Fire Hawk

by Geoffrey Archer

  He turned to the military man to check he’d got his designations correct. The Air Force Brigadier nodded solemnly, then held up a hand to speak.

  ‘Go ahead Brad,’ said the Director.

  ‘I just wanted to set the record straight on this,’ the flyer cautioned. ‘The practicality of shooting down a UAV depends on a whole host of factors. The VR-6 moves. Up to five hundred miles an hour. Getting an interceptor on to it in time won’t be easy. And firing missiles and cannon over a densely populated area doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Joint Chiefs are talking with the President right now to decide what rules of engagement would be acceptable. We might just end up killing as many people by intercepting it as by leaving it to reach its target. However, we have put up a CAP of F-15s and F-16s just in case. And the Army’s Technical Escort Unit from the Chemical and Biological Defense Command at Aberdeen, Maryland is on stand-by to help the Bureau’s own decontamination teams clean up after, if it does happen.’

  He handed back to the Director.

  ‘Thanks Brad. That brings me to the next phase. How we handle the anthrax release if we can’t prevent it. The spores would most likely be sprayed in a line a few hundred feet above the ground upwind of the target, creating an invisible and lethal cloud that would drift onto the victims. In ideal conditions, just a few pounds of biological agent could infect tens of thousands of people this way. The spores, however, are easily damaged by heat and sunlight and can be dispersed by strong winds or rain. Met conditions are critical. The Iraqi terrorist commander is a military specialist, so he’ll know all this. He’ll know too that the weather forecast for the next few days is in his favour. Cool temperatures, light winds, no rain.

  ‘Gentlemen and ladies. If the attack happens, we have to expect that thousands of people will die within a week. All available stocks of antibiotics will be flown from neighbouring states. We can reduce the death rate that way, but only partially. As you all know, pulmonary anthrax is usually fatal. In the days and months after the attack there’ll be the risk of further infection from spores on the ground and in the air-con systems of public buildings. A massive decontamination programme will be required.

  ‘The optimum time for any BW attack is around sundown, which is a perfect fit for the President’s appearance in Philadelphia on Saturday. He’s scheduled to speak at seven p.m. If it is the President the terrorists want to hit, Philadelphia’s the best guess. If they just want to massacre a big crowd, there’s no shortage of targets this weekend. There’s a good half dozen major football games, both college and NFL. And tomorrow in Washington Pledge for the Family is holding a Sacred Assembly in the Mall.’

  Burgess felt ice down his spine. It had crossed his mind, of course, what a fine target tens of thousands of praying Americans would make for a Godless fanatic, but to have it spelled out like this . . . He’d made Carole’s day last evening by telling her that he would be in the Mall with her after all. Now he was going to have to tell her something very different.

  ‘The President is fully engaged in all this, gentlemen and ladies,’ the Director continued. ‘I talked with him just over one hour ago. We discussed issuing a public warning. We talked about cancelling all open-air events. But in the end we agreed to delay that action in the hope we get new intelligence that narrows the focus. A nationwide announcement would cause real panic. The Israelis can do it because their population’s small and they’ve lived in a state of war for nearly fifty years. And they have good stocks of respirators. We don’t. No way can we protect everybody who’s at risk.

  ‘So, no warnings at this stage. Just maximum preparedness of all relevant agencies. For now all we can do is hope. Hope for an intelligence breakthrough and pray this nightmare never becomes real.’

  The meeting wrapped up and Burgess returned to the general office that he shared with a dozen others. The dark-haired nuclear specialist was clearing her desk for the weekend.

  ‘Looks like biological’s going to hit the jackpot,’ she remarked as he passed her pen. ‘No early night for you.’

  ‘You sound almost envious, Jess,’ he commented incredulously.

  She had the grace to look a little embarrassed. ‘Not exactly that, but this is what we train for, isn’t it? So if you need any help, just let me know, okay?’

  ‘I will.’

  He sat back at his desk. On the work surface beside his PC he’d set up a small leather photo frame that contained a picture of Carole and the children. He picked it up. He didn’t want them in Washington this weekend – because of the terrorist risk, however slight that might be in reality, and above all because their presence here would mean him having to face up to that collision between Carole and his career.

  He put the picture down again. He had work to do chasing up US Customs who’d been tasked to search their records for any sign of a container from Ukraine or Cyprus in the past few days. Pointless, since the switched container would surely have originated from somewhere else, but a check that had to be made. He picked up the receiver, but hesitated. Then, instead of dialling customs, he rang home. No point in delaying the evil moment any longer.

  ‘The Burgess residence.’ Dean Junior’s seven-year-old voice pretending to be grownup.

  ‘Hiya kiddo!’

  ‘Dad! You coming home tonight?’

  ‘Not tonight, Dean. Didn’t Mom tell you?’

  ‘Sure, but I thought you might have changed your mind.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve got—’

  ‘Too much work. I know.’ The kid’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. Not bad for a seven-year-old, thought Burgess. ‘Mom’s here.’

  He heard the phone being passed across.

  ‘Honey, you all right?’ Suspicion in her voice. He’d told her not to expect him to ring that evening. ‘We’re still on for tomorrow, I hope.’ They were coming on the train first thing. He’d arranged to meet them at Union Station.

  ‘Carole . . .’ He’d rung without first working out what to say.

  ‘Oh boy . . . I can hear it in your voice. You’re the pits Dean, you know that?’

  ‘Carole listen to me. There’s something going on that I can’t tell you about.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Dean?’ Her voice had gone small, as if suspecting he was having an affair.

  ‘You know what my work is here . . .’

  ‘Well, no, honey,’ she goaded. ‘I don’t. You never talk about it, remember?’

  ‘Counter-terrorism. You know that much Carole,’ he retorted.

  ‘Oh sure. Two words. But that’s all I know.’

  Hell! He was handling this badly. Sliding straight into a spat.

  ‘Carole listen! There’s something going on right now that’s real serious. I don’t want you to come to Washington tomorrow. It could be dangerous for you and for Patty and Dean. I want you and the kids to stay in Westchester tomorrow.’

  There was a long silence at the other end.

  ‘Carole?’

  The line cut as she rang off.

  ‘Shoot.’

  He heard something being dropped on the floor outside his pen. He stood up to look over the partition and came face to face with Jess.

  ‘Just wondered if you needed any help right now,’ she explained awkwardly, picking up a ballpoint. ‘Make some calls for you? I don’t have anything fixed for tonight.’

  ‘No thanks.’ He could see from her blush that she’d overheard his call. ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Sure. See you Monday.’ She handed him a business card. ‘Home number’s on the back. I’m around over the weekend if you change your mind or want company.’

  She was as ready for it as a hooker, thought Burgess. If Carole didn’t shape up he might even . . .

  Oh no. That wasn’t the way.

  He dialled again. The number rang ten times before Carole answered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Honey, listen to me, will you? This is serious.’

  ‘Too damned right it’s serious, D
ean. You think I’m stupid? You think I’ll believe anything you come out with? Any goddamn excuse you care to dream up? You’ve been trying everything to avoid the Pledge assembly. Well it won’t work, Dean.’

  ‘Carole, listen to me . . .’

  ‘I’ve done with listening, Dean. And if you’re not there at Union Station tomorrow morning, I’m done with you too.’

  She rang off. When he dialled again, he found she’d left the phone off the hook.

  19.45 hrs EST

  Newark, NJ

  The flight from Amman via Frankfurt had landed on time. The first few passengers were already emerging. Hanging back from the crowds waiting by the customs barrier in Newark airport’s arrival terminal stood a tall, middle-aged man with sandy-grey hair. His large, Labrador eyes seemed like those of a man at his ease, but inside he was as tense as a coiled spring.

  Naif Hamdan had been in the United States for two days now, just long enough to get over his jet lag and to recce the launch site and target zone. The man he’d come here to meet was the last piece in his jigsaw, a brother officer as dedicated as he was to the removal from power of Saddam Hussein. Major Sadoun’s knowledge of the VR-6 reconnaissance drone was second to none. He’d been responsible for introducing the system into the Iraqi armed forces in 1990 after a stock had been bought from the Soviet Union.

  At first he didn’t recognise Sadoun without his moustache, shaved off for this mission like his own. A short, wiry man, he wore a smart grey suit and towed a small wheeled suitcase. Hamdan made a move towards him, just enough to catch his eye, then turned and headed for the car park, knowing Sadoun would follow.

  They drove in the two cars which Hamdan had hired, heading south on the I-95 towards Baltimore. As each man looked about him at the mongrel mix of American faces in the cars and trucks they passed, his tension grew. In a few days’ time, they knew, some of these people could be in the early stages of death.

  22.45 hrs EST

  Washington DC

  By the time Dean Burgess returned to his small rented room in a red-brick lodging house in Alexandria his mind was pounding around like a carousel on speed. He’d tried continually to call Carole again, but the phone had stayed off the hook. He was pissed with her by now. She was behaving with selfish irresponsibility.

  There’d been a couple of times during the evening when he’d taken from his pocket the card that Jess Bissett had given him. The address was Arlington, the same side of town as Alexandria. Serve Carole right if he had an affair with a woman who understood the importance to him of his work. Particularly one with a body that most men would give a lot to see unclothed.

  But he knew damn well that any satisfaction he got from that would be short-lived. It would solve nothing. Particularly not the immediate problem of Carole being in Washington tomorrow with Patty and Dean, walking into unquantifiable danger like tens of thousands of other innocents. Their train from Manhattan was due in at twelve-thirty. Somehow he had to be there at Union Station to meet them – if only to make darned sure they caught the next train back to New York.

  His room in Alexandria had a single bed, a wardrobe and a table and chair. A bathroom and shower out in the corridor was shared by one other room. For him it was a place to sleep, nothing else, its main advantage being its cheapness and its closeness to the Metro. And the landlady did good breakfast for her tenants. He’d chosen it as a temporary refuge until he moved the family down.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and removed his shoes, wondering how the heck he was going to manage any sleep with his brain on such overdrive. He kept thinking of all the procedures set in motion by the Bureau that day, convinced they’d forgotten something. But then he always felt that way in the middle of a case.

  He lay back on the covers, his eyes on the tasselled satin lampshade that hung from the corniced ceiling. Throughout the evening his mind had kept drifting back to Iraq and to the shock of seeing that Iraqi scientist convulsing on the ground outside the Haji plant. Fanaticism – that’s what they were dealing with here. Men so ready to die for their cause they’d prepared themselves in advance. And some of those men must now be here in the USA. Two men at least. One to launch the drone, the other near the target with a command radio to trigger the release of the fatal pathogens.

  Two men, one of whom would be Colonel Naif Hamdan.

  And no one in America knew what Hamdan looked like. Not a soul. All they had was the hopelessly blurry photograph the British agent had got hold of in Cyprus.

  Burgess sat up suddenly. Of course! Sam Packer had seen Hamdan in the flesh. And where was he? Four thousand miles away on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

  Would SIS co-operate? They darned well had to.

  He looked at his watch. Nearly midnight. Five o’clock Saturday morning in London.

  ‘Sorry Mister Waddell,’ he mouthed, digging into his briefcase for his contacts book. ‘Breakfast’s gonna be real early for you this morning.’

  42

  Saturday, 12 October

  London

  SAM WOKE EARLY, pulled on jeans and a pullover, then walked briskly into Barnes village to buy a newspaper. He’d taken a decision overnight between bouts of sleep – to make an unannounced visit later that morning to his fellow Barnes resident Martin Kessler. He needed to know the truth about Baghdad.

  Back in the flat he’d made himself some fresh coffee and had his nose buried in the Telegraph when the phone rang.

  It was Waddell, ringing to say the Americans wanted him.

  ‘They need your eyes. Think you might spot our Iraqi friend in a crowd. They’ve booked you on Concorde at ten-thirty from Terminal Four. Can you make it?’

  Sam checked his watch again.

  ‘Easily.’

  ‘US Government’s picking up the tab, thank God,’ Waddell added dryly.

  ‘Good for Uncle Sam. Do they have a fix on the switched container yet?’

  ‘No. The Limassol police are holding the owner of the warehouse where the switch took place, but by late last night he hadn’t talked. And, surprise, surprise, the customs files listing the containers stored in the warehouse have disappeared. Khalil’s five million dollars have been spread nice and wide, that’s obvious.’

  ‘Can the warehouse owner be made to talk?’

  ‘Probably. The police in Limassol have been known to dangle a suspect’s head in a metal bucket which they beat with truncheons. Usually works.’

  Sam rang off. A car was coming in half an hour. Just enough time to pack a flight bag.

  Getting the truth out of Martin Kessler would have to wait.

  Washington DC

  Dean Burgess got back into FBI Headquarters shortly after eight a.m. He’d slept little after his call to Duncan Waddell’s home in London. In the CTC he discovered that a fax had come in confirming Packer’s flight details. Concorde would get him as far as JFK in New York, then a shuttle would bring him into Washington National at 11.59 a.m.

  Burgess had been assigned a position in the SIOC from today. He checked into the Operations Center through the security doors and was immediately grabbed by Ive Stobal, who had a good three inches’ height advantage over his own six-two.

  ‘The Cypriots have just ID’d the container,’ he told him in a voice that came up from his boots. ‘It came from Haifa. Contents listed as a printing press. And the US port of entry is Baltimore.’

  ‘My God! Do we have it?’

  ‘We’ll know in a couple of minutes. They’re checking the box number on the Automated Shipping Information System. The ship in question docked nine hours ago, but the port gates didn’t open for truckers until seven. So there’s a chance it’s still there.’

  ‘And we know exactly what’s in the box?’

  ‘Sure. The owner of the Limassol warehouse had his nuts squeezed and has talked. He’s admitted doing a deal with a bunch of Ukrainians. He says a technical team flew in from Odessa and worked on the boxes overnight while the warehouse was unstaffed. The container that had ar
rived from Israel in transit for Baltimore was full of cartons of bad juice, not printing equipment. They took out those pallets and put them into the box from Ukraine bound for Haifa which had brought in the Hawk components. Then they welded launch rails into the empty Israeli box, assembled the drone and fitted it, then closed both boxes and replaced the customs seals. The next day they flew home again and let the shipping agent take over.’

  ‘Neat. Real neat.’

  They stepped over to a computer terminal where a dark-haired woman had a phone pressed to her ear. She turned her head and flashed a smile. It was Jess Bissett.

  ‘I know she’s nuclear, old buddy,’ Stobal whispered, seeing Burgess’s surprise. His mouth was right up close to Burgess’s ear. ‘But she was real hot to be in on this one. Called me up late last night.’ He gave a What could I do? shrug.

  Jess was typing notes straight into the system as she listened to customs. After a couple of minutes she was done.

  ‘Okay. The good news is they found the container on the Baltimore computer. The bad news is it left Seagirt Terminal by truck at seven-thirty this morning.’

  Their eyes turned to the digital clocks above the bank of monitors.

  ‘Fuck! They’ve had nearly an hour already,’ Stobal griped. ‘Okay, we throw up a seventy-mile-radius road block centred on Baltimore port. You got the licence number of the truck?’

  ‘Sure. And the names of the shipping company, the truckers, and the importers. It’s all on the screen.’

  ‘Good. Flash it to the FBI field offices and police in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.’ Stobal took Burgess aside again. ‘Dean, I want you to set up a video conference with the emergency services. This thing could happen a hell of a lot sooner than we thought. But make sure they don’t give anything out to the media yet. Panic is one problem we can do without just now.’