Hellfire (Sisters In Law Book 2)

by John Ellsworth

  A pang of regret pierced her; what in God's name had she been thinking, taking on this assignment? Had she totally lost her mind?

  She gasped at the cool air but then caught herself and forced her mind to empty itself of thoughts of home and family and focus instead on the Now, where she was traveling ninety kilometers per hour on the outskirts of Istanbul next to a man whom she neither expected nor trusted but who seemed to know her. Her mind raced off in a new direction and again she forced calm down through her body and up into her brain. It was partly from her military training; the SERE school at Fort Bragg where she had learned Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. It was her innate ability since birth to control her thoughts and feelings and steady herself even in moments of danger. At last she smiled and stared ahead through the windshield.

  Suddenly she was all-in.

  No regrets, no looking back; let's get underway and see about suing Uncle.

  The last ten kilometers were a blur. She could almost feel the luxury of the overstuffed seats on the high-speed train to Ankara. The man sitting next to her was silent. Was he her bodyguard? If so, he was early to the game. Or was he a plant? But who would know about her mission? She knew the answer to that, of course. The NSA monitored all communications between Americans and foreigners. She had no doubt they knew she was meeting with the Syrian woman. She had no doubt they knew the topic of the meeting. She glanced sideways at the man. She wondered if he knew about the meeting too and had come to protect the government. Or was he simply there as her protection?

  She wondered if he knew he might breathe his last in the next fifteen minutes.

  She just hadn't decided.

  5

  Sevi was waiting in Ankara for the meeting with Christine. She was at once both excited and sad, as she considered taking her revenge against the Americans. Excited because her time had finally come around; sad because of her loss.

  She was lying on the made bed, a four-poster, when the alarm on her iPhone beeped. It was almost time.

  She rolled upright on the bed and crossed to the window of the JW Marriott Hotel. The room was richly constructed with wainscoting all around. Mirrors festooned all six walls and reflected the indirect and direct lighting that had been expertly installed so that the mirrors all represented eye-catching points of light. Expensive, soft bedclothes and a luxurious bathroom with recessed lighting and whirlpool tub enhanced the ambiance. Room service that would bring any food from its five star restaurant in under thirty minutes, no matter the food, country represented, or difficulty in preparation, was an almost unimaginable benefit. The room had been reserved by the American lawyer's office and impressed Sevi no end.

  Earlier that evening, she had been reflecting on the things she would say to the lawyer and the things she wouldn't say. There were much more of the latter than the former. For example, she wouldn't mention that ISIS activists in a camp near her home had schooled her in the gathering of materials for making a bomb. She also wouldn't mention that she knew the chemistry and physics of plastique explosives or that she knew the mechanics and electronics of timing devices and detonation plugs. The schooling had been quick and she had been a most willing student, as she allowed her mind to consider revenge and the bombing of an American grade school in payback for all the young people murdered on her own wedding day. Among the dead were over twenty-five children--all related to her, or who soon would have been, by marriage. The twenty-five were all under the age of fourteen and were total innocents in the struggles among oil-seeking nations in the Middle East. They had been children who knew only that there was going to be a wonderful party after the mandatory wedding ceremony.

  Crossing to the window and its drawn curtains, she was wearing the comfortable Turkish bloomers called ÅŸalvar, a top with sleeves to the elbows, and a headscarf, as she would be venturing downstairs to the hotel restaurant and one always wore the headscarf in public.

  She passed her hand through the curtain closure seam and peered out at the traffic below. In the distance she could make out the buildings on the campus of Bilkent University and a mile or two closer the low profile of the campus of Hacettepe University. She knew these things because she had been encamped in the hotel for two days and had purchased a guidebook in the hotel gift shop as a way of passing time. Almost at her feet below was the Armada Shopping Center, where she had spent a long, leisurely afternoon window-shopping and tasting coffees from America at the bazaar there. She had with her the clothes on her back and a small suitcase containing all her other worldly goods remaining after what she called the great selloff. She had transformed her world from one of property ownership to one of a small sum of money in the Bank of America and a willingness to travel lightly to America where she would start over.

  The lawyer would be arriving at Ankara (ESB-Esenboga) Airport any moment and would settle into the room next to Sevi's--all reservations obtained and paid for by the lawyer.

  Sevi watched the traffic below as it crawled along the boulevard. At a level with her thirtieth floor room, and in the distance, a continuous stream of winking aircraft lights passed from left to right as incoming flights arrived and disgorged their customers in Turkey's capital city on this particular Friday night.

  She considered her temporary circumstances. She knew that Turkey was bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the south. On the other side of the hotel from where she stood, the Mediterranean Sea was to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea to the north. Her guidebook, while instructive enough, had been carelessly deposited in the bathroom waste paper bin that afternoon. It was a final gesture by Sevi, a way of saying goodbye to the Middle East, and she was anxious to strike out for the West, anxious to learn about her new home. She was bravely resigned to the fact that she would be totally starting over there. None of what she knew would matter anymore. Life as she had known it was over and done. For her, a new day was coming.

  She withdrew her hand from the curtains, allowing them to reseal along the seam, and went to the marble desk with its gold telephone and array of in-hotel buttons that could be pressed and instantly summon everything from food to facials, from massages to flowers. It was nearing the time for her meeting with Christine so she reconsidered going downstairs to eat. She selected the room service line and lifted the phone.

  "I would like American food," she told the attendant. "What do you recommend?"

  "We have beefsteak dinners, chicken, and fish."

  "Something with fish."

  "May I suggest our sautéed salmon? It comes with spring potatoes and steamed vegetables. And perhaps a cocktail or wine?"

  "That would be fine. But no alcohol. American coffee, instead."

  "American dining at your service. We will be at your door in thirty minutes or less. Always our promise to you at the JW Marriott, Ankara."

  "Thank you."

  She sat back in the desk chair and considered herself in the mirror. She was young looking despite the horrors of the last year, but still moved with a limp, had difficulty with conversations and couldn't hear at all without her behind-the-ear hearing aid worn hidden beneath her long hair. They had left her quite a mess, the Americans. She was always in pain somewhere in her body, especially along the spine where she had suffered massive trauma. Sleep was difficult and restless and she doubted she would ever be able to receive a man in the missionary position. But that was beside the point. She had lost the only man she would ever consider marrying and there would be no looking for another to replace him. That part of her life--the romance of youth--had been amputated away from her psyche as carefully as the damaged bone and cartilage of her physical injuries had been removed. No, she was alone and she had come to be satisfied with that. Not happy, certainly, but satisfied. And though there was a major difference between the two, it was a difference she had learned to live with.
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  The Americans had taught her that.

  Now it was their turn. She would teach them what that loss felt like.

  Then, maybe in the future they would be less careless with their missiles. Her explosive device and the message it would send would save Syrian lives.

  Maybe.

  She could only hope. It was all she had left.

  6

  Althea Berenson had wasted no time in buying an insider. She had traveled from Chicago to Washington and was meeting the man at three o'clock on the benches directly south of the Capitol Rotunda.

  It was cold in the nation's capital that day, as a late-winter storm front had entered the area, and a soggy snow was forecast, one that wouldn't stick. Althea had dressed accordingly, and was wearing navy slacks with a pale pink shirt and a Fog overcoat with the liner zipped inside. Large sunglasses hid her chocolate eyes and her hair was pulled back and loosely captured in a ponytail with a gold clasp. A camera hung from her neck and, as she approached the rotunda, she appeared to be snapping pictures of the tourist vistas offered by the Capitol and its environs. She approached the row of green benches and sat at the far left end. Now to wait. He had said he would be wearing a red vest beneath his top coat so she vaguely recognized the cue when a man approached. He was in his mid-forties with a high forehead, wearing a heavy overcoat with a red vest beneath. He also wore deerskin gloves and a checkered brown and white muffler. He sat on her bench at the far end. He stared straight ahead, as did Althea.

  His code name was Agreeable. That's all she knew about him, although a "real" name had been provided in the two phone calls she had had with him on secure phones. He was a high-level employee of Blackguard, the world-wide black arts/construction company belonging to the DuMont brothers, and it was said he had, one, become disenchanted with the company's policies, and, two, was open to the idea of accepting a large sum of money for information. With Christine's full blessing and support, the money had been provided out of a special fund kept offshore by the lawyer for just such purposes as this. One million USD now reposed in a Swiss bank in a numbered account accessible only by the man known as Agreeable.

  Now it was up to him to earn the final four digits of the account's access code. Was he prepared to give up the information Althea desired? She would know the answer to this in the next several minutes.

  "I am Agreeable," he said through a plume of frosty breath. He neither looked at Althea nor away from her, instead staring straight ahead as he spoke clearly and confidently.

  "And I'm Willing," said Althea. "You're late."

  "We can't take enough precautions in this city to make sure we're not being followed. While I am ten minutes late, I can assure you I haven't been followed."

  "Then my wait was worth it," said Althea.

  "Do you have my digits?" he asked.

  "I do. Do you have my data stick?"

  "Yes. It is inside my left glove. I will leave it on the bench when I walk away."

  "And it contains the communication between the drone team in Reno and Edlund DuMont, as you have represented?"

  "It does. And more."

  "More? Such as?"

  "I have given you all Syrian drone strikes over the last thirty days. A freebie, you could say."

  Althea's pulse quickened. The additional data was more, much more, than she could have hoped for.

  "Why would you be so generous?"

  "You are paying me a large sum of money. I want you to know that not only do I have access to the messaging you want, I can also supply it at a quantity you probably never imagined possible. I can give you a year's worth of evidence. There could even be other cases for the lawyer."

  "For the right price, of course."

  "Of course. So take my glove with you, study the data stick, and do what you will with the information. When you decide you're ready for more of the same, notify me as before."

  The man stood to leave. Both gloves now remained where he had been sitting.

  "My digits, please."

  "We've made it easy for you."

  "Then go slowly, so I won't forget."

  "One-one-one-one. Enjoy your money."

  Without another word, the man turned and headed for the Capitol Rotunda itself. Althea waited until he had disappeared inside the building, and then she stood and retrieved the deerskin gloves, stuffing them inside her left and right pockets. As she walked off, she felt inside the left glove, the one in her left pocket. Her fingers touched the data stick--the thumb drive. A smile played briefly on her lips, then she abruptly forced it from her face.

  She headed for Union Station. Upon arriving there, she was shown to an enclosed seating area at the East Street Cafe. She ordered hot chocolate and a cream cheese pastry and, while she waited, fingered the thumb drive inside the pocket of her coat. Her refreshments arrived and she dawdled over her drink and pastry, watching the other customers coming and going, all the while making sure she hadn't been followed and wasn't being observed. Thirty minutes crept past. At last satisfied that her assignation had gone unnoticed, she paid her check and left by taxi for her hotel in Arlington.

  The hotel room was as she had left it except the queen bed was made and fresh flowers were now centered on the small dining table.

  Althea tore off her overcoat and flung it carelessly across the bed, then hurried, all but running, to the laptop she had left on the dining table.

  She flipped up the lid and waited while the computer sprang to life. Then she inserted the thumb drive. Carefully she first copied all data to the cloud drive accessible by her and Christine only. Then came the acid test: a review of the communications transcript between Reno and Edlund DuMont the day of the wedding.

  She studied the data for a good half hour before she finally leaned back and smiled.

  There was no doubt. None other than Edlund DuMont himself had signed off on the drone attack that had killed the family of Sevi al-Assad. It was unmistakable and undeniable.

  The Sisters in Law had their smoking gun.

  Now the real work could begin.

  7

  The man in the red vest hurried back to Blackguard's headquarters in the Watergate Complex after his meeting with Althea. Waiting in his office was Randall C. Maxwelle, a Naval Academy graduate and navy commander (retired), who now headed up Blackguard's military-commercial liaison team. Maxwelle's undergraduate degree was in computer science and his Ph.D. from Georgetown was in computer engineering.

  Maxwelle's role in the data sale had been to prepare the transcripts turned over to Althea Berenson and, by extension, Christine Susmann, the lawyer looking into their oil dealings in Syria. Maxwelle was a no-nonsense type whose authority included the early termination of parties adverse to Blackguard in those instances where the adverse party refused to get on-board with the massive company. That day, Maxwelle was spinning his keychain in his hand, winding and unwinding it on his index finger, as he awaited the return of the man in the red vest.

  At long last the field agent walked into his office and found Maxwelle sitting in the field agent's desk chair. This was standard protocol by Maxwelle and his underlings knew it, so the field agent took one of the visitors' chairs after he had hung his topcoat behind the office door.

  "Well?" said Maxwelle. "Don't keep me guessing here, Kerr."

  Kerr shrugged. "It went exactly as we expected. It was Althea Berenson herself. I left the thumb drive in my glove on the bench, as directed."

  "And we've checked your Zurich account. We found the numbers on your thumb drive. The one million has been paid."

  Kerr smiled tightly. "Any chance that money could find its way to me personally? A kind of bonus?"

  Maxwelle frowned. "It gives me pause that you would even suggest it. You know that's not how we do business here. But there is hope for you. I'm coming to that."

  Kerr raised a hand. "Forgive me. It's been a stressful morning. Okay, so what's my next move?"

  Maxwelle grasped one hand in the other, elbows on th
e desk, and leaned forward confidentially.

  "You have no next move."

  "But I spent weeks preparing the data. I'd like to be told when they discover they've been duped."

  "Here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to go back over the data you made up and prepare responses. This would be denials that Blackguard has ever seen those portions of the communiqué this Susmann woman will be quoting in her requests for admission."

  "Afraid I don't follow. I'm not a lawyer, Mr. M."

  Maxwelle nodded and an agreeable look came over his face.

  "Fair enough. Let me give you a little background. In most lawsuits, there will come a time when the injured party asks the defendant--that's us--to admit that certain statements have been made by us. In this case, that would be the orders to go-ahead with the missile strike against the Sevi woman's brother. The data you just turned over contains those orders. However, when we are asked to admit those orders were given, we will deny that. That will be your job."

  "And we're doing that because they have no recourse."

  "Exactly. They have no recourse because they can't go crying to the judge that they illegally bribed one of our employees for data. That's a huge show-stopper for them."

  "So I'm basically giving them some bad news."

  "Right. You're telling them that we've never seen those orders before and we don't know what they're talking about. Then they'll know they paid a million bucks for some made-up B.S."