The Red Cell

by André Le Gallo

  The three men hustled her to a side parking lot and into an aging Toyota Land Cruiser. Before she knew it, they had covered her eyes with a black scarf and pushed her down to the floor in the back seat.

  “Ahmed, what are they doing? What’s going on?” she called out.

  “It is all right, it is all right,” he replied. She felt another body that had been pushed down next to her. She realized it was Ahmed and she began to hate him for placing her in this situation.

  Although she tried to keep track of elapsed time in left and right turns, she quickly gave up. Instead, she began replaying the events that had brought her blindfolded and confined to the floor of an SUV in the middle of the Mediterranean. And she hated Ahmed even more. She was being treated more as an enemy than an ally. Was she in the hands of a competing organization? Was she being kidnapped for ransom? Was she about to be tortured?

  The car stopped after what she estimated to be an hour but probably was shorter. Her captors helped her out of the Toyota and led her by the hand across a rocky driveway and up several steps before crossing a threshold onto a rug or carpet. Someone removed her blindfold, and she saw two new people. One was a bearded man, perhaps in his fifties, wearing a djellaba and scuffed black shoes. He eyed her speculatively from his easy chair, as he fingered a string of beads. The other was a woman about 10 years younger. She stood next to him and also looked Um up and down.

  “Salaam alaikum, my children,” the man said. “You have come a long way. I am told that Allah, may His name be blessed, is your guide, as he is mine. You are welcome in this house.”

  “Alaikum Salaam,” she replied automatically.

  He motioned to one of the young men to pour a glass of water for each. “But because of the importance of our task, I will ask you to be patient and follow them.” He pointed vaguely to the woman and to the driver, who led Um and Ahmed to two separate rooms, closing the doors behind them.

  “Pretend you are at an airport,” the woman said. “Raise your arms and spread your legs.” It was only then Um understood she was about to be searched, not for contraband, but for listening devices. Bob had mentioned that possibility, although he clearly doubted whoever she would meet would be that careful or professional. They were in a small bedroom with closed curtains, the dimness of which caused the woman to click on a light switch before going to work. Dressed in a long sleeved, ankle-length dress, she had black hair, black eyes, no makeup, and what would have been an attractive oval face, had it not been for her prison-guard expression.

  Her hands methodically patted Um down, but more slowly and carefully, than Um had ever experienced going through airport security.

  “Take off your clothes,” the woman said, with a hint of a grin.

  “What? That is not what they do at airports.”

  “Do it now, or I will bring the boys in here, and they will be happy to help.”

  “Whatever it is you’re looking for, you are wasting your time,” Um said curtly. When she saw the woman was not backing down, she headed for the door, saying, “I am out of here.” But one of the young men in the living room barred her exit.

  The woman called her back. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. It will be easy. Come on.”

  In extreme frustration, Um slammed the door closed and walked back into the room, trying to repress her anger.

  “Remember,” the woman said sincerely, “we are all on the same side, Allah is our salvation. I must examine you. Go ahead. You can put your clothes on the bed.”

  Um removed her light jacket and unbuttoned her blouse while trying to avoid the women’s searching eyes.

  “Quickly, quickly.”

  She threw her blouse on the bed, revealing a lacy red bra from Victoria’s Secret she now wished she had left at home.

  “How does a girl like you afford this? Is it with your CIA salary? Did the CIA build a micro-microphone into your bra?” The woman stepped toward her and said, “Don’t move. This will not hurt.” She reached for Um’s breasts, fondling each gently. “I cannot yet feel the wire, but I know it is there.”

  “Stop it!” Um said, yanking the woman’s wrists away from her chest.

  “Now take off those jeans.”

  When the jeans joined the other clothes on the bed, revealing matching red panties, the woman again stepped forward with a predatory grin, pressing her body against Um and giving her a light kiss on the lips.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t like this, or this is completely new to you,” the woman said. “Your eyes betray you.”

  The remark made Um flashback to her student days in Beirut, when she and a friend had experimented together for a week before going back to boys. She remembered it had not been a totally unpleasant experience. She allowed the woman’s lips to stay on hers for a second longer than she knew she should before pushing her away, causing her to fall to the floor. She took a breath and quickly dressed.

  As the woman stood up, she told her, “I am saving you from Allah’s wrath.” Then she left the bedroom.

  El Khoury and Ahmed turned toward her when Um reentered the living room. The two young men apparently had been sent on an errand.

  “Ahmed has told me about you,” El Khoury said. “Your courage in working side by side with the Americans infidels will be rewarded. We will not be able to meet very often, so today we will instruct you regarding communications and give you the requirements you must fulfill if our cause is to be served.”

  Um’s bedroom interrogator returned and stood at El Khoury’s side, a bit flushed but sternly attentive.

  “I will be your contact,” Ahmed said hurriedly, as if afraid to be preempted. “I will meet you in New York every two weeks. I will give you the address of the apartment later. These meetings will be preset. But for emergencies, you will contact an Internet message board. Remember the Web address, www.esquisitecuisine.com. If you include the words ‘green eels,’ with the second word misspelled as ‘eals,’ and sign the message ‘AL,’ I will meet you the next day in the parking lot of the Vienna, Virginia, Metro station at one p.m. The alternate will be six p.m. the same day.” He glanced at El Khoury, seeking approval.

  Still fingering his beads, El Khoury nodded. “All this seems overly complicated to me. But I agree we cannot underestimate the enemy. America is the puppet master of the Jewish State, which has too often used Satan’s tricks to kill our people.” He paused and added, “Fortunately, Ahmed has been taught by our Iranian brothers.”

  “Remember I am just a translator,” Um said, taking a sip from the glass she had left on the table prior to her bout in the bedroom. “So far, I am mostly given speeches and public comments that appear in the Arab and Iranian media. When I translate them, they give me a new batch. My office is not even in the CIA building. It is in a business center in a town called Reston, fifteen kilometers away from CIA headquarters. However, I have been told I could be transferred to another office that requires much higher clearances. I believe they deal with secret telephone taps as well as with intercepts.”

  “Alhamdu’llah,” El Khoury exclaimed, thanking God and giving Um a broad smile, the first sign of emotion she had seen. He dispatched his female assistant to get him a bottle of orange juice from the kitchen.

  “To better serve you,” Um said, starting to regain her senses, recalling Bob’s instructions and crooked nose, “It would help me to know how my information will be used. Since I will be serving you primarily, please tell me, Sai’d, how I can help your mission.”

  Before El Khoury could reply, the phone started ringing, and he motioned for Ahmed to answer it. As Ahmed walked toward a small desk next to the window, El Khoury looked at Um and said, “My mission is to destroy the Jews and Crusaders, and their allies among us. To do so, we need help from our Iranian brothers, and it is to our benefit to help them help us.”

  Ahmed picked up the phone and put it next to his ear. Just then, a small explosion in the phone’s headset blasted Ahmed’s brains across the room
in a pulpy jet that colored the rug and the opposite wall with grayish-red matter.

  Stunned, Um could only stand transfixed by the horror she had just witnessed.

  El Khoury, his hands now still, focused his gaze deeply into Um’s eyes, as though he was staring through her. “As I said, we will destroy the Jews and Crusaders, and their allies. Let us talk more tomorrow.”

  With that, he dismissed her, and soon her captors had again blindfolded her, returned her to the floor of the SUV, and after another hour deposited her at the hotel.

  During her fitful sleep that night, she dreamed her mother was being prepared to become a suicide bomber.

  ***

  Per El Khoury’s instructions, Um was escorted back to him the next day. This time, however, the two men had not blindfolded her, and she could see the route they traveled, through the city and its outskirts to the northeast, ending up somewhere near Larnaca Bay. She thought briefly it meant she was going to be assassinated, but she eventually decided if El Khoury had wanted her dead he would have killed her already.

  They were met at the front of the house by two armed guards. Um walked to the front door by herself. El Khoury’s female assistant let her in with a slight gleam in her eye, and El Khoury again sat in his easy chair, flanked by a new younger man in a black suit and a collarless shirt. His short, severely trimmed black beard and glasses projected intensity and fervor.

  “Ahmed’s execution has changed things. Mr. Khazaee has come from his embassy in Nicosia to talk with you.”

  The three of them sat around a coffee table, while El Khoury’s assistant continued to stand silently behind him. Um wondered what role she served. Except for the bedroom scene, she had not said a word. Her loose clothing could well hide a weapon. Um turned her gaze toward the new player, pegging him as Iranian intelligence.

  “Ahmed did many things for us in the United States and, until he is replaced, you will have to take on some of his tasks,” Khazaee said, following preliminary and traditional polite exchanges. After obtaining Um’s silent assent, he continued.

  “We can no longer communicate with our helpers in America through the usual means. We have been warned by reports in the American media that the National Security Agency, the CIA, and other arms of the U.S. intelligence apparatus are spying against their own people,” he said without irony. Therefore, we cannot use telephone or email.”

  His eyes fixed on Um just as El Khoury’s had, and she felt as if she could not move. She felt relieved when he lit a cigarette and took a puff while looking at the ceiling. El Khoury took a sip of water.

  “Do you think you will be able to make an occasional trip to the rendezvous point without alerting your CIA employers?”

  “I do have a full time job and, as I said yesterday, I am beginning to have better access to secret information. My new office will be in the CIA headquarters building. I could certainly make contacts in the evening after work.”

  “I have reviewed the communications plan Ahmed gave you yesterday, and I will not change it,” Khazaee said.

  He paused for a moment. “Your new access to information and to the CIA headquarters building will be useful for both us and for our Iranian friends. You will be able to give into the house of the apostates.”

  9. Bucharest

  As the TAROM Airlines flight made its final approach at Henri Coandă International Airport, Kella forced herself to stop thinking about a long list of wedding details to Marshall’s minimal background briefing, which she had received a day before departing.

  Ever since she’d become an item with Steve, Marshall had taken a paternal air with her.

  “It’s been a while since I was chief in Bucharest, so I don’t know if I could give you much advice,” he said. “You should remember a couple of things, however. First, Romanians are proud they are Latins and not Slavs. Although they certainly were part of the Soviet bloc, they always tried to play an independent role. It was because Romania, that is, Nicolae Ceausescu, was unable to help Henry Kissinger make the connection with Beijing. He eventually gave that role to Pakistan. Which goes to show the Romanians like to think of themselves as global players and, secondly, Ceausescu was all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas.

  “Also, when I was there, you could not find a Romanian who admitted to speaking Russian, although they all had gone through twelve years of schooling in that language. Because it was against the law for Romanians to have any unofficial contacts with foreigners, the only ones I really got to know were my agents. They all were brave individuals and pushed the national trait of being schmecher, that is, clever, to the limit. More than most, like the Arabs, I would say, they like to play every angle.”

  The airport surprised Kella, with its modern and large, almost cavernous, terminal, which held passport control, customs, baggage pickup, scores of stores hungering for Western currencies, as well as ATMs and automatic ticket vending machines. Her searching glance, however, did not reveal wedding gowns in the shop windows. The submachine-gun-toting soldiers, which Marshall also had described, were either not there, or less visible.

  A short, heavyset man with deep smile lines greeted her on the other side of passport control. He wore a dark brown sport jacket, khakis, and for some reason a baseball cap sporting the CAT logo from Caterpillar Tractor Company. “Hi, I’m Charlie Pastor,” he said, extending his hand. “Are you Kella?” He took out a burgundy-colored official U.S. passport from his jacket pocket and showed it to her, who returned the gesture, although her passport was blue. It provided no diplomatic protection, but she did not think she would need it.

  “I only have this carry-on,” Kella said, as Charlie nodded approvingly and shouldered her bag. “So we can go directly to the car.”

  As they got into Charlie’s black BMW, he said. “This used to be my official car, and I was able to buy it when I retired. Bucharest was my last posting. It’s still a great car. Sinaia is about two hours away, depending on the number of cows, goats, and horse carts on the road.”

  “Who watches the villa when you’re not there?” Kella asked.

  “Well, right now, it’s my wife. We’re also supposed to have a guard, a former SEAL. He’s a contractor, just like my wife and me. But he had to go back to the States, because his father is having a heart bypass. Even SEALs have parents. I guess there’s not enough money in the budget to replace him until he comes back, which will be in a week. I think. As I assume you know, there are no prisoners at the site at the moment and no interrogators. We’re just waiting for your guy.”

  They drove in silence for a while, and Kella’s thoughts returned to Paris, where her stepmother, Alexandra, was already aggressively organizing the wedding and reception—the décor, the flowers, the menu, the music. It made Kella feel more like a bridesmaid than a bride, so Romania seemed like the last place she should be at the moment.

  After Charlie had taken the bypass around Ploieşti and driven along Route 1 toward Sinaia for about half an hour, he broke the silence. “Pardon me for asking, but in spite of compartmentalization, it’s hard to totally squelch corridor rumors. Are you the Kella who ran that operation in Iran with Steve Church?”

  “Let me ask you a question,” Kella replied. “Marshall Church had some good things to say about a Charlie who had succeeded him as chief in Bucharest. Are you that Charlie?”

  “Yes.” He paused for a moment. “We’re almost there, the house is up the mountain,” he said, as they passed a Sinaia town limits sign. “This is essentially a winter resort, and it’s still a bit early for the tourists. There are splendid ski trails here, but not as modern as in Western Europe. Are you getting hungry? We’d like to take you to the restaurant at the Dragului Hotel for dinner, but we can’t leave the villa vacant. In fact, we’re sort of restricted to barracks until Joe returns.” Then he added, “I’m sure Liz will think of something.”

  When Charlie drove past a street pointing uphill, Kella caught him repeatedly looking at his rear view mirror. “What’s
going on?” she asked, her internal alarm switching on.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think we’ve caught a tail. Almost as soon as we got into town. Looks like Romanian security is going upscale. It’s a Mercedes. I don’t know why they would track us here. They’ve cooperated from day one on this site. Well, whatever they’re up to, I’m not going to lead them to our front door.”

  Kella restrained herself from turning her head but located the suspect car in her side-view mirror; there were two men in the front seat. This was territory Charlie knew best, his home turf, and Kella restrained herself from telling Charlie what to do. Besides, she thought he probably had more extensive experience in counter-surveillance.

  Charlie drove at a sedate pace for another mile, past an entrance labeled “Monastery,” entering a road into a large estate the area of a small town. As he followed Strada Manastiriu, as it was called, several large wooden buildings appeared around a sharp curve. Out of sight of the Mercedes, Charlie turned immediately after what appeared to be the main church, a tall structure with three octagonal towers, each topped by a cross.

  Kella accepted Charlie’s logic. Either the Romanians had mistaken them for somebody else, or these were local cops who had not been read in on the operation. If, on the other hand, this was not a Romanian tail, it could be a Jihadist group that somehow had discovered the existence of the operation and thought they might get lucky. Whatever the case, she felt naked without a weapon.

  As if reading her thoughts, Charlie pointed to the glove compartment, where she found a .38 Smith and Wesson automatic, which she laid on the seat beside her.

  Charlie made another slight right, passed a row of trees, and entered a narrow track. The BMW’s headlights illuminated automatically, as the car followed the track underground for about 100 yards and resurfaced on a street leading back to the highway. “I found this tunnel three weeks ago,” he said. “I knew it might come in handy one day.”

  They drove up the side of the mountain, passing buildings that reminded Kella of Swiss chalets she had seen on postcards. They stopped in front of a three-story house fronted by small evergreens and topped by two red-roofed towers. The front door was opened by a gray-haired, slim woman with thick-rimmed glasses hanging from her neck on a silver chain.