En route to the Greater Saint Tammany Regional Airport
Jana’s phone vibrated in her pocket, but when Cade saw the look on her face he said, “Jana, what is it?”
In a frantic set of hand motions, she waved Cade and Kyle closer and tilted the phone so they could hear.
“A blocked phone number. It’s him,” she whispered.
“Jana Baker?” she said
“But, Miss Baker. You knew it was me calling, didn’t you?” Jarrah said.
“As a matter of fact, just as the phone rang, a certain stench wafted through the air. So yes, I knew it was you.”
“Did your mother not teach you any manners before she was gone? Oh, that’s right, you were young. She was never there for you.”
“Jarrah, why is it you get so much pleasure in other people’s pain? Did mommy not love you enough when you were growing up in Syria?”
“It was my father who taught me manners. Yours should have done the same, but he wasn’t around either, was he? And to answer your question about pain, it’s not that I enjoy inflicting pain on others, it’s that I enjoy inflicting pain on you. Your FBI director, your hiking friend, and now I see you’ve found the untimely demise of a certain old family friend.”
“Fuck you, Jarrah!” Jana said.
“Do you realize how easy it would be for me to kill you?”
“If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it in Spain when you murdered my friend Gilda. No,” Jana continued, “I think you are enjoying this all too much. I think killing me would make you yawn. What fun would it be without an adversary?”
“An adversary is a person to admire. You, however, have not proven yourself worthy of my admiration.”
Jana’s hand began to shake. “That’s not how I see it. When I hunted down, then shot, your first disciple, Shakey Kunde, he squealed like a little girl.”
“Do not test my patience, Miss Baker. I might change my mind about killing you. But we both know Shakey did no such thing. You are correct that you stopped me on my first attempt, but perhaps you are forgetting my second, the scorched earth and molten metal that used to be the headquarters of the CIA, the beast itself. It has been fun watching the news coverage over the last year since I detonated a nuclear device there. Such a large swath of the landscape now turned into gray ash.”
“Is this why you called me? To taunt and boast about your pathetic accomplishments?”
“Oh you know far better than that, Miss Baker. You know my calls have a purpose, and torturing you with them is simply a side benefit, a perk, you might say.”
“More riddles for us, Jarrah? More lies, misdirection? Which one is it this time?”
“You think everything I tell you is a distraction meant to send you the wrong way? Is that what you think?”
“You went to a lot of trouble to misdirect us with the nuclear weapon you detonated. Which reminds me, Shakey Kunde’s little brother squealed like a little girl when he died too.”
“The younger brother proved most useful in diverting you from the true location of the nuclear device. He was a martyr, a hero of Allah. And he sits with him now. Think of the glory, Miss Baker. To have pleased your God with such magnificence.”
Kyle looked at Jana’s trembling hand and nodded to Cade.
Jana’s volume erupted and her breathing became erratic. “Magnificence? You had a suicide bomber murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He isn’t sitting on the right hand of God, he’s burning in hell!”
The sound of Jarrah’s voice became distant, as if he had pulled the phone away from his mouth. “I am become death, a destroyer of worlds.” His voice emboldened now. “Your inventor of the nuclear weapon, Robert Oppenheimer, had such brilliant words.” His tone deepened and reminded Jana of the sound of grinding metal. “It is near, Miss Baker. The time is near. I am close to completing my final objective and you are far behind.”
Jana’s breathing shallowed and Kyle moved behind to catch her if she blacked out.
“What do you mean you are near?” she said. “Near to what? If I am so far behind in the game, it can’t hurt to tell me now.”
“The sun has been strong on my face in this part of your country. I’ve been here for many days, readying my next glorious success.”
“Spit it out, Waseem. Are you planning to detonate another device on American soil?”
“Of course I am, and you know I can do it. You know much of this story. There were ten original warheads. Two I used last year, two were recaptured by the Australians, two more were reported destroyed when Russians bombed my old stomping grounds, the Hindu Kush mountains, and the other four? Well, one never knows where they might be. But I tell you this. You will see the results of one shortly.”
Jana’s heart rate increased. “You sold at least three more.”
“Surely it must be frustrating. You have not been able to track the location of the other warheads, nor any source of funding I received when I sold them. I have all the funds I will ever need. Funds that my followers will use to carry on attacks long after I am gone.”
“Long after you are gone?” Jana said. “You said the sun was strong on your face. Where are you? Florida, Texas, California?”
“Oh, California. Such a beautiful place. It will be such a shame, so much beautiful country. And to think Allah lets you live on this land. The thought disgusts me. In fact, I believe Allah will be overjoyed when I vaporize the land, liberating it from such filthy pigs.”
Jana’s grip on Kyle’s shoulder tightened. “California? Where in California?”
“I’m not going to give it away so easily, Miss Baker. You have to figure the rest out for yourself based on the clues I have left. My only hope is that you will be on-site when the device detonates. The last thing I will say is this. Where this device is set will cause more destruction than any other spot in the land.” The line went dead.
“Jarrah? Shit! He hung up. California, oh my God. We can’t evacuate the entire state. Where is he going to hit? We’ve got to get on the phone with Uncle Bill.”
Cade leaned forward. “He said we could figure it out based on the clues he’s already given us. Dammit, we need the lab results from all of the evidence, and we need to see it in total.”
“Come on,” Kyle said. “We’ve got to get on that plane and head to California. Uncle Bill must’ve found something important. He already knew where Jarrah’s next target would be. Let’s go!”
Moments after the plane went wheels up, they were on a secure conference with Uncle Bill and Knuckles at NSA headquarters.
“Bill,” Kyle said, “what have you got? How did you know we were supposed to go to California? We just talked to Waseem Jarrah. He called Jana again. He specifically told us California was the target.”
“I’ll tell you how I know in just a second. But what kind of target? What did he say?”
Jana leaned in. “It’s nuclear, Bill. He’s threatening to detonate another device. He said last year when he stole the nuclear missile, they divided the warhead into its ten separate parts. He sold seven of them which is why he has so much cash on hand. One he used to detonate in North Korea, the other at CIA headquarters. It’s the last one, Bill. He’s got one more. We never knew if he sold it or was saving it for himself. California is the target, but he wouldn’t say where. He did say, though, that the device would detonate in the place that would cause more destruction than any place in the land.”
Cade said, “That can help us narrow it down a little further as to the location, but not by much. It’s the evidence, I’m telling you. He’s leaving us clues at all the murder scenes to communicate something. What have you found?”
“The strongest clues from the evidence collected at Stephen Latent’s assassination relate to the figs and the wasp. But first the stone. It’s a piece of rose quartz. Probably from Spain, a mountain called El Yelmo.”
“Wait,” Cade said, “isn’t rose quartz common? How do you know it’s from Spain?”
“Soil and pollen contaminants were on it. In fact, the stone itself probably originated at El Yelmo, but it’s where the stone likely journeyed next that’s interesting.”
“And where is that?” Jana said.
Bill continued. “You were hiking the Camino trial, Jana. The large stone pile at Cruz de Ferro, it’s from there. Soil contaminants are a spot-on match, and pollen grains.”
Jana nodded in recognition.
“Knuckles, you have the lab report on the pollen grains?” Bill said.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Elaeagnus angustifolia, Fraxinus ornus, and Platanus hispanica, all native trees and plants that surround the area.”
“Cruz de what? What’s that?” Cade asked.
“Cruz de Ferro,” Jana said. “Look, all along the Camino trail, people leave stones. They’re everywhere. Along trails, on headstones, they’re laid down in the shape of arrows to point the way, and especially at Cruz de Ferro. It’s like a shrine. There’s a tall pole there with a cross at the top. Everyone that hikes the trail brings a stone from home to leave there, at the base of the cross. The pile is huge, probably thirty feet high.”
“Why do people leave stones?” Cade said.
“I don’t know, Cade,” Jana said with a hint of frustration in her voice. “We all did it. Stones are kind of permanent, like you’re leaving something lasting behind. People have done it for so long, it makes you feel a part of it all.” A distant gaze painted her face. “For a lot of us it’s different. We carry a stone from our homes that represents something we’ve been carrying around inside us. Something we want to let go of. Part of hiking that trail is coming to grips with something you need to let go of. And we leave it at the base of the cross.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Cade said, “I didn’t know.”
Jana said, “Gilda and Latent. Jarrah left evidence at both murder scenes to point toward his next victim. God I miss her.”
Cade said, “Bill, what about the fig and wasp?”
“I can’t wait to hear this one,” Jana said.
“We did genetic testing on both the fig pulp and the wasp to identify them down to the species. They are interrelated. These type of fig trees live in two distinct regions in the world. They originate in the Middle East and did not exist anywhere else until the mid-1800s when they were imported to California. And they’re only grown in a very limited region there. The wasp is a species known as Blastophaga psenes.”
“So what’s the relationship between the two?” Kyle said.
It was Knuckles who answered. “It’s got to do with the history of the fig trees when they were first brought to California. The Californian farmers couldn’t figure out why the trees weren’t germinating. It took them a long time, but they finally figured out that they needed a particular wasp to pollinate the trees. Without the wasp, the fig fruit grows but is inedible. So, they started importing those wasps and releasing them around their fig orchards. After that, they had successful crops.”
“Okay,” Jana said, “so what are you saying? Jarrah is telegraphing the location of his major attack by indicating the region of California where these fig trees grow?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Knuckles said, still proud of his earlier commentary on the nuances of fig fertilization.
Cade shook his head. “But wait a minute. How big of a region in California are these trees grown? Does it narrow it down any?”
Silence and the shuffling of feet were all that could be heard across the phone line.
“Bill?” Jana said.
“Well, that’s the problem.”
“How big of a problem?”
“About half a million acres running for miles up and down California.”