“You know you can’t do that. You have to have a light footprint. Find the nearest airstrip and take your best shots. The middle of the desert, they won’t be running security quite as tight as elsewhere.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Camille pointed toward the bathroom. “Any suggestions on what to do with her?”
“That lady needs help-serious help. Joe’s really fucked her. You know he’s been widowed twice, don’t you? I don’t remember the details. Don’t have to.”
“He would’ve gotten away with it again. I’d like to nail his ass.”
“Accidents happen.” Iggy typed, using all the fingers on his left hand and hunting and pecking with his right. “We have to police our own. I hate it, but sometimes, it’s the only justice. All I need is one more story I can’t tell.”
“You’re saying we should take out Joe in some kind of vigilante justice?”
“It’s been done before.”
“I’m ready to grab him and see if we can extract specifics about where he’s taking Hunter.”
“He’s not the type who’ll break quickly.”
“The voice of experience?” As soon as she got the words out, she wished she hadn’t asked. Iggy was a good man and she liked to believe in good men.
“You don’t want to know, do you?”
Camille pulled a box of corn flakes from the cupboard that Pete had recently stocked. “I guess we can fly her on a Hawk to Amman or Kuwait City and send her off to the States from there.”
“Hell, Joe’s got his hands so full, you could have a press conference send-off from the Baghdad airport and he wouldn’t know it. Send some boys with her on Route Irish to Baghdad International or if you’re feeling generous, a bird could drop her off there.” Iggy entered something into the computer. “This is weird. I’m using our account to order Ikonos images and they’re showing all satellite pictures for Uzbekistan are unavailable. I’ve tried several dates including one three years from now and nothing’s working.”
“Could be a Web site problem. They go over Uzbekistan several times a day when they’re shooting Afghanistan. You think someone bought them all up?” The coffeemaker gurgled. Camille removed the pot before it was finished brewing and poured a cup into a mug with the Black Management black panther logo.
“Doesn’t make sense. Why would you want to keep people from looking at some underground facility you couldn’t see from the sky anyway?”
“Maybe SHANGRI-LA is above ground, though I’ll still put money on it that they’re using the old KGB haunts.”
“That’s a given,” Iggy said. “You always use whatever’s already there. Look at what we do here. Not knocking down Abu Ghraib was obviously stupid, but we use all of Saddam’s old facilities. I’ll check in with the spooks and see what the KGB had going on in that neck of Kyzyl Kum. Looks like you’re going to be tripping down memory lane there.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Camp Tornado Point, Anbar Province
He should’ve snapped Jackie’s goddamn neck when he had a chance, Joe Chronister told himself as he tried to find a chair with four legs in the former Iraqi Army brig. The place was such a dump that Rubicon hadn’t bothered to take it over even though it was in their corner of the sprawling Camp Tornado Point compound. It smelled like an old slaughterhouse and it probably was. But the cells were intact and that was all that mattered since he had to hold Stone incognito somewhere away from the temptation of Camille’s bounty. It sure beat an empty shipping container for ventilation. Three shooters, a black hood and an old key were all that he needed to hold Stone and a couple of his friends until he had the final piece he needed to start their transfer to Fuckistan.
He heard a car drive up and one of his men escorted Larry Ashland inside.
“My god, how do you stand this smell?” Ashland said, squinting his eyes.
“Hadn’t noticed.”
Chronister sat on the best chair he could find, then shoved one toward Ashland, who stared at the grimy wooden seat but didn’t sit down. The pussy didn’t have a clue they were on to him.
“It won’t kill ya,” Chronister said.
“Where’s Stone?”
“You’ll see him soon enough.”
“I did not appreciate the rough handing on the way in. And I don’t understand why they had to impound my weapons.” Ashland flicked imaginary dirt from his starched white shirt.
“Can’t be too careful around operators like Stone.” Chronister pulled out a pack of cigarettes and held it out to Ashland. “Want one?”
“They’ll kill you.”
“Lot of things do that.” Chronister lit his cigarette, looking over Ashland. “Working the Iraqi side of the op, you have to be curious what it’s all about-how your little piece fits into the big picture. I was thinking it’s time to take you to check out BALI HAI. You know, you can get a good look at SHANGRI-LA from there.”
“BALI HAI. Not SHANGRI-LA?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet, have you? BALI HAI’s the prison; SHANGRI-LA’s the project.” Chronister took a long drag from the cigarette and felt an immediate rush. He had waited a couple of years for the opportunity to screw Ashland. He’d despised the fucker from the first time they had met. “Here’s the deal. We’re transferring Stone and a couple others overland to an out-of-the-way airstrip. No one’s going to be watching for him. A Rubicon rendition flight will ferry them from there to Uzbekistan. You’ll tag along.”
“So SHANGRI-LA is in Uzbekistan?” Ashland nodded his head.
“Yeah and you can send a postcard to Paris from there. They have some nice ones with those turquoise blue domes-”
“What are you talking about?” His countenance fell and he was suddenly very serious.
“You tell me.” Chronister drew his Glock and yelled for the guards. “My wife left me this morning. I’d love to kill someone right now, so don’t push me, you fucking spy.”
“I didn’t touch your wife.”
“Spoken like a true Frenchman.”
A guard shoved Ashland down onto the gritty floor and plastic-cuffed his hands behind his back. “What the hell is this about?”
“We nailed a spy a few days ago on the Syrian border. And that man was a talker. Something he said about a spy and SHANGRI-LA started ringing bells. Next thing you know, I’ve got a file on my desk about some DGSE agent with your ugly mug in it.” Chronister took a long drag from his cigarette, then blew smoke toward Ashland. “And what were you French thinking, calling your espionage agency the DGSE? Now KGB, CIA, SIS, those are cool, spy-cool. But DGSE sounds like some bankrupt trucking company.” Chronister grinned and shook his head. “You know, you can either cop to it now in a civilized conversation or later when we start plucking off those manicured fingernails. Make it easy on yourself.”
“Then Stone didn’t tell you? You know about me from the other agent?” Ashland laughed. “He didn’t understand, did he?”
“Stone didn’t tell me a fucking thing. I tried some dumb-ass new interrogation method I learned at a seminar from an FBI guy. Didn’t work worth a damn, but don’t worry, we don’t use that touchy-feely stuff at BALI HAI. It’s strictly old school.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to know what you French thought you were doing, nosing around a CIA operation. I thought we were all friends?”
“We used to be. Then you started kidnapping innocent civilians and torturing them in your secret prisons. You start wars under the pretext of preventing Saddam from getting nuclear devices, even though you know he doesn’t have them-because you manufactured the evidence. Now America and its corporations are addicted to the War on Terror like a user to heroin. Your president flouts your laws and constitution. And what do the American people do? They supersize another order of French fries.”