The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

“There are currently ninety-three terrorist organizations in the world as recognized by the U.S. State Department, most of them originating in the Middle East,” Gray responded. “You have confirmed membership in at least three of them. In addition, you were found with forged passports, structural plans to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and bomb-making material. Now you’re going to work for us, or it will become distinctly unpleasant.”

Al-Omari smiled and leaned toward the camera. “I was interrogated years ago in Jordan by your CIA and your military and your FBI, your so-called Tiger Teams. They sent females in wearing only their underwear. They wiped their menstrual blood on me, or at least what they called their menstrual blood, so I was unclean and could not perform my prayers. They rubbed their bodies against me, offered me sex if I talk. I say no to them and I am beaten afterward.” He sat back. “I have been threatened with rape, and they say I will get AIDS from it and die. I do not care. True followers of Muhammad do not fear death as you Christians do. It is your greatest weakness and will lead to your total destruction. Islam will triumph. It is written in the Qur’an. Islam will rule the world.”

“No, that is not written in the Qur’an,” Gray rejoined. “Not in any of the 114 suras. And neither is world domination mentioned in the sayings of Muhammad.”

“You’ve read the Hadith?” al-Omari said incredulously, referring to the collections of sayings and the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Muslims.

“And I’ve read the Qur’an in Arabic. Western scholars have never done a good job of translating that language, unfortunately. Thus, Mr. al-Omari, you should know that Islam is actually a peaceful, tolerant religion, though it is a religion that defends itself vigorously. That’s understandable, since some ‘civilized’ cultures have been trying to convert Muslims to their faith ever since the Crusades, first with the sword and then the gun. But the Hadith says that even in jihad, innocent women and children must be spared.”

“As if any of you are innocent,” al-Omari shot back. “All of Islam must fight back against those who would oppress us.”

“Islam represents one-fifth of the face of humanity, and the overwhelming numbers of your brethren believe in the freedoms of speech and press and also equal protection under law. And more than half of the world’s Muslims live under democratically constituted governments. I know that you were trained at a madrasain Afghanistan, so that your knowledge of the Qur’an is limited to rote memory, thus I’ll forgive your seeming ignorance on these issues.” Gray didn’t add that at the madrasa al-Omari’s training would have also included automatic weapons and how to fight holy wars, earning such a training center the dubious title of Islamic West Point.

Gray continued. “You aspired to be a shahid, but you had neither the nerve nor the zealotry to be a suicide bomber, nor did you have the backbone and instincts to be a mujahid.”

“You shall see whether I have the courage to die for Islam.”

“Killing you does me no good. I want you to work for me.”

“Go to hell!”

“We can do this easy or hard,” Gray said, checking his watch. He had been up for thirty hours now. “And there are many ways to attain Janna.”

Al-Omari leaned forward. “I will get to Heaven my way,” he said, sneering.

“You have a wife and children living back in England,” Gray noted.

Al-Omari folded his arms across his chest and assumed a stony look. “Bastards like you will serve us well in the next life.”

“A son and a daughter,” Gray continued as though he hadn’t heard the man’s retort. “I realize that the women’s fate may not overly concern you. However, the boy—”

“My son will gladly die—”

Gray interrupted in a very firm voice. “I will not kill your son. I have other plans for him. He just turned eighteen months old?”

A trace of concern crossed al-Omari’s face. “How did you know that?”

“You will raise him in the Muslim faith?”

Al-Omari did not answer; he simply stared at the camera.

Gray continued. “Well, if you do not agree to work with us, I will take your son from his mother, and he will be adopted by a loving couple who will raise him as their own.” Gray paused for the emphasis he would place on his next words. “He will be raised in the Christian faith in America by Americans. Or not. It’s all up to you.”

So stunned was al-Omari that he rose from the chair and staggered toward the camera, until hands appeared and forced him back into his chair.

The next words out of his mouth were in Arabic, but were nonetheless clear enough. Moments later, his rage uncontrollable, al-Omari had to be physically restrained as the threats continued to flow. Finally, his mouth was taped shut.

Gray pushed the man’s file away. “Over the last few years 7,816 Americans have died at the hands of people like you. All of these deaths have taken place on American soil. Counting attacks overseas, the death toll is nearly ten thousand. Some of these victims were children who were denied the opportunity to grow up to practice any religious faith at all. I will give you twenty-four hours to make your decision. I ask you to consider it carefully. If you work with us, you and your family will live out your lives in comfort. However, if you choose not to work with us . . .” Gray nodded to the man next to him, and the screen went blank.

Gray looked at six more files in front of him. Four represented other Middle Easterners, much like al-Omari. The fifth was a neo-Nazi based in Arkansas, and the sixth, Kim Fong, was a member of a Southeast Asian group with ties to known Middle East terrorist organizations. These men were “ghost detainees” in the unofficial nomenclature. No one other than Gray and a few select people at NIC knew they were even in custody. Like the CIA, NIC maintained clandestine paramilitary squads in hot spots all over the world. One of their tasks was to capture alleged enemies of America and afford them no due process whatsoever.

Gray would put similar proposals to all the ghost detainees, although the inducements would vary

depending on the intelligence Gray had gathered on each man’s background. Money worked with more of them than one would think. Rich people rarely blew themselves and others to bits for religious or any other reasons. However, they often manipulated other people to do it for them. Gray would be lucky if half accepted his offer, but he would gladly take those odds.

An hour later Gray left NIC. Only the skinhead had agreed outright to help, doubtless spurred on by Gray’s threat to turn him over to a radically violent anti-Nazi group headquartered in South America if he didn’t cooperate. Other than that, the night had been a disappointment.

As Gray walked to his car he reflected on the situation confronting him. The violence was mounting on each side, and the harder one side hit, the harder the other tried to hit back. Using just a fraction of its nuclear arsenal, the United States could wipe out the entire Middle East, vaporizing everyone in the blink of an eye, along with every holy site for two of the world’s major religions. Barring that unthinkable scenario, Gray did not see any clear resolution. This was not a war of professional armored battalions versus turbaned rabble in the streets toting rifles and RPGs. And it was not simply a difference of religions. It was a battle against a mind-set, of how people should conduct their lives, a battle that had political, social and cultural facets melded together into an exceedingly complex mosaic of humanity under enormous strain. At times Gray humbly wondered whether the conflict should be fought with psychiatrists and counselors instead of soldiers and spies. Yet all he could do was get up each day and do his job.

Gray sat back against the worn leather of the Suburban he was riding in while the armed guards all around him kept a close lookout. Gray closed his eyes for fifteen minutes until he felt the vehicle slow. Then came the familiar rattle as the motorcade rolled across the gravel drive leading up to Gray’s modest home. It was as well guarded as the VP’s digs at the Naval Observatory. President Brennan was not about to let anything happen to his intelligence chief.

Gray lived alone, but not by choice. He went inside, allowed himself a beer to unwind and then headed upstairs to sleep for a few hours. As was his habit before retiring, he picked up the two pictures on the fireplace mantel across from his bed. The first was his wife, Barbara, a woman who’d shared most of his adult life. The second photo was of his only child, his daughter, Margaret, or Maggie as everyone had called her. Had? He had never grown comfortable referring to his family in the past tense. Yet how else did one refer to the dead and buried? He kissed both of the pictures and set them back down.

After he had climbed into bed, the horrible weight of depression lasted thirty minutes, less than usual, and then Carter Gray fell into an exhausted sleep. In five hours he would rise and again engage in the only battle he now considered worth fighting.

CHAPTER

7

ALEX FORD’S WALK THAT NIGHT took him east, and he soon found himself in familiar territory: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now gracing the area between the White House and Lafayette Park were elm trees and retractable bollards, interspersed with guard booths camouflaged so they didn’t stand out like prison gun towers. However, the key here was, and always would be, security, regardless of how many new trees and pretty flowers they planted.

“Hey, Alex,” a man in a suit said as he walked out of the front security gate.

“You going on or off duty, Bobby?”

Bobby smiled. “You see an ear fob sticking out my ass? I’m going home to the little woman and kids, unless they moved out and forgot to tell me, which isn’t exactly beyond the realm of possibility, since I’m never