Strike Matrix

by Aiden L Bailey

  Nahla accelerated fast, as mad a driver as everyone else, ducking between slower vehicles and ignoring the few pedestrians brave enough to risk their lives crossing the road. Few people walked in this city, and who could blame them? The outside air was similar to being blasted by an open oven.

  “That was quick,” she said.

  “Yes. Unbelievable.”

  “What happened?”

  Conner shook his head, fuming. “Nothing! That’s what happened. Hakim Mousa, the creepy secret police officer who harassed me yesterday, wasn’t there to meet me. No one else that I talked to knew I was supposed to show today.”

  “Did you get a receipt?”

  He waved a piece of paper in front of her, written in Arabic. “I hope this is what they said it was.”

  With one eye on the road and the other on the official transcript, she skimmed it. “Yes, it is.”

  “That’s a relief.” He took a photograph with his smart phone as a back-up.

  Nahla drove fast through the wide, palm-lined streets overlooked by multitudes of tall, whitewashed skyscrapers framed against a cloudless, deep blue sky. Almost every car they passed was black, white or silver.

  Twenty minutes passed before they reached the U.S. Embassy, a futuristic, angular and almost pyramidal structure with few windows. It wasn’t the first time Conner asked himself if the architecture in the Emirates was some kind of pissing contest, to prove who had the biggest, most impressive erection in the land. He almost shared his double entendre with Nahla, then remembered she had never appreciated his warped sense of humor. He wondered why she put up with him.

  As she switched off the engine and engaged the parking brake, she caught him pondering and asked, “Are you ready for this?”

  “Sure,” he said. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Out of the car and in the heat once more, they collected a parking ticket from the nearest meter. You could drive like a madman in Abu Dhabi and get away with reckless endangerment of other people’s lives, but you didn’t dare get a parking fine.

  After showing their passports at the visitors’ gate, a U.S. official behind the information counter directed them to the foreigners’ queue.

  “We’re here to see Thomas McIntyre,” Conner said getting straight to the point.

  “Sir, you need to queue with the other foreign nationals.” It was not a request, but an order.

  “McIntyre is with your CIA. Tell him I know all about Shatterhand, and have information he needs to know.”

  “I am not here to assist you with your inquiry, Sir. Please wait in the queue as directed, or I will have to ask you to leave.”

  Conner grinned, and said, “Thank you for your help.”

  He followed Nahla to take their places in the line with everyone else. She stared at him like he was a misbehaving child. Aware that he was smirking, he switched to his straight face and smiled. He could see Nahla was frustrated because he hadn’t said what he was up to. He’d hadn’t said much until now, paranoid as he was that they were under constant surveillance.

  While they waited, he imagined his message being passed through the hallowed Embassy halls, trickling its way towards McIntyre’s office.

  “What is Shatterhand?” Nahla asked, agitated because ten minutes had passed and the line hadn’t moved. A Syrian man twelve spaces ahead in the queue argued that the Embassy had revoked his U.S. visa, and he wanted to know why. He wouldn’t accept anything the official was telling him, even when she switched from English and responded in what sounded to be clear and articulate Arabic.

  “Later,” Conner promised, his eyes scanning the room, searching out the security cameras which were everywhere.

  “We could be here for hours.”

  “I don’t think it will take that long.”

  He knew the message would reach its intended recipient, and when McIntyre read it, he would race downstairs to question Conner. No, they wouldn’t have to wait long at all.

  Five more minutes passed. Conner wasn’t saying anything, so Nahla checked her smart phone to catch up on local news. After she had been reading for a few minutes, she said, “Oh, that’s alarming.”

  “What’s that?”

  She presented the internet page she had called up. “According to several underground news feeds I follow: dozens of Islamic State terrorists were shot and killed this morning, in Al Kharj?”

  “Islamic State on the rise again?”

  She nodded. “They’re rallying there, moving in.”

  “Al Kharj, in Saudi Arabia?”

  “It’s a city just south of Riyadh. Population of about four hundred thousand.”

  “Thanks,” he smiled with his trademark mischievous grin. “I knew that if you were wondering. I was just checking if we were talking about the same Al Kharj I was thinking of.”

  “Okay, smarty pants, did you also know that these terrorists were all shot and killed by Saudi’s Religious Police? Gunned down with assault rifles?”

  He shook his head. “Muslims killing Muslims, where have I heard that story before?”

  Nahla looked ready to reprimand him for his insensitive remarks when a Marine corporal approached and handed Conner an index card with words scrawled on it. “For you, sir.”

  Conner read the note. Jasmine Kebab Restaurant, Corniche Road. Go there now. A faster response than he was expecting, but not a meeting inside the Embassy. That wasn’t surprising considering what they would talk about. “Thank you,” he said to the Marine who nodded, then marched away. He turned to Nahla, “Time for us to leave.”

  By the time they reached her Honda, she was no longer masking her agitation. “Okay Conner, I’ve waited long enough. Stop playing games and tell me what you’re up to!”

  “Sure, but let’s step away from the car.”

  “It’s too hot out. Plus — why?”

  He shrugged. “Because your car might be bugged.”

  “What?”

  “Bugged? You could be under surveillance.”

  “You’re joking? How paranoid are you?”

  “Very!” He wiped away the sweat beading on his forehead. “Look, I’m investigating the NSA, okay? Forget Echelon or PRISM, Shatterhand knocks every other NSA surveillance scheme out of the water, and leaves the ocean bone dry.”

  Nahla crossed her arms and squinted. “You’re worried that the NSA has you under surveillance?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Nothing’s changed there.”

  “If that’s true, do you know how serious this is for you?”

  He could only smile at her.

  “Don’t joke. You always joke, about everything. You wonder why people don’t take you seriously!”

  She paced, fuming with anger she was barely keeping down. He wondered if he annoyed her with his flippant remarks. The Middle East was not a region where jokes about politics, culture or religion were ever well received, even in progressive Arabic countries like the Emirates. The wrong words out of his mouth and they could both find themselves under arrest for criticizing the government.

  “What have you gotten yourself into, Conner?”

  “Last chance.”

  “What?”

  “This is your last chance, to walk away. Otherwise I don’t know what will happen to you either.” Using his bandaged fingers for effect, he pointed to the bruises and cuts on his face. “I got these because I’m investigating this one too closely.”

  She paused, considering her options as he had suggested.

  “Look,” he offered, “If you want to stick with me on this one, I’d be grateful. This is too big, and you can look at situations with a far clearer mind than I ever can. All joking aside, honestly, I need you.”

  She caught his stare, working hard to suppress the tiniest smile forming on her lips. He could see she was warming to him again. “Okay, what have you got?”

  “I’m certain the NSA has gone way beyond just gathering questionable in
telligence on the entire world’s population. I believe the No Such Agency have upgraded their nefarious schemes and now partake in creating mass outputs of false news stories. They’re also altering government policy as they choose, changing people’s personal histories, and impersonating anyone and everyone using computer graphic interface techniques, the likes of which I’ve never seen before—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They did it to me. I watched myself on television, giving interviews I’d never done. Hundreds of interviews. If there is a ghost me out there on the internet, then anyone else online could be a ghost too. The problem is, Nahla, the NSA has so much control now, I don’t know what is real — or not — anymore. I think no one does. But what is worse, most people don’t even realize they’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes—”

  “Conner!” She wasn’t looking at him. She focused on her own train of thought. “Air Force One.”

  “What about it?”

  “Air Force One, I heard insurgents shot it down in Afghanistan.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t believe it, but now…”

  Conner shook his head. This was news to him. “Nahla? What are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t know?” she asked with a concerned frown. “Few people do, I guess. It supposedly happened three weeks ago. If it’s true, then someone covered it up extremely well. I’m surprised you didn’t hear rumors with all your connections.”

  “No. I’ve heard nothing.” He wasn’t sure he believed her. It would be impossible to hide the news that someone had assassinated the President in such a brutal and public way. A story like that should have been everywhere, with everyone rambling about it, dissecting it into a million pieces even three weeks after the fact. But then again…

  “I heard about it from an Al Jazeera journalist I met in Dubai last week,” she said drawing his attention back to what she was saying. “Three weeks ago, he was covering the U.S. Presidential address from Bagram Airfield. On his second day the journalist, and about half the base, witnessed Air Force One get shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired by insurgents just outside the base. While Marines were investigating the crash, stories spread that the plane was a decoy. When they found the President’s body, the next round of rumors was that the corpse was also a decoy, an actor paid to impersonate the President while the real President slipped out on another jet.”

  “Do you think he was a decoy, an actor?”

  Nahla shook her head. “My journalist friend said nobody believed it, at first. Then, when the President was broadcasting live from a NATO conference in Berlin the next day, they weren’t so sure.”

  “Crazy!” Conner exclaimed. “Either way, decoy or the real President, someone should have blabbed by now. How is that kind of news not everywhere?”

  The color drained from Nahla’s face. “Conner, if any of what you have told me is true, then you’ve just answered your own question.”

  He froze.

  His body shook as a deeper realization hit him.

  Nahla was right!

  “So, the NSA assassinated the President, and replaced him with a digital imposter… An imposter who becomes their ‘boss’ and gives them license to do whatever the hell they want!”

  His stomach churned. His head felt woozy. The world seemed to spiral away from him. He didn’t want to think it but a terrifying thought occurred: had the NSA led a coup, to bring down the White House, Congress, the Pentagon and every other government department to take full control of the world’s largest superpower, and then the world?

  But to what end?

  He didn’t know, but he was more determined than ever to uncover the truth.

  Not that he thought he could break this story, but if he did, it would be the story to end all stories. No wonder someone in the NSA was doing all they could to silence him, even kill him if they had to.

  Conner pointed an angry finger at Nahla. His aggression metaphorically directed towards their unseen enemy. “You say Islamic State, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda and all the other local fanatics are advancing across the Middle East. I say to you: the NSA is behind it.”

  She shrugged, perplexed. “Why?”

  That question stopped him in his tracks. He had to think for a minute, to understand why.

  Then it hit him like a horrific train wreck on the New York Subway, watching in disbelief as his carriage careened headlong into a concrete wall and there was nothing he could do to stop the fatal outcome.

  “The NSA wants Islamic State and their ‘brothers’ to attack, here and everywhere, that’s why.”

  “That’s crazy. Those fanatical groups would never work together. Plus, the whole Middle Eastern economy and infrastructure would collapse, and that would affect the U.S.”

  “But someone would have to step in and restore order.” He massaged his forehead, feeling the sweat dripping off his skin again. “I was in the Colombian jungle around the time you say Air Force One went down. U.S. Army Rangers there were taking out cocaine production facilities, identifying their locations with an accuracy they had never achieved before. That was where I first heard about the Shatterhand program. The Rangers were using it to find their enemies. What if the U.S. wants Islamic State to do to the rest of the Middle East what they did in Aleppo and Basra? False news fed to the insurgents would rally them into a war footing. It wouldn’t be difficult to get their funding and logistics going too if they’ve already hacked into and now control every government department in America and the Middle East. What if the NSA have the CIA unwittingly providing IS with all the weapons they could ever hope for, ferrying them around using the CIA’s secret fleet of aircraft?”

  “That’s a huge quantity of false news and manipulation to get out there and maintain. Who could do that?”

  “The NSA, that’s who! Normally I would agree with you, except this time, I’ve seen it in action. If the Islamic State struck everywhere, bring more misery to every Middle Eastern nation, then the NSA could also put out all the false ‘official’ help requests they needed, seemingly originating from all the governments in the Middle East themselves. They would demand American protection — while cutting off any arguments to the contrary. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, all of them requesting U.S. military bases. Isn’t that what the U.S. wants here? One hundred percent control and ownership of all the Middle Eastern oil?”

  “That’s a bold claim, Conner. It’s crazy!”

  But she didn’t look at him like his ideas were ridiculous, rather she looked like she was trying not to believe him.

  “I know.” He pressed his fists against his forehead to relieve the tension building in his skull. “The scary thing is, for the first time, after all the crazy-insane things that have happened to me these last few weeks, this is the first theory that actually makes sense.”

  He remembered with a jolt the warnings of nuclear weapons.

  He almost stumbled in the heat as he raced to the car, but he wasn’t sure it was the extreme weather that was affecting his balance.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, concerned.

  Conner pulled at the handle on Nahla’s Honda Civic. The locked door wouldn’t open. “We’ve got to get to Jasmine Kebab Restaurant! Now!”

  She disengaged the locking mechanism.

  Before they climbed inside, he said, “We’ve got to tell McIntyre what is going on, before something terrible goes down. Nahla, this is your last chance, are you with me on this one, or not?”

  CHAPTER 13

  Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

  Exhaust fumes rippled in the already smog-heavy air. Horns blared from the stand-still traffic. Drivers edged forward in incremental leaps. People, bicycles and mopeds crisscrossed between the larger dawdling vehicles, and even they ambled. Peri wiped her burning brow as she watched it all, worried that their meandering armored SUV wouldn’t reach Gridley-Brooks’ kill team in time.

  “Alfa Three to Delta One?” Emily Dawson’s sudden
request startled her as it reverberated through Peri’s earbud. “Confirmation, Eagle One locked onto target X-ray Two. X-Ray Two positioned outside rear entrance Pankot Palace Hotel, Mahim neighborhood.”

  Peri touched the wireless push-to-talk activation pod clipped on her shirt collar, transmitting her voice signal to the radio on her belt, then onward to their operations center. “Copy that Alfa Three.”

  She reminded herself of the call signs. Peri was Delta One. Sergeants Wilks and Pfündl in the front seat of their SUV were Delta Two and Three. Brett Cassian, the junior CIA agent seated next to her, was Delta Four. Paul Szymanski, Saanvi Dara and Emily Dawson, all now at the makeshift operations center in a warehouse just outside the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, were Alfa One, Two and Three. Casey Skaffen and Simon Ashcroft were X-ray One and X-ray Two, the enemy. The other party was Roger Gridley-Brooks and his team, Yankee One, Yankee Two, and so forth. Eagle One was the Predator drone high in the skies and far beyond the range of casual observation, but watching everything with an array of state-of-the-art sensors.

  Peri tapped Wilks on the shoulder as he edged their vehicle forward, yelling over the noise of tooting horns and idling engines. “How far to our destination?”

  “About two klicks, Ma’am,” he yelled back.

  Gritting her teeth, she knew this was not the time to hesitate, but she did. Running the one kilometer on foot would bring them to their target faster than this traffic, even in the forty degrees Celsius plus heat. But her memories of the embarrassing jog in Djibouti left her doubtful. Despite not wanting to admit it, she knew that she wasn’t up to this. She should check herself into a hospital, not chase down an armed and dangerous cyberterrorist and the kill squad tracking him.

  Peri dismissed the thought. This was her operation. She wouldn’t give it up, not after striving for so long to reach the point where she was about to snatch the enemy. This was her last chance to prove she had what it took to protect the reputation and office that was the President of the United States, despite failing the man himself in Afghanistan. No, she wouldn’t fail again.