Steven Gore - Absolute Risk

Ibrahim swallowed. Gage sensed that he was trying to control his tone, but his voice rose anyway as he asked, “And did he?”

“Sort of.”

Gage reached for a piece of paper and drew out his version of Hennessy’s flowchart, showing the line from the HI box to the G12 box.

Ibrahim nodded. “Rahmani told me about it.”

“HI is you. G12 is the Group of Twelve, the People’s Foreign Investment Fund. RGF is the Relative Growth Funds.” Gage looked up again. “Hennessy figured out that you were working for the Chinese.”

Ibrahim smirked. “So what. Why shouldn’t I have worked for them?”

Gage pointed at the wheelchair. “Because they’re responsible for you being stuck in that thing and they’ve been on the hunt to finish you off before you found out the truth-or at least before you could act on it.”

Ibrahim’s eyes widened.

Gage pointed upward and said, “My guess is that Rahmani sold you out nine years ago and he’s about to do it for a second time.”

Ibrahim’s eyes darted. Gage watched his fingers rubbing against each other and his brows furrowing as if a fragment of an idea in his mind linked with what Gage was claiming.

“Even if what you’re saying is true-if-it couldn’t have been Rahmani. He’s not the one who put me in contact with that lawyer in New York. Wycovsky.”

“Who did?”

“A Turkish guy in our discussion group. Ilkay. A halal cafe owner. His brother is an accountant who knew the people on the Isle of Man-” Ibrahim shut his eyes and shook his head. “No. Stop. You’re just trying to confuse me.”

Gage thumped his fist on the desktop. “Who made the connection between you and the Uyghur terrorists who bombed Spectrum? “

Ibrahim kept shaking his head. “There was no connection. My wife asked…” Ibrahim opened his eyes and glared at Gage. “Now you’re saying my wife set me up?”

“What did your wife ask you to do?”

“Talk to other Muslim professors about writing an open letter for a Xinjiang Web site to protest the bombings.” Ibrahim furrowed his brows and bit his lip for a moment. “I did some research about the Uyghur Jihad on the Internet and about how the Chinese government was moving in millions of Han Chinese in order to make the Uyghurs a minority in their own land. The FBI found it.”

“And who planted the idea in your wife’s mind that you should do it?”

Ibrahim’s hands flew up as if trying to block the implications of Gage’s question, his rising cuffs exposing red scars etched into his skin by the wire that had been used to bind his wrists. He then interlaced his fingers on top of his head and rocked back and forth in his chair like an autistic child, trying to hold on to his sense of reality.

Gage watched his eyes fluttering, his mind disassociating, and his hands gripping the wheelchair arms as though he was anchoring his body against a cyclone that was ripping away the landmarks that defined his world And in Ibrahim’s terror, Gage saw that this wasn’t the first time it had happened.

But then Ibrahim stopped rocking and he whispered to himself, “How could I have missed it? How could I have missed it?”

He looked at Gage and said, “It’s Ilkay. It has to be.”

Ibrahim lowered his arms and tapped the flowchart.

“If I’d flowcharted the last ten years,” Ibrahim said, “all of the arrows would’ve pointed at Ilkay. He was even the one who arranged for me to be released to the Turkish embassy in Riyadh. He helped get me on a flight to Istanbul and then to Beijing.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

Ibrahim shook his head. “I had a breakdown while I was working for the G12. They put me into an institution, and when my head cleared I got permission to travel to Canada. I needed to think things through. After I decided not to go back, Rahmani met me there and smuggled me across the border. I’d done what I wanted to do to get even for what America had done to me and just wanted to be left alone.”

“Get even how? “

Ibrahim didn’t answer. He just stared at the flowchart. Finally, he said, “It doesn’t make a difference. Even if the Chinese framed me, it was the Americans who had me tortured.”

“All Americans?”

“Have any of them been punished for what was done to me?” Ibrahim’s voice rose, almost to a scream. “Anyone at all?”

Gage paused before he answered. The answer was obvious, but maybe not to a man tortured into hating everything American.

“Yes,” Gage said. “Three weeks ago in Marseilles.”

Manton Roberts is calling.” Cooper Wallace’s secretary spoke over the intercom. “He wants to know whether there’s anything you’d like him to do.”

Wallace knew that what he wanted Roberts to do was to cancel National Pledge Day. He’d woken up twice the night before: the first time in a hot sweat, his mind pounding out, Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, and the second time in a cold sweat, the words of “For What it’s Worth” coming at him again. He knew that something was happening, and that what it was wasn’t at all clear.

“I’ll talk to him.”

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel.

Wallace heard the click of the connecting line, then said, “Thanks for calling, Manton.”

“Is there anything-“

“I wish that you’d consider postponing National Pledge Day,” Wallace said. “There’s uneasiness in the country and I wouldn’t want to exacerbate it.”

“I think everyone pausing together will have the opposite effect,” Roberts said. “It will bring us together.”

Wallace felt Roberts’s heavy, evangelical tone seeping into him.

“It will be like a moment of silence at a football game,” Roberts said, “like for fallen soldiers or for police officers.”

“At least keep it short,” Wallace said, “and try to mute the apocalyptic tone that seems to have dominated your recent Sunday services and rallies.”

“I don’t think it’s something that I’m imposing. It feels to me like a welling up of the Holy Spirit.”

Wallace winced. The least attractive aspect of Roberts’s personality was his view of himself not as a self-motivated actor in the world, but as a vehicle of a higher power.

Roberts continued before Wallace had a chance to respond. “Maybe it’s just another way of expressing what you call uneasiness.”

“You could be right.” Wallace felt a sort of relief as he said the words. He did believe in a higher power, and not an impotent one. One that intervened in the world, not observed it like it was a cosmic experiment. But still “Would you consider coming to the White House and leading it from here?” Wallace asked, wondering whether Roberts would rather have the long-term prestige of the place than the immediate thrill of standing before a filled stadium.

“I’d be honored,” Roberts said. “Maybe you could lead the pledge and I’ll say the prayer for President McCormack.”

“We’ll work that out between now and then.”

Wallace’s intercom beeped. “I have a meeting that’s about to start,” he said to Roberts. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

Wallace punched the flashing button and said, “I’ll come out.” He then walked from his office and into the reception area. Former president Randall Harris rose from the couch. They shook hands.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Harris said.

Wallace led him back inside and shut the door.

“I expected you’d be dropping by,” Wallace said, directing Harris to one of two wing chairs, then sitting down in the one next to it. “Or someone like you. The president has always had an indirect way of communicating with me.”