Compromised Read online

Page 9


  “That’s right.”

  “How do we know this?”

  “Know what?”

  “That they have the weapons.”

  “I saw them take them,” Paul said slowly. “They tried to kill me when I was there. They killed my contact, shot him point blank.”

  Paul glanced at Ellen. She had remained motionless the whole time, listening, but not reacting.

  “Where were they going?” James continued.

  “I don’t know; they don’t brief me.”

  “So you don’t know. Any ideas?”

  Paul shook his head.

  James rubbed his cheek, scratching his stubble with his palm. “So our manifest was wrong. That means that the intel on the ship was bogus, whoever gave it to Langley in the first place.”

  “Or someone could have put them on the ship unofficially.”

  “No, weapons like that would be flagged. Our intel was bad.”

  “I thought that all information coming to me is verified.”

  “Should be.”

  “Well, you texted me the decryption code. That’s not supposed to come through until the information is verified.”

  “Right,” James conceded, with a slight hesitation. He walked over to the window, swirling the glass of water in his hand. “It was verified.”

  “You have to call Langley.” Paul pushed his chair back and met James by the window. “We know that there’s thirteen missing nuclear warheads and we know where they were less than five hours ago. This is our best chance to recover them.”

  James stared at Paul blankly.

  “The United States gave information to pirates about a ship which led to nuclear weapons getting in the hands of terrorists.” Paul pointed his finger in James’ face. “If they trace it back to us, it’ll be an international incident.”

  “Well.” James took a sip of water and raised his eyebrows, “technically you gave the information to the pirates.”

  Paul pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and bit down on his lower lip. Would they cut him out already? Paul was an unofficial covert operative; if anything were traced back to him, the United States would deny any relationship to him, and he was supposed to deny any affiliation to the United States government.

  Paul considered his options. He couldn’t escape. A Hawaiin-shirt-wearing guard sat by the front door. He had frisked Paul and Ellen and taken Paul’s gun. Two more guards stood outside. Even if he somehow managed to neutralize them, the front door had a steel insert that could be locked down. The windows were bulletproof. Even if he could manage to break the windows, it was three floors down to the garden terrace, where rows of planters encircled a small swimming pool.

  No, they wouldn’t kill him yet. There was still a good chance of recovering the weapons and they hadn’t extracted all information from Paul. He still had some value to them.

  “Call them,” Paul demanded.

  James took a sip of water.

  “Call Langley now.”

  “Okay.” James uncrossed his arms, removed a cell phone from his pocket and held it up. “I’ll take this in the other room.”

  Once James left, Ellen rose and walked up to the window beside Paul. She placed a hand on his shoulder and the other on his hand. He turned and faced her. He saw tears forming in her eyes and she bit her lower lip.

  “Paul,” her voice was barely a whisper. “I need to confess something.”

  15

  Bailey’s desk phone rang, snapping her out of a daze. She sat in her cubicle on the chair that squeaked every time she moved; she hovered over stacks of intelligence printouts related to shipping in the Gulf of Aden. Paul Alban’s file rested beside a browning apple core and leftover crusts from a tuna salad sandwich. She’d been through the documents a dozen times, but couldn’t connect the dots. She’d left eight phone messages with security officials in Somalia and Ethiopia who could potentially have information on the Stebelsky. Crilley’s instructions had seemed straightforward enough: “figure out what’s going on with that ship.” After six hours without a shred of newly uncovered information, she was almost ready to give up. But she couldn’t go back to Crilley empty handed.

  She reminded herself of why she was here, in operations. Crilley was nearing retirement, and although he was of questionable skill, he had seniority in the organization. Bailey was junior, but she’d been able to work her way up to be his second in command, even if it hadn’t been the smoothest path forward. This morning’s oversight did little to help her cause.

  When she had told her father of her move, he’d dismissed it, as only a retired FBI pencil pusher could. “Gotta be careful of those lateral moves, Bailey, they’re a route to bureaucratic purgatory.” She didn’t bother explaining to him that she’d be involved in directing operatives and shaping strategy; that would have been too painful for him to hear.

  The phone rang and she jumped in her chair. It was the NCS operator. “An Agent Wright is on the line asking for James Crilley. He says it is an urgent matter.”

  Bailey’s eyes widened and she suddenly felt awake. She recognized the name from Paul Alban’s file. “Transfer him to Crilley’s office.”

  She snatched Paul Alban’s file from the desk, knocking a half-empty bottle of water onto the floor, moving as she fast as she could in heels to Crilley’s office. She didn’t bother knocking this time. Crilley had his feet up on the desk, reading from a folder perched on his belly. Before he could say anything, Bailey sputtered out, “James Wright from Somalia is being patched through to your line right now.”

  Then the phone rang. Crilley lifted himself out of the chair and motioned for Bailey to sit. “You can take this one. Consider it part of the training.”

  This was her chance. Her heart galloped. She let it go another two rings and then slowly pressed the button for speakerphone. By the time Wright’s voice came through, her palms were clammy. She turned her head to meet Crilley’s intense gaze as he paced behind the desk.

  “You’re online, Agent Wright.” Bailey leaned over the speaker.

  “Hello.” His voice came in through static. “I have something urgent here.”

  “Do you know anything about this Ukranian ship?”

  “I do. It’s docked at the port in Bosaso and the cargo has been unloaded.”

  “What was on the ship?”

  “Military weapons.”

  “Shit.” Crilley slapped his hands together and paced.

  “But sir, there’s more to it,” James said. “Some of the weapons were apparently nuclear.”

  Bailey exchanged glances with Crilley. “What did you just say?”

  “From the description I’ve received they sound like they are man-portable nuclear warheads.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “They’ve been taken by members of Asabiyyah.” A whoosh sound came through on the speaker and Bailey couldn’t tell whether they lost the line or Wright was letting out a massive sigh. Then he added, “I don’t know where they are right now.”

  Crilley stood still with his arms crossed. Bailey chewed her fingernails. She knew what this meant. Her mind was already doing the calculations. Man-portable nuclear weapons exploded with the power of one kiloton of TNT. A single blast could wipe out a radius of four city blocks leaving a hundred-foot-deep crater. The number of casualties depended on how many people lived in those four city blocks. Ten thousand roughly? And a detonator could be fashioned by an engineering school dropout. The possibility of a nuclear blast on U.S. soil had been giving homeland security officials cold sweats ever since a 1999 Frontline investigation reported that Russian General Alexander Lebed admitted one of his assignments was to track down 132 missing suitcase-sized nuclear weapons the Soviet Union had manufactured in the eighties. He only found forty-eight. Although a few Soviet officials supported his claims, most discredited them. The Russian Atomic Energy minister assured the United States that all these devices are registered and it is impossible for them to find their way into terroris
ts’ hands. But in intelligence circles, possibility never entered the equation; anything was possible. Probability meant something. Following the controversy, a confidential CIA report stated, while it is very likely that the former Soviet Republics have man-portable nuclear weapons, the likelihood of them falling into possession of hostile groups is low. The facts now stared them in the face. The likelihood of them being in the hands of terrorists? One hundred percent.

  “How did these weapons get on the ship?” Bailey pushed her hair away from her face.

  “I have no idea.”

  “What about our man in Somalia?” Crilley broke out of his trance. “Have you had contact with him?”

  “I have,” James said. “He’s here with me right now.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “He found me, sir. And he’s here with a woman, I think she’s his girlfriend.”

  Bailey and Crilley exchanged glances again.

  Crilley motioned for Bailey to speak. She cleared her throat. “Is he aware of what happened there?”

  “You could say that.”

  “No need for cryptic remarks, Mr. Wright,” Crilley said. “What did he say?”

  “He said he gave them the manifest.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know how this happened, but he definitely gave the manifest to the pirates and he saw Asabiyyah taking the warheads from the ship.”

  “How is that possible?” Bailey shook her head in disbelief. “Where did he get the manifest?”

  “He thinks it came from us.”

  “What? Like the same channels?”

  “That’s what he says. He says he downloaded the manifest after he received the decryption code, which he thinks I sent to him.”

  “How did he react when you told him that we didn’t send it?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Crilley stepped forward and pulled at his belt. “How do we know that’s how he got the manifest? Is there any proof?”

  Fine static on the other end. Bailey turned her head to the side and pursed her lips. A rush of cold swept down her neck. She hadn’t considered this possibility. It seemed Wright hadn’t either. But it wasn’t perplexity that she felt. She felt something, something heavy enter the room, and slowly expand. Suddenly everything felt tight, swollen.

  “There’s no proof,” James said. “But why would he come find me and tell me all this if it wasn’t true?”

  “I don’t know,” Crilley’s voice rose. “To save his own skin? Maybe he sold the manifest to the pirates, the whole thing got botched somehow, and now he wants us to fix his mess. The only person who can send Alban the decryption code is you. And you didn’t send it. So what’s more likely? That this guy—Alban—is trying to play us, or that the National Clandestine Service has been compromised by some sort of conspiracy that bypassed three different security measures?”

  Bailey wanted to say something. She wanted to argue. In spite of the convenience of Crilley’s explanation, she just didn’t believe it. If Paul Alban was smart enough to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists, why would he then walk into Wright’s apartment and admit to it all? She thought better than question, though. Not without counter-evidence. Crilley wasn’t the type to tolerate dissent. Bailey turned away and sunk into her chair a couple of inches. She got back to chewing on her fingernail.

  “So how do we figure this out?” James finally came through on the speakerphone.

  “What is there to figure out?” Crilley snapped. “We know he gave them the manifest. He’s contacted you, so now he’s connected with the United States government. It’s time we nip this in the bud.”

  Whatever she had felt swelling in the room had just burst. The words struck her like a spray of ice water. She watched Crilley lumber around the table, but everything suddenly seemed slowed down.

  “Wait, sir,” Bailey pleaded. “Paul Alban came to Wright to tell him about the weapons.”

  “He gave a manifest to pirates, which led to nuclear weapons getting into terrorist hands. Maybe Alban has gone rogue, or maybe he’s trying to line his pockets. It doesn’t change the situation.”

  “We can bring him in and investigate,” Bailey said.

  “We can investigate later. He’s the only U.S. connection to this operation.”

  The air hung heavy in the room. Another loud whoosh emanated from the speaker.

  “Sir?” James Wright asked.

  “You hear me, Wright. It’s an order.”

  16

  Ellen took a deep, stuttering breath. “You have to leave.”

  “What?”

  “You have to leave now.” She let go of his hand and touched his chest. “It’s not safe here. He’s lying to you.”

  “What are you talking about? Who’s lying to me?”

  “Please, just go.”

  “Ellen, these are the only people who will help us. We’re staying.”

  She shook her head and took steps backwards. “I didn’t trust you.” she raised her head. “You’re sneaky. You lie. You disappear.”

  “Ellen?”

  “You made me distrust you.” She shook her head. “And I’m sorry…” her voice trailed off.

  “Ellen,” Paul’s voice rose, “speak to me.”

  “James couldn’t have sent you the decryption code.”

  “No one else could,” Paul said.

  “Yes.” She pressed her lips together. “Because I switched the SIM card on your phone.”

  Paul didn’t say anything.

  “He told me you were aiding terrorists.”

  “Who did?”

  “A man came up to me at the market two months ago. He said he was INTERPOL. Said he was building a case against you,” she said. “And I didn’t believe him, not at first.”

  “He wanted to switch the SIM card?”

  “I wasn’t going to do it. But, I followed you one day to the library. I saw you put some papers in a book. When you left, I opened it and saw a shipping manifest.”

  Paul’s mind reeled. For the decade that he lived the lies of Paul Alban, he never once considered that someone he loved and trusted could deceive him. He tried to process what she had just said. “James didn’t know about the manifest?”

  She shook her head and leaned her head against the window.

  “He’s playing along.”

  “Fuck, Ellen. Why didn’t you ask me?”

  “Because you’re a liar and I didn’t trust you. I still don’t know if I can trust you.”

  “I’m all you’ve got right now. Who was this INTERPOL agent?”

  “I didn’t get his—”

  “Do you know anything about this person who gave you the SIM card?” he said evenly.

  “He told me he worked with a general, a U.S. general.”

  “A name?”

  “No.”

  Footsteps clicked along the hallway. The guard in the tan Hawaiian shirt poked his head around the corner. “Is everything okay here?”

  “We’re fine,” Paul said and then glared at Ellen who forced a smile and nodded.

  Paul watched as the guard stared at them for another moment, then walked back up the hallway to his chair beside the door. “What else do you know?”

  “That’s it. That’s all I know.”

  “I’m serious. Tell me everything.”

  “I have.”

  Paul held her gaze, but it didn’t waver. If she had the switched the SIM card in his phone, then the manifest couldn’t have come from James. Paul replayed his interaction with James. All of his movements seemed stiff and rehearsed. He had sat back and listened, letting Paul divulge details of the operation. He hadn’t shared anything himself.

  Paul realized that he was the only U.S. connection, the only loose end. No one else knew about the operation.

  Paul scanned the room. There were five-foot-thick soundproof walls and bulletproof windows. The only way out was through the front door.

  The guard sat in a chair, leaning against the door. He h
eld his arms by his side and through his loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt Paul saw a bulge.

  “I have to get out of here,” he whispered to Ellen. “I need your help.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  “It’s me they want.”

  Ellen nodded her head slowly, resigned. “What do you want me to do?”

  “When I signal, call the guard over.”

  Paul grabbed one of the metal framed dining room chairs and crouched around the corner of the hallway, just out of guard’s view. He made a motion with his hand and Ellen called the guard. He felt suddenly hot and his heart fluttered.

  The guard’s footsteps clicked quickly towards him and he raised the chair high above his head. He saw a flash of the guard’s shaved head—enough to see the guard wince and try to raise his forearm to block the blow—before he swung the chair down on top of the guard’s neck. That sent the guard crashing to the floor on all fours.

  Paul dropped the chair and pressed his knee deep into the guard’s upper back. He mashed the man’s face into the floor with his bandaged hand. The guard writhed and grunted underneath Paul’s weight, but Paul only pressed his knee harder into the guard’s back until he heard a crunch. He ran his free hand up the guard’s shirt along his back until his fingers found the holstered handgun.

  Paul leaned forward and whispered in the man’s ear, “Stay on the floor.”

  The guard grunted and Paul loosened his grip. He stood up and kept the gun aimed at the guard, who lay face down, with his fingers splayed wide on the linoleum floor.

  Paul walked backwards up the hallway and put his ear to the door James had gone through. Soft chatter. Then he heard the cellphone beep and click closed. Footsteps approached.

  The door swung open and Paul pointed the gun directly in James’ face. James’ head recoiled as though he had been punched.

  “Step outside,” Paul said, “give me the phone.”

  James handed Paul the cell phone, raised his hands, and stepped into the hallway. “I was just getting things sorted out for you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Why bullshit?” James said, still holding his hand feebly beside his head. “Don’t you want to hear what we can do?”