Targets of Opportunity

by Jeffrey S. Stephens

  Sandor shook his head. Even in the face of a worldwide epidemic of terror, the naïveté of the American people survives. As does its basic trust in others. “You said they were bringing in some sort of meteorological equipment. They were going to track Hurricane Charlene?”

  “Something like that. You say you want opinions, I can tell you they didn’t look like no weathermen to me,” Brad said.

  “Me neither,” Freddie agreed.

  Sandor turned back to the girl. “And their itinerary listed this as a domestic flight.”

  “That’s right,” Karen agreed. “From Lawrence, like I said.”

  “But you have no tracking facilities,” Sandor said, thinking aloud, “and you don’t check with the port of embarkation when an unscheduled flight arrives.”

  “No, sir.”

  “So, regardless of who would have been working here yesterday, there was no way to know that plane was coming in or where it was coming from. It could have flown in from anywhere.”

  Karen nodded.

  Then Brad said, “But those guys in the truck, whoever they were, they sure as hell knew they were comin’.”

  “I’ll say,” Freddie agreed.

  Sandor asked them to give him one more description of the tractor-trailer, to consider any detail they might have left out.

  “I’m pretty sure it said something about ‘refrigeration’ on the back,” Brad remembered.

  “Company name?”

  “Not that I can recall. But they had the guys on the truck load the crates themselves, and they didn’t open the back hatch, like you might expect, they opened some kinda side compartment. And then the two guys from the plane, they got inside through a different door on the side. Weird, you know?”

  “Weird how?”

  “Well, I mean trucks don’t usually have all these extra compartments, if you catch my drift. Trailers usually have flat panel sides and a rear hatch. I dunno, thought it might help.”

  Sandor said that it did. “Karen, you never got close to the cargo, that right?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Okay.” Sandor stood. “There’s a team of specialists coming here in just a few minutes.” He glanced at his stainless steel Rolex, then told them, “They actually should have been here already.” Looking back at the two young men, he said, “I want you to stick around, go through some tests.”

  “Tests?”

  “Just a precaution.”

  Brad and Freddie shared an uneasy look.

  “Probably nothing,” Sandor assured them, then headed outside. He pulled out his cell, phoned Banahan, and said, “I’ve spoken with the three kids who were here, I’ll fill you in later. When your gang from Houston shows up, be sure they sweep the area and check out the two boys.”

  “For what?” Banahan asked, feeling as if he’d just entered the middle of a conversation.

  “They say the crates they unloaded were small but extremely heavy, and I’m guessing whatever was inside could have been lined with lead. The trailer also had a couple of different compartments, wouldn’t be surprised if those were lined too. I want the boys and their luggage tractor tested for exposure to radioactive materials.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  ISLA DE LA JUVENTUD, CUBA

  ADINA’S YACHT ROCKED gently on the quiet sea, moored just off this small island situated to the southwest of Cuba. A large freighter flying a Liberian flag under the name Morning Star was now anchored some fifteen hundred yards away.

  Its only cargo was two North Korean–built mini-submarines.

  The shipyard outside Maracaibo Bay in Venezuela had retrofitted this old double-bottomed freighter, working in the lowest cargo hold, number four, isolating it from all other belowdeck areas. A moon pool and cranes were inserted so the submersibles could be loaded aboard, ready to slide out into the sea along newly installed launching rails. A single hatch was cut into the outer skin of the hull, rigged to open outward on hydraulic levers. The mechanisms and hinges were set inside the vessel while the outside joints were fixed with watertight seals, making them virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the weathered steel. The large metal access flap could be operated while the freighter was moving at speeds up to four knots, allowing the vessel to stay on course so as not to arouse any unnecessary suspicion by slowing to a stop on the open water.

  Once the hatch was lifted the subs could be released along their steel rails. They would immediately throttle up to ensure that they would break free of the quick water running beneath the freighter’s large hull. The hatch would then be closed, the amount of water taken in being negligible for an empty freighter, since the small hold had been sealed off from the other areas and pumps installed to flush the seawater out once the two craft were deployed.

  The subs would then follow their northerly course into the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston Bay and toward the waters due south of Bay-town near Barbours Cut.

  As to the payload the submersibles would carry, Francisco and Luis had already made their delivery to an abandoned airstrip just south of Guane on the Cuban mainland. They had stopped there before proceeding on to the Coulter Airfield in Bryan, Texas, carrying the deadly cargo they had brought from Kazakhstan.

  In Cuba, the two packages were offloaded while the plane was being refueled. Then they promptly took off again. The parcels were whisked by truck to the south shore, where a speedboat brought them out to the freighter, all with the sort of military precision and timing Adina favored. That efficiency, coupled with the bribery of a local Cuban official, ensured that the transfer was neither intercepted by nor reported to the local shore patrol.

  Now that all these pieces were in place, Adina knew he must not linger. The Cuban authorities would eventually become curious about a freighter sitting idly off the coast. Or an unreported flight into and out of Guane. The less attention they drew the better, even from a regime that might look favorably upon their plans. He picked up his radio, for the third time in an hour, to request a progress report.

  “We are almost done,” he was told again.

  “Almost,” he muttered in response and clicked off.

  The plan was simple. Once the two submersibles were properly fitted, the freighter would begin moving slowly to the south, then circle back around the western tip of Cuba on a northwesterly course heading through the Yucatan Channel and into the Gulf. As Hurricane Charlene tracked a parallel path, the freighter would turn back, sixty miles or so short of its apparent destination, as if deterred by the weather. As it made its turn the two Autonomous Underwater Vehicles would be released below the waterline and sent on their way.

  Once the two AUVs were launched, the ship would be as conspicuous as possible in making its movement back south, hopefully drawing attention away from any surface traces of the two small guided vessels that would then be motoring their way along their programmed routes. The AUVs would eventually pass through the cut between Galveston and Port Bolivar, into Galveston Bay, and ultimately be detonated just as they reached the Baytown refinery.

  This, Adina believed, was the genius of his plan, or so he had described it to his associates. There were defenses in place all around and above the Baytown plant, protecting it from attacks that might come from the air, by land, or across the water. What had not been calculated was the damage that could be wrought by a subterranean explosion of the magnitude nuclear charges would cause. This would have the effect of an artificial tsunami that would not only devastate the refinery, but once the chain reaction began it would destroy all of the surrounding area. The destruction, following the Gulf oil spill, would be overwhelming, and the bonus would be the residue of radioactive fallout.

  He sat back and had a look across the calm sea at the Morning Star, hoping the hurricane would move in soon, wondering who might suspect that this rusty, nondescript tanker could be the instrument of the deadliest attack in the history of the United States.

  Then he smiled, reminding himself how well he had done in leaving nothing to ch
ance.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  SOUTHEASTERN TEXAS

  THE NIGHT BEFORE, the large tractor-trailer that had met Francisco and Luis in Bryan, Texas, pulled into a truck stop outside Beaumont, along Interstate 10. All four men stayed on board. They had food, water, a portable toilet facility, and strict orders that none of them was to leave the vehicle until they received further instructions. They spent the night there as many long-distance drivers do and, as other rigs came and went, they remained unnoticed in the rear of this large parking lot.

  The two men up front slept in the living area behind the main cabin. When morning broke they passed through the opening to the trailer, joining Luis and Francisco in their compartment. The four of them had met back in Caracas, and they immediately began comparing their impressions of this mission. The one thing upon which they all agreed was that they wanted it over sooner rather than later.

  These men were not religious zealots, they were mercenaries. They worked for pay, as they freely acknowledged. They had trained as soldiers, served in the military, and were now using their skills to escape the poverty of their homeland, risking their lives for the promised windfall that would set them up for life.

  The driver said, “This hurricane cannot come fast enough, eh?”

  The others could not agree more. They had been told they would not be given the command to move until the storm intensified. None of them knew exactly why, and they spent some time guessing at the reasons.

  In the end, they all acknowledged that Adina was a master strategist, and whatever reasons he had must be good ones.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “BE CAREFUL WHAT you wish for,” Mark Byrnes told Ahmad Jaber when he informed him that his request was going to be granted, that he was going to be reunited with his wife.

  Jaber responded with a solemn nod. “I understand the risks.”

  The Deputy Director was not sure that he did. The issue had been debated at Langley until Byrnes could not bear any more discussion on the subject. There were still a host of unanswered questions about Jaber but, in the end, Director Walsh made the call and, as usual, determined that the most obvious explanation was usually the correct one.

  “Occam’s razor,” Walsh said, invoking one of his favorite expressions. “Jaber defects, but has given us very little. His wife is captured by the IRGC, then released. She is either working for them to get to Jaber or she and her husband are working together on some elaborate disinformation scheme we have yet to decipher. Either way, we will never get any further than we already have until we put them together. The simplest solution is the best, am I right?” He did not await a reply, looking to his deputy. “And you have said yourself that time is running out if Jaber is going to have any more value to us as we try to intercept whatever Adina and his cohorts have in store.”

  “If we put him on the street, I believe he will be killed.”

  Walsh fixed his steely gaze on Byrnes. “As your man Sandor would say, ‘So what?’ Jaber is a murderer of innocent people. He has sought refuge here because his gang of IRGC cutthroats wants him dead. He offers us only snippets of information, in return for which he expects a lifetime of support and protection. What rubbish. The man has demanded to see his wife, so let him see her. It’s your job to monitor who does what here, am I right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You give him the best protection possible, that’s all we owe him.”

  And so, as Byrnes delivered the news to Jaber, he felt a mix of guilt and relief. On some level, he knew he was exposing the Iranian, and likely his wife, to an attempt on their lives. On the other hand, he, like Walsh, needed to know. If there was something else to learn from or through Jaber, time was indeed short.

  The Deputy Director stood there, staring at the Iranian. “I hope you understand the risks, Ahmad,” Byrnes said, using the man’s given name for the first time. “I truly hope you do. My government is not able to guarantee your safety. Or your wife’s.”

  The Iranian nodded again. “You have done your duty,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  As they left the grounds of the safe house and drove into D.C., Jaber wondered if he would ever see this place again.

  Then, he decided, it didn’t matter.

  During these long days, spent almost entirely alone, he had time to contemplate his life in ways he had never before done. He was always a man of action, not reflection, a man defined by his beliefs, unquestioning in his pursuit of justice for his people. He even saw the deaths of his only two children as justified in the context of those values. While he mourned the loss of his sons, he knew their sacrifice was worthy of a greater cause.

  Over the years he had never wavered in his convictions, at least not until now.

  It was too late for him to regret his decisions or to feel remorse for the countless lives he had stolen from the young and innocent. It would have been utter hypocrisy. Yet he wondered at the overriding futility of all he had done, and the faithless end that had become his destiny.

  For these past two weeks he had entrusted himself to the protection of the very infidels he was sworn to destroy. Now he faced the possibility of execution by those he had devoted his life to serving. And this man, this Mark Byrnes, actually appeared sorry to subject him to that risk.

  Where was the sense in all of that? The order? Where was the guiding hand of Allah?

  He spoke the truth when he told Byrnes that he understood the risks. He actually welcomed them, because there was no other way for him to resolve these conflicts, no other way for him to reconcile his life.

  ————

  When Rasa Jaber was told she would be allowed to see her husband she felt a sudden flash of joy that was quickly replaced by fear.

  I am not prepared for this, she told herself. I am not prepared.

  She longed to see him, of course, but her excitement was tempered by anger. Sitting alone in the hotel room she imagined how he would behave, how she would react, hoping there was some explanation he could offer for what he had done that would allow her to forgive him.

  And then she thought of the phone number she had been given by the IRGC.

  They told her the Americans could not be trusted. Her husband could not be trusted. Only her countrymen could protect her. As soon as contact was to be made with Ahmad she was to let them know. They would take care of everything, they would bring her and Ahmad home. They would sort it all out there, in Tehran. Just call the phone number they had her commit to memory. Call us and you will be safe.

  Rasa sat in the chair at the small writing table, staring straight ahead and wondering, What should I do?

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  BAYTOWN REFINERY

  SANDOR HAD THE pilot fly the helicopter back to the plant, then told him to stand ready to leave again shortly.

  “Skies are getting pretty bad.”

  Sandor nodded. “I won’t be long.”

  Inside, Sandor found that Banahan had been joined by several local agents from Homeland Security, the FBI, and a technical support team. Janssen was continuing to give his full cooperation. Sandor asked for some privacy, and everyone except Banahan and Janssen cleared out of the office.

  “What have we got?” Banahan asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Sandor admitted, “but let’s try to piece a few things together.” He described his interviews with the three young people at Coulter Airfield.

  “So,” Janssen summarized, “someone flew into town under the radar, dropped off God knows what, then flew out leaving behind two men and the goods to be loaded on a specially fitted tractor-trailer that had separate doors on the side.”

  “Right. And the crates were not large but very heavy, as in possibly lead lined.”

  “Which means nuclear, is where you’re going,” the former colonel observed with a grim look.

  “That’s where I’m going.”

  “Damnit,” Janssen roared, slamming a flat palm hard o
nto his desktop. “It just can’t be that friggin’ easy to bring a nuke into this country.”

  “I’m afraid it can, sir. That’s why I wanted to speak to you two alone before we create a panic here.” They were standing around Janssen’s desk, and now Sandor began pacing back and forth across the small room. “There’s something else nagging at me here. As I told them in Washington, everything has pointed to Baytown, right from the beginning. It was almost too easy to follow the trail here.”

  “What are you saying, son?”

  “I’m saying maybe that truck is not heading here. I’m saying maybe that truck is heading somewhere else.”

  There was a knock on the door and all three men turned. Banahan let one of his agents in, who promptly announced that the team had arrived at Coulter Airfield. “The preliminary reports are positive,” he told them.

  “For radiation?” Banahan asked.

  “That’s affirmative. Traces were found, particularly in the area they identified as the loading point.”

  “What about the kids?” Sandor asked.

  “Clean so far, but they’re taking all three to the hospital.”

  “Good. You keep this to yourself for now, and that’s an order.”

  The agent nodded, then shut the door behind him.

  Sandor turned to the others. “Any questions?”

  ————

  All branches of the military had been warned. The Coast Guard had patrol boats running back and forth along the Gulf Coast. The Navy had several destroyers in the area from the Ingleside Naval Station. The Air Force and Air National Guard were on standby.

  But the Gulf of Mexico is an enormous area to cover, the ninth-largest body of water in the world. The United States coastline alone runs more than 1,600 miles. And the weather was getting worse.

  As Hurricane Charlene continued its destructive path northwest through the Bahamas and into the Gulf, the more difficult it would become to stay in the air and monitor movements at sea.