Chapter 17
to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The flight didn’t leave for another forty-five minutes, but he had nowhere else to go, unless
he decided to run. And he was thinking hard about that decision.
In what seemed like years ago now, when he’d made initial contact in his private cell, he’d fantasized about how he would
be freed. He thought about the reach of the Iranian Quds Force and the secrecy with which he was being held and had an image
of clandestine assassins dressed in black penetrating the cell right under the noses of his captors. What had occurred had
been completely the opposite.
He’d had plenty of time to reflect, as they’d driven through the night and into the next day, with the Ghost still unclear
if he had been saved or was facing something worse. The men spoke little to him. The driver—called either Tusk or Pinky, depending
on who was doing the talking—stated that he’d been saved, but the passenger—Flynn—showed him not a whit of concern.
The Ghost had been held captive a few different times in his life—once by the hired muscle of Hezbollah—and didn’t fear for
his life—yet. He’d learned from his past that if they’d wanted to kill him, they would have done so alongside Marley. What
he didn’t know was if they were like the Hezbollah thugs and transporting him to a much grimmer fate.
If so, he would bide his time and teach them a lesson, just like he had with Hezbollah. They would learn it just before they died.
They’d made the usual jokes about his slight stature and thick glasses, and he let them, lulling them into thinking he was
no threat. Eventually, they’d stopped at some godforsaken outpost in a desert, and he’d been handcuffed in a stifling concrete
shed with a metal roof. Flynn had given him an envelope and said, “Read it.”
He’d opened it, finding a letter written in Arabic, the words giving his system a shock. He’d looked up at Flynn, who’d said,
“Don’t worry. I can’t read that monkey shit and don’t care what it says. As long as they pay.”
He’d left the shed and the Ghost began reading. At first he felt it was some sort of trick. What he was reading couldn’t be
real, but it was, in handwritten black and white. It was from his old masters in the Iranian Republican Guards Corps. The
Quds Force assassins. They’d heard his messages and freed him from prison. He had no idea how they’d used an American biker
gang, but they had.
The letter told him to follow all instructions from the man known as Flynn, and they would provide documentation and transportation
to link up. Until then, he was at Flynn’s mercy.
Shane had come in while he was reading and dropped a case of bottled water and a box of granola bars next to his cot, then
left him alone. Two hours later, Flynn had entered with a short American Indian he’d called Chief, a stocky guy with a long
ponytail of black hair and a cleft palate that gave his face a misshapen appearance.
Chief had worked with him to create forged documents to get into Mexico. The following day, Flynn had returned with another
man, a Latino called Taco.
The Ghost would have thought the name an insult, but Taco didn’t seem to mind. He’d given the Ghost a Tohono O’odham tribal
identification. It was a temporary one, without a picture, but it looked official. Flynn had unlocked his handcuffs for the
first time and said, “Take all instructions from Chief and Taco and you’ll be free soon.”
He’d been driven to a location Chief called the Papago gate, which was nothing more than a trailer next to a hole in the border fencing.
Chief said, “Only Tohono O’odham members can cross here.
They can come and go as they please, but the border patrol tracks it.
The CBP records who crosses, but doesn’t ask for a reason.
Nobody can get back into the United States who didn’t register on the way out, so they keep a tally. ”
Taco smiled at him and said, “Since you’re a one-way trip, that doesn’t really matter, does it?”
They exited the vehicle and Chief said, “They’ll run our cards through a machine. For you, since your card is temporary and
not yet in the system, they’ll take a fingerprint.”
The Ghost balked and said, “Fingerprint? A forged document is one thing—especially since it doesn’t have my picture—but biometrics
is something else entirely.”
Taco said, “You want to stay here? Where you have nothing? Or go to Mexico, where your passport is waiting with your friends?”
The Ghost thought about it, and Chief said, “It’s only a local network. The tribe doesn’t let them use the prints for anything
like law enforcement. You’re on Papago land, and they’re just visiting. Technically, you’re not even in the United States.
We allow them to be here.”
He relented. They entered the trailer, finding a single Customs and Border Patrol officer sitting behind a desk watching YouTube
on a computer screen. On the desk was a card reader device and the leftovers of a homemade sandwich. The man stood up, closing
YouTube and bringing up another program. Chief slid in his card, saying, “Hey, Bill.”
Perfunctorily, Bill watched the screen, then said, “Next.”
Taco slid his card in. Bill said, “Next.”
Chief said, “My cousin lost his ID. He has a temporary.”
Bill bent down behind the counter and pulled out something the size of an electric pencil sharpener with a glass square at
the end. He said, “ID.”
The Ghost handed across his forged document and Bill barely glanced at it. He set it on the counter next to the machine and
said, “Right index finger.”
The Ghost put his finger on the piece of glass and held it in place.
He felt the sweat begin to grow on his brow, the adrenaline coursing through his body.
Taco and Chief had no knowledge of what he had done in the past or how he’d been captured and held.
They thought this was just a simple check, but the Ghost knew the reach of the United States government and feared it would be a trigger.
The machine dinged, and Bill handed across the temporary identification, saying, “Have a good one.”
And that was it. The Ghost exhaled, said, “Thank you,” and they were across, into Mexico.
They’d walked down a road for about twenty minutes, until they were away from the gate, meeting an SUV driven by a teenager.
He said not a word. They loaded up and drove until they reached a small cluster of buildings. The Ghost was led inside one
and a picture of his face was taken against a white backdrop. When it was done, Taco said, “This’ll take about thirty minutes
to get that picture into a passport. There’s a bathroom in the back with some things for you. Why don’t you go clean up?”
He did, finding a carry-on suitcase sitting on a chair. He opened it, seeing clothes and toiletries. He went to the sink and
turned on the water, waiting for it to get hot. He looked in the mirror while he waited, seeing a gaunt shell of himself looking
back. His eyes were sunken and he had a cut over his brow that he didn’t even remember receiving. He raised a finger and traced
it in wonder, musing that the cut represented his entire life. A bloody wound among so much other trauma it didn’t even rate
a memory.
Twenty minutes later he had returned to the car wearing his new clothes, his face cleanly shaved. He slid into the back and
Taco nodded approvingly. He said, “Probably another ten minutes.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then the Ghost asked, “Are we still on the reservation?”
Taco said, “Yeah, but you’ll be moving on from here.”
“Where am I going?”
“The international airport in Chihuahua. From there, I don’t know, but he will.”
The Ghost looked where Taco pointed and saw a man exiting the concrete building where he’d had his picture taken. Wearing a ballcap and covered in tattoos on his arms and neck, he was carrying a thick envelope.
Taco said, “That’s your guy.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s just another conduit. The last one.”
Taco rolled down the window and the tattooed man said something to him in Spanish. In short order, the Ghost was back on the
road, this time in a new vehicle with the tattooed man at the wheel. Sixteen hours and one plane flight later, he was now
sitting in the international airport in Mexico City with a plane ticket to Buenos Aires, a brand-new Lebanese passport, and
a cell phone, still no clearer on the mechanics of his rescue.
Now that he was completely free from both the American authorities and his questionable rescuers, he contemplated running.
Contemplated throwing the plane ticket to Argentina in the trash and just disappearing into the heart of Mexico City.
He didn’t.
For one, he spoke no Spanish, and was unclear of how he’d be treated on the streets. He only had the passport, and he knew
nothing of Mexico. He didn’t even know what reaction his escape had caused—if any. For all he knew, his face might be plastered
at every police station in the city.
Another reason was the letter. The IRGC had spared little expense and time to free him, the organization and planning extraordinary,
and he knew if he didn’t follow their instructions, he would need to fear them as well as the Americans. If he crossed them,
they would turn any sanctuary he sought into another trap. He could forget traveling home to Lebanon. Because of that fear
he had yet to turn on the cell phone he’d been given, wanting to keep his options open.
The only thing he had was the letter, both his anchor and his curse. It gave him instructions for what to do once he reached
Argentina, and was pleasant enough, but there was a tone of commitment.
He saw the gate agent open the jet bridge door and heard the announcement for his flight. Travelers began clustering around the gate, but he hesitated. He wanted more information before he took this final, possibly fatal step, but he had no one to turn to.
He’d dared not ask the men who’d rescued him about his future, sure they would have no knowledge of the letter’s content,
but he had plenty of questions about the payback for his rescue. Specifically, he had questions about the last sentence in
the letter.
The one saying the Quds Force had a mission for him.