Patriot

by M. A. Rothman

  He skipped past the messages about EU & Eurasia. He knew what they were about: some recent anti-American rhetoric from an ideologue who blamed America for the failing of the European Union. Over the last five years or so, the EU had become somewhat of a bad penny. One country had already bailed from the coalition and others were considering it, and there were more that were furious it was falling apart.

  But Connor’s current area of responsibility was China, North and South Korea, Japan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq—and while he liked to stay acquainted with what was going on in the rest of the world, there were good people assigned to those parts of the world, and they did their jobs well.

  He finished off his coffee, tossed the empty cup in the trash, and started on his real work. Call logs.

  It wasn’t the kind of work he’d envisioned when he first joined the agency. Sitting in an office, listening to and analyzing calls all day… that was a far cry from the spycraft portrayed on TV. He’d known this, of course, but still, sitting in a quiet office for eight hours a day wasn’t exactly his dream “make a difference” job. It certainly wasn’t as fulfilling as being on the ground, putting rounds downrange.

  But that was a young man’s game, and his sore legs from his two-mile run this morning reminded him that he wasn’t as young as he used to be. And he could make a real difference here. He’d been in counterintelligence ever since he’d joined the CIA, and he’d had a hand in some fairly large international cases. He’d helped save lives on the ground. And in the army, he’d seen firsthand the lives lost because of inaccurate, or downright false, intelligence.

  There were twenty-seven new calls in his queue, all made over the last twenty-four hours. CIA satellites intercepted calls made from overseas locations to the continental United States. There were millions of such calls made each day, but the agency’s new Summit supercomputer was able to process those millions of voices simultaneously, identify specific keywords, record calls automatically, and, if a call reached a threshold of significance based on keywords, flag it for later review by human analysts, prioritizing it based on tone, content, and language.

  Most of the human analysts also had to wait for the translations to come down through the system—or use the CIA’s automatic translator, which was absolutely terrible. But Connor was fluent in Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, and a few other languages. His parents, who’d fled from Iran during the revolution, had spoken a number of languages at home, and Connor had picked up more languages while in the army. That was part of why he’d risen so quickly through the ranks here at the agency.

  The first call in his queue had initiated in Hong Kong. It was a Chinese businessman complaining about American tariffs on his company’s products. The computer had flagged it because the man had gone on a long tirade about dismantling the West and how the Americans were out to completely dominate the world and destroy everyone else.

  “I will burn their country to the ground,” the man said in Mandarin. Connor wasn’t fluent enough in the language to speak it with confidence, but he could understand it well enough.

  He pulled up the man’s files, which were attached to the queue entry. The man was angry, and it was very possible that he believed what he was spewing, but he didn’t fit the profile of a terrorist. Father of four, successful, no outstanding debts. And the timbre of his voice was the Chinese equivalent of machismo. He wasn’t a threat.

  For all its highly advanced, top-of-the-line tech, the Summit supercomputer couldn’t differentiate between actual, credible threats and mere boasting. Because that distinction wasn’t based on a formula, but a gut feel. Showing once again that human intelligence couldn’t yet be bested by the silicon beasts the computer geniuses were making.

  Job security, Connor thought.

  He made a note that the call contained no actionable intelligence, and marked it for the system to archive. The agency never deleted anything, unless of course something needed to be deleted, in which case that particular something never actually existed in the first place.

  He clicked through calls for the next hour, listening to angry people spout anti-American vitriol. Most of the country wanted to believe that America was doing great things for the world—and Connor knew they were—but there was always a lot of hate for the United States, justified or not. And not just from places like Iran, but from everywhere. Even from the US’s so-called allies.

  The sun was now peeking over the horizon. Connor leaned back in his chair and stretched. Only twenty more calls in the queue. He looked over his shoulder through the interior office windows. People were finally starting to stream into the Bullpen, dropping off gear at desks and topping off coffee at the cart that building services had just dropped off.

  John Evans, one of the analysts, caught Connor’s eye and waved as he weaved through the cubicles. And judging by Evans’s expression, Connor knew exactly what he was going to say.

  He pulled off his headphones as Evans pushed open his office door. The man was ten years Connor’s junior, with thick brown hair combed over and slicked with ample amounts of gel. His beard was neatly trimmed, and his Bugs Bunny tie was loose around his collar.

  “Offsides, huh?” Evans said, grinning. “Can you believe it? A whole season down the crapper because some guy can’t line up correctly. I mean, that’s their whole job, right?”

  Connor tossed his headphones on the desk. “You know I’m a trained killer, right? I can take you out with a paper clip.”

  Evans laughed, eyes darting around Connor’s office, scanning the walls. “Oh crap, did you finally get your Double-O? No? Well, then I don’t have anything to worry about. Do I?”

  “You’re really a pain in my ass, you know that?”

  Evans stepped into the office and let the door shut behind him. He nodded to Connor’s computer. “Anything going on today?”

  “Just people wanting to blow up America. You know, same old same old.”

  “Freaking job security, right? And now word on the street is that Europe blew up last night.”

  “Yeah, I saw the emails—breezed through most of them. Some guy hates America, am I right?”

  “Pretty much. But the same guy keeps bubbling up on a bunch of our lists. His name is Müller. He’s claiming to be the instigator of some new revolution or some nonsense like that.”

  Connor rolled his eyes. Every couple of years, someone claimed to be the next valiant white knight, destined to bring justice to the vile hegemony that was Western democracy. “Oh, I’m sure he is. Just like Achmed here.” He hitched a thumb at his computer. “Achmed wants to bring death to all the unbelievers and infidels. You guys ordering out today?”

  Evans hesitated, then snapped his fingers. “Oh crap, it is Friday, isn’t it?”

  “All day.”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Evans scanned the Bullpen through the windows. “I need to find Sarah. She said she was going to get us a discount this time. I guess she ‘knows’ the manager.” He grinned. “I also hear that she’s—”

  Connor waved him off. “I don’t even want to hear about it. You’re not sucking me into your rumor-mongering.”

  Evans feigned shock and put a hand to his chest. “I don’t even know what to say about that. You cut me deeply.”

  “Not as deep as Sarah will if she finds out you’re talking crap about her.”

  “Who’s talking crap? I’m just curious about the lives of my coworkers. You know, looking out for their best interests.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  Evan pulled the office door open. “You in for a twenty-piece?”

  Connor nodded as he reached for his headphones. “Yeah. Let me know when they’re taking orders.”

  As Evans rushed off to solidify their lunch plans, Connor clicked through to the next call. It was barely time for breakfast, but Connor could already feel his stomach rumbling for Buffalo Wild Wings. Mango Habanero, boneless. He’d pay for it later in the day, but they were his favorite.

  The next c
all had come from somewhere in the East China Sea, registered and logged at nine p.m. local time. Voice print analysis was listed as pending.

  A male, probably middle-aged by the sound of his voice, spoke in Arabic. “They were right, Abdullah.”

  Connor made a note on his legal pad: Unknown Male One.

  A second voice, also a middle-aged male, responded. “You found it?”

  Connor wrote: Unknown Male Two - Abdullah.

  While most people liked to keep their notes on the computer, Connor preferred hand-writing his. It was faster and allowed him to focus completely on the call rather than deal with the CIA’s unnecessarily difficult and clunky document system.

  Unknown Male One answered, “Yes.”

  “Allahu Akbar,” said Abdullah.

  “Allahu Akbar,” Unknown Male One repeated. “And as far as we can tell, it’s intact.”

  “And it will function?”

  “He will inspect it further very soon.”

  “The Prophet shines his face upon you, my friend. Soon our holy task will be accomplished for the glory of Allah.”

  “Allah be praised,” Unknown Male One said. “The Great Satan will soon learn the error of its ways. The infidels cannot hide from his vengeance. Not now.”

  “When will you arrive?”

  “I don’t know. That will depend on how much work we need to do to make the weapon operational.”

  “This is a glorious day, Mohammad,” Abdullah said. “A glorious day indeed!”

  Connor wrote Mohammad next to Unknown Male One.

  “No,” Mohammad said. “This is merely a first step. The glory will come on the day the infidels burn.”

  “We will speak again when you arrive.”

  “I’m sorry, my friend, we will not speak again,” Mohammad said. “We cannot take that chance. The infidel has many eyes and ears. You must ensure that my passage is secured.”

  “I’ve taken care of everything for you,” Abdullah said. “Don’t worry. Allah has turned his eyes upon you, my friend. You can’t fail.”

  “And the world will praise Allah when the Great Satan falls. Goodbye, my friend.”

  Chapter Three

  After the phone call ended, Connor sat for a long moment, processing what he’d just heard. Unlike the upset Chinese businessman, this call had sent a prickle up and down his spine.

  These two players had suddenly risen to the top of his list.

  He replayed the recording, focusing on any background noises he could make out. “Sounds like they’re at sea,” he said aloud. And the sound of a thunderstorm echoed in the background.

  The third time he played it he focused on what the two men were saying. Then he played it yet again, focusing on how they were saying it. It was odd that they weren’t speaking in code, which most terrorists did. They all knew the CIA and the NSA listened to their phone calls; they all knew the world wasn’t as secure as the normal citizen believed.

  And although conversations like this one weren’t uncommon, the finality in Mohammad’s voice didn’t suggest a man just making idle threats. He seemed devoted to his cause, not posturing for effect. He wasn’t virtue-signaling to his friend by spouting verses of the Koran or hyping up his friend to embark on a jihad. He was speaking strategically, matter-of-factly, as if what he was planning was well-considered and already a certainty.

  Wondering what the call’s destination was, Connor ran a signal trace, running the connection through Summit’s database. “New York, huh?” he mused, watching as the system continued to chew on the number, narrowing his search results. “A domestic number calling from the East China Sea to New York.”

  By law, the CIA had no jurisdiction over anything that occurred on domestic soil—all of that was handled by Homeland Security and the FBI—so if he found anything incriminating in the message, he’d be forced to hand it off. But… because the call originated outside of the continental US, this was a gray area, and one he’d venture into for a little bit.

  He clicked through to the voice profile system, dumped the track in, and let it work. Then he leaned forward and brought up the radar images from the approximate region the call had originated from. Heavy cloud cover. With a few keystrokes, he learned that there were heavy seas and thunderstorms.

  The voice-mapping program chimed, and its results appeared on Connor’s screen.

  * * *

  Voice # 1 Analysis Complete: 0% MATCH FOUND

  * * *

  Voice #2 Analysis Complete: 92% MATCH FOUND

  Name: Hakimi, Mohammad

  Known Associations: Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS

  Location: Unknown

  * * *

  “Nothing on Abdullah, but we’ve got a Mohammad Hakimi,” Connor read aloud. He hit print and pulled off his headphones.

  Out in the Bullpen, junior analysts were busy working through their day’s tasks, chatting back and forth about cases, or listening to their own call queues. Connor opened his office door, panned his gaze across the room until he found who he was looking for. “Hey, Morgan!”

  A blonde woman in her early thirties looked up from her dual monitors. Her neon pink shirt contrasted with the rest of the office’s neutral colors, but that was the way she liked it.

  She lifted her glasses off her nose and rested them on her forehead. “Yeah?”

  Christina Morgan had joined the agency last year but was quickly becoming Connor’s “go-to” on anything even remotely related to Middle East terror groups. She’d written her master’s thesis on Islamic radicalization and violence, a feat that had not only gotten her noticed by the agency, but had also resulted in her near ex-communication from the University of California-Berkeley. A fact she wore as a badge of honor.

  Connor held up the printout. “You got a minute?”

  Christina grinned as she walked over and snatched the paper from his fingers. “You know it’s not even nine o’clock yet?”

  “Well, I’ve been here since before six.”

  “Some of us haven’t even started our second coffees.” She waved the paper at him. “What is this?”

  Connor nodded toward his office. “Come on, I want you to listen to something.” He held the door open for her, then closed it as she slid into one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “You should try it some time,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Getting up before six.”

  “To hell with that,” Christina said. “I can’t go to bed before midnight. It’s against my religion.”

  Connor laughed and dropped into his chair. He motioned to the paper Christina still held. “Got a hit out of the East China Sea this morning, a call to New York, by some guy named Hakimi. Ever heard of him?”

  “Hmmm.” Christina tucked one foot under her rear and leaned back in the chair. “Yeah, it kind of rings a bell, but I’m not sure why. What’s he doing in the East China Sea?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. From the sound of things, they found something out there. Hard to say what though.”

  “Have you put a query through Utah yet?”

  She was referring to the National Security Database out of the Utah Data Center, one of the largest intelligence databases in the world. The Utah network had the ability to cross-reference billions of pieces of information, no matter how unrelated, and put them together into a coherent picture. Like taking a stack of hay and organizing the individual pieces by age, size, and weight.

  Connor shook his head. “Just pulled the call.”

  Christina handed the paper back. “Hakimi … yeah, I remember there was some buzz a couple months back about this guy. Kind of the usual stuff, really. Anti-American, wanting to rally followers into war against the Great Satan.” She made air quotes for the last part, rolling her eyes. “Same old same old. I had him on a watch and was keeping tabs on him a while back. I want to say that he started off in Hezbollah but branched off into his own thing. I’ll have to look up my files to be sure. Won’t take me that long. Who was he calling?”


  “Just have the first name. Abdullah. Since the number’s in NYC, going to have to run a FISA request to follow up on that. Is CTTF Operations running anything around the East China Sea?”

  The Counter-Terrorism Task Force maintained several operational teams made up of CIA and Homeland Security operators. They worked alongside military assets on the ground to facilitate extended operations overseas. Most of the time, the regional mission centers were aware of their operations, but occasionally someone forgot to call someone, and the operation ran dark.

  “Not that I know of,” Christina said. “We’ve got a team in Taiwan and one in Japan, but they’re on separate ops, running in conjunction with the Navy on some anti-piracy missions.”

  “We have anything in the area we can re-task to check it out?”

  Christina shook her head, the side of her mouth turning up in a half-grin. “You’re serious? Connor, you know Pennington has been on a killing spree, right? I know you heard about Jackson’s team. Completely decommissioned them to ride office chairs.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Connor said, crossing his arms. “But I also read the mission brief, and there were plenty of holes.”

  “Oh come on, you’re not seriously siding with Pennington, are you?”

  “I’m not siding with anybody, but there were holes in Jackson’s intel. I mean, that stuff’s kind of hard to argue.”

  Christina frowned. “Maybe. You want me to run that through Utah for you?”

  “Nah, I can take care of it, just figured if there was anything obvious about this, you’d be all over it.”

  “You’re damn straight I would. Speaking of Pennington, did you get his memo this morning?”