The Crimson Code

by Rachel Lee

  "Oh yes," she said, her smile radiant even in the dim light. "With that thought, I will have happy dreams."

  Thirty minutes later, Barak had shaved, dressed and quietly slipped out into the brisk nighttime air. The scent of smoke hung heavy, biting his nostrils, and he told himself that he would need to seal the shop carefully, lest his breads and pastries smell of it. The short walk to his shop woke him, as it always did.

  Usually at this hour he had the streets almost to himself, and he took the time to converse with Allah and meditate upon the Koran. There had been much to speak with Allah about lately. The horrible acts that his fellow Muslims had perpetrated at Christmas were, as Barak had expected, rebounding on the Islamic community. Many of his non-Muslim customers no longer came to his shop, and those that did—even people he had known since the shop had opened—seemed to eye him with suspicion. While he could understand their feelings, it still hurt that they lumped him in with the kinds of animals who could kill innocents.

  He understood the anger of the Arab nations. For far too long the West had treated them as little more than giant petrol stations. So long as the pumps remained open and the prices low, the West cared nothing for the Arabs' lives or liberties, their hopes or hurts. One did not need a degree in political science to understand why the Arabs felt used, and why they wanted to shake off the bonds of economic imperialism.

  But to destroy churches and murder innocent women and children was no answer. Allah would bring justice in His own way, in His own time. A righteous and divine justice, such that no man could resist or deny. Until that time, Barak knew, it was the duty of Islamic peoples throughout the world to practice jihad in the true meaning of the word, as the holy and lifelong struggle to discipline one's heart and mind to the will of Allah. For only in that struggle could anyone find true peace.

  Such thoughts were the staple of his morning walks, reminding himself of his place in the great struggle to bring the world into alignment with the perfect will of Allah, to bring peace and justice to all mankind. That struggle began in his own heart, with the quieting of anger, with forgiveness of those who looked upon him with suspicion, and with the celebration of joys such as those his son had revealed last night. If Barak could discipline himself to such thoughts, then—in that tiny way—he made the ultimate triumph of Allah ever nearer.

  Against the smell of smoke and the drone of sirens, Barak raised these thoughts like a shield, and within them he walked as if on an island of peace. Once at the shop, he closed the door, then wetted a towel and tucked it into the gap beneath. His customers would have fresh bread this day, and the sweet scent of pastries to greet their noses when they came into his shop. And he would create that sweetness even as fires burned in the city.

  He shrugged off his coat and started the ovens, then turned his mind to the simple, soothing task of preparing dough. He had loved this process from the time he had sat with his mother in their tiny kitchen in Algeria. Flour and water, yeast and eggs, butter, sugar and salt. Measure and mix, knead and allow to rise, roll and bake. In a task that others might find sheer drudgery, Barak found joy and fulfillment.

  Until the firebomb crashed through his shop window.

  Frankfurt, Germany

  Lawton awoke from a catnap to find that Niko had turned on the television set. When he heard Lawton stir, he turned and said, "Come, my friend. You need to see this. Europe has exploded in rage."

  Hastily rubbing his burning eyes, Lawton sat up, then moved closer to the screen. In their own way, the pictures were nearly as bad as Black Christmas. Mosques burning. Muslims being beaten by crowds. Vicious slogans spray-painted on walls.

  "My God," he said.

  "I knew it had been happening here and there," Niko said. "But most people are law-abiding. This…" He shook his head. "This kind of thing has not been seen in a long, long time."

  Renate's voice intruded from the doorway. "Not since Hitler." Her voice was hard, icy. "Kristallnacht."

  Lawton looked again at the screen. "What are you saying?"

  "On November eighth, 1938, the Germans erupted in violence against the Jews. Over one hundred fifty synagogues were attacked that night, and over seven thousand Jewish businesses were burned or looted. It came to be known as Kristallnacht: the night of broken glass."

  Lawton stared at the screen with a growing sense of anger. "I don't understand. The Jews weren't terrorists."

  "Of course not," Renate said. "But that's not my point. Kristallnacht wasn't a collection of spontaneous, random acts of violence. It was seeded, organized, encouraged by Nazi thugs. And this is, too. It's too big and too widespread not to be."

  "So what are you saying?"

  "I'm saying someone is working behind the scenes to incite violence against Muslims, for political gain, just like Hitler did with the Jews. Someone is walking in his shoes, following his plan." She paused. "I just wish I knew who. Perhaps Assif and I can crack the encryption. We are now reading e-mail headers from Berg & Tempel."

  Lawton turned in his seat. "Anything interesting?"

  She nodded slowly. "In a way. The Brotherhood is moving more of its investments into weapons manufacturing. They are expecting war."

  "At this point you don't need a crystal ball to guess that."

  She shook her head. "In the past six hours, there was a flurry of message traffic with the U.S. Messages routed through the Federal Reserve."

  "Oh my God," Lawton said.

  Renate nodded. "It may be time to talk to your rose."

  Lawton studied her eyes. To contact Special Agent Miriam Ansen would be a violation of Office 119 protocol. Miriam had been his mentor when he worked for the Bureau, in a life that was now past. That she might be a useful source in this investigation was irrelevant; every Office 119 agent came from a law enforcement background, and each of them had old friends who might be useful sources. But the strict and necessary secrecy rules prohibited agents from contacting anyone they had known prior to coming to Office 119. To violate that would be to risk the exposure—and the destruction—of all.

  Lawton looked at Niko and Assif. "Would you excuse us for a moment, please?"

  "There is no need," Renate replied. "We are a team. There is nothing we cannot say in front of them."

  "Perhaps," Lawton said.

  Renate turned to them. "I have asked Lawton to contact a woman he knew at the FBI. They worked together on the Lawrence case."

  "You know we are not allowed…" Niko began.

  "She already knows he's alive," Renate said, impatience clear in her voice. "We coordinated with her in the final assault on Wes Dixon's Guatemalan mercenaries. She has kept his secret this far. I see no reason not to trust her."

  "We should talk to Jefe about this," Assif said. "We have rules for a reason, Renate."

  "Yes," Lawton said. "And Miriam has rules, too. She can't simply walk into the Federal Reserve and demand to see their e-mail traffic. And unlike us, she can't tap their phones without a warrant. A warrant she can't get just because we've picked up increased traffic between Frankfurt and Washington over the past six hours."

  "What if we could read the e-mails?" Renate asked.

  "If we can read them, and if they say what you think they will, then yes," Lawton said. "But if I'm going to contact Miriam, I need hard evidence. Not speculation."

  "Then we must decode those e-mails," Renate said.

  "That won't be easy," Assif said. "The banks use excellent encryption. It has taken me a week just to crack the headers."

  "Then you've made progress," Renate said. "Keep working on it. Before all of Europe is in flames."

  Brussels, Belgium

  Monika Schmidt was not a happy woman, and Jules Soult was sitting in the hot seat in her office. He had known beforehand that scenes such as these were going to take place, and he had resigned himself to them. They were, after all, part of the game he was playing, part of the price he would need to pay.

  "These riots have to be stopped," she was sayi
ng as she paced behind her desk, arms folded tightly. "Apart from the ugly face it shows the world, the important thing is that the people of the EU can't possibly feel safe while these mobs are filling the streets. And all—" she turned to face him "—I repeat, all of the people of the EU member nations should feel safe."

  Soult, who wanted no such thing just yet, merely nodded and agreed.

  Frau Schmidt threw up a hand in exasperation and distress. "First the terror attacks, and now our own people carrying out terror attacks? Against their neighbors? Against their former friends and associates?"

  "I'm sure it's not quite that bad."

  "No?" She glared at him. "I don't care if these people are street toughs taking advantage of the situation. I don't care about their politics. They are thugs, and they are attacking people with whom they were coexisting only days ago. Tolerance, something we Europeans have prided ourselves on since the last war, has become an empty word."

  Soult murmured agreement.

  "I will not have it," she said firmly. "And it is your job to stop it."

  "I know. But I have barely begun to organize my operations." A lie, but necessary.

  "You should have had enough people in place to have at least sensed this was going to happen!"

  "The few people I have so far put in place are searching for terrorists, Frau Schmidt. How were we to know that we would be dealing with popular uprisings?"

  "I am not so sure these uprisings are popular."

  Soult's heart skipped a beat. Had she heard something? "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I do not believe the majority of Europeans support them. In fact, I believe the majority are fearful of them. Civil unrest is always frightening."

  Civil unrest and a frightened European population were Soult's goals. The longer the unrest continued, the more frightened the average citizen would become—and the more likely to want someone in power who was strong enough to make them feel safe.

  With all modesty, Soult was sure he was the man to do that. "I will attempt to speed the creation of my organization," he assured her. "But even so, I must choose people of whom I am certain. I cannot risk hiring the wrong people."

  "No, of course not." Frau Schmidt sighed and seemed to let go of some of her tension. "These are ugly times, General Soult. The European Union is new, and not entirely trusted. If we cannot show strength and the ability to secure ourselves from within, then…" She left the thought incomplete, but her meaning was entirely clear.

  "I understand." Indeed he did. He was counting on it, in fact.

  "I'm sure you do." She shook her head again. "This makes us appear weak, General."

  He nodded. Of course it did. That was the entire rationale behind it. "Let me speak to my people and see what I can do."

  "Thank you. Keep me informed."

  "But of course."

  He took his leave, his heart lifting with each step he took.

  Things could not have been going better.

  Not for his purposes, at least.

  18

  Washington, D.C.

  Harrison Rice finished up his economic briefing with a sigh of relief as he watched his advisors file out of the Oval Office. A glance at his watch told him he had fifteen minutes before several congressmen arrived to discuss an education bill that especially interested him. It had, in fact, been one of the issues on which he had run for office: the improvement of public schools and universities.

  But before he could settle into an issue with which he was comfortable, Phillip Bentley walked in as if he owned the place. Which, thought Rice angrily, he probably did.

  Even after all these months, Rice was still trying to figure out how he had reached these straits.

  But that was moot now, he thought, as he watched Bentley enter. He was stuck. Whatever his own moral scruples, he wasn't sure he had the cojones to stand up to Bentley—or, more importantly, those who stood behind him.

  Rice could feel himself becoming increasingly paranoid, and these days he sometimes wondered if he'd been deliberately planted as Edward Morgan's roommate, just to give these people their foot in the door.

  But that was ridiculous, he told himself sternly as he watched Bentley turn on one of the televisions that were artfully concealed in a wall. How could anyone then have known that Rice would someday be in a position to run for president?

  No one could have known, he assured himself. Although…although he sometimes wondered if invisible hands hadn't been helping his political career all along. The fear did nothing to improve his mood.

  "What is it?" he asked Bentley irritably. "I have a meeting."

  "Not for a few minutes," Bentley said as he picked up the remote and flipped through channels.

  "What's going on?"

  "You need to see the news out of Europe. Most of our domestic news networks won't cover it before tonight. Ah, there we go."

  The picture bloomed in living color and horrific detail. Mobs marched in the streets, carrying banners in several languages, many in English. The English ones screamed for death to Muslims.

  "Good God!" Rice said.

  "It's happening all over the continent," Bentley said. He turned up the volume, and a German narrator, sounding less than calm, gave a staccato description of events. Though Rice couldn't understand the rapid-fire German, the voice added urgency to the pictures of rioting mobs, of shop windows being shattered and Molotov cocktails being thrown. The camera drew back and showed Berlin, with spotty fires raging.

  Then the view changed to Madrid and stretcher bearers carrying a badly burned man from what appeared to have been a bakery. Even as the injured man was being carried out to an ambulance, crowds shook their fists and shouted angrily.

  Bentley switched off the TV.

  "Everywhere?" Rice asked.

  "Everywhere but Britain, so far. And with what happened in London last year, I'm sure they'll be next."

  "But…" Rice didn't want to believe what he had just seen.

  "It's spreading, and it's spreading fast, Mr. President. Our analysts believe that it will spread to us, as well."

  Rice's mind spun into high gear. "We'll need to call out the Guard. Alert the police."

  "Martial law," said Bentley.

  Rice's head jerked. "Not unless it's absolutely necessary."

  "It will become necessary. It's best to be prepared."

  Rice felt a surge of anger. "Did you bring your crystal ball, Bentley? How can you be sure that our people will react this way and to this degree? So far—"

  "So far," Bentley interrupted, "very little has been accomplished. We've taken out one terrorist cell, a mere nod to the enormity of what happened on Christmas. Do you think Americans are feeling very safe right now? We haven't taken out even one cell in this country. Soon the American people are going to realize that. Soon the American people are going to vent their rage just as the Europeans are doing."

  Rice knew what was coming. The Vienna action had been merely a reprieve. But before Bentley could speak the words again, before Bentley could again remind him of the armed military officer who sat patiently outside with the "football" chained to his wrist, Rice spoke.

  "Get out of here, Bentley."

  Bentley bridled. "You don't give me orders."

  "Yes, actually, I do. And if you want to be National Security Advisor this time tomorrow, you'll get out of here and let me think."

  "May I remind you—"

  "You don't need to remind me of anything. I know what you're holding over my head. But until I'm impeached and convicted, or arrested, I'm still the president, and I can still fire you. So get the hell out of my office."

  Bentley's face was red and angry, but he left with the cultivated grace of the East Coast upper crust. Good breeding.

  Fuck breeding, Rice thought, as he sank onto one of the sofas. Fuck it all. He had to start thinking and think fast, or the world was apt to come to a brink it hadn't seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  And Harrison Rice d
idn't want that to be his legacy.

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Ahmed Ahsami watched the news with a growing sense of horror. All his dreams for Saif Alsharaawi were crumbling about his feet. Ever since Black Christmas—a day that was supposed to have demonstrated Arab strength and self-control—everything he had tried had turned to dust. The Black Christmas attacks had been subverted and turned into a worldwide massacre. His attempt to put down some of the plotters in Vienna had been cast as the West putting down the bad Arabs. The goodwill he had hoped to build now lay in ruins as mosques and shops burned across Europe.

  Perhaps the most radical of his brethren were right. Perhaps there was no basis for peace with the West and the only option was a war of annihilation where only one was left standing. It would certainly end the problem, one way or another.

  But Ahmed had no illusions as to the outcome of such a conflict. While Muslims were huge in number, and while they predominated in vast areas of the world, they could not win a world war against the West. Arab armies had tried to conquer Europe before, and they had failed. Even if they could succeed today, the massive engine of Western economic power—the United States—lay safely between two oceans. While Arabs could cross those oceans to deliver pinpricks—and despite their horrifying human cost, in terms of unseating American power, even the 9/11 attacks had been pinpricks—there was no way any Arab army could cross those oceans in sufficient force to subdue the Americans. A war of annihilation could mean only the annihilation of the Islamic lands.

  And yet, while he was loath to admit it, Ahmed knew that he was responsible for the current crisis. Over the past few hours, that responsibility had settled over him like a sandstorm, rasping at every nerve ending. He had spent these past weeks raging against his betrayers, when he should have been raging against himself. His reach had exceeded his grasp.

  The Christmas attacks had been far too wide-ranging in scope. He had known that, and he should have trimmed the plan, so that his own operatives could carry it out. Yawi had argued for that, but Ahmed had refused. Instead, he had chosen to rely on outsiders, even knowing that his view of Arab ascendancy was very different from the views of those upon whom he was relying.