A Time of Fear: Book Three of The Time Magnet Series

by Russell Moran

  I no longer hate Joe Monahan. I no longer love him, nor do I even like him, but I respect him as a human being. I respect him for having turned his weird life around.

  I think that’s completion.

  Chapter 26

  I am Sheik Haddad, and I relish the thought that our day of glorious jihad will soon be upon us. The infidels cannot stop this plan, no matter how hard they try. There will soon be explosions of love and justice.

  But I worry about Ayham Abboud, the brother that no one has seen in weeks. I also am concerned about Abu Hussein, the naval officer in prison. Brother Hussein knows almost as much about our plan as I do. He knows everything except the location of the bomb plant. But he does know the plans, he does know the details, and he’s in the hands of the devious infidels who are torturing him at this moment for information.

  Brother Hussein, the man they call Joseph Monahan, must die.

  Chapter 27

  Late October was beginning to act like November. As we walked the short distance to the entrance of CIA Headquarters, a stiff wind blew a confusion of leaves across our path. It was cold, not “nippy,” but cold. The air temperature was 45 degrees, but with the wind it felt like it was in the 30s. At 7:45 PM it was pitch black. I consoled myself with the thought that daylight savings time and the beginning of spring was only five months away. But then I realized that it’s October 21 and Thanksgiving Day is only five weeks away. A shudder went down my back, and accompanied me into the CIA building. The shudder was not because of the cold wind.

  A guard opened the door as Ben, Buster, and I headed for our meeting with Carlini. Director Carlini’s deputy, Ollie Blake, met us at the door to hustle us through the ringing, clanging, beeping bullshit of security.

  “You folks look tired,” said Carlini, as we filed into his office. He was nice enough to have arranged a full coffee service along with water, soft drinks, and light snacks.

  Tired? I don’t recall ever being this exhausted. Meeting for hours with one’s estranged husband can be stressful enough, but when said husband is a newly reformed mass murderer serving a long prison term, it makes tiredness and sore muscles a palpable ache. Carlini then said something I thought I’d kiss him for.

  “I just want an executive summary of the most important points, and make this meeting fast.” said Carlini. “We’ll meet longer tomorrow. Buster, please go ahead. If anybody wants to jump in, please do so.”

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Director, I’m going to offer a conclusion: we’ve got to get Monahan out of Leavenworth as soon as possible. I would prefer right now, but tomorrow morning would be great. I recommend that we put him up here in a secure apartment and guard him 24 by 7.”

  “Do you think he’s in danger?” Carlini asked.

  “Yes, sir. The three of us have spent an amazing day. It seems that Joseph Monahan, Abu Hussein, has changed. He’s a born-again anti-terrorist, who’s rediscovered his long forgotten American patriotism. No canary could outtalk this guy.”

  “Here’s the summary,” Buster continued. “We don’t yet know the location of the bombs, but we have a detailed engineering sketch which I’ve already emailed to my team upstairs to begin satellite recon. We know the guy who’s in charge, that homicidal maniac, Abbas Haddad. And we also know an important thing: Monahan is a pretty high-up guy, just shy of being called a Sheik. We know it, but the critical thing is that they know it as well. They know Monahan is in prison, and I’ll bet they think we’re torturing him for information. Carve this in stone, Mr. Director, they’re gonna whack Joseph Monahan.”

  “I see your concern, Buster, but Leavenworth is the most secure prison in the country. How could they possibly get at him there?”

  “Mr. Director, some, maybe hundreds, of Monahan’s fellow prisoners at Leavenworth are of the jihadi persuasion. Given enough concentrated intention, it doesn’t take too much to kill a man in prison. We need this guy, and we have to talk to him more and then some more after that. If we leave him there and visit him a lot, that will set off alarms all over al Qaeda and their operatives at Leavenworth. So I suggest that we create a story, that Monahan got killed in prison. I know just the journalist who will break it. We’ll make it realistic and believable and give it to all the newswires. Even al Qaeda won’t try to kill a dead man. We gotta get him out of there. We need him here, now.”

  “Okay, done, sold. I’ll make it happen.”

  Carlini picked up the phone and hit a speed dial number.

  “Get me Director Watson, please, William Carlini of the CIA here.”

  Wow, this is a man of action. Almost restores my faith in the federal government. Almost.

  “Sarah, Bill Carlini here. I won’t bore you with the details but here’s what needs to happen. There’s a prisoner at Leavenworth, Joseph Monahan, one of the naval terrorists. We need to get him out of Leavenworth now and bring him here to Langley. Bottom line is that he’s turned and is now our best source of information about the upcoming Thanksgiving event. We’re concerned for his safety. We know that he’ll come more than willingly. He’s refused to lawyer up and is totally cooperative. Will you please smooth this over with the Attorney General? Great, I’ll call the White House myself.”

  I’m not believing this. Ever since 9/11 there’s been a lot more cooperation between the FBI and the CIA, but this is like a couple of poker buddies calling out for sandwiches.

  “Fred Mulroony, please. Bill Carlini here. Hey Fred, I got something that needs to happen, fast.”

  Now he’s on the phone with the White House Chief of Staff. In two minutes he had the official White House Seal of Approval. Mulroony told him that he would personally clear it through the Bureau of Prisons.

  At certain levels of government you find people who really believe in getting things done, people who are ass-kickers by nature and aren’t afraid of getting yelled at. They’re a rare breed, but the country couldn’t function without them. I just watched that happen in front of my eyes. If this was handled by low level functionaries, it would be six months before Joseph Monahan was released from Leavenworth, six months too late. Now, he’ll fly to CIA Headquarters in the morning. The last thing I needed today was another meeting, but this was exciting.

  Chapter 28

  Joe Monahan here.

  Today is October 22, six days since I was arrested. I’m on a flight from Leavenworth Prison to CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Yesterday was the most amazing day of my life. I talked to my beautiful wife, Janice. Well actually I was interrogated by her along with a CIA agent and a police psychiatrist. Although we still lived together until recently, Janice and I had become estranged. That’s the wrong way to put it. I caused us to be estranged and I drove her away from me emotionally because of my insane devotion to a cause, a cause of death and destruction, a cause that made me lose my mind and soul.

  It’s hard for me to believe that over the past 20 years I had become a radical fundamentalist in the service of a twisted ideology, an ideology that advertises itself as a religion. On Thanksgiving Day, just six weeks from the day I was arrested, I was to be a key player in an operation to kill 26,000 innocent people, about 5,200 on my ship alone. That’s right, slaughter 5,200 people with a nuclear device, 5,200 people, many of whom I knew personally. I was the ship’s weapons officer, an important position on the ship. My fellow crewmembers had no idea that I was soon to betray my country, betray them, and kill them. My wonderful wife didn’t know this either. At least it wasn’t in the plans to kill her.

  For 20 years I was nurtured as a jihadi, a warrior in the cause of radical Islam. I remember seeing an autobiography written by the famous comedian Sid Caesar entitled Where Have I Been ? It was about his years as an alcoholic, years that Caesar felt had robbed him of a big part of his life. I can sympathize with that, because that’s exactly what I’m thinking, “Where have I been?”

  Alcohol has never been a problem with me, but something else robbed me of my mind and soul just as efficiently as alcohol has ro
bbed others. My mind accepted a belief system that called for killing and depriving people of fundamental rights. Notice how I say, “my mind accepted,” as if it were some bodily organ separate from my identity. I guess I’m rationalizing, trying to tell myself that it was some other force that caused me to become a potential killer, something that would allow me to duck responsibility.

  I’ve been having doubts about my beliefs for years. The doubts began with 9/11, seven years after my “conversion” to Islam in 1994 at a youth indoctrination camp in Saudi Arabia. Jihadis the world over rejoiced the thrashing of America by sending suicide fighters to crash planes into buildings. Almost 3,000 innocent deaths – for what?

  My doubts mounted over the years, but I never shared them with my fundamentalist “colleagues.” My mind kept fighting me, my mind kept asking questions, but I moved along, robot-like, toward my mission of death. In the last year my doubts began to harden into mental resistance. And now, although nobody will believe this and I don’t expect them to, I had renounced the mission. The Thanksgiving Attacks on the carriers would never happen if I had anything to do with it.

  I’ve heard all about this time travel business ever since the attacks were thwarted a short time ago. I’ve heard that my captain’s husband, the famous writer and reporter Jack Thurber, had traveled two years into the future and learned about the attacks. He and others who were with him have discussed the idea that the Thanksgiving Attacks actually did happen, only in a different realm of time. If that’s true, there is some alternate universe where a homicidal maniac named Joseph Monahan actually went through with his barbaric mission. But that isn’t me. I renounced the mission. Had the attacks not been prevented by the operation known as Tango Delta, I, Joe Monahan, would have stopped them myself. But I’ll never say that in court, where I’ll soon be tried for treason. They’ll probably give me the death penalty. I deserve it.

  In a few weeks the next Thanksgiving Attacks, Plan B, are scheduled to be executed. I want to do anything in my power to prevent them, but there’s a problem. I don’t know where the bombs are. Al Qaeda works on a “need to know” basis of security. It was not yet my time to know the location of the bombs, but that time would have come shortly. I was an insider, a cog in the workings of the plots.

  My life now has one purpose, to save my country. Yes, America, my country, the country founded and governed by the rule of law, by compassion and justice, a country where innocent people aren’t slaughtered because of some primitive ideology. How I could turn my back on my country, not to mention my incredible wife, is a mystery that will go with me to my grave.

  But now it’s my duty to stop the operation. It’s a duty of atonement for the 20 years I spent as a killer-in-waiting.

  ***

  The plane just landed and soon I’ll be at CIA headquarters. I’m not nervous, but I’m anxious, anxious to get going, to do what we need to do to make Thanksgiving a day of thanks for real.

  Obviously my presence here is hush-hush. Before getting out of the car I was given a wig, a fake beard, a hat, and even pillows stuffed into my shirt to make me look heavier. I feel like that gangster Frank (Frankie Five Angels) Pentangeli in The Godfather, disguised as a general so he could testify against the mob in court.

  I was taken to a door at the rear of the building, an entrance apparently reserved for clandestine comings and goings. My Marine guards told me to keep my hands in my pockets to conceal the fact that my wrists were shackled to a chain that ran around my waist.

  We entered the door and walked down a long corridor that had no adornments of any type on the walls, except for exit signs and fire safety stickers. I guess this is a place where, when they take the blindfolds off, you have no idea where you are.

  We entered a conference room about 20 feet by 30 feet. Well, it’s really an interrogation room, a fact tipped off by the room length mirror, a one-way mirror no doubt. Just like the corridor, the walls were bare, obviously to keep an interrogee’s mind from wandering while being questioned.

  My removal from Leavenworth was so sudden, I didn’t have breakfast, nor was any offered on the plane. I was delighted to see a tray of assorted wraps and sweets, along with fresh coffee, sodas, and water. It was 11:45 AM and I was starving. My Marine guards brought me to my seat and shackled my legs to the floor. To my surprise they removed my handcuffs. I guess they didn’t worry that I’d throw food around the room.

  “Enjoy your lunch, sir,” said one of my guards as he slid the tray in front of me. He didn’t know who I was, but the “sir” told me he thought I was important, or maybe he was just polite by nature.

  I scoured the array of food and immediately picked out a ham wrap, about as non-halal as you can get.

  I was half way through my sandwich when the door opened.

  “Good morning, Joe,” said Buster, my CIA interrogator from yesterday.

  “Good morning, Buster. Please, join me for lunch.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Buster. “It’s been such a busy morning the only thing I’ve eaten was a stick of gum.”

  “What are you having?” Buster asked, always the spook.

  “Ham,” I muffled through a mouthful.

  Buster smiled, the smile of a man who just got an answer he was hoping for.

  ***

  “Joe, at the risk of repeating myself from yesterday, it’s hard to exaggerate how important your cooperation has been. I’d like to ask you a personal question. Maybe it’s a rehash of yesterday, but I want to hear it again. Have you converted?”

  “Well, converted is a tough question, Buster, because it begs the question, ‘converted to what?’ But I can tell you this, I am no longer a fundamentalist jihadi. Frankly, I’m no longer a Muslim, an admission that could get my head chopped off in some circles. I’m a guy who has renounced 20 years of blind faith to a weird ideology. Also, I can tell you that I’ve rediscovered something I was born with. I’m an American. And please believe me when I tell you this, I’m a patriot. I love this country and I’m willing to die to save it.”

  “As you know, Joe, we don’t have a hell of a lot of time. Today is October 22. Thanksgiving is just over a month away, and we’re not out of the woods yet. We still have to locate the bombs. The sketch that Janice made from your recollections is an enormous help, but we still have to locate the weapons. When we do find them, it will be your memory and Janice’s sketch that nails it.”

  I felt good, proud even. For years I used my knowledge to plan the destruction of my country. Now I’m helping to save it.

  “Before I go,” said Buster, “there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

  Chapter 29

  “Joe, I’d like you to meet Frank Thompson, Rear Admiral, United States Navy.”

  I looked at the man and shook his extended hand. My face felt numb and my heart pounded like a speedboat crashing over waves. I began to perspire, so I reached for a handful of napkins and blotted the sweat from my face. In my life, I’ve never experienced an episode of syncope or fainting, but the strangest feeling washed over me, and I felt myself starting to lose consciousness. Buster reached over and waved smelling salts under my nose as if he expected my reaction.

  “I’ll leave you folks to chat,” said Buster as he walked out the door.

  ***

  “Sheik Abboud,” I mumbled, “Sheik Ayham Abboud.”

  “Hello, Joe, nice to see you. I didn’t think you’d recognize me without the beard.”

  That deep sonorous baritone voice was there. Those intense, gazing eyes. His height, his build, even his handshake. All except the beard, and of course, the turban. It’s hard to describe how I felt, sort of like walking into a room and seeing a purple elephant dancing with a unicorn.

  “Did he say you’re an Admiral, an American Navy Admiral?”

  “Yes he did, and yes I am. United States Naval Academy, class of 1991. Mind if I have a sandwich, I’m famished.”

  Sheik Thompson or Admiral Abboud, whatever, reached for the
remaining ham wrap.

  “My legs are shackled to the floor, Sir,” I said, “would you mind getting me some paper towels with cold water.”

  “Sure thing, Joe. Here you are. By the way, just call me Frank.”

  “I’ve known you for 20 years, Frank (God that feels so weird to say) but I just met you three minutes ago. I feel like my head is going to explode.”

  “Okay, Joe, I think it’s obvious that you would like an explanation. I’m what is known as a mole, a deeply imbedded spy. CIA Director Carlini insists that I’m the deepest mole in American history. The U.S. intelligence apparatus, including the CIA, FBI, Naval Intelligence, and just about every other intelligence agency came to a conclusion in the early 90s, shortly after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, that we needed to get inside al Qaeda, deeply inside. We were up against, and obviously still are, an enemy we never knew before, a secretive enemy that chalks up as political success the killing of innocent human beings. Because my appearance is Middle Eastern, owing to my Lebanese mother, I was tapped to be the deep spy, the mole. I was a naval officer on loan

  to the CIA.”

  “Were you a CIA operative when I first met you in 1994?” I asked.

  “Yes, Joe, I was.”

  “But Sheik, Frank, whatever, you were one of the people who indoctrinated us. You really seemed to believe what you were saying. Are you telling me now that it was all an act?”

  “Yes, Joe, it was an act. It was just like the naval officer act you’ve been practicing for the past 20 years. We were quite familiar with The Center for Open-Minded Youth for many years. It was, and is, I think you’ll agree, a brainwashing operation, the purpose of which is to indoctrinate kids like you and your friends were in 1994. And make no mistake about it, The Center for Open-Minded Youth works. I’m going to tell you a small part of something that’s deeply classified, something we’ve been studying for years. Here it goes: of the people who have been labeled domestic terrorists by the government, 80 percent of them came through indoctrination at The Center for Open-Minded Youth. Yup, 80 percent of our home-grown radicals got their basic training at that lovely school in Riyadh. You’d recognize a lot of the names, but I can’t tell you any of them because it’s Top Secret. Many of them have been killed over the years, and a lot more are in prison.”