Enemy In the Room

by Parker Hudson

  The men nodded and spoke among themselves.

  Amir continued. “The results are better than we expected. Allah is to be praised, and you are to be congratulated. Our budgets for campaign spending and teachers have tripled in the past year, but for good reasons. So far every candidate we have supported has won. Within an average of two years after each election, we have had a Community Center or School up and running, with dedicated teachers in place, spreading Allah’s truth and starting the cycle again.”

  One of the men asked, “Will we have the funds to pay for this growth?”

  Rahim answered. “Of course our local collections are important to insure the community’s involvement, but our special sources have assured us that there are unlimited funds available—it is up to us to create the opportunities.”

  “And so, gentlemen,” Amir added, “please turn the page to the list of cities where we hope to plant a new mosque by the end of the year.”

  3

  SUNDAY, APRIL 3RD

  Sunday evening Kristen Holloway was in blue jeans and a white shirt, alone in the breakfast room of her high rise apartment. There were windows on two sides. The container from her low carb dinner was perched on one corner of the table; Tchaikovsky’s Serenade played quietly from the living room, where the off white walls contrasted with the many potted plants and several original impressionist paintings. “Better to own a few good things than a lot of junk,” her mom had always said.

  With a pencil behind one ear and a calculator nearby, she was working on her taxes. When the phone rang, her Caller ID displayed a number that she hadn’t seen for a long time.

  “Kristen. Hi. It’s Richard Sullivan.”

  “Hey. How are you?” She turned in her chair to look at the sunset.

  “We’re fine. Susan is out of college and both she and Tommy are doing well. People in general are still occasionally unhappy with each other, so my legal business is busy. Janet is seeing some results in the legislation they’re passing, so she’s certainly happy.”

  “I think her class in Congress has done a great job.”

  Janet Sullivan’s background had been in television, but several years earlier she had run for and been elected to Congress as part of former President Harrison’s call for a return to traditional values and conservative economics. Those same values were the basis for President Susan Harper’s victory and Janet’s re-election the previous fall. Janet commuted to Washington while Richard remained a partner in his law firm.

  “Well, it’s all thanks to our last two presidents. They haven’t been afraid to take a stand. But how are you?”

  “I’m fine. USNet keeps expanding, so there’s lots of work for us real estate types. I’m going to Asia next week.”

  “Sounds glamorous for a cowgirl from Texas.”

  She smiled. “It just sounds that way. On about the second fourteen-hour plane trip, it turns into a job.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Richard spoke. “Kristen, the reason I’m calling is that Janet and I have been dealing with a phone call I got this afternoon. I have no idea who it was. He said he knew about our relationship and that I should persuade Janet to vote against Harper’s media reform bill.”

  “Richard, what information could he have? That was years ago.”

  “I’m not sure. Somehow he knew details that only you or I could have known. It was pretty graphic.”

  Kristen’s voice rose, and she pointed with the pencil. “Richard, I haven’t told anyone about our affair. Ever. Except Janet, with you.”

  “I know. I’m not sure how he got the information. But I had to call you in case you get a call. too.”

  “No one has called me. What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. He may think that he can blackmail me. But he apparently doesn’t know that you, Janet and I met years ago, that she forgave us, and that we’ve all moved on. And that I want the media bill to pass as much as Janet.”

  After a pause, he continued, “But they may make what we did public just to try to discredit Janet for her values, and by association, the President. So we may all get a lot of unpleasant attention.”

  Kristen put down the pencil and rested her forehead in her hand, “Whoa. I thought this was over long ago.”

  “Me, too. But somehow it’s not.”

  She sighed. “However unpleasant it may be for me, I know it will be much worse for you and Janet. And the kids. I’m sorry.”

  “He said that they have tapes of us talking on the phone.”

  “Tapes? From years ago?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how or when.”

  “I hope it’s not true.”

  There was a silence. Then Richard said, “It’s another reason to be glad, after God intervened in our lives, that we met and asked for Janet’s forgiveness. She is an amazing woman. I truly believe that she never thinks about it. I guess we’ll just have to trust and see what happens.”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me if you hear anything, and I’ll do the same.”

  Late that same evening USNet’s CEO, Trevor Knox, was back in his penthouse apartment after finishing a dinner with a European banker. Walking the short distance to his office, he said a silent prayer and unlocked the special computer embedded in his desk.

  He noted that Simon North had already set a meeting with NovySvet Aerospace outside Moscow. And there were three stocks to buy in bulk, plus two recommended to sell.

  When he finished the summary, he typed an encoded email to Akbar Kamali and Victor Mustafin, the leaders of his RTI team.

  Kamali and Mustafin were the only individuals in the U.S. who knew that Trevor was a key leader in the worldwide force to impose the rule of Islam across the globe. This goal was the ultimate use for RTI’s information and income. And only the three of them worked on RTI’s most secure Special Operations projects.

  Akbar Kamali, an Iranian, had been a veteran with the Shah’s secret police, the Savak, before finding true faith at the time of Khomeini’s revolution in 1979. Trevor had asked an old friend from their early university days in London, Saeed Zeini, a rising star in Khomeni’s radical ruling circle, to make sure of Kamali’s conversion. Given his English skills, Kamali was a natural choice to bring to the United States once Trevor had gained control of USNet.

  The following year Trevor recruited Victor Mustafin, a Kazakh, whom he knew through mutual contacts in the Muslim Brotherhood. During Soviet times future leaders in Kazakhstan were trained in Moscow and therefore spoke fluent Russian. Victor’s father had provided that opportunity, but his mother made certain that his first love was always her native country and their one true faith.

  Together, given their complementary skills and contacts, Kamali and Mustafin, a Shi’a and a Sunni, made a formidable team to utilize the unique information gathered through RTI’s intercepts, both in the U.S. and abroad.

  Trevor finished his messages, sat back, and smiled. Allah is great! Thank you for all the French cities now governed de facto by Sharia Law. Thank you that there are more of us in English mosques than there are Anglicans in English churches.

  Thank you for these dithering Americans, their constant political bickering, and their indecision. Now that our brothers in Iran have the nuclear bomb, we can apply pressure in ways that were impossible only a year ago. Who will dare stand up to us? A church bombing one week, an election win the next, a mosque zoning victory, and yet we are always portrayed as victims of discrimination, at least on USNet. Trevor smiled. Now is the time to create chaos in their governments and to put Brothers in power at every possible level. Our ultimate victory may be a few decades away, but it is coming, and now is the time to make a great advance. Our own people don’t understand what we are doing—but one day they will find themselves in power— because of us.

  He glanced up at the city’s lights, shining for miles. And RTI provides the information and the funds to make it even easier. He remembered his first small office at Knox Communications, where he worked
for his uncle after arriving in America from London, over forty years before. There had not been a single window. And then the day, years later, when he had fallen out with his cousin, Ellis.

  Trevor recalled that the split had actually been on the same day, over twenty years ago, that he had hired David Sawyer, an American with Iranian parents and a nominal Muslim background, to run their small real estate group. He had been impressed with Sawyer’s experience in negotiating cell tower sites, and felt comfortable with his family’s heritage.

  After walking Sawyer to the reception area, Trevor had climbed the stairs back to his office, which was once a corner bedroom in the old Victorian house that Knox Communications had occupied for years. From there he and his cousin Ellis had operated the radio stations that they inherited from Ellis’s father.

  Through the open door of his own office, he saw Ellis standing over his neatly organized desk, looking through several stacks of daily reports. Before Trevor could speak, his cousin started toward him, waving a handful of papers.

  “Trevor, I told you to stop doing this!”

  His face turning red, Trevor closed the door and met Ellis in the middle of the room. “Why? No one ever said the phones are secure. They’re open! We learn some incredible stuff.” He nodded at the reports and transcripts in his cousin’s hand.

  Ellis, slightly taller and three years older, held out the papers. “But our customers think they’re having private conversations, and they don’t expect to be listened to, recorded and written up.”

  “Tough.”

  “You’ve got to stop. My father would not condone what you—we—are doing. What if someone finds out? Our license as the independent cell phone provider is an incredible opportunity. We can’t blow it because you like to listen to people’s conversations.”

  Grabbing the papers from his cousin’s hand, Trevor shot back, “First, no one will find out. They are our phones, our system, and we use only a small group of trusted people to listen and record. Second, I don’t do this because I “like” to listen to other people’s phone calls. I do it because whatever we will earn from charging for cell phones use is nothing to what we can earn from knowing all this information. The government just handed us the license to do it, with no strings attached. Don’t you see how amazing this is?”

  “And how wrong.”

  The younger cousin walked to his desk, put down the papers, and sat in his chair. He swiveled slightly to glance at the foliage in the afternoon sun, then turned again. “Ellis, you understand all this technology—the phone business was your idea, starting with radio phones and now these cell phones. But people I understand. We can make a lot of money from what we’ll hear every day.”

  The older cousin stood across the desk. “But I’ve told you that I won’t permit us to steal information from unsuspecting customers.”

  Trevor rose again to face Ellis. “Won’t permit? Look, you may know computers and phones, but I raised the money and put together the license application that won this gold mine. Don’t talk about ‘permitting’. Like it or not, we’re partners, and I say that knowing all this information—new every day—is the best part of what we have.”

  “No. The phones themselves are more than enough.”

  “We’re talking about the chance to know almost every new idea, make investments, and even influence events.”

  “Including blackmail?”

  The younger man smiled. “For now, let’s just collect information and see where it leads. Think what it could mean for our people to have this information.”

  “Our people? I’ve lived in the U.S. almost all my life. This nation has been wonderful to us. Look at this opportunity that we have, the son and nephew of an Egyptian immigrant. These are our people.”

  “Never! I accepted your father’s Anglicized name to join his business, but I’ve never given up my identity. These people oppose Islam. Qutb, an early member of the Muslim Brotherhood, saw it all here decades ago: filth, materialism, greed, democracy. Only Islam will bring people back to pure life, merging faith, government and everyday life. It is the only way. And the West opposes all of this. They killed our people, including my father, your uncle. We must revenge his death. All their deaths! Revenge is a sacred requirement that Allah will honor with His blessing.”

  Ellis turned, walked to a window, then retraced his steps while Trevor watched. He came close to the desk. “Trevor, it was terrible that your father died in prison, along with so many others in the Muslim Brotherhood. But it was Gamal Nassar, a socialist and Egyptian nationalist, who had your father killed. Hardly a Western democrat. And he wanted a modern country, not a throwback to mistreating women and burning books that the Muslim Brotherhood is always espousing.”

  “What do you know about the Brothers?”

  “Enough to know that they would be a disaster for any country they tried to rule.”

  “Are you crazy? They are the world’s only hope! Look at what they do in Iran. Even though they are Persian Shi’a, they are a true Islamic state, with religious leaders in charge. It’s incredible! We hope for the same thing in Egypt, and in all the other countries with governments pandering to their Western masters.”

  Ellis took a deep breath. “Look, Trevor, we’ve been through this before, and we’re not going to solve the world’s problems. Let’s come back to our phones. You know how badly I feel about your father’s death; I’m sure it’s why my father gave you half of everything, for which I’m glad, because we built this business together. But this cheating is wrong. Knox Communications is not going to do it, no matter what you think. You don’t have kids. I can’t tell my two boys to play fair if I’m going to steal information and use it to outbid or outmaneuver others. If necessary, when I get back from Charlotte tomorrow, I’ll call a meeting of our investors and tell them what you’ve been doing and ask them to confirm that we must stop.”

  Trevor sat down, his arms folded tightly. “You always think you know best.” He spoke in Arabic, which Ellis did not understand. He looked intently at his cousin. Then he said in English, “I won’t let your personal sense of right and wrong kill this sweet deal.”

  “And how will you stop me? I know the investors. They won’t like what you’re doing any more than I do.”

  Trevor was silent, his lips pursed and he shook his head slightly from side to side.

  Ellis turned to leave. At the door he looked back. “I’m taking the King Air. In the morning I’m going over the proposed cell tower sites around Charlotte. When I get back we’ll try one last time. Maybe one of us will have to go. It’s not what I want, but I can’t be in business with someone, even my cousin, who doesn’t see the difference between right and wrong.”

  When there was no response from Trevor, Ellis left, closing the door behind him.

  Trevor sat almost motionless for several minutes. He looked at the disheveled stacks of paper—of information—now in a mess on his desk. He pulled out his gold pen and rotated it, tapping the desktop with each turn. Finally he picked up the phone and dialed a number he had memorized a month before.

  “Yes?” said a man’s voice on the other end.

  “He’s on the way. The King Air.”

  “OK.” The line went dead.

  Turning from the memory of the following day’s corporate plane crash, Trevor closed his eyes for a moment. All those years ago. Why couldn’t Ellis see the power in this gift from Allah? Trevor had made sure that his cousin’s wife and sons were well taken care of after the plane crash, but he almost never thought of them as family. They were just like all the other Americans. Blasphemers. Enemies of God. Allah be praised that my eyes are not blinded by this country, and that we can do so much with what He has given us. The problem now is that there is almost too much information.

  He swiveled back in the direction of the keyboard, turned his gold pen nervously a few times, and then typed instructions on several RTI issues that required his lieutenants’ special skills He ended with, “President Ha
rper’s media and entertainment legislation must not pass Congress. The legislation must fail.”

  At noon the next day the elevator doors opened in the chrome and glass lobby of Capital Tower, and Kristen Holloway exited, concluding her walk-through with the property’s listing broker, Bill Porter.

  Putting her notebook in her large purse, she turned to face him. “Tell me again the asking price.”

  “Eighty-five million.”

  She grimaced.

  He shrugged. “Downtown is hot again, and we’ll just have to see if anyone wants it.”

  “If we’re interested, what would it take to stop the process? Would an offer close to full price do it?”

  He looked away, and then returned her gaze. Finally he said, “I’ll ask the owners whether they want to negotiate with USNet alone, or let the process run for three weeks.”

  “Please do, Bill. And I’ll report to David. We’d like to get the ball rolling.”

  Porter nodded. “I’ll check with the owners and let you know.”

  Sitting at his desk that afternoon, Todd Phelps, David’s most experienced direct report after Kristen, was running through his email while talking on the phone with an old business school friend, Mike Campbell.

  “Have you seen the new Audi roadster?” Mike asked. “It’s incredible.”

  “That it is. I’ll never afford one on my salary.”

  “I picked one up on Saturday.”

  Todd looked up from his screen. “No way.”

  “Yeah. Metallic blue.”

  Todd paused. “No way for me, with a wife and two kids.”

  “I’ll show it to you when you’re here. Right after we negotiate the lease.”

  Todd shifted. “Yeah. Good. Listen, the lease is important to us, too. That’s why we’re coming up on Wednesday. We need space in Minneapolis for next year’s expansion of the publishing group, but the rental rate has to be right.”