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“It’s been a long ride. Let’s stretch our legs out here.” The sun was setting and it was a balmy hundred degrees. “I’m from central Texas. Heat like this is in my blood.” Jack smiled. “Texas and Libya are almost on the same latitude, in fact.”
“Is that so?” Arfaoui moved beside Jack, slowly walking him to the pool deck. A canvas sail stretched overhead, providing shade and, more importantly, concealment from spy drones.
“Pitcher is keeping the party on the patio,” Ethan whispered. “Switch drone feed to I-R.”
“Roger,” his radio replied. “Drone feed now on infrared. Markers online.”
Jack, Pete, and Blake were wearing IR markers, strobing their identity to the drone hovering above. The markers, like the subdermal radio transmitters hidden in their hairlines behind the ear, hadn’t powered on until after they’d cleared the initial meeting with Arfaoui. Arfaoui had been specific when he reached out to Jack for the clandestine meeting: absolutely no wires, no recordings, no drones. If he wanted the CIA, he’d have reached out to the CIA.
Jack provided something that the US government could not, Arfaoui had said. And, Ethan and Jack knew, it was something hecraved.Access. Influence. A direct line to United States President Elizabeth Wall. “You’ve made a name for yourself as something of a broker,” Arfaoui had said. “I’d like to discuss a deal for you to take to President Wall.”
Three weeks later, Ethan was buried in a sand blind in the desert, watching his husband strike up a conversation with the de facto political ruler of Libya, the strongman in a warring tussle of strongmen, a suspected war criminal and a consummate liar. He zoomed in his scope and centered his sights.
“So, Mr. Arfaoui. What is it you wanted to discuss?” Jack slid his hands into the pockets of his linen suit. He kept his chest facing in Ethan’s direction, providing a full, unobstructed view of his body. He was keeping an eye on his sightlines. Pride surged through Ethan.
“Mr. President— I can still call you that, yes?” Arfaoui waited for Jack’s smile and nod. He was buttering Jack up, or trying to.
And Jack was playing up his good-ol’-boy Texan, aw shucks, blondflattery-will-get-you-everywherevibe. Until Ethan, Jack hadn’t known he even had that flirtatious streak to his personality.
Oh, but he knew now.
“Mr. President, for years now, decades, Libya has been left out in the cold. We’ve been isolated, sanctioned, and ruined. The actions of a handful of fighters have poisoned the world against our country. Our people suffer for the bad behavior of a few. Isn’t it time we end this suffering? Isn’t it time we bring the millions of Libyans back into the arms of the world community?”
“You want to get the sanctions lifted.”
“Not just the sanctions. We want to receive preferential negotiations for trade with the EU and with America. We want restored status at the United Nations. And we want reconstruction aid. Grants. Assistance in repairing what decades of world neglect has done to this great country.”
Jack seemed to mull it over, pursing his lips and nodding. “I assume that you have something you want to offer for this?”
Arfaoui grinned. “How does Libya’s intelligence on the Dawn of Islam terrorist network sound, along with the names and locations of all its current leadership and operational cells?”
Jack appeared stunned. The Dawn of Islam network had burst onto the scene two years before, terrorizing Libyans with a surge of domestic attacks, and had branched out its operations to targets across the Maghreb. The group had claimed credit for a series of bombings targeting Westerners at resorts along the African Mediterranean.
“That would be a significant piece of intelligence,” Jack said. “In essence, a trade. Terror cells and weapons for amnesty?”
“Is it amnesty?” Arfaoui smiled a jackal’s grin. “My government bears no responsibility for the actions of terrorists.”
And there it was. Arfaoui had just given Jack a screamer over center plate. Time to hit it out of the park.
“Really?” Jack pulled his tablet from his pocket and unfolded the screen. He called up a series of images, surveillance photos from Ethan and Blake’s recon work in Algeria and the Somalian-Kenyan border two weeks ago. “Isn’t this you meeting with Hassan Kissami? The leader of the Sons of Libya’s Future? The same Hassan Kissami and Sons of Libya’s Future who brought down three American commercial airliners? Who gassed a beach resort in Tunisia? And who sold chemical weapons to cells across North Africa?”
Even from a mile away, Ethan could sense the change, the sudden ratcheted tension. Arfaoui’s men slowly moved in, forming a loose circle around Jack, Blake, and Pete.
“Shortstop, they’re closing the loop.”
“I see it, Blind.” Welby, always calm, always sedate, sounded like he was reporting the weather in Ethan’s ear. “Painting targets for our bird’s sights.”
“And this,” Jack continued, his voice crisp and clear over the radio. “I believe, but correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Arfaoui, is a series of messages between you and Kissami, coordinating your actions both before and after the downing of Atlantic Airways Flight 379.” Jack swiped through a series of secure messages between Kissami and Arfaoui.
“Where did you get these?” Arfaoui, snarling, stepped toward Jack.
As one, Blake and Pete raised their MP5s, Pete turning to the bulk of Arfaoui’s security team closing on them from behind, Blake aiming for Arfaoui’s forehead. In response, every one of Arfaoui’s team snapped their weapons up, muzzles aimed at Jack.
Jack didn’t blink.
“It certainly looks like you’re trying to barter amnesty for the terrorists running rampant inside Libya’s borders, Mr. Arfaoui. In fact, based on these emails and the meetings that you and Kissami have had, I would guess that this has been a plan a few years in the making. Let Dawn of Islam into Libya and let them have free run of the place. Encourage them to act out, give them all the empty desert and willful ignorance they need to get their operations going. Let Hassan Kissami fade into the background for a bit. And then, right when the world is worked into a frenzy about this new threat, offer them up on a silver platter. So, what’s the end game? After sanctions are lifted, you and Kissami go for a major target? Something inside Europe?”
Arfaoui’s shoulders heaved. Ethan watched his thick, lined face twist, turn purple.
