Free Terminal Rage by A.M. Khalifa Page B

It ’ s not ideal, but four beats zero, right?”
    “Let ’ s do it. Call the chopper in and make it loud and visible.” Monica hung up and strode back to the conference table.
    “We ’ ve got twenty minutes before the HRT guys are evacuated and we ’ re back online. What do we know about his origins?”
    All eyes turned to Natasha Shaker, the language expert on the team. She was a tough woman with wide shoulders, short-cropped platinum hair, and a pierced tongue. Blackwell remembered what the other agents used to call her behind her back, but he had nothing but respect for her. Shaker ’ s mastery of Semitic languages had served her career well at the Bureau in the aftermath of 9/11. She ’ d put some terrible people behind bars for good, just by listening to how they spoke.
    Blackwell skimmed through his notes. “I ’ m guessing Egyptian, Syrian or Jordanian. What ’ s your take, Natasha?”
    “I can ’ t trace it exactly, Alex.” Her voice was deep and velvety as he remembered it. “But by his enunciation and his grasp of our cultural nuances, I ’ m pretty sure he has either studied or lived in America. We ’ re probably looking at an Arab expat family background—someone who has moved around in many circles. Privileged. Wealthy. Highly educated. Late thirties to early forties, I would say.”
    Monica turned to Eddie Grove, the psych expert. “Motives?
    “He ’ s pissed—that ’ s for sure.”
    Grove had come to the FBI from academia. He had been embedded in Guantanamo Bay assisting the government in unlocking tenacious terrorist minds, when the FBI decided he was indispensable and plucked him out. He was about fifty, with long flowing black hair and a salt and pepper goatee. Blackwell conjured a mental image of Grove riding to work on a Harley Bobcat and not giving a shit what anyone else at the Bureau thought.
    “ ‘ America the crumbling empire ’ is an attractive rallying call for many jihadists. I ’ ll support Robert ’ s initial instinct and go with a hardcore Islamic whack-job who draws inspiration from Al Qaeda ’ s business model. For now at least.”
    “How about the biblical reference to Cain and Abel?”
    “It ’ s baffling, Alex. But there was a second and more important religious undertone you may have all missed.”
    “Which one?”
    “His name—Seth. Aliases are never chosen randomly. They always mean something.” Blackwell drew a blank. He glanced at the faces around the table, and everyone else seemed just as clueless.
    “He ’ s the third son of Adam and Eve. The less famous brother of Cain and Abel, you could say. Seth was appointed by God as a replacement for his slain brother.”
    Nishimura ’ s eyes widened and revealed an inner geek intrigued by this mythology. “So what do we know about Seth?” Before his mouth had uttered the question, Nishimura ’ s hands had started Googling it.
    “Seth is revered by all three of the monotheistic religions as the father of all humanity.” There was a brief silence in the room. Blackwell tried to wrap his mind around the Seth connection.
    Grove stood up and ran his hands through his hair as he walked around with a classroom gait. “We could be dealing with an apocalyptic cult, at least if he sees himself as the father of humanity in the image of Seth.”
    “So what kind of crazy could we be dealing with? Waco? Heaven ’ s Gate?” Blackwell had backstopped both these cases in his early years at the Bureau.
    Grove shrugged and then massaged his temples with the tips of his fingers.
    “I ’ m not reading cult activity here. There may be a simpler connection. Many Muslims believe Seth was buried in the village of Al-Nabi Shayth in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.”
    Blackwell leaned forward and listened to Grove, as his secondary, burgeoning theory promised to be more plausible.
    “The village is also the birthplace of Abbas al-Musawi, an influential Shia cleric and the cofounder of Hezbollah. The Israelis took him