by Marcus Wynne
Ray leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers across the belly of his starched oxford shirt. “So my specific tasking is to find Youssef bin Hassan and stop him before he launches his agent in the United States. I want you to lead the operation.”
Payne was doing a good job of hiding the eagerness in his face. Ray knew about that eagerness; it was the desire of a hunter to be in on the kill, to run his prey to ground and finish him. And Payne would feel that he had a score to settle.
“How does that sound to you, Charley?” Ray said.
Payne was deliberate in his answer. “What do you want me to do?”
“You’ve seen all of the major players in this: Rhaman Uday, Ahmad bin Faisal, and Youssef bin Hassan. You can eyeball-ID the One. I want you to run this down, follow up aggressively on the leads we get. And you get to take him down. I’ll give you a team.”
“I’d rather work alone.”
“Not going to happen. You’ll need support and backup.”
“With good communications, you can get all that to me. I’m not ready or willing to be running an unknown team right now. Your best use of me will come from letting me run after the One when we have something fresh, and to field-coordinate with whatever team you put out.”
After a moment’s consideration, Ray decided it was a good idea. It would take too long for Payne to get up to speed with team considerations; there were other people who could do that.
“All right,” Ray said. “You act as the focal point for the info coming in, work with our analysts till we have something credible. Then you’re adviser to the shooters. And you’re still in at the kill.”
“That makes sense.”
“You seem surprised.”
“No, just relieved.”
The two men laughed.
“You’ll work out of here till we have something,” Ray said. “I’ll set you up in a secure conference room down the hall. You have walk-in access to me twenty-four/seven. We’ve got aircraft standing by to take us wherever we need to go, whenever we need to.”
“That’ll work.”
“Then it’s settled.”
Payne drummed the fingers of his right hand on the plush leather arm of his easy chair. “What about Dale?”
Of course he’d want to know about Dale.
“He’s being worked on at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, by one of the finest neurosurgeons in the world,” Ray said. “We’re sparing no expense to get him taken care of.”
“The surgeon on the plane said he doubted Dale would make it. Too much time had passed with the bullet lodged . . .”
“We’re hoping for better than that. That’s why we’ve got the best on it right now.”
Payne nodded slowly. “I wonder how he’d feel if he knew you were footing the bill.”
“There’s some history there, as you seem to know already.”
“What happens after the surgery?”
“No matter what he thought, Dale was always one of us. We take care of our own. If he doesn’t come out, then he goes to a skilled critical-care facility we own outright, where he gets the best attention possible for as long as he lives. If he does come out of it, he’ll be given rehab and everything he needs will be provided. We’ll see to it.”
“I don’t have the history you two have,” Charley said. “All that sounds good to me. I’d hate to see him dumped in a VA facility for life.”
“Never happen. Not to one of mine. Dale was like the prodigal child. It was just a matter of time before he came back.”
“As long as he’s tended to. I’d like to be able to see him, if we have time.”
“I don’t know that you’ll have the time. But it’s not far, and you’ll have a driver. But you need to get your mind around what’s in front of you.”
“Done.”
“Then let’s go to work.”
Things happened. The conference room down the hall from Ray’s office became crowded with extra tables laden with computer monitors, fax machines, and telephones. Every inch of spare space on the tables and chairs became littered with computer printouts, fax sheets, stale cups of coffee, and the remains of sandwiches. Charley sat in an orthopedic executive chair at the head of the largest table, carefully leafing through the reports that poured in from border crossings all around the US. The Immigration Service and Customs were busy looking for the face of Youssef bin Hassan and scanning passports for the false names Charley had pulled from Ahmed bin Faisal, and they updated the task force constantly.
But there was nothing. Yet.
Satisfied with how things were working, Ray slipped out of the building and met his driver in front. During the drive to Johns Hopkins, made lengthy by the maddening Beltway traffic, Ray stared out the window and thought through all the things that needed to be done yet in this operation.
At the hospital, he spoke briefly to the attending physician, then went into Intensive Care, where he stood at the foot of Dale Miller’s bed. The young operator’s head was swathed in bandages, and his eyes were closed. Both hands lay at his side, his left hand pierced by multiple IVs that hung from a stainless-steel tree beside the bed. Monitor leads ran from his chest and head to the panel above the bed, and a tube was inserted into one nostril.
“You look like hell, Dale,” Ray said.
He reached out and gently patted the comatose man on his foot.
TORONTO, CANADA
In a hotel in the Red Light District that catered primarily to prostitutes and their customers, where renting a room by the hour was common, Youssef had carefully prepared his equipment. The atomizers were already labeled as breath freshener, and he made sure the vials contained only scented water. The small vials of actual smallpox agent were carefully placed into a condom, then placed inside another for additional padding before he lubricated the bundle with K-Y Jelly and inserted it into his rectum. He grimaced at the unpleasant feeling in his bowels. He stuffed himself with prescription-strength Lomotil, available over the counter in Amsterdam, ensuring that his bowels would remain frozen for the flight across the Atlantic. Youssef checked himself in the mirror, satisfied with everything except for his slightly stiff walk. He’d have to work on that.
The boarding and flight were uneventful. The security people hadn’t given him a second look, dressed as he was now in a dark gray summer-weight business suit, concentrating instead on the scruffy young backpackers, many of whom still reeked of marijuana. The next hurdle was Canadian Customs. The passport he presented was one of several he’d obtained while in Amsterdam; it was an American passport in the name of Roy Hunter, a name his controllers wouldn’t know. It was an additional measure he’d taken to ensure his security.
The Canadian Customs inspector, a surly looking gray-haired man whose belly bulged beneath his too-small uniform shirt, looked at the passport and then at Youssef. Roy Hunter wasn’t a name he was looking for, and he had only his intuition and experience to guide him.
“Purpose of your visit?”
“Vacation,” Youssef said.
“How long are you staying?”
“Just two weeks.”
“You’re coming from Amsterdam?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you go from here?”
“Home to New York,” Youssef said. “Then it’s back to work.”
The customs inspector gave Youssef a lingering look, then nodded curtly. He stamped the passport and handed it back. “Have a nice visit, sir.”
“Thank you,” Youssef said, putting the passport in his inside coat pocket.
In a rest room near car-rental kiosks, he removed the bundle of smallpox vials and relieved himself. The bundle of vials went into a spare plastic bag he’d reserved for just that purpose. Then he picked up the rental car he’d reserved over the Internet, and drove south and east, crossing the border into Buffalo. The Border Patrol officer at the crossing made a cursory examination of his passport, glanced at his face, and made a notation of his license plate. Youssef left the car
in the long-term parking at Buffalo’s small airport, and from the terminal caught a public bus downtown, where he found the Greyhound bus station and paid cash for a one-way ticket to New York City. He got directions to a nearby Motel 6, where he checked in, paying cash once again. He took out the vials of smallpox he’d carried, then carefully replaced the canisters of scented water with live agent. The atomizers seemed heavier in his hands.
The next day he rode the bus into downtown New York. It was a long ride, and Youssef enjoyed looking out the window, watching the rolling countryside of rural New York slowly morph into the built-up city. From the bus station it was a short cab ride to Penn Station, where he bought an express-train ticket for Washington, DC’s Union Station. The train arrived after midnight, but he had a reservation at a small business hotel near Union Station. One night there was enough. Tomorrow he would disappear into the anonymous world of the youth hostel.
Across town, at the International Youth Hostel, the tired girl at the front desk looked up as someone came through the front double doors. A woman, her jet-black hair cut in sharp bangs across her forehead and the rest falling straight to her shoulder, came in lugging a single overstuffed duffel bag.
“Hi,” the dark-haired woman said. “Can I still get a single room or is it too late?”
“No, we’ve got plenty,” the girl said. “Are you an IYH member?”
“Yes, but I’ve lost my card.”
“That’s all right. Cash or charge?”
“Cash.” The dark-haired woman pulled a handful of bills from her jeans pocket and held it out. “Take what you need, I’m still learning the money.”
“Where are you from?” the girl asked, plucking eighteen dollars from the sizeable wad.
“Amsterdam,” Isabelle Andouille said, flipping the ends of her black wig away from her face. “My flight just got in. I’m looking forward to my visit.”
WASHINGTON, DC
Charley grew restless in the confined conference room. The smell of stale coffee and hot office equipment oppressed him, so he called for a driver to pick him up at the front of the building.
“I’m on the radio with a cell phone backup,” he said to the severe-looking assistant Ray had lent him, a bone-thin youngster in his early twenties. “I should be back in an hour or so.”
“Yes, sir,” the assistant said, looking up from the sheaf of computer printouts he was poring over. “I’ll tell Mr. Dalton when he returns.”
A driver, casual in a leather bomber jacket and khakis, sat inside a black Lincoln Town Car outside the front entrance to the nondescript office building that housed the operation. Charley tapped on the glass, and climbed in front beside the driver.
“Where would you like to go, Mr. Payne?” the driver said. He had a faint Bostonian accent.
“Let’s go down Sixty-six to downtown . . . I want to go down Constitution and then over to the Air and Space Museum.”
“Roger that. Sixty-six to downtown it is.”
Interstate 66 was busy, but not the bumper-to-bumper crawl it would be later in the day. They crossed the Potomac on the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge into the District and turned off onto Constitution Avenue. Charley got a little thrill when he saw the Washington Monument standing bright and clear in the sun. The patriot in him was just under the skin, and he relished the sight of the monuments to his country as they drove slowly along Constitution Avenue.
“Let me out here,” he said, when they came to Seventh Street. “I want to walk a little. Meet me in front of the Air and Space Museum.”
“You’ve got a radio?” the driver said.
“Sure do. I’m on Tactical One.”
“Tactical One it is,” the driver said. He picked up his handset and keyed the microphone. “Car to Payne, Car to Payne.”
His voice was tinny in the speaker of Charley’s handheld.
“We’re five by five,” Charley said.
He watched the car idle away slowly in the traffic, then stretched his arms above his head and leaned back to ease his spine. Too much time in a chair indoors was dulling his thinking. He set out at a brisk walk down the National Mall, the grass soft beneath his booted feet. It only took a few minutes for him to cut across the grassy expanse to the park benches on the far side of Jefferson Avenue, directly across from the National Air and Space Museum. The third bench from Charley’s right was, according to Ahmed bin Faisal, the designated meeting point for the Egyptian vice-consul and the young Arab they all referred to as the One. Charley went and stood beside the bench for a moment, then sat down.
Though he couldn’t see them, he knew that there was a surveillance team nearby with cameras focused on the bench, with one crew on the roof of the Air and Space Museum, and another in a disguised panel-truck parked in front, both equipped with the latest optical equipment and the computers necessary to run a scan of a subject’s face through the database of known terrorist operators. A sizable team of shooters lurked in a small room borrowed from Smithsonian security, directly beside the main entrance to the Air and Space Museum, ready to respond at a moment’s notice should the One be spotted.
Charley stretched his legs out and ran his arms outstretched along the back of the bench. It was hot and humid, and the weight of the sun on his shoulders, while pleasant now, would soon become a burden. He couldn’t take off his windbreaker as that would expose the Glock holstered at his hip. But now the warmth felt good, and he turned his face up to the sun and closed his eyes.
He’d spent many mornings like this in Minnesota, sitting in front of the Linden Hills Café and soaking up sun while he sipped his morning coffee. Dale preferred the courtyard at Sebastian Joe’s, but he too had dragged his chair out to the sidewalk to catch the early morning sun while he nursed the tall lattes he was partial to. He wondered how Dale was, now. Ray kept him informed; there was no change. Dale still lingered in his coma, in the twilight between consciousness and sleep. There was some brain activity, but no one, not even the top experts, could say how he was going to be when he woke, if he woke. Charley had found easy excuses to keep him from visiting Dale. He’d not wanted to see his friend in that state. A part of him chided himself for his cowardice; another part said that if he really was a friend, he’d put a bullet in Dale and finish the job. Charley, like so many active men, harbored a dread of a physical disability that would keep him bed-bound—the thought of being in a coma or paralyzed was his deepest fear. While he would, if he were in Dale’s position, wish for death, he didn’t think he had it in him to put a friend down out of mercy. He’d like to think he did, but when it came down to shooting time, he thought he would hesitate to pull that trigger.
Strange thoughts, and not useful right now. Charley stood up and looked around him, knowing that the One wasn’t there, yet hoping he would see him and take this operation to its conclusion. There was full-time surveillance here and at the Egyptian embassy, where the signal location for the clandestine meeting was, as well as on the vice-consul himself. There were plenty of trip wires, and their prey hadn’t tripped one yet.
Yet.
Charley keyed his handset and murmured into the speaker, “Car, this is Payne. I’m ready for pickup in front of the museum, on the Jefferson side.”
“Roger that,” the driver responded. “Be right there.”
Charley walked to the curb and saw the gleaming black length of the Town Car inching its way toward him. He walked to meet the car and got in.
“Let’s head back,” he said.
“Okay.”
In the slow traffic, Charley had plenty of time to study the faces of the people walking on the Mall and crowding in and out of the Smithsonian Museum buildings. So many faces from so many different places. On any given day you could hear the accents of dozens of countries and every regional accent of the United States. It truly was America’s Mall and everyone came here when they visited Washington, DC.
Sooner or later, Youssef bin Hassan would come here.
He’d come here on an op
erational reconnaissance, to make sure he knew which bench to go to, to make sure there was no construction or other changes that might impact on his meeting. It would be part of his training to be sure, and Charley was counting on that. They’d catch him on camera and then the immediate response team would take him. The computerized face-scanner made the job much easier. The program wasn’t foolproof, though; it could be mistaken, especially if the subject took rudimentary disguise precautions. But his facial geometry remained the same, and that would give the target away.
Charley hoped that bin Hassan would do as they expected him to do. Bin Faisal insisted that the plan called for him to start in Washington, DC and then spread out by public transportation, hitting key cities along the way. If the One stuck to his plan and his training, they had a good chance of catching him in DC, which was as well prepared to deal with the bio-terrorist threat as any city.
Charley turned and looked back at the city as they drove west to Fairfax. Everything seemed so clear in the light of day.
INTERNATIONAL YOUTH HOSTEL, WASHINGTON, DC
Youssef bin Hassan shifted his overstuffed courier bag, his only luggage, around his thin frame and said to the blond girl with her knotted dreadlocks at the front desk, “Hi. I’m Youssef Ameer, I have an Internet reservation for a single room?”
“Hi, Youssef,” the girl said. She checked the printout list on the desk before her. “I see you here. We’ve got your room.” She took a key attached to a golf-sized ball, and handed it to him, along with a flyer.
“Those will tell you about the rules and the activities we have scheduled.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She smiled brightly, one crooked tooth attracting Youssef’s attention. “Is this your first visit to the United States?”
“Yes.”