Titus Ray Thriller Box Set, page 86
part #1 of Titus Ray Series
After Trudy drove off, Pike and I entered the safe house. Once he’d given me a quick tour of the layout, and I’d deposited my duffel bag in one of the bedrooms, we ended up in the kitchen.
It wasn’t a modern-looking kitchen by American standards, but it appeared to have all the basics, plus a well-stocked pantry. When I grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, I noticed it was also crammed with food supplies.
“Are you planning a dinner party? There’s enough food in here for an army.”
“I remembered your cooking fetish, so I had Trudy go by the market and grab some stuff.”
“I don’t have a cooking fetish, but if that’s your way of asking me to make you some of my world-class chili, then the answer is yes.”
He grinned. “I’ve always loved your chili. And your barbeque brisket. I even sorta like that chicken and spaghetti stuff you made one time.”
“You mean chicken tetrazzini?”
“Yeah ... that.”
Suddenly, his smile disappeared.
I thought I knew why.
* * * *
The night I’d added some chicken to some leftover spaghetti and called it chicken tetrazzini had been the night he’d gone off the wagon.
That night, the two of us were stuck in an apartment in Mosul doing surveillance on a couple of Iraqis across the street. The two men were suspected of being responsible for an attack on a resupply convoy in which four Americans had been killed.
Since Pike had only recently joined the Agency, it was the first time we’d worked together.
Around midnight, a call had come in from Communication Services informing Pike he needed to call his mother-in-law. After making the call, he’d come out of the bedroom, mumbled something about needing some air, and left the apartment.
When he’d staggered back in almost three hours later, he was plastered.
The next morning, fully sober now, he told me his ex-wife had been killed in a freak accident. He said his mother-in-law had been a nervous wreck when she’d told him.
I thought he still looked pretty shaken up by the news himself.
He said, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone I got drunk last night.”
“I can’t think of any reason I’d tell anyone. Even if I did, why would they care?”
He looked surprised. “My employment at the Agency is contingent upon my ability to stay sober. Didn’t you know that?”
“Why would I know that?”
“I thought everyone at the Agency knew.”
“Not me.”
I didn’t bother explaining I wasn’t all that sociable and seldom spent any time in the cafeteria listening to the latest gossip.
After Pike took a couple of aspirin, followed by several gulps of strong coffee, he explained the circumstances surrounding his CIA employment.
He began by telling me about his illustrious newspaper career. Even though I knew he’d been a respected journalist for a number of years and had won several awards for his writing before joining the CIA, I wasn’t aware he’d been fired by the last three newspapers he’d worked for. He said it was because of his drinking.
“The last time I was fired, I’d hit rock bottom. That’s when one of the suits from the Agency’s seventh floor found me. I can’t say who it was, because I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but you can probably guess his identity. Anyway, he came to me with a proposition, and I accepted.”
“He propositioned you and you accepted?”
He laughed. “That’s about it. He said he’d read all my stuff; he knew I was an expert on the Middle East and could speak Arabic. He told me if I would sign on the bottom line, I’d be able to file stories under my own byline again. He promised to send me to places where news was happening on every corner, and he assured me the stories I wrote would be picked up by all the major news organizations.”
“But there was a caveat?”
He nodded. “I had to stay sober. Before the Agency sent me to their spook training camp at The Farm, I had to spend twelve weeks in a recovery treatment facility, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Believe me, the latter was harder than the former.”
“So what happened last night?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure, but I swear it’ll never happen again. I live in the best of both worlds now. Not only am I reporting the news, I’m trying to make a difference in the news I’m reporting. If you could keep last night’s slip-up just between the two of us, I’d really appreciate it.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it never happened.”
That was the end of it.
I had never mentioned Pike’s failure to anyone.
However, colleagues who share embarrassing secrets are sometimes reminded of them, and I felt certain Pike’s mention of my chicken tetrazzini had triggered both our memories of that night.
Now, an awkward silence hung in the air between us.
* * * *
I quickly changed the conversation from food to one of Pike’s favorite topics, one he could talk about for hours.
“How about my weapons package, Keever? Is it ready?”
“You bet. Come this way.”
I followed Pike down the hall to a back bedroom where he opened the closet and took out several aluminum cases. Each case contained a handgun.
Pike spent the next hour describing the pros and cons of each gun in much the same way a professional chef might describe the minute subtleties in a variety of cheeses.
Pike was a gun guy.
He loved guns; he collected guns; he told me once he even loved the smell of guns.
Okay, fine. I understood that.
Different strokes for different folks.
But, I wasn’t a gun guy.
I wasn’t all that interested in where, when, or how a gun was manufactured, and I especially didn’t care about the smell of a gun. What I cared about was a gun’s reliability.
If a gun fired when I pulled the trigger, and it was able to deliver the bullet reasonably close to its intended target, then that was the gun I loved.
Pike and I had discussed guns before—endlessly.
Now, after telling me more than I wanted to know about each of the four handguns he’d laid out for me, he asked, “See anything that suits you?”
“You know I’m not picky,” I said, taking the sub-compact Sig out of its case. “This is fine.”
He nodded. “That’s a good choice. Very reliable.”
He picked up the Beretta. “You don’t like the Beretta Px4?”
“It’s not a question of not liking it. I just chose the Sig instead.”
“The ergonomics on this Beretta make it a good choice.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll take the Beretta.”
He took the Sig out of my hands and handed me the Beretta, observing me closely as I checked it out.
“You’re right,” I said. “A Beretta’s an easy gun to handle, and this one feels well balanced.”
“If it’s balance you’re looking for, then a better choice might be the Browning Hi Power.” He lifted the HP out of its case and said, “It’s famous for its perfect balance.”
“I like the HP. I carried one in Iraq, but this Beretta’s fine.”
“No, if you’re more familiar with the HP, then you should probably take it instead. Give me back the Beretta.”
I handed over the Beretta and picked up the Browning HP.
“It looks brand new,” I said, examining the weapon. “Has it been fired before?”
“You’d prefer a used gun?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Here’s a 9mm Makarov I bought off another journalist,” he said, picking it up. “The Makarov is standard issue in the Syrian military. If our mission goes sideways, you can always wave this around and blend right in. I’ve carried one ever since I got here.”
I laid the HP back in its silver case and said, “I’ll take the Makarov then.”
“You may not be picky, but you certainly have a hard time making up your mind.”
I raised my voice. “I thought I had made up my mind when I first told you I’d take the Sig.”
“So you want the Sig now?”
I remembered telling Frank Benson I was a man of infinite patience, and I’d be able to handle Pike and his contentious nature.
I was beginning to doubt that.
* * * *
Carlton and Trudy arrived at the safe house around five o’clock. They weren’t alone. As per Agency regulations, Carlton had two Level 3 security guys with him, something the CIA required whenever a division head operated in country.
Once they’d gone through the safe house and verified it wasn’t occupied by someone who might pose a threat to Carlton—evidently, Pike and his closet full of guns didn’t count—they went back outside and hung around the mini-van.
Trudy, who was the tech specialist for the mission, immediately went upstairs to the loft where the communications equipment was located. Carlton told her to notify him the minute an uplink with the Ops Center at Langley had been established.
Even though Carlton had been in transit for the last couple of days, his sports shirt and Khakis still looked crisp and wrinkle free. Despite that, I saw sweat glistening on his bald head, and there were bags under his eyes.
He walked over and put his briefcase down on the dining table. “Do I smell chili?” he asked.
I detected a note of irritation in his voice.
Pike said, “Titus insisted on making us dinner.”
Carlton looked over at me. “Chili? In this weather?”
I shrugged. “Forget the chili. Tell me about Marwan. Was he cooperative when you met up with him at Gitmo?”
Carlton dabbed at the sweat on his brow with a white handkerchief. “More or less. But I’ve never met a guy who acted paranoid because his prison cell was too comfortable. Evidently, he was expecting something far less accommodating than the facilities he found at Gitmo.”
Pike said, “That place is a luxury hotel compared to how the detainees were living in their own country. At Gitmo, they get free food, free medical care, and an unlimited supply of entertainment.”
“Marwan wasn’t complaining.”
Pike said, “I bet neither one of you can guess the most popular author in the prison library.”
Carlton and I just looked at him and didn’t say a word.
“And the winner is,” he said, pretending to consult an imaginary card in his hand, “Danielle Steel.”
“And how would you know that?” I asked.
Pike looked over at Carlton. “You remember last year when you sent me to Gitmo to interrogate Ismail Abedni?”
Carlton nodded.
“While I was there, I did a piece for one of the news magazines. The article was entitled Surprising Finds at Gitmo. It ran last August. Didn’t either one of you see it?”
I shook my head. “No, last year I was out of the country. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have been the first in line to buy a copy.”
Pike barely cracked a smile. “It wasn’t all fluff, you know. I wrote a lot about—”
Carlton cut him off. “Could we just get back to Marwan?”
Pike shrugged. “Sure, I just thought it was a terrific article.”
Carlton said, “Marwan refused to honor the deal you made with him in Buenos Aires until he knew his wife and daughter were safe. He still wasn’t satisfied after I showed him the photos Sam sent me, so I—”
“You didn’t allow him to call his wife, did you?”
Carlton frowned. “Of course not. I told Sam to send me a video feed of the two women watching a live news program on television. When he sent the feed, I had Marwan watch the same program. After that, he seemed satisfied. At least he ended up signing the agreement.”
I said, “Allowing Marwan to talk to his family is an enticement I want to hold in reserve. If he gets twitchy about attending the meeting with the general, I’ll dangle it in front of him.”
Carlton said, “While he said he’d cooperate with us, he demanded we get him out of Damascus as soon as possible after the meeting.”
Pike said, “I can understand that. His lifespan will be considerably shorter if Naballah finds out he betrayed him.”
I asked, “Were you able to observe Marwan’s actions at the airport when he got off the plane?”
“No, it was the other way around. He kept his eye on me when we landed. I’d told him I’d be boarding a flight to Beirut shortly after we landed in Damascus, and when we deplaned, he followed me over to the next terminal.”
“Did he wait around until your flight was called?”
Carlton nodded. “I played out the whole scenario for him. I’m sure he assumes you have backup here in Damascus, but I doubt if he believes there’s any high-level CIA personnel here on the ground with you. The DDO was insistent we keep him in the dark about that.”
Pike said, “The surveillance team I have on Marwan reported he went straight to his apartment after he left the airport. They wired the whole place and put cameras everywhere, so we’ll be able to keep an eye on him. I’m betting he won’t leave there until he hears from Titus tomorrow.”
Carlton and I agreed with Pike, and then Carlton asked him about the surveillance protocols he’d put in place for General Suleiman’s arrival in the city. Although he seemed pleased with Pike’s plans to install listening devices inside the general’s hotel suite at the Sheraton, he made a few minor changes.
For the next thirty minutes, the three of us discussed the logistics of the operation, along with the procedures the Ops Center had developed for monitoring Marwan’s movements inside Naballah’s headquarters, and the arrangements they’d made for Marwan’s extraction from Syria.
Once Carlton had finished outlining these details, he turned to Pike and said, “I’ll need a weapon before I leave today.”
“Sure thing,” he said, gesturing toward the back bedroom. “Follow me, and you can choose whatever you want.”
Carlton shook his head. “That’s not necessary. Just make sure I have a sidearm before I leave today.”
“I’ll get it for you right now.”
Once Pike was out of the room, Carlton leaned over and said, “Don’t ever let him talk you into choosing your own weapon. Whatever you choose, it’s sure to be the wrong one.”
“I could have used that information earlier.”
I hoped this didn’t mean Carlton had lost his sense of timing when it came to getting me viable intel.
Chapter 36
Before Pike returned with the handgun, Trudy came downstairs and told Carlton the DDO had scheduled a video call with him in five minutes. She said the Ops Center would be updating everyone after that.
Once she and Carlton had gone back upstairs to the loft, I went outside to the EAI van and invited Carlton’s security detail inside for a bowl of chili.
The older guy had thick black hair and a dark moustache and said his name was Dave. Although he insisted we’d met at our forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan in the spring of 2009, I couldn’t place him. Around that time, a suicide bomber had entered the compound and blown himself up, so my memories of that time were understandably sketchy.
As we walked inside the house, Dave introduced his red-headed partner as Finn. With his fair skin and freckled face, I figured Finn had some ancestors from Ireland somewhere in his background.
After I handed each of them a bowl of chili, Finn said, “I hope this stuff tastes as good as it smells.”
“You won’t be disappointed,” Pike said, entering the kitchen and dishing up a bowl for himself.
I put a plate of cheese on the table, along with some Syrian bread—Khubz in Arabic—and Pike grabbed some locally bottled fruit juices out of the refrigerator for us to drink.
The four of us sat around the table together—not exactly like a family but close enough. Once we’d finished eating, we started telling exaggerated stories about our harrowing exploits while serving our country.
It was Pike’s anecdotes that won the day.
Although he had a knack for remembering details, it was his ability to describe people and places that captivated everyone, making it easy for me to understand how he’d been able to turn his creative talents into a successful journalism career.
His observation skills also made him an appealing recruit for the Agency, and I could see why the DDO had gone after him—not to mention the kudos the deputy had received from the suits on the seventh floor by snagging a member of the media and enlisting him as a covert intelligence officer.
From what he’d told me, Pike had also managed to put together a workable surveillance operation in Damascus and hadn’t blown his cover doing it.
I knew from experience that wasn’t an easy thing to do.
Once Pike had exhausted himself—and everyone else—with his colorful stories, I quizzed Dave and Finn about their schedule for the following day.
“We might need your help transporting an asset to the safe house tomorrow,” I said. “Would you be available?”
Dave said, “Mr. Carlton’s not leaving the compound tomorrow, so, as far as I know, I’m available.”
Finn raised his hand. “Count me in.”
I nodded. “Okay, I’ll use both of you, but we’ll need the EAI’s full-size van, and make sure there aren’t any relief supplies inside the vehicle. I don’t want my asset making a connection between us and the EAI organization.
Dave said, “Not a problem.”
“Be here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. and I’ll brief you then.” I looked over at Pike. “Anything you’d like to add to that?”
“We’ll be heading into a hot zone. Dress accordingly.”
They both smiled. They knew Pike wasn’t talking about the weather.
* * * *
After Dave and Finn went back outside, Pike asked me how I wanted to handle my upcoming meeting with Marwan. Although he wasn’t enthusiastic about my plan, he didn’t nix the idea.
