Resurrection Day (23 page)

When Collins entered the sixth floor of the Hoover building, it looked like bedlam. It was as if war had suddenly broken out and FBI Headquarters was the nerve centre of operations. He was promptly beckoned into Tom Murphy's office. 'Grab a seat,' Murphy said out of the side of his mouth before he resumed talking intently on the telephone.

Collins sat, noticed that beyond the glass wall that separated the outer open-plan offices everyone seemed to be in a state of urgency. Agents young and old worked on desktop computers or sifted through paperwork and files, dashed to consult colleagues or talked heatedly on telephones. Nobody seemed to be sitting still except him. Murphy got off the phone, agitated. 'We've got a dire situation, Jack.'

Being a New Yorker, Collins' boss was a straight talker, not the type to waste time on chitchat, and especially not this evening. There were no offers of coffee or banter; he came straight to the point. Five minutes later, when Murphy had explained the emergency, Collins was stunned. So that's what the Union Station incident was all about.

A scenario like this had been anticipated for years, but it didn't lessen Collins' shock. Experts had warned about it, predicted it. Some day, crazies or terrorists were going to attack a US city with a weapon of mass destruction. The public had become inured: countless Hollywood movies had used the scenario. But now it had finally happened. Knowing the sheer mountain of work that would lie ahead in any investigation of this kind, Collins took a deep breath, in frustration as much as in awe of the enormity of the threat.

Murphy said, 'You OK?'

Collins was pale. 'I guess the shock's still sinking in.'

'This is the one we've all been dreading,' Murphy said. 'The big enchilada. And I've got a lousy feeling it's going to be a hell of an uphill battle. It's barely started, but every man we've got is on the case, coast to coast.'

With the knowledge of an insider, Collins knew that the years of warnings and anticipation didn't mean that the US was any more prepared to counter a chemical, biological or nuclear attack. Indeed, the very opposite was the case. America's Achilles' heel was her vulnerability to just such a threat. Sheer size was a major part of it. No matter how many cops, coastguards and immigration officials policed the nation's borders, covering over three and a half million square miles of land and sea, they were impossible to guard thoroughly. Terrorists could still slip into the country using false papers or via thinly patrolled border routes from Canada, and melt into the sprawling, ethnically diverse towns and cities of America to carry out their attacks. And despite the experts' warnings, even the nation's capital was ill prepared. No one in the Bureau could ever forget the embarrassment sparked by the infamous Janet Reno incident.

In 1997, the US Attorney General, Janet Reno, invited over two hundred participants from the police and various federal agencies to the FBI's Washington headquarters, under the code-name Operation Poised Response, to take part in a 'war game' to see how they'd jointly handle a spectacular terrorist attack. One of the four scenarios examined was a chemical weapons strike on a Washington Redskins football game. The response was anything but poised. The meeting ended in inter-group squabbling and finger-pointing and Reno storming out in disgust. If two hundred of the city's top lawmen couldn't agree strategy, Collins wondered, what hope had the District's citizens?

'If the press get hold of this, we both know there'd be wholesale chaos on the streets,' Murphy went on. 'We're under strict orders to keep this thing under wraps. That's why I couldn't tell you the situation at the station, until I had clearance. Secrecy's absolutely imperative. The orders come from the President himself. Anyone disobeys, personally I wouldn't like to be in their shoes. They're off the case, pronto, and that'd be the least of their worries. They could kiss goodbye to career, pension and a lot more besides.'

Three copies, and only three, had been made of the two tapes, Murphy explained. The same number of copies had been made of the letter accompanying Abu Hasim's first video. Sets of each were stored in locked safes in the offices of senior Bureau personnel with the originals kept in a secure vault, so there could be no leaks.

Murphy stood, grim faced. 'Now that you're in the picture, we'll go take a look at the letter and videos. Then I'll get you filled in on where we are and what you'll be doing.'

In a darkened office, with the blinds down, Collins watched the silent dance of death. Saw twelve innocent men walk into a bare, white-walled room to meet their end in the most clinical, chilling manner he'd ever witnessed. When it was over and the tape finally clicked to a halt, Collins was overcome.

Bile rose in his throat. It was almost too much to take in. Obscene wasn't the word — it was a cold-blooded massacre, and his mouth twisted in anger. He had already seen the two video messages, heard the calm in Hasim's voice as he delivered his demands with not a trace of emotion. This was the same man whose acts of terror had sent Sean and countless other innocents to their deaths with the same kind of equanimity. Collins had an almost uncontrollable urge to take out his Glock automatic and drill the face on the screen. Murphy, sitting on the edge of the desk, holding the remote control, said, 'You OK, Jack?'

Collins nodded, seething with rage.

Murphy was a seasoned FBI agent, a man who'd witnessed countless victims of Mafia turf wars and ruthless drug barons, the nightmare aftermaths of air disasters, high-school shootings and bloody massacres carried out by crazed gunmen. But even so, his face was pale, his voice hoarse with raw emotion. 'I know how you feel. It's maybe the most terrifying, disturbing thing I've ever seen. Know what's really scary, almost impossible to imagine? That what happened to those fourteen guys could happen to a large portion of Washington's population. Men, women, kids. It just doesn't bear thinking about.'

Murphy nicked off the VCR, tossed the remote aside, opened the office blinds and went back to sit on the edge of his desk. There had been other terrorist threats and attacks against Washington that both men could recall: a threat to poison the city's water supply by right-wing extremists back in '92, an attempt to blow up the Capitol building by the Black Panthers decades before, a threat to blow up Congress by Patriot groups in the mid-nineties. But they all paled by comparison to this one. It was exactly the kind of spectacular terrorist threat the FBI had been dreading.

'The tapes have been gone over with a fine-tooth comb. Forensic threw up no fingerprints or other identifiable marks,' Murphy explained. 'The same with the Jiffy bag and typed sheets. But we've got the boys from Documents still working on the letters' pages to see if we can trace their origin. If we could find out where they were bought, maybe we can get a lead.'

'What about witnesses?'

'No one was seen stashing the tape at the cemetery. And the video surveillance of the package being left in the locker at Union doesn't help us much. Maybe a man, but we're not sure — their face was covered with a scarf and the hood of their windcheater and they wore gloves. We've got some guys down there right now, questioning all Amtrak employees on duty that evening. The same with the private security firm that looks after the shopping-mall area of the station. But so far we've no witnesses who saw anyone leave the package. And it's pretty much a cert that the coins used in the ticket machine won't show up any prints, because the unknown subject wore gloves. We've had all the cash emptied from the ticket dispenser and we're checking every coin anyway.'

'What about the White House caller?'

'The experts are still trying to get a fix on him, but they've had no success yet. All they can really say is that it's likely he's of Arab origin.' Murphy sighed, got up off the desk. 'Not a great start, is it? And so far they're playing a clever game. However, we've had an interesting development that I'll tell you about in a minute. But first, let me reiterate something regarding security. Every man in the Bureau who knows what's happening is going to be tempted to move their loved ones out of danger, especially if the deadline draws close without a resolution. But if they do that, they risk blowing the lid off this whole thing. So nobody even hints to their families or friends that they ought to get out of town, understood? Those are the rules and they stay that way until we're told otherwise. And in case you're wondering, everyone at the White House obeys the same rules. The President included.'

At that moment, Collins' thoughts were not for the capital's millions of hapless citizens, or even for his own safety, but for Nikki. He couldn't even warn her to leave Washington.

'We need to tackle this as quietly as possible,' Murphy went on. 'And that's the damned difficulty. We can't have hordes of agents and uniformed cops stopping cars and pulling out passengers, searching for these people and their device. Either Joe Public's going to smell a rat, or we'll run the risk of maybe surprising one of Hasim's cell and they'll get rattled and press the button. We'll need to do it all discreetly. Very discreetly. Like we're walking on glass, every step we take. But we'll still need to cover ourselves so that if the public or press get an inkling that we've got a major investigation under way, and start asking serious questions, they get plausible answers.'

'So what do we tell them?'

'Nothing, unless we absolutely have to. And if we do, we've got a cover story.' Murphy explained about the fictitious stolen barrels of chloric acid. 'The acid's an industrial chemical used in the etching process. It's potentially hazardous, can cause serious pollution, burns, and even death if the fumes are inhaled. The plan is we'll be learning up our guys with the city cops, one on one, in plainclothes. One agent, one cop. Only our agents will know what we're really looking for — the cops will be told its the chloric acid we're after. We'll be setting up as many of these two-man teams as we can, but there'll be a limit, obviously, or else we'll draw too much attention. But let me explain what we're up against.' Murphy crossed to a map of Washington and Collins followed him over.

'Over sixty square miles.' Murphy slapped a hand on the map. 'And that's just the District. We'll need to discreetly search the major towns and districts close to Washington, and the countryside as well, out beyond the borders with Virginia and Maryland. Farmhouses, barns, silos, storage depots, warehouses, deserted buildings of any kind. We're having a list drawn up, with the help of the tax authorities and relevant government agencies. We're contacting chemical suppliers all over the country, too, in case any of the nerve-gas components were bought Stateside. And agents are being dispatched to every cropdusting business across the nation, to check for anything suspicious.'

Collins knew that the task ahead was overwhelming. 'Have we got a name for the operation?'

'We're calling it Safe District.'

'What about the search for the al-Qaeda cell? Assuming there's more than one person baby-sitting the device.'

'As a starting point, we use our lists of Middle Eastern terrorist supporters.'

'But we've got hundreds, and that's just in the District alone.'

'And we'll need to put an undercover watch on every one,' Murphy answered. 'I don't care how many men it takes, it's got to be done, and quickly. Anyone suspicious, or anyone we suspect might be helping these crazies, we intensify our watch. Do it as prudently as we can. We reassess the situation in forty-eight hours. If by then we haven't produced anything, we narrow down the lists, or expand them, whatever. We'll also need our guys out on the highways in unmarked cars. Any pick-ups or trucks with heavy loads, or suspicious vehicles of any kind, we follow them, check them out, but from a safe distance. We don't go rushing in, weapons drawn. That's too much of a risk in any situation.'

'You said there'd been a development.'

Murphy nodded, came away from the map. 'This is where it starts to get interesting. The only piece of good news we've had so far. I got a call from the Assistant Director just before you got here. It turns out the formula for the nerve gas was stolen in Moscow. It's a new, top-secret chemical weapon — code-named Substance A232X — that the Russians developed, and it's got no antidote.' Murphy explained the circumstances of Boris Novikov's murder. 'The story is, the FSB investigation turned up a suspect on a security camera, who looked like he was tailing the victim weeks before his death. They're sending over two guys from Moscow — one a scientist who worked on the A232X programme who'll give us the lowdown on the gas and its likely damage projections. The other guy's an FSB officer who's going to help us with the hunt. They both arrive in Washington early today.'

Collins frowned. 'Why the cooperation?'

Murphy flicked his eyes to the ceiling. 'Orders from above. We take whatever help we can get.'

'So who's the FSB officer?'

'Name's Alexei Kursk. Rank of major. I'll want you to work with him, Jack. Give him all the co-operation you can. We'll muster a small team — Kursk, yourself, and one or two more agents. I'll go over the details as soon as we're through here.'

'So what's so special about Kursk?'

'He's familiar with the guy caught on camera, knows him from way back. His name's Nikolai Gorev, half Russian, half Chechen, a terrorist wanted by Moscow, heavily involved in the Chechen cause. They call him the Cobra. And there's another guy he's been seen with, whom Moscow thinks might also be a suspect. I better emphasise that the two suspects may not be same terrorists threatening Washington. But both of them have links to al-Qaeda, and Moscow seems to think they're pretty strong candidates for a plot like this.'

'Who's the other suspect?'

'Mohamed Rashid.'

Atlantic City, New Jersey

11 November 8.35 p.m.

The man was stocky, wore an expensive, well-tailored suit under a black leather jacket, and carried a silver-topped walking stick. He had a black patch over his left eye, and was accompanied by two armed bodyguards. On the man's instructions they remained a discreet distance away as he waited on the boardwalk, staring out to sea, smoking a cigar. The man's dark-windowed Mercedes limo was parked near the kerb.