The Operative

by Andrew Britton

  “I’m not surprised. I think Hunt may be our man. He’s certainly dragging his feet on letting us near the lab and keeping his people in the loop. One thing that surprised me, though. He took a cell phone from Muloni. Snuck it away. A Minotaur.”

  The president was looking at the phone. He had a strange thought then: that it was his enemy, like some kind of mischief maker in the myths he loved to read as a kid. During his first term in office, technology was not so omnipresent, and information not quite so immediate and unfiltered. The data was compounding to weigh the group down and confuse the hell out of them.

  “Hold on, Ryan,” the president said. He looked at Cluzot. “Charles?”

  The FBI director shook his head. “Not standard issue.”

  “Is there any chance Hunt was right about her?”

  “It’s possible,” Cluzot said. “Veil disappeared on her watch.”

  “Mr. Cluzot,” Kealey said, “Mr. Bishop impressed on me that Agent Muloni seemed genuinely convinced that he was responsible for the assassin’s escape. She pointed out something else, something I’d noticed, too. The shooting at Penn Station started virtually the minute we walked onto the street. The gunfire took down people all around us, and I mean every side. We were left alone.”

  “She was watching you?” Andrews asked.

  “Apparently,” Kealey said.

  “Then, and I’m sorry to say this,” the president said, “how do we know that Bishop isn’t a part of this? Maybe his daughter was an unintended casualty.”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. President,” Kealey said. “He’s been on board with me from the start, letting me run the show. He comes alive when we’re on the trail of these killers.”

  Brenneman looked at the others, his expression asking them if they were okay with Kealey’s explanation. All of them nodded.

  “What are you doing now?” Brenneman asked.

  “I’m leaving the bridge and heading uptown—on foot until I clear the traffic. I have a feeling we may take one more hit here. People are being fed through bottlenecks out of the city. That’s too tempting a target to ignore. It’ll either be the Port Authority Bus Terminal or Grand Central Station. I’m betting on the latter.”

  “Why?” Andrews asked.

  “High perches and easy getaway to the side streets,” he said.

  “All right,” the president said. “Do you want support there?”

  “The NYPD is pretty high alert right now,” he said. “I’m sure the National Guard at both locations is the same. Not much more we can do on that front. And there’s no point clustering even more high-value security targets in one place.”

  “True,” Brenneman agreed.

  “I’m going to see this through, then get downtown for a belated look at Hunt’s project,” Kealey said.

  “How is Bishop?” Carlson asked.

  “All right. Focused. I have him checking on something. Is anything new there?”

  “Nothing that would help you,” Andrews said.

  Kealey would understand that to be code for “There’s no significant data, so don’t bother going out of the way to find a secure location.” And they would understand that he was not in a position to tell them where Bishop had gone. Not on an open line. The president presumed it was to the FBI lab at One West Street.

  Andrews hung up and went back to placing the call to Brigadier General Gilbert.

  “THP reports that the van stopped west of Interstate Thirty, on Pine Street,” Perry reported. “Showing an Arklight Dome Lodge there.”

  “Bob, hold on,” the president said.

  Andrews and the others all looked at him.

  “White Sands is not the issue,” Brenneman said. “You had cargo off-loaded in New York, and possibly in Arkadelphia.”

  “Hell, they could have stopped anywhere,” Carlson said.

  “That’s true,” the president agreed, “but we need to at least alert the police in Little Rock and Dallas. Bruce?”

  “On it, sir.”

  Cluzot seemed surprised. “Only the police?”

  “Unless we freeze out your AD Hunt, I don’t think we can risk notifying any field offices, Chuck.”

  “Sir, we’ll need all eyes on this that we can get—”

  “Those cities have terrorist units, good ones,” Brenneman said. “I know. I signed the funding bill.”

  “Mr. President, why don’t we want to talk to General Gilbert?” Andrews asked.

  “Let’s see if he files an action memo,” Brenneman said. “He apprehended civilians. That should be coming in soon. If he doesn’t, we’ll know he’s running black ops and we’ll need to find out why.”

  “I’ll tell the chairman of the JCS to let us know the instant that comes in,” NSA chief Perry said.

  The thought was chilling. That this was a domestic-based action was frightening enough; even the hint that the military could be involved made it that much worse. One could be aggressively fought; the other could, at best, be aggressively defended against. There was a potentially devastating difference between the two.

  As the president finished his coffee, he turned to the computer monitor to have a look at the online edition of the Washington Post. What he saw caused him to forget the cup, the room, the passage of time. He said nothing until he heard Perry’s voice.

  “Mr. President ... another situation.”

  CHAPTER 27

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  The Port Authority Bus Terminal was a grim, inelegant structure that blotted Eighth Avenue between Fortieth and Forty-Second Streets. Shadowed by its own latticed box of elevated bus lanes and mostly surrounded by old New York buildings that offered relatively little gaiety, it was primarily a way station between Manhattan and New Jersey, or a point of departure for people who couldn’t afford the more expensive trains that departed a few blocks south from Penn Station or who lived in the smaller towns serviced by the eighteen different carriers.

  The large, impersonal interior space was like a crab carapace with spindly legs extending outward. Commuters patronized the food and beverage stands, magazine and book stalls, trinket shops, and other impersonal stores. The lower level was primarily a waiting area, cramped and claustrophobic.

  Shameen Al Dhahrani passed the statue of Ralph Kramden as he headed for the terminal entrance. A freshman student at NYU, the Saudi had never heard of The Honeymooners, but he would not have been surprised to learn that Americans had erected a statue to a fictional bus driver from a television show. Americans lionized false gods. These hollow deities took the place of true faith and morality, which was one of the reasons he was racing to catch a bus. There was to be a rally outside a shopping mall in Wayne, New Jersey. It seemed a suitable venue to demand the payment of reparations to detainees at Guantánamo Bay. He carried a leather case thick with flyers he would hand out to shoppers or place on car windshields. A psychology major, he would remind himself with each rejection that these people had been conditioned by their news media, by their televisions, to believe that wrong was right. They had been brainwashed to insensitivity, to self-absorption.

  The doors slid open to admit him. He looked at his watch to see how much time he had. He had purchased his ticket online, so all he needed to do was grab a cup of tea if there was time and make his way to the departure gate.

  He saw the nickel-plated brass wristband where his watch should have been. Set in the band was a blue and white marble. He slowed, but he did not stop. He looked into the cavernous lobby—ahead, to the sides. He blinked. It was as if a creamy film had gummed his eyesight. He blinked harder.

  The haze cleared, and he saw an arena. There were people in the stands. A sandy surface lay ahead of him. He approached a large circle of guards, dressed in military uniforms, standing watch—around what? They were standing far enough apart so that if Shameen moved his head slightly to the right, he could see between them. There was a man standing beyond them. He was dressed in a loose-fitting white thobe, a full-length skirted garment, wi
th a red and white checkered kfya around his head. The ends of the cloth were pulled across the lower half of his face, forming a mask.

  The man held a saber.

  Someone was kneeling before him, facing away. A woman. She wore a white burka, which had been pulled around her shoulders. On her head she wore a black hijab, which was raised from her neck by pins.

  An execution. A beheading.

  Shameen circled the soldiers so he could see the woman. He saw her shoulders moving—in prayer or sobbing, he could not be sure. She was wearing a black cloth over her eyes. Were those tears or perspiration trickling from beneath?

  She turned at the sound of his footsteps on the sand.

  Sand, to soak up the blood.

  As she moved, the mask fell away. Her large, dark eyes were red. Her pale cheeks were radiant with tears. She bit her lower lip so she wouldn’t cry, or cry out.

  “Mother?”

  Fawza Al Dhahrani had been accused of witchcraft. It was said that this poor woman from the Al Shmeisi neighborhood in Riyadh had enchanted the son of a prominent diplomat, had bade him marry her, had used him to elevate herself from poverty. His father, Ubayd Al Dhahrani had agreed to raise the child of their union, but only if the unholy marriage were terminated.

  It was about to be.

  Shameen was suddenly aware of the bulge in his leather satchel. He remembered what he had placed there before leaving his room. He had purchased it from a policeman who had confiscated it from a radical who had surrendered during a raid. The young officer had said he needed the money.

  And you wanted to save your mother from this unjust and horrible fate, Shameen told himself.

  As he continued around the circle of police, he unzipped the satchel. He reached in, withdrew the Steyr AUG A2 with a short-barrel carbine configuration. It snagged a little as he tried to withdraw it, and he was forced to wriggle it a bit before it came free. His finger was already inside, on the trigger, and he blew away part of the leather side as he screamed inarticulately, aimed high—above his poor mother’s head—and began cutting down the policemen, getting them out of the way so he could kill the executioner, who had already raised his sword prior to delivering the death stroke.

  The men in their khaki-colored uniforms and black caps went down, spinning, tumbling, crashing one into the other and spraying blood on the sand.

  Shameen felt a punch in the back of his leg, in his side. The hits burned almost at once. He felt another in his shoulder. His right arm, the arm with the gun, went numb. The weapon dropped. He felt something slash through his chest from the front, and there was something hard hitting his knees... .

  The tile floor.

  He had fallen. The world turned strangely around him, like a carousel that was turning and also tilting wildly up, down, up, down. The milky haze returned, he thought briefly about the bus he had to catch, and then he fell forward in a growing stain of his own blood.

  Kealey had finally managed to secure a cab near Canal Street and Lafayette. And only because he stood in front of it. The driver was off duty and had not intended to take on a passenger.

  “Mister, unless you’re goin’ to Astoria—”

  “I’m going to Grand Central,” he said, coming around to the window but holding the door handle so the cab couldn’t hurry away. He glanced at the driver’s ID on the dash. “Norm, you look like old school. Whatever happened to the ‘neither rain nor snow’—”

  “That’s the post office.”

  “Fifty bucks,” Kealey said.

  Horns screamed behind them.

  The driver agreed to the terms with an exasperated nod.

  Kealey didn’t release the handle until he had the back door open. “Thanks,” he said and slumped in the back.

  “All I can say is, these terrorists know how to mess with us,” the driver said.

  “How so?”

  “They hit when people are comin’ in. Makes it tough for people to get out.”

  That was true, and the man had arrived at that with zero security clearance. It reinforced what Kealey had always said about intelligence. It was well and good to have ELINT, electronic intelligence, eavesdropping on cell phones and computers. But without HUMINT, human intelligence, eyes on the scene, a complete picture was not possible. That was where the United States lost its edge in the 1990s, until 2001, when it put all its faith—and resources—into satellites and hackers. That was one reason the Israelis rarely got caught with their pants down. Using Druze citizens—Arabs loyal to their adopted nation—they were able to infiltrate Hamas, Hezbollah, and other enemy groups.

  Kealey took advantage of the moment to call Allison. She had called four times since last night; he felt guilty about not having checked in before this.

  “Where are you?” were the first words out of her mouth.

  “In a New York taxicab,” he replied.

  He gave her a moment to process that, to not ask what she knew he couldn’t answer, and then say, “Oh.”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “At the office,” she said. “No reason to be, though. My morning slate was wiped clean. People are busy trying to figure this out.”

  “How is Colin?” Kealey inquired.

  “He seems fine,” Allison said. “I’ve been waiting for a shoe to drop, and it hasn’t. And don’t tell me that kids are resilient. He was taken hostage and saw people murdered. If that’s not a recipe for post-traumatic stress, I don’t know what is.”

  “No, you’re probably right,” Kealey said, though the first killings he saw in his early twenties were pretty brutal, as well, and he was still waiting for some kind of emotional blowback, as well. It hadn’t happened. Maybe it just manifested itself differently in some people, perhaps driving them to stay in the crosshairs because they liked the all-or-nothing scenarios. “How are you?” he asked. “You were also in the belly of the beast.”

  “My memory is blissfully hazy,” she said. “Or maybe it’s just a lack of sleep, or both. As long as I don’t let myself slip back there, I’m fine.”

  “Eyes front,” he said. “That’s true about everything.”

  “And you?” Allison asked. “Is your being there related to the shootings?”

  “It wasn’t when I left, but it is now,” he replied.

  “Are they finished? Do you know?”

  “I hope so, but I don’t think so,” he said.

  She was silent for a moment. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “I did,” he said. That wasn’t a lie. Over the years, on missions, Kealey had to sleep whenever he had the time, wherever he was.

  “Would it be a complete waste of breath to tell you to be careful?” she asked.

  “Probably. But it’s good to hear.”

  “Do you have any idea when you’re coming back?”

  “I’m guessing it’ll be soon,” he said. He didn’t have to add, “Or not at all.”

  This was beginning to feel like more than doctor-client concern to him. Or maybe he was wishing it was. A crisis produced strange bonds. It also brushed away the posturing and forced real feelings to the forefront.

  The cab had just reached Park Avenue and Seventeenth Street when they heard sirens screaming to the west. They were headed uptown.

  “Now what?” the driver muttered.

  “Ryan,” Allison began, then stopped.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “ says there’s been another shooting in New York.”

  “Where?”

  “Port Authority Bus Terminal.”

  Kealey leaned toward the open partition. “I need to get to Fortieth and Eighth,” he said.

  “Something happening there?”

  “I think there is,” Kealey said.

  “I’ll take you as far as Times Square. Then I’m goin’ home to Queens,” the driver said. “Sorry.”

  “That’s fine,” Kealey said. “Allison? I’ll call you later.”

  “Make sure you do—”
r />   “Okay. Bye.”

  He clicked off. His head was no longer in the conversation.

  As far away as Thirty-Fourth Street, Kealey could already see traffic starting to back up ahead.

  “Mister, I’m thinkin’ this is as far as—”

  Kealey thrust the fifty and another twenty through the window. “Cut over to Sixth, go up to Fortieth, you can leave me there. Deal?”

  The driver took the money and headed up Sixth Avenue. He made it as far as Thirty Fourth Street before police—still on duty at Penn Station—directed them to turn east.

  “Sorry,” the driver said, passing back the twenty.

  “Keep it,” Kealey said as he opened the door.

  “Thanks! Take care of yourself, G-man.”

  Kealey grinned. The driver winked back.

  HUMINT, Kealey thought. Nothing like it.

  Kealey went up to Thirty-Seventh and ran west. The street was the least crowded of all those he’d looked down. He paused only long enough to eavesdrop on something that was coming over a policeman’s shoulder radio.

  “Reports the shooter is down, according to Port Authority dispatch.”

  Kealey wasn’t convinced. Breathing hard, he hurried ahead, showing his expired credentials quickly to gain access to Eighth Avenue, then again to get by the cordon of blue surrounding the bus terminal.

  He knew at once this was far from over.

  CHAPTER 28

  WHITE SANDS, NEW MEXICO

  White Sands Missile Range was America’s largest military facility, covering nearly 3,200 square miles carved from terrain as harsh as its history. On April 6 and 7, 1880, it was the site of the fiercest battle of the Victorio War, between the U.S. cavalry and the Apaches. Even before that it was the site of countless mining operations, ambitious individuals and large corporations staking claims in the rough-hewn mountains adjoining the salt-white sands.

  The navy came to the blistering range in June 1946 to join the army in testing V-2 rockets captured from the Germans during World War II. At the time, the navy was interested in expanding the power of its Viking rocket with V-2 technology, the first supersonic rocket to run off of liquid fuel, which resulted in the development of the sleeker, more powerful Aerobee, a small rocket originally introduced in the fifties that was designed for high atmospheric research. Today the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, White Sands Detachment, was an independent group at the army-operated range. One of its charges was to develop weapons for America’s Strategic Defense Initiative. This sprawling blanket of technology included the Terrier and Tartar missiles and the Aegis weapons system, Rolling Airframe surface-to-air missiles, Vertical Launch Anti-Submarine Rockets, Tomahawk and Sea Sparrow missiles, high energy laser devices, and the Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser and the Sealite Beam Director.