Death Wave

“Yes, sir. Ibrahim Azhar’s brother. A radical Muslim cleric who went on to found Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Army of Mohammad, in 2000.”

“The JeM is just involved with Kashmir, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, but they’ve increasingly been taking an international stance. Especially since they bombed the Indian Parliament in New Delhi.” That had been in December of 2001.

Kashmir was the disputed territory currently divided between Pakistan, India, and China. Since their original partition in 1947, three wars had been fought in the region between India and Pakistan, the most recent in 1999, and a fourth war had been fought between India and China over the northeastern area in 1962. A number of extremist Muslim groups like the JeM had been created over the years — usually with help from Pakistan’s ISI — with the goal of forcing the Indians out of Kashmir and Jammu, the southern portion of the region now controlled by New Delhi.

“The Army of Mohammad has been closely tied to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda since the beginning,” Rubens went on. “Especially through the Binoria Madrasah, in Karachi. The message preached there calls for global jihad, claiming it’s the duty of all Muslims everywhere to join together and destroy both Israel and the United States. Kashmir is just a first step toward an Islamic world state.”

“Well, we’ve heard that before,” Douglas said. “There are too many internal differences for the Muslims ever to get their act together and take on the whole world. Shi’ites against Sunnis. Radicals against conservatives. Different interpretations of the Qur’an. It’ll never happen.”

“Not unless someone comes up with a really dramatic demonstration,” Rubens observed. “Something that proves how powerful the extremist arm of Islam actually is. Or … maybe a high-profile demonstration of how powerful Allah is. I remember there were concerns that there might be a global jihad in the wake of 9/11. That attack, the sheer scope of it, proved the radical extremists could hurt even a giant like the United States.”

“The bastards were dancing in the streets from Morocco and Great Britain all the way to Indonesia,” Noelle said sourly.

“But the more moderate Muslims, the Islamic mainstream, they didn’t join in,” Douglas pointed out. “There was no global uprising.”

“Which makes me wonder about these operations we’ve tapped into,” Rubens told him. “Wrath of God. Fire from Heaven. Tactical nuclear weapons, maybe planted in a dozen different cities? That kind of widespread destruction might be just the universal rallying cry the extremists are looking for. Something to make all good Muslims see that the triumph of the extremists is inevitable. It is God’s will.”

“Possibly.” Douglas didn’t sound convinced. He tapped the transcript lying on the desk. “You think Feng is suggesting a timetable when he says the drilling has to be done next week?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Okay. Drilling where? By whom?” He looked at Noelle and chuckled. “We don’t have any reports of covert drilling operations on the Mall in downtown Washington, do we?”

“Not that I’ve heard, sir.”

“He mentions drill bits from Dhahran. And these two people he was meeting with, Shah and Chatel. What’s their part in it?”

“Shah is a minor executive with Saudi Aramco. That’s the largest oil company in the world. And Chatel is a salesman with Petro-Technologique, a French company that provides specialized drilling equipment to, among others, Saudi Aramco. He mentions drilling through basalt, though. You don’t generally find oil beneath basalt, sir. That’s volcanic rock. You find oil in pockets beneath sedimentary rock, and ocean sediments.”

“You think they’re drilling holes for suitcase nukes? Underground detonations? Why? Setting the things off on the surface in the middle of a city would be more destructive, I would think. One-kiloton tactical nukes wouldn’t make much of a bang at the bottom of an oil well.”

“We’re still studying that one, sir,” Rubens said. “I suspect they have something bigger in mind than just wrecking twelve city centers.”

“But you don’t know what.”

“No, sir. But we do have one more clue.”

“The writers Feng mentions. Pender and … who?” Douglas picked up the transcript and scanned through it quickly.

“Carlylse, sir,” Rubens said. “Vincent Carlylse. And Jack Pender.”

“Who the hell are they?”

“A writing team. They’ve coauthored seven books over the past three years. Weird, fringe-element stuff, mostly, but pretty popular. Ancient astronauts, UFOs, the lost continent of Atlantis, stuff like that.” He handed another file across to Douglas. “Yesterday, Pender was found dead in a motel room in New Jersey. It looked like suicide, but the police are calling his death suspicious.”

“Suspicious how?”

“A few hours after they found Pender, they found a prostitute dead in another motel, a few miles away. Cynthia Jane Cramer. Naked, tied to the bed, and strangled with a length of rope. Looked like one of her johns got too rough. Her purse was there. The cash was gone, so it looked like a robbery, but whoever it was didn’t take the credit cards. When the police checked, it turned out that one of the cards belonged to Pender.”

“Ah …”

“We’re exploring the possibility that the bad guys used Cramer to get access to Pender’s room. She set him up, stole the credit card … and still had it when the bad guys killed her later, just to wrap up the loose ends.”

“They killed Pender and made it look like suicide.”

“Yes, sir. Pender was more or less successful. A book he and Carlylse wrote together about Atlantis actually hit the bestseller lists, which is pretty unusual for that kind of pseudo-science book — and he was scheduled to appear on a TV talk show broadcast out of New York City yesterday afternoon.”

“In other words, he had no reason to kill himself.”

“I’m told that between divorces, depression, and alcoholism, writing novels is a pretty high-risk profession — but Pender was doing well. Plenty of money in the bank, and the promise of more to come. Pender and Carlylse had just come out with another hot title, this one on 2012. In fact, he was going to be plugging it on that TV show.”

“So how is this guy connected with the Army of Mohammad?”

“We’re not entirely sure yet, sir. But yesterday afternoon, GCHQ intercepted an encoded cell phone transmission from Masood Azhar, in Karachi, to al-Wawi. When we ran it through crypto, it said that Pender was dead, and that Carlylse was on La Palma, in the Canary Islands. It also said that Carlylse should be dealt with next.”

“Good God. But why two scribblers? Why these two?”

“We have an analysis team going through their books now, sir, looking for a motive. Most of their stuff is pretty far out, alien abductions and crap like that. But that newest book, the one they wrote on 2012, might turn out to be the key.”

“Really? Twenty twelve. That’s … all of that doomsday stuff, right?”

“Yes, sir. The end of the ancient Mayan calendar and the end of the world. It sounds apocalyptic enough that al-Qaeda or the JeM might have taken an interest.”

“So why kill the authors?”

“We’re not sure about that either, yet. In the conversation our operative bugged yesterday, Feng was concerned that their deaths might give away the game. So we’re researching their books with that in mind.”

Douglas nodded. “I see why you’re concerned. Twelve loose tactical nukes, two extremist Muslim operations with apocalyptic code names, and a murdered author who writes about doomsday. And Feng here is talking about next week.”

“Exactly.”

“What’s the Chinese role in all of this?”

“Probably opportunistic. In the transcript, Shah mentions concerns that Saudi Arabia is going to lose a major trading partner. Looking at the context, that could well be the United States. Al-Khuwaytir is probably Mohammad Sayeed al-Khuwaytir, the Saudi foreign trade minister. Feng points out that the PRC could step into the vacuum. If