Prepared For Rage

by Dana Stabenow

  "I need you to go to the Renaissance Polat Hotel and find someone with a good memory who remembers an International Maritime Organization conference held there a couple of weeks ago."

  The desk had a tattered phone book on it and she was already puzzling her way through the Turkish Yellow Pages. "Okay, got it. What do you need?"

  "Someone masquerading as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard attended the conference, I think to contact someone else who was attending legitimately."

  " 'Someone'?"

  "The someone is what I want you to find out. The guy masquerading as the Coastie was Isa."

  She drew in a breath and blew it out again. She knew who Isa was. She'd been doing a story on Petra in Jordan when the Baghdad bomb had gone off. "Are we sure he's gone? I've always enjoyed being in one piece."

  "Oh yeah, we're sure," Hugh said grimly, "because we're pretty sure he's in the U.S. "

  Arlene felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. "Holy crap."

  "Yeah. Anyway, I FedExed a package with photos to your hotel this morning."

  "What exactly do you want to know?"

  "If anyone remembers Isa, who was traveling under the name of Adam Bayzani. Commander Adam Bayzani. Find out if he was seen with anyone else. If he was, find out if anyone overheard any part of that conversation."

  "You know you're dreaming, of course," she said. "This is Isa we're talking about, the practically invisible terrorist."

  "I know," Hugh said gloomily. "Realistically, best-case scenario is you find his maid, who says he was such a nice young man, every morning he left a generous tip on his pillow. This guy won't even pick up a phone, he does everything anonymously via email with multiple addresses he never uses more than once. After we took out his boss, I'm guessing he won't even use satellite phones anymore. But he was at that conference, I'm sure of it. It lasted three days. Someone has to have seen him doing something." In spite of himself his voice rose. "Somewhere!"

  She said nothing and Hugh got himself back under control. "Anything, Arlene, any scrap of information you can dig up is more than we've got now."

  "Who am I working for, Hugh?" she said slowly. "This is starting to sound personal."

  "It is personal," he said. "Sara was at the conference. He rode down in the elevator with her the first morning."

  "Jesus Christ."

  "She was in uniform, Arlene, and they introduced themselves. And as I'm sure you recall, Isa doesn't suffer a witness to live."

  "I remember," Arlene said soberly.

  "But for the record, you're working for us, or at least it'll be our name on the check."

  "But?"

  "But our friends across the pond are footing the bill."

  "So, you're saying I can pile on the expenses."

  "Anything, any scrap of information, Arlene," he said again, not responding to the joke. "Solid gold."

  ARLENE HARTE, MIDFIFTIES, COMFORTABLY PLUMP, DETERMINEDLY blond, and relentlessly single though far from celibate, had reported from the various fronts of global wars for the Associated Press for long enough to earn a recognizable byline, a syndicated column, and an occasional spot on Washington Week in Review. Gunfire, however, had palled after thirty years, though travel had not, and there followed a comfortable retirement, the most part of which she spent freelancing articles for the Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler, and Travel + Leisure.

  The rest of her time was spent working freelance as a spy for her country, ferreting out information that opposition organizations and nations would much rather not be unearthed. Hugh Rincon had recruited her when he'd been on the Asian desk at the CIA. When he had resigned, she followed him to the Knightsbridge Institute, where the governmental oversight of company activities was significantly less, the pay was pleasurably more, and the job was, to say the least, eclectic. Arlene was invaluable to them. Her cover as a freelance writer, especially with her CV, got her in many a door that would be closed to anyone else, and her unthreatening appearance coupled with a ferocious intellect, an almost preternatural capacity for assimilating the details of global current affairs, and a gift for sniffing out people who liked to talk did the rest. It didn't hurt that she could write, her reports a model of clarity and a gold mine of intelligence. As soon as the intel in them cooled off they were commandeered by the instructors to show the new guys how to get the job done.

  The Knightsbridge Institute, in fact, had just given her another raise, her sinful second in eighteen months, and when she finished the Troy story she had planned to head for Elizabeth Arden in New York.

  Regretfully, she decided that Liz would have to wait a few days.

  The Renaissance Polat was an abstract thrust of aggressively modern glass that looked more than usually phallic, as was the invariable manner of the glass-and-steel structures of nations clawing their way to first-world status. She went inside, consulted the directory, and saw an international nursing conference was currently being held in the public rooms. She found the bathroom, and from a capacious shoulder bag extracted a navy blue blazer with brass buttons, neatly folded and stowed in a gallon-size Ziploc freezer bag. She shook it out and pulled it on over her white T-shirt and chinos, and surveyed herself in the mirror. She fished around in the bag again and produced a pair of reading glasses with clear rainbow frames, which she perched on the end of her nose, over which her green eyes looked out inquiringly. She gave a satisfied nod, closed her bag, and walked out with a stride that somehow managed to hint at orthopedic oxfords worn on long nights on the kidney ward.

  The conference was being held in half a dozen rooms with concurrently running programming. It was coming up on the hour. She selected a panel at random, "Shaping Healthy Behaviors," and went in. The speaker was a young woman with a bright red face and a stutter, and most of the audience looked as if it was just about to stop being polite and head for the door, but they weren't Arlene's concern.

  At the back of the room stood a woman in the universal uniform of the hotel employee, a maroon vest over a white shirt with a black bowtie, black slacks, and comfortable black shoes. She stood next to a table holding a large stainless steel carafe, cups, pitchers of water, glasses, and trays of sugar cookies, most of which remained. It didn't speak well for the hotel baker.

  Arlene busied herself pouring a cup of coffee, which to her surprise was the real thing, dark and aromatic. She sweetened it and poured in a healthy dollop of cream and by then the panel had wound down and the crowd, most of them women of varying ages, shapes, sizes, and nationalities but all of them looking relieved, streamed out of the room. She loitered until the last of them had departed, and smiled conspiratorially at the server.

  She didn't smile back, a bad sign, but Arlene didn't give up easily. She sipped her coffee, closed her eyes in exaggerated ecstasy, opened them, and smiled again. This time there was a lightening of the woman's expression.

  Encouraged, Arlene nodded at the podium and cast her eyes upward. This time the woman definitely smiled. Arlene grinned in response and shrugged. "At least it's a free trip to Turkey."

  "You are a nurse, too?" The woman's English was heavily accented but easily understandable.

  "I am," Arlene said mendaciously.

  The woman hesitated. Arlene looked sympathetic and encouraging.

  "Do you do the-" The woman gestured toward her back.

  "Back injuries? Well, it isn't my specialty, but…"

  Five minutes later they were ensconced in a dingy little break room over some very nice homemade lamb sandwiches in pita bread, and the woman, whose name was Nawal, was relating the problems she'd been having with lower back pain. Arlene listened attentively, and was even able to offer a few practical suggestions (there were few topics on which an experienced reporter could not offer an educated opinion), and by then of course they were boon companions.

  Other hotel employees appeared and were introduced, and shortly thereafter Arlene was running an impromptu clinic, dispensing advice on a variety of ailments in her ro
le as visiting nurse clinician. When an opportune moment presented itself she made a laughing observation on conventions and the typical convention-goer being a cross between the bread and butter and the bane of hotel staff everywhere, and they were fairly launched. It took only a few more judiciously innocuous comments to nudge the conversation into the right path, and a few more exclamations of disbelief and a rueful headshake or two to keep it going until someone caught sight of their watch and there was a general exodus.

  Arlene ate lunch in the break room for the next two days. "It's so seldom at these things we get to meet real people," she said to excuse her presence, and they seemed to accept her as just another mad American.

  The last day, she took a fond farewell of Nawal and went back to her hotel to pack. She alerted the front desk as to her departure and arranged for an early checkout the following morning.

  She went to bed early, woke early, and took a taxi to the airport. After she checked in for her flight she called Hugh Rincon to report in. "There was a rumor in the hotel about the young officer in the Coast Guard uniform."

  "How many Coasties were there?"

  "They said only the two, Sara and Bayzani. Both American, you'll note."

  He was looking at the list of attendees to the IMO conference. There had, in fact, been five Coasties present. If the hotel employees were identifying them by their uniforms, and if the Coasties had not dressed in their uniforms, then it was no wonder they missed them. He resolved to contact the other three, and made a note. This obsessive-compulsive propensity to tie up loose ends was one of the things that made him such a good investigator. "But?"

  "But, number one, he didn't tip, which proves he wasn't American. Number two, he spent his last night in the hotel somewhere else. He just walked out the evening before and they never saw him again. He didn't even check his voice mail."

  "He stiff them?"

  "No. The room was paid for in advance, by credit card."

  "You get the account number?"

  "Yes, but you and I both know it won't do any good. Isa's way too crafty for that."

  "What about his passport?"

  "He collected it on his way out. He said he was going out to eat, and he'd return it to the desk when he came back."

  "Was he carrying a bag?"

  "He had a daypack over his shoulder, enough maybe for a change of clothes, according to the front desk clerk."

  "He left everything else behind?"

  "He did."

  "Where's his stuff?"

  She smiled into the phone. "In the hotel's lost and found. Or it was."

  Hugh said sharply, "Was?"

  She gave the anonymous little roll-on suitcase reposing at her feet a fond look. "I've got it now."

  "I want you here on the next available plane," Hugh said.

  "I'm calling from the airport. I land at Heathrow at three p.m. British Airways."

  "I'll pick you up."

  "I never doubted it," Arlene said. "Okay, see you then."

  His voice caught her just as she was going to hang up. "If he wasn't American, did anyone have an idea as to where he was from?"

  "They thought he might be Afghani. One of the front desk clerks who thought he detected an accent. I wouldn't bet the farm on that, though, he was the only one who felt that strongly."

  "So, not Middle Eastern, but definitely Asian," Hugh said thoughtfully. "I was pretty sure he wasn't Jordanian, no matter what Chisum's people were telling us. But one of the Stans? How the hell did he get that high up in al Qaeda?"

  "I'm guessing that was a rhetorical question," Arlene said dryly. "Something else, Hugh."

  Her tone, sober and maybe even a little frightened, brought him up alert. "What?"

  "I reached out to a couple of contacts I have here and there, and-"

  "Here and where?"

  "Here, in Istanbul. There, in Damascus, and in Peshawar."

  "And?" Hugh said with foreboding.

  "And I went to see my friend in Istanbul."

  Her friend in Istanbul, Hari Assoun, lived in a third-floor flat in a crowded block that reminded Arlene of neighborhoods in Naples, or Brooklyn. Laundry hung above the street in lines strung between the buildings, kids played soccer between parked cars, and tables spilled out into the street from cafes on every corner.

  Hari, a tall man with thinning hair, a slight stoop, and a remembered strength in his large and now very spare frame, had been happy to see her, and not only because there might be a fee in it from her. Arlene had the knack of turning informants into friends. Sometimes it could be a hindrance, sometimes a danger, but sometimes, as with Hari, it could be a gift. He bustled around a kitchen the size of a postage stamp to brew her some of the Turkish coffee he knew she loved, and putting out a plate of nougat, which she loathed but which she ate without complaint and lied about the taste afterward.

  They discussed her family ("Arlene, my dear, you got to get married. Who cares for you elsewise in your old age?"), his family ("My wife, she is with someone else now, but she will be back, I know this thing in my heart"), and world affairs ("Is this president of yours mad, Arlene? Is he blind and deaf? What is America thinking with this invasion, this war? We Turks know all about war, Arlene, we have Iraqi Kurds sitting across our border from Turkish Kurds, waiting to join hands and make their own country, and then what? Chaos! Anarchy! Apocalypse!").

  After two cups of coffee, when Arlene could hear the blood sizzling nicely in her veins from the caffeine, she got to the point. Hari at first was obdurate. "No, Arlene, much as I want to help you always, this man I will not discuss." She coaxed and pleaded, and did not make the mistake of offering more money. Hari was for hire, not for purchase.

  After some grumbling followed by dire warnings ("This is dangerous, my very dear Arlene. You could get hurt. I could get hurt. Your future husband could get hurt!") Hari allowed as how, yes, he did still come in the way of the odd bit of information, and yes, perhaps, on very rare occasions there might be a whisper of Isa.

  "And what is the whisper, my very dear Hari?" Arlene said, giving him a soulful glance.

  He made a face. "They are looking for him."

  "Everyone's looking for Isa, Hari," she said patiently. "Who in particular this time?"

  Hari met her eyes and said very soberly, "Al Qaeda is looking for him, Arlene, and, my very dear friend, you do not want to be caught in the crossfire when they find him."

  She said now to Hugh, "You remember Hari Assoun?"

  "The old Republican Guard guy, who split Iraq when Saddam invaded Kuwait? Sure. He ran a dead drop for al Qaeda in Istanbul, didn't he?"

  "He was never a true believer, he just needed the cash. I offered him more and he came over."

  "Okay. And?"

  "He tells me that the al Qaeda organization is very quietly putting the word out for Isa to phone home."

  The skin crawled on his scalp and Hugh could actually feel the hair on his head standing straight up. "Hari says that Isa is operating independently of al Qaeda?"

  "It is certainly one possible inference," Arlene said very carefully indeed. "Before you ask, it's more than a rumor. I confirmed it with friends in Baghdad and in Peshawar. Isa's on his own."

  "Son of a bitch," Hugh said.

  "SON OF A BITCH," PATRICK CHISUM SAID WHEN HUGH CALLED HIM TO bring him up to date. "We got ourselves a rogue terrorist?"

  "I've done some asking around of my own since I talked to Arlene. It's not common knowledge, not yet, but one of my own sources says that the al Qaeda network has put out what amounts to an APB on Isa. The word went out almost a year ago-" "A year ago! Jesus Christ!" "They're keeping it very quiet."

  "They sure as hell are! Hugh, what the hell is going on?" "They don't trust him. Bin Laden hated Zarqawi, and Isa was Zarqawi's right-hand man. Bin Laden himself wants to see Isa, as in yesterday. At first it was very much within their own network, but when he didn't surface they started to panic and asked everyone, whether they were good at keeping their mou
ths shut or not. Finally the word trickled down to our source. It is becoming more generally known, though. If Arlene tracked it down, there are undoubtedly four or five reporters on the same story hot on her trail."

  "Jesus Christ, Hugh," Patrick said again. "I can't even begin to imagine what this might mean. A rogue terrorist? What is that, isn't that like an oxymoron or something?"

  "I think it's redundant," Hugh said.

  Patrick didn't hear him. "What, al Qaeda isn't radical enough, isn't murderous enough for Isa, blowing up the towers, the Pentagon, and the Capitol with flying bombs wasn't enough? He has to form his own organization so he can think up something even better?"

  "Or worse," Hugh said.

  "Definitely worse," Patrick said. "All right, thanks for the heads-up. I'm going to talk to some of our people now. Let me know if you find anything in the suitcase, okay?"

  "Okay. It doesn't look promising, though, I'm sorry to say."

  "Jesus Christ, Hugh," Patrick said. "It's bad enough dealing with bin Laden's bunch, but at least we've got a dim idea of what to expect. This guy-"

  He couldn't finish the sentence, and hung up.

  PART II

  Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us

  only the choice of brave resistance, or the

  most abject submission. We have, therefore,

  to resolve to conquer or die.

  – GEORGE WASHINGTON, TO THE CONTINENTAL ARMY

  ON AUGUST 27, 1776

  14

  HOUSTON, JUNE 2008

  Lately, Kenai woke up, went straight to her computer, and logged on to the National Weather Service, set for local conditions at Cape Canaveral. It only forecast ten days out but she couldn't help obsessing. Weather delays were the bane of shuttle launches, and July was a month into hurricane season. There was nothing either she or Mission Control could do about the weather, of course, but checking the forecast gave her the illusion of control. Knowing is always better than not knowing.