Bad Intent

by Jordan Cole

  Riley didn’t yell out. Didn’t waste energy with a Stop! or Hold up! Just put his head down and churned his legs and tried to keep up. Running too frenetically to make out much of Flip, aside from his checkered flannel shirt. Their chase had branched away from the main tent city further into the forest. A smattering of people watched them go by, until their numbers thinned, it was just Riley and Flip. If Flip lost him out here, Riley might never find him again. Might not even find his way back. But if he could keep up, Flip would tire. They always did.

  Flip darted and juked, dashing between the trees, down sloping embankments, leaping small creeks. Riley maintained his breathing and swung his arms and followed, moving carefully. Didn’t want to slip and fall. A minute passed, Flip running as hard as he could. He stumbled once and kept going. That was it, Riley thought. He’d be slowing now. No one could keep that pace, not for long. Not unless Flip happened to be an Olympic distance runner.

  It happened quickly. Flip turned, saw Riley was still there, and tried to speed up. Couldn’t do it. His left leg flailed out and he slipped. Tumbled to the ground. Riley closed the gap, and Flip rose, a switchblade in his hand. Long dark hair, but face freshly shaven. Young but tired, creased beneath the eyes. Hard to tell if it was indeed Fletcher. He moved forward with the knife and Riley backed off.

  “Leave me alone,” he said. His voice sounded weirdly strained, like he hadn’t been using it much lately. “I mean it. Don’t come any closer.”

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” Riley said.

  “Bullshit. You’re chasing me through the goddamn woods.”

  “Are you Andrew Fletcher?”

  A pause. The right side of Flip’s face twitched involuntarily.

  “Don’t know who the hell that is. My name is Flip.”

  Riley pulled the crumpled photo that Metzer had given him from his pocket. Held it up.

  “This isn’t you?”

  “No, man.”

  “Then why’d you run?”

  “I don’t know, they were screaming after me. I got scared.”

  “You are Fletcher,” Riley said. Looking him in the eye. “You were out in San Francisco. Then you came here. Your parents got your letter. They knew what it meant.”

  Something in Flip’s expression changed. Hope drained from his eyes, the fight pooling out of him. The hand holding the knife sagged. He looked like he was about to cry. Suddenly looked very young.

  “Just do it man,” he said. “Pull out your gun and shoot me. Get it over with. You found me. Just leave my folks alone.”

  “I told you, I’m not--”

  “Just do it! I’ve had enough, man. I’m tired of running. You’ve found me, just finish it.” He started muttering what sounded like an Islamic prayer.

  Something crashed through the brush behind them. Riley turned. It was Agatha, covered in mud and huffing and puffing.

  “What’s...” she started, dropping her hands to her knees and trying to catch her breath, “Going on?”

  Fletcher studied her, confused.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “He thinks we’re here to kill him,” Riley said.

  Agatha shook her head, still hunched over, trying to get air.

  “We’re not,” she said. “I worked with Pete Saccarelli. Riley here is working with me. Andrew, we need your help.”

  Fletcher shook his head.

  “I can’t help anyone,” he said. “It’s just going to end with you getting murdered. That’s what happened to Pete. That’s what would have happened to me, if I hadn’t gotten lucky. If I’d hung around a day longer, I’d be rotting in a shallow grave somewhere. That’s how they do it, you know. They bury you alive. They did it to Pete.”

  “Who’s they?” Riley asked.

  “Spooks. Ex-military. The worst people you can imagine.”

  The fear on Fletcher’s face was palpable. Far from a hardened operative, he looked like a scared kid who’d made a big mistake. Agatha walked alongside him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Fletcher flinched violently. Not so much afraid she might try something as he was repulsed by human touch. Someone had done a number on him, all right. A volatile mix of orthodoxy and insecurity.

  “Can you help us?” Agatha asked. “Can you tell us what you know?”

  Again, Fletcher’s eyes darted back and forth. Maybe expecting a paramilitary force to burst out of the surrounding forest. Or helicopters to come thumping overhead, black-clad shock troops rappelling down fast ropes.

  “You guys aren’t government?” he asked. “Not military?”

  “Civilians,” Riley said. “On the run, like you. I’m Riley, and she’s Agatha. The same people who killed Pete framed me for murder. And they’re trying to kidnap her. They think she either knows something or has something incriminating and they need to get it back.”

  More indecision. Fletcher finally retracted the knife and placed it back into his pocket.

  “Can you stop them? If I tell you? Can you make it go away?”

  Kid, the way things are heading I’ll be lucky if I don’t spend the next thirty years in prison, Riley thought. But all he said was, “We’ll try.”

  “All right. Then I’ll tell you everything. But not here. Back by the tents. Witnesses, you know? In case anything happens. And once I talk, I’m done. You won’t see me again. Because if I stick around with you, I’m a dead man. You get me?”

  “Yeah,” Riley said.

  Fletcher nodded. Led them back through the woods at a steady clip. Much slower than the frantic chase that got them out there in the first place. Riley and Agatha followed behind, moving warily over the rocky streams, Riley hoping this wasn’t another ploy, that Fletcher wouldn’t bolt from view while they were traversing a slippery log. But he didn’t. Just kept pressing forward in a resigned trudge until the multicolored tents and mattresses came back into view. The sky above a swirling, hazy purple. A low murmur of conversation, benign arguments among fellow tramps. If anyone noticed the chase into the forest and Fletcher’s subsequent sheepish return, they didn’t comment on it. Fletcher took them beside a sad-looking purple tent, half slumped to the side like a stroke victim. A few milk crates were scattered beside it, and he sat down on one.

  “Sorry,” Fletcher said. “All I got.”

  But they weren’t about to complain, not when they were finally close to some answers. Riley lowered himself onto the hard, serrated surface, and Agatha did the same.

  “So,” Fletcher said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, even though the other mingling bums were out of earshot. “You want the story, huh.”

  “Take us through it,” Riley said. “From the beginning.”

  “Okay,” Fletcher said. Looking skyward, like he was thinking. Hands wringing through his greasy hair. “About two year ago, I converted to Islam. I’ve kind of...mellowed out since then, but when I first started I was hardcore. Salat, prayer five time a day, no pork, everything halal, nothing haraam, no alcohol, cigarettes, anything like that. I spent all my free time reading the Qu’ran and praying at the Mosque I went to in Minneapolis.”

  “Right,” Agatha said. “And there you met fellow radicals.”

  “No,” Fletcher said, shaking his head. “You can’t trust the guys at the mosques. Half of them are government agents. Everyone in Minnesota was on the up and up, anyway. It was online where I met people. I was on a ton of jihadi message boards. Really focused on Syria, the civil war, Al-Nusra front, the Islamic State. ISIS, you know. I was convinced they were building a new Caliphate for Islam. And I wanted to fight with them.”

  “The guys that are beheading children and selling women into sex slavery,” Riley said. “That’s the team you chose?”

  Fletcher shut his eyes.

  “I didn’t know about all that at the time. All I knew is that they were the most hardcore Muslims around who put sharia law above all else, and I was trying to be the most hardcore Muslim I could. I spent all day either in prayer or on the internet with p
eople who thought exactly like me and told me whatever I wanted to hear.”

  “You seem awfully self-reflective now that all this shit blew up in your face,” Riley said. Agatha gave him a glare and gave Fletcher a sympathetic look, like they were a good cop bad cop duo.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” Fletcher said, shrugging. “I wanted to fight and die for a cause. I was messed up. I still am. But I see things a little bit clearer now.”

  “Riley’s just irritable,” Agatha said. “We’ve been on the road a long time. A lot of people against us. It’s not personal.”

  “Yeah,” Fletcher said, scratching his neck in a manic way that didn’t exactly suggest the most credible of mouthpieces. “So anyway, I’m getting ready to head over to Syria. But before I do, one of the jihadist websites I posted on gets hit. Nothing sophisticated, just a DDoS attack. They figure it’s the Syrian government and so without really thinking I go into the servers and find an exploit and manage to get the names of the guys responsible. I give that info to the other jihadis, and not long after I get contacted by this guy Abu Hasan. Which is basically like a fake name, for a Muslim. Like John Smith. He contacts me through email, super encrypted, heavy duty stuff.”

  “How’d you know he wasn’t a government agent?” Riley asked. “This Abu Hasan?”

  “Because,” Fletcher said. “He sends me a video of himself, beheading an Iraqi police captain. I saw the guy bleed out. Heard him screaming. Saw Abu’s lips moving saying, in English, ‘I’m Abu Hasan, we want you, Mohammad Abu Shakra, to join us.’ That was my Muslim name. I could speak Arabic decently well at the time. They checked me out. Knew I was a real Muslim, and not with the government.”

  “I’ve spent time in Iraq,” Riley said. “Some time in Syria. Those hardliner guys don’t like Americans very much. You must have really impressed them.” He looked around to see if anyone was listening, but no one was paying any attention. The other homeless were just sprawled listlessly or walking around, unaware of the strange, lurid conversation unfolding close by.

  “They needed computer guys,” Fletcher said. “They knew I was for real. I told them I was ready to go. They said they would hook me up with a passport, money, whatever I needed. But they wanted me to train first. Before I went out to the field. They said a guy with my computer skills and combat training would be invaluable. I didn’t want to just get plunked down behind the scenes on a Mac. I wanted to fight. I said I’ll come in through Turkey into Syria, get the training, and start fighting for ISIS. But...”

  “But what?” Agatha said.

  “But Abu Hasan said no. The training wouldn’t be in Syria. It would be right here. In America.”

  Almost evening now. Lights from trashcan fires and dug out pits illuminated the tent city, casting a kind of otherworldly flickering shadow over everything. Birds cawed in the trees, beginning to roost. Riley stared at Fletcher like he was crazy.

  “That’s absurd,” Riley said. “ISIS uses foreign fighters as suicide bombers and cannon fodder. They wouldn’t go through the effort to train them, especially not in the states. The risk would be enormous.”

  “Unless they changed their minds,” Agatha said.

  “It wasn’t just Americans,” Fletcher said. “The fighters were from lots of different countries. They trained us every day for months. Like boot camp, with a higher learning curve. It was brutal. Small arms, hand to hand combat, long range shooting. Arabic lessons. How to build and disarm IEDs. Nighttime infiltrations, that kind of thing. By the time it was done, we knew our shit. Could lead a battalion, command men. Contribute to the fighting.”

  “Where was this?” Riley asked.

  “We didn’t know exactly. They blindfolded us and drove us out into the forest. But it was somewhere in Virginia or North Carolina for sure. A whole camp set up in the woods out there, everything you could ask for.”

  “A decommissioned army base, maybe,” Riley said. “A mess hall and a barracks and a firing range.”

  “Not exactly,” Fletcher said. “But you’re on the right track. We had guns and bullets. Everything we needed to train. Warehouses full of old army surplus gear. The cover was a training camp for CIA operatives. To do work overseas. But that was a lie. We were groomed to join the enemy.”

  “Who was running the thing? Names?”

  “Like I said.” Fletcher stared at them, young eyes prematurely lined and darkened, eyes that looked like they had aged a lot over the course of the past year. “Ex-military guys. They used nicknames. Sarge, Captain, that kind of thing. An older guy named Frazier, he was in charge. I only know that because Pete Saccarelli told me, later on. The guys training us I’m assuming were ex-special forces. Maybe 10 of them total.”

  “Fort Bragg is right there at the tail end of North Carolina,” Riley said. “No shortage of black ops guys to choose from.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Agatha said. Steepling her hands over her face. “Riley, these guys were running a terrorist training camp on American soil. Providing material support to ISIS. That’s serious shit.”

  “It’s beyond serious,” Riley said. “It’s treason. No wonder they’re cleaning house like this. These guys go down, they’re facing the death penalty.”

  “They won’t go down,” Fletcher said. “They’ve scorched the Earth. All the evidence is gone. I’m the only one who knows the truth, and I’m persona non grata in the eyes of the US Government. A jihadist Muslim freed on a technicality? I’d get laughed out of the courtroom. Peter was the only one who could corroborate my story, and he’s dead.”

  “Not true,” Riley said. Pointing to Agatha. “She’s still alive. The last loose end they’re trying to wrap up. We just don’t know why.”

  “I think I might,” said Fletcher.

  25.

  “Care to share?” Riley asked. “Or should we sit here playing 20 questions?”

  It was full dark now, and the tent city was filling up. The rest of the homeless trudging back from their daily grind of begging for change or collecting bottles or scrounging a hot meal at a shelter or church. He was worried about the car, worried about their exit from the crowded tract of land, worried that someone would recognize them before they could to relay the news to Metzer and possibly have a fighting chance to get out of this alive. But they needed to hear the whole story first. No telling what Fletcher might pull when their little palaver was over with.

  “After the training was over, they shipped us out,” Fletcher said. “Our own private plane, passports for those that didn’t have them. Everything was well funded. Some of the guys went toward Iraq, Al-Qaeda. Others went to Africa and Boko Haram. I got to Turkey, with instructions to meet with a fixer who would take me into Syria and up to the front lines. Staying at the Hotel Istanbul in a town called Kilis. Filled with journalists covering the Syrian war. A really crazy place, at the time.”

  “Peter was there,” Agatha said. “The Hotel Istanbul. He mentioned that to me, one of the last times I saw him. He was supposed to be in Budapest, covering the trade unions there. I guess he traveled to Turkey looking for the bigger story.”

  “Yeah,” Fletcher said. “That’s where I met him.”

  “Let me guess,” Riley said. “You got cold feet?”

  Fletcher turned, surprise on his face.

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve seen it before. You’re all gung ho to fight. You’ve been training and having fun out in the forest. Then you fly across the ocean and get to this hotel and it’s a madhouse and nobody knows what the hell is going on, and five miles away across the border snipers are killing dozens of people every day and heads are getting chopped off and suddenly being a martyr doesn’t sound so hot. Happens to regular GIs with some frequency, no reason it wouldn’t happen to you. With your abbreviated training, they didn’t really have time to break you down and build you up. You weren’t a cohesive team. You were lone fanatics, each with your own agendas. Didn’t really stop to consider the prospect of going AWOL
, at least once you were out of the states. So when you’re confronted with the reality of the situation, maybe talking to a friendly reporter seems more tempting than huddling in a burned out building, facing mortar fire.”

  Fletcher said nothing. His eyes distant, like he was reliving the scene in his head. Back at the hotel, with the peeling paint and voices yelling in Arabic and muffled explosions sounding in the distance. Finally, he spoke.

  “You got it, pretty much. I’m impressed with your reasoning, sir. Totally on the ball. I didn’t have some noble change of heart. I just got scared. Saccarelli saw me and I guess he sensed something and he asked me to have a couple of drinks. Next thing I knew, we had finished a bottle of Jameson and I was telling him everything. First drink I’d had in years, it was haraam, but I didn’t care. I was looking for a way out. I just didn’t have it in me.”

  “Pete must have been beside himself with joy,” Agatha said. “He’d been waiting his entire life for a story like that.”

  “It’s a pretty wild story for him to just drop everything,” Riley said. “Especially considering how drunk the two of you must have been.”

  “He didn’t believe me at first,” said Fletcher. “But I pressed. Told him every detail I could remember. He was adamant we work together. He was heading back to the states, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. We were supposed to burn our passports once we arrived in Syria, but I managed to hide mine. But I didn’t want to go back to the US. So I went to London instead. Stayed in touch with Saccarelli, talked to him on Skype. We worked together, trying to pinpoint the location of the camp, figure out who was running it. But they were too good about security. I couldn’t figure out the location of the training ground, not from England. Couldn’t identify any of the guys there.”