by E H Jennings
“That motherfucker!”
“Agreed,” said Travis. “But name-calling won’t solve our problem. We have to find your brother and save the world, all at the same time.”
Carson’s hands were clinched into fists. “So McManus has been leading us, one step at a time, toward that Q24 compound?”
“That’s right,” said Stonehill. “The three men he was blackmailed to kill will all be there tomorrow night. Those three men, of course, are named…”
“Farzat, Gourani, and Yasri.”
Stonehill nodded.
“So the dossiers in Paris, Sampson’s “old contact” with the RG. It was all made up. Every bit of it was staged to get me and Connor to Q24 so we could fulfill the blackmail.”
“Yeah,” said Travis. “And then the plan was to kill you before you ever left Q24. You were going to serve your purpose then die, just like before.”
“And how exactly did he plan on doing that?”
Travis and Stonehill were silent until Carson figured it out.
“Mendez,” Carson whispered.
“You cannot trust him,” said Stonehill. “Like McManus, he is not what he seems. He is not here to help you find Colton; he is here on assignment. He’s the safety valve.”
It was then that Carson remembered his first conversation with McManus. The General had provided a list of names, but he had only given him one phone number. In doing so, he had made sure that Carson had no choice but to connect with Troy Mendez. It was crucial to the success of his plan.
“What about Sampson?” Carson asked. “What’s her role in all this?”
Travis looked anxious. “Sampson’s role is uh…well, it’s…”
“Complicated,” Stonehill amended. “Her circumstances are immensely complex. But please don’t misunderstand. Rachel Sampson is among the greatest allies you will ever have.”
“If she’s such an ally, why has she gone along with all this? Why is she complicit with McManus?”
Neither man answered and neither man met his eyes. Despite the vast revelations of the past ten minutes, there were still things they weren’t willing to share.
“So I’m just supposed to take your word for it,” said Carson. “I’m supposed to believe all this shit about The Mirage Project and about McManus? He was my CO, you know. Maybe I should trust him more than I trust you.”
“He was my CO, too,” said Travis.
Stonehill remained pensive. “The real question, it seems, is do you trust him more than you trust Colton?”
That silenced Carson. Ultimately, that was the question. Colton knew something that Carson didn’t. He had no idea how or why, but Colton’s code paid homage to what Mick Travis and Roland Stonehill were saying. And as much as Carson hated that reality, he couldn’t ignore it.
“Which reminds me,” said Travis. “I think you got the translation wrong.”
“What translation?”
Stonehill laid a napkin on the counter and took a pen from his sport coat. He then wrote three words.
General Falsie Qua
Carson was wide-eyed. “How the hell?...”
“Don’t mind that,” said Stonehill. “What’s important is that you translated the phrase too literally. I believe Colton was aiming for more of a slang interpretation.”
“Which is what?” Carson asked.
Stonehill smiled and slowly wrote: The General is the mirage.
CHAPTER FIFTY
So what the hell was that charade in the conference room?” asked Carson. “Did you just make all that crap up about the NSC and Hamas?”
An hour had passed and the men were still sitting at the bar. Travis was on his third beer, Carson his second. Stonehill was burning down the night’s fourth cigar.
“That was purely for Mendez’s benefit,” said Stonehill. “And no, I actually didn’t make it up. It came straight off McManus’s script.”
“There’s a script?”
The old man shrugged. “We’ve been communicating daily for weeks. As I told you, the man is enormously paranoid; he plans his operations down to micro-minutiae. And now that Mendez is here, you can be certain he’s reporting back to McManus. So I performed exactly as I was expected to perform.”
“What about Mick?”
“What about me?” asked Travis.
Carson looked back at Stonehill. “If McManus thinks you’re working for him, then what does he think about Mick?”
Stonehill was expressionless. “Warren is of the mind that Mick is dead. It was under his own orders, as it were, that Mick and his family were hunted down.”
“Your family was targeted?” asked Carson, glancing at Travis.
The man turned up his beer but didn’t respond. Stonehill took the glass and refilled it.
“There was a fire,” Stonehill explained. “Mick’s odds of survival were basically zero, but he narrowly escaped and fled into hiding. McManus hasn’t thought about the name Mick Travis in almost twenty years.”
Travis sipped from the fresh glass and still said nothing.
Carson attempted to organize his thoughts. The puzzle was even bigger than he had imagined. He realized, however, that he had gotten part of it right. They had missed him on purpose. The Serbian assassins had been hired by McManus to convince Carson the Syrians were after him, that they were seeking revenge.
The note; the motion-activated camera; the Muslim Brotherhood tattoo; the firefight. It was all choreographed to achieve a solitary purpose: get Carson and Connor to Syria.
Carson took a drink and let it settle in his gut. “So if McManus isn’t the old friend that got you into espionage, who is?”
At first, Stonehill acted as though he hadn’t heard the question. He puffed his cigar and stared blankly into the distance. “Loyalty is to be prized above all else,” he said, and eventually gave a slight nod, almost as if he were talking to himself.
Carson was curious about the nature of Stonehill and Travis’s relationship, but it was obvious Stonehill wasn’t in the mood for sharing confidences. Mick Travis was a ghost McManus had thought dead for two decades; that made him useful. Carson had to assume Stonehill had helped Travis stay off the grid. Living beneath the radar required resources and unique personnel connections; Stonehill possessed both in abundance.
Another question was why these two men were so eager to help him. Were Stonehill and Travis alone in their knowledge of The Mirage Project, or were they part of a larger resistance? Were there other ghosts from Mordor still out there, lurking in the shadows?
It was too much of a coincidence to believe Stonehill and Travis had rallied just to save Colton. Carson was certain they had far grander intentions; he just didn’t know what they were.
“You need to understand that men like Warren McManus and Carter Bradford have no boundaries,” said Travis, breaking his silence. “There’s absolutely no length to which they will not go. You can’t imagine what they have planned.”
“Red Shire?” Carson asked.
Travis nodded. “While Mordor and Mirkwood were awful in their own way, their evils were mostly contained to the culling phase. Those operations were focused abroad, targeting terrorist threats and America’s geopolitical enemies. Red Shire is something fundamentally different.”
“What do you mean?”
Stonehill leaned in. “McManus’s obsession with literature is the source of the operational names—Mordor, Mirkwood, Red Shire. Tolkien is clearly one of his favorites. But tell me, what do you know about Tolkien’s greatest epic?”
Carson shrugged. “I read it in high school.”
“As with everything McManus does, the names have meaning,” Stonehill explained. “They reflect the operational intent and purpose. Once Red Shire is fully initiated, a very important line will have been crossed. America, and black operations in general, will never be the same.”
“Red Shire,” Travis said. “Think about it.”
Carson did and came away confused. “I don’t get it.”
> Stonehill exhaled a plume of smoke. “In Tolkien’s tale, the Shire is more than just the place where Bilbo and Frodo live; it’s representative of a larger theme that echoes throughout the entire narrative. Home. The Shire represents home.”
“And that’s precisely what Red Shire will target,” Travis said. “Using the advanced, and illegal, intelligence gathering methods and capabilities of the National Security Agency, Red Shire will systematically target and eliminate American citizens.”
Carson was already shaking his head. “Not possible.”
“You keep saying that,” said Stonehill. “But you forget with whom we are dealing. When the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the President of the United States agree on a course of action, that course of action is typically carried out, Congressional approval be damned. In this case, Congress will know nothing of it. No one will.”
“They are going to identify risky Americans, people they think may pose some terroristic threat, and in the name of national security will have an elite group of assassins murder those Americans,” said Travis. “And they’ll do it all on American soil.”
“Red Shire,” repeated Carson, in shock. “They’re going to spill blood…at home.”
Stonehill puffed his cigar. “Unconscionable. It must be stopped.”
And then Carson understood. Stonehill and Travis were helping him save Colton, but that wasn’t the endgame. Their goal was to bring down The Mirage Project, to save America. And Carson was being recruited.
“But first,” Travis cut in, “we have to get into Syria and extract your brother. Enough innocents have died already.”
“Getting into Syria will not be a problem,” said Stonehill. “I have already made the necessary arrangements. You will leave first thing in the morning.”
“Who will leave?” asked Carson. “Surely you don’t mean Mendez…”
“Yes, in fact I do,” said Stonehill. “You will very much need him, I’m afraid. All of you will fly out at dawn. You, Mick, Rachel, and Troy Mendez.”
“But you said yourself he’s reporting to McManus. As long as he’s with us, McManus will be able to track our every move. Not to mention after we take out the three targets, Mendez will try to kill me.”
“He will,” agreed Stonehill. “But I don’t like his chances.”
“Considering he could put a bullet in my left ear from seventeen hundred yards, I think his chances are actually quite good.”
“You’re underestimating Sampson,” said Travis. “Without her, none of this works. She’s critical to mission success.”
“Well I wouldn’t know, would I?” Carson spat.
“There’s more to her than any of us know,” Stonehill added. “You’re not alone in your curiosity. But you need to trust her. You must trust her.”
“And if I don’t?”
Travis was suddenly indignant. “Then you better come up with some way to deal with the eventuality that if we survive our little soiree at Q24, Mendez will hunt us to the ends of the Earth. Just like he did Zeke Lazarus. And if for some strange reason he doesn’t succeed, McManus will kill him and hire someone else to do the job.”
“So what are you telling me? Sampson’s only role is to take out Mendez?”
“For now, yes,” answered Stonehill. “That’s her primary job.”
“What if she fails?”
“I agree we need a contingency plan,” Stonehill relented. “Any ideas?”
Travis turned up his palms. “Fresh out, Doc.”
A thought struck Carson. There was an X-factor at play. Something Mendez knew nothing about.
“Actually, yeah,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.”
Travis drained his beer. “Let’s hear it, soldier.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Al-Safirah
Revoir, une bonne nuit,” said the Arab, bidding Teresa Ferrell good night.
It was almost five in the morning in Syria, which meant it was nearing midnight in Washington D.C. It had been one of their shortest conversations yet; using the tap wire she had planted in McManus’s house, Ferrell had confirmed everything the Arab already knew: The attack was coming. Soon.
He slid the phone back inside his kaftan and looked out over the woods to the east. The night sky was a rolling blanket of stars above him and the air was frigid; his breath came out in white coils that dissipated in the darkness. He had volunteered to assume night watch, and had relieved a very grateful Raul of his duties.
The Arab donned a sweater and gloves and lit a cigarette.
The hours on the rooftop passed slowly; the combination of dark, cold, and quiet seemed to dilate time, making the approaching dawn an almost unattainable blessing. But the Arab valued the time to think.
He had not agreed to take night watch out of the goodness of his heart. On the contrary, his intentions were far from altruistic. And now that things with Ferrell were complete, the night’s true purpose could be served.
The Arab was leaning against the edge of the roof when Sayid Moussafi appeared at his side. There were no footsteps; there were no sounds at all.
“Good evening, Sayid.”
“Give me a cigarette,” he said.
“You don’t smoke.”
“I do now.”
The Arab pulled the pack from his sweater and handed it to him. “You’re a medical doctor. You should know better.”
“So should you,” he replied, lighting it. The tip glowed orange. “But you know, somehow I get the feeling that being out here with you is far worse for my health than this cigarette.”
The Arab laughed and tapped out another. They smoked in silence.
Finally, he looked over at his protégé. “Have you come to a decision?”
“They’ll approach from the east,” said Sayid.
The Arab nodded. “How’d you know?”
Sayid shrugged. “They would be foolish not to. The rocky slope and thick forest provide excellent cover. From any other direction, we could see them from miles away.”
For the second time tonight, the Arab was impressed. Sayid had become an indispensible asset. But he wouldn’t force him; the young Syrian physician had already endured a lifetime’s worth of hardship. Agreeing to the Arab’s proposal would essentially guarantee a difficult, deeply-isolated lifestyle for years to come. The personal sacrifices would be enormous, so it was critical Sayid made the choice on his own.
As they continued looking east, in the direction of their approaching aggressors, slivers of pink crept into the horizon above the lake.
“Time runs short,” said the Arab. “I need to know what you’ve decided.”
Sayid turned his black eyes toward the man he called Faisah, toward the figure he now knew was more enigma than man.
But despite the lies and deception, he found he admired the nameless mystery standing beside him. And that admiration was ultimately what led him to his decision. Not because he admired who Faisah was, but because he admired what he was. The man called Faisah was free, able to become anything and anyone at any time; he was a whisper on the wind.
That’s what Sayid wanted to become—a whisper. He had nothing and no one to go back to in Aleppo. That life was gone, taken, forever. But Faisah’s offer promised justice; it promised a way to fight back. It promised a new life.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he finally said.
“So you accept?”
Sayid nodded. “I accept.”
The Arab did nothing to acknowledge the decision. There was no thank you, no congratulations, not even a handshake. Instead, he turned his gaze to the north.
“Do you see the wooded alcove to the northeast?” He pointed to it. “Three hundred yards beyond the tree line.”
“I see it,” said Sayid.
The Arab dug out a phone and handed it to Sayid. “I will need you positioned there tonight. The elevation will grant you an excellent view of the valley down by the lake. The moment you see them, I need you
to contact me using this phone.”
“Where will you be?”
“In a meeting with Abdullah and some others. It’s crucial you inform me the very first moment you see them. After you make contact, you are to await further instruction and obey it without question.”
Sayid took the phone. “Easy enough.”
The Arab shook his head. “Nothing about this will be easy. I trust you still have your Kel-Tec?”
“Always.”
“How many rounds do you have?”
“A few dozen.”
“You’ll need more. I’ll see what I can do.”
Sayid felt the pistol clinging to his waist and wondered what sort of chaos awaited him. “How many fighters will they bring?”
“Five.”
Sayid laughed aloud. “Five? Our forces will outnumber them ten to one!”
Again, the Arab shook his head. “In number only. Our slashers will be up against trained assassins. It will not end well. Now, I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
He proceeded to brief Sayid on how they would handle the attack. Sayid was instantly and overwhelmingly baffled. The Arab had always been eccentric, but it seemed he had finally lost his mind completely.
“Eventually you’ll understand,” said the Arab. “There’s no time for questions. I need you to trust my plan and carry it out with absolute precision. Can you do that?”
Sayid sighed, doubting the secrets would ever end. “Yes, I can do that.”
“Good.”
They each lit a final cigarette as the sun cleared the horizon and the air started to warm. Other men began moving about the grounds beneath them; some waved and the Arab returned the greeting. Sayid did not.
“I need to know one thing,” said Sayid. “After all I’ve agreed to do for you, after all the trust I’ve put in you, surely you can grant me this one request.”
The Arab said nothing. His face was dark, his eyes hard.
“Why are they coming? What’s the reason for their attack?”
The Arab finished his cigarette and stomped it out, grinding it between his sandal and the mud brick. “They’re coming for the treasure in the dungeons,” he said, as he turned and walked away. “They’re coming to reclaim what was taken from them.”