Terror Cell (Danforth Saga Book 2)

by Joseph Badal

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  AUGUST 7, 2004

  Giorgos Photos was desperate. Savvas was dead. That was fine. But Pavlos Manganos was lying in a hospital. The man had been with Greek Spring for years. He was a gold mine of information for their enemies. Photos had to make sure Manganos didn’t talk. Loyal follower or not, Photos knew the Greek police had ways to make Manganos talk.

  He could send one of his men to take care of Manganos; but what if the man botched the job? That could put two of the group’s members in the hands of the authorities. What he needed was Musa Sulaiman. It would cost him a lot of money; but what good was money if Manganos talked, gave the police Photos’ name, and he wound up in prison?

  He wanted to focus on the main event, the coup de grace. But first he had to take care of this Manganos mess. The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was one week away. Photos sighed. I’ll get this one problem solved today, then work on the final details for August 13.

  He walked outside his island home and called a number on his cell phone. His wife had returned from visiting her brother and sister in Boston and he didn’t want her to overhear the conversation. She knew about his involvement with EA; she didn’t know that he was the group’s leader. He didn’t want her to overhear any of his plans. He would have to get her off the island, as Evoia would be his base of operations for the next few days. She’d be happy to be back home near Sounion, anyway.

  The phone call was routed through a series of exchanges that ultimately connected Photos to a cell phone in the Turkish-controlled section of Cyprus, where Sulaiman was spending a week at the beach.

  ***

  Musa Sulaiman jerked awake at the sound of his cell phone. He slowly sat up on the lounge chair and drank from the bottle of mineral water on the table beside him. Then he reached for his phone.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “It’s me, I need your assistance.”

  Musa glanced at the woman lying on the lounge chair next to him. Her ripe, voluptuous body made his groin ache. He loved German women. They were pliant and demanding, all at the same time. She was an architect from Landstuhl. She thought he was a rich Egyptian ship owner. He was going to charge that fucker, Giorgos Photos, a lot of money to walk away from this golden piece of ass.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  AUGUST 7, 2004

  Bob was scheduled to meet Stanton Markeson at noon at a small tavern in the Pangratis neighborhood of Athens. First he made sure Liz was comfortable in their room at the Grand Bretagne Hotel. She’d slept late and Bob ordered in room service for her. After eating, she dozed off—the medication the doctor gave her was helping her get through the pain of her injuries. Bob left her with a Marine guard stationed outside the room—compliments of Ambassador Finch.

  Tony Fratangelo waited on the street in front of the hotel. He now drove an Agency-issued dark-blue Chevrolet Tahoe. At Bob’s request, he drove to the Fratangelo home in Kifissia. Bob wanted to see how Michelle and Andrew were doing since their “venture,” as Andrew described the terrorist attack. Bob was especially concerned about Michelle’s health considering her pregnancy. Mother and son seemed no worse for wear, and after spending a half-hour with them, Bob and Tony left for their meeting with Stanton Markeson.

  This wasn’t really a business meeting with Markeson. Bob wanted to express his condolences. The news hit that morning—the remains of Markeson’s co-workers’ bodies had been found in the debris of the Lambrakis Building. No one on the British team survived the blast. Markeson was at the tavern when Bob and Tony arrived. They joined Markeson at an inside table.

  “You know, the Olympic Stadium where the first modern games were held back in the late eighteen hundreds is right behind that building,” Markeson said in a detached way, pointing across the street.

  The man had a faraway look in his eyes and his color was somewhere between gray and white, his posture hunched. He looked as though he’d slept in his clothes.

  Bob nodded. He leaned forward and tried to catch Markeson’s gaze; but the man’s eyes were cast down at the tabletop. Bob looked at Tony, then back at Markeson. “I’m terribly sorry, Stanton. I know this must be very difficult for you.”

  Markeson raised his head and looked at Bob. “I should have been there.”

  Bob scooted his chair closer to the table. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “If you were dead, you wouldn’t have the chance to find the bastards who did this to your friends, to avenge their deaths.”

  The waiter came to their table at that moment and took their orders. After he walked away, Bob said, “I was rereading some of the files you gave us. There was something that bothered me about the dialogue between Harvey Cornwell’s widow, Marjorie, and the agent who investigated his murder.”

  “How’s that?” Markeson asked, his voice still sounding dispirited, disinterested.

  “She mentioned that her husband would call the office each morning before driving in, to advise of the route he would take.”

  Markeson now looked bored. “That’s correct. So what? We all did that. Except we don’t call in to the office. We specifically call the duty officer. We rotate through all the officers, each of us taking our turn as duty officer. We all used to be headquartered on the embassy compound. Our group, as well as the members of the diplomatic contingent, were on the duty roster. If too many people called in on the same day and said they were planning to use the same route, or if the duty officer was aware of a traffic tie-up along a certain route, he might suggest an alternative.”

  Bob rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m just trying to discover if there are common elements evident on the days of the murders of Harvey Cornwell and Stephen Saunders, as well as on the days of the attacks on other British personnel.”

  Markeson hunched his shoulders. “I guess I could look into it,” he said, without much enthusiasm.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  AUGUST 7, 2004

  Jack Cole had a 2:00 p.m. tee time. This would be the first time in three months that he’d even thought about taking a Saturday afternoon off. He had just finished stuffing some files into his briefcase, when his office telephone rang.

  “Cole here,” he said.

  “Mr. Cole, it’s Raymond Gallegos. We got a hit.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack asked.

  “The Bulgarian guy, the former agent who’s running a security firm in—”

  “Yeah, I remember. What do you have?”

  “We showed him the list of names compiled in Athens, the one with names of Greeks who had some connection to France. The Bulgarian recognized three of the names. Two of them went through training in Eastern Europe—one in Bulgaria and the other in Russia. The third one was in Cuba.”

  “What do you have on these people?” Jack said.

  “Not a lot; but what we do have are their names, their addresses, what they do for a living, stuff like that.”

  Jack held his breath for a few seconds. “Is any of the three a teacher or professor?”

  “Sorry, boss. All three of the names the Bulgarian recognized are government bureaucrats or officeholders.”

  Jack was momentarily disappointed. But he knew they were further along than they were just moments earlier. “Good job, Ray,” he said. “How quickly can your team get down here to the office?”

  “We’re already here.”

  “I’ll be right down; give me five minutes. By the way, did you show the photographs in the files to the Bulgarian?”

  “No,” Raymond said. “All we had were the names and some background information. The photographs hadn’t downloaded yet.”

  “But that wouldn’t have picked up someone who was using an alias before, or who has changed his name since coming back to Greece.”

  “You’re right,” Raymond said. “After we have all the photographs, we’ll go back out and meet with the Bu
lgarian.”

  “Okay.”

  Jack hung up, called to cancel his tee time, and left his office to make his way down to where Bob Danforth’s Langley team was busting its ass on what could be one more wild-goose chase.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  AUGUST 7, 2004

  After Bob Danforth, Tony Fratangelo, and he left the restaurant in Pangratis, Stanton Markeson stopped at Rodney Townsend’s house. He’d intended to call on Townsend’s widow, Meg, but there were a dozen cars parked outside her place. She appeared to have all the support she needed. He’d started to drive to his home on several occasions, but changed his mind each time. He needed action; he wanted to do something, to avenge the deaths of his friends and co-workers. The problem was that he didn’t know what to do. Markeson drove aimlessly around Athens like a leaf blown in the wind. As the sun was setting, he found himself parked along the water in Vouliagmeni.

  He had never felt so low and useless. Thoughts scattered through his mind in a disorganized, disconnected manner, as though someone was channel surfing through his brain. Then one thought suddenly gained purchase in his memory banks when he remembered what Danforth had said to him. Something about common elements associated with all of the attacks on British citizens. It hadn’t seemed like much at the time Danforth mentioned it; but now it at least gave him an idea about something he could do. He pulled away from the curb and headed to the British Embassy. Even though the MI-6 office was destroyed in the blast, along with all the hard copies and computer files stored there, at least the computer files could still be accessed through the embassy computer system. They backed up their records at MI-6 Headquarters in London. He could access that database from the embassy.

  Markeson drove at well over the speed limit. He now had a purpose. It took him forty minutes to reach the embassy and another thirty minutes to get set up in an office with access to a computer terminal. He accessed the MI-6 database and pulled up the list of attacks against British citizens in Athens. There had been eleven of them—two fatal; six with serious, but non-fatal injuries; and three with minor injuries. The eleven incidents did not include yesterday’s attack on the Lambrakis Building.

  He copied the list to a new Word file. Then he opened the incident files one at a time, looking for commonalties. He spent three hours poring over the files, but came up with nothing. He was starting to feel exhausted, and had come to the conclusion he was wasting his time, when he remembered what he’d told Danforth about the duty officer system used by the embassy.

  Markeson opened the computer file that showed the daily duty officer’s name. He scrolled down to the first terrorist incident, dating back six years. The duty officer that day was Victor Bergeson, a career Intelligence officer who had retired shortly after the attack that had seriously wounded a British Army officer.

  Markeson scrolled down to the next incident date: two years after the first attack. He was the duty officer on that day. He typed his name across from the date. Markeson found he was also the duty officer on the date of the third incident. This didn’t really surprise him. Statistically, this could have been just the luck of the draw. Bad luck. His turn at duty officer came up about every twenty days. The counterterrorism team and certain embassy officers were on the duty roster. Even after moving to the Lambrakis Building from the embassy compound two months ago, Markeson and the other agents on the counterterrorism team took their turns on the duty roster.

  But when Markeson saw his name listed as duty officer on the date of the fourth attack, a shiver ran up his spine. He was downright sick to his stomach when he discovered he’d been duty officer on the days of all but the first attack against British citizens. He didn’t need to consult the computer to see who was on duty the day the terrorists from Eleeneekee Aneexee murdered Harvey Cornwell. He was. He’d never forget that date.

  It made no sense. Markeson paced around the small embassy office, trying to reason things out. Ten attacks against Englishmen and women on ten days when he was duty officer. It was statistically improbable. But what was the connection?

  Markeson called down to the embassy’s resident security officer, Reginald McHugh. “Regge, you have a minute?”

  “Sure, Stanton. What do you need?”

  “I’m upstairs in the—”

  “I know where you are, Stanton. Remember, I’m the security officer.”

  Markeson forced a laugh. “Right you are,” he said. “Would you mind coming up here?”

  “On my way.”

  While he waited for McHugh, Markeson studied the list again. He typed his name next to the incident dates on which he was the duty officer. He felt as though a block of ice had been stuffed inside his abdomen. “This makes absolutely no sense at all,” he said.

  “What’s that, Stanton?” McHugh asked from the doorway. He was a small, compactly-built Irishman, with brown hair and hazel eyes. Markeson had worked with McHugh for three years and had a profound respect for the man’s intelligence and courage. He trusted McHugh, but he didn’t want to tell him too much just yet. He didn’t know where this conversation might lead.

  Markeson pointed at the two chairs in front of the desk and moved around the desk to sit in one of them. McHugh took the other chair.

  “I want you to help me with something. Could someone gain access to our communications system?”

  “Sure,” McHugh said, “but it wouldn’t be for very long. We sweep our offices at least once per week, and we don’t do it on any set schedule. Once in a while we find a bug, but that’s rare.”

  Markeson thought about McHugh’s answer for a moment. He shook his head.

  “What’s going on, Stanton?”

  Markeson wanted to think about what he’d discovered, to take time to reason it all out. But something told him this was a problem beyond his experience. He stood and told McHugh to come around the desk with him. “Look at this list,” he said, pointing at the screen.

  “What is it?” McHugh asked. “I’m not familiar—” McHugh stopped in mid-sentence and said, “Oh.”

  “Yeah, you see the problem?”

  McHugh gave Markeson a sympathetic look. “Bloody hell,” he said, “this isn’t possible.”

  “It’s not only possible, it happened.”

  Now Markeson watched McHugh pace the office. They were silent for well over a minute. Finally, the security officer said, “What made you even look into this?”

  “I had lunch today with the American CIA Chief, Bob Danforth. He mentioned reading something in the Cornwell investigation file about how we call the duty officer before leaving our homes. I didn’t think much about it, until I matched the dates of attacks with the names of the duty officers on those same days.” He pointed at the computer screen. “I have to tell you, Regge, this scares me to death.”

  “I can understand that. But let’s stay cool and think about this. Let’s go over the days when you were on duty. Did you follow a routine on those days?”

  Markeson shook his head. “The only routine I followed was arriving at the embassy an hour earlier than usual. I typically got in about seven a.m. I took different routes. I usually stopped and picked up rolls and coffee, but alternated where I bought the stuff. I can’t think of anything I did that could be considered routine.”

  “Which telephone did you take calls from? Your office?”

  Markeson considered the question, then said, “Sometimes; but once I get into the embassy, I usually move around the building. I check with the night duty officer to find out if there were any incidents during his shift. I meet with the communications officer in the crypto vault and get the current one-time pad information and find out if there is any classified message traffic. You know, there’s a lot to do before the rest of the staff arrives.”

  “So, how did you take the calls if you were moving around the building?”

  “I have the receptionist transfer the calls to
my cell phone.” Markeson pulled the phone from the breast pocket of his sport jacket. “I always have it with me.”

  McHugh and Markeson stared at each other, as though the same thought had hit them.

  McHugh said, “The receptionist is always a Greek National. She could have kept the line open when she transferred the calls to you. She could have listened in on every damn conversation.”

  Markeson felt high voltage electricity course through him. But the charge lasted only a few seconds. “Probably, but not likely. We’ve had four different women in the receptionist position since the first attack. I can’t believe the terrorists could have co-opted all four women. Besides, why did the attacks only occur on the days when I was the duty officer?”

  McHugh nodded as though to indicate his agreement. He was silent for a while, then said, “Have you recently had your cell phone swept for bugs?”

  Markeson laughed, then blushed. It was policy that all electronic devices had to be checked for bugs every month; but it was a policy rarely adhered to, unless a phone, or laptop computer, or PDA was in for repair with one of the local contractors that worked for the embassy. The security staff would always inspect the device when it returned from the contractor. Markeson had never had a problem with his cell phone, and didn’t want to be without the phone while the security people inspected it. So he’d never handed it over for a security check.

  “I never thought it was necessary, as I always have it in my possession. I never lend it to anyone.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let’s take it downstairs and give it a once over,” McHugh said.

  Markeson handed over his cell phone and followed McHugh to the security office. He watched the man slowly wave a handheld wand over the phone. The wand beeped each time McHugh passed it over the phone.

  “Strange,” McHugh said.