by Peter Telep
Dresden’s paternal grandfather, Franz, was an Army doctor in allied-occupied Germany, circa 1945, and he was the reason why Dresden had gone to Afghanistan. He took a deep breath and began the story.
One night Franz was working at an aid station in Berlin when a Muslim named Beb Ahmose rushed frantically inside, carrying a young boy in his arms. He spoke in broken English about how a Jeep filled with drunken GIs had struck his wife and son, that his wife was already dead, and that his son needed immediate medical attention. The boy’s leg was broken and he was having trouble breathing. Ahmose said he pleaded with the GIs to take his son to an allied medical facility, but they laughed and drove off. Franz said he would do what he could, but their small aid station was poorly equipped and only meant as a stabilization facility before patients were shipped off for further treatment at area hospitals. Ahmose begged Franz to treat the boy and insisted that they not go to a hospital. While this struck Franz as suspicious, he treated the boy and managed to stabilize him.
Interestingly enough, Franz Dresden was also a member of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services and the predecessor of today’s CIA. Using his OSS connections, Franz gathered intel on Beb Ahmose before the father and son left his aid station. He learned that Ahmose was actually an Egyptian and part of a Muslim delegation caught in Berlin with his family at the close of the war. It was well documented that the Muslim Brotherhood had strong ties to Nazi, Germany, and Beb Ahmose was a confirmed spy and courier for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Franz received orders from the OSS to capture Ahmose, but he did not. By the time the boy was sutured and stabilized enough to travel, Ahmose learned of Franz’s prying and killed him using one of the surgical knives Franz had used to operate on the boy.
“So Ahmose escaped Berlin with his son, leaving my grandfather in a pool of blood. I went to Afghanistan because I was following a lead on Ahmose’s whereabouts, but we came up empty on that trip.”
“This guy Ahmose killed your grandfather in World War II, and you’re still seeking revenge? He’s probably dead. Then what? You’ll try to kill his descendants?”
“I’m not sure why I’m looking for him, or what I’d do if I found him or his family. Maybe I’d ask for an apology. I need closure, I guess. For many years, my father was obsessed with finding him, and it almost feels like my duty to continue the search. He passed away last month, and you know what he told his only child while he was in the hospital? He only had two regrets: that he never found Ahmose, and that I never joined the military.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
“Thanks. When the firm took off, he told me how proud he was, but then right there at the end, he showed his hand. He wasn’t proud because I never became a real man. I didn’t serve my country.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Back then, my father was such a hard ass, and I started rebelling, doing drugs. I become ridiculously liberal. Then I got into Princeton and thought anyone in the military was a retard or a criminal. Baby killers, you know. Besides, it all worked out.”
She nodded, thought a moment and said, “Honestly, I didn’t expect you to be this forthcoming.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. So now you have a choice. You can ignore my wishes and take everything I’ve told you and put it in your article. In that way you’ll continue to make the assholes who own your magazine rich. Or... you can respect my privacy and accept my offer to come work for me restructuring our public relations department. The position pays double what you’re making now, and our offices are on New York’s Third Avenue, so you won’t have to move.”
Her mouth fell open in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am. This was an interview. But it wasn’t mine. It was yours.”
Chapter Two
“I’ve spent most of my life looking at the world through the eyes of my enemy, and the strange thing is, when it came to this, I agreed with the enemy on a lot of things.”
—Josh Eriksson (FBI interview, 23 December)
Edward Senecal, co-founder of D&S Equities, wept over his son’s hospital bed. Emile, not yet thirteen, had been rushed from his bus stop and transported to St. Michael’s in downtown Toronto with massive blunt force trauma injuries to his head and chest. His nose was broken, along with several ribs. A lung had collapsed, and he was already in a coma as his brain continued to swell. He had been intubated and placed on a ventilator. The doctor had warned them of extensive and possibly permanent brain damage—if he survived.
Emile’s injuries had not come from a terrible fall or from a car or from some other ungodly accident. They had come from three classmates wielding baseball bats. Senecal’s poor son had been beaten to the ground like a rabid dog in a third world country.
It had all begun several hours earlier, when Senecal had been sitting in his office in the Canada Trust Tower on Bay Street and brainstorming ways to get the U.S. Congress off the fence regarding a $250 million dollar Department of Defense Contract. In addition to co-founding D&S Equities, he was the CEO of Aero-Vista Ltd., a fixed and rotary wing drone manufacturer with avionics and airframe assembly plants in Toronto and the United States. The Air Force was ready to do business, but with continued controversies over drone deployment and with only limited threats on the horizon, Senecal was unsure if Washington would ever commit. He had been at his window, staring at the multi-colored skyscrapers arranged like the components of a motherboard inside some immense computer, when his smartphone rang and broke his train of thought. Mimi, his thirty-four-year-old wife, stammered as she told him what had happened. Three boys had been threatening Emile’s younger sister, Celine, during their walk home from school because she was not wearing a burka like a decent Islamic girl. The boys had crossed to a row of shrubs where they had hidden baseball bats. Emile came to his sister’s defense, shoving her out of the way and getting beaten before a local school bus driver saw what was happening, pulled over, and chased off the boys. By then, of course, it was too late. Meanwhile, Celine had run straight home to get her mother, and she was all right, but Emile... Senecal burst to his feet and beat a fist into his hand.
How had it come to this, in his city, in his life?
Edward Senecal could proudly trace his French Canadian ancestry in an unbroken line all the way back to the 1600s, arriving in “New France” alongside Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec City and one of the most charismatic figures in Canadian history. Senecal considered himself an honorable man with closely-held core values. Family, religion, and his country were upper most in his thoughts. He was a student of history with an acute and heightened sensitivity to social oppression and injustice. He was, after all, a product of his own history, some ancient and some surprisingly recent. The ancient oppressions by the Catholic Church, the French-English assimilation, and the language issues beginning as far back as 1760 still festered in present day politics.
Now it was the Muslims who were changing his way of life and traditions. He was regaled by constant anecdotes of Islamic dominance and Sharia Law legislation throughout Europe via emails and phone calls from a sister-in-law in Paris and his brother in London. He felt the tightening of yet another constriction on Canada—his Canada—with a burgeoning 3.2 percent Muslim population, which was second only to Christianity. Somewhat claustrophobic, the social situation was still manageable and did not begin to choke until the Muslim population in the Greater Toronto Area, his family’s sanctuary, exceeded five percent, making it the highest concentration of Muslims in any city in North America. He wanted to believe he was a tolerant man, that the story of his life proved he was, but when he was made to feel like a foreigner in his own country and when the foreigners themselves began to dictate how he should live his life, well, a line had to be drawn in the sand.
And now this.
Mimi was down the hall in the ICU’s narrow waiting room. She had vomited twice from the stress and was now comforting Celine. Senecal took his son’s cold hand and presse
d it against his own tear-stained cheek. He remained there, trembling with fear and anger and utter frustration before returning to his wife and daughter.
“I just got off the phone with the police. The boys are in custody, and there are news vans outside and at the police station,” his wife said.
“What were those boys thinking?” he asked.
“Eddie, please,” she said, flicking her glance to Celine, who was staring blankly as she rested her head on Mimi’s chest. “We have to pray now. That’s all we can do.”
“Did you reach your mother?”
“She and Dad are coming. What about Nick?”
“He was in Houston for some bullshit interview, but he’s leaving now.”
“Why don’t you sit down?”
He glowered at her. “You want me to sit? I’m ready to kill somebody. Those hajis beat our boy, and now we might lose him!”
“Lower your voice! You sound like one of those jarhead generals.”
“Emile might have brain damage!”
“Eddie, please...” Mimi began crying.
He stood there, panting. “All of this political correctness. This world wants us to believe in everything—so that we stand for nothing. Nothing! They beat my boy!”
“And now what? They’re going to pay? You’re going to go kill them and wind up in jail? We’re the victims. Don’t change that by doing something stupid.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“I’m warning you, Eddie! Don’t do it!”
“I just need... I need to go for a walk.”
Senecal bolted from the room. He took the elevator to the lobby. There, he found a rear door leading to the loading dock. He stood there, breathing in the cold evening air cut by the faint odor of diesel fuel and tobacco. Off to his left, two nurses were sneaking cigarettes in the alley. He glanced away, scanning the street as though he might spot one of the boys. His stomach churned with helplessness. He was a fifty-eight-year-old man with a young wife and kids. Every day they made him feel young, but tonight he was painfully aware of his age. He thought of his pistol collection back home, the 1911s, the Glocks, the Berettas, and the Sig Sauer P226 with 124 grain +P ammo in his night stand. He imagined himself bursting into the houses of those boys and murdering their families, shooting each and every one of them pointblank in the forehead. He poured gasoline over their bodies and watched them burn on their front lawns. His imagination ran even more wild with heinous acts he could commit against them. And then he saw himself behind bars, lying on his thin bunk and cursing over the hum of fluorescent lights, a hum that penetrated his skin, a hum that drowned out his perception of time and space, a hum that would carry him to his grave. Mimi, of course, was right. Retaliation against these particular boys would only get him locked up and further ruin his family. Mimi, Celine, and Emile needed him more than ever now, and he would be a man for them. He would provide for them a safer country. He would protect them from any future harm. He dialed the number to a pre-paid cell phone.
“Jesus, I can’t believe you’re calling now,” said the man on the other end. “I heard about your boy. I saw it on CNN.”
“I’m sure the pundits are running wild with stories about tolerance and intolerance and the rest of that bullshit.”
“Yeah. What can I do for you?”
“I want you to reach out to our friend in Namibia. We’re ready to move forward.”
“Slow down, Eddie. You need to be sure.”
“Did you not hear me?”
“Look, you’re under a lot of stress. You need more time.”
He snorted. “Are you kidding me? What have you been saying for the last six months?”
“That the time couldn’t be better.”
“Then what’s the issue? Or maybe you’ve been full of shit from the beginning.”
“Calm down. I’m just saying that once I put this ball in play, there’s no stopping it. Do you understand? No stopping it. Are you sure?”
“I have never been more sure about anything in my entire life.”
“And what about Nick?”
“He’s good to go.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I don’t care what you believe. You just make it happen.”
“All right, then, Eddie. I’ll call him tonight. We’ll be in touch.”
Senecal thumbed off his phone and closed his eyes. It was done.
* * *
Dresden arrived at the hospital by one a.m. and found Senecal fast asleep in the ICU waiting room. His wife was beside him, but their daughter had been taken home by Mimi’s parents. Dresden had called Senecal when he had touched down at the airport. The man had sounded exhausted. Dresden could not imagine what he must be going through. He and his wife of thirty years had never had children or adopted, and this was one of those rare moments that made him glad that Victoria was infertile.
“Eddie, I’m here,” he said, tugging on Senecal’s shirt sleeve.
Dresden’s partner was about as tall and athletically built as he was, but he refused to acknowledge or embrace his age and was still dying his hair blond, even though it was obvious in his eyes that he was pushing sixty. He tugged a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket, propped them on his nose, then rose from the chair and gave Dresden a brief hug. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“Of course.”
“There’s an all night place down the block. We could get coffee.”
“That’s all right. How is he?”
“They’re trying to control the swelling on his brain. Not sure how much brain damage yet. Probably a lot. He’s on a ventilator. The doctor said we could lose him.”
“Eddie, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this happened. They went to a private middle school, didn’t they?”
“Yes, it’s at the end of our block. They walked home every day, never a problem, until these three little Hajis moved into our neighborhood.”
“They’ll get theirs. You and our army of lawyers will make sure of that.”
Senecal closed his eyes. “You have no idea.”
“Are you all right?”
Senecal opened his eyes and regarded his sleeping wife. “No, I’m not. Let’s go somewhere.”
As they left the waiting room, Dresden noted an intensity in Senecal that brought out the veins in his forehead and tightened his gait. That was to be expected, and this was not the first time Dresden had witnessed his friend grieve; the man’s first wife, Elisabeth, had been diagnosed with stage IV cervical cancer only six months after they were married, and Senecal had held her hand for five long years.
“You remember the first day we met?” he blurted out.
Dresden frowned. “Where’s this coming from?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Yeah, I remember. Super bowl twelve party down in Trenton at that girl’s house, what the hell was her name?”
“Doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t take the bet.”
“Because it was ridiculous. I remember now... the Broncos were going to slaughter the Cowboys.”
“But they didn’t. They got raped. Eight turnovers, I’ll never forget it.”
“Yeah. I thought I’d be taking your money a little too easily,” said Dresden. “I should’ve known better.”
“I heard you didn’t bet anyone that night. You weren’t in on the pool, nothing.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“From that girl. What’s her name. Is it true?”
“You’re asking me this now after what? Thirty something years?”
“Sure.”
“All right, it’s true.”
“And you’ve spent your whole life hedging your bets.”
“I hate losing.”
“You’ve never taken any risks. Ever.”
“Come on, Eddie. You know we’ve both taken huge risks.”
“No, you’ve never just closed your eyes and dove in. You always have to analyze it to death before you make a move. You talk about daring
to do mighty things, but every risk you take is calculated.”
“Knowledge is power.”
“And what do you do with that power once you have it? You put it in a box and store it up on the shelf in your closet? Or are you man enough to use it?”
“Eddie, I’m worried about you. Your son’s lying back there in the ICU, and you have way too much on your mind. I don’t know where this is going, and I don’t want to know. You take some time off. Take as long as you need.”
“Time is the one thing we don’t have. Not anymore. Yesterday we were selling bananas, remember?”
“Funny, I was just talking about that.”
“Yeah, and here we are, a life time later. Blink of an eye, right?”
“I’m going to pray for your boy.” Dresden clutched his friend by the shoulders. “And you, and Mimi, and Celine.”
“Suddenly you found God.”
Dresden pursed his lips. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”
“I called our friend in Washington.”
“Regarding this?”
“No. I told him we were ready to move forward. The ball’s in play.”
Dresden began to lose his breath. “You’re not serious.”
“The time is right.”
The hospital walls narrowed, and for a moment, Dresden felt the blood escape from his head. His breath grew shallow, and he reached out to the wall for balance. “Repeat what you just said.”
“I told our friend to cut it loose. I told him you were good to go.”
