Ishmael Covenant

by Terry Brennan

  His last two tours overseas were a family and relationship disaster. His marriage was surviving on fumes. He didn’t know what to do to rescue it. But he was honest enough to admit that he contributed as much to the problems they faced. This distance between them was not entirely Abby’s fault. It was Mullaney who worked a demanding and unpredictable schedule, who was often out of town and away from home, chasing the power of a career he had chosen. It was Mullaney who, like any law-enforcement officer, faced the possibility that a life-or-death moment could confront him at any time. And Abigail who waited for the call or the knock on their front door. The glue that held these opposing orbits in place had simply dried up.

  Abby had dutifully served during Brian’s many years of shuffling around the globe, eleven times picking up hearth and home—and children—to his next assignment. But always with the clearly articulated expectation, to which he agreed, that one day, sooner rather than later, Brian would receive and accept a permanent assignment in Washington. And there they would stay—benefiting from “Daddy’s influence”—as Brian advanced his career and Abigail gained sway in the intoxicating world of society among the most powerful people on earth. It was a role Abby was born into and one in which she expected to live the rest of her days.

  With a desperate longing to return to her embrace, Mullaney looked into Abby’s worried eyes. “Am I okay? Honestly, I don’t know. Three of our guards dead. Two others badly wounded—we’re not sure if they’ll make it. And four of Kashani’s security detail were killed in the explosion.”

  “I know,” she said. Abigail led him into the house and closed the door to a neighborhood where only some homes were dark. “I’ve been watching CNN for hours, ever since I got your first call. What a tragedy.”

  “What a screwup, you mean.” Mullaney’s thoughts and emotions were thrashing about like a lava cone about to explode as he followed Abigail to the sofa. She grabbed the remote to turn off the TV. Mullaney laid his hand over hers. “Leave it on, okay? Just in case.”

  Sitting on the sofa, Abby by his side, exhaustion settled into Mullaney’s bones. He laid his head back and closed his eyes. “George warned them until his voice, and his capital, were exhausted. Ever since that suicide bomber in February, he felt we needed to tighten security. And not just in Ankara.”

  Mullaney could feel Abigail’s eyes on his face.

  “Was there anyone we know in Ankara?”

  He turned to face his wife, and once again was bewitched by the depths of her eyes, azure like the color of the sky on a clear morning. “Tommy was there. He’s right hand to Ambassador Cleveland. They’re both okay. I don’t think we know anyone else.”

  Abby searched his face. “There’s something else. What is it?”

  This is where it always got tricky. As a sworn officer of the federal government, Mullaney had clear orders about with whom, what, and how he could share information. Most spouses probably knew more than they should—that was just human nature. But Mullaney was determined and confident. He would never tell Abby anything that would be dangerous or illegal for her to know, and he would never burden her with information that was in the gray area—information that someone like her politically rapacious father would love to get his hands on.

  “It appears there’s been a breach in security,” said Mullaney, measuring each word. “Cleveland’s plans changed at the last moment. Kashani decided to come to our embassy instead of Cleveland going to the palace. It appears the attackers knew where to find them anyway.”

  Abigail’s eyes widened. “But … but that would mean …”

  Mullaney sat up, rested his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands, running his fingers through his thick, black hair over and over. “Yeah … there’s been a breach in security somewhere, either here or in Turkey. We don’t know enough yet. The attackers could have been after Kashani, could have been after Cleveland. The attackers could have been ISIS—Kashani’s been threatening to bring Turkey into the fight against ISIS in Syria. There’s a lot we don’t know yet. But there’s a strong possibility that somebody’s been flipped—and pretty high up. Webster, however, went through the roof for a different reason. He called Morningstar and me into his office after the debrief and ripped us up one side of the room and down the other. Said this assault came very close to penetrating into the embassy compound itself. Told George he had failed to maintain a properly trained and effective force … that his officers should have seen the car bomber coming and stopped him before he got to the gate. He called it ‘an abysmal failure of security.’ It was brutal. And I think Webster loved every minute of it.”

  Another ripple of tension seeped into the room. Mullaney could feel his wife stiffen.

  “Brian,” her voice a whisper, “what’s going to happen now? We both know …” Her voice trailed off. Mullaney could read her mind.

  He nodded his head without opening his eyes. “Right. We both know Washington. Somebody is going to take a huge hit for this, but it won’t be Webster. Probably more than one somebody. Careers are going to crash and burn … some right away. Others maybe after committees and investigations release their reports. That could be a year or more. But heads are going to roll. It’s going to be ugly.”

  Mullaney didn’t move or open his eyes, even when the secretary of state came on TV at the start of a press conference from Geneva. He pushed the Mute button on the remote. He was more concerned with Abby’s unspoken fears than what the secretary was about to hand-feed the press. He knew what his wife wanted to hear. His heart ached that he couldn’t say the words she desperately craved.

  “I don’t know.” Mullaney opened his eyes and turned to his right to get Abigail into his gaze. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know if we’re going to be okay. I wish I could promise you that we’re safe—that my position is safe. But right now, I can’t promise anything.”

  Abby pulled herself farther away from him.

  “Oh, Brian … no, please.” Abby’s eyes desperately searched his face. “We can’t move the girls again, not at this age. We’ve only been here two years. You told me … you promised … that we were done moving. That you had put in your time and we were here to stay.”

  Mullaney understood the events of the last twelve hours threatened to eradicate the last vestiges of Abby’s patience and his family’s security. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time working for the wrong guy. Morningstar already bore the crosshairs of a scapegoat on his back. Secretary Townsend was not going to take this hit; neither was Webster or those in his closest circle. But somebody had to take the fall. Somebody needed to be responsible. And Morningstar was the likely candidate. Mullaney’s career was on life support and out of his control. It was a subject he was much too tired to discuss now.

  “I’ve got to get some sleep. I don’t have much time.”

  “Okay,” Abby yawned, stretched her neck and looked at Brian. “But you remember I have the luncheon for Senator Markham’s wife this afternoon, right?”

  Abigail was looking for his agreement. “Okay,” he said, understanding beginning to break through the gathering fog in his sleep-deprived brain.

  “And today is the girl’s playoff game. You promised to pick them up. And I’ll try to meet you at the field—if at all possible. Right?”

  If Mullaney’s heart could fall any farther today it would have landed at his feet. Not today. “Abby, I’m sorry. I don’t know if …”

  Abigail Rutherford Mullaney was as Southern as pecan pie and as sweet as a Georgia peach. Most of the time. But not if she felt betrayed—in thought, mind, or deed. Then her honeysuckle charm turned to poison darts directed with a lethal accuracy. And Mullaney knew he was on the edge of becoming a target.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no.”

  Abigail jolted to her feet, hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. She was just about to let fly …

  “It’s four in the morning. The girls are asleep.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She dipped her chin and tried to p
ierce his brain with a withering look of warning. Without diverting her eyes, Abigail settled at his side on the sofa, her face so close he could feel the heat of her breath on his right ear. “All right, I’ll keep this low, but let me make it clear.”

  Mullaney steeled his spine for what he expected and ratcheted up his patience.

  “I’ve been working on this luncheon for six months. It took me a year to get on her calendar. Seventy of the most important and powerful women in Washington will arrive at the George Town Club in”—she looked across the room at the clock on the wall—“eight hours. You will not mess this up, Brian Mullaney, and neither will the State Department. I don’t care how many terrorist attacks there are. If you don’t want to experience a terrorist attack in this room, this very minute, you will pick up your daughters at three this afternoon and get them to Lighthouse Field in time for the three-thirty game time.”

  Not too bad. Could have been worse.

  Abigail stood up with a pert crispness and shook her auburn hair.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said, looking at Brian. “I need some rest. And you? Please, just be there.”

  He woke up on the sofa. The clock said 6:36. Good. The girls weren’t awake yet.

  Brian Mullaney unpeeled his aching body from the microfiber marvel, picked up his shoes, and paddle-footed up the stairs of their prewar, center-hall colonial, keeping his weight to the outside of the wooden treads. He cast a glance inside as he passed each of the girls’ rooms … always vigilant … and managed to get through his bedroom door, gather up a full change of clothes, and exit the room without making a sound or waking Abby.

  Which was also a good thing.

  What wasn’t a good thing was that he was heading back to State with no clue. No clue about a lot of things, particularly about his future. But he was on duty. He would serve well. Serve his country and serve his family. Beyond that, well, the rest was out of his hands.

  Washington, DC

  April 24, 6:22 p.m.

  Outside the windows of Noah Webster’s seventh-floor office, Nora Carson could see a beautiful panorama of the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac River. But she wasn’t there to sightsee. She was there to save her job as undersecretary for management and Webster’s chief of staff.

  “What happened, Nora?”

  “One version is another attempt on Kashani’s life. Coincidence that it occurred in front of the embassy.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence. Neither should you.” Webster sat behind his desk, which rested on a raised platform, about eight inches off the floor. A short man’s affectation … the desk was raised so he could look down on anyone in his office. Carson tried to ignore the cultivated atmosphere of intimidation.

  “You’re right, but that is the swill your friend Prime Minister Eroglu is trying to sell to his boss, Kashani. The president had an appointment to meet with Cleveland at the Cankaya Mansion, but a protest march descended on Cankaya. Turkish opposition is livid about how much it’s costing to build Kashani’s new presidential palace. So Kashani offered to come to the embassy. Kashani’s staff told his driver to get the car ready, that there was a change in plans.”

  “So many questions, Nora. Why our embassy? Why today?”

  Webster had still not invited her to sit, and Carson’s resentment was rising. But she kept it in check.

  “According to the story Eroglu is pitching, the driver’s brother was a sleeper member of the People’s Liberation Front. He wasn’t on anyone’s list. The driver left home and said he had to go to work, that Kashani’s plans changed and he had to drive the president to the American embassy. Supposedly, the brother saw an opportunity. Kashani is so fearful since the failed coup and the other attempts on his life, that he never allows his driver to take the same route anywhere. You never know what streets he’s going to travel, but the brother knew he had to enter the embassy from the front gate. It was the only predictable spot. At least, that’s the official story at the moment.”

  “You don’t sound convinced, Nora.” Webster pushed himself forward and planted his elbows on the desk, his hunched shoulders a barometer of growing anxiety. “What do you think happened in Ankara?”

  Carson measured her options and weighed her words. But she was already all in with Webster.

  “When I looked at the tape,” she said, “I saw a military action. Could it have been a couple of bozos from the Liberation Front? Sure. They are an unpredictable group of communist terrorists committed to chaos and doing all in their power to drive Turkey closer to Russia’s orbit. We had no clue, no chatter before their suicide bomber ripped a hole in our outer wall last February either. Who can predict what they’ll do? But what I watched today was not a bunch of amateurs fumbling their way through a raid. These guys were precise professionals. What do I think? I think Eroglu is blowing smoke … and it makes me wonder why. If it wasn’t the Liberation Front outside the embassy today, then who was it? I think Kashani’s inner circle has sprung a leak.”

  Carson could almost see Webster’s mind racing through a myriad of possibilities, pursuing what could be a threatening truth. And she fully understood why Webster was specifically concerned about this day. It had not been that many hours ago when Webster executed a wire transfer of half a million dollars through a tortuous maze of Cayman Island banks and into Eroglu’s hidden Swiss account—dollars intended to finance their attempts to thwart the emergence of Persia.

  That was all she had at the moment. But she was fully aware of what Webster really wanted to know. So she waited. Her next answer would likely determine her future.

  “Who knows, Nora?”

  Ahh … there it was. Webster needed to know the extent of his vulnerability. This man was walking a very thin line for a very high prize. I’d be worried too, thought Carson. Only time would tell if Noah Webster would be remembered as patriot or something a lot more damning.

  Webster had ascended into this post at the State Department through his long history and close association with now-retired Senator Seneca Markham. And it was Senator Markham who was still manipulating Webster’s strings behind the scenes. Markham was in league with a consortium of American bankers, led by Atlanta’s Richard Rutherford, who had benefited richly from the Iranian assets seized by the US government in 1979 and held by their banks ever since.

  It was always about money.

  Markham and his allies were vocal and ardent foes of President Lamont Boylan’s overtures to the Iranian government. Boylan was determined to consummate an agreement that would curtail Iran’s nuclear development program in exchange for lifting the economic sanctions against Iran and returning its assets that were seized thirty-five years before. Boylan envisioned this proposed agreement with Iran as the legacy of his presidency. Markham’s bosses saw the agreement as the loss of one hundred million dollars a year in revenue—the interest spun off by the languishing Iranian assets.

  With his eyes fixed on the further accumulation of political power and office, and the financial backing that Markham’s consortium could provide, Webster became a willing and effective impediment to the negotiations with Iran. And he soon discovered an eager ally in opposing the Iranian deal.

  During a NATO summit in Reykjavík, Iceland, Webster was introduced to Arslan Eroglu, prime minister of Turkey, the nation’s second-in-command and appointed to his position by Turkish president Emet Kashani. In Eroglu, Webster found a powerful man with an equal zeal to keep the Iranian government impoverished and in the shackles of international sanctions. Eroglu’s stated motivation was to maintain what little balance of power remained in the Middle East. But Nora Carson suspected Eroglu, and the government he represented, also harbored more self-serving motivations.

  The math of the Middle East was simple. There were three primary people groups in the region: Persians, equivalent to the current residents of Iran and Iraq; Turkomans, residents of the land mass that linked the continents of Europe and Asia; and Arabs, those nomadic desert dwellers whose tribes r
oamed from the Arabian Sea to the Anbar Desert to the walls of Jerusalem. Each of those people groups had spawned an empire. Each of those empires had occupied essentially the same land mass—and each of them wanted it back. Even though each of these groups were now believers in the Islamic faith, their hatred for and fear of each other spanned millennia. It wasn’t going away.

  The Turkish government of President Kashani was both active and vulnerable. The easternmost bulwark of NATO, a member since 1952 and part of NATO’s nuclear sharing program since 2009, Turkey had its eyes and its treasury fixed on the West. But the heart of Kashani’s personal politics was firmly fixed in an Islamic East. Kashani was not only faced with the challenge of maintaining at least a semblance of balance between Turkey’s NATO responsibilities and the lure of an ascendant Islamic world to his east, but he was also faced with an unstable domestic political environment that had nearly toppled his government a year earlier.

  Kashani was head of the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP), a long-time ally and supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although giving lip service to the West, Kashani’s personal philosophy was a neo-Ottamanism, reestablishing Turkey as a regional power in the Middle East on the footprint of the old Ottoman Empire. While the AKP grew in power and influence from its creation in 2001, gaining seats in the Turkish Parliament in each of the last three elections, Kashani was blindsided by events in 2013, when the military coup in Egypt overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi and put Turkey in direct conflict with the governments of both Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

  Kashani quickly and ruthlessly crushed a similar coup attempt by a clique of centrist generals who opposed his close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and embraced the secular democracy that had defined Turkey since the great reformer Ataturk.