by Flynn Vince
“That was part of it. The other problem lay in the fact that the Saudi ranks are bloated with wealthy men who rarely see combat. They are there to provide funds and then go home and thump their chests. For this operation they needed real shooters… real veterans of combat. The best without question are the Afghan and Pakistani tribesmen, but these men didn’t like the idea of dying in a strange country thousands of miles from their homes.”
Rapp said, “So they looked to the Moroccans, Algerians, Syrians, Jordanians…”
“Precisely,” Cheval said, “and these men talk. There is a rivalry that is not different from that in our own military services. They like to brag and inflate their successes, and of course taunt the other groups.”
“And they all hate the Saudis,” Butler said, “but tolerate them because they have the money.”
“Yes. At any rate, my man picked up in one of his interrogations that the Moroccan contingent was very proud that three of their men had been chosen to serve on one of the teams. I checked with George,” Cheval said, glancing at Butler, “and he confirmed that none of the men in his possession were Moroccan.”
“So you guessed that the three men were in the third and unknown group.”
“Yes. So my man went to Rabat and then Casablanca and began to beat the bushes. It took him a week, and then he found what he was looking for.”
“The sibling.”
“Yes.” Cheval gave Rapp an uneasy look and added, “It was slow work at first.”
“You mean the brother was not cooperative,” Rapp said.
“That is correct. It took a little longer than my man would have liked, but you know how such things work. Eventually, even the toughest decide to cooperate.”
Rapp thought of asking if the sibling was still alive, but thought better of it.
“We now know the identities of all three Moroccans who participated in the attack.”
“Let me guess… they were all part of the suicide crew?”
Cheval shook her head. “Not according to my man. One of the men is still alive.”
Rapp leaned in a bit. “One of the three we are looking for.”
“Yes.” Cheval ran her ring finger along the edge of the file and flipped it open, revealing a photograph. She spun it toward Rapp and said, “Look, but do not touch. No reason to put your fingerprints on any of this.”
Rapp nodded. “Who is he?”
“Ahmed Abdel Lah. Twenty-four, born in Casablanca, spent the last three years in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
“And you’re sure he’s still alive?”
“As sure as one could be considering the situation.”
“How?”
“He sent his brother an email yesterday.”
Rapp lifted his eyes from the photograph of Ahmed. He had a you-have-to-be-kidding-me expression on his face. “What did he say?”
“He told his brother not to worry. That he is alive and well and that his mission was a total success.”
“Did you get a fix on it?”
She shook her head. “Only that it originated from a server in America.”
“What about the other two?”
“We have some ideas, but I think George should fill you in on what he has found out first.”
Butler cleared his throat and said, “We think we know how they funded their operation.”
“Saudis.” Rapp had found over the years that nine out of ten times the money trail led back to Saudi Arabia.
“No. Surprisingly enough, we think it was South American drug money.”
This piece of information caught Rapp off guard. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Butler continued. “I’ve been able to piece together a strange string of events which I think will explain how this cell managed to get into your country.”
“South American drug money?” Rapp repeated himself, still not quite buying the idea. They had looked into the possibility years ago due to the opium trade coming out of Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. The rationale was that if the cartels could run drugs and sneak them into the country, they could easily do the same with terrorists. “They’re all Catholic down there,” Rapp said, referring to South and Central
America. “And I mean old-school Catholic. The Church has made it very clear that it’s their continent, and the Muslims aren’t welcome. As strange as it sounds, the cartels are very loyal to the Church on this issue. Plus it would be bad for their business if we found out they aided a terrorist group. The leaders know it’d be a good way to get a two-thousand-pound bomb dropped on their heads.”
“I’ve seen the same reports, and I agree with your assessment,” Butler said, “but this is something different. This third cell,” Butler said in an admiring tone, “they’re smart. They decided to do something none of them have tried before.”
“What’s that?”
“They unplugged.”
“Unplugged?” Rapp asked with a puzzled look. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“They cut all ties to al Qaeda. Strict operational security.”
CHAPTER 32
BUTLER went on to explain what they’d discovered. The other two cells had stayed in contact with al Qaeda’s senior leadership during their training. They sent back regular reports and received orders from their commanders. Targets were adjusted and modified based on the success of the training and the ability to smuggle explosives and weapons into America. “But this third cell,” Butler said, “they went dark. No one had heard from them in months. That is, until the bombs started going off last week.”
Rapp wasn’t here to punch holes in his colleague’s stories, but on this point he couldn’t resist. “That’s normal operational security.”
“For us, yes, but there is always a failsafe. We always keep in place a way to contact each other in case the mission needs to be modified or scrubbed.”
“We verified,” Cheval said, “that they had such protocols in place. We also verified this past week that they feared the third cell had been intercepted months ago.”
“Why?” Rapp asked.
“Because no one had heard from them,” Butler said. “They went completely dark. No communication whatsoever.”
“What about finances?” Rapp asked.
“We found the account. It hasn’t been touched in five months.”
Rapp shook his head with a bit of skepticism. “We all know how expensive it is to run an operation like this. To move men and materials into position… to bribe people to look the other way… we’re talking a significant amount of cash.”
“I agree,” Butler said as he reached under the table and retrieved a file of his own. Instead of manila this one was brown, but every bit as worn as the one Cheval had on the table. “And I think I know where they got it.”
“South American drug money,” Rapp said, still not buying it.
“Yes.” Butler tapped the file and with a dire expression said, “Mitch, I can’t stress this enough. I trust you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have boarded a plane this afternoon and flown down here.”
“But?”
“What I have in this file is extremely sensitive. It is information that you need to see, but how it came into my possession is one of my government’s most closely guarded secrets.”
Rapp thought he knew the cause of Butler’s cautiousness and nodded. “You’re worried about exposing your source.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how you want me to handle it?”
“For starters, nothing gets put in writing. At least nothing truthful.”
Rapp smiled. “Create a false source-Cuban, perhaps?”
Butler hadn’t considered going that far. He was thinking more of a misdirection play, but he instantly liked the idea of creating a ghost. It would unnerve the Cuban intelligence service and force them to dump resources into chasing a mole. “We can talk about that later, but let’s go over the background material first. I’ve checked on this first part. You can confirm this inform
ation with your Drug Enforcement Agency. This past week, while the world has been focused on the attacks in Washington, a minor drug war has erupted in South America. It started in a remote jungle region of the Triple Frontier and has spread to a half dozen cities. The estimates of those murdered is in excess of one hundred people and while they can’t seem to agree on who started it, they all agree on the single event that caused the spark.”
Butler retrieved a pair of black-rimmed reading glasses and put them on. He opened the file, withdrew a satellite photograph, and then closed it. He slid the image to the middle of the table so Rapp could see better and pointed at a line of brown in a photo that was filled with green. “Jungle landing strip operated by the Red Command Cartel out of São Paulo. It serves as regional distribution center for their cocainemanufacturing operation. Local peasants cultivate the coca crops, make the cocaine, and then they bring it to this strip where it is gathered and shipped out once a week.
“Three days before the attack on Washington, the facility was hit. It hasn’t been easy to get exact numbers, but we think approximately eight of the cartel’s men were killed and the entire week’s shipment was stolen. Again, there’s all kinds of rumors floating around, but the estimated street value of the stolen merchandise is somewhere between ten and twenty million dollars.”
“That’s a lot of cocaine,” Rapp said.
“The Red Command agrees. They have offered massive rewards. They want their drugs back, and they want the guilty party punished. They played nice for a few days last week and then when no useful information turned up they began hitting the rival cartels and all hell broke loose.”
“You don’t think it was a rival cartel?” Rapp asked.
“No. I think it was the third cell.”
Rapp nodded. “I’m listening.”
“This is where it gets tricky. What I’m about to tell you is for your ears and Irene’s only.”
“Understood,” Rapp said. They could figure out the best way to disburse the information later.
“The same day that the distribution center got hit a plane showed up in Cuba, with nine men and two pallets of cocaine. They were met by a colonel in the Cuban army and a small contingent of soldiers who helped them off-load the cocaine and transfer it onto two speedboats. This particular colonel was given 10 percent of the shipment in exchange for his help. Somewhere between one and two million dollars in product.”
Rapp digested the information and said, “Cuba isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but from what I’ve heard this isn’t an uncommon thing.”
“It happens to be one of my areas of expertise, and there’s more.” Butler withdrew another satellite photo. It was another shot of the jungle but instead of a rectangular clearing this one was square. An analyst had taken the time to label the various features. “We’ve all seen this before. Barracks over here, obstacle course here, this square area here used for PT, and a firing range here.”
“Training camp?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it located?” Rapp asked
“Next valley over from the airstrip. About ten kilometers away as the crow flies.”
“So you think these guys hit the distribution center, loaded up a plane, flew it out of there, and landed in Cuba?”
“That is precisely what I think.”
Rapp was skeptical. “I know a little bit about the Red Command. They’re some of the most ruthless bastards on the planet. I find it hard to believe they haven’t already figured this out. This is their backyard, after all.”
Butler looked over the top of his black reading glasses and said, “Yesterday afternoon… in the Triple Frontier town of Ciudad del Este, a mosque was firebombed and burned to the ground, killing eighteen people.”
Rapp swallowed hard. “What else?”
“My source in Cuba tells me that the nine men who came in on the plane looked more Mediterranean than South American. And then there’s this last part that you are probably aware of. The day after this plane landed in Cuba, two speedboats approached your Florida Keys. Your Coast Guard scrambled a helicopter to intercept. It crashed at sea. Your rescue divers located the wreckage and discovered fifty caliber bullet holes in the engine.”
Rapp was slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t already made the connection. Thousands of data points had passed in front of him in the last week alone. Emails, text messages, voicemails, briefings, internet searches, off-the-record conversations with his counterparts at a half dozen foreign intelligence agencies, FBI reports, and of course, the not-so-little side show with Glen Adams. Rapp was suffering from sleep deprivation and information overload at the same time. It was time to strip it all away and start over.
He rubbed his eyes for a moment and then said, “All right, you’ve convinced me. What else do you have?”
Butler slid another sheet from the file. This one was white and had a sketch of a man’s face on the front. “This was the advance man who set everything up in Cuba.”
Rapp studied the drawing. The man was handsome. He looked to be in his late twenties. His hair was wavy and a little long but not mangy. “This was done off a photo?” Rapp said, referring to the sketch.
“Yes.”
“You really are sure about this source?” Surveillance photos could be analyzed by experts who could tell you with amazing accuracy where the photo had been taken. By having an artist sketch the image one ensured that all those background clues were no longer a concern.
“Again, this is between the three of us. Nothing gets put in a file. My source in Cuba… I recruited him myself a long time ago. I would do anything to protect him.”
Rapp and Cheval nodded. They had both been in similar situations before.
“Do we have a name to go with this face?” Rapp asked as he looked at the artist’s sketch.
Cheval smiled and said, “Have you ever known us to waste your time?”
“No.”
Cheval tapped the artist’s sketch and said, “George sent this to me and I had my man show it to a few of the prisoners. Two of them recognized him. Would you like to guess his nationality?”
Rapp looked at the drawing. It was black and white so it was impossible to pick up any skin tone. The nose and the cheekbones offered some clues, though. “If I had to guess I’d say Saudi or Yemeni.”
Cheval nodded and said, “Saudi. We don’t have precise dates but we think he fought in Afghanistan for at least a year. They said he was very cosmopolitan.”
Rapp frowned. Cosmopolitan was not often a word used to describe jihadists fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan. “How so?”
“He liked to read… especially American authors. He had traveled to your country before. And Cuba as well. His favorite writer was Ernest Hemingway. He talked of going to his house in Key West and in Cuba as well. As far as we can gather, he left the fighting a few months before the teams had been assembled. It was rumored later that he had been sent ahead to scout out potential targets.”
Rapp’s doubt was quickly dissipating. “Name?”
“Hakim al Harbi. Grew up in the town of Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
And here is the really interesting part. As you know, most of these fighters sign up in groups. Hakim joined with his best friend, a man named Karim, who in a very short period gained a reputation as a fierce and capable fighter.”
Butler said, “One source says that he was barely one week in the fight when the Taliban mixed it up with an American hunter-killer team that had staked out a mountaintop position. The local Taliban commander ordered three assaults on the position… each one a complete disaster. This Karim and his fresh group of Saudi fighters were ordered to lead the fourth assault. Rather than lead his men on a suicide mission he shot the Taliban commander on the spot and took over.”
“Nice way to receive a battlefield promotion.”
“And that’s exactly what happened,” Butler continued. “Apparently this Taliban commander was a bit dim. The al Qaeda leadership was looking for
an excuse to get rid of him and without their lifting a finger Karim took care of their problem. The Taliban didn’t make a stink, because this particular commander had made a habit of burning through fresh conscripts.”
“Anything after this incident?” Rapp asked.
“We’re working on compiling and checking the stories, but he was known to be a tough and disciplined commander with a wicked temper.”
Cheval said, “And apparently wasn’t afraid to engage in a little self-promotion.”
“How so?” Rapp asked.
“He gave himself a nickname.”
Butler asked, “Care to hazard a guess?”
Rapp was used to connecting the dots, and this was something he should have picked up on several minutes ago. With a shake of the head he said, “The Lion of al Qaeda.”
“Exactly,” Cheval answered.
Rapp looked at Butler’s file and then Cheval’s. “Please tell me you have one more photo to show me. We’ve been after the Saudis but they haven’t given us shit. They’re denying that he’s even one of them.”
“That does not surprise me,” Butler said. “Sorry to disappoint, but we have no photo at the moment. I promise you, though, we are throwing a lot of resources at the problem.”
CHAPTER 33
MIDWEST, U.S.A.
HAKIM came to, and the first thing he noticed was a lack of movement. There was no gentle swaying back and forth and the occasional bounce. They were either on a very smooth road or they had stopped. His head moved to the right and then the left. He felt fluid sloshing around inside somewhere and then a stabbing sensation in his ear. He knew instantly his left eardrum had been burst. After clenching his jaw for a long moment he opened his eyes and looked around the bedroom in the back of the RV. The shades were still drawn on the two windows, but a bit of light still managed to make it through.
Something felt oddly different this time. To say that he had been a bit out of it would be a huge understatement. Hakim had no real sense of time, but it felt as if he had slept on and off for most of the day. Occasionally something would hurt so badly he’d come to for a moment, and then things would get hazy again. His memory was foggy, but at one point he seemed to remember Ahmed sticking something in his arm. That image jogged a few things loose and he suddenly realized he was really thirsty. He tried to sit up, but it was too painful. A few ribs were surely broken.
