The Secrets We Live In: A Novel

by Fazle Chowdhury

  “I don’t think that will happen. Europe, in general, is too busy with the refugee crisis. There’s no way a nuclear deal will come in this climate,” she said.

  “I don’t want to leave anything to chance.”

  “David, that’s for the president to worry about, not you.”

  “I’ve got lobbyist concerned with this development, and if you would think this through, I think even you would agree it’s a problem.”

  Donamessi was not worried.

  “Why is this a concern? Weren’t you campaigning to bring back jobs from overseas over nuclear technology?”

  “Yes, but if the Republique government gets this deal, they will bring everyone but us. I can’t bring jobs back here when we can’t beat the competition’s monopoly,” said Scheinermann.

  Donamessi sat back in her chair.

  “Let me guess. You want me to halt a bilateral bill of cooperation with the Republique.”

  Scheinermann snickered.

  “No, I want something else…”

  Unsure of where he was going with this, Donamessi became worried.

  “Two things, I want a halt in the bill for refugee resettlement, and I want to stop your support for the president’s pick for ambassador to the Republique. It would have to be my pick.”

  “Those are two things for one,” she said flatly.

  “I’m doing you a favor, Jessica. You won’t budge over your cousin’s candidacy—give me what I want,” said Scheinermann.

  “What about my bill to expand the budget for the security agencies?” she asked.

  “I’ll put that under consideration…but at least we understand each other, right, Jessica?”

  She thought for a few minutes and then rose from her chair.

  “Okay, David, we have a deal.”

  Scheinermann stood up from the chair and buttoned his suit.

  “There is one more thing.” He spoke.

  “Isn’t there always.” Donamessi smiled.

  “My staff received reports the other day that an abduction of a resource, a very important resource to Langley has been abducted. Poof into thin air from his location in Brazil, no signs whatsoever.”

  “What has that got to do with me, David?” Donamessi asked.

  Stroking the vein of his wrists, Scheinermann looked to Donamessi as if she had done something wrong and needed some lashing.

  “Don’t act dumb with me, Jessica! I know you read the classified files. This guy is important to Langley”.

  “I really have no idea what you are talking about,” she said innocently.

  Scheinermann took a deep breath.

  “Jessica, I know you are a bad liar, but if I find out any of your boys are meddling in Langley, it won’t be a pretty picture!” he said.

  “Is that a threat David?” she demanded.

  “Well, think of it like don’t get in my way. I don’t need more irritation of non-conformity as I take care of this ambassador Zain problem”.

  Donamessi was speechless. She understood that Scheinermann was up to no good to do something stupid.

  “He is only doing his job,” protested Donamessi.

  Scheinermann smirked in reply.

  “Shows you what you know. This guy is dangerous, and I intend to put him in his place,” he said.

  Donamessi now knew she had antagonized Scheinermann enough for the evening and did not want to continue any further. She didn’t want to say anything more and remained quiet. Scheinermann sensed it.

  “Great, then my work here is done,” he said.

  As Scheinermann walked himself out, he turned back to Donamessi. “Get someone to fix this door but use Taxpayer money wisely.”

  He showed himself out. What he didn’t know was that a device had been planted there. The eavesdropper was Eldan.

  Under a state of alert and fearing Donamessi may not get what she bargained for, Eldan listened to the conversation and scribbled on his notepad at his apartment only a few blocks from the office. He understood all too well that Scheinermann was consolidating the ambassadorships in Europe’s top three. Six years back, he facilitated filling the ambassador's seat to England. He had made a deal with a former Representative that Scheinermann would get him installed as ambassador in return if the man vacated his seat. Then, weeks before the recent presidential election, he had convinced the then-Senate Majority leader—a member of his party—to approve the appointment of an oil executive as the ambassador to Germany. He privately reassured this executive that he would remain in the office for eight years, rewarding his monetary contributions to Scheinermann’s election campaigns. Now, he would have his man in Paris. For Eldan, it was Scheinermann’s consolidation of the ambassadors’ political positions that he worried most. He saw the selections rooted in where Scheinermann would exercise the greatest influence over foreign policy. His foreign policy in Europe.

  What worried Eldan, even more, was what would happen if Scheinermann’s choice for ambassador to the Republique backed the anti-establishment right-wing forces gaining prominence in the European political landscape. Eldan’s network of reporters in various news organizations had already cautioned him about far-right news outlets who would be more than happy for a powerful ambassadorial voice that empowers other conservatives in Europe. Echoes of his late father’s words stung Eldan, who was now convinced that European leaders did not have what it took to take on these right-wing forces against diversity, pluralism, liberalism, and immigration.

  As Eldan composed his thoughts, his decade-old office desk drawer opened as if attached to a string pulled by the fates. Eldan’s eyes landed on a classified document sent to him in 2009, warning of an armed insurrection in the Republique intelligence services. It had come from a former agent and detailed how governments in Europe were granting open access to “non-Europeans” who neither contributed to taxes, innovation, or job creation but instead enjoyed the free-handout benefits of welfare states. The report noted the flexibility in criminal activity followed by a revolving door of judicial sentences and more than enough monetary payouts from the government that added to the fury of some members of the Republique intelligence. The next page of the document gave the agent’s name: the late Julien Spiegel. He also claimed his views were shared by his German counterparts, who were sanctioned by the governments not to publicly discuss these opinions.

  Eldan feared another civil war in Europe, and the refugee crisis would only arm those that wanted it. Since the ’08-’09 financial crisis, Eldan had consumed these warnings and ingrained these concerns in his legislative work with little to no success. To the few people with whom he discussed these fears,

  “This was Europe’s problem, not ours.”

  But Eldan also knew some people at Langley whose opinions differed —that this was not the voice of a new generation but the frustrations of an older one. If a civil war were to break out in Europe’s top two nations, the army would be needed as the first line of defense for the state institutions. In Eldan’s view, the European armies were not fit to take on such a task.

  While Eldan knew he could handle all the channels that would stem from Donamessi’s office and ensure that other institutions could hold Scheinermann and his allies accountable, going far enough to investigate his corrupt activities, Eldan, however, had no control over events in Europe.

  He did not like how local administrations handled crises in Berlin and Paris. Still, he couldn’t let Scheinermann influence or even dictate foreign policy through the ambassadors, particularly when Europe was dealing with a refugee crisis. Eldan saw images on international news channels of large droves of people arriving in Europe by crossing the Mediterranean and sometimes by land from far corners of the Middle East. Dying, starving, losing family through sickness, sometimes beaten by local authorities, and after all that, begging for asylum. When he saw the image of an old man crying while holding a baby that had drowned, it struck a chord in him. So much so that Eldan now found that his time had come to do something abo
ut it, but he had no clear plan in mind.

  Previously, reports had come to him that due to wars in already shattered conflict areas, added insurgencies by terrorist groups had contributed to the flow of refugees by millions. Much to his disappointment, he could not convince politicians to provide funds for a refugee relief program. When that didn’t work, he nearly accomplished creating Operation Soteria, a secret program with his network in Langley that would provide government employment and refugee settlement in remote areas for 30,000 refugees. His network in Langley took the lead.

  The primary purpose for Operation Soteria would be to gain an advantage in the operational cyberwar and race. Large groups could be trained in the area through short-term boot camps, certified, and then put in place to monitor the largest cyber operation on earth. Already, the mechanism and infrastructure were in place. An operating special sections with active personnel to monitor targets worldwide was already in place. It succeeded in foiling domestic terror operations. The resettled refugees could be trained to work in such a capacity.

  In Europe, Paris already had a detention center from 1945. Eldan wanted to make that operational. Berlin, too, had a detention center unused since 1946. Both were massive recruitment centers for post-World War II programs. Now, like before, Eldan wanted the sitting president to approve the backlogged Operation Soteria, but he couldn’t do that as long as men like Scheinermann were derailing any refugee settlement prospect.

  Even as Eldan assessed what he had heard between Donamessi and Scheinermann, news of millions of refugees in Europe circulated even in the local networks. For a second, Eldan unmuted the news anchor on the television that flickered before him to hear that, in most places, refugees were not permitted to work. The anchor also mentioned that a host of countries stopped accepting asylum seekers. A reporter interviewed some asylum seekers. One of them stood in a broken voice of an eleven-year-old child. Her tone, as she spoke, horrified Eldan. To see a helpless soul in such a dire situation made him blue. Her English was fluent, as was her French, and it was evident she came from a middle-class background with a rich cultural and language education, but now, this child was without a mother and father and was reduced to begging on the streets. She cried as she spoke about not knowing where her next meal would come from. Eldan immediately grabbed his cell phone.

  “Haviv. Can you meet me in ten minutes, corner of 19th and P?” he said.

  “Make that 20,” said the voice on the phone.

  “Come without your phone,” said Eldan.

  At 10:30 pm on a Thursday, the streets were bustling. At the corner of P Street was a small coffee shop, and just a few yards away sat a man who looked like Rip Van Winkle. The beggar sang “Yankee Doodle Dandy” for a group of college-attending drunks who were oblivious to the song’s origins or symbolism. It did not matter for them, but for Eldan, it did.

  “1942 and The Man Who Owned Broadway," said Eldan to the beggar.

  “Here’s a 20.”

  The beggar looked up to Eldan seriously as he inspected the $20 note.

  He then leaned in.

  “Go north, first right, opposite BUS STAND,” he responded.

  Eldan understood and began to walk in that direction. There were too many pedestrians on this block. Some eating at the sidewalk restaurants. At the edges of the pavements, lovers quarreled while the rest just talked and laughed.

  Eldan reached the corner of the block, saw the bus stand on his right and the small park bench opposite. It was still some walk away in the dark, and he had no light. He turned on the light of his flashlight. He did not bring his cell phone in fear that his movements could be traced. He made sure no one was following him. Then, as he walked one more block, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “Don’t turn,” said a voice.

  Eldan did not move.

  “It’s Haviv. You’re safe —walk as you were.”

  The two walked over to the park bench surrounded by ill-maintained bushes. Eldan saw a man with a beard and spiked-up hair from the shadow on his right.

  “Nice touch on the makeup,” Eldan said.

  “Next time, it will be your turn,” said Haviv.

  Eldan made three taps on the wooden bench.

  “Stop using Morris code. You suck at it. What is it?”

  “Paris,” said Eldan.

  “Target?” asked Haviv.

  “Ambassador Zain Auzaar.”

  “Status?”

  “Possible assassination,” said Eldan.

  “Proof?”

  “None,” answered Eldan

  “Threat level?”

  “High.”

  “Options?”

  “Alarm Aphroditus at once!”

  ╔ ——————————————— ╗

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  ╚ ——————————————— ╝

  “SALIMA, NEED YOU NOW! @ MESOPOTAMIA ROOM!”

  Salima Abbasid read the text. It was the ambassador, and his request required urgent attention. Every morning, she received updates from the staff on treaties, negotiations, foreign aid, external projects, and humanitarian aid efforts. She took it upon herself to supervise and lead all the embassy’s employees, as with the ambassador’s approval, she was the unofficial chief executive. Salima left what she was working on and headed upstairs.

  “Ma’am,” called a voice. Turning, she saw a member of security.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a family here from Zimbabwe, and they would like to see the ambassador.”

  “Ask them to make an appointment like everyone else.”

  “Ma’am, it’s not that—they only want his blessings for their marriage.”

  Salima was displeased to hear this. It wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted to burden the ambassador with.

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  “Standing outside.”

  Salima looked out the window. The sky was tar-black. The raindrops that tapped on the window were not that loud, but the cold chill was enough to make many of the gardeners run for cover. Some staff were outside with umbrellas, but the greater fear lay in the developing puddles. Nevertheless, Salima saw a couple huddled together, the man holding a beaten-up umbrella. The murmuring of the rain sounded like congregating bees. Cold fog crept up like a whisper in the air. The wind made a tinkling sound like tiny glasses colliding. She watched the couple shiver in the heavy rain. Why couldn’t it be winter yet? she asked herself. Darkness was preferable to heavy winds and rain. In that season, the clouds were less cruel and the night calmer. Now, it seemed like the flooding of the Seine, a river nearby, was imminent. The rain would interfere with everything she had on her agenda, she thought. She looked again at the couple, their faces both excited and fatigued.

  “Take them to the cultural center and have them wait there…and don’t bring me any more requests like this again,” demanded Salima.

  The composed security officer may not have appreciated the tone but was pleased with the answer.

  In one hand, Salima held her tablet, and with the other, she took off her too high-heeled shoes and took off running past several housekeeping staff cleaning large windows, curtains, and the very expensive vintage Safavid court era Persian carpets. The estate, located in an isolated neighborhood, had previously been boarded up for years. It was brick and had twenty rooms; right next to it lay an old white building with some tiling on the front. The construction had given a new face to this architectural eyesore. When the new ambassador bought it and began renovating the building, moving out from the city's center to a location with much more space, he was caught up in a tussle between the City Council. On one side, his government was unwilling to foot the bill for the new location, though they conceded they wanted something desirable. The City Council wanted the area to be part of its initiative to preserve historical structures and communities. As diplomats bought in nearby areas, the issue remained that local residents were being priced out. Wit
h rents skyrocketing, the City Council and its mayor looked for options. The new ambassador, Zain Auzaar, provided the answer.

  In return for designating his one-building mansion as foreign government property and the other two within the premises as a privately-owned residence subject to the city’s tax standards, he would also provide credit for affordable housing some kilometers away from his mansion. The issue for Salima and her team was that, as the new ambassador took up his post, they were experiencing a transition of their own.

  Moving ten miles outside the city center and upgrading security, software, and hardware would take more than six months. They were even further upset that the ambassador had brought in his own team to assist with the task. However, double-teaming to accomplish the task saved them a year of work. Neither the mansion staff nor the residents from the faraway areas were happy with the wild parties at the ambassador’s mansion. At the center of these parties was always one man: the ambassador, who was constantly throwing lavish dinners and galas before the mansion was fully constructed. The Monaco architect supervised the mansion’s design, which combined Savoy modernism, traditional Mughal, and Persian styles. The mansion he created was visually spectacular and displayed a symbol of cooperative diplomacy.

  As Salima gazed at the mosaic ceiling, which was constructed four months ago to look ancient, she noticed the number of ground staff polishing every inch. They took care to adhere to the high standards that Salima had set them, only to be distracted by her as they continued to prepare for the party taking place that evening.

  “Ma’am,” a voice cried out. Salima stopped. The 65-year-old accountant Masud Shehzad, the Exchequer of the property, responsible for all financial matters, raised his hand.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  Masud Shehzad was among the topmost senior officials under the ambassador. Self-educated, he had come up under the apprenticeships of merchants, and for two decades, had served as the estate accountant for Salima’s father. Prudish in his finance and passionate about keeping the books in balance, he spared to detail and took the time to educate those who needed it. He was always quick to the point, and Salima adored him.