Athena Force 10: Countdown

by Ruth Wind

  A ripple of interest and respect went around the table. Kim lifted a hand. “My partner, Scott Shepherd, also broke the code—though I do wish I hadn’t said so publicly.”

  “We’re all very sorry to hear of his injuries. How is he this morning?”

  She shrugged. “About the same. Not good. Let’s get these guys, huh?”

  Rosen introduced the rest of the group, assembled for their expertise in various areas. Lex was the explosives expert, Kim the cryptographer and linguist. Others on the team included a structural engineer, a security officer and an expert on the culture and religion of the country of Berzhaan.

  Rosen was reviewing the information collected thus far—the same material Scott, Lex and Kim had been reviewing the day before. He was reviewing the possible targets, and sticking pins in them. “There are any number of large parades taking place on Monday, which is Columbus Day, and we don’t really know exactly what this cell might do, or if there are multiple targets. Thanks to Agent Ramirez—” a small dark man nodded “—we’ve pinpointed the most dramatic parades in various cities. We’re particularly interested in those where the clash between Italian and Native American communities is pretty fierce, year after year, because security will be focused on keeping the peace with that, and a suicide bomber can do a lot of damage in a big crowd.” He pushed pins into the map, narrating aloud the spots: “Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis.”

  Kim scribbled notes.

  Rosen continued, sticking pins into cities where there were important military or transportation bridges: Coronado Bay in San Diego, Houston Ship Channel Bridge, Bay and Golden Gate Bridges, George Washington. “Any others you can think of?”

  “How about the Lenny Zakim Bridge in Boston?” said the structural engineer. “It’s pretty dramatic, and well-known.”

  “Right.” He stuck a pin in.

  There was more discussion about the various possibilities, until the map was bristling like a porcupine. “Obviously, we’re going to have to narrow this down some. Let’s go back through the materials we have and see what stands out.”

  Kim glanced at Lex to see if he would share anything from the thick file in front of him. He shook his head minutely and shifted his eyes toward the door. She understood the message: they would discuss it alone.

  “I have a giant pile of e-mails that came in over the past twenty-four hours,” Kim said. “I’m wondering if it might be better to see if we can track down the headquarters of this group before they make their move.”

  Rosen nodded, as did several others. “We know they were in Chicago. Any indications of other locales?”

  Dee Hazzard, the cultural anthropologist said, “We’ve been tracking a man out of Portland, John Hallam. He spent much of his youth in the Middle East with his father and has known ties to a rebel sect connected to the Keminis. He was arrested twice in connection with various criminal activities both in the U.S. and abroad. He resurfaced unexpectedly three days ago, in the hostage situation at UBS.” She pulled out his picture and held it up.

  Kim recognized the manager of the station the night Mansour took over. “He escaped that night, with Mansour and Dunst, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. But we think he’s taken an Islamic name, Afzal Abd-Al-Aziz.”

  Kim wrote the name down. “Hmm. He thinks well of himself—the name means superior and servant of the powerful. ”

  “One of our agents thinks he might be living with a woman in Brooklyn.”

  “Can’t we just go in there, then?”

  “Not just yet. The woman is the daughter of a highly placed Saudi businessman who is easily offended, and the feds don’t want to cross him unless we have to.”

  “Even if a bridge gets blown up?”

  The woman shrugged a little.

  Lex spoke up. “Shepherd had gone through a lot of material over the past week. He felt the terrorists were going to hit in several spots, but the main one will be the George Washington Bridge, on Columbus Day.”

  Hazzard nodded. “It has the biggest American flag in the country. We need to get extra security up there.”

  Something was bothering Kim about the entire discussion. What was off-kilter? “It’s almost like they’ve drawn us a map, don’t you think?”

  Rosen pursed his lips. “That’s not uncommon.”

  “True, but I think we’re dealing with someone here who is a lot smarter than the average bear. He’s determined to make a statement, and he’s not going to take a chance that we’ll figure it out before he gets there.”

  “So, you think it won’t be a bridge?”

  “I don’t know. I just think we need to be wary about jumping to conclusions.” She thought of Scott, thought of the hostages at the television station, of the men with their assault weapons. “These guys really want to do some damage—where can they do the most? Where will it be the most dramatic?”

  “Excellent questions.” Rosen looked at his watch. “Let’s get busy and meet back here late this afternoon. No detail should go unnoticed. And in the meantime, I’ll get a man to alert the police in every city in the country that has a Columbus Day parade, both tomorrow and Monday. They need to be aware of moving vans, correct? Anything else that’s come up in the intelligence?”

  “Denver is always a hot spot,” Kim said. “My partner is from there, and a reference to the American Indian Moment alerted him to the possibility of parades being targeted. AIM uses Denver as a showcase for their political objections to Columbus.”

  “All right, let’s get to work, see what we can find out, turn up on all of this,” Rosen said. “I want a list of all the parades in the country, and anything unusual about any of them.”

  “So, it’s bridges and Columbus Day now?” one agent asked. “How can we cover all those possibilities in one day?”

  “We can’t,” Rosen said. “Let’s just do our best. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Chapter 20

  Back at her desk, Kim settled for a minute and stared at the computer screen. What were they missing? What link would lead them to the true targets in time to stop any violence?

  “Look through the top to the middl’a things….”

  Lex dropped into the chair beside the desk. “Hey. I don’t think it’s the bridge, either. Let’s toss it back and forth for a minute, d’you mind?”

  “No.” She threw a pencil down on top of the papers. “Hallam—the American from the television station—is obviously a mastermind, and he’s mixed up with a very wealthy Saudi woman. Maybe that’s where the cash is coming from.”

  “No doubt that’s at least some of it. It’s also seems that this—” he consulted his notes “—Richard Dunst is selling arms in Berzhaan. Arms deals are always worth a bundle.”

  “That’s all fine, but it’s not solving the immediate problem, which is—where are these guys?”

  “I don’t buy the Brooklyn connection,” Lex said. “It’s all just too pat.”

  “I know. Like somebody is standing there, waving their arms saying, ‘Look over here! This is where we’re going to strike!’ They aren’t that obvious.” She flipped through some of the e-mails on her desk, skimming the highlighted information. “We have so little on Mansour, and he’s the real mastermind here.”

  “What do you have?”

  Kim punched a button on the computer and called up a file. She knew most of it, but didn’t want to miss anything. She reiterated the information Oracle had sent. “This is where we need to focus,” she said. “Mansour is going to take something down this weekend, and he’ll be smart about it.”

  “I’d love to get my hands on the bastard.”

  Kim thought of Scott, thought of being beneath the desk, nearly smothering, thought of the hostages in the television station. “He’s very dangerous,” she agreed. “We need to get him.” She tucked her hair behind one ear. “You can use Scott’s computer—let’s see what we can gather about Mansour himself, and see if we can get inside his mind.”

  “Is there a profile
r on this case?”

  “That’s Hazzard,” Kim said.

  “All right.” He rolled up the papers in his hand and popped her lightly on the hand. “Talk at you later.”

  The first thing Kim did was to head for AA.gov, the Athena Academy Web site, and hope she could get some information that way. Because her home terminals had been destroyed, she didn’t know how to get in the back door without leaving the agency. The footprint technologies were so high for security reasons that Kim could not—as she had from Lex’s apartment—access the Oracle site. Instead, she posted an innocuous note on the Athena bulletin board.

  TO: All

  FROM: Kim Valenti, Class of 199—

  SUBJECT: Need info on Fathi bin Amin Mansour Urgent—need anything anyone can deliver on above named Berzhaan native. Educated in England, now in U.S. Present at UBC television hostage situation, suspected of other plots. Currently on the loose.

  She added her phone number and e-mail address, and hoped it would be enough to attract the attention of Delphi, who could then perhaps call or give further instructions.

  In the meantime, she sorted through the information and read the file for Mansour one more time. The information from Oracle was included:

  Mansour is prodigiously intelligent. Advanced degrees from Oxford in chemical engineering and European history. Mother and two brothers killed in guerilla raids by the Keminis four years ago, for which he holds the West responsible. He is connected to several bombings. His whereabouts are unknown. (See attached photograph, taken in London, 2001.)

  Kim flipped through the rest—a transcribed text from the television station takeover, a dossier from Interpol, showing connections to Chicago.

  Nothing they didn’t already know.

  Lex suddenly appeared. “Want to know where the candidates are speaking this weekend?”

  Kim raised her eyebrows. “Sure.”

  “Baltimore and Washington, D.C.”

  “Damn.” She chewed the inside of her cheek. “I really oughta take myself off this case right now. My partner was nearly killed. My apartment has been blown up, and now my little sisters are on that parade route.”

  “You can’t get off the case now, Valenti. We need you.”

  “I know.” She rubbed her face, flipped another page over on the dossier in front of her and stared at the transcript of her conversation with Karl Gibson, the police officer in New York City. A lost piece of information slid into place suddenly. “Hang on,” she said to Lex. “I think I just figured something out.” Urgently, she dialed the number for Gibson. When he answered, she said, “Hello, Mr. Gibson. Kim Valenti from the NSA. Quick question—what was the name of the tire shop you raided near the George Washington bridge?”

  “Hold on. I can get that for you in two seconds.”

  Kim waited.

  “Here it is—Hafiz’s Tires.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Gibson. You might have saved the day.”

  “Hope so. It’d be the easiest save ever.”

  She chuckled, put the phone down and picked it up again. “This is probably too easy,” Kim said, “but you never know.” She flipped her Rolodex and punched in some numbers.

  A hated voice at the other end of the line said, “This is Dana Milosovich. Please leave your number at the sound of the tone. If this is an emergency, dial 326.”

  “Damn.” She couldn’t technically call it an emergency.

  “What’s up?” Lex said.

  “I’m looking for the name of a tire shop owned by one of the terrorists in Chicago.” She picked up the piece of paper. “Any chance you know of a Hafiz Tires?”

  Lex raised his brows. “I actually do. It’s not far from the UBC station. Why?”

  “We need to see if there’s a Hafiz Tires in any of our targeted locations, especially in Baltimore and D.C.” She nodded toward a chair by her desk. “Sit down. The fastest way to do this is the Internet.”

  Into Google, Kim typed “Hafiz Tires,” and entered it.

  A list of six matches came up. “There it is,” she said grimly. “Hafiz Tires on—” she rolled her eyes “—President Street.”

  Lex was already on his feet.

  “The parade goes right by there,” Kim said, standing. “Let’s take a look.”

  Lex stuck his head in the conference room. “We’ve got a lead to check out. Have backup ready for our call.”

  Kim drove since she knew the area. Traffic on the freeways was not heavy, and they made good time into town, but as they moved into downtown Baltimore their luck thinned. The Inner Harbor area, always popular with tourists, was doubly clogged. “This didn’t used to be such a huge thing,” she said, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. “Past couple of years, everybody in the neighborhood has gone all out—breakfasts, spaghetti dinners, Sons of Italy and all the beauty queens.”

  “It’s pretty crowded.”

  Someone honked behind her, and Kim made a gesture with her hands. “I can only move as fast as the traffic, buddy.”

  Lex chuckled. “Getting a little aggressive out here in the old neighborhood, sister.”

  “Ha, ha.” Spying an alley, she made a sudden decision. “I bet I can get us out of this car in three minutes.” She turned into the narrow alley, which looked like a dead end. When she eased by a cluster of Dumpsters, however, there was a second alley off to the right. “Aha!” she cried in satisfaction. “One of my brothers used to have a girlfriend who lived in that building,” she said, and pointed to a series of windows. The alley opened into a lot behind a small grocer’s, packed with cars. From the other side, it would have appeared to be full, but Kim eased into a spot next to an SUV. “Victory,” she said. “And we’re not even stuck here.”

  “Good work.”

  “We’re going to have to hike a little ways,” she said, climbing out of the car. A chill wind bit through her coat. She shivered a little, then zipped it up.

  “You’re the boss.” He zipped up his coat, too, and pulled a cap out of his pocket, tugging it down over his ears. As they came out onto the street, with a view of the harbor barely visible through breaks in the buildings, he said, “Nice.”

  “It can be.”

  Kim turned, turned again, led them down side streets that were less crowded. The area was noisy with voices and children, anticipation. They passed a restaurant advertising a pancake breakfast, and the line was still into the street. Kim inhaled. “That smells great.”

  They took a left onto President Street. About a block down, Kim suddenly stopped, looking at the building on the corner. “This is it.” It was painted a sunny yellow, and had been neatly painted with the name of the shop in English with Arabic flourishes and a little icon of a small man smiling and rolling a tire along. “Hafiz’s Tires. This wasn’t here the last time I was in the neighborhood.” The showroom area was dark, and a sign in the window said Closed For The Holiday Weekend. She looked up at the multipaned windows. A light was on inside. “Someone may be in there.”

  “Come on,” Lex said, and they walked quickly around the corner, toward the back of the shop.

  Kim moved along behind Lex as he went into the alley. A window faced the alley and Lex started to make a leap for the windowsill, then swore and held up his injured hand. “You’re going to have to look.” He knelt, making a step out of his leg, and Kim climbed on it, reached for the ledge, and slowly pulled herself up to peek in the window.

  What she could see was a garage area, wide-open, with three men clustered around something in the middle of the room. She recognized two of them—one was Mansour; the other was Ugly Face, from the television station. Another knot, mostly younger men, Berzhaanians by the look of them, stood to one side, smoking. A moving van, painted yellow, was parked in one of the bays. Her stomach flipped.

  Kim lowered herself. “It’s our guys, all right.” She brushed off her palms. “And I think they’ve got a bomb in there.”

  “How many of them?”

  “Three, plus fou
r foot soldiers.” She described the scenario inside.

  He met her eyes. “Call for backup.” He reached behind himself and pulled out a pistol.

  Kim got out her cell phone and quietly relayed what they’d found and the need for stealth.

  “They’re on the way.” Her breath came out of her mouth in puffs of fog.

  Lex moved from foot to foot, his injured right hand tucked under his coat. The tip of his nose had grown red with the cold. “If there are any armed bombs in there, this could get ugly,” he said.

  “Just don’t send me to a corner to cover my head with pillows,” she said, her eyes on the front of the building.

  “Are you going to forgive me for that?”

  “Probably,” she said. “Eventually.”

  “That sounds promising.”

  Kim looked at him. “You know, I saw what the bomb did to Scott, but he didn’t know it was there. He pulled the door and got blown up. I would have appreciated the chance to try and disarm the one in my condo.”

  “I know. But let me tell you, darlin’, I wouldn’t have been able to disarm it. The first rule in dealing with bombs is to know your limits.”

  Kim nodded. Maybe she was being a little touchy. “This is really too close to home for my tastes. My sisters are going to be in that parade on Monday, and these guys might have killed them. That makes me very angry.”

  “I can understand that.”

  She looked around, from the treetops glowing against the sky, to the hint of water in the air from the harbor. “Why here, anyway? Why this parade, why not something more important?”

  “Your problem, Valenti, is that you’re expecting terrorists to be reasonable and think like the general population. Fanaticism is the opposite of reasonable.” His jaw tightened. “I remember when there were always a bunch of Irish kids getting killed. And the Rwandans in the lake…how many people were slaughtered in that debacle? A lot.”

  Kim nodded.

  “So you just say to yourself, these guys aren’t reasonable, and you do your best to keep them from doing any damage.”