by A. J Tata
It was four a.m. and the September morning in Arlington National Cemetery was heavy with dew, waves of moisture beginning to come down almost like a light rain. Mahegan reached out and touched the headstone, reading the words again.
WESLEY K. COLGATE
STAFF SERGEANT, US ARMY
Iraq, Afghanistan
1987–2014
Silver Star, Purple Heart,
Combat Infantryman’s Badge
A Loving Son and a Good Friend
“Roger that,” Mahegan whispered. He looked beyond Colgate’s grave, saw thousands of others just like it, and knew that his friend was in good company. Trace Adkins’s song “Arlington” played through his mind as he bowed his head and closed his eyes.
The Spirit lives. He hoped so anyway.
He ran his hand along the smooth, white granite stone, and felt a bump. He tugged at a small tube, not much bigger than a one-hundred-pound-test fishing line.
Suspicious now, he followed the tube with his hand all the way to the back of the headstone, where he found a small battery pack.
Before he could look more, he heard car doors slam about a hundred meters away and he could almost see Colgate smiling at him, saying, “Better get your ass out of here, man.”
He was up and moving among the fallen. Soon he was back over the fence as shouts echoed behind him with flashlights crisscrossing his path.
He was back to the hotel by five a.m. He let himself into his room and found Locklear inside the door, pointing a pistol at his face, her eyes cold and unforgiving.
Chapter 11
Millions of megabytes away from where Mahegan stared into the black hole of Locklear’s pistol barrel, Mullah Adham proudly watched the video of the Fort Brackett slaughter. It had gone viral all across the Internet, so much so that it became impossible for the American government to shut down or eliminate. He had been careful not to post it to his Facebook page . . . yet.
Seated before him were two new jihadists. Two new ghosts. They watched him eagerly as he stood and walked toward them inside his small cave. A generator somewhere in the distance was pushing enough electricity to keep the lights glowing brightly.
He squatted before the two men who had been delivered to him over a week ago. One was an eighteen-year-old Pakistani boy named Hamasa. He was thin with black hair, a wiry beard, and deep-set, hollow eyes. Hamasa knew that one day soon he would be a suicide bomber and perhaps, Adham thought, his mortality was registering with him.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, running his hand across the boy’s face.
“I am strong, Mullah,” Hamasa said.
“How, then, were you captured?”
Hamasa looked away.
“They came for me in the night. We were sleeping in the qalat with the animals. Our guards had gone to sleep also. They killed the others and took me.”
Very good, Adham thought. The Copperhead Capture Team was performing well. He had presented his idea to the Quetta Shura two years ago. The hard-core fighters had been tiring of fighting only in Afghanistan and wanted to help al-Qaeda carry the fight back to America. Adham had drawn in the sand a map of Afghanistan, the Atlantic Ocean, and the United States. Fight here, he’d said to the Quetta Shura, pointing at the US, not here, as he pointed at Afghanistan.
One of the Shura members stood and walked to the sand map and used Adham’s stick as he said, “If we fight here, then they will fight even harder here.” He pointed at the first location and then Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then the man pointed at America and said, “And who will we get to fight here?”
“Ghosts,” Adham had said, smiling. He had heard reports from detainees released from Bagram Detention Facility that one in ten prisoners had never been officially logged into the Department of Defense system. Private military contractors were in charge of most field detention sites where the Americans first brought the prisoners into detention. Adham knew the well-publicized rule was that within four days of capture the US Army infantry units had to notify headquarters that they had captured an enemy prisoner of war and to make a decision on whether they were going to move a prisoner to Bagram. But often with the pace of operations, detainees languished in a void. And some became ghosts, with no official record, yet stashed away in containers around Afghanistan and Iraq. With tens of thousands of soldiers and contractors on the battlefield, there was potential for abuse of the system.
Adham saw it as an opportunity. Legitimize the ghost operation through the most vulnerable contractor on the battlefield. At the moment, that had been Copperhead, Inc. He motivated the tanking contractor by offering an endless pipeline of free labor, ghost prisoners, who could travel back on their private charters from Kandahar to a remote runway in North Carolina.
Hamasa was part of that plan. So was Uday, the Iraqi. Sometimes US military forces captured their prisoners and left them in the care of Copperhead, too busy to follow up on the prisoners’ status. Other times, rogue Copperhead Capture Teams would target specific individuals to keep the pipeline of labor flowing. After their detention by US military forces or Copperhead Capture Teams, Copperhead evacuated the ghosts to Adham’s location for training. They had performed well. Top of their class—of ghosts.
Adham nodded, and then looked at the Iraqi, a twenty-two-year-old combat veteran who had served in the Shi’a militias that were funded by the Iranians. Joining al-Qaeda, he had traveled to Pakistan, trained young recruits, and then led them into battle near Kandahar where he, too, had been captured.
“And you, Uday, how were you captured?”
The Iraqi had the hardened eyes of a criminal, of a man who had seen too much death for one lifetime. Uday was a large man. How had his Capture Team wrangled this man to the ground?
“They were civilians,” Uday said. “Electric guns.”
Adham nodded. The Capture Teams carried lethal weapons and stun guns. They killed the bystanders and stunned the prey to preserve for shipment overseas.
“Do you know what comes next?”
Both men looked at him expectantly.
“You will complete your training and then you will conduct jihad in America.”
“But, Mullah?” Uday asked. “Where are we? I was blindfolded for days and knew that I was on every form of transportation. Airplane, truck, and ship. Many ships.”
“At this moment, you are nowhere. You are ghosts. For years in both Iraq and Afghanistan the Americans have taken our brothers as prisoners, documenting most and officially imprisoning them in their jails in Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo. But they keep a few of our brothers in torture chambers without ever documenting them. The Americans call them ghosts. I have saved you from torture so that you can conduct jihad.”
“Inshallah.” God willing, the men said in unison. They were thankful and knelt before The American Taliban’s feet.
“We will step outside and you will see your new environment.”
Adham led the men from his cave where they climbed a long staircase and stepped outside into the bright sunlight. Instantly, they heard the Islamic call to prayer, the Adhan, beckoning them.
The two men turned to Adham and asked, “Which way is Mecca?”
Adham paused, then pointed and said, “South. That way.”
Immediately, the men dropped to their knees and began their supplications. Adham followed suit, lest they think he was a fraud. He put his forehead in the dirt, keeping his eyes on his new ghosts until they were done.
Standing, Adham walked his men around the small complex, which consisted of small homes, a mosque, and a few stores. A few people milled about, but the town was essentially vacant.
“Where in Iraq are we, Mullah?” Uday asked.
“We are at a training base far away from anywhere you have ever been, Uday. I know you are from Basra and that you are a Shi’a. You fought the Americans mostly in East Baghdad and specialized in making explosively formed penetrators. You have never ventured to this town, called Srab Qyrh.”
“Sr
ab Qyrh?” Uday asked.
“Yes. I know what you are thinking. Literally translated, it means Mirage Village. It is a ghost village for ghost prisoners, and we built it for you and others like you who want to train to attack Americans. Everyone believes I am in Afghanistan or Pakistan or even Iran. But no one knows where I am or that you exist, and we will use that advantage to destroy America on its own soil. Now that the Americans have all but left Iraq and Afghanistan, we have more freedom and can hide in plain sight. And once you graduate, you will move onward, your final voyage.”
Hamasa and Uday watched a group of men doing push-ups on an athletic field. They were led by a man with lighter hair and a thick beard wearing camouflage fatigues. He was calling out to them in Arabic, though Adham knew that the men were a mixture of Iraqis, Pakistanis, and Afghans.
They were the perfect jihadists.
And he had created the perfect way for them to conduct jihad.
“Follow me,” Adham said.
They walked down a stairwell into the basement of one of the concrete buildings. As he descended, Adham looked up at his satellite dish, hidden below an awning. It was facing southwest and angled high into the sky. As he ducked through the low door, the shift from extreme sunlight to utter darkness momentarily blinded him. He felt the presence of his two new ghosts behind him. Opening a secondary door, the smell hit him first. His prisoner of war was not going to last much longer. He would kill him tomorrow on television.
“This is the enemy,” he said pointing at the huddled figure in the corner. The man still had the sandbag on his head. Adham had punched some airholes in the burlap so the person could breathe. The Army combat uniform was soiled with urine, feces, and vomit.
“The two of you will behead him tomorrow on television,” Adham said.
Hamasa and Uday nodded.
Uday said with some conviction, “Inshallah.”
Adham returned his trainees to their quarters and then entered his hideout, where he powered up his computer. He typed a new status update on his Facebook page announcing another attack.
“If you thought Brackett was bad, just wait until the next attack. It doesn’t get any better than this. Well, actually it does. But more to follow on that. Just FYI, beheading tomorrow. Last thing, friends, watch out for former army Captain Chayton Mahegan. You will soon be calling him ‘Traitor’ Mahegan. He is wanted for murder in North Carolina and by the Inspector General of the US Army.”
Then Adham went to his Twitter account and typed: “CPT Mahegan is traitor. In NC hiding. Mobilize America and stop him before he does more damage. Ft. Brackett his idea . . .”
Next he sent a Twitter direct message to Chikatilo from a dummy Twitter account.
@TuffChik, get ready to shop at Walmart!
Satisfied, Adham stepped outside again, turning his face toward the sun. Reflecting on his ascension to power, Adham thought again about Camus, which made him think about the duality of life. Which made him think about his father. Who was never there.
His mother, however, was ever-present, nurturing, and loving. Perhaps she believed she had offset the absence of his father, who for a brief period of time was so close, yet unreachable.
Then the FBI raided their home, stole his gaming code, and ruined his chance at legitimately making a name for himself as he’d planned. It didn’t matter. Now, he had developed a bigger, better way. And it would make things tough on good old dad.
Payback was a bitch, indeed.
Elizabeth Carlsen, the researcher from the library, had briefly offset the pain. She, too, had nurtured and perhaps loved him. Elizabeth had also urged him to pursue his passion in web design, which had really been no passion at all. His prime motivator was expanding his universe through the web, not being a functionary. Monument Hunter had brought together thousands of online gamers. Elizabeth had unknowingly motivated him into hacking into the domains of the most powerful. Seeing the level of corruption everywhere had further tainted his innocence, dropping him into despair. Knowing too much too soon in life had catapulted him into depression. His happiness had turned to sadness, just as Camus had philosophized.
He emerged from his teen years shattered by the government corruption that had stolen his creativity and a father who had stolen his childhood by never acknowledging he existed. In a sense, he was a ghost as well.
And so he decided: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Or even better, beat them at their own game. Mullah Adham was partly still the young Adam Wilhoyt, longing for the love of his parents. Unfortunately, he didn’t have many good memories and had reconstructed the steel frame of his character as best he could with the help of the madrassa leaders of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Knowing that he wasn’t buying anyone’s bullshit, Adham became a mercenary for power. At times he hesitated. Others, he was sure of his path. Today he was certain.
As he saw it, he wasn’t like those garden-variety kids at Columbine, or the Sandy Hook slayer, or even Julian Assange from WikiLeaks. He was better. He rode the competing forces of good and evil to the top like a lava vent erupting. Forged by love and the absence of love, by loyalty and betrayal, and by guidance and misdirection, Mullah Adham reasoned that it was not his fault at all. He had simply stepped onto the world stage a product of modern society: crazy, competent, and ready for power.
And he had amassed an army of anonymous loyalists, his ghosts, who were prepared for the next step: terror in the suburbs of America.
Chapter 12
Mahegan stood in front of the desk of Lieutenant General Stanley Bream, the Inspector General of the United States Army. He knew very little about either the man or the position other than what he had heard in the news and could see scattered about the walls and desks.
There were several photos of Bream dressed in Army uniforms posing with a variety of presidents, other generals, and entertainers. He saw dozens of plaques and awards scattered about the personal display. It wasn’t something Mahegan would have done, not that he could if he’d wanted to, as his own awards were classified.
On the bookshelf there was a round bomb insignia of an ordnance officer and a variety of maintenance and ammunition references throughout the office. So, Bream was at one point in his career either in charge of Army maintenance or ammunition, or both, for the units in which he served. There were some naval photos of old ships in stormy seas and a large glass case directly behind his desk with a set of matched dueling pistols facing each other in a velvet box. His eyes found a series of plaques from different postings around the country. Bream apparently had served in the Mojave Desert at the National Training Center and also at Fort Hood, Texas. Curiously, Mahegan saw a photo and certificate from the Director of the FBI thanking him for his liaison tour with the Bureau. There was a plaque titled, “The Rock,” which indicated a tour of duty at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. From the looks of it, Mahegan thought, Bream had mostly been in charge of units that fixed tanks or delivered ammunition, but had at some point migrated to investigations and inspections. Mahegan could see the reflection of Bream’s computer screen in the shiny glass.
On the wall was a framed Washington Post article titled “The Army’s Chief of Integrity.” He saw a picture of General Bream and scanned the first few lines about Bream’s stellar career and how he may be “the military’s shining star of integrity and veracity.” Bream was the man who had felled corporate giant Copperhead, Incorporated, and disclosed their evil deeds in Afghanistan and Iraq. The article catalogued prisoner abuse, theft, obstruction of justice, and an assortment of other crimes that Bream had relentlessly pursued with his extralegal powers. Accordingly, the year-old article relayed, Bream was next in line to be Chief of Staff of the Army, the equivalent of the CEO.
What was missing, Mahegan thought, were family pictures. There was one photo of Bream with an attractive woman who was probably in her fifties. His wife. No kids. Not that unusual, as most senior officers relished their contact, however fleeting, with dignitaries until they imagined themsel
ves to be one. But Mahegan still found it odd that he would have only one picture of his family among dozens of celebrities.
Moving to the bookshelf, he noticed more pictures of General Bream with politicians, usually in Washington, DC, with the Capitol or White House in the background. He read the titles of books: The Pentagon’s New Map, The Clash of Civilizations, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, The Looming Tower—
A voice interrupted his perusal.
“Captain Mahegan.” Mahegan turned and saw a tall man wearing an Army combat uniform coming out of a door, probably a private bathroom, at his left. Mahegan’s first thought was that the uniform’s digitized tan-and-olive pattern looked strange on him. He looked more like a congressman or CEO than a military guy. He had gelled black hair that was too long for Army standards, but neatly parted from left to right. He looked toned, muscular, and an inch or two shorter than himself, but nearly the same weight. He flashed white teeth that looked like a row of Chiclets. He had brown eyes and a smooth face. His grip was strong as he grasped Mahegan’s own hand.
“General,” Mahegan said. He stood there in his navy blue suit with white shirt and red tie, all of it feeling unnatural and uncomfortable. He figured it beat wearing an “If It’s Tourist Season: Why Can’t I Shoot Them?” T-shirt over dirty swim trunks. He had hidden the gold coin beneath the passenger seat of the Defender just before Paslowski had picked him up from a grumpy Lindy Locklear standing guard at the Hilton.
Locklear had barely spoken to him since she’d had her pistol in his face and didn’t seem to care about the explanation he’d actually wanted to offer. Her jokes and flirting were gone and she’d become the distant, resigned jailer doing her job.