by David Poyer
“I suppose so, Jolene. What’s General Ahearn doing now? Are they . . . in pursuit?”
“Not exactly, sir. He plans to push up the highway toward Fenteni, reestablishing order along the way in coordination with the Governing Council.”
“Olowe?” Aisha put in. Heads swiveled like high-speed sunflowers.
“General Olowe, correct,” Peyster said. “I know you don’t care for him personally—”
“A mass murderer who takes bribes? One of my favorite people.”
“Aisha,” the ambassador whined.
“Actually he’s our last chip,” Peyster observed. “So let’s take what we’re dealt and make hay, shall we? As I was saying, the GC troops are establishing order. Rooting out rebel sympathizers—”
“Meaning, massacring the southern clans—”
“Aisha—”
“Those militias cooperated with the insurgents, Agent,” Ridbout pointed out. “We can’t expect our marines to distinguish a friendly Ashaari with a rifle from an enemy Ashaari with the same rifle. It may be necessary to rearm the GC, by the way. To bind them more closely to our interests.”
Aisha coughed, choking on the phlegm from her congested lungs and the sickness at her heart. She’d argued with Peyster after the meeting with Olowe at Ahearn’s headquarters. Tried to point out how contrary to common sense it was to ally themselves with the very clans that’d supported the corrupt and repressive former regime. The RSO had said equably that Olowe had been a bit player then. He’d be dependent on his new patrons.
More and more, she was wondering who Peyster actually was. Did he really work for State? The Bureau of Diplomatic Security? Or something darker? The NCIS ranked low on the federal peeing pole compared to this other agency.
“Okay, next topic,” Peyster said. “The unaccounted-for aid personnel. The good news: they’re alive, most of them. The bad: we have a communication from the Waleeli. Through Al-Jazeera, interestingly enough.”
She occasionally watched the all-Arabic satellite news channel, based in Qatar. The rapid colloquial language was difficult, but usually she could follow. Seen as independent, it had become a channel for Islamicist groups throughout the Middle East. The RSO said the station had passed the message to the special representative in New York. Someone in his office had sleight-of-handed it to Dr. Dobleh’s former e-mail account, with info copies to Leache and Dalton.
Dalton said, “There’s no ADA left, then?”
“None to speak of, sir. The Cosmo bombing took down the whole leadership, except for three wounded.”
“Where are they?”
“They left the country, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Oh . . . hell.”
“Yes, sir. Now: the aid personnel. The quote, Waleeli National Resurgence Council, unquote, says they’re holding five women and three men. They’re being treated well and will be turned over unharmed on delivery of a five-million-dollar ransom.”
“Not more ransoms,” muttered Dalton. “Isn’t this a UN matter?”
“Well, sir, I called Mr. Kazuma’s office and they feel it’s in our area of responsibility, since the implementation on the resolution entrusts us with physical security of international relief personnel. He quoted paragraph 9(c) at me. I could argue with their legal staff but I’d probably lose.”
“Meaning what? We have to pay?”
“We could do a stakeout if we did,” Aisha put in.
Peyster raised his eyebrows at her but kept speaking to Dalton. “Not that we specifically have to, sir, no. My own recommendation would be not to. I read New York as saying basically that since we were responsible for protecting them in the first place, getting them back’s up to us as well.”
“How do they propose we do that?”
“They were unwilling to provide guidance. Said we were closest to the problem.”
Dalton rubbed his scalp furiously. For a man whose siege had just been lifted, he looked distraught. “I have a call with the SecState at ten. I’ll mention it, see if they have any guidance.”
“Yessir, but right now I don’t think we can avoid at least passing the ball to someone else. I suggest General Ahearn.”
Dalton perked up. “Will you call him, Jolene? For me? He could stage a commando raid. That’d be best, I think.”
Ridbout said reluctantly, “If you authorize me to speak in your name, sir. For a raid, well, hostage rescues are hard to do right. We’d have to know exactly where they’re being held. But I’ll ask. . . . What should I say about the funds?”
The ambassador said stiffly, “During his tenure as secretary, Henry Kissinger established as policy that we never pay ransom to foreign kidnappers or terrorists. Nor would our embassies facilitate such payments. I recall he fired our ambassador to Tanzania for allowing his staff to assist in the payment of private funds to rescue U.S. citizens. Even though that rescue was successful.
“I believe this policy still stands. And I certainly don’t have such funds at my disposal. Regardless of my personal concern for these unfortunate captives. So if someone does pay, it’s going to have to come from their home churches, or the WGO. In no way is that a State responsibility.”
Dalton stood, and the rest did too. When he left they looked at one another. “Will he really ask?” Aisha said.
Ridbout shook her head. “Probably not. But you have to hand it to him. Back when they were at the gates? Most ambassadors would’ve decamped. Dalton stayed.” She grinned at Aisha. “Didn’t actually man the ramparts, though, like you, Agent Ar-Rahim. Which reminds me, who do I call about putting you in for some kind of NCIS award?”
“I don’t need an award. They were just poor people who saw a chance to get something they’d never be able to own otherwise.”
Both the others were silent and she read their minds: What kind of bleeding heart have we got here? Peyster said, “Before we break, I wanted to run something by you. What you said about a stakeout. What’d you mean?”
“Standard procedure in a hostage-ransom situation. The FBI Hostage Rescue Team has it down to a science.”
“More.”
“What happened to ‘please’? Still the magic word, Terry.”
“Sorry, Aisha. How would you set up a stakeout on somebody like Al-Maahdi? Please.”
“Well, use the turnover meeting—where he gets the ransom and we get the hostages—to move in and take him into custody.”
“If we knew where he was.”
She said patiently, “Terry, that’s the point. We have to know that in order to get his money to him. All I’m saying is, maybe we should try. Or have you not thought about doing an Assad on him?”
“Assad resisted arrest.”
“Well, maybe Al-Maahdi, or Al-Khasmi, or whatever he’s calling himself these days, won’t.”
“Would he show up at the exchange site? He’s a slippery character.”
“At the least we’ll get one of his deputies. Maybe we can persuade him to tell us where his boss lives.”
“Well, thank you both,” Peyster said, getting up. They were all headed for the door when he said, “Oh, one more thing . . . for you, Jolene. Thanks, Aisha. We’ll keep you in the loop.”
He eased the door closed behind her. She stood in the hallway. Had he just gotten rid of her?
“Agent?” The familiar-looking GrayWolf, with the Ashaari whom she’d asked about Nuura. He held out a folded paper. “He says this just came in the gate for you.”
When she unfolded it she recognized the handwriting. It was Nuura’s, yet not. Hers was exquisite, like the little translator herself: each tiny letter executed in painstaking block print. This was hastily scrawled with a soft pencil whose tip had broken off halfway through, then pressed so hard the last few words ripped the paper.
Miss Rahim. Emergency. Emergency. You come help us please. This man knows where.
“Do you know where she is?” she asked. The Ashaari shook his head, backing away.
Until she held out the money.
> WHEN the door shut Peyster waited a moment, standing by the window. Then said in a low voice, “What if she’s right, and he comes out of his hole?”
“Localize and neutralize a leadership node,” Ridbout said, scratching the tabletop and looking at her nails. “He’s a legitimate target, far as I can see. What would you do with him, after? There’s no judiciary to turn him over to. Do you want him?”
“Definitely not. I have no problem targeting him. But you guys have the assets. Could you do it? Speaking theoretically.”
“Theoretically,” said the colonel, “we could. If he showed up. That’s the nub, isn’t it?”
“That’s the nub. How would you do it? Bomb?”
“Not with hostages in the impact area,” the colonel said. “The most effective means would depend on the location of the exchange. Who shows up, how many . . . Anything else for me?”
“Nothing else,” said the security officer. “Keep me posted.”
“Sure,” said the colonel. They looked away from each other, then got up and left.
DAN’S face was pressed into the keyboard again when someone shook him. “Let’s talk,” Dickinson muttered.
“Here, sir?”
“Out in the terminal.”
They strolled through the canvas screening, boots echoing. Another aircraft came in, turbines blurring out all other sound. The ops officer said, “You mentioned a possible way of localizing this Al-Khasmi.”
“A software program we’ve been working on at TAG.”
“We just got a tasking to find him. Basically, at all costs. And the J-2’s shit out of ideas. They got intel out the ying yang, everybody from the A-guys to NCIS looking, but he’s not there. What have you got that’s gonna rock my world?”
Dan gave him the short version. CIRCE was sophisticated but still beta-version software TAG had developed from a commercial circle-of-contacts product. The original intent had been to integrate multiple near-chaotic inputs in a littoral environment to locate quiet submarines. From there, Henrickson had developed it into a multiagent model that integrated not just comms and intel but social and spatial relations. A stochastic modeling agent reasoning framework predicted not just the location, but the likelihood of a unitary actor—a submarine captain, a pilot, an enemy general—taking certain actions as against others.
It wasn’t magic, merely the same thing deeply expert human beings had always done, often unconsciously—with “intuition.” But CIRCE’s data-mining capability, with its ability to elicit second- and third-degree relationships, could tease out leads that might otherwise slip under the radar.
When Dan was done the J-3 said, “Can it give us a specific location? Where he is, or will be, at a given time?”
“Well, sometimes. If the data’s there. Sometimes humans just can’t put together enough hints. Occasionally CIRCE can. It actually works pretty well with an object with three-dimensional locations, fixed movement rates—like a submarine.”
“Can it focus down on one specific individual?”
“What’ve we got to lose?”
“The guy who’s giving us all this trouble. Al-Khasmi, Al-Maahdi—whatever he calls himself. The one behind the Brotherhood. Could it find him?”
Dan stuck his fingers in his back pockets. “His home base, you mean? Or where he’s at, at a given moment?”
“I’ll settle for either. Right now, he’s a fucking phantom.”
“There’s a fair chance of localizing his stomping grounds.”
“How soon can you set up? Need computers, equipment?”
“I need to get my team leader here. Anything else, he can bring. We don’t need computers other than our notebooks—CIRCE runs on our Sun there at TAG; we can uplink on your satellite broadband.” He gripped Dickinson’s arm. “But what happens if we find him? If we get a datum?”
“A what?”
“Sorry—naval terminology. If we come up with a locus of probability. Then what?”
“We smoke him,” Dickinson said. “What the fuck else? He’s the king vulture. Blow him the fuck away, and body-bag as many of his second echelon as possible.”
Dan took a silent turn, making sure he had no problem with this. It was probably the Waleeli who’d blown up the hotel, nearly killed him and Blair. Was he getting hardened? He hoped not. But just hearing it from Dickinson wasn’t enough. “This tasking, it’s from who? Specifically.”
“From Higher.”
“What exactly did the CG say?”
Dickinson didn’t answer. Dan looked at him. “Okay, I’ll rephrase that. What will Ahearn say? Because I’ve gotten burned on this kind of word-of-mouth mission before.”
“You just got an order. From me.”
“Which I asked for clarification on, Colonel. All right?” The J-3 grimaced but Dan went on. “We’re happy to respond to the requirement, but I’ve got to present this to my commanding officer as a legitimate support request from a deployed, in-combat task force. It doesn’t have to say exactly what’s going on, and I’ll be happy to draft the request, but COMJTF’s got to be on board. It can’t just be something you and I hatched one night.”
“I can tell you what he’ll give you. If we can localize the guy, he’s a legit target. Directing a rebellion, targeting UN forces? Definitely. We’re not in the assassination business.”
Dan felt strange, detached, as if watching actors in a film having this discussion. “I don’t like even hearing that word.”
“It’s not me saying it. It’d be the JAGers.”
The military lawyers. “Who’d say . . . what?”
“That it’s more how it’s done than that it’s done.”
“Not sure I grok you, Colonel.”
Dickinson stopped in the middle of the empty terminal and jabbed Dan’s chest, with a rigid forefinger. His eyes were rimmed with blood as if he’d been chewing qat, though it was probably just sleep deprivation. “It’s gray area, Commander. Okay? A politician, he’s off limits. Military, he’s fair fucking game. Which is Al-Maahdi? You tell me. Are the Waleeli a political party? To us they’re fucking guerrillas, insurgents. To Olowe they’re rebels, but he’s not the government, not yet, and this isn’t a war. We’re here under a UN mandate. If it looks like we’re taking out faction leaders, even violent ones, there’ll be sheer fucking hell to pay. But if we call him as military, hit him with a Hellfire from a Predator, it’s legitimate. If we pay somebody to put poison in his tea, that’s assassination.”
“How about a sniper team? Don’t tell me. Gray area.”
“Big time. That’s why I think what we’ll get from the general will be, ‘I never got this briefing.’ Not because he’s a bad guy. Ahearn’s as straight a shooter as I’ve come across. It’s an inescapable element of an ineluctable situation.”
Dan pushed his finger away. “I guess that’s as plain as it’s going to get. So?”
“All right.” Dickinson looked grim, even for a man with a shaved head. He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “So. Let’s take it in to the general.”
. . .
AISHA had driven them herself, strictly against regulations, without an escort, and without protective vests either, in an embassy van she’d found parked behind the fueling station. The desk clerk who’d given her Nuura’s note sat petrified in the passenger seat, the stink of his fear filling the car. He kept counting the money she’d handed him. Then would point to a missed turn, and she’d have to back up and maneuver the van around in some narrow alley.
The streets were spooky, deserted in the artificial twilight the smoke made. The wind smelled of burning rubber and trash. But at last they were there.
This street wasn’t deserted. People bustled about, carrying things out of the houses. Like a gigantic neighborhoodwide garage sale, though there were no card tables with housewives and cash boxes. What she did see was tracks, huge ones. The unmistakable knobby wide treads of military tires.
The door he pointed at hung wide open. The house was hand-patted b
rick, yardless, indistinguishable from the ones around it. She’d known Nuura was poor, but this mud hovel made the shed behind the embassy look lavish.
When she reached the door her guide bolted. She shouted, but he never looked back. She hesitated, peering through, only noticing then the hinges were broken. It had been battered open.
Under cover of her abaya, she pulled her purse around and extracted the SIG.
Inside clothes lay scattered across the dirt floor. Someone had shat on them. Flies rose in a droning cloud as she skirted the pile. Deep scrapes showed where heavy things had been dragged out. That might account for the lack of furniture, though there couldn’t have been much to start with. She gripped the pistol in both hands. “Nuura?” she called. She couldn’t remember the husband’s name. “I’m here. Nuura?”
The second room was totally dark and smelled foul. She felt the wall for a switch. Her fingertips found only gritty dried mud. Duh, Agent Ar-Rahim. She barked her shin on a piece of rickety furniture. She really should carry a flashlight. But her purse was already so heavy. . . . She called again and again; no one answered. She was turning away when something squeaked, back in the dark.
She took another step back toward the entrance. Then stopped.
She felt her way into the dark again, stooped, feeling with a free hand. Glass grated under her shoes.
A rear door stood partially open. She pushed the pistol through, then worked her upper body after. A galvanized washtub boomed as it toppled.
A little rear laundry room. A hole in the wall admitted dusty light. Broken reed baskets lay tumbled. The smell of rust and dank water. Dangling lines overhead. More clothes, threadbare, stained, piled in the corner. Rags.
The squeaking came again. From the corner. She lowered the muzzle of her pistol very slowly, and hooked the top rag with the front sight. An old dress, torn and stained. She lifted it.
It looked quite inhuman. Its head was misshapen, pointed, eyes squeezed closed. Tiny gray fists waved feebly. It couldn’t be more than a few hours old. Catching her breath, Aisha flipped the dirty cloth aside.
It was a she. Nuura’s baby girl.
