He drove toward the refugee camp of Dagadera to meet with Carrie and discuss the disturbing discovery in the envelope and the briefcase. He waited until the road became somewhat straight, then dialed Carrie’s satellite phone.
She answered on the first ring. “Justin, how are you?”
“I’m fine.” He looked at his forearm. He had patched the bullet wound with sterile gauze pads and bandages, covering a three-inch tear of his skin.
“How did it go?”
Justin told her.
“Incredible. So we got bad intel?”
“Yes. There are no doctors in Barjaare, and Yusuf didn’t look sick at all. I saw him only for a few seconds, but he seemed in good health.”
“At least you got the name of the Yemeni. Hussein Ahmed Al-Khaiwani. Can’t say it brings anything to mind.”
There was a loud crackling for a second, followed by dead silence. “Carrie, still there?”
“Yeah, what was that?”
“No idea.”
“I was saying I don’t remember hearing or seeing the Yemeni’s name.”
Justin nodded, then realized Carrie could not see his gestures. “Yes, same here. But we’ll find out before we head out for Yemen.”
Another pause, but this time Justin could hear Carrie’s heavy breathing. He knew something was wrong. “What is it?”
“Birgit’s dead.”
“What?”
“Yeah, she didn’t make it.” Carrie’s voice was soft, wavering.
“You tried so hard to save her life.”
“I didn’t do enough.”
“No, you did everything you could under the circumstances.”
Carrie sniffled.
A tear shed for a battle lost. He stared at the phone, wishing he could be next to her, comfort her with his presence and not just his words, which seemed empty and hollow at the moment. He said nothing and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, to avoid dropping into a deep rut.
“Birgit was a US citizen,” Carrie said.
“I thought she was Swedish.”
“Right. She was born Swedish, but became a naturalized citizen ten years ago. Her guards were US citizens as well, but born in Kenya.”
Justin swore.
“My thoughts exactly,” Carrie said. “The whole staff here — well, mainly the international part of it — is furious, blaming me, us, for their deaths. A journalist from The New York Times had arrived here to run a story on the good work of the camps. Now she’s probing around this attack and their deaths.”
“Is our cover blown?”
“Yes. No one believes we’re journalists, not after surviving a shootout with al-Shabaab and stealing their ‘technical.’ The question is what intelligence agency we work for. It’s only a matter of time before the journalist digs it out.”
Justin bit his lip, then looked out the of window. A black bird, most likely a vulture, was flying low over the darkening horizon.
“Have you talked to McClain?”
“Yes. I updated him on our status shortly after arriving at the camp. He wants us back to Ottawa to sort things out and lie low until the media storm dies down.”
Justin snorted. “What? Halfway through our mission? We have a name; we have a location. We just need to plan our insertion into Yemen.”
“You really think we can pull it off?”
“Well, we did this part in Somalia.”
“Yeah, and see where it got us.”
“That’s because we had bad intel from our sources and NCS.”
“How is that?” Carrie sounded impatient.
“I found Yusuf’s passport in his car. Guess what? He’s a US citizen.” Justin looked at the envelope in the front passenger’s seat.
“What the hell? Everyone is an American around here.”
“Yes, it gives them a chance to leave behind this depressing world. But Adams failed to mention at our meeting that Yusuf and his son and his bodyguards were all US citizens. Born and raised in the States.”
“Well, I’m tempted to say maybe he didn’t know, but that does not sound true even as I say it.”
“Adams knew this militant cell had the stolen intel. I don’t buy it that he didn’t know their leader was an American citizen.”
“Why not give it to us straight?”
Justin snorted. “Has CIA ever been straightforward with us? My thoughts are he suspected we wouldn’t want to get involved if we knew our targets were Americans.”
“And that explains why he was reluctant to go after Yusuf and his men on his own. The US President doesn’t want the backlash from killing American citizens, even though they’re terrorists. It’s bad at any time, but even worse so close to the elections in November.”
“Yes, they’d rather we did their dirty jobs.”
Justin eased up on the gas pedal. He had come to a fork in the road. He glanced at his GPS receiver, made some quick calculations in his head, then turned left.
“What are you going to tell McClain?” Carrie asked.
“I’ll tell him we have accurate, actionable intel about the location of the leak source. I’ll ask for his authorization for an operation.”
“You’re convinced Yusuf’s intel is reliable?”
“Absolutely.” Justin nodded to emphasize his point. “The man was at death’s door. He wasn’t trying to save himself, but his son. He wouldn’t lie. Still, we need the Service to confirm Al-Khaiwani’s location and provide us with logistics.”
“McClain was dead serious to see us on a plane headed home, but maybe you can change his mind.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not sure it’s the best idea to go to Yemen at this moment. We already have too much exposure. Al-Shabaab knows we’re here. Al-Khaiwani will hear about it and go underground. Or beef up his security. I believe we should bide our time, gather more intel, then strike back.”
Justin sighed. He knew his arguments would be more persuasive if delivered in person, with emotions, facial expressions, and the body language missing in a phone conversation. “I’ll be at the camp in about an hour or so. The dark will slow me down.” He could no longer see the holes in the road. A few stars had begun to flicker in the blackening sky. They looked brighter than he had ever seen them. “We’ll talk at length, make a decision, then call McClain.”
“One last thing. Romanov.”
“I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been asking myself the same question. How much is he involved? I won’t have a definite answer until I ask him.”
“All right. Just watch out. He’s a sneaky little bastard.”
Justin grinned. To Carrie, there was no good Russian. Not that Romanov was good by any stretch of the imagination.
“I’ll wait for you at the camp’s entrance. You don’t want to deal with The Times hyena,” Carrie said.
Justin laughed. “I know a couple of people at The Times. I’ll see if they can shut this down before it turns into a nightmare.”
“McClain said he’ll talk to the UN mission to keep things under wraps and out of the press.”
“That would help. See you in a while. TC, okay?”
“Yes, you take care too.”
Justin hung up and felt drained, as if suddenly all his energy had left his body. He pulled over at the side of the road and turned off the engine. He opened the door, stepped outside, and walked a few steps. His boots sank in the loose sand. The desert air was cool, refreshing, and he took a few deep breaths. He listened for a few minutes to the silence of the desert, broken by the distant high-pitched growls of hyenas. He could not see them, but he felt they were laughing at him.