“You mean there may have been five different kinds of attacks planned for Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“And we only disrupted two?”
“Unfortunately.”
Harvath studied the map, looking at the different colors. “Chase was inside the Chicago cell and he only uncovered the suicide bomb and active shooter plots. You think they kept things that compartmentalized? Aazim Aleem had three other types of attack planned for Chicago that Chase never learned about?”
“It’s very possible,” replied Carlton. “Especially if the actors were working alone and didn’t need the support of the overall network. It’s the way I’d do it.”
Five different attacks was a large number to throw at one city like Chicago, but there were plenty of cities on the map that appeared to have been targeted for multiple attacks. Harvath was looking for some sort of pattern. “Orange dots seem to be pretty randomly dispersed. Any idea what those represent?”
Nicholas leaned back in his chair, took a sip from his cup, and studied the map. “No idea.”
“Not even a guess?”
“Guesses are something I’ve got plenty of. Honestly, orange could be anything. There are orange dots in New York City, San Jose, Dallas, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and a bunch of other locations. Silver and gold seem to be just as random.”
“What about purple? I’m only seeing those in a few places. All of them port cities. New York again, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle.”
“We noticed that, too,” replied Nicholas, “but those are also major urban centers with large populations, and there might be another factor they have in common that we’re not seeing. That’s the problem. There’s just so much we don’t know.”
Harvath looked back at the Old Man. “Any other thoughts, if you were behind this?”
Carlton was studying the monitors. “I’ve been looking at this map until my eyes bleed. Without some additional piece of information, it’s nearly impossible to unlock.”
“What kind of warning are you giving the cities that do have the dots?”
Carlton shrugged. “The FBI will quietly inform local and state law enforcement of a nonspecific terrorism threat to their jurisdictions and they’ll raise their internal alert levels accordingly.”
“No mention of this to the public, then?” asked Harvath.
“Not right now. We don’t want to tip our hand. If we go public with this, it could speed the attacks up. Whoever is pulling the strings could give the cells the green light.”
The Old Man was right, but they couldn’t just sit and do nothing. “If this map is accurate,” said Harvath, “at least we know the cities where they’re planning to strike. How do we filter it down even more?”
Nicholas waved at all of his computer equipment. “I’m doing everything humanly possible. I’m looking for any data points I can find, no matter how small. I’m turning over every single digital rock you can imagine. We’re leaving nothing unturned. The ops tempo was already very hot, but with Chase saying he felt something was about to kick off, we’ve kicked everything on our end into overdrive.”
“What about the names Chase gave us? Karami? Sabah? Some Sheikh from Qatar?”
“It’s all in the blender. We just have to see what we get out.”
Harvath turned to Carlton. “How about any IDs of the cell members Chase took out in the safe house?”
“We’re working on that,” said the Old Man. “We’re also working on seeing if their forensics teams uncovered anything from the apartment building across the street where the explosion happened. For the moment, the Swedes are being very tight-lipped. They suspect the involvement of a foreign intelligence service and until they feel they’ve figured out who it was, they’re not talking with anyone.”
“I assumed you would have already helped them out with that.”
“It’s in the works. Trust me. Subtlety is a delicate art. It requires patience.”
“These guys, though, could begin lighting up American cities this morning,” replied Harvath. “There’s got to be something else we can do.”
“What you can do is go home and get some rest,” said the Old Man. “I want you ready to move as soon as we do hear something.”
Harvath was wiped out. He knew he needed sleep. Draining what was left of his cup, he stood up. “As soon as we hear from Iceland with the medical assessment on Mansoor, I want somebody to call me. They need to start interrogating him as quickly as possible. We have to access his cloud.”
“In the meantime,” said Carlton, “we’re working every other angle we have.”
“We still don’t have anything on who targeted my car in Yemen with that RPG, though, do we?”
The Old Man shook his head. “No. Not yet.”
“Obviously,” interjected Nicholas, “someone didn’t want the U.S. interrogating Aazim Aleem.”
“Obviously,” replied Harvath. “Whoever was responsible for having Aazim killed didn’t want him revealing either who he worked for or what the scope of his operation was.”
“There’s one thing that bothers me about all that. Whoever hijacked the unrestricted-warfare plan was running Aazim via whatever cutout the Chinese had established, ostensibly the Sheikh from Qatar. We don’t know if the Sheikh is a real person that members of the network have ever met with, or if he’s some disembodied figure who only communicates through emails or telephone calls.”
“What are you getting at?” asked Harvath.
“I don’t think Aazim was taken out to prevent him from revealing who gave him his marching orders. He couldn’t give away intelligence he didn’t actually possess.”
“So then he was targeted to prevent revealing the scope of his operation.”
“That’s what bothers me,” said Nicholas. “You and Chase were sitting at an outdoor cafe within sight of your car when it exploded. You said the RPG came from a rooftop a block or two away?”
Harvath nodded.
“Why silence Aazim? Why not simply aim the RPG a couple of degrees in the other direction and take out you and Chase at the cafe? In the ensuing chaos, Aazim could have been released from the trunk and then spirited away, disappearing yet again.”
Both Harvath and the Old Man looked at Nicholas. He had made an excellent point. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added. “I’m sure whoever was running Aazim didn’t want him interrogated. But it would have made more sense to kill you. The fact that he’s dead means that he either made someone very angry or had outlived his usefulness.”
“Or both,” said Carlton.
“Or both,” agreed Nicholas. “But with Aazim gone, there’s definitely tension and uncertainty within the network. I think that’s why this Karami character wanted Mansoor brought to Sweden. Maybe he doesn’t trust the Sheikh from Qatar. Maybe he wanted to pump Mansoor for as much information as possible. If that’s true, then maybe we can find a way to exploit the upheaval and use it to our advantage.”
“That’s a good idea,” replied Harvath as he said good-bye to both of the dogs. “But we’re going to need a hell of a lot more intelligence before we can even think of launching an operation like that.”
Carlton stood up, placed his hand atop Harvath’s shoulder, and guided him toward the door. “Go home and get some rest,” he repeated. “I’ll call you if anything breaks.”
Harvath did as he was told. Retrieving his personal vehicle from the garage, he headed south on I-495 toward home. By the time he hit US-1, all he could think about was a hot shower and falling into bed.
He let the water pound on his body for a good five minutes before turning it off and reaching for a towel. He was too tired to shave.
After cracking the bedroom window, he lay down and closed his eyes. Sleep should have come quickly, but it didn’t. Instead, his mind took over and replayed everything that had happened in Sweden, over and over again.
He couldn’t escape his feelings of responsibility, the guilt he felt over the deaths of the assaulters. He tried to focus on something else, something positive. He thought about Riley Turner and what she might be doing at the moment.
It worked for a while, but then he was back on the mental rack, his mind torturing him with what-ifs and second-guessing over what had happened. He thought about pouring himself a stiff drink and numbing it all away, but chose instead to lie there and take it.
Finally, two hours later, he drifted off into a fitful sleep. In it, he was haunted by visions of a larger, more
