The Ethan Galaal Series: Books 1 - 3

by Isaac Hooke

  Sam and company had to contact the courier before anyone else did, as it was possible he might be the one selected to notify the Shura council of the kidnapping. Time was of the essence. The interrogation had to proceed immediately, with Al Taaraz's cooperation expedited.

  To avoid any irksome congressional inquiries, Sam usually utilized interrogators hailing from the local foreign intelligence service of the country she resided in. Obviously she didn't have that luxury in the current situation. But even if she did, she didn't have time for the usual "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

  Sam had specifically asked for Ethan's involvement that day. "You're very menacing when you want to be," she'd told him.

  What happened next was to be strictly off the books, and would never be reported in any email or document. When Ethan eventually obtained the intel, Sam would simply write: The High Value Target betrayed the courier.

  Ethan descended into the square-like basement room. A light bulb hung from the ceiling, but it was inactive of course. Instead, a ChemLight glow stick had been tossed into one corner, bathing the stone walls in low intensity chemiluminescence. An aperture in one wall presumably allowed oxygen exchange with the upper floor when the ceiling trapdoor was sealed.

  At the center of the room Al Taaraz hunched in a wooden chair, his feet bound, his hands tied behind his back. He glowed green in the chemical light. In front of him was a table arrayed with various tools and instruments of torture. The psychological breaking had already begun.

  Sam lurked in a shadowy recess, almost invisible in the green light because of the dark abaya and lowered veil she wore. Ethan meanwhile had doffed his woman clothes, and entered wearing only cargo pants and black gloves, his chest completely exposed. Sam had wanted Al Taaraz to see his physique. Wanted him to understand the sheer force of the man Al Taaraz was going up against. Before descending, Ethan had completed several pushups to pump up his arms, and the body heat the exercise generated had the added benefit of making him seem immune to the chill.

  He approached the emir.

  "Where is Abu Afri?" Ethan said quietly. He towered over the man.

  "Do you know who I am?" Al Taaraz asked imperiously.

  "Yes, you're my prisoner." Ethan offered him a steel canteen. "Water?"

  The man eyed the vessel suspiciously and then shook his head.

  Ethan shrugged and took a short drink. When finished, he dumped half the contents of the canteen over Al Taaraz's head. The man began to shiver as the cold water trickled down his naked body.

  "I am Al Taaraz Abd Al Wajid," the man said, trembling wildly from the cold. "Emir of Mosul and regional commander of Dawla. I demand immediate release."

  "Say again? I couldn't hear you."

  "I am emir—"

  "I think we need to clean out your mouth." Ethan squeezed the man's nostrils.

  Al Taaraz tried to wriggle free but Ethan held him fast. When the man's mouth shot open for air, Ethan poured the canteen down his throat, pausing whenever Al Taaraz closed his mouth, and resuming when his lips reopened. Al Taaraz was spluttering and coughing by the time the canteen was empty.

  Ethan felt slightly nauseous. He hated that kind of work, however necessary it might be. He glanced at his own gloved fingers, toward the slight humps over the fingernail regions caused by the bandages underneath, and reminded himself that the Islamic State had done worse to him.

  It didn't make him feel any better.

  "Where is Abu Afri?" Ethan said.

  "You will burn in hellfire for this, infidel," Al Taaraz spat.

  "You don't know, do you?" Ethan said.

  Al Taaraz didn't answer.

  "The courier you use to communicate with Abu Afri. Tell me how you contact him."

  Al Taaraz's eyes glinted defiantly.

  Ethan glanced at the black ghost that was Sam. She waited until Al Taaraz gazed her way as well, and then she inclined her veiled head.

  Ethan turned toward the table, where the various tools and other instruments of torture were arrayed in full view of the prisoner. To obtain the items, Maaz had done a quick supply run, visiting various hardware stores nearby. Sam had provided the last two items—a vial of acid from an electroplating company, and a Smith & Wesson 640 revolver.

  Ethan grabbed the vial from the table and released a drop of acid on Al Taaraz's pant leg, just above the knee. The man began to squirm as the liquid ate through the cotton to his skin, but his expression remained defiant.

  "Acid is going to take too long." Ethan set aside the vial. "Let's speed things up and have some fun while we're at it."

  He grabbed the 640 and calmly inserted three rounds, leaving two of the firing chambers empty. He gave the lubricated cylinder a good spin, then swung it back into the main revolver; he turned the cylinder one last time to make sure it locked.

  "I hear you are employing some Russian mercenaries," Ethan said. "There's a little game they like to play. Have you heard of it?"

  Ethan aimed at the emir's temple and squeezed the trigger.

  CLICK.

  Al Taaraz jerked, the fear obvious in his eyes.

  "How do you contact the courier you use to communicate with Abu Afri?"

  The man's jaw set.

  Ethan swung out the cylinder of the revolver, gave it a good spin, and closed it. He pointed the 640 at Al Taaraz once more and repeated the question.

  When the man didn't answer, Ethan squeezed the trigger.

  CLICK.

  Al Taaraz swallowed nervously.

  "We can do this all day if you want," Ethan said. What Al Taaraz didn't know was that the rounds were dummies.

  "I'll never talk," Al Taaraz snarled.

  Ethan repeated the cylinder-spin ritual and pointed the 640 at the man.

  CLICK.

  Al Taaraz was shivering worse than ever.

  Ethan glanced at Sam. "I think he's in a susceptible mental state. Let's try it."

  "Try what?" Al Taaraz tried to sound defiant, though the quaver in his voice betrayed the raw fear. "I told you, I'm never going to talk. Torture me all you want. All day, as you say. I await my glorious death. Tonight I awaken in paradise!"

  Ethan made another show of spinning the cylinder.

  "You awake in paradise tonight with an eternal erection?" Ethan shoved the 640 into Al Taaraz's crotch. "What if we decide not to kill you? What if we decide to let you live? But without a certain reproductive organ?"

  Al Taaraz's eyes bulged with fear.

  CLICK.

  Al Taaraz exhaled in obvious relief, and began to gasp for air.

  Ethan turned toward Sam. "He's definitely susceptible now."

  "Do it," Sam agreed.

  "Do what?" Al Taaraz said, all the defiance gone from his voice.

  "Wafeeq?" Ethan called.

  William came down the steps, holding a syringe.

  AFTER THE INJECTION, Ethan opened a laptop on the counter. Doug had set up the Iridium Go on the rooftop, and the resultant Wi-Fi gave him Internet.

  Ethan turned the laptop toward the man and instructed him to summon the courier. The emir logged into a Yahoo account after several failed attempts—he had problems typing his password in that drugged state—and when he finally got in, he drunkenly clicked on the draft folder.

  Ethan took over at that point, and spotted two other messages sitting in the folder. Unencrypted. That was good, because without access to the public key file from his copy of The Mujahadeen's Secrets, Al Taaraz wouldn't be able to help them. Even so, the messages were somewhat cryptic in and of themselves.

  The first read 022013. The second 030413. Eventually, after some carefully worded questions that required Al Taaraz to either nod or shake his head, Ethan and Sam determined that the numbers were dates and times. The first set of numbers was equivalent to February 20th, thirteen o'clock. The second, March 4th, same time. The location was obviously implied.

  Ethan launched Google Maps and told the emir, "Show me the message hand-off location."


  Al Taaraz clumsily navigated with the mouse, finally marking a street corner near a mosque.

  Ethan left a new message in the draft folder, using the same format, choosing thirteen o'clock the next day. He deleted the previous two messages and left another that read, in Arabic, Please delete the contents of this folder when you get this.

  Satisfied that the interrogation was successful, Sam tagged Al Taaraz for pickup: sometime during the week, probably in the next day or so, other operatives would transfer the emir to a secure location outside Mosul. Until then, the resistance would have to hold him.

  Ethan and the others left Al Taaraz in the care of the cobbler and a resistance guard, then made their way back to the forward operating base to prepare for the next phase of the mission.

  HANDS IN HIS POCKETS, Ethan walked along the sidewalk, dressed in a winter cap, jacket, sweater and slacks. Sam had applied a light coat of foundation to his face, covering the bruises.

  Ethan reached the designated street corner five minutes early. No one was present, save for an Iraqi seated on a nearby curb in front of a parked Kia Cerato. The haji was playing with his phone, ostensibly looking for a network signal. He looked very ordinary in his winter clothing, and like many Iraqis, wore a mustache rather than a beard. The courier? No. The man didn't really resemble the file photo.

  Ethan waited. A few passersby came and went.

  Ten minutes passed.

  Ethan began to wonder if the courier was going to show up. He studied the Iraqi by the curb once more. That couldn't be him. Then again, the picture he had seen had been very blurry.

  As Ethan watched, the individual abruptly got up and approached.

  Ethan realized why he hadn't recognized the man from the photo. His mustache had grown thick in the intervening years, as had his brow, which had become almost a unibrow. His face was far more weathered, too, with fine lines throughout, like sun-dried earth.

  "Salaam," the man told him. He rubbed his nose.

  "Salaam," Ethan answered cautiously.

  "You are not the usual messenger."

  "I am the new messenger," Ethan said simply.

  The man stared at him, waiting. He rubbed his nose again. "And what is the message?"

  Sam had almost given Ethan a tracking device in the form of a memory stick, but she believed the courier wouldn't trust a new messenger enough to deliver something like that. Instead Ethan was to recite an oral message.

  "The Prince of the Faithful must call a meeting of the Shura council soon. There is a new member the emir of Mosul wishes to nominate. An Islamic scholar named Kareef Al Bayati who promises much funding. He has an extensive social media following, with many videos on YouTube."

  For several moments the courier simply stared impassively, as if hesitant. Did the man consider the message too unimportant to relay? Ethan had argued for sharing the news of Al Taaraz's kidnapping instead, but in the end Sam decided against it. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

  The courier abruptly repeated the message, word for word. What Ethan had mistaken for hesitance was in fact memorization.

  "That's correct," Ethan said. "May Allah grant you speed."

  The courier nodded, rubbing his nose. He turned around and strode away at a crisp pace.

  Ethan departed in the opposite direction. He rounded a bend, jaywalked through the traffic, and then ducked into the backseat of a waiting Rio.

  26

  "Do we have him?" Ethan said, donning a headset.

  Maaz sat in the driver's seat, Sam rode shotgun. She wore a full veil, currently lowered, and had the laptop open before her.

  "For now," she answered. On the laptop screen was the familiar top-down representation of the street, courtesy of the Predator far overhead. Two red dots flashed intermittently, moving westward: Doug and William, tailing the man. They would be dressed as males. "The footage?"

  Ethan produced a microcamera from his breast pocket. He popped the micro SD card from the back and handed it to Sam.

  "Shukran," she said. Thank you.

  Ethan checked to make sure no one was walking past, then grabbed the abaya from the seat beside him and shrugged it over his clothes. He slid the hijab over his head and followed that with a veil. Two other women's outfits lay in a black pile beside him.

  "Subject is ducking into the nearby mosque," Doug sent over the comm. "Pursuing."

  "I'm going around back," William sent.

  On Sam's display, the subject vanished inside the mosque. One of the red dots maneuvered toward the rear of the building, while the first red dot went directly inside.

  "Don't lose him..." Ethan said, wishing he had volunteered to act as a tail instead.

  He watched the first red dot zig-zag through the mosque, while the second halted behind the building.

  "Visual reestablished," William announced over the comm. "He just emerged from the back of the mosque. He's crossing the parking lot, heading toward the road."

  Sam zoomed in slightly; the subject appeared in the paved terrace behind the elaborate building.

  William's red dot remained stationary for several moments, letting the subject acquire a lead, and then started moving again. Doug's signal emerged from the mosque a moment later and both operatives continued westward in pursuit.

  "Maaz, drive forward two blocks," Sam told the driver. She didn't want to lose the comm signal.

  Maaz obeyed.

  "He's back on the main road," William sent, a hint of static on the line. "There's a muj checkpoint up ahead. I'm going to have to go around."

  Ethan watched the red dots retreat. Sam meanwhile zoomed in, obviously wanting to keep the subject in sight while William and Doug took the long way around; she quickly reached the maximum zoom. The courier appeared little bigger than a bumblebee, and with his dun-colored clothes, it was difficult to tell him apart from the other pedestrians queued at the checkpoint. Sam temporarily lifted her niqab so that she could see the laptop screen better.

  When the courier was through, Sam panned the camera, keeping the subject in view at all times.

  "We're back on the main road," William sent. "Subject is in sight."

  Sam zoomed out until she could see the dots representing Doug and William once more. She instructed Maaz to drive closer via a side street that avoided the checkpoint.

  "Subject is heading into a busy souk," William said over the comm.

  Sam lifted her niqab again. She was frowning. There was no way the Predator's camera could pierce the thick canopies that covered the marketplace.

  The two dots pursued the subject into the souk. William was farther ahead than Doug.

  "Update, please," Sam said.

  "I lost him," Doug returned.

  "William?" Sam said. His dot wasn't moving.

  No answer.

  "William? I'd appreciate an update."

  His dot started forward once more. "Still have him," William said.

  Sam exhaled in relief.

  "He's emerging from the souk," William said. "And crossing the road. Looks like he's headed toward another mosque."

  Sam had Maaz drive another two blocks closer.

  "He's entering the parking lot," William said into the comm. His dot suddenly accelerated. "He's getting into a parked Elantra."

  "Can you tag it?" Sam asked.

  William didn't answer.

  "Wil—"

  "Got it," he returned.

  Another red dot appeared on the display, heading westward at vehicular speeds. Sam zoomed in on the moving object, which appeared to be a Hyundai Elantra.

  "Was he alone in the vehicle?" Sam asked.

  "I believe so," William replied.

  "Meet Doug in the front of the mosque. We'll be there in two."

  When the Rio arrived, the waiting operatives squeezed into the backseat with Ethan.

  "Well done, people," Sam said.

  Doug and William shrugged on their abayas and niqabs. Seated just beside him, William elbowed Ethan a couple of times in the
process.

  "Damn it," Ethan said. He punched William hard in the ribs.

  "Hey!" William said. "Not my fault. There's hardly any room. Can't you move over more?"

  "Tell Doug that," Ethan said.

  "I'm already crushing my balls enough as it is," Doug complained.

  "Get settled, people," Sam said, her voice tight. "We have a long drive ahead of us. Subject is heading south, toward the city limits. Looks like he's making for Highway 1 southbound."

  "The Baghdad-Mosul highway?" Maaz said.

  "Yes. Do you know how to get there?"

  "Of course," the driver answered.

  "Good." She switched to English, probably so that Maaz wouldn't understand. "I'm calling in a Lancer. Just in case they give us trouble at the exit."

  "Not that it'll help," Doug said. "We'll be too close to the enemy for the bomber to drop anything."

  "Not if there's a chase," Sam insisted. She typed rapidly on the laptop.

  The traffic was funneled through an intermediary checkpoint. Maaz showed the identity documents of himself and his sisters, and the militant on duty tiredly waved the vehicle through.

  When the checkpoint was behind them, Sam retrieved her hidden laptop and repositioned the thick antenna near the window. She abruptly lifted a hand to her ear. "I read you loud and clear, Captain Brown. Stand by."

  "Since when did you pass the JTAC qualification?" Ethan joked.

  "I always preferred the term Forward Air Controller." Sam glanced at the display screen. "The courier just left the city, people. He's on the Baghdad-Mosul highway. Speed it up, Maaz."

  "If you have that," Maaz nodded at the laptop. "Why do we need to pursue? Won't your computer tell you where he goes?"

  "The Islamic State uses its own particular brand of tradecraft," Sam said. "Which they learned from Al Qaeda. They like to park cars under makeshift canopies along the roads, hidden from the eyes of our drones, so that when a courier arrives, the driver can switch vehicles. Multiple cars emerge from the canopy and drive off in separate directions, acting as decoys."