All Necessary Force (40 page)

“Pike, it’s close to six o’clock right now. It’ll take him at least four hours to process before I get it, and that’s just the fingerprints. You’re talking about an all-nighter.”

“Holly, it’s important. You get a hit and you’ll finally get that twelve-pack I owe you. One more thing: Don’t tell Kurt you’re doing it.”

“Dammit, Pike… you’re going to owe me more than a twelve-pack.”

Rafik watched Keshawn test the circuit on the M57, then simulate initiating the explosively formed penetrator. He was impressed with Keshawn’s attention to detail, and mulled over the decision he had to make. Since the loss of Adnan in Budapest, he had been debating the makeup of the teams, feeling the need to wait for Kamil to arrive before initiating the attack so that each prison recruit would have at least one trusted Arab with him, but both Keshawn’s and Carl’s actions had begun to convince him that they could travel alone. That they could be trusted to accomplish the mission, with Farouk and the imam going with the other two men.

Keshawn rolled up the wire to the M57 and walked to Rafik, the faltering sunlight streaming through the garage windows becoming overshadowed by the flicker of the harsh fluorescent bulbs overhead.

“How many more men still need to train?”

Rafik considered lying, but told the truth. “None. We finished today.”

Keshawn’s face flashed surprise. “You’ve given the men their targets? Like you did me? And they have their explosives?”

“Yes.”

“So when do we strike?”

“If everyone makes it back home okay and goes to work tomorrow as a normal day, then perhaps tomorrow. If we have any issues with returning to work, we wait a day. The key is to conduct the attacks simultaneously. That is imperative.”

“Why are you so fired up about returning to work? We have the targets. Shit, in most cases, I’m hitting the same substations you had me sketch, so it’s not like I can’t find them. I can’t speak for the other teams or their companies, but in my case, BGE will have a GPS on my truck. Seems like a stupid risk.”

The Americans always want to question. To fight decisions. Perhaps I’m wrong about letting him go as an individual.

“After the first few attacks, the authorities will react. I cannot predict how, but they
will
try to stop us. Your company truck, along with the trucks maintained by the companies the other teams work for, will be the subterfuge that allows success. It may be the only edge we get.”

“That’s bullshit. If they figure out what’s going on, it’ll be no effort at all to track us down. Shit, we’ll be helping them.”

“Keshawn, you have proven to be dedicated, but listen to me, please. If not because you trust me, then at least based on my experience. The chances of them penetrating our cell are much less than them extrapolating what we’re after. They can’t possibly protect every substation, but we might be unlucky enough to run into one that is protected after we start. Your truck will allow you to bypass.”

Keshawn said nothing. Rafik considered his next words, toying with confirming that he himself would be Keshawn’s partner, and that the attack would have to wait until Kamil arrived to be Carl’s partner. But he was afraid that the time delay would cause discovery of the Trojan horse virus that Keshawn and the others had embedded in the power company systems.

After obtaining the explosives, he’d ordered it activated, and now it was only a matter of time before it was found. Without it, they would fail, since the grid would be able to automatically detect fluctuations and reallocate power at the speed of a computer. The virus would take that out of the equation, leaving the process manually done, at the speed of a human trying to blindly assess how to staunch the bleeding.

He broached the subject gently. “I’m thinking of sending Carl by himself. Do you think he could do that? Without any guidance from my men?”

Keshawn considered for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. He’s ready. With his military background, he won’t have any problems.”

“What about his commitment?”

“You mean because of what happened at A.P. Hill? I wouldn’t worry about that. He was in jail for robbing a liquor store. They only got him on the robbery, because of some sort of screwup with the prosecution, but he killed three people in cold blood in the getaway. He developed a sense of justice based on your own chaplain’s teachings, but it won’t interfere. He’ll do what needs to be done.”

Rafik nodded. “And what about you? Can you get it done as well?”

Keshawn stared at him, the implication sinking in. “I thought you were my partner on this. I’m going alone?”

“If you think you can. Tell me if that’s not the case.”

Keshawn grinned, the thought of doing something to justify Beth’s sacrifice hitting him at his core. “I can do it. In fact, I work better alone.”

“Go home and get a good night’s rest. If I’m contacted by all teams tonight, tomorrow will be a glorious day.”

Gazing out the window, thinking of Beth, Keshawn whispered, “Judgment Day.”

66

I

awoke groggy, unsure what the ringing was, but sure of one thing: It was annoying the hell out of me. The clock told me it was six thirty in the morning. Way too early to be awake now that I was no longer in the military. I sat up in time to see Jennifer snatch my cell phone off of the table between our double beds.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s right here.”

She handed it to me with a quizzical look, saying, “Some woman named Holly.”

I grabbed the phone. “You got a hit? The prints ended up being the imam?”

“No, Pike, they didn’t, which is why I’m calling to wake you up to share some of the pain. The prints came up in AFIS database in New York as belonging to an ex-con. Thanks for keeping me up all night.”

Shit. Nothing.

“Well… why did he spike as a Muslim?”

“No idea. Probably because the roommate’s crazy. The ex-con’s been out on parole for three years. He was in for gang violence. Accessory to murder for a couple of thugs that deserved to die anyway. He’s a black guy, not Arabic. Did his time in Attica and has apparently done okay, because his rap sheet’s clean since his release. Sorry.”

Attica
? Something about the prison gave me pause, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Hey, don’t we have some terrorists in prison up at Attica? Why does that jail ring a bell with me?”

“Yeah, we’ve got some terrorists up there all right, but the Christian
kind. It’s where that asshole Cyrus Mace is being held. The guy who allegedly masterminded the theft of C-4 at A.P. Hill.”

I bolted upright.
Way too much of a coincidence.

“Holly, I need you to stay there. I’m on my way.”

“Pike, screw that. I’ve wasted enough time on your wild goose chases. I’m going home and going to bed. It’ll be hard enough explaining my absence today without telling everyone I was freelancing for you.”

“Holly, please. Give me an hour. One hour. After that, you can go. I’ll buy you a case of that local brew you like so much. The expensive shit.”

I heard nothing for a moment, then, “One hour. And it’s starting right fucking now.”

I hung up and immediately dialed Retro at his hotel, waking him up as well.

“HELLO.”

He was definitely annoyed. He was supposed to be on downtime after the deployment, and itching to get back home to his family in North Carolina, only waiting on final debriefings and other paperwork before he was released.
Oh well. Dive right in.

“It’s Pike. I need a favor.”

“Shit. What now? It’s not even seven in the damn morning.”

“I need to get into the Force headquarters again. Right now.”

Fifty-eight minutes later, I was sitting inside the secret cell with everyone but Jennifer oozing venom. Retro had to pull in Buckshot to get me access, and neither was very happy at the loss of rack time. For her part, Holly was packing her bags, getting ready to leave.

“Holly, come on. Ten more minutes. We can’t talk to anyone at the prison until eight. You leave now, and the whole thing is wasted. I need your undercover-brother cop connections.”

“An hour’s an hour. Sorry. I’m out of here.”

Retro spoke up. “Holly, I’m the last guy who would defend Pike’s
stupid antics, but he
did
get us out of bed this morning. Make it worth our while. When it ends up being nothing, we can all beat him to death.”

Holly, eyes red and hair greasy, looked at him, then at me. She threw her hands up.

“All right. One phone call.” She pointed her finger at me. “But you now owe me dinner at the restaurant of my choice.”

“You got it,” I said.

We waited until the clock struck eight, then she dialed. Before anyone answered, I said, “We need to get a handle on this guy. Find out what he was doing at the prison. See if anything’s strange. Anything at all—”

She held up her hand. “Shut up.”

“Put it on speaker?”

She did.

She spent a couple of minutes verifying her credentials, going through the cop-talk lingo until the man on the other end was comfortable with the conversation. Eventually, she worked her way around to the ex-con, but the guy had no idea about him. He pulled the convict’s records, which didn’t tell us anything at all except that he’d been a troublemaker when he arrived but settled down into a rhythm where he became a model inmate, earning parole.

I whispered, “We need someone who worked with him. Someone who knows him personally.”

Holly glared, but made the request. The man on the phone said, “If he was released three years ago, I’m not sure anyone will remember. We do have quite a few inmates, you know.”

I heard him shuffling papers on his desk, then he said, “Well, Bobby was on his block during that time, and he’s still here. Want to talk to him?”

Holly stared daggers at me, letting me know that we were now wasting the time of people in a different state. “Please. If you don’t mind.”

A few minutes later, a deep baritone came on. “This is Bobby; how can I help you?”

Holly went through her descriptions again, and waited to be told this was a waste of time.

Bobby said, “Oh yeah, I remember him. A real badass when he
showed up, but calmed right down. He ended up being a pretty good guy. I know everyone wants to bitch about Muslims nowadays, but we got a chaplain here who calmed down a whole crew of killers like him. I’ll tell ya, I’m all for that religion if it keeps the peace in here. Unlike that fucker Cyrus, spouting all his hate and stirring things up.”

I felt an electric jolt. So did everyone else in the room. Holly continued, no longer pissed.

“What do you mean? He was in a prayer group?”

“Yeah, him and about twenty others. A group of them, four or five, really took it seriously. We had to get special permission for the chaplain to come more than he was scheduled for those guys. It was a no-brainer, since racial violence was subsiding no matter how much Cyrus tried to stir it up.”

“Who’s the chaplain? Is he still there? Can we talk to him?”

“Unfortunately, no. He was a volunteer and quit coming about a month ago. Too bad, really. Violence is back up now.”

This is it.

I cut in. “Bobby, how many of that small group are still in prison?”

“Just one. The rest were paroled because of good behavior. Last one about a year ago.”

I wrote down on a piece of paper,
Get the records of the parolees. All four.

Holly nodded, getting switched back over to the administrator. In fifteen minutes, we split up the list, calling each parole officer in four separate states. All four ex-cons were now model citizens, with each parole officer gushing the praises of their wards.

All four worked for the main power company in the state where they resided.

They’re going to hit the grid.

I said, “Collate that information into a single sheet. Names, addresses, supervisors, and anything else we can use to pin them down.”

Holly went to work. Retro said, “What are you going to do?”

“Find Kurt. Get this out, right now. We may already be too late.”

“Kurt’s at the Oversight Council, trying to get Omega authority for an asshole in Oman.”

Dammit
. Another place I wasn’t allowed anymore. More bureaucracy to fight through. The good news was that everyone who was anyone in the U.S. government would be there.

“Well, they’re about to shift gears. That guy in Oman is nowhere near the threat we’re facing now.”

67

K

eshawn drove down the deserted dirt road and pulled the truck alongside his beat-up Honda Civic. He got out and began to transfer the loaded EFPs and other equipment. He had decided to ignore Rafik’s orders about using the BGE vehicle, feeling more secure in his own car. He had been pleased when he was told he was on his own, because he thought driving the company truck—with an Arabic imposter wearing a BGE uniform—was absolute stupidity. Others might blindly follow Rafik’s orders, but Keshawn refused to do so.

The transfer complete, he continued down the road to his first target, a substation in the middle of nowhere. One that he’d sketched a month ago. He pulled the car around the back, hiding it in the wood line, then broke out the aiming tripod, his first EFP, and the M57 firing device from the trunk.

He found the same line of sight he had sketched before, and aimed the EFP through the chain-link fence to the extremely high voltage transformer within. He attached the two wires from the blasting cap to the M57, then tested the circuit. He got a green light. Placing the cap in the well for the EFP, he spooled the wire out to its maximum extension, having no idea how big the explosion would be. He crouched behind a large pine tree and took three deep breaths, looking at the M57 clacker in his hand.

Here we go.

He placed it between both hands and rapidly began to click the handle. On the third stroke, the air was split by an explosion, but there was little debris thrown his way. He turned and looked around the tree.
The tripod lay on the ground, with the EFP tray vaporized, a small cloud of dust lingering in the air as the only reminder that it had existed. He walked out, searching the giant transformer for damage. He saw a hole in the chain-link fence, and a large tear in the metal sheath of the EHVT. Nothing else. He wondered if he’d screwed up, if maybe he’d failed to set up the EFP correctly. Then he noticed a silence for the first time. He’d thought it was because of the deafening noise of the explosion, but he could hear birds chirping in the distance. What he couldn’t hear was the hum of electricity flowing into the substation. He smiled.