The Lion's Game

CHAPTER 55

Well, I'll be a horned-toed hoot owl. It was Ted Nash. Why was I not completely surprised?

He didn't bother to stand and greet us, so we walked over to him and stopped at this Martian-red flat rock where Ted sat with his legs hanging over the edge.

He gave a sort of half wave, as if this was an office encounter. He said, "I'm glad you could make it."

Oh, fuck you, Ted. How cool can you get? I refused to play his silly game and said nothing.

Kate, however, said, "You could have told us it was you we were meeting." She added, "You're not cool, Ted."

This seemed to deflate him a bit, and he looked annoyed.

Kate also informed him, "We could have killed you. By mistake."

He'd obviously rehearsed this moment, but Kate wasn't reading from his script.

Anyway, old Ted had charcoal on his face, a black bandanna around his head, and was wearing black pants, a black shirt, black running shoes, and a heavy flak jacket. I said to him, "A little early for Halloween, isn't it?"

He didn't reply, but shifted the rifle on his lap. The rifle was an M-14 with a starlight scope, just like the one Gene wouldn't let me borrow.

I said to him, "Okay, talk to me, Teddy. What's up?"

He didn't answer me, probably a little put off by the Teddy thing. He reached behind him and produced a thermos bottle. "Coffee?"

I had zero patience for Mr. Cloak and Dagger. I said, "Ted, I know it's important for you to be smooth and polished, but I'm just a New York cop, and I'm really not in the mood for this shit. Say your piece, then get us a fucking vehicle, and get us out of here."

He said, "All right. First, let me congratulate you both on figuring it out."

I replied, "You knew all about this, didn't you?"

He nodded. "I knew some of it, but not all of it."

"Right. And by the way, I won ten bucks from you."

"I'll put it in as a reimbursable expense." He looked at Kate and me and informed us, "You've caused us a lot of trouble."

"Who is us?"

He didn't reply, but picked up his night vision binoculars and scanned a distant treeline. As he scanned, he said, "I'm fairly sure Khalil is out there. Do you agree?"

I said, "I agree. You should stand and wave."

"And you spoke to him."

"I did. I gave him your home address."

He laughed. He surprised me by saying, "You may not believe this, but I like you."

"And I like you, Ted. I truly do. I just don't like it when you don't share."

Kate chimed in and said, "If you knew what was happening, why didn't you say something? People have been killed, Ted."

He put down the binoculars and looked at Kate. He said, "All right, here's the story. There is a man named Boris, an ex-KGB agent, who is working for Libyan Intelligence. Fortunately, he likes money, and he also works for us." Ted considered this a moment, then said, "Actually, he likes us. And not them. Anyway, some years ago, Boris contacted us and told us about this young man named Asad Khalil, whose family was killed in the nineteen eighty-six raid-"

"Whoa. Whoa," I interrupted. "You knew about Khalil years ago?"

"Yes. And we followed his progress carefully. It was apparent that Asad Khalil was an exceptional operative-brave, bright, dedicated, and motivated. And you know, of course, what motivated him."

Neither Kate nor I replied.

Ted said to us, "Should I go on? You may not want to hear all of this."

I assured Ted, "Oh, but we do. And what would you like in return?"

"Nothing. Just your word that you'll keep this to yourselves."

"Try again."

"Okay. If Asad Khalil is captured, the FBI will take charge of him. We don't want that. We need to take charge of him. I need you two to assist me in any way you can, including amnesia during official testimony, to get Khalil turned over to us."

I replied, "This may come as a surprise to you, but my influence with the FBI and the government is somewhat limited."

"You'd be surprised. The FBI and the country are very legalistic. You saw that with the World Trade Center defendants. They went to trial for murder and conspiracy and firearms violations. Not terrorism. There is no law against terrorism in America. So, as in any trial, the government needs credible witnesses."

"Ted, the government has a dozen witnesses against Asad Khalil and a ton of forensic evidence."

"Right. But I think we can work out a deal in the interests of national security whereby Asad Khalil is released and sent back to Libya in a diplomatic arrangement. What I don't want is either of you interfering with that by getting on your moral high horses."

I assured him, "My moral high horse is low to the ground, but really, Ted, Asad Khalil murdered a lot of innocent people."

"So? What are we going to do about that? Put him in prison for life? What good does that do the dead? Wouldn't it be better if we used Khalil for something more important? Something that can put a real dent in international terrorism?"

I knew where this was going, but I didn't want to go there.

Ted, however, wanted Kate and me to understand, so he asked, "Don't you want to know why we want Asad Khalil released and sent back to Libya?"

I put my chin on my hand and said, "Let me think… to kill Moammar Gadhafi because Moammar fucked his mother and killed his father."

"Correct. Doesn't that sound like an excellent plan?"

"Hey, I'm just a cop^ But I may be missing something here. Like, Asad Khalil. I think you need him in custody to make this work."

"Correct. Boris has told us how Khalil is getting out of the country, and we're certain we can apprehend him. I don't mean the CIA-we have no arrest powers. But the FBI or the local police, acting on information from the CIA, will apprehend him, then we step into the picture, and work out a deal."

Kate was staring at Ted. I knew what she was going to say, and she said it. "Are you crazy? Are you out of your fucking mind? That man murdered over three hundred people. And if you let him go, he'll murder more people, and not necessarily the people you want murdered." She added, "This man is very dangerous. He's evil. How can you possibly want him free? I can't believe this."

Ted didn't reply for a really long time, like he was wrestling with a moral issue, but a CIA guy wrestling with a moral issue is like professional wrestling; most of it is phony.

Anyway, there was a faint light on the eastern horizon and birds were singing their little hearts out, glad the night was coming to an end. I felt like joining them.

Finally, Ted said, "Believe me when I tell you we didn't know about Flight One-Seven-Five. Boris either didn't know, or couldn't get this information to us."

"Fire Boris," I suggested.

"Actually, he may be dead. We had an arrangement to get him out of Libya, but something may have gone wrong."

I said to Ted, "Remind me never to let you pack my parachute."

Ted ignored this, and went back to his binoculars. He said, "I hope they don't kill him. Khalil, I mean. If he can get out of this area, he'll head to a rendezvous point where he thinks he'll be met by compatriots who will get him out of the country. But that won't happen."

I didn't expect an answer, but I asked, "And where is that rendezvous?"

"I don't know. The information on this case is compartmentalized."

I asked him, "If you're not hunting for Khalil, why do you need that rifle and scope?"

He put down his binoculars and replied, "You never know what you're going to need and when you're going to need it." He asked Kate and me, "Are you wearing vests?"

This question coming from a colleague was perfectly normal, but I was a little shaky about Ted at that moment.

I didn't reply, and interestingly, neither did Kate. I mean, I didn't think old Ted was going to try to whack us, but the man was obviously under some stress, though he wasn't showing it. But if you thought about what he and his company were trying to pull off, you realized that a lot depended on the next few hours. This was, for them, an extremely risky, long-range plan to eliminate Moammar Gadhafi without leaving too many CIA fingerprints, and the plan had started to unravel a few hours before Trans -Continental Flight 175 even touched down. Also, the plan might actually be construed as illegal under current U.S. law. So, old Ted was stressed. But was he going to aim that rifle at Kate and me and blow us away if we added to his problems? You never know what people with guns and problems are going to do, especially if they think their agenda is more important than your life.

It was getting a little lighter by the minute, but the fog was still hanging around, which was fine because it played tricks with night scopes. I asked Ted, "Hey, how was Frankfurt and Paris?"

"Fine. Got a little business done." He added, "If you'd gone to Frankfurt as ordered, you wouldn't be in this position."

I didn't quite know what position I was in, but I know a veiled threat when I hear one. With that in mind, I didn't want to bring up any unpleasant subjects, but I had to ask, "Why did you let Asad Khalil kill those fighter pilots and those other people?"

He looked at me, and I could see he was prepared for the question, though not happy about it. He said, "The plan was simply to take him into custody at JFK, bring him to Federal Plaza, show him incontrovertible evidence, including taped testimony by defectors, of his mother's adultery, and who killed his father, then turn him back on his own people."

Kate said, "We understand that, Ted. What we don't understand is, after he got away, why did you let him complete his mission?"

Ted replied, "We really had no idea what his specific mission was."

"Excuse me," I said. "Bullshit. You knew he'd be here at the Reagan ranch, and you knew what he was going to do before he got here."

"Well, believe what you want. We were under the impression that he was being sent here to kill Ronald Reagan. We didn't know he had the names of the pilots on that flight. That's classified information. In any case, it didn't matter what his mission was because he was supposed to be taken into custody at Kennedy Airport. If that had happened, none of the other things would have happened."

"Ted, Mom may have told you that when you play with fire, you get burned."

Ted didn't want to be pushed into any gaping holes in his story, and if I left him alone, he'd dig a few more holes of his own.

Ted said to us, "Well, the plan went astray, but it's not off the tracks yet. It's important that we apprehend Khalil and tell him what we know about his mother and father, then let him loose in Libya. By the way, it was a family friend who killed Karim Khalil in Paris. A man named Habib Nadir, a fellow Army captain and friend of Captain Khalil. Nadir killed his friend on direct orders from Moammar Gadhafi."

This was a tough crowd in a tough neighborhood.

Ted, who was not stupid, said, "Of course, it's possible that Asad Khalil will get out of the country and back to Libya before we have an opportunity to speak to him. So, what I was wondering is if either of you thought to pass on what you knew about Gadhafi's treachery toward the Khalil family."

I replied, "Let me think… we talked about his grudges against America, about him wanting to kill me… what else…?"

"I understand from your colleagues at the Wiggins house that you mentioned these subjects briefly at the end of your conversation with Khalil."

"Right. That was after I called him a camel-fucker."

"No wonder he wants to kill you." Ted laughed, then asked me, "And did you expand on this in your subsequent conversation with Khalil?"

"You seem to know a lot about what goes on in the FBI."

"We're on the same team, John."

"I hope not."

"Oh, don't be holier-than-thou. The halo doesn't look good on you."

I let that one go and said to Kate, "Okay, ready?" I said to Ted, "Gotta go, Ted. See you at the Senate inguest."

"Just a moment. Please answer my question. Did you speak to Asad Khalil about Gadhafi's treachery?"

"What do you think?"

"I'll guess that you did. Partly because you seemed keen about that angle during our meetings in New York and Washington. Partly because you're very bright, and you know how to piss off people." He smiled.

I smiled, too. Ted was really an okay guy. Just a little devious. I said, "Yeah, I got him all worked up about that. You should have heard that conversation when I told him his mother was a whore, and his father was a cuckold. Not to mention Gadhafi having Pop whacked. Jeez, he was pissed. He said he was going to cut my tongue out and slit my throat. I mean, I didn't fuck his mother or kill his father. Why was he so pissed off at me?"

Ted seemed to be enjoying my levity, and he was also very happy to learn that I had done his job for him.

Ted asked me, "And it was your impression that he believed you?"

"How the hell do I know? He wanted to kill me. He didn't say anything about Uncle Moammar."

Ted pondered a moment, then said, "For the Arabs, this is a matter of personal honor. Family honor, which they call ird. Almost any family dishonor has to be redeemed in blood."

"That probably works better than Family Court."

Ted looked at me and said, "I think Khalil will kill Gadhafi, and if he learns the truth about Habib Nadir, he will kill him also, and maybe others in Libya. Then our plan, which you seem to find so distasteful, will be vindicated."

Kate, who has a better moral compass than I, said, "There's no justification to goad people into murdering anyone. We don't have to act like monsters to fight monsters." She added, "This is wrong."

Ted, wisely, did not go into a big justification of his pet plan to clip Colonel Moammar Gadhafi. He said to Kate, "Believe me, we struggled with this question and put it before the ethics committee."

I almost laughed. "Are you on that committee? And by the way, what are the ethics of you joining up with the ATTF in order to advance your own game plan? And how the hell did I wind up working with you?"

"I requested it. I really admire your talents and your perseverance. In fact, you nearly stopped Khalil from escaping at the airport. I told you, if you want to work for us, there's a job available. You, too, Kate."

I replied, "We'll talk it over with our spiritual advisors. Okay, gotta go, Ted. Great meeting."

"Just one or two more things."

"Okay, shoot." Bad choice of words.

"I wanted to tell you I enjoyed that joke. The one you told at the meeting about the Attorney General. Edward passed that on to me. There's a lot of truth in jokes. The FBI would call a big press conference, as they're doing this afternoon in Washington. My company doesn't like press conferences."

"Hey, I'm with you."

"And the CIA would make the rabbit a double agent." He smiled. "That was funny. Also, very prescient in this case."

"I hear you. And don't forget what the cops would do, Ted. They'd beat the shit out of that bear until he confessed to being a rabbit. Right?"

"I'm sure they would. But that doesn't make the bear a rabbit."

"It's only important that the bear says he's a rabbit. And while we're at it, double agents work only for themselves. Are we through here?"

"Almost. I just want to remind you both that this conversation never took place." He looked at Kate and said, "It's very important that Asad Khalil go back to Libya."

Kate replied, "No, it's not. It's important that he stand trial for murder in the U.S."

Ted said to me, "I think you understand."

"Am I going to argue with a guy who's holding a high-powered rifle?"

Ted informed me, "I'm not threatening either of you. Don't be melodramatic."

"Sorry. It's this X-Files thing. TV is rotting my brain. It used to be Mission Impossible. Okay, that's it. See ya."

"I really wouldn't walk back to the ranch house now. Khalil is still out there, and you two are sitting ducks."

"Ted, if it's a choice between staying here with you, or dodging sniper bullets, guess what?"

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

I didn't reply, but turned and walked away, as did Kate.

Ted called out, "Oh, congratulations on your engagement. Invite me to the wedding."

My back was still to him, and I waved. Funny thing, I wouldn't mind inviting him to the wedding. The man was a monumental prick, but when all was said and done, he was our prick-he really wanted to do what was best for the country. Scary. But I understood, which was also scary.

We kept walking down this slope away from the VORTAC station. I didn't know if I was going to get a bullet in the back from Ted, or a bullet in the front from Khalil in the treeline at the foot of the slope.

We kept walking, and I could tell that Kate was tense. I said, "It's okay. Just whistle."

"My mouth is dry."

"Hum."

"I feel sick to my stomach."

Uh-oh. "Like morning-"

"John, stop with the jokes. This is just… sickening. Do you understand what he's done?"

"They play a rough and dangerous game, Kate. Judge not lest you be judged."

"People were murdered

"I don't want to talk about it now. Okay?"

She shook her head.

We found a riding path, which cut through an expanse of red rocks and thick bush. I was hoping to run into a motorized patrol, or a stationary post, but there's never a Secret Service agent around when you need one.

The sky was much lighter now, and a soft breeze from the sea started to move the ground fog away. Not good.

We walked in the direction of where we thought the ranch house and Secret Service building were, but the trails seemed to twist and turn a lot, and I wasn't sure where the hell we were.

Kate said, "I think we're lost. My feet hurt. I'm tired and thirsty."

"Let's sit awhile."

We sat on a flat rock and rested. There was strange vegetation here, like probably sagebrush, tumbleweed, and all that cowboy stuff. The brush was thick, but not very tall and not tall enough to provide good concealment when we walked. It occurred to me that we might be better off staying put. I said to Kate, "Assuming Khalil is out there, then he's probably within two hundred yards of the ranch house. So maybe we don't want to get too close to the house or the Secret Service place."

"Good thought. We'll stay here so Khalil can kill us without disturbing anyone else."

"I'm just trying to outthink this guy."

"Well, think about this-maybe he's not going to kill us. Maybe he's going to put a few rounds through our legs, then walk over to us, and cut your tongue out, then slit your throat."

"I see you've given this some thought. Thank you for sharing that."

"Sorry." She yawned. "Anyway, we have our pistols, and I won't let him take you alive." She laughed, but it was sort of an emotionally and physically exhausted kind of laugh.

"Get some rest."

About ten minutes later, I heard this vaguely familiar sound and recognized it as helicopter blades beating the air.

I stood on the rock on which I'd been sitting and hopped onto a nearby four-foot-high boulder and faced the sound. I said, "The cavalry has arrived. Air cavalry. Wow. Look at that."

"What?" She stood, but I put my hand on her shoulder and pressed her down. "Just sit. I'll tell you what's going on."

"I can see for myself." She stood on the rock on which she'd been sitting, grabbed my arm, and pulled herself up beside me on the boulder. We both looked toward the helicopters. There were six Hueys circling a few hundred yards away, and I guessed they were circling over the ranch house, so we were close, and we knew what direction to walk.

I now noticed a huge twin-engine Chinook helicopter corning over the horizon, and slung under the Chinook was an automobile-a big, black Lincoln.

Kate said, "That must be an armored vehicle."

"Stagecoach," I reminded her. "Six Hollys with Hercules personnel, flying cover over Brimstone while Rawhide and Rainbow get into the Stagecoach. Tracker and Tracer on the ground. Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph on the way."

She let out a sigh of relief, or maybe exasperation.

We watched for a few minutes as the operation unfolded, and though we couldn't see what was happening on the ground, it was obvious that Rawhide and Rainbow were now headed down Pennsylvania Avenue in an armored car, with escort vehicles and the choppers overhead. Mission accomplished.

Asad Khalil, if he was anywhere around, could see this, too, of course, and if he was still wearing his phony mustache, he was right now twirling the ends and saying, "Curses, foiled again!"

So, all's well that ends well. Right?

Not quite. I had the thought that Asad Khalil, having missed the big one, would now settle for the little one.

But before I did anything about that thought, like get off that boulder and into the bushes to wait for help, Asad Khalil switched targets.