Three Weeks in Washington, page 29
part #3 of Titus Ray Series
“Gladys was an incredible woman.”
His face turned somber. “Today’s the anniversary of her death.”
I didn’t say anything, and for a minute or so, we both remained quiet. It wasn’t an awkward kind of quiet. It was more like a brief interlude of silence in honor of her memory.
Finally, I looked over at Carlton and said, “I wouldn’t have made the chili today if I’d remembered this was the anniversary of her death.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Gladys would have thought that was very appropriate. For some reason, she really liked you. The fact that she gave you the recipe just proves that.”
He picked up his legal pad, tore off the top sheet where he’d scribbled down a few notes, and said, “I might go downstairs and try some of your chili now; see how it compares with hers.”
I watched him as he walked over to the paper shredder.
“I hope you won’t be disappointed.”
He stood there a moment, watching the shredder do its work.
When the grinding stopped, he said, “Gladys wasn’t afraid of dying. She believed her soul would just leave her body—she always called it her earth suit—and she’d arrive in heaven with a new body. I told her she would need a lot of faith to believe that, but she said she only needed a small amount of faith, as long as it was in the right person.”
“That sounds about right. My faith is pretty small, but I know it’s in the right person.”
He walked back over to the table. “Until you lived in Tehran with those Christians, you never talked about your faith. Since then, it’s become a big deal to you.”
“That’s because it is a big deal. People usually like to talk about what affects them. That’s why I talk about my faith now, and that’s why you talked about Gladys tonight. She was a big deal to you. She was an important part of your life.”
“You were the one who brought her up.”
“Aren’t you glad I did? When I asked you about that photograph, it gave you an opportunity to remember the good times you had with her.”
“I knew that’s what you were doing all along.”
“Of course you did.”
Later, when Carlton went downstairs and sampled a bowl of the chili, he said, “It’s a close second to the chili Gladys used to make, but next time, you should add more salt.”
Chapter 38
Thursday, July 2
After spending a restless night, I woke up around five o’clock and made myself a pot of coffee. Since Pike had gone back to his apartment to spend the night, I was able to enjoy my morning coffee without having to speak with anyone.
Making someone engage in conversation before they’ve had their morning coffee is a form of cruel and unusual punishment and should be illegal.
Although I had several things to do before Pike showed up, I poured myself a second cup of coffee and read a couple of chapters from the Bible.
While my Donovan Bartlett persona didn’t pack a Bible in his duffle bag, my Titus Ray persona was able to log onto the encrypted laptop in the upstairs loft and access an online Bible from the Agency’s library.
Once I’d finished reading, I said a prayer for Nikki. Due to the time difference, it was only ten o’clock Wednesday evening at Quantico, and I knew she was probably exhausted after having completed her third day of training.
The third day at Quantico was always the worst, and right now, she might be asking herself why she’d signed up for the course in the first place. I could picture her sitting on the edge of her bed in the cramped quarters of the dorm and massaging her feet. Her hair was probably still wet from her shower and her ...
I suddenly realized my prayer for Nikki had turned into something else altogether, and I immediately returned to reality.
The reality was that I would be bringing Marwan Farage to the safe house in a few hours, and I needed to prepare for his visit.
Since there wasn’t much furniture in the loft, it didn’t take me long to arrange the room the way I wanted it. Once everything was in position, I logged into the Latin American desk at the Agency and took a look at the overnight cable traffic.
There was nothing of interest there; no bulletins about finding missing gas canisters.
I switched over to the Latin American feed and scrolled down to the Cuban link. Nothing there either; most notably, no update from Mitchell.
I scrolled further down the page to Venezuela.
I noticed Sam Wylie had just sent Salazar his daily bulletin from Caracas, so I pinged him to see if he had time to chat with me. A few seconds later, his face appeared on the computer screen.
“Hey, what’s up, cowboy? Is the sun up there yet?”
“Just barely.”
“I’m about to hit the sack here, unless you’re about to tell me there’s been a change in plans.”
“No, we’re right on schedule. I’ll give you a call about eight hours from now. You haven’t said anything to Yamina and Samira about the possibility of speaking with Marwan, have you?”
“Not a word. They’re not happy campers, though, so Marwan may get an earful.”
“That’s perfect. I want the ladies to give him plenty of incentive to cooperate with us.”
“If you’re not calling about a change in plans, what’s on your mind?”
“I’m assuming you saw Salazar’s bulletin about the missing canisters?”
Wylie nodded. “Oh, yeah, if you ask me, assigning Ben as the primary for that mission wasn’t very smart. In my book, that kid’s still a greenhorn.”
Although I was beginning to question whether I’d made the right decision when I’d recommended Mitchell to Carlton, I still felt the need to defend him.
“The surveillance schematic Ben described on the OFU yesterday sounded more than adequate. However, he probably needs additional personnel on the ground to help him locate those canisters now.”
“Cartel Carlos has already assigned some of my boys to the search. They’re leaving for Santiago tonight.”
“That’s what C.J. told us yesterday. Would you mind having one of them deliver a message to Ben for me?”
“Okay, now I get it,” he said, slapping his forehead, “this call isn’t about Marwan; it’s about Ben. You’ve already taken the blame for killing Ahmed Al-Amin because of his mistakes. Why are you still trying to help that kid?”
“Let’s don’t go there.”
“Yeah, not a good idea. What’s the message?”
“It won’t make any sense to you, but it will to Ben.”
Wylie picked up his cell phone and tapped the screen once. “Should I write this down?”
“That probably won’t be necessary. Just tell him, ‘Give your little seedlings room to grow. You might be surprised at what comes out of the ground.’”
“Seriously?”
“Just give him the message.”
“It’s some kind of code, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Sam, it’s a code.”
“Let me guess. You’re telling him to find someone else to blame for losing track of those canisters.”
“Thanks, partner. We’ll be in touch.”
Follow your instincts, Ben. Think about the possibilities.
* * * *
Pike showed up at the safe house at nine o’clock, and Dave and Finn arrived forty-five minutes later. When I briefed them on my plans for Marwan, I said I was planning to call Marwan at eleven o’clock and tell him to meet me at a bookstore a few blocks away from his apartment.
However, that meeting wasn’t going to take place.
Instead of meeting him at the bookstore, I was going to grab Marwan off the street as soon as he left his apartment. After that, I planned to take him to a remote location, a place Pike had specifically chosen for what I had in mind.
This type of disorientation technique was one I’d used before to gauge an asset’s state of mind. In Marwan’s case, I wanted to assess his willingness to go through with his betrayal of Naballah and General Suleiman. Not only that, I wanted to probe a little further into what he knew about Naballah’s reason for having him at the meeting with the general.
When I finished briefing the two guys, I went outside and examined the interior of the EAI vehicle they’d driven over to the safe house. It was one of the relief agency’s full-size cargo vans, ordinarily used to distribute emergency food packages to refugees flooding into Damascus from the outlying areas. There was nothing inside the van except for a stack of blankets piled up in a corner.
“Looks good,” I said, closing the cargo doors. “Don’t make the ride too easy on him, though. Try and find a few potholes along the way.”
“Are you kidding?” Finn said. “I won’t have any trouble finding potholes. Avoiding them is the problem. Every time the military orders an air strike on a rebel neighborhood, they destroy a few more roads.”
“I understand they’re bombing east of Damascus. Is that right?”
Dave nodded, “In the Ghouta district, there’s a major rebel stronghold there, and the Syrian Air Force is hitting the area almost daily now. EAI has been assisting a lot of refugees from that area.”
Finn said, “Dave and I almost got caught up in a bombing raid ourselves a couple of days ago.”
“This run today won’t be nearly as exciting as that,” I said.
Pike, who’d been sitting inside his SUV talking on the phone, suddenly rushed over to the van.
As he tossed Dave the keys to the Renault, he said, “Marwan’s on the move and headed toward Tekkiye Mosque for noonday prayers. Carlton wants you and Dave to go ahead and pick him up before he gets there. He’ll brief you on the way. We’ve now gone to Plan B.”
When Pike got inside the EAI van with Finn, he said, “Finn and I will head over to the rendezvous site. Text me when you’ve picked Marwan up and then again when you’re five minutes out.”
“Roger that,” I said.
Dave and I headed west in the Renault, and Pike and Finn drove off in the opposite direction in the EAI van.
A few seconds later, we heard Carlton’s voice on the Agency sat phone I’d mounted on the dash of the Renault. “Trudy and I are tracking you on the Grid,” he said. “Dave, turn left at the next intersection. Traffic is heavy on Hareth. Take Al Khouri instead. You need to push it but don’t exceed the speed limit.”
The Schematic Tracking Grid (STG), better known as the Grid, was the tracking system used by the Agency to monitor and locate the movements of its operatives in the field during an operation. The STG depended on the GPS devices in Agency phones, but there were also several backup systems, including reconnaissance satellites and drones.
“What’s up with Marwan?” I asked. “Why did we have to go to Plan B?”
“The guy’s been pacing his apartment all morning long. It made me nervous just watching him on the video. A few minutes ago, he—”
“He’s probably anxious to hear from me. I consider that a good sign.”
“That may be true, but a few minutes ago, he got a call from Rehman Zaidi. Zaidi asked Marwan to meet him at Tekkiye Mosque for noonday prayers, and Marwan immediately agreed.”
“Zaidi has a lot of influence on Marwan. I don’t like the sound of that.”
“All the more reason to pick Marwan up before they have a chance to talk.”
“We’re still fifteen minutes out. I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“I’m confident you’ll make it. The mosque is six blocks from Marwan’s apartment, but he didn’t take a taxi; he’s on foot. I’m sending his coordinates to your phone right now. Pike’s surveillance crew says he looks clean; no one’s tailing him.”
I glanced down at the map on my phone. A small blue dot appeared. It was slowly moving east.
“He’s three blocks from the mosque now. We’ll be cutting it close.”
“Get it done.”
With those encouraging words, Carlton disconnected the call.
* * * *
Five minutes later, Dave and I spotted Marwan a block away from the mosque. He was making his way along the crowded sidewalk on Al Nawfara Street, a narrow two-lane avenue lined with outdoor stalls and small shops.
Although Carlton had mentioned no one was following Marwan, I took a few extra seconds to make sure of that.
Then, as traffic slowed to a stop, I told Dave, “Let me out here. Circle the block and meet me at the corner. If I’m not there when you get there, leave the area and wait for my call.”
When I got out of the SUV, I quickly punched in the numbers for the cell phone Carlton had given Marwan before they left Gitmo.
As I stood in the doorway across the street, I watched Marwan pull the phone from his pocket and glance down at the screen.
For a second, I thought he might ignore my call.
Instead, he answered with a tentative, “Hello?”
“It’s me. I’m in the coffee shop on your left. Walk up to the intersection and head east. I’ll meet you at the corner.”
When Marwan hung up, he immediately looked over to his left, and I used the opportunity to slip out of the doorway and make my way down the opposite side of the street toward the corner. There was no sign of the Renault yet, but I still had a few minutes before going to my alternate plan.
I watched as Marwan walked past the coffee shop and paused at the corner, waiting for the light to turn green.
I saw him searching the crowd, as if he might be looking for a familiar face.
When the light turned green, he hurried across the street.
At the same time, Dave brought the Renault to a stop at the crosswalk, and I quickly opened the back door. As soon as Marwan stepped on the sidewalk, he spotted me standing beside the SUV.
Although he appeared surprised at my sudden appearance, he didn’t balk when I motioned him inside the vehicle.
The moment I slid in the backseat beside him, Dave pulled away from the intersection.
Unfortunately, the rest of Operation Citadel Protection didn’t go quite as smoothly as this textbook maneuver did.
Chapter 39
After making sure Marwan didn’t have a weapon on him, I leaned over the front seat and grabbed a bottle of water out of the cup holder.
He refused to take it when I offered it to him. “I was told you would call me today. No one said anything about any of this.” He flapped his hand back and forth, indicating he meant the car, the situation, Dave, me, whatever.
“Plans change.”
“Where are we going?”
I ignored his question and asked one of my own.
“Why did Zaidi want you to meet him at the mosque?”
He stared at me and didn’t say anything.
I noticed his appearance had changed since the last time I’d seen him in Buenos Aires.
He looked drawn, almost gaunt, as if he’d recently lost a lot of weight. The dark circles underneath his eyes appeared even darker now, and his beard looked shabby, as if he hadn’t trimmed it in several days.
I suspected the changes were due to a combination of jet lag and worry, or maybe it was something else entirely.
“How did you know Zaidi called me?” he finally asked.
It was my turn not to answer.
He bobbed his head up and down and said, “Oh, now I get it. You’ve wired my apartment. You’re watching me.”
“Answer the question, Marwan. Why did Zaidi insist on meeting you?”
He shrugged. “He said he wanted to talk to me before the general arrived. He’s probably afraid Suleiman will blame him for Ahmed’s death, and he wants my support. I plan to tell him it was Roberto Montilla who killed Ahmed.”
“Send Zaidi a text and tell him you’ve changed your mind about meeting him. Say you’re not feeling well.”
Although I expected an argument from him, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and typed out a brief message. I made him show it to me before allowing him to push the send button.
A few seconds later, Zaidi replied with the standard Islamic answer for a sick friend. “La’ba’sa tahurun insha’Allah.”
Roughly translated, it meant, “Don’t worry, this illness will purify you from your sins.”
Sadly, this was impossible, even if Marwan had truly been ill.
* * * *
A few minutes later, after reaching the outskirts of Damascus, Dave headed north on Tishreen Boulevard. When Marwan realized we were on the road leading up to Mount Qassioun, he grew agitated.
“Why are we going up to Qassioun?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“Have you been in touch with my wife? Is she well? Can I talk to her soon?”
“That all depends on you.”
He held his hands out toward me. “Look, I’ve already agreed to work for you. Didn’t Mr. Chessman tell you I signed the documents at Gitmo? What more do you want from me?”
I didn’t respond, and, after a few seconds, he turned away from me and stared out the window.
After traveling north for another mile, Dave veered west and entered Arawdah Gardens, a once beautiful botanical garden located halfway up the side of Mount Qassioun. Now, after years of neglect and poor management, the bushes were overgrown, the shrubs were untrimmed, and the weeds in the flower beds appeared to be the garden’s most notable feature.
As Dave drove deeper into the forested area, I silently commended Pike for picking such a deserted spot, not only because of its privacy, but also because Marwan seemed more and more distressed with every passing minute.
After driving past a faded marker, Dave hit the brakes, put the car in reverse, and turned onto a rutted dirt road. A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of a dilapidated wooden building with a marker above the doorway indicating the structure used to be the Arawdah Gardens Research Center.
“What are we doing here?” Marwan asked, staring out at the building.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
I moved closer to him, violating his personal space.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what kind of advice Hassan Naballah wants you to give General Suleiman at the meeting on Saturday.”
His face turned somber. “Today’s the anniversary of her death.”
I didn’t say anything, and for a minute or so, we both remained quiet. It wasn’t an awkward kind of quiet. It was more like a brief interlude of silence in honor of her memory.
Finally, I looked over at Carlton and said, “I wouldn’t have made the chili today if I’d remembered this was the anniversary of her death.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Gladys would have thought that was very appropriate. For some reason, she really liked you. The fact that she gave you the recipe just proves that.”
He picked up his legal pad, tore off the top sheet where he’d scribbled down a few notes, and said, “I might go downstairs and try some of your chili now; see how it compares with hers.”
I watched him as he walked over to the paper shredder.
“I hope you won’t be disappointed.”
He stood there a moment, watching the shredder do its work.
When the grinding stopped, he said, “Gladys wasn’t afraid of dying. She believed her soul would just leave her body—she always called it her earth suit—and she’d arrive in heaven with a new body. I told her she would need a lot of faith to believe that, but she said she only needed a small amount of faith, as long as it was in the right person.”
“That sounds about right. My faith is pretty small, but I know it’s in the right person.”
He walked back over to the table. “Until you lived in Tehran with those Christians, you never talked about your faith. Since then, it’s become a big deal to you.”
“That’s because it is a big deal. People usually like to talk about what affects them. That’s why I talk about my faith now, and that’s why you talked about Gladys tonight. She was a big deal to you. She was an important part of your life.”
“You were the one who brought her up.”
“Aren’t you glad I did? When I asked you about that photograph, it gave you an opportunity to remember the good times you had with her.”
“I knew that’s what you were doing all along.”
“Of course you did.”
Later, when Carlton went downstairs and sampled a bowl of the chili, he said, “It’s a close second to the chili Gladys used to make, but next time, you should add more salt.”
Chapter 38
Thursday, July 2
After spending a restless night, I woke up around five o’clock and made myself a pot of coffee. Since Pike had gone back to his apartment to spend the night, I was able to enjoy my morning coffee without having to speak with anyone.
Making someone engage in conversation before they’ve had their morning coffee is a form of cruel and unusual punishment and should be illegal.
Although I had several things to do before Pike showed up, I poured myself a second cup of coffee and read a couple of chapters from the Bible.
While my Donovan Bartlett persona didn’t pack a Bible in his duffle bag, my Titus Ray persona was able to log onto the encrypted laptop in the upstairs loft and access an online Bible from the Agency’s library.
Once I’d finished reading, I said a prayer for Nikki. Due to the time difference, it was only ten o’clock Wednesday evening at Quantico, and I knew she was probably exhausted after having completed her third day of training.
The third day at Quantico was always the worst, and right now, she might be asking herself why she’d signed up for the course in the first place. I could picture her sitting on the edge of her bed in the cramped quarters of the dorm and massaging her feet. Her hair was probably still wet from her shower and her ...
I suddenly realized my prayer for Nikki had turned into something else altogether, and I immediately returned to reality.
The reality was that I would be bringing Marwan Farage to the safe house in a few hours, and I needed to prepare for his visit.
Since there wasn’t much furniture in the loft, it didn’t take me long to arrange the room the way I wanted it. Once everything was in position, I logged into the Latin American desk at the Agency and took a look at the overnight cable traffic.
There was nothing of interest there; no bulletins about finding missing gas canisters.
I switched over to the Latin American feed and scrolled down to the Cuban link. Nothing there either; most notably, no update from Mitchell.
I scrolled further down the page to Venezuela.
I noticed Sam Wylie had just sent Salazar his daily bulletin from Caracas, so I pinged him to see if he had time to chat with me. A few seconds later, his face appeared on the computer screen.
“Hey, what’s up, cowboy? Is the sun up there yet?”
“Just barely.”
“I’m about to hit the sack here, unless you’re about to tell me there’s been a change in plans.”
“No, we’re right on schedule. I’ll give you a call about eight hours from now. You haven’t said anything to Yamina and Samira about the possibility of speaking with Marwan, have you?”
“Not a word. They’re not happy campers, though, so Marwan may get an earful.”
“That’s perfect. I want the ladies to give him plenty of incentive to cooperate with us.”
“If you’re not calling about a change in plans, what’s on your mind?”
“I’m assuming you saw Salazar’s bulletin about the missing canisters?”
Wylie nodded. “Oh, yeah, if you ask me, assigning Ben as the primary for that mission wasn’t very smart. In my book, that kid’s still a greenhorn.”
Although I was beginning to question whether I’d made the right decision when I’d recommended Mitchell to Carlton, I still felt the need to defend him.
“The surveillance schematic Ben described on the OFU yesterday sounded more than adequate. However, he probably needs additional personnel on the ground to help him locate those canisters now.”
“Cartel Carlos has already assigned some of my boys to the search. They’re leaving for Santiago tonight.”
“That’s what C.J. told us yesterday. Would you mind having one of them deliver a message to Ben for me?”
“Okay, now I get it,” he said, slapping his forehead, “this call isn’t about Marwan; it’s about Ben. You’ve already taken the blame for killing Ahmed Al-Amin because of his mistakes. Why are you still trying to help that kid?”
“Let’s don’t go there.”
“Yeah, not a good idea. What’s the message?”
“It won’t make any sense to you, but it will to Ben.”
Wylie picked up his cell phone and tapped the screen once. “Should I write this down?”
“That probably won’t be necessary. Just tell him, ‘Give your little seedlings room to grow. You might be surprised at what comes out of the ground.’”
“Seriously?”
“Just give him the message.”
“It’s some kind of code, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Sam, it’s a code.”
“Let me guess. You’re telling him to find someone else to blame for losing track of those canisters.”
“Thanks, partner. We’ll be in touch.”
Follow your instincts, Ben. Think about the possibilities.
* * * *
Pike showed up at the safe house at nine o’clock, and Dave and Finn arrived forty-five minutes later. When I briefed them on my plans for Marwan, I said I was planning to call Marwan at eleven o’clock and tell him to meet me at a bookstore a few blocks away from his apartment.
However, that meeting wasn’t going to take place.
Instead of meeting him at the bookstore, I was going to grab Marwan off the street as soon as he left his apartment. After that, I planned to take him to a remote location, a place Pike had specifically chosen for what I had in mind.
This type of disorientation technique was one I’d used before to gauge an asset’s state of mind. In Marwan’s case, I wanted to assess his willingness to go through with his betrayal of Naballah and General Suleiman. Not only that, I wanted to probe a little further into what he knew about Naballah’s reason for having him at the meeting with the general.
When I finished briefing the two guys, I went outside and examined the interior of the EAI vehicle they’d driven over to the safe house. It was one of the relief agency’s full-size cargo vans, ordinarily used to distribute emergency food packages to refugees flooding into Damascus from the outlying areas. There was nothing inside the van except for a stack of blankets piled up in a corner.
“Looks good,” I said, closing the cargo doors. “Don’t make the ride too easy on him, though. Try and find a few potholes along the way.”
“Are you kidding?” Finn said. “I won’t have any trouble finding potholes. Avoiding them is the problem. Every time the military orders an air strike on a rebel neighborhood, they destroy a few more roads.”
“I understand they’re bombing east of Damascus. Is that right?”
Dave nodded, “In the Ghouta district, there’s a major rebel stronghold there, and the Syrian Air Force is hitting the area almost daily now. EAI has been assisting a lot of refugees from that area.”
Finn said, “Dave and I almost got caught up in a bombing raid ourselves a couple of days ago.”
“This run today won’t be nearly as exciting as that,” I said.
Pike, who’d been sitting inside his SUV talking on the phone, suddenly rushed over to the van.
As he tossed Dave the keys to the Renault, he said, “Marwan’s on the move and headed toward Tekkiye Mosque for noonday prayers. Carlton wants you and Dave to go ahead and pick him up before he gets there. He’ll brief you on the way. We’ve now gone to Plan B.”
When Pike got inside the EAI van with Finn, he said, “Finn and I will head over to the rendezvous site. Text me when you’ve picked Marwan up and then again when you’re five minutes out.”
“Roger that,” I said.
Dave and I headed west in the Renault, and Pike and Finn drove off in the opposite direction in the EAI van.
A few seconds later, we heard Carlton’s voice on the Agency sat phone I’d mounted on the dash of the Renault. “Trudy and I are tracking you on the Grid,” he said. “Dave, turn left at the next intersection. Traffic is heavy on Hareth. Take Al Khouri instead. You need to push it but don’t exceed the speed limit.”
The Schematic Tracking Grid (STG), better known as the Grid, was the tracking system used by the Agency to monitor and locate the movements of its operatives in the field during an operation. The STG depended on the GPS devices in Agency phones, but there were also several backup systems, including reconnaissance satellites and drones.
“What’s up with Marwan?” I asked. “Why did we have to go to Plan B?”
“The guy’s been pacing his apartment all morning long. It made me nervous just watching him on the video. A few minutes ago, he—”
“He’s probably anxious to hear from me. I consider that a good sign.”
“That may be true, but a few minutes ago, he got a call from Rehman Zaidi. Zaidi asked Marwan to meet him at Tekkiye Mosque for noonday prayers, and Marwan immediately agreed.”
“Zaidi has a lot of influence on Marwan. I don’t like the sound of that.”
“All the more reason to pick Marwan up before they have a chance to talk.”
“We’re still fifteen minutes out. I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“I’m confident you’ll make it. The mosque is six blocks from Marwan’s apartment, but he didn’t take a taxi; he’s on foot. I’m sending his coordinates to your phone right now. Pike’s surveillance crew says he looks clean; no one’s tailing him.”
I glanced down at the map on my phone. A small blue dot appeared. It was slowly moving east.
“He’s three blocks from the mosque now. We’ll be cutting it close.”
“Get it done.”
With those encouraging words, Carlton disconnected the call.
* * * *
Five minutes later, Dave and I spotted Marwan a block away from the mosque. He was making his way along the crowded sidewalk on Al Nawfara Street, a narrow two-lane avenue lined with outdoor stalls and small shops.
Although Carlton had mentioned no one was following Marwan, I took a few extra seconds to make sure of that.
Then, as traffic slowed to a stop, I told Dave, “Let me out here. Circle the block and meet me at the corner. If I’m not there when you get there, leave the area and wait for my call.”
When I got out of the SUV, I quickly punched in the numbers for the cell phone Carlton had given Marwan before they left Gitmo.
As I stood in the doorway across the street, I watched Marwan pull the phone from his pocket and glance down at the screen.
For a second, I thought he might ignore my call.
Instead, he answered with a tentative, “Hello?”
“It’s me. I’m in the coffee shop on your left. Walk up to the intersection and head east. I’ll meet you at the corner.”
When Marwan hung up, he immediately looked over to his left, and I used the opportunity to slip out of the doorway and make my way down the opposite side of the street toward the corner. There was no sign of the Renault yet, but I still had a few minutes before going to my alternate plan.
I watched as Marwan walked past the coffee shop and paused at the corner, waiting for the light to turn green.
I saw him searching the crowd, as if he might be looking for a familiar face.
When the light turned green, he hurried across the street.
At the same time, Dave brought the Renault to a stop at the crosswalk, and I quickly opened the back door. As soon as Marwan stepped on the sidewalk, he spotted me standing beside the SUV.
Although he appeared surprised at my sudden appearance, he didn’t balk when I motioned him inside the vehicle.
The moment I slid in the backseat beside him, Dave pulled away from the intersection.
Unfortunately, the rest of Operation Citadel Protection didn’t go quite as smoothly as this textbook maneuver did.
Chapter 39
After making sure Marwan didn’t have a weapon on him, I leaned over the front seat and grabbed a bottle of water out of the cup holder.
He refused to take it when I offered it to him. “I was told you would call me today. No one said anything about any of this.” He flapped his hand back and forth, indicating he meant the car, the situation, Dave, me, whatever.
“Plans change.”
“Where are we going?”
I ignored his question and asked one of my own.
“Why did Zaidi want you to meet him at the mosque?”
He stared at me and didn’t say anything.
I noticed his appearance had changed since the last time I’d seen him in Buenos Aires.
He looked drawn, almost gaunt, as if he’d recently lost a lot of weight. The dark circles underneath his eyes appeared even darker now, and his beard looked shabby, as if he hadn’t trimmed it in several days.
I suspected the changes were due to a combination of jet lag and worry, or maybe it was something else entirely.
“How did you know Zaidi called me?” he finally asked.
It was my turn not to answer.
He bobbed his head up and down and said, “Oh, now I get it. You’ve wired my apartment. You’re watching me.”
“Answer the question, Marwan. Why did Zaidi insist on meeting you?”
He shrugged. “He said he wanted to talk to me before the general arrived. He’s probably afraid Suleiman will blame him for Ahmed’s death, and he wants my support. I plan to tell him it was Roberto Montilla who killed Ahmed.”
“Send Zaidi a text and tell him you’ve changed your mind about meeting him. Say you’re not feeling well.”
Although I expected an argument from him, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and typed out a brief message. I made him show it to me before allowing him to push the send button.
A few seconds later, Zaidi replied with the standard Islamic answer for a sick friend. “La’ba’sa tahurun insha’Allah.”
Roughly translated, it meant, “Don’t worry, this illness will purify you from your sins.”
Sadly, this was impossible, even if Marwan had truly been ill.
* * * *
A few minutes later, after reaching the outskirts of Damascus, Dave headed north on Tishreen Boulevard. When Marwan realized we were on the road leading up to Mount Qassioun, he grew agitated.
“Why are we going up to Qassioun?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“Have you been in touch with my wife? Is she well? Can I talk to her soon?”
“That all depends on you.”
He held his hands out toward me. “Look, I’ve already agreed to work for you. Didn’t Mr. Chessman tell you I signed the documents at Gitmo? What more do you want from me?”
I didn’t respond, and, after a few seconds, he turned away from me and stared out the window.
After traveling north for another mile, Dave veered west and entered Arawdah Gardens, a once beautiful botanical garden located halfway up the side of Mount Qassioun. Now, after years of neglect and poor management, the bushes were overgrown, the shrubs were untrimmed, and the weeds in the flower beds appeared to be the garden’s most notable feature.
As Dave drove deeper into the forested area, I silently commended Pike for picking such a deserted spot, not only because of its privacy, but also because Marwan seemed more and more distressed with every passing minute.
After driving past a faded marker, Dave hit the brakes, put the car in reverse, and turned onto a rutted dirt road. A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of a dilapidated wooden building with a marker above the doorway indicating the structure used to be the Arawdah Gardens Research Center.
“What are we doing here?” Marwan asked, staring out at the building.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
I moved closer to him, violating his personal space.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what kind of advice Hassan Naballah wants you to give General Suleiman at the meeting on Saturday.”
