Direct Action

by John Weisman

  12:47:21. There were twenty-two steps between the first and second floors. His heart pounding so loudly he felt they must have heard it below, Tom found the safe-house key on step nineteen—just as the minuterie light went out. He kept climbing, his arm around the barrel, his fingers resting lightly in the banister. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. He reached for the newel cap that signified the landing. Turned left in the darkness toward the safe-house door.

  12:47:40. The lights came on. Oh God, oh, damn, oh Christ. They were coming up the stairs. He wondered how many of them there were. They sounded like a herd of goddamn rogue elephants, a frigging buffalo stampede.

  12:47:42. Tom stood in front of the safe-house door, telling himself it was going to be all right. Don’t drop the barrel. Don’t drop the key. Take the key in your hand. Hold the damn thing securely. Put it into the lock. Turn once. Turn again. Turn once more. Open the damn door.

  12:47:45. Tom yanked the key out of the lock and pressed the door handle downward. From inside he could hear the muted sound of the alarm as the door broke the plane of the infrared beam.

  He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “It’s me,” he whispered. “Ben Said and others. They’re right behind me.”

  Without waiting for a response, Tom ran for the table. Oh Christ oh God what’s the number? It had suddenly evaporated from his consciousness. He found the box, squinted in the dim light, and desperately punched 3-0-6-7-9 into the keypad.

  The wailing stopped. He ran back to the door and, careful not to disrupt the infrared beam, inserted the key into the lock and turned the bolt once-twice-thrice. Only then did he dare suck air into his lungs.

  “Bedroom.” Reuven hissed at him from the darkness beyond the plastic curtain. “Keep low—don’t let them see a silhouette. Use the pistol. Stay until I call you.”

  Tom started to set the olive barrel down then realized it was a bad idea. He shifted his weight to balance the load, reached into his waistband, pulled out the Glock, and started to tighten his finger around the trigger. He jerked his finger out of the trigger guard as if he’d touched a live wire. I’d probably shoot myself in the foot.

  He indexed his trigger finger along the frame and pointed the Glock’s muzzle downward. Behind the stubby suppressor he could make out three greenish spots. The gun had night sights. As Tom moved, he held the weapon up so the front dot was even with the two rear dots. That would be his whatchamacallit sight picture. That’s how the instructors at the Farm had referred to it.

  Desperately, he tried to remember what they’d taught him about pistol shooting. He couldn’t recall much. In fact, Tom couldn’t remember the last time he’d fired a gun.

  12:48:08. He’d just reached the bedroom door when the alarm went off. Instinctively, his finger dropped onto the trigger. He backed just inside the door, dropped to one knee, eased the barrel onto the floor, concealed himself behind the jamb, put the weapon up, held it securely in a two-handed grip, and trained it down the eight-foot corridor. Christ, this was close quarters.

  39

  12:48:11 A.M. Tom heard the sound of a key in the front door lock. The bolt turned. He jumped at the sound and then cursed himself. The bolt turned twice more. Tom heard the door handle move. Then the alarm squealed and he started again.

  The door eased open. Tom held his breath as the ambient light from the minuterie outside washed into the tiny foyer.

  As if in slow motion, a wraithlike figure in a long, flowing overcoat moved through the doorway, heading for the table. Tom counted the seconds off: a thousand one, a thousand two, a thousand three.

  The alarm shut off. Now a second, then a third shadow came through the door. The third shadow was carrying a big case—like a three-suiter or a wheeled garment bag. For an instant, Tom thought he saw weapons in their hands. Then the door closed behind them and it went dark again. He held the Glock up high, his eyes completely focused on the three green dots that told him where he was aiming.

  The third man—the one with the suitcase—turned to face the corridor. Did he have something in his free hand?

  Tom followed suitcase man with the sights on the pistol. His lungs were bursting for oxygen, but he couldn’t bring himself to breathe.

  The shadow moved slightly. Now he was partially obscured. But Tom could almost smell him, he was so close.

  Tom could hear his heart pounding. He froze, trying to become invisible.

  From the part of the foyer Tom couldn’t see came a voice, speaking accent-free Arabic. “Yahia? Yahia? C’mon out, old friend. We have to talk.” The voice was smooth, coaxing, almost feminine in tone. Suddenly Tom’s nostrils flared and he caught the sweet citrus scent of aftershave or cologne. He refocused his eyes and realized that Suitcase Man had moved closer—he was less than two yards away.

  And then came six rapid shots—no louder than a hammer striking nails. Thruup-ruup-ruup, thruup-ruup-ruup.

  The shadow in the corridor jumped—turned toward the sound of the shots.

  Panicked, Tom jerked the Glock’s trigger twice. The pistol surprised him. There was no boom-boom, only a pair of thwoks.

  Suddenly the doorjamb next to his head splintered. Tom froze, blinded by the bright orange muzzle blast of the weapon that was oh-my-God pointed right at him. He tried to disappear—to become a puddle on the floor. But he found himself completely unable to move. He was helpless. Incapable of motion. It was like being in the middle of a nightmare.

  The doorknob just behind Tom’s head shattered. He felt something slice into his scalp. And still there was no discernible gunshot sound—only muffled bursts. Thruup-ruup-ruup.

  Tom tried to control the pistol in his hands. But the gun took on a life of its own, firing one-two-three-four-five-six-seven shots before he could bring the trigger under control.

  He tried to focus on his sights. But all he could see was the muzzle flash as his adversary came closer-closer-closer moving in stop-time slow motion, now just over an arm’s length away.

  Tom forced himself to lower the Glock’s muzzle until he could see over the top of it.

  He saw the green dot—that was the front sight. Beyond it was the looming outline of the man trying to kill him.

  Frantically, he pulled the trigger.

  The pistol fired once and then the slide locked back. Tom tried to force it forward, but the goddamn thing was stuck—it wouldn’t move.

  He was a dead man. Heart pumping, he closed his eyes, anticipating the bullet that would kill him.

  And then there was only silence.

  Tom opened his eyes. He could feel the pulse racing in his wrists. He dropped the Glock onto the floor. Scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled past the corpse. His hand landed in a puddle and he stifled a gasp. “Reuven?”

  Suddenly the lights in the foyer came on. Tom was blinded. When he looked up, Reuven was staring down at him.

  “C’mon,” the Israeli said hoarsely. “No time to waste, boychik.”

  Tom tried to focus. “What?”

  “No time. Get up, Tom. On your feet.”

  Dumbly, Tom did as he was told. He stepped over the man he’d just killed. There was blood—a lot of it—and brain matter splattered on the floor.

  Reuven rolled the corpse with his foot. “You hit him more than once,” he said. “Good shooting.”

  “It was luck,” Tom protested. “Dumb stupid luck.”

  “Remember what Shamir said: never deny too loudly.”

  Tom stared at what he’d done and his knees buckled.

  Reuven caught him. “Easy, boy.”

  Tom felt really queasy. He began to see spots and the room started to turn.

  “Breathe, Tom,” Reuven instructed him. “Take in oxygen.”

  Tom sucked air into his nose and mouth and thought he could smell blood. He opened his mouth wide in a silent, panicked yawn. Maybe that would help stifle the sickness he was feeling.

  It didn’t. He took a deep breath and felt a little better. Took a second and third
and the spots disappeared. Tom shook the Israeli’s hand off. “I’m okay. Okay.”

  “Sure you are.”

  Tom reached for the handkerchief in his pocket and blew his nose. Sucked oxygen into his lungs. Wiped at his eyes. He returned his gaze to the corpse at his feet and a new wave of nausea almost swept him off his feet.

  Reuven took him by the arm and led him into the foyer.

  As he approached the other corpses, a second wave of panic amplified by doubt washed over Tom—they’d killed the wrong people. And then he bent down and forced himself to examine the corpse of the man who’d silenced the alarm. It was the same individual who was in Shahram’s surveillance photo and MJ’s picture from Gaza. It was Tariq Ben Said—or whatever his name really was. Tom heaved a huge sigh of relief.

  Ben Said and a second man lay atop the plastic sheeting, arms and legs splayed out. Reuven had head-shot them—a neat triangle of bullet holes between the bridge of their noses and their upper lips. The realization that the Israeli had sucker-punched them caused another emotional tsunami to wash over Tom. They’d actually murdered these men. Killed them in cold blood.

  Reuven must have read his thoughts. “What? You thought I’d tell them, ‘Go for your guns,’ like this was some old Western movie?” He bent down and started to rifle through Ben Said’s pockets. “This isn’t the Marquis of Queensbury, Tom. This is real life.”

  The Israeli pulled a German passport from Ben Said’s jacket. “Let’s see who he is this week.” Reuven opened the document and squinted. “Lothar Abdat, born twenty-seven March 1956 in Hamburg.”

  He flipped through the pages. There was a credit-card receipt and Reuven peered at it. “Air France—the main office on Champs-Élysées.” He patted Ben Said down. “But no ticket.” He reached into the bomb maker’s trouser pockets and turned them inside out, spilling coins and keys onto the plastic, and pawed through them. Reuven gave Tom an encouraging look. “Take the other one. See what he’s carrying.”

  1:14 A.M. They’d stowed almost everything they could in the wheeled duffel bag. They’d pulled the clothes off the three bodies. As Tom packed Ben Said’s explosives and the detonators, Reuven used a kit in his satchel to take the corpses’ fingerprints, as well as saliva and hair samples for DNA testing. Now he picked up the Vuitton knapsacks one by one, counting the various components on the folding table as he lifted them up and dropped them into the duffel.

  Tom had regained his composure. It actually hadn’t taken him long, something that surprised him because he, like most Americans, was both unaccustomed and unprepared to deal with the sorts of lethal encounters that typified this brutal new form of warfare.

  Reuven looked over at him. “Double-check for shell casings, okay? We’re still missing one nine-millimeter and one twenty-two-caliber.”

  “Okay.” Tom went to the foyer and dropped to his knees, his fingers searching along the floor molding of the short corridor. Reuven had fired six times. He’d fired ten shots. The man he’d killed had shot three times. So far they’d recovered only seventeen casings.

  He found the missing 9mm shell just behind the bedroom door frame. He still disagreed with Reuven’s “kill them all and let Allah sort it out” approach to terrorism. But in one respect, the Israeli was absolutely on the mark: America’s unpreparedness and its inability to deal on a societal level with this new kind of war were indeed things that had to change.

  The Marquis of Queensbury and his book were out the window. Bin Laden and al-Qa’ida certainly didn’t play by any rules. And it was a rough game that was getting rougher by the day. The bad guys had beheaded Danny Pearl in Pakistan. Now insurgents were taking hostages in Iraq and beheading them, too. It wouldn’t be too long before it happened closer to home.

  The world was turning upside down. Was? Tom snorted loud enough to make Reuven look up. Hell—the world had already turned upside down. It used to be so damn uncomplicated. Terrorist groups were hierarchical. Cut off the head and the rest of the organization died. That was true of all the old-line groups: the Red Army Faction; Brigate Rosse, Baader Meinhoff; PLO, PFLP, Japanese Red Army, Sendero Luminoso. All of them were hierarchical.

  He finally came up with the missing .22-caliber casing, which had wedged behind a loose piece of floor molding. Those neat and tidy days were gone forever. If Task Force 121 got lucky in Afghanistan or Pakistan and grabbed Usama today, al-Qa’ida would still continue to wage war on the West. Because it wasn’t a terrorist organization in the conventional sense. It was a cell-based politico-military organization with stand-alone guerrilla and terror operations like Ben Said’s running concurrently in a score of countries. The same thing was true of Islamist terror groups in Indonesia, the Philippines, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco.

  The old terrorists tended to be Marxist or Communist inspired and supported—so-called people’s liberation movements. Al-Qa’ida and other Islamist movements were more insidious. They exploited local nationalism and Islamic fervor, transmogrifying terror into a particularly effective—and deadly—fusion of politics, ideology, and religion. And it was going to be a protracted series of battles. If the current situation were overlaid on a World War II time line, the U.S. was still in the first months after Pearl Harbor. Moreover, CIA was almost entirely ill-equipped to deal with Islamists.

  But then, so was 4627. Tom broke his thought train and looked over at Reuven. “What about the bodies?”

  “Milo will handle them in the morning. This place will be totally sanitaire by tomorrow night. The cars we give to him, too—Ben Said had car keys in his jacket. We’ll find it and drive to the warehouse. They’ll go to the grinder—with these three.”

  Reuven caught the horrified expression on Tom’s face and ignored it. “My guess? Your fiancée was right and I was wrong. Ben Said was about to tie up loose ends. Get rid of Hamzi. Shift the operation. Cover his tracks.” The Israeli paused. “But that’s not the problem.”

  “What is?”

  Reuven jerked a thumb toward the knapsack parts. “There were four detonators and six whole knapsacks, right?”

  “Yup.” Tom nodded.

  “Well, there were enough parts to make three more knapsacks on the table.”

  “So?”

  “How many Montsouris packs did Hamzi order?”

  Tom thought about it for a few seconds “Twelve.”

  “One for Dianne Lamb,” Reuven said, “six on the table, and three in parts. That leaves two unaccounted for.” The Israeli paused. “And then there’s the Air France receipt.” He looked at Tom, his expression grave. “We’re behind the curve. Ben Said’s operation is already in play.”

  40

  11 NOVEMBER 2003

  9:12 A . M .

  223 RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORÉ

  THEY’D LAID EVERYTHING from the safe house out on the long library table. Tony Wyman picked up one of the wads of explosive and sniffed. “No odor at all.” He shook his head. “How in God’s name did he do it?”

  “We’ll know in a couple of days.” Reuven rubbed his shaved head. He looked exhausted—emotionally wrung dry. The Israeli looked at his watch. “When’s your IED guy getting here?”

  Reflexively, Wyman checked his own wrist. “Any minute now.”

  Tom slapped the telephone receiver down. “Got it. Thanks.”

  Reuven cocked his head in Tom’s direction. “So?”

  “He had tickets on the Air France Flight 068 to Los Angeles. Business class, departing Wednesday November twenty-sixth, returning Friday the twenty-eighth on Air France Flight 069. Second trip: Air France 070, departing Wednesday the tenth December, returning the twelfth on Air France Flight 071.” He checked his notes. “That’s a lot of flying in a short time.”

  “Scouting trip,” Tony Wyman said. “Has to be. It’s a common AQN tactic. They’re known to do thorough target assessments.” Tom knew Wyman was correct. He had friends in the Federal Air Marshals Service who, for a period of months, had noted an increase in provocative behavior on domes
tic flights all over the United States. Subsequent investigations had determined that al-Qa’ida was probing for weaknesses in the system.

  Still, Tom was dubious. “Ben Said wouldn’t travel just to scope out the plane—check for marshals on the flight or evaluate the security. It wasn’t his style.” Indeed, the bomber had put himself at considerable risk by taking an Air France flight in the past. But there’d been a deeper purpose when he’d flown to Israel: to test the detonators.

  “There’s more,” Tom insisted. “There has to be.” He frowned at Reuven. “It might have been helpful for us to be able to ask the man himself.”

  Reuven’s expression grew cold. “Don’t go there.”

  “Why not? It’s a valid question. Why kill him in cold blood? Why did we have to kill them all before we’d had a chance to learn anything?”

  “It was necessary.” Reuven turned away.

  “C’mon, Reuven—why?”

  The Israeli answered him with silence.

  “You can’t squeeze water from a stone, Reuven. You can’t get answers from a corpse.”

  “Maybe”—the Israeli whirled around—“you’d have preferred to spend two or three months double-checking everything he told us so we can separate the fabrications from the truth. If, that is, he’d even given us a grain of truth in the first place?”

  “You don’t know unless you try.”

  “I know he won’t make any more bombs,” Reuven growled. “I know he won’t blow up any more women and children. I know he won’t kill any more 4627 people. Maybe for you that’s not good enough, boychik. For me, it is.” Fists clenched, he advanced on Tom.

  Who wasn’t about to give an inch. “He doesn’t have to make more bombs, Reuven. By your own count, there are two of them still out there—and no way to find them now that he’s dead.”

  “Enough.” Wyman stepped between the two. “This bickering is getting us nowhere.” He looked at Tom. “What’s done is done. I’ll—”