by Jack Winnick
Uri dashed out into the small clearing, reaching his wife and Ivan. Both were exhausted from their struggles but relieved to see Uri. He and Lara hugged each other eagerly, Uri checking her for any serious wounds. “Not here, you fool,” she whispered loudly to him.
“Always with the jokes,” Uri replied with a Yiddish accent. “I think maybe you’re converting.”
She punched him lightly in the ribs; she was all right. “Where do you think those two are headed?”
He was more worried at the moment about saboteurs at the dam than the officers.
Ivan offered a reasonable guess. “There are those sampling ports we read about at the other end of the dam. They’re nearly at water level, so it would be easy to drop something in.”
That seemed like a good place to start. Lara radioed Tom and briefly went over the events so far. He agreed that they should try the south end of the dam; he also said he would contact the sheriff and apprise him of the action at Pilarcitos.
With Ivan at the wheel, the three checked out the sampling ports. The maneuver took a bit of time, as they had to first drive down to the main road, then up again on the far side of the dam. Just as they reached the fencing around the sampling ports, they saw two men in maintenance uniforms clamber into a gray Jeep with the logo of the water district on its doors, heading the other way. If they tried to turn around and pursue them and they were indeed county workers, they might lose track of the criminals. On the other hand, if these men were part of the gang, this might be their best shot at them.
* * *
The terrorist team at Crystal Springs under the leadership of Turan and the team at San Andreas under twenty-five-year-old Marduk got word from their liaison in Oakland that security had been breached. By listening in on hidden police bands, they had learned of the fight at Pilarcitos. If that team had been discovered, the others were in danger of imminent capture. The teams were ordered to halt operation and make their way to safety . . . or termination. Both teams aborted operations and clambered into their vehicles. They would have to take evasive action to avoid the authorities. Otherwise, it was cyanide and Paradise.
Chapter 37
At 7:00 p.m. on July 4, San Francisco Sheriff Sean Parker received word that two of his patrol cars had detected fresh tire prints near Pilarcitos Dam late that afternoon. They showed the distinct marks of an off-road vehicle. He immediately left word for Tom Buckley at the Oakland office of Homeland Security. Then he contacted the water district office. Had any maintenance vehicles been sent to that dam in the past twenty-four hours? The somewhat uninterested receptionist told him that she would have to ask the chief, who had already left for the day.
Gritting his teeth, Sean tried to stay calm. “Please reach him as soon as possible; it’s urgent,” he said as pleasantly as possible.
“Yes, it always is,” she replied, breaking the connection.
Tom called less than five minutes later. Sean told him about the tire prints. “Yes, this could be it,” Tom said after the briefest of pauses. “They could have been scouting the territory last night. Where exactly were they?”
“On the dirt trail near the dam, coming from the road below.”
“We need to get some units over there, and to the other reservoirs, too, as soon as you can free them; but only unmarked cars, no sirens, OK? We don’t want a panic.”
* * *
The news broke over the high-alert police and federal radio bands simultaneously: intruders had been detected at one of the municipal reservoirs, and there was reason to believe that similar attacks were ongoing at one or more of the other district lakes. Without waiting for Tom, Sheriff Parker leaped into action. He put out a bulletin to his deputies and made sure the highway patrol did likewise. All available units were ordered to upper and lower Crystal Springs, as well as the San Andreas lakes, searching for suspicious vehicles or activity.
* * *
Saman and his small gang of terrorists at Pilarcitos heard the commotion at the far end of the dam and came to an immediate, chilling conclusion: they had been discovered. They knew that their leaders, Gharoub and Soroush, were hidden under the ficus trees in that area, yet had sent no alarm. That could mean only that they had been taken by surprise. Saman signaled to his men: Kamran and Seyed grabbed their tools along with their bottles of polonium powder and leaped into their Jeep. Saman then made a quick decision to climb toward the top of the dam and toss in his container of poison. Scrambling back down, he got in the Jeep, and the three conspirators headed downhill toward Interstate 280, meaning to escape. Saman got on the radio and tried to warn their compatriots at the other two reservoirs of the setback. If the enemy were to find the polonium they carried . . . At that thought, the three men all tossed their remaining containers out the window, into the brush.
Saman reached Turan, the veteran leader at the Crystal Springs reservoir, and quickly confirmed the bad news; the authorities had apparently discovered the general and colonel. Turan agreed this called for at least a delay in their plans; they must abort and try to reach their headquarters in Oakland.
Saman then got hold of the team at San Andreas Lake; those men were also aware of the situation. They agreed their best option was to flee and try again another day. It was disheartening but necessary.
* * *
Tom and Sean, rushing toward the reservoirs in separate cars, had by this time been apprised of the ongoing events. Two police helicopters were dispatched to aid in the ongoing chase but were soon grounded by the now-dense fog. Police warned the news agencies to stay away from the area completely until further notice; there was to be no word of the situation to the general public.
Saman and his crew careened down the hill from the 1,400-foot Pilarcitos Dam, continuing east in the direction of Interstate 280 and safety.
* * *
Uri and Lara, along with the injured Ivan, headed across the dam toward the northern end of the reservoir, reasoning that the sheriff’s forces would likely intercept the men in coveralls heading more directly to the interstate. There were only the two trails down the hill. Uri drove silently, using only his parking lights to see through the mist. Suddenly, as they turned through a sharp hairpin on the steep dirt trail, they saw below them a pair of bright headlights through the fog. It had to be the men from the dam! Uri kept a safe distance behind the unmoving vehicle, certain his dim parking lights were not visible. As they came around another sharp turn, they saw not the jeep carrying the workers from the dam but the dark van that had carried Soroush and Gharoub! It appeared to be undamaged, the doors flung open. Lara knew what they had to do; she sent brief text messages to Tom and the sheriff, giving them each their position.
“Stay here and stay armed!” Uri whispered to Ivan, who was crouched in the backseat. “You have your sidearm?”
Ivan raised his automatic rifle in response, barely visible in the fog-shrouded moonlight. Uri just nodded silently and gestured to Lara to emerge from the passenger side and head to the downhill side of the apparently disabled van. With any luck, the two Iranian officers had been injured or even . . . he didn’t even bother thinking about the other possibility.
Uri, watching his wife vanish below the open vehicle, crept silently past on the other side. He had with him his Baby Eagle III, a six-inch knife, and a small Maglite. He could see nothing beyond the van stopped ahead of them, straddling the middle of the road. He approached it from the brush below, then chanced to flash his light into the front seats. There was Soroush flung against the dash, blood covering his face.
Lara signaled from the other side, but with her Maglite off.
“Are you injured?” Uri asked the silent colonel. There was no response, no movement at all. “Where is your general?” Nothing.
Just then, a shriek came from their own vehicle, above them on the road. It was Ivan. Then Lara heard the unmistakable voice of Gharoub in Farsi: “If you want to save your miserable colleague, step out onto the road, both of you!” he ordered.
; “All right, here we are!” Uri yelled back, also in Farsi, stepping onto the road.
“I see only you, you Jew bastard, Levin. Where is your whore?”
Uri paused for a moment before responding; no sense reacting to the man’s deliberate insult. “She is coming up on your downhill side. We will let you go if you leave our man alone, I promise.”
Lara, meanwhile, had taken the opportunity to open the door to the injured colonel, stuffed her handkerchief into his bloody mouth, disarmed him, and tied his hands to the wheel with his belt, taking care to remove the keys from the ignition. He seemed unconscious.
“Are you all right, Ivan?” Uri yelled to his colleague. There was no reply as Uri made his way toward the uphill side of his car.
“Stay right where you are,” came the voice of General Gharoub in English from behind a small oak to Uri’s right. “And get your bitch out here, or I’ll kill you right now.” He held a light on the inert form of Ivan in the rear seat, then fired a nearly earsplitting shot from his AK-47 directly over Uri’s head, snapping off a large branch. “Now, where is she? We have some unfinished busin—”
His last word hung in the air as his head exploded. A high-velocity round from Lara’s Masada finished his sentence for him.
Lara holstered her pistol as Uri rushed over to check on Ivan. He was lying on the rear seat, trussed up and gagged, but otherwise not further injured. At that same moment, they heard the van on the road ahead of them roar to life, wheels spinning as it hurtled downhill. The two agents looked at each other; Soroush must have had a spare key. While Lara tended to Ivan, Uri signaled Sheriff Parker. His men could capture the colonel more easily. They had to determine their next move.
Chapter 38
Col. Bijan Soroush, bruised and bleeding but alert, drove down the relatively straight road from the east side of the Pilarcitos Reservoir toward Interstate 280. That would give him the option of heading north toward San Francisco or south toward State Route 92. From that intersection, he could head either west toward the Pacific Ocean, a hilly, little used route, or east across the San Mateo–Hayward Bridge to the East Bay.
After some thought, he decided on the latter alternative. Once he crossed San Francisco Bay, he could make his way to freedom a number of ways, but he needed to proceed north to Oakland. The team members, those who survived, would meet at the community center to check in and get further instructions. They were still on their mission of jihad. But from the meager reports he had received over the radio, it was not looking good.
The Hetch Hetchy team had failed miserably, of course. Soroush had learned that earlier. Of the three teams on the peninsula, their highest hopes lay with that headed by the experienced Saman and his two adventurous colleagues, Kamran and Seyed. They had been underway with their operation on the other side of the Pilarcitos Dam when the female American spy had discovered him and that lout, Gharoub.
The last report he had received from that team was that they felt they had been discovered and were making a “strategic withdrawal.” But, they added, at least one container of poison had been thrown into the lake behind the dam. That was the only good news of the entire day so far. One bottleful of poison would throw the City of San Francisco into an unimaginable panic, one similar to word of a nuclear attack!
On the downside, the other two teams assigned to the San Andreas and Crystal Springs reservoirs were unaccounted for. Still, if the Pilarcitos team had been successful, the mission could be considered a victory.
If Saman’s team made it safely off the dam and out of the reservoir area, they would head back to Oakland or, even better, take their own lives without divulging any information. With that inspiration, Soroush continued downhill toward the highway.
It was only five more minutes on the now-paved trail until he saw the access road to I-280. He blended into the southbound traffic and headed, somewhat relieved, toward San Mateo and escape on the highway east, across the Bay.
* * *
Marduk and his team of relatively inexperienced warriors quickly gave up their operation at the news of the unraveling of the mission and fled along the San Andreas trail, heading east to the nearby freeway. “Quickly, everyone!” he yelled to his two charges. “Get rid of all the poison. Throw it out into the bushes.” They did as they were told as Marduk drove madly for the access road onto the freeway. They cruised through an underpass that led them to the northbound lanes of I-280 at a suburb called Millbrae, relieved at their narrow escape.
As they hurtled along, eager to find a rapid-transit station, they were oblivious to the helicopter that had spotted them, the police thinking they were out-of-control auto thieves. Upon checking in with the sheriff’s office, the officers learned there was a good chance the vehicle contained the foreign agents they had been warned about. The helicopter spotlight highlighted the four-wheel-drive vehicle, and two sheriff’s office units hit their sirens in pursuit, one circling around from the southbound side of the freeway.
Marduk, petrified with fear, exited at the ramp to San Bruno. He knew there was a rapid-transit station there. But as he drove around the station looking for a place to leave their vehicle, he and the others were horrified to see an astonishing number of patrol cars, red lights flashing and sirens blaring. There was no doubt in Marduk’s mind as it went into “Paradise mode.” He jammed his foot down on the accelerator and aimed the car, tires squealing, into the huge concrete abutment at the far end of the lot. Later estimates placed its speed at impact at 70 mph.
* * *
Turan was well practiced in night raids from his years of working with the Hezbollah terrorists in northern Israel. He had, in fact, trained dozens of recruits in the skills needed to make their way down from southern Lebanon into the Galilee. There, he had shown them how to silently slit the throats of unsuspecting Israeli farmers and schoolchildren.
His team on the San Francisco Peninsula had, just last night, scouted the way from the freeway to the access road, called Cañada Road, just below the Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir.
Now, as they approached their objective on foot from Cañada Road, he realized he had misjudged all the difficulties involved. The bank was steeper than it had looked from the access road; worse, it was more treacherous than it seemed the night before, slippery from the dense fog. Finally, there was a strong chain-link fence guarding the lake from curious trespassers.
Turan made a quick “battlefield decision” to alter their plan and attempt to reach the bank of the lake from the uphill side. Chances were that the long western edge of the lake would be more accessible, especially with their hefty off-road vehicle. They climbed in and headed for the southern end of the reservoir just as the news came in of the failure at Pilarcitos and the likely pursuit by the state and federal authorities. Considering the time needed to get back to the highway, Turan made another impromptu decision and headed for the access road and safety. Just as they were about to enter the roadway, he noticed a large, beat-up metal trash barrel under a tree. These Americans are indeed fastidious, he thought.
“Quickly, get out and dump all your poison in that barrel.” As he handed his two recruits his own stash of polonium, he added, “Make sure to stuff it all down at the very bottom. Cover it with as much food and other garbage as you find in there.” He knew that Americans were as fond of eating fast food as they were loath to handle its greasy, rancid remains. The poison would stay in the barrel until a trash truck came to collect it. If his team should have the misfortune to be caught with no chance of suicide, there would at least be no evidence of their deadly mission. And with no chance of completing their mission, Paradise could wait for another opportunity.
Turan and his men made their way back onto the freeway, then north to Highway 92, east toward Oakland, just as they had the previous night. Long sighs of disappointment, mixed with a bit of relief, issued from the failed jihadis as they headed back to the community center and an uncertain future.
Chapter 39
Sheriff Se
an Parker was maintaining radio contact with Tom Buckley, even as he drove along the highway toward the reservoirs. He shared each bit of news as it came in from the highway and helicopter units.
There was no doubt that the terrorist attack was in full swing. What was also clear was that Tom’s troops had foiled the attack on the Pilarcitos Reservoir, although the fate of the jihadis was as yet unknown. Also uncertain was the status of the poison. Had any reached the water? Fortunately, they did have access to the new test for water-borne polonium. Tom had shared with him the classified information from the chemists. They called it an ion-exchange-membrane device. It consisted of a material held in place on an inert matrix, or membrane.
Any polonium stuck on the membrane then showed up on a radiation detector. It was touted to be accurate to the parts-per-billion level or better. The lab’s research effort began right after the Los Angeles scare. And just in time, thought Sean.
Other news dealt with the fate of the jihadis at the San Andreas and Upper Crystal Springs reservoirs:
Sean heard that the team at San Andreas attempted to escape but had committed suicide at the San Bruno BART station, driving into a concrete pillar in the parking lot. So far, no polonium was detected at the scene, but the investigation was continuing. The immolated remains of the jihadis were undergoing DNA testing, which was so far inconclusive.
The good news was that the water in both lakes had so far showed no polonium content. Searches were ongoing at both these locations, and at Pilarcitos, for any suspicious containers.
The jihadis at Crystal Springs had been spotted by the California Highway Patrol helicopters. They were seen leaving the reservoir, heading east across the San Mateo–Hayward Bridge. Authorities followed at a safe distance by air and highway units in the hopes they would lead the officers to a meeting place in the East Bay.