Trapping Zero

The old man had seen personally to their survival, spending his own fortune in service of the perpetuation of their ideology. But now, bin Mohammed was dead.

Awad stood stoically beside the slab that held the old man’s ashen corpse. Bin Mohammed’s four wives had already given ghusl, washing his body three times before shrouding him in white. His eyes were closed peacefully, his hands crossed on his chest, right over left. There was not a mark or scratch on him; for the last six years he had lived and died in the compound, not outside its walls. He had not been killed by mortar fire or drone strikes as so many other mujahideen had.

“How?” Awad asked in Arabic. “How did he die?”

“He had a seizure in the night,” said Tarek. The shorter man stood on the opposite side of the stone slab, facing Awad. Many in the Brotherhood considered Tarek to be the second in command to bin Mohammed, but Awad knew his capacity had been little more than messenger and caretaker as the old man’s health declined. “The seizure brought on a heart attack. It was instant; he did not suffer.”

Awad laid a hand on the old man’s unmoving chest. Bin Mohammed had taught him much, not only of belief but also of the world, its many plights, and what it meant to lead.

And he, Awad, saw before him not just a corpse but an opportunity. Three nights earlier Allah had gifted him with a dream, though now it was difficult to call it just that. It was prognostic. In it he saw bin Mohammed’s death, and a voice told him that he would rise up and lead the Brotherhood. The voice, he was certain, had belonged to the Prophet, speaking on behalf of the One True God.

“Hassan is on a munitions raid,” Tarek said quietly. “He does not yet know that his father has passed. He returns today; soon he will know the mantle of leading the Brotherhood falls to him—”

“Hassan is weak,” Awad said suddenly, more harshly than he intended. “As bin Mohammed’s health declined, Hassan did nothing to keep us from weakening commensurately.”

“But…” Tarek hesitated; he was well aware of Awad’s flaring temper. “The duties of leadership fall to the eldest son—”

“This is not a dynasty,” Awad contended.

“Then who…?” Tarek trailed off as he realized what Awad was suggesting.

The younger man narrowed his eyes but said nothing. He did not need to; a glare was more than enough of a threat. Awad was young, not yet even thirty, but he was tall and strong, his jaw as rigid and unyielding as his belief. Few would speak against him.

“Bin Mohammed wanted me to lead,” Awad told Tarek. “He said so himself.” That was not entirely true; the old man had said on several occasions that he saw the potential for greatness in Awad, and that he was a natural leader of men. Awad interpreted the statements as a declaration of the old man’s intentions.

“He said nothing of the sort to me,” Tarek dared to say, however quietly he uttered it. His gaze was cast downward, not meeting Awad’s dark eyes.

“Because he knew you are weak as well,” Awad challenged. “Tell me, Tarek, how long has it been since you ventured outside these walls? How long have you lived off the charity and safety of bin Mohammed, unconcerned with bullets and bombs?” Awad leaned forward, over the old man’s body, as he quietly added, “How long do you think you would last with only the clothes on your back when I take power and cast you out?”

Tarek’s lower lip moved, but no sound escaped his throat. Awad smirked; the short, jowled Tarek was afraid.

“Go on,” Awad prodded. “Speak your mind.”

“How long…” Tarek gulped. “How long do you think you will last within these walls without the funding of Hassan bin Abdallah? We will be in the same position. Just different places.”

Awad grinned. “Yes. You are astute, Tarek. But I have a solution.” He leaned over the slab and lowered his voice. “Corroborate my claim.”

Tarek looked up sharply, surprised by Awad’s words.

“Tell them you heard what I heard,” he continued. “Tell them that Abdallah bin Mohammed named me leader in the wake of his passing, and I swear that you will always have a place in the Brotherhood. We will reclaim our strength. We will make our name known. And the will of Allah, peace be upon Him, will be done.”

Before Tarek could reply, a sentry shouted across the courtyard. Two men heaved open the heavy iron gates just in time for two trucks to rumble through, the treads of their tires thick with wet sand and mud from recent rain.

Eight men emerged—all that had left had returned—but even from his vantage point Awad could tell that the raid had gone poorly. There were no munitions gained.

Of the eight, one stepped forward, his eyes wide in shock as he stared at the stone slab between Awad and Tarek. Hassan bin Abdallah bin Mohammed was thirty-four years old, but he still had the gaunt aspect of a teenager, his cheeks shallow and his beard patchy.

A soft moan escaped Hassan’s lips as he recognized the figure lying still on the slab. He ran to it, his shoes kicking up sand behind him. Awad and Tarek stepped back, giving him space as Hassan flung himself over the body of his father and sobbed loudly.

Weak. Awad sneered at the scene before him. Taking over the Brotherhood will be easy.

That evening in the courtyard, the Brotherhood performed the Salat-al-Janazah, the funeral prayers for Abdallah bin Mohammed. Each person present knelt in three rows facing Mecca, with his son Hassan closest to his body and his wives tailing the end of the third row.

Awad knew that immediately following the rites, the body would be interred; Muslim tradition dictated that a body be buried as soon as possible following death. He was the first to rise from prayer, and he summoned his most fervent voice as he spoke. “My brothers,” he began. “It is with great sorrow that we commit Abdallah bin Mohammed to the earth.”

All eyes turned his way, some in confusion at his sudden disruption, but no one rose or spoke against him.

“Six years have passed since the hypocrisy of Hamas saw us exiled from Gaza,” Awad continued. “Six years we have been banished to the desert, living off the charity of bin Mohammed, scavenging and raiding what we can. Six years now we have lived a lie and dwelled in the shadows of Hamas. Of Al-Qaeda. Of ISIS. Of Amun.”

He paused as he met each pair of eyes in turn. “No more. No more will the Brotherhood hide. I have devised a plan and before Abdallah’s death, I detailed my plan to him and received his blessing. We, brothers, will enact this plan and assert our faith. We will perish the heretics, and the entire world will know the Brotherhood. I promise you.”

Many, even most heads nodded in the courtyard. One man stood up, a tough and somewhat cynical brother called Usama. “And what is this plan, Awad?” he asked, his voice challenging. “What great plot do you have in mind?”

Awad smiled. “We are going to orchestrate the most holy jihad ever committed on American soil. One that will make Al-Qaeda’s attack on New York fruitless.”

“How?” Usama demanded. “How will we accomplish this?”

“All will be revealed,” Awad said patiently. “But not this night. This is an evening for reverence.”

Awad did have a plan. It was one that had been building in his mind for some time now. He knew it was possible; he had spoken with the Libyan, and had learned of the Israeli journalists, and of the congressional attaché from New York who would soon be in Baghdad. It was serendipitous, the way in which everything had seemed to fallen in place—including the death of Abdallah. Awad had even gone so far as to broker a preliminary agreement with the arms dealer who had access to the necessary equipment for the attack on the US city, but he had lied about sharing it with Abdallah. The old man was a leader, a friend and a benefactor to the Brotherhood—and for that Awad was grateful—but he never would have agreed to it. It required substantial funding, resources that could threaten to bankrupt their resources if it went awry.

And because of that requirement, Awad knew he would have to ingratiate himself to Hassan bin Abdallah. The duty of burial usually fell to the closest male kin, but Awad could hardly imagine Hassan’s thin, lanky arms managing to dig a hole deep enough. Besides, helping Hassan would give them an opportunity to bond—and to discuss Awad’s plans.

“Brother Hassan,” said Awad. “I hope that you will honor me by allowing me to help you bury Abdallah.”

The anemic Hassan gazed back at him and nodded once. Awad could see in the young man’s eyes that he was petrified at the thought of leading the Brotherhood. The two of them broke rank from the three prayer lines to retrieve shovels.

Once they were out of earshot of the others, bathed in the moonlight of the open courtyard, Hassan cleared his throat and asked, “What is this plan of yours, Awad?”

Awad bin Saddam held back a grin. “It begins,” he said, “with the kidnapping of three men, tomorrow, not far from here. It ends with a direct attack on the city of New York.” He paused and put a heavy hand on Hassan’s shoulder. “But I cannot orchestrate this alone. I need your help, Hassan.”

Hassan’s throat flexed, and he nodded.

“I promise you,” said Awad, “that sin-ravaged nation of greedy apostates will suffer incalculable loss. The Brotherhood will at last be recognized as a force of Islam.”

And, he kept to himself, the name Awad bin Saddam will find its place in history.

CHAPTER TWO

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November,” said Professor Lawson as he paced before a classroom of forty-seven students in Healy Hall of Georgetown University. “What does that mean?”

“That you don’t realize it’s only April?” joked a brown-haired kid in the first row.

A few students chuckled. Reid grinned; this was his element, the classroom, and it felt very good to be back. Almost like things were back to normal. “Not quite. That’s actually the first line of a poem that commemorates an important event—or a near-event, if you will—in English history. November fifth, anybody?”

A young brunette woman a few rows back politely raised her hand and offered, “Guy Fawkes Day?”

“Yes, thank you.” Reid glanced quickly at his watch. It had become a habit recently, almost an idiosyncratic tic to check the digital display for updates. “Uh, though it’s not celebrated quite as widely as it once was, November fifth marks the day of a failed assassination plot. You’ve all heard the name Guy Fawkes, I’m sure.”

Heads nodded and murmurs of assent rose from the classroom.

“Good. So in 1605, Fawkes and twelve other co-conspirators devised a plan to blow up the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament, during an assembly. But the members of the House of Lords were not their real target; their goal was to assassinate King James I, who was Protestant. Fawkes and his pals wanted to restore a Catholic monarch to the throne.”

He glanced at his watch again. He didn’t even mean to; it was reflexive.

“Um…” Reid cleared his throat. “Their plan was quite simple. Over the course of some months, they stowed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in an undercroft—that’s basically a wine cellar—directly under Parliament. Fawkes was the trigger man; he was to light a long fuse and then run like hell to the Thames.”

“Like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon,” said the comedian in the front.

“Pretty much,” Reid agreed. “Which is also why their assassination attempt is known as the Gunpowder Plot today. But they never did get to light the fuse. Someone tipped off a member of the House of Lords anonymously, and the undercrofts were searched. The gunpowder and Fawkes were discovered…”

He glanced at his watch. It showed nothing but the time.

“And, uh…” Reid chuckled softly at himself. “Sorry, folks, I’m just a little distracted today. Fawkes was discovered, but he refused to give up his co-conspirators—at first. He was sent to the Tower of London, and for three days he was tortured…”

A vision flashed suddenly through his mind; not a vision so much as a memory, intrusively elbowing and shoving its way into his head at the mention of torture.

A CIA black site in Morocco. Code name H-6. Known to most by its alias—Hell-Six.

A captive Iranian is bound to a table on a slight incline. He has a hood over his head. You press a towel over his face.

Reid shuddered as a chill ran down his spine. The memory was one he’d had before. In his other life as CIA Agent Kent Steele, he had performed “interrogation techniques” on captured terrorists for information. That’s what the agency called them—techniques. Things like waterboarding and thumbscrews and tugging off fingernails.

But they weren’t techniques. It was torture, plain and simple. Not unlike Guy Fawkes in the Tower of London.

You don’t do that anymore, he reminded himself. That’s not who you are.

He cleared his throat again. “For three days he was, uh, interrogated. Eventually he gave up the names of six others and all of them were sentenced to death. The plot to blow up Parliament and King James I from underground was thwarted, and the fifth of November became a day to celebrate the failed assassination attempt…”

A hood over his head. A towel over his face.

Water, pouring. Not stopping. The captive thrashes so hard he breaks his own arm.

“Tell me the truth!”

“Professor Lawson?” It was the brown-haired kid in the front row. He was staring at Reid—they all were. Did I just say that out loud? He didn’t think he had, but the memory had forced its way into his brain and possibly all the way to his mouth. All eyes were on him, some students murmuring to each other as he stood there awkwardly and his face reddened.

He glanced at his watch for the fourth time in less than as many minutes.

“Uh, sorry,” he chuckled nervously. “Looks like that’s about all the time we have today. I want you all to read up on Fawkes and the motivations behind the Gunpowder Plot, and on Monday we’ll pick up with the rest of the Protestant Reformation and start in on the Thirty Years’ War.”

The lecture hall filled with the sounds of shuffling and rustling as students gathered their books and bags and began filing out of the classroom. Reid rubbed his forehead; he felt a headache coming on, which was growing more and more frequent these days.

The memory of the tortured dissident lingered like a heavy fog. That too had been happening more often lately; few new memories had returned to him, but those that had been restored previously came back stronger, more visceral. Like déjà vu, except he knew that he had been there. It wasn’t just a feeling; he had done all of those things and then some.

“Professor Lawson.” Reid looked up sharply, jarred from his thoughts as a young blonde woman approached him, slinging a bag over her shoulder. “You got a date tonight or something?”

“Sorry?” Reid frowned, thrown by the question.

The young woman smiled. “I noticed you were looking at your watch like every thirty seconds. Figured you must have a hot date tonight.”

Reid forced a smile. “No, nothing like that. Just, uh, looking forward to the weekend.”

She nodded appreciably. “Me too. Have a good one, Professor.” She turned to head out of the classroom but paused, threw a glance over her shoulder and asked, “Would you like to sometime?”

“Sorry?” he asked dimly.

“Have a date. With me.”

Reid blinked, stunned into silence. “I, uh…”

“Think about it.” She smiled again and walked off.

He stood there for a long moment, trying to process what had just happened. Any memories of torture or black sites that might have been lingering were shoved away by the unexpected request. He knew the student fairly well; she had met with him a few times during his office hours to review coursework. Her name was Karen; she was twenty-three and one of the brightest in his class. She’d taken a couple years off after high school before going to college and traveled, mostly around Europe.

He nearly smacked himself in the forehead with the sudden realization that he knew more than he should about the young woman. Those office visits hadn’t been for assignment help; she had a crush on the professor. And she was undeniably beautiful, if Reid allowed himself for even a moment to think like that—which usually he did not, having long since grown adept at compartmentalizing the physical and mental attributes of his students and focusing on education.

But the girl, Karen, was very attractive, blonde-haired and green-eyed, slender but athletic, and…

“Oh,” he said aloud to the empty classroom.

She reminded him of Maria.

It had been four weeks since Reid and his girls had returned from Eastern Europe. Two days later Maria had been sent off on another op, and despite his texts and calls to her personal cell, he hadn’t heard from her since. He wondered where she was, if she was okay… and if she still felt the same way about him. Their relationship had grown so complex that it was hard to say where they stood. A friendship that had very nearly turned romantic became temporarily soured by distrust and, eventually, to alienated allies on the wrong side of a government cover-up.

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on how Maria felt about him. He had vowed to return to the conspiracy, to try to discover more of what he knew back then, but with returning to teaching, his new position in the agency, and taking care of his girls he hardly had the time to think about it.

Reid sighed and checked his watch again. Recently he had splurged and purchased a smart-watch that linked to his cell phone via Bluetooth. Even when his phone was in his desk or in another room he would still be alerted to text messages or calls. And looking at it frequently had become as instinctive as blinking. As compulsive as scratching an itch.

He had sent Maya a text right before the lecture started. Usually his texts were seemingly innocuous questions, like “What do you want for dinner?” or “Do you need me to pick anything up on the way home?” But Maya wasn’t dumb; she knew that he was checking in on them, no matter how he tried to present it. Especially since he tended to send a message or make a call every hour or so.

He was smart enough to recognize what this was. The neurosis about his girls’ safety, his compulsion to check in and the subsequent anxiety waiting for a response; even the strength and impact of the flashbacks he endured. Whether he was willing to admit it or not, all signs pointed toward some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder from the ordeals he had gone through.

Still, his challenge to overcome the trauma, his road to return to a life that resembled normalcy and trying to conquer the angst and consternation of what had happened was nothing compared to what his two teenage daughters were going through.

CHAPTER THREE

Reid unlocked the door to their home in the suburbs of Alexandria, Virginia, balancing a pizza box on the flat of his palm, and punched the six-digit alarm code into the panel near the front door. He had upgraded the system just a few weeks earlier. This new one would send an emergency alert to both 911 and the CIA if the code wasn’t properly entered within thirty seconds of any point of egress opening.

It was one of several precautions that Reid had taken ever since the incident. There were cameras now, three of them in all; one mounted over the garage and directed towards the driveway and front door, another hidden in the floodlight over the back door, and a third outside the panic room door in the basement, all of which were on a twenty-four hour recording loop. He had changed every single lock in the house as well; their former neighbor, the now-deceased Mr. Thompson, had a key to their front and back doors and his keys were taken when the assassin Rais stole his truck.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, was the tracking device implanted in each of his daughters. Neither of them was aware of it, but both had been given an injection under the guise of a flu shot that implanted a subcutaneous GPS tracker, small than a grain of rice, in their upper arms. No matter where they were in the world, a satellite would know it. It had been Agent Strickland’s idea, and Reid agreed without question. Most bizarre was that despite the high cost of outfitting two civilians with CIA tech, Deputy Director Cartwright signed off on it seemingly without a second thought.

Reid entered the kitchen and found Maya lying in the adjacent living room, watching a movie on TV. She lounged on her side on the sofa, still in her pajamas, with both legs hanging off the far end.

“Hey.” Reid set the pizza box on the counter and shrugged out of his tweed jacket. “I texted you. You didn’t answer.”

“Phone’s upstairs charging,” Maya said lazily.

“It can’t be charging down here?” he asked pointedly.

She merely shrugged in return.

“Where’s your sister?”

“Upstairs,” she yawned. “I think.”

Reid sighed. “Maya—”

“She’s upstairs, Dad. Jeez.”

As much as he wanted to scold her for her petulant attitude of late, Reid held his tongue. He still didn’t know the full extent of what either of them had gone through during the incident. That was how he referred to it in his mind—as “the incident.” It was a suggestion from Sara’s psychologist that he give it a name, a way for them to reference the events in conversation, although he’d never actually said it aloud.

The truth was that they barely talked about it.

He knew from the hospital reports, both in Poland and a secondary assessment stateside, that while both of his daughters had sustained minor injuries neither of them had been raped. Yet he had seen firsthand what had happened to some of the other trafficked victims. He wasn’t sure he was ready to know the details of the horrific ordeal they had experienced because of him.

Reid headed upstairs and paused for a moment outside of Sara’s bedroom. The door was ajar a few inches; he peered in and saw her lying on top of her blankets, facing the wall. Her right arm rested on her thigh, still wrapped in a beige cast from the elbow down. Tomorrow she had an appointment with the doctor to see if the cast was ready to come off.

Reid pushed the door open gently, but still it squeaked on its hinges. Sara, however, did not stir.

“You asleep?” he asked softly.

“No,” she murmured.

“I, um… I brought a pizza home.”

“Not hungry,” she said flatly.

She hadn’t been eating much since the incident; in fact, Reid had to constantly remind her to drink water, or else she would hardly consume anything. He understood the difficulties of surviving trauma better than most, but this felt different. More severe.

The psychologist Sara had been seeing, Dr. Branson, was a patient and compassionate woman who came highly recommended and CIA-certified. Yet according to her reports, Sara spoke little during their therapy sessions and answered questions with as few words as possible.

He sat on the edge of her bed and brushed the hair away from her forehead. She flinched slightly at his touch.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

“I just want to be alone,” she murmured.

He sighed and rose from the bed. “I understand,” he said empathetically. “Even so, I’d really like it if you came down and sat with us, as a family. Maybe try to eat a few bites.”

She didn’t say anything in response.

Reid sighed again as he headed back downstairs. Sara was clearly traumatized; she was much harder to get through to than even before, back in February when the girls had had a run-in with two members of the terrorist organization Amun on a New Jersey boardwalk. He’d thought it was bad then, but now his youngest daughter was downright joyless, often sleeping or lying in bed and staring at nothing in particular. Even when she was there physically it felt like she was hardly really there.

In Croatia, and Slovakia, and Poland, all he’d wanted was to have his girls back. Now that he had safely returned them home, all he wanted was to have his girls back—though in a much different capacity. He wanted things to be the way they were before all of this.

In the dining room, Maya was setting out three paper plates and cups around the table. He watched as she poured herself some soda, took a slice of pepperoni from the box, and bit off the tip.