3:59 A.M.
WESTCHESTER COUNTY AIRPORT
WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK
The Bombardier Global 7500’s provenance was cloaked within a UAE shell corporation, which in turn was owned by a German shell corporation, with numbers bought from a corrupt member of the German Bundesrat, enabling the plane to enter the U.S. without complication. It was almost four in the morning in America when the jet touched down at Westchester County Airport just north of New York City. The jet taxied to the Signature private terminal. A midsized delivery truck pulled up to the rear of the jet just moments after it stopped moving. The truck had a colorful logo on its side, a food service truck. The four men who climbed out of the truck were young and Iranian.
One of the men approached Mansour as the other went to the cargo hold of the Bombardier.
The man who approached was short and thin, no more than twenty-five years old.
“Commander,” he said, saluting Mansour.
“Hello, Kouros,” said Mansour. “Are you and your men ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mansour stared at Kouros, but said nothing more.
Kouros and three others carried the large boxes from the jet to the back of the delivery truck. When they were done, the truck drove away.
Soon after, on the tarmac outside the dark private terminal, a silver Dodge minivan moved in and stopped beneath the stairs of the Bombardier. Mansour emerged from the cabin and climbed down the stairs. He climbed into the back of the minivan. Two men were already seated. The minivan sped away from the Bombardier just as the Bombardier’s engines grew loud and the jet started moving, taxiing for takeoff.
They moved south from Westchester, cutting down the Hutchinson River Parkway, which was mostly empty. Half an hour later, they arrived at a nondescript office building in Yonkers, just north of Manhattan. They parked beneath an anonymous-looking five-story building filled with offices where insurance agents, dentists, tax firms, and divorce attorneys plied their trade.
Mansour and the two other Iranians took the elevator to the third floor. They walked down a brightly lit hallway to a door and entered a small office suite. Mansour flipped on the lights. The office suite was, for the most part, vacant. Lifeless, empty, and covered in a film of dust. A pile of take-out menus was on the floor behind the door. Inside the ratchet office suite there was nothing on the walls, and only a few desks and chairs. It was a sublet taken out a year before, by a local attorney, a second-generation Iranian, whose nephew was freed from Evin Prison by the Iranian government in exchange for the lawyer’s “volunteer work” on behalf of the Republic.
Mansour walked to a conference table near the wall. One of Mansour’s lieutenants put his backpack on the table and removed a laptop. He opened it and soon the screen displayed a map of Manhattan. On the map were hundreds of small red X marks. These were the active shooters. More than five hundred men had been embedded in or around New York City over many years, in New Jersey, southern Connecticut, in disparate parts of New York’s five boroughs, and in small blue-collar towns within a fifty-mile radius of Manhattan. The map showed the ones who were now operational—the men who’d signed in and were being tracked. The purpose was twofold. Make sure everyone was accounted for, and second, make sure all of Manhattan was covered, especially Midtown and the East Side.
Mansour knew not every man sent to the U.S. would answer the call. Some would inevitably get cold feet. Each man who responded knew he would probably die. But even Mansour was surprised by the sheer volume of red Xs. The map was colored in red Xs. A digital readout at the bottom of the screen displayed a hard count. There were 514 active shooters now in Manhattan, armed soldiers, most driving Uber or Lyft or a taxi; others were Amazon delivery drivers, several seemingly homeless men, or dish cleaners at restaurants. All highly trained soldiers in the employ of the Republic of Iran. Waiting for the explosions.
Mansour felt a small spike of warmth as he looked at the numbers. Only three men had fled. The rest had answered the call, just as he would have. Just as he was.
The wheels were in motion. The questions had already been asked and answered.
Move when you feel the explosions.
Mansour stared at the map, lost in thought. Then he opened up a blueprint of the United Nations. Four X marks represented where men were already prepositioned, armed with MANPADs, shoulder-fired missiles. Two soldiers were in buildings on the western side of First Avenue with a direct firing line at the UN.
“Excuse me, Commander,” said one of the men.
“What is it?” said Mansour.
“The Federal Reserve,” he said. “It is imperative you get the men moving now.”
Mansour nodded.
He picked up his cell and dialed. After a few rings, a voice came on.
“Yes.”
“It has begun,” said Mansour. “Call the others. The operation is now live. You’re now operational. Remember about being subtle. Yours is the only part that must be subtle. It is why you were chosen.”
“Yes, sir, Commander,” came a young voice. “We will do what we’ve been trained for, we will do it quietly, and then we will meet Rokan with the fruits of our victorious efforts.”