Two Steps Forward

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Two Steps Forward Page 33

by Luana Ehrlich


  “Will do. How about Yousef’s apartment? Should I send a team over there too?”

  “Yes. Clean out that apartment. The Ops Center will want to take a look at everything associated with Yousef.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  I paused a minute. “I’m sorry I have to ask you to do this now, Sean. I know losing Henry must be hard on you.”

  Quinn sighed. “He was a good man; one of the best, but he always told me when it was his time to go, he hoped he’d be doing something he loved and not rotting away in some retirement village.”

  “I’m glad he got his wish.”

  * * * *

  After I hung up with Quinn, I took a look at the French passport and cell phone I’d taken off Yousef’s body.

  The passport looked genuine except that Yousef Bakir was listed as a French citizen.

  The phone was a cheap throwaway.

  I figured the phone was in Ammar’s car when Yousef picked it up from the garage, or perhaps he’d purchased the phone in the last couple of hours.

  I didn’t find any calls on it. Only a couple of text messages.

  The moment I read them my heartrate jumped ten points.

  The messages had been sent to Yousef shortly before he walked in the Parliament Building and killed Henry Garrison.

  They’d been sent by someone in the Prime Minister’s office.

  They’d been sent by Salah Khalili.

  * * * *

  I immediately initiated the process to bring the Ops Center online, and a few minutes later, the video monitor on the wall at the end of the conference table in The Bubble came to life, and an image of the center console in RTM Center A pixelated across the screen.

  Carlton’s eyes were riveted on the monitor above his head showing the feed from one of our reconnaissance drones flying over the Parliament Building in Baghdad.

  However, as soon as my face appeared on the monitor next to it, Carlton quickly turned and focused his attention on me.

  “We’ve been waiting to hear from you,” he said. “In fact, when I saw your location on the Grid, I told Veronica you were stopping at the chancery so you could contact us from The Bubble.”

  “I was expecting you to go back to the Comms Center,” Veronica said, walking over to the center console. “Their equipment is much better than The Bubble. If you’ve got any video to show us, you won’t be able to do it from there.”

  “I don’t have any video to show you. There is no video, at least not as far as I know. Things happened too fast.”

  Carlton said, “Why don’t you tell us what happened, Titus. Let’s do it off the record. We’ll have an official version when you’re debriefed. Once you’re finished, then I’ll share some new intel we just received from Mossad this morning.”

  Although I went through what had happened from the moment we were introduced to Salah Khalili to when Yousef was killed by Kasim at the construction site, I didn’t tell him about the text messages I’d found on Yousef’s phone from Salah Khalili.

  I wanted to hear the new intel from Mossad first.

  I was hoping it would confirm what I thought the text messages were saying. Namely, I wasn’t as wrong about the identity of Yousef’s target as the evidence would seem to indicate.

  When I was finished giving them the chronology, Carlton said, “I know you must have been shocked when you realized Yousef had shot Henry. I think I speak for everyone here in the Center when I say you couldn’t have been any more surprised than we were. None of us had even considered Henry might be the target.”

  “Maybe that was a mistake,” Veronica said.

  I said, “I believe Henry must have played his role as the American Embassy’s senior political officer in Iraq a little too well. Evidently, he was well-known among the Iraqi legislators, and I suspect there were some in the Quds Force who thought Henry was such an important political figure his murder would mean the U.S. would consider pulling out of Iraq altogether.”

  Carlton shook his head. “If that’s true, then they totally miscalculated the U.S. response to Henry’s death, but when you hear the new intel I received from Mossad this morning, you may want to revise your thinking about Yousef’s target.”

  Carlton directed Veronica to pull up the image he’d received from his counterpart in Mossad, and then he told me about the phone call.

  “For the past week, Israeli intelligence officials have been working to enhance the video taken at the café in Ashkelon where Baran Asan met with Yousef Bakir and Hisham Elba. No doubt you recall after Elba left them alone, Asan took out his phone and showed Yousef something on it.”

  “Yes, we both thought it was probably a photograph of his target, but it was impossible to tell on the video.”

  “It’s still a little blurry, but Mossad was finally able to improve the clarity enough to see the image. As you can see, we were right, it’s a photograph, and I’m inclined to believe he was Yousef’s target, although I recognize Henry’s death today might cause some to question my assessment.”

  The photograph Veronica had put up on the screen was somewhat out of focus, but it wasn’t hard to identity the man from Baran Asan’s cell phone. It was the President of the United States.

  “I don’t question your assessment, Douglas,” Veronica said. “I just don’t agree with it.”

  Carlton made no comment.

  “Well, I agree with it,” I said, “and the new intel I have supports your assessment.”

  “You didn’t tell me you had new intel,” Carlton said.

  I told him about the passport and cell phone I’d removed from Yousef’s body, and then I took out the cell phone and sent the text messages to Veronica, who had her assistant display them on one of the video screens.

  I heard Carlton take a deep breath when he realized Yousef Bakir was in contact with Salah Khalili less than an hour before Garrison was shot.

  I said, “As you can see, Khalili sent Yousef the first text the moment we walked out of his office.”

  Khalili had texted, “Unable to confirm primary target will be arriving Baghdad on Tuesday. Secondary target available now.”

  Yousef had texted, “I’m fifteen minutes away.”

  Khalili had texted, “Plenty of time. Secondary target touring building. Use construction site entrance.”

  Yousef had texted, “Confirm. Will take out secondary target.”

  After reading the texts, Carlton looked over at me and nodded.

  Veronica said, “Well, this is certainly a game changer. This proves the President was definitely Yousef’s primary target, but when his stopover in Baghdad couldn’t be confirmed, Yousef received instructions to take out a secondary target.”

  “Unfortunately, Henry Garrison was the secondary target,” I said. “Khalili desperately wanted us to confirm the President was planning to visit Baghdad on Tuesday, but we put him off. I could tell he wasn’t too pleased about that.”

  Veronica looked over at Carlton. “I have to agree with you now, Douglas. The Quds Force definitely hired Yousef to assassinate the President, but in the end, perhaps a secondary target should have been considered.”

  Carlton said, “I don’t deal in considerations, Veronica. I deal in intelligence.”

  I silently applauded Carlton’s response and considered making one of my own, but then I thought better of it. Instead I said, “I’ve already contacted Sean Quinn and asked him to clean out Yousef’s apartment. I suspect Khalili was communicating with Yousef the whole time he was living there; either through his cell phone or through the owner at Waffir’s Market. He must have informed Yousef of the secondary target through one of those means.”

  “Do you think Khalili was supplying Yousef with the textbooks?” Carlton asked.

  “Yes, I think there’s a good chance of that. There were American textbooks on the shelves in Khalili’s office.”

  “Maybe that’s how he was communicating with him,” Carlton said. “When those textbooks arrive here at Langley, I�
��ll have our analysts give them a thorough inspection.”

  “I promised Ben I’d see him after his surgery, so unless you have something else, I’ll sign off now.”

  “When you see Ben, you can assure him the President’s plane won’t be making a stopover in Baghdad after all. He can stop worrying about his father being Yousef’s target.”

  “I’ll do that. I know he’ll be relieved.”

  Mitchell would be relieved, but showing it was another matter.

  Chapter 35

  When I arrived at the Al-Kadymia Hospital, I found Liz standing outside Mitchell’s room. She said the surgery on Mitchell’s leg had been successful, and the doctor seemed to think he could be discharged in two days.

  “He was still groggy when they brought him to his room,” Liz said, “but he asked me to be sure and give you his cell phone. He seems to think Abbas Alviri will get back in touch with him, and he said you’d know what to do when he called.”

  “Seriously?” I said, as I took Mitchell’s phone from her. “The guy took a bullet to his leg and just came through surgery. Now, he’s worried about making contact with his asset.”

  She laughed. “I know I haven’t been with the Agency that long, but I’ve heard some stories like that about you.”

  I changed the subject and gave her a quick synopsis of my video call to the Ops Center. A couple of minutes later, the nurse came out of Mitchell’s room and told us we could go in and sit with him.

  Since Mitchell wasn’t coherent enough to maintain a conversation, I suggested Liz take a taxi back to the apartment while I stayed at the hospital with him. Glancing down at her blood-stained blouse, she said, “You won’t get an argument out of me. I could use a shower.”

  A few minutes after she left, a hospital attendant came in with a tray of food for Mitchell. I pointed out he was completely out of it and probably wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon, but she just shrugged and left the tray anyway.

  Since I was starving, I tore the paper wrapping off the utensils, and devoured the first meal I’d eaten since breakfast.

  Just as I finished eating the dessert, Mitchell started waking up, so I quickly picked up the tray and placed it on the windowsill.

  “Hey, Titus,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position. “What’s happening? Where’s Liz?”

  “Maybe you should call me Warren. The name on your wristband identifies you as Corey.”

  “Oh, sure, you’re right,” he said, glancing down at his wristband. “My head’s still a little fuzzy.”

  “To answer your question. Liz went back to the apartment, but I thought I’d stick around here with you.”

  “Did she give you my phone? Alviri is supposed to call me this evening. If I’m still groggy, you may have to talk to him.”

  “Yeah, she gave me your phone, but after Alviri sees the news about the shooting, I doubt you’ll be hearing from him.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  He laid his head back down on the pillow. “I guess I blew it with him. I should have given him eight hours to get back in touch with me, not twenty-four hours. Maybe Henry would be alive if I’d done that. What was I thinking?”

  “You were thinking you didn’t want Alviri to feel under pressure and put himself at risk. You were protecting your asset.”

  He glanced over at me. “You don’t think I blew it?”

  “Not at all. I think you did everything exactly right with Alviri. In fact, I don’t think I could have handled him as well as you did.”

  He tilted his head and looked at me. “You’re not saying that just because I’m in the hospital, are you?”

  “No, Ben, I’m being sincere. I was planning to let you know you did a good job when we got back to Langley.”

  “You should probably call me Corey.”

  * * * *

  A nurse came in to check Mitchell’s vital signs, and after I heard him joking with her, I decided the anesthesia from his surgery had worn off enough for me to tell him about my video conference with Carlton and update him on the new intel we’d received.

  Once I told him about Salah Khalili’s communication with Yousef, and the role I suspected him of playing in Garrison’s death, he said, “If Khalili’s been working with the Quds Force, then maybe that’s how Baran Asan was able to become Prime Minister Madi’s bodyguard and join his security detail.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I figured Asan had bribed someone or maybe threatened them in some way. But, you’re right; as Madi’s chief of staff, it would have been easy for Khalili to assign Asan to Madi’s security detail and arrange for him to travel to the Arab Summit so he could eventually get from there to Israel.”

  Mitchell stared off in the distance for several seconds without saying a word. At first, I thought his silence was an aftereffect of the drugs he’d been given, but then he said, “I’m sure Henry had no idea Salah Khalili was working with the Iranians.”

  It was hard to miss the emotion in Mitchell’s voice when he said Henry’s name, but even so, I questioned whether it was a good idea for me to encourage him to talk about his death or not.

  He’d adamantly refused to talk about his feelings when Toby Bledsoe, his station chief in Costa Rica, was murdered.

  Instead, he’d gotten angry with me.

  “I don’t imagine Henry had a clue about Khalili,” I said. “From what I could tell, he tried to find the good in everyone.”

  “You’re right; that’s exactly what he did. When Douglas sent me to Baghdad to meet Alviri, I remember being surprised at how positive Henry was all the time. I felt good just being around him.”

  I kept quiet, hoping he’d say more about his feelings. After a few seconds, he looked up at the ceiling and said, “I’m really sorry Henry got killed today.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Seeing him die like that was really hard. It reminds me of the way I felt when I discovered Toby’s body at the resort near Puerto Limón.”

  We sat there for a few minutes without saying anything.

  When the silence became awkward, I tried to think of something to say, but I couldn’t think of a single sentence. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

  Finally, he looked over at me and smiled. “I remember after Toby died you tried to get me to talk about my feelings.” He paused a moment. “Is that what you’re doing now?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Okay, so I’ve talked about my feelings; I’m done now.”

  “I hear you. Speaking of feelings, I had a really bad feeling when I realized you weren’t following me when I was going after Yousef. I was afraid he’d killed you and Liz with his second set of shots.”

  I could tell Mitchell was relieved when he realized I’d changed the subject. “I’m pretty sure I would have been dead if I hadn’t moved at that moment. I guess you could call that my lucky move.”

  “So you’re saying it wasn’t so bad being shot in the leg?”

  He gave a short laugh. “Compared with the alternative, it wasn’t so bad, but I’m telling you, if I don’t get something to eat soon, I may die of starvation. How ironic would that be?”

  “How can you be hungry? You just got out of surgery.”

  “They removed a bullet from my leg; they didn’t remove my stomach. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re not hungry. Did you eat something while I was in surgery?”

  “Uh . . . I guess you could say that.” I gestured at the windowsill. “A nurse brought you some dinner, but . . . uh . . . I . . . kinda ate it.”

  “You kinda ate it? What sort of person steals food from a hospital patient?”

  * * * *

  I left Mitchell’s room and returned a few minutes later with a tray of food identical to the one the hospital attendant had brought him earlier.

  I’d found the attendant in another hallway still delivering trays to patients, and after I’d offered her a handful of dinars for a second tray, she’d willingly accommodated my request, quickly slipping the
money inside the pocket of her uniform.

  “How much did you have to pay for this dinner?” Mitchell asked after eating a forkful of quzi, a traditional Iraqi dish made with rice and slow-roasted lamb.

  Before I could respond, he said, “No, don’t tell me. Whatever you had to pay, it’s totally worth it.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was pretty good myself.”

  “Is there some reason you haven’t told me what actually happened to Yousef? When I was in the ambulance, you told me he was dead, but that was it.”

  “I also told you Kasim shot him.”

  “Well, if you did, I don’t remember.”

  I took Mitchell step-by-step through my encounter with Yousef at the construction site, but when I got to the part about him standing in front of me with a gun pointed at my head, Mitchell interrupted me.

  “What were you thinking at that moment?”

  “I was thinking I was about to die.”

  “What was that like?”

  “I was okay with it. In fact, I felt pretty calm.”

  “That seems weird.”

  I nodded. “Ten years ago when something similar happened to me in Afghanistan, I was anything but calm, but like I’ve told you before, after the experience I had in Tehran when I became a believer, a lot changed for me. I’m not saying I’m looking forward to dying, but when it happens, I know what’s waiting for me on the other side. Or rather, who’s waiting for me.”

  “You’re certain about it, that’s for sure. I have to admit I envy your confidence about the afterlife.”

  “As I understand it, anyone can have confidence about what happens after they die. I know I’ve said this before, but whenever you want me to show you the Scriptures that led me to have faith in Christ, I’ll be more than happy to do that.”

  “Yeah, you’ve said that before, and I’ve been giving it some thought.” He looked down at his bandaged leg. “After today, I may be giving it a lot more thought.”

 

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