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167 pages

English

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A radical Muslim group has dedicated itself to the restoration of the Caliphate, a global Islamic empire based on cruel medieval values and the conquests of the faith's glory years. These true believers will stop at nothing, including assassinations and terrorism, to achieve their goal. Standing in their way is Steve Church, just a U.S. businessman in Paris who never expected to be recruited by the CIA as an undercover operative. But now, with his life on the line, with the fate of nations at stake, and with the safety of his beautiful Kella in jeopardy, Steve must dive headlong into a desperate struggle to prevent mass destruction. The Caliphate is a whirlwind adventure, bristling with exotic locales, dangerous and desperate characters, and international intrigue, all crafted by a former master spy who has experienced similar dangers and challenges firsthand.

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Thrillers

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Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	08 mars 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780985114183
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Caliphate
Copyright © 2012 André Le Gallo
All Rights Reserved

Published in ebook format
by D Street Books
a division of Mountain Lake Press
http://mountainlakepress.com

Converted by
http://eBookIt.com

ISBN 978-0-9851141-8-3

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

For Christopher

Introduction by Porter Goss
André Le Gallo’s The Caliphate pours out a tale of exciting intrigue too frightening to believe—and too believable to ignore. But you had better believe it, because Le Gallo is the real thing. I went to spy school with him years ago. He’s a natural as well as a gifted story teller. As a long-time, top-ranked CIA operations officer, Le Gallo shares with us both what goes on in the convoluted and treacherous world of foreign intelligence and what might happen if we let our guard down.
Set in the volatile evolving areas of North Africa’s Maghreb, a dangerous trail of violence and malevolence takes protagonists Steve and Kella through the sophistication and romance of Paris to the treachery of the Mid-East, areas well known to Le Gallo through his days “in the trade.” At every turn, the increasingly deranged fanatic Tariq Al Khalil escalates the stakes at risk to restore the former glory and power of the ancient Islamic Caliphate—no matter the cost. Le Gallo’s portrayal of Al Khalil reflects convincingly the vicious fanaticism of the radical Islamic fundamentalists we have uncovered since 9/11—and portends eerily those future terrorists who will continue to rally to the bastardization of the Quran by delusional radical leaders with their own agenda.
Le Gallo makes the case why these misguided monsters of inhumanity must be stopped and gives us professional glimpses of just what it takes in the intelligence world to get the job done. Even though The Caliphate is fiction, it captures faithfully many of today’s real-world obstacles confronting the protagonists from all quarters. Intelligence officers in our services will relate to wind-shifting bureaucrats and politicians inside the Beltway, too timid to reward anything deemed risky; hesitant cooperation from supposedly friendly intelligence organizations, which often confounds success; shifting allegiances and devious betrayal by “trustworthy” agents; leaks to the media and sell-outs to enemies of important, sensitive information by confederates; desperate decision-making that must be done on the sketchiest of information; and terrible miscalculations by principal players that can cost innocent lives if not bring us to the brink of destruction.
These are not small matters. Le Gallo does not have to invent these aspects of intelligence work in today’s global struggle for a peaceful world future. He is able from firsthand experience to arm his attractive protagonists with natural resources, life experience, and acquired skill to meet the unexpected twists and turns in a path that takes them ever deeper into danger. Even so, they are not larger than life. They are credible human beings living out a relationship with each other and against a malevolent force that seeks to destroy them. The excitement is palpable; the outcome is uncertain.
It is a fortunate truth that André Le Gallo’s The Caliphate is fiction, but the quest for “the new Caliphate” by radical fundamentalists is not. Their vision of “Restoration” includes full control of much of the geography from the Pacific to the Atlantic, roughly in the Tropic of Cancer: the Philippines and Indonesia through Southern Asia, the “’stans” of Central Asia, the Levant of the eastern Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, the Maghreb of Northern Africa, and the Sahel of sub-Saharan Africa. It is a vast area with millions of people, many barely surviving in substandard conditions.
While birth rates are generally declining for Western European nations, they are growing in the lands of the envisioned Caliphate. Radical Islamic fundamentalists advertise an intolerant, merciless view toward those not totally submitting to their “pure” interpretation of the Quran, the Hadith—the sayings of Muhammad—or all of the rules and regulations that have been passed down as Sharia law since approximately 650 AD.
Even though the radicals represent a minority of the world’s Muslims, they are a powerful voice and they have found a growing, receptive audience for their corrupted version of Allah’s will. There is no room for sanctity of life, equal rights, or civil liberty; women are as chattel—or less; Islam is Submission, with a capital “S,” and they decide who must submit to what. A loving, compassionate father god is not included. These people exist. They have struck the innocent countless times already, brutally and with increasingly sophisticated weapons and tactics. And they will strike again! Beware the Caliphate!

—Porter Goss lives in southwest Florida, now retired from many years of activity in America’s intelligence community. He was the last Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and the first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under the changes enacted by Congress in intelligence reform legislation after 9/11. Prior to that, he served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, including several years as chairman of the Intelligence Committee. His earlier days as a clandestine services officer in the CIA triggered a keen interest in our national security and an unshakable awareness of how critical good intelligence is for our national well-being.

PART I
Allah Is Our Objective, the Quran Is Our Law, the Prophet is Our Leader, Jihad Is Our Way, and Dying for the Sake of Allah Is Our Highest Hope.
—Credo of the Muslim Brotherhood

Fight and Slay the Unbelievers Wherever Ye Find Them.
—Quran, Sura 9:5

One
In the darkness of Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, Farid stood on the ladder leaning against the wall separating the Saudi Ambassador’s and the American’s back gardens. Wearing designer glasses and dark silk slacks, he looked more like an aging poster-boy for the business-casual look than like the typical second-storey man. In fact, Farid bin Abdullah was one of the thousands who depend on the patronage of the 5,000 royals of Saudi Arabia. A distant cousin had obtained this choice Paris assignment for him. The American’s powerful security lights provided an excellent view of his garden and of the double stairway that led from the gravel walk to each side of the patio on the first floor. On the patio, a French window was slightly ajar, as he had been told it was on warm nights. He lifted one leg up and, for a moment, stayed prone on the wall. He was conscious that he was about to leave the diplomatic immunity of the Saudi ambassador’s residence to enter the infidel’s space. He felt that he was crossing the border between the land of Peace, the Dar al Islam, and the land of War, the Dar al Gharb. More accustomed to diplomatic cocktails than to surreptitious entries, he had never been a risk-taker. But he was confident in his ability to recognize a low-risk, high-reward mission; just as he was confident that the warmth of the night was the cause of his perspiration.
Before letting himself down, he pulled the aluminum ladder up. His sweating hands and the unexpected weight caused the ladder to hit the wall. The noise resounded into the quiet night of the residential suburb and was answered by angry yelping several houses away. He froze for a second looking at the back of both residences but he noticed no movement. Straining, he brought the ladder down on the American side of the border. He went down the ladder and kept to the narrow grass and dirt strip at the foot of the wall to avoid the noisy gravel as he approached the stairs.
Farid knew that the house was empty. The American’s cook Benjamin, obviously a Jew, had told the Saudi maid that Dr. Coogan was going away for a couple of days and that he, Benjamin, was going to stay with a friend during that time. That was when he had decided that this would be the perfect time to carry out Tariq al Khalil’s order. He corrected himself, al Khalil, a Salafi, didn’t give orders to an officer of the Kingdom’s Al Mahabharata Al A’ amah (General Intelligence Directorate). However, both the international Salafis and the Saudi Wahhabists, who basically agreed on the need for a pure Islam based on the earliest writings, were outraged at Dr. Coogan’s public statement that newly surfaced Quranic documents were causing the academic community to question the uniqueness of the Quran, a blasphemous concept. The word of God was unique and unchangeable. There was only one Quran, unlike the gospels, which allowed the Christians to choose one they liked best. His mission tonight was to find the Quranic forgeries that Coogan certainly kept in his house.
When he reached the French windows, he took off his Gucci belt, folded it into a loop that he introduced through the slightly open doors and above the handle. He placed the loop around one side of the horizontal handle and pulled up disengaging the iron rods secured into the bottom and top of the door frame. He pushed and both windows opened.
His flashlight scanned the room—a large dining room table was the centerpiece. China and crystal-ware glass-front cabinets lined one wall and paintings the other. Documents could be hidden almost anywhere. Luckily, there was no one home and he felt unhurried. He moved to the next room, an office. The walls were nearly covered with photographs of a person he assumed was Coogan with European and Middle Eastern personalities. He first emptied desk drawers filled with business cards, files on investments and newspaper and magazine articles on the Middle East. His heart skipped a beat when he saw one f