by Rick Mofina
“My car. I’m taking you to your hotel so you can leave the country.”
“And who are you?”
“Who I am is not important. Let’s go.”
The man slid on sunglasses.
His car was a white Mercedes and neither of them spoke as it rolled soothingly along the unpaved road over a sun-scorched stretch of flatland for nearly half an hour before they came to a modern highway. Gannon noticed tiny scars on the man’s chin and an expression void of emotion behind his dark glasses.
“So, who are you and who are you with?” Gannon asked.
Robert Lancer looked straight ahead, considered the question and said, “I’m a U.S. agent.”
“Are you FBI?”
He said nothing.
“CIA? Military?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is you came close to serious harm.”
“Oh, you think? Now I know firsthand what you and your ilk really do to people.”
“It’s not pretty but it saves lives.”
“It also ruins innocent ones. I don’t see how it can do any good.”
The man’s jaw muscles pulsed.
“Tell that to the families standing at the graves of innocent people murdered in attacks.”
“What your pals did to me back there was medieval! Threaten a man with castration and he’ll confess to anything.”
“Let me give you some context, Jack. You’re a foreign national who trespassed in the apartment of a murdered man, who happened to be a source for about six different intelligence agencies. The locals had every right to suspect you. They were just getting warmed up with you.”
“By violating my human rights?”
“Look around, this is not the U.S.”
“What your friends did was confirm that I’ve got a huge story.”
“Forget your story. You have no idea how dangerous this is for you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“That’s advice, or did you forget I was the one who got you out of there. The situation is complicated, but let me make one thing clear. You get back to the States and you forget this. Tell your editor your story fell through.”
“Fuck you!”
“Are you that stupid?”
“After what I’ve been through, do you really think I’m going to curl up and forget my profession? A lot of people have died for this story. Now, I’m going to report every iota of what I know and what I went through to know it, including meeting you. It seems to me that maybe a few governments have a hand in some kind of illegal crap.”
“Is that what you think you have?”
“You heard it all when your pals were torturing me.”
Lancer said nothing.
“Was Corley your source? Did he have information for you?”
Lancer said nothing.
Both men retreated to their thoughts as the countryside evolved into the outskirts of the capital. Gannon took note of how well this guy knew his way around the streets of Rabat. Traffic slowed them up as they entered the district of Agdal.
“When do you plan to run your story?”
“As soon as I put something together.”
When they turned on to Rue Abderrahmanne El Ghafiki, Gannon began to recognize the area.
“What’s your story going to say about the Rio connection to Corley?”
“What do you think?”
Lancer parked at the entrance of Gannon’s hotel, the Orange Tree, shut off the motor and turned to Gannon.
“Cards on the table, Gannon?”
“Fine.”
“Corley was going to help me on an investigation. Listen, it’s too soon for a story. Give me your word you’ll wait until we’ve got this thing nailed, and I’ll give you mine that you will have the full story. I’ll help you.”
“What’s the full story?”
“We’ve got raw intelligence of a planned attack.”
“Where, when? What kind of attack?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“On what scale, how big?”
“Don’t know that, either. That’s why any premature revelations would jeopardize our investigation. A lot of people are working on this. Corley was a source and he had a thread of something with African links.”
Gannon thought.
“Jack, we know you were in Rio de Janeiro and London.”
“Figures. What do you know about Drake Stinson with the Rio law firm, Worldwide Rio Advogados?”
“We know that his firm is involved. That was emerging through Corley’s reports and his sources in Brazil. At one time Stinson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. We think the Rio firm and the cafe bombing might, stress might, have an African connection. Corley uncovered more about it recently.”
“That’s all you know?”
“It’s all I can tell you.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Not important.”
“I want to keep in touch.”
“I have your word you’ll hold off?”
“I have yours you’ll help me?”
“You have it.”
“And no other press are sniffing at this?”
“Is that your biggest worry?”
“No other press?”
“Just you.”
“I want some ID.”
The man pulled out his wallet, produced a blank card and wrote on it.
“Here’s my protected number. It’s good for anywhere, anytime.”
“There’s no name. Who are you?”
“We’ll keep in touch.”
“You better hope so.” Gannon got out of the car.
“Jack, I’m sorry about what you went through. It was out of our control.”
Gannon nodded, waved, then entered the hotel’s lobby. He went to the front desk to check for messages. The clerk kept his eyes on the computer monitor and nodded. Gannon had something.
“Excuse me, sir, I’ll retrieve it from storage.”
Probably something from New York or London, Gannon thought. As he waited he reviewed a mental to-do list. He’d have to arrange a flight to New York, then he’d have to give Melody an update.
Should I tell her about my abduction and torture?
The clerk returned with a small brown package.
“This came for you while you were out, sir. A messenger boy brought it around the time you left the hotel.”
The package bore a handwritten note.
To: Guest J. Gannon c/o the Orange Tree.
From: Adam Corley.
41
Over Africa
A lightning bolt of pain tore into Dr. Sutsoff’s skull as her Alitalia airbus climbed over the Mediterranean.
Her condition had triggered an attack.
It was brought on by the throngs of passengers queued in the security lines at Tripoli International Airport where she’d boarded her connection.
People everywhere-nudging her, bumping her, intruding into her space, looking at her, talking to her, breathing on her, their skin touching hers.
She wanted to scream.
Her mouth had dried, her heartbeat soared, cutting her breath short. Talons of pain clawed down her spine to her toes, forcing her to clench her jaw, mash her knees together and grip her armrests.
She didn’t need this now.
Not when she was about to commence the decisive phase of her work.
She reached for her pills, put two in her palm, swallowed them and set her head into her headrest, thankful no one was beside her. She always paid for the seat next to her, to keep anyone from getting too close.
As the plane leveled her discomfort ebbed.
Agoraphobia. Demophobia. Enochlophobia. Ochlophobia.
She knew the terms but refused to label her condition a phobia. Her fear and loathing of crowds was not irrational. It was grounded in reality, in the old horror that was reaching for her…pulling her back…
“Gretchen! Help me! Gretchen!”
She shut her eyes, gaine
d control of her breathing and directed her thoughts back to the time of joy in her life.
She was a happy little girl again flying above old London at night.
Flying like Peter Pan and Wendy, and dreaming of living in London with her mother, her father and little brother, Will.
But her family had to leave England. It broke her heart. Of all the cities in the world that they’d lived in, Gretchen had loved London best. On the day they packed, she cried. Her father crouched beside her and dried her tears.
“In a few years when my work is finished, we’ll come back to London and we’ll live here,” he said.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
He’d told her that they would live in Kensington, her favorite part of the city, and later that night Gretchen had dreamed she was flying over it with her little brother.
“We’re going to live here forever, Willy.”
But her dream died.
Gretchen Rosamunde Sutsoff was born in Virginia where her father, Cornelius, was a scientist who’d become an American diplomat. He was a science attache who worked with U.S. military and intelligence officials at U.S. embassies. His job meant they’d moved around the world. Every two years it seemed. They’d lived in Moscow, Tokyo, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Nairobi, London, Panama and Vridekistan.
Gretchen’s mother, Katherine, was a pianist who gave lessons to students who would come to their home. “Music is the universal language. It makes words unnecessary,” her mother liked to say.
Gretchen’s parents loved her and Will, but they were self-absorbed precise people whose displays of affection toward them were as rare as falling stars. The family’s constant moving meant they were continually severing ties in one country while establishing new ones in another.
Gretchen and Will had no connection to any place or anybody.
Except each other.
Forever the new, strange child with the accent, Gretchen was often confused about where she belonged. She seldom made friends. Will was her best friend and she was protective of him as she sought refuge in her books, particularly books about science and the nature of life and death.
Wherever they lived, Gretchen always had the highest grades in her class. She astounded her teachers. “Your daughter is a prodigy,” her instructor in Moscow said. Another teacher in London said, “We feel the term genius is appropriate. She actually pointed out two errors in the mathematics textbook.”
Gretchen was ten years old when she started conducting her own research with Will as her assistant. Her parents allowed her to have a dozen white mice. While botched piano concertos sounded through their home, Gretchen tracked the life cycle of her mice, making exhaustive notes on their development, on which pairs mated, then tracing and noting characteristics of their offspring.
“Pretty cool, huh, Will?”
“Cool.”
Will was in charge of naming them and would have funerals when one of them died. He cried when they buried them. Gretchen would roll her eyes. She was more concerned with her new scientific discoveries.
They were living in Africa when she experienced a prophetic incident.
At the edge of the diplomatic quarter in Nairobi, there was a dense forest. Venomous snakes were sighted there by locals. One man was bitten and died. People were warned to keep out of the woods. But Gretchen needed butterflies for one of her many studies, so one day she left school early and slipped into the forest.
She had entered a darkened section. As birds screeched, she began searching. It was not long before she came upon a rare Taita blue-banded swallowtail on a broad leaf. Withdrawing a wide-mouth jar from her satchel, she inched it into position when she heard a moan.
She turned and saw a muddied stream flowing over a boulder.
That’s what it looked like.
She gasped. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.
The stream was a moving river of ants: millions, maybe billions of them. The ant-covered lump-judging from the single fear-filled eye staring from it and the protruding tongue-was a dog, panting in the throes of death.
The ants had attacked en masse. Devouring the dog alive.
Horrified, Gretchen was transfixed.
She was fascinated by the idea of the sheer terror of knowing that you could be helpless to battle the consuming force that is slowly killing you.
She ran home with the image seared in her mind.
“Gretchen! Help me! Gretchen!”
The flight attendant touched her shoulder.
“Please move your seat forward. We’re landing in Casablanca.”
Relief.
Casablanca’s Mohammed V International was not busy when Dr. Sutsoff arrived. She had time for a light lunch, a salad, cheese and tea. She checked her encrypted e-mail for a status report from her support team.
“All is ready. We await your arrival, Doctor.”
Good, she thought, boarding her connection, a 737 operated by Royal Air Maroc. During the six-hour flight, she read over her files and napped until images of her brother, her mother and father drove her from sleep.
When she was fourteen, her parents had sent her to boarding school in Lucerne, Switzerland.
“It will be hard,” her father said, “but the Lucerne boarding school is one of the best. It’ll give you a solid foundation for any college.”
Gretchen’s perfect grades had attracted the attention of Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford and La Sorbonne in Paris. The only thing she loved more than her studies was getting letters from Will. She often traced her fingers over his cheerful handwriting. She could hear his voice, see his smile.
Hi Gretchie,
Have you discovered the cure for everything yet? Guess what!? Since we moved to Vridekistan, football, or what they call soccer in America, is my new passion. It’s the biggest sport in the world, you know! Dad takes me to games. Vridekistan’s team could qualify for the World Cup. They have a match coming up against the powerhouse team from Iran. It’s going to be historic! Dad’s got tickets and says we can all go when you come home to visit next week. Say you will come! It will be loads of fun!
Love, Will
He made her laugh.
Of course she would go to the game. But she doubted her mother would go. Gretchen could understand her father’s interest in football. He enjoyed sports. But she could not envision her mother, the refined pianist, among the hordes of sports fanatics. That’s why Gretchen’s jaw dropped when she agreed to go.
“It will be exciting. A chance for a family outing,” her mother said.
The match was held at the national stadium, a monstrous multitiered facility with a capacity for 102,000 spectators. The game was critical to the country’s spirit, according to the president, who declared a national holiday. The newspapers reported that officials were expecting huge overflow crowds and Gretchen’s father insisted they leave hours before the start.
Traffic jammed the streets to the stadium, so the family abandoned their cab, joined the crowds walking to the stadium and managed to get to their seats ninety minutes before the match started.
The colorful pregame events energized the fans. Emotion electrified the air. Thunder exploded when the national team took to the field. A few seconds passed before Gretchen realized it was fanatical cheering. Flags waved everywhere amid the oceans of people, and battle hymns were sung in unison while the Iranian players were jeered and bombarded with rotting fruit. The mass of humanity roared with such intensity the entire stadium trembled. Gretchen saw unease cloud her mother’s face.
Will was enraptured and he joined the chanting, which did not relent, even when the match started.
The first half of the game was controlled by Iran, which had scored two goals. A man sitting near Gretchen and her father was also listening to the game on his radio and said there were reports of huge crowds, maybe another 250,000 people, surrounding the stadium. They were angry the national team was losing and were demanding entry to the game.
Police had locked all the
gates.
“It’s madness.”
Inside, the disappointed stadium crowd tossed trash onto the field, forcing stadium crews to turn hoses on the unruly sections.
Gretchen heard her mother shout into her father’s ear.
“I have a bad feeling,” she said. “I think we should leave now.”
“I was thinking the same,” he said, then shouted to Will and Gretchen. “This place is getting dicey. We’re going to make our way to the exit, now.”
“But, Dad!” Will protested.
“Now, Will!”
The family threaded their way toward their gate. It was difficult because every inch of the stadium was crammed. They were about halfway to their exit, south gate 48, when the national team scored its first goal, igniting an ear splitting frenzy and the stadium shook. Will joined the celebration, jumping up and down.
The goal detonated waves of jubilation among the crowds outside the stadium. Enthralled, they began surging toward the locked gate, pressing at every point while security people tried to repel them. At west gate 56, the crowds broke through and desperate police began firing tear gas at the crowds outside the gates, but winds blew it back into the jammed walkways.
Confusing police radio signals were misunderstood and officers at every gate began firing tear gas into the crowds, filling the walkways at every gate, including south gate 48, where Gretchen and her family were stuck in their struggle to get out of the stadium.
Billowing clouds of tear gas were thought to be smoke from a fire, alarming the people seated inside who feared the stadium was ablaze. Fans panicked and rushed to the walkways, crushing those already immobilized by locked exit gates. Ammonia from the tear gas made people cough, gasp and vomit.
It blurred their vision.
“Oh, God!” Gretchen’s mother screamed. “Will! Cornelius! Gretchen!”
The crush forced Gretchen’s family tight against the crowds choking the walkway. Gretchen felt her mother’s hand seize hers, as Gretchen grabbed Will’s hand. Her father had Gretchen’s shoulder and Will’s hand.
“Hang on, kids! Don’t let go!”
The pressure was enormous as people began jumping from the upper tiers. Gretchen turned and saw others stampeding toward them from across the playing field!
No. Please. No more.