Eves of Destruction

by Roy Berelowitz

  He paused again to see if there was a question and then continued.

  “Second, I would like to bring in agents from every field office we have in the West to help search for Al Rahman. We’ll set up a task force and put them on the street wearing FBI jackets and have them check every hotel in the same fifty mile radius. Somebody must have seen this man —.”

  He was interrupted by the Director.

  “How many agents are you talking about Gordon?”

  “Well sir, we think about five hundred will probably be enough.” He glanced over at Jessep as he said the number expecting a strong response. He was not disappointed.

  “Five hundred! Are you kidding Gordon?” The Director’s voice boomed back through the speaker. “That would basically empty every FBI office between San Francisco and Utah?”

  Another man’s voice came on the line, Bob Taylor, the Presidents National Security Advisor.

  “You do realize this is not the only potential terrorist threat we are dealing with right now. By my last count there were approximately fifty other substantial threats under investigation. Doing what you are asking will effectively reduce those efforts to nothing while everything is focused on San Francisco. Do you really think that is wise and really necessary?”

  Gordon Lewis hesitated for a moment before he answered.

  “Mr. Taylor, I understand what I am recommending is a massive undertaking with many cascading repercussions, but I have spent some of the last two days with the Russian, Mr. Kosnar, and if what he has told us about Abd Al Rahman is even half right we are dealing with a deadly and potentially massive threat. This man is a stone cold killer who, if he really is here in the US and we are certain he is, will not stop, will never stop until he has carried out a deadly terrorist attack. He has the means to kill upwards of hundreds of people and create massive panic in San Francisco, a city hemmed in on three sides by water with limited exit routes. If panic does take over the City, hundreds might die just in the chaos. And if we don’t find Al Rahman now and he gets away, he will find other ways to strike. And he will never ever stop. If we miss him here, assuming this is his target, he will keep attacking and killing until we find him.”

  His words hung in the air and there was silence from the speaker for a few moments.

  The Director’s voice came through. “OK, listen up. We are going to call you back within the hour with our decision.” The speaker phone clicked as it was disconnected.

  Gordon Lewis slumped back in his chair and looked over Lance Jessep. “What’s your guess Lance? Do you think they’ll do it? Do you think they really understand what we are dealing with here?”

  Jessep nodded for a moment. “I think so,” he replied. “You were pretty convincing.”

  The two men chatted for a few more minutes and then the phone on the conference table rang. Jessep reached for it and answered. After a very brief exchange of pleasantries, he handed the phone to Gordon Lewis.

  “It’s the Director for you Gordon,” he said.

  “Yes, Sir,” Lewis said into the mouthpiece.

  He said nothing while he listened for about a minute and then he said yes one more time and hung up the phone.

  “Well,” said Jessep staring at him expectedly.

  Lewis sighed. “OK, we got them. Five hundred agents will be directed here starting now. We have to take care of all their logistics when they get here.”

  He stood up. “Come on,” he said wearily, “we have a lot of work to do.”

  CHAPTER 28

  FLUENT IN GERMAN from her athletic training in East Germany, and comfortable in English, Natasha Mislov’s athletic body, fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair made her a natural choice for a California assignment. Adding to her capabilities was a talent for mathematics and she had actually considered a degree in engineering while recovering from hip surgery. She never quite understood what had happened to her hip just before the Soviet Olympic trials, but she was so grateful to be walking normally again and without pain, she had put her athletic career out of her mind. The engineering option also went by the wayside when she was notified to appear at KGB headquarters in Moscow.

  Arriving at the infamous building with some trepidation, she was glad to find out that rather than being in trouble, she had been selected to join the KGB and would be trained as a foreign operative. Natasha considered the opportunity to serve her country a great honor, and the idea of secret overseas spy mission excited her more than she wanted to admit. Soon after completing her physical rehabilitation, she entered into the KGB training program.

  Her cover in California was of a German student studying abroad. She spent nine months being trained at Moscow University on the intricacies of microchip design and had enough superficial knowledge to convince most of the young computer designers and scientists she met that she was studying electrical engineering. One major benefit in her favor, as she sought to make contacts in the bars, coffee shops and clubs frequented by the technical elite in Palo Alto and San Jose, was that there were so few women in the computer business at that time. She was very unusual, a situation she exploited with her good looks.

  Her handlers back in Moscow, operating through her local controllers in California, put enormous pressure on her to deliver. At that time they were most interested in acquiring the design of the high-end graphical engineering workstations being used for Computer Aided Design, known as CAD. There were three major developers of these systems operating in the Bay Area, any of which could be used to design highly sophisticated weapon systems. The sale of these computers to foreign companies was restricted, and by the time the Russians acquired a few, they were already outdated. The idea was that if they could get access to actual chip designs, they could build their own systems and leapfrog the American’s technical advantage.

  After three months of networking, Natasha’s break came at the huge computer exposition held each year in Las Vegas. Tens of thousands of software and hardware engineers gathered in Las Vegas to see the latest products and to brainstorm new ideas and concepts. A highly intelligent group, they tended to keep away from the gaming tables, entertaining themselves instead with lavish parties and trips to the nudie bars on the Vegas strip. It was at one of these parties Natasha met and seduced a young engineer employed at BRSV Graphics, one of the top three CAD systems companies. She had been following him for several weeks after inadvertently discovering he was a senior chip designer.

  His name was Dr. Walter Walker, and he was smitten by her. At thirty-three, he had a doctorate in physics, but had had only one real, albeit brief relationship before meeting Natasha. He could not believe his good fortune. She was really cute, laughed at his jokes, and seemed really interested in his engineering work. After they quickly established a relationship, she gladly washed his greasy hair and cleaned up his expensive, but disorderly house. She helped him buy a new wardrobe and made him actually look quite dapper.

  The best part was when he took her to the annual company picnic, which was held soon after they met. All the guys in his design team stood with their mouths agape as he and Natasha walked in holding hands. Natasha charmed them as well, but made sure she never left Walter alone or made him feel jealous for a moment. She was constantly aware of his emotional fragility and did not want to jeopardize her opportunity to drain him of detailed technical information.

  He was more than willing and loved the fact she was really interested in his work. They would spend hours together going over the intricacies and specifications of new chips his team was working on. He began to bring home design blueprints to show her, on more than one occasion even took her into his office, all of which he knew was prohibited.

  For five months, Natasha put up with Walter, his strange personality, his bizarre and weird predilections in bed. She felt like an actor, living a role rather than playing it, but it was working. Her first report on BRSV Graphics’ new chip design reached Moscow about a month after she met Walter and she was given more specific instructions abou
t information to gather and told to make information drops every week. Her handlers were elated and told her so. The praise and the success of her mission inspired her to continue the relationship, but after five months, he was becoming more than she could bear.

  He began to take her for granted, ordering her about his house, which they now shared, and occasionally becoming verbally abusive. He worked tremendous hours, was under enormous pressure to deliver better and faster designs and finally he grew tired of her incessant questions. Finally, one day, he pushed her hard, knocking her to the ground. He did not scare her, and she felt more than able to take care of herself, but after the fall, her right hip began to hurt. She mentioned this in her last drop and quickly received a response that she was to leave immediately and make her way back to Moscow through the prearranged circuitous route.

  Natasha was surprised to be recalled so soon. She had mixed feelings about leaving California. The people had seemed so nice, so free, with money and time for pleasures unknown to most Russians, but she was glad to be going home. She was tired of the stress of spying and playing the adoring girlfriend. Upon her arrival in Moscow on a flight from Germany, she was surprised to be met by an ambulance and rushed to the hospital. Her hip still hurt, but she did not believe she had suffered any major damage. She was X-rayed and examined repeatedly for a few days, then informed she would need surgery almost immediately. Her recovery took months but eventually the pain subsided and she got on with her with new assignments.

  So many years later, Natasha was surprised when she was contacted and immediately scheduled to leave for Europe, so many years after her last and only foreign assignment. She had become used to her research job in the FSB, which changed little for her when the service was renamed and reorganized.

  Since her quick departure to America on this new assignment, her stay had been mostly lonely. She was really excited when the caller gave her instructions to fly to San Francisco. She looked forward to seeing the beautiful bay area again, to visiting some of her old haunts. But now, as she lay on the bed in a modest motel room in downtown Oakland on the East Bay she was frustrated. For weeks, she waited for her cell phone to ring, changing motels every few days to avoid drawing too much attention as a long time resident, visiting the City and on one occasion even some of her old haunts.

  That had been a mistake because she was sure someone had recognized her. She had been having a coffee in one of the numerous Starbucks in Palo Alto, a very upscale town located near Stanford University where she had spent a lot of time. The man had stared at her and tried to make eye contact but she kept looking away and finally left the coffee shop, taking a circuitous route back to her hotel just in case the man tried to follow her. From then on she kept to the East Bay, staying away from San Francisco and the South Bay.

  Finally, the call came. The caller spoke in Russian but his accent sounded different from the man who had first called. He gave her detailed instructions which he made her repeat back to him twice in confirmation.

  “Take the BART to San Francisco from the station nearest to her hotel, the Lake Merritt station and ride it all the way to the Montgomery Street station,” he said. From there she was to walk to the corner of 4th and Howard and stand near the Carousel building. She was to remain in place until he called and altered her instructions. She was to wear comfortable clothes and an orange shirt.

  Two hours later, Natasha Mislov stepped out of her hotel for the short walk to the Lake Merritt BART Station.

  CHAPTER 29

  SPECIAL AGENT ADAM Marks wiped his mouth, tossed the napkin onto the remains of his half eaten sandwich and sighed.

  “You ready to get back to it?” he said to his colleague sitting opposite him in the brightly lit fast food restaurant.

  Special Agent Michael Ginella nodded slowly in response. He was exhausted. In the last two days they had slept less than eight hours and the work was a grind. They had finally stopped in downtown Oakland in the early afternoon to take a break and grab a quick meal. Thirty six hours earlier, they had been working on a field assignment in Reno, their regular jurisdiction, when a call had come in from the Reno SAC instructing them to immediately go home, pack some clothes for a few days, specifically including their FBI windbreakers and drive to the San Francisco regional office for an emergency assignment.

  As seasoned agents they were both used to unusual schedules and assignments, but it was orders like these that wreaked havoc on their family life. Agent Marks was working on his second marriage and his new bride was already complaining about his long work hours and erratic schedule.

  Within two hours they were heading west on Interstate 80 to San Francisco. The SAC called them again with new instructions to head to the Holiday Inn Hotel in Walnut Creek where they were to spend the night. Marks tried to find out from him what was going on but all he was told was that hundreds of FBI agents were being sent to San Francisco from all over the Western United States on an emergency basis, but he had no idea why.

  Marks and Ginella had arrived at the Holiday Inn to find a number of other agents checking in. There had been some grumbling about having to double up in rooms, but the hotel lacked sufficient rooms for all the agents checking in so they the ended up sharing.

  They had finally gotten to bed around midnight and were woken up by a call just after five in the morning with instructions to meet in the lobby within one hour. When they had reached the lobby they were directed to a large conference room already almost filled with at least one hundred agents.

  The presentation had begun almost immediately.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Lance Jessep and I am the Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco regional office.” He looked around the room as the noise died down and made sure he had everyone’s attention.

  “I know many of you have traveled a long way to get here and did not get much sleep last night, but I need you to pay very close attention to everything I have to say.” He paused and glanced around the room as his audience quickly quieted down.

  “Five days ago as you all know, a colleague of ours, David Green was killed by an explosion at a restaurant in London.” He reached down and uncapped the lens of the projector on the table in front of him and a large image popped up on the white screen behind him. The image was slightly indistinct, clearly taken from a video feed but the face was clear and recognizable.

  “This man is Abd Al Rahman. It is believed he was either directly, or at a minimum, indirectly involved in Agent Green’s murder.”

  He clicked the mouse pad on his computer and another similar image of the same man’s face appeared on the screen.

  “This picture was taken four days ago at passport control at San Francisco International Airport. This man’s passport identified him as a French Citizen named Philippe Métier.” Jessep clicked through a few more images of the same face.

  “As you can clearly see, Métier and Abd Al Rahman are one and the same.”

  The presentation went on for another hour with Jessep providing detailed background information about Al Rahman, his past as a Mujihadin fighter in Afghanistan against the Soviets and his reputation as an absolutely ruthless killer, making sure all the agents understood the nature of the threat.

  Finally, he paused again placing his hands on his hips as he looked around the room. “I have one more picture to show you and its not pleasant so be prepared.” A moment later the shattered body of Sasha Donitz filled the screen. There was an audible gasp in the room.

  “This woman,” said Jessep, “was carrying the bomb that killed Agent Green. Now, the British police have managed to keep this information suppressed from the public at least for now, but the bomb was not in her handbag or wrapped around her body in a typical suicide bomb vest as the British press has speculated. This bomb was inside her body, encased in a titanium hip joint.”

  He held up his hand as the room erupted in quick exchanges of comments between the seated agents.

  “Listen up. Listen plea
se.” The room quickly quieted down again as all eyes focused back on Jessep. “I am not going into deep background of how and why this device was installed in her body. However,” he continued as he lifted up between his thumb and forefinger a set of five pages stapled at one corner, “these five sheets of paper each contain pictures of twenty women, all of whom we believe have been similarly armed and deployed here in the United States.”

  The room stayed silent as all agents remained focused on Jessep. “We believe Al Rahman’s target is the Democratic National Convention starting tomorrow in San Francisco. We have no idea where Al Rahman is right now and as we speak I have agents checking every hotel, motel and B&B in San Francisco. However, we believe he is most likely in the East or South Bay somewhere, staying out of sight until he is ready to deploy and activate the women. Your job,” he continued as he pointed his finger towards the crowed room, “is to flush him out, put him back on the streets and make him aware we are looking for him. Right now there are four other meetings just like this one going on around the Bay area and within about two hours, almost five hundred agents will be hunting for this man. You will operate in two man teams and you can expect to be working all day and into the night.”

  The meeting had wrapped up with folders containing numerous pictures of Al Rahman taken from the video surveillance tapes, being handed out to each team of agents. Each team was assigned a grid and tasked with checking every hotel in their assigned area at least twice to make sure that all the day and night clerks were shown pictures of Al Rahman and questioned about any suspicious guests.

  Marks and Ginella had been assigned a grid in the East Bay including Oakland and parts of Berkeley. They had alternated between walking and driving between hotels and motels and so far had nothing to show for their efforts.