by Camden Mays
Cameron knew that McCune had served as Associate Director of European Operations and was well versed on Russian threats.
“Well Cole,” McCune said using Cameron’s first name for the first time, “not everyone in SVR leadership is happy waiting around to see if they can outlast the U.S. My experience tells me, there are those in influential positions that if given the opportunity, would send our country back to the stone ages.”
“You know, Ma’am…” Cameron started to say.
“Nancy, please,” McCune said before catching herself. She glanced out the glass door behind Cameron and added, “as long as we’re in private.”
Cameron nodded.
“You know, Nancy, sometimes I miss my former life of naivety.”
He stood to leave, and his face lit up as he saw Hannah Jacobs making her way to the war room.
“I use to sleep better back then. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to the team.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” She said motioning him back in. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out two tickets.
“Director Kingman wanted you to have these as a way of saying ‘thank you.’ He’s inviting you and your plus one to the Charity Gala in a couple of weeks. A real who’s who in the political landscape.”
“Thank you, Ma’am, but it’s really not my kind of thing. And we’ve got so much work to do, why don’t you keep these.”
“I already have my tickets, and yes, we have work to do, but we have multiple agencies with teams working around the clock shifts that will keep the ball moving forward.”
“Take a couple of hours for yourself; it’ll remind of what you’re fighting for. Besides, I don’t think you want to tell the Director of the CIA that you refuse his invitation.”
Cameron took the tickets and shook his head and feigned a ‘thank you.’
“This late in the game, you’ll have better luck getting your plus one on the acceptance list if he or she already has security clearance. You know, maybe someone with the FBI.”
Cameron said nothing, just nodded and left the office. Damn it! I’ve got to work on my poker face.
CHAPTER 16
Counterterrorism Center - Langley (Monday Evening)
Walking into the war room, Cameron saw a few folks gathered around Hannah Jacobs, attempting to comfort her. She was not having any of it.
He watched Jason Albright approach her but before he could get to her, she put her hand up to stop him and then addressed the entire room.
“I’m fine everyone! Yes, we lost an Agent yesterday. But it was not me. I am OK. So, can everyone just go back to doing your jobs, before someone else dies.”
“Hannah,” Albright protested.
“Not now Jason!” she snapped back.
Cameron slowly walked up and stood quietly next to her, both were looking at the split screens on the wall. Hannah, sensed Cameron’s presence and turned to her right ready to snap at him also but noticed his left arm in a sling and stopped herself.
“What happened to you?” she asked softening her approach.
“I think yesterday, was a terrible day for both of us.”
Cameron reached out with his right hand and gently touched Hannah’s bruised and bandaged left hand. She stood shocked as he looked in her eyes and then reached up and softly touched the scratch marks above her left cheek.
“I’m happy you’re OK.”
Cameron moved back over to Amy’s chair.
It took a couple of seconds for Hannah to move as she stood in shock watching Cameron walk away.
She was truly conflicted. Cole Cameron stirred something in her that she thought she would never feel. She had sensed the attraction when they first met, but she was most surprised by the unique chemistry that kindled between them. It was more intimate than she had ever experienced before. But while the chemistry was undeniable, they were professionals, and he put her in a most awkward situation.
In front of everyone there, he had touched her hand and then, my God, her face. It wasn’t that he had taken her hand, it was how he had touched her, looking into her eyes, as if seeing the most vulnerable parts of her soul. He might as well have tweeted to the world, I’m really into Hannah Jacobs, everyone! She had worked too hard and sacrificed too much to get to this point in her career.
She had chosen poorly in the past and was content to keep her relationships at a superficial level. The deeper the relationship, the deeper the eventual hurt, she had reasoned. Most men had been incapable of dealing with her commitment to the Bureau, at least none that she genuinely respected.
“Cole, can I speak with you in private for just a second?” Hannah asked motioning for Cameron to follow her.
Desk buddies Amy Wiggins and Jason Albright grinned at each other.
They walked out of the war room and down the hall a bit, and Hannah abruptly turned and pointed back to the room.
“Why did you do that, back there?”
“What?”
“You know damn well, what! Do you know how hard it is for a woman to get to where I am, and how easily it can all be taken away?”
“Whoa. Whoa,” Cameron said holding up his functioning arm for surrender.
“I’m really sorry if my touch was unwelcomed. But here’s the thing Hannah, we both lost people yesterday, and we both nearly died. That does something to you.”
Cameron paused and adjusted his arm in the shoulder harness. He cast his eyes down, thinking that perhaps he had pushed her away for good.
“Life is short. I mean, I just…”
“Just what Cole?”
“You need to know, when I heard about the apartment explosion, my heart sank. It was as if someone had sucked all of the air out of the room. Then, just a few minutes ago when I was in McCune’s office, I saw you walk in, and my heart jumped in my chest,” Cameron said holding his chest with his right hand. “You understand, I mean it literally jumped!”
Hannah was speechless, but before Cameron could say another word, she leaned up and gave him a quick kiss, more of peck really, on his lips, smiled and quickly walked back toward the war room.
Cameron was now the one in shock.
“Wait…” he said, reaching toward her as she briskly walked away. He stood in the hall, uncertain of what just happened.
“But that wasn’t a real kiss,” he mumbled quietly to himself. Was that a friendly kiss or was that an ‘I like you too kiss?’ What the hell? She just ran off. Ah, the smile is the key. Yeah, she likes me.
Back in the war room, Cameron kept looking over toward Hannah, but she was not making eye contact. He pulled up a chair next to Amy and Jason.
“Sorry, Cole, I know you didn’t mean anything by it,” Amy said.
“Yeah, sorry man,” Albright added. “We’ve been through a lot. She’s just really pissed right now. Man, I bet she really let you have it out there, didn’t she?”
“You have no idea, Jason,” Cameron deadpanned.
“Well, while you were getting your ass chewed out for inappropriate behavior, we ran Kallah Majid’s phone data through the system and found that he made a call to a burner almost immediately after he received instructions to meet up with the team. You should also know Grant Ramsey is the one that brought him in as an asset.”
“When was that?”
“Just before the Ash Shihr, operation.”
“That’s how they knew we were coming.” Cameron shook his head with regret.
“What about the moleskin notebook in Hasni’s satchel?”
“Still working on it, but so far the most interesting piece is the grid pages. There are five of them, each with thirty lines of four-digit codes in two columns.” Amy shared the digital image version with the large screen in the room so others could follow.
“Maybe pin codes?” Someone suggested.
“Maybe.”
“What’s the Arabic headings on the pages?” Hannah asked as she walked over to join the discussion.
“Colors,” Another Ana
lyst replied.
“Really?”
“Yeah, we’ve got blue, green, red, yellow and black.”
“Sinha and Walsh are working on the grids, seeing if there is something to decode there.”
Amy pointed to the corner where the two analysts were sitting at workstations. They each waved back to Cameron. He dawned on him that there were several new faces in the room since he had left for Yemen. Good more resources.
“We think it is somehow tied to the Hijra system calendar,” said Sinha.
McCune entered the room, placing her hands on her hips, and gazed at the screens.
“Did we get the data from Pearl sorted out?”
“I’ll have it on the screen shortly, ma’am,” a young female analyst replied.
“Thank you.”
Images of the assailants from the Yemen operation filled the large wall screen. The room grew silent and jaws opened as more and more photos populated the screen. A few of images were ghastly, due to head shots.
“Wow,” Walsh said in disbelief.
“How many?” McCune asked.
“Twenty-seven confirmed dead, ma’am,” the analyst replied. “And Pearl believes that the number of the wounded to be at least a dozen.”
“Does this include the photos Capps took in the grab of Hasni?” McCune asked, referring to Hasni’s security detail that was neutralized.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Bridgette, can you highlight or separate the initial group received from Capps from the rest.”
The young African American analyst who had worked with Cameron in the past on assessing the AIJB grouped the images on the screen with the five from the initial operation to the right and the remaining twenty-two arranged on the left. Underneath each image data appeared for those, they had available intel. The data was updated in real time as more information became available.
“OK, what do you notice about the group on the right?” Cameron asked hoping Bridgette would confirm his hunch.
“There all unknowns, sir.”
“Yep.” Cameron nodded.
“Maybe recruits.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. Who puts recruits on security detail?” Hannah questioned.
Bridgette stood up.
“All of our other intel on Hasni suggested that Jamil Rasul was always at his side, sort of his PA, right? And he typically would have one of his lieutenants around as well.” She thought aloud.
“That’s right, but if Hasni knew we were coming, then maybe he used expendables on the security detail and then set a trap for us on the exfil route.”
“I don’t see Rasul on the board at all,” Cameron said, recalling the previous study of the top AIJB players.
“But it looks like we took out Shakir and Zahir. Two of Hasni’s lieutenants. Those are two heavy hitters.” Bridgette pointed at the photos.
“Well, they definitely knew we were coming,” McCune added. “My guess is they planned to torture and drag American soldiers through the streets to celebrate their victory. If they knew CIA agents were there as paramilitary, I’m sure they have loved to extract as much information as possible.”
“Well, they underestimated us.” Cameron felt there had been a lot of that going around.
“They sure did.” McCune picked up on Cameron’s reference. “And they paid a heavy price for it.”
“Bridgette can you pull up the AIJB roster and let’s look at the remaining leadership structure.”
“Already have it cross-referenced, sir,” she said as she posted on the big screen the revised AIJB org chart with the images of those eliminated dimmed out but still visible.
It looks like we have three remaining lieutenants, Jawahir, al-Samarrai, and al-Himyari.
Bridgette was ready with more information.
“Latest intel places Jawahir in Sana, Yemen, and al-Samarrai in Al Mukalla. But al-Himyari has been off the radar for almost four weeks now. The last known location was Medina in Saudi Arabia.”
“Wait for a second,” Amy said standing up from her seat.
“Steve, did you ever hear back from the NSA on the sketch Hernandez gave us to cross-reference.”
“No,” Sinha responded from the corner. “They said it could take a few days.”
“What’s going on?” McCune asked.
“The border crossing incident,” Amy said excitedly.
“Hernandez gave us a sketch of the suspect to cross-reference. It looks similar to this guy. Don’t you agree, Jason?”
“Well, maybe,” Jason said unconvincingly.
Amy sat down and pecked at her keyboard and then the digital version of sketch populated the screen.
“Maybe.” Cameron said, “let’s see what the technology of the NSA has to say.”
He looked to McCune, and she knew his intentions.
“I’ll go make a call and see if someone can’t light a fire under them over there,” she said leaving the room.
“I thought you didn’t trust ‘all that technology,’” Amy said poking at Cameron.
“Yeah, and I thought you did,” Cameron said, then he looked around the room, “by the way, where is Hernandez?”
Everyone just shrugged.
CHAPTER 17
West Los Angeles (Monday)
Abu al-Himyari’s nephew threw a backpack over his shoulder and left the dark apartment headed to a lecture for one of his classes at UCLA. Al-Himyari was relieved to have some solitude finally. The two had stayed cooped up in the apartment for two days preparing the lethal vessels.
The devices were designed to fit in a large backpack or roller board and equipped with a pager that would trigger the release remotely when called. Upon discharge, the pressurized vessel would disperse its toxic fumes into the carefully targeted environment.
Al-Himyari concluded his morning prayers, rolled up the prayer rug and looked at the five canisters standing against the wall. The twenty-pound C02 aluminum canisters generally used for providing carbonation in soda fountain machines were perfect trojan horses for disguising the real weapon.
Each unit was about twenty eight inches tall, eight inches in diameter and equipped with a standard looking sixty psi pressure gauge and valve. The only exception was that was an additional valve in the stem designed to switch from real C02 to the VX. Having the ability to dispense real C02 if tested was his nephew’s idea.
Al-Himyari’s nephew had prepared the CO2 canisters before his arrival. He had cut the bottom out of the containers, leaving room to place a smaller 0.6-liter C02 as well as the deadly VX dispenser inside the hollowed-out aluminum canister before soldering the bottom back in place.
Al-Himyari sat in silence, pleased with the progress he had made thus far, but his mission was not over yet, and he suppressed his doubts and concerns about the movement. The infidels had killed Hasni. He had warned Hasni of being overconfident.
His leader had equated the partnership with the Russians to invincibility. His drive for retribution against the government that had taken away his loved ones was unapparelled. Al-Himyari understood his motivation, but Hasni wanted the individuals personally responsible to pay for their sins.
The Russians provided the information Hasni requested, and in return, his organization would play an essential role in helping usher in the ‘darkness’ as the Russians called it. Neither Hasni nor al-Himyari understood exactly what that meant, but they both hoped and prayed for new world order.
Hasni used the information given and carefully plotted to exact vengeance on key individuals who had taken his family from him. He had the Russians kill the drone operator responsible for the attack in a staged car accident.
The CIA Officer, Cole Cameron, and his commander, Nancy McCune had been next on his list. Hasni was adamant that their deaths have a dramatic flair to them to serve as propaganda for his cause. The Russians had promised to take care of McCune, and al-Himyari knew Cameron was his responsibility.
Now al-Himyari had to get the canisters delivered to t
he assigned cells without suspicion. He planned for a university student from each cell to drive to Los Angeles to attend the upcoming International Conference on Islamic Cultural Issues hosted at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Each was to travel by car with a specific make and model of a black large roller suitcase thirty inches in height by nineteen inches wide. They would stay in separate hotels under their real names. However, their alias’ were registered to share a room at an appointed hotel. There the suitcases would be swapped out with an identical one containing the canister.
Four cells in all would take the deadly cargo back to their city and hit the predetermined target. The fifth device would be used in Los Angeles at an event hosted by UCLA. His nephew would be responsible for that attack. The AIJB had intentionally kept his nephew isolated from other cell members. His role was too important to risk suspicion.
Al-Himyari closed his eyes and tried to imagine the horror of his enemy, envisioning hundreds choking and suffocating to death. Bodies clamoring over one another. The recognition in their eyes that their lives were ending and they could do nothing about it.
A knock at the door interrupted his fantasy. The startled al-Himyari reached for the handgun on the end table and rushed to the door.
Before he could get to the door, he heard a key being inserted and saw the door handle turning. He lunged toward the opening door, pushing his foot at the bottom and abruptly stopping the intruder.
“Hasim!” the female voice shouted. “What are you doing?”
“Hasim is not here. Who are you?”
Al-Himyari kept the door ajar with his foot. He turned his head to see if the angle provided the intruder a view to the canisters and the chemistry mess still on the table. It appeared to be out of her line of sight.
“I’m Reen, who are you? Let me see Hasim.”
“I told you he is not here. What do you want?”
“Who are you? What are you doing in Hasim’s apartment?”
