“Soil and crops?” Sanchez reasoned. “If this turns out to be ammonium nitrate-which it probably will-that would make sense.”
Agent Victors bounced from one foot to the other as if she had information that was to hot to hold inside.
“You’ve got more?”
“I do, boss,” she said. “Halibi was already on our watch list. He’s got ties to some serious people…”
“How serious?”
Now Victors allowed herself the hint of a smile. “Does the name Farooq ring a bell?”
“Sheikh Husseini al Farooq?” Sanchez chewed on the swizzle stick from his coffee. “We’re sure about this?”
“Our friends at the Agency say Halibi’s father and Farooq attended the same madrassa in Damascus in the late seventies.”
Sanchez pulled the BlackBerry from his pocket. “Like father like son, then,” he said as he punched the speed dial. When the other party answered, he took a deep breath. “This is Paul. Connect me with the Director.”
Four hours later Saudi Arabia
Sheikh Husseini al Farooq leaned over the marble chessboard like a lion considering his kill. A slender hand poised over his knight, fingers tapping lightly. Islam’s prohibitions against graven images of living things required the game piece to look like a squat painted mushroom instead of the more customary horse.
Farooq’s opponent, a boy in his late teens, watched in rapt fascination. “Is it not glorious?” the boy said. “The Americans are broken, shattered as glass before a stone!”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the dozen men in the room. Each sat on a soft pillow watching the contest. With the setting sun, plates of food had been set after a day of fasting in observance of the holy month of Ramadan. The entire palace had been abuzz with congratulatory fervor as scenes of the Colorado mall bombing streamed on a plasma big screen tuned to Al Jazeera television.
“Do not underestimate the Americans,” Farooq said, smiling as he maneuvered the knight in concert with his bishop, to put the boy in checkmate. “Underestimating one’s opponent is the surest way to fail-”
“Forgive me, my sheikh.” A man wearing a red Saudi ghutra on his head and a white, ankle-length robe burst into the room. Had it been anyone else but Dr. Suleiman, such an intrusion would have been met with quick and decisive violence.
Suleiman was in his mid thirties and clean shaven because of his need to wear protective masks during his experiments. His pink face beamed as if reflecting a great light.
“I suppose you have heard of the events in Colorado?” Farooq nodded toward the television in the corner.
“I… we have had a breakthrough in the lab.” The doctor smiled, ignoring the others in the room. “I believe this will make the mere bombing of a shopping mall pale in comparison.”
Farooq raised a brow. “Is that so?”
Suleiman stammered on. “Our Algerian friends have solved one piece of the puzzle. They are testing it as we speak. I believe I now know the answer to the problem that has always eluded us… Of course… it will require another, more particular test…”
Farooq clapped his hands. A brooding man with dark eyes and long, windswept hair rose from his seat in the corner, hand on a curved dagger at his belt. “Yes, my sheikh.”
Holding up an open hand, palm out, Farooq turned back to Suleiman. His slender wrist protruded from the long sleeve of his white robe, identical to the doctor’s. “You’ve actually done it then?” he said.
“I believe I have.” Suleiman’s eyes shifted uneasily back and forth from the sheikh to the brooding bodyguard.
A sneering grin spread across Farooq’s angular face as he turned back to the man with the dagger. “We shall need a few more subjects on which to test the doctor’s theories. Inform Ghazan at once.”
CHAPTER 1
2 September, 2100 hours Fallujah, Iraq
Jericho Quinn gunned the throttle, willing more power from the screaming motorcycle.
“Which one is Ghazan?” He threw the words over his shoulder, into the wind as he rode.
Blowing sand scoured his chapped face. He peered through the dusk, squinting, wishing he had a pair of goggles. Something pinched his nose in the gathering darkness-the telltale odor of wet wool seasoned with the sulfur that oozed up from the desert floor.
The smell of a sheep roasting in the flames of hell.
The scent of Iraq.
“There!” Quinn felt his passenger shudder behind him, his words ripped away by the wind.
“Which one?” Quinn scanned a knot of a half dozen FAMs-fighting-age men-loitering at the corner beneath the crumbling walls of a bombed mosque. In the three days following the horrific bombing of a Colorado shopping mall, any semblance of trust between cultures had evaporated from the streets of Iraq. Natives flinched and dropped their eyes when American patrols rolled past. Few in number from cyclical troop drawdown, U.S. forces stood on the edge of a full-blown assault at every encounter. Soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen boiled with righteous anger that over three thousand Americans-most of them women and children-had lost their lives in the blasts.
The worst act of terrorism on American soil since 9/11, the media had dubbed it the Fifth Sunday Bombing- but it was impossible to put a title on something so horrible. Most just spoke in whispered reverence about Colorado. Hunting down those responsible was priority one for men like Jericho Quinn.
Ghazan al Ghazi was the HVT-the high-value target-of the moment. Quinn felt a familiar sensation in the back of his neck-the tingle that told him violence was close at hand-and wondered if he was enjoying this too much. He had no idea what he’d do if peace suddenly broke out in the world. Not much chance of that.
“Which one?” he asked again, leaning back to be certain Sadiq heard him.
“The large one… he wears aviator sunglasses. He is tall… there on the end with the neck of a bull.” Sadiq groaned, hiding his head against Quinn’s back as he spoke. “A blue shirt… open down the front. Please… you should drive on…”
In the street, horns honked and beeped, churning up whirling clouds of yellow dust. Thick, angry voices rose into the dusk on ribbons of heat as the snarl of evening traffic came to a standstill. Stopped almost directly in front of their target, Sadiq began to twitch, so much so Quinn was sure it looked as though he was having some kind of fit.
“Hold on,” Quinn yelled in colloquial Arabic as he tried to go around the jam. He nearly spilled avoiding the twisted hulk of a bombed Nissan pickup planted squarely in the road. Giving the bike enough throttle to keep it upright, he ducked down a side street away from the din of cars and military and NGO convoys. Slowing, he made a left turn on a quieter side street.
The motorcycle was a Kaweseki, a Chinese knockoff. Little more than a scooter, it had the look of a Japanese sport bike and the suspension of a skateboard. It was sure to rust or fall to pieces just when he needed it most, but it was what the locals rode. It was all they could afford. As an agent with Air Force Office of Special Investigations or OSI, Quinn had an impressive array of weapons and technology at his disposal. But for the moment he rode a piece-of-junk motorcycle and wore an ankle-length cotton dishdasha, called a man dress by American soldiers. His life, and more importantly his mission, depended on the ability to blend in with the locals.
He leaned over the handlebars, twisting the last ounce of horsepower from the protesting Chinese motor. The back tire shimmied, throwing up a shower of gravel as he ducked behind an abandoned cafe. Behind him, Sadiq clawed at his waist in an effort to hang on.
Despite the fact that he was surrounded by men who would be happy to saw off his head with a dull
