Price put his hands up apologetically. “I know, I’m sorry, it’s not my call.”
“Whose call was it then?”
Annie held up her ID. “Mine.”
The man didn’t even look at it. “Yeah? Who the hell are you?”
“Homeland Security. We need to look at this container.” Annie read out the number.
The foreman laughed. “You think we can take you right to the container just like that, huh?”
Connor stepped forward. He hadn’t meant to, as he knew these types weren’t easily intimidated by shows of force. Nor did they usually give a crap about law enforcement. They were roughnecks working for a living. He stopped himself before he turned Bad Cop. “Look, no joke, this is a matter of national security. We’re not here to mess with you or ruin your day. We just really need to get a look into that container. You’d be doing me a solid if you help us out.”
The foreman eyed Connor for a long moment, then lifted his clipboard and started flipping through pages. It took him about two minutes to find what he was looking for. “All right, you’re in luck. It’s in the next batch to offload.”
It took another twenty minutes to offload and hook up to the container in question. Price took advantage of that time to clear out all non-essential personnel. Connor wanted to tell him it wouldn’t matter—if it was a nuke and it went off, there wasn’t anywhere at the docks they could go—but instead he just watched the crane lower the container and set it on the dock in a wide-open space lit by four floodlights.
Connor felt his pulse quicken as they approached the end of the container. His eyes flicked from the lock, which was still in place, to the orange seal, which appeared intact. Connor hoped that meant everything was fine with the contents. It hadn’t been jostled or tampered with.
He scanned the yard, looking for anyone too interested in what they were doing—only to realize that everyone was too interested in what they were doing. It wasn’t every day someone interrupted the offloading schedule to focus on one container. It was like rubbernecking at a traffic accident.
One of the crewmen handed the foreman a large pair of bolt cutters. He rested them on his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Connor. “And you’re sure you guys don’t need a warrant to look inside this thing?”
Connor shook his head. “We’ve got the paperwork, and if you want to see, I can have it choppered in, but it might take another half hour before it arrives.”
“Screw that noise, I can’t afford the time as it is. But I ain’t taking the rap for this.” The foreman held out the bolt cutters. “You kill it, you skin it.”
Connor took the heavy bolt cutters and moved to the door. He was through with all the dramatics. There were only two ways this night was going to end. They’d either stop the nuke, or they wouldn’t. Simple as that.
He clamped the biting end of the bolt cutters down on the padlock, took a deep breath, and squeezed.
The lock snapped.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?” Thompson muttered under his breath.
Twelve hours after the debacle at the port, Connor was still fuming. Though he guessed he wasn’t as mad as the shipping company would be when they realized what happened to their cargo.
The container had contained nothing but olive oil.
Fortunately, their failure hadn’t become widespread knowledge. Connor attributed that to Richards’s fast response. Evidently he’d peppered all the witnesses with significant bonuses on top of legal warnings to not speak of the incident to anyone.
Now, the morning after, Connor, Richards, and Thompson stood in the corner of the operations and logistics war room for the new joint counterterrorism task force that had been set up by Homeland Security. Annie had returned to Baltimore to go through the Decklin Bros warehouse again. She didn’t think she’d missed anything, but after the wild-goose chase they’d just been on, she’d wanted to be sure. Connor couldn’t blame her, though he doubted she’d find anything.
The task force’s goal was to piece together the evidence from the Manhattan bombings and bring the perpetrators to justice. The “war room” was actually an entire floor of the FBI’s New York field office, but despite its impressive size, Connor couldn’t help but feel claustrophobic. Over fifty FBI agents, supervisors, and deputy directors, along with teams from the NYPD, Homeland Security, and the military, were packed in like sardines, stepping all over each other.
Connor had argued against the location, thinking it might be an obvious location for the next target, but his objections hadn’t made it past Thompson. It wasn’t their place to present ideas or to stand out, he said. Their job was to stand in the back and listen.
The three Outfit members wore badges identifying them as executive liaisons with the National Security Agency, which effectively made them black holes in the room. In the Intelligence Community, the NSA was typically known as the brother that didn’t like sharing his toys, and who would, whenever possible, blame the other children for any mistake he might be accused of.
Connor considered what they’d learned from Khan, and what it had led to. Khan hadn’t given up the information about the ship willingly—not by a long shot. Connor believed one hundred percent that the man was telling the truth—as he knew it. Which meant either that the plan had changed, or that Khan had never known the real plan. Hakimi had lied to him.
“If there is a bomb,” he said quietly, “it’s already here.”
“What do you mean if?” Thompson said.
“You know this entire scheme doesn’t make sense. If they’re going to rob a bank—let’s just say they’re going to try and pull a Die Hard with a Vengeance and break into the Federal Reserve—they wouldn’t go out of their way to bomb everything else. I mean, hundreds of police and FBI agents are now swarming the city looking for them.”
“Don’t forget about the National Guard,” Richards added.
“Exactly. Their attacks have done nothing but bolster our security. Not very good tradecraft if you ask me. Wherever they try to breach, they’ll immediately have a swarm of law enforcement swoop down and pick them up before they even get started.”
“So, what—are you saying we’re dealing with a bunch of incompetent international terrorists?” Richards asked. “Because if you forget the bank robbery angle for a minute, they’re doing a pretty damn good job at sowing fear and discontent, which, I don’t think I need to remind you, is a terrorist’s general purpose.”
“You’re right, generally speaking,” Connor said. “But in this case, I don’t know.”
“Have you considered that the bombs and whatever Wagner was talking about aren’t even connected?” Thompson asked. “The sheikh was pretty convinced that the bombings were just a prelude to the final act. What did he call it again?”
“The act that would seal America’s fate forever,” Connor said, remembering the line. In his drugged state, the sheikh had said many things. They wanted the people to know the police and the military couldn’t protect the people. They knew, rightfully so, that bombs in the homeland would paralyze the nation. “And yes, I have thought about the connection between Hakimi’s people and whatever the Germans were going on about. Brice said that the explosives had a chemical signature that led back to known German military suppliers, but Khan knew about the explosives set up in Manhattan. That suggests the Germans knew or at least had some idea of what Khan and Hakimi were planning. And of course, there’s that Ericka woman, who I guess works for Müller, she certainly hinted at the connection between the olive oil and the bombs being a decoy. It sure seems like we’ve got some crossed signals and confusion all over this case.”
“They’ve got us chasing our tails,” Richards said. “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Connor sipped his coffee. He couldn’t help the feeling that he’d come full circle, moving from one packed office to another. Both of which had him waiting on other people to make decision
s. Decisions that might or might not be made based on valid intelligence. It wasn’t like they had much actionable data.
“That’s just my point though,” Connor said. “Why are we chasing our tails?”
“Uh, because some crazy terrorists have decided to blow up a bunch of random landmarks,” Richards said.
“What if it’s not random?” Connor asked.
Thompson raised an eyebrow. “Are you seeing a pattern that we aren’t?”
“I don’t know that there’s a pattern to see,” Connor said. “The target themselves might very well be random, but the intent might not be.”
“All right, so what’s their intent, other than to sow mayhem?”
Connor scoffed. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
A group of people started pressing together in the middle of the office, pointing and calling others over. Before long, half of the room was gathered around the long table that served as the room’s centerpiece. Several were speaking in excited voices, and others immediately got on their cell phones and walked to the sides of the room to be heard over the commotion.
“What the hell is going on?” Richards asked, stepping forward.
As if in answer to his question, TV screens around the room all started displaying the same image—a middle-aged Arabic man wearing a traditional thobe and kufi. His beard was unkempt and he wore small, wire-framed glasses. He spoke to the camera directly, occasionally looking off-screen to what Connor assumed was his script.
“Mohammad Hakimi,” Connor said aloud. “About time you show your face.”
“I am Mohammad Hakimi, and I have come here to tell you a story. A story about oppression and greed and evil. The powers of the West have long conspired against my people and those like me, threatening to destroy our very way of life. You have come into our country and demolished our homes, murdered our women and children, and have done so under the flag of peace. You have lied to the world about your intentions and reasons, and you have managed to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, hiding them from the truth.”
Hakimi paused a beat, then continued. “The truth is that this, all of this, is your fault. Despite what your leaders tell you, it was your country that began this war, not us. We did not infiltrate your country and murder your leaders and holy men. We did not flood the streets of your cities with savages bent on disrupting every aspect of your lives and call it peacekeeping. You have brought sorrow and despair upon my people, and now I am forced to repay that debt in kind.
“I have hidden a nuclear bomb in your city. You will not find it. But despite what you may think, I consider myself a reasonable man. I do now wish to detonate this device. And I will not detonate it if my conditions are met. You must recall and remove one hundred percent of your murdering soldiers from our lands. You must publicly promise to never return, and to take no further aggressive actions against my people. You must turn off all power to the city’s power grid—and I do mean all. And you must transfer one hundred billion dollars to the account specified at the bottom of this image.” Hakimi pointed to the bottom of the screen.
“There will be no further transmissions or communications. You will not find me or the bomb. You have seen our capabilities so far. Those explosions were merely demonstrations of our ability and resolve. Do not test me. You have seventy-two hours. Allahu Akbar.”
The video ended, then immediately started replaying.
“What in the hell?” Richards said, turning to face the other two men.
“There’s no way he could’ve gotten into the city,” Thompson said, pulling out his phone. “He’s got to be lying.”
“What the hell does shutting down the power grid have anything to do with anything?” Richards asked.
Connor shook his head. None of it made sense, nor did it line up with anything Hakimi had done in his past.
As he watched the video play a second time, he studied the man’s face. When Hakimi started talking about recalling the soldiers he shifted in his chair and looked briefly off-camera—but not to where he’d been reading off his cue cards. It was almost like he was glaring at someone, projecting frustration on someone else there in the room with him. He did the same thing when he mentioned the money.
“Brice?” Thompson had his phone pressed to his ear. “Yeah. Did you get that? Okay, run everything you got on it ASAP. Voice analysis, light reflection of the eye to determine location, anything and everything. I want to know what you find in ten minutes, got it? Good. Call me back.”
Chaos had already erupted in the center of the room as everyone tried to advance their ideas. Two men even had to be separated before their argument progressed to throwing punches. After a minute of shouting and chest-pounding, one of the Homeland Security division heads climbed onto the table and put his hands in the air.
“Enough!” he bellowed. “This isn’t going to do us any good.”
Thompson leaned close to Connor and whispered, “That’s Deputy Director Sean Harold. He’s one of the few Homeland guys we actually don’t have a problem dealing with.”
“We need to break this down into target groups,” Harold said. He pointed. “NYPD, you guys are heads down keeping a curfew. After people get wind of this guy’s message, you’ll have a panic on your hands. National Guard, you work with the police on how best to deploy your numbers. Audio, I want to know if there’s anything we’re missing: background noise, other voices, the works. Where are our tech guys at? Break it down and put it back together. I want to know everything about this clip, what camera made it, is it possible we’re missing nuclear material, where it was shot at, total profile on this Hakimi, the works. Counter-Terrorism…”
As Harold continued, Connor turned to Thompson. “This whole thing… it isn’t Hakimi’s style at all.”
Richards raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you our resident terrorist expert now?”
“No, I’m not,” Connor said, resisting the urge to lash out. “But I did a lot of research on him, and I know that he’s never, ever, asked for anything in return for not bombing someone. And when he spoke to Khan on the phone, he said he’d make the Great Satan pay for what we’d done. He’s going to blow that nuke. It doesn’t matter what we do. The rest of this… this is just a stall tactic.”
“Or maybe he just changed his mind,” Richards offered. “Saw some dollar signs.”
“Not a chance,” Connor responded, crossing his arms. “There’s only one thing this guy cares about, and that’s killing infidels—namely all of us. He doesn’t give a crap about money or removing our troops from his lands. All he cares about is how much death and destruction he can inflict on us before he collects on his seventy-two virgins.”
Connor tried to run through everything that had happened as if he himself were running Hakimi’s operation. “Stay with me on this. If you want maximum death, you don’t broadcast that you have a nuke beforehand. That gives people a chance to evacuate. No, you just use it.”
“Maybe he wants people to know that it was him,” Thompson said.
“If he simply wanted people to know it was him, he could release his video later, after the attack.”
“True. But have you considered that maybe he really would rather have his demands met than to merely blow up a city? He could have realized that the old tactics are ineffective, and they need to try other things to beat us.”
“No. He isn’t trying to get his demands met, because they’re unmeetable. He has to know there’s no possible way to extract the thousands of troops, supplies, and equipment we have deployed around the Middle East in three days. It’s not even within the realm of possibility. Even if we just take the people and leave everything else, we’re still talking about a couple weeks at least.”
“And then there’s the power grid,” Richards said. “I don’t see the motivation for that.”
Connor frowned. “Yeah. I don’t either.”
“Could be something to help Müller with his epic bank robbery. Unless th
e heist was just a diversion.”
“That doesn’t make sense either. If he sells this heist to his people, and it doesn’t happen, he loses all credibility. What is he going to say: ‘Oh, never mind, maybe next time?’ I don’t think so.”
“Maybe he wants the lights out to make sure we don’t have any of the radiation detectors running so he can really plant the bomb?”
Connor shook his head, looking around the room. He found what he was looking for and pointed. “See that? The military liaisons are already on the phones. All of them. I’d bet you a hundred bucks that they’re scrambling everything they’ve got. If the president doesn’t make an announcement about this in the next ten minutes, I’d be surprised.”
“Isn’t that what these assholes want?” Richards asked. “Attention.”
“Right, but they want to be remembered as the people who brought down America,” Connor said. “Let’s play it out. Let’s say we do pull all the troops out and we shut down electricity and we get him his money, what then? Do you honestly think he’s just going to walk away, ride off into the sunset with his loot? Let bygones be bygones? No way in hell. He hates America. He hates everything we stand for. He doesn’t give a crap about money.”
There was a sudden commotion as a team of military officers left the room. The man in the center of the group, two stars prominent on his camouflage uniform, was barking orders into a cell phone. “No, the entire division, move them in. And contact General Adams. I want his birds in the air yesterday. Lock everything down.”
A sense of foreboding came over Connor. “This is going to get worse before it gets better.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The rhythmic thumping of the helicopter reverberated through the new Tahoe’s interior. The aircraft was so low, Connor could feel it in his chest. He leaned forward, looking out through the windshield. Two Apache helicopters cut through the air between two tall buildings, threading the needle.
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