Critical Error

by Murray Mcdonald

  Sam checked the rear-view mirror. They had been travelling at over 80 mph for over five minutes and were well away from the Howard Johnson. He flicked the switches off.

  “Thank God! Now we can talk,” said Senator Baker.

  Sam took another long look in the mirror and nodded.

  “So what in the hell is going on?” blurted the Senator. The adrenaline rush that had kept him going for the previous few hours was wearing off.

  Sam composed himself. It was the first moment of relative calm for a number of hours.

  “Well?” insisted Agent Clark from the passenger seat, certain that whatever the hell was going on had something to do with the Senator’s gun toting killer brother.

  Sam turned to her. The tears in his eyes surprised her and killed her anger instantly. Whatever she and the Senator had been through clearly paled in comparison to what Sam had endured.

  Sam turned and faced the road as he spoke.

  “It started this morning. I spotted what looked like an agency car come off the ferry. Something inside me knew it was about me. I raced home but was too late. By the time I got there, they were dead. All dead.”

  Saying it out loud made it all the more real. It had really happened. The tears rolled down his face.

  As Sam stared silently ahead, Agent Clark looked at the Senator.

  “Who’s dead?” asked the Senator in barely a whisper. He knew Sam had built a new life. He knew about Sam’s son, Sam Junior, his only nephew. The realization that something he had done could have endangered Sam was one thing but his family had not even entered his mind.

  “Sam, Julie and Goldie!” he replied coldly as the tears cascaded down his face.

  “Jesus Christ!” exclaimed the Senator, falling back into his seat.

  Agent Clark placed her hand on Sam’s upper arm and squeezed lightly.

  After a few seconds, Sam brushed his arm across his face, wiping the tears and continued.

  “I killed the men, then tried to contact you but couldn’t. So I called in the threat to the Secret Service and hightailed it here. On the way, I had a bit of a disagreement with a missile but managed to get through that.”

  “Sorry? A missile?” asked Clark.

  “I assume so. I must have been doing 140 and had to swerve violently to avoid some old timer in a pick-up. As I swerved, a flash of light took out the pick-up. Had I not swerved, it would have hit me. The explosion blew my car onto its side. Then a fuel tanker exploded and the underside of my car took the full brunt of that. Had I not been in an armored agency car, I’d have been vaporized but instead, it blasted the car like a catapult about 100 yards into the woods. I must have been knocked out. The first thing I was aware of was that my left arm was messed up…”

  “Your shoulder was dislocated, just very slightly. I don’t think enough to cause any real damage. I’m sure it’s just bruised,” interrupted Clark.

  “Thanks for your help, by the way, I tried to pop it in myself but it wasn’t for moving. I thought I had broken something.”

  Sam had had his fair share of medical training, particularly as a pararescueman.

  “Two years pre med!” offered Clark which elicited a rather surprised look from the Senator.

  “I thought you always wanted to be in the Service?”

  “You have to have a fall back,” replied Clark, shrugging her shoulders.

  “…Anyway…,” Sam interrupted the interruption. “…I had half of Maine’s emergency services at the scene of the explosion. But nobody spotted my car, so I sneaked out, grabbed what I could, borrowed this car and got to the hotel. When I got there, I spotted the team outside and with no time to get you out, I booked the room next to yours and took them by surprise. I couldn’t alert you in case they were monitoring your room. So here we are.”

  “I am so sorry, Sam.”

  “It’s not your fault Charlie. It’s whoever wants you dead that will be sorry,” promised Sam.

  “I’m afraid, I have no idea who that is,” replied a very troubled Senator.

  “We’ll find them, I can assure you.”

  “Oh my God, what about Beth?” panicked the Senator, realizing that if Sam’s family were targeted, so might his wife.

  “She’s fine, I called her. She’s gone to a friend’s. I gave her instructions to ditch her cell phone and stay out of sight. She’s safe.”

  “Thank God!” As soon as the Senator said it, he regretted the selfishness of it. “Sorry,” he added again, although the uselessness of the word just made it sound even worse.

  Sam sensed the awkwardness and turned to Clark.

  “So what happened to you guys?”

  Clark looked at the Senator but realized he was not in a state to talk.

  “Well, I was with my partner Agent Travis when we received the call. We were stuck in traffic and gave an ETA of around ten minutes but managed to get there in five.”

  Senator Baker was hearing this piece of information for the first time.

  “What do you mean you were in traffic?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, confused. “We were in our car and we were stuck in traffic, what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I mean,” said the Senator who had found his voice and was taking charge. “I was in the Capitol building when the threat came through. There were probably hundreds of federal agents in that building and scores of Secret Service agents.” He paused to let the information sink in.

  “Oh my God.” The penny dropped. “They picked us because we were ten minutes away. That would give them time to deal with you. But we arrived early and if we had been even ten seconds later, those two guys posing as Capitol Police would have got to you first!”

  “Yep, whoever sent you there had time to kill me and they could still say they had responded to the threat.”

  “But that means we’re talking about people with influence at the very top of government.”

  “Exactly,” emphasized Sam.

  “Holy shit, we’re screwed.” Clark hit the nail on the head as each of them digested just what they were up against.

  Chapter 31

  Rebecca Cohen stepped off the British Airways flight 115 from London with a new identity, Marie-Helene Abouaf, a French citizen of Tunisian descent. Mossad had some of the best forgers in the world and creating passports at short notice for its agents had never been an issue. At least not until the debacle in Dubai where twenty six Mossad agents had been linked to the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, all holding fake or fraudulently obtained passports. Passport officers the world over were just a little more vigilant following the incident.

  It was with this in mind that Rebecca approached the immigration officer at JFK and placed her most entrancing smile upon him. As Rebecca herself would say, the male really was the weaker of the sexes. Put a beautiful woman in front of a man and he became a blubbering wreck. Pathetic. She passed through without incident and hailed a cab as she exited the terminal building into a blustery September evening. Her mission was simple. Ben had been very succinct. Find the bomb before it goes off!

  As soon as she was clear of the terminal and comfortable she had not picked up a tail, she called Ben.

  “I’ve landed.”

  “About time! All hell has broken loose at a hotel in Newark.”

  “The terrorists?”

  “Not sure, multiple shootings but almost as soon as it happened, the press went quiet and intelligence agencies went ballistic.”

  “Our contacts?”

  “Can’t get in, whoever is controlling it is at a very senior level.”

  “Any assets I can use?”

  “No, you are, as our American friends would say, off the grid. Nobody knows you are there. You have a free hand.”

  “Good, what’s the hotel’s address?”

  Rebecca passed the Howard Johnson address to the cabbie and hung up on Ben. She opened her make-up bag and with a particular twist removed the bottom of the bag to reveal a lead lined
bottom. Not large enough to be noticed during the scans but large enough for a few IDs and a few badges that she always found came in useful. Particularly when she needed information.

  As the cab drew near the hotel, Rebecca would not have imagined a multiple shooting had taken place there within the last hour. In America, even a simple shooting would elicit a significant response, crime scene tape, strobing emergency lights, scores of law enforcement officers and numerous vans. The Howard Johnson at Newark, scene of a multiple shooting, failed to have even one police car in attendance.

  Rebecca exited the cab and made directly for the entrance lobby. For all the lack of activity outside, the lobby made up for it. Grey suits were everywhere. Obviously, whatever happened here was way beyond uniform policing.

  “Excuse me, Miss?” A man approached Rebecca. His jacket was open and his holstered pistol could easily be seen as he moved towards her. “I’m sorry but the hotel is full.” He moved to take her arm and divert her back the way she came.

  Rebecca very subtly side-stepped his hand and removed the badge she had taken from her make-up bag in the cab and showed it to the man.

  “Special Agent Todd, NCT,” informed Rebecca forcefully.

  The man stopped and looked at the badge quizzically. “Sorry, NCT?”

  “Nuclear Counter Terrorism, part of the NNSA!”

  “Sorry, NNSA?”

  “National Nuclear Security Administration, part of DoE.”

  “DOD?”

  “Delta Oscar Echo, Department of Energy and you?”

  “Homeland Security,” he paused. Rebecca was playing him perfectly. Act confidently like you have every reason to be there and 99 times out of 100, no one will second guess you. “How exactly can I help you?” he asked.

  “Just show me everything you’ve got and that will be fine,” replied Rebecca, looking around the room for whoever was in charge.

  “Just wait here,” he said, waving for her to remain where she was as he walked across to the main desk and whispered in another grey suit’s ear, a far older and obviously more senior agent.

  Rebecca had no intention of waiting and as the two men turned from their whispering, Rebecca was at their shoulders.

  “Rebecca Todd,” she offered her hand to the senior agent. Confidence exuding from every pore of her body.

  “Director Mark Carter,” he offered automatically, shaking Rebecca’s hand. “I’m sorry, I believe you’re with, is it DoE?” he looked at his colleague for confirmation and received a nod.

  “Yes, Nuclear Counter Terrorism. I believe there has been an incident.”

  “There has been a small incident, totally unrelated to either terrorism or nuclear material. So if you don’t mind, Miss Todd, this is a crime scene and we are very busy,” he said, nodding at his younger colleague as an instruction to remove Rebecca.

  Rebecca again very subtly side-stepped the agent’s attempt to take her arm.

  “It’s not Miss, it’s Special Agent and I apologize, I was looking for the agent in charge,” Rebecca again looked around the room. “Perhaps your superior?” she mused, taunting the Director.

  “I can assure you, Special Agent Todd,” he spat, “I am the senior agent in charge and you will not find anyone more senior other than in Washington.”

  “Well I would have thought that you being so senior, you might be aware that we have a severe threat level of a nuclear device in transit or already in the US. As such, I’ll decide whether this incident is worthy of my interest.”

  Rather than go toe to toe with, he had to admit, a very attractive but arrogant little bitch, he turned and taking his cell phone from his pocket, he hit the speed dial for Henry Preston, DNI, his boss’ boss.

  After a very muted and it appeared one way conversation, he turned back towards Rebecca.

  “It appears you’re correct. There has been a warning. However, I can assure you this incident is not linked.”

  “You have the shooters in custody?”

  “No.”

  “You have a positive ID of the shooters?”

  “No.”

  “You have confirmed who the victims are?”

  “No.”

  “So I’m sorry Director Carter, exactly how can you be so confident that this incident is not related to my investigation?” inquired Rebecca.

  “We have the victims identified as South African nationals. The belief is this is to do with diamonds or drugs. So, if you don’t mind we’re very busy.”

  Rebecca smiled. This was actually proving to be fun. “South Africa you say? Well I’m afraid that changes everything.” She drew her phone from her pocket and began to dial a number.

  “Sorry, what are you doing?” asked Director Carter.

  “Calling in the full team,” replied Rebecca nonchalantly. “Oh and NEST, you know, the Nuclear Emergency Support Team who I’m sure will want an exclusion zone in place asap.”

  “Just wait a minute,” he said trying to grab her phone. “I said South African!”

  Rebecca moved her hand away firmly. “I know what you said. South Africa had a nuclear Weapons programme in the 80s and 90s.” Rebecca did not add that they only had six weapons and they had been dismantled in 1989. “And I’ll need you all out of here. This area is now designated hot, until NEST deem it otherwise.”

  Director Carter raised his hands in surrender. “OK, OK, you win the pissing contest, what do you want?”

  Rebecca relented slightly and half lowered the cell phone. “I just want to check this is not linked to the nuclear threat and if not, I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Director Carter considered the request. He didn’t like it. So far, the situation was well contained. The four shooters, even if they were identifiable, were not linkable to the CIA. As for the Senator and his accomplices, they were long gone. If only she had waited another ten minutes, the clean up would have been done and they would have been long gone themselves. The thought however of a full blown nuclear incident chilled him to the bones. There was no way they’d be able to keep that quiet and quiet was how he had been told to keep it. His second salary and soon to be retirement job rested on his keeping the incident very quiet.

  As Rebecca began to raise her phone, Carter could see millions of dollars disappearing from his future potential earnings and 401K.

  “OK, where do you want to start?”

  Rebecca smiled. Her fake badge for an agency that dealt with the stuff that everyone else wanted to avoid and her total confidence, laced with a heavy dose of BS had got her in. That and the Sayanim who had implanted the record for Rebecca Todd as an agent in NCT. Sayanim were an urban legend that happened to be true. Jews from every nation in the world knew that whenever the time came, they would be welcomed with open arms in Israel. Their spiritual homeland was always there for them, not just in spirit but in body also. As such, when their homeland called, they answered. It was one of the main reasons that the relatively small Mossad punched far beyond its weight. If Mossad needed a room in a hotel, a Sayanim could arrange it. A safe house in any city in the world, not a problem. A rental car with no papers, a seat on a plane, a train delayed, not a problem.

  Jews throughout the world were in positions of power. Some less so than others but one did not need a very powerful position, just a well placed one. For example, the Human Resource record holder at the Department of Energy was an American born woman of many generations but she had Jewish blood that coursed through her veins. Israel was not an enemy of the US and never would be. So, adding the name of Rebecca Todd, along with a photo and a history spanning ten years’ service was not only easy, as far as she was concerned, it was harmless.

  After fifteen minutes of quizzing Director Carter and a few witnesses, Rebecca was 100 % confident that the Newark shootings were totally unrelated to the nuclear threat. After giving this conclusion to a very happy Director Carter, Rebecca left the hotel convinced she had just uncovered something far larger and significantly more worrying than any nuclear thre
at.

  Chapter 32

  Johnson closed his cell phone, caught the VP’s eye and nodded towards the corridor. As they stepped out of the room, he spoke quietly.

  “That was Carter. They have confirmed that the Senator and Agent Clark are not among the casualties at the scene.”

  Russell looked at Johnson in disbelief. “Are you winding me up? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “I’m afraid not, all the casualties are ours. And from what Carter has said, it’s not a pretty sight.”

  Russell fell against the wall. The plan to assassinate his challenger for the presidential race had been put to him as a simple but essential job. The plan had been straightforward. A threat would be made, the Senator would be taken from the Capitol building by police officers who would later be discovered to be terrorists but only after his body was found. The brother was an afterthought by Johnson. He knew that, left alive, he would not rest until his brother’s killers were caught or killed.

  Simple. Plus, there was the added benefit of a swing to the right in the presidential vote to ensure victory for Russell against the Democrat candidate. It had all sounded so logical and impersonal at the time. To become president, they just had to take Senator Charles Baker out of the race. However, the body count was mounting. So far as Russell could tell, there were four dead Agency staff, four dead South Africans, one dead trucker, one dead old man, the Senator’s brother and sister in law, his nephew and a dog, all dead. To call it an unmitigated disaster would be a compliment.

  “Cover story?” he barked.

  “So far, the only public casualties are the trucker and pick-up driver in Maine. Everything else has been cleaned like it never happened. We’ve called in a lot of favors but as far as the world knows, all that has happened today is a fuel truck exploded on a fairly remote stretch of road.”

  “What the hell happens if Senator Baker just walks into a police station or, even worse, a news station?” Russell was becoming more incensed as the ramifications of what their actions would mean if they didn’t get Baker.

  “Not a problem, Homeland have a BOLO (be on the lookout) for Senator Baker. He has to be held incommunicado as a matter of National Security until Homeland can secure him.”