Terminal Rage

  “Then I take it leaving behind those four SWAT operators we found on the rooftop was not the FBI’s idea. NYPD perhaps? Homeland? Anyone else you care to blame?”

  Blackwell tried to articulate something quick but a thick blob of nerves in his throat froze him. He darted a gaze at Monica, regretting their decision to leave Voss and his men up there, vulnerable with no cover.

  “My request was simple enough but the FBI chose to ignore me. Whatever happens next is something you’ll all be held accountable for, I want you to remember that.”

  Blackwell heard a door opening and shutting in the background.

  Seth was moving from one room to another.

  The other agents behind Blackwell got up from their seats and huddled around him, generating electric energy Blackwell could feel buzzing on his nape.

  Seth spoke again, but not to Blackwell.

  “State your name.” A loud thump like a fist landing on a face was followed by a cry of agony from the bowels of a grown man. Albert Voss.

  “Say your fucking name!” It was a different voice screaming the command in the background, probably one of Seth’s two accomplices, followed by another thud, maybe the base of the gun landing on a skull.

  “Albert Voss,” he said, his voice weak and defeated.

  Blackwell leaned into the mic, his hands in fists. “Do not harm these men, Seth! I beg you. Take them hostage. These are federal agents who will be worth more to you alive than dead.”

  “Bism Allah al rahman al raheem. Ashhadu ana la ilaha ila Allah wa ashadu ana Muhammadan rasool Allah.” The same voice that had just screamed at Voss was reciting something in Arabic.

  Blackwell rotated on the axis of his chair to face Natasha Shaker.She was cupping her mouth, her eyes widening.

  “It’s the shahada—Muslims recite this before slaughtering an animal.”

  Monica grabbed Blackwell’s headset mic and exploded in wrathful, unintelligible words, drowned out by four consecutive gunshots echoing in the room.

  Seth’s voice came back, cold, monotone and steadfast.

  “Tell the wives and children of these four men it wasn’t a Muslim terrorist who killed them, but the intransigence and eternal arrogance of the FBI and the government of the United States of America.”

  The throbbing in Blackwell’s temples and his face went nuclear.

  A heavy silence engulfed the negotiating room.

  Monica held her hands against her head and silent tears erupted from her eyes.

  For the first time since Blackwell had seen him, Nishimura stopped chewing his gum.

  Slant and Grove gaped at each other, frozen in time, coffee mugs still in their hands, while Natasha Shaker, who’d been exposed to the true impact of the chilling Arabic recital still cupped her mouth, the light in her eyes switched off.

  Seth revved up again.

  “Listen carefully, you pieces of shit and dare not interrupt me. I didn’t come here to play games. I’m shifting the deadline an hour earlier, so four a.m. New York time. We’ll kill four hostages every ten minutes for the next hour after that. Twenty-four dead Exertify employees for you to deal with. I’ll kill Mark Price last with a shot in the eye. Nothing will give me more pleasure.

  “If by five a.m. Nabulsi and Madi are not safe in the hands of my men in Naples, Julia Price won’t be nearly as lucky as her uncle in the manner in which she is executed.

  “Then the kids, because that’s who you came for, isn’t it?”

  Blackwell felt the contents of his stomach rising up.

  “You didn’t have to kill these men.”

  “You didn’t have to leave them up there.”

  “Now you have blood on your hands.”

  “I guess that makes two of us. If it’s any consolation, they were good men and died honorably thinking they were protecting the hostages. Doing the right thing until the last breath. Don’t let them die in vane.”

  Monica snatched the headset from Blackwell’s face in blatant breach of protocol.

  “When this is all over I swear to God I’ll hunt you down and piss in your dead open skull, whoever you are!”

  Seth ignored Monica as if her voice had just been static.

  “The entire floor is wired with explosives. One small click and we all go up in flames. Remember the vest I am wearing. If you take me out, be prepared for the consequences. You can’t outsmart me, you can’t predict my actions, and unlike any of you, I am prepared to die today.”

  THIRTEEN

  Sunday, November 6, 2011—3:57 a.m.

  Cairo, Egypt

  Ambassador Farid Mourad didn’t recognize the number blinking on his cellphone, so he put it back on his nightstand and ignored the call, then turned to look at the woman next to him, fast asleep. Twenty years younger, her mere presence in his bed made him more alive than he’d ever felt sleeping next to his own wife.

  Moonlight poured in the bedroom through a large wrought-iron window overlooking the Nile, casting soft hues on his bed partner’s delicate features. Her long black hair shimmered like strands of expensive silk, sprawling around her and covering most of her full breasts. Usually she tied it in a neat bun before they went to bed, but right after sex she became drowsy and skipped these rituals.

  They were both naked.

  She lay on her side, her thighs half-covered with a designer sheet made in his country using the best cotton known to man, but purchased overseas for fifty times the cost of producing it. The contours of her body were now keeping him awake, hungry again and contemplating some more of the love-making they’d shared a few hours earlier that had left him hot and high on desire.

  I’m one lucky guy to have a woman like Dalia in my life.

  Mourad was the only man fortunate enough to see her hair and bare body, while everyone else had to use their imagination to conjure images of her stunning beauty beneath her veil. Mourad decided to keep admiring her for a while, hoping this would lull him back to sleep.

  Dalia Oraby was a junior analyst in his division. She was the only female diplomat who had kept her job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after donning the veil during Mubarak’s rule. The veil was not an expression of piety for her, but it provided critical social acceptance required by a divorced woman to fend off any suspicion of promiscuity. Their affair had started two years ago when she was working under him at the MOFA. Back then Dalia wasn’t veiled yet, but she was still married—to Mourad’s nephew.

  Mourad lived with his wife and three children in a massive villa overlooking a golf course in the upscale gated community of Katameya in west Cairo. His affair with Dalia was a secret to protect his children rather than his sham of a marriage.

  This apartment in a chic building overlooking the river in the affluent neighborhood of Zamalek was a love nest. As far as his wife was concerned, he needed a place to crash and sleep on the days he worked late and was too tired to drive back home. Considering the revolution raging through his country, which had forced him to work even longer hours, his wife never questioned that logic.

  Mourad’s cellphone started vibrating and blinking with renewed urgency, rattling with anger against the marble surface of the nightstand.

  This time the number was withheld. Any more of this and she’d wake up, he thought, before powering down his phone for the night. The country, the revolution and his boss would have to wait until tomorrow.

  He closed his eyes and started parleying with sleep once more, and could have probably prevailed if his home phone hadn’t erupted like an air-raid siren, jolting him out of bed.

  No one but his immediate family knew this number, which meant this was either bad or terrible news. He sprung to the phone before it woke her up, fumbling for a few seconds to find the cordless handset under a mountain of paperwork on his desk. By the time he picked up it was too late. Dalia sat up startled in bed.

 
; “Alo?” His voice was abrupt to indicate exactly how he felt about the timing of the call. He held his finger to his lips to signal to Dalia not to speak, just in case it was his wife on the phone.

  “Your Excellency. My apologies for calling at this hour. Ambassador Wagner would like to speak to you on a matter of extreme urgency.”

  He wasn’t expecting an American voice and had prepared all of his choice expletives in Arabic as he stood naked, his glance fixed on Dalia. It took Mourad a few seconds to process what he had just heard. Of course the Americans would know where to find me.

  Blake Wagner was the American ambassador to Egypt and a good friend of Mourad’s.

  “By all means. I’ll take the call.”

  Wagner’s voice boomed with impressive resonance and confidence, even this late at night. “Farid. I know it’s a lousy time but we’re in a tight fix and need your help.”

  “Whatever I can do, Blake. What happened?”

  “Nothing I can say over an unsecured line. I need you to arrange a meeting for me in the next thirty minutes with the SCAF. With General Elwy in attendance, if possible. We’re going to ask a massive favor and need as many friends as we can get in that room.”

  Wagner was referring to General Hazem Elwy, one of the younger members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the abruptly convened body that had assumed power after Mubarak was toppled. Elwy was known for his pragmatism and moderate stance toward America.

  “Consider it done. Start heading to Abbassiya now and by the time you get to the Ministry of Defense you’ll be cleared to enter. I’ll head there myself right away.”

  “You are a good friend, Farid.”

  How things had changed in less than a year. Ten months ago, if the US administration had wanted something urgently from the Egyptian government, they would have gone straight to the chief-keeper of the alliance between the two nations—then President Hosni Mubarak. The old Pharaoh of Egypt was now whiling away his days in a prison hospital pending a criminal trial, nine months after a popular revolution had toppled him.

  Egypt was now ruled by the SCAF, a governing body of twenty-one senior army officers. Most of these military men were not well versed in the intricacies of the alliance between Egypt and America, hence unfamiliar currencies for the US administration. Pressured by the political tsunami ravaging the country, the SCAF generals had alienated the Yanks in order to strike a popular, nationalist tone at home.

  The Americans had always loved Mourad, though. Not just because of his strategic role as the director of the counterterrorism desk at the MOFA, but because he loved them back. Early in his career, the CIA and the State Department had reached out to nurture and support him. Before the revolution froze all posts and promotions, Mourad had been on track to nab the coveted Washington ambassadorial slot, a position known to herald an almost inevitable appointment as Minister one day.

  A Georgetown graduate, Mourad had spent his formative years in America when his father was a star diplomat under President Sadat. Later, when Mourad became one of the country’s top diplomats in his own right, he rose as a proponent of strong Egyptian-American ties, a role that came into full fruition after the Mubarak regime had imploded and the lines of communication between the two countries became strained.

  The SCAF generals were brash and paranoid as far as Mourad was concerned. Their only obsession was to appease the Islamic current that had bubbled to power. Without much choice in the matter, Mourad found himself the key masseur of the tense relations between the new military rulers of Egypt and the US administration.

  The deep connections he had cultivated over the years on both sides of the divide made him a shoo-in as the US administration’s go-to man in the new Egypt. Through his groundbreaking work on joint counterterrorism initiatives, the Americans saw him as Egypt’s most trusted and capable diplomat. He was on a first-name basis with the secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and worked with the top analysts at the CIA. As the founder of the American-Egyptian Shield—a think tank promoting greater security and intelligence cooperation between the two countries—he had high-level ties to the US military complex.

  On the other side, Mourad was close to the Egyptian intelligence, the Mokhabarat. Through Egypt’s spy agency, Mourad was introduced to the highest echelons of the Egyptian army. At one point in his career, Mourad had come to the realization that whatever the future held for his country, it would inevitably be intertwined with the men who held the guns.

  His best interest would be to cultivate deep ties with the top generals, a strategy that had served him well after the revolution. The SCAF generals began to bypass the Mubarak-appointed foreign minister and worked directly with Mourad on matters involving the faltering alliance with America.

  He hung up the phone and made his way back to Dalia, who had curled back in bed like a kitten.

  “I have to go.”

  She granted him a slow, buttery kiss. A fresh chill in the air made her shiver in his embrace, so he pulled up the sheet to her waist. He leaned forward and gave her lips longer, deeper attention, running his fingers along her soft, warm buttocks. His eyes must have said it all. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll go take care of business and then I’m coming back for you, all day in bed.

  Mourad was ushered into the brightly lit operations room of the SCAF headquarters by a young, smiling brigadier general from military intelligence. Ambassador Wagner and Finn Simmer—the FBI’s Legal Attaché in Cairo—sat at one side of a long mahogany table across from three uniformed men.

  General Ali Farag was the most senior Egyptian in the room, with an impressive mustache to prove it. To his left was General Moufid Gad, a quiet, bespectacled fellow with sad eyes who had been pulled out of retirement when the SCAF was convened.

  The third general at the table was Gamal Harby, a heavyset bull of a man with a stern, red face betraying a seething volatility ready to explode at any time. He was the most hawkish of the group. Mourad was disappointed although not surprised to see him.

  Silver trays of oriental pastries and fresh savory canapés were laid out on the table. At the far end of the room, a beverages station had been set up. Chilled jugs of fresh mango juice, hibiscus-infused water, mint tea and multiple varieties of coffee were ready for self-service. The level of security required for the meeting meant the usual wait staff was locked out, and the diplomats and the generals would have to serve themselves for a change.

  A fourth general in the room, Hazem Elwy, stood by the beverages pouring a hot steaming something into a mug. When he saw Mourad walk in he smiled and took his drink back to the table.

  Mourad established eye contact with General Farag and wished him good morning. He asked him in Arabic where he wanted him to sit and then went around the table to shake the hands of the seated generals.

  Harby’s grasp was tight and belligerent, countered by a warm hug and cheek kisses from General Elwy. If Harby was the biggest obstacle to cutting a quick deal for the Americans, Elwy had been summoned as the antidote. He didn’t have much in the way of balls but was the closest thing the Americans had to a cheerleader within SCAF.

  Mourad turned to face the American contingent.

  “Good morning, Blake. Good to see you again, Finn.”

  Blake Wagner nodded his head in gratitude. “Thank you for arranging this, Farid.”

  Wagner was an African American in his late fifties who in another life had been a Harvard professor. His posting to Cairo was a political appointment but not an inappropriate choice. Wagner was an expert on US-Egyptian politics and had written the seminal textbook on the topic. He had a Hollywood-grade jaw structure, full lips, and chocolate eyes cloaking a steel interior and stubborn resolve.

  General Farag instructed Farid to sit next to the Americans. Symmetry at the table would be based on civilian versus military, rather than Americans versus Egyptians, and sanctioned English to be the la
nguage of the meeting, out of courtesy to Wagner and Finn.

  Mourad listened to Wagner recount the story of a hostage-taking, starting with the abduction of Senator William Price’s daughter Julia a few weeks ago. New York couldn’t afford another major terrorist event, he told them. Wagner revealed the hostage-taker’s demand for the release of two Jordanians convicted of the 2005 terror attack in Sharm El Sheikh, and the tight deadline he’d set.

  Mourad’s jaw dropped. He had understood what Blake Wagner would ask for, and hoped to God this troop of uniformed yes-men could make it happen.

  “The president has asked me to request your kind approval to release in our custody the two prisoners, Tarek Nabulsi and Hassan Madi. These men will be exchanged for Senator Price’s daughter. We make this request in the spirit of friendship and the long alliance between our countries.”

  The generals looked at one another without saying a word. Every one of them including Elwy like mute alabaster statues.

  Finn Simmer was the first to speak to break the diplomatic awkwardness. His boyish golden curls were unexpected for a man wrapping his forties.

  “A short while ago the suspects executed four FBI HRT operators who were embedded on top of the besieged tower.” He pulled out a tablet from his briefcase and played the audio recording of the shooting.

  Mourad was moved by this brazen execution, as were the generals, surprisingly.

  “He’s Omani.” General Gad’s soft, gentle voice caught everyone in the room off-guard. Mourad had been in grueling half-day meetings with Gad where he didn’t utter a single word, sometimes dozing off half-way.

  “The man reading al shahada before killing your FBI agents in the recording—he’s from Oman. I lived in Muscat for many years. My father was an Arabic teacher there in the seventies. I recognize the accent. The other man—the main suspect who calls himself Seth—it’s hard to say where he’s from, but his name is Egyptian.”

  Simmer nodded in gratitude. “Thank you, General Gad. None of these voices registered in our databases. We think they’re cleanskins. May I ask why you think ‘Seth’ is an Egyptian name? Our analysts believe it’s a reference to a prophet and drew related conclusions.”