CHAPTER 41

IN THE SPY NOVELS he’d read, the CIA always flew around in private jets, so Reece was a bit disappointed when their ride turned out to be a twin-turboprop MC-12W, a military version of the King Air 350ER. This particular model was set up for electronic surveillance missions and must have been the closest aircraft available. The plane’s narrow cabin was packed with what looked to be complicated electronic warfare gear, making accommodations a bit cramped. As professional soldiers, both Reece and Freddy knew that you took sleep when you could and were out within twenty minutes of takeoff.

It was 10 p. m. local by the time they touched down at Istanbul Ataturk International, a smaller facility on the European side of the Bosphorus Strait. They were waved through Passport Control thanks to their black diplomatic passports, their gear bags and weapons cases sealed as diplomatic pouches, exempting them from inspection by customs officials. A fresh-faced kid who looked to be in his midtwenties met them just outside the secure area and led them to a nondescript white van in the loading area. Reece guessed that he was the junior man at the local CIA station, but he had the good sense to sit up front and not ask any questions of the shaggy-looking commandos in the backseat. Thanks to the late hour, the ride to the consulate took only thirty minutes. Reece shook his head in amusement when they passed a Burger King just before turning toward the American compound.

After a good night’s sleep in small but modern rooms on the consulate grounds, Reece and Freddy were guided to the CIA section, which constituted an entire wing of the top floor of the building. Their escort left them in a secure conference room, where a coffee mess was set up on the long rectangular table. Reece was pleasantly surprised to see they had both honey and cream at the ready.

Five minutes later, the chief of station breezed into the room holding a tall cup of Starbucks. Kelly Hampden was forty-five but could probably pass herself off as being a decade younger. Those who met her professionally were often surprised to learn she was the ranking CIA officer in Turkey. She stood five feet eleven and still had the physique from her college days swimming for Princeton. She wore a simple blue pantsuit over a white silk blouse, and her light brown hair was still a bit damp from her shower. A mother of two small children, she carefully juggled her home life with her CIA career XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Reece liked her instantly.

“Good morning, gentlemen, I’m Kelly. Did you get coffee? ”

“Yes, ma’am, ” both men said in unison.

“I’m Freddy Strain, ” the CIA man said, shaking her extended hand across the table. “And this is James Donovan. ”

“Nice to meet you both. ” She smiled warmly. “We have a video teleconference set up with Langley, so let’s get this thing running. ”

She used a remote control to operate a large LCD screen on the wall at the end of the room. Within moments, the smiling face of an Asian female who looked like she belonged in a college sorority filled the screen.

“Good morning, guys! I’m Nicole Phan. I’m an analyst at the CTC, ” she said, referring to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. “We have some exciting news: we believe with a high degree of certainty that Mohammed Farooq is in Turkey. ” The young analyst spoke with such enthusiasm, Reece could tell that she loved her job. “One of his lieutenants, Aadam el-Kader, was spotted on a surveillance camera outside a bank near the Arap Mosque in the Karakö y neighborhood and he pinged on the NSA’s facial recognition database. Our data people dug into the mosque’s computers and found a series of donations by a Waseef Hamade, which is a suspected alias of Mohammed. The most recent donation was made last week, so we assess there is a high likelihood that he’s still in the area. ”

“That fits, ” Freddy responded. “Any idea where he’s living, what he’s driving, establishments he frequents? ”

“I wish I had more on that front, but that’s all we know for now. We’ll keep working it. This all popped within the past forty-eight hours. ”

“Well, thanks so much for getting it to us so quickly. Anything new on Nawaz? ”

“Unfortunately, no. He is notoriously cautious about communicating electronically. We believe all his planning is done in person or via courier. He’s learned from watching us target his contemporaries. ”

“Well, keep us posted. If we are able to make contact with Mohammed, we’d sure like to be able to corroborate anything he tells us about Nawaz via technical means. Otherwise, this is all going to happen based off single-source HUMINT. ”

“We do have some other interesting information, though, ” Nicole continued. “The Special Forces team uploaded the fingerprints they scanned from the men who attacked your compound in XXXXXX. We ran them through BATS and AFIS, and it turns out that almost all were members of an Iraqi commando unit: Mohammed Farooq’s former commando unit. As you both know, that was a CIA-run program. What you might not know is that when we withdrew from Iraq in 2011, we attempted to keep running them through Iraqi officers we’d recruited during the war, but in all the chaos of the drawdown and withdrawal of forces we lost control. It’s been rumored that they have become a death squad of sorts and hire out as mercenaries if it’s approved by their officers and the money is right. ”

“Did I help train any of them? ” Reece asked.

“They ranged from 2007 to 2014 and were all still active on the unit’s roster. One set of prints came back as a Captain Salih Daraji. His time overlaps with yours, Mr. Donovan. ”

Reece nodded, remembering the face he’d last seen covered in blood as he’d pulled his knife from Captain Daraji’s brain stem in the dirt of the CIA compound.

“So, you’re saying an active, CIA-trained Iraqi commando unit traveled to XXXXXXX to attack a U. S. compound? ” Freddy asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Crazy, huh? Somebody doesn’t like you boys very much. ”

“Solid assessment, ” Freddy acknowledged. “You said almost all were part of the STU. Who were the others? ”

“The two suicide bombers were unidentifiable. What parts we could find didn’t link to anyone in our databases. We do have a source in Libya who’s reported that two recruits being developed as suicide bombers are missing. And get this, one was only sixteen. ”

“As horrible as that is, it makes sense, ” Freddy offered. “The STU is a direct-action-focused unit, not fanatical suicide bombers, but they wouldn’t hesitate to use someone recruited to wear an s-vest to get the job done or place blame for an operation elsewhere. Thank you for your help, Langley. ”

“No worries, reach out if you need us! ” Nicole smiled warmly as she ended the conference.

“She certainly was chipper, ” Reece said, sipping his coffee.

“If this station can support in any way, just let me know, ” Kelly said.

“What do you have on that mosque and neighborhood? ” Reece asked. “Any assets inside? ”

“I’ll get you what we have. For now, I’ll give you a quick lay of the land. Are you two familiar with the state of affairs here in Turkey? ”

“We’d love a refresher, ” Freddy answered.

“Okay, well, as you may or may not know, Turkey is sliding quickly from a secular nation to an increasingly intolerant Islamic state. They’ve rediscovered their identity and are begging to flex their muscles. Things were already heading in that direction but, after the attempted coup in 2016, it’s gone into overdrive. This is a country with eighty-five thousand mosques and they’re building more every day. The imams are all government employees, so assume that when you step foot inside, everything you say will be reported to the MIT, the National Intelligence Organization. Hostility toward the West, and the U. S. specifically, is snowballing. The U. S. has over one thousand personnel at Incirlik Air Base, XXX XXXXXXX XXX XXX XXX. During the coup attempt, the Turks cut off power and the base was encircled by a mob incited by the government-controlled imams. Not usually how allies act. Ordinarily, I’d be hesitant to put an American into a mosque in this environment, but in this case, your status as a fugitive may be an asset. ”

“James Donovan is a wanted man? That’s news to me, Ms. Hampden, ” Reece said.

“I’m sorry, you look so much like someone named James Reece who made the news last year. ”

“Honest mistake. ”

“We’ll keep this between us girls. In all seriousness, though, this is an absolute priority mission, so you have our complete support. You can use this conference room as your office if you like. My extension is 5150. This line is secure, ” she said, motioning to a phone on a side table as she prepared to leave, “if you need to reach out to Langley. And gentlemen, good hunting. ”

• • •

“What are you thinking, Reece? ” Freddy’s tone turned all business.

“I’m wondering just what in the hell is going on here. ”

“You’ve got history with that Iraqi unit. Any theories? ”

“I’m thinking Landry. ”

“What do you mean? ”

“Think about it: He stayed on with that program after I left in ’06 and continued to work with Mo and his squadron. Now he’s disappeared and the men he trained show up at our door in the middle of the XXXXXXX desert? Too much of a coincidence for me. ”

“What was he like? ” Freddy asked. “I never worked with him. ”

“Jules Landry is a shady character, the kind of guy that gives the Agency a bad reputation. He was a one-way street; he’d take whatever info you had but never show you his cards. I never really trusted him. He was a sick bastard, too. ”

“How so? ”

“He’d get a few beers in him and then wander over to the Iraqi side of the compound where the detainees were kept. One night I couldn’t sleep and was outside getting a late-night workout in to clear my head. I heard a scream coming from that direction, so I went over to investigate. He was alone in a cell with a detainee he had tied to a chair naked. He had a knife in one hand and a Taser in the other. I yanked him out of there and put him in the dirt. He was drunk, so it wasn’t hard. Then I locked him in a cell and called my Agency contact at the embassy. I never saw Landry again. ”

“Surprised a guy like that made it through the psych eval. I’ll call the counterintel guys and see if they have anything on him. ”

“That’s a good place to start; in the meantime we have to figure out how to make contact with Mo. ”

• • •

Within an hour of his request to Langley, Strain had an initial counterintelligence report on Jules Landry emailed to him. Most of the materials were from his personnel file. Strain read them aloud: “Lafayette, Louisiana, native, came into the Agency as a contractor in 2003 after two deployments to Iraq as a Marine NCO. Assigned to the CIA’s Special Tactics Unit, Baghdad, in 2005 and ran the program beginning in 2006. Rotated back and forth to Iraq and stayed on with the program when conventional forces were pulled out in late 2011. Requested emergency leave in June of 2013 and disappeared after his flight landed in Frankfurt. He went to ground and the Agency hasn’t heard from him since. Passport hasn’t been used. He was rumored to be working as a mercenary in Syria but that was never substantiated. ”

“Nothing about my report that he was torturing prisoners? ”

“Nothing I can see. ”

“That’s unbelievable! Sounds like they just reinserted him into the STU after I left. How does that make any sense? ”

“I don’t know, Reece. Maybe he has someone looking out for him? ”

“Possibly. I’d like to know who that is. Hey, when did the Syrian Civil War start? ”

“Middle of 2011, if I recall, ” Freddy answered.

“And ISIS swept Anbar in early 2014? ”

“Yep. With Mo going missing in December of 2013. ”

Reece tilted his head back and exhaled, pausing for several seconds. “Who recruited Landry to the CIA? ”

“It doesn’t say but I’m sure I can find out. ”

• • •

There was a knock at the door and, almost immediately, the lock clicked open and Kelly Hampden’s head poked into the room.

“Am I interrupting? ”

“Not at all, please, ” Freddy responded.

She closed the door and took a seat.

“Here’s what I have on the Arap Mosque: it’s actually an old Catholic church that was taken over by the Ottomans. They call it the ‘Arap Mosque’ because after Spain exiled the Andalusian Arabs in 1492, that’s where they settled—arap means ‘Arab. ’ It’s a relatively small mosque that serves the Beyoglu district. One of our local assets worships there. We didn’t ask him about Mo because we didn’t want to risk tipping him off, but he says that the imam is very moderate. He doesn’t think there are any jihadi links with the mosque or its members. It’s a Western, upscale part of the city, so that’s not unusual. ”

“Mo can fit in anywhere, ” Reece said. “He also never struck me as deeply religious, so it sounds like his kind of place. He could go through the motions of looking like a young, progressive Muslim. Let’s assume he’s living nearby; any recommendations on how to get noticed in that community? ”

“You’ll be noticed all right. I’d recommend we put you up at the Tomtom Suites. I know, it sounds goofy, but it’s the nicest spot in that area, really modern. It’s about a mile from the mosque. We are putting you in as an aspiring novelist doing research on Islam’s influence on Turkey. It gives you a reason to be there asking questions and taking notes. Make yourself seen in the hotel bar and the local café s. My guess is that an operator like him is going to have a local network and, if we’re lucky, he’ll approach you rather than you having to work your way into the mosque. I know you’ve been trained, but that’s just really risky in my mind. So much can go wrong, especially in this climate. ”

Freddy turned to Reece. “Sounds like we need to get you some new clothes. ”

“May I also suggest a haircut and a beard trim? ” Kelly Hampden said with apparent amusement. “Give me your sizes and I’ll send someone shopping for you. ”

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