Death Ship

by Joseph Badal

  In many instances, the CIA-led task force was able to identify the perpetrators of an actual or aborted terrorist attack, but had not been able to identify where the perpetrators’ funding came from. After years of frustration, the National Clandestine Service, two years ago, mounted an operation that might find a link between GA and the terrorists’ money sponsors. That’s when it transferred Laila Farhami to Special Operations and used Company contacts in Berlin to get her a job interview with the investment management company. Her degrees from Stanford and Wharton combined with her fluency in Farsi and Arabic did the trick, and Laila went to work for GA that same year.

  Two months into her assignment, Laila identified the clients which benefitted from the short positions GA had placed in insurance stocks. She also learned that GA took similar positions for its own portfolio. The largest positions GA made were on behalf of Saber Commodities. The bad news was she had not been able to identify the individuals behind Saber Commodities. The good news was that she’d been able to predict the likelihood of a terrorist incident by observing GA trading patterns on behalf of Saber Commodities and other clients. Based on recent trades, beginning on June 21, she had reported to her CIA handler in Berlin that something big might be about to happen.

  Laila left her office at 7 p.m. on June 23 and stopped at a delikatessen on Altonaer Strasse, near the Spree River, northwest of the Tiergarten. She bought a salad and a baguette and made her way to her apartment. A block from her fourth floor walkup, her GA-provided cell phone rang.

  “Laila, is that you?”

  “Baba? Yes, yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s your mother. She has to go into the hospital for surgery. It’s her gall bladder.”

  “When’s the surgery?”

  “The day after tomorrow. Is there a chance you can come home to be with her?”

  “Of course, Baba. But I’ll need to clear it at work. I’ll call you back.”

  Now in front of her apartment house, Laila called her supervisor at GA and got permission for a week’s leave. She then walked two blocks to a bus station and used a pay phone there to call her CIA handler. She left a message: “This is Laila Farhami. Please call me about my camera.”

  She walked back to her apartment building, climbed three stories, unlocked her door, and flipped on the lights. “God Almighty!” she blurted when she saw a man seated at her kitchen table, beer bottle in hand: thirty-five-year-old Walter Zeller, her CIA handler. Zeller raised a finger to his lips. He put down the bottle and waggled a hand at her. Laila followed the man to her bathroom, where he turned on the water in the sink and shower. He then pulled a cell phone from a side pocket of his jacket and fiddled with it a moment until music played Dawn by the Four Seasons.

  “My mother—”

  “Your father called you about your mother’s surgery.”

  “How . . . did you know?”

  “Your mother’s fine. There is no surgery. The call was a ruse to give you an excuse to be away from Berlin.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you warn me? I’ve been worried to death about my mother.”

  Then Laila wondered how the CIA had coerced or cajoled her father to lie about her mother’s surgery, but decided the answer probably wasn’t important at that moment.

  “We need to immediately send an Arabic and Farsi speaker to Sicily. You’re it.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The CIA’s relationship with the NSA was competitive but mutually supportive . . . when it was mutually beneficial. Raymond Gallegos’s personal contacts at NSA were high-level and extremely dependable. But Raymond, even with his years at the NSA and his liaison with the NSA on CIA operations, had no clue about the Agency’s complete structure and organization. And he sure as hell knew his “friends” at the Agency would help him out only if it was good for them and in the interest of national security. He called Conrad Demetruk who had worked with him in the Signal Intelligence Directorate years earlier. Demetruk was now the Director of the Tailored Access Operations Group, which made him the NSA’s top cyber plumber and data miner.

  “I hear you got married,” Demetruk said when he answered Ray’s call.

  “Hello and good afternoon to you, too, Conrad. Yeah, I got married a few months ago. We met—”

  “At a conference in Boston.”

  Ray shook his head. “You want to tell me where we honeymooned?”

  “You eloped to Elkton, Maryland, got married by a Justice of the Peace, and then spent a week skiing in Taos.”

  “Jeez, Conrad, you scare the shit outta me.”

  “Before your imagination gets totally out of control, I should tell you your employer asked us to dig into your bride’s background. I hope you’re not shocked.”

  “No, that’s par for the course. But why the information about our eloping and skiing in Taos?”

  Demetruk laughed. “I planned to send a bottle of champagne to your room but got tied up with more Eric Snowden crap. That sonofabitch is a recurring nightmare. Sorry, I forgot to send you the bubbly.”

  “Listen, Conrad, we might have a problem in the Ionian, near Sicily. You think you could check on something for me?”

  “A problem?”

  “Something that might go boom in the night. But we don’t know what, when, where, how, or who.”

  “Okay. What do you know?”

  Ray briefed Demetruk on events and actions taken in response to the hijacking of the Zoe Mou.

  “Why would the hijackers take over the boat at sea, then cruise into Syracuse, take on passengers, and then go back out on the water to kill them? Why go into Syracuse at all? Were the passengers they picked up on Sicily their targets?”

  “Good questions. To your last question, we believe the answer is no. Our guess is the hijackers, one, knew the owner expected the boat to arrive in port and didn’t want him to raise hell when it didn’t; and, two, whatever they planned to do isn’t supposed to happen until sometime in the future. But whatever the case may be, these guys had insider information. They knew about the yacht’s time schedule, they knew its course, and they knew enough about the original crew to have forged ID documents in those men’s names.”

  “I don’t see how this rises to the level of throwing Agency assets at it.”

  “One other thing, Conrad. The passengers aboard the yacht were Bob and Liz Danforth, their daughter-in-law and grandson. Bob called the DCI and told him the whole thing smells rotten.”

  “Bob Danforth, your old boss?”

  “One and the same. I wouldn’t second-guess his instincts.”

  “What do you need us to do?”

  Ray gave Demetruk the numbers Bob had provided from the hijackers’ sat phone—the number of the phone and the number it had called. “Maybe you could check with the NRO. See if they had ears on the area around Sicily at 11:30 p.m. local time there last night or the night before. If they did, maybe they recorded conversations. We would love to listen to those conversations and also find out who owns the number that was called.”

  “Okay, Ray. I’ll get on it.”

  Demetruk checked with the NRO and learned they had no satellites that tracked the Ionian Sea area near Sicily over the past forty-eight hours. He asked his contact to change that immediately. “I’ve got a feeling we’ll need satellite coverage there soon,” he said.

  CHAPTER 20

  Nick Vangelos anchored just outside Syracuse Harbor while Bob waited for instructions from Langley. During most of the three plus hours since Colin Davis had been secured to the portside rail, Bob had tried without success to get the man to talk.

  It was now 5:15 p.m., Sicily time. Bob stood up and moved to the aft end of the saloon, opposite from where Liz and Miriana sat. Robbie was now down in his cabin. Bob looked through the saloon’s sliding glass door at Davis lying on his back outside in the cockpit, secured to a table anchored to the deck. Bob opened the glass door and went out. He again lowered a bucket over the side with a line, brought it back up full of sea water
, and dumped the contents on Davis.

  Davis jerked and spluttered, “Sranje!”

  Bob grabbed the back of Davis’s shirt and pulled him into an upright sitting position as Nick came over. “I know you’re not American,” Bob said. “Why don’t you tell me where you’re from?”

  Davis shouted again in a language Bob didn’t know but which now sounded very familiar.

  Miriana watched Bob and the hijacker. She wondered what her father-in-law would do. When the hijacker cursed, she felt her heart race and a sudden chill of fear run up her spine and spread its icy fingers over the top of her head. The hatred evident in the man’s voice was enough; the language, the words, the accent were other matters altogether. They reminded her of terror from years back, when Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians murdered one another; when Christians and Muslims took up arms over centuries-old differences. It was a terrible time for the Rom, her people.

  “I know where he’s from,” she declared.

  Bob turned and looked up at Miriana. “What was that?”

  “I know where he’s from. Sranje means ‘shit’ in Serbo-Croatian,” Miriana said.

  Bob whipped his head back toward Davis. “Is that right?”

  Davis looked suddenly deflated. It was as though he had failed. Up to that point, he had disclosed nothing about himself. He suddenly didn’t seem to care what he said. “Cacu ti jarca,” he shouted.

  Bob looked back at Miriana with raised eyebrows.

  Miriana shrugged her shoulders and spread her arms. “It’s not good.”

  Bob forced himself not to smile and said, “Just give me a general idea.”

  Miriana’s face was now red. “He . . . made a reference to . . . your father, a goat . . . and a sexual act.”

  “We have that in Greek, too,” Nick said.

  “Miriana, thanks for your help. Now I think it would be a good idea if you went back inside the saloon and closed the door.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But you should know his accent is Croatian, from a predominantly Muslim area of Bosnia.”

  After the door slid shut, Nick said, “This guy thinks there are seventy-two virgins waiting for him in heaven. What if he no longer has his fallos? He wouldn’t have much use for all those virgins.”

  “Are you suggesting we cut off his—?”

  “Sure, why not? Maybe then he’ll cooperate with us.”

  Bob wasn’t certain Nick was joking until the Greek winked at him.

  “Get a knife.”

  Nick walked away while Bob sat down. He stared at Davis’s smug expression.

  “You will never make me talk.”

  Bob shrugged. “You know something? I really don’t care anymore. All I want to do is make you suffer for what you put my family through and for what you did to the crew of this boat.” He ripped off a piece of the man’s shirt, gripped his jaw, and stuffed the cloth into his mouth.

  Davis’s eyes were now wide open. He grunted something unintelligible and violently shook his head.

  Nick returned with a knife. The blade reflected the late afternoon sunlight. One side of the six-inch blade was serrated. He dropped it between Davis’s feet. The point stuck in the deck and the knife swayed back and forth. Nick removed the man’s belt, then tugged at the bottoms of his pant legs and pulled down his pants as far as the rope that bound his ankles would allow.

  In spite of the gag, Davis made a huge amount of noise—grunts, groans, and screams, and wildly kicked his legs. Nick took found a coil of line from a nearby locker and cut pieces that he looped around each of Davis’s ankles. He cut the line that bound the man’s ankles together, and then, one leg at a time, secured the lines around each ankle to cleats on the boat’s rail. Davis’s legs were now raised and stretched apart. Then Nick crawled over to Davis, picked up the knife, and slipped it under the waistband of his underpants. The blade easily sliced the material down the middle. Nick draped the sides over Davis’s thighs and stepped between his legs.

  “Isn’t it amazing how small a man’s bourtzo becomes when he is frightened?” Nick said. “I can barely see it.”

  Davis now made sounds that reminded Bob of a boar in rut. His face was beet-red and his eyes bulged.

  Bob put a hand on Nick’s arm. “Hold a second. Maybe he wants to tell us something.”

  Nick looked over his shoulder at Bob. “Just think how much more he’ll want to tell us after I take his manhood.” He turned back toward Davis, who suddenly spit out the gag and shouted, “Allah will send you to hell. Your days are numbered.”

  Footsteps behind Bob diverted his attention away from Davis. He twisted around and saw Liz up on the deck where Miriana had been a couple minutes earlier.

  Her mouth formed an “O” and her eyes were wide.

  Bob said, “Perhaps you could make sure our grandson stays below deck until we’re finished.”

  She shot a look at Bob that seemed to say, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ and then nodded and said, “I can do that.” After a second, she added, “Please make him suffer as much as possible.”

  After Liz retreated, Bob met Nick’s gaze.

  “Ekeenee eenay mia sinekteekee yeneka,” Nick said.

  Bob shook his head and answered in Greek. “She wasn’t always that tough.” Then he turned to Davis and barked in English, “What did you and your two friends plan to do with the detonators?”

  Davis swallowed hard. He looked at Nick who still held the knife. In Arabic, he said, “You and all your kind will go to hell when the caliphate rules.”

  Bob answered in Arabic, “You and your kind are nothing but homicidal thugs. Do you really believe you can defeat the United States?”

  Davis now had a wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression. “You speak Arabic.” Then his shocked expression changed. A strained look came over his face. He twisted his jaw and Bob heard the sound of his upper and lower teeth bang and grind together. The odor of almonds suddenly filled the air in front of Davis’s face and the man smiled just before he violently convulsed.

  “Sonofa . . . .”

  “What happened?” Nick asked.

  “From the odor, it may be cyanide. He had a capsule implanted under one of his teeth.”

  Bob snatched the Zoe Mou’s satellite phone off a nearby chair and handed it to Nick. “Dial a number for me.”

  When Jack Cole came on the line, Bob said, “The hijacker we captured just died. Cyanide implant.”

  “Dammit.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have thought about a suicide capsule. But we did get something out of him.”

  “What?”

  “These guys wanted us to believe they were Anglos. As you know, my daughter-in-law is originally from the Balkans. She heard him speak Serbo-Croatian and she claims it was with a Croat accent. She also said the man’s accent is typical of a Muslim area in Bosnia.

  “Another thing, Jack. Before he died, he said in Arabic, ‘You and all your kind will go to hell when the caliphate rules.’ ”

  “There are two groups that talk incessantly about the caliphate. The Iranians and the Islamic State.”

  Bob chewed on Cole’s comment and then said, “I’ll tell the boat’s owner to take us into Syracuse. I want to get my family on shore. What do you want us to do with the two bodies aboard? I presume you don’t want me to call the Italian authorities.”

  “Correct. I’ll have a removal team meet the boat as soon as possible. You’ll have to guard the bodies until they arrive.”

  “We’ll dock in less than an hour.”

  “Okay. Give me the name of the hotel you’ll be at tonight in case I need to contact you.”

  “What the hell will you need to contact me about?”

  “Jeez, Bob, I’ll only call if it’s an emergency.”

  “Right, Jack. How many times have I heard that before?”

  CHAPTER 21

  Ahmed Boukali’s heart rate jumped when his laptop computer chimed. There was an email from the Islamic State’s military chief, Qasem Kash
kari: Phase One is on schedule. Start Phase Two.

  Boukali deleted the message and powered off the laptop. He turned to the ship’s Libyan captain, Jalil Fouad. “Set alternate course.”

  Fouad answered with a thumbs-up sign.

  Boukali stared at Fouad’s back. He had come to like the old man. Fouad looked to be in his eighties, stooped and frail, with sparse gray hair and tired, hooded eyelids; Boukali knew he was closer to sixty. He had guts, displayed a quiet competence, and had a dry sense of humor. Of course, he knew Fouad had terminal cancer and Boukali thought perhaps it didn’t take a lot of courage for a man to commit suicide when he only had a few months to live.

  “You contacted the ship?” Anwar Lermontov Rastani said.

  General Qasem Kashkari nodded. “Boukali’s a dependable man. He will see that we remain on schedule.”

  “Boukali’s dependable as long as he’s well paid. He’s a capitalist first and foremost. Remember that.”

  “Yes, Sayyid.”

  “Anything from the teams?”

  “It’s too early for that, Sayyid. The first team isn’t due to check in until 11:25 p.m., Sicily time.” Kashkari checked his watch. “Another five-and-a-half hours.”

  “Have all the financial transactions been executed?”

  Kashkari shuddered as though he were chilled. He felt excitement run through him. “Yes, Sayyid. Our German partner shorted the insurance companies and U.S. Treasuries and took billion dollar long positions in defense contractors.”

  “We’ll unwind the short positions after the attack?”

  “Yes . . . as usual.”

  “You seem uncertain, Qasem.”