Spy for Hire (32 page)

Fahd was hyperventilating.

“Now’s the fun part.” Mark gently swirled the alcohol in the glass as he spoke. “It’ll be better for both of us if you’re relaxed. So I want you to drink some scotch. Enough to help you forget what a lousy time you’re having tonight. I’m going to put a glass to your mouth, and I want you to take a big drink. We’re going to do this once a minute until I think you’ve had enough.”

Mark first showed Fahd the bottle of Laphroaig, then put the glass up to Fahd’s lips. The Saudi smelled it, then took a big thirsty slug of it, almost too much.

“Easy there. Don’t have so much that you throw up.”

After Mark had fed Fahd what he gauged was the equivalent of around eight shots, he put the bottle down.

“That’s enough. From here on out, I expect total silence and minimal movement. Don’t panic and everything will be OK. I’ll be here throughout the night and tomorrow, keeping an eye on you. Try to sleep.”

He left Fahd gagged, blindfolded, and strapped to a chair in the bathroom. Taking the giant red suitcase that Bowlan had placed between the beds, he stuffed it full of blankets and sheets and pillows so that it was bulging. Then he closed the door to the bathroom and turned on the television set in the main room—not so loud that it might trigger complaints, but loud enough to drown out minor noise.

On the elevator ride down to the lobby, he uploaded the two-second video of Fahd to YouTube, using one of his Gmail accounts to do so. He saved the web address in his Contacts folder.

From the moment he exited the elevator, he walked slowly, as though the suitcase he was wheeling behind him was extremely heavy and he was struggling with the load.

He passed the receptionist in the main lobby. A uniformed doorman opened the glass exit door for him.

“Do you need help with your bag, sir? Or a taxi?”

“No, thank you.”

Idling in the circular drop-off area in front of the hotel was a burgundy Lincoln sedan. A tall, white-haired man wearing a blue blazer, a white oxford shirt, and thick black-rimmed glasses that might have been considered fashionable in 1962, stepped out of the car. He had big ears, and his face was creased with smoker’s wrinkles, making him look older than his seventy-one years. But he moved quickly and surprisingly fluidly as he exited the car and popped open the trunk.

“Good to see you, Larry.”

“Sava.”

They shook hands. Bowlan’s grip was firm.

“Give me a hand getting this suitcase into the trunk. It’s supposed to be heavy, so act as if it is. You’re on stage. You grab one end, I’ll grab the other.”

“How heavy?”

“About the weight of an average-sized Saudi.”

Together they made a show of bending down, lifting with their legs, and muscling the suitcase into the trunk. After it was in, Larry made a show of breathing heavily, hands on his hips.

“Don’t overdo it,” said Mark.

The air had cooled, and there was a slight breeze. The city was quiet all around them. Bowlan slipped into the driver’s seat, and Mark got in beside him.

“Where to?” asked Bowlan. He was glancing in his rearview and sideview mirrors in a way that might have appeared normal to a casual observer, but Mark could tell Bowlan was in that hyperalert zone. Mark was there himself.

“Manama fish market.”

“I know it.”

When considering the best place to meet Admiral Garver, Mark had remembered reading once that the fish market in Manama was a huge daily affair, renowned throughout the
region. He figured people would be there even in the middle of the night, getting ready for the market to open before dawn. It was neutral territory, and only a short drive away.

As they were pulling away from the Golden Tulip, Mark asked, “So’d you talk to Kalila Safi?”

“No, but I talked to her brother just before I got on the plane…”

56

Rad woke up thinking about the drive from the oil fields. Sometime after dark, they’d pulled him from the shack and dumped him in the back of a pickup truck. Though he hadn’t been able to see over the walls of the bed of the truck, he’d been able to glimpse the bright flames atop the tall flare stacks.

The truck had driven through the desert over dirt roads, and all the bouncing around had been excruciating. But he’d tried to remember Mark’s advice—to stay alert and calm to fight off shock. He recalled passing a gate in a chain-link fence, and a building that had looked like military barracks. And then he’d blacked out. Or had he been drugged? He vaguely remembered a hand coming down over his mouth, but maybe he’d dreamed it?

He certainly felt groggy now. His shoulder still ached, but not as much as before.

Where was he? He raised his head from the table he lay on. Though he was now shirtless, he was still wearing the same boxer shorts that he’d had on when he’d been abducted in India. Bright lights shone down from above, making it hard for him to see. To his left, he thought he could make out what looked like the steel walls of a warehouse. To his right, arranged on a small metal tray, was a collection of scalpels.

Rad stared at the scalpels.

He wasn’t in an operating room. So what the hell were the scalpels doing there?

He heard voices conversing in a language he didn’t understand. He wondered what Marko would do. Rad knew next to
nothing about his brother, but he felt certain that the battle-hardened man who had come to see him in the shack in the desert—the man who’d snapped at him to shut up—would fight back.

A black man in a white coat appeared above him.

Rad took a few deep breaths. He’d been drugged, he knew that now, and he wasn’t thinking clearly. But he was thinking clearly enough. With his good hand, he reached out, grabbed one of the scalpels, and stabbed the leg of the man in the white coat as hard as he could.

The man screamed.

Rad sat up and pushed himself off the table. He was dizzy as his feet hit the ground. He tried to run, but fell on his face. That’s when he remembered his shinbone was broken.

A foot appeared in front of him and he stabbed it with the scalpel. Then he felt a hand press a rag over his mouth. He breathed in something sweet, and blacked out.

57

Mark hopped out quickly, before the car had even come to a full stop, as Bowlan pulled up to the fish market warehouses. It was one forty in the morning. Muhammad was supposed to be transferred to the Saudis in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency hotel in Bishkek in twenty minutes.

The whole area reeked of a heady mix of saltwater and fish guts, the odor pungent even though the new day’s catch had yet to arrive. As the warm stench rose up in Mark’s nose, it made him feel more alert, as though he’d just inhaled smelling salts.

As he jogged toward the market, he considered what Bowlan had just told him about Kalila Safi. Assuming Bowlan hadn’t been lied to, then it was just as Mark had suspected—the Saudis weren’t looking out for Muhammad’s best interests any more than the royals here in Bahrain were.

At the market, men were setting up chopping tables and unloading ice in open, brightly lit warehouses. Mark imagined that the fish would begin to arrive in a few hours—freshly caught grouper, tuna, parrot fish, and shark—hauled in from the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. They’d be sliced up with razor-sharp fillet knives and weighed on the old cast-iron scales Mark saw out on the chopping tables before being sold to Bahraini housewives or luxury restaurants in Manama.

The parking lot lay just beyond the warehouses. A refrigerator truck and an old pickup that had a big wooden table lashed to its bed pulled in just as Mark got there; they parked next to
several other vehicles that were clustered in an area close to the market.

One car in the vast lot sat apart from the rest—a silver Buick, in the far southeastern corner. The interior lights were off, but Mark saw the silhouette of a man sitting behind the steering wheel.

He began to walk toward the Buick.

When he got close, the driver’s side window opened, revealing a man with a square jaw and high forehead. He wore a white, neatly pressed, short-sleeved civilian shirt and dark blue slacks that looked to Mark like the bottom half of the navy’s blue service uniform. His graying hair had been cut high and tight.

“Admiral Garver?”

“Yes.”

Mark walked around to the other side of the car and slid into the passenger-side seat. Garver offered his hand. It was a stiff, formal gesture.

Mark glanced at Garver’s hand, shook it, and said, “So why’d you do it?”

“Mr. Sava. My team and I work closely with your friends at the CIA. That’s why I’m here tonight—because I know you’re involved in a sensitive Agency operation that I also happen to have been briefed on.” Garver spoke with clipped precision, like the high-ranking military officer he was. “So I’ll hear what you have to say. But let’s dispense with the accusations, shall we?”

“Your friend Gregory Larkin’s already talked, Admiral. There’ll be corroborating phone records. Even if I can’t prove that you shared my personnel file with the Saudis, which I know damn well you did, asking Larkin to illegally violate my file is enough in itself to end your career and then some.”

Garver was silent for half a minute. He’d turned away from Mark and was staring blankly out the side window. His chin was thrust forward, his lips pursed tightly together.

“Who else?”

“Who else, what?”

“Knows.”

Mark said, “I need you to tell me what’s going down on this island, Admiral, and then I need you to contact Saeed for me. The only other person who knows is the head of the CIA’s Central Eurasia Division. He’s the one who investigated the breach and confronted Larkin.”

“Why only him?”

“Because I need you motivated to help me. And I’ve noticed that people who have already permanently lost everything they love in life are hard to motivate. The division chief of Central Eurasia is a guy named Ted Kaufman. I know him well. I asked that he not turn you in just yet so that if you were to help me, I’d have something to give you in return. Like a chance to avoid prison.”

Another long pause.

Mark added, “I’m pissed to hell about what happened with my file, and about what the Saudis have done to my brother—”

“What happened to your brother?”

“But I’m not looking for revenge. I’m looking for results.”

“What happened to your brother?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Mark didn’t know whether Garver was playing dumb or was genuinely out of the loop; either way, he didn’t want to talk about it—at least not with Garver.

“I did what I thought was right,” said Garver.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Don’t patronize me. Is your brother hurt?”

“I’ve told you what I’m here for, Admiral. Either you’re going to give me what I want, or you’re going to take it on the chin. What’s it going to be?”

“It happened six days ago,” said Garver, continuing to stare out the side window.

Mark waited, then said, “
What
happened?”

“The king was turning sixty-two. It was a small party, mostly just family. The next morning, people started vomiting. At first, they thought it was food poisoning. But the sick just kept getting sicker. Are you familiar with ricin?”

“Oh, Christ.”

Ricin was a powerful poison, one that was widely available and relatively easy to produce since it came from castor beans. Mark recalled that the KGB used it during the Cold War. Saddam Hussein had produced a bunch of it. Various terrorists had tried to use it.

“Yeah, that was my reaction. A purified powder was dissolved and injected into the wine. Many of those who got sick have already died. The king is in a coma and on kidney dialysis. Given the damage to his liver and heart, it’s thought that he’ll die soon. Two of his adult sons died in the last couple of days, and another will likely die within hours if he hasn’t already. The people don’t know the extent of what’s happened, but rumors are flying on the street. The king’s uncle, the prime minister, was one of the few who didn’t drink at the party. He’s been doing everything he can to prevent the papers from reporting on the absence of the royal family, hoping the king will get better and take control, but he won’t be able to do that much longer—it’s unlikely the king will get better, and they won’t be able to hold off on the burials much longer. An announcement is going to be made no later than noon today. This island is a bomb that’s waiting to go off.”