Jihad db-5

by Stephen Coonts

  “But they did that already,” objected Irena.

  “Yes. Darcey will straighten this out.”

  “Will I see you later?”

  “Yes.” Belatedly, he realized he had misinterpreted the question. “I’ll get there as soon as I can, but it will be hours. Unfortunately. I’m in the middle of something difficult to leave. Trust James. I’m calling him now.”

  * * *

  Bing had one of her aides return Rubens’ call, but this was just as well; Maria Mahon had worked with Hadash and Rubens knew her well. When he told her why he had called, Mahon’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  “There are several sets of documents missing, code-word classified. They’re numbered PDF documents.”

  “Surely no one thinks George’s daughter took them.”

  “I don’t think that’s the point.”

  No, of course not. Investigations such as this had been used in the past to throw a little mud on national security figures. It didn’t matter what the documents were. Hadash would look bad — as would those who were associated with him.

  But this sort of play could easily backfire in this case, given how close the president and Hadash had been. Bing would pretend to steer clear of it, while encouraging it behind the scenes.

  “What does the new director think?” Rubens tried to make his voice as neutral as possible, but evidently it didn’t work; Mahon didn’t answer right away. That told him she was, at best, neutral. He’d hoped for an ally on the inside.

  “I don’t think she has an opinion. We’re supposed to cooperate, if requested.”

  “I would appreciate knowing if I can do anything to assist,” said Rubens.

  “I’ll keep you updated,” she said, her voice still soft. So perhaps there was hope yet.

  “I’m sure George would have appreciated that,” said Rubens as he hung up. Sometimes it paid to make a direct play at emotions.

  CHAPTER 109

  Dusk came early to the thickly treed plantation about an hour and a half north of New Orleans. By then, four dozen federal officers — mostly from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, but with a smattering from Customs and the Marshals Service, and led by a core team of FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) agents — were aligned within striking distance of the compound. Another two dozen state police officers were preparing to shut down traffic on the nearby roads. An army reconnaissance aircraft — officially, an RC-7B four-engined Bombardier/de Havilland DHC-7 equipped with an integrated surveillance package, referred to as a “Crazy Hawk”—had flown over from Biggs Army Airfield in Texas and was circling overhead. Had there been time, the aircraft’s optical and infrared video information would have been sent to the equivalent of a small workstation on the ground; in this case, Desk Three had fashioned an uplink to the Art Room, which then radioed information not only to Lia and Karr but to the head of the HRT team and three other FBI agents selected as team leaders. Satellite communications systems allowed everyone to talk to each other. A Coast Guard Dauphin helicopter and a small Bell chopper belonging to the state police rounded out the armada.

  The question was, would the force be anywhere near enough? Peering through a pair of night glasses from the front of the state police helicopter, Lia couldn’t even see the road she’d taken past the compound because of the thick vegetation shielding it. Of the three large buildings where the terrorists might be gathered, only one could be seen from the air. At least the grounds of the abandoned plantation were dry; had the terrorists located a little farther south or to the west, the swamp alone would have protected them.

  “What do you say, princess?” snapped Karr over the Deep Black com system. “Ready to rock?”

  Lia swept the glasses to the west, eying the clearing where Karr and four members of an FBI Hostage Rescue Team — a cross between SEAL Team 6 and a SWAT team — were to land.

  “Your landing zone is clear,” she told him.

  “Get those ground boys moving,” said Karr, practically singing. “We’re zero-five from touchdown.”

  Karr’s intense enthusiasm irked her. Most people got dead serious before an action; Karr seemed to get jollier.

  Lia gave the go-ahead to the ground units, beginning the complicated ballet. As the state police cut off access on the roads, four different teams would move toward the compound. A fifth team would arrest the two guards who were stationed near the main entrance.

  “We’re moving,” Lia told Rockman in the Art Room.

  “We see. Situation is the same as it was,” he told her. “Just the two guards near the road. We haven’t seen anyone else.”

  “That’s one of the things that bothers me,” she told him.

  * * *

  Karr gripped the handhold at the side of the Dauphin, waiting to jump off. Since the primary goal was to obtain information from the people here, the shotgun he gripped in his right hand was filled with nonlethal shells. Instead of buck-shot, shells were filled with a mixture of hard plastic balls and pellets filled with cayenne pepper, which would explode and send a disabling spray over whomever they hit. The modified Pancor Jackhammer could fire all ten of its rounds within a few seconds; Karr had two more of the canisterlike cassettes hanging off the tactical vest he wore over his body armor. His lower pants pockets held two stun grenades apiece. He also had an Uzi submachine gun, borrowed from the marshals, strapped between the two vests to use if things got very ugly, and a pair of pistols, one a .45 at his belt and the other a small Ruger strapped to his right calf. Two of the FBI agents behind him in the helicopter were also armed with nonlethal shotguns; the other two had standard assault rifles. Besides the guns and armor, Karr was wearing a lightweight set of night glasses so that he could see in the dark.

  “We’re ready, Tommy,” said Art Koch, the head of the HRT team. He and his men had participated in several antiterror operations in the past, though never directly with Desk Three.

  “Do it!” said Karr, leaping from the aircraft as it landed thirty yards from the largest of the three buildings on the property.

  He got about ten yards before two men came around the side of the building holding rifles, Karr swung the Jackhammer level and fired three times. One of the men crumpled, screaming in agony; the other disappeared around the side.

  “We are federal agents making an inspection for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,” barked Lia’s voice through a loudspeaker projected from her helicopter. “We are serving a warrant under the U.S. Patriot Act. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Do not resist the officers. Do as you are instructed and no harm will come to you. Lay down your weapons and stand with your hands raised high in the air.”

  The man Karr had shot howled, his eyes streaming with tears. Karr spun him down, then left him as one of the trailing FBI agents came up with his plastic handcuffs ready. He sprinted for the barn, some twenty yards away; when he got there Karr threw himself against the side of the building, caught his breath, then rolled around the comer, gun poised to fire.

  There was no one there. He scanned the vegetation to the left, making sure the man hadn’t hidden himself there, then began crawling forward, looking for a spot ahead he might use for cover.

  * * *

  “Driveway is secure. Two men under arrest,” reported Team Five.

  “Good,” Lia told them. “How are we doing on the buildings, Tommy?”

  Karr didn’t answer. Rockman started to tell her something about the barn, but the head of the team tasked to take the building they called the Cottage reported that it had been secured; two prisoners had been taken. The transmission was so loud she couldn’t understand what Rockman said.

  “All right, Cottage. Good. Hold on. Rockman, what are you telling me?”

  “You have three individuals going toward the barn from the shed.”

  “Did you hear that, Tommy?”

  “I’m not only hearing it, I’m living it,” said Karr, huffing as he spoke.

  He’ll be joking in his grave,
Lia thought, picking up the microphone to repeat her warning speech.

  * * *

  Karr saw the three men Rockman had warned him about run down the slope toward the barn. When they got about thirty feet from him, he fired at the lead man. The shell popped him in the side and the man slid down, tripping both of his comrades like a scene from a slapstick comedy. But all three jumped right back up. Karr yelled at them to stop, then fired again, this time nailing the closest man in the head. A cloud of pepper spray descended on his as he fell to the ground. The others escaped unscathed: Karr’s next shot sailed to the side, missing by a good margin. Frustrated, he started to aim again when a barrage of gunfire sent him to the ground. The bullets missed, but he bashed his knee on a jagged rock so hard that he felt blood rush to his head.

  “There! On the roof!” yelled one of the FBI agents.

  A barrage of automatic rifle fire followed. By the time Karr got up, the gunman on the roof had tumbled to the ground, dead.

  “You all right?” asked Koch, running up to him.

  Karr growled. “Let’s get into the barn,” he told the FBI agent, ignoring his torn pants and bloody knee. “This is getting old.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 110

  Hernes Jackson sorted the yellow pads one more time, making sure not only that their pages were blank but that there were no impressions left on the underlying pages. He hated the idea of throwing out perfectly good paper; once he was sure there was no vestige of even a stray doodle, he would bequeath them to one of the investigators working on discovering the man or men behind Asad’s murder.

  Asad’s death ended the Deep Black bugging and snatch operation known as Red Lion. While Desk Three was still trying to find out what Asad’s target had been, Jackson’s job in Detroit was over. Some of the members of the task force were staying on to investigate the murder, under the Department of Justice’s direction. A senior FBI agent had flown in that afternoon from Washington to take over. Jackson had written an eyes-only memo for him and then, following Rubens’ instructions, dismantled his temporary office. Dean would stay to work with the task force; Jackson was to return to Fort Meade.

  Rather than staying overnight, Jackson had booked a late flight back to Baltimore. If he left tonight he would be home in time to honor his weekly Meals On Wheels commitment at lunchtime the next day.

  Jackson took one last look around the small office, making sure he had everything. Then, briefcase in one hand and pads in the other, he left the office, walking down the hall and around the comer to the large room that many of the agents and detectives working on the murder were using as a workspace. Jackson looked around the tables and finally spotted Dallas Coombs, an FBI agent who had helped him coordinate the backup teams. The FBI agent was on the phone, so Jackson set the notepads down at the comer of the table he was using as a desk and left.

  It had started to mist outside. Jackson tucked up his coat collar as he walked to the car.

  “Say, Mr. Jackson. Ambassador?”

  Jackson turned around and saw Coombs trotting toward him.

  “Glad I caught you,” said the agent, winded from the short run.

  “I hope you can use the pads of paper,” said Jackson.

  “Oh, yeah, thanks. Listen — I have to check out some surveillance videos that the Detroit police think may have been Asad bin Fayser.”

  “Bin Taysr.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. Asad bin Taysr. I was wondering if you could help, because I haven’t seen anything except for those still photos, and I don’t even have them. I gave my set to the secretaries to get copied.”

  “I’ve shredded mine, I’m afraid.”

  “You think you could check the video for me? Otherwise I’m going to have to go over to the Justice Building and try and find someone to get me into the right office. The secretaries have gone home.”

  “They left without making the copies?”

  “This is Detroit,” said Coombs.

  “I have a plane at midnight,” said Jackson. “And I was going to get something to eat.”

  “Great. Where did you want to eat? I saw a pizza joint up the block.”

  “Let’s look at the video, and then we’ll discuss dinner,” said Jackson, opening his car door. “I’ll drive.”

  CHAPTER 111

  Karr sidled up next to the door of the barn, the shotgun in his hand. The pungent odor of manure mixed with the smell of gas, diesel, and fertilizer, though the nearby fields had not been plowed in at least a year. Two of the ground teams had joined Karr’s group, surrounding the barn. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was poised near the door, ready to enter.

  Koch, the HRT leader, adjusted his radio to act as a public address system and broadcast a warning, telling the people inside the barn to come out with their hands up. Karr tensed, expecting the answer would be gunfire.

  They waited a minute, then Karr motioned for the agent to make the call again.

  “You have a chance to come out peacefully,” said Koch. “This is your last warning.”

  The large door had a chain that pulled down to release it; once released, the door would swing outwards. The HRT members had rigged a rope so they could open the door from the distance.

  “We can toss flash-bangs in through the windows on the side,” said Koch. “Pull the door open when they pop, throw more flash-bangs, secure the interior.”

  “I’d like to get them out alive,” said Karr. “That’s kind of a high priority.”

  “We can try tear gas. Barn this old, there’s a good chance of a fire, especially with that gasoline I smell.”

  “Maybe we can get a better idea of where they are inside.” Karr rubbed his chin, examining the side of the building. There were no windows or other openings, just the main door and a closed hayloft door on the second floor. When he was eight or nine, he’d spent weekends at his Uncle James’ house, playing hide-and-seek with his cousins. They had an old barn just like this. Once used to store onions, it was slowly disintegrating; one winter holiday they’d taken some boards off it and used them as snowboards. He walked around the side of the barn, looking at the boards, but none seemed loose enough to pull off.

  Then he got another idea.

  “Start haranguing them on the loudspeaker,” he told Koch. Then he grabbed hold of a nearby tree and shimmied up the trunk. Koch, realizing the loudspeaker was supposed to cover any noise Karr might make, explained in loud detail that there was simply no hope of escape and that it was possible and even very likely that the judge and jury would go easy on whoever was inside if they surrendered peacefully.

  Karr stepped onto the roof as gently as he could, then climbed up to the top, where a large, louvered cupola provided ventilation to the antique structure. Handmade, the cupola measured at roughly four feet by four feet square. Karr slipped the barrel of his shotgun into the top slot and pried; rather than pulling off the roof of the cupola as he thought, he lifted the entire structure.

  “Give me some noise,” Karr told Koch. “Couple of flash-bangs. Don’t go in yet though.”

  The grenades, designed to produce a very loud boom and flash of light but not harm anyone, went off in quick succession near the barn door. As they did, Karr yanked the cupola off the roof and threw it to the ground. Then he peered in over the side.

  He couldn’t see anyone. The problem was, the floor was a good nine or ten feet below the opening; if he jumped, the people downstairs would hear him. He put a pair of video bugs on the rafter and sat back.

  “Anyone stirring?” Karr asked Koch.

  “Not that we’ve seen or heard,” said Koch from the ground.

  “Put two ropes together and toss one end up to me. Then anchor it against a tree.”

  “You’re going inside?”

  “Nah. Just playin’ Tarzan.”

  * * *

  Lia checked on the state police units, making sure they were in position as the helicopter circled above the plantation. She hated the fact that she was up here, use
less.

  Not useless, exactly, but up here, away from what was going on. She heard Karr and his plan to climb onto the barn roof and thought That should be me.

  “Rockman, how does the video from the surveillance plane look?”

  “Clean. All the action’s at the barn.”

  “Yeah.”

  * * *

  By the time the rope had been tossed to him, Karr had swapped his shotgun for the submachine gun. He wanted the people inside alive, but not at the expense of his life.

  “You watching that top floor for me, Rockman?”

  “No one came up.”

  “All right, FBI, here’s the story,” Karr told Koch, testing the rope. “Give them one more chance again, as loud as you can. Toss some feedback screeches in, sirens, anything you got. I’ll climb down, get near the stairs at the far end, have a look at the interior. I say go, hit the flash-bangs and come on in. Don’t fire too high, all right? I’m the only guy who’s going to be on the top floor.”

  “Are we still trying to take them alive?”

  “Not if it means our guys get hurt.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Lia, have the chopper make a couple of passes near the field to add to the noise level. Starting now.”

  “Roger that.”

  Karr eased himself into the barn as the helicopter came overhead. Landing a little heavier than he wanted, he opted for speed rather than stealth, sprinting to the open landing. He pushed back against the nearby wall, then slid around so he could cover the stairway.

  Empty.

  He bent down and leaned forward, looking first in the direction of the door to the left of the stairs. There was no one near it. A sheetrocked wall separated the barn interior in two.

  “There’s a wall on your right as you come in,” Karr whispered to the FBI team. “I’m at the top of the steps on your left. There’s no one in the middle of the barn but I can’t see below me. Go! Go!”