“They wanted to sting us cleverly. The objective here manifestly is to strike at Middle America,” Rounds led off. “They think they can strike fear in our hearts by showing us they can attack us anywhere, not just at obvious targets like New York. That was the element of cleverness in this operation. Probably fifteen to twenty total terrorists, plus some support personnel, maybe. That’s a fairly large number, but not unprecedented—they maintained good operational security. Their people were well motivated. I would not say that they were particularly well trained, though, they just decided to toss a mad dog in the backyard to bite some of the kids, as it were. They’ve demonstrated their political willingness to do some very bad things, but that’s not a surprise; also to throw dedicated personnel away, but that’s not a surprise either. The attack was low-tech in nature, just some bad guys with light automatic weapons. They have demonstrated viciousness, but not real professionalism. In less than two days, the FBI will have them tracked down to their point of origin, probably, and maybe their routes of entry. They did not learn to fly or anything like that, so they probably have not been in-country all that long. I’d be interested in learning who scouted out their objectives. The element of timing suggests some preplanning, but not much, I’d guess—it’s not hard to read the time off a wristwatch. They didn’t plan on getting away after doing their shooting. They probably came in with their objectives already identified. At this point, I’d bet a few bucks that they’ve only been inside our borders for a week or two—even less, depending on their method of ingress. The Bureau will have that one nailed down pretty soon.”
“Pete reports the weapons were Ingram sub-machine guns. They look pretty—that’s why they show up in TV and the movies,” Granger explained. “But they are not really efficient weapons.”
“How did they get them?” Tom Davis asked.
“Good question. Figure the FBI already has the ones from Virginia, and is busy tracking them down by serial number. They’re good at it. We should have the information by tonight. That will give them leads on how the weapons got into the terrorists’ hands, and then the investigation will get going.”
“WHAT’S THE Bureau going to do, Enzo?” Brian asked.
“It’s a major case. It’ll have a code word assigned, and every agent in the country can be called in to work on it. Right now, first thing they’re looking for is the car the bad guys used. Maybe it’s stolen. More likely it’s rented. You have to sign for those, leave a copy of your driver’s license, credit card, all the normal stuff you do in order to exist in America. It can all be followed. It all leads somewhere, bro. That’s why you chase them all down.”
“How are you guys doing?” Pete asked, entering the room.
“A drink helps,” Brian answered. He’d already cleaned his Beretta, as Dominic had done with his Smith & Wesson. “It wasn’t fun, Pete.”
“It isn’t supposed to be. Okay, I just talked with the home office. They want to see you guys in a day or so. Brian, you had some qualms before, and you say that’s changed. That still true?”
“You’ve trained us to identify, close on, and kill people, Pete. And I can live with that—just so’s we’re not doing something completely off the reservation.”
Dominic just nodded agreement, but his eyes didn’t leave Alexander.
“Okay, good. There’s an old joke in Texas about why the lawyers are so good down there. The answer is, there’s more men who need killin’ than horses that need stealin’. Well, those who need killing, maybe you two can help them along some.”
“Are you finally going to tell us who we’re working for, exactly?” Brian asked.
“You will find that out in due course—just a day or so.”
“Okay, I can wait that long,” Brian said. He was doing some quick analysis of his own. General Terry Broughton might know something. For damned sure that Werner guy in FBI did, but this former tobacco plantation they’d been training on didn’t belong to any part of the government he knew about. CIA had “The Farm” near Yorktown, Virginia, but that was about a hundred fifty miles away. This place didn’t feel like “Agency,” at least not in accordance with his assumptions, wrong though they could be. In fact, this place didn’t smell “government” at all, not to his nose. But one way or another, in a couple of days he’d know something substantive, and he could wait that long.
“What do we know about the guys we whacked today?”
“Nothing much. That’ll have to wait awhile. Dominic, how long before they start finding stuff out?”
“By noon tomorrow they’ll have a lot of information, but we don’t have a pipeline into the Bureau, unless you want me to—”
“No, I don’t. We might have to let them know that you and Brian aren’t the new version of the Lone Ranger, but it ought not to go very far.”
“You mean I’ll have to talk to Gus Werner?”
“Probably. He has enough juice in the Bureau to say you’re on ‘special assignment’ and make it stick. I imagine he’ll be patting himself on the back for talent-scouting you for us. You two did pretty damned well, by the way.”
“All we did,” the Marine said, “was what we’ve been trained to do. We had just enough time to get our shit together, and after that it was all automatic. They taught me at the Basic School that the difference between making it and not making it is usually just a few seconds’ worth of thinking. If we’d been in the Sam Goody when it all started instead of a few minutes later, it might have been different in the final outcome. One other thing—two men are about four times as effective as one man. There’s actually a study about it. ‘Non-Linear Tactical Factors In Small-Unit Engagements,’ I think the title is. It’s part of the syllabus at Recon School.”
“Marines really do know how to read, eh?” Dominic asked, reaching for a bottle of bourbon. He poured two stiff ones, handing one to his brother and taking a pull on his own.
“The guy in the Sam Goody—he smiled at me,” Brain said in reflective amazement. “I didn’t think about it at the time. I guess he wasn’t afraid to die.”
“It’s called martyrdom, and some people really do think that way,” Pete told them both. “So, what did you do?”
“I shot him, close range, maybe six or seven times—”
“Far side of ten times, bro,” Dominic corrected him. “Plus the last one in the back of his head.”
“He was still moving,” Brian explained. `And I didn’t have any cuffs to slap on him. And, you know, I’m not really all that worried about it.” And besides, he would have bled out anyway. The way things had worked out, his trip into the next dimension had just happened sooner.
“B-3 AND bingo! We have a bingo,” Jack announced from his workstation. “Sali is a player, Tony. Look here,” he said, pointing to his computer screen.
Will punched up his “take” from NSA, and there it was. “You know, chickens are supposed to cackle after they lay an egg, just to let the world know how good they are. Works with these birds, too. Okay, Jack, it’s official. Uda bin Sali is a player. Who is this addressed to?”
“It’s a guy he chats on the ‘Net with. He mainly talks to him about money moves.”
“Finally!” Wills observed, checking the document on his own workstation. “They want photos of the guy, a whole spread. Maybe Langley is finally going to put some coverage on him. Praise the Lord!” He paused. “Got a list of the people he e-mails to?”
“Yep. Want it?” Jack keyed it up and hit the PRINT command. In just fifteen seconds, he handed the sheet over to his roomie. “Numbers and dates of e-mails. I can print up all the interesting ones, and the reasons I find them interesting, if you want.”
“We’ll let that sit for the moment. I’ll get this up to Rick Bell.”
“I’ll hold the fort.”
DID YOU SEE THE NEWS ON TV, Sali had written to a semiregular correspondent. THIS OUGHT TO GIVE THE AMERICANS A STOMACHACHE!
“Yeah, it sure will,” Jack told the screen. “But you just tipped your hand, Uda. Oops.”
SIXTEEN MORE martyrs, Mohammed thought, watching a TV in Vienna’s Bristol Hotel. It was only painful in the abstract. Such people were, really, expendable assets. They were less important than he, and that was the truth, because of his value to the organization. He had the looks and the language skills to travel anywhere, and the brainpower to plan his missions well.
The Bristol was an especially fine hotel, just across the street from the even more ornate Imperial, and the minibar had some good cognac, and he liked good cognac. The mission had not gone all that well . . . he’d hoped for hundreds of dead Americans, instead of several dozen, but with all the armed police and even some armed citizens, the high end of his expectations had been overly optimistic. But the strategic objective had been achieved. All Americans now knew that they were not safe. No matter where they might live, they could be struck by his Holy Warriors, who were willing to trade their lives for the Americans’ sense of security. Mustafa, Saeed, Sabawi, and Mehdi were now in Paradise—if that place really existed. He sometimes thought it was a tale told to impressionable children, or to the simpleminded who actually listened to the preaching of the imams. You had to choose your preachers carefully, since not all the imams saw Islam the way Mohammed did. But they did not want to rule all of it. He did—or maybe just, a piece of it, just so long as it included the Holy Places.