Читать книгу The Invisible - Andrew Britton - Страница 18

Ryan Kealey was seated near the back of the 14-passenger Mercedes minibus, staring absently out the window. He’d been arranging his thoughts for the last hour as the vehicle sped west on Route 1. Otherwise known as the Ring Road, the two-lane highway encircled the better part of the island, linking most of the country’s major cities in the process. The afternoon sky was overcast, dark cumulus clouds towering high over the barren, rocky soil. Everything was marked in tones of black, brown, and gray, except for the dirty white snow on the peaks to the north. A light drizzle obscured the passing terrain, the cold drops clinging to the vehicle’s windows, but even on a clear day, there wouldn’t have been much to see. At least not in this part of the country. Iceland offered some amazing sights to the perseverant, physically fit traveler, but simply taking in the scenery from a moving vehicle wasn’t enough. In order to fully appreciate the landscape, one had to be willing to venture off the main roads.

Kealey was that kind of traveler. Over the past couple of weeks he had laid eyes on a number of natural wonders, including the multitiered waterfall at Gulfoss, the Strokkur geyser, and the chaotic ensemble of hot springs, lava fields, and rhyolite hills at Landmannalaugar. They were amazing sights, but he’d happened across them purely by accident. He would never have seen them otherwise, and in truth, he’d gotten more out of the lunarlike ice fields of the interior than he had out of the common tourist attractions. As he stared out at the passing terrain, he felt a small tinge of regret; he was sorry to be leaving so soon.

Shifting his weight on the seat, he allowed his gaze to drift around the vehicle. Although it was the height of the tourist season, he and Naomi Kharmai were the only two passengers. She was on the seat directly across from his, her small body curled up on the warm plastic. Looking over, he could see only the top of her dark head and the left side of her body. A thick woolen sweater, positioned between her hands and the right side of her face, served as a makeshift pillow, and she was snoring lightly. They had left the hotel two hours earlier. Harper had beaten them to the punch, having departed for Keflavík International at eight in the morning. The deputy DCI would have waited for the last bus, as he’d indicated to Kealey the previous night, but it hadn’t been necessary. Kealey had made his decision much sooner than anyone had the right to expect, including himself.

Following his awkward conversation with Naomi in the bar the night before, he’d walked straight back to his room on the ground floor. He’d lain on the narrow bed for nearly an hour, staring up at the ceiling, thinking it through. Part of him wanted to go back to the bar, to change the whole course of the conversation, but the rational part of him said it wouldn’t have made a difference. So much of it didn’t make sense. Naomi’s combative attitude was something he’d seen before, but never to this extent. It was almost as if she’d relegated him to some embarrassing point in her past, along with their relationship.

That was bad enough, but he was just as confused by her decision to train as a field operative. Kealey wasn’t sure what had brought about this unexpected decision, but that was only part of the issue. He was just as troubled—perhaps even more so—by Harper’s ready, unquestioning acceptance of her sudden transformation. And she had changed; there was no denying it. He remembered the way she had been when he first met her: strong but innocent, smart but naïve, young but wise beyond her years in so many ways. Despite having seen some horrific things in her short career, she’d managed to retain an air of youthful exuberance for longer than anyone could have expected. Now, though, it seemed as if everything she had seen and suffered through over the past couple of years had finally caught up with her. It was inevitable, Kealey knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to witness. Simply put, she had been pushed too hard for too long.

At least, that had been his initial, albeit reluctant, assessment. He had gone to Harper’s room just after midnight to accept the assignment, and evidently, the deputy DCI had relayed the information to Naomi shortly thereafter. She had banged on his door just after 7:00 AM, and when he’d pulled it open, he had found a completely different woman from the one he’d seen the night before. Despite the early hour, she was showered, dressed, and ready to go. She was smiling, alert—almost hyper, in fact—and she seemed to have forgotten all about their earlier confrontation. Not about to let it go that easily, Kealey had tried to get her to open up over breakfast in the hotel’s ground-floor restaurant, but she had ignored his attempts to uncover the past six months of her life. Instead, she’d abruptly shifted the conversation back to the task at hand. Kealey was frustrated by her closed-off demeanor, but, unwilling to provoke another argument, he’d followed her lead reluctantly.

Admittedly, the longer she had talked, the more the case began to seize his interest. It presented an interesting scenario, and now, as Naomi slept deeply on the other side of the narrow aisle, he thought back to the makeshift briefing she’d provided him with. It was mainly geared toward their sole lead with respect to the whereabouts of Amari Saifi. According to the Agency’s latest information, the person who might possibly lead them to the Salafist leader was another Algerian, a man by the name of Kamil Ghafour.

The details Naomi had offered were sparse, but they were enough to paint a general picture. Before his arrest in 2002, the twenty-eight-year-old Ghafour had been a committed, albeit low-level, member of the Armed Islamic Group. Otherwise known as the GIA, the group was committed to replacing the current government of Algeria with an Islamic state. The mandate was identical to that of the GSPC, which had separated from the GIA in 1998. The difference was that the GIA was still very much an active organization, whereas Ghafour had largely fallen off the grid.

He’d been released from prison two months earlier under an amnesty agreement for convicted terrorists. Following his release, he’d given an interview to the Algerian independent El Khabar. Even the journalist’s years of experience had not been enough to soften the rambling, incoherent quality of Ghafour’s antiestablishment diatribe, but the interview had included one salient piece of information. During their shared time in prison, Ghafour claimed to have forged a close association with none other than Amari Saifi, the former head of the GSPC.

Normally, it would have been a meaningless detail, but in light of the recent wave of abductions in Pakistan—as well as Saifi’s credible involvement—it had become the focus of the investigation, at least from the Agency’s standpoint. Saifi had not escaped from prison. Nor had he served his full sentence, which could only mean that someone had arranged for his release. The hope was that Saifi had confided in his fellow prisoner, Kamil Ghafour. Admittedly, it was more than a long shot, but Ghafour was the only verifiable link to Saifi, and that made finding him a priority. The Algerian government had basically stonewalled the State Department’s requests for additional information, which hadn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Ghafour, like any convicted homegrown terrorist, was an embarrassment to them. Nevertheless, finding him had not been as difficult as it should have been, thanks to the Operations Directorate at Langley and a well-placed source in the Spanish embassy in Washington, D.C.

According to the source, Kamil Ghafour had entered Spain on a temporary visa with an accompanying work permit less than a month after being released from prison. Incredibly, his ties to the GIA had been missed by Spain’s immigration officials, but the oversight didn’t last long. Ghafour was soon found working on a building site in downtown Madrid, exactly as he’d claimed on his application. Deportation proceedings were immediately put into effect, but Ghafour’s employer—another Algerian-born immigrant, who, since entering Spain twenty years earlier, had risen to a position of some wealth and influence—had called on his contacts to intervene. The result was something of an uneasy stalemate. Technically, Ghafour had served his time in Algeria, and since he wasn’t wanted by any other country, especially his own, extradition wasn’t an option. Even his worrisome interview with El Khabar hadn’t been enough to get him kicked out of Spain. Still, his name had been placed on a list that went out to every Spanish consulate. In the event that Ghafour left the country, even for a day, he would not be permitted reentry. It was a simple solution, and one that had worked in the past.

It was through this list of “undesirables,” as the briefing officer had put it, that Ghafour had been tracked down. From there, it was easy to trace him to the building site in Madrid. The problem lay in what to do next. The Spanish authorities had already made their ruling on Ghafour, and it had been determined in Washington that another official request for access would result in, at best, a long delay. The Spanish government’s failed attempts to deport the former Algerian terrorist were proof enough of that. Simply put, the man’s employer was connected in too many places, and the State Department couldn’t be sure of getting to him quickly. This explained why Agency watchers had been trailing Ghafour in rotating shifts for the past week. Before leaving for Keflavík that morning, Harper had given Kealey a phone number and the address of a hotel where the watchers were based. Upon landing in Spain, their first task was to link up with the other operatives and establish a plan for getting to Ghafour, preferably without alerting the Spanish authorities.

Kealey had been rolling several ideas around in his head, but after much consideration, he’d settled on one in particular. Usually, the least confrontational method was the best course of action, and while there were never any guarantees, he suspected that Kamil Ghafour would react favorably to a straight cash offer. With this thought in mind, Kealey decided to call Langley once they reached the airport. It wouldn’t take long to arrange the transfer, and with any luck, the money would be ready and waiting by the time they arrived in Spain.

A small movement to his left brought him back to reality. He glanced over but saw it was nothing; Naomi had merely shifted in her sleep. Watching her, Kealey felt the same warm feelings she always stirred in him, but also a growing sense of unease. While he was relieved beyond measure to see her again, he couldn’t help but feel a deep pain over her apparent ambivalence toward their shared past, as well as a lingering concern over her strange behavior. She was up one minute, down the next. There didn’t seem to be any middle ground, and her unpredictable behavior could only spell trouble once they were on the ground in Madrid.

Maybe it’s just a temporary shift in her personality, he told himself, desperately searching for some kind of rational explanation. Maybe she’ll get back on track in Spain. Maybe she’ll come back to you. Just give her some time, Ryan….

Catching himself, Kealey shook his head angrily. Deep down, he knew he was being naïve. He wanted to condone her actions, to fully accept her decision to resume working for the Agency, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It wouldn’t be fair to her. Nor would it be fair to what he knew. In the months following the terrorist attack that had nearly claimed her life, he had personally cared for her at his home in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. She had spent part of the winter with him, and in that time, he’d come to understand how deep her issues actually ran. They certainly weren’t the kind of problems that could be overcome by six months of training at Camp Peary. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to give up on her. He’d made that promise to himself a long time ago, and he had no intention of breaking it now.

At the same time, he couldn’t speak for the operatives they were going to meet in Spain. He couldn’t make that decision for them, and if Naomi’s behavior threatened to put them at risk, he’d have no choice but to intervene and pull her out. Before accepting the assignment, he had made one simple demand of Jonathan Harper: he wanted tactical command for the operation in Spain. The rest of it could be decided at a later date, but he insisted on running things in Madrid. Harper had readily agreed. Naomi had been told as much the next morning, with Kealey present, but she hadn’t reacted in any noticeable way, and she hadn’t mentioned it since. Kealey wondered if she’d taken it seriously, but in the end, it didn’t really matter; he was in charge, and that was final. If he decided to pull her off, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Then again, doing so would almost certainly mark the end of their relationship. And that was assuming, Kealey reminded himself moodily, there was even a relationship to salvage.

He turned back to the window and stared absently out at the rain. He decided to wait and see. He wanted to give her the chance, but if she didn’t snap out of it soon, he’d have to make a hard, but necessary, decision. He had put her life ahead of thousands of others once before. He’d gotten away with it on that occasion, but he had no desire to push his luck. If she was going to see this through, she’d have to earn the right. It was just that simple, and just that hard.