by Ken Hansen
Huxley peered out his window at the countryside. A long, flat plain planted with green and yellow crops lay to his right, interrupted only by a sudden sharp hill in the distance. Was that Megiddo towering over the famous plain of Armageddon?
He looked ahead at Ramat David. Terrorist activities against allies of the U.S. usually brought an investigator from D.C. or Langley. Still, why was he here? Though he had worked the more acute problems in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen and even a few in Sudan and Indonesia, he hadn’t set foot in Israel in more than a decade. So why had the Israeli authorities insisted on him? Better yet, why had they even acknowledged any terrorist activity here? News of the attack had not hit the press. There was that report of a small electrical fire at the base, but that was probably a cover story from the Aman security agency. But then why ask for a particular American investigator? The Israelis never requested help unless they believed it to be politically expedient or critically necessary. Huxley couldn’t see any political connection here. So what do they need? And why do they need it from me?
“What happened at Ramat David, Lieutenant?” Huxley asked, just for kicks.
“I don’t think I could say, sir. You are scheduled to speak with Col. Brickner when we arrive in a few minutes. I’m sure he’ll give you all of the answers you need.”
What I need? More like what the colonel wants to leak. Yet, maybe the colonel would trickle out a few drops he could use.
The slight folds of Abdul Saboor Anwari’s eyelids nearly disappeared as he squinted through the glare of the mid-day sun blasting off of the Innova ahead. He smiled gently and scratched the dense stubble on his face as the target sped ahead on Highway 70. Anwari turned right onto Highway 66, southeast toward Megiddo. That was as close as he wanted to get to the Israeli air base. He looked back to the car disappearing down the highway to his left and said aloud, “If you are half as clever as he says, I will see you again soon, my friend.” He picked up his cheap black flip phone and punched a few buttons. “He’s almost to Ramat.”
Chapter 2
As the Toyota pulled up to the security gate, Huxley pulled out his passport and Homeland Security ID. The lieutenant beat him to the punch. “Chris Huxley from U.S. Homeland Security, here on orders of Col. Brickner.”
“Yes sir, I am aware of the orders. May I see your credentials, Mr. Huxley? Thank you, sir.” A fifteen-foot-high concrete wall stood to the front, an electrified gate providing a silent barrier to the only entrance. After the corporal spoke a Hebrew sentence or two into his radio and punched in a few numbers on his computer screen, the gate slid open.
As they pulled forward, the gate closed behind them and they drove to the center of a concrete canyon about 15 feet deep and 40 feet in diameter. A single soldier wearing bomb-protection gear appeared with a German Shepherd. The soldier held an aluminum bar several feet longer than a broomstick with a handle on one end and a mirror and electronic detector on the other. After the lieutenant escorted Huxley away from the car with their hands on each of their heads, he and the dog searched the car, the dog sniffing around and through it, the soldier running the mirror and detector underneath it. When he finished, he patted down Huxley and the Lieutenant. After hand signals were given to guards on both sides of the enclosure, they reentered the Toyota, the second gate finally opened, and they proceeded into the military compound.
As the car weaved around the base, Huxley noticed a construction crew working to repair one of the aircraft hangers. Black carbon marks extended from the new wall in a burst pattern across a hundred feet of tarmac. Huxley smirked. Quite an “electrical fire.” They hadn’t had time to cover that part up yet.
Over forty minutes later, Col. Brickner finally strode out of his office. “I’m so sorry to make you wait, Mr. Huxley, but I’ve been detained.”
Huxley rose and shook the colonel’s hand. “That’s fine, Col. Brickner. I’m ready to help. I’m looking forward to discussing the incident with you to see if there are any issues of concern.”
“I’m afraid certain exigencies beyond my control have already intervened. I must leave for Tel Aviv immediately. Here, this is Major Margolin.” Brickner motioned to an officer approaching from a secure doorway to the left. “He has been assigned to us from Aman. I’m sure you are familiar with our defense intelligence agency, which, of course, is investigating our little problem. The major is fully aware of all the facts concerning the incident and can speak with you at length.”
“Okay, I think?” Huxley said tentatively.
The colonel looked down at Huxley’s card, appearing to read from it. “Major, this is Christian Huxley, Senior Terrorism Investigator, Intelligence and Analysis Division, United States Department of Homeland Security.”
“Nice to meet you, sir.”
“Likewise, Major, but please, I would appreciate it if you would use Chris, not Christian. I believe that is what it says on the card, Colonel.”
Col. Brickner looked at the card again and said, “So it does, so it does. But with that, I am afraid I will have to say goodbye, Chris Huxley.” He nodded, turned quickly on his heel and began walking toward the door.
“But Colonel, I’d like to ask…”
The colonel disappeared out the door. The major stepped toward Huxley and directed him away from the door. “I’m sorry, Mr. Huxley, but the colonel is in a terrific hurry. Let’s head to the briefing room where I have a team waiting to speak with you.”
“A team?”
“Why yes, and they are very anxious to ask you some questions.”
Chapter 3
The briefing room could have been an interrogation center with a few extra props. In the center of the room, Huxley and the Aman team filled chairs around a plain metal table. The table was surrounded by bare white walls decorated only with a few patriotic portraits and area maps. A monitor protruded from the wall beyond the head of the table, and a whiteboard with dry erase ink stood in the corner. All of the briefing attendees were officers: two lieutenants, a captain and the major.
Huxley quickly eyed the Aman participants, searching for a weakness. It was quite a contingent for a simple debriefing. Maybe each officer had conducted a separate part of the investigation and thought it expedient to share his findings first hand with Huxley. And maybe Jews will lie down with Muslims as their brothers next week. The Israeli officers hadn’t even introduced themselves.
Major Margolin cleared his throat. “Mr. Huxley, as you know, Ramat David suffered a terrorist incursion last week Thursday at approximately 0700 hours. Base forces repelled the invasion after several minutes. However, as you may have noticed on your drive in today, one hanger suffered significant damage, and one of our F-16s was totally destroyed and its pilot killed. While terrorist attempts here are not uncommon, such a loss of critical aircraft makes us take this investigation very seriously. Oh, I should mention that three terrorists were killed in the attempt.”
“Do you have any background information on them or their associations with any terrorist groups, Major?”
“A little bit so far but not as much as we hope to discover.”
“What little bit do you have?”
“All in good time, Mr. Huxley.”
Huxley grimaced. What game were they playing? “Well then, what do you believe was their true target, Major?”
“Their mission was simple, and they succeeded to a small degree: destroy as many F-16s as possible. Each F-16 is worth more than $50 million to us.”
“But you called this an ‘incursion,’ so it sounds as if they penetrated your security perimeter. Is that correct?”
Margolin’s eyes widened slightly. “Indeed. Do you find that surprising?”
Huxley noted the careful tone of the major and the cold stare of the captain. “Yes, I do,” he responded. “I saw your security on the way in, and I doubt it would be easy to breach. And the area outside the fence contains little or no cover for at least a mile, so it seems unlikely they could sneak up on the outside,
cut the fence and move in without being detected by the security systems I saw on your perimeter. How could this happen?”
The major paused and glanced at the captain, a stout, powerfully built man in his late twenties. His thick, ruddy face dotted by several red bumps larger than pimples—more like carbuncles—generated a menacing look that had probably unnerved more than one of his detainees over the years. His black hair and the darker skin on his neck and hands revealed he was no transplant to this region but probably had suffered through some disfiguring accident or malady in earlier years. The captain waved his hands to an open posture. “These people are gophers, Mr. Huxley. They seem capable of tunneling miles by pure persistence. We found the head of such a tunnel hidden behind a grounds maintenance shed on the southwest side of this compound. Unfortunately, the remainder of the tunnel appears to have been destroyed, so we don’t know yet where it originated. We’ve begun seismic testing to see if we can track it back to a local building and see if there are any other vermin trying to find their way in.”
“I’ve heard of the tunnels coming from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, but this far north?”
Major Margolin nodded. “We are only 7 miles from the north end of the West Bank. It was only a matter of time. There are quite a few industrial buildings within a couple of miles where they could have secretly removed the soil and the moved it out on trucks. We should have updated our underground sensors on the perimeter in the past year, but Col. Brickner, well…” He shook his head. “They showed up with RPGs just as we were scrambling F-16s to intercept a few ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” asked Huxley.
“We scrambled after our radar showed four bombers approaching from the government-controlled sector of Syria. National radar later contested our radar data. It seems they appeared as ghosts only to Ramat David. We’ve checked the equipment since, but there’s no malfunction.”
“But that kind of planning and persistence would take years, and just to destroy an F-16 or two? Sure, F-16s are difficult to replace, but they are not the kind of propaganda pieces you would expect as the target of an obvious suicide mission. Has Hamas or anyone else claimed credit?”
“No. It is as if the terrorist groups do not even know. They often claim credit for any catastrophe—whether or not caused by them—but we have heard nothing. I think taking out a hundred million dollars of military hardware seems worth these gophers’ efforts to me, but you may be right.” Major Margolin looked down at his folded hands and then up again at Huxley. “So tell me, what do you think was their target?”
The major’s tone seemed off and the captain’s eyes never blinked. Huxley turned his head to each of the two men in order. “Quite difficult to say without knowing much more about Ramat David and what you might be keeping here other than fighter/bombers. Is there anything here that might seem a bit more, uh, interesting?”
Margolin stared into his eyes with a flat expression and said nothing for several seconds.
Huxley smiled back and elevated one eyebrow for effect. He had asked a forbidden question. The major will never answer, but let’s see if he wiggles a little.
Margolin returned Huxley’s smile. “The terrorists might have thought some other weapon system was located here, Mr. Huxley. You could always try proper channels, but it would be a waste of time.”
The carefully chosen response said nothing and everything. They both knew Ramat David housed nuclear bombs available for deployment on its F-16s. Israel had undoubtedly developed a nuclear bomb similar to the B61 the U.S. had developed in the 1960s and previously had available for deployment on its F-16s. The tiny nation may even have created something akin to the more sophisticated B61-12 guided nuclear bomb that NATO had now developed. Although Israel had never officially admitted it possessed even a single nuclear weapon, everyone knew it did. Israel called this a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” and managed to never show up for the signing of any nuclear non-proliferation treaties. It was this solitary Jewish nation’s ace in the hole, and everyone knew it.
The Israelis knew they had to protect those nukes with everything they had. The nuclear weapons at Ramat were stored deep in hardened vaults buried beneath the base and accessible only through complex security measures. It would take much more than a terrorist incursion to get at the devices. Huxley had checked with the CIA before his trip and knew the spy boys did not believe any nukes had been removed from Ramat David recently. Indeed, the movement of fissile material had not been detected by the sophisticated gamma ray and neutron detection satellites deployed by the U.S. around the globe.
“Sorry,” Huxley said. “I’m sure you guys have it covered.”
The major said, “I told you it’s not possible. Besides, your country would know about any such event already, wouldn’t it?” He smiled artificially. “In any case, such a matter would have deserved a slightly higher priority between our governments, don’t you think?”
Huxley nodded gently. He was getting under the major’s skin. He had better tread more carefully.
The major nodded back, but then leaned forward. “Now, let me ask you a couple of questions.”
“Like what?”
“Well, one of the terrorists killed in the incident was named Baqir Najwa. Do you know him?”
Huxley’s head jerked up slightly, and his nostrils flared a touch, but his face quickly returned to its normal countenance. Keep that poker face, Hux. He saw the captain studying him like an expert art connoisseur studies an abstract painting he’s never seen before, trying to divine meaning from the lines of his face, the set of his chin, and the movement of his eyes. It was the same concentrated look Huxley often gave when he interrogated terrorists—when he wanted to see the truth oozing out of the detainee’s expression. This was no briefing. It was an interrogation. Be very careful, Hux. Figure out their angle and turn it on them. Get what you need and get out of here.
“Yes, of course. If it is the same Baqir Najwa, I believe I may have met him a few years ago when he was at Guantanamo. He was released a few months later.”
“What did you learn about him?”
Huxley smiled wryly. “Now I’m afraid that is something I would not be at liberty to tell you about, Major.”
After Major Margolin looked at the captain across the table, the captain scratched his chin and said, “Look, we just want to understand this fellow. We don’t need all of the specifics. Can you help us out?”
“I’m not sure that I can think of anything relevant to this incursion, Captain…”
“Yadin. Captain Yadin. Did Baqir Najwa know you well?”
“Know me? Not really, he was just a detainee there. I knew him, his background and that sort, but I would then, wouldn’t I? Just like you probably know a bit about my background?”
Yadin glanced quickly at Margolin and back to Huxley. “Yes, but why would he know things about you?”
“Like what things, Captain?”
“Like about your mother?”
Huxley stiffened. Keep it under control. How did they know about that conversation? It hadn’t been recorded. No, they had just researched his background and made a lucky guess. He leveled his voice and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Captain Yadin was about ready to launch into a diatribe about honesty and cooperation, the growing redness in his face giving it away, but Margolin cut him off, raising his hands and then pushing them palms down, slowly, gently toward the table. He turned toward Huxley and looked directly into his eyes. “Mr. Huxley, let us cut to the chase. Why would a former American CIA interrogator end up with his name and contact information in the iPhone of a dead terrorist who he had previously interrogated?”
Huxley raised his eyebrows, this time intentionally. “That would be very odd.”
“Indeed, yet it is so. Can you explain?”
“I’m afraid you have me at a loss.”
Major Margolin tapped the table a few times as he stared at Huxley. Then he tilted his head toward one of t
he lieutenants. “Show him the contacts entry.”
The lieutenant stood up and moved over to an electronic panel near the monitor, which lit up and showed the entry in a standard iPhone contacts format:
Christian Huxley
CIA
work
703-486-0623
mobile
723-135-1171
other phone
413-333-4011
work address
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505
other address
2K927 Kings Ridge Dr.
Arden, DE 22329
Notes
A Th. Meet.
Mother: Maryam
Mobile-Other: Main
Huxley’s face betrayed no emotions as he stared at the monitor. They’re looking for a response. Don’t give them the satisfaction. They probably figured that, in this room, in this context, with them breathing down his neck, he would leak out a little insight on his association with a dead terrorist. Instead, he smiled. “The guy may have my name all right, and the CIA’s main number, but the rest is bogus. I’ve never even heard of the mobile or the other phone numbers or the other address. The notes are pure nonsense. My mother’s name isn’t even Maryam. And what is A Th. Meet? A Thursday meeting? I just came into the country today at your request. How could I possibly meet with him on a Thursday?”
Margolin replied flatly, “Of course, we checked on the information, and it does not correlate well to your known information, other than your former employment with the CIA. But there are always associates in these matters, are there not? And we did notice the zip code for your home address is very close to the zip codes in Alexandria, Virginia, where you currently reside. Do you think that is a coincidence?”
