Threat Level Black

Chapter 5

Disaster had followed disaster. Providence had saved Faud from being arrested like the others, but the news of the raid on the warehouse in Staten Island shocked him. For surely the all-knowing God could have prevented such a catastrophe.

Blasphemy. It was a grave sin even to think that.

Faud knew sin. He knew sin very well. He was trying to redeem himself, purify his soul as it must be purified.

Was this God’s way of testing him? Or was Faud’s way to paradise being blocked by a devil?

Surely it was the latter. Faud heard it in the boasts on the TV in the corner of the store, the policemen bragging that they had stopped a “nefarious plot.”

Nefarious. What precisely did that word mean?

“Terrible,” said the woman behind the counter. Her skin was dark; she came from Pakistan. But he knew where she stood before she continued. “It shames us all. And makes it more difficult.”

“Yes,” Faud told her. He handed over a dollar for the newspaper. The system of passing messages was complicated: One paper would have a key or a clue referring to another. In this case he needed the Times to know which classified in the other to follow.

“What do you do?” demanded a voice behind him.

Faud froze. He was the only other person in the store, so it was clear he was being addressed.

Had they caught him too?

He turned slowly to face the person who had spoken. He saw with some relief that it was only the middle-aged black man who ran the store.

“What do you do?” asked the man again.

“I’m a student.”

“I meant, what do you do about these terrible things?” said the man, shaking his head.

Faud nodded and started to leave.

“Wait!” said the woman at the counter.

Faud turned to her. Something in her eye showed him he had given himself away.

Fear had betrayed him. He was unworthy; his cowardice was shameful in the sight of angels.

“You forgot your change,” she said.

He forced a smile, went back for the money. Hopefully this would end soon.

Chapter 6

Blitz rushed into his office, head tilted forward, walking so fast that he nearly bowled Mozelle over. As if the difficulties in Korea weren’t enough, the Israelis had just launched a massive raid against Palestinian terror groups, rounding up more than a hundred leaders of Hamas. Under other circumstances Blitz might have applauded the move, but it came at a particularly bad time: The U.S. secretary of state was due in the region next week for the latest round of peace talks, and now there were sure to be reprisals and more unrest. Blitz’s staff was already working on a paper listing potential fallout.

“Colonel Howe needs to talk to you,” said Mozelle as she backed up to let him pass.

“God, I forgot all about him. Did John call about the CIA review?”

“He was going to e-mail you.”

Blitz dropped into his chair behind his desk, grumbling to himself. He wasn’t sure exactly what to tell Howe, but he couldn’t let the poor guy hang out there, either.

“Coffee?” asked Mozelle. She’d already figured out the answer: A fresh cup was in her hand.

“Thanks.”

“Where do you want to start?” she asked.

“Better get Howe on the line,” he told her. “Might as well get that over with.”

“Then you’ll want to talk to Keiger at State.”

“All right.”

Blitz opened his e-mail queue and began going through his messages. He was about three e-mails in when Mozelle buzzed through, indicating Howe was on the line.

“Colonel, I’m sorry,” said Blitz immediately, without waiting for Howe to say anything. “The CIA is throwing a roadblock up.”

“That’s why my clearance was pulled?”

“It’ll be restored. They moved ahead before I could cut it off.” Blitz had decided to simply have interim clearances posted through his office; he scanned the list of his e-mails to see if he had received confirmation that this would happen.

“What’s going on?” Howe asked. “Am I being screwed here? Because if I’m being screwed, I don’t want the job. The hell with it.”

“Colonel…Bill. You have to calm down. This is unfortunately something that occasionally happens around here. I’ll deal with it. I promise you, I’ll deal with it. What happened was that the CIA launched a review, and as part of the standard practice, certain individuals who aren’t under immediate control-say, a military person still working in a certain area-the clearance gets-”

“The CIA is screwing me?”

“It’s not clear, precisely,” said Blitz, who wasn’t about to stick up for the agency. “On the one hand, the investigation has nothing to do with you. But on the other hand, they may be using it-may, I emphasize-they may just be trying to put pressure on. You’re in a bit of a unique position. It’s possible that they’re looking for you to genuflect.”

“You know what they can do with that.”

Blitz drew a breath.

“Colonel, let me ask you a question,” he said. “You knew nothing about the Korea operation until the Pentagon contacted you, correct?”

“That’s a question?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know anything about it, no.”

“And you’ve already told several people everything that happened.”

“Absolutely.”