A Time of Fear: Book Three of The Time Magnet Series

by Russell Moran

  “What’s obvious to me,” said Bennie, “is that these guys are getting desperate. To put a known al Qaeda operative on an assassination job in broad daylight tells me that they’re really nervous.”

  “It looks like a second front just opened,” said Carlini. “Janice, Jack, Ben, and Wally, please make arrangements to move here to the Agency temporarily. We have plenty of residences. You’ll be comfortable, but most of all, secure.”

  No problem, I already have a place, I almost said.

  “Frank,” said Carlini, “as soon as we’re able to move around the building I want you to report to the clandestine ops people for a makeover. The last damn thing I want to see or read is that there’s a man at CIA who bears a resemblance to Jerome Bradley, the poor guy who was shot. The next time I see you, please introduce yourself because I won’t recognize you.”

  “Okay everybody, quick break while we wait for Buster. Don’t go far, because you won’t get far. We’re still on lockdown.”

  Chapter 42

  Everybody filed out of the room. Frank and I stood in a small anteroom next to the conference space.

  “I will torture, maim, and dismember anyone who so much as lays a hand on you, Frank.”

  Frank put a hand on my waist and pulled me closer to him.

  “Listen, tough lady, and please listen carefully. When things get dicey, and they always get dicey in this business, the last emotions you want are anger and hatred. Fear will take care of itself, but anger and hatred are your worst enemies. They cloud your decisions and cause you to make the wrong moves. Think of the mission, only the mission. Our job isn’t to hate the bad guys; our job is to kill them.”

  “Okay, then I’ll just kill them.”

  Frank laughed. Then I laughed. I can’t believe we’re laughing. Maybe I’m turning into a hardened spook. Frank made a good point about keeping emotions in check. Think mission. Good advice. So I’ll just feel sorry for the man who lays a finger on my Frankie. We were still alone so we took the opportunity for a hug. After the shooting I didn’t want to stop hugging him. Then he put both hands on my butt. Suddenly he pulled them away.

  “Hey, I didn’t tell you to stop that.”

  “The others are returning to the room, Honey.”

  Just enough time for a quick kiss.

  ***

  Buster, everybody’s favorite man of action, walked back into the room.

  “That shooting that just happened tells us that we have to move fast. Obviously you folks have been talking about just that while I was upstairs. I’ve taken Janice’s ideas about tear gas and chased down the possibilities. This can work. My guy at the Pentagon, well one of my guys at the Pentagon, told me about a small-fast moving robot that they use for tunneling. It can dig a tunnel up to three inches in diameter, just what Janice was looking for. It’s controlled by powerful remote telemetry, so we can give it commands while it’s deep under dirt. When it makes its turn and hits the bottom of the building, it quietly screws a small opening and surveys the room with a camera, giving us a real-time view of what’s going on. Then it will bore the larger hole through the concrete to connect the gas pipe, which it will drag behind it. A powerful fan, the kind they use in aircraft simulators, will blow the tear gas directly through the pipe, pushing a large volume of gas right into the building. There will be a lot of tear gas, a whole lot more than the stuff you see dispersing crowds on TV. And remember, this will happen inside a structure so the punch will be much more powerful. Any personnel inside the building will be immobilized within seconds.”

  “How soon can we start digging, Buster?” asked the Director.

  “We’ve started already.”

  Chapter 43

  Buster tasked me to work on the connector between the blower and the end of the pipe. This was actually easy, but Buster being Buster, he wanted me to move into a temporary office right next to his so that we could work faster. Buster moves so fast he almost disappears in front of your eyes. Today is Tuesday, October 27, less than a month to Thanksgiving Day, so nobody complained about Buster’s speed and crankiness.

  As I walked down a hallway to my new office, an interesting looking man walked toward me. He had a long white beard, rimless glasses, and wore a floppy hat. The man looked like an Oxford professor. This guy can stand to lose some weight, I thought, looking at his huge gut. He wore baggy blue jeans, old fashioned sneakers, and a frumpy sweatshirt.

  “Hello,” I said politely as I walked past him, concentrating on my design task.

  “Good morning, Honey,” said the man in a familiar deep baritone voice.

  I know that voice from somewhere, I thought, and who the hell is he to call me honey?

  “Dinner tonight?” he then said.

  I turned and looked at him, as he turned and looked at me. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.

  “Frankie!” I said, putting my hands over my mouth and trying to keep my voice down.

  “What have they done to you?”

  “Those clandestine ops people have a weird sense of humor, I’m afraid,” said Frank.

  I was laughing so hard, tears started to stream down my face. Buster turned the corner, saw my tear drenched face, and put on a hard look.

  Buster put both hands on his hips and flashed a face that said, “Don’t mess with my agent.”

  “My name is Agent Gamal Akhbar, and you would be?”

  “Hey, pal, I outrank you. Mind if I call you Buster?”

  Buster cracked up. “Those clan ops people have done a few numbers on me over the years, but nothing like this. Do we still call you Frank?”

  “No, the Director wants me to be Professor Michael Reynolds, a consultant from Virginia Tech.”

  “Welcome to the Agency, Professor Mike.” Buster continued toward his office, still laughing.

  I knew I should follow immediately because Buster gets in a raggedy mood if anyone’s late for a meeting. I gave Professor Mike a quick kiss through his tickly fake beard, and patted his “stomach.”

  “Later, Honey,” Frank said.

  I cracked up laughing again.

  Chapter 44

  “Sheik Haddad, I’m so sorry for the troubling news from Virginia,” said Hussein Basara, Haddad’s assistant.

  “It’s obvious that Ayham Abboud has been co-opted by the infidels, brother Basara, otherwise they would never have planted a lookalike at the CIA. Sadly, brother Kabani was killed in the operation, but he is now in heaven receiving his reward. Sheik Abboud is still missing, as is Abu Hussein, the man the infidels call Monahan. I have read the news reports that Monahan was killed in prison, but I still don’t believe them.”

  “Today is October 27, my brother. Are the weapons for our quest ready to use?”

  “Yes, sir, the timing devices have been inserted, and they await arming at your command.”

  “The day approaches, brother Basara. But we still must keep all of our senses opened to the whereabouts of Monahan and Sheik Abboud.”

  “Should we not calm ourselves my Sheik? The one thing that they cannot know is our alternate plan. They can’t know it because neither Monahan or Abboud know it.”

  “You are right my brother. Our plans cannot be stopped this time.”

  Chapter 45

  Today is October 28. We’d just delivered 500 feet of flexible plastic piping to a building in Denver, next door to our target. Buster ordered the building to be rented four days before. We only needed about 275 feet of pipe, but Buster likes to build in safety margins. The tunneling began and, according to Buster, the robot would be ready to penetrate the building at 7 PM Eastern time. After an operation like this I don’t think I’ll ever look at another HVAC project in the same way. I’d checked and rechecked the blower system that will force the tear gas into the building. It’s so powerful it can almost blow over a minivan, which is exactly what we did in our testing.

  The tension around here was getting severe. Our meetings usually include a few moments of levity and some
ice-breaking laughter. That hadn’t been happening. The only good laugh I had recently was at Frank’s crazy new costume.

  I’m going to hit the gym for a workout. Later I’ll take a nap. I want to be in the conference room at 7 PM. Carlini said he would show a real-time video of the operation.

  As fate would have it, or maybe it’s just dumb luck, the apartment the CIA assigned me is just down the hall from Frank. Maybe I’ll see him later and stroke his new beard, or fiddle with his tummy pillow or, well, we’ll think of something.

  Chapter 46

  It’s less than a month to Thanksgiving. I’m glad I had my workout and a nap. With the Thanksgiving Attacks less than a month away, the tension was so tight you could hear music if you plucked at the air. We all gathered in Director Carlini’s office for a live video feed of our tunneling operation. A tray of finger sandwiches and light snacks was placed in the corner of the room, but nobody even bothered to take the cellophane wrap off the tray. This was a command performance, and yours truly was the symphony director, giving my stomach a knot that I didn’t know where to locate.

  The time was 6:45 PM, fifteen minutes to our expected breakthrough into the building. The first pipe will emerge in a corner of the large building, and the second will pop up through the bomb room itself. As designed, the first piece of equipment to emerge is a small shaft with a camera and microphone attached to the top.

  A Navy SEAL unit of 12 men was poised inside the building next door, fully armed and armored, ready to raid the building as soon as the tear gas was released. Each SEAL wore an OBA or oxygen breathing apparatus. Any person in the building who wasn’t incapacitated by the tear gas would soon be stunned by the SEALs.

  Pipe unit one emerged through the floor in the main room as planned. It was a quarter-inch in diameter and drilled up through the floor silently. There was no sound in Carlini’s office either. The shaft, along with its camera and microphone, rotated 360 degrees for a full view of the larger room. The lights were on but we couldn’t see anyone, not one person.

  The second unit poked its shaft up through the floor in the bomb room. The space was also well-lit. Not one man appeared in view.

  “Maybe they’re outside having a smoke,” said Buster, his voice uncharacteristically high pitched.

  He switched to the live satellite feed so we could observe the outside of the building. As always, the perimeter was flooded with light. A squirrel darted across the screen, the only evidence of life at the Denver bomb plant.

  “Let’s have a better look at the bomb room,” said Buster after he took a swig of water. I’ve never seen Buster look so nervous.

  The operator raised the camera shaft to full height, showing us the table with the suitcase bombs.

  The suitcases were all open.

  They were all empty.

  Chapter 47

  Sometimes words fail when they’re needed the most. Throughout history, stirring words have come to the rescue when a situation looked dire. “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” “Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes.” “Away all boats.” The right word at the right time saves the day.

  But there weren’t any words to capture the mood in the office. The room was as silent as the empty bomb building we just saw.

  Obviously, the ball was in Carlini’s court. He was the top official in the room, and we all expected him to say something to make the situation less tense, less frightening.

  “Folks,” said Carlini, “we don’t get paid to wallow in disappointment. We get paid to move forward and make things happen. We’ve just been dealt a bad hand. Time to reshuffle and play on.”

  Not exactly General Patton, I thought, but pretty good for the circumstances. The best part about his words was that they played right into the hands of Mr. Action Man himself, Buster.

  “Phil,” Buster shouted to his aide over the phone, “Find Trevor McMartin and bring him to the Director’s office immediately.”

  ***

  The ever elegant Trevor walked into the room, a briefcase in one hand.

  “I was about to say G’day, mates, but the looks on your faces tell me this hasn’t been a good day.”

  “Here’s the Denver bomb plant, Trevor,” said Buster pointing the still images of the empty rooms, and lingering on the empty suitcases.

  “Trevor, we’re back to the starting line,” said Buster.

  Chapter 48

  The Sea Bounder, a 512-foot freighter, was stopped in the calm Atlantic waters off New York’s Long Island. It was 8:45 PM on the evening of October 28, 2015. The night was dark as black ink, with no stars or moon, ideal conditions for a sensitive transfer operation in the ocean.

  Captain Woody Bouchard, the skipper of The Sea Bounder, smiled broadly as he stood on a lower cargo platform along with three of his crewmen. Bouchard, a 51-year-old Canadian, smiled because he was about to come into a large amount of cash. The operation was a simple one, merely transfer some packages to a nearby vessel. The captain had done this hundreds of times, although seldom was there so much money involved. In a time of advanced cyber crime and Internet fraud, Bouchard was a simple man, a throwback to a simpler time. He was an old-fashioned smuggler, and a skilled one. He fancied himself a professional, and even studied the history of his craft. Long Island, Bouchard recalled, played a prominent role in bootlegging during Prohibition. Ships like his, back in the 1920s, would often engage in operations similar to tonight’s venture. A freighter would come to a stop off the South Shore of Long Island and would be greeted by smaller and faster boats that would take the cases of bootleg liquor and enter the Great South Bay through the Fire Island Inlet. Once in the bay the small boats would proceed to a designated pier and make a quick rendezvous with smugglers ashore who would bring the booze to speakeasies around Long Island and the New York Metropolitan area. It’s still done today, but the cargo is drugs, not liquor, and the smaller vessels are usually powerful Cigarette boats. Knowledgeable Long Islanders, hearing the powerful roar of a Cigarette boat in the early morning hours, assume that a drug drop is in the works.

  Woody Bouchard is popular with the people he does business with because he never asks questions. He just makes the deliveries.

  Although the sea was calm, Bouchard maneuvered The Sea Bounder to create a lee on the starboard side, an area of calm caused by the freighter’s bulk against the waves on the other side of the ship. As Bouchard and his crewmen stood on the loading platform on the starboard side, a sleek multimillion dollar 85-foot yacht pulled up to the platform. The man operating the yacht guided it next to the ship, where heavy rubber fenders were strung to protect it from damage. The yacht bore the name Andiamo. Bouchard smiled at the name. Andiamo, “Let’s Go,” in Italian.

  When Andiamo was secured alongside the freighter, a man stepped up onto the platform, along with two of his colleagues.

  “Captain Woody Bouchard at your service, sir. And with whom do I have the pleasure?”

  “I am Mr. Jones (Meester Jones),” said the man in a heavy Middle Eastern accent.

  “My pleasure, Mr. Jones,” said Bouchard. “Let’s first attend to business if you don’t mind.”

  Mr. Jones swung a suitcase from the yacht to the platform. Bouchard opened it and counted the cash, something he knew how to do quickly. One million American dollars in 100 dollar bills. Not a bad night’s work, Bouchard thought.

  On the platform were five boxes, each weighing 100 pounds. The boxes were swung over the side and onto Andiamo’s deck by a small portable crane. Bouchard noticed that the yacht’s deck was covered with multiple layers of rubber blankets. Fragile stuff, he thought, but immediately reminded himself that it was none of his business.

  ***

  The transaction completed, Bouchard raised his cap in a friendly salute to Mr. Jones.

  Three of Mr. Jones’ crewmembers raised their silencer-equipped pistols and opened fire, killing Bouchard and his men. Twelve more swarmed aboard the freighter. They knew that there were 20 other
crewmembers aboard, and they fanned out through the ship to hunt them down and kill them. Four Andiamo crewmembers then went to pre-selected locations along the hull of the freighter where they placed heavy bags of plastique explosives at spots below the water line. They set the timers and left the vessel. Eight other men ran through the ship to kill any straggling crewmembers and to open any watertight doors and hatches.

  Mr. Jones knew, from the plan that was devised by a colleague in Dubai, that the ship would sink less than a half-hour after the charges blew up. As Andiamo was about a mile from The Sea Bounder, Mr. Jones heard four muffled thrumps as the explosives detonated below the water line.

  Andiamo continued her journey to the mouth of New York Harbor.

  Chapter 49

  “No, Trevor,” said Carlini, “we’re not having a good day. The one thing your amazing algorithm didn’t count on was a decoy, or at least a plan to move the bombs to a different site. Your thoughts are most welcome.”

  “Na worry, mates.” Trevor said. “Did you think your Aussie friend left his brains down undah?”

  “Do you have some alternatives, some other sites, anything?” said Buster.

  “Of course I do,” said Trevor, as if we were all mathematically impaired. “Denver (Denvah) was the most logical bomb plant according to the algorithm, but I wrote the program to also spit up what I call anomalies, pieces that don’t fit together, things that just don’t look right. And here’s my number one anomaly: an expensive yacht purchase. Now I know that you’re thinking, what’s the big deal with some Middle Eastern guy using his oil money to buy a luxury yacht. But the timing is interesting. Twenty Million bucks was transferred from a bank in Yemen to a bank in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and then transferred from that bank to a yacht brokerage.”

  “Do you have a name for the bank account, Trevor?” asked Buster.