paused, holding up his hands, fighting back the words. “And if that happens, they’ve won. No matter what happens after. Just imagine what will happen if a truck with maybe four thousand pounds of HE — homemade explosive — and radioactive waste drives at ninety miles an hour into the White House fence, right onto the lawn, maybe into the house itself. Now, imagine another heading into Rockefeller Plaza, when you can’t move for Christmas shoppers, and another, say, on Wall Street. Or maybe not trucks, maybe twenty people on foot, in malls across Boston, carrying two, three, four pounds of contaminated HE in a shopping bag or strapped under their winter coats. Imagine them detonating all at the same time. Imagine that, Nick. I do, and haven’t slept for weeks.”
He squeezed the empty can of Coke like he was throttling the life out of it, and this time it wasn’t part of the act. “According to these documents, their guys have been stealing and storing isotopes for two years, the stuff used in hospitals and industry. We’re talking a big enough stockpile to make either a lot of small devices or maybe five or six Oklahomas — we could be talking about both truck and pedestrian attacks.”
He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “We have one straw to grasp at. These guys are on a suicide mission. But,” he raised his right index finger, “but — they’re not going to do a damned thing until they know family business is taken care of.”
“You mean, the ASUs won’t commit until they get confirmation that Dad has a new Land Cruiser with all the extras?”
“Exactly. They may be crazy, but they’re not stupid. So, here’s my thinking. The setup funds for these attacks have been coming into the U.S. for nearly three years, and they’d have had everything in place before hitting the World Trade Center because they’d know the shutters would come down straight afterward.
“We know from the Zeralda connection that al-Qaeda channeled the cash to their ASUs in the U.S. via three hawalladas based in the South of France. These guys would also get the compensation money to the ASUs’ families, via their counterparts in Algeria.” He smiled for the first time since we’d entered the room. “But that isn’t going to happen now, since you did your John the Baptist trick with Zeralda. All hawallada activity has come to a halt in Algeria, and other al-Q money-movers have followed suit.
“So, the way it looks is that these French hawalladas have a mass of cash — around three million U.S. — which they still have to get to the families. If not, no attack.
“We know from our source in France that an al-Qaeda team is on its way there — they’re going to physically package up the money and take it back to Algeria.” He paused, to make sure I got the message. “Your job, Nick, is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
In George’s language, we had to “render” them. In mine, once we had identified the three hawalladas with the help of information from the source, whom I’d be contacting once I got into France, we were to lift them, drug them, and leave them at a DOP (drop off point). From there, they’d be picked up and taken aboard an American warship that would be anchored near Nice on a goodwill visit. Once on board, a team of interrogators would get to work on them right away, to find out who their U.S. counterparts were. There’d be no time to bring them back to the States, it had to be done in-theater. They wouldn’t enjoy coming around in the belly of that warship; the inquisitors would be doing their stuff to protect their own flesh and blood back home, not some far-off bit of desert or jungle. It makes quite a difference. Once the hawalladas had been sucked dry, maybe they’d have their heads chopped off, too. I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t much care.
“The FBI and CIA are doing everything they can to locate these ASUs,” George said. “But as far as I’m concerned, these hawalladas are the quickest route to fingering the guys sitting at home in New Jersey or wherever with a truckload of cesium wrapped around some homemade explosive.”
“What if the source doesn’t come up with the goods?”
George waved this aside. “Everything’s in a state of flux. Just get down there, meet up with the two guys who’ll be on your team, and wait for my word on the source meet.”
He looked me directly in the eye. “So much depends on you, Nick. If you succeed, none of these guys gets to see December fourteenth, let alone the twenty-fourth. But whatever happens, that money must not make it to Algeria.”
He sat back in his chair once more and spread his hands. “And it goes without saying, this has to be done without the French knowing. It takes time to go through all that human rights and due process bureaucratic crap — that’s time we don’t have.”
“And we have to make sure the rendered hawalladas still have their heads on, so they can chat to you people, right?”
George helped himself to another Coke. I didn’t notice him offering me one. “I don’t have to tell you this, Nick. If someone hits you and then threatens to hit you some more, you’ve got to stop them. Period.”
The can went into the garbage and he started collecting together the stuff on the bed and put it back into his briefcase. The briefing was over. “You leave in the morning. Enjoy the flight — I hear Air France has some great wines.”
He stood up, tightened his tie, and buttoned up his jacket. “We have a lot of catching up to do if we’re to win this war, Nick, and you’re now part of that catch-up.”
He turned back halfway to the door. “Until they kill you, of course, or I find someone better.”
He gave me a big smile, but I wasn’t sure he meant it as a joke.
Chapter 10
I sat in the laverie on Boulevard Carnot, watching my sheets tumble about in the soapy water, deafened by the constant roar of traffic that drowned even the drone of the washing machines. I was waiting to RV (rendezvous) with the source. The RV was to take place across the busy boulevard at Le Natale brasserie at eleven, either inside or at a sidewalk table, depending on where the source decided to sit. She was calling that particular shot, and I didn’t like it.
The midmorning temperature had climbed into the low sixties. The thinnest clothes I’d brought with me from Boston were what I was wearing now, jeans and a blue Timberland sweatshirt, but judging by one or two of the passersby, I wouldn’t have been out of place in winter furs.
Le Natale was a cafe-tabac where you could buy a lotto ticket and win a fortune, put all the winnings on a horse, watch the race while eating lunch or just downing coffee, then buy your parking tokens and a book of stamps on the way out.
I had picked the laundromat for cover. The sheets had been bought yesterday after I’d recced this area. You always have to have a reason for being somewhere.
George had told me three days ago that the source would be supplying me with details of a pleasure boat that was parking sometime soon, somewhere along the coast. On board would be the al-Qaeda team, an as yet unknown number of people, who would be collecting the money from three different hawalladas before taking it back to Algeria. We were to follow the collectors, see who they picked up the money from, then do our job the same day. There was no time to waste. George wanted them in that warship ASAP.
I was the only one in the laverie, apart from the old woman who did the service laundry. Every few minutes she hitched up her shabby brown overcoat and dragged her slippered feet across the worn linoleum tiles to test the dampness of the clothes in the tumble dryers. She kept dabbing the clothes against her cheeks and seemed to be complaining to herself about the lack of drying power every time. She’d then close the door and mumble some more to me while I smiled back at her and nodded, my eyes already returning to the target on the other side of the plate glass window, or as much of it as I could see through the posters for Playboy and how “super economique” the machines were.
I’d been in the South of France four days now, having left Boston on the first flight to Amsterdam, then on to Paris, before finally arriving here on the eighteenth. I got myself a bed in a hotel in the old quarter of Cannes, behind the synagogue and the fruit and cheap clothes market.
Today was the day the covert three-man team I commanded was about to take the war to al-Qaeda.
My washing machine was spinning like mad as a stream of people moved in and out of the brasserie doors, buying their Camel Lights or Winstons along with their paper as the world screamed past in both directions.
The money we were after from the hawalladas had been made here in Europe. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
