“Bill, this can’t happen fast enough. I’ve got to have those locations. What do the instructions say?”
“It’s being sent to you right now, everything we have. It’s everything from mass shootings, bombings, aircraft, snipers, poisonings. It’s bad, Steve, it’s all bad. Worse than we thought,” said Bill.
“You said the countdown for them to begin carrying out their final objectives started; but how much time do we have left before the countdown ends? When do they start?” said Latent.
“The countdown culminated twenty-three minutes ago, Steve. They’ve already started. I’m sorry.”
68
“This is Mike Slayden, reporting live in Atlanta from Peachtree DeKalb Airport. As commuter planes continue to trickle in after the FAA’s closure of US airspace, fire crews are battling a huge blaze around the airport’s fuel depot. You can see the thick plumes of smoke billowing violently behind me. This blaze was threatening to spiral out of control, but seems to be nearly contained now. Now listen to this. One witness tells WBS News that he passed a stopped motorist here on Buford Highway, just adjacent to the fuel tanks. Allegedly, the stopped motorist threw something towards the fuel depot. This all happened moments before an explosion took place. The vehicle then sped off. Local residents have complained for years that the airport’s fuel depot, which sits just thirty yards off the road, is too close to the road for safety. We’re getting . . . hold on . . . we’re hearing something in the distance. It sounds like . . . it sounds like fireworks. It’s a good distance away from us, perhaps on the far side of the airport, out by the end of the north-south runway. There it goes again. That sounds more like gunfire. Charlie, can you zoom in over in that area? Can you see anything? A man with a gun! Folks, we’re about three hundred yards away from what appears to be a man with a rifle . . . or an automatic weapon of some type. He’s firing in the air! It looks like . . . he’s firing at an incoming aircraft! It looks to be a smaller corporate jet of some type coming in for a landing. He’s firing at the plane. Folks, I don’t know . . . FIRE! The jet’s on fire! It’s twisting sideways now . . .”
69
Little Jimmy was proud of his Huffy. It had been his father’s bike when he was a kid. His dad fixed it up and repainted it, and Jimmy was proud of that. It was fire red with bright cobalt blue stripes down the body. Some of the other neighborhood kids thought it looked stupid, but Jimmy would have none of it. He showed them how inferior their bikes were compared to his, the weakness in the construction, and how much heavier and better built his was. And that would shut them up. That and his ability to jump a ramp farther than anybody else in the neighborhood.
Old Mrs. Neebody’s house had always appealed to him. Not because he cared anything about the well-kept yard or the dormer windows. Instead, he liked the little knee wall that stretched down the left side of the driveway, separating the grass. Queens was fairly flat, but there was a slight downhill slope that ended at that house. Jimmy had eyeballed the knee wall probably a thousand times and knew it was something he had to jump, and he was going to be the first nine-year-old on the block to do it.
The problem was Old Mrs. Neebody wasn’t around anymore. If she had been, this would have been a breeze. The old bat wouldn’t even know there were kids playing in her yard, much less do anything about it. As it was now, no one knew the new owners or what they were like. No one ever saw them. In fact, Jimmy was the only one who had ever seen a door open or a curtain drawn or a car come or go from the house. The garage door was always shut. Yet, somehow lights turned on and off inside the house at night. He knew someone lived there. Maybe there was a ghost in there.
He pedaled up 175th Street to Vinny’s house and rang the bell.
Vinny was out in a flash. “Yeah, yeah, Ma. I know, geez. Yeah, I got my helmet. I’m nine yea’s old already. Hey, Jimmy! Whatdoya wanna do?”
“Let’s do some jumps, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Vinny, “but not here. My ma’s gettin’ stern about it. Hey! Let’s take the ramp up the street a bit.”
“I gotta better idea,” said Jimmy. “Let’s take it to Old Mrs. Neebody’s yard.”
“That old bag? Man, she’s dead. Who lives in that place anyway?”
“A ghost. What’s a matter? Yous a’scared?”
The two hefted the plywood ramp onto two skateboards and pulled it up the street and stopped at Mrs. Neebody’s.
“Hey, the garage door is open. I ain’ never seen that,” said Vinny. “Man, what if somebody’s in there?”
“A little garage door is open? You scared, Vinny? Bok, bok, bok, bok,” laughed Jimmy.
“I ain’ a’scared a nothin’,” said Vinny.
“Okay then, because we’re puttin’ the ramp right ova there.” Jimmy pointed to a spot just to the left of the long brick knee wall, dead center of the front yard. He looked back at Vinny with daring in his eyes.
Vinny was apprehensive, but refused to show it.
“Okay, but if somebody comes out and yells at us and I lose this ramp, my dads’a gonna be mad.”
They wrestled the curved bike ramp into place, pointing it over the knee wall in the direction of the driveway. Then they tore off up the street so fast it looked as if they were fleeing an avalanche.
“All right, me first,” said Jimmy.
Vinny’s eyes were wide. “Hey, man, you gonna jump that brick wall? You’ll land on the driveway. If’n you crash . . .”
“Oh shut up, Vinny. Yous sound like my motha.” And with that, he pushed off hard and started to peddle; the rocket red Huffy with cobalt blue stripes thrashed back and forth, picking up speed.
Vinny held his breath and craned his neck so he could see Jimmy. The bike sped down the sidewalk and at the last second veered onto the grass, bolting straight for the ramp. It lay waiting for him like a slingshot.
Jimmy hit the ramp and arced high into the air. Vinny knew this would be trouble and broke into an immediate run. Jimmy’s bike cleared the knee wall and slammed hard onto the white pavement. Jimmy flipped over the handlebars and sprawled onto the grass just beyond the driveway like a sack of potatoes.
Vinny yelled, “Jimmy!” The boy rolled on the grass, not uttering a sound. “Jimmy! Yous all right?” But Jimmy had the wind knocked out of him and couldn’t speak. In a few moments, he grasped a deep breath of air and hunched over, holding his knees to his chest.
Jimmy said, “Aw, man, that hurt so bad.”
“Yous all right, Jimmy? Yous all right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Geez, you worry like my old lady.”
For the first time Vinny looked up. In the darkened garage there was no car. There was nothing. No shelves or boxes or garbage cans. No ancient freezer or laundry machine. Nothing. It was a little spooky.
“What’s that smell?” said Vinny. “Oh gawd.” He began to wretch.
“Worse than down by the docks,” said Jimmy, starting to cough. “Maybe a rat died or somepin.”
As the light breeze stagnated, so did the odor. It was horrific and hung over them like a quilt too heavy to get out from under.
“Man! Let’s get outta here,” coughed Jimmy as they ran home to tell their mothers.
“WBS Radio, John Carden here at ten minutes before the top of the hour. We’ve got breaking news to report. At least nineteen people are now reported dead and an unknown number wounded in a mass shooting just outside of the town of Russellville, Arkansas. The victims were all attending a sailing regatta, called The Russellville America’s Cup, which takes place each year on Lake Dardanelle. Early reports indicate that a sniper, hidden from sight, began firing, first at sailors on their small boats, then turned the gun onto the crowd of spectators. Apparently the sniper used a silenced weapon, making it difficult to determine his location. The list of dead is feared to rise. For now, stay tuned to . . .”
70
As they cruised past Baltimore, Maryland, the Gulfstream jet leaned into its descent, tilting everything onboard. Jana could see Ft. Meade
. It looked like a small city with dozens of buildings, all surrounding one giant building. The Box, as they called it, dwarfed the width of most modern city buildings. The sprawl of parking lots made it look like a major league ballpark on game day.
A roaring noise ripped past the Gulfstream that was only feet off the runway now. It was the F-18 fighter escort that had shadowed them the entire flight. Jana felt the thunderous engines and was exhilarated. As the Gulfstream touched down, four jet-black Chevy Suburbans accelerated down the runway keeping pace. The plane slowed to a stopping point, and two of the vehicles ground to a halt as smoke poured from their wheels. Bill jumped from his seat and was already at the door as it opened.
“Let’s move, people!” All three of them jumped off the plane and sprinted straight towards an open vehicle. Ten or so people boarded the plane, secured various pieces of Bill’s equipment, and ran for the other open vehicles.
Within four minutes, they entered The Box. Other than its dwarfing size, it looked like any modern building: dark glass and a brightly lit, marble-covered lobby. A huge NSA symbol stretched across the center of the marble floor. About a dozen armed security personnel were present. It looked like an American embassy expecting an imminent assault.
“This way,” said Bill, flashing his badge. “They’re clear,” Bill yelled to the guard. “I said they’re clear, goddammit!”
Once inside the large control room, Bill sat down to his equipment as it was reassembled. Jana and Cade stayed out of the way.
“All right. Bring it up on three,” he said, pointing at a huge computer monitor. “Okay, people, listen up. This is a national emergency. I want to draw your attention to these two people,” pointing at Cade and Jana. “These are the two most important people in the room right now. This is Cade Williams and FBI Special Agent Jana Baker. They procured the data you’re about to analyze. And in case you’re wondering, their security clearance is higher than yours,” Bill said, lying through his teeth. “I want team three on the cipher. Cade, I want you with that team. Teams four and six, prep the server. We’re going to run each scenario one at a time. We’ve got to move, people. This is NSA priority level fifteen. Any questions?”
Cade whispered to Jana, “Yeah, I’ve got a question. Where’s the head? Loraine’s sweet tea is killing me.”
“I doubt your security clearance level is high enough for that,” said Jana, “sorry.”
71
The black and white patrol car rolled up to 217 175th Street and stopped, blocking the driveway. The officer in the driver’s seat keyed the mic attached to his left shoulder, “Central, unit 487 awn site. Yeah, the g’rage door is up. We’ll be ten-eighteen, ovah.”
“Roger that, 487. Ten-eighteen. Proceed with caution, over.”
The two officers walked up the driveway, the sun bright against the bleached white cement.
“Hey, Pete, wait down heyah by the garage. I’ll try the front door.”
But before the officer got up the steps, his younger partner called out.
“Paulie, hold on a minute. Come down here.” He squinted hard and pulled out his flashlight, trying to see inside the dark, cavernous garage. “Sweet Jesus, smells like a dead body in there. Holy Mary mother’a God.”
“Central, this is 487. Send me two more units,” said the younger officer into the radio.
“Roger that, 487.”
“Oh my gawd,” said the other officer, “they’s a bahdy in there for shu’ah. I haven’t smelled anything like that since Iraq,” covering his mouth.
“Central, 487, go ahead and send Hawmicide while you’re at it.”
The radio replied, “You found a body, 487?”
“Negative, Central. But from the smell out heyah, it won’t take us lawng.”
72
The van driver’s name in Arabic meant follower. He had never dwelled on that fact much, but in these last days of his life, he thought it appropriate. His mother would never understand, but his jihadist father, were he alive today, would be very proud.
He kept his eye on the speedometer and traveled only the back roads to avoid attention. Small town officials were always looking for outsiders to write speeding tickets, and he wanted to take no chances. He also was wary in case anyone had seen the van leave the ghastly smelling house in Queens. If someone had spotted it, staying out of sight now would be critical.
It was strange to be in this country with its rolling hills, sprawling oak trees, and horse farms with their endless white fences. In his experience, the land was nothing but sand, yet in this place, the color green covered everything as if a bucket of paint had been dropped from a low-flying airplane. All of it seemed like another planet.
The driver had only known the crowded, filthy shanties, the hunger, the sandstorms, and the need, no, the requirement, to obey. To obey was a part of his fiber, as if it had been sewn into the cloth of his very soul. The sun rose every morning, and his soul’s embroidery stitched itself deeper and deeper into a woven tapestry of Allah.
This was hilly country in a place called Kentucky. And, after so many hours on the roads, his mind wandered back to his childhood. His father had been taken away when he was sixteen. The driver was a young man at that point, but his three little brothers, so much younger, were not so lucky. As children, they would have to survive the slums, the scorpions, and worst of all, the soldiers wearing sunglasses—all without their father.
The Americans came for his father in the night. They were not wearing sunglasses in the dark of night, but the driver knew they were there, tucked into a pocket somewhere. It was a level of fear he had never known. He was barely able to console his mother. It had taken over a week to find that his father had been taken to a prison many miles away, to a place called Abu Ghraib. He knew nothing of such places. The only thing he did know, however, was that people taken there never tended to come home again. He was afraid. Those sunglasses became a thread intermeshed into the fabric of his soul.
And so it was to be. Allah’s will. Volunteering his life wasn’t something the driver fretted over or considered for very long. It was simply his destiny. As he came down the far side of the mountain pass, he slowed to round a rather sharp curve in the road and then downshifted into a low gear. He glanced in the rearview mirror at the tall, fat canister in the back of the van. They did a good job camouflaging it, he thought. It looks just like a propane cylinder. Several boxes of un-inflated balloons and rolls of twine provided the perfect cover story. If he were stopped by authorities, they would think he was just a balloon vendor on his way to a carnival or festival. In fact, he was on his way to just such an event. Resting on the gritty floor of the van, a small poster lay. The headline read, “Tammy Lynn’s Bluegrass Pickin’ Party and Hog Roast—Pineville, Kentucky.” Allah’s will be done, and he rounded the next curve.
73
“Okay, people, come on,” yelled Uncle Bill. “What have we got?”
Cade noticed that Uncle Bill’s mouth only became exposed from underneath all that facial hair when Bill was yelling.
“Knuckles, how about those e‑mail addresses, son? Where are they?”
“Coming on screen five now, sir,” said a kid with thick-rimmed glasses and unkempt hair.
Jana whispered to Cade, “Why do they call that guy Knuckles? He doesn’t look like a Knuckles. He looks more like an . . . Alice.”
Cade whispered back, “Oh come on, when I was nine I looked just like that.”
“Okay, run the list. There should be thirty-seven e‑mail addresses,” Bill yelled, squinting at screen five high against the wall. “That’s thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven . . . thirty-eight? What the hell? Knuckles, recount that. We should have thirty-seven e‑mail addresses to correspond to the thirty-seven different sets of instructions sent to these bomb chuckers. Come on, son.”
“Sir, I count thirty-eight, not thirty-seven,” replied the young man.
Jana whispered, “There’s an extra e‑mail address. What does that mean?” But
Cade was lost in thought.
Bill said, “Thirty-eight. Thirty-eight. Hmmm. Either there’s a senior member of the terror cell that just gets copied on these messages, or . . .”
Cade stepped forward. “Or there’s a thirty-eighth terrorist out there who already knew his final objective.”
Bill looked at him. The blankness had returned.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Bill. “All right, people, new priority. Teams one and two, concentrate on those first thirty-seven e‑mail addresses. I want to know their IP address, I want to know where they were the last time they accessed their e‑mail accounts, I want to know their shoe sizes, I want it all. Listen up! It doesn’t get any more important than this. Beg, borrow, steal, hack. I don’t give a shit. Just find those locations!” Then he turned to the kid and said with the voice of a father, “Knuckles, I want you on number thirty-eight. Move, son.”
Bill picked up a phone next to him. “Get me Stephen Latent.” Their phone conversation was brief. When it was over, Bill hung up the phone and rubbed his neck.
His eyes flew back and forth across monitor three, which displayed the last known locations of where each terrorist had accessed their e‑mail accounts. To Jana, for the first time, Bill looked like he had come alive. But she could see the worry in his eyes. It was as though his brain was in overdrive yet he’d left his poker face at home.
“That’s great work, people. Knuckles, transfer the data on the locations of the thirty-seven bomb chuckers over secure six to the bureau right now.”
“But I haven’t isolated number thirty-eight yet, sir,” replied Knuckles.
Spy Thriller: The Fourteenth Protocol: A Story of Espionage and Counter-terrorism (The Special Agent Jana Baker Book Series 1) Page 26