Give Us This Day

by Tom Avitabile

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, sir. This is a case of national security. Your country needs you.”

  “I already served my country, Director.”

  “Yes, I know. Four years air force, two commendations and two promotions, but I need you now.”

  “For what?”

  “We’ll talk on the chopper, sir. We have to get back to our headquarters.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. I don’t have to recognize your authority. Besides, I am winning the round, a very rare occurrence.”

  “Sir, can we step away from these gentlemen?” Brooke extended her arm over to the far edge of the green.

  “You better go, Kevin, she looks serious,” Charlie said.

  When they were out of earshot, Brooke looked him in the eye. “Okay, I am going to wave security clearance and tell you up front what this is all about. In the next twelve to eighteen hours there may be a vicious and devastating terrorist attack on New York. Somehow the funding, and maybe the way to stop these guys, lies with Kitman. You worked for him and . . .”

  “Hold on. I was hired as a freelance consultant, short period, then it was over.”

  “Noted, but still, while in his employ you hid assets. We believe those assets are now fueling the attack.”

  “Do I need a lawyer? Because you just accused me of being a co-conspirator in all this.”

  “Exactly. And we still have rendition, Mr. Lawrence.”

  “So you’re saying either I play along or tomorrow I wake up in a Saudi prison and you forget I am there?”

  “I’m saying your country needs you right this minute, and I can arrange for immunity if you should happen to be unintentionally involved.”

  “Arrange for immunity, or guarantee?”

  “Sir, I answer directly to the President of the United States. I can guarantee immunity on the matters I just discussed with you.”

  Kevin looked at Brooke. She was as serious as a heart attack. Then he looked at the chopper. The large turbo fan engines still running meant this wasn’t a fishing expedition and that she had clout to violate a dozen FAA rules just to interrupt his putt.

  “Director Burrell-Morton, I accede to your wishes.”

  She extended her arm towards the idling whirlybird. “Mind your head getting in.”

  .G.

  As the bird lifted off, his golf mates were partially stunned. “Well, looks like Kevin is in deep shit,” Charles said.

  “No, I think they made a deal. Her body language wasn’t aggressive and Kevin was more passive.”

  “Kevin passive? That’ll be the day.”

  Chapter 39

  Hunting Deer in Dearborn?

  By the time they got back to Midtown headquarters, Kevin Lawrence had been read in on the financial forensics and some of the threat matrix that Brooke and her team were trying to fend off.

  Brooke gathered George, Remo, Kronos, and Betty, the recording secretary, into the secure conference room. Once the door was closed and the “Remo Switch” safe light was on, she knew the room was off the grid and secure. “Here’s what we suspect, and there is almost no time to act if we are right. Kitman, through the Iranian Sataad, the underground network of banking, is funding an ISIS cell or cells which may go active in the next”—she looked at the big clock on the wall—“ten to fourteen hours. It’s too late to stop the funds and it would be meaningless since, as we know, they are already armed and manned. But if we can get a lead on where the monies are placed, we might be able to figure out what their target is . . .”

  “Or targets,” Remo said.

  “Yes, targets. Then maybe we can interrupt their plans. Mr. Lawrence, you hid billions for Kitman . . .”

  “Hold it right there . . . Do you know what I do?” Lawrence interrupted.

  “You hide assets,” Remo said.

  “Wrong on two counts. One, these are not assets; they are hard-fought, hard-negotiated secured collateral. That money is all but spent . . . gone. It is already accounted for both legally and as part of a structured instrument or loan. Technically, it doesn’t exist as liquid. And the second part of your two-word accusation is also wrong because these funds are not hidden. They are right out there in the open. In fact, court rulings, findings, and court orders initiate my work.”

  Brooke was starting to get the idea that this guy had his shit wired tighter than the feds who hired her. She was about to ask a question, but he wasn’t finished.

  “In fact, transparency is necessary for my clients. They need to see the money at all times.”

  Aha! Brooke thought, now I have him. “Who are your clients exactly, Mr. Lawrence?”

  “Kevin, please. Oh, you know, the scum of the earth types. Little companies like Credit Suisse, Chase, First Boston, the Department of Treasury, and Veteran’s Affairs. Oh, and the FBI and CIA agent’s union’s pension funds.”

  “What?” Brooke said.

  “You got a federal health plan? A pension coming from the FBI? It’s actually money that needs to be protected against things like government shutdown or overthrow.”

  Brooke was speechless.

  Remo jumped in. “Okay, but why all this precaution if there’s nothing dirty or barely legal going on?”

  “Bankruptcy judges are the most powerful entities in the legal system. Extreme latitude. They can go anywhere, attach any asset, pierce any corporate shell and, in general, maraud deep into a company’s financial landscape, raping and pillaging. They make Sadam Hussein and Attila the Hun look like Mother Teresa. Hitler was once quoted as saying, “I want to come back as a bankruptcy judge. That’s where the real power lies.”

  “And what you get paid for thwarts these bankruptcy courts?” Brooke said.

  “Paid very well, because they do.”

  “Well, Mr. Lawrence, I need you to crack into Kitman. I believe some of the funds you locked up are fueling the terrorists.”

  “Do you have a conviction?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then what you are looking to do is exactly what my clients pay me to stop from happening. Fishing expeditions have killed as many businesses as actual crime. If you can’t pierce Kitman Global Investments’ securitizations, it’s because you are trying to do something extra-legal.”

  “I can compel you,” she said.

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “No, I mean, I have no operational authority once I deliver. I just build the fortress. I don’t live in it or run it. Once I set them up they are self-running self-securitizations.”

  “But you know the way in?”

  “There is no way in. That’s what I do. I build it with no doors, no windows. No light gets in and so no judgment can attach it to a failed financial institution.”

  “Do you realize that you might be helping ISIS get funding?” Remo said.

  “That’s your speculation . . .”

  “Maybe, but we are in the eleventh hour and you need to remember I work for the department of the Treasury. I am sure that if you were seen to be uncooperative, the Secretary of the Treasury and a few other ancillary powerbrokers could put a dent in your half-a-mil for a Paper Safe business,” Brooke said.

  “Why do you continue to threaten me? I am here, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, but I need action. Trace Kitman’s funds and tell me what the cells are doing with it, what they are buying and where they bought it. Before this city explodes.”

  She stood up. “George, Kronos, you give him everything he needs. If you need more bodies, just ask. Peter, come with me. Bridge has something.”

  .G.

  “Gee, I’ve never been down here.”

  “Very few have,” Brooke said.

  “What is this, NORAD?” Remo said as they entered the round room with big screens on the
wall and a number of desks with technicians busily typing, turning knobs and throwing switches.

  Bridge was in the middle of it all, and turned when he heard them. “Good, you’re here.”

  “This is where you’ve been, Bridge? I was wondering,” Remo said.

  “Put up satellite feed 2021, Chuck,” Bridge said to the tech sitting next to him.

  On the big screen in the center of the forward wall a greenish-hued night vison image appeared of an area of terrain that had many men moving in a specific, military way.

  “Small arms training?” Brooke said as she watched the figures on the screen run then crouch, then rock with what looked like the recoil of their weapons, then up and running again.

  “Chuck, increase the resolution.”

  The picture zoomed in.

  “From the kick and barrel flame, I am calling that a SAW.”

  “Okay, so not-so-small arms training.”

  “Where is this, some Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan?” Remo said.

  “No, Michigan. And if I had to guess, these two guys watching are rating the maneuvers and tactics.”

  “What do you think they’re training for?”

  “You see the way they are advancing—each one covering the next? That’s a siege move,” Bridge pointed out.

  “This exercise is simulating the taking of a heavily armed facility under fire,” Brooke said.

  “We’ve increased security at all power, water, and subway systems as well as roads and bridges with teams that are armed to the teeth,” Remo said.

  “We’re going to need ’em. These boys are hard trained, and not the usual fumbling idiots we see in their training videos in the desert.”

  “Mujahedeen?” Brooke said.

  “Most likely, somehow in this country and operational.”

  “Okay, when was this feed?” Brooke said to Chuck.

  “Yesterday morning, 3:18 a.m. local time, from three hundred miles up.”

  “And . . . ?” Brooke said to Bridge.

  “Michigan National Guard and State Troopers were dispatched to the coordinates, but that was six hours after this video. They’ve found nothing but shell casings.”

  “That’s how you called the SAW from the video?” Brooke said.

  “Let’s say the ejected 5.6 mm cartridges confirmed it.” Bridge half smiled.

  “So where did they go?” Remo said.

  Chuck, the tech, spoke up. “Checking now. We make four vehicles at the training camp. We are doing a pattern-recognition search now and cross checking with all highway, street, and tollbooth cameras. It’s slim, since we don’t have a plate number, but we are looking for these four types of cars grouped within a minute or so time window from one another, and figuring they are headed east; but we’re not ruling out an attack anywhere else in America.”

  Brooke picked up the phone. “Get me Barnes.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “If they are headed here, we better beef up the security. I think we should have armor at vital points.”

  Peter Remo whistled. “Brooke, tanks in the street? I dunno. That’s not going to look too good in the news.”

  “A crumbled, stricken city with maybe thousands, hell, millions dead, will look better?” She removed her hand, “Director, sir. I think we need to raise the threat level. I want all-out force protection to essential high-level targets and assets in the next twenty-four hours. Yes, sir, we have them dead to rights training for a full-on military assault somewhere—we’re betting New York, sir. Thank you.

  “He’s calling the White House.”

  “It’ll stop there,” Remo said.

  “Nah, Mitchell is a warrior. I think he’ll understand a prevent defense,” Bridge said.

  “I hope so, Bridge, I hope so,” Brooke said.

  .G.

  Kevin Lawrence, Kronos, and George were each banging away at a multi-screen terminal in the FBI’s IT department, which Brook had commandeered for them. Lawrence was able to pierce three levels of his own Kevlar and was trying to crack the last code when Kronos came over dangling a memory stick on a lanyard.

  “Okay, once you’re in, I wrote this code that will interrogate the system and get velocity, source, and destination on all transactions. From there we can do a standard metadata dump and try to get down to the item SKU, the store, and maybe even the salesclerk’s ID . . . If we’re lucky,” Kronos said.

  Lawrence just grunted.

  “Stuck?”

  “This last level, I keep falling for my own trap. Damn it. I should be able to outsmart myself.”

  “Let me try.”

  “You? What do you know about deep-level securitization-layered protocols?”

  “Not a friggin’ thing. But I know the shit out of computers . . .”

  Since he hadn’t gotten anywhere for ten minutes, Lawrence shrugged his shoulders and said, “What the hell . . .” He got up and Kronos sat down, typing before his butt hit the chair.

  “I see you got multiple comparator strings with a variable polynomial supplicant.”

  “Hey, watch it, you just cracked half my intellectual property.”

  “No big whoop, Kev.”

  Kevin Lawrence’s eyes widened as Kronos was having intimate, digital programming code sex with his creation. As his fingers flew over the keyboard, Lawrence caught enough to yell, “Okay stop! I’ll take it from here.”

  Kronos turned and smiled. “You really are paranoid.”

  “Look, really, get up, go over there. I’ll finish it up now.”

  “Suit yerself . . .” Kronos got up and saw Remo coming towards them.

  “How you guys doing?”

  “We’re in,” Lawrence said.

  “Nice work,” Remo said.

  “Not just me. Kronos busted through the last layer for us,” Lawrence said.

  “Kron-os.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  .G.

  George and Remo entered Brooke’s office where Bridge and she were pouring over a map of NYC on the wall. Red circles indicated every vital, high-value target that could be on a terrorist’s Christmas list, if these guys were the type to celebrate the Yule.

  Bridge recapped their last half hour’s work. “So aside from expanding the security at the airports and increasing the perimeter out another mile in the two bodies of water that lead to the runways, everything else is fortified.”

  Remo looked at the map. “You’ve missed one. Two actually.”

  Brooke looked at Bridge then back to Remo. “Okay smart guy, where?”

  Remo put his finger on Forty-Second Street and Park Ave. or where Park would be between Madison and Lex if Grand Central wasn’t there. And with his other hand he spread his thumb and middle finger so it spanned the East River. “M42 and the rupture doors.”

  “Oh wait. Yes I remember reading about M42 in Linda Fairstein’s Terminal City.”

  “I’ve been wanting to read it, me being a train buff and all,” Remo said.

  “Wanna clue me in,” Bridge said.

  “M42 is the area deep down below Grand Central Terminal. It’s the Dynamo room where . . .”

  “Right, yes. Okay, now I remember. The power for the entire Metro North. During World War II, a sergeant with a Thompson submachine gun guarded it. He had one order: ‘Anybody comes down the stairs, shoot to kill.’” Bridge held his hands like the Tommy gun was in them and he was pulling the trigger.

  “Hitler wanted to destroy that room throughout the war. They even caught four saboteurs who were dropped off on the shores of Long Island by U-Boat to blow it up among other things,” Brooke said as she picked up the red sharpie and made a circle around Grand Central. “Good point, Peter, but what’s the East River about?”

  “At each end of the Long Island Railroad tunnel, here and here, that goes under the river,
there are gigantic hundred-ton doors on cantilevers designed to slam shut if those same German U-Boats got into New York Harbor and shot a torpedo into the tunnel, which is actually a concrete tube sitting on the river bottom. Those doors would seal the tunnel, because if it flooded there would be no stopping the East River from flooding the entire underground subway, train, and utility networks. That much pressure would also weaken many of the heaviest skyscrapers at their foundation. Not to mention low-level flooding as water sought its own level across the city.”

  Brooke turned to one of the agents who were standing behind them. “Ralph, get on this right away. Talk to the city and railroad engineers and report back ASAP.”

  Ralph left the room.

  Remo looked at the map. “What are these big boxes here, here, and here?” he said, pointing to the red boxes drawn in sharpie and filled with slashes in the middle of Central Park, Citi Field in Queens, and over in Liberty State Park on the Jersey side of the Hudson River.

  “Forward Operating Bases for Archangel,” Bridge said.

  “The what bases for the who?” Kronos said.

  “Archangel, Bridge’s plan to rapidly respond to whatever it is we’re facing,” Brooke said. “So what have you guys got for me?”

  “Pay dirt!” Remo said.

  “Yeah, it took Lawrence forever to almost crack his own code, but then he let a real pro sit down and bada-zing . . . done.”

  “Zing? Anyway, Mr. Humility aside, Kronos’s second program got us down to some purchases actually made from a credit card account, if you can believe it.” Remo unfolded the printout.

  “I can believe it,” Brooke said. “First, the World Trade bombers back in ’93 used credit cards to rent the truck they detonated in the garage. We caught ’em when the ‘rocket scientists’ went back for the deposit.”

  “Eerily coincidental,” Remo said.

  “Second, they are forced to use credit cards in many cases, because nowadays cash sets off red flags.”

  “We got a rental charge for two of the three U-Hauls.”

  “Hold it. How do you know it was three? The tire tracks from the floor of the garage in Yonkers were positive for two different trailers but inconclusive on there being a third.” Brooke said.