Blown Coverage (10 page)

Al-’Aqran saw Hejazi cast a glance at his eye patch and then, realizing he had been noticed, quickly look down at the table.

When al-’Aqran spoke again, his volume matched his intensity.

“Answer me! What would you have us do, you weak man?”

Hejazi’s head came up, and al-’Aqran could see him muster the last of his courage. “I did not come here to insult you . .
. or to be insulted!”

“Your very presence here insults me!” Al-’Aqran could feel his face reddening, an angry sweat breaking out across his hairline.

“Nevertheless, you ask what I would do?” Hejazi said, his own voice rising. “I would stick to our original plan of mobilizing
our assets! The first phase of our strategy against the Americans is about to launch; the second phase—which, as the lesser
prophet Jeremiah spoke, will have voices mourning in Ramah—is well in process.

“What would I
not
do? I would not let personal feelings put our whole organization at risk! I would not let a desire for revenge potentially
unravel our well-woven tapestry for the destruction of the West. Hakeem Qasim failed—maybe it was Allah’s will or maybe he
was just too weak! But that is in the past, and now we must look to the future!”

Al-’Aqran’s hand slammed down on the table, rattling the coffee cups and spilling the one that sat before him. Hushimi quickly
pulled out a handkerchief to mop up the liquid, but al-’Aqran swept his hand away. “Do you not understand? There is no difference
between the past and the future! Honor is honor! And there is no time limit on honor! How can we look forward when the past
is still mocking us?”

“It is not mocking us! It is not mocking the Cause! It is mocking Hakeem, and it is mocking you!”

“I am the Cause! I am the Cause,” al-’Aqran shouted, his fist accenting each word on the table. “If I am mocked, the Cause
is mocked! If I am insulted, the Cause is insulted! Do you still not understand, you ignorant son of a sow?”

Hejazi shot up out of his chair. “I will not be insulted! You have obviously been more affected by your time with the Americans
than you think! The Cause is not one man!” Hejazi swept his arms around to the other men. “We, together, are the Cause! By
saying otherwise, you insult not just me but everyone at this table! We have given up everything to come and serve Allah’s
purpose, but you so easily dismiss that sacrifice with your words! I’m sorry to say it, but I think it is time for a change
in leadership. Your own words have condemned you.”

Looking at each man around the table, Hejazi continued, “I ask that each of you stand with me, signifying your agreement that,
for the good of the Cause, we must put the past behind and focus on our future of bringing the Great Satan to its knees!”

Rather than reply to this challenge, al-’Aqran smiled and leaned back in his chair.
It is done. The fool has overplayed his hand. He has officially
hung himself. Now let him dangle from the end of his own rope.

Perspiration poured down Hejazi’s full face as he turned to one man after another. Hushimi and Talib bored holes into the
tabletop with their eyes. Asaf and Zahir, however, stared defiantly at Hejazi as they held their seats.
Those two are my warriors,
thought al-’Aqran.

After a tension-filled minute had passed, the defeated man sighed deeply and silently took his seat. Hejazi said nothing more,
but his hard look at the downturned heads of Hushimi and Talib bespoke a betrayal.

When he felt the point had been clearly made, al-’Aqran finally broke the silence, his voice calm and friendly. “My dear Kamal,
how is your son, Atef? You must be so proud to have such a legacy to carry on the Hejazi name. Isn’t he at . . . what university
is he at again, Babrak?”

Still keeping his eyes locked on Hejazi, the young man answered, “He is taking his medical studies at October 6 University,
southwest of Cairo, and stays in room 435 of the school’s dormitory.”

Al-’Aqran watched as the color drained out of Hejazi’s face. “A doctor for a son—what a marvelous thing.”

“A-Atef . . . ,” Hejazi stammered, “Atef has nothing to do with this,
sayyid
.”

“I agree that he does not now,” al-’Aqran answered. “However, if I ever hear of you questioning any of my decisions again,
it likely will necessitate our dear friend Babrak personally—how should I say it—checking in on the progress of your son’s
studies. Do you understand?”

Hejazi was visibly shaking but managed to slowly nod his head.

“And now, you are excused from this room and from this council. Hamad will contact you later as to if and how your services
might be needed.”

Al-’Aqran watched as Hejazi stood, head bowed, and made a quick exit. As soon as the door latched, al-’Aqran swept his empty
cup off the table and sent it crashing against the wall. Pushing the table away from him, he got up and limped through the
thin cotton curtains behind him and onto the balcony.

Below, the masses of people were filing by, filling the sidewalks and spilling out onto the street. The noise of car horns,
street vendors, and a thousand private conversations danced around him. He watched until he saw Hejazi walk out of the building
and join the human river. His eyes didn’t leave the disgraced man until he had crested the hill two blocks up.

Al-’Aqran turned now to his right and gazed out at the blue waters of the Bosporus Strait. A massive cruise liner was making
its way under the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, while far below its decks water taxis and fishing boats carried out their commerce.

An organization is only as strong as its weakest link,
he remembered reading a long time back.
Well, that one weak link has been removed.
It is time now for the rest of the chain to begin swinging.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 3:45 P.M. MDT DENVER, COLORADO

“I spy with my little eye something . . . white!”

Scott Ross laughed, “Yeah, I guess it is a little sterile in here. I keep expecting Nurse Ratched to come down the hallway
with my medication.”

The corridor that Scott, Riley, and Skeeter were walking down was absolutely without color—from the gleaming tiles to the
painted bricks to the can lights mounted on the wall.
A person could suffer
from snow blindness walking through here,
Riley thought as his Merrells squeaked their way across the thickly waxed floor.

The only things that broke up the homage to sensory deprivation were the secure entry system and black nameplate next to the
occasional door. The plate mounted on the wall where the three friends now stopped read
Front Range Response Team
.

Scott placed his hand on Riley’s arm. “Although I know I don’t need to say this, I still need to say this. Nothing you see
in this room leaves this room.”

“No problem. It saves me the trouble of having to swallow the microfilm from my secret spy camera,” Riley responded. When
Scott stopped laughing, he continued, “I understand, buddy. But you better watch Skeeter—he’s the one that’s always shooting
his mouth off. Right, Skeet?”

“Mmmm,” Skeeter replied.

“I’ll start worrying about the big guy after he learns to speak in complete sentences,” Scott said, smiling, as he turned
toward the retinal scanner. After hearing a beep of recognition, he punched in a six-digit code. The lock audibly disengaged,
and Scott pulled the door open.

Riley’s eyes were met with a veritable visual feast for surveillance technology junkies.
How many millions of dollars did it take to deck out
this room?
he wondered. As he took in the scene, he spotted Khadi staring over Tara’s shoulder at a computer monitor. A glimpse of her
profile reminded Riley that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The insecure teenage kid in him again wondered
what in the world she was doing giving him the time of day.

As if feeling Riley’s gaze on her, Khadi suddenly looked up and saw him. Her face lit up, but she held up a finger indicating
that she still needed a minute.

Riley gave a quick wave letting her know to take her time, then turned to Scott. “So, are you going to give us the grand tour?”

“Of course. We’ve still got about fifteen minutes before Jim’s schedule will open up for our meeting.”

“Skeeter!” a voice called out from across the room. Riley, Skeeter, and Scott looked over in time to see Virgil Hernandez
doing a Starsky & Hutch slide over the well-polished wooden conference table and landing between two chairs.

Giving Riley a quick “Hey,” Hernandez put his arm around Skeeter and started leading him over to his workstation. “Dude, I’ve
been digging on that whole ‘was the Third Punic War a just war’ thing you turned me on to. That’s a hairy question.”

“Yeah, boy,” Skeeter agreed as he walked away with Hernandez. “Polybius’s hypothesis was that Rome usually acted out of fear—you
know, like more of a hyperpreventative philosophy—instead of a traditional just war model of . . .”

Riley turned to Scott as Skeeter’s voice faded out, and they both started cracking up. “That one sentence contained more words
than I’ve heard Skeet say in the past three months,” Riley said, raising an eyebrow. “‘Hyperpreventative philosophy’? Someone’s
got way too much time on his hands!”

For the next fifteen minutes, Scott showed Riley around the new facility. It wasn’t until Riley greeted the third analyst
that he noticed something had changed in the way they treated him. In contrast to when he’d worked with CTD a few months ago,
now as he went up to the analysts at their workstations, they quickly checked what was on their monitors (Gooey had actually
turned his off) and casually placed their arms across any papers that might be scattered in front of them.
Interesting development,
Riley thought.

But even as he was checking out all the new state-of-the-art equipment and talking with the analyst team, his eyes kept going
back to where Khadi stood in conference with Tara. He was relieved—and maybe a little disappointed—to see that he was not
a distraction to her. Ever since her initial acknowledgment, she hadn’t even looked his way.

“Must be something pretty major they’re talking about,” Riley said to Scott.

Scott smiled. “Why? Because Khadi hasn’t given you the time of day since you came in?”

“She waved to me,” Riley answered, more defensively than he had intended.

“An outstretched finger is not a wave, my friend,” Scott continued to dig.

Riley started to reply, but Scott cut him off. “Sorry, Mr. Covington, but it is time for your meeting to begin. Khadi, Tara,”
he summoned over his shoulder, then pointed at his watch. They each gave a quick nod and began gathering the papers around
them.

Scott then called out, “Skeeter, you’ll want to be part of this too.”

Giving Hernandez a pat on the shoulder, the big man joined up with Scott and Riley.

The one room Riley had not seen yet was Jim Hicks’s office, and that was right where Scott led him. Scott gave a quick knock
on the glass door, then opened it without waiting for a reply.

Hicks stood up as Riley entered the room and leaned over his desk with his hand outstretched. “Riley! How’re you doing?”

Riley grabbed Hicks’s hand and gave it a warm shake. Although their relationship had started out extremely rocky, the past
months had created a deep respect between the two men. “Doing all right, thanks. You?”

“Can’t complain; can’t complain. Skeet?”

“Fine, sir,” Skeeter replied in his Mississippi drawl as Hicks’s hand disappeared in his own.

“Excellent. Please, guys, sit down,” Hicks said, motioning to the small conference table in his office. He turned to Scott.
“Khadi and Tara?”

“On their way.”

“Good.” Hicks took a seat at the head of the table. “So, how’s football?”

“Football’s football. You love it; you hate it.”

“Hey, Riley,” Scott interrupted, “while we’re waiting on the females, tell Jim about that medical workout thing you did—you
know, the one in the bubble.”

“Nah,” Riley demurred.

“Come on, Riley, let’s hear it,” Hicks encouraged him.

“You sure you’re interested?”

“If I don’t hear it from you, I’ll hear it from Scott—and far less accurately, I’m sure. Better to get it from the source.”

“Okay,” Riley began. “So a few weeks ago, I’m in that big white bubble off of Peoria and Arapahoe in Englewood—you know the
one I’m talking about?”

Hicks nodded while Scott already began snickering.

“Wait for it,” Riley admonished Scott. “Anyway, I guess the Mustangs were thinking I’ve gotten banged up in who knows what
kind of ways over the past few months, and they want to see what kind of shape I’m in. The doc they sent puts me through all
sorts of run drills and pattern drills. I check out okay. Then he wants to see how I handle contact.

“He tells me to wait on the field, and he walks over and picks up a pad. Now, he’s a pretty big guy, but I’m still thinking,
‘This guy’s no professional. This is not going to be pretty.’ So he walks up to me and says, ‘Okay, I want you to go all out.
But since I’ve got to be watching you, I’m not going to go up against you; she is.’ And he points to this girl on the sidelines.

“She comes running out, and she’s like five feet eight and 245 pounds. I turn to the doc and say, ‘I’m not going up against
her!’

And the girl says, ‘What’s the matter? You scared?’ I say, ‘Yeah, scared I’m going to kill you!’”

Hicks was laughing. “Let me guess—wrong thing to say?”

“Oh yeah! The girl goes ballistic! She throws down the pad and yells, ‘Come on! I don’t need no pad! I’m a two-time judo champion!

I’ll have you crawling! You’ll be begging for mercy!’”

Just then, Khadi and Tara walked in. Khadi started shaking her head. “Ah, the infamous judo-chick story.”

“May I continue?” Riley asked Khadi.

“Please,” Khadi encouraged him, then leaned over to Tara to fill her in on the backstory.

“So, I’m looking to Skeeter over on the sidelines for some help, and Mr. I’ve-Got-Your-Back calls out, ‘If she ain’t packing
a weapon, I can’t do nothing.’ Now, I don’t know how much you know about football contact, but most of it is in the . . .”
Riley started grabbing around the front of his own shirt as he searched for the right word.

That made Scott and Hicks laugh even more. “I think
chest
is an acceptable term to use in mixed company,” Scott assured Riley.

“Okay, so most of the contact is in the
chest
.” On the last word Riley unconsciously lowered his voice, which caused everyone to lose it—even Skeeter. Riley’s face turned
a dark shade of red. “You guys going to let me tell this story or not?”

“Of course,” Scott answered, “as long as you quit using such offensive language.”

“So,
anyway
,” Riley said, trying to regain control of the room, “she’s all up in my face while I’m trying to tell the doc I’m not doing
this. She’s saying stuff like, ‘What’s the matter? You afraid of a little female contact, choirboy?’ and ‘Come on, it’s not
like you’re married or anything!’ I tell her, ‘That’s true, but you’re sort of missing the point!’ I finally just start walking
off the field, and the doc stops me and tells the gal to pick up the pad.

“I knew I wasn’t going to get out of there without doing this contact drill, so I figured, let’s just get this over with.
So, we start going down the field—me taking it a little easy, pushing into her and her falling back. That didn’t last long.
Jim, seriously, this chick wanted to kill me! She was hitting high! She was dropping low! Forget the Cause! Forget any terrorist
psychos! This girl was and is enemy number one.” Riley sat back in his seat while everyone laughed.

“Wait! Don’t stop now,
choirboy
,” Scott encouraged Riley. “Tell him the end!”

Riley’s face started to redden again as he leaned forward again. “Okay, so we get to the end of the field then come back up.
When we finally cross the fifty, I’m fed up. I give her one final push and she goes flying back onto the ground. I’m thinking,
‘Great, I just broke her,’ so I rush over to help her up. But before I can get to her, she jumps up, gets this big ol’ smile
on her face, and says, ‘Nice work, Covington.’ Then, as she runs past me, she slaps me on my . . .” Riley’s voice trailed
off again, and he nodded his head backward.

“I think the word
buttocks
also meets with governmental standards,” Scott finished. “Oh, boy! Of all people for that to happen to.”

“No matter how funny it sounds, it looked even better,” Skeeter said with a big grin on his face as he moved his hands around
in front of himself, imitating Riley trying to figure out where he was going to grab the girl.

They all had one more laugh at Riley’s expense, and then Hicks brought the meeting to order.

“Riley, this isn’t going to take too long. I brought you in here basically to tell you one thing. You have got a target the
size of Montana on your back right now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Riley saw Skeeter unconsciously shift his hand closer to the Heckler & Koch concealed under
his light jacket.

“You know, this isn’t exactly news. Costa Rica made that fact pretty clear.” Riley saw Hicks bristle at the reminder of those
events, but he pushed on anyway. “I’ve got Skeeter, who won’t even let me take a shower without standing there holding the
towel. We take all the necessary precautionary measures. I’m not sure what else I can do except to go into hiding.”

Hicks just stared at Riley, and no one else at the table said a word.

“Wait, you’re serious? You want me to go into hiding? You’ve got to be kidding me! There’s no way I’m running away to go hide
in a cave—leave that to the al-Qaeda vermin! I mean, come on, you’re acting like this is the eighties and I’m Salman Rushdie!”

“You’re right,” Hicks said, keeping his calm, “but if you remember, Rushdie only had one psycho who died trying to kill him.
So far, your failed assassin body count is up to five.”

Khadi now spoke up. “Riley, you need to listen to Jim. He’s not telling you to go into hiding right now. He’s just saying
that you need to be ready to dive for cover at the drop of a hat and stay there if need be. None of us would even be suggesting
this, except that the information we’ve been getting is . . . well, it’s just a very dangerous world for you right now.”

“We’ve always known that what little’s left of the Cause would be gunning for me for a while. We’re taking precautions against
it. Now you’re getting
information
that says this isn’t enough anymore? Can one of you please share with me what this information is that’s so terrible I should
scurry into a hole like a scared rabbit?”

“No, we can’t, actually,” said Hicks. “Since you’ve been decommissioned, this stuff is beyond your clearance. And I just want
to make it clear,” he continued to the rest of the table, “that I will not tolerate any of this information being
accidentally
left out on a desk for Riley to
accidentally
see. Understood?”