The Red Cell

by André Le Gallo

  She looked back to confirm Gulick was parked at the snack bar, facing her and talking to a waiter. She pushed the door open and entered the restroom. Laila was washing her hands at the sink and motioned they were alone. She quickly retrieved the Beretta from her pocketbook, slipped it into Aisha’s open handbag, smiled and kissed her hand, and went out the door.

  Making sure she was indeed alone, Aisha took the gun from her bag, feeling its weight in her hand. She ejected the clip, made sure the bullets were aligned properly, and pushed it back. She glanced at herself in the mirror to check her composure and locked herself in one of the stalls. She heard two or three people come in while she extracted the roll of toilet paper from its holder. When she was sure she was alone again, she left the stall, put her pocketbook on the edge of a sink, and went to the door. She opened it but could not see Gulick through the crowd of passengers going to or coming from their assigned gates. She had to wait to get a clear view of him and then waved to get his attention. But another cluster of passengers obscured her view. She closed the door, took a breath, and asked herself whether it would not be wiser to call Ghassem. He would know what to do.

  It was too late. She took another breath, opened the door and, this time, Gulick was in full view, looking in her direction. She waved at him, hoping she was conveying a sense of emergency. He hesitated at first but stood and came toward her. She let the door close and went to stand by her handbag. The door opened slightly and Gulick’s voice said, “Ms. Dalton, can I help you?”

  “There’s no one here. Please come in, come in, I need your help.”

  Gulick took several steps toward Aisha who had her back turned. Before he could reach her, she turned around, holding a roll of toilet paper in her left hand. She fired her .38 through the cardboard tube and hit Gulick in the chest. Going instantly into shock, he kept walking toward her. She fired again. This time, he fell to his knees and then flat on the floor. Aisha quickly put the gun back in her bag and went out the door.

  “She’s gone,” a glum Vanness said, facing his four American colleagues on the public side of Zaventem who looked as if they were about to fly off in four different directions. “It happened very fast. She was in the ladies room; then she waved to the big guy who had accompanied her to the terminal. She summoned him into the ladies room and she came out alone shortly after that. I thought I heard two sharp reports.”

  “Shots?” Steve asked.

  “Difficult to tell. The concourse is noisy. But I think so. She headed straight for Gate 83, the Iran Air gate. A tall man I recognized as the Iranian ambassador joined her from the aircraft, after the guy at the gate made a call. Then she embarked with the ambassador. The gate closed a few minutes later, and the plane is probably in the air by now.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Steve said with frustration, looking up at the electronic departure board, which informed him the Iran Air flight had indeed taken off. “She is on her way to Tehran, not Amsterdam and Washington? And she’s alone, without Lester Gulick?”

  “So what happened to him?” Hunter asked.

  “As I said, she was moving quickly after she left the ladies’ room. I followed her. “After she got on the Iran Air flight, I went back to the ladies’ room. By then, a crowd had gathered and the doorway was blocked by airport security. I asked what had happened and learned there had been a shooting. I think we know what happened to Gulick in there.”

  “I can’t say I liked him much,” Steve said, “but I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “His mama should have told him never to go into a ladies’ restroom,” Hunter said.

  29. Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany

  As soon as the plane’s wheels had left the ground, Aisha felt a tremendous load lift from her shoulders—she had left her fictional persona behind. From now on, she would use only her Muslim name. Although she never admitted it to herself, the pressure had been heavy. Valium—the pill she so desperately needed in the airport ladies’ room—had long ago become her friend. She could never be herself in Washington. She did not socialize since there was no need for it, for which she was thankful. Unlike all of the hangers on, the sycophants, the toadies, she had served the president well. Hers was more of a technical job than a political one. Organizing his schedule to reflect his priorities and acting as his praetorian guard to control the flow of people and information into the Oval Office were her primary duties, and she had performed them to President Tremaine’s great satisfaction. Further, her access to America’s greatest secrets was invaluable to her cause. She never needed to go out on a limb and take chances. And yet, she never got over the feeling of self-consciousness, that somehow she was always on the verge of being exposed by White House security, by the FBI, or by someone on the White House staff. She was forever on the edge, feeling she was about to be arrested. The humiliation would have been killing.

  On the other hand, she had often dreamed if the worst happened she could turn the tables and use her public trial as a forum to preach her cause, to explain to the West the history of her people, and the righteousness of their cause. But the president, for whom she had respect, and the entire Washington community—the entire world except for Iran—would always remember her as a traitor.

  She had noticed she and the ambassador were the only passengers in first class. Although she had surprised him by appearing at the gate, he had not asked questions and easily persuaded the crew to let her on board. Once in the air, he had asked only, “Does the general know of your decision? Are you acting under his orders?”

  “We discussed it,” was her only reply.

  When the plane leveled, the stewardess brought sodas and sparkling water, while Aisha looked forward to her life in Tehran with Ghassem. She would certainly be congratulated by the Supreme Leader and others. She would at last be able to serve her country from inside. Perhaps she would be offered a leading role in one of the ruling committees.

  She tried to close her eyes several times, but Lester Gulick’s body lurching toward her and crumpling on the floor forced her to stare out the window to erase the dreadful image.

  She noticed the ambassador had left his seat for the cockpit. He now stood in the doorway and motioned for her to join him.

  “The general would like to speak to you,” he said.

  “You surprised me, beloved,” Yosemani said through the earphones the copilot gave her. “I did not know you wanted to visit Tehran. You should have told me. I must stay here a few more days, so I will not be able to join you before your return to Washington.”

  “Husband,” she replied, “I am not going back to Washington. I will explain it to you when I see you. You will understand. There was really no choice.” She did not want to tell him, in front of the flight crew, how the insertion of the CIA officer was an obvious indication the Americans were on to her. And she had to do what she did at the airport.

  Yosemani paused a moment and finally said, “God is great. I will make arrangements for you to be met at the airport and take you to my house.”

  Just then Aisha became aware of commotion in the cockpit; the pilot and copilot looked truly alarmed. Glancing out the window, she noticed in the evening light that the plane was now over the Mediterranean. For an instant, she thought she was seeing a mirage, an illusion. A fighter aircraft was flying dangerously close to the airliner. The sight was so jarring she rubbed her eyes and looked again. She could now see the white star and the USAF markings, as well as the pilot’s white helmet. Hearing the crew’s frantic comments, she looked out in the opposite direction and could see the fiery red exhaust of a second fighter now escorting the ancient Boeing 707. In an effort to stay calm, her first reaction was the fighters were responding to some terrorist threat, that EUCOM, the American military command for Europe, was probably responding with an overabundance of caution. As the seconds passed, however, it was more and more difficult not to accept the obvious although it was difficult to understand how her defection had become known and how the decision f
or a military response had taken shape so quickly. She herself had not known exactly what she was going to do until she boarded the Iran Air flight. She was confused and horrified and trapped. Her body tensed and her mind was doing cartwheels.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the captain said in English over the intercom, “We are in touch with the two Americans fighters you can see out the window. Do not be alarmed, I am sure it is a misunderstanding.”

  “What is going on?” Aisha shouted to the ambassador, who had returned to his seat. After a quick look out his window, he jumped up and stormed back into the cockpit. “I represent the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he told the crew. “I will talk to the American pilots.”

  Aisha heard quick cadenced explosions outside the aircraft at the same time as red tracers shot from the fighters’ machine guns followed by screaming from the economy-class cabin behind the curtain. “Do something!” she shouted to the ambassador.

  She felt the 707 change course in a wide sweeping curve. Were they going back to Brussels? Was this somehow related to Gulick? Could the Belgian police, or the Belgian government, have enough authority to turn the plane back in order to arrest her? Why was the pilot not explaining the reason for the new direction? Where were they going?

  She walked to the back of first class and peered beyond the curtain. The stewardesses were all busy offering drinks and snacks to the economy-class passengers. However, they all clamored for information which was not forthcoming. . “Please stay calm, go back to your seats,” she heard one of them say. “Everything will be all right.”

  Then she heard the first-class stewardess tell the ambassador, “The copilot told me we are heading for Germany.”

  Germany? Why?

  Aisha suddenly felt time slowing down. She looked at her watch and figured they should have been at least over Lebanese air space. While she was mentally reviewing a map of Germany to guess where they were being taken, she sensed the plane losing altitude.

  “What is going on?” she asked the ambassador.

  He looked at her squarely and said, “The fighter pilot told me he had orders to escort us to an American air force base in Germany. The military, they are all the same. Nuance is not in their vocabulary. He would just as soon shoot us down if we do not obey his orders.”

  A few minutes later, the captain’s voice advised the passengers, “Please buckle your seatbelts. We will be landing at Ramstein Air Force Base in approximately ten minutes. I will give you more information as soon as it becomes available.”

  Aisha was now certain: this was all about her. Her true role in Washington had been discovered. Not only would she be arrested for spying, now she would also be charged with murder. But she had killed the CIA man because this was war and people get killed in a war.

  Instead of beginning a new life, her long-feared nightmare was about to begin. What would the Islamic Republic do to defend her? Would they even admit to her role? Probably not. That was the fate of spies, after all.

  She reached inside her pocketbook and felt the deadly smoothness of her Beretta. Would it be better to go through a trial and be executed after being paraded in front of cameras for months on end? First, she would probably be behind bars for many months. Would the execution be by electric chair? By gas? Would it be painful? At least she would not be publicly shot, hanged, or beheaded.

  She slowly withdrew the Beretta and looked at it for a long moment. As the wheels of the airliner touched the ground, she shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” Before the ambassador and stewardess could reach her, she placed the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

  30. Grande Place, Brussels

  The ambassador’s earlier call from the plane had caught General Yosemani at dinner in his hotel, with his bodyguard hovering nearby. After the call and the brief and disturbing conversation with Aisha, he motioned his guard to come and sit with him. “Did you follow my orders?” he asked, noticing the other man’s eyes scanning the room.

  “It is all taken care of. DuChemin will not be found in the next hundred years,” the guard replied as he cleaned his gold rimmed glasses with a napkin.

  “I cannot stand incompetence. He was head of a major internal security service, but he would not have qualified to be a private in the Quds Force. His loyalty was for sale, and he could not even perform the service for which he was hired.” He signed for the bill and said, “I must take a walk before going up to my room. Come on.”

  The general was silent as they walked past stores closed for the night, lesser hotels, and tourists heading for the Grande Place. He allowed himself to be swept by their flow, and he and the bodyguard soon entered a large, well-lit square surrounded by historic buildings topped by statues commemorating workmen’s guilds which, according to the concierge at his hotel, went back to the Seventeenth Century.

  “DuChemin cost us our hostage. She should have been on that plane tonight. If only he had been smart enough to have the exchange right here as we planned, I would have had my son back and kept the American girl,” he said, his voice rising. “Instead, Aisha is the one on the plane, and we have lost the major asset we had in the West. Of course, I am glad she is on her way home. She deserves rest and rewards. However, given the way she chose to go home, I am not sure whether the Supreme Leader will reward or punish her.”

  They walked back to the hotel, and the general clicked on the TV to CNN International, before taking his jacket off and going to the bathroom. He came back for a thorough update of the day’s European soccer scores, with lengthy reviews of games from Manchester to Milan. As he climbed into bed, the sports news was interrupted by a special bulletin.

  “We interrupt tonight’s news to bring you this special report,” the anchor said. “An Iran Air flight which took off this evening from Brussels’ Zaventem Airport headed for Tehran’s Iman Khomeini Mehrabad Airport was intercepted by two F-16s from the 86th Tactical Air Wing at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.”

  Yosemani sat on the forward edge of his bed to be closer to the screen, his eyes riveted on an archival image of the American fighter jet. These Americans have no bounds, he thought. Iran’s late, lamented ally Hugo Chavez had been right, when he claimed to be smelling sulfur in the chair where President Bush had sat in the United Nations. What about Aisha? Was she now a prisoner, or would she be given special treatment because of her rank? But how would she explain her presence on a flight going to Tehran?

  Of course, he thought. She will easily imply her trip was part of a secret negotiation plan with Iran.

  “The public affairs office at the base responded to our queries by saying the Iranian aircraft had been the subject of a terrorist threat. However, we have learned that a ranking official of a Western nation was on board. We can only confirm at this moment that all of the passengers have disembarked and are now in the transit lounge. We have an unconfirmed report an FBI agent and several American intelligence officers were the first to board the plane.

  “We will provide more details as soon as they are available. We now rejoin the regularly scheduled program.”

  Yosemani stood up, clenching his fists but feeling helpless to control or even influence the situation. Consciously breaking phone security, he called Aisha on his cell. Getting no reply, he then tried the ambassador’s number. When that produced no answer, he took two quick steps and grabbed the hotel phone. “Connect me with the Iranian Embassy in Germany, immediately. Yes, in Germany, in Berlin, you idiot!”

  Told by the operator she would call him back as soon as the connection was established, the general glanced around the room, stepped to the window, and opened the curtains. Frustrated that options were not jumping to his mind, as they usually did in crisis situations, he turned back and opened the room refrigerator. He reached for a soda then also grabbed a miniature bottle of vodka, which he mixed with the soda and some ice from the freezer tray. He sipped the drink between tight lips.

  After several minutes, the room phone rang, and the operator connected him to the Irania
n Embassy. The only person present was a security guard, who could only say he would pass on the general’s message for the ambassador to call him immediately.

  The Americans must be punished, he thought. They need to learn the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic could not be slighted and disrespected with impunity. Iran had to take a highly visible punitive action. While the diplomats could talk endlessly at the United Nations, he, the commanding general of the Quds Force, would inflict a critical blow to the enemy.

  He slept fitfully, waiting for the call from Germany that never came. The next morning, he unmuted the TV as soon as he woke up. Once again, he suffered through the soccer scores, when a different anchor interrupted the program.

  “We have just learned the passengers aboard the Iran Air flight, which was intercepted by American fighter aircraft that forced the passenger plane to land at Ramstein Air Force Base yesterday, included V.A. Dalton, American President Tremaine’s chief of staff. Our reporters have been trying to interview her, but base officials have not returned our phone calls. We have an unconfirmed report one passenger was taken off the plane on a stretcher. More details as soon as we have them.”

  Yosemani jumped on the phone and called the Iranian Embassy in Berlin again. Reaching the ambassador, he said, “This is General Yosemani. I am in Brussels. Tell me everything you know about the American insult last night. Who was the passenger taken off on a stretcher?”

  “I have been in touch with the Pakistani Embassy, which handles our affairs with the Americans, although the normal channel is not here in Berlin but in Tehran. Anyway, the Pakistani Ambassador has been on the phone on our behalf. It appears the person on the stretcher was an American, but there were no Americans on the passenger list. That’s all I can tell you at the moment.”

  “Stop being a diplomat,” he yelled into the phone. “Be effective! Why are you wasting your time with the Pakistanis, when you should be calling the captain of the aircraft directly?”