Presence of Mine Enemies Read online

  Harry shook his head at the absurdity of it all.

  “You know nothing,” he said, his voice sinking ever lower as he continued, a menacing intensity pervading every syllable. “In the jihad in Syria, I served beside a man who could have been my brother. We fought together by day and ate bread together by night. We talked of the homes we had left behind, of all we had abandoned—how all of it counted as nothing to us anymore compared to the joy of serving a single day in Allah’s struggle. And then one day, I learned he had been executed—as a spy. An informer for the nusayri regime.”

  He could see the shock in Yassin’s eyes at the story, the growing self-doubt—knew to press his advantage.

  “Only God can know the heart of each man, and separate his truth from his falsehood,” he went on, spinning the elaborate web of his own lie. “That is the reality, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.”

  “So what are you asking of me?” Yassin demanded, his own face flushing with anger as he rose from the table. The anger of youth, of knowing one was wrong and being too proud to admit it. “That I sit here and do nothing? That I go back to my life and pretend that none of this ever happened? I can’t do that—you didn’t do that.”

  “No,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Far be it from God that I would suggest such a thing—to turn back from the path of jihad once your feet have been set upon it would be a sin. But the holy struggle is not a game, and—”

  “I’ve never thought that it was, I—”

  “And those who would take part in it,” he said calmly, talking over Yassin without raising his voice, “must be prepared to make sacrifices for the security of their brethren.”

  “What kind of ‘sacrifices’ are you talking about?” Yassin asked, the uncertainty only too visible in his eyes. He was out of his depth and he knew it, somewhere deep down.

  “I want you and Reza to sever your ties with Marwan and the others at the club,” Harry replied, placing a gentle hand on the young man’s shoulder. Looking him directly in the eye. Isolate, spread distrust. Manipulate. The tools of any good social engineer, equally those of the case officer. “Do that, and I will ensure that you both get to Mindanao, to join our brothers who still fight under the black banners there.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I can,” he nodded, a smile of calm assurance crossing his face as he squeezed Yassin’s shoulder. “I swear before God.”

  8:47 A.M.

  Parc du Cinquentenaire

  Brussels, Belgium

  “Come along, Pierre,” Armand Césaire said, clucking his tongue as he gently tugged at his recalcitrant dog’s leash, forcing him to follow along as he moved toward the arcade—shaking his head at the small French bulldog’s distraction.

  Being invisible. That had always been his talent, whether it was in Cote D’Ivoire—or here on the streets of Brussels. Fading into the background, unnoticed as he went about his work. Corrupting people, convincing them to betray their country. Their God.

  The work of the case officer, as old as time itself. And all people saw was a man, walking his dog.

  LYSANDER was different, though, from so many of the agents he had run through the decades. A fellow intelligence officer, not a recruited asset. Which only made him more concerned by the silence.

  Four weeks, and nothing from his asset. That wasn’t normal, and it was bringing old fears back to the surface. Demons he’d once thought buried beneath the tough skin he’d been forced to develop over the years.

  Memories. Ghosts of long ago.

  He’d woken up in the middle of the night two days ago, rousing his wife from her own slumber—paralyzed by a premonition of evil. Of something having gone wrong.

  Get a grip, he told himself. This wasn't like him at all, but then again, he was getting old. As his wife never missed an opportunity to remind him, her own hair white as snow.

  And then he saw it, the single streak of white chalk against the stone at the base of the arch itself, barely two inches long—hardly noticeable and yet too deliberate to have been left by accident. The tell.

  His breath caught in his throat, struggling not to betray the emotion on his face as he reached down scooping up Pierre into his arms, the little bulldog attempting to lick his face as the case officer strode from beneath the arch, his pace quickening as he made his way toward the dead drop.

  LYSANDER had made contact.

  7:49 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

  The Yellow Line

  Washington, D.C.

  She could still feel his hands on her body, his breath hot against her neck—the warmth of his bulk against her, holding her close long after he’d finished. The two of them huddled together in the chair in his den, nothing to break the silence but the rhythmic sound of his breathing and the monotonous ticking of the old clock on the mantel above the fireplace.

  The pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth until the sound nearly drove her insane.

  Melody Lawlor leaned into the pole just inside the door of the metro car, the floor gently moving beneath her feet with the motion of the train, a weary sigh escaping her lips as she tried to shut it all out. Lose herself in the bustle and clamor of the crowded car, packed with her fellow denizens of the Beltway. Knowing she would be seeing him again, all too soon—as soon as she arrived on Capitol Hill.

  It had all been a mistake, her affair with Roy Coftey. Though it hadn’t seemed like it at the time, so soon after her arrival in D.C.

  She’d wanted a job on the Hill, access and connections to people in power—and Roy Coftey had both, along with an unabashed appetite for young women that was the stuff of legend around Washington.

  They’d used each other from the beginning, him for her body—her for his connections. A pretty even trade, or so she’d thought. And the sex hadn’t even been that bad, a tender patience about Coftey that she’d never been able to find among men her own age in D.C.

  But she had never dreamed that it would ever be about anything more than that, the growing depth of his affection for her taking her completely off-guard.

  She’d nearly walked away from it all then, left him the moment she realized that, for the senator, things had become serious. But by that time. . .other considerations had already injected themselves into the situation.

  Melody felt a body press into her from behind, not an uncommon experience on the Metro during rush, but she knew instinctively that it was him.

  “What have you been able to find out for me?” A voice asked, low, almost lost in the noise filling the car.

  The reason she had stayed with Coftey, despite it all. Betraying him even as she shared his bed. Because there were some things even he couldn’t offer.

  “He had a meeting with Ellis yesterday,” she replied in the same low tone, not looking back. “It didn’t go well.”

  “How about something I don’t already know?” came Ian Cahill’s irritated rasp, only inches from her ear.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, struggling to keep her face neutral, “but that’s all I know. As I’ve told you from the beginning, he doesn’t like bringing that kind of thing home.”

  “And you assured me back then that you could find a way around that,” the man responded, not giving an inch. Cahill was a legend in D.C., a street-savvy political operative who’d managed to accumulate more power than almost anyone else in town without ever once holding elected office. A former ally of Coftey’s, but time. . .and something else, she knew not what—had turned them into the bitterest of foes.

  Melody shook her head, looking away from him. “I can and I have, you know that. You knew about his plan to change party affiliation ahead of time, and that was only because of me. It’s not my fault that you weren’t able to do anything with it.”

  “Old news,” Cahill said dismissively, refusing to give her the point. “If you want to continue to justify our arrangement, I need something fresh.”

  “He’s going out to Oklahoma next week,” she replied finally,
even as the train slowed, an automated voice announcing “Capitol South” as the stop. “And he wants me to go with him.”

  “Then make it count.”

  2:05 P.M., Central European Summer Time

  Palais de l'Élysée

  Paris, France

  “. . .as the security situation in the migrant camps there has become more tedious in recent weeks.”

  Anaïs Brunet leaned back in her stiff, high-backed chair, looking around her as Raoul Dubois, her counterpart at the DGSI—France’s internal intelligence service—continued speaking.

  Struck as always by the elegance of the meeting room, painstakingly restored—like the rest of the Élysée Palace—to its Enlightenment splendor.

  How a palace for the kings of the earth had come to be named after the resting place of the blessed dead in Greek mythology was a mystery to her that a decade in government hadn’t served to parse. But it was from these very windows that the Bourbons had once looked out upon their dominion, upon the masses in the streets of Paris. Apres moi le deluge. . .

  “Just how concerned should we be?” President Denis Albéric asked, a worried frown on his face as he glanced down the table toward her. Re-elected scarcely four months before, Albéric had won victory by only the narrowest of margins over his National Front opponent.

  And that was before events in the UK—and the attack on the Caen-Paris train—had brought the issue of terrorism surging back to the foreground. He had every reason to be worried.

  “I think there is cause to be very concerned, mon presidente,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “You’ve seen the unrest, the protests outside the American Embassy here in Paris. We’re in the middle of a very volatile period, and it would not be at all difficult for extremists to take advantage of the cover provided by legitimate protests to launch an attack.”

  She saw Dubois shake his head out of the corner of her eye, a disapproving look on the older man’s face. The two of them had crossed swords more than a few times over the years since he’d taken over the DGSI—something she suspected had far more to do with her background than her gender.

  Dubois was a career intelligence officer, having come up through the ranks of the DGSI, and the idea of having someone from outside the community serving as his opposite number clearly rankled him.

  “I think we have to be careful not to conflate legitimate political protest with the threat posed by extremists. It would be unwise to—”

  “I am not conflating anything,” Brunet replied, keeping her attention focused on the president, her voice studiously neutral. “But we cannot ignore the potential for danger. I—”

  Her phone began to vibrate in her purse at that moment, distracting her just as Dubois broke in once more. A furtive glance at the screen revealing that it was from Alliance Base.

  Gauthier.

  “S’il vous plait excusez-moi, mon presidente,” she said, holding up the phone. “I really must take this.”

  “Bien sûr.”

  “This needs to have been important, Lucien,” Brunet announced, the door of the conference room closing behind her as she slipped into the corridor without, an ornate portrait of one of the palace’s former residents . “You’ve pulled me out of a meeting with the President.”

  “I assure you it is,” General Gauthier responded, his voice tight. “LYSANDER made contact, earlier this morning.”

  Finally. “And?”

  “We just finished decoding the contents of the dead drop thirty minutes ago, and the intelligence LYSANDER has provided will require further—”

  “I understand that your analysts haven’t had time to parse every sentence, Lucien,” Brunet interrupted, cutting his explanation short. Intelligence work had made the general cautious, sometimes painfully so. And this was one of those times. “Just give me the raw assessment—what was he able to provide?”

  “He believes he’s made contact with an active cell, or at least a cell in the process of going active, a group of young Muslim men at a boxing club there in Molenbeek. University-age, most of them.”

  The demographic drawn upon by terrorist groups, revolutionaries, and armies themselves for centuries. Too young to have developed anything approaching a nuanced view of the world. Too young to fear death. But Gauthier wasn’t done.

  “The leader of the cell, though, assuming LYSANDER’s intelligence is accurate, is an older man—a convert to Islam who reputedly spent time as a foreign fighter in Syria. His name is Ibrahim Abu Musab al-Almani. . .”

  Chapter 4

  7:04 P.M., Central European Summer Time, July 3rd

  The apartment

  Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Belgium

  “Mashallah,” Harry breathed, breaking his bread into rough pieces before dipping one of the larger hunks into the bowl of za'atar sitting on the table only a few inches from his elbow. “I have good news.”

  “Oh?” Reza looked up from his food, a large engineering textbook propped open beside him. Yassin turning back from the refrigerator, a soda in his hand, the same question clearly written in his eyes.

  “I succeeded in making contact this morning,” he continued, smiling at them both, “with a brother I fought beside in Sham, a fellow German who left to continue the fight in the Philippines. And he gave me the name of a man in Dubai, a man who has served as a conduit for the faithful seeking to join the Emir in Mindanao.”

  He reached into the back of his jeans, withdrawing a computer print-out and smoothing it out on the table as Yassin took his seat. “I've booked both of you on an Emirates flight departing from Brussels next Saturday. Insh'allah, you'll arrive in Dubai less than seven hours later.”

  Where you'll promptly be detained on suspicion of terrorism by Emirati police who will have been alerted to your arrival, he didn't add, looking Yassin in the eye.

  The two of them, no longer his problem at that point.

  “Our brother will meet you there,” he went on, the smile never wavering—his voice, utter conviction, “and look after you during the overnight layover, after which you will fly directly to Manila the following day.”

  “Next Saturday?” Reza demanded, finally seeming to find his voice. “That's not very far away, I'm not sure—”

  “Is there anything which could be more important than answering the call of God?” Harry asked, his eyes meeting Reza's and holding them fast. “You have sought to take part in Allah's struggle, and now that you have been shown the way, you would hesitate from following it?”

  “No, no,” the young man said, shaking his head, “by no means. It's just—”

  “Good,” he replied, his face breaking into a wide smile. “Then it is settled. Once in Manila, you’ll make contact with my brother and he will ensure that you reach Mindanao to join the fight.”

  “Alhamdullilah,” Yassin exclaimed, enthusiasm on his face as he rose—clasping Harry’s hand in his own as the two of them embraced there in the middle of the kitchen, tears of joy shining in the younger man’s eyes. “Thank you.”

  Harry shook his head, fighting to repress the feelings which rose within him in this moment. Anger. Fear.

  Striving for the mastery.

  “Give all the thanks to God, my brother,” he said finally, his face betraying nothing of his true feelings as he held his friend close. “I am nothing but a conduit for His will.”

  He smiled, meeting Reza's eyes over Yassin's shoulder. “Just to think of it, brothers—in another week, you will have joined the ranks of those defending our religion. Allahu akbar.”

  “Allahu akbar!”

  12:47 P.M. Mountain Time

  Bell Cow Lake

  Chandler, Oklahoma

  No rest for the wicked, Roy Coftey thought, wiping sweat from his forehead as the senator picked up his hammer once more—stripped to his shirtsleeves as he drove another ten-penny nail into the scaffolding of the main stage from which the dignitaries of Chandler would oversee the small town's annual Independence Day 5K run at noon on the morrow.<
br />
  “Nothing's changed, Ben,” he said with a laugh, reaching for a nearly-empty bottle of water as a man approaching his age crawled out from beneath the scaffolding, dusting off his blue jeans and dirty t-shirt. “Growing up, I remember the Fourth was always hotter than hell.”

  The man chuckled, accepting the water bottle as Coftey passed it over.

  “That it was, Roy. That it was. There's better fishing now, though,” he added, nodding toward the lake as he unscrewed the cap of the bottle, taking a long drink. “Ever since we put the lake in. Mikey Farnum caught a ten-pound bass during the tournament last year.”

  “He's still around?” Coftey asked, looking over at his old friend.

  A nod.

  “He moved into assisted living up in Stillwater back last December after his stroke—but his son still makes sure he gets down for the tournaments.” The man paused, screwing the cap back on the empty bottle. “I appreciate you lending a hand today, Roy. I mean that.”

  “It's the least I could do,” he replied, taken somewhat off-guard by the man's earnestness. “It's good to bring back the old times, even if it's just for a day or two.”

  “You've changed,” his old friend went on, looking him in the eye.

  “I don't know what you mean.”

  The man seemed to hesitate for a moment before going on, his gaze shifting from Coftey's face out across the waters of Bell Cow Lake. “I'm going to be honest, Roy. . .I didn't vote for you in the last election. I didn't like what you'd become, what that town had done to you. But when you came back to Chandler this past January—as I see you now—it's like seeing the man I saw get off that plane when we both came back from the 'Nam. The old Roy, back again. Full of piss and vinegar, and spoiling for a fight.”