“I’ll get around to them, but first let me explain how they are part of a bigger problem. Are you familiar with HUMINT?”
“Human intelligence—spy-versus-spy stuff.”
“That’s right. I intend to move this agency away from depending on HUMINT, with a bigger emphasis on technological intelligence gathering and artificial intelligence analytics. We can intercept cellular calls almost anywhere in the world. Our satellites are capable of showing us every square inch on this planet. I can tell you how many hairs on his head Russian president Kalugin lost last week. Technology is the future of modern intelligence, Mr. Calhoun. Imagine our ability to anticipate our enemies’ next moves by using predictive analytics.”
“Sounds intriguing.”
“Yes, it is. Unfortunately, the White House, Congress, and the public are enamored with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. George Smiley. John le Carré. That’s old thinking. Human intelligence is often wrong and can’t be trusted. It’s biased. To be blunt, our country doesn’t need the Brett Garretts and Valerie Mayberrys of the world running around trying to catch terrorists. Not with our superior technology.”
“So it was Garrett and Mayberry in Italy, right?”
“The most effective way for me to shift this agency away from HUMINT is by showing the public how dangerous these James Bond antics are. Which brings me to Brett Garrett. You’ve already raised questions about his possible role in two murders.”
“You want me to write a story critical of Garrett and Mayberry?”
“A story? Do you remember President Gerald Ford?”
“I have read about him and I know he pardoned Richard Nixon and was a klutz.”
“Klutz. Why do you know that?”
“I remember something about him falling down the steps of Air Force One. Hitting a spectator in the head when he was playing golf. Jokes about how he’d played football without his helmet.”
“Exactly. Chevy Chase mimicking him on Saturday Night Live so much in Washington everyone said Ford’s vice president was just a banana peel away from succeeding him as president. That image didn’t come from one story. It came from a barrage of unfavorable press. I want you to use Garrett to destroy the entire James Bond mythology.”
“Why do I feel this might be more personal than about agency priorities?” Calhoun asked.
“Does that matter? You want access. I’ll give it, but I want you to be relentless and ruthless in investigating and exposing Garrett’s every flaw, his every failed move—Mayberry too, if she sticks with him. I want you to destroy his reputation.”
“Mind if I take a few notes?” Calhoun reached for a notebook inside his jacket pocket.
“That won’t be necessary. You won’t have a problem remembering what I tell you.”
Twenty-Six
The Roc saw his daughter collapse on the subway’s northbound platform, shot twice. When the northbound train reached the next stop, he crossed over the tracks and caught a car back to the Simplon station, arriving about fifteen minutes later.
The northbound platform was swarming with police and EMTs. Most were clustered around Tahira’s body, which had been covered. His daughter was dead. He didn’t see the man who’d fatally shot her.
It was pointless for him to get off the subway. He continued riding south and eventually found his way to the French town of Chartres, about sixty miles southwest of Paris, where he checked into a mom-and-pop hotel called Le Parvis, near the famous cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres. Once in his room, he released his anguish, biting into a towel to muffle his screams.
He’d known this was possible, but somehow he’d never believed it would happen. He did not blame himself. He blamed the man who had pulled the trigger and ended his daughter’s life. If there had been any mistake on his part, it was tenderness. He should have insisted they flee Paris the moment she returned to their flat. Instead, he’d let her eat and sleep. As the hatred boiling inside him intensified, so did his hunger for revenge. The French RAID unit had known exactly where he and Tahira had been hiding. How? He’d been sure to hide his tracks when he left Lake Como. Someone had followed his daughter.
He tried to sleep, but couldn’t. He arose while the morning was still dark and stood half naked in front of his room’s bathroom mirror. Before checking into the hotel, he had stopped to buy a gym bag and fill it with clothing, toiletries, a digital voice recorder, and other needed items. Among them was a sharp pair of scissors, which he used to cut his hair and beard before going over his skin with a razor. His bare flesh glistened under the water he splashed over himself to remove any leftover bits. Next, he shaved off his eyebrows before again checking his reflection, turning slightly so he could better see the jagged scar that ran from his ear to his neck. A forever reminder of his torture by the Saudis. His disguise was in plain sight. Bald and missing his eyebrows, he resembled a cancer patient undergoing chemo. His scar subtly reinforced the impression of an ill patient. The image staring back at him from the mirror looked nothing like the guest who had checked into the hotel. Still, he left through a window to avoid passing its front desk clerk.
He would retrace his daughter’s steps after she fled Bellagio. It was a six-and-a-half-hour train ride from Chartres to the Italian Oulx train depot, with a connection to the Claviere ski resort. Exhaustion set in midway during his trip, and he slept for three hours before the sun woke him, magnified through the railcar’s window so that it burned his freshly shaved cheeks.
For a moment he’d forgotten Tahira’s death, and he looked at the empty seat next to him, fully expecting her to be there. Now fully awake, his sorrow and bitterness again surfaced. He tugged on a vest over his long-sleeve shirt, successfully hiding his Heckler & Koch VP70 handgun. It was the only weapon he’d grabbed when fleeing their Paris flat. His thoughts returned to those final desperate moments. The motion detector hidden in the staircase had alerted him that the RAID team was coming for them. He’d awoken Tahira and led her to an escape hole that he’d created in the apartment’s floor. He’d purposely flooded the unit below on the day he returned from Italy, causing its occupants to flee temporarily, giving him time to create an escape route. The morning of the RAID assault, neither Tahira nor he had panicked. It wasn’t until he’d spotted a stranger following them near the subway that he had become concerned.
His thoughts were interrupted by a middle-aged woman in a business suit who claimed the empty aisle seat next to him. He usually preferred the aisle—better maneuverability—but sitting next to the window helped shield him from the prying eyes of passengers walking up and down the passageway.
His seatmate began reading a copy of the International Herald Tribune. He could see the front-page headline: Six Paris Police Officers Die Trying to Capture Father-Daughter Terrorists. A photo of him from when the Saudis had imprisoned and beaten him was displayed next to the article. A second photo showed Tahira’s body at the subway station, taken by someone with a camera phone, before first responders had arrived.
“Voulez-vous lire mon journal?” the woman asked.
“Vous êtes trop gentille,” he replied.
She handed him the newspaper’s first section. He scanned the first several paragraphs before turning to an inside page to finish. Next to the main story was a sidebar and two additional photos. This sidebar was from the Washington Interceptor, written by a reporter named Robert Calhoun.
AMERICANS GO HOME:
Former American Heroes in Deadly Encounters Anger Police
Washington, D.C.—The Interceptor has learned that two Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients interfered with law enforcement officers in Italy and France who were pursuing a team of vicious murderers—Saeedi Bashar and Tahira Bashar, both Palestinian terrorists. Because of the American duo’s recklessness, innocent civilians have been killed.
Former Navy SEAL Brett Garrett and FBI agent Valerie Mayberry were not authorized by the US government to pursue the father-and-daughter killers.
“They are acting as vigilantes, and fo
reign law enforcement agencies are furious and want them gone,” one highly placed government source told me.
Based on confidential sources, I’ve been able to track Garrett and Mayberry and document their frightening antics.
Days ago, they engaged in a high-speed car chase through crowded streets in Bellagio, Italy, in an attempt to capture Tahira Bashar. She and her father had attempted to assassinate Julian “Big Jules” Levi, director of Israel’s Mossad, while he was attending his niece’s Lake Como wedding.
The reckless Americans’ unauthorized pursuit ended when Tahira Bashar bolted from her vehicle in the heart of the historic city and detonated C-4, a powerful explosive. More than a dozen bystanders were killed, and nineteen suffered major wounds. Most were tourists, many enjoying the day at sidewalk cafés. The explosion caused significant damage to the Bellagio’s historic Hotel Metropole.
Italian law enforcement officials were in the process of sealing off major roads to prevent the would-be assassins’ escape, but Garrett and Mayberry took it upon themselves to chase Tahira Bashar, an incredibly dangerous move that resulted in unnecessary deaths and resulted in Tahira Bashar successfully escaping.
Blood on Their Hands
“If these two Americans would have gotten out of our way and let us do our jobs,” one incensed police official told me, “we would have caught the terrorists without deaths and injuries to tourists and residents. Blood is on their hands!”
Rather than complying with Italian officials’ multiple requests for them to return to the United States, Garrett and Mayberry appeared in Paris two days later when one of France’s highly trained antiterrorist squads was about to surprise the Bashars while they were asleep in a Paris flat.
Unbeknownst to French officials, the Bashars were tipped off. They escaped after detonating booby traps that killed six French police officers and critically wounded two others.
When asked if Garrett and Mayberry were directly or indirectly responsible for alerting the terrorists, a highly placed French source said, “The assassins knew our team was coming to arrest them—that’s all I will say.”
Refused to Help Wounded Officers
Garrett refused to assist French RAID commandos rescuing their fallen comrades outside the booby-trapped apartment. By chance, he spotted the Bashars fleeing the area, but instead of alerting French authorities, he chased both of them into an underground subway station mobbed with morning rush-hour commuters. Garrett caused a panic when he began firing through the crowds. Fortunately, no one except Tahira Bashar was fatally wounded. Her father escaped.
“This American should have told us,” a French police officer complained. “His Wild West actions put French lives in grave danger, including innocent schoolchildren. We are trained to do our missions with minimum civilian casualities—something Garrett ignored.”
Said another highly placed French source, “These two glory seekers are no longer welcome here. They need to go back to the United States and stop getting in our way before others are killed because of them.”
The State Department issued a statement that said neither Garrett nor Mayberry is acting on behalf of the US government. An FBI source said Mayberry was on vacation. In an unusual move, CIA director Connor Whittington issued a statement that said Garrett was not employed by the CIA or any other intelligence agency.
A top CIA aide, speaking off the record, commented: “Brett Garrett is violent, dangerous, and out of control. He should give back his presidential medal. He no longer deserves to be called an American hero.”
The Roc finished the article and lowered the newspaper. He had a name and photo: Brett Garrett. The man who killed Tahira.
The French businesswoman sitting beside him gathered her belongings as the train neared a station. He offered the newspaper back to her.
“Non, non,” she said, waving it away as she stepped into the aisle.
“Je vous remercie,” he replied.
After she had gone, he tore out the photos of Garrett and Mayberry and put them into his gym bag.
It was midafternoon when he reached Claviere. As he stepped from the train, the thought occurred to him that Tahira had come to this same station four days earlier from Bellagio. The hostel was easy to spot, but he didn’t go directly there. He would wait until nightfall.
When it was dark, he entered the hostel’s lobby and thought again of Tahira as he walked across its dirty tile floor, approaching a night clerk behind a counter. The older man was smoking a cigarette and reading Oggi, one of Italy’s most popular newsmagazines.
“Are you Farrokh?” the Roc asked.
The man looked up suspiciously from the magazine at the stranger before him. Hard men recognize other hard men. It’s a survival skill learned on mean streets and in jails and prisons—an ability to sense whether the man you are facing is a coward hiding behind bluster or a genuine threat. When a hard man senses danger, rote memories kick in. One foot falls back for leverage. One shoulder drops. Ready to lunge. Ready to throw the first punch.
The Roc spotted the clerk’s tells.
“Farrokh is not here,” the clerk replied. He opened a drawer under the counter on the pretense of putting his magazine away. It was where he usually kept his pistol. In that moment, he realized he’d given his handgun to the young woman who was fleeing the police. He owned a second gun, but it was in his bedroom nightstand.
“Maybe you can tell me where he has gone,” the Roc said. “Does he live close?”
The clerk shrugged. “I don’t know, and unfortunately we’re out of rooms for the night.”
“You look Iranian. Perhaps from Zarabad.”
“No, I’m from Jordan. The resorts around here are probably sold out too. You’d do better to catch the return train to Oulx. It leaves in less than an hour.”
“You have no idea where Farrokh might be?”
“None. You see, I only recently started working here, and I do not know him well.”
The Roc noticed the ashtray on the counter, stuffed with butts.
“How about a cigarette?” he asked. “I’m out.”
“Yes, of course,” the clerk said. “But I have smoked my pack and need to get a fresh one in my bedroom. Wait, and I will bring you one.”
The clerk turned. Began to walk away. Dragging his left foot.
Tahira had said Farrokh limped. A war injury. The Iraq/Iran war. Quds Force.
The clerk opened a door behind him, the door to his bedroom, a former storage closet with no windows. He half shut the door and went directly to the nightstand where he kept his pistol. But before he reached it, a knife blade pressed against his neck.
“Farrokh,” the Roc whispered.
“What do you want?” Farrokh asked.
The Roc had his left arm wrapped around Farrokh’s chest, his blade pressed against Farrokh’s carotid artery. He pulled Farrokh tighter, his chest pushing against Farrokh’s back. Too close for Farrokh to break away without having his neck slashed.
“Unhook your belt,” the Roc ordered.
Farrokh unbuckled it, slid it from the loops.
“Your hands. Behind your back.”
In a swift motion, the Roc looped the belt around Farrokh’s wrists, locked it in place, and pushed Farrokh onto his knees. Still pressing his blade against Farrokh’s neck, he retrieved the miniature digital recorder that he’d purchased to record their conversation.
“How did the French know where my daughter and I were in Paris?”
“I don’t know.”
The Roc sliced Farrokh’s neck, but only enough to draw a trickle of blood, red intermingling with Farrokh’s sweat.
“You had two sex traffickers bring my daughter to Paris. They followed her and told you our address.” He dug his knife deeper into Farrokh’s neck, inflicting more pain, drawing more blood.
“I didn’t tell the French. I hate Jews, just like you. I was trying to help your daughter.”
“Who did you tell?”
“Tehran,”
Farrokh whispered. “A nephew in Quds Force. I thought the Iranians would want to help you.”
“His name?”
“The call was transferred to a general.”
“Which one?”
“Kardar.”
“What did you tell him? Be exact if you want to live.”
“I said you were in a flat on the rue Ordener.”
“You didn’t really believe General Kardar would help us. You called Tehran because you wanted a reward. You sold us for money.”
“He said he’d pay me, but he said he’d help you both escape from Paris. You must believe me. I gave your daughter a pistol.”
Both heard the hostel door opening. The ding of the counter bell. The Roc checked the monitor next to the bed. A lobby camera showed a deliveryman waiting with a package.
“Do not move or speak,” he ordered.
He grabbed the second handgun from the nightstand. Tucked it into his waistband next to his own pistol. Looked again at the monitor.
“Do you know this deliveryman?”
“No.”
“You expecting a package?”
“No.”
“Your guests?”
“We don’t accept packages for them.”
The deliveryman tapped the bell again. Called out: “Ciao! Bonjour! Hello!”
“I’m coming,” the Roc answered in English. He again put his knife under Farrokh’s chin, and for a moment Farrokh believed his throat would be slit.
“Where’s the key to this bedroom?”
“The nightstand.”
The Roc took the key, put away his knife, and stepped calmly from the bedroom, shutting its door behind him. Because it was a former storeroom, it could be bolted from outside. Using the key, he locked Farrokh inside.
“Package for Farrokh Zimar,” the deliveryman said.
“He just stepped out,” the Roc said.
The deliveryman seemed confused. “I was told he was working here tonight.”
“He’s having dinner nearby. But I’ll accept this for him.”
The Roc picked up the shoebox-size package on the counter between them. Felt its heft.
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