The scene cut again, this time to a couple of know-nothing pundits speculating about the type of attack that the kidnapped medical team could conjure up. The debate had devolved into nonsensical shouting about Ebola and plague when Shamir Karman came up behind Rapp and whispered in his ear.
“A call for you just came in. Use the phone in the office.”
• • •
Rapp took a seat behind Karman’s desk and made sure the door had swung all the way shut before he picked up the handset.
“Go ahead,” he said in Arabic.
His greeting was met with silence on the other end and he suspected he knew why. Since taking over logistics for Scott Coleman’s company, Claudia Gould had been diligently trying to learn Arabic. Unfortunately, she was still in the “See Dick run” stage. Partially it was his fault. She was also the woman he lived with, but he always found a reason not to get involved in her language education. Patience wasn’t his strong suit.
“Hello,” he said, simplifying his Arabic. There was no way he could use the English or French she was fluent in. One overheard word and he might as well tattoo CIA to his forehead.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Mitch.”
He hated to admit it, but it was good to hear hers, too. The soft lilt was a reminder that, for one of the few times in his life, he had something to go home to.
“First,” she continued. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he said, keeping his responses basic.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t call just to ask that question.”
“Then why?”
“I assume you’ve been watching the news and you’re aware of Halabi’s videos?”
He grunted an affirmation.
“The Saudis have located the village he burned. It’s in central Yemen about five hundred kilometers east of you.”
“And the people?”
“The ones he kidnapped? The reporting has been pretty accurate about them. What hasn’t hit the networks is that they were there caring for the victims of a respiratory disease similar to SARS. Based on the Agency’s analysis of Halabi’s videos, he must have known about it. He went in when none of the medical personnel were in the infirmary they’d set up and his people burned everything without coming in contact with the villagers.”
“And?”
“The Saudis want to incinerate the village from the air as an additional safety measure. It appears that they’re already making plans but they’re not sharing the details with the Agency. I don’t think there’s any point to you going there. It seems high risk, low return.”
While her assessment was hard to argue with, high risk, low return was a front-runner for the engraving on his tombstone. Currently in third place behind Do you think they’ll be able to stitch that up? and Does anyone else hear ticking?
It was a thin lead but it was better than sitting around Al Hudaydah giving himself emphysema. There was always a chance that Halabi or one of his men had left something useful behind.
“Can I assume you disagree with my analysis and insist on going?” Claudia said, filling the silence between them.
“Yes.”
“I thought you’d say that, so I sent the village’s coordinates to Scott in Riyadh. They know a Saudi chopper pilot who’s willing to pick you up and take you to the village.”
“Where and when?”
“Before I tell you that, you have to listen me. I know you always want to charge in, but are you sure it’s worth it to spend a couple of hours looking around a burned village? Al Qaeda and ISIS control that area. We have no eyes there and no idea of their strength or distribution.”
“Understood,” he said, swallowing his natural urge to just bark orders. It was the main drawback to having the woman he was sleeping with handling his logistics. The upside was that she was one of the best in the business.
“I’m not finished.”
His jaw clenched, but he managed to get go ahead out in a relatively even tone.
“The Saudi pilot isn’t one of ours. He has a solid reputation, but he’s not Fred and he’s not loyal to us.”
“He’ll be fine.”
There was a brief pause as she translated his words in her head.
“One last thing. Doctors Without Borders gave us information about the virus that the medical team was dealing with and it sounds terrifying. Without going into detail—”
“This is your definition of not going into detail?”
She had no idea what he’d said but chose to ignore it based on his tone. “It’s incredibly dangerous, Mitch. And more important, it can survive on surfaces for days. Don’t take the idea that the fire killed it for granted. You need to use the biohazard protocols you’ve been trained in. I’m serious. If there’s even a vague possibility that you or one of Scott’s men has been exposed to this, you’ll have to be quarantined and you’ll probably die.”
He was starting to think that she was enjoying his inability to give anything more than one-word answers. “Understood.”
“So, you promise to be careful and not touch anything?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then. The chopper will pick you up outside of town at exactly 2 a.m. I’ll send the coordinates to your phone.”
CHAPTER 9
WESTERN YEMEN
SAYID Halabi stood on the ancient minaret looking out over the landscape hundreds of meters below. The village’s tightly packed stone buildings dominated the top of the peak, offering 360-degree views of mountains dotted with cloud shadows. Steep slopes had been terraced for agriculture over the centuries, and some were still green with the coffee plants that Yemen had once been so famous for.
Up until about a year ago, this place had been home to a community of farmers who had contracted with an American company to produce and export coffee beans. The hope had been that the industry would regain its economic foothold and stabilize the region.
The foreign businessmen had quickly recognized the realities of trying to carve a secular commercial paradise from this war-torn country and given up on the enterprise. Most of the farmers and other workers had moved on shortly thereafter, leaving a core group of thirty villagers who were either too rooted to this place to abandon it or had nowhere else to go.
Their bodies were now piled in a low building to the southeast. Halabi couldn’t see it from his vantage point, but knew from reports that the work bricking up the windows and doors was nearly complete. By the end of the day, the godless collaborators would be sealed in the tomb where they would stay for all eternity. Forgotten by their families, by history, and by Allah.
He limped to the other side of the minaret and looked into the narrow street below. Two of his men were visible, one dressed in traditional Yemeni garb and the other in a chador. It was a bit of an indignity for the battle-hardened soldier, but an unavoidable one. The Saudis and Americans were always watching from above and they couldn’t be permitted to see anything but the normal rhythms of rural Yemeni life.
The wind began to gust and he closed his eyes, feeling the presence of God on the cool, dry air. The path to victory became clearer every day as Allah blessed him with an increasingly detailed understanding of His plan. The objective, so indistinct before, now seemed as well defined as the landscape around him.