The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel

by T. Ainsworth

  “I know people think Wesley Morgan’s dead…”

  Pruitt looked at her but made no reply.

  “I think he’s alive.”

  His face continued to show no emotion.

  “What leads you to believe that?” he asked.

  “There’s information confirming his presence in Pakistan.”

  “Interesting vacation spot.” A droll smile formed.

  “I’m sorry, Jon. Forgive me. I’ve been very upset. Normally I don’t think haphazardly. Now that I’m sitting here, I’m beginning to get my composure back.”

  “Take your time.”

  “Let me start from the beginning,” she said.

  The tale required a second pot of tea, sandwiches, small cookies, and another bathroom break. When Jericho returned, she concluded the story.

  “You see…it wasn’t until I spoke with Mr. Cotsworth that I put it together. When Caroline…died…Morgan threw in the towel. I don’t believe he’s dead, despite the car bombing. My intuition says he’s too cunning.”

  “Intuition?” mused Pruitt. “Is that allowed in the satellite business?”

  “Conjecture leads to more research, just not for me anymore, I guess.”

  “As you’ve discovered, your employer takes a dim view of such things.”

  Pruitt looked at his watch. It was late afternoon.

  Jericho saw him. “I’m sorry sir, I should go.”

  “Not at all. I was thinking Scotch would taste good right about now. Care to join me?”

  “I have to drive back.”

  “Perhaps a little?”

  “Okay, a little.”

  When he headed for the bottles, Jericho looked again at the picture of Morgan and Caroline. Her blue eyes twinkled above a regal smile.

  “Caroline is stunning,” she said. Jericho could tell the father imagined his daughter in the present, so she phrased her words that way.

  “Takes after her mother, fortunately.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Wesley’s good looking, too.”

  “Wes…” said Pruitt. “He insists on that name. Thinks Wesley is stiff.”

  Pruitt handed her a snifter and sat down before raising his glass to toast.

  “To your success…which again buttresses the American credo that no good deed goes unpunished,” he said. “Ought to be stitched in the flag.”

  “Feels that way sometimes,” she agreed.

  “Sounds like you’ve had a hectic but interesting few months.”

  “I guess,” Jericho said. Unsure, she asked anyway. “What did you do, sir, if I may?”

  “Things related to OTDR.”

  Optical time domain reflexometry. The process analyzed fiber-optic cable integrity, but Jericho heard what he didn’t say. If Jon Pruitt had devised a process to tap into fiber-optic transmissions without noticeable interruptions, he was wealthy, more likely rich. She knew he’d give away every cent to have his daughter back.

  “Timely,” she said, flattered he would share such secret information.

  “Yes, it was.” He saw her ring and changed the direction of the conversation. “So you went to Annapolis.”

  “Transferred after a rough first year at Madison. Nobody there liked an unabashed patriot.”

  “Those lairs can be unwelcoming sometimes,” he agreed.

  As the Scotch relaxed her, Pruitt sensed a protected personality revealing itself. Her ankles crossed the other way on the footstool while she unconsciously reached back and took out the clip holding her hair. After a gentle shake, she ran her fingers through it and began to pet some strands.

  “Pardon me for asking, but…are you married?” he asked.

  “Only to the navy. A poor substitute…That’s obvious now.”

  “Another splash?” he asked after a moment.

  Jericho agreed, without even thinking.

  “My life’s been good, I guess, maybe not as much fun as others. But, Jon, if I may…I have to say, today, it’s just nice to be in your home…with you and Connie, just talking…The way life should be.”

  The Scotch continued to work its magic.

  “Families are important,” she added. “I visit mine too infrequently, I’m afraid.”

  “Elaine, don’t be too hard on yourself,” said Pruitt. “Life offers many paths…and not all are chosen.”

  “So true,” she agreed, knowing he was probably thinking about his daughter.

  “There are things in this world that we can’t anticipate. Look at Wes. He’s willing to pay the ultimate price because he believes it’s more important than his life. By your behavior, I suspect you’re much the same.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Wes is doing what he thinks is right…and…if he survives, I hope he’ll learn to live again.”

  “Jon, forgive me…I’m not following you. I said I believed Wes was alive, but I have no proof.”

  Pruitt stood up, walked to his desk, and placed his glass down on a coaster.

  “I’m going to show you something, Elaine…then we’re going to have dinner together and Connie will drive you home. She doesn’t drink much. That’s safer for both of us.”

  “Oh, I can’t impose…” Jericho’s protest was weak at best.

  “No arguments. Besides, we have a place in the city. Connie will spend the night there and I’ll come to get her in the morning. There’s someone I need to see in the District anyway.”

  Pruitt removed a manila file folder from a drawer.

  “I received a call from the FBI in Washington maybe ten days ago. They told me Wes had been dead for months…in the car bombing. After Cay’s death, the stress of being told that was almost too much for Connie and me to bear. Then”—he handed Jericho a piece of paper from the folder—“this came from Wes’s lawyer last week.”

  He smiled doggedly. “Attorney-client privilege is a wonderful failsafe. I was able to get help tracing its point of origin to Mingora.” His grin continued. “I guess I still have some friends.”

  Jericho gasped, her fingers trembling as she read the e-mail.

  Jon and Connie,

  Destiny overcomes darkness. The loss of Cay sealed my fate.

  I will succeed or be with her.

  With love, your son

  She looked at Jon with tears in her eyes.

  “Wes really is still alive…” Her words were barely audible.

  “I’ve never doubted that, Elaine,” said Pruitt.

  “He’s going to try to kill him.”

  “Yes,” Pruitt said. “I’ve believed that for a while too.” A kind smile carried his next words. “But all I had to rely on was my…intuition.”

  “The meeting is Friday near Swat,” she confided.

  “Switzerland of the Middle East,” he said.

  Jericho’s countenance grew dubious. “And we’re going to try to capture the bastard.”

  “Interesting quandary for all parties involved, wouldn’t you say?” said Pruitt.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Mingora, Pakistan March 15, 2004

  The wooden spoon shoveled another bite of ice cream into Morgan’s mouth. While he ate, he surveyed the people walking along the streets. Men stopped to greet friends and take tea while children played marbles on the sidewalk in front of stores that boasted precolonial flags flapping alongside hand-woven rugs. Drivers squeezed between the narrow canyons of two-story hovels, their heads stuck out of the windows like dogs sucking air.

  There was nothing visibly female anywhere, save for the occasional black cloud that silently drifted past or sat on the open tailgate of a passing van, clinging tightly to elderly relatives or the stalk of a horizontal floor fan with its incidentally spinning blade. Morgan knew it was impossible to decide who the bad guys were. The Taliban dressed like everybody.

  He wandered back to the young vendor, smiled, and bought a second cup of faluda.

  With his feet propped up on a newly purchased backpack and his satchel by his side, he slouched
in a tattered folding chair borrowed from a shopkeeper and used the fresh wooden paddle to dig out a bite. The candied bean strings strewn on the top of the dense dessert were a pleasant oddity. The conglomeration never seemed to melt. Each cold dollop rolling on his tongue tasted better than the one before.

  He’d probably get a third serving. It was that good.

  The scope of the Vintorez sniper rifle poked his leg through the backpack.

  Damn, that’s one powerful gun…

  The subsonic muzzle velocity and noise suppressor kept the rifle silent, yet the Teflon-coated nine-millimeter bullet could still burrow into steel at one hundred yards. Morgan had spent the final week in the nearby hills, applying what Tony taught him—aligning the sights, then correcting for drift, wind, target elevation, and practicing with the night-vision scope.

  When he got back to his room at the hostel, Morgan would take the gun apart cleaning it with surgical precision. Every item of equipment was checked and rechecked to make certain it functioned without fault. When he was satisfied, he organized the components in the backpack so each could be accessed in sequence.

  A pearl of ice cream fell on his tightly trimmed beard, and his sleeve wiped it away. A nearby barber that morning had also shampooed and cut his mangy hair. His body felt born again from the indulgences.

  “I’m ready, Jon,” he said behind his lips, hoping the e-mail he had sent from the Internet café had gotten to him. Anyone who had seen him huddled over the computer keyboard would have paid no attention to the trivial act, but its content would be monumental to the man he’d grown to love, the father-in-law he’d never have. It would be Morgan’s only message.

  Between bites Morgan scanned a newspaper, pretending to be blind to movement around him and deaf to the incessant noise of buses, autos, and music that dumped out of every open store window. When rain fell, he lifted the paper over his head and looked at the bustling crossroads. Located in the heart of Mingora, all traffic moving through the Swat Valley passed that way.

  Brakes screeched and everything with wheels stopped. A policeman in Raj uniform carved a path for three SUVs. Unhurried, the black beasts came through the intersection, turned a corner, and stopped in the bowels of a narrow side street. Several men got out. As the gray brigade of salwar kameez, white shirts, and black pants walked into a rug shop across from where Morgan sat, Morgan held a conceited smile. One man had a limp—and used a dervish walking stick with white streaks in it.

  Coincidences don’t happen.

  Morgan bought his third and final custard. He had to savor its sweetness again. The cardamom and vanilla were the subtle essence of the exotic perfume he sensed behind Caroline’s ears the first time they danced. Each taste loitered on his lips, the flavors reminiscent of the Scotch she loved to drink.

  He finished his third helping. It would never be enough, but it would be his last.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Noon, Tuesday, March 16

  “Damn it’s hot out here,” Morgan’s whisper was barely more than a breathed thought.

  He used his teeth to squeeze the valve open on the rubber tube. He sucked in some water from the hydration pack and kept listening through the buzzing insects and occasional bird chirps for man-made noises. It was dangerous to raise his head, so he stayed buried with his backpack in the furrow he’d dug just before dawn, hidden under the dirt wearing tactical clothing and a balaclava that matched the plains surrounding him. Since getting off the bus the evening before, he had crawled nearly a mile, but before the first hint of light, his journey paused, and he had remained motionless since then, his hand holding the silenced Makarov by his side.

  In six hours the darkness would return and he could move. In one more day and two nights, he would be at the base of the cliff.

  He urinated through his pants into the ground. His groin grew warm, then cooled. He didn’t care how crusty it got from the repeated soakings. With the fullness in his bladder gone, he relaxed and nodded off.

  Afternoon, Wednesday, March 17

  Morgan shrank his body deeper in the dirt. The voices were closer than others had been. His presence wouldn’t be discovered unless one of them happened to step on him. That wasn’t going to happen. His route was well outside the land-mine boundary being established. That assurance came earlier in the day when somebody tripped a wire. After an abbreviated scream, the permanent mistake distracted other men long enough for Morgan to look up, mark the perimeter and disappear back into the ground.

  As the heat softened with sunset, Morgan began to snake through the brush and past rocks inches at a time. Smoke from distant crackling fires occasionally drifted his way, carrying the smells of roasting lamb and goat. He had no desire for either. He was ingesting all the calories and water he needed; anything more refined was irrelevant.

  His crawl ended when he got to the cliff. He used the night-vision scope to scan his surroundings, noted the time on his watch and dug his final trench. He didn’t want to stop or sleep. All he wanted to do was climb the hundred-foot wall, but that desire would have to wait. Twelve hours needed to pass, so he sat with his knees bent and stretched his back, then lay flat and looked at the stars.

  She was up there.

  “I love you, Cay,” he said.

  He knew he would join her soon.

  When the golden orb finally set, Morgan settled into the hole and closed his eyes.

  Nightfall, Thursday, March 18

  With the darkness cloaking him, Morgan buried the gear he no longer needed and scaled the rock wall to the ledge. After resting, he used his binoculars to count the fires. There were dozens. Encircling every flame were vehicles, countless human silhouettes moving in every direction between.

  He looked at the building below. Only one truck was present outside the front wall near the gate. A kerosene lamp glow emanated from several windows. An occasional shadow suggested someone was inside, but nothing more.

  Morgan switched on his night vision scope and turned to scan the cliffs.

  As of yet, no lookouts were in position.

  He put the rifle away, removed the satchel from the backpack, and used it as a pillow. Beneath the overhanging stone roof, he waited for the sun to rise.

  For weeks satellites had mapped the terrain and examined the passing trucks as they spewed exhaust. Deeper inspection revealed only normal sorts of cargo and boxes—and none of the trucks moving along the route ever turned from the road toward the building.

  As the week progressed, motorized activity in the area increased. The machines in space watched men and vehicles collect in the meadows, and the embers from their fires streak toward the night sky. Every time a tarp was off the flat bed of a truck, a camera saw weapons. The NGA published the reports to a classified list of customers, who in turn integrated the information for their own needs.

  Friday afternoon reconnaissance drones departed. Replaced by Predator Reapers with missiles on their bellies, they waited thousands of feet above the target while their engines spooled silently.

  Concealed in the morning’s shadows, Morgan was invisible on the guano-splattered perch. Blending in with the rocks, he watched the jamboree grow larger as more vehicles bounced into the meadows.

  He removed his Koran and leafed through the pages as he had so many times before. His eyes stopped on feminine handwriting he immediately recognized.

  ßÇÝÑ

  Infidel.

  “Nadia…”

  His suspicion had been right all along. He wrapped the book in the white cloth and zipped it back inside his tactical pants pocket.

  “That’s thanks for saving your ass…”

  SIXTY

  Friday, March 19

  Acatering truck arrived in the morning. Morgan watched as it turned from the highway, staggered up the uneven road, and went through the open gate. It stopped on the side of the building. Two men got out with pistols on their hips. They opened the rear door and removed some power cables.

  As they fed the male p
lugs under the barbed wire to the outside of the wall, one of the men cut his wrist on a prong. Morgan heard him swear.

  “What a pussy…”

  They fed the female ends into the building over a window sill, went back into the truck, and emerged with a generator and fuel can, which they rolled on dollies out the gate to where the cables hung. After they carried in large ice chests, tables, chairs, lamps and floor fans, one of the men parked the truck down the hill and walked back to the generator. He flipped a switch and went inside.

  Morgan could hear the engine hum.

  Behind him inside the cliff walls, Morgan heard radio chatter. He put on his headset and located the active frequency. The exchange included comments about exploded mines a month earlier on the trail.

  “Sorry your buddies didn’t leave me a few more for you,” Morgan said. After confirming their positions through the binoculars, he hid back under the rock roof.

  In the afternoon a van arrived. Men in desert fatigues got out with machine pistols strapped to their thighs. They opened the rear hatch, removed AKs, rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles. Picking up their weapons each moved to an assigned position. Two of them appeared on the top deck of the building. After leaning the rocket-propelled grenade and surface-to-air launchers in corners, they removed the tarps.

  Morgan’s prior speculation was spot on. It was a fifty-caliber Russian NSV machine gun with lots of extra ammunition.

  “Command, Reaper One here,” said Predator pilot Mike Powers, as he controlled the drone’s high-resolution camera from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, nine thousand miles away.

  “Go ahead, One,” said Sergeant-Major Coretta Graham.

  “One reporting eleven men on site now. Two remain in structure. Three snipers in cliffs, one RPG, one SAM. Two men on the roof with NSV, RPGs, SAMs. Men on station at the outside corners. RPGs near northwest wall. Unfriendlies carrying sidearms, AKs, radios, extra munitions. Images and targeting data on the way.”