Covert Action

by Dick Couch

  When he stepped into the anteroom, General Saleh Ali Al-Mohayya, chief of staff of the army and, in effect, the head of the Saudi military, was waiting for him. He and Al-Mohayya were rivals; at best they treated each other with suspicion bordering on contempt. Nonetheless, Al-Mohayya rose when he entered the room and stood at attention.

  “My forces stand at your command.”

  “Thank you,” Saeed replied politely. “Please come with me.”

  It took Judy Burks four calls, two to the Bureau and two to the American Embassy in Paris, before she was finally given his cell phone. She had rung his residence several times, but the calls had gone straight to the answering machine. Even then she had to call the cell twice before he picked up.

  “Who the hell is this? Do you realize what time it is?”

  Judy, who had no watch, looked up at the eight clocks on the bulkhead that led to the cockpit of the Gulfstream. “Wait a minute, I can do this.” She found the one labeled “Paris.” “Okay, got it; it’s a quarter of two. That sound about right?”

  “Who in the hell is this?”

  “C’mon, Walter, you don’t recognize my voice?”

  The voice did in fact sound familiar. Special Agent Walter O’Hara was the FBI liaison officer to the French Gendarmerie Nationale, a job he detested; he hated the French. A little more than a year ago he had participated in the raid of a residence in Villefranche, supposedly the home of a man connected to Hezbollah. This man, he later learned, was a Russian-born, naturalized French citizen who had orchestrated the theft of two nuclear weapons from Pakistan. The information given to him, which he had passed along to the French, was gold-plated. Only a bungled raid by Les Unités d’ Intervention, the French national SWAT team, allowed this master terrorist to escape.

  “Agent Burks?”

  “You do remember.” She turned to Garrett. “He remembers me.” Back to O’Hara. “Walter, how’d you like to do me and the Bureau a big favor and save the free world, all at the same time?”

  “Just what exactly do you want?” he asked dubiously.

  “We’ll be landing in a Gulfstream at Charles de Gaulle in about two hours. I want you to meet us with a nine-passenger van. We need to skip customs, and we want no questions asked about the aircraft or the people on board. Then we need to make a trip to a villa about two hours outside of Paris.”

  “Uh, Agent Burks, this sounds like something that has to be cleared through the Director; it will take his intervention to make this happen. The French are wired pretty tight right now, and they don’t like taking orders from a lowly liaison officer.”

  “Tell me about it,” she replied. “I just spoke with the executive director. It’s being done as we speak.”

  “So—so what do you need me for?”

  “Walter, we need someone we can trust. We need you to drive the van.”

  “No gendarmerie along on this one?”

  “No gendarmerie.”

  “See you when you get on the ground.”

  It was with no small degree of relief that Al-Qahtani was able to tell his crown prince that they had been successful in finding the mysterious briefcase, along with three of the fifteen syringes carried into the country. This had come just twenty hours after the flight from Dubai had landed. Now he waited at his desk for his call to Armand Grummell to be put through.

  The search of Riyadh and the outlying areas had been unprecedented and overwhelming. It involved the local police, the local and national security services, and the army. Never before had there been such a concentration of force, and never before had they taken a search into holy places. The Saudi Army and the security services had looked for terrorists before, but the searches were limited because of the sway the fundamentalist clerics held over the people. This time there was no such restraint. Mosques and madrassas, normally exempt from this kind of scrutiny, were thoroughly searched. It was in the basement of the latter, near al-Jubaylah, that they found an Al Qaeda cell, the syringes, and twelve young men. They had taken their first step toward martyrdom; the twelve had all allowed themselves to be injected with the deadly serum. Per their instructions, the army unit that found them immediately called for the Saudi medical team assembled for that purpose. The area was cordoned off by a Special Security Forces national guard unit, and medically quarantined.

  Al-Qahtani’s call went through. “Yes, Mr. Grummell, we were successful—completely successful.” Grummell asked for the details, and Al-Qahtani told him all they had done. Then Grummell told him what he wanted. Al-Qahtani lifted his eyebrows. “You say a team of epidemiologists and a special operations security element from the United States will be landing in Riyadh within the hour? Mr. Grummell, it is not within my power to authorize this…. They are talking as we speak…. I see…. Well, then, with the authorization of the crown prince, I will see they get everything they need…. No, Mr. Grummell, thank you for helping us to avert an unpleasant situation…. And you, sir, good-bye.”

  Moments later, Crown Prince Abdullah sent for him. He had just spoken with the President of the United States.

  Just after dawn, the nine-passenger Dodge van, with eight passengers and the driver, pulled up to a small villa near Le Chatelet-en-Brie. It was an embassy vehicle O’Hara had borrowed from the Marine guard force, but with no official markings. The two-story stone house was dark and appeared empty. Meno claimed to have no key, so they had to break in. The oak door was stout, and it took both AKR and Garrett together to force the lock. Once inside, they made a quick search of the home. The housekeeper who came twice a week would not be there today, or so Meno claimed.

  “So we wait?” Steven asked.

  “We wait,” Rosenblatt replied.

  They wandered about the generous living areas and the well-appointed library, which was filled mostly with medical texts. Janet and Judy went to the kitchen to see what they could find to eat. They soon returned with tea and a plate of bread and cheese. François Meno was still in the chem-bio suit, but the pillowcase had been removed. His face shield was smeared and dirty, but he could now see. He sat by the window in the foyer, still bound, not taking his eyes from the driveway. About ten o’clock, a FedEx truck pulled into the drive. Meno was immediately on his feet.

  “I better handle this,” O’Hara said. “Keep him quiet.” He handed Meno off to Garrett and stepped outside to meet the deliveryman.

  “Package for Dr. François Meno,” she said. The FedEx deliveryman was a woman.

  “He’s not available at present,” O’Hara said in horrible French. “I’ll sign for it.”

  “May I see some identification, s’il vous plait.”

  O’Hara showed her his FBI credential, which meant nothing, and his Gendarmerie Nationale ID, which did. She gave him the standard French shrug and handed him a clipboard. He signed, and she handed over the package.

  They all gathered in the dining room and watched while Elvis Rosenblatt carefully opened the package. Garrett kept a firm hold on Meno. Neatly packed inside were a half dozen ampoules of clear liquid.

  “So this is it?” Rosenblatt asked.

  “Yes, yes, that’s it. Now you must let me have it. There’s no time to lose!” Meno was becoming excited, fogging his faceplate. “Please! I’ve done all you asked!” Dancing before him were the death throes of the men and women who died in the soundproof cells at the Makondo Hotel.

  “You’re sure this vaccine is effective?”

  “Damn you. Why would I lie? Give it to me! There are syringes in my office upstairs. Please hurry!”

  “Okay,” Rosenblatt said lightly, “I believe you.”

  Rosenblatt rose and walked around the table to Meno. He unsnapped the locking mechanism on the helmet, twisted it an eighth of a turn, and lifted it from his head. The smell that came from the confined reaches of the suit were overpowering.

  “Wh—what are you doing?” Meno fully expected them to keep him in the protective garment and inject him with the vaccine through the fabric of the suit. �
��What is this?”

  Johann Mitchell had not spoken a dozen words since they left Africa, but he spoke now. “We had no remaining pathogen in the lab. All of it had in fact been destroyed, as you had so ordered. You then claimed to have a vaccine. It was Doctor Rosenblatt who had the idea to scare you sufficiently so that you would lead us to it.” For the first time in a long while, Mitchell actually smiled. “And so you did.”

  “You are a brilliant virologist, Meno,” Rosenblatt observed, “but you’re also a chicken-shit. Thanks for the vaccine.”

  Garrett Walker, like the rest of the IFOR contingent in the villa dining room, was as shocked as Meno to learn that Rosenblatt was running a bluff. So shocked that when Meno bolted for Rosenblatt, he slipped from Garrett’s grasp. Rosenblatt was ready. The right hand wasn’t thrown that hard, but Meno ran straight into it. It caught him square in the face, giving him a broken nose to go with his broken teeth. He went down like a sack of sand.

  In the stunned silence that followed, they all stared at Elvis. AKR spoke first.

  “Why, you sonova—”

  “Hey,” Rosenblatt said, holding up his hands, one of them sporting a bruised knuckle. “You guys have to keep your secrets; Johann and I had to keep ours.”

  Epilogue

  Before they left the Meno villa, Garrett and AKR had a good look around. In the basement they found a well-stocked wine cellar, carefully assembled by François’s late father. They took four cases altogether and packed them into the back of the van for the drive back to Charles de Gaulle Airport. The wine, they reasoned, would be a good complement to the African beer Tomba’s men brewed at the Kona facility. Three of the cases went into the Gulfstream, and one they gave to Special Agent Walter O’Hara, over his protest.

  “Hey, I’m a Mick from New York,” he said, “I drink beer.”

  “Give it a try,” Garrett urged. “A little grape never hurt anyone, even an Irishman.”

  That evening, after a very long day, O’Hara inspected one of the bottles—a Petrus Bordeaux, the same as what François Meno had taken with him to Africa. He splashed some in a tumbler and took a gulp. Not bad, he thought, but it’s not beer—maybe it needs to be colder. He poured out the remainder of the glass, set the bottle on a shelf in the refrigerator, and took out a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The next day he took an unopened bottle of the Bordeaux to work and gave it to his secretary. He recalled that she was always going on about wine.

  “Merci,” she cried, cradling the bottle as if it were a newborn. It caused such a stir in the office that O’Hara did some investigation. It seems that a single bottle of Petrus 1996 Pomerol Bordeaux, if you could find one, went for around five-hundred dollars.

  Dr. Elvis Rosenblatt took the vaccine to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he and a Franco-American medical team closely examined the work of François Meno. The politicians of France and the United States often find themselves at cross-purposes, but the virologists from the CDC and the Pasteur Institute get on quite well. Two days later, the three unused syringes of genetically altered smallpox arrived from Saudi Arabia. It would take some time for conclusive tests, but it appeared that Meno had indeed developed an effective vaccine for his pathogen.

  A portion of this vaccine was sent to Saudi Arabia for the would-be bio-suicide bombers. They had been taken to an isolated medical facility under Saudi control and quarantined. Those at the Pasteur Institute thought all would be given the vaccine, but only half were inoculated. The half who did not receive the vaccine experienced the same fate as those unfortunate test subjects in Africa. Those who received the vaccine recovered fully. As soon as they were pronounced fit, they were promptly beheaded.

  It was not until Tuesday morning that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi learned of the disaster outside of Riyadh. He was still in Iran, still safe, yet he knew that it would only be a matter of time until the persistent Americans caught up with him as well. Nonetheless, he left the house by way of the back door and was helped into a waiting van. It was on to yet another safe house.

  At Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Steven Fagan and Dodds LeMaster immediately boarded the Gulfstream and took off, chasing the sun west across the Atlantic. They were met at Andrews Air Force Base by Jim Watson. From there Steven and Watson were driven to a private room at an exclusive Georgetown eatery. They were joined by Armand Grummell and Joseph Simpson. It was a rare meeting, one that in all probability would not be repeated. In keeping with the character of these men, they exchanged a brief round of congratulations, but beyond that, refrained from talking business. That would be handled through unofficial channels at another time. Most of the discussion centered around international politics, national security affairs, and the inability of the Redskins to make the play-offs—again.

  “By the way,” Simpson said to Steven in passing, “what happened to your lead computer technician, the one you think so highly of. Didn’t he fly in with you?”

  “He did,” Steven replied. “With the help of Jim Watson here, we were able to get him a temporary clearance to the National Security Agency and drop him off at their headquarters at Fort Meade. He said there was a matter there that needed his attention.”

  The French authorities were waiting for Meno when the van returned to the airport. He was immediately taken into custody. After his broken nose was set and he endured a crude bout of dental reconstruction, he was placed in a cell to await trial. A week later, Meno concluded that another day of bland food, prison attire, restricted movement, and lack of privacy was unacceptable. France did not believe in capital punishment, so he faced a lengthy imprisonment, if not a life sentence. The French also wanted no unpleasantness in their jails, so lethal objects were kept out of the cells. But Meno, as he had so capably demonstrated in his medical career, was a resourceful man. That evening he quietly removed his trousers, placed his neck through the fly and tied the legs to an upper rung of the barred cell door. In this manner, he managed to hang himself, albeit slowly.

  Mitchell was another story. With the pathogen and the vaccine in the laboratory spaces of the Pasteur Institute, he again proved his worth in helping to analyze the pox and accelerate the production of more vaccine, just in case. His contribution was evident to all, yet he had unquestionably participated in a great crime. Johann Mitchell had gone to Africa for the money; his wife had a heart condition that only a heart transplant could correct. But in the socialized German medical scheme of things, she was deemed too old—available organs were slated for younger recipients. Ironically, she had died while he was in Zimbabwe. Now the French didn’t want him, and he had no desire to return to Germany. He was a superb internist, but he would never practice again, at least not in public practice. It was Steven Fagan who came up with the idea, and it was immediately endorsed by Rosenblatt, Garrett, AKR, and even Janet Brisco. There was no physician on staff with IFOR on Kona, and it was becoming increasingly inconvenient to take men to the clinic in Waimea for medical treatment. A resident doctor at the training facility would be most useful. As it was, Mitchell probably knew more than he should about the workings of IFOR.

  When the matter was put to Mitchell, he readily agreed. Subject to final approval by Joseph Simpson, IFOR now had a staff physician. While he was completing his work at the Pasteur Institute, a package arrived for him from a Mr. Bill Owens of Guardian Services International. Enclosed was a passport and birth certificate for one Franz Suhadolnik, a German-born, naturalized American citizen. The passport photo was a good likeness of Johann Mitchell. Also enclosed was a first-class ticket on Delta Airlines from Paris to Honolulu.

  Pavel Zelinkow did not sleep all that well on the Monday night following the Sunday delivery of the pathogen to Riyadh. His rest was not helped by news of the airport closures in Saudi Arabia. He could only assume that, while things had come apart in Africa, and all was not as it should be in the Saudi Kingdom, these difficulties had not materially affected the delivery of the product. There was no news of any terrorists being taken into cust
ody.

  He rose at the usual time Tuesday morning and resisted going to his computer until his espresso was fully prepared. It was with a great deal of trepidation that he turned on the machine and brought up the main menu of the Arzi Bank AG in Zurich. He logged onto the site and tapped in his personal ID code. The computer hesitated, but only for an instant, and there it was: $30 million!

  Zelinkow closed his eyes, sighed, and then went to work. He had an established protocol for moving the money from Arzi Bank AG through a dozen offshore banks and private banking arrangements. Per his preprogrammed instructions, the money came and went through these financial institutions, the funds running their route like a border collie on an agility course. At each stop, a fee was charged, and the character of monies changed—euros became pesos, yen became rubles, and the amounts were forwarded in differing denominations. At each stop, the money became a little cleaner and a little harder to trace. The process would take several hours. When the $30 million, less fees, arrived at its final destination, it would be as clean as freshly fallen snow.

  Zelinkow pushed back from the computer and permitted himself a broad smile. It was done. With these funds, he would never again have to take another contract, and certainly never have to soil his hands with business as dirty as that just concluded. He quickly changed into some walking clothes and, with visions of attending private parlor concerts by the now-retired Luciano Pavarotti, to the tune of ten thousand dollars a head, let himself out of the flat. After a short walk he was seated in his favorite bakery, trying to decide between a cannoli or a biscotti. He finally selected tiramisu and another cup of espresso and settled in behind the Italian edition of the Paris Mondo Times. He turned quickly to the entertainment section and tucked into the tiramisu.

  Few people, including Pavel Zelinkow, knew to what lengths the Americans, in prosecution of their war on terror, had gone in tapping into the international financial markets. Dodds LeMaster was one of the few. He now sat at a console deep in the bowels of the NSA with three scopes in front of him. The lanky Englishman perched on his stool in an agreeable slouch. Periodically he rubbed his hands together in front of his face, like a fly on a bowl of potato salad. There were no certainties in this business, but he felt he had a chance. One of the screens held the same presentation as that in the office of Martin Klein at the Leeward Bank on Nevis in the Caribbean. For LeMaster it would be a waiting game, and he was prepared to wait as long as it took. The clearance LeMaster had been given came from very high up and allowed him total and unrestricted access to all NSA computing capability. He had the run of the place. Otherwise he would never be allowed to bring a stack of tuna on rye sandwiches, several bags of barbeque chips, and a cooler filled with Dr. Pepper into the pristine, antiseptic NSA computer control center.