Two Steps Forward

by Luana Ehrlich

  Now, I was walking north on the west side of the street toward the coffee shop, while keeping my eye out for any sign of surveillance. A few minutes later, I crossed over to the east side and continued walking north until I came to my destination.

  After giving the coffee shop a quick glance inside, I continued on to the next intersection. Once I turned the corner, I immediately reversed direction—as if I’d suddenly remembered something—and this time, instead of passing by the coffee shop, I went inside.

  As far as I could tell, I hadn’t been followed, and the coffee shop wasn’t under surveillance.

  I found Mitchell sitting in a booth at the back of the shop eating a bowl of harira, a thick Moroccan soup made with tomatoes, beans, and noodles and usually served with a spicy pita bread.

  When I slid in the seat opposite him, he said, “Don’t bother asking me if checked for surveillance. I checked and double-checked.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Since when?”

  I ignored his sarcasm and ordered a glass of lemonade and a couple of stuffed kefta rolls. Kefta was a spicy Moroccan ground beef. The stuffed kefta roll was the Moroccan version of a hamburger. It even came with a bowl of tomato-based condiment sauce called harissa.

  After the waiter had left, I said, “I don’t have any questions about your tradecraft, but I do have some questions for you.”

  Mitchell took a quick look around the coffee shop, and then he pulled a silver cylinder out of his pocket and slid it across the table to me. “I’m guessing one of your questions might have something to do with this.”

  It was the flash drive.

  Although it was the size and shape of any cheap flash drive, this flash drive was an Ironkey USB, designed for use by military organizations, intelligence agencies, and secretive corporations.

  It cost several hundred dollars, was fully encrypted, and after ten failed logon attempts, it would self-destruct.

  Well, in a manner of speaking.

  More specifically, it would return to its factory settings, and all the data on the flash drive would be lost.

  I picked up the flash drive, examined it for any outside markings, and slipped it inside my pants pocket. “What’s the story on it?”

  He leaned across the table and lowered his voice, even though there was no one sitting near us.

  “Alviri gave it to me when I met him at the Koutoubia Mosque. He said the Israelis are expecting it, and they’re the only ones who’ll be able to open it.”

  “Hmmm. That’s interesting. Did you ask him what was on it?”

  “I tried, but he wouldn’t give me a thing. He also warned me not to try and open it myself, and then he gave me a lesson in Ironkey technology, as if I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Can I assume you did an ETD test on the cylinder itself?”

  An ETD test was an Explosives Trace Detection test capable of finding trace amounts of explosives on almost any surface, from human skin to a metal cylinder. All it took was a quick swipe with a swab. The swab was then placed in a handheld device, and the results were calculated within minutes.

  “It passed the ETD test. No problems there. One of the members of my surveillance crew has a mobile ETD device as part of his Kit.”

  “If the Israelis are expecting the flash drive, then they must have been in contact with Alviri.”

  “He said as much.”

  “Then why didn’t he just arrange a handoff with them? Why did he involve Americans in this transaction?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “Naturally, I asked him those very same questions, but the only thing he said was, ‘Have your people contact Shin Bet and tell them Abbas Alviri kept his promise.’ ”

  “What about the notes he took from President Rashad’s summit meetings? Did he deliver those as well?”

  “He delivered those as promised, and I delivered his cash as promised.”

  The waiter arrived with my food, so I waited until he’d walked away before asking Mitchell my next question.

  Once I’d taken a bite of my Moroccan burger, I said, “Would you happen to know how Douglas found out we’d run into each other in Marrakesh?”

  “Sure,” he said, dipping some of his pita bread in my bowl of harissa, “I told him about it.”

  I stared at him. “You told him about it?”

  “Why? What’s wrong with that? You said I wasn’t breaking any Agency rules by discussing my assignment with you.”

  “Technically, that’s true,” I said, moving the harissa closer to my plate, “but Douglas has his own set of rules about his operatives having contact with each other when they’re not engaged in the same operation. The rule is, don’t do it.”

  “I’ve never heard that before. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I nodded. “Point taken. I completely forgot I was supposed to be mentoring you. In the future, I’ll try to remember to keep you better informed regarding Douglas’s idiosyncrasies.”

  “Mentoring me? Who says?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re saying?”

  “Oh, yeah, I get it now,” he said, reaching across the table and scooping out a spoonful of my harissa onto his plate. “You’re feeling guilty because you didn’t tell Douglas we’d run into each other.”

  “What makes you—”

  “No, scratch that,” Mitchell said, using his pita bread to erase the air. “We didn’t just run into each other.”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking we—”

  “No, that’s not how it happened. You saw me at the El Badi Palace, and you deliberately walked across the street and engaged me in conversation. You were the one who broke Douglas’s rule. I had nothing to do with it.”

  He was right. I waited a beat or two and then admitted it. “You got me.” I put my hands in the air. “This is me accepting the blame.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I admit I’m at fault here.”

  “Well, that’s cool. What’s the catch?”

  “There’s no catch, but just out of curiosity, what made you tell Douglas we saw each other in the first place?”

  Mitchell stared up at the ceiling.

  “Hmm . . . I guess it was because of what you said after I told you Douglas sent me to Baghdad to meet Abbas Alviri.”

  “Help me out here. What memorable words of wisdom did I give you?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “They weren’t all that memorable and they weren’t all that wise. You just asked me why the station chief in Baghdad hadn’t met with Alviri when he first contacted our embassy. As Douglas and I were discussing Alviri, I brought it up with him.”

  “Is that when you mentioned my name?”

  “Well, sorta. To be honest, I told him I was just wondering about it, but you know how Douglas is, he wanted to know why I’d brought it up. When I told him the two of us had run into each other at the El Badi Palace, I admitted you were the one who’d asked me the question.”

  He stopped talking long enough to pop another chunk of pita bread in his mouth and wash it down with some mint tea.

  “And?”

  Mitchell shrugged. “And he wanted details, so I told him we’d had coffee and discussed certain aspects of my assignment.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “If you’re asking if he seemed upset, the answer is no. The way I remember it, after I told him you’d asked me about the station chief in Baghdad, he said something like, ‘I’m glad the two of you had a chance to talk about what’s happening in Iraq.’ ”

  “You didn’t embellish what I said about our station chief in Baghdad, did you?”

  “No, of course not. Why would you be concerned about that?”

  “I wouldn’t want Douglas to think I’d said anything disparaging about Henry Garrison. From what I hear, he’s an okay guy, and he’s doing a good job in Baghdad.”

  Mitchell nodded. “You heard right. Henry Garrison is an old-timer, but he knows his stuff. He was a big help to me when
I was there. In fact, he reminded me a little of Toby Bledsoe.”

  Mitchell’s facial expression changed when he spoke Bledsoe’s name, and seconds later, he looked away, as if he needed a moment to regain his composure.

  I didn’t have to guess why.

  Toby Bledsoe had been the chief of station in Costa Rica, and Mitchell had been assigned to work with him after graduating from the CIA’s Training School at Camp Peary.

  Although I’d known Bledsoe for many years, my first encounter with Mitchell was the day I arrived in San José looking for Ahmed Al-Amin, a Hezbollah assassin who’d murdered an Agency operative in Dallas.

  Mitchell had been assigned as my Agency contact in Costa Rica, and after I’d worked with him a couple of days, I could tell he had the potential of becoming an outstanding covert operative.

  This was an assessment echoed by Bledsoe, although we’d both agreed Mitchell needed a lot more guidance and a few more field experiences to reach that potential.

  A few days later, Bledsoe was dead, killed by members of a drug cartel when he’d tried to rescue one of his assets from being tortured. Because there was a chance Mitchell’s cover in Costa Rica had been blown, the DDO had immediately ordered him back to Langley with plans to give him a new assignment.

  Even though I preferred to work solo, when the Ops Center discovered the assassin I’d been tracking had left Costa Rica for Caracas, I’d volunteered to take Mitchell on as my partner, and the DDO—with Carlton’s blessing—had granted my request.

  During Operation Clear Signal, Mitchell hadn’t shown any emotion about Bledsoe’s death—other than some misplaced anger.

  Now, the reaction he had when he mentioned Bledsoe’s name made me wonder if his failure to grieve was catching up with him.

  Bottling up grief was never a good idea—I’d learned that lesson the hard way—so I decided to see if I could get him to talk about Bledsoe.

  “What was it about Henry Garrison that reminded you of Toby?”

  Mitchell ran his fingers through his hair a couple of times—a gesture I’d only seen him make when he was feeling nervous or uncomfortable—and then he said, “Don’t get me wrong, Titus. He doesn’t share any physical characteristics with Toby.”

  I pressed him a little. “But Henry does remind you of Toby?”

  Mitchell nodded. “I guess it’s his demeanor more than anything else. Do you remember how Toby used to get really fixated on something?”

  “Oh, yeah, and then he’d talk about it for hours.”

  Mitchell smiled. “Henry Garrison acts the same way.”

  “Toby could also get on your case and badger you about it for days.”

  “You got that right.”

  Mitchell and I spent a few minutes reminiscing about Toby Bledsoe—long enough for him to finish eating the rest of my harissa—but after the waiter dropped off our checks, Mitchell immediately changed the subject back to Alviri and the flash drive.

  “There’s one more thing I need to give you besides the flash drive,” he said, opening up his wallet and pulling out a business card.

  “Would that be my authentication code for the Shin Bet courier?”

  Mitchell nodded and handed me the card.

  I was confused for a moment. He’d given me a business card from the concierge at the Royal Mansour hotel.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Turn it over.”

  When I turned the card over, I saw there was something written on the back. It was a single sentence written in Farsi.

  Mitchell said, “When the courier from Shin Bet meets you at Ben Gurion, he or she will say something to you in Farsi. Whatever’s written on the back of that card should be your response.”

  Mitchell didn’t speak Farsi, so I read the words out loud to him.

  “My son is still as rebellious as ever.”

  Mitchell said, “Evidently, you’ll know whether your Shin Bet contact is authentic when you hear the person ask you a question in Farsi that corresponds to that answer.”

  I examined the card to make sure I hadn’t overlooked something written on it.

  “Did you actually see Alviri write this sentence on the back, or was it already written here when he gave it to you?”

  “When he was telling me to have one of our people contact Shin Bet, he took the card out of his pocket and scribbled the phrase on the back.”

  “So you think the concierge’s business card from the hotel was just something he had in his pocket? You don’t think there’s anything significant about it?”

  “I doubt it. I got the impression Alviri suddenly remembered I didn’t speak Farsi, so he wrote the words down to be sure I remembered them correctly.”

  I handed the card back to Mitchell. “Take that back to Langley with you. The Ops Center might want to take a look at it anyway.”

  “Douglas already gave me those same instructions.”

  When the waiter came by our table to remove our dishes and pick up the cash we’d laid out for him, I glanced down at my watch and noticed it was almost one o’clock.

  “I need to get going, Ben. Our flight to Israel leaves at four-thirty.”

  “Yeah, I need to go too. I’m supposed to meet Alviri again today.”

  “Where are you meeting him this time?”

  “At the Musee de Mouassine. It’s an art museum on Prince Moulay Avenue. It’s a treasure trove of Moroccan art, and I’m looking forward to spending some time there after I’ve finished up with Alviri.”

  “I’m familiar with the museum. I’ve been there twice this week.”

  He gave me an amused look. “I’m sorry, Titus, but art lover isn’t a title I usually associate with you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Ben. I appreciate art, or rather I appreciate certain kinds of art.”

  “Really? What kind of art do you appreciate?”

  “The art of deception.”

  * * * *

  I waited until Nikki and I were seated by ourselves in the departure lounge at the Marrakesh Menara Airport before I told her about Carlton’s phone call, and the meeting I’d had with Mitchell at the coffee shop.

  She seemed a little anxious when I told her I was carrying a flash drive I was supposed to hand off to a Shin Bet courier, especially when I explained it had come from someone in the Iranian delegation.

  “What are the chances that flash drive could be an explosive device?”

  “Zero chances. One of the surveillance people who works with Ben ran an ETD test on it, and it came out negative.”

  “Okay, that makes me feel a little better.”

  “Douglas also assured me it shouldn’t cause any problems at airport security. It’s a real flash drive; there’s nothing remotely sinister about it.”

  She looked relieved, but then, a few seconds later, for no apparent reason, I saw her laughing.

  For a brief moment, I was afraid she might be losing it.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  She shook her head back and forth. “To be honest, Titus, this wasn’t exactly the kind of honeymoon I was expecting.”

  “I’m sorry, Nikki. I didn’t realize—”

  She reached over and touched my face. “Of course, Titus, you know I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed every second we’ve spent together, but do you realize how often you’ve been in contact with Douglas in the last couple of days, not to mention the encounters you’ve had with some of the other operatives here, and then there’s that little incident with the Moroccan soldiers. I mean it’s just . . . uh . . .”

  I put my arm around her, drew her closer to me, and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m sure it’s pretty overwhelming, especially if you’re not used to it.”

  “Well, this Oklahoma girl is definitely not used to it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to make some adjustments. If I plan to stay married to you, which I do, I’ll just learn to expect the unexpected.”

  As she was talking, I glanced over at the ch
eck-in desk at Gate C, where I saw a familiar-looking man walking up to the counter to speak to the gate attendant.

  “Expecting the unexpected is definitely a good idea,” I said. “In my world, it’s difficult to predict what could happen next, or for that matter, who could show up next.”

  Once the passenger had finished his business with the gate attendant, he walked over and took a seat in the departure lounge.

  Even though he wasn’t wearing his light-green bulletproof vest or carrying his H&K MP-7 submachine gun, I immediately recognized the light-skinned man with the bushy eyebrows and the broken index finger.

  He was Baran Asan, the man Carlton had identified as a member of the Quds Force in Iran.

  The man he said was a modir, one of their fixers.

  Chapter 13

  The moment I spotted Baran Asan, I immediately began debating with myself whether Nikki and I should get on the same plane with someone whose career choice was committing acts of terrorism.

  A few minutes later, when Nikki left the departure lounge to grab a cup of coffee before our flight, I used the opportunity to move a little closer to Asan, the Fixer.

  My objective was to observe the guy’s body language. I wanted to determine whether he was exhibiting any of the telltale signs of someone whose agenda was to commit suicide aboard a commercial airliner in order to demonstrate the veracity of his faith.

  I saw no evidence of this.

  He wasn’t licking his lips or sweating profusely, and he certainly didn’t appear nervous. In fact, he looked a lot more at ease with himself than he had the other night when he was posing as a member of President Madi’s security detail.

  Today, he was dressed in Western-style clothing—a simple cotton shirt, slightly wrinkled, a pair of beige cargo pants, slightly soiled, and a pair of sneakers, slightly worn.

  When I looked for a bulge around his middle, a sure sign he was wearing a suicide belt, I couldn’t see any indication of one.

  The backpack at his feet was the only thing that concerned me.

  But then, when he dropped it on the floor after retrieving a paperback novel from a side pocket, I decided it probably didn’t pose any kind of threat either.