Fuse of Armageddon (21 page)

This situation looked to be no different than another setup for slaughter.

The unit was nestled in a warehouse district that seemed as if it would blow over in the next desert storm. The unit had been scattered, two or three men in each of the empty buildings surrounding the warehouse. They were all in communication via headsets.

According to the earlier briefing by Lieutenant Saxon, a dozen or so members of the terrorist group Hamas would be arriving within the next twenty minutes. These Palestinians believed the trucks held weapons smuggled across the border by the men that the Freedom Crusaders had killed the night before.

As Saxon had explained it, eliminating both groups—the previous night’s and this morning’s—was ancillary to the mission. He’d grinned through his dark beard and told the Freedom Crusaders to consider it a bonus. Any Palestinian looking for weapons to use against Israel deserved to be shot down, whether it was in an ambush or an open fight. Basically, a dead Muslim male was a good Muslim male. Points in heaven.

“Why you asking all this, Pats?” Frankie Burge whispered to Patterson. His earpiece was active, but his microphone was shut off. Their conversation would be private. “You afraid of dying because you’ve got the wife and baby to worry about?”

“Yeah,” Patterson mumbled. Better for Burge to think Patterson was afraid of death. If Burge still considered these engagements to be battles instead of one-sided slaughters, he was definitely not someone who should hear Patterson’s doubts about whether it was right to continue this slaughter at every opportunity.

Burge patted his shoulder. “You want me to read Scripture to you?”

“You’ve got a Bible?” Patterson was surprised. As Muslims in disguise, none of them were supposed to have Bibles this far into the mission. If they were caught or killed and the Bible was discovered, it might blow the whole operation—whatever it was.

“Of course not; that’s against the rules. But I’ve got a lot of passages memorized.”

“I’ll be okay.” Patterson shifted his weight. The building smelled of urine and feces. He hated the trapped feeling. Orphan Annie looked restless too.

“I’ll confess then,” Burge said. “I
am
afraid of dying. Maybe not the dying part, but the pain it takes to get there. You know what gets me through it?”

Patterson shook his head.

“I think of 9/11,” Burge said. “I think about how a secret Muslim group has been fighting this holy war against us and how all the liberals want to pretend it isn’t happening. The Muslims got Osama bin Laden, but we got our own billionaire who’s willing to fund a secret Christian battle against the Muslims, and I remember how proud I am to be part of it and how bad I want to pay them back for what they did.” Burge searched Patterson’s face. “Don’t you remember how great it was to be recruited?”

Patterson remembered how intriguing the concept had seemed when he’d been part of the secret society at Freedom Christian University and how a few of the professors had recruited him by reminding him of 9/11 and the holy cause of fighting for Jesus. In the face of reality, however, the concept now seemed far too hollow. Reality was seeing so many young Muslims, barely more than boys, tortured in gruesome ways that no human should face, left dead, hanging upside down, a cross stapled to their backs. Serial killing was what it had amounted to back in the States before they’d shipped out.

And here? It bothered him more and more that the guys of the unit could go from prayers and hymns to bloodlust and then back to hymns and prayers again.

“Yeah,” Patterson said. “I remember how great it was to be recruited.”

“Good.” Burge slapped Patterson on the back. “It’s a crusade, man. Don’t forget that. You ready for action now?”

Patterson forced himself to nod.

Burge gave him a grin. “Then let’s send this next batch of heathens straight to hell.”

CCTI Headquarters, Tel Aviv • 8:34 GMT


Major General Jack Hamer had left the office. Quinn was leaning back in his expensive ergonomic chair, eyes closed, feet on desk, earbuds of an iPod plugged in.

Kate picked up the iPod from the desk. If Quinn felt her presence, nothing on his face gave any indication. She glanced at the song displayed—The Who’s “Baba O’Riley.”

She cranked the volume, still staring at Quinn’s face. What she wanted was a jump forward, his feet off the desk, or at the least a startled flinch.

What she got was the opening of his eyes and a slightly raised eyebrow. He glanced at the iPod in her hand, then back at her. He didn’t even ask her to turn the volume down, even though the pounding beat of the song reached her clearly from his earbuds.

Kate turned down the volume.

Quinn closed his eyes again. Did he know how much it irritated her to pretend she wasn’t there?

She yanked on the earbuds, popping them loose.

“You lied to Hamer about the beacon,” Kate told Quinn, moving to sit on the desk. “You can’t locate Safady that way. You can’t locate anyone that way.”

Quinn lowered his feet. “That was a private conversation with Hamer. Did he volunteer that information about the beacon, or did you make it a point to ask him what was happening?”

“Does it matter?”

“Wondering about the politics of our forced triangle,” Quinn said. “We’ll be in close quarters until this is finished. My impression was that you were a neutral prison guard here.”

“Politics don’t matter. The point is you lied to him about beacons.”

“Web beacons are common. Safady went to our Web site last night to hook up the videoconference. We tagged him there.” He leaned forward in his chair.

Kate was conscious of him in her body space, and she felt like squirming because of her heightened awareness of him, but she thought that moving away from the desk might show weakness. “You got Hamer to believe it’s like a homing signal, but you’ll be lucky if you were able to get Safady’s IP address. Even so, that doesn’t tell you the physical location of his computer.”

That earned another slight raise of Quinn’s eyebrows as he studied her face.

She’d been at a few cop seminars on cybercrime. She expected a smart-mouthed comment from Quinn about her computer knowledge. But he surprised her.

“Let me ask you something. Are you in or out?” he asked.

“Of what?” she snapped.

“Do you want to help the hostages? That’s in. Or do want to play these little games and be an obstacle? That’s out.”

“You should be landing in Chicago right now to face indictment. I’m the one risking a career by lying about why you’re not on that plane. Is that enough of an answer?”

“No. If you’re not going to be a neutral observer, take the next step. Give your allegiance to me. Not Hamer.”

“Weren’t you the one who made a beautiful little speech about teamwork?” Kate tapped her front tooth with the fingernail of her index finger, as if she really were trying to recall something. “That’s right. Just this morning. You know, when you were putting that little social engineering move on Brad Silver and making him your lapdog.”

Social engineering
. Another phrase she’d learned in the cybercrime seminars. A way of manipulating people. If hackers couldn’t get into a site with computer skills, they finessed people working for the site.

“Hamer’s IDF,” Quinn said. “That means he has more on his agenda than saving hostages. He’s got to juggle politics and hide whatever he’s going to think needs hiding from me. Which means he is hiding a lot.”

“You’ll trust me instead?”

“Your agenda is simple and straightforward. You want me facing a jury on murder charges. Better the evil that I know than the evil I don’t.”

She didn’t want to admit there was logic in Quinn’s argument. She reminded herself of what she knew about him.

Social engineering. He was playing her against Hamer. Divide, then conquer. Then escape and murder another Muslim.

Kate hesitated just a moment. “In,” she said, thinking that in the worst case, if Quinn was playing games, the best way to compete was to pretend that he’d succeeded in manipulating her, too. Best case, if he wasn’t playing a game, she’d be helping the kidnap victims.

Quinn stared at her for a long moment, then finally said, “Good.”

17

Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip • 9:07 GMT


We do it again,” Safady told Silver from behind the tripod and video camera. “Only this time I will be less forgiving of insubordination.”

Silver drew a breath, audible across the room. He sat on a stool. Its legs had been sawed off. He knew the camera was pointing down at him, and he knew how it would appear in the video footage—that Silver was smaller. He knew this because he was so aware of the opposite; he had always demanded a slightly upward camera angle for all his television appearances. It made him look larger, more dominating.

“Do you believe and preach that the Dome of the Rock stands where the Jewish Temple once stood?” Safady asked.

This was public record. Silver saw no sense in denying it, especially because he believed it was true. “I preach that,” Silver said, looking straight ahead.

“Look at the camera,” Safady said pleasantly. “I like the posture that presents. Then repeat my question in the affirmative and plural. ‘We believe and preach that the Dome of the Rock stands where the Jewish Temple once stood.’”

Silver closed his eyes. He hated this man. But he was on camera. He would project himself, show that he would not lose pride to a man like this. He spoke firmly. “We believe and preach that the Dome of the Rock stands where the Jewish Temple once stood.”

“And do you believe and preach that the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt before God can return?”

“We believe and preach that the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt before Jesus can return.”

“Do you believe and preach that Temple sacrifices will resume?”

“We believe and preach that Temple sacrifices will resume.”

“This would mean tearing down the Dome of the Rock?”

“In theory, of course,” Silver said. The Dome of the Rock was a holy site for the man in front of him, a man who held the power of life and death over all the hostages. “When God is ready for the Dome of the Rock to be destroyed, then the Temple can be rebuilt.”

“Because the Jews are divinely promised the Temple Mount?”

Silver nodded.

“Repeat it,” Safady said. “‘Because the Jews are divinely promised the Temple Mount.’”

Silver repeated it.

“When will the Temple be rebuilt for God’s return?”

“In the last days,” Silver answered.

“How do you know this?”

“The Bible, specifically the books of Ezekiel and Daniel, tells us.”

“You don’t care that Muslims—millions upon millions—will be devastated and outraged when it happens?”

“Knowing the timetable of biblical prophecy allows any of us to become Christians in anticipation of Christ’s return.” Silver kept his wince internal, wondering if Safady would explode in his usual rage.

Instead, Safady retained his pleasant smile. “Just one last question, then we are finished. And I will let you answer any way that you like. You won’t have to repeat anything I tell you. Fair enough?”

“Certainly,” Silver said. Speaking what he’d been preaching for decades about Revelation had given him a degree of confidence.

“If your Christ died on the cross to cover all your sins as you frequently preach, why are the sacrifices necessary? Are you suggesting that the atonement wasn’t complete? that your Christ only covers some of your sins?”

Silver opened his mouth to speak but could think of no immediate reply.

Safady laughed. “As I thought.” He shut off the video camera. “We’re finished. What a shame you can’t watch this interview and see the look on your face as you struggled for that final answer.”

CCTI Headquarters, Tel Aviv • 9:09 GMT


The office door opened, and Hamer walked in, waving his cell phone like a pistol. “I just got off the phone with some Mossad tech guys. They told me you can’t plant some lighthouse thing sending signals that let you home in on Safady’s computer. I don’t care how badly Safady wants you as negotiator, you’re gone if I know you’re telling me lies.”

“The Mossad tech guys would be right,” Quinn answered, “if we had used a lighthouse. It’s unfortunate that they got the wrong impression from you.”

“No,” Hamer said. “What’s unfortunate is that you gave me that impression.”

“Unfortunate,” Kate said in a flat voice.

“Try to follow,” Quinn said. “This is about to get technical, but I’ll draw it out for you.” He glanced at Kate. “
Both
of you.”

Quinn grabbed another sheet of paper and a pen. He spent thirty seconds making a rough sketch. “It’s like this,” Quinn said, handing the paper to Hamer. “Internet access reaches users through ISPs—Internet service providers. That triangle I just drew? The tip of it is the Internet. Just below are gateway ISPs that flow traffic into the Internet. Below each gateway are a number of T1 circuits that give up to five hundred users access. At the bottom are all the residences or businesses hooked up to each T1. Got it so far?”

Hamer grunted.

“So Kevin—”

“Kevin?” Hamer interrupted.

“Our best IT guy. Better than anyone working for the IDF or the Mossad.”

Another grunt from Hamer.

“Kevin ran a specialized trace route to help us find Safady’s gateway provider. It lists each Internet router that’s handled his traffic. According to IT, Safady was seven Internet hops away from us. I expect by now, IT has found the gateway provider. The gateway provider has the information on the physical location of Safady’s computer.”

“The gateway provider will give you that?” Hamer asked.

“Not without a warrant,” Quinn said.

Hamer groaned. Kate groaned. Both had enough law experience to realize the potential difficulties of that, along with the certain time delays, especially when it came to computer crime.

“By the time the warrant is issued,” Hamer said, “the Americans will be dead and none of this will even matter.”