Dunner sat straighter, summoning the determination that had carried him through the last few days. “No, Eliot. Absolutely not. I will bury my son. Then I will return to do my duty for my country. Elizabeth will expect nothing less from me.”
Fine, Green thought. We’ll do this the hard way. “John, the president doesn’t agree, particularly in light of how your son may have died.”
“What does that have to do with my job?”
“I have an initial report from the director of Diplomatic Security, whom I asked to investigate this matter. Apparently, your son was doped up on some drug called khat when he died and was in all probability a drug dealer himself. Step down now, John. You’ll be inundated with offers from universities and foundations. Find a nice teaching position. The specifics of your son’s death can remain a private family matter. It would serve no one if this sordid affair became a topic of discussion in the media and the blogs. You don’t want that. And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that this is an election year.”
“You’re a real bastard, Eliot,” Dunner said slowly, his voice trembling less from weakness than anger.
“You serve at the pleasure of the president, John. It’s his pleasure that you step down.”
“I’ll write a letter of resignation right away. He’ll have it by the end of the day.”
“No need to trouble yourself. Here’s something I drafted for you. All you need to do is sign it. It’s one less thing you need to worry about at this difficult time.”
St. James Square, London, 1422 (GMT)
“Welcome back to the East India Club, Mr. Golzari.” The front desk attendant spoke in a hushed, respectful tone commensurate with the surroundings. “It is always a pleasure to see you.”
“Thank you, Steven, it is always a pleasure to be here,” Golzari said, smiling as he handed his leather travel bag to the waiting servant.
“Shall I inform the dining room that you will be coming in for luncheon, sir?”
“No, Steven. I’ll be dining elsewhere. I’m expecting Mr. Witherfield to join me within the hour. Please send him up when he arrives.”
“Very good, sir.”
As on every return, Golzari took a moment to savor his surroundings. With the exception of his two brief marriages and the small studio apartment he kept in Washington, Golzari hadn’t had a real home since college. This magnificent building in St. James’s Square was the closest thing he had to one. It was, he decided, the only civilized place he had ever lived. The understated elegance and quiet rooms full of history comforted his senses in a way that no other place ever could. The club’s dress code of a jacket and tie at all times was a welcome departure from the world of denim jeans, t-shirts, and flip-flops in the United States.
Before it had become the East India Club the building had been home to two centuries of British aristocrats. King George IV, while still Prince Regent, had famously received news of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo while attending a dinner party here. The club counted among its notable members Admiral Lord Mountbatten and the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes. During the war it had witnessed the frantic activity that surrounded Eisenhower’s headquarters at Norfolk House diagonally across the square.
Golzari’s club membership was effectively the only thing he hadn’t lost in either of his divorce proceedings—not that his wives wouldn’t have tried to take that too had it been possible. Even now, though, early in the twenty-first century, ladies were not allowed to join. On the other hand, he mused, neither of his ex-wives was a lady. He turned toward the hallway, pausing slightly as he noted, not for the first time, the large wood-and-brass plaque on the wall memorializing all the members who had lost their lives in England’s wars. He stopped by the bar to pick up a drink and then made his way to the one-man elevator at the rear of the building.
Once in his room, he checked the windows and closet, the inevitable habit of a perpetually security-conscious DSS agent. He made a local call to his old friend Robert and then sipped at his drink as he checked for new messages on his Blackberry. Glancing through his email, he was disappointed to read that Deputy Secretary Dunner had resigned. There were too few good people in government, he thought, and Dunner’s departure was a loss for wisdom and decency in an administration sorely lacking in both. His debt to Dunner remained, however, whether he was in the government or not.
“Posh Robert!” Golzari said, extending a hand to his former partner as he opened the door.
“Damien!” Robert Witherfield replied warmly, returning the handshake while keeping a firm grip on the briefcase in his left hand.
Golzari stepped back to allow Witherfield to enter the room. “It’s been awhile, Robert.”
“Too long. Welcome back to the world’s finest city.”
“Yes, indeed. I’ve always thought that Hubert Robert was really thinking of London when he painted Gallery of the Louvre as a Ruin.”
“Good lord, Damien, will you never get off that depressing Rococo trash? God knows our art instructor tried to broaden your horizons. In any case, Hubert Robert’s work is all in the Louvre. They have all the bloody garbage we didn’t have room to store. You need to spend time in British museums again to refresh your education—unless, of course, we pop off to Paris. Do you have time?”
“I wish I could, Robert. I remember our last trip there with particular fondness, although I’m not sure they’d let us back in France yet.”
“Too right. Well, how about a drink and dinner then? There’s a smashing Indian restaurant on Shaftsbury that I want you to try.”
“Why do you never suggest going to a ‘smashing’ British restaurant?”
“Didn’t you know? That’s why the British Empire expanded. We were looking for a decent meal.”
“Then business before pleasure. Have a seat, Robert,” Golzari said, gesturing to the chair closest to the window. Witherfield sat down, opened his briefcase, and pulled out several folders. “Well, Damien, will you have the good tnews first, or the bad news?”
“Let’s start with the good, shall we?” Golzari suggested, sipping his Bombay Sapphire and tonic.
“This is completely off the record, of course?”
“As it always is with us—with everything,” Golzari returned.
Robert raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Good. Here are the files. I made no copies, so you’ll need to look these over while I’m here. And, of course, I was never here.” Witherfield winked.
Golzari chuckled. “You’ve been watching too many James Bond movies, Robert. Or should I say Austin Powers?”
“Are you implying that I have bad teeth?”
“No, just bad clothes.”
Witherfield adjusted his impeccably knotted silk tie. “You really know how to hurt an ally.”
Golzari started reading while Witherfield continued to talk. “I wish I had had more time to gather material for you on Abdi Mohammed Asha. He’s a bit of a problem child.”
“Ever cause any problems here, Robert?”
“Not directly, no. But he’d have been right at home with the ‘Mad Mullah’ back in the day. Of course, back in those days we actually mounted campaigns against people like him, even if it was in British Somaliland—or Somalia, if you will. Coincidentally, Asha belongs to the Mad Mullah’s clan—Dhulbahante.”
“Wait a minute.” Golzari stopped reading and looked up at Witherfield. “That can’t be right. The Somali refugees he was living among in the States are all Bantu. A Dhulbahante wouldn’t go to the other side of the world to live with Bantus—not in a society as strongly tied to clans as Somalia’s still is.”
“I’m not sure I have an explanation for that, Damien, but we do know that Asha is not a simple refugee. He was a soldier with strong connections to the power structure in Somalia. The only reason he came to our attention is because we were tracking his boss, a warlord named Suldaan Yaxye Abokor— a particularly nasty fellow. Asha was one of Abokor’s lieutenants.”
“Nasty how?”
“He to
ok the Islamic law of hirabah to heart. Anyone he saw as creating disorder had their opposing hands and feet amputated.”
“Of course. And he represented the order. What happened to him?”
“Ironically, another warlord found Abokor’s activities to be disorderly. Abokor and some of his people were massacred about a year ago. Asha happened to be in Yemen at the time.”
Golzari read his way down the third sheet. “And Asha disappeared after that. Has the new warlord lived happily ever after?”
“Not really. He and several of his top people were killed two weeks ago.”
“By another warlord? Or al-Shabaab?”
“Neither, actually. They were your chaps.”
“Ours?”
“I’m afraid so. The media didn’t pay much attention to it because it happened to coincide with a North Korean missile test. The United States issued a press release afterward saying that an al-Qaeda base in Somalia had been destroyed by three U.S. Tomahawk missiles.”
“So that’s what that was about. And the new warlord wasn’t tied to al-Qaeda?”
“Not a chance, my friend. Al-Shabaab isn’t the only organization in the area. The fight nowadays is between the old warlords and the Islamists. The terrorists just stay under the radar to train. But it’s not like the Somali communities elsewhere have been quiet. In fact, I’ve been investigating three Somalis from Birmingham who attacked a Yank.”
“In Birmingham?”
“No, Scotland, actually. The Yank killed all three of them, though MI5 says he got some help from a Scottish woman.”
Golzari raised his eyebrows. “Lovely. Were the Somalis tied to al-Shabaab?” “No, but one of them had fought in Mogadishu.”
“That’s damned odd. Why would expatriate Somalis attack an American in Scotland? Can I interview the American?”
“He was snatched up by your Department of Defense.”
“Under protection?”
“No, I believe under the guise of employment.”
“This gets odder and odder. Are you sure he’s not CIA?”
Robert laughed. “Definitely not. He’s a rough one and a renegade.”
Golzari shrugged and changed the subject. “What can you tell me about the Mukalla Hassan?”
“It’s there in the material I gave you. To summarize, she’s a fifteen-thousandton freighter. Never been tied to khat before. According to our customs officials, she delivered a cargo of dates and vegetable oil in Southampton.”
“Who owns the ship?”
A knock at the door stopped their conversation. Golzari readied his weapon before looking through the peephole. He signaled okay to Witherfield before opening the door to admit a servant carrying a tray. Golzari took the single item from the tray, thanked the servant, and placed the Bombay and tonic in front of his friend. Robert lifted the glass in appreciation and continued.
“The company is owned by a brother of the Yemeni president.”
“Hmm.” Golzari sat quietly for a moment. “I had planned to fly back to the States and check for new leads in Antioch, Maine, but I’ve changed my mind. Asha was in Yemen right before he came to America, and Johnny Dunner’s khat was on a boat from Yemen. I don’t think there’s anything left for me in Maine.” He nodded. “Yemen is my next stop.”
“You don’t plan on speaking with the ship’s owner, do you? I hardly think that would be wise.”
“We both know there are other ways to get information, Robert. You chaps in MI5 have taught me a few tricks over the years. I really wish I could stay here longer, though.”
“Why is that, Damien?”
Golzari grinned. “The food’s better even in London than it is in Yemen. Many thanks, Robert.”
“My pleasure. We have to help you Yanks once in a while so you don’t mess up the world too much.”
“We’re just cleaning up the imperial mess you left behind, you know.”
“I don’t recall the headmaster tolerating such rudeness when we were at Cheltenham.”
“The headmaster never knew half of what went on within those walls.”
“And a good thing that was. Now, how about that Indian restaurant? Your treat, of course.”
“Consider it payment for services rendered, courtesy of the petty bureaucrats in Washington.”
The taxi’s light indicated that the driver was off-duty. The Chinese man behind the wheel had driven this cab for months, but to date the on-duty light had never been on and he had never carried a fare. He took orders only from his superiors, and those orders so far had involved driving around the city conducting surveillance or accommodating the occasional in-cab meeting. Today his orders were to play host to a Somali.
Asha sat in the passenger seat waiting for the American federal agent to exit the exclusive club in St. James’s Square.
“How long has he been in there?” he asked the driver.
“Since fourteen thirty-two hours,” the Chinese driver replied with stoic efficiency.
The taxi was parked in a spot on the south side of the tree-filled commons of St. James’s Square with a direct view of the club. Asha ordered the driver to meet him later and climbed out of the cab, walking around to stretch his legs while continuing to watch the entrance. The American agent finally left the building in the company of a tall, well-dressed blond man. Allah had not given him the opportunity to kill the man in Maine. Here in London he would have another chance. He decided that the blond man would die too. Asha could not take action against both of them at the same time, but he could follow them and wait for an opportunity.
USS Bennington, Indian Ocean, 1427 (GMT)
The Bennington approached a small ship that looked barely capable of floating, much less moving. Ens. Bobby Fisk, on duty as the conning officer, tracked it on radar, noting that it was responding to the Bennington’s movements, veering away as the American warship moved closer.
“Conn, bring us parallel to that dhow and keep two hundred yards to her starboard,” the OOD said to Bobby.
“Aye, sir.” Bobby checked the course and speed of the dhow, then issued a series of minor course corrections to the helmsman. He ordered increased speed as he felt the top-heavy cruiser’s deck shift from the maneuvering. Almost immediately there was a clamoring up the ladder behind the pilothouse door and the helm announced: “Captain on the bridge!”
“What’s going on here? OOD, why is the ship shaking?”
“Sir, I ordered a change in course and speed to parallel that ship,” Bobby answered, pointing to the small boat and offering binoculars to the CO.
The captain shoved the binoculars away. “I don’t need those. Why?”
“They’ve been intentionally avoiding us, sir. This is a good target for the VBSS team. They haven’t had many chances to board and search.”
“I don’t think so,” the captain replied peevishly. “Those people just want to stay out of our way. Any course corrections other than patrolling in our box, you contact me or the XO, you understand? If you can’t manage to do that we’ll take you off the watch rotation and give you some responsibilities elsewhere.”
Bobby took a deep breath as the captain left the bridge. The OOD ordered a course change away from the foreign ship. As Bobby gave the command he looked through his own binoculars to see several men on the dhow making rude gestures at the departing warship. They were cheering. Bobby and the OOD were not.
Bobby was in a bad spot on this ship, and he knew it. Challenging one’s commanding officer was mutiny, but he’d been in the Bennington long enough to know that the command structure on the ship wasn’t working the way his instructors at the Naval Academy had said it would. He didn’t know whether the captain was sick, burnt-out, crazy, or just incompetent, but the Bennington was not a functional ship. There had to be another way.
The operations officer (OPS), Bobby, and the weapons officer (WEPS) were smoking cigars after dinner when Air Boss—the pilot in command of “the Lost Boys,” the ship’s helicopter detachment—join
ed them. OPS had a year’s seniority over Air Boss, so the cigar cabal deferred to him.
“You heard what happened on the bridge this afternoon, OPS?” Bobby asked. He wasn’t sure whether the sweat trickling down his back was due to the stifling heat or nerves; probably some of both. The extra pounds he had put on since boarding the Bennington didn’t help.
“I heard,” OPS answered. “This is the first deployment I’ve ever been on when we’ve actively avoided the ships we’re supposed to inspect.” He shook his head in disgust.
“He won’t listen to us,” WEPS complained. “We cruise around and around inside our box. You know damn well some of those dhows are pirates, but we just let them go by. There has to be something we can do about this. What about Fifth Fleet? He has to listen to them.”
“I’ll email a buddy there and see if they can issue a directive to provide reports on inspections,” OPS said. “Maybe that’ll work.”
“What if it doesn’t, sir?” asked Fisk.
OPS looked around the circle. “Gentlemen, clearly we’ve been neglecting young Ensign Fisk’s education. Bobby, there’s a book in the wardroom that should have been required reading for you at the Severn River Trade School.”
“Oh? Which one?”
OPS smiled. “The Caine Mutiny.”
London, 1959 (GMT)
Asha waited for two hours outside the restaurant. From his spot diagonally across the street he could maintain a direct line of sight on the American agent. Although two tables near the large window had been free, the swarthy American and his dinner companion had taken a table on the far side of the restaurant. Clearly the man had worked in foreign countries before—car bombs detonated on a busy street could shatter windows into a million pieces that could shred the flesh of those nearest the impact. Even though car bombs seemed to be a thing of the past in the United Kingdom, the American was being careful even here. Asha felt a glimmer of professional respect for this American agent; he would enjoy defeating him.
The Aden Effect Page 7
