“How are you feeling, Waled? Any pain?”

  “No, not now, the drugs are working well, thank you.”

  “That’s good. Chow’s up in ten minutes. The cook has prepared something special. Fish paella, just like my Mamma used to make, so I’d tell this officer to beat it so you can enjoy it.”

  The Arab looked puzzled. “Paella?”

  “It’s a Spanish dish. Don’t ask, just enjoy it.” He smiled. “I was just checking in. I’m glad to see you’re okay. So long, buddy, I’ll be back soon. Sir,” he acknowledged Talley and left the room.

  “I have to get going. I need to meet with my people.”

  “Another mission, Abe?”

  Talley smiled. “There’s always another mission, Waled. As long as people threaten the security of the free world, they need people like me to do battle with them. Some people call it politics.”

  “Politics? I thought it was warfare.”

  He grinned. “Some people say they’re the same thing. I believe it was von Clausewitz, a German, or a Prussian, as they were then, who said, ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means’. I reckon I’d agree with him.”

  “Perhaps we should get our politicians to fight the wars they create,” Waled chuckled.

  “You got that right, buddy.”

  He left the sick bay and went to find Admiral Alexander. He was in his day cabin, behind the bridge.

  “What is it, Captain? I don’t have much time. We’re about to sail out of the Red Sea through a narrow channel into the Gulf of Aden. It can get pretty hairy, so I’ll be needed on the bridge.”

  He explained quickly what he wanted, confirming his suspicions about Hakim. “You were his predecessor, Admiral. I need your knowledge and influence to help me find out the truth, and deal with him if necessary.”

  Alexander stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Very well, but you’d better be right, Mister. If you’re wrong, we’ll have the UN Secretary General on our backs, and that could be the end of both our careers.”

  “I don’t think I’m wrong, Sir.”

  “You’d better not be, Talley. Dismissed.”

  He went off to find the wardroom and spent some time pulling his thoughts together.

  If I get this right, the mission will truly be over. If not, well, best not think about that.

  He went up to the flight deck for a stroll to clear his head, but they were running flight operations, and the noise and stink of kerosene only made his headache worse. He went back below. He knew he couldn’t delay any more; it was time to begin.

  The mission is not over, that’s for sure. Not until we’ve cut off the head, the man at the top. Could it be Hakim? I’ll soon see.

  He found Cate Walker and the Colonel in the operations room. The Brit colonel was staring at a bunch of documents on the table. They looked like intel reports. He turned and nodded a greeting to Talley, then went back to studying the reports. Cate came to him and smiled.

  “How are you feeling after being banged up by the Yemenis?”

  “Better than I would have if you hadn’t come to the rescue. I don’t remember thanking you properly. I’m real grateful. If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know, anytime.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Perhaps later, I’m sure I can think of something.”

  There was twinge of humor in her eyes. He kept his voice level and deadpanned, “I’ll be waiting.”

  She smiled. “What are you down here for?”

  “You know what I need.”

  She nodded; her face serious. All that remained was to locate the person who’d leaked the info about his movements to the Somalis, the traitor who was responsible for so many deaths.

  Talley looked across at Hakim. “Colonel, I’d like a word with you, Sir.”

  He looked up, his dusky Arabic face impassive. “Yes, Captain, how can I help you?”

  “Colonel, I want to look at your laptop. Specifically, I need to to read the super-encrypted messages you sent to Commissioner Gul at the UN.”

  Hakim stared at him long and hard. Finally, he said, “They’re secret, I’m afraid. You should know that. It’s quite impossible for you or anyone else to see them, without the express permission of the United Nations Secretary General himself.”

  He turned away, but not before he had seen the look in the Colonel’s eyes. Cate had seen it too, furtive. The Brit went toward the door, and Talley stopped him.

  “Colonel Hakim, I won’t take no for an answer. I want that laptop.”

  “You can’t have it, don’t you understand? Those messages are private!”

  “Who are you protecting, Colonel? What’s so damaging that you’re too frightened to show it?”

  “Nothing, I told you. It’s confidential, that’s all.”

  But the man was badly shaken, and he was not a good liar.

  “In that case, Sir, I’ll have to place you under arrest.”

  “You can’t do that, Captain Talley. I suggest you go back to your cabin and think about what you’re doing. I’m your senior officer. Arresting me would be tantamount to mutiny. You can’t do it.”

  “But I can!”

  They looked around as Admiral Alexander entered the room, followed by a Marine lieutenant and two tough-looking jarheads. They stiffened to attention.

  “Admiral, what is this?”

  “This?” Talley could see that Alexander was almost enjoying the confrontation. The Admiral looked around the room. “I’ll tell you what this is, Colonel. This is my ship, which puts you under my command as long as you’re aboard. Give Talley that laptop, Colonel. That’s a direct order.”

  “No, no, you don’t understand.”

  Hakim slumped down on the chair and put his head in his hands.

  “Understand what, Colonel Hakim? Tell us,” Alexander prompted him.

  The Brit officer was shaking his head in despair. “If I let you see the messages on that machine, people will die.”

  “Which people?”

  He sighed and hesitated. But he was no fool, and he knew the game was up. They wouldn’t be satisfied without an explanation.

  “I suppose you may as well know. They have my daughter, her husband and their two children, my grandchildren. If they found out that I’d shown you those messages, they’d kill them. I’m begging you. Leave it alone.”

  Chapter Twelve

  He tried hard to limit what he told them to the bare facts of the abduction, but after an hour of tough questioning from Admiral Alexander, he buckled.

  “My family was taken several days before I was given this post, the command of NATFOR. I spoke to Commissioner Gul, and he said for me not worry, as he would use his influence to locate them. In return, he asked me to keep him fully informed about our operation here in Somalia and to follow his ‘suggestions’ where certain aspects of this operation were concerned. He assured me it was to protect the good name of the UN, but I know now that it was nonsense. Too many good men have died.”

  “So that was where our air support went when we were in Mogadishu.”

  Hakim nodded. “That’s right. He said if we sent in the fighter bombers, it would make the political situation worse. And my family would suffer.”

  “You didn’t tell him about the rescue mission in Yemen?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know about it until after it was launched. It was too late.”

  “But you told him before that, about my flight, and that it would land in Yemen?”

  He nodded, slowly, tiredly. “Yes,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You men, take him away and put him in the brig,” Admiral Alexander said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Colonel, you’re under arrest for treason, and anything else I can think of later. Before they put you in the cells, I want that laptop, and you better make sure these people have the passwords.”

  Hakim nodded. “Yes, I’ll get it for you. Admiral, what about my family? Please help them. They’ll be killed.”

  “What about the families of the people who were killed because of you, Colonel? Who’s going to help them?”

  Hakim shook his head. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  “I guess you don’t.” He looked at the Marine lieutenant. “Stay with him, and take him to his cabin to retrieve that laptop. I want it brought into this room. Then lock him up.”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  They took him out. A silence hung over the operations room, almost like the fog that lingers over a battlefield when the guns have gone silent.

  “We need to take down Ismail Gul,” Talley said, breaking the silence.

  Cate looked at him with an expression of alarm. “Ismail Gul? You can’t arrest him. He’s one of the senior officials at the United Nations. He answers to Ban Ki-Moon himself. He’s untouchable.” She looked at the Admiral and back at Talley. “And he has diplomatic immunity,” she added unnecessarily.

  “Then we won’t arrest him,” Talley replied, his face as neutral as a poker player’s.

  Alexander caught his meaning. He hadn’t attained command of a carrier by being slow on the uptake.

  “As you know, we’re in dangerous waters, so I have to get back to the bridge. You’re back in the Navy, Captain Talley, so let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.”

  They saluted as he left the operations room. A few moments later, one of the marines returned with a laptop.

  “Colonel Hakim used his password to unlock all the messages on here, Sir. My lieutenant said to leave it with you.”

  “Thank you, Marine. What have you done with the Colonel?”

  “He’s in the deepest, darkest hole we could find in the ship, Sir.”

  He nodded and the man went away. Talley thought of the men who’d died as a result of Hakim’s treachery. Not that he’d done anything directly. Even the messages he’d sent were almost a legitimate part of his job. No, he’d just turned a blind eye, and men had died.

  “What’s the plan?”

  He looked at Cate. “First, we go through the super-encrypted messages, but we know now what’s in them. Then, it’s time to pay a visit to the UN Commissioner General for Security. I don’t suppose you’d know where we might find him?”

  She smiled as she shook her head. “I haven’t the faintest idea. He’s normally in New York, at the UN. But I know he hasn’t been seen there for several days. There is someone who would know, though. Colonel Hakim.”

  “Let’s go see him. The ‘deepest, darkest hole in the ship’, that’s what that marine told us. It’s time to go take a look at it.”

  They found the Master-at-Arms. He called the Admiral and obtained permission for them to visit Hakim. He led them down in to the bowels of the carrier, past deck after deck.

  “How many decks are there, exactly?” Talley asked him.

  “About eighteen, Sir. There are a number of sub-levels, so it’s hard to give an exact number, but that’s about right.”

  “And Hakim is at the bottom.”

  The man chuckled. “Some of us would like to see traitors put even further down, like on the sea bed, wrapped in chains. But deep-sixing traitors is illegal at the moment. He’s on the eighteenth deck, right at the bottom.”

  The lower they went, the more oppressive the air became. The stairways became narrower, and they had to squeeze past sailors who teemed around the lower decks like ants. The air conditioning didn’t work as well either, and as they went lower, Talley found himself sweating with the oppressive humidity. They finally reached the deck that housed the cells. The walls were chipped, badly in need of a paint job, and they streamed with condensation. Hakim was in a tiny cell at the end of a narrow passageway. It was lit by a bulb inside an armored housing fastened to the ceiling of the cell. The walls were bare, just steel walls covered with battered, scratched, and chipped gray paint. There was a single berth bolted to the wall. It was all the furniture the cell contained. The Colonel was a beaten man, sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes were red, and he seemed to have aged twenty years.

  “Prisoner Hakim, you have visitors,” The Master at Arms snapped. “Ten-hut!”

  Almost without thinking, he got up, and stood rigid.

  Talley looked at the Master at Arms. “Open the cell, please. We need to have a word with him.”

  The man shook his head. “Sorry, Sir, Admiral’s orders. The cell stays locked. I can’t open it, not for anyone.”

  “Okay, but we need to speak to him in confidence. Would you give us some space?”

  The man nodded and walked away. Talley looked at Cate.

  “Would you like to begin?”

  She stared at the old soldier. Talley stood back and tried to feel some sympathy for him, but he couldn’t forget the men who’d died as a result of his treachery. “Colonel, we need your help.”

  Hakim gave her a ghastly smile. “I doubt that, Captain. There’s nothing I can do now to help anyone. I’m finished, and I deserve it. I realize that now.”

  “There is something you can do to help, Colonel. It would make up for some of your treachery.”

  He winced as she said the word ‘treachery’. “Please, I’d like to be left alone. I can’t help you.”

  “That’s not true, Colonel. You can tell us the whereabouts of Ismail Gul.”

  “Gul? Oh, I see, you intend to arrest him.” He sighed. “That won’t be possible. He is an accredited UN diplomat.”

  “We’ll take care of the details,” Talley snapped. “All we need to know is his location.”

  “He isn’t at his post at the UN headquarters in New York?”

  “No.”

  “What about his home in Istanbul?”

  “No, that’s been checked out.

  “In that case, he has a family hideaway. That’s likely where he has gone. It’s in Turkey, a small estate outside Cucurka and close to the border with Iraq. You know he’s a Kurd?”

  Talley shook his head. “Should that mean something to me?”

  Hakim smiled. His face resembled a ghastly skull, the skin stretched in places and hanging in loose folds in others. This was a man who’d given up on everything; on life.

  “It means he’s a part of an oppressed minority. The Kurds have been kicked around in three different countries, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, all their ancestral homelands. It explains a lot about the embittered man Ismail Gul has become. It’s not an easy life for the Kurds.”

  “I don’t give a shit about how hard his life was, Colonel. He’s just a thieving crook, a thief, murderer, kidnapper, and blackmailer. I just want to find him. Cucurka, you say. If we look for him there, where would we find his house?”

  “His estate is on the southern side of the town, at the foot of the mountains that form the border with Iraq. There are no other houses before the mountains, only his. What do you plan to do with him when you find him?”

  “That’s not your business, Colonel.”

  Hakim shook his head. “No, I suppose not. I assume you plan to kill him. Perhaps I will meet him in the next life.”

  “Maybe. You two guys can chew the fat when you get to paradise.”

  Hakim chuckled, something of his old self had returned. “Paradise? You think because I am a Muslim I believe in that old nonsense. It’s a fairy story, Captain, invented for gullible peasants. No, I’ve had my time, and when I die, I’ll end up in an unmarked grave. One thing about Gul you should know. Although he is a diplomat, the Kurds are a warlike race. He will be protected by his own people, and they can be mean and bloody fighters.”

  Talley nodded. “So can we, my friend.” He turned to Cate. “Time to go, and it looks as if I’m headed to Turkey.”

  They walked away from the cell.

  “We’re headed to Turkey, you mean,” Cate murmured.

  “But, there’s no need for…”

  “There’s every need, Talley. Who’s going to bail you out when you get into trouble?”

  “Cate, it won’t be like that. You can...”

  She put her mouth up to his and kissed him, a hot, passionate exchange that left him breathless. “Don’t argue, Talley. You’re not going after that bastard without me. We’re a team.”

  She was staring into his eyes, and there was a deeper meaning that he didn’t find hard to decipher. He pitied the man who tried to argue with her. It was a no-win situation.

  “Yeah, I guess we are.”

  * * *

  They began the series of checks, the same as they always did before a HALO jump. It had happened fast; a week after they’d met with Admiral Alexander. There was an unspoken understanding between the Admiral and Echo Six. On the record, the mission objective was to arrest Ismail Gul, nothing more. Yet they knew the Kurd would never leave Turkey. He was too highly placed, and had too many friends and contacts that would bail him out of any legal difficulties. No, he had to be stopped. Off the record, there was only one way, the permanent way. Alexander had arranged transport in the surviving Osprey for Echo Six, and they’d landed at Riyadh Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia where the C-130 was waiting to take them on to Turkey. While they waited to take off at Riyadh, Cate had asked him what he was thinking.

  “You’ve been very quiet, Talley, something on your mind?”

  He nodded. “This time it really is the final phase of the mission. I was thinking of the guys that didn’t make it. Rafe Mulligan, walking into that minefield. Brad Ryman, Raoul Velasquez. The Delta Six guys who were killed, the ones who were hurt so bad they won’t be coming back. And it all comes down to this one man. Ismail Gul. All the time he was selling us out, selling everyone out. Mohammed Barre, Jamal Osman, and those Somali pirates. They were all puppets dancing to his tune. When we take him out, that’ll end it.”

  “Until the next one comes along,” she’d replied.

  “Yes, until the next one. And we’ll kill him, too. These people think they’re beyond justice, hiding behind their private armies, their diplomatic immunity, their contacts in government, and their wealth. No more. We’re about to fulfill the primary function of what NATFOR was established for, to hit those targets beyond the reach of single nations.”