Final Winter

by Brendan DuBois

  ~ * ~

  Final Winter

  Brendan Dubois

  Scanned & Proofed by MadMaxAU

  ~ * ~

  ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’

  - Roman satirist Juvenal

  (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) circa AD 100

  ‘We have met the enemy and he is us!’

  - American philosopher Pogo circa ad 1970

  ~ * ~

  PART ONE

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER ONE

  The meeting took place at a time when the wreckage of the World Trade Center was still being doused with water, portions of the Pentagon’s south wall were still collapsing, and bits of metal from what had once been a Boeing 767 passenger jet were being dug out of the ground in a rural area of Pennsylvania. It was held in a small, carpeted room with wood paneling, a badly polished conference-room table, and framed Audubon Society bird prints on the wall. The dull-colored furniture and decorations announced that the room had last been serviced during the Johnson Administration; the smell and general dampness in its interior also announced that, despite its looks, the room was in a concrete cube, one hundred feet beneath the ground. The air smelled of soot and sweat and defeat.

  Three men were at the meeting. In front of each of them was a fresh yellow legal pad, sharpened pencils, and uncapped black-ink Bic pens. The CIA man who had called the meeting looked at the other two participants: a heavyset man from the FBI who had not shaved in at least two days, and a taller, thinner man, whose blue Oxford shirt had one collar flap unbuttoned and who worked for the National Security Agency. Both men’s eyes were red-rimmed and watery, unfocused a bit with exhaustion and fear, and the CIA man knew he looked just as distressed.

  He said, ‘There’s going to be lots of time later for investigations, for recriminations. This isn’t going to be that time.’

  The NSA man said, ‘Then why the hell are we here? Look, none of us have the time to fuck around with—’

  The FBI man held up a hand. ‘There’s a point. Always has to be a point. Let him finish.’

  He nodded in appreciation. ‘We all know what’s going to happen. After the initial shock, in a week, maybe a month, the headhunters will be out there, hunting for us. And we all know that we’re going to have the information and the evidence they need to bloody us and our people.’

  The other two men sat silently. Not one of them had picked up a pencil or a pen. The CIA man said, ‘Let’s be honest. Once we start walking back the dog, once we start going through all those terabytes of information and e-mail intercepts and cellphone recordings, we’re going to find the bits and pieces of what had been going on during the past year or so. Something this elaborate, this well planned, didn’t happen without us getting the hints that something was up. And that will come out, and we’re going to take major grief before it’s over.’

  The FBI man opened his hands in apparent despair. ‘You know what we’re up against. We didn’t have the people, the resources, hell, we don’t even have enough Arabic translators on hand to . . .’

  The voice dribbled off, like he knew he had been preaching to the converted. The FBI man wiped at his eyes. ‘Go on.’

  The CIA man said, ‘There will be changes ahead. Shifts in agencies, budgets. Rumsfeld will get everything he wants and more. We’ll probably get what we want, though we’ll have to sacrifice some bodies to make Capitol Hill and the Post and the Times happy. Everybody will think that an intelligence failure this huge has been corrected. There’s even talk about setting up some damn homeland-security department. But it’s not going to work. You know it, I know it. It’s not going to work. We’re just too damn big and complex. Things get missed all the goddam time.’

  The NSA man said, ‘NASA.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘NASA,’ he repeated, his fingers wiggling slightly, from energy fueled by lots of caffeine and not much sleep. ‘In the late 1950s is when it was organized. We were getting our asses kicked by the Soviets in the space program. Our rockets kept on blowing up. So the brightest young pups were hired, were stuck in a swamp in Florida, and were told to get the job done. They built their rockets, their capsules, and you know what they did if they found out they needed a special wrench or tool? They drove to the nearest fucking hardware store and bought it, that’s what. No contract bidding. No purchase orders. No reviews of parts-procurement that could eat up six or eight months. No required diversity training for their contractors. No, they bought the tools they needed and got the job done. And less than ten years later, we were walking on the moon.’

  The CIA man could see he was making progress. He pressed on. ‘Yeah, they got the job done. And then they got fat, slow, cautious. They became experts on filling out paperwork. Not experts on buying the right wrenches. We should have the stars-and-stripes flying on Mars right now. And we’re not going to do that, not in our lifetimes.’

  The FBI man said, ‘What are you suggesting?’

  The CIA man shifted in the seat, felt the ache in his hips. ‘We have a chance now, with everybody in shock, to set up what has to be set up. We’re going to need something new, something hungry, something that’s not going to fuck around with paperwork and procedures and making sure the right asses get kissed. We put something together tonight, the three of us, guaranteed, we’ll have the necessary Presidential and Congressional approvals, with the funding and mandate we need, within forty-eight hours. We wait another week or so, another month, and we’ll be screwed. They’ll reshuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic, that’s what’s going to be done, and we can’t afford it.’

  The other two men nodded. The CIA man knew that he should have felt pleased at their reaction, but he was still too damn tired, too damn wired. ‘I’m thinking of setting up Tiger Teams. Know the phrase?’

  ‘Sure,’ the NSA man said. ‘Specialty teams, brought in from the outside, to review and attack a problem and present a solution. Military to industry to almost everything else. Sure. Tiger Teams.’

  The CIA man said, ‘That’s what we’re going to do. Tiger Teams, recruited from our agencies, from outside, from colleges and media and think tanks and law enforcement. People who can think on their feet, poke and probe and not be satisfied with the ready answer. Tiger Teams for border control, bio-warfare, intelligence analysis, nuclear proliferation, everything and anything. We’ll draw up a list, get something on paper and over to Sixteen Hundred by morning.’

  ‘Think they’ll be receptive?’ asked the FBI man.

  ‘The other night the President and his wife were asked to sleep on a pull-out couch in a White House bomb shelter. He’ll be receptive. And both sides of the aisle in Congress, we can get them on board, too. The leaders in both parties, they were evacuated from the Capitol last week in helicopters and armored vehicles. That tends to focus one’s mind.’

  ‘What’s the oversight going to be?’ asked the NSA man.

  ‘Not sure yet,’ the CIA man admitted. ‘But it’ll be minimal. They’ll have the mandate to get the job done. Performance will be what counts.’

  The NSA man grimaced. ‘I can see the Congressional hearings, decades down the road, where we’ll be brought before the panel in wheelchairs, testifying on why the hell we set up a rogue intelligence group like this. Green light for almost everything, no oversight. A hell of a thing.’

  ‘Sure is,’ the CIA man said. ‘And this is what we’ll show them.’

  From inside his suitcoat pocket, he pulled out a thin metal object, tossed it down on the conference-room table, where it clattered to a stop. The other two men looked on. He said, ‘That’s all it took. Some box cutters and knives, nineteen airline tickets, and nineteen assholes ready to kill themselves. That’s all. And we lost several thousand people, four jet aircraft, t
he World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and billions of dollars in our economy. For any other asshole out there thinking to do us harm, that sounds like a hell of a bargain.’

  The two other men stared at the box cutter, and then looked up at the CIA man. He said, ‘And we’ll tell those investigators, that’s what we were up against. And why we had to do everything to make sure that the next nineteen guys from the Middle East who didn’t like us or Barbie or Coca-Cola didn’t come here carrying suitcase nukes.’

  There was a pause. He said, ‘You on board?’

  The FBI man looked at the NSA man and said. ‘Yeah.’

  His companion nodded. ‘Yeah. Let’s get the fuckers.’

  ‘Sure,’ the CIA man said. ‘But first, we’ve got work to do.’

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER TWO

  In Lahore, Pakistan, the wind was blowing down from the Hindu Kush, bringing with it the smell of dust, cooking fires and burning coal. Nineteen year-old Amil Zahrain paused in his quest for a moment, letting his left foot - the crippled one - rest some as it ached. He looked about the crowded sidewalks with wide brown eyes. This was the busiest place he had ever seen in his life, and he was quite scared, and quite lost.

  A hand went into his thin cotton shirt, into the pocket his sister had secretly sewed for him, not more than a week ago. There, wrapped in paper, was his midday meal, a piece of flat bread, wrapping goat cheese and cabbage, and nestled next to his meal was a small fortune: one hundred Pakistani rupees, and an American twenty-dollar bill. And, between both of them, a thin piece of black plastic that was his weapon this day, to help kill the Jews and the infidels.

  But he was lost!

  Amil looked around the crowded streets again, looking vainly for a street sign or any other symbol that would help him reach his destination. He sighed, shifted his weight, winced again at the pain in his left foot. He had gotten up this morning before sunrise in his small village, about fifty kilometers to the east of Lahore. With other day workers there, he had scrambled aboard a wheezing bus that rode the bumpy Route A-2 that led into Lahore, and he had stood for most of the trip, taking in the kilometers after kilometers of crowded shacks and buildings that had been erected up against the old walls of the city. All along the way to the city, he had murmured to himself, repeating the holy prayers that he had memorized in the few short years he had spent in the local madrassa, asking for God’s help and God’s strength to do what had to be done.

  The ride had been uneventful, except for one brief moment, along a place called Killorney Boulevard, when he had spotted a small fortress of a building, flying that hated red-white-blue flag, and he had stared at it with such contempt for a moment, until he’d remembered his instructions. Be quiet, do not bring notice to yourself, just do what you’ve been told to do.

  God be praised.

  But now, he was lost.

  In Amil’s hand was a dirty piece of lined schoolbook paper, with instructions and directions carefully written out in his scrawl that he was ashamed to show his sister, for her writing was much better than his. It was not fair, for his schooling had been the memorization and the glorification of the word of God, while their mother had insisted that his sister take part in some education and work program, administered by a women’s council (as if such a thing could be believed!) that was getting money from some infidel bank from Europe. He had complained bitterly to his mother about the influence this was passing on to his younger sister, and she had snapped at him one night that with his empty head and God’s words and a clubfoot, if he wished to do better, then by all means do better.

  Amil looked up again and around, desperately seeking a sign. The instructions that had been dictated to him had been clear - he had been forced to read them back twice to the stranger who had first met him at the village mosque -and only then had he received the money.

  The stranger - a tall Sudanese man - had said as they sat on a stone bench near the center of the village, under a willow tree, ‘I am looking for a pious young man, a man who wants to perform jihad. Are you that man, Amil?’

  And he had replied, his hands trembling with excitement, yes, yes I am.

  ‘You’ve wanted to perform jihad for some time now, haven’t you.’

  Yes, that I have, sir, he had said.

  ‘You’ve wanted to take up weapons against God’s enemies, to go to distant lands, but this has not occurred. Why?’

  Amil had looked down at his feet in shame and sorrow, not able to answer.

  The Sudanese had nodded. ‘But your crippled foot... it has prevented you from traveling to Afghanistan or Yemen or Iraq, am I right? You cannot walk for long distances. So you have stayed here, in your home, with your mother and your sister. Instead of being a warrior for God.’

  Amil had almost whispered, it is God’s will. What else can I do?

  The Sudanese had leaned in, his tobacco breath near Amil’s ear, and said, ‘There are other weapons to use against the Jews and the infidels, other ways to perform jihad without traveling too far or carrying a weapon. Are you interested?’

  And Amil had said, his voice now strong, I am at your command.

  The older man had smiled. ‘You are at God’s command, this is true. And this is what you shall do.’

  And so Amil had learned and had written down the directions and the orders, and so it came to pass that he was now here, near where he had to go to do his jihad, to perform his holy struggle, and—

  Lost!

  The utter shame.

  Two men made their way through the crowds and now eyed Amil, and he shivered. They wore uniforms of some sort, some type of policeman with large, fierce mustaches, and they carried long wooden staves in their weathered hands, and Amil started walking again, passing them, knowing instinctively that to stay in one place was to invite questions, and that was one thing that the Sudanese had taught him, over and over again, not to invite questions.

  He walked up the street and thought for a moment, and then came back. Vendors and shopkeepers and buyers moved around in a chattering, bright flood, but he ignored the directions now for a moment, recalled what he was looking for, the bright sign the Sudanese said would be out there. The street sign was missing...how and where it went missing was not his worry. But the other sign that he sought... well, it must be someplace near. He could ask directions from one of the vendors, but no, with God’s will and God’s help, he would find it by himself.

  And he did!

  The sun had crawled higher up into the dusty yellow sky when in one of the narrow, unmarked side streets there had been the sign, in bright letters on a square piece of plastic. He looked down at the words laboriously written out in English on the paper, and matched them, letter for letter, with the overhead sign.

  LAHORE NUMBER ONE INTERNET CAFE.

  He murmured a prayer, thanks to be God, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet, and he went to the place.

  ~ * ~

  The glass and metal door closed behind him, and Amil started shivering, both in fear and from the intense cold inside the place. He had never seen anything like it in his life. There were tables and booths and chairs, and while tea and coffee and pastries and other items were being consumed, at each table there were computers and computer screens, lined up, row after row. He took in the sight, jaw agape, at the men (and women!) sitting before the computers. A young man came over to him, frowning, wearing the foreign costume of a white shirt and necktie, and blue jeans, and said in a sharp voice, ‘Yes?’

  ‘I ... I wish to rent a computer.’

  The man sneered at him. ‘You have the money?’

  Amil fumbled in his robe, took out the American money, which he passed over to the man who grunted, held it up to the light, felt it with his fingers, and nodded, walking back to a counter. Amil followed and the man, with some papers and a small black object in his hand, said, ‘All right, then, you can—’

  Amil blushed with shame, remembered his instructions. ‘I. . . must ha
ve a computer with a drive ... a disk drive.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Very well. Come with me.’

  Amil followed the man to one end of the place - a cafe, such an odd name - and he felt himself recoil as he saw two Western women - dressed like whores in T-shirts and shorts, their knapsacks resting against their booted feet - giggling and whispering to each other as they examined a shared computer screen.

  They came to an empty booth in the corner, and Amil saw crumpled-up papers and napkins littering the floor and the table where the computer was, but the man made no attempt to clean it up. Amil sat down and the man presented a paper to him and said some long sentences that he had a hard time understanding, but even this had been part of his training. He just nodded and scrawled his signature at the bottom of the paper. The man took the paper away and put the small black object on top of the computer. It was a timer, with blood-red numerals, and it was set at 60, and as Amil watched it switched to 59.