by Tal Bauer
[ I’ve worked too long, sacrificed too much, to call this op off. Get to the safe house. Stay there. Don’t fuck with Caldera again. You are fucking this up. Didn’t you swear you wanted to watch America burn? Wanted to make everyone suffer like you did? ]
He grabbed his cell, pulled his duffel over his head. He had a new baseball cap and clothes he’d lifted from a street cart. I wish that everyone could feel an ounce of what Muslims feel. Understand the depth of Muslim pain, of our anguish. He hesitated. Closed his eyes, for a moment, exhaled. Should we call this off? Postpone it?
[ Nothing is getting called off. The op goes forward. If you’re not in, then it goes on without you. ]
Dawood cursed, a breath of Arabic and a plea to Allah rolled into one. Of course I am in. In shaa Allah, this will succeed.
[ Then quit fucking up. Get to the safe house. ]
His contact texted him an address, deep in southeast DC, another hard-edged neighborhood where the locals didn’t look too closely at what strangers were doing. It would be slow going on foot, dodging cameras and police, all the way across the city.
When do we meet?
[ Tonight. Your partner is here. You’ll get your mission together. ]
His stomach clenched. Alhamdulillah.
[ If you can keep your head down. If you can make it to the safe house. If you’re caught, you’ll be shot in the face. And this will go on without you. ]
I’ll make it. I swear to Allah I will. Nothing will stop me now. In shaa Allah.
Dawood shoved his phone in his pocket and slipped out of his motel room.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
He had a long walk in front of him, and prayers to pray. The prayers of the dead, of the martyr, before their sacrifice.
He was ready.
He’d wondered, once, how he’d feel in this moment. How he’d face himself as he prepared. What thoughts, what regrets, he’d have. He thought he’d console himself with thoughts of Kris, dreams of their future in Paradise, or being reunited at last. But…
In a way, Kris had been at the end of his path. They’d had a goodbye, of sorts. He’d tasted Kris’s soul, lingered over his lips, felt his body like the sun breaking across the desert of his barren life once more. That was the end, for them. Kris would no longer be with him in the next life, not after this. He had his own path to walk, his own future to forge.
But these memories, the last touch of his love, would be enough to sustain him for eternity.
Goodbye, ya rouhi.
Chapter 33
University Park, Maryland
September 10
2200 hours
His cell phone lingered in a puddle of light, a circle falling from Dan’s bucket lights hanging over the breakfast bar. The house was dark, eerily silent, other than the kitchen.
Silence, from the CIA. From the FBI. From Dan.
No breaking news alert, no police shootings reported on the news. No press release of a wanted terrorist arrested in DC, a plot foiled.
Was there nothing to report? Had they discovered nothing?
Or were they keeping everything under wraps? Had Dawood been shot dead somewhere in the street already? Or taken alive, brought in for interrogation?
Was the mole real?
Had Dan uncovered their trail?
Had the mole slipped up?
He’d said he’d stay at Dan’s, stay out of the way. Not interfere. Again.
But a phone call was okay, right? Just to check in. Just to see how the investigation was going. If Dawood was…
If he called Dan, Dan would take it as him checking up on him. Could he call Dan and ask about his husband, the wanted terrorist? Ask if Dawood was okay? If he was right or wrong, if there was a mole or if Dawood was a master manipulator.
How would Dan react to him asking about his husband?
He tried to care. He really did. But—
Maybe he and Dan needed some time apart, after this. Or maybe he needed time apart from the world, away from everybody.
Where was Dawood? Was he alive still?
Had everything he’d told Kris been a lie?
Damn it, his mind was racing in circles, going around and around and around, over and under itself, tying his soul in knots.
He grabbed his cell, dialed Dan’s number.
He had to know.
Dan’s phone rang and rang. Kris waited, one foot swinging off the barstool, his toes tapping out a too-fast rhythm. Surely Dan was busy. He couldn’t just drop everything for Kris.
But he always had before.
Kris hung up when Dan’s phone rolled over to voicemail, his calm voice politely asking the caller to leave a message.
He’d wait a few minutes, then call again. Or Dan would call back.
Five minutes later, he dialed Dan’s number a second time.
Again, no answer.
He called the CIA switchboard next, asked to be patched to Dan’s office. Ringing, endless, endless ringing. That drone, that buzz, would live in his brain, he thought, a drill bit behind his eyes. Where the fuck was Dan?
“Hello?” Finally—
But, that wasn’t Dan’s voice. His deputy answered, her voice ragged and fraying at the edges.
“Shannon? Where’s Dan?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I haven’t seen him since this afternoon. He said he had to go talk to Ryan.”
No. Dread crawled up Kris’s soul, slithered around his bones like ice creeping out of the ground. “Have you spoken to him at all? Been able to get a hold of him?”
“No, no one has. I can’t find him. We need him, though. We’re getting nowhere in this investigation!”
“What about the mission logs?”
“What mission logs?”
Oh God. Kris crumpled, both elbows on the countertop as he held his forehead in one hand. The mole, he must have gotten to Dan. He’d stopped him before he could do anything. Jesus, was Dan even alive, still?
Who had Dan told? Who had he called?
Ryan, right in front of him.
And he said he’d brief George after.
It had to be one of them, Wallace or Ryan or George.
Wallace hated his guts, blamed him for the Hamid op and wanted him out of SAD. The guy was an asshole, was no doubt begging Ryan to fire him—
Memories snapped through his mind, shotgun blasts of time smearing behind his eyelids. Ryan, watching Zahawi die in a puddle of water and blood, frozen immobile. Ryan, always on the edge in Afghanistan. The rage he’d nurtured, the darkness that hovered around him. How he’d hated Kris, always. The way he seemed two steps from flying apart.
And, the Hamid op. He’d pinned everything on Kris, had let Kris take the entire fall, all on his own. Had he known, even then, that Dawood was alive? Had he killed Al Jabal to tie up loose ends, keep his secret safe?
How long had Ryan known Dawood was alive?
Had looked Kris in the face and lied to him?
How long had he been planning this?
What had Ryan done with Dan?
“Shannon, have you heard from Ryan at all?”
“No, he’s not at Langley. He left earlier today.”
“I gotta go.” Kris hung up on her confused questions. His trembling fingers hesitated over his phone.
He knew who he had to call. They always called each other when it came down to the wire. That was what they did, wasn’t it?
He thought he’d never call him again, not after everything, but…
History was a cruel predictor of the future.
Kris pulled up George’s cell number, pressed the call button before he could hesitate.
George picked up on the second ring. Dead air hovered over the line before he spoke. “Caldera?”
“George, did Dan call you today? Did he brief you on a cell phone number you had to track? On a possible mole within the agency?”
“Kris, slow down. What are you talking about? Did Dan do what?”
Trust me, Kris, Dan had said. I trust him.
“George, Dawood came to me this morning, again.” And damn it, you were right. You were right, Dawood. And I pointed a gun at your face.
“What?”
“He said there is a mole in the CIA that he is trying to uncover. Someone passing along information to al-Qaeda. That he’s still with us, and is working against the mole, trying to uncover their identity. This mole has been feeding information to al-Qaeda, in Kandahar City, for over two years. They arranged for Dawood to come to the US and be the front man for this attack. It’s the mole’s false flag attack. He’s pinning everything on Dawood, but this is coming from a mole. Someone who has been working against us for over two years. He’s why we’ve lost those officers this year. Why everything’s gone to hell in Afghanistan.”
Speechless, George sputtered on the other end of the line.
“I called it in, George. I told Dan everything. The mole could only be a few people. Ryan, you, Wallace... Dan wanted to try and turn up the heat, flush the mole out. Put pressure on him, see what he’d do. So Dan called Ryan. I watched him call Ryan and tell him to run a search on the cell phone that was texting Dawood information, that the CIA mole was using. He was going to brief you after Ryan. But he’s disappeared. Ryan did something to him. Stopped him, or worse.”
“Dan never called me. I haven’t heard any of this. I’m with Wallace. We’ve been holed up all day. We’re just about to—”
“George, where is Ryan? Where is he?”
“Ryan is coordinating the hunt for Haddad with the FBI. He’s been out of pocket all day, all evening, following up leads.”
“How do you know? Have you seen him? With your own eyes, George? Do you know where he is?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” George muttered. “When did Dan disappear?”
“He told Shannon he was going to see Ryan. Now no one can get a hold of him. And no one seems to know where Ryan is, either.” Kris sucked in against the stabbing pain in his chest, a knife into his back. All this time, he’d been wondering about Dawood, agonizing over his husband, but Dan had been in danger. Was missing. What if—
Kris heard George moving, heard him tell Wallace to keep trying Dan’s phone. Heard him breathe hard as he jogged down the hallway, started running down stairs. He pictured George running from his executive suite, down to the operations units, down to CTC. Heard him shout orders to people, for someone to call the FBI command center, for someone to find Ryan, now, now.
“I need you to do me a favor, George.”
“Kris, no. We need to let this process work. I’ll call the FBI. They will locate Ryan. He was with them last. They can track him down. We will find him.”
“We need to track the cell phone that Ryan has been using to communicate with Dawood! You need to track it!”
“You know we can’t do that on American soil. To an American citizen. That’s the FBI’s turf. We don’t have jurisdiction.”
“We don’t have time for this! There is an attack planned for September eleventh, right now, in our country! The only one who has the information is Ryan!”
“Are you willing to blow any chance of a criminal prosecution? If we act and we don’t follow the rules, anything we uncover can’t be used as evidence. You know this.”
“I’m not thinking about a trial,” Kris snapped. “We have to stop him. We have to. He’s been playing us for two years. Jesus, he’s known Dawood was alive all this time and he didn’t tell anyone! Didn’t tell me! Trial is the last thing on my mind.”
Silence. “What is it you want me to do?”
“As deputy director of the CIA, I want you to do a geo search on that cell number. You can create a legal justification, I know you can. Since Ryan has been texting Dawood, and Dawood is associated with an Afghanistan al-Qaeda cell, you’ve got jurisdiction right there.”
“I thought you said Haddad was on our side.”
Kris swallowed. “I hope he is. But then that means someone on our side isn’t with us. Ryan.”
George grunted. “I’m walking into CTC now.” He heard the buzz of CTC, the hum of activity. “It’s a fucking beehive in here.”
Kris waited as George shouted for Shannon, explained to her that he needed a number traced, immediately. Shannon walked him to the secured data center, the bridge between the CIA and the NSA, the cluster of data points and network access that gave them backdoor intrusions to cell phone networks and internet service providers. “Give me the number.”
Kris read it off to him. He’d folded and refolded the sticky note a hundred times since that afternoon, staring at the numbers like they were tea leaves to be divined from.
“It’s definitely a burner. No registration data. It’s not logged as being contracted to anyone.”
Keystrokes, the sound of typing. “And, it’s off,” George said. “It’s not sending a signal into the cell network.”
“Wake it up, then.”
“Kris, we’re crossing a big fucking line here. We’re breaking laws specifically put in place to stop this, exactly this. Are you absolutely certain? About Dawood? About the mole?”
“I am one hundred percent certain about my husband. And I regret not believing everything Dawood told me, from the very first moment. If I had, maybe Dan wouldn’t be—”
He should have brought Dawood in, kept him safe. Should have trusted him. Should have worked with him, searched the mission logs with him. Come up with a plan. Together. They should be doing this together.
Now where was Dawood? Facing Ryan alone? Without help, without backup?
He needed to be with him. Needed to help him. Now. They were supposed to be together forever, and he’d left Dawood to face this alone.
“I trust Dawood. I do, George. He is with us. Do you trust me?”
George said nothing. Kris waited.
“Sixteen years, George, we’ve been together. You and me. We’ve had our problems, I know. But I know Dawood is right. I know he’s with us. I know he’s trying to help. We need to help him, too.”
Keyboard keys clicked, George typing on his end. “It’s pinging the network now. Hold on… It’s triangulating…”
Kris held his breath. Almost whimpered.
“Deanwood. Southeast DC.” George rattled off an address, something in the middle of the urban neighborhoods, a tangle of homes and warehouses that bordered Anacostia and the urban waterfront.
“I’m closest.” Kris grabbed Dan’s keys off the counter. Dan’s weapon lay outside the circle of light, on its side. He grabbed that, too. “I’m on my way now.”
“Kris, no. Don’t go. Wait for the FBI. I’ll call them now, get the response teams over there immediately.”
“The FBI takes at least an hour to coordinate a monkey shit fight, George. I’m not waiting for anything or anyone. They’ll be too late. I’m going in. I’m going to my husband.”
“Kris—”
“I will never leave him behind. Not again.” He jogged to Dan’s car, turned the key in the ignition. The electric car spun up silently.
“What about Dan?”
“I hope he’s still alive.” Damn it, Kris’s heart was screaming. But the only thing he could do was run forward. Face his choices head on. Face destiny. Walk the path. “Send the FBI in. But I’m going now.”
“Kris… Be careful.”
He put the car in reverse and gunned the engine.
Deanwood
Washington DC
September 10
2300 hours
Dawood kneeled in prayer, his hands held open before him, whispering to Allah. “Make the best of my days the last of my days, Oh Lord. The best of my deeds the last of them, and the best of my days the day upon which I will meet You.”
He was ready.
He waited inside the decrepit remains of a long-abandoned warehouse, one
in a string of industrial black holes on the south side of Deanwood. Just to the south, the urban grit of Anacostia and the shipping channel to the southeast of DC began. He was in the forgotten corner of the capital that languished in disrepair and disquiet.
It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight, and the perfect place to stage an attack.
“Oh, you who believe, be persistently standing firm for Allah. Be witnesses for justice, and do not let the hatred of people prevent you from being just. For justice is nearer to righteousness.” He recited verses of the Quran, trying to center his soul. He tried to set his fate in Allah’s hands, tried to quiet his mind, his heart. “He has the keys to the unseen. No one knows but Him. No leaf falls without His knowledge, nor is there a single grain in the darkness of the earth, or anything fresh or withered, that is not written in His heart.”
His thoughts turned, always, to Kris.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
Even if it broke his heart, shattered his soul, and took him away from Kris.
Even if Kris, in the end, became someone else’s, loved someone else.
For justice is nearer to righteousness.
I will love you forever, ya rouhi. In this life, and the next.
Outside, car tires crunched on gravel, chewed through the silence of the abandoned night. A car door slammed.
Dawood inhaled.
I am ready.
CTC
Langley, Virginia
2300 hours
“I need FBI tactical teams to assemble at the command center immediately,” George barked into his phone. “We have a hot lead on Dawood Haddad, and possible accomplices, and we’re going in. We have to move, now!”
He’d taken over CTC in Dan’s absence, trying to coordinate a response while down two of his best men. Panic simmered beneath the surface of his skin, an itch he couldn’t scratch. Dan, Ryan, where are you guys?