by Chase Austin
“Esm e shoma chist?” Wick asked the girl’s name in Farsi, his calm voice belying the fact that he had just disobeyed direct orders by killing the man he had been ordered to bring home alive.
“Hiba,” the girl responded.
“Where are you from? Shoma ahleh koja hastid?”
Hiba didn’t answer this time.
“Where is your mother?” Wick changed the question, again speaking in Farsi.
She pointed above.
“Let’s take you to your mother.” Wick offered her his hand. She clutched his fingers tightly, and they walked towards the stairs.
“Logan, approach the house. Over,” Wick whispered in his earpiece.
“On it. Over,” Logan responded.
Once the three emerged from the door, they found Olivia waiting for them. She looked at Hiba but said nothing. The moonlit night was calm. Hiba looked confused. Her mother was nowhere in sight. She looked back at Wick with moist eyes. Wick didn’t know what to do with the girl. No one did.
Logan stopped the minivan near the house. Hiba looked at Wick with curiosity.
“We need to find your mother. He will help us.” Wick spoke in Farsi, pointing at Logan behind the wheel.
Hiba got inside. Wick followed and closed his door.
Elijah and Olivia got into the van next. Logan pressed the pedal and the van moved forward.
“Who is she?” Logan asked finally.
“Hiba,” Elijah replied.
“Where is her family?” Logan asked.
“She doesn’t know,” Elijah replied.
Olivia stared at Wick who was unusually quiet, keenly checking the locket, the photos and the documents he had recovered from Majeed’s room. The girl was sitting close to him, watching everyone in the van with curiosity. The team had a lot of questions about what had happened in the building, but this was not the time and place. The priority now was taking the girl to someone or someplace safe, if not her mother. Although this was not the mission they had planned, Wick had left them with no other option.
“We can leave her outside one of the nearby houses and let them call the police,” Elijah suggested. Logan and Olivia nodded. Hiba looked at Wick who was staring out of the minivan. She knew they were talking about her but unable to understand English.
“Wick, you concur?” Olivia asked.
Wick didn’t respond. His mind was racing, thinking of ways he could help Hiba find her family and handle Majeed’s death. He had not thought this through when he’d killed Majeed, but he knew he could not take the girl with him. She belonged here, and he belonged nowhere.
“Logan, stop the vehicle.”
“What happened?”
“Elijah, you take the wheels. I need Logan to do something.” Wick’s voice had an urgency that brooked no dissent.
Logan stopped the minivan and got out. A couple of minutes later the minivan was again in motion with Elijah at the wheel.
“Get me the cell number of someone from the UNICEF Office in Tehran, someone who deals with homeless or lost kids. Also, I need an email for all the news channels and newspapers in Iran.”
“What email?”
“Thinking on it. You got the number?”
“Almost,” Logan said.
“Olivia, you find the office address of the Tehran-PressTV channel. We'll leave her there.”
Olivia didn’t know what was going on in Wick’s mind, but she checked the GPS. The office was a thirty-minute drive from their current position.
“Now I need you to send two emails from two masked servers, spaced thirty-one minutes from each other. The first email on Hiba will go to Tehran PressTV. The second email on Majeed’s death will go to all news channels.” Taking the number from Logan, Wick said “Write this in the email: ‘Majeed was shot dead by masked men a few minutes ago. I’ll send a video soon.’ Then attach this photo in the email. This will go second.” He sent the photo of Majeed that he took after killing him. “Now, in the first email, write: ‘A girl is waiting at the reception of your building. She is looking for her family. Please help her to unite with her family. The world is watching you. Allah is watching you.’ Save these two emails. I’ll tell you when to send the first one. The second one should be triggered after thirty-one minutes. And use Majeed’s full name.”
Logan, Olivia and Elijah looked surprised. What video proof was Wick talking about? Logan kept typing. Once sure of the email’s language he showed it to Wick who made a few changes and then saved the draft. He would send it when the time was right.
Hiba was beginning to look sleepy. In the comfortable temperature inside the van, she had temporarily forgotten that her mother was not with her. Yet all this while she had not left Wick’s arm. Her tiny little fingers had an unusually tight grip that surprised Wick.
After traveling for more than thirty minutes, the four-wheeler stopped opposite the building where the Tehran-PressTV office was located. The street was deserted but the office lights were still on. The news never stops, be it any country. Wick quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper.
Olivia opened the door on her side and, before getting out of the van, covered her face and head. Wick did the same before getting out with Hiba. He knew these buildings could have CCTVs.
The cold night air had woken Hiba, and she looked at the building with childlike curiosity. Standing on the cold deserted street, she looked up at Wick. She was scared, but not as much as before. Looking at her, no one could say that she had just been rescued from such a traumatic experience.
Wick crossed the street with Hiba. Olivia remained in place.
The building’s entrance was deserted too, but the well-lit reception area meant that people were still there.
“Wait here. Someone will come and take you to your mother,” Wick told Hiba in Farsi. She nodded. There was no resistance from her. Perhaps she too sensed she could go no further with her savior. This was where they had to part ways. Olivia, too, was watching Hiba with surprise. Her composure and her understanding of the situation at this tender age was amazing. She had been worried that the girl would create a ruckus and it would be difficult to leave her anywhere without attracting unwanted attention, but it appeared she had been wrong.
Wick took out his burner cell and called the city’s emergency social service hotline number–123. He reported that a girl child was stranded away from her family and was currently at the Tehran-PressTV office. That is where they had found the girl. The operator assured them that two people from his team would reach the spot within thirty minutes. Wick then dialed the number of the local police station and repeated the same story about Hiba. The officer on the phone initially showed reluctance to do anything at this time of the night, but as soon as Wick mentioned the address of Tehran-PressTV, the officer agreed to reach the venue within minutes. The police and the media had always been strange bedfellows. Their hatred towards each other was matched only by their need of each other. Wick didn’t stop there; his next call was to the man in the UNICEF office in Tehran at the number Logan had given him. The man picked up the phone and promised immediate action. As soon as Wick disconnected the phone, Hiba asked, “What is your name?”
Wick hesitated. She kept her gaze at him. “Samuel,” he said.
“Samuel!” she repeated and smiled. He smiled back.
Olivia came from behind and nudged him to move. Once people started coming, everything would start going downhill. Wick knew the risks.
“Go and stand there,” he said to Hiba, pointing at the reception table. Hiba turned and looked at the place, then turned back. “Knock on that table like this.” He showed her how to do it. “Someone will come and take you with them. They will show you on TV and your mother will come to get you. Don’t be scared, I will be watching you. You’ll be safe.” Wick gave a genuine smile. Hiba smiled back, trusting the man who had rescued her. He put the paper he had scribbled on a few moments ago in her hand and closed her fist so she wouldn’t lose it. He then nudged her, and she
walked towards the reception, occasionally turning around to see if Wick was still there. Wick whispered in his mic, “Send the email on Hiba.”
Logan complied.
Wick remained where he was, in a bid to reassure Hiba till she reached the reception.
At the reception, Hiba’s first two knocks on the table yielded nothing, but then a woman’s silhouette appeared.
Hiba extended her hand to give her the paper. The woman looked at the child with surprise and then read the note.
“My name is Hiba. My mother is missing. Police and UNICEF are on their way here to help me find her. They will be here in a few minutes. Can you stay with me till then?”
“How did you come here?” The woman gave her a motherly smile.
The girl turned and signaled at the road. The woman looked in the direction. There was no one there. Wick was gone. The van was gone.
She looked back at Hiba. “Are you hungry?” The girl nodded in affirmation. “Let’s go and get you something to eat,” the woman offered.
CHAPTER 22
Inside the minivan, Wick sat in silence, waiting for the second email to be triggered. Logan looked at Olivia to say something.
The team was baffled by the way Wick was going about Majeed’s case. As if he didn’t care about orders. They couldn’t say much to him; they didn’t know him well enough. They had heard about him, of course, but this was the first time they were working with him and, watching him from close quarters, his mannerisms worried them. There would be an inquiry on this, and that would include them, too. They were his accomplices in the mission. What would they say? They had little or no information of what had transpired between Majeed and Wick alone in that room in those crucial moments when Wick had decided to shoot him. Hiba was gone and, anyway, they didn’t know enough Farsi to have even asked her basic questions. So that opportunity was long gone.
“Wick, what did Majeed tell you before dying?”
Wick told them about the attack briefly.
“Wick, you sure you want to send this email. I think you should talk to Helms first.” Olivia sounded both worried and skeptical.
“I'll talk to him when the time comes. I know what you guys are thinking, but I’m alone in this, no one will point a finger at you. There will be an inquiry and I want each one of you to say whatever you think is right. I’m ready for the consequences but I don’t want to burden you guys with my conscience.”
“But why send an email and raise this shitstorm?” Logan asked.
Wick looked at him for a moment and took the image out of his pocket.
“Do you know who this man is?” Wick extended the image he had grabbed from the refrigerator. They studied it in the dim light of the van.
“No.”
“Baitullah Maksud.”
“Baitullah Maksud!” The two words captured everyone’s attention. They looked at the picture with renewed interest.
“This is the only image of Maksud that US intelligence agencies ever managed to get their hands on.”
“Where did you find this?”
“In Majeed’s house.”
“You think there's a connection between Majeed and Maksud?”
“I’ve a theory.”
“Care to elaborate?” Olivia said curtly.
“Few years ago, a group of German doctors visited Iraq on a humanitarian mission. Their group was attacked. While a few of them managed to escape unhurt, a few doctors from that group were abducted. The German government managed to get them released safely, except one: a German surgeon who died of a heart attack in mysterious circumstances.”
“I remember that,” Elijah said without looking back.
“Maksud’s terrorist group was identified as the one behind the attacks and the abduction. This image of Maksud was taken a week before that attack. And after this attack, he went underground. His terrorist group is still active though.”
“What does this have to do with Majeed?”
“Before embarking on this journey tonight, I asked my contacts in the NSA and CIA for intel on the group who abducted and burned the two American soldiers.”
“And?”
“Ninety-three percent chances are that Maksud’s group did it.”
Everyone in the van knew what ninety-three percent meant in their profession. Some of them had executed missions even with far lower chances of certainty. Ninety-three meant that the intel was extremely credible.
“You think Majeed had some connection with the killing of the US soldiers?” Elijah asked. He was now interested in where this was going.
“I asked my contacts to check the coordinates of Farhad from the day the US soldiers were abducted. He had always been at locations close to where, per our estimates, the US soldiers were possibly kept, till the day we lost track of them. That was a week ago.”
“Why wasn’t this done earlier? How can the agencies miss a man like Farhad?” Elijah asked.
“Because our complete focus was on Majeed. He’s the face for us. Everyone, including me, thought that Farhad was just a sidekick, but when I saw that Farhad wasn’t with Majeed at the convention, I thought of checking his digital footprints.”
“So, you think Majeed and Farhad are both working for Maksud?”
“I think Farhad is working for Maksud.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think Majeed is Baitullah Maksud, and the German doctor who supposedly died of a heart attack was in fact murdered.”
“How are these two things connected?”
“First, the German doctor who died was a world-renowned plastic surgeon. Second, Majeed came into prominence only after Maksud was gone. If you check Majeed’s history, there is a backstory about him, but there are no photos before a certain time which can corroborate that backstory. Due to international pressure, Maksud probably decided to take on a new identity, and the one who could help him do it at the time was the German surgeon. My assumption is that the attack on the German doctors was also planned to hide the fact that there was a plastic surgeon in the group, so that no one would see this connection. And the plan worked because no one did point it out.”
“This seems very farfetched,” Olivia said. She wasn’t convinced.
“I told you this is just a theory. I’m still awaiting a few more details to connect the dots,” Wick responded without taking any offence.
“Why didn’t you tell us? We could be of help to you,” Logan said, ignoring Olivia’s skepticism.
“If I had told you, and if my theory bombs, then your careers would be compromised. You were assigned only for this mission. Maksud is a different ball game altogether, and I’ll deal with it my way.”
“Then why tell us now?” Olivia asked.
“I think I owe you guys at least this much, if nothing more. Mentally I’m ready for anything from here on but cannot expect the same from you.”
Logan checked his email server. The second email about Majeed’s killing had been triggered a minute ago. He looked at Wick who checked his watch and tacitly understood what Logan’s expression meant.
To put things in motion, Wick made a few calls from his burner cell. The reaction to the revelation that Majeed was dead meant that the things would move very fast. News in Iran already had a field day in progress. First the blast and then Majeed’s death, two big breaking news items within a few hours of each other was something that would need no further push.
The minivan raced towards the safehouse. From there, they would leave for Turkmenistan separately. And then to Maryland, USA. What they didn’t know was that Wick had just changed his plans. He had decided to stay in Iran for a few more weeks.
He knew now that the news of Majeed’s death was out, Maksud’s terror group would start squirming, if indeed Majeed had been their leader. Wick had enough ears on the ground to map this activity, but for that he needed to be here in person. But before anything else, he needed to convince Helms, and he wanted to do that without the distraction of Olivia, Logan and Elija
h’s questioning eyes. They didn’t need to know he would be staying.
Wick checked the live news telecast on the Tehran-PressTV. Hiba was already on live TV and anchor was talking about her missing family. At least the process of finding Hiba’s family had been set in motion before this tiny news drowned in the avalanche of Majeed’s news.
Logan checked other news channels; they had all started to broadcast the image of Majeed that he had emailed them from the encrypted server. Even if anyone found the server, its location was Tehran. He had made sure that nothing from the email would point to the US. Not only that, the email about Hiba and the email on Majeed couldn't be linked to each other. That would have made life difficult for that little girl.