“Not on the syllabus down at The Farm.”
“Just as well. Who’d want to work for an agency that did dumb shit like that? Taking down a foreign chief of state is really bad juju, son. Even if one of our Presidents thought it was cool to be a sociopath. Funny how people don’t like to think things all the way through.”
“Like us?”
“Not when you take out people who don’t matter all that much.”
“What’s that shit about the Ranger?”
“Sam Driscoll,” Clark replied. Ryan had told them about Kealty’s push for the CID investigation. “Humped a few hills with Driscoll in the ’90s. Good man.”
“Anything being done to stop it?”
“Don’t know, but Jack told us about it for a reason.”
“New recruit for The Campus?”
“It sure would soften Driscoll’s fall, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, but still, to watch your career get flushed because some dickhead wants to make a point-it just ain’t right,
“In so many ways,” Clark agreed.
They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Chavez said, “He looks worried. Tired.”
“Who, Jack? I would be, too. Poor bastard. He just wants to write his memoirs and maybe work on his golf game, play daddy to the kids. You know, he really is a good guy.”
“That’s his problem,” Chavez pointed out.
“Sure as hell.” It was nice to know that his son-in-law hadn’t wasted his time at George Mason University. “A sense of duty can take you into some tight places. Then you have to figure your own way out.”
Back at Peregrine Cliff, Ryan found his mind drifting, fingers poised over the keyboard.
He glanced at the multiline phone. He started reaching for it twice, only to have his hand stop, seemingly of its own accord, in contradiction to Saint Augustine’s dictum on will and resistance. But then he picked it up and punched the buttons.
“Yeah, Jack,” van Damm’s voice answered. He had caller ID on his private line.
“Okay, Arnie, pull the trigger. And God help me,” he added.
“Let me make some phone calls. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay. See ya.” And Ryan hung up.
But he knew the answer all too well.
40
THEY HAD TO PRACTICE not being conspiratorial, to seem like ordinary people having an ordinary lunch in a Parisian cafe on a drizzly day, which worked in their favor. Aside from themselves, there were only two patrons, a young couple, at a nearby umbrella-covered table.
Ibrahim had told them how to dress-like middle-class Frenchmen-and to do it all the time from now on. They all spoke French, and while all were Muslims, none of them attended mosque on a regular basis, doing their daily prayers at home, and definitely not attending the sermons of the more radical and assertive imams, all of whom were kept under regular observation by the various French police agencies.
In sticking to public places and chattering like normal people, they avoided conspiratorial meetings in small rooms that could be bugged by clever policemen. Open-air meetings were easy to observe but nearly impossible to record. And nearly every man in France had regular lunch mates. However large and well funded the French police were, they could not investigate everybody in this infidel country. With regular visibility came anonymity. Quite a few others had been caught or even killed by taking the other route. Especially in Israel, where the police agencies were notoriously efficient, largely because of the money they so liberally spread on the street. There were always those willing to take money for information, which was why he had to choose his people so carefully.
And so the meeting did not begin with religious incantations. They all knew them anyway. And they spoke exclusively in French, lest someone take note of a foreign language. Too many Westerners were learning what Arabic sounded like-and to them it always sounded conspiratorial. Their mission was to be invisible in plain sight. Fortunately, it wasn’t all that hard.
“So what is this mission?” Shasif Hadi asked.
“It’s an industrial facility,” Ibrahim answered. “For now that’s all you need to know. Once we’re on the ground, you’ll be fully briefed.”
“How many?” Ahmed asked. He was the youngest member of the team, clean-shaven with a well-groomed mustache.
“The goal isn’t casualties-at least not human casualties.”
“Then what?” This was Fa’ad. He was a Kuwaiti, tall and handsome.
“Again, you’ll know more when it becomes necessary.” He drew a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it on the table before them. It was a computer-printed map, altered with some image-editing software so all the place names were missing.
“The problem will be selecting the best point of entry,” Ibrahim said. “The facility is fairly well guarded, both within and along the perimeter. The explosive charges necessary will be trivial, small enough to carry in one backpack. The guards inspect the area twice daily, so timing will be critical.”
“If you’ll get me the explosive specifications, I can start planning,” Fa’ad said, pleased to have his education being used in Allah’s Holy Cause. The others thought him overly proud of his engineering degree from Cairo University.
Ibrahim nodded.
“What about the police and intelligence services there?” Hadi asked.
Ibrahim waved his hand dismissively. “Manageable.”
His casual tone belied his thoughts. He had a genuine fear of police investigators. They were like evil djinns in the way they could inspect a piece of evidence and turn all manner of magical information from it. You could never tell what they knew and how they could tie it all together. And his primary job was not to exist. No one was to know his name or his face. He traveled as anonymously as a desert breeze. The URC could stay alive only if it remained hidden. For his part, Ibrahim traveled on numerous unknown credit cards-cash, unfortunately, was no longer anonymous at all; the police feared those who used cash, and searched them out rigorously. He had enough passports in his home to satisfy a nation-state’s foreign ministry, each of them expensively procured and used only a few times before being burned to ashes. And he wondered if even this was precaution enough. It took only one person to betray him.
And the only people who could betray him were those whom he trusted absolutely. Thoughts like that turned over and over in his mind. He took a sip of coffee. He even worried about talking in his sleep on an aircraft during an overwater flight. That’s all it might take. It wasn’t death he feared-none of them feared that-but rather failure.
But were not the Holy Warriors of Allah those who did the hardest things, and would not his blessings be in proportion to his merit? To be remembered. To be respected by his compatriots. To strike a blow for the cause- even if he managed to do that without recognition, he would go to Allah with peace in his heart.
“We have final authorization?” Ahmed asked.
“Not yet. Soon, I expect, but not yet. When we separate here, we won’t see each other again until we’re in country.”
“How will we know?”
“I have an uncle in Riyadh. He’s planning on buying a new car. If my e-mail says it is a red car, we wait; if a green car, we move to the next stage. If so, five days after the e-mail we will meet in Caracas, as planned, then
