“It’s not all right,” Paul said, getting impatient. “She’s crying.”
“Yes, listen.” Eric spoke slowly and calmly, “You know where Olivia works, so you’ll understand there’s a limit to what I can and can’t say. But I’ll tell you as much as I can, okay?”
“Alright.”
“Olivia is worried about your son, Austin.”
“Austin? Why, what happened?” Paul was clearly concerned.
“Nothing that we know of, Mr. Cooper.” Eric paused. “As far as we know, there isn’t anything at all wrong.” He paused again, thinking about what he was going to say next. “Olivia says that your son is in eastern Uganda this summer, teaching kids, is that right?”
“Yes,” Paul answered. “That’s right. He’s in Kapchorwa.”
“We’re investigating some events in eastern Uganda, and the name of that city came up. Olivia grew very concerned. That’s why we called you.” Eric nodded at Olivia and smiled reassuringly. “When was the last time you talked to your son?”
“Several days ago. Does this have to do with that Ebola epidemic?”
Eric hesitated before continuing. “We tried to call him, and we can’t get through.”
“No,” Paul replied, “there’s no service in Kapchorwa.”
“How do you get hold of him when you need to?” Eric asked.
A long pause followed. “I don’t know,” Paul admitted. “Heidi, my wife, has been trying to get through to him. She’s been worried. Tell me, Mr. Murchison, was she right to worry?”
Chapter 52
On the outside of the Tyvek suit, in a pocket Najid had constructed from tape and a piece of plastic, his satellite phone started vibrating. Few people had that number. One of them was his father, who was too far gone to use a phone without assistance. One was Dr. Kassis. Rashid was another. The last was Firas Hakimi. Najid knew what the call was about.
“Speak,” Najid said, raising the phone to his facemask.
“You know who this is, I trust.” It was the voice of Hakimi.
“I do,” answered, Najid.
Hakimi said, “Then you know that I am calling because your friend in Lahore chose to tell me about your bribes before he left this life.”
“That is unfortunate. Killing him was not necessary.” Najid was disdainful over Hakimi’s perpetual inability to face any situation pragmatically. Passion and extremism were the only things that Hakimi understood.
“It will also be unfortunate for you, Najid. Did you expect that you could just buy a hundred and eleven fighters with Western passports and that it would go unnoticed?”
“I did not.”
Hakimi didn’t like that answer and let his silence grow ominous before saying, “You have been a generous supporter and a friend. Explain to me what you have done, before I decide your fate.”
Najid resisted the urge to tell the upstart leader of the movement that he was nothing more than a charismatic puppet, and instead replied, “The questions you ask cannot be answered on a telephone. I will send an emissary to meet your man at the usual place. He will have words for only your ears. Please listen to him before you decide what to do with me. Afterward, I assure you, I will be at your disposal.”
“And if I wish to hear these words from your lips?” Hakimi was not happy.
“You cannot get to where I am before the time comes for me to leave. I can only tell you that what I do, I do to further our common cause.”
“You are dangerously ambitious for a man who should be kneeling to serve.”
Najid knew his father’s wealth strengthened his position and made kneeling to Hakimi unnecessary. “The details and depth of my service will become clear when you have spoken to my emissary. He will bring with him the time and place where we can meet and come to an understanding. I assure you, you will not be displeased when you know what I have done.”
“It is not for you to decide unilaterally what our brotherhood will do operationally,” scolded Hakimi.
“All I can say is that an opportunity arose that required decisive choices and swift action. There was no time to go through our usual process. If what I have done displeases you, I will kneel and accept punishment for my transgressions.”
“When can I expect this emissary?” Hakimi asked.
“He will meet your man tomorrow at noon,” replied Najid.
“See that he is not late.” Hakimi ended the call.
Najid put his soon-to-be-disposed-of phone back in his plastic, makeshift pocket. He looked down the dirt road and spotted one of his recruits hurrying by. “You.”
Jalal stopped and looked up. “Yes.”
“Come here.”
Jalal hurried over and stood in the dirt at the bottom of the hospital steps.
“Where are you from?” Najid asked.
Jalal shuffled nervously.
In a soothing voice, Najid asked, “Tell me where you are from.”
“London, sir.”
Najid eyed the recruit. “Do you have faith in Allah and our cause?”
“Of course.”
“Can you be trusted?”
“I swear to you that I am the most trustworthy of your men,” answered Jalal.
“Do you know the name, Firas Hakimi?”
Jalal nervously answered, “Yes. Everyone knows that name.”
“I have a message that I will tell you. You will deliver this message personally to him and only to him. Do you know what he looks like?”
“I have seen pictures.” Jalal puffed up with pride, “I would be honored to do this.”
“Come up here, and listen to me, then.”
Najid started constructing his lie.
Chapter 53
Of course he was bright. The CIA wouldn’t have had such a hard-on for him if he hadn’t been. He was tall. He was good looking. He was athletic. Exactly the kind of guy they’d pick to play James Bond in the movies when Daniel Craig got too old.
But Mitch Peterson never even thought about acting. Instead, he’d spent most of his twenties enamored with his gig as a real spy. Over time his love of his job slowly turned to disappointment and acceptance as he bounced from one do-nothing post to another, in one backwater country after another.
Kampala? None of his buddies from Stanford—now making six and seven figures a year—could even find it on a map.
So he sat in his second-floor office in a building that looked way too much like a high school, gazing out over the embassy wall, watching the sun slowly fall toward the horizon. The trip down the CIA ladder of un-success had a long way to go, and was going too slowly. He checked his watch.
Why did Langley have to set up a time for a call? Why not just call? Why make him wait in his office, pretending to fulfill the duties of a Cultural Attaché, until five-thirty p.m. local time? Mitch fantasized about a microfilm message hidden in a coconut at a dead drop, or a few cryptic words recorded to audio tape that would disappear in a puff of smoke after being heard.
Mitch sighed.
The reality of encrypted phone calls and encrypted emails was so mundane.
He wanted to get out of the office, go for a run, get cleaned up, and go to dinner with his buddy Lou—the son of a Ugandan politician—and hit that new club Lou kept talking about. That was all the excitement his CIA gig in Kampala allowed for, complete with the risk of catching something from the local party girls in a country rampant with HIV.
Sure, he’d gone afield from time to time, chasing down some false alarm about an Al Qaeda something-or-other. The alarms were rare and always led to nothing but a day or two of driving on dusty roads in humid air thick enough to swim in.
When the telephone rang forty-five minutes early, he smiled, thinking it was Langley, early for a nice change. “Peterson, speaking.”