“We forgot to account for a significant detail,” Ibrahim told them. “The weather.”
“I don’t understand,” Ahmed said.
Ibrahim pointed west, back toward the refinery. The flames were hundreds of feet high now, and topped by a ceiling of thick, black smoke. As they watched, they could see the smoke drifting southwest.
“It’s heading toward São Paulo. They’ll close the airport soon, if they haven’t already.”
“He’s right,” Hadi replied. “Still, of all the mistakes we could have made, this one is the least worrisome. If we make it out, so be it. If not, we die knowing we’ve done our duty.”
Fa’ad chuckled. “You’re right, of course, but I’d rather be alive to see the fruits of our effort. May Allah forgive my vanity.”
“What will be will be,” Ibrahim replied. “We still have a chance. You all know the alternate route.” He checked his watch. “We’ll meet tomorrow at noon in Rio at the Botanical Garden. If for some reason anyone’s delayed, we meet at the secondary location four hours later. Good luck.”
Though neither of them had caught more than a couple hours’ sleep before leaving the airport, their flight’s departure time, on that cusp between the dead of night and dawn, left them both restless. The good news was that there’d been no coach seats available, so they were riding first class on The Campus’s dime. And the coffee wasn’t half bad, either.
“You know, I don’t get it, John,” Jack said.
“What’s that?” Clark replied.
“The two we’re after… the brother and sister. They’re barely out of their teens. What made them want to go to another country and kill people they’ve never met?”
“First of all, we don’t know anything except that they came in on false passports.”
“Maybe so, but odds are they aren’t here for beach volleyball.”
“Agreed. My point is, in our line of work it’s best to take things as they come to you. Hunches can be damned handy, but they can get you killed, too.”
“I hear you.”
“To answer your question, I don’t think there is an answer. At least not a simple one. What you’re asking is: How are terrorists made? Poverty, hopelessness, misplaced religious fervor, the need to feel like you belong to something bigger than yourself… Take your pick.”
“Damn, John, you almost sound sympathetic.”
“I am. Up until the point where those motivations lead somebody to pick up a gun or strap on a bomb. After that, all bets are off.”
“So what, you just switch off the sympathy?”
“That’s up to you, Jack, but part of doing this kind of work is the willingness to put on blinders. Deal with what’s in front of you. Every terrorist has a mother and father. Maybe kids, maybe people that love him. Hell, six days out of seven he might be a decent citizen, but on that one day he decides to pick up a gun or plant a bomb, he’s a threat. And if you’re the guy standing between him and innocent lives, the threat is all you can afford to worry about. You get what I’m saying?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, I think so.” While the real world existed mostly in shades of gray, when the moment of truth came, there was only room for black-and-white. Jack smiled and toasted Clark with his coffee cup. “You’re a wise man, John.”
“Thanks. You get older, you get smarter. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. There’s always exceptions, though. Your dad, for one. He’s wise beyond his years. I knew that the first time I met him.”
“Yeah, when was that?”
“Nice try, Jack. Have you talked to him yet?”
“About The Campus? Yeah, when we rode back together from Andrews. He was pissed at first, but it went a lot better than I thought it was going to go.”
“Let me guess: He wants to be the one to tell your mom?”
Jack nodded. “And just between you and me, I’m damned glad. My dad’s a tough SOB, but my mom… She’s got that look-that look that only a mom can give, you know?”
“Yep.”
They sat in silence for a while, sipping coffee. “Been thinking about Dom,” Jack said.
“He’ll pull out of it. You gotta remember, except for maybe you, his transition has been the toughest. He went from being an FBI agent to a spook. From an agency that runs on rules and regs to a fake brokerage house that hunts down bad guys outside the law. And now this thing with Brian…” Clark shrugged. “No matter how you look at it, it’s a shitty deal.”
“I’m just thinking it’s too early for him to be going back out.”
“Ding doesn’t think so, and that’s good enough for me. For Gerry, too. Plus, there’s just four of us now, and a lot of bases to cover.” Clark smiled. “Hell, remember who he’s running with. I trusted the guy with my daughter, Jack, and never regretted it. He’ll make sure Dom comes through.”
Though separated by less than four hundred miles, both Raharjo Pranata and Kersen Kaseke had been following virtually the same routine for weeks: Go to school, draw no attention to yourself, and wait for orders. Pranata’s had come only hours after Kaseke’s, during his final message check of the day. He was so surprised to see the text file sitting in his file storage’s inbox that he botched his first attempt to decode the message.
The location they had chosen for him was less than a mile from his apartment. He’d passed by it almost every day. As targets went, it was almost ideal: large enough to accommodate hundreds of people yet hemmed in on all sides by buildings. The timing of the attack made sense as well. Pranata had seen signs advertising the event in question all over town, though he’d paid little attention to the specifics. A dedication of some kind. A statue or fountain. Not that it mattered.
Of the three targets they’d told him to prepare for, this one offered the greatest potential for massive casualties. What was that American saying? A turkey shoot?
The maps he’d used in his preparations had been easy to obtain, and several of them he’d even gotten at the town’s visitor center. The topographical map he’d downloaded from a popular hiking website, and while he had no interest in the local trails, the elevations and distances were clearly marked, and a stroll around town with his portable GPS unit had confirmed their accuracy.
Once he was sure he had all the necessary data, he’d simply punched the numbers into the appropriate equations and come up with the settings.
Now would come the hard part: waiting. He would pass the time by practicing setting up and dismantling his equipment.
Musa’s second day of driving was relatively short, taking him from Toppenish, Washington, to Nampa, Idaho, whose only claim to fame, according to a sign on the outskirts, was that it was not only the largest city in Canyon County, Idaho, with a population of 79,249, but also the fastest-growing. Yet another sign along the road, less than a hundred yards from the first, proclaimed that Nampa was also “a great place to live!”
When planning his route from Blaine, Musa had decided his overnight stops must be in medium-sized towns-not too large that the police force was aggressive or particularly well trained, and not too small, lest the arrival of a dark-skinned stranger provoke any undue curiosity. Toppenish, with a population of only eight thousand, might have fallen in the latter category if not for its close proximity to Yakima. Of course, his encounter with Willie, Toppenish’s nosy chief of police, had placed a seed of doubt in Musa’s mind. The situation hadn’t escalated, of course, nor would it have, even if the cop questioned him further. Like the non-burned bogus documentation he’d shown the customs inspector in Vancouver, Musa was now armed with business cards, letterhead, and forms bearing the seal of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His cover story was essentially the same: a wealthy and neurotic horse owner in Bellingham who didn’t trust his local vet’s X-ray equipment.
It was mid-afternoon when he pulled off Highway 84/30 and into the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn & Suites. He shut off the ignition, then opened the travel atlas sitting on the passenger seat. He’d written nothing
down, nor made any marks in the atlas. There was no need; he knew the route and distances by heart.
Six hundred forty miles to go, Musa thought. If he wished, he could start out early tomorrow and probably cover the remaining distance to Beatty, Nevada, in one day. It was tempting, but he decided against it. The Emir had been adamant in his orders. He would follow the timetable.
77
DESCENDING THROUGH twenty thousand feet on their way into Rio de Janeiro, Chavez and Dominic could see the pall of oily smoke hanging over São Paulo two hundred miles down the coast from Rio. North of São Paulo, the Paulinia fires were still raging. On the way to the airport the night before, they’d heard on the news that firefighters and rescue workers in the area had changed their strategy, focusing not on extinguishing the refinery inferno but on evacuation and containment. Ethanol had stopped spewing from the pipeline within an hour of the initial explosion, but in that time some ten thousand gallons of fuel had spilled into the refinery, and while some of that was still burning, it was now the dozens upon dozens of blending and storage tanks that were involved. The conflagration would eventually burn out, but experts both in Brazil and in the United States disagreed on how long that would take. Some predicted four days, others two weeks or more. What no one disagreed on, however, was the environmental toll the disaster was taking. Already oil soot was blanketing fields and homes as far south as Colombo. Emergency rooms were overflowing with patients complaining of respiratory problems.
“If that’s not hell on earth, I don’t know what is,” Dominic said, staring out the window.
“No argument there. How you feelin’?” While Ding had dozed on and off for much of the flight, Dominic had been dead to the world until an hour ago.
“Better, I think. I was ass-kicked.”
“In more ways than one, mano. I know I already said this, but sorry about Brian. He was a good troop.”
“Thanks. So when we touch down, what’s the plan?”
“Call home and check the news stations to see if Hadi’s information has hit the airwaves. If it has, we go hunting. If not, we hunker down and wait.”
Once off the plane and cleared through customs, they went straight to the Avis desk and checked in. Ten minutes later, they were standing at the curb, waiting for their Hyundai Sonata to be brought around. “Air-conditioning?” Dominic asked.
“Yeah, but manual transmission. Can’t have everything.”
The dark green Sonata came around the corner. The attendant climbed out, had Chavez sign a form, then nodded and walked away. They got in and pulled out. Dominic retrieved his sat phone from his carry-on and dialed The Campus.
“We’re down,” he told Hendley, and turned on the phone’s speaker.
“Good. You’re on speakerphone. Sam and Rick are here, too. Biery’s on his way up.” Dominic heard a door open, then the creaking of a chair. Biery said, “Dom, you there?”
“Yeah, both of us.”
“We’re in business. We cycled through ten online storage sites before we got a hit. He’s using a site called filecuda.com. Just like Jack figured, Hadi was using a variation of his e-mail for the log-in. The password we cracked in ten minutes. There’s nothing in the account’s inbox right now.”
Rick Bell said, “We’ve put together a message we think will get Hadi moving in our direction. Sam will give you the details.”
Granger came on. “We’re a little worried that the news leak will really spook Hadi, so we’re going to go with baby steps, move him from one place to another. He’ll be on guard, so we figure if he moves to the first spot and doesn’t get ambushed, he’ll start getting more comfortable with the idea. Once we think we’ve got him hooked, we’re going to tell him to meet a contact in the Rocinha-”
“The what?”
Ding answered. “It’s Portuguese. It means ‘Little Ranch.’ Down here, slums are called favelas, and the Rocinha’s the biggest one in Rio.”
“We figure we’ll move him two, maybe three, times before sending him to the Rocinha. Depends on the tone of his responses. I’ll e-mail you a list and timetable.”
“Why there?”
“The Rio police don’t go in there unless they absolutely have to. Be easier for you to operate.”
Dominic asked, “When are you dropping the dime on Hadi?”
“In about forty minutes, by fax to Record News. We put together our own sketch and description-hopefully, close enough that Hadi’ll recognize himself but vague enough that he won’t get nabbed right away.”
“How sure are we they’ll use it?” Chavez asked.
Hendley said, “Survival of the fittest. They’re a news channel, and they’re fighting for market share during the biggest disaster in Brazilian history. They’ll take the tip like a gift from God.”
“Gotta love cutthroat journalism,” Ding replied.
“We’re tuned in to all the channels here. As soon as it hits the airwaves, we’ll call you.”
Dominic hung up. To Chavez: “We hunting?”
“Damn straight we are. Need to make a stop first. I know a guy who knows a guy.”
“Who knows where to get his hands on some guns?”
“You got it.”
Frank Weaver woke up at five a.m., had two cups of coffee from the in-room brewer, then read the newspaper for twenty minutes before he showered and headed down to the lobby for the free continental breakfast. By seven-fifteen he was packed up and out the door.
His rig was exactly where he’d left it, as was the cask, but he knew they would be. The DOE had equipped his truck with an immobilizer. Start the engine without a key and the fuel system shuts down. Nice little feature. As for the cask, no one would run off with that thing. Maybe King Kong, who’d noticed he was missing one of his barbells, but no one else.
He did his usual inspection walk-around, checking the ratchets, padlocks, and chains, and, finding nothing out of order, he unlocked the driver’s door and climbed up into the cab. He was reaching his key toward the ignition when he stopped.
Something…
At first he couldn’t put his finger on it, but slowly it dawned on him: Someone had been in the truck. That couldn’t be, though. Like everything else with his rig, the door lock was beefed up. It’d take more than some crackhead thief to pick it. Weaver looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. He checked the glove box and center console for missing items. Everything was there. Same with the sleeping compartment. Everything was as he’d left it.
Gun.
He reached under his seat. The.38 revolver was still there, snug in its leather holster affixed to the seat frame.
Weaver sat in silence for half a minute before shrugging off the eerie feeling. Maybe the hotel coffee was stronger than he thought. Made him jumpy.
He powered up the dashboard GPS unit and waited for it to cycle through the self-diagnostic check, then punched up his route. Day three of four. An easy 310 miles to Saint George, Utah.
Tariq found the Emir in his bedroom, collecting what few possessions he’d brought along into a box. “After I’ve recorded my testament and left to meet Musa, burn these things.”
“I will. I have two pieces of news. Each of Nayoan’s four men have acknowledged their go-signals. The first will be Waterloo on Sunday morning.”
“Good.”
“Second, our man intercepted the truck without incident. We have the driver’s route, including rest and fuel stops. He’s due to arrive at the facility between two-thirty and three, the day after tomorrow.”
The Emir nodded and closed his eyes, mentally recalling the timeline. “That’s perfect, my friend. Musa will be in place at least four hours early. Go set up the camera. It’s time.”
78
BY THE TIME Clark and Jack got off the plane and found their rental car, it was seven a.m. and time for breakfast and a phone call back home. Armed with only the siblings’ names-Citra and Purnoma Salim-and the date of their arrival into Norfolk, Clark and Jack had no choice but to rely on The Camp
us to give them a starting point.
They found an IHOP about a mile south of the airport on Military Highway, took a booth, and ordered coffee, eggs, and pancakes. While they were waiting, Clark called Rick Bell.
“All we’ve got is the hotel the Salims listed on their entry form,” he told Clark. “If they didn’t check in, we’ll have to get creative. The Indonesian embassy in Washington keeps a list of citizens traveling on vacation to the U.S., but since they came in on a bogus passport, it’s a toss-up whether they’d be logged into the system.”
“We’ll start with the hotel,” Clark said. “They have to be sleeping somewhere.”
Bell gave him the name of the hotel and signed off.
“Econo Lodge in Little Creek,” Clark told Jack. “Stuff your face. We might be doing a lot of running today.”
They found the Econo Lodge about two miles from the Amphibious Base and a quarter-mile from the Little Creek channel. Jack asked, “SEALs at the amphib base, right?”
“Yep. SpecWar Group Two-Teams Two, Four, and Eight, plus an SDV team-swimmer delivery vehicle.”
“You miss it?”
“Sometimes, but most days not. Miss the people, mostly, and the work, but there were some pretty ugly times, too.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Clark looked sideways at him and smiled. “No. It’s the nature of what SEALs do, Jack. They go places nobody else wants to go and do what nobody else can. Nowadays they call those spots ‘denied areas.’ Back then we called it ‘Indian country.’ SEALs get a lot more attention today than when I was in, and more’s the pity, as far as I’m concerned. The less people talk about you, the better job you’re doing.”
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