He blacked out, and when he came to, the woman was still nose-to-nose with him, grinning mischievously, her eyes glinting with sin and wickedness, a gaze bottomless as hell’s abyss. She was laughing at his helplessness and pain.
They were all laughing at him.
“You’re monsters” was all he could get out.
“Of mythic proportions,” the woman said.
Still laughing, the doctor walked over to the wall table and opened the black doctor’s bag he’d placed there. He took out a blowtorch, a pair of tin snips, pliers, and forceps. He put the blowtorch on the table, turned it on, and lit it. After pulling on gray, padded, thermal-lined gloves, he began heating the shears, pliers, and forceps in the torch’s brilliant bluish flame. They soon turned incandescently crimson.
“Remember that spasm of ecstasy, boy,” the woman said. “It’s going to be your last—unless, that is, you give us what we want.”
With the glowing pliers in one hand and the red-hot, smoking shears in the other, the doctor walked toward the hanging man.
5
“Maybe a little nuclear terrorism can divert our howling masses from their revenge.”
—Shaiq ibn Ishaq
Lying on the black silk sheets of his massive circular bed, Shaiq stared up at the ceiling mirror, then glanced over at the floor-to-ceiling wall mirrors. His sultry, sloe-eyed mistress, Malika, brushed her long black hair out of her face and began snorting a sixth line of cocaine off his stomach with a rolled-up James Madison $5000 bill. She then looked up dreamily at him with a drug-addled smile and began moving lower, lower, lower.
Until—
Until—
Until—
Looking up, Malika saw the pressure in Shaiq mounting, becoming unbearable in its intensity. His pupils were dilating, his eyes rolling back, and his jaw trembling in and out. Without pausing, without missing a beat, she grabbed an amyl nitrite ampule off his chest and cracked it with one hand under his nose. The drug rush triggered a tidal wave of excitation, until, culminating in a crescendo of savagely sensual passion, it all but blasted the back of his head off.
Somewhere in the dim abyss of his brain, a voice whispered to Shaiq:
Too much pleasure kills.
So be it, his reptilian brain stem hissed back.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. Life haltingly returned to his body and limbs. His mistress was climbing up his supine body. Wiping her mouth, she kissed him long and hard on the lips, then rolled onto her side, her face buried in his neck.
“For a moment I thought you were going to die,” Malika said.
“Part of me did,” Shaiq said, “but I needed it. All that pent-up stress needed a release.”
“Why are you so tense?”
She was such a hopeless moron there was no harm in ventilating. Her coke-cooked brain understood nothing and remembered less.
“I met with our clerics again. Talk about submongoloid idiots! They believe all that shit about stoning women and exterminating the infidel. They don’t understand why we aren’t pouring 150 percent of our petrodollars into ISIS and al Qaeda. They actually threatened me, saying if I did not increase our arms and funding for our foreign mujahedin, they would order them back into the Kingdom to teach the royal family the true faith at the point of a sword. They said that to me: ‘at the point of a sword.’”
“I assume they will skim most of the money for themselves.”
Maybe she isn’t that dumb after all.
“At least. Still, it doesn’t pay to underestimate them. They mean what they say and settle scores. If they don’t get their Operation Flaming Sword soon, they’ll declare a nationwide strike, incite a revolution at home, storm the palace gates, and bring the country to its knees.”
“What do you plan on doing, my love?” Malika asked.
“My brothers and I all have our exit plans in place. We’ve been anticipating this moment for decades. All over the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Brazilian coasts, we have walled villas replete with armed mercenaries to protect us and burgeoning black-hole bank accounts to underwrite our comfort. The world is freeing itself from hydrocarbon energy, and oil prices are plummeting. We have been lying about our infinite oil reserves forever. They are drying up with shocking rapidity, and we will soon go broke. We will no longer be able to buy off our eternally proliferating populace with free food, free housing, and free health care. Moreover, it will occur far sooner than Western experts realize.”
“What will happen then?” Malika asked.
“A shit storm of apocalyptic proportions. Blood will flow in Riyadh’s streets, and it will be worse in Pakistan. There, climate change is drying up the biggest rivers, devastating their croplands. Without our petrodollars and with nothing to eat, that country will come apart. The same thing will happen here. Our people will rise up and burn our nation down to the scorching desert sand. The Kingdom will cease to exist. We will again be reduced to Bedouinism. Since the only people here and in Pakistan—who are sincere, who believe in what they do—are the terrorists, they will end up with Pakistan’s nukes. That’s part of why we’re launching this new operation. If we instill enough nuclear fear in people, maybe they will be too frightened to rise up against us. If we can no longer provide for our people’s or the Pakistani people’s welfare, maybe a little nuclear terrorism can divert our howling masses from their revenge.”
“You have a lot on your plate, my prince.”
“Yes, and I also have to contend with D.C. Not only the president and his horde of morons, but now some CIA bitch is making waves. She actually has evidence that Flaming Sword is about to go down. I’m worried that a couple of Caldwell’s people might be listening to her. She could even go to the press.”
“What can she do?”
“I think she’s feeding intel to Jules Meredith, the reporter. To read Meredith’s articles, you’d think she has a pipeline into Riyadh, ISIS, and Pakistan’s ISI. Her analysis of the coming nuclear attacks is right on the money, that’s for sure. If she digs any deeper, she could very well find the smoking-gun evidence necessary to blow the whistle on all of our operations. I don’t want SEAL Team Six coming after me the way they went after bin Laden.”
“So what will you do?” She was finishing up her seventh line, her nose and mouth crusted with the alabaster drug, her eyes wild with desire.
“Cancel her ticket for good. After Flaming Sword commences, I’ll also have our Pakistani terrorist cells blow up pipelines and refineries all over the Mideast, then set the oil fields ablaze. I’ll incite a Middle Eastern civil war that will make the violence in Syria, Libya, and Iraq look like the holy hajj. The petrol shortage will send OPEC oil prices up to $1000 a barrel. Our only hope for survival is to so terrify Washington and the Arab street that the U.S. throws money at us hand over fist, out of blind fright, and our populace is too paralyzed with horror to rise up.”
“Alhamdulillah,” Malika said. Praise be to Allah.
“At least, it’ll make the clerics happy.”
“And you’ll stay in power for decades to come,” Malika said.
“Alhamdulillah,” Shaiq said. Praise be to Allah.
She didn’t seem to be listening, though. Instead, she was crawling to the bed’s edge and taking the sterling silver dish of cocaine off the bedside table along with a spoon and her rolled-up $5000 bill. Bringing them over, she meticulously laid out six more lines of coke on his belly with a teaspoon. She then gave him the dish and the rolled-up bill. He helped himself to five hard snorts.
“Malika?” he said.
But she could no longer hear—hear him, hear anyone, hear anything.
Instead she had retrieved the rolled-up bill and was snorting those six lines off his belly.
Then six more.
Then another six.
Then another.
Until she was, once again, drifting down over his navel, his abdomen, his hips, his thighs, until she was—
Until—
Until�
�
Until—
His last semi-intelligible thought was, God, is she good.…
PART VI
And the Books of the Damned were opened.…
—Daniel 7:10
1
“Rashid’s either dead or dying in some Pakistani hellhole.”
—Elena Moreno
Elena Moreno entered the Agency conference room in McLean. President George Caldwell, CIA Director Bill Conrad, and the secretary of defense, General David “Hurricane” Hagberg, were there ahead of her. This was a bad sign. They were never there early. Even worse, they each had copies of her report in front of them and were reading them. She had been convinced they’d never read her reports.
The president looked up. Without even saying hi, he started in on her.
“You say here that you have evidence that ISIS and Pakistan’s terrorist group, TTP, have joined forces and are mounting three nuclear strikes against the U.S.”
“My informant was at the meeting,” Elena said. “He then met with a top Saudi official and personally arranged for him to transfer $500 million to Lieutenant General Jari ibn Hamza, the head of Pakistan’s ISI. The money was collected by the Saudi prince, Shaiq ibn Ishaq—pressure-packed bundles of $100 bills, crammed into eight custom-built, outsize steamer trunks. Jari was to then give the trunks to Colonel Abdul al-Hakeem, a notorious ISI special operations officer, who is using the funds to bankroll an operation code named Flaming Sword. I can tell you my informant’s name now for the simple reason that I believe he’s dead or dying in an ISI torture chamber. Also I believe it was a nom de guerre that he used only with me. To me, he was Rashid al-Waqidi.”
“That’s the most preposterous story I’ve ever heard,” CIA Director Conrad said.
“It’s easy enough to confirm,” Elena said. “Even a man as wealthy as Shaiq ibn Ishaq can’t launder or conceal financial transactions of that magnitude.”
“Let’s say we find that Shaiq made $500 million worth of cash transfers,” President Caldwell said. “Even if he gave the money to ISIS and TTP, thatdoesn’t prove anyone plans on nuking the U.S.”
“What other single terrorist operation would cost over $1 billion?” Elena asked. “What terrorist weapon system is worth ten figures? Only nukes. Multiple nukes purchased for multiple strikes.”
“If Rashid’s intel is so important, why have you kept us in the dark about him for so long?” Director Conrad asked.
“You know why?” Elena asked. “Two years ago I had a confidential informant named Mustafa ibn Miammar who warned me of a TTP attack on the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. If they successfully took that facility over, they would have gotten the name of every undercover agent we had working in Pakistan. All our operational intel was on those embassy hard drives. We reinforced embassy security, based on his report, but within a week Mustafa was tortured to death, his body dumped in front of the embassy.”
“And you inferred from that incident,” President Caldwell said, “that someone in the administration leaked Mustafa’s name. It could have been pure coincidence. The ISI could have been onto him for months.”
“If that’s your call, Mr. President, I accept it. But you weren’t running Mustafa and you aren’t running Rashid. I was, and now I have to do everything in my power to keep my other informants alive.”
“Had you told us earlier, we might have been able to mount an operation and extract him,” Director Conrad said.
“Wasn’t possible,” Elena said. “Rashid was in too deep—into ISI, TTP, LeT, even ISIS. Still, I could always reach him. Not anymore. He’s either dead or dying in some Pakistani hellhole.”
“But you have no real evidence for any of your theorizing,” Conrad said. “All you have is an informant we’ve never vetted and who’s disappeared.”
“I have one other piece of intel.”
Elena dropped the poem on the conference table.
“I have another contact—a paramilitary I haven’t spoken to in fifteen years. He changed his name a number of times, went into clandestine operations for both Pakistan’s ISI and Saudi intelligence, doing the special ops they were afraid to get into. In doing so, he became utterly untraceable. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he sent me a warning.” She handed out copies of Hasad’s e-mail to the men at the table.
Remember Henry Hudson
And the power of the stars?
Where’s our more perfect union?
It’s one disastrous state of affairs,
New York, New York?
It’s a hell of a tomb,
While somewhere out there,
The west will writhe in flames.
A bad moon’s on the rise, kid.
A pair of setting suns
Will sink you forever.
My advice? Haul ass.
Get the fuck out of Dodge.
Remember me when the lights go out …
“Why the oblique phraseology?” General Hagberg asked.
“My contact,” Elena said, “thinks the NSA has everyone wiretapped and monitored—even us.”
“Thank you, Edward Snowden,” the president said.
“What’s your interpretation of the poem, Elena?” General Hagberg asked.
Elena gave it her best shot: “Henry Hudson refers to the discoverer of the Hudson River. The power of the stars is nuclear, and there’s a nuclear power plant north of New York City on the Hudson River. The Army of the Potomac was part of the Union Army during the Civil War. The Union’s disastrous state of affairs means the State of the Union address will end in disaster. ‘New York’s tomb’ means New York is going to die. A pair of setting suns? Nukes are man-made miniature stars detonated on the earth. He suggests a similar nuclear cataclysm will take place out west, and his advice is to get out of town. Flee the nuclear holocausts to come.”
“All right,” the president said, “let me get this straight. You believe that ISI-backed ISIS terrorists are going to melt down the Hudson River Nuclear Power Station and then nuke my State of the Union address?”
“As well as some undisclosed location out west,” Elena said.
“That’s insane,” Conrad said.
“It’s only prudent to assume they are coming,” Elena said evenly. “Rashid warned us. Now this man, too, and both men were on the inside.”
“And who is this man,” Conrad asked, “this new informant, whom you give so much credence to but whose existence you have heretofore concealed from us for God knows how long?”
Elena crafted her answer with studied precision, omitting everything she thought she could get away with.
“He’s someone I knew once. Unfortunately, he went to ground fifteen years ago and has been unresponsive ever since. He only contacted me with this intelligence during the last twenty-four hours. He obviously fears these nuclear attacks as much as I do.”
“Okay,” Conrad said, staring at the ceiling, “now you’re blindsiding us with a complete stranger, whom you haven’t spoken to in fifteen years but whom you absolutely, unequivocally trust. Why is he so credible? I want everything on him: How long you have known him. Who he is. What he does. Name, background, bio, how he fits into this grand conspiracy of yours. And most important, what else are you hiding from us?”
“And I believe giving out that information will put him in mortal peril,” Elena said. “Given the stakes, that risk is unacceptable.”
“So you’re concealing his identity from us just as you concealed Rashid’s?” the CIA director asked.
“If I’d concealed Mustafa’s identity, Mr. Director, I believe he’d be alive today. I could not expose Rashid to the same risk, nor will I jeopardize this new asset.”
“In short,” Director Conrad said, “you’re in charge now. You think you run the CIA. You think you have my job.”
“No, but I am in charge of this asset, and I’m not putting his life in unnecessary danger,” Elena said. “The stakes are too high. The stakes are nuclear.”
“You’ve deduced all this
intelligence from one preposterous piece of doggerel,” Director Conrad asked, barely able to contain his anger, “and now you expect us to make far-reaching national security decisions based on your absurd inferences?”
“I only present my findings, Mr. Director,” Elena said. “I leave policy decisions to the president. But if I’m right and you fail to act, hell will follow.”
“I’ve tolerated you for a long time, Elena,” the president said, leaning back, crossing his arms and fixing Elena with a sad stare. “You know Pakistan better than anyone in this country. You know it from the inside. Hell, the TTP kidnapped and held you hostage for nearly five weeks. But if you don’t trust us, I don’t see how we can trust you.”
“You’re exactly right, Mr. President,” Conrad said. “She’s jumped the reservation. She’s no longer part of the team.”
“It’s almost as if you’ve gone rogue, Elena,” the president said wearily.
“Also, Mr. President,” Conrad said, “I personally would like to see her relieved of all duties and put on a leave of absence. As you know, that’s been my position for a long time.”
“Sir,” Defense Secretary Hagberg said, “I have to register my dissent. I’ve known Elena for fifteen years and have followed her work closely. I also fear Pakistan as well as our so-called Saudi allies. That whole region is on the verge of violent revolution. Elena’s conclusions—farfetched as they may seem—have a perverse logic to them.”
President Caldwell was silent a long minute. Emitting a slow sigh, he said, “As much as it pains me, I have to agree with Director Conrad. Elena, I’ve lost all trust and confidence in you. Please turn in all your computers, flash drives, backups, everything in your office. Bill, arrange for security to clean out her office, take her ID, badge, key, pull her security clearance, and escort her from the building. Elena, I think you need several months off while we give your tenure an extremely thorough, top-to-bottom review. Most of all, I want to know who wrote that fucking poem, and everything else you’ve been concealing from us. If you don’t cooperate with us, I swear to God I’ll imprison you under the Patriot Act.”
And Into the Fire Page 10
