44
During the day, Alyssa McTee drove her way west from the Maryland coast and headed into Virginia. She hugged the edge of the Marine base at Quantico and wove from one rural road to another. In the evening, after settling down at a quiet roadside motel, it became obvious to her that this was going to be one of those strange late nights where she just couldn’t sleep. After an hour of trying, Alyssa climbed out of bed, got dressed, and went outside to stare up into the endless, yet brilliantly lit, night sky. There were more stars than anyone could possibly count, and Alyssa didn’t bother trying.
About a hundred yards down the road, she could hear the low laughter of a few people gathered around a small country store she’d driven past. Back home in Atlanta, she wouldn’t have thought of such a thing. But here in the Virginia countryside, she began the short walk without a second thought. The shop sat at the crossroad of Rural Routes 610 and 806. A dimly lit banner stretched across the faded gray building just above the porch that read “Elk Run Store.” The handful of white plastic chairs nestled underneath the tin metal awning were occupied, with the exception of one. The empty chair looked inviting. Alyssa knew she was a stranger, and her clothes didn’t exactly meld into the rural landscape that was otherwise skirted by hardwood trees and farms in all directions. But she had become comfortable with the idea of not fitting in. She walked onto the creaking porch across sagging planks. A man, who appeared to be the store clerk, wore a checkered button-down shirt that was missing one of the shiny studs on the right breast pocket. He looked at her as if to speak, but to Alyssa’s surprise, he instead leaned closer to a dust-covered transistor radio to hear a news broadcast.
“You guys quiet down. I want ta hear this.”
They all listened as the recorded newscast unfolded.
“And stand by for John Carden with a special report. This is John Carden in for Mike Slayden, WBS News interrupting our normal broadcast. An intense firefight is underway on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia’s Buckhead district. For more, we go live to the scene to news chopper two and Milt Franklin.”
“That’s right, John. The pitched gun battle is raging near the heart of Atlanta on Peachtree Street about a mile south of Lenox Mall. Early indications point to the FBI, but that’s yet to be confirmed. We tried to overfly the scene a few moments ago and nearly had a midair collision with what appeared to be a military attack helicopter. From what we could see, debris is everywhere, and fires are burning in the street. At least one tall building is on fire. We’re working to confirm which building that is. At this point, we’ve been ordered out of the airspace by federal authorities. We can see dozens of law enforcement vehicles surrounding the area and converging on the scene . . . wait, hold just a moment, John . . . hold on . . . my God! We were just overflown by two F-18 fighter jets, banking hard. They are flying extremely low. We were almost caught in their jet wash. The last time I saw fighter jets moving that aggressively above a major US city was on 9/11. We’ll try to bring you more information as we get it. For now, live in Atlanta, Georgia, Milt Franklin, WBS News.”
“My God,” said the clerk. “What in hell’s goin’ on down there in Hotlanta? Good Lord.”
“Makes ya glad to be from somewhere where nothin’ like that ever happens, don’t it, Miss?” said another man as his arm dangled over the shoulder of a woman whose front lip didn’t quite cover her protruding teeth. “Where you from, Miss?”
Alyssa shrugged her shoulders. “Atlanta,” she said as she cracked a little smile.
45
His name was Maqued, although no one would have known. Educated in the United Kingdom, Maqued had mastered the King’s English. His accent was muted after years of practice—he wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible. Six months earlier, he had passed his commercial over-the-road driver’s test. For a man of his distinct intelligence, truck driver’s school was a mental drain. His classmates, pure Brooklyn and Jersey Shore, teased him about his UK terminology. He’d use phrases like “get into the queue,” instead of “standing in line.” And of particular amusement to his classmates was his use of the word lorry, which to a Brit meant a small truck.
It was only a few weeks after obtaining his commercial driver’s license that he landed the job with the city of Stratford, Connecticut. His route as a city bus driver took him back and forth across the Housatonic River Bridge twenty-eight times per day. If he’d been asked to design a way to do surveillance on the bridge, this was it. Driving back and forth over the river, Maqued would glance down and to his north to study the target, an adjacent train trestle bridge just below the level of the highway bridge.
The struts supporting the train bridge were easily inventoried. The supporting steel trellis encased the bridge like a canopy bed, and added to the complexity of his task. On several occasions after the last run back to the depot, Maqued had quietly walked back to the bridge. On those cold, darkened evenings, no one noticed him slip down the river’s embankment with a night vision camera in hand. The videos provided invaluable intel on what it would take to carry out his mission.
His preparations had gone on for months. There were to be three signals, and only three. The first call would signal him to physically prepare the target for destruction—a task that would take two or three days to complete. The second would come in exactly twenty-four hours before he was to actually carry out the final deed. And the third would give him only minutes to execute it. Although the first signal was painfully long in the coming, the call finally came.
That same night, Maqued began the nightly ritual of slipping down the embankment and climbing across the steel girders underneath the train trestle. At first, his backpack was heavy and bulging, but as he worked his way from one cold steel beam to the next, the load lightened as he secured the explosive packs into place. Each pack was concealed in a flat, wooden box that acted as a casement designed to camouflage the deadly intent of the Plastique. The boxes were painted a dull, grayish, rust tone, which blended perfectly into the aging steel structure. The casements also served to protect the delicate electronic circuitry of the receiver panels from corroding in the elements. Each plastic explosive brick was attached to a thin wireless receiver, which when activated would send a low voltage pulse into the waxy explosive block.
Maqued had never actually detonated any explosives. Instead, he had spent countless hours in the dorms back in London being taught how to assemble and detonate Plastique. Although he wished he had more direct experience in detonation, he well understood that the beast was always watching. One small step out of the ordinary, such as travel to a country on a watch list, and the FBI could red flag him. One mistaken word on a cell phone call might be intercepted by the NSA, who scanned the airwaves searching for any number of particular keywords. Those words when spoken across a digital channel triggered the NSA to automatically record the conversation for later analysis. Within a matter of hours, if someone in the terror cell misspoke, it could awaken the beast, and the beast was hungry. From that point forward, the label of “bomb chucker” would be assigned to Maqued and anyone in Maqued’s known association—all his efforts would be in vain.
He had been very careful with his cell phone. It was a dreadfully older push-button Nokia model that was a throwback to the days before smartphones. Maqued used cash to prepay the monthly charges for the unregistered phone. There was no need to purchase any additional cell minutes because the phone remained dormant. Its only purpose had been to await the three coded signals.
Maqued had not known what day the second call would come, but when it did, it was at the exact time of day that had been preplanned. Since the phone had only rung once before, the ringtone startled him. 7:59 a.m., exactly. 7:59 a.m. Seven—fifty—nine. It was the exact time of day that American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 carrying eighty-one passengers and eleven crew, departed Logan International Airport in Boston in 2001. The plane plunged into one of the five sides of the beast itself, the western side of the Pentagon. 7:59 a.m.
Oh shit. The call. The call. Maqued was startled. He ripped the phone out of his pocket like it was on fire and burning his leg, his bus swerving in the process.
“Hello?” he said with all the fierceness of a mouse.
“Man looks in the abyss,” replied a Middle Eastern voice, all depth, nerve, and gravel.
Maqued’s throat tightened, and his breath vibrated out of his mouth. Out of the depths of his timidity, he said, “There’s nothing staring back at him.”
The voice came back solid, almost vehement.
“At that moment, man finds his character.” The words were bitter like salt on vinegar.
Maqued reeled, his heart choking his vocal cords.
“And character . . . is what keeps him out of the abyss.”
Maqued’s eyes dilated, and he stared straight ahead, barely seeing the road. Without hanging up, he lowered the phone and rested it on his lap as if it were a dead fish.
46
Contrary to outside perceptions of what life was like in the Queens borough of New York, the neighborhood association was active, vibrant, and alive. It was common to see people jogging or walking their dogs. And cars drove slowly in fear a child on a bicycle might careen onto the road at any moment. The house sat at 217 175th Street, just a few blocks off the Union Turnpike near the corner of 76th Street. A quiet little Cape Cod whose dormers were never un-shaded. The yard was small but well-tended. Nothing drew attention to the unassuming structure which melded into the well-kept 1940s neighborhood. An effervescent red glowed through leaves of a maple in the front yard. Neither the front door nor the windowless garage door was ever left open. In fact, no one had ever seen either door open, not during daylight hours anyway.
Well-trimmed shrubs across the front sported what looked like little purple flower-skirts below. The blooms, nestled at the base of the bushes, appeared to await the homecoming of a mom, dad, or kids into the otherwise cheery brick home. The narrow walkway to the front door was sided by shrubs, and cement pineapples adorned the brick end posts to welcome visitors. Visitors, however, never came. Those that did arrived during the late night hours and were greeted only by a garage door that, when opened, looked more like a giant mouth. The door would open, and the vehicle would disappear behind it as if it had been swallowed by the night.
“Old Mrs. Neebody,” who owned the home for longer than anyone could remember, had passed away during the previous fall, and neighbors knew nothing of the new owners. Nor was anyone aware that if a Geiger counter was placed anywhere inside the house, that its curious needle would bury itself to the right, indicating a heavy presence of radioactivity throughout the home, especially in the basement.
47
The train’s next stop was the North Avenue station. Jana and Cade disembarked at the far end of the platform, as far away as possible from riders on other cars. They had to avoid being seen; the blood on their hands, faces, and clothes would cause quite a stir. Jana tried to obscure the submachine gun by pressing it lengthwise against her hip. Fortunately, at this time of night, there were only a handful of riders. The two slipped into the empty, stale smelling women’s restroom. At the sinks, they scrubbed hard and fast, doing their best to clean themselves up. In broad daylight, this would have never worked, but under the cover of night, they had a good chance of not being noticed on the street.
The North Avenue station was nestled beneath the midtown business district. A few skyscrapers, restaurants, churches, and condos dotted this part of the city. Pushed by their real fear of being tracked, they darted out of the train station and onto the well-lit Atlanta streets above.
“So what’s this big idea of yours?” said Jana.
“Just follow me. We’ll get rid of these cell phones up here.”
Jana trailed Cade, trying to keep up with his long stride as he headed up the hill. The Varsity restaurant had stood on this spot since the glory days of the 1950s when it opened. The Varsity had been built as the largest fast-food restaurant in the world and still maintained its drive-in parking spots where cars were once served by pretty girls on roller skates. In those days, The Varsity was the place for any self-respecting Georgia Tech student to be seen on a Friday night.
Cade stopped and surveyed the ten or so cars parked in the drive-in spaces. Then he spotted it. At the far end, an aging taxicab pulled in. The driver placed his order from the car window then walked into the restaurant, probably to use the head.
“Look at how old that cab is. It’s perfect. That’s it,” said Cade, “we’re going.”
Jana still wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, but she handed him her cell phone. They walked past the row of cars and ducked behind the taxi’s rusted rear side. Cade reached under the hollow metal bumper and tucked the cell phones inside. Jana realized now what he was doing. If the CIA were tracking the phones, they’d be led on a goose chase that could take them all over the city. It was perfect.
They walked back out onto North Avenue, and Jana said, “We’ve got to steal a car and get out of this area.”
“You know how to steal a car? What, do they teach you how to hotwire cars at the FBI Academy?”
“Don’t I wish,” said Jana. “Where’s the nearest restaurant with valet parking?”
A few minutes later, they were two blocks up. Station Number 11 was a restaurant that sat just adjacent to a sprawling condo building. It had been a fire station until about fifteen years ago when budget cuts plagued the city. The conversion to a restaurant and bar had been a hit with the locals, yet since crime was common in the midtown area, they’d elected for valet parking to help with security.
“Okay, we’re here,” said Cade. “Now what?”
“You wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.” Jana watched a few more cars stop in front of the valet station. As the valet drove the last car behind the building, she ran over to the key box, grabbed a set of keys, and ran back. As the valet ran back to the front, a young couple that looked like they were on a first date wandered outside of the restaurant and handed the valet their ticket.
Cade and Jana held hands and strolled towards the rear of the building as if they owned the place. The valet drove back past them, taking little notice. On the key chain, Jana pressed the key fob’s unlock button, and a black Ford Explorer chirped, its parking lights blinking once. They were in and out in less than two minutes. They pulled out and headed south on Interstate 85, then exited quickly and took the back roads, holding to the speed limit. They were both still shell-shocked. A headache was brewing, and Jana squinted against the lights of oncoming cars. Exhaustion began to overtake them both. It wouldn’t be long before they would need to find a place to pull off and conceal the car.
48
At this time of night, the Queens neighborhood was very quiet. The only sound that could be heard was a lone dog barking some blocks off in the distance. At 217 175th Street, two patient men in the basement entered their sixteenth hour of continuous work. Beads of sweat hung from their dark brows, and when it dripped, it nestled itself in thick, black beards. The temperature in the basement was a comfortable seventy-six, but the precision work was nerve-racking and required a steady hand. If they made a mistake now and accidentally detonated the device, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. After all, the two of them would not survive very long anyway under radiation exposure of this magnitude. And, since the device was to be used against the beast, it would have served its purpose well having annihilated a dozen city blocks in the highly populated area of Queens, New York.
However, the pair would do everything in their power to bring the device to its fully active state. If successful in these final critical steps of assembly, the device would be transported to its true intended destination, thereby completing their final objective. Allah’s rewards will be grand, thought one of them.
“Get me Senator Highton,” said Latent into the phone. It was one thirty in the morning, and he was not in a good mood. “I know he’s sleeping, goddammit! Wake him, and wak
e him right now.”
A few moments later, the senator picked up the phone. “Latent—good Christ, man, do you know what time it is? You better damn well have a good reason for . . .”
“Senator, we have a Baker-Able scenario. I’m invoking Executive Order 2213.”
The phone went silent as the seventy-three-year-old senator tried to process what he’d just heard.
“But, wait. You don’t mean . . . ? Baker-Able? Holy shit. I’ll assemble the committee and be down there in . . .”
But Latent interrupted him again. “No need, Senator. There are six agents standing outside your front door. Be dressed in five minutes. They’ll take you to a secure location. All the other committee members are en route. And, senator, not a word of this to anyone.”
Senator Leyland Highton was the chairman of the Senate Oversight Subcommittee, which held several special powers. One of the least known was a power that, until now, had never been invoked in the history of the United States. Executive Order 2213 had been enacted in 1865 under Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was not in favor of the idea, but didn’t exactly oppose it either. At the time of the Civil War, there was an enormous amount of espionage and deception on both sides. Fears of a presidential assassination were high. And if that happened, it might be possible for opposition forces to seat a new commander in chief that was sympathetic to the Confederacy. This caused deep-rooted fears of a new sitting president that might commit treason against the people of the United States.
Spy Thriller: The Fourteenth Protocol: A Story of Espionage and Counter-terrorism (The Special Agent Jana Baker Book Series 1) Page 21
