The Caliphate André Gallo (list of ebook readers TXT) 📖

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Later that day, Tariq took a plane to Paris via Bamako for a speaking engagement. Hussein knew that he also would stop in Brussels to see his wife Malika and daughter Jamila. Tariq had confided that he would probably send them to live in Cairo.

     In his absence, Hussein had time to reflect on his role in Tariq’s grand design. His objective had never been religious. He wanted to take revenge on the Syrian Baathist leadership. He would have been perfectly happy, and fulfilled, to shoot the entire Assad family, starting with Rifaat al-Assad who led the attack that killed his father, and now Bashir, the former president’s son who had taken over the country on old man Hafez al-Assad’s death. Creating a new Caliphate was much bigger, too grand an idea to hope for, and probably too vast to even begin to contemplate.

     When recruited by Tariq, Hussein’s mind had focused on only one thing: Tariq’s promise to overthrow the Syrian regime and install a leader who would be loyal to the new Caliph.

     But the Assads still ruled Syria. No country had yet been folded into Tariq’s grand scheme, although potent groups within each of the Sahel countries professed an allegiance to the Salafist banner. The meeting in Gao would be critical for the continued success of Tariq’s movement. He decided he would stay with Tariq. His was the only game in town, for now.

14. Langley, Virginia: CIA Headquarters

Steve and Marshall were about to enter the Old Headquarters Building. Marshall had mentioned Steve’s brushes with radical Islamists in Morocco to his colleagues at the agency, who wanted to hear about it firsthand. They passed a statue of Nathan Hale.

     “Why Nathan Hale?” Steve asked. “Wasn’t he captured and hanged by the British? There must have been more successful American spies.”

     “Yes of course. But, as the first spy to be executed for the United States, he stands for the patriotism and bravery of clandestine operators over the years.”

     In Steve’s absence, to-do’s from other projects had accumulated in his Tysons Corner office. The catch-up work weighed like a millstone. Steve already suffered from the boredom of too many hours spent writing overdue periodic progress reports and attending staff meetings; the routine was almost numbing. He was also frustrated over the lack of news concerning Coogan’s death. The good news was that, to everyone’s surprise, the Moroccan Ministry of Defense had already asked that West Gate send a team to Rabat to begin the next phase of the negotiations. But Steve’s job as the initial developer of the project was over for the moment.

     As they walked over the CIA seal in the marble lobby, Steve saw on his left the bronze statue of General William Donovan, an Irish Catholic from Boston who had become the most decorated soldier of WWI and then founded the OSS, predecessor to the CIA. To his right was the Memorial Wall with eighty-eight stars symbolizing the CIA officers who had died in the line of duty and whose names could not be revealed.

     “I have friends among those stars,” Marshall said. “I’ve been lucky.” He paused and added, “And so have you.”

     A dozen men and women approached the security turnstiles on the far end of the lobby in front of steps leading up to a large corridor backlit by windows on an interior courtyard. As Steve and Marshall turned left in front of the turnstiles, Steve saw a woman in a hijab go through the turnstiles. Steve stopped Marshall.

     “Did you see her? A Muslim woman? In here?”

     “I know. The CIA is an equal opportunity employer. And the Agency can use people who understand Islam. Besides, she passed the screening and the polygraph. Getting a job offer here is not easy.”

     “Okay, okay, but what happens when she decides that she’s more Muslim than American?”

     Steve shook his head.

     They went up several steps and turned into a small room where a guard was waiting for them. He checked Marshall’s badge, gave an ESCORT REQUIRED badge to Steve, and led them to an open elevator being held for them. They exited on the fifth floor directly into a conference room, thus avoiding the need to share corridors with under cover intelligence officers of the National Clandestine Service who might be leaving on secret missions the next day.

     “Hello everyone, I’m Isabel,” said a black-haired woman with lively dark eyes and a broad smile seated at the large conference table. “I’d like you to sign several forms Mr. Church,” she said, pointing to Steve.

     Marshall interceded, “If that’s a secrecy agreement, Steve is here not to acquire information but to share it.”

     “He still has to sign them.”

     She pushed them forward and, hesitating just a second, Steve signed them—rules and regulations. He shook his head slightly. Isabel then led them to a windowless conference room where four people waited for them. On one wall was a row of portraits that reminded Steve of the photos of Bogart and Bacall in movie theater lobbies. Certainly less glamorous but he assumed these people were stars in the world of clandestine operations.

     As they sat around the table, one of their hosts, a woman who seemed a bit younger than Steve, greeted them.

     “Hi. My name is Nicole. I’m with the Maghreb section of the Directorate of Intelligence.”

     She looked to her right.

     “And this is Jason. He’s with the National Counterterrorism Center. He focuses on radical Muslim terrorism. I don’t know if you realize it, but you’re one of the few survivors of a Salafist attack. In fact, you’re the only one I know of who lived through two attempts—two in less than a week, a record. We’re interested in anything you can share with us. For example, in hindsight, were there any indications