The Presence of Evil

by J. T. Patten

“Theresa?”

  Halliday turned to find a smaller man, perhaps fifty or so. He looked fit even in his slacks and shirt sleeves. His facial features were chiseled. Dark-haired although balding in the front and top with equally pitch eyes from what she could see in the dimly lit corridor.

  “Tresa. Yes, I am.” She extended a hand. “Jay?”

  “You got it. Sheesh. It’s like a Tinder date meeting, or what.” He laughed.

  Halliday took no offense. She could tell the agent was a straight-shooting Chicagoan and saw the humor and awkwardness in the way they met. Tresa immediately liked him. She laughed, lifting a hand to her mouth.

  “What? I… Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Jay apologized.

  She was still laughing and waved a hand. “I was going to ask if you were going to swipe right or left, but I couldn’t remember which, and just ate it. Sorry.”

  “At least you didn’t say I lied about my height on the application.”

  She chuckled again. “Where can we talk?”

  “Let’s just grab a meeting room in here. It’s kinda big, but we can just pull up a chair and talk. Sometimes they have meetings in the morning and leave food and drinks around. Need a water or anything? Coffee?”

  “Water would be fine.”

  Jay handed her a plastic bottle from a table just outside the room entrance and once inside pulled two chairs around in the area of about a half dozen table rows and about sixty or seventy chairs. He leaned in, squinting as if wrapping his head around her presence. “You came from headquarters because you have some questions about suspicious Iranian activities here in the city? I mean you coulda just called, right? Why the trip?”

  She nodded in understanding. “True. But I’ve been tracking some related things, and it seemed best to do in person. I don’t know if I mentioned, I’m National Security Branch, CT-2.”

  “Yeah. Counterterrorism domestic disrupt and dismantle, blah, blah. I mean no offense, but you know, we’re kinda different here than headquarters people. We’ve got our own CT-2 folks. I mean, to be honest, I kinda like us sticking to our stuff and, you know, you guys do your thing. I mean we’ll help, but I’m not sure what you really need.” Jay leaned back like he had said his piece and gotten his angst off his chest. “We can do the ‘I’ll show you mine, you show me yours’ thing, but I’d rather just see how we can help you and not get HQ all in our shorts.”

  “Okay, I get it. But it’s because of the NSB aspect that I want to lay low. As soon as I say WMD and counterproliferation, which as you know falls under an NSB counterintelligence directorate and big bureaucratic Joint Terrorism Task Forces, people start getting all squirmy.” Tresa raised an eyebrow and took another pull of the water, hoping he’d buy the line of shit. “Oh, by the way. Tony at Quantico said you were just up there for a training and did some boundary waters fishing before that. Catch anything?”

  “I did,” he responded. And seemed more interested.

  Halliday gulped the rest of the water, wishing it was a beer with this guy. “I’ve pulled some monster pikes out of Lake Agnes and Boulder River. Plenty of northern just short of forty inches.”

  “I’ve had good luck years back around Gabbro and Crooked,” he shared.

  She could tell that he was now giving her the up and down look but from a different lens. “No shit. Steel leaders?”

  “And heavy tackle helps the fight. That’s where I know your name. You worked Indian Country.”

  “I did.” Halliday hoped that was where it would end and wished her name was not coming up in the Chicago field office where there were no Indians or tribal jurisdiction issues.

  “Shit. Okay, so you’re not HQ exactly.”

  “Not in the least. I’m a Cicero girl a way long time back. Grew up in Wisconsin though.”

  “Okay. Now you’re talking my language, Halliday.”

  “Tresa.”

  He pointed a finger at her. “Tresa. Got it. So, Iranians. Well you know we’re all still looking for that student who swiped the radioactive material from the university. But he’s linked to Hezbollah. I mean, I know in the Middle East they’re tied, but it’s a stretch for Chicago. Then, we just busted two Iranian spies here checking out the Jewish sites and people funding that other group. Can’t remember the acronym.”

  “MEK? M-E-K.”

  “That’s the one.” He snapped his fingers up in the air as he reclined back on the ergonomic chair. “Can’t remember all these characters.” Jay leaned forward. “But the real shit came down in the last days. North side. In a cemetery, a meet and greet went bad. I think they were Venezuelan from the passports, but one of our intel guys said he confirmed Iranians, too. I’m like Iranians and Venezuelans? Talk about two messed-up places to come from. And then it ties in with the scientist kid. Right?”

  Halliday was about to make a comment, but Jay started up again. If there’s one thing Halliday learned about interviewing and interrogation, it’s if someone is singing, let them finish.

  “Here’s the other shoe that dropped today. Before you got here, and shit. This. Was. Bad,” he emphasized with arms outstretched. “Crazy shootout back up north. Indian and Pakistani area. Complete bloodbath. Knives. Shooting. A lot of people were killed or injured. We’re still trying to sort that out. But I don’t think they’re Iranians. I mean, does that help?”

  “Big time.” She leaned over the narrow table toward Jay and lowered her voice. “So, let me ask you this. And you may not know, but was there anything that seemed professional about those hits or attacks. Or something out of the ordinary outside of the acts themselves?”

  “Mmmm. Nah. I don’t think so, but I can ask.” Jay looked up to the ceiling, searching in earnest for a nugget. “I wasn’t at either one, and CPD is taking care of most of it at this point. I’ll check with a couple guys.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure.” He crooked his head a bit in what appeared to be an afterthought. “So, there was this one thing.”

  She leaned in to imply it could be their little secret now that the whole HQ thing was behind them.

  “One of the detectives I mentioned earlier, responding to the Devon Avenue attack, got himself shot by a bum they picked up at the scene. I mean, they were helping this bum who was wrong-place wrong-time attacked while he was, I don’t know, maybe looking to steal something or maybe he was drunk or looking for a place to crash. And he gets ahold of a gun and shoots this detective. I mean, that’s pretty fuckin’ weird, but he ain’t Iranian. He was just some stinky like white bum guy.”

  Woolf.

  “But like I always say, ‘Welcome to Chicago, where the weird just gets weirder.’”

  Chapter 48

  Drake expected to see that it was the black SUV tail rolling up on them based on Mena’s concern and wide-eyed panic. Instead, just out of his periphery came a small band of street hoods strutting toward their position.

  Drake counted five.

  If they were strapped, he couldn’t take them all. Normally, he’d have little fear of being approached by gang members during the day. No one wanted trouble, and no one wanted to get busted. But this neighborhood was almost completely boarded up. There was no police presence, and there sure as hell wasn’t going to be anyone saying something to investigators of a crime scene about a white dude and Muslim woman getting rolled in this neck of the woods. Snitches in ditches ruled a place like this.

  “Ocean, we’ve got a small contingency coming up on us. Any police in the area you can see? I don’t see a way out of this confrontation.”

  Mena turned to see another young tough coming from an alleyway toward them. He lifted his oversized sweatshirt to brandish a pistol handle tucked in front of his pants.

  “Ocean. Fast,” Mena added. She drew closer to Drake despite his rancid street smell.

  Mojo expanded his map view, selectin
g the population of mobile devices that were sending signals closest to Drake and Mena. His fingers rattled the keyboards, only pausing to reach out to touchscreen monitors. He selected radials then restarted typing.

  Attack, Drake. Violence of action. Take the initiative first. You’ve got the element of surprise on your side. “Anything, Ocean? I hear you fucking Googling or something. I don’t need you to send me a PDF of survival.”

  “Neptune and Starfish. Pick up the pace to your target. Don’t look back. Airwave support coming in hot!”

  A phone started ringing from behind Woolf as he quick-stepped down the street with his colleague, as instructed. Then another ring. And another varied ring tone. Within a second, all the hoods who were coming toward Drake and Mena were answering their phones.

  Drake heard Mojo’s voice through the commo. “This is a Drug Enforcement Area. Lay your weapons down. Hands and face to the ground. There is an armed drone over your head.”

  Drake couldn’t hear what happened next, but the thugs started bending over. Some dropped their devices, shouting about how hot the phones just got. Others grabbed their ears cursing. One of the devices on the street burst into flames.

  “Tango Mike, Ocean. Not sure what you did, but it’s working.”

  “Hashtag Jack Ryan that, bitches!” Mojo replied. “Sonic bomb with high-decibel bursts and max load on battery beyond recommended levels. Analyst as fuck! Yeah, baby.”

  Drake heard a loud bang then cursing over his audio.

  “Ocean, you okay?”

  “Spilled my Coke. Shit.”

  “Hoo-ah, for the support team.”

  “Dude. Not cool.”

  * * * *

  Within minutes, Drake and Mena arrived at the site of the scientist’s prior signal. Still in the clear, Drake lifted the orange metal door.

  Mena wrapped her arms around herself but said nothing when they saw the lifeless body on the floor.

  Drake was hit hard by a flashback sight and smell. With the vivid mental scent recall came the sights and sounds of war from when he last experienced the same odor. It didn’t take a decomposing body to have the crackle of gunfire snap in his ears with the background sound of technical trucks crunching the hard, unpaved ground. Shouts and screams came next.

  He broke out in a sweat, and his mouth dried.

  In his vision emerged Walid, his Lebanese asset in Saida, who was found just like the body before him. As a result, Drake had to hide out in the Mieh Mieh refugee camp with no food or water for days before he was able to make his entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh camp on the hunt for Ali al-Hamad. He learned through street talk that Hezbollah had killed Walid’s wife and children in recent days. Their sacrifice, while not intentional, gave Woolf cover for action.

  Adel’s face came into Drake’s mind’s eye. The four-year-old was so pleased to receive the gift of a yo-yo. So simple, but it brought such a smile. The kid was gone. He never asked to be martyred for a US mission.

  “Drake.”

  Woolf slowly came back to reality.

  “Drake. We need to shut this door or just leave. Do you want to check the body?” Mena touched Woolf’s arm gently as he was locked again into the stare. His mouth moved, but he was inaudible. “Drake?”

  “Turn on that light over there.” Drake nodded. He checked his six and gave a short peek to the left and right. They were still clear, so he lowered the door behind them and took a seat on the floor.

  “Are you okay, Drake? Anything I can do?”

  Drake stretched out on the ground, his head resting on a folded arm. “I’m tired,” he admitted. His voice was soft and flat. “This is a dead end. I don’t know what to do next. I’m tired of running. Tired of chasing. It just never ends. Find one bad guy, up pops another. And for every bad guy that I find, I lose more friends. It’s just not worth it.”

  Mena moved closer to him and sat cross-legged. “Ocean, we need a minute. We’re turning the comms off.” Mena deactivated the communications link. “Turn yours off, too, Neptune.”

  “I’m fine. I don’t feel like messing with it.”

  She persisted. “You should really turn it off. I can see on my monitor your battery is only at a twenty-five percent capacity or so.”

  He looked at her hard. She was fixated on him and his device while a dead guy was lying in the pool right next to her, to which she paid no mind as if it were her uncle Faisal or something taking a nap. She had a Persian accent, but her nuances and phrases didn’t match. She was a devout Muslim but made absolutely no religious references nor common, everyday blessings and traditional remarks. Westernized, maybe. Assimilated, possibly. Full of shit, most likely. Trap. “Mena, why are you here? And who are you really?”

  Chapter 49

  Two-bags, like most successful street kids who rose to the top, managed his crews by fear. While it may not yield long-term loyalty outside of self-preservation, it created responsiveness. Within minutes of his lieutenant’s calls and demands, items that the Modarris had requested started rolling in.

  “Where I should put this, Two-bags?” asked a hood carrying two bags of CG Industries ammonium nitrate pellets. He was trailed by four other young men, each carrying one or two bags of the high-density agricultural grade prill.

  Dexter Woolf pointed the men toward the large red cannisters of diesel fuel.

  Next came two younger boys, each carrying a can of aluminum. “Hey, Two-bags, that mo’fucker, Mr. Jenkins, he didn’t give us our change back. He said we were going to get in trouble with this shit. We told ’im they was for you, and he said you could come down and get it at his store.”

  The Modarris cast a dark eye to the gang leader.

  “Y’all don’t be lookin’ at me an’ shit.” Two-bags nodded to two larger men in his crew. “Go get my money and make sure Mr. Jenkins shut the fuck up.”

  “You gonna hurt Mr. Jenkins?” a boy asked. “He wearin’ his veteran hat today.”

  “Naw, little man. We just gonna remind him ain’t no room for old Marines stickin’ their noses in shit. This is my hood. You feel me?”

  The two boys nodded.

  “Yous go get some other kids and go get your leppa’con outfits from Oz and his bitch. Make sure you have the hats and shirts and everyone gets those lil’ orange beards. Just bring the boxes here now.”

  “Even the girls wear beards?”

  “Slap that little motherfucker.”

  The closest thug to the kids obeyed his boss without question and swatted the designee hard in the ear.

  “Yes, the bitches. And you best not be late. Go get Dantrell and Kayjon, too. And you have them text me if that junky fucker gives you any shit.”

  “Yes, Two-bags,” they confirmed in unison.

  Dexter watched the two boys leave the building. It was the same the world over. Africa. Middle East. Asia. He thought of his own two sons and hoped they and their mother were still safe.

  Chapter 50

  “I’ve already told you who I am. I’m not the one who should be questioned here,” Mena deflected. “I thought we were past this.”

  “Either someone beat the shit out of you for years when you were a kid, or you’ve had some training. When I blew my top in the shop, you hardly flinched. And when I had you on the table, you didn’t look back to Sebastian for help. You stared me dead in the eye. When I let you go, you didn’t freak out on Sebastian or bail out of the building. You came after me. And then here in the street, you stood close to me but didn’t grab my arm in a freak-out way or do any other things some academic analyst would do. Scared, maybe. Untrained and unused to stressful situations, I don’t think so. So just level with me.”

  “You should check the body.”

  “No, Mena. I think you should check the body. The dead guy didn’t shock you. Surprised you to see? Maybe. Even a bit of self-reflection on your face, maybe, t
oo. It’s not the first dead body you’ve seen either.” Drake stood and walked up to the body of Gebran Daouk. He looked at Mena squarely and gave the corpse an unexpected kick to the ribs, never breaking eye contact with her.

  The brutal act caused Mena to flinch slightly at the sight. She looked back up at Drake. It was well-played on his part. She didn’t have time to think about a scream or other normal reaction that someone would have.

  “I’m no spy. And I’m not a mole.”

  Part III

  Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

  —President George W. Bush

  Chapter 51

  “I never said you were a mole, Mena.” Drake bent down, stepping to the side of the congealed blood on the floor, and checked Daouk’s pockets, only finding a phone. He paid Mena’s defense no mind as he was having his own mental discussion with the advisory panel in his head.

  Woolf found the phone was locked, placed it on the dead man’s dry upper chest, and retrieved his own device, on which he thumbed a number of prompts and commands.

  Daouk’s screen lit up, then went dark, then on again. Drake thumbed away on his own device for a few moments more. The device of the Hezbollah wannabe stayed on and the Man from Orange smiled.

  Woolf swiped across apps and opened others. From the corner of his eye, he spotted a white handheld device. It was cracked on the front, and the side was missing pieces of plastic. Even from the slight distance Drake could see the green edge of a circuitry board. “Mena, I know you’re not a spy. I know you’re not a mole. I have no idea if you can shoot, or if you even plan to kill me somehow. That’s just how things have been for me lately, so it wouldn’t surprise me. Truth is, you’d be doing me a favor, so right now I could really give two fucks.”

  Drake picked up the white device and tried unsuccessfully to turn it on. He continued with Mena as he fiddled with it. “Unfortunately, you all involved me in something, and I’d like to see it through; otherwise what the fuck use is all this training in me if I can’t save some lives.” Drake opened the back of the handheld, examined a single wire and a broken solder joint. He pushed the wire into the small metal loop lug, bent it with a fingernail and tried the device again. It powered up. He looked up at Mena with a smile of success. “The question I have is can I depend on you as a partner to have my back if you can even operate. Do I have that with you until we at least see my mission through?”