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Freedom Fighter

Greg Davis

    In 2003 the U.S. Government contracted with E-Treppid, a software company that claimed it could detect barcodes embedded in digital satellite transmissions from the Al Jazeera Television Network. These barcodes, the company claimed, were directed to sleeper cells in the U.S. and included information regarding the exact latitude and longitude of targets, the exact time and date of attacks, etc. Intelligence from E-Treppid was later discovered to be fraudulent; at the time of its release, however, it was considered reliable and actionable.
    “Jill Pharis” is a deactivated agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. What follows is the story, as she related it to me, of her pursuit of a suspect turned up by E-Treppid’s bogus electronic dragnet.


1


    Affan Kalil sat down across from me with his plate from the Indian food buffet. “Is that all you’re going to have?” He nodded at my prawn cocktail and rice.
    “I’m fine,” I said. “Trying to watch my figure.”
    “I would not say you need to worry about your figure, Jill.” Mr. Kalil gawked at my breasts while I pretended to look for a waiter.
    I faked a smile and opened the textbook in front of me to a random page. Mr. Kalil lifted the spine of my book with a greasy finger that was shiny from his massala or whatever. “Tort Law!” he said. He bobbled his head from side to side in that peculiar middle eastern way of his and said, “People in this country may complain about lawsuits, but I think they’re wonderful.” He sucked some grease off his fingers. “We could have warlords ruling the land. Then we’d see if people complained.” The way this sleeper agent said “we” disturbed me. But I forced a smile and turned up my jaw in a way I’d learned studying Demi Moore in Striptease. Mr. Kalil fumbled with his food, the fool. Gradually he turned his eyes away from me and dug his fingers back into his greasy rice and bread. It was all I could do to not shove a fucking fork in his hand.

2


    The details of Mr. Kalil’s plot were revealed to me by my Director at a meeting in July of 2003. A Senator from the Intelligence Committee was there as well. The Senator was standing in front of a window watching planes take off from Reagan International. My Director was sitting in a large chair in a corner of his office and he told me to sit across from him. “Agent Pharis will be containing this threat, Senator.”
    “Very good.” The Senator stepped away from the window and cleared his throat. “Agent Pharis,” the Senator said. “As you might imagine, I’m sticking my neck out a little by coming here to see you. I don’t make a habit of dealing directly with agents and perhaps I should have stayed back in the shadows and allowed the Director to execute these orders alone. After all, as I’m sure you well realize, there are plenty of people who’ve got men like me in their crosshairs, waiting to take me down. So it’s risky for me to come in here and see you. It’s risky for me to get involved, but I felt it was necessary. It was necessary for me to come in and see you. Do you know why, Agent Pharis?”
    “No, sir,” I said.
    “It was necessary, Agent Pharis, because your Director is about to assign you to a mission of unparalleled importance. It is a mission so critical to the security of this nation that it’s fair to say that you are going to be all that stands between millions of innocent people and complete and utter terror. That being the case, I felt it was necessary to come forward and wish you luck; I’m honored to meet you.” He stopped talking and stuck his hand out for me to shake. I felt my heart pounding.
    “The honor is mine, sir.” I shook the Senator’s hand.
    “Agent Pharis,” the Senator said. “This is the young man you are going to be meeting and getting to know. His name is Affan Azziz Kalil.” He handed me a dossier that held the visa of a smiling Pakistani man and a spreadsheet with raw data in the form of numbers. He walked back to the window watch another plane take off. “Have you ever wondered how they did it?” he said over his shoulder.
    “Sir?” I said.
    “The terrorists. Have you ever wondered how they got their marching orders. Hunkered down deep inside enemy territory, and then all at once they spring out of nowhere and knock down the Twin Towers? Has that ever struck you as being something that required any sort of explanation, Agent Pharis?” The Senator turned around and came back to red leather chair across the table from me. He sat and folded his legs and smoothed the thigh of his slacks. He told me about how the enemy had been embedding barcodes into satellite transmissions from Al Jazeera; how sleeper cells could pick up the signals and how they’d been intercepted; how the government’s contract with E-Trepid had turned up a mother lode of intelligence that could now be used to defend the homeland. Decoders had been hard at work figuring out how to decode these signals and what weapons the enemy was planning to use next.
    “One sure weapon these boys picked up time and again was British Air Flight 223, a flight from London to New York. The numbers 2-2-3 showed up in connection with another series that our code breakers translated; when they decoded the message it said terrorists were planning to use Flight 223 as an air taxi to deliver biological weapons into the U.S. We grounded the flight three times in a row. Then, Agent Pharis, lo and behold, the first time Flight 223 is allowed to cross the pond, guess who crawls on there but Affan Azziz Kalil. A pre-med student with a particular interest in virology? Inbound from Pakistan to a small school outside of Philadelphia? We almost wondered if the terrorists were playing some sort of trick on us. Sending in some sort of red herring to create a diversion. But no ma’am. This man is the real deal.
    “We believe Kalil has the capability and the intent to launch a major biological weapons attack on our country that will begin on the east coast and rapidly spread throughout the country. We don’t know the exact date of the attack but we think it may be planned for the second anniversary of 9-11. They don’t realize that their signal has been intercepted so you should have the element of surprise on your side.” The Senator ducked his chin into his chest. “I wish you the best of luck.”
    The Director offered the Senator a scotch, neat, and I picked up the dossier on my mark. Affan Azziz Kalil: college senior, four years younger than myself, wicket keeper for his school’s cricket team – pre-med student carrying 3.3 grade point. On the surface nice and clean. But his birthday, 06/09/81- appeared in a barcode sequence not far from the directives about Flight 223, according to E-Treppid’s master code breakers. This con artist, pretending to be some cute medical student, was planning to infect my country with a lethal virus? I hated his face already. What made him more despicable was that he claimed his trip to Pakistan was to “make arrangements for his mother’s funeral.” The fact that he used such an excuse to account for his whereabouts while he was being trained for mass murder told me all I really needed to know about the man I’d been assigned to kill. “When do I begin?” I asked.

3


    Besides his whole college boy routine, Kalil disguised his evil scheme behind a big smile and a corny sense of romance.
    “So I have to ask: if you were a vegetable, what type of vegetable would you be?”
    “Could we get going pretty soon?” I said.
    Mr. Kalil finished his friggin’ massala and did exactly what I knew he’d do, exactly what I’d watched him do so many times from my stake out across the street on the park bench: he removed the napkin from his V-neck sweater and left for an utterly predictable visit to the restroom. (He always went to wash his hands before he left). While he was gone, I took an eyedropper from my purse and dripped into Mr. Kalil’s water several drops of the tasteless, odorless poison I’d been given by the Director. I quickly stirred the water with a spoon then opened my law book and waited. Two minutes later I smiled at him as he returned.
    Pretending to be a sap, he announced his return from the restroom like any sap would: “Cleanliness is close to godliness.” But then his eyes met mine, and I felt I could see into his reptilian brain for a second. I held his gaze as he drank his entire glass of water in one go. “There you go, you son-of-a-bitch. Drink up!” I thought. “That’s for all the people you intended to kill.” Mr. Kalil set down his empty glass; I was so overcome by my feeling of triumph that I accidentally smiled.
    “What?” Mr. Kalil said curiously. “I hope someday that smile will mean something good for me, Jill.” I shook my head. “Please excuse my indecency,” Kalil said. “I was just-”
    “Spare me the act, Affan,” I blurted out. He stiffened like I’d slapped him in the face.
    “I’m very sorry,” he said.
    “It’s okay,” I said, putting on a sweeter tone. “I’m just feeling tired. Let me get the check.”
    “Of course not, Jill. I invited you. But I hope that one comment. . . I was just trying to make you laugh.”
    “I know.”
    “I wish I knew why you were being so cold to me all of a sudden, Jill,” he said. “Perhaps, then, it’s best to say good night and allow you some space. May I call you tomorrow?”
    “Sure, Affan. Call me tomorrow.”
    He was standing up looking at me now, waiting. “Goodbye, then, Jill,” he said. “Goodbye,” I said without taking my eyes off the law book in front of me.

4


    The poison hit Mr. Kalil an hour after he arrived home. The most satisfying part, to me, is that he never even saw it coming – I conned the con man right up to the last moment of his life. Of course, because he never realized that he was about to die, he never gave up his sleeper agent disguise.
    In fact, up to the last moment of his life he continued trying to make me an accessory to his unspeakable crimes. At the very moment the poison hit him, he was writing me a letter – a very normal sounding letter – something he probably remembered from a book he studied at his jihadist training camp in Pakistan. One of the agents who searched Mr. Kalil’s belongings found the letter and dropped it by my desk. I keep it in my top drawer as a trophy. “Dear Jill,” it says. “If I said something wrong at dinner, I am deeply sorry. I am not used to the attentions of a woman as beautiful as you. To me, your beauty is like the bright sun – if only I were a poet to describe it!”
    What sweet-sounding words from the pen of such a dangerous man. A master manipulator. I just thank God we were able to get him before he got us, and I feel proud to have had the opportunity to serve my country in such a capacity.



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