Washington, DC
10:33 PM Tuesday, January 13
Homegrown Violent Extremists don’t look like the stereotypical terrorist. HVEs can be anyone who subscribes to the grievances held by global jihadists against the United States of America. They can be your next-door neighbor, your child’s teacher, or the teen who delivers your pizza. That’s what makes them so dangerous—their ability to blend in and deceive you.
Brynn Taylor exhaled, reading over her notes again. Leaning back, she rubbed her eyes. The glow of the computer screen was giving her a mild headache. Or was it the stress of the last week?
For the last seven days she’d been briefing intelligence officers from seven countries on the new look of terrorism, reminding them that homegrown cells posed the biggest threat to defending their homelands against terrorism. No one wanted to suspect their friendly neighbor might be building a bomb in their basement or plotting a mass shooting, but more and more, that was becoming the reality.
Brynn’s cell phone chirped with a text message.
I’m heading to bed. Long day tomorrow. Leftover pizza in fridge. Penny’s asleep on your bed. Sorry.
Sending a thank-you response, Brynn felt bad. Her friend Olivia Sinclair and Olivia’s black lab, Penny, were in town for their annual training required as arson investigators. The perks of having her friend visiting for a few weeks meant fewer nights eating alone, talking with someone about anything other than work, and Penny—Olivia’s arson detection dog who loved to snuggle when her work harness came off. Unfortunately, the timing of this year’s visit had Brynn missing too many dinners with her friend and snuggles with Penny.
Laughter drew Brynn’s attention to the baristas behind the counter. The bubbly sound felt loud and foreign in the coffee shop given the late hour. Brynn didn’t think she’d find this many people willing to brave the freezing windchill to burn the midnight oil on a Tuesday night, but wasn’t that the vibe in Washington, DC?
Her gaze drifted to a man half-perched on a stool. Male. Fifties. Overworked and underpaid given the wrinkled suit and loose tie at his neck. Lobbyist? Public defender? Whatever his job, the pale band of skin on his ring finger signaled the price it had demanded.
She scanned the other side of the coffee shop. Two college-aged girls sipped lattes with their hair in that messy-bun look that said “I don’t care.” However, the well-done highlights and designer purses showed they very much cared.
Next to her was another man. Middle Eastern, possibly Syrian given the dialect she’d overheard when he was on the phone earlier. Late thirties, maybe early forties. Dark hair, even darker eyes when they were opened. Right now, they were closed. His head moved in rhythm to whatever was coming through his wireless earbuds. Still buried in a thick coat, the Syrian tapped his thumb against the binding of holy text she recognized as the Quran sitting in his lap.
If the coffee shop were to explode right now and there were survivors, Brynn bet every single one of them would point to the man in the corner. And they’d likely be wrong.
As a targeting analyst for the CIA, she was to monitor and assess indicators leading to potential global threats that might cause the radicalization and mobilization of US-based violent extremists. She’d built her whole program around the premise that anyone could be radicalized and ready to commit violence abroad, or worse—at home.
From over her laptop, Brynn focused on a young man near the front of the coffee shop. Caucasian. Midtwenties, maybe. Hard to tell with the permanent scowl etched into his forehead. Unlike the college-aged girls, the guy wasn’t wearing his school colors and didn’t have a stack of textbooks spread across the table in front of him. And unlike the Syrian, who walked into the coffee shop twenty minutes earlier with his cell phone pressed to his ear arranging flight plans for his family, the young man hadn’t picked up his phone once in the two hours since he dropped into the leather chair near the front of the shop.
A millennial not on their phone was like a bird without feathers, unnatural and suspi—
The door to the coffee shop swung open, and a burst of frigid air chased after the man wearing a wool overcoat who entered. Her suspect glanced up and smiled for the first time all night as he stood and embraced the man in a friendly hug. A quick survey revealed both men shared similar features, including the cleft in their chins.
Brynn pulled her scarf tighter around her neck. She needed to get a grip. Sinking a little lower in her chair, she reached for her cup of coffee and groaned. Cold. Served her right for trying to assess some poor guy waiting for his brother as the next Timothy McVeigh.
It wasn’t that she suspected everyone. She just couldn’t turn the suspicion off. It made her an excellent intelligence officer, but it also made her a dreadful friend. Daughter. Girlfriend.
Shaking the errant thought from her mind, Brynn turned her attention back to her work. Tomorrow she would wrap up the Diplomatic Intra-Agency Cooperation program, or DI-AC as they called it, in a pretty little bow and show Frank Peterson that she was ready to move forward in her career.
The consular position in Ankara, Turkey, had just opened and the timing was . . . perfect. Emotion warred within her. Three years ago, her career serving overseas came to an abrupt and painful halt. Putting aside the goals she’d set for her future, Brynn convinced herself that accepting the mundane and tedious assignments in DC was worth it to take care of her father. Now he was gone, leaving nothing to distract or keep her from pursuing the next step in preventing terrorism.
Brynn cleared her throat and the shadowy grief still claiming a space in her chest. The night before her father passed, he made her promise not to let her career consume her once he was gone. She promised, if only to give him peace of mind. But she had seen the look of doubt in his eyes, because he knew the truth—with him gone, there was no life outside the CIA. She straightened, a renewed energy wiping out the fatigue settling over her, and clicked her laptop back to life. If she wanted her family’s sacrifices to mean something, then she needed to get back to work.
Another gust of icy January air swept into the coffee shop, and Brynn thought about ordering another drink to warm her fingers with when footsteps approached.
Glancing up, she met the tired eyes of Joel Riley. Except . . . they weren’t just tired. His expression was tight. Brynn’s stomach tensed. Seeing Riley outside the office was jarring enough, but his look sent fear down her spine.
“What is it?”
“We have a problem.” Riley’s eyes swept the place so quickly most wouldn’t have noticed it unless they were trained. “You need to come with me.”
Brynn was already gathering up her stuff but paused. “Where? What’s happened?”
“In the car.”
Without hesitation, she quickly finished collecting her things and followed Riley out of the café. Those three words sent a chill across her skin worse than the blustery weather forcing Brynn to shield her face behind her scarf. Riley led her to a black SUV idling outside. She was grateful the driver had the heater on full blast when she climbed inside.
“Did you walk?”
“Yes,” Brynn answered, scooting across the seat for Riley to get in. The coffee shop was only a block from her apartment and on the east side of the Capitol Building, making it a prime location for employees of nearby businesses and the government as well as tourists looking for a reprieve from the weather, hot or cold. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He pulled out his phone and tapped a message into it, then set it on his knee and turned to her. “Remon Riad is missing.”
Brynn blinked. “Remon Riad.” She quickly placed the name to the Egyptian intelligence security officer from her DI-AC program. Shorter man maybe a couple inches taller than her, balding but kept his hair shorn close to his head, smiled a lot. “What do you mean he’s missing?”
Riley gave the driver a nod, and they pulled away from the curb. “John Sosa went to the barracks at nine this evening for roll call, and Remon wasn’t there. They went to his room, and he wasn’t there either. They asked the others, and no one’s seen him since this morning.”
“Since this morning?” Her voice pitched, and she took a quick breath to regain control. “What about the afternoon roll call?”
“They missed him.”
“How did they miss him? It’s a head count.” She recalled the weeks she’d spent at the Farm making sure she never missed roll call or risked getting kicked out. “What about his stuff?”
Riley exhaled, his hand fisting over his cell phone. “Gone.”
Gone. Brynn’s heart pumped heavy in her chest. This wasn’t good. There had to be an explanation, but a sick feeling turned her blood cold. Not even three days ago Riad had remained after class to talk with her. She’d expected it to be about the program, but the second he mentioned something about a favor, Brynn quickly shut him down. The CIA doesn’t do favors, and it was better not to indulge any idea she could offer anything—a fact she explained to Riad that day. But there had been something in his expression. A look of undeterred resolve as he apologized. He didn’t bring it up again, and Brynn had forgotten all about it until now.
The SUV took a left, rumbling down the unusually empty streets that gave the large vehicle the room to accelerate in the direction of . . .
“Why aren’t we headed to the barracks? We should search his room, talk with the others, and—”
“The barracks have been searched. Sosa has a team on-site questioning everyone.”
Brynn’s mind raced. “He’s got to be somewhere. Did they check the hospital? Maybe he was sick—” She stopped. It was unlikely her suggestion held merit. The foreign security members were informed that in the event of illness or emergency, they were to contact her or Riley immediately.
Her thoughts paused when the SUV gained speed on the highway heading north. Awareness hit her square in the chest. She knew exactly where they were headed—Langley. “Peterson knows?”
It was a rhetorical question. Of course her boss knew, but Riley was kind enough to simply nod. Five years her senior in the agency, Joel Riley had started out in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations as an operations officer. He served on several successful missions in Eastern Europe before returning stateside and requesting a transfer to the Directorate of Analysis. Some at the agency gave him a hard time about leaving such a prestigious division, but Riley said he had no regrets. A fact he affirmed every time he spoke about his wife and children, which was often.
“Brynn.” He shifted, but it wasn’t the movement that drew her eyes back to her colleague. It was his unsettling tone. “As soon as Riad’s disappearance was reported, Director Peterson had senior-level analysts go over his background.”
She forced herself to breathe, trying to calm the sudden fear twisting her stomach into knots. An extensive background check had been done on all the visiting intelligence officers before they were even considered for the program. The security of the United States had been her top priority. There was no way—
“Remon has a third cousin on his mother’s first husband’s side of the family who has been associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
What was left of the air in Brynn’s chest whooshed out, and suddenly it didn’t matter how high the heater was blasting, her blood turned ice cold. It can’t be.
The DI-AC program was a first in the agency’s history, and she had hinged the next step of her career on its success. While her father watched reruns of Gunsmoke, Brynn imagined the idea of countries finding commonality in the threat of terrorism and uniting in the fight against it. After spending countless hours refining the program, she submitted it, not expecting it to get any traction. But to her surprise, it was well received, and rumor had it that even the CIA director approved.
With the approval to move forward, Brynn was meticulous in the planning. She recruited the best team of analysts in their fields, and they double- and triple-checked their work. Each of the foreign intelligence officers was vetted extensively, because while their presence in the US was sanctioned, it was also unofficial. She couldn’t just bring foreign spies to the US without jumping through a dozen hoops and then jumping through a dozen more.
A shudder coursed through her body, causing her stomach to clench with nausea. A member of the Egyptian foreign intelligence . . . an operative . . . was missing. On American soil. The implication of what that meant for her promotion and job paled in comparison to what it could mean for America.
After a right turn, the SUV stopped at a steel fence electrified with ten thousand volts and guarded by two men armed with automatic weapons. They passed their IDs to the guard, who scanned them and then handed them back before the gate slid open and they continued toward Langley.
Brynn’s pulse hit peak speed when the surrounding parkland opened to the H-shaped superstructure. Bright landscape floodlights lit up the multistory building like a beacon of intimidation. She rubbed her gloved fingers over the laptop sitting on her lap as she thought about her brief. What makes terrorists so dangerous is their ability to blend in and deceive you.
How was she going to explain to her boss that an Egyptian operative with ties to a terror organization was missing somewhere in the United States, and she had missed it.
Or worse—I’ve been deceived.