Terminal Justice Page 6

  He focused on the missing Sea Maid. Surely he could do something, but what? He had a great deal of wealth, power, and influence. But his wealth couldn’t provide the help he needed, and his power was equally useless. His influence, however, might be of some use. He had, over the years, carefully and judiciously supported candidates for congressional offices. He could call on a number of congressmen and senators any time of the day.

  “That’s it,” A.J. said to the empty air as he stopped his jogging. “Of course, I should have thought of this sooner.” Panting heavily he bent over, resting his arms on his legs. He had no idea how far he had run or how long he had been jogging, nor did he care, for now he knew what he had to do. It may not help, but it was something. He would call Sen. Dean Toler who headed the Armed Services Committee and ask a favor. With the continuing stress in Iraq and Iran, there must certainly be at least one navy ship in the Indian Ocean, most likely there were several. They would have rescue technology that would surpass anything else in the world. Maybe Senator Toler could twist some arms and influence the navy to send out search-and-rescue crews. If they couldn’t find the Sea Maid, then no one could. The question was where would they find the ship? On the surface or on the bottom? The last thought sobered him.

  “Nice suit, man,” a heavily accented voice said behind him. A.J. turned to see three young Hispanic men approaching him. They were dressed in similar fashion, each wearing flannel shirts buttoned to the collar and baggy black pants. Their hair was cut almost to the scalp, and one wore a red bandanna. A.J. recognized the garb as that worn by a local street gang. “Looks real expensive.”

  A.J. said nothing as he turned to face the gang members.

  “I bet a man with a suit like that must carry a lot of cash,” said the one with the bandanna. “How about it, man. You got money for me?”

  “No,” A.J. replied firmly. “I didn’t bring my wallet.”

  “You wouldn’t be lying to us, would you? We don’t like liars.”

  A.J. knew he should turn and run. There was no doubt that he could outdistance them in short order, but he also knew that at least one of them had a gun. Instead of running, A.J. laughed.

  “What’s so funny, man?” the youth asked harshly, spitting out his words. “You laughing at me?”

  “Let me get this right,” A.J. said. “You don’t like liars. A gang of thieves, bullies, rapists, and killers are okay, but liars are beneath you.”

  “You know what I’m gonna do, man?” the gang member said viciously as he pulled a .38 police special from under his shirt and pointed it at A.J.’s chest. “I’m gonna shoot you in the head, steal your money, and take your fancy running suit. Do you find that funny, man?” The hood then nodded to the other two gang members, who approached A.J. and took hold of his arms.

  To the gunman A.J. said, “How old are you? Twenty? Twenty-one?”

  “Old enough to blow your brains all over this street.”

  “Maybe this question is easier for your twisted little mind to answer: Are you the leader?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  A.J. smiled, nodded, then with astonishing speed he swung his arms back and then upward, breaking the grip of his would-be captors. With the same fluid motion he grabbed their faces in his large hands, and with all of his well-honed strength he smashed their skulls together with a sickening thud that echoed down the street. The two men slumped to the sidewalk unconscious. Without wasting a moment, A.J. turned sideways and rushed the gunman. A.J. heard the shot fired and saw the flash from the muzzle, but his sudden move to the side kept him from being hit. Half a moment later, A.J. had the gunman’s outstretched arm pinned under his own left arm with the gun pointed behind him.

  With his right hand, A.J. seized the gang member by the throat and squeezed enough to cause pain, but not enough to close his trachea or pinch off the carotid arteries. A.J. wanted him conscious.

  “I don’t like you or hoods like you,” A.J. said viciously, his eyes wide and his jaw clamped shut so that he had to force the words through his teeth. “You are leeches who live off the blood and terror of others. You tear down the good that others do. Day after day I see your kind threatening and torturing the innocent, as if you have some right to take what’s not yours. For you, my friend, that ends today.” The hood struggled to free himself, but A.J.’s adrenaline-aided strength was too much for him.

  Anger boiled in A.J., anger that was fueled by the death of Dr. Judith Rhodes and now the loss of the Sea Maid. His heart beat strenuously, and adrenaline seemed to pour into his veins by the gallon. He felt strong and alive and powerful. “The only question here is, do I kill you or just maim you? Do you know what the word maim means, my young friend?” The man struggled to free himself, but A.J. squeezed his throat until the man’s eyes widened. “It means to mutilate, cripple, and disfigure. If that’s too complicated, then let me say it in a way you’ll understand.”

  In one rapid motion, A.J. turned on the balls of his feet, placed his hip into the side of gunman, and threw him headlong to the ground where his head bounced off the concrete. The gang member dropped the gun. A.J. grabbed his victim’s hand, pulled his arm up, and twisted it forcefully until his attacker groaned. “This leaves you with one arm to redeem yourself. If I see you with a weapon again, I’ll use it to kill you and everyone you love.” A.J. placed one foot on the man’s head, forcing it to the concrete, and his other foot on the man’s side so that A.J. was standing on the assailant with his full weight. With a firm grip on the gang member’s arm, A.J. pulled up and twisted with all of his strength until he heard the arm come out of the socket over the attacker’s screams.

  Moving from gang member to gang member, A.J. searched each and removed their weapons, which he tossed down a nearby storm drain. A moment later he was jogging back to Barringston Tower, feeling refreshed and in control.

  Jogging always made him feel better.

  Fingers lightly drummed on the computer keyboard, making little clicking sounds that echoed off the hard surfaces of the computer room yet without sufficient force to depress the keys. A hand moved from its place, picked up a lit cigarette from the nearby glass ashtray, and delivered its smoldering cargo to the mouth of the user. The operator inhaled the smoke deeply and blew a long stream of smoke at the computer monitor.

  “Well, nothing ventured nothing gained,” the operator said aloud and returned the cigarette to the ashtray. “Be fast now, be sharp.” Click, click, clack, click. The whine of the high-speed modem joined the muted noises of the keyboard and the hard drive’s buzz. The modem, the fastest and most efficient ever made, sent its digital message from the tiny room into the phone lines and three thousand miles across the country to the secluded CIA Satellite Reconnaissance Building in Virginia. Brightly colored billboards appeared on the screen offering routings to different computer systems. Wasting no time, the operator selected the screen button marked RECON and activated it with the mouse. Another screen appeared on the video monitor: “Q” CLEARANCE REQUIRED; ENTER ACCESS AUTHORATION. In red letters were the words: ALL TRANSACTIONS ARE REPORTED TO THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE CIA. ATTEMPTING TO GAIN ACCESS TO THESE FILES WITHOUT PROPER CLEARANCE AND AUTHORITY IS A FELONY PUNISHABLE BY FINES AND IMPRISONMENT.

  The operator reached to the right of the terminal and tapped in a six-digit code on a small keypad affixed to an electronic device mounted in a briefcase. Immediately, the whine of the modem intensified until it sounded like a thousand ant-sized bees buzzing in frantic frenzy. The screen blinked. The image scrambled for a moment but returned to normal. The words ACCESS GRANTED appeared.

  “Yes!” the operator exclaimed. “Good work, baby.”

  With a series of quick actions on the keyboard and mouse clicks, a menu of files appeared. “Where are you?” the hacker asked. “I know you’re there. You can’t hide from … gotcha!”

  Quickly the user activated the FILE menu and selected DOWNLOAD. Another window, smaller than the others, appeared on the monitor. A long, empty hori
zontal rectangle indicated how much of the file had been transferred from the CIA computer to the user’s terminal—10 percent … 15 percent … 20 percent … “Come on, come on,” the operator said. “Go, go, go.” The user picked up the cigarette and inhaled deeply, then, finding no solace in the action, quickly exhaled the smoke. Each second passed slowly as the file yielded its information in tiny binary bits. The user drummed fingers on the table and unconsciously jiggled a leg in a rapid up-and-down motion—70 percent … 80 percent … 90 percent. “Almost baby, you’re almost there.”

  Suddenly the indicator window stopped, and a moment later the screen went blank. The operator smiled, knowing that the electronic theft had been discovered but that enough of the file had been copied. A few keystrokes later the connection was broken, and the computer was turned off. Looking at the device next to the terminal, the operator’s smile grew into a laugh. The laughter came from the image of CIA personnel scrambling around trying to trace the origin of the call. They would fail. The same device that disarmed the security system also sent out false information about the call’s origin. Before the sun would rise, CIA and FBI agents would be scouring the small town of North Pole, Alaska, for the computer genius that who defeated their fail-safe systems, but they wouldn’t find what they were looking for—indeed, they were several thousand miles off course.

  In a Georgetown home overlooking the Potomac the phone rang at 4:30 in the morning, waking CIA director Lawrence Bauman from a sound sleep. The caller’s message was calm but cryptic: “We have a compromise in SRC.”

  “I understand,” Bauman said stoically, camouflaging his churning stomach. “I’ll be there within the hour. See if you can have a report for me.” He hung up the phone and quietly swore.

  It had been four days since Roger had arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia, and it was four days longer than he cared for. Each day had plodded along with a vexing slowness. The equatorial sun would rise over the deep blue Indian Ocean and ascend to its zenith, driving the air temperature over the one-hundred-degree mark. The air conditioner in his room struggled valiantly against the oppressive heat and humidity, but it could do little more than move tepid, stale air around.

  An uneasy feeling washed over him. He hated this country, and he especially hated this city. His animosity was deeply rooted in one catastrophic day in October 1993 when he walked the city streets as a U.S. Army Ranger. He had been part of a detachment to aid and protect relief workers from violence-prone warlords who had been using the famine of that year to solidify their power. He and other rangers and special forces personnel had been charged with the task of capturing the vicious warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. Heavily armed, he and the others hot-roped out of Blackhawk helicopters hovering over the Somali’s headquarters. Everything that could go wrong did. Before it was over, eighteen Americans had been killed by Aidid’s followers, and seventy-six had been wounded. It should never have happened, but it had, and Roger had the wounds to prove it. Aidid had never paid for his crimes, and that fact burned in Roger’s stomach every day. Roger bore as many emotional scars as he did physical. A bullet can wound a soul as well as a body.

  Gazing out the window, Roger took in the city that was Mogadishu. As Somalia’s largest city and busiest port, the ancient town had served as the country’s capital since 1960. It had come a long way since its founding by Arab merchants in the early tenth century. Over the centuries it had grown in importance and prominence, its excellent port being leased by the Italian government, which ultimately purchased the city and made it the capital of Italian Somaliland. Yet despite its potential, its Somali National University, and its ideal location on the horn of Africa, Mogadishu had fallen into disarray. The once bustling city of 700,000 was devastated by infighting, civil war, and clan hostilities in the early 1990s. On November 17, 1991, civil war broke out, leaving 15,000 people dead and 30,000 wounded in the city alone. Now the city resembled Beirut.

  As Roger scanned the buildings from his window he could see the devastation brought by civil war. As usual, it was the innocent who suffered. “The problem with this old world,” Roger said to himself, “is that it’s populated by people.” Roger lacked the optimism that his employer, A.J., possessed in such great quantities. No, Roger was a pragmatist who considered each day a success if he survived it.

  Turning from the window, he walked across the small hotel room to the bathroom and splashed cool water on his face. At least the water is running again. He thought he heard something. Turning the tap off, he listened intently. This time he heard it clearly, a knock on the door. Grabbing a towel, Roger patted his face dry as he walked to the door and opened it.

  “I was hoping it was you,” Roger said as he stepped aside to let his guest in. “I’m going crazy here. What took you so long?”

  “Somalia is not an easy place to move around these days,” Mohammed Aden replied. “Only 15 percent of my country’s roads are paved. That and the fear of being killed by rogue clan members make travel unpleasant.” Aden, like many Somalis, was relatively short. His hair was cut close to the scalp, and he had a pleasant way about him. Fluent in English, the former professor at the Somali National University in Mogadishu was an important cog in the Barringston Relief work in Somalia. He was a bright man who worked with both the local and the nearly nonexistent national government to expedite food shipment. In many ways he was a diplomat who walked the narrow path of negotiation. He was a vital source of information on Somali activities that might affect relief efforts. He had more than once been accused of being a spy for the CIA, and he had more than once been just that.

  “Since you’re smiling, I assume you have had some success.”

  “I have,” Aden admitted. “But we will need to travel, so pack your bags.”

  “We won’t be coming back?” Roger asked suspiciously.

  “Probably, but take your things anyway. You don’t want them stolen, do you?”

  “They won’t be safe here?” Roger asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Nothing is safe in Somalia,” Aden replied coldly. “We will be traveling to the north via airplane, but we won’t be going to the airport. An acquaintance of mine has a small private plane near here. He will fly us to Bohotleh Wein in the north.”

  “This friend is trustworthy?”

  “As trustworthy as anyone can be during these times,” Aden said. “You’re paying him enough to be loyal. He flies anyone who can pay him, and he knows how to keep his mouth shut. We will take a car to Johar which is two hours north of here, then we will wait with my friend until well after dark. After that we fly to Bohotleh.”

  “Bohotleh?”

  “It’s a small town on the northeastern border of Ethiopia. One of your relief camps is nearby, so you can visit it if you want.” Aden pointed at the small leather suitcase and briefcase near the wall next to the window and said, “We shouldn’t waste any time. The drive could take longer than I planned.”

  “I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” Roger said.

  “Knowing is the only way to survive in Somalia,” Aden replied seriously.

  Ten minutes later they were in a vintage Toyota Land Rover, bouncing over damaged pavement and dirt roads. Dust and heat poured in through the open windows. When Roger first entered the vehicle he instinctively reached for the seat belts; there were none. Aden caught the habitual act and smiled. “Seat belts are good in an automobile accident, but they slow you down if you must run for your life. Besides, the belt would only leave you bruised after the drive we are taking.”

  “Swell,” was all Roger said.

  The drive to Johar was easier than Roger thought it might be, but it did have short spans where the road had deteriorated to a series of oddly shaped potholes of various depths. Aden managed to steer around the worst of them, but he hit a few with sufficient force that smacked Roger’s head on the ceiling and passenger door, causing him to spew a string of obscenities. Aden took it all stoically.

  Two hours fifteen minutes and
one flat tire later they arrived at their destination, an old barnlike structure on the outskirts of Johar. They were greeted by a tall, lanky Somali who shook hands with Aden first and then Roger. Aden and the man spoke in Somali for a moment, then Aden turned to Roger. “This is our host and pilot, Mohammed Arteh.”

  “Another Mohammed,” Roger said, smiling at the somber-looking Somali.

  Aden shrugged, “It is a popular name in an Islamic country. Come, I’ll show you the plane.” Aden walked toward the dilapidated barn and pushed back a large sliding door that groaned each inch of the way. In the barn was an old six-seat Cessna. That was all Roger could tell about the plane. Oil streaks stained the area around the engine cowling, and rust was visible on the wings and the body. Roger frowned.

  “It will fly,” Arteh said, noticing the look of consternation on Roger’s face.

  “You speak English,” Roger said, a little embarrassed at his display of dissatisfaction.

  “Yes,” was all the pilot said.

  “It looks like your bird here has been around the block a few times,” Roger commented as he slowly inspected the craft. Not receiving a response, he looked at Arteh, whose face displayed a puzzled look. Roger realized that his colloquialisms confused the two Somalis. “Your plane, you’ve flown it a lot.”

  “Yes, many years,” Arteh said, nodding. “It is a good plane. It will fly you to Bohotleh Wein.”

  Roger wasn’t so sure, but it made no sense to offend his host and his only source of transportation. “I’m sure it will,” he lied. “When do we leave?”

  “We must wait until the moon is high,” Arteh answered. “We will arrive at dawn. Landing in the dark is not good.”

  Roger chuckled nervously and looked at the ancient aircraft. “I don’t imagine that it is.”