Pursuit of Honor Part 13

Hakim managed to get his left eye open a bit more and after staring at the strange wood grain pattern for a while, he realized he was in the back of the RV lying on the bed. He tried to roll onto his side, but didn't get far. He let out a small gasp. It felt as if he had been stabbed. Things slowly started coming back to him. He had no idea how long he'd been out, but the last thing he remembered was Karim on top of him, his fists rising and falling with crazed rage.

Remember those punches, it suddenly occurred to Hakim why he couldn't open his eyes. With dread, he brought his hands up to touch his face. It was one of those things you never thought of. What your own face felt like. Mostly, because you didn't have to. You touched it so frequently throughout the day, for so many reasons and over so many years that every centimeter of it was imprinted on your brain. You could feel your way to the slightest blemish or new wrinkle. Hakim gently touched the area around his left eye. Everything was foreign. It felt like a ripe tomato, plump and smooth. His fingers continued their search. His lips were even worse, and his right eye felt twice as bad as his left.

Then, as if a switch had been thrown, the pain started. It was both specific and everywhere at the same time. As if his brain were stuck in a circular loop of agony moving from one area to the next and then back again, running faster and faster, until he felt like a thousand fire ants were feasting on his face. He started to moan and after a good five seconds he stopped himself. The thought of Karim hung above him like some awful nightmare. He did not want to feed the man's arrogance any more than he already had.

How could one friend do this to another? Hakim lay there and asked himself the question over and over. The answer was so obvious that he was no longer able to ignore it. The truth was now staring back at him like an old, wise parent telling him he had been warned long ago but had been either too stubborn or too immature to heed the advice. Hakim felt his puffy face again. Was it true? Had he been so blind for so many years, or was he suddenly in full martyr mode- casting himself as the ultimate victim and his friend as the archvillain?

Hakim knew he wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind to be dealing with such a question, but it was no longer possible to ignore the obvious. Had he been the one who had changed or was it Karim? Was it both, or had he simply drifted away from their radical world-view-the myopic one the Wahhabi clerics had brainwashed them with? It was so foolish, Hakim thought as he looked back on his testosterone-laden late teens and early twenties. They had been indoctrinated like brainless fools.

Even so, there was another question that was more troubling. Was Karim a monster? Hakim thought of the father and son who had showed up at the farmhouse and asked permission to hunt by the river. He had had the situation handled. They were not federal agents or local law enforcement. They were just a father and a son such as you would find anywhere in the world, and if Karim had been able to keep his ego and anger in check everything would have been fine.

The sinking feeling he'd had when he heard the screen door open came back. Hakim replayed it all in his mind, but without any sound. For some reason the audio wouldn't play. It was just the cold, harsh visual of bullets. .h.i.tting flesh and bodies falling in slow motion to the gravel. The agony on the father's face. The fear on the son's. And all for what? What had they gained? What had Karim gained with his obtuse, inflexible methods? They were now on the run-foreigners in a land where everyone was looking for them.

Hakim had calculated their chances of escape many times, and he was convinced that nothing offered more hope than the house in Iowa. It was the last place anyone would look. He had even told Karim not to worry if someone should stumble upon them. He and Ahmed were to stay out of sight. Hakim's cover story was solid. He would be able to deal with anyone, possibly even law enforcement. It had all been discussed and rehea.r.s.ed many times.

Hakim was in the midst of asking himself why his friend would be so reckless when the floral curtain that separated the rear sleeping area from the rest of the RV slid back a half foot. Hakim looked up to see a pair of large, almost childlike eyes staring down at him. It was Ahmed. The Moroccan pulled the curtain back a little more and then stepped into the sleeping area and let the curtain close behind him. He had a damp washcloth in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

Ahmed placed the washcloth on Hakim's forehead and then, holding the water in front of him, asked, "Thirsty?"

Hakim began to shake his head but it hurt too much. He winced in pain and tried to speak but that hurt as well. He moved his tongue around in his mouth and realized he was missing at least two teeth.

Ahmed leaned in close and softly said, "I am sorry for what happened."

It was obvious by the way he spoke that he was afraid of being heard by Karim. Hakim saw fear in his eyes, the kind of fear a man shows when he is in over his head. Through puffed lips caked with dried blood and a swollen and possibly broken jaw he managed to ask, "Where are we?"

"I am not sure. I think still in Iowa."

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"I'm not sure. But it was a long time. I was afraid you might be dead."

"What time is it now?"

Ahmed held up his black digital watch. It was twelve-fifty-six in the afternoon.

Hakim worked his way backward and figured he'd been out for over five hours. "How long have we been on the road?"

The Moroccan shrugged.

Hakim suddenly noticed a familiar, but much stronger odor on Ahmed. "You smell like a fire."

After looking over his shoulder, Ahmed nervously said, "Karim had me put the father and son in the house. The bas.e.m.e.nt. I then set fire to it."

"Why?" Hakim asked in near disbelief.

"He said it would destroy the evidence."

"And bring the police. What did you do with all the supplies in the barn?" Hakim watched Ahmed shrug and then flinch as he heard Karim call his name from the front of the RV. He was obviously driving.

"I will come back and check on you later."

"What about their vehicle?"

Ahmed didn't understand.

"The car that the hunters drove?"

Ahmed shrugged his big shoulders and said, "I don't know." Then he was gone.

Hakim slowly rolled his head back to his left. As he closed his eye and tried to rest, he wondered how long it would take before the police figured out who had been staying at the house. He doubted they would remain at large very long, and part of him was fine with that.

CHAPTER 29.

EASTERN ATLANTIC.

RAPP woke up on descent, about an hour out, as he almost always did. Takeoffs put him to sleep and landings woke him up. He'd never figured out exactly why, but he guessed it had something to do with the way takeoffs kind of pinned him back in his seat. The end of the flight was easier to understand. When the pilots eased back on the throttles and started their descent it was as good as a flight attendant placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

On this flight, however, there was no flight attendant. Just two sixty-plus-year-old former Air Force jocks at the controls, and Rapp riding in back. All three men knew how to keep their mouths shut. That left fifteen open seats. Rapp had logged countless miles in the service of his country, and at least early in his career, they were rarely in such comfort. The Gulfstream 550 was a beautiful bird from top to bottom and a far cry from the noisy C-130s he used to fly around in. The old military transport had been in service for over fifty years, and while it was robust and dependable it was not designed for comfort. Zero noise suppression, minimal insulation, web seats along the sides, a latrine that consisted of a curtain on a wire and a funnel on the side of the plane, plus four of the loudest turboprop engines known to man. Rapp had flown all over the d.a.m.n world on the things and the end result was always the same. The thing vibrated so much it shook your senses right out of you. It was a wonder units could deploy on them and still shoot straight.

It was all those darn C-130 hops that had enabled him to take this new development in stride. In the days after 9/11 Rapp understood almost immediately the full extent of what had happened, and where it was all headed. He knew the public outcry of his countrymen would be nearly uniform, and for that delusional 5 to 10 percent who wanted to blame America for the attacks there was nothing he or anybody else could do to convince their illogical brains otherwise. But Rapp had read enough history that he could see part of the future. The population's support for the War on Terror would wane over time, and it had, but the one thing he never fully expected was just how low the politicians would stoop. This little trip to the middle of the Atlantic was proof that their actions had far-reaching and unintended consequences.

Just a few years ago all of this could have been handled with a secure conference call or an encrypted message. Those sanctimonious politicians, however, with their chant that the people deserve to know the truth, had turned the intelligence community on its ear. The British and French had been crucial in the war against Islamic extremism, far more so than the American people and most politicians in Washington understood. In many ways they had done the heavy lifting. They had more experience in dealing with some of these characters, and at least in the case of the British courts, they took a more pragmatic view of what the people deserved to know.

With the politicians in America and their various left-wing special-interest groups demanding investigations, hearings, and trials, the British and French, and a good number of other allies, began to rea.s.sess what they were willing to share. They had partic.i.p.ated in many of the same terrorist interrogations. The far left was now screaming to see the tapes and notes of those not-so-pretty sessions. It is a fundamental tenet of any intelligence organization to keep its means and methods a secret, so when federal judges starting ruling in favor of the ACLU and other groups' requests for the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act, some very important allies in Paris and London got nervous.

Kennedy and Rapp flew to both cities and met with their counterparts. Each group of professionals was worried about the same thing. The stuff the ACLU was asking for was damaging enough, but it paled in comparison to the mountains of highly sensitive encrypted data that had been sent back and forth between the three intelligence agencies-stuff that was hidden or destroyed with the understanding that the information could start a world war if ever leaked. They all trusted each other, but there was one glaring problem. America's National Security Administration captured almost unimaginable amounts of signal traffic. As with one of those big commercial fishing trawlers, it looked as if their nets might bust at any second. They might be looking for tuna, but they caught everything else, big and small. They all knew that somewhere in the NSA's vast files, their own highly sensitive and encrypted traffic sat like an ancient cipher waiting to be solved.

So the flow of daily information slowed to a trickle and a handful of trusted men and women who had earned their spurs in the field began meeting face to face. Rapp dreaded the trips at first. It seemed there was always something else that needed his attention, but after a few of them, he realized they were a bit of a blessing in disguise. For starters, they allowed him to unplug. The planes always had a secure comm package, and he would usually take an hour or two to catch up on the more mundane stuff, but in general he turned everything off and used the silence of the long flights to crack some of the more stressful problems they were dealing with.

With all of the d.a.m.n technology around today, strategizing was in danger of becoming extinct. The other bonus was that he no longer felt the need to plod through twenty-plus pages a day of cable traffic that was rarely germane to what he was most concerned with. Now, they'd meet face to face two or three times a month and go over the most important information.

Rapp put on a fresh pot of coffee in the galley and then brushed his teeth and washed his face. Since his hair was only a quarter inch of black stubble there was no need for a comb. When the coffee was ready, he poured himself a cup, took a few sips, and then changed back into his dark suit and a fresh light blue dress shirt. The closest in-flight screen told him they would be landing in approximately ten minutes. Rapp turned on his laptop and used it to skim forty-one emails. Thirty-nine of them were pretty much useless chatter, but two jumped out at him as things he would need to deal with.

Rapp slid back a wood compartment and retrieved the handset for a secure satellite phone. He punched in the number for Kennedy's direct line and thought about the best way to convince her that his plan was sound. After six rings Rapp knew the call was rolling over to one of her a.s.sistants.

"Director Kennedy's office." The woman's voice was neither polite nor rude-just efficient.

"Kristen, It's Mitch. Is she around?"

"She's on the phone."

"Can you interrupt her?"

"Let me see."

There was a click as he was put on hold and then a few moments later Kennedy was on the line. Rapp said, "You know that meeting we had this morning?"

"Yes."

"I'm on board."

"You sure you're up for all the attention?"

"No . . ." Rapp said, making no attempt to hide his lack of patience. "I'm talking about Mike."

"I know," she said. "I was just jerking your chain."

"Can you get it done?"

"Do you care what your boss thinks, or are you calling the shots now?"

Rapp groaned. "Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Torturing me. You told me this morning that you thought it was a good idea."

"That was when I thought you would accept the medal as well. I've had the visual in my head all day of you sitting on Oprah's couch talking about skin-care products."

Rapp pulled the phone away from his head and looked at it as if he might snap it in half. "Are you done?"

"Yes, but I want you to at least recognize the fact that you are giving Mike no say in the matter while you have threatened me or anyone else with extreme violence if we dare recognize your achievements, which were even more remarkable than Mike's."

"We've been through this so many times . . . Do we have to go over it again?"

"No, we don't have to go over it again," Kennedy said in slightly playful tone. "I just want you to recognize that you're not being entirely fair."

"Fine . . . I'm happy to admit it. Life isn't fair. Mike has four kids and a wife who need him. My wife and unborn child are dead, because of what I do for a living. Maybe I don't want to see that happen to him. Maybe I don't want to have to knock on Maggie's door some night and explain to her and the kids that their dad is dead. We're different people. I'm damaged goods. He still has a shot at a seminormal life, and that's why he's going to be the face of this thing. Not me."

Kennedy didn't answer for a long time. Rapp rarely talked about his deceased wife and it had caught her off guard. "I think I understand."

Rapp felt like an a.s.s for coming down so hard on her. "Sorry, boss."

"For what?"

"For snapping at you like that. You know I'm no good at this stuff. I just . . . he's not doing well," Rapp said, changing gears. "I've seen it before. The lie is tearing him up."

"I don't think seeing his a.s.sistant and another dozen and a half coworkers killed did him any favors."

"No, it didn't." Rapp thought about Nash's fragile state. "Just please do this for me, and do it quick. Before he does something stupid."

"What do you mean something stupid?" Kennedy asked with trepidation.

"Nothing," Rapp lied. "It's just a feeling. Tell d.i.c.kerson it's a go. Get it set up for tomorrow if you can."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"What?"

"Mike. You know he'll never go for this."

"Don't worry about him. You tell me what time you need him at the White House, and I'll have him there. Just make sure everyone keeps their mouth shut."

CHAPTER 30.

SANTA MARIA ISLAND, AZORES.

THE landing gear thudded into the down position and the plane banked to port. Out of the nearest window Rapp caught a glimpse of the western edge of Santa Maria Island and her big ten-thousand-foot runway, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. The place had been a busy hub during World War II and in the decade after but was now nothing more than a tourist destination and convenient meeting place for three spooks who didn't want to be noticed.

The plane landed so softly Rapp wasn't sure they were down until the pilots began to brake, but with ten thousand feet of concrete there was no rush. He looked out the window and saw the other two private jets parked in the distance at the refueling station. That was the other thing Santa Maria Island was known for-fuel. Roughly a thousand miles from the European mainland, the big airstrip offered a convenient place to stop for fuel or repairs on transatlantic flights.

The other beauty of the island was that it only had five thousand residents, who were more or less uninterested in the tail numbers on the planes that came and went. Even so, Rapp grabbed a pair of sungla.s.ses and a newspaper as he prepared to exit. When the plane stopped he disengaged the safety lock and lowered the steps. He moved stiffly down the stairs and pretended to read the newspaper as he proceeded around the nose of a Bombardier Global Express. He hesitated for a moment at the base of the Bombardier's stairs and looked around. Not a person in sight. Rapp bounded up the steps two at a time. Once inside, he glanced to his left. The door to the flight deck was closed. Rapp hit the close b.u.t.ton on the hatch and the stairs began to fold back into the closed position. He then walked through the well-appointed galley to the rear of the long-haul private jet. All of the shades were down on the windows, and there, sitting side by side at a table near the back of the plane, were two familiar people.

They were both facing the front, but only one of them stood. At six foot four, George Butler had to tilt his head a few inches to the right to avoid hitting the ceiling. The forty-eight-year-old Brit offered his hand and said, "h.e.l.lo, Mitch. Good of you to come."

Rapp grabbed the hand of MI-6's counterterrorism chief. "Good to see you, too." Rapp turned to look at the woman who had remained seated. She was pet.i.te, just under five and a half feet tall and weighing no more than 120 pounds. Rapp had known her for nearly fifteen years. Her name was Catherine Cheval and she worked for France's Directorate General for Security External, or DGSE. She gave Rapp a faint smile and offered her cheek. Rapp leaned over the desk and kissed her first on her right cheek and then the left. "Always good to see you, Catherine."

"The feeling is mutual," she said in perfect English. Cheval sat back and brushed a strand of her raven black hair behind her right ear. She looked a decade younger than her fifty years.

Rapp took one of the two seats across from them. Cheval leaned forward and gestured toward the coffee cup sitting in front of Rapp. "Please." As Cheval poured Rapp a fresh cup, he apologized for being late.

Butler nodded and said, "Frankly, I'm surprised you could make it on such short notice."

"Irene didn't give me an option. She said it was important."

Butler and Cheval shared a look and then nodded in unison. Cheval said, "We have discovered some information that you might find useful."

"But before we begin," Butler added cautiously, "we would like to revisit the ground rules."

Rapp could have been offended by the comment, but wasn't. In many ways, these two, and the people who worked for them, were better allies than the people in his own government. The fact that Butler had brought it up, though, told Rapp two things: first, that they had some good intel, and second, that they had come by it through means that the Department of Justice and U.S. Congress would not approve of. "If you need to modify the rules I completely understand, but remember when it comes to certain elements of my government, few have more motivation than I do to lie to them."

"True," Cheval said, "and we trust you. It is just that certain nosy people in your country will begin to walk the dog back. They will want to know how this information fell into your possession."