Traitor (10 page)

“Next time, take the time to put your shoes on,” advised Nick, brushing past the shoeless man.

Nick was led up to the tenth floor and met at the door by Mohammed Farsi. The man was flanked by another two youths, although these two had guns drawn, ready to use. They tracked Nick as he walked towards them. Mohammed Farsi’s expression changed from confusion to bewilderment, once he realized who was walking towards him.

“I don’t know if I should hug you as a brother or shoot you as a traitor!” exclaimed Mohammed.

“A brother,” said Nick handing him a copy of the DVD he had shown the prince. “I will wait here while you watch it,” he said, then turned to Tousled Hair and tossed him his car keys and asking him a favor.

The hug that followed the watching of the DVD meant that all weapons were withdrawn and Nick was invited into the home of the most senior member of Al Qaeda’s French network. Nick had one goal over the next few days - securing the support of all the European fundamentalist groups.

He had an army to build and a war to begin.

After three hours, during which Frankie related to Special Agent Reid her entire history with Nick, the questions finally stopped. Ultimately, she had nothing that would assist in the search for Nick. This equaled the grand total of what the search of her guesthouse had revealed. Nick had left clues about neither his secretive life nor his plans. Frankie felt the coolness towards her wear off when it became clear that she was not an accomplice or in any way involved.

“Thanks, Frankie, I appreciate that was not easy,” concluded Turner. The rest of the group filtered out of the office, and once the last of them had left, he stood up and closed the door, keeping Carson and Frankie in the room.

“Just a couple more questions,” he said, taking his seat again.

Frankie looked at Carson, aware of how he wanted to control information. “Of course.”

“I’d like to know a little more about your family.”

“I’m not entirely sure how that is relevant,” interrupted Carson.

“I have no issue discussing my family,” Frankie said. “My father is Albert Franks, born and raised in Houston, Texas. He went to college, then joined an oil firm as an accountant. In the late seventies, he was working in Saudi Arabia where he met my mother.”

“Do you think Nick meeting you was planned?”

“I doubt it. We met at the White House and since no one there, except for President Mitchell and my boss, is aware of my heritage, I can’t see how he could have known.”

Carson bit his lip. Nick Geller was a highly trained intelligence officer and probably one of the best they had, if not
the
best. He would have known exactly who she was. However, telling Frankie that would make her feel even worse than she already did. He opted to let her think that she was bearing the child of a man who had loved her and not used her.

Unfortunately, Turner was not as thoughtful. “I highly doubt that, I’m afraid. Nick Geller had access to any personnel records he wanted. It is inconceivable that a man of his training would not have checked your history before making a move.”

Frankie remained impassive at the thought that she had been used for some ulterior motive.

“Tell me about your mother.”

“She was the twentieth child of my grandfather, born to his fourth wife. She was ten years younger than her closest sibling and was the baby of the house. She was my grandfather’s favorite. She could do no wrong and as she grew up, he took her everywhere with him. From the stories I have been told, he was a hard man to his older children and alienated most of them. Having my mother in his fifties had softened him and made him appreciate his children far more. Although he was a prince, he was far removed from the king. He owned a lot of land in the oil rich desert and as a result, he had many interactions with American oil companies. It was on a trip to one of the oil fields that my parents met. By that time, my grandfather was dying and he saw the spark in my mother’s eye when she met my father. My grandfather knew that when he died, her life would be nothing in Saudi Arabia. She’d bear children for a man who may take numerous wives. She was very intelligent and highly educated. Publicly he forbade their union, but privately he encouraged it. A letter from him tells of his proudest and saddest day, the day she got married to my father and the day he couldn’t be with her to celebrate. He died shortly after her marriage.”

“If he publicly forbade the union, I assume he left her nothing?” questioned Turner.

“Publicly yes, privately no.”

Turner let the silence hang, waiting for more. Frankie didn’t elaborate.

After a minute of the two looking at each other, Carson intervened. “Well I think that covers everything,” he concluded.

“I’d like to know where your mother’s money came from,” Turner said.

“I don’t see how that is relevant or any of your business,” replied Frankie.

“Neither do I,” replied Carson, standing up to leave.

“Prince Abdullah bin Fahd al Khaled, the man who smuggled your boyfriend out of the country, is your mother’s cousin!”

Both Frankie and Carson laughed, much to Turner’s chagrin. Before he could respond, there was a sharp knock on the office door and it opened. Special Agent Reid stepped in.

“We’ve got a lead on a car,” she announced.

Turner followed Reid out onto the gangway and looked down onto the operations floor below. The huge screens on the wall showed an aerial view of a small car travelling along a road in an urban area. Reid led Turner, Carson and Frankie down into the main center, filling them in along the way.

“We’ve been scouring whatever CCTV images we could get from France. There isn’t much thanks to it being a weekend. They seem to close down on weekends.”

Carson sighed knowingly. The French were a nightmare to work with. If they weren’t on lunch, they had already left for the day or were on vacation whenever you tried to reach one of them.

“Anyway, what we have managed to retrieve has turned up a car at numerous locations between Le Touquet and Paris over the last few hours. The darkness has meant most images are very grainy but we did get one that confirmed our suspicions.”

On cue, an image of Nick driving the Clio through a junction in a small French town was displayed on the screen.

“Excellent!” Turner exclaimed, congratulating everyone in the center.

Carson hit the dial button on his phone at the confirmation that Nick Geller was in France. He had two navies to stand down.

“We followed the images and have him driving through Paris for around one hour at around four a.m. local time. Unfortunately, we lost him just as he headed towards southern Paris.”

Frankie looked at the image; it was definitely Nick. She looked across at the numerous locations that were being highlighted across Paris on a separate screen. Carson ended his calls and joined them and he too began to study the pinpointed sightings.

“Can that system draw a route, taking the time stamps of each sighting into account?” he asked. Frankie looked at Carson. He was thinking the same as her.

Reid nodded for the analyst to do what had been suggested. It’ll just take a few minutes,” confirmed the analyst.

“It appears from the image on the screen that we’ve just reacquired him?” she asked as much as told.

“Yep, we’ve got him on a KH-11 now,” said Barry from the CIA, pointing to the live image on the main screen. “Heading south out of Paris.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” asked Turner.

“We just got the image ID. As soon as we knew it was definitely—”

“Okay, okay,” waved Turner. He’d made his point.

“I have a SOG team inbound from Ramstein. ETA is about forty-five minutes at the airfield here, just North of Auxerre,” said Barry, pointing to the airfield on the map. “The road here is the A5 which becomes the A6 and it’s the road we’re tracking him on. Our team will be in place just as he approaches Auxerre.”

“What’s a SOG team?” asked Frankie.

“Special Operations Group,” said Carson. “A bit like a SEAL Team or Delta Force.”

“Only better,” said Barry, smiling and ignoring the looks of disagreement from Carson and Flynn from DIA. “Nick Geller is history. We’ve got a ten man team with an attack chopper and two Range Rovers on board.”

“We could have a team there in an hour,” suggested Flynn.

Turner understood his point; they’d rather deal with their own. But the CIA team would be on site first and it may be better for another agency to deal with the problem. “I think it’s best we let the SOG team take him down.”

Flynn nodded. “What about the police stopping him?”

“Too risky,” said Carson. “It’s going to be hard enough for the SOG team to take Nick down.”

“Piece of piss, pardon the French,” said Barry disdainfully.

Carson had had enough of the rhetoric and bullshit. “Be very clear and warn your guys that Nick Geller was one of our best. Make no mistake, this will not be a piece of piss, a walk in the park or any other fucking cliché you want to spout out.”

Barry nodded halfheartedly, more a ‘whatever’ than a ‘yes’.

“Barry, do you know our biggest problem in Defense at the moment?”

“Your boy just tried to kill the President?”

Carson ignored the cheap and rather pathetic shot. “Who is the guy we’d send to track and deal with Nick Geller, when he is the guy we’d send after himself?”

Barry struggled to understand what Carson had just said.

“He’s saying that
Nick
is the guy that can catch Nick,” explained Flynn succinctly. “Don’t be so cocky, Barry, you’ll just look all the more of an ass when he hands it to you.”

“I’ve got the route,” announced the analyst, breaking up the machismo display.

Frankie and Carson were first to move to the screen, keen to see if their thoughts were correct. It was what they had predicted. Flynn walked over and saw the same. Turner looked at the screen and saw a route that circled around on itself a number of times before dropping off the screen.

“He was lost?” asked Turner.

“Do you know how many CCTV cameras there are in France?” asked Carson.

“Millions?”

Carson shook his head. “In the UK, God yes, literally millions. In France, maybe a hundred thousand, probably less.” He turned back to the analyst. “Can you show the placement of CCTV cameras on that map of Paris?”

The cameras appeared almost in sync with Nick’s route around and around the French capital.

Barry reluctantly joined the group, and instantly saw what the others had noticed. “Shit, he wanted us to track him.”

Carson and Frankie nodded in unison. “In all the time I’ve known Nick, he’s taken the fastest and most direct route to anywhere,” Frankie said ruefully. “Even when we’re going places he’s never been to, he checks it out and knows the route in advance.”

“And that’s exactly why your input is critical to this investigation,” said Turner, almost congratulating himself for Frankie being there, despite having nothing whatsoever to do with her involvement.

They all looked back at the screen as the little Renault Clio continued its journey towards Auxerre and its imminent interception by the SOG team. Carson checked his watch. It was midnight.

“I’m going to call it a night,” he said, much to everyone’s astonishment. “It’s been a long day!”

“We’re about to catch him!” said Turner, perplexed.

“Let me know when you do. Frankie do you need a lift?”

Frankie nodded.

Sunday 6th July.

France

The C130 landed just after 7:30 a.m. local time in Auxerre and taxied to a cleared area of the apron as requested. The team of flight mechanics dragged the MH-6 Little Bird attack chopper out onto the apron and set about preparing it for takeoff. Meanwhile, the two Range Rovers wasted no time. Their five liter supercharged engines kicked into life and propelled eight of the SOG team out into the early morning sunshine. Their communications screens synched seamlessly with the satellites overhead. Their target was twenty miles to their north.

They raced off. Their job was to get around and behind the target vehicle and in place, ready to take it down. With their arrival, the motorway was being shut down. The police, following a signal from NCTC, had begun to block all entrance ramps to the southbound carriageway and had a rolling speed block in place, well out of sight, behind the target. As the SOG team got in place, the traffic around the target would have thinned, allowing them a clear run to capture him and minimize civilian casualties.

With the helicopter up and in the air, the ‘go’ was given. The two Range Rovers stationed at an overpass had just watched the target speed past. The traffic around him was almost nonexistent. With the ‘go’ signal, both drivers accelerated hard and joined the motorway, gaining fast on the small Clio. By the time the first Range Rover drew level, the helicopter was hovering off to the left with its mini gun and rocket pods hanging menacingly underneath.