“Maybe,” Scorpion said.
“What will you do?”
“Get drunk.”
“Seriously.”
“Alert Langley. After what happened today, he probably sent the signal.”
T he next day, Scorpion got the call from Rabinowich before noon. A half hour later he was sitting next to Moretti looking at a closed-room bank of TV monitors inside Carabinieri headquarters on the Via Romania near Villa Ada Park. It was 6:00 A.M. in Washington and New York, and the FBI Hostage Rescue Teams were fully operational.
Before he sat down, Scorpion verified that his face was blurred on the TV monitor, as he’d requested. Other TV monitors showed Wade Anderson, head of the FBI task force on the Palestinian operation; Dave Rabinowich, viewed at his desk via his Web cam; a heliport by the water in what was clearly lower Manhattan; an apartment building in a run-down New York neighborhood, viewed from a camera in an apartment or on a roof across the way; a two-story building in another New York neighborhood; a subway station; and a tac ops coordination center filled with men in SWAT gear.
As soon as Scorpion sat down, Anderson said, “You’re here at my request. I have a FISA warrant,” and waved a sheaf of papers he picked up from his desk, the shades drawn over the office window glass behind him. “It’s for two individuals whose names were supplied to us on a Special Access Critical basis by NSA and your buddy Rabinowich in Langley. I understand this was done based on information supplied by you. We’ve got multiple HRT teams deployed in Manhattan. Supervisory Special Agent Forrester’s heading that up.” A crew-cut man in a bulky SWAT outfit in one of the monitors nodded. “In fact, we’re using every damned HRT in the country, so this better be right,” Anderson said, glaring at the camera.
“These are people in the U.S. who received cell phone messages last night mentioning al Jabbar,” Rabinowich put in. “There’s also one in Chicago and another in L.A. that NSA is still running down. All the calls were made from a single cell phone in the Portonaccio district in Rome that subsequently went dead, so there’s no GPS track.”
“I assume that has something to do with why you are in Rome, Scorpion,” Anderson said.
“The Palestinian is in Rome,” Scorpion replied. Moretti looked hard at him.
“For our part, Langley’s telling us to focus on New York. Correct?” Anderson asked.
“That’s right,” Rabinowich said.
“Well, we’re not doing it just because Langley says so, but because it matches our analysis as well,” Anderson growled. “But we have critical tactical decisions to make and I wanted your input, Scorpion.”
“Who are the two individuals?” Scorpion asked.
“One’s a woman in her twenties, named…” Anderson squinted at his BlackBerry. “… Bharati Kabir. The family’s from Bangladesh; she came here when she was a kid. Lives in Queens with her brother’s family and works in an insurance office in midtown Manhattan. Frankly, we have concerns. She doesn’t fit the profile. The second is a Pakistani male from Brooklyn. Name is Atif Khan.”
“What about the girl’s brother?” Scorpion asked.
“Name’s Zahid Kabir. Works in a shoestore.” Anderson frowned. “We only got these last night, so we’re still digging stuff up.”
“This Atif Khan, what does he do?” Scorpion asked.
“You’ll love this,” Rabinowich said.
“He works for Prestige Helicopter Services,” Anderson replied, checking the BlackBerry. “They do private tours and charters out of the Pier 6 Heliport in lower Manhattan. This Khan’s a helicopter pilot.”
“Christ,” Scorpion muttered. “That’s how he’s doing it.”
“You mean aerial spraying of the plague pathogen over Manhattan from the helicopter? We thought of that,” Anderson said, frowning again. “Walking and spraying through the streets or in a subway or office building would’ve been too obvious. They want this thing to incubate before we were alerted.”
“That’s not why you’re here, Mister… uh, Scorpion,” Forrester jumped in, sarcastic about the code name.
“No, it isn’t,” Anderson said, taking the meeting back. “Justice,” indicating a man in a suit sitting next to him, “has come up with all kinds of constitutional hoops for us to jump through. These presumed terrorists-and we have concerns; as I said, the woman doesn’t fit the profile-are American citizens. DOJ wants us to take them in, Mirandize them, wipe their noses for them, the usual crap.”
“You’ll never take them in,” Scorpion said.
“Look, we don’t like it either, but if we have to, we know how to do this,” Forrester said, his men stirring.
“The Palestinian makes bombs,” Scorpion said. “He’s a graduate of a world-class technical university and he can control the blast to within a centimeter like he did in Cairo. It takes less than a second to press a button, and while I don’t know whether an explosion will destroy these pathogens or distribute them to everybody in the vicinity including your men, I guarantee that he does.”
One of Forrester’s men came over and whispered something to him. Forrester looked at a monitor and cut in.
“The Kabir woman. She’s on the move,” he said. “We need to decide.”
“Is she carrying anything? A suitcase, a shopping bag, anything?” Scorpion asked.
“Have a look,” Forrester said, and they all looked at the monitor showing a young woman in jeans and a head scarf walking down the street from the apartment building entrance.
“What the hell is she wearing?” Anderson asked, putting on his glasses and squinting at the monitor.
“Backpack. The big kind they use for camping,” one of Forrester’s men said.
“She’s the carrier,” Scorpion said.
“So what do we do? Arrest her now before she gets on the subway?” Forrester asked.
“You’ve got a FISA. Probable cause is a little iffy, but I’m okay if you want to take her in,” the suit next to Anderson said.
“The pilot, Khan, is on the move too, sir,” another of Forrester’s men said.
Another monitor showed the Pakistani, wearing a Prestige Helicopter jacket, coming out of his brick two-story house.
“Is he carrying anything?” Anderson asked.
“Just a briefcase,” Forrester said.
“You can’t arrest her,” Scorpion said. “The second anyone gets near her, she’ll detonate. Once the pathogen is out, it’s out. Everyone who survives will be a carrier.”
“And what’s your suggestion?” Forrester said sarcastically.
“Surveillance. Lots of switch-offs. She’s headed for the subway. Don’t lose her, but don’t keep the same agents on the same subway car with her for more than a few stops. No one looks at her; no one touches her; no one gets anywhere near her. One way or another-maybe she’ll get off and grab a taxi in Manhattan-she’s heading for the helicopter unless we do something stupid that forces her to do something she doesn’t want to do.”
“What happens when she gets to the heliport?” the suit next to Anderson asked.
“The heliport is built out into the East River,” Forrester said. “There’s a building next to the landing pad. We could grab her or take her out there.”
“You need your two best snipers,” Scorpion said. “I mean the best. Guys from Delta or SEALs; guys who won’t miss. There’s a building next to the landing pad, and the monitor shows skyscrapers nearby. They’ll have two or three seconds as she approaches the helicopter.”
“We need a decision, sir. She’s approaching the subway,” one of Forrester’s men said. On the monitor, they saw the woman approach the subway entrance surrounded by other commuters.
“Morning rush. Lots of people,” Rabinowich observed.
“Stand by,” Forrester’s man said into his phone mike.
“Do the surveillance on both, the girl and the pilot,” Anderson said. “No one spooks them, goddammit. Switch off tails, lots of distance, like Scorpion said. It’ll buy us some time while we decide.”
“What if we lose them?” Forrester put in.
“We know where they’re going,” Scorpion said.
Anderson looked directly at the monitor that showed Scorpion’s face as an oval blur.
