by Frank Perry
Frank to hold at this depth to equalize, but Ali had already accelerated his dive. Lawrence didn’t want to be alone, and followed his friend’s swim fins. Ali swam past an outer structure, toward one of the upper deck’s watertight hatches. Lawrence came to his side signaling that he wanted to go up, but Ali seemed to smile and indicated that they should venture inside. It was dark at this depth, but Lawrence’s eyes were adjusting. Ali began moving the levers on the hatch and it opened with a groan. He was able to pull it open wide enough to swim through, and then signaled to Lawrence to follow. He hesitated, but Ali insisted, so he swam inside slowly, expecting to see floating debris. Most soft material had disintegrated in the brine decades before, or was lying in silt on the bottom. Thankfully, there were no skeletons lying about. As Lawrence swam into the chamber, he heard the sound of tools being manipulated in the bag Ali was carrying. Before he realized what was happening, there was a tug on his regulator hose and a loud rush of escaping air. He panicked, sucking for air, but water gushed from his mouthpiece as he whirled for help, only to see Ali swimming out of the door. Lawrence inhaled more water involuntarily as his lungs filled. He needed air! Terror overtook his senses when he saw the door close and heard the levers tightened from outside. He was trapped in a black steel cube without air. He spit the mouthpiece out in a last fatal reaction. He tried to fight the hatch levers from the inside as Ali hammered them tight from outside. He lost consciousness after a few seconds.
Ali began his slow assent to the surface after dropping the tool bag over the side of the ship, to be lost in blackness below. He ascended at the same rate as the small bubbles from his regulator to avoid the effects of expanding nitrogen in his blood. Below him, his college friend and co-conspirator in the missile sham was drowning. Sad, but he was an infidel who had served the U.S. Government, never truly understanding their relationship.
It took several minutes to surface in the choppy ocean. Rising on a wave crest, he saw the boat motoring toward him, a hundred yards away. As it came alongside, the Captain lowered the swim ladder and Ali threw his fins aboard. It was difficult climbing upward with the air tank and the crewman grabbed the regulator, pulling him onto the deck. Nothing was said about the missing diver. The man helped Ali shed his gear, then started the boat moving at top speed back to the marina.
Proposal
Waking to the sound of seagulls in St. Michael’s, Maryland, Peter was at peace and relaxed on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. Rachael had arranged everything perfectly. Lying in bed, too early for breakfast, he was still pondering how to propose to her. He wasn’t prepared to make a speech or otherwise be creative. Removing covers gently, he decided to take a morning walk on the beach alone, without disturbing her. He had not stayed in a bed-and-breakfast before and felt uncomfortable walking around someone’s house to get outside.
The air was brisk, even for summer, with a slight breeze off the water from the west, and the bay was glassy smooth. He was barefoot and enjoyed the hard wet sand under foot. Instinctively, he began to jog. It had been months since he was able to move freely and he enjoyed the feeling of his heart rate increase and legs tensioning. His muscles felt extraordinarily tight across the upper back, and his left arm ached from a gunshot wound received a year earlier in Chicago. He began slowly, knowing that it would take weeks to get back into physical condition, but as he ran, the pace began to accelerate. He would be sore, but today it felt great just to be moving again. Along with the exertion, his mind began to clarify the approach he would use to ask Rachael to marry him. She expected it, but he still needed to demonstrate to her that it really was his desire.
About a mile from the beach house, he stopped to catch his breath. In a few weeks, he would be able to run miles without exhaustion. As he continued walking with his hands latched behind his head, he realized that proposing to her wasn’t about fanfare and ceremony. He just needed to show her his true feelings. His leg and shoulder muscles were tense, so he stopped to stretch before turning back toward the beach house. He walked about a hundred yards then started jogging. There were two guest rooms and they had met the two legislative aides who were occupying the second room. A quarter mile from the house, he slowed again and stopped to stretch before walking. To his delight, Rachael was outside in her bathrobe sitting on one of the beach chairs looking in his direction. He waved and began jogging toward her.
He stayed on the hard sand until opposite the house then turned toward her. Winded, he said, “Hi there, didn’t expect to see you up this early.”
She was smiling contentedly, “Hi yourself, I couldn’t sleep anymore in a strange empty bed. You sure look like you’re recovering fast.”
“Yeah, I love the sea air and sound of the ocean at dawn. This is terrific, thanks for setting this up!”
She said, “We needed a break, and I love it here too. There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen. Let’s get some.”
They walked together to the house and although the hostess was obviously at work, she was invisible. It felt like their house on the beach.
That night, at sunset, Peter proposed with a nervous stammer, wrecking his rehearsed lines. Rachael threw her arms around his neck, kissing him forcefully. It was the answer he wanted.
Treason
On Monday, back in Washington, Rachael and Peter each reported to their offices in the Pentagon and the Guard Bureau, respectively. The security detail assigned to Rachael had been dropped after Peter was well enough to drive her to work and back.
After the morning meetings were finished, General Simmons informed Rachael that a meeting had been called at the NSA regarding the funds diversion from the missile threat. They took a staff car over to Ft. Meade, near Baltimore.
After security check-in, they were escorted to a windowless conference room where a small group was gathered. As they entered, a tall woman stood and welcomed them, “Hello. I’m Jen Richardson, acting Deputy Director of National Intelligence at the NSA. I called this meeting.” The other participants were from the CIA, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Richardson introduced everyone, and then began, “Thank you all for shifting your schedules around on short notice. I know this was inconvenient, but we have been developing some information that is important, regarding the funds from the ransom paid to the terrorists.”
This had everyone’s attention as she continued, “As you know, the administration paid a billion dollars in exchange for capturing the terrorists and their weapons. The intelligence community had set up an elaborate plan to track these funds through the world’s banking systems and, hopefully, capture the conspirators. It’s a good assumption that the people demanding the ransom were also the ones who financed the attacks on our planes.”
Jen didn’t use any visual aids and only a small notepad for reference. “Okay, we don’t get a lot of cooperation from Venezuela as you know, but our embassy has been able to get information we believe proves that there was a deliberate act of subterfuge from our side to disrupt cooperation. I’ll get into that more in a minute. We think it came through one of our intelligence channels.”
The FBI Special Agent assigned to the meeting interjected, “Wow, that’s pretty stiff. Are you saying the conspiracy was launched from inside the U.S.?”
“We aren’t saying that specifically, and I think there’s evidence that the actual plan and control originated in Iran, but there appears to be a collaborator somewhere over here.”
She paused for a moment before saying, “This possibility was being explored by Hale Warner before his death.”
Rachael felt a chill.
Jen went on, “From what we’ve learned, the information passed to the press in Venezuela came directly from the embassy to a journalist in country. We’ve asked the State Department to track down the source. We don’t believe the station (embassy) personnel are involved in the conspiracy, but higher authority in the states could have manipulated them. With the amount of money involved and the complexity of the operations, someone very we
ll connected in bad parts of the world would need to be involved.”
Simmons spoke up, “Well Ms. Richardson, let’s not pussy foot around. Whom do you suspect?”
“General, I won’t speculate--not yet. This is too serious to chase down dark alleys. It could be someone in any of our organizations.”
She continued, “The other thing we have to recognize is that this was a well-executed effort that was set up from the beginning to defeat our tracking efforts. That could only have happened with prior knowledge of the payment plan. Since we believe the banking channels were manipulated from the Middle East, this had to be a well-connected bunch we’re dealing with.”
The meeting ended following a few questions. On the ride back, Simmons and Rachael didn’t discuss the meeting in the car and she left that evening with Peter soon after arriving back at the Pentagon. Instead of driving directly home, she wanted to talk to him outside the car and her apartment, so he turned north onto the Parkway. Traffic was slow until they passed Reston then took about fifteen minutes before he turned into a quiet vista along the Potomac where they could walk through the woods overlooking the river. He said, “Gee, if you wanted to make out, this is a great spot!”
“Yeah, that’s it. I wanted to trap you in broad daylight.”
He smiled, but didn’t say anything, allowing her to collect her thoughts.
“Okay, this is classified. We’re pretty sure that someone high up in U.S. intelligence was involved with the missile attacks on our airlines. It almost has to be the CIA, since these guys were able to manipulate Venezuela newspapers.”
Peter responded, “Rach, there are twenty thousand employees there, how high up do you think?”
“High enough to have important friends in the Middle East, we think Iran.”
They sat silently on a bench for a few moments staring out at the view. The summer sun was just beginning to cast longer shadows toward the gorge shaping the river. On the other side, they could see the twin steeples of the National Cathedral.
He spoke first, “Honey, this is really bizarre, but do you really think Will Lawrence is behind this?”
“I don’t know, but it’s just too damned coincidental that two top guys in both countries, with the right profiles, are surfacing. I can’t help thinking about Hale Warner. Will was one of the few people who knew about our theory, and now Hale’s dead.”
He didn’t say anything about the attack in her apartment, but they were both thinking of it. “Yeah, there are some strange intersects in this.”
She responded, “Tomorrow, I plan to dig deeper into Lawrence and the Iranian.”
“I don’t think you should do that. I’ll do some checking though my office.”
She was going to object, but understood his concern for her safety. She felt it herself. “Okay, but you can always ask our office for help.”
The following morning, he dropped her at the East entrance to the Pentagon. Minutes later, he was parking at Guard Bureau Headquarters in Arlington. There were a few procedural things he had to accomplish, then he began searching classified databases and open web searches for any information connecting Lawrence and the minister. After reading biographies of both men, he found that both were the same age and had attended Berkeley in the 1970’s. There were no obvious connections between Lawrence’s career assignments and the minister, so he made a phone call to an FBI friend in Chicago.
Brendan Hamilton was at his desk when the phone rang.
“Hi, Brendan, it’s Peter Shields.”
“Peter, my god, how are you? How’s the arm? How’s Rachael?”
“All’s good, my friend. Rachael and I are engaged!”
“Wow. Congratulations! I figured you’d get the nerve to ask her eventually. You’re one lucky guy!”
“Yeah, imagine her and me. I caught her at a weak moment.”
“You guys make a dynamite pair. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.”
“Thanks. So, do you have a minute for some business?”
“For you, buddy, sure, what’s up?”
“Brendan, I’m sure you know who Will Lawrence is. You may also have heard the name of the Iranian Foreign Minister Sheik Ali Abu Qatada?”
“I’ve heard both names, tell me again who Lawrence is.”
“He’s a senior spook at CIA, doesn’t get in the news too often.”
“Okay. I don’t know him, but I’m sure I’ve heard of the Iranian. So, this is an official call?”
“No, just one friend advising another.”
“Okay, Peter, what can I do to help you?”
Brendan Hamilton was an FBI agent in the Chicago field office. He, Peter and Rachael worked together to defeat the bomb threat in Chicago, forever forging a bond between them sealed in blood.
“Brendan, these two guys went to Berkeley at the same time around the end of Vietnam, the seventies. I’m trying to determine if they knew each other. I’m working with Army intel and we’re trying to piece together some things.”
“Well, ah. I assume this is not an official investigation?”
“Yeah, that makes it tougher, I realize.”
“Look, Peter. I trust your judgment and will help if I can. I have an academy buddy in San Francisco that can quietly investigate if I ask. What are the correct names of the two men?”
Peter gave their complete names and ages and Brendan said he would get in touch with San Francisco as soon as the office opened on the West Coast. He understood that this was urgent and needed to be handled with great care.
After the call, Peter began searching for information about the terrorists, to determine if any were associated with Abu Qatada. He didn’t have any luck, but late in the day, Brendan called back, “Peter, I got some information you might find interesting.”
“Go ahead, Brendan. I’m all ears.”
“Okay, well. Your hunch was right. Both men were at Berkeley and they had to have known each other. There was a group called ‘Muslim Studies’ that both men belonged to. That was at the time when the Shah was sending a lot of students to U.S. schools to ‘westernize’ them. This group doesn’t exist anymore, but there’s some stuff published in the archives of the Berkeleyan campus newspaper. There’s even a picture of both guys together with some Muslim students. Lawrence stands out like a neon sign among all the Middle Eastern guys. I can send you the article if you like.”
“Hey, Brendan, this is great stuff. Umm, don’t send me anything right now. I want to keep message traffic to a minimum. Oh, and tell your buddy in San Fran that he did really good.”
“Okay, man, you got it. I’ll file it away in an unmarked folder.”
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me anything, but I’d sure like to see you guys again if I get down to Washington.”
“Likewise, Brendan. Rachael and I would love to see you.”
They ended the call and Peter wasn’t sure what he had learned. That night, he stopped with Rachael for another park-bench discussion.
The Sheik Goes Home
Frank Saberi checked out of the Grand Cayman the morning after the diving trip. He had concluded the meeting with Bank Niaga having transferred all the money, minus fees, to his account under Frank Saberi. Burt Jennings’ account remained empty. The hotel driver took him to the airport for the flight to Atlanta. Without Lawrence in the office, no one at CIA knew his new identity.
Lawrence had always been a pitiful figure in Ali’s life. He was a misguided idealist at Berkeley. It was characteristic of the campus culture at the time to get involved in social causes. The anti-war movement was growing stale, so Willy had wandered into the Muslim cabal without ever understanding the culture or history. Ali had enjoyed manipulating this infidel over the years as a back-channel connection into the U.S.. When Lawrence took a job in Government, Ali’s friendship remained strong and, as he progressed through the intelligence ranks, his career had strengthened through this clandestine association.
H
is trip back to Scottsdale would be short. There was no record anywhere linking Frank Saberi with Will Lawrence or Burton Jennings. He would only be in Arizona for one day before starting a circuitous journey home, having fulfilled his mission. He would return a hero after almost losing his head due to the failure of the earlier attack on Chicago.
After convincing his government to spend a hundred million dollars for a stolen Russian nuclear warhead, in a failed scheme to destroy a major U.S. city, Abu Qatada had promised to recover the money many times over. He was risking his life on this great gamble. In this plan, when successful, Iran would be able to accelerate their nuclear weapon development. The plan worked brilliantly, manipulating the U.S. He would return home as a hero.
Arriving in Phoenix, he drove to his new home about forty miles away. In the morning, Frank Saberi would fly to New York, then on to Moscow. From Moscow, he would fly to Tehran on Iranian Airlines under a pre-arranged visa from the embassy. Once home, he would be greeted as royalty and discard his U.S. identity.
Guantanamo
Hasan Abd al-Majiid awoke for morning prayers in Guantanamo Bay detention camp. His cot was placed under a metal shed roof in a kennel-like cage formed by linked wire fencing. It was never cold, but the heat was extraordinary during the day. It was like his native country, only more humid. He had been flown to the military prison after his capture in New York. His captors provided an attorney who had explained that it was unusual that he was being treated as an “enemy combatant” rather than a terrorist. As such, he lost many of his rights, and fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Defense Department, rather than Justice.
The guards at Guantanamo were young Marines who had acted respectfully since his arrival. The attorney had explained that he could be kept there indefinitely unless a military tribunal decided to do something with him. None of his other compatriots were being treated this way. He had no contact with them.
As he knelt on his rug to commence the morning Salah in supplication to Allah, he heard footsteps approaching the gate to his cage. He was thankful that they stopped before opening the gate while he prayed. The Americans had learned something about the Muslim culture after running the prison for years. When he finished, he stood and turned toward the gate as it opened.
Several Marines had come to escort him. He remained silent, expecting another interrogation. They walked through the maze of cages where other prisoners were sitting quietly, reading the Koran or praying, then preceded up a gravel path toward the provost’s office. Once there, he was taken to a stark conference room with one steel table and half a dozen chairs. The senior guard told him to be seated, then they left him alone in the room. Moments later, a Marine officer entered,