The Caliphate

by André Le Gallo

  About an hour and a half before sunrise, Steve was forced to conclude that Karim had run into an obstacle and wasn’t coming back to pick up the phone and return it in a way that al Khalil would never know that it had left the fort. If al Khalil noticed that his phone was missing, Karim would immediately be under suspicion.

  Steve left the hotel with a bundle under his arm. Before getting in his car, he looked to make sure no one saw him and dressed in the Tuareg robes and sandals that he had found in the package given to him by the Tuareg amenokal earlier that week. He made sure that his tagoulmoust hid as much of his face as possible. He then headed out for the fort with the CIA phone.

  There were no streetlights but his headlights and a star-bright sky provided good visibility. Once out of town, he turned off his lights. Campfires dotting the night landscape helped to keep him on the sandy track and the luminous screen of his GPS kept him on direction. He left his car about a hundred-and-fifty yards from the fort under an ancient and gnarled baobab tree, a symbol of the time when the Sahara was green. Several goats were also under the tree and moved to make room for the car with the utmost reluctance and bleats of complaint.

  The front gate of the fort was open. He took a wide turn to his right in order to approach it from the side, where there were no entrances. There were three or four camels near the corner of the side and front walls. Camels were valued property and their owner, probably close by, would not take kindly to having his means of transportation, his source of milk, and his investment threatened or even disturbed. Further, he had learned that camels were as ornery as they were aloof and might complain loudly if they thought he was invading their territory.

  He walked toward the front gate staying close to the wall. Voices came from inside the gates as he approached. He moved forward slowly and silently, extremely conscious of the sound his sandals made in the sand. The voices became louder; two men stepped out of the fort through the front gate and continued talking. He was close enough to recognize Karim and waited until he was looking in his direction to loosen his tagoulmoust. Hoping for recognition, he then pointed to his right.

  Karim apparently understood; he and the other guard started walking slowly along the wall, away from Steve.

  He’d had no particular plan when he headed to the fort, except to find Karim somehow and hand him the satellite phone. He now understood Karim could not leave the other guard without a very good reason, and that he would have to return the phone himself.

  He looked inside the gate to see if anyone else was in the courtyard and walked in with an air of bravado that he did not actually feel. From Karim’s information, he remembered that al Khalil normally kept the phone on a desk inside his room at night. With the layout of the fort in his mind, he headed toward the tower in the middle of the courtyard.

  It was still dark. There was no movement in the courtyard. When he made his way into the corridor leading to al Khalil’s room, he saw the door was closed.

  He placed his hand on the door handle but hesitated and instead went back outside and looked for the window he hoped would be open, substituting for air conditioning. The window was where he thought, and while the bars were close enough together to keep a body from entering they were wide enough for the phone and his arm.

  When he got close enough, he used a pencil flashlight to look inside. The bed was near the wall to the right of the window. In the bed, he could see a body turned toward the wall—he assumed al Khalil. Under the window was the desk. He reached inside and put the phone carefully on the desk.

  As he withdrew his hand, he heard shoes crunching in sand from the direction of the front gate. He quickly walked around the tower and went into the corridor in order to stay out of sight of anyone in the front part of the courtyard. With pounding heart, he stayed there for about a minute, noting that the sky was getting lighter. It couldn’t be long before the morning prayers began, when these corridors would fill with bodies and he would be seen.

  The sound of voices growing louder told him people were approaching his location. He felt trapped but retreated farther inside. He guessed someone was supposed to wake up al Khalil.

  He went up the stairs to stay out of sight as a man in a jellaba entered the corridor. Instead of stopping at al Khalil’s door, he kept going toward the stairs. Steve retreated farther up.

  At a steady pace, sweating with anxiety, he ascended more stairs until he saw the door to the room that he had earlier noticed on the plans. With his small flashlight he scanned the room for a hiding place seeing only empty ammunition boxes, coils of rope in one corner, and a large piece of black cloth on a table crowded with old candles and booklets yellowed with age.

  The black cloth, he realized, was a flag. It occurred to Steve that perhaps that flag was raised every morning. He grabbed a coil of rope and kept going up the stairs, still hoping for a place to hide.

  The platform at the top was larger than it looked from outside and could accommodate fifty men firing on attackers below. Steve looped and tied one end of the rope through an iron ring just below the top of the five-foot high wall around the platform then threw the rest of the rope over the wall. It was too dark to see if it reached the ground.

  Steve briefly considered waiting in ambush for the guy who would raise the flag; surprise would be on his side and he was confident he could overcome the flagman. But would he have to kill him to keep him quiet?

  Instead, he went over the side and held himself steady about ten feet down by wrapping his legs around the rope. He thought he might be able to come back up and escape down the stairs after the flag was up. On the other hand, he might run into someone else in the tower, maybe al Khalil.

  He started descending and finally could soon see the ground. His rope was about twenty feet short of the sandy courtyard. Without any other options, he continued downward, hand over hand.

  With just two feet of rope left, he noticed a shooting port below him. He was able to wedge first one leg, then the other into the opening. He let the rope go and was able to grip a ledge immediately above the port. Then he lowered his grip to the opening, got his legs out and dropped his grip to the bottom. From there he swung himself away from the building and dropped.

  The noise attracted attention from a man coming into the courtyard. Since Steve was dressed as a Tuareg, the man shouted and rushed toward him threateningly. Until that moment, although his heart had been beating at twice its normal rhythm, Steve had felt in control, unseen, invisible, and almost invulnerable. Now that he was under scrutiny, he went into fight or flight mode.

  With a head feint to the right, Steve ran to the left, heading for the open gate. Not used to running in sandals he almost fell but regained his balance and, holding the hem of his ankle-length Tuareg robe in one hand, he headed for the car as fast as he could, knowing this could be a life or death sprint.

  By the time he reached the car there was more than one voice yelling behind him but he didn’t look back. And ahead, his car was now surrounded by several nomads who, with their goats, were examining it, including one man who was conducting his inspection from inside.

  Steve had left the car unlocked with the thought that he might need to leave quickly. Now he wondered if it had been a huge mistake.

  As they saw this mad Tuareg moving toward them at flank speed, the goatherds stepped back. Steve threw himself into the car and started it as quickly as he could get the keys in the ignition. His back seat inspector jumped out when they started moving, falling on a bleating goat that had been busy nibbling at the tires.

  An SUV came tearing out of the fort and picked up the two men running after Steve. He took off with them in full pursuit. He first headed back toward town but going to his hotel would simply delay the inevitable confrontation. He glanced down at his watch compass. As he drove, he thought his Tuareg costume would minimize the seriousness of the incident in the minds of the Salafists only if his American status was not revealed.

  He turned off on a track heading
north toward the Tuareg camp he and Izem had visited on Monday. The sun was coming up over the curve of the horizon when he reached the encampment. He sounded his horn as he drove the last fifty yards, stopped the car, and ran toward the tent of the amenokal. The chief analyzed the situation in a moment with uncanny precision and called out his warriors, many of whom were already up around their campfires. Several of his men answered his summon armed not with their medieval swords and lances but with guns of various vintages.

  The armed Tuaregs surrounded the SUV. Loud words were exchanged. The SUV turned around and headed back to the Fort. In that place and at that moment, the Tuaregs ruled.

  26. Gao: A Mosque

  The conversation following al Khalil’s Friday sermon had been spirited and sometimes acrimonious. Salim had listened but without hearing the details of the conversation. He had heard all this before.

  The arguments triggered the memory of similar conversations years ago when he was Said’s right hand man, later his deputy and, eventually, his replacement. Then, the mission was to spread the Muslim Brotherhood’s organization and concepts throughout Europe. The movement had profited from an unlikely base—Muslim soldiers from the Soviet Red Army captured by the invading Nazi Blitzkrieg in 1941. Mostly from Central Asia, up to a million soldiers agreed to fight for Hitler. At the end of the war, many had been transferred to the Western Front and were captured by the British and American armies, thus saving them from immediate execution by the Soviets. Said, the Brotherhood chief for Europe, accompanied by a young Salim, showed up in a Cadillac and donated a thousand marks when a former SS imam announced at a public event that he planned to build a mosque in Munich.

  The enemy of my enemy is my friend; the MB was as strongly anti-communist as communism was atheistic.

  Following the impromptu meeting in the canteen, Salim and Tariq walked outside in the inner courtyard. The sun had set but it wasn’t entirely dark.

  “You understand that we need to establish a strong base,” Tariq said. “A strong Sunni base. The Shiites are growing in influence. Our Sunni faith is losing its traditional dominance. If democratization catches on, then keep in mind that including Iran, a Shiite country, there are about a billion and a half Shiites in the world. Make no mistake, they’re waking up. Sometimes I think that we should first take care of the Shiite apostates even before we focus on the Egyptians, Syrians, and others who call themselves secular. Besides, the Syrians who are run by the Alawite clan are also Shiites. The only alternative operation I would consider would be a major strike against the Zionist entity. That would create great popular support and a way to obtain a nuclear weapon; that would get us the respect we want.”

  “You have given me much to think about. Let us talk again in the morning,” Salim replied

  During the night, Salim called David from his room. The next morning, Salim took Tariq for a walk in the courtyard. Salim wanted to continue the trend of thought that Tariq had initiated the night before, which David had found fascinating.

  They walked in the courtyard until the mid-morning prayers.

  ***

  When Steve received the transcript from the miniature mic in Salim’s room, he was at first puzzled. Salim, whom he knew to be the European Ikhwan chief and al Khalil’s adviser, had called a man named David and given him a summary of the day’s discussions at the Fort.

  Significantly, Salim had said, “Tariq is thinking of redirecting his focus toward Iran. What do you think?”

  David had encouraged that line of thought. At the end of the conversation, Salim said, “I understand. The kind of attack you suggest will please everyone and will do Tariq a lot of good as well.”

  All Salim had to do now was to convince al Khalil.

  27. Langley

  Following his return from Gao, Steve had thought he had more than accomplished his mission. Back in his hotel room, he used his steganography system to hide his message in his scenic photographs of the Tuaregs.

  Strongly recommend I turn over SBCALIPH/4 to Bamako COS. Return to U.S. and terminate my participation in this operation. Believe that purpose of my mission has been accomplished.

  Steve could read Mel’s negativism in the reply.

  Bamako COS is to depart shortly and we have decided to put SBCALIPH/4 on ice. Pls set up appropriate recontact arrangements in case SB/4 needed at some point in future.

  As a result, he soon found himself at headquarters being debriefed again. Steve and his nemesis Mel, the West Africa branch chief—the Queen of Anal, as he thought of her—as well as Philip, the Maghreb branch chief, and Marshall were in the same windowless conference room as before.

  Melanie, true to her nature, said. “I don’t understand why you recruited SBCALIPH/4 without express authorization from headquarters—from me. Associating with terrorists is not right. You saw him kill people. And that report about the hidden gold,” she gave Steve a condescending smile, “We call that RUMINT, intelligence from rumors.”

  She wore the same dress with broad stripes as before, hardly flattering to her ample figure.

  Before Steve could reply, a sudden cannon-shot sound came from an eighteen-inch-square door in the wall that Steve hadn’t seen before. He almost dove to the floor, thinking it was gunfire.

  “That thing was built around 1961 when the building was constructed,” Marshall said. “I don’t know why it’s still in use. But it does keep most people from dozing during staff meetings.”

  Just then Thérèse LaFont entered, followed by a bevy of people. She moved to the center of the room and said, “Congratulations, Steve. CALIPH/4 was one of the best recruitments I’ve seen in my career. You saw an opportunity, you kept your cool, literally under fire, and you made quick, good decisions. We’re all proud of what you did. You might think about a career as a full time intelligence officer with this agency. As a result, you not only gave us a view of the target, as we asked, you went above and beyond and actually recruited the source we needed. For that, we’re awarding you the Intelligence Commendation Medal.”

  It was about five inches in diameter and bronze colored. The center design was a four-pointed star. LaFont read the certificate that accompanied the medal: “For performance of especially commendable service for an act or achievement significantly above normal duties which results in an important contribution to the mission of the Agency.”

  Everyone present, including a tight-lipped Mel, came around to shake Steve’s hand.

  Following the ceremony, Steve and Hank were joined by Philip, whom Steve had typecast as the little gray man the first time they met. Steve asked him, “I understand from Hank that al Khalil’s satellite phone password was a seven digit number. Did it mean anything?”

  “Like his social security number you mean? The number was 1141346. Most likely, those are two dates using the Muslim calendar. The first one, 14 Anno Hegira, or A.D. 732, is when the Muslim armies were defeated at Tours in France. The second number, 1346 A.H., or A.D. 1928, is when al Khalil’s grand uncle founded the Muslim Brotherhood.”

  Philip nodded, smiled an, “Excuse me,” and moved away.

  Marshall asked, “Are you ready to leave? Maybe we shouldn’t have come together, you could have stayed longer. But I’m in no hurry. This is your party.”

  Steve glanced around the room and took in the animated conversations. How many knew the Salafists first-hand and how many thought of them as an intellectual challenge to slice and dice in think pieces that were steps up the promotion ladder? He thought of Hamad’s barely contained rage in the Basilica. He thought of the sounds of the AK-47s and of the bullets hitting the bodies of his friends in the Timbuktu warehouse. He could see the muzzle of the gun barely sticking out the window of the BMW in Morocco. The catalyst who formed and harnessed the ideology behind these actions was Tariq al Khalil, the guy who almost brained the judge at the tennis tournament.

  Steve said little until he was in the car with Marshall driving off the CIA campus.

  “You know, I don’
t think that the CIA is fighting the same battle as al Khalil.”

  28. Paris: DGSE Headquarters

  Captain Lucien Roger was in his office at the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure when his outside line rang. He turned to pick it up, letting his eyes stop for an instant on a large photograph taken when he was still competing after graduating from France’s elite equestrian academy at Saumur in the Loire Valley. The horse’s head and front legs were already over the obstacle and he, in the uniform of a cavalry lieutenant, was looking straight ahead, holding the reins and a riding crop.

  He put the phone to his left ear. The agent on whom the captain was building his career, Tariq al Khalil, said, “We’re staying at the fort just outside Gao.”

  “Isn’t it an old Foreign Legion fort?”

  “I suppose. It is not as comfortable as a hotel but at least we have total security. Except from thieves but even hotels are not safe from thieves. There were differences of opinion from my Egyptian and Jordanian chiefs. As usual, they want action closer to home. They are like children. They don’t understand.”

  “By the way, how’s your friend Salim? Was he at the conference?”

  “Yes, he mostly listened.”

  Al Khalil was still mulling over what he wanted to reveal to Roger.

  After he hung up, Roger glanced at the photograph again. He brought his hand up to the right side of his face and felt the frozen muscles under the skin. His fingers felt the rictus-like smile forever painted on the right side of his mouth. The photograph had captured his last triumphant moment. Visitors often commented on it in admiration. What no one knew was that the fall that had caused the right side of his face to become paralyzed had occurred a second after the photo had been taken. His future fame and glory, so certain in that photo, had been destroyed in the next heartbeat. He knew he was ordained to win the next Olympic jumping competition. But life had played a dirty trick on him. He was hell-bent to substitute the life that had been taken from him unfairly with success in other ways. He felt confident that he was owed big time and that he need not play by the same rules. He knew that he was different, that he was gifted, and that laws and regulations were for others.