Enemy In the Room

by Parker Hudson

  The founder of one of the world’s largest communications, television, movie and technology companies had long since become bored with the view from the top of Midtown Tower, even though there were windows on three sides. At least twice a day, and usually more often, he took time to review his Real Time Intercepts, or “RTI” as it was referred to by the few who knew of its existence.

  As he read the afternoon’s summary in silence, he typed questions for further study by his two RTI lieutenants concerning intercepts from a cabinet member in Syria and a NATO commander in Germany.

  Twenty minutes later he closed the RTI program and, using a code name and encryption that made these communications untraceable, he emailed one of several stock brokers whom they used in Singapore, where the markets were just opening. Knox placed two large buy orders, and one sell order through a chain of dummy companies maintained for that purpose. Simon North, a retired British Air Force general with his own consulting company in London, received an email with only a previously authenticated code for the sender, instructing him to contact a specific person at NovySvet Aerospace in Moscow. Finally Trevor folded up three reminders and placed them in his coat—two for tomorrow’s meeting with Paul Burke, head of USNet’s U.S. operations, and one for David Sawyer in real estate.

  He rose and unlocked a small closet, then took out his prayer rug, spread it on the inlaid parquet floor, and removed his shoes and socks. He turned to the sink in the same closet, washed his hands and feet three times, then his face. After passing a hand over the whole of his head, wetting his still dark hair, he knelt and prayed out loud in Arabic, La ilaha illa Allah. Muhammad rasul Allah (“There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”). He recited the first surah of the Qur’an from memory and went through his ritual prayer. Then he gave Allah thanks for the church bombing the day before, which was being covered extensively by all the media, An obscure RTI-funded foundation paid the salary of the campus imam who befriended the student a year ago, and another even more secret source would soon send a large payment to his family. Trevor ended his prayers by giving thanks for the last few hours’ intercepts, which would bring more opportunities.

  When finished, he returned the rug, straightened his shirt, and put on his shoes and socks. He unlocked the office door and glanced around his desk to be sure that all the devices were set on standby, the drawers locked, and the security light on.

  Phyllis Jordan, Knox’s personal assistant, entered from the reception area in response to a small light on her desk. They had been together for many years, starting when Knox had arrived in America at age twenty and was little more than an assistant at the radio station owned by his Egyptian immigrant uncle, whose son Ellis had created a vision for telephones and computers.

  Gray haired and dwarfed by her tall boss, Jordan was a totally loyal gatekeeper. “It’s time to leave—you’ve got the Cinema Group meeting tomorrow morning in Los Angeles.”

  Coming around his desk toward the one wall in his office with no windows, covered instead with awards and pictures of himself with important people from the past four decades, he touched a button beneath the chair rail. A door opened to a paneled hallway leading through an exercise area to his apartment.

  “Yes. My workout clothes are in the hamper. Tell them to power up the helicopter. I’ll get my coat and head to the roof. Do you have the university awards packed?”

  “In your briefcase.”

  “Good. I’ll call early from L.A. We’ll do the Operations and Real Estate updates by video conference, right after lunch here. Let Paul and David know in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir. Have a safe trip.” She smiled and turned.

  “Thanks. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Omid, the son of David’s cousin in Iran, and his wife, Golnaz, or Goli as he and the family called her, owned a small translation business in Tehran. Omid had learned English at home and studied engineering at university, while Goli had a gift for languages in general; they enjoyed a steady business. With a loan from his family, Omid had opened an office two years earlier on Mirdamad Avenue in Tehran, above a woman’s boutique and a jewelry store. At the moment they employed three other translators, who, like them, were only a few years out of school. Married just a year, they were contemplating whether to start a family in the turbulence that surrounded them in Iran.

  After closing their office early because of New Year’s celebrations planned later with their family, Omid and Goli walked three blocks to the Shalizar Coffee House; she wore the traditional veil outdoors, both because of her nominal faith and to avoid any hassles from the Basij, who patrolled the streets in unmarked cars. There had been such hope only a few years earlier, when the regime that had rigged the elections was replaced by the ruling mullahs. But quickly that hope turned bitter, as the new regime adopted all the policies and tactics of the previous ones. It was as if the actors were wearing different masks, but it was still the same tragedy.

  Inside, the coffee house was packed and noisy. As their eyes adjusted they caught sight of Morad and two other friends, saving seats for them in the far back corner. They smiled and waved.

  The men shook hands while Golnaz watched, and then they settled in and ordered. Omid had known Morad all his life. He had a good job with an oil company, but like so many others, wanted his country to change and to open up. Still single, Morad had become the unofficial leader of their group, which had stayed in touch since graduation. The other two men had been their university classmates, seemingly also dedicated to changing the course of their country. Ramin and Kamy had been close friends of the others for six years, and although one never knew who might be working for the Savama, or secret police, the five friends spoke and planned freely together.

  Before the coffee arrived, they caught up on their families and the celebration of New Years. A few minutes later, Morad, stirring more sugar into his cup, lowered his voice and leaned forward. “The demonstration will be at Vali Asr Square at four next Friday afternoon, in ten days. This will be the first in almost a year, and we hope that a good crowd will assemble before the Basij arrive.”

  “When will the first tweets start?” Goli asked.

  “At three,” Ramin replied.

  Shaking his head, Omid said, “The Basij will be ruthless.”

  They fell silent. Finally Morad said, “It will be what it will be. We have to put pressure on the regime again if there is ever going to be change. Now that the mullahs have the bomb, they are unafraid. With the world watching, we must not be silent.”

  Omid nodded and squeezed Goli’s hand under the table. He then brought his other hand to his face and rubbed his mustache to cover his mouth, in case anyone was trying to read lips. “As promised, we have New Years presents for each of you.”

  Goli opened her bag and passed three small boxes to Morad under the table.

  Omid continued. “Clean phones from the outside, along with a list of our numbers. The Savama cannot have tagged them or know who owns them. Please continue to use your other phones for regular calls—and to show to Savama if necessary—and use these only to call within our group. Also to text and take videos on Friday.”

  Ramin smiled. “How did you get these?”

  “Let’s just say that Allah has provided. We have five more.”

  They paused, then put the new phones in their pockets. The second university friend, Kamy, looked around and spoke softly across the table to Omid, as he reached for something in his bag on the floor. “Omid, I have a full list of all the students who have been arrested over the past three years, and what happened to them.” He leaned toward the center, offering the package under the table.

  “What? How did you get it?” Omid asked, taking the large envelope and bringing it to his lap.

  “A friend of a friend. Can you get it posted?”

  Omid’s closest friends knew that either he hosted an antigovernment website overseas, or he knew the people who did. Either way, if you gave information to Omid, it us
ually wound up on the internet in a few days.

  “I—I’m not sure,” Omid said, darting his eyes around to see who might be listening or who might have observed the exchange. He had to consider the risk of leaving the coffee house with this potentially explosive information.

  “The list is real. And official.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” Omid said, smiling and looking at Goli, whose countenance had not changed.

  “It’s important that it gets out. Families want to know what has happened. And so do relatives in the West.”

  “I know. I know. Here, keep it tonight, and give it to Morad in the next day or two in private. Morad, please read it over, and if you think it’s genuine, bring it to the office along with one of your oil company’s contracts to translate. Then we’ll deal with it. OK?”

  The other young men nodded. “OK.”

  An hour later, as they left for the trip home to their flat in the Elahiyeh part of northern Tehran, Goli said to Omid, “Thank you for being careful.”

  Putting his arm around her, Omid said, “If Morad vouches for it, then it needs to be published. But I want to live to see our children’s children!”

  She smiled back at him. “As do I,” she said softly.

  At that same moment in a working class London neighborhood, Jamal, a young man who had emigrated with his family from Iran when he was a child, entered a small warehouse not far from his local mosque. He was greeted by his imam and several close friends, who shook his hand and hugged him.

  After donning a robe made especially for the occasion, he sat on a stool in front of a blue blanket. Lights came on, and the imam started the video camera.

  Over the next few minutes Jamal only had to glance at his notes twice, as he explained why he hated the West and was proud to be Allah’s next suicide bomber.

  2

  TUESDAY, MARCH 29TH

  As David rode up the elevator that Tuesday morning, checking his handheld, he felt the dull ache and scratchy eyes from too little sleep. Elizabeth was right; I couldn’t turn it off. He had to finish a few things after the big New Year’s celebration with the older Persian couple’s family, and he hadn’t fallen asleep until two. The festivities had begun on a somber note for the misguided student who had bombed the church on Sunday, but soon the families moved on to celebrate the millennia of good things about Iran, rather than the fanaticism of the last decades.

  Now it was 7:45. Despite the headache, he felt ready for anything that Trevor Knox or Paul Burke might ask.

  The double doors into the real estate group were open and the lights were on, but the receptionist would not be in for thirty minutes. Their offices wrapped around a corner of the floor, with the reception area directly off the elevator lobby. The décor was cream colored walls, dark green carpeting, and light brown trim. Behind the reception area was a spacious conference room with a view of the city.

  David walked the silent hallway to his large corner office, noticing a few lights beyond the break room. He dropped his files on a conference table to the left of his door, took his briefcase over to the desk, and plugged in his laptop. The first new message from Phyllis Jordan informed him that the meeting with Knox had been moved from that morning to just after lunch. He took a deep breath. So I’ll get a cup of coffee and ask Julie to rearrange my day. Actually, it’s better.

  “Hi.” It was Kristen Holloway. She smiled as he looked up from his computer, and he motioned her to come in. A tall, striking woman in a dark blue suit, Kristen’s auburn hair was pinned up, giving her a very businesslike appearance.

  “How was New York?” he asked.

  She walked over to his desk, a mug of coffee in each hand and a folder under one arm. “Your early morning sounds are unmistakable. I brought you a wake-up present.” She put one of the mugs on his desk.

  Reaching for it, he faked a grimace. “Thanks. Not much sleep last night.”

  “Sorry. How much longer does the Persian New Year’s celebration go on, anyway?”

  “Thirteen days in total. We’ve got five more. But I’m cutting back after last night, ”

  She raised an eyebrow and smiled. Kristen’s soft demeanor, freckles, and the unnerving twinkle in her eyes belied the first impression of a no-nonsense businesswoman, and these qualities were so obviously genuine that they threw even the most hardened negotiators off balance, particularly those of the male gender. David had recognized these disarming traits when she first interviewed two years earlier. She had arrived with a broad residential real estate background; David had helped hone her knowledge on the commercial side, and now she could handle just about any assignment.

  He continued, “And no one says it exactly, but the memorial service for the church bombing, all of the coverage on the Middle East, and the President’s address coming later this week don’t lend themselves to festivities.”

  Kristen nodded. She thought of the terrible carnage portrayed on the 24/7 news cycle, and paused. Finally she said, “We finished the office lease. The crew should be there today starting the fit-out of our new space.”

  David smiled. “Good. Did we have to give much?”

  “Just the usual sorts of things.” She shrugged. “It’s nice to be wanted. I’ve been on the other side, negotiating with a lot less than USNet’s credit rating behind me.”

  He nodded as he took a sip of the coffee. “Glad to hear it went well. Do you know if Todd’s in?”

  “I saw his car in the parking deck.”

  He called Todd Phelps’s extension.

  “Hey,” Todd raised a cup of coffee to Kristen a moment later as he walked in, a pad in the other hand. The younger man was about Kristen’s height and obviously in good physical shape. Todd’s older brother—by about ten years—had been in David’s high school class, and the boys and their families had been close. When the older brother was killed in a car crash their senior year, David had done his best to fill in for him with Todd. Many years later, when Todd was finishing business school, he approached David about a job. David enthusiastically encouraged him and over the past year had acted as both employer and mentor.

  Todd smiled at David. “You look terrible. What happened?”

  “New Year’s in March, on a Monday. An old Persian tradition, as you may remember from years ago with my parents. Anyway, I need to talk with both of you,” David began, motioning them to chairs around his conference table.

  “Kristen, Hong Kong shouldn’t take much longer. So I’d like you to work with me on buying Capital Tower. Todd, that will free you up to focus on Minneapolis and Moscow. OK?”

  “I’ll give Kristen the Capital Tower acquisition file,” Todd responded.

  “Bill Porter is the broker. You know him, don’t you, Kristen?”

  “Yes. He also represents lots of tenants downtown. No matter whom he’s representing, he always seems to get what’s best for Bill.”

  David nodded and leaned forward in his chair. “I want to buy Capital Tower before anyone realizes what a steal it is—below replacement cost. Assuming we can build a sky bridge, it will work well with the Grand. It’s a great opportunity to create a signature USNet headquarters at a very visible location.”

  The two younger members of the team exchanged glances. “I hadn’t thought of that,” Todd admitted. “A great use of the Grand’s extra parking. And we’d save a ton on rent.”

  Kristen smiled. “Did you think of this all by yourself, great leader?”

  He accepted her compliment by leaning back. “I got the idea from reading numbers and looking out the window. It’s what they pay me to do. Let’s hope it works. It would be nice for our team to make a big impact on the bottom line. Good for all of us.” He smiled. “But let’s have a quick catch up on your other projects before everyone else arrives.”

  A few hours later in Long Beach, just south of Los Angeles, David’s daughter Callie swiped the alarm clock and grimaced at the sunlight that cut between the curtains in her bedroom. “It’s late,” sh
e finally said.

  “Umm,” Alex Spalding, her boyfriend, offered from beneath a pillow.

  “Last night was late, too.”

  Emerging slowly, Alex reached for her. “But good.”

  She moved his hand and nodded. “Not now. I gotta study for a test in two hours.”

  “You’ll do fine,” he said, replacing his hand.

  Smiling, she put his hand behind his back. “And what if I don’t do well? My parents will kill me.”

  “But you’re so beautiful and it’s so early.”

  Moving to the edge of the bed, she looked at him. “Maybe, but I’ve still got the test. And since you’re an aspiring actor with no job and no money, I don’t want to flunk a course and have Dad think about lowering my allowance.”

  “When your Dad called the other night, maybe I should have answered and told him that we’re in love and to send more money.”

  She stood up. “No way. I don’t think telling him that you’ve moved in would mix well with his Iranian background.”

  “Is that why you’re so beautiful? My beautiful Arab girlfriend!”

  “I am not an Arab! My Dad’s family is Persian. Trust me—Muslim Iranians and Muslim Arabs get along about as well as French Catholics and English Protestants did. They fought all the time.” She hit him with a pillow.

  “Ow!” he laughed. “It’s too early for history.”

  “Do I look like history?”

  “No, definitely not.”

  “Anyway, I called Mom yesterday, and they’re cool. But Dad’s working too hard, as usual.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing about work.”

  Running her hand through her jet black hair, she moved toward the bathroom. “How would you know?”