“True,” said Dean. “Where’s the hole?”
The police chief pointed it out on the starboard side of the vessel.
“I’d say he had to have been shot from another boat,” said Dean. “Something higher to get that angle.”
“Or a ship,” said Chafetz. “Much more likely. We’re sending a pathology team down there to check out the dead man and the boat. Good work, Charlie.”
CHAPTER 127
Tommy Karr pushed the baseball cap back on his hat and surveyed the tarmac next to the terminal at Stewart International Airport. Small planes generally lined up along the terminal’s eastern end, filling a small number of slots. Marid Dabir’s plane would be directed to the slot at the extreme south. Ordinarily passengers disembarked into a large room where they could pick up their baggage. Special dividers had been brought in, creating a narrow hallway to control the traffic. Dabir would be seized in the hallway after he was surrounded by FBI agents dressed as airline and airport workers. Lia would be on the flight with him and would make sure they got the right man.
Assuming, of course, they had the right man to begin with.
Karr wanted to see where Dabir would end up if he managed to slip out of the plane somehow. A parking lot for rental cars was just around the comer from the gate area where they were going to bring Dabir’s plane. Hopping the fence would take all of five seconds; he’d have to put two guys on the plane side of the fence to forestall that possibility. That was in addition to the people they’d have disguised as ground crew on both sides of the plane.
A hangar across the way that was used by U.S. Marine reserve units to maintain some of their aircraft had been vacated a few hours before. Right after the plane carrying Dabir landed, a CIA Gulfstream would taxi over to the area in front of the hangar; the jet would take off a short time later — a ruse to make anyone watching think Dabir had been taken away. In fact, he would be moved to a trailer set up in one of the large C-5A hangars on the Air National Guard side of the complex, guarded by a team of FBI agents and federal marshals as well as U.S. Air Force security. Several members of the Justice Department and FBI interrogators were already there, preparing for their interrogation.
Karr checked the truck that would be used to ferry him across the base, then looked at the two vans which would carry the federal agents. The trucks were guarded by a pair of U.S. Air Force security men, who were trying to look nonchalant while holding M-16s at the ready.
“Lookin’ good,” Karr told them after circling the trucks. “Now tell me, no bullshit: Where’s the best pizza place in town?”
CHAPTER 128
Between fatigue and his concerns about the operation set to grab Marid Dabir, Rubens found his patience in short supply from the very start of the evening conference call updating possible al-Qaeda targets. He tried to explain how circumstantial the evidence his people had found that the Galveston-Houston area might be a target was, but the others clearly didn’t hear the nuances. As soon as he mentioned that one of the terrorists had possibly met a boat or ship off Mexico — information that the Art Room had given him only a few minutes before — they put two and two together and came up with forty-four.
“Sink a ship in the Houston Ship Channel and it would be even more devastating than blowing up the chemical plant,” said Cynthia Marshall, second-in-command at Homeland Security. “We’ll need National Guard troops. I’ll move the Coast Guard over and blockade the port. The Navy will have to help as well.”
“There’s no evidence the channel is being targeted,” said Rubens. “And from what I understand about the threat coming from the sea, there’s no evidence there either.”
“We have one source saying al-Qaeda may be interested in ships,” said Collins from the CIA. “That’s the extent of the intelligence.”
“Can we really take a chance?” asked FBI Director Griffin Bolso, who until now had been a voice of reason and an ally. “Blow up something there, and it’ll be worse than 9/11.”
“We have to be prudent in using our resources,” said Rubens.
He might just as well have read the horoscope, for all the good it did. Bing ended the meeting by saying that the Houston and Galveston area would be put under a virtual lock-down, with the navy and coast guard tasked to search every ship in the vicinity. Searching the ships would take weeks, not days, but the general representing the Department of Defense on the conference call was from the air force and clearly didn’t understand the logistics involved.
A few minutes after Rubens hung up, Collins from the CIA called him back. He’d promised to update her on the Dabir operation.
“They’re overreacting on Houston,” she said without prompting. “But you can’t blame them. We’ve given them bits and pieces of possible conspiracies, and they put them together in the worst way.”
“Concentrating on the wrong target may be worse than concentrating on none,” said Rubens.
Collins didn’t answer. Rubens told her about Dabir; when he was done, she asked if she could send a CIA interrogation team there as well.
Even though he’d expected the question, he wasn’t sure how exactly to answer it. The Justice Department had been adamant that the CIA people not take part; truth be told, they would have greatly preferred it if Desk Three wasn’t even involved in the operation, since the intelligence agencies would inevitably complicate any prosecution. But Collins was a potential ally against Bing, and Rubens knew that telling her no wasn’t going to go over well.
What else could he do, though? Base his decision on politics?
“Justice wants to handle the interrogation itself,” said Rubens, hoping that would end the conversation.
It didn’t.
“Justice wants a lot of things. The FBI has a terrible track record on interrogations. We don’t.”
“I can’t argue with you, Debra, but it’s not my call.”
“If you said the team was from Desk Three, no one would question it.”
“Well, I can’t lie,” blurted Rubens.
A moment of awkward silence followed.
“Bill, sometimes it would be helpful to remember the old adage, ‘one hand washes the other’,” said Collins before she hung up.
CHAPTER 129
The big helicopter shook the shoreline as it approached, but the night had turned overcast, and Dean couldn’t even make out its running lights.
“They want you to fire a flare, Charlie,” Chafetz told him. “To make sure they’re in the right place.”
Dean didn’t have any flares. This was just like the navy: always asking a marine to do the impossible.
And being a marine, though a retired one, he came up with a way to do it.
“Turn on your lights,” Dean yelled to the Mexican police chief a few yards away. “The helicopter needs something to guide it.”
The chief reached into his Volkswagen and red and blue beacons split the darkness.
“All right. They got you,” said Chafetz.
A spotlight searched the beach as the helo, a large CH-53E Super Stallion from the
