by Ken Hansen
“Sounds routine for you guys,” Huxley replied.
“Sure, but then a few days ago, the same scenario occurred under another bridge. Again, the warhead was returned without any problems.” Jinnah leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table and his chin on his fist. “But what are the chances of two flat tires on these two highly-maintained trucks in a few weeks? And there are only a few highway bridges in the whole region.”
“Was it the same crew?”
“Good question,” Jinnah said. “No, we rotate people among crews to prevent any possible conspiracies. The two crews were led by the same captain, however. We asked him about the coincidence, and he just replied, ‘Can you believe my luck?’ There was a minor investigation, but nothing came of it since the warheads were returned.”
Huxley leaned back and gestured wide with his arms. “Why are you telling me this if the warheads were returned? Shouldn’t you just take up additional security measures with your commanders?”
“Because I fear the warheads were not returned.”
“What? Why? Don’t they check the GPS, RFID and nuclear signatures when they return the devices to storage in Khushab?”
“Yes,” Jinnah said, “but I wondered if those devices could be moved and the signatures faked. You do not need the nuclear codes to remove the GPS and RFID devices. The captain might have had access to those if he got close to his commanding officer. And any of the fissile material left behind would still create the gamma ray and neutron signatures when they were returned to the depot. I raised this possibility with my commanding officer and he told me he would he would look into it. Then I got stonewalled for a couple of days. When I finally reached him, he said he was told to stand down and that this was just a coincidence of two flat tires since all of the warheads were accounted for. He said any independent investigation would go nowhere.”
“And so?”
“So now I worry there is some kind of cover-up.”
“Ahmed, look, I trust your instincts, but in this case it feels like you are making something of nothing. Flats happen. Frankly, your roads suck. If they tell you the warheads were returned, why would you possibly think there was something else wrong here?”
“Well, I asked to interview the captain of the two crews again as part of a follow-up investigation. I am supposed to have access to all nuclear personnel. His commanding officer refused. He told me the captain had been reassigned to the north. I said I would travel there, and he said the captain was currently indisposed in a highly classified mission. Something didn’t seem right, so I employed a little surreptitious security clearance I had obtained when helping my commanding officer with his computer a month ago.”
“You hacked his password?”
“Hacking is such a harsh sounding word, my friend. I prefer to say that I managed to discover some internal intel that eventually proved useful.”
Huxley winked. “Cute.”
“Well, without it, I would not be meeting with you here. You see, with the password, I was able to access the classified personnel logs, and I discovered that all of the soldiers from both crews, including the elusive captain, had gone AWOL.”
“Crap.”
“That is what I did when I read it,” Jinnah said, “right in my pants.”
Chapter 40
Although Ken Mayer had not sounded happy to be awakened in the wee hours of a Washington morning, he had perked right up when Huxley told him he was worried about some Pakistani nukes going AWOL. “How sure?” he had asked, his low voice reverberating through the phone with a hint of incredulity.
Huxley had revealed neither his source nor the details but had pointed to the Kirana Hills region with a few dates and asked Mayer to check it out. Now some eight hours later, bleary and red-eyed from chasing a sleep that his racing mind would not permit, Huxley sat slumping on the edge of the bed. He pulled out his phone and hit the button for Mayer.
“Huxley, I was just about to call you,” said Mayer on the phone. “I think your intel is shaky at best. The satellite analysts have spent the day looking at data from that area and they swear no Pakistani warheads have gone anywhere we did not expect them to be.”
“The satellites might not have picked it up,” responded Huxley.
“Bullshit. They might lose a signature for a few seconds here and there, but they wouldn’t just miss a warhead going astray for long.”
“You are forgetting about the Israeli chemist kidnapping. The satellites might not be picking anything up because the terrorists are deploying his technology to cover their tracks.”
“Shit. Wait a second, there is no way they could have duplicated that research already.”
Huxley shook his head. “How do you know that? We don’t even know the technology yet.”
“Your Israeli contact told us any duplication would take a couple of months.”
“It was his best guess. Now I’m guessing that the chemist might have been sufficiently motivated to rush it through. He wasn’t creating this from whole cloth, you know. He just needed a lab to duplicate the process.” There was nothing but silence on the other end. Huxley continued, “Look, Mayer, are you willing to take a risk on a nuclear terrorist based on a guesstimate from an Israeli captain? We need to do something and now. We need to get the Pakistanis to come clean on this.”
Mayer said, “You haven’t told me enough to escalate this to political. Who is your contact? I need to know if he is reliable.”
“He is very reliable. I trust him. But I can’t tell you his name. It would mean his certain death if it were inadvertently released.”
“Look, you aren’t a journalist protecting a source here. This is CIA. We are not going to let others know the names of our operatives.”
Huxley bit his lip and closed his eyes. That may be true, but then again someone in CIA was working against him here. It might even be Mayer. “I understand, but I can’t give it up. He has gone way out on a limb and I’m not going to put him in danger. Can you at least start making some inquiries through official or unofficial channels to see what you can find out from the Pakistanis?”
“I’ll see what I can do, but I need more info from you.” Huxley told him the story of the flat tires and Mayer was still unimpressed. Then he told him the soldiers had all gone AWOL. “Shit,” said Mayer.
“I preferred ‘crap,’” Huxley said.
“What took you to Pakistan in the first place?”
“Just checking out an old mosque for some inspiration.”
“Oh, did you decide to visit it with a Pakistani friend?” Mayer asked.
Huxley’s forehead furrowed. What the hell is he getting at? “No.”
“Then why did you meet Ahmed Jinnah there?”
“You been following me?” Huxley asked.
“No, but we’ve had eyes on your friend, until recently.”
“Until recently?” Huxley asked.
“Yeah, until he disappeared after your meeting last night. I suggest you sit tight until we can find out what’s going on.”
After the call, Huxley sat on his hotel bed a long time, staring at the wall. What the hell happened to Jinnah? Are the Pakistanis watching him as well? Pardus? Jinnah was scared, but he hadn’t seemed ready to run. What game is Mayer playing? He worried or trying to help? Forgot to tell Mayer about the next clue, though I still haven’t deciphered it completely. Got to get to that. Maybe a wild goose chase…someone trying to distract me…but then why take me to Pakistan where the action has been? Mayer will drag his feet on this, but I can’t just waltz into a Pakistani military facility asking questions. Maybe there’s another way to force a play…
After a long shower, Huxley found himself having a light breakfast in a small café across from his hotel. His eyes were still droopy despite a third cup of coffee. He needed to get back to that infernal puzzle. The main lies here all split apart in two. The Kalimah Istighfar had come from two sources, but he had already used those.
He looked back at Na
rjwa’s contacts entries. While the two phone entries in the Christian Huxley contact remained, nearly everything else had been used for a clue. The information in the Maryam Huxley contact seemed to have been exhausted. He had even used that strange “No, a dozen times at least” to figure out the poem. Wait. He turned back to the Christian Huxley contact. There at the bottom under notes was another strange entry: “Mobile-Other: Main.” Main. That must be it. The main was split apart into the mobile and other telephone numbers. They had to be used together somehow. He pulled them up and started doodling with his translation of the Kalimah Istighfar, but nothing came out of it.
Huxley’s phone began vibrating. It was Kira. “Hey kid, you got something good for me? I could use a pick-me-up.”
“Always hoping to get you up, boss.” She cleared her throat. “I mean I’d like to wake you up early just to compensate for all of the sleep you keep stealing from me.”
“I’m sorry, but I seem to have lost my sympathy pail today. Haven’t slept myself for more than a day.”
“You that busy or should I be worried?”
“You’d be the first to know,” Huxley replied. “What do you have?”
“We cross-referenced the names from Yadin with the names we were able to pull on Florence. Came up with a dozen people. I went through their backgrounds in Florence and a couple popped up with minor arrests. Nothing too significant.”
“We don’t know why Tocelli called the guy a snake, so let’s check them both out.”
“I did,” she said. “One is already dead of a heart attack. I ran the other by Tocelli’s sister. She didn’t know him. Said she doubted her brother would have either, but she couldn’t be sure. We are having him followed right now. He’s here in the States. Seems to be on vacation in New York. Nothing suspicious so far.”
“Good. Is that all?”
“Not exactly,” she said.
“No?”
“No. I personally think that guy is just a guy.”
“Why is that?” Huxley asked.
“Because with a little more digging I found something a bit more interesting.”
“Please, entertain me. Maybe I’ll even find a smile.”
“Remember you thought there was a Vatican connection of some sort?”
Huxley rubbed his forehead. “Don’t tell me the pope is from Florence.”
“Funny,” Kira said. “No, he’s from the other hemisphere, remember?”
“Okay. So what is the connection?”
“Well it’s not really a connection, more of a disconnection.”
“Don’t get cute. I’m too tired.”
“All right. It seems there was a former cardinal visiting Israel during those three weeks—Armondo Fine. Although he wasn’t originally from Florence, he did serve as a bishop there while Tocelli was growing up.”
“Fine as in wine? That can’t be right. How do you spell it?”
“F. I. N. E.”
“That’s pronounced ‘Fine’ in Italian. The ‘i’ is more like a long e and the e is not silent but soft. Anyway, you said former cardinal?”
“Sure did,” she said. “The Vatican stripped him of his position and even his ordination as a priest a few years ago. ‘Defrocked,’ the press calls it, but its not like they ripped the clothes off him or anything. He had been working at the Vatican itself. Some thought the dismissal came because he was caught up in some of the pedophile scandals the Church was going through at the time, but the Vatican categorically denied it. They simply announced that his behavior was inimical to Church teachings and only the Church was harmed, so all information about the situation would remain within the Church. Since then, he has pretty much disappeared and been forgotten.”
“Why do you think he’s the one?”
“Tocelli’s sister said Dante was an altar boy for the bishop in his early teenage years. Dante never liked the man.”
Huxley grinned. “Sounds like a winner. Can we get some eyes on him?”
“Sure, if we could find him. He returned to Italy last week. Haven’t located him yet.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Well done,” said Huxley.
“Thanks, Boss. We make a good team, don’t you think?”
“A good team?”
“Sure,” Kira replied, “you solve the first piece, I solve the next. You solve another piece, and that helps me find another. Teamwork. And eventually the whole puzzle falls into place.”
A strange, searching look came on Huxley’s face. “Say that again.” After she repeated the words, he said, “Team, hell, maybe you are the head coach and I am just a scrub. Thanks, Kira.”
“Sure thing…I think…scrub.”
He hung up the phone and looked back at his latest puzzle and started scribbling and talking to himself, “Take one and then another back and forth until the puzzle falls into place.” There it was. The main clue had been split apart one by one into the “mobile” number, 723-135-1171, and the “other” number, 413-333-4011. He needed to re-mate the two in order, one by one, to make the main clue, which then would be 7-4; 2-1; 3-3; 1-3; 3-3; 5-3; 1-4; 1-0; 7-1; and 1-1. The first ordinal of each pair was probably the word, the second the letter. He applied that in order to the Kalimah Istighfar, starting with the seventh word and fourth letter and continuing from there, underlining each letter as he went:
I seek forgiveness from Allah, my Lord, from every sin I committed knowingly or unknowingly, secretly or openly, and I turn towards Him from the sin that I know and from the sin that I do not know. Certainly You, You are the knower of the hidden things and the Concealer of the mistakes and the Forgiver of the sins. And there is no power and no strength except from Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.
For a moment he was stuck. 1-0? How could there be a zero position letter in a word? He looked at what he had already. The code must include a two-digit word-letter combination: instead of 1-0 and 7-1, it was 17-01. That worked and gave him the full clue:
I seek forgiveness from Allah, my Lord, from every sin I committed knowingly or unknowingly, secretly or openly, and I turn towards Him from the sin that I know and from the sin that I do not know. Certainly You, You are the knower of the hidden things and the Concealer of the mistakes and the Forgiver of the sins. And there is no power and no strength except from Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.
“Democracy.” The “Apostle of Democracy.” That had to be right. He searched the Internet and found the names of several people in history with that nickname, including Francisco Madero and Lucy Maynard Salmon. Neither sounded right.
There was someone else, something from a childhood field trip. Then he saw it in the search: “Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the U.S., had many nicknames, among them ‘Apostle of Democracy.’” So what now? Was he supposed to travel to Monticello again, to the Jefferson Memorial or to some other Jeffersonian site?
He searched Najwa’s contacts list for “Jefferson.” No results. He searched “Thomas” and it pulled up several entries with the first name “Thomas.” Eventually, he stopped at the one entry that listed “Thomas” as a last name: “Jeff Thomas, III.” Bam! Sure enough, the address was in DC, near the tidal pool that reflected the Jefferson Memorial. Looks like I need to go home. Then he remembered why he hadn’t slept all night. No way he could leave Pakistan just yet.
Chapter 41
On his way to the Khushab Nuclear Complex, Huxley drove slowly north along the Sargodha-Faisalabad Road, looking a mile to the west through his powerful binoculars. He saw the roads of the restricted Sargodha Air Base leading around and under the strange rocky peaks of the Kirana Hills rising dramatically above the flat plain surrounding them. Though he had seen more on the CIA’s satellite surveillance photographs, his direct presence at a site always seemed to lead him to a deeper understanding. Given the level of security around the base, Ahmed Jinnah and the CIA reports had been right: the hills acted as one of the main repositories of M-11 missiles. But the missiles didn’t really matter now, si
nce they seemed to have been ignored by the terrorists. Instead, the missiles merely explained the presence of warheads travelling around the roads nearby. Could he spot a warhead truck just by looking at it? Probably not.
Huxley found a little turnaround on the road and pulled over. He watched a few trucks go by for twenty minutes or so. They all looked like legitimate commercial vehicles, with no additional armor plating visible.
So Jinnah had disappeared. Maybe he’d been arrested by the Pakistan army. Or worse? With Jinnah gone and Mayer likely dragging his feet, he had to light a fire under Mayer’s ass somehow. Then there was Cardinal Armondo Fine. Well, he’s not a cardinal anymore. He needed to follow up on that. Hell, there’s no time like the present. He could try his informal source first.
Sonatina answered on the second ring. “Chris? I was worried about you. Did you go to Pakistan? To the mosque?”
“I did, but I’m calling for something else.” Shit, wrong tone. I sound dismissive and I shouldn’t be, at least not by her reckoning. Put your skepticism aside. She needs to feel the love.
She had not. Sonatina responded quietly, “Is everything ok?”
“Sure, just having a tough day. How you been?” There, much better.
“Fine. Things are a little boring here since you left.”
“What,” he asked, “no bombs going off around the country? I seem to be attracting those lately.” That had felt about right: a little dark humor disguised as light banter.
“You do seem to attract trouble. Maybe I should wear a flak jacket on our next date.”
He laughed. “It might be awhile with this mess. I do need to ask you an important question, though.”
