“I mean that he didn’t exist until he joined the army,” Harper said. Her mouth hung open as she searched his face.
“That can’t be right,” she said. “The military looks at your birth certificate, your driver’s license, even your secondary-school records, right? How could he just-”
“Every piece of documentation that he submitted was an invention.” It was Ryan speaking, and she turned to look in his direction. “Filling out the initial paperwork was the risky part, but even then they don’t look too hard — the army has always been desperate for warm bodies. Once he was in, it was all taken as fact. Airborne, Ranger School, Air Assault, Sniper School, the SERE course — that’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape — SF Assessment and Selection… He got into all of it by the strength of his military record, and he succeeded in everything he did. He was a model soldier. There was no reason for the generals signing off on it to doubt any of his personal history before he came into the service.”
Naomi detected a bitter edge to Ryan’s words, and her conversation with General Hale came flooding back once again: I just didn’t buy into what Kealey was saying… It sounded paranoid… I should have listened to him, though… I should have listened… She was looking through the file. If anything, March’s achievements were even more staggering than his commanding officer’s. The first page listed his MOS as 18 Charlie, or Special Forces engineer sergeant. In addition to the schools that Ryan had mentioned, Sergeant March had completed EOD (Explosives Ordnance Disposal) and was qualified in both Scuba and HALO — High Altitude, Low Opening freefall parachuting.
When it came to the list of awards and achievements, though, the DD214 was noticeably bare. The highest award that March had earned was the Meritorious Service Medal. Aside from that, there wasn’t much to speak of.
“If he was such a great soldier, why didn’t he receive more commendations?”
Ryan had to think for a minute, as it was a good question. “He did okay; he received all the standard medals as you move through the ranks, and any decent E-7 gets the MSM. It’s just that he rubbed a lot of officers the wrong way, and they’re responsible for approving the awards. He was always separate from his peers, never wanted to be a team player. A lot of people didn’t like the way he acted… It made them nervous.”
Including you, she thought. But Ryan Kealey had looked deeper into March’s mind, had seen what was truly lurking there long before anyone else. He couldn’t be blamed for what Jason March had done seven years earlier, or for the crimes he had committed since. She handed the file back to the deputy director.
“Now you have an idea of what you’re going after,” he said.
She managed to keep a straight face, but thought she saw the corner of Ryan’s mouth lift in amusement. Clearly, Harper didn’t know what kind of investigator he had brought into the fold.
“I want you two in Cape Town to see what Gray has to say. He has a converted warehouse there that he uses as an office and base of operations. He also owns shipping operations in Durban and Richard’s Bay, but Cape Town is the base.”
He pointed back to the file sitting on Kealey’s lap. “That should contain all the information you need. As you can imagine, Stephen Gray is not a favored citizen since he beat those charges. We have unofficial support from the South African government to conduct this operation. Translated, that means that they will overlook something, but not anything. You got me this time, Ryan?” His voice was steel as he stared at the younger man.
Kealey nodded deferentially, which was a source of some amusement to Kharmai until Harper fixed her with the same sobering gaze.
“Let me also tell you that the local police force hasn’t been brought into the loop, and it’s not going to happen anytime soon. They don’t know who you are… It’s worth keeping that in mind. They won’t hesitate to shoot if they think you’re a threat. I’m not saying this for my own health, okay? The nearest U.S. embassy to Cape Town is in Pretoria, which is over 600 miles away. That doesn’t give you a lot of room for error, so you can’t afford to fuck up, because no one has your back.”
Jonathan Harper turned in the seat to point something out to the driver as they approached the departure gates for Norfolk International, the wet street hissing beneath the tires as the skies finally opened and rain hammered down onto the roof of the vehicle and the approaching road.
“I almost forgot.” Harper turned back around over the back of his seat to hand them each folders. “These are your passports and driver’s licenses. Congratulations, you now work in Silicon Valley. It should be a substantial salary increase for both of you, if only on paper,” he said with a grin. “Put anything you need on expenses, but don’t forget who’s ultimately accountable, okay?”
The smile faded from his face as he turned back to business. “There is a reason that I’m sitting here instead of my comfortable little office in Langley. This situation has the full attention of the director and the president, so it has to have our full attention as well. I’m counting on both of you.”
The small convoy had been traveling northwest for almost eight hours. They were crossing the Dasht-e Lut, the great salt desert that seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction. When the foothills of the Zagros had finally appeared in the distance, the sight had inspired the young policeman seated in the passenger seat of the second Land Rover to murmur a brief prayer of gratitude. In front of the policeman was the vehicle carrying the man from Al-Qaeda, the air force colonel, and two of his aides. Behind him was the International 4900 driven by the American, carrying the metal container that was bound for the plant at Arak.
They had passed through the towns of Nikshahr and Bampur, small groups of children waving excitedly as the vehicles carefully navigated the narrow streets. Four hours later, the city of Bam could be seen to the north, causing a man native to the sprawling municipality to cry out excitedly from the backseat. They had traveled only 50 additional miles since the city outskirts had faded from view.
Earlier in the day, the startling contrasts of the desert had come as a welcome surprise to Ali Ahmedi, who had, until now, spent every one of his twenty-eight years in the streets of Tehran. His views of the Iranian landscape had always been limited to the jagged peaks of Mount Damavand, the highest point in Iran just north of the capital city. He had never experienced the desert until the trip to Beheshti, the immense white cumulus clouds bright against the brilliant blue backdrop of sky, falling down to the razor edge of the horizon where the sand, stone, and dried-out mud of the kavirs began.
Now the air was cool, and Ahmedi rolled down the window for the breeze as the stars settled in overhead. Soon they would stop, as travel over the sucking mud of the kavir salt marshes was dangerous enough in the daytime, when the path ahead was visible and a judgment could be made.
His friend and fellow officer of the Komiteh drove the vehicle. In the rear seat were three of the colonel’s aides. As the hours passed, Ahmedi had listened to them with amusement, at first. Then growing impatience, and finally, outright annoyance.
All they could speak of was the American.
Their conversation was littered with wild supposition and theory; the American was not an American at all, but a European mercenary; the American was a spy for the Great Satan; the American was a killer of the highest distinction, without peer.
The last one had some merit, he thought.
Ahmedi had watched the American fix the man of Al-Qaeda with his movie-star good looks and snake eyes, and then move off easily toward the harbormaster’s office. He recalled that the harbormaster had shouted that the warehouse could not be opened, that a truck must be acquired elsewhere. The American had entered the building of corrugated iron, and the harbormaster had not been seen again…
No one had dared to enter the office afterward. Ahmedi would have said that the man from Al-Qaeda was afraid of the American, and that the colonel and his aides shared the fear.
The headlights flashed from the truck behind, and the policeman at the wheel of Ahmedi’s vehicle flashed his in turn. The convoy stopped and the engines died. Sleeping bags were pulled from behind the seats as a cool breeze lifted the loose sand into the black night. It was twelve more hours to Arak. They would resume at first light.
CHAPTER 15
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
Founded in the mid-seventeenth century by Governor Jan van Riebeeck, Cape Town was first given life as a
