Elizabeth Kamp pressed her foot on the spongy brake of the aging van she’d purchased just before leaving the Army seven years ago. The line of vehicles had moved a grand total of twenty feet that time. Checking her watch, she congratulated herself for anticipating this kind of traffic.
She never liked going into CIA headquarters at Langley. She much preferred her small, non-descript building in the outskirts of D.C. Her office was closer to home which made it convenient to take both her children to school and pick them up.
After serious fourth grade work, as Austin called it, he walked the short block to Liza’s daycare, which also offered an outstanding after-school program. Tutoring in reading had been added to her son’s daily routine since his last report card, at an expense that stretched their budget even thinner. She’d do anything for her children, even if it meant packing her lunch and making pasta for supper most nights when Robert was working late. Her husband always expected a complete meal, from salad—that had better be more than a wedge of lettuce—through a hunk of meat that would feed her and both children, fresh vegetables, potatoes rather than rice or couscous, and a homemade dessert.
She sighed and wondered where her paycheck went. It wasn’t like she could work overtime for extra money. She was salaried. Nor could she work harder for more sales like Robert, who seemed to put in increasingly more hours without a proportional growth in income. Truth be told, she didn’t mind that he wasn’t around much these days.
Pulling into the parking lot, she checked her watch one more time. Her morning was running well. Neither child had spilled anything at breakfast requiring a complete change of clothes, for her or the child. Austin had remembered to put his nightly reading book into his backpack, and Liza actually liked the clothes she picked out the night before. So far, so good.
Because she rarely came to this location, Elizabeth's designated parking area was nearly a mile from the meeting location. There wouldn’t be any problem getting in her five thousand steps that day. Since she was walking in high heels, the standard two-inch pumps just like she’d worn for years as a U.S. Army officer, she decided that every step should count as two.
As she crossed the parking lot staring up at the sprawling campus, she took in the original five-story white buildings that seemed to intersect in strange places. It didn’t create any distinguishable shape, maybe a blockish letter C in a serif typestyle because it had wings off of wings. Two newer buildings towered over either side of a long flat structure that was the official entrance. The impenetrable green glass always looked eerie to Elizabeth. She thought for a covert agency, the campus was a little over the top.
First, everyone in the world knew exactly where it was. Any country with a spy satellite could figure out how many people worked there by counting the cars in the very exposed parking lot or the number that entered the multi-layered garage. She suddenly felt like looking toward the sky and waving. Certainly someone was watching her long trek to the building. She’d seen satellite photos that could identify the date on a dime lost on a shopping center sidewalk. They wouldn’t have any problem figuring out who she was, as long as they had the same facial recognition software and data base located inside the edifice in front of her.
Someone in security had probably already clocked her as a new face on one of the hundreds of cameras secretly located throughout the 258 acres. Access to these offices was considerably easier than a stranger trying to enter her building. That was no surprise. She dealt with top secret conversations, often in real time, happening half a world away. Her specialty was several Arabic dialects.
Elizabeth hoped to breeze through the checkpoint since she didn’t have time today to be grilled by someone with a shiny new badge. Although she considered Gabriel Davis a longtime friend as well as mentor, he had no patience for meeting interruptions because someone thought they were more important than him and arrived late. For the former military man, that meant being seated five minutes early.
She’d been called in that day, not to brief on some significant activity in the last twelve hours, but on a specific person of continued interest to the United States. The man she blamed for her first husband's death ten years ago. Nassar al Jamil had been building his army throughout the Middle East before Elizabeth and her new husband, Mason, had gone on that disastrous mission.
Shaking off the sadness that always crept in when she thought about that day and losing the man she had loved, she strode toward the designated briefing room.
Even though Mason had been killed, literally blown to bits with barely enough DNA left to identify him, the mission had been deemed successful. The local CIA asset had come through with accurate intelligence. The U.S.A. had proven that Russia had been supporting al Jamil in creating his version of the New Islamic State, placing himself in charge as Allah’s representative on earth. The terrorist wanted an entire new country carved out of existing nations, dedicated to fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. During the past ten years, the self-proclaimed caliphate had been working diligently toward that goal, getting closer every day as his hatred for Western ways grew exponentially.
Elizabeth wanted Nassar al Jamil dead. Mason’s death was the first and foremost reason.
As a modern female, born and raised in the United States, the man stood for everything she despised. While stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, she’d spent time working with women who had been beaten within an inch of their lives simply for not having food on the table when their husband arrived home…even though there was nothing in the hovel to eat and she certainly hadn’t been given money to shop for food.
She had once held a frightened twelve-year-old in her arms, assisting in the birth of a baby as the men in the village laughed outside the shed door. Upon the first tiny cry, her husband, old enough to be her grandfather, rushed in. When he’d discovered the newest addition to the family was female, he’d smacked the pre-teen across the face and threatened her that next time she’d better give him a boy. He’d sold his newest daughter’s virginity through an arranged marriage before they were out of earshot. The idiot would never understand that the sperm determined the sex of the child, not the mother. She’d been told that Middle Eastern men would consider the scientific fact nothing more than another Western lie.
Very little good had happened to women throughout her tours in the Middle East. Occasionally, she’d find an enclave where the men were more progressive, but the basic fundamentalist beliefs—especially polygamy and consummating a marriage as soon as a young girl had her first period, so she could breed—had always baffled her. There was no reason, in this day and age, to marry simply for the purpose of procreation. The world had more than enough hungry mouths to feed. And what about love? That emotion was not included in the beliefs of men like al Jamil.
In her world, love was essential to marriage. Her parents weren’t perfect, by any means, but they loved each other and all their children. They took turns parenting. She had fond memories of time alone with each parent as well as both with just her. Of course, they also did many things as a family. Elizabeth had wanted to make the same kind of home for her family. Life just hadn’t worked out that way, though. She loved both Austin and Liza with all her heart, gave each mommy time. To her disappointment, Robert claimed he wasn’t the nurturing kind of father.
In her opinion, he was mostly the absent kind.
She’d thought a lot lately about how she was raising her two children practically alone…and always had. When Liza had croup as an infant, her husband wouldn’t even take care of his stepson for an hour while she took their baby to the doctor. Robert had never developed a relationship with Austin and she was tired of playing peacekeeper between the two of them. She could raise her son and daughter by herself. That very morning had proven she could juggle two children, a house, and a full-time job without a husband.
Besides, she’d never had any help from the beginning, so caring for her children alone was nothing new. Austin had been conceived on her wedding night to Mason. Six weeks after the devastation of losing her new husband, she discovered she was pregnant. Thrilled that she would have a piece of his love with her forever, Elizabeth had taken joy in being a single parent and an active duty Army officer. Then she had moved on, left the Army, and eventually created a new life with Robert.
They had created this beautiful little girl who meant the world to Elizabeth. After her birth, though, she and Robert seemed to drift apart. Did she really want a divorce?
Rounding the final corner, she refused to dwell on her personal situation and tried to refocus on al Jamil and his antiquated values. Scoffing, she had a fleeting final thought of the similarities between the terrorist and her own husband.
As she walked into the conference room, she smiled at her old friend, Gabriel Davis. He’d been in charge of the fateful mission where she’d lost Mason. Well, in charge on site. Of course, he’d taken orders from someone back at Langley. But Gabe ran the op in Syria, handling his local asset who had reported the location of the Russian guns and ammunition. Their on-site photos had appeared in newspapers around the world and were now part of an official congressional transcript.
In those first terrifying minutes after the force of the explosion knocked her on her ass, she had run toward the burning building. Gabe had caught her and thrown her over his shoulder, literally kicking and screaming, and then dragged her out of the country. Her behavior could definitely be classified as unbecoming of an Army officer. That night, with dirt from the explosion still covering her entire body, she hadn’t cared if Gabe had turned her in.
Mason was gone.
When Austin was nearly two, Elizabeth had confided in Gabe that she was seriously considering leaving the military. He had found her the awesome job she still had. All day she listened to Arabic conversations. Her job was to identify whether that person was a current or future threat, or someone spouting off wanting to look like the biggest cock on the block. Then she had to determine if he was truly a threat to the tentative peace so many Americans had fought and died for, including Mason.
“Elizabeth, thank you so much for driving in today.” The ruggedly handsome man in his late forties glanced up from the papers strewn on the table in front of him and gave her a small smile. “Your insight in this situation is always valued.” He laid his hands flat on the table. “I know you still have an emotional connection when it comes to Nassar al Jamil, but I’m extremely proud of the way you can set that aside to do your job.”
“Thank you.” She glanced at the faces around the room that had suddenly become silent. Some were familiar while others were new, and she understood why Gabe had announced his support the moment she’d entered. Obviously, someone seated at the table had questioned her ability to detach and analyze. Once again, she was grateful he was on her side.
Elizabeth made her way around the conference table, smiling at some and nodding to others as she passed, to take her seat beside him. She wondered how Gabe would take the latest news about their old nemesis. Unfortunately, she’d be the bearer of bad news.
She laid her briefing folder on the table and sat down in the comfortable chair to his right. She glanced at the file stamped top secret before she met his eyes. Quietly she asked, “Do you already know what’s in here?”
“Not exactly, but I have a pretty good idea.” Gabe pulled a spreadsheet from the pile and slid it over to her. “We’ll get to this eventually, but I want you to brief us first.”
She nodded and followed his gaze to the clock just above the door. As the big hand moved to the top of the hour, Gabe announced, “We’ll now get started.” After the usual preliminaries, he called on her.
“Nassar al Jamil is once again on the move.” She clicked a button on the remote in her hand and a map of the Middle East appeared on the large flat screen. It zoomed in on the area from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea which included Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. “In a conversation he had seventeen hours ago with Abdul Sayyed, one of the most trusted advisors to the president of Iran, al Jamil was given permission to move his followers to Lake Urmia in the north western corner that borders Iraq and Turkey and is less than one hundred miles from Syria. We already know he has a very strong base in the eastern most triangle of that country.” With a laser pointer, she indicated the two hundred square miles of Syria that seemed to jut into Iraq.
Then she used the bright red dot to circle Mosul. “This has been one of the most contentious areas throughout the Iraqi war. Al Jamil’s half-brother, Turhan, controls that area, but don’t get too excited because he has nearly fifty siblings, twenty-eight are brothers. Not all of them believe he is the caliphate. Fact is, most of them think he’s full of shit, especially when he hits them up for money.” She internally snickered at several of the conversations she had interpreted. She would go as far as to say that most of his brothers thought of him as little more than a zealot preaching to preserve a way of life that ended a millennial before Mohamed was even born.
“Speaking of money.” Elizabeth turned her head to look at Gabriel for direction. When he nodded his head, she continued. “Al Jamil has always been well-funded.” She looked to the end of the table where several new faces sat together. Without asking permission, and not knowing the backgrounds of the newbies, she decided to explain. “Nassar al Jamil is very much like Osama bin Laden. Both had billionaire fathers and were too far down the list of children to inherit much of anything. According to our psychological analysts they both suffer from Middle Child Syndrome, and through charisma and cunning have built an empire.”
Turning back to the screen and pointing the laser at the brownish colored lake on the satellite photo, she announced, “And now he and his followers have found a home. He has never backed off the claim that he was chosen by Allah to create a country that follows the ways of what he calls the true men of Allah.”
Elizabeth took a moment to look at each face around the table, finally landing on Gabriel. She reached into her classified folder and passed out the translation from al Jamil’s conversation with Abdul Sayyed. Without giving anyone an opportunity to read, she pushed on. “According to this conversation, the president of Iran, through al Jamil, is ready to pick up where Osama bin Laden left off. This also confirms what we had thought for some time, Iran had financially supported al Qaeda.”
She took a sip of water. “Earlier, I called the leader of Iran the president. That is not the term that he, and those who live within that country’s borders, uses to refer to him. Technically, he is the Supreme Leader of Iran and thus is the leader of the Islamic Revolution.” She held up the translation. “It seems he is now ready to take on the world, especially the United States of America.”
With the click of a button, the transcript appeared on the screen. Scrolling through to the second page, she used the pointer to underscore the words tip of Allah’s sword. “And they are using al Jamil as their international army.”
“Or scape goat when it all goes to shit.”
Since everyone at that end of the table had their heads down taking notes, Elizabeth had no idea who had made the comment. Several snickered.
“You are absolutely right,” she confirmed. Several gazes met hers. “What this does is officially put Nasser al Jamil on the CIA list of most wanted.” There. She’d said it. That was her official recommendation. Having thousands of agents hunting him had been her goal for over ten years.
“Whoa.” Gabriel warned from the seat next to hers. “Let’s not jump there just yet.”
She whirled to face him. “We’ve put men on the Most Wanted List for less. You see those translations. We’ve been watching him for over ten years. He has progressively escalated and now has the backing of an enemy of the United States. Are you suggesting we sit back and do nothing but continue watching?”
“He has family living in the United States.” Gabe met her glare with one of his own. “There is no direct threat to the U.S. that could be deemed clear and present danger. Hell, Elizabeth, there’s nothing here except generalizations.”
“I can name ten men on that list that we have even less proof of probable threat, yet they are considered some of the most dangerous men in the world.” She took a deep breath and reined in her emotions. She had held them in check thus far, but they were beating down the gate. “I’m not asking that al Jamil bobble to the top ten, I’m only asking that he be placed on the list.”
Gabriel stared up at her for a long a minute. “You know that I have to run this past the director of operations before I can even submit it.” There was a tightening around his eyes that made her doubt the request would go beyond the next step up the ladder.
“I’m aware this has a long way to go before we send a SOG team after him.” Elizabeth wished she had the power to send men from the Special Operations Group after al Jamil immediately, but without a presidential okay, that was impossible.
Gabe chuckled. “We’re nowhere near that point yet. I am, though, going to forward this request with a strong recommendation that we put additional assets in place and increase phone taps.” He gave her sheepish grin. “That means more work for you, you know.”
“I don’t mind as long as we nail this bastard.” To soften her statement, she added, “Eventually.”
“Let’s see what else we have to strengthen the request.” As Gabriel went through each report, there was very little to add that would point the finger at al Jamil until it came to the financial report.
“I see a significant increase in funds coming from his Caribbean accounts.” Gabe looked up expectantly at Steve Gaylord.
The bald man smiled showing dingy yellow teeth. “Before we go any further, I want you all to meet Martha Cables. She’ll be taking over for me starting next week.” With a huge smile, he announced, “I’m retiring.” After a round of applause, and congratulations, they got down to the spreadsheet.
“I’ve changed the layout slightly.” Martha put the spreadsheet onto the big screen. “We’re damn good at following money, in both directions, but most of what you see on television is bull. What you have in front of you shows what we have tracked, what we can track, but you’ll notice the largest section is what we aren’t able to follow. This money can be coming from anywhere. Given the electronic traffic between al Jamil’s accounts and the countries that used to be part of the Soviet bloc, and it looks to us as though Russia is filtering him money. Most likely that is to pay for the arms and ammunition purchases we were told about earlier in this briefing. Supplying an army is expensive and you can see from this spreadsheet that he’s getting the money to pay for it.”
Elizabeth was deep into the line items and huge numbers hoping she could mentally cross reference anything, even the most minute detail, with the conversations she frequently heard. “There are tens of millions of dollars here and we have no way of knowing where that money came from.”
When the room turned quiet, she looked up. Well, damn. She must have said that out loud.
Martha’s back immediately went straight. “We do the absolute best we can with the resources that we have.”
“No, please.” Elizabeth smiled at the woman who seem to be about her same age. “I’m just mentally scrolling through the list of his relatives living here in the United States. Is there a way to tell where the transfers originate? Perhaps geographically?”
At this new idea, Martha stilled then glanced toward Steve. “There might be a way we could look at electronic transfers through one of the feds. Billions of dollars run through every day, usually from one Federal Reserve Bank to another. Small amounts are sent to cover purchases by visitors traveling in the Caribbean. If we had any idea what day and which Federal Reserve Bank they were using, we might—and I’m only saying might—be able to track it back to a personal or corporate checking account.”
“That’s a whole lot of ifs.” Gabe pointedly looked at the clock above the door. “Martha, if you get that system worked out, be sure to tell me. In the meantime, keep up the good work. Steve, it was a pleasure working with you. Enjoy your retirement. Elizabeth, I’ll do what I can, but please be patient.” He glanced around the table then stood. “Thank you all for coming.” Everyone in the room knew a dismissal when they heard it.
As the room cleared, Gabriel seemed to watch her. “We’ll get him. It’s just going to take more time.”
She held his gaze. “I’m going to make sure we get him.”