Executive Actions (17 page)

“Yes, yes,” Morgan Taylor chimed in. “The sleeper.”

“Well, the sleeper is resting in peace…for good.”

The president wrinkled his brow.

“He was killed on a train out of Stamford. It was a professional hit,” Jack Evans explained.

“Why?”

“We don’t know. But we had heard from him recently. He tipped us that he might have something. We were in no rush. I’m told we never got much from him. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t active, maybe never was much of a player. Just a relic of the Cold War. I suspect that he was no use to Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We were only minimally satisfied.”

“Again. Why was he taken out?” An obvious question from the president

“I don’t know. But we may not have been the only ones tapping into Hoag’s phone.”

“Oh?”

“As I said, we heard he wanted to tell us something. Something someone else didn’t want him to talk about.”

“What?”

“Based on the tone of his last communiqué, it was more of the ‘who’ he knew.”

“Another Russian agent?”

“Could be. The message was, ‘I need to talk to you about someone from
school
.’”

The president stood up and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Want any?”

“No thanks Mr. President. I’m already wired. Four cups by eight this morning. My normal dose.”

Jack Evans was a career investigator. Unlike many of the men whom he succeeded, he hadn’t come up through the ranks of the company, the Central Intelligence Agency. He never posted in far-off capitals or had to deal with dead drops. Evans worked his way up from beat cop in Albany, New York to Supervising Investigator for the state’s Civil Service Department. That put him on a fast track for political appointments. The governor liked him and eventually made him Civil Service Commissioner. From there he went to Washington, a Bush appointee, to evaluate civilian objections to the military tribunals. The job required thorough research of American history. He learned how the Army, during World War II, arrested and convened a war tribunal against six Nazi spies. They were subsequently put to death for planning to sabotage American factories. He read about President Roosevelt’s willingness to sidestep normal due process in the name of national defense. He found similar cases dating back to George Washington’s time.

Evan’s work earned him the respect of the administration and he was rewarded with an appointment at the Central Intelligence Agency. Within six years he was named DCI.

At age 68, he still looked trim, voraciously read American and world history, and never lied to a President.

Morgan Taylor liked him a great deal. They hunted and fished together, watched the big playoffs and bowl games as friends, and helped each other through crises. Taylor felt one was definitely developing.

“It’s the reference to ‘school,’ that raised eyebrows,” Evans continued.

“School?” Taylor asked the obvious. “What school?”

“Not a good one,” the Director of the CIA began.

The president listened intently to the explanation. After ten minutes he finished his lesson in Cold War history.

“Not a word of this outside,” the president stated. “Not to the bureau, not to anyone.”

“Yes sir,” Evans answered. “Oh, and there is another thing, Mr. President.” As if his tutorial on Hoag wasn’t troublesome enough, Evans had another surprise. “We received a message from a deep cover in Tripoli, an agent called ‘Sandman.’”

Lodge phoned his secretary at his Capitol Hill office. Francine hadn’t talked to the congressman since before Jenny’s death. She’d barely left the office, fielding condolence calls and going through the e-mails that flooded their computers. The 36-year-old-assistant had really grown to love Jennifer Lodge and she took the loss extremely personally. They had been like sisters, going out for coffee and dinners, sharing books, shopping together, dishing about everyone in the office including the dreaded Geoff Newman, and thinking about how they’d help run the world once Teddy Lodge became president.

They even looked liked sisters, if you discounted the fact that Francine was African American. Jenny had olive skin and Francine was fairly light. They were the same height, they both had inviting, open faces, similar cheek bones and the exact same smile and laugh. Jenny often gave Francine her old clothes which added to their sisterhood. Now she feared the congressman would want her to take the rest.

Though not college educated, Francine had a graduate degree of sorts from Chicago’s Cabrini-Green. She had experienced a great deal of the worst first hand in the projects and Francine Carver, the daughter of a Baptist minister, desperately sought a hero to make things better.

She had enough typing skills to get a decent office job. But any job wasn’t good enough. She wanted to work in Washington, D.C. So Francine moved on her own, the same year that Congressman Lodge won his first term. After kicking around for a few weeks she knocked on the door of the young representative and applied for work. Since he was new and not many people were clamoring for him, she was a welcomed sight. An aide assigned envelopes to stuff and mail. Within six months she became the congressman’s secretary. After years of loyal service she looked forward to following him to the White House and making her father proud.

The FBI had spoken to her and she vowed to help if she could. But of course, there was nothing she knew. The murder was far out of her reach, and so, for that matter was the congressman. She understood that. However, she wanted to be at the office when he was ready to call.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Frannie. It’s Ted.”

“Oh my god. It’s you. I’ve been so worried. I saw the news. I saw you. I saw Jenny. It was so awful.”

“Yes, Frannie. Horrible. But I’m all right. And Jenny’s with God now. We have to go on.”

“And find the man who did this.”

“Of course. And we all have to help each other.”

“Yes, Congressman.

He allowed her many liberties, but referring to him as Teddy or Ted was not one of them.

“And I’m so sorry I wasn’t at the funeral. I….” She burst into tears.

“Frannie,” he said softly.

“I wanted to. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. Please forgive me.”

“Of course. I understand. But now
I
need you.”

She stopped crying, but sniffled as Lodge continued.

“We’re going to the White House, Frannie. But I can’t do it without you.”

“You can count on me.”

“Are you sure you’re all right? Because this will be hard on you.”

“Yes,” she said forcing her tears away. “I’ll be okay.”

“That’s good to hear, Frannie. Now tell me, what the mail has been like there?”

“Well, it’s unbelievable. We’re probably getting three or four thousand letters a day. You should see the bags.” She actually wished she hadn’t said that.

“What about the anthrax screening?” Lodge was referring to the required irradiating of all mail destined for Capitol Hill.

“They’ve made an exception for you and set up a special area to handle it,” she said excitedly. Then Francine collected her thoughts. “Under the circumstances…”

“And the e-mails. So many. They’re all going into a database.”

“Good girl. You’re way ahead of me. Because I want to answer them. All of them.”

“I thought you would. That’s what Jenny would have done.”

Silence on the other end.

“I’m sorry Congressman,” she said realizing her gaffe.

“Oh, Frannie. No need,” he seemed to struggle to say. “I’m lucky to be alive. It should have been me.”

“Please, don’t say that. It shouldn’t have been anyone,” she offered. Tears welled up and streamed down her cheeks. She fought to compose herself for him.

“Frannie. I’m going to try to answer every single letter. But I promised Geoff that I’d sign a pre-printed card. As much as I hate that, it’s probably the best way. I’ll use the Mont Blanc pen Jenny gave me. The one with the gold tip. At least we’ll have that connection.” He choked up. “Better make sure I have a boxes of refills.”

“Of course, sir,” she said through her own crying.

“And Frannie,” he continued, “I need you to be strong. You’re a lot like Jenny. You can do this.”

He had paid her the ultimate compliment. “Thank you, sir,” she bravely said.

“Geoff will call and talk to you about the exact wording, some paper choices and font styles. But see what you come up with. Fax a proof sheet. We’ll okay it.” He meant Newman would. “Then get, say 30,000 printed up.”

“You’ll need double that, sir.”

“Okay, order up what whatever you think. Then get them up to me as quickly as possible. We’ll stamp them from Burlington.”

“Certainly Congressman. It’ll be very quick.”

“And for goodness sake, Francine, go home. I heard that you’ve been living at the office.”

“I will. I promise. And thank you, sir.”

They both hung up and Francine started to cry again. She did grant herself one happy assumption. Soon, she would be secretary to the President of the United States.

The summer rain fell in sheets. Ibrahim Haddad cursed the Miami weather. Stifling humidity made for oppressive heat. He never got used to it. While he had lived in the United States for more than thirty-five years, he always missed the arid desert air and the land of his father and his father’s father.

In fact, Ibrahim Haddad’s father was a successful Jordanian exporter. However, his mother was Eastern European. As a result he could make both worlds work for him. Business and politics completely came together after a 1973 meeting with Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad. Al-Assad made a proposal that changed Haddad’s life and provided him with unlimited financial security. It required constant travel to the Soviet Union, high level negotiations with the KGB, the establishment of many secret Swiss bank accounts, and a search for the right talent to execute the Syrian president’s ultimate plan.

He reflected on the beauty of it all and the years it had taken to nurture. How thrilled his old friend would have been to see it come to fruition. Pity he had died too early.

Haddad had spent the better part of his adult life as a puppeteer. His strings were invisible, but very well attached. He pulled some, loosened others, manipulated the motions and made the figures he handled very real-to-life. Even his puppets didn’t know his name or where he lived. But they owed their success to the man behind the curtain.

“Mr. Haddad, I have a call from Turkey. Line two.”

The call from Istanbul originated nowhere near the Turkish capital. It had passed through routers in Paris, then Copenhagen, having started its faster than light trip 1,580 miles further South in Tripoli.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Mr. Haddad.” The language was English, the accent distinctly Middle Eastern. “I hope you are having a fine day.”

Haddad instantly recognized the voice.
How can he be so stupid? The call violated all the rules
. But he stayed on the line.

“I am most pleased with your progress and I congratulate you on your remarkable accomplishments. And…”

“Thank you for your kind words,” Haddad curtly told the caller. He dared not speak his name. “But I fear you have called quite mistakenly.”
You stupid ass.
Speaking on any open line, even one that could not be easily traced was incredibly dangerous. “Goodbye.”

With that he ended the call.

Five thousand miles away Fadi Kharrazi slammed down the phone. He was not used to being hung up on, but like the child that he truly was, he craved attention. After all, such a grand plan was no fun if he couldn’t talk about it with somebody.

B
ashar Al-Assad made three important decisions after his father, Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad died in June 2000. He intended to stabilize Syria. His country would co-exist with Israel and he would fill a void in Middle Eastern leadership. Finally, he would abandon a three decade old political plan formulated by his father.

Bashar Al-Assad replaced his father in a well-orchestrated succession. The party had unanimously nominated Bashar for the presidency; an endorsement that Hafez dictated from the grave. Each of the 250 parliamentarians serving in the single chamber legislature, the Majlis al-Sha’ab, considered it a good idea for their health and well being to obey the wishes of their former president.

The so-called peaceful transfer of power underscored the hypothesis that hereditary succession is better than a bloody power struggle. The region was rife with religious fundamentalists ready to send countries truly needing 21
st
Century resources back into 17
th
Century chaos. So family continuity, under the veil of a democratic vote, actually provided some security to the region.

But years before the changing of the guard, President Hafez Al-Assad sought other guarantees to his powerbase. He believed that if he was viewed as a peacemaker—the world leader who would get the Golan Heights back from Israel—his political stock would rise. The fact that he had lost the land in the 1967 war was not to be spoken. His attempts failed.

He subsequently tried to win concessions from Israel and curry favor from American presidents beginning with Nixon. Again, with little success. So Al-Assad established close ties with the Soviet Union. It was in Moscow, during a secret 1973 meeting with Leonid Ilych Brezhnev over an arms transaction, that Hafez Al-Assad asked through his translators if he could propose something that was
not
on the agenda. “Of course,” he was told without sincerity. The Soviet Premier did not like surprises.

“I come to you with an idea for which I need your help.”

Brezhnev read this introduction as a foundation of a financial transaction. “Please. Continue.”

Al-Assad began to outline a plan, which on the surface was close to what the KGB had done for years. Brezhnev clearly appeared interested. “You have the means and the experience that we lack. And I, Mr. Premier, have the funds.”

“Such things can wait, my
friend
.” Brezhnev said waving his hand in feigned displeasure over even the suggestion of talking money. “Is there more?”

Al-Assad smiled. “Of course.” He continued to outline his long-range scheme with great enthusiasm; pacing the room, punctuating each new element in his timeline with broad gestures. Brezhnev silently and politely watched. But the more his visitor talked, the less credence he gave Al-Assad’s basic conceit. Finally, after twenty minutes, the Syria President finished. Brezhnev stood up and lied.

“Your notion is creative and brilliant.”

“Then I can count on your country’s experience?”

“With great certainty.” Then without a hint of awkwardness talking about money with
a friend,
Brezhnev quoted an amount double what Al-Assad had been prepared to pay. The Syrian President didn’t blink. He decided, well out of character, that this was not a time to negotiate.

“Agreed. Two hundred million U.S. dollars.”

As they shook hands, Hafez Al-Assad conceded that everything could fall apart for any number of reasons. However, he had the patience to see it through after the Soviet Union’s incubation period and moreover, he had the man who could run the operation once it moved to America. In success, the United States would abandon its support for Israel and Syria would become a major power broker in the world.

Patience was not what Al-Assad ultimately needed. It was more years to live. The Syrian president died in June 2000, at the age of 69, well before his plan fully matured. His son, Bashar Al-Assad was patently less patient a man. He quickly sold the plan to another government as if it were a loaf of bread.

Sami Ben Ali received his instructions at a dead drop in the heart of Tripoli. They were written in code on a one-time pad, scrolled up in a thin tube, and hidden on the underside of a wooden fruit cart. Sami had seen the signal; an almost undetectable black shoe polish smudge on a tree at the corner. A right slash meant recover a message. A double slash meant urgent. He could take his time.

Sami waited three days, passing the cart in the souk numerous times on his way to work and again to his apartment. Once convinced no one tailed him or took notice, he approached the cart, stooped down to tighten his shoe laces and using the smoothest of motions learned at the CIA’s training facility in South Carolina, he removed the small, thin two inch-long tube.

Sami knew he shouldn’t rush anywhere.
Take your time
, he told himself. Nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, the electricity is off. He stopped for tea, read the fiction disguised as a newspaper in the candlelight, chain smoked four cigarettes, and sauntered back to his apartment. Even there he did nothing unusual.

An hour later, with the radio running and the lights on in his room, Sami shut himself in his closet and began to decipher the code. Today’s key was embedded in a dog-eared copy of a biography of the French ballad singer, Jacques Brel, that he’d picked up at from a bookseller.

The work was never quick. But he had his 30-minute rule. After three hours of stopping and starting he was finished. He took the lit butt of his ninth cigarette and pressed it to the side of the original sheet. It flashed and disappeared in under a second. He did the same to a corresponding piece of flash paper that contained his deciphered message. The ashes went into his toilet.

Sami was given a specific assignment. Find out exactly where Fadi kept his files on the thing called
Ashab al-Kahf
. There was only one way. Abahar’s man Walid Abdul-Latif. He was a complainer, a gossip and another Libyan bureaucrat with an inflated sense of self. The more he talked about his own importance, the more he’d spill whatever he knew. Walid would lead him to the location of the files based on what he learned from his contact Omar Za’eem. The CIA obviously wanted to read them first hand.

He flushed his toilet.
At least the john works. Thank goodness for small things
.

“Good morning, Walid,” Sami Ben Ali said in greeting at the beginning of the new work day.

“What’s good about it?” the lieutenant complained. He slumped over his desk and looked as miserable as he sounded.

“Ah, your wife has heard about your mistress?”

“No. But she wants new clothes. How can I buy for two on my salary? And what does she need it for anyway?”

“Maybe to look good for someone else?” Sami joked.

“I should be so lucky.”

“Well, come with me tonight. We’ll commiserate. At least you are getting some. Me. It’s been months. And a witch with horrible teeth at that. We’ll go out. You can advise me on my studies.” Sami said many times earlier he wanted to go to the University.

Walid shook his head. “No, no. Not tonight.” He was negotiating.

Sami picked up the signal. “I’ll pay. And maybe you’ll have money to buy your girlfriend something on the way home.”

“They’re all incompetents,” Sami began over red tea. He wished he was sipping a tall, cold Bad Frog Amber Lager from home. But that wasn’t possible. There was no beer or wine in Libya’s cafés and restaurants. Alcohol was banned on orders from General Kharrazi and his adherence to strict Moslem law. “But do you think if Abahar was in control, we’d be drinking this swill?” Sami continued. “No. Libya would be more progressive. We’d be part of the 21
st
Century. And we’d be talking with the West, not watching for their planes. We’d have our medicine. And we could grow an army in the sunlight rather than try to build our forces in the dark.”

“Be careful what you say, my friend. For the sake of your job and your life.”

“I know,” he continued whispering completely under the din of the café. “But what if Fadi, that goat, seizes power when the General dies. Or worse, before?” This was the bait.
Will he take it?

Walid sipped his drink and re-lit his cigar. A minute passed, but Sami did not press. Finally, Walid leaned forward.

“While we sit here, I can assure you that Abahar considers this too.” Two more puffs and Walid spoke again. “There is something afoot. I don’t know the details. Neither does Abahar, but Fadi is behind a plan designed to insure him leadership.”

“You must be mistaken, Walid. He doesn’t have the means or…”

“You’re blind to the world around you. He met secretly with Uday Hussein years ago and others. He sits on his eggs and waits for them to hatch.”

“What are you talking about?” Sami showed real concern. He encouraged Walid to go on.

“I don’t know much. But I will find out for our boss. And it will fail.”

“You?” Sami taunted. “What can you do?”
That will get him to talk more.

“There are things you don’t know and will never learn.”

“Forgive me. But…”

“
We
have our ways,” Walid hinted.

Sami recognized how Walid egotistically included himself. He also knew not to pursue the answer directly. Better to wait. Walid was talking openly. He would come back to it. A few puffs on his cigarette and a little more tea and Walid was ready to continue.

“Even now we’re close to discovering more. The answers are in Fadi’s office and in that traitorous brother’s head.”

“Oh, you make up stories like Arabian Nights, Walid. You help pass the time.”

“These are not stories, you fool.”

“Careful, I said I would pay.”

Walid ignored the comment. He enjoyed bullying his subordinate.

“I’m happy for the drinks, but you are a naive fool! These are not stories. Fadi is treacherous and plans something. I have seen some of the proof.”

That was an exaggeration. Sami read his report. There was no proof in what Omar Za’eem presented. Not yet.

“And Abahar has entrusted me to uncover more.”

Another overstatement.
“Then what will you do? How will you find out?”

“I have means. Eyes and ears inside Fadi’s world.”

Walid Abdul-Latif betrayed his boss by speaking to Sami. But he was an overconfident, self-possessed tyrant. How else could he laud his importance if he didn’t share the confidences of his position.

“You are not to utter a word of this…”

“Of course, Walid.”

“…or I will personally slit your throat.” Undoubtedly, it was the same thing Abahar said to him.

“I pray to Allah for the day when Abahar will lead our people,” Sami said. He signalled for another glass of tea and dedicated the rest of the evening to the details of their slutty conquests.