“What?” Naomi shook her head in confusion. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you still have the voiceprint if the record was deleted?”
“It happens more than you’d think,” Peterson confessed. “Remember, we intercept thousands of signals every week. We have a full-time staff whose only job is to compare the flagged intercepts with the records on file, but sometimes they make mistakes. It could be a clerical error. On the other hand, this record might have been deleted on purpose. If a known subject dies of causes natural or otherwise, the record is manually removed to save space in the servers, leaving only a couple of key identifiers, such as race, nationality, and languages. We don’t usually bother with the voiceprints, because they’re so small by comparison.”
“So you’re saying this guy is dead?”
“It’s a possibility. I hate to let you down, but that’s the truth.”
Naomi sighed heavily. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “That recording was made less than three months ago.”
Liz Peterson looked at her sharply. “How do you know that?”
“Because al-Umari—the known voice on the tape, I mean—wasn’t…around when we found it.” Kharmai silently chastened herself for nearly slipping up there; Peterson couldn’t know where the tape was found. “There’s no way he could have recorded it sooner, Liz.”
Peterson thought about that for a second, then reached for the phone and punched in a number. Lifting the receiver to her ear, she turned to the younger woman and said, “You’re right; none of this makes sense. We add new files to the database all the time, but extraneous files are only removed twice a year, and the last update was four months ago. If you’re right about when this tape was made, he should still be in the system.”
“So who are you calling?”
“The records section. We might have a hard copy, but they’ll have to dig for it. I hope you have some time on your hands.”
The alley was draped in shadow. Beneath his feet, damp stones worn slick by centuries of use. The smell of rotting fish rose to greet him as he moved past metal cans overflowing with garbage, past the rectangular black holes in the walls that passed for doorways. Somewhere, he heard running water. Up ahead, Kohl could see a hunched, fast-moving figure and, beyond, the familiar, rail-thin frame of Rashid al-Umari.
From there, things happened fast. Too fast. Kohl heard a voice, followed by a question—not nervous, exactly. The forced pleasantries of a man caught outside familiar terrain. A man who knows, too late, that he’s in the wrong place. A guttural command, harsh words scraping the dirty walls, and then a panicked shout. A struggle up ahead, feet sliding on dark stone. Kohl closing quickly now, reaching out as a knife came up for the first time.
Al-Umari had hesitated, just for a moment, on entering the alley. Seeing the dark and the solitude, his inner caution had nearly won out, but he’d pushed forward, tired from the long walk, eager to save time. The regret came a few steps later, when he heard ungainly feet on the path to his rear. In this narrow space, Al-Umari was keenly aware of his slight stature and his privileged childhood. His hatred for the West was born of circumstance, backed up only by his native intelligence. It was his nature to develop, to fund, but never to execute. For this reason, he could not summon up the necessary indignation, which might have saved him when the hand came down on his arm.
He pulled away slightly, but it wasn’t enough. He heard a harsh demand for money. Rashid al-Umari had a glimpse of dark eyes on the verge of panic. He felt a sudden surge of pride…Perhaps he could win this one. Before he could assert himself, though, a knife came out of nowhere. The right arm swinging around, the blade glinting in bright orange light…
The hand holding the knife was suddenly seized from behind, then snapped back at a strange angle. Rashid could only watch in disbelief as his assailant cried out in agony. In the confusion, he had not seen anyone approach. The knife clattered into the shadows, the boy’s right leg buckling forward. He hit the ground hard, but still conscious, fighting for breath, groaning in pain.
Al-Umari took a few uncertain steps back, staring at the man who had come to his aid. In all his years he had never seen such speed of movement. There had been no hesitation…He was a student of science. His belief lay in consideration before action; it was the foundation on which he had built himself. Violence attached to such utter conviction was alien to him.
That he was prepared to do much worse—and on an infinitely larger scale—was, for the moment, lost on Rashid al-Umari.
The shock, still with its hold on his senses, delayed the connection. It took him a few seconds to reconcile the face he knew with the one he now saw, as the German’s appearance had changed considerably. Hair that had once been reddish brown was now black and trimmed short, and watery blue eyes had given way to a dark shade of brown.
“What are you doing here?” Rashid demanded. “We’re not scheduled to meet for another two days.”
Kohl did not reply. Instead, he knelt by the wounded man and rapidly checked his pockets. Coming up with a thin leather billfold, he flipped it open and went through the contents: a frayed bus ticket, a few pounds in worn notes, and an expired identification card. This last item gave him a small measure of comfort. A trained intelligence officer might carry a forged card, but never an expired ID; it was the sort of thing to guarantee unwanted attention at a border checkpoint.
Rashid’s assailant was starting to come around. He was still facedown, his left arm tucked under his body, his good hand clutching the fractured bones of his right wrist. Satisfied, Kohl placed his left knee in the small of the man’s back. The weight brought another small groan, but the struggling ceased.
Kohl turned his attention to Rashid. The Iraqi was still talking, the words coming fast, his fear made plain in his pointed questions.
“What are you going to do? He’s probably linked to Iraqi intelligence.”
“He asked you for money.”
“Yes,” Rashid sputtered, “but they would have paid him to make it look like a robbery. They are not stupid, you know, and they still report to the Americans—”
“Go back to the hotel.” Kohl spoke quietly, in fluid Arabic. “Stay in the streets on your way back, and don’t go anywhere until I come for you. We have to move. I’ll make the necessary calls.”
Rashid nodded numbly. He tried to say something else but stopped and turned instead, walking fast to the end of the alley. He did not look back.
Once al-Umari was out of sight, Kohl turned his attention to the young man he had all but crippled. The boy was still writhing beneath his knee. A few distinct words came through on occasion, the surprisingly quiet, arrhythmic sounds of unbearable pain.
Al-Umari, as naïve as he was, had brought up a good point. The corruption born under the former regime was still rife in the region, and the CIA, after all but developing the Iraqi National Intelligence Service themselves, had resorted to recruiting men who had not been polluted by the old guard. For the most part, they were amateurs—too young to be truly effective. It was entirely possible, though unlikely, that this man was an Iraqi spy, but it didn’t really matter; he had seen al-Umari’s face. That was all the justification Kohl needed.
He fired a backward glance down the length of the alley. Seeing that he was alone, he slid his knee up between the man’s shoulder blades. The shift in weight brought another muffled cry, but Kohl ignored the noise as he reached down and grabbed a handful of greasy hair with his left hand. Lifting up, he slid his right arm under the boy’s head, tensed, then pulled back sharply.
He regretted the action a split second later, when the young man’s vertebral column snapped in two places simultaneously. The sound was like a shot ringing off the damp stone walls. Aware of the uneasy silence that followed, Kohl paused only to pocket the boy’s money and ID before tossing the billfold into the shadows. Seconds later he was back in the street, where the crowd took him in as one of their own. A startled cry rose up from behind, the body
discovered too soon, but Erich Kohl was already gone.
The background file was hand-delivered less than ten minutes after Peterson placed the telephone call. As the other woman signed for the numbered folder, Naomi wondered at the speed with which the document had been produced. For a file that had been supposedly misplaced, it had reappeared rather quickly, and she couldn’t help but think that it had been readily available all along.
The thought that this file might have been intentionally pulled out of circulation piqued Kharmai’s interest, but the possibility seemed to have escaped Liz Peterson. The British computer engineer seemed almost bored as she closed the door and wandered back to their improvised work area, flipping the folder open and scanning the compact lines of text as she approached.
Her eyebrows rose as she dropped into her chair. “Wow, this is unbelievable.”
Naomi was on the edge of her seat. “What? Come on, Liz. I’m dying here.”
“He’s an American. An ex-soldier, no less. You wouldn’t have thought it, would you? I mean, his Arabic is nearly perfect, at least on tape—”
“Liz.” Peterson looked up at her name and was surprised to find that Naomi’s face had suddenly gone pale. “Who is he?”
Another glance at the file. “Umm, hold on a second. I hate the way they compile these damn reports. You can never find the most basic…Okay, here it is. Jason March.”
Naomi felt like the ground had suddenly dropped out from under her. She caught her breath and struggled to think it through, looking for the rational explanation.
It had to be a mistake. Jason March was dead, killed in an airstrike on a Hamas training camp the previous year, less than a month after he had attempted—and failed—to assassinate three world leaders in the U.S. capital. The man’s death had been verified through numerous sources and celebrated at the highest levels of U.S. intelligence. She had seen the after-action report; it had been leaked to the press…. She grabbed the edge of the desk to steady herself and held out her hand for the folder, knowing that the face she was about to see would be, had to be unfamiliar. But when she looked at the first page and saw the attached photograph, her worst fears were confirmed.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 10
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA • IRAQ
When Harper stepped into the plush, seventh-floor office ten minutes late, he immediately registered the tension in the room. Director Robert Andrews, a large man draped in one of the Ralph Lauren Purple Label suits that he favored, was concluding a call in the meeting area. Sitting directly across from him was the deputy DCI. Rachel Ford was turned out in an ivory blouse of fine silk, which she’d paired with a form-fitting navy skirt. Her hair was perfectly arranged, for once, and her light make-up seemed freshly applied. Her anger, though, was almost palpable, and it hardened her features, somehow negating her aesthetic efforts.
Ford was the first to speak. “I’m glad you could make it, John. We seem to have quite a situation brewing here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Jonathan Harper didn’t respond to the sarcastic remark, instead moving forward to take a seat, glancing around in the process. The DCI’s office was located close to his own and was similar in size and constitution. Harper’s own space, however, was utilitarian at best: neat, sparsely furnished, and free of personal touches, save only for a small photograph of his wife. The director had gone the other way entirely, surrounding himself with inlaid mahogany and Italian leather. It was too much, but fitting. Harper had long ago noticed the not-so-subtle differences between career intelligence officers and outside appointees such as Robert Andrews. Still, Andrews was better than most, including the woman who was currently staring him down.
“Have you seen this?” Ford flicked a hand toward the television on the other side of the room. Even at a distance, Harper could make out the silent images of an Iraqi mob screaming their outrage into the cameras. Crude, hastily assembled posters of a cleric in full robes bobbed amongst the dark heads. The face on the banners was instantly recognizable to Harper as that of Arshad Kassem.
“CNN’s been running it all day,” Ford continued. Her voice was cold. “Some high-profile religious and political figures in Baghdad are accusing us—and by that, I mean us, not just the United States—of involvement in his kidnapping, and the press is all over it. Apparently, Kassem has some pretty important friends over there. Even worse, they know how to connect the dots. There’s already speculation about how this might tie in to the bombing of the Babylon Hotel.”
Harper nodded but remained silent. The DCI’s face was equally neutral; for the moment, it seemed, he was content to let his subordinates have it out amongst themselves.
Finally, Ford raised her arms in exasperation. “So what’s the situation?”
Harper shrugged. “I’m waiting on an update. Right now, I don’t know any more than you do.”
His apparent lack of concern was completely feigned. In truth, Harper was furious. He had never authorized Kassem’s kidnapping, precisely because of what was unfolding on the screen before him. And this was only the beginning; despite the president’s vague authorization, he knew that Kealey’s actions would bring down some serious heat from the White House.
On the way back from their meeting with President Brenneman, Harper had briefed Ford on his plan, which was to put a lot of hard questions to the Agency’s high-level informants in Iraq. Admittedly simple, perhaps, but it was a straightforward approach that had worked in the past. While signal intercepts and satellite photographs were popular with the politicians on the Hill, the DDO knew that HUMINT, or human intelligence, often proved the most reliable source of information. In time, they would have likely turned up a few names, people who might have had an interest in seeing the Iraqi prime minister dead, but it was now clear that Kealey had been the wrong man to pursue this task. The fact that he had been the president’s first choice didn’t matter in the least; politicians, Harper knew, had a limited memory span when it came to those kinds of conversations.
“I don’t understand how you could have let this happen,” Ford was saying. “To have a field man operating on his own, with no line of communication from our end, is just ridiculous. I mean, we can’t even—”
“It works, Rachel.” Harper was getting tired of this argument; he’d heard it too many times before. “We set up Special Activities for that specific reason: to avoid all the oversight. On this matter, I was personally briefed by Pete Hemming. He’s the head of special operations over at Tyson’s Corner, by the way.” This was a reference to the National Counterterrorism Center, a state-of-the-art facility located in McLean, Virginia. “He assured me that the man they used on this is one of their best. If he took Kassem out of the city, it was done for a reason.”
“You’re telling me that you have no idea who this man is?” Ford asked skeptically.
“Unfortunately, no,” Harper replied mildly.
“Even if we get some good intel out of it, nothing changes the fact that he broke every rule in the book. Unless I’m hugely mistaken, we don’t have a presidential finding authorizing any of this. There has to be some accountability here.”
“And there will be. You’ll get a full report as soon as I do. Until then, we deny everything. Arshad Kassem may have a lot of friends, but he’s got his share of enemies, too. We can play it off easily enough.”
But Ford wasn’t done. “I want the name of this operative,” she said heatedly, “and I want him out of the Agency—”
“That’s enough, Rachel.” Ford’s head spun around at the director’s first words. Her cheeks flushed slightly at the mild rebuke, but she settled back in her seat, her angry gaze still fixed on Jonathan Harper.
“Inquiries will be made,” the DCI continued. “But we have a more immediate issue to take care of. Jonathan?”
Harper nodded and cleared his throat, then went on to explain about Rashid al-Umari, Erich Kohl, and the tape found in al-Umari’s London home. “Anyway,” he conclu
ded, “we received a lot of cooperation from the British on this, and the voice analysis seems to confirm that Jason March is still alive and working in conjunction with al-Umari.”
Ford shook her head, her dark red hair flashing against pale skin. “I saw the after-action report on that. March was killed in an airstrike last December….”
She trailed off when she saw that Andrews was already shaking his head. “First of all, Jason March is not his real name, and he didn’t die in a Libyan training camp.”
Perplexed, Ford said, “I don’t understand.”
The DCI gave Harper the nod, and the DDO turned to Rachel Ford, whose expression had softened in her confusion.
“Shortly after the Senate majority leader was assassinated last year, the president gave us carte blanche to hunt down the killer. We had a pretty good idea who was responsible, but the man you know as Jason March was—is, I should say—a former Special Forces soldier. As such, he was decidedly difficult to track, and everything pointed to something more.
“So we brought in a retired field man to hunt March down, somebody with, well, relevant experience. You see, our man was ex-army himself; in fact, he trained March in the late nineties. Then, while on deployment in Syria in 1997, Jason March went rogue. He shot five men in his detachment and nearly killed his commanding officer—our operative.”
“And who is he?”
A subtle glance at Andrews brought another prompting nod. Reluctantly, Harper went on. “His name is Ryan Kealey. He’s been with us for four years.”
Ford made a mental note to pull the man’s file. “And?”
“Once we had Kealey on board, we paired him with an analyst from the CTC, Naomi Kharmai. Together, they were able to learn March’s true identity: William Paulin Vanderveen, a South African national. As it turned out, Vanderveen harbored some real hatred toward the United States, hatred that stemmed back to his father’s death during apartheid. You’ll have to read the briefing folders to get the whole story, but ultimately, the chase ended in Washington. What you may not know is that after the failed assassination attempt, Vanderveen turned the tables on Kealey and tracked him back to his home on the coast of Maine. There was a struggle—Kealey was nearly killed—but in the end, it was Vanderveen who went over the side and into the ocean.
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