Prepared For Rage

Their wholesale failure to anticipate the rise of the sectarian insurgency in Iraq and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the consequences of which played out on every television in America at six p.m. and ten p.m. each night, had led to a disgust for the ruling party that the American electorate had made manifest in the last election. Everyone but the man in the White House seemed to know that it was only a matter of time before the United States suffered its own regime change.

If Patrick wanted to take it personally, those failures and others had led almost directly to the swearing in of Harold Kallendorf as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He had been given an unusually united mandate from both Congress and White House to shake up the institution, fire the deadwood, and streamline and update the intelligence-gathering process, with the desired end result an improvement in product accuracy and an increase in the speed of its delivery. Hence, the review in the briefing room in January.

But that wasn't what had him frowning at his wingtips. Kallendorf's idea of reaching out to an agency not their own wasn't necessarily a bad one. Especially when an old friend was at the other end of the line.

He'd just returned from Guantanamo Bay, where he had observed the interrogation of a young Jordanian named Karim Talib. He'd been picked up in a sweep of Fallujah six months ago, and the gators at Gitmo had finally broken him the week before. One of them, an old friend of Patrick's well aware of his new obsession, had called Patrick and said that he might like to hear this in person. Bob's tip-offs were usually pretty solid, so Patrick had hopped a C-12 out of Andrews and been present on the other side of the glass when Bob, a not unintimidating figure, leaned over the young Muslim man whom he must have outweighed by a hundred pounds and purred, "Now. What was it you were telling us yesterday, Karim?" When Karim said nothing Bob let the purr drop to a menacing growl. "Now, Karim, you don't want me to have to jog your memory, do you?" He smiled at Karim, lips pulled back to reveal a set of canines that looked ready and able to rip into raw meat.

Karim didn't look as if he had any intention of resisting, but his teeth were chattering so loudly that he could hardly get the words out.

"You worked for Isa," Bob said.

Behind the glass, Patrick stiffened.

"Y-y-y-yes," Karim said.

"From when to when?" Bob said.

"F-f-f-from 2003 until you k-k-killed Zarqawi."

"Three years. You must know him pretty well."

A spark of defiance gleamed in the young man's eyes. "Y-y-you'll never catch him."

"I'm sure you're right," Bob said cordially, and pulled up a chair. He gave Karim's knee a comforting pat. "I want you to tell me all about your time with him, Karim. Everything, every tiny little detail you can remember." He smiled at Karim again and Karim flinched back. "Take your time. I've got all day."

"I-I-I already t-t-told you everything I know."

"I don't think so," Bob said cheerfully, and gave Karim's knee another encouraging pat. "Start talking."

"W-w-what do I get if I do?"

Patrick had to admire the little terrorist. Terrified as he was, he was still trying to bargain.

Bob shrugged and worked his head. His neck cracked with a loud pop and Karim jumped so hard it moved his chair a couple of inches across the floor. "What do you get?" He smiled again at Karim. "Maybe I let you live to see the dawn."

Karim, who evidently got most of his courage from putting together bombs to be detonated far from his person, started talking. A lot of it Patrick already knew, such as Isa's predilection for and proficiency at Internet banking and communications. The particulars of Isa's dispersal of Zarqawi's cell after Zarqawi's death were news. Isa dispensing with the services of a group of men he and Zarqawi had trained from terrorist infancy seemed wasteful. Why cut loose your experienced perso

Answer, Patrick thought, because one of them betrayed your boss. You don't know which one, all you know is it wasn't you, so better to cut them all loose. Even wimpy little Karim.

Karim, now weeping over his own betrayal, knew more than he would say about the bombing in Baghdad and nothing at all about Isa's current whereabouts. He drew a heartrending picture of his and Isa's farewell in the Damascus airport. "I didn't know where to go," he said, sniveling. "I didn't know what to do. So I went back."

Patrick shook his head. Embarrassing.

The speaker was quiet for a moment, but for Karim's sniffling. "Almost the last thing he said to me," Karim said wearily, "was a quote from your president Bush."

"Oh?" Bob said, bored. "What was that?"

"He said that Bush said that it was better to fight us on our ground than for the Americans to fight us on theirs."

"Oh, yeah?" Bob said.

Irritated at Bob's apparent lack of interest, the little terrorist said with a snap, "And then he said that he thought Bush was right."

Shortly thereafter Bob joined Patrick over a cup of coffee before Patrick headed north again. What do you think?"

"Is he gay?" Patrick said. "He sounds like he's in love with Isa."

"Something we'd thought of, too, he talks like Isa jilted him in Damascus," Bob said. "He didn't write, he didn't call, it's all one long moan." He cocked an eye at Patrick. "Anything you can use?"

"It's all grist for the mill, Bob," Patrick said thoughtfully. "He was in on that bus bombing in Baghdad."

"Ya think?" Bob said. "I'm going to sweat the little weasel until he tells me exactly how he designed and built that bomb, every nut, every bolt, every wire. I want to know where he got the parts, what the original target was, who picked it, who changed the target and why, and who gave the order for execution. When I have a confession, signed, witnessed, notarized, recorded on tape and on video, then at least, even if they won't let us hang him, he won't be exercising that talent on the streets of anyone's town ever again."

Patrick's driver poked his head in the door. "Time to go, Mr. Chisum."

Patrick drained his mug. "I appreciate the call, Bob, thanks."

"Thanks for the newspapers and the magazines and the smokes," Bob said. "See you next time."

No, Patrick thought now, it didn't hurt to ask a friend for help. His mind made up, he dropped his feet and swiveled back to his desk. He dialed twice before remembering to get his secretary to turn the phone back on, and then he had to redial because he got the country code wrong and wound up talking to a Josie Ryan in Limerick. They had a delightful conversation about the menu for the family di

"Patrick Chisum for Hugh Rincon."

"One moment, please."

It was more like five before he was rescued from Muzak hell. No one ever played Yo-Yo Ma on hold. "Patrick?"

"Hello, Hugh. How are you?"

"Fine. What's it been, two wars?"

"More like three," Patrick said, "but who's counting. How's London? How's Sara?"

"Both good."

"She still stuck at the IMO?"

Hugh sighed. "Yeah, for a second tour."

"The people who make those assignments could be changing."

"So we saw," Hugh said, and left it at that.

Patrick respected the reticence. Hugh Rincon was ex-agency, married to an XO in the U.S. Coast Guard. They'd been involved in a lively adventure involving North Korean terrorists in the North Pacific a few years back, and the fallout had included Hugh's resignation from the agency and Sara's exile to the International Maritime Organization. Rumor had it she'd lipped off to the president himself, in the Oval Office no less, but Patrick doubted a career officer would put her future in such jeopardy and took the rumor with a large grain of salt.