history, you want to know this man inside and out. I tell you now, that is not possible. He is an
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enigma, by definition. We must accept what Allah chooses to give us, and be grateful.”
A small smile, followed by another sip of tea. This was the dangerous time, when the smile could
mean anything. Hassan knew why Saif was suspicious. He had questioned the American for three
hours, and was told nothing. At one point, the commander held a pistol to the man’s head and
denounced him, accused him of spying for the West, but still had elicited no reaction. As dawn
approached, he had finally given up in frustration. Hamza could see the man’s mind working
quickly now, cheek muscles twitching as al-Adel pondered his friend’s opinion.
The older man thought that his considered statements had been well received.
“Hassan.” The arms spread wide, the palms open in a gesture of reluctant capitulation. “You are
correct, as always. I was wrong to doubt a man that you saw fit to bring into the organization. I
have always respected your judgment.” This last sentence was delivered deliberately, Saif’s eyes
burning into Hamza’s face. They were genuine, reassuring words, and his subordinate felt the
trust that was given him.
“With your approval, I want to give him full control of the operation in Africa.”
“No, no.” The commander’s long arms waved the idea away quickly. “We have exhausted our
ability to operate in that region. Since the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the
Americans have considerably enhanced security at their embassies in the region. Most of their
buildings are at least 100 meters away from the street, and the exterior windows are now coated
in mylar. There are additional personnel and vehicular searches — in short, another attempt
would result in far fewer casualties. I won’t waste the infidel on a fruitless endeavor.”
“I agree completely,” Hamza said. It was true; the attacks in 1998 had resulted in the deaths of
213 people in Nairobi. It would be difficult to achieve that success again, and any members of
the organization involved in the attack would almost certainly be killed by the marines guarding
the perimeter.
“There is much to be gained from this strike, my friend. The support of the Iranians will be
invaluable in the future. We will have safe refuge, access to new training camps with decent
equipment. We will have money, weapons, volunteers. It is a new beginning for us. There is
much to be gained. It cannot fail…
“It might interest you to learn, Hassan, that the American was far more forthcoming with
information not related to himself.”
Hamza’s brow furrowed as he considered these words. He had not been present for the entire
interrogation. “What do you mean? What kind of information?”
“Evidently, our friend Shakib stumbled onto some very sensitive material just after the senator’s
death. All of his documents are now in our Westerner’s hands.”
A small smile played across Hamza’s face as he lifted his cup. “And these documents are of
interest to us?”
“The American says that it is extraordinary information… He believes that we should take
advantage of this opportunity, and I am inclined to agree.
“Take, as an example, the idea of a garden. To keep the garden clean, pure, the weeds must be
removed. To destroy a weed, you can burn what is visible, pull at the surface growth, do
whatever you wish to no avail. It is necessary, always, to kill the root. The root is protected on all
sides, but when the soil has been removed, the root is vulnerable. It is possible, my friend, that
the soil has now been removed, and the path is clear…”
Hamza watched as a maniacal glint sparked in the flat brown eyes of the man seated across from
him. He knew that, as committed to the organization as he was, he would never come close to
matching the fanaticism of Saif al-Adel. For this, he was grateful.
“…for the American believes that in just under a month’s time, we will have an opportunity to
kill the president himself.”
CHAPTER 10
BROOKS COUNTY, GEORGIA
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In spite of her frequent complaints, University Hospital in Georgetown insisted on keeping
Naomi Kharmai two extra days for observation. That was two days too long in her opinion, but
the additional time did give her a chance to run down some information about Peter Hale, the
man who had signed Kealey’s discharge papers. Through discreet inquiries, she was able to find
out that he had retired in 2001 despite having been offered command of the Eighth U.S. Army,
which was based out of South Korea. It was a three-star position and would have meant a
promotion for Hale, a major general at the time. Naomi wondered how the general’s retirement
might tie in with Ryan Kealey’s sudden departure from the military.
It had not been difficult to convince the deputy director that she needed a few days of
convalescent leave. Although she hated to appear weak in front of Harper, she needed the time
if she wanted to speak to Hale in person. Finding his home address had been a little trickier, but
she was eventually able to track it down through an acquaintance at the IRS.
Naomi suspected, rightly, that Jonathan Harper would not give her any additional information
about Kealey or March. She wanted to know more about both men, though, so that she could
draw her own conclusions. From an early age, Kharmai had been able to recognize this need
within herself, the desire to place people and things into neat compartments with clearly defined
labels. Often, she was able to convict others based on their actions alone, and when it was done,
it was done; a judgment reached by Naomi Kharmai had all the permanence of the sun’s place in
the universe.
If General Hale wanted to be left alone, he certainly picked the right place for it, she thought.
She had missed the turnoff once, and had to backtrack along the rutted dirt road that was
bordered on both sides by ragged trees and bushes. After about ten minutes, she located the
dented black mailbox marked only by the house number. Hale’s driveway had been recently
paved, but was still almost as overgrown as the main road. The branches scraped against the side
of her vehicle as she drove deeper into the dense vegetation.
Suddenly the trees were gone and Naomi’s rented Explorer broke into a vast field of wild grass.
At the very center stood a large ante-bellum mansion. The front was dominated by a white
portico that reflected the red light of the fading sun. The portico was held above the ground by
four towering Doric columns, which led in turn to a gabled roof sweeping down to end
chimneys that occupied both sides of the house. High windows were shadowed by a trellis
overrun with fading vines of blue wisteria, Confederate jasmine, and Lady Bankshire roses.
Despite the onset of winter, the pleasant smell of the flowering plants was heavy in the air as
Naomi parked the Explorer and walked up to the front door.
Her first knocks went unanswered, and trying the door, she found it locked. Moving around to
the rear of the house, she noticed a mud-caked red Chevy pickup parked on a bare patch of
ground. Walking over to the vehicle, she placed the palm of her good arm on the hood and felt
that it was warm, the engine ticking as it cooled.
“What are you doing?”
She whirled at the voice. Standing before her was a large man wearing a faded-red flannel shirt,
brown corduroy pants, and muddy hiking boots. His hair was white and his shoulders stooped
with age, but his vivid blue eyes seemed to compensate for the physical toll the years had
obviously taken on his body.
“I said, what are you doing?” he asked again.
She smiled and stuck out her hand. “Hi, my name is Naomi Kharmai. I’m looking for General
Hale.” The man looked her up and down quickly, and then swallowed her small hand in his. She
could feel rough calluses running over her own smooth knuckles.
“Well, you found him. What can I do for you?” he asked.
Naomi held out her credentials, which Hale quickly examined.
“I’m with the Agency, and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about some soldiers that
were under your command at Fort Bragg,” she said.
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Immediately, his face clouded with suspicion.
“I understand completely if you want to call for verification. The number for the switchboard
is—”
“I’ll get the number. Follow me.”
He walked around to the rear of the house, a shaded, white wooden porch coming into view.
Naomi trailed awkwardly behind, the spiked heels of her knee-high leather boots sinking into the
muddy ground.
Hale noticed and laughed heartily. “You picked the wrong shoes for Georgia, Ms. Kharmai.”
He reached the screen door of the porch and, to her amusement, held it open for her.
“Why don’t you have a seat here? I’ll be back in a few. Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you,” she said. Holding her identification by his side, he walked into the
main house, disappearing from sight. She turned her attention to the view before her. The sky
was something to see after the heavy clouds moving over Washington; ripples of purple, red,
and gold were smeared across the orange sky, the sun dipping low on the horizon. The fields
behind the house were empty, but far in the distance she could make out several low-slung
clapboard buildings framed against a line of gnarled, ancient trees.
She was startled by the sound of the screen door squealing open on rusty hinges. Hale
reappeared with a bottle of beer in one hand. He handed Naomi her credentials and eased his
weight into a chair of wrought iron across from her.
“Well, you checked out, young lady. I’m a little confused, though. Seems like you could get any
information you needed from John.”
“You know Deputy Director Harper?”
“Oh, sure,” Hale responded, an easy grin spreading over his worn features. “He sent us a lot of
good people for some operations we ran in Kosovo and, before that, Iraq. Hell of a guy to have
in your corner.”
She nodded respectfully and pointed to the buildings in the distance. “Are those part of your
property?”
The general nodded in affirmation. “They used to be the slave quarters. What you’re looking at
is just a little piece of the land attached to this house. There’s over a hundred acres beyond those
trees there, mostly empty fields. They used to hold corn, cotton, tobacco, anything that would
turn a profit. The plantation was built in 1857 by a Confederate colonel who died at Shiloh. It
was actually in my wife’s family for over a century, until she passed away three years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Naomi said, with as much sympathy as she could muster. Hale nodded
his head sadly.
“I sure do miss her. This is a lot of space for one person.”
Naomi waited the decent interval, but the general beat her to the punch. “So, what kind of
information are you looking for? Is this about Kealey?”
Once again she was surprised. “How did you know?”
“It was just a guess. You’ve seen the file, I imagine. Everything you need should be in it.”
“Not quite everything,” she said. “Why did he leave? I mean, he made major in eight years. Isn’t
that good, even for a Green Beret?”
Peter Hale laughed and took a long pull from his beer. “First of all, they don’t like to be called
Green Berets. That’s what they wear, not who they are. And to answer your question, yes, that is
damn good. Ryan Kealey was going places.” The amiable expression faded from the general’s
face as he looked out across the fields. His voice lowered, as if to reveal a confidence. “It’s a
damn shame what happened to him. Was there anything in the file about Bosnia?”
“No. Please tell me,” she said. The tinge of desperation in her own voice was disappointing to
Naomi Kharmai, but she knew that Hale was probably her only chance for answers.
“To understand,” he said, “you have to have some idea about what was going on at the time.
The Serbs were killing the Muslims indiscriminately, without regard to age or gender. It wasn’t
just murder, it was torture, mutilation, and gang rape. It was genocide on a grand scale. In 1995
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alone, it’s estimated that 7,000 Muslims were slaughtered, and that’s a low-ball figure. The full
measure of what happened there never really made its way into the international press, but
Europe hasn’t seen anything worse since the Holocaust. So you can imagine, it was a very
dangerous time for the American soldiers who were stationed there as part of the NATO
peacekeeping force.”
Naomi nodded slowly, her gaze focused on the dark buildings in the distance. “Please, go on.”
“Kealey was there in an advisory capacity only, working under the ground commander, General
Wilkes. He was a first lieutenant at the time, if I’m not mistaken, based at Camp Butmir in
Sarajevo with the NATO contingent.
“Occasionally, Kealey would go out with the SFOR patrols. There was a young Muslim girl who
took a particular shine to him; she might have been twelve or thirteen years old. I can’t
remember her name; someone told me once, but I’ve forgotten it now. Of course, I wasn’t in
Bosnia at the time. This information comes from the soldiers who were on patrol with him.
Anyway, there was this girl, a pretty little thing from all accounts. She would bring him
chocolate, flowers, that sort of thing. I guess it was a schoolgirl crush. Ryan would always stop
to talk with her for a little while. The other soldiers used to kid him about it, said he was leading
her on. One day, the girl’s mother came out of the house crying, screaming at the soldiers. Turns
out the Serbian militia found out that the girl was talking to the Americans. You can guess what
happened from there.”
“They killed her?”
“If that was all, then it wouldn’t have been so bad. They raped her repeatedly, beat her face in so
that she couldn’t be recognized, and then disemboweled her while she was still alive. Her mother
identified her by a birthmark on her leg, and even then she had to look at the body twice to be
sure.”
Naomi shivered once, but it was just the cool breeze coming through the screened walls of the
porch. The story did not bother her.
“So Kealey started to ask around. The leader of the local militia was a man by the name of
Stojanovic. In truth, he didn’t count for much at the time, didn’t hold a lot of power. Kealey
didn’t care; all the fingers were pointing in the same direction. In the end, Ryan went to see the
