Foreign Influence

by Brad Thor

  The woman stepped out of her way, but followed Casey toward the women’s bathroom.

  Approaching the door, she pretended to falter and the woman rushed forward to grab her arm.

  She helped steady Casey and steer her into the ladies’ room. As she did, she took the opportunity once more to chastise her. “Shame on you,” she hissed. “You should know better than to come to mosque when you are sick.”

  “I’m not sick, darling,” said Casey in her best Texas drawl as the door shut behind them and she reached over to lock it. “But I am getting pretty tired of what a bitch you’re being.”

  “I, I, I,” the woman stammered, suddenly aware that something very bad was happening.

  “Yup. You, you, you,” replied the Athena Team leader as she pulled her Taser from beneath her burqa and stun-drove it into the woman’s chest.

  The doorkeeper’s muscles seized up and Casey caught her as she fell forward. She was in the process of removing the woman’s burqa to bind and gag her when she heard Ericsson’s voice over her earpiece, “We’re in the hallway. All clear.”

  Casey reached up and unlocked the door. Rodriguez and Cooper helped her secure the doorkeeper in one of the stalls as Ericsson continued to keep watch. Once they had her out of the way, Casey radioed Harvath that they were heading to the basement. Morning prayers would not last long, so they needed to move quickly.

  With suppressed weapons at the ready beneath their burqas, they descended the narrow staircase. Casey took the lead, followed by Cooper, Rodriguez, and Ericsson.

  On the ground floor they retrieved their shoes and proceeded to the end of the hallway where they found the door al-Fihri claimed led to the basement. Casey reached out and tried to open it, but it was locked.

  She stood back and signaled Cooper, who stepped forward, checked the door for any sort of alarm, and then pulled out a lockpick gun. Within seconds, she had the dead bolt taken care of. Nodding at Casey, she stepped away from the door, replaced the lockpick tool beneath her burqa and readied her weapon.

  Casey grabbed hold of the door handle and counted down quietly from three. When she said “Go” and opened the door, they followed her into the stairwell and down the stairs.

  Their presence on the stairs was greeted with a string of sharp words spoken in Arabic. A young man, no more than twenty-two years old, with a Glock placed on the prayer mat in front of him, demanded to know what they were doing.

  “Salam, salam,” peace, repeated Casey in the traditional Muslim greeting as she continued down the stairs toward him.

  The man was nervous. The women didn’t belong there.

  Had he not had a weapon sitting right in front of him, Casey would have transitioned to her Taser, but her primary duty was to protect her life and those of her teammates.

  Don’t go for the gun, she begged him under her breath, but he did. It was a bad decision and the last one the young man would ever make.

  Casey fired two suppressed rounds from beneath her burqa, both striking him in the face. It was a very difficult shot, especially having to aim down a set of stairs and firing from behind clothing.

  The young man was still alive as they reached the last step, but barely. Pulling out her MP5, she popped him twice, just above the bridge of his nose, finishing the job.

  “Contact,” she said over the radio. “Tango down.”

  The man had collapsed on his prayer mat and Cooper and Ericsson used it to drag him underneath the stairs before the blood soaked through and stained the floor. Once they had him stashed they all removed their burqas. There was a distinct chemical odor in the air.

  With Rodriguez covering the door at the top of the stairs, they got ready to clear the rest of the basement.

  The fact that they had encountered an armed man told them two things. Not everyone had gone upstairs for morning prayers, and there was something down here someone felt very serious about protecting. Judging by the odor, whoever was down here wasn’t preparing cookies for the mosque bake sale.

  The hallway ran the length of the building above with four doors along each side. The amplified voice of the imam radiated down through the ceiling and vibrated the dusty light fixtures above them.

  Casey withdrew a special device with a long piece of fiber-optic cable from her pocket. She hit pay dirt with the very first door. Slipping the cable beneath it and raising the unit to her eye, she saw a makeshift lab, complete with long tables, jammed with glass jars, soldering guns, nylon bags of some sort, and stacks of discarded electronic equipment. She signaled for the team not to move. Beyond the tables, she could see at least six men, prostrated on prayer rugs.

  Pulling the cable back out from under the door, she turned to her teammates and drew a quick diagram on the floor.

  The room appeared to run the entire length of the building on its south side. It must have been subdivided into offices or separate storerooms at some point as it had four doors leading into it. Casey planned to use this feature to their advantage.

  Moving down the hallway, so she could get a good look at the men from the front, she positioned herself near the last door and fed the cable only partway beneath it.

  She noticed that the voice of the imam above was even louder here and figured there must be speakers in this basement room, just as there had been in the women’s prayer hall.

  Once again, she counted six men, all of whom had weapons with them on their prayer mats. At the very end, furthest from the door, was Rafiq Wadi. Gone was the beard he’d been wearing in the photo his brother Saud had showed them back at the plumbing warehouse. Like the five other men he was praying with, all were clean-shaven. That was a bad sign that this group had performed the Islamic ritual cleansing rites intended to speed their way into paradise. They appeared ready indeed to go operational.

  Casey studied the men, trying to discern who was in charge, but it was impossible to figure out. Carefully, she withdrew the cable and backed away from the door.

  The prayer service was almost over. She checked to make sure none of the doors were wired and then quickly cleared the other rooms. They were all being used for storage of one sort or another and one even appeared to be a bike room.

  She searched for a fuse box or a circuit breaker, but couldn’t find one. They would have to come up with some other kind of distraction.

  Based on the smell and the compounds known to have been used in the other attacks, Casey had no doubt these men were constructing organic peroxide explosives. This was going to be one of the trickiest assaults they had ever conducted. One wrong move and the entire building could be leveled; maybe even the entire block. Their job was made even more complicated by the fact that they needed to take as many of the men inside alive as possible.

  Casey didn’t have time to formulate an elaborate plan. They also couldn’t risk using flash bangs for fear of setting off the bombs inside. They were going to have to go in hard and fast and hope that the element of surprise would give them enough of an edge.

  She decided to pull Nikki off of covering the door at the top of the stairwell. Though this would leave their rear vulnerable, right now the men in that room posed a greater threat than anyone who might come down the stairs.

  The room’s occupants were praying between the third and fourth doors and that’s where Casey decided to hit them. She would take door number four with Cooper, while Rodriguez and Ericsson took door number three. Cooper and Ericsson would be armed with their MP5s while she and Rodriguez, the fastest and most accurate shooters on the team, would be armed with their Tasers. The idea was to incapacitate all of the men if possible. If any of them were able to pick up their weapons, it was up to Cooper and Ericsson to take them out.

  When both fire teams were positioned at their respective doors, Casey tightened her grip around the X3, took a breath, and then once again counted down from three.

  CHAPTER 47

  Though the sight of four heavily armed women kicking in the doors of their bomb factory scared the hell ou
t of them, the six Muslim terrorists had been trained well and didn’t allow their fear to paralyze them.

  They were in the process of rising from their prayer mats when the two doors exploded inward. In various stages of standing, they reacted quickly, scrambling for their weapons almost in unison; all except for Rafiq Wadi.

  There was a series of pops as Casey and Rodriguez deployed their Taser cartridges. Cooper fired two rounds from her MP5, hitting one of the terrorists in the arm and upper chest. Ericsson fired her MP5 as well, hitting one of the men in the hand and the neck as he lunged for his weapon.

  It was chaos as the men fell to the ground. The terrorists with the neck and chest wounds were already bleeding out.

  Rafiq Wadi lay down on his prayer mat with his hands over the back of his head. He was yelling, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.” As a precaution and just to get him to shut up, Casey Tasered him anyway.

  Cooper covered the men, while Ericsson entered the room and secured their weapons. As she did, Casey activated her radio. “Six tangos in custody, two with multiple GSWs.”

  “What about explosives?” replied Harvath.

  “Stand by.”

  The team secured the prisoners while Casey began searching the room for bombs. She went directly to the bike messenger bags and sure enough, they were loaded with explosives. There was a row of panniers and they had been loaded with explosives as well.

  “I’ve got multiple explosive devices here. At least fifteen, maybe more. The compound appears to be TATP and it has been packaged in bicycle messenger bags and large panniers. It looks like they have been packed with ball bearings.”

  “Roger that,” replied Harvath, who now realized how they were going to navigate traffic and all enter Piccadilly at the same time. It was not only extremely low-tech, it was incredibly creative. This method had been used in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. People rarely gave bike messengers or bike riders a second glance. While police would be keeping their eyes out for backpacks, bicycle-borne bombs could very well escape their scrutiny. They could weave in and out of traffic and park just about anywhere. Not only would it work well in London, where riders with their heads down could obscure their faces from surveillance cameras, the tactic would be brilliant in bicycle-choked Amsterdam. “Do you see any bikes?”

  “Affirmative. There’s a roomful across the hall.”

  “Don’t move any of them. They could be packed with explosives too,” cautioned Harvath, who pictured bike shrapnel in addition to the ball bearings in the bags tearing people apart.

  “Roger that.”

  “Are the bags armed?”

  “Checking,” said Casey as she examined one of the bags more closely. “There are wires leading to some sort of reflection beacon. I’m assuming that when the beacon gets turned on, that’s when the bags blow.”

  “We’ll leave that for the bomb technicians.”

  “Affirm—” began Casey but then her voice broke off.

  “You’re breaking up. Repeat, please.”

  “The bags are hot,” she said. “All of them.”

  “Are you talking about the beacons?” replied Harvath.

  “Negative. Each bag has a chicken switch. They’re wired to cell phones and the cell phones are powered up.”

  Harvath looked at Ashford and Marx sitting in the van next to him listening in. “Any way we can jam cell phone signals from entering that mosque?”

  “We don’t have any jamming equipment with us,” replied the MI5 agent.

  “How quickly could we get it?”

  Marx looked at her watch. “Ours would probably take at least an hour.”

  “How about MI5?” Harvath asked Ashford.

  “Probably the same amount of time depending on where the nearest gear is.”

  Casey’s voice came back over the radio. “What do you want us to do?”

  It was clear the jammer route was closed. They’d have to do something else. “Can you describe the setup to me?” Harvath replied.

  “It looks like the phone from the undetonated device in the 2004 Madrid bombings. Same stuff they have been using in Iraq. There are two wires protruding from the interior of the phone to a small circuit board taped to the front of the phone with clear plastic tape.”

  “How’s the signal strength?”

  “Three bars.”

  That was not good news.

  “The circuit board appears to be wired to two detonating caps,” she continued. “I’m assuming the entire set-up leads back to the phone’s ringer. As long as that’s not a booby trap, we should be able to snip the wires and deactivate that secondary trigger.”

  “Was Rafiq Wadi injured in the assault?”

  “No, he just rode the bull.”

  Turning his attention back to Casey, Harvath said, “Get him away from the others and ask him what he knows about the bombs. After that, I want you to verify the primary and secondary targets.”

  “Roger that.”

  The terrorists had been bound hands and feet with EZ Cuffs, gagged with duct tape, and made to lie facedown on the floor. The barbed Taser probes were then pulled from them as they each had their pockets emptied and the contents placed in piles so that the Athena members could ID what belonged to whom.

  Next to the bombs’ being detonated, Casey’s biggest concern was that there could be more terrorists upstairs who might be on their way down now that the service was over. She dispatched Rodriguez and Cooper to make sure the upper door was locked and to cover the stairs. Ericsson was left to watch the prisoners. The two men who were bleeding out would not be given medical attention until the situation was completely under control.

  Casey walked over to the terrorists. They looked up at her as she pretended to decide which one of them to select. Finally, she grabbed Rafiq Wadi and yanked him to his feet. The man next to him began mumbling something from behind the duct tape across his mouth and Casey kicked him in the ribs, hard.

  She shoved Wadi out the door and closed it behind them. In the hall, she pushed him up against the wall, drew her knife, and placed it against his throat. She held her fingers to her lips and motioned for him to be quiet. His eyes reflected how frightened he was. He nodded once, very slowly, and Casey peeled the duct tape back from his mouth.

  “We have Saud,” she said before Rafiq could speak. “He will remain safe, only as long as you cooperate. If you understand, nod your head once.”

  Rafiq nodded.

  “Good. I know everything about what is going on here. If you lie to me, I will gut you like a pig and let you watch your insides spill out. Do you understand me?”

  Again, Rafiq nodded.

  “Are there any more bombs?”

  The man nodded and flicked his eyes across the hallway.

  “The bicycles?”

  Rafiq nodded.

  “Are the bombs armed?”

  The man nodded, but then shook his head.

  “Which is it?” demanded Casey.

  “The bags, yes. The bicycles, no.”

  “How are the bags armed?”

  “Each one has an electronic light.”

  The woman studied his face and then said, “I’m sorry Saud will have to die because his brother lied.”

  Rafiq became even more panicked. “I am not lying. They’re beacons that flash. Twenty seconds after they are activated the bombs detonate.”

  “Tell me about the cell phone triggers. How do you defuse them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re still lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying. Why would they want us to know? The cell phone is their guarantee. If we don’t go through with it or our primary detonator doesn’t work, this is how they make sure the mission goes forward.”

  The cell phone detonators were a fail-safe. These Rafiq would not have been taught how to deactivate. Casey moved on to her next question.

  “What’s your target?”

  “Piccadilly Circus.”

  “When?”
<
br />   “Tonight, during the evening rush hour.”

  “What is your secondary target?”

  “I don’t know. We surveyed many targets. It could be any of them. The London Eye, Covent Garden, several of the theaters.”

  “Who’s in charge of your cell?”

  Rafiq Wadi seemed reluctant to answer and Casey applied pressure to her knife.

  “The man who was shot in the neck,” he said finally.

  “And who does he report to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do they contact each other?”

  “I don’t know. Please.”

  Casey placed the tape back across his mouth. They’d have to interrogate all of them.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Julie Ericsson’s voice came over her earpiece. “You need to get back in here.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “One of the cell phones just began vibrating.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Gretchen Casey quickly steered Rafiq Wadi back into the room and had him lie facedown with the other prisoners.

  “Which one?”

  Ericsson pointed to the cell phone in question. It was in a pile of pocket litter belonging to the terrorist who had been shot in the neck; the man Rafiq Wadi had identified as the cell leader. She could tell by looking at him that he wasn’t going to make it. He’d already lost too much blood. There wasn’t anything they could do for him. Casey picked up his phone and stepped to the back of the room where she radioed Harvath.

  “One of these guys just received a text message.”

  “What did it say?” Harvath replied.

  “Someone wants an update.”

  “What did Rafiq say about the bombs?”

  “He said the cell phone triggers are a fail-safe in case one of the devices fails to detonate.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I do.”

  “What about the secondary target?”

  “He doesn’t know. They surveilled several potentials.”

  “Do we know who the cell leader is?” asked Harvath.

  “The guy with the neck wound. He’s not going to make it. Right now, though, we need to focus on these bombs. What do you want to do?”