Triangle Of Terror

“I am Colonel James Braden, commander of Task Force Talon,” he began, the detainee gagging and wincing as he shrouded him with another wave of smoke. “I am what is called a closer, but from where you sit, Kharballah, I am the alpha and the omega, I am the only friend in the world you have at this moment. I stand between you and death.”

He thought he spotted the residue of defiant life still in the eyes, maybe a spark of hatred. Sliding to the side, blowing smoke, he watched al-Tikriti shut his eyes, then the Iraqi cut loose a stream of profanity mixing Arabic with English. Braden was more amazed than angry. None of the others had made it this far, but al-Tikriti was still going strong.

“That is the only answer you will get from me,” the prisoner said finally.

“Have it your way, by all means.” Braden freed the pliers from his coat pocket, clamped them on the Iraqi’s smashed nose, twisted. “Maybe I didn’t tell you, but I understand Arabic, Kharballah,” he growled in the prisoner’s native tongue, as al-Tikriti howled and fresh blood burst from the pulped beak.

“Let’s try this again,” the American said, switching to English, releasing the pincers and stepping back as blood spattered on plastic. Braden began his slow shark circle around the prisoner. “What I’m looking for, Kharballah, is the golden tip that will lead me to the Holy Grail—the rest of what you and the others were smuggling into Turkey when you were picked up. How about it? Where’s the rest of it?”

“What you took was all I know of.”

Braden snapped the pliers. The lie he read in al-Tikriti’s eyes was swept away by fear. “That’s not what your fellow holy warriors told me. Yeah, Kharballah, they talked.”

“Then what do you need me for?” the prisoner responded.

“Before I get into all that, let me explain the facts of life as I know them. I am in personal possession of satellite imagery that details a lot of truck traffic. Hell, for a while there we tracked whole convoys of eighteen-wheelers all over the map. We’ve got Damascus, through Kirkuk, Tikrit to Damascus, they’re coming from Tehran even, all these eighteen-wheelers, SUVs, transport trucks heading straight for the Turk border. I’m thinking maybe we Americans ought to just build a few superfreeways while we’re putting your country back on its feet.” It was an exaggeration, but al-Tikriti didn’t know what Braden knew.

“Trouble is, satellites have a tough time seeing things through the clouds. We know you had contacts in the Kurd-controlled far east of Turkey, but we doubt you were doing business with a people the former regime wanted to gas to extinction. So, I’m thinking you found a spot to stash all or a large chunk of it, but you had help from militant Turks. How do I know they’re Turks, you ask? I can’t be positive, but you people often forget we have ways to intercept conversations over what you believe are secured lines. Then there’s e-mail, faxes, Internet chat rooms. We get hold of your computers. You think you’ve deleted your files, but we have guys who can bring up these things called ghosts on the hard drive.”

“I know what you can do.”

Braden smiled. “The wonders of technology. Maybe you see where I’m headed with this.”

“How can I tell you what I do not know? I was simply what you might call a foot soldier.”

Braden put an edge to his voice. “That’s not the way Abdullah and Dajul told it.”

“Then they lied to you.”

“I cut them a deal, Kharballah, the same one you can have. Hell, you put me on the scent, I might even give you back some of that five hundred thousand I relieved you of. Now, I need to know whatever rendezvous points you had in Turkey. I need to know the approximate numbers—a rough guess will do—and specifically what the ordnance is. And I need to know where it’s all squirreled away. Real simple equation here. Names, numbers and how to get hold of who you were off-loading the ordnance to. Talk and you walk to fight another day.”

“I know nothing,” al-Tikriti said.

Braden lit another smoke off his dying butt and bobbed his head at the detainee. Time to hit him in the pride, he decided. “Doesn’t it bother you, Kharballah?”

“Does what bother me?”

“How you gave up without a fight, left the dying to your brothers in jihad.” Braden saw he’d scored, figured the prisoner was still steaming at the memory of hacking on tear gas, stumbling around in the smoke, hurling his weapon away, hands up.

“We had you figured for a lion sure to go out with a roar. Instead you whimpered, not one shot fired. Hell, I thought you were going to start crying like some old hag, the way I recall it. Threw away your AK so fast—”

“You surprised me. You gassed us.”

“That’s what separates the men from the boys and the bullies in a fight, Kharballah. Being able to adjust, take a few on the chin, but dig in and charge back, swinging. That’s the way of the warrior, Kharballah. He fights, even when the odds are stacked against him. He goes all the way, even if he’s looking at Goliath.” Braden smothered the scowl with a smoke cloud.

“That’s right, honey, I’m calling you a coward. You scumbags run around, trying to make everybody think you’re mean as the day is long, that you’re willing to die for your twisted holy war. But the first sign somebody’s ready to fight back and wax your ass you cut and run. A few car bombs, killing unarmed women and children, sweetheart, hardly proves you have the biggest pair on the block.” Braden paused to let al-Tikriti eat his shame.

“I want to know about Khirbul, and don’t tell me it’s a Kurd stronghold the Iranians run heroin through. Well, sweetheart, I’m waiting.”

“And so you shall keep waiting. You can leave me here for a week, a month like this, I will tell you nothing.”

Braden’s gut told him that was the only truth he would get out of al-Tikriti. He tossed the pliers, dropped the cigarette and ground it out on the plastic, then unzipped his jacket, displaying the shouldered Beretta. There were still other warm bodies to work with. “That your final answer?”

The Iraqi chuckled. “What? You beat me, now you’re going to shoot me?”

“You don’t believe I will?”

“You’re an American. I am a prisoner of war. There’s such a thing, I believe, called the rights of prisoners as established by the Geneva Convention,” al-Tikriti stated.

Braden unleathered the Beretta, drew a bead between al-Tikriti’s widening eyes and showed him just what he thought about the Geneva Convention.

2

John Brolinsky was worried about his job and reputation, wondering if he was being set up for public scandal and ridicule. Stranger—and worse—duplicity had happened over the years at the NSA. Those sharks on the man-eating end of the food chain were always looking for fresh guilty meat. If a man wasn’t as clean as a newborn, the conventional wisdom held he was ripe for blackmail—a definite liability when it came to guarding secrets or protecting national security.

Without question, a gentleman’s club—the gentleman part the grossest of misnomers from where he sat—was the most unlikely and unprofessional of places to rendezvous with one of the most powerful men in the White House. But here he was, nursing a club soda that was dropped off without his ordering the drink. He claimed the deep back booth the man had told him would be empty. Just wait, the man had told him, relax, enjoy the ambience.

As if I could, even if I was so inclined, the NSA man thought.

Given what he’d learned and suspected was at stake, he decided he had no choice but to ride out this tawdry scenario, take his chances and hope the walls of his own world wouldn’t crash down.

There had been directions into Washington, then down into the underground parking garage, Brolinsky wondering the whole drive in from Fort Meade if he was being followed. Rush hour waning to bring on the dinner crowd, he’d noticed the garage bowels were nearly empty. The attendant presented him a pass, no money up front. The same deal transpired at the club, he recalled. The bartender indicated his booth on the way in, waitresses and dancers steering clear of the table, as if they were on standing orders not to disturb.

Simply put, it felt wrong.

No black op warring against the shadows of evil in the world, he was grateful nonetheless he’d brought the Beretta 92-F from his think tank, shouldered now beneath his suit jacket.

He glanced around, avoiding anything other than a passing scan at the collective object of desire onstage. It was a mixed pack of hyenas, blue and white collar, probably a few crack hoodlums on the prowl. No one made eye contact with him, and that was the only plus he could find. Problem was, if the bartender had a clue as to his identity…

He was a church-going family man with a wife and two teenaged daughters. He would be forced into retirement, disgraced, even divorce could be in the cards if the situation took a bad turn.

He spotted the man in glasses and a dark cashmere coat descending the short flight of steps, recognizable enough after two recent stints on the Sunday morning talking head circuit. Sizing him up, Brolinsky found it hard to believe the man had the President’s ear, one of three “invisibles” who had personally engineered the unofficial Special Countermeasure Task Force. An aide to two former officials so high up the chain at the NSA, and now part of the President’s inner circle—rumor had it their word on worldwide intelligence operations could have been carved in stone—and Michael Rubin struck him as nondescript. He had a bald shiny pate, thick eyewear and a face so scrubbed it glistened for a moment as he passed through the stage lights. Brolinsky suddenly thought of him as the Pink Man.

“You look distressed. You don’t like my choice of meeting places?” Rubin said in greeting.

Brolinsky watched as the Pink Man claimed a seat, slid closer to him in the booth. There was something in the small dark eyes he didn’t trust, but couldn’t decide what exactly. Arrogance? Deceit and treachery forged on the anvil of jealous guarding of national secrets? Or was he reaching to find a dark side, gather up his own ammo to use against the man’s character in the event his own might be assassinated?

“There’s a lot to be distressed about these days,” he told the Pink Man.

“So it seems.”

“You come here often?” he asked, thinking Rubin looked more the type to get his voyeur kicks off the Internet.

The Pink Man smiled. “Is this where I’m supposed to check you for a wire? Not that it would matter, since we both know our people can make a minimike or recorder look like a simple quarter or belt buckle.”

“You want to frisk me like some common criminal? Makes me wonder what’s to hide,” Brolinsky said.

“Your tone and look tell me you seem to think there is. The tipoff, however, was your three attempted calls to reach someone besides a flunky in the National Security Council the past few hours—as in an urgent message for the national security adviser. You should have contacted our people at the White House first, that would have been the prudent course of action in these ‘times of distress.’”

“By your people, you mean Durham or Griswald.”

“That would have been the more professional route.”

“I’m not one of you.”

Rubin ignored the remark, said, “The Man just ripped everyone within earshot a new one. Intelligence operatives are being burned by this country’s worst enemies, as I’m sure you know, the belief being these leaks are coming straight from key upper-echelon White House staff.”

“They are,” Brolinsky stated flatly.

“Do tell. Then my assumption about you was correct. Very well. Whatever it is you’re trying to tell me—and I think I know where you’re headed—I wouldn’t make too much noise about what’s happened overseas. I’m sure you can understand the delicate political nature such recent mishaps could create.”

“You want to keep it from the press.”

“The President wants to, no, he needs to keep it under the White House roof. There’s a larger situation at stake.”

“Really?” Brolinsky scanned the crowd, finding it hard to believe they were ready to launch full-bore into a chat about national security in such a public dump, then figured between the grinding rock and roll and the howling banshees anything short of a shouting match might be safe.

“We have complete privacy, I assure you,” Rubin stated. “Feel free to lay out this urgency of yours.”

“There are occasions I am required to report directly, in person, to either the President or the national security adviser.”

“I’m aware of that. As I’m aware you’re aware of who I am.”

“Then I assume you’ve heard about Amman.”

“The CIA Storm Tracking Station. Four operators and the team leader’s wife found shot dead. Lured from the embassy over what appears to have been a fabricated emergency regarding her husband.”

“Bad news travels fast.”

The Pink Man sighed. “Your point?”

“We’re looking at dead bodies of American intelligence operatives turning up all over the map—two incidents—or mishaps, as you put it—happening in less than a week.”

“You’re referring to Turkey.”

Brolinsky grunted. “Throw in two NSA and a CIA operative gunned down, same MO in Istanbul and Ankara, apparently—though nothing about him seems verifiable—the same military attaché who headed embassy security in Turkey vanishing off the face of the earth after both incidents. Well, it doesn’t take much to see a pattern emerging.”

Rubin chuckled. “So, you’re running around, armed with conspiracy theories, itching to tell senior White House officials, or the President himself, the sky is falling.”

“It’s beginning to shake out as more than a theory. He calls himself Locklin, but no one seems to know who he works for. You know the type, buried so deep off-the-books the man doesn’t even have a Social Security number. A freelancer owned and armed by various intelligence agencies to do the really dirty work. The ultimate deniable expendable. A little digging, a fact here, an educated guess there, a few matters are becoming clearer to me by the hour.”

Rubin laid on a patronizing tone. “Please, don’t waste my time with rumor and speculation. Please, tell me you have real hard intelligence to back you up—or I walk.”

“Contacts in and beyond the normal channels. Plus, maybe you’ve heard, we’re in the great new age of sharing information, mutual cooperation and so forth between various alphabet soup agencies. The gist of it, I’m being told the same ghost story where this Locklin is concerned.”

“Perhaps whatever you heard is just a story.”

“I suspect someone with major league clout, real close to the President, managed to land what amounts to little more than an assassin in the laps of both embassies to smoke out these operatives.”

“To what purpose?” Rubin asked.

Brolinsky paused, wondering how much he should tell this former NSA official. He decided to forge ahead. If he got the Pink Man talking, agitated, boxed him in a corner there was a chance to catch him a lie. And if that happened it would put him one step closer to confirming the bombshell of a dark nagging suspicion.

“Kill the messengers about to hurl open Pandora’s box. Some or all of whom either knew or were on the scent of that banned ordnance with delivery systems that left the country in question right before the Shock and Awe began,” he told Rubin. “A lot of nasty stuff, which, had it been buried in the sand or dumped in the Tigris or Euphrates, we would have known about it by now, since the general consensus among the science community is an ecological and environmental Bhopal meets Chernobyl would have swept the country in question, an invisible firestorm that might have struck down or driven out the Coalition forces.”

Rubin shook his head. “I’m not tracking how you equate this supposed Houdini act with recent events.” He glanced at his watch. “Kindly and quickly enlighten me.”

“Colonel James Braden, United States Special Forces, ran a black ops unit in Afghanistan. Fact—he lost five ops in an ambush by Taliban and al Qaeda fighters near the Afghan-Pakistani border. Nonconventional weapons were used in the fight, specifically VX. The way I heard it, he was one step behind netting the twenty-five-foot Saudi shark. Rumor—he liked the hands-on approach when interrogating prisoners. A few people in the loop privately confirmed his tactical techniques for Q and A, then later changed their story, all of whom shortly after disappeared. Instead of getting court-martialed and landing in prison for life the man damn near received a presidential citation. He was put in charge of Task Force Talon. Handpicked his own troops.”

He paused as the dancer finished her number to lukewarm applause, scanned faces for a sign of special interest aimed his way.

“I’m listening,” Rubin said, clearly getting impatient.

“Locklin’s description matches an operative, believed seen with Braden in Kurd-controlled Turkey right before a convoy suspected of hauling the last of the wicked stuff was hit by Braden, his Task Force Talon and Turk Special Forces. Rumor—Locklin was Braden’s inside eyes and ears to the mystery of the vanished ordnance. Suspicion—the Iraqis had help from our side smuggling the nasty stuff out of the country. Why? If I could raise the Storm Trackers from the dead I might find out. The word I get is that whatever they were smuggling into Turkey was there at the time of the hit, but is now nowhere to be found. Which leads me to Camp Triangle. I’m sure you’ve heard of it?”

“You would be wise to keep all of this to yourself,” Rubin said.

“Is that a threat?”

“Merely a suggestion.”

“In that case, stick your advice.” The scowl told him he’d struck a nerve, sure now the Pink Man had something to hide. He decided to torque up the heat and attitude.

“I know a chosen group of the worst of militants detained at Guantanamo Bay were rounded up in the dead of night and whisked off in a C-130 to this corner of Brazil that meets Paraguay and Argentina. It was a secret pact arranged by the White House in collusion with Brazil to let Camp Triangle come to life in this neck of jungle. I’m thinking to keep the natives with the big guns and the power down there quiet and cooperative, Congress passes a massive foreign aid package to Brazil, ostensibly to help the Brazilians combat crime, corruption, poverty—but I think both of us suspect into whose coffers all those billions will disappear.

“Now, I think the President was convinced by your buddies in the Special Countermeasure Task Force that the Triangle—a haven for drug and arms smugglers, international crime cartels, Hamas, al Qaeda and other Arab terror groups paying for safe refuge while planning operations—is a treasure trove of invaluable intelligence. That much truth they spoke. Word is, however, the Man was further swayed by reasons laid out to him about the basic necessity to spread the growing problem of housing captured fanatics in another but classified direction. Seems Task Force Talon was rounding up militants quicker than there was space at Gitmo to hold them. My sources inform me that some of the detainees removed from Gitmo—calling themselves the Warrior Sons of Islam—claim direct blood lines to some of the world’s most wanted terrorists, including a couple of household names.

“Now, a young Marine, rotated out of your classified detainee base, was en route to tell a very interesting story to the Justice Department about what’s going on down there in Camp Triangle, only he turned up dead in his vehicle, the victim of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”

Rubin didn’t blink. “And all of this related to White House leaks, how and why?”

“There’s more, unless you’re in a big rush to race out of here.”

Rubin gestured with his hand for Brolinsky to continue.

“Wolfe-Binder.”

“Never heard of it.”

He suspected Rubin was lying, but Brolinsky didn’t miss a beat. He pressed on. “There are twenty-seven industrial chemical plants in the continental United States. Seven which manufacture defensive biochem weapons—a definite misnomer—but this is what we tell the Russians to make it look like we’re honoring the treaty to ban biochem weapons. Number eight plant, Wolfe-Binder, just popped up on the radar screen. This classified plant in New Orleans is purported to be an armed camp, guys in HAZMAT suits, clandestine flights leaving in the middle of the night, loaded down with more, I suspect, than just agricultural pesticide, though that’s the claim as to what they’re processing. I’m sure you know insecticide is a main precursor for nerve gas.”

“Among nonflammable retardants and other precursors, but I don’t have the recipe at my fingertips,” Rubin said, sounding bored.

Brolinsky ignored the brush-off. “How do I know all this about Wolfe-Binder, you ask? The plant’s assistant manager became suspicious when men in black fatigues wouldn’t allow a manifest or any record of these midnight runs to be recorded. So he does his civic duty, puts in a call to the FBI. FBI and Justice Department agents go down there to take a look, but the whistle-blower has disappeared. The story they get is the man was a drunk, had a habit of disappearing for days, or calling in sick. Utter bullshit, since anyone with common sense would have fired him in the first place.” Brolinsky paused, saw the Pink Man’s dark eyes flicker.

“Never mind I think the guy was dumped in the bayou as gator bait, the plant was a one-eighty picture of what the FBI was told. No armed guards. No spacesuits. Every drum and vat that was tested turned out to be pesticide and other industrial chemicals. Spotless as a saint. However, most of the manifests indicated the bulk of the pesticide was being flown to Brasilia. When questioned, the manager claimed it had something to do with the recent foreign aid package to Brazil that Congress passed.”

“Once more…”

“Your Special Countermeasure Task Force is an off-the-record supersecret service for the President. Which puts them, in my opinion, too close to the President, with too much power and authority in the White House,” Brolinsky said.

“They—we—are more than that.”

“Right. You plan foreign itineraries, map out logistics for overseas jaunts, specifically Mideast countries, you handle threats to the President directly. You handle foreign agendas for the VP, diplomats, cabinet members, supposedly plugging up security holes against assassinations, suicide bombers and such.” Brolinsky smiled, shook his head.

“How did you do it? How did you manage to get the President to approve of what is essentially an unofficial secret government enforcement, maybe even a black ops arm right inside the White House? I can only imagine the bitter rivalries it’s created. The Secret Service for one thing, taking a back seat, step and fetch it for you people. I can only picture the scandal that would threaten to topple the administration if news of this reached the public.”

“Not your concern. What is your point with all this conspiracy conjecture?”

Brolinsky looked Rubin dead in the eye. “I can’t prove it, not yet, but I suspect the leaks came from someone in the SCTF.”

There was a pause, then Rubin said, “Are you done?”

“You have the floor.”

“We know where the leaks were coming from. If I tell you—”

“You’ll have to shoot me?”

“Nothing quite so melodramatic.”

Why wasn’t he so sure about that? Brolinsky wondered. He tensed as Rubin’s hand disappeared beneath the table. The Pink Man dug into his coat pocket, then flipped three one-hundred-dollar bills on the table. Tribute for the bartender’s accommodation confirmed, Brolinsky figured the parking garage attendant was treated to the same favor. What the hell was going on?

Rubin slid out of the booth. “Let’s finish this talk in your vehicle. Unless you don’t think you can handle the truth. In that case, stay and enjoy the show.”

Brolinsky hesitated, watching as Rubin walked away, then rose to follow. He fixed his stare on Rubin’s back, warning bells clanging in his head as he climbed the steps. Suddenly the Pink Man didn’t want to talk in public? In his profession, paranoia did not destroy, he thought, as he cut the gap, out the door, falling in lockstep beside the Pink Man as they navigated their course through the sparse sidewalk crowd. He was tempted to look over his shoulder, check every passing face for any sign of a threat, but didn’t want to tip Rubin he was on edge, ready to go for broke.