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

so far? CIMETERRE is very knowledgeable and has saved French lives. He’s given us information that has helped us prevent several attacks against French targets.”

     “I’m reading it chronologically and I haven’t gotten very far yet. Isn’t al Khalil a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and haven’t they been behind several terrorist events?”

     “That depends what you mean by terrorism. Besides, al Khalil has agreed not to operate in France.”

    She wasn’t happy with that answer. It was too reminiscent of paying tribute to the Barbary Coast pirates several hundred years before—or of paying off a gang so it wouldn’t rob your store. Concerned she might have to reveal what she knew about al Khalil’s activities, she decided not to pursue the topic. She knew she shouldn’t hold back that she was part of the DGSE. Then again, perhaps the DGSE was better informed than she was, and too many comments from her might suggest she was not a team player, or that she was not sufficiently sophisticated to understand that al Khalil had his uses.

     Jocelin stood up.

    “Well, keep reading. I’m glad you’re with us and I look forward to a major contribution from you. I look forward to your ideas.”

     After his departure, she did keep reading and noticed the file contained information from other intelligence services, including Israeli and Egyptian intelligence. Typically, the reports showed Khalil unequivocally as a terrorist. However, the word “self-serving” was liberally sprinkled in the margins of these reports by Captain Roger and reflected the view in the DGSE that both the Israelis and the Egyptians had their own reasons to cast aspersions on al Khalil.

     The most recent reporting on al Khalil was from his case officer, Captain Lucien Roger, who had met him in a Paris safe house located on the Rue Chernoviz a few weeks before. Al Khalil’s Paris visit had involved both the Technical Directorate and the DST.

     She read about a signal that was eventually traced to Tariq’s satellite telephone. According to the report, Roger was extremely skeptical that the signal, if there was one, originated from anything his agent was carrying or wearing, which, if correct, would infer that something had gone wrong with his case.

     Roger’s only suggestion was to continue to monitor the signal to determine without doubt where it came from and, if indeed it was related to al Khalil, try to piggyback on it as a check on the location of their agent. However, counterintelligence staff asserted that it had the power to override him and, if there was some sort of beacon in the phone, it indicated that another intelligence organization had gained access to the phone and might have done more than just plant a location device in it.

     It was decided to steal the instrument and force al Khalil to buy another one. “Stuff” happened in urban areas, and Paris was no exception; al Khalil would not question such an incident.

***

A few days later, Jocelin called to ask Kella to come to his office one floor up. The secretary nodded that she could go in. Jocelin sat behind his desk to the right of the door. On the wall behind him was a map of North Africa and a military unit insignia. A man sitting in front of Jocelin’s desk stood up as he said, “Kella I want you to meet Captain Lucien Roger. I’m sure you saw his reports in the CIMETERRE file.”

     Kella glanced at the captain and her gaze became embarrassingly fixed on the right side of his face, frozen in a permanent grimace. Considering the way the captain had looked her up and down—the elevator look, she thought—the grin appeared to her more like a leer.

     “Allow me to express my deep pleasure at having you onboard,” Roger said. “I heard you graduated from the ENA, whose graduates don’t normally end up with us. It is truly an honor. I have to assume that you’re being groomed to be our boss in very short order.”

     The sarcasm was not lost on Kella.

     Jocelin’s voice allowed her to wrest her eyes from Roger’s face.

     “I saw you looking at this when you came in,” he said, pointing to the insignia on the wall, a blue triangle with the point down, in the middle of which was a flame in the middle of a green and red rectangle. On the left was the number two and on the right was the suggestion of a deployed bird wing.

     “It’s from my old unit, in Corsica, the Second Airborne Regiment of the Foreign Legion. Great outfit.”

     “I assume that jumping out of perfectly good airplanes is not a requirement for me,” she said with a grin.

Roger, dressed in civilian clothes, said, “It depends on the mission, Mademoiselle.”

     Jocelin shooed them out of his office.

     “I have another meeting. But you’ll be working together and I assume that Captain Roger has a lot he wants to share with you, Kella.”

     They moved to Roger’s office, on her floor. Sitting across from him, Kella said, “That’s a wonderful picture. Is that you? Growing up in Mali, I don’t think I ever rode a horse—a camel, yes; a horse, no.”

     Roger turned away from the photograph without answering and Kella felt uneasy. She went in another direction.

     “I was reading the CIMETERRE case, since I’ll be doing the operational support work. Al Khalil looks like an interesting person. Do you think he’s truly under our control? Also, I was wondering about that signal. What do you think that’s all about?”

     Roger appeared startled.

     “What? You’ve been on the desk two minutes and you’re already questioning me? I recruited him and he’s one of the best sources we have.”

     In the face of his defensive attitude, she clearly had to be more sensitive