A Coast Guard sailor ran into the workspace and spoke to Jaiswal. “Just got a call from a Carnival cruise ship approaching the harbor. Captain says there’s an employee on board who is suspicious.”
“How suspicious?” Commander Jaiswal asked.
“No specifics, sir.”
Commander Jaiswal strode toward the door, the other two commanders close on his heels.
At the door Lt. Commander Sanders turned to Yolanda. “Keep looking for connections through TimeWall. We’ll take the second translator with us.”
**
2100 hours
Mollie, Surfer, Jaiswal and the new translator Amir stood in the bow of a Coast Guard cutter as it sliced through the choppy waves.
The cutter came up alongside the cruise ship, which had dropped anchor short of the harbor while awaiting clearance to dock.
The sailors stayed with the cutter while Jaiswal led the other three as they climbed the cruise ship’s outside ladder onto the upper deck, where the Carnival captain met them. “We’ve not wanted to alert the man to our suspicions. He’s in the main dining room serving dinner for the second seating.”
“Is he a waiter?” Mollie asked.
“His English isn’t good enough. He’s a busboy.”
She walked beside the captain as he led them to the main dining room.
“What makes you suspicious of him?” she asked the captain.
“He joined the ship in Hawaii as a last-minute replacement. He speaks to no one.”
“Perhaps just his poor English.”
The captain shook his head. “A couple of my people say there’s something off about this guy.”
“And you trust your people?”
The captain nodded.
“You think he may jump ship when you dock?” she asked.
The captain hesitated. Mollie thought she saw a spasm of pain cross his face.
“It’s why he may jump ship that worries me. My … my brother was in the World Trade Center. He didn’t …”
The captain couldn’t finish his sentence. Mollie pressed lightly on his shoulder.
“You did the right thing to call us. Even with the best intelligence gathering – it comes down to the instincts of the people onsite. If only all the port workers were as vigilant.”
The captain shot her a grateful look. Then he opened the door to the main dining room.
Inside a large crowd of people sat at tables of eight guests each. They appeared to be mostly Americans dressed in casual clothes.
The captain indicated across the large room the station of the suspicious busboy. Then he said to the three men behind them. “I’ll go over with Commander Sanders as if we’re about to greet a guest at the next table.”
“His name?” Mollie asked.
“Employment papers said Yusef Rahim.”
Just at this moment all the lights went off. In the next instant several waiters paraded into the room holding aloft platters of flaming baked Alaska. The diners cheered.
The lights came back on – and the man was gone!
Mollie saw Jaiswal speak into his walkie talkie, presumably to the Coast Guard sailors who had come in the cutter with them. Then the captain gave instructions where to start searching.
Mollie and cruise ship employees searched the kitchen while the captain and other employees searched the casino and Surfer, Jaiswal, Amir, and the Coast Guard sailors searched the swimming pool areas.
Then Mollie had an idea and strode into the women’s sauna area, yanking open the sauna doors one by one. In the very last one a person sat hunched over and bundled in towels, even the person’s face was covered.
Mollie yanked the towel off the person’s face, revealing the busboy.
She snapped his arm into a lock and frog marched him out of the sauna.
She met up with Surfer, Jaiswal, Amir and the Coast Guard sailors. Jaiswal suggested they take the busboy to his bunk in the crew quarters. Amir translated this demand to the busboy.
Once there, the busboy pointed to his bunk and locker. Mollie nodded to Jaiswal and the Coast Guard sailors, then she, Surfer and Amir hustled the busboy out of the crew quarters.
Coming out on the deck where they had first boarded the ship, Mollie took the busboy’s documents from the captain who awaited them there. Surfer kept one hand tightly gripped around the busboy’s arm as slowly the four of them made their way down the rope ladder. In a few minutes Jaiswal and the sailors appeared, carrying a small bundle of items they’d found in the busboy’s locker.
Inside the cabin of the Coast Guard cutter, Mollie, Surfer and Amir sat across from the busboy. Amir spoke briefly in Arabic to the man, then turned to Mollie. “He is Yusef Ramin. He says he knows nothing. He is thankful to have this job to help feed his family.”
“Then why did he run?”
“His papers, they are not in order, he said.”
“What do his papers say?”
Amir looked down at the papers Mollie handed him. “That he is from Somalia.’
“Are they forged?”
“That is not something I would know.”
Mollie shook her head as Jaiswal entered the cabin. “I’ve looked at the items we took from his locker,” Jaiswal said. “There’s nothing that indicates anything than what he says he is.”
Surfer said, “He could have hidden things all over the ship. Then waited until it docked before retrieving his goodies.”
Mollie looked at the busboy. A small-boned man in his forties. He had the look of an ascetic.
Mollie motioned Jaiswal to follow her up on deck. She said to him, “Let’s not assume that he doesn’t understand English.”
Jaiswal nodded.
“Let’s lock him up with the others we got at the oil field and see how they react to this new guy. Sometimes what people don’t say provides the best clues.”
Thirty minutes later Mollie stood looking through a one-way mirror into the holding cell. She watched with Jaiswal and Surfer as two Coast Guard sailors brought Yusef Ramin into the cell to join the three men from the oil field.
The Latino barely glanced at the man, but the other two jailed men straightened just for an instant. An almost imperceptible nod of respect and recognition flashed from the two men to the new prisoner.
Mollie smiled. Her hunch had been right.
CHAPTER VI – VALUABLE COMMODITY
April 19
1130 hours
Mollie strode back into the temporary workspace and popped a DVD into a computer in front of Surfer and Perez.
The moment of recognition flashed across the screen.
“Yes!” she said. “The busboy didn’t have anything valuable in his possessions because he himself is the valuable commodity being smuggled into this country.”
“Can I see that shot again?” Surfer said.
Mollie ran it again as Surfer and Perez stared at the computer screen.
“Yusef Ramin appears to be someone recognizable and presumably important to these men,” she said.
“Can we get him to talk?” Surfer asked.
“For now let’s keep him isolated and see what we can learn based on his voiceprint, fingerprint, etc.” Mollie turned to Perez. “Do your magic.”
Some time later Perez waved her arms in victory.
“Got him! Yusef Ramin is a radical cleric who espouses the destruction of the United States.”
Surfer jumped up. “Let’s go see what he’s planning!”
Mollie walked over to Surfer and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Wait a minute, cowboy. Let’s give this a chaw.”
Surfer shot her a look, but he sat back down.
“He’s arrived as a busboy. He doesn’t know he’s been identified,” Mollie said. “We can release him tomorrow and see where he leads us.”
Surfer jumped up again. “You want to release him?”
Mollie nodded. “He’ll be on a short chain – electronically and visually. He’ll have to make contact when he leaves,
even if it is just to get a place to sleep.”
Surfer opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. Mollie waited in case he had other arguments against her plan. Finally he nodded.
Now Mollie stood up. “Let’s us get some sleep.”
She noted the grateful look on Perez’s face as they left for the BOQ.
Later as Mollie and Perez climbed into the twin beds – still no extra billets available – Perez asked: “Do you sleep at night during an operation? Or are you up all night strategizing?”
Mollie smiled. “If I’ve done everything to be ready for an operation, I sleep. Being exhausted has never helped any mission.”
Perez hesitated. “May I ask a personal question?”
“Depends.”
“Do you ever … date?”
Mollie laughed. “Do you mean do I ever sleep with guys?”
Perez plucked at the bedcover. “I meant …”
Mollie gestured it was okay. “It’s hard being a woman officer. You’re held to higher expectations. Why do you ask?”
Perez smiled. “Because Commander Witlow is clearly interested in you.”
Mollie shook her head. “Commander Witlow hates my guts. He’s made that quite clear.”
Now Perez shook her head. “You know the old saying – there’s a thin line between love and hate.”
For answer Mollie snapped off the bedside light. If Surfer were at all interested – and Mollie would bet he wasn’t – it would purely be for another notch on his belt. Pilots like Surfer had one thing in mind – both in the air and on the ground – the adrenaline rush that comes from being in total control of whatever they were interacting with, be it a jet fighter or a woman. Mollie had no intention of being another bragging prize.
**
April 20
After midnight
Omar sat at his desk reading. He had already lost two men that he knew of, and now he wondered where the cleric was.
Omar closed the book – “The ‘Great Satan’ vs. The ‘Mad Mullahs’” by William O. Beeman. He drummed his fingers on the cover of the book, then glanced at the red-circled date on his calendar.
**
0800 hours
Kevin had been at his computer for an hour already when Gearhead and Perez entered the room. He was uncomfortable letting the cleric go free, and this morning Kevin had done some preliminary research on the cleric’s likely activities directed against the United States.
At this moment Gearhead jabbed The Wall Street Journal in front of Kevin’s eyes. “At the risk of saying God is on our side, look at this front-page article,” she said. “It’s all about the Wayback Machine. Apparently there’s a huge archive of Web pages dating back several years.”
Kevin glanced at the headline. “How does this help us?”
Gearhead seated herself next to him while Perez stood on his other side.
“Let’s say our cleric’s website nine years ago promoted jihad against the West,” she said. “But since then he’s gotten PR-savvy and now his website is all love and kisses for the West.”
Kevin nodded. This might explain why his early-morning stint hadn’t turned up the kind of information he thought would be in open source places.
“We can go into Wayback and see what he said on his website in the past. Before he cleaned up his act.”
Perez chimed in. “Does he have a website?”
Mollie turned to her. “It’s an example. The point is that this is another tool we can utilize along with TimeWall.”
Perez took the newspaper from Gearhead’s hand. “I’ll get right on it.”
Now Gearhead started surfing the web. Kevin watched her hands fly over the keys.
He couldn’t understand why she got under his skin. That she was a woman – and an attractive woman at that, although he wouldn’t admit this to her – couldn’t be the reason. He’d worked before with other attractive women in the Navy. Something about her made him want to demonstrate how effective he could be away from his plane. Maybe it was just a natural competition with another Navy officer of his rank. Or it could be …
Kevin quickly inputted a question into Wikipedia. He didn’t want to think of the alternative possibility.
A half hour later Kevin stood next to Gearhead as together through the viewing window they watched Amir talk to the cleric.
“We’re telling Ramin he’s free to go,” Mollie said. “Sorry for the inconvenience even though his papers aren’t in order.”
Kevin smiled. “Of course, this is America – ‘Give me your tired and hungry, your …’”
Gearhead actually grinned at him. “You’ll have to plant the tracking device on him,” she said as she handed it to Kevin. “He probably does not allow a woman to whom he is not married or related by blood to touch him.”
Kevin shook his head. “He’s under arrest. Whoever wants can touch him.”
“We don’t want to get him excited,” Gearhead said. “It’s simple sleight of hand. I’ll distract him and you’ll reach around his shoulder to help him out. Just stick it under his shirt collar.”
“He may change clothes the moment he’s released,” Kevin said.
“Then we’ll move in.”
Gearhead nodded at Kevin to follow her. They entered the interrogation room and Gearhead gestured for the cleric and Amir to stand. As they did so, Gearhead glanced at Kevin, then handed a map of Los Angeles to the cleric. And at the same time that Kevin guided the cleric to the door, Kevin’s hand briefly touched the cleric’s shirt.
Gearhead spoke to Amir. “Tell him someone will drive him to a bus stop.”
**
1005 hours
A restaurant supplies van sat parked 30 feet from the bus stop. The people in the van appeared to be taking a coffee break from delivering the restaurant supplies.
In the back of the van Vanessa Owens sat with her colleague Jose Martinez. Vanessa watched the two men in front -- Johnson and Rudolph -- leisurely drink from Starbucks coffee containers. Such empty containers were actually kept in the van. When needed as props, water from water bottles would be poured into the coffee containers to recreate the weight of liquid in the cups.
Vanessa had a visual of the target as he stood, small and apparently innocent, against the backdrop of the vast city behind him. But Vanessa had no illusions about the power of one small man. She adjusted dials, then spoke into her headset.
“Commander Sanders, we have the target in sight.”
The commander’s voice came back through the headset. “He may not actually take the bus. Depending on how extensive his cell is, they may have been watching where we held him. Maybe they’ll send someone for him.”
Vanessa heard a man’s voice next to the commander. “Not if they want to keep up the pretense he’s nobody.”
The commander’s voice said “Good point” to the man’s voice. Then the commander spoke to Vanessa: “Then carefully watch if anyone follows the bus. They may also be keeping him in sight.”
Vanessa answered the commander: “Will relay to our backup.”
Through the concealed windows Vanessa watched the bus pull up and the target climb aboard. She knew Johnson would wait until other cars had passed before he pulled the van out to follow the bus.
**
1009 hours
Mollie paced the room while Surfer and Perez sat at computer terminals. Suddenly she stopped pacing and walked up to Surfer.
“Do we try to pick up the book before the cleric reaches his destination? If the book hasn’t been picked up, is that a sign for him that something is off?”
Surfer shrugged. Perez said nothing.
“Or are we risking tipping our hand by going to the mosque bookstore at the same time the cleric is approaching his contact?” Mollie said.
Surfer stood up. “Don’t you know someone to consult with? Some expert from STORC or the planet Mars?”
Mollie looked at Surfer and smiled. As she strode over to a desk, she said, “New York. I need the
telephone number of the New York Police Department.”
“The NYPD? We’re in LA,” Surfer said.
Mollie turned, the phone receiver already in her hand. “If you read anything more intellectual than Playboy, you might have seen an article in The New Yorker.”
Surfer laughed. “New Yorker articles are too long to read in the head.”
Mollie ignored this comment.
“The NYPD has the most advanced counter-terrorism unit in the country. The federal government even borrows translators from the NYPD. Translators who are police officers trained in investigation and whose native tongues are the languages they translate.”
Fifteen minutes later Mollie said to Amir, “Are you willing to do this for us? It could be dangerous.”
Amir nodded. “I had a cousin on the plane that hit the Pentagon.”
“Okay,” Mollie said. “My contact at the NYPD thought this was the right move.”
Perez signaled to get Molllie’s attention. “Commander Sanders, the cleric is at the bookstore.”
“Not so surprising,” Mollie said. “Are both units in place?”
“Deployed nearby.”
Mollie shook her head. “It may be too late for this ploy if the cleric knows the book should already have been picked up.”
Perez said, “Perhaps he is simply doing business there. You may be able to still retrieve the book without tipping him off.”
Mollie nodded and looked at Amir. “We can’t send Amir into the bookstore now. If the cleric is there he’ll recognize Amir.”
Perez stood up. “Let me go. I’m dark skinned.”
Mollie motioned Perez to sit back down. “You don’t speak Arabic.”
Perez remained standing. “I could be from Turkey or some other Muslim country where they don’t speak Arabic. And I’m a woman – he should ignore me.”
“But there were only men on the boat,” Surfer said. “A man will be expected.”
“Maybe not,” Mollie said. “Maybe they have operational discretion. The men could decide to get an innocent person to pick up the book for them.”
Lt. Commander Mollie Sanders Page 6