Authors: Dominick Fencer,Baibin Nighthawk
8
Barnett had just finished saying goodbye to the faculty and his fellow students and was now leaning against a tree waiting for the shuttle that would take him to the airport. He had a massive headache. He couldn’t face talking to his mother: this time it would be his turn to give her a nice surprise.
Davis approached and as he passed Barnett murmured in a low voice, “Barnett, fight the demon. Fight. I’ll keep rooting for you,” and without hesitating continued towards the research laboratories.
Again, once his aircraft had taken off, Rio de la Plata seemed like a huge, dirty funnel of pasta and beans to Barnett, but he didn’t even hear the sound of the landing gear retracting into the Airbus A380 which was taking him back to New York because he was already fast asleep.
9
His mother was at home. When she opened the door and saw Barnett, she gasped with surprise:
“Barnett! I wasn’t expecting you. Why didn’t you tell me! How are you?”
“Well, thanks. I just came to say goodbye. I leave for London tomorrow. I’ll finish my studies there and hopefully get a scholarship to pursue my PhD, if I keep my grades up.”
“I’m so proud of you...and your father would be too if he were still with us.”
“Speaking of my father...didn’t he leave instructions in case of his death in writing? I guess he was a soldier; he knew how risky that might be.”
“He left behind a document containing instructions about the financial support for us,” replied his mother, puzzled.
“Why didn't you ever tell me? I thought we were living on what the life insurance paid out.”
“You were just a kid; these were things that didn’t concern you...the life insurance wouldn’t have been enough to finance your studies...but why are you asking me about this now?”
“Can I see it?” Barnett stepped forward a little aggressively.
“Many years have passed. I think I threw it away after doing everything it said to do. I wouldn’t know where to find it,” she answered in a barely audible voice.
“And what do you have to say about the bathroom of the Wolferts Roost Country Club clubhouse in Albany on that day in 1993?” Barnett pressed her.
His mother slowly lowered herself down onto the couch.
“How do you know about that? I'm sorry, but it's none of your business,” said his mother in a shrill voice that came from a woman who now seemed like a stranger to Barnett.
“None of your business!” her son said, mimicking her tone.
For Barnett all of this seemed to confirm what Davis had said. By now he didn’t care anymore, not even enough to get an explanation. It was as if there was a deep rewind and it was time for his movie to start again and, as far as possible, in a new way.
They didn’t even speak to each other the next morning when he left for London, and that was the last time they would ever see each other.
10
The day Barnett received his doctorate he was 26 years old and he was the only student who had no relatives or girlfriends in tow at the ceremony. Barnett had now become a well-known researcher, a reputation built on a significant number of publications considering his young age; he was already an experienced psychiatrist and a talented biochemist.
He expected a substantial offer from King's College: he had been their best student in the last twenty years and he wanted to take on projects that would place him in competition for the Nobel Prize. He definitely felt ready.
In fact, that evening he was invited to dinner by the distinguished Professor H. Taylor, Health Vice-Principal, who wanted to meet him at an Italian restaurant, "Il Toscano", in Kensington.
“Professor, I am very honored by your invitation,” Barnett said, shaking hands and sitting down at the table.
They spoke about the ceremony, the weather, and ongoing projects and ordered dishes that promptly arrived at their table a few minutes later.
“Dr. Cooper.” Taylor came straight to the point. “I suppose you expect me to have a concrete proposal,” he said, looking at him straight in the eyes.
“Well, yes, you kindly asked me to dinner and...” Barnett replied with some embarrassment.
“No doubt, but it might not be exactly what you expected from me,” Taylor said quietly, then he took a breath and continued. “In addition to being a researcher in a very particular field, you have a very specific psychological profile; a strong character, a very competitive nature, you are extremely cynical and you have a taste for extreme sports...furthermore, you are not afraid to die.”
Barnett did not know where Taylor was going with this. He would not have expected such a speech from Taylor, or from any other professor.
Taylor kept his voice level. “You are the worthy son of your father...I would say; however, you’re something of a strategist and a cleaner...how about going into the British Secret Intelligence Service?”
Barnett's eyes widened as if he could not believe Taylor’s words. “Are you kidding me, professor?” Barnett answered with boyish candor.
“For fuck’s sake, Cooper! Stop believing in the Tooth Fairy!” and Barnett had a flashback: these were the same words Professor Zimmermann had used!
“I am a recruiter, does that surprise you? You would have access to U.S. intelligence and could discover how your father died...that information might be useful for us, too. We still have some loose ends with your countrymen. However, what we’re after is your experience concerning certain strategic operations but...no more research lab...do you really think that the son of an American secret agent, knowing his father’s history, can compete for a Nobel Prize without any complications?
“Who will give you the funds you need for your projects? Don't you know that they would be the very same agencies... and perhaps fringe groups? And which countries might be involved, do you have any idea?
“Barnett, think about it, you can start again in the shadows. You don’t know it but your past history has already burned you and you risk working for some faction that is hostile to Mossad or getting yourself in trouble.
“You're not prepared for what is coming, not yet...one year’s training in the field and one year’s training in strategic techniques… a new identity. Think about it. Here’s my number.”
Taylor handed him a phone number that looked more like a code; then got up and quickly left, paying the bill on his way out.
Barnett stayed up all night, consumed by anger.
He had tricked himself into believing that his demon had calmed over the last two years, but it had been lying there waiting. It had no intention of leaving him in peace, now it tormented him with loneliness and unanswered questions.
“Fight the demon!” Zimmermann-Davis had told him years before.
“Son of a bitch, he knew how it would end...he knew that I wouldn’t stand a chance and that I would still have to deal with all the shadows of my father’s past to conquer my own! Fuck! I have nothing to lose...I have absolutely nothing to lose...fight...fight the fucking demon Barnett...keep fighting!”
At four o'clock in the morning, Taylor answered when Barnett rang the number. Taylor wasn’t sleeping. This was on September 6, 2006, and it was raining in London.
PART TWO
Lisunov Li-2
11
On June 20, 2007 Barnett Cooper officially ceased to exist. He had just finished his last three-months of training in a camp tucked away in an abandoned mine in Zimbabwe, somewhere between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers.
Like a phoenix, he rose again from his own ashes the following day, the Summer solstice, under the alias Mark Savannah – code name Lisunov Li-2.
By June 21 he was back in London, freshly shaven with short hair, attending a British Secret Intelligence Service meeting in a derelict warehouse along the Thames that looked like a security checkpoint.
“Look closely at this man,” said F. Shaw, the director of Operating Unit 27, as he pointed to the video. “These videos, shot at different times over the last years, would appear to show at least three different individuals, but in reality it is always Uday Bouda. Bouda has had at least four plastic surgery operations on his face. His fingers and his palms are so smooth that he doesn’t even need gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints.
“He has eliminated all distinguishing marks, and in the past two years only an iris scan carried out remotely using very sophisticated instruments has determined that these three men are in fact the same person.
“He has changed three times in two years. Here is how Bouda looked during the early nineties,” he continued, indicating a color photo.
“Bouda is not an ordinary international terrorist. He is, and here let me tease our American colleagues for one moment, the main goodwill ambassador of the "Axis of Evil".
“Leaving aside this incredibly obsolete legacy of the Cold War, we have detailed reports from our sources stating that Bouda is ready to launch a large scale attack on the West, backed by the usual rogue states.”
Shaw poured himself a glass of water and drank it, pausing for a moment.
Mark had a feeling that the meeting was going to be a long one. Bouda’s various surgically carved faces represented the history of terror of the last ten years, and as for his guerrilla experience, he had been involved in everything.
“We have to go back to the late eighties to get a complete picture of the situation and the operational profile of this man,” continued Shaw.
“The victory in Afghanistan of the Sunni mujahideen financed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States and trained by the ISI under the supervision of the CIA, forced Gorbachev to withdraw Soviet forces in February 1989; U.S. policy was to gain access to hydrocarbons in the Gulf, while at the same time guaranteeing the security of Israel, avoiding any threat of interference from the Soviets.
“Bouda was an ISI operative trained in guerrilla warfare by the CIA in Pakistani camps, and was one of the bridges between the CIA and ISI.
“At the time, whenever the mujahideen conquered territory they forced the local farmers to cultivate opium as a fee for their freedom, and some CIA agents then took control of the heroin trade, one being Bouda, who made a personal fortune and no one ever considered stopping him.
“In fact, the CIA’s mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviet forces, and the Pakistani intelligence service got stronger and expanded its influence through Uday, so both organizations just let him do whatever he pleased.
“Bouda can be seen in a short CIA movie shot in Mogadishu in 1996. He’s attending the secret summit where the International Hezbollah planned the second Chechen war that began in 1999.
“The ISI provided weapons and experts in guerrilla warfare with the aim of encouraging the armed conflict and Bouda supervised the operation; he knew of their shared interests and put the Chechen and Mujahideen forces into contact with each other, and at the same time he kept up his private heroin trafficking.
“Then Uday left the scene for a few years. We lost his trail until he reappeared in Pakistan in 2002. Here is a photo taken in Rawalpindi, he's the one wearing the light-colored Afghan cap.
“It is no coincidence that the U.S. President spoke in front of the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 12, 2002. During his speech on Iraq, he declared that Saddam Hussein was to withdraw, or immediately and unconditionally destroy, his weapons of mass destruction.
“Twelve days later, the British Prime Minister made public a report from our own secret intelligence services which confirmed the development and production of these weapons, and stated that within a short time the Iraqi regime would be able to produce weapons with nuclear warheads.
“On February 5, 2003, the U.S. Secretary of State also brought "the proof" to the United Nations.
“The offensive in Iraq started in March, but no chemical or biological weapons were found, let alone nuclear bombs.
“Saddam, as you remember, had no nuclear arsenal and his armed forces were in such ruinous condition that they would not have been able to use any chemical or bacteriological weapons.
“Finally, I’ll get to the point: it turns out that it was Bouda’s operatives that provided the information on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which was then given credit – how we’re not exactly sure – by the CIA and our own services for the purpose of diverting attention onto Iraq and its now "burned" regime. And the point? Iraq had been sacrificed in order to pave the way to set up a worldwide terrorist network to strengthen the Islamic jihad in concert with al-Qa'ida.
“Uday Bouda must be stopped: he must be hunted down and terminated. This manhunt, carried out with the support of the U.S. Secret Service, will finally clean up the image of both services after the regrettable performance of 2003.”
Shaw sat down, picked up a pen and looked at the members of his unit seated motionless on their chairs.
Mark Savannah stretched out his left arm and looked at his watch.
It was only three o’clock in the afternoon but it seemed to him that at least five hours had passed since the meeting began, and he realized that everyone was watching him.
He was a newcomer and he was an American.
He wondered if the others knew he was the son of a former U.S. agent. He did not know any of them, he had never heard their names and they had not exchanged any pleasantries while taking their places around the table.
Shaw's secretary entered the room and placed what looked like a small stylized drawing in black and white in front of each of them, then left immediately, though not before having left six steaming cups of coffee on the table.
Shaw stood up again and slowly began to speak, “These are the instructions. You have a couple of hours to memorize them after the meeting: afterwards they will self destruct.
“Savannah, you will seek out and terminate Bouda. You are the best candidate, not only because of your psychological and professional profile, but also because you are a new agent and so you can move more easily than the others.
“Moreover, U.S. intelligence proved to be more cooperative having been informed that you are American. You can count on their support, especially in Afghanistan, where Bouda was last seen.
“The other members of Unit 27 will support you according to their own tasks. They will also make travel easier for you, and they will always be ready for a possible rescue mission...which will not be necessary, because, after having seen what you did in Lagos and then on the banks of the Zambezi, Savannah, it is clear that you are no rookie!
“I will be your only contact for this mission. You have all the necessary information...it's three forty-five pm and the meeting is now closed.”
In accordance with internal procedures, Shaw sent a message to the central unit with the meeting’s start and end time, then he stood up and shook hands with his colleagues and approached Mark.
“Good luck Savannah, just get your ass back home. I don’t want to spend taxpayers' money on your funeral,” he said, shaking Mark’s hand. Then he followed the others out of the room.
Mark thought to himself with some satisfaction: ‘None of them knows that my father was a secret agent, and even the Americans involved in the mission don’t know my real name. That's better for me, I’ll be able to get to the heart of the matter of my father’s death. After all, I joined SIS especially because of the fucking demon that won’t leave me alone!’
He went out into the open air. He knew that he would not have enough time to go home, so he walked a couple of miles and sat in the shade of a torn sail in the cabin of an old abandoned boat moored on the river.
He pulled out his smartphone and the stylized drawing that Shaw's secretary had given him, and he started the hologram.
He still had twelve hours before he left from Geneva to Tehran with a small group of Swiss tourists, passing through Dubai airport, carrying only a suitcase of special mountain clothes.
They would spend only one night in Tehran, and would then leave for the Elburz Mountains, where they would go hiking and sleep in several cabins in the mountains. Afterwards, they would be transported by helicopter to the Afghanistan border.
They would cross the border at Islam Qala and then go on to Herat. The message ended in a code without giving any additional information.
Mark memorized the code. It read Durrani Empire 1747.
Suddenly, the drawing began to dissolve in a small flame, leaving just a faint trace of smoke that quickly disappeared.
Mark went home to take a shower and, while he was preparing his luggage, a courier delivered an anonymous package containing his new temporary documents: Marc Lebaron, a Swiss citizen living in Geneva.
‘Thank goodness I know the city well,’ he thought. ‘Otherwise, what would I have to talk about between one hike and another?’
He knew that it was not a random choice: he spoke English, French, Russian and Arabic as if they were all his mother tongue.
He was hungry and he wanted to see Elizabeth so he called her on the phone.
“Hello Elizabeth, how are you? Would you like to go out to dinner? I’m leaving for a conference in the U.S. tomorrow, and I'll be away for a couple of weeks.”
“Hi Mark, you didn’t tell me about the conference...are you always so distracted? It disturbs me when you don’t tell me these things. Should I pick you up at the hospital around 8:00 pm as usual?” asked Elizabeth.
“Thanks a lot. See you later then. And I'll book the table. We can eat fish tonight!” He hung up.
Twenty minutes later, Mark walked into Guy's Hospital from the rear entrance using his special pass.
He went to his "office" on the second floor and put on his smock. Before going downstairs to meet Elizabeth, he checked that the call center cover was working properly and that it was efficient as always.
Elizabeth was waiting for him in the lobby. She was tall and elegant, two years older than him, and a lawyer by profession.
They had been dating for four months and she had not the slightest suspicion concerning who Mark really was, but she knew all about his university studies, his PhD and that he was American. She was under the impression that he was a psychiatrist and sometimes bluntly urged him to seek jobs in more prestigious health care organizations.
She could not understand why, after a brilliant career at the university and his PhD, he had not stayed at King's College. She had asked him once and Mark had cut her short, saying that there had been controversy concerning his contribution to the last clinical studies, and therefore he had preferred a medical career.
Elizabeth could never even begin to imagine how painful his decision to join the secret services had been, how he had been forced into giving up the research that he loved so much.