by Larry Bond
“Hell, I’ve got days.” Thorn heard the unfamiliar bitterness in his voice and clamped down on it. Self-pity was for five-year-olds. He nodded toward the empty chair in front of his desk. “What can I do for you, Maestro?”
Rossini gingerly lowered his bulk into the seat and leaned forward. “Heard you had a rough time of it with the FBI today.”
“Word travels fast.”
The analyst nodded. “Better than light-speed.”
Thorn snorted. He shrugged his shoulders. “I tried sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong and got slapped down. End of story. The FBI has the domestic counterterrorism ball, and we’re out of the game.”
“You really think that?” Rossini asked.
“No,” Thorn said flatly, surprising himself. He shook his head. “Flynn and his team are good. Hell, they’re better than good. But I can’t help feeling that we’re all behind the curve on this one. Somebody out there blew the shit out of the National Press Club, and he and his friends are still on the loose. Hunting these bastards down strictly by the book might take too damned long.”
“You think they’ll hit again,” Rossini said, more as a statement than a question.
“Why not? Whoever they are, they just killed two hundred people within walking distance of the White House. Why should they stop now?” Thorn sat up straighter. Flynn had every right to keep him off the official investigation, but the FBI couldn’t stop him from using the resources at his own disposal. But what more could he do? As part of a larger U.S. intelligence effort, his analysts were already pressing ahead to learn more about the suspected links between American neo-Nazis and those in Europe.
Then he remembered something Flynn’s deputy had said. “I think we should start pulling some personnel files from Army and Navy records. I want the name and service record of every Green Beret, Ranger, and SEAL who’s been booted for bad conduct, race prejudice, or mental problems. Say over the past fifteen years.”
Rossini whistled softly. “You really think we’re dealing with one of our own guys who’s gone off the reservation?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Thorn shook his head angrily. “I don’t know, Maestro. This could be just a worthless shot in the dark, but I’m damned if I’ll sit idly by while somebody starts burning this country down around our ears.”
NOVEMBER 8
Sea-Tac truck stop, near Seattle, Washington
(D MINUS 37)
Hamid Algar scouted the parking lot carefully and covertly. A chill, light rain was falling, and he zipped up his leather jacket, trying to get the collar tighter around his neck. The dampness seemed to soak into his bones. He hated the rain the way a soldier hates mud or dust or flies. The Syrian had seen nothing but rain since coming to Seattle. The climate was as foreign as the food and the language and the people. He sustained himself with the knowledge that this campaign would not last forever, and that however uncomfortable he was, he would be making a lot of the Americans he despised even more uncomfortable.
The lot was full despite, or perhaps because of, the rain. At this predawn hour the lot was crowded with semis, their drivers taking time for a quick breakfast before pulling back on Interstate 5 and heading north. Located between Tacoma to the south and Seattle to the north, the truck stop provided food and showers, even beds, besides diesel fuel.
The Syrian moved deeper into the parking lot, paying careful attention to each vehicle. Glowing overhead lights highlighted the moisture that coated every surface. He was looking for a specific kind of truck driven by a certain kind of company. Nothing local. He needed someone heading on through the city, which was why he was here at this misbegotten truck stop at this accursed hour in this unholy rain. For the second morning in a row.
Nobody noticed the small, dark man. He wore jeans and running shoes and a dark brown leather jacket. Like everyone else, his head and shoulders were hunched down against the rain as he attended to his business as quickly as possible.
Algar’s hair was cut short, and he was clean-shaven. From his appearance, he could have been Hispanic, Arab, Italian, or even Polynesian. His driver’s license carried the name Lopez and certified that he was American-born.
He moved through the wet, floodlit darkness, reading license plates, looking at the lettering on the cabs. All of the trucks on this side of the stop were, just by being on this side, northbound. The question was, how far were they going?
Finally, the Syrian found the rig he was looking for. It had Canadian plates and it was parked right in the center of a long row of darkly gleaming trucks. Better still, it was hauling a massive tanker load. He took the time to circle the vehicle, alert for anything that might make it less than the perfect choice.
Nothing. The tanker truck was perfect for his purpose. He swung around, scanning the lot for anyone who might be watching him or who might note his presence. Nobody was in view, and he quickly ducked under the trailer, up in front where it joined the tractor.
Pulling a small cloth-wrapped bundle from under his jacket, Algar unwrapped a rectangular, mottled brown-black metal box. Then he swiped at the underside of the trailer with the cloth, making sure no water or grease would interfere with the magnets attached to one side.
As he’d been taught by his Iranian instructors at Masegarh, Algar placed his burden exactly in the center, just ahead of the attachment point with the tractor unit. The magnets took hold with a strong clack, almost jerking the box out of his hands. As a test, he tried to shift it, and found it nearly impossible.
Half hidden in a cluster of cables and wires, the box blended nicely with its surroundings. Just to be sure, he splashed muddy water from a puddle over it, completing the camouflage.
He flipped a switch, arming the device. The box beeped once, indicating it was armed and ready. The switch also enabled an antitamper circuit, so that any attempt to remove it would fail catastrophically.
Satisfied, the Syrian quickly stood up and looked around again as he wiped his muddy hands clean on the cloth. Still nobody in sight.
Algar gratefully went back to his old blue Chevy Nova and ducked in out of the hated rain. He’d parked the car so he could watch the only exit out of the parking lot. Now, he thought, the only hard part was to stay awake while he waited.
About thirty minutes later, the Syrian spotted “his” truck lumbering out of line and turning toward the exit. He started his own engine, pulled out, and fell in behind the tanker. Its size made it easy to follow, and he took up position a few car lengths back. He checked his watch. It was almost 6:00 A.M. Even better. The truck driver was probably a little behind schedule. They were heading into the first wave of the morning rush hour.
Jane Kelly cursed her luck that rainy morning. The darkness and wet streets had slowed traffic, and that, combined with a five-minute delay in getting out the door, had completely screwed up her timing. If she wasn’t pulling into the garage at work by 6:45, backups and traffic jams slowed her down and then she didn’t get in until 7:30. Her boss was going to raise merry hell—again.
Right now, at 7:10, the thirty-three-year-old CPA maneuvered her three-year-old Nissan through the clogged traffic, heading north on 1-5. She sighed. At least it was moving this morning. She didn’t notice Hamid Algar’s car behind her, any more than she noted the tanker truck one car ahead. Cars behind her weren’t a problem, and those in front were merely obstructions. The tractor-trailer ahead was a large one, and it blocked her view of the lane forward, but what would she see? Just more wet cars.
Hamid Algar watched the Canadian tanker truck with satisfaction. The driver had driven straight north in the thickening traffic until Seattle’s skyline appeared out of the low clouds and mist.
He had no trouble staying behind the tanker as it followed Interstate 5’s winding curves. He had driven the route many times, and even taken some of the possible alternates—each time with the sensing device in place. It had functioned as advertised. In a job like this, one hundred percent reliability was the only acceptable per
formance.
Algar had already moved over to the right lane when the truck passed the Madison Street exit. There was only one path it could follow now, and with a sense of farewell, he took the exit and drove off into the city center. He’d take Highway 99 south back to Burien. The interstate was much too crowded.
Jane Kelly didn’t see the Syrian leave. And even if she had spotted his battered blue Nova behind her, it would only have been one of a dozen cars turning off at Madison. She was nearing her own exit, Denny Way, less than a quarter mile away.
Traffic was still moving, thank goodness, although her speedometer now hovered at the fifteen-mile-an-hour mark. Up ahead, the highway curved a little to the left as it went under Olive Way.
The Olive Way–Boren Street underpass was especially wide, almost a tunnel. Above the highway, the two arterials intersected less than a block away, and the entire area had been roofed over.
The tanker truck passed beneath the intersection and out of the rain. The street surface was dry and lit by bright lamps on the ceiling of the underpass.
Hamid Algar’s box sensed the change in the surrounding light. Although small, the increase was enough to register on a sensitive photocell. A microchip brain attached to the photocell noted the change—and began tracking the time. Unlike the bright beam of a passing headlight, this light lasted—a tenth of a second, two-tenths, three, four. Five-tenths was enough. The microchip triggered a tiny electric pulse.
Inside the box, a firing squib detonated a shaped-charge warhead. The squib also ignited a magnesium flare. Designed to punch through inches of armor, the warhead penetrated the tanker truck’s milled steel shell easily, pushing a superheated jet of gas and metal into the liquid propane tank through a jagged, glowing hole.
The explosion died.
In its place, liquid propane began boiling out of the three-inch hole with a sound like a steam calliope jammed on high, changing to a gas as it hit the air. But when the streaming gas hit the box’s hissing magnesium flare, it ignited into a roaring jet of flame. The heat of the jet, hotter than a blowtorch, opened the hole larger and larger in a chain reaction until the entire front of the steel tank disintegrated. Propane gas mixed freely with the air. At that point, only milliseconds after the bomb went off, the rest of the tanker’s cargo disappeared in a devastating explosion.
The near-dawn darkness was overpowered by a searing orange-white fireball. Trapped by the ceiling of the underpass, the leading edge of the fireball spread out horizontally ahead and behind, but a final, titanic blast split the overhead structure and peeled it back. Slabs of concrete and steel weighing hundreds of pounds landed half a mile away, smashing through roofs and flattening cars and pedestrians crowding Seattle’s busy streets.
One car length behind the explosion, Jane Kelly had only a single, anguished second to understand what was happening before the roaring, mindless wall of flame engulfed her Nissan.
She and all the others trapped in the four-lane underpass were incinerated. More than a dozen other cars and trucks on either side of the explosion were also scorched and burned. The vehicles on Olive and Boren streets above were either flipped over or fell through into the inferno below.
Half a minute after the echoes of the enormous blast faded away, stunned motorists left their cars on the highway and stood staring in shock and terror at the burning mass of twisted steel and concrete clogging the gap where the overpass had once been. Buildings on either side of the highway were burning, and the agonized screams and shrieks of those who were trapped and on fire tore through the sudden silence.
Burien, Washington
Hamid Algar and his two comrades, Anton Chemelovic and Jabra Ibrahim, watched the television in rapt fascination. Coverage of the disaster had started only moments after Hamid had returned to their apartment, and now, like the rest of Seattle and America, they viewed the live television feed. But while the rest of the country watched in horror and fascination, the three Iranian-trained commandos were performing battle damage assessment.
The picture now on television came from the roof of a nearby office building. From above, the destroyed overpass looked like nothing more than a giant, blackened hourglass filled with rubble and twisted metal. Emergency vehicles surrounded the crater.
The reporter now on camera, stunned by the carnage and rattled by the lack of hard information, kept repeating the single, inadequate word: “tragedy.” It had been a tragic accident, there had been a tragic loss of life, and so on. Area hospitals were jammed and some of those with less critical injuries had been farmed out to smaller clinics. At the moment, the death toll stood at twenty-five, but that was expected to climb rapidly as searchers pulled apart the rubble. Sixty-three had been seriously hurt. Seattle’s burn wards were full.
The National Transportation Safety Board had already dispatched an investigative team to the area. They would land at Boeing Field at 2:10 P.M.
Algar, Chemelovic, and Ibrahim all relaxed slightly. At least initially, the Americans were treating the tanker blast as an accident. They would find no immediate clues that this was a terrorist attack. When the NTSB’s investigators discovered the truth later, their trail would be days old, and it would be a very faint, very cold trail.
They nodded to each other. Tehran would be pleased.
Chemelovic, a Bosnian, had actually made the bomb. His gift for electronics had earned him special training in demolitions at Masegarh, and now both of his teammates praised his work. Algar told him several times exactly how he had placed the device. By the time the Syrian finished retelling the story, Chemelovic had a grin covering half his face. His skills had won a great victory in the war against the godless West.
Jabra Ibrahim rose from the couch and snapped the television off. “Come on, both of you. Help me pack.”
Ibrahim, a Lebanese, had provided security and cover for the three-man cell. He’d rented the apartment, done the shopping, and organized all the logistics during their short, one-week stay in the Seattle area. He was the conscientious one, the one who’d worked on their laptop computer while the others watched television.
Their personal gear went into one duffel bag, and their tools and weapons into another two. While Algar and Chemelovic cleaned up, Ibrahim meticulously went through each room, each closet, and each cupboard looking for anything that belonged to them or came from them. A scrap of paper, a button, anything that might provide a link to them.
When Chemelovic and Algar returned from loading their gear into the Nova, they helped in the search. A few small items were found, a tool under a piece of furniture and a sock, one of Algar’s, under another. Shamefacedly, he took possession of the offending article and stood next to Chemelovic as Ibrahim, the team leader, berated them both for sloppy security.
Finally, he handed each of them a rag and a bottle of cleaning solution. Systematically, they wiped down every smooth surface, every wall and every object capable of holding a fingerprint. While none of them had ever been fingerprinted by the American government, a print here might link them to some past act or location, or some future one.
Just after noon, they were finished. The three piled into the blue Nova and pulled out of the lot. Ibrahim drove, and he stopped in front of the apartment complex’s rental office. Grabbing an envelope, he jumped out of the car and ran in.
The day manager, a stout, middle-aged woman, glanced up from her crossword puzzle. “Oh, Mr. Rashid. You here to check out?”
Ibrahim nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Hume. We all finished the program this morning.” He’d rented the three-bedroom apartment on a weekly basis with the story that he and the others were reps from a Silicon Valley data processing company who had come to the Seattle area to attend courses at Microsoft University. It was a common and believable cover—one which no one felt compelled to check.
“And how did you do?” the manager asked, busy counting the money in the envelope he’d handed to her.
Ibrahim smiled. “We received top marks, Mrs. Hume. Straight
As.”
NOVEMBER 9
Special Operations Headquarters, Tehran
(D MINUS 36)
LYNX Prime via MAGI Link to MAGI Prime:
1. Attack successful. Preliminary damage assessment attached.
2. LYNX Bravo confirms cell in movement to Portland, Oregon. Security unbreached. Standing by for further orders.
General Amir Taleh finished reading through the latest status reports from his widely scattered forces and nodded in satisfaction. The first two of his planned attacks had been carried out—with perfect attention to detail. A third, set for the Houston area, had been scrapped at the last moment to avoid tighter security at the intended target—a railroad crossing near a poor, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood. He shrugged. His field commanders had acted intelligently there. It was too soon to risk compromising the whole operation to press home an attack against higher odds.
He looked up at Captain Kazemi. “You understand I wish to see the latest videotapes as soon as they arrive?”
His aide nodded crisply. “Of course, sir. I’ve left explicit orders at the communications center.”
Besides the trained agents in embassies and elsewhere who made up his official intelligence network, Taleh found himself relying increasingly on news reports from the United States to monitor the progress of his covert war. Curiously and foolishly left uncensored by their government, the networks were a unique and useful source of information. They mirrored, and often led, American public and political opinion.
And from what Taleh had seen so far, the right notes of hysteria were beginning to be sounded over the American airwaves. He picked up the phone on his desk and punched in the internal code for the head of the operations planning section. “Colonel Kaya? Come to my office immediately. Bring the next set of strike orders with you.”
He hung up and rocked back in his chair, envisioning the havoc his next set of signals would wreak on the United States.
