by David Perry
“Things are crazy up here,” the Secret Service agent said. “A lot of things going on.”
In fact, Broadhurst’s phone had been charging when he lay down. The battery died four hours ago. He had plugged it in beside him on the small sofa. The call from Rodgers had been relayed from the SIOC to his cell phone while he was sleeping.
“Again, where are you?”
“I’m in New Jersey. Where’s my brother?”
“He’s here with us. Have you delivered the truck?”
“Is Jason okay?”
“He’s stressed … naturally … but okay. Have you delivered the truck?”
There was a hesitation on the line. “Yes, to a drug company in Camden. Dawson Pharmaceuticals.”
“Give me your address. We’ll send a team for you.”
The director opened the windowless door. The room, also windowless, was also crowded with computer stations arrayed in a circle. At each station, headset-wearing technicians punched keys and talked on phones while monitoring displays.
“What you see here is confidential. Do you understand?”
Jason nodded. “More so than everything else I’ve seen? You don’t need to keep telling me that!”
The director nodded. “Good point. Take a seat.”
Jason sat at a small table in the corner of the room.
McNamara continued. “You were contacted by Hussein and asked to go to various locations after you listened to information on a number of cell phones, correct?”
“Yes,” Jason replied, nodding.
“Where are the cell phones now?”
Jason thought a moment. “The second is in a leather bag somewhere in Norfolk. The man who handed over the truck made us give it up. The last cell phone was still in the truck with Peter.”
“And the first?”
Jason thought a moment. “I think we left it at my house in York County.”
The director opened a drawer and removed something from it. “Is this it?” he asked, dropping a black smartphone on the desk. It landed face down so Jason could see the large number one scrawled in white grease paint along its back.
“That’s looks like it,” Jason asked.
The director nodded. “We retrieved it from your home.”
“You broke into my home?”
“In the interests of national security, yes. We have done nothing with the phone pending confirmation that it was the one you used earlier … and we have formulated a plan.”
“Okay … so now what? Just call her and ask for a trade?”
“Basically, yes. Your instructions were in a text on this phone. You are going to send her a text … exactly what we tell you to say, along with a photo. If she wants her son back, she’ll be in touch.”
“And you think she’ll just agree to this?”
“Based on the information Broadhurst has learned about Delilah Hussein from FBI profilers and CIA sources in the last two years, yes. She adores her son … and will do anything to get him back again. Plus she wants you.”
An hour later, Jason, in another secure area of FBI headquarters, stood in a starkly lit hallway of an underground floor, ten stories beneath the SIOC. The director opened a plain wooden door. Jason, the director and a third man with a Canon single lens reflex camera hanging around his neck, entered.
Seated in the center of the empty room, chained to a wheeled metal chair, was the assassin-pharmacist Sharif al-Faisal. The thick cloth hood had been placed over his head once more. Jason knew it was the pharmacist formerly known as Sam Fairing because the squiggly tattoo was clearly visible on the inside of his right forearm.
Leather straps had been fastened across his chest, legs, and arms. His ankles were shackled together along with his wrists. Four members of an FBI tactical team wearing black body armor and toting MP5 submachine guns were positioned in each corner of the small room no more than a step from the prisoner.
“Stand behind him!” the director ordered. “And please try not to hit him.”
Jason moved behind al-Faisal. The technician with the camera who had accompanied them in the elevator handed a fresh newspaper to Jason. Yesterday’s edition of the Washington Post.
The director stepped forward and ripped the hood from al-Faisal’s head. The swarthy-skinned Cyclops blinked rapidly, finally focusing his eyes on the director. The FBI director placed a page in Cyclops’ hand, bound at the wrist. Jason saw several lines of large font print on the paper.
“Hold it up,” the tech commanded Jason.
Jason held the paper out in front of him, exposing the date and headlines above the fold.
“You,” the director ordered, “read the words on the page.”
The prisoner lowered his head and closed his eyes. The director screwed his lips into a tight circle at the side of his face. “I said read the words!”
Sharif al-Faisal did not move. He crumpled the document and tossed it to the floor with a flick of his bound wrist.
The director turned to one of the armed agents and tossed his head toward the captive. The agent moved to al-Faisal’s chair. Instinctively, Jason stepped back.
The agent grabbed the prisoner by the hair and yanked backward, speaking several words in Arabic. Al-Faisal managed a nod. The agent retreated to the corner.
“Now, read!”
The director motioned for Jason to step back behind the chair and raise the newspaper. McNamara picked up the crumpled paper, smoothed it on his thigh and forced it back into Cyclops’ hand.
The technician raised the Canon EOS MS and began the video.
“Begin,” the technician directed.
Sharif al-Faisal focused on the paper and began recording:
“I am alive. The escape attempt failed. The Americans know you have an operation underway. If you want to see me again, you must cease that operation immediately.”
Sharif al-Faisal hesitated, leveled his eyes at the camera and shouted, “Allahu Ahkbar!”
The armed agents moved in and wheeled Cyclops out of the room.
“Get him out of my sight!” the director managed, as the door closed.
Cyclops could be heard shouting through the walls “Allahu Akbar!” to the sound of pounding boots traveling along the tiled floor.
The director motioned for Jason to follow. In a room across the hall, they sat once more at another table. The technician typed a message into the cell phone marked number one in grease paint. He had transferred the video file from the Canon to the smartphone. When he finished, he slid it to Jason so he could read the message:
Ms. Hussein:
As you can see, we have your son in custody. He was captured in his escape attempt. Your attempt to free him was thwarted. The American government has me in custody and I am no longer able to move freely.
You have my son and Christine Pettigrew. We both want our loved ones back. They are offering you an exchange: your son for my son and Christine Pettigrew. But you must halt all operations in your attack currently underway.
Jason Rodgers
Jason handed the device back. The technician looked to the director who nodded once. The agent hit send. The phone whirred as the message transmitted.
Jason turned his eyes to the director. “Now what?”
The director spoke, “Now we wait.”
“Even if she agrees, I still have a lot of questions about how I’m going to pull this off.”
“We’re working on a plan.”
“What did your man say to al-Faisal to get him to cooperate?”
“Sharif al-Faisal was reminded that if he failed to help us, he would be revisited by our interrogators.”
The tepid Caribbean gusts angled the warm rain toward the soft sands of the island. Extremely fatigued, Hussein allowed herself a moment to remember less stressful days. Reprisal One, the communications drone, had made its return fifteen minutes ago, bringing with it another data dump.
She had awoken from a short nap and needed to clear her mind. Remembering Amo and he
r commitment to him always helped her refocus.
Those days many years ago were happier ones. Before her Amo had been toppled from power and forced to hide like a rodent in a hole, she’d spent glorious days in opulence by his side at locations all around Iraq. In his palaces, filled with servants, extravagant meals of lamb and rice were followed by voracious lovemaking in beds larger than most of the rooms in the house she had occupied in Newport News, Virginia.
She thought those days would never end.
But they did. She vowed after watching her Amo’s botched execution to avenge his death—and the loss of her sumptuous life.
As she sat on the patio of her villa now, letting the rain pepper her face, she renewed her pledge to her fallen lover, the Butcher of Baghdad. She also renewed her pledge to her son, bolstered and invigorated by a mother’s double loss—his incarceration and the death of her daughter.
She vowed to continue to peck away at the Great Satan, not only for her lost lover, but for her dead daughter and her missing son, a son she hoped to have by her side once more.
The matriarch had actually spoken to Peter Rodgers, the pharmacist’s brother. The former marine should be dead by now. But Jason Rodgers was still alive. Somehow, he had managed to remove himself from the moving truck heading up the Eastern Shore of Virginia without being detected. Hussein had been beside herself earlier. But she had calmed down. Hussein knew that she would face Jason Rodgers again. She did, after all, still have his woman and son.
Hussein did not hear the footfalls, but rather sensed the presence of the person behind her. His stealth told her that it could only be one person: Oliver.
“And what about Charlie’s body?”
“He is still lying in the wine cellar for the woman to see and smell. Her punishment for trying to escape.”
“I thought you told me that Charlie could be controlled.”
“I searched his room in the bunkhouse. I found half-digested pills behind one of the toilets. He must have been spitting them out. He tricked me.”
Hussein cast her manservant a withering stare. “I will deal with your incompetence after this mission is complete. Charlie has jeopardized everything. I cannot control Jason Rodgers if we don’t possess his loved ones.”
“I understand.”
“Jason Rodgers has disappeared. Those idiots in New Jersey sent us a photo of … the brother. By now, Peter Rodgers is dead. Where is the pharmacist?”
Oliver sighed. Hussein took this to mean that he did not know and was smart enough to remain silent.
“Jason must be delivered to me. He will watch the lives of his son and woman being snuffed out just as he killed my beloved daughter.”
Oliver nodded.
“Where is the boy?”
“We are searching every hectare on the mountain. He will not get far. The compound is ringed by fences. If they managed to get outside the fence, there is only thick tropical vegetation. Our men are scouring everywhere. We will find him.”
Oliver faced Hussein, who was standing now. She reached down and grabbed a handful of crotch. Oliver rose up on his toes, trying to alleviate the pressure on his testicles.
“You better, my love, or I will cut off another appendage. And this time it will not be a finger.”
“Oui, Madame,” he croaked.
She released her grip. Oliver lowered himself. Hussein studied him. “What is it now?”
“I know where Jason Rodgers is.”
“Most excellent. Tell me.”
Oliver held out the secure cell phone.
“I dispatched the drone on its predetermined course to cell tower five in Jamaica. It returned fifteen minutes ago and I decoded it.”
Hussein accepted the phone. Oliver stepped out of arm’s reach. Hussein read the text message and watched the attached video of Jason Rodgers and her son. She heard her son’s voice for the first time in two years. Tears welled in her black eyes. Hussein placed the phone on the table as a maelstrom of emotions assaulted her.
“How has this happened? I thought Sharif made his getaway?”
“I do not know, Madame. The last communication we received from our contact in the CIA said that Sharif made a successful escape from the prison. He lost contact after he departed. He must have been taken after leaving the safe house but before they made it to the airport.”
Hussein paced the brick-paved patio. Oliver stood like a mannequin, letting her work through the emotions and come to a conclusion.
Finally, Hussein turned toward him.
“I want my son back.”
“Je comprends, Madame,” Oliver began. I understand. “Without saying it, this message tells us one thing. The Americans have not been able to locate our position. This is an attempt to find us. Otherwise they would have attacked the compound.”
“Oui, Oui. C’est vrai.” Yes, it’s true. Hussein crossed her arms across her chest. She lifted a finger and tapped her pursed lips. “Mais, it also tells us one more thing.” Hussein walked to Oliver. She raised up on her tiptoes and tried to kiss him on the cheek. Oliver moved backward, remembering earlier threats.
“Fear not, mon cheri.”
Oliver lowered his face. Hussein delivered a peck and smiled. “It also means the Americans do not know what we have planned. We are closer to successfully delivering our blow.”
“So we are going to refuse to the exchange and continue with our plan?”
Hussein shook her head. “No, we are going to get Sharif back … and the Americans will not know where we are. Call al-Raqqah. There are arrangements to be made. I want you to send the following message to Jason and the Americans.”