People Raged: and the Sky Was on Fire-Compendium (Rick Banik Thrillers Book 1)

by Craig Martelle

  “I am so glad you’re here. As-salam ‘alaykom,” he said as an afterthought.

  “I try to speak English in public, it draws less attention. As an Arab and an African, is it not better to be inconspicuous? And yes, good morning to you, too.” Mohammed said charmingly, attempting to disarm the young man.

  “I am sorry, Mohammed.” Clay looked instantly crushed. Mohammed was pleased. The young man was malleable, susceptible to suggestion. He had the making of a committed recruit, assuming he wasn’t a plant, an FBI lackey. Clay did too many stupid things to be a trained agent or even a paid informer. Mohammed started to feel better about the large young man.

  “Let’s get some coffee shall we? Do you know of a shop nearby where we can get some good, strong Turkish coffee?”

  Clay shook his head. Being limited to bus routes, Clay didn’t get adventurous. He went to specific places to do specific things. He never simply explored. He needed to do more of that. Otherwise, the world would continue to close in around him, hold him down. He looked at Mohammed hopefully. If he made the right choices, this could be a great adventure and a way out of the pit others had put him into.

  Mohammed seemed to be a man of means. Clay wanted to impress him, maybe even work for him. He spoke three languages and had a degree from an American university! And he was the counter clerk at Enterprise. He didn’t make enough money to buy himself a plane ticket home if he’d wanted to go there. He was trapped, but he hoped that it wouldn’t be for too much longer.

  Mohammed watched the young man, saw his mind working as he disappeared into his own thoughts. He started to stand but sat back down.

  “What do you think about my friend? You are happy one second and sad the next. You now look troubled.” The delicate dance had begun. Mohammed watched carefully, believing more in reading body language to uncover deception than in the words themselves, although he listened carefully. He had to believe the young man’s story.

  “I feel trapped. I can’t even recommend a good coffee shop! I played Division I football and I was pretty good. I earned my college degree and now, look at me. Going nowhere fast.” Clay stumbled through his monologue as he fought to say it clearly in English. He hung his head, thinking he was making a bad impression. For a strong man, he was incredibly weak. He took a deep breath and raised his head high.

  “Enough of that silliness. This is America and there’s a coffee shop on every corner. If there isn’t then, my iPhone will tell me where one is.” Clay touched the six digits to unlock his cell phone. Mohammed saw the pattern without watching, memorizing it – top left to the right corner, down to the lower right corner, then the middle. 789635. He figured that he would need to access Clay’s phone at some point as the recruitment progressed. It could be the difference between life and death for the large young man if Mohammed suspected duplicity.

  He typed in “Turkish coffee near me” and let the phone do the rest. Unsurprisingly, there was a place on the corner, one block over.

  They stood together and started walking toward it. Mohammed had shared nothing of himself with the young man. It wasn’t time for that. He’d share something with Clay later, although it probably wouldn’t be the truth. In Mohammed’s mind, there was no need to tell the young man anything of import, letting him focus exclusively on the plan. The great thing about the Da’esh timeline was that there wasn’t one. Things would happen when they were meant to happen, not before, inshallah, if Allah wishes.

  Mohammed put a friendly hand on Clay’s shoulder. “Tell me, my friend, what do you like best about America?”

  A New Direction

  When Rick arrived at the office, he was refreshed. He’d been able to put the report and all it meant out of his mind. He was able to attend his son’s high school football game. Thomas A. Edison played their district rivals, powerhouse Falls Church. It had been a heart stopper, but Edison succumbed to a last second stop and lost the game. His son played well, and that was the most important thing for Rick.

  If you couldn’t get the win, at least, you weren’t responsible for the loss, he reasoned pessimistically. They took his son and a few teammates to Pizza Hut to lament their loss while celebrating the good effort. Falls Church was going to win the District.

  Rick snickered to himself. Each of the boys ate a large pizza by themselves. They had to order a second round as the first pies were quickly devoured and the boys weren’t even remotely satiated.

  Rick almost forgot where he was as he thought about how much the boys had eaten, how much soda was drunk. He sat down at his computer, preparing to unlock it. He heard footsteps behind him, so he stopped. He was trained at the highest levels of paranoia. They’d have to work hard if they wanted to see his password.

  As he’d been taught, make the password a phrase, mixing in numbers and punctuation to make it unguessable. His was 1w1FpomatM! – a quote from one of his favorite books, Dune by Frank Herbert.

  “I will let fear pass over me and through me.” That’s how he remembered it, and that was this month’s password. He’d change it again on the first, probably keeping the same phrase for a quarter by changing the capital letters, numbers, and punctuation.

  Billy Todd loomed over him. He wore his usual cowboy boots and western shirt in his feeble attempt to make a statement regarding how Southern he was. He’d been in DC for twenty years. Rick and the others had their own counter to the southerner.

  “Why Billy-Joe-Jim-Bob, what brings you my way? The smell of vittles?” Rick slurred in a mangled attempt at a southern drawl. That wasn’t his name. It was William Festus or something like that. Everyone called him Billy.

  He took it in stride as usual. “What y’all up to?” He asked in his natural southern twang.

  “Just thinking about my boy’s football game last night against Falls Church. They played well but couldn’t pull off the upset.” Rick didn’t like small talk, but he did like showcasing his son’s football and daughter’s volleyball prowess.

  Billy nodded thoughtfully but didn’t say anything.

  “But that’s not what you mean. C’mon Billy. Fess up. What do you feel like you need to say?” Rick prodded.

  “Why y’all gotta be hurtful like that? It’s downright un-American.” Bill smiled. In his mind, anything he didn’t agree with was un-American. Worse was the fact that he was a horrible intelligence analyst. Maybe they kept him around for comic relief.

  “You ain’t logged in yet. They got something big goin’. New intel pointing to a terror attack right here in DC. Every swingin’ dick’s talkin’ ‘bout it.” He smiled, showing a missing tooth which always reinforced Rick’s impression of Billy as a hick.

  “I’ll take a look at it in a bit. Tom’s got me working on something for him, and I better get to it.” Rick looked at Billy without saying anything else until he grew uncomfortable and walked away.

  Rick logged in, checking his email for the new report. It was fifth from the top of his Top Secret inbox. The other four were the obligatory reply-alls with email addresses added until the recipients had to scroll down a long list to see who else received it. When someone had something hot, they’d add their two cents worth and info everyone they thought important for their personal career.

  The first email had been sent by Bob McClendon, Rick’s acquaintance at the Company. The Central Intelligence Agency issued an entirely new report regarding Da’esh and a possible attack on DC. Rick read through it. This was his report, nearly verbatim. Bob added some speculation, but all of the report’s value lay in the plagiarized section. Bob hadn’t credited Rick with any of it as Bob had published it as a CIA-originated report. It also carried the classification of ORCON, which meant Originator Controlled. CIA owned it.

  Rick sat back in his chair, feeling his face flush as his pulse raced. He reached for the phone, ready to dial Bob’s number, but thought better of it. Instead, he read the first reply-all.

  A mid-level recipient added useless commentary before forwarding to his bosses and th
eir bosses. Within one reply-all the report arrived into the SES-levels, the Senior Executive Service, the civilian equivalent of General Officers. The second reply-all went to the National Security Council and the Joint Staff. The third reply-all went wide, to email distribution groups that Rick had never seen before. The final reply all was from the Director of the CIA.

  The DCI, not some lackey using the DCI’s authority.

  To the recipients of this email chain:

  My compliments to the outstanding analytical work by our own Bob McClendon and our near east analytical group. The intelligence contained in this report is to be deleted from your systems as soon as you read this. The CIA, in conjunction with the DOJ and DHS, will cooperate jointly under separate cover.

  Thank you in advance to those who will be invited to join the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) Tiger Team that is being stood up as I speak to address this critical issue.

  Speak no further of it and trust that the JTTF will find and eliminate this threat.

  V/R

  M. Jay Phipps, Director

  “What a butthole!” Rick blurted out loud. He saw heads pop out of cubicles to look at him.

  “Nothing, nothing, just me being me.” He said to encourage them to go back to what they were doing.

  Ding. A new email. It was his invitation to join the special Tiger Team that Langley was standing up. It was cordial and brief. It really wasn’t an invitation, but a directive telling him where and when to report. Tom Alexander had been courtesy copied. “Hi, we’re the CIA, and we’re taking your guy, even though he’s a contractor working for another contractor who’s working on a DOD contract. You should be pleased that we informed you at all. Now forget everything you’ve just been told.” They were nicer than that, but the gist remained the same.

  Rick watched as the email chain evaporated from his computer. On this system, when someone issued an email recall, that email was gone. Even if you tried to stash the note in a sub-folder somewhere, they’d still find it and pull it from your hard drive. He didn’t want to print them out, and he hadn’t bothered to highlight each email with all recipients and copy it into a Word document.

  He looked at the only email remaining in his inbox – his invitation to the JTTF Tiger Team. Evidence that Bob McClendon had stolen his research and analysis was gone. Rick checked his sent folder. It was empty. Every day when he powered down the system before leaving, it cleared the sent folder and all deleted items. The only thing remaining were emails in the inbox not older than thirty days.

  And here he was, still nobody, but the greater good had been served. The Agency was now looking in the right place for the bad guys. That gave him the solace he needed to calm his anger. Bob owed him big time for the shout out from DCI. Maybe he’d bilk him out of a Ruth’s Chris steak. It was worth that much.

  Now he had to talk with the Colonel and get ready to go inside the beltway.

  As he rolled his chair back to get up, he bumped into something. He looked up to see the Colonel staring back at him.

  “Looks like the Company got there ahead of us. That sucks. We had it nailed cold, huh?” Tom looked miffed, not at Rick, though. Maybe it was better Rick’s name was left out of the DCI’s love fest.

  “Yeah, that sucks, but what matters is that they’re not wasting assets in Europe looking for something that’s not there. They’ll be looking right here in bad guy central.” Rick nodded to himself. His speech on the greater good was as much for him as it was for the Colonel.

  “EPEC could have expanded its reach. If CIA needed us, we could have established a new billing stream, within a black budget so no one would know how much we really make. There’s advantages to that, Rick. We missed the boat and lost out on a great deal of money.” Rick raised his eyebrows. Tom Alexander may be that mercenary about the money, but he usually wasn’t this vocal, and never in the middle of the cube farm, the analyst floor with all the cubicles and the underlings slaving away.

  The Ben Hur quote from Quintus Arrius seemed appropriate. “Now listen to me, all of you. You are all condemned men. We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.” Rick had a collection of movie quotes that he frequently used to defuse tense situations and maintain his own sanity.

  “Row. I understand sir. Did you see that I’ve been tagged for the JTTF Tiger Team?”

  “Row? I swear Rick, half the time I don’t understand what you’re saying. I’m not sure a sane man could follow your train of thought. Maybe a sane man wouldn’t try, Ha!” He reached a meaty paw around to slap Rick on the back. He usually found the best humor in his own jokes. Rick wondered if the Colonel knew what an ass that made him look like?

  “I wonder why they asked you? Do you know somebody over there?” The Colonel waited.

  “The originator of the report, Bobbie Mac and I go way back. He’ll think that I owe him. Have no fear, I’ll keep EPEC at the front of the important conversations, well, as much as I can anyway. I’ll steer money this way. If nothing else, they have to pay the bill for my time, don’t they?” Rick was hopeful that it meant a raise. That would be just as good as getting full credit for figuring things out.

  “You got that right Rick. We’ll bill them as if you’re the CEO!” Another back slap and a big laugh. “Better pack your trash and hit the road. It’s that time of day where the drive might not be completely horrible, but I doubt it.” He smirked and giggled to himself. Colonel Butthole goes from perturbed to laughing at his own jokes in the space of two minutes, and he has the gall to imply I’m the insane one, Rick thought as he packed up. By packing up, all he did was put his Blackphone 2 in his pocket. He never brought anything into his workspace. Keys, wallet, and secure cell phone. Check.

  He waved at the Colonel’s closed office door as he passed. The man was engaged in an animated conversation with somebody. Rick didn’t care who. He hoped his next workspace was less a cubicle and more like an office.

  He should have known better.

  D Minus 21 – Making A Connection

  Although it was a nice day, Mohammed refused to sit outside. Mohammed took a small table away from the windows, and turned his chair, putting his back against the wall of the Yoyla Bistro, while Clay faced him from the other side. The street wasn’t busy, making it easy for Mohammed to watch, without being distracted from his task at hand – the interrogation of a potential recruit.

  Clay spoke freely about his college career, where he strayed from Allah with the women and booze. It was enticing and freely offered. It was what everyone else did. Mohammed assured him that Allah was forgiving, especially to those who renewed their faith with an act of complete selflessness. Clay probed what he meant by that, eager to understand what his redemption would look like.

  “Patience, my large friend. Does the Quran not teach that ‘believers, persevere in patience and constancy; vie in such perseverance; strengthen each other; and fear Allah; that ye may prosper.’ All will be clear when the time is right.” Mohammed said smoothly. He could quote the Quran effectively to turn believers into zealots. He was well schooled in Islam, even though deep inside, he didn’t believe.

  He believed in himself. He reveled in his current life, a world traveler, unlimited funds at his fingertips, as long as he delivered recruits to do the bidding of Da’esh. There was no other life for him. Even if it ended sooner than he wished, he lived, for now, a jet-setting mysterious Saudi Arabian.

  He watched Clay closely, looking for tells, a twitch of the mouth, dilated pupils, nervous hand movements, sweating, all kinds of different ways your body can and will betray you.

  Clay was nervous. Mohammed decided it was because the young man was anxious, fearing to hope for a reprieve from his current existence.

  “Tell me what you want, Clay. What do you want from life?” Mohammed leaned closer, looking for a twitch, a look away, listening for a memorized statement.

  “I want to make a difference. I want to matter.” Clay spoke softly, without conviction. He wouldn�
��t look at the older man.

  “I suggest those are two different things, my friend. I think you can make a difference and not matter yourself, you personally. I think that you could matter a great deal to others, but not make a difference. Why are you ashamed of this?”

  “What do you mean? I don’t think I’m ashamed that I want to make a difference.” Clay looked confused. He thought he’d answered Mohammed’s questions clearly, but nothing was clear.

  Nothing at all. He was being forced to think, to question his own answers, question himself.

  And he liked it. “I see. I will matter when I do something for others, make their lives better?” Clay asked with a partial statement, looking for approval.

  Mohammed smiled back. Yes, you will, my large African. You will make many lives worse, too, but that isn’t our concern, he thought. Mohammed decided that he had his man and a week ahead of schedule. The others he was to meet would play a supporting role by being a diversion. They weren’t anything like Clay. They were angry extremists thinking that they found their calling. Maybe I’ll send them on what the Americans call a wild goose chase. Then I can focus on something spectacular.

  If you don’t want a secret kept, tell somebody. Mohammed would share some of his thoughts with Clay, later, much later, when it was too late, and Clay was already committed.

  Tiger Team

  “This has to be the biggest collection of dorks ever gathered in the history of mankind,” Rick said to the shorter, wider, and much older Bob McClendon. “Sorry, Bobbie Mac, I didn’t mean you, but well, if the shoe fits.” He smiled at his old acquaintance.

  Once again, Rick didn’t have a seat at the big table. He stood off to the side, with Bob, while the others glad-handed, reliving the glory days.

  “Let’s review. That guy? He’s an SES from Homeland Security. He sure as hell isn’t going to get his hands dirty. He’s trying to butter up the lawyer from DOJ, because she’s young and cute. Well maybe not that young, but she’s one of only a few women here. There’re two liaisons from FBI. Really? Who wears sunglasses indoors? Maybe those two knuckleheads are Secret Service. Ooh! I just felt a shiver. I think they looked at me.”