by David DeLee
“In another words, kept busy so they’ll leave us the hell alone.”
“Yes.” Grayson hadn’t been lying when she told Bannon the DoJ was trying to yank the case out from under her. The Attorney General had made the case to the President that domestic kidnapping and terrorism were their bailiwick. Grayson argued a massive manhunt would put her agent in danger. A more surgical approach was needed. Ultimately Grayson would’ve won the battle against the Attorney General and DoJ, but bureaucracy takes time, the sort of time they didn’t have. Staging the breakout forced the FBI’s attention elsewhere and put them into serious CYA mode while giving Bannon what he wanted most: unobstructed access to Safiyyah Zayd.
“You were a little rough on Agent Pierce back there,” Grayson said, demonstrating a large dose of her usual compassion. “The poor man did just lose two men.”
“That he wouldn’t have,” Bannon said, not being smug but angry. “If he’d listened to us.”
“And me?” Grayson raised her eyebrow. “‘I just signed her death warrant.’ A little harsh, don’t you think?”
“Like Skyjack said, had to sell it. Did you get what I requested?” Bannon asked.
She withdrew a computer tablet from her oversized briefcase bag and handed it to Bannon. “You want to show her or shall I?”
“Better together,” he said.
Bannon and Grayson returned to where Safiyyah Zayd remained zip-tied. She had been watching them at the bar, but they were too far away and spoke to low for her to have heard anything. Suspicion filled her eyes as they sat down. Grayson had met with her on the Bowman when she was first captured so Zayd knew who she was. At that time, Grayson had tried the carrot approach. She’d tried to appeal to the woman’s humanity. She hadn’t gotten very far. Now it was time for the stick.
“You remember who I am, don’t you?”
“You are the Secretary of Homeland Security. An American spymaster.”
“That’s right. Then you also know I report directly to the President of the United States. That makes me a very important person. A person who can get things done.”
“I told him,” Zayd glared at Bannon. “I do not know where your friend is.”
“And,” Grayson said. “We believe you. I know how secretive the cells can be. How they operate. It’s no surprise to me you don’t know the identities of any of the members here except for Captain Amar, of course. Still, we think you can help us.”
“Even if I could, why would I?”
Bannon answered. “There is a simple secret to getting someone to do something they don’t want to, to make them act against their own self-interest. It works every time. Want to know what it is?”
“Torture me if you must. I cannot tell you what I do not know.”
“We’re not going to torture you.”
Zayd visibly relaxed upon hearing that.
“The thing to remember,” he said, “is physical torture isn’t the only way to get what you want from a prisoner. The secret is to have the right leverage against a person. For some that’s torture, sure. They’d do or say anything to make the pain stop. But there are other ways.”
“Why are you telling me these things?”
“Because,” Bannon said, “while you don’t know who your friends are or where they might be, you do have other information we want. Things we believe will be of use to us, not only in finding our friend but also in stopping whatever horrific event you were brought here to cause.”
“Again, why would I help you?”
“Well, we could offer you a deal,” Grayson said. “Immunity from prosecution for crimes committed here or abroad. We do that a lot with criminals. Make deals with small fish to get the larger fish. But we’re not going to do that. The United States has a long-standing policy, one which I personally believe in, to not negotiate with terrorists.”
“Then I suppose we have nothing more to say to each other,” Zayd said, trying to sound brave.
“Oh, but we do,” Grayson assured her. To Bannon, she said, “Show her.”
He clicked on the screen of the tablet and turned it around to show Zayd.
It was a frozen video image. Bannon hit play. The screen glowed. On it were bright and dark shades of green with occasional bright flashes of white light. The image jumped around, chaotic and difficult to follow. The war on terror had raged on for so long, everyone instantly recognized a military night-vision helmet cam video. The tip of an M16 could be seen as the wearer, a soldier, ran through what looked like the living space of a residential home.
From the microphone came heavy breathing. Off screen people called out, “Clear. Clear.”
“Recognize that living room?” Grayson asked.
Zayd leaned forward and squinted.
The jumbled image rushed through a hallway. “This way,” a soldier called out.
Ahead a door burst open. The night vision technology made the dark room visible. The soldier had entered a bedroom.
Zayd gasped.
A figure in the bed sat up. Shocked at what was happening, the heavy-set man tossed the covers back. He swung his feet onto the floor. “Don’t move!” The soldier shouted. “Don’t you move!”
The images on the screen were hard to see. Jumpy and jumbled. The camera view swung away and then came back again. The man on the bed, visible only from the neck down raised his hands. A hand reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. He was pulled forward and slammed down to the floor.
“Don’t move!” the soldier commanded.
“Do you recognize that man?” Grayson asked.
Zayd’s mouth hung open. She closed it. Tears filled her eyes. “Father.”
Bannon pulled the tablet away and switched the image off.
“That’s right,” Grayson said. “Your father, the general, was apprehended today. Last night, actually.”
“Why? Who were those men?”
“A covert SEAL team. I sent them to your father’s estate and had him arrested. He’s currently in our custody as an enemy combatant.”
“My government will protest.”
“Oh, they already have,” Grayson said. “And while our Secretary of State wasn’t too happy about it, he is explaining to your government that your father is wanted on suspicion of committing terrorist acts against the United State.”
“You cannot do this.”
“I told you, Ms. Zayd, I am a very powerful woman who gets things done. Sometimes not very pleasant things.” she pointed at the tablet in Bannon’s hand. “Like that.”
“It is not true! My father’s done nothing wrong.”
“But you have, Safiyyah, and he will answer for your crimes.”
“Answer, how?”
“First, he’ll be taken from your country under cover of night. He’ll be interrogated. He’ll be labeled an enemy combatant. Stripped of all legal rights, he’ll be dumped in Guantanamo Bay. Gitmo.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard of it,” Bannon said. From the fear in her eyes, she was quite familiar with its reputation. “Nasty place,” Bannon confirmed.
“Where he’ll remain,” Grayson added. “Indefinitely.”
“You cannot do this.”
“It’s already done,” Grayson said. “As Commander Bannon said, it’s all about having the right leverage.”
A long silence followed.
Zayd lowered her head, stared at the floor. Tears fell from her eyes. When she finally looked up again, she said, “What do you want to know? I will tell you everything.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AN HOUR LATER, BANNON stood outside at the retaining wall separating Hampton Beach from the parking lot on Ocean Boulevard. Just across the street from the Keel Haul and near the band shell where performances were scheduled throughout the summer, it was a favorite spot of his. The sun was coming up, creating another magnificent sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. One for the record books, he thought having watched hundreds of them from here. Low, ribbon-like clouds were strung out near the horizon.
They were painted in brilliant orange and reds as yellow-white rays of sunlight shot through breaks in the clouds like biblical laser beams. One could almost hear the sound of a choir singing.
The gentle waves of a low tide washed up on the sand. Quiet and calm. A young couple in shorts and sleeveless T-shirts ran by, their bare feet slapping the wet sand at the water’s foamy edge, her ponytail swishing behind her head. Two gulls chased each other across the dry sand near a metal trash can.
Bannon held a bottle of Coors Light beer and drank the last of it down.
A hand reached out holding another.
Bannon looked to his right.
Grayson offered him a weary smile along with the beer. She took a sip from a second beer she kept for herself as she took a moment to watch the sunrise.
A sight to behold, that at once was both inspiring and humbling. Bannon thought everyone on Earth should start their day this way, convinced if every person experienced that kind of peace and beauty, just for a little while each morning, there’d be a lot less trouble in the world.
“I haven’t done something like this since I was in college,” Grayson said, breaking the quiet with her soft voice.
“Take the time to watch a sunrise or drink a beer before dawn?”
“Both, actually.” She pinched her eyes. “Makes me wonder why I don’t just retire and do things like this more often.”
“Because the world needs people like you at the wheel. So they can go on enjoying stuff like this.”
“People like you, too, Brice.”
She’d spent the last hour talking with Zayd, draining the woman of every last drop of information she had to give. He could tell the interrogation had taken its toll on her.
“Who’d you get to shoot the video?” he asked.
“Your friend Chief Petty Officer Johnson and his men, Reyes and O’Neil. We got permission to use the police academy kill house facility. From pictures Kayla dug up, we decorated it to look like the general staff house in Quetta. A half-assed job, but good enough to pass muster with all the jiggling and night vision filters.”
“And the guy who played Zayd’s dad?”
“There we got lucky. Found a standup comic from one of the local comedy shops. Turns out he’s an aspiring actor.”
“Aren’t they all?”
She smiled. “The resemblance wasn’t great, but it worked for the few seconds of screen time we gave him.”
“It convinced me and I’m the one asked you to put it together,” Bannon said, impressed. “What’d she give you?”
“She started off claiming the bombing raid that destroyed the school where her mother was killed was carried out by American and British forces.”
“Any truth to it?”
“I’m familiar with the incident, but it’s the first I’ve heard allied coalition forces were behind it. We’ll dig deeper into it. In the meantime, not to sound callus, it doesn’t change what we’re dealing with now. Justified or not, Zayd became our enemy that day, vowing retribution against the West. What’s troubling is how she intends to carry out her revenge.”
Bannon sipped his beer and listened.
“Zayd’s work at NSEDC involved electromagnetic propulsion and the development of a magnetohydrodynamic drive or MHD accelerator.”
Bannon shook his head. “I cheated off Betsy Wharton to pass my AP Science final in high school. You’ll need to explain that.”
“Put in simple terms, an MHD accelerator uses electric and magnetic fields, thus no moving parts, to propel, in the case of NSEDC, a rocket into space. If a payload could achieve escape velocity without the use of traditional fuels, it would be a game changer for space exploration. Zayd worked on a specific system to launch a scramjet to high-altitude. Other applications are maglev trains and propulsion systems for maritime ships and submarines. As is, MHD accelerators have proven to be impractical because of cost, the size and weight of the electromagnets needed, and other technical limitations. As such, the programs are largely considered theoretical and experimental.”
“Sounds rather benign and space exploration-y then,” Bannon said, failing to see a cause for concern.
“Except alternative propulsion methods aren’t the only applications.” She finished her beer. “Have you ever heard of a railgun?”
Bannon started to make a Flash Gordon joke, but reading Grayson’s somber expression decided against it. “Something DARPA’s working on, right?”
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, sounding like a nefarious evil science organization, is the agency that developed new, cutting edge, future technologies for the Department of Defense.
“The weapon uses the same technology Miss Zayd is expert in. They are capable of firing a projectile with a muzzle velocity of more than twice that of similar conventional weapons. One defense contractor in California has developed and tested a working prototype, claiming they can have the weapon ready for production in two to three years.”
“Meaning other than this prototype they don’t exist.”
“Oh, they exist, Brice. We know India has one. Russia, China, the UK, and Turkey aren’t far behind. Our Navy has been field testing one for the last two years and has plans to install them on their next generation destroyers and missile cruisers. It will be a game-changer when it comes to intercepting ballistic and supersonic missiles, stealth air, and swarming surface threats.”
“So we’re talking about a ship-based weapon. Something big? Like battleship big?”
“What’s been developed so far,” Grayson said.
And here came the uh oh.
“DARPA and our contractors, and others around the world, are also working on a more compact version.”
Bannon hated to have to ask. “How compact are we talking?”
“We have one designed for use with the XM2118, the armored mounted combat vehicle meant to replace our aging Abrams battle tanks in the next decade.”
“You think someone is ahead of us in developing such a scaled down version.”
“Miss Zayd confirmed it. She developed the thing after leaving NSEDC, using the stolen Intel she took with her.”
“The intel her government refused to admit she had.”
“Beside the point. For now. According to Zayd, this terror cell has such a weapon. Zayd was brought here to bring it on line.”
“A vehicle-portable electromagnetic railgun. On U.S. soil.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the capability of such a weapon?”
“Hard to say, a lot of factors to consider. But a large-scale railgun can accelerate a seven pound projectile to Mach 7—seven times the speed of sound—and generate muzzle energies of nearly fifty megajoules. To put that in prospective,” Grayson said, “the kinetic energy equal to the impact of a five-ton bus traveling at over three-hundred miles per hour.”
Bannon whistled. “Jesus.”
“And a potential range of over one hundred miles.”
“If they have it, they’ll want to use it.” Bannon marveled at and was disgusted by the level of atrocity people were willing to commit. “A mobile weapon that size could go anywhere. Be hidden anywhere. Does she know what the target is?”
“She says no. I believe her. She thinks we have her farther. As long as she believes that, I think she’d do anything to protect him.”
Bannon agreed. Her Intel was solid. Scary as hell, but valid all the same.
The sun was full up now. A few more people jogged past them on their morning runs. He watched a few beachcombers walking along the shoreline, regulars he recognized by sight. He focused on a young couple hand in hand kicking at the lapping water, talking amiably. They had their long pants rolled up past their ankles, their shoes dangling from their hands. They seemed at peace, completely oblivious to the dangers in the world.
Ignorance was indeed bliss.
Another thought struck Bannon. “As soon as they put Tara in front of that weapon, expecting her to activate it or whatever she’s supp
osed to do, she’s toast.”
“I know,” Grayson said. “I am so sorry I put her in that position.”
Bannon didn’t let her off the hook, nor did he come down hard on her. The op had been ill-advised from the start, too fast, with not enough Intel, but she’d been right, too. He hated to admit it. If they hadn’t acted, they’d never have learned what danger was lurking out there. Maybe not until the terrorists had struck. Not until it was too late.
At least now they had a chance to stop it.
He just needed to figure out how.
“Hey, guys.” In unison, Bannon and Grayson turned to face Kayla. She offered them two steaming hot coffee cups. “I think I might have something.”
Bannon tossed the empty beer bottles in a nearby trash can.
“Trying to think of a way to help find Tara, I started going through the background data we have on Captain Amar and his crewmembers. By we, I mean the FBI files I hacked—oops, did I say that out loud—not an easy task when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Fishing more than anything else, hoping something would pop up.”
“And something did?” Grayson asked.
“Yes. I think. None of the crew has any connection to the United States. No friends. No family. Whenever they came to port, as near as I could tell they hung around together visiting the same harbor bars and….other even less savory places, except for one. Captain Amar. He’s got several transatlantic trips under his belt.”
“Not surprising, considering his occupation,” Bannon said. “It was probably why they chose him. No reason to suddenly suspect another voyage.”
“Anyway, I discovered he also has a sister. She lives in Dorchester,” Kayla said.
“The FBI missed this?” Grayson asked.
“It took some, okay, a lot of digging,” she said with a barely concealed sense of pride. Bannon was sure it was more than justified. “She’s married. Humaira Tumandar.”
“How did you…” Grayson asked.
