It was 3:30 in the afternoon before Sheff finished what he considered a triumphant cross-examination, a work of art for which he was heartily congratulated by Archambault, Danson, and McGhee. He was about to say, “Bring on the next witness,” when he noted that the courtroom’s attention seemed to be focused on the witness box. Sheff followed the jury’s gaze. There was Turbee, arms resting on the lip of the witness box, head resting on his arms, quietly sobbing. Several jurors glared at McSheffrey in a hard, lizard-like way.
50
As the Cessna Citation was crossing the central Great Plains en route to Vancouver, Tyra couldn’t help but reflect on the path that led to this juncture in her life. She had hitched her wagon to the Matthew Finnegan roadshow when he was governor of Alabama and she was still with the CIA. The governor had received death threats from various Middle Eastern terrorist organizations—he had strong pro-Israel views—and had often advocated burning to the ground entire villages suspected of supporting terrorists. The CIA had offered up Tyra as a 24-7 protector, a chore at which she became wildly successful.
She was, at that point, exceptionally attractive and resourceful and proceeded to make herself indispensible. Whether he required a cup of coffee, or a brief on the salacious activities of some political opponent, she was able to provide it. Within two years he made a run for the presidency, but was demolished halfway through the primaries. Tyra remained faithful, worked for him sixteen hours a day, and with her many skills—acquired in the Army and the CIA—she became a behind-the-scenes whip of sorts.
Governor Finnegan’s marriage had been on the rocks for a decade, but he was fastidious at cultivating his image. The portrait presented for public consumption was that of a happily married, churchgoing couple with three young children, representing the essence of the American dream. The truth was that he despised the ground his wife walked on—a sentiment that was mutual. She went along with the portrayal for nothing more than monetary gain—he had several million dollars stashed away and she, through an intricate series of matrimonial contracts, had first claim to it all. In return, she played the role of doting First Lady.
Matthew Finnegan did something that was quite uncharacteristic of him—he fell in love with Tyra, although she had no capacity for love. To her it was an utterly alien concept, but she had no difficulty convincing him of the mutuality of the emotion.
By the time he made his second and successful bid for the White House, she was a fixture behind the scenes, but without title or position. Any time any risky undertaking was required, she was able to accomplish it. She often operated outside the law, but she always covered her tracks. He didn’t ask questions and she knew he had the power of pardon. While CJ was the president’s political fixer, Tyra fixed what CJ couldn’t.
The president’s code of moral conduct was somewhat expansive, and he had no difficulty lining his pockets with various forms of monetary gain that were the residue of his many edicts. His wealth was cloaked by an intricate series of trusts and holding companies in offshore jurisdictions. The vastness of his misappropriations matched the lootings of any African monarch. Tyra was caught up in the tailwinds, and she, too, became spectacularly wealthy. She had also hidden her gains through byzantine networks of corporate vehicles in tiny, obscure countries with ironclad banking secrecy laws.
The Afghanistan play was by far their most precarious gambit, and between its initiation and fruition sat a Canadian judge who had clearly delaminated long ago, and a conflicted terrorist who for some mystifying reason had developed a conscience. Courtroom 401 was threatening to become the confessional. With Dan Alexander having performed a very public face-plant, the skills of Tyra, the fixer, were called for.
The sleek Citation coasted to a halt at South Terminal, the private terminal complex at Vancouver International Airport. It discharged eight passengers: Tyra, her two senior CIA operatives Ron and Keith, and various foot soldiers. All carried diplomatic passports. All carried large hockey equipment-size duffel bags that contained an astounding range of weaponry, everything from handguns to explosives to fully automatic rifles. Three of them contained specially tweaked Barrett M82 sniper rifles, probably the most accurate sniper rifle on the market, coupled with a military issue Nightforce Optics NXS-M scope. When married together, these items created the most sophisticated, accurate sniper rifle in existence—good in the hands of an accomplished operator for consistently striking a bull’s eye at 1,500 feet.
One of the duffel bags contained snap-together components for a Raytheon weaponized M17 Sentry drone. It was outfitted to carry a M32 multigrenade launcher. The high-tech weapon had been thoroughly tested at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground; from 100 feet it was as accurate as a sniper from 1,000 feet. In any event, accuracy is not a critical parameter when grenades are employed.
They zipped through customs with enough weaponry to start a war, rented two large vans, and sped off to the American consulate on West Pender Street, some ten blocks from the courthouse. The consulate was a large and complex structure, and with the many visa, trade, and immigration issues that existed between the two countries, more than 500 people worked there. The consulate had a law enforcement hub where members of the FBI, DEA, ATF, ICE, and other agencies worked with their Canadian counterparts. It also housed a substantial armory, a requirement for all American consular offices around the world since 2001.
There were a number of suites that were part of the complex, and the eight agents were put up there without any difficulty and without attracting attention. Having established a base camp, Tyra went to the courthouse to reconnoiter. It was 3:00 p.m. and court was still in session.
51
It was 4:05 in the afternoon and the cream of Inverness McPhail International were at counsel table alongside McSheffrey, et al. Dana had a yellow legal pad out and was nervously flipping through the four volumes of case law that had been provided to her. Judge Mordecai strode in.
The judge looked at McPhail as the clerk handed him the complex legal argument. He flipped through it and while he said it away from the microphone, the lip read was easy. “Jesus Christ,” he swore. McPhail didn’t care. They had advised their client, a large DC law firm that represented the president whenever he was sued, which was often, that the application in front of Mordecai would be unsuccessful, and they were really playing to the Court of Appeal. In fact, McPhail’s firm had already prepared most of the appeal documents, on the basis that Mordecai would rule against them.
“May it please the court,” McPhail began.
“It doesn’t,” Mordecai responded.
McPhail ignored him and began reading his brief to the court. Dana was scribbling furiously, trying to follow the brief while looking up cases. He was over an hour with it. Judge Mordecai began playing pinball on his smartphone. McPhail motored along until 5:10, finishing with a flourish. “Those are my submissions, my lord.”
He sat down, looking expectantly at the bench. Other than his thumbs, Mordecai was not moving. Dana got up, cleared her throat, and began. “This is a—”
“I don’t need to hear from you, Ms. Wittenberg,” said the judge.
“But I’ve reviewed a lot of law and I am ready to go, m’lord.”
“Ms. Wittenberg, the phrase, ‘I don’t need to hear from you’ is code for ‘you win.’ Take the win before I get pissed off and change my mind. The application is denied.”
“What an asshole,” McPhail announced to his partners in a voice that was noticed by all. “We should report him to the Judicial Council. Playing a phone game while he’s supposed to be listening to the flow of the argument.” “He wasn’t listening,” Dana said with a twinkle, packing up her computers. “You really think you’re something now, don’t you?” McPhail scoffed. “You’re so dense you don’t even know when you’ve won.”
Dana ignored the remark and kept packing up. McPhail, however, wasn’t finished. “Here’s the notice of appeal.” Dana knew it was coming, but she still despaired. Her last trip
to the Court of Appeal had been more unpleasant than Mordecai at his nastiest.
“And here are the appeal books, our factum, and a brief summary. Have fun.”
Penn-Garrett had been pushed to counsel table by one of the sheriffs. He rolled past Inverness McPhail International and company. “Hey, Dana, I’ll do the Court of Appeal hearing for you.”
McSheffrey looked at Penn-Garrett. “Should we have a trauma team standing by for you?”
“You’re okay to do it?” Dana was worried about her mentor’s health.
“I’m fine, kiddo,” he said. “Just fine.”
George, Turbee, and Khasha were seated in the courtroom gallery. Richard was patrolling the foyer area. Zak was in the Wall Centre guarding Kumar. “You know,” said George to Dana as Dana came up the stairs with her briefcases, “I’m beginning to like this judge. Not nearly as dumb as he looks.”
“I don’t know, George,” said Turbee. “The longer Dan Alexander stays in jail, the more enraged he’s going to get. That’s the thing with people like Dan. They’re ‘get-even’ type of guys. At some point, we’ve got to get back home to the states, and then . . .”
“You worry too much, Turb,” said George. “Look at what we’ve done, and Kumar hasn’t even taken the stand yet.”
52
It was 9:00 p.m. in the central lounging area of the Wall Centre suite of rooms. Rather than room service, they had ordered pizza and beer (in Turbee’s case, root beer), and in the course of eating, the conversation turned once again to the Colorado attack and what was, with every passing day, more obviously looking to be a cover-up created by CJ’s inquiry and subsequent report.
“Maybe,” ventured Khasha, “rather than looking at how they did it, we should focus on the ‘why’ of it. Why cover up the fact that Yousseff was the chief architect of the attack?”
“Khasha, that’s obvious,” said Richard. “It’s geopolitical. Afghanistan is in the center of Asia, and we have a massive airbase—Bagram—there. If Yousseff kicks us out, either the Chinese or the Russians will get in. On the same day. It’s probably a question of whoever pays Yousseff the most, which means it will likely be the Chinese because they have money to burn.”
“Yousseff does not want his name associated with that terrorist attack,” added Zak. “I knew him well. He does not want to be branded by it. He made a few billion dollars and got out. He doesn’t want the name recognition of, say, bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He’s basically a businessman. If a few people die here and there, it’s not that big a thing. He just wants to do deals. You can’t do deals if you’re al-Baghdadi. If he thinks you’re in breach of a contract, he’ll burn you alive. Businessmen don’t like those kinds of implied terms in their contracts.”
“A few people dying here or there, Zak?” said Dana. “Come on. Twenty thousand died in that attack.”
“That’s exactly my point. It’s horrific. He does not want his name associated with it,” Zak responded.
“But the responses by Dan Alexander and the president still seem disproportionate,” Khasha continued. “The truth about Yousseff is bound to come out sooner or later, and when it does, the president and everyone around him will go down. Who takes that kind of risk for a ‘geopolitical’ reason? You know this president doesn’t give a damn about geopolitics. He has said as much. He’s almost pulled out of NATO, he’s flipped the bird to most of our major allies, like the UK, Germany, and Canada. Why risk a presidency over this? We’re missing something, Zak.”
The conversation was, as most beer conversations go, elliptical, drifting in and out of the question that Khasha posed. Why indeed.
Kumar had been sitting on a bar stool at the far side of the room. He had found the minibar and had been drinking. “He has a stake in it. That’s why.” The words were spoken softly and slightly slurred. Only Turbee heard him, but he did not want to interrupt the discussion. Twenty minutes went by and Kumar repeated the sentence.
Turbee walked over to Kumar. “What do you mean by that, Kumar? Who has an interest in what?”
“There is a company. The Afghanistan Development Corporation. We call it ADC. It has been given huge concessions by the government in Kabul. Oil. Gas. Uranium. Rare earth metals. Afghanistan is potentially a very wealthy little country, Turbee. Most people don’t realize that. All they see is desert and armies invading for the last 200 years. All they see is war.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“It’s who owns it. Yousseff has a string of companies and ownership hidden behind trusts, but he owns fifty-one percent of this company.”
“Who owns the rest of it?”
“That is the mystery. There is a company called Erbium166. It owns the rest.”
“Erbium166? That’s an odd name. Who owns it?”
“I do not know for sure. But I think Yousseff made a deal. He is very smart, and he could see that between what Zak had figured out and the digging that had been done by TTIC, he was exposed. He made the occasional comment about it, before he realized that I was no longer in his camp. I think it is possible that senior American officials have a piece of Erbium166. Along with other Americans who, you know, control things. But I can’t prove it.”
Turbee let that sink in and went back to the group. He relayed the information he had just learned from Kumar. The post-pizza chatter stopped cold. Richard broke the silence. “What did you say, Turbee? What did Kumar say? What . . .?”
Kumar was summoned to the central lounge and was peppered with questions for several hours. While he appeared to be somewhat affected by the alcohol he’d consumed, his tale remained consistent.
“So,” said George. “So now we know the ‘why’ of CJ’s report. Now we know why anyone who points to Yousseff’s culpability is instantly branded a conspiracy theorist. Now we know why you two, Zak and Richard, have apparently gone rogue. Senior political people have a personal piece of Afghanistan.”
“And that’s why Buckingham and the admiral and Liam are all in jail,” Richard added.
“Now we know why we’re fugitives,” said Turbee. “Why we’re all rogue and all of that.”
“Actually,” said Khasha, “we don’t know anything. We’ve got one very drunk terrorist with strange motives fingering the man who is trying to kill him. We have a bunch of thirdhand hearsay, and while it certainly explains a lot, we really are no further ahead.”
“If what Kumar says is correct, though,” said Richard, “we are all in danger. It sounds like ADC owns the rights to anything that’s valuable in an entire country. This is hundreds of billions of dollars. People kill for a tiny fraction of that. Face it, we all know that the president is a psychopath. I think he’s completely capable of doing something like this. And anyone who gets involved in deals like this will kill to protect their interests. We need to be very careful.”
“We don’t know the president’s involved,” said George. “That’s pure speculation.”
“Jesus,” said Zak. “Yousseff really has bought Afghanistan. He used the few billion he made from the terrorist attack to purchase an entire country. This is incredible.”
“He hasn’t just bought a country,” added George. “He’s created the mother of all conspiracy theories. That Colorado report is designed to deflect any accusations that might be made against him. This goes pretty deep, you guys.”
“We should figure out how we can prove this,” Khasha said. They discussed that topic for a while, considering various witnesses and documents they could gain access to. It was Turbee who stated the obvious. “I have a back door into TTIC’s supercomputers,” he said. “My laptop isn’t powerful enough to do what I need to have done. Tomorrow, let’s put together the most powerful computer that we can, George, and I can use that as a gateway into TTIC. We can start with Erbium166 and the ADC. We may be able to piece this together.”
53
Tyra and Keith were busy constructing the Raytheon M17 Sentry drone, which had been disassembled to fit into
duffel bags and make it through customs at South Terminal. Ron was assembling the three Barrett M82 sniper rifles and attaching the Nightforce Optics scopes. The sniper weapons had been perfectly sighted and set up at a gunnery range in Maryland; it was a simple matter of reconfiguring everything to the previous settings.
While still in Washington, DC, Tyra had booked the Four Seasons penthouse in Vancouver for a night and a half-day. She did this through an Amex account held by a CIA incorporated numbered company in the Bahamas. The penthouse was above the hotel’s regular floors and was not accessible through the normal guest elevators. Most people thought that the top floor was the highest number on the guest elevators. There was, in fact, a penthouse floor above it, accessible by only the service elevators. This suite had a balcony that faced west, toward the courthouse, and had an unimpeded view of the east end of the courthouse. Courtroom 401 was adjacent to the eastern outer wall of the building.
Robson Square was a large public area between the hotel and the courthouse. A large set of double doors connected the western edge of Robson Square with the eastern side of the courthouse. This foyer covered more than 50,000 square feet. Its glass roof sloped to the north, from a height of seven floors to two. It was a stunning architectural achievement, and was one of the must-see sites for tourists visiting the city. During adjournments, the public, lawyers, witnesses, and individuals interested in whatever legal proceedings were going on flooded the foyer and the terraces along the southern edge of the foyer that led to the courtrooms. Because of the location of Courtroom 401, the gallery emptied into the foyer and onto the west end of Robson Square. The distance from the Four Seasons balcony to the courthouse was 1,800 feet, slightly beyond the Barrett sniper rifle’s preferred range of 1,500 feet, but in the hands of a consummate expert, on a calm day, a doable range.
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