by Dee Davis
“I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for his cooperation,” Tyler said, striding into the room, as usual toting a bag full of God knows what kind of ordnance. “I got a print off the car bomb.” She sat down at the table, reaching into the duffel to produce a small piece of metal in a plastic bag. “This is a piece of the trigger. And the print on it belongs to Isaacs.”
“Which means he was making the bombs,” Jillian said, finishing the thought.
“And makes it even more important for us to run the bastard to ground,” Drake added.
“Well, unless you’ve got a secret for resurrecting the dead I’m not aware of, I don’t think that’s going to be possible.” Tyler sighed, leaning back in her chair. “A couple of hours ago, the NYPD got called to the scene of an explosion. A house in Queens. The place was destroyed, but there was a body, and they managed to pull a fingerprint.”
“Let me guess—” Simon said, “the print was a match to Joseph Isaacs.”
CHAPTER 22
Köln, Germany
I still don’t understand why we didn’t take out more people,” Gregor complained as he sipped cognac in front of the fire in Michael’s study. The two of them had retired to the comfort of cigars and Courvoisier after hearing the news that the attack on Yankee Stadium had gone off without a hitch.
“Because it was never the plan. We needed for the authorities involved, particularly A-Tac, to believe that they’d thwarted the worst of it. That they’d won the day. Victory makes people careless.”
“But it seems like killing or injuring a stadium full of people would have far better suited our purposes than a single death.”
“Yes, well, maybe on the surface. But think of a chain of dominoes. If you were to drop something on them, explode them as it were, some of them, at least, would still remain standing. Isolated, but still strong. And the incident, though frightening, wouldn’t guarantee their destruction. But if you arrange the dominoes properly and then knock over just the one—all of them fall. And the impact is far more disastrous.”
“So the first moves we’ve made have been about setting up dominoes?” Gregor asked, his big face awash with confusion.
“Yes. We’ve set everything in its proper place. The last being the attack on Yankee Stadium. After 9/11, a series of protocols were developed for the city. Standard operating procedures that are activated in the event of a threat.”
“And these standard operating procedures include all international agencies.” Gregor smiled, comprehension dawning. “The summit will be moved.”
“Precisely. And we’ll be ready.”
“And if A-Tac figures it out?”
“They won’t.” Michael took a sip from his glass, heat from the cognac searing his throat and spreading through his chest. “They’ll be trying to make sense of what has no real meaning. And in the meantime, our people will do their jobs, and with a single domino—we’ll change history forever.”
“I know it seems impossible, but all the things that have happened in the past few days have to fit together somehow. There’s a complete picture here. We’re just not seeing it.” Jillian sighed in exasperation, looking across the brownstone’s library at Simon, who was sprawled across a wing chair. The two of them had been going over details, trying to make sense of the seemingly nonsensical. But so far, they had nothing.
Harrison and Hannah were still in the dining room, Harrison watching the security tapes again while Hannah searched through the chatter for someone claiming responsibility for the latest attack. Nash and Tyler had headed over to the house in Queens to recheck the scene for anything that the NYPD had missed while Drake and Avery covered the same ground at Saed Rahimi’s apartment.
“You think there’s still something more looming out there?” Simon asked.
“I don’t know.” Jillian shook her head, focusing on the whiteboard where she’d written a chronology of events. “I just can’t help thinking we’re missing the forest for the trees.”
“I’ll admit that it does seem a waste to have gone to all this trouble and not actually make much of a stir.”
“Which is, of course, the horrible thing about all of it really,” Jillian said, with a sigh. “For the people killed or injured in the crash at the hospital and the explosion at the seaport, or the people going through the scare of testing for anthrax, this is a tragedy. But in the grand scheme of things, the events don’t seem to be making headlines other than as failed terrorist attempts.”
“Well, it certainly scared the bejeezus out of the city. And despite the fact that most folks are assuming that all this is over, New York is still under an elevated alert, governmental agencies are scrambling to make sure they’re secure, and every potential target in the area is still under observation—so things are definitely not business as usual.”
“Agreed, but it still feels like there’s something more.” She crossed her arms, frowning down at him.
“Okay,” Simon capitulated, his expression turning serious. “Let’s take it from the top again. Maybe if we diagram it out.”
“All right.” Jillian nodded, erasing their list and grabbing a marker. “We start out with the helicopter crash. We know that was the intended target, and we know, from personal experience, that they were successful with their plan.” She wrote the word helicopter and circled it.
“Well, I’d argue that they weren’t completely successful, since we’re standing here talking about it,” Simon offered.
“True. And maybe that’s where things started to go wrong. If we hadn’t been on site, then maybe they’d have gotten away with their plan to make it look like an accident.”
“Which might explain why they started attacking us directly.” Simon nodded.
“Starting with Fulton Street and the seaport bombing.” She wrote seaport and circled it and then added a satellite bubble, labeling it “apartment.”
“Okay, and then following that line of thought, we’ve also got the other direct assaults on A-Tac.” Simon was sitting up now, hands on his knees as he studied the board.
Jillian added the events at the gallery, Lester’s apartment, the storage unit, and the warehouse to the board, circling each event with lines connecting the gallery to the storage unit and the warehouse.
“We know Lester set us up at Fulton Street,” Simon said. “And when that failed, it makes sense that he’d have led us into an ambush, even if he did do it posthumously.”
“Okay, I’m willing to accept that pretty much everything involving Lester was meant as a diversion for us. Something to keep us away from whatever the real goal was. But we’ve still got the air cannons at the game.” She made a third main circle and connected it to the seaport since Aamir and Saed were clearly linked through their connection with Kamaal.
“But again,” Simon said, frowning up at the diagram, “like the other events, it lacked in shock and awe, which is generally the point of a terrorist attack.”
“Exactly, I mean, why only two cannons? And why not go to the effort to obtain weapons-grade anthrax? It has a much greater potential to be lethal.”
“I’m not sure I have an answer when it comes to the cannons, but as to the anthrax, the way I understand it, it’s damn near impossible to obtain, especially in quantity.”
“Yes, but if this is really the Consortium, and they’re as powerful as you guys make them out to be, then it seems to me like they’d find a way. Or use their sources to manufacture it. The point being that exposing a couple hundred people to what is an admittedly scary but ultimately nonlethal dose doesn’t strike me as making a grand statement.”
“So maybe the incident at the stadium was meant as a diversion, too?” he offered.
“But a diversion from what?” she asked.
“I think maybe I can answer that.” Hannah walked into the room, taking a seat on the sofa, her eyes on the board. “Nice diagram. I should have thought of doing it myself.”
“So what did you find?” Simon prompted.
&nbs
p; “Something that might mean nothing. But I was digging through some older chatter from around the time you guys were in Afghanistan. I thought maybe there was talk in there somewhere about the plan for New York. And I found a reference to Yusuf.”
“Joseph Isaacs?”
“No.” She shook her head. “In fact, it isn’t a reference to a person at all. It’s an operation. Operation Yusuf. The first reference I found was vague, so I dug back even further. And it turns out that there have been rumors about it for quite a while, but they were unsubstantiated and therefore mostly ignored by the analysts. I never saw them because I wasn’t looking back that far.”
“So what’s it supposed be, this Operation Yusuf?” Simon asked.
“That’s just it.” Hannah sighed. “We don’t know. The only definitive thing they’ve been able to suss out is that it’s meant to be a doomsday scenario. Something that leads us into World War III, and that it’s named for the prophet Yusuf.”
“Who is?” Simon asked.
“Joseph from the Bible,” she said. “Jacob’s eleventh son. He plays a more important role in Islam than he does in Christianity, but the story is virtually the same.”
“It’s the Technicolor dream coat, right?” Jillian said, her mind working to fit this latest piece into their admittedly puzzling puzzle.
“Exactly.” Hannah smiled.
“Well, maybe you’d care to fill in the unenlightened?” Simon urged, looking at them both as if they’d gone crazy.
“Well, the Technicolor dream coat is a reference to a Broadway musical loosely based on the story,” Hannah said. “But in short, Joseph was the favorite son of his father. Which royally pissed off his brothers. And when his father gave Joseph this really rocking coat, it was the final straw. The brothers decided to kill him, but at the last moment, they relented and sold him into slavery instead. Then they took his coat and dipped it in animal blood and told dear old dad that Joseph was dead.”
“Nice family,” Simon observed. “So what happened?”
“He lived as a slave in Egypt for a time and wound up on the wrong side of a very enamored queen. When he rejected her, she had him imprisoned. Meanwhile, the pharaoh, or king, depending on which version of the story you’re reading, had a bad dream. In it, he saw seven skinny cows and seven fat ones, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was going on.”
“But then he remembered that one of Joseph’s many talents was the ability to interpret dreams,” Jillian said, picking up the story. “So he had him brought up from the prison. And Joseph told the pharaoh that the dream meant that he was going to have seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of drought, and that he should prepare his kingdom accordingly.”
“And the old guy did just that,” Hannah continued, “thus avoiding the worst of the drought. And as a reward, he set Joseph free. And ultimately, Joseph returned home, much to the joy of his father. Then he forgave his brothers, and they, too, rejoiced in his return.”
“Although if you ask me,” Jillian said, “I’m thinking the last bit was wishful thinking on Jacob’s part. Seriously, would you be pleased to see the guy you sent into exile return to hearth and home?”
“Anyway,” Hannah smiled, “the long and short of it was that Joseph had foreseen the homecoming in a dream he had as a child. And so his life had come full circle.”
“Nice story,” Simon said, “but what the hell can that possibly have to do with what’s been happening here?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said, “but the name Yusuf was in the notebook you retrieved from Afghanistan. The same one that had the schematics of the hospital the helicopter hit. And we’ve believed from the beginning that there was some kind of big operation in the works.”
“Like World War III,” Jillian mused, with a frown. “That’s what you said about Operation Yusuf. That it was about starting World War III. So what if this isn’t about ideology at all? What if it’s about business? The Consortium’s business.”
“Selling illegal weapons,” Simon said.
“And keeping business booming,” Jillian agreed. “War for war’s sake. It’d be win/win for the arms cartels. Just look at what happened with 9/11. We were so angry we went to war in two different countries. And those wars dragged on for ten years.”
“Only now, they’re ending,” Hannah said, clearly considering the notion. “But there are other wars. Look at all the new uprisings in the area centered on the Arab Spring.”
“Yeah, but so far America has resisted becoming involved in any major kind of way,” Simon argued.
“But if we were provoked,” Jillian responded, “it would escalate all over again, one small event setting off a chain reaction that leads to something even bigger.”
“Like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria and how his murder ultimately led to the beginning of World War I,” Hannah offered.
“So in this case, we’re saying that in provoking the U.S., the Consortium goads us into war, which in turn will mean the rest of the world becomes involved. And with the world at war, the arms dealers stand to make that much more money,” Simon said. “The only problem here is that we don’t have a cataclysmic event.”
“What if it hasn’t happened yet?” Jillian suggested. “What if the original diversions weren’t intended to keep us away from the stadium, but to keep us from having the time to look too deeply into the first two events?” She studied the diagram, trying to order her thoughts. “Maybe the anthrax attack was meant to cause a reaction. Something that would set in motion a chain of events that somehow leads us to the Consortium’s endgame.”
“But what?” Simon asked.
“I don’t know. But it has something to do with the first attacks. I’m sure of it.” Jillian sat down on the sofa, still staring at the diagram. She’d drawn the circle representing the hospital crash to the left and the one for the seaport bombing to the right. Everything else was located below the two of them. For a moment, she felt nothing but frustration, and then suddenly it was clear.
“It’s the location. It’s got to be the location.” She jumped up, adrenaline surging as she pulled out her iPad. “The hospital is located on the Upper East Side just behind the FDR.”
“And the seaport is south of that, but also on the FDR,” Simon said.
“And both the crash and explosion knocked out a portion of the highway.” Hannah joined the party excitedly. “They’ve closed it from Seventy-sixth all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“So something in between is the target,” Simon said. “Something that, if successful, has the potential to lead to major world war.”
“Operation Yusuf.” Hannah nodded.
“It’s the UN,” Jillian said. “Something important must be happening at the UN. The building is almost halfway between the two closures on the highway. And more important,” she enlarged the photo on her iPad, turning it around so that Simon and Hannah could see the Secretariat, “the FDR runs directly beneath the building.”
CHAPTER 23
The Secretariat had been built in 1952, and despite ongoing restoration, not much had changed since then. Simon followed behind Jillian as they were led along an upstairs corridor lined with the lavish gifts from various countries over the years, a sign of posturing dating back to just after World War II. Whatever elegance the building had once had, it had been swallowed by years of bureaucracy.
Although he wasn’t a political man, Simon knew that, despite the best of intentions, corruption and infighting had left the organization functionally impotent. Still, the idea behind the union of nations was a sound one. And despite the lack of efficacy, he recognized the value of continuing the exercise, even if its chances of success were futile.
“This is Ms. Giovanni’s office,” the man who’d been guiding them said. “She’ll be with you in just a moment.” He nodded to two chairs arranged in front of a partner’s desk. “Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”
Simon bit ba
ck a curt reply. No point in antagonizing anyone. But just trying to get an audience with an underundersecretary had been like cutting teeth.
“We’re fine,” Jillian said as she sat down in one of the chairs. “Thank you.”
She’d always been the one to soothe ruffled feathers. His mostly. But sometimes when he’d pushed too hard, she’d cleared the way for him as well. He smiled over at her, thinking how much better his life was with her in it.
They hadn’t had time to themselves since arriving back at the brownstone, but when this was over, he intended to talk to her. To convince her to give him a chance. Life was too damn short to let past mistakes stand in the way.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” Ms. Giovanni said as she walked into the room, her tailored suit clearly expensive. She had short bobbed hair, accentuated with diamond ear-studs so large they had to be the real thing. Clearly, he’d underestimated the pay scale at the UN.
“We’ve only just arrived,” Jillian said, standing up to shake her hand and introduce the two of them.
Ms. Giovanni sat behind the desk, and Jillian sat down again. Simon, as usual feeling jumpy in a formal setting, chose to remain standing.
“So, my understanding is that you’re here about a potential security threat?”
“Yes,” Jillian said. “We believe that someone here at the UN may have become a target of a potential act of terrorism.”
“And do you have any idea who it might be?” she asked without any visible reaction, the lack of emotion showing that this wasn’t the first time she’d been presented with this kind of information.
“Actually, we’re still unclear on the details, but we believe it is a credible threat. Our best guess is that it will involve someone from outside of the country.”
Ms. Giovanni smiled. “You just described most of the people in this building.”
“What my partner meant to say,” Simon said, dispensing with pleasantries, “is that we believe someone important has been targeted. Someone who is probably only here for a short period of time. Maybe just for a meeting or vote.”
