The Emerald Scepter

by Paul Kemprecos

  There was something so alien and inhuman in the gaze that the professor felt weak-kneed, much the way a rabbit must feel when it has attracted the attention of a wolf.

  He brushed by the flight attendant and locked himself in the restroom where he stared at his reflection in the mirror. His face was as white as a sheet and his skin was shiny with beads of perspiration. He quickly relieved himself, and then threw cold water in his face after washing his hands.

  He took a deep breath, opened the door with a shaking hand and strode down the aisle to his seat.

  With every step he felt those cold blue eyes boring into the back of his skull.

  He settled back into his seat and waited for his rapid heartbeat to slow down.

  Don’t let him out of your sight, Mohamed had said.

  No worry about that, dear cousin, except for one small detail. The watcher was now the watched.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Sutherland drove her RAV4 up the driveway and saw a dozen or so agents herding a bedraggled group of men toward a line-up of white Border Patrol SUVs. As she pulled up to the house, a middle-aged Border Patrolman approached her vehicle. His name was Ed McHugh and she knew him from previous patrols.

  “Afternoon, Miss Sutherland. Sorry for all the ruckus. We’re cleaning things up here as fast as we can.”

  She got out of the SUV carrying a bag of newly purchased paints. “Looks like you’re having a busy day.”

  McHugh nodded.

  “Can’t complain. As long as these folks keep coming in, I’ll have job security.” He checked the progress of the round-up. “Looks like we’re ready to head out. Call me if you ever need help.”

  She patted the shirt pocket that held her cell phone. “Got your number right here.”

  He plunked his hat on and rejoined the other agents. The patrol vehicles trundled off her property with their fresh catch of Mexican illegal immigrants. Within weeks the same Border Patrol officers would be rounding up the same illegal aliens. But for now, the valley was peaceful again. The lowering sun would soon dab the rugged landscape with colors from its brilliant palette.

  She went into the house, popped a cold can of Tecate from the refrigerator, then sat at her computer and called up the navy board of inquiry file on Hawkins. She reread the inquiry proceedings and out of curiosity typed Southie, the name of Hawkins’ CIA contact into a web browser.

  Her West Virginia heritage had suggested that Southie had something to do with the southern part of the U.S. She was surprised that it was a nickname for the working class Irish neighborhood of South Boston. From the references she found, Southie was most famous as the home turf of gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

  Nothing there. She typed in the name Abrahim Noor Kahn and found a number of news stories on the drug lord. The most recent ones reported his death a day earlier during a DEA raid. Strange coincidence.

  The New York Times story said Khan had been a CIA informant nicknamed “Honest Abe,” and was a double agent working with the Taliban. Before he was unmasked, he had been paid millions, flown to Washington to meet with CIA and DEA officials, wined and dined and taken on trips to New York, supposedly to meet with his attorney.

  An enterprising Times photographer had snapped a photo of Honest Abe coming out of Macy’s. At the side of the bearded Afghan, clutching two shopping bags, was an unidentified broad-faced man. Both faces were slightly blurred.

  The story on Honest Abe’s death quoted his attorney as saying that his client never supported the Taliban or worked with the C.I.A. The attorney admitted that the confusion may have been caused by his client’s work as a consultant to a well-connected military contractor known as Arrowhead.

  Arrowhead’s elaborate website said the corporation was a full service risk management company, headquartered in Plano, Texas, with hundreds of employees worldwide, and that it specialized in “Democracy Transition.” Arrowhead operations were broken up into various specialties. Law enforcement. Strategic. Recruitment and Training. Anti-Terrorism. Except for scope and degree, the company was no different from any of the dozens of gun for hire groups that had sprung up around the world over the last couple of decades.

  Like many regular soldiers, Sutherland considered military contractors as bottom feeders. Most mercenaries were former military men who earned big salaries for work that the people still working for Uncle Sam did for short money.

  Sutherland noticed a link for The Arrowhead Foundation listed in small print on the website and clicked it. The U.S. registered charity had been set up to bring relief to war-torn environments. The list of projects included schools, water tanks, purification systems, generators and other small but important projects for poor communities.

  She scrolled through the projects and stopped at one labeled Psychological Care for Children in Conflict. Sutherland had an interest in psychology stemming from her own mental issues so she clicked on the listing. The site carried a number of photos of Iraqi children with men and women who worked for an outfit called World-Wide Youth Counseling Services.

  She stared with disbelief at a photo of a man handing a stuffed teddy bear to a child. The photo caption didn’t name the man, just described him as a psychological counselor, but there was no mistaking the gaunt features and puny chin of Dr. Trask, the hated psychologist who had ruined Hawkins and threatened to do the same with her! The attempt at a warm smile could only be described as grotesque.

  There were two other armed men in the photo. One was in the background, and the other, standing next to the girl, resembled the same wide-faced man in the photo of Honest Abe coming out of Macy’s. She expanded the search on the foundation, combing the internet for any mention of the Children in Conflict site. She hit pay dirt in an online version of the Holy Cross college alumni magazine under the heading:

  Alum Serves in Humanitarian Role

  The article had the identical photo as the one on the Arrowhead site. The caption identified Trask only as a child psychologist, but it said the man with the gun was a BC alumni named Terrance A. Murphy. He had joined the Marines after college and served three tours in Iraq before mustering out to go to work for Arrowhead. The clip was a couple of years old and gave no indication of Murphy’s movements since then.

  The detail that really caught her eye was Murphy’s home town. South Boston. And his nickname was Southie! She squinted at the screen. Was Murphy the CIA guy Hawkins talked to before going after Honest Abe? If so, his ties to the execrable Dr. Trask were disturbing. She had to know more.

  Using the foundation’s charitable registration number from the website, she looked up its IRS 990-PF form listing the names of the foundation’s officers, directors, managers and contractors. She recognized none of the names, but noted them for a further look, then scrolled down to the list of grant recipients.

  One of the recipients was World-Wide Youth Counseling Services.

  She went back to the photo of Trask and found a strange coincidence. It was taken the year when, according to the alumni magazine article, Murphy was working for Arrowhead at the same time its foundation was awarding a grant to the children’s organization.

  When Trask had first come into her life as a hatchet man for the navy, she had prepared a comprehensive dossier on him. She went back and looked into the file. There was no mention of his tie-in to the foundation or the navy. He was described as being in private practice, but this would not prevent him from hiring out as a consultant.

  Sutherland was like a hound on the scent of a rabbit. Or in this case, a skunk. She got up from the computer and went out onto the patio to steady her nerves. The desert was unearthly quiet. She had missed the sunset. She breathed in the scent of sagebrush and went into the house for a protein bar and a Diet Coke. Back at her computer, she limbered her plump fingers like a piano virtuoso about to play Chopin’s Minute Waltz, and began to attack the computer keyboard.

 
She went into every aspect of the Arrowhead website. She dug further into IRS files. She used her far-ranging computer search program and picked up hundreds of references to the company. There were no other direct references linking Murphy or Trask. But she found that aside from a few projects, the organization actually did very little for children.

  Sutherland decided to go right to the source, and wrote an email to the foundation director saying she wanted to donate money to the children’s development fund. She included her cell phone number.

  Since it was night in Texas, she didn’t expect a reply, but her phone rang after a few minutes. It was the foundation director.

  “I didn’t think anyone would be working this late,” Sutherland said.

  “We’re 24/7 here,” the director answered. “Thank you for your offer,” she said, “but you might want to donate to other foundation projects. That project ended a couple of years ago, as the situation changed in Iraq.”

  “Is there any way to get in touch with Dr. Trask? I saw his name on the website,” she lied. “Maybe he’s doing similar work that I can support.”

  “I’ll have to do some research. I’ll get back to you.”

  Sutherland thanked her, clicked off and stared into space. Hawkins knew Southie/Murphy. Murphy worked with Trask and went shopping with Honest Abe who ambushed Hawkins. She considered contacting Hawkins, but he was still in the air and she didn’t have enough to go on. She just knew something wasn’t right.

  She wrote up a report, but decided to wait until she heard back from the foundation. If she didn’t hear from Arrowhead, she’d get in touch with Hawkins in the morning.

  She yawned. It was almost bedtime.

  After the call from Sutherland the foundation’s development officer went to the director and told him of the strange request to donate to the children’s charity and the question about Trask.

  The director thanked her, closed his door and made a telephone call.

  Sweat formed on Dr. Trask’s weak chin as he listened to the voice on the phone. How had Sutherland found him? There was no mention of his name anywhere in the company website. He thanked the director. He was calm and polite on the phone, but the moment the conversation ended, he frantically punched out a telephone number.

  The phone chirped in a small, Spartan office in Falls Church, Virginia.

  The hard-eyed man sitting behind a desk in the office listened intently, then said, “The 4th Protocol? You’re sure of it?”

  There was a verbal blast from the other end.

  “I’ll need clearance from upstairs first.”

  Trask said, “Stand by,” and hung up.

  A minute later, the phone rang again and it was his supervisor, following up on Trask’s panicked call.

  “You have the go-ahead to proceed. I’ll be sending you a file. You’re to act on this immediately.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  He hung up and turned to his computer. A minute later he was looking at a photo of a woman in her twenties. The face was plump but pretty. Under the head shot was a note:

  “Apply the Fourth Protocol to the subject as soon as possible.”

  Accompanying the photo was information on the subject. Following a pre-arranged procedure, the man began making a series of telephone calls that would bring together the personnel closest to the job into an action team.

  The numbered protocols were a system of threat assessments and responses. The first protocol was meant to deal with someone who had made a casual inquiry about the business. The appropriate response was a background check.

  If the inquirer persisted, the response would be quiet intimidation, mainly a suggestion that questions would be turned over to the legal department. If that didn’t work, Protocol Three was invoked, calling for a physical diversion of some sort. A car would be run off the road. A house would be burned down.

  The subject’s inquiry by itself did not merit more than level one. But Dr. Trask’s standing in the organization pushed the matter into the final category.

  The Fourth Protocol.

  For which the only remedy was speedy eradication.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kabul, Afghanistan

  The pilot’s voice came over the cabin intercom and announced that the 747 had been cleared for landing. Hawkins gazed out the window as if in a trance as the big plane dropped into the bowl formed by the jagged mountains that surrounded the three-thousand-year-old city.

  Moments later, the massive landing gear clomped down on the tarmac at Kabul International Airport, or Khawaja Rawash, as the locals called it. The airport had had more lives than a roomful of cats. The Russians built it in the 1960s and controlled it for ten years before the Red Army left the country and the airport fell into the hands of various militias. The Taliban held the airport until 2001 when U.S. forces kicked them out.

  Hawkins recognized the industrial-styled air traffic tower that the Soviets had constructed, but the newer terminal wasn’t there the last time he had seen the airport. Since the U.S. invasion, planes from a dozen or so civilian airlines were allowed to fly in and out, but the airport was still heavily used by the military. As the plane taxied to a cargo area, it passed rows of big transport planes and muscular helicopters.

  The movable stairway was rolled up to the plane and Hawkins and Calvin descended to the tarmac. Hawkins stared off toward the mountains that were nearly invisible in the haze and filled his lungs. The whiff of cool, dry Afghan air triggered memories of his first arrival in the country as part of a SEAL team.

  He exhaled. “Home sweet home.”

  “Place still stinks,” Calvin grumbled.

  Hawkins knew he wasn’t talking about odors.

  Abby bustled down the gangway and broke up their remembrance of things past. “You guys look like a couple of lost tourists. May I remind you that we’re here to get a job done.”

  Calvin had a thoughtful look in his eye as he watched Abby stride purposefully over to the plane’s cargo door. “That’s some woman. How come she never made admiral? Sure as hell acts like one.”

  “Navy’s not ready for a female John Paul Jones. Especially a pretty one. Abby’s right about getting a job done, though. Let’s give her a hand.”

  They followed Abby to a mobile loading platform that had been elevated to the cargo door. The desert vehicle was moved out of the plane first, then the dollies holding the submersible and dive equipment, and finally the boxes of firearms and survival gear.

  Calvin peeled the protective foam off the Desert Patrol Vehicle. “Well, what do you think?” he said.

  Hawkins let his eyes roam over the wing-shaped purple fiberglass side panels emblazoned with yellow flames, the wire-spoke aluminum wheels, the burnt red lay-down seats and the chrome bumpers and headlights. The rails and roll bar were decorated with orange and black stripes.

  He folded his arms and said, a pained expression on his face, “Where did you get this road rocket, Cal?”

  “It’s mine,” Calvin said. “I bought it from a military supplier and customized it.”

  “I especially like the camouflage pattern and colors. Not bad.”

  Calvin lovingly placed his hand on a side panel. “This baby’s more than ‘not bad,’ Hawk. I’ve squeezed some more oomph out of the 200 horsepower VW engine. You have to fight the steering wheel because of the torque, but she’ll do zero to sixty in less than ten seconds and get up to over a hundred miles per hour. I’ve built in added fuel capacity, so she’s good for more miles in between gas stations. What do you-all think, Abby?”

  Abby gazed at the vehicle and pinched her chin. “I like it.”

  Calvin gave her a brisk salute. “Obviously you are a woman of discrimination.”

  Hawkins shook his head, then borrowed a fork lift to lift the plastic foam case containing Fido onto the vehicle’s luggage carrier
where it was secured with bungee cords and rope. The other gear was tied down to running board racks on both sides.

  “What time do you want the chopper tomorrow?” Abby said.

  “I want to get off the ground while it’s still dark,” Hawkins said. “The sun comes up around five. How about three-thirty?”

  She made a quick phone call and after a brief conversation said, “You’ve got it. Our ride will be here at three.” A smile replaced the no-nonsense set of her mouth. “The mission is all yours after that. You get the chance to boss me around.” She pecked both men on the cheek and pointed to the terminal. “VIP immigration is through that door.”

  Abby had used her corporate clout and listed Hawkins and Calvin as employees of her company. They showed their passports, submitted to an automated bio data scan and entered the terminal. The scene was one of ordered chaos. There were long queues of departing passengers and dozens of armed Afghan security guards. Hawkins marveled at the duty-free boutiques that had opened since his last pass through.

  Abby was leading the way to the exit, with Calvin and Hawkins right behind, when a big man cut between them. The red hair was streaked with gray, but Hawkins immediately recognized the jovial-tough face of Terrance Murphy. He caught him by the arm, and Murphy snapped his head around, a scowl on his wide face.

  In a stage Irish brogue, Hawkins said, “Is it yourself off in such a rush, Mr. Murphy?”

  The angry expression vanished and Murphy spread his lips in the toothy white smile that used to remind Hawkins of the Kennedy clan.

  “Jesusmaryjoseph! Is that you, Hawk? And Calvin, too.”