He watched her, thinking about how he could snap her neck and end the drama in seconds, but he was a pro and professionals knew better than to act in rage. It was so soon after the kidnapping that it would be very tricky to eliminate her now without arousing suspicions. There had to be an option he wasn’t seeing at the moment, something clever, something worthy of him.
She collapsed on the floor, sobbing, turning her shredded masterpieces into papier-mâché. The bitch wasn’t going anywhere for now. To be on the safe side, he yanked the phone cord from the wall. He needed to make some calls, but he could use the bedroom phone and his new cell. A refreshing nap might open up the right possibility, something the Agency and the life insurance company would never question.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Statements extracted under torture are totally unreliable, sometimes concocted by the interrogators themselves, the victim merely signing them… Inevitably, the victim admits whatever he is asked to admit. A lie enters the stream of intelligence as the truth.
– Sunday Herald [Glasgow], October 16, 2005, as reported by Neil Mackay
In one video played to jurors last week [in the California terrorism trail], Umer Hayat admitted visiting several terrorist training camps… But his account sometimes bordered on the fantastic, with tales of a thousand terrorists wearing masks “like Ninja Turtle” as they practiced twirling curved swords, firing automatic weapons and pole-vaulting rivers in an immense underground compound-a description that roughly tracks the Ninja Turtles television show.
– Associated Press, March 11, 2006, as reported by Don Thompson
Camp Raven, The Green Zone, Baghdad
Stuffing her mouth with a granola bar, Camille stumbled from her trailer and toward the bunker that housed the ops center. The day shift had come on a few minutes ago and she could count on a steaming pot of fresh coffee. She needed it; she had slept for three hours and felt a wreck. Activity in the ops center had dropped to the usual daytime lull. Most of the monitors were dark and those that were on were rerunning footage from last night’s action, the morning crew fighting vicariously. She grabbed her mug and yelled to anyone who was listening. “Who made the coffee today?”
“Curatalo-brace yourself.”
“Great. I was afraid it was Iggy’s troubled water.” She dumped coffee into her cup, leaving room for more cream than usual. Without bothering to stir, she sipped some down, then headed to Iggy’s office. He seemed to live there, typically working nights and well into the morning. She guessed he had to slip away to shower and sleep midday before things geared up for the evening’s operations, but she suspected he often went for days without leaving the ops center.
Iggy looked up from a satellite image on his computer. “You get any shut-eye?”
“Not much, but I’m sure it was more than you did. It’s hard not to worry about Hunter. Anything new?”
“Yeah, AegeanA picked up a short conversation between Joe Chronister and a guy named Larry Ashland, some kind of a supervisor in Rubicon. They discussed taking Stone to a black site in the Ukraine.” Iggy smacked his lips as he shook his head.
“I take it there’s something you don’t like?”
“A lot. Joe initiated the call from his home phone on an unsecured line. Even though he openly referred to Stone, he used the current code name for the Ukrainian shithole-a program he knows I’ve been read into.” Iggy made eye contract with Camille. “I’ve worked with Joe on at least a dozen projects and you can say a lot of things about the SOB, but his tradecraft is clean.”
“He knows we’re listening.” Camille shoved some papers aside and set her coffee cup on Iggy’s desk.
“Oh, yeah. He knows all right and that means we’ve got a leak a little closer to us than we thought. AegeanA has a wire to his cell. It’s state of the art encryption, but you know what kind of code breakers the Brits are. Not a single call in or out. They did whatever magic they do and checked his records. He uses it constantly, except today.” Iggy put his hands on the top of his head and chin and twisted. His neck popped. “I figure he wasn’t sure if we were sophisticated enough to get through the cell’s encryption, so he placed the call to Ashland on the open line, to make sure we were listening. He wanted to make damn sure we heard what he had to say.”
“He wants me out of his hair,” Camille said. “At least he didn’t hire a sniper.”
“You’re too high profile. Everyone knows you’re in a showdown with Rubicon. Anything happens to you right now, it calls more attention to Rubicon and whatever the hell SHANGRI-LA and BALI HAI are.”
“We knew we had a mole problem.” Camille sipped some coffee. “Any idea who it could be? Who around here knew about the jailbreak sigint?”
“Could be anyone on duty in the ops center last night. I made a reference to it in front of your team when you got back.” Iggy sighed. “Doesn’t narrow it much.”
“Then let’s play along. He wants to throw me off track and send me to Ukraine, then as far as everyone’s concerned, I’m gearing up to intercept a plane there tomorrow. In the interim, do whatever it takes to find out where and what those code names could mean-talk to our green badgers inside the Agency if you have to. We’ve got spies on the inside at the CIA. Let’s use them.”
“Agreed. And I really think you should-”
Someone knocked at the door and both turned toward it. “Yeah. Come in.”
“Sorry to interrupt you, sir, ma’am.” An aide stood in the doorway. “I’ve got Kimo from the main gate on the line. He’s got a barefoot woman in a bathrobe. She won’t say who she is, but says her husband is going to kill her. She’s insisting on talking to Ms. Black.”
Camille reached toward the aide’s radio. “Kimo’s the big Hawaiian guy, right?” The aide nodded. Camille squeezed the button. “Howzit, Kimo? Can you let me talk to the lady?”
“For sure, Ms. Black.”
“Hi, this is Camille Black. How can I help you?”
“I didn’t know where else to go,” the woman’s voice said. “You said you’d help me. I’m Jackie Nelson.”
Iggy and Camille looked at each other, then she turned to the aide and said, “Send GENGHIS to the gate immediately and have him escort her to my trailer. Tell him to stay with her until I arrive. He’s to let no one else in except me.”
Camille jogged up to her trailer with Iggy. An operator she knew only as BEAR stood on the steps, an M4 in hand.
“Where’s GENGHIS?” Camille said.
“No one’s seen him since last night, ma’am,” BEAR said as he stepped aside to let them enter.
“Find him,” Iggy said as he stepped into the trailer.
Jackie Nelson sat in the black leather armchair, staring into space. Her hair was stringy, uncombed and her eyes were red and puffy, but her face wasn’t quite as sunken as when Camille had last seen the woman in her apartment. Still, sitting there barefoot with filthy feet and in a bathrobe, the woman looked deranged.
“Hi, Jackie. This is my good friend Iggy. He might be able to help us.”
Iggy extended his artificial hand. She reached out, touched it lightly, then pulled her hand back.
Camille continued, “Looks like you left home in a hurry.”
“He was going to kill me. He always said he would if I left him and I told him I was leaving.” She rubbed her hands together as she sat down. “There’s something about him. I know he could do it.”
Iggy smiled. “You’ve got Joe’s number all right.”
Camille shot him a stern glance.
“Who’s Joe?” Jackie said. Her arms were crossed and she slumped in the chair.
“Don’t worry about it now,” Camille said. “You’re safe here. I’ll get you some clothes in a few minutes.” Camille held herself back. Camille was afraid that, if she pushed too fast, she would never get anything useful from her.