The Templar Reprisals (The Best Thrillers Book 3)

by James D. Best

  Evarts raced into the outer office and woke his workmates. Wilson leaped out of bed, ran her fingers through her hair, stood at attention momentarily and then marched into the general’s office. Baldwin tried to roll over and ignore him. A couple more shakes and he had her awake and snarling obscenities. He finally got her to her feet and directed into the inner office.

  “Okay,” O’Brian said, “I don’t have all day.”

  Baldwin and I looked at Wilson.

  She nodded and took a deep breath.

  O’Brian bellowed, “This better be damn good.”

  Wilson exhaled and said, “We believe we have a probable location for the Caliph of Ikhwan.”

  O’Brian instantly turned on Evarts with unbridled rage. “You had hard intel and let me go on about theoretical scenarios. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “We sent a note into the situation room. When we heard nothing, we assumed you dismissed our analysis.”

  “When?”

  “Two A.M.” Evarts answered.

  “Who did you give the note to?” O’Brian demanded.

  Wilson answered. “I gave it to Major Callaghan. He was returning from the latrine and said he would take it in to you.”

  O’Brian collapsed into his chair. “Aw, hell.”

  “What is it?” Evarts asked.

  “Major Callaghan is the damn Templar mole.”

  “Crap!” Evarts exclaimed. “The Templars have a five-hour head start on us.”

  Chapter 45

  With no time to waste, O’Brian called a meeting. It included his adjunct, the commander of Delta Force, the head of the Special Activities Center within the CIA, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and other bigwigs. Uninvited, Evarts, Baldwin, and Wilson went to a café for breakfast and then fell asleep with their heads in their arms. A captain woke them after a brief nap and escorted them back to O’Brian’s office.

  O’Brian told them that the closest Delta Team was at Camp H. M. Smith in Hawaii, so he had to rely on the CIA for immediate action. Luckily, the agency had an asset in Jakarta who was dispatched immediately to try to get an eye on Ali as-Saad—if he could get close enough. Ali as-Saad was quartered in on-campus faculty housing, so access might be limited. They were waiting for an initial report.

  O’Brian also explained that a Delta Force operation had been hastily planned but would probably take several days to put in motion. Plus, a military operation on foreign soil would require presidential approval. O’Brian feared the president might consult with State. If so, that would slow progress further. Since they only had three days, the CIA might need to take responsibility for abducting Ali as-Saad. They were currently assessing how to get additional assets to Jakarta.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Baldwin asked.

  O’Brian said, “We’ll handle Jakarta from here, so focus on what the Templars might do in D.C. and how fast they can do it.”

  Evarts thought a moment, then said, “Get us to New York.”

  “You want to confront Methow?” O’Brian asked.

  “Otherwise it’s just guesswork. We have a source inside the Templars, let’s use it.”

  Without further comment, O’Brian made a call to someone and ordered an Army executive jet readied for a flight to New York and asked for two hotel rooms for one night.

  When he got off the phone, he just said, “Go.”

  Just before they raced out of his office, O’Brian added, “I want you back here by Friday morning latest. Remember our immediate objective; stop the Friday evening attack. Capturing the Ikhwan leadership is secondary. So put your thinking caps on and give me ideas. Got it?”

  After affirmative grunts and a single “yes, sir,” they left in a hurry.

  In route, Wilson got a phone call that their plane would be available in one hour at the general aviation terminal at Reagan National. Wilson dropped Evarts and Baldwin at the Watergate and told them to find their own way to the airport. Evarts and Baldwin decided not to check out and both packed in a single bag.

  A car service took them to Reagan National. When they arrived, they had a few minutes to spare before Wilson would show up, so they asked to be dropped at the main terminal. General Aviation was on the same side of the runway and within walking distance. Evarts wanted to get a feel for the space outside TSA security. He saw an abundance of cameras and security personnel. He surmised that even a powerful explosive wouldn’t collapse the building, or at least not bring down more than a section of the departure lobby. A shrapnel bomb would be far more likely to kill and maim officials catching a flight home. The three terminals were spaced apart so a single bomb wouldn’t produce the level of carnage the terrorists would want as their coup de grâce.

  Evarts looked at one of the ubiquitous CCTV cameras. He assumed they were monitored in real time, so an abandoned roller bag shouldn’t go unnoticed. He saw no place to hide a bag except to check it and then the bag would be transported down the conveyor belt.

  Evarts concluded that the Ikhwan would need committed fundamentalists who would remain with their bags until detonation. Probably three suicide bombers, one for each terminal. They could even move in the moment to the most crowded section of the lobby.

  Evarts paused to looked around. He shook his head. It would never work. The bombers would show visible signs of stress. Dogs could sniff the explosives. With security forces forewarned, loiterers would be obvious.

  The Ikhwan was not going to bomb Reagan National Airport. If this was the target, they had different idea on how to cause a massacre.

  Baldwin broke his reverie by tugging on his arm.

  “You were deep in thought,” Baldwin said. “Care to share.”

  “Sure, I need your thoughts, but not here. Wait until we’re in the air.”

  They scrambled to the proper terminal to find Wilson anxiously awaiting them. She looked fresh and civilian in denims, sneakers, and a white top. How did she do that with less than four hours of fitful sleep.

  They were the sole passengers on the flight, so the three of them stowed their gear and sat in facing seats. Evarts was surprised at the relatively spartan interior. This plane must be designated for the lower echelons. It was also self-service. Wilson jumped up and got them coffee, which had been ready-brewed. Evarts took a sip to discover it was no better than the sludge served in the Pentagon.

  Evarts explained his observations. At the end, he asked, “What do you think?”

  “Agreed,” Wilson said. “Reagan National is one of the most surveilled airports in the world because it’s a natural target for terrorists. I don’t think they’ll try gas or biological either.”

  “Do congressmen and senators use the Metro?” Baldwin asked.

  “Different target?” Wilson nodded in thought. “Security services don’t want them bunched together, so they encourage the use of private cars. It’s not a difficult nudge since public transportation is generally difficult for them, especially the well-known. Most use a car service, usually with colleagues or staff so they can finish off some work.”

  Baldwin asked, “Do congressional offices have chicken bouillon delivered to their offices?”

  “Brilliant,” Wilson exclaimed, understanding the real intent of the question. “What gets sent to members of congress just before recess? What would they take home … preferably unopened?”

  “That’s easy,” Baldwin said. “A book.”

  “A book’s not large enough,” Wilson said. “They’ll want a big explosion.”

  “Maybe they don’t need a single big explosion,” Evarts interjected. “What if each book was the equivalent of a fragmentation grenade? Triggered by opening. Hundreds of smaller explosions all over the capitol building, airport, cars, planes, and even in the metro?”

  “Pentaerythritol tetranitrate or PETN,” Wilson said. “Mixed with a plasticizer you have a powerful explosive that can be molded into any shape.”

  “Can you detect it?” Baldwin asked.

  “Not by smel
l,” Wilson said. “You need to do a surface swab like TSA does randomly at airports. Elected officials are seldom selected for increased scrutiny.”

  “I’m not so sure about this,” Evarts said cautiously. “You would need a detonator, a timer, and something to shred into shrapnel. Pretty hard to get into a book. Especially difficult for the explosive to remain inactive and undetected if opened for a casual perusal.”

  “Big hardcover book,” Wilson mused. “Easy to shape PETN as the cover … and a four-ounce cover would be over a hundred grams, which can destroy a car. A correct mixture of plasticizer would simulate the texture and weight of a real book cover. A molded PETN cover would be printable as well. It could look just like the genuine article. Timer’s a piece of cake. An off-the-shelf cell phone clock circuit would do. Not difficult to stitch that and a wireless detonator into the binding. The problem … how much damage would it do? The cover might be all you’d need if you had shrapnel material surrounding it … but without it, how lethal would it be? I’m not an explosive expert, but I know one I can call when we land.”

  Evarts eyes were unfocused as he peered out the plane window. He knew enough about explosives to doubt that a PETN book cover could cause the level of damage desired by committed terrorists. However, if a large number of small bombs went off together, then it might—

  Baldwin interrupted his thoughts. “Tell your explosives expert that the book will be over eight hundred pages and encased in a presentation metal box.”

  “How do you know that?” Wilson asked.

  “What book is all of Washington anxiously anticipating?” Baldwin asked. “Everyone who has been in this town for more than two years can’t wait to see if they’re mentioned in it?”

  “Oh, my God,” Wilson said. “The Vault, by Senator Richard Huntington. The Vault! The terrorists could make a commemorative edition encased in a mock vault.”

  “Wait a minute,” Evarts said. “When’s that book due to be published?”

  “In about two months,” Baldwin answered. “These could be positioned as collector review copies. Designed to get blurbs and blow-back from the prominent denizens of this naughty little swamp. This book has been hyped to the rafters. So much so, preorders have blown through every record. People will assume these fancied-up review copies are more pre-publication promotion … or they might think the publisher is giving them an opportunity to rebut slanderous revelations. Brilliant.”

  “This is the greatest secret in the publishing world,” Evarts said. “How could the Ikhwan get a copy?”

  “That’s what’s so brilliant,” Baldwin said. “They don’t need to. Nobody’s seen it, so nobody knows the contents. Pay some professor ten thousand dollars and he’ll write a manuscript that could survive a few minutes scrutiny. Then it’s blown to smithereens. Easy. Name-drop like crazy, make up some salacious stuff, put in some highfalutin words about the Founders, and use the senator’s own articles and speeches for fill. A creative academic could flush out eight hundred pages lickety-split. Two months tops. Especially if you don’t care if the readers dismiss the whole thing as utter trash. They’ll be dead within minutes of reading it.” She smiled. “You’d be surprised what you can get if you drag a ten-thousand-dollar bill through a campus.”

  “This could be it,” Wilson said. “What makes this fit is that it crosses political lines. You nail both sides of the aisle. Huntington was dumped by his own party for corruption, and he hates them for jerking him away from his place at the trough. He already hated the other side, so everyone’s game. He promised the biggest tell-all book of all time. On the talk shows he’s been saying there’ll be blood flowing from Capitol Hill down to the White House.

  “I thought politicians didn’t read books, they just went to the index to see if they’re mentioned,” Evarts said.

  “That’s the beauty of a review copy,” Baldwin said. “When they open the back, it will say the index is still in-work. Indexes are compiled by gnomes in a sub-basement across the Hudson River. Review copies often get sent out before they’re publication-ready.”

  Evarts thought a minute. “So, you’re saying the terrorists will use members of congress as their suicide bombers. Five hundred and thirty-five bombers about to scatter to every corner of the country.”

  “Plus, staff” Baldwin said. “Could be triple that number.”

  That’d be devastating,” Wilson said.

  “If we’re correct in our assumptions,” Evarts said. “We need verification. Some meat around this theory.”

  “Can we check with the publisher?” Wilson asked.

  “That won’t do any good,” Baldwin answered. “The publisher will have no idea their book is about to be used in a plot like this.” She thought. “These need to be delivered near simultaneously. There are only a couple delivery services large enough to handle this size job. That’s where we go for verification.”

  “But if they use UPS or FedEx,” Wilson said, “they wouldn’t even know until the parcels are given to them to deliver. If dropped off in the city, those companies can do same day delivery.”

  “Right to their offices?” Evarts asked.

  “No,” Wilson said, shaking her head. “No one can deliver direct to a Congressional office. Couriers deliver to the Congressional Acceptance Site, and the Post Office, FedEx, and UPS deliver to an off-site mail processing center.”

  “Surely they would detect explosives,” Evarts said.

  “PETN can’t be detected by x-ray or sniffer dogs, but there are chemical, infrared, and nano sensors that can detect it,” Wilson said. “We use all three at the Pentagon, so I’m sure they have them at the Acceptance Center and off-site mail processing center.”

  “So, our minds have wandered off into left field.” Evarts said. “This doesn’t look like a viable scenario.”

  Baldwin cleared her throat. “There’s another way. I’ve done signings on the Hill for all my Lincoln books. Senators, congress members, and staff just walked off with them. I presume they can personally carry things to their office.”

  Everyone just looked at each other.

  “Crap,” Everts moaned.

  Chapter 46

  Was this scenario plausible or an imagined horror? Evarts felt anxious. The plane’s engine noise was the only sound as the three of them became lost in their own thoughts. Unless they found verification it was unlikely anyone would listen to an off-the-wall theory. Especially, since the powers-that-be had already landed on a pet hypothesis. Even if they were right, they might not get anyone’s attention; if they were wrong, they might convince people to divert resources away from a real plot at Reagan International. Lots of ways to lose. But one thing was certain, the three of them couldn’t do this on their own. Before seeking help, they needed to convince themselves first.

  Evarts thought through the logistics of a book-bomb. The content could be written quickly or even left blank if opening triggered detonation. Offshore printing and binding? No problem. An explosive cover? Evarts knew the Islamic world had labs with enough sophistication to devise such a devilish product. Nor would a representational metal vault present much difficulty. There were plenty of tin benders in the Middle East. The vulnerable point was logistics. Getting the book-bombs to the right place at the right time. Six hundred or more copies would require fifty boxes, each loaded with twelve bulky books. They could be stored in any basement but probably were housed in a commercial warehouse. How did they get into the US? Despite the speed of cobbling together a makeshift book, Evarts bet time became short, too short for shipping by sea. That meant air freight. The FBI had the resources to investigate air cargo shipments to the East Coast. If they could discover how they arrived, they might be able to discover where they went.

  A shipment of a predicted size would substantiate that their theory might have merit. Not absolute, but enough to get the attention of the ad hoc team O’Brian had set up to thwart this attack. Would they need more? Probably. Especially if resources were to be diverted t
o this scenario. It takes a lot to change the course of a government agency.

  The most vulnerable logistics point would be Friday when the Ikhwan would need to transport the boxes to UPS, FedEx, or another delivery service. If delivered all at once, fifty cartons would require at least a bobtail truck. What if they split them into separate loads, say one for each congressional office building? Then something frightening occurred to Evarts; modern express companies were so efficient that the Ikhwan didn’t need to drop the books off in Washington. They could hand over the books tomorrow in almost any city. Damn. And each book could be shipped separately. How could they trace that down?

  Evarts felt a bounce and heard the screech of tires as the plane hit the tarmac at LaGuardia. After they taxied to a stop, Evarts jerked their bag from a closet by the door, and stood there, tapping his foot, as he waited to deplane.

  “What’s got you agitated,” Baldwin asked, as the co-pilot came back to open the door.

  He took a deep breath before speaking. “I don’t think the Ikhwan would come up with such a brilliant concept and then screw up the logistics. Verification will be hard, interdiction harder.”

  “We don’t know what city to search,” Baldwin said.

  Evarts whipped his head around, startled. “You figured that out as well?”

  Baldwin simply nodded.

  Wilson interjected, “I have an idea I want to discuss. I’ll tell you when we’re alone.”

  They took a taxi to a mid-town hotel, checked into their rooms, and immediately met for lunch in the downstairs coffeeshop.

  While they waited for food, Evarts said, “Tell us about your idea.”

  Wilson said, “If the books are not in D.C. already, it means they’ll need to be dropped off tomorrow morning. Same day service is only provided in town. Methow said the Ikhwan are thrifty. You can get a discount from FedEx—”

  Evarts broke in. “Sorry for interrupting, but how fast does mail move through the Pentagon mail center?”