Full Black - Brad Thor [44]
Since no one really knew who he was until Chase discovered him, the man had traveled freely under his real name. Once he disappeared, Chase went back and studied that travel extensively. It wasn’t hard to put together a trail of tickets and every time his U.K. passport had been scanned. It was how he was able to answer Karami’s question. “I saw him about three months ago,” he replied. “Before he left for Chicago.”
“And who was he meeting in Chicago?” asked the leader of the Uppsala cell.
“Marwan Jarrah.”
“And then?”
“And then,” replied Chase, “New York and Los Angeles, but he left for Yemen and I never saw him again.”
Karami studied the young man’s face. There was no way he could know these things unless he was exactly who he said he was. Nevertheless, Sabah distrusted the newcomer, and Sabah had excellent instincts. “Tell me about the Sheikh. The Sheikh from Qatar.”
Sabah seemed interested in this question and leaned forward.
Chase looked at both men. “What Sheikh?”
“Surely,” stated the cell leader, “your uncle confided in you enough to mention the Sheikh.”
“Apparently not completely. He never mentioned any Sheikh.”
“You never questioned where the funding came from?”
“Why would I care? I’m an IT person,” replied Chase. “I had nothing to do with his finances.”
Chase’s mind was moving like a Rubik’s Cube, trying to align the information so that the entire puzzle fell into place. He had never heard about any Sheikh from Qatar. This was completely new to him.
Marwan Jarrah had been near the top of the organization’s pyramid, but Chase had always known he was taking his orders from someone above him. That someone had turned out to be Aazim Aleem. The next question was, who had been giving Aazim orders? Was he the ultimate string-puller, or was there someone else? And what was the Uppsala cell’s connection to all of this?
At least Harvath had played it smart. Had he thrown a hood over the nephew’s head and dragged him off to some black site in Eastern Europe for interrogation the minute they’d uncovered him, instead of surveilling him, the United States might not ever have learned about the Uppsala cell. It had come as a complete surprise even to the real Mansoor Aleem. His uncle Aazim had been smart. The man kept his network compartmentalized. He had to. It was like bulkheads. If one was compromised, it didn’t have to mean the entire ship was going down.
Which brought Chase back to the Uppsala cell. Why had Aazim set it up? What was its purpose? Was it an insurance policy of sorts, a guarantee that if he was taken out, their mission would continue? If so, did that mean he had entrusted them with the knowledge of his nephew? There were so many pieces of the puzzle missing.
As Chase spun the blocks of information in his mind, Karami asked him another question. It put him on edge, because it showed the cell leader was not fully convinced he was who he said he was. “Tell me about your uncle’s impairment.”
“What impairment?” Chase replied. “His hands?”
Karami said nothing. His face was impassive, inscrutable.
“He lost them in Afghanistan,” Chase continued. His gaze was locked on Karami. Just out of his field of view, he could feel Sabah’s eyes burning a hole right through him.
“How did he lose them?” asked the cell leader.
Chase could sense Sabah was ready to handle any incorrect answer. “Do you want the fable?” replied Chase. “Or the truth?”
“As the prophet, peace be upon him, said, we should appropriate truth for ourselves and avoid lying.”
Chase nodded. “It’s a shame, as the fable is much more glamorous. He lost his hands when a bomb he was building detonated prematurely. It also resulted in pitted scars around his left eye. This is why he