Neal could see the colonel’s service pistol from here, its black matte metal lethal in his hands, the safety off. He had taken it out after Neal had started talking in earnest, staying behind Ayala and keeping the gun out of sight.
“Barrett,” Ayala said, not taking her eyes off Neal, “you can put your gun away, now.” Neal and Barrett both flinched, “You were right to be cautious, but you need fear nothing from me.” They both held their breath.
“If what you say is true, and from what Neal has shown me it most certainly looks like it is, you had no choice but to send for me, Barrett.”
She stood, turned, and walked slowly over to the shaking colonel. Her left hand came to rest lightly on the gun, as she cupped her right hand softly against his cheek. Something in him seemed to give ever so slightly, and a single tear ran down his face. She took the gun, clicking the safety on with her thumb without taking her eyes off the man she clearly still loved, and he turned, temporarily broken, and climbed the basement stairs without a word.
Neal rose to follow his friend, but she stopped him. “Don’t,” she said quietly but firmly, “leave him a moment. He has spent the last half an hour waiting to see if he was going to have to kill his wife. Let him be for a while.”
She shook her head, then she walked over to Neal, tucking the gun into the back of her pants as she came, and said, “We have much to do, and I should leave here soon, before whoever they are start to think it suspicious that an electrician has stayed so long. In fact, the first thing we are going to need to do is arrange a way in and out of here that will allow us to come and go without them knowing. I can take care of that, and while I am at it, there are some other things we are going to need, all of which will require money. So, let’s talk about ways to channel funds.”
Seeing his expression at the mention of funds, she chuckled and said, “OK, first let’s talk about some ways we can discreetly generate them.”
* * *
Across the world, in a cold cave in the northern mountains of Pakistan, Agent Shahim Al Khazar sits and prays. In many ways his prayers are more genuine, and certainly more immediately effective than those of his fanatical colleagues. As he bows forward, dipping his forehead to the soil, his machine mind relays, in real-time, his thoughts and actions to his four godlike cohorts soaring far above.
At the entrance to his cave, a nervous cleric awaits. The fighter has gained a fierce reputation in the four months he has been with the Liberation Army, proving as deadly to any of the other freedom fighters who stood in his way as he has to the infidels.
Twice he had begged forgiveness from the army’s leaders for fighting and killing a rival Islamic brother, though in both cases it had been clear to all that the fights had been started by the other man. That said, few would fight him again, as both of his victims had received crushing injuries, one man’s neck being snapped clean to one side by a kick from the deadly fighter’s foot.
But now the junior cleric had been dispatched to summon the fighter to an audience with the clan’s chief cleric and general, and the poor messenger was not sure who he feared more.
Respecting the prayer time of the kneeling fighter as much out of fear as religious doctrine, the junior cleric stood and waited until Shahim eventually opened his eyes.
“Honored soldier of the cause, you are summoned to an audience with Cleric Mashadi Amar immediately.” said the junior cleric, with as much authority as he could muster.
“Why did you not tell me sooner?” said the brusque man, “You have been standing there for nearly five minutes.”
The cleric could not bring himself to respond, his shrug turning into an involuntary shake as the large, powerful man propelled himself straight from kneeling to a brisk run, pushing bodily past the cleric and out of the small, carved cave that was his home.
Arriving in the underground hall that was the home of the chief cleric, he bowed.
“You must forgive me, Cleric. I was not informed you wished to see me until a moment ago by the fool that was dispatched to summon me.” said Shahim, his clothing wrapped thickly around him, but still barely disguising his bulk. He stood in the cave’s only entrance, all but blocking out the stark sunlight leaking through it.
“Shahim, all my clerics speak directly for me, you will respect them, all of them, as though they are my own blessed kin.” the chief cleric was quick to put the fighter in his place. He was used to dealing with men who could kill him if they wanted to. Indeed, they would be of no use to him if they could not. The trick was to dominate them, they were tools, strong of heart but weak of mind, and they needed leadership.
“Forgive me.” the warrior bent his head lower.
“You are forgiven, my child.” said the cleric curtly, “But now I have a mission for you. And maybe an opportunity to prove you truly believe in our cause, Shahim.” Though the warrior did not look up, the elderly cleric hoped his words were driving home. In truth, they had rarely had such a bold, fierce, or effective warrior amongst them, but Shahim was still relatively new.
It was a facet of the dangerous tactics forced on them by the infidel oppressors that many of the cleric’s recruits died in their first missions. Those that did not, either by guile, intellect, or even cowardice, though that would never be said, formed all of the higher ranks. They were often much older, and always untrusting of newcomers. Power was a limited commodity in these regimes, and they did not give it over to newcomers easily.
Shahim Al Khazar had proved to be as relentless, brave, and merciless as he was brutally effective, and the elderly cleric knew that there would soon be those among his force, and outside it, that would consider whether the young warrior might prove a better general than he. Indeed, they may already be thinking it. Well, the cleric had not survived the brutal life of the jihad for forty years without dispatching a rival or two. No matter how good a warrior, it was clear he had to get rid of this man, and he thought he could see a way to make it look like the warrior’s fault.
“For many years now we have been subjects of a weak, corrupt, puppet government of the West,” the cleric began, starting to pace, slowly, around the room, “They have been brought to power by nonbelievers and heretics. We have bargained with them and taken their stinking money, but the time has come that we remind them of our divine purpose.”
Shahim studied his leader closely. The man was talking of an attack on the Pakistani leadership. This was not part of his plan. A direct attack on the government would, eventually, be necessary for the Agent to take control of the nation’s nuclear weapons, but only after Shahim had achieved control over some portion of the freedom fighters army, and trained them to the level necessary to make the attack successful.
Shahim could already see that this was going to be a halfhearted attempt, which the cleric didn’t really believe would work. Whatever their target, sending a new warrior such as himself meant that he was meant to fail, sacrificing himself to show the Pakistani government that they were serious, or probably just to dispose of said warrior, and the internal threat he represented.
“I have seen you fight, and I have seen the results of your operations. But these were small fry, not a test of a real martyr. So…” the cleric looked the warrior in the eye, holding his gaze as he said these next words, “…I am sending you to make an attempt on the prime minister’s life, or die trying. Is that clear?”
Shahim stared at him, then at the floor. It would do no good to argue with the cleric; he either had to kill the elected leader of the country, kill the cleric in front of him, or kill himself. There was no other option now that the order had been given. Neither avenue was desirable, but that was precisely the dilemma the cleric had intended to force on the man. He would need to consult with the Council to decide what to do next.
Upon returning to DC from a quick trip back to Florida, Madeline had been shocked to see so many changes to the house, and to meet its new resident.
“Of course, officially,” said Neal, as he introduced her to Ayala and took her bag, “she lives next door.”
Madeline looked at him confused, and he laughed, walking off upstairs with her two heavy bags. “What the hell do you have in here?” he groaned as he climbed the stairs, his out of shape frame wilting under the weight of the clothes she had bought from home.
Ayala rolled her eyes at Neal then turned to Madeline, saying, “I’ll explain everything to you in a moment, my dear, but first, do you want a shower, or a cup of coffee maybe? You’ve just gotten off the plane.”
“No, thanks though. It isn’t a long flight and I do it all the time.”
“OK then, maybe it’s best if I give you the tour, then?” said Ayala, looking at Madeline, who nodded, curious and a little wary. Ayala took her arm and led her to the entrance to the basement, Neal running back down the stairs to join them once more. A moment later, Madeline stood at the bottom of the basement steps, even more baffled now as she looked at the messy, dusty space.
“Well, what do you think?” said Neal, stepping past her toward the washing machine in the corner.
“Err, I guess I kind of expected you to have, you know, cleaned this place up a bit,” Madeline said, “weren’t we going to put our computers down here?”
As she watched them, confused, Ayala smiled, somewhat proudly, and Neal opened the washing machine lid, reached inside, pulled something and then grabbed the corner of the big machine. Clearly on rollers, it slid gently out of the way, revealing a rough hole in the wall about three feet high.
“After you.” Neal said to Ayala.
“Such a gentleman!” she said, walking over and getting down on her knees to crawl through the space.
Neal indicated for Madeline to follow, and she did, ever more perplexed.
She now stood in a parallel basement, clearly belonging to the house next door. It was dominated by two things, a line of computers, each clearly hubbed together, though Madeline assumed not connected to any external network or internet link, and several racks of clothes.
“Welcome to our new headquarters, Madeline.” said Neal, as he crawled through after them, pulling on a metal lever next to their ingress that clearly pulled the washing machine back into place behind them.
“But…” Madeline started, before Ayala cut her off, sensing her confusion.
“We couldn’t risk all of us coming and going from the main entrance of Neal’s house, it would be too easy to track our movements, and even easier to link us all together. We are going to need to have some freedom of movement, so I rented the basement apartment off the house next door. They hadn’t been planning to rent it out, but after a few days looking into all your neighbors, both to each side and the house behind, I found a little leverage over these ones which I could use to encourage them to accept my offer.”
Madeline looked at her. Who the hell
is
this woman, she thought, but after seeing Neal grinning like a boy with a schoolyard crush, she decided to leave that question for later; maybe Barrett would be able to shed some light on the whole situation.
Choosing to ignore Neal’s childlike wonder, and Madeline’s current confusion, Ayala went on, “So we have a separate entrance, which the AI has no way of knowing is linked to Neal’s house. And in order to make sure it does not recognize someone entering one house and leaving from the other, we have a series of disguises here. It is very important to note that these red racks are for when you leave through this entrance, this empty rack here is for the clothes you arrived in. DO NOT MIX THEM UP.” She was very stern on that point, and Madeline felt like a school child, even as a part of her noted the sense behind the point being emphasized.
But Ayala wanted to make sure this was not lost on Madeline, and it wouldn’t hurt to reiterate it to Neal once more as well, given what was at stake.
“If, just one time, an orbiting satellite sees a person it recognizes as having entered through
that
house,” she pointed back at the main house they had come from, “leave through
this
entrance,” she pointed at the basement’s separate entrance, “then we must assume it will take it precisely half a second to figure out that the two houses have been linked for some reason. It is such a very small leap from that conclusion to realizing that we are trying to fool it, and then the only reasonable reaction we can expect from it is a quick death. For all of us. Is that clear?”
Madeline nodded, wide-eyed. Clearly Ayala had thought this through.
“So,” Ayala continued, slightly calmer, but no less emphatic, “red rack for leaving here, this rack for your normal clothes. Also, you
must
wear either a hat or a wig when leaving here, and you must not look up when outside. I would say you should get out of the habit of looking up altogether, as strange as that seems, but at the very least, never, ever present your face to the satellite when in disguise.”
Madeline nodded. This woman was good. Neal’s crush seemed more and more understandable. Madeline may have one of her own, she thought, smiling.
“Over here,” Ayala said, walking over to a chest of drawers, “you will find what we shall call your ‘basement’ identities.” Each drawer was marked with one of their names, starting at the top with Madeline’s, then Ayala’s, Neal’s, and finally Barrett’s.
“Inside, you’ll find everything you’ll need to get around on the outside without using your own name. Judging by what your visitor John Hunt said, we have good reason to believe you are both being tracked. So if the AI thinks you are at home and then all of a sudden you use your credit card in some other city, it will figure out something is wrong and we are back to the whole ‘death from above’ scenario.”
How had this woman done all this, thought Madeline, looking at the four ziploc bags in her drawer. It was, wow, she didn’t know what it was, but she realized she had developed a childlike grin of her own. She looked more closely at each of her ‘basement’ identities. Each bag contained a driver’s license, social, credit card and, in two cases, a passport. One of the passports was not American. She picked up that bag.