by Carr, Jack
Now, after a lifetime of struggle, spent planning the attacks that would be precursors to what the Americans called the Global War on Terror and fighting in the Hindu Kush, Iraq, and Syria, he was now the head of al-Qaeda operations in Europe and was close to striking their most devastating blow to date.
Sheik Osama had bunkered down after his escape from Tora Bora, and had been rendered relatively ineffective in hiding. He had kept the Western forces at bay, but they had eventually found him. The Americans had slain their dragon. The SEAL commando pigs who shot him down would pay. The defenders of the faith have long memories.
Nawaz chose the opposite approach, emulating the security protocols of Yasser Arafat. Well, the Arafat of the Fatah days anyway; before he grew soft and capitulated to negotiations with the Israelis. Nawaz preferred to stay highly mobile, rarely spending the night in the same place twice, often changing plans and spreading disinformation among his own people. While the U.S. intelligence apparatus sifted through Google and Facebook accounts, Nawaz and the new al-Qaeda he commanded communicated via courier and used the movement of funds via the ancient system of hawala. Systems born of the Silk Road still worked in modern times. The Great Game continues.
The refugees pouring into Europe provided the conduit; more than enough of his fighters had made it into Europe as part of the mass influx of migrants. The very people the West spent such vast sums trying to destroy in foreign lands had been welcomed right into the heart of Europe, into the belly of the beast.
Say what one would of the Israelis, they were smart enough to understand the essence of the conflict. They understood. Had the Americans been surrounded by their enemies instead of protected by vast oceans, they might have understood it, too, instead of opening their borders to let in the very people bent on destroying them.
Though Ayman al-Zawahiri had thus far evaded the special operations teams and drone strikes favored by the enemy, he remained in hiding. As the worldwide leader of al-Qaeda, he had sent Nawaz from Afghanistan first to Iraq and then to Syria to lead Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s operation in the Levant. A brilliant man who had lived for the cause, al-Zawahiri was now entering the twilight of his life. Nawaz had the drive and the energy to be the architect of al-Qaeda’s next evolution. While ISIS had captured the headlines and distracted the American military and political machines, Nawaz had patiently built his network, not in the Middle East and Central Asia, but in Europe. America was next.
He was proud to have led a group with so many veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That experience had filled the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra. The West had built their army for them, and then opened the doors into Europe. That would be the next battleground. America would follow, but that duty would fall to the next generation of jihadis, just now finding their voice. The death of the West was not a fantasy, it was an inevitability.
SubhanAllahi wa biHamdihi, Subhan-Allahi ‘l-`adheem
Glory be to Allah, and Praise Him, Glory be to Allah, the Supreme.
It had been close to forty years since his father had last placed his hand on Nawaz’s head, and it had been not quite twenty years since the lofty towers had been brought down by Allah.
Stupid Americans. Didn’t they comprehend what was happening? They were killing themselves. While they foolishly spent their treasure and spilled their blood in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, the very ideology they were fighting to defeat was moving into their cities, their schools, their very government. The freedoms the West championed so proudly would be their ultimate downfall. Those freedoms would be targeted and exploited. Their freedoms were their weakness. Know thy enemy.
Didn’t they realize that 9/11 hadn’t been planned in the caves of Afghanistan? The idea had been approved there, but the foot soldiers had done their work in Hamburg, Germany, and in the United States itself. They had learned to fly and blended into communities in California, Arizona, Florida, Virginia, and New Jersey. September 11 had been planned right under the nose of the most powerful nation the world had ever known.
Though they had doomed themselves through their culture of political correctness and open borders in the strategic sense, you had to be extremely wary of their tactical acumen. At that level the Americans could be exceedingly dangerous.
lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh
There is no might nor power except in Allah.
Nawaz knew he would not live to see the sword of Islam sweep across the Americas. This was a generational conflict. Just as the Mongols had altered the ethnic identity of Eurasia, Islam would change the very fabric of Europe and America; instead of invading on horseback, they would legally immigrate, build their political bases, and incrementally defeat their enemy from within.
The very countries whose policies had helped create the refugee crisis were welcoming the enemy with open arms. They were sowing the seeds of their defeat, spurred on by politicians pandering to a new constituency.
The mujahideen of the new millennium didn’t need territory to plan and train. The new jihadis could adapt within the very countries they targeted. The Americans projected strength with their tanks and bombers, but they had a soft underbelly. Their comforts and entitlement culture were breeding a weakness. He could prey on their fears; he could inflict further damage to their economy. Even the attacks that failed caused a reaction from the West that continued to cripple their markets.
What had been their greatest strength and brought them abundant prosperity was a soft target ripe for exploitation. Death by a thousand cuts.
Nawaz hesitated on the final bead of the misbaha.
Lā ilāha illā-llāh
There is no god but Allah.
“Tariq!” he called, summoning the courier who would make contact with a series of what he had learned the West called “cutouts.” The message would eventually find its way to the man who could decipher it, a man who had been trained by the CIA but who had proven himself in Syria as a most valuable asset to the cause. He would be the instrument of yet another cut into the soft fabric of Europe.
Pressing the encoded note into his courier’s willing palm, Nawaz set his hand on Tariq’s head and closed his eyes.
“Allāhu‘akbar.”
CHAPTER 31
Niassa Game Reserve
Mozambique, Africa
July
“BASE TO REECE,” THE Motorola radio lying on the seat next to him squawked with Rich Hastings’s voice.
“Go for Reece.”
“There’s a man here to see you. A Yank, over.”
Shit.
It had been two months since Solomon’s encounter with the poacher’s bullet, and it would be another month until he was back in the field. It was also Reece’s first exposure to anyone outside the hunting concession since his arrival.
Had to happen sooner or later.
“Check. Did he say who he was?”
“Negative. He was polite but firm, eh. One of us from the looks of him. I tried to run him off, but he knows you’re here, over.”
“Roger that. I’ll be there in an hour. Reece out.”
Reece stopped the Cruiser and explained to Gona that he needed to head back to camp. Gona nodded down from the high seat and didn’t ask any questions. Reece did a three-point turn in an open area and began making his way back, though he wasn’t exactly in a rush to see whoever it was who was waiting for him. If they knew he was here, there was no sense trying to make a run for it, they’d have UAVs or other assets on him, and Reece had done enough running.
He saw a lone black Land Rover Defender 110 parked in front of the lodge as he pulled into camp. At least whoever had come for him had good taste in vehicles. Instead of pulling around to the back, he stopped the truck next to the Defender and walked up the path toward the broad veranda. The door opened and a man his own age and height stepped out. Sandy hair fell below his battered Florida Gators ball cap and his reddish beard betrayed a few flecks of gray. He was dressed in a short-sleeved plaid shirt and jeans and wore S
alomon hiking boots. Though he didn’t see a handgun, Reece knew there would be one concealed on his right side at the four-o’clock position or possibly in an appendix rig just beneath his shirt. His eyes narrowed in recognition as Reece approached the stone steps. Reece stopped and looked up at his old friend, Navy SEAL Senior Chief Freddy Strain.
“I guess you didn’t come all this way just to kill me.”
“Nah, Reece. If they wanted you dead they would have droned your ass weeks ago.”
The men stood five yards from each other, Strain looking down at Reece from the elevated deck. The last time Reece had seen him was months ago, when elements of the United States government had ordered Strain’s SEAL Team to hunt down and capture or kill their former teammate before he eliminated any more of the conspirators who had planned the killing of his family and SEAL troop. Strain had maneuvered right into Reece’s ambush and Reece had let him live. Neither man spoke for what seemed like an eternity; this time it was Strain who broke the silence.
“Speaking of killing, thanks for not blowing those claymores. I should have known better than to have rolled in there like we owned the place. You had us dead to rights.”
“You weren’t on my list.”
“Thank God for that. It’s good to see you, brother.” Strain’s stoic expression broke into a wide grin.
“You too, Senior.” Reece smiled, climbing the steps to shake Freddy’s outstretched hand before embracing him in a hug.
“Damn, Reece, you going for the Jesus look?” Strain pointed at his friend’s shoulder-length sun-bleached hair and scraggly beard.
“Something like that. Grooming hasn’t been a high priority lately.”
“I wouldn’t think so. Reece, I’m really sorry about Lauren and Lucy. I don’t even know what to say to you other than that.”
There was an uncomfortable pause as each man considered how to transition to the meat of the conversation.
Finally, Reece simply nodded. “So, how’d you find me?”
“Well, it certainly took some doing,” Freddy answered, relieved to be moving on.
“Let’s grab a drink,” Reece said, nodding toward the main lodge.
“I think I need one,” Freddy said, and smiled. “You might too, when I tell you why I’m here. Any Basil Hayden’s?”
“I might be able to scrounge some up,” Reece said. “We are fairly well provisioned in that department.”
The two frogmen moved through the lodge, where Strain stopped to pick up his backpack, and out into the dining area. Reece poured two fingers of the brown liquid for his friend and opened himself a can of MacMahon beer, known locally as 2M. Taking a seat at the bar that overlooked the river below, he motioned for his former teammate to join him.
“If someone had to find me, I’m glad it was you,” Reece offered as they touched drinks.
“So,” Reece led off again, “how did you do it?”
“Well, the working theory was that Liz dropped you off somewhere after you took care of Horn, Hartley, and Ben on Fishers Island. We couldn’t confirm that since she’s still on a nice estate in Mexico protected by an army of lawyers, courtesy of your buddy Marco.”
“He’s a good one, that Marco,” Reece said, taking another sip of Mozambique’s finest.
“Turns out he’s a little more than just a good businessman, and even I’m not cleared to know exactly what he’s involved with, but my guess would be he’s a highly placed DEA asset. I don’t have a ‘need to know,’ so that really is just a guess.”
“I’d bet it’s a good guess,” Reece confirmed.
“Well, we would never have figured out that you liberated the Hastingses’ boat if a few other pieces hadn’t fallen into place. Even if we had, we would have assumed you were killed at sea in the storm the night of your escape. Never in a million years would we have thought to look for you here,” Fred continued, gesturing at the surrounding wilderness.
“It was a bit of a trek,” Reece admitted with a smile.
“I’ll say. I’d love to hear how you did it at some point.”
“Trade secrets, my friend.”
“And maybe a bit of luck.”
“To be honest, it was a lot of luck.”
“They say it’s better to be lucky than good, Reece.”
“Isn’t that the truth? But you didn’t find me because some yacht club finally noticed a boat went missing.”
“True. It started with the East African desk at the Agency coordinating with the NSA on Chinese interests in Mozambique. The signals guys intercepted a series of Chinese intelligence reports detailing a major shift in antipoaching efforts on this particular concession. The meat poachers feed the workers the Chinese use to support their mining and logging operations, and it was beginning to impact their productivity.”
“It’s nice to know it was working.”
“Yeah, enough for them to mention it to higher. Now that alone would never have raised any eyebrows, but when a white guy with an American accent claiming to be a former Canadian army medic brings a wounded tracker into an East African medical clinic without a good explanation as to why he knows how to do a tension pneumothorax and apply an Asherman Chest Seal, well, that’s not something they see every day. Unfortunately for you, the doctor that you encountered is an MI6 asset.”
“Are you kidding me? Is there anyone in this country who isn’t some kind of spook?”
“You would have gotten away clean not very long ago, but our intelligence collection capability has grown exponentially over the years. That, along with our ability to sift through mountains of information, can now be done at speeds unheard of in the past.”
“I still don’t see how a cable saying the Chinese have some hungry workers coupled with a stitched-up game reserve tracker led them to believe I somehow made it from New York to Moz when they weren’t looking for me here to begin with.”
“It wasn’t them, Reece. It was me.”
Reece looked quizzically at his former sniper school spotter.
“I know you, remember? And I know Raife. And I know that you two spent time at Raife’s uncle’s hunting operation in Africa when you were in college together.”
“Thanks for remembering,” Reece said sarcastically, taking another long drink.
“Africa got me thinking, so I checked on all Raife’s family’s East Coast–based planes and boats. Guess which one disappeared the same night you did?”
“You missed your calling, Freddy; you should have been a detective.”
“Maybe in my next life. And Reece, next time you kill the secretary of defense and unravel the biggest government conspiracy in modern history, you might not want to give your name as Phil Bucklew to a British spy at an East African medical clinic.”
Reece shook his head. “Yeah, using the name of one of the legends of Naval Special Warfare was probably not the best move.”
“After that, we put up a UAV and have had you under surveillance for the past couple weeks. Facial recognition works, even from fifteen thousand feet.”
“Lucky me.”
Freddy paused. “I guess you know I didn’t come all the way here to go hunting with you.”
“I figured you were here to kill me or arrest me. I’m guessing arrest me.”
“That’s where this gets complicated. I’m leaving here as soon as we’re done but I’m not dragging you out against your will. Let me run this by you and you can make the call. You’ll want to hear it all, though.”
“Doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice.”
“I have something I need you to see,” Freddy said, sliding off his bar stool and motioning for Reece to follow him. “Might want to snag a couple more drinks.”
Strain pulled a tin of Copenhagen from the pocket of his jeans and packed it with several flicks of his wrist. He opened the tin and put a pinch of tobacco between his lip and gum before offering the can to Reece, who shook his head.
“When did you start dipping?”
“When the w
ife made me quit drinking,” Fred responded, motioning to the bourbon in his hand with a gleam in his eye. “I think she meant only in the States, though.”
“I’m absolutely sure that’s what she meant. How is Joanie?”
“She’s good, man. She never really loved Virginia Beach, so she was happy when I got out and could live wherever she wanted. We’re down in South Carolina, near her family.”
“So, you’re not at the Command?”
“No, I got out a few months back. Things got really weird after you skipped town. Your friend Katie’s reporting put the spotlight on all of the Hartleys’ shenanigans and the shit rolled downhill pretty hard. I don’t blame you for what you did, Reece. If we had had any idea what the real story was, we’d have helped you knock those bastards off instead of targeting you.”
Reece nodded. “So, I guess I’m public enemy number one?”
“Yes and no. When the whole story came out, it certainly eased up the pressure to find you or confirm your death at sea. The conversation shifted to the Hartleys, the Capstone finance operation, and all that. Even the conspiracy theory people started looking mainstream. You became a little bit of a Robin Hood type. There were James Reece sightings everywhere. You were like Elvis for a while.”
“What about my friends?” Reece asked, not mentioning names.
“The reporter, Katie? She’s untouchable, at least for now. No one would go near her with a ten-foot pole. She had the best law firms in the country lining up to insulate her from questioning by any government investigators. DOJ is ready to go after your friend Liz Riley and have her extradited to the U.S., but the president has them at bay for now.”
“Why would the president do that? Wasn’t he part of Hartley’s bunch?”
“Jesus, you don’t know, do you?” Strain looked bewildered.
“Know what?”