by Ben Coes
“Al-Qaeda,” said Scalia. “So we’re likely talking about terrorism after all. What’s the status on Andreas, and how does he fit in?”
“Okay,” said Jessica. “Andreas ran Capitana. The survivors of the explosion credit him with saving them.”
“Have we found him yet? Has he made contact?”
“Not yet,” said Jessica, glancing at Savoy, then Chiles. “For all we know he could be dead. We do know, however, that Andreas was present when the bomb was set.”
“How do you know that?” asked Scalia from the White House.
“Iris scan. It was the only way to open the pumping station, where they set the bomb.”
“Andreas let them in?”
“Yes.”
“So Andreas’s the main loose strand here,” said Kratovil to the room. “Where the fuck is he?”
“You’re the national security advisor,” Savoy said with heat. “You tell us.”
“People . . . ,” warned Chiles at the same time Jessica said, “We’re looking,” and Terry Savoy’s cell phone chimed loudly.
Savoy pushed away from the table and answered the phone. After listening for a few seconds, he raised his hand for silence.
“Quiet everyone,” Savoy said with a surprised look on his face. “I’ve got Dewey Andreas on the line.”
As Dewey waited to be put through to Terry Savoy, he saw a police car cruise by the mall parking lot. Back in downtown Cali, he’d thought for a moment about going to the police, but he’d quickly dismissed the idea. As he learned during training for covert operations, there are countries whose police forces were rife with corruption, where you couldn’t trust their allegiance to the United States. Colombia fell into that category. He ducked as the sedan passed by, then restarted the Mercedes and drove again.
“This is Terry.”
“Terry Savoy? This is Dewey Andreas.”
As Dewey watched his rear end for cops and gunmen, Savoy told him to hold, then spoke in a muffled voice, apparently to someone else on his end.
“Dewey, I’m going to put you on speakerphone. I’m at FBI headquarters in Washington. So you know, I’m here with Jessica Tanzer from the FBI and an interagency group charged with investigating the events of the past twenty-four hours. We’re aware of the explosion at Capitana. Savage Island Project has also been destroyed.”
“The dam?”
“Yes.”
“Dewey, this is Jessica Tanzer with the FBI. First things first: are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Dewey said. “But there are several hundred men in the water near Capitana. Can you all make sure help is sent out there as soon as possible?”
“We’re on it,” said Jessica. “We’ve already got some of them picked up. We’re putting everything we can in the water to save the men.”
“I’ve been shot,” continued Dewey. “At some point I’ll need to get to a doctor. But right now I’m being hunted. I need to relay what I know as quickly as possible here in case they find me and kill me.”
“Who’s following you?”
“Terrorists. Capitana was struck by a cell of terrorists.” Dewey quickly told them everything that had happened since the knife fight between Serine and Mackie, all the while putting distance between himself and the city center.
Jessica Tanzer stopped him when he got to the part about reaching the pumping station. “How exactly did they detonate the platform?”
“They placed a bomb at the seafloor. The explosive was called octanitrocubane.”
Jessica nodded to the group. “There’s our link.” She turned to one of her assistants at a computer terminal at the end of the conference room. “See if we can zoom down onto Cali on the monitors.”
Soon, one of the high-res plasma screens on the wall went black as the assistant entered coordinates into her keyboard. A grainy image came into place on the screen, quickly becoming clear, a live, magnified satellite view of Cali. Using Dewey’s description of his arrival in Cali, the technician focused the view onto downtown, and then onto a crowd. He brought the view out and over and focused on the helicopter still dangling from the half-constructed skyscraper.
“I’m glad to debrief,” crackled Dewey’s voice over the speakerphone, “but I am literally running for my life. I killed a bunch of them, but there are more.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jessica. “We’re gonna get you out of there.”
“Is there an embassy in Cali, a consulate?” asked Dewey.
Jessica looked to Scalia, who looked to an assistant, who worked his computer. “The nearest consulate is Medellín.”
“You can’t trust the Colombian police, or for that matter the military,” said Jane Epstein from Defense.
“What assets do we have in Cali?” Jessica asked the conference room. “Vic, what do you have?”
Vic Buck tapped a few strokes on his laptop.
“We don’t have anyone there, not right now anyway.”
Epstein picked up a phone and was soon speaking with someone at Defense operations. She placed her hand over the phone handle. “We have a pair of Deltas in the neighborhood,” said Epstein. “We can exfiltrate in two hours.”
“You were Delta, right, Dewey?” asked Savoy.
“Yeah,” said Dewey, traffic sounds and horns blasting in the background. “Bring ’em on.”
“Where are you?” asked Jessica.
“Outskirts of the city, to the north. Rua Dista. Looks like a well-off suburb.”
“Stay put. We’ll have them come and meet you.”
“Negative,” said Dewey. “Let’s set a meeting place. I don’t want to sit out in the open for the next two hours while they hunt me. Fact, I can’t afford to sit still at all.”
“You’re right. Throw a street grid up,” said Jessica to her technician. On the screen, the photo expanded as he pulled the satellite out. Suddenly, a series of bright yellow street outlines crossed the screen, with names in big letters above them. Jessica crossed the room to the screen. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing up.
The image zoomed in on a green field.
“Soccer stadium.”
“This?” she said, pointing a few blocks away from the stadium.
“Madradora,” said the technician. “A park. There’s a church next to it.”
“Did you hear that?” asked Jessica.
“Madradora, what section?”
“South part of the city, near the soccer stadium.”
“Got it. Two hours.”
The conference room speakerphone went dead. The members of interagency looked around the room. Finally, Scalia spoke up. “Well, there’s our update on Dewey Andreas.”
Jessica gave Kratovil a meaningful look, then caught Savoy staring daggers at Reuben McCarthy.
“I want to hear from Energy next,” Scalia said. “Specifically as it applies to motive in these acts of terror. If that’s indeed what they were.”
All eyes turned to Antonia Stebbens from Energy. “We’re analyzing supply and demand activity over the past three years,” said Stebbens. “Especially petroleum, but also electricity. Don’t ask me what we expect to find, because we don’t know yet. But DOE’s perspective, for what it’s worth, will be focused solely on energy supply, petroleum and kilowatt supply chain. This is the only way we know how to look at it. So we’ll do our best to reconstruct inflows, outflows, and map production by modality across the petroleum and electricity supply base and see what we come up with. It’s up to you all to place it into a national security context.”
The room was silent.
“So we’re looking at macro patterns, combined with micro activity,” continued Stebbens. “We want to know what has been happening at a global level, then try and understand where these patterns play out by individual companies and or countries. Who’s being affected by the growth in importance of Capitana and Savage Island to domestic energy supply consumption—”
“In other words,” interrupted Scalia, “who was being harmed most by C
apitana and Savage Island?”
“Precisely,” said Stebbens. “It might lead us nowhere. But it’s all we at Energy can analyze. If there is something there, we should find it. How it relates to the attack on Marks, that’s beyond us.”
“Isn’t that obvious?” asked Scalia. “ ‘America’s energy company’? He’s a symbol, the godfather of energy independence from the Middle East.”
“Again, that’s for you to assess, not us. We’re quants. We’ll tell you what’s been happening down to the barrel. We’re not going to interpret it.”
“How long will DOE’s analysis take?” asked Chiles.
“Hours, not days,” said Stebbens.
“Good.”
“Look, I have to say something here,” said Rick Ennis from the National Security Agency. “This is probably relevant.”
“What is it?” asked Scalia.
“It’s a can of worms.”
“Cough it up,” said Chiles.
“It’s NSA,” said Ennis. “This is V-level.” He looked at Savoy.
“He’s got clearance,” said Jessica.
“We had NSA run several tap protocols this morning, referencing Capitana, Savage Island, KKB, Anson,” he said. Kratovil, the president’s national security adviser, nodded in support. “We went back one year.”
“Don’t you need a judge’s approval to run a tap protocol?” asked McCarthy.
Ennis paused and looked at McCarthy dismissively, then turned to Scalia.
“We gave him the green light,” said Scalia. “The president signed an executive order last night.”
“Go on,” said Chiles.
“There’s been growing chatter within OPEC about Capitana. To the point that it’s of primary concern. Capitana in particular has been a subject of discussion between high-level government officials.”
“What country?” asked Jessica.
Ennis paused and looked around the table. “Saudi Arabia.”
“How recent is this chatter?” asked Chiles.
“Last six months.”
The room was silent.
“This is a mess,” said Scalia. “We need to rethink this. We need to set up some structure here. This could get ugly quickly. This elevates things.”
“It isn’t elevated already?” asked Chiles.
Scalia looked back at him. “If this was a sanctioned series of attacks or if a government, ally or otherwise, even so much as knew of the existence of the attacks, and didn’t let us know, we have, and you’ll excuse my French, a serious fucking problem.”
20
FORTUNA’S APARTMENT
1040 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Fortuna waved the gray plastic card in front of a sensor next to the elevator buttons. The PH light went on as the elevator began its ascent toward the penthouse apartment.
The key was necessary because the elevators opened up within Fortuna’s sprawling residence atop 1040 Fifth Avenue, an exclusive limestone-clad prewar co-op on the Upper East Side, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had the top two floors, more than 14,000 square feet.
The elevator door opened up and he walked in. He stared for a moment at the large Jasper Johns, a huge painting of an American flag that hung dramatically across from the elevator door. On the shining cherry side table beneath the large painting, he placed his cell phone down. He removed his overcoat and threw it on the wing chair to the left of the table.
Footsteps could be heard coming down the hall. Suddenly, a tall man appeared. He was neatly dressed, in a blue button-down and gray flannels. Karim had a face reminiscent of a hawk’s, sharp, curving nose, fierce eyes, and hair cropped short.
“So,” said Karim, “how was your lunch?”
“Fine,” said Fortuna.
As far as everyone at 1040 Fifth Avenue knew, Karim Ajunniliah was one of Fortuna’s servants, one of the many domestic employees that helped take care of the personal affairs of the handsome, mysterious billionaire who lived on the top two floors of the building. Like many servants in such buildings across Manhattan, Karim lived in servants’ quarters. But Karim was no servant. He’d been sent by Mohammed, Fortuna’s adopted father, when Fortuna first moved to Manhattan after Wharton. Karim had lived in Washington and was like a brother to Mohammed. He worked eight years as a sous-chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, working like any other man while knowing all along that he would one day support the unique destiny of Alexander Fortuna. A destiny that had finally arrived.
Earlier in their association, Fortuna had bridled at the thought of having a caretaker and companion. But soon he saw the advantage of having someone beneath him. For if Fortuna was the architect, Karim was the builder. He ran Fortuna’s household. More important, he ran the terrorist network; recruited the men, paid their way, communicated with them, ran them.
Fortuna was as close to Karim as he could be to anyone but his adopted father. But the truth was, the day he’d been torn from his bed in Broumana had seared his soul from any ability to feel emotion, real empathy, or love for another human being. It was Mohammed’s brilliance to see this, to understand it, harvest it, and ultimately to channel it back against itself, and against his adopted country. This would be his contribution to jihad.
“The new Hopper was installed in the bedroom,” said Karim. “We had the Wyeth boxed up and delivered to the Wadsworth Atheneum.”
Fortuna nodded, moving to a window that overlooked Fifth Avenue. When Fortuna bought the apartment for $37 million, he’d gone through a rigorous application process with the board of the co-op. On the board were descendants of two U.S. presidents, as well as heirs to Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst, along with a coterie of New York society.
Fortuna lied about his nationality on the application, telling the board he was French, rather than Lebanese. Of course he had false documentation to support this. He also submitted letters, authentic letters, written by no fewer than three U.S. senators, to all of whom he’d contributed a great deal of money to over the years. At the time of his application, he was dating a Hearst heiress, Samantha Biddle Hearst. Her phone call to her great-grandmother, Mia, or “Mummsy” as the grandchildren called her, who was chairwoman of the co-op board, hadn’t hurt.
The penthouse contained six bedroom suites in all, nine bathrooms, a gymnasium, a media room, a large dining room with a ballroom attached to it, a massive living room, five working fireplaces, a beautiful kitchen, and a stunning roof deck with a large garden, enclosed tennis court, and a small, kidney-shaped swimming pool and hot tub. The views, especially at the front of the apartment, on Fifth Avenue, were magnificent: Central Park, the Met, and to the left the lights of midtown.
“Your father called,” said Karim.
Fortuna turned and looked at Karim for a moment. “I thought he was away.”
“Not Mohammed. Aswan. From Broumana. Your real father.”
“Aswan?” he whispered.
“Yes.” He handed Fortuna a piece of paper. “There are two numbers you must dial,” said Karim. “Use the London switch. Call from your office. Close the door.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You can’t speak for more than sixty seconds.”
Fortuna gave Karim a look. “I know.”
He hurried out of the living room and down the hall to his bedroom. Through the bedroom, he stepped through another door. He turned on the lights to his small office. He closed the door behind him, then flipped another switch, which made a low clicking noise. This device scrambled any eavesdropping devices that might be pointed at the room. He sat at the desk and opened a drawer. He picked up the phone on the desk and dialed a number.
The phone rang several times before a strange buzzing tone clicked in. When this happened, Fortuna dialed another set of numbers. In a minute, the phone rang again. This time, a voice picked up.
“Alexander?”
“Father?”
“Yes, son. How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Old, Alexander.”
“We have to talk quickly.”
“Yes, yes,” said his father. “I called to praise you. You’ve done excellent work.”
“Thank you.”
“They tell me it was you who planned it all.”
“Yes, it was.”
“You’ve struck a deep blow, son.”
“I know.”
“Can you send something to our friends? The ones in the tenements?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll wire something. It’ll be more than they’ve ever seen.”
“Good. We need them making noise. Also, our other friends, in the hills.”
“Yes, them too. Are all the accounts the same?”
“I’ll ask them to get a message to Karim if anything has changed.”
“Right, good.”
“We need them making noise, deflecting blame, so that you can stab the knife into the heart of the beast.”
“Yes, I know. We’re getting closer, Father.”
“What’s next?”
“The next few days will be severe, truly severe. It will change everything. Watch the news; you’ll see, we’re only days away.”
“When that’s done, perhaps you can rejoin me. Before I die.”
“I’d like that. How is Mattie?”
“She’s married now. She just had a daughter, a girl. Her name is Alexandria, after you. Nebbie is now my right hand. He says hello.”
“Good-bye, Father.”
Fortuna hung up the phone. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, rubbing them with his right hand. He felt tears well up, but he fought them. He returned to his bedroom and walked into the spacious bathroom. He tried to keep from crying. He walked to the mirror and looked at himself.
“Don’t lose your focus,” he whispered to himself. “You’re so close.”
Too close, he often thought.
Fortuna looked around him, at the expansive marble bathroom, the massive stone-tiled shower, the Jacuzzi, the window that framed the broad expanse of Central Park below, its elms and maples dotted with white snow. For as much as he hated America, as much as the acid flowed in his veins, the instinct to harm his adopted country, this venom mingled with regret, a sense of loss; for no matter how much he hated her, America had made him, made possible so much of what he had, the vast wealth, the selection of beautiful women, the houses, everything. America had formed him into what he was.
