62

Stuck in the midday traffic on the memorial bridge, Kurt could see the Washington Monument a short distance away, but it might as well have been on the moon. His phone chirped, and he answered, saying, “We’re on the way. A little traffic. We should be there within twenty minutes.”

He hung up. From behind the wheel, George Wolffe said, “If they wanted a meeting within five minutes, they should have called it at midnight.”

Kurt said, “Apparently, the president has to get on the campaign trail, and they really want to know what we’ve found. He’s going to be out of pocket for the next week.”

“Well, you could have told him what we have in less time than that phone call.”

George was using hyperbole, but not much. It had been a little over twenty-four hours since Pike had contacted him, asking for reach-back technological and intelligence support, and the Taskforce had worked furiously, developing a few thin leads. Kurt would have preferred to wait until they’d managed to at least flesh out a possible course of action instead of just finding data points, but apparently that was not to be.

George said, “Maybe we should ask the Oversight Council for approval of lights and sirens.”

Kurt laughed and said, “I’m not sure they’d appreciate a clandestine force racing around DC with lights blazing.”

“It worked for S.H.I.E.L.D.”

After bumping along for another fifteen minutes, they eventually pulled into the security access point for the White House, and then to the portico of the West Wing. Alexander Palmer was waiting under the awning, waving them forward.

They pulled up and he said, “George, find a parking spot. Sorry, but Kurt needs to get inside now. The president is running late.”

Without another word, Palmer turned and walked to the entrance. Kurt raised his eyebrows at George, then jumped out, trotting to catch up. Palmer handed him his access badge, and they entered the White House.

They reached the Oval Office and Kurt asked, “Is the entire Council in here?”

“No. Just the principals, but President Hannister wants an update.”

Meaning it was the director of the CIA, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the president. The four members who habitually hashed out Taskforce business before bringing it to the full Council.

He opened the door and ushered Kurt inside. Kurt saw the principals sitting on two couches facing each other, with President Hannister in a chair at the head.

Kurt nodded at the members, then said, “Sir, sorry. I understand you have a flight to catch.”

Hannister smiled and said, “Unfortunately, yes. Apparently, part of the job description of president means I have to campaign so I can keep the job of president. I’ve received briefings from the other parts of the intelligence community, which amounted to a bunch of guessing about groups, motives, and possible follow-on targets. After your report from Pike, I was wondering if you had anything concrete.”

Earlier, Kurt had given a detailed SITREP describing the trail that Pike had followed, ending with the action in Fez.

“Sir, yes and no. We have a bunch of data points right now but haven’t analyzed them enough to weave a story. I will say, unfortunately, that I believe one or more attacks are in motion right now. It’s undetermined how far along they are, but I can state with some certainty that it’s coming.”

Palmer muttered, “Shit.”

President Hannister said, “Why?”

“The threads are too spread out. We had an attack originating in Gibraltar from a Moroccan, then a team of Moroccans engaged in a shootout in Fez, all of whom have disappeared, and now a link to someone else in Algeciras, Spain. All of that wasn’t for the Houston attack. It’s spread over three different countries, and it’s for something greater than a single attack.”

Kerry Bostwick, the D/CIA, said, “What did you find in Algeciras?”

“You read about the man from South Africa in my report, correct?”

“Yes, we saw that.”

“He had a phone that he’d hacked on his own but couldn’t get anything out of it because of further encryption and password protections. The Taskforce hooked up to it remotely, and we digitally drained it of everything we could find. In it is an application called Wickr. It’s an end-to-end encrypted messaging service, and a Moroccan ship worker having that, in and of itself, is suspicious.”

“So you were able to break the encryption and get the messages?”

“Unfortunately, no. The application has a built-in design that allows the messages to self-destruct after a predetermined amount of time. There were no messages in it—but there was the contact information for someone else with a Wickr account. In effect, the owner can hide his messages, but not who he’s talking to. They both have to have a Wickr account.”

Palmer said, “And this other contact is in Algeciras?”

“Yes, and I think it’s the root for a second attack.”

“Why? Maybe it’s just a friend of his.”

Kerry said, “Algeciras is the location of one of the biggest ports in the Mediterranean.” He looked at Kurt and said, “You think a second attack is coming from that port, like the first did from Gibraltar?”

“I do. I’d like a modified Alpha authority to go check it out. Modified in the sense that we don’t have a lot of time here. I want to check out the contact and, if he’s Moroccan, conduct an Omega rendition operation. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong, and we deal with it. I think that option’s better than not interdicting, given the stakes.”

Palmer said, “You want to capture a guy solely based on his nationality?” He turned to the president and said, “Sir, I really think we should bring this to the entire Oversight Council. That’s a pretty big precedent to set.”

Kurt said, “Sir, please don’t spin it that way. I’m talking about capturing a Moroccan who’s been using a highly sophisticated encrypted messaging service tied into another Moroccan who blew up the Houston Ship Channel. I think it’s warranted.”

President Hannister said, “And if you’re wrong? What do we do with him? If he’s innocent, we can’t throw him in the Cloud to protect Taskforce involvement.”

Referring to the Taskforce’s unique detention capability where true terrorists were imprisoned without experiencing the US justice system, Hannister was asking a valid question. Kurt said, “Pike can mitigate that. Worst case, he’ll get thrown back onto the street and we disappear. He won’t even know where we’re from. Hell, buy him a new car or something. I’m not talking about torturing the guy. Just questioning him.”

President Hannister said, “Okay. Get the Council together and put it before them. You’ll get your Alpha, I’m sure.”

“Sir, we don’t have time for that. It’ll take another day, at least, to get a meeting established, and every minute is precious. The attack could be tomorrow for all I know.”

“You feel this one connection is worth that risk.”

“I think the risk of not doing it far outweighs the risks of bringing him in. For what it’s worth, Pike is convinced he’s bad.”

President Hannister nodded, then addressed the assembled men. “Okay, we vote right here, right now.”

In the end, even Palmer voted to allow Pike free rein. Kurt said, “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

Kerry chuckled, saying, “If Pike can find a thread by chasing a drug dealer’s bank account, I’m all about him continuing that streak of luck.”

Kurt said, “That’s the other data point we have. They aren’t drug dealer bank accounts. The South African found the terrorist in Gibraltar by also following a bank account. Apparently, he works for a company that deals in offshore accounts and was worried about the Panama Papers leaks just like we were, but in this case it was because the owner’s name was being forged on accounts he had nothing to do with. I sent Pike the Panama Papers data dump that we had, and the South African went through it, highlighting several accounts tied to his boss.”

“Who is his boss, and why is he messing around with offshore accounts?”

“His name is Dexter Worthington. He owns a defense contracting company called Icarus Solutions. As to why, I don’t know and don’t really care. That’s something for the FBI to look at. Anyway, we did our own analysis and a name triggered—Tariq bin Abdul-Aziz.”

“Who is that?”

“Remember the redacted congressional committee report on 9/11?”

“Yes, of course. The conspiracy theories about that were deafening, but in the end, it was nothing.”

“True. It was nothing, but now it might be something. Tariq is the son of a wealthy Saudi financier, and he was living in Sarasota, Florida, in September of 2001, the same place Mohamed Atta and others learned to fly. Tariq left the day before 9/11, and the FBI investigated the departure. It was very strange, with the house left fully furnished, to the point of leaving dirty dishes still in the sink and cars in the driveway. Apparently, he just woke up one day and took his whole family back to Saudi Arabia. The excuse was that he had to attend graduate school, but there was also some smoke about Mohamed Atta’s car license plate being found in the gate guard’s register as having come through Tariq’s neighborhood at one point. Anyway, the FBI couldn’t prove anything concrete one way or the other.”

“So . . . what are you saying? Saudi Arabia is behind this?”

“No, no. Not at all. At least not at this point. What I’m saying is that it’s beyond the realm of believable for a guy who turned up in the original 9/11 report to now be attached to bank accounts that have connections to another spectacular attack. In addition to that, the one dead terrorist in the Fez shootout had a Saudi passport, complete with a forged US visa.”

The secretary of state said, “So how does that help us? You want State to lean on KSA for information on Tariq? See if they’ll play ball?”

“No. For one, they refused to do anything about the FBI’s information right after 9/11, even preventing making Tariq available for questioning. I don’t think this will rise to a level that will change their minds, and I certainly don’t want them to alert him that we’re looking. For another, he’s not in Saudi Arabia. What I want is to get his name into every single database and police station in the United States.”

“What good will that do? Wait, are you saying . . .”

“Yes. I took the liberty of searching the ICE database this morning. Tariq bin Abdul-Aziz flew from Morocco last night and entered the United States in New York. His current whereabouts are unknown.”

The secretary of defense said, “This is sounding more and more like all of the evidence prior to 9/11. We were running around like chickens, flailing in the dark, knowing a hit was coming but having no idea how.”

“Well, it gets a little worse, but at least we have a focus this time. I’m convinced it’s the ports. The ghetto apartment that the terrorists were using in Fez contained a laptop computer that they left behind in their haste to escape. It was a marginal netbook without a lot of power, and didn’t have anything of special significance, but it did have a screenshot of Google Maps, and the location was of Norfolk, Virginia. By that, I mean the Norfolk shipyards, ports, and naval bases off the Chesapeake Bay.”

The secretary of defense said, “Anything more specific than that? Norfolk is a mix of civilian and military assets. I can definitely amp up the security on the military side, but short of stopping every single ship on the civilian side, there’s not much we can do. This is different from 9/11. We can’t stop the flow of trade like we did air travel.”

President Hannister said, “Can we do it for a single port? Now that we have this information? Can we stop just this port from receiving ships?”

Palmer said, “Sir, we’d need to consult at least three cabinet positions on what that would entail. It would be a massive disruption of trade, and the very fact that we did it would signal a victory.”

President Hannister turned to Kurt and said, “Are you sure it’s Norfolk? If I make that call, can you tell me it’s right?”

Kurt took a breath and then gave the bad news. “No, sir. I can’t.”