by Mike Maden
“Yes, I’d agree with that. You’ve always been reasonable on the issues that mattered most.”
“This one matters, Gary. You know it does. I don’t want another 9/11 on my conscience. Do you?”
“God knows I’m not opposed to a drone strike. You know my record on that. It’s just that Greyhill is scared shitless to pull the trigger. He’s enjoying the highest approval ratings he’s ever had. He won’t want to rock the boat.”
“Why does it have to be public knowledge?”
Diele leaned forward, raised a silver eyebrow. “You’re telling me you’d keep quiet about this? It would be a helluva feather in your cap to claim you provoked us into a drone strike. At the very least, you could say Greyhill had broken his promise to keep us out of any new wars.”
“A drone strike isn’t ‘boots on the ground,’ and it’s hardly a war. Presidents Bush, Obama, and Myers all saw to that. But, yes, formally I am promising you, Scout’s honor, that I will keep my mouth shut.” She ran two slender fingers across her chest, then held them high, like a Boy Scout pledge. “That’s how serious I am about this.” She wasn’t kidding.
After Guo’s report of the failed battle, Zhao contacted Anthony Fiero and made an offer. If his wife would help take out Mossa, then he could make arrangements to supply his consortium with rare earth elements. If she couldn’t show Zhao at least a good-faith effort with a drone strike, there was no way he’d keep his promise and she and her husband would go bankrupt. Worse, a bankruptcy would be a financial scandal that would ruin her chances in the election.
“And if Greyhill refuses to launch the drone strike?”
“Then it will be one more albatross I’ll hang around his neck come election time. Don’t forget how JFK beat Nixon like a drum by mocking the Republicans for being weak on defense.”
Fiero saw the calculations spinning in Diele’s eyes. Her threat to campaign against Greyhill made the unlikely promise that she wouldn’t blow the whistle on this meeting seem more credible to the old fox. The best lies always contained the most truth.
“One last thing, Barbara. How is it you came by this intel? Thirteen intelligence agencies have tried and failed to find this guy, and you waltz into this office with the goods quicker than a hooker at a Shriners convention.”
“I happen to believe that the private sector is almost always more efficient than the public sector, even when it comes to intelligence gathering. After all, look how heavily dependent the NSA has been on the good graces of Google, Verizon, and all of the other big data corporations.”
“Your source?”
Fiero didn’t dare tell Diele that her source was a Chinese operative who had eyes on Mossa in the desert. Of course, neither had Zhao told her it was actually an AQS operative by the name of Al Rus who was actually conveying the intel.
“My husband does quite a bit of work with a private security company called CIOS. They specialize in searches like this. They’re rather lean and nimble, not some ossified government bureaucracy. They’ve located Mossa with an RFID chip.”
“Who managed to plant that on him?”
“No telling. But the intel is good.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes.” That was only half true. She was certain that Troy Pearce carried a rifle embedded with an RFID chip. She just assumed he’d be standing next to Mossa when a Hellfire missile came crashing down.
“Worse-case scenario? It’s a signature strike. You take out a few bad guys, even if it’s not the right bad guy.”
Fiero was referring to the latest iteration of drone strike policy. Originally, the president or some member of the national security staff targeted specific individuals after some kind of official vetting. President Obama was famous for his regular “Terror Tuesday” meetings where he personally selected individuals for death by drone, weighing carefully the evidence presented to him by various agencies.
But such procedures became ponderous and time-consuming. By the time a target was vetted they often had already disappeared. Also, the “evidence” presented was sometimes of dubious origin anyway. The current policy was far more efficient. Anonymous individuals—no names, no discernible identification—who fit the “signature” of a terrorist—for example, a young man armed with a rifle on the road to a known terrorist village—could be killed under the presumption that he was probably a terrorist anyway. After all, if it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck, it must be a duck.
“Easy enough to confirm,” Fiero said. “Dispatch a Reaper out of Niamey. Put him on camera, run it through your database, and if he’s the target, pull the trigger.” She smile-frowned. “Gee, Gary, do you want me to go over there and do it myself?”
Diele laughed, standing. “You’re something else, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.” Fiero locked eyes with Diele. Saw the bolt of electricity that coursed through him. Better than Viagra for most of these old guys, she’d been told.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“That would be delightful. Bourbon, neat, if you don’t mind.” She didn’t want Diele’s grubby hands touching her ice.
“Lime or lemon?”
“Neither, thank you.”
Diele splashed a couple of fingers of Maker’s Mark into a glass.
“Now that we’re being so chummy, let me throw you a couple of bones,” Fiero said. “First of all, Myers is tied up in this somehow.”
Diele twisted a lemon slice and hung it on the rim of the glass. “How?”
“Remember Mike Early? He was one of her special assistants for security.”
“Vaguely.” He refilled his own glass.
“He’s over there with this Mossa character. She also dispatched Troy Pearce over there to be with him.” Fiero was careful to leave out the fact that Pearce was sent to get Early out of there. “You do remember Troy Pearce?”
She knew, of course, that he did. Diele hated Myers’s guts and had learned after the fact the vital role Pearce had played in the drone counterterror operations she had launched against the Mexican drug cartels. That put Pearce on Diele’s shit list, too. But since Greyhill had extended blanket immunities to Myers and anyone she named in exchange for her resignation, Diele was never able to get even with Myers or Pearce.
Diele handed Fiero her drink, his face flushed with anger.
“Thank you, Gary.”
“Pearce, eh?”
“And Myers.”
“How is Myers connected to all of this?”
Fiero was careful with her answer. She’d seen a copy of that morning’s PDB. She knew Diele had seen it, too. Thanks to CIOS, Myers and Pearce had been effectively linked to Mossa and AQS, but not in any concrete manner. It wasn’t conclusive, but it was good enough to raise eyebrows around the room, she was certain.
“Not sure, but does it really matter?” Fiero said. “She clearly wants something over there. For all I know, she’s cooking up some sort of deal with the Chinese. Mossa is key to the whole region. Take him out and likely you’ll be screwing Myers in the process. How’s that for a bonus?”
Fiero had chosen her words carefully. Diele had been a famous cocksman in his day, and his lust knew no bounds. She’d seen the way Diele had leered at the first female president whenever they were in the room together, much the same way he leered at her when he thought she wasn’t looking.
“Greyhill is still smarting from the ass-whipping she gave him in the primaries,” Diele said, which was true enough, but getting even with that bitch Myers was okay by him, too. “I’m sure he’ll be on board with this.”
“How sure?”
“He’s got his head so far up his ass he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on around here. He’s more interested in playing golf with some ambassador or sitting in on policy briefings than actually running things. I do most of the day-to-day around here. I�
�ll give the order, and if he ever gets wind of it, I’ll sell it to him.” He took a long sip of scotch. The ice tinkled as he drained the glass. His eyes brightened. “Myers will seal the deal.”
“One more thing, Gary, in the spirit of full disclosure.”
“What?”
“If Pearce and Early are running around with Mossa in the desert, they’re going to be collateral damage in a drone strike.”
“Fuck ’em. If they don’t want to get blistered, they shouldn’t put their dicks in the toaster.”
“They’re American citizens.”
“They’re enemy combatants, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You would’ve made one helluva president, Gary,” Fiero said. She raised her glass in a mock toast. “Or maybe you already are.” She finally took a sip of her drink.
The old man’s ego swelled. He knew she was piling it on, but he didn’t care. She was right. In many respects, he was the acting president.
“One more thing, Barbara, while we’re being so chummy. I need you to promise you’ll back us up on this should it ever come to a committee hearing or, God forbid, a full Senate inquiry.”
“You have my word. And I can keep my people in line. You also have the chair of my committee in your pocket, along with the other neocon Republicans to back you up. You won’t have any trouble from us.”
“Good. One last thing. I want you to back off of Greyhill on this whole ‘soft on terrorism’ angle your campaign is running.”
“Why should I? It’s true, isn’t it?”
Diele darkened. “Doesn’t matter. Technically, he’s my boss and the head of my party. I’m supposed to watch out for him.”
“Technically, you are. Taking out Mossa takes one arrow out of my quiver, as per our agreement. But the truth of the matter is, you want Greyhill to get reelected so you can keep your job. I get that. But I want his job, too. So how about this? I keep hammering on this, and if he wakes up and finally sees the threats and starts to take action, we’ll all be better off. But if he doesn’t and the American public still supports him, he’ll still get reelected and you’ll still have your job. There’s a third possibility, of course.”
“What?”
“That I keep hammering, that it costs him the election, and in the spirit of bipartisan cooperation, I nominate you as SecDef or any other damn position you’d want in my administration.”
“Sounds like a step down to me.”
“Okay, then here’s a step up. I keep hammering at Greyhill from the outside while you pull your levers on the party on the inside, eroding confidence in his leadership. If my campaign is successful, Greyhill’s numbers will plummet before the convention, and you can ride in to rescue the nomination for your party.”
Diele’s face turned positively postcoital, brimming with satisfaction. “You and I always did work well together, didn’t we?”
“We’re the smart ones, Gary. We’re the ones that run the whole damn town.”
50
Tassili du Hoggar
Tamanghasset Province, Southern Algeria
12 May
After the wadi they traveled east two more days deeper into the desert, riding in the mornings, resting in the heat of the day, then pushing on past sunset. They were making good time. Mossa explained that they weren’t riding traditional pack camels, but smaller and faster Arabian war camels that could cover over a hundred miles per day if needed, but for now their pace was more relaxed. Pearce and the others rode most of the day but walked the last few miles in the cool of the evening to spare the animals, tied nose to tail by ropes slack with indifference.
The desert had changed since the wadi. Now they traversed gently sloping dunes gradually rising toward the jagged teeth of the Hoggar Mountains in the distance. This was more like the Sahara of his imagination, though still not quite as grand as he’d pictured.
They all walked in silence. The desert seemed to require it. Pearce felt humbled by it, the way a student waits for the master to speak. The setting sun behind the caravan threw long shadows in front of Pearce, the head of his image stretching past the Tuareg walking in front of him. It would be night soon. He was lost in the rhythms of the camel’s unusual gait. Right rear, right front, left rear, left front, step after silent step. Every horse he’d ever known walked just the opposite: right front, left rear, left front, right rear. There was something graceful, even hypnotic, in the strange, silent padding of the great white animals.
Troy had made no efforts to speak with Cella privately since they’d left the village. It was impossible to do so with her father-in-law hovering over her, and she had shown no interest in a private conversation. She seldom strayed more than a few yards from Mossa, especially now that there were no wounds or injuries to treat among the others. They seemed deeply connected, though they hardly spoke, either, except in the company of others. He’d noticed over the years that most Middle Eastern men seldom spoke to women, at least the older, traditional men, even when women were around, which was seldom. But Pearce suspected that their mutual silence was consensual rather than cultural. Cella probably felt very safe around Mossa. Perhaps their common grief had bound them together as well.
“What are you thinking?”
Pearce startled at Cella’s whispered voice. She had somehow managed to slip into step next to him without his noticing. Maybe he really had been hypnotized by his camel’s gait.
“Not much, really.”
“I love the desert this time of day.”
“It’s amazing,” Pearce agreed. The darkening blue sky was giving way to purple, and a swath of stars glittered in the vast expanse overhead. In the distance, a great rock arch towered over the sand, like a portal to another world.
“The Tuaregs are matrilineal. Did you know this?”
“Hadn’t really thought about it.”
Cella pointed at the jagged teeth of granite mountains looming far ahead. “Tin Hinan is the mother of all Tuaregs. She lived in the fourth century B.C. At one time she was buried out there.”
“But not now?”
“An American archaeologist stole her body in the 1920s with the help of the French army. Or so it is believed by some.”
“Sounds like an Indiana Jones movie.”
“I liked those movies. Especially the first one. I liked the woman in it, especially his woman. What was her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“It doesn’t matter. I liked her.”
“Why did you like her?”
Cella’s face lit up. “Because when Indy accidentally found her in Tibet, she punched him in the face instead of kissing him.”
Pearce laughed. He jutted his chin out and thrust it toward her. “Knock yourself out.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“I probably deserve it.”
“You definitely deserve it.”
They walked along in silence for a while.
“I always thought you would come back to Milan,” she finally said.
“I did, too.”
“What happened. A woman?”
“A war.” He took a few steps. “And a woman. Later.”
“You leave her, too?”
He shook his head. “She died.” It was hard for him to say that, even now, a decade later. He thought of Annie often, but strangely, not so much on this trip.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“You lost someone, too. Your husband.”
“Yes.” Now it was Cella’s turn to be flooded with painful memories.
“How?”
“He came back here to be with his father when the war broke out a few years ago in Mali.”
“He was a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Killed?”
“Yes. A week after Dorotea and I arrived in Bamako.”
“
I’m sorry. He must have been a good man.”
“He was. He deserved better.”
“Your daughter is beautiful. At least he lives in her.”
Cella’s eyes searched his. Pearce grew uncomfortable. What did she want to know? That he knew Dorotea’s eyes were the same color as his? That he hadn’t stopped thinking about it since the moment he put the girl on the plane? He looked away. They walked in silence for a while. Pearce wanted to catch up with Early, anything to get away.
“Have you been back to Lisbon?” she asked.
She said Lisbon casually, as if it meant nothing to her. Or him. After all, it had been six years before.
“Once. Business. You?”
“No.”
“No more UN work?”
“No. The clinic kept my husband and me busy enough.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He was a cultural attaché in Roma. We met at the opera, actually.”
“A cultured man.” Pearce hadn’t been to an opera since Milan.
“You almost met him. He would have come to Lisbon, but he had other business.”
Pearce thought he’d been slapped across the face.
“I didn’t know you were married when you were in Lisbon.”
“To my shame, I forgot I was married when I saw you again.”
Six years. It seemed like an eternity ago, until now. Memories of Lisbon washed over him. Now he knew why she didn’t stay with him. But what did that mean now? He didn’t know what to say to her. He fell back on his combat training. Fail forward.
“Your daughter is beautiful.”
“She will be spoiled rotten by the time I see her again. My father is a maniac. He has probably already bought her a horse, and maybe even a castle in the Tyrol to hide her from me.”
Low Tuareg voices called out. The camels stopped.
“What is happening?” Cella asked.
Early jogged toward them from the front. His sling was gone, but he clearly favored his injured arm.
“The boss wants to see you.”
“Problem?”
“Could be. Scout just came back.”