Act of War (36 page)

“Who says we have to go with the current president? We can use his predecessor. That’s even better. They loved him. We’ll make it a journalistic act of conscience for them to keep quiet.”

Johnson looked at the FBI Director. When he nodded and indicated that he was good with it, the DNI said, “Okay, I’ll run it by the President.”

“Which leaves us with Boise,” said the Director as he looked once more at his notes. “There we’ve got at least a little good news.”

“The bus station where the students all accessed the Wi-Fi network?” Harvath asked.

“That’s the one. We pulled the CCTV footage for the entire day and have been able to identify each of them, when they got there, what they did while they were there, and what bus they got on.”

“What about how they got there?” asked Carlton. “Did someone drop them off? Do we have a license plate? Anything?”

“They were staggered and came at different points throughout the day. Two of them overlapped, but just barely and they never made contact at any point. And as far as
how
they all got there, we’re still trying to piece that together. There’s no smoking gun, no truck that pulled up in front and dropped them all off.

“I’ve saved the best discovery, though, for last.” Picking up the remote for the monitor at the front of the conference room, the FBI Director activated a string of short CCTV clips. “Recognize the man in the blue jacket?” he asked.

Harvath studied the images on the screen. “That’s Wazir Ibrahim.”

“We concur. He apparently paid cash and bought a ticket to Nashville on the same bus as our Emirati engineering student, Mirsab Maktoum. Here’s a split screen of each of them getting on the same bus, though not together.

“Interestingly enough, five other men, who all look to be of Somali descent, also paid cash for tickets that day. Guess what buses they were on?”

“Every bus that one of our engineering students was on.”

“Precisely.”

“What about CCTV footage from the stations in the arrival cities?” Harvath asked. “Have you pulled those to see who picked them up or where they went once they got there?”

“We’ve had agents going over the footage, as well as looking for any footage from other cameras radiating out from the bus stations. As it stands now, all of them appear to have just walked off and disappeared into each of the cities.”

Harvath was about to ask if the bus drivers or any of the passengers had been identified and interviewed when there was a knock on the conference room door.

It was the FBI Director’s assistant. He was holding up a file folder and the Director motioned for him to come in.

Walking over to his boss, he handed him the file, said something quietly in his ear, and then left the room.

Harvath wondered if they had finally located Tommy Wong. It turned out to be something even better.

Opening the folder, the Director quickly scanned the contents and then said, “I think we may have just caught a very big break.”

“What is it?”

“We think we have located three more of the storage units.”

W
hile the FBI coordinated their strike teams, Harvath and Carlton commandeered one of the conference rooms and asked Special Agent Heidi Roe to join them.

“What do you know about Somali criminal enterprises?” Harvath asked her.

“I know the biggest thing they seem to be into is importing narcotics, most particularly a substance known as khat, and that they also dabble in prostitution.”

“What about terrorism?”

“Well, both the Bureau and the Agency have been concerned about all the young Somalis in the U.S. who have been traveling back to Africa to receive training and fight in the jihad there. Everyone’s predicting that it’s only a matter of time before we see them bring those skills back here.”

“What do you think the chances are that’s what we’re seeing right now?” Harvath asked. “The engineers were recruited for their engineering skills and the Somalis were recruited for their
terrorism
skills, let’s say.”

“Skills at what, specifically? Martyrdom?”

“Maybe.”

“Why did they go to Idaho, then?” asked Roe. “To learn how to martyr themselves?”

“Depends on the method. The 9/11 hijackers needed to learn how to fly airplanes to complete their martyrdom.”

“Not all of them.”

Harvath nodded. “That’s true. Some were simply muscle.”

“But when you think of Somalis, is muscle the first thing that comes to mind?” Carlton asked.

“No. Not really.”

“You think jihadi, right? A shaheed who martyrs himself,” said Carlton.

“A jihadi can be a fighter. It doesn’t have to be someone who intends to martyr himself. Maybe that’s why they were brought in.”

“Let’s back up a second,” said Roe. “What do we know with a fair amount of certainty? The engineering students were brought to the U.S. specifically because of their engineering expertise. Let’s assume they’re needed to build or assemble something. Let’s call it a bomb.”

“Okay,” Harvath replied.

“They needed to be imported because, for whatever reason, the Chinese can’t find that kind of labor here.”

“Or because they want this to look like an Islamic attack.”

“Right, the whole unrestricted warfare plan. Okay, so you have your bomb assemblers. They’re Muslim, from the UAE, and let’s assume religious. Given that the Chinese are behind everything, let’s also assume that they’ve planted, or will plant, enough clues to make the case that the men were affiliated with Al Qaeda.”

“Which their families will deny,” said Carlton, “the same way many of the 9/11 hijackers’ families denied the connections.”

“Except this time, the families will be telling the truth,” said Harvath.

Carlton nodded, and Roe continued. “So the UAE part makes sense. In fact, let’s assume that as long as the engineers were from somewhere in the Arab world, they’d fit the bill. How do the Somalis then fit in?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” said Harvath. “If you want this to really look like Al Qaeda, why not use Arabs, or Yemenis, or even Pakistanis?”

“Too hard to get?”

“Jihadis are a dime a dozen.”

Roe tapped her pen on the conference room table. “What would make Somalis special?”

“As far as Wazir Ibrahim was concerned, he had already been living in the United States for a couple of years.”

“So he was somewhat established,” said Roe as she wrote it down. “He knows the customs, he has a job, and he’s married.”

“He’s also a fucking dirtbag who beat his wife and was likely involved in a child sex ring.”

“Which his handler was obviously not aware of,” said Carlton.

Roe looked at him. “Why do you say
obviously
?”

“Because you wouldn’t want that guy in one of your cells. Too high-risk. Eventually a knucklehead like that is going to run afoul of the cops.”

“So what’s that tell you about his handler?”

“That there were some pretty significant things about Wazir Ibrahim that he didn’t know.”

“And why wouldn’t his handler know those things?”

“How much time do you have?” the Old Man asked her. “The handler could have subbed Ibrahim in at the last minute. Ibrahim could have been a very good liar. Ibrahim could have had a medical condition that only manifested itself on odd-numbered Thursdays of every other month. The list is endless.”

Carlton reminded Roe of her grandfather. He could be irascible as well, but he was also very smart. “Ockham’s razor,” she pressed. “What’s the simplest answer?”

“The simplest answer is that the handler just didn’t do his due diligence.”

“Okay, let’s go with that. Why? Why, with something this important, would the handler not do his due diligence?”

Harvath sensed that she was getting under the Old Man’s skin, but he liked the way her mind worked. She was highly analytical. She was also right and it was forcing them to think harder.

“You wouldn’t cut corners,” said Harvath. “Not on something like this. You absolutely would do your homework.”

Roe looked at him. “So what’s your explanation?”

“I think Wazir Ibrahim is the template. He’s a long-term sleeper. You wouldn’t have wanted him to be here on an overstayed visa. They would have brought him in another way—as a political refugee or something like that. That’s how tens of thousands of Somalis have gained access to
the country. The United States has one of the largest collections of Somali expatriates in the world.

“So the Chinese could have had a recruiter in Somalia who groomed sleepers and helped move them into the U.S. immigration pipeline. I would use Wazir Ibrahim as the nexus. Look at where he was from in Somalia and who immigrated around the same time he did and we might find the other men in that CCTV footage from Boise.”

It was a good point and Roe wrote it down. “So whoever recruited him may not have known about his proclivities?”

Harvath nodded. “I know the Bureau is contacting all of its Somali informants, but I’d reach out to Detective Hoffman back in Nashville, too. See if he can uncover anyone in that Somali trafficking ring who recognizes any of the faces in the bus station footage. Have him check with Wazir Ibrahim’s widow as well. She may know something about his trip to Boise that could prove helpful.

“Speaking of which, have your teams in Boise had any luck with that additional item I suggested that they look for?”

Roe nodded. “I don’t think a warrant like that has ever been issued before. We got one, though, and I think your idea of roping in the police chief and the mayor was smart, especially for dealing with the smaller businesses. Everyone has cooperated so far.”

“Do we have an ETA?”

“Everything is getting piped to the NSA. They’re running the algorithms as they get the data.”

“What about Tommy Wong?” Harvath then asked.

“Still nothing.”

“What about the other members of the 14K triad back in Southern Cal? Maybe they know something.”

“If they do, none of them are talking,” Roe replied. “We’ve put their phones into heavy rotation and we’re monitoring their email accounts, but the FBI only has so much manpower. We can’t sit on them 24/7.”

“I understand,” said Harvath, who looked at the Old Man. “Has Anne Levy had any success running down any contacts of the students back in the UAE?”

Carlton shook his head. “Zip.”

Harvath glanced at his watch. Even though they had located only
three of what was believed would be five storage units, the President had given the go-ahead to move on them. They were located in Las Vegas, Dallas, and Des Moines.

The NSA had nixed the idea of launching an attack against the Great Firewall of China, and for good reason. Just because the PLA’s hacking unit in Shanghai appeared to be watching the CCTV feeds of the storage facilities didn’t mean that no one else was. In fact, as the NSA began to build on what Nicholas had uncovered, they believed there was another source dipping into the feed. And that source wasn’t in China.

It was decided that a widespread Internet disruption originating within the United States was the only way to deal with the issue. The risks were discussed with President Porter, and after addressing a handful of national security as well as private sector issues, he gave his approval.

Plainclothes FBI agents in Las Vegas, Dallas, and Des Moines helped covertly evacuate customers at the facilities as three separate ruses were enacted to evacuate any nearby homes or businesses in each city. No one had any idea what was in the storage units, or if they were booby-trapped.

As soon as the customers had been removed from the facilities, the NSA began compiling the footage they would use for their loops. Two of the facilities, though, had cameras that picked up part of the road traffic near their entrances.

Because of the public safety concerns, traffic was being diverted away from all of the facilities in question. The NSA decided to roll the dice and pulled the entrance camera footage from two previous nights off those facilities’ DVRs. After making sure no one was seen entering during any of the lengths they intended to use, they tested everything multiple times and then let everyone know they were ready to roll.

Once the strike teams were in place, the go code would be given and the simultaneous, three-city operation would launch.

DNI Johnson and the FBI Director had gone to the White House to be with the President in the Situation Room, along with the rest of his national security team. Harvath and Carlton had decided to remain at the NCTC, so they could continue working until the op launched.

Now, noticing the time, they exited the conference room and walked out onto the Ops Center floor.

T
he floor of the Ops Center fell eerily silent and the tension was palpable. The large flat-screens that hung from the second-story catwalks displayed a variety of images. Aerial drone footage showed the storage facilities from above, while the cameras mounted on the team members’ helmets gave on-the-ground POVs. The same secure images being viewed inside the NCTC were also being beamed to the Situation Room at the White House.

The only sounds on the floor came from the overhead speakers and the disembodied voices of Ops Center Command—the NCTC mission commander seated at the largest workstation on the floor—and the strike team leaders in Las Vegas, Dallas, and Des Moines.

“Deadbolt Four, this is Ops Center Command. Do you copy, over?”

“Ops Center Command, this is Deadbolt Four. We copy, over.”

“Roger that, Deadbolt Four. Stand by. Over.”

“Roger that, Ops Center Command. Deadbolt Four is standing by. Over.”

The conversation was repeated two more times as Ops Center Command reached out to the remaining team leaders to make sure they were in place and ready to go.

“Smokestack, this is Ops Center Command. All teams are in place and ready to roll. Over.”

There was a pause and then the voice of General Johnson came through the speakers overhead from the White House Situation Room.

“Ops Center Command, this is Smokestack. You are cleared for launch. Repeat. Ops Center Command is cleared for launch, over.”