Treason (32 page)

“If you are willing to say all of that about the hearings and the OIN and Omar Nader, then, Representative Adeogo, consider yourself invited to Smithville.”

En route to El Wak

Near the Somalia-Kenya border

T
he four Land Rovers speeding in the direction of El Wak fit the intel description that Israeli intelligence had sent to the CIA. The Falcon and his entourage were returning to the mansion of billionaire businessman Umoja Owiti.

At 12:32 a.m., when the vehicles were within a mile of the border, a Hellfire missile streaked through the black sky. It smacked into the lead SUV with such force that the vehicle seemed to vaporize in a burst of flames. The Land Rover traveling directly behind flew from the road. It performed a backward flip that ended with it lying upside down and on fire. A second missile smacked into the third SUV in the caravan, destroying it and causing the fourth Land Rover to swerve out of control off the road before it came to an abrupt stop. Within seconds, two Apache attack helicopters swooped over the carnage, firing their 30-millimeter chain guns at the three men who'd survived the missile attack and were scrambling for cover. On the Apaches' black-and-white night cameras the fleeing terrorists glowed white and shook uncontrollably when the burst of rounds ripped into them.

Next to appear was a Bell UH-1 helicopter, the military's workhorse, which landed near the first destroyed vehicle while the two Apaches circled above with their guns ready, all under the watchful eye of a Predator drone flying high above them on alert for possible insurgents. A six-man SAD team disembarked and immediately confirmed that all occupants of the four Land Rovers had been killed. Because the Falcon had never appeared in public without covering his face, the CIA knew it would be difficult to positively identify him. The team photographed every corpse, including those in the burning wreckage, took body measurements from the victims not incinerated by the Hellfires, and retrieved DNA samples before returning to the Huey. CIA forensic specialists would compare that data to what was known about the Falcon based on digital imaging and computerized reconstruction techniques.

Miles had been told to position himself near Owiti's estate. His assignment from Langley had been relayed to him through Hani during her brief telephone call to Washington. He was to monitor the billionaire's compound to learn if any vehicles arrived in advance of the now destroyed Land Rovers. Although unlikely, it was possible the Falcon might have traveled in a separate convoy. He was also instructed to watch for Owiti on the chance the billionaire might leave the compound to meet the Falcon in some other location. He had been hiding on a slight bluff some two hundred yards outside the compound since daybreak with instructions not to leave for any reason.

Having destroyed the convoy, the three helicopters and Predator swung west across the Somali border into Kenya to collect Miles. He heard the sound of the aircrafts' blades before he could see them. Thanks to night vision and thermal imaging equipment, the pilots had no trouble spotting him. While the two Apaches and the Predator drone kept watch on the compound for Owiti's private guard force, the Huey swept down.

Miles removed the material covering his face and lifted both of his hands above his head to show that he was not carrying a weapon as he ran to the now hovering helicopter. He didn't want to be mistaken for a terrorist. As soon as he boarded, the helicopter lifted upward.

Strapped into a seat and handed a headset, Miles found himself speaking to the commander of SAD operations as well as CIA Director Payton Grainger, who was monitoring the mission from Langley.

“Good to have you back with us, Miles,” Grainger said. “Or should I call you ‘Chief'?”

“Nice to be back, sir.” Having dispensed with that greeting, Miles said, “No vehicles have arrived at the Owiti estate since first light yesterday morning, sir. There's no evidence that the Falcon is inside the compound.” His eyes-on-the-ground report confirmed what satellite images and drones had noted during the past thirty hours watching the estate.

“Sirs,” Miles said, “I did observe two Land Rovers carrying what appeared to be members of Owiti's private security force exit the compound about an hour ago heading in the direction of El Wak. But that was the only movement.”

“If the Falcon was in that convoy as reported by the Israelis, then there's no reason for us to engage Owiti's private army or spark an international incident by attacking his residence,” Grainger replied. “You're free to head to Nairobi.”

Miles was disappointed. If Owiti was bankrolling the Falcon, both men deserved the same Hellfire missile fate.

It was the SAD team leader aboard the Huey who spoke next. “Sir, there were only six insurgents in the four Land Rovers.”

“Are you certain of that count?” Grainger asked.

“Yes, sir, six tangos, and that includes the ones who were crispy.”

In the past, the Falcon had never traveled without at least twice that number in his entourage.

No one responded, but everyone participating in the call understood the implication. It was possible they had missed the Falcon.

“Sir,” Miles said, “the woman, Hani, and her father who have hidden me here in Kenya, I'd like permission to take them with us to Nairobi.”

“For what reason, soldier?” Grainger asked.

“El Wak is a tiny town, and it's only a matter of time before someone realizes Hani made a telephone call to the United States—something she'd never done before. They could link her to tonight's attack on the convoy.”

Grainger considered the request but only for a moment. “We can't just swoop in and pick up two locals.”

“Couldn't we arrange safe passage for them through the State Department as political refugees?”

“It could take months to get through all the necessary hoops. And we have rules about who this agency resettles. We can't accept someone simply because they provided you with temporary shelter.”

“With all due respect, sir, I feel a moral obligation. I believe the woman already has been beaten by Al-Shabaab. It's just a matter of time before she and her father are murdered.”

Grainger considered the urgency of Miles's request. “The best we can offer is a lift to the American embassy in Nairobi. I'll talk to the State Department, but no promises of resettlement. Is that clear?”

“Thank you, sir.”

It took less than ten minutes for the Huey to reach the hut that Hani and her father shared. As they circled it, the SAD team's leader asked through his headphones: “Do goats sleep on their sides or are those goats down there dead?”

Miles felt a sense of alarm.

“Our heat sensors are not detecting anything from the goats,” one of the Apache pilots said. “They're definitely dead.”

There was no sign of Hani or her father when the Huey landed. The SAD team moved methodically across the hard-packed earth toward the flap that served as the hut's door. There was no outside morning fire, which Miles took as another worrisome signal. Hani usually kept the embers burning throughout the night.

“We got no thermals from inside that hut,” an Apache pilot said through his mouthpiece as the two attack helicopters circled above.

“Hani?” Miles called from the entrance. There was no answer. Two SAD squad members ducked under the flap. Miles followed them. The first body that Miles spotted was the goat herder sprawled on the floor surrounded by spent AK-47 cartridges. His rifle had been taken by the men who had killed him. Hani's corpse was lying close by. She had been stripped naked and her breasts had been cut off, which was another trademark of terrorists in Africa who raped and mutilated women. Her face was frozen in a silent scream.

“Don't touch anything,” the SAD leader warned. “Good chance they're booby trapped.”

There was nothing any of them could do but to return to the Huey. As the aircraft rose, Miles tried to quiet the guilt rising within him. The fate of the old man and Hani had been set before he'd chanced upon them, he told himself. Jihadists had been harassing the goat herder before Miles first spotted him. He assumed that Hani had been assaulted by insurgents on the day when the old man had first taken him to see Owiti's mansion. She'd had bruises on her face and puffy eyes. Their cruel deaths were not his fault. And then another thought came to him.

He had watched Owiti's private security guards leaving the compound earlier that night. Was this their handiwork or Al-Shabaab's?

And still another thought. Was the killing of Hani and her father coincidental or had Owiti's goons been told that they were hiding Miles and come searching for him? Had they tortured Hani to learn where he was hiding?

He pictured Hani's face. Imagined her torture.

The violence that he had watched against the old man, who simply wished to tend his goats, and Hani, who had suffered so much even before she'd died, made him furious and physically ill. He thought of Brooke Grant. He thought about Jennifer.

It was time for him to return to Washington.

Sacred Seas
, a yacht

Off the Somali coast

S
ome eight hundred miles away from Walks Many Miles, a Eurocopter EC175 approached the top deck of the ninety-foot luxury yacht
Sacred Seas
in the Gulf of Aden. No other private boat would have dared anchor so close to the Somali shoreline. But billionaire Umoja Owiti wasn't concerned. Al-Shabaab had warned pirates not to approach his yacht, and piracy was much better organized and controlled in Somalia than was often believed in the West. No Somali pirates acted without permission of their financiers—warlords or corrupt business owners and government officials. The pirates relied on Al-Shabaab to guard ports in Somalia's most southern tip where captured vessels were docked while awaiting ransom payments. If some renegade Somalia pirate had taken it upon himself to attack the Owiti's boat, he would have been greeted by a battery of sophisticated weaponry and a security force eager to draw first blood.

The helicopter landed on an upper deck where Umoja Owiti's chief butler was waiting with warm hand towels to greet the Falcon and his bodyguards.

“Welcome to Mr. Owiti's pleasure craft,” the butler said in his formal English accent. “May I say it's good to see you again, sir?”

“No diamond-encrusted floors to walk upon barefoot?” the Falcon asked, glancing at the polished teak decking that edged the helipad.

“No, sir, but the parlor where Mr. Owiti is waiting does have a fourteen-carat gold-covered ceiling and walls decorated with hand-painted porcelain tiles. I'm certain you will feel quite comfortable there.”

Owiti was speaking on a satellite phone when the Falcon joined him. Owiti nodded and held up a finger, indicating that he was almost finished talking, as his butler offered the Falcon tea and cookies, which he declined, preferring to keep his face covered except for his dark eyes. He sat on a white leather sofa monogrammed with Owiti's initials, which also had been painted on the porcelain tiles on the cabin's walls as well as inlaid into its marble floor.

Ending his call, Owiti greeted his guest. “Welcome, my friend. I have just learned that your four-vehicle caravan was attacked and destroyed by American helicopters near the border less than an hour ago. You sent six of your men to their deaths.”

“I sent them to paradise. They answered the call of Allah.”

“His call or yours?”

“I am His humble servant, as are you.”

“Everything happened just as your American spy warned us it would,” Owiti replied. “Your decoy fooled them. As you assured me, this source of yours in Washington is highly placed.”

“You asked me to demonstrate what I am capable of and I have shown you, beginning with the attack at the Mandera college. Are you satisfied now—enough that we can move forward?”

“How close is this serpent of yours to the American president?” Owiti asked, dodging the Falcon's question.

“If I gave the order, she would be dead tomorrow. His breath is warm on her neck.”

“Then why not strike? Why bother killing students in Africa or abducting girls from privileged schools. Kill President Allworth.”

“Killing a president only gets us a new one. What I need from you will enable me to cripple their entire nation.”

“That is a very ambitious goal, my friend.” Owiti chuckled, taking a cup of tea and raising a cookie to his lips. He was now sitting across from the Falcon on a matching white sofa. “With my money, you hope to buy something exotic. Perhaps the recipe for a deadly virus with no known cure. A poison to dump into an American city's water supply.”

“That is a plot of a bad American movie.”

“A bomb, then. A nuclear bomb, perhaps?”

“It is also a movie plot, but one that can actually be put into action,” the Falcon replied. “It can be done.”

“Oh, my friend, you do have big ambitions. Others have tried to buy nuclear devices from Russia or even Pakistan or India, but the Americans have always caught them. What makes you believe you can do what others can't?”

“The Americans keep track of known nuclear weapons and the raw materials needed to make a bomb. They follow the money everywhere in the world. But Allah, bless His holy name, has shown me a way to make them blind and avoid detection.”

“I'm listening,” Owiti said, finishing another cookie.

“I will go to where the Americans cannot see, to the only country where the Americans have no eyes, and I will buy my bomb with currency the Americans cannot track.”

Owiti wiped his lips with a linen napkin and leaned forward. “And where is this place where the Great Satan is blind?”

“It is not Russia, which is always suspect. It is North Korea. For the right price, anything is possible when dealing with the eternal president and supreme ruler of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.”

“And what is the right price?”

“A billion dollars.”

Owiti chuckled. “You are ambitious, my friend, but that is a large sum of money even for me.”

“You are a businessman with companies and investments in many nations. We've already discussed the advantage of knowing a cataclysmic event is about to strike the United States economy.”

Owiti thought for a moment and said, “Yes, there would be ways for me to earn a profit knowing an American city is about to be destroyed.”

“Not one city. Many American cities, all simultaneously, and not some insignificant ones. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., gone forever.”

“I'm sorry, my friend, but I do not believe that even with the help of the North Koreans, you will be able to obtain multiple nuclear devices and transport them into the United States. It is improbable and, quite frankly, impossible.”

“Not many. Only one.”

“With only one nuclear device,” Owiti said in a clearly skeptical voice, “you are going to destroy major U.S. cities, including New York and Washington? How is that possible?”

“I will explain after you agree to give me one billion, but I can promise you, it is not only possible—with Allah's help, it will happen.”

“Let's assume, for the moment, this scheme is achievable—that you have found a way to destroy cities with one bomb. Let's say I give you a billion dollars. You just said that the Americans follow the money. How am I supposed to deliver one billion dollars to you without being arrested or worse?”

“You own the largest oil producing companies in Africa,” the Falcon said. “One of your ultra-large crude tankers can transport three-point-seven million barrels of oil in one delivery. As you are keenly aware, the price of oil is currently hovering around a hundred dollars per barrel, after recovering from years of being much cheaper. A tanker at that price is carrying the equivalent of roughly three hundred and seventy million U.S. dollars.”

“You would use my tankers of oil to pay the North Koreans?” Owiti asked.

“Three of your tankers leave from African ports,” the Falcon said. “Why would the Americans care about that crude oil? In their entire country there is only one port in Louisiana that can accommodate one of your ultra-large tankers so they pay little attention to those vessels. It is a big ocean. Big enough for a supertanker to deliver oil without being noticed.”

“As you say, it is unlikely they will track my tankers. However, there is a fatal flaw in your plan. North Korea doesn't have a port large enough for an ultra-tanker to dock and unload its cargo,” Owiti said.

“This is what the world has been told,” the Falcon replied. “But you and I know the world is wrong. Don't we?”

Owiti sat silent for a moment and then said, “How did you find out this information? Was it your precious Viper in Washington who told you?”

“Allah sees everything.”

“Let's not play games, my friend. Tell me what you know.”

“I know that one of your construction companies is finishing work on enlarging the port in Rason, which is perhaps the most important seaport in North Korea because it remains ice-free in the winter. I know that North Korea is thirsty for oil. And I know something more.”

“More?”

“I know that you have access to North Korean officials, and if you speak to them about my plan, they will agree to it. You can arrange this for us and, in return, your wealth will be greatly increased.”

“I am impressed, my friend. You have done your research,” Owiti said. “You have tied all of the pieces together. You have found a way to avoid the prying eyes of western money trackers by using my oil tankers rather than U.S. currency to pay for a nuclear device. You have learned that one of my subsidiaries is finishing work expanding the port capabilities in the city of Rason. Very clever of you, my friend, very clever indeed.”

The Falcon nodded.

“But even if you obtain a single nuclear device, you must still get it into the United States undetected, and no one has been able to accomplish that. How will you perform this miracle?”

“I have said enough tonight. There is a way to avoid detection, a weakness the Great Satan has not seen. Be patient. Tomorrow I will share this final secret with you.”

Owiti threw up his hands in mock resignation. “Ah, you will keep me waiting, then. Perhaps that is best. Anticipation is exciting, is it not? I have a woman waiting for me right now. I have kept her naked in my bed anticipating my arrival long enough. Would you like a woman tonight, my friend, or does your infamous piety keep you from the pleasures found between a woman's legs?”

“While I am grateful for your offer, I would rather have three tankers of your oil.”

Owiti laughed loudly. “Always jihad with you, my friend. Tomorrow, you will tell me the remainder of your plan, and if you convince me that it can inflict as much damage on the United States, as you claim, then we will discuss my three tankers of my oil.”