Takedown

by Brad Thor

  “No it doesn’t,” stressed Rutledge, who had been getting progressively more frustrated with his appointee’s refusal to be a team player. “The policy makes us look tough. What’s more, it gets results. Civilized rules of engagement and jurisprudence mean nothing to a vicious enemy willing to do anything to succeed. If we want to win, we have to adopt the same strategy—success at any cost. I’m sorry, Alan, but if a nation refuses to bend, then that nation is almost certainly doomed to break. In this case we have to suspend the rule of law in part, in order to save it.”

  That one remark tore at the very few remnants of respect Driehaus had left for the president. “We know Mohammed exchanged information with the Palestinian and Hezbollah bombmakers who helped Richard Reid design the shoe bomb he carried on the Paris-to-Boston flight in 2001. Let’s indict him under that. If we put him on trial here, a fair trial, it will go a long way to repairing our image abroad. And it’ll send the message that we’re tough.”

  “Ramzi Yousef bombed the World Trade Center in 1993,” interjected the attorney general, Laura Finley. “We found him, tried him, and put him in SuperMax out in Colorado, but where’d that get us? His uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, came back with al-Qaeda and hit the Trade Center again in 2001. Yousef got a fair trial and then he got life in prison. That’s pretty tough, if you ask me, but it didn’t stop anything. Alan, we’ve worked together and you know I have a lot of respect for you, but the president’s right. We can’t bring knives to gunfights anymore.”

  Driehaus was about to respond, when the secretary of state, Jennifer Staley, piped up and said, “As someone who deals with America’s image abroad on an around-the-clock basis, I want to put my two cents in here. Have the press leaks about our interrogations of detainees abroad hurt our image overseas? Yes, they definitely have. But the bottom line is that right or wrong, the United States is safer because of what we’re doing.”

  “So we shouldn’t be concerned with what happens to these people once they’ve been handed over to another government?”

  “When we render a suspect, that suspect is often being rendered to his or her country of origin or a country where that individual already has outstanding warrants. Despite how the press warps our involvement, we actually have very little control over what happens from that point forward.”

  “So there’s a slice of absolution in it for us—a washing of the hands, as it were,” replied the DHS secretary.

  Staley was much too intelligent to walk into that one. Instead she offered, “What I’ll say is that even our beloved President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. I think the intelligence we’ve gathered through extraordinary rendition speaks for itself.”

  Driehaus looked around the table. “So I’m the only one? Nobody else has any concern about adding yet another name to the secret prisoner rolls of this policy?”

  “Actually,” said a voice from the other end of the table, “I do.”

  Stunned, all heads in the room turned to stare at the FBI director, Martin Sorce. Once he was sure he had everyone’s attention, the director continued, “This will be one of the highest-ranking al-Qaeda members we’ve ever taken down. But because of the wide coverage of extraordinary rendition, some of the more cooperative governments we’ve been working with have said they won’t take any more of our prisoners. We’ve also had a couple of so-called escapes, which we know al-Qaeda facilitated through bribes, payoffs, or intimidation of some of the people involved with these same governments.

  “So, this isn’t as easy as throwing a dart at a map and asking the locals to warm up the coffee and jumper cables because we’ve got a new stepchild. For a prisoner this big and this dangerous, security has to be our number one issue. I want to know that whomever we park this cupcake with, they’re not going to lose him.”

  “That’s a good point,” said the DCI. “Mohammed bin Mohammed’s capture will create a lot of special problems, and security will be the biggest. Al-Qaeda would do anything to get this guy back. If we let the Egyptians or Jordanians host him, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to hang on to him. Look at what happened to the USS Cole planners in Yemen. On the flip side, if we transport him to Gitmo, our hands are going to be tied in terms of how hard we can press him for details, and we are going to need that WMD transaction intelligence as soon as possible.”

  “So where’s that leave us?” asked Attorney General Finley.

  “Between a rock and a public relations hard place,” said the secretary of state. “While we can’t change the bad press we’ve already received, Secretary Driehaus does have a valid point. Whatever we do going forward, we’d better not screw it up.”

  Three

  After twenty more minutes of discussion, the president adjourned the meeting, informing the participants he would take their suggestions under advisement.

  Quietly, Rutledge questioned why winning the war on terror and winning the war with the media seemed to be mutually exclusive. How many more September 11ths had to happen before the American people realized what a savage enemy they were facing? It was one of the most trying challenges of his administration, but the president knew that however unpopular his choices might be, he had to put the welfare of the country and its citizens first—even if many of them couldn’t stomach what had to be done.

  As he was readying to leave the room, Secretary of Defense Robert Hilliman—a graying, heavyset man in his mid-sixties with wire-rimmed glasses and wearing a neatly pressed Brooks Brothers suit—asked, “Mr. President, may we have a moment of your time?” General Waddell stood next to him with a folder in his hand.

  Once the rest of the cabinet members had left the situation room, Waddell handed the folder to Hilliman, who opened it and said, “Mr. President, immediately after 9/11 you asked me to task certain agencies within the Defense Department to develop a plan to handle the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants of significant intelligence value.”

  “Which along with the CIA’s efforts is how we came up with extraordinary rendition,” replied the president.

  “Yes, sir, but we at the Defense Department also foresaw a situation wherein operatives at the very top of al-Qaeda’s organizational pyramid, men like Mohammed bin Mohammed, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or even bin Laden himself might pose a special set of challenges incongruent with our rendition policies.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you’ve got a different take on how to handle this?”

  “Yes, I believe we do.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something during the meeting?” asked Rutledge.

  Hilliman answered by pulling an executive summary from the folder and handing it to him.

  The president read it through twice and then once more for good measure before saying, “How many people would be in the loop on this?”

  “As few as possible, sir,” responded Waddell. “It’s an extremely unorthodox plan, and we feel the less who know about it the better.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said Rutledge as he motioned for the rest of the file. As he slowly read through it, he asked, “How confident are you that this can be pulled off? And I don’t want a rosy, best-case scenario. I want the real down-and-dirty assessment.”

  Waddell looked at Hilliman, who replied, “Because of certain elements beyond our control, we put it at about a sixty percent probability of success.”

  That didn’t sit well with the president. “That’s not a very good number.”

  “No, sir, it’s not. But considering the situation, we think the benefits far outweigh the liabilities.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” said Rutledge. “If this ever became public knowledge, the fallout would be devastating.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Waddell, “but we have contingencies in place to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “With only a sixty percent probability of success,” said the president, “you’d better have a boatload of them.”

  Hilliman and Waddell had been at this game
long enough to know when to back off and let an operation sell itself. They also knew that Jack Rutledge would make the right call, no matter how hard a decision it was. He always did.

  After a few more minutes of studying the file, the president nodded his head and said, “I want you to keep me up to speed every step of the way on this.”

  “Of course, Mr. President,” responded Hilliman.

  General Waddell then picked up one of the secure telephones on the situation-room table, dialed an inside line at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and spoke five words that would have repercussions far beyond what any of them could have imagined: “We’re go for Operation Driftwood.”

  Four

  SOMALI COAST

  15 KILOMETERS SOUTH OF MOGADISHU

  MAY 22

  Mohammed bin Mohammed tucked a handful of local currency into the front of the boy’s pants note by note and then sent him on his way back to the madrassa. The eleven-year-old had been exquisite. Maybe not as exquisite as the European or Arab boys he was accustomed to, but one made do with what one had at hand.

  Once Mohammed had finished bathing, he brewed himself another glass of tea and stepped out onto the villa’s terrace. It was darker than normal for this time of evening—the clouds of an approaching storm having hidden the stars overhead. A bit fatigued from his illness and his recent trip to Morocco, Mohammed leaned against one of the stone balustrades and listened to the roar of the Indian Ocean crashing against the beach below.

  After a few more minutes of salt air against his skin, Mohammed returned inside. There was no telling how much havoc the storm might wreak on satellite communications, and he had a few last elements to put in place. The transaction was nearly complete.

  Because of his particular predilections, Mohammed preferred to live at the beachside villa alone, but that didn’t mean he was lax when it came to security. Not only did he have his own men posted on the roads in both directions, but he also enjoyed the protection of several local warlords. In addition, the beach had been mined with antipersonnel devices and the entire villa had been constructed with reinforced concrete and steel to protect against any of the remote-controlled Predator Drone attacks the cowardly Americans were so fond of.

  With no central government and no outside forces meddling in local affairs, men like Mohammed bin Mohammed were free to do as they wished in Somalia. In just three years, al-Qaeda had opened dozens of covert training camps throughout the country and had significantly added to the organization’s numbers, shipping them off to Iraq to gain valuable, real-world combat experience. What’s more, after their humiliating defeat at the hands of local militias, the United States wanted nothing to do with this part of the world. It was the perfect base of operations. Everything in Mohammed’s world seemed to be improving, even his health.

  In one of the villa’s small bedrooms, Mohammed carefully unlocked a specially fabricated titanium briefcase and booted up his encrypted Macintosh PowerBook.

  As he worked, his mind drifted to the little boy who had left only twenty minutes ago and he started becoming aroused again. With the arousal, though, came something else—a dull throbbing in his back, just below the rib cage, complemented by an overwhelming urge to urinate. Too much tea and too much sex, Mohammed thought to himself as he rose to go to the toilet. When he approached the bedroom door, his heart caught in his throat.

  “Hands on top of your head,” said one of several black-clad figures armed with very nasty-looking assault rifles.

  Mohammed was stunned. How could the house have been breached?

  The man in black told him once more to put his hands on top of his head, this time in Arabic.

  Ignoring the order, Mohammed lunged back into the bedroom toward the PowerBook. As he did, a pair of barbed probes from a TASER X26 ripped through his cotton robe and embedded themselves in the flesh of his back. When the electricity raced through his body, his muscles locked up and he fell like a dead tree trunk, face-first onto the stone floor.

  His hands and feet were Flexicuffed, and the last thing he saw before being dragged from the room was two of the men going for his laptop.

  Had they been paying attention, they might have seen Mohammed smile.

  Seconds later an explosion rocked the small bedroom, and the hallway was showered with titanium shrapnel, chunks of plaster, and pieces of charred human flesh.

  Five

  SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

  MAY 29

  Eileanaigas House was a twelve-bedroom estate located on the northern end of a private, wooded island in the middle of the River Beauly. In addition to its majestic silver birch, Douglas fir, spruce, and pine trees, the estate also boasted a dramatic gorge, a heated outdoor swimming pool, small formal gardens, an extensive wine cellar, and a security system that rivaled that of any leading head of state. The security was a very necessary precaution, as the man who lived on the island had many powerful enemies—many of whom were his clients.

  Known simply as “the Troll,” the lord of Eileanaigas House lived by the motto that knowledge didn’t equal power, it was the proper application of knowledge that equaled power. And when applied in a very precise manner, knowledge could also equal incredible wealth.

  It was in following this mantra that the Troll had made a substantial living for himself dealing in the purchase, sale, and trade of highly classified information. Both his cutthroat business acumen and his gluttonous appetite for the very best of everything stood in sharp contrast to his height. At just under three feet tall, he could barely reach anything in his home without some sort of assistance; normally in the form of miniature stepladders made from ornately carved exotic hardwoods. The house’s size was a reflection of how the Troll saw himself and only its most private areas had been retrofitted to accommodate his size.

  Another reflection of how the Troll saw himself were the two enormous, snow-white Caucasian Ovcharkas, Argus and Drako, who never left his side. Weighing close to two hundred pounds each and standing over forty-one inches at the shoulder, these giants were the dogs of choice for the Russian military and the former East German border patrol. They were extremely athletic and absolutely vicious when it came to strangers intruding on their territory. They made perfect guardians for the Troll’s island domain. And most important for a man who made his livelihood dealing in the art of duplicity and blackmail, the dogs could never be turned against him. In fact, he’d always had an odd premonition that the dogs might one day save his life.

  Tonight, Argus and Drako sat warily near the fire as a powerful summer storm raged outside. Despite the warmth and its siren’s call to sleep, their eyes were glued to the man who had just arrived at the castle.

  “Whisky?” asked the Troll, offering his guest a drink.

  “I don’t drink,” replied the man, his dark, narrow eyes bracketing a once prominent Bedouin nose. “I’m surprised. I thought you would have known more about me.”

  The Troll smiled as he poured himself two fingers of Germain-Robin Brandy. “Abdul Ali, aka Ahmed Ali, Imad Hasan, and Ibrahim Rahman. Date of birth unknown. Place of birth also unknown, though Western intelligence speculates somewhere in North Africa, most likely Algeria or Morocco, hence the CIA’s cognomen of “the Berber.”

  “Even though no Western intelligence agency has been able to obtain a photo of you, it is speculated that you have undergone multiple plastic surgeries to change your appearance. You speak more than five languages and are at home in at least a dozen countries worldwide, more than half of them in the West. For all intents and purposes, you’re a ghost—a man who travels wherever he wants, whenever he wants, with no one ever knowing if he was really there or not.

  “It is believed you have both prior special operations and military intelligence training, though with whom no one can, or will, say. You have been suspected in more than thirty-six terrorist attacks on Western targets and have been directly implicated in eleven high-profile assassinations—two of which were MI-6 agents, three Mossad, and four mor
e who were deep-cover operatives for the CIA.

  “Your height has been listed as anywhere from five-foot-eight to six-foot-five, you have a spear-

  shaped birthmark on the back of your left shoulder, and are, in short, one of the highest-priority targets for every organized intelligence agency in the Western world.”

  Ali was impressed. “That’s very good. Everything except for the birthmark. I do not have one.”

  “You do now,” replied the Troll. “I had it inserted in your file and cross-confirmed by three separate sources. It may come in handy someday. Consider it a bonus. Al-Qaeda has given me a considerable amount of business over the years.” The Troll then climbed up into his desk chair and said, “Let’s talk about why you’re here.”

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “Of course I do. Your man in Somalia, Mohammed bin Mohammed.”

  Ali nodded his head.

  “Everything I was able to uncover is in the file I forwarded to your superiors. I don’t understand your need to see me in person.”

  “I have learned that even in our delicate line of work, there is no substitute for meeting face-to-face.”

  “Be that as it may, this is still highly unusual,” replied the Troll as he cradled the snifter in his diminutive hands.

  “So are the circumstances surrounding Mohammed’s disappearance.”

  “Mr. Ali, the only reason I have agreed to meet with you is because of my long-standing business relationship with your superiors. If you have something to ask me, please do so.”

  Ali studied the Troll for several moments before responding. “I’d like you to tell me what you uncovered.”