Trapping Zero

by Jack Mars

  The night turned colder, a chilly wind blowing through camp as Reid followed Flagg, two of his guys, and bin Saddam to one of the bland steel domes hastily erected in no particular order around H-6. The sergeant hefted the heavy door open and Reid entered.

  He had been in one of these structures before, when interrogating the fake Mustafar. There were no windows or openings other than the single steel door, and the inside was lit by a single depressingly bare bulb hanging from a socket at the peak of the ten-foot domed ceiling. There was no furniture but a single metal folding chair. The floor was dirt, packed tightly from boots and bare feet, save for a single square iron grate right in the center of the ground. Beneath that grate, Reid knew, was a hole about six feet wide by eight feet deep, where the worst of the worst were thrown and forgotten.

  “You need anything?” Flagg asked. “Knives? Pliers? Another cup of joe?”

  “No thanks,” Reid said. “I think we’ll be just fine.”

  “Alright. Give a shout if you change your mind. One of my guys will be right outside.” Awad bin Saddam was unceremoniously shoved into the room with Reid, and the door was closed tightly.

  The stout man before him sank to his knees, his hands still bound behind his back. He muttered something rapid and largely unintelligible—a prayer, Reid recognized after a moment. A prayer to Allah to spare his life.

  Reid paced in front of him, saying nothing, biding his time. Ordinarily he would have been trying to ascertain what sort of man bin Saddam was, but he already knew the answer. He was a coward. He had let his men die at the hands of the Division while he hid in a chest. He was not looking for a glorious death into the waiting hands of his creator; he wanted to live.

  And he will. In the hole beneath our feet, for the rest of his life.

  It was only a few minutes before a shrill sound floated to them, dim and distant behind the steel wall of the adjacent domed structure, but still entirely audible.

  Reid knelt beside bin Saddam and said in whispered Arabic, “Do you hear that? Those are the screams of your comrades. Soon those screams will stop, and they will tell my colleagues everything they know. Then we will compare stories, and if anyone’s does not match up, they will die.”

  Bin Saddam trembled visibly, staring at the dirt floor.

  “I don’t think you want to die, Awad bin Saddam.” Reid stood and resumed his pacing. “Usually, in a case like this, I would hurt you very badly, and then I would ask questions. But I don’t think I need to do that today. I think you’re going to tell me what I want to know, and I think you’re going to be honest, and I can keep my hands free of blood. Is that right?”

  “Y-yes,” the man stammered.

  “Good. That’s very good. Let’s begin then.” Reid grabbed the metal folding chair and set it a few feet in front of bin Saddam, and then he sat and leaned with his elbows on his knees. “My first question is this: where is Abdallah bin Mohammed?”

  “Dead,” bin Saddam said softly. “He died of a heart attack in the night, several days ago.”

  “And you took power of the Brotherhood in his wake?” Reid asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But it was bin Mohammed that financed the bombing of the embassy,” said Reid. “You have access to his accounts?”

  “No. His son lives, Hassan bin Abdallah bin Mohammed.”

  “Hassan. Was he among those remaining at the compound when we arrived?”

  Bin Saddam shook his head. “No.”

  “So Hassan was not there. And I counted only eight men, including you, in a compound fit to accommodate many more. So.” Reid leaned forward further, his face less than a foot from bin Saddam’s. “How many others are there? And where did they go?”

  “I…” The man shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Reid sighed disappointedly and stood, reaching into his pocket for the tactical folding knife that Strickland had given him before their raid on the compound. He made a show of slowly snapping the knife’s blade open, and then walked around in a wide semicircle so that he was standing behind bin Saddam, who trembled and tried to crane his neck to see the blade.

  “What… what are you going to do?” the terrorist leader fretted.

  “Hold still.” Reid bent and flicked the knife across the zip cord holding bin Saddam’s wrists together. But before the man could pull his hands away, Reid grabbed onto his left and twisted it up. Bin Saddam twisted his neck as far as he could, his eyes wide in fear as Reid pressed the razor-sharp tip of the knife against his palm, threatening to pierce flesh.

  “Now,” Reid growled, his voice low, “you’re going to tell me where Hassan and the others went, or I am going to drive this knife through your hand.”

  “Please!” the man whimpered. He tried to pull away, but Reid held him still. “I don’t know! I am telling you, I don’t know…”

  “You do know!” Reid shouted down at him. “It was your plan! You wanted us to know your name, and now we know it. You threatened that there would be more attacks. Tell me…”

  He trailed off. The man was quivering head to toe, and then came the telltale sound of trickling water as the insurgent lost control of his bladder.

  Reid dropped the hand and took a step back, more in bewilderment than disgust as a thought flashed across his mind: This is not the demeanor of the leader of a radical terrorist faction.

  “You’re not him, are you?” Reid muttered in English. “You’re not bin Saddam.”

  “Kent!” Maria’s voice blared suddenly in his radio earpiece, startling him. “Kent, that detainee with you, he’s not bin Saddam. He’s not the leader.”

  Reid put a finger to his ear and responded, “I was just realizing that myself. Give me a minute to figure this out.” He looked down at the whimpering, trembling man before him. But there was no remorse; not only was this man a coward, but a liar as well. Reid’s anger swelled, and Agent Zero took over.

  He kicked out one leg, planting his shoe in the center of the man’s sternum and knocking him onto his back. Reid dropped one knee onto his chest, and pressed the blade of the knife against the side of the insurgent’s face. The man’s arms flailed in a weak attempt to defend himself, but Reid knocked them aside easily.

  “You are not Awad bin Saddam,” he hissed in Arabic. “So who are you really? Tell me, or I will cut the flesh from your face.”

  “Tarek!” the man shouted. “My name is Tarek!” He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, tears eking from their corners. “I was Abdallah’s attendant, nothing more… I am a faithful Muslim, but I am not like them. I don’t wish harm on anyone!”

  “But you did harm people,” Reid said angrily. “Maybe not directly, but you were complicit in the bombing of the embassy that claimed more than fifty lives.”

  “I did not know!” Tarek protested. “Awad was very secretive with his plans. He did not tell any of us until the bombs were already underground!”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Reid steadied his hand, resisting the urge to push the blade into the man’s cheek. “Why did you give bin Saddam’s name as your own?”

  “I thought it would keep you from killing me,” Tarek said quickly. “He told me… he told me I would always have a place there, even after Abdallah’s death. When he left with the others, he allowed me to stay behind. But now I see why.” Tarek panted, his chest heaving. “Please! I cannot breathe!”

  Reid relented slightly, not moving the knife but lifting his knee an inch. Tarek sucked in a deep breath.

  “You were his scapegoat,” Reid said, already realizing what he meant. “He left you and the others behind so that when we raided the compound we would think we had caught up to the Brotherhood.”

  “Yes.”

  “When did Awad leave?” Reid demanded.

  “This morning,” Tarek panted. “He released Abdallah’s wives and sent them to relatives in Al-Fallujah. Then he left with twelve others, and the Israeli…”

  “The third journalist?” Reid said in surprise. “He lives?�
�

  “Yes, he lives. Awad said he would be useful, to get them where they needed to go.”

  Reid stood, taking the knife away from Tarek’s face. Where they needed to go? he thought. Where would an Israeli journalist be able to go that they couldn’t…?

  He nearly smacked himself in the forehead. The answer seemed obvious. Under threat of pain or death, the journalist might be able to smuggle them into Israel.

  “Think hard,” Reid told Tarek. “Is there anything else, anything at all that might help us find the Brotherhood? Your life depends on it.”

  “I… I…” Tarek stammered, his gaze flitting back and forth across the dirt floor as he struggled to think of something. Then his attention snapped up to Reid. “Yes! Yes, there is something else. Two days ago, there was a visitor at the compound, a Libyan arms dealer. We had encountered this man before. I am not aware of what he and Awad spoke of privately, but I did catch one thing… he told Awad that he would have something new, something that not even Hamas had.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Tarek said. “That’s all I heard. I swear it.”

  Reid huffed. He believed that it was all Tarek knew—at least in the moment, under duress as he was. Given time he might recall more that could be useful, but time was the one thing Reid couldn’t afford.

  He pounded twice on the metal door and the soldier on the other side pulled it open for him. “Put him in the hole,” Reid told him. “If he says anything that sounds useful, we want to know about it. And tell Flagg I need the Gulfstream ready as soon as possible.”

  As the soldier entered the domed structure, Reid strode out, working through what he knew as quickly as he could. Bin Saddam mentioned in his video that the Brotherhood has a “divine purpose.” They have an Israeli hostage to get them “where they need to go.” Assuming that’s Israel, and they’ve already bombed an embassy in Iraq…

  He sucked in a breath as he realized the target. It all fit: religious doctrine, a political strike, a hostage Israeli. The Brotherhood was going to strike at the Chosen City.

  He put a finger to his ear. “Maria, Strickland, I need you out here now. I think I know the next target. It’s the US embassy in Jerusalem.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  The Gulfstream hurtled towards the capital of Israel, barely a one-hour flight from Baghdad at the jet’s top speed. Reid could not help but pace the aisle; there was little else he could do until they landed.

  Maria ended her call and announced, “The embassy is cleared out. The evac didn’t take long; there aren’t many people there this time of night. Additional troops have been called in to create a perimeter, and EOD is en route.”

  “Israeli authorities are searching for any suspicious persons within remote-detonation range of the embassy,” added Strickland. “If they’re there, they’ll find them.”

  “Good,” Reid muttered as he paced.

  Maria frowned. “You say that, but it doesn’t seem like you’re all that pleased about this.”

  “I just can’t help but wonder why,” he said. “Why the embassies?”

  She shrugged. “Why did Al-Qaeda bomb the embassies in Kenya and Nairobi in ninety-eight? We’re not talking about people that think the same way as we do, Kent. We’re talking about terrorists whose goal is to hurt and kill; fanatics that think they’re doing their duty to God.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed, “I know that. It’s just… that man, Tarek, he said something else that I can’t get out of my head. He said that an arms dealer visited their compound, promising the Brotherhood something new. Something that not even Hamas had. Plastic explosives aren’t exactly cutting edge. It feels like there’s more to this.”

  “Whatever it is,” Strickland offered, “it would have to be small enough to smuggle over the border. We’re not talking tanks or anti-aircraft missiles here. But anything that small—like mortars, or even some new style of RPG—would take fifty or more in concert to do even close to the damage they did in Iraq.”

  “True,” Reid agreed. “And bin Mohammed was wealthy, but not nearly wealthy enough to afford even a small warhead. Unless this Libyan cut them some sort of deal?”

  “We don’t have enough info to make that guess,” said Strickland.

  “Any chance the CIA has a bead on big-time Libyan arms dealers?” Reid hoped.

  “They’re looking into it,” the younger agent told him, “but so far it’s a shot in the dark. We’d need more information…”

  “Wait a second.” Maria snatched up the tablet that held the case files of their op and swiped her finger rapidly across the screen. “When I was on the trail of the Israeli journalists, I remember reading something… Ah! Here it is. Yosef Bachar, the Israeli that died in the embassy explosion, wrote an expose seventeen months ago about Hamas. They had purchased several unmanned drones with the intention of using them to drop bombs on their targets. But they couldn’t just smuggle the drones into Gaza; they would have been discovered. So instead they had the drones disassembled, and they had an engineer on the other side to put them back together again.”

  “But it didn’t work?” Strickland asked.

  “It almost did,” Maria said. “But at a random checkpoint, a soldier who was studying engineering just happened to recognize the parts for what they were. Bachar was along for the raid that discovered their plot.”

  “Drones,” said Strickland thoughtfully. “This Brotherhood, they were ejected from Gaza by Hamas. Maybe they feel that they have something to prove—to succeed where Hamas failed.”

  “Hmm.” Reid stroked his chin. It made sense, and it would bring the Israeli journalists’ kidnapping full-circle if Bachar was the one that broke the story. “Let’s not take any chances. Alert the authorities in Jerusalem to keep an eye on the skies.” Reid very much doubted that the Brotherhood was going to detonate in the middle of the night, but if they realized that their plot was discovered they might get desperate. “And tell them we’ll be there soon.”

  *

  It was after midnight by the time the three CIA agents arrived at the established perimeter around the US embassy in Jerusalem, but the flashing lights of emergency vehicles lit up the night as if it was day. Military, fire, rescue, police, ambulances—there was no shortage of personnel on-hand to combat whatever threat might initiate before their eyes.

  But to Reid’s relief and chagrin in equal measure, there did not seem to be any immediate threat.

  The three CIA agents were led to the cordoned perimeter by a uniformed IDF commando, a stoic member of the Israeli Special Forces who said nothing but a gruff “this way” as he directed them towards a waiting black van. The sliding door of one side was open, and inside was a mobile command center, complete with a computer array and two swiveling chairs bolted to the floor.

  A woman emerged to greet them—though “greet” was hardly the most appropriate way to describe it. She regarded each of them in turn, her gaze resting at last on Reid as she said, “Agent Talia Mendel, the Institute.” Her English was flawless and only lightly accented. “You are the agents that called this in?”

  “We are,” Reid confirmed, extending his hand. Agent Mendel did not take it. “Our intel suggests this embassy would be the Brotherhood’s next target.”

  “Based on what, precisely?” Talia Mendel folded her arms over a collarless faux leather jacket. Her black hair was short, in a style most Americans would call a pixie cut, and swept across her forehead over a pair of equally dark eyes. Below that, her mouth was set in a straight, dissatisfied line.

  “Interrogation,” Reid answered simply. “A detained member of the organization suggested that one of the Israeli journalists that were kidnapped was being used to smuggle members into Israel. After the bombing in Iraq, the embassy seemed the most likely goal.” Even as he explained it aloud, he could see in the woman’s eyes how it sounded to her—like he had leapt to a conclusion that was only obvious to him.

  “EOD has nearly finished a preli
minary sweep,” Agent Mendel told them. “Of course it will be hours until the building is clear, but nothing has yet been found.”

  “Did you have them check the basement level?” Reid asked hastily.

  “Based on your information, that was the first place they checked. But no bombs. Our forces are sweeping the area in a six-block radius, but nothing has been found.”

  A man from inside the van called to Agent Mendel in Hebrew. “Excuse me,” she said curtly as she climbed back into the van. “I will keep you updated.”

  Well, Reid thought, I guess I don’t know Hebrew.

  “Suddenly I’m not so sure we have this right,” Maria murmured.

  “It has to be here,” Reid insisted. “Nothing else fits.” He didn’t admit it out loud, but they hardly had enough information about the Brotherhood to try to fit any other pieces together.

  “Did she say she was from ‘the Institute’?” Strickland asked.

  Reid nodded. “She’s Mossad.” The full name of the Israeli organization responsible for covert operations and counterterrorism was HaMossad leModiʿin uleTafkidim Meyuḥadim, the translation of which was “the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.” It was one of the most clandestine agencies in the world, allegedly responsible for a number of secret anti-terrorist raids and dozens of successful assassination campaigns. It’s commonly known name, Mossad, was simply short for “the Institute.”

  He could guess at the reason for Talia Mendel’s seeming irritability. Though the embassy was technically considered American soil, US-Israeli relations dictated that the smaller nation lend a hand during a crisis such as this one. But Reid imagined that the Mossad agent had better things to do than oversee a search in the middle of the night for bombs that may or may not exist.

  “What if we beat them here?” Maria suggested. “What if the Brotherhood hasn’t had a chance to infiltrate the embassy? After all, we nailed their hacker.”