Brad Taylor - Enemy of Mine

He knew that neither Hamas nor Hezbollah would acknowledge any role in the killing, which left him alone. Breaking up the peace process might be good enough for those factions, but he wanted the world to know why. He’d have to create a group out of whole cloth and begin seeding jihadist websites with some statements. Get them ready for the claim of credit after the attack. Luckily, in this day and age, all it took was an Internet connection to be an instant jihadi. He knew he would have the name of his “group” on the world stage should he succeed. More important, he’d have the Palestinian plight on the world stage as well, just like Black September had at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

He kicked around the idea. He knew if he chose to do it, he’d have to get rid of the Saudi identity within forty-eight hours after using it. Someone had leaked the information of the meeting in Sidon, and he had to assume that whoever that was had all the information he had. Including the target. Thus, he couldn’t use it to attack. He would need to get another, without Hezbollah help.

He reflected on the explosion in Sidon yet again, at a loss as to who had perpetrated the attack. It couldn’t be Hezbollah, because the setup was way more complicated than necessary. Why go through the trouble of bringing him down to Beirut, convincing him to attend the meeting, then agree to the change in venue if they only wanted to kill him? And if the targets were the other men, why bring him in at all? Simply do it.

In the end, he decided it didn’t matter. Someone had attacked the meeting, and he’d probably never find out the who or why, since everyone had an agenda. The only decision that mattered was whether he wanted to continue on or disappear. If he wanted to continue, he needed to make sure that Hezbollah knew he was alive. Give them confidence that he was working for them and prevent them from shutting off the credit cards and bank accounts for the Saudi identity. In fact, have them complete the passport and other identity papers. He was sure they could point him to a forger.

He made his decision and picked up the phone. He would continue on, initially as their man, on their puppet strings. Lull them a little bit, before cutting the strings and becoming Ash’abah .

The Ghost.

The man called Infidel saw his Hezbollah contact take a seat along the Corniche, eating a cup of gelato just like he’d been instructed. He dialed the contact’s number, watching him pick up the phone.

“I’m across the street from you, inside the park. See me?”

He saw the kid look left, then right, finally fixating on his park bench.

“Come on. You can finish the ice cream over here. I have another assignment.”

The boy raced across a break in traffic and slid into the park bench next to him. He gave the assassin his goofy smile and said, “A lot of work lately. That’s good, huh?”

The assassin handed him an MP3 player, saying, “I need you to listen to this and translate what’s said.”

The boy eagerly took the device, wanting to be a part of an operation, loving the feeling of being a Hezbollah foot soldier. He was no more than sixteen or seventeen and could have been a merchant or an aspiring businessman, something Lebanon used to be known for. Instead, he was an aspiring terrorist in an organization that was cultlike in its brainwashing. He’d never had a chance to live, and now, because of his affiliation, the assassin would see to it that he never did.

The boy was his conduit into Hezbollah for mundane matters, when he didn’t need to see the hierarchy. He was the person who had provided the computer camera/bomb to the Druze. Whenever simple instructions, money, or equipment needed to be passed, it came through the boy. He was smart and loyal to a fault, convinced that the assassin was some super-secret Hezbollah weapon who had the ear of Nasrallah himself. The name Infidel meant a great deal in the boy’s circle of friends, and the fact that he was the conduit gave him special status and envy.

“I had a meeting today with some people on behalf of the party. It went a little strange, and I implanted a technical device to record what was said after I left. That’s what I want you to translate. It’s a couple of hours of tape, but not all of it is dialogue.”

It was no accident that he’d left the Hezbollah meeting without asking for his backpack or other equipment. The digital camera he had shown the Hezbollah members cloaked a remote recording device with a wireless transmitting capability. It would pick up all conversation for two hours of continuous use and transmit that recording in bursts to a special collection device. The range was limited, so the assassin had been forced to embed the collection capability in the frame of his car, which he could access via the cell network.

He’d waited three hours after his meeting before conducting the download. He hadn’t wasted the time, going straight back to his apartment, packing up, and moving to a small, nondescript hotel. He’d taken precautions to never let Hezbollah know where he lived, but was under no illusions about their reach. Luckily, everything he owned fit into a large duffel bag and two Pelican cases.

The boy pulled out a notebook. Before hitting play, he said, “Does this have something to do with the computer I’m picking up from the Druze contact?”

Taken aback, the assassin showed no emotion. “Yeah, it does. How’d you get roped into getting the computer back? I thought that was a one-way deal.”

“It’s not your computer. I think that one is destroyed. The meeting the Druze attended was attacked, and he left with someone else’s computer. He called the party, and I’m supposed to pick it up in a few hours near the university.”

The assassin simply nodded, his brain working in overdrive. “Well, we don’t have a lot of time then. Listen to this, and you’ll be on your way.”

The boy put in the earphones and hit play, listening and scribbling on his pad. The assassin left him to it, trying to puzzle out this latest bit of intel. What was this about a computer? And why would the Druze contact Hezbollah? Surely Nephilim Logan was now dead, and the Druze would suspect Hezbollah had killed him. Something was not right.

He watched the boy for any signs of what was being said, but nothing registered in his body language until about an hour into the tape. Then, the boy stopped writing and looked at him, his eyes wide. When the assassin did nothing but give him a hard look in return, he went back to the page, scribbling furiously. Soon enough, the tape was done.

“Well, what do you have?”

“Abu Infidel, it’s not good. You need to stay away from these people. Tell the Resistance what they’re doing.”

“Spit it out. What’s on the tape?”

“Well, there’s apparently an assassination being planned, but not here in Lebanon. Somewhere else. The assassin was at the meeting with your computer. Someone attacked the meeting, and there’s something about an American intelligence agent, who’s now dead. There’s a lot of the talk that I couldn’t understand because it was garbled, but the assassin lived. He called the person on this tape, and he’s going forward with his plan. He asked for help.”

“Who is it? What’s his name? What’s his target?”

The Infidel quietly seethed. He was the chosen one for this work, the professional used when it was something delicate with strategic implications, and they’d hired someone else. The fuckers had actually gone to another player when he had a perfect record.

“They didn’t say. They seemed pleased that he was continuing, but didn’t say anything specific, except the target was bringing money and they wanted that money to go away.”