His decision made, Heinrich Beck packed his backpack. Several sets of underwear, one shirt, toilet articles, his blood pressure pills and his cash. Some socks and one sweater. His toothbrush. All the toilet paper in the bathroom.
That was it. The rest of his stuff he left right where it was. If fate allowed him to return to this room, the coke would still be in the vent. He didn’t care a whit about the extra clothes or shoes or dinner jacket. He pocketed his wallet and passport, opened the door and went out, making sure it locked behind him. A few other people were already in the passageway.
One of them smiled bravely at Beck, who wasn’t the smiling type. He bared his teeth anyway in what he hoped was a friendly manner and settled the backpack on his shoulders.
CHAPTER NINE
The helicopter from Langley flew under low clouds, through a cold, rainy, miserable day, across New Jersey and New York Harbor. It settled to the tarmac at a New York heliport, where Mario Tomazic, director of the CIA, and Jake Grafton got out after thanking the crew. The Justice Department had a black Lincoln Town Car waiting. After creeping for a while over glistening wet Manhattan streets, through the usual heavy traffic, the car deposited the two men at the secure entrance to One St. Andrews Plaza, a building adjacent to Foley Square in lower Manhattan, the building that housed the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
An escort was waiting, a handsome young lawyer in a tailored suit. He took them via elevator to a conference room high in the building, where they were met by an assistant U.S. attorney in his fifties. His suit wasn’t tailored and his tie was crooked. He was at least three weeks past his haircut due date.
After the introductions and handshaking, he got right to it. “The attorney for Omar Ali has requested a plea bargain.”
Grafton and Tomazic both remembered Ali, the computer geek for Sheikh Ragnar that Tommy Carmellini and his team had snatched from a building in Mogadishu, Somalia, three weeks ago.
“I thought he was going to plead not guilty and take his chances,” Tomazic said grumpily. His low opinion of the American justice system’s ability to successfully prosecute terrorists—and pirates—was well known in government circles.
Grafton, ever the pragmatist, asked, “What’s he got to bargain with?”
“His attorney says that he has knowledge of a terrorist plan to assassinate the passengers and crew of Sultan of the Seas,” the government lawyer said.
“The pirates didn’t capture the ship until yesterday. How could he know that?”
“He says Ragnar has been planning the attack on the Sultan for over a month.”
“The question remains, What could he know?” Tomazic said curtly. “The son of a bitch has been locked up in the States for three weeks.”
“He knows that the Shabab plans to murder everyone after Ragnar collects his ransom.” The Shabab was the Islamic extremist organization that had been waging civil war with the Somali government for seventeen years.
“Does he have specifics?”
“His attorney says he does.”
“Oh, poop,” Tomazic said and raised an eyebrow at Grafton. He had learned through the years of their association that Grafton was a competent, levelheaded operator who never panicked. The retired admiral was at his best in high-pressure situations that called for Solomon’s ability to weigh risks and possible outcomes. On the other hand, as Tomazic well knew, Grafton was at heart a gambler, a man willing to stake everything to win everything. In fact, he was the exact opposite of Mario Tomazic, a career army officer who had risen to the top of his profession by avoiding risk with the fervor of a devout Baptist avoiding sin.
Still, the measure of Tomazic’s leadership ability was that he allowed a man like Grafton into his inner circle and listened carefully to his counsel. Mario Tomazic believed in winning. For himself, for his agency, and for America. And Jake Grafton was a winner. He made his own luck. Sometimes, Tomazic knew, the wisest course was to give Grafton his head and let him run while chugging Pepto-Bismol.
“We’ve passed this on to the White House,” the assistant U.S. attorney said. “It was too hot for us.”
Tomazic and Grafton traded glances. They knew precisely what the lawyer meant. If Justice discounted Ali’s tale and the Shabab did indeed attempt to murder the Sultan’s people, they would be pilloried. Yet if Omar Ali sold them a bill of goods, they would be pilloried for being too easily manipulated. In other words, a lose-lose situation.
“We would need details,” Grafton said, “all we can get, and we’ll check out his story. Keep you advised. If he’s telling the truth, we’ll let you know. If he’s peddling bullshit, we’ll let you know that, too.”
“Off the record, have you guys heard anything about a planned mass murder of the Sultan’s people?”
Tomazic’s bureaucratic instincts took over. “That’s something we would have to talk to the White House about. Not here.”
The prosecutor examined their faces. “No, you haven’t. I thought not.”
“So how does this work?” Jake Grafton asked. “We want everything this guy can tell us, and if it turns out to be true, you can do any deal you like. A light sentence, kiss his ass and send him home, or give him asylum and a job sweeping around here at night. Your call. But we can’t evaluate his story until we’ve heard it and asked questions.”
Tomazic nodded his concurrence.
“The White House told us to give you everything we can get.”
“Let’s get at it, then,” Tomazic said and rose from his chair. What he hadn’t told the Justice Department lawyers was that he had already had extensive conversations that morning with the president’s national security adviser and chief of staff. The credibility of Omar Ali’s story would determine whether the United States was going to pay the ransom Ragnar demanded or mount a military mission to rescue the Sultan’s passengers and crew. Tomazic was not about to share those conversations with the lawyers at Foley Square, who didn’t need to know.
Two hours later, when Tomazic and Grafton got into the limo for the ride back to the heliport, they didn’t know a lot more than the prosecutors or the White House had told them. Ali said that he had told a high official in the Shabab about Ragnar’s plans to hijack the cruise ship. The terrorist had wanted to know everything Ali knew, and had a bunch of questions that Ali didn’t have the answers to. All these questions, about where the passengers and crew would be held, how many pirates would be guarding them, when the ransom exchange would take place, led Ali to believe that the Shabab was interested in a lot more than stealing the money from Ragnar. Or sharing a goodly portion of it. Ali thought the Shabab leadership would try for a terror event that would break the shaky truce between the terrorists and pirates, and reignite holy war in Somalia.
Tomazic was in a foul mood. “He doesn’t actually know anything,” he muttered.
Grafton held his tongue.
“There was not one single fact capable of being checked,” Tomazic added. “We don’t even know if he really met this Shabab dude, Feiz al-Darraji, or if he’s making it all up.”
It was still raining. Grafton sat looking out the window at people holding newspapers and umbrellas over their heads, trying to hail taxis.
“So what do you think?” Tomazic asked at last.
“I think Ali really believes what he is saying,” Jake said slowly. “At least, he thinks it is highly probable. He knows we’ll check it out. There is undoubtedly a guy named Feiz al-Darraji. We sure won’t get any answers out of him, if we can find him. If events turn out the way Ali tells us they will, he’ll get a plea deal. If they don’t, he’ll get a long stretch in a federal pen, which is precisely what he’s looking at anyway.”