Blood Covenent, page 31
WhileAir Force One flew along the southwestern United States and the Russian Federation’s leadership examined the still unfinished command post at Kovinsky Mountain, the American and Russian Presidents discussed the problems posed by theSAMSON weapon. The American President did not disclose the countdown timer built into the bomb’s software, and the Russian President never mentioned the hunt for Yevgeny. They recognized their joint peril and cautiously backed away from the brink. The military officers serving both men wondered if the Russian command and control structure would weather the crisis’s strain.
The power plants for the moored Russian missile boats were shut down. Thermal scans from American satellites verified the process. The strategic bomber force was recalled to their bases inside the continental United States. TheBlackjack bombers turned off their engines and rolled back into their hangers. TheTeddy Roosevelt turned away from Russia and started towards an Italian port for shore leave. The Strategic Rocket Forces stepped down, and in the process lost a missile silo when one of the aging rockets exploded. The Minuteman and Peacekeeper crews shut down their systems and reveled in the beautiful summer day. The American boomers remained at sea.
The President’s weekly radio address was delivered on time from aboardAir Force One , and the opposition party gave its rebuttal. America prudently ignored both of them.Tweedledee andTweedledum cloistered with the President’s press secretary to ensure everyone had their stories straight. A second story was concocted and the only copy kept in theVault under Marine Guard. It had some resemblance to the truth and would only be used as a last resort.
Michael Rehazi walked out of the tunnel leading from the aircraft to Terminal C at Reagan National Airport. He stepped into the circular pod gate area and moved around the kiosk selling newspapers and soft drinks positioned in the center of the floor. A humid summer haze hung over the city, leaving it not quite sunny or cloudy. The Compaq laptop swung under his arm, and the electronic cameras buried in the ceiling recorded Rehazi’s passage.
Janet Henry’s program had changed since Harper talked to Louis Edwards yesterday afternoon. Harper read the second intercepted email to Louis and suggested everything in Janet Henry’s system be isolated to Washington, D.C. “After all, what do you have to lose? It ain’t working now,” he concluded. The cameras on the Metro lines, Federal Buildings, and Reagan National and Dulles International Airports were routed to Janet’s system and the rest of the eastern seaboard inputs shut down. Response time improved from forty hours to between forty-five and fifty-five minutes.
Rehazi grabbed his overnight bag from the baggage claim. A second camera pod captured his image and transmitted the news along the digital network to the computers at Quantico. He stepped through the double glass doors into the humid dampness and caught the next shuttle bus over to Terminal B. A third camera pod snapped his image as he exited the bus and entered the terminal. He walked across the connecting walkway to the rental car desks.
He had a short drive ahead of him to Rosslyn, Virginia. The fifth weapon was waiting for him at a freight terminal. He intended to activate the bomb no later than one o’clock today. He had a little more than three hours to get everything in place. He ended up with a Ford Contour from Hertz. He signed the rental agreement, and ignored the insurance riders with a smirk as he plunked down his credit card. Ten minutes later, he left the rental lot. Why bother with insurance when the car would cease to exist sometime later today?
Thirty minutes later, he left the freight office. There was one glitch. The Ford’s trunk was too small to conceal the case. Rehazi and one of the clerks wrestled the weapon into the back seat of the Contour.
* * * *
New York City
Lou Feldman glared at the encrypted fax machine. It churned to life for the first time since he arrived at the office that morning. A refreshing change from the deluge of data spitting paper reams. His morning conversation with the Director had been abrupt and critical. The Director did not appreciate being dressed down by the President, much less by a President aboardAir Force One during the middle of a nuclear crisis. His displeasure reverberated in Feldman’s ears. He had committed the cardinal sin. He had embarrassed the Bureau.
He considered the tasks at hand, and most of them were distasteful. He had “to do” lists from Harvey Randall and Louis Edwards. He had instructions straight from the FBI Director as to his current responsibilities and the careful ladder he had scaled to sit in the White House Situation Room was in danger of toppling backwards.
The fax machine attached to Janet Henry’s system was little more than a curse. If only the bomb in Connecticut had never detonated. Lou Feldman looked at the assignments he had made. His staff was cut from seventy-five to forty agents. The rest were diverted to Westchester, or as close as one could get to Westchester. Feldman had no idea what they would find in Westchester. It’s not like bomb fragments were lying around waiting to be found. Those people were being run straight out of the JEH Building. There were already signs that the fiction regarding a natural gas line explosion was beginning to fray.
He reached over and plucked the fax out of the machine. Generally, these things were about forty hours too old and he had used just about every trashcan he could find to throw them away. At one point, the system was generating over twelve a minute.
Feldman glanced at the fax, ready to dismiss it again, when the timestamp stopped him. It was only forty minutes old. He looked at the person walking through a terminal, then up to the bulletin board where he had posted the photograph from July 4. For some reason, Edwards had labeled their phantom terrorist: HARLEQUIN. The fax he was holding had the same code name printed across the bottom next to the location and Match Certainty Percentage (MCP). If Janet’s system ever did work, then MCP would be added to the Bureaus acronym lexicon.
The MCP was ninety-eight percent.
The fax machine hummed to life again. Feldman pulled this page from the tray a few seconds later. It was the same guy a few minutes later at a different location in Reagan National Airport. The MCP edged up to ninety-nine percent. The machine thought it had a match, and Feldman considered the possibilities. No one else received these facsimiles. Perhaps, it was time to ride in on a white horse and redeem his career. There might still be room to sit with the powerful people. Besides, these people had no love for Harvey Randall. He was one of the original Chinese spy hunters, and Chinese spies were a protected class.
He picked up the phone and punched the speed-dial button to connect him directly to the executive floor of the JEH Building.
* * * *
Washington, D.C.
Michael Rehazi turned onto the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Above and behind him rested the Custis-Lee Mansion looking across the Potomac towards the Lincoln Memorial. It was directly across the bridge, the Washington Monument to the right and the White House to the left. The irony was not lost on Rehazi. He was a student of symbols.
The Custis-Lee Mansion was the home of Robert E. Lee—General of the South. In the opening days of the Civil War, Lee came to the conclusion his allegiance was greater to his native Virginia than to the Federal Government. He resigned his commission and left his beloved home, never to return. He gave up everything for an idea. The decision came after several sleepless nights and lengthy prayer. Over one hundred years later, Gerald Ford would sign a bill restoring Lee’s citizenship.
Robert E. Lee was a man of extraordinary honor and integrity. The Custis-Lee Mansion sat amidst some of the most hallowed ground in America—Arlington National Cemetery. Here was the final resting place for generals and presidents, and the tombs of the unknown soldiers. The view of the Mall and the seat of the American government were spectacular.
The view would never be the same after today.
Michael Rehazi derisively spat out the window as he crossed the Potomac. Symbols are extraordinarily important to terrorists, and Rehazi had stepped into a target-rich environment. He drove along the south side of the Mall passing the massive Department of Agriculture complex, several of the various Smithsonian Museums, and the Holocaust Museum towards Capitol Hill.
He rolled the car windows down and took in the joggers making their way down the center of the Mall, the tourists emerging like uncertain creatures from the Metro Subway System, and the constant setting up and taking down of pavilions for every imagined cause.
Success could kill upwards of half a million people!
He had picked his spot with care. The little street running between the Supreme Court Building and the Library of Congress directly across from Capitol Hill. Beyond those immediate targets lay the Senate Office Buildings to the north and the Congressional Office Buildings to the south.
A good chunk of the American government would be missing later today.
A competent killer also exploits his enemy’s weakness. X-ray machines and metal detectors foist the illusion of security. Any visitor to Washington is constantly herded through these machines in an effort to ensure their safety. There are the Capitol Hill Police, the Supreme Court Police, the Library of Congress Police, the Park Police, the National Archive Police, the Holocaust Museum Police, the Secret Service, the FBI, the DC Police, the Subway Police, and a couple of others. All of them carry radios tuned to different frequencies and most have weapons. Washington has the appearance of an armed camp and only a fool would attack. The belief in the ability for all these organizations to work competently together against a common crisis is ridiculous. They might train together once a year, but training exercises are never realistic. Hit them all at the same time and entire system breaks down.
Killing was something Rehazi understood.
He found a spot next to a sign that read PARKING BY PERMIT ONLY. He twisted around and leaned between the front bucket seats. He flipped the latches on the case and heard the hiss of the hydraulic pumps lifting the lid. The simple keyboard and LED screen stared back at him. They were placed on the flat side of the bomb away from the stainless steel bubble on one end. He brushed his fingers along the weapon’s length. It brought near sensual pleasure to his mind and a smirk emerged on his lips.
Rehazi tapped the arming code on the keyboard. A second later the LED display blinked to life with 03:00:00 and commenced its countdown. He reached over to his overnight bag and produced a black metal dagger. He pulled the blade from its leather sheath and placed the flat under the keypad. With a twist of his wrist, Rehazi snapped the keypad out of its socket. He reached back and grabbed the keypad. He put the knife away.
He climbed out of the car and slapped a sticker on the Ford’s back window. He looked left and right before locking the doors and walking away. He held his overnight bag in one hand and the laptop in the other one. It was a little after eleven o’clock. He rounded the corner and walked down the sidewalk along the Library of Congress building. He started to whistle. The bomb was placed, active, and he was leaving the scene. He tossed the bomb’s keyboard in the nearest garbage can.
They had sent him amateurs. Now, his masters would see what a professional could accomplish.
He walked the couple of blocks from the Supreme Court to the Capitol South Metro Station. Rehazi crossed the street, making sure a passing car did not hit him. It was not the time for a foolish mistake. He took the escalator down into the deep hole leading to the Metro Station. He supposed those riding the subway when the bomb exploded would probably live. The massive shielding afforded by the concrete domes and earth covering the subterranean transit system would provide sufficient protection. Besides, the country did not know about subways. They all understood what the Capitol Dome looked like.
Symbols.
He switched from the Blue Line to the Yellow line at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station. He wondered if the cavernous station might collapse from the shock wave. The satellite imagery he saw on CNN certainly indicated the devastation of a ground burst. He stepped aboard the Yellow Line train and found a spot to sit down. Fifteen minutes later, he had returned to Reagan National Airport. He went down a level to the rental car desks and picked National this time. He rented a GMC Jimmy using the First Chicago Visa card. The same one he used to rent the first car and purchase the plane ticket for the flight he arrived on.
* * * *
New York City
Lou Feldman had three people in his New York office where he was running theHarlequin manhunt. A map of the metropolitan DC area was taped up on the wall. They had narrowedHarlequin’s arrival to three flights. Three two-person teams were scouring the passenger lists and discovering everything about those people. He had limited his man to a universe of roughly six hundred people. About half of those could be eliminated based on gender and a lesser percentage could be culled based on age and infirmity.
A second team of computer wizards was already accessing the credit card and airline reservation systems through backdoor access accounts established by a Presidential Order related to national security crisis procedures. Somewhere along the line, the necessary court orders would catch up with the invasion of privacy. A cross check of Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and Harvey’s odd list of dummy corporations was commencing against the 275 names Feldman had gathered from the airline rosters.
Colored pins were punched into a map on his wall as he wondered whereHarlequin might move next. This time when the fax machine hummed to life, he could hardly wait for the image to be processed. It was forty-two minutes old and it placed Harlequin at the Capitol South Metro Station. Another pin was dutifully planted on the map and they stared collectively at it.Harlequin had been running loose for almost two hours. “How’d he get there?” mumbled Feldman.
Feldman knew he was missing something. According to Janet’s system, he never showed up on the Metro platform at Reagan National. None of the cameras tasked with Terminal B, where the National Airport Station was located, showed him getting on the train or even passing the turnstile, and it was obvious he had not changed his clothes. He was still carrying his overnight bag and laptop in the image from Capitol South.
The next two fax copies showedHarlequin exiting and entering trains at L’Enfant Plaza Station and one of the agents in the room said, “It looks like he’s going back to National.”
Feldman glowered at the location reports, “If he’s going back to National, then he’s already there. Have someone check the tapes for the last half hour.”
Ten minutes later one of the two-person teams confirmedHarlequin exiting a Yellow Line train at National and leaving the platform. They were thirty minutes behind him. Feldman’s hands trembled as he punched the button connecting to the executive floor at the JEH Building.
“Sir, I think we should seal off National Airport and stop all outbound flights,” he recommended after quickly explaining what they were learning. The explanation took twelve minutes and the decision took another fifteen. By the time it was implemented,Harlequin had won back the precious ten minutes Feldman gained on him and added another thirty. Janet’s system was curiously quiet, and Feldman knew something had gone wrong. It was twelve forty-five.
* * * *
St. Kitts & Nevis, eastern Caribbean
Jonas Benjamin and Darby Hayes walked down the airplane steps to the tarmac of Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw International Airport. The twin prop thirty-two-seat airplane they had taken from Antigua to St. Kitts continued to wind down as a pair of fairly disinterested pilots went through their post-flight checklists.
St. Kitts & Nevis is a two-island country located at the northern part of the Leeward Islands group of the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean. From the air, the two verdant isles are shaped like a chicken drumstick and dumpling. While the primary industry is sugar and tourism, the local economy is not adverse to some off shore banking away from pesky regulators and their intrusive questions, nor do they object to Internet commerce beyond the scope of the US Congress. One of the largest Internet casino gambling sites servicing the United States was run from a small office in Newcastle on Nevis. But they did have their standards, and prudently evicted any Internet pornography sites. It would hurt the tourism trade.
Jonas and Darby’s diplomatic passports did not overly impress the St. Kitts & Nevis customs official. He stamped their entry visa and waved them through the gate. They hired a taxi to take them the two miles from Golden Rock to Basseterre and deliver them to the address Louis had given them.
It was an unassuming building stretching back in history to the British colonial period of the previous century. Jonas opened the door and walked into a small lobby where the overhead ceiling fan spun its heavy wooden blades at a predictable pace. A bell hooked to a string jingled and presently a small white-haired man found them in the lobby. “May I help you?” he asked pleasantly.
Jonas flashed him a bright smile. “Yes, we’re looking for the Laimuiga Internet Company.” He butchered the pronunciation.
The smaller black man smiled kindly. “Yes, and your business?”
“A business proposition,” answered Jonas
“Ah,” said the little man noting the butt of Darby’s pistol imprinting on his soggy safari jacket. “They’re upstairs.”
“Thank you.”
Darby gave the older man a smile as they walked up the narrow stair to a thin wooden door with the company name printed on skewed wooden plaque. Jonas raised a hand to knock, but Darby shook his head and walked in.
A white man in his thirties dressed in an open-necked golf shirt, cutoffs and sandals turned away from his computer screen to see who had just walked in. “You certainly don’t look like Marla,” he said with a Texas drawl and stood up extending his hand. “Dirk Briggs at your service.” He grabbed Jonas’s hand and pumped it vigorously. His eyes passed over Darby’s jacket and noted the automatic’s imprint.
