by Al Pessin
“It’s like that?” she asked.
“Yes, it is. You and Task Force Epsilon are the new hot thing, but you’re not going to stay that way without results. We all understand these are long-term missions, but we need this intel in weeks, maybe a couple of months, not years or whenever it’s convenient for you and Lieutenant Abdallah.”
“Seems to me expectations are too high for both results and speed, sir. We don’t want to set Faraz up to fail.”
“That’s why you’re going over there—to make sure he succeeds.”
* * *
That evening, Bridget made sure to be home for dinner. She ordered Chinese and got home at the same time the delivery arrived.
She put the food on the kitchen counter while Will finished an on-screen battle. Then she went to sit next to him.
“Let’s eat. I’m starving,” he said when he got the “Mission Over” message.
“In a minute.” She took his hand. “I’m going to Baghdad.”
“Your usual overnight trip to wherever the boss wants to go?”
“No. I’m sorry, Will. It’s a temporary deployment.”
“A what? Oh, shit.”
Bridget couldn’t tell whether he was sad or angry. “Yeah, exactly.”
“How long?”
“Unclear. Several months, probably.”
“Jesus.” He pulled his hand away. “We can’t seem to stay on the same continent for more than a few minutes, can we?”
“No, I guess not. This was supposed to be our time.”
“Damn straight.” Will leaned back into the cushions and looked at the ceiling. “So now you go off to where the action is while I sit here watching TV and playing video games, with physical therapy sessions the highlight of my week. Oh, and let’s not forget emptying the cat litter.”
Bridget sighed. “I’m sorry, Will.”
“It’s not your fault, Bridge. But this sucks!” He slammed his fist onto the arm of the sofa.
“Yes, it does.” She took his fist in her hands, opened it, and kissed his palm. “I’d swap places with you if I could. I know you’d be much happier that way.” Bridget leaned in and kissed him. “I’ll miss you, Will. But it’s not forever. And you’ll be back at it soon.”
“Yeah, maybe. Probably just about the time you get home.”
Bridget smiled. “That would fit our pattern.”
“Well, our pattern sucks, too.”
She kissed him again and he responded, but something didn’t feel right. They made out for a minute or so, then Will broke it off.
“It’s okay. It is what it is,” he said.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“C’mon,” Will said, reaching for his cane. “Let’s eat.”
* * *
That night, Will lay with his back to Bridget. She snuggled up to him and reached her hand around to rub his chest.
He removed it. The move was gentle, but the meaning was clear.
Bridget felt like she was abandoning Will during the most vulnerable period he’d ever been through.
So now, aside from staying alive and keeping Faraz alive—and stopping the next major attack on America—Bridget had to worry that she was blowing the best relationship she’d had in more than a decade.
PART TWO
Chapter Seventeen
Faraz got off the red double-decker bus at Marble Arch in a steady drizzle midmorning on the Monday after Christmas. If he’d walked east, along Oxford Street, he would have passed under the holiday decorations of the fancy department and specialty stores, and he could have browsed the tacky tourist stands. But he went north on Edgware Road, and into one of the city’s most dense strips of Middle Eastern shops and restaurants.
He’d been in London a minute ago. Now, the city looked and felt more like Syria, or so he imagined. All of the shop signs were in Arabic. The aromas of Middle Eastern spices wafted out of grocery stores and competed with the smell of grilled shawarma on display in the restaurant windows. The newsstands offered a variety of Arabic papers, alongside The Times and Evening Standard. The vendors shouted in a blend of Arabic and some sort of twangy, colloquial English.
The road was crowded with buses, black cabs, and delivery trucks, and the sidewalks were equally busy with shoppers and a few wayward visitors.
Faraz was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black zip-up jacket. He had on beat-up running shoes and a Detroit Tigers cap, and he carried a backpack over one shoulder with some clothes and toiletries. He had regrown his Taliban beard.
As he waited to cross a street, he exchanged silent greetings with some men sitting at tables under a restaurant awning, puffing cherry-flavored smoke from shisha pipes and arguing in Arabic, as far as he could tell, over soccer.
Faraz saw the coffee shop in the middle of the next block. The sign read ABU-TAWFIQ COFFEE PASTRIES BAKLAVA.
The light changed, and he moved ahead with the crowd. At Abu-Tawfiq’s, he stopped to look at the cakes on display in the window. Peering past them, he saw a man behind the counter making a Turkish coffee. A couple of men sat at a table talking. In the back, a beaded curtain covered a doorway.
Faraz went in, jangling the bells on the door. The counterman turned, gestured toward a table, and spoke to him in Arabic, “T’fadal.” Please, have a seat.
When the man came to take his order, Faraz asked for a coffee and said, “Do you have any baklava with walnuts?” An unusual request—one nobody would make, unless they had been told to do so.
The man raised his eyebrows before saying, “I will check.” He went behind the curtain and emerged a few seconds later. “I think we have what you want in the back. Please, follow me.” He led Faraz to the curtain, parted it, and let him walk through.
It took Faraz’s eyes some time to adjust to the dim light of the back room. When they did, he saw a small table with two chairs, a man who looked to be in his early thirties sitting in one of them. “Please, sit,” the man said in English.
He looked Faraz over. “You seek baklava with walnuts?”
“Yes,” Faraz responded as instructed by the recruiter’s emails, “like my mother used to make.”
“What is your name?”
“Karim Niazi.”
The man held out his hand. “I am Mahmoud. You are welcome here.”
* * *
Bridget’s flight to Baghdad arrived that same morning. After check-in, security brief, orientation, and room assignment, she grabbed a quick shower and put on her civilian war zone work clothes—khaki pants and shirt with combat boots—then tied her hair back and set out to find her new desk.
At the open double doorway of the cavernous two-story-tall ballroom in Saddam Hussein’s former Al-Faw Palace, an MP checked her new ID, still warm from the laminating machine. The room had once hosted lavish receptions and sometimes served as the backdrop for presidential speeches. Now, it had about as much charm as the Pentagon basement where she usually worked, with desktop décor of family photos and coffee cups.
The room’s floor-to-ceiling windows were covered with heavy curtains for security. Soft tubes covered with silver foil, installed by U.S. Army engineers, hung from the ceiling to distribute a constant flow of cool air. A large, artificial Christmas tree still stood in one corner, with assorted decorations throughout the room.
The military and civilian members of the U.S.-led coalition who worked there supervised a variety of missions, ranging from fighting militias that opposed the Iraqi government to building schools.
Bridget asked a young corporal at the info desk to point out her workstation. He walked over with her, rattling off rules about noise, security, and food, and pointing out the emergency exits that led to concrete bunkers, in case of incoming rockets.
“Good to know,” she deadpanned.
Bridget’s cubicle was in a back corner, separated from the others by a six-foot partition rather than the usual desk-height ones. The handwritten sign thumbtacked to the partition read, “Davenport, DIA.” The chair was broken. The keyboard sh
elf was hanging down under the desk. And the keyboard itself seemed to be missing.
“I’ll find a chair for you,” the corporal said.
“Thanks.”
“Welcome to Iraq,” he said before leaving. He pronounced Iraq like eye-RACK.
Bridget had spent nine years in the army. She knew the condition of her workstation was par for the course. She sat on the desk, tossed her day pack into a corner, and logged her phone onto the nonsecure network.
As she scanned her personal emails, Bridget got a visit from a woman in formfitting fatigues, with a sidearm on her hip and the rank insignia of an army major. “Hey. You the new kid? Welcome to paradise. I’m Robin, logistics deputy, which means if it’s broke, I get someone to fix it.” She held out her hand, and Bridget took it. Robin’s name tag read “Stern.”
“Hi. I’m Bridget. I love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Been here before?”
“Um, no. The other war.”
“Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll love it here.” Robin had a surprisingly bright attitude for a war zone, but maybe that was how she got by.
“Not so far,” Bridget said, kicking her broken chair.
“No prob, we’ll get you fixed right up. You’ll be . . .” Robin looked at the sign. “Doing whatever it is you do, in no time.”
“Thanks.”
Robin moved off and shouted at someone in the distance, “Torres, can we possibly get a working chair over here? First impressions are important, you know.”
“Yes, ma’am,” came the distant reply.
Bridget smiled, something she hadn’t thought she’d be doing today.
* * *
Faraz sipped his coffee and put on, without difficulty, a mix of excitement and apprehension. He answered all of Mahmoud’s questions, grateful for the repeated grilling Major Harrington and the other instructors had given him.
Mahmoud asked, “Why have you come here, Karim?”
Faraz sat back, as though he had to think about what to say, but he was ready for that one, too. “Because I am tired of being lied to, tired of doing nothing while crimes are committed in my name. I’ve had an easy life, but ultimately boring.” The perfect answer. Too perfect, maybe?
Mahmoud put his hands on the table and stood. He was of medium height and build, but something about his manner said he was as likely to kill you as offer you another cup of coffee. His eyes were black and constantly moving. He had dark hair and facial fuzz that was struggling to be a beard. “Wait here,” he said.
Mahmoud went out the back door, and two large men came in. They grabbed Faraz and pushed him to the floor.
“Wait! Please!”
Mahmoud returned, threw Faraz’s baseball cap to the side, grabbed his hair, and pulled his head up. “If you are lying to us, we will kill you. Slowly.”
“Yes. Yes. Please. I’m not lying.” Faraz was breathing heavily, even though the instructors had done this, too.
Mahmoud dropped Faraz’s hair and smacked him on the side of the head. The men picked him up and rushed him out the back door into a van. Mahmoud followed. The door slammed shut. Mahmoud held a cloth to Faraz’s face, and everything went dark.
* * *
Robin delivered, as promised. Within half an hour, Bridget was sitting in her new chair and tapping the keys of her new keyboard. Her secure email appeared, and she opened the one labeled BLOWBACK CONTACT.
The team watching Faraz reported he had entered the coffee shop and did not come out. It also reported that a van sped out of the back alley and disappeared into the winding lanes of the neighborhood. They had not followed, as instructed.
Chapter Eighteen
Faraz woke up with a bad headache on a cold concrete floor, with a canvas bag over his head and his hands cuffed behind him.
He took a couple of deep breaths and assessed his situation. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious or where he was. He assumed it hadn’t been more than a couple of hours and he was still somewhere near London. He also knew it could have been days, and he could be anywhere in the world.
This was most likely a test of “Karim’s” authenticity. There was, of course, that chance that they had figured out he was a fraud.
Only one way to find out. He sat up and called out, “Hello?”
“Stay there,” said a voice. It sounded like it was on a loudspeaker, but he couldn’t be sure. The echo certainly made it seem like he was in a large room.
He heard footsteps approaching from some distance, tapping on the hard surface. Two or three people, he figured.
Someone ripped the bag off his head. Faraz winced and turned away from the brightness of the room. When his vision cleared, he saw that the space was indeed cavernous. The ceiling was maybe thirty feet high, crisscrossed with steel rafters. The cinder-block walls were topped with a row of windows. It seemed to be part of a warehouse. A security camera and a loudspeaker hung high in one corner.
Three men stood in front of him. One pointed an AK-47 at him. Another held a cricket bat. Mahmoud squatted between them to face Faraz.
“Do you remember the last thing I said to you?” His accent was Middle Eastern with a hint of South London.
“Sorry, no, actually.” Whatever had been on that cloth was still clouding Faraz’s brain.
“I said that if you are lying to us, we will kill you.”
“Right. I do remember now.”
“Good. So, we shall begin.” Mahmoud sat on the floor in front of Faraz. “What is your name?”
“You know my name.”
The man with the bat put it down, walked two steps to Faraz, and hit him across the face with the back of his hand. He stayed there, towering over Faraz.
“I suggest,” Mahmoud said, “that you answer the questions and not argue about them.”
“Yes, sorry. My name is Karim Niazi.”
“What is your real name?”
“Karim Niazi is the only name I have.”
The man hit him harder this time, and Faraz toppled over. He sat back up and looked at Mahmoud. “Please, my brother, that is my name.”
A third slap came.
“You have not earned the right to call me brother,” Mahmoud said.
This time, Faraz was slower getting up. He tasted blood from a split lip.
“But all right. For now, we will call you Karim.”
Mahmoud launched into his interrogation about Karim’s background, probing for names of teachers, friends, relatives. Faraz had answers for everything, answers he hoped would hold up to any investigation Mahmoud and his organization might mount.
Whenever Faraz hesitated or was confused by a question, he got another slap. But the man never picked up the cricket bat.
Mahmoud grabbed Faraz’s left hand and turned it so he could see the scars on his wrist. “Tell me about these.”
“I was lonely, depressed, decided to end it. That actually led me to Allah’s path.”
“How?”
“They put me in counseling, got an imam to talk to me. He taught me about the Koran. That gave me a new way to look at stuff.”
“What imam?”
According to Faraz’s briefing papers, there was an imam in Detroit who would vouch for him.
“Imam Hussein,” he said. “I’m not sure jihad is what he had in mind, but that’s where it started.”
Mahmoud got up to leave. “You say all the right things, Karim. We shall see whether your story is true.”
Left alone, Faraz surveyed his surroundings. The room was bare except for a couple of chairs in one corner. All he could see through the high windows was a cloudy sky. He walked over and sat in one of the chairs.
The door across the room opened again, and Mahmoud’s colleagues came in with a tray of food and a bottle of water. They crossed the room. One of them reached behind Faraz and took the cuffs off. “Eat,” he said. “Do not try to escape.”
The two men turned and left. Before they closed the door, they tossed in a blanket, pr
ayer rug, a bucket, and some rough paper towels.
Faraz had experienced such treatment before, not so many months ago. Assuming he was still in England, that would have been about thirty-five hundred miles to the east.
He used some of the water to wash his hands and face, then sat down to eat. The food was terrible, dry pieces of chicken with rice and soggy vegetables. When he was finished, he used the bucket and left it by the door. The sky had turned dark. The warehouse lights came on.
Faraz considered it a positive sign that they had not come back to kill him. He prayed in a spot where he was sure the security camera could see him. Then he laid out the blanket in the far corner and went to sleep.
* * *
Sometime in the middle of the night, the door flew open with a bang. Mahmoud and the interrogation team ran in, and the man with the bat dragged Faraz to his feet.
“Liar!” Mahmoud screamed, almost nose-to-nose with him. Mahmoud pushed him hard, and he fell backward. The man with the bat picked Faraz up and shoved him against the wall. The third man pointed the AK at his head.
Mahmoud put the bat across Faraz’s throat and pushed. “You lied to us! Now you will pay!”
“No, Mahmoud . . .” Faraz struggled to speak. “I . . . I . . .”
Mahmoud threw him to the floor and put a foot on his crotch. “Liar!” he screamed. “We know the truth!”
If they did, Faraz was dead. He was not going to admit anything.
“Tell me!” Mahmoud demanded.
The man with the AK moved closer.
“I have told you the truth,” Faraz said through the pain. He was shaking, drenched in sweat. “Everything. I swear it by Allah.”
Mahmoud stared at him. He removed his foot, bent over, and slapped Faraz, but not very hard, it seemed. Faraz looked at him, confused. Mahmoud slapped again, more gently. Faraz saw the other man lower his AK and smile.
“You are a brave man, Karim,” Mahmoud said. “We need men like you.” He helped Faraz to his feet.
Faraz put his hands on his knees to steady himself and catch his breath.
“Bring it,” Mahmoud called toward the door.
The door opened, and another man came in with a copy of the Koran. Mahmoud took the book and handed it to Faraz. The men around him stepped back and stood with their feet together, hands folded in front of them. Mahmoud said, “Repeat after me.”