Duplicity

CHAPTER ONE

Counterterrorism Center

Central Intelligence Agency

Langley, Virginia

Gunter Conner was not used to seeing fresh fruit, doughnuts, silverware, and plates when he arrived at the regular Monday-morning briefing inside the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Employees usually sauntered in carrying their own snacks. Today was different because Payton Grainger, the CIA's director, was expected. As a rule, the director never attended mundane meetings, especially at this low step on the bureaucratic ladder, but Grainger had recently launched an effort to revitalize poor morale inside the agency by mingling with the rank and file. Conner correctly assumed that Charles Casterline, who ran the Monday briefings, had ordered the refreshments. Casterline was the ultimate schmoozer. In a bureaucracy that loved acronyms, Casterline was the chief of the OA (Office of Operations and Analysis) at the CTC (Counterterrorism Center) inside the NCS (National Clandestine Service), the covert branch of the CIA.

Conner went directly for the coffee, taking it black. His head was splitting. Reaching into his pocket, he palmed a Xanax, discreetly raising it to his lips. It was his substitute treatment for anxiety when mind-numbing alcohol wasn't available. He slumped into a seat along the conference room wall.

"I'd like to start by welcoming Director Grainger," Casterline said, rising from a conference table in the center of the room where all of his managers and other brass were seated.

Conner tuned him out. His eyes wandered and he noticed several of his younger colleagues along the wall were fidgeting in their chairs, trying to juggle a fruit plate and plastic fork on their knees while holding a hot cup of coffee. A few were licking white powdered sugar from their fingers. It was only when Casterline was nearing the end of his briefing that Conner reconnected.

"Oh, we've had a report of a prison in Dera Ismail Khan being overrun by Taliban fighters," Casterline explained as if this news was an afterthought. "Some eight hundred prisoners escaped, including a few dozen militant jihadists."

When no one at the conference table reacted, Conner interrupted. "Excuse me."

Washington bureaucracies follow certain protocols, some written and others not, and one of them inside the CIA was that employees who were sitting along the conference room wall had the status of children in the early 1800s. They could be seen but not heard unless called upon.

An irritated look washed across Casterline's face, while Director Grainger gazed over his reading half-glasses much like a proctor monitoring a final exam.

"That prison break is the eleventh escape during the past two months in the region," Conner volunteered.

"And your point is what?" Casterline asked curtly.

"It's part of a pattern."

"We've been through this before," Casterline replied in a clearly exasperated voice. "This prison break and other escapes in the region are happening because they are allowed to happen. Either guards are bribed or they don't know squat about security."

"I disagree," Conner replied.

"Well, you're wrong," Casterline retorted, his irritation turning to an only slightly veiled anger. "The last time you brought this up," Casterline continued, "I told you to write down your theory in a paper for peer review, or to be more precise, the last time you announced that all of us have been dealing with terrorists in a profoundly wrong manner, I had you explain why in writing."

Removing his reading glasses, Director Grainger said, "This is the first time I've heard any of this."

"That's because no one in the CTC or NCS accepts Mr. Conner's thesis," Casterline said.

"Just because you and my peers don't agree doesn't mean I am wrong," Conner replied. "It simply means none of you has figured it out yet."

Casterline's eyes narrowed at the insult, but before he could respond Conner added, "Any analysis which starts out with a geographic focus on radical Islamists is by definition profoundly wrong. As I explained in my paper, radical Islamism is not a geographic issue even though we keep trying to resolve it through geographical solutions."

"This is not the time to have this discussion," Casterline snapped.

Grainger, however, was intrigued. "You've just insulted your direct supervisor and, actually, everyone in the CIA's top management, including me, as well as your peers, by telling us we're fighting our nation's war on terror incorrectly."

"With all due respect, I was simply pointing out the obvious," Conner answered.

Now Grainger joined the others in frowning as Conner continued. "We went after Al-Qaeda and killed Osama bin Laden. We celebrated, but then the Taliban reemerged. We went after it and then came ISIS and tomorrow it will be some other radical group. Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram, the Army of Islam. We'll hunt and kill the leaders without ever ripping out the roots. We need to begin fighting these radical Islamists as if they were a virus, rather than waging war on regional factions."

"A virus?" Grainger asked.

"We're looking at Islamic terrorism through traditional military and diplomatic eyes, when we should be looking at it as if we were epidemiologists facing a worldwide epidemic. We need to view Islamic terrorism much like the Ebola outbreak in Africa several years ago."

"Seriously?" Casterline said in a voice laced with sarcasm. "Did I just hear you lump Ebola and terrorism together?"

"If our military approach is too myopic for you," Grainger said, "tell me what your epidemiologic approach would be."

"We should do what every scientist does when a virus first appears," Conner replied. "Identify the threat—how many new cases are appearing and how rapidly they are spreading. Then move into an analytical phase. Are there discernible patterns in why and how this disease spreads? Finally, we need to develop intervention strategies to isolate and eradicate the disease, not try to manage it. We need to recognize that we will never win an ongoing campaign against terrorism by fighting a war against each separate group. We should be fighting a radical Islamic epidemic."

"There are currently more than a hundred identifiable terrorist groups in the world," Casterline said, challenging him. "Each has its own agenda. Each has its own leader. These prison breaks, for example. We have been told the Taliban was responsible for the Pakistan attack. In Yemen, the jailbreak was led by Al-Qaeda. In Nigeria, it was Boko Haram. In Afghanistan, it was the Followers of Allah. There is absolutely no evidence that these divergent groups communicated between themselves or that these breaks were coordinated. The only thing that unites these factions is their hatred of our country. If they didn't hate us, they would be killing each other. So looking at the whole, rather than the parts, accomplishes nothing useful."

Conner shook his head in disagreement. "I believe these prison attacks are being coordinated, but even if they aren't, you are missing my points, and your inability to understand and accept them is why our current approach is failing. First, we must recognize that radical Islamism is our enemy; it is the virus that gives birth to these divergent groups. If we want to eradicate it, we must first understand why radical Islamism is flourishing. Islam is hardly a new religion. Why are the numbers of radical Islamists rising, even in our own country? My second point is directly related to the first. Since radical Islamism is the common ideology of all these terrorist groups, that means they can be united. Just because we refuse to look at the bigger picture, doesn't mean our enemies are blind. Which brings me to my third point. I believe there is a new Osama bin Laden–like figure currently consolidating power among radical jihadists and yes, we need to identify and stop him before he unifies Islamic terrorists."

"So there's a Super-Osama lurking in the shadows," Casterline said mockingly, "an Islamic boogeyman breaking terrorists out of prisons and forming a coalition of extremists—is that what you're telling us?"

Several of Casterline's fellow managers at the table chuckled. Buoyed by their laughter, Casterline continued, "Tell me, Mr. Conner. If there were a dozen prison breaks in the U.S., would you conclude that a mastermind drug dealer was behind those escapes simply because the inmates who were freed were convicted drug dealers? Or would you conclude that convicted drug dealers escaped because more than half of all inmates in federal prisons are there on drug charges? You're connecting imaginary dots that only you can see. There is no rising Super–Osama bin Laden in the shadows, no modern-day jihadist messiah about to crush us through unification."

Director Grainger had heard enough. Returning his reading glasses to his nose, he glanced at the next item on the agenda and said, "Until you have evidence that backs up your theories, Mr. Conner, they're nothing but theories and, as entertaining as they may be, our agency acts on facts, not speculation. Let's move on."

When the briefing ended ten minutes later, everyone stood while Grainger shook hands and exited. Casterline glared at Conner and barked, "In my office. Now!"

As soon as they were alone, Casterline let loose with a profanity-laced reprimand that ended with him saying, "If I could, I'd fire you."

"I felt an obligation to speak."

"Why?" Casterline asked rhetorically. "Because you didn't say anything new this morning. You and I both know our exchange was window dressing. It might have been the first time Director Grainger heard it, but you've been trying to sell that prattle about a Super–Osama bin Laden for the past three years, and no one here is buying it."

Conner kept still. The quicker he took his licks, the quicker he could leave.

"Listen," Casterline said. "You and I both know why you're obsessed with your theories. Everyone in the agency is aware of what happened to you and your family in Cairo and everyone regrets that, but you can't let a personal tragedy that happened three years ago skewer your professional judgment. And after three years, all of us are ready to move on."

Conner felt his face becoming flush. "What happened to my family is why I know my so-called obsession is true."

In a voice that was now more exasperated than angry, Casterline replied, "Conner, you were once a good operative, but ever since Cairo you've alienated every one of your coworkers with your conspiracy theories and combativeness. What makes you think you're the only person in this agency who knows what he's doing? What makes you think you're so much smarter than all the rest of us?"

"Being the smartest in the CTC may not be as huge of a challenge as you suggest," Conner replied.

The blue veins in Casterline's neck looked as if they might pop. "Get the hell out of my office."

Conner's anxiety was worse when he reached his desk. Opening a drawer, he removed a bottle of Xanax and swallowed another pill without bothering with water. He glanced at a metal bookshelf next to his desk. The bottom two shelves were crammed with red, blue, and black note binders that held unclassified studies that Conner had once felt were significant but now couldn't recall why. The third and top shelves held a half-dozen autobiographies that Conner had felt obligated to buy because they had been written by former colleagues but hadn't bothered to read. Next to them were books that he had read: the Historical Dictionary of Terrorism by Sean Anderson and Stephen Sloan; Inside the Criminal Mind by Stanton E. Samenow; Washington Station by Yuri B. Shvets; The World Almanac of Islamism edited by Ilan Berman and Jeff M. Smith.

Tucked on the top shelf near its left corner was a worn copy of a more sentimental book, a novel that Conner had discovered at age thirteen. He had carried it with him to undergraduate school at Rutgers University, where he'd majored in mathematics because nothing else seemed challenging; to graduate school at American University, where he'd earned an advanced degree in public anthropology; and eventually to his Langley office.

Conner rolled his desk chair over to the bookcase, its wheels squeaking on the tile floor. The racket was a reminder of how he'd let his physical appearance slip. He often forgot to shave. He often wore the same suit. He often forgot to shower. A diet of fast food had pushed his weight to 250 pounds and given him a watermelon-shaped belly that hung unattractively over his belt on his six-foot frame.

Conner plucked his copy of W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage from the shelf. It didn't take him long to find the passage that he was seeking.

The answer was obvious, so why didn't anyone else see it?

Conner continued reading. It was as if the book were an old friend offering him solace. Like the novel's protagonist, Conner had been trying to decide if there was a meaning to life when he first came across Maugham's classic as a teen in his father's library. By the time he'd read it, he'd reached the same conclusion as the central character. There was no meaning, no master plan, no choreographed destiny designed by an omnipotent being who rewarded those who worshipped him and condemned those who didn't. There was no god. The good and bad in life were caused by great and evil men, not a supernatural being.

Conner replaced the volume on its shelf and wheeled back to his desk. Being an atheist had been easier when he'd not lost what he treasured most in life.

He stared at a framed photograph on his desk. The snapshot showed him with his wife, Sara, and their two children, Benjamin and Jennifer. They were standing outside Dulles Airport with packed bags ready to begin what Sara had called "their great Cairo adventure."

He leaned forward, reaching for the photograph, but his hand began trembling so he pulled it back.

He needed proof and he owed it to himself to find it.