The CIA Gets Played
International waters in the Gulf of Aden, where the Indian Ocean narrows on its way into the Red Sea. On the helicopter pad at the stern of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the air itself seemed to shudder.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—
The sea wind was already vicious, and with the downwash blasting off the Seahawk's rotors piled on top of it, a man could barely keep his eyes open. Delta Force operators climbed aboard the helicopter, magazines jammed into every pouch on their body armor, goggles pulled down over their faces.
"Move it, move it! We're lifting off any second."
The team leader confirmed that every man was on board, then spoke into the mic hooked over his ear.
"All personnel aboard. You're clear to lift."
"Good copy. Poseidon is lifting off. Hold on tight."
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—
The heavy airframe rose as if it weighed nothing. The helicopter dropped back behind the destroyer as the ship drove on, then swung about in a single turn, settled onto its heading, and tore away in a straight line. Flying at better than two hundred kilometers an hour, it ate up a hundred kilometers in almost no time.
Ahead of the helicopter, a ferry was just entering the Gulf of Aden. The pilot at the controls radioed the Delta squad leader.
"Target confirmed. Landing zone is the vehicle deck amidships. I'll send a warning hail to the ship first."
With the plan passed along, he switched frequencies and put a call out to the ferry.
"This is transport Poseidon, attached to a United States Navy flight detachment. Vessel underway, stop your engines immediately and hold position. Naval special warfare personnel will board to search for illegally transported cargo. I say again. This is the United States Navy—"
Once they had confirmed that the man who appeared to be running this mass kidnapping of Al-Shabaab operatives was headed for the airport, the three of them left the operations center at the Nairobi embassy and flew straight to Mogadishu aboard a CIA jet. With the cooperation of Somalia's new government, they took into custody an Italian man and his subordinates, who had been sitting in the first-class lounge waiting to board.
While Mitchell and Jackson, the senior officers, watched the separately detained suspects on monitors from an observation room set aside for the purpose, Agent Smith went in himself to interrogate the Italian who looked like the man in charge — Jose.
"It's already over. We've had eyes on you and that mansion for a long time. We have more than enough to hold you. The only reason I called you aside like this is that I want to know the objective — yours, or your people's. If you don't cooperate, you get handed over to the Somali police and locked up in a detention center here. I doubt that'll be a pleasant experience."
"I wouldn't know. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to have done, that you're talking about arresting me and throwing me in a cell."
"Hah. Think hard. Before long our special operations unit is going to find the people you loaded onto that ship — no, the people you kidnapped and you're hauling off. There is no way out of this for you."
They're searching the ship?
It was unsettling that the CIA had shown up at all, and that they knew I had loaded the cargo and sent it out this morning. But it wasn't over yet.
"I really couldn't say. I don't know what you're talking about. This photograph, either. And these kidnapped people — what are those supposed to be?"
"So you're just going to keep denying it. That's a mistake. Grab the chance while we're giving it to you, or after that there won't be anything we can do for you."
I looked at Smith, all but growling, and answered with a smile.
"I'm sorry, but what can I do? From where I stand, it looks like you people are the ones making the mistake."
"If you keep refusing to cooperate like this—"
The warning never finished. A phone rang at the waist of Smith's trousers. He drew it out and checked the number.
"Yeah. This is me. Ah — you're saying you're aboard?"
Smith's eyes came to me. The look on him said, now we'll see.
"Yeah. The trucks. What? What about the trucks? No. Hold on."
Flustered, he got up and moved off into a corner, away from me.
"What are you saying? Nothing there?"
The ferry Ionian, out on the international waters of the Gulf of Aden. On the vehicle deck amidships — wide enough to take dozens of cars — only two trucks and a single Toyota pickup sat stranded in all that space. At the rear of the trucks the cargo doors stood wide open, and fertilizer sacks, as if hauled out from inside, were heaped in a pile off to one side.
The crewmen who had been dragged out watched with uneasy eyes while operators of the U.S. military's elite Delta Force ripped the sacks open and checked what was in them. The Delta squad leader who had brought his men aboard and searched the ferry got on a satellite phone with his superiors.
"That's what I'm telling you. The intelligence was wrong, wasn't it? We checked inside the trucks carefully. Pulled the entire load out. There was no other apparatus in there. All that's in them is a few hundred sacks of chemical fertilizer. Come here and see for yourselves. Right. We've done what we can."
Mogadishu International Airport. The boarding gate for Flight E982, bound for Cairo, Egypt. The last passenger was aboard, and the cabin crew were straightening up and about to close the jet bridge when the phone mounted at the gate began to ring. The purser, on the point of stepping away, picked it up.
"Yes, that's correct. I'm sorry? No, boarding time has already passed. We can't keep waiting any longer. Yes. Yes, understood. Then please get here quickly. The other passengers are waiting."
He hung up, and a short while later an airport cart came racing in from across the concourse and stopped in front of the gate. Solidly built men climbed out. One of them, a man with Italian features, turned to the white man sitting in the passenger seat.
"Thanks for the ride."
At the offhand thanks, the white man's face crumpled. The Italian paid it no mind and went on, smooth as oil.
"If we get another chance, we'll see each other again. All right. Let's go."
At his word, a hulking man and another with Arab features fell in behind him. After the three of them had boarded, the aircraft at last began to move toward the runway. It crept forward, paused a moment short of the strip, then poured on speed and charged. At some point the wheels left the pavement. The nose lifted, and it climbed fast into the empty air.
In the departure lounge, Mitchell stood at the window watching the plane go, and the curse tore out of him.
"Goddamn it!"
Smith, too, was barely holding down a fury that had climbed all the way up his throat. It felt like watching a suspect they had already caught slip away right in front of them. Officer Jackson, who had been standing alongside the two of them, turned as he spoke.
"Let's go have a look."
Mitchell asked him.
"A look where?"
"Where do you think? The place where all of this started. Find me somebody who knows the address of that house on the coast."
The mansion on the Mogadishu waterfront. A car stopped with a shriek of tires, and Jackson, Mitchell, and Agent Smith climbed out. Mitchell looked at the other CIA field agent who had come along with them.
"Let's go in."
The field agent, who had been scanning the surroundings, stepped up to the door, and a moment later the locked gate gave with a heavy clack. They followed the broad garden inside the wall into the house. The interior had been wiped clean, as if a cleaning crew had already been through. After one circuit of the rooms, they drifted, almost of their own accord, out into the backyard.
Jackson was walking the turf when he stopped at a particular spot and swept his foot across the grass. Through the roughly cut lawn he felt a fine seam. He lowered his hand, followed the grain, and found a recess his fingers would fit into. He hooked them in and pulled. Ordinary strength wasn't going to do it, so he called the others over.
"Come over this way a minute."
At Jackson's call, the rest of them came up.
"Check over on that side. See if there's a handle."
Mitchell, Smith, and the field agent each took a direction and went over the ground, and they found the other three handles. Each man seized one, and they heaved.
"Nngh— why is this thing so heavy!"
"Put your back into it! Hey! I said heave!"
"I am heaving."
The four of them strained and groaned, and at last the cover lying over the ground began to rise. They shoved it aside, panting, and a deep hole opened beneath the yard. They stared at one another across the black mouth of it.
Jackson spoke.
"Let's see if there's anything we can use for a rope."
They went back into the house and, after a long search, turned up clotheslines and other cord. Twisting several lengths together, they made a line that would bear a man's weight. Jackson wound it around his waist, and the others took hold and braced. With the rope about him, he went down into the hole, slowly.
Fortunately it was not all that deep. After about five meters his feet touched bottom. Once he was down, Jackson took out his phone and switched on the light, sweeping the beam through the space as he looked around. Mitchell's voice came from above.
"Anything down there?"
Jackson studied the floor for a moment, then walked toward the wall, and at last he reached it. The space was considerable. If it had been meant for holding people, hundreds could have been kept down here without crowding, and he felt certain now that the estimates they had been working from all along were not wrong — even if, at the very last moment, they had been hit from behind. He nodded, came back to the opening, took the rope that hung there, and climbed.
When he reached the mouth of the hole, the field agent reached down a hand. Jackson caught it and hauled himself out into the open. Mitchell, looking at him, asked again.
"What's in there?"
"Nothing. There's nothing at all."
"Goddamn it. Those bastards. What the hell happened? If they're not here either — then where the hell did they go!"
Watching Mitchell spit out his fury, Jackson answered.
"We didn't find them. But it's clear they were keeping something down there. And that there was a great deal of it."
"And what good does that do us? We've already lost them."
"Maldiano's destination was Cairo, wasn't it? I have a friend in Cairo. Let's ask him for a favor. Keep an eye on that man a while longer, and something will turn up."