Two Steps Forward

by Luana Ehrlich

  I took no solace in the fact he’d had to pass through a security checkpoint before being admitted to the departure area. To a man like Asan, that meant nothing. He could easily have picked up an explosive device from a bribed airport employee after clearing the checkpoint.

  There was also the possibility he could have slipped a bomb past the screeners himself—there were a dozen ways to get stuff past the airport screeners, and I had a feeling Asan knew every one of them.

  However, the more I observed him, the more confident I became he wasn’t planning anything of a nefarious nature on the flight between Marrakesh and Lisbon.

  Still, I breathed a prayer for some kind of sign if my assessment wasn’t correct. I specifically told God it could be a sign from Heaven or one of the earthly variety; I wasn’t picky.

  I wasn’t picky, but I did mention I’d prefer to have that sign before our plane took off.

  * * * *

  As soon as Nikki returned, the gate attendant announced our flight was ready for boarding, and at that point, I decided not to mention anything to her about Asan.

  For one thing, I didn’t want her to worry unnecessarily.

  For another, after carefully scrutinizing Asan for almost twenty minutes and not receiving any kind of sign that he posed a threat to anyone on the flight, I’d come to the conclusion I hadn’t misread his intentions. I also figured he’d be disembarking in Lisbon and catching another flight. More than likely, it would be a flight back to Tehran, and that would be that.

  However, I did wonder about one thing.

  Carlton had told me he planned to ask the DDO to assign an operative to run surveillance on Asan, but I hadn’t spotted any Agency personnel in the departure lounge.

  As I thought about it, I came up with two possible reasons why there wasn’t anyone keeping an eye on Baran Asan; either the DDO had denied Carlton’s request, or the watcher assigned to shadow Asan had lost him on the way to the airport.

  Either way, after we boarded the aircraft, I decided I’d help Carlton out by snapping some quick photos of Asan. I didn’t think it would be that hard; his seat was three rows in front of us.

  Since I didn’t have time to get out my Agency sat phone, I held my cell phone in front of my face as if I were reading a page from an eBook and took several shots of Asan when he got up from his seat to shove his backpack in the overhead bin.

  “What are you doing?” Nikki asked.

  “I’m . . . uh . . . trying to find an eBook to read on the flight.”

  “It looked like you were taking a picture of that passenger.”

  I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You’re very observant, Detective, and I promise I’ll explain what I was doing a little later.”

  She whispered back, “I’ll hold you to that.”

  * * * *

  Our flight from Marrakesh to Lisbon was uneventful—for which I was grateful—but when we landed, we discovered our forty-five-minute layover had been extended by another hour because of a mechanical problem with the plane we were scheduled to take to Israel.

  Nikki and I decided to use the extra time to grab a bite to eat, but before we left the area, we stopped in front of a kiosk where an interactive digital map of the terminal was showing the locations of all the restaurants in the airport.

  As we stood there studying the map, I also had my eye on Baran Asan. Although he’d been one of the first people to deplane, he was now standing by the wall of windows in the departure lounge gazing out at the tarmac, presumably watching the planes come and go.

  I was puzzled by his actions.

  When we got off the plane, I expected to see him rushing off to catch his connecting flight to wherever his travels were taking him; if not Tehran, then perhaps Baghdad.

  As I glanced up at the departure board, thinking I might be able to figure out where he was going, I noticed Nikki was also looking over at Baran Asan. “Isn’t that the passenger you photographed after we boarded our flight?”

  “That’s him, all right, and don’t worry, I’m not forgetting my promise. I’ll explain what that was all about as soon as we get something to eat.”

  After we walked down to the café closest to our gate and ordered our food, I gave Nikki a brief explanation of Baran Asan’s identity, and why I’d decided to take some pictures of him.

  Just as I anticipated, she was a little unnerved by what I told her.

  “If I’m hearing you correctly,” she said, “you’re telling me that man is an international terrorist.”

  “Yes, although that particular label doesn’t take into account what he actually does. In the Quds Force, he’s known as a modir, or manager, which means he’s in charge of making arrangements for other terrorists to carry out their assignments. At the Agency, we call him a fixer.”

  “Then why do you suppose he was part of the Iraqi Prime Minister’s security detail?”

  “Douglas believes Asan was acting as Madi’s bodyguard so he could be at the Arab Summit without coming under the scrutiny of any of the Western intelligence agencies. However, now that he’s left Marrakesh just as the Summit’s getting started, Douglas may have to revisit Asan’s motive.”

  “Perhaps Asan accomplished what he was there to do, and now he’s headed back to Tehran.”

  Before I could respond, Nikki suddenly put her sandwich back on her plate and grabbed my arm. “Is it possible he’s following you? Have you thought about that? Maybe he knows you’re in possession of that flash drive, and he’s looking for an opportunity to get it back.”

  I laid my hand on top of hers and shook my head. “No, I doubt that’s the case. Ben and I both took extra precautions to make sure no one followed us this morning. Besides, Asan is a specialist. If he knew about the flash drive, he’d get someone else to do the grunt work.”

  She didn’t look all that reassured by my statement.

  “When will you send Douglas the pictures you took of him?”

  “I had to take them with my cell phone so I can’t do it until I’m able to use my sat phone. I just wish I knew where Asan was headed. If I did, I could let Douglas know.”

  “If you ask me, Asan didn’t act like he was in a hurry to get anywhere. He was just standing there looking out the window.”

  “No, you’re right. He didn’t seem rushed.”

  “You don’t suppose he’s on our flight to Israel, do you?”

  I chuckled a little. “No. There’s no way he would ever get past Israeli security, and a man like Baran Asan knows that only too well.”

  “Perhaps he was hanging around the lounge waiting for someone.”

  I nodded. “That’s a possibility, but I think we’ve seen the last of Asan. I’d be surprised if he were still in the departure lounge when we got back to our gate.”

  * * * *

  When we returned to the Iberia departure gate to catch our flight to Israel, Baran Asan was nowhere to be seen. Even though Nikki didn’t say anything, I was pretty sure she was as relieved as I was when we realized he was no longer hanging around the area.

  We didn’t have time to discuss it, though, because while we’d been having a sandwich, the departure lounge had been taken over by a large American tour group.

  From the conversations around me, I was able to figure out the tour group was a religious organization, and they were headed to Israel to spend the next fourteen days visiting the country’s holy sites.

  Of course, unlike me, Nikki didn’t need to eavesdrop on their conversations to find out that information. When she sat down next to a group of ladies, she immediately started chatting with them, and within a few minutes, they were telling her all about themselves and giving her the group’s entire itinerary.

  While she and the ladies were getting to know each other, I got up and walked over to a power-charging station and plugged in my cell phone. As soon as I did, the gate attendant appeared at the check-in desk, and within seconds, a long line had formed in front of her.

  Occasionally, I
glanced over at the line to see how fast it was moving, primarily trying to gauge if my phone would be completely charged by the time Nikki and I had to join the queue.

  Each time I did so, I felt a little uneasy.

  I wasn’t sure why. As far as I could tell, all the passengers in the queue were members of the tour group.

  The group was a mixture of ages, from young people to senior citizens, and while most of them seemed to be married couples, there were several women traveling together, along with some young adults who could have been college students.

  As I studied the individuals waiting to be checked in, I suddenly realized what was bothering me.

  The beige cargo pants worn by one of the men standing in line at the counter looked familiar to me.

  They should have.

  I’d studied the man who’d been wearing them for several minutes at the airport in Marrakesh, while trying to make up my mind whether or not he posed a threat to me or any of the other passengers on Iberia Flight 6124.

  The cargo pants worn by Baran Asan had had several soiled spots on them, as did the pants worn by the man standing in line. However, while I was one hundred per cent sure they were the same pants, I wasn’t that certain the man wearing them was Baran Asan.

  While he was built like Asan, he didn’t look anything like him.

  This man was wearing a pair of thick-framed black glasses, and his hair was much longer. It was also a different color; light brown instead of black. The shirt he had on was a collared, buttoned-down sports shirt, and he was wearing it untucked over the cargo pants. On his feet were a pair of Nike running shoes. They looked brand new to me.

  As I observed him speaking with the woman next to him—who was wearing one of the tour group’s purple t-shirts—I got the impression he was an American. Perhaps it was the gestures he was making, or the fact she was offering to share some of her granola bar with him, or maybe it was just his overall casual demeanor.

  Moments later, my impression of the man changed when I saw him reach out and take a piece of the granola bar from the woman’s hand.

  That’s when I got a good look at his right hand; he had a broken index finger.

  At that moment, I realized the man standing in line about to board our flight to Israel was indeed Baran Asan.

  However, I didn’t believe Asan would have bothered altering his appearance so drastically if he were planning to blow up our plane.

  Even though I wasn’t worried about Asan being on the same plane with us, that didn’t mean I wasn’t concerned about him.

  I had plenty of concerns about him.

  My main concern was what his plans were after we landed in Tel Aviv. What was his objective? Why was he traveling to Israel?

  * * * *

  It was after nine o’clock by the time we were airborne, and most of the passengers I observed—especially those from the tour group who’d been traveling together all day—were no longer engaged in conversation, but instead were watching a movie or reading a book.

  Our seatmate, an elderly lady who was seated next to the window, was the exception.

  The woman, who told us her name was Charlotte Phillips, began a conversation with Nikki the minute she’d taken the seat next to her. While she occasionally stopped talking long enough to catch her breath, her commentary continued throughout the flight.

  By the time the pilot announced we’d reached cruising altitude, we’d already learned about Charlotte’s family back in Evansville, Indiana, and about how much she loved her church there.

  Shortly after that, we found out she had two Miniature Schnauzers, Mitzi and Bitsy, who were staying with Charlotte’s daughter in Indianapolis while she was out of the country.

  Once Charlotte had divulged as much information as possible about her present circumstances, she then moved on to talk about her childhood growing up in southeast Missouri, where she’d lived on a farm on the outskirts of a small town. As she was telling us about her high school, which had less than four hundred students, tears suddenly came to her eyes because that was where she’d met her beloved husband, Ralph, who’d recently passed away.

  I admired Nikki’s patience with the chatty woman, but after pretending to be interested in her for over an hour, I finally yawned a couple of times, closed my eyes, and pretended to take a nap.

  In reality, I was trying to figure out how I was going to deal with the Iranian fixer once we landed in Tel Aviv.

  Whatever I decided to do, I knew I needed to let both Carlton and Shin Bet know about Baran Asan’s visit to Israel before he left the airport and disappeared into the population.

  That could be a moot point though, since the chances of Asan getting past Israeli Passport Control seemed pretty slim to me.

  Having flown into Israel several times, I knew what to expect once we arrived at the terminal. More than likely, getting through Passport Control would take us anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple of hours.

  Primarily, this was because Israeli security was serious about vetting all passengers, whether coming or going. This was done by subjecting everyone to a rigorous, sometimes inflexible, but always thorough, series of interviews and baggage checks.

  As a result of such extreme vetting, Ben Gurion Airport was considered to be one of the safest airports in the world.

  I couldn’t foresee Nikki having any problems getting through Israeli security because she’d only used her passport once to visit Mexico.

  On the other hand, Titus Ray, Senior Fellow at the Consortium for International Studies, had visited several Islamic countries in the last eight years, and there were plenty of visas in his passport to prove it.

  Thus, I was expecting to get an enormous amount of extra scrutiny from Israeli immigration agents, mostly in the form of additional security questions.

  If they chose to ask me what languages I spoke, then our time at the airport could be delayed even further, especially when I told them I spoke not only Hebrew and Arabic, but also Farsi.

  On at least four occasions when I’d flown into Ben Gurion airport, I’d had expedited service in Passport Control because I’d been met by either a member of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, or an agent from Shin Bet, their internal security agency.

  However, that was because my purpose for being in Israel on those occasions had been to deliver a message from the DDO to his counterpart at Mossad.

  In each of those instances, the amount of time I’d had to spend in Passport Control had been cut in half in comparison to the times I’d arrive in Israel engaged in a mission the Agency had chosen not to share with Israeli intelligence.

  Whenever I’d been expedited through Passport Control, I’d always assumed Shin Bet had notified the immigration officials to treat me as a Special Case.

  I’d assumed that because those were the words printed on the plastic I.D. badge I was given before I was ushered into an adjoining room where an intelligence officer was waiting to take me to Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv.

  Now, as I thought about how to let Shin Bet know about Baran Asan’s presence on our plane, I wondered if this might be one of those instances when I’d be treated as a Special Case.

  Although I wouldn’t be entering Israel to deliver a message from the DDO to his counterpart in Mossad, I would definitely be making a delivery—the delivery of the flash drive to a Shin Bet agent—and it would be at the behest of the DDO.

  Because Carlton had asked me to pick up the flash drive from Mitchell, it was obvious he was the one making all the arrangements for the handover—it was certainly not the DDO—so I had to believe he would notify Shin Bet and request my time in Passport Control be kept to a minimum.

  The more I thought about it, the more I figured there was a chance I’d be able to make it through Passport Control ahead of Asan. At that point, I should be able to alert Shin Bet to either detain him or put him under surveillance immediately.

  Of course, the best-case scenario would be for Baran Asan to be flag
ged as a high-risk threat the moment he had his first interview at the immigration desk.

  Should that occur, he’d immediately be isolated, subjected to some intense interrogation, and then either be arrested or detained at the airport for hours. If released, he’d be forced to leave Israel on the next plane.

  After seeing the way he’d been able to pass himself off as an American at the Lisbon airport, I wasn’t hopeful that would happen.

  * * * *

  During the last thirty minutes of our flight, after Charlotte had finally dozed off, I held a whispered conversation with Nikki about what I thought would happen once we arrived at the airport.

  But I still didn’t mention anything to her about Asan being on our plane.

  Instead, I told her I might have to spend a little extra time with the security guys at the airport because of all the visa stamps in my passport, and I suggested she plan to meet me in the baggage claim area once she got through security.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’ll use the extra time to call Eleanor, and of course, I have a book to read.”

  A few minutes later, the pilot came on the intercom and announced our descent into Ben Gurion Airport.

  “Please fasten your seatbelts. We’re beginning our descent now, and it looks like we may be in for a bit of a bumpy ride.”

  PART THREE

  Chapter 14

  The pilot hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d predicted a bumpy descent, and once our plane had finally landed on the tarmac, I had a feeling everyone’s nerves were on edge.

  Mine certainly were.

  Nevertheless, instead of hearing curses and complaints, I was surprised to hear several members of the Christian tour group break out in song as we were taxiing to the terminal.

  Seconds later, the entire cabin was filled with the sounds of “Amazing Grace” as passengers in every section of the plane joined in.