All Necessary Force

“She was, but she’s the only one who knows what they look like. Pike’s convinced her to stay.”

President Warren took that in, then said, “Okay, what’s the team going to do when they get to Prague?”

“Pull the thread on Noordin’s Prague office, if you give permission. It’s all we’ve got.”

The director of the CIA spoke. “Sir, I say let them investigate further. What we know for a fact is that a planeload of highly sophisticated demolitions is now out of U.S. hands. From the evidence, I think Pike’s on to something. Let ’em go.”

Brookings chimed in. “Why? They’ve got no evidence at all. Just a random sighting in an airport. Even the suspected terrorist we were originally tracking is dead. Let’s say they do have the EFPs — and I’m not saying I think they do — what’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re running around with a nuclear weapon. We need to use conventional assets. The threat’s not worth the risk. Mark my words, this is going to end up on the front page of the Post.”

The DCI leaned across the table until he was inches from Brookings’ face. “Shut the fuck up. There’s an attack on the way, and you know it. The intel is incontrovertible. If these guys have a way to stop it, let them go. Quit worrying about your own sorry ass.”

President Warren broke in. “Stop it. We’re all under the gun here, but there’s no reason to start acting like this is our first dance.”

Kurt watched the DCI lean back in his chair, his face a mask of calm. The subtle admonishment had accomplished the president’s goal. Even with the stakes, nobody wanted to be remembered as the guy who couldn’t handle the pressure. Least of all the director of central intelligence.

The DCI said, “It may not be nuclear, but trust me, it’s bad.”

President Warren said, “What do you mean?”

“Remember the covert action we did in Sudan a couple of years ago? The one where the ‘rebels’ managed to destroy a Chinese oil refinery?”

“Yes. What’s that got to do with this?”

“My operative used one of these EFPs to get it done, while it was still in testing. It was chosen because of its standoff capabilities. We didn’t really look at its destructive power, but it ended up being significant. It ripped through the entire refinery.”

“I thought you just took out a critical component, and the rebels did the rest?”

“We targeted a critical component. The EFP took out the refinery. Trust me, these things are deadly. If the terrorists are creative, we’re looking at damage that rivals a WMD.”

“Jesus Christ. Why wasn’t I told about this?”

“Uhh… well, you were briefed on the damage and the impact. We don’t usually brief you on the tactical details. It wasn’t kept from you intentionally. We did report the results to DARPA for further development.”

The president closed his eyes, letting the statement sink in, then said, “I want all intelligence related to the EFPs in the system, yesterday. I don’t care how you do it. Wash it of Taskforce fingerprints, but get it out there. FBI, ATF, local law enforcement, everyone.”

39

I was thinking about ordering another drink to give me a plausible reason to remain at my table, when Jennifer called, her information surprising the hell out of me.

“Got one of them. He’s leaving the hotel now. Picture’s on the way.”

I pulled up the imaging software on my phone and saw an Arabic man with a thin, acerbic face and prominent ears that jutted out from the sides of his head like small wings.

“Which way?”

“Hang on…. Okay, he’s headed east.”

“Good work. See if you can get a facial ID on the others — break-break — Retro, he’s coming by you. Pick him up and slave his phone. Everyone else stand by.”

I was sitting at an outside patio just down the street from the suspected terrorists’ hotel, with the rest of the team at various other nearby locations, waiting to take over surveillance when I directed. I knew they were amped up, because there was no way we should have found the terrorists on our first attempt.

As soon as we’d landed in Prague, I had the team start working Noordin’s office. We didn’t have authority to do anything overt, but I figured necking down the terrorist’s location fell under the rubric of “preparing the battle space.” Naturally, I didn’t ask permission. It was easier to ask forgiveness, and I knew by the fact that Kurt hadn’t demanded an ops update that he didn’t want to know what we were doing.

We’d usually send a situation report when we hit the ground, but in this case Kurt would be forced to tell me to stand down, so we both acted like a report wasn’t necessary. Which was really stretching things, because we’d done quite a few operational acts in a short span of time.

First, we’d taken a snapshot of the cell activity in and around the building that housed Noordin’s Prague office. As expected, there were a bazillion cell phones in use, but running a reverse lookup left only a dozen or so that were pay-as-you-go and not tied to a human. Once we necked those down, we simply analyzed which phones were talking to each other, figuring that the terrorists had to be in contact. That left four phones, all interconnected.

We could have picked a phone and done some black magic to get it to tell us where it was located, provided it had a GPS, but the activity could be detected by the cell service provider and might lead to questions and an investigation into our cell phones. Especially in a city with well-developed infrastructure, such as Prague. It was better to leave that as a last resort, so we did it the hard way.

We spent a day looking at historical location patterns of the cell phones, plotting on a computer map each tower they talked to. We found that two spent the night within a tower footprint near several hotels. The other two had disappeared while we worked, either because they were turned off, had a dead battery, or — worst case — had left the area.

Early this morning, we’d received execute authority from the Oversight Council to “develop the situation,” which was military speak for “I don’t know what the hell to tell you. Figure it out.” I had no problem doing that, since it pretty much gave me carte blanche to do whatever I thought was necessary, as long as I didn’t get caught. My plan was simple: Locate the Arabs, then follow them until we could confirm or deny terrorist activity.

We took our best guess at which hotel the men might use inside the cell-tower footprint we’d found, then put Jennifer in it, the one person who knew what the suspects looked like. I figured it would take several stakeouts at different hotels before we hit the jackpot and had planned for a week to simply locate them, but we’d gotten lucky on our very first one.

My little hands-free earpiece crackled again. “Pike, Retro. I have eyes on Jug-ears.”

Kamil broke out onto the street and was blinded by the sunlight. He waited a bit, letting his eyes adjust from the gloom of the cheap hotel they’d found.

The man on the phone had given him strict instructions to follow, a connect-the-dots travel pattern designed to sniff out whether he was helping the police, either wittingly or unwittingly. He didn’t mind at all, and in fact appreciated the professionalism being shown for their initial meeting.

His first task was to board the metro at the Namesti Republiky stop, headed toward Zlicin. Apparently, it was somewhere nearby, just through a hideous black monolith of stone called the Powder Tower.

Finding that was easy enough, as the tower dominated the landscape. Passing through the gate, walking on cobblestones from the thirteenth century, he ignored the calls from the barker, dressed ludicrously like a soldier from the Middle Ages, urging him to see Prague from the top of the tower. Entering a large square bustling with people from all nationalities, he spotted the Republiky metro sign across the street.

Retro waited until the Arab was past him, facing away, before getting up and following. Staying a good distance back, he never once paid any overt attention to the man. Once they were through the square and across the street, both walking with the natural flow of traffic on the cobblestone sidewalk, he pulled out his phone and began manipulating the touch screen.