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beyond American surveillance. There were no other messages on Haytham’s phone, and he shut it off. He accessed the text messages on Mayfield’s phone and saw a new text from Walsh. It read: TO ALL FBI AGENTS AND NYPD DETECTIVES: TWO LIBYAN INFORMANTS IN NY METRO HAVE COME FORWARD WITH INFO ON SUSPECT KHALIL IN CONUS. CHECK E-MAIL FOR DETAILS AND OPERATIONAL INSTRUCTION REGARDING APPREHENDING SUSPECT. WALSH, SAC, ATTF/NY. He shut off Mayfield’s phone and thought about this. If this was true, it presented some problems to him and to his mission. In fact, he would not know who to trust. He realized, though, that if this message from Walsh had been sent to all agents and all detectives, then it should have appeared on Haytham’s screen. But it had not. And Walsh did not know at the time he sent his message that he, Asad Khalil, would have Haytham’s phone in his possession. So why was the message not on Haytham’s phone? And why was it on Mayfield’s phone? She was dead when the message was sent. Therefore, he thought, this was a false message, sent only to Mayfield’s cell phone, which Walsh must now suspect was in the hands of Asad Khalil. And this was why Mayfield’s phone was still in service. He sat back on the bench and stared out at the sunlit water. So perhaps they were being clever. But not clever enough. Or… possibly it was a true message, but not actually sent to all detectives and agents despite the heading. Perhaps they did not trust Haytham. Or perhaps Haytham was not included for some other reason. In truth, Khalil did not know all there was to know about the inner workings of the Task Force, which was not as well known to Libyan Intelligence—or to his new friends in Al Qaeda—as was the FBI, for instance. In any case, this message had all the tell-tale signs of disinformation, and that was how he would regard it, which would please Boris, who had spent days teaching him about this. Boris had said, “The British are masters of disinformation, the Americans have learned from them, the French think they invented it, and the Germans are not subtle enough to put out a good lie. As for the Italians, your former colonial masters, they believe their
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