“I’m Colonel Gharib. Your passports, please.”
Wells handed them over. Gharib flipped through them, nodded at Meshaal.
“Who’s this?”
“We found him in Lebanon. We’re bringing him home.” Meshaal shrank backward, toward the cruiser.
Gharib shook his head at the explanation, but all he said was, “This way.” They followed him into the compound through heavy black gates. A golf cart waited. Gharib waved them in and motored south, past date palms and the largest swimming pool Wells had ever seen. The southern edge of the compound held buildings that looked to be staff quarters and infrastructure. Wells picked up the faint odor of a sewage treatment plant. Gharib stopped outside a windowless one-story building, unlocked the door, motioned for them to go inside. “You wait here—”
“There’s no time—” But the door had already closed, and the dead bolt thunked shut from the outside.
THEY’D SAILED FROM CYPRUS two afternoons before, less than two days after reaching the island. Within twelve hours of their landing, Wells knew they couldn’t stay long. The local papers reported that the police were investigating three men who had attacked a couple on a deserted beach and stolen their car. And the boat they’d ditched had a Lebanese flag and registration. The cops had no doubt already asked the police in Beirut for help in tracking it down.
Soon enough, the Lebanese would discover Gaffan’s name on their ship registry and connect the boat to the attack in the Bekaa. Then the Cyprus police would be after them for murder. Cyprus wasn’t big enough to hide them from a full-scale manhunt. As the Mossad agents who had recently assassinated a Palestinian guerrilla leader in a hotel in Dubai had learned, international passports, databases, security cameras, and facial matching software had made black ops harder and harder to pull off cleanly.
The Dubai police had now issued bulletins for the Israelis involved in the hotel killing, including photos, aliases, and in many cases real names. Of course, the Mossad agents had carried out the assassination on Israeli government orders. They were safe from extradition as long as they stayed in Israel. They could even travel on diplomatic passports without too much hassle, though they would be wise to avoid connecting through Dubai.
But Wells and Gaffan couldn’t count on government protection. So far, the CIA hadn’t stepped up for them. “Still waiting,” Shafer said, when Wells called him the night after they landed.
“Ellis. Maybe I haven’t been clear enough about what we found.” In fact, Wells had told Shafer exactly what he’d discovered, the passports, manuals, and fake uniforms. Even “42 Aziz 3,” the mysterious code he’d found in the notebook. “You need to get it in the system so you and the NSA can look it over.”
“Then leave it at the embassy. And the kid, too.”
But doing that would cost Wells his only leverage. He needed a guarantee that the CIA would provide clean papers for him and Gaffan, or even a presidential finding that would backstop the killings as acts of war justified under U.S. law — no different than drone strikes in Pakistan.
“You know I can’t. Not until we have a deal.”
“It’ll happen, John.”
“When?”
“Soon. I don’t know.”
“Duto’s enjoying letting me twist, isn’t he? Never gets old for him.”
Shafer’s silence was answer enough.
THEY COULDN’T COUNT ON Abdullah for help, either. Wells had hoped that in a worst-case scenario they could stay in the king’s palace in France while they planned their next move. The morning after they landed, Wells called Kowalski.
“Tell him we found the place we were looking for.”
“I hate to tell you. I don’t think he cares. Our mutual acquaintance”—Kowalski meant Miteb—“says that when his granddaughter died, it knocked the fight out of him.”
Wells thought of the way Abdullah had acted in Nice. The king had been furious, desperate to put his son on the throne. Alia’s killing should have made him angrier. Not broken him. “That’s not possible.”
“Our friend was surprised, too. Said he expected the opposite. But you know, a man who’s nearly ninety, a shock like this — nature takes its course. Even the tallest tree falls eventually.”
“Spare me the circle-of-life wisdom. Just give me Miteb’s number so I can talk to him directly. I should have had it from the get-go.”
WELLS COULDN’T HELP FEELING personally betrayed. He’d risked his life and Gaffan’s for the king. Now Abdullah was dismissing Wells like a servant who had outlived his usefulness.
Wells told Gaffan what Kowalski and Shafer had said, their legal limbo.
“You think it would get this messy?” Gaffan said.
“Truth. I wouldn’t have gotten you involved if I had. I thought we’d be okay, even without Abdullah. Or without the agency. Didn’t count on us losing both. Guess I’m too used to having janitors.”
“So we’re looking at murder charges dogging us forever?”
“I don’t think so. In the end, Duto’ll thank us for hitting these guys.” Wells wished he was as certain as he sounded.
“I’ll have to make space in my cabinet for all the medals we get.”
“Exactly. But it may take a couple days. And I don’t think we want to be stuck here while we wait.”
The next question was where to go. And how to get there. Wells could use his last clean passport to fly out. But Gaffan and Meshaal couldn’t count on clearing airport security. Their best answer looked like another cruise. At noon on their second day in Cyprus, they went shopping. Money wasn’t a problem. They still had the million dollars that Wells had left for Gaffan in the safe-deposit box, and Cypriot boat dealers were as friendly as the Lebanese to cash buyers.
For three hundred thousand dollars, they picked a forty-nine-foot cruiser with all the trimmings, satellite television and phone, a fancy autopilot, and enough fuel tanks to get them to Cape Verde and then across the Atlantic. The boat was new, so they didn’t have to worry about the air-conditioning. It even had three cabins, so they wouldn’t have to share.
The Saudi money greased everything. By late afternoon, the cruiser was fueled, insured, titled, and ready to go. It even had a name inked on its hull in six-inch black letters:
“Very nice,” Meshaal said, as they boarded.
“Glad you approve.”
“Are we going to Gaza? Finally?”
“Maybe not right away.” Wells could not imagine what the kid had made of the last seventy-two hours.
They headed south, toward the Suez Canal, at a steady twenty knots. They couldn’t get through the canal until morning, so they had no need to speed. The cruiser more or less steered itself. As the Cyprus coast disappeared behind them, Wells decided to take another look at the stuff he’d found at the farmhouse. He spread the passport and manuals and notebook on a teak table in the rear of the cabin. He and Gaffan read in silence. Meshaal joined them a few minutes later. “What’s this?”
“From your camp. Any of it look familiar?”
Meshaal flipped through the passports. “We had to give them in. Is mine here?”
“Yes. I’ve got it. For safekeeping. What about this?” Wells held up the green notebook from Talib’s bedroom. Meshaal shook his head. “Does the phrase
“Not to me.”
“But your leader called himself Aziz.”
“But the way you say it, it sounds more like an address. In Buraydah, the town near where I grew up, there’s King Abdul-Aziz Boulevard.”
The kid might have just paid his freight. Wells had been thinking of the phrase as a code. But every village in the Kingdom must have had a road named after Aziz. “Do you know where it might be?”
