The Panic Zone Part 29

"Jack Gannon."

"Corley. Got your message from Pritchett. Are you familiar with Rabat?"

"No, it's my first visit."

"We'll meet in the medina, when the call to prayer ends in one hour."

"The medina?"

"It's the market in the old city. We'll meet at a little place called the Sun and Moon. Its on Rue des Consuls. Directions are tricky, get the hotel people to get you a map. Be there in one hour."

"Why not meet here, or at your location?"

"I ran into trouble in Benghazi. I'd prefer to be cautious. I've got your mobile number, here's mine."

Gannon noted Corley's number then asked, "How will I know you?"

"I've got your picture online, so I'll recognize you."

Before going out, Gannon shut down his laptop, tidied his files, then hid them in his room. The concierge was happy to sketch directions for him on a preprinted tourist map. "Very simple. This way, then that way, sir, simple, and you are at the Sun and Moon. Very simple, sir."

To Gannon, Rabat's medina was a step back in time. As he followed a network of cobblestoned streets, he saw a group of boys roasting a goat's head on an open grill. Artisans displayed their handmade wallets, necklaces, lanterns and wood carvings on mats on the ground.

Small cooking fires created haze and seasoned the air. He saw old men bent over antique sewing machines under bare lightbulbs inside storefronts hidden in the market's shaded narrow alleyways. The medina was choked with people, haggling at stalls and shops over jewelry, leather crafts, vegetables, fruit, pottery, baskets and carpets.

The Sun and Moon was a darkened open-front cafe with six tables and a counter displaying meats, mixed salad and rice dishes, fish and pastries. Gannon ordered a c.o.ke. He pressed the sweating can to his forehead and sipped slowly.

By the time he'd ordered his third c.o.ke, Corley had still not arrived. The calls Gannon had made to his cell phone had not been answered.

He was hungry and ordered a chicken shawarma.

As time pa.s.sed he was approached by boys offering to give him private tours of the medina, or find him drugs or women. A withered man with an agitated monkey in a cage offered to have his animal perform tricks for him. A one-eyed beggar with rotting teeth put his hands together in an elaborate thankful prayer gesture after Gannon gave him a coin.

Nearly three hours later as the sun sank, Corley was a no-show.

Gannon gave up waiting. He returned to his hotel, where he sent Oliver Pritchett a terse e-mail before reviewing his files in bed.

Gannon did not remember falling asleep.

For a panicked moment he did not remember anything and his torpid brain struggled to give him information as his phone rang.

"Hullo."

"Jack, Oliver Pritchett in London."

Gannon's memory ignited and he recalled his anger.

"Hey!" He sat up, cradling his head with his free hand. "What the h.e.l.l's going on? Your guy stood me up! The WPA spent a s.h.i.tload of money to send me to London then here, and Corley doesn't show!"

"I don't know what to tell you. Maybe something came up. This is unlike Adam. I can't reach him."

"So what now?"

"I'm going to do something we never do with our people."

"I'm waiting."

"I'll give you his private address. You can go bang on his door."

"That's a start."

Gannon ordered a small breakfast to his room, showered and shaved. When his breakfast arrived he ate as he dressed, then got a taxi.

According to Pritchett, Corley lived on a tiny side street off of Rue Calcutta, in the district l'Ocean, not far from the Kasbah des Oudaias.

The neighborhood was quiet.

Gannon asked his driver to wait, then walked down the narrow zigzagging street. It was a bright, clear morning.

The quarter was deserted; the only sounds gulls overhead. The ancient square houses were small, neat, built of stone. Many had parapets. They were painted white with blues, pinks and greens, their windows covered with wrought-iron bars. Some had flower boxes and planters with palms near the entrance. Others had rooftop gardens or clotheslines laden with garments drying in the sun.

A gull shrieked just as Gannon reached Corley's address: number 104, a small white house trimmed in coral-pink. He knocked on the wooden door, dark and heavy with its ornate design. A full minute pa.s.sed without a response. He knocked again, harder this time.

Nothing.

He pressed his ear to it.

Nothing.

He tried to look through the windows, but the ironwork made it difficult. He went around to a small sun-warmed patio. Fragrant from the dozen or so flower boxes, the patio gave him a view over rooftops to the sea.

When Gannon came to the back door he stopped.

It was slightly open.

What the h.e.l.l?

He blinked, thinking. Then he leaned into the doorway.

"h.e.l.lo!"

The weather-worn door creaked as he pushed it open to a small kitchen. It was clean with a sand-colored linoleum floor, white shelves, white tiled walls and a gas stove.

"Adam!"

The house was silent as Gannon continued to the living room. Two small sofas with print designs faced each other over a coffee table. Everything was bathed in yellow from the sunlight filtered by the closed yellow curtains.

Everything was in place. He checked the bedroom, the single bed, the quilted spread, the desk, dresser, goatskin lampshade. All in order and tinted blue from blue curtains.

"Adam?"

Gannon moved on to the bathroom.

At least that's what he figured the next room to be, given the white door was ajar and he glimpsed a mirror. As he reached out his hand to open the door, he hesitated.

The house was too still.

He swallowed.

As he slowly pushed the door open, a p.r.i.c.kly sensation shot up the back of his neck. A shoed foot was hanging over the lip of the bathtub. He then saw a hand, an arm, blood splattered over the white tiles, before he met Adam Corley's eyes.

Staring into him from a wide-eyed death mask.

A sound.

Something moved fast behind Gannon.

39.

Somewhere in Morocco.

Nearly two hours outside of Rabat a convoy sped along a dirt road, cutting across a vast stretch of forgotten territory.

The sun hit the chrome on the first two cars; both were government-owned Peugeot sedans out of Temara. The last vehicle was a late model Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen that had been dispatched out of Ain Aouda. Only a few of the men involved were members of the DST--Direction de la Securite du Territoire--the Moroccan secret police.

No one knew the ident.i.ties of the others.

Dust clouds billowed from their trail, forming a rising curtain that concealed their destination and intention.

The man lying on the back floor of the G-Wagen, under a canvas tarp, stripped naked, shackled and blindfolded was Jack Gannon. His brain throbbed and his mouth tasted as if it had been stuffed with burlap and he recalled an overwhelming smell.

Chloroform?

The last thing he remembered was discovering Adam Corley's corpse amid a bloodbath in his Rabat home.

Gannon forced himself to cling to the drone of the wheels, to breathe deeply and calmly. He concentrated on the murmur of French coming from his captors at the front of the vehicle. He tried to pick up any information, a tone, a word he might know.

A cell phone rang, and the man who answered spoke in a language Gannon didn't recognize. The vehicle slowed to a halt, and he heard muted shouting through the closed windows. Dread gnawed at the edges of his mind and he tried not to imagine what awaited him.

Had he been able to see through his blindfold he would have discerned the high chain-link fence topped with razor wire securing the low building, which was half-submerged in the earth. It was a secret facility that did not exist. Not officially. In intelligence circles, it was known as a black prison.

For several years, the building had received suspected terrorists transported on ghost flights from countries that denied knowledge of activities conducted within its walls. It was undoc.u.mented work performed by contractors expert at obtaining information from any resistant subjects delivered to them. Some of the interrogators had extracted intelligence on the attacks in Casablanca, Madrid, London, Bali and on September 11. They had also thwarted a number of planned attacks that remained unknown to the world beyond its barbed-wire gates.

A sudden blast of 110-degree heat overwhelmed the SUV's air-conditioned interior as the doors were opened.

Gannon was yanked out.

Stones p.r.i.c.ked his bare feet and the ground burned his soles as he hobbled with his captors a short distance before they pushed him indoors. The air was cooler but he was nearly overcome by the stench of urine and excrement. The drone of flies was alarming and he feared he was among corpses. As Gannon was shoved along the building's reeking corridors, he found his voice.

"I'm an American citizen. I want to call my emba.s.sy."

A sharp pain exploded in his b.u.t.tocks from the kick of a large steel-toed boot. Gannon's knees buckled and he was dragged into another room.

Distant shouting and screams echoed. The floor was wet as he was positioned with his feet spread apart. Chains clinked and steel collars were clamped to his ankles.

His plastic handcuffs were replaced with steel ones that were fastened to chains. The cuffs gouged him as his wrists were hoisted over his head. He had to stand on his toes to touch the ground.

"What have I done?"

A fist drove so fast and deep into Gannon's gut he felt his organs squeeze against his spine and reflexively vomited. The hot contents of his stomach flowed over his skin.

He wheezed through tears.

"The question for you," said a voice in English, with an accent Gannon could not identify, "and it is a question you must ask yourself, is, Are you going to cooperate with pain, or without it?"

Gannon continued gasping.

"Because in the end, you will cooperate."

For a moment, Gannon swore he heard a male American raise his voice in another room. The American sounded like he was talking urgently to someone over the phone.

"Yes! Gannon, run his name again! I need everything on him now!"

Gannon's attention shifted back to the accented voice before him.

"No one knows you are here. No one can help you. We will bury you and poof--you will vanish."

There was the snap of a lighter then the smell of a strong cigarette.

"By the time I finish my smoke, you will be broken."

A table rattled with the tinkling sounds of small metal tools on a tray.

"You can save yourself."

Gannon's stomach quaked. His arms burned.

"Did you murder Adam Corley because he knew of the operation?"

"I want," Gannon gasped. "I want to call my emba.s.sy."

Gannon's face was slapped.