Authors: Gary Haynes
State of Attack (10 page)
“Yours or mine?”
He thrust the phone out, but then placed it on the nightstand. “I’ve posted two paramilitaries outside. Good men.”
“Thanks.”
He left. Tom walked over and picked up the phone.
“How is he?”
It was Crane’s voice.
“‘Bout the same as you were told before I set out, I guess.”
“I thought he might recover given the time it took you to get there,” Crane said.
“No you didn’t. So what’s the deal?”
“Deal?”
Tom walked over and opened the closet. The clothes hanging inside were clean and pressed.
“You still there?” Crane asked.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“You wanna stop kissin’ diplomat ass and get some action? It’s a drug, ain’t it?”
Tom thought about that as he turned and looked over at the state his father was in. “Which means what?”
“The stakes have gotten high, Tom. We ain’t just talking about your father here. Besides I know how good you are.”
Tom figured Crane thought a man with his experience could only be a benefit. He had an excellent intelligence background. The time he’d spent in the DS’s counterintelligence office had begun as a surveillance operative, a glamorous title for doing little more than the average PI. But after eight months, he’d worked alongside the FBI for three years on some serious investigations of suspected espionage. He spoke fluent French, Arabic and Urdu, and could get by on a couple more languages besides. But there were plenty of people with his credentials. And why would Crane risk using someone who could be deemed too close? he thought.
As if reading his mind across continents, Crane said, “But don’t go all psycho on me over there, you got it, Tom? Took me four committee hearings to get this job after I had to admit to sanctioning your little forays the world over. You didn’t get her back,” he went on, referring to the Secretary of State, Linda Carlyle, “we’d both be packing shelves in a grocery store in Alaska. Being close ain’t always a disadvantage.”
Tom sighed. “Spell it out.”
“You ever come across the Turkish mafia?”
“Nah.”
“They’re real sons of bitches, and I need someone to hook up with them.”
“What are we talking about?” Tom said, moving over to his father’s side.
“We getting through a few snippets from our Israeli friends about something big, so as well as helping to find your father’s attackers, you could be very useful, Tom. Counterterrorism. Better than following foreign jerks around as they visit the sights, am I right?”
“How big? And what the hell has the Turkish mafia got to do with all this?
“Listen up.”
The jeep came screeching down the street leaving a dust trail in its wake. It skidded to halt next to Ibrahim. Beside the driver, there was an officer with three pips, a captain, in the front passenger seat, with two NCOs behind. The NCOs disembarked first.
One of them walked over to the old man and his wife, shouted something, and the woman tugged at the frayed rope hanging from the donkey’s massive jaw, and they moved off in the opposite direction. He’d barked the orders in a manner that hadn’t been required, but Ibrahim didn’t entirely blame the soldier for being overly cautious. The woman in the burqa could’ve been a male with a submachine gun. He’d seen that done on several occasions in different Arabic states. That or a suicide vest packed with explosives and ball bearings.
The other NCO raised his SG 552 Commando carbine and pointed it at Ibrahim, saying nothing. The captain, dressed in dessert-tan fatigues and a red beret, disembarked and walked over to Ibrahim. He was wearing mirrored shades, and this together with his Stalin-like moustache, made it difficult to identify his features, which Ibrahim guessed was something that he’d sought to achieve. He had a Beretta semi-automatic pistol holstered on his hip and was carrying what looked like a riding crop in his left hand.
“Papers,” he said, almost bored.
Ibrahim handed him the forged Egyptian documents. The captain grabbed at Ibrahim’s headdress and yanked it off. He tossed it into the dust. He scrutinized the documents thoroughly before handing them back and staring up at Ibrahim. “You are sweating like a whore in labour,” he said.
“It is hot,” Ibrahim replied.
The captain slapped Ibrahim’s face with his crop. Ibrahim stood his ground despite the shock and the pain. The captain looked down at Ibrahim’s groin. Then he stepped forwards and used the crop to examine the folds of cloth at Ibrahim’s crotch.
“You did not piss yourself,” he said, staring into Ibrahim’s eyes now. “When I hit people like that they always piss themselves. It is a natural reaction. Tell me why you didn’t piss yourself.”
Ibrahim thought that the captain sounded genuinely intrigued, so he decided to tell the truth. “I used to get hit like that when I was a kid. I got used to it.”
“Are you a filthy homosexual?” the captain asked.
Ibrahim thought the question was bizarre. “No. I am a good Muslim.”
The obvious sincerity in Ibrahim’s voice in answering the captain’s questions could have gone one of two ways. It could have riled him or pacified him. It was the latter. The captain simply walked away and got into the jeep.
“I do not blame those who hit you,” he shouted as the jeep was fired up. “You look like a filthy homosexual to me,” he went on, flinging his head back and laughing.
His subordinates laughed along, too, although to Ibrahim’s ear it was forced. As the jeep pulled away, he knew that if his mission wasn’t so important he would have punched the captain in the throat, pulled out the man’s sidearm and taken his chances with the NCOs.
He picked up his headdress and dusted it off before repositioning it on his head and wrapping the tasselled end around his face. He looked up the street and saw the house he had to enter, wondering what other trials the day would bring.
“
Allah Akbar
,” he whispered and began moving.
Tom had his back arched against the wall opposite his father’s hospital bed, holding the satphone to his ear.
Crane said, “The CIA and the DIA think the attack on the general was random. They got more bombs going off in Ankara that they got junkies in LA, and that’s a helluva lot.”
“Wrong place at the wrong time,” Tom said. “But you don’t buy it, huh?”
“The attack happened in an Alevi area, somewhere as safe as Baghdad just now. But apart from his official role regarding the conflict there, the general was trying to obtain intel from the Turks about a Sunni terrorist known only as Ibrahim,” Crane said. “The Mossad has an undercover operative in Hamas and something is going down. This Ibrahim has links with Hamas. If we get to him we may find out what Hamas are up to before the Israelis.”
“
Aren’t we best buddies? Tom asked.
“Yeah, but we don’t always agree on the methodology, at least off the record. When they get spooked, they tend to go in bombing and shooting, and we need intel more than we need more corpses. Just yesterday, we got some report about Israeli troops capping a Palestinian suspected of being a member of Islamic Jihad,” Crane said, referring to the other major Sunni terrorist group in the Gaza Strip. “‘Bout a minute earlier than CNN, as it turned out, but you get the point. The Palestinian was hiding out in a tunnel. They’re just too damn trigger-happy for this. But you, you’re off the intelligence radar, so to speak.”
“So was it random or not?”
“What do you think?”
Tom mulled it over for a few seconds. In truth he had no idea, although in matters of hunches a man would be a fool to disagree with Crane.
“So there won’t be an investigation, official or otherwise?”
“Only by the Turkish security services but they’ll say whatever the regime tells them to say. I gotta account for every dime these days. The new director runs the agency like a freakin’ bean counter. The same goes for the DIA and FBI. But Ibrahim is at the top of my list until this fizzles out or some other crazier terrorist comes along. You go after him, I figure you’ll be going after your father’s attacker, or at least be on the right track.”
So it’s me or no one, Tom thought. It took him less than a second to agree.
“Start with the Turkish mafia,” Crane said.
“Okay. What’s with the mafia?”
“They protect this guy, this Ibrahim. Hamas and Al-Shabaab, too. That’s all your father was able to find out before they tried to kill him.”
“Where the hell is this going?” Tom asked, conscious that the links seemed flimsy to say the least. But Crane was smart, no doubt about that. Crass, but smart, and Tom knew that guys like Crane relied on intel from a string of core collectors and foreign assets, as well as linking up with friendly intelligence communities like those of the Israelis, and that could shape a viewpoint in a unique and sound way.
Crane explained his plan. Tom would make out to be a human trafficker, something the Turkish mafia were depressingly adept at.
“There must be thousands of mafia in Ankara alone.”
“You ain’t wrong,” said Crane. “But your father was told about a godfather. A baba, they call them. A real piece of work, according to a MIT guy. Now, this baba, called Maroof, could be close to this Ibrahim, or maybe he organizes the Islamists’ security in Turkey,” Crane went on.
Tom would meet up with Maroof. Crane had obtained the directions to a brothel owned by the baba via Habib, the MIT officer who had spoken to the general. Crane had used the services of an operative he knew well from the CIA office in Ankara, who had exerted a little pressure. Crane didn’t know Habib was playing both sides. He didn’t know that a little pressure hadn’t been necessary, either.
“And, Tom. I’ve sent a package to the US embassy there. Just a few things you’ll need. My guy in Ankara is Jack Donaldson. He’ll have it ready for ya.”
Tom wondered whether this was the real reason that Crane wanted him in Ankara. The veteran CIA guy knew his father wasn’t going to recover consciousness in the timeframe, or at least that’s what a reasonable man would bet on. And not for the first time, Tom felt played by him.
“Officially, we don’t fight the way we used to. No Afghanistan-style shit. It’s all stealth and hi-tech now. But in cases like this, old-style is still best, you ask me. This is what I want you to do,” Crane said, as he began to explain the plan to Tom.
The house in north Sinai was four storeys high, with a cracked-plaster facade, and laundry hanging from the balconies’ iron railings. Ibrahim walked up the concrete steps, noticing the bars on the basement windows below.
He saw something in his peripheral vision, a blur of fur and limbs. Three powerful-looking, white and tan dogs emerged from the shadows under the steps and peered up at him, standing on the concrete walkway, their tightly curled tails touching their backs. They didn’t bark, but rather made a peculiar yodel-like sound as their pointed ears twitched.
With that the paint-free wooden front door creaked open. An elderly man stood in the small porch area, his face as deeply lined as the dates that had covered Ibrahim in the pickup. He had about three days’ growth on his chin, grey and bristly, and was wearing a beige-coloured robe that looked bloodstained, although Ibrahim decided it was pomegranate juice. The back of his small head was covered by a lace Muslim skullcap called a
taqiyah
.
“It is due to the shape of the larynx,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I do not know what you mean,” Ibrahim replied.
The man pointed down to the dogs. “Basenji hunting dogs. The shape of the larynx. They are called the barkless dog. That sound,” he said as the dogs continued their now rather comical yodelling, “is called a
barroo
.”
Ibrahim smirked.
“They are very loyal and very serious dogs,” the man said, clearly annoyed by Ibrahim’s facial expression. “An elegant breed, but they would rip out your heart if I asked it of them.”
The Egyptian had told Ibrahim that he was the house owner and that his name was Husani, which meant handsome in Arabic. But Ibrahim guessed the man hadn’t been that since childhood, and then only in his mother’s eyes. Holding a kerosene lamp, Husani had led him through a dimly-lit corridor and, after opening a side door, had proceeded down a flight of wooden steps to the dark basement.
The windows were covered by chipboard on the insides, but as Husani swung the lamp around, Ibrahim could see that the basement was voluminous. It stank of stale sweat and rotting grass. Ibrahim heard a sound that he thought was the shuffling of feet. Husani raised the lamp and Ibrahim saw a man sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by four goats. They were tethered to a support beam by lengths of rope, and were nibbling at a bale of blackened straw.
The man sitting on the floor said, “
Asalaam Alaykum
.”
“
Wa ’Alaykum Asalaam
,” Ibrahim replied.
“Your guide and the goat herder,” Husani said.
By the tone of his voice, Ibrahim thought that Husani felt the goats and the herder were on about the same intellectual level, but he remained silent.
“We send through everything,” Husani continued. “Livestock, medical supplies, fridges, hand grenades, RPGs. Whatever our brothers and sisters in Palestine require and are prepared to pay for, of course. But these goats are for you.”
“I don’t need goats,” said Ibrahim.
“They go first. If the tunnel is rigged with explosives or the supports fail, the goats get it and you might live.”
“Ah,” said Ibrahim, feeling not a little terrified. As a claustrophobic, the thought of being buried alive in an underground tunnel was just about the worse thing he could imagine.
But in that moment he imagined something profound. It was how his planned death would actually come about – the initial fear of sudden blackness followed by a gradual emersion into the celestial light of Paradise.
The plan was not to blow himself up, or even blow up something by remote control, as he had done in Ankara and many other places besides. No, his body would house the lethal killer. He was intent upon a glorious suicide, one that would send thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, to the hell he believed they deserved. The Silent Jihad.