by Vince Flynn
Al-Adel gave him a toothy smile and nodded. He had gotten quite good at driving the big rigs. For nearly a year now he had made three round trips a week from Atlanta to the port of Charleston. None of those trips had been as important as this one, but this time Allah would be keeping an even closer eye on him.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Peggy Stealey was in the middle of a rather violent dream. She had just delivered a crushing blow to her karate instructor’s groin, but that wasn’t enough. With great speed and precision she moved on to his solar plexus, throat, and then finally nose. The last blow was a textbook palm strike and sent the man to the mat, blood dripping from his flattened nose. She saw herself standing over him, her hair a disaster, her cheeks flushed, and her skin glistening with sweat. A look of profound accomplishment spread across her face, and then something happened. A stimulus that wasn’t supposed to be in her dream.
Her eyelids flickered and then opened. She looked over at her bedside clock, things still not quite registering. The blue letters told her it was 2:28 in the morning. She realized her victory was only a dream and was pissed. It was the best one she’d had in months. She laid her head back down and closed her eyes. She should have known that kicking her sadist instructor’s butt was too good to be true. She told herself if she fell back asleep fast enough she might be able to pick up where she’d left off.
Seconds later Stealey figured out what had pulled her from her dream. Her pager over on her dresser was vibrating. Stealey grabbed a pillow and clamped it down on her head. She wanted to return to her dream. Weren’t twelve-hour days enough? She was almost always up by five, never asleep past six, and always brought work home with her. She was lucky if she got five hours a night, so was it too much to ask for them not to bother her between midnight and when the sun came up?
Stealey whipped her pillow across the room, and cursed herself for not having the courage to ignore the damn siren call of work. No wonder she couldn’t find a steady boyfriend. There wasn’t time for herself, let alone anyone else.
She swung her long, toned legs from under the covers and walked over to the nightstand. When she reached out for the pager, she realized why she had been dreaming about throttling her karate instructor. Stealey winced as she was reminded of her sore left breast. Always pushing herself to get better, Stealey, a third-degree black belt, had gotten overly aggressive while sparring with her instructor. She had landed a glancing blow to the older man’s head, but in the process left herself wide open. Master Jing, not one to let such a mistake go unpunished, responded with a lightning-quick strike that knocked her clean off her feet. Stealey could still picture Master Jing standing over her, chiding her for such a foolish mistake. She would have attempted a reply if it wasn’t for the fact that there was no longer any air left in her lungs.
She picked up the pager and looked at the small readout. When she saw the number staring back at her she said, “Oh shit.”
Stealey ran from her room. The Department of Justice had a twenty-four-hour command center, and there were only two reasons why they would be calling her in the middle of the night. She reached the kitchen, where she immediately noticed the blinking message light on her answering machine. Stealey pressed play and grabbed her cell phone to turn it on. She kept a fan on in her bedroom and turned off the ringers at night so she could sleep. The pager was kept in her bedroom on the off chance someone really needed to get hold of her.
The attorney general’s voice came out of the small speaker on her answering machine. His only direction was to call him immediately. Even though the message was brief she could tell something was wrong.
She grabbed her phone and dialed his cell phone number. He answered on the first ring. “Peg, are you on a land line?”
“Ah…no. I’m on a cordless.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
She pulled her hair back trying to think of an excuse and finally told him the truth. “Sleeping.”
“Listen to me. I can’t discuss this with you over an open line. Get to the Joint Counterterrorism Center immediately and call me back.”
Before she could ask what was going on the line went dead.
Stealey just stood there in her kitchen, left dumbfounded and staring at the cordless phone. The new Joint Counterterrorism Center was only a few miles from her apartment. The facility was near Tyson’s Corner, on the far western edge of the Beltway, and had just recently opened. The idea behind the top secret facility was twofold. The first was to get the FBI and the CIA working together on the war on terrorism, and the second was to get the FBI’s counterterrorism people out of downtown.
The rationale behind that move was pretty straightforward. FBI headquarters was a target of high value for terrorists, and if they succeeded in destroying the building, they would take with it the very agents who were supposed to investigate the attack.
The gravity of what must be going on began to seep in. She was supposed to keep a Go Bag packed at all times for just this type of situation. Stealey cursed herself for not paying more attention during all the exercises.
They’d given her three phones, and two pagers, and instructed her to carry all of them with her at all times. Her feeling had been that the entire thing was overkill. One phone and pager were designated to be used during the normal course of business. The second phone and two-way pager were given top priority on cellular towers, and the last phone, which was still in its box, was an iridium satellite phone to be used if regular service was knocked out.
All she’d wanted was five hours of sleep. She placed the cordless phone back in its cradle and said, “This better not be a damn drill.”
Even as she started down the hall to get dressed, she knew it wasn’t. Stokes would have told her, plus they didn’t wake the attorney general up in the middle of the night for drills. Stealey picked up the pace. She threw on a gray pants suit and stuffed some toiletries and extra garments into the bag she was supposed to have packed, and then headed back to the living room. She took a quick look at herself in the mirror by the door. Her hair was a mess and she still had sleep lines on her face. Screw it, she thought. I’ll have to do it in the car.
Stealey yanked open the front hall closet and started chucking boxes out of the way until she found the satellite phone they’d given her more than a year ago. She doubted the battery was charged, but she’d bring it anyway. She was almost out the door when she realized she didn’t have her purse, so she went back to the kitchen table to get it. She threw the bag over her shoulder, grabbed her purse, and left, forgetting to lock the door. Stealey was already in the garage by the time she realized her mistake and cursed herself up and down. She almost went back and then thought better of it. Something told her now was not the time to worry about unlocked doors.
AFGHANISTAN
The two vehicles arrived back at the base with little fanfare. The Special Forces contingent had their own section of the base and an MP in a Humvee escorted them to General Harley’s command tent. Rapp started to get out of the truck before it stopped. He was so sick of listening to Waheed Abdullah scream he’d actually thought of knocking him out. Rapp had been shot before, and there was nothing pleasant about it, but the man had been screaming, moaning, and crying now for close to thirty minutes.
Rapp lifted the back hatch half hoping Abdullah would roll out and hit the ground hard enough to break his jaw. His wish did not come true. The Saudi screamed even louder once he saw his tormentor. Soldiers began spilling out of the command tent, followed by General Harley. Rapp would have liked to avoid this scene, but there’d been a change of plans. Urda and his Afghani bodyguards grabbed the other two prisoners and leaned them against the SUV.
No one, least of all General Harley, noticed, or cared, or more likely dared ask Rapp why he’d left with five prisoners and returned with only three. There were certain things Harley was just better off not knowing.
“You want medical attention for this one?” asked Harley, as he pointed to Abdu
llah, who was between shrieks and breathing so heavily he looked as if he might pass out.
Rapp wanted to crack him over the head with the butt of his pistol and knock him out, but doing it in front of all these officers would be a real bad idea. Reluctantly, he agreed to the medical attention for Abdullah. Rapp, at any rate, needed to look at the intel they’d seized from the village before he interrogated Abdullah and the others again. Right now he had no way of gauging what was the truth and what were lies.
A medic showed up and quickly assessed the prisoners’ wounds. Urda asked Rapp if they should take the other two prisoners away. Rapp told him no. Showing them that their captors could have some compassion was a good thing.
Rapp walked over to the medic and bent down so no one else could hear. “Give him just a little bit of morphine. Enough to last thirty minutes, tops.” The medical treatment might be just the right thing, thought Rapp. A little bit of morphine to dull the pain temporarily, and then when it started to wear off he might become real talkative.
He stood over Abdullah and quietly spoke to him in Arabic. “I am going to check on what you just told me, and if I find out you’ve been lying to me, I’m going to start cutting your fingers off one by one.”
Rapp straightened up and waved Urda over. The two CIA men huddled with General Harley, and Rapp asked the older man, “You have a place where Jamal can continue interrogating these three?”
“It’s all set up and ready to go…recording equipment and all. I’ve also got some Delta boys who are more than eager to assist.”
“Good.” Rapp turned to Urda, but before he could talk, the general grabbed his arm.
“Listen…if you need to get rough with them I don’t want anyone other than the Delta guys in the room, and make sure the cameras are turned off.”
Both Rapp and Urda nodded.
“And no executions,” Harley whispered. Gossip on a military base was as common as morning PT. “You guys need to resort to any of that stuff you take them off base again.” The general glared at both men to make sure they were clear on this point.
“Understood,” said Rapp. Urda nodded.
Harley nodded with satisfaction and then turned to one of his men. “Captain, would you please escort Mr. Urda and his…” Harley almost used the word prisoners, but stopped short. “Would you please take Mr. Urda to the place we discussed.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Afghani bodyguards grabbed Abdullah, while Urda took hold of the other two by their elbows and they were off.
As Harley watched them leave he said to Rapp in a low tone, “I can’t believe they’ve got a nuke.”
Rapp still held out some hope. “We don’t know for sure what they have, but we have to assume the worst and work our way back from there. Hopefully, all they’ve got is a dirty bomb, and they never get the chance to light it.”
Harley was silent for a second. His people had found another piece of evidence that he hadn’t shared with Rapp yet. “I’ve got family in D.C.”
“They haven’t beaten us yet, General.”
“No, but I can’t even believe they’ve gotten this far.” He waved his arm to the south toward the distant mountains. “We need more men, and I’m not just talking snake eaters.” Harley used the slang for Special Forces. “We need three combat divisions and a whole lot of support. We need to go up into those mountains and end this thing.”
“Well, if they set a bomb off in D.C., you’ll get your wish.”
The general shook his head, his sense of foreboding deepening. “If they set off a nuke in D.C., this entire region will be turned into a pile of radioactive rubble.”
“Well, let’s hope they don’t succeed.”
Harley didn’t seem real optimistic at the moment. He waved for Rapp to follow him. “Let’s get started.”
They stepped into the large tent and the general walked over to a table set up with food and coffee. “You must be hungry.”
“Starved.” Rapp grabbed a turkey sandwich and tore at the cellophane. When a large enough portion was free, he took a big bite and then poured himself a cup of black coffee. While Harley explained what they were doing, Rapp continued to eat.
Large rectangular tables were arranged around the room in a horseshoe pattern. A morass of cables and cords connected the various computers, scanners, flat-panel monitors, printers, and fax machines. Most of the men and women were wearing desert BDUs, but a few were in civilian clothes, which meant they were CIA.
“This first group over here is working with your people back in Washington to decipher the data on the computers. The other two groups are poring through the files and separating them by language. More of it is in Arabic than we originally thought.” The general pointed to the last table. “Those are Urda’s people. Anything we find written in Urdu or Pashto we immediately kick over to them. We’ve already found several things of interest. Follow me.”
Harley walked over to one of the large bulletin boards that ringed the perimeter of the tent. Pinned to its middle was the map of Washington, D.C., that had everyone so worked up. Next to it was another map that Rapp hadn’t seen.
“We found this folded up and stuffed in a file.” Harley pointed to the upper portion of the map. “Can you read any of it?”
“Some of it.” Rapp studied the map. More than anything he recognized the shape of the large blue body of water in the middle. “It’s the Caspian, right?”
“Correct,” answered Harley. The map was of the Caspian Sea with Iran to the south and Kazakhstan to the north. “Any idea why they would bother with a map of the Caspian?”
Rapp stared at it for a moment. “None whatsoever.”
“Well, neither did we.” Harley slid over a bit. “These maps need no introduction,” he said, pointing.
One was of the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, and the other one was of Florida and the northern part of the Caribbean.
Harley touched the map and asked, “Do you see what’s been circled?”
“New York, Miami, Baltimore, and Charleston.”
“That’s right. The four busiest ports on the East Coast.”
“Shit.”
“That’s not even the worst of it,” replied the general. “Come look at this.” He walked Rapp around the outside of the tables to the area where Urda’s people were set up. The three bearded men were dressed casually and so focused was their attention that they paid no attention to Rapp and the general.
“These are our Pashto guys. They were the ones who found the names of the missing Pakistani nuclear scientists.”
“What else have they discovered?”
“Detailed descriptions on how to shield a nuclear warhead and sneak it past the sensors we have at all the aforementioned ports.”
Rapp closed his eyes out of frustration. “What else?”
“A laundry list of materials needed to build the fire set and how to assemble and shape the explosive charge to achieve maximum yield.”
The yield was how the explosive power of the bomb was measured. “Have we discovered the yield?”
“According to this right here,” Harley tapped a file lying on the table, “twenty kilotons.”
“Say again?” asked a somewhat shocked Rapp.
“Twenty kilotons.”
“That’s no dirty bomb.”
“No.”
“Any idea where they got this thing? Did they steal it from the Pakistanis?”
“So far we haven’t a clue, but all of this is being sent back to the Joint Counterterrorism Center, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council. I would imagine someone very high up in our government will be calling Pakistan any moment and demanding a full accounting of their nuclear arsenal.”
“I hope you’re right. What else?”
“We have some interesting bills of lading we’re trying to decipher, but it’s a real jigsaw puzzle.”
“What about something arriving by air yesterday?”
Harley asked one of the
analysts, and was told no.
“Could it be on one of the computers?” asked Rapp.
The analyst shrugged. He had no idea.
Harley and Rapp walked over to the section that was working on the computers. They were told that so far nothing involving shipping records had been unearthed, but they’d barely scratched the surface.
Rapp wondered if Abdullah had lied to him and thought it might be a good idea to put a few more questions to him. “General, can one of your men bring me to where the interrogations are being conducted?”
Harley called out for one of his aides. He told the junior officer where to take the man from the CIA and then said to Rapp, “If we come up with anything new, I’ll send for you.”
“All right.” Rapp started to leave and then turned. “General, one more favor. Would you have my plane gassed up and ready to go?”
“Consider it done.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Special Agent Skip McMahon had been with the FBI since the day he’d graduated from Penn State thirty-five years earlier. He’d seen a lot of strange stuff. He’d been involved in more stressful cases than perhaps anyone else at the Bureau, but this one was looking as if it might take the cake. He knew the current situation wasn’t a drill because as the man who ran the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, he would have been in on it.
To be rousted in the middle of the night by the shrill ring of his STU-3 secure telephone was never a pleasant experience, but on this particular evening the message he received from the Counterterrorism Watch Center caused him to bolt from his bed and get dressed as fast as his arthritic knees allowed.
Operation Ark had been implemented. The president, his cabinet, the Supreme Court, and the leaders of the House and Senate were all being evacuated from the city. That was part of what they called, “COG,” or continuity of government. McMahon was part of “COOP,” or continuity of operations. While they fled, it was his job to stay, and try to stop whatever it was that the terrorists were attempting.
At the moment, he was trying to do just that from an elevated glass-enclosed room at the new Tyson’s Corner facility. He looked out onto CT Watch, a 24/7 center that monitored terrorist activities around the world. The high-tech room was manned by sixty-two special agents and another twenty-three intelligence analysts from the CIA. The analysts were part of the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC). The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center was located on a separate floor.