The Dreadful Renegade: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense) (14 page)

David thought that it was too late at night to contact Herb Harden, the Brussels CIA station head, but considering that it was only late afternoon in Washington DC he decided to call Eugene Powers. He dialed Eugene's private phone number and was immediately transferred to a voice message, so he said that he was in Belgium and left his number with a request to be called back regardless of the time. Thirty minutes later his phone rang and Eugene was on the line. David shared the information Mossad had and the conclusions, or rather the speculations, about the possible whereabouts of the couple. While still on the line he received a call-waiting ring and saw that it was from Kobi, so he apologized to Eugene and asked him to hang on while he took the call. Kobi told him that Michelle and her buddy had indeed located the car in the parking lot and were setting up a watch to see if anyone came to pick it up. Kobi added that they planted a miniature transmitter under the chassis so they could track it from a distance if needed. David thanked Kobi and told him that they could call off the hotel search that was quite a formidable task and may alert Nagib that they were homing in on him. David then switched back to the conversation with Eugene and updated him on this latest development. Eugene said that this new information justified waking up Herb Harden and he would do so himself and ask him to contact David. He added that although he was not a CIA field agent, only an NNSA administrator and scientist, he felt that he should be present at the site of the action. David was pleased to hear this as he feared that rivalry between the CIA and Mossad could lead to a conflict unless some high ranking government official, like Eugene, would supervise Harden and his people.

June 26
th
, 9 am Brussels

Alia and Nagib had discussed Rahman's offer of a safe apartment the previous night and had decided to accept the invitation, so they checked out of their small, smelly hotel. Nagib suggested that they take the car from the parking lot and drive over to the café, but Alia rejected the idea and said that she had a premonition that Ammer may have reported the car stolen and that it may have been located. She added that in all fairness they should inform him where the car was, because after all he was a family member who had tried to help them, and that would be the right thing to do. Nagib was not really convinced by the ethical argument but thought that the car may be more of a liability than an asset, so agreed with her. Once again they took the metro to Herrmann-Debroux station and then got on tram line 94 getting off at Boitsfort Gare and walked with their light luggage to the café where they had arranged to meet Rahman for breakfast. Before leaving the hotel, Nagib had copied one small section of a blueprint onto a newly formatted disk-on-key, or thumb drive, that he kept in his pocket. Their laptop computer was placed in a shoulder bag that was part of their luggage.

They found the small café and saw that Rahman and Junaid were waiting for them. The Pakistani agents greeted the couple and Rahman said that judging by their luggage that his offer of a safe apartment was accepted. Nagib and Alia smiled and confirmed that, so they all ordered cappuccino and croissants and cut the small talk moving directly to the business on hand. Nagib took out his laptop, inserted the disk-on-key with the sample and loaded the blueprint. He then turned the screen around so that Rahman could see the schematic that was a section cut out from one of the advanced designs. Junaid also stole a glance at the screen and her mouth opened and a soft "Bismillah" escaped her lips. Rahman frowned at her and silently asked Nagib if he had the complete design. Nagib assured him that he had that as well as several other detailed blueprints. Rahman's dark skin turned red as blood rushed to his face. He realized the meaning of the information and its importance to his home country. He stammered and said that they should continue the discussion in a safer environment and suggested that they move to the apartment of Dreve des Tumuli.

They briskly walked over to the apartment building and when they reached it Rahman drew a set of keys from his pocket and let them into the building. It was quite modest and there was no doorman or concierge so they simply took the elevator up to the third floor and entered the apartment. Junaid took Alia by the hand and led her to the bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. She opened the refrigerator and showed Alia that there were some basic supplies in the kitchen so that they wouldn't have to go out for food.  Meanwhile in the small cozy living-room Rahman briefed Nagib on the house rules, stressing the importance of keeping all windows and shutters or curtains shut and secured and not opening the door to anyone else. He also mentioned that the kitchen was supplied and cautioned Nagib about going out or even having take-away food delivered to the apartment.  Nagib, who by now was very conscious of security issues, listened and nodded in approval. Rahman took a SIM card out of his pocket and told Nagib that it would be used to keep in touch with one another and then asked Nagib to give him his own phone and he exchanged the SIM cards. 

Rahman said that he would need to bring in his real boss, not the ambassador or anyone else from the embassy, but the Head of Pakistani intelligence, General Masood.  He saw the expression of concern on Nagib's face and reassured him that Masood was to be fully trusted as he was a member of the clandestine council within the Pakistani administration that wanted to curtail the American dictate and advocated for an independent policy that would restore honor to Pakistan. Rahman added that Masood was quite indifferent to the Americans influence in Pakistan until a team of US Navy SEALs eliminated Osama Bin Laden on Pakistani soil with complete disregard of Pakistani sovereignty and without coordinating the attack with the Pakistani intelligence community. Nagib was not really assured by this story and asked how long it would take Masood to get to Brussels. Rahman said that he would be there in the evening as he was on an informal visit to Berlin to organize intelligence sharing concerning Al-Qaida and IS terrorists with the German government and its intelligence services. Rahman said that he was impressed by the sample that Nagib had presented to him earlier but it was way above his pay-grade to negotiate its price.

***

Meanwhile, the Mossad team that had been watching Ammer's car in the parking lot was getting more and more frustrated by the lack of action. Michelle called David and told him that no one even tried to approach the car and asked him how to proceed. Kobi heard the conversation and said that they could either start a door-to-door search of the hotels in the area or request assistance from the local police that had a network of surveillance cameras that had especially good coverage of the area near the central railway station where many illegal and criminal activities took place. David asked if they had any automatic face-recognition software and Kobi said that they had a sophisticated algorithm that could pick up facial features even in a crowd and match them with photographs of suspects. David decided to call Herb Harden, the CIA station chief and ask him to contact the Brussels police, after all the culprits were American citizens and it would not be easy to explain why Israeli agents are interested in them.

David called Harden and explained the situation and Harden acknowledged that he had received a phone call from Eugene and already had some ideas about how to proceed. Harden said that if they had to go through official channels to gain the cooperation of the local police they would have to give a reason for their request, but fortunately, he had an excellent relationship with the Belgian anti-terrorist police unit and its boss, Thierry Van Der Wals. Harden added that he would tell Thierry that Nagib and Alia were wanted by US authorities in connection with their involvement with Islamic terror cells and were last seen in Brussels. David approved the plan, although he had hoped to be able to get to Nagib first and obtain the classified information he possessed before the Americans could recover it.

Harden called Thierry and requested his help in locating the couple. Thierry wondered why the CIA was involved, he thought that the Department of Homeland Security would be in charge of thwarting domestic terrorism, but agreed to search at the security cameras for a match with the photos that Harden had sent him electronically. He said that it could take several hours unless they could be more specific about the time and location. Harden replied that to the best of his knowledge, the couple arrived in Brussels around noon the previous day, left their car at a parking lot near the central railway station and probably found a cheap hotel in the same area. Thierry said this was very helpful and he will get his colleagues in the police to scan the surveillance photos taken by the cameras in the vicinity of the parking lot.

Within a couple of hours Harden received a call from Thierry inviting him to come over to the police headquarters. Harden asked if he could bring a foreign guest and was given permission to do so. It was just after noon when David and Harden entered the police station and were escorted to the room where the photos were on display. There was no doubt that Nagib and Alia were photographed by a sequence of surveillance cameras from the moment they entered the parking lot and left their car until they reached the small hotel in which they spent the night. Harden asked for a short break and summoned two of his people to go to the hotel and interview the owner about the couple. The camera nearest to the hotel recorded the couple leaving the hotel shortly after they checked in – the time was recorded as 2:20 pm – and head to the Metro station. They were seen entering the station and buying Metro tickets and then waiting for the next train at a southbound platform but it was not clear where they were heading. The same camera recorded them returning to the hotel around 6 pm and then they were spotted on another camera leaving their hotel again just before 8 pm. This time they didn't take a train but strolled on foot and Thierry said that they were probably going somewhere for dinner, most likely at a restaurant in the vicinity of the hotel. They were captured on camera later that evening as they returned to the hotel. There was no one accompanying them. They were next seen as they checked out of the hotel in the morning, just a few hours earlier, carrying their luggage to the central station and heading to the same metro platform they used the previous day. David asked if the photos from the cameras all along the line could be checked – the timing was easy to determine as they were seen boarding a south bound train at 8:20 am. They were observed by the surveillance camera near the Gare de Boitsfort station as they were leaving the station before 9 am. Unfortunately, there were only a few other surveillance cameras in that area so there was no trace of them after they left the station. David asked Thierry if he knew what points of interest were around the station so he called for a map of Brussels and they looked at potential places in the vicinity. Harden was the first to notice that the Pakistani embassy was close to the station and wordlessly pointed his finger at it. David looked at him and saw that his face took on a pale shade, practically blanched, as he understood the potential ramifications, and hastily offered Harden a glass of cold water. David asked Thierry if the embassy was under surveillance but was told that Belgium did not spy on diplomats, which David found hard to believe. 

David thanked Thierry and apologized that he and Harden had to leave and that they were grateful for his cooperation. Once they were out of the police headquarters David asked Harden if his people could hack into the security cameras of the Pakistani embassy and see whether Nagib and Alia actually entered the embassy. Harden who slowly recovered from his shocked state said he would contact his NSA liaison officer and see if the footage was available. He then confided in David telling him that if the stolen blueprints were delivered to the Pakistanis then the balance of power between India and Pakistan in South Asia would be disturbed, and perhaps this could affect the Middle East and the whole world. David had reached the same conclusions himself but played dumb asking Harden what information was contained in Nagib's possession, but Harden only kept repeating that it was potentially a major catastrophe without elaborating on the content of the stolen data.      

David asked Harden if the CIA had additional information on the Pakistani embassy in Brussels and was told that many people in the US administration, and especially in the intelligence community, were concerned that amongst the ruling class of Pakistan there was a strong resentment of the US and its policy. Although there appeared to be a large degree of cooperation between the two countries on the official level – the US supplied Pakistan with advanced weapon systems, aircraft and technology, as well as with financial aid – the undercurrents regarded the US as an unreliable ally in times of crisis, giving as examples the role played by the US during the skirmishes and wars with India. The Pakistanis felt that the US did not give them real support against India. Harden added that Pakistan had developed and tested nuclear devices despite attempts by the West to stop them from doing so and had produced a stock of several dozen warheads. The Americans found that to be particularly troublesome as the supervision of those warheads was in the hands of a special unit of Pakistani intelligence that was known to include sympathizers of fundamentalist Islamic movements. David was a bit surprised by the candid assessment of the US-Pakistan relations and repeated his question, although from Harden's outburst he could guess that the answer was affirmative. Harden then said, that of course all Pakistani official and especially unofficial institutions were watched by the US, and that included the large Pakistani mission in Brussels.

***

The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Brussels is located at 15 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt and that of the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea or DPRK was at
Chaussee de la Hulpe 175, just a short way from the Pakistani embassy and quite close to the apartment in which Nagib and Alia sought refuge. However, the meeting between Kim and Mahmood took place near the central railway station from where Ammer had thought that Nagib's phone call originated. Each participant brought with him an entourage of half a dozen goons but in a cosmopolitan city like Brussels neither the dark-skin of the Iranians nor the oriental appearance of the Koreans was out of place. Kim and Mahmoud were quite familiar with life in Western Europe and felt comfortably at home in Brussels. However, they did not know where to start the search and spent about an hour discussing this issue while the members of their entourages regarded each other with suspicion and kept a fair distance between them. At the end of the discussion they were in agreement that the most probable option for the couple to barter their goods would be either with the Islamic State people or the Pakistanis. Mahmoud said that the Sunni IS Muslims were dire enemies of the Shiite Iranians so he proposed that they divide the task: the Iranians will try to contact the Pakistanis while the DPRK contact IS operatives. Kim didn't like this idea but had nothing better to propose, so that was agreed upon.