Executive Actions (39 page)

“Seems like the Congressman’s off his game a bit.” Newman swiveled around. Who even dared to talk to him now? Newman recoiled when he saw that it was a mere Secret Service grunt acting completely out of line.

“Excuse me. I’m trying to listen.” He faced the stage again.

“Oh, no problem,” Roarke said softly. “But you have to admit he’s looking a little shaky out there.” Roarke was picking at a scab. He’d never met Newman before and he instantly loathed the man. He’d push him all the more.

“The public likes a man who can be in control.”

Newman half turned. “Look I don’t know who you are. But get the hell away from me right now.”

The president could see that Roarke had saddled up to Newman offstage. He smiled to himself.
Just a little more agitating. We’ll see where it goes.
Then he re-focused on Congressman Lodge. He was wrapping up his opening remarks.

“And so, as we all heard a moment ago, we’re here exercising one of the most important freedoms of all. The process of freely deciding who should be president. I hope I’ll be your choice.”

Lodge finished by nodding to the camera, then to the crowd, not to President Taylor. There was polite applause. Not the resounding cheers he was used to.

“President Taylor. We’re ready for your opening remarks,” the moderator said.

The president wore his favorite black, pinstriped three-piece suit with a solid red tie gleaming out from his white shirt. An American flag pin was affixed to his lapel. He smiled and again stepped from behind the podium, in contrast to the stiff way Lodge presented himself.

“Thank you, and thank you Congressman Lodge. And now to the esteemed journalists comprising our panel, the students and faculty of UCLA and my fellow Americans watching at home—of course, you’re all looking for answers from us, for the means to distinguish our points of view, and for clear understanding of our position on the important issues. I promise there will be no automatic, stock responses from me. I encourage you to require the same from my opponent. So in the interest of time, I’ll forgo any real opening statement. Let’s get to business and make this time count.”

Morgan Taylor was in control. He was concise, establishing the tone and the pace. The rest of his comments throughout the ninety-minute debate flowed the same way.

Ibrahim Haddad screamed unrelenting obscenities at his 50-inch plasma television screen in his Fisher Island home.
What happened? He can ruin everything.

Haddad was ready to turn the set off altogether, but he stayed with it. Hopefully, Lodge would recover, or at the very least not suffer any more self-inflicted harm. He had a substantial lead, so Haddad reasoned that Lodge could probably afford one bad night and a few percentage points. Still he gave a quick prayer in thanks that the election was only two days away.

The same speech was carried in Tripoli, downlinked to a television set in Fadi Kharrazi’s TV station. However, Fadi lacked the sophistication to recognize that Lodge was faltering in front of the world. It wouldn’t matter to the Libyans anyway. He would help manipulate the news as needed. For all the younger Kharrazi son knew Lodge was proving himself a strong, articulate leader.

Michael O’Connell watched the debate and raced his fingers across his keys. He wrote an article explaining how the rigors of the campaign and the emotional turmoil of the past six months took its toll on Congressman Lodge. He explained that the usually self-assured congressman faltered from the start. In contrast, the President exuded uncharacteristic conviction. It would mean votes on Tuesday.

Taking a cue from the president’s first words, the reporters fired off their questions expecting straight forward responses. They covered the uneasy peace between Pakistan and India, the downward spiral of public education, urban violence and airline bailouts. Taylor had specific solutions involving corporate sponsorships. Lodge called for more government spending. Only when it came to the Middle East did the congressman speak with any authority, but the president had already scored his points.

Morgan Taylor never took his eyes off Teddy Lodge during his rival’s answers. This served to further unnerve him. Lodge, in turn, drank too much water to quench his parched lips, which he soon regretted.

Why aren’t there any fucking commercials
, Geoff Newman wondered? He’d go out there and talk to Lodge. But there were none tonight.

Twenty minutes into the debate Newman finally got his candidate’s attention while Taylor took the rebuttal to a question. He motioned for Lodge to puff out his chest, straighten his body and shake off the negativity. Lodge got the message; aware of the dubious image he had been projecting. Newman pointed to his eyes and then to the audience and mouthed the words, “To them. To them.” Lodge understood.

Roarke leaned closer to Newman again to comment. “Coaching from the sidelines?” he said barely over a whisper. “I bet you can’t wait to get into the White House where you won’t have to be so quiet.”

Newman swung around so fast he bumped into the agent. They stood eye to eye.

“The one thing I can promise,” Newman gloated, “is that you’ll be out of a job one minute after the Congressman is sworn in. That’s a promise. Now get out of here.”

At that same moment the president wrapped up his latest parry to the most enthusiastic applause of the evening.

O
mar Za’eem understood the consequences. If caught spying he would suffer indescribable horrors in some basement chamber, then sell out his boss just before a bullet released him from his pain. So, Za’eem prayed for strength and for courage and for a hint to what he was supposed to find for Abahar.

“Za’eem, come here!” Lakhdar al-Nassar shouted a moment after hanging up his phone. There was none of the camaraderie that they shared over drinks. His supervisor was in a foul mood.

“Yes, sir.”

“I am far too busy to do all this shit. You take it. Clear my desk and put all of these away.” He pointed to a foot high pile of newspaper clippings, folders, sports magazines and books.

“They belong in there,” he referred to Fadi’s inner sanctum.

“I can’t go into his office,” Za’eem protested.

“You idiot. I’m telling you to put these away. That means you can go in there!”

Za’eem stood in place, uncertain. He knew the rules.

“But I’ve been told…”

“And now you’re being told something new. Put these back!”

Al-Nassar enjoyed intimidating people, especially when it meant he’d have less work to do and could go out and have a smoke or visit his mistress. Za’eem didn’t know which it would be today or how long he would be away, but with such urgency he was sure Lakdhar was out to get laid.

“Yes sir. But where? I’ve hardly been in…”

Al-Nassar grew furious. “You know the alphabet, don’t you?”

Za’eem nodded.

“Then figure out which fucking file goes in which fucking drawer and how to put clippings away properly!”

With that al-Nassar removed a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit up. After taking a long, satisfying drag he yelled to Omar who was gathering the materials. “Get it done right, otherwise Fadi will have my ass. And I don’t need to tell you what that will mean for you!”

Al-Nassar bolted out of the office, into the hall and down the elevator.

Omar Za’eem smiled.
It would be my pleasure.

Fadi Kharrazi had left his office hours earlier extremely pleased that his plants in
Al-Fatah
had again successfully distorted the news for his countrymen. And now Lakhdar al-Nassar was also gone.

Omar Za’eem assessed his window of opportunity. His over-sexed supervisor wouldn’t be back for a good ninety minutes. With luck, Fadi probably wouldn’t return until later. To be sure Omar checked Fadi’s daily appointment calendar and smiled. He finally had the chance he had been waiting for.

Omar entered Fadi’s office, a shrine to own achievements. Kharrazi surrounded himself with framed photographs showing him at receptions with famous Arab leaders and parties at Cannes with prominent international movie stars.

He was an organized man; anal compulsive. There wasn’t a paper out of place, not one book sticking out further than another on his bookshelf. Omar recognized he needed to take special care. Such a fastidious man would notice even the slightest change in his immediate environment.

He surveyed everything, getting his bearings and figuring out Fadi’s filing system. He decided to begin the assigned work, then leave it while he looked for the details Abahar sought. His one limited communiqué had set off alarms. He’d been hounded for more information ever since.

Al-Nassar was in such a rush that he didn’t even point Omar to the correct file cabinets. There were three different banks. One labeled
Political,
another for
News/Sports
, and five stacked cabinets grouped nearest his desk. These were marked
Personal.

At first Omar dismissed the
Personal
ones. He assumed they probably dealt with his affairs: women’s names, addresses, phone numbers. But he didn’t doubt there were also details about his family, with possible notes about his father and the abusive things he had done. Everyone in power or close to power in closed societies always held some “get out of jail” card. For Fadi, it might be something the French, English, or Americans might want in exchange for granting him safe harbor. No, the
Personal
files were not his business today.

He also decided to skip the bank of file cabinets that contained news and sports stories. One of his jobs was to constantly clip articles about his boss. He figured that Fadi had been collecting them for years.

It was the the three drawer cabinets marked
Political
that called out to Za’eem the most. Considering the level of interest from Abahar Kharrazi, the material must be political in nature. He’d return to them shortly.

First, he dispensed with some press clippings, speeches, photographs and some hand written thank you notes from people obviously trying to remain in the good graces of the tyrant. The photographs and articles were easy. He found where they went in the
News
cabinets. After ten minutes he was ready to start working for Abahar.

Omar crossed the room to the
Political
cabinets. He tried a logical alphabetical approach. Andropov. Nothing.
Ashab al-Kahf.
“A.” Nothing again. He leafed through the folders but didn’t find what he was looking for. If his memory served him right, one of the pages had a coffee-smudged right edge. He’d look for that, too.

The noise of the traffic rose up to the open windows. Though the temperature was comfortable for this time of year, Omar was sweating under the pressure.

Nothing in the first drawer, or the second. He checked his watch. He’d been in Kharrazi’s office for six minutes now. He continued file by file, ready to pull anything else that looked interesting. Omar was trained to memorize what he read, which is why he didn’t carry a miniature camera. Besides, if one were found on him, Fadi would probably shoot him in the balls himself.

After a half an hour he had gone through all of the
Political
filing cabinets without finding
Ashab al-Kahf
or any of the other key words. He bitterly swore to himself. Thirty minutes and nothing. Omar would have to go through the same files again, possibly even slower. At least this time he’d get some of al-Nassar’s work done, too. As he crossed the room to pick up the work, the cabinets closet to Fadi’s desk caught his eye. He suddenly realized his mistake. It wasn’t
political
after all, or at least solely political. This was Fadi’s
personal
business. That’s why his brother wanted it. Family business. And he’d wasted thirty minutes to come to that conclusion.

He started the routine all over again going through the files looking for
Andropov
or
Ashab al-Kahf.
He prayed to Allah for guidance, but after examining the first file cabinet he still had nothing. There were two left, each with three filled drawers.

Omar had to sit down for a moment. He’d been bending over for too long and his fingers were numb from rifling through the folders. He’d already gotten a paper cut and sworn at himself for dripping blood on a page. He had heard that in the United States DNA evidence could convict him. Fortunately, Libya’s police weren’t so sophisticated.

Omar was now fully seventy minutes into his search. He tried not to panic, but this was dangerous and he was scared to death.

He began to wonder if he could even trust his senses. Was he actually reading the names of files or simply thumbing through them blindly? He couldn’t remember. Now two of the three Personal cabinets were done.
What if I don’t find anything here?
He forced the thought away.
I have to.

The noise of cars honking and people yelling from outside increased as the late afternoon traffic started clogging the street below. A traffic jam would be good. He prayed for a major tie up as he began on the lowest file drawer.

Nine minutes later he feared he was truly on borrowed time. There was no telling how long before al-Nassar would come back from his quickie or worse, when Fadi Kharrazi would return. Suddenly he stopped and discovered why it had taken him so long. Al-Nassar had stupidly misfiled the damned folders. He had read it wrong. Omar had to laugh.
Lakhdar is brainless.

So simple and so stupid a mistake in the reading of
Ashab al-Kahf.
Al Nassar mistakening took the first letter, an “Alif” for a “Waaw.”
What a fool
, Za’eem thought.
He stuck it in at the end of the alphabet, instead of where it belonged.

The master folder was at least five inches thick and full of other files, one labeled
Red Banner
. Omar cocked his ear toward the door to hear if anyone was coming. He was still alone.

He looked at the principal tab again. He whispered the words. “Ashab al-Kahf.” Now they sounded familiar.
Why? A story?
He said them again. “Ashab al-Kahf.”

A story? Yes, a story. But about what?

He started to read and then he remembered. The legend of
Ashab al-Kahf
.