Liberty (42 page)

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Authors: Stephen Coonts

BOOK: Liberty
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“Sir, this is Memorial Hospital in Boston. One of our patients, a Mr. Tran, asked us to call you.”
He was awake now. “Sonny Tran?”
“I'm looking at the admission form … . His first name is Khanh—I hope I'm saying that right. There has been a traffic accident. He and Mr. Tarkington were brought here. There was another passenger in their vehicle, a Mr. Bennett I believe; he was dead on arrival.”
“Can I talk to Tran or Tarkington?”
“They are both still in the emergency room. Mr. Tarkington is unconscious.”
“Have Tran call me as soon as possible.”
Callie was wide awake. Jake cradled the telephone and turned on the light. “There's been a wreck in Boston,” he told her. “Toad is unconscious. One of the other men with him is dead—fellow named Bennett.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get a plane and go to Boston. Would you call Rita on your cell”—Rita Moravia was Toad's wife—“and ask her if she would like to go? I'll have more info for her when I get it.”
While Callie was making that call, Jake used the landline to call his chief of staff, Gil Pascal.
The night had been long and tiresome for Mohammed Mohammed. He had stayed awake to check the numbers on every container that left Port Everglades. Ali and Yousef periodically walked to the McDonald's a block away for coffee or soft drinks, but he had stayed in the car.
It was still dark that Friday morning when the container he was waiting for came through the gate. The driver even made an attempt at a legal stop before he cranked the steering wheel and turned left, passing right by the rental car where Mohammed Mohammed sat at the wheel, with Yousef asleep in the passenger seat and Ali asleep in the back.
That was the container! Those numbers on the side … that was it!
No one following the truck. That was plain. The driver had been alone in the cab.
But why did he turn left? The container was to be delivered to the citrus warehouse, and he should have turned right to get there.
The truck was fast disappearing in Mohammed's driver's door mirror. He made a quick decision to follow it rather than go to the citrus warehouse and await its arrival.
The engine started with the first crank. Mohammed pulled the transmission into gear, cranked the wheel over for a U-turn, and fed gas.
Ali and Yousef awoke as the car lurched through the turn and accelerated with tires squealing.
“Is that it?” Yousef pointed at the truck, now a hundred yards ahead of them.
“Yes, and the driver is going the wrong way.”
Dawn had arrived but the sun was not yet up when the tractor hauling the container from Port Everglades pulled up to the mobile-home office at the golf course construction site. The driver got out of the truck and stretched, casually scanning the other rig parked there, the'dozers and backhoes and piles of pipe. He walked over to the office, rattled the locked door, checked his watch, looked around. Nguyen Duc Tran watched him through binoculars. The driver was wearing a faded Harley T-shirt, worn jeans, and cowboy boots.
The driver peed in the dirt, then took a seat on the single wooden step of the office and lit a cigarette.
Nguyen lowered the binoculars and carefully peered around the huge black tires of the earthmover he was lying under, looking for other people or cars or airplanes. He saw the sedan carrying Mohammed Mohammed and his two confederates drift to a stop on the street near the turnin to the site.
Nguygen used a finger to focus the binoculars. Three men in the car. Not FBI or police—they would have been in place before the container arrived; they would have learned its destination. Construction workers, perhaps, a few minutes early for work. Or Arab terrorists.
Mohammed Mohammed was also using binoculars. He didn't see Nguyen Duc Tran lying under the distant earthmover,
but he saw the driver plainly enough, sitting on the office step smoking and occasionally glancing at his watch. He studied the container again. At this distance with eight-power binoculars, he could just read the number on the side of the container. He studied it, repeated every number to himself.
Yes, that was the one.
He lowered the binoculars and wondered what he should do.
Mohammed removed his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. He fingered it idly while he considered his options.
There was the weapon he had been waiting for, and it wasn't where it was supposed to be. He had not forgotten the container number nor had he gotten it twisted.
That
was the container. Perhaps there had been some mistake with the delivery manifest. Or someone was stealing it.
He looked at the keyboard of the telephone and dialed a number he had committed to memory. After the third ring a male voice answered. “Akram, this is Mohammed.
Allah Akbar!”
The FBI was not monitoring Mohammed's telephone, but it was monitoring Akram, who led the cell the FBI had designated as Number Fourteen. Unfortunately the man who normally listened to the conversations on monitored numbers was busy just then arranging communications between the police agencies and FBI agents who were shadowing the cells that Tulik thought were hot. This call was automatically recorded and would be listened to whenever the technician had time. He was busy now, and he was going to get a lot busier.
The driver got tired of waiting, so he fired up his tractor and began preparations to unhook the truck chassis that carried the container.
Nguyen divided his attention between the driver, the car parked on the street, and scanning in all the other
directions. A sliver of sun peeped over the earth's rim and bathed the scene in a golden light, but he didn't notice.
The driver moved the tractor away from the chassis and left the engine idling. He walked behind it, tied up brake lines and electrical cords, then took a clipboard from the cab of the tractor and resumed his seat on the step of the office. He lit another cigarette.
Well, by God, there it was, Nguyen thought. All he had to do was go down there, sign the clipboard, hook up, and drive off.
The driver wasn't going to let him sign for the load unless he had a key to the office, and he didn't. He could always shoot the driver, of course, and throw his body into the container, but the people in the car on the street would see him do it. In any event, someone would start looking for the missing driver before long. And if those three watching from the street were indeed terrorists, they might get pissy when he tried to hook up and drive away.
Anxious as he was, Nguyen could only wait.
Mohammed Mohammed was feeling the burden of each passing minute. There sat the weapon, misdelivered or stolen. If he and his men drove over there and shot the driver, they could hook up the chassis to the tractor and drive off. Mohammed knew how to drive a truck—he had planned to drive the delivery truck to New York.
But what if this were a setup? What if there was a squad of heavily armed FBI agents clad in body armor hiding in the construction office or the weapon container?
He scanned the whole area again with his binoculars, looking for someone, something, anything. Another glance at his watch. Twelve minutes since he telephoned.
Akram should be here soon with three other men, all armed. With seven men, they would go get the weapon. If there were police or FBI agents hidden and waiting, they would kill them.
“We shouldn't wait,” Yousef said, seeming to read his
thoughts. “The construction workers will arrive soon, and they will call the police. We can't kill all of them.”
Mohammed was torn. Would Akram arrive before the construction workers? Should he wait for Akram or go now?
Even as he weighed it, his eye registered a gleam of reflected light from one of the distant earthmovers. He aimed the binoculars, held them steady as possible, and sweetened up the focus. He could see the head and shoulders of a man lying beside a massive wheel. He, too, was holding binoculars. The flash had been the reflection of the rising sun in one of the lenses.
So they
were
waiting!
Myron A. Emerick was in his element. He sat in the command chair in the FBI operations center at the Hoover Building in Washington and listened to the reports of FBI agents, police SWAT units, and surveillance helicopters as they came in. A video feed from an airborne helicopter played on a giant screen.
The crew in the operations center was running simultaneous surveillances on nine cells of suspected terrorists in south Florida, all of whom were in cars or vans and driving north. Already the operation had tied up two hundred agents and local police, and more would soon be needed. The surveillances were as loose as possible, so the suspects wouldn't know they were being followed.
One of the problems with using local police was their proclivity for whispering to local television crews that something was going down. It hadn't happened yet this morning, but it might. It was a risk Emerick had to take. He had no choice; he had to let the terrorists lead him to the weapons. Every other option would take a lot more time. Once they knew the government was on to them the terrorists would either try to escape or stop dead, right where they were, and he wouldn't find the weapons without a massive search.
Hob Tulik was in Florida, running things out of the antiterrorism task force offices; every now and then Emerick heard his voice on the circuit. Emerick's deputy, Robert Pobowski, was standing by the duty officer, listening and making an occasional remark.
Emerick stretched his legs, then stood. In tense moments he found it difficult to sit.
As he paced he thought about the three telephone calls that had started the suspects in motion. If there were four weapons, why not four telephone calls?
Were there cells the FBI didn't know about? That was the most likely answer. In all probability one of those unknown cells had received a call and was at this moment on its way to take delivery of a nuclear warhead.
But where?
Emerick stared at the map.
How could he cut through the knot, find the missing cells? The only thing he could think of was to inspect those weapons they could find, see why they weren't found in customs and port inspections, and go from there. Everyone wants a magic bullet, but sometimes there aren't any. Good, solid police work had turned up these three—that was what would be required to find the fourth.
When the president called in a few minutes, he would tell him that. Solid, competent, thorough, honest-to-God police work did the job every time. There was no substitute for it. Not now, not ever.
“Ten minutes,
Inshallah,
” Akram told Mohammed over the cell phone. “If you are where we think you are, it will take us ten minutes. If you are somewhere else, I do not know. Why was the weapon delivered there?”
Mohammed slammed the cover of the telephone closed, terminating the conversation. The fool! If the FBI were listening, he was telling them everything!
Well, Akram and his men might be here in ten minutes or they might not.
Inshallah!
“We should shoot the driver and take the weapon,” Ali insisted. “I see only one man lying under that earthmover.”
“You see only one! But how many are there?” Yousef demanded. “Do you know?”
“
Allah Akbar!
” Ali roared. “We must trust to Allah and fight the
kafirs
! Allah is with
us
! There is the weapon!” He pointed at the container.
Mohammed was beside himself, unable to reach a decision. He was ready to give his life to smite the wicked Americans a mighty blow, not to die stupidly.
He was reaching for the ignition key, about to start the car and go for it, when a pickup passed the parked sedan and turned into the dirt road leading to the construction office. The man driving parked right beside the building and got out. He was about sixty, balding, with a magnificent gut hanging over his belt.
Mohammed used his binoculars. The delivery driver pointed to the container and offered some papers. The man from the pickup laid the papers on the hood of his truck, looked them over, then signed with a pen offered by the delivery driver.
After a handshake, the delivery driver walked toward his truck.
Another pickup entered the yard. A man got out carrying coffee in a Styrofoam cup. As the delivery driver climbed in the cab of his tractor two more vehicles arrived, one behind the other.
“They will get on with the day's work,” Mohammed told Ali and Yousef. “We will give them fifteen minutes to disburse, then get that tractor and hook it to the chassis with the container.” A huge risk, and they would probably have to shoot some of these people, but they needed the weapon. They would shoot the watching man, too.
They were watching other vehicles arrive, counting people, when they realized that the parked tractor was now moving, backing up to the chassis. Ali saw the tractor move first.
As he pointed, Mohammed focused the binoculars. The driver was backing smartly, using the mirrors. A professional, obviously.
Where had he come from?
“When the chassis is on the rig, we drive in. Yousef, shoot the driver. Ali, watch for anyone who might have a weapon, like that man under the earthmover”—Mohammed had lost track of him—“and I'll get in the cab. Yousef will ride with me. Ali will follow in the car.”
They checked their weapons, made sure they were loaded and the safeties were engaged.
“
Allah Akbar,
” Yousef whispered.
“Where is Akram?” Ali asked.
Mohammed watched the driver. He seemed to have all the connections attached between the container and the tractor. Now he was wiping his hands on his jeans, now he was walking around the rig one last time, checking …
“Let's go.” He started the engine, engaged the transmission, and rolled around the corner, along the dirt road toward the buildings. Some people turned to look.
He braked in front of the trailer and Yousef opened the door and leaped out, an Uzi in his hand.
The man beside the rig shot Yousef twice before he could point his weapon. He collapsed in the dirt.
Mohammed Mohammed slammed the transmission into reverse and backed up with the accelerator on the floor, the engine screaming and dirt flying. A shot shattered the windshield.
Ali leaned out an open window and hosed a burst as Mohammed cranked the wheel to slew the rear of the car ninety degrees and jammed on the brakes. The open passenger door yawed wide. He pulled the transmission into drive as he spun the wheel, then he jammed the accelerator to the floor and fishtailed toward the boulevard. The passenger door slammed shut.
When he reached the street, Mohammed made a right turn and skidded the car to a stop. He and Ali bailed out with submachine guns in their hands. Mohammed ran
across the street, took up a position directly across from the construction site entrance. The tractor-trailer rig was already in motion toward the street, accelerating, its engine winding at full throttle before every shift.
On the other side of the street, Ali stepped into the middle of the dirt driveway, brought the submachine gun to his shoulder, and aimed carefully.
Nguyen Duc Tran didn't wait to find out if his windshield was bulletproof. He stuck Miguel Tejada's Glock out his side window and, using his left hand, began squeezing off shots in Ali's general direction. He didn't expect to hit him, merely give him something else to think about.
Ali ignored the bullets whipping around him. Shooting the driver wouldn't stop the truck—he realized that now. Paralyzed by indecision, he froze for a few critical seconds.

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