The Fourteenth Protocol_A Thriller

by Nathan Goodman

“Don’t I wish,” said Jana. “Where’s the nearest restaurant with valet parking?”

  A few minutes later, they were two blocks up. Station Number 11 was a restaurant that sat just adjacent to a sprawling condo building. It had been a fire station until about fifteen years ago when budget cuts plagued the city. The conversion to a restaurant and bar had been a hit with the locals, yet since crime was common in the midtown area, they’d elected for valet parking to help with security.

  “Okay, we’re here,” said Cade. “Now what?”

  “You wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.” Jana watched a few more cars stop in front of the valet station. As the valet drove the last car behind the building, she ran over to the key box, grabbed a set of keys, and ran back. As the valet ran back to the front, a young couple that looked like they were on a first date wandered outside of the restaurant and handed the valet their ticket.

  Cade and Jana held hands and strolled towards the rear of the building as if they owned the place. The valet drove back past them, taking little notice. On the key chain, Jana pressed the key fob’s unlock button, and a black Ford Explorer chirped, its parking lights blinking once. They were in and out in less than two minutes. They pulled out and headed south on Interstate 85, then exited quickly and took the back roads, holding to the speed limit. They were both still shell-shocked. A headache was brewing, and Jana squinted against the lights of oncoming cars. Exhaustion began to overtake them both. It wouldn’t be long before they would need to find a place to pull off and conceal the car.

  48

  At this time of night, the Queens neighborhood was very quiet. The only sound that could be heard was a lone dog barking some blocks off in the distance. At 217 175th Street, two patient men in the basement entered their sixteenth hour of continuous work. Beads of sweat hung from their dark brows, and when it dripped, it nestled itself in thick, black beards. The temperature in the basement was a comfortable seventy-six, but the precision work was nerve-racking and required a steady hand. If they made a mistake now and accidentally detonated the device, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. After all, the two of them would not survive very long anyway under radiation exposure of this magnitude. And, since the device was to be used against the beast, it would have served its purpose well having annihilated a dozen city blocks in the highly populated area of Queens, New York.

  However, the pair would do everything in their power to bring the device to its fully active state. If successful in these final critical steps of assembly, the device would be transported to its true intended destination, thereby completing their final objective. Allah’s rewards will be grand, thought one of them.

  “Get me Senator Highton,” said Latent into the phone. It was one thirty in the morning, and he was not in a good mood. “I know he’s sleeping, goddammit! Wake him, and wake him right now.”

  A few moments later, the senator picked up the phone. “Latent—good Christ, man, do you know what time it is? You better damn well have a good reason for . . .”

  “Senator, we have a Baker-Able scenario. I’m invoking Executive Order 2213.”

  The phone went silent as the seventy-three-year-old senator tried to process what he’d just heard.

  “But, wait. You don’t mean . . . ? Baker-Able? Holy shit. I’ll assemble the committee and be down there in . . .”

  But Latent interrupted him again. “No need, Senator. There are six agents standing outside your front door. Be dressed in five minutes. They’ll take you to a secure location. All the other committee members are en route. And, senator, not a word of this to anyone.”

  Senator Leyland Highton was the chairman of the Senate Oversight Subcommittee, which held several special powers. One of the least known was a power that, until now, had never been invoked in the history of the United States. Executive Order 2213 had been enacted in 1865 under Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was not in favor of the idea, but didn’t exactly oppose it either. At the time of the Civil War, there was an enormous amount of espionage and deception on both sides. Fears of a presidential assassination were high. And if that happened, it might be possible for opposition forces to seat a new commander in chief that was sympathetic to the Confederacy. This caused deep-rooted fears of a new sitting president that might commit treason against the people of the United States.

  Lourdes Bruhaus and Winthorp Algester were both congressmen at the time. Neither one had any love of slavery, but they had no love for the war either, nor were they alone. Fearing the country might slip into chaos if the war wasn’t brought to a close, they went to work spreading their idea. They described a scenario in which a sitting president, who had more power than any single person in the country, might abuse his power. The Baker-Able scenario, as it became known, pointed out that Lincoln had gone against the will of the people and of Congress to enact the war in the first place. And, in their minds, this itself was an act of treason. The two congressmen were not able to gain popular support for an actual charge of treason against the president. However, their ideas resonated as they explained that there had to be a way to unseat a conspiratorial president. When the war finally ended, they quietly attached their amendment onto an existing ratification whose original purpose had been to return property rights to southern landowners. The mood in Congress was so positive right after the war, the bill was passed. Only a special Senate subcommittee could officially enact the measure against the president. It was time for Director Latent to sell his case.

  49

  In the shabby gray apartment that morning, Maqued glanced around. Dust caked the tops of the few creaky cabinets in the kitchen. The ancient linoleum was worn through in spots, exposing plywood hiding below. It was quiet, and only the hum of the murmuring refrigerator was audible. He placed the mat down at his feet facing east. His father gave him the mat when he was seven years old. Memories of his father only came in flashes, like the flickering of an old newsreel. Just spurts of a hint of a man—the feel of his rustling beard against Maqued’s face, the faint little whistle his nose made when he breathed, the jingle of coins in his pocket, and the wafting smell of incense.

  Maqued grinned at the thought of his father. It was 5:05 a.m. He dropped to his knees and went facedown, praying. He finished his morning prayers, and with one more glance around the Spartan dwelling with dirty curtains, he rose to his feet. Maqued knew Allah. Although Allah would be proud—and the rewards grand—Allah was unsympathetic. Maqued had no choice. He boarded his bus at 5:25 a.m. on perfect schedule. He made the first circle on his route, crossing the bridge for the first time that day. He glanced at his watch. Tick, tick, tick. The ticking came like echoing hammers pounding on forged bronze, and Maqued was afraid.

  50

  Waseem Jarrah’s activities had been monitored closely, but nothing else in his behavior produced viable clues as to where the next bombing target would be. The next attack was only hours away. Agents from the bureau were frantic. No one was sleeping. Hundreds more agents from around the country had been reassigned to the case. They were pounding the pavement, looking for anything that might provide a clue. Since his appointment as director of the FBI, Stephen Latent was in the most precarious position he had ever conceived. Back in Washington, his daily security briefings with the president were set to resume. The president himself represented a conundrum of deadly proportions. How far up did this conspiracy go? If the president had invoked the Fourteenth Protocol, authorizing the CIA to conduct this operation, then he knew full well what was going on. Dozens, if not hundreds, of CIA operatives would be working the terrorism case in utter secrecy. In fact, if the president had authorized it, he could thwart Latent’s attempts to stop the bombings in their tracks.

  He stared at his own reflection in the framed mirror in his master bath. The mirror’s twin hung empty over the sink next to him. He may as well have divorced his wife the day he took office. After a while of never being home for her, she thought of him more as a roommate that showed up late and was gone before she woke up in t
he morning. She had been a casualty of power, a casualty of the war on terror.

  Dark circles outlined his upper cheekbones and he looked older. Out loud, but talking only to himself, he reassured himself, “This is not my agenda. I didn’t sign up for this shit. This is not who we are. I don’t care about anything else anymore. These bombings will stop, and no one will get in my way . . . not even the president.”

  The clock was ticking, and the only thing Latent could do was wait.

  51

  Twenty-four-year-old Mike McCutcheon arrived at the State Street train station with his web-purchased ticket in hand. It was the first Saturday after his second full week on the job at McFeny, Stein, and Lawson, a criminal defense practice on Fortieth Street in Manhattan. It had been Mike’s dream to get this internship, and he knew that if he could prove himself to the three law partners, he could write his own ticket.

  The burden of debt hanging over Mike’s head from law school had brought him—for the third time in his young adult life—back home to New Haven to live with his parents. The commute from New Haven to Manhattan was over an hour and a half, and it was killing him. On weekdays, with a 6:23 a.m. departure, he would arrive in Manhattan at exactly 8:06. That left fifteen minutes to walk the two blocks from Grand Central down to Fortieth Street and the firm’s office. He originally thought he’d work a few months, then find a roommate to share a dumpy apartment somewhere in the city. But this living at home crap was a real drag when it came to meeting girls. He needed to live in town now. He was saving money, but at around forty dollars per day, he was also spending a lot on his commute. It was a Saturday, and today, he would go into the city and begin looking at apartments.

  Mike edged his way across the train platform, just one speck in the mosh pit of people climbing their way up the three steps and onto a rail car. He reveled at the number of people commuting on a Saturday morning; it was almost as full as a typical weekday. Many were tourists, but several appeared to be blue-collar workers headed to the job. Inside the train, if he could have seen the floor, he would have been revolted at the volume of filth that had accumulated after fifteen years of people slogging across it. But with riders shoulder to shoulder and face to back with each other as they looked for open seats, no one seemed to mind the stale smell of humanity clinging to the worn upholstery. He shuffled back to the first available seat, which happened to be on the right-hand side of the train. The seat next to him and the ones facing him were still empty, though not for long. The overhead bins were filling fast as commuters snugged their bags into a tightly nestled jam. The various forms of leather and canvas bags melded together in a sort of temporary marriage.

  As the train filled, Mike noticed a family hustling their way onto the platform. The station platform was still soaked with the latest unmerciful rainfall that had deluged the New Haven area over the past four days. Combined with higher than average temperatures, the morning sun seared against the steel tracks and caused a steamy vapor to rise off of everything. It smelled like a wet Labrador on a hot summer day.

  The State Street station was abutted by a little square of grass and trees called the Union Street Dog Park, a place not unfamiliar to mothers out for a morning walk, strollers leading the way. The park was small and covered with a small number of young trees. The few middle-aged oaks soaked up the remaining rays of sunlight that peeked through high clouds. There was no sign marking the park, only a single, dormant park bench facing the tracks, but everyone in the neighborhood knew it was there.

  On this particular morning, a man sat on the bench with a cell phone in his hand. Had anyone noticed him, they would have said he was not nervous, jumpy, or displaying any outward show of emotion. Nothing about his appearance or demeanor would have telegraphed his intent.

  The park’s only other patron was an older gentleman walking his Corgi behind a tightly stretched leather leash. The spry little dog didn’t appear to be aware of its small stature. Its narrow shoulders pinged up and down with each step in a sort of tiny-dog swagger.

  The train smoothed itself into an ever-increasing pace as it began its morning leg. It ambled past the park, taking no notice of the crisp air, the rising sun, or the glimmer of light bouncing off the fresh oak leaves. On the park bench, the man glanced at the cell phone, and pressed the call button. Holding it to his ear, he heard the phone pick up. There was only silence. The man on the bench said in a stoic, almost hollow tone, “I am become Death.”

  The sole reply came, “The destroyer of worlds.” The signal complete, the train was on its way . . . headed into certain catastrophe. The time was 7:59 a.m.

  52

  The small boy grinned ear to ear, proud to have won the race against his dad. They squeezed their way down the thin center aisle, holding onto seat backs against the train’s rocking motion, and plopped into the empty seats—mom and child across from Mike and dad next to him.

  Mike looked at the small boy still beaming over his victory and panting for breath. “Wow, just made it, huh? Did you race your dad?” said Mike.

  “Yeah, and beat him too! I always beat him. Johnny says it’s ’cause he lets me win, but it’s a really ’cause I’m so fast,” said the boy.

  Mike leaned in, his brow raised in full attentiveness to the boy. “So, where are you going in such a hurry?”

  “We’re goin’ to the Men-hatten. It’s a big place with big buildings and stuff. S’pose to be an island, but Dad says we won’t hardly know it.”

  Both parents looked relieved that their overly precocious child didn’t seem to be disturbing Mike.

  “Well, my name’s Mike.”

  “I’m a Mike too! But Mom calls me Mikey. I’m six.”

  The train coaxed itself into motion and rocked back and forth as it pushed its way past the Union Street Dog Park and underneath an overhead roadway, shadows blinking throughout the car.

  “Six! Wow,” said Mike. “You’re big for six. No wonder you beat your dad.”

  A voice came over the train’s PA system, garbled and only half intelligible.

  “This is the—stbound train. South—nd train. Next stop—anhattan—ext stop, Man—attan.”

  Picking up speed, the passengers settled into their ninety-minute commute with all the excitement of a summer siesta—newspapers and smartphones in hand, reading up on the morning’s news, getting ahead on the usual slog of e‑mail cramming their inboxes, and hoping the soaking rains had ended.

  The train settled into its top speed of sixty-seven miles per hour. The multi-ton locomotive hurled itself down the decades old tracks, slicing the dense morning air, steel on steel. Vehicles on parallel roadways slogged through stop-and-go traffic, making their way southwest to the various New York boroughs. The train’s slight rocking left and right elicited little response from sleeping passengers whose heads perched between the headrests and grimy outer windows.

  As the train crossed over a bridge spanning the swollen West River, Big Mike looked down.

  “Wow, hey, Mikey, look at all that water. That river is raging. I’ve never seen it like that.”

  “Why it’s so much water, Big Mike?”

  “It’s just from all the rain we’ve been having. There was just so much of it, it’s all rushing down that river. Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to be on a river raft down there! It’s like white water rafting!”

  Somewhere deep down inside, Big Mike wondered if someday he’d be a dad. He wasn’t ready for any of that now, but he had always known himself to be different from his friends. Scoring with girls and partying was all fun and good, but Mike wondered what the future would hold. This kid Mikey was cute. He was a bundle of energy, and his parents loved him; that much was obvious.

  The train was eleven miles away from a span of track that stretched across the Housatonic River. The river waters were also raging in a torrent that had not been seen in decades. The wide river, which had snaked its way between the Upper Peninsula and the Long Island Sound for thousands of years, withstood countless s
easonal floods. However, this spate of four days of torrential rains was different. One thing that concerned river authorities was the Millstone Nuclear Power Station that hugged its edge. The plant drew cooling capacity from the Housatonic’s cool flowing waters, and authorities worried over the possibility of flooding at the plant.

  The plant was massive. It spanned six football fields in length. Its twin nuclear cores were water cooled. The cooling towers themselves were over one hundred yards wide and so tall they cast a thick morning shadow across both the I-95 bridge and parallel train bridge.

  During the plant’s construction seventeen years prior, there had been a huge outpouring of protests. Environmentalists feared a potential catastrophe so close to such a densely populated section of the upper northeast. The facility even predated the construction of the highway. I-95 had not expanded this far north until five years after the facility first fired its reactors. When the eight-lane highway bridge and adjoining train track were under construction, no one envisioned any reason the facility’s proximity to the planned bridges should be of concern. But that was before the word jihad had become a staple within the North American vernacular.

  53

  “Hey, Shakey, yous goin’ to lunch today?”

  “Paul, it’s six thirty in the morning,” he replied. Shakey’s real name was Shakhar Kundi, but everyone at the plant called him Shakey. He was born in the United States, but grew up in Pakistan until it was time for his upper education. Shakey and his younger brother were raised in the Pashtun region in a mountainous area known as the Khojak Pass. His childhood taught him one thing: Westerners were not faithful to Allah. But it wasn’t until he was twelve that his uncle brought him out of the mountains and into the sprawling city of Lahore near the Indian border. Being separated from his brother and father weighed heavily upon his mind, but both his father and uncle wanted him to concentrate on his education and mature in the ways of Islam. Shakey was an excellent student with a sharp mind. Both men knew he had a gift, and that gift must be fostered and developed.