“Ladies and gentlemen,” Brad Lane, the FBI deputy director began. He was standing behind a podium emblazoned with the Bureau’s seal—a red and white shield centered under a white streamer that read Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity. “We have been tasked with analyzing this information. This analysis and our recommendations will be presented to the National Security Council and the president a few hours from now at the White House. We haven’t much time.”
The briefing room occupied by the nine men and two women sat deep inside the forty-thousand-square-foot Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC) complex of FBI headquarters, overlooking a large, theater-like command center housing banks of computer and television screens fronted by workstations, each with three monitors, manned by analysts and agents who were typing and talking on phones. Equipped with legions of printers, fax machines, shredders, secure telephones, satellite phones, and high-frequency radios with state-of-the-art secure bandwidth, the SIOC could monitor and direct actions simultaneously for up to eight crises around the country and world. The normal contingent of three dozen staffers had swelled to the hundreds in response to the perceived crisis developing along the East Coast.
“What the latest, Brad?” the director of the National Security Council, Elizabeth Rankin, asked. “I understand we’ve determined she’s alive, is that correct?”
Lane nodded the slow, emphatic nod of a man delivering necessary but unpleasant news.
“How the hell could this have escaped detection?” Rankin demanded, looking every bit a septuagenarian, with graying blonde hair and a wizened and wrinkled face. Lane had had many dealings with this witch. She played by her own set of rules. Get in her way and you ran the risk of being steamrolled. Her actual age, fifty-five, was masked by her puckered visage and the effects of a three-pack-a-day smoking habit. “This woman and her team nearly killed two chief executives in Newport News. What was missed? The president wants answers.”
“I’ll take that,” CIA director of operations John Beck, intoned. He cleared his throat, loosened his tie, and sipped from the water glass before him. The poise of his well-coiffed dark hair was offset by the three days of razor stubble coating his face and the swollen, dark bags beneath his eyes.
Brad Lane knew the director of operations well. Beck would endure an incredible amount of scrutiny and stress in the coming weeks and months. The discovery that Delilah Hussein was alive would continue to bring a shit storm of pressure on his department. Beck’s office, also known as Clandestine Operations, would bear the brunt of the blame for this oversight. But Lane also understood that, if word leaked, the media would find a way to blame every government agency.
“Madam Director,” the CIA man began, “Hussein created a credible ploy to make us believe she was dead. The bodies on the yacht in the James River were exact matches to Hussein and her henchman, Oliver. Right down to the dental records. We had no DNA samples to compare. We believed the bodies belonged to them. The daughter, Jazan Hussein, aka Jasmine Kader, was dead, killed by the pharmacist with a sniper shot in the rain at the James River Bridge. We had and continue to have Sharif al-Faisal, aka Sam Fairing, the son, in custody. Everything was covered. There was no reason to look for her. The threat, we believed, had been neutralized.”
The NSC director leaned forward. Her jowly face hung over the burnished conference table, the skin waggling with each syllable. To be on the receiving end of the piercing gaze of the penetrating gray eyes was almost painful.
“Obviously, it wasn’t, was it? The bodies were not an exact match, sir. She’s alive, and it escaped the notice of our FBI technicians and analysts.” She waved her hand as if pushing away the past. “We are not done visiting this issue. There will be a reckoning about how the ball was dropped here. But I guess that point is moot now. How did we discover the news?”
“Madam Director,” interrupted CIA deputy director Alvin Senski, Beck’s direct supervisor, “let’s leave the grandstanding for the Senate hearings, please. A lot of people missed the boat on this one, just like with 9/11. Let’s talk about the issue at hand, dealing with finding her!”
“Then shed some light for me.”
The deputy director continued. “SIGINT in the NSA intercepted an electronic communication two weeks ago. It appeared benign, at first. But as we continued to track it, more ominous information became clear. The communication was between two parties, one codenamed The Watcher, and the other unnamed, an unsub. In a series of texts and emails, The Watcher used some key words that drew the attention of the NSA. They tracked the source and location of the electronic intel and discovered that The Watcher is in the United States.”
“Where?”
“In southeastern Virginia. Newport News to be exact.”
“What key words did they lock onto?” The question came from the far end of the table and the deputy director of the Secret Service, Vince Gagliano.
“Excuse me, Mr. Gagliano, what is the Secret Service doing at this meeting?” Rankin demanded.
“Well, Madam Director, the Secret Service is responsible for the safety and protection of the president. Any operation or threat which impacts him or his safety, is the Service’s concern. And I believe that the assassination attempts in Newport News were facilitated by an unseen mole somewhere in our government. The secretary of the Treasury instructed my boss, the director of the Secret Service, to be a part of this meeting. I can assure you, the director will be present at the NSC meeting in a few hours. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stop fucking around, and get some answers.”
Madam Director shrunk at the rebuke. Her face flushed at having been dressed down by someone lower on the food chain. Rankin’s lip curled into a frustrated snarl.
“Proceed,” she instructed the deputy director of the CIA.
“The keywords were Simoon, Hammon, and Jason Rodgers. The Watcher was reprimanded for using these words in a subsequent communication by the unnamed individual on the other end. They occurred three times. It was enough to trigger our surveillance protocols. The NSA and FBI working together using satellite communications surveillance and cell-site simulators were able to determine that The Watcher is in the Newport News area. He has been tracking the pharmacist Jason Rodgers.”
“Cell-site simulators?” Rankin inquired.
“You probably know them as stingrays. The IMSI-catcher, known by various trade names, mimics cell phone towers and routes nearby cell phone signals through the device, allowing us to track suspects and persons of interest.”
“I am aware of the technology. Why is this Watcher following Jason Rodgers?”
“We have not as yet determined that.”
“I don’t see how this leads us to the fact that Hussein is alive,” the NSC director added.
Brad Lane spoke up. “As soon as we heard the keyword between this Watcher and his associate, we reopened the case. The FBI began re-examining every piece of evidence and intelligence. We looked into the information about the bodies found aboard the yacht, Vengeance. One of our analysts discovered an anomaly.”
“An anomaly?”
Lane motioned to the only other woman sitting at the table, a twenty-something cutie wearing large, round-rimmed, black eyeglasses. If she weren’t an agent for the FBI, she could easily have been on the cover of Vogue. Her blonde hair had been pulled tight into a ponytail. She wore a button-down, stiffly starched white shirt revealing a pearl choker around the alabaster skin of her throat.
“Yes, ma’am,” the analyst began. “It came to our attention after interviewing the witnesses in Newport News after the assassination attempts, especially the pharmacist Rodgers, that Delilah Hussein—and all her team—had the same tattoo inked on their inner forearms. It looks like this …”
The woman pressed a button on a remote in her hand. The flat television monitor at one end of the room flared to life, showing a photograph of a person’s arm. The arm, delicate yet muscular, tapered to a portion of a hand revealing a thumb. The nail was long and painted. The swarthy skin held the bluish-gray pallor of death.
“That’s a woman’s arm. Obviously not Delilah Hussein’s,” Rankin observed.
“Correct, Ma’am. This arm belonged to the daughter, Jasmine Kader. Searches of the Iraqi records show that Hussein gave birth to a daughter. At the time of her death, Kader, whose real name is Jazan Hussein, was twenty-nine years old. Jason Rodgers confirmed that every member of her team possessed one of these tattoos. Agents from the CIA interviewed Hussein’s son, Sharif al-Faisal, aka Sam Fairing, who’s being held at a black site—”
“Where is he being held?” the director asked.
“Sorry, ma’am. I’m not privy to that information.”
Rankin looked to the two CIA men in the room. “Where?”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the deputy director of the CIA replied. “That’s highly classified. Not even the president knows.”
“But you do.”
“No, Ma’am, I don’t. Only my, boss, the director of the CIA and a handful of high-level White House staff know.”
Rankin bristled at the second snub.
“To continue,” the female analyst said, “the CIA agents confirmed during an interview that the son, al-Faisal, does in fact have a marking on his right inner forearm that matches this design. We then went back and looked at the photos of the bodies on the yacht—”
“Let me guess,” the director interrupted once more. “The bodies do not have tattoos on them.”
“Well, ma’am, one of the bodies was so badly burned there was no way to confirm. But on the female’s body, the skin of the right arm must have been protected from the blast because it was mashed against the torso. The skin was relatively undamaged. And you are correct, ma’am, there was no tattoo.”
Homeland Security’s Director of National Protection Kyle Gill interjected. “With the knowledge that Hussein was probably still alive, we activated our emergency national security protocol, Operation Brick Wall. Every governmental agency with security jurisdiction is currently on alert and has been for the last few weeks. Additionally, we have instituted Operation Dust Storm, in keeping with the simoon terminology. A simoon is—“
“I’m well aware of what a simoon is, Brad,” Rankin advised. “I’ve read all the briefs.”
“Operation Dust Storm is looking for Delilah Hussein and any accomplices.”
“And so far?”
“Communications to The Watcher occur approximately every six to eight hours in Newport News. We are trying to triangulate the origins of the texts to the unsub with little luck so far.”
“We have the most sophisticated electronic surveillance technology in the history of man. We should have been able to locate the source by now.”
The second FBI analyst, a middle-aged man wearing a bow tie and a scowl, chimed in. “Ma’am.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m an analyst with the FBI on loan from the DIA with a specialty in SIGINT.”
“Continue.”
“The burst communications that The Watcher is receiving from and sending to come from a generalized location on the planet. The Caribbean. The source of the transmissions varies with each dispatch.”
“So they are moving around?”
“It would appear so. But there’s one problem.”
“Which is?”
“The transmissions always occur over water, never on land. And they occur within a 1000-mile radius. The bursts occur, then the signal disappears. Kind of like when you turn off your cell phone.”
“So they are on a boat or plane. But, they must have a base of operations. Can’t you use some kind of algorithm to find a common spot somewhere within that radius where they could house a base of operations?”
“Very good, ma’am. We tried that. There are several intersecting points in the defined area. Bring up the next picture, please,” the male analyst instructed his young female counterpart.
The massive television monitor flashed again. A flat map of the world appeared. On it, a red line had been overlaid on an area extending from the tip of Florida to the eastern Caribbean Islands, creating an irregular trapezoid. The picture zoomed in, filling the screen with the search area. Yellow lines appeared inside the trapezoid radiating three hundred and sixty degrees from various points. The lines intersected at multiple spots.
The male analyst continued. “These highlighted intersection points show the likely areas to search. Each one is over water and miles from any land mass. Surveillance satellites have captured hundreds of images over these sites. Nothing has been found.”
“We’re talking about the Caribbean, not the Middle East. It’s not like it’s a hotbed of terrorism. Are we searching over land with the satellites?” Rankin spat.
“Madam Director,” Claude Feasal offered, “the Caribbean covers five hundred thousand square miles.” Feasal, sitting closest to the podium, was director of the National Security Branch of the FBI.
“And satellites?”
“Allan, would you care to chime in?” Brad Lane addressed one of the men who had yet to speak, Allan Cummings of the National Reconnaissance Office.
“Yes, we have re-tasked all available intelligence satellites to surveil the area. We have seen nothing conspicuous of yet. We have analysts reviewing digital images round-the-clock. You have to remember, we just learned two weeks ago that Delilah Hussein might still be alive. It will take time. It took ten years to find bin Laden. There are hundreds of islands in the Caribbean.”
“How do you know this person The Watcher is communicating with is Hussein or anyone associated with her?” Rankin demanded.
CIA DO John Beck sucked in a deep breath and offered his opinion. “We have an asset in Syria. Damascus, to be exact, who has been in contact with another asset we have turned. The asset has ties to ISIS and a faction that has been communicating with someone in the Caribbean. They have mentioned The Watcher and Hussein’s name together. We believe the person communicating with The Watcher is with Hussein, or works for her, wherever she is. We believe it may be her manservant, Oliver.”
“How certain are you of this information?” Rankin persisted.
“More certain than not.”
“That’s not very encouraging.”
The DO fired a salvo at the NSC director. “Would you prefer we ignore it?”
Vince Gagliano drummed his fingers on the table in front of him. “What is it, Vince?” Lane demanded.
“We are missing an important issue. The communications to and from The Watcher mention Jason Rodgers. It’s obvious that Rodgers is being watched and followed for some reason. Remember, Rodgers saved the lives of the president and his father. She may be plotting revenge or have a plan to kill him. Rodgers’s life is in danger. We should alert him. He might be able to shed some light on Hussein and what is going on.”
“Are you crazy?” Rankin shot back.
“Not the last time I checked. But my wife has a different opinion. She says these Italian genes don’t work in my favor. She calls me a crazy guinea.”
This brought smiles to the faces of everyone except Rankin.
“Vince,” Brad Lane added, “Rodgers could lead us to Hussein. If she is reaching out to him for any reason and we alert him, it could spook her and ruin everything.”
“We owe that man a lot. He saved a lot of lives, including two commanders-in-chief. A lot of people died that day. Good agents. He also saved the life of Clay Broadhurst, one of our own. Broadhurst has worked tirelessly in the last two years, despite his illness, to figure out what went wrong and how we can prevent it. We have revamped a lot of our procedures because of Clay’s efforts. If Broadhurst were not around, a lot of that insight might never have materialized. Rodgers deserves to know he’s in danger.”
“Vince,” NSC Director Rankin replied, “I will not make that recommendation to the president. We don’t know what Rodgers will do. There’s too much at stake.”
CIA Deputy Director Senski offered one last piece of information.
“We’re wasting time. We know Hussein is alive. But we have bigger fish to fry, ladies and gentlemen.”
“What’s that?” Brad Lane demanded.
“Not only is Hussein alive, but the CIA has just learned that she is planning an attack inside the United States. And it is imminent. I suggest we get to work on finding out what it is and how to stop it. Let me show you what we know.”