by Todd Turner
Scott was in a spot. He wasn’t sure he could make that promise—but decided to anyway, knowing the directive of this mission and that his dad would back him up.
“Mrs. Kundi … if your daughter cooperates with us immediately and helps us stop this catastrophe … I promise she will live.”
“Rezeya, you must trust this man. I think he is the best hope we have of ever seeing each other again.”
Rezeya was softening, feeling the true pain of those words. She wasn’t sure that would happen no matter what she did.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kundi. The men who are with you will be staying with you until we can get you to a safe place.”
The careworn though respectful motion of her nod was of a kind that said, I believe you and trust you. I can only hope you will do right by me.
Scott read it perfectly and returned the same wordless commitment. The high-tech digital screen went to a white line in the center, followed by a bright white dot and then nothing. Rezeya was there reflected with glassy eyes, seated at a table with the president’s son standing over her.
Scott gently touched her shoulder. She didn’t flinch, and he sensed that she didn’t feel affronted.
“Rezeya, I promise you, if you cooperate, and help us all you can, you and your mother will be together. At least she will be allowed to visit you. But that is all I can promise at this point.”
The skeptical look returned. “You will let me live?” It was more a statement of disbelief. “I mean, even if I help you in every way I can, and trust me if I agree to help you it will be with my full capacity, but will I live if even we fail?”
Now it was Scott’s turn to look puzzled. “Fail?”
Suddenly it dawned on her that maybe they had no idea of the scope of this operation. Just maybe she had a bigger bargaining chip than she thought.
“What do you know?” she asked.
“Not enough. Well, let me be precise. We know they’ve put nuclear bombs in cars. We found one in the San Francisco Bay Area. We know there are seven more out there. But, we don’t know you know where they were sent.”
She appreciated both his honesty and that he said they’ve, meaning she was no longer part of them, at least for the immediate future. How long that would remain the case was yet to be seen.
“So you know how many?”
“Not with the certainty we would prefer, but we know a transport truck in Korea holds eight cars, so we assume that’s the maximum number, and we have statements from the driver that there are eight bombs. The validity of that assertion, though, is suspect. We find it difficult to believe their resources were capable of equipping eight cars with a nuclear device.”
Rezeya didn’t want to gloat; but, after all, they did manage to do something the West never thought they could.
“This is the first point at which I will help you. There were eight devices; however, with the failure of the one you discovered, now there are seven. They are positioned in cities of strategic military interest or in those that will produce the most civilian devastation. In some cases, both.”
Scott listened. He needed to know so much more about this operation: the motives, the players, the resources, how they were able to turn Secretary Bonner. Still, he was extremely doubtful. The problem with “turned” informants is that they’re notoriously unreliable, if not downright liars. Getting enough weapons-grade plutonium is not something you pick up at your local munitions supplier. The rest—building the weapons, electronics, igniters, and so on—he thought possible; but to trust her, that was the biggest problem.
“Do you expect me to believe you were able to obtain enough weapons-grade plutonium to build eight nuclear devices with enough force to destroy or seriously damage an entire city?”
“If you didn’t believe me, I don’t think we’d be here.”
“OK, so then … how?”
“You don’t think I know all the details of the operation, do you? We know what we need to know to accomplish our mission.”
“But you know there is a nuclear bomb in each of the cars?”
“Yes, that was necessary for them to make clear, to impress on me the importance of my mission.”
“And your mission specifically?”
“To make sure the cars with the VIN numbers I was provided got to the dealerships that were strategically selected.”
“What cities?”
“San Francisco.”
“We already know about San Francisco. You’ll need to be a lot more forthcoming if you expect to ever see the light of day again,” said Scott firmly, though he knew she’d not likely fully cooperate.
“I have no idea what you are promising for me to be more … forthcoming, as you call it. What is the point? You now know where the cars were allocated; you are, I’m sure, dispatching people to those dealerships as I sit here. The information I’ve received about my mother, and my father’s deceptions, is confusing, still new to me, still unbelievable.”
“Ms. Kundi, I know what you’ve learned in the past few hours is a lot to absorb. I know your life was dedicated to this cause from before you were even old enough to speak. You seem like a very logical person, someone who greatly values pragmatism. Would you agree?”
Rezeya took several minutes to ponder Scott’s question. Scott, for his part, well understood the value of patient silence.
After a long breath, Rezeya responded with equal formality. “Mr. Barton, pragmatically, you must know that a video conference with my resurrected mother couldn’t possibly alter what I believe. That includes fully accepting that she is my mother.”
Scott took note of the formality and could see it represented a barrier. He placed his hand on his chest and said genuinely, “Please call me Scott.”
Rezeya, recognizing his open body language and hearing the gentle sincerity in his voice, acknowledged him with a long blink and continued, “If I am to be completely honest with myself, I admit living in this country has changed me. I have seen charity and selflessness, but also intolerance, religious hatred, racism …” her tone grew dark.
Scott thought better than to pursue this train of thought. Join with her, he considered, then move to the subject of the plans. “This is true,” he admitted, “I too have seen it here. We’re humans, and humans have all of those feelings. It can be so destructive. I’ve also seen extraordinary compassion—once, I’ll never forget, in Iran …”
Rezeya’s eyes lit up.
Scott knew that while Rezeya was unlikely to break, it might be possible to continue as though they were just having a philosophical conversation. “The deepest connection of feeling can come from the most unlikely places.”
Rezeya looked lost in her own musings, as though grappling with something. Scott spoke.
“We know cars were sent to San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., Fayetteville, Newark, Denver and Albuquerque; after all,” he continued, “since we already know this, you don’t betray anyone by confirming the information.”
Rezeya looked up and squinted at him, indicating some—but not total—suspicion. She still had doubts, he could see. “I suppose you’re also going to suggest that I in some way can help myself while not being responsible for bringing our plan to a failure?”
Scott picked up what he hoped was the beginning of a negotiation.
“Yes, the plot has already failed, we know where the cars were sent, we have to find them on our own, we know that once they went to the dealerships you’d not know what happened with them afterward.”
“I am curious how you found the cities?”
“I’d like to say it was simple, that we recovered the data, but it was old-fashioned investigative work. We had the VINs from the cars that were on the same truck with the one we found in San Francisco. From there, we had to contact the DMV for each state to see if they had any registration records for those VINs.”
Rezeya knew the states didn’t share this information with any data clearinghouse, so she was impressed. “That wa
s clever, though I’m sure you had some states that were not very cooperative,” she said, barely able to suppress a grin. “But you do need something, information of some kind, or I would not be here.”
“Yes, and I have been authorized to offer you life, in a federal prison, with visitation rights, with the provision of supervised probation in fifteen years.”
“Is that all?”
Scott knew it didn’t sound great, so he explained the alternative. “You’re an American citizen, you will be tried for treason, I am a hundred percent confident you will be found guilty; treason carries the death penalty. Also, you could be held at Guantanamo indefinitely as an enemy combatant, never to see anyone again. I hope you can see it’s actually very generous. I would ask you to ponder, what would the leaders of your country offer?”
Rezeya, realizing her negotiating position wasn’t a strong one, still wanted some element of winning something. “I’ll accept, but I want it in writing with your father’s signature,” she declared.
“I can make that happen, but can we keep talking while we wait for that?”
“We can talk for an hour, then I want to see the papers before we continue,” she said.
Scott was impressed with her savviness and decided to dive right in.
“So, I’ll ask again, are those cities correct?”
“Yes, those are the cities.”
“Ms. Kundi, I would appreciate your being open and forthcoming with your answers. Are there any other cities?”
Rezeya, nodding that she understood and agreed, said, “No. There were eight cars and eight cities.”
“OK, so I can understand, some locations, Washington, D.C., for example, are obvious; even Las Vegas, though not a typical target. But why Fayetteville and Albuquerque, and why Newark over New York?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t choose the cities and was ordered to find a dealership near those cities where the car could be delivered. In the case of Fayetteville and San Diego, I know the cars were intended to go into service with a rental car company; but as for why those places, I can only tell you that I overheard discussion of cities being selected for either their financial or social impact: where a bomb would generate the most public spectacle, which is, I am sure, why Las Vegas was selected. The other thing I can guess is that there is a military target nearby that is of importance in some way.”
June 28, 16:49 EDT
Detroit, Michigan
Fayetteville, North Carolina, is one of those places in the world that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a large industrial complex right on the edge of its borders. Some of those cities have their destiny anchored to a large corporation. Like Dearborn, Michigan, and Ford Motor Company; or Akron, Ohio, and Goodyear Rubber. Industry isn’t always business. Oftentimes it’s also government. On the northern border of Fayetteville lies one of America’s largest military installations. Technically, it is two installations, the army’s Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, which sits adjacent to Fort Bragg.
By East Coast standards, Fort Bragg is a relatively modern installation, established as a camp in 1918 and later, as it became a permanent installation, renamed Fort Bragg in 1922. In a stroke of irony, the base was named after North Carolina–born and raised Confederate army general Braxton Bragg—who, of course, fought against the United States in the Civil War.
In terms of strategic importance, Fort Bragg would not be on the top of the list for many, but since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Fort Bragg had seen its population and scope increase. The headquarters of the XVIII Airborne Corps was located there, which had deployed in both conflicts.
Also, a division of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, with the 4th Psychological Operations Group (its subordinate unit), is based at Fort Bragg. The mission of this group: to disseminate information in hostile areas that will motivate the people of those areas to desire the fundamentals of freedom and independence from a usually totalitarian leadership.
A terrorist weapon was placed near this base.
What Pope AFB has that made it a desired target resides several stories underground, below in an innocuous red brick building. While meant to appear ordinary, what surrounded the building was anything but. In addition to the antenna array above was fencing topped by concertino wire. Armed guards manned a gate with a steel barrier.
Inside, the façade continues. Dull, institutional square tiles made of some kind of synthetic material cover the floors—and are likely to be found completely intact and polished by future archaeologists. Four-inch-high rubberized baseboard moldings and cinderblock walls have been painted white gray in so many high-gloss layers it’s hard to know that indeed they are cinderblock.
Down the hall are steel doors in a color neither brown nor tan, with small rectangular windows containing square-patterned wire mesh inside the glass, and small signs carved in brown plastic with yellowed block lettering that used to be white. Consistent with the military’s penchant for acronyms, the signs read only afi 1-a, afi 1-b, and so on, meaning Air Force Intelligence floor 1 room A or room B, et cetera. In the middle of the hall, a door is marked afi sta security clearance required.
A card is swiped through the reader, the door’s electronic magnetic lock releases, and the door opens as any other door. Six feet ahead is another door with another card reader. The point of this arrangement is that the first door locks before one can physically reach the retina and fingerprint scanner for the second door. If an unauthorized person were to get past the first door, that person would be locked in; there’s no going back. Beyond the second door are two armed sentries wearing Kevlar–carbon fiber full body protection.
Once past these sentries, more scans are required to call the elevator directly ahead. Card, retina, fingerprint. A password is entered and the controls become active. Once inside the elevator, the floor determines the weight of the occupant. If it matches within a range of 10 percent of the person’s known weight (on file, for security clearance), the buttons to the floors allowed per specific clearance light up for selection.
Only one person at a time can ride, with no allowance for guests. (Guests, if any were to visit this facility, would have to be granted a security card and have a retina and fingerprint ID entered into the security system’s database.) The levels on the elevator’s selection pad are S4-S17 (subterranean level four through seventeen). When the elevator is exited, another armed sentry appears—with gun drawn and ready to fire. Once identity and status are confirmed, the person is allowed to pass. It has been deemed that person belongs here.
This facility is dedicated to Air Force Intelligence counterterrorism operations and special intelligence command for the Middle East. All that the United States and most of her allies knows about the Middle East or terrorism has come though this facility. It had been Osama bin Laden’s number-one target, and it remains a target in his memory.
Bin Laden hated the place that kept watch on him, that prevented his movements in open air, and that forced him to never see the light of day. He had been a prisoner for more than a decade. This place tried to persuade his devout followers that their futures would be richer, fuller, and filled with more content if they rejected the principles and policies of their extremist faction and accept the liberal doctrine of the West. In bin Laden’s mind, this place was evil and Allah had told him it must be destroyed.
June 28, 20:25 EDT
Detroit, Michigan
Rezeya had grown suspicious again. While seeing and hearing her mother in real time was powerful evidence that she was alive, she was bothered by something the president’s charming son had said. The intelligence capabilities of this country were astonishing, the supercomputers proved it. How hard would it be then for such a country to fake a live video conference?
While she’d been moved to a more comfortable place, less sterile and with more of an American living room feel, she knew that her every move and look around, every visible emotion, was monitored.
Barton had b
een gone maybe twenty minutes, barely long enough for her to get settled in her new surroundings. Choosing one of the overstuffed lounge chairs, she had just taken a sip of cool water when Scott Barton along with Craig Stout arrived.
“Is this more comfortable?” Scott asked.
“Well, yes, of course. If nothing else, the lighting is less harsh and I can feel more relaxed, but I’ll be honest with you, I still don’t know if I can trust you.” She said this to Scott, directing her eyes to Craig.
Scott put his arm around Craig’s shoulder as a show of trust, as a way to say he’s with me.
Rezeya, sensing the underlying feelings, said, “I do not approve of homosexuality, but I have heard the rumors of you for years, and I’ve worked with other homosexuals—who I’ve found to be helpful and generous and kindhearted … a sign of weakness to many, but something I’ve learned to appreciate in a way.”
Scott said nothing more than “Yes ma’am.”
“Once I help you, and you have all you think you need from me, will I just be put to the wolves, either your wolves or those from my past?” she asked.
Scott studied her. Her eyes told him that she hadn’t lied, but she needed reassurance. “You’re right to worry about the wolves. More yours, I’d say, than ours. Maybe this will help.” Scott handed her a document with the presidential seal emblazoned at the top.
Rezeya took the document and read it. “Thank you,” she said, clearly deep in thought.
“Is there something else?” asked Scott, disturbed by a lingering sense of reluctance.
“I want to see my mother in person.”
This time it was Craig who responded, hoping to gain some measure of trust. “She’s in flight already, in business class, Air France, a flight we held for almost an hour so she could make it. I’d considered a military flight but didn’t think she’d be too comfortable … she’ll be here in about seven hours. I promise.”