CHAPTER 7

Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport, Atlanta

 

The baggage claim area felt like a ghost town. The last flight out of Washington had put him into Atlanta well after midnight. Even one of the busiest airports in the world would go into a lull during the midnight hours.

I’m beat, Scott thought, checking the time again on his watch. The black illuminated dial of his Rolex Submariner showed 12:50 A.M. It had been a long week.

But I am back in, he reminded himself. And on my terms. For a moment he felt like a schoolboy who just caught the smile from that girl in his math class. A grin crossed his well-worn face.

The thought of that schoolboy brought him back to a different world. He didn’t have a girl in his math class. Not at Godolphin House. The old proctor would have had a heart attack if he thought a girl was anywhere near Eton College’s Godolphin House. He never learned to like that old man, who’d taken the stick to him on more than one occasion. Eton College raised the elite of Great Britain, and all were taught to be reserved. The private boarding school had raised kings since 1440.

The Americans think they know the British, but they have no idea.

“Mr. Scott?”

James Fordon Scott turned around to see a hulk of a man approaching.

That actor in The Green Mile. What was his name? Duncan? While Scott was tall and lanky, this man looked like a wall. He would easily have towered over any linebacker on an American football team.

“It’s Stidham. Sergeant Shane Stidham. You got a checked bag, sir?”

Mentally, Scott filed through the bios of Parker’s original ANGLICO team. Shane Stidham had been awarded two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq. If Parker meant to send a message, he’d picked a fine messenger.

“No checked bag.” Scott had given up on checking bags after September 11. The hassle became too great in public transportation. He slung the overnight bag over his shoulder. “Just this,” he said. “Where’s your colonel?”

“He’s waiting for you on the other side of the airport. Follow me.”

It had taken Scott several days to find a lead on William Parker. First, though, he had flown to Qatar to meet the FBI team. The hole in the ground in Doha was much deeper than he had even imagined from the photographs. The body count had gone up since the original report. Six more didn’t survive their head injuries, bringing the total death toll to twelve. He remembered the smell.

“Semtex?” Scott had asked the bomb team.

“Yes, sir, but not with the usual tracers.” The FBI’s bomb expert was holding a test tube with a brownish material inside. “This is probably Czech Semtex. A Chechen from Grozny was connected to a purchase recently of a ton of this stuff.”

Scott knew the Chechen well: Abu Umarov. He also had a good guess as to who Umarov was working for.

As for Parker, after Korea, he seemed to have disappeared. Fortunately, Scott had remembered the woman who was with him at the end. A court reporter. He’d left several messages with the clerk of the court, only to learn quickly that the courthouse staff was a close family. Finally, he caught an assistant clerk who apparently didn’t know better. She gave Scott the cell phone number for Clark Ashby. And then, all he could do was plead with Parker’s lover to have Parker call him, if she knew where he was. He’d heard the reluctance in her voice, but somehow it had worked.

“Can’t I take that bag?” boomed Stidham’s bass voice. He seemed frustrated by Scott’s slow pace.

“Thanks, but no. I’m fine. What do you mean he’s on the other side?”

Instead of answering, Stidham ignored the question and continued walking. Scott could tell that Stidham rationed his words carefully. He had a slight stutter and he was no doubt conscious of his voice’s uniquely low-octave tone.

Finally they stepped outside, across an empty street and into a parking lot. This part of the airport also seemed as quiet as a cemetery at one in the morning.

The bitter cold air surprised Scott a little. This must be an exceptionally cold night in Atlanta. A layer of frost covered the windshields of cars that had been there for some time. As he walked, Scott mentally picked out the few cars that had clear windshields. He knew that those, only three cars out of fifty or more, had just recently been parked there. It was an absentminded habit of observing and deducing that kept him alive in the spy business all these years.

Stidham headed toward a black Jeep Cherokee with a clear windshield. He clicked his remote, and the lights of the Jeep flashed with that obnoxious beep.

“Hop in.”

Scott threw his bag into the backseat. The Jeep was meticulously clean. It had a unique smell he couldn’t quite place in his mind. The leather seat had a slippery feel to it.

Armor All. That’s the scent.

The Jeep had a customized interior with an in-dash panel that glowed in the dark when Stidham turned on the ignition. Scott could tell why Parker chose this man to pick him up. He was absolutely dependable. No one would care for a machine the way that this one did and not be.

“What are you listening to?” Scott knew that all conversations eventually led to insight, intelligence, and information. He pointed to the iPod hooked into the dash panel. Scott knew that as long as you took more than you gave, you gained something.

“Davis, Coleman, some Ellington, a little Basie, and Puente.”

“Puente? El Rey.”

“El what?”

“The king. El Rey del Timbal. You need to get Night Beat.”

“Yeah, that’s on there. He had energy.”

Now Scott had a point of commonality. From a discussion of Ornette Coleman, they would move to family, or friends, or food, or, eventually, Parker. Scott had played the game a long time.

They headed out of the parking lot. The Jeep headed north, as if going downtown, flying through the turns and curves. But instead of taking the exit, Stidham turned onto the cargo road that circled the airport.

“Hard trip, sir?” Shane Stidham gave his guest a little more respect.

“Your friend was hard to find.”

“Maybe with good reason.”

Scott thought this was a good opportunity. Despite working with Parker on the Korean mission, he still didn’t have a feel for the man.

“How long have you known him?”

“We go back to Desert Storm. The gunny and I were on his ANGLICO team.”

Scott knew the history well. Parker’s air and naval gunfire team was trained to call in fighters dropping thousand-pound bombs or artillery-lobbing shells on Iraqi National Guard troops. In complete overcast, with the bombers high above the solid ceiling of clouds, the ANGLICO team would mark the unexpected target with a laser beam or call in its location. In the Battle of al-Kafji, Parker’s team destroyed over ninety Iraqi tanks, trucks, and APCs. They unleashed hot steel that tore through hundreds of the elite of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi soldiers, panicked, would huddle together in a group. They knew the main Marine force remained miles away, yet somehow the bombs were dropping with complete accuracy. As those elite units concentrated together, the forward observers on the team called in the strike.

“Is your man tough enough?” Scott asked.

“For what, sir?”

“For another Korea.”

“Yes, sir, he can handle it.” Shane paused a moment. “How well do you know Colonel Parker?”

Scott chuckled. “Not as well as you.”

“ ‘He is terrible in his onset and prompt in his decision, ’ ” intoned Stidham.

“Sun Tzu?”

“Yes, sir, sure is.”

Scott turned his gaze out to the line of jumbo jets, parked in a row, waiting for their turn in the maintenance hangar. Up ahead, he saw an illuminated sign that said ATLANTIC AVIATION.

Stidham turned into the gate at the FBO. Scott knew a fixed base operation, or FBO, was the private airplane’s parking lot and gas station. A twin-engine turboprop sat at the end of a line of private jets, its engines running. The door was open in the back with a stairway down. Stidham wove through the line of aircraft and pulled up next to the airplane’s stairway.

“There you go, sir.” He pointed to the twin.

Scott opened the Jeep’s door, and as he did, the high-pitched engines and the blowing wind filled the Jeep with dust and a deafening noise. The blast of frigid wind drove down his neck. Scott took his bag, ran over to the aircraft, and climbed aboard.

“Pull the door closed, Mr. Scott. Make sure you lock it.”

The voice came from the plane’s only other occupant. The pilot turned as he spoke.

“Come on up here and have a seat.” Parker pointed to the copilot’s seat next to his. “Strap yourself in, Mr. Scott.”

The Cessna twin moved forward as Scott, somewhat confused, climbed into the copilot’s seat. It was a tight squeeze. With little midnight traffic, the airplane was on the active runway in less than a minute. As it became airborne, Parker tilted it upward in a sharp, turning climb, passing over the terminal and parking lot where Scott had just been. The two engines’ loud hum drowned out any chance for much talk. With the aircraft climbing into a bank of clouds, obscuring all visibility, Parker pointed to a headset. The airplane rocked back and forth and would occasionally drop for a brief second as an invisible air pocket dropped it like a descending elevator.

Scott could hear other pilots as they talked to each other and some “control center.” Even this late, the radio conversation sounded like an auctioneer controlling a fast-paced bidding war. He wasn’t a pilot, but he could read a compass and saw that they were heading south. The lights of the small airplane gave a glow to the clouds, and with the hum of the engines, Scott could barely keep his eyes open. He wanted to talk, but the exhaustion of the long week weighed heavily on his eyes. The cabin was warm, and the engines continued to hum at a near-deafening pitch. The twin turboprop was not like a jet engine–powered aircraft, where the thrust and sound were well behind the cabin.

It seemed like an instant had passed before he felt a nudge. He looked down at the low glow of his Rolex and saw it was nearly 3:00 A.M. He could feel pressure in his ears as the airplane descended. Through the clouds, Scott could barely make out the tip of the wing, which gave him this odd sensation they were actually flying upside down. He looked over to Will, who adjusted the throttle of the engines like an accountant on his adding machine and settled back into the seat.

“Don’t go to sleep on me again, Mr. Scott. We’re getting ready to land.”

Scott leaned forward and glanced out his window just as the airplane broke through the bottom of the clouds. As far as he could see, the land below was a dark, lightless forest for miles. It was hard to get a sense of depth, but as the airplane got closer to the ground, he could make out several hills to his left.

Suddenly, the lights of a runway directly ahead of him appeared through the total darkness. He heard a mechanical thump—the landing gear lowering—and saw three bright green lights, in a triangle, flash on the panel in front of him. The airplane gently swung back and forth as Parker continued to correct its path toward the landing.

As they neared the ground, the engines spun down, and just as Scott felt the nose tilt upward, he heard the rear wheels strike the runway.

They taxied up to a small hangar, its fluorescent lights nearly blinding him. As he stepped out onto the pavement, Scott could tell that this was the only hangar on the one-strip runway. Parker had his own airport somewhere well south of Atlanta.

“Come with me. We’ll go up to the cabin.” Parker unlocked the aircraft door and let down the steps as he led Scott out of the aircraft. A black pickup truck with oversized mud tires waited next to the hangar.

“Jump in,” said Parker.

Wearily, Scott climbed up into the raised cab.

The road circled around the airfield and climbed up a wooded ridgeline. After a short time, Scott could see the airfield in the valley below, which suddenly became dark as some kind of timer shut down the lights. They traveled on in silence, perhaps because of the late hour, up the paved road into the dark.

On top of the rise, they came to an opening in the woods and a brightly lit, stacked-stone and timber house, like one would see on the slopes of Aspen or Vail. Scott got the sense that it was positioned on top of the small mountain.

“I say, you have damned fine tastes in hideouts.”

Parker smiled and led Scott through the door and into a room framed by exposed chestnut and oak beams and with a stone fireplace that climbed up to the ceiling. This was far from a cabin, with its antiques, Persian rugs, and well-aged landscape paintings. A fire lit the room and had apparently been well tended, despite the late hour.

“Anything to drink?”

“Scotch, straight up. No ice.”

“Your British is showing. How about Dalmore Thirty?” Parker lifted a clear glass bottle.

“Yes, please.”

Parker handed him the Scotch-filled glass and pointed to two leather chairs near the fireplace. As Scott sat down, he could feel the heat of the fire on the left side of his leg. The smell of wood seemed to add to the taste of the Scotch. He swirled the amber liquid in the crystal glass, treating it as if it were a rare, delicate wine.

Parker, still as steeled and muscular as when they’d first met, looked comfortable in his element. Although it neared dawn, he showed no sense of fatigue, his blue eyes gazing at Scott with intensity.

“Now, why are you here?”

“Would it matter to say I need your help?” Scott asked. It would not have been an understatement to say it was a plea. They had let him back in because of the Korean operation and only because of that. Scott had been a minor actor in that play, but he didn’t understate his role to them.

James Scott had spent his life on the adrenaline edge of this spy business, not because he was particularly smart or sly or skillful. Years ago he’d seen more opportunity, after Oxford and several tours in MI6 at Vauxhall Cross, with the Central Intelligence Agency than his own country’s spy service. He knew that most of the intelligence world involved the seduction of people’s weaknesses—the adulterer caught with another woman, the closet gay, or the embezzler. But he liked the action of the occasional operation, which seemed to be fewer and farther between. Americans seem to have more of an inclination for fieldwork. The Korean operation had been too loose, surprised too many in the Agency, and had almost buried him. Until it succeeded. The Agency had to pay millions to Parker in reward money and the budget wonks had screamed bloody murder. But few operations ever had been the success that Korea was. Parker had stopped a very bad situation in its tracks in North Korea. For much less than the cost of the several Tomahawk cruise missiles it would have taken, Parker had put the Korean missile program back a decade. And unlike the cruise missiles, Parker left no trail indicating where he’d come from. The mission left no fingerprints.

“Who?”

A simple question. William Parker’s single word asked who the target was, who was involved, who was so important that they would resurrect a retired operative and send him to find a Marine who’d been officially discharged from the service.

“Maybe the better question is, why?” Scott said. “A very close friend of a very important person was seriously hurt.” Again he paused. “Very badly hurt in an explosion at an embassy in the Persian Gulf.” Scott thought a moment, as he took another sip. Hell, the Scotch, the fatigue . . . I may be saying too much.

“People get hurt all the time in this new world. Why should it really matter, to me or you?”

Scott wasn’t surprised by Parker’s bluntness. Parker really had no reason after Korea to trust him. But Parker wasn’t going to do this mission for Scott no matter what he said. William Parker accepted a mission for his own reasons.

This mission would not be an easy sell, but as he looked around the room, he felt certain that Parker would buy it. The great room was perfectly furnished with the finest art, rich leather chairs, and sterling silver lamps with white silk shades. There was even a single freshly cut red rose in a crystal vase. However, there was not one photograph—not a single photo of family and friends, no pictures of children on swings, or aged, kindly parents. For Scott, this confirmed his initial hunch: He had William Parker.

“Have you ever heard of an Iranian operation called Operation Intekam?” Scott took another sip of the Dalmore.

“No.” Not a complete truth. Something about the word struck a chord in Parker. Intekam? He let the word play in his mind as he turned the glass in his hand.

“There is a Saudi named Yousef al-Qadi. He didn’t seem very important. He had plenty of money and got out of Harvard with a MBA back in the mid-eighties. But he kept a low profile. Until recently.”

“Why now?” William Parker watched his guest lean back in the thick leather chair. He could see the fatigue in Scott’s eyes.

“His name keeps coming up. We think he is making his move.”

“Move?”

“Yes.”

“To what?”

“We don’t know, exactly. In a word, jihad. At some time, fanatics like him always make their move. A desire to be remembered, to be revered—who in the hell knows? We do know that he is charismatic, egotistical, absolutely ruthless, and fully capable of anything. He’s the next generation.”

“Sounds right for the part.”

“But this guy’s got ambitions that make others look like pikers.”

Parker shook his head in acknowledgment as he swallowed the Scotch. It had a smoky flavor with a sharp, stinging feel as it went down his throat. Parker was more a bottled-water man than a Scotch drinker. He preferred the high from the physical exhaustion of running ten miles to a drink.

“And he has a particularly hard Muslim from Grozny who’s known to do his dirty work.”

“That probably describes several.”

“Yes.”

Scott moved his glass in front of his body. His eyes wandered to the ceiling.

“Intekam and Yousef are connected. We didn’t discover the Intekam operation until some time after the bombing.” Scott moved his hand to his cheek, stroking it several times, his eyes moving up and to the right. “And we didn’t know of Yousef ’s involvement until much later.”

Parker waited for Scott to continue.

“Intekam was Lockerbie.”

“The CIA didn’t know of Intekam until later?” Parker asked the question with a specific purpose.

“Did we know of Intekam until later?” Scott repeated the question. “No, absolutely not.”

A lie. Parker knew the liar checklist from his days as a prosecutor. There were other signs. Scott’s hands were turned down. Parker looked directly at his eyes. Scott looked away, again up and to the right. His body language was stiff. He repeated the question and got the same response. Scott hit every box on the liar’s checklist. His body language was absolutely clear.

“So what’s the point?”

“Yousef is on the path to be much more in the Muslim world. He is protected by the Pashtun tribes in the mountains of Pakistan. The Sherani clan treat him like a sheik. No.” Scott hesitated. “Even more. He could have a man’s child executed in front of him with a point of the finger.”

“So what’s the threat? He seems another tyrant quietly killing his people on the other side of the earth.”

“He wants to kill more than just those in the Sherani clan he doesn’t like. Some time ago this man, in the shadows in a videotape on the Internet, started talking of a new state of Islam.”

“Where?”

“Good question. On the lands of the Ghaznavid Empire. Ghaznavid stretched from western Iran, across Afghanistan, and into most of Pakistan.”

“Okay . . .” Parker’s response was more of a question than an acknowledgment.

“Even more important is why. He wants to establish a totalistic Islamic state.”

“The Ghaznavid Empire was over a thousand years ago.”

“Yes.”

“It was known for butchering the babies of its enemies. But he has one sizable problem.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“Central Command is in his way.” Parker had to give Yousef credit for dreaming big. Much of the military force of the United States lay in the center of his planned kingdom.

“Don’t think he is a fool,” Scott said. “He is bright and persuasive. And extremely well financed. He makes bin Laden look like a child.”

“Shit.” Parker rubbed his shoulder. “What would it take for him to pull this off?”

“A horrific event that breaks the will of the American people.”

Scott paused.

“Do you want to meet him?”

“Yousef?”

“Yes, the man who put the bomb on Pan Am Flight 103. Would you like to meet the man who murdered your father and mother?”

Parker said nothing. Scott was being obnoxious in his directness. He stared into the fire as the wood popped with the occasional flare-up. The ember bounced against the screen and flew back into the fire. Listening to Scott, he had to wonder whether he was the ember or the fire.

“We’ll talk in the morning.”

 

 

Scott slept well past sunrise, which was unusual for him. He was nearing his fortieth birthday but felt closer to fifty as he rubbed his face with both hands while sitting on the edge of the bed. He had not slept for more than five hours at a time in the last decade. As he dressed, he slipped on his Rolex, looking at his watch. It was well past 9:00 A.M.

The bedroom was connected to a small library that was just off the great room where the night before he and Parker had drinks by the fireplace. Scott heard the rattling sound of someone in the kitchen on the other end of the lodge. The previous night he thought he had heard the same noise of someone in the kitchen, out of sight. The smell of fresh, brewing coffee was mixed with the smoky residue of the fireplace.

Scott paused as he stepped from the bedroom into the library. It was more of a small office than a library, with a table desk, a leather chair where the arms were well worn, down to the yellow leather under the stain, and across from the desk another smaller table with a chessboard. The marbled men on the board were paused mid-game. He recognized the opening move. The knight had been moved before the bishop.

On the center of the desk was a small blue-and-yellow Chinese ceramic bowl with a gold-leaf trim around its edge. It was full of medals. Scott picked up one of the medals, each having long, brightly colored ribbons. This one was pewter and engraved with Boston Athletic Association and the Boston Marathon. Next to the bowl, on the center of the desk, was a gold pocket watch linked to a thin chain. Scott, without thinking, picked it up. The chain had a fob on the end. A Phi Beta Kappa key etched on the back with “Columbia University, Class of 1959.”

Obviously not Parker’s. Perhaps his father’s, Scott thought. He knew that both of Parker’s parents had been killed by the terrorist bomb that took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. William Parker knew what terrorism was well before September 11.

Scott absentmindedly looked up at the other titles in the shelves behind the desk. The Peloponnesian War, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The Encyclopedia of Military History, and John Paul Jones.

Gibbon . . . Scott remembered from his days at Godolphin House who was the greatest fan of Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Winston Churchill. Churchill relied upon Gibbon for his sense of phrases and credited Gibbon with teaching him the perfect English language.

In the shelf below stood Songs of America and Existence.

“A soldier who reads poetry,” Scott remarked to himself. He turned and stepped out into the great room. In the bright light of day, he realized that the large windows that flanked both sides of the stacked-stone fireplace were actually glass doors that led out onto a broad slate patio. It was a crisp, brilliantly clear day. He saw the back of a man sitting in one of the chairs.

“Good morning.”

“Well, hello, Mr. Scott.” Parker took a sip from his cup of coffee. The bright sunlight had already warmed the day to the point that Parker was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

“Good God!” Scott exclaimed as he took in the view. The porch led down to a grassy knoll, brown from the early winter chill, and beyond to a cliff looking out over a broad valley forested with pointed pine trees, oaks, and hardwoods. Below, a river cut through the valley, and off to the north he saw, well in the distance, the tall stacks of a mill of some kind. The stacks produced a streak of bright white smoke, stretching across the cloudless blue sky.

“What river is that?” Scott said.

“The Chattahoochee.”

“I’ve got no bloody idea where I am.”

“Good.” Parker smiled. “Would you like coffee? Or tea?”

“Neither,” Scott said.

“What is it you want me to do?” Parker pointed to a mahogany porch chair across from his.

“That’s rather direct of you.”

Parker smiled again. “District attorneys make their living on direct.”

Scott nodded. “We have an idea as to how to get close to a key player. And I have been given license to conduct an operation that could cause serious harm to a network of very bad people. But, you must have credibility to get close.”

Parker knew what he meant when he said close. Close, as in getting near the enemy, behind their lines, and all of this alone. It could even involve being the enemy.

“Credibility to get close.” Parker laughed. “That may be the understatement of the year. So you think you have a way of getting to this target and doing him damage?”

“There is a newspaper in London called Al-Quds Al-Arabi . We know it’s followed by thousands upon thousands of Muslims in the Mideast. Several organizations follow it so as to monitor the Muslim community in Europe.” Scott squinted in the sunlight.

“So, what are you suggesting?”

“You are multilingual. You pick up languages with incredible ease.”

“I’m still lost.”

“There is a journalist named Sadik Zabara. He has a following in his home country of Bosnia. Mr. Zabara was recently offered a job at Al-Quds. Publicly he has rather radical leanings and tends to attract those with similar views.”

William Parker instantly saw the genius in the plan. “A Bosnian Muslim. A Caucasian as radical as any extremist.”

“Exactly,” Scott said.

“You said publicly . . . meaning that privately he thinks something else?”

“Yes.” Scott didn’t explain.

“And you’re fishing for a big fish with this bait.”

“And the big fish is nibbling. Zabara starts work at his new job in only a few days, and already he has been invited to a meeting with Yousef al-Qadi.”

“Why? Why so soon? And why would Yousef al-Qadi want the attention?” Parker leaned up in his chair.

“Radicals such as al-Qadi have never shied away from news coverage. Before September 11, bin Laden sought out ABC and NBC and every major American network. After 9/11 they have gone to more protected sources but have nevertheless continued to use the media.”

Scott had a way of staring at you as the conversation became more intense.

“Now that bin Laden is dead, a vacuum has been created. Someone will fill it.”

“Yes.”

“The media is a weapon. It’s complicated. Men like al-Qadi want to gain a following in the Muslim world. Their jihads only succeed when they have a following. But many of the countries are controlled by governments that have no intention of letting men like al-Qadi be any part of the news. So they use a back door. Al-Quds or CNN International gets to the same people.”

“That explains why their acts are so violent.”

“Exactly. It’s all about PR. They want to get on CNN. But to be on CNN, terrorists have to blow other stories off the front page.”

“So why al-Qadi and why now? And why should he trust Zabara to meet him?”

“Actually, Yousef was instrumental in getting Zabara his job.”

“Now I really don’t understand.”

“This asset has been buried for some time. It’s killing MI6 that we’ve asked for him. Zabara has been writing articles for years saying that the time of bin Laden has passed. That there is a new warrior needed to lead the jihad.”

“Enter Yousef al-Qadi.” Parker sensed the multilayered plot. “So he gets this journalist the job at a paper with a much bigger distribution to provide his own new media platform.”

“Exactly. And the time has come. Zabara has received an invitation to visit Yousef on Yousef ’s home turf. There, from deep in the Hindu Kush, he’s to conduct an extensive interview with our man.”

“When?”

“Soon. Very soon. But no date’s been set. The problem is that once the date is set, we won’t have a minute to spare.”

“But what then? And how long?”

“We have a commitment for virtually unlimited funds and time. There will only be one person above me: the deputy director of the CIA. No one else. His aide is out of the loop. His staff, their wives, are all out. No one knows. Period.”

Very much like the Korean mission, thought Parker. Including the fact that there would be no rescue wagon if things went south.

“So Zabara gets put in storage somewhere.”

“Yes, MI6 puts him in a safe place before he even gets off the airplane in London.”

“And you’re suggesting I become Mr. Zabara?”

“Yes.”

“So I get the invite and fly around the world. Let’s say I pass muster. Then what? A GBU in the right place?” A reference to the laser-guided Mk-84 bomb, which carried over two thousand pounds of explosives. The explosion would crater a football field.

“Possibly. A botch job. A quick and dirty. Maybe a bullet to the rear of the skull with something small slipped in.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure of that.” Parker had killed men in combat and knew his share of death. But this was not James Bond. One doesn’t fly in, shoot a man in his head, and then take the next international flight out of the Sherani clan’s local airport. No, this would take something far more sophisticated.

“Don’t forget that we have both Yousef and his Muslim from Grozny to reckon with. You would need to get both of them. And their tribe is more than just two. If you don’t get them all, they’ll be gone. A chased fox only goes deeper into the woods and then pops out somewhere else to hunt again.” Parker looked down at his coffee. “The fox needs to have a reason to be pulled out of his den. A strong reason.”

Scott nodded, both agreeing to the point and acknowledging that they had no simple solution.

“There is one way to pull the fox out.” Parker looked across the distant trees as he spoke his thoughts.

“Short of assassinating the president of the United States, we have license to do whatever it takes.”

“You know my ANGLICO team.”

“Yes.”

There was no point in being coy. Parker would assume that Scott would remember the team from Korea and, if not, would have at least researched Parker’s contacts.

“One of them was Hernandez.”

“Staff Sergeant Enrico Hernandez.”

“Yes. He’s with the Centers for Disease Control now. Works on their security team.”

“He mentioned to me a doctor there named Stewart. I think his name is Paul Stewart. I would need to start by talking to Dr. Stewart.”

“When?” Fire had appeared in Scott’s eyes. If he wasn’t already seeing the direction of Parker’s idea, he was at least energized by the fact that Parker was hatching a plan.

“Now.”

Scott nodded. “One more reminder, Colonel Parker, of the stakes involved. If Yousef wants to make a name for himself, it will take something very violent.”

“Yes,” said Parker. “I can only imagine.”