by Tom Clancy
The third attack had been carried out by two of the four remaining Santa Clara cell members. They’d thrown four grenades through windows of a home in Scottsdale, Arizona, killing a Department of Homeland Security official.
The Kansas City gunman had been shot to death by police, but the Santa Clara team members had made it out of Scottsdale undetected.
As had the Fairfax team working in New York. Soon the men from both Santa Clara and Fairfax would be here in Chicago. This was more good news, because tomorrow would be the biggest hit in the fight to date, right here in the city. It had been drawn up by al-Matari over several days and nights of work, and Musa al-Matari was especially excited by the prospects of this high-profile hit, because he would play an important part in the operation himself.
50
Dominic Caruso and Adara Sherman arrived in Brooklyn four hours after the death of FBI Special Agent Wally Hussein. They hadn’t expected to learn much at the crime scene, and indeed there was not much to learn, other than the fact the terrorists had used an Uzi submachine gun, just like in Alexandria, as well as a rocket launcher, as had been found in El Salvador.
The local Joint Terrorism Task Force set up a large mobile command post near the scene, and here the security tapes from various buildings in the area were available for viewing by FBI and JTTF personnel, so Dom watched them multiple times. The entire attack had been picked up on several cameras in the area, but it was a little hard to make out large parts of the action.
One of the NYPD officers assigned to the JTTF quipped in the command post that they’d all do well to wait around for ISIS to produce its own video so they could watch the attack with music, editing, and better resolution.
But when the feed from the camera in front of the Marriott came up on screens, everyone saw a perfect image of a black male in his twenties running by and looking into the camera as he passed.
Dom was just saying good-bye to the men in the trailer when an urgent call came through. Facial recognition got a hit at Penn Station that matched an image of the man from the attack. The images came through a minute later. It seemed almost assuredly to be the same individual, and they were able to track him via multiple cams all the way till he got on his train to Newark Liberty.
The hit was nearly five hours old by now, but the agents began checking all the security camera footage at Newark, and they sent more agents out in a full-court press at the airport, hoping to find out if the man got on a flight. They promised they’d keep Dominic updated, but as he left the mobile command center with a fist full of business cards, he told himself he’d probably have to pester these men and women for information, because he wasn’t a high item on their priority list.
A half-hour after his briefing from JTTF officials, Dom sat at a Starbucks within sight of the attack on Adams Street.
With a coffee in hand, Adara had her iPad out in front of her and was adding thumbtack icons to signify this attack, along with the others from the night before, to a Google Maps page she had created.
Dom spent the time texting Clark details of his conversation with local law enforcement while he sipped an iced coffee, and this made the two of them look like any other thirty-something couple hanging out in a Brooklyn Starbucks on a weekday afternoon.
Until Dominic said, “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you. They’ve identified two more suspects. They both flew to Mexico City about five days after the Guatemalan mercs arrived at the Language School. Their return flights were from Costa Rica.”
“They flew together?”
“No, but on the same day. O’Hare to Mexico City, direct. San José to O’Hare, via Houston. One lives in Chicago, the other just north of there in Evanston.”
Adara looked down at her map. “The other day DoJ identified a young Palestinian who flew from Milwaukee to Managua, Nicaragua, then returned, but never went back to his job at a website design firm. If he’s one of al-Matari’s men, that makes three people identified so far who live in or close to Chicago.”
Jack said, “Interesting. There haven’t been any attacks anywhere around there, have there?”
“Closest was in Michigan, then St. Louis. So, not really.” She looked up at Dom now. “Hey, what if we log the towns all the known subjects resided in? Compare it with the location of the attacks.”
“Good idea, although we’re already seeing some copycats, so it’s not going to be as simple a picture as just matching al-Matari’s terrorists to their crimes.”
Adara shrugged. “Something to do.”
It took them just ten minutes to add the locations of the known terrorists to Adara’s map. When it was done, she said, “So unless the same big group is traveling all over the country for each hit, then we have different cells positioned here and there around the map. We have a West Coast team, for sure. The two killed in Vegas were students in the San Fran area, but they did the Vegas hit and the L.A. hit.”
“Both of which were botched.”
“Right. There is a third West Coast terrorist ID’d who lived in Marin County, so still near San Fran. And then there is the Detroit-area group. All four guys killed in Virginia lived in and around Detroit. Wonder why they drove all that way.”
“They took a road trip.”
Adara thought about that. “Maybe because both of the dead from the North Carolina killing were from the D.C. area. They needed new blood in D.C. Of course the Detroit group didn’t fare any better than the D.C. guys.”
“Thanks to you,” Dom said with a smile.
“I had help.”
Dom looked at Adara’s map. “And then there is the guy from Alabama killed in Tampa.”
Adara said, “Assuming all the groups have begun their attacks, it looks to me like al-Matari had at least five different cells. Michigan, D.C., California, somewhere in the South, I guess . . . and Chicago.”
Dom put his coffee down and leaned forward. “So . . . why hasn’t this Chicago group done anything yet?”
“Who says they haven’t? Maybe they are traveling the country. The St. Louis attack, that could have been them. Same for Michigan, because by then the Detroit guys were all in the morgue in Alexandria.”
Dom rubbed his temples. “Yeah, but both of those ops were reported as just one attacker. Maybe another for a getaway driver. Still . . . it’s obvious there is a group that comes from around Chicago.”
Adara looked down at her map. “It’s a big chunk of the country they haven’t attacked yet. There might be a reason for that.”
“Yeah, but maybe they just don’t want to shit where they eat.”
Adara had served in the Navy with Marine infantry. There was, literally, nothing her boyfriend could say to shock her.
Dom’s phone rang, and he was pleased to see it was one of the special agents from the command center, just three blocks from where he now sat. He took the call, listened intently, and thanked the woman for taking the time to keep him in the loop.
“What was that?” Adara asked.
“The killer here has been identified. His name is David Anthony Hembrick. He’s from D.C. He got on a flight at Newark two hours after the attack.”
“A flight to where?”
Dom smiled. “Chicago. The flight landed an hour ago, so we’ve lost him, but at least we know who he is and where he is.”
Adara said, “I think we should go to Chicago. Something big might be planned there.”
“We don’t know that. He could have rented a car away from the airport or hopped a bus or a train to his next destination.”
“Or not.” She said, “Look, if we go to Chicago and don’t find anything, it’s still the middle of America, and we want to be ready to get to the next hit quickly. What if we relocate there, start digging around deep into the lives of these missing people? If we need to race back to O’Hare to go somewhere else we can do that, but I think we might learn something in Chic
ago.”
Dom looked out the window at the crime scene a block away. The JTTF mobile command post was a massive affair. Easily seventy-five federal, state, and local law enforcement working, as well as another fifty or so other types of antiterrorism personnel on hand. He nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s try to make ourselves more useful than just two more people walking around the scene of the last hit. There’s plenty of that already.”
Adara pulled out her phone. “I’ll call John and get it approved.”
—
While Chavez dealt with customs and immigration inside the FBO at Reagan National, Jack, Gavin, and Midas climbed into the G550, waiting just outside a hangar in the afternoon heat. All three men greeted the pilot and copilot, then headed through the cabin, all the way to the back, to slide their gear through the cargo door.
Firearms were already on board, hidden below secure access panels throughout the aircraft. This prevented any customs search of the men’s bags here in the U.S. turning up any curious items. Instead, Midas, Chavez, and Jack just packed like regular businessmen, albeit businessmen who packed for a certain amount of comfort in the downtime of their travel.
Gavin wouldn’t be carrying a weapon. In fact, Clark had pulled Chavez aside before they left the office and said he didn’t want Gavin touching a weapon. He’d been in the field before, and he’d done some good things, but he wasn’t a shooter.
While Gavin went to claim the long sofa in the back as his own, Midas sat in a cabin chair in the center of the cabin, and he ran his hands slowly back and forth over the chair’s arms, confirming they were, in fact, leather. Looking around, the ex–Delta Force operator was impressed with the Gulfstream. He’d flown commercial, military, and government planes through his entire career in the Army, and he’d been on several small jets in that time, but the luxury of the Hendley Associates aircraft put a smile on his face that he worried might get stuck there.
Jack noticed the man’s appreciation for the posh trimmings of the jet. “Not too shabby, huh?”
“I’m more accustomed to sitting on a pallet or in cargo netting when I fly, but I guess I could learn to live with this.”
“What are you drinking?”
Midas raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Drinking?”
Jack said, “Up until recently, Adara took care of us on our flights. Unlucky for you, you’re stuck with me. I’m a shitty bartender, so I strongly recommend beer, wine, or something I can pour in a glass without screwing it up.”
Midas said, “I’m a cheap date. First can of cold beer you can put your hands on would kick ass.”
“An excellent choice, sir.” Jack grabbed Heinekens for himself and Midas, and then a third when he saw Chavez climbing up the air stairs.
Chavez dumped his pack at the door while he moved forward to talk to Country and Helen in the cockpit. Midas grabbed Chavez’s pack and took it in the back to push it through the cabin access panel to the cargo hold.
Chavez soon came back toward the galley and took a Heineken handed to him by Jack. “Six hours in the air, a refuel at Bristol, UK, and then another three and a half in the sky. We’ll land in Bucharest tomorrow just after nine local time.”
Jack said, “I’ve compiled some info on the area around the target location, Alexandru Dalca’s apartment, and his workplace, ARTD. Also I have everything of note from the complaint by the DoJ against Dalca. It’s old information, but it will show us the skills he had before he went behind bars. I put everything in a PowerPoint, so we can put it on the wall monitors and go over it together en route.”
“Good,” Chavez said. Midas was back up with the others now. “We’ll carry subcompact pistols off the plane. Deep concealment. Low profile.”
Jack said, “From the research Gavin and I did on ARTD, they seem be a big cybercrime concern, no ties to a local mob or anything like that, so I don’t think this is going to get anything like as messy as what happened in Jakarta.”
Chavez replied, “That’s what we’re hoping. But we’ve been wrong about that sort of thing before.”
“Point taken. We go in hoping for the best but prepping for the worst.”
Chavez turned to Midas. “Ever been to Bucharest?”
“Spent about five days there doing advanced force operations for my last job. Three years ago. The AFO work didn’t amount to much, but I know my way around the city, more or less.”
Chavez grinned. “Well, then, that makes the FNG the expert.”
“FNG?” Jack asked.
Midas and Chavez spoke in unison: “The fucking new guy.”
Jack mumbled as he sat down in a captain’s chair facing Midas, “I should have joined the military just to learn all the kick-ass lingo.”
Midas replied, “I could talk to some people for you, get you right into boot camp.”
Jack said, “Oh, no. That ship has sailed. I serve my country as one of Gerry Hendley’s boys. Gulfstreams all the way.”
The three operators talked about the job ahead. Chavez confirmed their surveillance on Alexandru Dalca would start slow and soft while they determined what sort of countersurveillance capabilities, if any, he had. If he was just a crook stealing data and selling it to bad actors out there, he might be relatively unprotected.
If, on the other hand, he was actually working on behalf of a state actor or even the Islamic State, it stood to reason there would be those with some skills in identifying surveillance with a vested interest in keeping Dalca alive and out of the hands of the Americans.
Either way, Chavez, Ryan, and Jankowski told themselves, they had to be ready for anything.
Country closed the cabin door and within minutes the G550 took off over the Potomac River to the south. It climbed right past Jack’s apartment and the Hendley Associates building in Alexandria, then banked to the east to begin its long route to Europe.
51
Alexandru Dalca woke, covered in sweat. He sat up in bed, listened for any sound that might have startled him, then remembered the dream.
He lowered back into his pillow, amazed, because he never dreamed.
He was being chased, someone was close on his heels, and it was his fault. Some miscalculation, some failure to levy the consequences of his actions with the reward, something he had done, somewhere along the line, had led to his imminent demise by an unseen powerful force closing behind him.
In the dream he was a kid on the streets again, alone and afraid, through urban sprawl, then through desert. The dream wasn’t focused on the details, but on the reasons for the chase. Dalca was in the wrong, his life’s misfortune was his fault, no one else’s, and he had nowhere left to hide.
All he could do was run like hell.
And as he looked at the ceiling of his dark penthouse apartment, through the fog of vapor from his steaming, sweaty face, he realized: That was no dream. That was his subconscious creating a premonition, and he needed to heed it.
When the Seychelles Group left ARTD, they’d been no more convinced they were in the clear than when they walked in. Mr. Peng and his three grim-faced goons weren’t buying what Dalca was selling, Dalca could tell by their words and their demeanor.
He’d spent the last two days at work telling himself he was fine, and the night sitting in his apartment working on the next set of targets for the ISIS guys telling himself the same thing. But falling asleep lowered his defenses, and his true thoughts burst through his veneer of forced confidence.
The Chinese were suspicious, and they would act on their suspicions soon.
And that meant . . . Alex Dalca was fucked.
But only if he sat around Bucharest and made himself a stationary target.
He’d checked over his secure offshore bank accounts before going to bed. He had $11 million in the bank, virtually all of it from the ISIS guys, and tomorrow they would be sending another $3 million for the three high-value
targets he’d been working on tonight. Dalca didn’t have all the targeting information for them, he’d need to return to ARTD to work through the SF-86 files located on the air-gapped computer to get more information. This meant if he made a run for it now, without going in to work for another day, he’d never get that money.
But now he had to ask himself if the three million was worth it.
After a time, he wiped away sweat, and he spoke aloud. “Three million, for one more day’s work? Of course it’s worth it.”
Dalca’s subconscious thought the jig was up, but his rational, conscious brain was always the one in control, and this told him he retained his mastery of the situation, at least for now. The Seychelles Group had nothing on him, if they came after him it wouldn’t be in the next day, and in those precious twenty-four hours he would get all the intelligence he needed from the files to make the three million.
He finally went back to sleep, and immediately returned to his dream.
When he woke up again, less than an hour later, he looked at the ceiling once more in a cold sweat, and he spoke aloud.
“Fuck it.”
Eleven million was good enough, a damn sight better than fourteen million in a bank and his body in some Chinese torture chamber. Yes, it was time to run, now, and to hell with the extra three million dollars.
But he could not run now. He had to go talk to a man first, and he could not do this before the workday began tomorrow, so he lay there wide awake, afraid to go back to sleep and return to a dream state that would remind him that, somehow, he had failed to anticipate the Chinese figuring out his game.