The Red Cell

by André Le Gallo

  She entered the corridor and slowed her steps. She stopped to find her compact and look at her reflection. The face looking back at her appeared tired and worried. Her lips were drawn tight and her eyes were blinking too fast. She put the compact away, stood taller, took a breath and walked resolutely toward 2310.

  She was also about to decapitate Syria’s intelligence organization.

  She knocked on the door with a bad feeling she was in way over her head, that she was about to walk onto a minefield.

  Khazaee opened the door for her and they entered the suite. There, she saw the gray-haired man who had attended their first meeting, sitting with a cup of tea in front of him.

  Her previous meetings with Khazaee had taken on a pattern, and this one began no differently. She briefed the Iranian on the requirements he had given her during the previous meeting, all of which dealt with the CIA’s evidence the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons against its own citizens.

  “The intelligence community,” she said, “knows where the shells were fired from and when. They all originated from areas controlled by the Assad regime. Actually, the intelligence is more precise. The chemical canisters were fired by the Fourth Armored Division, commanded by the president’s brother Maher.”

  “Have you seen any of the NSA reports?” Khazaee asked.

  “No, but I have seen a summary, which concluded the command came from the top of the Syrian Army, from Syrian Army headquarters. It was also confirmed by a human source.” Here, she fixed her gaze on Khazaee’s eyes without blinking, as Trent had coached her. She was about to condemn one of the Syrian Army’s most able generals, a man most loyal to the regime, to death. “Do not be furtive,” Trent had said. “Be cool, look him in the eyes and he will believe you.”

  “What do you mean? Do you have a name?” Khazaee asked, as both he and the older man sat up straighter.

  “No, I do not,” Um said. “But I know his position.” The two men leaned forward. “He is head of Syria’s Air Force Intelligence. He has been reporting for a while, but I just heard him mentioned at lunch the other day. Apparently, we pay him through a Swiss bank account. That is all I know.”

  The two men looked at each other in stunned silence, as a cloud darkened their brows. Um kept her face passive, feeling as though she had just delivered a death sentence.

  “You told me before,” Khazaee said, “sometimes you take a shuttle to go to work. Where does the shuttle stop and where do the busses originate?”

  “You mean the Blue Bird? I cannot possibly tell you where all the stops are. Basically, the shuttle provides transportation from CIA headquarters to other government buildings in the Washington area.”

  “Does the bus take you into the compound? Are people searched before the bus is allowed through the front gate? Are you searched before you enter the building?”

  “No. We are not searched, but everyone on the bus must show a badge. And everyone is let out at a bus stop not very far from the main building. We are not searched to go in the building, but we must pass through a turnstile activated by our badges.”

  The older man spoke for the first time. “The Supreme Leader is aware of your service to the nation and, in the name of Allah, he sends you his thanks.”

  “Alhamdu’llah,” Um responded, automatically lowering her eyes. She was surprised but gratified at the same time. This was equivalent to briefing the White House. Bob Trent would be impressed.

  “If the Supreme Leader were here, he would remind you Iran’s troubles were caused by the CIA, by the coup that overthrew our government in 1953. The CIA is the Devil’s hand. You are going to be Allah’s sword and cut off that hand.”

  He paused briefly to sip his tea, lending more weight to his words. “A week from today, Khazaee will visit your apartment in Virginia. He will bring you a package. He will tell you where and when to deliver the package. It is crucial you deliver it on the date he gives you. Much depends on the timing. As a daughter of the Revolution, you will obey him. In the name of Allah, you will obey him.”

  She looked him dead in the eyes.

  “Yes, in the name of Allah, I will.”

  41. Marin Headlands

  “What do you say, navigator?” Steve asked, as he and Kella approached the Golden Gate Bridge on 101 in Elise and Didier’s black Lexus. “Should I be making a right here?”

  “Are you talking to me or to the GPS lady?” Kella replied.

  Following directions from the British-accented GPS voice, Steve made a right immediately before the bridge and then a quick left. The road climbed sharply and, after a quarter mile, Steve turned into an overlook.

  They got out of the car, and Steve retrieved a backpack from the trunk. They walked to a metal railing, the ground on the other side of which sloped steeply down to the water several hundred feet below. The San Francisco Bay extended in front of them and to the right for miles. Sailboats dotted the bay like colored pixels in an Impressionist painting while, farther out, giant, ocean-crossing cargo ships headed toward or departed from the Port of Oakland.

  “I wonder why,” Kella said, “they let the bridge get so rusty.”

  “Don’t let anyone hear you,” Steve replied. “California taxpayers have paid a lot of money to paint it this color. It’s not rusty, it’s gold when the sun cooperates. But look at that city.” he added, lifting his gaze across the water, “It reminds me of Algiers the way the white buildings slope down toward the bay. What are those tall buildings?” he asked, pointing toward two structures punctuating the skyline. One was triangular and the other cylindrical.

  “Let me see,” Kella said, taking her guidebook from Steve’s backpack. “The first is the Transamerica Building, one thousand and sixty five feet and the other is the Coit Tower, two hundred and ten feet. The first is an insurance company and the second was built in honor of firefighters and also used for training.”

  “If there’s ever another 9/11-type attack,” Steve said, “that Transamerica Building is a candidate. By the way, did you call Margo? Do we have a date to go up the bridge tower?”

  “Tomorrow, at lunchtime. Margo said to bring a picnic if we want.”

  “You know what,” Steve said. “I just remembered I brought binoculars.” He took them out of his backpack and handed them to Kella.

  After a few minutes, she handed them back and said, “It looks like there’s an overview on the other side of the bridge and to the left. I bet there must be a snack bar there somewhere. Let’s go get a sandwich. I’ve heard the sourdough bread in San Francisco is very different. Not as good as a French baguette, of course.”

  “Tell you what. If the view here is great, it must be even greater if we climb a little higher. Let’s see where this road goes and then we’ll get something to eat.”

  They returned to the car and continued climbing, but the winding road soon turned away from the water. “Let’s just see where this goes,” Steve said.

  “I’m getting hungry,” Kella said, taking a swig of water from a bottle in Steve’s pack.

  At a fork, Steve took a right, and soon they were in a large concrete parking lot. He parked near a large sign proclaiming NIKE SITE SF58.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see what this is about.”

  “I can tell you all about this from the guidebook.”

  “It will just take a minute.”

  They got out of the car. Almost right away a tall thin man in his fifties joined them, as well as half-a-dozen other people who had gathered around the sign.

  “My father was assigned here during the Cold War,” their new friend said. “There were about three hundred active sites throughout the United States, all designed as the last defense against Soviet bombers that might have gotten through our fighter aircraft squadrons.”

  The other visitors also listened. “If my father was ever ordered to push the button and fire the Nike missile, he knew he would have only a few seconds to live, because the nuclear bomb carried by the Soviet bomber would w
ipe out the base.”

  The man walked away, and Kella pulled Steve toward the car. On their way out, they passed a sign inviting visitors toward Rodeo Beach. When Steve looked at her quizzically, she shook her head and Steve turned the car around.

  When they reached the lookout point where they had stopped, Kella’s cell rang.

  “It was Margo,” Kella said after she disconnected. “Good news and bad news. She cannot do the bridge tower tomorrow, but she can meet us there in about an hour. I told her we would be there. Let’s go get a bite to eat.”

  They met Margo at the base of the North Tower. She appeared middle-aged, with short, dark hair, generous curves, and laughing eyes. “The elevator,” she said, “is too small for three. In fact, if you don’t know each other well now, you will be on intimate terms by the time you reach the top, a slow five hundred feet from road level.”

  Steve and Kella entered the narrow, windowless cage and understood what Margo was talking about when Steve tried to turn to reach the manual controls on the front panel. A red bulb went on above their heads as the elevator began its upward journey. Somewhere outside, a siren announced the elevator was moving.

  Steve and Kella faced each other, their bodies touching from head to toe. “I would be surprised,” Steve said, “if you were not pregnant by the time we reached the top.”

  “And I would be surprised,” Kella replied, smiling, “if the baby was not born by the time we reached the top.”

  Steve kissed her and asked, “Are we going to make another baby?” Kella kissed him back.

  They finally reached the top and opened the door to step out into a closed area on one side of which was a tall ladder. “I’ll go first,” Steve said. He unlatched the hatch at the top and stepped out onto the viewing platform before turning back to give Kella a hand up.

  They could see through the metal lattice on the platform, which was about ten feet wide, crossed over the six lanes of traffic below, and linked the east and west sides of the tower. The wind prompted both to put their hands on the railing for stability.

  “This is not as high as the Eiffel Tower,” Kella said, “but it’s a lot scarier.”

  Steve scanned the horizon with the binoculars. “That’s where we were this morning,” he said, pointing toward the Marin Headlands overlook, which was now full of cars and visitors. “There’s a weird looking car up there; a camouflaged Hummer. Looks like a military visitor. And that’s Angel Island over there,” he added, pointing in the other direction. “That was the Ellis Island of the West Coast, where immigrants were screened. Here, take a look.” He handed her the binoculars.

  “I love the view of the sailboats,” she said. “It’s like a post card.”

  She had been examining the people below on the bridge for a few minutes when suddenly she said, “I can’t believe it!” She handed the binoculars to Steve. “Look, on the right side of the bridge, about a hundred yards away from the tower, the guy in a blue windbreaker and jeans. He’s leaning on the railing and is using his cell phone. He’s looking toward the Headlands overlook.”

  Steve took the binoculars and adjusted the focus. “I don’t see him. Blue windbreaker?” An instant later he said, “I’ve got him. What about him?”

  “He was my jailer, the team leader of the two guys who held me hostage in Brussels,” she said, her voice quicker and louder. “Don’t you recognize him? I’m sure that’s him. I’m sure I could get him with a sniper rifle. Let’s go, let’s go. I wish I had brought my automatic.”

  She pulled Steve back toward the elevator.

  42. The White House and a Federal Building in San Francisco

  “Glad you’re all here,” Baxter said. “Virtually all here, anyway.” He smiled toward the two large screens side by side on the wall of his conference room. On one he could see Steve and Kella, who were Skyping from their condo, and on the other, Preston Fairbanks, the San Francisco FBI special agent in charge. Sitting at his conference table were Thérèse LaFont, Bob Trent, and Hank Maloney, who was playing nervously with a paperclip.

  “The president could not be here; otherwise he would be chairing this meeting.” If he wasn’t at a fundraiser in Las Vegas, he thought. “But make no mistake, he is very aware and concerned about the new information on General Yosemani. Thérèse, could you please bring us all up to date?”

  “As you all know,” she said, “we’re here because Kella caught sight of Yosemani’s bodyguard—she refers to him as ‘Gold Glasses’—in San Francisco.”

  “On the Golden Gate Bridge,” Kella jumped in. “We were five hundred feet above him. If it hadn’t been for that antiquated elevator, we could have gotten to him.”

  “But it was almost two weeks ago,” LaFont continued, “we actually had eyes on the general when Steve and Kella saw him and his bodyguard at the airport in Brussels. They were on the same flight to Paris but lost them there. Although we alerted the French, they lost him, too. Checking through their records later, they think the two were traveling on Croatian passports.

  “About ten days ago,” LaFont said, “the NSA told us Yosemani seemed to be on his way to Cyprus. But when Steve alerted us, Marshall suggested we request the actual intercept from NSA. It turned out their information was a conclusion rather than raw data. In the actual intercept, Yosemani told his Tehran office to alert someone by the name of Khazaee he was on his way. Since the records showed Khazaee was the Iranian Intelligence officer at their embassy in Nicosia, the NSA analyst concluded Yosemani was heading there. However, a bit of research revealed this fellow Khazaee is now in New York, with the Iranian Mission at the United Nations.

  “Should I mention the no-smoking flap at the U.N.?” Trent asked.

  “Go ahead,” LaFont said.

  “Last week, a sternly phrased memo was sent by the secretary general’s office to all 193 members, reminding them of the no-smoking rule and threatening financial sanctions against any country that violates this rule. As it turned out, the Lichtenstein ambassador originated the complaint. He claims he smelled cigar smoke in a conference room he used. We followed up, and found out a member of the French mission had walked in on a meeting in that same conference room only an hour before the Lichtenstein ambassador used it. The occupant at the time was this guy Khazaee and two others, names unknown. We showed the ambassador’s secretary a binder of photos and she identified Yosemani as one of the other men.”

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult to confirm Yosemani’s presence in New York,” Harry Baxter said. “Between the FBI and the NYPD, I thought we had New York pretty well locked up.”

  “I did talk to the FBI, sir,” Maloney said, having deprived the paperclip from ever fulfilling its God-given function by straightening it out into a three inch metal pointer, which he waved as he spoke. “No one who looked like Yosemani even came close to the Iranian mission. But the FBI did identify two possibles who landed at JFK using Bulgarian passports. God knows what kind of documentation they have now.”

  “We are looking,” Fairbanks said through the TV screen from San Francisco, “for the two men by checking all of the recent registrations in the main hotels. Nothing yet, sir.”

  “Well, now that we know they’re in San Francisco, now that we know either Iran or Syria or both will certainly retaliate for the missile attack on Syria that our ships in the Mediterranean are ready to initiate, how are we going to prevent this Yosemani from carrying out whatever it is he’s planning?”

  “Mr. Vice President, we have been studying this question for some time,” Fairbanks said, “and I am confident we have our defenses well in place. First of all, we believe their main target in San Francisco will be the Federal Building. It is symbolic of all government structures in the state; therefore, we have a coordinated defense plan that includes several law-enforcement agencies in the city. Other possibilities include the Transamerica Building, the Coit Tower, the wharf, and other tourist sites.”

  “What about the Syrian Minister of Defense’s statement this morn
ing?” Maloney asked, pointing his paperclip toward Fairbanks’s image. “He said if American missiles touch any Syrian airport, civilian or military, the damage on similar targets in America will be tenfold.” He switched his gaze toward Baxter, “I suggest our focus should be San Francisco International, which does not mean of course,” looking again toward Fairbanks, “that the Federal Building should not be adequately protected.”

  “And what do you think, Steve and Kella?” Baxter asked.

  “We did see him,” Steve said, “on the Golden Gate Bridge. We don’t think he was there as a tourist. He was there casing a target.”

  “And I am sure,” Kella said, “his boss, the general, is not far away. In fact, of course I’m guessing now, I believe he was speaking on his cell phone to the general. Further, I’m guessing the general was looking down at him from the overlook.”

  “The Golden Gate Bridge,” Steve said, “is a great target. I think Yosemani is aiming high, that his plan is to equal or better the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers—including casualties. I’m talking about his ego. The bridge is both symbolic—it is known throughout the world as a West Coast icon—and economic. Closing it would cause irreparable damage to the city and to the state’s economy.”

  “If this guy is looking at bridges,” Fairbanks said, “I think he would put the Bay Bridge at the top of his list. Economically speaking, it’s much more significant than the Golden Gate.”

  “Remember, where he’s from,” Steve said. “I bet there are a lot of people from Nevada to New Jersey who have never heard of the Bay Bridge, let alone an Iranian. The Golden Gate Bridge is well known throughout the world; it’s a West Coast icon.”

  Baxter poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. “I agree both the airport and the bridge are logical targets. The president insists that you, Steve, and you, Kella, play a major role in catching or killing Yosemani. You know him best, and I understand that you, Kella, would not mind paying him back. But we all understand this isn’t about vengeance; it’s about our national security.”