Agent of Influence: A Thriller

by Russell Hamilton

  Sean pounded on the roof of the car, “Take your foot off the fucking gas so I can shoot!” The driver eased up for a moment. The motorcycle was now only yards away. He had time for one more shot. Sean squinted through the smoke, methodically lined up the sights on his pistol, and fired several rounds in succession at the front tire. The wheel exploded from the direct hit and the suicide bomber was thrown into the air from the force of the explosion. As soon as the assailant thudded to the dirty ground Sean unleashed five more rounds into the man’s chest, thumbed the release to empty the spent magazine, and slammed a new one into the butt of the pistol.

  “Sir, are you okay?” The agents from the rear security car were cautiously approaching the back of the limousine while continuing to scan the area for potential targets. Sean turned around and spotted another hooded terrorist lying face down just a few feet behind his vehicle, blood oozing from a massive head wound.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Where did he come from?” Sean gestured to the dead body.

  “Other side of the wreckage. He was the only one without a set of wheels.”

  “Thanks, let’s get out of here. There could be more coming.” Sean crawled out of the sunroof, and jumped onto the ground. “Driver! Floor it now so we can get out of here.”

  The limousine rocked back and forth, but was still unable to free itself. After a quick examination they discovered the back of the limo was entangled with the burning vehicle beside it. The three men lifted the rear of the vehicle just enough to free it from the wreckage before jumping across the trunk, and crawling down the open hole of the sunroof. They fell into the backseat, crashing to the floor of the limousine in an awkward tangle of arms and legs. The vehicle roared forward once again, finally tearing itself free and racing off towards the safety of the embassy.

  “So much for keeping a low profile,” Sean muttered in annoyance from the bottom of the human pile.

  ***

  The Deputy Chief of Cultural Affairs, otherwise known as the local CIA officer, had a tiny office unbecoming of his fake title. The office was in a private area in the back of the embassy, and it was protected by an extra set of Marine guards. The spit polished shoes of the guards could be heard clattering in unison on the tile floor outside the office Sean was sitting in. The guards were clearly on edge due to the attack on Sean’s convoy. He sipped a bottle of Evian water and fidgeted in his chair. He was anxious for the CIA officer sitting across from him to finish up his phone call. The TV perched high and behind the CIA man was tuned to CNN.

  The officer finally put the phone back on its cradle and sighed deeply to express his frustration. Colin Archer had been a field agent in the Middle East for twelve years, and the numerous contacts he nurtured in the area made him an invaluable asset to the Agency. Most of his contacts could only guess for whom he worked, and they were all kept off the agency’s payroll and placated through special accounts he kept. He provided the agency with valuable intelligence, and he kept his informants to himself. This allowed the information flow to continue as long as he was around to pass it along. It also kept the desk jockeys’ boxes full of useful intelligence. They knew however, that it would be cut off if something happened to him. Colin controlled his own destiny, and this system provided him with extra job security. In a wild city like Cairo, Sean thought, the man was probably right to hedge his bets.

  Sean Hill stared at the man across the desk. He could see why Colin was assigned to this region in the first place. His spectacles and goatee gave him the look of an aloof college professor, but he had a penetrating stare reminiscent of the imams who ran the mosques. A bad case of male pattern baldness had eradicated most of the black hair. His natural tan and underwhelming stature made it easy for Colin to blend in to the local population.

  “You are certainly causing quite a ruckus already. Welcome to Cairo.” Colin grabbed the remote control off his desk, put the television on mute, and propped his feet onto his desk in a casual manner.

  “This is not what I needed,” Sean replied. “We were trying to keep this low key but someone knew I was coming.”

  “Well, I can assure you there were no leaks on my end.”

  “We tried to keep knowledge of my trip on a need-to-know basis. Either we had some bad luck and just happened to run into the wrong people, or they were alerted to my arrival. It seemed like a coordinated attack, so I will assume the latter.” Sean continued to watch the muted television for anything of interest. “Any news from our local friends?”

  “No, they’re still giving me the run around,” Colin responded. “They are going to twist some arms, and probably get us what we need. It’s going to cost me though. It will be a while before I can ask for any more favors.” Colin preferred being the person owed the favor, but he had been told to fully accommodate Sean. The days of bickering and hiding sources between the FBI and CIA were supposed to be over.

  “Thanks. I’m assuming you have been briefed on what I’m here for?” Sean hesitated, even though he knew Colin assisted Marilyn just a few months before.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it was a sanitized version, but the Director himself called me earlier, and gave me strict instructions to cooperate fully. I can understand the concern, but you’re taking a huge risk. You do realize that, don’t you?” Colin did not like the odds of success of their investigation.

  “Yes, we went over it several times. They still haven’t come up with anything concrete. My boss has expressed some misgivings about going any further. We’re playing a hunch. Let’s just leave it at that,” Sean said.

  “Well, we only have a few days,” Colin said in a distressed tone. “I took the liberty of putting out some calls regarding Aman as well. I can tell you if Aman is mixed up with any unsavory characters, he has hidden it exceptionally well. I’ve been in this region for twelve years and have heard it all, but his name rarely comes up. No one around here seemed to know who he was until his newfound fame as campaign manager, and foster dad of the President-Elect. I can tell you this city is all abuzz that relations with the U.S. will improve. They think Aman’s Muslim heritage will have a lot of influence on the new President. Everyone around here thinks they have a fair arbiter for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

  “We searched Aman’s background long and hard, and he appears to be clean. He has been on the periphery of some players in the local terrorist trade around here, but you can say that of almost anyone who possesses money and influence in the Middle East. Have you seen anything around here that could tie him to Al-Qaeda?” Sean asked. He knew all the major players of Al-Qaeda were in the Pakistan-Afghan areas, but anything was possible.

  “No. He won’t have anything to do with them. Aman has visited this region a few times. He started coming to Cairo during the 1980s. During the 1990s he actually made some speeches preaching against Al-Qaeda. He has sworn off that form of violence on several different occasions.”

  “What about any other groups like the PLO, or the Al-Asqa Martyr Brigades? Does he have any friends there?” Sean continued to probe.

  “Nothing, and trust me, I’ve looked into all of them. He has donated money to some local charities that are known to funnel money to some of these groups, but that appears to be the extent of it. Those charities help bring orphaned kids over to the States to get a good education. Besides, every company in this region has some indirect tie to what we would consider a terrorist group. I do have one guy who provides me with useful intel sometimes. Older guy. He was once part of the Muslim Brotherhood when it first started. He disagreed with the militant approach they took during the 1950s, and broke with them. He was a big proponent of trying to bring the Muslim Caliphate back. Anyway, I meet with him every few weeks. He had seen a picture of Aman with the President-Elect in the local newspapers. He claims he met him once years ago. He seemed quite proud of him, which is the reaction I have noticed in others around these parts. But he seemed almost impatient with Aman, as if he had been waiting for this moment for years. Maybe I’m reading t
oo much into his reaction, but I just got the impression he was not telling me the full story. I took Marilyn to meet with him, as well, but he wasn’t much help. He seemed to be stonewalling. I think he’s beginning to regret dealing with me. He has been keeping a low profile over the last few months.”

  Sean was intrigued. “Marilyn mentioned him in her report. What exactly is the Caliphate? I know I’ve heard the term somewhere before.”

  “You probably have heard Bin Laden call for one. He likes to throw out the term during his pronouncements. Anyway, the Caliphate was, for several thousand years the symbol of a unified Muslim people. The Caliphate dates all the way back to the death of the Prophet Mohammad in the 600s. He is considered the successor, for lack of a better word, of the prophet. The Caliphate was abolished by the Western powers after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.”

  “When the Ottoman Empire was carved into today’s countries you mean,” Sean interjected.

  “Exactly. You have to understand; most Muslims identify themselves by their religious sect, not by what country they are from. There has been a lot of in-house fighting between the Sunnis and Shias over the years. Hell, most of their countries were randomly carved out of the sand by our European allies. For roughly thirteen centuries the Caliphate was the supreme Muslim ruler, and for much of that time Islam dominated their Christian counterparts in Europe.”

  “So the Brotherhood of the Caliphate wants one ruler for all Muslims?” Sean asked.

  “Yes, although the Caliphate is as much a religious leader as anything else. The splitting of the Ottoman Empire helped us out by creating a lot of rivalries within the Muslim community, all vying for different goals. The generation of today has grown up with the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah, each one of them pushing for all sorts of things from the destruction of Israel and their occupation of the Holy Land, to America’s occupation of Saudi Arabia, along with a long list of other real and perceived grievances. With so many factions, the hope of a Caliphate has died out except in the older generation who remember the world wars and the failed peace treaties that followed.”

  The brief history lesson started the wheels turning in Sean’s mind. “A single Muslim state would be extremely powerful. If the Ottoman Empire had survived World War I, we would have had a hell of a time controlling the region.” Sean picked up on the subtleties of the situation quickly. His intuition was one of the qualities that made him particularly good at his job.

  “That’s a fair assessment,” Colin said with a contemplative nod. “Imagine World War II with the Ottoman Empire working with Germany, and then think if the Ottoman Empire had come under the control of one of these hardcore fundamentalist types. I doubt there would be any Jews left in the world today. Like I said before, there were just too many varying opinions and religious sects to deal with though. By the 1940s Saudi Arabia already signed their first deal with Standard Oil, and Egypt was working hand-in-hand with the Soviets by the 50s. They couldn’t even get the Muslim leaders to choose sides in the Cold War, much less the Arab street.”

  “Well, it’s an interesting history lesson if nothing else. Not sure if it will be useful for me or not,” Sean said as he glanced at the numerous clocks behind Colin’s desk. “I need to shower and call the boss.”

  “I’ll have a guard show you where everything is.” They both rose simultaneously, and shook hands. “As soon as you get settled in we can start our search. Aziz will be hard to find though. He seems to have gone to ground during the last few weeks,” Colin said.

  “I figured as much. Take me to all his normal places starting tomorrow morning. I also got a few ideas from Marilyn regarding where to locate him.”

  Chapter 22

  White House – Oval Office

  The outgoing President gazed out onto the West Lawn of the White House as he waited for the FBI and CIA directors to arrive with the latest information. He could see the workers dismantling the massive Christmas tree. All the power this small room vested to its occupant could do nothing to stem the mounting frustration and weakness he felt as his term as President rapidly approached its conclusion. The holder of the most powerful and sought after job in the world typically did not wait for anyone, but Allan Gray was already a lame duck, two months removed from being voted out of office after only one term. The vein just below the last remnants of his graying temple of hair bulged with anger as he replayed his numerous mistakes over the past few months. The expensive tumbler of bourbon in his hand did nothing to soothe his temper. He yanked his tie down, ignoring his normal protocol, and for what seemed like the hundredth time, tried to come to grips with his predicament.

  Allan Gray considered himself a true patriot, a man who came from a broken family, no money, and yet lived the American dream by ascending to the Presidency. He was about to return to those humble roots. He still believed in his heart that he fulfilled his promises, but the voters rejected him, stabbing him in the back, he thought, in a rare moment of self-pity, after traveling a long and difficult road together. The truth was much more complicated, and he knew it.

  The attacks of 10/01/00 occurred right in the heart of his campaign for the Presidency. The outgoing President responded quickly to the attack, invading the sanctuary of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He left office with soaring approval numbers after pulling off the ultimate curtain call. The Vice-President normally would have been in a prime position to easily win the election. With the economy flourishing, all he needed to do was run a cautious campaign and promise to continue the same economic policies. The strategy worked perfectly until the attacks devastated New York and Washington D.C. that sunny October day.

  Allan had received his party’s nomination by default. Most of the other major players wanted nothing to do with an incumbent party with a sixty percent approval rating. As the Governor of California, Allan had a huge advantage against his primary opponents that he leveraged to the hilt. He welcomed the fight for the highest office in the land and threw himself full throttle into the primaries, and once he secured the nomination, the general election.

  Allan was forced to take an aggressive approach in order to have a chance at winning the general election. He talked tough on foreign policy and warned the American people that the last few years were a mirage, and that the country always had to be ready to defend itself from external enemies. The rhetoric fell on a deaf public, and the electorate considered him to be a loose cannon until after the attacks. He then looked like a sage, and the media was forced to take notice.

  He rode this new wave of support to a stunning victory, vowing to ignore party lines and continue to take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and beyond. The normal two-month honeymoon enjoyed by a new president stretched for a little over a year, and he soon finished the task his predecessor started in Afghanistan. The country now possessed a fledgling democracy. With victory in hand, Allan Gray turned the military’s focus to another rogue state, Iraq, and its brutal dictator. He warned the American citizenry numerous times to expect casualties, perhaps many thousands. He was convinced that in the long run, any American deaths would save ten times that number from the iron grip of a man who had already shown a propensity for gassing his own people when they stepped out of line.

  Allan made one crucial mistake however that he now felt had cost him the election. Instead of immediately launching the invasion against Iraq, he tried the diplomatic route through the United Nations, even though he knew it was a doomed enterprise. H knew that there were already eight years of sanctions that the U.N. systematically ignored. Instead of punishing the dictator, these sanctions were used by many U.N. members as a way to enrich themselves with black market Iraqi oil and all sorts of other government contracts that were thrown into the maze of bureaucracy. Once inside the black hole of the United Nations, the contracts were fixed to the bureaucrats liking, until they came out on the other end of the pipeline. A lump of coal turned into the proverbial diamond, Allan thought in disgust.


  What he first thought would look like a gracious effort by him to give the U.N. one more chance only allowed Saddam to better prepare, and the “peace nuts” to rally throughout the world. Of course, he admitted to himself, he knew the war would have to be waged once he moved the army into place. He also knew Saddam would never give in to their demands. He was convinced that once he called the U.N.’s bluff, then they would grudgingly have to enforce their own sanctions.

  Allan now realized he had thought too highly of the United Nations. The Iraqi leader routinely massacred thousands of his own people by gassing them with chemical weapons, and paid rewards to families of Palestinian suicide bombers for murdering Israeli civilians. If this was not enough, the Iraqi leader butchered hundreds of thousands of Muslims by starting a war with Iran.

  Allan had simply never thought the horrid deeds of the “Butcher of Baghdad” would be lost amidst the shouts of “No blood for oil.” He belted back another swig of bourbon at the thought and laughed sardonically at the infantile slogan. If all he wanted was oil, all he had to do was allow the sanctions to be lifted, and the oil could start flowing. He knew this was one of the real reasons so many at the U.N. opposed him. Most of the countries that complained the loudest already had oil deals signed with the dictator, and they were just waiting for the shackles of the sanctions to be lifted so they could start importing their booty.

  By the time he gave final authorization for the invasion, it had already become a media event. The military mounted a lightning-quick strike that conquered the country in a matter of months, but upon their approach into the capital, Saddam’s forces resisted and a bloody battle for control of Baghdad ensued. Several thousand U.S. soldiers died in the bloodbath. The aftermath of the war also proved to be difficult. When no chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons were found, the united front Allan put together after his election quickly began to crumble.