One Rough Man

concerns about your line of questioning, and frankly, so do I.”

That fucking crybaby, Standish thought, what did he say?

“Okay,” he said, waiting on Palmer to continue.

“I let you on the Oversight Council because it seemed to fit the office here, but your primary purpose is simply to absorb what’s said so you can see how it affects other activities going on. I don’t expect you to weigh in on any decisions.”

He picked up a paperweight off Standish’s desk and twirled it around in his hands. “The council is well versed on the ramifications of these types of things. It seemed as if you were questioning our judgment.”

Shit. I’m being frozen out. What did Kurt say? Still wearing a smile, Standish said, “Got it, sir. I just thought that Kurt and the council were being a little timid on everything. We have quite a few opportunities here that we could seize right now if we wanted. I don’t think the council understands how important—”

Palmer interrupted. “Look, I know you don’t have a lot of experience in government, and I see that as a good thing, but these activities are very, very, volatile. The combined experience of the council is probably over a hundred years dealing with national security issues. You have to trust that we know what we’re doing.”

Maybe that’s why nothing ever gets done, you pompous ass. You’ve worked so long inside the government you don’t even realize you’re a chickenshit. The entire council thinks that talking about doing something is the same as action.

“Sir, I meant absolutely no disrespect. I know I have less time in the government than other folks, but I have worked inside the NSC for the last three years. I’ve seen how things run. We seem to make more charts and briefings about doing something than actually doing something. I just think the Taskforce could be better utilized.”

Palmer replaced the paperweight and stood, indicating the meeting was over. “I hear you. Sometimes I think the same way, and admire your attitude, but you’ve only been on the Oversight Council for six months. Give it some time before you decide we’re all hand-wringers. See a few operations go down, then begin to contribute. Okay?”

“Sure. Yes. I don’t want to get a reputation as a know-it-all. I’ll sit back and watch for a while.”

“Good. That’s what I hoped you’d say. You’re a valuable contributor and I don’t want to lose you.”

Standish watched the door close, thinking, Valuable contributor, huh? Not yet, but I will be, you patronizing asshole. He had seen the sausage factory of decision-making by the inner circle of the U.S. government and determined it was a recipe for failure. What was needed was decisive action, without a bunch of quibbling from Congress, or, heaven forbid, from the great unwashed of the American electorate.

Since Al Qaeda had started this war in 2001, Standish had seen the U.S. take a daily beating on everything it did in its defense. The public just didn’t seem to understand that there was a threat. Christ, even global warming is seen as a bigger danger. After watching all of the timid, halfhearted measures employed by the United States, he was convinced that something more aggressive needed to occur, outside of the public eye. The Taskforce was the perfect tool for the job. If he could get control of the Taskforce, the nation could get serious about terrorism. He couldn’t order around the CIA or the military, but he could definitely find a use for an organization that had no official affiliation with the U.S. government. Shit, even Ollie North could do that.

18

The Arabs had retired to Miguel’s guesthouse and were embroiled in a heated conversation. Far from being ignorant, both had spent countless hours with a Rosetta Stone Spanish software program in preparation for this trip. While they couldn’t pass as natives, they were now fairly fluent — something they had kept hidden from their host.

The shorter of the two went by the kunya of Abu Sayyidd, after Sayyidd Qutb, the Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose rabid proselytizing and interpretation of the Quran were, before his execution in 1966, milestones in future Islamic fundamentalist thinking.

The taller one, and the one who had done all the talking earlier, went by the kunya of Abu Bakr, after the first caliph who ruled following Muhammad’s death, and the first caliph leading to the split between Shia and Sunni.

Ordinarily a kunya is a nickname meaning “the father of,” as in Abu Abdullah meaning “the father of Abdullah,” and is commonly used in Arabic countries. In actual practice it’s a method for fanatics wanted by authorities to take an alias with a hidden meaning. The naming conventions in Arabic countries made it very hard to keep track of individuals, as a person’s recorded name could be any variation of full name or kunya.

Unlike their heroes of 9/11, neither Bakr nor Sayyidd had been radicalized in modern Europe, where Mohammed Atta and his ilk were treated as inferior beings and outsiders, leading them to turn inward toward Islam. Abu Sayyidd and Abu Bakr heard the calling from the mosques in their own home towns in Saudi Arabia, a radical influence unstemmed by the ruling House of Al Saud because of the simple fact that the threat led outside the kingdom, and thus was something to be encouraged no matter how much the United States protested.

In the Saudi government’s thinking, if the radicals were given something greater to hate than the ruling class, so much the better. Not to mention that many in the ruling class sympathized with the cause anyway. Let the radicals leave the kingdom and get killed. It was a win-win situation.

Like many of the men who had made the trek to Iraq, Abu Bakr and Abu Sayyidd didn’t start out as rabid ideologues. They were simply looking for a little adventure in support of a worthy cause. Their plan was to go to Iraq, fulfill their romantic notion of the fight to support Islam for a few months, and then return to their life in Saudi Arabia, working a normal job and telling stories of their heroic actions to their grandkids years later.

The naive illusion of jihad was broken quickly. Most actions were accomplished by snipers shooting their targets in the back, improvised explosive devices hidden in the dark of night, or suicide missions that left dozens dead and dozens more brutally mangled with little discrimination between the infidel and the believer. One walk through the bloody devastation of a suicide bomber was enough to take away any idealistic notions of jihad.

Abu Bakr and Abu Sayyidd were lucky in that they weren’t chosen for a suicide “martyr” mission. At the time, the terrorist pipeline had enough shahid, and thus they were allowed to fight, with IEDs and rifles. Once they had killed, their mindset began to change. They had to justify within themselves the murders they committed, and their psyche simply couldn’t accept that they had done wrong. The answer was simple: The cause was just, no matter what reality they saw on the ground that refuted the propaganda.

Sayyidd and Bakr, like many other radicalized fighters, had become nothing more than weapons of the most dangerous kind. Literal smart-bombs. Living, breathing, thinking weapons willing to trade their lives for their nihilistic goals, without any moral restraint remaining against taking innocent life. Had they the means, they would slaughter their enemies on a massive scale. The leadership of Al Qaeda had striven mightily to obtain such a capability. Sayyidd believed he may have found it in the story told by the native boy. All he had to do was convince Bakr.

19

Inside his fleabag hotel, the professor twitched at every noise he heard in the hallway outside, wondering how long he had before he was arrested. He couldn’t believe the debacle that had occurred. The Mayans had come out of the darkness one by one, chopped to ribbons. So far only eight of the twelve original members had made it home. Counting Olmec, he could be looking at charges of man-slaughter or murder of four people. He regretted the deaths, he truly did, but the real shame was that no one would care that he was correct about his theory.

After spending the night by himself, it had taken him a full day to get out, and that was mainly due to his