Targets of Opportunity Read online

  After Stefanie concluded her brief tour of these spectacular views she walked them through the open-air dining room, then the kitchen and living room.

  “I can show you to your rooms now,” she said.

  There were four bedrooms, each a separate structure with its own bath. Cardona grabbed his suitcase from the entry foyer and tossed it on a bench in the master suite. Hicham was left a comfortable room that faced the pool.

  “Please let me know if I can help with anything else.”

  Hicham said, “Merci bien,” then handed her five one-hundred-euro notes, which finally earned them a slight smile.

  “Let me know if you need anything else,” she said again, a bit more sincerely this time, then the two men were left to admire her rhythmic walk as she exited through the main entryway, closing the door behind her.

  Cardona nodded his approval.

  “Forget it,” Hicham told him. “There’s more of that on the island, just not here, eh?”

  Cardona frowned. “Come,” he said.

  They returned to the master suite, where Cardona opened his valise, lifted out his clothing and toiletries, placed them on the bed, then went to work on the false linings within the four sides of the rectangular bag. He extracted four packages of C-4 explosive, all of which had been coated and then molded into the corner frame of the suitcase. They had passed through security without arousing the slightest suspicion.

  “I told you there was nothing to worry about,” Hicham said.

  Cardona dismissed him with a wave of his beefy hand. “Why was this necessary? They’re coming by sea anyway.”

  “I told you, they had a point to prove.”

  “Bullshit,” the burly man growled.

  Hicham shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right. Meantime, we have a couple of days to organize ourselves,” he said. Then with a smile he added, “And to relax.”

  “Too much planning, not enough action,” Cardona grumbled.

  “You may be right again,” Hicham agreed. Then he turned for the door. “As for action, I’m going for a swim.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AN ESTATE OUTSIDE LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  ON HIS ARRIVAL at the Gables, having been cleared through the outside security checkpoints, Jordan Sandor was admitted to the large stone house. Mullioned windows framed bulletproof glass, metal detectors and X-ray machines were discreetly set behind the wainscoted panels of oiled walnut, and multiple layers of crown molding disguised the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. All in all, the subtlety of these precautions left the Gables with the appearance of a proper men’s club in London.

  Sandor was ushered downstairs and shown into a soundproof room in the basement. The Deputy Director was waiting.

  Byrnes was a handsome man of about sixty with narrow, well-defined features, short, graying hair, and shrewd blue eyes that his subordinates, other than Sandor, often found unsettling. He was attired in his customary gray suit and white shirt. When Sandor entered the room Byrnes looked up from the armchair in which he was seated, but he did not stand.

  “Sir.”

  Byrnes nodded to a large screen on the wall to their right. “There’s our boy.”

  Sandor had never met Ahmad Jaber, but as he viewed him on the closed-circuit monitor, he recognized him from surveillance photos. Although he looked older than Sandor had expected, the agent knew him at once. “What have we got so far?”

  Byrnes motioned for Sandor to have a seat opposite him, then quickly brought his top counterterrorism agent up to speed. Jaber’s physical was clean. He still had family in Iran, including his wife, which put them at risk, unless of course the entire defection was part of a larger subterfuge. Thus far he had been candid about his past, admitting his complicity in the Israeli embassy bombing in Buenos Aires, the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the training of insurgents in Iraq, and several other terrorist missions.

  “I assume he agreed to a chemically enhanced interview.”

  Byrnes nodded. “What I’ve told you are the highlights of everything we’ve gotten from him.”

  Sandor shrugged. “Those drugged-up interrogations are only as good as the questions asked.”

  The DD raised an eyebrow.

  “No offense meant,” Sandor said, “but we know all about Jaber and the IRGC. All he’s bringing us is last month’s newspaper. What does he expect for that, a house in Malibu and a book deal for his memoirs?”

  Byrnes responded with a thin-lipped frown that Sandor had often seen from his superior officers. He figured it was something they taught in the first year at the State Department. “Actually,” the DD explained, “he does have some requests, and that’s one of the reasons I brought you down here. He asked to speak with you.”

  The statement took Sandor by surprise but all he did was nod. “Did he mention the topic?”

  “No. He just said he wanted you here.”

  “Uh huh. Well, I’m here,” Sandor said as he stood up. “Let’s go see what he has to say.”

  Byrnes also stood, placing a hand on Sandor’s shoulder. “Remember, this whole thing is being recorded. No antics, no violence, no gun in his ear.”

  Sandor offered up his best impression of an innocent look. It was not convincing. “I get to say whatever I want though, right?”

  Byrnes responded with a resigned shake of his head. “Where’s your weapon?”

  “They checked it at the door.”

  “Sandor. Your weapon. Now.”

  Sandor reluctantly reached his hand under his blazer and removed the Walther and holster from the small of his back.

  “Just put it on the table,” the DD ordered. “You can have it back when we’re done.”

  ————

  The room in which Jaber waited was furnished as a small, comfortable den. The walls were painted a dark green with walnut wainscoting. There were several easy chairs set in a circle and an oval cocktail table in the middle that held a tray with coffee and tea carafes, cups and saucers, cream, sugar, and pastries. This was obviously the soft sell, Sandor noted as he followed Byrnes inside. He would have chosen something a little less comfortable.

  Jaber stood when they entered. He ignored Byrnes, with whom he had already spent considerable time, and said in thickly accented English, “Mr. Sandor, I am glad to see you are here.”

  Sandor stared at him for a moment, then said, “If I wasn’t already standing I wouldn’t have gotten up for you.” Then he sat in the chair directly opposite the Iranian.

  Jaber nodded, then retook his seat. “All the same, thank you for joining us.”

  Sandor stuck out his lower lip as he looked his man up and down. Then he said, “Let’s be clear where we stand, you and I. I don’t believe your defection is real and, even if it is, I wouldn’t care if you could tell me where to find the Holy Grail; if it were up to me I’d take you out right here and now—”

  “Sandor!” Byrnes barked.

  Jaber waved off the DD with a sweep of his hand. “As you Americans say,” he observed in a polite tone as he continued to look squarely at Sandor, “at least we know where we stand.”

  “Not quite. It’s bad enough that you’re responsible for the deaths of hundreds of my countrymen and allies, but I believe you and my old friend Vincent Traiman also had my men killed in Bahrain. Then you tried to have me murdered, which makes this personal.” Sandor leaned forward as he added, “Just so you really know where we stand.”

  “This is war, Mr. Sandor.”

  “War? Is that what you claim this is? Tell me, Ahmad, where are your soldiers? What uniform do they wear? What country do they represent?”

  Jaber responded with a blank stare.

  “This isn’t war, and you’re not in any army. You’re just a gang of murderers from countries without the guts to admit their involvement, and that’s only because we’d kick your Arab asses up and down the Gobi Desert if you did. So instead you send suicide bombers into crowded plazas and claim they’re on a holy mission for Allah. I’
ve got news for you, pal: if Allah stops by anytime soon he’ll tell you that you’re not even close to what he had in mind.”

  “Are you done, Mr. Sandor?”

  Sandor sat back, but said nothing.

  “Good, because it may have occurred to you that I, as your enemy, must have had some compelling reason to request that you join this discussion. You must have realized I am aware of your hatred for me. It is obvious. Is it not?”

  “It is to me.”

  “Excellent. In that case, what I have to tell you will be all the more effective, since you and I have what you might want to call a history.”

  Sandor nodded slowly as he studied the Iranian. The sonuvabitch was a cool customer, he would give him that much. “History, is that what we have? All right, I’m listening. But I have to warn you, I tend to have a short attention span.”

  Now Jaber leaned forward slightly. “It is no secret that the governments of our nations are enemies. I make the distinction between government and people because, as you are well aware, under prior regimes the people and governments of Iran and the United States were closely allied. In fact, Iranians are more Western than any other country in the Middle East.”

  “Except Israel.”

  “You will forgive me if I postpone a discussion of Israel to another time. As far as I am concerned, the Israelis are nothing more than a filthy herd of desert-dwelling, land-grabbing goatherders. My countrymen are far more civilized and far more European in their ways than your Israeli friends can ever hope to be.”

  “Glad you don’t want to discuss that right now.”

  “My point is that the governments of Iran and the United States are very much at odds, even if our people are not.”

  “Your man Ahmadinejad would call that statement treason.”

  “He might, which may be part of the reason I am here. There are many within my country who fear the consequences of the ongoing nuclear program, the incursion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps into Iraq, and the general hostilities between your nation and ours. Iran has problems within the region that it must address, some of which originated centuries ago. As you have suggested, it may not choose to face annihilation by the United States for actions in which it actually has no real part.”

  “Are you trying to sell me the idea that your defection is part of some unofficial peace initiative?”

  “No, not at all. My defection is quite a personal matter. What I have to offer, however, is information about coming attacks that will neither serve my country nor yours.”

  “From the IRGC?”

  “No.”

  “Al Qaeda?”

  “No. In this instance, I believe your enemy will only appear to be from among these groups. No, this threat is actually from the East.”

  Sandor looked to Byrnes. The Deputy Director said nothing.

  Jaber continued. “I will have to admit that I am lacking certain details, but I think it will become clear that an offensive is being launched by North Korea.” For the time being, he had decided not to mention what Seyed had told him about the involvement of the South Americans. There was an old saying in the desert about never displaying all your wares until the very end of the trade.

  Sandor shook his head in disgust. “You want us to believe that we’re going to be attacked by North Korea, but it’s going to be made to look as if it came from Iran?”

  “Not Iran, necessarily. From what your media calls Islamic extremists.”

  “And how would you have come into possession of this information?”

  “An excellent question. In order for their plan to succeed they would obviously need to involve certain personnel, to have it appear the source of the attack was Islamic and not Asian. They have been extremely careful in their planning, but nothing is beyond detection or betrayal in the modern world, as you gentlemen know only too well. Thus far I only have fragments of information, but it is enough for me to piece together a large part of this puzzle.”

  Byrnes said, “If you’ve already discovered this, presumably others would also have access to the information inside Iran. The plot could be easily exposed, if and when the time comes.”

  Jaber showed his white teeth in a grim smile. “That may be a false presumption. I am fairly certain that the man who provided this information, Seyed Asghari, has been removed, and I was the only one to whom he reported.”

  Byrnes and Sandor shared another quick glance. “Removed by you?” Sandor asked.

  “Of course not. I would have been happy to learn more from him as things moved forward but, unfortunately, time became extremely limited. Given the events that followed our meeting, I am certain Seyed is gone.”

  Byrnes gave one of his thin-lipped looks of disapproval. “Before he was liquidated, what makes you think they didn’t force him to reveal the name of the person to whom he was passing information?”

  Jaber grinned again. “Naturally, Mr. Byrnes, I have proceeded on the supposition that he was coerced into divulging precisely that. Which is why an attempt on my life was made and which is why, as a result of the ensuing explosion at my home, I am presumed dead by one and all. At least for the time being.”

  “Which is also why,” Sandor continued the thought, “you are here.”

  “As I said earlier, I have a personal reason for this defection. The motive, simply put, is that as long as I am believed dead and given a new identity, I can live out my years without fear of reprisal. If, however, it is learned that I am still alive, well, as you can imagine, that would be remarkably inconvenient for at least two governments.”

  “Not to mention the IRGC.”

  “Precisely.”

  “And the members of your family still in Iran.”

  Jaber conceded that point with a slow nod of his head. “Their safety is only secured at the moment by the belief that I am dead.”

  “All of which means you are not really a defector.”

  “Alas, in the technical sense, I must confess this is true. I concede that I have not suffered a change of heart or a shift in my allegiances.” Jaber smiled pleasantly. “Think of me instead as someone with information he is willing to trade in exchange for safe harbor.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  AN ESTATE OUTSIDE LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  SANDOR AND BYRNES returned to the sanctuary of the smaller room for a private discussion. Although the entire mansion was regularly swept for audio bugs and surveillance devices, these soundproof spaces provided an additional measure of security.

  “He’s a liar,” Sandor said as soon as the Deputy Director shut the door behind them.

  Byrnes turned. They were standing face-to-face. “To what end?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “You don’t really believe he surrendered to us, put himself in our hands, merely to send us on some wild-goose chase.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Intelligence reports and satellite photos have confirmed the explosion in his neighborhood in Tehran. It was his house.”

  “What about his story about the informant, this Seyed who reported to him?”

  “Nothing on him yet. We have only the sketchiest intel on Seyed Asghari. A bit player. Nothing to indicate that he’s dead or that he’s involved in plans for an attack.”

  Sandor shook his head. “Something about this just doesn’t feel right. He’s lying. Or at the very least he’s holding out on us.”

  “I completely agree, at least with the latter view,” the DD replied calmly, “but if what he says is even half true, we need to track this lead as far as it takes us.”

  “I know,” Sandor grudgingly admitted.

  “If Iran is working with North Korea, it takes things to an entirely different level. The worst-kept secret in the Middle East has been Kim’s attempt to clone their Yongbyon nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert. If they’re getting in bed with Iran, we’re no longer discussing the militant subcultures of Al Qaeda or the IRGC.”

  “Come on,” Sand
or said. “You want to discuss poorly kept secrets, how about the fact that the IRGC is really state sponsored.”

  “Of course. But in the past few years we’ve avoided a worldwide catastrophe by battling terrorist groups, even when we knew they were being covertly funded by unfriendly regimes. Now we’re confronting the possibility that paramilitary actions are being officially sanctioned by foreign governments.”

  Sandor could not suppress a grin. “In other words, if you’ll allow me some of your Washington lingo, we’re talking about acts of war by sovereign nations.”

  “Yes,” the DD conceded in what was little more than a whisper. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”

  “So, whether it turns out to be bullshit or not…”

  “We need to find out.” Byrnes finished the thought.

  “I take it there’s more.”

  Byrnes motioned to the armchairs and the two men sat. “We have independent sources confirming that there has been significant intelligence traffic between Iran and North Korea.” He went on to explain that SIGINT, or Signals Intelligence, had developed the information at the National Security Agency. Formerly working out of Fort Meade, and now located in new high-tech headquarters in Laurel, Maryland, the NSA had processed recent data convincing them, in Byrnes’s words, “that something is going on.” The stakes were raised when one of South Korea’s KCIA agents disappeared after reporting this activity.

  “We have a highly placed source in North Korea,” Byrnes went on. “He’s deeply imbedded, but this is important enough that we’ll have to use him.”

  “You mean risk his exposure.”

  Byrnes nodded.

  “So where do I start?”

  “We need you to go there. Communications are difficult, but we have reason to believe our man on the inside can get you to the people in Kim’s administration most likely to be leading this sort of initiative.”