She didn’t like what she heard or saw. She returned to her desk and wrote more in the farmer’s chart.
“You got a prescription for me?”
“We’re going to try some things, Mr. Mooney. But I’m checking you in for more observation.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t leave.”
“I can’t.”
“You really have to stay.” She explained why.
Montana
Interstate 15
Reality began to set in with Ricardo Perez. He was an illegal from El Salvador with no business in Montana. It might as well be the moon.
His clothes were charred. He had no way to get back to civilization except on foot. If he made it back, he’d need help. And money? The five thousand was gone, and he had only a few hundred crumpled bills in his pocket. Most of all, he didn’t have a reasonable story that would keep him out of trouble.
Ricardo Perez was weak, hungry, and lost. His own people had double-crossed him; sold him out. The hatred that burned through his veins had kept Ricardo Perez alive through his cold sleepless night.
He was supposed to die. He realized the bomb was intended to kill him. Like the driver of the other car, he was some sort of loose end.
If he ever made it to the main road and found help, he certainly couldn’t go to the police. Not with his poor English and gang tattoos. Not as an MS-13-30 member with a record. No doubt he’d be arrested and held for the death of the driver who got killed.
Mas opciones. Perez couldn’t return to Houston; not easily. Probably not ever. Manuel Estavan, his gang leader, sold him out. And for what? Hundreds? No, he reasoned. He was worth more dead. Thousands.
Why? he wondered.
Perez gathered up everything that might keep him warm. A yard of fabric left from a smoldering blanket, even maps and papers that had been scattered from one explosion or the other. He stuffed them under his clothes and then wrapped everything else around him the best he could and hobbled back toward the road at first light.
Ricardo Perez had to find transportation, shelter, and food or he wouldn’t survive another night. As he walked, every step made him stronger rather than weaker. Every yard filled him with greater revenge.
He would make it. He just wished he had his gun. That was lost in the explosion.
The ride from Interstate 15 where Perez was supposed to die was twenty-two minutes. His walk back to the off-ramp, over the hills and against the wind, took five hours. The El Salvadorian was smart to have started early in the morning.
He reached the Interstate a little after 11:00 a.m. Now he needed a ride. But to where? Wherever he could find food and a warm place to sleep.
As he stood along the side of the road, with his thumb out, he remembered the first time he hitched into Santiago de Mara, El Salvador. That was merely ten years ago. Perez was a playful child looking to catch a fast ride into town to visit his uncle’s groceria. He thought of the handful of candies that would come his way along with the vegetables and chicken his mother sought.
That day an old beat-up Dodge truck stopped for him. It had been dark green before rust took over. Now it was basically down to the metal with replacement doors and bumpers lashed on. It spewed a cloud of deadly exhaust. But the driver wouldn’t die of lung cancer. “Need a lift?”
The young Ricardo knew he shouldn’t have gotten into the truck. From the moment the pickup pulled over and he had a good, hard look at the driver, he was scared. The 260-pound man behind the wheel reeked of a horrible combination of beer, sweat, and piss. The boy tensed, but there was no time for second thoughts. The driver locked the door and flashed a terrible, toothless, telling grin as he drove.
“Come here,” the fat man said, unbuckling his pants. The boy slid far right, into the smallest space, as far from the man as possible. Not small enough.
The driver grabbed the back of Perez’s head. Ricardo struggled, but the man was far too strong, too insistent, too drunk, too horny. Once the man had the boy where he wanted, he slowed the truck and then came to a stop farther down the dirt road.
Convinced he wouldn’t live through the next few minutes unless he did something, Perez suffered indignity for only a moment—enough for the man to lean back and close his eyes.
That’s when Ricardo Perez left his childhood behind forever. He pulled a switchblade from his right pants pocket—a present from his older brother.
He ended the crime in a most brutal, unforgiving manner. The slice from his switchblade was so quick, so surgical, that the man first thought he was feeling the delicious sensation of the boy’s mouth. But when Perez squirmed out of the vice-like hold, the rapist realized the warmth was blood pouring from his own crotch.
He looked up with utter dismay. His cock was in the boy’s hand.
Perez threw it at him and opened the passenger door. He scrambled out of the truck, fearing that the man would be on him in an instant.
Panicked screams reverberated from the truck. But Ricardo did not look back. He ran as fast as he could. Seconds later, he heard the pickup start again and steer over the gravel. The screams, mixed with an unholy litany of curses, came closer. The truck gained on him. Perez prayed as he scrambled up a hill. Yet, the faster he climbed, the faster he lost his footing in the dry dirt. He slipped and had to hold on to a rock in order not to slide under the truck.
The boy stood up, but he had nowhere to go. The truck was inches away. The boy looked into the most hate-filled eyes he’d ever seen. But they came no further. The truck began to slip on the loose soil, rolled backwards, picked up speed, and crashed into a tree.
The sharp whiplash broke the man’s neck. Ricardo Perez sat frozen for fifteen minutes. His life was changed forever. The last thing he did before leaving was to spit on the driver through the open window of the truck. The coyotes, bugs, and buzzards would do the rest.
Perez resumed his walk, far more grown-up than when he started. His knife was gone, but he felt he could kill anyone now.
That’s what he thought of as he crossed onto the Montana highway. The first dozen vehicles passed him by. An 18-wheeler signaled and pulled over. When the driver examined Perez, he saw that the haggard youth was covered with blood. He gunned the gas, and swerved back on the road.
A cold half hour later, another long-haul driver slowed to a stop. Perez cautiously walked toward the truck. When he was at the door, he looked in. The driver rolled down the window. He was fifty, maybe older. Perez really couldn’t judge.
“Well, you comin’ or not?” the man offered through a bad smile.
Perez tried to size him up. He’d done some hard living, but the man was soft-spoken.
“Up to you?” the man said.
Perez made a quick decision. He nodded. It looked safe, but nothing was safe.
“Okay,” Perez replied in his best English. He opened the door and climbed up. The semi was back in the speed lane seconds later.
Perez said nothing, but he studied the driver. He had a close-cropped beard, some sort of cowboy hat, and a checkered shirt and jeans under a long leather coat. His belly spread over his belt just like the man ten years ago.
“Looks like you’ve been to hell and back,” the driver noted.
Perez nodded.
“None of my business. Right?”
No response.
“That’s okay. You’re a little out of your element. Just tell me where you’re going.”
The young man didn’t really know. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, Helena’s up the line.”
When it was obvious that the young Hispanic didn’t know what he was talking about, the driver explained more. “Helena. Helena, Montana. A city. It ain’t big, and they haven’t seen a lot of people who look like you, but you’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep and some new clothes.”
After a moment’s thought, Perez spoke up. “Okay.”
The driver sized up his passenger more. “Don’t suppose you’d like a
bite to eat?” He motioned to a cooler behind them. “Help yourself.”
Perez didn’t need a second invitation. He was hungrier than memory allowed. And thirsty. The driver also offered him a bottle of water, which he took without complaint. After that, the one-sided conversation got even quieter.
Sixty minutes later, the driver pulled his truck up to a gas station. He opened his door and started out, then leaned back in. “There’s a bus station down the street. Just before the next light. You might want to know it’s near a police station, though.” He said it like a warning.
The man turned to pump gas and tipped his hat to his passenger. Perez opened his door and looked up and down the street. Then he walked around to the back where the driver was and said two words he hadn’t said to anyone in a decade.
“Thank you.”
Moscow
Tonight, he’d start at Cult at 5 Ulitsa Yauzskaya. This was Gomenko’s favorite watering hole. The bar was housed in the basement of a liquor store; full of noise and the intoxicating mixture of the cheap vodka and heavy smoke from the imported Lucky Strikes. He opened the red door and stepped in.
The bartender welcomed him. “Arkady! Come in!”
Unlike many of the other establishments, where the help changed with the seasons, Cult had its regulars on both sides of the bar. Gomenko decided on a stool dead midway along the bar opposite the largest assortment of vodka bottles in all Moscow.
The bartender, an ex-Russian paratrooper named Igor Solchev, often set up dates for Gomenko. Never hookers. But they also weren’t sexy young secretaries looking to get laid. It was more likely they were divorced, mid-to-late forties, horny, and hoping. All Arkady’s speed. He didn’t want a relationship. He wanted a good fuck. Anything more than that would get in the way. When he had enough money saved, maybe then he would try to settle down again. At least another year or two of pushing papers for Yuri Ranchenkov by day and bar hopping at night.
Solchev gave Arkady a high sign from his side of the bar. “Good to see you, Arkady.”
“And you, my friend.”
“The usual?” Forty-proof Dovgan on the rocks.
“Please.”
Solchev poured the drink and leaned forward. “To your left. At the end,” he whispered. “The brunette. She’s been here for almost an hour. I mentioned I had a friend.”
“Oh?” Arkady asked.
Arkady raised his eyebrow. He liked what he saw. “Thank you.” He slapped a few bills down and slowly walked along the bar.
Solchev smiled. Cash tips made living in today’s Russia so much easier. Gomenko was very good to him.
The not-so casual repositioning was noted by a sports fan at a table behind him. He never had eye contact with the man, but he saw everything in the mirror. The conversation with the bartender, the more than ample tip slapped down before the bill came. The nods and smiles. And now the conversation being struck between the Gucci saleswoman and the FSB researcher. He knew what she did. He’d overheard her talking to the bartender. And he certainly knew what Gomenko did. That’s why he was there.
The White House
“How do you rate this report of Bessolo’s?” President Taylor asked.
“Scary,” FBI chief Robert Mulligan said. General Johnson, Jack Evans, Norman Grigoryan, and John Bernstein listened. “Thanks to FERET, we’ve got a number of very clear photographs that link up to a couple of identities for this character. Abdul Hassan for one. Aka Musof al-Mihdhar is another. Forget the name on his passport. It was forged for the trip. But the first name, his real name, matches up with a Syrian geologist.”
“A geologist runs from customs agents?” the president asked.
“There’s more,” Mulligan continued. “Look at this picture. It’s enlarged from the original. See the three men we’ve circled?” The FBI chief handed it to the president. It would eventually work its way around to everyone.
“Spectators at a soccer game at Westfalenstadion Stadium in Dortmund, Germany. But not just any fans. Abdul Hassan is on the left. Next to him, we have a positive hit on a Saudi biologist and a possible ID on the third. Another chemist out of Hamburg. These guys are all scientists. What’s most disturbing, customs posts in Miami and Atlanta recorded their entry into the United States ten days ago. But with no reason to stop them then, they all cleared without a problem.”
“So, we’ve got an invasion of geeks,” piped in John Bernstein, the president’s resident contrarian. “I mean, three middle-aged eggheads. Come on.”
Bernstein pretty well described himself. The group laughed except for Taylor and General Johnson. The national security advisor brought the room back to reality with a sharp reminder. “One of those eggheads killed a father at the airport. That means everyone we can connect him with has to be considered dangerous and deadly, too.”
“And Bernsie, three is all we know about,” Mulligan argued. “There very well could be more. Trust me, Abdul Hassan was not in the United States for an interview at Columbia as he told the customs agent or a rock hound convention. But he was sure as shit here for a job. Something’s in the works.”
“Then what are they planning?” Bernsie asked.
Now Jack Evans spoke up. “In my estimation, he…they…are beyond the planning stage, Mr. President. The planning is over. They’re operational. They’re here because they’ve identified their target. We have to determine what that target is.”
“And since they could be anywhere…” Bernsie complained, “Where do we look?”
“Where it would make sense for a geologist to be.”
“The ground,” offered Norman Grigoryan, Homeland Security secretary. “Or under it.”
“Point well taken,” Evans answered. “We must ask what they asked themselves. Is the target worth the time, the expense, and the risk.”
“But?” Bernsie didn’t get his sentence out.
“Later,” the president whispered.
“There are principally six factors that a terrorist has to consider before selecting a final target,” Grigoryan explained. “Criticality, accessibility, recognizability, vulnerability, effect on national interests or the public welfare, and recoverability. You can remember that all by the acronym CARVER.”
“Carver?” Bernsie had never heard the term before.
“It was coined by Bill McCrory, former U.S. Army, counterintelligence, and U.S. Secret Service,” Grigoryan explained. I can explain them one by one if you’d like.”
“Jack, you want to take it?” Grigoryan said, turning the floor over to Director Evans.
“Criticality. By hitting the target, will it achieve the terrorists’ objective? Assuming that it’s to interrupt normal life, is it worth the trouble? Accessibility. Can the terrorist reach the target? Recognizability. Is the target recognizable once they have access to it? And conversely, is it something we may not recognize as a target? Or would we not recognize it from the air even if we’re directly overhead? Vulnerability. Is it vulnerable or too well protected? Effect on the country. What will the impact be? The political, economic, or even psych effects if the attack is successful. And finally, recoverability. This is the ultimate unknown. How long will it take for us to recover to an acceptable degree and at what cost? Taking 9/11 into account, it could be decades.”
Evans was finished. The room was stone cold. Even the president had never heard as clear a description of what a sophisticated terrorist must consider. It was chilling commentary.
“Well then,” Taylor said, “Since they didn’t come to the U.S. to be on American Idol, tell me what they are here for. They’re trained and they have special knowledge. Gentlemen, what’s their target?”
“Well, Mr. President, considering the fact that we have one dead geologist, I think we can safely narrow down the potential targets to a few hundred fault lines, a couple thousand dams and levees, and a volcano or two,” National Security Advisor General Jonas Jackson Johnson said more seriously than it sounded.
“Jesus!” Chief of Staff Ber
nstein muttered under his breath.
“Jesus is right,” the president solemnly added. “Take me through it, J3.”
“I’m not sure I can do any better than Jack. But I will add that the goal of a terrorist attack is to deny the use of an asset, be it civilian, government, or military,” the general said. He and the head of Homeland Security had weekly meetings about the dangers, covering everything from shopping centers, amusement parks, state capitols, and nuclear power plants. “But the goal might not be the destruction of a strategic asset, it could be to create civil havoc. Should a strategic asset go down? Well all the better in the terrorist’s mind.”
“Jack, Bob, Norman, and I are working with some forty security agencies to define and refine the possible target.”
“Or targets,” said FBI Chief Mulligan.
“Quite correct. Or targets, Mr. Director,” J3 agreed. “Anyone’s guess. Keep in mind attacks don’t have to achieve one hundred percent success to be effective. A threat, once made public, can produce its own devastating results. Primarily fear. And fear can lead to a disastrous drop in the stock market, unemployment, spiking oil prices, or even greedy sector profit taking.”
For a moment, the president flashed on his previous conversation with Bernsie about the stock market. Then it was gone.
“Something concrete, gentlemen,” Taylor said. “We have hundreds of earthquake fault lines, for example. Can these people set off explosions that would trigger, say, a major earthquake in Los Angeles or here? You know how the one in 2011 was so unsettling up and down the East Coast.”
“Unlikely. That would require strategically placed nuclear devices and sophisticated drilling. The risk-reward is too high. Too great a chance that they’d be discovered. I think that’s more of a plot out of science fiction. And if they have nuclear bombs, I think they’d go for a hard target.”
“Like Hoover Dam?” Bernsie asked.
Now General Johnson jumped back in. “Yes. We saw what Katrina did to New Orleans. Imagine simultaneous attacks up and down the Mississippi, Iowa, and along other rivers with levees, locks, and dams.”
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