Five Years in Yemen

by Luana Ehrlich

  “Thanks for your help, Mason,” Taylor said.

  After everyone else had voiced their appreciation, I added, “Douglas also said to thank you for the good job you’ve done for us.”

  “Sure, no problem,” he said.

  He grabbed the bellboy jacket off the sofa. “Oh, wait a second. I almost forgot to give you back the tracker.”

  He reached inside the front pocket of the jacket, pulled out the gray location disc, and laid it down on the coffee table beside Gault’s suitcase.

  After glancing down at the text message that had just popped up on my phone, I picked up the disc and handed it back to Barron.

  “Hold on to this. You’re going to need it,” I said.

  He looked puzzled. “Why would I need it?”

  “You’ll find out in a few minutes. Douglas wants to brief us on the new protocols in The Bubble in an hour. He specifically said you should be there.”

  * * * *

  When we arrived at the American Embassy in the company of Mason Barron, unlike our previous visit, we were able to bypass the secondary security layer and go directly to an underground parking garage.

  From there, we got on an elevator that took us up to the fifth floor. When we stepped off the elevator, we followed Barron over to an unmarked door where he used his thumbprint to gain access to an anteroom.

  No one was inside the room.

  In fact, it was completely empty except for a gray wooden desk and a chair. When I’d been in the room several years ago, I’d been told to take a seat while the person behind the desk took my photograph.

  Now, Barron quickly walked over to a reinforced steel door where a face recognition scanner took a few seconds to run through a database before it acknowledged—with a flashing green light—that Mason Barron was authorized to use The Bubble.

  After seeing the green light, we heard the locks disengage and saw the door glide open. Once we were all inside, Barron pressed a lever on the handle that automatically caused the door to shut.

  Moments later, I heard the locking device reengage once again.

  Barron gestured toward a rectangular conference table with a dozen chairs around it. In the middle of the table were several bottles of water, a large basket of fruit, and a collection of foil-wrapped packages of mixed nuts—the mini-size packets usually handed out on short plane rides.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “It won’t take me but a minute to get the Ops Center online. Help yourself to some snacks.”

  After a few awkward moments of trying to make up my mind where I would sit—I didn’t want to take the center seat in the middle of the table where Carlton usually sat—I finally decided to take the chair at the end of the table, the one facing the video monitor.

  Taylor was on my right, with Delaney next to him, and Mitchell was seated on my left across from Taylor.

  Barron was at a desk in a corner of the room in front of three computer monitors. Besides the computer, other electronic equipment was there as well, including a variety of sound distortion hardware, plus an encryption device.

  “I apologize,” Barron said, as he began entering keystrokes on a keyboard. “If I’d known the Ops Center was going to brief us, I would have had everything set up already.” He glanced down at his watch. “This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, though.”

  “Take your time,” I said. “We’ve still got at least ten minutes before Douglas contacts us.”

  “Yeah, but you know how Douglas is about punctuality.”

  Everyone nodded.

  However, the first person to appear on the video monitor in The Bubble wasn’t Carlton.

  It was Olivia.

  The feed was coming from RTM Center C at Langley, and Olivia was seated at the center console in the control room. I thought she looked a little harried, like she hadn’t had her morning coffee.

  After adjusting her headset, she looked up at the screen and said, “Well, Titus, I hear you’re trying to make this operation as difficult as possible.”

  “I always do my best, Olivia. You know that.”

  She swiveled around in her chair and spoke to someone at the console next to her, and then she turned toward the camera and said, “We’re having a little difficulty bringing Douglas online right now, so Mason, while we’re waiting, give me a brief rundown on Stephen Gault.”

  “Sure, what would you like to know?”

  “I want to know if he had a tail on him when he left the airport or if anyone took an interest in him at the hotel when he arrived. Maybe you could also tell me why you weren’t able to spot his killer when you had eyes on his room from the moment he arrived.”

  Mason, who’d moved over to the conference table when Olivia’s image had appeared on the screen, didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by her accusatory tone.

  But then, as he began explaining his actions, he grabbed a bag of nuts and started taking them out of the foil-wrapped package one by one. Once the nuts were all out on the table, he lined them up in front of him.

  Every time he answered one of Olivia’s questions, he’d popped a few nuts in his mouth. Then, he’d rearrange the rows while he waited for her to ask him another question.

  It was hard to tell if his bizarre behavior was simply a manifestation of his innate hyperactivity or if Olivia’s questions were making him nervous.

  As I sat there listening to her questions, I suddenly realized she knew something was off about Barron’s surveillance of Gault.

  She knew an important piece of the puzzle was missing.

  If I were to supply her with the missing piece—that he’d dressed up as a bellboy so he could hang around the lobby—I figured it would complete the picture for her.

  I had no intention of doing that.

  Several years ago, Barron hadn’t said a word when I’d found myself in a similar situation.

  Now, to repay the favor, I decided to keep my mouth shut.

  Chapter 32

  Olivia and Barron were still playing verbal ping-pong when Carlton’s face finally appeared on one of the video monitors behind Olivia’s console.

  A few seconds later—by means of the split-screen setup in The Bubble—we were seeing the feed from RTM Center C at Langley and the feed from Carlton in the Marlize Refugee Camp at Somahi at the same time.

  When Olivia realized Carlton had come online, she stopped questioning Barron, and the next sound we heard was Carlton reciting the identification tag of the briefing for the official record.

  “Douglas Carlton briefing on Operation Rebel Merchant from EAI headquarters, Marlize Refugee Camp, Somahi, Yemen. Code 35698.”

  As usual, when Carlton was being recorded, he sounded a little stilted. “Due to the death of Stephen Gault, I’ve had to revise the protocols for Rebel Merchant. However, the operation’s objective remains the same as outlined in the Presidential Memorandum—to identify the location of Jacob Levin and return him to the United States. To that end, Olivia will update you on what we’ve learned about the situation in the Saudi Defense Ministry.”

  Olivia quickly described the political infighting going on between the different factions within the Defense Ministry. She attributed her intel to our allies—meaning, of course, the Israelis—who had verified that the assassination of Hasan Amari appeared to be an effort to reverse the position the Saudis had taken in Yemen.

  “There’s a good chance Stephen Gault’s murder was carried out by this same group,” she said, “although we probably won’t know anything for certain until his body is discovered. With any luck, that won’t happen until sometime tomorrow.”

  Olivia paused and looked up at the screen. “I’m just assuming one of you made sure the Do Not Disturb sign was on Gault’s door knob before you left his room.”

  Barron grimaced as if he hadn’t done this. “Oh, shoot,” he said, “I knew I was forgetting something.”

  “Don’t count on that sign keeping people out for long,” I said. “The hotel management is bound to start gettin
g complaints about a disturbing odor coming from Room 504 very soon.”

  “He’s right,” Barron said, “but the Saudi police are notoriously inept at processing a crime scene. Even after Gault’s body is discovered, it could be at least twenty-four hours before word reaches Jacob that Stephen Gault won’t be making the trip to Somahi.”

  “If the revised protocols are executed correctly, Jacob won’t hear of Gault’s death until he’s leaving Somahi,” Carlton said.

  “But won’t Jacob know something’s happened to Gault when he isn’t on the plane tomorrow?” Barron asked.

  “No, because I’ve decided to send you to Somahi in Gault’s place.”

  Barron looked genuinely shocked. “What?”

  “You’re about to become Stephen Gault in the flesh.”

  * * * *

  That announcement caused quite a stir in The Bubble, eliciting reactions as varied as the people who exhibited them.

  Mitchell immediately turned away from the video monitor and looked at me.

  I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking. He was trying to gauge whether I knew about Carlton’s decision prior to his announcement.

  I gave him what I hoped was a benign smile.

  Taylor, on the other hand, ignored me and stared across the table at Barron.

  Although it was impossible to read what Taylor was thinking, Delaney wasn’t as good at hiding her feelings. When she heard the news that Barron would be joining the Rebel Merchant team, she looked displeased.

  I had no idea whether Delaney’s reaction was due to what she perceived as Barron’s insensitive nature regarding Gault’s clothes, or whether she just didn’t like the man.

  Of course, she could have disagreed with Carlton’s decision in general, but that didn’t really make sense to me.

  Barron appeared oblivious to any of these reactions, because he was too busy accepting Carlton’s assignment.

  “Sure, I can be Stephen Gault. Why not?” He pointed to his shirt. “I already know his clothes fit me.”

  Carlton couldn’t have known what Barron was actually saying, but he nodded and said, “From the video I’ve seen of Gault, I’d say the two of you were about the same size. Naturally, you’ll need to get rid of your facial hair.”

  “I’ve got no problem with that.”

  “Okay, let’s talk about logistics then. Olivia, tell Mason how we’ll be tracking him once he gets to Yemen.”

  “Even though you’ll take your Agency phone with you,” Olivia said, “we want you to go ahead and attach the tracking device to Gault’s luggage. This is just a precautionary measure in case the person who’s sent to pick you up at the airport won’t allow you to keep your cell phone. You’ll also need to wear a body camera, preferably one with a built-in microphone.”

  Barron ticked off the names of wearable video cameras he had in his surveillance inventory—a list ranging from sunglasses to ball caps to silk ties—and once he and Olivia had settled on him using the sunglasses due to their longer battery life, she told him she’d already confirmed his flight reservation and sent his ticket—Gault’s ticket—to his Agency sat phone.

  “Titus,” Olivia said, “since there’s no longer any need to be concerned about Gault recognizing you, I’ve changed everyone’s plane reservations. The GNS crew is now on the same flight with Mason.”

  I nodded. “Okay, that works for me.”

  “Once you’re in your rental car, I’ll send you the feed from Mason’s video, and that way, you’ll be able to watch his back and see who meets him at the airport.”

  Olivia gave us a few more instructions involving the logistics of the operation, and then Carlton recited the exit logoff and signed us out of the briefing.

  When the monitor went dark, Barron shut down the equipment in The Bubble, and then we drove back over to our hotel together so he could pick up Gault’s suitcase.

  As soon as Barron entered the hotel suite, he walked over and attached the gray tracking device to an inside pocket of the suitcase.

  “Maybe I should try to decipher a few of the documents on this laptop in case someone questions me about the MODD system,” he said, tucking the laptop inside the suitcase.

  As I handed him Gault’s passport, I said, “I doubt if we’ll be in Somahi long enough for that to happen, but if someone questions you, just use all those big words you used when we were running that scam on Kamal Almakah. Talk about micro-electro systems, quadrants, fluid dynamics, abstruse technical jargon like that.”

  Barron wasn’t listening to me. He was too busy studying Gault’s passport photo. At first, I thought he wasn’t buying the resemblance.

  But, after several seconds, he stroked his beard and said, “Sure, once I shave this off, Stephen and I could pass for identical twins.”

  He dropped the passport in the suitcase and added, “As long as you have a good imagination and bad eyesight.”

  “If you think this is too risky, Mason, I could—”

  “No, are you kidding?” he said, slapping me on the back. “That’s the name of this game, isn’t it? We wouldn’t do it if it weren’t risky. You and I get high on the risks.”

  Was that true? Was I in the same category as Barron when it came to taking risks?

  “Why else would you have come over to Gault’s hotel if you weren’t into risk-taking?”

  Good question.

  * * * *

  After Barron left, the four of us went downstairs and had dinner in one of the Rosh Rayhaan’s restaurants.

  Taylor didn’t have much to say during the meal, and when Delaney and Mitchell decided to order dessert, Taylor excused himself by saying he needed to get some exercise.

  “I’ll go take a walk around the hotel grounds and meet you back upstairs in a few minutes,” he said.

  After he left, I made a similar excuse, although I wasn’t particularly interested in getting any exercise.

  I was only interested in calling Nikki.

  It was almost nine o’clock in the evening in Riyadh, but with the eight-hour time difference, it was only one o’clock in the afternoon in Norman. Even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk very long, just the thought of hearing her voice made my pulse quicken.

  Consequently, as soon as I walked a short distance past the swimming pool, I immediately sat down on a park bench and pulled my phone out of my pocket. However, before I had a chance to enter the number, Taylor walked up and sat down beside me.

  “Did you decide not to have any dessert?” he asked.

  “I thought a little solitude might do me more good,” I said, hoping he’d get the hint. “I can only take so much socialization.”

  “Yeah, I had you pegged for an introvert.”

  I smiled. “That’s me, all right. I happened to see a comment Douglas once wrote about me in a report. It said, ‘Works well with people; would prefer not to.’”

  He nodded. “My wife Kaylynn was like that. She never minded being by herself. Since I was gone all the time, that worked out pretty well for us. Eleanor is just the opposite, though.”

  I suddenly realized what was going on with Taylor, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with his needing to get some exercise.

  “You didn’t have much to say at dinner. Are you missing your daughter tonight?”

  He stared off in the distance and nodded. “We always do something together on Sundays. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I’m telling you, Titus. There’s no sweeter sound in all the world than the sound of Eleanor’s laughter.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so we sat there in silence for a moment or two.

  Suddenly, out of the blue, I had a preposterous idea, and I began entering numbers on my phone’s keypad. “What’s your daughter’s phone number?”

  He stared at me. “Are you crazy? We aren’t allowed to make an overseas call to an unsecured phone in the middle of an operation.”

  “I’m not calling an unsecured phone.”

  * * * *


  When Nikki answered my call, I felt my heart skip a beat, and even with Taylor sitting next to me, I immediately blurted out how great it was to hear her voice.

  She laughed and said, “It’s great to hear you too, and I’m so glad you called today, because we’re about to make an arrest in the Stadium Killer case and I wanted to—”

  “As much as I’d love to talk to you, Nikki, I need you to do me a big favor right now.”

  “Is everything okay? You sound different.”

  “I’m sitting here with one of my partners. His name is Jeremy Taylor, and I’m pretty sure he’d love to say a few words to his eight-year-old daughter right now. Would you mind patching her through to this call? Her name is Eleanor.”

  “Of course not. What’s the number?”

  I handed the phone to Taylor, who looked at me as if he didn’t quite believe this was really happening, but within seconds of giving Nikki his daughter’s phone number, I heard him say, “Eleanor, this is Daddy. How are you, honey?”

  I tried to give him a little privacy by walking a few feet away from the bench, but I hardly think my presence mattered to him.

  By the time he handed me back my phone, he was grinning from ear to ear.

  “I think your fiancée is still on the line,” he said.

  “Hi, Nikki,” I said. “I’ll try to call you again soon, but my schedule for the next few days is a little uncertain.”

  “It’s enough to hear your voice and to know you’re okay. I’m praying for you, Titus. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Nikki.”

  I was surprised to see tears in Taylor’s eyes when I slipped my phone back in my pocket.

  “I don’t know how I can thank you enough for doing that for me, Titus.”

  “You can thank me by not mentioning this phone call to anyone else. I left an Agency sat phone in a briefcase Nikki’s keeping for me, but Douglas wouldn’t be happy if he knew I’d been so careless. There isn’t much chance he’d believe it was an accident either.”