Ottoman Dominion

by Terry Brennan

  The phone sailed across the room, smashing into glass shelves behind the bar that held his favorite collection of crystal stemware, as a primal wail erupted from his soul through his throat.

  His fists pounding into his thighs, Webster repeated the mantra over and over, “No, no, no, no, no,” each time smashing his fists into something—his thighs, then a door he smashed aside as he walked from the dining room of his palatial Georgetown brownstone into his study, a room that exuded and advertised the expanse of his power and influence in this city that lived for power and influence. But today, Nora Carson had not only assassinated his ambition, she had likely sentenced him to life in prison.

  A good—expensive—Washington lawyer? Could he plea bargain his way out of this? Doubtful. If Carson turned over all she knew … there was no plea bargain for treason. And if they could ever track those bodies back to him? No. No lawyer was that good.

  Webster looked around the room, at the treasures he’d extorted from those he held under the threat of his wrath, at the vanity wall of photos with the most powerful men and women in the world, at the pure opulence of the things he’d purchased when money was no object. He walked over to the mahogany bookcase. He lifted the dinged-up wooden bat from its pedestal, the bat from the 1927 Yankees team, the one with the validated signatures of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the year Babe hit sixty home runs and Gehrig hit forty-seven—both hitting more home runs than any entire team in the American League.

  He gazed at the bat with a longing in his heart. One of his most prized possessions. Then he took the bat, swung it viciously above his head, and slammed its barrel into the photo of Webster with Bill Gates. In a continuous fury of destruction, the bat ricocheted off Gates, reversed arc, and obliterated the German chancellor and the French president in one shot. Shards of glass flying, the bat swung high over his head and obliterated the faces of Seneca Markham and Richard Rutherford. Webster’s fury and pain were so overwhelming, tears flowing down his face and blurring his sight, that the bat failed to offer mercy on the faces of Rosa Parks and Jesse Jackson.

  Twenty minutes later, soaking wet with perspiration from his pillaging rant through the ground floor of his now wasted home, his strength flushed away, Webster’s body was thrown into a leather armchair. The bat, its barrel split down the grain, was about to be hurled into the canvas of one of Monet’s water lily paintings when Webster’s self-pity-fueled blood lust was halted by a racking cough—the result of his continuous wailing as he marched forward in his mission of destruction.

  His fingers were bleeding from retrieving his phone from a pile of shattered crystal. He used his other hand to punch in the number he knew by heart.

  “I thought I might be hearing from you,” said the voice on the other end of the line … the man with the Panama hat. “We don’t have anything to report on …”

  Webster’s words felt like lead and sounded like despair. “I need to disappear … today … now.”

  There was a faint pause. Webster wasn’t sure of its source: remorse at a loss of income or a reminder that justice will often have its day. Who was this man to think of justice?

  “For you to disappear, it will be expensive,” said the man.

  “I have the money. My accounts are not compromised.”

  “Cash transfer,” he said. “One-point-five million into our account. In advance. Nothing happens until—”

  “Done. When?”

  Webster’s defeat began displacing his wrath. His body appeared to shrivel in the chair.

  “One hour,” said the man in the Panama hat. “Walk to the Foggy Bottom station. Casual clothes. One gym bag only. Take the Gray Line to Spring Hill station. A yellow Peter’s Plumbing van will be waiting at the station’s exit. We’ll get you to Dulles and a private jet. You tell the pilot where you want to go.”

  So this was it. One bag. Exhausted, Webster imperceptibly nodded his head. “Thank—”

  There was a beep and the call disconnected.

  Hung up on. This was his new world. Until, he recalled, he got to his destination. Where he would live like a king and never be concerned about extradition. Webster pushed himself into a sitting position. Time to go.

  The man in the Panama hat disconnected the call and turned to his most-trusted lieutenant.

  “Webster.”

  “Does he know we pulled our men out from Rutherford and the woman?”

  “No. But it’s over … he’s over.”

  “From the information you gave Carson?”

  “Hard to be sure. But he’s panicked. Wants to disappear today.”

  “He knows too much.”

  “Yes,” said the man in the Panama hat. “Unfortunate for Webster. Take him to Dulles and find a spot in an empty corner of the long-term parking garage. Tell him he’s going to get transferred to a car that will take him to the private aviation terminal … just more precaution.”

  “Will he suspect?”

  The man in the Panama hat shook his head. “I doubt it. He sounds physically and emotionally spent. Besides … he trusts us.”

  “Mistake, that.”

  “Yes … but he’s not the first. Take his bag. Leave the body in the van. Make sure there’s no trace … but … you know that.”

  Ankara

  July 23, 7:03 p.m.

  The two remaining black vans hurtled along the tight lanes below the citadel, completing controlled skids around corners, ignoring all laws and the safety of any pedestrians. The drivers could hear the far-off sirens of the police cars rapidly closing the distance. Too easy to be trapped in this narrow warren of streets, they had only moments to escape.

  “How far?” asked Mullaney.

  A blur of black as they raced past the Ozkan Market, the vans then careened onto Karaman Street.

  “About seven miles to Güvercinlik, once we hit the Istanbul Road,” said the sergeant. “The trick is getting off these side streets. We’re too visible here.”

  “We’ve got an answer to that,” said Traynor. He threw his right arm around Mullaney’s midsection and grabbed a metal strut in the ceiling with the other. “Hold on to the ambassador!”

  The driver slammed on the breaks at the same time he pulled the steering wheel hard to the right and gunned the engine. The van heeled over hard to the left and almost lost its traction as it bounced over a curb and started to plunge down a steep hill.

  “Short cut,” said Traynor, keeping his hands glued to Mullaney and the strut.

  The vans rumbled down a steep, stone-covered drive surrounded by the trees of Hiskar Park, then burst out into a wide, paved, empty parking lot. They raced through the lot and hurtled past the gates to a large amphitheater to their right. Still they didn’t slow and plunged across an access road and down another tight, stone lane as tree limbs pounded against the sides of the vans.

  “Tricky part,” said Traynor, the muscles in his arms flexing. “Hold Cleveland tight!”

  Mullaney couldn’t see it, but he could feel it and hear it. The van shot out of the tree-lined lane, bottomed out on something solid, for a heartbeat felt like it was airborne, and then slammed down hard on all four wheels, skidding as the driver fought to keep a straight line. Before he felt the full rush of fear, the van was back on track, barreling down another narrow street.

  Whipped left, then right, the vans finally slowed the farther removed they were from Alitas Street and the citadel. They came to a rattling stop.

  Held in a bear hug by the sergeant, Cleveland’s eyes were wide, but the crinkle of a smile curved the edges of his lips. “Have we come to the end of the roller coaster?”

  “Traffic light,” said the sergeant.

  Mullaney could hear the sounds of increased traffic. The vans eased their way onto what sounded like a well-traveled thoroughfare.

  The sergeant turned to Traynor and gave him a thumbs-up. “Past the Ataturk Museum, onto the Mehemet Boulevard, and we’re home free.”

  Traynor pulled his weapon tighter to his chest. “
We’re home free when we’re inside that C-130 and its wheels leave the runway. Find out about the wounded.” He pushed a button to activate his radio. “Mother this is baby. Two stillborn. Two for delivery, coming in hot. Lots of bleeding. Be prepared.”

  Gocuk

  July 23, 8:10 p.m.

  With the sun slipping behind the mountains to the west, a purple twilight descended onto the plains southeast of the village of Gocuk, Turkey. The wind that seemed to have no end continued to thunder along the flanks of low hills and pound anything standing upright.

  Colonel Earnest Edwards believed the conditions were ideal.

  His three Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were being tossed by the force of the gale as they flew in low over the flats south of their intended target. His approach was downwind from the warehouse complex, the noise from the thrashing of the Black Hawk rotors blown in the opposite direction, over the lake to their south. Flying without lights, the Black Hawks were masked by the deepening dusk. They were ghosts.

  Leaving one squad to guard the Black Hawks, they came at the warehouse complex in three squads of six, from three directions, cloaked in darkness, each targeting a corner of the chain-link metal fence. All the lights, and their targets, were up at the northwest corner. Edwards whispered into his lapel mic, “Go.” A two-man team from each squad approached the three corners, quickly cut through the fence, and slipped through the openings like fog on a wind-swept lake.

  Edwards’s rules of engagement to his troops were brief. Their targets were heavily armed, trained professionals who intended to unleash inhumane weapons that could cause the death of five thousand American men, women, and children plus countless Turkish nationals. There would be no mercy offered today.

  He didn’t hear the dull thuds of the 9-millimeter automatics with the sound suppressors that took out all six sentries within seconds of each other. All he needed to hear was “Clear.” Without pause, Edwards led his team through the gap in the fence. Weaving through the darkened corridors between the warehouses, each of the three squads had an objective. One squad would open the gate, set up a secure perimeter, and be ready in reserve. Edwards’s six-man team would neutralize whatever force was inside the illuminated warehouse. As Edwards’s assault on the warehouse commenced, the third squad would hot-wire the trucks and drive them and the weapons in their cargo holds out of the compound back to the waiting Black Hawks. Securing the chemical weapons was objective number one.

  Explosives were out of the question. Canisters of the chemical death could still be inside the building. Edwards and his team knew this would be wet work—close-quarter, rapid annihilation of an armed enemy. They needed to be swift and deadly. But that was their calling card.

  There were two doors, front and back. Three of the six soldiers in Edwards’s squad were poised at the back door. Edwards, the rest of his squad tucked behind him, had his left hand on the handle of the front door, his right hand pressing the rapid-fire Colt M4A1 carbine to his shoulder. “Go.” Edwards slipped open the door and crab-walked through the opening, his team at his back. A short, fat officer with a stunned look on his face and two bullet holes in his chest was the first to drop. Edwards swung his red-laser sight upon a second target as gunfire engulfed the warehouse in lethal thunder.

  The Team Black fighters, front and back, moved and fired at the same time, cutting through the dozen black-clad fighters inside the warehouse with surgical precision. Nine died before they could reach their weapons. Only two managed to return fire, their desperate shots wildly off the mark, before their bodies were riddled by the Colt carbines of the JSOC squad. The one who tried to escape behind a row of crates peeked his head around a corner and came face-to-face with the barrel of a Colt and lost half his skull.

  The engagement lasted less than a minute.

  “Make sure all the chemical weapons were in the trucks,” Edwards instructed his men, “then set incendiaries to go off in an hour to melt whatever else may be stored in here. Be quick about it. We’re hoofin’ it in sixty seconds.”

  Edwards checked his watch as his men finished wrestling the heavy crates onto the three Black Hawk choppers. Time was their enemy. They needed to move. But he looked up over his shoulder to the north. “Wind’s stopped,” he said, almost to himself. He quickly turned to his second-in-command as the rotors of the UH-80s began to rotate their rotors in earnest. “Burn the trucks … timed charges. Then we’re out of here.”

  50

  Along the Potomac River, Mason Neck, Virginia

  July 25, 1:43 p.m.

  Captain Doak Mullaney of the Virginia State Police stood beside two FBI agents and a contingent of Maryland State Police staring at a trio of police boats tied together, floating at anchor in the Potomac River, a little more than seven miles downriver from Washington, DC.

  “It takes a while to stabilize the body and collect as much forensic evidence as possible,” said the commander of the Maryland Underwater Recovery Team. “They don’t want to lose anything in transit.”

  Doak Mullaney had been contacted by his commander abut thirty minutes earlier after the initial report of the discovery and arrived on scene while the URT divers were still executing their underwater search pattern in the murky, silt-filled Potomac. He was standing along the river bank of Mason Neck, a small peninsula thrust into the river from the Virginia side, in a neighborhood of palatial, secluded mansions. At this point of the river, the Maryland-Virginia border wound tightly along the very edge of the western bank. Jurisdictional cooperation was critical along the Potomac.

  “How long has it been out there?” asked one of the FBI agents.

  The Maryland URT commander was shaking his head. “Lot of questions … not many answers yet,” he said. “I don’t think it’s been in the water that long. But the car’s been burned, the body inside the car’s been burned, but the inside of the car has not been burned. Figure that one out. And then there’s the question of how the car got so far out into the river. The airbags haven’t deployed, so it’s not likely that it floated. But it sure looks like somebody dumped that car out there hoping that it wouldn’t be found.”

  “How did you make the initial ID?” asked Doak.

  “We got lucky,” said the commander. “There’s absolutely nothing on the body. The license plates were removed, along with the VIN plate just below the windshield and the VIN plate inside the driver’s door. But Virginia is one of the few states that requires annual vehicle inspections. Whoever is responsible didn’t spot the inspection sticker on the inside of the windshield. The VIN is on the sticker. Gave us a tentative ID of the owner.”

  “When will we be sure?” asked Doak.

  “That it’s Rutherford?”

  “Or his chauffer,” said Doak.

  “Couple of weeks,” said the commander. “Dental records. It’ll take some time.”

  One of the FBI agents turned to face them. “Two days,” he said. “This case is top priority. You’ll have the answer tomorrow.”

  Doak stared back at the FBI agent. “Richard Rutherford is my sister-in-law’s father.”

  “I know that.”

  He chewed on that nugget for a moment. “So who’s behind the top priority push?” asked Doak. “Who is calling in favors?”

  The FBI agent was as solid, and as silent, as a rock. “You’ll have the positive ID tomorrow.”

  51

  Ambassador’s Residence, Tel Aviv

  July 31, 8:16 p.m.

  Low lighting throughout the expansive gardens of the ambassador’s residence added drama to the landscaping without creating enough light pollution to drown out the vast array of stars suspended over the black Mediterranean.

  The last week had been nothing but a blur for Brian Mullaney—too much, too fast. And he was much too tired to fully absorb, process, and come to conclusions. But one thing he did know. In two days, he would be going home.

  Mullaney didn’t know—didn’t care—which of the many contributing factors tipped the scales
to get him a transfer back to Washington and an airline ticket home … whether Cleveland, whose influence in the State Department expanded exponentially after the rescue of Incirlik, had flexed his muscles; whether Mullaney’s wounded and battered body was deemed needy enough; whether the injustice perpetrated against he and George Morningstar was finally being recognized … too late for Morningstar.

  Morningstar. Tommy. Too many others. Too many to mourn right now.

  Mullaney closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath. He could smell the rosemary hedges that circled around the table in a secluded corner of the garden’s western edge, the sweetness of the wisteria winding over their heads, and the tangy brine of the sea, just below the cliff upon which they sat. It seemed like forever since the last time he had been able to sit quietly and smell the goodness of God’s green earth. He drew in the heady aroma once again.

  “Where are you?”

  Mullaney opened his eyes. Ambassador Cleveland sat on the far side of the round table, across from him. He had aged.

  “I’m here,” said Mullaney. “Just in the garden, in the moment, in the peace.”

  Two white-coated servers appeared out of the shadows around the table and started clearing the table of the remaining appetizers and the dirty plates.

  Eight of them sat at the table. Cleveland across from him, Palmyra Parker to Cleveland’s right, smiling at her dad and stunning in a bright, orange summer dress that brought a richer glow to her mocha skin tone. Next to Parker sat Rabbi Mordechai Herzog, looking distinguished in a crisp white shirt and impeccable black suit. He still carried a befuddled look on his face, clearly dazzled by the sumptuous setting of silver, crystal, and linen.

  Shin Bet Colonel Meyer Levinson had abandoned his ubiquitous khaki shirt and shorts. Stationed between Herzog and Mullaney, Levinson actually looked dashing in a black T-shirt under a peach-colored Calvin Klein blazer. But there was no sartorial salvation for the man to Mullaney’s right. Father Stephanakis Poppodopolous had his prodigious girth wrapped in his standard-issue black cassock. Unadorned in his dress, Poppy was nonetheless resplendent in his enthusiasm for the food. He had fork in hand, waiting for the next treat to arrive.