The Exile Read online

  Kealey slid the documents back across the table. “Okay, but what does that have to do with—”

  “I’m getting to that,” Harper said. “Four hours after the initial transfer, a man with the proper ID and account number showed up at the Paris branch of BSI. This man, David Khadir, met with a senior manager and started wiring the money out of France. It took about two hours to send the full five million to fifty separate accounts in a half dozen countries, including Switzerland and Luxembourg. I’m sure you know what that means.”

  Kealey did. “He was smurfing the funds.”

  “Right.”

  Kealey took a second to think that over. Smurfing was one of the most reliable ways to hide both the source and final destination of illicit funds being transferred through the world’s financial institutions. He’d learned about the process two years earlier, Harper knew, when they had worked with the Financial Action Task Force to trace the electronic funds of an Iraqi terrorist. In fact, Harper had been put on to Khadir and the wire transfer he received one month earlier after going back to the FATF to get the information, as the task force was one of the few official entities that could cut through the red tape so quickly.

  He explained this to Kealey. “I brought it to their attention…and as it turned out, they already had their eye on Khadir,” he said. “The story doesn’t relate to us, so I won’t get into it. Suffice it to say that the FATF doesn’t know everything, including Khadir’s real name. He’s actually Simon Nusairi, a Sudanese national who’d been living in Marseille till very recently. I’ve got a reasonably extensive dossier on him courtesy of a friend in Interpol.”

  Kealey looked at him. “The Agency dealing with Interpol? You must be kidding.”

  “Who said anything about the Agency?” Harper smiled. “I said it was a friend…but we’ll get around to that later.” He started to push across another manila folder, but Kealey blocked it with his hand.

  “Why don’t you just tell me why you were looking into this in the first place?” he said. “How does it relate to Lily Durant?”

  Harper sighed and pulled his drink in front of him but didn’t bother to lift the glass. He realized to his disappointment that it was empty. “After that last meeting at the White House, I started to dig a little bit deeper,” he said, gesturing for the pretty waitress. “The fact that Stralen was involved put me onto the Cowan Group, which is actually a front for a secret fund administered by the Department of Defense. It comes out of their operations and maintenance budget. There are six of these funds, one for each regional Unified Combat Command. Essentially, the DOD set them up to finance CINC discretionary projects.” He didn’t have to explain the term; they both knew it referred to the combatant commander in chiefs of the regional commands. “Usually that means training and joint exercises, but the money can be used however the commander sees fit. There’s virtually no oversight. Each regional commander has access to one of these accounts, and as it happens, the Cowan Group is administered by U.S. Africa Command, the newest UCC.”

  “What kind of money are we talking about?”

  “A fraction of the DOD’s annual budget, but it’s enough to suit their purposes,” Harper said. “After the wire transfer to SB Holdings in Paris, the balance in the Cowan account was just under fifteen million dollars. I imagine the other commanders have access to similar figures.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “About the Cowan Group, you mean?” Harper smiled. “Before I was promoted out of Operations, the OMB accidentally sent me a copy of the report.” The OMB was a reference to the White House Office of Management and Budget, one of the least effective entities in the U.S. government. “This was when they were first setting up AFRICOM, so with all the paperwork flying around, it’s not surprising they slipped up. I filed the information away and destroyed the report. They caught the mistake eventually, but they had no proof I ever received it, so the whole thing was swept under the rug. They never bothered to open a new account.”

  “They may have let it slide the first time around, but they’ll know something’s up if you sent this as an official request through the FATF.”

  “It wasn’t official,” Harper said. “I’ve made a few friends on the task force, mostly because I gave them credit where credit was due. Thanks to my testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee last year, they saw a big boost in their funding. They checked this out as a favor to me. There won’t be a paper trail.”

  “So how does Nusairi figure in?” Kealey asked. “How did you find him to begin with?”

  “Once I found out that David Khadir authorized the dispersal of the incoming funds in person, I convinced the bank president in Paris to give us the security tapes from the end of April.”

  “With a little help from your Interpol friend?”

  “And gratefully so,” Harper said with a nod. “I flew over and picked them up personally, though. The bank president was kind enough to point Khadir out, and we ran the tape through our face-recognition software. The search came up empty, but MI Five got a hit and sent us what they had.”

  “The Security Service, Interpol…sounds like you’ve been having quite the house party for spooks,” Kealey said. “How do the Brits know Nusairi?”

  “He was arrested in London a few years back for assaulting a police officer during a protest outside the Sudanese embassy. Put the bobby in the hospital. They gave him a light sentence…eighteen months…but he didn’t even do that much time. If I remember correctly, he was out in under a year.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kealey’s mind was plainly working. “He must have some major family connections.”

  Harper nodded. “His uncle was Khalil Osman—the businessman behind the Kenana sugar plantation. His father, a partner in the Kenana development, headed the Sudanese consulate in London for almost two decades.”

  Kealey grunted. “Did he graduate from Oxford or Cambridge?”

  “Oxford.”

  “Law degree?”

  “Social anthropology,” Harper said with a small grin. “For all his wealth and privilege, Nusairi was a vocal critic of Bashir who developed a groundswell of support among the poor people of Sudan. They tolerated him to a point, but when he went from advocating civil disobedience to inciting riots, his family intervened to keep him from being imprisoned or worse. And even then they eventually had to disown him to save face.”

  “Which I’m sure only enhanced his popularity.”

  “Exactly…He became a kind of folk hero,” Harper said. “The man who renounced all the advantages of birth to champion common causes. Give him credit—he had the courage of his convictions.”

  “And a violent streak.”

  “That too,” Harper said. “The Bashir regime deported him, of course, and from there he dropped off the grid. This is the first we’ve heard of him in a half decade.”

  “What does Nusairi think of Omar al-Bashir?” Kealey wondered aloud.

  “Well, the protest he was arrested at was a demonstration against Bashir’s regime, if that’s any indication. Specifically, they were protesting the ethnic cleansing in Darfur. That was about the time it really started to get into the news and everything. The genocide, I mean.”

  “So five million dollars is wired from a secret DOD account to a Sudanese expatriate living in Marseille. Why? And where did it go from there?”

  “Well, I’m sure Joel Stralen could give us the answers to those questions,” Harper said dryly, a trace of anger touching his voice. “But I doubt he will. Neither will the AFRICOM commander, though I’d be surprised if he knew anything more than we do.”

  “So you want to ask Nusairi in Marseille,” Kealey said, coming directly to the point.

  Harper looked at him. “Our most recent line on his whereabouts is that he’s in Africa now,” he said. “And I want you to talk to him.”

  Kealey grimaced and started shaking his head. “I don’t—”

  “Hold on,” Harper said, cutting him off before he c
ould refuse. “There are a few other things you should know before you make your decision.” Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the second photograph, glanced at it, and set it down on the table. Pushing it over, he said, “Do you know who that is?”

  Kealey managed to avoid the photograph for a few seconds. But Harper could tell that he’d already heard too much. He could read the physical cues—a slight raising of his right eyebrow, the way he leaned forward in his chair.

  Finally, Kealey looked down. The man in the picture had dark hair and narrow, friendly features, and wore steel-rimmed spectacles of the kind that looked as if they might have been issued during World War II. Though Harper knew it would have been more than ten years since Kealey had last seen the face, it was apparent he nevertheless recognized him at once.

  His eyes opened wide, and his head jerked up. Staring at Harper, he said, “Where did you get this?”

  “Khartoum. The image was captured by a security camera outside the embassy ten days ago. I take it you know him.”

  Kealey nodded absently and looked back at the photograph. “I can remember teasing him about those glasses…. It was one of our lighter moments in Sarajevo.”

  “I’m sure they must have been few and far between.”

  Kealey glanced up at Harper without comment, returned his attention to the snapshot. “He hasn’t changed much in fourteen years,” he said. “At least not noticeably. There are no gray hairs, no new wrinkles, not even a couple of extra pounds.” He sat lost in thought for a moment, then shook his head and looked up. “What’s Cullen White doing in Khartoum?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Harper said. “But we have some ideas, thanks to our man in Khartoum. His name’s Seth Holland….”

  Harper explained how Holland had talked the detachment commander into turning over the MSG’s security footage, despite the ambassador’s orders to the contrary. He explained how Holland and White had worked together briefly back in ‘95. The event that brought them together was the interrogation of a Serb general captured in Srebrenica in the closing months of the Bosnian War. Given the fourteen-year gap and White’s minor role in the interrogation, it wasn’t surprising that Holland hadn’t been able to put a name to the face. But that didn’t matter, as White was quickly identified when the recordings were sent via an encrypted link to Langley. A twenty-year veteran of the Operations Directorate picked him out just by looking at a still image from the embassy’s cameras, and the Agency’s bio-metric identifiers proved the officer right. The only thing they hadn’t been able to figure out was why White had met with Walter Reynolds in the first place.

  “Why can’t you just ask him?” Kealey asked when Harper was done explaining it. “Call Reynolds up and ask him. See what he says. He’s a diplomat…. The worst thing he’ll do is tell you to go fuck yourself. Even if that happens, you’ll be no worse off then you are right now.”

  “We can’t ask him for the same reason we can’t go to Fitzgerald,” Harper pointed out. “Anything I say to them is bound to find its way to the president, and he clearly doesn’t want us involved in this. We have to tread carefully if we’re going to get any answer…. I can’t risk having him shut me down completely.”

  Kealey thought about that for a second. “Do you think White is still in Sudan?”

  “I don’t know.” Harper could see where Kealey was going with this. “It’s anyone’s guess. Holland has only four case officers under his command, and he hasn’t been there long enough to cultivate any real assets. So he’s limited in what he can do. He’s had a few locals watching the embassy since we identified White, but he has yet to make a reappearance. However, another man has showed up on several occasions, and thanks again to our friends at MI Five, we’ve managed to put a name to the face.”

  The deputy director opened the last folder and withdrew a grainy 8 x 10, explaining its significance as Kealey examined the photograph. “His name is Ishmael Mirghani. He’s forty-six years old, a Sudanese national and a graduate of Assiut University in Egypt, where he received a degree in electrical engineering. That was over a decade ago. We don’t have any record on him prior to that year, but we have plenty since.”

  “A late bloomer,” Kealey observed.

  “Maybe, but he bloomed nonetheless,” Harper said. He paused as their waitress left a fresh drink in front of him, smiled at her, and reached for it. “How much do you know about the predominant rebel groups in Sudan?”

  “Not much.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Harper said and brought his glass to his lips. He was disappointed, but he wasn’t surprised. Kealey had operated in Africa only once before and never in Sudan. He had no reason to know about the country’s politics. “For the time being all you need to know is that the two most prominent ones are the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, otherwise known as the JEM. Both have been thorns in Bashir’s side—enough so that Bashir was forced to cut a deal with them. He later reneged on the agreement, but they’re still a factor. Especially now. We’ve seen a lot of increased rebel activity since the attack on Camp Hadith, particularly in the south, and there has been a series of mass demonstrations against Bashir’s regime in the larger cities, including Khartoum. Holland has been sending me detailed reports on all of it, and frankly, I’m just as concerned as he is.”

  Kealey made a winding gesture. “And Mirghani fits in exactly how…?”

  “He was a senior figure in the SLA until recently. A field commander at the very least.”

  “He isn’t with the group any longer?”

  Harper shook his head. “We believe he may have left and founded his own offshoot,” he said. “The Darfur People’s Army.”

  “Original.” Kealey chuckled a little.

  “What can I tell you?” Harper said. “Anyway, so far Mirghani’s managed to stay off the regime’s radar. And ours, for the most part. We don’t know why he left the SLA. Nor do we know whether he’s still connected to the group, or gone completely off on his own toot, or formed affiliations with other rebel factions…the JEM being a possibility. Either way, it makes me think something’s brewing in the hinterlands.”

  Kealey nodded thoughtfully and said nothing.

  A long moment passed. Sipping his drink, Harper rode out the silence. The escalating situation in Sudan—particularly in Darfur—had been all over the news for the past several weeks, and he supposed he’d understated just how serious it was. To put it bluntly, the country was on the verge of a full-blown revolution.

  “So what was Mirghani doing at the embassy?”

  “We don’t know. All we know for sure is that he met with Reynolds on three separate occasions, and each time he left with the MSG’s security footage. According to Holland, Reynolds ordered the detachment commander to turn over the disks, just like he did with White. We have no idea what they’ve been talking about, but we’re ninety percent sure Mirghani is working with White. Or for him, maybe.”

  “I assume you’ve tried following him.”

  Harper nodded. “We’ve tried, sure. But the man knows what to look for. He’s different from most of the rebels in that respect. Whoever trained him did a damn good job…. We haven’t been able to track him. He shakes the surveillance every time.” A shrug. “I suppose it doesn’t help that we’re using locals and not trained officers. The problem is that Mirghani would spot our men in a matter of minutes, and we can’t risk losing him altogether.”

  “Fair enough. But how is Mirghani tied in with White?”

  “We don’t know that, either,” Harper admitted. “What we do know is that Mirghani can be directly linked to Simon Nusairi. They’re cousins. First cousins, related by blood. I guess family makes the world go round.”

  “And here I thought it was money.”

  Harper shrugged. “In this case the two are inseparable.”

  Kealey showed the faintest grin. Watching him, Harper almost could have imagined this was another time and place. Say, five years ago at the Dub
liner Pub in D.C. Kealey had liked the amber draught ale and hot corned beef sandwiches. He’d usually gone for Guinness and the shepherd’s pie.

  Harper reached for his whiskey and drank in silence.

  “Okay,” Kealey said after a while. His thin smile was gone. “So what do we have here? One month ago five million dollars disappears from a secret DOD slush fund. Soon thereafter it lands with Nusairi, a Sudanese national living in France. Nusairi is wholly opposed to Bashir’s regime, just like his cousin, who is almost certainly working with Cullen White, a disgraced former CIA officer. It seems pretty clear that the money was meant for White to disperse all along.”

  Harper nodded. “That would be my guess as well,” he said.

  “But what’s he using it for?”

  “That’s another question we can’t answer right now,” Harper said. “But the recent upheaval can’t be a coincidence. The demonstrations, the increased rebel activity in the south…I just don’t buy the timing. Nor do I believe a word of that meeting I had to sit through in April. Stralen is up to something, and he’s managed to pull the president into it. Fitzgerald and Thayer are involved, too, and they’re doing their best to shut the Agency out. I want to know what’s happening, Ryan. So does the director, and that’s why I’m here. We want you to talk to Nusairi. We need you to figure out what’s going on in Sudan.”

  “Now there’s a surprise.” Kealey pushed the photograph of Mirghani back across the table. “And what exactly do you want from me? Am I supposed to talk to Nusairi, or would you like me to the find the man who killed Lily Durant? Because last time I checked, we don’t have any idea who did it, and Bashir certainly isn’t about to hand him over, assuming he even knows who’s responsible.”

  “We’re hoping Nusairi might be able to shed some light on that.”