by Joseph Badal
“I don’t recall message traffic increasing before previous terrorist attacks in Greece,” Jack said.
“That’s right. This usually happens before something momentous involving Middle Eastern terrorists. Like the attacks on the World Trade Center. Past attacks in Greece have probably been pulled off by the local members of the Greek terrorist cells. If this message traffic is indicative of Middle Eastern terrorist involvement in something big, then perhaps one or more of the Greek groups is enlisting help from their Arab big brothers. Or maybe the Greeks aren’t involved at all.”
“Jesus,” Jack exclaimed. “How long has this been going on?”
“It started this morning. The NSA intercepted a call coming from some little town south of Athens to Mosul, Iraq. Message traffic then branched out from Mosul to Shiraz, Beirut, and Tripoli. From what they were able to decipher in the conversations—of course, they were brief and cryptic—the caller in Greece was trying to contact someone named ‘the Priest.’ These calls set off a veritable daisy chain of subsequent calls to numbers we are certain are being used by members of Al Qaeda. We were able to trace several of the calls and passed on their locations to Covert Ops. The calls emanating from Mosul basically passed on the Greek caller’s request. Then we picked up a call from Peshawar placed this afternoon to a public telephone in a drugstore in Athens. Neither the caller nor the recipient identified themselves. They spoke French. The Linguistics Section listened to the tape and determined that the caller was an Arab who had learned his French in Libya. They couldn’t tell us anything about the recipient of the call, other than that his French was impeccable, possibly a native Frenchman.”
Jack rehashed what he had just heard. He stood and walked to the far side of the conference room. After a moment, he turned and said, “Maybe the linguistics guys did tell us something.”
Frank looked at Jack expectantly. “How so?”
“Bear with me for a moment. Let’s make a few assumptions. First, the man who started the calling chain is part of one of the Greek terrorist groups. If he isn’t, then we’re wasting our time. But, at this moment, we have nothing else but time.”
Frank nodded as though to show Jack he was following his line of thinking.
“The second assumption is that the original call from south of Athens was placed by a Greek.”
Frank held up a hand and said, “Whoa, we have no way of knowing that.”
“I’m making that assumption based on the fact that all of the 17 November members identified by the police are Greek. I know it’s a stretch, but I believe, like 17 November, Greek Spring is one hundred percent Greek. And I think the communiqués that the terrorists send out after their attacks show they’re Greek. They refer to Greece as ‘our country.’ They say things like, ‘our heritage,’ ‘our history,’ and so forth.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “But you’re building one assumption on top of another assumption. That’s a weak foundation.”
“I’ll give you that; but let me continue. The Linguistics Section said the recipient of the call spoke fluent French. So, if we have a Greek who was born and raised in France, maybe we can narrow down the target list for our Bulgarian friend.”
Jack could see that Frank was skeptical; but unless the man could come up with something better, this was at least something that gave their assignment some purpose.
Jack started for the door, but stopped and said, “Frank, I want you to call Bob and tell him my half-assed theory. And remind him to keep his head down.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
AUGUST 4, 2004
Musa Sulaiman stared at his image in the mirror. He adjusted his robes and straightened the heavy gold chain around his neck. The Greek Orthodox cross on the chain was slightly akimbo; he fixed that as well. As always, the headdress felt uncomfortable; but it completed the disguise.
The flight from Cairo to Istanbul had been uneventful. It was the next and last leg of his trip that could prove problematical. Despite the apathy of the Greek authorities toward combating terrorism, Musa knew it would only take one conscientious or inquisitive cop to expose him. His travel documents were excellent, but they weren’t foolproof.
Satisfied with his appearance, he left the Istanbul Airport bathroom and walked purposefully to the gate. He avoided making eye contact with other passengers; he didn’t want to encourage conversation.
Musa boarded the plane last, watching each passenger go from the waiting area to the Jetway. He looked for anomalies—a bulge under a man’s jacket that might indicate an armed air marshal; a man who carried himself like a soldier or cop; a man or woman who was particularly alert. He took his assigned window seat in the fourteenth row and turned toward the window. He stared out at the tarmac and pretended to be interested in the baggage handlers loading luggage into the plane’s cargo compartment. Anything to avoid conversation with his seat mate—a blond woman who looked English. At least she didn’t appear to be Greek. And thank Allah the middle seat was empty.
Musa continued looking out as the aircraft took off and quickly attained cruising altitude. His neck was beginning to ache from holding his head in the same position. He quickly stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders, glancing to his right, just as the blond woman looked his way and smiled.
“Hello, Father,” she said in Greek. “Have you been in Turkey long?”
The woman’s Greek surprised Musa. He forced himself to concentrate on his answer. To drive away any trace of an Arabic accent from his voice, to adopt the correct tone. “Yes,” he answered. “Six months. I’ve missed Greece.”
“What have you been doing?” she asked.
“Studying Byzantine records. It’s my specialty.”
“That’s amazing,” she said. “I did my doctoral work on the Byzantine period’s influence on literature and music. Where have you been studying?”
Musa was stumped. But he was the best killer in the world and had survived in a very dangerous business because he could handle pressure. “Erzurum, in far eastern Turkey,” he said. “At an old monastery.” He figured that Erzurum was so remote there was no way the woman would be familiar with it.
The woman’s forehead knitted and her eyebrows arched. Musa could tell she was thinking about his answer—and she didn’t seem to like it. And he didn’t like the way the conversation was going.
“Where in Erzurum?” she asked him.
Musa swallowed and forced himself to breathe slowly. “You are familiar with the area?” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Where was this monastery in Erzurum?”
Her tone had changed. There was nothing friendly about the way she’d asked the question. Musa pulled the airline magazine from the seat pocket in front of him and opened it to the back page, where there was a map of the region showing the airline’s flight coverage of Greece, Turkey, and several Arab countries. He held the magazine on his lap and tapped the page with his finger. “You see where Turkey and Iran touch here,” he said, making the woman lean over to see where he pointed. He looked past her at the passengers on the other side of the aisle—a German-speaking couple who appeared to be sleeping. When her face was a foot away from his arm, Musa shot his fist at the woman’s head, striking her left temple a tremendous blow. Her head snapped to the right, but Musa grabbed the sleeve of her jacket and jerked her back. He quickly set her back in her seat and turned her head toward him. He didn’t want anyone noticing the lump that would soon show.
When he had the woman in a position that made her appear to be asleep, Musa looked around again, then opened the woman’s purse which she had placed on the middle seat between them. He started to reach for her wallet, when he noticed a leather folio in the purse. On one side of the folio was a silver badge that had the words Defense Intelligence Agency imprinted on it. On the other side was an ID card with the woman’s photograph and her name: Special Agent Margaret Ryan.
&nb
sp; Musa knew he couldn’t depend on being able to keep the woman unconscious for the rest of the flight. And what would happen when the plane landed in Athens? He couldn’t allow her to regain consciousness. He reached through a slit in the side of his robe and into his pants pocket. He found the tiny pill and extracted it. Again, he glanced around. The flight attendants were serving refreshments to the passengers. They were at the tenth row, their backs to him. He quickly looked at the woman. His heart seemed to stop. She moaned and moved her head from side to side. Musa took her chin in his right hand, turning her head towards him. He shoved the pill into the back of her throat.
The woman’s complexion suddenly turned red. Her body went rigid, her arms flailed, and then her hands went to her throat. She convulsed as her breathing became louder. Froth bubbled from between her lips. People all around her reacted. Some stood and approached the woman, others rang their call buttons, and still others shouted for help.
Musa released his seat belt and stepped over the woman. “Please help,” he called out in Greek, “this woman needs assistance. Is there a doctor on board?” All the while, he kept an eye on the woman. He watched with satisfaction as the poison he had fed her shut down her nervous system and caused her lungs to go rigid, strangling her.
***
The passengers were unusually quiet for the remainder of the flight. An emergency medical crew met the flight when it landed in Athens. They rushed on board through the Jetway, while the passengers were offloaded through the plane’s back door. The one hundred seventy-eight men, women, and children were herded into the terminal and began processing through Customs.
After clearing Customs, Musa slipped into a restroom stall and shed the priest’s garb. He had on black slacks and a black shirt under the robe. He removed his false beard and mustache and waited until the restroom was empty. Then he exited the stall and moved to a trashcan. He dumped the lot into the can, including the woman’s ID and badge, combed his hair with his fingers, and left the bathroom. He walked to the airport exit, smiling as he heard one Greek policeman shout to another, “Where’s the priest? We need to question the priest.”
***
Giorgos Photos was in a high state of anxiety. EA had a reputation for executing highly organized, well-planned attacks. It was one of the reasons the group had survived for so long without a single member of the group being identified. He was about to violate his policy of extensive planning and extensive practice. He sat in a Mercedes sedan across from the avenue into the Athens Airport. He could see the woman he’d sent to pick up the Libyan standing next to her car opposite the main entrance to the terminal building. So much depended on the man making it through airport security. Musa Sulaiman would be a key to the plan he had designed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
AUGUST 4, 2004
It had been a long, tough day and Bob felt it in every bone of his body. His eyes burned and he had trouble getting them to focus on the words in front of him. He adjusted his reading glasses on his nose, trying to improve his vision. It didn’t work. He and his team had reviewed almost every damn file that even mentioned France. They had culled one hundred and twenty-three files from the morass of files loaded on the computers—six hundred and fifty-three incident reports, four hundred and sixteen terrorist suspect profiles, a couple hundred Intelligence reports on subjects ranging from the psychopathy of terrorists to the social and economic reasons for suicide bombers, and fifty-seven files on Greek citizens with some connection to France. The French tie ranged from Greeks who had studied in France to those who had arrest records there for a variety of crimes, predominantly associated with illegal street demonstrations. Over half of the fifty-seven Greeks with French connections had been associated with the French Communist Party.
Bob wasn’t any further along than he’d been when the other members of his team left the office at 8:00 p.m. It was now 11:00. Over the last three hours, he had concentrated on the fifty-seven files. They intrigued him for several reasons. The Greek Ministry of Public Order very recently constructed them. Bob had asked the head of the ministry, Constantine Angelou, to target intellectuals, university professors, and political figures. He had been skeptical the Greeks would do a thorough job, considering their past performance, but Angelou surprised him. The reports were comprehensive and, in some cases, startling. The subjects of the files included highly placed members of recent Greek administrations, numerous university professors, writers, and journalists who had been schooled in France during the sixties and seventies, many who had been members of the French Communist Party. A few were involved with violent street protests in Paris, including demonstrations against the United States and Israel and in support of governments that backed terrorists, like Libya and Syria.
It wasn’t possible to identify a person as a member of Greek Spring or of any other group from the information in any of the files; but Bob prayed one or more of the people mentioned in the files had at least a connection of some sort to someone in one of the terrorist organizations. These people had all the credentials to be members of one or another terrorist cell or, at the very least, to support terrorists with money, information, and/or influence. Maybe one of this group of fifty-seven would open the door to the terrorists.
Bob closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. He knew in his gut something was about to happen. The “chatter” between Greece and the Middle East was ominous. He and his team had to come up with a tie to Greek Spring—the big gun among all of the terrorist groups—before something big went down. And he didn’t like acknowledging to himself that they couldn’t do it without help. He placed calls to Rodney Townsend with MI-6 and Grady McMasters at the FBI. Both men were still at their offices and agreed to meet Bob at 8:00 the next morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
AUGUST 5, 2004
Giorgos Photos paced the floor of the Keratea safehouse, while looking over the list Musa Sulaiman had given him. “You’re sure this will be enough?” he asked.
Musa, lounging on a sofa, stroked his chin and gave Photos a paternalistic look, as though he was dealing with a disappointing child. “Photos, are you now questioning my judgement?”
Photos tried to meet Musa’s gaze, but he had to look away after a few seconds. The man’s large hooked nose, bloated dark lips, wide mouth, and beady black eyes made for a frightening sight. Like the features of a prehistoric avian. “No, no, Musa, of course not. I just like to be careful.”
“Tsk, tsk, my friend, you need to have more confidence.”
“But will you be able to do it all in such a short time? I am—”
“Enough!” Musa blurted. “If you’re going to continue to sound like a frightened little girl, I will leave. I have no interest in working with weaklings.”
Photos moved to a worn, plush armchair and dropped into it. “This is a big step for us,” he said, trying to control the anger that boiled within him over the Arab’s insult. “If something goes wrong now, all our plans could be ruined.”
Musa laughed disdainfully. He stood and walked to the living room window and closed the shade against the rising sun. He returned to the sofa and said, “Are you crazy? What we will do two days from now will change everything.” He jabbed a finger at Photos and growled, “You and your puny band of gangsters have done less damage in thirty years than my Arab brothers did against the Great Satan in September of 2001. It’s time for Eleeneekee Aneexee to grow up. I’m about to make that happen.”
Photos nodded; he didn’t trust his voice. He was concerned . . . and frightened . . . and pissed off. He had never taken any action against his enemies that would match the enormity of this event. Just the thought of it made his stomach ache. They were so close to the final stroke, the act that would catapult him and his benefactors to the top of the Greek Government, and would turn the minds of the Greek populace inward. He would finally realize his life’s dream of making Greece a Marxist-Leninist sta
te.
“Did you hear me, man?” Musa shouted.
“Yes, I heard you,” Photos said. “I’m ready.”
“Excellent. It’s set, then. On Friday, I will deal with the British and you will take care of the Americans.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
AUGUST 5, 2004
Bob met Grady McMasters and Rodney Townsend at the FBI’s offices in what used to be the Joint United States Military Advisory Group Greece’s (JUSMAGG) offices at 8:00 a.m. He shared the CIA’s information about the intercepted telephone call between Greece and Iraq with the two men. He also talked about the theory that one of the Greek terrorists had a connection to France because of the man’s fluency in French. He’d allowed the information to sink in for a moment and then answered their questions. They both expressed reservations about the weakness of the link to France, but they also acknowledged that it was just this sort of link that often caused Intelligence breakthroughs. Besides, they had nothing better to offer.
“Our people think something is about to go down. I need your help. We’ve identified fifty-seven Greek nationals with some tie to France. I suggest we split up these files among our three agencies. Working together could speed up the possibility of finding one of these bastards, and bring down the whole organization.”
“I say again,” McMasters said, “we’re probably wasting our time.”
Townsend stood and looked first at McMasters, then at Bob. “We’re sure not working on anything that sounds as promising as what Bob just laid out for us,” he said.
“Oh, what the fuck,” McMasters barked. “When can we see the files?”
“I’ll have them delivered to your offices today,” Bob said.
