by Rick Mofina
“What about security incidents at the branch?” one detective asked.
“Nothing of consequence on record,” Tilden said. “However, one teller told us she’d seen a man in a car using binoculars in the strip mall parking lot across the street from the bank. This happened within a few weeks of the incident. We believe he was casing the branch and we’re going to be reviewing security footage from the mall.”
“Okay,” Varner said. “We’ll be holding a press conference later today to share the basics with the public and make an appeal for information. If there are no other questions, that’s all we have. Thanks, everyone.”
As the investigators were leaving, Varner noticed that Henry Collins remained at the table, fixated on the notes he’d made.
“Henry,” Varner said, “what’re you thinking?”
“Nick, you’re still with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, right?”
“Yes.”
“Given that groups have been known to raise funds using drugs, kidnappings, ransoms, robberies and such, I’m thinking...maybe you really have to look at a terrorist connection.”
“We are, Henry. We’re looking at everything.”
29
Near Harrogate, England
Huge white spheres stood against the rolling green hills and farms of North Yorkshire’s moorland like a futuristic Stonehenge.
In a chamber deep below the complex, a US intelligence specialist listened to a fragment of an intercepted satellite phone exchange in Arabic.
“...is preparing to bring gifts to the wedding...”
The specialist reexamined the alert and summaries from the traffic operator, the linguist and the cryptologist, then he replayed the recording.
“...is preparing to bring gifts to the wedding...many, many guests...will be a big celebration...”
He sat up in his chair and began entering key notes from his analysis into his computer. His workstation was in a corner of the control room of the military installation known as Menwith Hill.
The base was owned by the British Ministry of Defence but was chiefly operated by the US National Security Agency. It was one of the most secretive intelligence-gathering systems in the world and the most secure. Food and supplies for the two thousand US military personnel and US contractors posted there were either delivered by ship or flown in from the United States.
The nearly three-dozen giant, white golf-ball-like structures rising from the base housed state-of-the-art satellite receivers and transmitters with an unparalleled ability to intercept every sort of communication anywhere on the planet. Operations had emerged from ECHELON, a communications network of listening posts around the world operated by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Menwith Hill now served as a critical missile warning line as part of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. The site was the European Relay Ground Station for the web of Space Based Infrared Satellites built to provide data on missile launches and trajectories.
But since September 11, 2001, terrorism had grown into the leading threat against the United States, its allies and other countries. Menwith Hill afforded its satellite imagery and surveillance capability to coordinate live, precise, military drone strikes and attacks by Special Forces against hostile elements. And intelligence units at the base ran operations intercepting and analyzing the communications of terror groups. Menwith’s supercomputers were capable of making millions of intercepts an hour. In nearly each case, targets used coded internet communication, encrypted satellite phones or disposable phones. Advanced technology helped process the encrypted data at unimaginable speed using data-mining software that could quickly pluck and lock on to key words or phrases.
Then it came down to the human factor, because the information still needed further analysis.
Intelligence officers had to understand and make sense of the complex signals, determining what they meant and where they fit in. To help, they also used information extracted from captured suspects or recovered by technicians from seized equipment. Menwith also relied on the work of agents and subcontractors in the field, whose sources and informants provided key but ever-changing data and positions.
In addition to the challenge of encrypted, coded exchanges, linguists had to contend with hundreds of languages. While they were the best translators in the world, they inevitably faced hurdles trying to comprehend everything they’d heard. A great deal could get by if you misunderstood slang, dialects or cultural contexts. The fear of missing critical information ran deep among all operators, no matter how long they’d been monitoring their target.
The intelligence specialist, who was fluent in Arabic, concentrated harder as he replayed the fragment of captured communications several more times.
“...is preparing to bring gifts to the wedding...many, many guests...will be a big celebration...”
The exchange was between two senior members of an active jihadist group. He resumed typing on his keyboard, submitting a few lines of characters. The dialects were Levantine, the kind heard in Syria or Lebanon and the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps. San’ani or Ta’izzi-Adeni, which were known to parts of Yemen.
“...the most beautiful gift will be from the clock maker...”
The specialist continually replayed the conversation. For the past six months he’d been tracking a case that involved intercepts of individuals from Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Athens and London. However, this most recent series of calls had bounced from Syria and Yemen to individuals somewhere in the United States.
The specialist let more of the intercept play out as he continued analyzing it and making notes.
“...will present it...overseas...it will be a celebration gloriously remembered...”
The specialist stopped to focus on what he had so far. He clicked on to the map he’d been maintaining, which included dates, time lines and notations based on the intercepts of this network. For months he’d been finding small connections that always seemed to dead-end. But today, with this intercepted fragment, he’d mined what he believed was a key puzzle piece in an unfolding plot.
An attack against the US is coming.
He called his supervisor to his desk.
“Ma’am, please listen to this. I think we have something here that builds on previous developments. Something big.”
The supervisor slipped on the headset and listened.
“...will present it...overseas...it will be a celebration gloriously remembered...”
She listened two more times, consulted the specialist’s notes and drew upon all the alerts she’d been privy to from the last forty-eight hours. She nodded.
“Write it up ASAP. We need to get this to our people at home.”
30
Manhattan, New York
Back at her desk in the newsroom, Kate took a hit of her take-out coffee.
Upon her return she’d received a text from Varner advising her about the upcoming FBI-NYPD press conference on the Fulton case. She glanced at the clock.
I’ve got a little time before it starts.
As Kate worked on following the lead from the woman she’d just met in Bryant Park, she continued to question the veracity of her source. The information she’d gotten was intriguing, but so far, Kate had found nothing to support the woman’s claim.
Is she just another whack job?
Kate searched databases Newslead subscribed to and requested their news library, one of the best in the business, to help search for anything on a California police officer named Lori Fulton. She went back ten years to ensure everything was covered, but nothing had surfaced. Not one iota of information identifying Lori Fulton as a cop in California.
It made Kate skeptical of the woman’s informat
ion. It was clear she’d held a grudge against Lori, steeping her account in bitterness. But she seemed certain Fulton had been a cop, and the internal notice by Dixon Donlevy hinted at it. The notice was brief, announcing that Lori Fulton would be the senior investigator of fraudulent claims in the Queens region; that she’d graduated from California State University with a degree in criminology and had many years of investigative experience. There were no details, no elaboration. When Kate called, Cal State couldn’t confirm that Lori Fulton had ever attended.
Kate bit her lip to think, then picked up her phone again and dialed a number in Los Angeles belonging to a guy she’d dated a few times.
“LA Times, Benjamin Keller.”
“Hi, Ben. Kate Page in New York.”
“Kate! Hey, superstar, how’s things in the Apple?”
“All good, and you?”
“Oh, you know, taking it day by day. What’s up?”
“I need a little confidential help, Ben. It’s urgent.”
“If I can help you, I will. I owe you a few favors. Shoot.”
“I need you to check with your sources on the name Lori Fulton. She was supposed to have been a cop in California when something went wrong and caused her to leave the force.”
“What force?”
“That’s what I need to know.”
“How far back?”
“Say five to ten years.” Kate gave him the spelling of Lori’s name and her age.
“Sure, I can check this out pretty quickly. But promise you won’t kill me with a story in my backyard, Kate. You have to share anything relevant for LA Times, all right?”
“Promise.”
Kate hung up, took a breath, then called a number for San Francisco.
“Betty Yang, Chronicle.”
“Hi, Betty. It’s Kate in New York.”
“Oh, my God, Kate! Great to hear from you. How are you?”
“I’m doing fine. It’s been a while, though! How are things with you?”
“Mike and I just got a house in Daly City—he says I’m nesting. And I’m sending my love to your sister. My God, Kate, that was a hell of a thing. How’s Vanessa doing?”
“Good, she’s doing real good.”
“And Grace?”
“She loves New York.”
“Thanks for sending me the pictures. She’s so pretty, just like her mom. So, what’s going on?”
Kate, as she’d done with Ben in LA, asked Betty to help her look into Lori Fulton’s supposed police background, and Betty agreed to check with her Bay Area police sources.
Then Kate glanced at the time and went to the restroom to check her face in preparation for the press conference. Her calls to Ben and Betty pulled her back to when they’d all worked at the San Francisco Star.
It was the best of times and the worst of times.
Kate had still been something of a wide-eyed rookie on the crime desk when, after a short fling with Ben, she’d met another guy—a fantastic guy. He was a cop. He was caring, charming and oh-so-easy on the eyes. She’d fallen hard for him, and after a few months of an intense, wildly physical relationship, Kate had become pregnant. She’d gone through a maelstrom of emotions at the news, but eventually decided to tell him about the baby.
That’s when she’d learned that he’d been lying about being divorced. That he was still married, and that he had two little boys she’d had no idea about. He’d admitted that his marriage had gone through a rocky stage, but that he wasn’t going to leave his wife. He’d blamed the pregnancy on Kate, offered to pay for an abortion, and, when she’d refused, he wrote her off completely.
They never spoke again.
Kate had been determined to keep her baby. She’d left San Francisco and gotten a job with the Repository in Canton, Ohio, where she’d had Grace at age twenty-three and decided to raise her on her own.
We survived.
For an instant, Kate thought of calling him to ask for help tracking down her lead on Lori Fulton.
An icy shiver coiled up her spine.
No. No way. I’ve never needed him for anything, and I won’t start now.
Back at her desk Kate checked all the other news outlets for their latest on the Fulton story. Nobody had an edge. The New York Times noted and credited Newslead as reporting the amount stolen by Dan Fulton was a quarter million dollars. Kate smiled when she came upon a clarification issued by Signal Point Newswire, noting that it had erroneously reported the amount taken in the heist and would update the correct figure when it was available.
Kate’s phone chimed with a text from Betty Yang at the San Francisco Chronicle. Checked Sacramento + Bay Area sources. Nothing on LF as a Calif cop—still checking.
Kate exhaled. Her tip was fizzling, as suspected. She’d have to look for another angle. Maybe something would come out of the press conference. Or she could pump Varner afterward, she thought, collecting her bag to leave just as her desk phone rang.
“Kate Page, Newslead.”
“Hey, it’s Ben. So far zip on any cop named Lori Fulton. Checked with LAPD, LA County, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, but I’m still looking.”
Kate was disappointed but not surprised. “Thanks, Ben.”
“I checked with the associations and had our researchers go through municipal employee lists. Nothing there, either.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“Well, we did find something with Santa Ana PD that might be relevant. However, it’s about a Lori Wallace, not Fulton. But the situation seems to fit what you described, and the date falls in the right time frame. Check it out—just emailed you the first clip from our Orange County edition.”
Kate opened the file and read the headline: Police Officer and Suspect Killed in Shoot-out.
31
Somewhere in New York State
Lori and Billy watched the van door roll open.
Two men with military assault rifles stood before them.
Cutty and Thorne.
Both were still in coveralls, but they’d removed their masks, revealing two white men in their early twenties. Thorne had tousled hair, large eyes and a stubbled chin; Cutty, the big one, had a shaved head, a beard and a scar high on his left cheek.
She didn’t recognize either of the men, but a new realization dawned on her as she looked at them, fear twisting deep in the pit of her stomach.
They can’t let us live if we can identify them!
“Get out!” Cutty said.
Lori blinked as she adjusted to the sunlight after hours in the dark van.
They were somewhere in the mountains, atop a ridge overlooking vast sweeping forests stretching to the horizon in every direction. The air had cooled, now carrying the sweet scent of spruce and red cedar, woods so dense they looked impassable.
Where’s Dan? Have they brought him here?
Not another vehicle or person in sight.
“Get moving!”
The ridge was crowned with a natural path of twigs and leaves that meandered for some forty to fifty yards up a gentle rise to a cabin. Cutty and Thorne walked behind them, unconcerned that they’d removed the tape from their mouths and wrists. Only the plastic handcuffs bound their hands in front of them. The small red lights on the battery packs of their suicide vests continued blinking.
Lori couldn’t stop trembling, couldn’t stop the adrenaline coursing through her as she battled to stay ahead of her fear.
Use it. Use it to fight back. Use it to protect Billy.
She swallowed hard and tried to find the strength to not give up.
On her left she’d noticed a small outbuilding that was at the end of a path that led into the woods some distance from the cabin.
Are we in the Catskills or the Adirondac
ks?
They climbed the stairs of the cabin’s covered front deck, entering through the screen door. The interior was one large open area. One corner contained the kitchen, and there was a picnic table and a few Adirondack chairs set up near the middle.
Two large bunk beds occupied another corner.
An opened laptop and a backpack with a large half-eaten bag of potato chips and bottles of water were on the picnic table. Clothes spilled from duffel bags near the bunk beds. In the far empty corner, a camera mounted on a tripod was pointed to a blank wall.
Lori grew uneasy.
What’s that for?
Across from the bunk beds were two mattresses set side by side on the floor with sleeping bags and pillows. Two long, fine dog chains extended from steel hardware bolted to a wooden stud.
“Over there.” Cutty pointed his gun to the mattresses.
Lori and Billy took a few steps to their corner before she turned.
“We haven’t eaten and we need to go to the bathroom,” she said.
Cutty looked at Thorne, who nodded.
“The boy first. Let’s go.” Cutty pointed to the cabin’s rear screen door, which Lori could see opened to the path she’d noticed on her way in. He took Billy and she moved to go with him.
“Sit your ass down.” Cutty pointed his gun at Lori and she froze midstep. He kept the gun aimed at her for a moment before heading out alone with Billy.
Lori hesitated at the screen door, watching them.
“Sit down—” Thorne held up his phone “—or I dial a number and he’s gone.”
Lori sat.
When it was her turn, Cutty took her to the outhouse at the end of the path, about thirty yards from the cabin. He forced her to leave the door open, as he’d done with Billy, and relieve herself at gunpoint with her hands cuffed in plastic.
Necessity helped her endure the humiliation.
When they’d returned to the cabin, Lori saw that they’d locked a metal handcuff on Billy’s ankle, fastening him to the chain that hung from the wall. With several quick snaps, they did the same to her. The metal cuff was cold on her skin as she crawled to sit next to Billy on his mattress.
