Tracks

by Niv Kaplan

  “Who are you people?” Elena blurted unable to contain herself. She knew all about Kessler wondering how far his contacts went.

  Aziz smiled a forgiving smile. “In our business it is not appropriate to ask such questions, but let’s just say we report to the same people.”

  Elena stuffed a piece of baklava in her mouth and gulped her coffee, a little embarrassed.

  “We’ve identified an organization,” Aziz continued, “that we believe is linked to the Sons of Jihad but we need to further corroborate our suspicions before we can move to the next step.”

  “And what will be the next step?” Elena carefully queried.

  “That depends,” Aziz said, flashing a thin smile. “But it would involve physically tracking them around Beirut to see if they can lead us to where we want to get.”

  “I was told you’ve already identified their whereabouts,” Elena put in.

  “That depends whose whereabouts you mean,” Aziz replied. “There are endless terrorist groups in this town and we need to surgically rummage through the garbage to find a solid link to where we need to get. We have identified an activity in the center of the city that may be linked to the group we are looking for but it is not as solid as I’d like it to be.”

  “How much more time will it take?” Elena asked.

  “Not sure,” Aziz said, “but we are pretty close. It may take a week, maybe more.”

  Elena nodded in acceptance. Her instructions were to make contact and call in the troops when the situation was ripe. She, of course, would exclusively rely on Kessler’s contacts, but the team thought they needed confirmation from one of their own before they made a move. Elena volunteered, arguing she was the least identified with the Center’s activities, she had a Greek passport, and she spoke Arabic. Sam did not like it and neither did Jack, but there was no denying Elena, who, since being set free from her husband’s embrace, was reverting back to her old wild ways.

  Aziz paid for the meal then sat back for a last smoke.

  “I am going to leave soon,” he informed Elena. “You will wait a few minutes then walk in the direction you came from. A little girl will grab your hand on the way. Walk with her to your hotel as if you are family. Check out and ask the concierge for a taxi. The girl will lead you to the apartment we set up for you. Rest up and stay there until you hear from me.”

  Elena nodded.

  “If anyone comes knocking, do not open the door unless they give you the agreed code, the same one I used in English.”

  “Welcome to no man’s land,” he said, smiling as he got up to leave. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Then he disappeared.

  The apartment was well furnished, the refrigerator stuffed with food and drink. The little girl, Tamra, remained with her for a few minutes then slipped out. Elena showered and fell on the bed, exhausted.

  It was dark when she awoke. She looked at her watch. It was after midnight. Jetlag had kicked in. She tossed and turned for a while. Unable to sleep again, she got up to make herself a cup of tea. She sipped it quietly looking out the window at the muted town.

  She was thinking of little Sammy, wondering how close he was to her, if he was there at all. The information, coming from a dying murderer, was hazy at best. Sammy could be anywhere.

  An hour later, someone knocked at her door. It was Aziz with two men by his side. The men remained outside the door while Aziz walked in. He stood by the window, his back to her and stared out for a brief minute before he turned looking somewhat tense.

  “Would you like to join me?” he asked.

  Elena was caught off guard.

  “And go where?”

  “To look for the boy,” Aziz said, sounding exasperated.

  “Why, sure,” Elena blurted. “That’s what I am here for.”

  “Then, let’s go,” Aziz snorted. “Wear black, we’ll wait outside.”

  They sped away in a rundown Toyota Land Cruiser, Aziz driving, the two men in the back, AK-47s at the ready. Beirut was a maze of bombed buildings, dead-end streets and roadblocks, inhabited by faceless people with guns. At night it was a ghost town with intermittent gunfire blazing aimlessly in any direction. Streaks of bullets could be seen painting the dark sky.

  It felt dangerous. It was dangerous. Aziz did not offer any explanations until they reached the first roadblock. “Look down and don’t say a word,” he instructed. “If they ask anything, we are going to the hospital.”

  It was a UN roadblock. The hostile, Scandinavian sounding soldier, walked up to their car flashing a torch at Aziz who blurted they were in a hurry to get to the hospital. Elena did not dare raise her head to look at the soldier but heard the exchange.

  They were finally let through. Aziz kicked the car into gear and drove carefully between the barricades until they were back on the damaged street maneuvering over bumps and craters. They drove for an hour, passing two more roadblocks before Aziz turned the car abruptly into a small shelter where a second car stood waiting.

  Elena remained in the car as the men filed out to meet the passengers of the second car. They stood between the two cars speaking in hushed voices until Aziz opened the door on her side.

  “Around the corner,” he started with no preamble, “there’s an apartment building we believe serves as one of the Shiite command posts. It is not a major one but we believe it may retain some leads to Sons of Jihad who we are certain are run by Shiites.”

  Elena nodded, a little out of breath.

  “We’re going to seize an apartment on the second floor,” Aziz continued, “as it may have some evidence we can use.”

  Elena kept nodding wondering where she was supposed to fit in.

  “You come with me. Wherever I go, you go, wherever I move, you move. Keep behind me at all times. When we have secured the apartment, we’ll call you in.” With that, Aziz gave her a wrapped package to take with her and moved, swift as a cat, to follow his men.

  Elena tried to keep up. Two men were left with the cars in case a quick getaway was needed while the other four moved toward the building.

  The entrance was dark but unguarded. The men quickly moved to secure the small lobby inside. Leaving one man on guard, they flew up the stairs to the second floor making not a sound as they slithered along the dark corridor and planted themselves at the sides of the intended door. On cue, they shot the lock with a silencer and kicked open the door, jumping in without hesitation.

  When Elena was called in, she saw several figures standing huddled at gun point, in one corner of a very small room. One of the men was rummaging in an adjacent room while Aziz was looking inside a large closet. He had a small flashlight and was exploring the closet interior until he let out a triumphant groan, discovering a hidden door that led to another small room. Aziz called Elena to follow and when she walked through the closet she saw a small office equipped with a computer and several large boxes stacked one on top of the other.

  Aziz came to her.

  “The package,” he ordered as Elena handed it to him. He ripped it open, handing her a stack of floppy discs.

  “I need you to quickly copy whatever is on that computer,” he said, shining his light on it.

  Apparently they were not computer literate, Elena realized, as she pressed the power button and waited for the screen to come to life.

  The only files she found were in My Documents and she downloaded all of them on to six of the ten floppies. She double-checked and found some hidden files which filled two more of the discs.

  Aziz was collecting any paper documents he could find, stuffing them into a nylon bag. When he was done, he looked in the wooden crates taking out two guns which he threw over his shoulder and a few magazines which he stuffed in his pockets. He then handed out four more guns to his colleagues through the closet door, together with boxes of bullets and a stack of magazines.

  The entire operation took no more than ten minutes. Aziz and Elena slipped out of the office closet to the main room where the figures
were now cuffed and bound, tapes on their mouths. Elena, having gotten accustomed to the dark, could see two adults, a man with a large mustache, half naked, and a woman in a black gown, tied to one another on a bed, while three kids, two boys and a girl, puffy-eyed and shaking, were tied together on the floor.

  Without a word, they all filed out of the room and leaped down the stairs.

  Later in the car, Aziz, in a jovial mood, boasted:

  “We caught a big break!” he said excitedly. “The intelligence was spot on! We caught them totally off guard!”

  “What kind of a command post is that?” Elena questioned.

  “Oh, they put “innocent” families in there during the night, but during the day it’s a hub of terrorist activity, you can be sure of that! That is exclusive Shiite territory we robbed!” he exclaimed. “They never expected anyone to hit them there or they would have had the place fortified.”

  “But you didn’t know that,” Elena persisted, “and besides, how did we get past their roadblocks?”

  “We took a big chance here,” he said eyeing her. “It could have gone the wrong way. We may have had to fight our way out of there, but we probably would have never gotten in, if there had been guards hanging around. And as for the roadblocks, well, I’m afraid that’s trade secrets but I’ll tell you this much: we have definitely disturbed the ceasefire. Now they’ll start blaming one another but they will not know the real reason we raided them since we did not take the computer. They’ll see only the stolen guns and ammunition.”

  “I’ve never done anything like this in my life!” Elena whispered to him.

  “You did great,” Aziz commended her. “Let’s hope we’ve got something real other than those guns and magazines.”

  Aziz came to her apartment at eight in the morning with two of his men carrying a computer and a screen. They placed it on the kitchen table and connected the cables.

  Elena began to scan the files. Most contained invoices of arms dealings, a primitive list of transactions that contained payments made to various suppliers, lists of various armaments purchased, and their distribution allocation. Most were names of people, not organizations, and it was hard to decipher who belonged where. Finding a connection to Sons of Jihad would prove tricky.

  She called Aziz over to have him look at the names. He sat next to her for a while scrutinizing the names carefully.

  “Anyone seem familiar?” Elena inquired.

  “Oh yes, I recognize quite a few of the names,” Aziz commented matter of factly.

  “Anyone worth investigating?”

  “Ahmed Abu Salah,” he said pointing to a name on one of the lists, “is a known arms dealer. Gets his merchandise mostly from Iran.”

  “Doesn’t everyone here?”

  “Syria is the other major supplier and some comes from Russia and Eastern Europe direct. Abu Salah supplies the Shiites in Beirut. The place we raided probably belongs to him.”

  “We need a connection to Sons of Jihad.” Elena reminded him. “Is he a lead?”

  “Possibly, but let’s continue with these lists. We may find more clues.”

  “You think the Sons of Jihad are a Shiite faction?”

  “Yes I do!” Aziz declared. “It’s a method of operation that would fit these bastards.”

  Elena gave him a quizzical look.

  “They have no qualms using children for any purpose. In the Iran/Iraq war they used children as mine detectors. They would walk them in front of the troops and have them blown up together with the mines.”

  “Any other Shiites you recognize on these lists?”

  “I do recognize a few known Shiite collaborators,” Aziz said, studying the lists. “Is there any more information in the discs we brought?”

  “I’ll bring up the hidden files and let’s see what we find there,” Elena offered.

  Aziz got up to make coffee while Elena continued the search. He poured them two cups of boiled black coffee, added sugar and sat down besides Elena, thinking out loud.

  “I met Abu Salah a few months ago when we were negotiating a prisoner exchange. We wanted back two of our lieutenants in exchange for two of his collaborators. As soon as the exchange was made our two guys were blown up by a remote control bomb stuffed inside a small bag they were given. One died on site, the other lost an arm.”

  Elena continued to scan the hidden files. Aziz sat and smoked. From time to time he would assist in clarifying and scrutinize various items.

  The hidden files contained actual distribution sites and names of various organizations but as far as Elena could tell there was no reference to Sons of Jihad.

  “Make a list of all the distribution sites,” Aziz suggested. “We may be able to make a connection through those.”

  He looked carefully at the names of the organizations that appeared on the lists.

  “The connection has to be through one of these,” he remarked. Sons of Jihad must be a secret organization within one of these outfits.”

  She had written down all the organizations’ names which he thought were worth investigating but did not come up with something more concrete.

  “We were told this organization was established with support from the Arab League but that it is so secret, few know about it in the Arab world,” Elena reminded him.

  “That is correct. I had no idea it exists until Kessler briefed me before you came along. This is why I suspect they operate under another, larger organization like those Shiite bastards for example.”

  “Aziz, what we have in these files are mainly lists of organizations who deal in arms. Who’s to say Sons of Jihad has anything to do with this? After all their primary function is kidnapping and training children to spy. Why would they need arms?”

  Aziz gave her a forgiving smile.

  “First of all, everybody has weapons in these parts. Without weapons, one cannot survive. You can be sure Sons of Jihad have plenty of arms. They not only need it for protection but they most likely teach these kids how to use it. Linking this outfit to an arms deal is probably the best way of finding anything about them.”

  Elena studied the list she had put together from the floppy discs they had confiscated in the raid.

  “OK. Anything ring a bell?” she asked Aziz.

  Aziz studied the lists.

  “Of these twenty or so names, I can point to three who should be worth investigating. Abu Salah’s organization would be the first we go after. He’s the biggest and supplies a vast number of smaller organizations. He’s what you call a wholesaler.”

  “OK. Who are the other two?”

  “Abu Salah’s organization is connected with Al Qaida, an ultra-extremist group that is supported by Saudi Arabia. They are the ones who blew up the American embassy here in ’82 and made a big hole in the Twin Towers in New York two years ago. They were actually trained and supported by the Americans during the Russian campaign in Afghanistan. The other two are Hezbollah which are strongly supported by Iran and the Islamic Jihad supported by Syria. Saudi Arabia is the big contributor behind the scenes but you’ll have a hard time connecting them to anything that goes on here.”

  “So we have names of organizations, names of actual clients, the payments made, types of armaments and the distribution sites,” Elena summarized. “If we look through this, there are one, two....four sites connected to Abu Salah, six connected to Hezbollah, and looks like another four connected to Islamic Jihad.”

  “Yeah, but of those, I see only two sites in Beirut that belong to Abu Salah, one for Hezbollah, and two for Islamic Jihad. The rest are spread mostly in the south and I see a couple in the north.”

  “OK, so where should we begin?” Elena queried.

  “I need to investigate a bit more before we can begin,” Aziz said, lighting another cigarette. “I’ll make a few inquiries, and make a decision. You need to stay here. I’ll leave Fiad down in the building’s lobby to watch out for things. You should not leave the apartment for now. The raid has made some noise
and the troops are out in force looking for us. We may have disturbed the ceasefire.”

  He took out a pistol, checked the magazine, and handed it to her. “You know how to use this?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “I’ve shot a few of these in my life,” she said, thinking of the target practice Stavros used to make her take.

  “They aren’t all the same,” Aziz said, taking the magazine out, showing her how to release the safety and cock the weapon. “This is a Beretta 9mm. You stick in the magazine, release the safety, cock then take aim and pull the trigger. Aim for the body and hold it in both hands or it will jump around. The closer you are to the target the better, so don’t try it farther than the length of this room.”

  Elena nodded as he handed her the gun. She put it on the desk next to the computer, and went to lock the door after him.

  “Do not open this door unless you hear the agreed code. And never stand in front of the door, always to the side.”

  After he left, she went back to the computer and began to reorganize the lists according to the priorities Aziz had mentioned. She had had high hopes for the information on those floppy discs and was rather frustrated at the lack of progress.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  David Kessler knew he was walking a thin line.

  The information they had received from Sam was astonishing and explosive. A network of Islamic child kidnappers operating in the US to abduct babies then train them to spy on their own country – it was a plot that boggled the imagination. It was so evil, yet so bold, that he was forced to reevaluate the capacity of the enemy. He realized they had been getting more clever and daring with time. Obviously the growing support funds from “friendly” countries did not hurt, but he had a feeling the threats they were making were no longer something to laugh at.

  These people had a mission, and they were carrying it out right under their noses.