He’s okay, and the operation is safe.”
“We tortured our own guy?”
“Swanson is fine. Kyle had a brief firefight with some other guy at the house. He recognized him, but with a bomb ticking down inside the house, Swanson did not have time to pursue. Later, when he was being questioned, he was shown some photos and was able to confirm the identification. Apparently it was Saladin’s right-hand man, a British-trained sniper who goes by the name of Juba. Kind of a legend in the dirty warfare trade.”
“He may have the weapon, then?”
“Yes, sir. Or at least control of it.” Hanson paused. “We’re going to have everybody working to find him, so should I keep Trident rolling?”
“Absolutely. And tell them I said they did well in France.”
When the president was alone in the Oval Office, he looked at the paintings on the light vanilla walls: confident Franklin Roosevelt, somber Abraham Lincoln, elegant George Washington. Each had led the nation through times of crisis and into a brighter future.
His shoulders slumped; he pushed the papers aside, took off his glasses again and buried his face in his hands. He rubbed his eyes hard.
That weapon of vile poison was coming this way. He could almost feel it vibrating or doing whatever the hell those things did. America was a big place, a gloriously spread-out country with more freedom for individuals to roam than any other nation in the world and a security net that had gaping holes. He thought about how previous administrations had not even been able to stop millions upon millions of poor laborers from sneaking undetected across the southern border, and he understood that the northern border with Canada, although perceived as safer, was much longer and just as unprotected. The coasts and ports were funnels for dangerous men and cargo. So what chance did he really have against a skillful and determined team of terrorists? The tragedy of 9/11 had only proven the seriousness of the problem. The president sat there with the lives of 304 million men, women, and children weighing upon him and knew that he could not guard them all.
America could never be totally protected from those who wished to do her harm. To think she could be was an impossible dream.
SAN FRANCISCO
Juba was enjoying himself in the grandstand at AT &T Park, eating salty peanuts and drinking cold beer as a cool and steady breeze sailed up the bay and spilled over China Basin Park. Canoes and kayaks floated in McCovey Cove to await the splash of home run balls. The San Francisco Giants were playing baseball against the team from Arizona, but that was not the point. He was there to recon a potential target zone.
Almost as soon as he entered the arena and walked past the monstrous, skeletal Coca-Cola bottle tilted at a twenty-five-degree angle next to a huge four-fingered old-style baseball glove, he knew he had found just the place. From the mezzanine level, Juba could see downtown San Francisco and the long bridge across San Francisco Bay. Oakland was only ten miles away. There was a medium crowd that evening, about twenty-five thousand fans, but the New York Yankees were arriving in two days and all of the stadium’s 41,503 seats would be filled. The decision made, he used his cell phone to call a number in Nogales, Mexico, and gave the man who answered a brief message.
After the game, Juba wandered down to Chinatown for a hot and spicy meal of garlic chicken before returning to his hotel and tuning in the world news on the thirty-two-inch LCD high-definition television set in his room. The news readers were still carrying on about London and the death of Saladin in Paris. Soon they would have a fresher subject. A better kill zone was being staked out at AT &T Park.
Then he turned to his laptop and transferred a retainer fee to the account of a private detective in Connecticut who was hired occasionally for discreet jobs and background checks. The detective believed the client was a major computer company that required the utmost confidentiality. When the money transfer was confirmed, Juba sent the detective an e-mail telling him to find former U.S. Marine Kyle Swanson.
THAT NIGHT, XAVIER SANDOVAL was in the confessional of a little church in the hills outside of Nogales, Mexico. The religious quandary was nothing new to him, a mysterious puzzle that had haunted him for the past three years. He was not a Muslim, and in fact didn’t believe in any organized religion, but the ancient pull of the Roman Catholic Church still tugged at him. It was difficult to give up the teachings of a lifetime.
As a younger man, he had made his way to the United States to find work only to end up in a bar fight in Texas and be arrested, deported back to Mexico, and slammed into a cell with other failed immigrants. It was shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and the government in Mexico City was eager to show common cause. Many of the prisoners, including Xavier Sandoval, were declared to be suspected terrorists, and vigorous interrogations followed in locations that were beyond prayer. By the time he was released, he really was a terrorist. He again crossed the border and this time made his way to Michigan, settling into a Muslim area with friends of friends he had known in prison. They were bound by an intractable hatred of the United States.
One day an Englishman appeared and plucked him from the crowd, and Xavier Sandoval went to work for the man everyone respectfully called Juba. He was kind and generous and quite talented at killing.
Still, there was a bit of conscience left inside Xavier, enough so that on the evening of the telephone call from Juba in San Francisco, he bathed, combed his hair, put on his best dark suit with a matching somber tie over a blue oxford-cloth shirt, and went to mass. The deep feelings of the liturgy and tradition and guilt seeped into him and drew him to the next level, staying after the service to give his confession. The priest was puzzled at the vague admissions of carnal and other little sins because it was obvious that the parishioner was greatly troubled, but Xavier knew when to stop talking. He did not expect absolution for his crimes; he had just wanted to hear the calm voice of a priest one last time. Then he walked calmly out into the warmth of the late summer night.
The next morning, he said a final prayer and asked God, if he was really up there, to grant him courage and forgiveness. It was a lot to ask, since he was about to murder several thousand people. The small man put on khaki pants and a yellow shirt and headed off to his job as a truck driver for the Diablo Gourmet Seasoning Company.
Diablo Gourmet was a
The Diablo operation had been established more than twenty years ago as a false front, a vital part of Saddam Hussein’s Unit 999 operations in North America. The only traces of ownership were a lawyer’s name and the post office box of a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands. Years of legitimate operations had made the familiar blocky buildings of Diablo Gourmet a welcome money generator in the Nogales area and allowed Unit 999 to smuggle almost anything it wanted to across the border.
About noon, every day of the week, three yellow trucks left the loading docks carrying fresh loads of Mexican spices and herbs. The guards at the international frontier could smell them coming, for the vented cargo holds exuded the powerful odors of sweet cinnamon and ancho chile pods, pungent epazote, overpowering vanilla, chile negro, and the citrusy blast of habaneros, considered the hottest chiles in the world. All were encased in plastic bags, glass bottles, or metal containers and shipped in cardboard boxes, but it was impossible to capture all of the smells. The arrival of the spice trucks reminded the inspectors and guards it was time for lunch, and the veteran drivers regularly left samples for the guards. Everyone loved good Mexican food, and the signature company logo of a little red devil prancing on a background of yellow was synonymous with quality, hot, authentic spices from south of the border.
Three yellow trucks at noon, day after day, year after year.
The trucks were familiar, the drivers known to the inspectors, and the company owned by Americans, so there were never serious delays when the vehicles came to the border, which had every conceivable security device. Big fences, new television cameras, dozens of computers, sniffer dogs, and experienced inspectors worked both sides
