“GET BACK to work,” said Hoffman. He was calling on the STU-3 with the news that the IG investigation had formally been dropped. He told Ferris an agency plane would be waiting for him that afternoon. He didn’t say where Ferris would be heading, but it obviously wasn’t Amman.
“I want to meet Harry Meeker,” said Ferris.
“Harry is waiting for you in the cold room. He’s not going anywhere, trust me. And we’re almost ready to drop him into Suleiman’s cave. But there are a few more details we need to prepare. That’s why I got you the plane. We’re almost to H-Hour. We have to do these last few stitches nice and neat.”
Ferris paused. He was ready to go—eager to go, even. But there was a little question lurking in the back of his mind, one of the many little eddies of mystery that Hoffman left in his wake.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Ask whatever you like. Whether I’ll answer is another thing.”
“Why did you need a lawyer? What had you done that Mark Sheehan had to get undone?”
Hoffman sounded weary, as if the act of remembering drained something from him. “You don’t really want to know,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” answered Ferris. “It’s something we both have in common, right?”
“Let’s just say I crossed a line. A big red line. And Sheehan convinced people that it would be better for everybody to pretend that I hadn’t.”
“What line had you crossed?”
“That’s the part you don’t want to know.”
“Don’t give me that, Ed. I’m going out to do the dirty work, and you’re playing games with me. What line did you cross?”
Hoffman sighed in exasperation. It was easier for him to explain than to fight any more with Ferris.
“I crossed the line that says you aren’t supposed to kill people. Nobody likes to admit that about our business, but we do what has to be done. And I did. It was something like what happened to you in Yemen with the prisoner, but there were more people, over a longer period of time. Don’t ever ask me about it again. But don’t forget: When it comes to operations, I mean it when I say that I will do whatever it takes.”
25
ANKARA / INCIRLIK
A WHITE GULFSTREAM JET BEARING Ferris landed in Ankara two days later. He took a taxi from the dowdy airport to the Ankara Hilton, an antiseptic tower set amid the diplomatic quarter. It was a bitter December day. The wind whipped into the city from the Anatolian plain; Turks hurried along the sidewalks, wrapped in scarves and sweaters and hunched over against the cold. A gray froth of steam emerged from cars and buildings and people’s mouths. Several decades before, this had seemed like a city of a hundred mosques but no Muslims, so tightly had the army applied the secular tourniquet. But now Turkey had found its Islam, and it was rare to see a woman outside the international area of the city who wasn’t wearing a headscarf.
When Ferris had settled into his room, he called Omar Sadiki in Amman. He spoke in his Brad Scanlon business voice, but his tone was urgent. A serious problem had arisen. Unibank’s engineering chief for the Middle East had reviewed Al Fajr’s plans for the branch office in Abu Dhabi and had raised questions about the specifications for insulation and the building’s ability to retain air-conditioning efficiently. The climate in Abu Dhabi was extreme, with summer temperatures over 115 degrees, and the consultant wasn’t sure that Al Fajr had planned adequately. The insulation they had specified might work in Jordan, but not in the Emirates. Too much of the cold from the air-conditioning might escape, which would make the building very expensive to operate.
Sadiki sounded surprised. “The insulation is good,” he insisted. “It’s the same as we use in Saudi Arabia. Hafr Al-Batin is even hotter. No problem there, for sure.”
“Well, you need to explain it to our regional engineer. He’s here in Ankara with me. He’s a Turk. He needs to see you right away. Otherwise he says he’s going to put a hold on the project.”
“What does that mean?” asked Sadiki.
“It means you won’t get paid. Sorry. I’m as disappointed as you are. It won’t take long. You can go and come back in the same day. Our travel agent can make the arrangements and deliver the tickets to your office.” Ferris tried not to sound anxious, but much depended on the success of this ploy.
“When do you want me to come?” Sadiki sounded curious rather than agitated. Construction projects always had unforeseen delays. “Wednesday. The day after tomorrow,” said Ferris. “That’s the only day that will work for the chief engineer. I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to do it. He won’t talk to anyone else.”
“Wait, please.” Sadiki put Ferris on hold while he had a conversation, presumably with one of his superiors. It took several minutes. Ferris began to worry that the answer would be no. He and Azhar had a fallback plan, but it wasn’t as good.
Ferris heard static as Sadiki came back on the line. “So, are we all set?” he asked.
“You will pay?” asked Sadiki.
“All the costs. Fly you business class. And we’ll expedite payments, once this is resolved. We’re really sorry.”
“Okay, then. I will be there Wednesday, December the twenty-first, if the God wills.” Ferris gave him the details of where to meet, in a building in the old Islamic quarter of the city. He said the airplane ticket would be delivered to Sadiki’s office in Amman first thing the next day. Sadiki said not to worry, he understood. The Jordanian was always so pliant. Perhaps that should have worried Ferris, but it didn’t.
FERRIS TOOK a U.S. military helicopter late that afternoon to the big air base at Incirlik, 250 miles southeast of Ankara, which had been one of the staging points for American air operations over Iraq before the war. It was dark when he arrived. Waiting to greet him at the ramshackle military terminal was an agency officer Ferris remembered from somewhere, perhaps just the cafeteria at Headquarters. He was a balding, stoop-shouldered man in his mid-forties, who identified himself as a member of the Ankara station. NE Division had asked him to help with logistics. He led Ferris to the pallet where they had strapped his bag, and then to a waiting Humvee that drove them a half mile to an unmarked Quonset hut.
Inside the hut, propping his feet on his pack and reading a dog-eared copy of People magazine, was Jim, the Army officer Ferris had met in Rome. Jim had his wraparound sunglasses propped over his forehead, even in the evening dark, and he was wearing a work shirt with rolled-up sleeves in the chill of mid-December. He looked tighter and tauter than he had in Rome, as if he had spent most of the intervening weeks in the gym.
“Hey, stranger,” said Ferris. “What do you know?”
“Not much, sir. Except you agency guys are pretty weird.”
“That’s a fact,” said Ferris. “We’re the Central Weirdness Agency.”
The Ankara officer looked uncomfortable. “Hey, I’ll leave you guys alone,” he said. “I’m leaving the Humvee outside. They said you’d need one. I’ll be back tomorrow morning at oh six hundred to take you to the chow hut. If you’re not here, you’ll have to find it yourselves. They stop serving at oh seven thirty.” He excused himself and left the two younger men facing each other in the half-light of the makeshift office. Ferris put down his bag and looked in the little refrigerator in the back of the hut for something to drink.
“So, did you bring the boom-boom?” asked Ferris when he had drained the soda.
“Definitely.” Jim nodded toward a big suitcase on roller wheels in the corner. “I’ve got enough plastic explosive in there to blow us from here to Tel Aviv.”
“And did you get a car?”
“Volkswagen Golf. Same car they used in one of the Istanbul bombings. One of my guys parked it over by the BOQ, like you wanted.”
“Perfect,” said Ferris. “So we’re ready to rock.”
Jim was scratching his head. It was obvious that something was bothering him. “Are we actually going to use this shit, sir?”
“Yeah,” said Ferris. “Pretty much.”
Ferris went over the ops plan before Jim got any more spooked. He took the operational specs he and Azhar had prepared out of his briefcase and laid them down on the table between them. He walked his Army partner through each step of the plan. It took nearly an hour to summarize all of the interlocking pieces.
“And nobody gets hurt?” asked Jim when Ferris had finished. He had a very graphic idea of the damage this much explosive power could cause.
“Not if we do it right,” Ferris said. “It just looks like people get hurt. A lot of them.”
Ferris looked at his watch. It was past ten o’clock. “We’ve got six hours,” he said.
“Let’s lock and load,” said Jim.
Ferris thought that he had never been in a situation with a military man when he didn’t say, at some point, “Lock and load.” They said it before having drinks at a club, before watching an NFL game on TV; maybe they said it to their wives before having sex.
“You lock, I’ll load,” said Ferris. “How about that?”
Ferris gathered his equipment—flashlight, maps, security gear to monitor the perimeter while they were working. He removed a pair of night-vision goggles from a compartment of his bag. Jim gingerly steered the wheelie bag toward the door of the Quonset hut. He had another bag over his shoulder that contained fuses and timers and communications gear. They carefully stowed the gear in the back of the Humvee. Ferris took the driver’s seat. He studied his map for several minutes, to make sure he had the coordinates right.
“The BOQ is about ten minutes from here. We’re going lights out, but the area should already be clean.”
Ferris adjusted his night-vision goggles until the night air glowed bright with false light. He put the square-nosed vehicle in gear and set off down the rough macadam road. He made several turns along the way, following his map, until he saw a checkpoint up ahead manned by two U.S. soldiers. It was the only entrance to a fenced compound, roughly the size of a football field, which was ringed with razor wire. This was the Incirlik Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, the compound where most pilots operating out of the air base were billeted. It was close enough to the perimeter of the base that people living in nearby towns and villages could see if something went wrong, but far enough away that they couldn’t conduct close surveillance.
Ferris slowly pulled toward the zigzag line of concrete barriers that protected the entrance. He flashed his lights three times; one of the guards flashed back twice. When they reached the checkpoint, Ferris leaned out the window toward the guards and said a code name. They both saluted, and one of them pushed a button lowering the big metal flange that blocked the path ahead.
Ferris drove forward toward a three-story wooden building. There were Humvees and some civilian vehicles in the parking lot, as on a normal evening. The curtains were drawn, but most of the lights seemed to be on. With all the light, they wouldn’t need the goggles.
“This is it,” said Ferris. “The last folks pulled out two hours ago.”
“Why are all the damn lights still on, sir?” asked Jim. He obviously preferred working in pitch-dark.
“To make people think the Americans are still here,” said Ferris.
“Oh. Right. Roger that.”
“Where’s the car?”
“Around back,” said Jim. “By the dumpster.”
They drove slowly to the far corner of the building. There, deep in the shadows, sat a red Volkswagen Golf with Turkish tags.
“Let’s get to work,” said Ferris. He set up his electronic surveillance that would warn them of movement inside the perimeter of the compound. Then they unpacked the rest of the gear from the back of the Humvee and moved it next to the red VW.
“You ever make a car bomb before?” asked Ferris.
“Negative, sir. But let’s pop the cherry.”
Jim slowly unpacked the plastic explosive from the wheelie bag and began handing it gently to Ferris, who arrayed it in the trunk of the car. When they had lined the floor of the trunk, Jim stopped. “How much?” he asked.
“All of it,” said Ferris.
“That’s going to take down the whole damn building.”
“If we do it right.”
Ferris could see the wary flicker in the Army officer’s eyes. “You’re sure none of our buddies will be in here when it goes off?”
“Most of the guys are on leave, but the Turks don’t know that. The ones that are still on base are bunking temporarily in the enlisted men’s compound nearby. That’s the plan, anyway. And you have to trust the plan.”
“That’s what they told us about Iraq.”
Ferris smiled. “Just do it. And you sure you got the right plastic, with the right tags?”
“Oh yeah. When the Turkish bomb squad checks this shit out after it’s over—the residue and what’s left of the fuse and the timer—the address will be Al Qaeda all the way. It’s the same stuff they used in the Istanbul bombings in ’04.”
“Nice touch,” said Ferris.
They worked in silence. When all the explosive had been moved into the trunk, Jim went to work on the fuses and then the detonator and timer. Ferris went around to the main entrance. The door had been left open. He went downstairs to the basement fuse box that controlled the building’s lights. He installed a timer that would maintain illumination over the next seventy-two hours on a regular schedule, keeping the lights blazing when the putative inhabitants of the building would normally be awake and turning them off when they would be asleep.
Ferris returned to the side of the building, where Jim was still at work double-checking the fuses and timer for faults. Then, with infinite precision, he attached the last wires.
“When should I set the timer?” asked Jim when he had completed the installation.
“Set it for oh seven hundred, Thursday morning. And don’t fuck up.”
“We leave that for the agency, sir,” Jim said. He set the timer as instructed and then closed the trunk of the car. If anyone should somehow happen to wander by the building over the next two days, they would not see anything out of order. Ferris retrieved his sensors and then did a thorough search of the area to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind.
Jim was lingering by the Volkswagen, not quite ready to go. Something was still bothering him.
“Sir, I’m just thinking. What if some Turk wanders in here Thursday morning? Or what if one of the officers who lives here returns early from leave before Christmas? Have we got some kind of sentry who will keep an eye out and shoo people away if they’re here at the wrong time?”
“No sentry. Sorry.”
“Excuse me for asking, sir, but why not?”
Ferris paused. He had asked Hoffman the same question when they had gone over the plan at Mincemeat Park. How do we avoid killing innocent people by accident? “We pray,” Hoffman had answered, and when Ferris had pressed him, he had admonished him about limiting information to the fewest number of people possible. Looking at Hoffman, Ferris had realized: He’s willing to lose people to make it work.
“Operational security,” said Ferris. “We can’t risk having a sentry. Sorry, but those are my orders.”
“HUA, sir.” The Army officer had the robotic look that comes over soldiers when they know it’s time to stop asking questions and get on with it.
They replaced the rest of the gear in the Humvee. They drove back through the checkpoint and returned to their Quonset hut. Ferris offered Jim a beer, and the two men drank together, but it was mostly in silence. Then they went to their bunks to catch a few hours’ sleep.
The Ankara case officer arrived at 0600, as promised. Jim was already eating a foul-looking MRE. Ferris told his Ankara colleague he wouldn’t be going to breakfast, but to the flight line to catch a chopper back to Ankara. As he was leaving, Jim gave him a punch on the shoulder—hard enough that it hurt. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
26
ANKARA
THE DECEMBER DAWN turned the eastern sky an ochre-red. Through the window of the Black Hawk helicopter, Ferris could see the washboard plain of Anatolia. The flight had been logged with the Turkish military, so there was no need to be flying so low to the ground, but the pilot was getting his jollies. They followed the riverbeds that scored southern Turkey, banking left and right so tightly that Ferris could feel the Gs in his stomach; they buzzed terrified flocks of sheep, scattering the animals in every direction under the wash of the rotors; they skimmed over empty fields, swirling the deep grass into a Van Gogh landscape. The pilot was having fun, pulling the Black Hawk up suddenly when he approached power lines, and occasionally dipping recklessly below them. He knew Ferris would never report him, and that if he did, nobody back on the flight line would care.
Ferris had a busy day in Ankara. He met with Bulent Farhat, the Turkish agent who would be posing as Unibank’s chief engineer. Farhat had been an Afghan traveler long ago; the Turks had sweated his jihadist passion out of him when he returned and had set him free on condition that he continue reporting for them, at first in Salafist circles at home and then, when they trusted him, from mosques in Germany. The CIA had picked him up in Germany and ran him as a unilateral, even though he was still on the books of the Turkish service.
Ferris took Bulent to the office where he would be meeting with Omar Sadiki. It was on a busy commercial street near the city’s oldest mosques. The office itself was modern, but nondescript—hard to remember; harder still to find again. Ferris gave the agent some Unibank business cards and a briefcase with the company logo on the side. He ran through the script: Bulent would quiz Sadiki about the cold retention and heat resistance of the insulation Al Fajr had specified; he would complain that it wasn’t dense enough and suggest a change in the design specs. He should offer to pay for the change order if Sadiki balked. In any event, he should make sure that as they talked, he handed drawings and designs back and forth. The camera and microphones in the office walls would do the rest.
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