by Mike Brogan
“Check the lobby video.”
“I did. It shows a service guy stepping onto the elevator and heading up about that time you talked to her. But we can’t verify if he’s the AC service guy or not.”
“He probably is. He was heading up to her then. Check all building security cams.”
“We’re checking them now.”
Donovan swallowed a dry throat. “And call me!”
”Yes sir.”
They hung up.
Donovan phoned Maccabee again and was bounced into voice mail. He left another message asking her to call. His sixth call. He tried Doctor Dubin’s office and learned she hadn’t gone there.
Why isn’t she returning my calls? She always answers within minutes. Where is she?
He directed two agents in Manhattan to check with her friends, and ask tenants if they saw her leave the building.
Donovan’s mind was spinning with possibilities. All bad.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself as he pulled into The Highwayman Tavern north of Mayfield on Highway 30, a popular hangout for locals.
He hoped someone in the bar saw Nell or the white van. The lot was filled with pickups, four-wheel vehicles, and a 1962 green VW minivan in mint condition.
An FBI team had tracked Nell’s footsteps through the forest to near the Jackson Summit Reservoir where rain washed them out. They found them again alongside a road, but then her steps simply vanished. A vehicle had obviously picked her up. Most likely her abductors, since she hadn’t phoned 911, Jacob, or Lindee.
Worse case scenario, her abductors dumped her body in the forest.
Donovan, Agent Manning, Lindee, and Jacob went inside The Highwayman Tavern. The busy, two-story bar smelled like fried burgers, beer, and spicy nachos. Neon beer signs celebrated Utica Club, Saranac, and Stella Artois. Several customers celebrated a Yankee home run.
Farmers with sunburned faces and white foreheads chatted with men in suits and ties. Construction workers threw darts. An ancient Wurlitzer pumped out Springsteen’s Born in the USA. Some guys looked like they were born in the bar - and never left.
Donovan preferred this kind of cozy saloon, hard to find in chichi, tony Manhattan. Everyone here probably knew everyone. And noticed strangers.
He introduced himself to the bartender whose frizzy silver hair looked like a Brillo pad. Donovan showed him his badge, a photo of Nell and the van, and explained.
The bartender squinted at the photo, shook his head. “Haven’t seen her. But if she or the van’s in these parts, one of these rummies might know.” He nodded toward his customers. “Just ask ‘em.”
He handed Donovan a small microphone. Donovan tapped it and it popped like a firecracker.
The chatter quieted a bit.
“Pardon me folks, but we need your help. My name’s Donovan Rourke. I’m with the federal government.”
Silence.
“Please hold your fire until I finish.”
Some chuckles and smiles.
“This is your basic CIA badge.” He held it up.
The bar immediately got quiet. The CIA badge was a Mute button.
“We’re searching for three men who are middle-eastern looking. They kidnapped a woman, Dr. Nell Northam. They were just seen in this general Park area in a white Chevy van.”
Drew Manning and a police officer handed out copies of Nell’s photo and the van.
“Has anyone seen her or the white van?”
No one answered. Most shook their heads.
“They snatch her?” shouted a skinny older woman with blonde hair stacked up like a beehive.
“Yes. But these men are more than abductors.”
“Rapists?” a young blonde waitress asked.
“Terrorists.”
No one spoke. Someone unplugged Born in the USA.
Donovan didn’t want to incite panic, but he had to level with them. “We think they’re planning an attack.”
“In itty bitty Mayfield?”
“Probably New York City.”
Silence.
“So why’re these bastards way up here?”
“They have a large underground laboratory in the Adirondack forest.”
The customers looked stunned. Clearly, they had no idea a laboratory had been built there.
Donovan continued, “Anyone see anything or anyone out of place, out of the ordinary, anything strange in the area?”
A short guy with a beer belly pushing out his grass-stained Oshkosh overalls stood up. “Name’s Maynard Trott.” His cheeks gleamed like polished red apples.
“I seen a strange truck. Bearded dark-skinned fella driving.”
“What kind of truck?”
“Delivery truck. Gray, mid-sized.”
Maybe the same gray truck the boy on a Schwinn saw, Donovan thought.
“Why strange?”
Maynard Trott spit tobacco into a tin can. “’Cuz where it was at.”
Trott walked over to the wall and pointed to a spot on the Fulton County map.
“This here dirt trail. Ain’t but one place to deliver at. Cabin way at the end.”
Donovan saw it was the same trail to the destroyed cabin they’d just left. “Was the truck heading toward the cabin?”
“Nope. Coming out. Turned left on Tolemantown.”
“What was strange about it?”
“Side of the truck.”
“Why strange?”
Maynard honked a nasty gob of chewing tobacco into a spittoon with the accuracy of a Marine sniper.
“Name on the side.”
“What name?” Getting information from Maynard was like pulling stumps.
“Said Zelda’s Fresh Garden Flowers.”
“Delivering flowers maybe,” Donovan said.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Ain’t no Zelda’s Fresh Garden Flowers store nowheres in the whole damn state of New York. And that’s a true fact!”
“How the hell you know that, Maynard?” A fiftyish red-haired woman shouted.
“’Cuz a my new iPhone, Juwanna.” He pulled it out of his bib overalls and proudly waved it around. “It tells me Zelda’s Fresh Garden Flowers is somewheres else!”
“Where’s it at?”
“El Paso, Texas. Three-thousand-mile flower delivery. Gotta be one of them secret boyfriends you always braggin’ about, Juwanna.”
Everyone laughed. Juwanna threw a stack of swizzle sticks at Maynard.
Donovan knew El Paso bordered Juarez, Mexico, a sometimes US entry location for jihadist terrorists posing as Mexicans.
“We’ll put out a BOLO on the flower truck,” Manning said.
“Trucks!” Maynard said.
Donovan grew more concerned. “How many?”
Maynard closed his eyes. “I seen four trucks, mighta been more. All had Zelda’s Fresh Garden Flowers on the side. Four trucks from El Paso delivering flowers to a New York forest road whut ain’t got but one cabin? Them flowers’d be all shriveled up and dead by the time they got here. Don’t make a lick a sense to me!”
“To me either, Maynard,” Donovan said, as he walked over to the map and placed his finger on the cabin road. “You’re positive this is the road where you saw the trucks?”
“Yep!”
Donovan sensed the fleet of trucks were connected to the attack. Maybe the trucks would release the bio or chemical weapon through their exhaust systems on Manhattan streets.
Or maybe each truck would attack a different city.
Donovan heard Manning call in the description of Zelda’s flower trucks.
“Anything else, Mr. Trott?”
“Nope.”
Donovan thanked everyone and asked them to call him or 911 if they saw Nell Northam, the white Chevy van, or the flower trucks.
His phone rang, he listened a minute, hung up and turned to Manning, Jacob, and Lindee.
“That was my NSA contact, Bobby Kamal. He just listened into another conversation between
a man in Yemen and a man in this area . . . a man within twelve miles of us.”
“Did he get a name for the guy here?”
“No.”
“The NSA is also picking up credible buzz about a major attack. And the buzz is growing louder. Bottom line - Washington, Homeland Security, the FBI and NSA, and now the White House, suspect an imminent attack.”
“How imminent?” Manning asked.
“Probably within forty-eight hours. They’re raising the terrorist alert level to HIGH ALERT! Maybe even to SEVERE ALERT - if we find out where, when, and how it’s coming.”
No one spoke.
“Are they still looking for Nell?” Jacob asked.
“Yes. Finding Nell is the key,” Donovan said.
And finding Maccabee is the key to my family, he thought. He checked his calls-received and saw she still hadn’t called or texted him. He dialed her number again. No answer.
He tried to leave a voice message, but the message box was full. Panic was scrambling his brain.
As Manning made a call, Donovan stared across the bar at an old friend of his: Jameson whiskey. He felt incredible pressure to chug some down. Jameson had often eased his panic and pain after his first wife, Emma, was murdered in Brussels because he wasn’t there to protect her. The drinking grew worse until he hit bottom a few months later back in Manhattan. Finally, he got the rehab treatment he needed.
But now, once again, his wife was in danger - because of his job. Namely, protecting America. No small task. But how could he protect America if he couldn’t even protect his wife?
With Maccabee in probable danger and her ovarian cyst fears, he should probably consider asking to be relieved from this assignment.
And looking at the bigger, long-term picture, he should probably consider reassessing his current appointment by the DNI and the President. The job threatened his life and the lives of Maccabee and Tish. What right did he have to endanger his family?
Sooner or later, he’d have to decide about the job.
FORTY THREE
Nell’s throat felt raw from breathing the caustic cleaning-chemical fumes in the small, dank janitor’s room. She stared at her only escape route - the steel door - still dead-bolted from the outside.
It was only a matter of time before the men unlocked it, dragged her out, and executed her. She’d seen their faces, knew their names, knew their weapon, knew Hasham wanted revenge for killing Aarif and for escaping the cabin.
He wouldn’t risk her escaping again. If she told authorities about VX, Homeland Security would quickly distribute VX antidotes like Mestinon, or pyridostigmine bromide, to people in the most likely target areas, densely populated cities, probably Manhattan. If people received antidotes before being exposed, or just in time, they had a chance to live.
And if Hasham dispersed VX by air, authorities could curfew people to stay in their homes and offices, turn off ventilation systems, and seal their windows. Eventually, the winds would blow the nerve gas away, and when air levels tested safe, people could come outside.
And if Hasham dispersed by water, authorities might have time to turn off the water system and in time make water safe again.
It all depended on warning people.
And warning people depended first on warning authorities!
And that depended on her.
She heard men speaking Arabic walk into the next room, Hasham’s office.
She bent down, looked through the slit in the paneling, and saw Hasham and two other workers. Beyond them, she noticed the steel VX containers were no longer in the cabinets. Where were they?
A tall bearded worker walked past the cabinets, and pulled down a large power lever on the wall. Instantly, motors rumbled to life and an assembly line belt began weaving through various machines and devices.
She heard glass jiggling, then saw small empty bottles rattle along the belt, shimmy around corners, clatter along a big curve.
What’s going on?
The bottles reminded her of the original small Coca-Cola bottles. They passed under the nozzles that filled them with a chocolate milk-colored liquid.
The bottles jiggled closer to Nell, and slowly turned their bright yellow label around toward her.
She saw the label and stopped breathing.
The label read ChocoYummy. It pictured a smiling young girl and boy, about nine, with baseball caps.
NO . . .!
Please God . . . no!
They’re putting VX in a chocolate drink for children!
One sip will kill a child in minutes.
She couldn’t breathe.
Is that your strategy, Hasham? Kill our kids and you destroy our families. Destroy our families and you destroy our country. Destroy our country and your jihadist fanatics grab control of it.
Her eyes filled as she envisioned Mia drinking ChocoYummy and dying in excruciating pain. Nell’s heart slammed into her throat. She broke out in a cold sweat.
Somehow she had to warn the authorities.
She stared at the locked door. Again, she searched the room from corner to corner, ceiling to floor, and found no tools to pry up the hinges.
Then an idea hit her. Maybe deadly, but maybe her only hope.
Quickly, she studied the list of contents on the cleaning product vats, looking for certain ingredients with which she might be able to create a small chemical explosive with enough power to blast off the door lock. She’d have to wait until the men left tonight.
But what if they don’t leave . . . what if they’d decide to kill her before tonight?
She couldn’t wait. She had to do it now and try to escape in the confusion of the explosion.
Assuming the explosion didn’t kill her.
She searched each container, each cleaning drum, each list of ingredients. Amazingly, the main ingredient, hydrochloric acid, was not listed in any of the cleaning compounds. Nor were other essential compounds like toilet bowl cleaner, ammonium nitrate, and pool sanitizer chemicals. Did Hasham anticipate she might create an explosive and remove the necessary compounds from the room? Possibly. Her hope sank.
Bottom line: She had nothing to make a small chemical explosive.
She was trapped in this room.
Until they eliminated her.
* * *
“Where’d I hear this guy’s voice?” Bobby Kamal wondered.
He sat at his desk in NSA headquarters. He was using voice recognition software, comparing the taped voice of Mr. Jones in Yemen – with the voice patterns of known Yemeni jihadists and terrorists. So far no match.
But somewhere within the last two years, Kamal knew he’d heard the soft, buttery voice of Mr. Jones. He grew more frustrated with each failed comparison.
He tried some new outspoken radicals like Abda Yusef, Saffa Khoury, Baba Azzim, Fawzy Hassan. No match.
Bobby Kamal began comparing Mr. Jones’s voice to his second tier candidates - radicalized mullahs, intellectuals and vocal supporters of jihadists, ISIS, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda.
No match.
He compared Jones to the three most rabid anti-American Yemini professors of Middle Eastern history.
No luck.
He decided to try a man who’d dropped off the NSA radar two years ago. Bassam Maahdi. An MD, with a PhD in chemistry from Beirut University and a PhD in microbiology from the University of Florida. He played Maahdi’s voice.
Four soft, buttery words later . . . Bobby Kamal stood up.
Gotcha!
Bassam Maahdi is Mr. Jones. Voice Recognition registered a 97.4% match!
Maahdi was very bad news. Born in southern Lebanon to a middle class family. When he was nine, his parents were killed in an Israeli air raid on his father’s illegal weapons warehouse. Then he was raised by his jihadist uncle who intensified Maahdi’s hatred of the West. Became an MD, but continued funding jihadists. He regularly received millions from an unidentified Saudi sheik, who used hawala, the hand-to-hand paperless transfer of massive amounts of cash bet
ween brokers. No banks, no paper trails. Just cash, hand to hand. Impossible to track.
But Bassam Maahdi himself was easy to track. At five-foot-four, three hundred thirty pounds, he looked like the Michelin Man in an Arab robe.
The question was - why did Maahdi speak English in obvious coded language to another Arab in upstate New York? These guys were not talking baba ganoush recipes. Nor were they talking medicine, as they claimed.
Most likely they were discussing something to do with Maahdi’s expertise in chemistry and biology. Which suggested they might be talking about a chemical or biological weapon disguised as a new medicine.
Enough medicine for roughly a half million Americans they said . . . medicine located just a few hours from New York City’s eight million people.
Bobby Kamal had a sinking feeling in his gut. The tiny hairs on his neck rose. He briefed his boss, then called Special Agent Donovan Rourke. Murphy’s Law ruled.
Rourke’s message box was full.
FORTY FOUR
Nell squinted through the slit in the wall, watching full bottles of ChocoYummy jiggle along the conveyor belts. The bottles were deposited in cases and loaded onto trucks that she heard drive off and return again and pick up more cases to deliver.
Clearly, the ChocoYummy bottles contained the deadly VX toxin. How many bottles? Based on the number jiggling past per minute, she estimated many thousands.
Liquid death.
Kids’ deaths.
She saw Hasham watching the bottles jiggle past him. He looked quite pleased.
He walked over and pulled out a bottle. He studied its label, checked the yellow cap, and nodded approval to a worker. He checked a case of bottles. Another nod. Then he strolled over to a large printing machine. The printer was churning out something she couldn’t see, probably related to ChocoYummy. Maybe coupons, discounts, direct mail, buy-one-get-one-free deals.
What kid could resist FREE? What mother?
Nell flashed back to another free drink . . . psycho James Jones’ special Flavor-Aid. He ordered his followers – mothers, fathers, children, and babies – to sip his cyanide-laced drink. They drank. They died. Authorities found nine hundred corpses bloating in the blistering jungle sun, including three hundred children and infants.
ChocoYummy is Hasham’s deadly drink.