Twenty-four Days Page 17

Joey bobbed his head, but that worried him. “They’ll see that from the Bridge—:

  “Only if they’re looking. We get lucky and there’s an American sub close by, a few seconds could be all we need.” He winced. The white gauze bandage was already pink. “Failing that, break the RO,” the reverse osmosis, responsible for turning seawater into drinking water.

  “Captain, that’s suicide!”

  The CO’s eyes hardened. “We’re not letting them use our sub to attack the country we love, Joey. We may all die, but when those damn alarms go off, I’ll salute the shipmate who made it happen.”

  Joey gulped. “Yes, Sir.”

  The Captain patted his shoulder. “I know the crew has a sleeper. I’m trying to figure out who it is, but until I do, be careful. You’re a brave man, FCO. Can you make this happen, son?”

  Joey bobbed his head again, not at all sure he told the truth.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Day Eleven, Thursday August 17, 2 am

  Columbia University, lab of Dr. Eitan Sun

  Sean didn’t return Sun’s call.

  Sun swallowed half a can of Fanta cherry soda, tucked his feet underneath his body and bounced in his chair. Worry. Sun had asked Sean to stay away from Mohammed and Chacone until Zeke Rowe got there, but Sean didn’t take orders well.

  The scientist bounced again. Sean's silence, a Muslim North Korean, a Navy cruiser, Triumph attacking Syria, and Virginia attacking China. Not good. Not good.

  He poured red M&M's into his mouth and petted his wife's image. She would bring him food if he worked late, a change of clothes, tell him funny stories about her day, and they would giggle together. He stuffed those thoughts into a dark room and locked the door, dropping the key down a mental manhole.

  Where was Sean? He tapped into the boy’s webcam, but it was off. A ping announced an invitation from Sean to view files. He entered the password and opened the file. They were from a Tiger Cruise Sean had taken with LT Chacone. Mohammed had also attended… His call from a man he called Father… The list of places Mohammed wanted to visit... an audio file of Sean asking Sun to compare Anchor’s questions to what most people asked on Tiger Cruises. Something about those locations bothered Sean.

  Five minutes later, Sun had a report. Anchor varied on weapons locations, vulnerable spots on the ship, crew routines, and details about how borders were repelled. Sun put that together with everything floating around his brain. With time, the like parts would align until the image became a landscape Sun could read.

  As he sat, enjoying the cerebral flow, a question popped up. Al-alah had a stellar reputation as an educator until two years ago, the same time Ankour Mohammed joined his mentoring group. Did Al-alah recognize an opportunity in a boy with his multi-cultural background and connections to North Korea? Rowe thought Mohammed might be the fulcrum. The CIA thought a strategic alliance between Iran and North Korea wasn’t actionable. Their political philosophies—North Korea ruled by the military and Iran by theocracy—prevented substantive collaboration.

  Sun considered Rowe’s analysis in view of what Mohammed had done the past week. He befriended officers likely to be part of the Task Force on scene during the North Korean missile launch. The Parisher trainees perished to enable Islamic jihadists to hijack Triumph.

  He played the Tiger Cruise videos again. And again. The fifth time, he saw it. A look passed between Taggert and Mohammed. They knew each other. Sun ran an audio match of Sean's files and got one. The words were garbled, but the voice could only be Taggert. Sun plugged both men’s visages into a web crawler to track their movements after the Tiger Cruise. Taggert went home with his girlfriend, someone called Shalimar.

  Anchor took a taxi.

  Sun called James while he pinned down the taxi’s destination.

  A groggy voice answered on the seventh ring. "What?" Something crashed. "God damn clock!" A female voice slurred in the background.

  Sun didn't apologize. "Anchor’s leaving town. He’s moving to the next phase."

  James coughed and sheets rustled. "How d’you know?"

  He told James everything while tracking Mohammed. "He left out of Ontario Airport—”

  “You know this how?”

  “I hacked—”

  “Never mind. What else?”

  “I lost him inside the terminal. I checked all evening departures, but no ‘Ankour Mohammed’. He used a fake name."

  "Hold on." James entered a number on his FBI phone. "This is Special Agent Bobby James. I want the picture I sent in front of every gate agent at Ontario Airport. Find where this man went and catch him at the other end. Eitan, you still there? Let me know when you hear from Sean."

  Sun replayed the Tiger Cruise tape, hoping to catch something else. He liked Paloma Chacone's voice. She was authoritative, knowledgeable, and cared about her job.

  Another invite to view Sean’s DropBox pinged. It would have to wait. Decrypting Dhiren Barot’s dirty bomb plans had risen to the top of his to do list.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Day Eleven, Thursday, August 17th, 8 am

  Somewhere over the United States

  No one suspected a man would be under the traditional female burqa with niqab—full face veil. No wonder parts of Europe outlawed them.

  Mohammed had planned to dispose of Chacone now that Shalimar had built a trail of payments to Taggert’s account as well as incriminating photos. Unfortunately, Nasr instructed he leave immediately. He said Mohammed’s cover was blown.

  Not likely. Mohammed had been careful, but he did not argue, not with the end so near.

  Mohammed stretched his legs, edging away from the female who sat too close. Typically, people honored the need of Muslim women for privacy. This American female, if anything, seemed drawn to him.

  "I love your robe—what's it called?"

  "A burqa."

  "Burqa! Of course. Where would I buy one? It must be nice not to have to do your hair or makeup when you go out. Look!" She thrust her face so close to Mohammed, he could see the pores. He jerked back, but she was oblivious. "It takes an hour to fix this every morning." She winked their mutual understanding. He rubbed his nose at the stench of her foul breath.

  "You're Islam, right? Or Muslim. I get confused. There are so many of you around. Oh, my. I'm so impressed with the Qur’an. That's your Bible, right?"

  "Yes, praise be to Allah." He tried to keep his voice high-pitched and feminine.

  "Allahu Akhbar! Did I say that right?" She continued without waiting, "I don't know why the world blames you-all for those horrible terrorists. You're peaceful. I have a Muslim friend—"

  Mohammed snapped. "We are peaceful unless faced with rude, superior Westerners. You are degenerate with your nakedness and damned by your lewdness. You deserve Allah’s wrath. "

  She gasped and pulled back as though burned. "I never!" Then she rang her bell until the steward moved her.

  What arrogant fools these Americans! With her gone, Mohammed called Nasr.

  “Assalaamu Álaykum.”

  “Wa alaykumus salaam.”

  "May I have directions to your new location?"

  "Check your phone. If you’re finished…"

  Mohammed wanted to talk. He had succeeded in everything and wanted—expected—Nasr’s praise. "Nasr. I—"

  Nasr shouted, "Never say my name! These lines are not secure. Meet me online."

  Mohammed bit back a sharp response, opened his computer, plugged the flash drive in that allowed it to boot, and wended his way to the virtual chat room.

  "Why not eliminate the female?"

  Nasr’s anger came through the typed words. "There were two—two! They both live?"

  Mohammed lied, "Yes, mentor, but Paloma Chacone is an affront to Allah. She hugged and kissed other males in my presence. She must be taught a lesson."

  "She is an infidel. Allah expects nothing of the unbeliever. BRB.”

  But Mohammed could not dismiss her. They were to go out after the Tiger Crui
se, but she canceled, said she wanted nothing more to do with him. Now, she invaded his every thought. He had even asked his father’s advice. “Bend her to your will, my son, and then destroy her. A family cannot be ruled by two."

  My son—he had called the boy he once considered an outcast ‘my son’! Here, finally, was the caring, paternal figure who would guide Mohammed through life's landmines. With his father back in his life, Mohammed no longer needed Nasr.

  A ping intruded on Mohammed’s thoughts. “Salah Al-Zahrawi wishes to know how you connected with Kalian Delamagente. He found her name in the file you stole from the boy’s apartment.”

  Mohammed’s voice burst with pride as he explained how he killed the boy, tossed his apartment to make it look like a burglary, and stumbled upon the file of contact information.

  “Sean Delamagente is dead?”

  “He was the one following me. You instructed I take care of him. He-he also figured out my plan.” He heard the whine in his voice. Mohammed clenched his hands until his fingernails cut into his palms, dropped his tone a notch. “He had spy devices in my apartment too,” he lied. The last came out forceful. That was better. “How is the jihad progressing, mentor?”

  Nasr did not respond for so long, Mohammed thought he left the room. Finally, his mentor responded. “Britain and the Great Satan’s reputations are damaged, Allah be praised. The world will seek new protectors and we will respond with ships no enemy can find.”

  “Aameen.” May it be so, Mohammed responded automatically.

  “Allahu Akhbar. I will see you when you land," and Al-alah left the chatroom.

  Mohammed logged onto the Usenet newsgroup microsoft.public.de.internetexplorer and scanned for a posting from ‘Nivek.Treggat'—Kevin Taggert in reverse. To any who read the posts, it came across like a writer chatting with a confidential source, but into the files, Mohammed embedded the incriminating data Shalimar had collected against Taggert.

  Mohammed clicked and smiled. Taggert cashed the $5000, payment for allowing Shalimar to take snapshots on the Tiger Cruise. Soon, Mohammed would give the fat man a choice—help Allah or have his duplicity unveiled. Taggert, of course, would do anything to save his name, at which point, Mohammed would anonymously direct the FBI to this Usenet group with its proof Bunker Hill’s XO was the mastermind behind everything.

  Mohammed rang his service bell and asked for a place to pray. The attendant pasted on a smile, conferred with her team, and offered the galley. Fifteen minutes later, Mohammed squeezed back into his seat, dark robe swishing around his feet, and peered out into the cold night.

  Chapter Thirty

  Day Eleven, Thursday, August 17th, morning

  New York, New York, Zeke's apartment

  At 5 am, Rowe flipped on the TV to find the talking heads shouting about terrorists controlling a nuclear sub and hundreds injured.

  You don’t know the half of it.

  How do you find a submarine invisible to sonar?

  Rowe threw on navy blue shorts, Nike running shoes, and a sleeveless gray sweatshirt, turned on the coffee maker, and stepped out onto his back patio. The nighttime chill still clung to the air and the last stars sparkled in the pre-dawn sky. He stretched and then took a trail that would take him as far from civilization as possible and still be in New York City. He hugged a series of slopes and terraces that separated the upper middle-class neighborhood from Flatrock Brook, then paralleled the water for a short distance before swinging back through the expensive tree-shrouded homes of west Englewood. He sprinted the last quarter mile and then stumbled through the sliding glass door into his living room. He took a cup of freshly-brewed coffee to the bathroom, downed it in the shower, brushed his teeth, pulled on comfortable clothing—dark Chinos, black polo, grey tennis shoes—downed a power bar and breakfast drink, and left.

  His phone rang. “Hey, Kali. It’s 3 am over there. Everything OK?”

  "I’m fine. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Anything new on the formula?”

  “We’re trying to figure out why it works. Metamaterials have been effective, but not against sonar and not on such a large scale.” She went into an involved explanation about the difference between salt and regular water and how pressure and temperature affect paint. Rowe figured he should say something, but most of what he was hearing made no sense so settled for an interested, "Hunh," or the occasional, "How ‘bout that."

  "Here’s why I called. Last night, someone threatened me if I continued to help you."

  "What?” Rage exploded deep in Rowe’s gut.

  Her voice hardened. "The first time, he said if I told anyone, he’d hurt someone I loved.” Her voice broke. “Now, Eitan can’t reach Sean. Zeke, I’m afraid.”

  “What—there was a first time.”

  “I thought I’d solved it, and besides, if my sixteen-year-old son refuses to quit, how can I? I got the caller’s address.”

  “How’d you get that?”

  “Reverse look-up on his phone," and she hung up.

  That was too easy. They wanted to be found. He stabbed the address into his car’s GPS and left. On the way, he called a detective buddy in Los Angeles who gave him the name of a friend on the San Diego PD, a Detective Charlie Ruiz. After a few minutes of establishing their bona fides, Rowe gave Ruiz Sean’s address and asked him to check.

  “I remember something about that location. Yeah. Here it is. Landlord said the renter was out of town, but thought someone had broken in. He wanted us to check. We have two murders going, one a high-priced call girl and the other an officer on a Navy cruiser docked here.”

  Rowe had a bad feeling. “Princeton?”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Right. We think those might be tied to eight other homicides a couple weeks ago.”

  “British submariners.”

  There was a sigh and a grunt. “I left the LAPD to get away from this craziness. You think this burglary is tied in? We’ll get to it soon as possible.”

  Rowe swerved around a puttering 1977 Cadillac, barely stopping short of honking at a teenager, frightened eyes on the road, hands at ten and two. He called James. “I’m going to check an address,” and he rattled it off.

  “Hold on.” Paper riffled. “That’s half a mile as the crow flies from a phone number Sean got off Mohammed on the Tiger Cruise. Find something, I’ll get a warrant.”

  Rowe wended his way to I-95 S. The terrorists were too smart to use a traceable land line. He hoped this was a trap so he could ask a few questions.

  Rowe exited 9-S at Smith, turned right onto Elm, puttered past a greenbelt between Hilo Fish Market and Preferred Freezer Services, took a right onto an access road that led to the Fish Market’s docks, and parked about a hundred yards from where the map said the call originated. To his right was a warehouse and a row of beat-up cars; to his left, a flat reedy area that separated the Fish Market from its closest neighbor a quarter mile away.

  Rowe got out, senses in overdrive. Eighteen wheelers lined up along the docks, two soft sides, and an open warehouse door. An employee out for a smoke took a look at Rowe and disappeared inside. Moments later, five men hopped down from the dock and approached Rowe, each an arm’s length apart, hands at their sides, burly shoulders straining under t-shirts, hair buzzed to bald. Rowe took the measure of his opponents and liked what he saw.

  “Follow me.” The speaker stood half a head shorter than the others, nose squashed like it had been broken too often, no neck, and ledge-like shoulders. Rowe recognized a man whose life had been distinguished by nothing but brute force.

  Rowe smiled, took one step forward, and then charged. The speaker threw up his forearms like an offensive lineman blocking a defensive back, but Rowe slipped to the side, slapped the man's elbow down and away, clamped onto his head and rolled him to the asphalt. His head bounced, eyes glazed over, but Rowe already focused on the next man. He reached behind his back no doubt for a gun. Rowe closed the distance, pull
ed him backward and down. He snatched the gun as the man slammed to the ground next to his buddy still sitting in a dazed heap.

  The next man slammed forward, trying to take advantage of Rowe’s busi-ness, but Rowe head butted him, breaking his nose, and then kneed him in the crotch so hard, it lifted him off the ground. He dropped to the ground where he curled into a painful pile.

  The remaining two wanted no part of him and ran. The leader recovered enough to try to run, but Rowe jabbed the abandoned gun into the man’s temple.

  “Who d’you work for?”

  “You might as well kill me. I cross him, I’m dead.”

  “I believe you,” and he shot him in the knee. The man howled. Rowe waited for him to stop. “Tell your boss to back off or he won’t be so lucky.”

  Before the man hobbled away, he pulled a manila folder from his shirt. “A present.”

  Rowe flipped the cover open to find Sean’s apartment lease with Kali’s phone number, address, and email as an emergency contact. One call to James and an officer was assigned to Kali’s location. Rowe got back in his car, grunted from where the leader tagged him with a wild punch, and headed for the Kearny Ave address James gave him. His hands balled into fists as he forced himself to calm. Whoever this was had come dangerously close to pushing a button most people didn’t know existed. Rowe took a deep breath. He was worthless angry.

  He turned onto a wide tree-lined street of older houses and parked two doors down from the house that might hold the key to the case. There, he sat, listening to the engine tick while he blotted blood from his knuckles and took four aspirins.

  176 Kearny was a one-story older home desperately in need of paint. The front yard was a weed patch. A rickety fence hid the backyard. The splintered steps led to a tattered screen door. After thirty minutes and no evidence anyone was there, Rowe donned a blue short sleeved shirt with ‘Ralph’ stitched over the pocket, pulled a clipboard from a duffel bag he always kept in the trunk, tucked a cap over his hair and ambled down the street. No one looked twice. Utility guys were invisible.