The Wrong Man (Complete 3-Book International Thriller Box Set) Page 14

  Maybe he could get some work done after all. He could concentrate on how to buy off Omar al-Farak in Sharm el-Sheikh.

  The CIA’s computer system was a remarkable marriage of technology and research from the field. He pulled up data on the Palestinian Authority and confirmed that Omar was the foreign minister.

  Omar was a new player on the world stage and had been chosen to be foreign minister because of his international banking credentials. An Oxford degree was quickly followed by an MBA from the London School of Economics. As head of his hamulah, he had returned to Hebron and set up several foreign bank outlets, followed by a new shopping mall that attracted name brand retailers.

  He was married to four wives and had seventeen children, ranging in age from seven to thirty-seven.

  A genealogical scan of his offspring showed only two children living abroad, a son in London and a daughter in Manchester. Six of his children were in high school and might be looking for student visas. Given Omar’s history of British education, Dean assumed he wouldn’t choose to send his children to study in America.

  Nevertheless, Dean sent an email to the State Department with the children’s names requesting student visa approvals to universities in the United States. Given that the quarter million Palestinian-Americans were spread all across the country, but concentrated in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, San Francisco, New York, Houston and Jacksonville, he chose to send them to Northwestern University in Illinois and UC Berkeley in California.

  The student visas wouldn’t be enough. Omar needed more reason to shun al-Qaeda. Given the size of his clan and the desperate condition of life in Hebron, what could he deliver to all his relations?

  Dean couldn’t have the Jewish settlements removed from Hebron. Nor did the United States have a say in the water rights disputes with Israel.

  The personal side of Omar’s life gave Dean a new direction to pursue. Dean began to see a pattern in the juicy details ripped from the society pages of magazines. Omar had several illegitimate children born in the UK. He had dated glamorous actresses in London and Paris. He certainly had an eye for beauty. Instead of offering inducements, Dean could threaten to smear Omar. Still, the Palestinian electorate might chalk Omar’s behavior up to youthful exuberance and give him the presidency anyway. Unless…

  Dean flexed his wrists and proceeded to the most recent gossip. In the past year, Omar had traveled to Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Bangkok.

  Next week, he was going to the biggest fleshpot in the Middle East. Sharm el-Sheikh was where the sizzling desert of the Sinai met the crystal blue waters of the Red Sea. It topped the list of hedonistic destinations for jetsetters considering travel to the Middle East. What sort of loose living there would make good blackmail material?

  Dean let his imagination roam. He had been to Sharm el-Sheikh when it was barely more than a fishing village. Now it was known for its modern resorts, scuba diving, nightclubs, short skirts, tight t-shirts, topless beaches, booze, hashish and prostitution. He doubted there was any gambling, but decided to check.

  The computer processed his query, then filled the screen with information. There were five government-approved casinos in Sharm el-Sheikh.

  Official casinos. What was Egypt turning into?

  Considering the dens of iniquity that Omar frequented, it was hard to imagine him siding with al-Qaeda, a pious group whose founding goal was to purge the Holy Land of vice. On the other hand, al-Qaeda might tolerate a gambler and drinker as long as he was a radical Islamist.

  The public might overlook some straying from the faith, but not total ignoring of the principles. Could Dean really pressure Omar to renounce al-Qaeda because of a snapshot of him gambling with an arm around a prostitute?

  No. For many in that region, those were testaments to male virility. Only three things were taboo for an Arab man.

  Number one was homosexuality. In some countries it was punishable by death. If not, the public humiliation of exposure might drive one to suicide.

  Number two was being seen with an Israeli. Any hint of collusion with the enemy could throw one in jail and certainly destroy a political career.

  And number three was fleeing dressed as a woman. Hiding in a head-to-toe burqa would be considered so cowardly and unnatural an act, it could incite religious violence, not to mention strip one of all dignity.

  In Sharm el-Sheikh, Dean could visualize using any of the above. Why not all three?

  He spent the rest of the morning outlining a plan to turn the future head of Palestine into a pawn of the CIA.

  Chapter 32

  Carla’s sleep was troubled by dreams of sending a falsely accused man to a firing squad and throwing dishes at the inspector general.

  She was awakened by a clatter of dishes in the kitchen. Bleary-eyed and groggy, she climbed downstairs.

  It was Rachel, her new house guest, in a business suit and hard at work emptying the dishwasher.

  “What’s the problem?” Carla squeaked.

  “I’m an early riser,” Rachel said, a nervous edge to her voice. “Here’s some carrot juice.”

  Upon their reaching Langley, Rachel pleaded with Carla to accompany her to her laboratory. There, a team from the National Archives was already waiting for Rachel.

  Carla gave her a warm smile. “Looks like a busy one today.”

  Rachel gave her a desperate, clinging look, but Carla knew it was best if she turned her back and walked away. She didn’t want an over-dependency to develop.

  At the Mental Health Unit, she got a heads up from her receptionist. “Someone from Security came by and updated the file on your desk.”

  “Thanks.” Carla’s day had begun.

  She poured a cup of coffee and sat down at her desk. Sure enough, it was Dean’s security file. She peeled back the cover and saw several newspaper clippings with Dean’s face. The Washington Post ran a front-page article that took a moment to register with her.

  According to the story, a United States Government employee named Dean Wells had entered a mosque in Hebron and stabbed a Palestinian in cold blood. As a result, the Israelis extradited him to the United States, where he faced a criminal inquiry.

  Now she saw why Dean was in the military prison.

  What a horrible start to her day.

  She went to the examination room where her first patient was waiting. She could barely concentrate on the woman’s problems. Instead, she stared out the window. Like Dean, she was being held captive while dark forces were at work.

  She slogged through the morning’s appointments. She hated when she couldn’t give patients her full attention. She finally cut the last session short and returned to her desk.

  There, she turned to her email for refuge.

  The message at the top of the inbox jumped off the screen. “Meet me at the cafeteria at noon–Dean.”

  What in the world? She thought he was in prison.

  It was already 12:00. Was someone playing a trick on her? She went to the cafeteria to check.

  A glance at the numerous tables told her Dean wasn’t there. Nor was anybody laughing at her.

  The spaghetti and garlic bread smelled good. She bought chocolate pudding to go with it. If Dean showed up, she wanted some privacy, with other people nearby for safety. She found an empty table and began to eat.

  She was just finishing her spaghetti when a blue suit entered her area. It was Dean.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked with a friendly smile.

  She wiped her lips. “This was your idea.”

  Why was she so prickly? Wouldn’t she give him a chance to explain himself? She motioned to a chair with her garlic bread and he placed a Coke and deli sandwich on the table.

  “They sure sprang you awful fast,” she said to get the conversation started.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The military had you in custody yesterday. Today you seem to be a free man.”

  “That’s true,” he admitted, a confused look on his face.r />
  She gave him a long, hard look. Unconsciously, his fingers nearly squeezed the roast beef and filling out of his sandwich. It reminded her that he was a man who could kill.

  She remembered studying pathological cases in college. Homicide was an impersonal act often performed by people who were alienated from society. Did Dean play cruel games on others? Was he toying with her? She reached for the chocolate pudding and sucked on a heaping spoonful.

  “So, what are you doing at the CIA?” she finally asked.

  “I work here.” He looked irritated. “Are you going to give me the third degree, too?”

  “Or are you here for Rachel’s sake?”

  He paused. “Rachel is a colleague.”

  “Okay, you asked for the third degree. Here it is.”

  Before she could stop herself, she began a string of questions that he gamely fielded. All the while, he had a questioning look on his face.

  “Did you go to Syria?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you kill the man?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” he asserted.

  “But you tried,” she countered. “You tried to kill Rachel.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”

  “I believe you went to Israel.”

  “I did go to Israel. Nobody disputes that.”

  “Did you kill a man there?”

  “No.” Dean shook his head emphatically.

  Maybe he was just preparing for a courtroom defense. She had to make sure she was precise in her cross-examination. “Sorry, not in Israel. It was the West Bank. In Hebron, to be exact. In a mosque. In front of a hundred people.”

  “No. You’re wrong. I didn’t kill anybody.”

  “But there were numerous eyewitnesses, not to mention photographs and accounts in newspapers.” She leaned forward and looked him in the eye. “Do you remember killing anybody?”

  “No.”

  That must be it. He had amnesia.

  It was not uncommon, and nothing to get alarmed about. Amnesia was usually temporary and had no lasting effects. It also made a wonderful legal defense. If the case ever went to trial, it was an excellent way to avoid perjury.

  If that line of defense failed, she could prove that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial and could get the charges reduced, maybe even dropped.

  She stared at her tray. Where had all the food gone?

  She caught Dean looking at her, a warm fondness crinkling the corners of his eyes. Oh, no. She wasn’t going to fall for that ploy. Just as Rachel was nothing more than a colleague to him, the same held for her.

  Yet it pained her. How could he have been thrown into a military brig?

  “Would you mind telling me one thing?” She didn’t break her gaze at his baby blues.

  He nodded.

  “Why did they set you free?”

  He shrugged. “They realized I was the wrong man and let me go. I’m a busy man. I have to be in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.”

  Well, that was a relief. So there would be no charges after all.

  His attentive eyes disarmed her completely. How could she have ever doubted him?

  Just then a shadow passed over her shoulder. She stared at Dean. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s José Gomez, my boss.”

  Carla looked up and thought she was staring at a ghost. The man had gone completely ashen and stared blankly across the table at Dean.

  “Hi, boss,” Dean said with an easy smile. “Where ya been all morning?”

  Gomez wasn’t able to speak. His knees buckled and he sat down awkwardly on a chair, sloshing coffee onto his tie.

  “Easy does it,” Dean said.

  “What…how?” Gomez grasped for words.

  Carla thought of reintroducing herself, but realized he was too transfixed by Dean.

  “What are you doing here?” Gomez finally got out.

  Dean checked his watch. “It’s lunchtime. I thought I’d grab a bite.”

  Gomez rocked back and forth and blinked several times. Carla squinted as she studied him. He might become her next patient.

  “Here, use this,” she said, and dipped a paper napkin into her glass of water.

  As Gomez worked absently on the coffee stain, Carla checked out Dean out of the corner of her eye. He looked unfazed by the violent reaction he had caused in his boss.

  “Well, I can see that you two have a lot to catch up on,” she said. “I’ll just scoot back to my office.”

  Dean’s boss reached for his cell phone and was just asking for the brig at Fort Myer when she left the cafeteria.

  Chapter 33

  Carla returned to the unit to find her afternoon schedule completely rearranged. Hart Baxter, the Inspector General of the CIA, wanted an update on the Dean Wells investigation. She had never been formally introduced to Baxter and looked forward to meeting the man who had tapped her to find the leak or mole.

  She and Barry Wiseman entered Baxter’s office at one p.m. She felt Barry stiffen at once. Then she saw why. Standing beside Baxter was another man, a fit, young red-haired guy who looked eager and impulsive. Clearly he was no CIA man.

  Baxter introduced them. “This young whippersnapper is Special Agent Greg Ferguson from the FBI’s counterintelligence unit looking into Dean Wells.”

  Barry shook his hand, but seemed at odds with the guy from the start and took a seat in the farthest corner.

  “You must be Ms. Martino,” Baxter said, and shook her hand. “Why don’t you take a seat in the middle?”

  Lucky her. She got to separate Barry from Greg Ferguson.

  Baxter sat behind his desk directly beneath the stuffed head of a moose. The juxtaposition of the large man and his dead prey summed up everything Carla needed to know about Baxter.

  “I gave Martino and Wiseman a crack at an internal investigation before calling in the FBI,” Baxter began. “Now they’re tearing the place apart. Where has that gotten us? Now we’ve got a car bombing and another murder on our hands. Meanwhile, we’re no closer to finding out who compromised Dean Wells.”

  Barry looked truculent, so Carla mounted a defense. “I’ve reviewed Dean’s personnel file carefully. Nothing stands out about his personality or his career as extraordinary.” She caught herself. “I don’t mean to suggest that he’s ordinary. On the contrary. But I couldn’t find anyone who could compromise him personally.”

  Baxter pointed a finger at Ferguson. “You’ve been looking into Dean’s security file.”

  The agent was stirred from his thoughts. “That’s right. We’re still conducting a background check on him. We’re verifying and updating his references. It turns out he has few friends.”

  Carla made a mental note. Was Dean a lonely guy?

  “He’s squeaky clean and there’s nobody who knows him well enough to compromise him,” Baxter summed up. “So much for that theory.” He checked off the first bulleted point on his sheet. He turned to Carla. “So is there a mole within our organization?”

  She had been investigating that question. “I’ve interviewed several suspects.”

  At this, Ferguson turned away to hide a smile.

  “All right,” she said. “So I’m not a professional sleuth. But I can think logically. I wanted to know who knew enough about Dean and Rachel’s collaboration and whereabouts to have undermined them. I started with…” This was awkward. Barry was sitting right beside her. “I started out by interviewing Barry. His presence at Rachel’s attack was…” How should she put it?

  Barry was staring a hole through her. He had been using Rachel to reveal information about Hebron and the Aleppo Codex to two snoops from AIPAC. But she needn’t reveal that in front of an FBI agent.

  “It turns out that he was there during the bombing by chance.”

  Baxter frowned at Barry. “What’s your story?”

  “That’s pretty much the case. It was a date. I knew nothing about the car bomb.”

  Baxter seemed to buy that. Surely it made sense t
hat one didn’t kill one’s date. He returned to Carla. “Who else did you interview?”

  “I went straight to José Gomez.”

  “José?” Baxter scoffed.

  “Hear me out. Gomez is the one person who was familiar with all of Dean’s operations. I wondered why he blamed the car bomb on al-Qaeda when the Palestinians claimed responsibility. I wondered if he was trying to cover for Palestinian terrorists.”

  Ferguson began to show some interest. “And?”

  “His explanation made perfect sense,” Carla said. “He showed me a map of the world. There has never been a Palestinian terrorist attack in the United States, whereas al-Qaeda operates here every day of the year.”

  Ferguson seemed prepared to dispute that, but held his tongue.

  “So in summary…” Baxter said impatiently.

  “In summary,” she said, “I think he did it.”

  “Who?”

  “Dean Wells. I believe he killed two people and probably planted the car bomb.”

  The three of them stared at her.

  “Just look at the facts. How can you explain all those witnesses? And Rachel Levy identified him positively, too. I think Dean Wells simply is the killer.”

  “But he denies it,” Baxter said.

  “He’s not telling the truth,” she said.

  Baxter turned to Ferguson. “Have you put him through a polygraph?”

  Ferguson shook his head.

  “Wait,” she said. “You don’t understand. I believe that though Dean may have committed these acts, he just can’t remember doing them. It’s called selective amnesia.”

  That prompted uncontrolled laughter.

  “This isn’t the Oprah Channel,” Baxter said. “I thought we were paying you for real science.”

  “Well, naturally it’s just a preliminary diagnosis,” she tried to hide behind scientific jargon. “Further tests, perhaps under hypnosis, will bear this out.”

  Ferguson threw his hands up, but Baxter gave him a stern look.

  Carla went on. “There’s a real contradiction at work. I don’t think he’s lying, yet he has no memory of the murders. One simple explanation is that he has a memory problem. There are plenty of documented cases of perfectly normal people performing perfectly heinous crimes. The resulting cognitive dissonance prevents them from retaining any memory of the acts.”