The Cobra Identity

passionately. Her hands squeezed his bandages, causing a small trickle of tears from his eyes. She sensed his pain immediately, “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry! I can feel your bandages. They’ve got your whole upper body wrapped up!”

  He took several deep breaths saying, “Yeah, well they were running a special on tape. Let’s go to your car, I need to sit down. God, you look great!”

  He tried to bend over for his bag, but had to keep upright, using his legs to bend down.

  She said, “No, you don’t. I can carry that, you just hold on to me and walk this way.”

  They got to the car and Peter slipped gingerly into the passenger side. After putting his bag in the back seat, Rachael said, “You’re hurt worse than I thought. We need to go straight to the hospital. General Simmons has them all prepped.”

  “No, I want to be with you for a while. I promise not to die.”

  As they departed the main gate at Andrews, Rachael turned south, toward the Capital. The hospital was north of the base.

  That night, they had a quiet steak dinner together, just savoring each other’s company. Then after a few hours, she took him to the hospital, arriving at midnight and the staff had him in a bed with intravenous medications flowing in less than ten minutes. Rachael was with him while they got him settled.

  After the first attending doctor examined him, she asked to talk to him in the corridor, “Doctor, how badly is he wounded?”

  “Are you his wife?”

  “No, I’m his fiancée,” which was stretching the truth temporarily.

  The doctor explained, “All right, he has a deep laceration across his back from his lower right side to the upper left. A bullet cut through the contour of his body leaving deep gorges and split ribs in some places. They missed his spine, but a centimeter lower would have paralyzed him. He was amazingly lucky.

  “He’ll be here for a few days at least while we monitor his blood count. Bullets are dirty and the emergency treatment on the submarine probably missed some fragments. We’re mostly concerned about infection.”

  “Will he be normal after this?”

  “I should think so, if we can keep infection out. He’ll have a dandy scar though.”

  “I don’t care about that, I just want him home with me.”

  “I know, ma’am. We’ll take good care of him. A lot of high-level people are interested in his recovery.”

  Refuge

  Minister Ali Abu Qatada sat comfortably in the back of an armored Suburban, converted to meet Level B6 ballistic protection. Three identical black cars with dark tinted glass moved in convoy as they departed Andrews AFB, heading west on the Capital Beltway, I-295. He looked out the window, savoring his return to America after thirty years.

  His car had three men with him, all from the CIA. The passenger in the front seat turned to him and said, “Sir, we are heading to a secure base called Vint Hill Farms. When we get there, you will have several hours to rest and refresh yourself. It’s a completely secret facility. Sometime tomorrow, Director Lawrence will visit you. So, please relax and we’ll be there in a little over an hour.”

  “Thank you,” was all he said. He continued looking out the window feeling good. The CIA had provided him a travel kit aboard the airplane, so he felt content. He closed his eyes and relived the harrowing adventure he had been through escaping from Iran.

  When they arrived at “the farm,” they passed through layers of security. The complex was divided into several segments used by different intelligence agencies. The caravan drove for several miles along a small tree-lined road that undulated over small foothills and then turned into a long unmarked driveway leading to a small ranch house.

  The Minister’s car pulled into an attached garage, and the electric door closed before anyone left the car. Once inside the house, agents explained the security procedures. He would be getting a new identity as an American. After taking some general measurements for clothing, meals were to be delivered and he was asked about any dietary preferences. The kitchen was otherwise completely stocked. Two cars of agents would remain parked in the driveway at all times, but he would have the house to himself. It was all handled efficiently and he found himself alone in the house within fifteen minutes of arrival.

  Ali and Will

  Ali Abu Qatada had a fortunate upbringing. As a youngster, he lived in Europe and the United States as the son of an Iranian diplomat. In 1975, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in business, with a special interest in economics and finance. He enjoyed campus life and felt comfortable with the large population of fellow Iranians at the University. He made a few American friends and was active in the Muslim Studies Group on campus, which attracted students from all cultures interested in the emerging Middle East. Berkeley had more than a hundred Iranian students at the time. Sixty percent were women under the Shah’s progressive doctrine to elevate them to equal economic and social stature as men.

  Studying economics, he began to form an understanding of the distinctions between cultural, social and political viewpoints. His personal feelings became clearer from the constant intellectual stimulation provided on campus. He understood his Muslim roots and that crystallized his position as a fundamentalist. He favored the Iranian men as companions, shunning the women, who were living temporarily under the illusion of equality afforded by the Americans.

  He graduated in 1979, shortly after the fundamentalist uprising sent the Shah into hiding and brought the return of their greatest spiritual leader. Seventy-eight year old Ayatollah (meaning Gift of God) Rubollah Khomeini returned to Iran after more than a decade in exile. He had been imprisoned by the Shah in 1963 for his opposition to reforms and was expelled the following year to Iraq. He spent the last few months of his exile in Paris, from where he fomented the revolution against the Shah.

  Ali and his family were expelled by the U.S. State Department following the fall of the Shah, a U.S. puppet, in 1979. Ali was forever embittered by the way his family was treated by the Americans and for not being able to continue his education. For the next two decades his ideology fermented. As a western-educated man in the new government, he rose to high prominence over two decades. He was currently the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, but like many officials, also worked with the Minister of Intelligence and Security. For years after his expulsion, he refused to acknowledge any Americans as friends, but as time passed and his positions in government became globally oriented, this changed. In 1992, with the new Internet accessible to certain key government officials, he located his former classmate, William (Will) Lawrence, whom he had tutored years earlier in the Muslim Studies Group. Will was a mid-level government employee at the time. Over the years since then, their correspondence and friendship increased. They reunited briefly in Russia, when both were in Moscow for different official dealings.

  Willy Lawrence was a carefree California kid growing up in the boom era of expansion in Orange County, Southern California. His father was a carpenter in the 1960’s who began speculating in custom home building late in the decade. By 1970, his company was growing as a developer of production “tract” homes. Willy grew up in Laguna Beach and spent most of his free time surfing the coastline and living the beach boy existance. His father’s emerging wealth afforded Willy nice cars and the freedom to avoid working as a youth. He had no particular ambitions and was generally lazy, except in school. His parents allowed him to live unencumbered with chores as long as his grades were good. He went to private schools and had frequent tutors. His SAT scores were excellent, and he had no problem getting admitted to Berkeley.

  At the university, he didn’t have any idea what to study, so his first two years were spent “exploring” different majors. In his junior year, he settled on history as a major and was fascinated with the Middle East. His father had claimed distant kinship with Thomas Edward Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia.” T.E. Lawrence was famous for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt of 1916-18. He had a vivid personality and was a
prolific writer with an extraordinary breadth of tribal associations. He was widely regarded as the architect of the modern Middle East.

  When Willy, by then “Will,” settled on his major, it became an obsession that continued throughout his professional life. At Berkeley, he joined the Muslim Studies Group. He was an oddity at first since he was an “infidel,” but he was able to demonstrate his sincere eagerness to understand their culture, as T.E. Lawrence had done sixty years earlier. He felt attached to Ali Qatada who was a senior and felt heartbroken when Ali’s family was expelled from the country.

  After graduation, Will took a job in the State Department hoping someday to join the diplomatic corps and gain assignment to an Arab state. He rose to manage the Saudi Arabia “desk” responsible for approving export licenses and issuing travel advisories. When a position with the Central Intelligence Agency became available, he liked the job description and was accepted for the position.

  In November 1979, he was monitoring the student revolts in Iran that led to the taking of fifty-two American hostages from the embassy in Tehran. Will felt he could get them released if he were allowed to travel to Iran. His request was denied, but his willingness to take personal risks was noted and contributed to his rise through various