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“So I’ve heard. You haven’t been pestering any of our mutual friends in Libya lately, have you?”
Nothing amazed Harvath anymore, especially in the world of intelligence, but even so, Schoen had some incredibly well placed sources if he had already heard about the Operation Phantom attempt in Libya. If Schoen knew enough to mention Libya, then he probably had at least part of the bigger picture. Harvath decided to play along. “Fu
“I’m guessing,” said Schoen, “that you were unsuccessful in completing your assignment.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Well, if you had, you would never have bothered returning my call.”
“Touché.”
“So you were unsuccessful, then.”
“Not completely.”
“What do you mean?”
“We learned something quite remarkable. We have reason to believe that the Abu Nidal Organization is not headed by his son, but by his-”
“Daughter,” completed Schoen.
Harvath was completely shocked. “How did you know?”
“It’s a very long and complicated story, Agent Harvath. Did you actually see her? The one with the silver eyes?”
“Yes, I did, but how did you-”
“Where is she now? Is she still in Libya?”
“She has probably already left.”
“Do you know where she was going?”
“We don’t know that yet. Listen, if you knew there was a daughter involved with all of this, why didn’t you say so?”
“Have you told the CIA what you discovered?”
“Of course,” said Harvath.
“And what was their response?”
Harvath began to see why Schoen might have been holding back on him. “Though they didn’t say it in so many words, they think its nuts. They don’t believe Abu Nidal would have turned the organization over to a daughter, even if he had one. What’s more, they said none of Nidal’s men would ever take orders from a woman.”
“And by now you know about both the sister and the brother?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Schoen as a long pause occupied the scrambled phone line.
“Good? Is that all you can say? This isn’t exactly quid pro quo.”
“I can say the same for you, Agent Harvath. You have not been fully forthcoming with me either. Where have they gone?”
“I don’t know. What I do know is that despite what I told them, the CIA is still focusing on Hashim, the brother,” said Harvath, trying to fit the pieces together in his mind.
“Let the CIA chase him. He’s not the one you want. It’s her.”
“And you want her too, don’t you, Ari?”
“I want her more than you will ever know, Agent Harvath.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
“It is not much, but maybe it will prove useful. Abu Nidal had a longtime friend and financial partner-an extremely wealthy Moroccan named Marcel Hamdi. We had him under surveillance in Marbella, Spain, where his yacht, the Belle Étoile, left the Puerto Banus two days ago. I’m going to have my people post the surveillance materials for you within a web site we occasionally use.”
“What does that have to do with Nidal’s daughter?”
Schoen was a very bright man and no stranger to manipulating people. He was sure that the CIA had informed Harvath that they believed he was co
“Hamdi is like a second father to her. We intercepted a communication that we thought might have been from her, but couldn’t be sure. Then the Belle Étoile left Marbella heading east. Yesterday, Hamdi stopped in the open ocean and was met by a seaplane. One of his bankers from the Palma de Mallorca branch of Deutsche Bank boarded the yacht with two large suitcases for him. Those suitcases contained over fifteen million U.S. dollars, cash. From what our sources tell us, Hamdi and the Belle Étoile are headed for an island somewhere off the southern coast of Italy.”
“Where? Sicily? Sardinia? Corsica? Which island?”
“That’s the problem, Agent Harvath. At this point, we have absolutely no idea.”
53
Harvath tried to co
Later that afternoon, Harvath awoke to the smell of fresh brewed coffee. When he entered the kitchen, he found Meg sitting at a small table dressed in civilian clothes and reading a day-old copy of The International Herald Tribune.
“Did you get a good sleep?” she asked, folding the paper and setting it on the counter behind her.
“Good enough for now. Is that coffee I smell?”
“Yup, Starbucks even. I got it at the commissary, along with some croissants and a paper. Help yourself.”
“You get the clothes there too?”
“No, an embassy staffer brought them over. I guessed at your sizes. Yours are on the chair in the hall.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, you’re talking to me again?” said Harvath as he found a cup and poured himself some coffee. The kitchen window had a nice view of a small courtyard outside.
Meg paused before responding. “You could have told me what was going to happen. I kept waiting for the helicopter to reel us in because you made it seem like it was going to be like one of those Coast Guard rescues. You lied to me.”
“Let’s just say I didn’t paint the full picture.”
Meg tore off a small piece of croissant before responding. “I guess I owe you a thank-you.”
“I guess you do.”
“Well, thanks.”
“Well, you’re welcome,” said Harvath.
Meg knew the helicopter extraction had been their only means of escape, and she also knew that her being angry with Harvath was just a way of ignoring the anger she felt with herself. It was her fault that they had gotten captured and that the mission had been botched, but what was done was done. They could only move forward.
“How’d the debriefing go?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
Harvath stared absentmindedly over the top of his coffee cup at her. Even after everything they had been through, she was still incredibly beautiful. Here they were sharing coffee, croissants, and the morning paper at this little breakfast table as they skirted an argument and Meg tried to steer the conversation in another direction. The whole scene was almost too surreal for Harvath.
“Not good,” he replied as his mind slipped from fantasy back to reality.
“Not good how?”
“Morrell refuses to believe that a woman is ru
The indignation rose in Meg’s voice as she slammed her coffee cup down. “But we saw her. We talked to her! He has no idea. He wasn’t there.”
“And he doesn’t seem to care.”
“Why the hell couldn’t a woman be ma
Harvath smiled at her choice of words. “It’s completely out of keeping with Islam and their male-dominated society. Muslim men, especially extremists, will not take orders from a woman.”
“But they don’t. They take them from the brother. He’s the puppet and she pulls the strings.”
“I told them all of that, and they wouldn’t listen.”
“What about the fact that you could co
“A woman as an assassin, that they could accept, but it still doesn’t make her their main focus. They see the brother as being in charge, and for the time being, that’s where all their resources are going to be placed.”
“So what’s next?”
“I’ve given them detailed descriptions of both Hashim and his sister. The CIA is gathering all the materials they can from Oxford, and you and I are going to review every last scrap of it to see if maybe she slipped up and allowed herself to be photographed at some point during her time there.”