THREE
By William C. Oelfke
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by William C. Oelfke. All rights reserved.
For Dashell, Devin, Konnor, and Kellan: the Fab Four.
Contents
Last Words
The Three
Famine
Waxahachie
St. Nicholas’ Staircase
The Usual Suspects
Mass
Pistachios for the Caliph
Critical
The Dark Temple
The Well of Souls
Reflections
1
Last Words
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram,
But thy name shall be Abraham;
For a father of many nations I have made of thee.
-Genesis 17:5
It was growing late for a Washington office on a Monday, the second of June, 2014. As he put down his cell phone, Oliver exclaimed, “Damn! I’ve been here just one week, expecting to work quietly, recovering from the past nine months of teaching energetic undergraduates, and now Clark wants me to go on a scavenger hunt in North Texas!”
A distinguished professor of History and Religion at the University of Chicago, Dr. Oliver Saxon was just beginning his second summer as an analyst with Homeland Security Analysis and Operations, Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). No one outside of his immediate I&A colleagues knew of his work as a specialist in international religions and radicalism; his University of Chicago friends and co-workers were told he shared a position between Chicago University and American University, there in Washington, D. C.
Last summer Oliver had worked alone in his I&A office preparing a report on ISIS recruiting. In this report Oliver had disclosed that the Islamic State is the first jihadist movement to draw its recruits into what it claimed would be the final battle before the End of Days. The ISIS leader is deriving the authority for his caliphate from apocalyptic prophecy. He is calling on the faithful to take up arms in order to meet and defeat the crusader army in Northern Syria on the planes of Dabiq. This call to arms is to be the final prophetic conflict, the Armageddon before the End of Days. Oliver had submitted this report to his director, Bob Clark at the conclusion of this first summer.
Nine months later, prior to Oliver’s joining Homeland Security for his second summer of work, he received a call from Director Clark. “Oliver, your report has caused quite a stir among the intelligence community. Our experts had not fully appreciated this aspect of the Islamic State’s appeal to the worldwide community of Islamic faithful. They now realize you have found a key element to the ISIS appeal. Have you presented any of these findings in your lectures at Chicago?”
“Not yet. I thought I should check with you first before using any of my I&A research.”
“Good. The information in this report details an international recruitment effort. Your role in exposing it could put you in danger of physical attack here at home.”
“Surely I’m not alone in seeing this method of recruitment. End of Days warnings have been used for years by preachers to bring the weak and troubled into a religious movement.”
“Never before has such a call been used by terrorists. I’m serious Oliver; be very careful! Since last year terrorist activity has increased worldwide and your work this summer is now focused on a possible ISIS cell here in the United States. I need your expertise but will pull you off this summer project if I find you are too exposed.”
“I’ll be careful this week on my fact finding trip to Texas.”
“Nevertheless, the scope and potential danger of your work has changed since last summer. I’m adding a second analyst named Maxine Phillips to work with you. She’s just returned from close military contact with these terrorists and can give you a first-hand account of the danger they pose.”
Oliver sat in his I&A office wondering what danger he would face on his assignment in Texas. Never before had his research resulted in physical risk to him. He realized he had left the safety of his ivory tower for the danger of a hidden battlefield. Oliver could not think of himself as a soldier, entering into combat against a worldwide terrorist movement. He was a middle-aged bachelor with rugged features, but this appearance belied his gentle nature and academic leanings.
Having reached the pivotal age of forty-two, when men begin to develop a belly and high blood pressure, he worked to maintain a healthy lifestyle. His hair showed no signs of grey and his eyes were as bright as his smile when he interacted with his students. He did most of his own cooking and visited the gym daily, where he jogged and lifted weights. As a result, his students saw him as an active, alert professor whose lectures were filled with enthusiasm, as well as interesting illustrations. Female students rated Professor Oliver Saxon as “Hot” and all of his students ranked his classes as the best on campus. Each lecture was filled with adventure and humor, even though it dealt with one of the many ancient world religions.
At the end of his introductory lecture on Greek mythology, Oliver had his own unique way of reminding his students to read their assignments. “When I call on you to stand in this lecture hall and deliver your knowledge to all present, I have become King Dionysius and you have become Damocles, occupying my throne of wisdom. But remember, my sword of truth is hanging above your head by a thread!”
He was tough but always careful not to insult or belittle, always motivating his students to try harder. He brought artifacts to class and used interesting illustrations to capture the students’ attention, as well as their imaginations. Oliver was not the typical dry lecturer; rather, he did everything to facilitate learning in, as well as outside, the classroom. He loved the interaction with the young undergraduate students because they always kept him on his toes and provided a youthful perspective on the world. Although he would soon be looking for an ISIS cell in North Texas, he realized he was a professor, not a soldier.
The spring term had just finished at the Chicago campus and now Oliver had come to Washington to spend a week at Homeland Security on this new project. He actually did spend time at the American University campus, both in the library and at the gym, since the campus was just across the street from the Homeland Security complex. Following the 9-11 attacks, Homeland Security was founded and initially occupied offices on the American University campus but eventually took over the complex of government buildings across Nebraska Avenue. The environment of this government office complex was more like a college campus than any of the government facilities close to the center of the Capitol. Each building was small and separated from the others by green spaces. Many offices provided relaxing views of nearby McLean Gardens to the south east.
Oliver had an ample office at I&A with a large window facing north, up Nebraska Avenue, toward Rock Creek Park. His desk held his computer and was surrounded by book shelves filled with a large assortment of religious texts covering the field of religion from Agnosticism to Zoroastrianism. This extensive library gave the impression to any visitor that Oliver’s desk papers might contain the beginnings of a rather weighty Sunday sermon, or a lecture on comparative religion.
Sermon topics or lectures were the last thoughts in the back of his mind as he stared, perplexed, at his computer screen; what is behind this series of conference calls between Syria, Israel, and North Texas? What danger am I going to find in Waxahachie? Here were the pictorial streams of encrypted communication projected on a world map that linked possible terrorist cells together. These communication patterns, detected
by Central Intelligence as indicating a potential terrorist attack on the U. S., usually looked like a sunburst or a spider web, with a well-defined center from which the transmissions had their origin. This pattern was unique because it was a triangle spread from the Western United States to two locations in the Middle East. Central Intelligence had just managed to deduce the general pattern of this particular stream, but was unable to break the quantum noise encryption and listen to the conversation.
According to his I&A director, Bob Clark, this series of calls was suspected to link together various cells of ISIS, but the pattern not only originated from Damascus, an ISIS stronghold in the Middle East, but also from Israel and the heartland of the United States. The data represented a new series of three-way conference calls that had been made over the past three months, the last one occurring last Thursday. They were each encoded differently than earlier ISIS communication. It was this sophisticated encoding that had alerted Central Intelligence to what could be the initiation of a serious terrorist attack on the United States or Israel. Oliver picked up his phone and dialed the extension of his new team partner Maxine Phillips.
Her phone rang four times before she picked it up, saying, somewhat sharply, “Dr. Saxon, It’s late. What’s up?”
“Phillips, can you come here and look at something on my screen?”
“You caught me at my door; I was just heading to the firing range for my evening training, but ok, I have a few minutes.”
Maxine Phillips, a bright young field agent, now assigned to Oliver as an analyst, had a sixth sense for finding the underlying structures of the networks of terror and international crime. She had a graduate degree from Georgetown in International Affairs and spoke a number of Middle Eastern languages. At age 33, her light feminine build and soft hazel eyes gave no clue to her extensive training as an analyst, and later, field agent during her eight years with the CIA. She had been recruited while she was still working on her degree at Georgetown, and upon graduation entered the hidden world of espionage at Langley.
Prior to being assigned to this desk job at Homeland Security, Maxine had been on assignment within the Northern Provinces of Iraq between Mosul and the Turkish border. She had been helping determine the supply needs of the Kurdish fighters in that region. On numerous occasions she found herself diving for cover as ISIS mortar or rocket rounds exploded nearby. Small arms fire, along with frequent casualties, were constant reminders of the danger she exposed herself to on this assignment. After the death, from a sniper’s bullet, of the young American military advisor who had been assigned as her team member, it was decided she should be withdrawn.
When she returned to the United States after this traumatic year in the field, she was reassigned from Central Intelligence to a position as analyst at Homeland Security headquarters. This new position, in a quiet office in Washington D. C., was intended to give Maxine time to recover from her battlefield exposure. However, she now felt like she was strapped to a desk in a very dull and boring office, her nerves on edge, her mind back in Iraq, still in a survival mode. She denied she suffered from PTSD and worked efficiently in this new assignment, but with frequent emotional swings, and a chip on her shoulder.
She resented working for this academic consultant, Dr. Oliver Saxon. He was charming and interesting to be around, despite the fact his thing was history and religion, but she did not want to develop a close working or personal relationship with anyone right now. She had lost a close comrade in battle, and was now struggling to regain her emotional footing as a CIA field agent, ready to again face a combat environment without fear. Even here in this quiet office she saw herself as a field agent and found little adventure at a desk or staring at a computer screen. She regularly took out her aggressions at martial arts training and on the pistol range where she proved herself a better marksman than her instructor. Both her instructors were intimidated by her intensity as well as her skill.
Looking over Oliver’s shoulder at his computer screen she quipped, “What’s that; a combination of testimonials from the conservative elements of the three great world religions?”
He looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face but replied, “These were broadcasted numerous times last week: the final one on Thursday. Why’d you think of the world religions? What’s the connection with this pattern?”
“It should be obvious to you; you’re the religion professor; they come from the same areas where Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are the most radical.”
Oliver was taken aback, not just by her biting insult but also by her rapid analysis. For whatever reason, he had suspected this connection but had brushed off his first instincts, despite his academic credentials as a well-known expert on world religions, because it had been tagged by Central Intelligence as an ISIS threat.
“You may be right,” he mused, ignoring her rebuke, “but how could these people be talking to one another when they usually kill each other on sight? What could they possibly have in common?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this communication is between one radical group and its moles in the other two camps.”
Oliver leaned back in his chair and admitted to himself that the secure, compartmentalized message from Central Intelligence, for his eyes only, suggested just that. He had been instructed to try to find evidence of an ISIS cell in North Texas while they worked with Israel Intelligence to identify the Jerusalem source of communication.
Looking at Maxine he said, “There’s something here for sure but, just like yours, my first impression was that it’s not a link between elements of one ideology. I’m still looking for some common thread between these three radical groups. The only thing the three extreme ideologies have in common is Father Abraham. So for now I’ll call this cabal, if it indeed exists, the ‘Father Abraham conspiracy,’ and try to figure out how and why such a crystallization of opposing forces could form. What new force could possibly emerge?”
As Maxine turned to leave his office, Oliver said, “Maxine, I’ll be going back to Chicago tomorrow. Could you keep your eyes and ears open for any hint of trouble here and in the Middle East that might be linked to this strange network?”
“I’ll try, but this is your project Dr. Saxon, and since Director Clark has not staffed me into it, I am not supposed to know who assigned it to you, what you are supposed to find, or why.”
“Just keep an eye on our Father Abraham conspiracy for me,” said Oliver as she left his office. He watched her as she walked back to her desk to pick up her things. Despite her volatile and somewhat hostile attitude, he felt himself drawn to her emotionally as well as intellectually. She was the first woman that he found himself attracted to since his heart was broken by his high school sweetheart as he departed for college. In many ways Maxine appeared to be hiding a gentle charm, but at present it was obvious she wore her feelings on her sleeve. She was not at all hesitant to exhibit resentment at having to work in this job of academic drudgery.
What he did not say or even imply by his expression was that, although she was the field agent and he was the professor, he would board a Southwest Airlines jet for Dallas/Fort Worth in two hours on his way to Waxahachie, Texas, where it appeared the United States source of these mysterious communications had its origin. He had mentioned the Father Abraham conspiracy in part to humor Maxine and to lead her away from his assigned mission with a “red herring”. Oliver knew Maxine would be even more upset than she already was if she found out he would be in the field on assignment for the CIA, rather than she.
Oliver had been given some information from Director Clark about Maxine’s encounter with an ISIS sniper near Mosul and was hesitant to mention he would be hunting for a possible ISIS cell in Waxahachie. Clark had suggested she may have been romantically attached to Tom Carson, the young officer killed by the sniper, and had expressed concern that Maxine might not be ready psychologically for another encounter with ISIS. She had refused to work with the counselors provided by Central Intelligence, insis
ting she was strong enough to handle the trauma of her battlefield experiences.
The director had requested that Oliver keep an eye on her for any signs of PTSD and keep him informed. “Use your skills counseling your college students. Maybe you can help her with her adjustments to this non-combat environment here at I&A.” As Maxine left her office and walked down the hall to the exit, Oliver thought to himself, Maxine, what is the woman like who hides behind your tough, ‘full-body armor’?
Without sending Maxine on this mission into a possible ISIS stronghold, but leaving her at her desk, the director had shielded her from possible emotional harm. Oliver knew she could research this connection between these three ideologies. She could participate in a way that would be useful in his search and keep her out of possible trouble. Operations had strongly suggested he would be the best pair of eyes there in North Texas, but made it clear he was not to put himself in danger or in any way reveal the purpose of his visit. While in Waxahachie he was not to make contact with any possible source or even inquire about the various religious organizations that might be involved. He was to be a professor on a fact finding trip to one of the more ornate Victorian towns in the Southwest.
Oliver shut down his computer, and left his office, now darkened by the Washington, D. C. nightfall. Walking out into the parking lot to the sound of distant thunder, he began feeling the growing dread of having to wend his way through the beltway traffic to Washington National. As he reached his car, an older model two-door, his cell phone rang.
The call was from Alice Newbury, the daughter of his best friend and colleague, Dr. Peter Newbury. Oliver had no family members nearby other than his students whom he often thought of as his children but kept at a distance appropriate for a university professor. On the other hand Alice had become not only a dear friend, but he thought of her as his daughter. He was, after all, her Godfather. She would often confide in him her joys and tears when her famous mathematician father was off to an international conference on string theory or super-symmetry.
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