I saw the little wireless icon show a green connection. “Yeah! I’m online, and his account’s still open.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Yes. I did. Give me the thumb drive. I want to copy all the messages in the sent-and-received files.”
She passed it over, allowing me to load the new messages.
“Send that to them. See what they say.”
She did as I asked, saying, “Pike, what are we going to do? I guess I had hoped that at some point we’d figure out we were wrong, especially since nobody else wanted to believe us. Every time we find something new, it tells us we’re still right.”
“Hang on. Let’s see what the rest of the messages say. We can figure it out from there. Let’s face it, everything said so far could be for a single suicide attack into Israel. It may be nothing more than that. One bad guy is dead, and the other has no idea. We’re still on the offensive here.”
One hour later we got the answer from the Taskforce. It didn’t get any better. The man who had jumped to his death had been very sloppy with his operational security. He had saved every e-mail sent and received, allowing the analysts at the Taskforce to build a pretty good picture. In a clinical report, the analytical transcript summarized what the e-mail exchanges contained. In general, it gave the strongest backing yet to Ethan’s original take, buttressing the theory that the over-arching goal was to deploy a weapon in Israel and blame the Iranians. The report read in a clinical, unemotional manner:
a. Terrorist A, having suspected that the pair was under surveillance, fled to parts unknown as a preventative measure.
b. Terrorist A, to ensure a self-healing operation, enacted a negative tripwire, whereby a penalty would be incurred if a code is not sent. Terrorist A will immediately cease all communication, assume the plan is compromised, and conduct the event at the earliest convenience, most likely at a target of opportunity. The penalty is reset every 24 hours. The code itself is undetermined, but most likely is some combination of words within each e-mail sent.
c. Terrorist A has coordinated for explosives at his present location but has not physically obtained them. The explosives themselves are held at a safe house, exact location undetermined. Along with the explosives he has obtained a complex detonation mechanism, type unknown.
d. Terrorist B has coordinated for transportation to Israel and coordinated for evidence to implicate Iran in the attack. Exact details and facilitation measures are unknown.
e. Terrorist B is going to finalize coordination for transportation methods and routes today, and will be out of e-mail contact for 48 hours. Terrorist B asked Terrorist A for an additional 24 hours before incurring a penalty.
f. Terrorist A has agreed to the additional time, with the caveat that Terrorist B make every attempt to make contact.
It is the consensus of the analysts that together, both terrorists have the means at their disposal to introduce an explosive device inside the borders of the State of Israel. It is further believed that they have the means to blame the attack on the State of Iran, at least initially. It is impossible to ascertain from the e-mails presented whether this blame will withstand rigorous forensic and investigative scrutiny, although it is the opinion of the analysts that such scrutiny may not occur, as the politics of the event will more than likely supersede any attempt at determining the actual facts, with initial reports becoming the perceived truth.
On the question of whether the event will be WMD related, the analysts could not reach a consensus. There is no evidence that the device is a WMD, as neither terrorist refers to it as such, and a review of worldwide all- source intelligence for the last thirty days does not reveal any new indications of recent WMD activity. It may simply be a conventional terrorist operation with little second- and third-order repercussions. On the other hand, it is unusual for this much preparation, coordination, and infrastructure development be used to support a single suicide attack.
“Not good. Looks like we have forty-eight hours to play with. The muj motherfucker’s going on a suicide run after that. No telling where.”
Jennifer’s face was pale. “We can’t do this alone. Can’t Kurt go get that guy now? Isn’t this enough proof?”
“No. You heard his dilemma in D.C. That hasn’t changed. It’s sad to say, but a simple suicide attack won’t cut it. He’s not going to risk political upheaval on an event that occurs every day all over the Middle East. He’s also not going to launch based on our hunch, especially when his own analysts can’t agree that it’s a WMD. We have to prove it.”
“How on earth are we going to do that?”
“Same way we were here. He’s obviously got the device, if there is one. We didn’t find one here, so we need to go there, find him, then check out what he has.”
“Where’s ‘there’?”
“Tuzla, Bosnia. Pack your stuff. We need to leave right now. We have a little over forty-eight hours before he goes nuts. Once he’s convinced they’re compromised, there’s no telling where he’s going to go.”
Jennifer remained seated. “Are you serious? Where are we going to go? How are we going to find this guy? At least here we had the message about the coffee shop. How are we going to find him in an entire city?”
“Pull up that e-mail trace again. It should have come with a map. It’s not that accurate, but I’ve been to Tuzla. It’s not that big of a place and probably doesn’t have that many Internet cafes. It’s a long shot, but we go to Tuzla, find the closest cafe to the map location given, and see if we can find him.”
“What happens if we don’t find him?”
“He blows up a bunch of people. Not much we can do about it. All we can do is try.”
“Shit, Pike, we can’t do this. We’re going to fail.
She put her head in her hands. I sat down next to her and rubbed her back.
“Look, this will all be over, whether we like it or not, within the next forty-eight hours. All we can do is try our best. Hang in there for a couple more days and it will end one way or another.”
She sat up. I was relieved to see a spark back in her eyes. “Okay. Forty-eight hours. But when we get home I am kicking somebody’s ass in the United States government.”
84
Five thousand miles away, Kurt Hale sat at his desk with the latest intel reports from Pike. He rubbed his eyes, not liking the choices he faced, or the repercussions if he chose incorrectly. He wasn’t surprised by the fact that there was no black-and-white description of the terrorists’ intentions or capabilities. It was just the way of intelligence. From past experience, he knew there was never a smoking gun. You always had to make a judgment call, read the tea leaves, and hope you came close.
He knew that Pike would take the commander’s intent he had given seriously, and wouldn’t send an alert unless he proved there was WMD involved. Unfortunately, according to this last batch of e-mails, waiting until Pike’s call might be too late. The team wouldn’t have time to launch from the U.S. to wherever Pike ended up before the terrorist fled on his suicide mission, killing thousands and possibly starting World War III.
On the other hand, if Kurt did launch a team, he would quite possibly bring down the president of the United States of America and irreparably harm the future defense of the nation, whether the threat was real or not. Once he pulled that trigger, there would be no going back.
Kurt knew that hunting a human being was hard enough, especially one who knows he’s the prey. Accomplishing the mission in another sovereign country, without leaving any fingerprints — the way the Taskforce operated — was exponentially harder.
Before starting up the Taskforce, Kurt had studied any and all operations that had a hint of being the same as what he would be called upon to conduct. He had learned — through others’ mistakes — that just getting the guy wouldn’t qualify as a success. The most glaring example post 9/11 that Kurt had seen was a rendition operation of a radical Egyptian cleric called Osama Moustafa Hassan — or Abu Omar — from Milan, Italy, by the CIA in 2003.
The operation itself was conducted successfully, with Abu Omar captured and flown to parts unknown, but
