The president sat straight up. “Ashab al-Kahf” he whispered. “The People of the Cave. It was all Haddad’s operation?”
“There are strong indications,” Evans declared.
“Then why the hell didn’t our good friends in Israel let us know about this clown years ago?” the new chief of staff demanded.
Evans took the question. “Because they only knew where he traveled, not what he may have done. They still don’t. But they read The New York Times, too. Someone must have compared the details of what occurred and what they knew. The meetings, the years, the characters matched up. One to one.”
“Weren’t we looking for a man named Abraham last year?”
“Absolutely. Our asset in Libya learned that Fadi Kharrazi had talked of an Abraham, or so we thought. We linked him to Fadi’s plans here, not knowing what they were and who this Abraham was. But it wasn’t Abraham at all. His name was Ibrahim.”
“So Ibrahim Haddad ran the sleeper operation that elected Teddy Lodge.”
“Most likely and conceivably more, Mr. President. The files the Special Forces team brought out of Libya suggested that former Soviet sleepers are quite comfortably embedded in the United States.”
“Run by Haddad?” Bernsie asked.
“Unknown. But likely.”
“But Lodge was a Libyan plant, not a Russian,” Taylor added.
“Yes, from the beginning a Muslim plot, traded from country to country, ultimately designed to end our relationship with Israel. That’s not the case with your average run-of-the mill Cold War Russian sleeper. Lodge and his friend Newman were the only real threats to come out of Libya.” He added a word of caution. “Others may have been co-opted to Haddad’s cause by money, not politics. They’re the ones that don’t show up in Ashab al-Kahf.”
“Back to Haddad,” Taylor said, rising to pour himself a cup of coffee from a porcelain pitcher embossed with the White House seal. “He hightailed it out of Dodge?”
“Yup,” Evans said, in keeping with the question.
“And you don’t think he went down in his ship.”
“Not a chance,” Evans said, pointing to a cup for himself.
Taylor knew he liked it with a touch of cream, just to lighten it up.
The chief of staff rose and threw his hands in the air. “I don’t believe it. You’ve got the fucking French Connection of politics here, and you’re taking a calm coffee break!”
“Oh, quite the opposite, Bernsie. I’m just waking up to the real worry, which we haven’t heard yet. Have we, Jack?” The president turned to his head of National Intelligence.
“You know me too well, Mr. President. There is more. After D’Angelo debriefed us on his meeting with the Mossad, I asked Bob’s boys over at the FBI to check out Haddad’s condo. Right out of Architectural Digest. Every room was designer perfect. Everything was just as he left it the night he disappeared, except for one thing.”
The NDI pointed to the president’s computer.
“There’s a nice empty place on his desk where a big old computer sat. My guess is that it’s at the bottom of the ocean, along with his very expensive yacht. That’s not good news. We would have loved to get our hands on it, because that’s where he must have done all of his correspondence.”
“Phone records. Has Mulligan checked the phone records?” Bernsie appropriately asked.
“Completely. Bessolo, the team leader the FBI sent, went through years of calls from Europe and the Middle East. So far they’re consistent with an importer/exporter. The numbers appear legit. But here’s one you’ll like: There’s a call last year from Lodge’s law office in Boston, too.”
That got everyone’s interest. Suddenly, a back channel that made an important connection.
“Bessolo picked up prints, too. Not ones that match his files. Which either means what we have are bogus, or the ones Bessolo got aren’t Haddad’s. We also have pictures and descriptions.”
“Which all means what?” Bernsie asked.
“For all intents and purposes, we believe that while our man disappeared from sight, he has not vanished from the face of the earth. Ibrahim Haddad is gone, but he could be in the U.S. under another identity — still dedicated to his original purpose.”
“Which is bringing us down.”
“Not really. I think even he realizes that’s not possible. But changing our allegiances in the Middle East? For my money, that was, is, and always will be his ultimate goal.” Evans wanted to drive the point home. “In my estimation, he’s out there, and he’s not finished.”
While this was not good news or even unexpected news, it was apparent that the combined intelligence forces were making progress.
“I don’t mean to state the obvious, Jack, but what about the bank accounts you mentioned. Is anything traceable?” Taylor wondered.
“Yes and no. Some of his money is, in fact, large transactions in the last year. Anywhere from a half a million to millions. Each closely following the date of a completed act.”
“Completed act?” This was Bernie Bernstein’s question.
“Murders, Bernsie. Mrs. Lodge. Marcus. At least two others. Probably dozens more over the years. Cash went its merry way from one foreign account into another, and eventually to God-knows-where.”
“The assassin’s account,” the president stated.
“Yes. But who and where? It’s probably all in his rusting computer at the bottom of the ocean.”
“Can’t we send the Navy to find it?” Again, Bernsie’s question.
“The Atlantic is as much as six miles deep in some places,” Evans replied. “Off Puerto Rico, they call it the trench. Maybe it’s there. Maybe he scuttled it in the Bahamas. We’ll never find it. But we can look for people who came back into the U.S. after the inauguration. People who might match Haddad’s description.”
“You think he’d return?”
“Yes, Mr. President. He’s lived in America for decades. This is where he can most effectively continue. He’s urbane, so we should be looking for him in major cities. He’s rich, so he’ll live high on the hog. He’s back here. He’s just slipped into another life. If we don’t know who he is now, we sure as hell can find out who he was. The Mossad is going to help. It’s at the top of my list.”
The president finished his coffee and looked around the room. This is where he belonged. These are the people he belonged with. He was not going to act like a caretaker. He was going to be the President of the United States. Morgan Taylor buttoned his suit jacket, and stood before his chief of staff and the nation’s intelligence director.
“Make no mistake, the election was stolen from us. Lodge was a fraud. He was elected because of the murders. Had he not been there, we would have beaten Henry.”
“Remember, Lodge wasn’t even Lodge,” Bernsie explained. “He was the sleeper who assumed Lodge’s identity.”
“So noted, Bernsie. But where was the Constitution when we needed it? There was no remedy. Post-9/11, it’s all so different. We tread on very murky legal ground. What would have happened if Lodge had been killed after the election, but before the inauguration? Lamden, too? Who would have been sworn in? Who would have succeeded me on January 20? The Speaker of the House? He’s new to his job, and only there because of the turnover in Congress. Would there have been a new election? These are unknowns, gentlemen. Today, reality resembles fiction movie plots and novels. In my mind, if we’re to be fully prepared to face the tenuous future, we must consider that everything is possible. We’ve learned that the enemy is much more patient than we are. They will wait years. Decades, if necessary. We’re an impatient people. As kids, we became bored with rock songs after a few weeks on the charts. Our children grew up with the pace of Sesame Street. Look at the cuts in commercials — two seconds or less. This is the appetite of the American viewer and the American voter, but not so in the rest of the world. Some will plot with great patience. Some will wait for opportunity. Some have a deep sense of history. They’re concerned with more — much more — than whether they’re the lead story on the news for a while. Yet we think that if our sound bites play often enough, then the world must be agreeing with us. Not so.