The Shadows of Power

by James W. Huston

  Ismael looked at the instruments in front of him. The engine was still running. He looked for the Explorer but could see only the dark red Toyota against the right front of his car. He suddenly saw a large, burly, tough-looking man climb out of the Toyota in a state of obvious menace. The man was wearing leather gloves. He began to walk around Ismael’s car toward the driver’s door.

  Ismael threw the gearshift into reverse, but there were two cars right behind him. He backed up slowly, not wanting to hit them. The man with the gloves was on him.

  Groomer slammed his right fist into the driver’s door window. It shattered, throwing glass onto Ismael. “What you doing hitting me, you dumbass! I’m going to pinch your damned head off, you punk!” Groomer reached in, trying to unlock the door and pull Ismael out, but Ismael wasn’t having any of it. He threw the gearshift into forward, floored it, and accelerated around the Toyota onto the grass shoulder and around to the other side.

  Groomer pulled his arm out of the window and jumped aside just in time. He ran back to his 4Runner and accelerated, but the left fender had been bent into the tire, making it impossible for him to move. He cursed and jammed the other large lever on the floorboard of his truck into four-wheel drive. He jammed the accelerator to the floor and felt the front wheels try to pull the truck out of whatever was dragging the left rear wheel. The Toyota shuddered and fought, but the fender was buried too deeply in the wheel. It wasn’t moving. He grabbed the headset. “I’m busted, Rat. Wheel’s stuck.”

  “Damn it!” Rat exclaimed, back in the pack of cars stopped behind the accident scene. He threw his van into gear and drove onto the grass and around the mess of traffic, glass, and confusion. He wheeled around Groomer and made the same right turn Ismael had made. He roared down the side street looking for Ismael. Nothing. No red Taurus with a smashed front. He accelerated to each intersection and looked both ways. Nothing. One intersection after another; no Taurus. Rat drove faster, his frustration growing. “Robby, you still got the local law standing by?”

  “Yeah. They’ve got a helo airborne.”

  “Tell them it’s their baby. I’m not chasing this guy through residential streets in a van.”

  “I’ll pass it on.”

  Rat drove back to Groomer’s Toyota and got out.

  Groomer was examining his fender and the tire. A Virginia Beach policeman had stopped. Groomer was furiously pulling at the fender.

  “You’re going to have to tow that,” the officer said.

  “Shit!” Groomer said. “I had my hands on him!”

  “The helicopter locate him yet?”

  “Not yet,” the officer said. “I’m sure they will, though. He can’t have gone far.”

  Ismael had done the opposite of what anyone expected. Instead of heading for the airport, he had headed for the beach, a dead end where he would be obvious and trapped if anyone thought to look for him there. He drove up Pacific Avenue, north toward the end of Virginia Beach, until he was in the residential area away from the strip at the end of the road. He turned into a small dead-end street that was partially covered with sand and parked nose-in next to a bush that masked the damage to his car.

  He had planned his escape carefully, selecting the quiet street and the very bush where he now sat. He saw no one, then heard a helicopter in the air. He dared not look up. He pulled out a sun cover to put underneath the windshield to reflect the sun but mostly to mask the existence of a deployed air bag. He took out a wet rag and wiped down all the surfaces he had touched in the car. The rental agency would be looking for the nonexistent Egyptian whose passport and credit card he had been given by Madani.

  He pulled his shirt over his handgun and climbed out of the car in the swimming trunks he was wearing. He went to the trunk, opened it, and slipped on a large straw lifeguardlike hat and sunglasses. He grabbed a colorful towel, a folding chair, a bag with sunscreen, a book, and a wallet full of money that would pay for the cab ride back to the airport that evening. He walked away from the car to the beach.

  Don Jacobs was furious. Rat hadn’t known him for long, but long enough to know that he was furious. Perhaps it was the bulging veins on his forehead or the red complexion that gave it away. Rat sat in the hard chair across from Jacobs’s desk, waiting to be asked something, to be able to defend himself, but Jacobs’s silent pacing was driving him crazy. Jacobs looked like a bear in a zoo that checks both ends of the enclosure for possible escape routes twenty times a minute all day long. After several minutes Jacobs spoke. “So we were right. We smoked out his target. We were there in exactly the right position. We did everything right.” He stopped. “Right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Good.” Pacing again. “Then where is Ismael Nezzar? Is he here? Is he somewhere I can interrogate him? Because we did everything right. You just said so.”

  “We had a problem—”

  “A problem?”

  “Yes, sir. Like it says in my written report—”

  “Yes, I’ve read it. But it must be wrong, because you just said we did everything right.”

  “Maybe not everything . . .”

  “All because a fender got stuck in a tire? Weren’t you there? Didn’t you have anyone else in the traffic? Didn’t you anticipate he might make his move in public, in traffic?”

  “Sure. But you said you didn’t want us to have too high a profile. You said to coordinate with local police. We did. And they lost him.”

  Jacobs kicked his desk chair, which was on wheels. It went flying across the room and slammed into the bookcase. “I hate looking stupid. More than anything else, I hate looking stupid. Especially when it’s by one punk student asshole who’s too big for his britches. You know how hard it is to get within an arm’s length of a terrorist?”

  “Very well.”

  “We did it! You did it! And we have nothing to show for it!”

  “I could have taken my whole team down there, but you said you didn’t want that big a footprint.”

  Jacobs lowered his voice. “Do whatever you have to do, but get this son of a bitch. He’s in my country, and I want him.”

  “Yes, sir. I’d like to coordinate with the FBI—”

  “I’ve already told them. They’ve already sent people to watch Stovic, and they’re looking all over for this Ismael Nezzar.”

  “But?” Rat asked. He could tell there was more to it.

  “I don’t trust them. I never tell them everything I know. I can’t trust them with that kind of information.”

  “Still because of Hanssen?”

  “That goes way deep with me.”

  “So what did you tell them?”

  “That Stovic is a target of a terrorist, and the terrorist’s name is Ismael Nezzar, and his location is unknown. But I want you to get him. I don’t want this asshole arrested and defended by some ACLU smartass. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Rat said. He heard Jacobs loud and clear but would do whatever he thought was appropriate, regardless of what Jacobs said. Rat reported to a higher authority.

  * * *

  “You were right on the money about Algeria,” President Kendrick said to Sarah St. John. After every meeting with the National Security Council to go over current events and whatever else she thought was worthy of his time, they would adjourn by themselves to the Oval Office and debrief what had been said. It was a tradition she had worked hard to protect. Cabinet members, particularly Howard Stuntz, the Secretary of Defense, and Stewart Woods, the Director of Central Intelligence, were jealous of her private time with the President.

  But she understood the power of relationships, the trust that could build up between people over thirty years. She and President Kendrick had been classmates in college and had shared a burning interest in international affairs. They had even dated for a short time, but quickly learned they were too much alike to be truly compatible.

  They thought any international problem could be solved by the sufficient application of brain power and pe
rsuasion of those involved. She had pursued her passion to a doctorate, while Kendrick had chosen to go into business. But they had stayed in touch, particularly about their favorite quirky professor in the school of international relations, an odd duck who wore black socks and sandals to class every day and hinted that he had served in the CIA. He had crazy hair and came off as unstable, but St. John and Kendrick had loved sitting through his classes for the entertainment value alone. The professor had constantly warned about believing what you saw, especially if the government was involved. He implied that everything from the government was part of a massive disinformation campaign and to be doubted.

  St. John had studied under him for her master’s degree but had gone elsewhere for her doctorate. She had learned from him, especially about not always trusting the government and paying attention to rivalries between agencies. President Kendrick shared some of her concerns about internal government rivalries. Their private meeting were intended to solidify their trust of each other. Complete, unwavering trust and reliance. No games, no rivalries.

  “There is the report of the attack on that Navy pilot. That might be from the government, or it may be the brother acting alone.”

  “It doesn’t sound much like a government.”

  “True. But things don’t work like they used to. They realize they can’t take us on directly, so they’re supporting or in some cases starting terrorist organizations, and they spend all their effort making them untraceable back to the country. Here, he’s from Algeria. So the issue is whether he’s working for them.”

  “Are we doing enough?”

  “According to the FBI they’re protecting his family now.”

  “But how did they stop him in Virginia?”

  “Apparently with the help of the Agency.”

  Kendrick didn’t like it. “They can’t operate inside the United States.”

  “There are a very few things they can do, and so far they’re okay. I checked.”

  “So are we doing enough?”

  “I think so. If it’s just one man.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “I think we need to turn up the heat a lot.”

  Kendrick nodded. “Call Justice and get the FBI to put this high on their list.”

  * * *

  “Rat, what are you doing here?” Stovic asked as Rat walked into his office at the squadron.

  “I was looking for you,” Rat said.

  “How’d you get in here?”

  “I sort of ‘kept’ my active duty Navy ID.”

  “Nice.”

  Rat smiled, looking around. “So you got selected for the Blues.”

  Stovic nodded vigorously. “How’d you hear that? I just got the call last night!”

  “I have my sources.”

  “Can you believe it?”

  “Foregone conclusion.”

  “Not if you’d seen the interview.”

  “Why?”

  “Oden—that’s the name of a Norwegian god—he was pretty tough on me. Wanted to know if Stovic was pronounced like Milosevic or with a hard c like Stowe-vick. So he looks at me like I’m some Serbian war criminal. I have to tell him all about my grandfather fleeing Communist Yugoslavia as a stowaway, so he lays off. Then one of the other guys wants to know all about the shoot-down, and whether it changed my life, and the whole Today show thing. It was amazing. And it only takes one vote against you, and you’re out. I figured I was done, but I guess not. Pretty exciting. Oh, get this, as I was standing up to go into the interview, out comes this female Lieutenant in whites. I figure great, I have to compete against a woman who’s trying to be the first female Blue Angel ever. She’ll be a shoe-in. But then I notice she’s a flight surgeon. She was interviewing for flight surgeon.” Stovic looked at Rat. “You should meet her.”

  “I’ve sworn off women. They distract me from my mission.” Rat smiled.

  “Right.” Stovic laughed.

  Rat watched his friend’s face closely. “You excited?”

  “I can’t even tell you.” Stovic suddenly realized Rat wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was wearing his usual casual wear, khaki pants, a T-shirt, and rubber-soled leather sandals that were sort of European looking. “But what brings you to the land of the Ragin’ Bulls?”

  “Have you accepted yet?”

  “Accepted what?” Stovic asked, confused.

  “The Blues. Did you tell them you would do it?”

  “Of course. Right away. I didn’t want them to change their mind.”

  Rat was focused. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Somewhere we can go?”

  Stovic looked at the work he had to do. It could wait. “We can walk down to the gedunk and get something to eat. That will get us outside.”

  “Great.”

  They walked out into the hangar, through the stairwell painted squadron colors, and out into the bright Virginia sunshine. They walked down along the hangar toward the snack shop. “What’s up?” Stovic asked.

  Rat stopped in the parking lot halfway to the gedunk, a little place where people bought microwave sandwiches, candy, and sodas. “You may want to reconsider.”

  “Reconsider what?”

  “The Blue Angels.”

  Stovic was shocked. “Why would I reconsider the Blue Angels? Are you out of your mind?”

  “Because of what I have to tell you. I’m starting to see this differently.”

  “Let’s have it,” Stovic said.

  “Remember when you were driving home and there was a wreck behind you?”

  “On Virginia Beach Boulevard? How do you know about that?”

  “I was there.”

  “Where?”

  “And that night when we went to Carrie’s ballet recital? I had my guys put up a bunch of surveillance gear at your house. For your protection.”

  “From what?”

  “Someone’s trying to kill you. The guy in the car was trying to hit you. He was probably going to shoot you when you got out of the car.”

  “What?” Stovic asked, his voice rising in concern and pitch. “Who?”

  “Ismael Nezzar.”

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “The brother of the pilot you shot down in the Med.”

  Stovic stared for a moment, just long enough for the gears to fall into place, the same gears Rat was always looking for. “He’s here?”

  “He was a student at George Washington, studying electrical engineering.”

  Stovic rolled his head back in disbelief. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “Nope. The guy who Karen saw drive by your house? Probably him.”

  “So now what?”

  “So if you keep doing what you’re doing, it will be about you and him. I think we can protect you.”

  “We who?”

  “The government. I wasn’t just a starving bachelor when I stopped by your house. I’m still working, bro. I’m here to look out for you. Actually, to get Ismael, but part of that is looking out for you. The FBI is working it too, but they’ve been in the background. As of now, they’re moving into the foreground. This is getting a lot of national attention now.”

  Stovic saw the implications, and he didn’t like what he saw. “So if I join the Blue Angels, it gives him a better target, a much more important target, and a way for him to make a big statement, not just come after me.”

  “Exactly. So that’s why I’m here. You may want to reconsider. You may be a lot better off flying anonymous jets out of Oceana. You’re never in the same jet, right?”

  “Pretty much. No one would ever know if I was in a particular airplane from off the base.”

  “But in the Blues, you’ll be flying the blue jet with a big #6 on it every day. Right? Always you, always doing the same maneuver at the same time in one air show after another.”

  Stovic stared down at the parking lot and put his hands on his hips in anger and confusion. “What would you do?” />
  “I don’t know. It’s up to you.”

  “What are the chances of this guy trying something again?”

  “Virtually certain, in my opinion, unless the FBI finds him first, before he has another chance, which in my opinion won’t happen.”

  “I’ll have to think about it. I’ll talk to Karen. But I hate the idea of being intimidated by some murderer.”

  “Sometimes it makes a lot of sense to be intimidated by a murderer.”

  Stovic looked into his friend’s eyes. “Think you can find him first?”

  “That’s what I’m going to try to do. But not by scouring the country. That’s the FBI’s job. I’m just going to stay close to his target and wait for him to come to me.”

  “Target. Me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What about my family?”

  “I’ll have several people watching Karen and the kids, as will the FBI. We’ll be coordinating. But there aren’t any guarantees.”

  “Shitty deal.”

  “Yep.”

  “What would you do?”

  “Just what you’re doing. It’s just that you’re going to have to go forward with your eyes wide open.”

  “You’re going to look out for me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about when the Blues go to El Centro in the California desert in January. You coming along for eight weeks?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How you going to pull that off?”

  “The Blues will know. At least some of them. The CO and some others. For the rest, I’m a former Navy guy who is working desperately to get a book published. A coffee table picture book called The Blue Angels. I don’t have a publisher yet, but the Navy’s cooperating.”

  “That’s your hobby. Photography.”

  “It actually is. I’m pretty good at it. This would be different, but I can pull it off.”

  “This guy sounds like bad news.”

  “He is.”

  “Then we’ve got to get him, don’t we? Seems to me it’s our duty to get him. It’s part of what we need to do as Navy officers, or as one officer and one former officer.”

  “Two Navy officers.”