Traitor (20 page)

“Hold on,” she said.

He heard her hand go over the microphone as she talked to the pilot, their muffled conversation unintelligible to him.

“We’re landing at Abu Simbel Airport, it’s in Southern Egypt about two hundred and fifty miles from the coordinates. We’ll pick up jeeps or a ride somehow there to take us into the desert.”

“I’ll try to get a smaller plane to take you in. How long until you land?”

“Three and a half hours.”

“I’ll have something waiting!” he promised and hung up.

He picked up the handset and dialed Barry, who answered on the first ring. “Can you get one of your CIA teams to Southern Egypt in three hours?”

“I can get you more than one!” said Barry excitedly. Having been sidelined by Carson, Barry was more than happy to rejoin the fold. More importantly, Turner knew Barry wanted the chance to interrogate Nick as well.

Nick stepped down gingerly from the truck. The weapons swung as one from pointing at the truck to pointing at him. The benefactor’s son and friends, it appeared, were not the issue. Ibrahim stared at him through impassive eyes.

“What’s going on, Ibrahim?” asked Nick, his voice measured with a tinge of anger.

“The Caliph has ordered us to keep you under guard until his arrival.”

“The Caliph is dead,” replied Nick.

“The new Caliph,” said Ibrahim.

“I thought it hadn’t been agreed yet.”

“It was announced while you were away. We just heard and his first order was to keep you under guard.”

Nick marched towards Ibrahim but was blocked by four men who stepped in front of him, their weapons trained directly on him. Nick stopped. He could see there would be no hesitation from them in shooting him.

One thing was for sure, he wasn’t going down without a fight. He noted the distances to each before catching Ibrahim’s eye once more. Ibrahim recognized the look. He had seen it in Nick when Nick had trained him.

“Whoa!!!” shouted Ibrahim. “Guys, stand down.”

Nick stopped himself from moving. He had been about to strike as Ibrahim’s face cracked.

“I was just fucking with you, showing my guys how a real hard guy deals with a tight situation.”

The four gunmen who had squared up to Nick were perspiring heavily. They had all sensed how close it had come to action.

Nick looked at Ibrahim with utter contempt before walking away to the main building. He had his own training exercise to prepare for and deliver. Ibrahim thought better of following Nick and instead opted to debrief the group on what they had gleaned from the exercise. Ibrahim was not disappointed, every man agreed wholeheartedly: Nick Geller had not one ounce of fear in his body, even when faced with four gun barrels at close quarters and about to fire at him. He had stared back as if the guns hadn’t existed and as a result, the gunmen feared the situation and not Nick. Ibrahim smiled as the men talked about a true warrior with the courage of Allah. He was an inspiration to them all and a man they would happily follow into battle for Allah.

Having given Nick fifteen minutes to calm down, Ibrahim went in search of his brother in arms. He found Nick in a back room huddled over a number of suicide vests. Small charges were packed tight inside the vests. They were small enough not to cause any peripheral damage but were certainly powerful enough to kill the wearer. The two cells stolen the previous day were in bits next to the vests, Nick having stripped them of a number of vital components.

“I’m sorry, brother, but it was a great success. They have seen that your heart is that of a lion,” offered Ibrahim as an apology.

“Have all your men assemble outside and select twenty of them to take part in my exercise,” commanded Nick, not looking up. Ibrahim wanted to object but Nick’s tone suggested that was not an option.

Ibrahim began to walk away but stopped. “One thing that I did notice is that you weren’t surprised the Caliph would want you under guard?”

Nick stopped what he was doing and looked up into Ibrahim’s eyes. “Is he really the new Caliph?”

Ibrahim nodded.

Nick shook his head in anguish. “Then today I will die.”

“But you killed his father on his own orders. You are a hero.”

“He hated his father. He is a weak man, unfit to bear Caliph Al Zahrani’s family name, never mind the title ‘Caliph’,” spat Nick.

“But why are you so sure he will kill you?”

“Because I promised him the next time we met, I’d kill him,” replied Nick.

“You
what
?”

“You heard.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story but let’s put it this way – even his own father would have voted against him.”

“Tell me,” demanded Ibrahim, moving and closing the door to give them some privacy.

Nick shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it.

“Tell me, brother, please,” insisted Ibrahim.

“It happened a year ago and I don’t want to talk about it,” replied Nick adamantly.

Ibrahim didn’t move. He looked at Nick pleading him to open up.

Nick shook his head again. The memory of the incident was not one he ever wished to relive. A tear welled in his eye at the thought of what had happened. He turned his back to avoid Ibrahim seeing as he finished the final vest.

“Assemble your men, Ibrahim.”

Ibrahim conceded and left Nick alone with his vests and went to assemble the twenty volunteers Nick had asked for.

The image of the young girl who had tended to Nick a year earlier flashed into his mind. Haseena’s beautiful warm smile had radiated a purity that intoxicated everyone in its range. She was barely thirteen but spoke with maturity beyond her years and environment. Highly intelligent, she was a young girl who, in different circumstances, would have had the world at her feet. Before long, Nick had adopted her as a little sister and assured her that he would protect her as any brother should. Nick blinked as the smiling face of Haseena disappeared, just as it always did. The twisted and broken body of the young and prepubescent girl, her face contorted in agony for eternity stared back at him. The smile extinguished as the mouth that had so often shone had been beaten to a bloody pulp.

Nick’s fists balled at the thought of the new Caliph, the man who had taken the light that was Haseena and extinguished it forever. He had seen how the new Caliph had looked at Haseena the night before her death. The predatory eyes picking out her purity and youth. He had not taken his eyes off her. When Haseena had looked over at Nick and smiled, hatred had burned in his eyes. He had not seen the innocence of the smile. The man was a monster.

Nick’s nails dug into his palms as they balled tighter and tighter, cutting into his skin. Nick had been escorted back to his hut that night, watched by the new Caliph’s men. The screams of Haseena’s mother the next morning were the first sign something was wrong. When Haseena’s body was found soon afterwards, it took a strong stomach to bear what the young girl had endured for what must have been hours. Nick had looked into the new Caliph’s eyes and seen the killer that nobody else saw: the pedophile that had tortured and raped a young girl to death. Nick had wanted to rip the man’s throat out there and then. However, it would have been suicide and, with no evidence, futile. Nick knew the day would come to reap revenge. Haseena deserved it and Nick would deliver. He just needed the right time and place. He had walked across to the man and made his promise –he was a dead man walking, and Nick assured him he would kill him the next time they met.

The tragedy had resulted in a request from the old Caliph to meet with Nick. The meeting had been unprecedented. An American operative meeting with the head of Al Qaeda was unheard of. It had been a difficult meeting, an old man admitting the shame and desperation he felt at his uselessness and inability to deal with the deviant that was his son. Knowing that Nick knew about his son’s actions had for the first time allowed the Caliph to discuss the problem with someone else. The fact that there was no love between father and son was made all the more evident when the elder Caliph asked Nick for one favor, namely to follow through on his promise but not until after the elder Caliph’s own death. If his son were to die while he was still Caliph, his son would be revered and honored and that was something he did not deserve, nor did the elder Caliph wish to see.

Nick had planned to deal with the young Al Zahrani during the buildup of the elder Caliph’s plan. His being elevated, unwittingly by his peers, as the new Caliph meant that Nick would never deliver on his promise. There was only one reason the new Caliph was visiting the training camp and that was to kill Nick before Nick had the chance to kill him.

Nick piled the vests into a box and with a prayer to Allah for assistance, he lifted the box and continued on with the plan. He needed to show just how faithful the followers had to be to follow him into battle.

Deputy Director Turner grabbed a few hours of sleep on the couch in the corner of his office. Going home just wasn’t an option. Much like Reid, he lived for the job. He’d soon discovered that that did not sit well with marriage. Not many women were willing to be the second most important thing in their husband’s life, certainly not the two who had tried to be.

A knock on his office door at 6:00 a.m. was accompanied by the morning newspapers. This particular wake-up call was guaranteed to get him moving. The front pages of the nationals were covered in the image of the Ebola victim’s last breaths. It was a headline that would see America waking up to a vile reality if Turner failed to stop Nick Geller.

Turner grabbed the remote, turned on the TV and selected one of the 24/7 news channels. The scrolling bar had changed; it no longer scrolled the news of the Vice President’s death or the President’s recovery. Their leader’s health was old news. The death of the first terrorist victim from a deadly virus that threatened the world, including America, was now scrolling the news banner. The newscast cut to a supermarket with a few people queuing for the opening of the store, not an uncommon occurrence. However, the headline was that lines were beginning to form as people digested the news of the upcoming pandemic.

The shit was always going to hit the fan. They had managed three days without too much pressure. The media had cooperated as requested, and played down the virus, and in any event, had more than enough to keep the airwaves busy with the Vice President’s killing, the injury to the President and the destruction of the West Wing. Day Four, however, was obviously the tipping point. News had slowed down and ratings counted. Fear drove a need for knowledge, and hence ratings. What better than a disease about to kill us all in the hands of Al Qaeda and a mad American soldier?

Capturing Nick Geller and the virus would kill the story dead. Killing Nick Geller, along with the virus, would also kill the story dead. Killing Nick Geller without killing the virus would make the story more sensational. If Nick didn’t have the virus, there were seven billion people on the planet at risk. With that thought, Turner rushed from his office. He needed to get Carson on board. They couldn’t kill Nick without knowing if he had the virus on him.

Turner crashed into the DoD office that Carson had sequestered for his personal use. It was empty. There was a sofa in the corner and, much like his own office, there was a blanket cast aside. Carson had slept there too. He rushed back onto the gangway and looked down into the operations center, which had filled significantly since he had left for his sleep. Carson, however, was not hard to spot. He stood directly in front of the main screen with a number of operatives reacting to his every movement and command. More worryingly, the view on the screen was one similar to that of a computer game screen. A crosshair surrounded by circles was overlaid on the landscape of the desert floor. It didn’t take a genius to realize that they were watching the view from the cockpit of one of the F18 jets.

“Harry!” shouted Turner, racing down the metal staircase, brushing aside those in his wake.

Carson turned around nonchalantly as Turner careened towards him.

“Don’t shoot!” Turner said, pleading for him to call off the attack. “We need to know if he’s got the virus on him.”

“He will have,” assured Carson.

“But you can’t guarantee that!’ wheezed Turner, catching his breath.

Carson shrugged. “Not 100%, granted, but enough to be comfortable to say ‘fire’ when we get the shot.”

Turner looked at the screen, willing there to be no target. The crosshairs remained on a blank and barren landscape. There was still time. He grabbed his cell and dialed his boss, the FBI Director, at, home. It was just after 6:00 am. but he was an early riser. He could ask the President to stop Turner.

While the phone rang, Carson walked away towards his office.

Turner dropped the phone from his ear. “Where are you going?”

“To catch some sleep,” replied Carson evenly.

An irritated voice was yelling ‘Hello?
Hello??
’ from the handset now at Turner’s hip.

“But the attack?” Turner said, pointing to the screen.