Chapter Seven

 

 

London Heathrow Airport, United Kingdom

August 11, 4:00 p.m.

 

Justin wished he’d had time to stop at his hotel in Knightsbridge to shower and change into a new set of clothes, something fresh and more appropriate than his black windbreaker and blue jeans, for his meeting with Deputy Director of Counter Terrorism Rudolph Wellington. But the two SIS agents waiting for him at the airport’s arrivals gate insisted for Justin to go with them right away. Wellington was called into an urgent meeting later that afternoon concerning Britain’s national security, so he wanted to brief Justin immediately upon his arrival.

The agents escorted him to collect his luggage. While waiting, he checked for new messages or voicemails on his agency-issued smartphone. Carrie and McClain had sent him a few updates, but nothing was marked as urgent. He scrolled through them and learned that there were still no specifics about the impeding attack. He sighed and hoped Wellington might be able to provide them with the missing piece of this puzzle.

Once his luggage was stowed in the back of the silver Land Rover, Justin and the two SIS agents climbed in and headed east on the M4 motorway to London. The driver and his partner—two young men in their early twenties—were quiet, yet attentive. Justin appreciated that. They were focused on their task at hand and not petty chit-chat.

Justin turned on his personal smartphone, a new Samsung model Anna had bought for him about a week ago. It had a large five-inch wraparound screen, but he was still getting used to all its functions and applications. There were no voicemails from Anna, but she had sent him a couple of short e-mails. She was somewhere in southern Ontario, monitoring a couple of Canadians suspected of assisting in planning terrorist activities in the country. While the CIS had not gathered sufficient evidence for their arrest, it was tracking them. The couple might lead them to their unknown associates.

Anna’s e-mails told him she was doing well and also asked that he not worry about her. Justin smiled, but could not shake the feel of anxiety boiling in his gut. The image of the explosion in ByWard Market was imprinted on his memory and vivid in his mind’s eye. If terrorists could strike in the heart of Ottawa, they could strike anywhere in Canada. Anna was as much in danger in her home country as anywhere else in lawless terrorists’ hotspots of the world.

He sighed and scrolled down through the rest of the e-mails. Near the end, he found a short message that had come through an unknown account with the initials RA. Its subject read URGENT – We need to meet. And the message came with an attachment.

Justin frowned. He thought it was one of those annoying spam e-mails that clogged his inbox regardless of how many filters the CIS cyber experts installed on his phone. His index finger hovered over the delete icon, but a hint of curiosity stabbed at him to tap the icon. He thought for a moment about the potential of infecting his phone with a virus planted in the attachment. What if a hacker could gain access to the classified intel on his phone?

He shook his head and looked out the window. They had just passed the Airlinks Golf Club and were zipping through a stretch of green fields as they came to Osterley Park. Justin knew Brentford was only a few minutes away, but the M4 would snake north of the town and continue toward Chiswick.

Justin returned the gaze to the phone. The unopened message was staring at him. Justin felt the same jab of curiosity urging him to read the message. He thought about it for another moment, his eyes focusing on the timestamp. The message was received about fifteen minutes ago, when he was still at the airport.

Justin sighed and decided to go with his gut feeling, which rarely misled him.

He tapped the icon and immediately heaved a sigh of relief. It was not spam. The e-mail came from Reza Ahmadi. He was a commander in the Quds Force, the elite troops of the Pasdaran, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Justin had worked with Reza during their joint operation deep inside Iraq a few weeks ago, where Justin had also saved Reza’s life. Reza had proven himself a smart and brave man, with a wide network of sources and contacts in the region.

Justin read the brief message. Justin, it’s a matter of life and death. We need to meet right away. How fast can you come to Vienna? Reza.

He scrolled down to the bottom of the message. The attachment was a small picture the size of his thumbnail. He tapped it and waited a moment for the download. As the image filled the screen, Justin’s frown returned to his face. He had seen the picture before. It was the infamous shot of him driving away after the operation in Mosul. The same photo that Romanov had given him. The same photo ISIS was using to track him down.

“Is everything okay?”

The voice of the driver caught Justin by surprise. “Huh? Oh, yes. Just work stuff.” He nodded at the driver, whose eyes were following Justin in the rearview mirror.

“Jolly good, then,” the driver said.

Justin thought of Reza’s number but could not recall it from memory. He fished for his official phone from a jacket pocket and found the number in the list of contacts. He thought for a moment about whether he should call Reza right away or wait until he was in the privacy of his hotel room. But the matter was urgent. He planned to simply listen, reply in Arabic and talk in such a way that Reza could understand him but the SIS agents would be left scratching their heads.

He dialed Reza’s number from his personal phone.

Someone at the other end picked up right after the first ring. A thick voice spoke in a language Justin assumed was Farsi. He did not understand it, but he recognized Reza’s name among the other incomprehensible words.

“Justin speaking,” he said in Arabic.

“Oh, Justin, good to hear from you,” Reza switched to Arabic as well. “I’m assuming you can’t speak freely, otherwise you’d be using English.”

“That’s right,” Justin said.

“All right. Can you make it to Vienna?”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Tomorrow. Early morning.”

A moment of silence, then Reza said, “That doesn’t give me enough time. How about later, say 11:00?”

“Yes, that would work.”

“I’ll e-mail you the address of our meeting place.”

“Great. Thanks. What can you tell me?”

“Nothing on the phone. But I’ll see you tomorrow.” Reza ended the call.

Justin stared at the phone. He wondered about Reza’s secrecy and how he sounded borderline paranoid. But the sense of always being watched and of someone always listening came with their profession. It was foolish to expect anything less. Fools did not last long in their line of work.

Justin returned his phone to his jacket pocket, but the concerns remained at the back of his mind. He closed his eyes and sank in his seat. He drew in a series of long deep breaths, then cast a sweeping gaze out the window. He had been many times in Britain’s capital, and the weather and the overall atmosphere had always been gloomy and depressing. It was either raining or about to start raining, with the gray or black swelling clouds looming low over the skyline. But today the weather was surprisingly bright and the sky almost cloudless. Justin wished it was a sign that his meeting with Wellington would produce a good outcome.

 

* * *

 

About sixty minutes later, Justin was sitting in a comfortable brown leather chair in one of the SIS headquarters’ conference rooms. Wellington had not arrived yet, for his previous meeting had lasted longer than anticipated, and he was stuck in the crippling rush hour traffic. Alice Blythe, Wellington’s right hand, had taken the seat across from Justin and was briefing him on the most recent intelligence reports they had received from one of the covert teams in Yemen.

Alice was in her early forties but age seemed to have passed her over. Her freckled face showed almost no signs of wrinkles but for a small crease around the corner of her lips, which become more noticeable whenever she smiled. Alice’s red hair was cut in a bob that fell right at the chin, while the back just touched her navy blue pinstriped suit. Her long feathery bangs highlighted the soft curves of her round face, while her green eyes were quite attentive and expressive.

She said, “As you can see, our team observed a gathering of ISIS and other terrorist groups’ vehicles in the southern outskirts of Sanaa two nights ago. It seemed some sort of a rendezvous took place. The fight for control of the capital has turned fierce and bloody. New alliances are forged and shattered on a daily basis.”

Justin nodded and took a sip from his now cold coffee. The surfacing of ISIS in Yemen through a series of suicide bombings had only complicated things for everyone, especially the weak government forces that were yet to reinstate some sort of order in the war-ravaged country. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and other terrorist networks were already waging war against their Shiite rivals. The foreign coalition forces were caught in the middle of the explosion of violence and the ever-shifting loyalties of their neighboring partners.

“One of our contacts was able to record a fragment of the conversation, which is transcribed in these documents.” Alice pointed at the top folder to her right. She had already handed Justin a copy, and he was perusing it as they talked. “The essence of the transcript is their attempts to carry out a sophisticated attack on Canada. While we initially thought it was to be a suicide bombing against a government facility or another building or market, like the one in ByWard, the chatter seems to indicate another plan.” She tapped the open folder. “In page 7, the highlighted paragraphs, where they speak about a sports event.”

Justin flipped through his copy and found the right page. He read and reread the highlighted lines. “Yes, sports, but it is unclear. Outdoors? Indoors? And are they aiming at a marathon? A hockey game? And where? When?”

Alice shrugged and shook her head. Some of her bangs fell over her left eye, and she brushed the hair away with the back of her hand. “Excellent questions, but we have no answers. It gives you, us, some direction, but not much.”

Before Justin could reply, the door of the conference room opened and a tall black man walked in. “Mr. Hall, I’m Rudolf Wellington. My apologies for the delay,” he said in a strong baritone voice.

Justin stood up and shook Wellington’s extended hand. He was in his late fifties or perhaps even early sixties. He was well-built, like a boxer, with a thick neck and a square jaw. Wellington was dressed in a tweed suit and brown slacks. His weather-beaten face had a two-inch scar at the left side near his ear and a fair amount of wrinkles for a man his age.

Wellington took a seat next to Alice and cast a quick glance at the assortment of files and folders scattered on the table. He cocked his head to read one of the reports, then tapped the front pockets of his suit. He fished out a pair of black squared glasses, put them on, and tried again. “This information, Mr. Hall, came in a couple of hours ago. We’re expecting another update, in as much time, provided our boys have something good to report.”

“Please call me Justin. And I appreciate the update.”

“We don’t have more details about the plot against your country, but on the good news front, there have been some positive developments with regard to your photograph. We’re monitoring jihadi websites, Twitter feeds and Facebook accounts, and so far your identity is safe.” Wellington pulled at the knot of his brown tie and loosened it a bit. “Like your agency, we’re helping to spread disinformation through ‘genuine’ ISIS combatants and other terrorist factions’ supporters that make the man of the photo anything from a Spanish mercenary to a Turkish weapons smuggler to an Iraqi Shia fighter.”

Justin smiled. “Yes, I can be made to pass for any of those characters.”

Wellington nodded. “That’s our goal: to confuse and deceive them. Perhaps they’ll give up their search once they realize it is not as easy as they initially thought.”

Justin nodded, but he had his own doubts.

“Did you talk to him about the list?” Wellington turned his head and looked at Alice.

“No, not yet, sir.”

“All right. I’ll do that.”

Alice pulled a thin binder from the pile to her left.

Wellington picked it up, weighed it in his hand for a moment, then slid it to Justin. “This is a list of potential suspects, most of whom are in Canada and a few in the US, all plotting to attack Canada. Our operations here have identified more than a few willing to collaborate with us. Two men in particular, who have just returned after fighting for ISIS in Iraq and Yemen. They were disillusioned with the brutality of the war and the slaughter of fellow Muslims. They made the right decision to return home and they’ve been a great source of accurate intelligence.”

“Thank you for the intel, sir,” Justin said.

“I hope it is helpful in nabbing these suspects, and, in turn, they’ll lead you to the people implicated in the plot. As far as we know, it is a well-organized team or teams with connections that stretch across the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.”

Justin said, “We only need one man. Just one man, who knows the inside workings of the terrorist plot. We’ll break him, and learn everything.”

“Any progress on the home front?” Wellington asked.

“We’re monitoring all border crossings, ports and airports. And we’re hunting down known or suspected supporters of terrorism all over the country. A few men have recently returned from abroad, and we believe at least some of them were involved in jihad in Iraq, Syria and Somalia.” Justin paused for a deep breath and reached for his cup.

“Would you like more coffee?” Alice asked him and tilted her head toward the tea and coffee kettles placed on a small table on the left side of the room.

“Sure, why not?” Justin downed the last sip of the bitter coffee and handed his cup to Alice.

She asked, “Black as earlier?”

“Yes, please.”

“Sir, would you like a cup of mint tea?”

“Sure, why not, my dear?”

Justin flipped through the pages of the long list and waited until Alice returned with his coffee and Wellington’s tea. “Thank you,” Justin said and enjoyed a swig of the hot drink. It was not as bitter as the previous cup, and it had a sharp woody flavor. “This will be extremely valuable. I think I remember some of these names and aliases.” He tapped the list. “A few people living in Ottawa, who’ve had contacts with radical Muslims and extremists. One just returned from Syria. When we interrogated him, he claimed he was trying to get his family out of the country. As we had no evidence, we couldn’t detain him. But we have eyes on him twenty-four/seven.”

Wellington held his teacup in his left hand. Steam was coming out of it along with the pleasant aroma of mint. “I’m delighted it will be of good use. Now, why don’t we give you a rundown of our recent operations over the last twenty-four hours? Then you can share the intelligence gathered by your agency.”

Justin nodded. The meeting had already been very fruitful, and he could hardly wait to learn more details about the men he was about to start hunting.