Dead drop, p.26
Dead Drop, page 26
“But this next bit,” said Dorsey, seeming to pause, “may come as a bit of a shock.”
“Okay . . .” Meredith tightened her abdomen, waiting. How could this possibly get worse?
“Let me start by saying, Meredith, that you know how these things go,” said Dorsey, his face even whiter than before. “The CI spooks have to go through everything you’ve done, look at all the places you’ve been. It’s very invasive. We all hate it—if it’s any comfort.”
She could see her own eyebrows contracting down in the self-view. She forced them back up.
“Anyway,” said Rance, resuming. “CI took our known Mossad case files and looked for any possible ports of entry into the US.”
“Makes sense they’d start there,” she said.
“Uh-huh. And then the CIs compare matches to places we’ve all been, looking for overlaps. That kind of analysis.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Well, we did a passport facial search on our known Mossad operatives. Naturally, a bunch of them popped up in DC. We know they come in and out of the embassy. Werner’s whole entourage, for example. CI is following up on all of them—as you’d expect.”
“Okay, yes, sure.”
“But one of the Mossad file faces popped up as entering the US through Honolulu under an alias. The ticket then connected to Maui. And . . . since CI knew you and John were in Maui, they dug further into this suspect passport.”
Oh dear God, she thought. Am I going to have to tell them about our Maui fight too? She held her face very still. “All right . . .”
“Now, the CI officers reported that you flew out of Maui on the thirteenth. That makes sense. That’s when I called you back,” said Rance. “You were in Langley the next day, right?”
“Right.”
“But, ah, John stayed on in Maui for a while. So the CIs followed up on him too. And, as it turns out . . . he stayed on in Maui for another few days after you’d left . . . out in that town on the tip of the island, Hana. Were you aware of that?”
“Not really,” she said. “I . . . I don’t really keep tabs on him like that . . . as I’m sure you understand.” They both nodded. She shifted in her chair. “Look, gentlemen, John and I had a big fight in Maui. I’d hoped we might reconcile, but in the end, after our fight, John took off. I don’t even know where he went. And I never asked, since that would just piss him off. Nor did he volunteer it. That’s how he is. And that’s the whole story. Just what are you getting at?”
“Just that John stayed behind after you left. And a day after John left, the Mossad people left too. Their timelines sync up. You see?”
“I see, but so what? Mossad went there to follow me, missed me, and then kept on following John, since I left. It doesn’t really mean anything. That’s probably what our case officers would do too, right?”
“Well,” said Rance after a brief pause. “There’s something else. One of the Mossad operatives in Hawaii happened to be someone John worked with on a prior op. So . . . there’s at least a connection there.”
“Yeah,” said Dorsey, finishing. “The optics are that John was with a Mossad operative he knows, in Hawaii . . . and then, just a few weeks later, Mossad does this raid on Kahlidi—while John’s there, at the safe house. And Kahlidi escapes. You can . . . well . . . you can see how this looks.”
“I can see how it looks, Jeff. But like I said before, I was the one who wanted John to go to the safe house. I begged him to go. He didn’t want to do it. He’s not our Mossad mole.”
“Yes, well, however it works, Meredith, you told John where Kahlidi was. And Mossad showed up while he was on his visit. We can’t exactly ignore that connection.”
She shook her head. “Okay, fine. It’s a coincidence, I get it. But who is this operative John knew? What’s his name? Maybe there’s another coincidence there.”
“Not a he,” Dorsey said, looking down. Even the bald spot at his crown was pale.
“Let me share my screen so you can see her,” said Rance. The image on Meredith’s surface changed to an enlarged passport photo. “Here, that’s her. Her name’s Maya Shaheen. She’s a Mossad kidon, a fairly senior one, very close to Werner himself.”
Meredith’s heart stopped as she stared into the eyes of the woman.
Goddamned John.
* * *
—
“Oui,” Meredith said to the French-Lebanese waiter exactly two hours later. “Apportez-moi la bouteille entière de vin.”
Screw it, she thought as the man went through the swinging door, hurrying away from her sidewalk table. Margot Henri, her debonair journalist alias, would certainly get to drink from the whole bottle of French burgundy. She certainly wouldn’t just sit in her room eating protein bars. Especially if the Frenchwoman had just learned that her husband was a lying, cheating scumbag. And that her career was over.
Meredith raised the glass, drinking it to the bottom.
By the time she’d polished off her full plate of coq au vin—sufficiently enhanced with an entire bottle of vin—her senses were at least dulled.
She dug through her purse and left a huge stack of Lebanese pounds by her plate. She scraped her sidewalk chair back with an effort. Once standing, she kept a steadying hand on the table for a few seconds. She picked up her heavy handbag and the reassuring weight of the Glock. Then she got on her way back across the street, back to the miserable hotel room and the partially made bed.
Her eyes fixed on the hotel door, concentrating hard so as not to stumble, Meredith never saw the young man in the black polo shirt, watching her from behind the wheel of an ’88 Volkswagen Scirocco.
PART THREE
AIM
CHAPTER 29
Six years earlier
There was just no mistaking the sound of tactical jet noise, Dale thought. The son of an aviator, he’d grown up in Oak Harbor, Washington, just outside the gates of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Back there, back then, they’d called it the sound of freedom. But here, now, in Syria’s Mozelan creek valley, he suspected he should give it another name.
It had first rolled in like distant summer thunder, a far-off desert squall. For about ten seconds, he’d clung to the hope that it was just weather. But closer now, there was no mistaking that rising roar, bouncing off shallow canyon walls like the growl of an irascible god.
Fuck, Dale thought, running through the possibilities as he lay in his sleeping bag. American air support wouldn’t venture this far west into Syria. The whole point of this op, Timber Sycamore, had been to fight Assad’s Syrian Arab Army without directly implicating the US. That meant no friendly air. So, he wondered, whose jets were those roaring up the valley right now?
“Athbut makanak!” Dale cried over the rumbling echo, commanding the team to stay still. The sun had only just set on this cloudy day, already obscured by the slopes on either side of the creek. Dale’s team had been about to break camp and set out for a road junction on the Riya Kengelo where they’d planned to ambush a tank platoon with Javelin missiles. But he’d ordered them to freeze now. They had good concealment in this narrow creek valley—as long as they stayed very still.
Turkish Air Force? he wondered, listening. Ever fearful of separatist rebels, the Turks would use just about any excuse to launch an attack on the Kurds. Dale pulled back just enough of the scratchy netting over his eyes. If TAF, then they’d be American-made F-16s. But these seemed too loud to be single-engine aircraft.
There, he thought a second later, turning his head ten degrees to look back toward the flat of the creek. Gotcha. Two dots on a southwesterly course, dim against the darkening sky, a blurry exhaust plume floating off behind them. Whatever they were, they’d be overflying his position in five, four, three, two . . .
“Athbut makanak!” Dale cried again, putting the netting back over his camo-painted face. Through the net, he watched the two planes roar overhead. Now he recognized the triangular sweep of the wings. Russians, SU-24 Fencers, racing below the overcast on burner, about 500 feet, two short blue flames sprouting out the tailpipes. Once they’d passed, Dale scrambled to his stomach and reached for his binoculars.
Fencers, he confirmed, staring through the big lenses. Bombers. What the fuck?
He studied the wing pylons. Each bird carried two sets of three bombs, outboard of the extra fuel tanks. Not guided missiles. Cluster bombs. That meant they were dropping on troops as opposed to a hardened target. He watched until the dark jets with the flickering blue flames disappeared over a western ridgeline.
Mustafah elbowed Dale. “Sahib,” he said. Dale lowered the binos. The old rebel’s eyes were starkly white against his black face paint. “Is safe to move, Sahib? Dark enough?”
The tough old Kurd, the only English speaker on the team, didn’t even ask about the jets. Dale looked up at the purple sky above the canyon wall. He canted his head to listen. The jet noise had finally faded. “I need to call those in first,” he said, waving toward the ridge. “But yeah. Get ’em up.”
While the team stirred, Dale unfolded a small hexagonal antenna and aimed it to the south, aiming for the comms satellite.
“Alpha Bravo, this is Whiskey Six Actual,” he said into the little handset, after the tracking light went green.
“Go, Whiskey Six,” said an ethereal voice from the ops center in Jordan.
Wait till they get a load of this, thought Dale. If he had to bet, he’d say the roar of those Russian Fencers was the death knell for this op, Timber Sycamore. He spat out a summary of the enemy ground assault aircraft, estimating altitude, course, and speed. “Rapiers,” he said, using the code word for Russian air. “Repeat, Rapiers, estimated course two-six-zero.”
“Roger, Whiskey Six. Stand by.” For five full minutes, the line stayed quiet. That’s it, Dale was thinking as the time mounted. Go ahead and pull that plug, boys . . .
“Whiskey Six Actual, this is Alpha Bravo,” the watch officer finally said into Dale’s ear. “We want you to proceed point X-Ray for air evac to Charlie Papa. Extract, twenty-three-hundred Zulu. Your team proceeds to objective Cobalt without you. Your relief will join the team en route. Copy?”
Relief? thought Dale. The op was still on—but without him? Dale held the mic near his mouth for a moment, wondering if he could ask questions. Probably not, he thought.
“Copy all . . . ,” said Dale. Mustafa was back at his side now, holding a marked-up terrain map. The team was loaded up for the hike over the hill. Dale looked into Mustafa’s darkly lined face, wondering how to explain something he couldn’t comprehend himself.
And it was Mustafa’s face that was still on Dale’s mind when the US Air Force C-130 finally touched down at King Hussein International in Jordan’s southwestern corner some thirty-nine hours later. Exhausted, bearded, stinking, Dale was wondering whether his team had gone on with that tank assault at objective Cobalt. He was also wondering what on earth he was doing down here, 600 miles below his operating area.
Maybe it’s not that weird, he’d been telling himself for the past droning hour in the cargo bay, that I’m not the only one on this flight to Aqaba. After all, the US Air Force had been flying crates of weapons in for the Syrian rebels. Those planes must surely head back empty somewhere. Maybe they just wanted Dale’s advice on the next weapons load.
Or am I just going home?
That would be nice. Though he still had ten months on his tour, getting back to Virginia early would certainly be good for his marriage. That last conversation he’d had with Meth had been a real barn burner. She’d been going on and on about a fight with Grace, who’d been struggling to fit in with wealthy teenage-girl cliques in the new school district they’d carefully selected.
Dale had already checked on Grace, had already texted her his fatherly advice. But when he interrupted Meth’s rapid recounting flow to share as much, his wife had taken it as a snub. He didn’t understand, she’d accused, had oversimplified, countered her own parental guidance. How dare he. Dale hadn’t been in the mood to be accused of anything. He’d let her know that—until she’d hung up on him.
Through the oval window now, he saw a Jordanian Air Force SUV speeding across the tarmac. As the truck got closer, he noticed a blond-haired civilian in the backseat. Dear Lord, no, Dale thought. Rance.
“Has Cerberus checked in since your last cable?” Rance asked when they were finally alone in a nondescript office in the air-ops building some fifteen minutes later.
“Not sure,” said Dale. Because I was eating snakes in the bush until a few hours ago. “I can look now if you want.” Dale withdrew the ruggedized covcom tablet from his backpack.
He was still wearing heavy twill cargo pants and desert combat boots. But he’d cleaned his face with water from his canteen on the plane. And Rance had supplied him with a new madras shirt so as not to panic the civilians in the air traffic control building.
Dale went through the sequence to get online, then checked the Google Drive file he used to communicate with Cerberus, the Iranian scientist embedded in a covert Iranian uranium enrichment lab. “Nothing new,” he said, looking up from the tablet. “Sorry.”
“Then we have no counterfactual,” said Rance. “It’s still our assessment that the Iranians are going to replace those Siemens controllers in Natanz. That’s your official assessment?”
“That’s what Cerberus said last time. And there’s nothing new. So yes.”
“And you still think they’re expecting a delivery from the Pakis? Nothing new there either, I assume?”
“Correct. New Siemens controllers, new chips, new software. That’s all I got. Same as what’s in the cable.”
“But do you really think Cerberus will be there to meet the Pakis for the pickup of the updated tech?”
“He’s been close enough to the installation in the Tabriz pilot-lab that I think they’d want him there to verify the equipment. He indicated something to that effect but, as usual, kept it blurry. That’s why I marked it as unverified in the cable—but probable. If I had to guess, I’d say Cerberus will be there. But I don’t know for sure.”
Rance nodded and reached for his phone. “Right. Close enough. Wait here.” Left alone, Dale stood up and walked to a window. He squinted at the dusty sky, the blazing white tarmac, the peekaboo view of the flat Red Sea between the buildings.
“Pack your shit,” Rance said when he came back a few minutes later. “We’ve got a meet to get to. I’ll get you caught up on the way.”
On the way turned out to be a ride in the same Jordanian Air Force SUV down a wide four-lane highway to the town of Aqaba. Since Dale and Rance had never clicked at small talk and since there was a foreign driver behind the wheel, they stayed silent. Far from getting caught up, Dale was left to wonder where the hell they were going.
The answer arrived in the form of the Moon Beach Hotel, a shabby little seaside tourist inn smack on the Gulf of Aqaba. But it didn’t seem like the kind of place Rance would stay. And that’s because, Dale thought a few seconds later, Rance isn’t staying here. It was just a stop on the SDR, apparently.
Into the Moon Beach Hotel lobby and out a side exit, Rance led Dale to a nondescript Toyota Land Cruiser with dark windows on the far side of the parking lot. The Toyota’s driver hopped out and opened the rear cargo door as Rance approached. The new man said nothing as Dale and Rance stowed their luggage and climbed into the backseat. Rance stayed quiet too, evidently thinking this kid wasn’t cleared either. Or just to annoy Dale.
Dale looked the young driver over: short dark hair, smooth cheeks, black short-sleeved shirt, creased khakis. Creased. Military. Ours?
Whoever he was, the kid soon parked the Land Cruiser at a restaurant just outside a marina. Rance and Dale followed through a security gate, then down toward the docks. At the last berth, tucked just inside a sloshing breakwater, the kid waved them toward a yellow forty-one-foot Apache offshore speedboat with a blazing white interior and three massive outboards.
Well, Dale thought, as he helped the kid untie the lines. Things are looking up . . . He stood with the rope in his hands, squinting, almost smiling.
“Don’t get too excited,” Rance said from the boat, watching him. “You don’t know where you’re going yet.” But even Rance allowed a grin when Dale finally hopped aboard.
Once the boat had slipped its moorings and passed the breakwater, the kid hammered the throttles down. The three hulking Evinrudes howled angrily. The driver propped himself with both hands on the helm while Rance and Dale held on to his left, watching the long, heaving bow break wave after wave. Still having no idea what was happening, Dale finally allowed himself to relax, smiling for real. Refreshing sea air inflated his cheeks.
But after another roaring minute, his lips compressed into a flat line. There, up ahead through the windscreen, he saw the angular mast of a gray warship in the offing. Ugly and black, it sprouted from the hazy horizon like a rising weed. Oh fuck, the former naval officer in Dale thought. He steadied himself with a tight grip on the chrome rail. Sea duty.
“Meet Mr. Werner,” Rance said once they’d finally settled in the wardroom of the Israeli Navy corvette Eilat. Mr. Werner was in his mid- to late fifties, balding, short. His civilian polo shirt was tucked into his pants, old-man-military style. Dale had already noticed that the regular Israeli naval officers had been shooed away.
“Mr. Werner’s team,” Rance said, “has led the Mossad side of the code development for Stuxnet.”
“Yes,” the Mossad man said, rubbing his close-cropped hair with the knuckles of his right hand. “The joint Stux op has been one of our best collaborations ever. And, as I understand it, that’s largely thanks to you, Mr. John.” The older man held his hand over his heart and looked embarrassingly earnest for a moment. “On behalf of the nation of Israel, may I express our most heartfelt gratitude.”
