Five Years in Yemen

by Luana Ehrlich

  “Have you ever heard of Thompson Sales?” I asked.

  He was quiet for a few seconds. “No, the name doesn’t ring a bell. Did the vehicle have an Oklahoma license plate?”

  “I couldn’t see the license plate on the back. All I saw was the dealership’s plate on the front.”

  “I understand why you might be concerned about Nikki, but since she just got back in town this week, it’s hard to believe this could be related to the Stadium Killer case.”

  “It was the first thing I thought about.”

  “What did Nikki say?”

  “It didn’t seem to bother her, so I didn’t press the issue.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t take me long to run a search on Thompson Sales. I’ll call you back when I have something.”

  “Thanks, Danny. I owe you one.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, but if you actually end up getting married, I plan to collect on that bet we made in Beirut.”

  * * * *

  It was halftime before Danny called me back. When my phone vibrated, I was standing in line at a concession stand where I was about to purchase a slice of pizza, along with some lemonade.

  I threw a twenty-dollar bill down on the counter, grabbed the food, and walked over to a less-crowded area.

  “I’ve located two Thompson GMC dealerships in the U.S.,” Danny said, “but neither one of them is in Oklahoma. In fact, only one of them identifies itself as Thompson Sales. The other one is Thompson Motor Company.”

  “What cities are they in?”

  “Thompson Motor Company is in Blakely, Georgia, and Thompson Sales is in Springfield, Missouri.”

  “Did you say Springfield?”

  “Springfield, Missouri; that’s right. Why? Does that mean something?”

  “Yeah, it means something. It means I messed up.”

  Chapter 7

  I told Danny about Carlton asking me to stop in Springfield on my way back to Oklahoma and have a chat with a former Southridge contractor named Travis Zachary.

  That was it. I didn’t go into any details about Zachary or the intel behind Carlton’s request.

  However, I did ask him if he would access the DMV records in Missouri and find out the make and model of any vehicles owned by Zachary, along with their license plate numbers.

  Just before the game ended—which OU won in a lopsided victory—Danny sent me a text message.

  “2015 GMC Yukon registered to Travis Zachary. Tag number DY3 B2C.”

  Nikki, who’d been scanning the crowds for any suspicious activity during the game, caught me looking down at my phone.

  “You must be bored,” she said. “I realize I haven’t been the greatest company, and, of course, the game didn’t turn out to be the cliffhanger everyone expected it to be.”

  I slipped my phone back in my pocket and put my arm around her. “I assure you, I haven’t been bored. Spending the afternoon with you, even when you’re working, could never be boring.”

  “The next time we come to a game, I promise I’ll be just a regular crazy obsessed fan.”

  I pointed up at the video board. “I’ve seen several women in the crowd shots. What happens once the game’s over?”

  “The detectives working the case are supposed to meet our lieutenant at the station after the game to assess the situation. Would you mind dropping me off? I’ll have my partner bring me home.”

  I tried my best to look disappointed we wouldn’t be spending the evening together, but the truth was, I had something I needed to do.

  Like locate Travis Zachary and ask him a few questions.

  * * * *

  There was no sign of the Yukon when I dropped Nikki off at the police station on West Gray.

  Although it would have made my job easier if Zachary had still been shadowing us, I played a hunch and went back over to Nikki’s neighborhood.

  Instead of going in the main entrance of the Summit Lake addition, I bypassed it and entered the second entrance.

  From there, I drove over to the opposite side of the lake from where the basketball court was located and parked my Range Rover on the street near a playground where two small children were chasing each other through a series of interconnected slides and tunnels. They were being supervised by a teenage girl, who was sitting on a nearby bench looking down at her cell phone.

  As I sat there and observed the scene for a few minutes, I noticed the girl would occasionally glance up to make sure the kids hadn’t killed each other. However, she showed no interest in me when I exited my vehicle and began walking over to the lake, even though I was carrying a pair of high-powered binoculars.

  When I reached the water’s edge, I sat down on a concrete bench and focused the glasses on the opposite side of the lake; specifically, on the basketball court and the parking spaces next to it.

  Unlike the scene earlier in the day, when there was no one around, several boys were now engaged in a vigorous game of basketball. Mainly, the game consisted of a lot of shoving and not much shooting.

  Among the cars parked at the basketball court was a black GMC Yukon; license plate number, DY3 B2C, owned by Mr. Travis Zachary.

  As I was debating how to handle Mr. Zachary, the subject himself emerged from his vehicle and walked around to the back of his SUV. After raising the trunk, he removed a bottle of water from an ice chest.

  Then, he strolled over to the basketball court and watched the guys jostling each other around.

  As soon as I saw Zachary move away from his vehicle, I laid the binoculars down on the bench, tightened the laces on my running shoes, and jogged over to the other side of the lake.

  When I arrived at the Yukon, I opened the door of the vehicle and slipped inside on the passenger side. A few seconds later, I saw Zachary toss his empty water bottle in a trash can and start walking back to his car.

  At that moment, I thought about removing my Glock from my side holster, but, in the end, I left it where it was.

  * * * *

  When Zachary opened the door to the Yukon and saw me sitting in the passenger seat, he looked surprised, but he quickly regained his composure and slid behind the wheel.

  “Well, if it isn’t Jared Russell,” he said, “or maybe I should call you Titus Ray. Which would you prefer?”

  Although it shocked me to hear him use my real name, I said, “Titus will do just fine. Congratulations. I have to admit I’m surprised you figured it out. Mind telling me how you did it?”

  He flinched a little at my backhanded compliment and said, “My gut told me Ms. Nikki Saxon was a cop. Don’t ask me how I knew that. I just did.”

  “Okay, I won’t ask you.”

  He smiled. “I wanted to be sure I was right, so I got in touch with a friend of mine at Southridge who works in administration. Although she verified Jared Russell was one of their recruiters, she told me no one by the name of Nikki Saxon was employed there. Once I heard that, I decided the spiel you gave me was legitimate, and you probably had a good reason for lying to me about her. Anyway, I figured you’d be contacting me in a few days with a job offer.”

  I relaxed a little when I heard Zachary’s explanation.

  “Let me guess,” I said, “In the meantime, you decided to do some research on Nikki Saxon.”

  “Yeah, when I didn’t hear from you after a couple of days, I got curious about her.”

  He pointed down at an iPad resting in the center console. “It’s amazing what you can find out about someone with one of those things. It’s totally changed the whole security business.”

  “I’m assuming you found out she’s a police detective here in Norman.”

  “It took me less than fifteen minutes to discover that, and while I was trying to figure out what an SSG recruiter was doing working with a local police detective, I got a call from a buddy of mine. He lives in Detroit now, but he was with Jacob Levin and me over in Iraq. He was responsible for maintaining the MODD system’s computer hardware.”

  “Are you talki
ng about Stephen Gault?”

  Zachary showed no reaction when I brought up Gault’s name. “That’s right. After we spent a few minutes jawing with each other, he asked if I’d been in contact with anyone from SSG about Jacob Levin.”

  The moment Zachary began describing their conversation, I realized Carlton must have sent another operative to Detroit to see what information he could pull out of Gault about Jacob Levin. Although it was a little out of character for Carlton to have done this without telling me, it didn’t surprise me.

  As predictable as Carlton was, sometimes, he threw me a curve ball.

  “How often do you talk to Gault?” I asked.

  “We haven’t stayed in touch, and when I mentioned how strange it was to hear from him after all this time, he said he’d just been thinking about Jacob, and he was wondering if I’d heard anything new about his disappearance.”

  “I see.”

  Zachary shook his head. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in coincidences. The fact that Stephen wanted to talk to me about Jacob right after I’d talked to you about him made me a little suspicious.”

  “What did you tell Stephen?”

  “I told him the truth. I said I’d recently talked to an SSG recruiter who’d questioned me about Jacob’s disappearance. I also told him I thought it was odd that two days later he was asking me the same thing. He sounded nervous after that, and when I pushed him to tell me what was going on, he said he couldn’t talk about it and hung up.”

  “Did you try calling him back?”

  He nodded. “He wouldn’t pick up, which was unusual for Stephen because he’s someone who likes to talk, and he’s not very good at keeping secrets.”

  “Maybe he had a secret, and he was afraid he would tell you.”

  “That’s possible. After thinking about his phone call, I decided to drive down here to Norman and run some surveillance on Detective Saxon.”

  “Yeah, let’s talk about that. What were you trying to accomplish by coming down here? What was your objective?”

  He laughed. “My objective? When I left Springfield, my objective was to see if you and Ms. Saxon were still hanging out together, and, if you were, I planned to ask you about that job you promised me. But, ultimately, my objective in life is to get back to a job I love, preferably working security somewhere in the Middle East.”

  He pointed in the direction of Nikki’s house. “When I saw you at the detective’s house this morning, I followed you, thinking there’d be an opportunity for us to have a chat. But then, when I realized you were headed to the football game, I came back here and waited for you to show up.”

  He glanced over at me as if he wanted to gauge my reaction to his statement. Although I tried not to show my surprise, I didn’t think I succeeded.

  “What made you think I’d show up here?” I asked.

  “I figured you’d spotted my tail, and once I ran the plates on the Range Rover, I knew for sure you’d come looking for me.”

  When he’d identified me as Titus Ray earlier, I was certain Zachary had done some research on the car’s plates. However, I just didn’t know how far that research had taken him.

  “I’m guessing you found out the Range Rover is registered to Titus Ray?”

  He nodded. “The DMV in Maryland shows it’s registered to Titus Alan Ray. When I ran that name through a data site, I discovered Titus Ray is listed as a Senior Fellow at a think tank in College Park, Maryland. I believe the official name for it is the Consortium for International Studies, but it’s better known as CIS.”

  He paused and looked over at the basketball court where two guys were now throwing punches at each other.

  “As everyone in the intelligence community knows, the Consortium is used by the Central Intelligence Agency to provide some of their employees with a plausible cover.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  After a few seconds of silence, he took his eyes off the ruckus at the basketball court and fastened them on me.

  “That’s how I knew you’d show up here eventually. I’m betting you’re an Agency man, one of the CIA’s spooks.”

  * * * *

  Of course, he was right on both counts. I was one of the Agency’s spooks, and for years, I’d been listed in the CIS personnel directory as a Senior Fellow in Middle Eastern Programs.

  Granted, I’d never set foot inside the CIS building, but from what I’d heard, it was a great place to work.

  Even though Zachary had succeeded in unmasking me, I wasn’t about to admit I was a covert operative. “You’re right,” I said, giving him my most sincere smile. “I work for the Agency, but I’m just one of their analysts, not one of their spooks. Those covert types are really creepy folks.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Yeah, I’ve met several of them and thought the same thing. Would you mind telling me why the Agency sent an analyst to offer me a job?”

  “I think you know why.”

  He nodded and looked down at his feet for a second. “It has something to do with Jacob Levin, doesn’t it? They sent you to Springfield to find out what I know about his disappearance.”

  I kept quiet.

  He sighed. “That job you told me about never existed, did it?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Have they found Jacob’s body?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  He looked stunned for a moment. “Does that mean he’s alive?”

  “We’re investigating that possibility.”

  “I can’t believe his kidnappers have kept him alive all this time.”

  “We’re not exactly sure what happened to him when he disappeared.”

  “Is that why you’ve been questioning the people who worked with him?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Stephen must have heard from one of your people, and that’s why he called me.” He shook his head. “No wonder he sounded nervous. He had a theory about Jacob’s disappearance. Now, it turns out he may have been right.”

  “What kind of theory?”

  “He said Jacob engineered his own disappearance.”

  That was news to me, and I had a feeling it might be news to Carlton as well. “Why would Stephen think that?”

  “I guess because Jacob was always talking about how great it would be if he were stranded somewhere, like on a deserted island. He said he would use that time to work out the details of all the projects he had floating around in his head, and once he got rescued, he would spend the rest of his life making sure those projects became a reality.”

  “Did Stephen ever mention this to anyone at Southridge?”

  “You mean his theory or Jacob’s fantasies?”

  “Well, both I guess.”

  “I don’t know about his theory, but I know neither one of us ever told our contracting supervisor that Jacob was always fantasizing about disappearing. We probably should have, and maybe that’s why Stephen is nervous right now. There’s a section in the SSG work contract that requires employees to report any unusual behavior in a team member.”

  Zachary looked away from me for a moment. “If someone showed up on Stephen’s doorstep, and said they were from SSG, and then started questioning him about Jacob the way you did with me, I can understand why he might be worried.”

  “What makes you think Stephen never reported Jacob’s behavior?”

  “We agreed not to say anything. At the time, we both thought it was harmless and just part of Jacob’s quirky personality.”

  “Other associates have described Jacob as nerdy, but you’re the first person I know who’s called him quirky.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I got along fine with Jacob, but he had some personality traits that were a little different.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for one thing, he would get totally obsessed about something and talk about it for days.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “I can think of several,” he said, “but the one that immediatel
y comes to mind is what happened when there was a 7.1 earthquake in the Kermanshah province of Iran. Even though it was five hundred miles away from Karbala and didn’t affect us, he talked about it constantly. He’d give us daily reports about how many people were killed, what the depth of the tremors were, and where the fault lines were located.”

  “Well, to be truthful, I can see why he might be interested in something like that. Even if his field is military technology, from what I’ve read about him, he thinks of himself as a scientist.”

  “That’s true. When I first met Jacob, he introduced himself to me as a military research scientist. That’s why he and that Saudi guy, Samir, got along so well with each other. Samir was in charge of updating the Saudis military technology, and he and Jacob definitely spoke the same language.”

  “Besides being a little obsessive, was there something else about him you considered quirky?”

  He laughed. “Oh, you bet. He became fascinated with the Iraqi culture, including the type of food they ate. He even bought a special teapot so he could brew his Iraqi tea correctly. He also became fascinated with their religion, and then, a couple of weeks before he disappeared, he bought some traditional Arabic clothing and wore it whenever he left the compound in Karbala.”

  “What do you mean when you say he became fascinated with their religion? Did he attend a mosque? Read the Quran?”

  “No, he never went to a mosque. I would have known if he did because he always took security with him whenever he left the base. But yes, he was studying the Quran, and he was asking a lot of questions about the Islamic faith. He was particularly interested in the differences between the Sunni form of Islam and the Shiite version, and he didn’t understand why they were killing each other if they both practiced the same religion.”

  I pointed over toward the basketball court where another scuffle had broken out. “They keep killing each other for the same reason those guys keep fighting. Sure, they’re all playing the same game, but in the end, they’re willing to hurt each other because they think it will help their side win the game.”