Rachel Lee: The Crimson Code

Eventually the news began to identify other targets: a North Sea drilling rig, a pipeline in Turkey, nuclear weapons assembly plants in New Mexico and Kiev and the computer files of the New York Stock Exchange.

Despite the other targets, the chaotic map soon told a horrifying story. There was no question that the Catholic Church was a primary target of this terrorism. Along with the other targets, a major cathedral had been destroyed in each time zone. The only exception was Baden-Baden, where the target had been a simple family parish in the foothills of the Schwarzwald.

“And Baden-Baden doesn’t fit,” Tom said, looking at the map. “Why two churches in the same time zone? Why not another cathedral? Why not Köln, or Notre Dame in Paris?”

“None of it fits,” Jefe said, reading from a computer screen. “The initial reports say no one was injured in the attacks on economic targets. The workers on that North Sea rig say they were given time to evacuate before the rig was blown. And yet they blow up churches with thousands of innocent worshippers. It doesn’t make sense.”

As he spoke another light winked on, this one in South America. Brazil. Rio.

“Maybe they hit Baden-Baden because there was extra security in Paris and Cologne,” Margarite Renault said, her English accented by her French background. A former member of the Sûreté, she was around forty, with classic Gallic features, dark hair and eyes. “The European nations have beefed up their antiterrorist activities. Maybe Baden-Baden was a target of opportunity.”

Renate could listen no longer. She knew what had been done—and why. There was no reason to dance around the issue. Justice demanded honesty. “It wasn’t a target of opportunity. They murdered my family. They couldn’t find me, so they murdered my family.”

A half hour later, Margarite found Tom in a side cubicle. She lowered her voice so she could not be overheard. “I am worried about Renate. She is always so controlled, but this…” A shrug. “This she cannot control. It has happened. Now she must—how you say?—deal with it.”

Tom nodded slowly. He was more worried about Renate than he wanted to admit. If her entire family had been in the church that had been blown up, he didn’t have to guess how she would react. She was tough and disciplined, but the cold, hard look in her eyes left no doubt where her thoughts were running.

His heart would not allow him to leave her alone in her shock and rage. He entered her office and sat in the chair beside her desk. “Renate.”

She ignored him, tapping away at her keyboard.

“Renate.”

Slowly she looked up. He wanted to see emotion in her eyes. Any emotion, even anger. All he saw was the icy coldness of a lifeless glacier. “I’m working.”

“You’re not working,” he dared to say, then plunged on before she could argue. “You’re looking for revenge.”

Something sparked then in those cold blue eyes. “Don’t I deserve it?”

“You don’t know anything for sure.”

With a swift gesture, she turned her flat-panel monitor toward him. “You see? My family’s kirche. It’s on the list. They are dead.”

He felt his heart crack for her. “Maybe…”

“No maybe. Don’t tell me maybe. I know.” For the briefest instant, a fathomless grief broke through, crumpling her face. Then it was gone, so fast he wasn’t sure he had seen it.

“Just remember our mission,” he said. “Our mission, Renate. Don’t forget who we are. We are not them.”

“They are animals,” she said coldly. “And I am going to kill the ones who hurt my family. I am going to kill them with my own hands.”

“Renate.”

But she had turned away, pulling her monitor back and resuming her online hunt for information.

Oddly, he found himself thinking of Midnight Mass again, and offering a silent prayer that Renate’s family had for some reason not been in that church. But as he turned away and glimpsed the horrific images that were now filling all the TV screens, he decided that God was probably not in a very good mood today. In fact, God was probably not listening at all.

By late afternoon, figures were arriving. None held the mind-numbing counts that had come from the tsunami in the Indian Ocean the previous Christmas, but though the numbers were smaller, the details were just as horrifying. These bombings had not been an act of God. As the acts of men, they were heinous beyond belief, worse even than the Twin Towers in scope. “Black Christmas,” as the networks had begun to call it, would undoubtedly go into the annals of history along with 9/11.

Renate sat at her desk, her demeanor a cloak of ice, as if she had frozen every feeling. Tom checked on her frequently, but she never looked up, choosing instead to keep working at the computer, seeking backdoor information.

They were all doing the same. They all had informants, covert contacts in their old agencies, a collective net cast around the world. Weeks ago they had begun to detect signs that a major terrorist operation was in the works, but they had been unable to pin it down. Equally ominous, no one was claiming responsibility. Usually terrorists were all too eager to step forward and thumb their noses at the world.

Silence reigned. From the dust and the fire came only the cries of victims.

So far, heads of state had been quiet, as if awaiting information before speaking. Only the pope had released a brief message, speaking of martyrdom, grief, consolation and forgiveness.

Forgiveness. Tom doubted that there would be much of that for a while.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Betrayal.

Ahmed Ahsami curled his fists in anger as he watched the reports on three television screens. The BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera were unanimous in their focus on the cathedral bombings, with the other work—the real work, carried out by real soldiers—given only a passing mention. He felt the anger burn in his belly like a white-hot flame.

Betrayed.

He never should have trusted them. Fanatics could not advance the cause of Islam. But he had made a deal with the devil, and the devil would have his due.

Three years of careful planning had been turned to dust, and worse, in the past twelve hours. Three years of arguing, cajoling, convincing his Islamic brothers that they would have to walk a new path if ever they wanted true peace and freedom. Three years of reconnaissance, recruiting, training and more training, to create a network of special operations teams truly worthy of the banner of Allah. Three years directed toward a single goal, a day that would mark forever the ascendance of Islam as a major military and political power.

Betrayed.

On a desk beside him sat a DVD, a DVD the world would never see. It was to have been delivered to the offices of Al Jazeera two hours ago. By now the world would have known the name of Saif Alsharaawi…the Sword of the East. By now the world would have seen the face of Ahmed Ahsami, the face of moderation and determination, every word in his speech carefully crafted.

True justice, true peace, cannot be bought with the blood of innocents…. Islam, like its cousins Christianity and Judaism, deplores the taking of innocent life…. We have shown that we can strike legitimate military and economic targets anywhere, at any time, and that we can do so with justice in our hearts and Allah on our lips…. We ask only that the West leave the Islamic people to govern ourselves, by our own beliefs and our own standards, to pursue our own dreams with the guidance of Allah….

The speech was to have been an olive branch, offered up with the sincerity of a people who had received too much injustice and renounced delivering more. The days of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, of suicide bombings intended to cause the greatest possible loss of life, were past. Islam could not stand with its feet in a pool of blood. If he and his brothers were to win this war of ideas, they would have to do so by complying with the true will of Allah…and the laws of war.