by Mark Terry
Derek said, “Which computer? Can you check what he was doing?”
Abelson shrugged. “Over here.” He led them to an open computer monitor. “In fact, I told him you were asking about him, Trevor. He got a little jumpy.”
I bet he did, Derek thought. “When was this?”
“Just a few minutes ago.”
Abelson tapped some keys, looking for a user history. After a moment he said, “Looks like he was checking a specific flight. Flight, hmmm—That’s Governor Stark’s plane. I see they’re not flying into LAX—”
Agent Zerbe said, “God dammit!” He spun on Lottke. “Let’s go find this guy.”
He ran out of the air traffic control tower with Lottke and Smith behind him. O’Reilly hurried after them, but slowed when Derek didn’t follow. Derek said to Abelson, “Take a look at the flight path of the governor’s plane, would you?”
Abelson studied him for a second. “I didn’t get who you are?”
Derek introduced himself. “There are hints a terrorist might be targeting the governor’s plane, possibly with a surface-to-air missile.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“It’s not confirmed. But there’s a possibility John was providing the terrorist with the flight path and time information.”
Abelson paled, if that was possible. He already had milk white skin. Turning, he tapped at the computer screen and brought up a flight path. “This is the probable flight. It’s subject to change, but here it is.”
Derek was no stranger to maps, but this was an incomprehensible mess. He hesitated. “Let’s say you had a portable missile. You wanted to shoot the plane down and you need visual confirmation. Where would you set up?”
“What’s the range?”
Derek turned to O’Reilly, who said, “Half mile to a little under five miles.”
“So it would have to be on landing or takeoff.”
“I don’t think so,” Derek said. “Then why get flight path data?”
Abelson studied the computer screen. “Out in the suburbs somewhere?”
“Maybe someplace high.”
“Up in the mountains,” Abelson murmured. “Hmmm.” His finger followed a track on the computer screen. “Lot of mountains here. Timing could be a problem, but if it was me, I’d get set up in the mountains around Mt. Wilson or Mt. Zion. Mt. Wilson’s got the observatory and all that up there, so there’s a lot of cleared space, not many trees And if I knew exactly what time the plane was coming through, I’d have a pretty clear visual field and Mt. Wilson, for instance, is about fifty-eight hundred feet, and planes coming into LAX or even Ontario, which is where the governor’s plane is coming in—”
But Abelson was speaking to himself, because Derek and O’Reilly were on their way out the door.
CHAPTER 65
Out on the street, Derek studied their surroundings. He felt ever so slightly like a wolf sniffing the air for prey. They had just missed John Seddiqi, and it was like he could still scent him, he was that close. The man still might be around. He might be walking to his car, taking a shuttle. He wouldn’t be far away.
They were near the Delta terminal, the air traffic control tower was in front of them. A jet shrieked and lunged into the sky. A black cab driver was standing outside his taxi shouting something unintelligible at a receding cab. That wasn’t particularly unusual. But Derek was trained to connect the dots, to notice the oddities and place them in context. And he trusted his instincts.
O’Reilly said, “So what? We’ve narrowed it down to what?, a few million square miles?”
Derek ignored her. He ran over to the irate cab driver, who was shouting, “Mo’ fucka! You get in my cab, waste ma time, then—”
Derek flashed his identification. “What’s the problem?”
“Some mo’ fucka gets in my car to talk on his phone, then jump out and puke, mon, then swear at me and run and jump into another cab. It not right. It jus’ not right!”
The man’s accent was odd. Not quite Jamaican, maybe Louisiana, maybe someplace more exotic like West Africa. Derek said, “What did he look like?”
“What? What you want, mon?”
“What did this guy look like?”
O’Reilly caught up. Her phone was in her hand and she said, “They triangulated on his cell signal, but it’s moving. They’re scrambling to get a lock on it, but things are moving slow and there’s some bureaucratic hassles—”
“Where?”
“Who the woman? Who you?” The cab driver was flailing his arms and Derek wondered if he was schizophrenic. He was a nut. But then again, this was L.A.
O’Reilly ignored the cab driver. “Here. Just a couple minutes ago. But they’ve lost the signal. Probably turned the phone off.”
Derek focused on the cab driver. “What did he look like? Was he Pakistani?”
“Dat o’ Injen. Yeah, prob’ly. Dark hair, dress like businessman—white shirt and tie. Very tense. Talking strange on da phone.”
“Strange how?”
“Upset, but tryin’ to be a tough mon.”
Derek stared where the cabbie had been shouting only moments before. “What did he say? Did he—”
“He never give directions to me. He jump out of car. Then hang up and vomit.” He mimed bending over and vomiting in case Derek didn’t understand. He pointed to the spot near the curb where the proof of the action was still evident.
Derek reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. He held them where the driver could see them. “Could you hear him on the phone?”
“Yuh. He in back of car most of the time.”
Derek peeled off a twenty and held it up. “Any idea who he was talking to?”
The driver eyed the bill. “No. Not really. But not a friend.”
“Any names?” O’Reilly asked.
“No, well, I don’t know. Funny words. Maybe he talk some of time in Pakistani or Indian.”
“You sure?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes in English. They funny words, like ‘Calico,’ like da cat.”
Calico? Derek thought. “Kalakar.”
“Maybe.”
“What else?”
He shrugged. “Mallory, maybe.”
“Malika?”
“Maybe.”
Bingo. Derek gave him the twenty and tugged out another. “Where was he going?”
“Don’t know, mon. He give directions, but I’m not—” He trailed off.
“Yes?”
“National Forest. Off Route 5. He tol’ man to meet someone there. At leas’ I think it a someone. Could be, like, deer, no, gazelle. That I remember, thinking we have gazelle in National Forest? In California? Didn’t know that.”
“Ghazala,” Derek said.
“Maybe.”
“What else?”
“Dat all, mon. Jus’—he say to trade something for Mallory—Malika, I guess. I don’t know what a Malika is.”
“Trade for what?”
“Don’t know. He say, maybe, I dunno, he don’t say.”
Derek handed over the twenty. “Anything else? And I mean anything.”
The driver thought, eyes on the money in Derek’s hand. Finally, “I think he give directions. He talk about a parking lot in the forest.”
Derek held up an additional twenty.
The driver licked his lips. “He say something a red box. I remember him say something about a red box, but did not think that made sense.”
“A red box? Any idea—”
O’Reilly snatched the money from Derek’s hand and flung it at the cabbie. “Come on, I know where they’re going.”
She sprinted toward where they had left the car, Derek at her heels.
CHAPTER 66
JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NEW YORK
There were four of them. Each of them was dressed for travel—slacks and polo shirts with a carry-on bag. They approached John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York almost simultaneously. It was election day and it was nine
thirty in the morning on the east coast.
Each of the men drove up to a different terminal. There were nine terminals at JFK. One man went to Terminal 8 where American Airlines was located; another to Terminal 7, where United Airlines ran their operation; yet another hit Terminal 5, where JetBlue operated. Terminals 1, 2, 3, and 4 were all international flights. They had debated hitting all four international terminals, but they didn’t have the manpower, and security was higher at the international terminals. Still, they needed to make their presence known at the international terminals, so Yusef Abdulla selected Terminal 4, the largest of the international terminals, which included service by El Al and Israir.
Each man entered his respective terminal at nearly the same time, bypassed ticketing, and headed for the security screening area. As expected, the lines were long, hundreds of people with their carry-on luggage shuffling toward the metal detectors and bomb sniffers.
Each man waited until they were deep in a crowd of people. Yusef Abdulla checked his watch. He said a prayer, set his carry-on bag down on the ground, and tapped out a phone number.
Yusef’s three fellow martyrs at Terminals 5, 7, and 8 did exactly the same thing at almost identical times.
Each carry-on bag held approximately five pounds of Semtex plastic explosive. The detonators were hooked to the circuit board from a cell phone. Surrounding the Semtex were galvanized roofing nails.
The lucky ones never knew what hit them.
CHAPTER 67
Scrambling into the passenger side of O’Reilly’s bucar, acceleration pressed Derek against the seat when she fired up the engine and peeled out of the parking lot. “Where are we going?”
“Red Box Road.” She nodded at the GPS. “Get it programmed in. We’re heading for Mt. Wilson. You take Red Box Road to the observatory entrance on the top of Mt. Wilson.”
Derek began fussing with the GPS device. “You knew this off the top of your head?”
“I grew up around here, remember? Whenever people visit you in L.A. you have fairly standard tourist things to hit: Disneyland, Universal Studios, the beach, maybe the Reagan Library, Huntington Gardens—”
“And Mt. Wilson.”
“Depends, but yes. And I used to hike around there a lot, too.”
“It makes sense.”
Once Derek got the GPS working, he called Secretary Johnston. Or tried to. The secretary’s line was busy. He left a message. “It’s Derek. We’re pretty sure Kalakar is heading for Mt. Wilson here in L.A. and has the flight path of Governor Stark’s plane. Contact the governor and get them to abort this trip completely. And we need backup. O’Reilly and I are on our way.”
He hung up. “Who else?”
“Did you get Zerbe’s number?”
“No. I’ll call the local Homeland office.”
He tried that number as well, but it was busy too. He left a message then he said, “I’ll dial the local bureau, but they’re sure as hell not going to talk to me.”
He dialed and handed the phone to O’Reilly. She held it to her ear. After a moment she said, “This is Agent Cassandra O’Reilly, ODNI. We have a serious lead on the location of Kalakar.” She rattled off the information, asking for backup and suggesting they clear any air traffic near the Angeles National Forest.
“Strange,” she said. “Nobody answered and it went over to voice mail. I’ll—”
Derek interrupted by jabbing on the radio and hunting around for a news station. He picked up KCRW, a Los Angeles National Public Radio affiliate. The announcer was saying: “… four separate explosions, believed to be the work of suicide bombers. They are at four different terminals at JFK—”
The sounds of sirens in the background could be heard and momentarily blotted out what the reporter was saying. “…still have no casualty numbers, although initial reports have said in the hundreds. There has been no statement from the Homeland Security Secretary or the president yet, although—wait—”
More sirens and a babble of voices.
The reporter came back on. “We are speaking with Nadine Robert of Manhattan. You were inside the terminal?”
A woman’s high-pitched, nervous voice came on. “Yes, I was catching a flight to Boston. We had gotten through ticketing and were heading for the security line when there was a huge noise, an explosion. I was knocked off my feet by the blast.” She stopped and sniffed and it was clear she was fighting back tears. “There was a fire and so many dead bodies. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“So you believe the explosion took place in the security line?”
“Yes. Everybody was all lined up. You know what it’s like. We’re all shuffling through queues waiting to take off our shoes, you know, and hand over our boarding passes. The bomb could have been—”
Another voice, male, said, “You could have a bomb in your carry-on bag or your briefcase or your laptop case, walk right into the airport, if you’ve got your boarding pass preprinted nobody will check or stop you until you hit security.”
“And you are, sir?”
“Jeremy Wainright.”
“From?”
“Brooklyn.”
“And when the explosion—wait, we’re cutting to a press conference.”
Derek turned to O’Reilly, who was driving fast, weaving in and around L.A. rush-hour traffic. Traffic was the usual L.A. mess and she was doing reasonably well, but Derek could feel the passing seconds dropping on his head like Chinese water torture.
A different reporter’s voice came on. “From Washington D.C. this is Gerald Bennett with National Public Radio. Homeland Security Secretary James Johnston is to make a statement and field questions in just a moment. As reported earlier, after two days of attacks across the United States, a dirty bomb in Dallas, a suicide bomb in Chicago, a truck bomb in Washington, D.C., and an explosion on a cruise ship in Los Angeles apparently caused by a boat filled with explosives, there has been a major attack at JFK Airport in New York City. Here’s Secretary James Johnston, Homeland Security.”
Derek listened to Johnston’s familiar raspy voice come over the radio: “As I’m sure you are aware, we have just received a report of a fifth terrorist attack, this one at John F. Kennedy International Airport. At approximately nine thirty a.m. eastern time four separate explosions occurred nearly simultaneously at four different terminals. Each explosion took place near the security checkpoints. Each explosion killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds. The victims are still being—”
CHAPTER 68
Kalakar headed into the parking lot where John had told him to meet Ghazala. He had traded the Ford F150 for the imam’s safe house vehicle, a black Jeep Cherokee, transferring the missile to the back. He would have been far angrier had he not been listening to the news on the way there. Malika, who sat as docile as a doll in the front seat, hands ducttaped together in front of her, said, “You made them do that, didn’t you?”
He turned his gaze on her. “What’s that?”
She gestured awkwardly at the radio. “Those people who hurt all those people. You made them do that.”
“That’s a little simple and there’s no reason for you to be asking questions like that.”
“I’m not simple,” she said. “You’re a bad man who hurts people. Why do you hurt people?”
Kalakar’s face flushed. His voice was very rough and he tried to be reasonable. “There is a war. In war you fight for what you believe in. Unfortunately, people get hurt in a war.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “I think you hurt people because you like to hurt people. It makes you feel more important than them. You’re just a bully. We talk about bullies in school and how to deal with them.”
He glared at her. “And did you learn how to deal with someone like me?”
It annoyed him that she didn’t turn away, cry, or even drop her gaze. She stared back at him, her eyes large, brown almost black, and somehow penetrating. “I think you will be punished. That’s what happens to bad men.”
“I think it’s time to shut up if you want to see your parents alive.”
That worked. Now, pulling into the lot, he said, “You will do exactly as I tell you to or your mother will be hurt. Do you understand me?”
She nodded her head.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I understand.”
“Good.”