by David Bruns
He moved with the quick steps of an athlete; his booted feet seemed to barely touch the ground. SEALs were allowed to customize their battle gear, so he was dressed in a combination of REI and military issue: cargo pants, a bullet-resistant Kevlar vest with trauma plate over a skin-tight Under Armour shirt, kneepads, fingerless gloves, and his beloved Ray-Bans. Dust frosted his curly dark hair and beard.
“Liz?” The line of SEALs and their prisoners stopped behind him. He pushed his glasses up his forehead and squinted in the early morning sun. “What are you doing here?”
His blue eyes met hers and she felt the breath leave her lungs in a rush. That was a great question; one she should have had a ready answer to. She tried to say something, but her voice seemed to be on hiatus. She stepped forward and gave him a hug. His shoulders were knotty with muscle beneath her hands.
“Hi!” she choked out.
He didn’t say anything, but the embrace was longer and closer than she had planned. There were people all around them, for God’s sake. She twisted away and stepped back, taking a deep, shaky breath. Brendan was staring at her chest.
“Sorry, I got you all dirty.”
When she looked down, stripes of dust from his uniform crisscrossed her dark blue polo.
“Skipper?” called one of the SEALs, a grin forming under his shaggy blond beard. “Maybe we can play the dating game later?”
Brendan started and dropped his sunglasses back over his eyes. “Right.” He sharpened his tone. “All right, people. Let’s move.” He stepped back and waved the line forward.
One of the prisoners, the large one in the middle, leaned his hood close to his comrade and whispered. The other man laughed. Liz looked up sharply; they were speaking in Farsi.
The SEAL with the blond beard punched the big prisoner in the lower back. “No talking! Oskot!”
“Gonzo, that’s enough! Get them inside now.” Brendan stepped close to Liz and touched her forearm. She shivered in response. “I have to go. Can I see you tonight? Cafeteria at 1800?”
Liz still didn’t trust her voice, so she just nodded. Brendan flashed a grin and trotted away. Liz looked down to the ruts she had worn in the dirt from shifting her feet back and forth.
She closed her eyes and blew out a deep breath.
Liz decided to wear her engagement ring to her dinner with Brendan. A two-carat, square-cut diamond in a platinum setting, it felt ostentatious when she wore it stateside. Here it felt like the worst kind of bling. I’m engaged. He needs to know that.
She slid into a booth a half hour early and sipped a soda to calm her nerves. She fiddled with the ring. The truth was that she hated her engagement ring. She’d begged James to get something smaller, more tasteful, something more like her. He’d just laughed in that irritating, charming way he had and said, “Nothing’s too good for my Elizabeth.” She’d always preferred Liz. That had taken some getting used to as well.
When she looked back, their engagement seemed fated. Liz had known James for as long as she could remember. His family owned the house across the street and their parents traveled in the same social circles in the Los Angeles Iranian community. They were both caboose children who’d been born in the US and James grew up like a brother to her. Well, maybe not a brother—James was the first boy she’d ever kissed.
They grew apart in high school and completely lost touch when she went to the Academy, but they’d reconnected when Liz was home on leave a few years ago. Her service commitment was ending and she wondered what she wanted to do with her life. James stepped in at exactly the right time. This was a man she could share her life with, a man who understood her as a person, as a woman.
After a perfect long weekend at a Laguna Beach resort, he’d popped the question and put this enormous engagement ring on her finger. There was no reason to say no.
“Lizzie.”
She looked up and bit her lip. Brendan’s skin was flushed and clean from a recent shower, his hair still damp. Before she realized what she was doing, she had jumped out of the booth and wrapped her arms around his neck. He smelled six ways to wonderful and she could feel the hard muscles of his back beneath the thin material of his shirt.
Brendan gave a quick hug, then whispered in her ear. “Hey, we’re being watched.” Liz looked up to see a whole room full of faces turned in their direction.
“Sorry,” she said, sliding back into the booth, her face burning. “It’s good to see you, Bren.”
Brendan took the seat across from her. “Likewise.” He gestured at the ring. “That’s quite a rock. Who’s the lucky guy?”
She covered the ring with her free hand. “His name is James, and he is a lucky guy.”
“No argument here.” Brendan’s blue eyes seemed to have gone a little cold. “In fact, I think maybe I talked to him once.”
Liz raised an eyebrow.
A flush of red crept up Brendan’s neck. “It’s a little embarrassing. I called you around Christmastime two years ago, and a guy answered the phone. I heard you in the background . . . you sounded happy. So I hung up.”
Liz took a sip of soda. James had proposed to her that Christmas in Laguna.
“That would have been James. You’d like him, Bren.” She went back to her drink, desperate for a change of topic. “What about you? Anyone special in your life?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Brendan reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a picture.
Liz felt her jaw tighten, but she kept a smile on her face. He had her picture right there, just waiting for me to ask about her.
Brendan slid the photograph across the table. The girl in the picture had long auburn hair and stunning green eyes. A row of perfect white teeth caught the edge of her lip, adding zing to her sultry smile. The girl wore a bikini and the picture looked to have been taken poolside. Liz flipped it over. To my one and only, Love, Amy. The letter “y” in her name was in the shape of a heart.
“Wow,” Liz said. “She looks like a model.”
Brendan laughed. “She is. Swimsuits, mostly. Amy’s hoping to get into Sports Illustrated this coming season.”
Liz bit back a snide comment about bimbos and slid the picture back across the table. “Well, are there any wedding bells in your future?”
Brendan colored again. “We’ll see . . . Amy’s kinda high maintenance and she’s not much for commitment.” He gestured to her shirt with the FBI logo. “FBI? What happened to the Marines?”
Liz almost let out a sigh of relief. Finally, a safe topic. “Well, I did my five years and then decided to try my luck elsewhere. FBI is hot on language specialists, so I applied, was accepted, finished at Quantico—again!—and they transferred me here immediately.”
Brendan wrinkled his brow. “Farsi, right? I didn’t realize you were that good.”
She nodded. “I’m leaving in the morning for Basra, translating Iranian communications and interrogations. Based on what I heard this morning, I don’t even need to leave the Green Zone.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The prisoners you brought in. They were speaking Farsi.”
Brendan stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“You didn’t know?”
“They acted strange from the moment we picked them up. During the firefight, as soon as we got the upper hand, they just gave up. That never happens. The insurgents usually fight to the death. And then when we cuffed them, they settled right down. Almost no talking, like they were trained to stay silent.” Brendan stood up. “This could be big. Let’s go talk to these guys.”
They made the walk to the detention center in silence, moving through pools of light cast by the streetlamps. Even with the sun down, it was like an oven outside. Liz watched Brendan from the corner of her eye.
The doors of the detention center were in sight when Brendan spoke again.
“I’ve missed you, Liz,” he said softly.
She caught his hand in the darkness between two pools of light. “I missed you, too
.” She felt him grip her fingers, and she realized she was shaking. In that split second, she was sure he was going to pull her into his arms and kiss her . . . and she was okay with that.
Their intertwined fingers moved and her ring sparkled in the night, the way only a two-carat diamond in a glittering platinum setting can sparkle.
The flash seemed to bring Brendan back to his senses. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . .” He strode forward and yanked open the door to the detention center for her. He was breathing heavily and avoided her eyes.
It’s okay, she wanted to say, but instead she stayed quiet and walked into the building.
Sergeant Dixon, a skinny black kid with a Texas accent, was manning the duty desk.
Brendan smiled at him. “Hi, Sergeant, I’m looking for access to three prisoners who were processed in this morning by my SEAL team. Name’s McHugh.”
Dixon checked his records and shook his head. “Sorry, Lieutenant, just missed them. We released them to the Iraqis about an hour ago.”
Brendan swore under his breath. As part of the cooperative agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, any detainees not deemed “high value” by the Americans were turned over to the Iraqis.
“What about tape?” Liz interrupted.
“Pardon, ma’am?”
“Did you record them in their cell?”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s standard protocol. You can listen to it during normal working hours—”
“I leave for Basra in the morning, Sergeant. How ’bout we listen to them tonight?” Liz flashed her badge that gave her access to the intel files.
With a minimal amount of grumbling, Sergeant Dixon connected them to the intel team leader, who called up the recording of the prisoner cells. He even let them use his office, where Liz and Brendan crowded in front of his laptop to watch the video. The room was dark, only the glow from the laptop on their faces.
On the screen, three men sat on the cell floor, one against each wall, silent. The audio made a loud hiss that filled the tiny office.
Liz’s shoulder barely touched Brendan’s and she did her best to focus on the screen. “I’m going to fast-forward to see if they ever move close enough to talk.” The figures on the screen made minute jerking motions and the time stamp in the lower right corner raced by. Finally, the large one got to his feet, crossed the room, and settled next to one of his cellmates. The remaining man scooted across the floor until all three were huddled together.
Liz stopped the fast-forward and notched the audio up to its highest setting. She closed her eyes in concentration, and tucked her hair behind her ears. The foreign voices, in scratchy whispers, filled the room.
“One of them lost a weapon,” she said. “A knife.” She screwed up her face and pouted her lips. “No . . . it’s a code name. Maybe a new operation or a weapons system?”
She opened her eyes and sat up straight. On the screen, the three men retreated to their own walls again. “That’s it. Look, I need to write this up.”
Brendan got the hint. “I think I’m going to turn in,” he said, standing up.
“It was great to see you, Bren.” She stood. Because of the desk in the cramped office, it seemed like they were unnaturally close together and his blue eyes blazed in the dimness.
Brendan reached out and brushed his hand against her cheek. “Bye, Lizzie. I wish you the very best.”
Then he was gone.
CHAPTER 13
National Counterproliferation Center (NCPC), McLean, Virginia
11 January 2010 – 0800 local
Don Riley huffed his way up the last steps to the third floor. One more to go. The stairs were adjacent to the bank of elevators, and he longingly eyed the wide silver doors.
No. New Year’s resolution. More exercise. Good for me. Christ, he was even panting in his thoughts.
He could feel the sweat sticking to the underarms of his T-shirt, and he knew his face was probably bright red now, but he attacked the next set of steps with something that approached vigor. When he was out of sight of the elevators, he took a quick sniff of his right armpit. Nothing too rank. Yet.
He pulled his way up the last step, slapped his badge against the card reader, and punched in his personal code. The light on the reader shifted from red to green and the door made a chunking sound as the magnetic lock released.
Don did a quick check that his dress shirt was still tucked in after the exertion of climbing four flights of steps, then straightened his tie. He wasn’t sure why he bothered. Most of the analysts at NCPC didn’t wear ties, or even dress shirts half the time.
NCPC was founded by President George W. Bush in 2005 as a way to counter the threats caused by chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons—commonly known as weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs. After the scathing findings by the 9/11 Commission, Congress and the Bush administration agreed on the most far-reaching reforms to the US Intelligence Community that had happened since World War Two. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of December 2004 established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and also created a number of specialized agencies. The NCPC was one of these new organizations, overseen directly by the new Director of National Intelligence. As bureaucracies so often did, the agency split into seven “kingdoms,” known in Washington-speak as “directorates.” Don was in the WMD - Security Directorate.
Like almost everyone in the building, Don was assigned, or detailed, from his home agency to the NCPC. In theory, this built personal connections between agencies, but teamwork was really based on the leadership of the Deputy Director for each directorate, one of the few permanent employees of the NCPC. If you had a DD who was confident in the system, and capable, the personal connection concept worked well. If you had Don’s DD as your manager, it didn’t.
He did his best to pass Clem’s office as quickly as possible. Not fast enough.
“Riley! Get in here.” Clem’s voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned and took a step into the open doorway.
The first impression of Clem Reggins was always a good one. Tanned, with biceps that bulged out of his shirtsleeves and pecs rippling under his shirt, his icy blue eyes and short blond hair screamed “all-American boy.” And that impression was a fraud. The Clem Reggins that Don knew was the worst kind of narrow-minded, power-grubbing bureaucrat. Worse than that, the man was a bully.
“Running a little late this morning, Riley?” Clem’s voice was a touch higher than one might expect in a man of his physique.
Probably the steroids, you sick fuck. I hope your nuts shrink to the size of soybeans. “Traffic, Clem . . . you know.”
Clem came out from behind his desk and stretched so that Don could admire his magnificent arms. He stared pointedly at Don’s belly straining against his belt. “Not me. I hit the gym before work. No traffic at 0430, Riley. You should try it.” He struck another pose.
“Get out of here, Riley. Half the day’s gone already. Oh, and remember, no more of those stupid RFIs. We don’t need them to do our job.”
Don opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it.
An RFI was bureaucratic talk for a request for information. Basically, if an NCPC analyst wanted more information on a topic, he could query another agency using an RFI. All RFIs for his department had to be signed by Clem, and in his boss’s steroid-addled worldview, asking for help was a sign of weakness. It irked Don even more that he was officially a CIA employee on loan to NCPC. If he wanted a piece of intelligence from the CIA—his home agency—he needed to write an RFI, which was then promptly denied by his boss.
So much for interdepartmental cooperation.
Don sighed and backed away from Clem’s muscle show.
His desk was the normal junkyard of paper. For all his tech background, Don preferred paper copies when he really wanted to dig into a topic. His normal mode of operation was to scan the message traffic and then print off the ones he wanted to read in detail. And he never threw anyt
hing away. If he printed it off, it meant his brain had picked up a connection somewhere, even if he didn’t know the reason right then. The idea just needed time to marinate.
His message queue was the typical Monday-morning train wreck. Hundreds of unread items in bold letters waited for him in his secure email inbox. He pulled a warm Diet Coke from his bottom drawer, cracked it open, and took a long sip. The acidic taste cleansed his palate of Clem’s cologne.
Don slouched in his chair and opened the first message, a follow-up from a Baghdad car bomb. He scanned it and moved the message to trash. His mind slipped into neutral as he chewed through the messages one by one, hitting his stride. He finished the first Diet Coke and retrieved another without stopping reading.
He reached the end of a summary report about jihadi activity and scanned the footnotes. FBI Special Agent Elizabeth Soroush was mentioned as the author of a referenced report. Liz was in Iraq? He clicked on the link.
Liz’s original report was short, only a page in length. Basically, it reported that three suspected jihadis had been picked up in a raid and processed in the Green Zone. During a review of the detention footage, Liz had noticed the detainees were speaking in Farsi. Attempts to question the men further were not possible, as they had already been turned over to the Iraqi government and subsequently “lost in the system.” Don snorted.
Lost, my ass—they bribed their way out of Iraqi jail. Or they were simply released to the Iranian authorities. As the US began to make noises about leaving Iraq, it was obvious to Don that the Shia-dominated Iraqi government was already paying a certain amount of fealty to their powerful Shia neighbor to the east.
But what held his attention was Liz’s summary of their conversation.
Prisoner 1: What about the blade?
Prisoner 2: [unintelligible]—take care of it.
Prisoner 1: Fuck him. He got taken once, too.
Prisoner 2: I’ll let you tell him.