Kyle was shuffled between houses just like some of his friends whose parents were divorced. One day, Cade happened to be in Kyle’s dorm room when someone knocked on the door. He remembered it like it was yesterday. A knock on the door was somewhat strange in the dorm because no one ever knocked. Kyle yelled, “Come in,” but the knock repeated itself. Kyle yelled again, but there was no response. He then got up and opened the door. A campus police officer was standing there, his drill-sergeant-style hat in his hands. The guy was so tall it looked like he’d hit his head on the top of the doorframe if he tried to walk in. “Are you Kyle MacKerron?” Kyle stood there, not knowing if he was in trouble or if it were something much worse.
“Yes, sir.”
The officer tilted his head down slightly, stepped in, and closed the door behind him. “Son, you might want to sit down.” But Kyle’s feet were glued to the floor. “Son, I’m sorry to report that there’s been an accident. It’s your father. He’s been killed, apparently in the line of duty. I’m sorry . . .”
Even Cade couldn’t remember what else was said after that. The officer was speaking, but the words coming out of his mouth were not audible, as though they’d been eaten in midair. For the first time, for the only time, Cade watched his friend crumple to the ground and cry.
The funeral was unlike anything Cade had ever witnessed. Six or seven hundred firefighters from communities all over the state—and even a few from the other side of the country—attended. Firefighters in full dress uniform lined the route all the way from the church to the cemetery. Apparently, Mr. MacKerron had become trapped inside a collapsing warehouse fire. The roof above him caved in, and he had suffered a few broken ribs. His partner was knocked to the ground, unconscious. In what must have been excruciating pain, MacKerron wedged the heavy timber off of his partner, axed his way through the exterior wall of the building, and pushed his partner out into the arms of other firefighters. Then, the interior of the building collapsed. Kyle’s dad was gone, but not before saving one last life.
It wasn’t long before the auditorium was almost full. The graduating class of agent trainees all walked in together. Seventeen men and three women all in their Sunday best occupied the front two rows. The place was a collection of dark navy business suits. The stage itself wasn’t dissimilar to so many others. Huge, long drapes hung across, and a lectern stood front and center with the FBI emblem blazing in front. There were four empty chairs that stood just off to the right. A few minutes later, a man with wiry salt-and-pepper hair in a navy business suit walked out.
“Folks, thanks for being here today. At the FBI, we are a big family, and we’re glad to see you all, our extended family, here. Today marks a very important moment, the graduation of twenty outstanding agent trainees. These young men and women will go out into the world and make this country a better place. We owe them a debt of gratitude.” He began clapping, which cascaded throughout the auditorium. “So before we get started, let me make an announcement. As I look around, I see several families with young children, so I do need to go over the rules of what to do if your child has an outburst. This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is a very solemn occasion, and we have rules here. Under the guidance of Stephen Latent, the director of the FBI, the rules regarding crying children are as follows.” He removed a piece of paper from his coat pocket, unfolded it, and began to read, “If you have a crying child, please, please, please, whatever you do . . . do not move from your seat.” He paused for effect and looked up over his glasses. “You are not allowed to remove crying children!” The grin on his face was contagious and elicited laughter. “Folks, the director has four young boys of his own—he understands family, and he understands what an important occasion this is for you. He also knows many of you have travelled long distances to be here, so if your child cries, don’t worry about it. We don’t want you to miss this. This is something you’ll never forget.”
The tone for the ceremony had been set. Yes, this might be a solemn occasion, but they were going to have some fun with it too. Director Latent walked out, and after talking about the training and how proud they were of these graduates, the names began to be read. Each trainee walked singly to the stage where the director awarded them their badge and credentials. This was followed by a brief photo opportunity on the stage with the director, the trainee, and family. When Kyle’s name was called, Cade knew Kyle would be thinking about his father, wishing he was there.
After the ceremony, Cade walked up to Kyle and shook his hand, a firm, vise-like grip, and looking directly into his eyes said, “Kyle, your dad would be really proud of you right now.” Kyle smiled as he fought hard against his emotions.
“Thanks, man. Thanks for being here.”
Back at the dorms, the last of Kyle’s bags were thrown into his over-packed car. Kyle’s new duty station in San Diego would put him to work in the bank robbery division just five days from today.
“Come on, I’ve got one more thing to do before I leave this place,” said Kyle.
They walked across campus to a building they had not toured the previous day. Past a small gift shop where trainees and a few guests were buying FBI paraphernalia, they descended a wide set of stairs underneath a sign that read “Armory.” They were going to check out Kyle’s firearm for the very last time. Cade hadn’t even thought about it. But this whole time, Kyle had been just a trainee. Trainees used firearms daily here, but they were not permitted to carry them. It wasn’t until they had been awarded their FBI credentials that they became federal agents. It was only now that they were authorized to carry their weapons.
“Oh, by the way,” said Kyle, “Jodie Foster walked through the middle of that room in the movie.” Cade looked across the hall into the large room. It was full of what appeared to be DEA agent-trainees. They were dressed in black fatigues, distinguishing them from the gray sweats worn by FBI trainees. The trainees stood at long tables, cleaning their firearms before checking them back in to the armory. Chatter pervaded the room.
“Hey, wait a minute,” said Cade. “In the movie, she walked right through this room like she had come from some other hallway or something. There’s nothing over there but a solid wall. They faked it.”
Cade stood off to the side of the hallway while Kyle stood in line with a few other new agents at the armory window. Watching them closely, he noticed something about the stone-cold look in their faces. They were about to walk out of there as real federal agents. From this moment forward, if anything happened right in front of them, they were expected to react. Hell, Kyle could be driving to his duty station at the San Diego field office and step into the middle of a robbery in a McDonald’s. He would have to react; he was responsible now. This was for real, and these guys knew it.
17
Jana Baker had been on the FBI’s counterterrorism squad for just a few months. The truth was, she was a rookie, fresh out of Quantico. Atlanta was a prized assignment to new trainees, and she was excited beyond words to be there. The city was vibrant, clean, and a hell of a lot more affordable than other places. There were no easy assignments in the FBI, but some duty stations were worse than others. Detroit was dreaded. And even New York City, which carried so much appeal, was so expensive that agents routinely lived ninety minutes away. No, Atlanta was a prize. It beat the hell out of Brownsville, Texas, that’s for sure.
A multi-year stack of transfer requests hung over the Atlanta field office. But this particular field office was short on young female agents. Some surveillance roles desperately needed a female to play the part. As an agent on the counterterrorism squad, she spent much of her time assigned to track suspected terrorists, or those that might sponsor them. Although the bureau would never have said it publicly, they not only needed a female, they needed a young, attractive female to fit into some undercover assignments.
Jana hadn’t thought of this type of work while in college, but she inadvertently created the perfect background for just such a career. Her major in accounting
gave her a decided advantage over other applicants. She spoke fluent Spanish after years of high school and college classes. And she was a marathon runner; the bureau loved athletic applicants. After all, this was the FBI, not some charm school.
Even though she never considered a career in federal law enforcement, the truth was, she was exhilarated by it. Counterterrorism was the pinnacle unit within the bureau, and she wasn’t about to screw it up. Just after she arrived in Atlanta, the office had received a call from a Homeland Security agent who interviewed a Saudi Arabian citizen named Waseem Jarrah as he entered the country in New York. He wasn’t on a watch list, but the agent didn’t like some of the answers to questions he provided. There was nothing illegal about his entry, and they had no choice but to release him from the customs holding area at La Guardia. The agent called the FBI because of what he called “a hunch.” The bureau had made a few mistakes of late in not following up on potential terror leads and so had tightened its stance on suspicious persons.
New agents typically work with a senior trainer, but Jana was ready to be out on her own, particularly where surveillance was concerned. Waseem Jarrah was her first solo assignment. She was the one to field the call from Homeland Security, and since this suspect was a “no-priority,” her shift supervisor gave her the green light. After all, he figured this would be a good case for a rookie to start on. He told her he wanted solid background work. Where did Jarrah come from? What was his real name? Who were his associates? Where was he going? Who was he meeting with? Arriving from Saudi Arabia on an Air Emirates flight didn’t exactly win him points with Homeland Security. It would be Jana’s job to fill in the blanks.
The high sun created a glare across the closely mowed grass of the baseball field. She watched the men as they stood on the pitcher’s mound facing each other. Baker looked for anything to exchange hands and needed to find out who this Jamaican-looking male was, his neck draped in long dreadlocks. As she slipped the small earphones over her head, she looked more like she was listening to music than working a terrorist suspect. Aiming the laser mic, she strained to hear the conversation through her headphones. The light breeze caused some distortion, but she double checked and found the mic was working properly. She didn’t want to return to the office and have nothing to show for it. The camera shutter discharged once, twice, then several times in rapid succession. The two men paid her no attention. She was too far away. The breeze eased, and the conversation became clear in the headset.
“. . . and der ain’ gonna be no more o’ dis bullshit, mon. You got me?” said the tall Rastafarian.
“No bullshit?” replied Waseem Jarrah. “What the hell are you talking about? Your money is being used for exactly what we said it would be. You wanted people to die? People are dying. You wanted people to panic; people are panicking. The eleventh strike of our jihad happened yesterday morning. Perhaps you’ve heard about it?” Waseem said, his impatience beginning to boil. The Tucson bombing had been splashed across every news outlet in the country. “And something else. I told you we exemplify precision. No one can hit like this. Eleven events in eleven months. Precision. And did you notice the timing of the events? They are cycling down,” needled Waseem. “Each occurring one day sooner than the last. These pigs will panic once they figure that out.”
Jana’s heart leapt into her throat. She could barely believe what she was hearing.
“Oh. So de timin’ of de bombin’s goin’ to put de fear o’ God in dem, heh?” replied Bastian, pounding a finger into Waseem’s chest.
“Back off me, motherfucker. Not only does each bombing happen one day closer than the last, they happen one hour, one minute, and one second earlier than the last. Just watch and see. The media will get hold of that piece of information, and it will spread like a wave of panic across this armpit of a country. You just wait. They’ll have a countdown to the next bombing. Everyone will know exactly when it will happen, but no one will know where. The pigs will be so scared, they won’t even leave their houses. Commerce will stop, and commerce is what moves the beast.”
But the Jamaican, Bastian, was not impressed. “I was lookin’ far a little bigger bang for de buck, mon.” His anger was apparent. “Your timin’ of little bombs, heh? We be up to one million dollars US. Dat’s a lot of green. Could buy me a lot o’ ganja for dat mon,” he said. “I tol’ your man dat I was lookin’ for revenge in a beeg way.”
In the excitement, Agent Baker strained to hear over her heavy breathing. “Holy Christ!” she said out loud, quickly stopping herself, afraid her excitement would be on the recording. It was like adrenaline mixed with crack cocaine and sex all wrapped up into one euphoria. She almost didn’t know what to do.
“And where de hell is Rashid, anyway?” continued Bastian.
“Rashid”—Waseem yawned—“ah, yes, Rashid.” Waseem squinted across into right field. “Well, Rashid is the reason you are talking to me right now, isn’t it?”
“Tell me what I don’t know, mon,” said Bastian. “Where de hell is he? I tol’ him de bank was gonna run dry unless he put me onto the sons o’ bitches what could make a decision. I suppose dat’s you? Are you Meestah Beeg Shot? I was sick a talkin’ to a message delivery ser-veece. But de fact is, I don’ truss you, mon. You don’ look like you know your ass from a hole in de wall.”
Waseem’s glare pierced. “Rashid will not be joining us.” The words ricocheted out of his mouth like spitfire. “As these pagan-worshiping Christians would say, Rashid received his ‘calling.’ We invited him to go to a little town in the southwest. A little place called Tucson. He performed admirably. However, his usefulness is now scattered across a Little League ball field, not unlike this one.”
Jana’s camera clicked repeatedly as she struggled against shaking hands.
Bastian’s only response was a glare. His earlier contact, Rashid, was dead. He knew he was now dealing with what he was looking for: a decision maker. Having slowly given chunks of money to the terrorist organization, he had worked his way up to the level of the real players, the ones who controlled the smaller terror cells that had spread across the United States like a cancer seeding itself in an unknowing body—quiet, patient, then deadly.
18
Cade got into work early on Monday. As much as he dreaded it, he knew today was D-Day. It was time to start working on the seventeenth floor, what he had not-so-affectionately began to call “Red October,” named after the famed Russian submarine movie. He grabbed a cardboard box from the copy room and emptied his desk contents, not that there was that much to grab.
Whitmore walked over but stopped short. “What the . . . ? What are you doing? Wait a minute, there’s no way they fired you! Well, you can just kiss my gay white ass if they think they can fire you! You know, I’m so sick of this crap!”
Cade held up his hands, already laughing. Just like old Whitmore to get all spun up about something that he didn’t yet understand.
“No, no. Dude, relax. I’m not fired.” Cade’s scrunched face foretold that whatever he was about to say, he wasn’t happy about. “I’ve been moved upstairs. I’ve got to go work on DEFCON 4 up on seventeen. I guess you can tell I’m thrilled about it.”
“Seventeen? What the hell do they want with you up there?” The heavy emphasis made it sound like Cade was not “upper-floor” material. “I mean, not that you’re not good enough or something. You know, I mean I’m sure they think you’re good at your job and all, I just meant . . .”
“Whitmore, Whitmore, Whitmore. Slow down there, Mr. McBacktracker. I’m sure they think I’m okay at my job. No, that’s not it. I just got called up there last week, and they were in a big mess. But honestly, I don’t know why they want me. I didn’t fix anything. It was like, I found out what was going wrong, but before I could do anything about it, the e-mail send job was over anyway, and they sent me out.”
Whitmore said, “So what was the big deal they couldn’t fix themselves? What, was it some big important e-mail or something?”
Cade didn’t want to say too much, but he also hated being evasive. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure it was some critical e-mail job that alerted customers to the 5 percent off sale at Penney’s or something. I never even saw the e-mail content. I don’t know what happened. Whoever normally worked up there wasn’t around, so they came and grabbed me. Now that I think about it, I wonder what happened to the other guy.”
“Well, if you find a big box up there full of body parts, let me know; I’ll help you move it,” said Whitmore grinning.
“Hey, maybe we can get together for lunch. I don’t know about today, but maybe tomorrow if things settle down.”
In the elevator, Cade wondered if his keycard would give him access to that floor. He swiped it, and to his surprise, the button for seventeen lit up, and the doors closed. Hmm. Must have gotten me cleared onto the floor. Cade’s keycard unlocked the door from the hallway as well. He went ahead and set his box on an empty cube, looking around for Mr. Johnston.
An icy voice walked up behind him—“Hey, Radio Shack, over this way”—and continued on, never glancing at Cade. It was the William-Macy-looking guy. A slight thump of irritation registered in Cade’s gut. He didn’t like this guy, nor did he like being called “Radio Shack,” like he was just some tech nerd who had forgotten to wear his pocket protector today. Cade followed but had to catch up because William Macy was walking so fast. They walked out onto the server floor and back towards the same desk he’d been seated at last week during the Red October battle-stations alert. Fortunately, this morning, the lighting was much better, and no red strobes pulsed overhead.
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