As Steve and his men emerged, a fighter in front of the door identified by the reservist shouted and shouldered his assault rifle immediately. He went down as two of Steve’s men fired at him. Steve ran forward with Izem and the others behind him. He reached the door in back of the dead guard, opened it with one hand with his rifle shouldered. Al Khalil and Steve’s eyes locked for an instant. Steve stepped inside firing.
Al Khalil and Steve fired at the same time. Al Khalil’s first bullet, fired with the AK-47 held at hip level, crashed into Steve’s left side and the rest of al Khalil’s burst went off to Steve’s left and up. Steve’s short burst punched al Khalil back, stitching him from the groin to the chest. Al Khalil fell against a chair, which toppled over as his body fell to the floor. Habib had his hands raised in the air from the moment that Steve rushed into the control room.
Holding his side, Steve moved toward Habib, leveling his AK-47 at him.
“Close the roof. Shut off the laser.”
Steve leaned against a desk in excruciating pain.
It wasn’t until he heard the roof move back that he realized al Khalil’s dream of a new Caliphate was over, that the Salafists’ goal of imposing their harsh version of God’s law on mankind was also over—for now.
He blacked out.
It was 16:03 hours.
EPILOGUE
Marshall had accepted Ambassador Hastings’ invitation to stay at his residence until Steve’s medical status became clearer. It was Sunday. Hastings, his wife Alexandra, and Marshall were finishing their lunch at a large dining table. Alexandra Joulet-Hastings took a sip of her Dutcher Crossing Cabernet and said, “I am so relieved this turned out as well as it did. We were so afraid for Kella, and for Steve.”
They moved to the living room. Large windows overlooked a patio and pool, and the beach and the Mediterranean below. The inside walls offered a neutral cream backdrop for paintings on loan from the State Department’s American Art in Embassies program. Alexandra had chosen a large painting by Bruce Marden, colorful lines on a white background, several smaller works by Marsden Hartley, including one called “Blue Hills,” and another modern work by Joan Mitchell.
Marshall put his glass down.
“What’s the reporting from Damascus, Jack?”
“The events triggered by al Khalil have given a young set of leaders the momentum to pressure Bashir Assad either to step down or to clean house. We know little about the impact in Iran, since we have no embassy in Tehran. In any case, the gains of the Muslim Brotherhood of the last couple of days have been turned around. But, the previous governments are not back in charge either. New leadership seems to be emerging.”
Marshall, who had earlier disclosed to Hastings that he occasionally did work for the agency and therefore still had his clearances, said, “An Iranian counterattack was imminent. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took over after the laser attack killed the country’s top leadership. General Safavi was on the verge of launching his Shahab-3 missiles against Israel. After all, if the attack came from Israel, it was evident to the Iranians that the Israelis were only using al Khalil’s name as a cover for their attack on Tehran. That was the Iranian thinking anyway. But cooler heads prevailed.”
Marshall adjusted his sling and moved his left arm into a more comfortable position.
“There’s more. The Iranian president was killed. He was in an open-top limousine coming back to his office from some sort of public event, a parade I think, when the laser struck Tehran. Apparently the heat of the laser made the car’s gas tank explode, probably more due to something about the car than due to the strength of the laser, I’m guessing. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy!”
A maid brought coffee. As she poured, Jack Horton was let in by a security guard.
“I just had a meeting with Israeli intelligence, and I thought you’d want to hear this, Mister Ambassador.”
Hastings invited him to come in and asked Marshall to stay. Alexandra left the room.
“The Israelis have debriefed the Rafael employees and interrogated the terrorists. Each side states the laser attacks could have caused many more casualties. But both the terrorists and the Israeli scientists seem to want credit for the moderation. Habib, al Khalil’s Ph.D.—he was educated in the U.S., by the way—is the one who figured out the weapon and fired it. He claims that he thought al Khalil’s orders were too inhumane, that he, Habib, had never signed on to commit mass murder. So, although he had no choice but to do as he was told, he said, he dragged his feet to delay the second strike.
“Eventually, as we know, Steve made his escape and stopped the second strike from taking place. We got a similar but not identical story from debriefing the Israeli scientists. One couple in particular—they’re husband and wife—said that when they were forced to tell this fellow Habib how the weapon functioned, they intentionally misinformed him about the power settings.”
“I’m not surprised,” Marshall said. “Human nature at work. Al Khalil’s attack has changed the politics of the entire Middle East. We’ll be sorting out the positive from the negative for a long time.”
Hastings stirred his coffee.
“You’re right. This provides a window of opportunity that we need to exploit quickly. Governments from Marrakech to Bangladesh must give their people the hope they now get only from the extremists. Then the Salafists’ base, their recruitment pool, will disappear.”
Marshall turned toward Hastings.
“You’re being an optimist. That is not going to be their first priority; short-term survival, clinging to power, is going to trump your program. The first step the Arab governments will take is to try to do away with the Israeli weapon. They can’t do it by force of arms, so they’ll want to neutralize it through some sort of international weapons disarmament, or try to make it an illegal weapon, like gas warfare after World War I.
“This is a wakeup call,” he added. “I hope al Khalil’s attack will have convinced the world that the Salafists are serious and are playing for keeps. These are not people who want to negotiate.”
Alexandra returned to the living room and sat down.
“Kella has been through a terrible nightmare. She needs to stay here and decompress for a while. What about Steve, what are his plans?”
Marshall shrugged and said, “I suppose he’ll go back to work, but we haven’t had a chance to talk yet. I honestly don’t know.”
***
Kella stepped into Steve’s room at the Ichilov Hospital of the Tel Aviv Medical Center and, before she could speak, Steve said, “Hey, look at this. They’re talking about my departed schoolmate,” pointing at the television suspended over the bed.
The speaker was a historian from the Jaffee Center of Strategic Studies.
“The history of warfare has progressed via a series of epoch-defining developments in weaponry and technology. The stirrup, probably developed by the Chinese sometime during the first few centuries A.D., gave mounted horsemen the stability to wield weapons with longer reach and range, using the horse as the first true weapons platform. Later, the hand crossbow was so lethal that Pope Innocent II forbade its use in 1139 as a machine ‘hateful to God and unfit for Christians.’”
Kella sat at the one chair beside the bed. She turned from the TV to Steve and began to speak, but Steve looked at her and raised his index finger to his lips. She sat back and waited for the end of the presentation. Her eyes wandered over the medical equipment beside the bed, which among other things kept tabs on his heartbeat: normal.
Thank God, she thought.
The historian continued about the history of weaponry, some of which Kella found dull, until he moved up to more familiar weapons.
“In the hands of the Japanese in December 1941, the airplane, which had seen only fledgling service in World War I, shifted the balance of naval power across the Pacific in a single week. The submarine, which had first appeared in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, came into its own as a terribly e
ffective weapon of war in World War II.
“‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man,’ the first atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, led to the immediate surrender of the Japanese Empire and the dawn of the nuclear age.
“Military technology stepped into space the day al Khalil used the Israeli laser against his apostate foes.”
Kella smoothed the hair away from Steve’s forehead.
“How does it feel to have a place in history, to be the guy who stopped al Khalil from sacrificing thousands of people to his ego?”
Steve just shrugged. She imagined it was too much to take in so soon afterward.
“The full story hasn’t leaked out yet, how close al Khalil came to firing that second strike. But that’s not why I’m here. How are you feeling? Ready to go home?”
“As soon as they let me out. Are you coming with me? To Virginia, I mean.”
“Do I look like a nurse? Only when you’re fully rehabilitated.”
“Well, everything works just fine right now. Lock the door and I’ll give you a test run.”
She pouted, “If everything ‘worked’,” and she placed quotations marks in the air in front of her, “your heartbeat should be much faster when I’m in the room.”
He laughed and immediately winced, placing his hand against the left side of his chest.
“Come here,” he said, and tugged her in for a kiss.
“You are lucky to be alive,” she said. “I just spoke to the doctor. He said the bullet hit a rib and was diverted or it could have hit your heart. I brought you some newspapers, by the way.”
Steve picked one up and scanned the front page.
“Listen to this. An influential moderate imam is calling for a joint international fatwa against the radicals. He said Islam is a great religion and must not fear the twenty-first century, and also that a good Muslim need not revert to practices that made sense a thousand years ago.”
Kella took the paper and glanced at it.
“Well, it’s a start. The Muslim moderates have been the silent majority. If they take charge of their future, the radicals are history.”
She paused a second and, with a gleam in her eyes and a smile, said, “Did you ask me about travel plans? I have some loose ends to take care of in Paris, and then I’m on my way to Virginia, ready or not.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All of the events and characters in this story are imaginary—with one exception; Steve is modeled on our son Christopher, who died in 2002 and to whom this book is dedicated. The settings and backgrounds are factual. I have personally run clandestine operations in most of the countries where the story takes place. Similarly, although I do not claim to be an Islamic scholar, I studied Islam at Johns Hopkins School of International Studies and lived in Islamic countries for many years. While the Islamic content has been double-checked by others with better academic credentials, I take full responsibility for any error.
I have often been urged to write an autobiography. But there are many biographies available, prompted by a variety of motivations, for those who are curious about the life and career of a CIA operations officer. Although it is natural to be proud of one’s life accomplishments, and I am no different, my story would not add much to theirs. A novel allows the author to entertain as well as educate. Fictional characters can say and act out their convictions to reflect their worldviews, which can be centuries apart, as they are in this story. For example, while the structures of our international system are still based on the sovereign state concepts of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, bolstered by nineteenth century nationalism, many Muslims are working toward a borderless world subservient to the laws of Islam—it is not a subject for negotiation. This story is built around this conflict of views. Presenting the issues in a novel was more fun to write and, I hope, will be more fun to read about than eye-glazing dates and treaties.
I wish to thank all those who encouraged me along the way and for their willingness to spend the time to read part or all of the manuscript, make suggestions, and point out weaknesses: Rita Callahan, Thérèse and Elise, Brittany and Preston, John Panama, Dr. David McCuan, Dr. Barry Goodfield, Denise Constantini, Fred Hill, Philip Giraldi and Philip Gioia. Special thanks to Jeff Cox, successful author in his own right, without whose initial help I probably would not have begun what turned out to be a more challenging project spread over a much longer period than I had anticipated. The book would not have reached publication without the personal interest and generous support of Haggai Carmon, author of the Dan Gordon thriller series. Thanks also to Jordan Rosenfeld, who edited the original manuscript; likewise to Phil Berardelli, publisher of Mountain Lake Press, who produced the updated version of The Caliphate.
I’m very grateful to Porter Goss for his attention-grabbing Introduction. Porter, my friend and former CIA colleague, was a member of my Junior Officer Trainee class, a group of dedicated and bright Americans who would have been successful in any career they chose. Our country was lucky they chose the CIA.
Finally, thanks to my live-in editor, my wife Cathy, who experienced the book’s several lives and made many helpful suggestions and corrections, big and small.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
During his length career with the Central Intelligence Agency, André Le Gallo—who passed away in 2017—weathered several coups, a war, and a revolution, working across three continents. He served in operations that ranged from the sensitive to the extremely dangerous, holding senior positions and engaging frequently in some of the most challenging actions to protect his country from its enemies. Le Gallo’s novels—The Caliphate, Satan’s Spy, and The Red Cell—reflect the extensive knowledge he gained from those experiences, enabling him to produce a suspense trilogy of unparalleled detail.
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