They Disappeared

40

Brooklyn, New York

“The president of Burundi just canceled the Empire State Building event,” Secret Service Agent Tate Eason said through his headset to the agent in midtown heading the detail protecting the dignitary. “Adjust the schedule-go with the flow, Jim, go with the flow.”

Under the circumstances, we’re all a bit edgy.

Eason took another swallow of his energy drink and continued monitoring his console at “Iron Shield,” code name for the Secret Service security command center for United Nations General Assembly.

The center was on the thirtieth floor of an office tower on Adams Street in Brooklyn, home of the Secret Service’s New York field office. This field office, more than any other within the Secret Service, was forever and inextricably linked to terrorism because it had been relocated to Brooklyn from Tower 7 of the World Trade Center after September 11.

Eason, the son of a Boston detective, had served six years as an army intelligence officer before joining the Secret Service five years ago. A quick thinker with strong analytical skills-completing puzzles was his hobby-Eason had been posted to the UNGA command center, along with several other agents. He liked this assignment but things had grown a little more tense than usual.

We’ve got to take down this plot.

He took another drink and shoved a fresh stick of gum in his mouth.

Gotta stay sharp.

The discovery of the microdetonator arising from the abduction had cranked up anxiety levels.

What was-or is-the operation? Who is the target?

The Secret Service was in charge of protecting more than one hundred and sixty world leaders and their delegations while they attended the United Nations gathering. That meant nearly three hundred security details involving the Secret Service and other federal security agencies. The NYPD also played on-the-ground supporting roles at events with crowd control, dog teams, mounted patrols and barricades. They also oversaw traffic routes, helped with motorcades and secured buildings and event sites throughout New York.

Eason concentrated on the task before him and the other agents at the command center. They were responsible for live-time monitoring of every dignitary’s delegation, their Secret Service security detail and the dignitary’s foreign security detail. Eason and the other agents had to stay on top of every move a delegation made through encrypted radio contact, secure cell phones, texting and surveillance cameras.

They had to ensure their safety at every moment. They fed into the strategies of directing the placement of sniper teams, plainclothes agents, SWAT teams, biological and chemical response teams and medical teams. They also consulted on strategic use of electronic countermeasures that could jam remote or cell phone activation of an explosive device. If there was an incident of any sort, they could activate and direct the evacuation of a leader and, depending on the scale of an attack, they could immediately remove every world leader from Manhattan.

Eason’s job at Iron Shield had begun months earlier in Washington, D.C., where he’d worked with the Secret Service’s intelligence division to prepare and update the profile of every dignitary to be protected.

Eason and the other agents were expected to be experts on every dignitary, but more important, they were expected to be experts on who might want to kill the leader and how they might do it.

The Secret Service received intelligence from every branch of U.S. national security, including the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the State Department and the Pentagon. It also had access to data from foreign intelligence agencies. Nearly every country whose leaders were attending the UNGA supplied information to Washington, to help ensure their leader’s protection while in the U.S.

In most cases foreign intelligence detailed known threats and assassination attempts, plots, terrorist attacks, alliances and conspiracies. They were constantly alerting the Secret Service to any updates.

With an eye to the unnerving discovery of the microdetonator, Eason and his fellow agents continued studying the intelligence which outlined major incidents that had taken place over the past five years.

In Pakistan, an extremist group had attempted to kill Pakistan’s president with a remote-controlled bomb placed under a bridge over which his motorcade was about to pass. The plot had failed when the bomb malfunctioned.

In India, national security agents, acting on a tip, had foiled a sniper minutes before he’d planned to shoot India’s prime minister during an official function at a holy site. The sniper had been contracted by an antigovernment network.

In Russia, a rebel suicide bomber was shot before he reached the office of the president of Mykrekistan, a small Russian republic that had endured years of civil strife, which had played out in a number of attacks on schools, hospitals, stadiums, various buildings, and train, airport and subway stations across Russia.

In France, a runway truck loaded with explosives blew up at Charles de Gaulle Airport ten minutes prematurely as the French president’s plane was about to land in Paris. An Algerian radical group with ties to international terror networks claimed responsibility.

Antigovernment insurgents in the Ivory Coast had concealed remote-controlled explosives under the clothing of children in advance of the leader making a ceremonial school visit. Sharp-eyed members of the protection detail noticed an exposed wire under a little girl’s shirt and the plot was foiled.

In Peru, Shining Path guerillas succeeded in cutting all power to runway lights just as the president’s plane was making a night landing in a remote mountain city of Peru. Pilots managed to control the aircraft.

Eason shook his head.

Virtually every leader was a target. In every case there was political or religious motivation from extreme factions. He scrolled through event agendas and scenarios, looking at those most likely at risk.

The president of the United States and the British prime minister were doing a joint open-air event in Columbus Circle.

China’s president would face protests when he attended the World Gymnastics Championships at Madison Square Garden.

Protests were expected when the Russian president and president of Mykrekistan visited Ground Zero.

Japan’s prime minister would be attending a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, which was a security nightmare. Two Tokyo-based apocalyptic extremist groups with supporters around the world had been issuing death threats and making claims to having access to weapons of mass destruction.

Over the past year, in New York City, investigators had uncovered six plots by domestic terror cells working with help from global networks. One included a conspiracy to bomb Penn Station; one intended to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge; another was to seize JFK. The NYPD had also discovered suitcases filled with N8PTT, a highly explosive compound, abandoned in Grand Central Terminal.

“What do you think, Tate?” Matt Brewbaker, the agent next to him, asked. “The detonator thing with the murders and the kidnappings is freaking everyone out.”

“I know. Check out some of the events for lower-level protectees,” Eason said.

They browsed the files.

Spain’s first lady would be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to open a new exhibit of Picasso paintings. In Bryant Park behind the New York Public Library, Russia’s first lady and the wife of the president of Mykrekistan would be attending a ceremony honoring the discovery of literary papers from Russian and Mykrekistani writers. And Brazil’s first lady, a world-famous mezzo, would sing in a special performance of La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera.

“Remember,” Eason said, “Chechen insurgents seized a Moscow theater in 2002. About one hundred and forty hostages died.”

“I know, I know. We never rule out anything.”

This list of potential targets was never ending. Eason entered another database, one that monitored live foreign intelligence, and searched for data that might point to threat of credible plot.

China had nothing. India, nothing. Japan, nothing. Peru, nothing. What about Russia? Eason thought. They always had something. Here we go-just the standard update. Various terrorist and insurgent groups with chatter that indicated that they will take action in the United States.

Eason took a slow breath.

It was routine.

Every group threatened to use a world event as a stage for their cause.

But that detonator, the brazen abduction of the mother and her son from Montana, the murders.

It all gnawed at Eason as he stared up at the enlarged backlit map of Manhattan. With blinking lights pinpointing every dignitary and their detail, it was a galaxy of possibilities.

Who is the target?