Corrales had refused.
And so they had decided to simply take him back to the office for some persuading. During the ride over, Moore had told Corrales the bad news. He and Towers were gringos all right, big badass gringos from the United States government. Corrales had demanded to know what agency.
Moore had grinned darkly. “All of them.”
Now, as Corrales accepted a foam cup of coffee from Towers, he leaned forward on the table and rubbed his eyes. He uttered a string of curses, then said, “I want it in writing that I have total immunity. And I want a lawyer.”
“You don’t need a lawyer,” said Moore.
“I’m under arrest, right?”
Moore shook his head, and his tone turned grave. “You’re here because of what happened to Maria. We found the body back at Zuniga’s place. What happened? Did Pablo kill her?”
“No, the other fucking bastards did. They killed my woman. They won’t survive that.”
“Who’s your boss?” asked Moore.
“Fernando Castillo.”
Towers nodded emphatically. “Rojas’s security guy. He’s got a patch. One eye.”
“They all like to pretend they are not part of the cartel. Los Caballeros. That’s bullshit!”
“So what were you giving Zuniga?”
“I’ve got names and locations of suppliers and transporters from all around the world. People in Colombia, Pakistan …I got shit you stupid cops wouldn’t believe. I got bank account numbers, receipts, recordings of phone calls, e-mails; I got it all …”
“Well, we got it all on you, too, Corrales. We know what happened to your parents and when you joined the
Corrales took another sip of his coffee, his breath growing shorter, then he slammed his fist on the table and cried, “They’re all going down! All of them! Every last one!”
“They killed Ignacio at the hotel, too,” said Moore. “He was a nice guy. I liked him.”
“Wait a minute. It’s you,” said Corrales, his eyes growing wider. “You’re the guy my boys lost. Your name’s Howard.”
Moore shrugged. “Small world.”
Corrales cursed and said, “Solar panels, my ass …”
“So where’s all this information you claim to have?” asked Towers.
“It’s all on a flash drive. And I’ve got two more copies in safe-deposit boxes. I’m not an idiot — so stop talking to me like I am.”
Moore tried to hold back a chuckle. “Then we need to hit the bank, huh?”
Corrales shook his head and reached down into his black silk shirt. He withdrew a wafer-thin flash drive that hung from a thick gold chain. The drive itself was gold-plated, made by “Super Talent,” 64 GB. “It’s all right here.”
Samad and Niazi were in the Hyundai Accent and following Talwar, who was driving a DirecTV satellite van given to them by Rahmani’s men in Los Angeles. They followed the blue signs and pulled into the seventy-nine- space lot, which was located five minutes from the Central Terminal Area and accessible from the north and east via La Tijera, Sepulveda, Manchester, and Century Boulevards. They had considered using long-term parking lot C directly south and still within their launch radius, but they’d learned that at least two LAPD officers on motorcycles checked the cars daily with the intent of finding vehicles without front license plates so they could issue tickets. The only security in the cell-phone waiting lot was the “airport puppy patrol,” as one of Rahmani’s men had told them. Those guys checked only for unattended vehicles. No worries there, my friends.
There’d also been some discussion about parking in Inglewood or Huntington Park, northeast of the airport, to avoid running any further security risks, but Samad had argued for the cell lot location, which would allow the team more time to acquire their target, as the plane would lift off, head out over the Pacific in a “Loop Five” departure as part of the airport’s noise abatement procedures, then return and be vectored along V-264, passing over their heads and on toward Inglewood and Huntington Park. It was clear to Rahmani and even American authorities that it was absolutely impossible to secure the ground beneath airplane flights, so the teams had free rein to select the best possible locations.
Samad got the chills every time he thought about it. The absolute brilliance and audacity of the jihad on September 11, 2001, would return to American soil as promised, only this time Allah’s wrath would fall on Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, and San Antonio.
Six planes. Six airports. June sixth.
While some of his Muslim colleagues disagreed, Samad firmly believed that 666 was the Qur’an. It was Allah. It was not Satan or the number of the beast, as many Christians believed. It was the perfect number.
And so, too, should be the mission — perfectly executed, precisely timed, the planes carefully chosen after months of research and observation by Taliban and Al-Qaeda sleepers working inside and around each airport, all coordinated by Rahmani himself, who’d spent hundreds of hours downloading documents via the Internet, all readily accessible to him: FAA layouts of the airports, plane departure routes, everything freely and easily accessible by anyone with a connection to the Web. He’d enlisted the help of several computer engineers, who’d created three- dimensional models to simulate each of the six attacks, models that allowed him to plug in various launch coordinates and determine launch radii.
With that data, and with the might of Allah fueling their hearts and minds, the destruction they wreaked would be simultaneous and complete.
The target in Los Angeles was Delta Airlines flight 2965, departing on Sunday, June 6, at 5:40 p.m. for New York’s JFK airport. Equipment: Boeing 757 passenger plane, two engines, one on each wing. Wide-body large aircraft; 202 passengers, in addition to pilot, copilot, and attendants. The Sunday-night flights tended to be full, with many business folks and vacationers heading back east to be ready for work on Monday morning.
The capabilities of the weapon had been the first consideration and had dictated both their target selection and location. The MK III missile’s guidance system was a dual-band infrared homing seeker, a “fire and forget” system that allowed the operator to launch even if he wasn’t pointing at the target. The MK III did more than just chase the target, though; it was a smart missile that would choose the shortest path, cruising at six hundred meters per second. Its warhead contained 1.42 kg of HE fragmentation that would thoroughly destroy the plane’s engine, which was mounted on a pylon under the wing but located fairly close to the fuselage. Residual damage to hydraulic lines, electrical systems, control surfaces, and fuel tanks could also occur — and those issues could result in a catastrophic failure.
In November 2003 a DHL A300 was struck in the wing by a missile while taking off from Baghdad. The pilot was able to limp back to the airport, as only the wing had been hit. Samad felt certain that none of his teams would fail in that way, as the MK IIIs would most assuredly find the hottest heat source as the 757 ascended slowly on full power and with full fuel tanks. Not only were commercial airliners most vulnerable at that moment, but once struck, they would go down over heavily populated areas, allowing thousands of gallons of jet fuel to burn, causing maximum damage and loss of life.
While the MK III’s range was 5,000 meters, or 16,400 feet, the goal was to be in a location to launch while the target was still below 10,000 feet. This not only increased the likelihood of a good hit but decreased the time the crew had to save the aircraft, which would roll from lift from the undamaged side toward the damaged side. Best-case scenario was that the engine would explode, shearing off the entire wing, in which case the plane and its crew were doomed from that second on.
Indeed, all of these scenarios assumed that only one missile had been launched — when Samad and his teams had two MK IIIs, and the teams had every intention of launching both of their missiles.
One driver. One shooter. One assistant to help reload the weapon. Total time to launch both missiles and get out of there: thirty seconds. Should anyone attempt to stop them after the first launch, the assistant was armed with two Makarov semiautomatic pistols, an AK-47, and six fragmentation grenades. The driver was equally armed.
