Rogue Empire Read online

  Soon after, the Butcher told Farah of his decision. After more than three decades of matrimony, the idea did not sit well. But she was not stupid. Realizing that she had virtually no rights under the country’s new climate of intolerance, she agreed to abide by her husband’s wishes, but with stipulations.

  The first was that she alone would share his bed, at least until such a time when she was no longer able to please him physically. The second demand was that he was not to marry anyone they knew. No one from Africa or the deserts, she had told him. The other three wives had to be imported from abroad. Otherwise, the shame would be too much to bear.

  The Butcher relented to Farah’s demands. The second and third Butcher Brides came via the commanders of rival groups, and he used the new bonds to form critical alliances. As for the fourth wife, he wanted someone more exotic. For help, he turned to his most worldly friend, the undercover CIA operative who had urged him to embrace polygamy in the first place.

  Within days, the Butcher was presented with several videos of women interested in marrying a rich man living under a strict Islamic code. Despite the terrorist leader’s extreme ideology, he was known to be obsessed with Western sports, entertainment and women. As such, they were confident that he would fall for the lovely, athletic blond Canadian. The Trojan Horse.

  In real life, Kyra Shireen Javan had been born in Dubai to Iranian refugees who had left their native country after converting to Christianity. She spent her formative years in the United Arab Emirates before the family moved to Canada, where she became a citizen and attended the University of Toronto. After graduation, she was immediately recruited into the CIA’s clandestine service as a linguist and translator.

  At the age of 24, she had imagined that the CIA would move her abroad. Somewhere that was not particularly dangerous, but was quietly simmering, like Indonesia. Instead, they had her sitting behind a desk in Washington D.C., listening to scratchy surveillance audio. It was a cage. She decided to push for a transfer to field operations.

  She never imagined that becoming a field operative would entail becoming a mail order bride for one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. Nevertheless, when the opportunity presented itself to join Guardian and do just that, she jumped.

  Thanks to her nomadic formative years, Kyra already knew what it was to be a chameleon. To be born of one world in which she had to pretend to survive, then adapt perfectly to another, and still another. But the art of betrayal was something she had to learn.

  Until recently, she had thought of herself as a spy. But she wasn’t just a spy. A female Judas was what she was. And she would gladly betray the Butcher with a kiss.

  The only difference between Judas and me, she thought, is that the Butcher is no Jesus. He is the devil.

  She dismounted the bike and bent down to pick up the hijab. It was then that she saw the white Toyota pickup truck turning onto the street. She knew that white truck all too well. It belonged to Mohy Osman. Unless she was very clever, Mohy’s white truck would be her hearse.

  Tripoli Seaport

  “The truck is speeding toward the Old City,” Ellis said over the encrypted audio connection. Carver visualized Ellis’s angular face, framed by a blond boy cut, premature feathery lines sprawling across her cheeks. The 31-year-old had racked up a lot of miles for someone so young. She had started her career as an Army medic, earning a purple heart in Iraq before transitioning to the Defense Intelligence Agency. She never stayed anywhere long. From there, she took a position at the National Intelligence Council and later, the CIA before her recruitment into Guardian.

  It was nearly midnight at the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia. Carver imagined Ellis and her team huddled before the satellite imagery as if it was a roaring bonfire.

  “How far from me now?” Carver asked her.

  “About two miles.”

  “You mentioned a white Toyota truck. Is the license plate 15-2754932?”

  “Stand by.” Ellis did not ask Carver how he had known the license plate number. His ability for total recall was well known within the team. The scientific name for Carver’s condition was hyperthymesia, better known as super-autobiographical memory. Carver was able to evoke the details of past experiences with perfect sensual clarity and run them backwards and forwards in his head.

  Carver had first seen the white Toyota during the week that Kyra and two other women had wedded the Butcher in a flurry of separate ceremonies. It had been a blustery 112-degree afternoon. As Carver observed the matrimonial caravan leave the Butcher’s compound, he accumulated sand in body parts that he never thought possible. The white truck had a vibration that sounded like a cicada. It also had ridiculously oversized tires and, welded into the truck bed, hardware indicating that a heavy gun or missile launcher had once been mounted there.

  He had then observed the truck’s owner, Mohy Osman, following the newly formed group of sister wives as they made their way through a crowded local food market for the first time. Mohy was no garden-variety jihadist. He was a muscular man with a scar below his left eye and a skunk-like streak of premature silver hair on the left side of his beard.

  Carver had planned for that day well in advance of the wedding. Because the Butcher’s family was huge – 12 biological children, four others he had adopted, and various nieces and nephews – the wives had little choice but to divide and conquer the shopping list. Those scarce minutes of freedom had been Carver’s only chance to communicate with Kyra, and was, as Carver had hypothesized, the only time going forward that she would be able to report in.

  The trick had been finding her a safe place in which to do so. The answer was found in an elderly shopkeeper who specialized in importing Japanese rice, ginger, seaweed and other goods. As the Butcher was a well-known fan of Japanese food - a taste he had been unable to quench since the revolution, at which point Japanese restaurants became just a memory - it was decided that a professional sushi chef should train Kyra prior to her arrival in Tripoli. As such, she would be able to visit the Japanese import shop alone without question, and then please the Butcher with her culinary skills.

  After losing Mohy in the winding aisles of the market, Kyra had introduced herself to the shopkeeper by asking for a rare form of sea urchin. He had then invited her into the shop’s back office to look at his “special inventory,” a ritual he would repeat again and again in the coming months as he made his ancient computer and phone available to her.

  But that first time, Carver had been waiting for her. She fell into him, hugging him so hard he could scarcely breathe.

  “How bad is he?” Carver asked.

  Kyra straightened up and composed herself, pulling the hijab off, momentarily freeing her blond locks. “The Butcher is the least of my worries. He’s rarely home. And when he is, Farah won’t let him touch me.

  “Who then?”

  “That creep who followed us here. Mohy Osman. He’s the Butcher’s second cousin and a first-rate freak. I’m telling you, the evil coming off that guy is palpable.”

  “If you’re in danger, we can still call this off. It’s not too late. We can leave together right now.”

  She immediately dismissed the offer. “No. I can do this, just like we planned. I’ll be embedded until the time is right. Then we take them all at once.”

  That had been more than seven months ago. Now they were less than an hour away from killing the Butcher of Bahrain and his top leadership. Over the past 24 hours, Carver had watched the NCC footage on his phone. The contingent of cell commanders from the Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Pakistan, Egypt and Palestine had arrived at the compound just as Kyra had said they would. They had gorged themselves on mutton and couscous and butter cookies in the inner courtyard, some of them falling asleep for the night there on the cushions around the table.

  This morning, the weekly delivery trucks had arrived just before daylight, right on schedule. The guards had opened the gates wide, and as always, the compound had fallen into joyful chaos. The
Butcher and his men gathered to inspect the crates and chat with the drivers to get news from the other territories. They would be invited inside for a leisurely breakfast, where they would be fed fried pastry dough topped with sunny-side up eggs, followed by apple spiced tea. Meanwhile, the children screamed for fruit and candy. Farah chased after them to get them ready for school.

  The weekly ritual, starting from the time the drivers entered the compound gates to the time they left, typically lasted more than two hours. Kyra had timed it over and over. She had practiced hiding within the compound to see whether her disappearance was noticed. It wasn’t. And this morning, nobody seemed to notice as Kyra slipped between the trucks with a broom, sweeping this way and that until she mounted the bike she had parked by the sand-colored walls and rode off into the orange-hued dawn.

  But now that careful planning seemed to be quickly unraveling. Carver had to make sure Kyra’s months of sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain.

  Ellis voice crackled to life in the phone. “We’re zooming in on the truck. Okay, I can see it now. Affirmative on that plate. The number is 15-2754932.”

  Carver nodded and told Ellis what he had already been certain of. That the truck belonged to Mohy Osman, and that he had discovered Kyra’s absence.

  He muted the phone and turned to Aldo, who was peeling off a layer of clothing as the morning sun warmed the boat. “Get ready. This could get bumpy.”

  With the phone still pressed to his ear, Carver stepped off the deck and walked up the marina toward a supplies shed, where Aldo had stashed an AK-47 and a motorbike for him. He left the rifle behind, considering it too conspicuous. While the sight of heavily armed men walking the streets of the capital was common, they traveled in groups and were members of organized militias. A lone traveler with an assault rifle would stand out. Besides, he wasn’t completely unarmed. As usual, his trusty 9MM SIG Sauer was tucked into his ankle holster.

  As for the bike, the tires were nearly bald, but it would do. He rolled the old Yamaha out onto the pavement and started it up. The motor growled.

  “What was that?” came Ellis’s voice in his ear.

  “I’m going in after her.”

  “Negative. Let’s discuss options.”

  But Carver knew there was no time for chitchat. It was now or never.

  The Old City

  Kyra’s body thrummed with dread. The bike pulled left and right with each pump of the pedals. She had lost sight of the objective. Her only thought now was Mohy.

  Mohy’s white truck was something of a legend among the Butcher’s inner circle, many of whom had fought alongside him during the Arab Spring. It had a reputation for speed despite a smoky engine and visible war wounds, including a dozen bullet holes in the rear fender. Once, Mohy showed her a photo of a freakishly large artillery cannon mounted in the truck bed. “My truck killed so many,” he had said with pride and genuine amazement.

  Now Kyra entered an intersection and jerked the handlebars left, narrowly missing a group of children. She heard them yell, pointing at the mane of blond hair now flowing freely behind her. She looked over her shoulder. The truck veered around a group of men and onto the sidewalk. The front bumper clipped a pastry cart, flinging it to the curb like a toy. Then the truck plowed into a fruit cart that had just been set up for the day. Hundreds of oranges catapulted into the air.

  And yet the truck kept coming. An unstoppable force.

  Kyra turned west. The old thoroughfare was nearly empty. There were no obstacles. And soon the truck’s rattletrap engine roared just behind her. Louder than the adhan, even. Louder than her own panting.

  As the truck bumper came alongside her wheels, she glimpsed Mohy’s glare through the window. The window was down, but he did not yell. He didn’t need to. Kyra was sure she already knew what he was thinking. I’m going to punish you. I’m going to make you scream.

  An alley opened up to the right that was far too narrow to accommodate a vehicle. She cornered and pumped the bike into it, unsure of what she would find on the other end. It was mercifully empty at this time in the morning, and as she traveled toward the light at the other end, she realized that it was not a street, but rather, a specialty market where she and the other wives came perhaps once a month. She swerved, nearly clipping a vendor pulling a red wagon full of pistachios. This was the rear entrance, she realized. Maybe she still had a chance.

  She imagined Carver waiting at the marina for her. If only she could call him now. She had left her phone at the compound so that she could not be tracked, and due to the Butcher’s regular security sweeps at the compound, she had considered stashing a burner phone far too risky.

  Now Kyra dismounted the bike and tied the hijab over her hair. Inside, the market was not yet bustling. Most of the stalls were only now being set up for the day. It would be difficult to hide until the crowds came in an hour or so.

  She decided to abandon the bike. She ran up a stairwell, racking her brain for a way out. She imagined Mohy had parked by now. Would he call the others to come looking for her on foot?

  Something told her that he wouldn’t, and the thought of that was even more frightening. Farah had once said that Mohy kept a jewelry box full of souvenirs from the women he had killed for disobeying Allah. At the time, Kyra had thought it was just a lie to keep her in line. But now she believed it with all her heart.

  Through a break in the ceiling, she caught sight of a minaret. It was attached to an old mosque from the Ottoman era that was rumored to have a separate entrance for women. If it was full, perhaps it would be a good place to hide. If Mohy had decided she was an unrighteous whore, then a house of worship would be the last place he would look for her.

  Coastal Tripoli

  Carver navigated the motorbike onto Al Shat road, which - to Carver’s great amusement - came out as I’ll shit in Ellis’s mild southern twang. The parkway ran along the edge of the city. The marina was to his right, and beyond that, the Mediterranean. The relative safety of Sicily was a mere 300 miles across it.

  Ellis was still in his ear, and her message now was unambiguous: “Turn back.”

  “That’s not going to happen. Now tell me where Kyra is.”

  “We’re off script,” Ellis replied, which was shorthand for an operation where the cover of the primary operative had been blown. And that meant just one thing – Ellis wanted to cut her losses by striking the compound now.

  “That’s speculation. If we were off script, more people would be exiting the target area. There’s one maniac chasing her. One.”

  “The decision has been made. We hit now, before we lose our opportunity.”

  What Carver wanted to say next was something that should never be said over open communication lines. He hoped Guardian’s latest call encryption technology was solid, because he needed to invigorate whatever humanity might be left in Ellis’s cynical soul.

  “There are kids in that compound,” he said. “They leave for school in 30 minutes.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. Turn back.”

  At times like this, Carver wondered if he had ever really known Ellis at all. Last year she had suffered a head trauma in the line of duty so severe that she didn’t know her own name for days. Months of therapy had eventually resulted in a clearance for active duty, but Ellis was different now. Altered.

  And there were kids in that compound. Carver didn’t have children of his own yet, but he was an uncle to two young boys in Arizona for whom he had already started college funds. The rare moments he had spent with them were pure magic. In Carver’s mind, the only thing separating the Western world from the jihadists’ was the commitment to protecting innocent life. All innocent life.

  “Is Julian in the room?” he said. “I need to hear it from him.”

  Julian Speers, the Director of National Intelligence, was a good man. He had two kids of his own. But with 16 intelligence agencies reporting to him, plus Guardian, he couldn’t be everywhere at once.

  “Negative,” Elli
s replied. “Your orders stand.”

  “Then put me on the room mic. I want everyone to be accountable for this decision.”

  “Carver – ”

  “Our operative is going to be caught and tortured, spilling so many operational details that we’ll never replicate a mission like this again. Then he’ll rape her. He’ll cut her head off and put the video on the Internet. That’s all going to be on you, plus the murder of a dozen or more kids.”

  There was a click, then silence on the other end. He hoped that was a sign that Ellis was conferring with the others. Al Shat road stretched out before him. Carver could see the old city now. Kyra was close. He could feel it.

  Seventy-three seconds later, Ellis returned to convey the verdict: “You have 29 minutes.”

  The Old City

  The mosque’s magnificent domes were intricately carved with floral motifs. It was a truly astounding architectural achievement, built during the Ottoman Empire’s nearly four-century occupation, which had never failed to inspire. On the floor beneath, 60 women moved in carefully choreographed movements. Their prayers were drowned out by what was bound to be hundreds of men worshipping on the other side of the enormous partition separating the two sexes. She had always found the deep reverberation of their collective incantations oddly stimulating.

  Her lips moved in sync with those of the women around her, but no sound escaped them. Over the past several months she had become quite skilled at appearing to venerate Allah while mentally praying to the God she had grown up with.

  Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.