The Counterfeit Agent (27 page)

Wells kicked the door shut. He kept his pistol on the man as he stepped crosswise to the window at the back of the apartment. “I’m not here to hurt you or your family.” This in Arabic, his voice low and calm. The man might not know the words. But the language itself, the language of the Quran, would reassure him.

The window was dirty, stuck shut. Wells tugged it up. As he’d hoped, the roofline of the building across the alley was several feet lower than the windowsill. He ought to be able to jump across. Wells pointed out the window, back to himself.

The man nodded.

Wells leaned halfway out the window, then looked over his shoulder at the man. For now Wells still had his right hand free and could cover the guy with his pistol. But to get himself through the window he would have to twist both shoulders through. Wells would be facing away from the man, who could throw the cleaver at him or just run across the apartment and push him out. Wells wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

Wells had to trust this civilian whose house he’d invaded. Or shoot him.

“Hamdulillah.”
Peace be with you. The man nodded again. Wells turned away, squeezed through the window, brought his knees underneath him. He wouldn’t have much momentum, but the alley was so narrow that he shouldn’t need much.

He jumped. The drop to the opposite roof was only about six feet, but Wells didn’t stick the landing cleanly. His knees buckled and he rolled forward onto his right shoulder. A pile of bricks stopped him. He permitted himself one look back. The man with the cleaver stood openmouthed at the window.

Wells pulled himself upright. He’d come down hard on his left foot, which was permanently tender after an injury years before in Afghanistan. No matter. Mason’s men wouldn’t know where he’d gone. By the time they realized he was no longer inside the other building, he would be blocks away.

—

This building made the one across the alley look like a luxury high-rise. It had no interior lights at all. Wells limped down the stairs, plotting his next move. His foot might not get him far, but he could hole up for the night in an abandoned building. He had the pistol. And Mason’s team couldn’t chase him forever. Even in this neighborhood, multiple shots and a pack of armed men would eventually draw police.

Wells opened the front door, limped out—

And was hit by the four round front headlights of a Mercedes sedan. After the darkness of the hallway, they were more than enough to blind him. He reflexively raised a hand to shield his eyes. To his left, someone—a
woman—
said, “Drop your weapon.”

Wells flicked his head, tried to see her. Couldn’t.

“You’re pinned.” Her voice calm and level.

He had nowhere to go. He couldn’t run. If he went back in the building, he’d succeed only in getting himself killed. Along with a bunch of innocent people.

He dropped to his knees. Tossed the pistol to the street. He watched it go with regret, though it had proven as useless for him as its previous owner.

“Lie on your stomach with your hands behind your back.”

Wells didn’t think she planned to kill him. She could have done that when he stepped out of the door. In any case, when he’d thrown away the pistol he’d given up his choice. He kissed the rough street, more dirt than pavement, and knitted his hands behind his back. He wished he knew how they’d found him. Probably they’d seen him from the other roof.

Mostly he was furious at himself. Too many chances, too many years running alone, too many close calls. Finally, his luck had run out. No one knew where he was. Even if Kemal the taxi driver kept his promise to call Shafer, Wells didn’t see how anyone would track him.

Two pairs of footsteps crunched his way. A big man put a knee in his back and flex-cuffed his arms together. A penlight traced his face. “This will pinch,” the woman said.

A needle bit into his neck. Wells lifted his head to protest, but the black water inside the syringe filled him. A heartbeat later, it rose to his brain and covered his thoughts. Nothing could stop it, not fury nor willpower nor all the world’s desperation.

His mouth fell slack and he slept.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

F
lying flat out, a Black Hawk made the thirteen-mile run from Langley to the White House in eight minutes. Normally, Scott Hebley loved the trip. The helicopter raced low over the Potomac’s brown waters, came over the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington Monument ahead. Then turned toward the South Lawn and the great white building where history was made. The feeling of arriving at the absolute center of power couldn’t be explained to anyone on the outside.

Today, though, Hebley’s stomach grew more unsettled with every spin of the rotors. In Afghanistan, he had overseen the end of a war. The news he was about to present would move the United States close to a new one, against an army far larger than the Taliban. Hebley almost missed the Talibs. For all their bluster and savagery, when they saw they couldn’t fight his Marines, they simply retreated into Pakistan. They had never tried anything one-tenth as bold as what Iran was now doing, introducing a new generation to mutually assured destruction. Iran already menaced the entire Persian Gulf. How much more aggressive would the Islamic Republic become if it believed that it had an insurance policy to keep the United States from attacking?

The Black Hawk’s turbines whined as the helicopter slowed, descended, and finally touched down on the flat aluminum disks that served as the South Lawn’s discreet landing pad. Hebley unbuckled his harness and ignored the outstretched hand of a Secret Service agent as he stepped onto the wet grass. It was just past five p.m., and the sky was fading to black as the sun set behind a thick curtain of clouds.

The agent led Hebley to the door at the edge of the West Wing that was the building’s VIP entrance. He passed through a metal detector and his badge was swiped, necessary formalities even for the DCI. Only the President and his immediate family could enter without being checked.

Donna Green’s executive assistant waited for him. “The meeting’s been moved.” He had expected to talk with Green one-on-one before they met the President. Instead, she led him directly to the Oval Office.

—

Operation CHERRYPICK had gone smoothly, all things considered. The agency had flagged three ships as potential matches for the tip from its Rev Guard source. Its top target was the
Kara Six
, a midsized vessel that carried rugs and clothes from Pakistan to Europe and the United States. A month before, the
Kara Six
had loaded twenty thousand rugs and fifteen containers of T-shirts in its home port of Karachi. In Dubai, it picked up another six containers of African knickknacks destined for stores like Pier One. The captain of the
Six
was Hassim Sharif, a fifty-one-year-old who had grown up in a Pakistani town on the Gulf of Oman.

After leaving Dubai, the
Six
plugged along at a steady twenty-two knots, covering more than five hundred nautical miles a day. It gave the pirate-choked Somali coast a wide berth and passed without incident through the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and the Straits of Gibraltar. Its ultimate destination was the Port of Charleston, which had become increasingly popular for the easy access it offered to Atlanta and the Southeast.

The
Six
was twelve hundred miles east of South Carolina when a carrier battle group led by the USS
Ronald Reagan
found it. The
Reagan
positioned itself one hundred miles south of the
Six
, outside the standard Atlantic commercial shipping lanes. It launched an F-18 carrying two specially modified MK-46 torpedoes. Their warheads had been removed. Instead of exploding, they were designed to ram the ship’s propeller and tear off its blades.

MK-46s had been built to chase down and destroy Russian submarines. They had less than no trouble taking care of the
Six
. Thirty-seven minutes after the F-18 launched, the
Reagan
’s
Tactical Operations Center reported that the
Six
was floating helplessly in six-foot waves, standard for the winter Atlantic. It had not sent any distress calls, probably because Captain Sharif had no idea why his ship had suddenly turned into a thirty-thousand-ton canoe.

Ten minutes later, the frigate USS
Nicholas
, helmed by Commander Sam Ivory, approached the
Six
.
If its captain was surprised at the coincidence, he didn’t say so. Via ship-to-ship radio, he accepted Ivory’s offer to put divers in the water to check the propeller.

“I’d also like to send a team of engineers to look at your engine, Captain.”

“My men can make any necessary repairs.”

“I
absolutely
insist.”

The four-star admiral who commanded the Atlantic fleet had told Ivory the night before,
We’re boarding that ship no matter what. Deniability is important, in case we’re wrong, in case we find nothing but a bunch of rugs. The search is more important. Moment comes when you need to put guns on him, you go ahead. The White House and I will back you all the way. You understand, Commander?

Ivory understood.

“You are saying I have no choice?” Sharif said.

“There’s always a choice, Captain.”

Half an hour later, Ivory stood on the
Six
’s bridge, along with six very well-armed sailors. The pretense that this was a routine rescue at sea had disappeared. An eight-member Nuclear Emergency Search Team had flown the night before from Andrews Air Force Base to the
Reagan
, then
helicoptered to the
Nicholas
aboard two Seahawks
.
The team was about to board the
Kara
, carrying handheld radiation detectors and two trunks of more exotic equipment.

“Who are these men?” Sharif said.

“Just routine.”

“Routine what?”

“Your English is better than I expected.”

“We both know this is illegal.”

“You let me board voluntarily. My men are here to help get you to shore.” Both statements were technically true. If the nuclear search team came up empty, the U.S. Navy would happily tow the
Kara Six
to safety. Sharif and the crew might even get a few thousand dollars each for the inconvenience.

“It’s obvious that you disabled my ship.”

“I did nothing of the sort.” Again, technically true. The F-18 had come from the
Reagan
.

“Now you’ve blocked my sat phone. It doesn’t work since your destroyer appeared.”

“I appreciate the promotion, but it’s a frigate, Captain.”

“Even if you throw me overboard, my whole crew, you can’t make my ship vanish. My company knows where we are, half the Atlantic has seen us—”

Sharif was starting to annoy Ivory. “No one’s throwing anyone anywhere. I’ll be straight with you. If you have contraband on this vessel, you can make your life much easier if you show it to me. We’re going to find it.”

Like many captains, Sharif was heavy, out of shape. Shipboard cooks weren’t known for health food. He rubbed his belly now, as if it might have the answer. Ivory watched him calculate. The boarding might be illegal, but sometimes might made right. Sharif’s protest would wait until he docked.

“Let’s speak in my quarters.”

—

Ivory commanded ten times as many men as Sharif, but the Pakistani captain’s stateroom was twice the size of his. Merchant captains took their privileges seriously, especially when they hailed from caste-conscious developing countries.

Aside from its size, the room was unremarkable. A prayer rug filled one corner, beneath a compasslike device that indicated the direction of Mecca from anywhere in the world. Photos of Sharif and his family dotted the walls. Most notably, a flat-screen television and an expensive stereo system had been mounted beside Sharif’s bed.

Ivory had ignored the protests of his SEAL team leader and left his security team behind to come with Sharif. He figured a one-on-one meeting would be the fastest way to convince the captain to give up whatever he was hiding. Now Sharif reached into his desk drawer, and Ivory wondered if trusting him had been a mistake. But instead of a weapon, Sharif came up with a white plastic tube the size of a pen. Ivory’s face must have betrayed his ignorance. “E-cigarette,” Sharif said.

He put the tube to his lips and dragged. What would have been the lit end of the cigarette glowed red. He sucked for a few seconds and then exhaled a cloud of clear vapor.

“Very healthy.”

Ivory’s sarcasm seemed to escape Sharif. “Yes.” He waved around the tube. The gesture didn’t work nearly as well without a trail of smoke. “I don’t understand why the U.S. Navy is so interested in my ship. My nephew lives in United States.”

“A cabbie in New York.”

“An attorney in Dallas. Plus, like everyone, I watch American TV. So I know, you find drugs on my ship this way, it’s illegal, no arrest.”

“You think this is a
drug
interdict? I look like the Coast Guard? If all you have on this ship is heroin, hash, show me. I give you my word, captain to captain, we will get you to Charleston. Sell it outside police headquarters, no one will say boo.” Ivory figured he was telling the truth. The Navy wouldn’t want anyone looking at what it had done today.

“Truly?”

Ivory raised his right hand, spoke three words he had never expected would leave his lips. “Swear to Allah.”

“I trust you, then.”

And you have no choice.

Sharif went to his knees and reached under his bed. He dragged out an unusual-looking suitcase, a hard white plastic shell about the size of a rolling bag. Homing beacons attached to both sides, and a chain was padlocked around it. Sharif grunted as he dumped it on the couch. Ivory picked it up. It was heavy, at least fifty pounds.

“Twenty kilos heroin. You see, Commander. All this, disable my ship, for this.”

“Get the key and let’s take a look.”

“I am only courier.”

“Please tell me you’ve actually seen what’s in there.”

—

Along with a half-dozen active and retired Department of Energy engineers, the nuclear team included a bomb expert, Nelson Pearce. Pearce had served two tours as an explosives ordnance disposal technician in Iraq, managing to leave with his fingers and toes intact. He was a wiry black man who wore a perfectly pressed dress shirt and khakis. He walked into Sharif’s stateroom and without a word waved a pager-sized device over the suitcase.

“Captain Sharif says it’s filled with drugs,” Ivory said.

“Good news is I’m not getting unusual alpha or beta or gamma emissions.” Pearce looked at Sharif. “Is it trapped? Booby-trapped?”

Sharif shook his head.

“How do you know?”

Another shake.

“Glad we got that out of the way. Commander, I’m going to ask you and the captain to leave the room. Could be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour.”

“All the time you need.”

While Pearce positioned a portable X-ray scanner over the case, Ivory ordered two SEALs to bring Sharif to an empty maintenance room at the front of the hold. Sharif didn’t argue, tacitly acknowledging that he was now a prisoner aboard his own ship.

Twenty minutes later, Pearce called Ivory back to the stateroom. The scan had revealed thirteen brick-shaped objects inside the shell. Twelve were wrapped in plastic. The thirteenth was smaller, five inches long and three inches deep. It glowed red on the scanner’s screen like a tumor.

“Red indicates high density. Meaning it’s lined with lead to hide emissions. Specifically, gamma radiation.”

“So that would be like uranium.”

“No, sir. Highly enriched uranium emits almost no gamma radiation. It’s more or less safe to handle. Alpha emitters aren’t dangerous unless you swallow them. This would be cesium, cobalt. Possibly plutonium. To be sure, we have to open that box. You should talk to the Ph.D.s, but I’m not sure they’d be entirely comfortable doing that here.”

“I’ll ask.”

“One more thing. The density of those bricks didn’t match heroin. So I swabbed the case for explosives. We’re looking at fifteen kilos of Semtex.”

“Please tell me you didn’t see any detonators or wires.”

“No, sir. I think the case is safe to travel.”

“Then you guys can take it back to the
Reagan
, give my boss the good news in person.”

—

Maybe Sharif genuinely believed the case only held drugs. Maybe he had somehow convinced himself that he could talk his way out of this mess. He was wrong either way, but Ivory wanted to keep him cooperating as long as possible. He sat Sharif on a folding chair as the SEALs set up a digital camera.

“I am Commander Samuel Ivory of the USS
Nicholas
. This is Captain Hassim Sharif, of the
Kara Six
, a Pakistani-flagged vessel bound for the Port of Charleston
.
Captain Sharif has graciously agreed to this voluntary interview to discuss contraband carried aboard his ship. I want to thank him for his cooperation and remind him that the United States Navy does not interdict narcotics unless specifically requested by the Drug Enforcement Administration. No such request has been made in this case. Therefore, any illegal drugs are of no interest to me or anyone in the USN.”

Ivory turned off the camera. “That work for you?”

Sharif nodded. Ivory flicked the camera back on, and Sharif explained that he made the trip from Karachi to the United States three to four times each year. He always stopped in Dubai. There he made a habit of visiting the brothels that catered to the emirate’s expatriates. They were illegal, but the police tolerated them as long as they didn’t use local women. Sharif favored a place not far from the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. “Six Star Experience. Beautiful girls.”

On his previous stopover in Dubai, Sharif was waiting for a taxi outside the Six Star when a man joined him. He, too, had just finished up. “We spoke a few minutes. Then decided to have dinner.”

“Just like that?”

“Nothing to do on the ship, waiting to load. I know he’s not homosexual, he at Six Star, too. Long night. We have dinner, drink. We both like whiskey. I tell him about my ship. He say he has package he must get to America. Pay sixty thousand dollars.”