True Believer

by Carr, Jack

  “The girl in Louisiana, Jules. Before you joined the Marines to stay out of jail.”

  How in the hell . . . ? “Oh, that. That was a long time ago, Mo . . . I . . .”

  Mohammed Farooq rose from his chair without saying a word and as the steel door slammed shut behind him, the room went totally dark. A second later, the cold shower was activated. All Landry could do was scream.

  CHAPTER 61

  Lisbon, Portugal

  September

  GREY WAS FLUENT IN Spanish, having spent many years working in Central and South America. The bad news was that, as he’d discovered in Brazil many years ago, Portuguese was not as close to Spanish as many would have you believe. He struggled to communicate with locals who did not speak Spanish or English, relying mainly on common words and gestures in order to get by. His train would leave that evening, so he had an entire day to kill in Europe’s second-oldest capital city. He took a taxi to the Hotel Jerónimos, where he checked his bags and washed his face in the lobby’s restroom.

  Lisbon was physically attractive with its gray, black, and white stone mosaic streets, bright buildings with red-tiled roofs, classic streetcars, and waterfront views. The city’s mood was, to Grey, relatively bleak. Citizens shuffled the streets with little joy and many of the buildings appeared dingy and neglected. Lisbon had the feel of a city whose best days were behind it.

  Joy radiated from the faces of the numerous immigrants he saw, undoubtedly former residents of Portugal’s many former colonies, places like Mozambique, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea. A once-mighty empire that had mastered deepwater navigation, commanded the seas, and spanned the globe was now one of the smallest economies in Europe, only its language left as a mark on its former territories, a faded tattoo as a reminder of what once was.

  After a café breakfast, Grey wandered to the waterfront to see the fourteenth-century Belém Tower, the small Gothic castle that guarded the narrow waters leading to the city. He took some photos with the old green Leica in his shoulder bag before making his way toward the train station for a rail ticket. Purchasing the ticket online was out of the question, since this was the point where Grey would abandon his old identity and assume a new one. As he strolled along the walkway that led from the tower to the shoreline, he tossed his iPhone into the choppy waters of the Tagus River. No part of him felt like turning back.

  The olive felt fedora on his head and Wayfarer sunglasses on his face would help hide him from the prying eyes of the security cameras and their facial recognition algorithms. His beard, though patchy, was starting to come in. After a frustrating conversation in bad Spanish and even worse English, he was told that he could buy his rail pass only online or at the station from which his train would depart. The ticket agent pointed animatedly at a pamphlet for the Estação de Lisboa-Oriente, a station east of the airport and well beyond walking distance. He triple-checked the departure time as 9:34 p.m. local and decided that he would buy his ticket at the station that evening rather than make two trips across the city and back.

  Grey impatiently explored the city as he passed the hours until his departure, his body adjusting slowly to the time difference. Walking had always helped him fight jet lag, and he logged many miles afoot as he saw the sights, cataloging them with his camera as he went. He bought two bottles of Capitulo, a local red wine, along with some fresh bread and butter for the train ride. After retrieving his larger bag from the hotel, he waited for the afternoon traffic to subside before hailing a taxi to the station.

  The Oriente Station was a modern marvel of white metal arches, illuminated by artificial lighting as the sun set on the opposite side of the city. Grey paid extra for a private compartment on the Renfe train and bought the ticket from a wad of euro notes he’d accumulated over many years of travel in the employ of the United States government. When asked for his passport, he proudly produced a red-jacketed book identified in Cyrillic and ISO Latin letters as belonging to the Russian Federation. Thanks to the Colonel’s contacts, the passport was entirely authentic but for the name, Adrian Volkov, a man who until this moment had never existed.

  He ate a small dinner in the station as he waited for the train to arrive, having traded his sunglasses for a pair of prescription eyeglasses. Glancing at the steel Rolex on his wrist, he thought for a moment about the man who had previously worn it, a man who had almost stopped all this from happening before it had even begun. A man he had bested, not with brawn, but with intellect.

  Boarding his train, he found his way to his small but clean first-class compartment, locked the door, and poured himself a paper cup of red wine, savoring the flavor and the civilized nature of rail travel. The city lights dimmed in their wake as the train made its way into the quiet countryside, small cities and tiny villages visible along their path. Drinking through all of the first bottle and most of the second, he then pulled down both the bunk and the window shade. The train rocked rhythmically along the rails beneath him, and he quickly fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 62

  Yazidi Strike Force Compound

  Kurdistan

  September

  “HER NAME WAS AMY, Amy Bertrand!”

  When the water stopped, Landry began speaking to the empty room, confident that it was wired for sound and that they could hear him. The thick Louisiana accent that he’d worked for years to suppress had returned.

  “She had long beautiful black hair and green eyes. Stunning. She always wore dresses. She never paid me no mind; rich girls like that don’t even notice white trash like me. ‘Rich Bitch’ is what we called her type. Everybody in school was gettin’ into college. Kept hearin’ her talk about Tulane and how she was gonna join her momma’s sorority. Tulane . . . I had a better chance of endin’ up in Angola like my dad. He was doin’ hard time. Girl like Amy Bertrand don’t know nothin’ about no hard times.”

  Landry paused; his eyes fell to the floor and his voice dropped to a whisper. “She was workin’ in the nursery at the church, holdin’ babies and changin’ diapers. It was after Mass on Holy Thursday, the day before Good Friday. Everybody’s Catholic where I come from ’cept for the black folks. I snuck in the room behind her where she was in there cleanin’ up after all the parents had picked up their young’uns. I locked the door real quiet and she looked up and seen me when she heard the door click. She smiled and called me by my name, I didn’t even know she knew my name. Soon as she saw me walk toward her, she stopped smilin’. I was a pretty good linebacker. ’Fore she knew it I tore that pretty little dress right up the back. Had my hands over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. I told her I’d kill her and her baby sister if she told anybody, especially the cops. She was down on her knees cryin’ when I left. Guess I shoulda felt bad for what I done to her but I didn’t, I just ain’t that way. Never did see her again after that night.”

  The room was bathed in light as the white LEDs were switched back on, once again shocking Landry’s darkness-adapted vision. The muscular and tattooed man who was ordinarily physically intimidating now looked like a shell of his former self. He sat with his shoulders hanging forward, his chin resting on his ink-covered chest.

  The steel door opened, and Mo closed it behind him as he entered, taking a seat across from Landry in silence. Landry kept his eyes on the floor.

  “What happened then, Landry?” Mo asked calmly.

  “My uncle worked for the sheriff’s office and Amy’s parents had reported it. Her ‘Miss Perfect’ reputation would have been shattered in a small southern town like that. No more sorority, no more rich boys linin’ up to marry her. My uncle and the sheriff made a deal with her old man; I join the Marines and never come back to town and they don’t press charges. I signed the delayed-entry papers the next day and two months later, the Monday after graduation, I’m on my way to Parris Island.

  “Who do you work for now?”

  “Now hold on, Mo. You know I need some assurance that I’m not goin’ to prison if I sing.”

  “Want me to turn th
e water back on?”

  “Just listen, Mo, just listen. I’m low-hangin’ fruit. If you want the main enchilada you know I need somethin’.”

  Mo took a breath and produced a paper from his coat pocket. Landry’s eyes lit up like it was the golden ticket. A way out.

  “Verbal acknowledgment is enough. This is the best deal you are going to get. It’s not immunity, Landry, but it puts you in a minimum-security U.S. prison and gives you the possibility of parole in twenty years. It’s a country club. But it’s got to be everything. If you leave out one detail you are going to the deepest, darkest prison we can find. It won’t be a U.S. prison. It’ll be an Iraqi one. You might even know a few of the prisoners. They’ll treat you like you treated Amy Bertrand for the rest of your miserable life. When you’re not getting gang raped, you’ll be in solitary confinement until your ass heals enough for another round.”

  Landry’s eyes scanned the document. It looked official, and he wasn’t in a position to push his luck.

  “I accept,” he said, nodding at the corners of the room, where he assumed there were cameras. “I accept.”

  “Talk.”

  “I was workin’ embassy duty after a couple of Afghanistan deployments, down in Buenos Aires. I got to know one of the Agency guys there; he wasn’t a field spook, just an analyst. I ran into some trouble with a local girl. We was on a date, and she come back to my hotel room knowin’ what was gonna happen. Anyway, this little CIA guy offered to fix it, to make that problem go away. After that he helped get me the CIA job. He smoothed over my trouble back home and in Argentina where nobody could see the paperwork, and he taught me how to beat the poly. I was makin’ good money workin’ as an Agency contractor and he was getting me cash on the side in a Swiss account. He had me start recruitin’ you once Reece left the unit.”

  “Who was the Agency man, Landry? What was his name.”

  “He had me just call him Bond. Ha! Pudgy paper-pusher fancies he’s 007.”

  “So he never told you his name?”

  “He didn’t, but I figured it out. I’m not as dumb as people think. We both worked for the CIA after all.”

  “Name, Jules. What’s his name?”

  “Grey. Oliver Grey.”

  Mo looked up at the camera and nodded.

  “Does Grey still work for the Agency?”

  “Sure does, he’s workin’ at Langley.”

  “Was he running this entire operation or was he working for another intelligence service?”

  “Not for another country, Mo. He worked for a person. Some Russian, but he don’t live in Russia. He’s Swiss now. They call him the Colonel.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “No, Grey just called him the Colonel.”

  Mo didn’t pursue it, moving from topic to topic to keep Landry on his toes. “Who is your contact in the Interior Ministry now?”

  “Major Saeed, from your old unit. I just pass along the messages from Grey. We set it all up before I left Iraq.”

  “Who gave you the target in XXXXXX?”

  “Grey did. He gave photos with the layout of the compound and arranged the transport. All I was supposed to do was get Saeed to put his crew in motion and make sure they knew to kill everybody on target. Whoever was at that place musta known they was coming ’cause them boys never came back.”

  “Where is your other team? The ones you used in London?”

  “I only dealt with one guy: a Syrian. There’s cells all over the West now; their handlers put ’em to work cheap. They get to get their jihad on, so they’re all happy.”

  “What Syrian? We were both there after Iraq. Do I know him?”

  “General Yedid. General Qusim Yedid.”

  Mo’s face betrayed no recognition, but he knew the man, if only by reputation. Formerly one of Assad’s inner circle. It was rumored he had left Syria to act as a private broker of mercenaries to places and causes that benefited Assad’s regime.

  “Where does General Yedid live now?”

  “I don’t know, I swear I don’t know,” Landry groaned as he thrashed against his restraints. He was a broken man and he was beginning to lose it.

  “How many teams do you have left out there?”

  “None, I got nobody out there but you, Mo. I swear it. Yedid, he’s got teams all over Europe, maybe even some in the U.S. All I was supposed to do was those attacks to scare the shit outta everyone. Grey had some other stuff goin’ for sure but I wasn’t part of it. He told me to lay low and just keep runnin’ you like I was doin’.”

  “Who set up the Christmas market attack in London?”

  “I told you, the Syrian. I was just the go-between.”

  “Landry, I am going to be very clear here,” Mo stated. “And I’m going to speak slowly so that even you will understand. Your deal depends on your telling us everything you know. If we find out later that you left anything out, the deal is off and you become a bitch for life. Imagine how they’ll treat an American CIA officer in an Iraqi prison. I almost feel sorry for you. So, scan your brain; is there anything else you want us to know?”

  “No, I’ve told you everything. Wait! A few months ago Grey decided he wanted to go direct to Yedid and take me out as the go-between. I’m not sure why; it just exposed him to more risk.”

  “Why do you think that is, Landry?”

  “I dunno, I got the impression that he needed a lot of guys for whatever he was planning. Something major, maybe even 9/11 major.”

  “Tell me more.”

  CHAPTER 63

  THE TWO SEALS WATCHED the video in the team room, Reece taking notes while Freddy paced the room anxiously. They had watched it in real time but now reviewed it segment by segment with Mo.

  Mo pressed the pause button when Landry mentioned General Qusim Yedid. “I know this man; know of him, I should say. He was in charge of finding members of the various resistance factions in Assad’s army. His tactics were brutal. If he even suspected someone of being a traitor, he would order the family rounded up and torture the wife and daughters. If the man didn’t have a wife, he’d find the mother or even the grandmother. I’m probably not as squeamish about such things as you Americans are, but even I am disgusted by this man. It was also rumored he was a primary advocate of using chemical weapons against villages with questionable loyalties.”

  “Why would Grey take the risk of going straight to this Syrian? Why not continue to use Landry as a cutout?”

  “Trust?” Freddy guessed. “He was losing confidence in Landry?”

  “Maybe, or maybe because whatever they’re planning is big enough to blow Grey’s cover,” Reece speculated.

  “Maybe it’s both? Grey is a highly placed agent in the CIA. That would have to be one big mission. That’s not typical for a long-term plant.”

  “Remember, we are not talking about a Foreign Intelligence Service here,” Reece reminded his friend. “Now we know that we are dealing with an individual. A super-empowered individual. This is bigger and more complex than we’ve suspected so far. See what else you can find out, Mo. Landry has to have more in that head of his that can help us. This is potentially actionable intel on a major attack. We need details.”

  “Gladly.” Mo put down the remote and left the room.

  “What do we do about Grey?” Reece asked.

  “I’ll call Vic. He’ll get the counterintel guys on him and start working things from his end.”

  Five minutes later, Freddy was talking to Rodriguez from the facility’s secure conference room.

  • • •

  “Grey is a senior analyst at the Russian desk,” confirmed Rodriguez. “He’s had overseas postings in Central and South America. He’s currently on leave in Portugal. We just checked with the hotel on his approved leave papers and he never checked in. No one has heard from him. He’s disappeared.”

  Hanging up the phone, Freddy relayed the new information to Reece.

  “I don’t like this, Freddy; it smells like something moving into
a final phase. Grey left before he knew we had Landry, so he wasn’t spooked. This was deliberate. Whatever it is will happen soon.”

  “I agree. Vic is going to do some more digging on Grey. In the meantime, he suggested that we talk to a guy named Andy Danreb. I don’t know him, but Vic says that if anyone is going to know anything about some Russian they call ‘the Colonel,’ it’s Andy.”

  “Let’s call him.”

  “That’s where it gets prickly; Andy is old-school. He’s an analog guy. If we want him to help us, we’ve got to go to him. He’s at Langley.”

  “They’re really going to let me, the guy that blew up the WARCOM commander and shot the SECDEF, into CIA headquarters?”

  “Yep.”

  “Guess I better find those nice clothes they bought me in Istanbul.”

  CHAPTER 64

  Madrid, Spain

  September

  THE PLAZA MAYOR WAS busy, even well after the summer tourist season. Grey had been here a handful of times over the years but had never seen this much of an armed security presence. Municipal and national police officers, soldiers, and even a pair of the nation’s Guardia Civil, mounted on horseback, patrolled the large public square and its surrounding streets wearing their distinctive tricorne hats. The security forces were out in a show of force to deter would-be terrorists. As he sipped his café con leche, he took in the sights and sounds of Spanish life and was reminded of his days in Buenos Aires. He ordered in lisping Castilian Spanish and, despite a slight Argentine accent, could pass as something close to a local.

  All the trains for Paris departed in the morning and, after overnighting on the Lisbon-to-Madrid route, Grey needed a day to stretch his legs. His room at the nearby Hotel Carlos V would not be ready for a few hours, which gave him a chance to stroll the sidewalks of one of his favorite cities. He spent the day window-shopping and practicing his Spanish. He dined at Sobrino de Botín, a favorite of Hemingway’s and reportedly the oldest restaurant in Europe, and devoured the roast suckling pig along with a nice bottle of reserve Rioja. His train would leave early in the morning, so, after just a couple of glasses of house red at a café on the plaza, he retired to his room. The hotel was nothing special, but their security cameras looked old and they didn’t ask too many questions.