Enemy In the Room (5 page)

“But I think we should…”

He raised a hand. “He’ll be fine. Trust me.
I was his age once.”

She started to say more, but David picked up
his iced tea and headed for the den. She shook her head and put
down another knife.

That evening around a conference table in a
private school’s boardroom in Detroit, twelve men were reviewing
spreadsheets that showed their foundation’s progress for the year.
The meeting was led by Rahim Tahymouri and Amir Ali, the co-chairs
of the charitable organization.

Rahim guided the men’s eyes across the
report. “As you will see, moving from left to right across the
headings, we have figures for the total number of cities where we
have Community Organizers, Candidates, Elections Within a Year,
Elected Officials, Community Centers, and Schools. And the change
in each category since last month.”

The men nodded and spoke among
themselves.

Amir continued. “The results are better than
we expected. Allah is to be praised, and you are to be
congratulated. Our budgets for campaign spending and teachers have
tripled in the past year, but for good reasons. So far every
candidate we have supported has won. Within an average of two years
after each election, we have had a Community Center or School up
and running, with dedicated teachers in place, spreading Allah’s
truth and starting the cycle again.”

One of the men asked, “Will we have the
funds to pay for this growth?”

Rahim answered. “Of course our local
collections are important to insure the community’s involvement,
but our special sources have assured us that there are unlimited
funds available—it is up to us to create the opportunities.”

“And so, gentlemen,” Amir added, “please
turn the page to the list of cities where we hope to plant a new
mosque by the end of the year.”

SUNDAY, APRIL 3RD

Sunday evening Kristen Holloway was in blue
jeans and a white shirt, alone in the breakfast room of her high
rise apartment. There were windows on two sides. The container from
her low carb dinner was perched on one corner of the table;
Tchaikovsky’s
Serenade
played quietly from the living room,
where the off white walls contrasted with the many potted plants
and several original impressionist paintings. “Better to own a few
good things than a lot of junk,” her mom had always said.

With a pencil behind one ear and a
calculator nearby, she was working on her taxes. When the phone
rang, her Caller ID displayed a number that she hadn’t seen for a
long time.

“Kristen. Hi. It’s Richard Sullivan.”

“Hey. How are you?” She turned in her chair
to look at the sunset.

“We’re fine. Susan is out of college and
both she and Tommy are doing well. People in general are still
occasionally unhappy with each other, so my legal business is busy.
Janet is seeing some results in the legislation they’re passing, so
she’s certainly happy.”

“I think her class in Congress has done a
great job.”

Janet Sullivan’s background had been in
television, but several years earlier she had run for and been
elected to Congress as part of former President Harrison’s call for
a return to traditional values and conservative economics. Those
same values were the basis for President Susan Harper’s victory and
Janet’s re-election the previous fall. Janet commuted to Washington
while Richard remained a partner in his law firm.

“Well, it’s all thanks to our last two
presidents. They haven’t been afraid to take a stand. But how are
you?”

“I’m fine. USNet keeps expanding, so there’s
lots of work for us real estate types. I’m going to Asia next
week.”

“Sounds glamorous for a cowgirl from
Texas.”

She smiled. “It just
sounds
that way.
On about the second fourteen-hour plane trip, it turns into a
job.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Richard
spoke. “Kristen, the reason I’m calling is that Janet and I have
been dealing with a phone call I got this afternoon. I have no idea
who it was. He said he knew about our relationship and that I
should persuade Janet to vote against Harper’s media reform
bill.”

“Richard, what information could he have?
That was years ago.”

“I’m not sure. Somehow he knew details that
only you or I could have known. It was pretty graphic.”

Kristen’s voice rose, and she pointed with
the pencil. “Richard, I haven’t told anyone about our affair. Ever.
Except Janet, with you.”

“I know. I’m not sure how he got the
information. But I had to call you in case you get a call.
too.”

“No one has called me. What are you going to
do?”

“Nothing. He may think that he can blackmail
me. But he apparently doesn’t know that you, Janet and I met years
ago, that she forgave us, and that we’ve all moved on. And that I
want the media bill to pass as much as Janet.”

After a pause, he continued, “But they may
make what we did public just to try to discredit Janet for her
values, and by association, the President. So we may all get a lot
of unpleasant attention.”

Kristen put down the pencil and rested her
forehead in her hand, “Whoa. I thought this was over long ago.”

“Me, too. But somehow it’s not.”

She sighed. “However unpleasant it may be
for me, I know it will be much worse for you and Janet. And the
kids. I’m sorry.”

“He said that they have tapes of us talking
on the phone.”

“Tapes? From years ago?”

“Yes. I don’t know how or when.”

“I hope it’s not true.”

There was a silence. Then Richard said,
“It’s another reason to be glad, after God intervened in our lives,
that we met and asked for Janet’s forgiveness. She is an amazing
woman. I truly believe that she never thinks about it. I guess
we’ll just have to trust and see what happens.”

“Yes.”

“Call me if you hear anything, and I’ll do
the same.”

Late that same evening USNet’s CEO, Trevor
Knox, was back in his penthouse apartment after finishing a dinner
with a European banker. Walking the short distance to his office,
he said a silent prayer and unlocked the special computer embedded
in his desk.

He noted that Simon North had already set a
meeting with NovySvet Aerospace outside Moscow. And there were
three stocks to buy in bulk, plus two recommended to sell.

When he finished the summary, he typed an
encoded email to Akbar Kamali and Victor Mustafin, the leaders of
his RTI team.

Kamali and Mustafin were the only
individuals in the U.S. who knew that Trevor was a key leader in
the worldwide force to impose the rule of Islam across the globe.
This goal was the ultimate use for RTI’s information and income.
And only the three of them worked on RTI’s most secure Special
Operations projects.

Akbar Kamali, an Iranian, had been a veteran
with the Shah’s secret police, the Savak, before finding true faith
at the time of Khomeini’s revolution in 1979. Trevor had asked an
old friend from their early university days in London, Saeed Zeini,
a rising star in Khomeni’s radical ruling circle, to make sure of
Kamali’s conversion. Given his English skills, Kamali was a natural
choice to bring to the United States once Trevor had gained control
of USNet.

The following year Trevor recruited Victor
Mustafin, a Kazakh, whom he knew through mutual contacts in the
Muslim Brotherhood. During Soviet times future leaders in
Kazakhstan were trained in Moscow and therefore spoke fluent
Russian. Victor’s father had provided that opportunity, but his
mother made certain that his first love was always her native
country and their one true faith.

Together, given their complementary skills
and contacts, Kamali and Mustafin, a Shi’a and a Sunni, made a
formidable team to utilize the unique information gathered through
RTI’s intercepts, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Trevor finished his messages, sat back,
and smiled.
Allah is great! Thank you for all the French cities
now governed de facto by Sharia Law. Thank you that there are more
of us in English mosques than there are Anglicans in English
churches
.

Thank you for these dithering Americans,
their constant political bickering, and their indecision. Now that
our brothers in Iran have the nuclear bomb, we can apply pressure
in ways that were impossible only a year ago. Who will dare stand
up to us? A church bombing one week, an election win the next, a
mosque zoning victory, and yet we are always portrayed as victims
of discrimination, at least on USNet. Trevor smiled.
Now is the
time to create chaos in their governments and to put Brothers in
power at every possible level. Our ultimate victory may be a few
decades away, but it is coming, and now is the time to make a great
advance. Our own people don’t understand what we are doing—but one
day they will find themselves in power— because of us
.

He glanced up at the city’s lights, shining
for miles.
And RTI provides the information and the funds to
make it even easier
. He remembered his first small office at
Knox Communications, where he worked for his uncle after arriving
in America from London, over forty years before. There had not been
a single window. And then the day, years later, when he had fallen
out with his cousin, Ellis.

Trevor recalled that the split had actually
been on the same day, over twenty years ago, that he had hired
David Sawyer, an American with Iranian parents and a nominal Muslim
background, to run their small real estate group. He had been
impressed with Sawyer’s experience in negotiating cell tower sites,
and felt comfortable with his family’s heritage.

After walking Sawyer to the reception area,
Trevor had climbed the stairs back to his office, which was once a
corner bedroom in the old Victorian house that Knox Communications
had occupied for years. From there he and his cousin Ellis had
operated the radio stations that they inherited from Ellis’s
father.

Through the open door of his own office, he
saw Ellis standing over his neatly organized desk, looking through
several stacks of daily reports. Before Trevor could speak, his
cousin started toward him, waving a handful of papers.

“Trevor, I told you to stop doing this!”

His face turning red, Trevor closed the door
and met Ellis in the middle of the room. “Why? No one ever said the
phones are secure. They’re open! We learn some incredible stuff.”
He nodded at the reports and transcripts in his cousin’s hand.

Ellis, slightly taller and three years
older, held out the papers. “But our customers
think
they’re
having private conversations, and they don’t expect to be listened
to, recorded and written up.”

“Tough.”

“You’ve got to stop. My father would not
condone what you—we—are doing. What if someone finds out? Our
license as the independent cell phone provider is an incredible
opportunity. We can’t blow it because you like to listen to
people’s conversations.”

Grabbing the papers from his cousin’s hand,
Trevor shot back, “First, no one will find out. They are our
phones, our system, and we use only a small group of trusted people
to listen and record. Second, I don’t do this because I “like” to
listen to other people’s phone calls. I do it because whatever we
will earn from charging for cell phones use is nothing to what we
can earn from knowing all this information. The government just
handed us the license to do it, with no strings attached. Don’t you
see how amazing this is?”

“And how wrong.”

The younger cousin walked to his desk, put
down the papers, and sat in his chair. He swiveled slightly to
glance at the foliage in the afternoon sun, then turned again.
“Ellis, you understand all this technology—the phone business was
your idea, starting with radio phones and now these cell phones.
But people I understand. We can make a
lot
of money from
what we’ll hear every day.”

The older cousin stood across the desk. “But
I’ve told you that I won’t permit us to steal information from
unsuspecting customers.”

Trevor rose again to face Ellis. “Won’t
permit? Look, you may know computers and phones, but I raised the
money and put together the license application that won this gold
mine. Don’t talk about ‘permitting’. Like it or not, we’re
partners, and I say that knowing all this information—new every
day—is the best part of what we have.”

“No. The phones themselves are more than
enough.”

“We’re talking about the chance to know
almost every new idea, make investments, and even influence
events.”

“Including blackmail?”

The younger man smiled. “For now, let’s just
collect information and see where it leads. Think what it could
mean for our people to have this information.”

“
Our people
? I’ve lived in the U.S.
almost all my life. This nation has been wonderful to us. Look at
this opportunity that we have, the son and nephew of an Egyptian
immigrant.
These
are our people.”

“Never! I accepted your father’s Anglicized
name to join his business, but I’ve never given up my identity.
These people oppose Islam. Qutb, an early member of the Muslim
Brotherhood, saw it all here decades ago: filth, materialism,
greed, democracy. Only Islam will bring people back to pure life,
merging faith, government and everyday life. It is the only way.
And the West opposes all of this. They killed our people, including
my father, your uncle. We must revenge his death. All their deaths!
Revenge is a sacred requirement that Allah will honor with His
blessing.”

Ellis turned, walked to a window, then
retraced his steps while Trevor watched. He came close to the desk.
“Trevor, it was terrible that your father died in prison, along
with so many others in the Muslim Brotherhood. But it was Gamal
Nassar, a socialist and Egyptian nationalist, who had your father
killed. Hardly a Western democrat. And he wanted a modern country,
not a throwback to mistreating women and burning books that the
Muslim Brotherhood is always espousing.”