Traitors Within

by James Rosone

  Unspoken, but completely understood, was the message that Daoud and his colleagues didn’t have any choice in the matter, at least not unless they wanted to share the Christians’ fate.

  In the year and a half Daoud had found himself working for ISIS, he had never had to participate in any killings or anything like this. It horrified him what he was made to do, but he had no choice unless he wanted to die himself. Secretly, he prayed to Allah that he would forgive him for his part in all this madness. After that horrible day, Daoud was desperate to find a way out of ISIS.

  One day, while he was working at the power station outside of Ar Raqqah, a man walked up to him at the control room and asked, “Could I buy you coffee?”

  Daoud was a bit startled. He didn’t know the man at all. He tried to put him off. “I have another hour on my shift before my replacement arrives and I can leave,” he responded, hoping the stranger would go away.

  The man just smiled and said, “I will just sit down with you then and wait for your shift to end.”

  As the two men talked, Daoud could tell he was a foreigner, most likely from Saudi Arabia, based on his accent. Daoud had traveled to the Kaaba once, two years before the civil war had started, so he recognized the accent.

  While they spoke, the man said to him, “I’m looking for an educated electrical engineer to help me accomplish a secret mission.”

  Daoud was intrigued but didn’t want to become involved with ISIS any deeper. He just wanted to stay alive long enough to escape.

  The man sensed his hesitation. “Mr. Khalil, I wanted to invite you to coffee to talk with you about an opportunity. I suppose we could talk about it here, since no one else is around, at least while we wait for the end of your shift.”

  Daoud looked at the man quizzically, then replied, “I am just a simple engineer. My place is here, working to keep the lights on for the people in the city.”

  Smiling warmly, the man responded, “That is why I have chosen you for this mission. You see, I run several businesses around the world. I also work with men who run even more. We are in need of someone with your skill set.”

  Daoud snorted before responding, “What skill set is that? I just operate a power station.”

  “Not just any power station,” the man asserted. “You operate a natural gas power station. I talked with several members of the ISIS leadership. They tell me you are reliable and a hard worker. That is exactly what we are looking for…am I mistaken in my assessment that you would like to leave ISIS-controlled territory?”

  Daoud’s face froze. He had been so careful to mask his true feelings.

  Has someone somehow figured out that I want to leave? he thought in horror.

  “I’m not sure what you mean. I’m happy doing the work I’m doing,” he responded, trying to speak the truth very selectively so as not to give himself away.

  “Daoud, don’t be afraid. I haven’t told anyone in ISIS that you wish to leave. I told them that I believe you are special, that I may have a special mission for you. Do you want to know what the mission is?”

  “I suppose listening can’t hurt,” Daoud stated cautiously.

  The Ghost smiled briefly, then returned to business. “Good. I need to send someone to the United States. I want that someone to be you. Are you interested in going to America?” he asked.

  Daoud tried to hide his emotions, but he couldn’t help the smile that was now spreading across his face.

  America, he thought warmly. The idea of going there one day had certainly crossed his mind, but he could never get there on his own—he lacked the money and the means. Then his happy expression melted as he remembered the reality that he was not there but trapped in ISIS-controlled territory.

  “What would you need me to do?” he asked.

  “A business partner of mine owns a company that manages an electrical substation facility in the American state of Maryland. He needs an experienced engineer who has experience managing electrical substations. You have that experience, which is why I am talking to you,” the Ghost explained.

  “You didn’t answer my question. What do you want me to do?” Daoud insisted.

  A smile curled up at the corners of the Ghost’s lips. “You are perceptive. I want you to assimilate into America. I want you to work for this facility and not to attract attention. One day, you will be contacted by either myself or one of my associates. When we do, we will want you to perform a specific task or set of tasks for us.

  “All I can tell you is that one day, we will most likely ask you to shut down the facility—shut it down in a manner that would make it impossible to turn back on again.”

  “If I do that, then the Americans would know it was me who did it and arrest me. Why would I willingly sacrifice my life, my freedom, for a cause that I don’t believe in?” Daoud asked. Then he thought he might have crossed the line and given away his true feelings.

  “Mr. Khalil, we have thought about that as well,” the Ghost answered, completely brushing past Daoud’s other comment. “We’re going to give you a thumb drive to insert into one of the computer terminals at the facility. Once you do that, the virus will take care of everything for you. You won’t have to do anything. No one will know it was you, and you won’t be discovered. Once that task is done, you will be free—free to live as an American for the rest of your life, if you choose to.”

  It all sounded so simple, almost too simple. But it also presented Daoud with a chance to escape, and he desperately wanted out. “OK. I’ll go along with this plan. Once I insert the virus, I am done. I’m not going to do any further work for you or anyone else. I will do this in exchange for my freedom and a new life in America.” Daoud felt more like he’d just made a deal with the devil than finding his freedom, but the alternative was no more attractive.

  *******

  It had been nearly fourteen months since Daoud had arrived in America through the refugee program, and slowly, he was working to forget about his experiences with ISIS. True to his word, the man with the Saudi accent had arranged for him to get a job at a company that managed an electrical substation plant in Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. Daoud did as he was instructed; he found an apartment in the McElderry Park neighborhood of Baltimore and kept mostly to himself.

  Then, one Friday, while he was attending a Baltimore Orioles game, he was contacted by someone from his past, his original handler from when he had first moved to the States. The man bought a couple of hot dogs and slipped him a thumb drive in the packaging of one of them. Between casual bites of his own hot dog, the man told Daoud, “You have a week to place the drive in one of the computer terminals at work. After that, you will be free, and you can leave this company or stay if you choose.”

  The man left after the seventh-inning stretch. Daoud had thought about this day for a long time and pondered what he would do when it finally came. He had been researching where he would like to go when he could leave. He had determined that he would look for work in either Wyoming or Montana—somewhere out west, away from people, where he could just live a quiet life and forget about the past. Daoud looked down at the thumb drive and determined that he would bring it to work with him on Monday and be done with it. He wanted to move on with the rest of his life.

  *******

  What Daoud didn’t know was the man that gave him the thumb drive had been under surveillance by the FBI. While Daoud went about his weekend plans and business, the FBI had been busy digging into his background. When they’d discovered he had immigrated to the US through the refugee program, his name had been cross-referenced against the names that former Director Mallory Harper had given to Director Stone. His name matched, which meant he was placed in the US to carry out some sort of attack. An arrest warrant was issued and a plan was born to bring him in on Monday morning as he left his home for work.

  *******

  As Daoud left his small one-bedroom apartment, he walked down to his car and fumbled for his keys. As he placed his key into the door
to unlock it, he suddenly heard footsteps moving very quickly behind him. He turned around to see who was approaching him, but he felt a pair of strong hands grab him by his shoulders and slam his body against the driver’s side door of his car.

  “Are you Daoud Khalil?” asked a man he still couldn’t see. What he did notice was several black SUVs pulled up near his vehicle and additional men in black suits and badges hanging around their necks gathering around.

  “Who are you? What is the meaning of this?” Daoud shot back in broken English, not answering the man’s questions.

  “I’m Special Agent Mark Lavine from the FBI. Daoud Khalil, you are under arrest for suspected acts of terrorism,” the man said to Daoud’s genuine surprise.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about! I have not committed any acts of terrorism. I fled the Middle East to escape terrorism,” Daoud exclaimed as he was handcuffed and then turned around. The FBI agents began to pat him down and search his vehicle. One of the agents felt around in his pocket and found the thumb drive. He held it up for the others to see.

  “Really? Then I suppose we won’t find anything incriminating on this thumb drive, will we?” the agent asked sarcastically.

  Daoud was loaded into one of the SUVs and driven away to the Baltimore field office. After arriving there, he was held in a private room for nearly thirty minutes before he was told he would be transferred to another facility. An hour went by and still no one had spoken to him. Daoud asked to speak with a lawyer when one of the FBI agents brought him a glass of water and a sandwich.

  The FBI agent told him, “Lawyers are for citizens—people who have rights.”

  When another hour had gone by, he was transferred to the roof of the building, where a helicopter whisked him away to an airport. The helicopter landed at a hangar near a small Lear jet. He was quickly escorted aboard. As he entered the plane, he saw two men sitting in leather chairs, drinking a soft drink. They beckoned for him to join them, and they offered him a soda and some food. Then they removed his handcuffs so he would be more comfortable.

  Daoud was confused. He could tell that these men, whoever they were, could probably kill him with their bare hands and not even break a sweat.

  “Where am I? Who are you?” Daoud gasped.

  “Well, those are good questions, Mr. Khalil. My name is Mr. Smith, and this is my colleague—you can just call him John. We work for the Central Intelligence Agency…I’m sure you’ve heard of our organization.” As he finished his introduction, the plane raced down the runway and then lifted off.

  “Where are you taking me, Mr. Smith?” Daoud squeaked. He saw the ground disappear below them as their plane began to gain altitude. He was starting to be more than a little bit concerned because he had heard horror stories of CIA black sites, how people went to them and were never heard from again.

  “We’re flying to Guantanamo, Cuba,” Mr. Smith explained. “We should arrive in about three hours. Once we get there, you will simply cease to exist, Mr. Khalil. That is, unless you cooperate. We can place you into the witness protection program and take you to someplace quiet, like Idaho or Montana.”

  Do they know me? Daoud wondered. He was in awe that this man in front of him seemed to know about his plans to disappear into the mountains.

  “We have some questions for you. First, we want to know what was on the thumb drive, and who gave it to you. If you are honest and upfront with me, we can help you. If you lie to us, then things are going to go badly for you. My friend here, John, is going to hook some equipment up to you. He is a very skilled polygrapher. We’re also going to give you a shot that will help to calm your nerves.”

  As Mr. Smith spoke, John got up and began to walk Daoud through the process of what he was hooking him up to, and what each part of the machinery did. He also set up a camera that was mounted on a headset that he placed on Daoud. This would measure his pupils and eye movements. Lastly, he gave him a shot of some medicine that would relax him, and also make it more difficult for him to lie.

  Once the equipment was in place, Mr. Smith went through a series of questions to establish a baseline for Daoud. With that complete, the questioning began.

  “Mr. Khalil, what was on the thumb drive?” Smith asked.

  “Um, I don’t know for sure. I was only told to insert it into one of the computers that was networked to the computer system at the facility,” Daoud responded honestly.

  John and Mr. Smith looked at the readouts on the machines and mumbled something to each other.

  “What were you told would be on the thumb drive, Mr. Khalil?” Smith said, changing the wording of his question.

  “I was told it would most likely have a virus on it, and that the virus would shut down the facility when it was activated,” Daoud replied candidly.

  Smith smiled. “Who told you about the virus on the thumb drive?” he asked.

  John was glued to the screen, analyzing data. Mr. Smith glanced over to him and he nodded.

  “I’m not sure of his name, but his Arabic had an accent,” Daoud answered. “I believe he was from Saudi Arabia. I know he was well-educated. When he spoke English on his cell phone, I noted that he spoke with a British accent, not an American one.”

  “Can you describe him for me? What does he look like?” Mr. Smith asked.

  *******

  The conversation with Daoud went on for several more hours, with the CIA men getting a very good description of the Saudi who had recruited him and of the entire process Daoud had gone through to get into the US. What they found most helpful was how he had communicated with his handlers through the dark web. The MMO game exploit blog was genius. Daoud explained how he had been caught up by ISIS and forced to work in the power plants and oil fields to keep things running for them, how he had wanted to get away, but until the Saudi had offered him this chance, he had been trapped.

  Daoud was still hooked up to the polygraph machines as he told his story, so they could see he was telling them the truth. After several hours of flying, Mr. Smith had them land the plane back at the municipal airport where they had originally begun their journey. Daoud sat with a sketch artist, and they further refined the description of the man who recruited him.

  After a few more hours, Mr. Smith finally ended the interrogation. “Mr. Khalil, we will be placing you in the witness protection program since you cooperated with us and you have not willingly participated in extremism. We will keep in contact with you and may ask you further questions while your placement into the program is approved.”

  Daoud began to cry. “I can’t believe it,” he muttered between tears. “I’m finally going to be free. A quiet life in the middle of nowhere—it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  Chapter 33

  New Administration

  President Garcia held true to his word. Within the first one hundred days of his administration, he managed to get both the House and Senate to approve his plan for a new counterterrorism unit, or CTU as the government folks who were so fond of acronyms called it. As the different appointments within the organization began to be filled, Michael Stone found that he had a job offer to consider as a Deputy Director of Field Operations. Apparently, Trevor Cole had put his name forward.

  Mike didn’t think about it very long. He was excited to be a part of a unit that wouldn’t have its hands tied in terms of jurisdiction. However, they were still going to have to wait a couple more months while the details of Patriot Act 3 were negotiated in Congress, allowing them to more freely monitor those within the United States given “reasonable concern.”

  In the meantime, he planned to become pals with some of the agents that had moved over from the Treasury Department, until he could put together some intelligence that was actionable. The President was right—if they could follow the money, they could find the terrorists.

  Although Mike was happy that Leah Bishop was on trial for her part in all of this, he knew that she hadn’t acted on her own. Clearly, she had been paid off. CAGIR wa
s involved in the scheme, but exactly who within the organization knew about it, and were they a puppet in a much larger scheme?

  Stone sat down next to one of his new friends and explained his theory. “Simone, I’d really appreciate it if you could do what you could to look into the funding of CAGIR. I know that they bribed Leah, but I don’t know where they get their money from. I need to know where exactly they fit in the food chain before we can really take them down.”

  “Yeah, sure thing,” she replied nonchalantly. “You just want me to let you know when I have something useful?” Simone asked with a wink.

  “Yeah, that works…wait, this isn’t going to be as easy as you just made it out to be, is it?” Mike asked with a chuckle.

  She shook her head. “No, Mike. This won’t exactly be a piece of cake, but I’ll get on it for you.”

  He headed back to his office to work on some theories. After a while, he grabbed a corkboard and pinned a title at the top of it: “Wish List.” Then he added his first Post-it note below: “Nihad Nassimi.”

  Twenty minutes later, his supervisor was walking past his office and pointed to his new creation. “What’s that?” he inquired.

  “I’m starting a list of people I want to track once we have Patriot Act 3 on board,” Mike answered.

  “Oh, good idea. Looking a little empty, but you’ve got to start somewhere,” he said, half-joking.

  *******

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Prince Nawaf had been called into the Minister of Foreign Affairs’s office for a meeting with the Americans. He hadn’t been briefed about the contents of the meeting, but his was not an unusual occurrence. Prince Nawaf’s English skills were superb, and although there was always an official translator in the room, he had traveled so much that he sometimes caught nuances in the culture that would otherwise have been missed.

  As he walked into the room, he recognized two of the Americans sitting there. One was an undersecretary for the Secretary of State, and the other was a part of the US intelligence community. The prince figured this must have something to do with the refugees they had been shuttling into the States. He eagerly waited to see the depth of information that they would share.