The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller

by Andrew Britton

  “We had that after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks,” Allison said. “For about a month. As soon as we got into Afghanistan, then Iraq, it was backstabbing and undercutting as usual.”

  Largo grinned humorously. “The distraction of war has become the black market for power grabs. I wonder if it’s idealistic youth or aggressive youth who are going into government service these days.”

  Allison had no answer because no one had ever posed the question. As with anything, she supposed it was a mix of both.

  The visit was what government agencies called the “pinball tour”: guests bounced from cubicle to cubicle with the sense that they’d racked up a lot of information and experience—but hadn’t really. That was all right. Largo hadn’t really wanted to see brain centers or maps or white papers. He had wanted to look into the eyes of people who were the same age as he was when he went to work for the OSS. They looked younger somehow, unseasoned by strife and the Depression. He didn’t hold that against them, though he did wonder how it impacted their worldview.

  When Largo had seen all the temporary white walls he needed to see, they went up to Clarke’s office. The general had arranged Largo’s clearance and had specifically asked to meet him.

  The two had to wait a quarter hour before they could get in. They sat beside each other in armchairs like they were in a dentist’s office, facing an aide who offered them beverages—Allison declined, Largo took a black coffee to see if it had gotten any better in six decades—and they listened as Clarke’s muted voice came through the closed door.

  “The coffee’s not as bitter and the air tastes different,” Largo said. “No cigarette smoke or mimeograph ink. What a combination that was.”

  “Calm you and make you high at the same time.”

  “Really? I mean, about the mimeographs?”

  “Those were made with methyl alcohol,” Allison said. “The effects weren’t permanent, but it caused euphoria that quickly shifted into dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Largo said. “We should’ve printed leaflets with that, dropped ’em over Berlin.”

  “Did you ever serve anywhere but France?” Allison asked.

  Largo hesitated. Allison noticed. It couldn’t have anything to do with secrecy, not this far after the fact—

  “Hell,” he said. “I served there. I know everyone says that—the boys who were at Pearl Harbor, the soldier in Dunkirk who had to hang on until the evacuation, the first guys on Normandy Beach. But there’s a different kind of hell from bombs falling and bullets biting the poor GIs all around you while you pray to God for the first time since you were five. There’s the hell you inflict. I was always taught that killing was the worst thing you could do. It isn’t. That’s simple math: him or you. No. Feeding this—” he looked around at the sterile walls, the calm demeanor of the general’s aide—“that is the worst.”

  “You don’t have to go on,” Allison said.

  Largo didn’t seem to hear her. He was looking ahead but he was somewhere else. “Cutting a man apart, dissecting him with a Swiss Army knife . . . that’s hell. One kind of hell for him, of course. He was just the sap who happened to know something you needed to know and then, in a show of courage or patriotism or loyalty to his buddies or maybe to prove something to himself—he decides to not share that information. So you take an earlobe. Or a fingertip. Or a toe. Eventually all of those and more. You have to take him past a threshold when there’s so much pain he’s talking only because his brain is running loose, like a dog in the backyard. Only you have to do it with your hand on his mouth so his screams don’t carry. Only when he calms down for a moment do you dare lift a finger and ask him again. When he finally tells you, when you’re sure he’s giving you accurate information, then you stick the knife in his chest out of pity.” Largo laughed. His hands began to shake. “Only the blade’s too short to reach his damned heart so you have to choke him. You don’t realize how hard you’re squeezing until there’s blood in his mouth, between his teeth, like he’d just bitten a strawberry. Even cut up like pork at a souvlaki joint, he’s struggling to live! He has maybe four working fingers between his two hands and they’re beating at you. His legs with his toeless left foot are kicking. His one working eye is glaring like something out of a Frankenstein movie. I don’t think he was in hell. He was in pain, but that’s not the same thing. I often wondered, driving my milk truck, what that German sentry outside the submarine pens was thinking after he told me when extra security had been called for. I think he was probably thinking of home—a wife, a mother, a pet . . . I don’t know. But I suspect that he was alive in those moments. Very alive and somehow content.” He finally looked at Allison. “Do I look content? Was I ever really happy again?”

  At some point Allison had broken her professional demeanor and taken his hand. They both realized it and he gently withdrew it.

  “I’m okay,” he smiled thinly. “The information I got out of him told me when it was likely the nuclear device was arriving.”

  At that, Allison noticed the aide’s head start slightly. He had been half listening, like they were Muzak; he was fully engaged now. The word had triggered a response, like he was software scanning the Internet.

  “I know the rest of the drill. I figured it out for myself,” Largo said. “What I did saved countless lives. I understood that. It’s easy to understand. There’s the math again. But that eye, the eye of a man, the eye of all men, the eye of God—or the Devil, I’ve never figured out which it is—never goes away. I read a book about the third eye, the inner vision we’re all supposed to have. Mine left the building.”

  “No,” Allison said firmly. “It was externalized. You started examining yourself instead of the world, and you never stopped.” She lowered her voice. She wasn’t accustomed to conducting analysis with an audience, and she had been half expecting this; Largo was a man who had repressed everything that happened in the war though its branches had infused everything since. “No human being can exist outside the world. When we cocoon ourselves, we effectively stop living. You felt different coming down here, didn’t you?”

  “Different,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes. I was excited.”

  “By what? Just tell me what comes to mind.”

  “New scenery. Being home—yes, home,” he said, more to reinforce that notion. “This is where I was made. Where I grew. The relationships, the responsibilities. I was eager to meet you.” He grinned tearfully. “Not just someone new but someone young. Maybe a daughter. I don’t know. See what the missing pieces were like.”

  She took his hand again as he wiped his eyes with a sleeve.

  “Jesus,” Largo said. “Where did all that come from?”

  “You plugged it at a submarine pen in 1944.”

  As if by magic—in fact, via Bluetooth—the young aide was informed that the general was free. He informed the visitors and the door buzzed open. He did not look at them after making the pronouncement. Apparently, they weren’t concealing anything or bringing something actionable.

  Largo leaned toward Allison as he collected himself. “I saw Truman easier than this. And I got a piano recital.”

  “Did you?” she asked as they rose.

  Largo smiled wanly. He remembered having appreciated the gesture and feeling honored to be in a back room of the Oval Office, but it seemed a little flip under the circumstances.

  “Yeah,” he said. “The President played ‘Bye, Bye, Blackbird.’ ”

  SOUK EL ARBA DU GHARB, MOROCCO

  Mohammed was shaken awake by a firm hand on his shoulder.

  He hadn’t experienced that sudden jolt of wakefulness pouring in for over a year. It was a good feeling, like when he was bundled in a blanket on a wooden plank in the desert and the camp drill instructor, a man with facial scars, whose name they did not know, would kick him awake with the toe of his boot. It was dark then, just bordering on sunrise, and it was dark now—though bordering on Paradise, Mohammed thou
ght with a smile.

  He didn’t linger on the blessed past or the prospects of being in the brilliant presence of God and His Mercy. He sat upright and looked at the dark figure standing in the charcoal-dim paneling and fixtures of the office. The room was very cool and the door was still open. A gentle night wind was blowing through.

  “There is a meal on the desk,” a voice said softly. “Be quiet when you use the toilet—the back door is still open.”

  The man had obviously remained on guard the entire time. Mohammed looked at his wristwatch, which he’d put on the desk beside his gun and the cell phones the professor had given him. He had slept for nearly four hours. He could have slept many more but there was important work to do. He heard helicopters in the distance but no sounds coming from the roadway. There were insects and birds outside. They sounded the same as in Yemen; he wondered if they were the same everywhere. He had never missed not having an education beyond the basics of reading and writing and the Koran, though there were things like that he sometimes felt it would be useful to know—to identify a place by sounds, like he identified jeeps and trucks in the sand pits in the desert.

  He made his way through the dark to the bathroom—a curtained stall beside the office that had a toilet and a sink. Mohammed took his time washing his face, scrubbing his eyes, making himself alert, then came back and ate a breakfast of cold cereal, yogurt, and fresh berries. There was strong tea and it felt good to wash down the meal, to dissolve the lingering shroud of sleep.

  The man returned with a change of clothes for Mohammed. They did not speak. His host left again and Mohammed changed. He put on the jeans and a Western-style gray sweatshirt that had the name of a university on the front, in black letters. He heard clattering outside the office and saw the man wheeling a steamer trunk forward on a dolly.

  “I’m going to need your help,” he said.

  “Gladly. What can I do?”

  The man walked the trunk from the dolly and replied, “There are boxes of food coloring on the other side of the office. Bring them over, please.”

  Mohammed went to get them. There were two dozen boxes the size of a toaster. As he started bringing them over, four at a time, he heard the sound of tires on gravel in the back. That was the reason for the gravel: no one could approach without being heard. The man motioned Mohammed to be still and left to check on the visitor. He was holding a handgun, which he drew from inside the Windbreaker he was wearing.

  The vehicle approached without lights. Mohammed did not know if that was a good sign or bad. It turned out to be good, for the driver got out and chatted quietly with Yousef as they walked back toward the building. Mohammed continued bringing the small boxes to the trunk. There were sounds outside, gravel shifting, voices, grunts, and then the sound of the Nissan starting up. Mohammed stopped working and walked stealthily around the office toward the door. There was a minivan parked by the opening. It had consular plates from the Saudi Embassy in Rabat. The device was sitting on the ground beside it. Yousef turned and saw Mohammed.

  “The fewer faces you know and can identify, the better,” was all he said. “In case you are apprehended.”

  “I understand,” Mohammed said.

  “You will be leaving soon in this new vehicle,” Yousef told him as he opened the trunk wide. There was something lying under a thickly padded blanket. Mohammed did not ask what it was. “I will be driving. First, however, we must take your photograph, then go back and secure your treasure. Quickly, because there isn’t much time.”

  “My photograph?”

  “For a new passport,” Yousef said. “Saudi.”

  Yousef took the picture then brought the lead box to the steamer trunk, went back and got the X-ray apron, then eyeballed the room they would need to fill around it.

  My treasure, Mohammed thought as, under Yousef ’s direction, he went about the work of stacking the boxes. Men of accomplishment such as Professor Boulif and Yousef were complimenting him. Everything in his life, everything God had caused to happen, all the sorrow, had been leading to this. To this pinnacle that would not just be the crown of his life but inspire countless generations to come.

  He wept with pride and gratitude as Yousef got a roll of bubble wrap and cut it into sheets that he spread alongside the boxes so that when his precious device was placed inside it would be secure.

  The vengeance of generations was pouring through him. He steadied himself, but inside he could not move fast enough, he could not get to his destination quickly enough—he could only savor, in his mind, the glory of that final moment before he triggered the bomb. He wanted it to be here, now.

  He could hear the voice of his father, a police officer who died after being struck by a car when Mohammed was twelve, a car driven by a foreign official who paid no penalty for his crime. Yet now and then Mohammed still heard his father’s gentle voice. It was telling him now to be joyous, not frenetic. It assured him that the final and greatest adventure of his life had begun. It advised him to be humbled and uplifted and to pray for only one thing.

  That he be worthy of the task.

  MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

  The general’s office was exactly what Largo had been expecting: a large mahogany desk in front of a row of windows immersed in a sea of photographs, flags, some sports memorabilia, and models—missiles instead of the spy planes he was imagining. In his mind it wasn’t a dig but a reassurance that some things hadn’t changed.

  Dressed in civilian clothes since he was retired from the military, the general came around the desk, his gray eyes deeply lined, his half smile an effort. He greeted Allison, then clasped Largo’s hand warmly and showed him to another armchair—this time facing his desk.

  “It’s an honor to meet you,” Clarke said sincerely.

  “I’m grateful to be here,” Largo replied. “How’s the temporary state of things?—as we used to say.”

  “I like that,” Clarke said. “They’re a little slippery at the moment. I was just texting with your nephew. He visited you, I understand.”

  “He did.” Largo wasn’t sure how much he should say. He sat, waited to take his cue from the general.

  Clarke picked up a red-and-white football and gripped it tightly in his right hand, tapped it gently with his left.

  “If we’re intruding, General—” Largo said.

  “No, I’m glad to have you here,” he said. “Waiting for some intel—need to move a little.” He looked wistfully at Largo. “There are times, believe it or not, when the armchair generals like me envy the people in the field like you and Ryan.”

  “I know that, sir,” Largo replied. “No one I ever talked to about D-Day wished they were Ike making the go, no-go call.”

  “That’s the damn thing. It’s because other people are out there risking their lives and I’m not—” Clarke stopped, looked at Allison. “This is off the record.”

  “I’m not on psych profile duty today, General,” she assured him.

  He had stopped handling the football. He resumed now. He was clearly distracted. “And a situation like this, where so much depends on moving parts that haven’t been tested in a situation quite like this—”

  His computer beeped. He tossed the football to a leather couch on the side and went to the monitor. He tapped a button, looked down without sitting.

  “Dammit.” He exhaled angrily. He picked up the phone. “Get me Max Carlson.”

  “Do you want us to wait outside?” Allison asked.

  “Actually, no.” His eyes shifted to Largo. “Have you ever been arrested?”

  “No—”

  “Allison, your clearance is sufficient. Mr. Kealey, I’m reinstating your rank and raising your security to Level Three. I want you to hear this. You are aware, I believe, that your device is out there.”

  “Yes.” Largo didn’t take the general’s “your device” personally. He’d helped send it to the bottom of the ocean. He knew what Clarke meant.

  “It’s in the hands of a terrorist,” Cla
rke said. “In Morocco. He’s suddenly got help—”

  Max Carlson picked up. Clarke put him on speaker.

  “General, we’ve got nothing on this group named KOO,” he said. “Where did Kealey pick it up?”

  “I don’t know,” he checked a notepad. “He said it’s funded by a Saudi banker, Khalid Otiba, Otabi . . . he couldn’t quite get it.”

  “Khalid al-Otaibi? Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “The man’s a national treasure,” Carlson said, “an oilman turned banker. He’s one of the closest advisors of the royal family and one of the largest contributors to charities at home.”

  “Like the drug cartels in Colombia and the Mafia in Sicily?” Clarke said.

  “No,” Carlson replied. “He’s legit and he’s always been legit.” Clarke could hear the man typing. “He’s head of the Advisory Committee to the Supreme Economic Council, a board member of the International Chamber of Commerce, founder of the Saudi Electricity Company—which he funded with his oil billions—a trustee of Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University . . . the list goes on. Way on. He supports the Swimming for Clean Water events in the Gulf Coast, in the Pacific off San Diego, and in the Chesapeake. He’s got a world to lose if the whole thing goes south.”

  “Better to serve in heaven or reign in hell?”

  “No,” Carlson said emphatically. “He has everything he wants.” But his voice had lost a little volume, a little certainty.

  “How old is he?” Clarke asked.

  “Sixty-seven.”

  “I’m not quite there myself and I have everything I want, materially. Just not the esoteric stuff—” he looked at Allison. “The stuff that would show up on a psych profile if our friend Khalid ever took one.”

  Carlson was silent for a moment. “I still want to know where Kealey got this.”