by Carr, Jack
Focus, Reece.
By 11:30 a.m., the volume of traffic increased as men began making their way toward Jumu’ah. The oldest men arrived first; some traditions seem to transcend culture. As the noon hour approached, the crowds grew thicker and the worshippers younger. The men ranged from business suit–clad professionals to blue-collar workers in more modest dress. They converged on the steps of the mosque and made their way inside.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
An hour later the doors opened and the worshippers descended the steps, returning to the jobs and families awaiting them.
Reece stayed seated for another thirty minutes before heading back to the hotel. He spent the afternoon reading and rereading everything that the Agency had provided him on Mohammed, including the reports of all his unit’s operations. Using an Agency VPN developed by a company called 7 Tunnels, he linked to a folder on Dropbox and accessed a seemingly benign music file hidden among thousands of similar files. Just as Freddy had trained him to do in XXXXXX, he used a VeraCrypt encrypted partition hidden within the music file and entered a twenty-six-character password. Nothing was ever downloaded to his computer.
Looking over the operations orders and after-action reports from the ten months that Reece had worked with Mo and his Special Tactics Unit brought back a flood of memories. Their operations had taken place at the height of the insurgency, in some of the worst neighborhoods in Baghdad. Working in conjunction with, and alongside, allied special operations units, Mo’s STU team played a critical role in capturing high-value individuals and rapidly exploiting intelligence to dismantle enemy networks. They had the added benefit of being an entirely Iraqi unit, which gave them some of the best tactical-level intelligence in theater. They also worked for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, which put the fear of Allah into those they captured. Iraq’s MOI did not give the Geneva and Hague Conventions the same weight as their American allies.
When Reece returned to the United States and the liaison role transitioned completely to Jules Landry, the scope of the operations shifted; retaliation seemed to be the motive rather than counterinsurgency. Why would the CIA have kept Landry on after Reece’s report on his behavior in Iraq? In Reece’s estimation, Landry was not a stable individual and had no business working sensitive intelligence operations.
Mo had been the one Iraqi commander who stood head and shoulders above his peers. He excelled in both the planning and tactical execution of direct-action missions, spoke English almost fluently, and had the trust of both his men and the senior leadership of the MOI. After Mo’s disappearance, the references to his existence became few and far between—all unconfirmed. A mention of one of his aliases on an intercepted phone call emanating from Syria, possible sightings in Greece, and, of course, the intel that had brought Reece to Turkey. The only concrete proof that Mo had left Iraq alive was the photo taken in Italy that Freddy had shown him back in Africa. Are we chasing a ghost?
• • •
A week had passed, and the routine was beginning to wear on him. At least the hotel had a gym where Reece could crank out some brutal CrossFit and Gym Jones workouts. Each day he followed the same pattern to make it easy for anyone wishing to make contact. He’d wake up, work out, and have breakfast, taking his time to read the paper as he finished his coffee. Then it was a leisurely stroll along the river, eventually ending up outside the Arap Mosque. Still nothing. He wanted to avoid entering the mosque and having to use Maajid’s lessons. He wasn’t sure he could pull it off even if he was going in under the guise of an author doing research for a new novel. He’d give it one more day; if no one made contact with him by then, he’d go the mosque route.
At ten to noon, he saw them. Three men, crossing the road toward the park, their heads on swivels. Predators. Two of the men appeared to be in their late twenties while the third was closer to Reece’s age. They each had the broad shoulders of athletes; all wore sunglasses, expensive leather boots, and light jackets. They didn’t wear rank or unit insignia, but to Reece’s trained eye, it was as if they were in uniform.
Reece lowered the newspaper to his lap and stared directly at them as they approached. The older man noticed him as soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk, and, by the time they were within twenty yards of the bench, all three were staring holes in him. The posture of the younger men changed from vigilant to combative as they neared Reece’s position: chests thrust upward, a swagger in their step, heads held high. Their physical behavior sent a primordial message: this was their territory and he was an intruder.
Could this be Mo’s security detail?
Reece made sure to hold their stares until they walked completely past him. Message sent.
Reece lingered until quarter past noon to ensure that Mo wasn’t coming and then walked toward the front of the mosque on his way back to the hotel, noticing a pair of ten-year-old boys tailing him from a block behind. Perfect. He kept a slow and easy pace to ensure they were able to follow him.
• • •
Back in his room, Reece rechecked for listening devices before calling Freddy at the safe house. He answered immediately. “How’d it go?”
“It went. Three guys that looked like they could have been extras in a Chuck Norris movie walked right past me, eyeballing me the whole way. They had a couple of kids follow me home, so I think we set the hook.”
“That’s great, just be careful. Hopefully they are Mo’s guys and not just some local thugs.”
“They looked former military. I’ll be careful.”
“Good. I’ve got some news on Landry. A buddy in counterintelligence called and gave me some intel from their initial report. It seems as though young Mr. Landry had a criminal record that the Agency didn’t know about when they hired him. Besides a couple of simple battery-type arrests as a juvenile, he was arrested for rape during his senior year of high school. Somehow the case went away. I’m guessing he cut a deal to join the Marines. The counterintelligence division and the IG’s office are still looking into it, but the odd part is that someone made it disappear during his screening.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that he’s a scumbag, but it is weird that he got in the door with that kind of record. See if you can find out who recruited him and who signed off on his background.”
“I’m already on it.”
“Thanks. I’ll hit you up at our next comm window.”
Reece cut the call and looked out his window over the city. Mo was out there somewhere, one of the most highly trained covert operatives in the world. He had become a terrorist, and somehow Landry was involved. Not long ago, they had all depended on one another to survive in battle. Reece couldn’t help but think that the next time they met up, not all of them would be walking away.
CHAPTER 44
HOW WOULD MO MAKE contact? Reece knew the CIA had given him some of the same training they give the case officers, but Reece’s experience with Mo and his unit in Iraq had been of a more kinetic nature. Reece still had a hard time believing that the Iraqi major he’d trusted with his life was now a terrorist, targeting the same Western nations he had fought alongside in the cradle of civilization.
Reece needed to get some air. The coffee bar downstairs had proven to be excellent, so he ordered a to-go cup of their lightest roast. After doctoring it with milk and honey, he nodded to the bellman, who held the door for him as he walked out into the afternoon sunshine.
The coffee was too hot to drink, so Reece removed the plastic lid and blew on it as he walked along the steep uphill path. With his subconscious mind occupied by the mountain of intelligence documents he’d read and his conscious focus on the coffee, Reece noticed and then dismissed the maintenance worker clad in bright coveralls as he walked past him. Mistake. Two seconds later, he heard the pop of the compressed nitrogen and immediately felt the sting of the metal barbs that penetrated his shirt and embedded themselves into the muscle of his upper back. His limbs instantaneously contracted and cramped as two thousand volts of ele
ctricity surged into his body, dropping him to the sidewalk, his entire body in taut agony in addition to being burned by the scalding-hot coffee.
The pain ended nearly as quickly as it began, and he found himself floating above the sidewalk, unable to move his limbs. As his chest hit the floorboard of the Transit Connect delivery van, he realized that he’d been flex-cuffed at both his wrists and ankles. A pillowcase was pulled over his head as the door slid to a close. In a moment of out-of-body clarity, he marveled at how quickly his abductors had planned and executed this operation.
It was hot inside the van and the floor smelled of grease and oil, mixing with the strong odor of the coffee that soaked his shirt. Reece lay still, conserving his energy in case it became necessary to run or fight later, though the objective of the mission was to do neither.
Strong hands frisked him from head to toe, covering every inch of his body with no regard for modesty. His subcompact SIG, spare magazine, knife, shoes, and iPhone were taken from him. He assumed that the phone was being placed inside a container that would prevent his location from being tracked. There was no talking among his captors, which made it nearly impossible for him to determine their exact numbers. The driver didn’t speed or drive erratically. Instead he navigated the city’s streets as part of the normal flow of traffic, making frequent turns. These men were pros.
After what seemed like an hour but was probably half that, the van stopped. The driver turned off the diesel motor and engaged the parking brake. He heard the sound of chains from outside the van and a steel service door rolled downward on its tracks. They’d pulled into a garage or warehouse, based on the echo of voices in what sounded like Arabic. The van door slid open quickly and what felt like three men dragged him out by his ankles and stood him upright, his stockinged feet landing on the cold concrete floor. Some type of motor hummed in the background.
“Walk,” a voice from behind him said in accented English.
One man held each arm and a third had him by the top of the head, guiding him forward and away from the direction of the door. He walked twenty paces before his feet felt the threshold of a door and then thin carpeting. After a few more steps, he could hear the sound of a chair being dragged across the carpet behind him.
“Sit.”
Footsteps shuffled away, and he heard the door shut behind him. He slowed his breathing, settled his heart rate, and concentrated on the plastic restraints that bound his wrists in front of him. In a move that he and his teammates had practiced dozens of times in various SERE courses, Reece pushed his arms up and away from his body, then snapped them down across his abdomen. The plastic gave way to freedom. He rubbed his wrists as the blood rushed into his tingling hands and pulled the cloth away from his head.
The room was dark. It was a small office, the kind attached to industrial spaces, with a desk, filing cabinets, and dusty stacks of books and papers on the floor. Ten feet away he saw a dark couch against the wall and a shot of adrenaline shot through his body as his brain registered a human figure seated on it. As he rose to his still-restrained feet, a flash of light illuminated the room. The flame burned brightly and, as the man inhaled on his cigarette, the light glowed against his bearded face.
“Mo!” Reece shouted.
“James Reece, what on earth are you doing here, my friend?” Mo said as he exhaled a cloud of gray smoke and extinguished his lighter. He turned on a lamp, and Reece saw him clearly for the first time. Dashing as ever, Mo’s longish black hair was slicked back, his beard precisely cropped, and his clothing impeccable. He stowed the silver lighter into the pocket of his tailored sport coat, rose from his chair, and embraced Reece in a strong hug. Then, drawing an automatic knife from the pocket of his jeans, he dropped to one knee and swiftly cut the plastic binding from Reece’s ankles.
“Sit down, sit down.” Mo motioned Reece back into his chair as he turned back toward the couch. “Sorry about the way my men treated you, but I had to make sure it was really you.”
“Well, you could have just called my room! No worries, though, no permanent damage except for the coffee stains.”
“I have heard so much, Reece. I am so sorry for the loss of your family, may God watch over them. To lose loved ones in wartime is one thing, but to have the peace of one’s home shattered is another altogether. I have some experience there, if you recall.”
“I do. Thanks, Mo,” Reece said, feeling the gut-wrenching pain at the thought of his wife and little girl riddled with bullets on the floor of their home.
“Why did you come to Istanbul? The way you put yourself directly in my sights, my guess is you came here to find me. I can help you, but if you are looking to hide, there are better places, my friend. The American intelligence services will find you here. You should not have come.”
“I’m not on the run anymore, Mo. The government made me a deal.”
“Why in the world would they do that?”
“Because they needed me to find you.”
Mo’s calm and composed demeanor changed perceptibly. He shifted forward with a puzzled look on his face. “What do you mean by that? They know exactly how to find me.”
Now it was Reece’s turn to look puzzled.
“What are you talking about, Mo? You’re running a terrorist cell for Amin Nawaz. You’re a wanted man with a price on your head.”
“Reece, you don’t understand. I work for the CIA. Remember Jules Landry? He’s been my handler for years.”
CHAPTER 45
Tomtom Suites
Istanbul, Turkey
“REECE, WHERE IN THE hell have you been? We lost track of you.”
“I’m safe, Freddy. He made contact. We need to talk, ASAP,” Reece responded.
Reece was back in his hotel room, personal possessions returned and none the worse for wear.
“Roger that. How do you want to do it?”
“I’m blown here, so it doesn’t matter. I’ll get cleaned up, grab my gear, and catch a ride back to the consulate. Meet you back there in an hour or so.”
“If you’re blown, we’ll just pick you up.”
“Check. Give me fifteen.”
“You got it.”
Reece changed and packed his bags. There was no sense staying at the hotel any longer. He was exposed here and, though he trusted Mo, he couldn’t know whether someone in Mo’s private army was playing both sides. An American intelligence officer would be a fat target to a jihadi looking to help the cause.
The Agency SUV was idling at the curb when Reece walked through the hotel’s front door, the anxious bellman trailing behind him. Reece loaded his own bags and nodded to the confused employee as he handed him a twenty and climbed into the backseat.
Freddy turned around in his seat with an extremely worried expression on his face. “You okay, buddy?”
“Well, I can’t exactly claim to be a superspy. Mo’s guys Tased me and threw me into a van while I was sipping a latte.”
“That would never have happened to Mitch Rapp or Scot Harvath.”
“Hey, man, I’m just a vanilla frogman.”
“I think the Hartleys would disagree, if they were still around. You want to give me the download?”
“Let me have a minute to stew on it. I think I have an idea.”
“I don’t know why that makes me nervous,” Freddy replied with a shake of his head.
The case officer drove directly to the consulate and within a half hour they were inside a secure conference room. Reece began to go through the details of the meeting while Freddy scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad.
“Mo thinks he’s still working for the Agency. He admitted to coordinating the mortar attack on the British Paras and taking out the NATO commander, but he swears he was following our orders.”
“Who gave him the orders?”
“You ready for this?” Reece paused for effect. “Jules Landry. He’s been handling Mo this entire time, first in Syria, then in Europe.”
“You’re shitting me,” Fr
eddy said in disbelief.
“Nope.”
“And you believe him?”
“He was genuinely shocked when I told him Landry had gone rogue. I could tell he felt betrayed. Remember, I’ve been in combat with Mo. We’ve trusted each other with our lives. I don’t think he’d lie to me.”
“Why would the CIA be running a pseudoterrorist to hit our allies? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know,” Reece said. “He’s been thinking that Landry was running him against Nawaz, getting him close, having him gather intel, and that Landry gave him CIA-approved targets to hit in order to prove his worth to Nawaz. Kind of like how the DEA assets operate in the cartels. They pass information to their DEA handler, who lets the majority of drug shipments continue into the U.S. to not blow their asset’s cover as they continue to move up in the organization. Same thing here.”
“Jesus.”
“And think about where he comes from: Iraq. He grew up under Saddam Hussein, who did the unspeakable to keep his people living in fear and in line. He told me Landry was specific with him about hitting military targets. Mo actually thought the supporting effort was to keep our allies involved in the GWOT and ensure they had the public support to do so. He admitted to organizing the attack on the Paras and he took out General Alexander with the drone himself, just like the CIA taught him.”
“What about the Christmas attack in England?”
“Swears he had nothing to do with it. He said he’d only hit military targets and, again, I actually believe him. He knows that Nawaz has multiple independent cells but doesn’t know specifics. He was working his way up but he wasn’t there yet. That’s why he believed that Landry was running him for the CIA. It’s actually quite genius.”
“Yeah, but to what end? There is something we’re missing. Why would Landry go rogue and run a former STU commando inside ISIS in Europe? He’s not employed by the CIA anymore. What’s his endgame?”