the silent Ahmad Ajai. "Hello again, my old friend."

  Ajai smiled and laid his hand on the table palm up. The other man laid his hand in Ajai's. "It's been some time."

  "Yes," the fashionable man said. He fell silent while the waiter set his coffee down and counted through the francs on the table. "How goes your operation?"

  Ajai studied the man's face and the softness there. It was a deceptive face; under the well fed roundness, there were lines of strength and a past, a little history around the eyes. "We are ready. We have the information we need. I have the team. The logistics and support cells are adequate."

  "Adequate?"

  "Yes. We have time to refine their tasks, perhaps insert some more reliable people."

  "Where specifically?"

  "I need someone absolutely reliable to place the weapons...I am not happy with the woman. She seems unstable."

  "Do we have time to replace her?"

  "Yes. The next team will be setting out in a few days...I don't anticipate the targeted team returning and then being positioned for at least 2-3 weeks. You can rotate in the back up for the woman."

  The other man nodded, sipped at his coffee. "There is some concern over your target selection," he began, delicately.

  "That is at my discretion," Ahmad Ajai said flatly.

  "That is true. That is understood. But it seems too full of risk."

  "As I explained to the imam..."

  "It is he who has sent me, old friend. Do not be offended, please."

  Ajai stared out across the broad avenue. Across the street a large bus stopped and pulled away.

  "Yes," Ajai said. "There are softer targets. There are easier ways. But if my mission were only to kill, than I could take them at any time on their layovers. That is not my mission. My mission is to make as clear a statement on as many levels as possible. I must take the best team. I must take their aircraft and their passengers away from them. We must rub their faces in it. The whole world must see it, must see them humbled and humiliated, and those who live paraded in front of the passengers they are sworn to defend. That is the message we will send."

  "The original concept was to take a plane they were not covering."

  "That concept was modified with the imam's approval."

  "Yes. And he is still concerned about the risk. Dey and Nelson and their team have demonstrated their aggressiveness...other teams didn't even note the surveillances."

  "That is why we must take their team. They won't be expecting us to do so. And the impact will be all the better. There is often resentment among others in a group when one is seen to be so much better than the others."

  The fashionable man lowered his eyes. "As you will, my friend. I will tell him. I will see to the woman. We will be ready to support you in every way." He stood, shook the other's hand. "God be with you, my brother."

  "And with you."

  Ahmad Ajai watched the other man disappear into the crowd. He waved at the waiter for another cup of coffee.

  ***

  TUCSON, ARIZONA AND WASHINGTON, DC.:

  Maria Ortiz was a short woman, muscular and lean, big-breasted with long black hair she kept in a practical ponytail. She was strong from running and lifting weights and the constant handling of people larger than herself in her job. Quieter than most physical therapists, she urged her patients on with an easy, maternal style instead of the cheerleader tactics many of her co-workers used. Her energy was slower and deeper, not as aggressively athletic. Her off-duty time was mostly spent in exercise, especially yoga, hiking and horse back riding. She had taken Charley Dey on his first horseback ride. The native Minnesotan had never been on a horse before he came to Arizona, and one weekend she took him to the ranch outside Tucson where she kept her horse, Sabina, stabled. She treasured the memory of the big tough Charley, awkward on the horse, laughing like a little boy, and shouting "How do you steer this thing, Maria?" That was when she knew just how much she loved him. Her mother had been right when she told her, "Women respect men for their strengths, but we love them for their foolishness." He had looked so foolish, the big counter-terrorist perched like an excited little boy on the stable's tamest gelding. She was thinking of him, missing him, when he telephoned her.

  "Hello, Charley," she said fondly. "How are you?"

  "I'm not so great, Maria," Charley said.

  "I've been thinking a lot about you. Are you okay? You're not hurt or in trouble or anything are you?"

  "I'm not hurt, I'm always in trouble, and I wish I could see you."

  "What are you doing this weekend?"

  "This weekend? I just got back from a mission...do laundry, shop, maybe take in a movie. Why?"

  "I think I will come to see you. If you'd like that."

  "What? Come out and see me? Here?"

  "Yes, Charley, there."

  "Maria, that would...that would be great. I'd love to see you...can you afford that?" Charley paused for a moment. "I'll pay for your ticket."

  She laughed. "I knew you would say that, but no. There's a special fare...as long as I stay over Saturday night. That OK with you?"

  "Call me with your flight information."

  "I'll call you right back, Charley."

  "I'll be waiting." He was surprised, elated...surprised not only by her decision, but at his reaction to it. He hadn't known just how much he missed talking with her and her easy way of listening and how it made things seem all right. He missed her badly and that surprised him most of all.

  ***

  FRANKFURT, GERMANY:

  Jed Loveless was on the Secure Telephone Unit to the Counter Terrorism Unit in Tyson's Corner when his secretary slid a sealed package onto his desk.

  "I'm running out of room to billet these guys...just get the bean counters to approve an exception to per diem and we'll spread them out in the tourist joints a little better...yeah, right," he said. He opened the sealed courier package and pulled out a sheaf of photos clipped to a short memorandum. "Hey, I've got something just come in I got to see to. I'll get right back to you."

  He set the secure telephone down on its cradle and turned all his attention to the sheaf of photos and the tersely worded memo attached to it. The memo summarized the report of a class A source who identified one of the men in the photos as Ahmad Ajai, a known leader in HizbAllah's direct action arm and a graduate of the hijacking school in the Bekaa Valley. The photos were taken in Paris at a cafe on the Champs Elysee, where the actual focus of the surveillance, Michel Neberi, had been followed. Neberi was a freelance logistics specialist who worked for several terrorist organizations. He and his people, mostly family members who had followed Neberi from Beirut to Paris, had been u
nusually active in recent weeks. Jed Loveless's people kept Neberi on their standing watch list and had tracked him to the meeting documented in the photos.

  Jed Loveless traced the face of Ahmad Ajai with his finger. He looked over the brief historical summary of Ajai's known missions in the memo prepared by his staff. Intelligence work, like police work and other kinds of investigation, is at bottom line the province of the educated hunch and the slow, meticulous processing of details. You can take men and women with years of experience in dealing with the human factors and add the very best technology in the world, but it still boils down to the subjective, other than conscious, processing of seemingly random bits of information into a mosaic that suddenly comes together.

  Jed Loveless looked at the man in the picture, and thought to himself, 'This is the guy. This is the guy we're going to talk to.'

  He picked up the phone and made a call.

  ***

  The big man slouched on Jed Loveless's office sofa was big shouldered, with a shaggy surfer hair cut, dressed in blue Levi's, a gray sweatshirt under a black leather jacket and expensive Nike running shoes.

  "Hey, dirtbag," Jed said.

  The other man said, "Is that anyway to talk to your son?"

  His name was John Bolen. That isn't what his passport said, but somewhere in the files of the Special Operations Command's restricted records registry there was a file with his picture in it. Master Sergeant John Bolen had prior service with the 82d Airborne Division, 2/75th Rangers, 7th Special Forces Group, Operational Detachment DELTA and was currently on a classified special detail to the Intelligence Support Activity. John Bolen was in charge of the most secretive and compartmentalized operation in the US government, the direct action cells of "shooters" recruited from the Special Ops Community and run by ISA for CIA. Navy SEALs, DELTA commandos, and a few graduates of the CIA paramilitary branch made up his tiny cadre. They were the elite of the elite.

  Their charter included VIP protection, hostage rescue, high level security surveys, and direct action. Part of John's charter involved the close surveillance of known terrorists. There was no official record regarding the part of his job that involved coordination with certain friendly foreign governments, coordination that involved the use of high explosives, long range sniping and other means of "selective interdiction."