The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller (34 page)

Commander Ray Limpet of the guided-missile destroyer USS
James E. Williams
was having dinner alone, in his stateroom, when he received a prompt from the Operations Room. He was already using the time to catch up on alerts from SIPRNet, the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network used for interconnected computer networks within the ship.

The USS
James E. Williams
was in the North Atlantic Ocean at forty degrees north, three hundred miles from the Azores. The alert from the tactical center indicated that three more aircraft were just entering the airspace the destroyer had been ordered to watch. They were the twenty-third, -fourth, and -fifth to pass over the vessel since the general alert had been issued to the task forces of the Sixth Fleet.

Commander Limpet looked at the data. His pale blue eyes shone from skin darkened by thirty-nine years at sea. There was a TAP Portugal Airbus 310 from Lisbon to Atlanta, a British Airways 777-400 from London to New York, and a Gaz Algarve Grumman HU-16 Albatross headed from Tangier to Washington, D.C.

The Tangier departure immediately placed the aircraft on the watch list sent by EUCOM and US-AFRICOM—the United States commands in Europe and in Africa.

Commander Limpet checked the box beside the update to note that he had seen it and placed a red flag icon beside the Albatross. He wrote back that the information should be forwarded to the Department of Naval Intelligence direction and also to Homeland Security. The officer on duty acknowledged the order. Neither command center had indicated why the Tangier location was important, only that anything on or above the sea be identified and targeted.

With improved radar and satellite uplinks, assignments like this were rare—and he remembered why they were grateful for that. He did not know what bug had hit Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, but unless he was ordered to assist in a takedown of one of the aircraft—something that had never happened in his four years of command—it was still a routine operation.

Limpet went back to his meal and reading email.

WASHINGTON,
D.C.

General Clarke had gone to the White House even as systems were being restored across the intelligence services. He did not want to sit still, and he did not want to be outside ground zero of the intelligence debate. Max Carlson had already gone to the situation room along with CIA director Robert Andrews and National Security Agency chief Bruce Perry. Admiral Breen of the Joint Chiefs told Clarke he would be going there as well.

The drive over in his personal car was short but extremely bittersweet. He did not know if Washington was a target. But as he looked through the smoky windows he had no idea whether it would be the last time he saw the city—even assuming he survived whatever the terrorists had in store.

He told himself he shouldn’t think that way—he couldn’t afford to. But though he was generally an optimist, he was also a realist. He still had not heard from his agents, though the CIA men from the embassy in Rabat were finally on the way; and they still had no idea whether the bomb was airborne, on the sea, or under it. Or if it was even headed to the United States at all.

Ryan Kealey was right
, he thought as the car made its way toward Pennsylvania Avenue. He once remarked that all of these operations were like a parachute jump. Whether your chute opened or failed, terminal velocity truly did not matter—not really—until you were inches above the ground. Whether the weapon was a gun, a knife, or a nuclear bomb, it was useless and largely irrelevant until just before it was used.

Clarke had argued that Kealey’s perception was academic rubbish: that intelligence organizations needed targets to follow, not just to stop. Kealey did not disagree.

“
Let me put it another way
,” Kealey had said. “
Does a long-bomb pass matter if, right before it lands in the waiting arms of a wide receiver, a cornerback gets a finger on it, just a finger, and deflects it out of bounds?
”

Clarke agreed it did not. Now he understood. That was how Kealey maintained hope in the face of miserable odds. All any of them needed to do was get a finger on the ball.

In this case it’s a very different kind of bomb, but the idea is still the same
, Clarke thought. He snickered humorously. The good news was also the bad news: at least the damn thing would be delivered to their door.

The car pulled up at the West Wing. General Clarke walked through the security checkpoint—though he did not have to wait in line with the other workers. He acknowledged the security team with a smile and a nod. They were vigilant. They did their jobs. It filled him with pride and also with resolve. His step quickened as he walked past the portraits of the Presidents, past another checkpoint, to the elevator that would take him to the underground situation room. His destination was the Executive Conference Room, part of the five-thousand-square-foot White House Situation Room complex. Occupying half the basement level of the West Wing, the bombproof complex had been set up by President John F. Kennedy so that operations such as the handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis could be carried out in absolute secrecy and security. The complex continued to function as a command center for the president and his advisors, though after a 2007 technological upgrade—efforts that were continually ongoing—the operations were taken over by the National Security Agency.

Clarke was admitted by an NSA security guard stationed outside the door. Everyone except the President was already in the ECR when Clarke arrived. These included not just the top officials but a half dozen security analysts from their respective agencies. Clarke had not even sat down when one of the security NSA analysts said there was a call for him, forwarded from his office.

Clarke took his usual seat around the long table and picked up the phone.

It was Ryan Kealey.

Mohammed was reviewing the phone number in his head, as he had done from time to time. He had not forgotten it, just as Professor Boulif had ordered. While his eyes settled again on the trunk, the Yemeni thought back to the brief time he had shared with the scientist. It was just a day before and yet it seemed as if he had known the professor his entire life. Perhaps he had. God had chosen them all for this sacred mission. Perhaps He had given them spiritual awareness of one another. Mohammed felt so comfortable with all the men he had worked with on this journey. There had to be a reason.

The more he looked at the trunk, the more it seemed to have a personality: proud and defiant. Perhaps the large black container was God Himself in another form. He wondered if it was blasphemous to think like that. Probably not. God was all things—why not that?

“Soon it will be time for you to give up your secret,” Mohammed said. “Sadly, I do not know which will apply to you. It is said, ‘
Whoever recommends and helps a good cause becomes a partner therein
,’ yet I do not know if a ‘thing’ can be a partner. The holy book says, ‘
Whoever works righteousness, man or woman, and has faith, verily, to them will We give a new Life, a life that is good and pure.
’ You are neither man nor woman. Yet you have been a strong and reliable partner and I will speak on your behalf.”

He chuckled. It reminded him of when he was a boy and he made a figure of sticks and cord and called it a brother, for he did not yet have a brother and wanted one very badly. And then a brother came. He had spoken to his creation so many times, done so much with him, that it seemed to have a life of its own.

Perhaps it does
, he thought. Did not Moses fear the Calf of Gold?

The pilot emerged from the cockpit and crouched beside Mohammed. “How are you?”

“I am well,” Mohammed said. “Very well.”

The pilot smiled. “I have instructions for you about our cargo.”

Mohammed felt a tickle in his belly.
Our
cargo. He was not a pathetic loner, not a servant of the Iranians. He was part of a great team with a greater purpose.

“We are directed to bring our plane to the National Harbor just outside of Washington, D.C. We will be met there by a customs broker—this has been arranged by our sponsor. He has landed his seaplanes here and elsewhere in the United States many times.” The pilot smiled. “It is a popular sight with tourists and familiar to customs agents in several cities. Our papers will show that we carry just one man and his luggage, a very important person to our employer.”

“But this will expose our sponsor—”

“No,” the pilot said. “He will not have known that a radical group run by your contacts placed you onboard at the drill ship. At least, that is the tale he will tell.”

So simple, yet what an ingenious scheme
, Mohammed thought.

“You understand that I will be remaining onboard,” the Yemeni asked cautiously.

“We do. We know that you carry a bomb and that the destruction of this plane will destroy the harbor. That is why we will remain ashore. In the confusion that follows the explosion, we are to make our way into the city and remain there, the foundation of a new operational unit in America.”

“Of course,” Mohammed said. Yousef’s words had remained alive in his ears: he was to say nothing about the full scope of the mission.

“We have another four hours or so until we land,” the pilot went on. “Is there anything you need? Anything we can do?”

“I was thinking,” Mohammed said. “Would it be possible to speak with my mother in Yemen?”

The pilot smiled sympathetically. “We are to have no communications out of the ordinary. I’m sorry.”

“I understand,” Mohammed said.

“Is there a message you would like me to deliver?”

Mohammed smiled at the innocence of that question. “Thank you, no. The event itself will be the message.”

It had been an impulse, a desire, not a real need. The young man wondered if he might have been able to use Boulif’s cell phone for that purpose. He realized it was too risky to think along those lines. He did not want to be responsible for causing the mission to fail. And he wondered, too, what he would say. If his mother did not understand . . . if she asked when she was going to see him again . . . would
he
waver? He had to trust that Yousef would give her his message.

The aircraft hit a patch of turbulence. It was the first he had ever experienced, and after the pilot came on the speaker and told him he would be climbing out of it, Mohammed actually welcomed the distraction. It was also a reminder that everyone must expect the unexpected, himself more than most. As he sat back hard in his seat, trying not to be afraid of the jumps and bumps, he decided that he must trust in God to get him to Washington and put everything from his mind except the trunk.

That
was all he could control.

That was all he
needed
to control.