Retribution (10 page)

CHAPTER 13

 

A
s with most days, William Parker rose and left the lodge well before dawn.

Unlike other days, however, this time he wasn't coming back. Nor was he packing for a normal trip. In fact, in his top dresser drawer he left his watch, wallet, and all of his other personal possessions.

This should be interesting,
Parker thought as he drove away from the darkened lodge. The thought of some state trooper stopping him and his explaining that he didn't have a lick of identification amused him as he descended the mountain.

Comforting as far as her safety went, though no emotional consolation for either of them. He thought of her, still in bed, pretending to be asleep, and he began to regret his decision. They hadn't said anything about it the night before. She didn't want him to go, but she also knew it would be a mistake to do anything but let him complete the mission.

Parker shook his head and reminded himself it was too late to rethink the situation. No, all that mattered now was that if Clark needed help, Shane Stidham would move heaven and earth to assist her.

Parker pulled his truck out onto the highway, heading north. A deep ache began to throb in his shoulder. He squeezed his fist, again, and then a third time.

Like all wounded, Parker knew when the barometer was dropping.

North to Atlanta. Leave the truck there in long-term parking.
He laughed.
Maybe very long-term.

Parker didn't want anything that could be trailed back to the lodge. A flight with his twin airplane might leave a record on the several Internet sites that tracked the movement of aircraft. From Atlanta, Scott would have a Gulfstream waiting at the FBO.

Every move involved some level of risk. Parker knew that. It didn't bother him. William Parker wasn't a fearful man.

He rubbed his face and the stubble of his new, growing beard with one hand as he drove past the Chevron station in Cusseta. Pickups had stopped at each of the pumps, coughing up clouds of exhaust in the cold, predawn morning. Several had trailers with four-wheelers, all heading toward the woods, all trying to get to their deer stands well before the first light.

And Sadik Zabara?
Parker thought as he headed north.

CHAPTER 14

 

A
li Sitwa continuously played with his short beard, unconsciously twisting the hair as he stood, waiting, under the arrow sign. The meeting point was Heathrow's arrow sign, which was just beyond the customs release gate. Everyone knew of the arrow sign, and if by chance one didn't, the crowd of waiting people just beyond the gate made for an unmistakable signal.

Sadik Zabara was a stranger to Sitwa. But he, like everyone who worked at his London newspaper, was familiar with Zabara's reputation. Zabara had survived the worst of the ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian war, becoming a Muslim legend. His posts to the
Oslobo
enje
newspaper recorded three years of the brutal bloodshed, during which time Muslims were dragged out into the streets on a daily basis, begging for their lives, only to be knifed or shot or raped by the drunken Serbian death squads. Zabara and his wife managed to escape the purges in the attic above a neighbor's shop, like a modern-day Anne Frank, living on cold
kupus
and
grah.
His host, a Serbian farmer who couldn't stomach the death squads, became, like few in mankind's history, a hero who protected a fugitive family from its predators. It was truly a miracle that the Muslim journalist had survived.

Al-Quds Al-Arabi
had become the media lifeblood of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Great Britain. Readers as far away as Scotland and western Europe followed the paper's daily report of Muslim affairs. Zabara would extend
Al-Arabi
's already broad reach, perhaps dramatically.

A lanky man accompanied by a woman carrying a toddler on her hip pushed their luggage cart through the arrivals door. There could be no mistaking Zabara, though he appeared taller than Sitwa had expected. More expected was the poorly cut sandy hair, tight to the extreme on the sides and long and wavy on the top, and the stubble of several days' growth. Zabara's outfit—an off-green plaid shirt and brown trousers—appeared well worn and looked like the garb of someone who lived day-to-day in a poor country.

Sitwa had been told that Zabara was a pale Caucasian. This had come as a surprise. It was Mansoor's own prejudice to assume that a Muslim must be darker-skinned. At least he was able to recognize that prejudice and let it only be a passing thought. But it wasn't only the skin tone that raised Sitwa's eyebrows. As Zabara came closer, he looked much more fit than the newsman had expected.

The wife, however, had the look of a once-attractive woman who had lived through too many years of war and nights of fear. The baby girl, with her round face and large brown eyes, hung closely. But she didn't resemble either the mother who held her or the father who stood nearby. Her red, curly hair, in fact, seemed quite her own. Nor did she match their relatively advanced age.

Sitwa looked more closely at Zabara's wife. She was well-proportioned for a woman in her mid-forties, although her shape was well camouflaged by an oversized orange-and-blue coat that looked like a decade-old ski jacket. Where it hung open, Sitwa could see a rather slim waist. She carried two stuffed plastic shopping bags marked with the name of some store in Sarajevo, and he pushed a cart that carried three bulging suitcases that were well worn and frayed on the edges. Stacked on top of the suitcases were two rolled-up prayer rugs tied tightly with hemp.

“
As sala'amu alaikum, Sadik Zabara
.” Much shorter than his newly arrived employee, Sitwa looked up into Sadik's light blue eyes.

“
Walaikum as sala'am
.”

The two men briefly hugged as Zabara's wife looked on. She seemed sad, and her eyes were flat and distant.

“You must be Mr. Sitwa of
Al-Arabi
?”

“Yes, I am, and welcome to Great Britain. We are all excited about having you on at the paper.” For now, both Sitwa and Zabara spoke broken, heavily accented English.

It had surprised Sitwa when his usually cautious editor had suggested hiring the Bosnian journalist. Sitwa's boss was a man who always chose the safe route, eschewing stories about jihad for the tame lifestyle articles that pleased advertisers. One day, though, when an argument over the paper's vision heated up with his editorial board, the editor told everyone to submit a list with three names on it.

“You think there is a problem here. So you give me names and we will see.”

Several had put Sadik Zabara on their lists—a bold gesture indeed, since Zabara was well known for editorials that announced the end of the bin Laden era and called out for a new leader of the jihad.

The greatest shock of all had come when Sitwa's editor had told him to contact Zabara with an offer of employment.

Zabara smiled broadly and put his hand on Sitwa's arm. “I am honored to be here and write for
Al-Arabi
.”

The baby started to fuss, then cry.

Zabara's wife comforted her. “
Otac, otac, otac . . .
”

The child kept crying.

“Such a young child.”
For middle-aged parents,
Sitwa was thinking.

“Ah.” Zabara smiled. “She is our niece. The daughter of my wife's younger sister.”

Sitwa didn't need to ask. The child's mother would not have let her daughter go abroad with her aunt and uncle if she were still alive. In all likelihood, both of the child's parents had been lost.

“
Otac
. . . What word is that?” Sitwa asked.

“Oh, it is just a child's word.” Zabara rubbed his hand on the child's head as the mother tried to silence her. Suddenly Zabara grimaced and clenched his fist; once, twice, and then a third time.

“Is your arm all right?

“Oh, yes. No problem. Too many hours on airplanes.”

“I have a car waiting. We have a flat for you on Spruce Hills in Walthamstow, just off of Forest Street. It's near Walthamstow Central Station. Very easy to get around.”

For centuries, the East End of London was the first stop for migrating people moving into Great Britain. It was near the docks. New immigrants would get off the boat and immediately settle in the nearest neighborhood. But the Olympics changed the city. Where tenants had once lived at arm's length, now there were large plazas and stadiums. Now the new immigrants wandered farther in from the river, huddling in neighborhoods of similar others. For Bosnian Muslims it became Walthamstow. It had become a haven for the growing Muslim population of London.

“Is it near the paper?”

“No. The paper is, unfortunately, on the other side of the city. But your flat is on a main road and within a short walk of the Victoria Line. The paper is just a few blocks from the Ravenscourt Park tube. Once you get the hang of it, you will be fine.”

Zabara smiled as he pushed the cart through the doors and followed Sitwa, who carried on the conversation while talking over his shoulder.

“Besides, there is a restaurant just a block away from your flat that serves
begove corba
.” Sitwa wasn't from Sarajevo and knew about the lamb stew only from what he was told, but he wanted Zabara to become comfortable with his new life.

“Really?” Zabara glanced at his wife.

Sitwa saw the ghost of a smile flit across her face.

“Yes, indeed. The restaurant is called Jehzh Café.”

“I am sorry about our flights,” Zabara said. “We were delayed almost a day in Vienna. Apparently, Lufthansa had made an error with our tickets.”

Sitwa had wondered why the trip had taken so long. He had expected Zabara the day before.

“It still is difficult coming out of Sarajevo,” Zabara continued.

His wife followed, quietly whispering to the little girl.

Perhaps her English is not very good,
Sitwa thought as they cut across the roadway to the pickup point. He began frantically waving his arm.

“There is our driver.”

He pointed to an old Volvo station wagon parked at the curb. Upon seeing Sitwa, the driver jumped out and opened up the hatch.

“It is good to have you at
Al-Arabi,
brother.” Sitwa lifted the first bag into the car. Like the others, it was heavy. It had to be. It, and the few others, contained all of this family's possessions. “And I must say . . . we are particularly excited about the invitation you have received.”

Zabara nodded thoughtfully. “Indeed.”

CHAPTER 15

 

T
he neurosurgery critical-care ward at Walter Reed Bethesda remained filled to capacity, as it had since the first IED injuries began to arrive in 2003. Head trauma had left countless soldiers in deep comas, the breathing machines continuously beating to a constant rhythm of inhale and exhale.

“WRNMMC?” Robert Tranthan smiled as he mumbled to himself. “Only the military could reduce Walter Reed's merger with Bethesda to WRNMMC.”

Tranthan had never been to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center before, but the neurosurgery floor quickly gave him a sense of the weight of the war. Most of the patients were young men with expressionless faces, shaved heads with long, horrific, Frankenstein-like scars over their skulls. A few were young women. The face of war had changed, IEDs being entirely nondiscriminatory.

“Excuse me?” he asked a doctor in the hall.

“Yes?” The neurosurgeon looked understandably impatient. She was on the twelfth hour of a fourteen-hour shift.

“I am trying to find out the status of a patient.”

“Are you a member of the family?”

“No, but perhaps you can tell me where the doctor is?”

Dr. Reynolds's eyes narrowed. “What do you need?”

Tranthan could have summoned the rear admiral in charge to come out on the floor to help him. But one thing the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency didn't need was to make this unplanned, unannounced visit to Walter Reed Bethesda become a public event.

Tranthan took his voice down a notch. “I'm sorry. Perhaps I said something I shouldn't have. I am told that a young lady who worked for me was up here. She was injured in a blast in Qatar.”

Instant recognition sparked in the doctor's eye. “Oh. Yes. She's in room 604.”

“Might I ask about her condition?”

“You know about the amputations of her legs. She has a traumatic brain injury with a loss of memory from the concussion caused by the blast.”

“You're the doctor?”

“I am the resident neurosurgeon. Dr. Anne Reynolds.” She held out her hand, in a very indifferent way, while tucking a chart under her arm. Clearly, to her the patient mattered far more than a “VIP” visitor.

“Thank you, Doctor. I'm Robert Tranthan.” Tranthan paused, not wanting to identify himself further. He shook her hand. “You say she had memory loss.”

“Yes, very common with traumatic brain injury. When she was first evaluated, they gave her a GCS score of six. Her Rancho is level five, but that may be very generous.”

“Forgive my ignorance. What do those tests mean?”

“Initially, we judge the severity of the brain injury by the Glasgow Coma Scale. Just with fourteen out of fifteen, she could have significant memory loss. She was a six.”

“Good God.”

“The Rancho Los Amigos Scale judges her present status.”

“So what is level five?” Tranthan had known it was bad, but he felt physically sick as the doctor explained.

“Our fives wander. They float in and out of conversations. Sometimes, briefly, you can get their attention, but their memories are all over the place.” The doctor was looking over Tranthan's shoulder, only partially engaged in the conversation.

“Will she get her memory back?”

“I couldn't predict that.” Dr. Reynolds reached over to the rack of charts and pulled another one from its slip. “She just came in. Her memory is spotty but somewhat recovered for her life before the explosion, but at best only up to a few months before the injury. She's a blank slate about what happened. My guess is that she will get some of her memory back, but never all of it.”

An unexpected note of compassion entered Dr. Reynold's tone as she took in Tranthan's expression, which must have been pitiable.

“The truth is, we really don't know. Some folks surprise us. Anything could happen.”

Tranthan stared down at the chart. In bold letters, it said
Margaret Elizabeth
O'Donald. Until now, he had forgotten what her middle name was.

“Like I said, she's in 604.” The doctor was already moving away.

“Thanks,” Tranthan said absently, then moved to follow Reynolds. “Excuse me, Doctor. If there is any change, please let me know.”

He handed Reynolds the business card of the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

She was the only patient in room 604 and seemed to be in a deep sleep—the machines continuously beeping in sync with her heartbeat. The room's window looked out across a courtyard, and the sunlight, through the open shades, illuminated her incredibly small figure in the bed. Small tents formed the shape of her legs that were no longer there. She looked pale and whiter than he ever remembered seeing her. He had always loved that natural tan she seemed to have inherited, with the striking black eyebrows and long, curling hair. But the black eyebrows now stood out against her pale white complexion.

He pulled up the chair and sat down next to her. The chair bumped the bed as he pulled it up alongside, and the slight bump caused her to wince and grimace in pain. She opened her eyes and smiled.

“Hey, you,” she said in a near whisper.

“Hey.”

“Is my car all right?”

He was confused by the question.

“Your car?”

“I just got it yesterday.”

“You must be Robert.” A nurse spoke from behind him.

Tranthan turned around as a woman with a clipboard and floral-printed scrubs in orange and black came into the room. A stethoscope hung around her neck. Her hair was cut short and gray with traces of black.

Tranthan stared at her.

“I am Nurse Cook. Billie Cook. Her nurse assigned to her care.”

“Ah, yes, I know who you are.” Tranthan had specifically approved her assignment. Billie Cook was a veteran staffer at the hospital and had a top-secret clearance. She had been told on day one that Maggie O'Donald worked for the Agency. A patient with a head injury who had worked in the intelligence field could mumble something to the wrong person. She had to be watched and those with access had to be limited.

“I appreciate your helping her.”

“She's a good patient, behaves herself, and doesn't get too wild.”

Maggie smiled.

“What is this about her car?”

“She believes that she was in a bad car wreck. This happens a lot with our patients that have suffered a concussion and memory loss.”

Tranthan pulled his chair back as the nurse slid past and began taking Maggie's blood pressure and pulse. Cook reminded him of his fourth-grade teacher. Her mannerisms were both stern and compassionate.

“She's come a long way. It's good for her to have a visitor.”

He knew what that meant. She had no family nearby. Maggie's father had died while she was at Stanford, and her mother had come down with fatal ovarian cancer soon after. She was gone only a few months after the diagnosis. Maggie cried on Tranthan's shoulder when the call came. Now, there was no one.

Tranthan looked at his watch. It wasn't that he was pressed with some more important engagement; it was a nervous reaction and inability to know how to handle the situation. The woman he had fallen in love with was no more.

“Could I ask a favor?” he asked Billie Cook.

“Sure.”

“I need to speak with Maggie alone for a second. It's about her work.”

Cook nodded curtly. “Okay, but you'll need to keep it short. She still doesn't have a lot of energy.”

“Certainly.”

Cook slid the door closed to the room. Since it was intensive care, each room was more like a glass-encased cubicle than a typical hospital room.

“Maggie. Do you remember what you were working on?”

“Sure, sure I do.”

“Riyadh—your source? You never said who your source was or what you had found.”

Maggie had protected her source. No one would know who the source was. It had taken months to develop that trust. Any hint that others knew and the source would be forever gone.

“I know it. I'm sure I know it.”

“Maggie, Patrick, your security officer?”

“Yes, how is Pat?”

“He's okay,” Tranthan lied. “There was a picture on his cell phone.” It was a miracle that the chip in the phone had retained anything retrievable. The phone, like Patrick, had been scattered in small pieces in the bomb's crater.

“A man was in a photo from a University of Michigan party.”

“Yes, I remember. Pat asked about him.”

“He's a Chechen named Umarov. Did you know him?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Maggie, it's important. Things are rolling. We need confirmation. Who was your source? Who was on the inside in Saudi Arabia? How did you contact him? How do we contact him?”

He didn't add that the Chechen would, at this moment, be looking for this person as well.

“I know it. Just let me think a minute.”

“We know it was probably one of the members of the royal family.”

“I know it.” Her face was twisted, in a confused look. “I'm sure I do.”

Tranthan heard the slide of the door behind him.

“Sorry. Like I said, not too much.” Cook smiled but was firm in her comment.

Tranthan stood reluctantly and tried to smile. “Bye for now, Maggie. I'll check on you again in a couple of days. Nurse, please call me, day or night.” He handed her a card as he had with the neurosurgeon.

Tranthan walked out of the front entrance of WRNMMC, down the stairs to his waiting black executive Tahoe. The driver hopped out of the SUV as soon as he saw Tranthan coming, cut around to the side, and opened the door.

“Thanks.”

The driver had been the deputy's assigned driver for two years now but Tranthan, if pressed, could barely remember his name. Prior to that, the driver had worked for the Agency for nearly twenty years after a short enlistment with the army. He could shoot straight and drive, if need be, like a NASCAR driver.

“Back to Langley.”

“Yes, sir.”

The black Tahoe pulled out of WRNMMC and turned right, heading north.

“Something is going on.” Robert Tranthan stared out at the joggers as they ran past the entranceway to Bethesda. “Something bad.”