Authors: Stephen Coonts
Liberty (12 page)
A fine plan it had seemed when they had discussed it in Cairo, God knows. Load the bomb into a truck, drive it to Washington, and detonate it in the heart of the city. They would die instantly of course, and immediately be ushered into Paradise.
Everyone died eventually. That was an immutable fact, the one certainty in our uncertain existence. To earn Paradise as a martyr in Allah's war on the infidels was infinitely better than waiting to die of old age and trusting all to Allah's infinite mercy.
Allah Akbar!
Still, some people went to Paradise and some didn't; everyone knew that! Why take the chance? And why wait? Paradise was there now.
Allah Akbar!
Still, some people went to Paradise and some didn't; everyone knew that! Why take the chance? And why wait? Paradise was there now.
Mohammed picked up another crate and carefully placed it in the stack. Here in Florida, he mused, the plan seemed much more complicated than it had in Cairo. First there was the timetable. Until the bomb arrived, nothing could be done. Once it was here, they could not wait. The container must be emptied, and they must be on their way before anyone became suspicious.
Mohammed knew how to drive an eighteen-wheeler. He even had a commercial driver's license in his pocket. Not in his name of course, but the Americans couldn't tell one Arab from another. Displaying the license would be sufficient.
Waiting was the weak point of the plan. Being put under
surveillance by the authorities or arrested would of course cause the mission to failâand the best place in the United States for the team to live, work, and fit in during those weeks was Broward County in south Florida, among all the other people from all over the planet who flooded this place. Here the local people would be the least suspicious, here the team had its best chance of remaining anonymous, unknown to the American FBI.
surveillance by the authorities or arrested would of course cause the mission to failâand the best place in the United States for the team to live, work, and fit in during those weeks was Broward County in south Florida, among all the other people from all over the planet who flooded this place. Here the local people would be the least suspicious, here the team had its best chance of remaining anonymous, unknown to the American FBI.
Mohammed knew about the FBI. The men and women of that agency were hunting him and others like him. So were other arms of the federal government. That was the danger he and his three team members faced daily.
As usual in terror operations, there was a timetable. The attack would be most effective if it could be coordinated with others. Of other planned attacks Mohammed knew nothing, but he knew there must be others, because the people in Cairo had given him the date.
Yet he could not go until the weapon arrived, and when it did, he must act quickly, regardless of the date. Regrettable, but there was no help for it.
He was wiping the sweat from his brow when he saw the foreman approaching, walking quickly. He paused.
The man pointed at an idling forklift. “You, Mohammed, drive it today. Learn the levers. Today Ramon teach you. Ramon very good forklift operator. Learn good.”
Mohammed nodded and flashed his teeth. Americans like to show their teeth. He showed the foreman his several times and went trotting toward the forklift, where Ramon was standing.
“Ah, Ramon, the foreman saidâ”
“
SÃ
. Yes, yes. Into the seat.” Mohammed climbed into the seat and began his first lesson in operating a forklift. He was very attentive. This was another rung on the ladder leading to Paradise.
SÃ
. Yes, yes. Into the seat.” Mohammed climbed into the seat and began his first lesson in operating a forklift. He was very attentive. This was another rung on the ladder leading to Paradise.
When he reached the interstate that led east, 1-64, just north of the town of Lewisburg, Tommy Carmellini didn't
make the turn. He continued along the two-lane asphalt that led northeast up the Greenbrier River Valley. Low mountains covered with green forest lay to the right and left.
make the turn. He continued along the two-lane asphalt that led northeast up the Greenbrier River Valley. Low mountains covered with green forest lay to the right and left.
As he drove his thoughts were on Archie Foster and Norv Lalouette. They had probably planted the bugs in his apartment. Whoever did it had undoubtedly searched it first. If Arch and Norv had found the silenced Ruger .22, they would have had the evidence to send him up for life. Of course, they didn't find itâthe silencer was in the mud on the bottom of the Potomac River, the barrel of the pistol was buried in Maryland, the action in Virginia, and the handle in North Carolina.
Arch and Norv or their friends had bugged the apartment, then dropped the bomb. Now, Carmellini thought, they were probably listening to see how he handled it.
His office was probably bugged, too. Hoo boy!
They certainly weren't putting together a case for the FBI, not with illegal searches and listening devices. They wanted something. But what?
No doubt they would let him know in their own sweet time.
Whatever it was, they knew he wouldn't like it, so they were wrapping him up, strand by strand.
Tommy Carmellini saw a country store ahead and pulled into the parking area. There was a woman in her thirties behind the counter. Carmellini bought a soda pop and left. He tossed the unopened can on the passenger's seat.
Every little crossroads and village had its country store that sold essential food items, like bread, beer, and soda pop. Five miles farther up the road was another store, this one with a gas pump in front. Carmellini went inside. A man in his fifties sat on a stool behind the counter.
Carmellini bought a pop and leaned against the counter to drink it. “Pretty country around here.”
“Yep. Lived here all my life. Nothing like it. Pretty and peaceful. Quiet-like, not like over in those big cities.”
“Friend of mine has a cabin on one of these mountains and has invited me over for deer season. Are there many deer around here?”
“I hope to shoot.” The man launched into a story about the hunters who came for the deer, which were plentiful as rabbits, he said. “People hit'em all the time with their cars. You see'em dead along every roadâcars kill more deer than hunters. Never been as many deer as now.”
“I need a rifle if I'm going to hunt,” Carmellini remarked at an appropriate time. “I've been thinking about an old thirty-thirty Winchester.”
“Them's good guns, so they are. Had one for years. Gave it to my boy. Can't go wrong with one of them.'Course some folks like scope sights and you can't put one on a Winchester without a special mount and all that. Like scopes myself since my eyes ain't what they used to be.”
“Know anyone around here who might have a thirty-thirty for sale?”
“Well, no, I don't. Any gun store would have one though.”
“I'll keep my eye out for one,” Carmellini said, smiled broadly, and said good-bye.
At the next store Carmellini went through the conversation again. Nope, no rifle like that for sale around here.
At the third one Carmellini struck pay dirt. The proprietor was at least fifty pounds overweight, with a scraggly beard. He said, “Heck yeah, I've got an old Model Ninety-Four thirty-thirty over to the house. Don't use it no more. I might sell it if the price was right. Now this one ain't no collector's item like those pre-sixty-fours. No, sir. I bought it from a neighbor when I got out of the army. Ain't much to look at, but she shoots good.”
“I don't want to spend much money for a rifle,” Carmellini said, shaking his head. “Going to try hunting, might not like it. And that would be my only use for a rifle. I would have to be able to sell it later for about what I have in it.”
“Know how you feel,” the proprietor said. He held out his hand. “Name's Fred.”
“I'm Bob,” said Tommy Carmellini, and shook.
“Got the rifle over to the house.” Fred jerked his thumb. “Come on over and I'll show it to you. We'll lock up the store for a while.”
Carmellini waited on the porch of the house, which was right beside the store, while Fred went inside. In minutes he was back, rifle in hand.
The Winchester had apparently spent much of its life collecting dings and scratches in a pickup truck and had rarely if ever been oiled. Rust had eaten at the finish in a variety of places, although not too badly. With a twenty-inch barrel, the little lever-action rifle was compact and handy.
“Just needs a little oil,” Fred said. “and that rust will come right off. Sharp little gun.”
“Can we shoot it?”
“Got some shells.” Fred produced four cartridges from his pocket. “Shoots good. Just shoot at the roof of the doghouse over there. Ol' Buck died last winter, ain't gonna get another dog. No, sir! Hard seeing them go.”
The doghouse was about forty yards away. Carmellini raised the rifle, lined up the sights, and squeezed one off. Worked the lever, fired again, for four shots. The four holes in the roof could be covered by a pie plate.
“Not bad,” Fred said. “Offhand like that and all. Little practice and you'll be okay.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred.”
Carmellini shook his head sadly. “I was afraid of that. Too pricey. With this rust, one-fifty.”
They went back to the store while they dickered. Carmellini ended up paying $200 cash for the rifle, a well-used gun case, two boxes of shells, and a can of gun oil. He put his purchases in the trunk of the Mercedes and drove away.
“Good to see you again, Mr. President,” said Thayer Michael Corrigan as he shook hands in the Oval Office.
“How's your family, T.M.?”
“Fine, sir. And yours?”
“Busy,” the president said, and indicated a chair for Corrigan and the national security adviser, Butch Lanham. “This,” the president said, gesturing at a naval officer in whites, “is Rear Admiral Jake Grafton.” As Grafton shook hands with Lanham and Corrigan, the president dropped onto the couch. Corrigan didn't pay much attention to the naval officer so intent was he on the president.
“T.M.,” the president said, “I know your company has been talking to the government for months about licensing your proprietary sensor technology, and I know we are pretty close to a deal. I asked you here today to try to cut the process short, to twist your arm, make a deal and get on with the program.”
Corrigan laughed easily. “You don't have to twist very hard.”
“You've always been a big supporterâI know that,” the president said earnestly. He meant financial supporter, which in the world of big-time politics was the only kind that mattered. “But this matter is urgent. We have credible intelligence that a terrorist organization has purchased several
nuclear warheads from a rogue general in Russia. That is top secret, by the way.”
nuclear warheads from a rogue general in Russia. That is top secret, by the way.”
Corrigan didn't even nod. He was not a gossip, and the executives who populated the world in which he moved knew itâalthough they didn't know that he would not ignore an opportunity to make a profit on someone else's secret if it could be done in such a way that no one knew that he had done it. That kind of maneuvering never troubled his conscienceâhe honestly believed that he saw opportunities that others didn't because he was smarter than they were.
“We need that technology now,” the president continued. “The Customs Service has been carrying ordinary Geiger counters for years. They're worn on belt clipsâabout the size of a pager. Simple and unsophisticated, with limited capability. We're now deploying gamma ray and neutron flux detectors, putting them wherever we think the threat is greatest, but it's not enough. We must do more.”
“I hear you're also doing basic research on detecting radioactive material.”
The president nodded. “I've ordered a crash program at the government labs to build the next generation of detectors. We're working on it. But our scientists tell me your technology is better than what we are using, and it's ready to go into production now.”
“Well ⦔
“T.M., we need it
now
! Heck, we need it yesterday.”
now
! Heck, we need it yesterday.”
“Mr. President, the Customs Service and I have discussed price. They made an offer that I thought low, but I'll take it. Today. Now.”
Lanham, the national security adviser, broke in smoothly. “We need four times more sensors than the Customs Service and Coast Guard were discussing, and we need your company to drop everything and help us get these sensors produced and operational.”
They discussed the government's projected needs. Corrigan was willing. “I have the best engineering brains in
the country working for me,” he said at one point. “Nothing is impossible for them.”
the country working for me,” he said at one point. “Nothing is impossible for them.”
“When can we start?” the president asked Corrigan.
“Now. This afternoon,” T.M. replied. “As soon as I can get back to Boston. We'll get to the paperwork later.”
The president stood and stuck out his hand. Corrigan shook it. As they walked to the door, the president said, “Saw the article in
Power
. Good write-up.”
Power
. Good write-up.”
“Thank you,” said T.M. matter-of-factly, without a trace of humility. Well, it was a good article.
“You know,” the president continued, almost thinking aloud, “in five or six months the ambassadorship to the Court of St. James may come open. I can't offer you the post at this point. Still, if things work out the way I think they might and I can offer you London, would you be willing to consider it? It would mean leaving the management of your company, which would, of course, be difficult.”
“I'd be honored to be considered for such a post,” Corrigan said, his sincerity evident. “And if it were offered, I'd do everything in my power to arrange my affairs so that I could accept it.”
The president smiled. “I'll be talking to you,” he said, and shook Corrigan's hand again.
He came back to the couch. “You're sure these sensors will help?” he asked Jake Grafton.
“No, sir, I'm not. But I heard Customs and the Coast Guard have been negotiating on and off with Corriganâthey haven't had the money to buy the sensorsâand I thought they sounded good. Hell, it's only money.”
“So what's your plan to find these bombs?”
“Mr. President, we're working on that. Obviously more and better sensors are part of the mix. I've had a talk with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Alt, and the army chief of staff, General Cahn. We're putting together a plan to use army and national guard forces to search trains and trucks going through choke points and entering major cities. Take about a week to deploy the forces and
get operational, and we'll need your authority to make it happen. We'll search with conventional Geiger counters until we can get better equipment. The Delta Force is on standby to take out anyone found with a nuclear weapon, but finding them ⦔
get operational, and we'll need your authority to make it happen. We'll search with conventional Geiger counters until we can get better equipment. The Delta Force is on standby to take out anyone found with a nuclear weapon, but finding them ⦔
“Are bombs the threat?”
“They are one of the possibilities, certainly. Another is that a warhead will be seeded in with a truckload of conventional explosivesâlike the Oklahoma City bomb. The explosion will spread deadly radioactive plutonium, creating a major ecological disaster. Every time I see a tractor-trailer I think about that.”
“So you want to use the army to search trucks and railroad cars?”
“Precisely. The load would be pretty hot and easy to detect with conventional Geiger counters.”
“I'll approve that.”
“We're also talking to the Coast Guard, FAA, and Customs about harbor searches, ship searches, airplane searches. The agencies are doing everything in their power. If we can find something they aren't doing, help them do more, I'll make recommendations and offer assistance. I'm getting people and offices and computers and money. We're up and running.”
“I've given the orders,” the president said, “but you'll have to get the cooperation.” He rose from the couch and went to the window. As he stood looking out he said, “We've hundreds of years of statutes, federal regulations out the wazoo, and armies of career bureaucrats all trying to protect their rice bowls. Getting the government to do anything is a major triumph. Harry Truman said he spent a large part of his time kissing ass, trying to make things happen.”
“Amen,” Jake said.
The president turned to Lanham. “What do you think, Butch?”
“I don't think we have many choices, sir. The challenge will be to keep from panicking the public.” He opened
both hands wide. “We don't need another stock market meltdown or everyone deciding to stay home, bankrupting the airlines and gutting the economy. The press will learn we are using troops with Geiger counters and ask questions. You need to decide what you want us to say. It will be impossible to keep the activity of thousands of soldiers and guardsmen secret, and we'd be fools to try.”
both hands wide. “We don't need another stock market meltdown or everyone deciding to stay home, bankrupting the airlines and gutting the economy. The press will learn we are using troops with Geiger counters and ask questions. You need to decide what you want us to say. It will be impossible to keep the activity of thousands of soldiers and guardsmen secret, and we'd be fools to try.”
“Do we want to keep it secret?. Wouldn't we be better off letting the world see what we're doing to counter the threat?”
“It's telling people about the threat that I'm worried about,” Lanham remarked.
“What do you think?” the president asked Jake Grafton.
The admiral took a deep breath before he answered. “If we can search a high enough percentage of the nation's cargo, we can dissuade the enemy from doing something conventional. That means they'll get creative. The challenge is to prevent a really creative attack from succeeding.”
“Thanks for sugarcoating it, Admiral.” The president slapped his leg. “The public is entitled to know what their government is doing to ensure their safety. Obviously intelligence and intelligence sources are secrets and must stay that way. We'll tell the public that we're taking security measures that we deem appropriate and stop right there.”
“I'll brief the press secretary,” Lanham said, and excused himself.
“The age we live in ⦔ the president muttered sourly. “I can tell you for a fact that stopping âright there' will prove impossible. Too many people will know too much. Sooner or later the secret will get out, and God help us then.”
Jake Grafton was philosophical. “When you wake up in the morning, turn on your television. If the crowd on CNBC is talking about stocks, America is still in one piece. I listen to about half a minute of that, then say, Thank You, Jesus, and get out of bed.”
Jake Grafton wasn't sleeping nights. He had a plan, although he didn't like it very much. He hoped to use Zelda Hudsonâsoon to be Sarah Houstonâand Zip Vance as key members of a team to bring information together from disparate places to see if they could find patterns. And terrorists. The main thrust, he thought, should be to find out what anyone knew about the Sword of Islam. He wasn't sanguineâhe needed a crack to pry at. And he didn't have one.
The government was deploying an army to search for radiation with conventional equipment. That was strictly a short-term solution. He needed high-tech sensors so he could turn the job over to a small cadre of searchers. Of course, the United States was a huge place, with thousands of ports of entry, and it would take years to procure and deploy enough sensors to cover every intake hole. Still, some ports of entry were more probable than others ⦠it shouldn't take long to have a significant chance of finding radioactive material being smuggled in.
Significant chances ⦠terrorist hunts.
It was enough to make a grown man cry. After his meeting with the president he went back to Langley and huddled with his new staff. He had asked for and got an officer he knew from several years ago to be his chief of staff, Captain Gil Pascal. He had three people from Customs, three from the National Security Agency, and two from the Coast Guard.
“We have four problems to solve,” Jake said, “before we can deploy and use these new sensors. First, we have to figure out where and how we will employ them. What is an acceptable level of probability of detection? Is it fifty percent? Sixty? Eighty? What is achievable with the technology and sensors we have? And what can we do to counter attempts to thwart or evade the search?”
Everyone nodded.
“Second, we must decide how we will respond if we
detect radioactive material. It could be anything from hospital waste to a ticking bomb. If it is a bomb, we must gain control of it before the bad guys detonate it.”
detect radioactive material. It could be anything from hospital waste to a ticking bomb. If it is a bomb, we must gain control of it before the bad guys detonate it.”
“That'll be a snap,” the senior Coast Guard officer, a captain, commented.
“To accomplish this, we must decide on and appoint someone with real-time tactical decision-making authority. We are talking a major responsibility. It almost goes without saying that the consequences of those decisions could be catastrophic if they turn out badly.”
Silence followed that comment.
“Finally,” Jake continued, “we need to devise a plan to control public and insider information about our search efforts. The news will get out, and if we don't manage it right, we could have mass panic, which might lead to a public safety or political meltdown. Or both.”
After an afternoon of intense conversation, Captain Pascal drafted a memo to the president outlining Jake's four issues and proposing answers. Toad Tarkington delivered it to the White House.
When Toad left on his errand, Jake called his FBI liaison officer, Harry Estep. “What are you doing on the Doyle investigation?”
“Interviewing everyone in the government, Admiral, who knew that Ilin named Doyle.”
“Then what?”
“We'll follow leads, if any. The thinking here is that we should follow up the interviews with polygraph exams.”
“How accurate are they?”
“Well ⦔
“Oh, hell, let's do it. Tarkington and I will be first.”
“Stop by this evening, around seven, at this address.” Estep gave it to him.
At six that evening Toad brought the memo he had hand-delivered to the White House back to Jake in a sealed envelope.
Jake opened the envelope at his desk. The president
had written in longhand at the bottom of the memo, below Jake's signature: “Approved. You, Admiral Grafton, are the tactical decision maker.” Then the president's signature, written boldly.
had written in longhand at the bottom of the memo, below Jake's signature: “Approved. You, Admiral Grafton, are the tactical decision maker.” Then the president's signature, written boldly.
Jake tossed the document to Toad, who read it, then commented, “You knew he was going to do that.”
“Yes.”
“Boy, he didn't initial itâhe wrote his full name in big letters.”
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