The Last Prophecy - [Kamal & Barnea 07]

by By Jon Land

  “If he was alive, there’d be some record of him somewhere. A paper trail I could find.”

  “There weren’t paper trails in the case of the other eleven.”

  “It’s a lot harder to hide the living than the dead, sir.”

  Winters imagined his wife still crouched in front of the open refrigerator, the food inside slowly warming. “I think he’s back, Major. I think he’s here.”

  “Mr. Ambassador, I can’t find any record of—”

  “This is my son we’re talking about. Special Forces team leader. You think he couldn’t do it if he wanted, find a way to subvert all this record keeping? Make it back under the radar?”

  “I’m hoping not, sir.” Jefferson frowned.

  “Why in God’s name?”

  “Because the eleven dead soldiers were shot with a single weapon: a Sig-Sauer nine-millimeter pistol. Standard Special Forces issue.”

  “You’re not saying . . .”

  “The bullets, Mr. Ambassador,” Jefferson continued, expression tightening. “They were traced to your son’s gun.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 80

  W

  ell?” Delbert Fisher asked, closing the door to Jake Fleming’s office behind him.

  Jake’s eyes were transfixed on the screen. “Give me a sec, will ya?”

  He was holding a wireless joystick balanced in his two hands, jerking it up and down, left and right. “Man, I never played any of these games with a computer this powerful before.”

  “Our system doesn’t run games,” Fisher said, striding over.

  “You mean, it didn’t used to. It does now. I downloaded a whole bunch.”

  Fisher gazed over Jake’s shoulder at an alien creation being decapitated by a laserlike death ray. “How’d you pay for them?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It’s easy. I’ll teach you how, if you want.”

  “So the U.S. government has now broken every copyright law on the books.”

  “Actually, I did it on the government’s behalf. Lighten things up around here,” Jake said, as the monitor flashed “Game Over.” “Shit. I can’t get past Level Seven on this thing.” And he leaned forward to reboot the machine for another try.

  Fisher took a deep breath. “What about those designations on the incoming messages?”

  A copyright notice flashed across Jake’s screen. He clicked on “Accept” under the Conditions tab and winked at Fisher.

  “Did you hear what I just said?” Fisher asked him.

  “Sure. The designations. I couldn’t decode them because they’re not written in code.”

  “What?”

  “Not encrypted. Do I have to draw a picture for you?”

  “When did you realize this?”

  “This morning. By accident. I was playing another game and—”

  “You didn’t think to buzz me?”

  “I figured you had everything under control, Del.”

  “Assume I don’t, Jake.”

  “Safe assumption, by the look of things.”

  Delbert Fisher placed himself between Jake Fleming and the computer screen. “You’re telling me you know what the designations mean?”

  Jake slid his chair sideways so he could see his screen again. “Not yet, dude, but I’m getting close.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 81

  W

  elcome to Cuba,” the pilot announced over the loudspeaker, as the private jet rolled to a halt on the runway at Guantanamo Bay naval base.

  Both Ben and Danielle had already unfastened their seat belts, eager for the meeting General Alexis Arguayo had assured them he’d set up with Sharif ali-Aziz Moussan. They also insisted that he provide the Gulfstream that was one of ten private jets in the United Nations fleet. The Gulfstream had managed the flight without a single refueling stop. With the time difference, this allowed Ben and Danielle to arrive in Cuba while the afternoon sun was still burning high and hot. They saw a Humvee speeding along the Tarmac, a pair of soldiers inside, and could only hope they were coming to escort them to Moussan.

  The jet’s copilot opened the Gulfstream’s door and lowered the landing steps. A flood of heat instantly invaded the Gulfstream’s climate-controlled cabin. Ben and Danielle felt the assault of a tropical breeze as soon as they set foot on the top step outside. The sun was scalding, and the air around the jet’s cooling engines seemed to glow.

  A marine officer standing at the foot of the stairs saluted when Ben and Danielle reached the bottom. “Inspectors Kamal and Barnea, I’m Captain Anderson, United States Marine Corps. My orders are to escort you to your meeting with Sharif ali-Aziz Moussan. Has anyone been over the ground rules with you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll brief you on the way. Now, if you’ll follow me . . .”

  He escorted Ben and Danielle to the waiting Humvee and held the rear door open for them before climbing into the front and nodding toward the driver.

  “We’re going to the primary intake and interrogation center,” Anderson announced, turning his body so he could face them in the Humvee’s rear seat. “Are you familiar with that, Inspectors?”

  “Not at all.”

  “The building was constructed specifically to address the needs of the POWs whose care we’re entrusted with. Before being permitted to speak to any prisoner, your identifications must be double-checked and confirmed. Since you are nonmilitary, a prisoner may not be forced to speak to you or to do so without the company of a base representative or adjutant. The prisoner may request the interrogation be recorded, but no tapes, either audio or video, are permitted to leave the base without prior permission. Is all this clear so far?”

  Ben and Danielle both nodded.

  “The prisoner may choose to end the interrogation at any time. He may refuse to answer any and all of your questions. He will be behind security glass the entire time. Do not attempt to hand him anything or accept any material through the pass-through. Should you require any such exchange, please consult with the officer in charge. The interrogation rooms are secure. No representative of the military will be present, unless the prisoner requests it. The interrogation will not be recorded unless you or he so requests. Is this clear?”

  “Yes,” Ben and Danielle said together.

  Captain Anderson nodded to himself and turned back around to face forward. “Then welcome to Guantanamo Bay.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 82

  T

  he intake and interrogation center was a square steel and concrete building that bore the signs of being built for function over form. The building lay inside a fenced-in perimeter on the eastern side of the Guantanamo property, effectively a base within a base constructed to hold men purported to be among the most dangerous in the world. The prisoners’ cells, originally contained in mere outdoor kennel-sized shelters, were now housed in an ever-expanding series of buildings similar in design and construction to the intake center. A trio of guard towers had been added for good measure and sentries patrolled the prison complex’s perimeter on constant watch. Additionally, all prisoners were fitted with an ankle bracelet that served as a locator as well as being capable, according to rumor, of injecting a sedative via long-range remote control.

  Captain Anderson led Ben and Danielle into the building where they were subjected to both a manual and photo X-ray search to scan for any weapons they might have been carrying. From there they were escorted into a windowless interrogation room that featured a long steel table running down the center of its entire width. A glass wall had been installed from the top of the table all the way to the ceiling. There were no holes in the glass for a voice to travel through, but Danielle noticed tiny wires built into the glass, indicative of wireless microphones and a single envelope-sized slot through which materials could be passed.

  As they took their chairs, a door on the other side of the glass wall opened and a pair of soldiers led Sharif ali-Aziz Mous
san into the room, followed at a discreet distance by a third wielding an M-16. As the armed soldier stood vigil, the other two locked Moussan’s arm shackles into slots built into the table and his leg irons into bolts driven into the floor. Satisfied he was restrained, the soldiers retraced their steps from the interrogation room, followed out by the armed sentry just as they had come in.

  Moussan watched them go, then stared through the glass at his latest inquisitors. His eyes narrowed when they fell on Danielle. He snickered hatefully and then yanked on his chains as he tried to rise, seeming to forget they were there.

  “You,” he sneered.

  “I understand you’re cooperating, Moussan.”

  “Not with you.” His voice emerged a bit mechanically through an unseen speaker.

  “Not yet, anyway.” Danielle glanced at Ben. “Inspector Kamal and I want to hear about the operation you were prepared to launch against the United States. The centerpiece of Al Awdah.”

  “It would have been glorious,” Moussan pronounced proudly.

  “Then why were you running when we met up in Mogadishu?”

  Moussan looked surprised she had figured it out.

  “We know about your base of operations being raided in Germany,” Danielle continued.

  “I’ve already told the Americans all this.”

  “Now tell us.”

  “Much intelligence, many resources and assets were lost. One of my men managed to erase all electronic data, so the Americans would not be able to find our Al Awdah agents. Unfortunately, though, neither would we. We needed to regroup, rebuild. That was why we sought to acquire the weapons in Mogadishu, an exchange your presence there ruined.”

  “What if your agents in the United States never got the message?” Danielle asked him.

  “Of course they did. You speak the words of a fool.”

  “No, Moussan. Inspector Kamal and I believe someone else has taken over your operation, that it remains active today.”

  “Impossible!”

  “We believe it’s going to be put into effect on schedule the day after tomorrow.”

  Moussan’s chains rattled on the other side of the glass. His face paled. “How do you know this?”

  “Right or wrong?”

  “That was the original date chosen, yes, but how did you know?”’ Moussan demanded again.

  “Because it’s all spelled out in an ancient prophecy that’s about to come true unless we can stop it. Would you like to help us stop it?”

  “Why should I? If you speak the truth, this is a blessing. I will thank God when it comes to pass.”

  “You’ll never know, because you’ll be in solitary confinement here for the rest of your life. Forget about gaining privileges, perhaps even your eventual release. If you don’t help us, you will never see the sun again.”

  “Who are these men, Moussan?” Ben demanded. “How can we find them?”

  “Their real identities are useless to you,” he replied, addressing himself to Danielle. “And I don’t know where to find them—by design, I might add.”

  “What about the targets?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t tell you that even if I wanted to, because I never knew; no one did, other than the individual operatives. They were provided with parameters, no more. Also by design.”

  “Parameters,” Ben echoed.

  “A school in one state, a hospital in another, a movie theater in a third,” Moussan said, pride lacing his voices. “Just examples, you understand.”

  Danielle’s eyes bore through the glass. “These were your targets?”

  “A restaurant, a shopping mall, a post office,” Moussan continued. “A subway tunnel, a railroad, a bridge, an interstate highway, major electrical switching stations and processing plants. There were hard targets of opportunity on the list, yes, but our purpose was to strike the Americans in the soft places they have so long taken for granted. We wanted to change their very way of life forever, make them live in fear. How long would it be before they would go back to a restaurant, send their children to school, leave their homes? They recovered from the effects of September 11. They would never recover from this.”

  “Have you seen the way prisoners are treated who don’t cooperate, Moussan?” Ben asked him. “Of course you haven’t. You’re not supposed to; no one is. But you’ve heard, I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “I am telling you what I know!”

  “Then tell us how the cells contacted each other.”

  “E-mail, always e-mail!” Moussan insisted, repeating what General Alexis Arguayo had told Ben and Danielle.

  “Then there would’ve been an activation code.”

  “Yes.”

  “As well as a termination code.”

  Moussan shook his head slowly. “There was no need.”

  “Why?” Danielle demanded.

  “Because the agents were not to launch their strikes until word of the first success reached them. We called it the triggering event, something that would set the entire operation in motion.”

  “Tell us the triggering event.”

  “I don’t know what it is.”

  “Bullshit!” Danielle roared, slamming the glass divider so hard that Moussan jerked backward.

  He calmed himself quickly, let a smile linger on his lips. “You’d like it to be bullshit, but it’s not. I don’t know what the triggering event is because I didn’t choose it. And I can’t tell you how to find the man responsible because I don’t know myself.” Moussan clamped his lips together, then changed his mind. “You want his name?” he asked, staring at Danielle. “Hassan Tariq. I believe you know him.”

  “But he was with you in Mogadishu.”

  “And then he must have returned to his post in America. If what you say about the plot is true, Inspector, he would have gotten the word via e-mail. He’d be in position by now.”

  Danielle felt herself grow cold, recalling the deadly assassin she had last seen fleeing into the warehouse back in Mogadishu. “Don’t think this glass could stop me from killing you, Moussan.”

  “How does it feel to be scared for your world?”

  “Where can I find Tariq?”

  “Somewhere on the East Coast. That was his only instruction. It will happen sometime early in the day of the action, no later than noon. After that even you will be powerless to stop the chain of events that follow.”

  “How can we identify Tariq’s target?”

  “Final confirmation by e-mail, containing target specifications, was required prior to activation. His confirmation would be the top one on the list.”

  “And this list?”

  Moussan frowned smugly, stopping just short of a smile. “So far as I know, it was destroyed in Germany.”

  The door to the interrogation room opened to reveal Captain Anderson standing there rigidly.

  “Inspectors Kamal, Barnea, the two of you need to come with me immediately.”

  Ben and Danielle looked at each other, then back at Anderson.

  “What is it?” Ben asked.

  “Please, Inspectors. Now.”

  They rose and moved toward the door, followed the whole time by the cold gaze of Moussan. A pair of soldiers waited in the hallway, M-16s leveled and ready.

  “I have been ordered to take you into custody, Inspectors,” Captain Anderson told them.

  “Us? Why?” Danielle demanded.

  “Please turn around, hands behind your backs.”

  “Not until you tell us what the hell is going on.”

  The two soldiers brought their M-16s into firing position.

  Anderson nodded grudgingly. “A few hours ago, the body of General Alexis Arguayo was found in his office in The Hague. The two of you are being held on suspicion of his murder.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 83

  T

  hey’re what!” Delbert Fisher asked, not believing what Jake Fleming had just told him.

  Jake sat behind his desk, the gorgon creatures re
placed on his screen by the fifty confirmations, each accompanied by its own combination of letters and numbers. “GPS notations. Precise latitude and longitude figures.”

  “Locations?”

  “Yeah, that’d be my guess. You got one of those navigation things in your car?”