Critical Exposure

Istanbul, Turkey

“Please, Alara,” Colonel Alan Bindler said. “Please let’s not go into this again.”

Alara Serif stood defiantly with hands on hips in their office located within the U.S. Consulate. “I will go into it again and again...and again until someone starts listening to me. Alan, you have to take this seriously.”

Bindler pinned Serif with a cool gaze. “I take everything seriously my staff members bring to me, and I give equal weight to the opinions of all. Is that clear?”

Serif did her best to look properly mollified. “Yes, sir.”

Bindler sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head as he continued. “You want to know why I hired you, Alara? It’s because you’re diligent, because you care about the security of our nation and you give a shit about your job. Sadly, I can’t say that about most of my people. And technically, you know we’re not even supposed to have military personnel within our consulate, other than the Marine guard.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Bindler stood and shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He went around the desk and sat on the edge of it to look into Serif’s eyes.

The haughty, impetuous expression she returned almost made him want to laugh. In so many ways, Serif was like one of those little girls who’s defiant and opinionated, and yet not out of spite but from driven curiosity. Serif was one of those little girls who’d been forced to grow up all too soon, if the contents of her CIA file were any indication.

The daughter of an American diplomat who married a Turkish man, Serif’s entire life had been spent in embassies throughout the world. Her father, Maliki Serif, had refused to let his precious Alara go through life absent of her Turkish identity, and he’d been quite insistent on teaching her the culture, customs and language—taking her on frequent trips to the country—even when she was absent so often while her American mother made her tours of duty as an attaché at various U.S. embassies around the world.

Her background had made Serif an highly advantageous instrument to defense intelligence efforts in Turkey. Where in most ways it would have taken much training to fit a representative from the DIA into that role in this country, Alara Serif had been tailor-made for it. She could speak the language, knew the customs, and had enough of her father’s genetic traits that she fit right in without a second glance. Other than her beauty, which caused a stirring even in Bindler now and again when he watched her coming or going.

Bindler forced his mind to more practical matters. “Listen, Alara. I know you’re convinced this...this Council of Lights exists.” Serif started to open her mouth but Bindler raised his hand. “Let me finish! I know you think it exists and maybe it does. But what do you have as a shred of proof beyond a series of loosely coupled theories that you can back with hard evidence but you can’t actually tie together.”

“Can’t tie together until now,” Serif said with a triumphant smile. She withdrew a photograph from the thick manila envelope streamed with classified red-and-white-striped tape and handed it to Bindler. “Take a look at that.”

Bindler sighed as he stared at the picture. “Okay, it’s a little grainy. What am I looking at?”

“The man in that photograph is Gastone Amocacci, a former Italian police inspector attached to the Interpol Intelligence Division.”

“Great. What about him?”

“I’ve long believed that the Council doesn’t have any leadership,” Serif said, charging straight to the point as she always did. “At least not in any conventional sense. I think they operate on equal terms with one another. An effort like theirs could not survive if there was one individual in charge. One person with all the power and/or information would pose a security risk to them. That’s why they’ve been able to operate for so long without being detected.”

“So what does this...this Amocacci?” Bindler interjected. When Serif nodded he said, “What does he have to do with it?”

“I think he’s a member.”

“Uh-huh. And you have proof of this, of course.”

“That photograph was taken just yesterday,” she said. “I know, because I took it.”

“You were in the field again?”

“Yes.”

“Alara, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times...you are not to perform fieldwork without first my express permission and second my knowledge.”

“I was off work,” she said. “I pursued this on my own time.”

“You’re not authorized to do that.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Bindler cut in. “Now I’ve told you before and this is the last time. One more transgression, even a minor one, and I’ll pull you from duty and ship you back to an assignment in the States. Is that understood?”

Serif didn’t say anything at first but when Bindler repeated the question, she finally nodded and muttered an affirmative.

“Now as to this Amocacci character, I assume—” Bindler nodded at the folder “—you have a full report in that folder.”

“Yes.”

“Good, leave it with me. If I think what you’ve put together has merit, I’ll consider pursuing the matter.”

Serif looked extremely hopeful so Bindler realized he’d need to put a damper on her enthusiasm. “But only if I think it has merit and I give the go-ahead to assign an agent to it. That won’t be you.”

“What? Why not?” she cried.

“Because you’re too close to this thing. It’s like some kind of obsession. It’s causing you to disregard procedures and endanger our position here.” Bindler handed her the picture and she placed it in the folder before he snapped his fingers and held out his hand.

Serif gave the entire package to him, albeit reluctantly, and then rose from her chair. “You’re not going to pursue it. You’re going to mothball it, Alan, just like you have all my other reports. Apparently nobody here or at the Pentagon considers this a priority.”

“I’ve already told you—”

“And I believe you, Alan. But you still answer to others, and it’s them I don’t trust. You’ll read the report, you’ll forward it to them, and everyone will conveniently forget about it. And in two or three months when I ask you about it, you’ll tell me you haven’t heard anything and all will be forgotten.”

“You know how it works here, Alara. We take the good with the bad.”

“Yes,” Serif replied. “I know how it works. It just leaves me wondering why nobody here is interested in something that could well affect the security of our nation.”

“That’s just not true, and you know it.”

As Serif turned to leave his office she asked quietly, “Do I?”

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“HEY, AARON?” BARBARA Price said as she walked into the Computer Room.

“Yes?” Kurtzman replied.

“What do you think the chances are that a DIA intelligence analyst would be filing reports about a secret group of former intelligence officers at the same time as this leak in military intelligence occurred?”

Kurtzman grinned as he shrugged his wrestler-like shoulders. Despite the bullet that had put him in a wheelchair, he still found time to work out a couple of hours every day. Such activities had left him in top physical condition. He may not have been able to walk but he’d never let it stop him. His physique, coupled with his booming voice and warm disposition, had earned him his “Bear” nickname.

“I’d have to say the chances are about a million to one. What have you got?”

“Pull up DIA file number 607P9.”

Kurtzman returned his attention to the keyboard, punched in some codes and numbers and a moment later the entire contents of the file were displayed across three massive screens on the far wall. Kurtzman squinted at the center monitor in an attempt to make out the photograph of the key agent behind the reports.

“Alara Serif, Defense Intelligence Agency,” he read mechanically. He muttered his way through the next few statistics, her physical characteristics, date of birth and such. Then he continued aloud, “Current assignment’s in Turkey?”

“Istanbul,” Price confirmed, shuffling through the papers she held. “She was assigned there eighteen months ago under the title of assistant to the military Marine officer in charge, Colonel Alan Bindler.”

“What would the commanding officer of a U.S. Consulate Marine guard need with a DIA analyst as an assistant?”

“I’m sure the Turkish government would like to know the same thing if they had her real credentials,” Price said. “Since 9/11, we’ve been slowly switching out standard military clerks with our intelligence analysts from various agencies. NSA works up a thorough cover for each, and the U.S. gets approval on each assignment from the host government before sending them in. Of course, those governments think they’re seeing the real dossiers.”

“But what they’re really seeing are the cooked papers.”

“Correct,” Price said. “They forge just about everything from names to birth dates to closest living relatives.”

“Naturally. So what’s so special about this one?”

“Alara Serif is half Turkish,” Price said. “Her father is a Turkish citizen. Married an attaché to the U.S. ambassador of Turkey at the time.”

“So she knows the territory.”

“More than that, Aaron. She knows the politics of the country and who’s who behind every button. A lot of wheeling and dealing goes on behind the curtains in Turkey. Something few people outside the most inner circles know about that country. Of course, it’s no secret to our intelligence communities, but the better part of Washington seems to want to turn a blind eye when it comes to seriously looking at the intelligence coming out of Ankara.”

“Except us,” Kurtzman said with a knowing wink.

Price didn’t hold back a chance to smile at her friend’s mock attempts to be surreptitious. “Right. We actually look at everything as a matter of policy instead of dismissing it out of hand.”

“So you think something she’s reporting has merit?”

“I do,” Price replied. “In fact, I think it may even be related to this case.”

Kurtzman gave the information some attention. He’d learned a long time ago that if Price keyed on something that seemed far-reaching, there was usually a good reason. From what he’d just read, however, he couldn’t see any link to the compromise of U.S. military intelligence operations and Serif’s reports.

“Okay, I give up,” Kurtzman said. “What’s the connection?”

“First off, there’s this claim about a secret organization called the Council of Luminárii, particularly Serif’s theory that this group doesn’t operate with a leader, per se. She thinks this group operates well because they work in a symbiotic fashion.”

Kurtzman nodded. “The ideal rules them all. It’s been done before and quite effectively. Too crazy for Serif to make up.”

“Exactly. And then there’s the main player Serif has had in her sights practically from the beginning, a man she believes to be a member of the group, if not an actual puppet they use to do their bidding. His name’s Gastone Amocacci. Fifty-six years old, citizen of Italy. Former police officer with Interpol’s intelligence division.”

“What’s his story?”

“I checked his background and discovered he quit after an operation went wrong and most of the members in his unit were killed. He moved to Istanbul a short time later and started a business in exports of Turkish goods. The government there loves the guy. Guess he’s made many of their diplomats a lot of money.”

“Probably in kickbacks,” Kurtzman interjected with a snort.

“Probably. He’s also quite the jet-setter. He’s been seen traipsing about Europe and Southeast Asia with Lady Allegra Fellini, who’s practically Italian royalty in her own right.”

“I’ve heard the name.”

“I don’t doubt it. She’s the sole heir to a clothing line empire that makes Armani look like a garment district peddler.”

“Ouch.”

“Yes, ‘ouch’ is right,” Price said. “Fellini and Amocacci are an item and have been for at least a year.”

“Okay, but even if Amocacci’s in bed with this secret council, I still don’t see what that has to do with a compromise of U.S. military intelligence,” Kurtzman said.

“That’s where Alara Serif comes in. Based on her surveillance and the psychological profile she worked up on Amocacci, coupled with his movements, she thinks the Council of Luminárii may be composed of people just like him.”

“You mean former intelligence operatives.”

“Right. And possibly even intelligence officers still currently active with multinational agencies. Can you imagine what such a group could do? And especially when you consider they’re operating in Turkey. The government there would never suspect Amocacci of being involved with international espionage and even if they did, they’d never make the accusation.”

“Because of his connections and the favor he’s found with certain high-ranking politicians.”

Price nodded. “To make no mention that he’s managed to sell a lot of Turkish-made materials. That’s good for their economy. And it’s probably why he’s allowed to move around the country freely, as well as come and go as he pleases.”

“It would be a perfect cover for this Council of... What did you call it?”

“Luminárii,” Price replied. “Serif translates it to mean ‘the Council of Lights’ and often references it as just ‘the Council.’”

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