Titus Ray Thriller Box Set, page 91
part #1 of Titus Ray Series
I answered both questions in the affirmative, and then I briefed Carlton on what Marwan had told me about Los Zetas’ involvement in the acquisition of the two shipping containers.
Although he didn’t show it, I thought he sounded pleased about the new intel.
“So the cartel’s involved in the missing canisters. I guess that means we should give it up to Salazar for calling this one right. I’m sure Keever won’t be too happy when he finds out he lost that argument.”
“That’s for sure.”
I decided it wasn’t a good time to tell him Pike had already heard this information from Marwan himself.
Carlton asked, “Now that you’ve had a chance to question him, what’s your assessment of Marwan? Can we count on his cooperation?”
“As long as I keep reminding him of what’s at stake with his wife and daughter, he’s not offering much resistance. Whether that resolve will hold up when he meets with the general might be problematic. I understand Suleiman can be pretty intimidating.”
“It’s absolutely vital we learn all the details of the attack on Washington and what’s happening with the canisters. If you have to put more pressure on Marwan, do it.”
I was surprised to hear the harsh tone in Carlton’s voice, and I wondered if it had anything to do with events on the ground in Cuba.
I didn’t have to wonder long.
Seconds later, Salazar came online.
* * * *
In a repeat of the scene from yesterday’s briefing, the camera was displaying a view of the Agency’s RTM Center C, where Salazar could be seen seated at the main console.
This time, however, Katherine Broward was seated at the console next to him, along with a couple of other analysts from the ASA division.
As soon as Salazar made note of the operation’s identification tag for the official record, he pointed out the obvious presence of Katherine, although he failed to mention the other analysts.
“Ms. Broward is here at my request, and she’ll be briefing you on her findings shortly. First, though, I wanted to address the situation in Santiago.”
He pointed to a street map of Santiago de Cuba on the wide-screen monitor just above his head.
In an area southeast of the city, near the docks, was a small blue dot. The map had a notation in the bottom right hand corner, which identified it as coming from the Schematic Tracking Grid.
Below the STG label were the words Operation Citadel Protection, Component Two, Primary Location, which meant the map was pinpointing the location of the primary operative running the mission in Santiago.
In other words, we were looking at Ben Mitchell’s location on the Grid in Santiago.
Ordinarily, whenever an operative’s phone or communication device was locatable, a small blue dot on the Grid blinked or pulsated occasionally.
Mitchell’s blue dot was not blinking.
It had no pulse.
Salazar said, “Around four o’clock this morning, which would have been around eleven o’clock Damascus time, the Ops Center received a text message from Ben, along with a single photograph.”
Salazar pointed to the blue dot on the screen. “The Grid had him at this location when he sent the message. Shortly after that, he went dark, and the Grid hasn’t been able to pick up his signal since then.”
I glanced down at the video at the bottom of the monitor to see whether Carlton had any reaction to this news. But, other than his pursed lips, his face remained impassive.
The monitor above Salazar’s head changed to a screenshot of a text message from an Agency sat phone.
Salazar said, “Here’s the message Ben sent to the Ops Center. It includes the photograph.”
Mitchell’s text contained just two words, “Found them.”
Directly below the text, was a dimly lit photograph of two orange shipping containers. The Hazardous Materials warning was stenciled across the sides.
The angle of the camera made it difficult to tell if the containers were in a warehouse or on a ship, but stacked alongside them were a couple of pallets loaded with boxes, plus some wooden crates.
As soon as I saw the image, I felt an immediate rush.
Mitchell had located the missing containers! My euphoria was soon tempered by the realization of what the non-pulsating blue dot meant.
Salazar said, “As soon as the Grid lost contact with Ben, the STG system tried pinging his sat phone. At that time, there was no response, and there’s been no response since then. Ben missed the mandatory update with the Center at seven o’clock this morning, and the rest—”
“What about the other members of his surveillance team?” I asked. “Have you been able to contact any of—”
“As I was about to say, the rest of the members of his surveillance team have been contacted and all of them are in place. Until we locate Ben, they’ve been told to keep a low profile.”
Carlton started peppering him with questions. “Could they tell you anything about Ben’s location? What about the tracks he left behind on the Grid? Was that message sent to anyone else on his team?”
As if Carlton’s rapid-fire grilling had overwhelmed him, Salazar hesitated for a few seconds, “Ah ... Let’s see ...”
He picked up the blue operations notebook on the console and began reading from it. “Juliana Lamar said she and Ben were together at the safe house around midnight. She said he talked about investigating some of the warehouses located further away from the dock, even though he knew it was a long shot. Juliana said she agreed to go with him at first light, but she had no idea Ben had left the house, until she woke up this morning. The last time anyone else heard from him was around eight o’clock last night.”
Salazar looked up from the notebook and asked the STG operations officer to upload the tracks Ben had left on the Grid in the hours before transmitting the text.
The map of Santiago reappeared on the screen, but this time, there were a series of red dots noting where Mitchell had been prior to uploading the photograph. The locations were only archived on an hourly basis, so it wasn’t exactly a precise trail of where an operative had been.
Salazar used a laser pointer to mark the location of the safe house, noting that Mitchell was there until two o’clock, when the Grid showed him further west. At three o’clock, a red dot showed him about a mile from his final transmission point.
Salazar turned to his right and looked at Katherine. “Ms. Broward’s findings will further clarify what the Grid is showing us on the map.”
Katherine smiled at the camera and said, “Good afternoon, everyone.”
Once Carlton and I had greeted her, she picked up a remote mouse and clicked it once, using the laser pointer to draw an imaginary circle around the blue dot on Mitchell’s last location.
“Ben sent the photograph and the text from here. We’ve identified it as a nightclub, Club Nocturno.”
Katherine clicked the mouse again, and an image of the bar appeared on the screen. Like most Latin American nightlife establishments, this one had a colorful exterior with a garish neon sign and a large outdoor seating area.
I could easily picture Mitchell sitting at one of the tables, uploading his message to the Ops Center, and patting himself on the back for following through on his instincts.
What happened, Ben? Where are you?
“Club Nocturno is approximately a block away from this warehouse,” Katherine said, bringing up an aerial view of a nondescript building covering almost a city block. “The tracks left behind on the Grid indicate he was here an hour before his last known location.”
I saw Salazar smiling, so I immediately knew where Katherine’s report was taking us.
She said, “This warehouse, Almacén Santiago, contains a variety of products, including farm machinery and canned goods, but most notably, it serves as a holding area for shipments of heroin and cocaine from Barranquilla, Colombia.”
The next slide, an exterior shot, showed a gray concrete building surrounded by a high chain link fence.
“This is the front view of Almacén Santiago. It’s owned by a high-ranking member of the Los Zetas drug cartel, and we believe there’s a high probability this is where Ben took the photograph of the shipping containers.”
Katherine turned to one of the other analysts seated next to her and had him explain the procedure used to examine the photograph Ben had sent. It sounded like mumbo-jumbo to me, but I understood enough to be convinced Mitchell had probably snapped the photo from there.
As soon as he was finished, Carlton said, “Titus interrogated an asset today who admitted Hezbollah has contracted with Los Zetas to bring the canisters into the U.S. That warehouse must be where they took the containers after offloading them from the ship.”
Before Salazar responded, I said, “It seems pretty obvious the cartel must have caught Ben snooping around the warehouse, followed him to the bar, and then grabbed him after he’d texted you.”
Salazar nodded. “That’s our conclusion as well.” He glanced at his watch. “The DDO said he’d be down any minute to discuss our options for dealing with the situation. I’ll be recommending a SOF unit be deployed to Santiago immediately.”
The Select Operations Force (SOF) was a specialized division of the Agency comprised of highly trained units of rapid deployment teams. They stood ready to respond whenever Agency personnel went missing anywhere in the world.
I had worked with a couple of SOF units before, and I felt confident they’d be able to locate Mitchell. I just prayed they’d find him before it was too late.
As Salazar signed off, he said, “At least we can rest a little easier tonight knowing those gas canisters are nowhere near Washington.”
Was that really true?
I had my doubts.
* * * *
Immediately after Salazar terminated the conference call, Trudy changed the picture-in-picture option on the monitor in front of me, and Carlton’s face reemerged on the screen looking bigger than life.
Despite that, when he began discussing the situation in Santiago, I found it nearly impossible to read the expression on his face.
On the one hand, he looked angry.
On the other hand, he looked depressed.
With so much at stake, I decided I had to know which one it was, and I interrupted him in mid-sentence and asked Trudy if she’d mind going downstairs and bringing Marwan up to the loft.
Once she’d left, I apologized to Carlton for the interruption, and he resumed the point he was making about Mitchell’s missing status. It wasn’t long before I began to notice he wasn’t mentioning Mitchell by name. Instead, he was using “he” and “his actions.”
When he’d finished, I asked him, “Do you know something about Ben you’re not telling me?”
He looked surprised. “You heard the same intel as I did.”
“I’m sorry, Douglas, but you’re not answering my question.”
Just in case he might be trying to hide behind a curtain of deniability, I said, “I’ll make it easier on you by asking my question a different way. Besides C.J., have you talked to anyone else at the Agency about Ben?”
He looked away for a second.
That told me all I needed to know.
Now, I fully expected him to dodge the question.
For some reason, he didn’t.
“Yes, the DDO let me know about Ben’s status before I heard it from the Ops Center. I probably don’t need to tell you what that means.”
“It means Ben’s disappearance has political implications.”
Carlton nodded. “By law, the Agency must inform the Senate Intelligence Committee whenever an officer goes missing during an ongoing operation. As you probably know, the head of that committee is—”
“Senator Elijah Mitchell,” I said, finishing his sentence. “Please tell me he doesn’t know Ben is the missing operative.”
He shook his head. “No names were given at the briefing, but should the situation not be resolved soon, the DDO believes the Senator will demand to know if the missing officer is his son.”
“Of course he will.”
Carlton’s eyes widened. “I wasn’t aware you knew the Senator that well.”
“Ben and I have had plenty of conversations about his father. I think I know him pretty well.”
“Then you’ll understand the DDO’s concern. You’ll appreciate why he got in touch with me after the briefing.”
I thought about it for a second. “I’m guessing the DDO isn’t fully convinced the cartel has Ben. Is he thinking Hezbollah could have grabbed him?”
Carlton nodded. “That’s what he’s thinking, and he wants you to have Marwan bring up the subject with Naballah.”
Although I tried to control my temper, I knew there had to be an edge to my voice. “You know that’s not Marwan’s role on the council. He can’t bring up topics for discussion; he’s strictly a consultant. If he acts otherwise, Naballah will get suspicious of him.”
“I’m aware of that, and, more than likely, the cartel has Ben. I’m just hoping our SOF unit will locate him before the meeting on Saturday.”
“If not, then perhaps Franco Cabello will mention Ben in connection with the canisters.”
Carlton shook his head. “I think you’re grasping at straws there. If Cabello’s men discovered someone in their warehouse taking pictures, they wouldn’t tell Naballah about it.”
“What about those containers, Douglas. Does the fact they’re still in that warehouse bother you at all?”
He looked away for a second. “Well, now that you brought it up, I guess it does. Since Marwan said the canisters should be on their way to the States by now, it seems strange Ben was able to photograph them in the warehouse this morning.”
“That’s my point. Even though Ben photographed what appears to be the two missing containers, I’m betting those containers are empty now.”
“So you’re saying the cartel has already removed the canisters from the containers?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I believe those weapons are on their way to the States right now, and Ben risked his life to photograph some empty shipping containers.”
Chapter 42
When Trudy brought Marwan up to the loft, I could tell he wasn’t going to be comfortable speaking to his wife with another woman present, so I told Trudy I’d handle the uplink with Caracas myself, and she went back downstairs.
After she left, I warned Marwan, “Don’t say a word to your wife and daughter about your location and don’t say anything about when you might be seeing them again.”
“No, of course not.”
Yamina and Samira Farage appeared on the screen a few seconds after I initiated the call to the safe house in Caracas. For operational security, Marwan couldn’t see Sam Wylie or any other Agency personnel who might be in the room, and the ladies weren’t able to tell if there was anyone in the room with Marwan.
Although their conversation was emotional at times, I knew Marwan had to be reassured when he saw his wife and daughter were unharmed, even if they weren’t happy about their confinement.
I allowed him to talk with them for twenty minutes—five minutes longer than I’d intended—and then I signaled Marwan it was time to wrap things up. As he tried to tell Yamina goodbye, she issued an impassioned plea for him to do whatever was necessary in order to end their ordeal.
By the look on his face, I could tell he was moved by her tearful petition, and I decided if I’d scripted the whole thing myself, I couldn’t have wished for a better outcome.
When Marwan finally said goodbye, he turned to me and said, “I want to be on the next plane to Caracas as soon as I leave the meeting with the general.”
“Do what you’re told, and I guarantee that dream will become a reality.”
He looked me in the eye. “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.”
I believed him.
* * * *
After taking a break for dinner, the four of us went back up to the loft in order to introduce Marwan to the gadgets he’d be using during his meeting with Naballah.
These technological marvels would be the only means the Ops Center had of observing what went on inside Naballah’s compound on Saturday.
When I mentioned this to Marwan, he immediately protested. “As soon as I arrive at the compound, the security guards search me. They take away my cell phone and scan anything else I have with me.”
“Don’t worry. Everything I give you will pass their inspection.”
I picked up a package wrapped in plastic and handed it to Marwan. “This is what you’ll be wearing Saturday morning when you arrive at the compound.”
He tore it open and pulled out a white thobe, a long loose tunic worn over a pair of trousers, the common attire of most Muslim men.
“Put this on,” I said, “and I’ll show you some special features of your new clothes.”
Once Marwan had slipped the thobe over his head and buttoned up the opening, I nodded at Trudy who clicked a program on her computer.
“We’re set,” she said.
Stepping in front of him, I twisted the bottom button on the tunic opening, and then I took a couple of steps back.
The screen in front of Trudy pixilated for a moment, and then there was a clear shot of me, standing just a few feet away.
“Not a bad likeness,” Pike said.
Marwan turned to his left, and the view on the computer screen changed to a shot of Pike, who was seated in the only comfortable chair in the room.
I walked over and twisted the button on the thobe again and the video disappeared altogether.
“A metal detector won’t pick this up?” Marwan asked, removing the tunic and taking a closer look at the button.
After assuring him it was undetectable, he asked, “What about sound? I didn’t hear any audio.”
“The camera on the thobe will only broadcast video. Audio acquisition will require something a little different.”
I picked up a couple of small purple boxes. One fit easily in the palm of my hand and reminded me of a velvet ring box, something a jeweler might use to display an engagement ring.
