WASHINGTON DC: The Sadir Affair (The Puppets of Washington Book 1)

  Chapter 60

  One word could describe the Willard Room—sumptuous. Champagne carts welcoming every patron, tables set with exquisite cutlery, soft lighting, and discreet servers gave one the impression of stepping in a lavishly decorated, yet private dining room. The maitre d’ led the couple to their table and asked them if they wished to have some champagne before their meal. Darlene accepted readily and Lucien nodded, “Yes. That will be fine.”

  As soon as they were settled, Lucien seemed anxious to hear Darlene’s summary of the case.

  “Okay, now that you’re ‘all freshened up’ and that you have champagne in front of you, would you mind drawing the first sketch for me?”

  Darlene looked at Lucien. Men’s impatience always amazed her. They never seemed to enjoy the journey to their destination. They’re always in a rush to get to where ever they’re going. She shook her head. “Why don’t we have dinner first? I’m famished.”

  Lucien stretched to the back of his seat, looking disappointed. “Are you always the impossible child, hiding everything you think or do behind a wonderful smile?”

  She flashed him one, and drank some more of the champagne. “I guess, you could say that…, but really, the reason I’m stalling is because I’d like to hear what you’ve got that will not hold water in court, and see if I can help in any way.”

  “Where does that generosity come from? You must want something…”

  Darlene shook her head. “No, Lucien, this is not generosity, this is looking after my client’s interest, but you’re right, I want something in return.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An assurance that you treat Talya fairly during the trial, and that you realize the woman is the key to this affair. She can, and if you let her, she could blow this case wide open. She knows a lot more than she’s willing to divulge at this point…”

  “Are you saying she’s hiding something?”

  “You see”—Darlene pointed a finger at the US Attorney—“that’s exactly what I mean; you’re conditioned to think everyone is guilty until proven innocent.”

  Lucien raised an eyebrow. “I’m not!”

  “But you are, Lucien.” The Canadian attorney laughed quietly. “You are conditioned to think that every potential guilty party has to pay for whatever they may or may not have done.”

  He lowered his eyes and played with his salad-fork distractedly. Lucien didn’t want to answer. He knew Darlene was right.

  “Okay,” Darlene said, “let’s backtrack a little. Give me something, a fact, a piece of evidence—anything—that presents a problem for you and I’ll see if I can help.”

  Lucien finally looked up. “I hate this.”

  “What?”

  “I hate to hear you describe me as an unfair man.”

  Darlene peered into the eyes that were riveted on her face. “Listen, Lucien, I am a friend and as such, it is my duty to tell you what I see in you or what could be detrimental to your career.”

  “And you think you can change me? I’m too old to change, Darlene…”

  “I would never be as presumptuous as to think I could change you. No. I just want you to look in the mirror and see what you’re doing. Think about it and tackle your problems from another standpoint. That’s all.”

  Lucien nodded and retreated to the back of the chair again. He no longer looked at the beautiful woman sitting opposite him. “Okay, let’s say, we do it your way, and take the pieces of this puzzle that don’t fit and see what’s wrong with them—then what?”

  “You know, this puzzle analogy is a tired one, but it is still a good one. But to answer your question, I should think I could provide the answers that would make the pieces fit, much like the boxes I brought you this afternoon. By being an outsider of your inner-circle, I could obtain bits and pieces of evidence that may be just the thing you’re looking for.”

  “And for doing that, all you want is for your client to be treated fairly?”

  Darlene sipped on her champagne and nodded. “Yes, but more than that I want you to hear the whole story. Apart from Talya, Prince Khalid is the only other person who knows what happened since this affair began.”

  “Okay, let’s do it then…, but not here. It would be better if you came back to the office in the morning...”

  “No problem. Let’s order something now before I get drunk... that champagne is really good...”

  Lucien chuckled and waived for a server to come to their table.

  An hour or so later, as they were sipping on their coffees, Darlene felt it was time for her to give Lucien what he wanted. “Alright, are you ready for my sketch now?”

  “More than ever.” Lucien smiled.

  “Okay, here it goes... When Sadir was informed that Talya, with Mark and Dr. Hendrix, was driving north on her way to Ottawa, he saw his chance of killing two birds with one stone. He knew Slimane was hiding in Flint already and Talya was on her way to Detroit—a stone-throw from Flint—he pointed the finger to Slimane and to Talya, telling Mossad they were in it together and they were responsible for the sending of faulty weapons to Israel. But what Sadir didn’t count on was Slimane suspecting him of treachery. Slimane knew that the only way to show a different picture to Mossad was to come out in the open. That’s when he made his way to Paris to meet Prince Khalid. He had no idea that he would find Talya and Mark Gilford together with the prince in Paris. During the meeting and when Slimane switched tack and pretended that he wanted Prince Khalid to kill his uncle, Prince Abdullah—foiling Sadir’s plans to have Mossad blamed for the killing—Sadir put another plan into action. As soon as Slimane returned to the States, he went to Flint where Agent Meshullam was waiting for him.

  After Slimane’s death and Talya’s injury, Sadir thought he was out of the woods for a while until Prince Khalid showed up and told him he wanted to make his way to Australia to confront Samuel, the man who had shot Talya. At that point, Sadir saw an opportunity to get the prince eliminated and have Mossad, once again, blamed for an open attack on Saudi Arabia.

  Then, he made another mistake; he asked Gibson to send Talya to Sydney to get her out of the way under the pretext that, if she didn’t, she would be arrested for killing a CIA agent in Florida.

  Gibson was uncomfortable with the idea—he knew Talya had not killed anyone—and asked Mr. Badawee, CSIS’s legal advisor, to guide him through this maze. Badawee advised him to have the Australian prepare an arrest warrant against Samuel Meshullam and to have him extradited.

  Once advised of this change of course, Sadir knew he had to get out from under the suspicious scrutiny of his colleagues and the CIA’s Deputy Director.

  He wanted to flee to Seattle and make his way by car to Vancouver from there. He wanted to take matters in his own hands. I think, at that point, he planned to kill Talya himself. He had rented an apartment adjacent to hers. Originally, I believe, he attempted to organize a confrontation between Samuel and Prince Khalid that would have ended up in a blood bath. Ultimately, and in view of the latest development, he then planned to shoot her while she was sitting on her terrace, although I haven’t seen the apartments in question. I can’t be sure at this point that Sadir is even a marksman who could aim from any distance and hit his mark.

  The chain of events that followed was out of Sadir’s hands. He couldn’t stop the ball from rolling downhill until he was arrested.”

  Lucien had listened to Darlene’s entire exposé without saying a word. Now he fixed his gaze on her. “Very well done, Darlene, but you haven’t broached on the relationships that existed between Samuel Meshullam and Talya Kartz for one thing, and on what we discussed briefly this afternoon—showing Slimane was a victim rather than the man following Sadir’s orders.”

  Darlene drank the last of her coffee and peered again into her friend’s eyes. “That’s because I have some problems with this. I mean, all the way through we’ve been led to believe that Sadir was at the helm, that he was the one making all of these decisions, an
d to me this whole bluff is only a red herring designed to lead us down the wrong path.”

  Oddly enough to Darlene, Lucien nodded. “That’s exactly what I am thinking. Ever since we began looking for evidence against Sadir, we’ve been hitting brick walls. We’ve received bits and pieces from almost all parties concerned, but nothing that will hold up in court, let alone get a conviction against Sadir.”

  “Will the evidence I brought you this afternoon help in any way, or will it throw a wrench in the works?”

  Lucien waved a dismissive hand in front of him. “Oh no, don’t think that for a minute, and that’s why I was asking you to elaborate on the relationships between Talya, Samuel and Slimane, because I think these pieces may provide us with another way out of this mess.”

  “Okay then... Let’s go back ten years ago...” Lucien raised an eyebrow. Darlene smiled. “We are in Australia. Samuel Meshullam is in love with a woman by the name of Talya Krist...”

  “Woah… Hold on a minute... Are you telling me that Talya knew Samuel?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m saying…, and you shouldn’t sound so surprised if you’ve read the reports from Sydney—it’s all in there...”

  “Not exactly. What I’ve received or read was mainly showing that Meshullam was hiding out after Slimane’s killing and Talya’s shooting, but nothing related to their backgrounds or that they knew each other.”

  “Maybe CSIS, once they had read the Aussie’s report, didn’t want to promote the idea that Talya and Samuel knew each other, which could lead to the wrong conclusion, such as the conclusion you, yourself, drew earlier about the relationship that appeared to exist between Slimane and Talya. It sounds strange, though. Anyway, let me give you the background then.”

  “Okay, go ahead.” Lucien was uncomfortable with the idea that Fred Gibson was apparently holding back some vital evidence from him. He would have to get some answers from the man at some point.

  Darlene waited until she had Lucien’s attention once again. “As I said, this goes back ten years now.” Lucien nodded. “Samuel is avid to travel the world and he knows Talya can’t follow him—she was looking after her mother and couldn’t leave her—so he makes his way to Israel, and one thing leading to another, Mossad engages him and trains him to become one of their agents. Meanwhile, Talya returns to Vancouver after her mother’s death and is hired as an admin assistant at Carmine Resources.” Darlene paused and smiled at Lucien. She knew he was giving her a grilling. “A year later, Talya goes back to West Africa, where she was raised, to find out what happened to the half a million dollars that Carmine had entrusted in the hands of a Mr. Amadou Savoi. That’s when the troubles started.” Darlene took in a breath. “The rest you know, I guess.”

  “Yes I do, but I’d like to hear your summing up of the events that led up to this point…, do you mind?”

  Darlene drank a swig of water. She thought she was in court giving an opening statement. “Okay…, here we go. Talya soon finds out that Savoi is a small-time drug dealer at the stipend of a man named Osnoir. This Osnoir fellow was the lynchpin in the CIA’s operation, which was designed originally to exchange drugs for weapons—weapons that saw their way to Israel. Unbeknownst to Talya at the time, she was becoming a disruptive party in the CIA’s scheme and had to be side-tracked or otherwise eliminated. Prince Khalid comes on the scene at about that point. He soon realizes Talya is in danger for her life. The prince’s father played a part in Osnoir’s operation, but he didn’t know the CIA was the organizing party.

  “Then Khalid and Talya go to extreme to evade Osnoir and his goons for a while and when Osnoir dies in a car accident, Khalid is hoping to take Talya away from the turmoil and down to Cayenne where Carmine needs his help to get some of their geologists out of the jungle.”

  Lucien raised a hand in front of him. “Sorry to interrupt you, but that was a plot apparently designed to attract both the Prince and Talya into a trap, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but at the time, Carmine was led to think their men had been taken and held at ransom by some guerrillas. They had no idea there was a connection between the events that had occurred in Africa and what was happening in South America.”

  “But why would they send the Prince and Talya to the rescue? Wouldn’t it have been better to get the French authorities involved?”

  “Yes, and in fact Carmine did ask for the French’s help, but they were given the brush off.”

  “Do we know why?”

  “Yes we do. The French government didn’t know of any guerrilla’s deployment in the region, and that was the first clue that something was wrong with this whole thing.”

  “But again, why sending Khalid and Talya down there?” Darlene was a bit annoyed with Lucien going off on a tangent, and it showed on her face. “I’m sorry, but I’m just curious. I didn’t have a chance to interview these people myself yet, and since you have, I’d like you to use me as a sounding board, if that’s okay with you.”

  “That’s okay…,” Darlene said, playing with some of the breadcrumbs on the tablecloth. “Okay…, Carmine needed the prince’s assistance because that was part of his job. He had offered his services to transport men in and out of their various mine-sites.”

  “Okay, what about Talya? Why would she be going to the rescue of geologists and put herself in danger?”

  “Carmine didn’t ask her to go to Guyana. There were only two reasons for which she was to accompany the prince on the journey.”

  “What were those?”

  “Well…, she spoke French for one thing, but the main reason was that the trip would take her to Florida, where Talya decided to chase the man whom she thought was at the origin of the drug trafficking in West Africa—Ben Slimane. Slimane, was told she was Jewish, and from that point on, as Mark Gilford surmised, he tried to protect her any which way he could. While doing that, he forgot that he himself had become a target.”

  Darlene stopped to drink some water, which gave Lucien an opportunity to ask the next question. “Okay, that clarifies a lot, but that still doesn’t tell me why Talya didn’t tell anyone she knew Samuel when she, Mark and Dr Hendrix met him on the road.”

  “Huh-huh... and I asked her the same thing.”

  “And what did Talya say?”

  “She said that since other things happened on that trip, beginning with Mark being shot after the episode on the Marianne…”

  “Hold on... Are you saying Mark Gilford was shot after the Marianne incident? I don’t believe this! How come I wasn’t told about this? Was that in his statement, or am I becoming blind?”

  “No, Lucien, you’re not becoming blind—just kept in the dark about most things that could hurt the case against Sadir.”

  “You mean Gilford kept quiet because he’s in on this?”

  “No, Lucien. Remember what I told you before dinner; look in the mirror and don’t accuse anyone before you know the whys and wherefores, okay?”

  “Alright, alright, go on for heaven’s sakes... I’m getting a headache.”

  “Okay…, Talya didn’t want to let Samuel know she had recognized him because he also pretended that he had never met her, for one thing, and since she had no idea why they were being chased…”

  Lucien couldn’t hold his tongue. “Chased now? What the hell are you saying…?”

  “Just settle down, we’ll get to all that in detail in the morning, but for now let me finish...”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”

  “They were being chased, as I said. That’s a verified fact. I have interviewed the three people who intervened at the time and who offered Mark, Talya and Dr Hendrix their assistance in Atlanta. So, given all of these factors, Talya didn’t want to let anyone know that she knew Samuel—she didn’t know if he had remained a friend or had become a foe in the interim she had not seen him. And since he didn’t acknowledge knowing her in the first instance, she kept her mouth shut.”

  It was Lucien’s turn to drink a big gulp of water. “How
long are you in town for?”

  Although unexpected, the question brought a smile across Darlene’s lips. “As long as it will take to get to a trial with a winning hand.”

  “And who’s paying your fees for this?”

  “Let’s just call the person an interested party, shall we?”