The Caliphate, André Gallo [best books to read ever .TXT] 📗

that American professor killed in Paris? We know that was you. You’re not living up to your side of the bargain.”

     “We all know that he was a CIA spy operating in France, so I did you a favor as well. Besides, we never agreed that Americans in France were included under ‘French interests.’ I’m keeping my jihadists under control. Unless I can pay them and show that we’re active, they’re going to go elsewhere or go out on their own and your churches and malls and official buildings and metros will be see one firebomb after another. Who do you think has kept suicide bombers away from ‘la belle France’?”

     Al Khalil knew Roger well enough to understand that he wanted to continue the relationship. Roger’s financial and career advantages were at stake.

***

Commandant Leroux had to do what he most disliked about his job as head of the DGSE’s Technical Directorate—ask for assistance from the DGSE’s sister service, the DST, the Direction pour la Surveillance du Territoire, France’s internal security organization. He made the call from his Boulevard Mortier office.

     “We have intercepted a new signal that will be of interest to you. We have been tracking it for several weeks through our intercept site in the Kourou Space Center in French Guyana. It was an encrypted microsecond burst. Unfortunately, there were much higher priorities for the use of our Cray computer here. However, yesterday… no, two nights ago … our center on the Oregeval Plateau at Alluet-le-Roi, in the Périgord, picked up the signal. But now it’s more frequent. Instead of once a day, the signal is transmitted once every thirty seconds.”

     Lacoste interrupted, “Probably a simple locator transmission. If we can’t break the encryption, we should be able to find out where it’s coming from.”

     “You may be right. In any case, the source seems to be within our borders and that’s why I’m calling.”

     “Just send me everything you have. It would have been better if we could have had it earlier. It may be too late to make any arrests now. We’ll see.”

     Leroux hung up. He wasn’t interested particularly in an arrest.

     The DST, part of the Ministry of the Interior, are just cops, he thought. Promotions are based on collars.

     He shook his head. The better way would be to let the agent run and discover his entire network.

31. DGSE Headquarters

Kella was in her cubicle at her new job in the DGSE building which, so far, was bare of personal items, such as family photos or favorite decorations. Most of her new colleagues were men, about half of whom were in uniform. The atmosphere and the corridor décor were also strongly military. Her feelings about that were fairly agnostic. Her parents had been killed by soldiers but her grandfather was a general. She was the object of considerable curiosity. After all, the boss was her grand-père, she was a woman, and she was an ENA graduate.

     She had been looking forward to this moment since she learned that her request to be assigned to the Maghreb, or North African, section had been successful. A file marked “CIMETERRE” was on her desk. She opened the red cover of the Tariq al Khalil operation and began to read. Excited, she noted the romantic inference of the name, meaning scimitar, and its invocation of the Muslim conquests that had made this Arab battle-sword notorious.

     After her DGSE junior-officer training, she went through a series of interims in each of the five directorates: Strategic, in touch with the users of the information to determine its adequacy, relevance and timeliness; intelligence, the HUMINT collectors; Technical, the intercept operators, France’s equivalent to the American National Security Agency; and Operations, or “Action,” the special military groups organized into maritime, air, and ground divisions.

     The file was organized chronologically with the most recent reports on top. She flipped to the back and read Captain Roger’s version of the recruitment. It read well. Roger had been adept at meeting and developing al Khalil. In time, al Khalil shared information about the leading personalities of terrorist groups in Indonesia, the Jamaat al Islamiya whom he had met in the Afghan training camps. After the Bali bombings, Roger had claimed credit for al Khalil’s information that led to the eventual arrest of Abu Bakr Bashir, the Jamaat leader.

     Kella was shocked to learn that the DGSE funded al Khalil to the tune of twelve thousand dollars a month. Several assassinations in Northern Mali and in other countries of the Sahel were attributed to al Khalil’s group by other sources. However, there was no reporting on those assassinations from Roger. His accounts of IMRA activities in the Sahel focused on social services and health care. It seemed al Khalil was also obtaining funds from the gold and uranium mines of West and Saharan Africa. Some of his military training camps were identified, including the one she and Steve had overflown. She found no mention of his use of Unmanned Air Vehicles or of yellowcake.

     She went back over the assassinations reported on by other sources and noted it included Tuaregs. She looked at the bracelet given to her by Thiyya and had mixed feelings. Was she on the wrong side?

     “How are you doing Kella?” asked a tallish man in uniform who had stepped into her small space. He wore jump wings and several decorations. She had met him fleetingly during her first day on the job. It was Commandant Jocelin, the Maghreb section chief. She wasn’t sure whether to get up but he sat down in a chair beside her desk. His long legs took up the rest of her space.

     “Just fine, sir. I’m starting to review the CIMETERRE file. Very interesting.”

     “Yes. You have to meet Captain Roger. He’s the case officer. What do you think of the case