by Fritz Galt
“Don’t sound so excited. I’m calling to check in with you and to find out how Mariah’s doing.”
“We’re fine. Simon reports no change with Mariah. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
“I’m on my way to Portugal to meet Abu’s parents.”
“Good. Listen, Abu’s brother Rajiv has developed a vaccine and possible treatment for the new malaria. Unfortunately, Abu has stolen the only vial of the stuff and disappeared. I’ll continue to try and track Abu down.”
He continued without pausing.
“On my last call home, Dr. Yates said if we can get the vaccine to him, he’ll work on developing it into a cure. Honey, I’ve seen sick people walking again. I know it can work.”
Natalie’s eyes filled with tears. “Can you find the vaccine?”
“Here’s the story. You have to reach your contact in DC. Congressman Butler can’t get through to the president. Butler’s got details on Abu’s location and we need covert military support here, pronto. Here’s Butler’s phone number.” He gave her the number of the Taj Hotel in Bombay.
“That sounds familiar.” She hung up the phone and wiped the tears onto her sleeve. Mariah might be out of the woods soon. For a moment she almost allowed herself to visualize her daughter healthy again, just a passing image of a grown girl dressed for her prom.
The young recruit handed her a tissue.
“Thanks,”
Now she’d have to call Bronson again. Bronson probably had the FBI tracing her calls. She’d have to make it short and sweet.
She wiped away her final tear, gritted her teeth, and turned on the phone again.
She still hadn’t decided on what tone of voice to use. She could be stern and authoritative, but Bronson wouldn’t let her dictate orders to him. She could be urgent, but things never worked quickly in Washington. She could make a plea on humanitarian grounds to help India, but Washington must have already decided that the malaria problem was unsolvable.
“Yeah,” came Bronson’s gruff voice.
“It’s me, Natalie Pierce.”
“What is it?” he demanded.
“Have you got a bug up your ass or something, Bronson?”
“No. Got the whole goddamn government up my ass. Now what is it?”
“Okay, it’s this: I need a favor.”
“Everyone needs a favor. Try me.”
“I need to get Federal approval to activate U.S. troops covertly on Indian soil.”
“Why?”
“To catch the terrorist behind the malaria epidemic.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
Bronson came back with a more respectful tone of voice. “Do you know who he is?”
“We know who he is, and we know exactly where he is. And he has the world’s only vaccine with him. Do you think you can get through to someone higher up to discuss this action?” she asked. “Maybe even someone at the Pentagon?”
“Would the President of the United States do for you?”
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“I report daily to the National Security Council these days. They have me coordinating the CIA’s search for a malaria cure with the military’s response team on the Indian Ocean crisis. We’ve already got troops in Bahrain and Diego Garcia. We even have Naval DEVGRU operatives, formerly Navy SEAL Team Six, bivouacked on Diego as a hostage rescue force. Seems some Afghans tried to kidnap our UN ambassador. But you wouldn’t know anything about that…”
“Yeah, rings a bell. Well, anyway, tell the president that Congressman Butler is trying to get through to the White House with the specific details. With a little covert military action, we can catch the terrorist.”
“I’ll get the approval you need.”
She hung up the phone. It was the easiest call she had ever made.
Then she noticed her seatmate staring at her.
Chapter 34
Natalie spent thirteen hours flying from El Paso to Washington to London to Faro on Portugal’s Riviera. She also lost seven hours in time zones.
A total of twenty hours down the drain.
And now to meet Abu’s parents. Exactly how does one greet the parents of a terrorist?
By the time she arrived at Faro’s sunny little airport on a sleepy afternoon, she was a nervous wreck. She walked across the tarmac, looking for a turban or sari.
Nobody in sight.
She stood in line at Immigration and had some time to review her notes about Abu’s parents. She pulled a piece of notepaper out of the pocket of her slacks. It was information she had written down about them after talking with Abu’s father-in-law in Bombay.
Abu’s father’s name was Hashmimi Mohammed Khan, and his mother’s name was Pushpa. They had made their fortune trading diamonds in Bombay. In addition, Abu had a brother who was “a good soul” who lived in America. That would be Rajiv.
She could probably find the name “Hashmimi Mohammed Khan” in the telephone book. There couldn’t be that many in Portugal.
Once past Immigration, she squeezed through the normal bedlam of Portuguese travelers with their family and friends, taxi drivers, tour operators and agitated mobs of people storming ticket counters.
Her arrival in the south of Portugal over a decade earlier had been a very different experience. In the air-conditioned comfort of a U.S. Navy helicopter, she and her new husband, Mick Pierce, had descended over a steep mountain range on Portugal’s southern coast. Suddenly they were hovering over a green carpet of grass at a tiny, private hotel.
She remembered Mick pressing her hand as they alighted, her bridal gown billowing in the gusts of wind from the chopper. Mick had run around her helpfully batting down her train to prevent it from catching in the wind.
Then they dashed into the cool, tiled entryway of the exclusive hotel. There, she had let the trickling fountain, arched doorways, and tiled masonry work their magic on her.
Finally, kneeling on their four-poster bed by the open balcony doors, she removed his black tuxedo, untied his bow tie, and unfastened the studs of his silk shirt while he helped her squirm out of her dress.
He found the “something old” right away, two diamond earrings from her late mother. “Something new” turned out to be a fake, suggestive tattoo of a snake insinuating itself down her tummy.
Confetti thrown at them by sailors at their shipboard wedding spilled out of her low-cut bodice, and they shared a good laugh.
His eyes narrowed as he unhooked one of his ribbons for Valor pinned to the strap of her bra. Then it dawned on him. “Something borrowed?”
Eventually pulling the dress over her round, toned hips, he discovered that she was wearing a blue, star-spangled G-string. She had trembled with anticipation as he stared at her.
“Is that all you were wearing?” he asked, incredulous.
She nodded coyly, remembering how the helicopter’s gusts had nearly exposed her secret. “I couldn’t find anything blue to wear.”
With a hearty lunge, he threw himself at her, smothering her in his brawny arms, deftly removing her “something blue,” and slipping inside her.
An experienced Marine before their marriage, he had switched over to the CIA and been assigned as a case officer to the embassy in Lisbon. At the time, she was a novice diplomat working in the sweatshop of the visa line.
Nothing could have been more perfect than her honeymoon. Each splash in the hotel’s pool had enlivened her youthfulness, each laugh she shared with Mick had been the promise of eternal happiness, and each night another bottle of Port and plate of game or fish had nourished her soul for a lifetime.
Now the Portuguese language, which she had spoken well so many years ago, sounded familiar, but impenetrable.
Just before leaving the terminal, she found a currency exchange window where she could buy escudos.
Doors swung open and shut, letting in blinding reflections of sunlight and waves of heat off a line of cars.
She finished her transa
ction and stooped to pick up her travel bag.
“I’ll take that,” a man said.
She didn’t need a porter. She looked up and saw a smart business suit with something heavy bulging from the jacket pocket.
Reflective sunglasses masked his expression.
“Who are you?”
He lifted the shades and revealed large eyes with dark rims. He was Indian.
“Mr. Khan is expecting you,” he said.
Mr. Khan’s estate sat nestled in the mountains of Monchique. His mansion overlooked an azure ocean from one thousand feet.
Mr. Hashmimi Mohammed Khan had a tall, stooped figure as he stood by the pillared entrance. Natalie watched his eyes following the Jaguar as she entered his circular drive. He was a proud man with nothing to hide.
She stepped from the car into the pine-scented shade of tall cypress trees. Mr. Khan stepped forward and took her hand.
He was a dignified gentleman dressed without a shred of Muslim attire. She noticed a discreetly covered bald spot as he leaned forward to greet her. He had no beard, his clothes were tailored on Saville Row and his manner was warm and effusive. He could have been any normal businessman, until he coughed up a chunk of phlegm and swallowed it loudly.
“Come in and meet my wife, Pushpa,” he said.
“I don’t mean to intrude.”
“Not at all. Not at all. A friend of our son is a friend of ours.”
She entered the front door and heard a voice echoing from the living room. A buxom woman in a sari sat on a barstool, one foot on a rung of the stool, her other foot up on the counter where she could inspect her toes. Natalie couldn’t make out her features as she talked on the telephone.
She gestured for the two to enter.
“Join me for a drink,” Hashmimi invited Natalie.
With massive jetlag and no sleep, she opted to stay alert. “Just water, thank you.”
There she stood in the lair of the enemy. How had she gotten so far so fast?
As her host glided toward a heavy, walnut cabinet to pour drinks, Natalie cocked an ear to eavesdrop on Pushpa’s conversation.
“Bloody Britain and Aussie and all that lot. Won’t allow my husband citizenship. Thank God the ambassador stepped in and helped us. They would have deported us immediately.”
Pushpa listened with irritation.
“Oh, what you’re asking an old lady for? … Ah so, what do I know about fashion? … Twenty-two carat. Flat or round? … Flat on the neck.… You have that ring. For you the paisley. She wants to wear what size? … This is a girl who makes it privately and I have to see if they have all the money to have that made…. Which design? Just the two flowers?”
Pushpa signaled her husband for a drink as well.
“Of course I did, child. One hundred percent…. Ah, then you exchanged or something, because I tried making the one with the two flowers again. That is the one I left on your veranda…. The girl who remade it made it too high, not flat enough. This Bombay style is much nicer.”
Hashmimi brought her water, and brandy for himself and his wife. A Muslim man and a Hindu wife. Both drinking. Fallen angels.
Pushpa returned to the subject of citizenship. “He tried to enter the banking business with someone his junior, and because he was senior, they blamed it on him. He had to leave London and fly back here immediately. This is very serious business. One more incident and they will revoke his visa. Manipulating prices is very serious there.”
Hashmimi seemed clearly uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. He offered Natalie a seat in a different room.
But she sat down on the nearest couch, a leopard skin divan. “I’m perfectly comfortable here.”
He smiled wanly and Pushpa’s voice continued to ring out with her hard Bombay accent. “He had our lawyer call his lawyer and sort it out…. Now, are you coming back with some money, darling? … Anyway, I’ll talk to you, sweetie. Yeah, Yeah. OK. Yeah…. I think it should be within ten thousand rupees. God knows what the prices are now. Yeah, for pinkies. For pinkies. Yes, darling.”
She stood up, a visible sign the conversation was ending.
“I’ll pay for it and bill you when we get the final price. But I’m so involved with this citizenship mess I can’t think about this now.”
She hung up the phone. When she turned to Natalie, a bright smile appeared on her face.
Natalie had expected to see the swollen face of an ogre. Instead, it was a charming round face on a tall slender neck. She had a beautiful wide jaw, gleaming teeth and eyes that sparkled blue when they caught the light.
Hashmimi intervened, “This is Pushpa, Miss India, several years ago.”
“Several decades ago,” she corrected, and shook Natalie’s hand.
“Natalie Pierce,” she said. “I’m helping out on the Moghul Project.”
Pushpa looked confused.
Hashmimi explained, “Abu’s business, dear. Just a small venture.”
The woman’s smile regained its luster.
“If I may excuse myself momentarily,” Hashmimi said. “I must place a call for our lovely guest.”
He crossed to the phone, and the two women sat on the leopard skin divan while they waited.
“A nice diamond you are wearing,” Pushpa observed, taking a long-distance gander at Natalie’s wedding ring.
“Thank you.”
“Of course, you will stay with us tonight, darling.”
Natalie counted the number of times Mr. Khan’s bejeweled index finger pressed the dial buttons. Seven times.
A local call.
Congressman Butler heard the phone ring next to his bed, but his body wasn’t responding. Then he realized why. The slender arms and legs of two young women were wrapped around every inch of his torso.
He located the flashing red light on the phone set, and with Herculean effort freed himself from the tangle of female limbs.
He grabbed the phone. “Do you know what the hell time it is?” he bellowed into the mouthpiece.
“This is Charles Damon.”
“Get lost.”
There was no smart reply.
He paused, his heart missing a beat. “Is that you, sir?”
“Sorry to hear about your daughter, Fred,” the voice came back, this time more distant and dry. “I’m getting daily briefings on the situation.”
“Right. It’s a difficult time for Linda and me. As for India, times are desperate. I wish to God there was something we could do about it, bring in the troops or something.”
“There is,” the president said, taking a deep breath. “Diego Garcia.”
“Who’s that?”
“Not who. Where. Diego Garcia is an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It’s a deep water port for our Fifth Fleet in the Indian Ocean, and it’s home to our Naval Support facilities, the leading edge of our forward deployed naval presence in the Gulf.”
“Well, what about Diego Garcia?”
“Find it on the map, Fred. You’re going to rendezvous with our troops there.”
The phone clicked off.
He groaned as he hung up the phone. “Find it on the map, Fred,” he said, mimicking the president. Damned ex-GIs, never lose their manner of speech.
He jabbed a thick finger at the illuminated touch pad. “Get me a long distance number,” he growled, reciting Alec’s telephone number to the hotel operator. “And step on it.”
He pressed the phone between his jaw and a shoulder and pulled groping female fingers away from his crotch.
An alert male voice came on the line. “Alec Pierce, here.”
“How are you, son? This is Congressman Butler speaking. Your brother Mick Pierce gave me this number and told me you could help infiltrate the you-know-whats.”
“That’s right. Thanks for getting back in touch with me. What’s the plan?”
“Ever hear of a place called Diego Garcia?”
“I’m there right now.”
“Boy you’re fast. I’ll have t
he Air Force get me over there later today.”
“Very good, sir.”
Jesus, these Agency people were on the ball.
He hung up the phone and wiped the last remaining bleariness from his eyes. Morning light seeped cool and blue through his hotel curtains.
Damn. His Arabian Nights were over.
Chapter 35
Early the next morning, Natalie settled into the Jaguar’s soft leather passenger’s seat as Hashmimi cracked his knuckles over the steering wheel.
“I placed a call to an associate yesterday regarding the Moghul Project,” he explained. As the engine turned over, he didn’t even need to raise his voice. “He asked me to bring you to him personally.”
Great. Not another El Paso run-around.
The car shot forward.
“I hope you don’t mind my driving.”
She gripped the leather door handle as the car, with its low center of gravity, propelled them briskly down the mountain road.
“When you own a car,” he continued, “you drive safely. When you own an automobile company, you take greater liberties.”
Within fifteen minutes, they had descended into the resort city of Lagos, a mixture of vacation condos and rundown port.
Hashmimi’s mood was expansive. “Here is where Henry the Navigator launched his great fleets and explored the Azores, Madeira and the western coast of Africa.”
“People will always be ambitious,” she said.
“Those who think big will always be big.”
He slowed on a straight, dark street that ran down to the shore. A hooker strode down the sidewalk with striped hot pants hiked way up her legs.
A block later, Hashmimi eased to the curb.
“This way, please,” he said, and motioned Natalie toward a drogaria.
An old man brushed past them as they entered.
Inside the drugstore, Natalie observed a large sun cream advertisement. The cardboard cutout showed a preening model in a white thong bikini.
Hashmimi stopped short of the counter. The pharmacist was South Asian. Hashmimi looked knowingly at him and lifted his chin.