Early Warning

by Michael Walsh

  Next to Dubai, Macao was one of his favorite places in the world. For an internationalist like Emanuel Skorzeny, the world really was pretty much his oyster, even if that oyster had been severely limited by the informal, unacknowledged sanctions Tyler had imposed on him in the wake of the EMP fiasco. Macao was the old Portuguese settlement on the southwest coast of China, dating back to the early 16th century. Along with the Portuguese foothold in Nagasaki, Macao was where the West had begun in its penetration of the East. Now, of course, it was the East that was penetrating the West.

  “Thank you, Mlle. Derrida,” he said. “Please ensure that everything is in readiness for our arrival.”

  “Indeed, sir,” she replied. She gave him a little smile-was it of encouragement? Advancement? Impossible to tell. He smiled back, neutrally, he hoped. Everything was a lawsuit these days; it was getting to be that a man couldn’t make an honest living as a pirate anymore.

  Which is what both perplexed him and animated him. What had happened to the secure world he had once known? True, it had never existed, except in his own idealistic imagination, but that did not make it any less real. From his boyhood in a Sippenhaft camp in northern Germany near Lübeck-Sieglinde’s aria, Der Männer sippe was for him the most resonant part of Wagner’s Ring-through his Wanderjähren as a young man, to his arrival in Paris, to his first million on the trading floor of the DAX, he had held fast to his vision.

  “Music,” he said, and as if on command, Elgar’s Enigma Variations came over the aircraft’s loudspeakers. One of the things he most liked about Mlle. Derrida was that she could read his mind. Something Pilier could never quite do.

  The Boeing 707-the kind of planes they used to use for long-range international travel back in the early ’80s, when the Aught Seven was the last word in aircraft-bumped a little, then settled down. In its original configuration, it was basically a flying cigar tube with two rows of three seats on either side of a center aisle; in his specially outfitted version, he had reserved the entire center section of the aircraft, the safest part over the wings, for his own private quarters.

  Toward the front, between him and the pilots, was the communications headquarters. Despite everything that had happened, he had maintained most of his agreements with international air controllers and national satellite systems, which meant that he could still monitor the position of every aircraft in the Skorzeny fleet, no matter how temporarily diminished in numbers. To the rear were the sleeping quarters, both his and the staff’s, and behind them, the galley and his personal chef’s quarters. He hadn’t yet made up his mind about Mlle. Derrida; she might prove to be more trouble than she was worth. But, fortunately for him, there were no sexual harassment laws at 40,000 feet.

  Skorzeny let the music wash over him. A “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” That about summed it up. Most of the idiots who had inherited Western culture thought of Elgar-if they ever thought of him at all, which was doubtful-as a kind of Sherlockian Col. Blimp, a weird doppelgänger of King George V, the clueless monarch who torpedoed his country, his Empire, into the trenches of the Somme, with results that were now distressingly visible.

  Enigma. The Morse Code of the principal theme. Two shorts, two longs. Followed by two longs and two shorts. In code: I am. Am I. The question mark practically screamed its presence. Man’s existential dilemma, made aural in music. “I am. Am I?”

  Emanuel Skorzeny was a confirmed atheist, and had been since he watched his mother and father executed in the late winter of 1944. A God that could kill one’s family was capable of any enormity, and was one not worthy of worship. Just as the West, in its present incarnation, was not worthy of redemption.

  The ninth variation sounded throughout the airplane. No matter how he steeled his heart, it always moved him. Nimrod, the Hunter. So appropriate. And followed by Dorabella, Elgar’s secret love, to whom he wrote coded communications, both musical and literary. What was he trying to say to “Dorabella,” Miss Dora Penny?

  “Sir?” Mlle. Derrida startled him. “Are you quite all right?”

  “I’m quite all right, Mlle. Derrida, yes, thank you,” he said, in a tone that warned: never interrupt me en rêve.

  “We’re preparing for final descent.”

  “I am always prepared for final descent, Mlle. Derrida,” he said. “You would be well advised to do the same.”

  The plane’s wheels touched down at Macao International Airport with as little disturbance as possible. Skorzeny prided himself on being able to find and hire pilots who made landing an art form. Instead of proceeding to the main terminal, however, the plane diverted onto a secondary runway, heading for a small collection of hangars well away from the main flight paths.

  Mlle. Derrida rose and began to prepare the cabin for exit, but Skorzeny remained seated, still listening to the music, and relaxed even farther back into his chair. “You know the old saying, don’t you?” he inquired idly.

  “I’m sure I don’t, M. Skorzeny,” his attendant replied.

  “If Mohammed will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed.”

  Mlle. Derrida froze. Any talk of Mohammed made her uncomfortable. Being relatively new, she was not sure exactly what Skorzeny’s religious views were, or whether he had any at all, but she was young enough and educated enough to know that, these days, one did not lightly discuss the Prophet. Bohemond, Charles Martel, Sobieski, and the rest of them were moldering in their graves, and yet the Messenger of God lived on; one spoke of the Prophet at one’s own peril. “Sir?” she inquired.

  “I mean, Mlle. Derrida, that Mr. Arash Kohanloo will be meeting with me here, in my aeroplane. Chef, I believe, will have the meal ready in 15 minutes.” He let the look of surprise wash over, and then away from, her face. “Did you have an appointment here? Something, someone, to see? I hope I have not disappointed you, but the blandishments of Macao will have to wait for another time.”

  “No sir, not at all, sir,” she replied quickly. “Might I inquire where-”

  “You may not. Now please get ready to greet our guest and see that all is in readiness in the meeting room. I will need full communication capability, and please instruct the pilots to activate the mobile-phone jammers. I want and expect complete privacy.”

  “Yes sir.” There was a new look of respect in Mlle. Derrida’s eyes. This was the first time she had really seen Emanuel Skorzeny in action, and he could sense that her opinion of him was rapidly undergoing a transformational change: not the doddering old rich fart with time on his hands and money to burn that she had thought him; but then, that was the point.

  “Very well, then, sir,” she said, backing away and out of the private quarters. “All will be to your satisfaction.”

  “Thank you, Mlle. Derrida,” he said. “Please ensure that it is.” And, with that, he dismissed her.

  There were no briefing books or any electronic screens where Skorzeny sat. He had no need for them. He had long since committed to memory the particulars of the man with whom he would be meeting. Arash Kohanloo came from one of the first families of Qom, the holiest of Shi’ite Iran’s holy cities. Qom was where the Iranian nuclear program had been secretly developed for years, built impregnably into the side of a mountain. But, more important, Qom was also the city and redoubt of the 12th Imam, the long-awaited Mahdi, whose imminence would be presaged by a time of troubles that made Christian Revelation look like Eve at play in the Garden of Eden. He was, in other words, just the fellow Skorzeny was looking for.

  Skorzeny rose and moved toward the front of the plane. As expected, everything was ready in the conference room, including a repast of nan-e dushabi, panir, dates, eggplant, lamb, and faludeh for desert, washed down with doogh. Off to one side, several computer screens blinked with rows of raw numerical data.

  The door to the aircraft opened. “M. Kohanloo,” Skorzeny greeted him, “I bid you welcome.”

  The Persian was short, wiry, with what looked like a month-old beard. He was dress
ed in Western garb, and he bowed to Skorzeny rather than kissing him. He, too, had been briefed: Skorzeny did not like to be touched.

  The meal passed with only the basic exchange of pleasantries. Of the current geopolitical situation the two men said absolutely nothing. Skorzeny partook of the meal with the addition of a small glass of Shiraz wine from Australia. He had no intention of insulting his host, but neither did he wish to seem weak; for him Islam was just another human superstition, albeit more useful for his purposes at this moment than Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, or any of the Far Eastern faiths.

  When the plates were cleared and the palates cleansed with some aniseeds, Arash Kohanloo looked at his host and said: “You are an infidel, an unbeliever. You mock me with your wine, and insult me and my family; worse, you insult both the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, and the immanence of the Twelfth Imam, Abu’l Qasim Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn ‘Ali, who from the time of the Occultation has waited with infinite patience for the day of the troubles, when he will come again, accompanied by Isa-Jesus, to you-to bring peace and deliverance to your world.”

  Skorzeny looked at him for a long moment, and then said: “Pick up your mobile phone.” Kohanloo extracted an iPhone from a suit pocket. “Look at it. Try it.”

  The Persian ran his thumb over the screen, trying to access an application, then punched up a number. Nothing.

  “We are in a completely controlled environment here, M. Kohanloo. Nothing we say leaves this room, and only those communications which I wish to receive can enter it. You may speak frankly here, without fear. So let’s cut the bullshit, pardon my Farsi, and get down to business, shall we?”

  Now Kohanloo smiled-a broad smile of recognition that he was with a kindred spirit. “Deep packet inspection,” he said.

  “The key to your success. In fact, the thing that keeps your government operating. With the enthusiastic cooperation of suicidal Western telecommunications companies, you are able to monitor all Internet traffic going into and out of your country. There is nothing you cannot eavesdrop upon and, should you so choose, you can selectively block, record or disrupt, as the case may be. For a primitive nation in the grip of an imported and imposed superstition, you have adapted remarkably well to the 21st century, M. Kohanloo. I congratulate you.”

  Kohanloo’s lips formed the simulacrum of a smile, although his dead eyes gave nothing away. “What was it your Lenin said? ‘You will provide us with the rope with which to hang you’? So it is written, so shall it be done. If you will pardon my misquotation of sacred scripture-in this secure environment, of course.”

  “The Americans’ National Security Agency can only look upon what your nation does and weep that they have not the moral strength to engage in such ruthless activity. For there is a genius in that, a moral liberation. The higher ends must always be served, no matter the immediate cost. This I learned as a child in Germany. One must set one’s heart against all emotion, against all entreaties, to let the cries of both the innocent and the guilty fall upon your deaf ears, that the greatest good for the greatest number be served.”

  Kohanloo’s visage took on a conspiratorial mien. “But what of the Black Widow?” he hissed. “Cannot the Americans do the same thing?”

  Skorzeny suppressed a laugh by disguising it as a cough. “They could, but they won’t. One of their whiny little senators in our employ would make a speech, calling upon his countrymen to ‘defend the Constitution’ or some such. Or one of their media captains, who draws a considerable sum from our exchequer monthly, would lead a secular crusade against the government, challenging it to live up to America’s highest ideals.”

  “Which apparently includes suicide,” Kohanloo said. “Still, I worry about the Widow…”

  “Let me worry about her,” consoled Skorzeny. “And now, to business.” He pointed to the dancing computer screens, on which a very large sum of money had appeared on the screen, expressed in various currencies: dollars, euros, yen, yuan. “Take your pick,” he said.

  Kohanloo barely glanced at the screens before turning back to Skorzeny. “How dare you insult me with money?” he said, and rose to leave.

  “M. Kohanloo.” Something in Skorzeny’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “What you believe or don’t believe is absolutely immaterial to me. I myself, as you note, am a proud unbeliever in many faiths; all of them, in fact. But I see that you are a man of principle, and I like that. So I will make you a new offer.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  Kohanloo thought for a moment, and then a big smile broke over his face. “Under the present worldwide economic circumstances, recruitment has been going exceptionally well, especially in your prisons. By constantly harping on the iniquities of your society, our friends in the media have prepared the people for revolution-a necessary precondition for the arrival of al-Mahdi. As for our Sunni brothers, apostates though they may be, they need to know nothing of our larger purpose, and only wish to fight and die as martyrs for Allah.”

  Kohanloo opened his briefcase, took out a manila folder, and placed it on the polished table. “So do we have a deal?”

  Skorzeny looked down at the dossier and smiled. Then he stuck out his hand. “We have a deal,” he said.

  DAY ONE

  Begin each day by telling yourself: today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness.

  – MARCUS AURELIUS, Meditations, Book II

  CHAPTER THREE

  Manhattan

  Francis Xavier Byrne had a choice: the.38 or the 9-millimeter?

  It was the same choice that every senior officer in the New York City Police Department had to make every year, a choice not given to the grunts, to the junior officers, to the rank and file, but to only a select few, those with seniority and experience.

  He had earned that right. Earned it long ago and continued it every day he spent on the force. And every year, when this moment rolled around at the Police Academy on E. 20th Street, Captain Francis Xavier Byrne made the same choice:

  He took the.38 Colt Detective Special.

  As he raised the weapon into firing position, sighting on the first of the targets, he took a moment to reflect. He was 51 years old now and most definitely old school. No matter how many times he fired the various 9 mms. the department authorized, he still preferred the security and heft of a revolver. The Glock 19 was a plastic piece of shit with a six-pound pull-not the thing for some frightened rookie to be wielding in a crisis-and even retrofitted with a twelve-pound-pull “NY-2 Trigger,” it still felt like a lethal toy gun. The Smith & Wesson 5946 and the Sig P226 were improvements, although not by much. Byrne and his men also had the option of carrying the Kahr K9s as backup pieces or off-duty weapons, but in his opinion, unless the brass was willing to admit the past century of semi-automatic firearms technology was a mistake and get some old-fashioned Colt 1911s, he was going to stick to the trusty revolver as his sidearm until they pried it from his cold, dead hands.

  He slid his right index finger down the frame from just below the cylinder toward the trigger. That was the way they taught it now at the Academy: no fingers on the triggers until you were ready to fire. Until you were ready to shoot. Until you were ready to kill.

  Byrne brought the Colt up to eye level. He used a one-handed, full-frontal stance, right eye closed, his dominant left eye sighting down the barrel. Not for him was the sideways stance, in which you were essentially aiming over your shoulder. Not for him was any flashy, muzzle-waving, sideways-pointing ghetto grip: throughout his career, he had several times staked his life on the proposition that the safest place to stand between a gangbanger with a Glock and whatever he was shooting at was right in front of the target.

  Fuck it: it didn’t feel natural. The whole “finger on the side of the gun” crap was a “safety” rule-for the perp’s safety, not the cop’s. He dropped his finger onto the trigger, let it curl around the trigger
in a lover’s caress. There was next to no chance of a double-action revolver going off accidentally, or even of a bed-wetting patrolman jerking the trigger hard enough by accident to fire the weapon.

  Byrne let out his breath, then held it. Despite the noise of the range all around him, only partly muffled by his protective ear wear, he always felt at peace here. It was so unlike real life: just you and the target, standing there motionless, a big bull’s-eye at its center, dangling twenty feet away, just begging you to shoot it. Of course, it wasn’t really shooting. It was just punching holes, very quickly, through a piece of paper. But it still felt good, and the fact that there was no return fire was a bonus.

  Byrne pulled back the hammer: now the weapon had a hair trigger. He fired and punched a hole near the center of the target, just slightly to the left. Each year, as he requalified, his astigmatism got a little worse, and each year he had to learn to compensate for it a little more. Some of the men-Vinnie Mancuso, his old partner back in the days when they were both young and hungry, now working in Commissioner White’s office and about ready to start pulling his pension as he counted down the days-suggested that he wear his glasses to the range, but to Byrne that was like making love with them on. You didn’t really need to see what you were doing as long as you knew what it was and how to do it.

  He compensated a little to the left and fired again. Closer; good enough for government work. Not good enough for him. Another slight shift, another shot: perfect.

  “You’re getting old, Frankie,” shouted a voice off to his left. With his headgear on, the voice to Byrne was like a whisper. He didn’t have to turn or look to know who it was.

  “Move ’em back another fifteen, Lannie,” he barked. “And this time make it hard.”

  Aslan “Lannie” Saleh stifled the crack he almost made. Something about “old” and “hard.” After all, Capt. Byrne was his boss, the man who had given him his break, and even though the unit operated more or less full-time in politically incorrect mode, Lannie Saleh knew that for Frankie Byrne the shooting range was the next best thing to St. Michael’s on Easter Sunday. He knew better than to break the boss’s sacramental concentration.