A Murder of Crows (10 page)

“I know. I am not suggesting open warfare, James. Taking on one of the agencies would be suicide and taking on all three at once would be madness. Which is why we must evade the lion, not fight it. We must use the overgrowth and shadows of the jungle to our advantage while we search for the weapon to slay the lion. Jabbar is such a weapon, James. Not information on his network, but the man himself. Delivering Jabbar in chains will be the only way to quell the appetite of our enemies and give us the bargaining power necessary to get them to leave us alone. Anything less may lead to the destruction of the University.”

“I don’t mean to argue with you, sir, but…”

The Dean talked over him again. “Stop arguing and devise a way to find Jabbar and end all of this. Your rash actions played a part in causing this, James. Your swift action will be the only way we resolve it. I will expect a full plan of action in my inbox by this time tomorrow. Time is a luxury we can ill afford. And so is failure.”

Hicks heard the connection end. And his troubles were only beginning.

H
E LET
the silence sit in the kitchen for a full minute, maybe longer, before he finally looked at Roger. “You heard that, too, didn’t you? He said what I think he said, didn’t he?”

“Complete with jungle analogies,” Roger said. “Don’t forget those. Lions and tigers and
jihadis
, oh my.”

Hicks dropped his head into his hands. “Knock it off.”

But Roger didn’t knock it off. “No way, man. You Tarzan, me Jane, and that old man is out of his fucking mind. How the hell does he expect us to find Jabbar and fight off the other agencies at the same time? Does he have any idea what we’re up against?”

“He knows.” Hicks slammed his laptop shut. “That’s what makes all of this worse.”

“Well, even if he is the Dean, he’s out of his mind. We obviously can’t do what he wants. We’ve got to figure out a way to hand this off to the other agencies through back channels.”

Hicks didn’t dare begin to go down that path. “We can’t do that and you know it.”

“Why? Because Dad said so? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got no intentions of getting killed by one of my fellow spies because some dying old man got confused.”

“He’s not confused. He knows exactly what he’s asked us to do.”

“So how are we supposed to go about giving him what he wants? How exactly are we supposed to evade three of the best intelligence agencies in the world
and
hunt for Jabbar?”

Hicks’ head began to hurt even worse. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Let’s look at it from a pure numbers perspective,” Roger said. “How many people are on the University payroll? All totaled, not only the field staff.”

Hicks had never been privy to all the facets of the University. He could only make an educated guess. “Maybe around a thousand worldwide. Most of them are part-time analysts, Adjuncts and Assets. Nowhere near enough, but I’ll find a way to make it work.”

“You don’t have to do anything. This isn’t feudal Japan. You don’t have to fall on your sword simply because some sick old man told you to. We have options, you know.”

“We do? Name one.”

“We can check with the people above the Dean. See if they’ll listen to reason.”

In the twenty years Hicks had worked for The University, the only executive he’d ever dealt with was the Dean. Groups like the University didn’t exactly have organizational charts. “I don’t know if there is anyone else above him. He’s mentioned giving reports to the Trustees a couple of times, but I don’t know who they are or how to find them. And even if I did, I don’t know what kind of authority they have. And I know the Dean would go ballistic if I tried.”

The ache in Hicks’ head spiked to a full migraine and he began to rub his temples. All of Roger’s points had been bouncing around his head while the Dean had given him the directive. He felt like a rat caught in a maze with no way out. Any way he turned only led back to one conclusion: following the Dean’s orders exactly as he had laid them out.

“What about leaking the Bajjah information to Stephens anyway?” Roger asked. “Do it through back channels. You already know all the right people to call.”

“Not the people at the level we’d need.” Hicks dropped his head in his hands again. “Not for something this important. OMNI has lists of field agents and section chiefs, but I couldn’t get access to anyone who could do something with the information, not without the Dean finding out. I’ve seen what he’s done to people who cross him, Roger. I’ve handled plenty of them for him in the past and, believe me, it’s not pretty.”

Roger had another idea. “We could always make a run for it, you know? Take off on our own and leave all this shit behind. God knows we have enough cash on hand to live like kings.”

Hicks lifted his head from his hands. “You mean leave tonight or live and die this way? Who are you? Tracy Chapman?”

Roger didn’t laugh. “I was being serious.”

“So am I. You know how the University works. Yeah, we’ve got money, but they know where every penny is and they’d find a way to lock all of our accounts the second we started making substantial withdrawals.”

“I suppose it wasn’t much of an idea after all.” Roger took the whiskey bottle and refilled his glass. “Either way you look at it, we’re going to need more people, James. People who know how to handle themselves.”

Hicks knew finding qualified, available people in a short amount of time wouldn’t be easy. There was no shortage of mercenaries for hire, but mercs could be unreliable and sloppy. Hicks would have to vet them to determine how loyal they were before he even attempted to recruit them. He’d have to match their price and figure out a way to finance them.

Bajjah’s ten cells spread throughout the world would require at least ten people per team. One hundred new hires worldwide and it all had to happen quickly.

But the University didn’t have the manpower to vet them properly. And he didn’t know if the University had enough money on hand to pay them, either. In fact, he didn’t have the slightest idea how much money the University’s Bursar’s office had in its accounts.

The lack of people or money didn’t bother Hicks. It was the hurried nature of the entire operation. Speed killed in the intelligence game. Properly vetting new hires was always more of an art than a science, even in the best of times. With the University under Barnyard scrutiny, word of a hiring spree would spread. A single wrong hire in a hundred could jeopardize University secrecy or worse, Jabbar might also learn of the mobilization and disappear once more.

It would be best to keep the operation small and contained, instead of a large force. Maybe he could get away with hiring only one person to focus on one man.

Roger looked at him closely. “I know that look. What are you thinking?”

Hicks opened his laptop and looked at the OMNI search progressing on his laptop. Only one of the men on Bajjah’s list wasn’t being treated as an actively hostile target by at least one government agency in the world. It also happened to be the first name Bajjah had given up during his interrogation: Shaban Ghasemi in London. The Money Man.

OMNI showed Shaban’s emails and phone records were already being passively tracked by British intelligence. He was the only member of the Bajjah/Jabbar network not under close scrutiny. “Nine of the men on Bajjah’s list are already being actively watched by other agencies in this country and abroad. We can save time and manpower by having OMNI track the other agencies’ surveillance reports while we focus on the one man no one’s watching.” Hicks tapped Shaban’s face on the screen. “Shaban Ghasemi, currently living in London, England.”

“There’s the answer,” Roger said. “Order the London Office to keep an eye on anything Shaban does.”

“I wish it was that simple.” In fact, the condition of the London Office was one of the reasons for Hicks’ headache. The London Office of the University was considered little more than an annex, as the New York Office had been regarded before Hicks took it over. There had never been a reason to make the University’s London Office a forward operation. Its Faculty Members and Adjuncts provided critical financial information on Middle Eastern and European groups suspected of acting against the West. It had always been considered a stopover for Faculty Members from more active University offices located in Germany, France, Italy, and Turkey.

OMNI’s initial research on Shaban led Hicks to believe Shaban wasn’t a skilled terrorist, but it would still take someone with training to follow him. Bajjah had given Shaban up first for a reason. Hicks needed to know why.

“Peter Tipton is the head of the London Office,” Hicks reminded Roger, “but he’s a money man. He’s lethal with a spreadsheet, but we’re going to need someone who knows how to handle themselves in the field for an operation like this. Someone who can shadow Shaban without Shaban knowing it.”

“Since you’re concentrating on London, I happen to know someone who’s available,” Roger said. “Someone who also happens to be the best person for this kind of job. Rahul Patel.”

“Patel?” Hicks’s headache got worse. “Shit, Roger, he’s a drunk. We’d have to dry him out for a year before we could use him, and we don’t have that kind of time.”

“His drunkenness is a temporary condition, I assure you. If there’s one thing I know about in this world, it’s drunkards and Mr. Patel doesn’t qualify. He’s hurt and mourning the death of his sister. He’s a man looking for a reason to set aside his grief, and I’d wager this is exactly the kind of operation that might snap him out of it.”

“I know what happened, Roger. I was the one who found her body and kept him from killing her killers, remember?”

“Yes I do,” Roger said. “So does Rahul. He still resents you for it, but I still run into him from time to time. I bet I could talk him into working for us if you want.”

Hicks wasn’t so sure. Until a year ago, Rahul Patel had been the best counter-intelligence agent in Asia, which was why his enemies murdered his sister in her Manhattan apartment. Patel didn’t blame Hicks for his sister’s death. He blamed him for preventing him from killing her attackers, who had been involved in an important University operation for years. Hicks had ultimately killed the men responsible, but their deaths hadn’t stopped Rahul’s downward spiral.

“Find someone else. I need someone in the field, not at a goddamned AA meeting.”

Roger surprised him by not giving up. “I’d still like to approach him anyway, even if it’s only to cross him off our list. He’s right here in New York, working at his cousin’s restaurant in Midtown as something of a greeter, but he drinks more than he greets.”

Hicks’ headache was subsiding, so he decided to not argue with him. He toggled away from
OMNI’s deep dive into the lives of the Bajjah/Jabbar network and checked his inbox.
He was glad to see the Dean had sent him the email about Mark Stephens he’d promised.

“Do what you want, but before you waste your time with Patel, I need you to get up to speed on Mark Stephens. He’s the guy
the Barnyard has sent after us. I’m forwarding you his file now. This guy is a former Beekeeper, and he’s no joke.”

Hicks clicked on the email and saw several attachments. It was all the records the federal government had on Mark Stephens, Beekeeper with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Military record, personal history, DIA activities, and more. Hicks forwarded all of the files to Roger without even opening any of the attachments.