Hager, Osborne and Smith from NSA sat on the couches in the Oval Office. Smith cleared his throat. “We’ve been able to ping the Leopard’s computer and we’re plotting a trajectory based on the IP trail’s coordinates.”
“English please!” Longford snapped.
Hager calmly stepped in. “We believe he is on his way to a major East Coast city. New York, Boston and Philly are most likely. It’s just an educated guess at this point.”
Longford walked to the window and stared out at the early morning sun rising, shining a golden light on the Rose Garden. “That’s one thing I hate about this damn job, I’m always dealing with incomplete information. How the hell are you supposed to make decisions with incomplete information?”
Hager now became professorial. “I like to follow Colin Powell’s 40/70 rule. He knew in war that you could never be certain or have all the information, but you had to act. If you waited until you were one hundred percent certain, you’d never act. It would be too late and you might end up dead. So if your certainty level was between forty and seventy percent, that’s good enough to proceed.”
“So we’re playing poker here,” Longford mused, still staring out the window.
“In a sense. But if we think we have the best hand, we need to make a big bet,” Hager replied.
“Seems to me we have had the worst hand at every turn.”
“Well, now we think we have at least a location radius. We have the best cyber tools in the world, and we have boots on the ground. We don’t have all the answers, but we’re the cat and he’s the mouse.”
“I don’t think we can afford to think of him as a mouse. They don’t call him the Leopard for nothing. He’s dangerous and can strike, unexpectedly, at any moment. What are we currently doing to corner this animal?”
“We have all intelligence resources fully focused, plus street patrols by all local and federal agencies. Once we pick up his scent, we’ll bring the hammer down hard.”
“What about our civilian guys—Little and his band of geeks?”
“They gave us the heads up about the ping over Kansas, and they have deployed all their online and offline resources. They’ve been an amazing help.”
“Well, if, or I should say when, we get through this, we’ll have to compensate them somehow. A medal at the very least.” Longford finally turned to face her team. “Ok, sounds like we’re fully deployed and doing everything we can think of. I want an update every thirty minutes and sooner if anything breaks. Understood?”
They all nodded with grave looks on their faces. “Thank you, Madame President.”
Then they stood up in unison and left.
CHAPTER 57
NOT A COP
I sat with my team in the computer lab back at the office. I liked being surrounded by computers and sitting in a comfortable chair. Despite the throbbing pain in my ribs from the car and my shoulder and knee from the gunshots, I somehow felt safe. It was quiet, except for the clicking of keyboards, and I could think. I wasn’t as merged with the digiverse as Frank was, but I felt like I belonged here. These machines extended my power and reach. I remember what Steve Jobs said, “The computer is the bicycle of the mind.” It allows us to go farther and faster, leveraging our own power.
Frank flickered to life on my screen. “How are you holding up, Sam?”
“Other than lack of sleep and a bullet wound in my shoulder, I’m OK,” I lied. “Find out anything?”
Frank cleared his throat again, which was still funny since he was now all digital. Must be force of habit or maybe some echo of his physical self. Like when amputees still have phantom feelings in their missing limbs. “I’ve extrapolated his route based on the pings and IP traces. Then I cross-correlated with air traffic control. They had two nav signals that might have fit our pattern.”
“You said ‘might have,’ past tense. Where did your extrapolation take you?”
“Let me back up. I find that digital thinking is at least ten times faster than my old physical brain. So I don’t know when I might lose you or blow past you. I’m assuming, based on the time between pings, being as short as it was, that the Leopard had to be in the air. Highest probability you recall. Then if he was in the air and the plane’s navigation system was on, ATC would be able to triangulate the signal with the data I provided. That gave us the most likely planes over Kansas at that time. Finally, following their two nav systems to their destination, we have a very high probability of where they are.”
“OK, where?”
“One plane landed one hour and ten minutes ago in Teterboro, New Jersey. The other, one hour and twenty-five minutes ago at LaGuardia in New York.”
“Well done, Frank! Then our guy is most likely headed to Manhattan again. Can you get me the pilots’ names? I’ll ask Little to track down and interview them. We need to narrow the search more. Meanwhile, I, and maybe Al too, are going to get on a plane to New York pronto.”
“What are you going to do in New York? You’re not a cop.”
“It just seems like the right thing to do. You just can’t do certain things by computer. Sorry, Frank. Besides, Al gave me a gun for protection.”
“I don’t think she gave you that gun thinking you’d go looking for trouble.”
“Frank, I think trouble has already found us. Time to confront it, and see if we can end it one way or the other.”
CHAPTER 58
THE CUB
While his brother prowled the streets of New York, Momar LaSalam, known as the Cub, slept fitfully in his hotel room. Tomorrow would be a big day. Like his older brother, he had been educated in the West, graduating from Stanford with a degree in engineering and creative writing. Unusual combination as very few people had both high-level right brain and left brain skills.
Less people, and especially the authorities, knew about the Cub. Oh, he was sure he was in some NSA database—all Muslims, especially foreign nationals, were. However, he and his brother had been very careful and successful in cloaking the Cub’s activities. The Leopard believed for a plan to work, you needed redundancy. That way, if one failed, there was always a parallel operator to carry out the mission. That’s why the Cub flew in a separate private plane to Teterboro while his brother landed at LaGuardia. It was also why he would go to their Cyber War Room in Brooklyn while the Leopard would be in lower Manhattan. The Cub’s team would be ready to execute Step 2 of the plan, and Step 3, if for some reason his brother’s team failed.
“Failure” was hardly ever a word he associated with his brother and he would never use it to his face. He had felt the wrath of his brother’s anger as a young boy, when his brother hung him from his collar on a hook in an alleyway and taunted him. His brother said he would make his younger brother “tough,” so that one day he could fight by his side as they carried out the jihad. As the young Cub hung from the hook, Ahmed pricked him with a sharp knife on his arms and legs, drawing little beads of blood. Momar wriggled and flailed trying to get free, but he was too small to escape. Ahmed lightly pricked his ears and said, “This is so you will always listen to what I say and obey. For you know I love you and would never really hurt you. This is just a lesson.” Momar began to cry, which made Ahmed smile. Ahmed then pulled down Momar’s pants as he hung, fighting less now. He jabbed at Momar’s genitals, pretending the knife was a sword and he was in a duel. He took a few steps back and then lunged—the tip of the knife just barely penetrating Momar’s scrotum. Momar screamed. Ahmed laughed and said, “This is so you know that I own you. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.” Momar nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks. Ahmed left, leaving Momar hanging there with his pants around his ankles exposed, humiliated and scared. What if someone found him this way? What if his mother or father found out? He did not know if he could bear the shame.
About an hour later as the sun began to set and Momar hung almost lifelessly in the secluded alley, Ahmed returned. “I think, my brother, you have learned your lesson. But also know that whenever you
are in pain or in trouble, I will always return to save you. You must also do the same for me. Do you understand?” Momar nodded weakly. Ahmed pulled up Momar’s pants and lifted him off the hook and lowered him gently to the ground. He kissed the top of Momar’s head. “You must never speak of this to anyone. This is the beginning of your training. You will make a fine soldier some day.” Then, suddenly, Momar stomped as hard as he could on Ahmed’s foot and ran as fast as he could down the alley to freedom. Ahmed smiled and thought to himself, That is a good start.
CHAPTER 59
LAST CHANCE
I always loved New York. We had taken the “red-eye” overnight from San Francisco. From the airport, we called an Uber and arrived in Manhattan around 8:00 AM. The streets were crowded and electric as usual, but I knew there was a very real danger lurking. Everyone else seemed oblivious, on their way to work or breakfast or some other scheduled task that seemed important at the time. I was not sure where to start. I just felt I had to come. The sun was warm on my skin as I sat on a metal chair in Bryant Park with Al daydreaming beside me.
I began. “I know we discussed it on the plane, but now that we’re here and can get a ‘feel’ for it, where would you set up a cyber-terror base?”
Al had obviously been thinking about it. “You know I lived in Manhattan for a few years, when I first started with the NYPD. I know the place pretty well, especially the streets. So you’d have to ask, where can you rent or buy a building on the less expensive side without the public notice?”
“Hmm, I haven’t spent as much time here as you have, but it seems either downtown in the industrial warehouse district or maybe in Brooklyn or maybe both.”
Al seemed startled. “I get your logic, but how can you say, ‘both?’”
“I’ve been studying the profile of the Leopard that Little gave us. They say he was behind a series of bombings in Afghanistan. The sad, but interesting, fact is that when they occurred, they happened in pairs. I don’t think that was coincidental. I think it says something about the way he thinks.” I trailed off into thought.
Al seemed to perk up at the idea. “So you’re saying he may be planning two attacks tomorrow?”
“It’s just a thought. He may be planning two or one may be a backup, in case the other one fails. If we’re right, then it makes our task twice as difficult.”
“We can’t afford to fail. Have you shared this theory with Little? Maybe, just maybe, if he is planning two attacks, it makes our task half as difficult.”
“Hold on. First, I just thought of it—so no, I did not discuss it with Little. But, they’re pretty smart guys. Maybe they are already pursuing it. Now, explain to me why ‘half as difficult.’”
“First, I think we have to get Little on the phone now, so he can direct his people down this road. The reason having two attacks may be half as difficult is that on the one hand, it gives us two targets to shoot at instead of one. That means our odds are twice as good to hit one. On the other hand, if we find one, it may lead us to the other.”
“Ever the optimist. So what or where would we pick up the scent?”
“Somewhere there has to be a database of real estate transactions made in cash in the five boroughs for the last ten days.”
“That sounds like a perfect ‘query.’ You’ve been hanging around me too long.” I started pecking away on my mobile. “I’m sending your query to Frank. He’s better than Google and can do an intelligent search across all search engines including private and secure databases. After all, he’s inside the Internet.” What a strange concept. I stopped typing.
“Now what?”
“We wait.” Maybe only five seconds elapsed before Frank appeared on my screen. “Hi, Frank.”
“Sam, I see the New York Public Library in the background. One of my favorite old haunts. Point your camera at it. I’d like a look for old times sake.” Satisfied, Frank continued. “I ran your query in 116 search engines, but the most helpful were the internal databases of the top twenty New York Real Estate Companies.”
“How did you get into those?”
“Sam, being inside is like being Superman. I can fly anywhere and use my X-ray vision.” He laughed. “Bottom line is I have three rentals and two building sales for you to check out. I’m texting you the info now. But I have one other outlier for you to investigate.”
“Outlier? What are you talking about?”
“It occurred to me that a boat or ship of sufficient size could also serve the Leopard’s purposes. So I searched all boat sales of vessels over fifty feet and docked in the City. I want you to have a look at the Last Chance at Pier 54.”
“All this in five seconds. Pretty impressive, Frank.”
“Hey, I’m dealing in nanoseconds now. It’s amazing how much you can get done in a few seconds with this kind of processing power. Makes the human brain seem like a one-legged turtle.”
“I may be slow, but I can see the significance of the boat’s name. I know crazy terrorists, like the Leopard, go for symbolism in things like this. I bet this is one of the two targets. Please describe the boat.”
As I got up to walk down 6th Avenue, Frank was still in my ear. “This all reminds me of the Monte Hall Problem. We have three options we are looking at like the three doors on the show Monte Hall hosted, Let’s Make a Deal. The contestant on the show, let’s call her ‘Sally,’ would be asked to pick a door. Behind one of the doors would be a fabulous prize like a new car. Behind the other two doors were maybe a barbecue or sand toys. Real clunkers. So Sally was highly motivated to pick the right door.”
I was feeling like Frank was wandering off again into one of his professorial lectures. He was clearly enjoying himself. “I don’t see what this has to do with us?”
“Patience, Sam. I’m getting to that and it’s important for determining how we proceed. After the audience screams and shouts suggestions, Sally picks Door #1. That’s like us. We had three options and we picked one. Now before revealing Door #1, Monte Hall says, ‘Let me show you what is behind Door #3.’ The pretty model on stage waves her arm, Door #3 opens and it’s the barbecue. The audience sighs.”
“Ok already. What’s the point?”
“Hold your horses. Boy, am I dating myself. We’re just getting to the good part. Now after the reveal of Door #3, Monte says to Sally, ‘Are you sure you want to stick with Door #1 or would you rather pick Door #2? You can change your mind if you like, but then that will be your final choice.’ More shouts and screams from the audience. Sally has quite a quandary. What should Sally do? What’s her best choice?”
“OK, I’ll play. I’m not sure it makes any difference. She had a one out of three chance to begin with. Nothing’s changed with the reveal of Door #3.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. The reveal of Door #3, just like our unfortunate warehouse disaster, changes everything. With two doors left, #1 and #2, and if we were starting all over, what would our odds be of choosing the right door?”
“One out of two or fifty percent, right?”
“That’s correct, but we’re not starting all over. Sally had already picked Door #1, so the odds of Door #1 being correct are still one in three or thirty-three percent. However, now that Door #3 has been revealed and there are only two doors left, Sally should change her choice to Door #2 and she’ll have a fifty percent chance of success.”
“Wow. That seems crazy but makes sense at the same time.”
“Probability science is sometimes counter-intuitive, which is one reason it holds such fascination. This phenomenon is aptly named the Monte Hall Problem. So based on this, what should we do with our two remaining options, Sam?”
“I think we still need to follow your hunch and check out the boat.”
“OK. I guess you’re still sticking with Door #1.”
“Well at worst, it’s one out of three. But unlike Sally we have your knowledge handy. Enough talk. Time for action.”
CHAPTER 60
AMERICAN COFFEE
He stirred from his reverie when Simpson tapped him on the shoulder. Alec Simpson was a recent UK recruit. He was two meters tall, very smart and had piercing blue eyes. Ex-military to boot. “It’s time, sir.”
The two proceeded below deck, down the mahogany steps of the Last Chance to a dark paneled command center. The Leopard, or more likely his Saudi supporters, bought the twenty-eight meter boat from a Wall Street hedge fund guy who had been recently arrested for securities fraud. He needed the money for his legal defense. Needless to say the price was right and there was a certain poetic irony to the transaction that appealed to the Leopard. The Leopard retrofitted the boat to include a command center for fifteen analysts, hackers and engineers with the latest computer technology and high-speed, encrypted communications. There was a basic kitchen, dining room and bunks for nineteen including the crew. The Cub was the only one who had his own quarters—a modest stateroom with its own desk, computer and WC.
“Update me,” the Cub commanded to Christopher, a young man who looked too young to drive a car, sitting at the lead console under a seventy-eight inch OLED monitor. The monitor showed a Google Earth view of Manhattan, the East River and the harbor. Red dots that looked like push pins were scattered around lower Manhattan.
“All our people are in position. Your brother is ready to execute Priority 1 at 12:30 PM. That will create maximum effect at lunch hour in the city. We’re to be ready to execute Priority 2 thirty minutes later, unless we get a message otherwise.”
Not So Dead: A Sam Sunborn Novel Page 13