She would have to take him before it came to that. He would have to be supplied with the weapons. Security was pretty good. She had managed to get in with a weapon, but she was the daughter of the former CIA director and Dad had taught her everything he knew. She doubted the terrorist would be a pro. In fact, she knew he wouldn’t be. This attack was meant to be a diversion to draw agents away from the real objective and the attacker would be someone low level and expendable.
That meant getting the weapons into the grounds without being detected and there was really only one way to do that, via the water. Lakeshore State Park acted as something of a breakwater, the southern end being attached to the mainland and the northern tip being open and accessible by a small bridge. She saw small boats come under the bridge on occasion and come into the small sheltered bay between the park and the shore.
She walked to the shore and looked at the park across the bay. The shore where she stood was made up of large rocks and not suitable for anyone wanting to walk along the water, but there were also trees here and there, suitable places for items to be left. There would be a window after the festival goers were gone before people came back in the morning. Someone could get a boat close to shore and stash something in the trees or among the rocks and nobody would notice. The only trick would be retrieving those items without being seen, but perhaps not that tricky. Nobody was paying much attention to the edge of the water.
That was most likely how it would go down. A boat slips in during the wee hours and stashes a small care package. The terrorist retrieves the weapons and heads right up to the main venue and proceeds to take out as many people as he can before he is taken out. Maybe he has a gun or two or a vest, or both. He would have no plan of escape. Rachel, on the other hand, would need a rapid escape if it came to killing him. This was a gun- free- zone and she knew what that meant. Law abiding folk are not to be armed and criminals can have a field day. Of course, she was law abiding and well- armed, but the suppressed pistol in her fanny pack was a last resort. Using the weapon in a large crowd would draw attention and make her escape difficult.
There were several places in the festival grounds where she could lay low and try to spot the weapon drop, and that’s what she decided to do. She would come tomorrow and remain in the park when everyone else left. If she could see where the weapons were being dropped, she could prevent the attacker from retrieving them. Nobody would have to die.
Ahmed translated a recently intercepted message and whistled.
“Got something good?” Miriam asked.
“Think so. Email to a guy in Morocco. He’s to meet Qadira in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on the 6th and take passengers on board before returning to Morocco. Got exact coordinates and everything. The coordinates look to be around the halfway point.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Getting rid of the ship would be my guess.”
“That would be the smart move. He doesn’t want to leave any evidence behind.”
“It gives me an idea. It’s a long shot, but suppose we could beat the ship to the rendezvous and take him ourselves?”
“How in the word would we pull that off?”
“Ken’s plane can land on water.”
“But Khalid’s gonna be looking for a ship.”
“Unless he gets a message changing the plans.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m working on it.”
“They wouldn’t send him the plans to the ship. That’s not secure. He’s probably got an email.”
“That’s the tricky part. We’ll have to intercept a message to get his email and so far, there’s been nothing. They’re probably using a draft folder.”
“How about Ansari? He was communicating with him. You think he might know?”
“He might, but he wasn’t exactly that talkative with me.”
“Give me a few minutes.”
Miriam returned five minutes later and handed Ahmed a piece of paper with five email addresses on it.
“That was fast. How’d you get him to talk?”
“I asked him nicely.”
“Maybe he’s a sucker for a pretty face.”
“Excuse me?”
“Uh…well…”
“I heard you. Thank you.”
“Uh…you’re welcome.”
“So, what are you planning on doing with those?”
“We’re going to open each one and keep an eye on the draft folders. Khalid is going to get a message detailing the meeting and then we’re going to wait a couple days and plant another message with a slight change of plans. The ship can’t make it for whatever good reason we come up with and he’s to meet a seaplane instead.”
“Doesn’t that fall right into the window for a possible attack? We only have so many people.”
“It does, but I think I’ve narrowed it down.”
“Are you thinking the 11th?”
“Yes, I was. How did you know?”
“Lucky guess, and a bit of math. If the ship’s docking on the 1st, it will take a few days to get the bomb from Veracruz up to Monterrey and then across the border. That wouldn’t leave that much time to get anywhere in the country, so the 11th is the most likely date. Plus, I found something else.”
“What’s that?”
“That air advertising company you were looking at? They have three planes, but one pilot gets all the jobs in Florida. Fareeq Hamada. He’s a student at Miami but he’s also a licensed pilot. The company is owned by his uncle. Every time they fly a banner in Miami, he’s the one who does it.”
“When did you find all that out?”
“When you were at lunch.”
“Wow, you’re getting pretty good at all this.”
“It helps having a boss who’s better at it than both of us put together.”
“Speaking of that boss, why don’t we run my idea by her and see what she thinks?”
“Run what idea by me?” Jenny said from right behind the desk.
“You are getting too good at sneaking up on people,” Ahmed said.
“So, what kind of plan do you have?”
“I think we can catch Khalid.”
“Come again.”
He showed her the translated email and outlined his plan.
“That is a bold plan, and somewhat dangerous,” Jenny said.
“If he’s expecting a plane and a plane shows up, he might let his guard down, at least long enough to secure him.”
“How do you figure he’ll let his guard down?”
“He’s going to expect to meet Arabs when he comes across. We might have one or two to spare.”
“One or two?”
“One for sure. Haven’t asked the other one yet.”
“Count me in,” Miriam said.
“Guys, you're not trained for the field. There’s no way I can send you two…”
“Do you have any other Arabs around here that are available on short notice?” Ahmed asked.
“I hate to put you two in harm’s way.”
“We just have to be the first faces they see and talk to before they get on the plane. Casey’s already with Ken anyway.”
“I don’t know. It seems risky.”
“Yeah, it’s risky. Everything we do is risky. Casey and Rachel are out there risking their lives. There’s no reason we can’t do the same when the mission calls for it.”
“How many crew members do you think Khalid has on that ship?”
“They left Karachi with six.”
“Only six for a ship that size?”
“Doesn’t take many to run a ship these days. Considering the mission, he probably ran with a smaller crew than normal, all radicals like him.”
“Well, it seems risky, but with Casey on board and you having the element of surprise, it just might work. Go ahead and set the trap and I’ll notify Ken.”
29
July 1, 2:00 am
Milwaukee
&n
bsp; Remaining in the park after the other guests had left wasn’t too difficult for Rachel. She went to the bathroom right before closing time and stayed in there until she couldn’t hear any more people walking by. She exited the restroom and avoided the few security personnel still walking around and since then she had been lying low near the lake shore, keeping her eye on the water, specifically the bridge from the shore to the north end of Lakeshore State Park. She was trying to guess where the weapons might be dropped, but she figured any boat would have to come under that bridge, so she focused her attention there.
Visibility was good with the sky clear and the half- moon high in the sky, but she knew that good visibility went both ways. She would have liked it a little darker. The shore was maybe a hundred yards ahead of her. To her left was one of the outdoor stages and to her right was a building that housed an indoor performance area. Behind that building was a thick group of trees that would be the ideal place to stash anything. The shore itself was large rocks that kept anyone but the most adventurous from walking directly into the water. She stifled a yawn. It wouldn’t do to nod off and miss everything. She had a clear view of the bridge while the seats and large tower in front of the stage should shield her from the view of anyone coming by boat.
She waited another ten minutes and fought back another yawn. She was reaching into her fanny pack to get an energy bar when she thought she saw movement by the bridge. Yes, she was sure of it. There was a small boat passing under the bridge, about the size of a zodiac. She couldn’t quite tell how many men were in the boat, perhaps two, and she cursed herself for not having her binoculars ready. She reached for the fanny pack just as the chair next to her shot back a few feet in a shower of wood splinters. She rolled to her left to try to get better cover as she realized that the men in the boat must have night vision and a suppressed rifle. One more chair took a direct hit and she heard another round whiz past her ear. Too close. Over her right shoulder was a small building that held a concession stand or a restroom, which one she couldn't remember. If she could get there, she would have cover and hopefully enough time to assess her situation.
She made a dash for the cover and when she was almost out of sight, another round tore up a chunk of pavement inches from her foot. Instead of continuing her run, she went down like she had been hit, landing behind the building she was trying to get to. Hopefully the shooter would think he hit her. There were no more shots from the boat and a minute later she could hear two men conversing in Arabic. She was now glad her father had insisted she study the language. She resented it at the time, but after those lessons and what she had learned from Miriam at the office she was on her way to becoming fluent.
She gathered small snatches of what the two men were saying.
“What was someone doing over there at this hour?”
“It looked like a woman, looking right at us.”
“Did you get her?”
“Yeah, last shot. I saw her fall behind that building up there.”
“You’d better retrieve the body. I’ll finish up here.”
“Just bury it under that rock. He’ll know where to find it.”
“I know the plan, just get the body. We can drop it in the lake.”
This was just as well to Rachel. The shooter thought he got her and he was coming to retrieve what he thought was going to be a body. She now had her weapon out and had the suppressor attached. The gun is a last resort, she reminded herself. She was around the corner of the building, pressed flat up against the wall. She heard the footsteps of the man approaching, not trying to conceal his movements, no doubt unaware of any danger. He slowed down when he got close to the corner and peered around to where she had fallen. When he saw nothing, he looked confused and took a couple steps before turning around and looking directly at her. His jaw dropped and he hesitated a second before coming at her.
His hesitation did him in. He saw a young woman in front of him, a young woman he probably outweighed by 75 pounds, and he underestimated her. His punch was wild and telegraphed. She deflected the strike with her left arm and stepped in, in the same movement, to deliver a strike with her right hand straight to his trachea. She only meant to take him out of the fight quickly, and that she did. He went down like a sack of potatoes and his eyes rolled back in his head.
It would only be a matter of time before his friend would wonder where he was, so she had to move fast. She moved from that building around to the other side of the larger indoor performance building next to it, making her way down the side toward the trees. She moved quickly and quietly and soon enough she was at the edge of the trees. The other man was in the rocks and stashing a backpack under a rock so it wouldn’t be visible except to the man who would be looking for it later. He had his back to her, so she moved as quickly as she could without making any undue sound and was within ten feet of him, pistol drawn, when he stood up and turned around. He found himself looking straight into the barrel of her suppressor.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” she said to him in Arabic.
He took a step toward her.
“Stop right there and put your hands up.”
He reached toward his hip and took another step toward her.
“Wrong answer,” she said as she squeezed the trigger and put a round between his eyes.
‘What a moron,’ she thought to herself as she dragged his body and dumped it into the boat, a zodiac with a small outboard motor. They couldn't have come far in a boat like that, unless they came from a larger boat farther out in the lake. She walked back to where the other man was to check on him and when she knelt down and felt, he had no pulse. She must have hit him harder than she thought and crushed his trachea.
Now she had a dilemma. She had two dead terrorists on her hands as well as the weapon stash for the third terrorist who would be showing up in a few hours. She thought about removing all the weapons and leaving the bodies for the police, but that would cause all manner of problems, maybe even closing down the festival for the day, so the bodies would have to be taken care of. She went about stripping the bodies of anything useful while she thought about how to best get rid of them.
She stashed the other dead man with his friend in the boat and went to retrieve the backpack hidden in the rocks. When she removed it, she whistled. There were two Glock 19 pistols in there, an MP5 submachine gun, and a suicide vest. She put all of this into the boat and climbed in. Then she saw the rifle the man had been shooting at her with, an H&K M110A1 compact sniper rifle with a suppressor. Where did these guys get ahold of that? She had read about this weapon recently, the newest sniper weapon developed by H&K for the US Army. She didn’t have time to ponder where they got it for now, but it would make a nice addition to the arsenal at the office.
She left all the weapons on the shore, got in the boat, and started the motor, heading under the bridge into the open water. After she got under the bridge, she turned right and hugged the east shore of the park, turned the boat straight away from shore, and opened up the throttle. She jumped out and swam back to shore as the boat sped away out into the open lake. It would be a while before the boat was discovered and even then, there would be no connecting it with anything on shore. A couple John Does dead in a Zodiac in the middle of Lake Michigan would make a good mystery.
The other terrorist would still show up looking for the stash, and that gave her an idea. She put the pack back in its place with the MP5 and the Glock, minus the ammo, and went back to the car. She stashed the other weapons in the trunk and drove a few miles to a motel where she would get some much- needed sleep and a shower.
9:00 AM
Veracruz, Mexico
Ken and Casey walked casually around the bustling port of Veracruz taking in the sights and keeping an eye on the docks for the Qadira. The ship wasn’t due for another hour, but it wouldn’t do to miss it if it was early. They had two motorcycles parked nearby that they could get to quickly when the time came, but they decided they could blend in bet
ter walking around. Any fears they had of blending in vanished when they got closer to the docks and realized that sailors from all over the world were there with the various ships. Two black men who spoke poor Spanish would hardly be noticed in such a place.
“You know you’re going to have to brush up on your Spanish eventually,” Ken said.
“Yeah, I know. I can understand most of what they’re saying, but it’s talking back that’s the problem. Should have paid more attention in school.”
“You could hardly have known what you’d end up doing for a living.”
“I was majoring in football, to tell the truth. So, what do you figure we’re looking for when the ship arrives?”
“The cargo will have to be dealt with. I figure the bomb will be loaded onto a separate vehicle while the other cargo is being unloaded. Ansari said it’s not a very large device, but they have it in a shielded crate. They'll have a truck or a van nearby to load it onto.”
“And then it’s headed to Monterrey?”
“That’s where the intel points. There’s a major highway headed northwest out of town. One more small truck or van on that road will hardly be noticed.”
“Like that truck there?” Casey said as he looked at a small Isuzu cabover truck with a 16’ box.
“Exactly. Looks like they’ve been parked there for a while.”
“Right next to an empty berth. You figure that’s where the ship will dock?”
“Perhaps. We should keep an eye on this spot, and make a note of the plate number on the truck, just in case.”
“Already done,” Casey said as he snapped a photo.
For the next thirty minutes they walked up and down the docks, observing everything they could about how other ships were unloaded and how the paperwork was checked when the ships docked. More than once they saw small chests and crates being wheeled on dollies, crew members lucky to have some time ashore no doubt.
Wolf Trap (Casey Reddick Book 1) Page 22
