by D S Kane
Khali Al-Jambar, a reporter for Al Jazeera, watched as a technician posted the photos of the two naked, crucified bodies on the news organization’s website. Then he returned to the task of keying the story Abu Ghazi Al-Khiel had told him, including Al-Jambar’s own vision of the relevance of his story and the photos. He titled the editorial “Proof that the United States is an Evil Juggernaut.” The piece called for the Muslim world to render the United States to dust. He began typing:
This morning, Abu Ghazi Al-Khiel discovered the two mutilated corpses of his employers, Pesi and Tariq Houmaz, at the home where Pesi lived on the outskirts of Riyadh. The Houmaz brothers lived a quiet life, but had come to the attention of one of the intelligence agencies in Washington, and they were tortured to death and mounted naked on the wall of the living room of their home, facing toward Mecca.
American intelligence agents might not know that having the dead turned to face Mecca is an abomination in Islam. The flesh of one brother was inscribed with acknowledgement that US spies did this: Such is the fate of all who fuck with intelligence agencies of the United States. No one in the United States has denied their involvement.
The Houmaz brothers are survived by their father, an oil company president, and a third brother, who works as a Director in the Saudi Oil Ministry. No one in the Saudi government has commented yet on the torture and deaths of these very private brothers of a prominent Saudi family.
A devout Muslim, Al-Jambar became visibly agitated as he keyed his story. He muttered, “How could any US intelligence agency dare do such a thing to Saudi nationals on Saudi soil, especially to people so powerful and influential?” He posted the story, and within minutes responses came in via the Internet from all over the Middle East. At the rate they arrived, they’d have over a quarter million within two hours.
He smiled, putting his feet up on his desk. “I wonder if our web server is adequate to handle the volume?” He chuckled, and began keying the outlines for several follow-on stories. He’d get a wide audience of Muslims hating the United States from this editorial.
It took the mercs forty-six minutes before they were ready to pull the plug. Every one of them now said a private prayer for their own souls as well as for everyone else’s within a twenty-mile radius.
Cassie’s wristwatch showed the time as 11:57 a.m. She flinched every time anyone moved.
Corporal Cheryl Swartz placed her fingers on the wires and then looked over at Private Harry Tonsis’s hands, holding the manual for the disarmament procedure. He nodded his head.
Tonsis said, “It’s now or never, sweetie. Pull the plug so we can go home.”
She cast him an angry look. “Yeah, well, just leave me to do my job.” Then she pulled on one of the wires. It came loose and she removed it. Nothing happened. The alarm clock attached to the bomb began ticking much faster and Swartz took a deep breath and gripped another wire.
Once again, Tonsis nodded to her. “Go! Do!” and once more she pulled at the wire, but this one didn’t disengage.
She reread the procedure. “I need the wire clipper,” she said in a breathy, nervous voice. Tonsis slapped a wire cutter into her outstretched hand and she leaned back over the wire. “Time,” she yelled.
Tonsis said, “Sweetie, you have less than a minute.”
Swartz took another deep breath she hoped wouldn’t be her last. She clipped the target wire. The alarm clock kept ticking, going even faster now. She gripped another set of wires and pulled on both. They both gradually loosened and she tugged first one off.
Nothing happened to slow the timer.
Swartz frowned concern; she’d run out of time. And why hadn’t the timer stopped when she disconnected the first wire?
She gulped hard and pulled the other wire off the bomb.
The ticking stopped. “It’s disarmed,” Swartz whispered, exhausted.
Cassie’s wristwatch showed just after 11:59 a.m. One of Washington’s cathedral clocks chimed noon. Her hand reached down, feeling her pants to see if they were still dry. They were.
Cassie shivered in the heat, feeling lost. Slowly, she realized she was going to cry and reached into her pocket for a tissue. But instead, she found the wrinkled photo of Ann Silbee. Cassie hadn’t realized she’d put it there. For seconds she just stared at the image of the young teenager, feeling almost whole.
The bomb disarmers packed pieces of the device into plastic bags, placing the lead-lined container in a large black case with a Styrofoam liner to cushion the nuclear material. Four members of the bomb disarmament team picked it up by handles on the bag. They left the monument’s viewing chamber and headed down the stairs.
The gas team dragged the dead terrorists into body bags. They sealed each body bag and the gas team members picked the bags up by their handles.
In the lobby, they placed the two dead police officers into body bags and marked those bags with the police officers’ badge numbers. Shimmel had already had a team take the wounded officer to a hospital.
Their work completed, they all exited the monument. The top-floor viewing chamber’s door was left open so, later, the public could once again visit. Around the lobby, they took down signs indicating the monument was closed.
Once they were gone, all was as it had been before the terrorists arrived.
Cassie knew a miracle had occurred. No civilians had died.
Chapter Forty-Three
September 14, 2:29 p.m.
706 West Kirke Street, Chevy Chase, Maryland
The mole sat with spouse and son watching television in the family room of their house, thirty-five miles west of Washington, DC. It was past 1 p.m. No announcement on the television about a disaster in Washington. The mole had told the family as little as possible. “I’m not sure if this was agency-related so I called the agency instead of the police. I think we need a day to unwind.” They’d agreed. Neither understood the mole’s desire to sit glued to the cable news station, but neither had the energy to change the channel. The mole was privately overjoyed at having saved all their lives.
It finally dawned on the mole, nothing had happened. How could the terrorists have failed? There’s no way! If nothing has happened by early tomorrow, I’ll go back to work. With the agency’s resources, I can discreetly look further to discover what became of the ragheads and their bombs.
Cassie asked a clerk at the embassy to obtain lodging for her and her troops. She said, “Any hotel, but just one hotel for us all. We all need to be together, please.” But there was nothing available for such a large a group in one hotel until the next night, and none of her exhausted mercs wanted to be separated from the group.
The clerk found places within the embassy for them to sleep there that night. Most crashed on blankets placed on the floor in a filing area with a low security clearance. Cassie was exhausted and happy to sleep on the tile floor, using a sleeping bag as a mattress.
Lee slept on the bag with her, holding her head on his shoulder.
She lay quietly, thinking about the final loose end: the mole. She tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. She had to decide what to do about the bastard. It was hours deep into night before she drifted off.
When she woke the next morning, Lee had risen and left the area. No one else woke before midmorning. No one knew where he’d gone.
Early Sunday morning, the mole stepped into the office. The building was deserted. On the mole’s desk was the daily report, but this one detailed the results of an unauthorized agency operation in Riyadh that resulted in the termination of the Houmaz family.
The mole read how one of the bodies had claims burned into its flesh that indicated a US intelligence agency was responsible for the kills. It must be the work of Cassandra Sashakovich and Lee Ainsley. But, of course, there was no proof. And the mole wasn’t able to figure out how she’d thought to implicate US intelligence. Was it a message to the agency, to make Muslim extremists distrust the United States again, and to force the government to stop supporting terror
ism?
According to a follow-on report, over a million Muslims around the world had read this news item on Al Jazeera and other Internet news sites throughout the Muslim world. The mole viewed the pictures of the naked, disfigured corpses with silent alarm. The article mentioned the corpses faced Mecca. Damn. As if the murders weren’t bad enough. I bet the insult wasn’t an accident.
The mole visited several Islamic websites and envisioned the outrage this commentary provoked across the Muslim world. What might make the news vanish? When the mole looked back at the monitor, of course it was still there. The story had broken less than an hour before. It would get much bigger very soon. The mole knew the pictures would appear on US websites soon. Without thinking, the mole picked up the phone and called a counterpart in the FBI.
The mole spoke with Assistant Director Moira Michelson. She seemed unaware of the murder victims or the suspected murderers. “Who are these people?”
“They’re both former employees of mine who appear to have gone ‘rogue.’ The murders are all over Al Jazeera. It’s embarrassing to me, the agency, and this country. We’re being blamed when it wasn’t our op. We’d never do anything like that.”
The mole struggled to convince her this threat was urgent. “Lee Ainsley must be arrested as soon as you can find him, as a national security threat. Ainsley is our prime suspect in the Houmaz murders and, technically, he is still in the employ of the agency. Our intel has him on US soil so the agency can’t hunt him down. It must be the FBI. You. Find him as fast as you can.”
“You guys at the agency are so macho I wouldn’t put it past you to tell me he’s rogue when he’s not. Why should I believe you?”
“This is about to become a major crisis. He’s on US soil right now, and I need him found and arrested so we can question him.”
“If we do this, who gets custody while he’s in jail?”
“Moira, you know the answer. Ainsley knows classified global agency intel. So we have to retain custody.”
Michelson was silent for a second. “Okay, but for this you’ll owe me one huge favor. Remember, you owe me whatever I request, for apprehending one of your problem children.”
Lee Ainsley felt like the world of stress haunting him for months had finally lifted. He felt lighter and calmer. He almost danced down New York Avenue. The thought that he and Cassie had survived had him grinning ear-to-ear this sunny Sunday with trees blanketed in the red and orange splendor of Indian summer.
He enjoyed walking past exclusive shops, entering a men’s clothing store, and letting the air conditioning cool him. He marveled at how men’s ties had changed, getting thinner during the two months while he’d fled for his life. He looked forward to returning to his job at the agency.
After a while, he left to look in other store windows. Somehow he had managed to cheat death and reclaim his life. He owed Cassie.
And, he was in love with her. There was no reason for him to look beyond that. He thought they would die together, but now what he wanted was for them to live together. He wore the grin of a simpleton as he walked through the city, seeing it as if for the first time.
Need to find a jeweler. Buy an engagement ring.
He didn’t see the black van following him. He exited the jewelry store with the tiny package in his pocket. He smiled, walking slowly. At first the van trailed two blocks behind him. It closed the distance to less than fifty feet and its rear door thumped open. Two men wearing dark suits and white shirts moved right behind him. One said, “Lee Ainsley?”
Lee turned and surveyed the situation. Uh oh. Something bad here, and no way out. He gulped. “Yes, I am. How can I help you two gentlemen?”
“We’re special agents of the FBI. We have a warrant for your arrest.” They both flashed their badges. “Please come with us.”
“What’s the charge?”
One of the men twisted around Lee’s back and forced his arms behind him.
“Wait! Tell me what’s going on. I have a right to know. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
They cuffed him and forced him into the van.
Lee shouted at them, “Am I charged with a crime? You didn’t read me my rights. What the fuck do you think I did?” There was no answer and he asked again. And again. The van sped off through the streets of DC toward Reagan Airport.
They had covered several miles before one of the FBI agents turned his head back toward Ainsley and told him, “You’re a terrorist, an enemy combatant on American soil. You have no rights. We’re shipping you off to a prison camp outside the United States where you’ll be indefinitely detained. Sorry, chum.”
The mole was baffled at the terrorists’ failure to obliterate the nation’s capital. Had they failed, or just postponed their attack? There was nothing on the news. The mole spent the day locked alone in a conference room completing accumulated paperwork, emerging as the sun set. Then the mole called home. No answer, so the mole left them a voicemail message. “It’s just after six. I’m on my way home.”
As the mole packed the attaché case, the phone rang. “We have Lee Ainsley in custody. We found him leaving a jewelry store about six blocks from here.” Moira’s voice was edged with anger.
The mole was stunned. Wasn’t Ainsley somewhere in central California? “What, him here?” But no response. “Okay, then. Thanks, Moira.”
Hours earlier, the mercs had departed the Israeli Embassy for the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on 22nd Street at M Street. Yigdal Ben-Levy debriefed Cassie and Shimmel at the embassy. Ben-Levy told them, “I’m particularly interested in keeping knowledge of the new liquid armor from anyone. All your soldiers have signed non-disclosure agreements.”
Shimmel nodded in agreement.
Ben-Levy said, “And you may all keep the shirts as gifts from the Israeli government.”
Shimmel and Cassie signed the NDAs and went on to the next item on Ben-Levy’s list.
Hours passed, and just after dusk, their meeting ended. Cassie felt exhausted now, the aftermath of combat and her debrief meeting.
She left the restroom and passed by the conference room’s television, where she stopped to watch. She expected no news about the Washington Monument operation, and there was none. After all, their operation was a direct violation of the law.
She hadn’t seen Lee all day and wondered where he’d gone. He hadn’t left a note. She guessed he’d departed to a hotel hours earlier to get some sleep. But he hadn’t called. What was he doing?
No energy to leave the embassy. She figured she needed an hour before she could walk any distance.
Cassie sat in front of the blaring television and closed her eyes, drifting off. From the corner of her mind something alerted her and she awoke startled.
A cable news report. She watched in alarm as she saw Lee arrested, charged with acts of terrorism. She knew beyond doubt it was the mole’s doing. Now she knew for sure Lee wasn’t the mole.
She knew what they’d do to him. If he hadn’t already been taken to the airport, he must be on his way there now. He’d be tortured in some foreign country. Rage energized her once more. As she rose from the chair, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Avram Shimmel standing behind her.
Cassie faced Shimmel. “I need to see Yigdal Ben-Levy.” She sprang out of the chair and ran down the hall, Shimmel following close behind her. “They’ll kill Lee. Torture him to death. I can’t let them! Help me, Avram.”
Ben-Levy listened and together they made a plan. He promised not to use the information Cassie gave him about the President’s treasonous acts but Cassie was more concerned with getting Lee back unharmed and as soon as possible.
As she left Ben-Levy’s office, her cell phone chimed, indicating an incoming email from Wing. The message was brief, containing just eleven words:
Identity of person with fingerprints and DNA confirmed. Mark McDougal.
—CryptoMonger
Cassie stared at the short email for minutes, her jaw slack. She couldn’t believe the man who’d hired her,
the man she’d reported to, was responsible for the mess her life had become. Slowly, her jaw jutted, her mouth opened revealing her teeth in a hurricane of anger.
Shimmel had never seen her in a rage as furious as this one. He peeked at the screen. “What will you do?”
She turned and faced him. The rage faded, replaced by a storm of tears. She couldn’t bring herself to speak. What was there to say?
Mark McDougal used his computer to view a television cable news station, looking for the story there. He’d told his FBI counterpart to release news of Ainsley’s capture as soon as they could in an attempt to blunt the edge of the news about the horrifying deaths of the Houmaz brothers.
He found the story on cable news. A talking head said, “Early this morning, FBI special agents arrested a director of one of Washington’s intelligence agencies, claiming he was responsible for the brutal deaths of two Saudi Arabian brothers in Riyadh. But the attorney representing the agency director told this reporter that the director, Lee Ainsley, hasn’t been outside the United States this entire year. Further, the attorney told us the following story…”
The screen shifted to an old, white-haired man whom McDougal had seen in Washington but never met. He was labeled on-screen only as “Mr. Ainsley’s attorney.” Ben-Levy wore an expensive and very conservative charcoal pinstripe Hickey Freeman suit, with a bespoke, white, button-down-collared shirt and a blue-and-white striped rep tie. He said, “I find it odd the FBI would arrest someone for a crime committed so far outside the borders of this country when the person they’ve arrested simply hasn’t been outside the country. And what would be his motive? It is true the murdered brothers were Muslim extremists. Classified information I received from another government indicates the funding of the Muslim extremists appears to have come directly through bank accounts that are the property of the United States government. I cannot understand what this government hoped to gain by bringing all this into the light of day, as this arrest will surely do.”