The Red Cell. André Le Gallo
a normal life,” finally burst from her. “We pretended our life in Iraq was normal. Then my father was killed by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers. And we pretended our life in Beirut was normal in the middle of the daily violence from the Hizballah, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Palestinians, the Christians, the Druze, the Israelis...”
She stopped herself. Sitting back in her seat, she seemed more relaxed than she had been, almost relieved. “But I didn’t know what normal meant until I came to America. Frankly, my goal is to earn enough money to bring my mother here. I want to get her away from the violence.”
“I understand and that’s what I would want also. Do you think your mother is in danger now?”
“I don’t know.” She looked to the side again.
“Is there a special threat, other than living in Beirut, which is relatively quiet these days?”
Um did not reply.
“Tell me about Ahmed. He sent you here.” Bob said, gentle as a confessor.
“I don’t know how you know. He is my brother’s friend.”
Bob took a sip of water. “Ahmed Baghdadi is a Jihadist operative responsible for recruitment in North America. He is responsible for continuing the violence in the Middle East by recruiting people who don’t look Arab. Some will be trained as fighters and go to Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Some will become human bombs in San Francisco and Boston. His job basically is to spread violence and terror. Our job is to try to stop the killing. Do you think that is worth doing?”
“Ahmed is a militant? I don’t believe it,” she said without conviction. “Why don’t you arrest him then?” She had suspected there was more to Ahmed than she knew or wanted to know. She did not believe Ahmed would harm anyone even if he believed in the cause.
“Do you want to end the violence? You can start by joining us, which is what Ahmed wants you to do, and by helping us learn more about his plans. We know what his goal is: to restore the Islamic Caliphate through jihad. That was a paraphrase. Here’s a direct quote.” He opened the file on the desk and read, “I am acutely aware body parts must be torn apart, skulls must be crushed, and blood must be spilled for our goals to be fulfilled.”
Um touched the gold bracelet that adorned her left wrist. “What about the American violence?”
“Don’t equate terrorism, the targeted killing of innocent civilians, with American military operations that are often canceled for fear of hurting noncombatants. Our job is to stop terrorist operations before they occur. We need to know what people like Ahmed are planning. You applied to the CIA to help him, but helping him only continues this conflict and means more innocent people will get killed. Instead, you can help us to save lives.”
“What about my mother?”
Bob explained the terms of their agreement. A few minutes later, he invited John back in the room. This time the polygraph cleared up the remaining issues.
Bob watched from an upstairs window, as Um drove the red Mustang out of the parking lot. He picked up the newspaper he had been reading before the meeting and studied an article on the front page, below the fold: “Iran hangs CIA spy.” He understood that, with the acquisition of a new double-agent, also came the responsibility to keep her alive.
“It’s a start,” he said to himself and, in his mind, he started to compose the cable he would be sending to the agency’s Beirut station.
3. CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Pushing a four-wheeled walker, in a slightly hunched-over stance that decreased his six-foot height by a couple of inches, Marshall Church, wearing a green retiree badge, stepped out of the elevator on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters. He proceeded past a glass wall, on the other side of which four burly bodyguards watched him warily, and went down the corridor toward the director’s conference room. Thérèse LaFont, the agency’s new director, stepped out of the double doors to greet him.
“Marshall,” she said, placing her hands on his forearms, “I was so sorry to hear about the diagnosis.”
Knowledge of Marshall’s illness, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, had by now spread throughout the intelligence community. Although he hated the situation and the attention, he was beginning to get used to it. He knew he would eventually die from asphyxiation, when his breathing muscles failed, but he resisted thinking too far ahead, preferring to take things one day at a time.
The physician who gave him the bad news had tears in his eyes when he said, “Life expectation is two to five years. There is no cure.” But, when his only counsel was to tell Marshall to go home and think about his situation for a month before coming back, Marshall replied, “Just take care of my body if you can. I’ll take care of my mind.” In the belief that sitting on his hands was never a solution, he found another doctor who was more aggressive.
Gone were the days when men twenty-five years younger would approach him at the gym, asking his age, amazed he could handle heavier weights than they could. Or when he could jack-rabbit around the tennis court, returning serves and covering the sides and baseline with equal agility and quickness.
“Thanks,” Marshall replied. “And who is going to be our audience?” Before she could answer, he quickly added, “Congratulations by the way. I was worried some politician might get the job.”
LaFont was only the third director to have been promoted up from the ranks after Dulles and Helms. She had proven her mastery of clandestine operations, first against Greece’s “17 November” terrorists, later directing Kella and his son Steve from headquarters in an effort that had saved thousands of lives in the Middle East, and then, as head of the National Clandestine Service, overseeing the counter-cyber operation that had saved America’s economic infrastructure from the Ayatollah’s anger.
“The usual suspects,” she smiled. In her forties, she had the figure of a younger woman, and she still attracted glances, admiring from the men and envious from the ladies. Ever since Congress had downgraded the CIA, when it created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, LaFont had taken down the seals of the other fifteen intelligence agencies from the walls of her conference room and replaced them with four large, flat-screens monitors, which could show overhead imagery from satellites or drones, or display video conferencing with the White House or any government agency capable of encrypting its signal.
Several uniforms, stars and decorations glittering, greeted him, as he and LaFont entered the room. As they did, Marshall’s experienced gut sorted them out. General Jack Hopkins, Joint Special Operations Command, was not yet a friend and wouldn’t be unless his special operators were part of whatever the CIA was planning. Tom Nortsen, chief of the Clandestine Service’s Near East division, was probably a friend if he could be in charge. The sight of his son Steve, representing the White House Intelligence Staff, brought a relieved smile to his face.
He had learned about the attempt on Steve’s life a few minutes after it happened, and before it generated headlines both in the nation’s capital and across the country. Then, when Steve called his father from a secure phone, they discussed the implications of the act. General Yosemani, the Quds Force commander, they agreed, must be feeling extremely confident in his organization’s defensive capabilities to have ordered such a brazen hit on American soil. If he was trying to bring attention to himself, he had succeeded. And Marshall had begun thinking about retaliation.
“Marshall, this is Dan Cleave,” LaFont said, as a civilian in an unobtrusive gray suit stepped up to him. “He’s Deputy of the TSG.”
Marshall knew the Technical Survey Group had been established as a hybrid between the National Clandestine Service and the National Security Agency. While the NSA intercepted communications from U.S. territory, the TSG did the same thing overseas, sometimes breaking into foreign installations to do so. “Dan is on loan from the NCS,” she added.
“Yes, we take turns,” Cleave said. “One year the TSG chief is from NSA and the next