by Brad Taylor
Secretary Brookings scoffed. “What the hell does that mean? ‘Preparing the battle space’? That’s just bullshit DOD mumbo jumbo. Like saying ‘kinetic option’ when you mean put a bullet in someone’s head.”
President Warren said, “When will Jennifer get here? Can she appear before the Oversight Council for a firsthand debrief?”
Kurt inwardly cringed at the terminology. Appear before the council? You mean can she come talk? The way the president phrased it sounded like the council was going to start chopping heads, like all the other witch hunts that happened after 9/11.
“Sir, she’s with the team.”
“I thought she was coming home because she was sick?”
“She was, but she’s the only one who knows what they look like. Pike’s convinced her to stay.”
President Warren took that in, then said, “Okay, what’s the team going to do when they get to Prague?”
“Pull the thread on Noordin’s Prague office, if you give permission. It’s all we’ve got.”
The director of the CIA spoke. “Sir, I say let them investigate further. What we know for a fact is that a planeload of highly sophisticated demolitions is now out of U.S. hands. From the evidence, I think Pike’s on to something. Let ’em go.”
Brookings chimed in. “Why? They’ve got no evidence at all. Just a random sighting in an airport. Even the suspected terrorist we were originally tracking is dead. Let’s say they do have the EFPs — and I’m not saying I think they do — what’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re running around with a nuclear weapon. We need to use conventional assets. The threat’s not worth the risk. Mark my words, this is going to end up on the front page of the Post.”
The DCI leaned across the table until he was inches from Brookings’ face. “Shut the fuck up. There’s an attack on the way, and you know it. The intel is incontrovertible. If these guys have a way to stop it, let them go. Quit worrying about your own sorry ass.”
President Warren broke in. “Stop it. We’re all under the gun here, but there’s no reason to start acting like this is our first dance.”
Kurt watched the DCI lean back in his chair, his face a mask of calm. The subtle admonishment had accomplished the president’s goal. Even with the stakes, nobody wanted to be remembered as the guy who couldn’t handle the pressure. Least of all the director of central intelligence.
The DCI said, “It may not be nuclear, but trust me, it’s bad.”
President Warren said, “What do you mean?”
“Remember the covert action we did in Sudan a couple of years ago? The one where the ‘rebels’ managed to destroy a Chinese oil refinery?”
“Yes. What’s that got to do with this?”
“My operative used one of these EFPs to get it done, while it was still in testing. It was chosen because of its standoff capabilities. We didn’t really look at its destructive power, but it ended up being significant. It ripped through the entire refinery.”
“I thought you just took out a critical component, and the rebels did the rest?”
“We targeted a critical component. The EFP took out the refinery. Trust me, these things are deadly. If the terrorists are creative, we’re looking at damage that rivals a WMD.”
“Jesus Christ. Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“Uhh… well, you were briefed on the damage and the impact. We don’t usually brief you on the tactical details. It wasn’t kept from you intentionally. We did report the results to DARPA for further development.”
The president closed his eyes, letting the statement sink in, then said, “I want all intelligence related to the EFPs in the system, yesterday. I don’t care how you do it. Wash it of Taskforce fingerprints, but get it out there. FBI, ATF, local law enforcement, everyone.”
39
I was thinking about ordering another drink to give me a plausible reason to remain at my table, when Jennifer called, her information surprising the hell out of me.
“Got one of them. He’s leaving the hotel now. Picture’s on the way.”
I pulled up the imaging software on my phone and saw an Arabic man with a thin, acerbic face and prominent ears that jutted out from the sides of his head like small wings.
“Which way?”
“Hang on…. Okay, he’s headed east.”
“Good work. See if you can get a facial ID on the others — break-break — Retro, he’s coming by you. Pick him up and slave his phone. Everyone else stand by.”
I was sitting at an outside patio just down the street from the suspected terrorists’ hotel, with the rest of the team at various other nearby locations, waiting to take over surveillance when I directed. I knew they were amped up, because there was no way we should have found the terrorists on our first attempt.
As soon as we’d landed in Prague, I had the team start working Noordin’s office. We didn’t have authority to do anything overt, but I figured necking down the terrorist’s location fell under the rubric of “preparing the battle space.” Naturally, I didn’t ask permission. It was easier to ask forgiveness, and I knew by the fact that Kurt hadn’t demanded an ops update that he didn’t want to know what we were doing.
We’d usually send a situation report when we hit the ground, but in this case Kurt would be forced to tell me to stand down, so we both acted like a report wasn’t necessary. Which was really stretching things, because we’d done quite a few operational acts in a short span of time.
First, we’d taken a snapshot of the cell activity in and around the building that housed Noordin’s Prague office. As expected, there were a bazillion cell phones in use, but running a reverse lookup left only a dozen or so that were pay-as-you-go and not tied to a human. Once we necked those down, we simply analyzed which phones were talking to each other, figuring that the terrorists had to be in contact. That left four phones, all interconnected.
We could have picked a phone and done some black magic to get it to tell us where it was located, provided it had a GPS, but the activity could be detected by the cell service provider and might lead to questions and an investigation into our cell phones. Especially in a city with well-developed infrastructure, such as Prague. It was better to leave that as a last resort, so we did it the hard way.
We spent a day looking at historical location patterns of the cell phones, plotting on a computer map each tower they talked to. We found that two spent the night within a tower footprint near several hotels. The other two had disappeared while we worked, either because they were turned off, had a dead battery, or — worst case — had left the area.
Early this morning, we’d received execute authority from the Oversight Council to “develop the situation,” which was military speak for “I don’t know what the hell to tell you. Figure it out.” I had no problem doing that, since it pretty much gave me carte blanche to do whatever I thought was necessary, as long as I didn’t get caught. My plan was simple: Locate the Arabs, then follow them until we could confirm or deny terrorist activity.
We took our best guess at which hotel the men might use inside the cell-tower footprint we’d found, then put Jennifer in it, the one person who knew what the suspects looked like. I figured it would take several stakeouts at different hotels before we hit the jackpot and had planned for a week to simply locate them, but we’d gotten lucky on our very first one.
My little hands-free earpiece crackled again. “Pike, Retro. I have eyes on Jug-ears.”
Kamil broke out onto the street and was blinded by the sunlight. He waited a bit, letting his eyes adjust from the gloom of the cheap hotel they’d found.
The man on the phone had given him strict instructions to follow, a connect-the-dots travel pattern designed to sniff out whether he was helping the police, either wittingly or unwittingly. He didn’t mind at all, and in fact appreciated the professionalism being shown for their initial meeting.
His first task was to board the metro at the Namesti Republiky stop, headed toward Zlicin. Apparently, it was some
where nearby, just through a hideous black monolith of stone called the Powder Tower.
Finding that was easy enough, as the tower dominated the landscape. Passing through the gate, walking on cobblestones from the thirteenth century, he ignored the calls from the barker, dressed ludicrously like a soldier from the Middle Ages, urging him to see Prague from the top of the tower. Entering a large square bustling with people from all nationalities, he spotted the Republiky metro sign across the street.
Retro waited until the Arab was past him, facing away, before getting up and following. Staying a good distance back, he never once paid any overt attention to the man. Once they were through the square and across the street, both walking with the natural flow of traffic on the cobblestone sidewalk, he pulled out his phone and began manipulating the touch screen.
The phone itself looked exactly like an Apple iPhone, but the similarities ended after the Apple logo. Instead of Facebook or YouTube, the phone had a wealth of applications designed to enhance Taskforce capabilities. One was a Blue Force Tracking program interconnected with all team phones, which allowed anyone on the team to know in real time where the rest of the team was located, thereby facilitating rapid decision making on the fly. A new addition to the application was the ability to covertly inject it into another phone via a Bluetooth wireless connection, whereby that phone would appear as an icon as well on the scalable moving map.
Retro figured he could make a fortune if he sold it on the open market. Surveillance? Why, yes, there’s an app for that.
Getting within thirty feet of his target, he started the scan and picked up more than forty cell phones within range. Scrolling down until he found the terrorist’s number, he locked onto it, interrogating the phone for Bluetooth connectivity. In short order, it registered, and he hit the key sequence to inject the application.
His target reached a corner and turned right, causing him to lose visual contact. He quickened his pace, but not so much that he’d stand out. Reaching the corner, he rapidly searched the area, knowing that if the target phone got too far away, it would break the Bluetooth connection and thus the download. He caught a glimpse of his quarry getting on an escalator to the metro. He waited a beat, then followed.
He entered a well-lit tunnel on possibly the longest escalator he had ever seen. It stretched so far out in front of him, it gave him vertigo. Ten steps below him, he saw the Arab. Worried about losing the cell signal underground, he gave a verbal update.
“Jug-ears is headed down to the metro. Republiky stop. I might lose coverage down here, but I’ll be able to complete the download while we ride together.”
Pike came back. “Roger all. I’ll leapfrog to the next station headed south. Buckshot, you take the station to the north.”
Retro heard Buckshot acknowledge, then noticed a man standing at the bottom of the escalator, at what still seemed like a football field away. The metro itself was deserted, with nobody coming up on the opposite escalator and only him and the target going down. The man was looking at them both.
Shit. Perfect location to see if he’s being followed. He’s being washed.
He came back on the net. “Pike, Pike, target might have help. I’m being eye-fucked hard.”
“You burned?”
“Not yet, but I will be. I’m at turn two. If this guy’s deliberate, he’ll know something’s up if I stick with Jug-ears.”
Retro knew the easiest way to spot surveillance was simply to see the same person over both time and distance. He’d now made two deliberate decisions along with the target, but luckily the metro was a focal point that could explain both of them. Getting on the metro with Jug-ears would be okay, but getting off and continuing to shadow the target would be turn three and four, and if this man was conducting countersurveillance, the game would be up.
Pike said, “Okay, I’m at the Mustek station. If he comes this way, I’ll get on and pick up the target. You get off. Buckshot, you do the same if he heads the other way. Copy?”
“Roger all.”
Retro finally reached the end of the escalator, buying time by acting a little confused and looking at the wall map until Jug-ears had committed to a train line. Finally, he went left, toward the Mustek stop. Retro gave him a moment, then followed. Behind came the man at the escalator.
Hmmm. Stand at the bottom doing nothing, then decide to ride?
He checked the download bar on the phone and saw that he’d injected only half of the application.
Shit. I need to pass this phone to Buckshot or Pike. When he left the metro, the connection would be broken, and the download would have to be started all over again. Luckily, his phone maintained a cell signal even in the tunnel.
Only the three of them were waiting at the metro stop, so he texted Pike to avoid being overheard, studiously ignoring the target and the other man. The text was routed to every member of the team, just like a radio call, alleviating gaps in information.
Mustek’s the stop and I’m fairly sure the other guy’s countersurveillance.
A second later, his phone vibrated.
PIKE:
No issues. I have a signal down here. I can see you on the map. I’ll meet you coming off the metro. Any idea about the CS?
RETRO:
No. He’s not Arab. Looks Eastern European. Need to pass you phone. Downloads still going.
PIKE:
K. Brush pass coming off metro.
Retro tapped “QSL” and waited for the train to arrive.
40
I received the QSL, which was old-fashioned radio shorthand for “message received and understood,” used originally during Morse code days, then later during data-burst transmissions from cold-war radios. Now in use again for texting.
Talk about old-school. Screw all that LOL shit.
I had no idea how our little band of terrorists had managed to integrate into some sort of Eastern European countersurveillance network, but it was just one more data point in the string of things that had made no sense, starting with Johnny’s mission in Indonesia and ending with a traitor in the U.S. Congress. All we could do was continue what we were doing. Sooner or later, it would sort itself out. I would have liked a full-on support package, but this operation was way outside the standard Taskforce template. Which was to say that we didn’t usually pull everything out of our ass.
I knew I’d have very little time when the metro doors opened. Retro’d get about a half second to pass me the phone as he walked by. Done right, nobody would know something had occurred. Done wrong, and we’d signal to the world that we were involved in amateur-hour illegal shit. And I hated amateur-hour shit. Illegal or otherwise.
My phone vibrated with another text message. Apparently, the unknown countersurveillance guy had now made physical contact with the target, sitting down and giving him instructions. It looked like Retro had managed to deflect attention from himself.
Five seconds later, I got a text saying that Jug-ears had stood up, intent on getting off the metro. Shit… How in hell was I supposed to do a brush pass, picking up the phone and entering the metro while Retro left, when the target was now leaving? I’d be stuck riding the metro while Jug-ears went on his merry way. The countdown timer for the arrival of the next train showed forty-five seconds.
This is like the damn Amazing Race.
I texted Retro, asking what the CS was doing.
RETRO: Sitting still. Probably waiting on me to make a move.
PIKE: Stay on. Drag him with you. Get off couple stops later.
RETRO: K. What about download?
PIKE: I’ll just start again. What car?
RETRO: 2nd from front.
I felt the breeze of the approaching train, the wind growing with a howl as the air was pushed out of the tunnel and into the station. I positioned myself at the far end of the platform, looking to anybody watching like I wanted to board.
The cars squealed to a halt, then disgorged their passengers in a flurry. Since Mustek was a transfer statio
n for both the A and B lines, there were a lot more people getting off, allowing me to integrate into the flow with little effort. I took one last look at the photo of the target, this time to get a fix on what he was wearing, then headed to the escalator with everyone else.
Halfway up, I saw a brown jacket topped by a black head of hair. I didn’t bother trying to close the gap because I absolutely didn’t want to spike anyone else helping him.
Getting to the top of the Disneyland-length escalator, I had two choices — either go outside or transfer to the B metro line. I chose outside, knowing if I missed him I could redirect Buckshot to the next stop on the other line and hopefully pick him up again. Worst case, we still had the anchor of the hotel.
The Mustek stop exited right out onto Wenceslas Square, a walking promenade that a couple of decades ago had filled to capacity with angry mobs marking the end of communism in the Czech Republic without a shot being fired, but nowadays was the heart of shopping in Prague, full of cafés and department stores. It was a beautiful day, the air crisp enough to make me appreciate the warmth of the sun on my face. The square was teeming with shoppers and tourists, causing a sliver of alarm.
Too many people. I’ll never know if he took the other metro line. I considered going back down to the train, but decided to check out the area first. I pulled the trigger on Buckshot, getting him in position at the Staromestska stop near the Charles Bridge, then did the same with Decoy on the other end.
The only good thing was that the same crowds that made it hard for me to track Jug-ears made it very, very hard to do surveillance detection work. No way could they be sure someone wasn’t just a dumb-ass tourist bouncing around.
Which means they’d have given him directions out of this place.
I rapidly looked around and saw multiple little alleys leading away from the promenade. I took the first one I could see and began winding my way through the maze that was Old Town Prague, with single-lane roads, cut-throughs, and cobblestone alleys the norm. I was sure I’d missed him, when I saw him lazily strolling down a side street that had to be as old as the tombs we’d seen last week.