Teeth of the Tiger jrj-1

by Tom Clancy

  "Our people are pleased with last week. We have shaken the Americans badly," Fa'ad said.

  "Not enough for them to disown the Israelis. They love the Jews more than their own children. Mark my words on this. And they will lash out at us."

  "How?" Fa'ad demanded. "Lash out, yes, at whomever their spy agencies know about, but that will only inflame the faithful and drive more to our cause. No, our organization they do not know about. They do not even know our name." This was because their organization did not really have a name. "Organization" was merely a descriptive word for their association of the Faithful.

  "I hope you are correct. So, do I have more orders?"

  "You have done well — three of the men you recruited chose martyrdom in America."

  "Three?" Atef was agreeably surprised. "They died well, I trust?"

  "They died in Allah's Holy Name. That should be good enough. So, do you have any more recruits ready for us?"

  Atef sipped his coffee. "Not quite, but I have two leaning in our direction. This is not easy, as you know. Even the most faithful wish to enjoy the fruits of a good life." As he was doing himself, of course.

  "You have done well for us, Anas. Better to be sure than to be overly demanding of them. Take your time. We can be patient."

  "How patient?" Atef wanted to know.

  "We have additional plans for America, to sting them worse. This time we killed hundreds. The next time, we shall kill thousands," Fa'ad promised, with a sparkle in his eye.

  "How, exactly?" Atef asked immediately. He could have been—should have been — a plans officer. His engineering education made him ideal for such things. Didn't they know that? There were people in the organization who thought with their balls instead of their brains.

  "That I am not at liberty to say, my friend." Because he didn't know, Fa'ad Rahman Yasin did not say. He wasn't sufficiently trusted by those higher in the organization, which would have outraged him had he known it.

  The son of a whore probably doesn't know himself, Atef thought at the same time.

  "We approach the hour of prayer, my friend," Anas Ali Atef said, checking his watch. "Come with me. My mosque is only ten minutes away." It would soon be time for the Salat. It was a test for his colleague, to make sure that he was truly faithful.

  "As you say." Both rose and walked to the streetcar, which fifteen minutes later stopped a block from the mosque.

  * * *

  "Heads up, Aldo," Dominic said. They'd been checking out the neighborhood, really just to get a feel for the area, but there was their friend, walking down the street with what had to be a friend of his own.

  "Who's wog number two, I wonder?" Brian said.

  "Nobody we know, and we can't freelance. You packin'?" Dominic asked.

  "Bet your bippy, bro. You?"

  "Hang a big roger on that," Dominic answered. Their target was about thirty yards off, walking right at them, probably heading to the mosque, which was half a block behind them. "What do you think?"

  "Wave off, better to bag him on the way out."

  "Okay." And both turned right to look into the window of a hat shop. They heard — they damned near felt—him pass by. "How long you suppose it'll take?"

  "Damned if I know, man, I haven't been to church myself in a couple of months."

  "Super," Brian growled. "My own brother's an apostate."

  Dominic stifled a laugh. "You always were the altar boy in the family."

  * * *

  Sure enough, Atef and his friend walked in. It was time for daily prayers, the Salat, the second of Islam's Five Pillars. They would bend and kneel, facing Mecca, whispering favored phrases from the Holy Koran, affirming their faith as they did so. On entering the building, they removed their shoes, and, to Yasin's surprise, this mosque suffered from a German influence. There were individualized cubbyholes in the wall of the atrium for their shoes, all of them properly numbered, to prevent confusion… or theft. That was a rare offense indeed in any Muslim country, because the Islamic penalty for thievery was very harsh, and to do so in Allah's Own House would have been a deliberate offense to God Himself. They then entered the mosque proper and made their obeisance to Allah.

  It didn't take long, and with it came a kind of refreshment for Atef's soul, as he reaffirmed his religious beliefs. Then it was over. He and his friend made their way back to the atrium, collected their shoes, and walked outside.

  They weren't the first out the large doors, and the others had served to alert the two Americans. It was really a question of which way they'd go. Dominic was watching the street, looking for a police or intelligence officer, but didn't see any. He was betting that their subject would head toward his apartment. Brian took the other direction. It looked as though forty or so people had gone in for prayers. Coming out, they scattered to the four winds, singly or in small groups. Two got into the fronts of taxicabs — presumably their own — and drove off to catch fares. That did not include any of their coreligionists, who were probably working-class schlubs who walked or took public transportation. It hardly made them seem villainous to the twins, both of whom closed in, but neither too fast nor two obviously. Then the subject and his pal came out.

  They turned left, directly toward Dominic, thirty yards away.

  From his perspective, Brian saw it all. Dominic removed the gold pen from the inside pocket of his not-quite-a-suit jacket, furtively twisting the tip to arm it, then holding it in his right hand like an ice pick. He was heading on a close reciprocal course to the subject…

  It was, perversely, a thing of beauty to watch. Just six feet away, Dominic appeared to trip over something, and fell right into the Atef guy. Brian didn't even see the stick. Atef went down with his brother, and that would have covered the discomfort of the stab. Atef's pal helped both of them up. Dominic made his apology and headed on his way, with Brian following the target. He hadn't seen Sali check out, and so this was interesting in a grim sort of way. The subject walked about fifty feet, then stopped in his tracks. He must have said something, because his friend turned as though to ask a question, just in time to see Atef fall down. One arm came up to protect his face from the fall, but then the entire body went limp.

  The second man was clearly dumbfounded by what he saw. He bent down to see what was wrong, first in puzzlement, then in concern, and then in panic, rolling the body over and speaking loudly to his fallen friend. Brian passed them about then. Atef's face was as composed and unmoving as a doll's. The guy's brain was active, but he couldn't even open his eyes. Brian stood there for a minute, then wandered off, without looking back, but he gestured to a German passerby to provide assistance, which the German did, reaching into his coat and pulling out a cell phone. He'd probably call for an ambulance. Brian walked to the next intersection and turned to observe, checking his watch. The ambulance was there in six and a half minutes. The Germans really were well organized. The responding fireman/paramedic checked the pulse, looked up in surprise, and then with alarm. His coworker on command pulled a box from inside the vehicle, and, as Brian watched, Atef was intubated and bagged. The two firemen were well trained, clearly going through a process they'd practiced in the station and had probably used on the street many times. In their urgency, they did not move Atef into the ambulance, but instead treated him as best they could on the spot.

  Ten minutes since he'd gone down, Brian saw by his watch. Atef was already brain-dead, and that was the name of that tune. The Marine officer turned left and walked to the next corner, where he caught a taxi, fumbling through the name of the hotel, but the driver figured it out. Dominic was in the lobby when he got there. Together they headed for the bar.

  The one good thing about wasting a guy right out of church was that they could be reasonably certain that he wasn't going to hell. At least, that was one less thing to trouble their consciences. The beer helped, too.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE SOUND OF HUNTING

  Munich at 14:26 in the afternoon translated into 8
:26 A.M. Eastern Standard Time at The Campus. Sam Granger was in his office early, wondering if he'd see an e-mail. The twins were working fast. Not recklessly so, but they were certainly making use of the technology with which they'd been provided, and they were not wasting The Campus's time or money along the way. He'd already set up Subject No. 3, of course, encrypted and ready to go out on the 'Net. Unlike with Sali in London, he could not expect any "official" notice about the death from the German intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, which had taken scant notice of Anas Ali Atef. It would be, if anything, a matter for the city police in Munich, but more likely a case for the local coroner's office — just one more fatal heart attack for a country in which too many citizens smoked and ate fatty foods.

  The e-mail arrived at 8:43 from Dominic's computer, reporting the successful hit in considerable detail, almost like an official investigative report to the FBI. The fact that Atef had had a friend close by was probably a bonus. That an enemy had witnessed the killing probably meant that no suspicion would be attached to the subject's demise. The Campus would do its best to get the official report on Atef's departure, however, just to make sure, though that would have its elements of difficulty.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Ryan and Wills did not know anything about it, of course. Jack was going through his routine tasks of scanning message traffic within the American intelligence services — which took over an hour — and after that, a scan of Internet traffic to and from known or suspected terrorist addresses. The overwhelming majority of it was so routine it was like e-mails between a husband and wife over what to pick up at the Safeway on the way home from work. Some of those e-mails could easily be coded messages of significant import, but there was no telling that without a program or crib sheet. At least one terrorist had used "hot weather" to mean heavy security at a location of interest to his colleagues, but the message had been sent in July, when the weather was, indeed, warmer than was comfortable. And that message had been copied down by the FBI, and the Bureau hadn't taken particular notice of it at first. But one new message positively leaped off the screen at him this morning.

  "Hey, Tony, you want to look at this one, buddy."

  The addressee was their old friend 56MoHa@euro-com. net, and the content reconfirmed his identity as a nexus for bad-guy message traffic:

  ATEF IS DEAD. HE DIED RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES HERE IN MUNICH. AN AMBULANCE WAS SUMMONED AND THEY TREATED HIM ON THE SIDEWALK BUT HE DIED IN THE HOSPITAL OF A HEART ATTACK. REQUIRE INSTRUCTIONS. FA'AD. And his address was Honeybear@ostercom.net, which was new to Jack's computer index.

  "Honeybear?" Wills observed with a chuckle. "This guy must surf for women on the 'Net."

  "So, he does cybersex, fine. Tony, if we just whacked a guy named Atef over in Germany, here's confirmation of the event, plus a new target for us to track." Ryan turned back to his workstation and used his mouse to check sources. "Here, NSA picked up on it, too. Maybe they think he's a possible player."

  "You sure like making leaps of imagination," Wills observed tersely.

  "My ass!" Jack was actually angry for once. He was beginning to understand why his father had often been so pissed off at intelligence information that arrived in the Oval Office. "God damn it, Tony, how much clearer do things have to be?"

  Wills took a deep breath and spoke as calmly as usual. "Settle down, Jack. This is single-source, a single report on something that might or might not have taken place. You don't throw your hat over the barn about something until it's confirmed by a known source. This Honeybear identity could be a lot of things, few of which we can certify as a good guy or a bad guy."

  For his part, Jack Jr. wondered if he was being tested — again! — by his training officer. "Okay, let's walk through it. MoHa Fifty-six is a source that we're highly confident is a player, probably an operations officer for the bad guys. We've been sweeping the 'Net for him since I've been here, okay? So, we sweep the ether and this letter turns up in his mailbox at the same time we believe we — us — have a kill team in the field. Unless you're going to tell me that Uda bin Sali really did have a myocardial infarction while he was daydreaming about his favorite whore in downtown London. And that the Brit Security Service found the event highly interesting only because it's not every day that a suspected terrorist banker drops dead on the street. Have I missed anything?"

  Wills smiled. "Not a bad presentation. A little thin on the evidence, but your proposition was well organized. So, you think I should walk it upstairs?"

  "No, Tony, I think you should run it upstairs," Ryan said, easing back on the obvious anger. Take a deep breath and count to ten.

  "Then I guess I'll do it."

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Wills walked into Rick Bell's office. He handed over two sheets of paper.

  "Rick, do we have a team at work in Germany?" Wills asked. The response was not the least bit surprising.

  "Why do you ask?" Bell had a poker face that would have impressed a marble statue.

  "Read," Wills suggested.

  "Damn," the chief of analysis reacted. "Who pulled this fish out of the electronic ocean?"

  "Take a guess," Tony suggested.

  "Not bad, for the kid." Bell looked very closely at his guest. "How much does he suspect?"

  "At Langley, he'd sure as hell be getting people nervous."

  "Like you are?"

  "You might say that," Wills replied. "He makes good leaps of imagination, Rick."

  Bell made a face this time. "Well, it's not exactly the Olympic long-jump competition, is it?"

  "Rick, Jack puts two and two together about as fast as a computer tells the difference between one and zero. He's right, isn't he?"

  Bell took a second or two before replying. "What do you think?"

  "I think they got that Sali character for sure, and this is probably mission number two. How are they doing it?"

  "You really do not want to know. It's not as clean as it looks," Bell answered. "This Atef guy was a recruiter. He sent at least one guy to Des Moines."

  "That's a good enough reason," Wills judged.

  "Sam feels the same way. I'll turn this over to him. Follow-up?"

  "This MoHa guy needs a closer look. Maybe we can track him down," Wills said.

  "Any idea where he is?"

  "Italy, looks like, but a lot of people live on the boot. Lots of big cities with lots of ratholes. But Italy is a good place for him. Centrally located. Air service everywhere. And the terrorists have let Italy alone lately, and so nobody's hunting down the dog that isn't barking."

  "Same in Germany, France, and the rest of Central Europe?"

  Wills nodded. "Looks that way. They're next, but I don't think they fully appreciate it. Heads in the sand-like, Rick."

  "True," Bell agreed. "So, what do we do with your student?"

  "Ryan? Good question. Sure as hell, he's a quick learner. He's particularly good at connecting things," Wills thought out loud. "He makes big leaps of imagination, sometimes too far, but, still, it's not a bad quality for an analyst to have."

  "Grade to this point?"

  "B-plus, maybe a low A, and that's only because he's new. He's not as good as I am, but I've been in the business since before he was born. He's a comer, Rick. He'll go far."

  "That good?" Bell asked. Tony Wills was known as a careful conservative analyst, and one of the best Langley had ever turned out, despite the green eyeshade and the garters on the sleeves.

  Wills nodded. "That good." He was also scrupulously honest. It was his natural character, but he could also afford to be. The Campus paid far better than any government agency. His kids were all grown — the last one was in his final year at the University of Maryland in physics, and, after that, he and Betty could think about the next big step in life, though Wills liked it here and had no immediate plans to leave. "But don't tell him I said so."

  "Big head?"

  "No, that wouldn't be fair. But I don't want him to start thinking he
knows it all yet."

  "Nobody with half a brain thinks that way," Bell said.

  "Yeah." Wills stood. "But why take the chance?"

  Wills headed out, but Bell still didn't know what to do with the Ryan kid. Well, something to talk with the Senator about.

  * * *

  "Next stop, Vienna," Dominic informed his brother. "We got another subject."

  "You wonder how steady this job will be?" Brian wondered aloud.

  His brother laughed. "Man, there's enough mutts in America to keep us busy for the rest of our lives."

  "Yeah, save money, fire all the judges and juries."

  "My name ain't Dirty Harry Callahan, you jarhead."

  "And I'm not Chesty Puller, either. How do we get there? Fly, train — maybe drive?"

  "Driving might be fun," Dominic said. "I wonder if we can rent a Porsche…?"

  "Oh, great," Brian grunted. "Okay, log off so I can download the file, will ya?"

  "Sure. I'll see what the concierge can set up for us." And he headed out of the room.

  * * *

  "This is the only confirmation we have?" Hendley asked.

  "Correct." Granger nodded. "But it tallies exactly with what our guys on the ground told us."

  "They're going too fast. What if the other side thinks, 'Two heart attacks in less than a week'…? Then what?"

  "Gerry, the nature of this mission is recon-by-fire, remember? We halfway want the other side to get a little nervous, but soon their arrogance will set in and they'll write it off as random chance. If this were TV or the movies, they'd think CIA was playing hardball, but it isn't the movies, and they know that CIA doesn't play that kind of game. The Mossad, maybe, but they're already wary of the Israelis. Hey" — a lightbulb went off in Granger's brain—"what if they're the guys who offed the Mossad officer in Rome?"

  "I don't pay you to speculate, Sam."

  "It's a possibility," Granger persisted.

  "It's also possible that the Mafia hit the poor bastard because they mistook him for a fellow mafioso who owed money to the mob. But I wouldn't bet the ranch on it."