The Devil's Hand

by Carr, Jack

  “Yeah, this beast corners like it’s on rails.”

  “Nice eighties reference. I’m impressed,” Reece said.

  Katie turned to the man she loved.

  “Thank you, James.”

  “Thank me? For what?”

  “Without you. Without Haley. This…” she said, gesturing outside. “This doesn’t exist. We’d be driving through a different country.”

  “Haley put it together. Rumor has it the president wants to honor her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the SecDef Medal for Valor. Of course, it would remain classified.”

  “When I talk with her, she gives you all the credit. I think she’s being intentionally vague on a few details.”

  “Maybe that’s best,” Reece said.

  “Maybe,” Katie granted.

  “And, Katie, try to go easy on him.”

  “What do you take me for, Mr. Reece? You think just because this is an exclusive interview at Camp David and that you refer to him the way you would someone you play softball with that I’m going to give him layups?”

  “I think you are mixing your sports metaphors. I don’t even play bowling.”

  “You know what I mean, Mr. Reece.”

  “I know what you mean. Do your interview. Then we’ll shoot some skeet and have dinner.”

  “You say that like it’s normal.”

  “Katie, I don’t know what ‘normal’ is.”

  Katie tried to hide her fading smile as Reece turned onto Park Central Road and began to wind his way through the white oaks, poplars, maples, birch, and eastern hemlocks toward the presidential retreat.

  CHAPTER 76

  Camp David, Aspen Cabin

  REECE TOOK HIS OFFERED seat on the small couch in Aspen cabin. Following Katie’s interview, the three had shot skeet and had dinner at Laurel Lodge. Katie had retired to Hawthorn cabin to go over her notes from the interview and to give Reece and the president some time alone.

  “I thought you were going to touch the place up,” Reece said as the president set a whiskey in front of his guest and took a seat in the chair across the coffee table.

  “I decided against it. I’ve grown to like it as it is. Simple. Peaceful. Camp David isn’t mine. I’m just a guest. This is the presidential retreat, and I am only here for a term, maybe two.”

  “Looks like two from what I see,” Reece said, raising his drink to touch glasses with the president.

  “We’ll see. If the people trust me with another four years after what we’ve just been through, I owe it to them.”

  “How did it go with Katie?”

  “Ms. Buranek is quite the journalist. She hit me hard on the revamped plans for eradication in the event of another naturally occurring virus.”

  “She is tenacious. What did you tell her?”

  “The truth. That the bipartisan commission has issued me a classified report that I am still digesting.”

  “Wise answer.”

  “Reece, less than a handful of people in government know that the virus was Marburg Variant U and that it was an intentional bioweapon attack against the country.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “I lied to the American people in my address and I didn’t bat an eye.”

  “You did what you had to in order to prevent a war with Iran. A bioweapon attack means retaliation in kind, which in this case means the nuclear option.”

  “I’d be the first president since Truman to use the nuclear weapons against an adversary. Ironic that Truman also put the eradication measures in place that almost led to the destruction of Richardson and Aurora.”

  “Some things are best handled quietly.”

  “Ah yes, the third option,” the president said, taking a sip of whiskey as he recalled the motto of the CIA’s Special Activities Center.

  “You know why I lied, Reece?”

  “To avert a nuclear war.”

  “Partially, but I really lied for Jen.”

  “Sir?”

  “I thought of that day: September eleventh. Seeing the planes hit. Running through the streets. Digging through the rubble, thinking that I’d find her alive under each slab of debris.”

  Reece remained silent.

  “There was never any hope. I guess deep down I knew it. In weighing my options in response to Iran I thought of all the ‘Jens’ in Iran, all those young men and women just starting their lives with hope of a better future. I wanted her life to mean more than further deaths. They still have it, you know.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “Hope.”

  “We had a saying in the Teams: ‘Hope is not a course of action.’ ”

  “Cynical, but true. We also know who gave the final go-ahead in Portland, Maine, on September tenth.”

  “And he’s now at the bottom of the Atlantic,” Reece said.

  “Yes, that was the shot across the bow to let the Iranians know we are willing to use any means necessary to protect the homeland.”

  “Just like with Yamamoto,” Reece observed.

  “Correct, though the downing of his aircraft was the prologue to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My goal is to avoid that outcome.”

  “Yes, sir. Iran waited twenty years after 9/11 to hit us again. They used their long-term, deep-penetration agents on a mission that kills them off in the process. Had that facilitation network been killed following September eleventh, we would have pieced it together. But no one would notice when they are among the thousands killed two decades later by a virus or FAE.”

  “A part of me respects their ingenuity,” the president said. “They learn from their successes and failures. We seem to repeat ours.”

  “They’ve been studying us since the 1953 coup,” Reece confirmed. “Their success using proxies in Lebanon in the eighties got them the results they desired. Up until 9/11 we gave them no indication that we were serious about defeating terrorism at the source. And then we handed them our playbook. They’ve watched us on the field in Iraq and Afghanistan. They adapted and applied those lessons to their battle plans. Then they watched us take a knee with COVID-19 and the civil unrest that followed in its wake.”

  “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” the president said.

  “Lincoln was right,” Reece said. “The enemy recognized that and hit us while we were down.”

  “There is still a lot of work to do, Reece.”

  “I know, sir. What about the remainder of names on your list?”

  The president paused.

  “With malice toward none; with charity for all.”

  “Lincoln’s second inaugural,” Reece said. “With firmness in the right.”

  “We can all evolve, Commander. FBI has them back under 24/7 surveillance, electronic and physical. If they are contacted, we will know it. Maybe we can use them to prevent more Jens from dying.”

  “I think that is a prudent move, Mr. President.”

  “And, not being a compete idealist, the intelligence you and Dr. Haley Garrett provided gave me leverage. We can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran planned and executed the bio-attack. The Iranian president is scared shitless. He knows that we’ve confirmed their role in 9/11, assisting al-Qaeda with materials and a support network in the United States, and that if it were ever to go public, I would have no choice but to retaliate in a way that sends them back to the stone age; NATO, the UN, the international community could do nothing to intervene. That leverage has allowed us to send in U.S. and UN inspectors to oversee the dismantling of the Iranian nuclear, bio, and chemical weapons programs. There is nothing they can’t access.”

  “I’ve been following along. Rumor has it, you might be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

  “So I’ve heard. I’m no Lincoln, Reece. My heart still has the capacity for malice.”

  “I’ll do what I can to not get caught.”

  “We can’t have an American captured on the ground in Iran.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Reece said,
visions of the bullet-ridden bodies of his wife and child imprinted on his mind. Maybe he’d see them sooner than anticipated.

  “Do you feel comfortable with the intelligence? With the plan?”

  “I do, sir. I was part of a team that studied the target area back in 2004. A DIA analyst had pinpointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the same location. He was in Iran and we had him dead to rights.”

  “Why didn’t we hit him?” the president asked.

  “They don’t tell you that sort of thing at the tactical level, sir. All we knew was that the insurgency in Iraq was gaining headway and we were losing control. Al-Zarqawi had emerged as the leader of AQI, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the DIA had cracked the code on the enemy’s Thuraya sat phone network. I remember seeing a highway of lights from Baghdad, through Tehran, and up to Chalus on the Iranian coast.”

  “Lights?”

  “Sat-phone pings. The analysts told us it was like a resort town for terrorists, a place where they could get a little R&R on the shores of the Caspian Sea before crossing back over the border to kill more Americans; respite from killing the infidels and Jews, we were told.”

  “What was the plan back then?”

  “To drop into the Caspian, go over the beach, and raid the house. We had Kurdish dissidents run by the CIA confirming our technical intel from the sat-phone network. He was there and we were ready to take him off the board.”

  “But somebody pulled the plug?”

  “That’s right. Maybe the president or SecDef. Somebody high up the chain didn’t want SEALs killing a terrorist eighty miles from Tehran.”

  “Imagine if you had; the insurgency might have looked a lot different.”

  “Perhaps,” Reece said, thinking of all his friends who had been killed over the intervening years as the United States continued to bog down in the cradle of civilization.

  “Okay, then. Get it done, then come home and marry that girl.”

  “Sir?”

  “Katie, your girlfriend who is waiting on you at Hawthorn cabin,” the president reminded his guest.

  “Ah, well, maybe, sir. I need to figure a few things out,” he said, thinking about the note and safe-deposit box key he’d found in the weapons case in the back of the old Wagoneer: his father’s message from the grave.

  “Well, don’t take too long, Reece. She might not wait forever. Trust me, life is about what you two have together.”

  Reece took another sip of the smooth brown liquid and looked at the president. He’d aged since their first meeting. The gray in his hair was more pronounced, as were the creases around his eyes and across his brow.

  “I know,” the president said, reading Reece’s mind. “This office puts some years on you.”

  “Sir, before I go, I have a request.”

  “Oh?”

  “I need you to sign an executive notification for the elimination of Nizar Kattan.”

  Christensen looked into his drink and back to Reece.

  “He took a shot at the Russian president in Odessa. And he killed my friend Freddy Strain, the man who saved President Grimes. It’s personal for me. I want it to be professional for the rest of the country’s intelligence apparatus. I want this to become priority number one until he’s dead.”

  “I see.”

  “I knew you would,” Reece said. “He’s a terrorist, which puts it under the purview of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force. It’s legal as long as you deem him a clear and present danger to the United States. He was part of an assassination attempt on your predecessor. That should be enough.”

  The president considered it for a moment.

  “It will be done.”

  “Something else. I don’t want a Hellfire from a UAV to take him out on his way to the mosque and I don’t want a Delta or Dam Neck squadron paying him a visit in the middle of the night. I just want him found. Leave the rest to me.”

  The president studied the man before him. It wasn’t long ago that he was asking the same thing of Reece in this very room.

  “Since we are in the business of asking for favors tonight,” Christensen said, “I have one of my own.”

  Reece nodded as the president reached behind his neck and removed a necklace with a simple platinum band on it.

  “This was Jen’s wedding ring,” he said solemnly. “We picked them out together before she died. When I got out of the hospital, I put it on this chain. I’ve worn it every day since. Do me a favor; when you kill him, leave it with the man responsible for her death.”

  Reece took the burnished gray band and examined it. He remembered sliding a similar ring onto Lauren’s finger on their wedding day, lifting the veil and looking into her soft blue eyes.

  “It’s inscribed with your name,” Reece observed.

  “It is. Mine had her name inscribed inside the band and hers had mine.”

  Reece put it in his pocket, stood, and extended his hand.

  “It will be done,” Reece said, before exiting into the crisp winter night.

  CHAPTER 77

  Chalus, Iran

  JA’FAR AL-SADIQ SAT ON a stool in front of a spigot that protruded from the wall on the second level of a house overlooking the Caspian. He began the ritual cleansing of wadhu to prepare for Salat al-‘isha by washing his right hand and then his left, each one carefully purified in accordance with the second pillar of Islam. It was closing in on midnight. He leaned forward and brought a handful of water to his mouth, spitting it back into the sink to remove any impurities. He remembered going through the same ritual the morning of October 23, 1983. He cupped another handful and inhaled the cold smell before cleaning his face, starting at his forehead and scrubbing down to his chin, making a special effort to clean his ears.

  The sleeves of his white robe were pushed up past his elbows and he took time to scrub his forearms, first his right and then his left. He then slicked back what remained of a full head of graying hair. He was sure to once again wipe down inside and around his ears. He then brought his right foot to the spigot and washed it carefully three times before switching to his left.

  Finally, he reached down to pick up a toothbrush. One could not be too careful. The prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, had looked favorably upon him all these years.

  The Islamic ritual did more than purify his body; it gave him time to prepare his mind for prayer. He had been thinking of the early days with greater frequency lately, something he attributed to advancing age. Tonight, he remembered the first blow against the invaders, watching the cloud form over the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut as he stood next to Imad Mughniyeh. They had been young men that October day. It was hard to believe Mughniyeh had been gone for more than a decade, his presence and influence still felt within the ranks of Hezbollah even after the Israeli pigs, with help from their American CIA masters, had killed him in Damascus.

  How this latest attack had failed remained a mystery. Still, he had put more than five thousand Americans in the grave. It could have been so many more.

  The al-Qaeda martyrs of 2001 had succeeded beyond al-Sadiq’s wildest expectations. The Americans had then focused their efforts on hunting down a wealthy Saudi who had taken refuge in Pakistan. Fools. Iran had used al-Qaeda as a proxy force to strike at the heart of the West. It was masterful. General Ja’far al-Sadiq was proud of his triumph.

  Now bin Laden was dead, shot down by American SEALs. Had he taken refuge in Iran he might still be alive.

  The Americans are nothing without their technology.

  They are soft.

  Yes, they are soft, but now they know the truth.

  They have already shifted focus to Iran.

  You underestimated them.

  Perhaps, but as before, we must adapt.

  U.S. and UN inspectors were scouring the country to dismantle the programs designed to defend the Islamic Republic from the infidels. The president had not stood up to the invaders this time. Perhaps a regime change was in order. As director of the Ministry of Int
elligence, Ja’far was one of the few with the power to alter Iran’s trajectory.

  He still had work to do. Sleeper cells remained embedded in the Western world. If they continued to welcome those who wanted to destroy them inside their gates, it would be the death of them. Allah would see to that.

  The feeble Americans had never set foot in Iran. Instead they labeled the regime a state sponsor of terror. They applied sanctions. They issued harsh rhetoric, not realizing that their weakness allowed Iran to shape the next generation of Fedayeen, a new generation of holy warriors determined to see the United States in ruins. It might not happen on Ja’far’s watch, but it was inevitable.

  A space in the beachfront structure had been converted to a musalla years ago, a prayer room reserved for those warriors of the prophet Muhammad who would come to Chalus to rest and plan. It had seen considerable use since the Americans invaded Iraq.

  Al-Sadiq entered the sacred chamber, faced the al-Ka’bah al-Musharrafah in Mecca, placed his AK at his side, and began to pray.

  CHAPTER 78

  THEY HAD LAUNCHED OUT of the Iranian fishing town of Jireh Bagh, just east of Dastak on the edge of the Caspian Sea, and trolled the waters off Chalus. No strangers to this southwestern part of the Caspian, the four-man crew had two additional passengers on this run.

  They were after beluga caviar, the salt-cured eggs from female sturgeon so sought after by those with means. Classified as a critically endangered species, the sturgeon was nearing extinction. To the fishermen aboard the trawler, it simply meant their catch brought a higher price on illicit markets. Iran was not a country known for adhering to international norms and conventions.

  As with most prohibited substances, the prohibitions created even more demand. The same networks that moved people, drugs, and weapons also moved illicit wildlife. In this case, a portion of the income generated from smuggling illegal roe helped fund the PJAK, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, a Kurdish separatist group classified as a terrorist organization by the Iranian regime and the United States. Though the CIA was prohibited from having any official connection to the PJAK, those who worked in the charcoal-gray area of the clandestine service knew the value of maintaining relationships with the enemy of one’s enemy.