Flash Point (42 page)

Jaime was waiting for Admiral Brown when he came back from the White House. He had already watched the report on CNN that had claimed that Congressman Admiral Brown, as they always called him, had recommended to an unprecedented gathering that the country declare war against Sheikh al-Jabal and go after him wherever he was. The option they had been looking for for thirty years had been laid in front of them by a retired Admiral.

Actually, Jaime smiled, it had been laid in front of them by a Lieutenant who might be in just the right place to make it all happen. Jaime wanted to make sure Lieutenant Sean Woods got his chance, if there was any way in the world to pull it off. “Admiral!” Jaime yelled as Brown walked into the office. “Congrats!”

“Thanks, Jaime,” Brown replied as he removed his soaked suit coat and tossed it on the small couch across from his desk. The press was waiting for him to come back into the hall as he had promised.

“Admiral,” Jaime intruded.

Brown waited for the next question.

“I’ve got some ideas on how we can, um, return the favor to our constituent.”

Brown liked it. “Always thinking, Jaime, that’s what I appreciate most about you.”

Sami didn’t like going to the Association of Arab-American Businessmen’s meetings, the AAAB. They were well attended and the people he met there were, for the most part, interesting and intelligent. What he didn’t care for about the meetings was what they did to his father. He strolled around with his chest puffed out, going on at length about the good old days in Syria and in Egypt, where he had spent time. He even managed to mention Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, emphasizing the position he’d held on the Syrian Ambassador’s staff. He was the life of the party with some of the best Arabic bona fides. But the scene never failed to make Sami uncomfortable.

Sami slipped into the front seat of his father’s Mercedes and closed the door softly.

“You’re late,” his father scolded.

“I’m busy. I shouldn’t even be going.”

“You must go. If
you
don’t look out for Arabic concerns for your generation, who will?”

“There seem to be plenty of people who are quite happy to do that for me,” he responded tiredly.

“Don’t you care about your heritage?”

Sami glanced over at his father as he drove into downtown Washington. “We have this same conversation every time we go to these meetings. Let’s just skip to the part where you tell me you expected better of me.”

His father switched to Arabic. “You need to treat your father with
respect
,” he growled.

“I do respect you. You know that.”

“Then be the good son you should be and enjoy the meeting and your heritage.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You never come to the Mosque.”

Sami bit his tongue, but it didn’t prevent him from saying, “We haven’t had
this
conversation in probably three weeks.”

“So what’s the answer?”

“I don’t like going.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What
do
you want to talk about? Your work? What is it you’re working on anyway? Helping the U.S. help Israel?”

“What? Where did that come from?”

“Have you seen how they are causing the latest problems? I’m sure you have, with all your inside information. All your big secrets. You must see much that gives you concern about Israel, if they let you see those things, unless you’ve brainwashed yourself into ignoring the obvious.”

“What has got you so hot tonight?”

“The latest news. I can’t help wondering what is behind all the curtains.” He made a sharp right hand turn into the parking lot of the Hyatt Hotel. “You see behind them, maybe. Maybe you see who is pulling all the strings. Frankly, Sami, I agree with Sheikh al-Jabal. He, or those like him, have been around for nine hundred years. I don’t agree with the way he is doing it, and I’m not in favor of the Nazir Isma’ili sect that he comes from. I am not in favor of murder, or terror—”

“How can you agree with—”

“Let me finish!” he said, stopping the Mercedes. “I agree with their position against the Crusaders and the Jews. They don’t belong there.”

He turned off the car and got out. Activating the alarm, he looked at Sami across the roof of the shiny black sedan. “Don’t ever forget what Muhammad said: ‘Let there be only one religion in Arabia.’ And Arabia is the entire Arabic world. Don’t
ever
forget that, Sami.”

Sami followed his father, walking a few steps behind him, feeling like a tethered goat. When they entered the large ballroom, ornately decorated with flags and banners from Arabic countries, it was full of people, mostly men in suits. Sami’s father headed straight for a group he recognized. As the most recent past president of the Association of Arab-American Businessmen he knew nearly everyone there. Reluctantly, Sami joined the circle.

The conversation immediately turned to the Sheikh. Everyone had something to say. All, of course, had heard of the Hashasheen, and several knew the basic historical origin of the Sheikh and his followers. And they had also heard the Washington rumors, that the United States government was considering declaring war against him as an individual. There was general scorn and derision over the idea, and many commented that it was of course only an Arab who would receive such individual attention, unprecedented in history. It was just another example of the general anti-Arab sentiment of the United States.

Sami didn’t say anything. He tried to figure out how long he had to wait until he could make an exit.

One of the men addressed Sami. “So, Sami, you still work for the CIA?”

Sami hated the question. “Yes, more or less.”

The man smiled. “We need men like you at all levels of the U.S. government.”

Sami drank from a tall glass of water a waiter had just brought to him.

“Are you able to make any headway?”

“In what way?”

“In protecting Arab interests. What else?”

“I protect the interests of all Americans.”

The man frowned but quickly smiled again. He glanced at Sami’s father then back at Sami. “Don’t you think our interests are different? What we’re here for?” he asked, indicating the entire room of people.

“Different in some ways, sure. But not for what I do.”

“Don’t you find that often there is a certain derogatory mind-set about Arabs? About Islam? Is it in the CIA?”

“I’m really not free to talk about my work,” Sami replied.

“Yes, but people come to conclusions that are different if someone you’re thinking about, or studying, is an Arab. Am I right?”

“I don’t know—”

“What about this Sheikh?” the man pushed. “Does anyone explain his roots? His history? What he means in our countries?”

“Like I said—”

“Yes, yes.” The man laughed. “Never mind. Too Top Secret. I understand. Let me ask you this instead,” he said, leaning toward Sami. The rest of the small circle listened carefully. “Can we count on you to be fair to the Arab cause? To what we stand for?”

“I’m fair to every cause.”

“Then you should have no problem at all in
promising
me, all these men here, all of the members of the Association of Arab-American Businessmen, that you will personally be fair to the Arab cause in whatever you do in your Top Secret job. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“Say it.”

“What?”

“Say you will be fair to the Arab cause.”

“I will be fair.”

“To the Arab cause.”

Sami took another sip of his water and noticed his father staring at him from his left. “To the Arab cause.”

The man smiled and lifted his glass to Sami in victory and camaraderie.

The idea had swept through Washington. As soon as President Garrett had gone on the record publicly as supporting it, the only opposition was from those who felt it degraded a declaration of war so much as to render it useless, like turning a firm pine baseball bat into a plastic Wiffle-ball bat good only for playing the make believe backyard game forever thereafter, never fit to return to the big leagues. But its supporters had won the day in two furious days of debate, mostly on live television with appearances by harried law professors and scrambling politicians. Most of the politicians had lined up in the idea’s favor and the opposition was sounding limp and bitter. Admiral Brown was the public hero, and the mysterious Lieutenant who had come up with the idea was the unknown hero. Admiral Brown had acknowledged him, but had refused to name him. He was painfully aware of how easy it was to find people, and the last thing he wanted was for Lieutenant Woods, or someone in his family in the States, to be the next victim of the Assassins. The press pressured him, but Brown balked, unwilling to identify him.

But now Brown’s time had come. The President had asked him to present the resolution for a declaration of war before a joint session of Congress. And the President would be there to sign it as soon as it passed. He stood looking over the packed House floor.

Brown waited for the minor conversations on the floor to die down. He had the attention of everyone in the room and he began with the usual introductions, then, “This country has declared war six times. But there have been more times when the United States has sent its armed forces into combat and never called it war. We have done our military a grave disservice by asking them to do the work of the politicians, without the politicians having the nerve to call it what it is. We have put the burden on men and women of our country to risk their lives when we were unwilling to risk our political lives. The result has been the divorce of warfare from the people. The founding fathers put Article One, section eight, into the Constitution, stating that Congress has the power to declare war. Congress, not the President. It has exercised that power before, but not since World War II. Since then, Congress has been afraid. We have fought all over the globe, sending the members of our armed forces to their deaths in defense of American interests, and have not declared war once.

“The reasons for this are obvious. We did not want to declare war against a small country and have that country believe that we were going to annihilate it. We did not want to declare war against a large country, whether cold war or hot war, thereby causing World War III and a nuclear exchange. Those fears are understandable. It can be debated whether or not it was right to fight without declaring war from the end of World War II until the end of the cold war. But from this point forward it
must
be done differently. War must be declared by Congress, the representatives of the people of the United States of America. Without the participation of Congress, the war powers become just another arrow in the quiver of the Executive Branch. The war power is probably the greatest power that can be held by any government. To allow that power to migrate to the Executive Branch and be held by the President results in our taking one large step toward monarchy. Such a step is not only intolerable, it is unthinkable. Yet, it is exactly the step we have taken.

“But it can be undone. Congress must reestablish itself with the power that it was given by the founding fathers.

“I say all that by way of background. I am bringing such a request before the House now. I hereby request that the United States declare war against Sheikh al-Jabal and his group of murderers, his empire of Assassins, those who have harmed Americans, those who have participated with those who have harmed Americans, and anyone else found with them. This is the time of limited war. Not based on geography, but based on people. Not about conquest of territory, but of fear, and of terror. We are ready for this war, and will prevail. We will bring to bear all the force that the United States has, and we will never rest until we are victorious in this endeavor.”

Sami turned off the television in the task force room. “Looks like he’s dead serious. I think it’s a great idea.”

Cunningham was less enthusiastic. “Seem to be an awful lot of international law implications here people aren’t dealing with. How do you declare war against an individual? The whole idea of war is against another
country
, a sovereignty.”

“And what do you do if all the people who are waging war against you, killing all your people, are not found in any particular country?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t sound right to me.”

“Some people think the whole nation-state concept is basically dead anyway. All the major countries that were formed from consolidation or takeover are falling apart. Look at Russia, Yugoslavia, China, the United States.”

“United States?”

“Just seeing if you’re listening. But it’s only a matter of time here too.”

Kinkaid interrupted the banter. “You know what
we
have to do, don’t you?”

Cunningham and the others nodded. “Find him.”

“Exactly. We have to provide the geography for this new kind of war. We’d better know where he is. We’d better have someone to go to war against. When we give this target a place, the war is going to start in earnest. And if we don’t find out where he is, the entire thing is going to stall out and we are going to look really stupid. Anybody know what happens to the people who make the President start to look stupid?”

Sami raised his hand and changed the direction of Kinkaid’s point. “I’ve been thinking.”

“What?” Kinkaid replied, annoyed by the interruption.

“Remember when I said he might be living in the same places as the old guys did?”

“Same kinds of places?”

“I’m wondering whether he’s gone back to the
identical
places where the original Sheikh lived.”

Kinkaid stared at Sami. “Could he?”

“I don’t know. I just thought of it. We should do some work to locate them, and get some imagery.”

“Where are they?”

“One is Alamut.”

“What?”

“The only one I know of for sure is Alamut. It’s a mountain fortress that is almost completely inaccessible.”

Kinkaid looked around the room wondering what everyone else was wondering. “Where is it?”