All Necessary Force

by four feet. Rafik opened the lid of the first one. Inside, seated into foam receptacles, were what appeared to be simple metal disks. He pulled one out. Eight inches in diameter, it was slightly curved and would have looked exactly like a lid off of a soup pot except it was much thicker.

Opening the other pelican case, he pulled out a plastic container. This too was eight inches in diameter and about eight inches deep, looking like a soup pot made for the lid he held in his other hand. He lined up the holes on the outside of the lid with the holes on the edge of the pot, the curved side down. The match was perfect, as he knew it would be.

He smiled. “Such a simple-looking thing. With so much destructive power.”

Kamil said, “The Great Satan’s own technology will be their downfall. It’s a shame that they spend so much time and money creating these weapons only to have them used against themselves.”

Rafik laughed. “Not a great deal of shame. Not at all.”

Rafik placed the pieces back into the cases. Turning to the pilot, he said, “I need to find an air express service. One that will go to the United States.”

“Both DHL and FedEx fly right to this terminal. They have an office downstairs, but I don’t know if they’ll take a shipment from here. You might have to take it downtown first.”

“That’s stupid. Go figure out how to schedule this cargo for shipment. Tell them it’s from your office. I’ll give you an address when you get back.”

Kamil waited until the pilot had left, then said, “I don’t think we should send the package from here if that’s not what’s usually done. We should get it into the system without shortcuts so it’s harder to track. And no way should that pilot get the address. We should do it ourselves.”

Rafik whipped his head around, incensed at Kamil questioning his authority. He was about to tear into him when the logic of his statement sank in. Kamil refused to break eye contact. Rafik patted his face. “Always looking out for me. For the mission. Okay. We’ll do it your way. Get the information when the pilot returns. Before that, though, call the kafir here. Set up the meeting like we discussed. Be sure you actually see the explosives. Those men would sell us a crate of clay. Islam won’t help you, no matter how much they say otherwise.”

Kamil pointed at the loadmaster. “What about him?”

“Keep him. There’s no telling where you’ll have to meet them. An aircraft may be useful, and I want to give this pilot a reason to transport you to Canada. I’m taking Farouk. I’ll leave Adnan. Use his expertise in explosives to inspect the cargo.”

Kamil said, “What do I do if this contact fails? They aren’t the most trustworthy of people and have no allegiance to our cause.”

“Get the explosives. Don’t let it fail. Do what you need to do.”

Seeing Kamil’s reticence and knowing the source, he said, “Old friend, we do what we must. I know how you feel, and maybe someday we’ll get the chance to teach them the true meaning of Islam. Stay focused on the goal. Using them is no different than using the weapons on this plane.”

36

The Marine staff sergeant on duty at Post One kept eyeballing Retro and me, like he thought we were going to steal the ashtray in the lobby. We’d done nothing wrong, and told him we were simply meeting someone, but he clearly thought we were suspicious. I decided to wait outside. Better for him not to remember who we met. Motioning to Retro, I walked out into the courtyard.

“Man,” Retro said, “you’d think that guy’d lay off a little with all the security around this place.”

He had a point. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo had pretty much taken over the neighborhood, with all the streets blocked off and guarded by Egyptian police. The only people allowed in the neighborhood were those who lived there. If you got past that, you still had to contend with both an outer and inner embassy wall, each complete with a security checkpoint just like an airport, before getting inside to the Marine manning Post One.

“He’s just doing his job,” I said. “I don’t know what the hell’s taking that agency guy so long.”

“Maybe he didn’t get the word how important we are.”

I laughed. “Bullshit. You heard Kurt. I guarantee that guy got a call straight from the seventh floor.”

The message Kurt had sent stated that the picture on his father’s roll of film might belong to a man named Richard Ellis, a United States congressman. The kicker was that he was currently in Cairo. I’d immediately called Kurt through the VPN and put him on conference, wanting to confirm the information and what I was supposed to do. At the end of the call, the consensus was to simply confront him — to shake the tree and see what came out. We both thought something was awry, and decided to let him tell us what it was.

The problem was precisely that he was a United States congressman and would have to be handled carefully. If we were wrong about the picture, we needed to leave the congressman without any impression that he was being investigated. To that end, we’d come to talk to the CIA and get a little help with the “interrogation.”

Mixing the Taskforce with CIA personnel was risky, and the reason we didn’t want to sign in with Post One, but apparently the president himself was involved. That sort of overcame any bitching we had. No doubt he put out some tough love, which is why I thought the director of the CIA — a member of the Oversight Council — would be calling from his seventh-floor office at headquarters.

I saw a middle-aged man exit the door next to Post One and head our way.

“You guys here to meet someone from the State Department?”

“No. From another agency.”

He smiled. “We going to dance all day?”

“Depends on who called you.”

“How about the president? That good enough?”

I was a little startled. “The president called you?”

“Naw. But he might as well have. Big shit storm apparently.”

It would be embarrassing to spill my guts to some State Department weenie, so I pushed just a little further to be sure. “And you are?”

“Mack Gleason. I’m the head honcho here. Look, I don’t know who you are and I was told not to ask. No record of us meeting. That’s fine with me, but I’ll need something to go on. I have no idea what this is about.”

That was enough for me. I hadn’t expected the actual chief of station, but I suppose I should have, given the level of interest. I told him everything I knew, which raised his eyebrows.

“Holy shit. You think Ellis is a traitor? I’m supposed to see him tomorrow.”

“I don’t know what to think. There’s definitely some sort of Chinese connection, but it beats me what it is. On top of that, this whole thing is tied into an Indonesian terrorist. Either way, I want to find out what’s going on.”

“But why me? I don’t have any arrest authority. This is a job for the LEGATT. It’s for the FBI.”

I couldn’t tell him that the adjutant general of the United States wasn’t read on to the Taskforce, unlike the director of the CIA, and so the FBI’s legal attache wasn’t someone we could use. Hell, I couldn’t even tell him my name.

“You’ve been pulled in because this is very, very sensitive. Very political. We’re not sure of the information, and need to find out discreetly. This is exactly what you guys do, and not something I’m very good at. We need some help. If it ends up being something, it’s all yours. You pull in the LEGATT and we disappear, never to be mentioned. Okay?”

He was easygoing, like most of the CIA folks. He rolled right into the mission.

“Okay by me. So what’s the play? What are you going to do?”

“Shit, man, that’s why I’m here. I don’t know. My plan was to knock on his hotel-room door and beat the shit out of him, but that didn’t go over so well at home, given the political stakes. We’re looking for ideas. You guys are the experts at nuance.”

“Well… like I said, he’s coming here tomorrow for a briefing. From what I got from headquarters, he used to work for the CIA as a case officer, and he’s now on the Intelligence Committee. He likes to flaunt that by hitting up