One Rough Man (35 page)

By the time I reached the lobby Jennifer was already downstairs, carrying our new laptop.

Less than an hour later we were at Ethan’s house. I took the lead to the front door, looking at my watch before I rang the doorbell.
Close enough for government work
. I rang the bell and waited.

Immediately, a dog began barking like his fur was on fire. I smiled. “Sounds like a rabid wolf, but he’s really a teddy bear.”

I heard Ethan tell the dog to shut up before opening the door. I waited, a little anxious at the response I would get.

Ethan gave me a big grin, holding his arms open.
Whew
. After embracing me, he noticed Jennifer for the first time.

“Who’s this?”

“A friend of mine. Jennifer Cahill, this is Ethan Merriweather. Otherwise known as Haji.”

Ethan shook her hand, then invited us both inside.

I bent down to ruffle the fur of a brown-and-tan mutt that looked like a cross between a bulldog and miniature collie. The dog began to jump all over me, slobbering.

“Hey, Eddie, how ya been?” Looking up, I asked, “Kathy around? I’d like to say hello.”

“No, unfortunately, she’s not. She really wanted to see you as well, but Emily and Rachel had a big Girl Scout thing tonight. It’s been planned for a month.”

I nodded, relieved at the answer. It would be pretty hard for Kathy to decide at the last minute to attend something like that, and I knew that Ethan wouldn’t outright lie to me.

Standing up from Eddie, freeing him up to run over to Jennifer and begin slobbering all over her, I said, “That’s too bad. I’d really like to see her and the kids. I don’t know how long I’ll be in D.C., but maybe I’ll get the chance later.”

“How about coming by for dinner tomorrow night? I know we’re out here in the boondocks, but she’ll make your favorite—chicken pot pie.”

I couldn’t help but laugh because chicken pot pie was what Kathy always served when I came to dinner, whether I wanted it or not.

“You want some home-cooked food?” I asked Jennifer.

“I think that would be great, if one extra is okay.”

I knew Jennifer’s coming was implied. “Sounds like a date.” I paused, then got to the point. “Can we go to your study? I’ve got some stuff to show you.”

“You know the way. I’ll grab some beers.”

Once Ethan entered, I spread out both e-mail messages, one repeatedly folded and stained, the other a fresh computer printout.

“Haji, this is what we need translated. We got these from two different e-mail accounts. It’s terrorist related, but we don’t really know how.”

He picked up the first sheet, spending a few minutes studying it. Placing it down, he picked up the second sheet. After about fifteen seconds, he placed it back down and returned to the first sheet, walking around the room and studying it.

I finally got fed up. “Well, what’s it say?”

Ethan snapped out of his trance, looking at us like he didn’t know where we’d come from. After a pause, he said, “Okay, one is clearly some sort of terrorist message. It talks about killing infidels and other things. The other is simply an invitation to coffee, with an address.”

I already knew that one was terrorist related but was surprised at the other translation.

“What’s the address? Is it in Norway?”

“It doesn’t have a country listed, but it’s a coffee shop somewhere in Europe. The verbiage is a direct phonetic translation, and isn’t American. The meeting occurred today at thirteen hundred.”

“What’s the other message say? The first one?”

“Well, it’s pretty ominous, but it’s something I read every single day in chatter we get fed, so don’t freak out.”

“Yeah, yeah. The difference here is that I’ve met them; I know they’re trying to kill people. I just don’t know how. What’s it say?”

“Here’s what I
think
it says: ‘Operation Badr will exceed our expectations. We no longer will strike the far enemy in his homeland. We came upon a weapon that will push the Zionists into the sea at the same time it causes the far enemy to destroy the Persians. Praise Allah, we will rejoice when all infidels are destroyed because of this, leaving us with the assurance of the Caliphate. Please reply, telling us this path is blessed, or tell us what to do next.’ Is that what you expected?”

“Yeah, something like that. What do you make of it? What’s an Arabic mind saying when it says that?”

“Well ... I’m not an Arab. I’m not really keen on telling you what I think because I’m probably wrong.”

“Haji, cut the shit. I’m not a robot. I already know what
I
think. I’d like to hear what
you
think. I’m not going to run off shooting people because of it. You’re an analyst, for Christ’s sake. This is what you do.”

Ethan held up his hands. “Okay, okay ... Starting right off, they reference the Battle of Badr, the first significant defeat of Meccan forces by Muhammad, which led to Islam taking over the Arabian Peninsula way back when. Going further, this is clearly an AQ message. The references to the far enemy and the Caliphate point to that. Getting to the meat, in my mind, these guys have a weapon and they intend to use it on Israel. That, in itself, isn’t unusual. Every Arab with a firecracker says that sort of thing. In this case, I don’t think these guys believe they have a firecracker. I think they have a weapon that is dangerous enough to cause a phenomenal reaction, something designed to cause the Israelis to really, really go nuts.

“Okay. So far I’m tracking. That’s about what I thought. What about the Persian comment? I couldn’t make heads or tails of that. What do you think he’s saying there?”

“Honestly, that part’s a little disturbing. I’m not sure, but it could mean that the weapon will be blamed on Iran, causing Israel to attack them. The second order of effect for that, of course, would be that we would support Israel, drawing us in to a war with Iran. The end result, in the mind of the guy who wrote this ...” He paused, looking at me. “Understand, I’m not saying this would happen, but I think they want to start the clash of civilizations everyone blabs about. They want to start a true holy war, using Israel as the bad guy. We’d be forced to defend Israel in any attack against Iran; and all other Arab states, because it’s Israel doing the attacking, would be forced to choose sides. There’s no question whose side they’ll choose.”

Ethan stopped, thinking about what he had just said. “Man, this could actually work. If they could blame the Iranians for a serious attack, especially with the nutcase in charge constantly talking about destroying Israel, it probably would start a chain reaction that would lead to a global fight between the Christian and Muslim worlds.”

He paced back and forth for a second. “Do you really think that such a weapon is real? Do you think these guys really found something in Guatemala?”

“I don’t know. I’m inclined to think they did, since a couple of in-digs died on her uncle’s expedition, and these guys have made arrangements to meet someone to continue on whatever journey they think they’re on. If they failed in finding a weapon, or if the weapon wasn’t real, why continue?”

“Shit, this is bad news. What’re you going to do?”

“I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to pass everything you just said to the Taskforce. Kurt should contact me tomorrow. What you could do, if you don’t mind, is simply reinforce what I’m going to say. I’ll tell Kurt everything I have, but you know what my reputation is. He might blow me off, and I wouldn’t blame him. Either way, this is a problem for the Taskforce, not for me.”

Ethan mulled over his options. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I can do that. I don’t know how soon I’ll see the boss—you remember his schedule—but I’ll certainly tell him when I see him.”

 

 

ETHAN STOOD AT THE DOOR until they drove off. Once they were out of sight he went to the telephone to call Domino’s for the second time that week. Before he dialed, he thought about Pike’s visit. He picked up the handset, calling the Taskforce duty officer instead.

M
ason hung up the cloned cell phone. Picking up the clean duty phone, he called Lucas.

“We got a hit. Pike was visiting a guy named Ethan Merriweather tonight.”

“Is he still there?”

“No. He left. The man on the phone says that Pike talked about interesting stuff, and just wanted to relay that. Want to do anything with this?”

“Yeah. Alert the team. Tell them to get in as fast as possible. While we’re inbound, figure out everything you can on this Ethan Merriweather. Find out where he lives and do a quick analysis of the area. I don’t want to waste any time when we get to the office. Give us a target dump on both the man and his location.”

“You got it. Anything specific you want me to hone in on?”

“Yeah, figure out if this guy’s a badass as well. Check his military background. I guarantee he has one.”

“Roger that. See you in thirty minutes.”

It took Mason all of ten minutes to get a complete background on Ethan, to include his address, family members, and the last time he had paid his electric bill.

Thirty-two minutes later he was briefing the assembled team.

“The target is a thirty-four-year-old Caucasian male. His MOS is 96B, intel analyst. He is currently working in J3 Special Operations Division at the Pentagon. He’s airborne qualified, but that’s it as far as specialized schooling we care about. Basically, he’s your standard intel weenie. No known firearms, no bills being paid to ‘Johnny’s house of jujitsu,’ nothing dangerous at all.

“He has a wife and two children, both girls; ages eight and eleven. Of note, he does have a dog, but I couldn’t determine a breed. All I could find were some vet bills for various things, which leads me to believe the dog is getting on in years.”

Moving to the next slide in the presentation, Mason continued the briefing, covering the neighborhood and the house where Ethan lived in detail. When he finished, he turned the briefing over to Lucas.

Standing up, Lucas said, “This is pretty straightforward. We simply need this Ethan to tell us where to find Pike. Once we have that information, terminate whoever is in the house. Don’t do it before we have the information, since you might need to use the wife or children for persuasion on the target.”

Randy, one of the SF men, cut in. “What’s our authorized level of persuasion? What if he refuses to talk?”

“There is no limit. Make him talk. Does anyone here have any qualms about that?”

The team looked around at each other, but nobody said a word.

“If you look at the team, you’ll see the only two missing from the Fort Bragg op are Carl and Alan. When push came to shove, they didn’t have the stomach for the work. Almost caused mission failure right when we were culminating.”

Lucas made eye contact with each member of the team. “Does anyone have any qualms about terminating the wife and kids? No judgments here, not everyone can do this kind of work. If that’s you, say so now, before we launch.”

Once again, nobody said anything.

“Okay. Spend ten minutes figuring out how you want to tackle this problem. No more than that. It’s pretty straightforward and the trail’s getting colder every second we sit here. For all we know, Pike and the girl are already driving to another city. I expect you guys to be on the road in fifteen minutes.”

I
rolled over, groggy and unsure of what had awakened me, the noise blending in to my semiconscious dream. I realized my cell phone was ringing and snatched it up before whoever was calling could hang up, knowing it was either a wrong number or Kurt.

“Hello?”

“Pike, is that you?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“It’s Kurt. We need to meet. You went to Ethan Merriweather’s house last night?”

“Yes, sir, I did, but it was simply to get all the facts before I talked to you today. I didn’t do anything—”

“Ethan’s dead,” Kurt said, “I need to talk to you right now.”

I was wide-awake now. “What? What the fuck are you talking about? I just saw him.”

“I’m not going to talk on a cell phone. Let’s do this face-to-face.”

I stopped my questions. “When and where?”

“It’s now about nine forty-five.”

I fumbled for my watch, thinking that surely couldn’t be right, but it was. Jennifer and I had decided just to sleep in until we woke up, but I never figured we’d both be out until this late in the morning. I must have been more tired than I thought.

Kurt continued talking. “I have to clean up a few things and make sure efforts are tracking over here. Meet me at eleven at Four Courts.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Don’t be late. I won’t have a lot of time and I need to figure out what the hell’s going on.”

“I won’t be late. I’m staying a hundred feet from a Metro stop.”

I hung up the phone, my head spinning over what I had just heard.
Haji dead? He was healthy as a horse. Did he have a heart attack or something? Get hit by a car? Surely this had nothing to do with our visit. Did it?

There wasn’t any sense in trying to figure it out without any facts. I could sort it out with Kurt in an hour.

As I began putting on my clothes, the ramification of what Kurt had said finally hit home.
Haji was dead
. Having had multiple friends die in combat since 9/11, I understood the grieving process at the graduate level, but it didn’t make it any easier. I had a hollow feeling inside, something I knew would bounce around for a long time, slowly diminishing until it only appeared when something triggered a memory of Ethan.

I remembered Kathy and the kids, wishing I had seen them last night. They would need support right now. I was sure the Taskforce was on that. They were very, very good about taking care of the families of fallen soldiers. Even so, I wanted to help, and wished the first time I was to see Kathy would not have been in the wake of Ethan’s death.