by Tom Saric
But for some reason, the excitement and vindication he had expected was nowhere to be found. It just felt empty.
“Are you sure the body’s his?” Paul said, realizing the stupidity of his question as it came out of his mouth.
“It’s been verified.”
There it was: verified. He didn’t want to believe, but there it was. The anger that lived in a deep place inside of him rose up from his abdomen but petered out. Then a thought popped up, covering him like a wet blanket.
“Were any other bodies found?”
Bailey furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
Paul shook his head slowly.
“Are you asking about Ellen?”
Paul nodded.
“We have not located her, Paul. But at this time we presume that--”
“Okay,” Paul cut her off. He didn’t need to hear what she presumed. They hadn’t found Ellen. There was still hope. A chance. A possibility.
“I’m very sorry.”
Paul ignored her. Ellen could still be alive and he clung to that. That was all he needed.
“Do you know why they did this? The general? Crilley?”
“We still haven’t been able to finish our interviews with them.”
Paul stared, expecting more.
“It looks like they were conspiring to create a perceived threat coming out of Somalia. They used you to get the pirates to capture the ship. They tipped Hadad off about the ship so he would hijack the hijackers. Then, they told Hadad they would provide an escape route from Somalia via boat but ambushed him instead and recovered the weapons. They figured that they could use the situation to show that nuclear weapons are coming out of Somalia. But this is all conjecture at this point.”
“You recovered the weapons?”
“All twelve accounted for.”
“But what about the helicopter? Hadad getting away?”
“That part we don’t know. Perhaps they were going to capture him and bring him in as the terrorist plotting against the United States. Show him to the media?”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Paul frowned.
“Like I said, they haven’t finished the interrogations yet.”
“What about Senechaux?”
“We have very little on him. He’s an arms dealer and he’s popped up every now and again. Only one known photo of him and it’s not of very good quality and it’s a couple of years old.” She pulled an eight by ten photograph from the files under her arm and held it between her fingertips.
“Evans said Senechaux planned it all.”
“That’s what we’re thinking. He may have known about the Ukrainian shipment and somehow contacted these guys on the inside. Money was transferred to an offshore account that we can’t trace yet. So it might be his.”
“Can I see the picture?”
Bailey hesitated and then handed the photo to Paul.
Paul glanced at the blurry black and white picture. Three men surrounded a small private jet, which had the stairs down. The three men wore all black and looked like bodyguards. He assumed that Senechaux was the burly white man walking up the steps. His face was almost completely obscured by large aviator sunglasses and a thick goatee. He wore a khaki vest and shorts.
As he passed the photo back to Bailey, his eye was drawn to Senechaux’s hand gripping the railing. He followed Senechaux’s wrist to his forearm where he saw a thick scar wrapping around past his elbow. A scar he had seen before. Paul felt dizzy; the bed felt like it was rocking under him. His heart raced, and that seemed to make his hand throb more.
“What is it, Paul?” Bailey put her hand on his shoulder.
“This man, I know him. Senechaux.” Paul swallowed hard, his tongue felt tied. “It’s Sidwell.”
“What?” Bailey looked at the photograph, not understanding.
“My old partner from Addis Ababa, the Hadad interrogations. You’ve read my file. That’s him.” Paul tapped quickly on the photo.
“The sergeant that you were prosecuted with? Are you sure?”
“I know that scar, it’s from an injury he got in Bosnia, when a land mine exploded nearby and took out his partner. I know that profile. It’s him.” Paul looked at the photo again, holding it close. “No question about it. It’s Steve.”
“That’s not possible.” She shook her head and took the picture back, placing it in the folder.
“You’re the one who gave me the photo. I’m telling you that’s him.”
“That would be quite a coincidence.”
“Really, would it?” Paul asked rhetorically. “You read the file. Steve and I didn’t leave on such good terms. I testified against him. You said that Senechaux set it all up and Senechaux is Steve Sidwell.”
Paul started making connections. Crilley had given up Paul’s name and contact information and Ellen switched the SIM card on his phone, so Sidwell would have been able to send Paul the manifest while making it impossible to recognize that it came from a different source. The man-portable nuclear weapons were likely an illegal arms deal so they never would have made it onto the manifest. Hadad was brought on as the errand boy. Evans provided the funds to make it all happen.
He painfully swung his legs over the side of the bed so they dangled while he tried to place all of the events in a logical and coherent sequence.
“Look at the facts, Bailey,” Paul’s voice rose; he spoke quickly. “I unknowingly give detailed information on a ship secretly carrying nuclear weapons to a group of pirates. Somehow, the man I had interrogated for the Nairobi embassy bombings ten years ago is tipped off and steals them. The man I used to work with, my ex-partner, is behind it all. This is no coincidence. This was all done to set me up.”
“Paul, relax,” she spoke calmly. “We have all the weapons. Hadad is dead. All the responsible people are in custody. Senechaux, or if it is Sidwell, is gone, and we don’t know where. What we need to do right now is to get you healthy and build a case against the men we have in custody.”
Paul didn’t relax. “How did he get away?”
“Excuse me?”
“Sidwell. I testified to the things the team did in Addis, the torture. They thought he’d be in for twelve to life. How is he out?”
Bailey stared back at Paul blankly. “He went underground before a trial even started, he is still at large.”
A part of his mind was suddenly activated, one that sent cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck and made the hairs on his arms stand stiff. His heart thumped against his ribs. Paul narrowed his eyes as his mind groped for something, something Bailey had said.
“You’ve saved a lot of lives, Paul,” Bailey continued in her steady voice, “by helping us get the nuclear weapons back.”
Something in the back of his cranium screamed so loudly that he thought he heard it echo. He squeezed Bailey’s arm so tightly she let out a squeal.
“Wait a minute. How many weapons did you say were recovered?”
“Twelve,” Bailey winced, trying to get out of Paul’s hold.
“No, that’s not right. There were thirteen.”
“What?”
"Thirteen weapons. I’m sure of it.” Paul noticed his knuckles turning white around Bailey’s arm and released. The image of Hadad running from the Navy SEALs, carrying a duffel bag, rose in his mind.
“There’s another weapon. Hadad had it. When he got into the helicopter, he was carrying a bag. I remember that now.”
“You saw him with it?”
“My own eyes.”
“And Hadad washed up in a New Jersey harbor which means that…”
Paul’s eyes widened. So did Bailey’s. “The weapon is in the United States.”
Bailey nearly fell into the plastic chair beside Paul’s bed and then reached for the cell phone in her jacket pocket.
“Who are you calling?”
“The FBI. We need to report this.” Bailey began speaking into the phone, describing the information they had about the nuclear weapon.
Paul sat up on the stretcher with his head in his hands. What could the FBI do? A single weapon the size of college student’s backpack somewhere in the United States was next to impossible to find. Sidwell had arranged this for him. Paul was certain of it. He wanted Paul to do something, to figure it out. Evans’ words ran through his head.
I’m trained to make people believe what I say.
Did Evans know more? Did he know where Sidwell was? Did he know where Ellen was?
“I need to go and debrief on this.” Bailey placed the cell phone back in her pocket.
“We need to go to the hospital.”
“We can treat you here.”
“No, we need to see Craig Evans. He knows more.”
“I don’t think he knows any more than you got out of him. Let the FBI meet with him.”
“You listened to the whole thing. At the beginning of the interrogation, he told us he was going to lie. He said he could lie and no one would know the truth. He knows more.”
“Even if he does, we can’t go. He’s in custody, surrounded by guards.” She looked at Paul, incredulous. “You’re in custody right now. You can’t leave.”
“I need to interrogate him. He’s scared of me. He’ll talk the second he sees me because he knows I have nothing to lose. You’ve already given him immunity from prosecution; the only thing left to threaten him with is his life. I’m the only one he believes will deliver on that threat. You know I’m right.” Paul slid off the gurney, pain searing through his leg and up his right side as his feet touched the cold floor.
Bailey took a step back. “You’re here. We have to leave it to them.”
“You can help me get out of here, I know you can.” Paul started walking toward the door, holding the ends of his johnny shirt closed behind his back.
“If I let you out of here, I’m going to jail myself.”
“The quickest way to figure this out is to go through Evans. He knows where the weapon is.” He stared, his eyes piercing. “We’ve come this far, Bailey. Let’s finish it.”
33
Thirty miles away, at the Lakeview Motor Inn on Highway 214, Steve Sidwell sat in a flimsy plastic chair outside of room 104, sipping a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. The parking lot was deserted, aside from an orange Dodge Charger at the far end of the lot beside the Coke machine and his grey van. The hotel sign flashed VACANCY. Morning traffic was picking up on the twisty highway to his right, leaving the smell of exhaust in the air. It was still a bit crisp and the fine dew on the van’s windshield hadn’t burned off yet. The sky was clear, save for a few wisps of cloud.
It was going to be a fine day.
He could almost see the supporters carrying their signs over their shoulders and books under their arms, converging on the university twenty miles away. He could almost hear their cheers when she walked on stage, hand waving, holding up a copy of Better Angels ready for the ignoramuses to buy and get signed. Then, up to the podium, announcing her candidacy to wild cheers.
Sidwell lifted himself out of the chair, took another sip of coffee, and put his hand on the doorknob to room 104. He jiggled the handle a few times before he managed to get the door to open, but what could you really expect for $59 per night? Even though all three floor lamps were turned on, the room was still dim.
Razman worked underneath the desk lamp, at a long desk opposite the two double beds. He was busy twisting wires together and securing them to a larger device with a screwdriver. Razman wore a red and blue tracksuit and sandals, so he looked more like a local mobster than an explosives expert. Sidwell had known Razman for well over a decade and there was no one he could trust more to build a detonator quickly and efficiently. Now Razman was putting the finishing touches on the electrical detonator that Sidwell could activate from four miles away, using the keypad on his BlackBerry device.
He always sensed it was inevitable that he and Ramsey would come head to head at some point. After Somali pirates hijacked three of his shipments in the Gulf of Aden in fewer than four months, Sidwell decided to do some digging. He was not surprised when he discovered that a physician working in the Puntland was feeding shipping information to pirates. The physician was likely an undercover operative for the United States government.
He was surprised, though, when he saw the photo of the operative. He could hardly believe it. Marshall Ramsey, back from the dead.
Shortly after he discovered Ramsey working in the Puntland, Sidwell commissioned several boxcars, which he referred to as a “sensitive” shipment, from Odessa to Nairobi, on a ship named the Stebelsky. Man-portable nuclear weapons. These were thought to be unattainable and were worth an obscene amount on the black market.
Soon the plan fell into place. He immediately contacted General Kaczmareck at AFRICOM to inform him of the shipment of thirteen nuclear devices and his idea to stage a hijacking under the pretext of making a perceived threat coming out of Somalia. Unsurprisingly, the general immediately agreed and contacted his man in the NCS to give contact information to his operative in the Puntland.
But he didn’t tell the general the rest.
Sidwell watched Razman work for a good minute and then went through the connecting door to room 105. Ellen Al-Hamadi sat on the edge of the bed nearest the door with her elbows on her knees. Her leg was handcuffed to the bed frame.
He had to admit Ramsey had done well for himself. She was more than ten years younger, curvaceous, and had beautiful, exotic eyes. Eyes that were piercing at the moment.
“Why are you doing this?” Her head shook as she spoke. “To get back at Paul or something?”
“This isn’t about him. He’s a symptom of bigger problems, that’s all.” Sidwell sat down on the bed beside her and took a loud sip of coffee. “It’s because of this country. It’s changed. A bunch of protestors can get together, chant for something they know this much about…” he pressed his thumb and index finger together, “and make the policymakers back out of tough decisions. They have all the power in this country, this democracy. They protest war without ever having held a gun, or ever had a gun held against them. They’ve never seen the destruction some of these dictators or terrorists are capable of. They only care what their government does in return and they fight them every step of the way. For what? A principle? Because war is bad, because torture is morally wrong?” He smirked and looked at Ellen. “What they don’t realize is that when we go to war, or interrogate someone, we’re doing a tough job, but we’re saving lives. Their lives.”
“So you’ll blow up a book signing.”
“America needs to see war on their doorstep, feel war, see terrorism and destruction, so it can see why we fight abroad, why we do the tough job. Doing this here will only show what not fighting terrorism has done. A blast on American soil. Imagine.”
“By an American, an ex-military official. That’s not what we fight abroad.”
“Is that what people will hear? Or will they hear that a notorious terrorist responsible for the Nairobi embassy bombings smuggled a weapon into the United States. A weapon used to kill the very woman who set him free.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “And that a man the U.S. was supposed to prosecute but instead sent to work as an undercover operative set the weapons off.”
She squinted and shook her head. “Paul won’t set it off. He’s still in Somalia.”
Sidwell shook his head. “No, he isn’t. He’s here. He’s come looking for you, honey.”
34
Before the Honda came to a complete stop in front of the Virginia Hospital Center, Paul already had the passenger-side door open, dragging his foot along the pavement. They crossed the parking lot, passed a group of hospital workers in green scrubs puffing on cigarettes, and walked underneath the glass archway that covered the entrance to the seven-story complex. The overhead security lights were still on, sending fans of yellow against the sidewalk. Paul stayed in the shadows, hoping no one would notice his serious limp and the oversized trench coat he had on. Underneath, he wo
re the pants and shirt that had been stained by John Daniels’ blood. Bailey had taken the coat from a coatroom in the NCS. According to the identification badge, the coat belonged to a man named Evan Rice.
They had left the NCS headquarters with relative ease. They waited until the nurse returned to take another blood pressure and pulse, which she did every fifteen minutes. Once she left, they packed up quickly and left the infirmary. Bailey knew that, although a security camera was filming him, no one was monitoring it. The officer assigned to monitor the cameras would check in later and simply assume Paul was being escorted by Bailey to another room. They left through the front entrance, and Paul used the identification tag that was inside one of the jacket’s pockets. It looked nothing like him. Rice was twenty years older, bald, and had a beard. Paul signed out using his identification number and luckily, the security at the front did not check the photo. They estimated they had at least fifteen minutes before anyone noticed he was missing and another fifteen to review the security tapes. Then they would have to find out where Paul and Bailey were heading, which could take several hours.
The automatic doors slid open before them and they walked into the atrium. Against the far wall, a mural depicted a doctor sitting beside a patient’s bed. Below the mural was a semicircle reception. Behind it, a large woman with a tight perm smiled at them.
“Can I help you?” She was far too perky for this hour.
Bailey and Paul approached the desk. Paul kept his hands in his pockets.
“We’re looking for a patient,” Bailey announced. “His name is Craig Evans.”
“Certainly.” The lady swiveled around in her chair and clacked a few keys on the keyboard in front of her.
The perma-smile on her face dissolved and she slowly turned back towards them.
“Umm. We’re not able to give information about--”
“We’re with the CIA,” Bailey said, flipping open her badge. “We’re here to speak with the prisoner.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, he’s on the fourth floor, room forty-three-fourteen. I can call upstairs so they know you’re coming.”
