Kashmiri was the first to notice the door open and the woman exit. She turned in the direction of her car, head down, searching for something in her purse. She paused, pulled out some change, closed her bag, and continued on her way, oblivious to the surveillance.
Kashmiri motioned to MacMurphy but it was unnecessary. He fell into step behind her, walking rapidly to catch up. Kashmiri crossed the street and headed for the woman’s vehicle.
Santos was already standing next to her car. He watched as the woman approached with MacMurphy close behind.
The first thing Pouri noticed as she approached her car was that there were no kids there. She looked around and saw them leaning against a large, white SUV parked a few cars up the road. She called to them and they came running over. She met them at her car and gave them some money. They darted off again, back in the direction of the white SUV.
She had her keys in her hand and was about to open the car door when a tall man in a white dishdasha robe approached. He spoke softly to her in English, grinning broadly. “Excuse me, ma’am, could I ask you for a huge favor?”
She turned and stared up at the handsome, pleading face looking down at her. She answered in English, “I . . . um . . . well, sure. What can I help you with?”
MacMurphy continued to smile, displaying even, white teeth and dark, warm eyes. He was non-threatening. Just a man, a foreigner, who needed some sort of assistance. She leaned back against her car, at ease now that the initial shock of the interruption had passed.
Santos watched the scene unfold from the other side of the car. He decided to lie low and let MacMurphy finish whatever it was he was doing. He had no idea MacMurphy was just playing it by ear, trying to put the woman at ease and get her into the Land Cruiser with as little noise as possible.
MacMurphy said, “I don’t speak Arabic; I’m an American. And . . . well, those kids over there . . .” He motioned to the kids standing near the SUV. “I gave them some money to watch my car . . . I saw other people do it. Would you help me talk to them? That’s my car up there.”
Pouri glanced over at the kids standing next to the SUV and said, “Sure, they watch my car all the time. It’s a racket. If you don’t pay them, you risk getting your car scratched. How much did you give them?”
“Fifty pounds.”
She blanched as they started walking slowly toward the SUV. “Fifty pounds! That’s way too much. You’re going to drive the market up!”
MacMurphy shook his head in shame. “I know, but I didn’t have any small change and I was afraid they’d do something to the car if I didn’t pay. It’s okay. They can keep the money. Just tell them that they need to split the money equally among themselves and to share it with their families. And not to expect that much money again in the future . . .”
“Good idea,” said Pouri.
She was shaken up, but she still managed a small smile. When they reached the Land Cruiser, Pouri began speaking with the urchins. Standing behind her, MacMurphy motioned for Santos to get into the back seat and for Kashmiri to get into the driver’s seat.
Pouri finished with the kids and they went running off, screeching with delight. She turned to MacMurphy who was standing beside the left rear door. Kashmiri walked around and got behind the wheel and Santos slid into the backseat on the other side.
Pouri noticed that the driver was a native and asked, “Why didn’t you ask your driver to interpret for you?”
MacMurphy shook his head and said, “He barely understands a word I say. We’ve been getting lost all day.” He opened the back door and motioned her over. “My friend Rick can tell you all about it. He’s a cab driver back home. Getting lost in a hired car is particularly funny to him.”
When she leaned into the doorway, MacMurphy shoved her inside and slid in after her, trapping her between him and Santos. “Let’s go, Muhammad,” he ordered, slamming the door behind him.
CHAPTER 38
Pouri was too shocked to scream or resist. Two sets of powerful hands grasped each of her arms. She could hardly move, but, oddly, they were not hurting her.
MacMurphy spoke softly in reassuring tones. “Don’t be frightened. We are not going to harm you. You will be fine. We just need to talk with you. You are not in any danger at all. Do you understand?”
Pouri nodded. She was close to tears and trembling, but she quickly understood what was happening. These were Americans. They would not harm her. Somehow, they must have found out where Yasmin Ghorbani was being held and had grabbed her for a prisoner swap. It all made sense, perfect sense.
Fine, so be it, she thought.
Kashmiri excitedly weaved the Land Cruiser through the heavy rush hour traffic.
“Slow down, Muhammad. We’ve got plenty of time. Let’s not attract any attention,” said MacMurphy.
“But where are we going?” he replied.
Good question, thought MacMurphy. He hadn’t given this much thought at all. Where could they go? He looked over at Santos who simply shrugged. “Just keep driving cautiously, Muhammad. I’ll tell you where to take us in a moment,” he said.
MacMurphy turned his attention back to the frightened woman. He could not help but notice how attractive she was—large, dark eyes, full lips, fine nose, perfect alabaster skin, and a slim figure. Really, a fine looking woman. Her vulnerability added to her allure. But now that he had her, where was he going to hide her? How was he going to use her?
The most obvious option was to use her in a one-for-one trade for Yasmin. But first he needed to interrogate her, find out who she was and what the Iranians had planned for Yasmin Ghorbani. He would move on from there.
Then his training kicked in.
Wait a minute.
Nothing less than an officer in VAJA, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, would be qualified to handle such a sensitive interrogation. Given her age and the importance of this assignment, she most likely was a fairly senior VAJA officer. He started thinking of her as he would any new intelligence source.
Kashmiri continued to drive aimlessly, generally heading in the direction of the coast and their hotel, while Santos sat quietly next to the interrogator. He released her arm but remained coiled and ready to grab her again if she made any sudden moves.
MacMurphy also released her arm. He continued to speak to her in a quiet, reassuring manner. His first question was very important. “Can you tell me what your plans were for this evening?”
“I do not understand. Why do you want to know what my plans were?”
“You were getting into your car. I suspect you were going home at the end of the day. Is that correct?”
“Yes, I was heading home, back to my apartment.”
“Do you have any family at your apartment or perhaps a roommate?”
She was puzzled. “No, I’m on temporary duty here in Beirut. There is no one.”
“What are your plans for tomorrow? Do you have to check in with anyone?”
She relaxed a bit and flashed him a knowing smile. “Oh, now I get it. You want to know if I will be missed by anyone. Is that it?”
He returned the smile. “Yes, I need to know how much time we have before people come looking for you.”
She thought for several moments. She had regained her composure and was evaluating her circumstances. She looked up into his eyes and carefully considered her response. Her main objective was figuring out how to help Yasmin while still guaranteeing her own safety.
Finally, she said, “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I have been recalled to Tehran. They are not happy with my work here. I was planning to return to my apartment, pack up my things, and call the airline for a flight out tomorrow. I will tell you the truth. I’m not happy with this outcome.”
MacMurphy took it all in. He glanced over at Santos who looked surprised but not displeased with the way things were going.
“What’s your name?” MacMurphy asked.
She looked up at him again for a long time, considering. Finally, she took a deep b
reath, exhaled, looked directly into his eyes, and said, “My name is Pouri Hoseini. I am a mid-level officer at the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. My husband is a senior officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I have two grown children—a boy and a girl.”
“And you are here for . . .”
“I was sent here by my ministry to interrogate an American CIA officer named Yasmin Ghorbani, also known as Abida Hammami.”
“Where is this American CIA officer?”
Pouri looked at him quizzically. “You know the answer to that question already. Are you testing me?”
“Please just answer my question, Miss Hoseini.”
“She’s being held at 67 Lailake Road in a safe apartment on the second floor. It’s about thirty meters from where you picked me up.”
“What’s her condition? How long will they keep her there?”
“She’ll be there for a while. They like the location. And she is . . . recovering.” She looked up at him again. “Hezbollah sent a torturer to interrogate her. It should have never happened, but Iran was impatient and heard he had never failed to break a hostage.”
MacMurphy turned in his seat and placed his hand on her shoulder, turning her toward him. “Is she okay?”
“Yes, I stopped him before any permanent damage was done. But Iran will send someone else. And I can’t guarantee his replacement will use methods that are any less revolting.” Her eyes welled up with tears. She looked deeply into his eyes, dropped her head, and said, “I do not want her to be hurt again.”
MacMurphy glanced over at Santos and then sat back in his seat, thinking. Suddenly, the young man and his duffle bag made too much sense. They had been driving for almost an hour when MacMurphy’s instincts told him he had a willing and cooperative source.
Manna from heaven. But what do I do with her?
Santos interrupted his thoughts. “Let’s bring her back to the hotel.”
MacMurphy considered their options for a moment and nodded. “Yes, good idea. Muhammad, let’s go back to the hotel.” Then he turned to Pouri and said, “We’re going to trust you. Will you trust us?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Do either of us have a choice?”
“Not really,” said MacMurphy.
CHAPTER 39
They drove in silence back to the hotel. MacMurphy needed to think. He broke the silence when they entered the hotel parking lot. “Muhammad, pull over there in the corner and park away from the other cars. Rick, you and I need to chat a bit. Miss Hoseini, please stay in the car. We won’t be long.”
She said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
MacMurphy and Santos walked a short distance away from the car until they reached the edge of the lot. MacMurphy said, “I think we just struck gold. This is beyond our wildest expectations. I don’t know what went on between this woman and Yasmin in that safe house, but I think we’ve got ourselves a potential recruited source. I think Yasmin may have recruited the woman. What do you think?”
“You may be right. Unless she’s playing us, and I don’t think she is. I think she’s decided to throw in with us. We may have just solved some of her problems—being recalled and all that.”
“Yes, maybe,” said MacMurphy. “We need a safe house and someone to watch her while we go back there and get Yasmin. How are we going to do that?”
Santos nodded. “Yeah, not an ideal situation. But you always say security and production are like a teeter-totter. We’re just going to have to relax security a bit to take advantage of this situation. We should just take her up to our rooms and hide her there and debrief her until we come up with a better plan.”
“You’re right. That’s about all we can do right now. But we can’t leave her up there alone. What if she has second thoughts? We need to watch her twenty-four-seven. We can’t do that and rescue Yasmin at the same time.”
“Can we use Hadi?”
MacMurphy shook his head adamantly. “Absolutely not, we’ve exposed him too much already. We need to keep Hadi away from her from now on. He’s too vulnerable and too valuable.”
Santos said, “Then we need to call in reinforcements.”
MacMurphy shook his head again. “We don’t have any reinforcements. We’re it.”
“Yes, we do,” said Santos. “We have Maggie. She can babysit Miss Hoseini and debrief her. That’ll leave us free to do our thing.”
“Great idea!” MacMurphy hesitated, “But wait, it’s going to take Maggie a couple of days to get out here. And we need to get Yasmin out of there immediately.”
Santos said, “You’re always looking for perfection. We’ve got some time. Iran won’t miss Hoseini or be able to replace Hezbollah’s interrogator for at least a couple of days. And you heard what she said. They have no plans to move Yasmin anytime soon. They like the location.”
MacMurphy nodded. “Maybe, but Rothmann said they were planning to move her soon. And that info came straight from intercepts. Maybe the DDO’s info is better than Hoseini’s.”
“Or not,” said Santos. “Do we have a choice?”
CHAPTER 40
Santos and MacMurphy walked back to the Land Cruiser and escorted Pouri into the hotel through a side entrance. She offered no resistance, and to show her cooperation she made an effort to hide her face as they walked to their rooms.
Once Pouri was safely in MacMurphy’s room, he instructed Kashmiri to drive to the safe house with her keys, move her car into the long-term parking garage at the Beirut-Rafic Hariri Airport, and return to the safe house to keep it under sporadic vehicular surveillance until further notice.
Santos called Maggie and briefed her on the capture of Pouri Hoseini. Maggie relayed the information to Rothmann and told him their plans. He informed her that the intercepts continued to indicate Hezbollah was planning to move their captive to a new location, a location that seemed to be within a kilometer of the current safe house. She booked the next available flight to Beirut.
Meanwhile, MacMurphy and Pouri settled into comfortable chairs around a coffee table in room 420. Santos opened the door between room 420 and room 422 and joined them. The debriefing—no longer an interrogation given the cooperative nature of the conversation—was already in progress. MacMurphy was questioning Pouri about the security at the safe house.
“There really isn’t very much,” said Pouri. “Hezbollah believes that keeping a low profile in the neighborhood and using trusted assets is preferable to employing a large guard force. There is a security manager named Abu Salah, an older woman who has never identified herself, and a couple of other guys who, I believe, stay downstairs near the entrance at all times. Hezbollah controls the whole building, but I do not know what’s on the floor above or below the safe house. They appear to be empty, but I could be wrong.”
“Hezbollah’s probably got the right idea about security,” said MacMurphy. “Cloaking an action is often far better than displaying a large force. At least that’s the way intelligence officers tend to think.”
Santos had ordered room service in room 422. So, when he heard the bell ring, he got up and crossed into the other room, closing the door behind him. A few moments later, he returned with a tray of food, which he placed on the coffee table. The meal consisted of spaghetti and meat sauce, salad, warm rolls, and a bottle of Chianti. It was a little after nine o’clock in the evening and the three of them were ravenous. Santos figured comfort food was called for.
They dug into their meals but continued to talk. Rapport between the three of them was excellent and increased as Pouri slowly relaxed. Yasmin’s torture had shook Pouri to her core. But she felt relieved knowing that her conversation with the Americans would help Yasmin and, hopefully, lead to her rescue.
Eventually, the wine and fatigue caught up to Pouri. She decided to have a little fun with her captors. “So, you’re Rick,” she said, indicating to Santos. “And our driver is Muhammad. But who are you?” she asked, looking at MacMurphy.
Without hesitation,
MacMurphy said, “I’m Ralph.”
“Do you have a last name, Ralph?”
“Let’s just leave it at Ralph for now, okay?”
She smiled knowingly. “Rick and just Ralph. Could those be aliases by any chance?”
Santos laughed and MacMurphy said, “Of course they are. You know the drill.”
“Indeed I do. I have another question.”
“Shoot,” said MacMurphy.
“Yasmin admitted she was a CIA officer, so I assume you guys are also CIA. Is that correct?”
MacMurphy hesitated for a moment before answering. “Yes, you can assume we’re both CIA.”
“Hmm . . . When did the CIA get so bold as to try to do what you guys just did?”
Santos said with a grin, “There are a few of us left.”
“Okay, but when this is all over, I would like you to tell me who you really are—your true names. Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all, Pouri . . . May I call you Pouri?” said MacMurphy.
“Of course you can . . . Ralph.”
“Then you can call me Mac from now on.”
“Mac . . . That suits you . . .”
“And his name is Culler.”
“Culler . . . That’s an unusual name . . .”
Santos replied, “It’s a nickname, a real nickname. It’s a long story . . .”
She laughed and sat back from the table, looking first at MacMurphy then Santos then back at MacMurphy. Seemingly satisfied, she said, “I believe you . . . both of you. It’s not important, but . . . I think you understand . . .”
“We do,” said MacMurphy. Santos nodded.
She held out her wine glass and Santos topped it off. She swirled it around, looked deeply into the glass, toasted them both, and took a long drink. When she set the glass back down, she exhaled a long breath and said, “Now that we understand each other, I want to tell you what I want out of this. Is that okay?”
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