“Thanks,” Casey said. He smiled at Andie and waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he decided to continue the conversation Andie never actually started. “So your name is Andy Jackson?”
“That’s right.”
“Like the president?”
“Andie with an ‘i-e.’ Short for Andrea, not Andrew.”
Casey noted the photo identification badge clipped to a lanyard around her neck. “And you work at IWG now?”
“Sort of. I’m on probationary employment for six months. After that, they’ll decide whether or not to hire me full-time,” Andie explained.
“Oh, okay.”
Andie detected uncertainty in Casey’s voice. “Isn’t that normally how it’s done?”
“I’m not sure,” Casey answered.
“What? You didn’t have a trial period before you were hired?” Andie asked.
“I didn’t exactly come looking for this job. I just kinda ended up here.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a long story,” Casey said, hoping she wouldn’t demand to hear all about it. Casey decided to change the subject. “So, how is it you just got here, and you already know who I am?”
“When I checked in yesterday afternoon, Doctor Borglund said he wanted me to work with you on my first assignment.”
“Why me?”
“You work in the Middle East cell, right?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m kind of a generalist,” Casey answered.
“Then that’s probably why he mentioned your name.”
Casey still wasn’t sure why Doc Borglund wanted him to work with Andie. Not that he minded, but he was just tasked by Jim Shelton to look into the Taliban-Jondallah connection, and another new project would certainly cut into that effort. “What cell are you in?” he asked.
“I was hired as a domestic political analyst. I’m working directly for Doctor Borglund, right now, but he said IWG was standing up a Washington cell to focus on the national political scene.”
“I think I heard something about that,” Casey said. “So, what are you working on that I’m supposed to help you with?”
Andie took a small notepad from her skirt pocket. “I need to figure out possible ramifications if the Senate passes Resolution Nine Five,” she said, flipping through the first few pages. “Proposing the removal of ...Mujahideen e-Khalq from the FTO list,” she added.
Now Casey understood his expected involvement. “So you want me to give you information on the MeK.”
“Pretty much,” Andie said. “I’m an investigative reporter by trade, and I’ve been covering D.C. for the past six years, so I know the legislative landscape pretty well. I just need to know what’s so special about the MeK that warrants their own Senate resolution. There’s a standard procedure for reviewing, approving, or removing groups from the list of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. A Senate resolution seems like a waste of time and money, especially right now.”
Casey hadn’t asked anything about Andie’s background, but he was glad she offered it. “What network were you a reporter for?” he asked.
Andie smiled and raised her eyebrows. “I was a print journalist, thank you very much.”
After she said she was a reporter, Casey assumed Andie worked in television news, based on her looks. Apparently she was slightly offended by that assumption. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What newspaper did you work for?”
“I started with the Atlanta Journal/Constitution before I moved to D.C. and got into the realm of national politics, working for the Washington Times. It’s not the Post, but if you want to learn politics, you need to be in Washington, no matter who you’re working for.”
Casey tuned out the Washington resumé after Andie mentioned Atlanta. “AJC, huh? No shit. Are you from Atlanta?”
“Born and raised.”
“Braves fan?”
“My whole life.”
“Well, we should get along just fine, then,” Casey said with a grin.
Chapter 3
“What was the reason for your trip to Egypt?” the man asked, flipping through the pages of the woman’s passport.
Susan turned her attention back to the CBP officer. “What?”
“Why did you go to Egypt?” The man adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, annoyed at having to ask the same question twice.
“Business,” Susan answered. Now she was getting annoyed. The direct flight from Cairo to New York was convenient in that there was no worry of missing a connection, but it was long. Eleven-hours-and-fifty-five-minutes-in-the-air long. And the Intelligence Watch Group didn’t pay for their employees to fly First Class.
The Customs and Border Patrol drone looked down at Susan’s passport and then back at the woman wearing a muted brown headscarf, late-July heat-defying long sleeve cotton shirt, and wrinkled ankle-length skirt standing in front of him. Susan returned the stare.
Eventually Susan won, and the officer stamped her passport. He handed it back with a robotic, “welcome home,” simultaneously waving the next person in line forward. “Thank you,” she muttered, heading to collect her lone suitcase.
* * * * *
Susan stepped out of the terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport and was met by a blast of stifling hot air, made worse by the choking exhaust fumes from passing traffic and idling buses and taxis. “Welcome home,” she said to no one, echoing the words of the Homeland Security greeter.
She powered up her cell phone, happy to be back in the land of connectivity. All of the international-capable phones at the office were checked out to other people, and she had neglected to inform her own carrier that she was traveling out of the country, reducing her smart phone to dumb status for the past three weeks. With the uncertain political situation in Egypt, Susan didn’t use land lines to communicate back to her bosses at IWG, instead deciding to take her lumps when she returned. It was her first assignment for the private geopolitical forecasting and consulting firm that took her away from the United States, let alone her own cubicle. She hoped they would forgive her.
Susan Williams was the Intelligence Watch Group’s senior Iran analyst. At thirty-four, she was doing just fine. At least professionally. Her personal life was another story altogether.
Because of all the airport commotion, she didn’t hear the chime indicating her phone was again receiving data. She was alerted by a red blinking light on the corner of the handset—the flood gates were open. “Good God,” she muttered as the messages flowed in, too fast to read. Susan decided to look for the bus she needed to take her to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. From there the subway would take her to Bleecker Street station, four blocks from her apartment. She could have chosen to take the subway the entire trip, but she wasn’t that fond of tunnels.
Taking her spot in line, she looked at her phone and began scrolling through the mass of e-mails and missed call notifications. The e-mails were dated through the entire three weeks she was gone, but the bulk of the missed calls occurred in the first four days. All but one of the calls were from Casey. He must have finally figured out that her phone wouldn’t work in Egypt and just given up.
Near the end of the list was a recent voicemail. Susan didn’t recognize the number, but she knew the area code. Washington, D.C. She thought the Nation’s Capital was an odd place for telemarketers to be based, so she decided to listen to the message instead of just deleting it.
Susan pushed off her headscarf so she could hear the phone better. Worn out of religious and social necessity twelve hours before, the scarf now served to hide the tangled brown mess she called a hairdo until she could finally take a shower. Susan moved through each voicemail until she got to the one dated 18 July—two days ago.
“Susan?” A familiar voice. “It’s Mari. I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I really need to see you.” Despite the static of the message, Susan detected a hint of desperation in her old college roommate’s voice. “I can’t say anything else. Not on the phone. Ple
ase call me back at this number as soon as you get this message. I’m sorry to get you involved, but I didn’t know who else to go to. I really need to see you, Susan.” Mari’s voice lowered, shaking, almost a whimper. “God, I hope you get this.”
The message ended, and Susan disconnected from her voicemail. She looked at the phone in her hand, not sure what to think. Mariam Fahda had always been excitable—tending to exaggerate the direness of every bad situation. Susan believed that bad things happen to good people all the time, but it was how you dealt with those problems that defined your strength. Mari was never strong.
Perhaps, like Susan, Mari had changed since Berkeley. Though the message Susan just listened to didn’t sound like Mari had changed. Why was she the one Mari reached out to? If she was in some kind of trouble, which Susan suspected, what could Susan do for her that someone else couldn’t? Her friends in D.C.? Her family?
A horn startled her, followed by the whistle of someone directing traffic through the terminal roadway, interrupting Susan’s fruitless guesswork. The bus arrived, and Susan extended the handle of her rolling suitcase, inching forward as people boarded.
Susan tried to block the mental image of her friend making a frantic cry for help only to be greeted by an answering service. She knew that feeling all too well. The anticipation and hope as the phone rang on the other end suddenly yanked from your chest with the realization that no one was there to answer. It was a sinking, sickening feeling whose intensity was directly proportional to the emergent nature of the need to talk to the person on the other end. It must have been worse for Mari.
A mother tried unsuccessfully to comfort a screaming child in the back of the bus as Susan found a seat. Four obnoxious college students, apparently back from a vacation trip to Puerto Rico, added to the ear-splitting volume of tourists and families all around her. Susan closed her eyes. She would call Mari back when she got to her apartment.
Where it was quiet.
* * * * *
Susan walked into the kitchen barefoot. Water dripped from her hair, air-drying after an extended shower. She pulled down a glass and opened the refrigerator. A box of cheap red wine, courtesy of Casey Shenk, was about the only thing inside. She smiled as she worked the plastic spigot. Susan was hungry, but she decided dinner could wait. She had put off the phone call long enough.
Hearing Mari’s voice at the airport hadn’t set well with her. The ride home and long shower only gave her more time to fret. There was a reason she hadn’t kept in touch with Mari since they finished grad school. Susan knew she was being selfish, but she had chosen years ago to suppress her memory of that time—her own feelings of guilt. Talking to Mari was going to bring her back, face-to-face with that guilt.
Seated on the living room sofa, Susan got Mari’s number from her cell phone and dialed it into the cordless house phone. She drank half of her glass of wine in three gulps, hoping to suppress her nervousness, which grew with each successive ring.
“Hello?”
Susan put her drink on the coffee table and leaned forward.
“Hello?” the voice repeated.
“Mari? It’s Susan.”
Susan heard a quick shuffling of papers. “Susan. I’m so glad you called,” Mari said, audibly relieved. “I know this all seems strange, but I...wait, where are you calling from?”
“My apartment. Why?”
Susan heard a door shut.
“Mari?”
“Never mind. Look, I need to talk to you in person. I can be in New York by Friday morning. Where can....”
“Mari, slow down,” Susan interrupted. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry to bring you into this, but I really can’t talk about it over the phone.”
“Are you in some kind of danger?” Susan asked.
Silence.
“Mari?”
“I’ll tell you everything when I get there, I promise. Where can I meet you?”
The emotion in Mari’s voice was not the same exaggerated worry Susan became used to hearing in college. It was fear. She could tell her friend was scared, but she didn’t know why. She also knew she wasn’t helping the situation by asking so many questions when Mari insisted on not discussing anything over the phone. “Soren’s Deli, on East 40th Street, between 5th and Madison in Manhattan—near Grand Central.” The first place that came to mind. “Eight a.m.”
“Eight a.m. Got it,” Mari said. “Thank you, Susan. Again, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“Mari, it’s okay, really, I....” Susan stopped talking when she realized Mari had already hung up. She pressed “end” on the handset and put the phone down, replacing it with her glass of wine. What the hell is going on? she thought. Through four years of college and two years of graduate school, Susan had never heard her friend sound so desperate for help.
And why the secrecy?
Susan finished her wine and stared at the bookshelf in the corner. She didn’t focus on the dozens of worn volumes collected over years of study, but inward—to that night. And the nightmares that she thought she had conquered. She knew they would start again...tonight.
Chapter 4
Washington, D.C.
“Admiral, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us today. And thank you for your continued service in these dangerous times.” Senator William “Bill” Cogburn, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee closed his notepad and put his Mont Blanc pen in the breast pocket of his tailored Ermenegildo Zegna suit jacket.
“It was my pleasure, Senator,” the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe lied. As the military head of NATO, a position held by an American since the position was created in 1951, Admiral Stevens was finishing his rounds of briefing various Congressional committees on the disbanding of ISAF, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. The message in the prepared briefs was the same, but the experience of each was unique—primarily driven by the personality of the committee’s chairman. This time Cogburn was filling in, and the senator’s dislike of all things NATO was well known. Admiral Stevens’ brief gave Cogburn the perfect chance to voice his foreign policy platform, and Cogburn was an unscrupulous opportunist.
“Nice job today, Bill. Maybe now we can get things done over there,” Ron Jessup, the Republican senator from Texas, said to Bill Cogburn as the two men stood to leave.
Cogburn smiled and took his friend’s outstretched hand. “Thanks, Ron. But despite what I told the Admiral, I’m not so sure taking NATO out of Afghanistan really helps us any.”
“What do you mean? Now we ain’t gotta worry about all that international red tape. We can operate under our own rules of engagement without having to back down because those pussies in Europe can’t hack it,” the Texan argued.
Neither man had ever served in the armed forces, National Guard or otherwise, but the senator from New York at least had a more pragmatic approach to the use of the country’s military might. “Look at it this way, Ron,” Cogburn said. “If the Taliban are kept busy fighting a bunch of Germans, then that means our boys aren’t getting shot at—at least not in every engagement. It also means there is someone else to take the blame when some damn wedding accidentally gets bombed in an air strike. Hell, even if it was an American pilot, if the ISAF Commander on the ground happens to be Bulgarian, he’s the one that’s all over Al Jazeera tap dancing and making excuses. If you ask me, things just got tougher for us over there. At least as long as we keep following the same game plan.”
Jessup was surprised. He followed Cogburn’s logic, but he was confused by the senator’s apparent change of attitude toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “I guess I see your point. But, hell, I thought you’d be happy to see Europe out of the picture.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I could give two shits about what NATO thinks our mission should be over there. Or anywhere else for that matter. But if somebody else is willing to do our dirty work for us, I sa
y let ‘em. Better yet, let the ragheads do the dying on both sides. As long as we get to pick the winner.”
Ron Jessup laughed. “I’m with you there, hoss. Just don’t let the press hear you say that. Or any of these guys,” he said, pointing his thumb behind him where other members of the committee were engaged in small talk before leaving. Cogburn joined him with a laugh of his own. “Say, Bill, why don’t you come over and have dinner with me and Ann tonight? Linda’s still in New York this week, right?”
“Yeah, she’s helping out her little sister in Buffalo with her new baby. She needed to get out of D.C. for a while, anyway.”
“For her sake or yours?” Jessup asked with a conspiratorial look.
Cogburn patted his friend on the shoulder and smiled. “Both. And thanks for the offer, but I’ve got to take care of some things back at the office. I don’t even know if I’ll get around to dinner tonight.”
“No problem. Consider it an open invitation. For Linda, too.”
“Thanks, Ron. I appreciate that,” Cogburn said. The two men shook hands and parted company.
* * * * *
Bill Cogburn walked the short distance from the Capitol Building to his office in the Hart Building on the north side of Constitution Avenue. His secretary had already gone home for the day, but the office was unlocked when the senator arrived, and the lights were on inside.
Cogburn walked in and dropped his notes on an oversized oak desk. “Evening, Joel,” he said without looking at the man seated in one of the high-backed visitors’ chairs at the front of the room.
“How’d it go?” Cogburn’s aide asked.
“How do you think it went?” Cogburn didn’t much care for Joel Simpson. But the guy was good. At forty-seven, Joel was older than most senators’ aides, but he was born and raised in the District, and he knew the Washington scene inside and out. Joel was a leftover from the previous occupant of the office Cogburn now occupied, and he was highly recommended as someone who could get things done. That was why Cogburn hired him.
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