The Enemy Within

by Larry Bond

“You mean besides our wonderful accommodations?”

  Thorn matched Rossini’s wry tone. “Yeah. Besides that.”

  “Frankly, not as many as I expected. The teams I’ve set up are shaking out pretty well. The data’s starting to come in and most of the agencies are cooperating—or at least making a good first stab at it.”

  Then Rossini shook his head. “But we need more focus, Pete. More practical input on the kinds of intel Delta, the SEALs, and the rest of the Command really need for planning and conducting operations. Without that we’re just another time-wasting loop in the information cycle.”

  Thorn nodded, starting to understand why Farrell thought he could do some good here.

  Providing the Joint Special Operations Command with highly accurate, up-to-date intelligence on terrorist groups and their foreign backers was the whole rationale for this new unit’s existence. The Special Operations Command already had a Directorate of Intelligence staffed by hundreds of dedicated professionals, but they were mostly sited far away from Washington, D.C. They were also often mired in the kinds of interagency rivalries and lockstep thinking that inevitably developed in large organizations.

  For years Delta Force and the other American commando units had been complaining about the quality of the intelligence support they received. Delta even had its own detachment of covert operatives, nicknamed the Funny Platoon, to provide tactical intelligence just before any strike. The ILU was an effort to build on that—to expand JSOC’s storehouse of reliable information to the strategic and operational levels. People outside JSOC saw Major General Farrell’s new unit as simple empire-building. People inside saw it as a matter of survival. Bad intelligence got good soldiers killed.

  Apparently, the general was counting on him to give Rossini and his civilian teams the military and operational insights they lacked. Now, that made sense, Thorn thought, feeling a surge of excitement and satisfaction at the prospect of real, meaningful work—work that could save lives. He wasn’t an analyst, and he certainly wasn’t a skilled “fixer” able to navigate the Pentagon’s tangled administrative backwaters. But he did know the kind of data commandos needed to survive and succeed.

  He leaned forward. “Okay. Let’s concentrate on developing that focus first, then. We can’t turn analysts into Delta commandos, but we can give ’em a clearer idea of just what’s involved in putting a mission together and in pulling it off without getting killed. Here’s what I think we need to do …”

  Rossini listened intently while he outlined his ideas, interrupting only to clarify something or to offer alternate suggestions.

  By the time they broke for a quick lunch, Thorn was feeling better about his new post. A lot of his success or failure in this assignment would depend on how well he and his deputy director worked together. Although it would take time to fully sort their relationship out, his first take was positive. Rossini might be carrying around a lot of extra weight, but none of that fat was between his ears.

  JUNE 18

  Fighting an urge to put a bullet through the computer screen in front of him, Peter Thorn forced himself to take another stab at understanding the procedures required to request photorecon satellite time. The acronyms and bureaucratic doublespeak glowing on his monitor were all starting to run together in one unintelligible mass.

  Pursuant to AFR 200-11, NSDD-42, and DCID 1/13, requests to the NFIB’s Committee on Imagery Requirements and Exploitation (COMIREX) must first be approved by the appropriate offices and suboffices listed in DOD Circular 18/307.5…

  “Got a minute?” Rossini’s booming voice broke the spell.

  Thorn looked up in relief and waved his deputy in. “Hell, Joe, take an hour.” He nodded in disgust at the electronic text showing on his computer. “I’ll be old and gray before this stuff makes any sense to me.”

  “If you ever do figure it out, you’ll probably be the first person in DOD history,” Rossini said sympathetically. “The rest of us just fill out as many random forms as we can find and hope to hit the right ones by luck.”

  “Swell.” Thorn swiveled his chair away from the computer. “So what’s up?”

  “Mike McFadden came to me an hour ago with some interesting material.” Rossini sat down and plopped a thin stack of papers down on the desk in front of him. “He’s been digging through some of the data the CIA collects from the Brits, the French, and the rest of NATO. These pieces caught his eye.”

  Thorn paged through them. Most were intelligence reports from the international peacekeeping units and headquarters stationed in Bosnia. Somebody, either McFadden or Rossini, had highlighted the significant sections with a yellow marker.

  His eyebrows went up. Buried deep among the routine descriptions of Serb, Muslim, and Croat troop movements and weapons deployments were some disquieting reports. There were rumors circulating through the Muslim armed militias and guerrilla forces—rumors of mysterious foreigners spreading money and plane tickets to men with good combat records and leadership skills.

  He looked up at Rossini. “Somebody’s recruiting terrorists again.”

  “Yep.” Rossini spread his hands. “The question is, who?”

  “The CIA have any ideas?”

  Rossini shook his head. “Nope. Not that they’re much interested. Langley doesn’t see Bosnia as a priority. It’s a European bailiwick. And there’re no nukes involved to make it sexy for the Congress. Plus, they don’t have anyone on the ground outside of Sarajevo.”

  “Shit.” Thorn grimaced. “These recruiters could be working for almost anyone in the Islamic world. Iraq. Syria. Pakistan. Afghanistan. Even what’s left of HizbAllah or Hammas. Hell, they’ve all got military training missions operating inside Bosnia.”

  “So do the Iranians,” Rossini pointed out.

  “True.” Thorn nodded. He thought back over his conversations in Tehran. “Look, Joe, General Taleh promised to cooperate with us in the fight against terrorism. He’s certainly kicked the hell out of them inside his own country. Maybe we should test his cooperation on a bigger playing field.”

  “You want to see if his own intelligence people have picked up these same rumors?”

  “Right. Christ, one thing’s sure. The Iranians are bound to have better sources in Bosnia than the Brits, the French, or the CIA.” Thorn thought further for a moment. “Look, I’m flying down to Bragg next week for a conference with Farrell. Have McFadden put this together in an organized fashion and I’ll take it with me. Then we’ll see if the boss can shake loose a few more resources to follow this up on our own.”

  Rossini nodded. “Sounds good.”

  “In the meantime, we’ll keep digging ourselves with what we’ve got now—including a call to Taleh.” Thorn’s jaw tightened. “Some son of a bitch is out there rebuilding a terrorist movement, and I want to find out who the hell it is.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DRY RUN

  JUNE 21

  The Pentagon

  Colonel Peter Thorn sipped his instant coffee and grimaced at the awful taste. Served him right for arriving before the coffeemaker’s self-appointed caretakers turned the machine on, he thought. He bit down hard on a tired yawn.

  He’d started coming in to the office before dawn—partly to get an early start on the day, but mostly to avoid the Pentagon rush-hour crush he disliked so much. Although the strategy worked, coming in early didn’t mean he could leave any sooner. Mostly, he was still locked to his desk long into the evening. Since taking over the Intelligence Liaison Unit, he’d been putting in sixteen-hour days to bring himself up to speed on his analysts’ work and on the way the DOD system ran.

  Those extended days and nights were paying off in knowledge and understanding, but he knew he couldn’t keep up the murderous pace for much longer. Falling asleep on a pile of reports during a meeting would probably not be the best way to build his new staff’s confidence in him, he thought wryly.

  His phone buzzed suddenly, bringing him wide awake. “Thorn here.”

&nbs
p; “Colonel, this is Sergeant Nyland in Communications. You have a secure call from Tehran. A Captain Farhad Kazemi?” The noncom stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar name.

  “Put it through, Sergeant.” Thorn glanced at his computer monitor. With a little software wizardry from Joe Rossini, he’d set it to continuously display the local time in both Washington and Tehran. With eight and a half hours between them, it was still morning in D.C. It was near evening in the Iranian capital.

  He heard a series of clicks and then the low hum of a carrier wave as Kazemi came on the line. “Colonel Thorn?”

  The captain’s voice was slightly distorted by the satellite uplink and the scrambler but still recognizable. For the Iranians, the secure communications system they had been given was one of the first tangible technological fruits of Taleh’s quiet cooperation with the U.S. It wasn’t the newest equipment in the American electronics arsenal, but it was far more effective than anything else available to them.

  “Go ahead, Captain, this is Thorn.”

  “It is good to speak to you, Colonel.” Kazemi sounded genuinely glad to reach him, though he was clearly a bit surprised at the speed and ease involved in making a connection halfway around the globe. Nearly two decades of revolutionary turmoil and inadequate maintenance had left the domestic Iranian telephone system in complete chaos. “Please hold for a moment, sir. General Taleh will be here shortly.”

  Thorn arched an eyebrow in surprise. Although he hadn’t known exactly what to expect when he and Rossini asked the Iranians for their take on the rumored terrorist recruiting in Bosnia, he certainly had not expected a direct response from Amir Taleh himself. Commanders of Taleh’s high rank rarely worked the detail side of the intelligence game. With the radicals still in control of some parts of the Iranian government, he must be keeping the precise extent of his rapprochement with the U.S. a closely held secret.

  The Iranian general’s firm, confident voice came on the line. “Good morning, Peter.”

  Thorn sat up straighter. “Evening, sir.”

  “Shall we dispense with discussing the weather and the other usual pleasantries? I am afraid that my time is at a premium just now. Captain Kazemi guards my schedule like a jealous lion and he informs me that I have a staff meeting in short order.”

  Thorn smiled to himself. After days spent wading through Pentagon doublespeak, Taleh’s plain, blunt manner was a welcome breath of fresh air. “Of course.”

  “Good,” the Iranian said. “Then let us cut to the heart of the matter. I have questioned my intelligence officers about these rumors from Bosnia.” He paused briefly before continuing. “They confirm some of the reports you passed on to Kazemi.”

  “So someone is recruiting Bosnian Muslims as terrorists?”

  “So it appears,” Taleh agreed somberly. “However, they do not believe this recruiting effort is as widespread as your own intelligence agencies fear.”

  “Oh?”

  “It is the old story of the marketplace, Peter. One timid man sees a shadow and within the hour all have heard that an army of ghosts has gathered.” Thorn could almost hear the other man’s shrug. “I suspect such a process is at work in Bosnia. One man offered training abroad becomes ten men in the telling and retelling. And ten men recruited as terrorists becomes a thousand or ten thousand summoned to a new jihad as word is passed from wagging tongues to straining ears.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Thorn knew the Iranian had a good point. The rumors the various Western intelligence agencies were picking up could easily be stories blown out of proportion—“echoes” bouncing back and forth from a single, small kernel of truth. But even ten well-armed, well-trained terrorists could wreak almost as much havoc as a larger force.

  He said as much to Taleh.

  “That is true,” the Iranian said. “I assure you, I do not take this news lightly, Peter. I have no wish to see our mutual enemies regaining any of their strength—no matter how weak they are now.”

  “Do your intelligence people have any kind of a fix on who’s behind all this?” Thorn asked. If Taleh could just point him in the right direction, he and Rossini could put pressure on the CIA and the other agencies to focus the resources needed to find these bastards. To pinpoint them while they were still training. To keep them under close and constant watch. And then to smash them before they could act against the West.

  The Iranian disappointed him. “I am afraid we have no solid evidence.” He sighed. “It is a difficult matter. There are many different Muslim factions in Bosnia—almost as many as there are countries here in the Middle East. They have adopted as their own the quarrels and petty jealousies that tear us apart. They spend almost as much time killing each other as they do fighting the Serbs.

  “In any case, the more radical groups have little use for Iran now,” Taleh continued. “When I broke the hold of the HizbAllah over my nation, we lost what little influence we had over the fanatics. Their allegiances have shifted.”

  “To Baghdad?” Thorn asked, mentally fanning the deck of hostile Islamic powers and picking the most powerful among them.

  “I think it is likely,” Taleh agreed. “The Iraqis have ample reason to hate America and its allies.”

  Thorn nodded to himself. The Iranian general’s theory fit neatly into the composite picture of the current Islamic terrorism threat that Rossini and his analysts were putting together. Communications intercepts and reports from human sources already showed that the surviving fragments of the HizbAllah, Hammas, and other radical groups were drifting into Baghdad’s orbit. If Bosnian Muslims were being rounded up for a new terrorist campaign, the Iraq government was clearly the prime suspect.

  “I wish that I could have been more helpful. I promise, you will be the first to know if I learn anything more.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be grateful for any assistance you can provide,” Thorn said. “In the meantime, we’ll keep probing on our end.”

  “Of course. Go with God, Peter.”

  The connection to Tehran broke, leaving Thorn listening to a dial tone. He put the phone down, stood up, and poked his head outside his office.

  His secretary, a prim, middle-aged woman, was just hanging her purse on the back of her chair.

  “Peggy, will you ask Joe Rossini to see me as soon as he comes in? I just had a call we need to discuss.”

  Thorn pulled his head back inside before she could reply and sat down again at his keyboard. Hesitantly at first and then with increasing speed, he began typing in the commands needed to pull up the latest files on Iraq and its Ba‘thist regime.

  Defense Ministry, Tehran

  (D MINUS 177)

  General Amir Taleh turned away from his desk to find his military aide watching him intently.

  “Do they know, General?” Kazemi asked quietly.

  Taleh shook his head firmly. “No.” He shrugged. “As we thought, Farhad, the Americans have heard whispers in the wind. Nothing more.”

  He thought for a moment longer, pondering what Thorn had told him. Abruptly, he made a decision. “Nonetheless, the risks of our Bosnian enterprise are no longer worth the reward. We already have the men we need. Instruct General Sa‘idi to close down our operations there immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Taleh nodded to himself. The agents he had commissioned to find recruits had been cautious, using cutouts and false papers to shield their true identities. Even if Thorn kept “probing,” there should be no direct trail for the American to follow back to Iran. He looked up. Kazemi was still watching him.

  “Do you think the American colonel believed what you told him, General?”

  “For now.” Taleh smiled thinly at his subordinate. “Peter Thorn is a very determined, very intelligent man, Farhad. But he has one fatal weakness. He is an honest man who sees his own virtues in others. He does not understand that candor is a luxury for the strong. The weak cannot afford such nobility.”

  Kazemi nodded.

  “My old friend als
o puts too much faith in the common bond between soldiers.” Taleh frowned slightly. “There is such a bond, but there are ties which are stronger—those of blood and those to the one, true God. One may respect an enemy and yet remain committed to his destruction. After all, even the great Saladin and Richard the Lion-Hearted broke bread together and spoke as friends. But either would gladly have slashed the other out of the saddle on a battlefield.”

  He dismissed the whole question with an impatient wave. “We have more urgent matters to deal with than one American colonel, Farhad. Speak to Sa‘idi and then bring me the latest personnel reports from the Masegarh training camp. I want to go over the composition of the strike teams again.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kazemi hurried out to obey his orders.

  Taleh moved closer to a large-scale map pinned to one of his office walls. He studied it for a few moments, weighing and rejecting alternate plans. Convinced again that his original strategic concepts were still valid, he turned his gaze toward the calendar posted beside the map. No, he thought in satisfaction, Thorn and his compatriots would not pierce the veil he had drawn across their eyes—not in the time left to them.

  JUNE 24

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  Colonel Peter Thorn glanced at his team as they crouched to either side of a locked door. Like him, each man was clad from head to toe in dark-colored clothing and body armor. Black Kevlar helmets, shatterproof goggles, and flame-resistant Nomex balaclavas protected their heads. Their assault vests and leg pouches held an arsenal of grenades, spare pistol and SMG magazines, and other gear. Each of the four men held a German-made Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun in his gloved hands.

  “Sniper One, ready. No target.”

  “Sniper Two, ready. No target.”

  Thorn tensed as the whispered reports from the two-man sniper teams he’d posted outside sounded in his earphones. They confirmed what he’d suspected from the moment his assault force infiltrated this compound. All the terrorists and hostages were inside the room in front of him. And the bad guys were being very, very careful. They were staying well away from the windows and any exposure to his long-range firepower.