by Brad Taylor
“Yes, I’m looking for a Bosnian named Juka. I’m on my way to Chechnya, and I was told by a friend that he may be able to help me.”
Bakr watched the man go through a small transformation. He straightened up, giving Bakr a penetrating stare with pale blue eyes, apparently measuring his mettle with the gaze alone. He leaned against the doorjamb, now projecting a sense of confidence where before there had only been defeat.
“Really? And what would this friend’s name be?”
“Milan Petrovic. He knew I was coming this way, and asked for me to pick up some things for him en route to Chechnya. Things that a Bosnian named Juka Merdanovic could provide.”
The man stepped away from the door, holding his arm open in a gesture of welcome. “I am Juka. I’m at the service of any man befriended by Milan. Come inside and tell me how I may help.”
AN HOUR LATER, Bakr stepped out of Juka’s decrepit Lada in front of his hotel in downtown Tuzla, carrying a small wooden box, a gift from Juka.
“Milan will be forever grateful for your attention to his wishes,” Bakr said.
Juka waved his hands, washing away the compliment. “I’m the one who will forever be grateful to Milan. I owe him my life. Beyond that, he’s taking up arms to protect his people. Helping you help him is a small measure, and I’m glad to do it.”
Juka leaned over to the open window.
“If you have any trouble finding the house, or getting in, call this number.”
He handed Bakr a scrap of paper with a Bosnian international number written on it.
“The phone is located in a clean house near the one with the supplies you need. Nobody will answer, but the messages are checked every day. Don’t say who you are. Just tell them what you need. It’ll be provided.”
Bakr took the number and waved good-bye, watching the Lada jerk forward, belching smoke. Juka had served his purpose. He had given him the location of a safe house on the northern side of Sarajevo. Inside this house were all the necessary components to fabricate any type of explosive device he desired. Bakr hadn’t needed to prove his Chechnya credentials or state his requirements at all. Juka had taken it on faith that he was there on behalf of Milan, and had stated that Bakr could take anything he wished from the house. At one point in the conversation, while describing the inventory of the house, he stood up.
“I have just the thing for you. Something special that I don’t keep in the house in Sarajevo. In fact, it’s the only one I have ever seen.”
Leaving Bakr alone in the rustic den, he rummaged around in a hall closet, returning with a wooden box. Inside was a wireless remote detonation device. Covered in Cyrillic lettering on the outside, it was small, with the receiver about half the size of a pack of cigarettes, and the transmitter slightly larger than a baby dill pickle. It was a state-of-the-art device used to clandestinely fire explosives from a distance. How Juka had ended up with it was anybody’s guess.
While Bakr was happy with the option to remotely fire the weapon from up to two hundred meters away, he knew the detonator’s true benefits lay in its channel-hopping capability and the fact that it used a separate signal for both arming and detonating.
Having played the IED game extensively in Iraq, Bakr understood that these features would defeat the average countermeasure employed against radio-controlled improvised explosive devices. Known as a “jammer,” the countermeasure basically broadcast a louder signal than the IED transmitter, preventing the receiver from getting the command to detonate, thus “jamming” it. A simple concept, it was analogous to a person listening to a radio station in the middle of nowhere. One second, the channel’s putting out country music, the next Gothic rock, as the radio itself relayed whichever signal was strongest. The IED jammer worked the same way. It blasted out huge amounts of white noise on the transmitter’s frequency, preventing the receiver from hearing the command to detonate.
The channel-hopping feature on Juka’s device meant that the transmitter and receiver, synchronized together, frenetically hopped frequencies from the moment it was turned on, never transmitting on the same frequency for more than a millisecond. This ensured that the average jammer wouldn’t be able to defeat it, as it wouldn’t be able to sufficiently track which frequency the detonator was using, and thus couldn’t override the signal. The second feature, the separate signals used for arming and detonation, meant that the weapon wouldn’t be inadvertently set off by someone opening his garage or playing with a remote-controlled airplane. In order for the device to explode, it would take one signal, linked to a security code, to arm the bomb, and another, also linked to a code, to detonate it.
Juka had placed the detonator reverently in Bakr’s hands, beginning to fidget once he realized that he had given it away. He made Bakr promise that he would save it for use on a special target, using all of the other mundane detonators he would find in the Sarajevo safe house for everyday terrorist attacks.
Opening the door to his hotel room, Bakr grinned at the memory. Yes, he would save this detonator for a special occasion. The perfect occasion. Placing the detonator on the nightstand, he went to the Internet café to check on the meeting with Walid.
Opening the latest message, it appeared that Sayyidd had done everything he had asked, and more, giving him a little guilt over his previous thoughts about his partner. He was a little concerned by the lack of e-mail contact in the next twenty-four hours, but seeing that this e-mail had arrived within the last hour, he was sure Sayyidd would check his account one more time before leaving, and reply. He typed a quick response, describing his successful meeting with Juka. He hit send, finally beginning to accept that everything was working out.
83
Jennifer asked again, “Where is he?”
I ran to the window, the broken glass crackling under my feet like popcorn.
“He jumped out the fucking window.”
“He jumped? Are you sure he—”
“No, I didn’t throw him out. As much as I would have liked to, I’d have to be the Incredible Hulk to chuck his ass out the window from across the room.”
I saw a crowd gathering around the broken body, most looking down, but some looking up at my location, the drapes swinging gently in the breeze providing an instant point of reference. I snapped my head back before they saw me.
“We have about one minute before we’ll be asked a lot of questions. Start packing up his stuff. We’ll look at it back in the hotel.”
“What about the other guy? What are we going to do about him?”
“I think he’s here alone. There’s no evidence of another person, no additional luggage, toothbrush, nothing.”
Stuffing passports and any other paper I could find into my backpack, I said again, “Come on, pack that computer up. We need to move.”
When I didn’t notice any movement, I said, “What’s up? We have got to go.”
“An e-mail just came in, from a different Yahoo! account. He’s still logged on and connected to the Internet.”
“Close it all up,” I said. “Don’t turn anything off, just close it up for travel. Maybe we can duplicate it at our hotel, but we don’t have time to mess with it now.”
Finishing up, I held the door open for Jennifer. Just prior to letting it close forever, she grabbed my arm.
“Wait.” She ran to the nightstand and grabbed a thumb drive. Holding it up, she said, “No telling what’s on this thing.”
“Good catch. That’s probably got their whole diabolical plan.”
She squinted like she was debating on whether to kick me in the nuts. Before she got the chance, I left the room. Once outside I turned left, choosing the opposite stairwell to the one by which we had arrived. We exited out the back, but were forced to walk through all the gawkers on the east side of the hotel to get to our vehicle. The smashed body hadn’t been moved, appearing just as it had when I’d looked out the window minutes before. We pretended to be just as shocked as everyone else until we were clear of the crowds and coul
d sprint to our car. Fifteen minutes later we were back in our hotel room.
I set the laptop on the coffee table and brought it out of sleep mode. The last e-mail was still on the screen.
“Toss me that thumb drive.”
Putting it in the computer, I saw it was empty. So much for finding the diabolical plan. I copied the Arabic text from the e-mail onto the thumb drive, followed by the e-mail header information, then took the drive over to Jennifer, who had booted up our computer and was getting online.
“The thumb drive had nothing on it. Here’s the last e-mail that was on the screen, along with the header. Can you send this to the Taskforce? Kurt said he’d have analysts standing by. Time for them to earn their pay.”
“Sure. You think they’ll be able to get anything out of this?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to try to get back into the Yahoo! server and get all his e-mails before his password times out.”
She sent the e-mail, then asked me, “What was that Web site that did the magic stuff?”
“What is my IP address dot com. You remember how to use it?”
“Yeah, I think so. I’ll let you know if I get stuck.”
I was pulling up the wireless toolbar on the terrorist’s computer, attempting to get online, when Jennifer said, “The other guy, if that’s who sent the e-mail, is in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah, actually it does. That’s where all the muj went to during the Bosnian war. He’s probably got some contacts there.”
I tried to connect to the hotel wireless network but failed, being told it was “in use.” “Will this hotel network handle two computers with the same password at the same time?”
She was staring at our computer and gave me an absentminded answer. “I don’t know.”
“His damn password is going to time out. We’re going to lose the messages. Get off the Internet and let me go.”
“Wait. I’m getting a message. Don’t cut it yet. Why don’t you try using the Ethernet cable? That’s not tied to the wireless.”
I felt the press of time and was about to rip her computer out of the wall when what she’d said rooted home. Damn ... little brainiac might be right again. I plugged into the cable and began reconfiguring the terrorist computer, asking what the latest message said.
“It looks like that last message was from the other terrorist. He’s found some explosive material and is ready to meet the first guy—I guess the guy that jumped out the window.”
I continued messing with the other computer, only half listening to what she said.
“He’s ready to build the bomb, and the window-jumper here in Oslo has some connection who can get them into Israel. The guy in Tuzla is thanking him for the work.”
I saw the little wireless icon show a green connection. “Yeah! I’m online, and his account’s still open.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Yes. I did. Give me the thumb drive. I want to copy all the messages in the sent-and-received files.”
She passed it over, allowing me to load the new messages.
“Send that to them. See what they say.”
She did as I asked, saying, “Pike, what are we going to do? I guess I had hoped that at some point we’d figure out we were wrong, especially since nobody else wanted to believe us. Every time we find something new, it tells us we’re still right.”
“Hang on. Let’s see what the rest of the messages say. We can figure it out from there. Let’s face it, everything said so far could be for a single suicide attack into Israel. It may be nothing more than that. One bad guy is dead, and the other has no idea. We’re still on the offensive here.”
One hour later we got the answer from the Taskforce. It didn’t get any better. The man who had jumped to his death had been very sloppy with his operational security. He had saved every e-mail sent and received, allowing the analysts at the Taskforce to build a pretty good picture. In a clinical report, the analytical transcript summarized what the e-mail exchanges contained. In general, it gave the strongest backing yet to Ethan’s original take, buttressing the theory that the over-arching goal was to deploy a weapon in Israel and blame the Iranians. The report read in a clinical, unemotional manner:
a. Terrorist A, having suspected that the pair was under surveillance, fled to parts unknown as a preventative measure.
b. Terrorist A, to ensure a self-healing operation, enacted a negative tripwire, whereby a penalty would be incurred if a code is not sent. Terrorist A will immediately cease all communication, assume the plan is compromised, and conduct the event at the earliest convenience, most likely at a target of opportunity. The penalty is reset every 24 hours. The code itself is undetermined, but most likely is some combination of words within each e-mail sent.
c. Terrorist A has coordinated for explosives at his present location but has not physically obtained them. The explosives themselves are held at a safe house, exact location undetermined. Along with the explosives he has obtained a complex detonation mechanism, type unknown.
d. Terrorist B has coordinated for transportation to Israel and coordinated for evidence to implicate Iran in the attack. Exact details and facilitation measures are unknown.
e. Terrorist B is going to finalize coordination for transportation methods and routes today, and will be out of e-mail contact for 48 hours. Terrorist B asked Terrorist A for an additional 24 hours before incurring a penalty.
f. Terrorist A has agreed to the additional time, with the caveat that Terrorist B make every attempt to make contact.
It is the consensus of the analysts that together, both terrorists have the means at their disposal to introduce an explosive device inside the borders of the State of Israel. It is further believed that they have the means to blame the attack on the State of Iran, at least initially. It is impossible to ascertain from the e-mails presented whether this blame will withstand rigorous forensic and investigative scrutiny, although it is the opinion of the analysts that such scrutiny may not occur, as the politics of the event will more than likely supersede any attempt at determining the actual facts, with initial reports becoming the perceived truth.
On the question of whether the event will be WMD related, the analysts could not reach a consensus. There is no evidence that the device is a WMD, as neither terrorist refers to it as such, and a review of worldwide all-source intelligence for the last thirty days does not reveal any new indications of recent WMD activity. It may simply be a conventional terrorist operation with little second- and third-order repercussions. On the other hand, it is unusual for this much preparation, coordination, and infrastructure development be used to support a single suicide attack.
“Not good. Looks like we have forty-eight hours to play with. The muj motherfucker’s going on a suicide run after that. No telling where.”
Jennifer’s face was pale. “We can’t do this alone. Can’t Kurt go get that guy now? Isn’t this enough proof?”
“No. You heard his dilemma in D.C. That hasn’t changed. It’s sad to say, but a simple suicide attack won’t cut it. He’s not going to risk political upheaval on an event that occurs every day all over the Middle East. He’s also not going to launch based on our hunch, especially when his own analysts can’t agree that it’s a WMD. We have to prove it.”
“How on earth are we going to do that?”
“Same way we were here. He’s obviously got the device, if there is one. We didn’t find one here, so we need to go there, find him, then check out what he has.”
“Where’s ‘there’?”
“Tuzla, Bosnia. Pack your stuff. We need to leave right now. We have a little over forty-eight hours before he goes nuts. Once he’s convinced they’re compromised, there’s no telling where he’s going to go.”
Jennifer remained seated. “Are you serious? Where are we going to go? How are we going to find this guy? At least here we had the message about the coffee shop. How are we going to find him in an
entire city?”
“Pull up that e-mail trace again. It should have come with a map. It’s not that accurate, but I’ve been to Tuzla. It’s not that big of a place and probably doesn’t have that many Internet cafés. It’s a long shot, but we go to Tuzla, find the closest café to the map location given, and see if we can find him.”
“What happens if we don’t find him?”
“He blows up a bunch of people. Not much we can do about it. All we can do is try.”
“Shit, Pike, we can’t do this. We’re going to fail. Fail. Can’t you see that? Why isn’t anyone else helping....”
She put her head in her hands. I sat down next to her and rubbed her back.
“Look, this will all be over, whether we like it or not, within the next forty-eight hours. All we can do is try our best. Hang in there for a couple more days and it will end one way or another.”
She sat up. I was relieved to see a spark back in her eyes. “Okay. Forty-eight hours. But when we get home I am kicking somebody’s ass in the United States government.”
84
Five thousand miles away, Kurt Hale sat at his desk with the latest intel reports from Pike. He rubbed his eyes, not liking the choices he faced, or the repercussions if he chose incorrectly. He wasn’t surprised by the fact that there was no black-and-white description of the terrorists’ intentions or capabilities. It was just the way of intelligence. From past experience, he knew there was never a smoking gun. You always had to make a judgment call, read the tea leaves, and hope you came close.
He knew that Pike would take the commander’s intent he had given seriously, and wouldn’t send an alert unless he proved there was WMD involved. Unfortunately, according to this last batch of e-mails, waiting until Pike’s call might be too late. The team wouldn’t have time to launch from the U.S. to wherever Pike ended up before the terrorist fled on his suicide mission, killing thousands and possibly starting World War III.