Hard Road

by J. B. Turner

  In a conference room, she joined nine of the Joint Terrorism Task force – including Tom Callaghan – around the table for an emergency meeting, and once again hooked up with the high-tech operations room at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia for a secure video teleconference. She brought everyone up to speed. On the plasma screen she could see four men and a woman at the NCTC.

  “OK folks,” she said, “we’re all coming at this from a multitude of angles. But we need to focus on not only tracking down Caan and trying to establish where he went in Lower Manhattan, but what the possible targets are.”

  Callaghan piped up, “My team are swarming all over Lower Manhattan as we speak. But this ain’t gonna be easy.”

  Meyerstein looked up at the screen, which showed the counterterrorism experts staring back at her. “These images are from a month ago, but I believe that Caan is a serious threat. Potential threats don’t always originate from outside the US. We only have to think back to spring 2010, to remember the bombing in Times Square. The threat was from within. The fact that these devices have been planted in a government protected building, housing numerous agencies, may indicate the militia movement. We all remember Waco. The Oklahoma bombing, by Timothy McVeigh. However, we most certainly can’t rule out the possibility that Caan is receiving help, either from inside or outside the US. I’ve got to be frank with you, this investigation is morphing into something much more significant and potentially much more catastrophic than I could have imagined.”

  On the screen from the NCTC, a middle-aged grey-haired man, Principal Deputy Director Arthur Black, put up his hand. “If I could just inject here, Martha. I just want to say that in all my years in this business, I think the way this is developing is very unsettling. This all points to a mass terror attack. And I think none of us should be in any doubt about the changing face and increasing complexity of modern terrorism. But Caan, to me, doesn’t add up. Army government scientist. Has he gone rogue? For whom? Who’s behind this? This clearly is not just a lone man with a grievance. My question is, Martha, why do you think he was in New York on 19 November?”

  Meyerstein nodded. “I don’t think anyone could say for sure, Arthur, but if pressed, I would say that Caan was doing reconnaissance, perhaps acquainting himself with a target or targets. As we are all acutely aware, New York City is the number one target for terrorists. There have been nine known plots involving targets in New York unearthed since 9/11, including a couple in the last three months. They included plans to detonate fuel tanks at JFK, plant explosives in the Holland Tunnel and several plots to attack subway stations. You can take your pick. If we also factor in that it is the largest city in the United States, not to mention a global financial and media center, you can see why it is like a magnet for terrorists.”

  Black and his NCC colleagues nodded, as did those round the table in New York, acutely aware of Manhattan’s position as the number one target in the country.

  A sharp knock at the door and Roy Stamper popped his head round the conference room door, face drawn. “Excuse me, ma’am. Freddie needs to speak. It’s urgent.”

  Martha leaned back in her seat. “Roy, we’re in the middle of a video teleconference, can’t it wait?”

  “Afraid not.”

  Martha looked around the table and then up at the faces on the huge screen. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ll be back with you in a couple of minutes. Take five.”

  She went outside. “This better be good,” she said, as Stamper held the phone.

  “He says it can’t wait.”

  Stamper handed Meyerstein the phone. “Yeah, talk to me, Freddie.”

  Simonton was breathing heavy down the phone. “We’ve been running the software on Caan, face recognition, retinal scans, trying to track his movements over the last month,” he said.

  “What’ve you got?”

  “Two things. Firstly, we’ve got a perfect match on Caan on November 19th from cameras outside The Food Emporium, nearby. And we’ve pinpointed a location.”

  Meyerstein clenched her fist and grinned at Stamper who shrugged his shoulders. “What was the second thing?”

  A long sigh. “He’s been here in New York in the last couple of days.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve just sent you a picture. He’s dressed as a maintenance man and is carrying a bag.”

  Meyerstein went over to her temporary desk and sat down and pulled up the image from her laptop inbox. She scanned the picture. He was the same man who was walking through Terminal 5 of JFK a month earlier. He had an easy smile, olive complexion. “This is him?”

  “Perfect match.”

  “So, where was this taken?”

  He let out another long sigh. “Martha, this picture was taken by a surveillance camera outside 26 Federal Plaza, as he entered the building you’re in.”

  “Right here?”

  “That’s not all. I’ve just sent two images of him taken on hidden surveillance cameras by a cleaning company who service most of the building. Have you got them?”

  She scrolled through her inbox, but nothing. “It’s empty.”

  “Martha, I’ll resend them.”

  “Goddamn, what do they show?”

  “He’s placed devices in the air vents all over the New York field office. The goddamn office you’re in. Get yourself the hell out of there.”

  Meyerstein had to move fast. She gave the evacuation order after speaking to O’Donoghue and the head of the New York field office. The reason cited to evacuate and relayed to other government agencies working in the building was that there was a bomb scare. Hundreds streamed out into the plaza.

  The White House, the Pentagon, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were all briefed.

  Then she took a call from the head of the FBI’s counterterrorism analytical branch, Simon Bullard, whose team had concluded that Caan was receiving outside help, and wasn’t acting alone. When Meyerstein asked if there was any hint of foreign involvement, he said ominously, “It can’t be ruled out.”

  The more she knew about Caan and the emerging threat, the more chilling the scenario became. America was under threat. But it wasn’t just Caan. Who else was involved? What foreign government, if any? Was this Iran? Syria? They had numerous links to terrorist groups. What was the motivation of Caan? The questions kept on mounting up as the pressure on her and her team intensified.

  Meyerstein and her team immediately headed to an FBI safe house in a suite of offices in the Upper East Side to remotely view the work of a Hazmat team scouring the air vents of the building in New York, whilst on another screen they reconvened the secure video teleconference with the National Counterterrorism Center on huge plasma screen TV.

  This time, the FBI Deputy Director, Bill O’Donoghue, was sitting in. She hadn’t heard anything since she flat-out refused to obey his order to stand aside.

  “Martha,” O’Donoghue said, leaning back in his seat, “I’m glad everyone got out safe. OK, what’s the latest?”

  “Thank you, sir.” Meyerstein felt a headache coming on. She let out a long sigh. “Sir, we’re searching an apartment in Tribeca as we speak. This is an emerging threat.”

  “Is this some an anti-government thing? Are we talking militia?”

  “We can’t rule anything in or out at this stage, sir. The questions keep mounting up. How could this have been allowed to happen?”

  O’Donoghue was nodding.

  “Caan has, in effect, wandered into a highly guarded government building and possibly planted biomaterials. It’s appalling. We could be talking about worst case scenarios.”

  O’Donoghue was scribbling some notes. “Go on, Martha.”

  “Look, sir, we still don’t know what the risks are as we haven’t established what has been planted. Secondly, if this is a real bio-threat, under current guidelines, we do not instigate panic. Telling the public there are bio-bombs would turn New York into anarchy. But what I would say is that this threat
is far too sophisticated to be just one lone nut. I’m not buying that.”

  “What are Counterterrorism saying on this?”

  Meyerstein reiterated what she had been told. “And it raises the spectre that he is receiving outside help.”

  O’Donoghue leaned back in his seat and pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve got to say, whilst we are behind the curve, I’m impressed that we are on this. So what are you saying? Is this a network?”

  “Very much so, sir. I think they are clearly a sophisticated and powerful network. And I don’t just mean some dangerous amateurs. I’m talking about an individual, in this case Caan, who may be working in cahoots with, or under direct orders from, a nation state, we just can’t rule that out.”

  Meyerstein saw on the big screen that the NCTC people were nodding at her comments.

  Principal Assistant Director Arthur Black put up his hand to speak.

  “Go right ahead, Arthur,” she said.

  “Thank you. America has many enemies. But I don’t think it’s helpful to speculate as to who could be behind this at this stage.”

  Meyerstein nodded. “I agree. But I think we have to assume the worst, that Caan has planted devices within these air vents. The motivation? We just don’t know.”

  A man on the screen from the National Counterterrorism Center piped up. “Hi, Martha, Ray Malone, of NCTC. I hear what you’re saying, Martha, but haven’t the FBI got a moral obligation to let the people of Manhattan know what it is that’s inside the vents?”

  “The last I checked the FBI rulebook, we serve the people as a federal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency. We have investigative jurisdiction over more than two hundred categories of federal crime. We have no moral obligation, other than as parents to our children. Look, we’re expecting a real-time feed from the Hazmat team working in the air vents in the next five minutes. I think until then, this is all speculation.”

  She pressed a button and the screen went black, the video teleconference over.

  She stared out of the window at the Upper East Side skyline. Meyerstein reconsidered the thrust of where the complex investigation was heading. She heard behavioural scientists, profilers, psychologists and a whole host of others outlining what sort of person Scott Caan was.

  His medical records were subpoenaed. He was in excellent health. The apartment was being worked over by forensics. The profilers said that there had been myriad reports into the psychology and sociology of terrorism. And there weren’t any detectable personality traits to allow the FBI to identify a would-be terrorist. The average terrorist is also not mentally ill, although they are, to a greater or lesser extent, deluded by ideological or religious beliefs. They went on to say the potential terrorists who show signs of mental illness, or have noticeable behaviour traits, are not likely candidates to be chosen by those behind a terrorist attack.

  The more she learned, the less she understood about Scott Caan. It was strange that there was no more footage of Caan in New York. Why was that? “Someone is shielding him. This is not the sort of thing that’s dreamed up on the spur of the moment. So, where the hell is he?”

  “God only knows,” came the muted reply from Ray Stamper, staring at the live news feed, which had flickered into life from Lower Manhattan.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Reznick was floating in a sea of darkness, a black sky above. The sound of humming like a chopper blade and then an incessant beeping. He opened his eyes and found he was sitting by his daughter’s bedside, still holding her hand. He sat up and stared at her.

  Her eyes were closed, face pained. She didn’t look peaceful. She made the occasional moan, as if riven by nightmares in her deep sleep. He wondered if she would ever wake up. But even if she did, what state would she be in?

  The sound of footsteps approaching out in the corridor. A sharp knock at the door and a nurse entered the room. “Excuse me. There’s a call for you at the nursing station.”

  Reznick shrugged. “Did they give a name?”

  “Said they were calling from Miami. Said you were a friend of his father.”

  Reznick wondered how Ron Leggett knew where he was. His gut feeling told him something was wrong. Surely the Feds hadn’t passed on the information? “OK,” he sighed. He followed the nurse out of the ICU room and headed to the nursing station halfway down the corridor. The two Feds followed.

  A receptionist pointed to the phone on the desk. “There you go, sir,” she said, flashing a white smile.

  He picked up the phone and turned his back to the woman before he spoke, the two Feds watching him close by. “Yeah, who’s this?”

  A long silence on the line. But he knew someone was there.

  “Who’s calling?”

  A long sigh came down the line. “I’m very disappointed, Jon.” It was the electronically distorted voice, which had instructed Reznick to head down to Miami “You didn’t keep your side of the bargain.”

  Reznick’s insides tightened and heart beat faster. He turned and snapped his fingers, signalling to the Feds. He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered to one of them. “Do a trace on this call. Right now.”

  The Fed nodded and took out his cell phone to make the call.

  “What do you want?” Reznick said.

  “Did you think you could move Lauren without us knowing about it, Jon?”

  Reznick felt the anger build deep inside him, gnawing at his chest. He wondered how they knew where his daughter was.

  “All you had to do, Jon, was deliver the scientist, and you daughter wouldn’t have been harmed. But instead, you decided to take matters into your own hands. And now look at Lauren. Do you feel guilty, Jon? Do you wonder if you made the wrong call?

  Reznick said nothing.

  “I don’t think she’s gonna make it, Jon.”

  Reznick could see it was mind games.

  “We’re not going to go away, Jon. When this is over, we’re coming after your little girl and you.”

  “You finished?” Reznick said.

  “No, quite the contrary, Jon. I’m only beginning. You see, Jon, we have plans in place. Plans like you wouldn’t believe. This ungrateful, bloated, filthy country, which you profess to love, is going to feel what real pain is. What real loss is like.”

  Reznick kept quiet, wanting him to do the talking.

  “You disrupted our plans, Jon, I’m afraid to say. Plans which took us years to put into place. You and Lauren will pay for that.”

  Reznick closed his eyes.

  “You see, Jon, America is going to suffer, and it’s going to suffer a bit earlier than we planned.”

  The line went dead.

  Reznick put the phone back down on its stand, ending the call. He looked across at the Feds who were looking grim-faced, one still on his cell. “Any luck?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Reznick shook his head and walked back into his daughter’s room. He stood at the window and looked down on the flowerbeds in the hospital grounds, a riot of colour in mid-December. He thought back over the chaotic last forty-eight hours. He thought of Lauren and the terrible last moments before Beth was killed. His mind flashed to seeing Leggett’s body slumped in the shower. The nightmare had all been caused by his refusal to kill Luntz. He knew Lauren would never get peace. He had to end this. It was never going to stop until he neutralised the people behind it.

  “There you are.” The voice of one of the Feds snapped him out of his reverie. He walked across to the window and stood beside Reznick. “We couldn’t trace the call. They were bouncing the signal off here, there and everywhere. Very sophisticated.”

  “Forget that. I want to speak to Meyerstein.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now.”

  The Fed let out a long sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.” He left the room for a couple of minutes. When he came back, he handed his cell phone to Reznick. “Assistant Director Meyerstein for you.”

&nbs
p; Reznick took the phone. “How the hell can you guys not get a trace?”

  “We’re still working on it.”

  “Bullshit. They’re running circles round us. How the hell did they know Lauren was here? Can you answer me that?”

  Meyerstein sighed. “I don’t know, Jon. Honest to God, I wish I did.”

  “He knows Lauren was moved and knows her condition. Is there a leak in your team? What the hell is going on?”

  “OK, Jon, let’s back up for a moment. They, whoever they are, might know where you are, but they can’t get to your family.”

  “I don’t think you’re listening. These are no ordinary Joes you’re dealing with. These guys are serious. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Trust me, your family is safe.”

  “You don’t know that. Look, I want in.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I want to be part of your investigation team. I want to help you get these bastards.”

  “That’s not gonna happen, Jon.”

  “You’re not listening, Meyerstein. These people are very, very serious. And when I mean serious, I mean, they are not going to go away. I want to help you.”

  “Jon, you need to back up and leave this to us.”

  “Listen to me very closely.” Reznick lowered his voice. “He said they had plans in place and that America was going to feel what real pain was.”

  “He said that?”

  “What, do you think I’m making this up?

  Meyerstein let out a long sigh.

  “He also said they were going to bring their plans forward.”

  A long silence opened up between them. Eventually Meyerstein spoke. “Jon, you need to let this go and leave it with us. Lauren needs you now. I also want you to know that I’m going to be thinking of you and your daughter, and praying she pulls through this.”

  Reznick didn’t respond.

  “Do you believe, Jon?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I pray. Pray for my daughter. Pray she can open her eyes and I can see her smile again.”

  “You did all you could do, Jon. You got to her. You… You found her alive. That in itself is a miracle.”