Tracks

by Niv Kaplan

"Only when there is no other choice," whispered Aziz, smiling mischievously as if sharing a secret and increasing his pace.

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  Rolston was preparing black Arabian coffee he had learned to brew in the years he had spent in the Middle East, to the group assembled in the apartment.

  “The kids do not come into the compound every day,” Mai-Li was saying. “In fact, in the two weeks we have been here and the time we have been surveying the tunnels we have not seen any children walking in.”

  “The two rooms we entered down there were definitely children’s classrooms,” Devlin stated.

  “Maybe they no longer run the program,” Rolston commented cynically, pouring the coffee from the bubbling kettle into small glass cups. “Maybe they've completed a phase and are now in a different location? Can you honestly say those classrooms were in use?”

  “Not really. It was very dark.”

  “And the lack of security…” Rolston continued, “…I wouldn’t expect a secret organization such as that to be so sloppy.”

  “Or they could be very arrogant,” Aziz said through the translator. “They could be feeling quite invincible here in Beirut where the government must be supporting them.”

  “Or as a minimum looks the other way,” Elena pitched in.

  “We can’t keep watch forever,” Devlin said. “We need to move ahead. We’re on borrowed time here.”

  “Well, right now all we have are those three names you guys brought back from the compound,” Rolston said.

  “So we need to go after them,” Aziz said, “the sooner the better. We have names and addresses. What more do we need?”

  “It’s going to have to be closely coordinated with springing little Sammy, if he’s here at all, otherwise once these three go missing or get the word out somehow, we’ve had it. We’ll never get close to him again,” Devlin surmised.

  “What about the other kids?” Natasha said.

  Devlin turned in surprise. “What other kids?”

  “There are other kids there as well. What about them?”

  “Look, we have no idea who they are. We’ll be lucky if we can find little Sammy.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t abandon the other kids,” Natasha insisted.

  “My job, our job, is to get Sammy. Once that’s done,” Devlin said looking around at the group, “it will be up to our governments to somehow stop this organization. But for now all that’s wishful thinking.”

  “We can’t pretend Sammy’s the only kid in trouble here,” Mai-Li added.

  “Look here,” Rolston said, “Sammy will be the proof which they can use to save the others.”

  Aziz was shaking his head pitifully. “I don’t think they’ll survive if we get your boy.”

  “Why not?” Rolston asked.

  “They will be eliminated instantly.”

  “I doubt that. More likely they’ll be moved and hidden but I don’t think they’d give up such assets so quickly.”

  There was confused silence. Everyone went for their steaming cups of coffee. Aziz lit a cigarette and offered the pack to his companions who each took one.

  “What’d you have in mind?” Devlin finally asked Aziz.

  “We tail each of the three employees then we decide how to grab them.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then it’s your call, boss. You want to call in the troops? It’s up to you.”

  “If we grab these three operatives all at once, we would need time to interrogate them. Can we hold these people long enough without exposing the plot?”

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to take, obviously,” Aziz said. “And that does not guarantee these people will cooperate or fully disclose to you what you need to know. We don’t even know who these people are and what function they hold. They may not even know where the kid is.”

  “Should we talk to Sam? Explain the risks?” Mai-Li asked.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Devlin mocked. “This is exactly why we keep him in Cyprus. You can’t expect him to be reasonable about this.”

  “So it’s our call, Mike,” Rolston said quietly. “It’s a risky decision.”

  Devlin wished Harley was present just this once. He was aware of the risks. It was all or nothing! If none of the three people they were planning to grab could lead them to Sammy, not only would they lose him but most likely the entire operation would fail. The moles would disappear and the network would never be found.

  He was not even sure it was his call to make without talking to Kessler or some of the higher ups.

  “OK,” he said, postponing the decision just a while longer. “We track these people see what we can find out about them, then we decide.”

  Nyla Ammad lived in an upper-end suburb of Beirut overlooking the north shore. She had a two-storey house surrounded by a well-kept lawn and a silver Mercedes was parked under a partially enclosed parking spot in front.

  She also had three children, two boys and a girl, as far as Aziz could determine, who were taken to school on foot by a maid.

  The husband was nowhere to be seen on the week Aziz tracked Nyla around Beirut, to the compound, and back home in the evening. She was driven by a large armed man who showed up in the morning and entered the compound in her car via the main gate and not like a thief in the night through the tunnels.

  The house was not guarded during the day but as Aziz noticed through his binoculars, Nyla activated what looked like an alarm system before she left. Once Nyla was back home, the bodyguard and a second guard that joined in hung around well after dark, smoking outside the front door, before leaving on foot somewhere unknown.

  A more thorough inspection of the area around the house revealed nothing special. It was a quiet, relatively well-kept, neighborhood, which suffered little from the ongoing conflict down below in the city.

  It struck Aziz as more than a little odd that such a safe haven existed in this battle-ravaged city and that he, a Beirut native, never really saw it.

  It was well known that the north shore area suffered far less than the city and anywhere further south, but until now Aziz had never bothered to properly explore the area.

  The road leading to the north shore neighborhoods was as hampered with road-blocks and check-points as the rest of the Beirut area, but once past those on the way up to Junia and Tripoli, the character of the country became more peaceful and calm.

  It was no real surprise, now that he was aware of it, that it was also well-known that most of the ministers and government personnel took refuge in those parts and were secluded from any real danger.

  So Nyla Ammad, he surmised, enjoyed the perks of the elite, which meant she was a figure to be reckoned with.

  They needed to break into her house.

  He assembled the group once again in Rolston’s and Mai-Li’s apartment and laid down his findings and conclusions.

  Jaras was assigned to tail the second person whose details Aziz and Devlin brought back from the compound.

  He quickly briefed them on Ibrahim Abu Ahmed who lived in close proximity to the compound, in the port area, in a small apartment building, closely guarded around the clock. Abu Ahmed walked always with a group in gray fatigues to and from the compound through the main gate, same as Nyla, only without a car. The group lived in the same building and stuck close together.

  One evening Jaras followed them to a local coffee shop where they spent an hour but returned immediately to the building.

  During the entire week, they would be at the compound very early in the morning to replace the night shift who lived in an adjacent building.

  “They are the soldiers, the grunts,” Jaras summarized. “They most likely live several in a room and though it would not be difficult to break in, I doubt we would find anything of interest.”

  Aziz looked to Amar who had the responsibility for the third name they had found.

  Fuad Abdulla was a janitor - a repair man. He entered and exited the compound with a toolbox, wearing
matching blue clothes stained from grease and waste.

  His schedule was sporadic and Amar assumed he only came in on call.

  Amar had followed him on foot from the shack he lived in near the water by the port to the compound three times during the week he had been tailing him. It was odd, Amar thought, to allow such a security hazard to do repair work in the compound. A person who lived on his own in such susceptible surroundings would very likely be targeted if anyone wished to harm the organization.

  “…But most likely he does not know a thing about the real operation down there and using him to smuggle or do anything is very likely to be a waste of time with only his tool box to show for.”

  “They probably check him thoroughly on the way in and out, so they figure he can do whatever he likes on the outside,” Rolston remarked.

  “That’s the way I figure it,” Amar said, lighting a cigarette to signal he was done briefing. Then he remembered something. “Though you could get from him a rough layout of the place if you bothered to interrogate him.”

  “So we forget about the soldier, Abu Ahmed, and we leave the janitor for a last resort,” Devlin said looking at Aziz. “I guess our best bet is the rich lady.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “If we can break into her house we may be able to find something useful before we make a final decision.”

  “We can’t leave any tracks if we do that,” Devlin stated.

  “I know,” Aziz acknowledged.

  Elena had flashbacks from the raid on the Shiite command post on the eve of her arrival in Beirut. She was paired with Jaras, Amar and the alarm specialist, sitting in a beat up Subaru, waiting for a signal to climb up the hill to the house.

  They chose the only time they thought no one would be in the house - 8:30 in the morning right after Nyla and her bodyguard left. The maid left with the children a few minutes earlier and Aziz had timed her absence to be about an hour.

  The plan was simple yet quite risky since they were not sure about guards patrolling the area or anyone inside the house. Aziz did his best to answer these nagging doubts but was not completely sure.

  They were to drive up and park the car on the road leading to the cul-de-sac where the house stood. The spot Aziz chose for them was behind the last bend at the base of a small slope before the road straightened toward the house. There were several bushes there that partially hid the car from anyone watching from the house though if it was anyone remotely suspicious, like a guard, he would easily spot the threat.

  The tricky part was getting to the house on foot.

  They received the go-ahead signal from Aziz, two clicks on the short wave radio, and drove gingerly up the incline passing well-kept properties along the narrow two-lane road. A silver Mercedes flew by them, and Elena got a glimpse of its two passengers, a male driver and woman passenger with a modern hairstyle. Both seemed to be looking at her.

  Amar parked the car at the assigned spot. He and Elena remained in their seats while Jaras and the alarm specialist slid out the back doors and followed a low terrace around the crest of the hill before they would be fully exposed to the house.

  They reached the side of the house and waited a few moments to make sure they were not spotted. Jaras gave the signal and the alarm man cleared the balcony and went to work on the front door.

  Jaras had his pistol out circling the outer perimeter of the house to make sure they were not ambushed.

  He rejoined the alarm man at the front door waiting impatiently for him to break in. The man had two wires out from a digital counter of some sort connected with two small aluminum alligator clips to wires he had exposed on both sides of the alarm box, and was looking at the numbers and signals flashing by until he seemed satisfied and took out a small cutter from his pants pocket.

  “It’s the blue wire,” he whispered to Jaras. “Get ready to run if I am wrong.” Without further ado he stuck the cutter between the red and yellow wires and cut the blue wire on one side. When nothing happened, he cut the blue wire on the other side of the Alarm box and the door suddenly clicked open.

  “Nice,” the alarm man said to himself. “Saved us more work.”

  “How’s that?” Jaras asked him, surprised.

  “The lock’s activated by the alarm in these systems. That is why the box is outside and not in the house.”

  “Did you know that?”

  The alarm man smiled. “No, we just got lucky.”

  “We can’t leave tracks!” Jaras emphasized.

  “You do what you need to do. I’ll replace the wires while you’re at it,” he reassured him. “This may not activate the alarm but it’ll keep them from noticing the damage. Worst case they’ll think it simply broke and needs repair.”

  “Good man,” Jaras said.

  Elena heard two clicks on Amar’s short wave radio and quickly followed him along the contour of the hill following the route taken by Jaras. Within minutes they were through the front door.

  The house was fashioned western style with leather sofas, oak furniture and decorative lighting. Jaras was already rummaging in the living room to her right and the alarm man was busy with something at the door.

  Amar went left into the kitchen area so Elena climbed up the stairs to the second floor where she found the master bedroom and immediately went for the dresser drawers at the side of the large king-size bed. She opened all the drawers, looked behind drawings that hung on the walls, went into the bathroom, even looked under the bed, but found nothing of value except for a recent family photo among many other family photos that stood on a shelf above the bed, which she took and skipped to an adjacent room which was an office of sorts with a computer and a copier/fax machine on a large oak desk facing the window and a swivel chair tucked into the space beneath. She sat on the swivel chair and began opening drawers. The two top drawers were locked and the rest were filled with office supplies, business cards and various brochures which meant nothing to her.

  She got up frustrated and saw a single fax that had arrived on the fax machine tray which she stuffed in her pocket without reading it. Then she looked again behind various photos that hung around the office walls and found a safe tucked behind a large photo of an old Coca Cola ad.

  She was about to run and get help when Amar appeared in front of her.

  “We need to get the hell out,” he said and pulled her after him.

  Aziz was situated on a hill across from the house which allowed him a good view of the neighborhood and the road leading to the house. He saw the car speeding up the hill well before he realized it was heading for the house. It was a shiny white BMW with a single driver.

  It was 9:10!

  Three clicks on the short wave radio alerted both Jaras and Amar but by the time they fetched Elena, they were too late.

  The BMW flew by the parked Subaru and was at the driveway before the team could be out the door.

  “Shut the door and wait inside! We may have to take this guy!” Aziz commanded as he saw the car pull up to the driveway of the house and into the covered parking space.

  A man in a black suit came out of the car and heaved a suitcase out of its trunk.

  As he approached the balcony and fussed with the alarm box at the front door, Jaras came out the house pointing a pistol.

  The man dropped the suitcase and raised his hands in shock.

  “Jaras take him in his car!” Aziz commanded over the radio. “Amar you follow with the Subaru!”

  Jaras pointed to the suitcase instructing the man to pick it up and led him back to his car.

  “Don’t forget the alarm box and door,” he said to the alarm man who was already busy closing it up.

  Elena, Amar and the alarm man retreated back to the Subaru as Jaras forced the man to drive the BMW at gun point.

  “Anyone know who this is?” Aziz asked over the radio.

  “It’s the husband,” Elena said, recognizing the man from the photo she took from the master bedroom and now held in her hand.
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br />   CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  The report was vague but the urgency was apparent so Kessler caught a ride with an Air Force chopper from Marge A’youn to Tel Aviv and called an emergency meeting with his two counterparts.

  Group Captain Harry Fleming, the British liaison and Colonel Doug Collins, the American, were awakened out of their beauty sleep at three in the morning and driven to the meeting by their respective chauffeurs.

  They met at the special office, the apartment near Dizengoff Center. Kessler was expecting a barrage of complaints but his two colleagues simply slipped on to the couch in the living room with boiling cups of coffee he had prepared in advance, and tried to focus their bleary eyes on him.

  “The team has hit a glitch which may force us to act immediately,” he began, lowering himself on a swivel chair, facing them. The two officers straightened a little on their couch.

  “A report came down today that they had hijacked someone who may cause the operation to be exposed.”

  “How’s that?” Collins asked.

  “They were going to break into someone’s house to try and retrieve some information before they make the grab but ended up having to hijack someone else and they feel it’s only a matter of time before the organization is alerted and goes underground.”

  “That’s no good,” Fleming remarked.

  “They’re asking if we’ll be ready in the event they need to move in the next twenty-four hours, which is now only eighteen,” Kessler said looking at his watch.

  “That’s not enough time,” Collins complained.

  “We need at least a day to get the troops ready and in position,” Fleming pitched in.

  “Can you get your people ready?” Collins asked Kessler.

  “If we go in by air, then yes. If it’s via the sea I doubt it. The bigger issue is if we’ll have time to coordinate everyone who’s involved.”

  “Do we even know where we need to go?” Fleming questioned.

  “Not yet but they want us to be ready at a moment’s notice. They’ll give us exact locations as soon as we are set,” Kessler informed them.