The Phoenix Affair

  *****

  It was nearing five thirty in the afternoon at Langley, and Brian Jones was working on an email to the DDO to summarize what he knew so far.

  DDO,

  Phoenix and Falcon have met and are working together in Paris. However, there is some opposition in play there; Falcon was followed by a Moroccan national, one Ahmed Kisani.

  Amazingly enough, Phoenix arranged to have Kisani mugged, and he and Falcon have shaken the tail. They took his ID and a credit card, we have that information and are working on it here and locally in Paris. I have Viper working Paris, he has gone to pick up Kisani’s trail if he can, we should have something there tomorrow.

  Phoenix is checked into two hotels, one near Chatelet and another in Les Halles, don’t know which he’s actually staying at, or if he’s at either. Working on that, too.

  Both our parties are “in” for the night, so there should be no more action today. We will have more info on Kisani, and perhaps the ID of the opposition, sometime tomorrow.

  Jones

  He sat back and read it again. “This is a little iffy,” he thought aloud. “Things are not what one would call ‘under control,’ and the boss may wig out a little with this new guy out there solo. But, we have a lot going on, good prospects, and this thing may lead us to much more than anyone hoped for.” He sat another moment, thinking. “Well, he didn’t send this guy out there to be a tourist, and the guy clearly can take care of himself, at least so far. Can’t be too pissed at me, the man’s doing his job.”

  He stabbed the “Send” button with the mouse, switched to the browser, and began a search for Kisani’s family ties in Morocco.

  The computer chimed, and Randy Anderson looked up from the file folder from which he’d been reading, then returned to it. There was trouble brewing on the Hill, he’d been called to testify again at the end of next week. Terrorists were playing Old Harry in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and the Committee was pissed that more was not being done. “Well, more is being done,” he said to the empty office, “but we sure don’t want to tell those leaky bastards about it, now do we old boy?” He finished reading the report, made two short notes, and closed the file, turning to the computer.

  He read Jones’ email, amazed. “What the hell is Cameron doing over there? Had some guy mugged, did he? I wonder how he did that. You never cease to amaze my boy. And who the hell is following our Saudi friend? Only one obvious answer to that, I’m afraid, no great mystery there. But what does al-Qaeda want with a Saudi Air Force General?” Anderson drummed his fingers on the desktop and stared into space for a few moments. “Guess our General knows something he shouldn’t know, or at least they think he does. Wonder what? This has all kinds of possibilities.”

  He sat, quietly thinking for several more minutes, and finally said aloud “Well, I don’t like it, but you take your chances as they come. This really does have all sorts of interesting possibilities if we can track this Kisani character to someone bigger, in Paris or elsewhere. Might turn into a really big break, let’s hope big enough to spend Phoenix on.” He brushed that thought aside with a grin. “Actually, it looks to me like the bad guys may more than have their hands full with Colonel Cameron.” He typed quickly.

  Jones,

  We’ll have a meeting in my conference room tomorrow, ten o’clock, by then mid afternoon in Paris. That should give Viper time to do some work and have something to report, and I’ll want to know what we’ve got on Phoenix’s location as well. If you’re not getting all you want from the Intel guys or the analysts, use my authority and pull out all the stops. I want to let Phoenix run for now, but we need to support with info or whatever he needs. Forward anything he sends you, I want to be kept up to speed.

  See you at ten, keep at it.

  Anderson.

  Jones opened the email as soon as his machine pinged, and smiled broadly. “YES,” he yelled at his empty office. “The Boss is still a player. “Let Phoenix run”, ha ha, the bad guys are in the shit, we have a no shit for real spook running this Agency. He went back to his research, he was getting pretty close to nailing Kisani’s parents’ address in Rabat, and he now knew there was also a brother and two sisters. Ripley might have more before midnight tonight, but for sure by ten tomorrow. “I think we have a real old fashioned covert op going on here, right in the middle of gay Paree, even if we do have an amateur running amok over there. He’s doing pretty well, too. Would I have thought of mugging the tail?” he wondered.