The Silent Man jw-3

by Alex Berenson

  “We’re guessing that whatever they have is in the back building. But it could be in the basement of the main house or even hidden somewhere else on the property,” Giese said. “We put up a sniffer”—a plane with equipment that could detect radioactive particles—“but it didn’t find anything. So we really don’t know.

  “C Company’s going in first. We’ll leave the Black Hawks here, drive to the perimeter of the property and move along the driveway on foot. The state police have blocked the road that leads to the farm where it runs across Route 417. The police are giving us a ride, but they’re not going in. Meanwhile, B Company will ride in and land between the house and the stable. But only after C has hit the buildings. I don’t want these guys to know we’re coming.”

  Giese handed out wallet-sized copies of the Newark immigration photographs. “Our primary targets. Our ROE”—rules of engagement—“say you can shoot on sight, no warning. We don’t know what they have, whether it’s a bomb or just material. But I want you to assume the worst. Assume they have a megaton bomb and they can trigger it remotely. And act accordingly. Any questions?”

  “Whose property is it, sir?”

  “According to the records, it belongs to a surgeon from Egypt. He bought it a couple of years ago and we can assume he’s part of whatever they’re doing. We’re still getting a photograph of him, but it doesn’t matter what he looks like. Once we cross that perimeter, everyone you see is subject to the ROE. Women and children included.”

  “Children, sir?”

  “If a child has the detonator, then he’s more dangerous than any adult. Other questions?”

  Silence.

  “All right. I’m going to ride lead. We don’t have time for any fancy speeches, and I don’t have to tell you what this means. So I won’t. But I would like to offer a quick prayer. If you want to join, huddle up and bow your heads and close your eyes.”

  Every man did. Including Wells.

  “Dear God, please help us overcome the enemy we face and keep our country safe from this most dangerous weapon. And please return us this night to our families and homes. Amen.”

  “Amen,” twenty-three voices said in return.

  “Saddle up.”

  THE TROOPERS DROVE FAST, lights flashing but no sirens. Wells and Gaffan sat in the rear Crown Vic.

  “Sergeant.”

  “Mr. Wells.”

  “What did I tell you about calling me mister? Or sir? I wish I’d known you were in D.C. We could have had a beer.”

  “I just got moved a couple months ago, sir. I mean John.”

  “Who’d you piss off to wind up on this detail?”

  Gaffan laughed. “I requested it. My wife was joking about divorcing me if she didn’t start seeing me more, and after a while it didn’t sound like she was joking. Anyway, I was tired of Afghanistan. Chasing those Talibs around the caves. It never ends, does it?”

  “It does for some. When we get through this, we’re going out for a drink. And this time, I want you to hold me to it.”

  “I’ll do that. Think they have a bomb?”

  Wells shook his head. No point in guessing.

  The convoy turned off 86 and onto 15. Then onto 417, and five minutes after that through a roadblock and left onto a nameless narrow road into the woods. A minute later, they pulled up outside the driveway, a rutted asphalt track that disappeared through thick woods over a low rise. A gray wooden mailbox beside the road announced “Repard” in faint black letters.

  The Suburbans and Crown Vics pulled over and the soldiers threw open the doors and stepped onto the road. When all twelve men were out, the vehicles rolled away. The only sound was the trickle of snow-melt dripping off branches. Without a word, the Deltas dropped the safeties on their M-16s and M-4s, checked the slides on their pistols, adjusted their Kevlar and bulletproof vests. They nodded to each other and lined up in pairs by the side of the driveway. Then Giese threw two fingers forward, and they began to run.

  At the top of the rise, they threw themselves down. The house was two hundred yards down the driveway, the Pontiac and Ford parked in front. The lights were out and Wells saw no signs of motion inside. Now they had to choose. They could run up the driveway, moving quickly but visible to anyone inside the house. Or they could spread into the woods, a slower and noisier but better hidden route. After a few seconds, Giese pointed his fingertips down the path. Two by two, the commandos ran toward the house. The first six men ran around it and toward the stable in back. The next four set up on the porch with a battering ram, preparing to break open the front door. Wells and Gaffan ran to the back of the house.

  The back door was unlocked. Wells slung it open and followed Gaffan into the kitchen. Three plates sat on the table, along with a dish of cucumber slices, a carton of orange juice, and a basket of pitas. Wells pulled open a cheap wooden door that looked like it led to the basement. Bingo. Gaffan took the stairs two at a time and Wells followed.

  In the basement, three clean whiteboards, a broken Ping-Pong table, three cans of Coke. No bomb, no terrorists hiding in corners. They ran back up the stairs and into the kitchen, where the other two teams waited. The other soldiers shook their heads. The house was clear. The stable, too, apparently. They hadn’t heard any shots or explosions or calls for help. These men, whoever they were, had eluded them again.

  Then Gaffan’s radio buzzed. “The stable,” he said.

  GIESE POKED with his foot at the brutalized corpse on the floor of the stable. “Seems they had a falling-out,” he said.

  “We know which one this is?” Wells said.

  Giese shook his head. “You find anything?”

  “The house is empty but there’s food in the kitchen,” Wells said. “Looks like they ate breakfast and left. It’s”—Wells looked at his watch—“one-thirty now. Say they left between seven and ten.”

  “In six hours, they could get three hundred, four hundred miles,” Giese said. “They could be in New York already, or Washington. Halfway to Chicago.”

  “Unless we shut down the whole eastern half of the country, we can’t freeze them. And if we do, they’ll know where they stand and they’ll blow this thing wherever they are.”

  “That’s a White House decision,” Giese said. “But in a couple hours, they’re going to have to cancel the State of the Union and then the game’s going to be up anyway. And for all we know, word’s leaking already. Too many people have bits of it.” He sighed and reached for his phone. “I have to call in. They’ll probably bring us back to Andrews, let the Rangers and the state cops take over here. You going to ride with us?”

  Wells shook his head. He wanted to look around the house and the stable, see if he could connect anything he saw with Bernard Kygeli. There was something he wasn’t remembering. Maybe the house would spark it.

  “Mind leaving me Gaffan?” he said. “I know him from Afghanistan.”

  Giese tilted his head. “Guess we’ll make do with ten. Here’s my cell.” He passed on the number. “You think of anything, let me know. Time’s short.”

  “Indeed.”

  36

  What are we looking for?” Gaffan said.

  “We’ll know when we see it. Wear gloves and leave everything how you found it.”

  They went back into the house, looked into the closets, under the beds, inside the heavy wooden furniture. With its rocking chairs and patchwork quilts, the house looked more like a bed-and-breakfast than a terrorist camp. The closet in the master bedroom was filled with skirts, long and modest, and long-sleeve blouses. Four people had been here — the two terrorists, Bashir, and a woman. Three were gone, one dead. Wells didn’t understand. Had they fought over the woman? Had one lost his nerve? And why had they left? Had Bernard gotten an alarm to them? If this house had the answers, Wells couldn’t find them.

  Sirens began to scream up the driveway. In minutes, cops and FBI agents would be overrunning the place. Maybe he should have gone back to Andrews after all.

  Wells’
s phone buzzed. Shafer. “They’re not here,” he said.

  “I heard. You decided to stay, enjoy the scenery?”

  “Give me some good news.”

  “There isn’t any. If we haven’t found them by five, the president will announce that the State of the Union has been canceled and release their names and photographs publicly. It’s going to leak by then anyway. Already there’s stuff on the Internet, rumors. Nobody’s put it together yet, but they will.”

  Wells looked at his watch: 2:15.

  “We know what they’re driving?”

  “The only car registered to Bashir is that Ford. If I had to guess, I’d say they bought something else and didn’t retag it. It’s got to be something big, though. A van or SUV.”

  “There’s only about fifty million of those.”

  “I told you no good news. What, they didn’t leave a map with a big X marking safe house?”

  “You think they have another safe house?”

  “Maybe not a true safe house, but these guys are too smart just to be driving around, especially if the car’s not registered. They’ve got someplace to crash.”

  Wells thought of the coffee mug in Bernard Kygeli’s office. “How about Penn State? From there, it’s interstate to New York and D.C.”

  “We’re looking, but we can’t find anybody connected to Kygeli.”

  “All right. If anything happens, call me.”

  “If anything happens, you may hear it all the way up there.” Click.

  “Who was that?” Gaffan said.

  “My boss.”

  “What now?”

  The keys to Bashir’s Expedition were in a candy dish on the kitchen table. Wells picked them up. “We’re going to Happy Valley.”

  Gaffan shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. Penn State.”

  A New York State trooper escorted them in a Suburban, calling ahead so that the Pennsylvania troopers knew they were coming. They rolled down 15, and at the state border were handed off to a Pennsylvania trooper in an unmarked Mustang. The highway was narrow and the Expedition was wide, but somehow Gaffan kept the speedometer pinned at 105 most of the way down. They’d get to Penn State by four, give or take, Wells thought. Then what? He had no idea.

  THE PLACE WAS sparsely furnished and small, two rooms and a galley kitchen. Cheap, simple college housing. Nasiji let them in with the key that Bernard had given him. They parked the Suburban in the parking lot directly outside, no need to be fancy. They’d taken out the two back rows of seats. The gadget was in the back, facing backward, the tamper close to the back gate. On the way down, Yusuf had driven, with Thalia next to him. Nasiji lay in the back, next to the Spear, hidden by the tinted windows, the uranium round between his legs.

  No one could track them here, and all they needed to do was wait. The woman who lived here had no idea what they were planning, of course. Nasiji hoped she wouldn’t show up until they arrived. She would only complicate things.

  In the apartment, Nasiji watched CNN with the sound off, waiting for the screen crawl that might tell him that they’d been found, that the State of the Union had been canceled or a farm in upstate New York had been raided. But the afternoon rolled by quietly and he began to think that they’d gotten away. They would leave just before sunset and head southeast to Harrisburg. There they would decide whether to turn south toward Washington — if the State of the Union was still happening — or east toward Philadelphia and New York. Once they were on the road, they ought to be unstoppable. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could connect them with the Suburban, and the police lights would help.

  The mission hadn’t gone according to plan, he had to admit. They’d lost the second bomb. The Americans had found the Juno. And then, last night, Bashir’s unforgivable treachery.

  Even so, they were close. By the end of this night, the American government might no longer exist. If. If they could get into Washington, get close to the Capitol. If the bomb didn’t fizzle. If Allah smiled on them. Nasiji lowered himself to the floor and began to pray.

  TEN MILES OUTSIDE STATE COLLEGE, a billboard for Penn State football towered over Route 220. Go Nittany Lions. And then Wells remembered. The coffee mug in Bernard’s office hadn’t been for Penn State. It had been for Penn State soccer.

  He called Shafer.

  “Ellis. Have the FBI call Penn State, get the soccer team roster. That’s the connection.”

  “You sure?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I’ll Google it. Penn State athletics. It’s all football. Soccer. No Arab or Turkish-sounding names, nobody from Turkey or Germany or anywhere in the Middle East.”

  “Try the J.V.”

  A few seconds later, Shafer came back. “No, John. You still want me to call the FBI? They’ve got a few other things to do.”

  “What about women?” Gaffan said.

  Wells clapped a hand to his forehead. “Of course.”

  “Of course what?” Shafer said.

  “Check the women’s roster.”

  Shafer clicked away. “Wouldn’t you know? Aymet Helsi. From Blankenese, Germany. Says here she’s a goalie. You want to bet your buddy Bernard knows her family? Maybe he’s helping with her tuition?”

  “You have an address?”

  “As soon as I hang up, I’ll get the FBI to get a warrant, get her address from the registrar. Meantime let’s see if she’s got a, yes, she’s listed. The last twenty-year-old with a landline.”

  “Address.”

  “Ten Vairo Boulevard, unit 239-04. Looks like it’s part of a big apartment complex called Vairo Village. You want me to stay on the line, give you directions?”

  “We’ve got a GPS.”

  “I’ll call the army. But you’re going to get there first, no matter what. I don’t suppose I can convince you to wait.”

  Wells was silent.

  “John, do me a favor and don’t get killed. She’ll never forgive you. Or me.” Click.

  FOLLOWING THE GPS’S chirped orders, Gaffan turned right onto the Mount Nittany Expressway, Route 322, the east-west highway that ran along the northern edge of town. At Waddle Road, less than a mile from the apartment, Gaffan pulled off. Wells tapped his shoulder. “Pull over.” Wells hopped out, told the trooper what had happened.

  “I gotta call the State College cops,” the trooper said.

  “Sit tight for five minutes. We’ll go in first, no sirens.”

  “But what about evacuating—”

  “There’s no evacuating from this,” Wells said. “Let us go in first.”

  AT 4:25, THE NEWS CRAWL on CNN began to promise a major announcement from the White House at 5 p.m. Then the crawl reported that the FBI would hold a briefing following the White House announcement. Nasiji didn’t need to see more.

  “We’re going,” he said to Yusuf and Thalia. “Now.”

  WELLS AND GAFFAN rolled down Oakwood Avenue. The GPS informed them that Vairo Boulevard was ahead on their right. They reached a stop sign, turned right onto Vairo. The apartment complex was across the road, dozens of brown-and-white buildings around a long cul-de-sac.

  Gaffan started to swing in. “No,” Wells said. “Next one.”

  He pointed to the sign in front: “Phase 1—Units 1-100.” Wells lowered the window of the Expedition and cradled his M-4. His mouth was dry, his fingers gnarled. If his hunch was wrong, he might be about to shoot an innocent college student. And if it was right.

  They reached the next block: “Phase 2—Units 201–300.” Gaffan swung in. They rolled slowly down the street, which was really just a big parking lot for the complex. The buildings were identical, each two stories, white and brown, laid out roughly in a rectangle that extended several hundred feet around the parking lot. They were moving up the longer side of the rectangle, north from Vairo Boulevard, as the parking lot divided into four rows.

  “We know what kind of car we’re looking for?”

  “Something big
,” Wells said.

  And Wells saw it. A black Suburban at the far end of the complex, moving south away from them, toward the exit. He touched Gaffan’s shoulder.

  “Let’s see what building they came out of.”

  They swung right, down the northern edge of the complex, the top of the rectangle, as the Suburban rolled away. Number 239 lay at the northeastern flank of the complex, where Wells had first seen the Suburban. Gaffan slowed down. “We going in?”

  “No.”

  NASIJI LAY ON THE FLOOR of the Suburban, the uranium pit tucked between his legs. On the ride down from Addison, the position had left him vaguely carsick, but it allowed him to load and fire the Spear in seconds. Inshallah. How silly to worry about a bit of stomach pain when he was about to give his body to a nuclear fireball. He wasn’t afraid. Or perhaps he was. Anyone would be. But he had chosen this course, and unlike that coward Bashir, he would see it through. His father, his mother, they hadn’t asked to die either. He and Yusuf and even Thalia would join Mohammed Atta and the other martyrs who had given themselves to liberate Islam.

  Nasiji clutched the pit tight and closed his eyes. They stopped, waiting for traffic to clear so they could join the traffic on Vairo Boulevard. Soon they would be on the highway, just another anonymous black SUV traveling through the Pennsylvania night, burning the gasoline that the Americans had invaded Iraq to steal. In half an hour, he would hear what the president had to say and then he would decide where to take their precious cargo.

  THE SUBURBAN STOPPED at the intersection of the parking lot and Vairo Boulevard, stuck behind a car that was waiting to make a left turn.

  “Ram them,” Wells said. “Hard.”