Titus Ray Thriller Box Set, page 89
part #1 of Titus Ray Series
The Schematic Tracking Grid (STG), better known as the Grid, was the tracking system used by the Agency to monitor and locate the movements of its operatives in the field during an operation. The STG depended on the GPS devices in Agency phones, but there were also several backup systems, including reconnaissance satellites and drones.
“What’s up with Marwan?” I asked. “Why did we have to go to Plan B?”
“The guy’s been pacing his apartment all morning long. It made me nervous just watching him on the video. A few minutes ago, he—”
“He’s probably anxious to hear from me. I consider that a good sign.”
“That may be true, but a few minutes ago, he got a call from Rehman Zaidi. Zaidi asked Marwan to meet him at Tekkiye Mosque for noonday prayers, and Marwan immediately agreed.”
“Zaidi has a lot of influence on Marwan. I don’t like the sound of that.”
“All the more reason to pick Marwan up before they have a chance to talk.”
“We’re still fifteen minutes out. I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“I’m confident you’ll make it. The mosque is six blocks from Marwan’s apartment, but he didn’t take a taxi; he’s on foot. I’m sending his coordinates to your phone right now. Pike’s surveillance crew says he looks clean; no one’s tailing him.”
I glanced down at the map on my phone. A small blue dot appeared. It was slowly moving east.
“He’s three blocks from the mosque now. We’ll be cutting it close.”
“Get it done.”
With those encouraging words, Carlton disconnected the call.
* * * *
Five minutes later, Dave and I spotted Marwan a block away from the mosque. He was making his way along the crowded sidewalk on Al Nawfara Street, a narrow two-lane avenue lined with outdoor stalls and small shops.
Although Carlton had mentioned no one was following Marwan, I took a few extra seconds to make sure of that.
Then, as traffic slowed to a stop, I told Dave, “Let me out here. Circle the block and meet me at the corner. If I’m not there when you get there, leave the area and wait for my call.”
When I got out of the SUV, I quickly punched in the numbers for the cell phone Carlton had given Marwan before they left Gitmo.
As I stood in the doorway across the street, I watched Marwan pull the phone from his pocket and glance down at the screen.
For a second, I thought he might ignore my call.
Instead, he answered with a tentative, “Hello?”
“It’s me. I’m in the coffee shop on your left. Walk up to the intersection and head east. I’ll meet you at the corner.”
When Marwan hung up, he immediately looked over to his left, and I used the opportunity to slip out of the doorway and make my way down the opposite side of the street toward the corner. There was no sign of the Renault yet, but I still had a few minutes before going to my alternate plan.
I watched as Marwan walked past the coffee shop and paused at the corner, waiting for the light to turn green.
I saw him searching the crowd, as if he might be looking for a familiar face.
When the light turned green, he hurried across the street.
At the same time, Dave brought the Renault to a stop at the crosswalk, and I quickly opened the back door. As soon as Marwan stepped on the sidewalk, he spotted me standing beside the SUV.
Although he appeared surprised at my sudden appearance, he didn’t balk when I motioned him inside the vehicle.
The moment I slid in the backseat beside him, Dave pulled away from the intersection.
Unfortunately, the rest of Operation Citadel Protection didn’t go quite as smoothly as this textbook maneuver did.
Chapter 39
After making sure Marwan didn’t have a weapon on him, I leaned over the front seat and grabbed a bottle of water out of the cup holder.
He refused to take it when I offered it to him. “I was told you would call me today. No one said anything about any of this.” He flapped his hand back and forth, indicating he meant the car, the situation, Dave, me, whatever.
“Plans change.”
“Where are we going?”
I ignored his question and asked one of my own.
“Why did Zaidi want you to meet him at the mosque?”
He stared at me and didn’t say anything.
I noticed his appearance had changed since the last time I’d seen him in Buenos Aires.
He looked drawn, almost gaunt, as if he’d recently lost a lot of weight. The dark circles underneath his eyes appeared even darker now, and his beard looked shabby, as if he hadn’t trimmed it in several days.
I suspected the changes were due to a combination of jet lag and worry, or maybe it was something else entirely.
“How did you know Zaidi called me?” he finally asked.
It was my turn not to answer.
He bobbed his head up and down and said, “Oh, now I get it. You’ve wired my apartment. You’re watching me.”
“Answer the question, Marwan. Why did Zaidi insist on meeting you?”
He shrugged. “He said he wanted to talk to me before the general arrived. He’s probably afraid Suleiman will blame him for Ahmed’s death, and he wants my support. I plan to tell him it was Roberto Montilla who killed Ahmed.”
“Send Zaidi a text and tell him you’ve changed your mind about meeting him. Say you’re not feeling well.”
Although I expected an argument from him, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and typed out a brief message. I made him show it to me before allowing him to push the send button.
A few seconds later, Zaidi replied with the standard Islamic answer for a sick friend. “La’ba’sa tahurun insha’Allah.”
Roughly translated, it meant, “Don’t worry, this illness will purify you from your sins.”
Sadly, this was impossible, even if Marwan had truly been ill.
* * * *
A few minutes later, after reaching the outskirts of Damascus, Dave headed north on Tishreen Boulevard. When Marwan realized we were on the road leading up to Mount Qassioun, he grew agitated.
“Why are we going up to Qassioun?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“Have you been in touch with my wife? Is she well? Can I talk to her soon?”
“That all depends on you.”
He held his hands out toward me. “Look, I’ve already agreed to work for you. Didn’t Mr. Chessman tell you I signed the documents at Gitmo? What more do you want from me?”
I didn’t respond, and, after a few seconds, he turned away from me and stared out the window.
After traveling north for another mile, Dave veered west and entered Arawdah Gardens, a once beautiful botanical garden located halfway up the side of Mount Qassioun. Now, after years of neglect and poor management, the bushes were overgrown, the shrubs were untrimmed, and the weeds in the flower beds appeared to be the garden’s most notable feature.
As Dave drove deeper into the forested area, I silently commended Pike for picking such a deserted spot, not only because of its privacy, but also because Marwan seemed more and more distressed with every passing minute.
After driving past a faded marker, Dave hit the brakes, put the car in reverse, and turned onto a rutted dirt road. A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of a dilapidated wooden building with a marker above the doorway indicating the structure used to be the Arawdah Gardens Research Center.
“What are we doing here?” Marwan asked, staring out at the building.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
I moved closer to him, violating his personal space.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what kind of advice Hassan Naballah wants you to give General Suleiman at the meeting on Saturday.”
Dave, who’d followed my instructions to the letter and not uttered a single word or even looked at Marwan since he’d gotten inside the car, suddenly shifted his weight to his right hip.
Then, in one fluid motion, he turned around and leveled his pistol at Marwan’s head.
To say he looked menacing would be an understatement.
Marwan immediately shrank back in the leather seat. “I told you in Buenos Aires. I don’t know why Naballah wants me at the meeting.”
“We both know that’s not true, Marwan. While you represent Hezbollah’s interests in Latin America, very few of those activities would be relevant to General Suleiman’s upcoming visit. Somehow, I doubt if he’s concerned about the shipment of arms to the Colombian rebels. On the other hand, the general might be very interested in how the drug cartels are bringing their product into the United States.”
I backed off and gave him some breathing room. “Is that why Naballah wants you at the meeting? Does he want you to educate Suleiman on how to use the drug cartels to move the gas canisters north?”
“Ah ... I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
I pulled a black hood from my pocket. “You’re about to take a short trip, and I’d advise you to use the time to remember why Naballah wants you at that meeting. When we talk again, the only thing I want to hear from you is the truth.”
I tossed the hood in his lap. “Put it on.”
Marwan took one final look at Dave before placing the hood over his head.
“My friend will be transferring you to another vehicle in a few minutes. He’ll be with you the whole time, so I don’t advise removing the blindfold.”
Marwan shook his head. “You’re nothing like Mr. Chessman. When we were at Gitmo, he always treated me with respect.”
“You’re right. I’m nothing like Mr. Chessman. Be grateful for that.”
* * * *
Five minutes later, Finn and Pike drove up in the EAI van. As soon as Pike got out, I joined him, leaving Dave in the Renault with Marwan.
When I walked up, Pike immediately asked, “What did he say about Zaidi?”
“He claims Zaidi’s worried about the general’s visit, and that’s why he asked Marwan to meet him at the mosque. Evidently, Zaidi’s afraid Suleiman will blame him for Ahmed’s death.”
Pike nodded. “He’s probably right.” He gestured over at the hooded Marwan. “How’s he doing?”
“He didn’t appreciate being grabbed off the street, and when he noticed I was bringing him up here, he got even more rattled.”
“Have you learned anything yet?”
“No, but I have a feeling he’ll be ready to talk by the time we get him back down to the safe house.”
“Let’s do it.”
I signaled for Dave to put Marwan in the back of the EAI van. Once he’d shoved Marwan inside, he got in himself, and then Finn immediately headed back towards the entrance to the gardens.
Pike and I followed them in the Renault.
As Finn navigated the mountain curves at a high rate of speed, Pike used a bunch of colorful words to describe Finn’s driving, but I reminded him Finn was only following my orders.
Earlier, I’d told Dave and Finn not to speak to Marwan once he was in their custody, and I felt certain their silence, plus being blindfolded during the wild ride down the mountain, would mean Marwan would arrive at the safe house even more off balance than he was when I’d grabbed him off the street.
Using this disorientation technique on Marwan hadn’t been a difficult decision for me. His personality appeared to lend itself to the psychology of this method, and, as far as I could tell, it was working.
When I’d briefed Pike on my plans for Marwan, he’d voiced his skepticism of my methods.
He said he preferred to use force to intimidate his assets into subjection, or, if they’d already demonstrated their compliance, to shower them with cash.
However, Pike and I both knew it didn’t really matter what he thought of my approach.
Even though he was the primary for the mission, the DDO had told Carlton running Marwan was my responsibility, and he’d given me permission to handle him however I thought best.
While I appreciated the DDO’s apparent confidence in me, I knew his real objective was to make sure Pike’s cover didn’t get blown. He didn’t want anyone in Naballah’s organization knowing that Keever Pike the journalist was, in reality, Keever Pike the spy.
Pike understood all this. However, that didn’t stop him from making suggestions.
“You need to push him harder on why Naballah wants him at the meeting. The asset I was running in Naballah’s organization said Marwan knew all the big players in the Mexican and Colombian cartels. I’m betting Naballah is planning to use the cartels in the general’s operation.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
This wasn’t the first time Pike had mentioned the asset he’d been running inside Naballah’s organization. While I was curious about the asset’s identity, the fact that Pike hadn’t told me who he was or what his position had been in the organization was a pretty good indication this loss was affecting him.
He pointed at the EAI van just ahead of us. “What’s Finn doing now? Why is he heading east?”
As we both watched Finn take a left turn out of Arawdah Gardens, I said, “He must be taking the loop over to Asaker Road and heading south from there. I told him to make sure Marwan’s ride was a memorable one.”
He nodded. “That’s where he’s headed then. Asaker Road should be a rough ride since the Syrian Air Force targeted that area two days ago. Evidently, they discovered a small enclave of rebel fighters occupying a city block there and completely destroyed the neighborhood with an air strike.”
As soon as Finn turned south on Asaker Road, the damage inflicted by the Syrian Air Force was immediately apparent. All but two of the high-rise apartment buildings in the area lay in ruins. The floors were sandwiched one on top of the other, and the vehicles parked nearby were completely demolished. Concrete dust covered everything.
I saw a few people sifting through the debris, but everyone else was either taking pictures on their cell phones or just wandering around.
After traveling about a mile down the rough road, the Agency phone on the dashboard started pinging. Within seconds, Carlton was yelling instructions at us.
“Get out of there now!”
“Is there a—”
Before I could finish the sentence, I heard the distinct thump, thump, thump of a helicopter, and Pike pointed up at a couple of objects tumbling out of the aircraft.
“Barrel bombs,” he shouted, quickly spinning the car around and reversing direction.
As Pike sped away, I saw the bombs hit the last two buildings still standing amidst the rubble. The explosion shook the Renault and quickly enveloped us in a huge dust cloud.
I yelled, “We need to check on the van.”
“We need to get out of here first,” he said, driving blindly through the murky cloud of dust and debris.
When I heard the muffled sound of Carlton’s voice asking for a status report, I realized the sat phone had been jarred loose from the dashboard and had fallen to the floor.
After retrieving it, I told Carlton what was going on with Pike and me.
“What about the van?” I asked. “Is it still on the Grid?”
“I don’t think it’s been damaged. Trudy’s talking with Finn right now, and the Grid shows the van is moving in your direction.”
“Is Marwan okay?”
“She hasn’t told me otherwise.”
Pike, who was still driving blind, asked Carlton. “How far are we from the main intersection with Asaker?”
“Maybe half a mile.”
Seconds later, the dust cloud began to clear, and we were able to see ahead of us.
“We’ve got eyes now,” I told Carlton.
“That’s good.”
“That’s debatable,” I said, looking at the scene in front of us.
* * * *
Directly in front of us, the Syrian army had set up a roadblock. More than likely, they expected to catch any of the rebel fighters, who were fleeing the bombing. As soon as we emerged from the dust cloud, the officer in charge began to flag us down.
After giving Carlton a brief synopsis of what was going on, I dropped the phone in my pocket and grabbed the PRESS placard out of the glove box, displaying it across the front windshield. I also pulled my press ID lanyard out from underneath my shirt.
It identified me as Donovan Bartlett, credentialed journalist. It included a thumb-size photograph, but it wasn’t a very good likeness; the photograph made me look like a much older man.
As we watched the soldier approaching our vehicle, Pike made sure his own ID was prominently displayed. “This could get dicey. The guy looks a little jumpy.”
When the officer leaned in the window to take a look at our papers, Pike spun him an elaborate tale about how the two of us were gathering material for a story on the rebel stronghold and had just happened to be in the area when the bombs exploded.
As he examined our documents, the officer, whose insignia identified him as a captain, suddenly looked off to his right and noticed all the people emerging from the bombed-out area.
One woman, covered in white, chalky dust, was holding the hand of a small child, who appeared to be bleeding from a head wound. The man following her was carrying a crying baby covered in blood, and behind him were dozens of other injured people. Some were in worse shape than others, but all looked dazed and confused.
The captain quickly gave us permission to leave the area and began directing his men to help the injured. As he walked away, I saw the EAI van pull in behind Pike’s vehicle.
Pike put the Renault in gear and said, “Well, that was easy.”
“Yeah, but look behind you.”
The captain had flagged down the EAI van and was directing Finn to pull off the main road and park on the shoulder.
“He’ll be expecting the EAI staff to start handing out emergency supplies to these people,” I said, gesturing toward the crowds. “He may even want them to use the van to transport some of the critically injured to hospitals. We need to get Marwan out of the back of that vehicle as quickly as possible.”
