One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [116]
He picked up the first sheet, spending a few minutes studying it. Placing it down, he picked up the second sheet. After about fifteen seconds, he placed it back down and returned to the first sheet, walking around the room and studying it.
I finally got fed up. “Well, what’s it say?”
Ethan snapped out of his trance, looking at us like he didn’t know where we’d come from. After a pause, he said, “Okay, one is clearly some sort of terrorist message. It talks about killing infidels and other things. The other is simply an invitation to coffee, with an address.”
I already knew that one was terrorist related but was surprised at the other translation.
“What’s the address? Is it in Norway?”
“It doesn’t have a country listed, but it’s a coffee shop somewhere in Europe. The verbiage is a direct phonetic translation, and isn’t American. The meeting occurred today at thirteen hundred.”
“What’s the other message say? The first one?”
“Well, it’s pretty ominous, but it’s something I read every single day in chatter we get fed, so don’t freak out.”
“Yeah, yeah. The difference here is that I’ve met them; I know they’re trying to kill people. I just don’t know how. What’s it say?”
“Here’s what I think it says: ‘Operation Badr will exceed our expectations. We no longer will strike the far enemy in his homeland. We came upon a weapon that will push the Zionists into the sea at the same time it causes the far enemy to destroy the Persians. Praise Allah, we will rejoice when all infidels are destroyed because of this, leaving us with the assurance of the Caliphate. Please reply, telling us this path is blessed, or tell us what to do next.’ Is that what you expected?”
“Yeah, something like that. What do you make of it? What’s an Arabic mind saying when it says that?”
“Well ... I’m not an Arab. I’m not really keen on telling you what I think because I’m probably wrong.”
“Haji, cut the shit. I’m not a robot. I already know what I think. I’d like to hear what you think. I’m not going to run off shooting people because of it. You’re an analyst, for Christ’s sake. This is what you do.”
Ethan held up his hands. “Okay, okay ... Starting right off, they reference the Battle of Badr, the first significant defeat of Meccan forces by Muhammad, which led to Islam taking over the Arabian Peninsula way back when. Going further, this is clearly an AQ message. The references to the far enemy and the Caliphate point to that. Getting to the meat, in my mind, these guys have a weapon and they intend to use it on Israel. That, in itself, isn’t unusual. Every Arab with a firecracker says that sort of thing. In this case, I don’t think these guys believe they have a firecracker. I think they have a weapon that is dangerous enough to cause a phenomenal reaction, something designed to cause the Israelis to really, really go nuts.
“Okay. So far I’m tracking. That’s about what I thought. What about the Persian comment? I couldn’t make heads or tails of that. What do you think he’s saying there?”
“Honestly, that part’s a little disturbing. I’m not sure, but it could mean that the weapon will be blamed on Iran, causing Israel to attack them. The second order of effect for that, of course, would be that we would support Israel, drawing us in to a war with Iran. The end result, in the mind of the guy who wrote this ...” He paused, looking at me. “Understand, I’m not saying this would happen, but I think they want to start the clash of civilizations everyone blabs about. They want to start a true holy war, using Israel as the bad guy. We’d be forced to defend Israel in any attack against Iran; and all other Arab states, because it’s Israel doing the attacking, would be forced to choose sides. There’s no question whose side they’ll choose.”
Ethan stopped, thinking about what he had just said. “Man, this could actually work. If they could blame the Iranians for a serious attack, especially with the nutcase in charge constantly talking about destroying Israel, it probably would start a chain reaction