The Hunting Ground (Deuce Mora Mystery Series Book 2)

by Jean Heller

  We agreed my description of what happened at the airport was compelling, and the federal building conversations were strong evidence I was coerced into signing the no-write agreements, which would make them illegal. But even if we published the recordings, and even if Bruckner succeeded in having the agreements tossed out by a federal court, what good would come of it? We still didn’t know what happened to the Saudis.

  And all the evidence that would have backed up my story had disappeared.

  I got one additional report on Charles and Joey. Joey had been released from the hospital and was spending his days at the Faulkner School with his brother. He was under the care of a nutritionist, a physical therapist, and a kindergarten teacher trained in dealing with special needs children. Joey liked and trusted her. He still was not comfortable around strange men. That would take time to overcome.

  Joey and Charles shared a room, and I still was not permitted to see them.

  After two more restless, sleep-deprived nights, I tried drinking a couple of glasses of wine before bed. They helped, but I felt crappy when I woke up. So I bought a bottle of one of those painkiller PM tablets. They worked the first night. I slept for nine hours until my bladder roused me, but the pills left me feeling worse in the morning than the wine.

  Mark brought me some pot. I should note here that in Chicago it is more or less legal to possess pot for personal use. If you’re caught, you’re subject to a fine, but that’s all. And most cops had much better things to do than write tickets for personal pot possession. I had smoked with Mark occasionally and enjoyed it, but I didn’t crave it.

  He said it would help me relax. It did. After a week I had pretty much caught up on missed sleep and was feeling much better physically. Mentally, a compelling story left unreported and unwritten still clawed at my conscience.

  And I found myself missing Charles more than ever.

  It was the second week of June, an absolutely glorious time of year in Chicago. Mark and I were trying to make the most of it. We went fishing off the pier in Montrose Harbor. We released most of our catch, keeping only one really nice lake trout that weighed nine pounds. That was a lot of fish, even for two adults, two cats, and a dog. Once it had been cleaned and filleted, Mark grilled half for dinner, and the other half went into my freezer.

  We went on an offshore dinner cruise that pampered us with food and drink while we admired the skyline of the city for which we had ambivalent feelings.

  We went to the theater.

  We attended two street festivals, including one that featured some of the city’s best food trucks, of all things.

  I think maybe we were trying to scrub the whole Ryan Woods sequence of abominations from our memories.

  It almost worked.

  Walking home Saturday night from a wonderful dinner at Bacchanalia, we were feeling happy and relaxed.

  We had standing instructions with the restaurant owners that when they had lamb chops on the menu they were to send us a text message. Nobody I’d ever met did lamb any better than this neighborhood Italian joint.

  We imagined how Murphy would take off half of Mark’s arm to get to his share of leftover lamb, while Caesar and Cleo would turn up their noses at the garlic.

  A few doors down Twenty-Fifth Street toward my house, I put a hand on Mark’s arm, and we stopped walking. There was someone sitting on my front porch. I wasn’t expecting anyone. And I never trust anyone hiding in shadow.

  Mark saw what I saw. He was wearing a t-shirt a size too large, and while I hadn’t asked, I suspected he had his Glock holstered in the small of his back.

  “We’re okay,” he said. “Let’s see who it is.”

  We’d taken three more steps when the shadow spoke.

  “It’s okay, guys. It’s me, Carl.”

  I recognized the voice, and I was able, finally, to exhale.

  Mark withdrew his hand from under his shirt.

  The shadow came down my front steps and in the fading evening light took the form of Carl Cribben, FBI agent, retired. Sort of.

  “Hey, man,” Mark said. “Why didn’t you let us know you were back in town? We’d have taken you to eat some of the best lamb ever.”

  Carl shook Mark’s hand then gave me a hug he held longer than I expected.

  When he pulled back he asked me, “How you doin’?”

  I shrugged. Mark was silent.

  “Invite me in,” Cribben said. “Make me a drink, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  68

  At the top of the porch steps I stopped.

  “I don’t know what you want to tell us, Carl,” I said, “but I can’t guarantee the house hasn’t been bugged.”

  “I had it swept a while ago,” Mark said, “but not recently.”

  “Not a problem,” Cribben said. “The people who might want to bug you know I’m here. They know what I’m going to tell you. They don’t like it, but I outlined for them the truth that they don’t have a choice at this point. I didn’t sign anything.”

  So we gave Murphy his share of the leftover lamb, offered some to the cats and were scorned, mixed drinks, and settled in. Cribben had the stage.

  He reviewed what we knew already: A child sex-trafficking ring, based in Chicago, owned by a group of Saudi princes, managed by a distant Saudi cousin who lived in Wisconsin, supplied by a depraved official of the Chicago Department of Child and Family Services for reasons the man took to the grave with him.

  “So let’s get to why this was such a huge diplomatic problem,” Cribben said. “Obviously, there’s the matter of Saudi oil. We’ve been importing a lot less in recent years, but it’s still a supply line we have to keep in reliable reserve for the future. Then there’s the politics of the Middle East. The Saudis have been a steadfast, if despicable, ally for a long time. It’s a region of the world where we need all the allies we can get who aren’t determined to destroy Israel. There’s already a lot of tension over attempts in Congress to pass legislation that would allow U.S. citizens to sue Saudi Arabia if anyone uncovers evidence of Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks. We really don’t need more problems.”

  I interrupted. “So we murder a bunch of Saudis and don’t want the king to know because he might put on a pissy face and tear up our oil agreements? Seems like that would hurt him a lot more than us since it would take one hell of a big chunk out of his royal Saudi bank account. Why not just arrest ‘em all?”

  “Laying aside your first question about who murdered whom,” Cribben said, “the answer to the second question is, diplomatic immunity. The princes were here on what they defined as a diplomatic mission. We know it was a cover to protect their real reason for being here. But unless the Saudis waived immunity, there was nothing we could do.”

  “And the Saudis said no?” Mark asked.

  “I doubt we even asked. They would not have responded well. No sense pissing them off when there wasn’t a chance in hell they’d agree. That’s a nasty bunch over there.”

  I started to ask something else, but Carl put up his hand.

  “Let me finish. Some of the stuff I’m going to tell you might repeat what you already know. But it’s important for perspective.”

  We nodded.

  “The Muslim religion in the Middle East is divided into Shi’ites and Sunnis. There are plenty of subsets of each, but that’s the basic division and all we need to focus on tonight. Muhammad died in 632 A.D. He was poisoned, actually, so intrigue in the Muslim world dates back to the religion’s earliest years. Ever since Muhammad’s death, there has been a struggle to identify who the ‘real’ Muslims are. At least that’s how the struggle is defined by Muslim nations in the Middle East. The truth is, the struggle is less about religion and more about political power—which sect best represents the interests and philosophies of Islam and has the right to determine the course of the Muslim world.”

  He took a sip of his drink and paused a moment to gather his thoughts.

  “It breaks down this way, more or less.
Sunnis are the majority across the Muslim world, including those Muslim countries outside the Middle East. The Balkans, for example. But take the Middle East alone and Shi’ites are have the majority. Iran is a S’hia powerhouse. In Saudi Arabia, the Sunnis are in control.”

  Now Cribben had my undivided attention. I had no idea where this discussion was leading.

  “Our focus,” he said. “is on Saudi Arabia—Sunni—and Iran—S’hia. They are the principals in the struggle for domination of the Muslim world.”

  “And they hate each other,” Mark said.

  Cribben nodded. “They do.”

  He and Mark finished their drinks. Mark asked Cribben if he’d like another.

  “What I’d really like is a glass of water,” Cribben said. “But as long as you’re up.” He held his empty glass out to Mark. Mark looked at me. I’d been so focused on Cribben that I’d forgotten my drink, which sat nearly untouched in front of me. I shook my head.

  When everyone was settled again and Cribben had downed most of his glass of water, he continued.

  “The trafficking ring in Chicago was getting a lot of high-level attention behind the scenes in Washington,” he said. “There was clear proof of responsibility but too much diplomatic and strategic baggage to take direct action. While discussions dragged on in secret, word of the dilemma leaked to the Iranians.”

  “What?” Mark asked in total disbelief. “How the hell did that happen?”

  Cribben shook his head. “Don’t know for sure. The Russians have gotten very adept at hacking, as we all know. They might have breached the FBI’s security, or the NSA’s, and picked up some classified communications on this. If that happened, they might have given the information to Iran. The two countries are pretty tight. I’m not saying that happened. Nobody knows for sure where the leak originated. I’m only suggesting one possibility.”

  “But,” I said, “at some point Iran made an offer of help, and we accepted.”

  “Yes,” Cribben said. “I’m not privileged to know those circumstances either. I just know the Iranians saw a way to strike a blow at their Saudi foes and curry some favor with the United States. There was also the matter of Iran’s gratitude that the nuclear deal included the release of $150 billion in Iranian assets that had been frozen for years. They offered us a way out of our problem. Having no viable alternative, and unwilling to live with the Chicago situation, we accepted the Iranian offer. Our one stipulation was that the princes be taken from the United States unharmed. And they were.”

  “Someone died at O’Hare,” Mark said.

  “Yes, all the Saudi security. The limo drivers and the men on the bus.”

  “And who killed them?” I asked.

  “A crack team from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.”

  Mark and I exploded simultaneously.

  “I don’t believe that,” Mark said.

  “Foreign mercenaries operating on U.S. soil?” I asked. “Never. For one thing, the Revolutionary Guard hates us. Why would they do us any favors?”

  “Apparently, they hate the Saudis more,” Cribben said, “and they do what Iran’s supreme leader tells them to do.”

  Mark said, “So the story you’re trying to sell us is that we let foreign soldiers who hate America carry out a murderous plot on American soil, soil that happens to be under one of the busiest airports in the country. That’s the worst sort of folly.”

  “The Iranians were flown to the United States from somewhere in Europe aboard an Air Force cargo plane under heavy guard,” Cribben said. “Every moment they were in this country, each Iranian had at least three of our toughest, most elite, military personnel keeping them in check. They were held at a military installation near Washington until the time came to fly to Chicago. They were flown here on another Air Force cargo plane under heavy guard and transported to O’Hare by bus.”

  “And they left how?” I asked.

  “Aboard the Saudi plane back to Europe,” Cribben said. “For the trans-Atlantic leg of the trip the plane had an American military crew augmented with a heavy contingent of Army Rangers and Navy Seals. Once back in Europe, the U.S. personnel got off, and the plane was flown back to the Middle East by the same Saudi crew that flew it into O’Hare.”

  “And then what happened?” Mark asked.

  The former FBI agent sighed deeply. “This part is why I needed the drinks,” he said. He picked up the second one, still mostly untouched, took a small sip, and set it down again.

  “From what I was told, I gather that final leg was most unpleasant for the Saudis. The Iranians felt free to abuse the princes any way they wished, and they made the most of the opportunity under the guise of questioning them about intelligence matters the princes probably knew nothing about. In fact, I don’t want to know what was done to them, and I can’t imagine that you do, either. As the plane crossed the Red Sea, it descended to an altitude just above seven thousand feet. The air pressure within the plane was equalized with the air pressure outside. That way a door could be opened without consequences.”

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  Cribben nodded. “When the plane reached the Hijaz Mountains of northern Saudi Arabia, the princes were thrown out, one by one, alive for a last few minutes of terror. Brutal but fitting. The door was closed, and still at a very low altitude, the plane flew to a military base in Iran where, at this moment, it is in the process of being torn apart and destroyed. There is, I am told, Defense Department satellite confirmation of everything.”

  Cribben ran a hand through his hair.

  “If any of the remains of the princes are ever found, there will be no proof of what happened to them or who was responsible.”

  If I’d had trouble wrapping my head around this story before, there was no sense even trying now.

  Finally I asked, “What happened to the bodies of the men killed at O’Hare?”

  “Their bodies were flown out in the hold of the same U.S. military plane that took the princes back to Europe,” Cribben said. “Then loaded into the hold of the Saudi plane. What happened to them after that I have no idea.”

  “That’s too Machiavellian to believe,” I said.

  “It is true nonetheless,” Cribben said.

  “Why go to all that trouble?” Mark asked. “If we’re going to act as judge, jury, and executioner, why not have a bunch of Navy Seals or Army Rangers do the deed?”

  Cribben thought about that. Then he said, “I suppose it could have been done that way, but the endgame would have been difficult. There’d be a lot of bodies left for us to dispose of. Seven princes. Twenty to thirty security people. All Muslims. All needing preparation and burial in accordance with their beliefs. Two or three dozen dead Muslims would have raised suspicion somewhere along the line.”

  “Who cares about their traditions?” Mark said. “They sure didn’t show any respect for ours, the tradition of protecting innocent children. Load the bodies on their plane, fly it out over the ocean and crash it. The crew could bail out and get picked up.”

  “Because the U.S. government doesn’t do things like that,” Cribben said.

  “The hell it doesn’t,” Mark snapped.

  “Well, we don’t often admit to it,” Cribben said. “We took Bin Laden’s body to an American war ship, prepared it according to Muslim law, and buried it at sea when we could have left it in Pakistan to rot.”

  “So we get deniability,” I said. “What do the Iranians get?”

  “Revenge,” Cribben said. “A lot of the tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia right now is over the Saudi execution of an Iranian cleric. I think it was in late December that the Saudis—they’re Sunnis, remember—executed the Shi’ite cleric, who was an outspoken critic of the Saudi royal family.”

  “I remember that,” I said.

  Cribben continued. “Iranians stormed the Saudi embassy in Teheran. The two countries kicked out each other’s diplomats and cut diplomatic relations. Iran warned the execution would cost Saudi Arabia dearly. I guess
they weren’t kidding.”

  I was slumped on the sofa thinking it would almost be worth prison time to break the agreements I’d signed and write the story. Cribben read my mind.

  “There’s no evidence left to hang a story on, Deuce,” he said. “All the relevant air traffic records have been expunged. All the blood on the ground at O’Hare has been cleaned up very scientifically. And all the bodies are gone. Even the bloody bus has been burned and sent to a junkyard where its destruction was witnessed by U.S. government agents. You couldn’t this story without proof.”

  “Was Congress told about this?” Mark asked.

  “Certainly not all of Congress. Perhaps the Gang of Eight, the bipartisan group of eight U.S. Senators from military and intelligence committees. But I don’t know that for a fact. That’s not how I learned of it.”

  I asked, “What about the CIA?”

  “I’m quite sure,” said Cribben, “the CIA was as deeply involved as the NSA.”

  I said, “But the CIA is prohibited by law from conducting operations inside the United States.”

  “Next time you run into Richard Nixon,” Cribben said, “you might ask how that worked out for him.”

  “How did you learn all this?” I said.

  “Aw, Deuce, you know I can’t answer that, and I won’t.”

  I remembered then that the FBI, Cribben’s alma mater, had also been involved in the mission. And for all his many identities, Ronald Colter was an assistant director of the FBI. I knew Cribben would never confirm that Colter was his source, so I didn’t ask.

  But I did have a question. “So what happens when the next president takes office? Will he, or she, be briefed on this operation?”

  Cribben chuffed at the question. It was a sound somewhere between amusement and derision.