Compromised

by Tom Saric

  “Ellen?”

  “Excuse me?” the voice turned curt and professional. “This is Officer Clarke. From Langley.”

  He gave himself a second to regain his composure. “What do you want?”

  Her voice was almost cheerful. “We’ve got good news for you. You can come back.”

  Paul stared out at the road in front of him, wishing Ellen would walk up to the car and they could drive away together.

  “Where?” he finally said.

  “To the United States,” she said. “Your posting in Somalia is done. You can come back home.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “We have a ticket waiting for you at the airport in Garowe,” she recited. “A passport will be waiting for you there and we’ll be at the airport in Washington to welcome you back.”

  He had always expected to feel sheer exhilaration when he was done in Somalia. He had been waiting for this news for a decade. It had meant so much to him, but now he felt indifferent.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah,” Paul said. “I’m here.”

  Why were they taking him back? Twelve hours ago they were trying to kill him, chasing him through the streets of Garowe. What changed?

  “What about Ellen?” Paul said.

  “Who?”

  Paul then realized that she didn’t know who Ellen was. He hadn’t told her. Maybe it was best for Ellen that the CIA didn’t know about her.

  “Why are you taking me back?” Paul said. “You were trying to kill me.”

  “Because,” She answered as though she had been expecting the question. “The mission is over. We’ve recovered the weapons, and you’ve done your job. We know that you were set up.”

  Paul held the phone to his ear as he turned the ignition. The Jeep’s engine heaved to a start. “Where’s Hadad?”

  “We don’t know. But Paul, rest assured, we’re going to find him, bring him in, and prosecute him.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.” Paul started up the road. “We had him in custody a decade ago, and your people let him go.”

  “That was then. Things are different now.”

  Paul rolled his eyes. Another crime unpunished. As far as the CIA was concerned, they had the weapons back and nothing else mattered. They didn’t care about Hadad, or VeritOil, for that matter. Did they know about the helicopter in the middle of the desert? Did they care?

  “What about John Daniels?” Paul said. “You know anything about him?”

  “Who?”

  “John Daniels, the CEO of VeritOil.”

  Paul’s initial impression of Bailey Clarke was that she didn’t fit in. She wasn’t like any of the men and women he had met in the CIA. She listened to him; she hesitated when he made an argument, instead of toeing the official line. He sensed that she believed him. Part of him suspected she was in the dark, just like he was.

  “What are you referring to?” she asked.

  She had no idea about the VeritOil connection. “Nothing, Officer Clarke. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Your flight leaves in six hours. You should get moving.”

  “I’ll be there in four.” Paul accelerated. “Officer Clarke, what’s your first name?”

  She hesitated. “Bailey.”

  “Bailey Clarke. Do you have a number where I can reach you? In case something goes wrong.”

  “Sure,” Bailey replied. “I’ll give you my cell number.” She recited the number and Paul wrote it on the cigarette box against the steering wheel.

  “Great,” Paul confirmed. “I’ll call you when I get in to D.C.”

  “No need. We’ll be waiting for you there.”

  Paul chuckled to himself. “I’ll call you when I get in.”

  Paul ended the call, threw the phone in the backseat and drove to Bosaso.

  25

  Ellen sat at the back of the sport fishing boat as it coasted into a port. She looked around desperately for something with which to orient herself. A row of harbor lights on the shore reflected orange lines onto the dark water. A set of cranes lifted containers off three cargo ships at the far end of the port. Men with hardhats directed beeping forklifts.

  No one seemed to notice the forty-foot boat slipping through the darkest part of the harbor. Two men, one old with a shaved head, and a young heavyset one, played rummy at a small table beside her, under the light of a small lantern. A third man, wearing a uniform jacket from a military she didn’t recognize, crouched on the edge of the boat, his elbow lodged in his knee and his chin resting on his palm, staring out at the landscape. In the dark, she could hardly make out their features. They spoke English, with American accents. They didn’t speak to her, though; they didn’t even do so much as sneak a glance. Yet, she sensed, they were aware of her at all times.

  She tightened the itchy wool blanket that lay over her shoulders, and struggled to make out the lettering on signs. She saw a seemingly endless row of rickety old boathouses in front of them.

  But nothing was familiar.

  She hadn’t seen Hadad since he dragged her onto the helicopter in the middle of the desert. Before she managed to get a look at anyone inside the cabin, a hood was thrown over her head, bindings snapped onto her wrists, and she was buckled into the seat. Earmuffs kept out any sound. The sensory deprivation robbed her of any sense of time. She sat in complete silence with her thoughts.

  The helicopter landed and took off two times, presumably to refuel. The third time, they boarded an airplane and flew for a long time. When the plane landed, a strong arm grabbed her shoulder and herded her out of the cabin and onto the tarmac. A warm, brisk wind whipped around, and she felt a cool, misty spray on her skin. She heard the faint sound of waves crashing in the distance. They had landed somewhere tropical, coastal. Before she could make any more speculations, she was herded into a vehicle, then moved to the fishing boat.

  Only when the boat had been moving at a tremendous speed for thirty minutes or so was the hood slipped off her head. Darkness all around. The moon was almost invisible behind clouds in the sky. A desk light inside the wheelhouse provided the only light.

  At some point on the journey over, Ellen recognized that the feeling of terror, the one that seemed to infiltrate her bones and spread, had slowly dissipated. She stopped conjuring up what-ifs and what-nows. Her mind slowed from its Ferrari pace to one that stopped on a single thought: she was going to die.

  She remembered a psychiatrist who had asserted during a lecture in medical school that fear is simply a physiological response. It’s evolutionary, the flight-or-fight response. Fear or anxiety, he said, was nothing more than wide-scale release of neurotransmitters in the fear centers of the brain. Once all of the neurotransmitters were released, the brain was no longer capable of experiencing anxiety in a given situation. It’s called habituation. No one can stay in a state of fear forever.

  She tried to understand why she agreed to switch the SIM card on Paul’s phone. Why did she believe the man with the pockmarked cheeks who had approached her on that scorching hot afternoon? If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be here, waiting to be killed. While Paul had lied to her, his lie seemed more defensible than hers. He hadn’t betrayed her. He was simply trying to move on with his life. Was there really anything wrong with that? She wondered how many times he had lied to her. He had been in Bosaso for six years before she showed up, and that would have given him plenty of time to polish his story.

  The vessel coasted into a boathouse and its headlight came on. By the look of the place, a boat hadn’t ventured inside for a long time. Crates were stacked against the walls, and two small windows were broken. Several planks were missing on the dock that lined three sides of the boathouse. The inside smelled of mildew and rotting garbage.

  The two men at the table collected the cards before jumping onto the dock and securing the boat. The man in uniform walked over to the table, picked up the lantern and held Ellen’s gaze for a moment before walking to the bow.

&nb
sp; It took a second longer to register than Ellen would have thought, but when the part of her brain that recognized faces put it all together, she was jolted out of her sense of calm. She hadn’t recognized him in the dark, but the lantern gave her a clear snapshot of the man’s pockmarked cheeks and bushy eyebrows. It was unmistakably him—the man who introduced himself to her at Café Americka as INTERPOL. The man who was convincing enough to make Ellen trick her boyfriend into giving a forged shipping manifest to pirates.

  He stepped off of the boat and onto the dock. His figure disappeared into the darkness of the boathouse. A tremble in her hands returned. She had been duped and the man with the pockmarks knew it. He seemed pleased at the confusion she wore on her face. That look in his eyes said it all, didn’t it? Thanks, it said, we couldn’t have done it without you.

  Ellen squeezed her eyes tight. How could you be so naïve? When she opened them, Kadar Hadad sat at the table across from her.

  “She will wait here with me,” Hadad called out to the men on the dock. “Tell me when he arrives.”

  The three men responded with quick ‘okays’ and walked up the dock. Their footsteps creaked against the old wood planks and became softer as they left. Hadad rested his elbows on the table and stared at the ground.

  He looked fragile; he was slightly taller than her and his bones seemed to jut out of his paper-thin skin. This was an internationally wanted terrorist? She had heard stories of Kadar Hadad before. She had heard of the bombings he orchestrated and his involvement in military operations across Africa. She had envisioned a taller, stronger man. Somehow, at this moment, he looked human.

  “I will not hurt you,” Hadad said, his eyes easing, reassuring.

  “What are we doing here?” Ellen said.

  “Waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “I am meeting someone,” Hadad replied, resting his cheek in his palm. “I will let you go soon. Don’t worry.”

  Ellen glared at Hadad.

  “You have done great work for Africa, Dr. Al-Hamadi.” Hadad leaned forward. “I respect that. We want the same thing for Africa, Doctor. Peace and prosperity. Equal opportunity. Am I correct?”

  Ellen nodded, suspicious.

  “And you came to Somalia to help people get there. But let me ask you, how long have people been doing this in Africa?” Hadad paused for a moment, then continued, “A long time. Centuries. What has it done? Nothing.” Hadad snapped his fingers sharply in front of Ellen’s face. She didn’t flinch.

  “I like to think I make a difference.”

  “You do, Doctor. I know you do.” Hadad nodded, knowingly. “To one, or two, or even one hundred. I know that. I was born in Sudan. My parents were killed in the civil war there when I was six years old and I went to Ethiopia, into an orphanage. The Child Benefit Fund. There were people there just like you, helping children like me. I remember a man named Rick, he worked there. He was a very nice man. He was from North Carolina. He taught me to speak English, to write. He told me about America, about the Tar Heels,” Hadad laughed. He stopped only when he met Ellen’s sharp stare. “We even made a business—we would go to the river nearby, pick up shells, make necklaces, and sell them to earn money for the orphanage. It was a happy time.” Hadad looked away and his voice roughened. “One day, rebels came into the village when we were picking shells and wanted Rick to give them the money we had. He wouldn’t give it to them. He looked them right in the eyes and said that it was for the children in the orphanage. So they shot him dead. Then they destroyed the orphanage. Everything gone in one day. All the work all of those people did was gone like that.”

  His mouth hung half-open. His mind was still there, thinking about that time in his life.

  “And that’s why I do what I do,” Hadad said, snapping out of it. “Because to make a change, we need to stop those people who don’t want peace.”

  “By killing more people?” Ellen said, her tone sharp.

  “I learned that the only way to stop them is for someone stronger to come in.”

  Ellen furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

  Hadad smiled. “Someone who can fight and squash them. Not a rebellion or peacekeepers. We need someone to invade to restore order so that you people, you humanitarians, can work safely.”

  “You mean an army?”

  “The United States Army, to be exact. If they invade, then order can happen, and we can have a peaceful country in Somalia. But the U.S.A. will only invade if they see a danger to themselves. So, I create the danger. Like Nairobi. But that wasn’t big enough for them.” Hadad waved his arms in the air. The look in his eyes suddenly seemed disconnected. “They need something bigger, something more dangerous. So that is what will happen.” Hadad smiled. “We will both have what we want when this is over.”

  “I don’t want innocent people killed so you can cause a war,” Ellen said, reaching out and clutching his arm. “Please don’t.”

  Hadad took her forearm and released her grip. He rose and moved towards the edge of the boat. “Tomorrow, we will change the world.”

  Hadad turned and stepped onto the dock. Ellen’s fingers were clenched white against the edges of the blanket. She heard her father—the Syrian immigrant, the armchair politician, the man whose opinion she rarely took without a heaping portion of salt: It is a dangerous person who believes that killing is ever justified.

  Ellen threw the blanket off her shoulders and watched Hadad walk up to the front of the boathouse, joining the other three men. Their cigarettes glowed in the dark.

  She climbed the stairs that led to the wheelhouse. It was dark inside. She felt around with her hands, spilling papers and clipboards and pens to the floor. Her fingers stumbled upon a radio, and she picked up the receiver. Her hands were so clammy it slipped out of her palm twice before she managed to press the transmit button.

  “Mayday, mayday,” she whispered. “Help.”

  No static. Nothing. The radio was dead. She twisted the knobs and pressed switches but the indicator lights stayed off.

  Ellen dropped the receiver and pounded down the stairs. She rounded the corner and stopped at the top of the ladder that led below deck. She swept her sweaty hair off her forehead and stepped down into the dark room. She felt around for a light switch or a flashlight but found nothing. She felt around the walls, spilling a can of something wet and slippery onto the floor. Her hands came across a rough metal item. She ran her hands along the object, it was heavy and it curved into a sharp point at the end.

  She gripped the end of the hook between her middle and ring fingers and held it by her side. She bent down by the edge of the boat and jumped over onto the dock. A streak of yellow from the security light outside ran along the dock, so Ellen made straight for the shadows by the wall. She pressed herself tight against a joist, hoping she was shielded from view. Her heart thudded against her ribcage.

  She poked her head out and looked towards the entrance. The four men had moved outside and faced the road that ran in front of the boathouse. Ellen stepped out and walked along the wall until she reached the front door. She crouched behind a stack of empty Budweiser crates. She heard mumbling outside, but couldn’t make out what the men were saying. She looked through a gap between the planks on the walls. The two men who had played rummy were less than five feet away, while the pockmarked man and Hadad paced, crisscrossing in front of the boathouse.

  A loud engine and blinding light came up the road, and Hadad put his forearm over his face. A SUV pulled up in front of the boathouse, killed its engine, and the headlights turned off. Three doors swung open; three men wearing sleek leather jackets stepped out. They walked up to Hadad and his men, motioned for them to spread their arms and legs, then quickly frisked them. The pockmarked man initially refused, so one of them spread his arms out for him while the other efficiently patted him down.

  When they had finished, they nodded towards the SUV, and a large, barrel-chested man pulled himself out. He wore a wide-open fishing ve
st. Ellen guessed he probably couldn’t zip it up if he tried. His thick beard nearly reached his eyes, obscuring most of his facial features, and a baseball cap worn low cast a shadow over his eyes. He walked up to Hadad and offered his hand, which Hadad took. Ellen strained to hear what they were saying.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here on time,” the man said, in a gruff American accent. “That’s a hell of a journey to make across the pond.”

  Hadad nodded. “SEALs came sooner than you said. All my men were killed. I barely escaped.”

  The man stepped towards Hadad. He was a half-foot taller. “I don’t give a shit what happened to your men. Where is the weapon?”

  “I have it. It’s on the boat.”

  “Go get it.” The man pointed towards the boathouse with his thumb.

  Ellen shifted behind the crates. Her heart pounded all the way to her neck. She gripped the hook tightly.

  But Hadad didn’t move. He stood in front of the man wearing the fishing vest, shaking his head.

  “What the fuck is this? You don’t understand English?” The man pointed at Hadad.

  “You owe me money for it.”

  The man bellowed a laugh. “You think I have a suitcase with two-mill in the trunk? What do you think this is, Kadar? You’ll get your wire transfer once I see the goods. Go and get it.”

  Hadad skulked back towards the boathouse. Ellen rose just a bit so she saw the doorway. She held the hook in her hand. She trembled with anticipation. She kept thinking, you justify killing anyway you want. You are the murderer.

  All Ellen Al-Hamadi saw before she lifted the hook high above her head was a large shadow cast against the wall, but she still didn’t miss. The power with which she swung it down surprised her. Even more surprising, when she would look back later, was that she didn’t have an ounce of hesitation as she did it.

  The hook cracked through Kadar Hadad’s skull and lodged itself inside his brain. He let out a horrible shriek and collapsed onto his side on the dock. His teeth clenched and the left side of his body jerked a few times. Blood streamed out of the hole in his skull into a puddle around him. It dripped off the dock, into the black water.