The Alarmists

by Don Hoesel

  He glanced over at Maddy. Seeing the puzzled look on her face and intuiting her question, he said, “You’re right. It’s unusual for someone playing powerful men against each other to survive long enough to see any profit from it.”

  Brent paused and shook his head, remembering the man who had helped him better understand the relationship dynamics between tribal groups.

  “The man with information will always be a step ahead of those without it,” he said.

  And then they were in Balkh, the driver pulling off the A76 and onto a concrete road that would take them straight to the city center. Laid out much like Washington, with concentric circles passing through spoked streets, Balkh was a simple city to navigate, which was why Brent wasn’t concerned about finding the restaurant where he would meet Oman. Anyway, the meeting wasn’t for another two hours. Surely he could find the restaurant by then.

  —

  He chalked it up to his being a university professor. After all, weren’t most teachers at that level possessed of a self-confidence that bordered on narcissism? When the driver had let them out at the ruins of Masjid Sabz, Brent decided that Maddy needed to experience some of the more interesting things in the city. They’d started with the mosque, navigating through the ancient structure with its signature green dome. They’d moved on to Bala-Hesar and then one of the bazaars that showcased goods both local and from abroad. By the time they finished, only fifteen minutes remained for them to locate the restaurant. Maddy, who had assumed that Brent knew where he was going, did an admirable job holding back any biting comments.

  They reached the restaurant only five minutes late, and Brent mentally kicked himself when he saw the name, Azeen’s, spelled out in English below the Dari Persian. When Brent and Maddy stepped through the door, the professor lost his vision to the restaurant’s dim interior. It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust, and when they did he found that Maddy had taken a half step past him and positioned herself in front of his right shoulder. While he appreciated her willingness to risk danger on his behalf, it irritated him that she thought he needed a bodyguard.

  “I thought we were supposed to be keeping a low profile,” he whispered.

  “We are,” she said over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the room.

  “Then how come I feel like Whitney Houston to your Kevin Costner?”

  Maddy didn’t respond, but Brent thought he saw the corner of her mouth turn up.

  The restaurant was half full and to Brent’s eye held only locals. It took him a few passes but eventually he saw the man he’d come to meet sitting along the far wall, where the shadows fell most prominently. He doubted the choice of seats was accidental. He also noticed the additional members of the dining party—three men in local dress and with gun-shaped bulges that their long, baggy shirts couldn’t quite conceal. When his eyes locked with Oman’s, the other man smiled and waved him over.

  The Afghan rose from the table as Brent approached, and when the professor drew near, Oman grasped both of Brent’s elbows and pulled him close, depositing a kiss on his cheek. “How are you, my friend?” Oman asked with genuine warmth.

  “I’m well, Oman,” Brent replied. “Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.”

  The Afghan waved that off, his eyes moving from Brent to Maddy, then back to Brent. “I haven’t seen you in more than fifteen years, and now you pop up and say you need a favor. If our friendship wasn’t enough to convince me to listen, my curiosity alone would ensure my presence.”

  When he finished, he looked at Maddy again. Brent understood what was going through the man’s mind. While Oman was more progressive than many of his contemporaries, there was still something in the Afghan mind-set that resented the idea of women on equal footing with men. Politeness would never allow Oman to express his displeasure with anything beyond his eyes, but the displeasure remained nonetheless.

  “Oman, this is my associate, Dr. Amy Madigan,” Brent said. “She’s helping me out with a little project I’m working on.”

  The Afghan let his eyes linger on Maddy for a few seconds while the captain stood silent under the scrutiny. Brent saw that she knew better than to offer her hand. Oman would have taken it, but then their meeting would have been brief.

  “It is a pleasure,” Oman said, then motioned for the Americans to sit.

  With everyone seated, including Oman’s three associates, who occupied the table adjacent to them, the Afghan offered both of them a wide smile before turning his focus to Brent.

  “I have followed your career since we last ate together,” he said. “It is gratifying to see a friend doing so well.”

  “Much of my success is due to the work I did here,” Brent said. “And you were very important to that work.”

  Oman waved off the praise, though Brent could tell the man was pleased.

  “I simply offered a few words. I am happy you found them helpful.”

  It turned out that Oman had already ordered for everyone. A pair of waiters approached the table, placing heaping trays of lamb and qabli pulao between them, as well as the flatbread that Brent had grown fond of during his last stay.

  “I don’t think I’ve eaten this since our last meal together,” Brent said. He offered Oman a grateful nod and served himself, knowing the Afghan would wait until he did so. Maddy served herself last, and while she demonstrated a knowledge for the way of things in the country, Brent could feel the heat rising next to him.

  They spent the next half hour eating and exchanging pleasantries, with Brent noticing that the men at the next table did not eat but kept their eyes on the door and the other patrons. When last he’d eaten with Oman, the man had been alone. The presence of three hired men signified a change in status, which made Brent grateful he’d agreed to the meeting.

  After a suitable time, Oman leaned back and set a hand on his stomach. “I’m assuming you did not come all this way just to share a meal with a simple trader like myself.”

  Brent pushed away his plate and chuckled.

  “The food is definitely good enough to have traveled so far,” he said. “And you are much more than a simple trader.”

  Oman smiled. “Perhaps. So what can I do for you, my friend?”

  “Oman, what can you tell me about Tablisi?”

  As the man took in the question, Brent watched the smile drain from his face, replaced by a thoughtful expression.

  “It is a city like many others in this part of the country,” Oman said. “A bit more affluent but not as far removed from Balkh as one might think.”

  When he did not seem prepared to provide anything else, Brent said, “I’m interested in the fighting that occurred there a few days ago. Is there anything you can tell me about that?” He understood the ambiguousness of the question, yet he also knew that Oman knew what he wanted.

  Oman’s response was to lean back in his chair, his eyes never leaving Brent’s. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he said, “What would I know about the politics of a distant city?”

  “As I recall, you knew everything about everything when I was here last. I wouldn’t have expected that to change.” He fixed Oman with a look that recognized the other man’s superiority in these matters. “I need to know what was behind the unrest. From what I’ve been able to gather, there was no warning—nothing that signified an escalation in tribal hostilities.”

  It was a fine line Brent was walking: the acknowledgment that he needed help but without coming across as weak. Weakness was not something Oman would respect. Assisting a worthy associate, however, was acceptable. Even so, the Afghan made him wait for an answer. He gestured to one of the men sitting at the next table. He whispered something in the man’s ear that sent him from the restaurant. Brent suspected it was all show but kept his silence. Then, with this interaction concluded, Oman returned his attention to Brent.

  “This is a dangerous business, my friend,” Oman said. “Why are you concerned with a small disturbance in a city far from your uni
versity?”

  Brent was no military operative; he had no training in extracting information from a source without revealing too much. No doubt Maddy would have been able to handle it better, but he could only work with the tools in his possession.

  “Because I’m convinced that whatever is behind the incident in Tablisi is also responsible for a number of similar events around the world. I need to know what made the Pashtuns destroy the oil refinery.”

  When the professor had first worked with Oman to gain an understanding of the various factions in the country, he couldn’t recall a single instance when Oman displayed hesitation or unease. Unable to discern what he now saw in the Afghan’s expression, Brent waited for the man to make himself clear, even if that meant an end to their meeting.

  Instead, Oman did something unexpected. After a time during which he seemed to be weighing his options, he motioned for his associates to leave. He waited until they exited the restaurant before turning back to Brent.

  “One must be careful who he trusts,” Oman said. “Even among those on his payroll.”

  Brent nodded, waiting for Oman to continue. And when he did so, his words were absent much of the Afghan cultural baggage, evincing instead a Western sensibility.

  “Foreign money floods into the tribes,” he said. “This would make them do whatever the providers of the money deem necessary.”

  Brent sensed Maddy tensing next to him. He placed a hand on her knee beneath the table, but Oman’s eyes had already moved from the professor to the captain.

  “You are military, are you not?” Oman asked. Before Maddy could respond, he added, “Your carriage bespeaks the discipline of the U.S. armed forces. And you have a gun concealed in a shoulder holster beneath your jacket.”

  His eyes shifted back to Brent.

  “For months I’ve watched the money come in; watched as once-ignoble men achieved wealth and a following to which they are unworthy. I have extended resources to discover who funds them and what their objective might be.”

  The Afghan stopped, and Brent saw him scan the room as if, in the absence of his protectors, he wasn’t sure how to separate ally from foe. Once his attention had returned to Brent, he said, “I have learned that they are careful. They spend their money so no one can trace it back to them.”

  “And what is their objective?” Brent asked.

  Oman shrugged. “From what I can see, it is the same as that of the Soviets—destabilization.”

  This seemed to fit with what Brent had uncovered from the research done by the NIIU. Still, he needed more. Something that would add weight to his theory. But he didn’t know how to ask the question that hovered just beyond reach. He decided to turn the question back on Oman.

  “Destabilization?” he asked.

  “So it would seem to this simple trader,” Oman said.

  It was then that Brent stumbled on the question, and he was careful to harness his emotions before asking it.

  “Can you give me a name?”

  Years ago, when Brent spent time and money prying information from this man—information that he used to craft a report that put into English the words of a local—he never saw him display the level of insecurity he did now. Had Brent not known otherwise, had he not sufficient experience with the Afghan to recognize the repercussions of the question, he would have thought Oman was shutting him down. But because of his familiarity with the culture, he understood that Oman was fighting a battle against his instinct, and anything he revealed from this point on could impact his very survival. And so it was with gratitude that Brent saw the Afghan’s face set in resolve, taking a last look around the near-deserted restaurant.

  “The name whispered in certain circles—the one on the lips of those who perform acts that no one would perform unless enriched by foreign dollars—is Standish.”

  As soon as Oman released the name, he seemed to close in on himself, telling Brent that he would get no further information from him.

  They finished their time together in near silence, each of them knowing what the meeting had exacted from the local man, with Brent unable to provide a suitable reward.

  December 11, 2012, 10:13 A.M.

  Canfield could scarcely understand why he was on a plane headed toward Antarctica, to a research vessel anchored off the continent’s lonely islands, when his wife lay comatose in a hospital bed. Yet he knew that his presence at her side would do nothing for either of them. Phyllis was somewhere he couldn’t reach her, and all that remained now was guilt—and the growing realization that his own future was less than secure.

  He blamed himself. What made him think that Arthur Van Camp, a man who ran his businesses with a meticulousness bordering on the obsessive, would allow him to live once the project concluded? Since leaving the office, after assuring Van Camp that he could manage the project despite his wife’s condition, he’d had time to think. And the topic that occupied his thoughts was self-preservation. How did one extricate himself from an operation involving untold numbers of deaths, and walk away clean? He suspected it couldn’t be done—not without having someone else on whom to place the blame. That was why Van Camp had assigned the project to Canfield, why he’d been insistent about leaving no paper trail. If at some point the house of cards Canfield had built fell, Van Camp could reasonably avow that it was all the work of a rogue employee.

  The chief problem, as he saw it, was that his hands were too dirtied for him to walk away, perhaps turning Van Camp over to the authorities. Without a paper trail, the possibility existed that he would be unable to prove that the orders came from above.

  For the last two hours, as the Learjet took him to the southernmost endeavor under the Project: Night House umbrella, he’d pondered his exit strategy. The more he thought about it, the more he understood that only one way existed, the first step of which was seeing his assignment through to completion. If Night House succeeded, he had a chance, slim as it might be. That meant hurrying completion at Shackleton, escalating operations in the Middle East, continuing to stoke the end-of-the-world fervor, and making sure that news crews were there to cover it all. Canfield had much to do in the few days remaining.

  Which was why he muttered a curse when his phone rang, and again when he saw the number on the display. Calls from the field were allowed only when something was amiss.

  “Standish,” he said.

  As he listened to the heavily accented voice on the other end talk of a meeting between two Americans and a local Afghan trader, his mood darkened. Then the informant gave the names of the foreigners, and Canfield found things escalating beyond his ability to control them.

  When the military unit forced the shutdown of the Afar project, Canfield had paid it little mind. But when that same team showed up to investigate Hickson Petroleum, he knew it was no coincidence and so began to investigate Colonel Jameson Richards’s small group of scientist soldiers. And now that they’d sent two of their number to Balkh, Canfield realized he had to act—although he didn’t recognize the name Brent Michaels as belonging to the unit.

  As Canfield imparted his instructions to the man in his employ, he understood that he was opening a door he would never be able to close. All he could hope for was that his cost/benefit analysis would, in the end, come back in his favor.

  He ended the call and initiated a second, intent on delivering a message Stateside as well.

  —

  Since the next flight out of Afghanistan didn’t leave until the following day, Brent decided to use the time remaining to explore Mazar-e Sharif along with Maddy. They walked together past the food stalls set up near the shrine of Hazrat Ali, pausing now and then to look at the wares. Maddy seemed to have let go of the tenseness she’d held since their leaving the restaurant and the Afghan contact. At one point during their walk Brent stopped and purchased two fruit shakes, one of which he handed to Maddy, and the two of them found a bench that offered a view of the mosque over an expanse of well-kept lawn. Maddy sampled the shake and gave an
appreciative nod.

  “That tastes good after how spicy that lamb dish was,” she said.

  Brent smiled, taking a sip of his own. “Most of the food here is pretty spicy, but there are a few places in town that will whip you up a burger if your stomach won’t take any more.”

  Maddy chuckled and resumed sipping the shake, her eyes taking in the enormous, ornate mosque. They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the day despite the looming threat that his research seemed to be pointing to.

  “So what can we do with a name?” he finally asked.

  Maddy considered that and offered a shrug in response. They watched a young girl pass by on a bicycle, Brent amazed that her long garments remained clear of the chain. When they lost her around a corner, Maddy glanced at him.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ve already sent the name on to the colonel so he can run it through CODIS, Interpol, and a few other databases. If we’re lucky, we get a hit. But even if we do, there’s no telling how useful it will be.”

  She paused as a group of people walked past them, heading toward the mosque for evening prayers. A man and his wife with two young boys in tow. The man offered the foreigners a nod and smile as he passed.

  “I wasn’t sure how useful this trip was going to be,” Maddy confided. “I mean, what were the odds that you would know a guy with intel related to our investigation?”

  Brent thought about this and decided that Maddy was right. Oman was the only card he had—although knowing what he knew about the way the Afghan operated, Brent had considered it a definite possibility that he would know something.

  “To be fair, I’m not completely convinced that whatever it is we’re investigating is even real,” he said. “Coincidence is a genuine presence in systems analysis.”