Antonelli shrugged. “Maybe.”
McAffee took it in. “Good call, Captain. Anything else?”
“Sure. It won’t work even if they get in position perfectly. Look at the second page, at the psych profile.” Graber waited until everyone had found the place. “Let me ask you this—if you were that guy on the plane, when would you be most nervous: touchdown or takeoff?”
The understanding was obvious on the major’s face, while the rest of the team exchanged looks of realization.
“I sure as hell wouldn’t be feeling at ease if I were about to land in a potentially hostile environment, or anywhere for that matter. I’d have that security blanket on, just in case, until I was in the air.”
He was right. The team knew it. Graber’s seldom used nickname was TR, for ten ring, the centermost circle on a pistol target. Sean could put round after round through practically the same hole. The moniker also lent itself to his ability to analyze a given problem or situation past the cursory and simplified look others usually gave. He saw what others did not in many instances, a sensory ability born more of an instinctive nature than of any training he had received. It was valuable to the team and, thankfully, not a sporadic talent.
McAffee gave his copy a last look. “So, is there anything usable from this?”
Graber shook his head. “They’ve got it backward, sir. He’ll be at ease after takeoff, and their plan doesn’t work in reverse.”
“There’s no doing that wing-walking crap when the bird’s gonna fly,” Antonelli said.
It was frustrating...damn frustrating. The Bureau plan wouldn’t work, and Delta, as yet, hadn’t been able to come up with anything better. McAffee pulled a breath of the cool, humid air deep into his lungs. It was representative of the weather outside, cold and becoming downright nasty. He looked up at the hangar’s ceiling. Maybe the weather and their surroundings were a visual and emotional echo of the real problem. They were cut off, isolated from the bad guys. Whoever put this thing together had known their stuff. A terrorist with brains, the major thought. Perfect! Security was airtight. They couldn’t be touched, but they had to be.
“We need something. Something to work with. The colonel wants an op ready to go in one hour.”
Buxton’s blond flattop bobbed up. “What about the lean plan?”
“Not with this one,” McAffee responded. The lean plan was a sort of off-the-shelf rescue whose operational details could be tailored to make it work with most situations.
A few seconds of silence passed, feeling more like minutes.
“It’s tough, sir.” Graber flattened the suspect page of the report with both hands. “I just don’t see any openings yet.”
“Look!” McAffee shouted. “We don’t have much time, if any. The word could come in a minute, or in ten, or in an hour, and we are going to have a goddamn debacle here unless we’re ready to jump at the word go! Do you think Iran was bad? You haven’t seen anything. We haven’t seen anything. We fucked up back then, but no innocents lost their lives. That’s forgivable. But if we go in without a workable plan and slaughter a bunch of hostages like the Egyptians did, then we’ll certainly be in the shit, or dead—probably both.”
The team wasn’t accustomed to Blackjack blowing his lid. That was a show of emotion, something that wasn’t supposed to happen. But they hadn’t faced anything quite like this before, a situation with two possible outcomes: bad and worse. They had seen their leader angry before, but never out of control. He, too, was at a loss for a solution.
Sean, however, heard none of the tirade past a reference the major had used. The light had gone on, instantaneously as usual. But... You’re nuts, Sean. It’s ludicrous. It’s... It’s...
“Sir.”
“Captain,” McAffee breathed more than spoke.
Graber was tentative beginning. “This may sound crazy, but humor me. Triple Seven might’ve fucked up royally,” he allowed, referring to the botched attempt by Egyptian counter-terrorists to rescue passengers from a hijacked EgyptAir jet at Malta’s Luqa airport in 1985, “but there may be something we can use.” He went on for nearly five minutes, outlining his idea as everyone listened silently.
“This is nuts!” Joe exclaimed. “You want everyone dead? This’ll do it.”
The major eyed him. “Mr. Anderson, if this works will your job be affected in any way? Will you still be able to deal with whatever is in the belly of that bird?”
Anderson swallowed hard, his eyes scanning the men around the table. He knew the comment was meant to put him in his place, separate from the warriors. In real comparison, he was simply a technician, but one with enough years behind him to know when to accept a mild slap. “If it works...not at all.”
McAffee’s voice eased. “Then we’ll get on with the operational details, and leave you to your preparations.”
The metal legs screeched as Joe slid his chair back. The team watched the civilian move into the adjoining office. They also knew that he could be absolutely correct in his analysis of their chances.
The discussion was picked up again, and carried on for ten minutes before McAffee summoned Colonel Cadler. If they were going to offer up something this outlandish, then there would have to be a stamp on it from the GFC. The approval would be for the real brass, not for Delta. The troops knew that their word would be sufficient for the colonel. If they liked it, and wanted to go with it, then so would he.
Graber laid it out again. This time some of the team’s added contributions were incorporated.
“That’s a damn bold idea, Captain. It’s yours, I take it.”
“The basic idea, sir. Everybody fed in on the last hashing.”
Cadler turned to his second. The smile was slight, but noticeable. “Major, if this is it, then it’s a go from me. Pappy will go for it, too, so don’t worry about any upper-echelon bull.” He stopped and pulled on his baseball-style fatigue cap. “Get with the tech boys to work on those charges. The captain here’s right when he says they’re going to have to be right on the money. Power and placement.” Cadler paused momentarily. “Maybe we better get the crew of this bird here to help on the placement end of things. They might be able to give us something on the structural side.”
“That could be a factor,” McAffee agreed.
“With this cockamamie plan, you’d better believe it.”
“I’ll get them over here.”
“Good,” the colonel bellowed. “Damn good work. Now ... perfect it. Run it through, up and down, all around. I want to give Pappy the word in three hours that we’re ready to go with this plan. Enough time?” The troops agreed that it was. “Damn fine work, men. Jesus, this is good work!” Cadler smiled openly, if quickly, before walking away. At the office door he looked back at the men. His men. He was proud of them and their harebrained scheme, mostly because he was sure they could make it work.
Los Angeles
Progress drove Art. It inspired him as much as frustration, only the feeling was better. His pen attacked the legal pad.
There are now two direct links between Jackson and the suspects: (1) Filings found on the floor of Jackson’s bedroom have been identified as metal residue from the sanitizing of one of the two M-16A2 rifles. He looked to the technical brief from Jacobs. It was his job to paraphrase and de-techspeak the information, which would go into his report to the director. Analysis has determined that metal samples are a perfect match. Art decided to drop ‘something or other spectroanalysis’ for brevity, since such terms usually took twenty or thirty words to explain in everyman’s English. (2) Packing crates for the weapons were found in a public storage facility that had been rented by Jackson, pointing to a pickup by the assassins. A melted plastic access card was found with one of the assassin’s bodies, and it matches those used by the facility in composition and appearance. To Art it was a lump of plastic, but the lab, as always, worked its miracles once it had something to compare the lump with.
The office reverberated with a loud knock.
“Come in, Ed.”
Toronassi grinned his way in.
“You sound like you’re serving warrants,” Art joked.
“It gets me in. You got any java?” Eddie saw the almost empty pot before an answer came. There was always a pot in his boss’s office, full or not. “Hey, you want something good for the director—well, maybe it’s good.”
Art took the two fax copies. “What do we have?”
“Relatives.” Eddie leaned over the desk and pointed to the top sheet. “We found two brothers of ol’ Marcus, but that’s all for close blood. Once we talk to them there may be some aunts or something. Who knows.”
Interesting. “The older one has quite a tail.”
Eddie nodded in mid sip. “That’s how we found him. Ernest Jackson is a scuzzball, if only a minor one. Guess it runs in the family. GTA and ADW are the biggest, but no deaths yet.”
“Didn’t break into the majors.”
“Lucky for a lot of folks. He’s got a bunch of other stuff with the biggies, going back a long way. Most of it’s violent in one way or another.”
The present whereabouts box caught Art’s eye. “He’s in Joliet. What for?”
Eddie twisted his neck uselessly, then walked around behind the dark wood desk. “Looks like assault with intent and grand theft. Must be federal.”
“He could play a part in this,” Art said as he pressed hard on his tired lids. “Contacts for the weapons, maybe. At least this keeps the trail moving in the same direction.”
“Huh?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what? I’ve been hunting these guys down most of the afternoon.”
It was Art’s turn to share some good news. “Frankie and Thom struck pay dirt again.”
“Who smiled on them?” Eddie was glad it had been Francine Aguirre. She was a good agent, and had worked her ass off to shake any misgivings about female street agents. It wasn’t supposed to be that way in these days of so-called equality, but old doubts died hard.
“They found the weapon stash in one of those storage places. You know, thirty bucks a month for a room or garage. Lois and I used to keep our RV in one of them.” Until we sold it...had to sell it, by some damn court order.
The Italian-American agent’s pearly whites shone more. “Like she thought.”
“Yep. The crates and all the packing stuff were still there. Markings and all. The stuff came from an Army facility in Illinois, so...”
“What?” Eddie jumped in.
“What’s wrong?”
“The source, boss. Look at the other brother’s info. PFC Samuel Jackson, currently stationed at Rock Island Army Munitions Depot...in Illinois.”
“That’s a nuke and chemical facility.”
“Right,” Eddie said. “Which means they’d have plenty of guards, and plenty of firepower. They’ve gotta store the stuff somewhere.”
Art scanned the page. Samuel Jackson was just a kid, literally. In uniform for just over eighteen months. “How long has he been there?”
“A year, about.”
Ed was silent as Art read over the full report. Samuel, the youngest of the Jacksons, could have been the source of the guns and LAWs, which would have put Marcus in the middleman position. It was unlikely that Marcus was behind the whole thing, even more so now that they knew of his little brother’s military connection. Still, he might have been the front man in L.A. That, too, was hard to swallow completely. Nothing pointed to Marcus being either a brainy sort or one with any tangible relations to the Khaleds. There was more. Somewhere, if Art was piecing this together correctly, there would be a tie-in. A college professor had once told him that the road to certainty was paved with coincidences. That wisdom of yesteryear was now proving itself in spades.
“Ed, find out what Sam here does in the Army—what his MOS is. Then let’s run down big brother Ernest’s background. I’m going to call Jerry and ask him to hold the director off on this report.” Art tapped the yellow pad. “Okay?”
“You got it,” Eddie answered with renewed purpose. “We’re getting warm, you know.”
“Let’s run with it then.”
Georgetown
The pillows were stacked up against the headboard with his favorite down one at the top. It cradled Bud’s tilting head. He wasn’t tired, yet, being more engrossed in thoughts that tumbled in his head than with the preliminary report from Granger lying on his outstretched naked legs. It was neat, and bound. He wondered how it was that all reports, no matter how rushed, always came attractively packaged. Was there an undersecretary for that?
He shook the mental cobwebs away. Content wise the report was solid. The plans, though incomplete, were thorough. The operation would hurt the Libyans, probably with few civilian casualties, though that was a minimal concern to Bud. Some still held with the belief that innocents in a hostile place were to be safeguarded at all cost. He had never been able to grasp the logic. But then he had the luxury of being a military man. It wasn’t a question of playing by some unwritten set of chivalrous rules, which more often than not tied the hands of those on the righteous end of the stick. It was a question of reality, and of the future good. The greater good. A hundred enemy innocents now, or two hundred American innocents later.
Still, with all the justification and the culpability, not to speak of the moral issues of correctness, Bud couldn’t come to reconcile himself with the belief that this would do much more than hurt those who stood in the light, albeit a light of “evil.” It was those in the shadows who struck without warning, and it was they who would walk away with blood on their hands but little, if anything, on their conscience.
Jesus, Bud! What do you expect?
The bottle of Evian on the nightstand was less than half full, and a long draw later it was gone. Bud realized that he’d rather it were a beer. Oh well—the sacrifices of public service.
Those who had precipitated this with their surreptitious bravado filled Bud’s mind before it could lock on to anything tangible. Who were they? Almost certainly the former DCI and DDI, but what about higher-ups, and what about those in lower ranks? Had the order, or even the general inference of authorization come from the president? Or, as Landau believed, were the former heads of the Agency the source of the turmoil? That would make the most sense, Bud agreed. The Iran-Contra fiasco had proven one thing: The odor of shit drifts upward rapidly. A chief executive could not expect, in the age of the media circus, to distance himself from scandal, even one that ignorance of was a truthful defense.
It was almost unfathomable. Executive underlings had done it again, only this time their actions had led to the death of a president—and not even the one they served under!
The pillows’ soft bulk caught Bud’s head. It bobbed backward, and then the rest of his body slid until he lay almost flat on the bed.
He could feel the coldness of the plastic report cover on his legs. A lift of his knee slid it off.
Was the military option the right one? You’re supposed to be answering questions. Bud.
Damn! he thought. In those thirty-five pages was a plan that would work, but would it work right? It was another question, but at the moment he had little else. Certainly not any perfect answers.
In the morning he might need to recommend a strike to the president, and, he knew now, it would not be with a ready conscience. The public would support it if it became a necessity, but the long-term results would be practically nil. Maybe that’s what bothered him the most. Even the experts and so-called authorities agreed that large-scale retaliation usually only fomented further acts of terror. Tit for tat, where our tit led to their tat. The experts, Bud reminded himself, said that negotiations were the best hope for preventing future occurrences, if they were meaningful and binding.
“But who the hell is the antagonist?” he asked aloud. Who was the protagonist and who was the antagonist? Right and wrong. Did prevention mean giving the terrorists what they wanted, if only in part? Was it goo
d to look at an issue with irrational, evil persons and search for common ground? Was it right?
“No!”
Bud brought the backs of his hands up to his eyes, blocking out the soft light. If only the goddamn rogues had succeeded there would be no problem. Qaddafi would be gone. The source would be eliminated.
Bad analysis, Bud knew. It had been an easy out, the tainted blood option, but too slow. Too much chance of discovery, the exact nightmare they were living now.
Right target, wrong method, wrong avenue of decision. It could have been right, and legitimate, and successful, with only God being the final arbiter of its righteousness. Those involved would be called on the carpet in the hereafter. Time enough to convince oneself of absolution, Bud figured.
The last thought scared him, and enlightened him. He pulled himself up on his elbows, looking into the semidarkness of the hallway to the bathroom, and wondered if wrong could be manipulated into right.
Flight 422
Hadad’s eyes opened peacefully from a dream-free sleep. His education would contradict that thought, his teachers having told him, and the other medical students, that all people dreamed during sleep. He could break from that part of his past now, too. Allah had cleared his mind. Cleansed him, actually. Completely. It had to happen so that the purpose would be achieved with purity.
He reached to his left and slid the shade up in the porthole like window. Not much like a ship’s porthole, he decided, having spent weeks on a ship during his transit of the Atlantic to the medical college in Buenos Aires years before. That had been enjoyable and frightening, being on the sea the first time, especially since all that surrounded the converted freighter was endless water.
Through the thick upper-deck window he could see the first sheets of yellow coming from the sky over the buildings to the plane’s left. It was still dark inside the lounge where he sat, and quietness filled the aircraft like a void. All below were asleep, or silently praying, or, if infidels, they simply were contemplating the last few hours and those still to come.
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