by A. J Tata
What Franco probably did not realize was that Mirza had already determined that for him. The Cefiro Code was placed in civilian vehicles, for sure, but those vehicles now sat on car carriers up and down the I-95 corridor. Mirza intended to use them for military operations. His only issue was that he could not watch them all complete their missions at one time. But they could report in, like good soldiers. The vehicles could send video and target analysis prior to attack, but of course, after the explosions there would be little left of either the Cefiro cars or the targets, as intended.
He knew that keeping his focus on his primary targets was the best way to operate. Watching the American news, he was shocked and amused at the lethargic response to the sinking of the ships in the channels. These were clear attacks, but the Americans had no idea from where the attacks had originated. Nor were they convinced the attacks were of foreign origin. Several programs were focusing on a group that called itself the Wall Street Di-vestors. This group was a spin-off from the 99 Percent Movement or the international group called Occupy. His cyber team had added this Jake Mahegan to the group’s Wikipedia page and had called him one of the leaders. If Mirza’s men were incapable of snaring him, perhaps pressure from his own government would be enough to keep him from disrupting their operations any further.
He looked around the large warehouse from his semicircular command center. He saw Franco talking to Fazir, his primary assistant. Fazir’s Spanish was better than Franco’s Farsi, so he guessed they were speaking in the excited tones of Spanish as they were gesturing to one another. He had given Fazir the mission to tell Colonel Franco that he had to go find Ximena De La Cruz and get her back on the compound. Whether she would live or not remained to be seen. What she knew of his operation was unknown—he didn’t know what Franco had told her—and the extent of her knowledge would probably decide her fate.
To his front were ten display monitors showing him camera feeds from the lead vehicles they called the Alpha cars. He had directed Franco to mount a camera on the side mirror on the driver’s side of each of the cars, even though with the Cefiro cars there were no drivers. The cameras were connected to batteries by fiber-optic wires and to the antennae for satellite uplink and viewing. Each carrier had three cars on top and three cars on bottom. The cyber ops team had wirelessly pushed instructions to each car to begin off-loading in fifteen minutes. The Alpha would lead, followed by the remainder of the team. The carrier drivers were all on the Facebook sleeper cell teams and were unlashing the cars from their bindings at the moment.
The ten locations Mirza was monitoring were all the key entrances to Interstate 95 from the largest cities along the corridor. The idea was to block all trucking routes to the major arteries along the East Coast while preserving Iranian tank and infantry force capabilities to land at the Port of Wilmington and travel unimpeded up the I-95 corridor to Arlington, Virginia, where he intended to lay siege to Washington, DC. It was an ambitious plan, but just disrupting the economy of the United States was already having a significant impact.
He watched the Alpha car from the I-40 and I-95 intersection target area dismount its carrier and turn outward, making room for the others. Franco’s men had used the tunnel connecting the Cefiro facility to Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point to steal over five hundred 155 mm artillery shells. His small team of men had blown Styrofoam around each set of five shells and then had placed them carefully into the cars in the R & D facility. They had connected the activators and fuses to the car batteries so that there was an immediate power source. His team had programmed each car with the coordinates of where it was to detonate. Five artillery shells would crater a road, collapse a bridge, or destroy a facility, especially in the areas where they had two or three vehicles swarming at the same target.
Altogether, they had thirty targets along the East Coast that would disable the transportation network and block military vehicle ingress as they rapidly established a lodgment in Wilmington and blasted their way up the I-95 corridor like in a WWII German blitzkrieg.
Mirza’s major concern, of course, was American air power. His Sparrows could not dogfight with the high-performance jets of the U.S. Air Force and Navy, but they could cause damage to the airplanes before takeoff.
Therefore, they had targeted the military bases of Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, and Marine Corps Air Station New River with the highest density of Sparrows. They would attack aircraft on the ground, and Franco and he had agreed this was their best chance at beating the American airplanes. Mirza planned for the merchant vessel full of unmanned aerial attack aircraft—also purchased with the recently released funds from the negotiations—to sit twelve miles offshore in international waters and launch attack drones from the ship’s converted decks. These ships were more aircraft carriers than merchant ships. The Iranians had purchased the design for the ships from the Chinese, who had effectively stacked the frames of containers high on one of their biggest ships and created a hollow core that was both a hangar and a runway, hidden from satellites. They were hours away from the Cape Fear buoy where the U.S. Coast Guard had inspected them just two days go.
They had four ships from different ports in Europe, Africa, and China that were converging at one time at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Three of the ships contained tanks, helicopters, and infantry. One of the ships contained the high-performance drones that could take on the American fighter jets.
The reason for attacking the Marine Corps bases first was to disable the vertical-lift aircraft, such as the Harrier jets and the Osprey troop transport tilt-rotor airplanes. Then Mirza intended to launch follow-on Sparrow attacks at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base to destroy the F-15 aircraft and at Naval Air Station Oceana, where the most advanced Navy jets trained and were prepared for combat.
Already he had received indications of a heightened Homeland Security threat alert to “elevated.” Confusion still reigned about the ships, though it seemed the consensus was that the country was under attack.
There was enough confusion about what was happening that Mirza saw the window of opportunity as right now. The perfection he sought was to have the Sparrows and Cefiro cars communicate so that they could, on their own, advance forward and clear the path based upon the debilitation of the American jets and helicopters. That was the key. As they achieved each objective, Cefiro cars and Sparrow flocks could move to the next objective, independently calculate the force required to destroy the target, execute, and continue to move in tandem until they culminated in Washington, DC.
The school attack was meant to include Sparrows, but their failure to communicate with the two Cefiro cars had alerted Mirza to the problem. He needed Misha to patch the code so that the attacks could work as planned.
Mirza looked at a picture of his two brothers, who were on ships heading toward America, ready to do their duty in the name of the Persian Empire.
Then he looked at the monitors. On each one, six gleaming Cefiro cars winked at him in the night, ready for combat. Their lights flicked on, and they maneuvered into a circular formation, as if in a huddle before a football game, meaning soccer, not the stupid American version. The truck drivers departed the area. He knew the other twenty were also departing, giving him 180 suicide vehicle bombs on the roadways of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Destroy the economy and lay siege to Washington, DC. Wreak havoc and bring war to the United States. Block reinforcement access to I-95. Increase American insecurity and cause the country economic pain. Then watch as forces massed in the area to protect the capital.
And that was when the fifth container would come into play. He heard a ship captain’s voice say, “Approaching Cape Fear buoy.”
The banter between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Amerine, a Pakistani-flagged tanker, was the usual professional back-and-forth. An hour later he heard, “Amerine under way.”
This was good, because the Amerine included some of the Iranian tanks and infantry. He had sent an enc
oded message asking his at-sea commander to shift the order of the ships so that the drone fighter jet “aircraft carrier” could get in position twelve miles offshore. He wanted a lodgment and rapid movement, followed by aerial protection.
Mirza turned when he heard Franco walk up the three steps of his command center in the research and development facility. Franco stood next to Mirza in the warehouse, a slight breeze pushing through the seams. Mirza had heard of the hurricane in the ocean, but his weather team had ensured him it was nothing that would threaten his aviation operations.
“Commander,” Franco said. His voice was firm and authoritative. While Mirza was not impressed with him as a soldier, he suspected that Franco had led his Cuban troops with purpose, if not with courage.
“Colonel,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“I think it is more what I can do for you, Commander. I know that you underestimate me, but what was it that Sun Tzu said? Never underestimate your enemies?”
“But we are on the same side. Of course I have the deepest respect for you,” Mirza said in the most political tone he could muster, which wasn’t much.
“Sure,” Franco said, not fooled. “Whatever you might think of me, you should be very pleased with my efforts. While you have been synchronizing and commanding your troops, I have been busy securing the one thing that we need. And while it would be good to have the girl here to implement the code, I have the flash drive right here. I’m sure your cyber team can make it work.”
Franco held up a small device the size of his thumb.
“That is the code that synchronizes the air and ground systems?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you had it?”
“Since I confronted her father, a month before you got here.”
Mirza felt his anger rising. He had wasted men and resources chasing the girl.
“Why, Colonel, did you not give it to me earlier?”
“Because, Commander, you never asked. Your arrogance didn’t even allow you to see me as a useful asset. All I was to you was some security guard meant to hold down this facility until you and your commandos arrived.”
Mirza looked at him with controlled anger.
Franco continued. “You think I am some slacker, banana republic, armchair general?” he asked. “I’ve survived for forty years in the Cuban Army under Castro. I may not have fought Arabs and Americans, but I’ve done my share of covert operations. I suspect it will take a few hours to upload that code and get it pushed out to all the systems, including the cars, Sparrows, and attack drones you’ve got that are going to sit offshore on the tanker. It’s just like downloading an app on your smartphone, Commander.”
Mirza swallowed his pride. There was some truth to what Franco had said. Mirza had underestimated him. Still, it was unacceptable that he had not provided the code sooner.
“Many of my men have died because of you!” Mirza shouted. Spit flew into Franco’s face. Mirza slowly retrieved his knife. Fazir walked up behind Franco and put a pistol to his head.
“Where is the father?” Mirza asked. “Which mound?”
“I will tell you when you back down and treat me as an equal,” Franco said. “And I will call Bouseh to tell the girl that her father dies if she blocks the code.”
Mirza lowered his knife and nodded at Fazir to back down.
Bouseh. Perhaps she could finish her task so that he could now focus on the main operation.
“We have one last attempt to secure the girl,” Mirza said. “I sent two of my best men to the locator on De La Cruz’s necklace.”
“You only need the girl to not undo what is on that flash drive. If you feel you must have her for insurance, then carry on. But let me instruct you, Commander,” Franco said. “I think you underestimate this Jake Mahegan, as well,” he said, “but I am hopeful your plan works, for your sake. You have lost many men in a frivolous pursuit.”
“Had you told me sooner, Colonel, that you had the code, I would not have lost any men. And we would be in the White House by now.”
“Not true. Your ego would have told you that you needed the girl and that a child would not beat you. That has been at the heart of this operation, not a lack of knowledge of the code. You have learned a lesson, Commander. Use it from this point forward.”
Mirza didn’t like this bastard, who had never seen combat, lecturing him. He considered killing him, but the Iranian political leadership had ordered him to preserve relations with the Cuban government in case they needed to stage more troops. The grand plan called for using Cuba as a major staging base from which to launch attacks across America.
“Colonel, you have done well. Thank you. I will give this code to my cyber team immediately. We will secure the girl so that she cannot hack it.”
Mirza dismissed Franco. His anger was balanced by elation at having the code. The attack could proceed as planned. Knowing the first tanks were on the way up the Cape Fear River gave him a sense of security and pride. Any plan had its setbacks, but they were moving forward against the greatest of odds. Now, with the code, he could completely automate the attack on the Americans.
And, of course, he needed Bouseh to kill Jake Mahegan.
CHAPTER 23
MISHA CONSTANCE
MISHA WANTED TO ESCAPE.
She liked Jake Mahegan well enough, but he knew too much. Plus, he was giving her sympathy, as if she misunderstood what killing her father meant, as if she didn’t really do it or mean to do it.
He was wrong.
Misha sat with her legs hanging off the pier. She could see that it was low tide, because oyster-shell beds were visible, sticking up like the big anthills she would see in her mother’s National Geographic. There was a boat just beneath her, sitting in the water, just barely above the floor of the inlet.
When she’d said about her mother, “Hope she’s dead,” she meant it. The way Misha saw it, her mother had caused all of this. If it weren’t for her fooling around with that Cuban man, Franco, then none of this would have happened. Her mother needed to reconcile. And if dying was her way of reconciling, so be it. Misha thought that some might think she was a hard, heartless eleven-year-old girl, but she had lived a life within herself, making keen observations about life outside of herself. Many people treated her as if she didn’t exist or couldn’t hear them. How was that supposed to make her feel? She knew she wasn’t a psychopath; at least she didn’t think so. But the events of the past several weeks, beginning with her father asking her to develop the code, had been exhausting and exciting at the same time. She had been scared, nervous, happy, productive, and angry. These were emotions she had really only read about and had trouble identifying in herself. Now she found herself exploring these newfound emotions.
She had heard her mother and Franco mention an amount of money: five hundred thousand dollars. She didn’t really remember much from that night, but she remembered almost everything before and after. It was like the time in the middle was locked in a file cabinet in her mind and she couldn’t find the key, as if she had dropped it on the floor of a dark room and it had bounced somewhere she couldn’t see. She used to help her father look for stuff he had dropped all the time. He would turn on the flashlight on his phone, and they would crawl around on the floor, looking for a thumb drive or a penny or bullets.
Yes, he’d had a gun, and she remembered holding the gun. Misha had been nervous that night they went into the backyard and he showed her his pistol. She didn’t remember what type of gun it was, but it had had a rough plastic grip and had almost felt like a toy. He’d let her hold it, unloaded, of course.
“Don’t ever touch this gun,” her father had said. “I’m letting you hold it now to take away the curiosity.”
Misha knew his logic was good. She had seen the gun before in the top drawer of his filing cabinet, which she could pick with a paper clip. She had actually handled the gun before, loaded. She had aimed it like she was going to shoot someone. Her arms were thin, but her
muscles were strong enough to hold a two-pound gun somewhat level. One day she removed the magazine and walked into the backyard and aimed the gun into the woods. She pulled the trigger. Her mother was running errands, and her father was at work, thank God.
Misha didn’t realize that there could be a bullet in the gun with the magazine out of it. She prided herself in knowing about things, and she didn’t feel very proud that day. She jumped at the sound of the gun as it bucked in her hands. She had watched an online video of how to stand and hold the gun, so that was what she had done. But she was unprepared for the violent action and the sound. It was as if the entire neighborhood could hear it, maybe even all of Wilmington. Thankfully, their property backed up to a swamp, and she was pretty sure she hadn’t killed or hurt anyone.
She ran back inside the basement and put the gun back, but then she realized that her father would be able to smell the smoke from the gun, so she pulled out his cleaning kit and took the gun apart. Misha had no problem doing that because she had helped him do it several times. He had let her disassemble the gun and then put the parts back together. It was like a puzzle, but a really easy one. So she cleaned the weapon and then pulled a bullet out of one of the boxes in the bottom of the filing cabinet top drawer, slipped it into the magazine, and then put the magazine back in the gun. Then she pulled back on the charging handle and loaded the weapon, put it back on safe, and placed it exactly where she had found it. She sniffed the drawer, and it smelled of solvent and rags, not gunpowder.
That was the first time she had fired the gun.
There had been a second and a third. She remembered that much.