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.”