“Okay,” nodded Frankie, following the logic.
“So we have tracked the plane’s route and the only point at which they flew below this level was as they approached Le Touquet.”
“Or just after takeoff?” suggested Carson.
“Well, yes, technically,” replied the Lieutenant awkwardly.
“But that makes no sense,” smiled Carson, patting the lieutenant on the back. “It’s good work, Lieutenant, very good work.”
“So what’s the area?” asked Carson, pushing into the group to get a clear view of the map.
Turner pointed towards a large oval drawn over the English Channel, stretching from twenty miles out to sea to three miles from the coast.
“We’re concentrating efforts at the last point before the F-15s had them in sight,” he said, pointing to three miles from shoreline. “From their reports, there was no way anything fell or left the aircraft once they were on scene. From that, we guess he could still be swimming ashore or already in this area,” he added, circling the area around Le Touquet. “We have the French covering this whole area and we’re sending every asset we can get our hands on to assist.”
“That seems like a very premature descent,” said Carson, tracking the oval out to the twenty miles off shore point.
“It’s exceptionally early,” confirmed the Lieutenant.
“Almost like it was planned?” suggested Carson.
Turner looked up from the map. “What, are you saying he jumped twenty miles from shore?”
“It’s one of the busiest waterways in the world with many large vessels that a competent parachutist could easily land on.”
Turner looked at the lieutenant. Up until Carson’s arrival, he had been his aviation specialist. The lieutenant nodded that it was possible. “It would explain the very early descent towards Le Touquet.”
Turner shook his head in despair. Every time he thought he was gaining some ground, it was lost. “We’re going to need a lot more resources,” he said, turning to Carson.
Carson nodded his head and took out his cell. He had contacts in the British and French navies that he knew would be more than happy to assist.
As the net expanded across the entire English Channel, Turner realized once again that Nick may have slipped through their fingers. “Frankie, are you okay to talk now?”
Frankie nodded.
Turner led her through to the adjacent room where a team of suited agents were working. The walls were covered in just about everything they knew of Nick Geller. Photos of his childhood were pinned to the wall next to photos of Nick with Frankie.
“Frankie, I know this isn’t going to be easy,” Turner said sincerely, “but we really need to know everything you know about Nick, no matter how insignificant.”
Frankie nodded again and took a seat. Turner introduced her to the six agents in the room, three from the FBI, two from CIA and one from DIA, a colleague of Nick’s that Frankie had previously met. She smiled at a friendly face who, like her, was shell-shocked at Nick’s betrayal.
Special Agent Sarah Reid kicked off proceedings. “Can you tell me what you know of Nick’s background and family?”
Frankie took a deep breath and a sip of water. “His parents were Jewish Americans having moved here from Tel Aviv just before Nick’s birth. Unfortunately, they both died when Nick was a teenager and he spent a few years in various foster homes before joining the forces as soon as he could.”
Agent Reid nodded her head as she ticked off the numerous points with the information she had before her.
“How did you meet Nick Geller?”
“Wait a minute,” said Flynn, the DIA agent who had been a colleague of Nick’s and whom Frankie had met previously. “As hard as this is for Frankie, I think it’s only fair that we bring her up to speed with what we know so far. It’s certainly helped me focus on catching him.”
“Like you needed an added incentive? He shot the President and blew up the White House!” said one of the CIA agents angrily. Interagency cooperation was alive and well.
“Don’t be an asshole, Barry, you know what I mean.”
“Okay guys, cut the bullshit,” intervened Turner, nodding for Special Agent Reid to continue.
“His parents weren’t Jewish. After a lot of digging, we discovered they were originally from Lebanon. It looks like they managed to escape the civil war and made their way into Israel and from there, came here to America. They were Shi’a Muslims.”
Frankie was shaking her head. “But he’s not Muslim, he talked about his Jewish heritage a lot.”
“All a sham,” Reid replied, producing some photos of a teenage Nick in a mosque with his parents. “We found these in a safety deposit box at his bank. When his parents died in an auto accident, he was cared for by three different foster families.”
Frankie nodded and another photo was set before her, a slightly older Nick with an Imam. Frankie recognized the Imam as a radical preacher that the US had spent years fighting to deport.
“His last foster parents were neighbors of the Imam,” said Reid.
“Jesus! They’ve been planning this all these years?” asked Frankie, trying to comprehend what it all meant.
“We don’t think so. We believe his parents began the pretense of being Jewish in order to gain entry more easily and once in the country, we can’t find anything to suggest that they were anything but hard working citizens. They attended and made donations to their local synagogue. They did secretly attend a mosque, but it has no history of radicalism. It was after their death that we think Nick may have turned to a more radical doctrine.”
Frankie sat with her mouth agape. If she had thought she couldn’t be any more surprised, she was wrong. Nick was the least religious guy she had ever met. As a Jew, he was terrible. His favorite sandwich was ham and cheese. She was constantly reminding him that he wasn’t supposed to eat pork. A radical Muslim? It just didn’t make sense, at least not on its own. But along with everything else that had taken place that day, it made perfect sense.
Chapter 20
Nick followed the street cleaners and refuse collectors through the almost deserted streets of Paris. When he neared the Seine Saint Denis Departement, a large suburb to the northeast of Paris, the number of street cleaners and refuse collectors began to dwindle. This was the forgotten corner of Paris. The high-rise apartment blocks had been quickly erected in the 1970s to house the ever-growing immigrant population and were now falling into disrepair. The blocks secured the gentrification of the jewel in the French crown, central Paris, but left the immigrant communities on the outskirts of society. Crime and violence flared, as did the radicalization of youth.
Nick stopped the car and parked outside a large block of flats that loomed over the skyline. Graffiti besieged the ground floor while the upper stories would have benefitted from the paint afforded by the vandals. He reached into the glove compartment and, despite the darkness, opted to alter his hair and to wear spectacles. He combed in white powder that speckled his dark and youthful hair into that of a mature man with graying temples. The glasses added another five years. It was the simplest disguise but more than enough for the casual passerby to consider Nick a man in his forties rather than early thirties.
Reaching under his seat, he retrieved a Berretta M9 pistol. A few more weapons were secured in a locked box in the trunk but Nick opted for the subtle approach. The Berretta could be easily hidden and would give him the chance to gain entry without too much alarm being raised. He stepped out of the car and stuffed the Berretta into the back of his belt under his shirt, grabbed the metal briefcase, and approached the apartment block as the first rays of sunlight began to creep through the dark sky.
The entrance door hung on its hinges and its glass portions were replaced by graphitized plywood. The entrance lobby stank of stale urine and the elevator door sat unwelcomingly open. Nick looked at it briefly and went for the staircase. He opened the door to the staircase and began his climb to the ten
th floor.
When he reached the fifth floor, he rounded the corner into a welcoming party. Three young men blocked his way to the higher floors. Obviously roused from their beds in a rush, one had no shoes or shirt on, while another’s hair stood on end. The third was yawning.
“Bonjour,” said Nick jovially.
“This building is private, fuck off,” replied the tousled hair youth in French.
“Not for me,” remarked Nick in Arabic, catching them all by surprise.
“For everybody,” insisted the tousled hair youth again in French, though with a little more respect.
“I have business with Mohammed Farsi.”
The shoeless youth stepped forward. “He does not have business with you.” He was the largest of the three and it was obvious why his shirt was left off. His muscle definition was impressive.
Nick made a point of looking at the youth’s naked feet, before looking up into his eyes. “He does, he just doesn’t know it yet. Tell him I come with a message from the Caliph,” ordered Nick with a menace in his voice that had the youth stepping back, particularly given Nick’s inordinate interest in his feet.
The yawner watched Nick closely for a moment, then turned and retreated back up the stairs. The two others waited awkwardly, watching Nick lean casually against the wall. His demeanor was such that they had no illusion this was not a man they should be very wary of. The yawner returned and nodded to his colleagues.
“Next time, take the time to put your shoes on,” advised Nick, brushing past the shoeless man.
Nick was led up to the tenth floor and met at the door by Mohammed Farsi. The man was flanked by another two youths, although these two had guns drawn, ready to use. They tracked Nick as he walked towards them. Mohammed Farsi’s expression changed from confusion to bewilderment, once he realized who was walking towards him.
“I don’t know if I should hug you as a brother or shoot you as a traitor!” exclaimed Mohammed.
“A brother,” said Nick handing him a copy of the DVD he had shown the prince. “I will wait here while you watch it,” he said, then turned to Tousled Hair and tossed him his car keys and asking him a favor.
The hug that followed the watching of the DVD meant that all weapons were withdrawn and Nick was invited into the home of the most senior member of Al Qaeda’s French network. Nick had one goal over the next few days - securing the support of all the European fundamentalist groups.
He had an army to build and a war to begin.
Chapter 21
After three hours, during which Frankie related to Special Agent Reid her entire history with Nick, the questions finally stopped. Ultimately, she had nothing that would assist in the search for Nick. This equaled the grand total of what the search of her guesthouse had revealed. Nick had left clues about neither his secretive life nor his plans. Frankie felt the coolness towards her wear off when it became clear that she was not an accomplice or in any way involved.
“Thanks, Frankie, I appreciate that was not easy,” concluded Turner. The rest of the group filtered out of the office, and once the last of them had left, he stood up and closed the door, keeping Carson and Frankie in the room.
“Just a couple more questions,” he said, taking his seat again.
Frankie looked at Carson, aware of how he wanted to control information. “Of course.”
“I’d like to know a little more about your family.”
“I’m not entirely sure how that is relevant,” interrupted Carson.
“I have no issue discussing my family,” Frankie said. “My father is Albert Franks, born and raised in Houston, Texas. He went to college, then joined an oil firm as an accountant. In the late seventies, he was working in Saudi Arabia where he met my mother.”
“Do you think Nick meeting you was planned?”
“I doubt it. We met at the White House and since no one there, except for President Mitchell and my boss, is aware of my heritage, I can’t see how he could have known.”
Carson bit his lip. Nick Geller was a highly trained intelligence officer and probably one of the best they had, if not the best. He would have known exactly who she was. However, telling Frankie that would make her feel even worse than she already did. He opted to let her think that she was bearing the child of a man who had loved her and not used her.
Unfortunately, Turner was not as thoughtful. “I highly doubt that, I’m afraid. Nick Geller had access to any personnel records he wanted. It is inconceivable that a man of his training would not have checked your history before making a move.”
Frankie remained impassive at the thought that she had been used for some ulterior motive.
“Tell me about your mother.”
“She was the twentieth child of my grandfather, born to his fourth wife. She was ten years younger than her closest sibling and was the baby of the house. She was my grandfather’s favorite. She could do no wrong and as she grew up, he took her everywhere with him. From the stories I have been told, he was a hard man to his older children and alienated most of them. Having my mother in his fifties had softened him and made him appreciate his children far more. Although he was a prince, he was far removed from the king. He owned a lot of land in the oil rich desert and as a result, he had many interactions with American oil companies. It was on a trip to one of the oil fields that my parents met. By that time, my grandfather was dying and he saw the spark in my mother’s eye when she met my father. My grandfather knew that when he died, her life would be nothing in Saudi Arabia. She’d bear children for a man who may take numerous wives. She was very intelligent and highly educated. Publicly he forbade their union, but privately he encouraged it. A letter from him tells of his proudest and saddest day, the day she got married to my father and the day he couldn’t be with her to celebrate. He died shortly after her marriage.”
“If he publicly forbade the union, I assume he left her nothing?” questioned Turner.
“Publicly yes, privately no.”
Turner let the silence hang, waiting for more. Frankie didn’t elaborate.
After a minute of the two looking at each other, Carson intervened. “Well I think that covers everything,” he concluded.
“I’d like to know where your mother’s money came from,” Turner said.
“I don’t see how that is relevant or any of your business,” replied Frankie.
“Neither do I,” replied Carson, standing up to leave.
“Prince Abdullah bin Fahd al Khaled, the man who smuggled your boyfriend out of the country, is your mother’s cousin!”
Both Frankie and Carson laughed, much to Turner’s chagrin. Before he could respond, there was a sharp knock on the office door and it opened. Special Agent Reid stepped in.
“We’ve got a lead on a car,” she announced.
Chapter 22
Turner followed Reid out onto the gangway and looked down onto the operations floor below. The huge screens on the wall showed an aerial view of a small car travelling along a road in an urban area. Reid led Turner, Carson and Frankie down into the main center, filling them in along the way.
“We’ve been scouring whatever CCTV images we could get from France. There isn’t much thanks to it being a weekend. They seem to close down on weekends.”
Carson sighed knowingly. The French were a nightmare to work with. If they weren’t on lunch, they had already left for the day or were on vacation whenever you tried to reach one of them.
“Anyway, what we have managed to retrieve has turned up a car at numerous locations between Le Touquet and Paris over the last few hours. The darkness has meant most images are very grainy but we did get one that confirmed our suspicions.”
On cue, an image of Nick driving the Clio through a junction in a small French town was displayed on the screen.
“Excellent!” Turner exclaimed, congratulating everyone in the center.
Carson hit the dial button on his phone at the confirmation that Nick Geller was in France. He had two navies to sta
nd down.
“We followed the images and have him driving through Paris for around one hour at around four a.m. local time. Unfortunately, we lost him just as he headed towards southern Paris.”
Frankie looked at the image; it was definitely Nick. She looked across at the numerous locations that were being highlighted across Paris on a separate screen. Carson ended his calls and joined them and he too began to study the pinpointed sightings.
“Can that system draw a route, taking the time stamps of each sighting into account?” he asked. Frankie looked at Carson. He was thinking the same as her.
Reid nodded for the analyst to do what had been suggested. It’ll just take a few minutes,” confirmed the analyst.
“It appears from the image on the screen that we’ve just reacquired him?” she asked as much as told.
“Yep, we’ve got him on a KH-11 now,” said Barry from the CIA, pointing to the live image on the main screen. “Heading south out of Paris.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” asked Turner.
“We just got the image ID. As soon as we knew it was definitely—”
“Okay, okay,” waved Turner. He’d made his point.
“I have a SOG team inbound from Ramstein. ETA is about forty-five minutes at the airfield here, just North of Auxerre,” said Barry, pointing to the airfield on the map. “The road here is the A5 which becomes the A6 and it’s the road we’re tracking him on. Our team will be in place just as he approaches Auxerre.”
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