Scott absentmindedly looked up at the other titles in the shelves behind the desk. The Peloponnesian War, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The Encyclopedia of Military History, and John Paul Jones.
Gibbon… Scott remembered from his days at Godolphin House who was the greatest fan of Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Winston Churchill. Churchill relied upon Gibbon for his sense of phrases and credited Gibbon with teaching him the perfect English language.
In the shelf below stood Songs of America and Existence.
“A soldier who reads poetry,” Scott remarked to himself. He turned and stepped out into the great room. In the bright light of day, he realized that the large windows that flanked both sides of the stacked-stone fireplace were actually glass doors that led out onto a broad slate patio. It was a crisp, brilliantly clear day. He saw the back of a man sitting in one of the chairs.
“Good morning.”
“Well, hello, Mr. Scott.” Parker took a sip from his cup of coffee. The bright sunlight had already warmed the day to the point that Parker was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“Good God!” Scott exclaimed as he took in the view. The porch led down to a grassy knoll, brown from the early winter chill, and beyond to a cliff looking out over a broad valley forested with pointed pine trees, oaks, and hardwoods. Below, a river cut through the valley, and off to the north he saw, well in the distance, the tall stacks of a mill of some kind. The stacks produced a streak of bright white smoke, stretching across the cloudless blue sky.
“What river is that?” Scott said.
“The Chattahoochee.”
“I’ve got no bloody idea where I am.”
“Good.” Parker smiled. “Would you like coffee? Or tea?”
“Neither,” Scott said.
“What is it you want me to do?” Parker pointed to a mahogany porch chair across from his.
“That’s rather direct of you.”
Parker smiled again. “District attorneys make their living on direct.”
Scott nodded. “We have an idea as to how to get close to a key player. And I have been given license to conduct an operation that could cause serious harm to a network of very bad people. But, you must have credibility to get close.”
Parker knew what he meant when he said close. Close, as in getting near the enemy, behind their lines, and all of this alone. It could even involve being the enemy.
“Credibility to get close.” Parker laughed. “That may be the understatement of the year. So you think you have a way of getting to this target and doing him damage?”
“There is a newspaper in London called Al-Quds Al-Arabi. We know it’s followed by thousands upon thousands of Muslims in the Mideast. Several organizations follow it so as to monitor the Muslim community in Europe.” Scott squinted in the sunlight.
“So, what are you suggesting?”
“You are multilingual. You pick up languages with incredible ease.”
“I’m still lost.”
“There is a journalist named Sadik Zabara. He has a following in his home country of Bosnia. Mr. Zabara was recently offered a job at Al-Quds. Publicly he has rather radical leanings and tends to attract those with similar views.”
William Parker instantly saw the genius in the plan. “A Bosnian Muslim. A Caucasian as radical as any extremist.”
“Exactly,” Scott said.
“You said publicly… meaning that privately he thinks something else?”
“Yes.” Scott didn’t explain.
“And you’re fishing for a big fish with this bait.”
“And the big fish is nibbling. Zabara starts work at his new job in only a few days, and already he has been invited to a meeting with Yousef al-Qadi.”
“Why? Why so soon? And why would Yousef al-Qadi want the attention?” Parker leaned up in his chair.
“Radicals such as al-Qadi have never shied away from news coverage. Before September 11, bin Laden sought out ABC and NBC and every major American network. After 9/11 they have gone to more protected sources but have nevertheless continued to use the media.”
Scott had a way of staring at you as the conversation became more intense.
“Now that bin Laden is dead, a vacuum has been created. Someone will fill it.”
“Yes.”
“The media is a weapon. It’s complicated. Men like al-Qadi want to gain a following in the Muslim world. Their jihads only succeed when they have a following. But many of the countries are controlled by governments that have no intention of letting men like al-Qadi be any part of the news. So they use a back door. Al-Quds or CNN International gets to the same people.”
“That explains why their acts are so violent.”
“Exactly. It’s all about PR. They want to get on CNN. But to be on CNN, terrorists have to blow other stories off the front page.”
“So why al-Qadi and why now? And why should he trust Zabara to meet him?”
“Actually, Yousef was instrumental in getting Zabara his job.”
“Now I really don’t understand.”
“This asset has been buried for some time. It’s killing MI6 that we’ve asked for him. Zabara has been writing articles for years saying that the time of bin Laden has passed. That there is a new warrior needed to lead the jihad.”
“Enter Yousef al-Qadi.” Parker sensed the multilayered plot. “So he gets this journalist the job at a paper with a much bigger distribution to provide his own new media platform.”
“Exactly. And the time has come. Zabara has received an invitation to visit Yousef on Yousef ’s home turf. There, from deep in the Hindu Kush, he’s to conduct an extensive interview with our man.”
“When?”
“Soon. Very soon. But no date’s been set. The problem is that once the date is set, we won’t have a minute to spare.”
“But what then? And how long?”
“We have a commitment for virtually unlimited funds and time. There will only be one person above me: the deputy director of the CIA. No one else. His aide is out of the loop. His staff, their wives, are all out. No one knows. Period.”
Very much like the Korean mission, thought Parker. Including the fact that there would be no rescue wagon if things went south.
“So Zabara gets put in storage somewhere.”
“Yes, MI6 puts him in a safe place before he even gets off the airplane in London.”
“And you’re suggesting I become Mr. Zabara?”
“Yes.”
“So I get the invite and fly around the world. Let’s say I pass muster. Then what? A GBU in the right place?” A reference to the laser-guided Mk-84 bomb, which carried over two thousand pounds of explosives. The explosion would crater a football field.
“Possibly. A botch job. A quick and dirty. Maybe a bullet to the rear of the skull with something small slipped in.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure of that.” Parker had killed men in combat and knew his share of death. But this was not James Bond. One doesn’t fly in, shoot a man in his head, and then take the next international flight out of the Sherani clan’s local airport. No, this would take something far more sophisticated.
“Don’t forget that we have both Yousef and his Muslim from Grozny to reckon with. You would need to get both of them. And their tribe is more than just two. If you don’t get them all, they’ll be gone. A chased fox only goes deeper into the woods and then pops out somewhere else to hunt again.” Parker looked down at his coffee. “The fox needs to have a reason to be pulled out of his den. A strong reason.”