The Korean Gambit

by Charles DeMaris

  Casey put his arm on Jefferson’s shoulder and pulled him away from the officer.

  “Come on Jeff, the officer’s right. It will be a while before we know anything,” and to the officer, “Officer…Daniels, do you think we can give you the lady’s name and our phone number and you can let us know when you find anything out?”

  “Sure thing…hey, is your friend Jefferson Braxton by any chance?”

  “Yeah, does that matter?”

  “Not really. I’m just a big fan. How’d he end up out here with you?”

  “Sneaked him out to get some lunch.”

  “Good timing there. You guys friends then?”

  “You could say that. Ever since he messed up my knee.”

  “Wait…you’re…”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, Mr. Reddick. Why don’t you give me the girl’s information and I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

  “Come on Jeff. Let’s get going. You can call your mom in the car.”

  “We can’t leave here.”

  “I think we can, and we should. We need to get moving.”

  “Get moving where?”

  “Huntsville.”

  12

  “Come on, Reddick,” Jefferson said, “Let’s give it a little while to see if they find out anything.”

  “Well…there’s not much we can do here. Let’s go grab a bite and hang for a bit before we go anywhere. You got anything in your dorm you might need?”

  “Guess I could get some clothes. Had my phone and my laptop in the hospital room.”

  “That can be replaced.”

  “Yeah…some things can…you think anyone survived that?”

  “Man…I just don’t know. Doesn’t look good. Let’s give them a couple hours.”

  A few minutes later they were sitting in a restaurant booth, Casey eating and Jefferson picking at his food.

  “Dude, you gonna eat that or not?” Casey asked.

  “Ain’t got an appetite right now.”

  “That’s understandable, but you need to eat. It might be a long day.”

  “How can you say that right now?”

  “Dude, I’ve been there. I’m as in shock as you are right now. A minute later and we would have been there.”

  “Lot of folks were there. They’re dead…we ain’t…how fair is that? Kids in that hospital…all the doctors…Kim…Dude, what kinda asshole blows up a hospital?”

  Casey flagged down the server. “Ma’am, could we get a couple boxes?”

  “Sure thing, hon. Your friend okay?”

  “He was at the hospital. We left right before it happened.”

  “Pictures on TV look pretty bad. You saw it?”

  “We weren’t that far away when it went off. We were coming here for lunch.”

  The server wiped the corner of her eye with her apron and took their plates with her, returning a moment later with two take out boxes.

  “Here you go boys, don’t worry about the check.”

  They drove back toward campus and Casey turned on the radio. A reporter was on the scene at the hospital and the report didn’t sound positive at all. The entire building had collapsed and firefighters had yet to find any survivors. The bomb appeared to have gone off in the parking garage and there was no figure on casualties.

  “Just turn it off, okay?” Jefferson said.

  “Sure thing,” Casey said as he turned the radio off.

  “You think it was the Arabs?” Jefferson asked.

  “I don’t know. World’s crazy.”

  “Who else is crazy enough to take out a hospital, kill women and kids and sick people? Come on dog, that’s one crazy mother…one sick puppy to do that. Gotta be the Arabs.”

  “We should probably wait until more information comes out.”

  “What information?”

  “Muslims aren’t the only ones who hate us.”

  “They’re the only ones crazy enough to do this.”

  “I don’t know, Jeff.”

  “What you saying? You know something I don’t? You more than some computer security guy?”

  “Let’s get back to your room and we can talk, okay? Hey, is that my phone?”

  Jefferson realized that he had Casey’s phone in his pocket and he pulled it out, handing it to Casey.

  “Yeah, Ahmed, what do you know?”

  “This is Miriam. Ahmed’s in the bathroom.”

  “Okay, Miriam, what do you know…oh, hold on a sec. My bluetooth died. Gonna run it through the car…okay, go ahead.”

  “Here’s what we know. Ahmed got into the CCTV feed at the hospital. Nothing out of the ordinary. We saw you pull into the garage, then the usual people coming and going, then five minutes before the bomb went off, the cameras went blank. Everything in the area, not just the hospital security cameras. Traffic cameras within five miles of the hospital, everything. Someone killed every camera in the neighborhood right before it went off.”

  “That’s disturbing.”

  “That’s not the worst part. That wasn’t the only hospital. You had the news on?”

  “Just the local station. We didn’t hear about any other attacks.”

  “It’s the bus stations all over again. Ten hospitals, all over the country. Same deal at each one. Cameras dead five minutes before the blast.”

  “Good Lord, ten? Did you say ten?”

  “Ten counting the one you were at. They also got Dayton, Omaha, San Antonio, Lexington, Cheyenne, Morgantown, Hattiesburg, Salt Lake, and Boise. No word of any survivors anywhere.”

  “I think I know how they got the bomb in.”

  “Ahmed told me what you told him. You think the driver wasn’t the bomber?”

  “He didn’t look like he was controlling the car. Jeff said he looked scared.”

  “Someone planted a bomb in his car and remotely drove it into the garage? How would someone pull that off?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that. Say, can I call you back in a bit. Jeff needs to use the phone and we need to grab a bite to eat.”

  Ahmed came back to his desk just as Miriam was hanging up the phone.

  “You talk to Casey?”

  “Gave him an update. We almost lost him, you know?”

  “Yeah…couple more minutes.”

  “So where are we?”

  “We don’t know much at the moment. I’m watching police and fire communication for anything interesting.”

  “You’re keeping up with all ten cities?”

  “Got more of the computers going. I’m hoping to get something useful before the media.”

  “How long do you think that will take?”

  “Who knows? They’ll be looking for survivors first, but if they uncover anything else…I’d like to see if Casey’s theory holds any water.”

  “Well, while you have that running, I’m going to take a nap. It could be a long night. Wake me up if you get anything.”

  Three hours later, a groggy Miriam came back to her desk.

  “What do you have?”

  “I hope they keep a lid on this. Police talking in Tuscaloosa. They think they located the source of the blast, car bomb in the garage. There wasn’t much left of the car, but they got the VIN off a piece of debris.”

  “Registered to a Muslim?”

  “You got it. Ashraf Zaman. I did a little digging. Immigrant from Lebanon. Came here ten years ago to go to school, never went back. Has a wife and two daughters, became a citizen recently. Not the radical type.”

  “That doesn’t matter. People will be out for blood if this gets out.”

  “You mean when, not if.”

  “Right. What do you wanna bet the other cities will be the same?”

  “Car bomb, registered to a Muslim? I’m sure of it.”

  “What do you think about what Casey said?”

  “There might be something to it. If that’s the case, we’ll see a pattern with the other attacks.”

  “Like the others a
ll being car bombs?”

  “And all the cars registered to Muslims, or at least Arabic names.”

  “Okay, let’s think this through. You have a Muslim entering a parking garage, not in control of his car, and then the car blows up. How does someone get the bomb into the car without him knowing it and then control the car?”

  Ahmed contemplated that for a few seconds.

  “Uber,” he said.

  “Uber? What about it?”

  “Let’s see if he was an Uber driver.”

  “How you gonna find that out?”

  “Shouldn’t be hard. Give me a couple minutes.”

  Five minutes later he pointed to his screen.

  “Check this out. He gets regular deposits from Uber and Lyft and has both driver apps installed on his phone. He was driving for both companies. He ran three trips for Lyft and two for Uber today. The last trip for Uber ended five minutes before the bomb went off. The trip started on the University of Alabama campus and ended at the hospital.”

  “Do you have information on the passenger?”

  “I’ll keep looking, but most likely a dead end.”

  “He picked the guy up at the campus. Most likely had a backpack. Probably a young guy posing as a student. He wouldn’t suspect a thing. Still, how did he control the car after he got out?”

  “Newer cars are rolling computers. We’re looking at someone who figured out how to hack it and take control. That explains what Casey and Jeff saw. And look at this. I think this seals it.”

  “The passenger’s Uber account?”

  “Yeah, take a look here. He ordered a ride nine times before he settled on Ashraf. Why would someone keep cancelling drivers?”

  “Waiting for a Muslim name?”

  “Makes sense. I think we should run it by Casey.”

  Casey was jolted awake by his cell phone.

  “Ahmed?”

  “Yeah…did I wake you?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “You have this on speaker?”

  “It’s okay. It’s just Jeff and me in the room, neighbor’s gone.”

  “Jeff’s there?”

  “He’s heard enough already. Go ahead.”

  “Got a name on the guy in the car, Ashraf Zaman-”

  “Told you,” Jefferson said.

  “Told me what?” Ahmed said.

  “Never mind,” Casey said, “Go ahead, Ahmed.”

  “Ashraf was an Uber driver. He picked up a fare from the campus and brought him to the hospital. Five minutes after he dropped the fare off, the bomb went off. You said it didn’t look like he was under control.”

  “Yeah, and scared,” Jefferson said.

  “The guy he brought there,” Ahmed said, “ordered and cancelled nine times before he got Ashraf.”

  “Looking for an Arab,” Casey said.

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Looks awfully familiar, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure does. Just thought you’d like to know. I’m still digging, and waiting for cop chatter from the other cities. I’m betting on a similar pattern there as well.”

  “Arab Uber drivers? You know what the public sentiment is gonna be when this gets out.”

  “Tell me about it. I might have to move in at the office.”

  “You spend all your time there anyway.”

  “Well, you might be right. So, you coming back soon?”

  “Not sure. I’ll keep in touch.”

  Casey disconnected the call and stood up.

  “Got anything interesting in that fridge?”

  “Coke and Red Bull.”

  “I can’t stand Red Bull.”

  Jefferson removed two Cokes from the mini fridge and handed one to Casey.

  “Okay Buddy, you care to tell me what you really do for a living?”

  “I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Did you ever do cyber security?”

  “For a couple days. The company still does that, but we have people who only work in that area. Actually, Jenny spends most of her days working that end and Ahmed and Miriam work a lot of the intel side.”

  “Those are the two people you were talking to?”

  “Yeah. Ahmed went to UC. Real book nerd, but smart as hell and knows his way around computers like nobody’s business. Miriam is learning fast, but she’s not quite at his level.”

  “They’re Arabs?”

  “Both are Muslims, not the radical sort of course. Miriam’s been in the States most of her life. Ahmed came here for school and he’s decided to stay. He’s got some radicals in his family and they don’t take kindly to him associating with Christians. They're good folks.”

  “They work on the computers, gathering intel…what’s that make you?”

  “I work in the office sometimes, but I’m in the field mostly.”

  “In the field? Real James Bond kind of stuff?”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far. I don’t do martinis and then there are the girls. Bond has all the girls.”

  “What all you been up to the last few months? Anything big.”

  “There was Miami-”

  “The All Star Game. Saw a video on YouTube , some crazy dude flew the nuke out over the water and came flying back with some kind of jet pack-”

  “Just boots, boots and a glider suit.”

  “That was you? Dog, you’re a hero.”

  “I was just doing what had to be done.”

  “You could have been killed. That thing goes off in the stadium…man.”

  “Tell me about it. It was a pretty big operation. We worked months trying to track everyone down. It was touch and go. We took out most of the people responsible, but the main guy got away. I think he might be behind these hospital attacks.”

  “You guys work with the CIA?”

  “Not really. It’s a private organization. Jenny started it and she tried to recruit me right after the injury. You should see the place. Looks like a regular mission control, more computer equipment than you can imagine, real high- tech stuff, and Ahmed and Miriam can hack into darn near any system in the world from there.”

  “Let me get this straight. You got a couple Arab computer whizzes trying to gather intel and they got you in the field to act on it.”

  “I’m not the only field person. There’s Rachel-”

  “Where’d you get her from?”

  “Well, you’ve heard enough already. Her dad was the CIA director.”

  “He got killed right? I remember hearing about that on the news.”

  “Yeah. She’s a tough girl. About our age. She’s one you want on your good side.”

  “You have to kill anyone? Well, you killed the guy in the plane, right? What’s it like?”

  “At the moment, you do what you have to, but you think about it later. I still see the faces sometimes.”

  “Faces?”

  “Yeah, there were a couple guys in Africa, the one in Detroit, and the guy in Miami. Necessary, but it still gets you.”

  “Detroit?”

  “NBA playoff game. Guy tried to gas the crowd.”

  “I heard about a cop that stopped a gas attack at a playoff game.”

  “That’s what I wanted. The cop was dead when I got there and the terrorist was a couple seconds away from putting gas in the air intake when I got him. I moved the bodies around to make it look like they shot each other and got out of there.”

  “So you just started out as a field agent?”

  “No. Jenny wanted everyone at computers. My sister was killed in the bus station attack. Jenny’s husband helped me chase down the guy who did it. Thing is, we got the intel the day before and warned the CIA, but nothing was done. Well, we caught the guy and that turned out to be connected with Miami. It was all the same organization run by a Russian dude who had moles in the CIA and the FBI and was trying to make everything look like the Muslims were behind it. We took out the moles and the Muslims he was using, but we didn’t get him.”

 
; “Hey, your phone’s ringing again.”

  “Local number…hello.”

  “Mr. Reddick…Officer Daniels here…it’s about your friend.”

  “Is that the cop?” Jefferson asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Put it on speaker.”

  “I’m on speaker? Where are you guys?” Daniels asked.

  “We’re in Jeff’s dorm room. Go ahead. What do you know?”

  “You boys sitting down?”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “Well, I don’t have an easy way to say this. Kim…she didn’t make it. Nobody from the upper floors made it. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you for calling us back. I appreciate it.”

  Casey hung up the phone and dropped it on the couch. He stood there, at a loss, as Jefferson collapsed sobbing onto the couch. Jefferson composed himself a couple minutes later, downed the rest of his Coke, and crushed the can in his hand. He sat on the couch, tears still streaming down his cheeks, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  “Oh Jeff…I don’t know what to say.”

  “You got any more job openings?”

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me. I want in. I want to get these damn bastards.”

  13

  Paris safe house

  Rachel disconnected the call and sat back in her chair.

  “This day certainly went from bad to worse.”

  “You think there’s any connection?” Hank asked.

  “If the attackers went through all that trouble to make it look like Arabs,” Leon said.

  “Looks like Yuriy to me.”

  “You know what scares me?” Rachel said, “If it’s Yuriy, this isn’t his end game.”

  “Seems like one hell of a diversion,” Ken said.

  “So were the bus stations a few months ago, and the ones we stopped in Milwaukee and Detroit. Any of them would have been horrific alone. If it’s the same pattern, he’ll attack in waves, hoping to keep us from finding out about the big one. We got lucky the last time.”

  “So, what’s the big one? Do we even have a clue?”

  “All we have are those Korean names,” Leon said.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Hank said, “If this is all Yuriy’s doing, then the worst attack on American soil since 9/11 was just a diversion to distract us from something much bigger that might or might not involve the Koreans, and that’s all we have so far.”