Three
Authors: William C. Oelfke
THREE
By William C. Oelfke
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by William C. Oelfke. All rights
reserved.
For Dashell, Devin, Konnor, and Kellan: the Fab Four.
Contents
Last Words
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram,
But thy name shall be Abraham;
For a father of many nations I have made of thee.
-Genesis 17:5
It was growing late for a
Washington office on a Monday, the second of June, 2014. As he put down his cell
phone, Oliver exclaimed, “Damn! I’ve been here just one week, expecting to
work quietly, recovering from the past nine months of teaching energetic
undergraduates, and now Clark wants me to go on a scavenger hunt in North
Texas!”
A distinguished professor of
History and Religion at the University of Chicago, Dr. Oliver Saxon was just
beginning his second summer as an analyst with Homeland Security Analysis and
Operations, Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). No one outside of
his immediate I&A colleagues knew of his work as a specialist in
international religions and radicalism; his University of Chicago friends and
co-workers were told he shared a position between Chicago University and
American University, there in Washington, D. C.
Last summer Oliver had worked
alone in his I&A office preparing a report on ISIS recruiting. In this
report Oliver had disclosed that the Islamic State is the first jihadist
movement to draw its recruits into what it claimed would be the final battle
before the End of Days. The ISIS leader is deriving the authority for his caliphate
from apocalyptic prophecy. He is calling on the faithful to take up arms in
order to meet and defeat the crusader army in Northern Syria on the planes of
Dabiq. This call to arms is to be the final prophetic conflict, the Armageddon
before the End of Days. Oliver had submitted this report to his director, Bob
Clark at the conclusion of this first summer.
Nine months later, prior to
Oliver’s joining Homeland Security for his second summer of work, he received a
call from Director Clark. “Oliver, your report has caused quite a stir among
the intelligence community. Our experts had not fully appreciated this aspect
of the Islamic State’s appeal to the worldwide community of Islamic faithful. They
now realize you have found a key element to the ISIS appeal. Have you presented
any of these findings in your lectures at Chicago?”
“Not yet. I thought I should
check with you first before using any of my I&A research.”
“Good. The information in
this report details an international recruitment effort. Your role in exposing
it could put you in danger of physical attack here at home.”
“Surely I’m not alone in
seeing this method of recruitment. End of Days warnings have been used for
years by preachers to bring the weak and troubled into a religious movement.”
“Never before has such a call
been used by terrorists. I’m serious Oliver; be very careful! Since last year
terrorist activity has increased worldwide and your work this summer is now
focused on a possible ISIS cell here in the United States. I need your
expertise but will pull you off this summer project if I find you are too
exposed.”
“I’ll be careful this week on
my fact finding trip to Texas.”
“Nevertheless, the scope and
potential danger of your work has changed since last summer. I’m adding a
second analyst named Maxine Phillips to work with you. She’s just returned
from close military contact with these terrorists and can give you a first-hand
account of the danger they pose.”
Oliver sat in his I&A
office wondering what danger he would face on his assignment in Texas. Never
before had his research resulted in physical risk to him. He realized he had
left the safety of his ivory tower for the danger of a hidden battlefield.
Oliver could not think of himself as a soldier, entering into combat against a
worldwide terrorist movement. He was a middle-aged bachelor with rugged
features, but this appearance belied his gentle nature and academic leanings.
Having reached the pivotal
age of forty-two, when men begin to develop a belly and high blood pressure, he
worked to maintain a healthy lifestyle. His hair showed no signs of grey and
his eyes were as bright as his smile when he interacted with his students. He
did most of his own cooking and visited the gym daily, where he jogged and lifted
weights. As a result, his students saw him as an active, alert professor whose
lectures were filled with enthusiasm, as well as interesting illustrations.
Female students rated Professor Oliver Saxon as “Hot” and all of his students
ranked his classes as the best on campus. Each lecture was filled with
adventure and humor, even though it dealt with one of the many ancient world
religions.
At the end of his
introductory lecture on Greek mythology, Oliver had his own unique way of
reminding his students to read their assignments. “When I call on you to stand
in this lecture hall and deliver your knowledge to all present, I have become
King Dionysius and you have become Damocles, occupying my throne of wisdom.
But remember, my sword of truth is hanging above your head by a thread!”
He was tough but always careful
not to insult or belittle, always motivating his students to try harder. He
brought artifacts to class and used interesting illustrations to capture the students’
attention, as well as their imaginations. Oliver was not the typical dry
lecturer; rather, he did everything to facilitate learning in, as well as
outside, the classroom. He loved the interaction with the young undergraduate
students because they always kept him on his toes and provided a youthful
perspective on the world. Although he would soon be looking for an ISIS cell
in North Texas, he realized he was a professor, not a soldier.
The spring term had just
finished at the Chicago campus and now Oliver had come to Washington to spend a
week at Homeland Security on this new project. He actually did spend time at
the American University campus, both in the library and at the gym, since the
campus was just across the street from the Homeland Security complex.
Following the 9-11 attacks, Homeland Security was founded and initially
occupied offices on the American University campus but eventually took over the
complex of government buildings across Nebraska Avenue. The environment of
this government office complex was more like a college campus than any of the
government facilities close to the center of the Capitol. Each building was
small and separated from the others by green spaces. Many offices provided
relaxing views of nearby McLean Gardens to the south east.
Oliver had an ample office at
I&A with a large window facing north, up Nebraska Avenue, toward Rock Creek
Park. His desk held his computer and was surrounded by book shelves filled
with a large assortment of religious texts covering the field of religion from
Agnosticism to Zoroastrianism. This extensive library gave the impression to
any visitor that Oliver’s desk papers might contain the beginnings of a rather
weighty Sunday sermon, or a lecture on comparative religion.
Sermon topics or lectures
were the last thoughts in the back of his mind as he stared, perplexed, at his
computer screen;
what is behind this series of conference calls between
Syria, Israel, and North Texas? What danger am I going to find in Waxahachie?
Here were the pictorial streams of encrypted communication projected on a world
map that linked possible terrorist cells together. These communication
patterns, detected by Central Intelligence as indicating a potential terrorist
attack on the U. S., usually looked like a sunburst or a spider web, with a
well-defined center from which the transmissions had their origin. This
pattern was unique because it was a triangle spread from the Western United
States to two locations in the Middle East. Central Intelligence had just
managed to deduce the general pattern of this particular stream, but was unable
to break the quantum noise encryption and listen to the conversation.
According to his I&A
director, Bob Clark, this series of calls was suspected to link together various
cells of ISIS, but the pattern not only originated from Damascus, an ISIS
stronghold in the Middle East, but also from Israel and the heartland of the
United States. The data represented a new series of three-way conference calls
that had been made over the past three months, the last one occurring last Thursday.
They were each encoded differently than earlier ISIS communication. It was
this sophisticated encoding that had alerted Central Intelligence to what could
be the initiation of a serious terrorist attack on the United States or Israel.
Oliver picked up his phone and dialed the extension of his new team partner
Maxine Phillips.
Her phone rang four times before
she picked it up, saying, somewhat sharply, “Dr. Saxon, It’s late. What’s
up?”
“Phillips, can you come here
and look at something on my screen?”
“You caught me at my door; I
was just heading to the firing range for my evening training, but ok, I have a
few minutes.”
Maxine Phillips, a bright
young field agent, now assigned to Oliver as an analyst, had a sixth sense for finding
the underlying structures of the networks of terror and international crime.
She had a graduate degree from Georgetown in International Affairs and spoke a
number of Middle Eastern languages. At age 33, her light feminine build and
soft hazel eyes gave no clue to her extensive training as an analyst, and later,
field agent during her eight years with the CIA. She had been recruited while
she was still working on her degree at Georgetown, and upon graduation entered
the hidden world of espionage at Langley.
Prior to being assigned to
this desk job at Homeland Security, Maxine had been on assignment within the
Northern Provinces of Iraq between Mosul and the Turkish border. She had been
helping determine the supply needs of the Kurdish fighters in that region. On
numerous occasions she found herself diving for cover as ISIS mortar or rocket
rounds exploded nearby. Small arms fire, along with frequent casualties, were
constant reminders of the danger she exposed herself to on this assignment. After
the death, from a sniper’s bullet, of the young American military advisor who
had been assigned as her team member, it was decided she should be withdrawn.
When she returned to the
United States after this traumatic year in the field, she was reassigned from Central
Intelligence to a position as analyst at Homeland Security headquarters. This
new position, in a quiet office in Washington D. C., was intended to give
Maxine time to recover from her battlefield exposure. However, she now felt like
she was strapped to a desk in a very dull and boring office, her nerves on
edge, her mind back in Iraq, still in a survival mode. She denied she suffered
from PTSD and worked efficiently in this new assignment, but with frequent
emotional swings, and a chip on her shoulder.
She resented working for this
academic consultant, Dr. Oliver Saxon. He was charming and interesting to be
around, despite the fact his thing was history and religion, but she did not
want to develop a close working or personal relationship with anyone right
now. She had lost a close comrade in battle, and was now struggling to regain
her emotional footing as a CIA field agent, ready to again face a combat
environment without fear. Even here in this quiet office she saw herself as a
field agent and found little adventure at a desk or staring at a computer
screen. She regularly took out her aggressions at martial arts training and on
the pistol range where she proved herself a better marksman than her
instructor. Both her instructors were intimidated by her intensity as well as
her skill.
Looking over Oliver’s
shoulder at his computer screen she quipped, “What’s that; a combination of
testimonials from the conservative elements of the three great world religions?”
He looked at her with a
puzzled expression on his face but replied, “These were broadcasted numerous
times last week: the final one on Thursday. Why’d you think of the world
religions? What’s the connection with this pattern?”
“It should be obvious to you;
you’re the religion professor; they come from the same areas where Islam,
Judaism, and Christianity are the most radical.”
Oliver was taken aback, not
just by her biting insult but also by her rapid analysis. For whatever reason,
he had suspected this connection but had brushed off his first instincts,
despite his academic credentials as a well-known expert on world religions,
because it had been tagged by Central Intelligence as an ISIS threat.
“You may be right,” he mused,
ignoring her rebuke, “but how could these people be talking to one another when
they usually kill each other on sight? What could they possibly have in
common?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this
communication is between one radical group and its moles in the other two
camps.”
Oliver leaned back in his
chair and admitted to himself that the secure, compartmentalized message from Central
Intelligence, for his eyes only, suggested just that. He had been instructed
to try to find evidence of an ISIS cell in North Texas while they worked with
Israel Intelligence to identify the Jerusalem source of communication.
Looking at Maxine he said, “There’s
something here for sure but, just like yours, my first impression was that it’s
not a link between elements of one ideology. I’m still looking for some common
thread between these three radical groups. The only thing the three extreme
ideologies have in common is Father Abraham. So for now I’ll call this cabal,
if it indeed exists, the ‘Father Abraham conspiracy,’ and try to figure out how
and why such a crystallization of opposing forces could form. What new force
could possibly emerge?”