Blood Covenent, page 26
“I’ll take it under advisement. You get well, and take care of your family.”
“Yeah.” The line went dead.
Harper never took his eyes off Harvey. When the cell pone was set back down on the table, Harper asked quietly, “What laws do you plan on violating today?”
“A little breaking and entering,” he replied.
* * * *
Harvey checked the address a second time. According to the property list, this was the correct address. A jet rumbled overhead from JFK International. When the roar subsided, Harvey explained, “This is the place. At least it has a building this time.”
Hayes looked over the steering wheel and said, “Seems to be empty.”
Harper removed his Glock and racked the slide. “Nothing in this business is as it seems.” He clambered out of the car.
Harvey pulled the Smith & Wesson 1006 10mm cannon from his shoulder rig. He carried his with the hammer down on a live round. He flipped the safety off and moved towards the rear of the building. The sunlight reflected off the gun’s stainless steel finish.
Hayes hefted the Beretta, thumbing down the safety and pulling the hammer back. He preferred the same take up on the trigger with each shot. He started towards the side door.
The day’s heat was already oppressive. There was the hint of rain in the air, and the humidity was soaring faster than the temperature. Harper’s shirt was stuck to his back as he lifted his eyes to a window. The room was dark and there was some sort of heavy mesh screen obstructing his vision. He lowered his head and found himself facing a rickety shed. The wood was warped and weathered from no paint or maintenance. He tested the wood and found it brittle and light. The nails holding the boards appeared to be based on two-foot centers. It was old construction.
He pulled a latticework from the side of the building and slid below the structure. The air was moist and musty. The ground was damp from rainwater. He crab-walked into the gloom finding his way surprising clear of spiders and rats. He took the cleared path until it stopped before a bramble of thistles and thorns. Harper looked up. In the dim light, he detected the outline of a door. It appeared to be recently cut. There was a white line of the cut wood against the gray planks. Harper pressed his palm against the bottom of the planks and pushed the trap door up.Perhaps Harvey did know what he was after.
Harper emerged into a dressing room of sorts. There was a vanity mirror with lights strung around the glass. Makeup kits, wigs, and photographs scattered on chairs and boxes. He sat there looking around. The room held the aroma of cosmetics. It had been used recently.
The snap of a lock giving way to Harvey’s crowbar echoed from beyond the makeup room. Harper gathered himself to his feet and moved into the main room. Hayes held his weapon at ready, then relaxed, finding Harper standing in the other doorway. “How’d you get in?”
“Through the trap door, Sergeant.” He pointed his thumb behind him.
Harvey looked around and thumbed the safety back on his weapon. He shuffled into the room, finding some chairs, a desk with a phone book open, and the corrugated door. Arrayed behind the desk were some arc lamps on tripods. There was very little dust on the floor and none on the lights. “It’s been used lately,” suggested Harper to no one in particular.
Harvey nodded. “I don’t think we should touch anything.”
Hayes walked over to the desk and observed, “Why would someone cut a page out of the phone book.”
Harvey turned quickly and walked across the room. He stared at the open phone book. He was already dialing Feldman. When he hung up, Harvey said, “It would probably be best if we were gone before Feldman shows up.”
“Not getting along with the suits?” asked Harper. Harper paused, staring at the open phone book. He sighed and followed Harvey down the steps.
“Something like that,” Harvey replied.
It took Feldman thirty minutes to get a search warrant from the tame judge reserved for the current operation. Fifteen minutes after that, the first FBI vans and NYPD evidence collection units began arriving.
* * * *
Moscow, Russian Federation
General Kolokol signed the orders placed before him. The man standing before his desk was from the Federal Security Service—FSB. Colonel Mikitim Feognost was a humorless man in a dark Italian pinstripe suit, a blue shirt, and expensive British shoes. The names and titles changed with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however the security services continued in the same manner originated with Latvia Beria.
He examined the service folder for Major Yevgeny Yarovitsin. He stabbed one of his blunt fingers in the FSB man’s face. “I want him back. Alive and able to talk.”
“And the others?” asked Feognost with a greasy accent.
Kolokol shrugged. “I couldn’t care less. It would be best if no one remembered where Yarovitsin came from. But I want him healthy enough to talk, otherwise, I’ll string you up for the jackals!”
“I can assure you ourspetsnaz troops are the best,” soothed Feognost.
Kolokol grunted again. Whatever was left of thespetsnaz was wasted in Afghanistan. Mountainous terrain, the Moujahadein, and poor leadership ran men into a meat grinder. What remained after a disastrous decade was blind-sided by budget cuts and lack of a definite mission. Kolokol knew what had happened to the navy. The Black Sea, Northern, and Pacific Fleets were hollow shells. Construction programs were cancelled, ships were decommissioned before they were obsolete, and others remained in harbor because there was no money to prepare them for sea.
The ruble’s crash and the lack of hard currency forced the collapse of the Red Army. Troops went without pay for months and some units turned to banditry. The idea thatspetsnaz units escaped the same fate was ludicrous. He eyed Feognost and asked, “When?”
“Four or five days,” said Feognost too quickly.
“You know where he is?”
“We’ve always known where he went,” replied the Italian suit with a knowing smile.
CHAPTER 27
New York City
Friday, July 16, 1999
2:00 P.M. EDT
Michael Rehazi worked his way quickly through the condominium at Trump Tower. It was time to leave New York. Last night’s failure at Yankee Stadium and the demise of the twins left him with no more options. The weapons were already en route to Boston and Washington.
Rehazi chose Boston as his first target. The popular tourist spot should have many tourists by Sunday afternoon. Killing a number of people from around the country would have a deeper impact in the American psyche than just blasting some buildings in a distant downtown area. Regional news broadcasts would seek to discuss the local angle. The chance to actually inflict harm on citizens from all fifty states was not something Rehazi could afford to pass up, especially in light of his New York failures. It was time to draw first blood, and he wanted the bloodletting to seep into the American soul.
Timing the detonation would be tight. He wanted the bomb to ignite sometime between two and three in the afternoon. Working the clock backwards, he would have to place the weapon no later than noon. Eleven o’clock would be better. The flight schedules would dictate his actions. He must leave Boston before the explosion. Fallout and radiation poisoning would drift across Boston’s inner harbor and over Logan International Airport. Rehazi decided to place a car in reserve. If the airlines were running late, he needed another way out of Boston.
Rehazi intended to vanish before Boston became a trap. He checked his watch. The shuttle to Boston left in three hours, and his alternate ticket for Washington, D.C. departed around six-thirty. He walked across to the kitchen bar and examined the tickets—Deltafor Boston andTWA for Washington, D.C.. Considering traffic, Friday afternoon delays, and Murphy’s Law, Rehazi figured he needed to leave the Tower within the next thirty minutes.
He went into the bedroom. There was not enough time to do a thorough vacuuming. He never considered cleaning the condominium at the beginning of the operation. It should have been destroyed by the blast on July 4, but the FBI had tracked Hassan Jamal. He had few illusions about what the Americans would do if they apprehended him. The FBI would disregard the precious freedoms they were pledged to protect, and they would do whatever was necessary to stop any detonation. Later they would rewrite their history and claim they had observed the law.
Rehazi accepted the fact he could not eliminate the DNA evidence. They would find hair follicles, flakes of dead skin, and other microscopic signs. Rehazi took care of the obvious things. He burned all paper, notes, and receipts in the stainless steel sink and flushed the ash down the garbage disposal. He wiped down all smooth and slick surfaces where fingerprints could accumulate. He probably forgot some, but five years ago Rehazi had a Swiss doctor in Paraguay surgically alter his fingerprints. The United States Air Force had hisold fingerprints on file, so any latent prints would do them no good. He made a mental note to find a good plastic surgeon.
He took his dirty clothes to the garbage chute. In Chicago, he decided to buy a new wardrobe. He went over the two bathrooms. He spent several minutes flushing additional scraps of paper ash down the toilets. Finally, he pulled the laptop from its carrying case and sat down next to one of the telephone sockets. He plugged the fragile PCMCIA modem cable into the side of the laptop and connected the other end to the wall socket.
The laptop went through its normal startup routines ending with the Windows 98 screen and the machine’s password. He typed in HARLEQUIN. The clock in the bottom right hand corner warned him time was running out. He moved the mouse pointer to his Internet connection and double tapped the mousepad below his keyboard. He preferred a real mouse to the pad, but he did not have time to waste. The modem dialed and went through its connecting song with the ISP’s modem. He double clicked the Netscape Navigator icon and displayed the composer.
The drop down menu for the address book displayed the name of his master. He typed:
The New York attacks have failed. Proceeding to Boston and Washington. Expect greater success soon.
Harlequin
He clicked SEND NOW and exited the composer screen.
Somewhere under the massive array of antennae, microwave relay towers, and satellite receivers, a computer at Fort Meade, Maryland—the home of the National Security Agency—listenedto the message. General George Carnady had taken the initiative to request an intercept service for a list of keywords including: NEW YORK, ATTACK, BOMB, NUCLEAR, WEAPON. Modern espionage used the Internet to transfer national security secrets across international boundaries. One of the lessons imposed on the current administration in the wake of the China spy scandals was to scrutinize email and, in some cases, intercept it.
The United States was fully engaged in a cyberwar and the computers once dedicated to recording, cracking, and decoding Soviet transmissions had a newraison d’être . Every email transmission inside the United States was scanned. Suspicious emails were recorded and cataloged. Encoded emails were sent to the code cracker mainframes, and anything that could not be broken was given special attention. The scanning of emails for specific words was a trivial matter.
Rehazi’s message was cataloged and sent along to the analyst tasked with monitoring Carnady’s message traffic. Unfortunately, no one considered it necessary to staff analysts on weekends. The major political parties were wrangling over budgetary priorities like whose district would get a new bridge, hospital, or library, and how much money could be funneled into the school lunch program. National defense and Constitutional duties were rarely a consideration. No one would read Rehazi’s message until Monday morning, and by then, everyone would know something had gone terribly wrong.
Rehazi removed the VISA card for First Chicago from his wallet. He examined the name and account number. He clicked back to the main browser window. He clicked on the BOOKMARKS button and moved the mouse pointer to the folder marked FINANCIAL. He clicked twice more. It took another minute before the web page for his Cayman Island Bank appeared. He cursed slow web servers.
He typed in his account number and password. Thirty seconds later the menu screen appeared. He propped the VISA card between the top row of keys and the screen. He was three minutes late leaving the Tower. He keyed in a thirty-thousand-dollar transfer from his Cayman Island account to his First Chicago account. The VISA debit card he carried for the account would enable him to purchase whatever he needed once he arrived in Chicago. The fund’s transfer should be confirmed before the business day ended in another hour.
He clickeddisconnect as soon as the confirmation window displayed. He fumbled with the modem cable and accidently snapped off the phone jack’s clip. He stared at the broken jack and yanked the other end of the phone cable from the side of the laptop. The broken jack rendered the cable useless. Disgusted, Rehazi threw it into the trashcan. He slapped the computer closed and slid it into its carry case. He slung the case over his shoulders, grabbed the tickets, and hefted his overnight bag. Rehazi was sweating by the time he reached the elevator.
Seven minutes after Rehazi caught a taxi for JFK International. Harvey followed the Tower’s security officer into Rehazi’s condominium on the fifty-third floor. The security officer was a retired policeman from Newark. Harvey swapped a couple cop stories, recalled the names of a couple of old timers, and pushed a twelve pack of Miller for his trouble. He explained quietly he was pursuing a lead from the bomb scare two weeks ago, but he did not have enough evidence to justify a search warrant and just wanted to look around.
Harper and Hayes followed Harvey through his entire explanation and began to wonder if Harvey was in the wrong line of work. They fanned out across the living room and kitchen area. Hayes noted the water and burnt ash in the sink. Harvey commented on the tub and tile cleaner found next to some still-damp rags. Harper found the broken modem cable.
Harper held the cable up to his eyes. He followed the wall to the telephone socket. Trapped in the socket was the broken plastic tab. The plastic plate on the wall jack was chipped from the cable being jerked away. The Tower was the first target, Yankee Stadium was the second target, and presumably Rockefeller Center was the third target. The evil one, he had sensed over the twins’ bodies, appreciated fine living.Where are you going?
He turned over the black cable in his fingers and read COMPAQ COMPUTER CORPORATION. Harper achieved a small victory. He filed the information away. The easiest way to replace the cable Harper had in his hand was to purchase a new PCMCIA modem. His prey was temporarily disconnected from his masters. A modem implied a kind of sophistication. “Harvey?”
The Stetson stuck his head into the living room. “Yeah.”
“We need to check the phone records.”
Harvey shrugged. “That’s routine.”
Harper turned. “You don’t understand. I think he called an ISP.”
Harvey scratched his head; he should know what an ISP was, but the acronym’s meaning escaped him.
“Internet Service Provider,” added Harper. “He was in a hurry. He broke the modem cable off and threw it away. The clip is still in the phone jack. We can come up with a list of people who connected to specific ISP using the number called by this phone line.”
Harvey smiled. “We certainly can do that.” The cell phone was already in Harvey’s hand. This time he called Louis Edwards. The wolf had found the scent and the stakes were too high to risk it on Feldman’s empire building.
* * * *
Menorca, Spain
Menorca is the second largest of four islands in the Balearic Islands. The Balearic Islands are in the western Mediterranean, south of Spain’s east central coast. Most people are familiar with Mallorca, or the wilder island Ibiza, a fashionable stop for the rich and famous. Menorca is one-hundred-square kilometers of lush forests and spectacular beaches. The island is a sultry getaway with two deep-water ports and a small airport. It is not the first or even second stop for visitors to the Balearic Islands. C721 is the main road linking Mahón to Ciudadela and C723 branches off to Fronells from Mercadal. Everything else is mostly gravel and unimproved tracks leading into the hills or down to the southern beaches.
Chaim Wanberg sucked in the thick smoke from the unfiltered Spanish cigarette. He examined the Polaroid photographs and considered the problem. The villa was situated along thetramontana —Menorca’s rocky northern coast, between Fornells and Cala Morell. It was the most inaccessible and least populated portion of the island. Besides some local craftsmen and shepherds, no one ventured close to the villa. The brittle gravel road leading to the villa was barred by a heavy metal gate and bracketed by roving man/dog patrols. They had identified three different patrols, but the kennel held more than a dozen German Shepherds and Doberman Pinschers. The dog handlers walked with Benelli automatic shotguns.
The villa’s southern border was purposely planted with thick and thorny brambles. The hedges were over two meters high and almost a meter thick. It was a natural barrier that kept the idly curious away. Anyone else would recognize the brambles for what they were—an obstacle. The jagged rocks facing the Mediterranean were slippery and sharp enough to discourage a sea assault. There was a boathouse built into the rocky cliffs. The doors opened inward and appeared to be reinforced by a series of heavy steel beams.
Chaim Wanberg held the photographs of Major Yevgeny Yarovitsin up to the light. The Russian was going bald and he had developed a sizable paunch along his midriff. Yevgeny had a weakness for tall, lanky blondes. The two lounging around the pool appeared to have satisfied the Major for the moment. Chaim doubted he had time to construct a honey trap and lure the Russian from his fortress. Menorca was small enough for his bodyguards to track any unusual activity. The largest village was Mahón, which had a population of forty-five hundred, and the other villages specialized in fishing, the fine white sand beaches along themigjorn, or the tourist trade from the other islands.
Yevgeny understood the game too well. He had purposefully found a place where he could see the opposition coming from a great distance. The front gate provided the only certain way into the fortress. Chaim smiled briefly. He would simply get himself invited.
