Ring of Fire

by Brad Taylor

  I said, “I appreciate it. What did you come up with as far as further evidence? Any actionable intelligence?”

  “Not really. The backpacks are just full of clothes and sundry items. We can use it to determine where they’ve been, but it’s no use for future actions. We found one cell phone on the guy you killed, but it was in his pocket, and it’s waterlogged. We have our tech guys working it, but that’ll take some time. The other cell phone is still in the woods somewhere, if that’s even what you saw him throw. We have the passport information, and we’re working that for cross-links.”

  I pulled out the one we’d found on the guy with the truck and said, “Did you get this information?”

  He said, “Yeah. Dingler passed it to me, but I could use the actual, if you don’t mind.”

  Carly said, “Let me see that.”

  I handed the passport to her and said, “Yeah, you can have it as long as I can access it with a phone call.”

  “That won’t be an issue.”

  I pulled out the dead guy’s wallet and said, “You can have this too. Nothing in it but money, but you might be able to get something from the leather or the dye or whatever CSI stuff you guys do.”

  He took it, then said, “You think this attack was it?”

  “We should all keep looking, but this one had the most infrastructure behind it, and, given the date and the target, I think this was the big finale of the fireworks show.”

  Someone shouted from the scrum of authorities, and Brock said, “I have to get back to work. I appreciate the help.” He saw Carly still going through the passport and was polite enough not to demand it right then. He said, “Don’t lose any of the evidence.”

  I said, “I won’t. I appreciate you keeping us out of it.” I shook his hand, and he jogged away.

  Carly went through the passport page by page. She said, “This thing is brand-new. Only place it’s been used is to get to the United States.”

  Knuckles said, “So?”

  “They left from Morocco, but there’s no entry stamp for that country. They had to have received the passport there. How do some Berbers get a Saudi Arabian passport in Morocco?”

  She flipped to the last page, and a card fluttered to the ground. She picked it up and said, “That’s how.”

  80

  She handed the card to me, and all I saw was a typical business card, with print in both Arabic and English. I said, “Okay? What did you find?”

  She smiled and said, “You’re the smart one. Read the fine print. Read the name.”

  The English at the bottom said Tariq bin Abdul-Aziz, the guy who we believed was the financier. Holy shit.

  I said, “All right, lone wolf! That’s what I wanted to see.”

  She smiled and said, “That’s not the best part. Flip it over.”

  I did so and saw Arabic writing in blue ink.

  I looked up at her, and she said, “Lone Wolf did good.”

  I broke into a grin and said, “Oh yeah, Lone Wolf did very good.” I called the Taskforce intel cell.

  They answered with some stupid cover organization like, “Pete’s Flowers,” and I said, “Go encrypted.”

  They did, and I said, “This is Pike.” I handed the card to Knuckles and said, “I’m about to send you a picture of Arabic writing. I want an answer of what it is while I wait.”

  Knuckles pulled out his phone, took a photo, then gave me a thumbs-up. I said, “It’s on the way.”

  A minute later, the analyst came back. “It’s an address. The Cottages at Patriots Point, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.”

  Jesus Christ.

  “Does it have a number? A cottage number?”

  “Nope, not from what I can see.”

  “Get me Colonel Hale.”

  “He’s in an O&I update with the teams. I’ll have him call you as soon as he’s done.”

  “Get me Colonel Hale right fucking now. This is a Prairie Fire.”

  Prairie Fire was the code word for an Operator or team in dire straights and about to be overrun, which caused the entire Taskforce to stop whatever they were doing to help. I was misusing it here, but I knew it would get me Kurt.

  He said, “Roger that. Stand by.”

  Knuckles looked at me with a question. I said, “It’s an address for vacation cottages in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. They’re still on the hunt.”

  Kurt came on the line, using his command voice. He said, “Pike, what’s the Prairie Fire? Earlier you said everything went damn near perfect.”

  “Sir, we found a business card with an address scribbled in Arabic for rental cottages in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.”

  “So? What’s the emergency?”

  I realized he didn’t see the significance. I wouldn’t have either, except I lived there. “It’s the town across the Cooper River from the Charleston peninsula. The business card is from Tariq bin Abdul-Aziz. This isn’t done yet. They’re going to attack the Port of Charleston.”

  “Whoa. Wait a minute. Mount Pleasant is actually Charleston?”

  “Yes, sir. As far as the port is concerned, it is.”

  “Where’d you find the card?”

  “On the body of a dead terrorist.”

  “But you think they might still be operational without him?”

  “I do. At the least, we should act like they are.”

  “Okay, okay, well, you live there. What’s your assessment for an attack?” Before I could answer, he said, “Hang on,” then yelled down the hall. Five seconds later, the phone gave an audible click, and Kurt said, “I’ve got an analyst on speaker. Go ahead.”

  I said, “The port is actually separated, with a cruise and shipping terminal on the Charleston side of the river, and another shipping terminal on the Mount P side, at the end of Long Point Road. There is no shortage of targets, but I don’t think this is going to be another suicide cell. I think it’s going to be something like the others, where the ship is the missile, like in Houston and Los Angeles. Get the intel cell working on any connections between the tanker that went off and the container ship that had the dirty bomb, then cross-reference that with anything coming into the port.”

  I heard an unknown voice say, “We’re already working that. We have some connections with a Saudi Arabian company, and we can run that against the Port of Charleston shipping schedule. All of that is available.”

  Kurt said, “I’ll get the word out to the port, getting all responsible authorities on high alert for an attack.”

  I said, “This is exactly why they’ve targeted the ports. They’ve got a thousand different agencies in charge, from the civilian company contracted for security to DHS on the federal side mucking up everything with layers of bureaucracy. In between, there’s the Coast Guard, individual port authority, Army Corps of Engineers, and God knows who else. They’ll never be able to coordinate.”

  “They’ve done fine since 9/11.”

  “Seriously? They’ve done fine because nobody’s attacked them. Sir, we’ve had three separate attacks, and if it hadn’t been for us, all three would have succeeded. What scares me is that every one has been different. The terrorists aren’t stupid. They saw what happened after 9/11. They know we react to a specific attack, putting a Band-Aid on to prevent the same event from succeeding, but go no further. Tell the authorities to think outside the box for threats. These guys started with a conventional attack, and they’ve amped up the imagination with each strike.”

  “I understand, Pike. I get it. When will you be back? The intel cell could use your team’s input. You know more about these guys than anyone, and if we’re going to find that vulnerability you’re afraid of, it’ll probably come from you.”

  The statement confused me, and I let him know it. “Back there? Sir, I’m not coming back. Send me the Rock Star bird with my team, and get t
he hacking cell to explore those cottage rentals. Tell them to look for anything out of the ordinary for a recent rental—Arabic names, foreign persons, paid in cash, anything—and give me the information when we land. I’m going hunting.”

  I heard a sigh, then, “Pike, I can’t authorize an official Taskforce action on US soil. I’ve already stretched it with your ‘vacation.’ You have the FBI HRT sitting right there. I’ll use them. It’s their jurisdiction. We’ll point the way, but they’ll do the arrests.”

  I squeezed my hands into fists, almost crushing the phone, but waited before I answered in anger. When I did, it was with a calm voice. “Sir, you just told me my team knows more about these guys than anyone else, and on top of that, it’s in my hometown. I know that area inside and out. Shit, I even know the floor plan of the cottages because I’ve stayed there with Jennifer. It makes no sense to try to turn the FBI onto this. They’ll spend the next forty-eight hours getting warrants and planning.”

  “That’s the way the world works, Pike. I don’t like it either.”

  “Sir, don’t make me say the obvious.”

  He paused; then I heard, “You’re telling me there may be a hit before then, and we could have prevented it.”

  “Yes. Like we did the last two.”

  He paused again, and I knew I was playing dirty pool by pulling on his sense of mission. His reason for existence. But it was the only card I had. He said, “Okay, I’ll send the bird, and the team, but you hit the ground and do nothing. I’m going to have to clear this with the president himself.”

  “Roger all, sir.”

  “Pike, I mean it.”

  “Sir, I understand. I won’t do anything without talking to you first. Just get that port on alert and see if you can find some connections between the previous ship attacks. Maybe none of this will be necessary.”

  “Will do. And you might be right about that. Best case you wiped out the cell planning the attack. The guy with the card was probably the one who was executing the plan, and you killed him.”

  “Maybe, but maybe not. Tariq is more than a financier. I think he’s an operational planner, and he’s the one that got them the passports, explosives, and everything else. And that asshole Anwar is still on the loose, and he was the one who set off the Houston attack.”

  81

  Tariq heard the alarm go off and rolled over, hitting the snooze button. He put his head back into the pillow and tried to go back to sleep. It had been a long night, and they still had a couple of hours before they needed to leave for the mission.

  Sleep eluded him. All he could think about was the failed mission in Norfolk, and the final one to come. He was nervous. The longer he lay in bed, the more the sweat built under his arms. Somehow the Great Satan had managed to thwart each of the two port attacks. He had no idea how but still felt confident that it had nothing to do with him. He was convinced the Moroccan cell had been penetrated, and that had led to their deaths.

  Anwar was a clean break, as was he.

  He got out of bed, seeing it was eight o’clock in the morning. He thought about waking Anwar but decided to let him sleep. He’d been working all night, and Tariq needed him to be sharp. He was the only one who could work the drone.

  Tariq had picked up Anwar on the last flight from Atlanta to Charleston, then driven him straight to the cottage safe house. The flight from Los Angeles had been a risk, given that Anwar’s face was plastered all over the place as a domestic terrorist, but he was traveling on a passport from Saudi Arabia, and he was flying first class. Very few airlines were willing to question someone who’d paid full fare, and the enormous security bureaucracy of the United States was something Tariq leveraged. Just as he had in 2001.

  When Anwar had arrived, he was not what Tariq expected. Tall and lanky, dressed in sweatpants and T-shirt, he didn’t look the part of a mastermind terrorist.

  Tariq shook his hand, saying, “It’s good to finally meet. You have no clothes?”

  “I checked them.”

  They went to baggage claim and stood around like everyone else, waiting on the luggage. Eventually, Anwar removed a backpack and said, “Where’d you park?”

  Tariq said, “That’s all you have? Why didn’t you carry it on?”

  “I have something that couldn’t go through the X-ray machine.”

  Tariq nodded, wondering what on earth he could have that would cause an issue with airport security. They walked across the loading zone to the parking garage, and as soon as the doors to the car closed, Anwar asked, “You got the drone? The one I asked for?”

  “Yes. It should be at the cottage now.”

  “What’s it called?”

  Tariq realized Anwar was testing him. He said, “The ICON? Aeronavics ICON? That thing was expensive.”

  Anwar leaned back in the seat and said, “Yes, but it will do everything we want. Much better than a cheap Chinese drone you can buy at Brookstone, like the one I used before.”

  “I don’t see why it matters. You killed the man in Nevada with that cheap drone.”

  “We aren’t trying to kill an unsuspecting man. This one will have protection. There are countermeasures they can employ. Make no mistake, they’ll have ways to prevent our attack. Using the drone is unique, but such a threat hasn’t escaped notice. I’ve been doing research, and I’ve developed a way to defeat the countermeasures.”

  They left Interstate 26 and crossed the Ravenel Bridge, giving them a full view of the Charleston Harbor. Reaching the top, Tariq said, “There’s the target. That big ship out there with the lights.”

  Anwar put his head to the window and said, “Why there?”

  “Who knows? I guess it’s patriotic for these heathens. You’d know more than me. But that’s where the man will be. They’re dumb enough to put it on the web. He starts talking at ten A.M.”

  “Did you find a spot to launch? A place where I can control the drone without interference?”

  “Yes. I’ll show you.”

  They exited on the right side of the bridge, onto Coleman Boulevard. Tariq took the first right, next to a large sign.

  Anwar read it and said, “Patriots Point? That’s what this place is called?”

  Tariq grinned and said, “Yes. I found that ironic as well.”

  “Perfect.”

  Tariq wound past baseball fields and Shriner temples, then reached the parking lot for the ship they’d seen on the bridge. He said, “That’s it. The USS Yorktown. An aircraft carrier from World War Two, now a museum. He’ll be on the deck tomorrow at ten.”

  Anwar surveyed the area, saying, “It’s ideal. A large, flat area with nothing to interfere. No power lines, light poles, or anything else. It’ll be easier than Nevada.”

  Tariq put the car in drive and said, “Good, good. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  He went through a traffic circle and took the third road, heading to the Patriots Point golf course.

  Anwar said, “Have you thought about what I asked for? After this is done?”

  Tariq looked at him in the dim glow of the dash lights. In truth, he hadn’t given Anwar’s request a minute’s thought, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pretend he had. After all, the request was fairly simple and required nothing from him.

  “Yes, I have. I’ve talked to my father, and you can use that passport for whatever you would like. If you accomplish this mission, I will give you enough money to go to Somalia.”

  Looking out the windshield, Anwar smiled. He said, “They will accept me as a hero. I won’t be just another foreign fighter. I’ll be the man who struck a great blow.”

  Tariq nodded, knowing Anwar would get killed in his first week in the bloodbath between Al Shabaab and the African Union forces. Anwar had technical skill, but he had no warrior instincts to protect him in a hellhole like Somalia. He didn’t say that, of course.


  “But first, you must accomplish this mission. Remain focused on the task at hand.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. I have to prove myself first. I’ve been studying on the Internet. I won’t fail you.”

  Tariq saw a historical marker and pulled over to the side of the road, the darkness cloaking them. He pointed to an opening next to the marker and said, “You see that trail?”

  “Yes.”

  “It goes through the forest to the water. At the end of it is a wooden sightseeing platform, surrounded by trees. Nobody comes out here. We will use that platform to launch the drone. Straight above the trees, the way we came, is the target. You said to find something within a thousand meters, and that’s it.”

  “I’d like to see it tomorrow. Practice with the drone before we execute.”

  Tariq put the car in drive and circled back, saying, “Of course.”

  They went back through the traffic circle, taking a different road. They passed a hotel, then pulled into the secluded section of the cottages. Tariq tossed a key to Anwar and said, “We have to walk from here. Unfortunately, we have the cottage in the back. I wanted to stay away from the street.”

  Anwar looked at the first cottage in front of them, seeing a house that was better than anything he’d ever slept in. He grabbed his small backpack and said, “I’d walk a mile to sleep in something like that.”

  Tariq laughed, and they entered the property, walking through the trees on a bike path to their cottage. He was glad it was near midnight, as Anwar’s appearance would draw attention in this affluent area. A young black man wearing grubby sweats, with his hair in cornrows—it wouldn’t do for him to be seen.

  They circled around a lake with a fountain, the shrubs around it making it look like something out of Disney World, finally reaching the farthest cottage.

  On the front porch was a large box. Tariq said, “That’s your baby.”