Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1)

by Dana Arama

  It seemed that my delay on the deck hadn’t pleased Yassin and soon enough the short gorilla joined me. I tried to draw out the time on deck, so I said, “I’m dying for a cigarette.” He put his hand in his pocket, took out a box and from it, pulled out one cigarette and a cheap plastic lighter. In the dim light from the dining hall, could see it was a Marlboro cigarette. With unexpected generosity, he gave it to me. I said, “Shukran,” and just to be on the safe side I added in English as well, “Thanks,” and then I took the cigarette. I gained a moment more of transmission time, the length of a cigarette, because he put one in his mouth as well. He adjusted his feet in a wide stance, then leaned towards me with his lighter, guarding the fire with his huge paws.

  “Only a few drags,” he said, ruining my pleasure. His voice sounded as if it were in a barrel, and in an almost apologetic tone he added, “Yassin wants you to come down now.” We stood there for another moment in silence, smoking. He stood firmly on the swaying deck as if he were born to be a pirate and I wanted to vomit.

  After about a third of the cigarette I said, “I’m going down.” He threw his cigarette overboard. I took two more puffs and nonchalantly went inside with my cigarette. I looked around and made my way towards an ashtray. Would they empty the ashtrays when they left? Just in case, I wet the filter with more spit, leaving enough DNA to recognize who was there, and threw the cigarette near the ashtray and not in it. If someone came here looking for clues, he would find my DNA on the discarded cigarette. Assuming that whoever came did a good job. If the boy bled on the floor, they would find that too. Maybe together we would be able to leave enough crumbs behind for them to understand we were here, and it would help them follow my cell phone.

  Down below, the boy stood on one leg and leaned on the wall under the lamp that lit the area with such unnatural light. He looked even paler than usual. His foot seemed to hurt him more than he showed because his forehead was beaded with sweat.

  “I understand that you are packing and leaving here,” I mentioned casually, hoping Yassin would understand that I had no intention of joining them.

  “Yes. Leave your cell phone here.” Yassin looked at me with the same mocking smile. “There is no reason for them to follow us. I am planning on bringing the kid to a computer which can’t be tracked. We will break into his father’s private computer so we can operate it. The father has become the main guise for my plan and the kid will operate this cover.”

  “You are in luck, kid,” I looked at him and added, “You have a few more days to live.” The boy stared at me with a look of panic, and his mouth opened and closed again but no sound came out of it. Outside, the wind got stronger and with it came an annoying whistling sound through a slight crack in the door. The whistling noise was so loud that we didn’t hear the bell the first time. The guy packing up the weapons upstairs peeked from the top of the stairs asked, “Can I come down?”

  “What’s wrong? Have you finished packing?”

  “Not yet… Omar’s is on the line.” As if to emphasize this, he stretched out his arm and showed the communication device he had in his hand. “He said he has spoken with Mukhtar in the estate and he has bad news.”

  Yassin nodded his head slightly and one of the men passed the device from the guy’s outstretched hand on the stairs to Yassin. He said, “I’m listening.” He listened for a few minutes and, in a quick movement, grabbed a cup that moments before had been filled with steaming tea, and smashed it on the wall opposite him. All the people present in the room held their breath.

  “What do you mean, she doesn’t want to come?” He whispered those words into the telephone, sounding like a venomous cobra. I clearly understood that ‘she’ was his wife, Juliana, and also why ‘she’ didn’t want to come. I too had no wish to be on the path leading to evil self-destruction.

  “She didn’t even get on the plane?” He listened to the answer and then asked, “And Muhamed? Did she send Muhamed? Tell her that if she doesn’t get on the plane and immediately, I will take a second woman to be my wife and I will send her to Afghanistan. She shouldn’t doubt me, I am serious.” The conversation ended and Yassin looked through me as if I were air. Suddenly he shook his head and smiled, “What do you say? Will she agree to come after all?”

  “Do you really want my opinion?”

  He sat on the edge of the table fastened to the floor, crossed his arms slowly and answered with the utmost seriousness, “Actually, yes. I want your honest opinion.”

  “I think it is easier to tempt a woman with good than with bad.”

  “So, what should I have done?”

  “Reminded her how much fun it is to be with you. That is a lot more persuasive than…” I hinted at the surroundings circling with my finger.

  He smiled and picked up the cell phone from the table. “Post a few pictures to Instagram from the club yesterday. I want the pictures with the curly blonde chick…” One of the men said he’d do it in a moment and Yassin yelled, “Not in a moment. I want it done now!” At long last a smile lit his face. The ice in the room melted a little. A weak ray of sun had managed to shine through. Yassin was charismatic, good looking and wealthy but also, he could be a scary cruel megalomaniac. It wasn’t surprising so many followed him in awe.

  “You…” He pointed at me and got up from his place to hug me. “You are becoming my asset. I think that out of respect, you should become a shahid.”

  How could I tell him that the idea of becoming a shahid -- someone who would die in a suicide attack, was a punishment and not an honor? How could I say that to someone like Yassin without getting a bullet in my head? I put my right hand on my chest near my heart and noted humbly, “This is a real honor for me Yassin.” I wanted to say that I would agree to be a shahid right after he died himself, but I didn’t want to gamble on how much humor he had left, not at this stage.

  “We need to make our way to the location and begin putting our plan into motion. I suggest each of you go to your cabins and grab an hour’s sleep. Tomorrow, with the sunrise, we will arrive at the city and start amassing the weapons. Then we will begin sending the warriors to their allocated positions. We have a limited amount of time to make those who survive to understand the real meaning of Thanksgiving.”

  Guy Niava,

  Niava family home, Philadelphia,

  November 14, 2015, 3:00 a.m.

  Gideoni said, “We can’t know for sure, but you have put forth an interesting theory…”

  “So, do you think it is possible he has a double?”

  “That would explain the report that we were trying to decode a few months ago. The last time Yassin – well, most likely the real Yassin -- was seen in Europe was the beginning of the summer. Or to be specific, it was the first time the fake Yassin was seen. A crowd of noblemen went out to hunt a bird called ptarmigans, which is only found in Scotland. Yassin always participated in this event. That time, he showed inconsistency with his abilities. It was reported that everyone was talking about the fact that Yassin had lost his touch. Or in other words, the new Yassin hadn’t been groomed his whole life for such a hunt.”

  “I suppose it was a trial run, to see how the people around him reacted or if they would notice the change.” A wave of adrenaline shook me out of my tired state. This theory gave us a new direction to investigate.

  “Exactly. On Sunday he was an amazing marksman, as usual. On the second night a car arrived, and someone left. My men didn’t know to say whom, because no one was missing the following day. Only today, in retrospect, I understand what happened there. If your theory is correct then the real Yassin left and a new one debuted.”

  “And still no one realized.”

  “One of his closest friends noted that he must have ‘partied too much the night before’. Whoever thought about it chalked it up to alcohol, drugs or women.”

  “Alcohol strengthens the perception of the modern Muslim man, kee
ping at bay the stereotype of the Islamic radical terrorist who strictly observes sharia and avoids drinking liquor,” I thought out loud. After a moment I asked, “All this happened in the summer. When exactly?”

  “The hunt officially started on August the 12th.”

  “So our searches in the United States should start in the middle of August.”

  “Yes. I assume he entered the United States with false identity papers.”

  “He may never have put a foot in the country. It may possibly be that he has been on his ship ever since.”

  “That also is a possibility. Laura’s team should be able to locate him. He can’t be far.”

  “What about Murat Lenika? Have you managed to locate him via El Desconocido?”

  “Even El Desconocido couldn’t locate him. But thanks to the tapping devices we put on him, we have a long list of telephones he may be using. At the moment we are tracing seventeen of them.”

  “Have you passed this information on?”

  “Yes. I have to say, we are not happy about sharing our tactics, but it appears we have no choice. The American team has received the phone numbers.”

  “What is going on with the suitcases we bugged?” I inquired.

  “We have no update. According to our last report, the wife decided that she and her son were not going. They disappeared.”

  “Had they already been sprayed?”

  “Yes. That’s the bad news. If they aren’t found, we have no way of giving them the antidote.”

  I sat down on the bed. “That is not good news at all.”

  “No, he agreed. “If they get sick too fast, then they definitely will postpone their trip and our plans will be thwarted.” And then, as if to end on a positive note, he said, “But there is still a chance she will change her mind. Her maid reported that she still hasn’t unpacked her bags and the surveillance devices in the suitcases are still broadcasting.”

  I was silent. Despair had no place in our plans right now. There were so many other aspects we had missed. Not only regarding Jonathan, but also the planned attacks. As if Gideoni had read my mind he noted, “It would help if we had a timetable of some sort, but to know ahead of time to expect an attack is a kind of luxury.”

  “If our assumption is correct and he is calling them to join him on the fatal day, then he is planning the attack in a day or two at the most.”

  “I hope that we are wrong and that we will have more time. On the other hand, a bit more time and the holidays will begin.”

  “And countless people will be flying domestically. What about the Israeli flight companies?”

  “They are on red alert. They are always on the alert, but now they are especially careful, more than usual, abiding very strongly by the rules.”

  “Foreign companies?”

  “We have passed on the information. We can only hope they have prepared themselves accordingly.”

  “Is there conjecture on how they will attack?”

  “We are trying to think of every possibility. The assumption is that, because we have a small fleet of planes and a few helicopters, the access will be through them. At the moment, they are isolating the Israeli flights more than usual. All the preparations for the flights are made far from the eyes of the potential spectators.”

  “How long can this emergency procedure last?”

  “It will have to last as long as is necessary. What is routine for us other companies only do in emergency situations. But a few things have changed for us too. The most important thing is that the enemy doesn’t know about this little secret of ours.”

  ***

  “He has an identical twin?” I heard the disbelief in Laura’s voice.

  “No. A double. Why does the idea sound so far-fetched to you?”

  “Someone giving his life up for someone else… Hmmm. It’s a risk, no?”

  “The king and the pauper?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But this is not the life he wants for himself. The man is a fanatic Islamist and the life he wants for himself is disaster and destruction.”

  “It is hard to believe…”

  “Look, I believe that my theory is correct. See. About a year and a half ago there was a halt in his notifications.”

  “Because he was injured in a ski accident and was lying in the hospital for a few weeks.”

  “He didn’t have a ski accident because he couldn’t have skied at that time.” I cleared my throat and asked, “Do you know what he did do, during that period of time?”

  “I didn’t go so far back,” she admitted, chagrined.

  “He was training in Iraq. He joined ISIS.” I threw that at her and waited.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “He was there for half a year.”

  “But the notifications continued during that period. There wasn’t such a lapse in time.”

  “Because by then he had found his double. Maybe not ‘found’ him but ‘created’ him. Check thoroughly. If you look closely, you can see it is another person.” I let her go over the time period of Yassin’s whereabouts. I then added, “He looks a lot like him, but it isn’t him. And it’s ingenious, really. Just to avoid questions, he invented the story of the ski accident in the hospital. Maybe because of the scars from plastic surgery. If you look really closely, you can see it is not the same person.”

  “He grew a beard, he put on weight…” She still found the situation unbelievable. “His tattoos are exactly the same. It has to be the same person.”

  “But it isn’t. The real Yassin is on a ship, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. I suggest we stop looking into his private plane and his uploads on Instagram and start by finding overlapping points between him and Murat Lenika.”

  “We did that already.”

  “Were you looking for Murat Lenika with Yassin the millionaire? Now look for Murat Lenika with Yassin the terrorist, who looks like a religious fanatic.” I took a sip of my coffee, the only thing keeping me awake and added, “I have reservations about the timetable. You are looking at the starting point from the time his plane landed in the United States and I am telling you that he arrived long before that. Again, under a pseudonym. I will try to give you a more accurate date later on today.”

  I hoped he was arriving to the United States from England and not from an Arab country, where the Mossad would have no intelligence. I needed an answer from Gideoni.

  Laura Ashton,

  November 15, 2015, 3:25 a.m.

  The fact that my boss was hoping to throw me to the hungry dogs, but still allowing me the freedom to choose my own team to work with, showed the importance of the mission. Gordon had told me in secret that he had heard the boss say that I had managed to get the Israelis to cooperate in such a way that he had never seen before and he was “waiting to see when this collaboration turned into extortion.” It was possible he meant the information we received from Guy’s investigation, which had taken us in a completely new direction. It was possible that this collaboration had saved me, forcing him to trust me more than ever, at least for the time being.

  The operations room, which had started out with a limited team, had expanded, and was now filled with Marine Corps and the Coast Guard, together with economists, cyber experts, cryptographic personnel and social media experts. The information was flowing from the computers to them and from them to me. I reviewed the information received, then sent it on to the different teams.

  On the wall was a huge screen with a map of US shoreline, including a radius of ten kilometers beyond the territorial waters. The map was marked with little green lights, which symbolized ships that could match the description; but the ownership of these ships left no doubt that they were not the ship that Yassin was on. The blue lights marked all the sea vessels which were too small and didn’t match the description. The red light
s were vessels which we had not finished investigating.

  “I don’t understand.” I was upset with the officer in charge of finding the ship. He now stood frustrated, in front of me. I said, “A helicopter left a certain airstrip on American land and flew beyond our maritime jurisdiction and we don’t know who the aircraft belongs to, where they were flying to and when they will be back?”

  As if in response, an officer walked into the room and said, “Ma’am, I think we have identified the flight.”

  “And?” I focused on him.

  “The helicopter is a private helicopter and belongs to our subject.” He glanced at me, and said, “Not directly, but it does belong to one of his companies. We can connect it to him.”

  “Where was he flying to?” his commander inquired.

  “According to the flight plan he submitted it was a routine flight along the shoreline.

  “And when did he deviate from the flight plan?” I asked.

  “He deviated a number of times. The border is not drawn there.” He smiled shyly. “It was a very windy day and so the deviations were accepted.”

  “And every time he deviated…?”

  “We didn’t send out fighter aircrafts to get him back on track.”

  “Not fighter aircrafts, but information? A signal?”

  “We will have to go back three days and track the helicopter. We will have to see exactly when he disappeared and who was at the disappearance point, because it didn’t disappear to a stationary target, but to another moving target… Which is most probably since then has been rocking alongside the shore.”

  “Do it,” I ordered. And even though it was unnecessary, I added, “Please.”

  On my way to the other room I deliberated who I should give the mission of investigating the pilot. To Ross Barkley’s team, which was trying to locate Murat Lenika, or to Musstafa Allimi’s team, which was trying to locate the terrorist cell. I decided that Ross might make use of the information more immediately and so I requested that Linda, whom I had chosen as my personal assistant for this mission, contact Ross Barkley and give him the information we had about the flight, as well as the name of the pilot. I added, “I want to bring him in for questioning as soon as possible.”