Saul's Game Page 29

  CHARACTERS

  (in order of appearance)

  Caroline Anne Mathison, nickname “Carrie”; cover names “Mingus,” “Billie,” “Jane Meyerhof,” “Anne McGarvey,” “Nancy Williams”; operations officer, Baghdad Station, NCS (National Clandestine Service division), CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

  Warren Purcell, senior senator from Indiana, chairman Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C.

  The President of the United States.

  William Walden, nickname “Bill”; Vice President, former director of the CIA, Washington, D.C.

  Abu Nazir, real name unknown; origin: unknown; current status: leader of IPLA (Islamic People’s Liberation Army); current location: unknown.

  Perry Dryer, code name “Dallas-One”; Baghdad Station chief, NCS, CIA; current location: Baghdad, Iraq.

  Warzer Zafir, Iraqi national; origin: Ramadi, Iraq; U.S. embassy translator and liaison to the CIA’s Baghdad Station; current location: Baghdad, Iraq.

  Saul Michael Berenson, Middle East Division chief, NCS, CIA.

  Lieutenant General Mosab Sabagh, code name “Cadillac”; executive officer, Presidential Guard Armored Division, Syrian Army, Damascus, Syria.

  Chris Glenn, code name “Jaybird”; CIA SOG (Special Operations Group) team commander; formerly captain, U.S. Army First Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta, JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command).

  Nicholas Brody, sergeant, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, United States Marine Corps; captured by forces associated with al-Qaeda outside Haditha, Anbar Province, Iraq, May 19, 2003.

  Jessica Brody, née Lazaro, wife of Nicholas Brody; mother of Dana Brody and Chris Brody; current location: Alexandria, Virginia.

  Mike Faber, captain, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, United States Marine Corps; childhood friend of Nicholas Brody.

  Megan Faber, wife of Mike Faber; current location: unknown.

  Marion Brody, aka “Gunner Brody”; chief warrant officer 02 (retired); father of Nicholas Brody; current location: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

  Sibeal Brody, wife of Marion Brody and mother of Nicholas Brody; current location: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

  Thomas Walker, nickname “Tom”; scout sniper, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, United States Marine Corps; captured with team member Sergeant Nicholas Brody by forces associated with al-Qaeda outside Haditha, Anbar Province, Iraq, May 19, 2003; presumed killed by Nicholas Brody, some days after initial capture.

  Orhan Barsani, CIA asset; origin: Syrian Kurd from Hama, Syria; current location: Damascus, Syria.

  Aref Tayfouri, Syrian Kurdish businessman and friend of fellow-Kurd Orhan Barsani; location: Damascus, Syria.

  Mira Berenson, née Bhattacharya, wife of Saul Berenson; origin: Mumbai, India; current status: director, Children’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch organization.

  Sanford Gornick, nickname “Sandy”; specialist 2, Iranian Desk, Middle East Division, NCS, CIA.

  Christopher Larson, nickname “Chris”; lieutenant colonel, CENTCOM commander’s headquarters staff, United States Army; location: Tampa, Florida.

  General Arthur Demetrius, CENTCOM commander, U.S. CENTCOM, United States Army; location: Tampa, Florida.

  Akjemal (last name unknown); Turkmen woman; location: Tal Afar, Iraq.

  Alan Yerushenko, deputy director, OCSAA (Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis), Intelligence Analysis Division, CIA; briefly Carrie’s supervisor in 2006.

  Abd al Ali Nasser, director of Syrian Mukhabarat, the Shu‘bat al-Mukhabarat al-‘Askariyya or Military Intelligence Directorate, the equivalent of the combined Syrian CIA and DIA.

  Aminah Sabagh, wife of Lieutenant General Mosab Sabagh, location: Damascus, Syria.

  Jameel Sabagh, son of Lieutenant General Mosab Sabagh, Syrian Army; location: Damascus, Syria.

  Syarhey Lebedenko, cover name “Marcos Haroyan”; businessman/senior sales director, Belkommunex, TAA, front company for Russian KGB (later remade as SVR and FSB), Minsk, Belarus; origin: Belarussian.

  Virgil Maravich, CIA specialized skills officer (“Black Bag” technical specialist), Middle Eastern Division, OTS (Office of Technical Services), NCS, CIA.

  Dar Adal, deputy chief of staff, Black Operations Team, National Clandestine Service, CIA; origin: Druse; born: Baakleen, town in the Chouf region, Lebanon.

  Kamal Jumblatt, former Lebanese minister of the interior, founder of the Progressive Socialist Party and later the National Struggle Front; winner of the Lenin Prize; leader of the Lebanese Druse community; father of Walid Jumblatt and mentor to Dar Adal. He was assassinated in March 1977. Suspicion for his murder fell on the Syrian Assad regime or Syrian adherents in Lebanon; origin: Lebanese Druse, born: Deir el Qamar, Lebanon.

  Gerry Hoad, consular officer and MI6 intelligence officer, British SIS (Secret Intelligence Service), British FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), British Grand Consulate, Istanbul, Turkey.

  Sally Rumsley, senior political reporting officer, British FCO, British Grand Consulate, Istanbul, Turkey.

  Simon Duncan-Jones, consul general, chief of mission, British FCO, British Grand Consulate, Istanbul, Turkey.

  Alina (last name unknown), trafficked female; origin: Chişinău, Moldova; current location: Manama, Bahrain.

  Nassrin (last name unknown); wife of Abu Nazir, leader of IPLA, mother of Issa; current location: unknown.

  Issa (last name unknown); son of Abu Nazir, leader of IPLA.

  Dana Brody, daughter of Nicholas Brody; current location: Alexandria, Virginia.

  Christopher Brody, nickname “Chris”; son of Nicholas Brody; current location: Alexandria, Virginia.

  Marius de Bruin, code name “Robespierre”; president and CEO, Atalaxus Executive, Pty, a South African registered private military company; origin: Johannesburg, South Africa; current location: Baghdad, Iraq.

  Dasha (last name unknown); female model and companion of Marius de Bruin; origin: Kiev, Ukraine; current location: Baghdad, Iraq.

  Eric Sanderson, deputy chief of mission, U.S. embassy, Baghdad, Iraq.

  Estrella (last name unknown), assistant/servant of Marius de Bruin; origin: Puno, Peru; current location: Baghdad, Iraq.

  Abu Ghazawan, real name Haidar al-Salem; follower of Abu Nazir; origin: Fallujah, Iraq (Salmani tribe); current location: Karbala, Iraq.

  Sheikh Ali Hatem al-Rashawi, leader of the Albu Mahal tribe and the Sons of Iraq, a Sunni militia, Anbar Province, Iraq.

  Ali Ibrahim, aide to Sheikh al-Rashawi, officer in Sons of Iraq; origin: Albu Mahal tribe, Ramadi, Iraq.

  Ali Hamsa, code name “Arrowhead”; assistant to Iraqi Vice Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Fahdel, leader of the Sunni faction in the Iraqi parliament; location: Baghdad, Iraq.

  Tal‘at al-Wasi, smuggler and prominent member of the Bani Assad tribe; location: Shatt al-Arab, Basra, Iraq.

  Majid Javadi, captain in the SAVAK, the shah of Iran’s internal security force. This organization was subsequently transformed into VEVAK, the Iranian Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security; current headquarters: Tehran, Iran.

  Namir Fahmadi, colonel, later general of the Iranian Army under the shah; past location: Borazjan, Iran; current location: unknown.

  Pejman Khanzadeh, officer of MOIS (Ministry of Intelligence and National Security), the Iranian equivalent of the CIA; origin: Tehran, Iran.

  GLOSSARY

  (in alphabetical order)

  100X1—CIA expression; the number before the X indicates the number of years before a document may be declassified; i.e., one hundred years. The X1 designates classification level; i.e., Top Secret.

  Aardvark—CIA designation for messages or reports of the highest urgency; typically indicating an emergency situation.

  Agencja Wywiadu—Also called AW; the secret intelligence service of Poland, the Polish equivalent of the CIA.

  Alawites—A Shiite Muslim religious group, an offshoot of the “Twelver” branch of Shi‘a Islam, primarily located in western Syr
ia. The Alawites began as a sect that followed the teachings of the eleventh imam, Hassan al-Askari, in the ninth century. In the centuries that followed, they achieved notoriety as warriors. Alawites represent only a small percentage of the Syrian population and might have passed unnoticed were it not that Syria has been ruled for more than forty years by a single Alawite dynasty, the al-Assad family, who placed Alawites in positions of power. Bassam al-Assad, son of the founder of the modern Syrian state, Hafez al-Assad, was the president of Syria in 2009, the period in which this book is set. As Alawite Shiites, the al-Assads, father and son, allied Syria with the other two anti-Western Shiite powers in the Middle East, Hezbollah and Iran.

  Al-Qaeda—The global international militant terrorist organization. Founded in the late 1980s by Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi jihadi, in part as a response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), al-Qaeda (the name means “the Base”) is a combination militant Islamist terrorist network, stateless military force, and radical Sunni Muslim movement advocating global jihad. As Salafist jihadis, al-Qaeda is intolerant of all persons of other religions or philosophies except strict Salafist Sunni Muslims. This includes intolerance toward other Muslims, such as Shiites, Sufis, or even Sunnis, who in their view do not practice a sufficiently strict Salafist Sunni version of sharia law. The organization achieved worldwide notoriety for its attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Since then, although it has lost much of its early leadership, it has developed offshoots in other parts of the world, including, among others: AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in Kashmir, AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, North Africa), Jemaah Islamiah (a Southeast Asian Islamist terrorist group), and AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq).

  AQI—Al-Qaeda in Iraq; the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda; the international Salafist jihadi militant organization founded by the Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden. AQI was started in 2003 as a reaction to the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. It was first led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. After his death, in the Homeland version of events, AQI or an offshoot, the Islamic People’s Liberation Army (IPLA), was led by a mysterious man with the kunya, or nom de guerre, of Abu Nazir. By 2009, when this novel is set, the American war effort in Iraq is winding down and AQI has lost much of Anwar Province due to a combination of actions resulting from the U.S. military surge and actions by the Sons of Iraq and other Sunni tribesmen who turned against AQI. In this novel, in order to retain relevance, the IPLA, under Abu Nazir, plots one last attack in the hope of triggering a civil war in Iraq that will force the Americans to withdraw with heavy casualties under fire, leaving the U.S. mission a failure.

  CENTCOM—Acronym for the U.S. military’s Central Command; its areas of responsibility include the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, which in recent times includes the two U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The commander of CENTCOM has the responsibility of all U.S. military forces in those areas.

  CIA—Acronym for Central Intelligence Agency; the U.S. federal agency primarily responsible for foreign intelligence; headquartered in Langley, Virginia. Thus the terms “CIA” and “Langley” are often used interchangeably.

  CID—Acronym for Criminal Investigations Department of the Abu Dhabi Police Department; responsible for the investigation of crimes and counterintelligence in Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates.

  COMINT—Acronym for Communications Intelligence, i.e., intelligence derived from the interception of electronic or voice communications; also see NSA.

  DCIA—Acronym for director of the CIA.

  DIA—Acronym for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the primary U.S. foreign military intelligence organization. The agency’s objectives encompass the collection and analysis of defense-related foreign political, economic, geographic, and other types of intelligence; although the majority of its employees are civilians, it is operated as an agency of the Pentagon.

  Dorogoi—A Russian term of endearment; sweetheart, darling.

  Drop; aka dead drop—CIA term for a secret location where a message or other material can be left in concealment for another party to retrieve. This eliminates the need for direct contact between two agents in hostile conditions. Typically, a mark, such as a chalk mark, a bit of colored thread, etc., is left nearby to signal that there is a message or item to pick up. The person picking up the material normally erases or eliminates the mark to indicate that the material has been retrieved.

  FISA Court—Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court; a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to meet in secret in order to evaluate requests and issue surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents or terrorists operating inside the United States. Post-9/11, the court’s powers and scope were expanded to address a wide range of federal actions involving classified material or as deemed necessary for national security.

  Flash Critical—CIA term for a message or operation of highest urgency.

  FOB—U.S. military term for Forward Operating Base. Each such base is typically designated by a letter of the alphabet, e.g., FOB Alpha, FOB Bravo, etc.

  FSB—Acronym for the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation; Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti; a successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, it is responsible for counterintelligence and domestic security. Like the KGB, it is headquartered in Lubyanka Prison in Lubyanka Square in Moscow.

  GO—Acronym for a General Order; in the U.S. military a General Order is a directive issued by a commander that applies to all units in his/her command. It is considered general because it is an order not directed at a specific person nor does it necessarily require a specific action, but rather delineates a policy or overall action, such as an attack. Failure to obey a GO is punishable by court-martial.

  Green Zone—A ten-square-kilometer (approximately four square miles) section of central Baghdad aka Oz (after the Emerald City of The Wizard of Oz); it had been the center of government and the area where the most important government officials lived under Saddam Hussein. It subsequently became the governmental center of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. Heavily fortified during the height of the Iraq War and subsequent insurgency, it remains the seat of the Iraqi government and the primary locale of the international community in Baghdad.

  GSD—the Syrian General Security Directorate, Idarat al-Amn al-Amm, the brutal agency in charge of internal and external security for the Syrian government. In addition to suppressing internal dissent and security threats against the Assad regime, the GSD is involved in intelligence work outside Syria, such as coordinating intelligence activities and information with Hezbollah and the MOIS, the Iranian CIA, both allies of the Assad regime in Syria. In order to work undercover in Syria, Carrie’s greatest danger would be in coming to the attention of the GSD, which would have no compunction about imprisoning, torturing, or even executing her.

  HUMINT—CIA term for human intelligence, i.e., intelligence gathered from and by human sources; traditional spycraft sources.

  Hijab—Arabic word for head scarf, frequently worn by Muslim women for modesty; called a rusari in Iran.

  IED—Military acronym for Improvised Explosive Device, e.g., a roadside bomb or other explosive booby trap.

  Imam Hussein Shrine—Located in Karbala, Iraq, on the site where the battle of Karbala took place on October 10, 680, when the overwhelming forces of Yazid, the Ummayad caliph, defeated and slaughtered the companions and family of Hussein ibn Ali, leader of the Shiite faction. The killing of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, caused the final irreparable rift within the Islamic world between Shiites and Sunnis. The shrine consists of two ancient domed mosques separated by a promenade: the Imam Hussein mosque, which is the burial site of Hussein and also contains a mosque for prayer, and the Al Abbas mosque, the burial site of Abbas, Hussein’s flag bearer and bravest warrior companion. For Shiite Muslims, the shrine is, after the
Kaaba in Mecca, considered to be the holiest site in Islam. As suggested in this book, an attack that destroyed the sepulcher and remains of the martyr Hussein would have profound repercussions among Shiites around the world.

  INP—Acronym for Iraqi National Police.

  IPLA—Acronym for the Islamic People’s Liberation Army. In the Homeland universe, the IPLA is a dangerous affiliate of al-Qaeda headed by Abu Nazir, one of the CIA’s most wanted terrorists.

  ISF—Acronym for Iraqi Security Forces; a U.S. term for the military and police forces of the federal government of Iraq, including the Iraqi Army, re-formed after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

  JWICS—Acronym for Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, a containerized Internet-like data communications network for Top Secret CIA communications.

  KDP—Acronym for Kurdistan Democratic Party; also known as PDK, Partîya Demokrata Kurdistan. The KDP is one of the two main Kurdish parties (the other being the PUK) that dominate the area of northern Iraq under autonomous Kurdish control. This region is unofficially called Kurdistan.

  KGB—Acronym for the Committee for State Security, Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, the foreign and domestic security intelligence service of the Soviet Union and its satellite nations during the Soviet era, headquartered in Lubyanka Square in Moscow. After the fall and breakup of the Soviet Union (1991), it was re-formed in Russia as two new agencies: the FSB, responsible for domestic security and counterintelligence, and the SVR, responsible for foreign intelligence, i.e., the Russian equivalent of the CIA.

  Komidashi—In the game of Go, black always goes first, which is a significant advantage. To compensate, agreed-upon points are awarded to white (6.5 points is standard under Japanese and Korean rules; under Chinese and AGA rules, 7.5 points is standard). This compensation to help equalize the game is called komidashi or komi, for short. By offering a “modified komidashi,” Saul is giving the general fair warning that he, Saul, is an accomplished Go player.