Targets of Opportunity

by Jeffrey S. Stephens

  And so they did, waiting in the heart of the capital until Byrnes’s team decided where to send them next.

  ————

  Rasa had cried herself into a fitful sleep. A loud knock roused her and she stood, straightened out her skirt and blouse, then opened the door. Deputy Director Mark Byrnes introduced himself and his assistant through an interpreter, then the three of them walked past her and sat around the small table in the corner of the room. Rasa locked the door and joined them.

  “Forgive me if I seem abrupt, Mrs. Jaber, but my time is limited and I must get right to the point.”

  Rasa nodded, her dark gaze focused on the man across from her. She struggled to follow his English since she had a reasonable facility with the language, and she did not want to rely completely on the interpreter.

  “We know you have come here to be with your husband.”

  Again she nodded.

  “We also know that your escape from Iran was interrupted by the authorities, and that you were in custody for several days.”

  She did nothing to disguise her surprise. Even after all these years of marriage to Ahmad she did not understand the breadth and depth of international espionage. She simply could not fathom how her arrest in Marand could be known to these Americans. “Yes,” she said in English.

  “We must assume that your release is part of some scheme by the Iranian government, or the IRGC. You understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What agreement did you make to secure your release?”

  Rasa blinked several times. “Agreement?”

  “Mrs. Jaber, we know that you are not directly involved in your husband’s business, but there must have been some trade or concession that you made for them to allow you to leave their custody and travel into Iraq.”

  She appeared genuinely confused. “Only that I would see my husband.”

  Byrnes stared at her, waiting.

  Rasa shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and then tears again began to well up in her ebony eyes. “Ahmad deserted me. I did not know he was coming to the United States. I have to see him again, to look at him and to ask him why. Do you understand?”

  Byrnes said nothing.

  “They imprisoned me. They might have killed me. They showed me photographs of Ahmad with Americans while I was abandoned to these, these, men. Men who subjected me to great indignities, who treated me as if I had betrayed them when I did nothing. Knew nothing.” Her voice grew angry. “I want to understand. I want Ahmad to tell me how he could have left me to such a fate.”

  “And these men allowed you to simply get in your car and drive out of Iran, knowing you would defect?”

  “Yes,” she said, her tone making it clear that she felt this was as obvious as it could possibly be.

  Byrnes shook his head impatiently. “I ask you again, why? What did you promise them?”

  “Promise them? I promised them nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jaber, I think you’re a liar.” Byrnes stood, followed by his aide and the interpreter.

  Rasa remained seated. “I am not a liar. I came here to see my husband. I demand to see Ahmad.”

  “Demand? Well,” Byrnes said, “whether you will or will not be allowed to meet with him remains the issue, but unless you agree to tell us the truth you will stay here, under guard, until we decide what is to be done with you.”

  Rasa stood now, a horrified look on her face. She stepped forward to confront Byrnes. “You are just as bad as they are. You are all the same.”

  Byrnes did not reply. He opened the door, and Rasa saw a uniformed officer standing in the hallway. Byrnes turned back to her and said, “Your fate is very much in your own hands, much as it was in Marand. Your husband’s fate as well. When you are ready to speak truthfully with me you can let this gentleman know,” he said, pointing to his man in the corridor. “Until then, you will be confined to this room.”

  Byrnes closed the door and headed down the hall to the elevator.

  “You really don’t believe her?” his agent asked.

  Byrnes sighed. “I believe she knows very little, that much is true, but there’s something she’s not ready to tell us. That’s what we need to get from her.”

  “Do you have any idea what it is?”

  “Yes,” Byrnes said, “I believe I do.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  THE TWIN-ENGINE KING Air is among the safest and most reliable of the classic-style prop jets. As the pilot banked his approach, he went through the LCD checklist posted above the familiar instrument panel.

  “Easy as parking a car,” he said as he lowered the landing gear.

  His copilot nodded, then radioed their arrival to the ground crew at Coulter Airfield, a small airstrip just outside Bryan, Texas. After getting confirmation he looked over his shoulder to the two men in the small cabin. “Almost there,” he told them.

  It was a cloudy afternoon, with a slight crosswind, but the landing was smooth. The plane taxied to the end of the runway and turned left, where it came to a stop in the area designated for private aircraft. The copilot made his way into the cabin to open the hatch and drop the folding steps.

  “Right this way.”

  The two passengers followed him onto the tarmac. They were attired in crisply pressed slacks, sport coats with open-neck shirts, expensive loafers, and dark sunglasses. They were tanned and well groomed, one sporting a full beard, the other a mustache. Each was a little too thick around the middle, having the overfed look of prosperous businessmen in their late forties. They carried their own overnight bags as they followed the copilot into the small terminal. They were met there by an attractive young woman who greeted them with a warm smile.

  “Welcome to Bryan,” she said. “Didn’t have you on the manifest today.”

  “Hurricane coming,” the pilot replied as he entered just behind them, then offered her his flight plan. “I’ll be happy to get back up to Lawrence.”

  “Kansas,” the girl said as she looked over the paperwork.

  “Yeah, lucky to get in and out of here before this squall hits,” the copilot said. What he did not tell the girl was that they actually took off from a small airfield northwest of Monterrey, Mexico, with a scheduled landing at the Love Field airport outside Dallas. Once they crossed the border, they circled north and set down at this tiny strip in Bryan.

  “Weather’s not so bad yet,” the young woman replied cheerfully.

  “Calm before the storm,” the pilot replied.

  The bearded man stepped forward. “Could we get some help? We have a few things on board and want to get on our way.”

  “Of course,” the girl said, then picked up her two-way radio and summoned the baggage handlers. They were a couple of college students working part-time at Coulter Airfield, which was neighbor to Texas A&M just up the road. It was a quiet day, and the two stocky boys arrived, received their instructions, and set about removing the contents of the King Air and placing them on a motorized skid.

  There were four large wooden boxes on the plane.

  “Be careful there,” the pilot said. “Electronic equipment.”

  In fact, the two larger crates held the disassembled components of programmable underwater conveyance devices. The smaller containers were packed with foam that protected, at the center of each, a lead-lined enclosure housing an RA-115-01—a submersible nuclear suitcase bomb.

  “This is some heavy shit,” one of the boys said as the pilot and passengers supervised the unloading.

  “I’ll say,” his friend agreed.

  The pilot said, “New systems for monitoring the weather. Weighs a ton and packed tight.”

  The first handler let out a laugh. “Weather? Are you kiddin’? Just look out the window if you want the weather. I heard someone say if you just tell ’em tomorrow is gonna be same as today, you’re gonna be right two days outta three. What the hell? Guys on TV are wrong more’n half the time.” He uttered a loud chortle. “
You’re better off to take your electronic shit here and play music on it.”

  His coworker obviously thought this was one funny routine. “I’ll say,” he finally blurted out through his laughter. “Play music on it.”

  The passenger with the mustache was standing off to the side. He forced a smile that rapidly turned to a grimace when the two burly young men mishandled one of the smaller packages. “Careful,” he told them.

  “Sure is heavier than it looks,” the first kid repeated as he positioned the last box alongside the others. “That all of ’em?”

  “Yes, that’s everything. We’ll handle our own luggage.”

  “You sure?” the kid asked. “Same price either way.”

  The man told him they were sure, bid the crew of their flight good-bye, then he and his bearded companion took a walk past the side of the building, watching as the young men guided the slow-moving tractor to the edge of the runway, where a sixteen-wheeler awaited them.

  “Lotta truck for just these here boxes,” the young man observed.

  “You know, you’re kind of a talkative type,” the passenger said, but the bearded man interrupted.

  “You just set those on the ground, our men will take it from here,” he said. The boys removed the crates from the skid. Adina’s man tipped them and sent them on their way.

  Two men then climbed out of the truck and set about carefully lifting the boxes and placing them in the trailer. The boxes containing the underwater pods were loaded in the back. The other two, holding the nuclear weapons, were secured in a specially lined chamber they entered through the side.

  Meanwhile, the two men who had arrived on the flight climbed through another side door into a forward compartment in the trailer that was fitted out with seats and other amenities. Once aboard, they closed the door behind them and began to remove their clothes, the facial hair they had glued on, and the padding they had wrapped around their stomachs. By the time they were done they looked twenty years younger.

  They were two of the men who had murdered Seyed Asghari and destroyed Ahmad Jaber’s home in Tehran.

  “That stupid kid pissed me off with all his talking,” said the first man, called Francisco. “I wanted to put a bullet in his head.”

  Luis was slightly taller and thinner. “I would have taken them both out. And the girl too.”

  Francisco shook his head. “Adina is right, less chance of trouble without three locals disappearing.”

  Luis grudgingly agreed. “Let’s just get the hell outta here. I feel like we’ve been babysitting these things for a month.”

  Over the past several days Francisco and Luis had shepherded their cargo from Kazakhstan through Turkey by ground, then on a series of private planes that took them to Indonesia, Caracas, Cuba, and then to Mexico. There they boarded the King Air, flying the circuitous route that took them well north of the border until they could circle southeast again toward this small airstrip in Texas. Their angle of approach had been intended to give the impression it had begun as a domestic flight. The pilot and copilot had already gotten back in their plane, preparing for the short flight to the Dallas airfield.

  The Venezuelans in the truck were not staying around to see them off.

  Francisco said, “All we’ve got to do is head south, get set up, then wait.”

  The door to their compartment opened and one of the drivers said, “We’re all set.”

  Luis nodded as the door was shut and locked. A few moments later the truck’s gears made a loud sound and they began to move. “Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait too long,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  ST. BARTHÉLEMY, F.W.I.

  AS ALWAYS, JORDAN Sandor began his day early. It was still pitch dark inside his beachfront villa at the Guanahani resort. He checked his watch, not yet five. He moved quietly as he sat up, not wanting to disturb Stefanie as she slumbered peacefully, facedown beside him.

  The air was balmy and the ceiling fan provided the soothing feel of a gentle breeze, their sheets having been tossed to the floor sometime during the night. As his eyes adjusted in the darkness he enjoyed another look at her, examining the curves of her ass, the firm athletic legs, the smooth contours of her back and shoulders. He was tempted to lean over and kiss her neck, but he knew where that would lead. For now he needed to take care of business, so he slid off the edge of the low platform bed, grabbed his cell phone and Walther from the nightstand, then stepped noiselessly into the bathroom and silently closed the door behind him.

  He hit the speed dial, waited, then said, “Sandor.”

  Byrnes picked up the call on the third ring, obviously rallying from a dead sleep, but still managing a sarcastic “Really?”

  “Good morning to you too, sir.”

  The Deputy Director cleared his throat. “Don’t you ever sleep, Sandor?”

  “Tried it once, didn’t like it all that much. Look, I think I’ve done all I can here. I’ll be more useful back in the States.”

  “You’re probably right. I was going to call you this morning at some civilized hour. What about this Jorge character? Didn’t you say he has to check in with Adina again today?”

  “So he claims, but our team is working with the French now; they can get it done. Lieutenant Vauchon is a good man, he can supervise the next contact. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Jorge gave some sort of warning signal in that call yesterday. I don’t believe we’re going to even get the call through today. As for Jorge, I just don’t think he knows a goddamned thing.”

  “What if you can get the call through today and your friend Jorge takes a run at some other coded alert? Is Lieutenant Vauchon going to be as, uh, persuasive as you are about the likely consequences?”

  Sandor smiled. “You’re not suggesting I would threaten a prisoner, sir? Violate the Geneva Conventions? Take advantage of a situation just because I have an admitted terrorist in custody and innocent lives are at stake?”

  “Do me a favor, Sandor, save the stand-up routine for someone with a sense of humor. What about it?”

  “Lieutenant Vauchon lost some friends in Fort Oscar,” Sandor replied. “He was also the man in charge of security that night. He’ll be incredibly convincing if he needs to remind Jorge that his cooperation is a matter, as they say, of life and death.”

  “All right. Meet with your team and Vauchon, then clear out this morning.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Sandor paused. “I’d like to get to Houston as soon as possible. Everything is pointing there.”

  “I agree. The intel is sketchy, but that seems to be the target.”

  “So, should I head directly there?”

  “Not yet. We’re already mobilizing on several levels, but first I want you back here.”

  “In D.C.?”

  Byrnes told him about the arrival of Rasa Jaber in Washington. He also told him that the traces begun by Leo and his tech boys on the satellite phone links may have yielded information on Adina’s movements.

  “That’s great,” Sandor said, “but you don’t need face time with me to handle those leads.”

  “Thank you for telling me my job, Sandor, and no, I don’t need any more face time with you than I’m absolutely forced to deal with. The Director, however, feels it might be useful to get you in here to answer some questions about your assault of a reporter at the Times.”

  Sandor knew he would be in for it with Walsh on this one. “What a bunch of happy horseshit. We’ve got serious issues to handle and the Director wants to talk about a creep who might’ve put my men’s lives at risk for a byline? Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I’m not kidding you, so save your righteous indignation for someone it might impress because there’s another reason I want you here.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We had a back-channel communication about Bergenn and Raabe,” he said, but before Sandor could ask a single question, he said he was not going to discuss it now, not even on a secure line. He ordered Sandor to saddle up and
rang off.

  Since his escape from North Korea, Sandor had kept his focus on the mission before him, but he also struggled with his responsibility to the men who were left behind in the DPRK. Sandor was their leader and when he was finished with this assignment he would return to Pyongyang if that’s what it took to bring back Craig Raabe and Jim Bergenn. For now he knew that any communication Byrnes received was better than no word at all, since it likely meant the two Americans were still alive. The best part was that his ploy with that little weasel at the Times might be working.

  He took a deep breath, then called Leo.

  “This is the second day in a row you woke me up, you know that?”

  “Gee,” Sandor replied, “and I can’t begin to tell you how bad I feel about it,” then explained what was going on and arranged to meet him at Villa du Vent.

  Next he called Vauchon, who, being in the military, was already up. He explained that the Frenchman was going to have to do without him for at least a couple of days. They also agreed to meet at the villa.

  After next placing a call to Langley to organize his transportation home, he shaved, took a hot shower followed by a cold deluge, then dried and wrapped himself in a towel and let himself back into the bedroom.

  By now, early rays of sunlight were filtering through the narrow openings of the cream-colored drapes, and he found Stefanie sitting up in bed. She was resting against a couple of pillows, long dark hair framing her lovely face, her eyes the color of the sea. She had replaced the sheets, which were now pulled demurely to her neck, and she was drinking a glass of the Champagne they had left unfinished in the silver bucket on her nightstand.

  All in all one helluva picture, he thought.

  “Well,” Sandor said with an approving nod. “Did you know that Winston Churchill began every day with a glass of Champagne?”

  She smiled, then went about pouring him what remained in the bottle.

  Sandor sighed. “I’m not sure that’s the best way for me to start my day,” he said.

  “C ’est parfait,” she protested with an amused pout as she held out the crystal flute.