Presence of Mine Enemies

by Stephen England

  “At noon tomorrow, your target will be here—at the Adlon—meeting for lunch with a counterpart from the Bundeswehr. That’s when you’ll strike.” He smiled then. “How is it the Americans say? ‘Two birds, one rock’?”

  There was something wrong about all of this, Anas thought, staring across the table at the man, Yusuf’s reassurances still ringing hollow in his ears.

  “How can you possibly know all this?” he demanded, his dark eyes flashing with suspicion. “Who are you?”

  “Anas, this is absurd. You’re being—”

  “No, it’s a fair question,” the man said, putting up a hand to cut Yusuf’s outburst off. “Were I to be the one sacrificing myself in martyrdom, I would want to know.”

  He turned back toward Anas, his face still utterly neutral. Expressionless. “You ask who I am, and I can only tell you that I am a man with no more love for the West than you. The enemies of my people for even longer than they have been yours. My father and mother lived the prime of their lives believing that any day the sky could open and nuclear fire rain down upon us. American fire. That can never be again. As for how I know what I know, I am a facilitator. I have sources. And the Americans are nowhere near as secure as they think.”

  “Allahu akbar,” Yusuf breathed, his face breaking into a wide smile.

  “You will find the car in the parking garage at this address,” the man continued, indicating a handwritten scrawl at the bottom of the map as he slid a set of keys across the table. “The trunk has been welded shut to hinder any efforts to disarm the device, and the detonator is a mobile phone in the center console of the vehicle.”

  “Sounds good,” Yusuf nodded, placing his hand on Anas’ shoulder and squeezing it affectionately. “We know what to do.”

  The man acknowledged his words with a quiet smile. “Then may your god smile upon your efforts.”

  He sat there for a long while after the two Arabs left the café, staring at the screen of his laptop as he finished up his tea. Marking the clock on the opposite wall, its hands creeping slowly onward.

  Fifteen minutes, and the man dug a mobile phone from the pocket of his jeans, tapping in a number from memory and waiting until it was picked up on the other end.

  “Da,” he replied after a moment, listening as his contact went on. “Delo sdelano.”

  It is done.

  9:48 P.M. British Summer Time

  A flat

  London

  “We know you were his man on the inside, Simon,” the Russian had said, continuing in the same, maddeningly even voice, “the man who provided Colville with classified intelligence on the Service’s surveillance of Tarik Abdul Muhammad. On the Queen’s security arrangements at Balmoral Castle.”

  It seemed impossible. Simon Norris fell to his knees on the bathroom floor, retching uncontrollably—panic once more overwhelming him. How?

  An unanswerable question. His sweaty fingers dug into the rim of the toilet, struggling to hold himself aright as his stomach emptied itself into the bowl, the foul taste of bile searing his throat. His date, all the plans he'd once had for this night—all forgotten.

  “How?” he'd asked back there at the restaurant, sitting there frozen, looking into the Russian's eyes like a snake hypnotized by its charmer.

  “You were not the only one who had a. . .'relationship' with Arthur Colville,” the man replied. “He was an asset of ours for many years, if an unwitting one. A useful fool. Or so we thought.”

  Norris leaned back against the wall of the small bathroom, his hand trembling as he wiped vomit away from his lips—his knees drawn up to his chest as he huddled there.

  “We underestimated Colville, I confess. A nearly fatal mistake on our part. Fomenting unrest, he was good at—a good return on our investment, what there was of it. But our analysts failed to predict that he would take the next step, to direct action. An attempt to kill the Queen herself. . .”

  “It wasn't an attempt to kill her,” he'd protested, struggling to keep his voice down in the restaurant. “We had ensured that, we—”

  “You really didn't know, did you?” the Russian had asked, a trace of amusement flickering across his lips. His words striking fear to Norris' heart. “Your Queen was to die that night, along with her family—the Crown Prince and his lovely wife and children. All of them a sacrifice on the altar of Colville's ambitions—his war.”

  “That's not possible. That's not—”

  “Colville was a fool,” the Russian replied flatly, cutting him off. “He went far beyond anything we had expected—anything we were prepared for. And that, Mr. Norris, is where you come in.”

  Norris closed his eyes, the darkness of the bathroom seeming to enfold him—his right hand balling into a trembling fist, tears of anger and rage streaming down his cheeks as the Russian’s words played over and again through his head.

  This had all seemed so very simple once. So. . .right. It was hard to even remember what “right” had looked like now.

  He only knew that his nightmare was only beginning.

  Chapter 5

  2:05 A.M. British Summer Time, July 4th

  A terraced house

  Richmond, London

  Out in the hall, the old grandfather clock struck the hour, its sonorous tones filling the house as it had done for the better part of a century.

  Five minutes late, as usual, Phillip Greer thought, an ironic smile playing at the corners of his mouth as the counter-intelligence officer nursed the last of his gin.

  His wife had gone to bed hours before, but he had yet to join her—sitting alone in the parlor in silence, the ambient light of the muted telly casting flickering shadows across his face.

  Alexei Vasiliev.

  That name, running over and again through his head—as it had ever since Marsh had spoken it there on the bridge over the Thames. Driving sleep from him as effectively as a shot of caffeine to the veins.

  Spending a career in counter-intelligence lent itself particularly well to paranoia, and one had to be careful to place a check upon it—to keep oneself from plummeting over the edge. There lies madness.

  But this. . .this was different. Shades of the past, returned to haunt them once more.

  He’d never encountered the man in person, but he’d seen his file more than enough times to be able to conjure up his face.

  The face of a young man in the full dress uniform of a KGB officer from the mid ‘80s, eyes as cold as ice staring out from beneath the visor of his uniform cap, a cornflower-blue band running beneath the khaki crown.

  Only years before all that had come crashing down, disintegrating into dust and ash. Or so everyone had told themselves.

  But the men like Vasiliev, those who had come up defending the old order—they’d never gone away. They’d simply faded into the shadows, to await a better day.

  A day which seemed as though it had now arrived. But what did it all mean?

  “What in God’s name,” Greer began aloud, staring out into the darkness of the room as if he thought he could summon the man up before him, “are you doing here?”

  7:31 A.M. Central European Summer Time

  Diplomatic Residential Housing

  Berlin, Germany

  It had been another one of those nights. Thomas Dwyer looked into the bathroom mirror as he did up the cuffs of his uniform shirt, straightening his collar.

  Flashbacks to Iraq. Filling his dreams once again—memories of their convoy coming under attack that day outside Ramadi.

  A massive IED disabling the convoy’s lead Stryker, rifle fire drumming against the shell of his up-armored Humvee as they struggled to react. To fight back.

  They’d lost three men on the highway that day. Frank, Colton, and Obed. Good soldiers all, some of the finest men he’d ever served with.

  Gone in an instant, amidst a hellish clangor of small-arms fire and explosions. He hadn’t even realized that Obed had been killed until later on, arriving back at their base. Seeing the sergeant’s b
ody carried out of a bullet-pocked Humvee.

  No time to mourn, not for them or any of the others they’d lost on that deployment, the bloodiest of his three. No time to do anything except keep moving, keep fighting. Try to stay alive yourself.

  And yet—he shook his head, a shadow passing across his dark face. In some perverse way. . .he missed it.

  He’d never intended to make a career of the military, walking into that recruiter’s office back in Atlanta at the age of 18 in the summer of ’95. Serve out a hitch, and move on—he had other things to do with his life.

  Then 9/11 had happened, and he’d been called back up. . .and after that, there was no going back.

  So now here he was, a wife and two kids later, a bird colonel—serving his country as defense attache at the US Embassy. Chained to a desk, liaising with his German counterparts in the Bundeswehr.

  Somehow wishing he was back in combat. Like that made any sense, he smiled ruefully at his reflection in the mirror—hearing his wife stir in the bedroom behind him.

  At least the shift had been good for his marriage, if nothing else. If he had been deployed once more. . .

  He felt her hand on his shoulder and reached up to clasp it in his, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

  “They were back last night, weren’t they?” she asked, her dark eyes seeming to search his face.

  “Yeah, they were,” he responded finally, leaning heavily against the counter. The nightmares. It had been a few months, longer than ever before. Long enough to make him think they might be gone for good. “I’m good now, though.”

  “Thomas, are you sure—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped, pulling away from her hand and regretting it almost as soon as he’d done so. “I’m sorry, I just. . .it had been so long, I. . .”

  “You don’t have to.” She shook her head, her face unreadable. Moving past it. Changing the subject. Like they had so many times before. “A busy day?”

  “Not really, not until this afternoon, the fireworks celebration at Tempelhofer Feld. You’ll bring the kids for that, won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” he replied, relieved to have managed to avoid the conversation, at least for the moment. Retrieving his uniform jacket from the closet as he moved back into the bedroom—draping it over one arm. “I’ll be over mid-afternoon. I’m meeting General Müller at the Hotel Adlon for lunch. . .”

  7:42 A.M.

  An apartment

  Paris, France

  Ibrahim Abu Musab al-Almani. Anaïs Brunet frowned, reaching behind her to zip up the back of her dark blue dress, standing alone before the mirror in the bedroom of her Paris apartment. She rarely saw her chateau in Aquitaine these days, or so it seemed. It had been a couple months since she’d been able to spend the weekend there.

  A week had passed since the first contact from LYSANDER, the dead-drop conveying his message. A week in which open-source intelligence had enabled them to identify most of the members of the “cell”, if that’s truly what it was.

  Everyone except for al-Almani—“the German”—to translate his kunya from the Arabic. The man was a ghost, and a dangerous one, if he had been to Syria. And returned.

  She picked up her necklace, a single strand of pearls she had inherited from her grandmother, looking into the mirror as she adjusted them around her neck.

  Her eyes were bloodshot, foundation serving to obscure the dark circles which had formed around them. The product of long nights at the office, poring over intelligence reports. Trying to hold things together, to make sense of it all.

  Brunet retrieved her laptop case from beside the bed and left the room, hearing the television on in the kitchen—still on from when she had eaten breakfast, an hour before. The female newshost’s voice becoming more distinct as she entered, retrieving the remote from the table.

  “. . .ahead of more protests planned at American embassies around the globe today as the United States prepares to celebrate the anniversary of its independence. Here with us to discuss the ramifications of these protests—”

  She turned the television off and set the remote to one side, standing in the doorway of the kitchen for a long moment, just staring at the blackened screen.

  It promised to be another very long day.

  2:01 A.M. Mountain Time

  Tulsa International Airport

  Tulsa, Oklahoma

  The heartland. Dark eyes the color of obsidian betrayed no expression as the middle-aged man gazed out the window of the Boeing 737 toward the terminal building, its lights blazing brightly in the darkness of the night.

  Flyover country. The kind of place people back in Washington liked to pretend no longer existed, or perhaps never had.

  It reminded him of home, growing up on the plains of Kansas. Flat, as far as the eye could see. Simple people, simple faith.

  The kind of place he’d turned his back upon, decades before. He’d joined the military right out of high school, a career that had taken him around the world and into the ranks of the Army’s most elite unit, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta.

  Somalia. Kosovo. Iraq.

  Bloody waypoints along the path which had let him here this night. Now, as then, looking out for his men. Protecting them.

  “Sir, do you need help?” he heard a woman’s voice ask, looking up to see a flight attendant standing over him.

  It took him a moment to process what she meant, and then he pulled himself aright, propping himself against the back of the seat in front of him, his empty right pant leg flopping limp and useless beneath him even as he did so.

  The rest of his right leg—everything below the knee—left somewhere back in a place in Iraq called “Tikrit.” An IED blast, well over a decade previous.

  He smiled at the young woman, a smile that never touched his dark eyes—his voice edged with steel as he shook his head, replying softly, “I’ve got this.”

  Balancing himself against the back of the seat as she disappeared down the aisle, he turned back, reaching up to unlatch the overheard compartment to pull down his carry-on. Unzipping the bag to reveal a prosthetic leg.

  More than a decade, and somehow this never got any easier, he thought grimly, raising his stump in one hand to fit it into the socket of the prosthesis—pushing it home until he heard the pins click into place.

  But all those years at war—at Delta—there’d never been anything “easy” about any of it. And for him, it was a war that had never ended.

  Which was why he was here this night.

  He extended his prosthetic leg, feeling the floor solid once more beneath him as he stood erect, hoisting his carry-on over his shoulder as he made his way down the aisle, pushing his way past other passengers as he went.

  Time to do this.

  7:48 A.M. Central European Summer Time

  Neukölln, Berlin

  Germany

  “All right, you understand what you're supposed to do, don't you?”

  Anas nodded silently, his mind running back over it once more. The plan was very simple, as straightforward as one's death could ever be. Take public transit to the parking garage and retrieve the sedan. Then drive it to the Unter den Linden, the tree-shaded boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate. Less than five miles.

  The boulevard was closed to automobile traffic, but that shouldn't matter, not in the time it would take to reach the café.

  As for the rest. . .well, it would all be over in an instant. As God willed it.

  “I do,” he said finally, meeting Yusuf's eyes in that moment. Feeling nothing but coldness within, the gnawing darkness which had haunted him ever since the death of his parents, now reaching out to embrace him. “I do.”

  “Mash'allah,” his friend breathed, his eyes shining with fervor, a nervous excitement pervading his body. “Would that I could join you in this hour of sacrifice.”

  Yusuf reached out to embrace him then, his beard rough against Anas' cheek as
he held him close. “May the angels welcome you to paradise, little brother.”

  11:45 A.M.

  Masjid Al-Rahma

  Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Belgium

  The Fourth of July. It had been years since he’d celebrated it in the land of his birth, Harry thought, the noonday sun beating down upon him. The land of the free.

  He could remember having spent the Fourth in Iraq—more than once. Afghanistan, the same. Celebrations at war, in an alien land. Incoming mortar rounds, their only fireworks—RPK tracers streaming through the night.

  Immersing himself in the culture, the people. Until everything once alien became familiar. . .and everything once familiar, somehow alien. Until going back home seemed more foreign than what he had known overseas.

  The hem of his long white linen thawb fluttered about his ankles as he paused at the door of the mosque, a nondescript former factory building which had become a center of the Islamic community in Molenbeek.

  There was no going home, not for him. Nothing there for him, anyway. No one.

  “Are you coming, Ibrahim?” he heard Yassin’s voice ask from the doorway, shattering his reverie even as a woman in a brightly-colored hijab pushed past him, a little boy in her arms.

  “Of course,” Harry replied quickly, entering behind her—his eyes adjusting to the dimly lit atrium as he stooped to remove his shoes, placing them reverently in the rack provided for the purpose.

  “Are you all right, man?” Reza asked as he turned back to join them, genuine concern in the young Moroccan’s eyes.

  “I’m fine,” he lied, meeting his gaze, “just thinking.”

  Thoughts of home. Just because he couldn’t go back, didn’t mean there weren’t times he didn’t hunger for it. Like the hunger for a woman you could never have.

  “Come, my brothers,” he said, forcing a smile to his face as he put a hand on each of their shoulders. “It is time for us to pray.”