by Al Pessin
One room in the back had been converted into a television studio. It had gray walls and two large lights shining into a windowless corner, making the room even hotter than it usually was.
There was an old carpet on the floor, and that’s where Nazim invited al-Souri to sit. He wore a dark gray long-sleeved kaftan that covered his body completely as he sat cross-legged and faced the camera. In place of the turban he’d worn for decades in Afghanistan, al-Souri had a takkiye, the white knitted skullcap favored by imams.
“It is very bright,” the commander said, squinting as his eyes adjusted.
“It is for television,” Nazim explained. “But we will turn it down a little.”
A fighter lowered the lights, then checked the focus on the video camera atop a small tripod. Another man took photos. Nazim handed al-Souri a microphone.
The commander reviewed his notes one last time, then set the paper aside. “I am ready.”
“Will you cover your face, Commander?”
“No. Let them see me.”
* * *
The video al-Souri made was carried far from the makeshift studio, then sent over a secure internet connection to a relay point, from which it was passed on several more times before being posted on a militant website. The light was harsh and the quality was poor, but that enhanced the authenticity.
Bridget’s team sent it over, and Liz ran into her office to provide a rough translation as the video played.
“In the name of Allah, the most gracious and merciful, bless the martyrs of the Muslim Caliphate of the Levant. They have achieved our first victory, and we shall continue until all the occupied lands are free under Allah’s blessed law. Occupiers! End the illegal war against the faithful. If you do not, we vow in Allah’s name that you will not be safe—not in our lands and not in yours.”
“Cable news will love it,” Bridget said.
“Yeah. Pretty chilling.”
“I wish I could say the threat isn’t credible, but that looked like al-Souri to me.”
“For sure.” Liz reached over and replayed the video, then froze the frame. Al-Souri’s black eyes were open. He looked directly into the camera. His beard was mostly gray and stretched from high on his cheeks to past his collar. “We haven’t seen a good pic of him in years, but, yeah.”
“So this confirms he survived the air strike on Ibn Jihad. And that means he probably ordered the November attacks.”
“Yes, and yes.” Liz sat in the visitor’s chair.
“‘The Syrian’ is back in Syria. Damn. I wish we’d gotten him that night.”
“He was lucky, and he wasn’t the primary target.”
“Seems shortsighted now.” Bridget sat back in her chair.
“Yeah. Al-Souri is among the most radical. He holds a lot of sway, kind of a warrior scholar with all the right contacts.” Liz gestured toward the freeze-frame. “And charisma to burn . . . if you’re into that sort of thing.”
“And now, with Ibn Jihad gone and the November attacks to his credit, he’s a key player—maybe the key player.”
“Yes again.”
“And the Muslim Caliphate of the Levant?”
“First time anyone has ever heard of it.”
Bridget lowered her chin, rolled her eyes to the tops of their sockets, and fixed them on Liz.
She got the message. “Right. On it.” Liz spun in the chair and launched herself out of the office.
Bridget stared at al-Souri, staring back at her from the screen.
How did you know our guys were there? Did you have a man inside? Was he one of yours, or did you kidnap his family?
Bridget shook her head. They’d probably never know.
The video was a challenge, a dare from the man himself. I’m here. Come and get me if you can.
Bridget called Liz. “Make sure the recruiter knows our Karim wants to go to Syria.”
“Good thought. Al-Souri’s move makes Syria the new nexus. Have you seen the email I just sent?”
“No.”
“The Caliphate manifesto was attached to the video file.”
“Tell me.”
“Immediate goal—impose shariah in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine.”
“Meaning Israel.”
“Right. Then they take over Central Asia and Europe. Standard stuff, but al-Souri could make a better run at it than we’ve seen before.”
Bridget was reasonably sure that wouldn’t happen. But until the U.S. stopped him—until she stopped him—al-Souri would kill a lot more Americans.
Chapter Fourteen
“Can I ask you a question, sir?” Faraz was nearing the end of yet another session with Dr. Ellison and wanted to turn the tables.
“Sure.”
“Where do I go from here?”
“It’s up to you, Lieutenant.”
“That’s your favorite phrase, isn’t it?” Faraz thought he’d heard it about a million times since the suicide attempt ten days earlier.
Ellison didn’t reply. He never replied to anger, always forced Faraz to calm down. If he didn’t, Ellison left the room.
Faraz took a couple of breaths to ease his anger. “Sorry, sir. Okay. Where do I think we go from here? My wrist heals. I behave. You clear me. And I go home. That’s where we go from here, if you ask me.”
“There’s more to heal than your wrist, Lieutenant.” The doctor put his pen in his lab coat pocket and closed his notebook.
“Yes, sir. But I need to know there’s a way out. That’s why I . . . you know.” Faraz held out his bandaged wrist.
“As you can imagine, your future is not entirely in my hands. But what we do here, together, is certainly a prerequisite for whatever comes next.”
Faraz took another breath and let it out. “I’m just so angry all the time.”
“That’s part of what we’re trying to deal with.”
“But I have a right to be angry. They lied to me. They made me lie. I abandoned my parents, and now my father is dead.”
“You may well have reasons to be angry. The goal is to move forward in spite of it.”
“Walinsky said I need to ‘understand the situation fully,’ or something like that.”
“Yes, not a bad way to put it.” The doctor stood. “This was a good session. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
After the doctor left, Faraz sat under the unblinking eye of the newly installed suicide-watch camera and considered his options. He had tried the only escape route he could think of, and they clearly were not going to let him do that again. They were not going to let him go home anytime soon, either. And he didn’t want to stay in this hospital forever or, worse, get transferred to some sort of locked-down loony bin.
Maybe the only way out of this mess was straight through it.
Damn them. They were forcing him to think exactly the way they wanted him to. If he satisfied the docs that he wasn’t crazy and convinced the major he wasn’t a security risk, Walinsky would pressure him do another mission.
That was the last thing he wanted to do. Well, second to last. The last thing he wanted to do was to stay here.
* * *
The C-130 supply run from Washington to Guantanamo was starting to feel like a regular commuter flight to Bridget. She was none too happy about it, but she needed to talk to Faraz. The docs said he was improving but hadn’t budged from their minimum twelve-week estimate.
“You’re not going to upset him again, are you, ma’am?” Dr. Ellison asked in his office on the hospital’s main floor.
“I might, frankly. Or I might get him to snap out of it.”
“That’s not the way it works.”
“I know. I’m just saying I need to have this meeting. Maybe it’ll help him. If not, we’ll be no worse off than we are now.”
“You may be no worse off, but he might be.”
“It’s a chance we have to take. That’s why I came with an armload of authorizations.”
Bridget handed over a classified file that had lett
ers from the chief of navy medicine and the deputy director of National Intelligence. “Satisfied?”
“I suppose I have to be.”
* * *
Bridget found Faraz in workout shorts, running shoes, and a gray T-shirt with ARMY across the front in blue. He’d had a haircut.
He stood behind his table, sweat towel in hand. “They told me you were coming.”
Bridget couldn’t read his tone. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Officially, better.”
“And unofficially?”
Faraz gave a half laugh. “Also better.”
“Really? Last time I was here, you almost put me through that wall.”
Faraz looked away. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry about that, truly I am.” He turned back to face her. “I didn’t know what I was doing at that time. Now, I’ve got my head screwed on straight. Well, straighter, anyway.”
“Glad to hear it, Faraz. Can I call you Faraz?”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry about that, too.”
“Let’s sit.” They sat across the table from each other. “So, what’s your plan?”
“That’s what the shrinks keep asking. My plan is to get back in shape, convince them I’m not a security risk, and go home.”
“Well, you’ve at least got the sequencing right.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Keep at it. You will get through this.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Now, the reason I came down here is that I need to show you a photo. We think we know who it is, but you are the one person who can confirm it.” Bridget took a still photo from al-Souri’s video out of her bag. “Can you tell me who this is?”
Faraz sat back and seemed to stifle a gasp. “That is Commander al-Souri.”
“That’s what we thought. Thank you for confirming it.” She put the photo away. “Are you all right?”
Faraz’s eyes were wide. He looked upset. “He’s alive?”
“Yes. And back in the game in a big way.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, wow. That’s why I came down here last time. I thought you could go after him again. But you’re clearly in no condition to do that, even with your improvement. I appreciate the positive ID. We may need you to help with other intel as we go along.”
Faraz was looking off to his left, through the high window, toward an undefined point in the sky. “You say he’s back in the game. What did he do?”
“Right. You’re still in a news blackout. Major attacks right after you came home. Another one a week ago. It seems he fled home, to Syria.”
“Damn.”
“And he’s not done yet, or so he says in the video that pic came from. I’ll get you cleared to read the details.”
“I will do what I can to help you get that son of a bitch. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. For now, focus on your recovery.”
All the way home, Bridget wondered whether she’d set Faraz’s recovery back, or whether she had given him something to live for.
* * *
Over the next several days, Faraz opened up to the doctors. He found that talking about things actually helped.
He went through his participation in terrorist attacks, the guilt he felt seeing people killed and maimed, the gunfights he’d been in. The most difficult topic was his parents, but he got through a discussion about them, too.
He got approval to go for a run outside the hospital compound, accompanied by MPs. They ran along a path by the bay and circled back along the main road. The blue of the water and the green of the tropical vegetation worked on Faraz like an elixir. He ran farther than he had planned, and then farther still the next day.
“I have good news for you, Lieutenant.” Julie more or less sang the announcement as she came in to pick up his tray. “You are cleared to have Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow in the main dining room with the other patients.”
“With actual people?”
“Mostly sailors. But yes.” Julie let out a high-pitched giggle.
“That’s good, I guess.”
“That’s great, Lieutenant, considering where we were a couple of weeks ago. Think of it as your homecoming, your mind catching up to your body.”
“Thanks, Julie,” Faraz called as she swung out of the room.
Julie was impossibly optimistic, but also right. Faraz was feeling somewhat like his old self. Well, more like a new self—one that had put his grief, anger, and guilt in a box and was working hard to keep it there. Some days, it leaked. Someday, it might explode. But for now, he had it under control.
He had to convince himself of that, as much as he had to convince everyone else. It was the only way out of here.
* * *
After his jog the next day, Faraz got out of the shower to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner and saw that his clothing shelf was empty. He looked in the cabinet under the sink in search of a fresh set of scrubs. What he found were his Afghan clothes, folded as he had left them before he’d tried to kill himself.
The sight of them stopped him cold. He stared at the outfit for a long time and rubbed the bandage on his left wrist. That tunic and pants could unlock his box of emotions. Faraz took a breath and let it out. He bent down, picked up the clothes, and threw them hard into the trash can.
He wrapped a towel around himself, went to the door of his room, and raised his voice. “Can I get some clean scrubs in here, please?”
Chapter Fifteen
“Lieutenant Abdallah is continuing to make progress, but his emotional state remains fragile. Our team is still assessing whether his presented demeanor is genuine and long-lasting, or a fiction created to gain his freedom.”
It was the Monday after the holiday, and Bridget was reading her now-weekly progress report on Faraz. “I guess that’s good news,” she said.
“Ma’am?” The workman stopped what he was doing.
“Nothing. Sorry.” Bridget was appalled that she had said it out loud. “Please, carry on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The man and his colleagues were replacing her wall-sized map of Afghanistan with an equally large map of Syria. They had stacked most of her chairs on the small conference table to make space to maneuver in the cramped office.
Bridget rolled her desk chair into a corner and turned her screen so she could work.
Her next email held a welcome surprise. Her old boss, Major General Jim Hadley, was coming back to DIA as director, cutting short his tour in Afghanistan. It was a big job, and for the first time she’d have a connection to the head of the agency.
She emailed congratulations, and about a minute later, her phone rang.
“Davenport.”
“See the new boss, same as the old boss,” Hadley said, his voice attenuated by the distance and the secure scrambling.
“I’m not complaining.”
“Well, maybe you should be. We didn’t always see eye to eye, as you may remember.”
“Maybe the appropriate cliché has to do with the devil you know.”
“I’ll take that. Listen, I’ve read in on your Blowback Op. How’s it looking?”
“We’ve slowed down the online profile’s progress toward recruitment. Our army intel liaison, Major Harrington, says the candidates need work. I’m heading out to California next week to see for myself.”
“I’ll go with you, or maybe meet you there. It’s on my way home—could be, anyway.”
“Sure, sir. Let me know your travel plan, and I’ll set it up with Harrington.”
“Good. See you next week.”
Bridget looked at her new map of Syria. Al-Souri was out there, somewhere. With the whole world to worry about now, why was Hadley asking about the operation designed to get him? Old habit, or pressure from above? In the wake of the Brennan attack, likely the latter. Either way, Bridget’s threat radar was pinging.
* * *
Exactly a week later, Bridget stood with Hadley and Major Harrington on an observation p
latform at the desert training ground in California. Bridget had flown out on a commercial flight from Washington and had her overnight bag next to her. Hadley was en route from Kabul to D.C. to take up his new post on a quick stop to pick up fuel and a fresh crew. He still had his camo fatigues and combat boots on, dusted with Afghan sand. His blond hair was trimmed to combat zone length. At six foot three, he towered over Bridget and Harrington.
“Show me,” Hadley said.
“Over there, sir, along the tree line.” Harrington pointed to the left.
Bridget and Hadley peered through high-powered binoculars in the direction Harrington indicated.
Around them, the landscape of sand and rocks, decorated here and there with dead or dying bushes, was as close as the army could come to simulating northern Syria. The wooden platform, a sort of primitive suburban deck painted in desert camouflage, sat on an outcropping and provided them a long view, with the rising sun behind them.
They saw two men wearing heavy packs struggling to walk along a dry creek bed. One staggered and fell. The other helped him up, and they continued.
“Third man washed out?” Bridget asked.
“Yes, pretty quickly, too,” Harrington said. “I’d give these two a C, maybe C-plus, but we can get that up if we have some time.”
“How much time?” Hadley asked.
“Hard to say, sir. Four to six weeks, maybe.”
Hadley grunted his disapproval and handed Harrington the binoculars. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
“I’m always the one demanding more speed, sir,” Harrington said. “But we also know that sending out operatives who are not fully prepared usually has a negative outcome.”
“I know that.” A general’s irritation was a powerful thing, enough to shut up even Major Harrington. “Well, it is what it is, I guess. Do your best, Major.” Hadley saluted and turned to Bridget. “You’re flying back with me, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s go.”
* * *
“These yokels are not cutting it,” Hadley said in the car on the way to his executive jet at the airfield. Three stars and an agency directorship gave him access to a pool of aircraft to take him anywhere he needed to go at any time. “And I don’t believe for a second that one of them will be ready in six weeks.”