A Long Gray Line
Simon Gervais
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
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Copyright © 2016 by Simon Gervais
Cover design by Barbara Aronica-Buck
Fiction Studio Books E-book ISBN: 978-1-943486-90-8
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To all my readers who took the time to let me know how much they enjoyed my debut novel The Thin Black Line, this novella is for you.
CHAPTER 1
Miami, Florida
Mike Walton’s knees buckled under him, and the three Coronas and the two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc he had ingested weren’t the reason why.
“Say that again?” he said into the receiver.
“We have a lead on your father,” Charles Mapother repeated from his office in New York.
Mapother was the director of the International Market Stabilization Institute, a privately funded organization operating outside official channels but sometimes in concert with the needs of the United States government.
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere inside Syria. That’s all we know for now.”
“I’ll jump on the next—,” started Mike before Mapother interrupted him.
“No you won’t. What you’ll do is stay right where you are and enjoy some time off with your wife. I’ll call you as soon as we have something more substantial.”
Mike sighed. Mapother’s right. There wasn’t much he could do until they had more intelligence. Ray Powell, his father, the former Canadian ambassador to Algeria, had been kidnapped by the Sheik three years ago. Mike closed his fist as he remembered the grief the Sheik had forced his mother to endure for more than two years. By sending her pictures of her tortured husband, the Sheik had gotten into her head and had made her life miserable. Since the kidnapping, the Sheik’s network had gained wide notoriety within the terror community. Known to be merciless, the Sheik had been able to climb the terror ladder to the point that he was now—one of the top three most wanted men on the planet.
The good news was that Mike was now convinced his father was still alive. They had proof. Being totally honest, spending another couple of days in Miami could really do him some good. The last operation hadn’t been an easy one and they had lost a colleague.
And a damn good one at that.
There was no doubt in Mike’s mind that Jasmine Carson’s death would come back to haunt him at night, just like his two-year-old daughter Melissa did.
That’s not fair. She isn’t haunting me. She’s visiting my dreams.
Melissa, his mother and his wife’s parents had been killed in a terrorist attack orchestrated by the Sheik at the Ottawa train station last year. The unborn child his wife Lisa had been carrying in her belly for eight months had also been stolen from them. An IMSI team led by Mike had conducted a raid on the Sheik’s mobile headquarters —a large Azimut yacht— two weeks ago in Benalmádena, Spain. Thinking they had cornered the terrorist mastermind, they had launched a pre-emptive strike against the yacht. Even though they had failed at killing or capturing the Sheik, Mike’s team had delivered a devastating blow to his terror network by killing his right-hand man, Omar Al-Nashwan, as well as Mohammad Alavi, the man responsible for the assassination of the Canadian environment minister. Searching the yacht for additional intel, the IMSI team had successfully retrieved a ton of information pertinent to the Sheik’s upcoming terror attacks. Charles Mapother had quickly shared the newly acquired intelligence with the Director of National Intelligence, Richard Phillips, President Muller’s close friend and one of the only federal officials to know exactly what the IMSI actually was. Mike knew Mapother had kept some of the good stuff for himself, though, and wouldn’t be surprised if he’d hear from his boss soon regarding a follow-up operation.
“Mike?”
His wife’s voice brought him back to the here and now. Lisa was looking at him, her curiosity apparent.
“It was Mapother,” Mike replied. “He has a lead on Dad’s whereabouts. He believes he’s in Syria.”
“When are we leaving?” Sanchez asked. His friend was standing next to Lisa. He drank the last of his wine. “I’m ready.”
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Mike said. “At least not yet. Mapother doesn’t have much information for us to work with at this point.”
“When then?” Lisa asked.
“He’ll let us know,” Mike replied, accepting the fact he might not have the chance to go after his father for a while.
“So that’s it?” Sanchez said. “That doesn’t sound like you, brother.”
“We have nothing to go on. Syria is such a mess that it won’t do us any good to head out there looking for him if we don’t have any clues of where he is.”
His phone chirped in his hand before his friend could add anything. It was Mapother. Again.
“Come back to New York, Mike,” the IMSI director said.
“What changed in the last thirty seconds?”
“As you know, our analysts have been combing over the data you retrieved from the laptop seized aboard the Sheik’s yacht.”
“And?”
“We’ve pinpointed the location to one of the Sheik’s associates.”
“Where?”
“He’s in Syria.”
Mike hung up and said to his wife, “Pack your bags, honey. We might head to Syria after all.”
CHAPTER 2
Split, Croatia
The Sheik had changed his appearance. His hair was now white and he had cut his beard in order to fit with the younger crowd frequenting Split’s seafront promenade’s restaurant scene. Contact lenses gave him brown eyes and cotton wads inserted into his lower cheeks made his jaw appear more square.
The pressure his enemies had put him under did nothing to brighten his mood. Whoever had stormed his mobile headquarters in Spain and killed Mohammad Alavi and Omar Al-Nashwan hadn’t stopped there. His network attrition rate was getting out of control and most of his funds were gone. And in order to continue his operations, he needed money. Lots of it.
Luckily for him, the Russian government had proven itself to be a great ally. The Sheik congratulated himself for never going against Russia’s interests in the past and for keeping an open dialogue with the Kremlin. Since his recent setbacks, the Russian president had been quite accommodating when it came to financing the Sheik’s operations.
But he needed a win. Soon.
One that would put him back in the game. With ISIS latest successes, it was getting harder and harder to recruit competent men willing to join him. Mouin Bashi was a man he trusted. Bashi was a true believer and someone who hated the United States as much as he did, but more importantly, Bashi had the resources to implement the Sheik’s plan. A plan that, if successful, would stop dead in its track the economic growth the Europeans were now enjoying. Still, being twenty minutes late to a meeting wasn’t something the Sheik appreciated. Three months ago, he would have walked off and asked Al-Nashwan to deal with the miscreant brave enough to make him wait.
Was Bashi’s lateness a way to ma
ke him understand he had lost his status? That he wasn’t the big player he used to be? He clutched his fists, his short-temper threatening the calm demeanor he was showing to the outside world.
The Sheik was finishing his third cup of coffee when he spotted Bashi across the street. Bashi had supposedly sworn allegiance to ISIS but the Sheik knew this was a smoke screen. Bashi was his man inside ISIS, even if Bashi wasn’t aware of it. He had been the one to volunteer ISIS fighters to the Sheik.
“I’m so sorry for my tardiness, Sheik,” Bashi said in hush tones as he stood across the table. “I had to make sure I wasn’t followed.”
“Thank you, dear friend,” he replied, keeping his anger in check. “Please have a seat.”
Bashi pulled the chair and sat. He caught the attention of the waiter and ordered a double espresso.
“How’s Croatia treating you, Sheik?”
Never before had he set foot in Croatia but he had to admit that Split was a marvelous city. The café they were at was facing the Riva, Split’s seafront promenade that ran the length of the old town. The view across the harbor to the islands beyond were magnificent. The Sheik understood perfectly why the Roman Emperor Diocletian had chosen this spot to build his lavish retirement palace in AD295.
“How could one complain with such views?” the Sheik said.
“Very true, Sheik. That is very true.”
“You have news for me, I presume?”
The fact that whoever had ransacked his yacht and left with everything that was inside didn’t mean the Sheik was out of options. With the current Syrian refugee crisis, there was a wealth of opportunities just waiting to be seized.
“Zebar Selam has the plan,” Bashi replied. “He will dispatch his men and four days from now, you shall see the results. I’m wondering how Zagreb will respond once the Israeli embassy goes up in flames.”
The Sheik’s plan wasn’t a complicated one. With Hungary closing its borders to the Syrian refugees, tens of thousands were redirected through Croatia. Zagreb opened a transit camp in hopes of inserting some order into the chaos while providing food, water and medical attention to the refugees. Seeing this, elements within the Serbian government decided it would be a good idea to encourage all the refugees to continue to Croatia. It was felt this would remove the need to provide any type of assistance themselves. This decision accentuated the already tense relationship between Serbia and Croatia, and the acidic tone of exchanges between the two countries was something the Sheik wanted to exploit.
The Sheik smiled. Visions of chaos and mayhem had this effect on him. “Zagreb’s weak, my friend,” he explained. “They’ll only respond with some kind of economic measures. It’s the Israelis’ reactions I’m looking forward to.”
This was the plan after all. He would leak just enough information to ensure the investigating authorities would place the blame on the Syrian refugees. The Israelis would then go to its two closest allies —the Americans and the Canadians— and ask them to use their influence within the United Nations to close the borders within the European Union. The Sheik was confident that Berlin and Vienna would support the motion.
Especially Germany. With tensions developing between migrants and some German political activists, Berlin would be looking for any excuse to close its border without losing face.
“What if the Israelis don’t respond the way we expect?” Bashi asked.
“Then we activate the second group, Mouin,” the Sheik replied. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll send another and another until they do exactly what we want them to.”
CHAPTER 3
Ar Raqqah, Syria
Zebar Selam allowed himself to relax. For the first time in the last five days, he wasn’t in immediate danger. With the adrenaline and excitement of combat gone, his whole body longed for sleep. He had earned it. At twenty-nine years of age, he was still at the top of his physical prime but the hardships he had imposed on his body during the last week had taken their toll. He read the operational plans he was about to dispatch to his teams one more time. It was a masterpiece. Mouin Bashi was a genius. Turning their enemies’ hospitality and generosity against them was brilliant. They’d never see what hit them. With most heads of state fighting over who would accept the most refugees, security and screening measures had been left behind leaving the door wide open for a strike that would mobilize ISIS like never before. He pressed the send button and waited for the confirmation that his message had been encrypted and sent. He’d send the next set of orders to another team in the morning. He then turned off his MacBook and retrieved the flash drive before tossing it in his nightstand drawer.
Zebar had joined ISIS while it was still in its infancy. Born in France from Nigerian parents, Zebar’s teenage years hadn’t been easy. Charged for manslaughter at age twenty, he bolted out of France the moment he made bail. Not a religious man, he looked for a purpose. And the Sheik’s network had offered him one. Training at the Sheik’s camp in Pakistan hadn’t been easy but Zebar had quickly discovered that he was good at fighting. The instructors noticed it too and in 2007, someone close to the Sheik asked him to join his own group of fighters.
“We want you,” the man had said.
Flattered, Zebar hadn’t even asked who he was and accepted on the spot. It was the first time in his life that someone had complimented him. It was only days later that he learned the man’s identity.
Mouin Bashi.
A close friend of the Sheik, his job at the time was to act somewhat as the Sheik’s foreign secretary. He was also closely associated with a new group that had appeared in Iraq: the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State was in dire need of fighters and Zebar quickly proved himself on the Iraqi battlefield. His cruelty and combat effectiveness had pleased the higher echelons. Within a year, he was named commander. As ISIS influence grew, so did Zebar’s. He now led a team of over one hundred specially trained fighters. He was proud of his men and he knew they’d follow his orders. They wouldn’t think twice to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the new Islamic State.
Exhausted from days of fighting, he placed his feet on his bed and sighed. Before he could settle his head comfortably on his pillow, he saw a large spider coming down from the ceiling. It stopped its descent fewer than two feet away from his mouth.
His knife was on the nightstand to his right. Without breaking visual contact with the arthropod, he picked up his knife and severed the silk line. The spider fell into his waiting hand. He loved spiders. They were sneaky. He had read somewhere that humans were hard-wired to fear them. He didn’t fear anything. Or anyone. He used to though. But Omar Al-Nashwan was dead. News of the Sheik’s right-hand man’s death had traveled fast. There were plenty of rumors about what the Sheik would do next. But it wasn’t his concern. His allegiance was to ISIS now and to Mouin Bashi, not to the Sheik.
Someone knocked on his door and Zebar gently released the spider on the floor. “What is it?” he barked. He needed a few hours of sleep.
Khaled Rabin’s head slid in between the door and its frame. “They’ve arrived. Just thought you’d like to know,” he said.
Zebar’s mind filled with basic, primal lust. The girls. They were his reward for a job well done. Sleep would come later. Pleasure first. Conscious of his obtrusive body odor, he briefly considered taking a shower. But what would be the point of that?
A muffled scream accentuated his excitement. He hurried out of bed afraid Khaled or one of the other fighters with whom he was sharing the apartment had started without him. He calmed down when he saw they hadn’t. Khaled and another fighter were in the process of tying down one of the girls on the table. They were having a hard time. Two other girls —one in her late teens the other well into her twenties— were tied back-to-back on the floor. Plastic zip ties held their ankles together. They looked at their friend in horror. They moaned softly, tears rolling down their pretty fa
ces. Zebar appreciated the fact that Khaled had probably urinated on the rags before tying them over the women’s mouths and noses. Nonetheless, Zebar found them to be too agitated for his liking. He liked his girls to be obedient.
Seeing that Khaled was still struggling with the girl, Zebar grabbed her hair and smashed her head on the table. Twice. Spasms shook her body. The other girls fell silent.
Khaled looked at him and said, “You killed her.”
Zebar shrugged. “So? That doesn’t mean she can’t fulfill her purpose.”
CHAPTER 4
Ar Raqqah, Syria
Mike Walton and his wife had been inserted in Ar Raqqah five days ago. The intelligence retrieved on the Sheik’s yacht last month had proven to be golden. It had allowed the International Market Stabilization Institute—IMSI—to stop a number of terror attacks dead in their tracks. This was the final lead; the one they hoped would bring them closer to the Sheik. The terrorist mastermind had disappeared following the raid on his mobile headquarters and Mapother feared he would vanish for good if they didn’t catch him soon.
Mike doubted the Sheik was in Ar Raqqah but one of his close associates was.
Mouin Bashi.
Everybody back at IMSI headquarters knew how risky it was for Mike and Lisa to be so deep inside ISIS-held territory, but time was of the essence and there was simply no other way. Their original plan had been to conduct a full reconnaissance of the area and to build a pattern of life for Bashi. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been possible. After two days of surveillance, they had concluded that the apartment where Bashi was supposed to live was unoccupied.
Charles Mapother had ordered him and Lisa to get out of Ar Raqqah but Mike had refused. He pleaded to the director to give them five more days. Mike knew Mapother hadn’t been happy about it but the director had nevertheless acquiesced to give him an extra forty-eight hours.
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