“Ouch! You hit a bull’s eye on that one.” Jordan flashed back to his home, the dinner with Kate, the evening on the porch, his standing outside her bedroom door, trying to get up the courage to knock, but his courage never getting strong enough to put his hand into motion against the door.
He’d never met anyone like Kate. She excited him, scared him. She was something special and he just wished he could figure out the best way to approach her to begin a relationship. He was supposed to be the execution expert when it came to planning, but this time, he was stumped. “Dinner would be great but, unfortunately, I think it’s going to be Chinese with twenty-five of our closest new friends.” Jordan gestured around the room. “We’ve got a big one here Kate, with no real data on what the mission is and when it’s going to happen. I’m glad you’re here. We can really use your expertise.”
“Is that the only reason you’re glad I’m here?” Kate kept pushing.
“You are something, Miss Woolrich. I do want to have that dinner and, if not tonight, we’ll make sure we get away for it tomorrow. Deal?” Jordan asked.
“Deal — as long as no last minute flights come up.” Kate was never one to stop a dig until she made her point.
“If they do, I’ll take you with me. Has anyone briefed you yet?” Jordan so wanted to move the conversation to the case.
“Just the prelims. No real details. And what I got was several hours old.” Kate told him.
“All right then, take a seat and I’ll fill you in.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mustafa awoke the next morning. He reached under his bed and retrieved his prayer mat. He unrolled it, placed it in the proper position facing Mecca and began his morning prayers. He was unsettled about Akmed and Aziz. He just wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. Was Akmed struggling with Mahasin’s death that he needed time away? He could understand it if they really had been man and wife. He’d been surprised that Akmed had even tried to save her life. At least he didn’t know enough about the mission to compromise it if he were talking to anyone.
He was more comfortable with Aziz. While Aziz was concerned about his father, he was still dedicated to his uncle. Mustafa had worried he might need to place Aziz in a lesser role for the mission, which would have been a shame. Aziz had grown into a natural leader amongst his cousins. They respected him and did as he asked without questioning. To move him out of the role would have been a huge risk. Yes, Aziz would stay in his role.
Mustafa noticed the clock and would need to rush to ensure he arrived at work on time. The last thing he needed was to create issues at work. His job as a Shift Supervisor at the Brotherly Love Cleaning Service was a critical element to the mission. He’d worked hard over the past six years. Starting as a night janitor, he worked harder than anyone else. He surpassed all of the quality standards for his job and his performance evaluations were always excellent. He truly relished the feedback, “If only everyone here worked as hard as you do.”
He eventually became the supervisor for the team, working at the Rohm and Haas Chemical Company Headquarters on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, always surpassing expectations. He was also in a position to hire and was able to place many of the people he needed for the mission into various roles. A year-and-a-half ago, he was again promoted. In his role as Shift Supervisor, he was now in charge of the day cleaning crews at the company’s six clients in the Independence Mall area. He’d also made himself valuable to the business development team and had found cost savings that allowed their bids to be accepted by three more clients in the same area. He was given a substantial raise, plus bonus. His manager also assigned him a company van to use both during and after work. Mustafa would laugh to himself at how these American’s thought everything could be fixed by money or material things. They had no idea what would be coming. They didn’t realize that their star employee had the Brotherly Love Cleaning Company at the center of the plan to wreak havoc in Philadelphia. This company would never stand up to the scrutiny it would receive by the Feds when they discovered the role it played. It always gave Mustafa a big grin that his employers took as a sign that they once again had pleased their employee and that he wouldn’t even think twice about leaving them. He finished dressing, thinking that any day now he would move his plan forward.
Mustafa left his house and jumped into the van. He stopped at the Wawa on his way to the office for a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich.
He headed to his office, which was housed in the basement of the Constitution Center, the most recent addition to Independence Mall and one of the newest clients. The General Manager hadn’t been in favor of Brotherly Love Cleaning being chosen and had pushed for one of their competitors. Mustafa decided to work out of this facility so he could keep a close eye on things. He’d shifted his crews around so he had several of his best people working at this location. He made it a point to seek out the Operations Manager several times a day, to check in, and had scheduled a weekly walk through the building with the General Manager. Feedback he was getting from his boss was positive and Mustafa felt that he was building a positive relationship with the GM. He would spend most of his day here, but in the afternoon he would walk to his other locations and check in. They included Liberty Bell Center, Independence Hall, Rohm and Haas, the Independence Visitor’s Center and the outside Mall area, which connected all of these buildings. During the day, he had a crew of sixty-five working for him.
Mustafa believed everything had fallen in place.
Chapter Thirty
As soon as the surveillance car notified the team that Mustafa had arrived at his place of work, the tactical team went into action. Agent Lutz walked up the alley to the back gate. Quickly checking his surroundings to make sure no one was watching, he rapped on the gate, alerting the dogs.
They dogs flew around from the front racing each other to the intruder at the gate. The agent raised his gun and fired at the first dog and then at the second. All that could be heard was the barely audible burp and then the low thud of the dogs falling to the ground. The tranquilizer would last four to five hours. By the time Mustafa returned, the dogs would be no worse for wear.
Lutz moved forward and retrieved the dart from each dog. If Mustafa returned unexpectedly, they had an antidote ready that would revive the dogs immediately.
“Dogs are down.” He spoke into his headset mike.
“Everyone move in.” The team leader replied.
Two Comcast Cable vans pulled up to the front of the house and four agents, disguised as installers, jumped out and went to the rear of the vans and grabbed large tool boxes and headed inside.
Another van pulled up in back of the house. This van included Jordan and Kate. While not dressed as installers, they moved rapidly to the back door, where Lutz just finished his inspection for tells on the back door before opening it.
He discovered a human hair stuck in the top hinge. He gently removed it, bagged it and taped the bag to the door. He then quickly utilized his lock pick set to open the door. They had anticipated no alarm and they were correct.
They moved in with Lutz, also dressed as an installer and moved to the front door. With a look out the window, he saw the agent on the other side who had affixed an envelope to the door and gave a thumbs up sign. Inside, the agent unlocked the door and opened it.
“Hey is Mustafa finally getting cable. I’ve told him for years he needed cable.”
The four agents on the front porch turned around and saw a woman standing on the sidewalk near their vans, looking at them.
“Oh Christ!” Agent Reggie Smith whispered. “I’ll take care of her,”
“Yep, he sure is.” Smith pegged the lady as somewhere between forty and forty-five years old. She was dressed in an old tracksuit that did little to hide or flatter her robust figure.
“He must be getting the works, because when you boys come to my house, there’s only one of you and he never looks as good as you boys do.” The woman looked hard at each of the men.
“Well thanks, ma’am. We’re actually using this installation to train some of our new guys. So, maybe next time you call, one of them will come out.”
“If I knew I was going to get one of you, I’d go and break something,” she laughed, teasing.
Smith smiled and laughed with her. “Well, we want our customers happy. But, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Why don’t you give me your address and when I get back to the office, I’ll put in your file for them to call me if you have any problems.”
“Well, I’m not sure you’re the cutest one. Can you bring all of your boys out here and let me pick?” She laughed again.
”Well, I can’t do that, but I’ll tell you what next time you have a problem and you call, they’ll call me and I’ll round up all four of us and we’ll come together. How’s that for a deal?”
“Sounds good to me, I just live right down in the next block. Twenty-seven O three is my place. It’s the third house in on the left.” She pointed down the street.
“It sure is. Let me also get your name.”
“Ms. Mirabelle Jones; but, my friends call me Belle.”
“Okay, Ms. Jones, I’ll put that note in the file.”
“Honey, we’re friends. You can call be Belle.”
“Thanks, Belle. Oh, and one more thing. This installation is a surprise from his nieces and nephews so, if you could keep it quiet. They are going to come over with a new TV for him.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“Okay, Belle. I need to get in there and make sure my boys are getting the work done. It was a pleasure to talk with you.”
“Honey, the pleasure was all Belle’s.” She turned and headed down the street.
The agent turned and headed up to the house. As he entered, the entire team stopped what they were doing and smiled at him.
“Did you get yourself a date for Saturday?” Jordan shot out to the agent.
Kate couldn’t hold back. “If she’s busy, I think my mother is available.”
“Funny, funny — I just saved us from the neighborhood gossip and all I get is grief. Don’t we have work we should all be doing?”
The team refocused and, for the next five hours, they scoured the house. The house was a small, two bedrooms, built in the early fifties; and, it looked like it hadn’t been updated. It was spartan with little furniture and any personal items that typically make a house a home. For the most part, the walls were bare with no pictures or artwork.
Half of the team went through every room, searching for any evidence that would identify the rest of the bad guys, the mission, and who the ultimate leaders were. The other half installed a series of audio and video devices, as well as planting bugs on the phones. The van in the alley contained a high speed-copying machine, so documents could be quickly duplicated and returned to their proper place.
By the time they left, they had duplicated over seven hundred and fifty pages, as well as mirrored the hard drive of the computer they found. They wrapped things up and did a final inspection of the house. Initially, as they entered they took a series of digital photographs, which they carefully reviewed in order to ensure they had placed everything back in its original position.
Once completed, the teams retreated from the house and replaced the tells in the doors and headed to the vans. The dogs were regaining consciousness, but still groggy and did not pose any threat to the team’s exit.
“Good job, everyone.” Jordan announced over the radio. “Base, we’re returning; the house is secure.”
Chapter Thirty-One
When they reached the command post, Max and William had arrived with Akmed. A decision had still not been made on whether or not Akmed would return to the apartment that afternoon. Jordan wanted to delay the decision as long as possible, to give the team the opportunity to sift through all of the material they had found at Mustafa’s apartment.
Kate had asked Frank, Max and Jordan to join her in the backroom, to share some intel her team had developed. They all headed down the hall, when Kate was finished. Jordan felt it would be a good time to come to a consensus on whether Akmed should return today. At present, Akmed was in the other bedroom, waiting for them. While he hadn’t provided additional information in the last forty-eight hours, everything he’d told them had been validated.
Kate closed the door. “My team has been processing the forensic data from Akmed’s apartment and Mustafa’s house. We don’t seem to be picking up any residue or signature data that would point to storage or manufacturer of weapons taking place at either location.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” Max walked over to look out the window.
“If we think the attack in imminent, we have yet to find any stash of weapons and supplies. No bomb making supplies, nothing to restrain hostages, no communication systems. All of the standard things we have seen in the past. Jordan, remember the whole lab the Libyans had in New York?”
Jordan nodded.
“But, we haven’t been in all of their locations. It could be stored at the other families, right?” Frank added.
“Could be, but, I just think if they’re getting ready to move, we should have found evidence of something at Mustafa’s. We’ve come up with nothing.” Kate’s frustration was beginning to show, while Jordan continued to just stare out the window.
“So let’s go through the scenarios. We got a lot of brainpower in this room. Let’s get in the heads of Mustafa and the families and figure it out.” Max had now moved into position in the center of the room.
Frank jumped in. “Well, maybe our assumption they are getting ready to go isn’t right. Maybe we can bring them down before anything happens.”
“Okay. That could be one,” Max agreed.
“We’ve missed a location. They could have a warehouse or another location where they are assembling everything.” William contributed. William, Kate and Frank had created an informal circle around Max. Jordan remained off to the side, staring out the window.
“Possibly, Mustafa has access to something at the cleaning company which allows him to either store or make what they need. Maybe they aren’t as far along and nothing has been brought in yet?” Kate contributed.
“Okay, guys. Enough chit chat. The answer is staring us in the face.” Jordan said without turning around. “If I were planning an attack on a target in the United States and I needed to get my hands on chemicals, electronics, radios, guns and anything else I would need, you know what the best thing for me to have would be?”
“Yeah.” Kate rolled her eyes at Frank and Max. “If you would have been listening to our conversation, we’ve gone over the list. A warehouse, possibly using the cleaning company, or if nothing else you’ve got it spread amongst all of these families or other…”
“Or…” Jordan cut her off. “You buy one of the fathers a hardware store. We’re looking right at the supply depot. Think about it. The local hardware store can have everything a terrorist would need and no one would ask any questions why they were getting a certain shipment. The vendors would only care about getting paid. The trucking company just brings whatever they’re supposed to bring.
“A hundred pounds of fertilizer being delivered to a house in a subdivision raises alarms. Being sent to a hardware store? Nobody would even question it. When the surveillance equipment was placed in the store, did anyone look in the back store room?”
Frank sighed. “We didn’t have time. We got in as soon as we could, but we didn’t know how long we would have. So, we just hung the equipment and got out.”
“I get it. We need to get back in there as soon as possible. We need to focus on the storeroom and Akmed’s office. Let’s get Akmed in here. Max, I don’t think he ever talked about what he might have ordered?” Jordan said.
“Nope — and we didn’t ask. I’ll go get him. Let’s see if he still comes through or if this is what he has been hiding.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Akmed sat in the chair with the five people su
rrounding him. He knew William the best as they had spent time together at the house and shared personal interests. Max had been kind to him, but had asked a lot of questions. The third one, whom he knew as Jordan, was nice, but intense, and seemed intelligent and would be a considerable adversary for Mustafa.
Akmed was happy the USA had someone who thought the way he knew Mustafa and his leaders thought. The other two, he did not know. The woman was attractive and seemed to be competitive with Max, but not about work. Somehow, he felt it had to do with Jordan. The other man seemed to be a peer of Jordan’s.
“Akmed, I know we have asked you a lot of questions and we appreciate all of your help. We wanted to focus now on your business, the hardware store. How long have you owned it?” Jordan wanted to hurry through the preliminaries, so he could get to the heart of what really was going on across the street. But, he didn’t want to panic Akmed and have him shut down.
“Almost five years. It has been a good business. I have enjoyed running the store. If this ever gets over with, I would like to have another one some day. “I’m sure you are good at running the store. How did you get the money?”
“I had saved money from my other jobs and my wife and I both had received an inheritance”
Jordan shook his head. “I know that’s what you are supposed to say, but you can tell us where the money really came from.”
“Mustafa came to see me. He told me he was impressed with how well I was doing and thought it might be possible for me to have my own business. I got excited. He took me to the store and said he was thinking about having me buy it. I said to him that I didn’t have that much money. He laughed and said not to worry about the money. He wanted to know if I thought I could run it. I told him I could and about eight weeks later he came by and told me the store was mine.
Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller Page 12