Black Flagged Apex

Chapter 1

Special Agent Ethan Reeves rubbed his eyes and took a sip of bitter coffee from a worn blue travel mug. Sunlight crept through the open doorway connecting the front room of the apartment to the kitchen, spreading along the worn gray carpeting. Through the opening, he heard Special Agent Dave Howard rummage noisily through cabinets and drawers. Muttered obscenities floated into the quiet room, causing a barely discernible grin to form on his face.

"The sugar's gone," Reeves said.

"What happened to the rest of the packets?"

"You forgot to put them in the fridge last night. The mice showed up again. Crapped all over the kitchen table too," Reeves said.

"Sorry about that. I'll head out a little later. This place is fucking disgusting. Did I mention that before?" Howard groaned.

"That's the first time today. I'll call the incoming team and let them know what they need to bring," he said blandly.

Reeves shook his wireless mouse and brought one of the computer monitors back to life. He leaned back and slouched in the stiff, inexpensive office chair that the Newark field office had finally approved. Before these arrived, they had suffered through the day on folding chairs, frequently standing up to stretch out ever-tightening backs and hamstrings.

By mid-afternoon, he usually spent more time standing than sitting. At the end of a week's rotation, Reeves felt twice his age. His body would slowly recover over the weekend, eventually returning to normal before he reported to the Newark field office on Monday. There, he would enjoy a few days of slightly less mundane work, constantly dreading the arrival of Friday morning, when he would report for another week of duty holed up in their surveillance post. One week on. One week off. Pure agony.

So far, the realities of stakeout duty had met few of his preconceived notions. Instructors at the FBI Academy tried to manage every new agent's expectations about the job, but they had failed miserably to prepare him for the inevitable stakeout assignment. Reeves stubbornly held onto his pre-academy fantasies; daydreams that put him in a desperate position to singlehandedly apprehend one of the nation's most wanted terrorists and stop the next 9/11. He needed to cling to this delusion, because after five months of reviewing digital feeds and adjusting surveillance equipment, cynicism had started to blanket his romantic notions about life as a special agent in the FBI.

His partner, an even-keeled, fifteen-year veteran of the bureau, did his best to maintain an enthusiastic façade, but Reeves could sense that Special Agent Howard's FBI spark had been extinguished long ago. Howard quickly steered their conversations away from work, focusing on family, friends, hobbies, vacations…anything but FBI work. Luckily for Reeves, Dave was an entertaining and comical storyteller because as a single, newly minted agent, their lives had little in common beyond their FBI credentials.

He activated two more monitors and searched the first screen for the "digital highlights" function. Despite the FBI's frugal interior decorating job, the surveillance package deployed in the apartment was state-of-the-art. Little expense had been spared to provide a nearly automated system, which made their jobs infinitely easier than any of their predecessors'. Long gone were the days spent coordinating bathroom breaks and snapping pictures through a 35mm camera equipped with a telephoto lens. Ironically, they rarely looked out of the apartment windows at their surveillance target. They could watch everything from the monitors.

The new system employed four digital cameras providing continuous, automated coverage of the target house. The powerful night vision equipped cameras worked simultaneously from different windows to capture each and every detail. The system even provided limited thermal detection capability, which could roughly pinpoint the location of any human or large dog within the house. Laser microphones continuously scanned exposed windows for vibrations and automatically recorded the conversations within.

All of this information was automatically uploaded to a location unknown to either agent, where it was closely analyzed on a timeline determined by investigative prioritization algorithms. Based on their extensive experience at this location, the data review for the first-floor occupants of 32A, South 20th Street, started later in the morning. They had never been contacted by the Data Analysis Group (DAG) prior to lunch before today.

Even with all of this automation, their duties included a cursory review of the video and audio surveillance recordings. Since neither of them spoke Arabic, their only responsibility regarding the audio involved reviewing "irregularities." These included arguments, languages other than Arabic, or female voices. Even that job was simplified by the software, which screened the different feeds and highlighted these portions for them based on embedded protocols. The video review required a little more effort.

They typically reviewed the night's digital highlights before breakfast, quickly catching up to near "real time" on the daily feeds. The system flawlessly drew their attention to anomalies detected by the sensors: late night visitors, lights at unusual hours and telephone calls after the team recorded "all quiet" in the house. The suspects in the target apartment kept a pretty tight schedule, which made the job simple. Reeves or Howard would check the highlights, if there were any, and together they would conduct a fast-speed scan through the video, further searching for any obvious irregularities.

They weren't required to remain awake once they logged "all quiet," since their stakeout was classified as an intelligence gathering activity. The four men living together in 32A had raised enough red flags to warrant further investigation, but hadn't been classified as an immediate or developing threat.

When the digital highlights screen appeared, Reeves first thought the system had experienced a glitch. Five months of reviewing night feeds had never yielded anything more interesting than an aborted break-in attempt through one of the building's side windows. Annoyed, he sat up in the chair. The system had highlighted multiple audio, video, and thermal irregularities. In fact, the Windows-based system provided a two-page list of anomalies for him to review.

He clicked the first one in the queue, which started a recorded digital feedback stamped "2:24 AM," sending video to two of his screens. He watched the screen on the right, which showed three figures emerge from the back of the target building's backyard and approach the rear deck. The second screen zoomed in on each of the figures in rapid succession, intelligently deciding to capture close-up images. Oddly, all of them were dressed in dark clothing, wearing ski masks.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

"You say something?" Howard called from the kitchen.

"Dave, get over here!"

Reeves leaned forward in the chair and watched the three figures pause at the bottom of the deck on the screen.

Howard appeared in the opening and leaned against the white, paint-chipped doorframe. "What?"

"Take a look at this. I think our friends had visitors…holy fuck! Someone took out our guys!" he yelled and shot up from the chair.

"Take it easy, Ethan. What did you see?" said Howard, who calmly walked over to the card table hosting all of their computer equipment.

"Multiple flashes inside the house. We need to get over there now!"

Reeves scrambled around the chair and moved quickly across the room. He reached into a black and gray nylon backpack lying next to the opened sleeper couch, removing his badge, service pistol and a spare magazine from a hidden compartment. Howard leaned over the table and started working the computer mouse.

"Will you settle down? What are we looking at…what the?"

His voice trailed off as he replayed the video and watched the figures disappear from sight. The camera panned out, and everything looked normal for a few seconds. The first flash came from the front window, followed immediately by flashes from the side windows, which they had previously determined were bedrooms.

"Shit!" Howard yelled.

He nearly fell backward over the chair, colliding with Reeves as they both sprinted for the kitchen. Howard grabbed his holster and badge from one of the kitchen cabinets and followed Reeves out the back door and down the crumbling stairway to the cracked, weed-filled concrete patio. They sprinted across the street with their guns drawn and approached the rear deck.

"We're fucked," Reeves hissed when they reached the back door.

"Nobody's fucked here. This…"

"This kind of shit happens all the time? You were about to say that, weren't you?" Reeves said.

"Maybe. Let's throttle back and do this by the book. I'll go first, staying low. You cover. We'll work our way through the rooms. No assumptions. Someone might still be alive in the house, and they won't be happy to see us," Howard said.

Reeves took a deep breath. "Got it. I'm good," he said and adjusted the grip on his Glock 23.

"Ready?" Howard said.

"Ready."

Reeves watched Howard turn the doorknob and push the weathered door inward. They both braced themselves against the doorframe and aimed into the duplex. The door led into the kitchen.

"You smell that?" Howard whispered.

"Smells like someone took a shit on the floor," Reeves replied.

"That's what dead people smell like before they start rotting. Cover me."

Howard crouched and moved slowly through the kitchen, aiming at the only doorway leading further into the house. When he reached the doorway, he took up a position on the left side of the door, staying low. Reeves followed the same path and stacked up behind Howard. Once in position, Howard aimed through the opening into a long hallway. Reeves stood up and aimed over Howard's head. He saw two doors on the left, which they knew were bedrooms, and a door on the right, which had to be a bathroom. Howard edged into the hallway and nodded at the first door on the right. They moved up to the closed door. Once in position, Reeves pressed up against the left side of the hall and aimed down the hallway. Howard slowly worked the doorknob before quickly pushing the door open, pistol extended forward with both hands.

"Bathroom's clear," he whispered, leaving the door open.

He turned to face the first door on the left, repeating the process as soon as Reeves took up a position on the right side of the hallway. Instead of pausing at the door, he followed it into the room, feet scuffling just out of Reeves' sight.

"Clear," he heard from inside the room.

Reeves moved into the bedroom doorway and braced his forearms against the doorframe, focused on the hallway leading to the front room.

"One of our subjects is dead. Al Farouq. Two shots to the forehead. We call this in and wait," Howard said.

The smell of feces had worsened after Howard opened the door, activating his gag reflex. Reeves turned his head and glanced into the room, taking small breaths through his mouth. He had to see this. He'd imagined shooting these guys in several of his daydream scenarios, and simply couldn't believe someone had actually beat him to it. The image took his breath away, almost forcing his coffee back up.

A single figure lay on the bed, perfectly arranged for sleep. The pillow looked dark brown under Farouq's head, clearly soaked with coagulating blood. The fitted mattress sheet at the head of the bed was similarly stained, along with the top sheet, which was still pulled up to the man's chin. A small puddle of blood had started to form on the floor under the corner of the loosely hanging top sheet. He could imagine a much larger pool spreading under the bed, where the blood had surely soaked through the mattress. He snapped his head back to the hallway, which Howard was counting on him to cover.

"Shit. We're screwed," Reeves whispered.

"This is not going to be good. That's for sure," Howard replied.

"What do we do?"

"Not much we can do. We call this in and check the rest of the bodies."

"Look on the bright side," Howard said.

"There's a bright side to this?" Reeves asked.

"Yeah, we won't have to spend another night in that rat-infested shithole. Let's get this over with," he said and moved back into the hall.

They had three more dead bodies to confirm.

Chapter 2

Frederick Shelby sat in one of the prime seats at the long conference table. Two seats away from the president of the United States, he was content to be included in the upper echelon of attendees. The conference table had been reconfigured to seat an expanded group of the most important people in the U.S. government, in what could easily be described as the most important conference room in the entire world. Technicians had worked feverishly yesterday to configure the room exclusively for the command and control of the government's response to the terrorist plot uncovered by the CIA.

Video conference cameras adorned the table, next to each imbedded computer terminal. Flat-screen monitors covered nearly every square inch of eye-level wall space, each presenting a different map, data table or news report. The constant flow of information on the screens brought the static walls alive with vivid, high-definition colors. The information flowing to these screens was controlled by analysts sitting at the mobile "watch floor" station in the far corner of the room.

This two-tiered hub consisted of four stations packed closely together, each housing three flat-screen monitors for operators to analyze and manipulate. The mobile station's electronics suite had been modified to communicate with the nerve centers of every agency and unit involved in the operation. All crisis-related communications sent to the White House would filter through the station and be appropriately disseminated. In anticipation of the complicated, multi-agency effort required to handle the crisis, the president decided to transfer complete responsibility for information management from the White House situation room's central watch floor to the mobile hub. If necessary, situation room technicians could add another mobile station and double the conference room's information management capacity.

He stared down the long table, very much enjoying the picture he saw. The generals and admirals were about as far away as possible from the president, without putting them at a kiddie table, which was where they belonged in his opinion. Especially after last night's debacle and the clear implication that someone in their ranks had tipped off Sanderson. He had been so close to catching Sanderson, only to have the rug pulled out from under him, in what could only be described as a calculated, carefully planned publicity stunt. Fortunately, he had kept his cool. A few more choice words the other night, and he might be a lot further away from the president. Everyone sat quietly as the flat-screen monitors simultaneously changed to a CNN broadcast.

"CNN ran this twenty-five minutes ago, and we're already getting hit left and right with domestic requests for information and civil emergency funding. Pay attention," the president said.

International news correspondent Michael Foreman appeared on the screen next to an inset map of western Russia. As he started speaking, the map zoomed in to the Kola Peninsula and the location of Monchegorsk appeared. The words "Breaking News" were stacked above the CNN tagline "Civil Unrest Reported in Russia."

"This is Michael Foreman with breaking news in Russia. A shockingly bizarre Reuters news story is quickly shaping into a potential nightmare for the world community. Samantha Rivers reports live from St. Petersburg."

"Thank you, Michael. I'm standing outside of St. Petersburg square, next to a group of protesters that will join thousands of their fellow countrymen inside the square to demand open access to Monchegorsk. As it stands, only military traffic is allowed on the main highway leading out of St. Petersburg to the beleaguered city, strictly enforced at checkpoints and by ominous patrols of armored vehicles. Until earlier today, most of the media crews had been operating out of Petrozavodsk, a little over two hundred kilometers to the north. Hundreds of military vehicles poured through the small city on their way north to Monchegorsk, which is another two hundred and fifty kilometers north. Abruptly, military and police units forced all media crews back to St. Petersburg, where we have been told to remain indefinitely.

"Confirmed news from the area is scarce, but persistent rumors of a deadly epidemic continue to surface. So far, nobody has been able to confirm the shocking and unbelievable footage sent anonymously to Reuters, suggesting that the Russian military is systematically destroying the city and killing its inhabitants. Russian officials have made no comment. One thing is for certain, the Russian government has taken extraordinary measures to seal off the area surrounding Monchegorsk. What is truly frightening is the fact that the world hasn't seen an emergency government response on this scale from the Russian government since Chernobyl."

"Thank you, Samantha. And now we turn to CNN's very own national security advisor, Brett Russell."

The screen froze, and the president returned his gaze to the table.

"And therein lies our problem. The media didn't skip a beat making this a national security issue, and they don't know the half of it…yet. We need to accelerate our efforts to safeguard the American public, and I'm not sure it can be done without drawing attention to the fact that the Monchegorsk situation is directly related to our national security and could very well be the tip of the iceberg. I want to leave this room with an effective, short-term strategy that we can improve upon for the long term. Here's what I think. We can't deploy the National Guard to watch over the nation's water treatment plants without answering some difficult questions. Homeland is already getting crushed with inquiries from state and local law enforcement agencies. We prudently raised the threat level to Orange, without providing details about the threat. This is highly unusual. We've only raised the threat level this high five times on a national level, and we've always provided details. I don't feel this strategy is sustainable beyond noon today. I want to hear your thoughts."

Frederick Shelby made a quick decision to jump into the thick of things. The FBI's task force stood at the vanguard of efforts to stop whatever might be headed to U.S. shores, and he wanted to make sure everyone in the room understood that fact. The squeaky wheel got the grease, or in this case, the resources.

"Yes, Mr. President. I think we all need more information on the incoming threat. What exactly are we dealing with? I've read the reports, but the information is vague at best. I think we could better shape the nation's response with more precise information," Shelby said.

Many of the attendees muttered agreement with his comment, while a few displayed mildly disapproving faces. He committed these to memory. It was always good to know who might not be on your side when things went sideways. The secretary of state, secretary of defense, White House chief of staff and, no surprise here, the director of the CIA. Even Sarah Kestler, the White House counterterrorism director looked a little annoyed.

"Our CDC liaison answers the technical questions about the Zulu virus," the president said.

"Zulu virus?" one of the generals said.

A tall man with exceedingly dark hair and matching eyebrows stood up from the far end of the table. He looked nothing like a scientific type to Shelby.

"Good morning. I'm Dr. Marston Phillips, assistant deputy director for the CDC's Office of Infectious Diseases. This is my colleague Dr. Pradeep Chandrashekar, who heads the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response," he said, gesturing to the man in a dark blue suit seated next to him at the conference table.

"So, to answer your question briefly, we are looking at a weaponized form of herpes simplex encephalitis, genetically modified to aggressively attack the brain's temporal lobe. Worse yet, we suspect that the modification has reduced the virus's lethality."

"Isn't that a good thing?" interjected James Quinn, national security advisor.

"Normally, yes. Left untreated, herpes simplex encephalitis has a high fatality rate. Near seventy percent."

The entire room broke into murmurs at the presentation of that statistic.

"Treated aggressively, we can reduce this to thirty percent," the scientist continued.

"Thirty? That's still extremely high," the national security advisor said.

"Correct. For an infectious disease, this is a worst-case scenario in terms of lethality, but keep in mind that viral encephalitis is not a highly transmittable disease, like the avian flu. This is partly why cases of viral encephalitis are still extremely rare," Phillips said.

"So this should be relatively easy to contain if released on U.S. soil?" the homeland security director asked.

"May I?" Pradeep Chandrashekar asked.

"Please," said Phillips, who sat down to let his colleague continue.

"If the Zulu virus is released into a public water source, containment of the disease itself will not be our biggest challenge. Physical containment of the impacted community and the management of information will be your biggest priority. Weaponized encephalitis is the ultimate biological weapon."

"But if it's not contagious, at worst we're looking at highly localized terrorist incidents. Tragic and horrific, but manageable," the White House chief of staff said.

"You're missing the bigger picture here, Mr. Remy. Herpes simplex encephalitis does more than produce casualties, and if the virus in question has been modified as suggested, the impact of its release can't be understated. Here are the statistics for the unmodified virus. In those treated aggressively, less than three percent regain normal brain function. This can vary from very mild to severe impairment, depending upon several factors. Early treatment with high dose, intravenous acyclovir is the only modifiable factor scientists have identified. However, this may not be an option in our situation. Testing isn't complete, but the initial research conducted by Edgewood indicates that the weaponized strain in question races to the temporal lobe, leaving little hope of recovery."

"How can you know that for sure?" Shelby asked.

"We can't, but based on the information surrounding the current situation, we have to assume a worst-case scenario," Phillips interjected.

"And what is that?" Shelby continued.

"If released in a municipal water supply, unknown to the population, it has the potential to affect nearly everyone. Take a small town of twenty thousand people. Even if we discovered the attack immediately after the virus circulated through the drinking water and treated everyone in the town with acyclovir, 95 % of them will suffer neurological impairment at varying levels. 19,000 citizens. Neurological impairment will range from…" he paused and glanced at the president and the director of the CIA, who shared a glance, and nodded almost imperceptibly toward Phillips.

"Full homicidal rage and hyper-aggressive behavior to minor seizures. Brain damage in almost every case. Edgewood's initial report indicated that we would likely be dealing with the more serious end of that spectrum. The reports gathered by…" He stopped again and looked to the CIA director.

Shelby started to get even more annoyed. He could tell that Phillips was uncomfortable taking the conversation any further, and he knew exactly why. Prior to entering the conference room, Shelby had been cornered by the national security advisor, who informed him that there could be no direct mention of Sanderson's team during the meeting. They could be called "intelligence assets in Europe" or "on-site ground assets," but specific reference beyond that was forbidden.

They didn't have time for the paperwork before the meeting, but information regarding Sanderson's present and future involvement with the government would be classified Compartmentalized Information Security (CIS) Category One. The Black Flag program was once again one of the most highly classified secrets of the United States government. Obviously, Phillips had been given the same speech. He wondered who else had been yanked aside by the national security advisor. Not everyone, or they wouldn't have to dance around this issue during the meeting. The president ended the uncomfortable pause.

"The effects of the virus in question have been confirmed firsthand in Russia. We are dealing with the worst end of that spectrum. I don't mean to cut you off, Dr. Phillips, but let me say what needs to be said. If that virus is released, we face the likelihood of trying to contain an entire city or township of brain-damaged citizens, many of them mentally deranged and violent, who face no hope of recovery. I can't even begin to fathom how we would handle 19,000 cases like Dr. Phillips suggested in just a small township. People would have to be detained and treated compassionately, even the ones that would require maximum-security institutionalization. Imagine this happening simultaneously in fifty-eight separate cities across America. This is the ultimate terrorist weapon, with the potential to tear apart the fabric of American society.

"I want to focus on taking steps to protect our citizens from the release of this virus in the United States, while responsibly and cautiously preparing them for the possibility of an attack. The joint FBI and Homeland Security task force based out of our National Counterterrorism Center is already fast at work tracking down domestic leads. We have assets doing the same thing abroad. So, how do we start preparing the public, while not hindering investigative progress?" the president said.

"We have to be careful with raising the threat level. Orange is significant, but taking it to Red could tip off the group preparing to attack. Possibly accelerate their timeline or cause them to go to ground. Whatever we do, we can't tip them off until the investigation has reached a critical mass," Shelby said.

"But going to Red would leave no question in anyone's mind that this was the real deal. If we're planning to activate the National Guard, I don't see how we can avoid it," said Marianne Templeton, secretary of Homeland Security.

"Going to Red will cause a widespread panic. We need to slowly ease into this, based on the immediacy of the threat. We can activate the National Guard without going to Red," the White House chief of staff said.

"I don't think we can get away with that for very long. Dr. Chandrashekar, where does the CDC stand in terms of a response?" Templeton asked.

"We're already assembling first-response teams and deploying them nationwide, so they can reach anywhere within the continental U.S. within a few hours. These teams will confirm the presence of the virus and allow full-scale resources to be deployed. We'll coordinate with Health and Human Services to educate the public as determined by the administration. We're working up media packages, public education announcements, and response guidelines for first responders," Chandrashekar responded.

"Pauline, what can we expect from your department at the outset?" the president asked.

Pauline Rosenberg, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services leaned forward to see around Director Shelby.

"Mr. President, my department will work closely with the CDC to ensure the rapid and targeted deployment of our National Disaster Medical System assets. Under your recent directive, we have created and disseminated several National Planning Scenarios intended to guide federal, state and local disaster planning efforts. Unfortunately, efforts to implement the recommendations proposed by these scenarios are still in their infancy at the state and local levels. The sooner we alert state and local governments, the better. These scenarios are designed to focus response efforts for geographically limited disasters projected to produce significant casualties in the tens of thousands. A bioweapons attack is one of the scenarios. State governments need to start readying a response."

"I agree with you, Ms. Rosenberg, but we need to figure out how to do this without creating a panic," the president said.

"What are we doing directly on a federal level?" he asked.

"On a federal level, we are preparing all of our deployable medical response assets. We have fifty-five Disaster Medical Assistance Teams and thirty-one Federal Medical Stations that can be deployed within twenty-four hours. All of the equipment and personnel are being assembled as we speak. Once CDC identifies a hot zone, we will commit these additional assets and start intensively coordinating with local medical and law enforcement authorities. Nineteen thousand patients will require an incredible effort at every level, which will quickly outstrip local resources. Mr. President, you should be prepared to immediately declare any area hit as a federal disaster."

"Nineteen thousand was only an example. The number could be in the hundreds of thousands, depending on the target city," Dr. Chandrashekar informed them.

"What about the Strategic National Stockpile and Project BioShield? We've spent close to forty billion dollars on bioweapons defense since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. Five billion alone for vaccines," the White House chief of staff said.

"Unfortunately, most of that money went to purchasing and stockpiling vaccines and drugs to counter anthrax and smallpox, which have always been considered to be the most likely bioterrorism threats. We've also put a considerable amount of funding into research for an antidote to botulism toxins. The rest went to research to improve treatments to exposure to chemical and radiological weapons. We have no stockpile of anti-virals suited to treat a weaponized version, or any version of herpes simplex encephalitis."

"What about the drug companies that make the ones we need?" the chief of staff asked.

"We're in contact with them right now, to see how quickly they can increase production of these drugs. The production of oral valacyclovir can likely be increased immediately, but the intravenous acyclovir will present a problem. Unfortunately, the intravenous solution is the standard of treatment for HSE. High doses of orally administered valacyclovir are only theoretically effective in this case."

"Shit. We have nothing stockpiled to defend against this?" the chief of staff asked.

"Not at the moment."

"I'll get on the phone to the CEOs of these companies as soon as I leave the room and make sure you have their undivided attention," the president said.

"Where do we stand right now in the investigation?" asked Sarah Kestler, White House counterterrorism director.

This was Shelby's chance to shine, though he knew that most of his own taskforce's success depended heavily on Sanderson's team's efforts in Europe. All of this was a cruel twist of fate and irony for Shelby, one that scorched his very soul with the fires of mistrust and suspicion. Sanderson had burned them all twice now: two years ago by destroying the HYDRA investigation for his own selfish purposes, and one day ago by forcing the president to grant his entire band of criminals a blanket immunity agreement. Each scenario had been carefully crafted and manipulated by Sanderson.

Deep down inside, he wasn't completely convinced that this whole terrorist threat wasn't Sanderson's plan from the very beginning. He would never forgive Sanderson for the two high-profile embarrassments placed in his lap, and despite the immunity agreement, he would have his revenge. He'd have to be patient and extremely cautious, but he'd find a way to send that traitorous bastard to prison for the rest of his life. He already knew where to start the process.

He stared down at Major General Bob Kearney and nodded. He hadn't been surprised to see his friend in the meeting, but the presence of Rear Admiral DeSantos seemed unusual. Why the Strategic Services Branch (SSB) needed to sit in on one of the most important meetings in history was lost on him, unless the SSB was Sanderson's new home. Kearney would be seething if this turned out to be the case, but the arrangement might prove useful. Kearney was an ally that might prove instrumental to bringing Sanderson down. If Sanderson's crew was attached to the SSB, a subordinate command to Kearney's DIA, Shelby's commitment to bringing Sanderson down might be easier than expected.

Clearing his throat, he stood up to address the president.

"Task Force Scorpion will focus investigative efforts in two directions. Since Al Qaeda operatives were last in possession of the virus in Europe, our primary focus is on suspected Al Qaeda cells in the U.S. These cells typically operate independently, but based on the coordinated plan foiled in Europe, we suspect that this will be a coordinated effort here at home. The larger the network, the more likely we will pick up leads right away. I have tripled the number of agents to the International Terrorism Operations Section assigned to Al Qaeda and made this the FBI's number one investigative priority. Homeland Security has made a similar shift in its resources," Shelby said, nodding to Marianne Templeton.

"Our second focus is on domestic terrorism networks. Intelligence gathered in Europe indicated the remote possibility that one of our homegrown terrorist groups may be involved, though this has not been confirmed, and the extent of their involvement is unknown. Special Agent Ryan Sharpe, Task Force Scorpion's leader, has worked extensively within the Domestic Terrorism section for the past few years and is intimately familiar with all of these groups. His assistant, Special Agent Frank Mendoza, is a rising star within the Al Qaeda investigative section. I've put our best people on deck for this and am confident that we'll start making significant progress immediately," he finished.

"And our overseas assets? How do they fit into this?" asked the national security advisor.

Both Shelby and the director of the CIA started to answer this question at the same time, neither one of them wanting to back down.

"Director Copley?" the president said.

"Thank you, Mr. President. Intelligence suggests that Al Qaeda planned to use a medical supply distribution company in Germany to ship the remaining virus to the U.S. Discreet assets are moving quickly to that site and—"

"Should I be worried about this?" the secretary of state, Colin Hyde, interrupted.

Shelby chuckled to himself and had to exercise every last bit of restraint not to visibly show his amusement. Should he be worried? Hadn't he seen the results of the CIA's discreet assets in Stockholm? They nearly destroyed half of a city block in broad daylight. The Black Flag teams were the secretary of state's worst nightmare. An international incident steamroller on autopilot to tear up as much of Europe as humanly possible. He should be very worried.

"We can talk about that a little later, Colin. Based on the information we've shared with Germany already, I don't think they'll have a problem with what we have in mind," the president said, nodding for Director Copley to finish.

Shelby couldn't restrain himself and barely managed to turn an outright laugh into a cough.

"If we're lucky, the virus may still be sitting in Europe. If not, they'll do everything possible to figure out where these canisters were shipped. Evidence found in Europe indicated that several Al Qaeda cells made hasty exits from the European scene. If the canisters were shipped recently, as suspected, Task Force Scorpion might have a chance of grabbing it all at once on the ground here."

"You mean we're not even 100 % sure this is inbound?" Joseph Morales said, speaking up for the first time.

Morales was the Department of Justice's assistant attorney general for National Security (AAG-NS) and directed three other AAG's within the National Security Division that handled the legal aspects of counterterrorism, counterespionage and intelligence gathering. Shelby rarely clashed with Morales, since his position was newly appointed by the president, and they mostly saw eye to eye on issues regarding domestic counterintelligence and counterterrorism. Most importantly, his attorneys spent most of their time focusing on foreign intelligence gathering methods. Frankly, he was surprised that the president had included him in this meeting, as he could imagine no circumstance on earth under which the administration would bring him up to speed on the details of their most current foreign intelligence gathering asset's origins. Morales would be another ally Shelby could rely upon when things started to get dicey.

"We should have a yes or no answer on that within a few hours," Copley said.

"I don't want to overstep my area of expertise, Madame Secretary," Morales said, gesturing toward Pauline Rosenberg from Health and Human Services, "but there are certain actions that won't be retractable. Maybe we should wait for word from our overseas assets before we start contacting state governors and ramping up bioterrorism resources. It won't take much for the media to start piecing this all together, especially with the news from Russia."

"I tend to agree with this course of action," Marianne Templeton said. "If this isn't inbound, an overreaction on our part will unnecessarily panic the public."

Sarah Kestler stood up, scowling with pursed lips. She always wore a severe-looking face, but this new look gave her an entirely new dimension of seriousness.

"Nobody is suggesting that we shut down FedEx and UPS, or confiscate every package delivered within the last week. Some basic steps are prudent. It sounds like the virus could already be here. The European cells vanished within the last four days, right?"

"So it appears from the foreign law enforcement reports," Shelby said.

"Al Qaeda isn't going to wait for us to gather the next report. Four days ago? Give them a day to consolidate the virus at the shipping facility, maybe another day to pack and ship. Until proven otherwise, I recommend that we start taking steps based on the assumption that U.S. based Al Qaeda cells are in possession of fifty-eight bioweapons canisters. Or at least someone is in possession of these weapons. Given the fact that they abandoned Europe, likely in response to the news pouring out of the Kola Peninsula, I don't think they plan to sit around and stare at the canisters for very long. This is a bold plan that took years to coordinate. They're shifting tactics and strategy quickly. Frankly, I'd be surprised if they hadn't already carried out their mission here. We need the National Guard and local law enforcement out protecting our water supply right now. European authorities didn't waste any time securing and testing their water supplies."

"It's just that once we start this ball rolling, it'll be hard to stop," the secretary of Homeland Security added.

"She's right. Once we start making calls at the state level, this thing will take on a life of its own," the Health and Human Services secretary said.

"I think we'll have much bigger problems if Al Qaeda manages to release the virus. Each canister can poison a city," Kestler said.

"Our intelligence indicates that they would use more than one per city," the CIA director added.

"Fair enough. Twenty cities…even one city will create an unstoppable panic, well beyond any scare caused by preparing for an attack. It sounds like the right steps are being taken by every agency at the federal level. I just think it's time to get local and state authorities involved. We need to start securing water supply points and testing water."

"Does anyone firmly disagree with this strategy?" the president asked.

"I still think we should wait until the threat is confirmed. If we immediately take the steps that Ms. Kestler recommends, we have to raise the threat level to Red. There is no going back from there. It has only been done once since 9/11."

"I can live with that," Kestler said.

"You don't have to deal with the impact on the nation's transportation system, airports, borders…this goes far beyond just sliding the color over to Red."

"Just one successful attack will change the nation forever, Mr. President. This has the potential to make 9/11 look like a pipe bomb," Kestler replied.

Shelby liked the way she thought and acted. No nonsense, action oriented.

"All right. Ms. Kennedy?" the president said.

"Sir?" said Sandra Kennedy, the deputy secretary of defense, leaning her head inward to make eye contact with the president.

"Let's activate the Army National Guard and Army Reserve immediately. Do whatever needs to be done to coordinate with each state. Make sure they understand that this is a nationally directed deployment."

"Understood, Mr. President."

"If we're lucky, we'll find out in a few hours that the virus never left Europe. I'm willing to deal with the fallout of putting the Guard and the appropriate government agencies on high alert. The situation in Monchegorsk is a nightmare. Even before Russia's unforgiveable wholesale slaughter of the population, it was—"

"Unverified at the moment," the secretary of state interrupted.

"It's been verified, Colin. However, I understand your concerns regarding the Russians," he said, shooting the secretary of state a harsh look.

"Marianne, let's move the Homeland Security Advisory System threat level to Red. Severe risk of attack," the president decided.

The president started going down the line, tasking the members, but Shelby was distracted by an alert on the built-in tabletop computer monitor in front of him. The monitor at his seat had been configured for him to send and receive intranet traffic from his own office to provide a way for his staff and immediate subordinates to pass him information while he was stuck in the White House situation room. So far, the messages had been routine, intended for him to review in between sessions. A flash priority message caught his eye at the top of the queue and all of his other message traffic stopped. He noticed that one of the president's aides, sitting at a chair behind the president, received a cell phone call. Even Shelby wasn't allowed to bring a cell phone into the situation room, so he knew this must have been an internal communication. The aide stood up and walked along the outside wall of the room toward him.

"Director Shelby, I've been informed that you have a flash message," he stated.

"Thank you. I just saw it."

This exchange went mostly unnoticed in the room. It wasn't uncommon for senior government officials to receive critical messages while in the audience of the president. Shelby's eyes narrowed as he read the contents of the message. When he shifted his gaze to the president, he noticed that all eyes were focused on him. The president had stopped talking and was waiting for Shelby.

"What happened?" the president said.

"Six of the seven suspected Al Qaeda cells under surveillance in the greater New York/New Jersey metro area were taken out last night. Massacred in their sleep. I think it's fair to assume that some of the virus is here already," Shelby said, clearly shaken by the news.

"What about the other cell?" Marianne Templeton asked.

"Missing. They shook ground surveillance and never returned to their apartment last night," Shelby said.

"Shit. How the hell could this have happened right under your peoples' noses? They were under surveillance, right?" Jacob Remy snapped.

"Easy, Jacob," the president said.

"Simultaneous strikes around 2:30 in the morning. This is surveillance, not protective duty. These groups never move at night. They follow unvarying routines throughout the day and wake up in the middle of the night to pray. We listen to every conversation they have and analyze every aspect of their lives."

"But someone can walk inside and kill them without anyone knowing?" the White House chief pressed.

"We can figure this out later. Do you have any leads? Anything that can move us in the right direction?" the president said.

"We got lucky at one of the sites," Shelby said.

Jacob Remy huffed at this comment.

"One of the killers removed his mask prematurely, within view of our cameras. We're working on identifying him. Surveillance records indicate that all of the sites received multiple FedEx packages yesterday," Shelby said.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jacobs yelled. "How long would it have taken for that information to raise an alarm? This is unreal!"

"Maybe if you'd quit withholding funds from my agency, I could hire more agents to watch these pricks…and upgrade the systems used by our analysts to filter through the thousands of reports that are filed on an hourly basis from law enforcement agencies nationwide."

"Now this is my fault?" Jacobs said.

"It's Al Qaeda's fault, gentlemen. That's it. Let's get the investigation moving with the new information," the president said.

He turned to Director Copley. "I still want your people moving on the medical supply company in Germany. Seven cells with suspicious activity isn't the full extent of this. There would have to be more. We need to figure out who hit them."

"Probably the domestic group referenced by our intelligence source," the CIA director interrupted.

"Let's figure that out. I can't imagine this domestic group got every canister. We need to approach this from both angles," the president said.

"General Gordon, I am invoking my authority under the Insurrection Act to deploy active military units in support of domestic law enforcement agencies. My own counsel and the attorney general agree that this level of coordinated terrorist activity on U.S. soil warrants my authority in this case."

"What did you have in mind, Mr. President?"

"Special Forces. Tier One units and all other direct action capable Special Forces teams. Full helicopter support. I want our best teams available to support Task Force Scorpion."

"Sir, we have the same capabilities within the FBI. Coupled with local SWAT assets, this should be more than enough to cover any possible contingencies," Director Shelby said.

"I'm not casting any doubt on your agency's capabilities. I want to plan for the worst-case scenario. We get all of our best operators into the game. I will only authorize the use of U.S. Special Forces as a last option."

"I'll get the units ready and coordinate with Task Force Scorpion regarding geographic deployment. If you don't mind, Director Shelby, I'd like to assign a liaison to your task force," Lieutenant General Gordon said.

"The more the merrier," Shelby said, not really meaning what he said.

"We have a long day ahead of us. I don't want to hold any of you up any longer. Make sure you coordinate your agency's press releases with my office. We need to be on the same page when communicating to the press and the public. Any last concerns?

"Good. Get to it," the president said.

He immediately left the room with his entourage, which included the chief of staff, his secret service detail, a few aides and the director of the CIA. Major General Bob Kearney and Rear Admiral DeSantos vanished just as quickly out of a door on the other side of the conference room. The noise level instantly rose to a level making it nearly impossible to carry on a conversation.

Shelby yelled across to Marianne Templeton. "Are you scheduled to meet with the president after this?"

"No. I need to get out of here and get this nightmare rolling. I still think we should wait for further confirmation. You won't be able to buy groceries tonight on your way home after this news hits," Templeton said.

"Or bottled water. I wouldn't worry about heading home tonight. Nobody's leaving his or her office in the foreseeable future. I'll catch up with you later," he said, moving swiftly toward the door.

He reached the conference room exit and stepped outside, searching for any signs of the president's entourage. He spotted General Kearney and Admiral DeSantos headed in the direction of the president's private office on the other side of the watch floor. Tracking their progress, he pushed through an endless gaggle of seemingly inconsequential aides and government staffers waiting to rendezvous with someone important in the conference room he just departed. He watched as Secret Service agents stationed outside of the office admitted the two flag-ranked officers and pulled the office door shut.

Through the two windows, he could see the president seated behind a desk and Director Copley sitting directly across from him. The president motioned with his hand, and the two officers sat down on chairs squeezed into the office next to the CIA director. The president reached behind him, and the windows suddenly fogged, obscuring Shelby's view inside the office.

He knew this had something to do with Sanderson. The president was taking an extreme risk sanctioning the use of these assets. Less than twenty-eight hours ago, Sanderson's organizations had been classified as a terrorist organization. He couldn't afford a screw-up that would draw the public's attention to that fact. The president was probably spelling out exactly what he expected in terms of Sanderson's continued involvement on foreign soil. Shelby didn't like guessing. Sanderson's operatives had been assigned to Task Force Scorpion, and he still didn't have a good handle on their rules of engagement or the scope of their authority. He was told to wait on this, until a DIA liaison was assigned to the NCTC.

As director of the FBI, in charge of the nation's premiere law enforcement and domestic surveillance apparatus, the term "need to know basis" didn't apply to him. He needed to know everything. His only consolation in this case was the fact that he had a man on the inside, talking with the president while he was jostled around by this endless tide of servants waiting eagerly to serve their masters.

Chapter 3

Jessica leaned into the vanity mirror and gently applied the concealer stick to the remaining dark purple areas under her left eye. She held the stick between her index finger and thumb, patting the application lightly with her pinky finger to blend it into the foundation. She had spent the better half of an hour applying makeup to her bruised and battered face. The process was taking her twice as long without the use of her left hand, which sat uselessly in a tight gauze wrap on the brown-speckled granite countertop.

Concealing signs of physical abuse surfaced deep, distant emotions that Jessica had spent the last ten years pushing further and further into her subconscious. She was no stranger to "making herself look pretty again" after silently enduring repeated beatings at the hand of Srecko Hadzic's associates in Serbia.

The physical abuse hadn't been the worst part. In fact, it had barely bothered her at all. She had a built-in tolerance for physical pain. One of the many "gifts" she had acquired living under the constant threat of her father's wildly unpredictable, alcohol-fueled rampages. Taking a closed fist high on the cheekbone or a backhand to the mouth was something she had learned to live with.

She had thought all of that would change when she reported to Langley. Ironically, she couldn't have been further mistaken. Instead, they would turn her into one of the most lethal operatives in recent CIA history and put her into a situation where she was forbidden to use those skills to defend herself. She had developed dozens of coping mechanisms as a helpless child, none of which could help her deal with the fact that she had become a predator, but she would still be abused nonetheless. This burden had slowly unraveled her in Belgrade, nearly killing her.

Finding Daniel in that hellhole had certainly saved her from herself. Daniel insisted that they had saved each other, but she knew better. That was something he said to ease her emotional pain. She had no doubt that Daniel would have survived his "tour of duty" in Serbia. He was one of life's guaranteed survivors, and staying close to him would always be her best chance to survive too.

She touched up the last remaining evidence of the desperate struggle that had almost ended her life and leaned back to take in her handiwork. She had to give them credit; even Daniel might not recognize her at first glance. Thanks to a discreet team of beauty consultants, who specialized in hiding wealthy victims of abuse within plain sight, she could effortlessly walk into Ministro Pistarini International Airport and board a plane headed anywhere in the world.

Her long, lustrous jet-black hair had been replaced by a dark brown, short pixie-cropped style that accentuated the strong, angular contours of her face and freshly lifted eyebrows. She had changed her eye color from dark brown to deep blue, with the help of custom vanity contact lenses that also hid the temporary damage to the blood vessels in her left eye. Balanced collagen injections helped her lips appear normal against the persistent swelling on the left side of her face. She had changed her appearance as much as possible without plastic surgery or Hollywood-level special effects makeup. Only a close examination by a seasoned social services caseworker could detect her secret. Even her bandaged hand would be disguised in a sleek, medical grade plastic hand splint that would require little more than a quick explanation about a recent "tennis" accident.

In a few minutes she would complete the transformation with a dark gray, Ralph Lauren sleeveless turtleneck dress that would cover the extensive abrasions and cuts from the piano wire that had nearly severed her carotid artery five days earlier. She had to hand it to the small group of stylists that took over her bedroom for several hours yesterday. They may have cost a fortune, but they didn't mess around. She felt "pretty" again.

Her cellphone rang from somewhere deeper in the house, most likely from the kitchen where she had prepared an espresso earlier. She had carried the phone around with her, hoping to hear from Daniel before he became too involved in his next job for Sanderson. She didn't have many details regarding his next operation in Germany, but he had made it sound like routine work. She was certain that there would be nothing routine about his day, but at least it wouldn't involve penetrating a "rabid zombie" infested city to retrieve a human head, or driving full speed into a Spetznaz crossfire. Whatever the mission, she knew it wasn't a good idea to distract him, but she needed more than a call every two or three days while he was away. Especially after what almost happened in their Buenos Aires high-rise. She needed to talk to him every hour if possible, but would settle for once a day.

She started to form the words to call her two unwilling manservants, Munoz and Melendez, but quickly remembered they had departed soon after she treated them to the most expensive dinner she could import into the safe house. It was the smallest token of gratitude she could offer the two men that had saved her from Srecko's beasts. The duo had even started to lighten up a little, which probably had less to do with her charming personality and everything to do with the availability of an exquisitely smooth Malbec vintage, and the dawning realization that they would be taking the next available private flight back to Sanderson's mountain hideaway. Either way, she enjoyed seeing them let their guard down just a little and finally relax. She owed them everything.

She had oddly come to terms with her own death at the apartment. On some level, she had felt relieved that her struggle was finally finished. At least she had convinced herself that she had accepted her death. All she had to do was relax her muscles and take a little weight off her tensed midsection. The thin piano wire would have cut a few more millimeters into her neck, effectively opening her carotid artery. It might have been a bad decision given the Celox Munoz had found in Josef Hadzic's torture kit, but she somehow doubted they could have kept her alive for more than a minute or two jamming hemostatic powder into her neck. What they had planned to do to her corpse afterward, on camera for their boss, hadn't mattered to her either, so she thought.

Ultimately, all of those thoughts proved false. When Melendez's bullet removed her captor's head, she sprang into action with no hesitation, leaving little doubt about her decision to live or die.

She put down the concealer stick and walked across the cool, gray marble tile to the kitchen. She hadn't expected to hear from Daniel until later in the afternoon. His group had an operation planned for the evening, which always shut him down externally. She read the caller ID, not recognizing the number, which could only mean one thing. The last person she really wanted to talk to right now. Three people had the number for this throw-away phone. Daniel, Munoz, and her least favorite person in the world. She accepted the call.

"Do I need to get a restraining order?" she said by way of greeting.

"I highly doubt that would be possible, since you officially no longer exist as an Argentinian citizen," General Sanderson said.

"That was fast. Can I pick up the new paperwork this morning? There's room on a flight leaving at 12:15," Jessica said.

"So now you're happy to hear from me? Your passport will be delivered within the hour by a trusted member of the U.S. Embassy. One of Karl Berg's friends. That might give you enough time to book that flight."

"I'm impressed," she said.

"I'll take that as a compliment, though I must admit that having a little leverage over the White House helps work wonders with the State Department. The passport has been issued in the name Jessica Petrovich and will contain an entry stamp for your vacation to Argentina. Once you get out of Argentina, you're home free. Your names have been removed from every U.S.-generated international and domestic watch list. The Petroviches are free and clear as far as the U.S. government is concerned."

"Do you trust them?"

"For now, but I'd recommend having a backup plan ready at all times. I'll help you get a second set of papers, just in case. Have Daniel pass on the details when the two of you have talked about it."

"We'll be sure to get in touch," Jessica said.

"Why do I get the feeling the two of you already have a plan to disappear?"

"Because you know us too well? Who knows, we might sign on with you as a Mr. and Mrs. Smith freelance team. No promises, but all options are still on the table."

"Now that is a pleasant surprise coming from you. Even hearing you mention the possibility gives me hope. I was utterly convinced that I'd never see the two of you again."

"You might not…" she said and paused, "but sometimes life makes the choices for you."

"In my experience, it's most of the time. The two of you will always be welcome here. Don't ever forget that," Sanderson said.

"Somehow, I don't think you'll let us forget."

"We all know each other too well. Enjoy your time together. The two of you have earned it. I expect to hear from Daniel early this evening. Sounds like they are close to wrapping up their work in Germany. Of course, it all depends on his ability to get some very stubborn people to talk."

"I'm sure Daniel will be on one of the first flights out of Germany tomorrow."

"A lot of highly placed, extremely anxious government officials in D.C. are counting on that very same assessment."

"Daniel never disappoints."

"No. He doesn't. Good luck, Jessica," Sanderson said, and the call disconnected.

She placed the phone on the cold granite countertop and glanced at a two-thirds empty bottle of last night's Malbec standing next to the sink. Was nine-thirty in the morning too early for a glass of wine? Probably. Plus, she needed something stronger to deal with the anxiety stirred up from talking to Sanderson. He'd ruined their lives for his own selfish gain, though the entire situation was certainly more complex. Without the general's new initiative, who knows what the world might have faced in the upcoming weeks. The limited reports streaming out of Russia painted an extremely bleak picture. Without Daniel, the world may never have discovered the truth about what happened in Monchegorsk. She felt her mind spinning again and glanced at the bottle of wine. Still not a good idea. Maybe a little closer to eleven o'clock.

Chapter 4

"We stick out like a sore thumb around here," Daniel muttered from the rear bench row of their Ford Transit van.

"At least nobody will call the cops," Konrad Hubner said.

"That's because we look like the cops," Daniel said.

"We're fine. This isn't a high crime area. The immigrants take care of this place," Reinhard Klinkman said.

Klinkman had met them in Hamburg, after they had travelled separately by car through Sweden and Denmark. Thanks to the Schengen Agreement, neither of their cars was subjected to more than a visual check at reduced speed, at either the Danish or German border. Introduced in 1985, the Schengen Agreement gradually abolished border controls throughout the European Union, making it possible to drive from Stockholm to Spain without ever displaying a passport or enduring customs searches. If you held a passport from a non-Schengen Area country, all you had to do was gain admittance to the European continent, legally or illegally, and you could travel freely without question or fear of discovery.

Once Petrovich's team landed in Stockholm a few days earlier, they were more or less guaranteed access to the rest of Europe. Of course, the matter of their involvement in a running gun battle on the streets of Stockholm had the potential to complicate this freedom, but once they escaped the city, they saw no sign of an enhanced security presence in any part of Sweden.

Klinkman had arranged for them to return their rental cars in Hamburg and take possession of two used vans, which they drove to Frankfurt. One van, with darkened rear windows, would be used by the assault team. The windowless, second van gave Sanderson's Electronic Warfare (EW) team a private cargo area to turn the van into a mobile electronics suite.

Three members of this newly formed group had joined them in Frankfort, having arrived from various parts of Europe. Utilizing laptop equipment and wireless technology worth five times the amount of their van, they had easily hacked into Frankfurt's Deutsche BioMedizinische (DBM) database, sending the data to the CIA. Although theoretically unnecessary in this case, since most of the cyber work could be done from the U.S., Sanderson wanted to put this team in the field alongside the clandestine operatives. Apparently, Berg hadn't argued with the idea, since it would provide one more layer of separation between his agency and German authorities should the unthinkable transpire. Berg seemed to be all about these layers, which Petrovich could appreciate. All of his own layers had been peeled away recently, leaving him completely exposed.

The electronic warfare team had another goal that had been cautiously revealed by their team leader, "Luke." The Frenchman had disclosed the fact that they would try to hack the CIA's system and either download the terrorist databases or install a backdoor that they could access later. Sanderson didn't want the team constrained by nervous decision makers when national security matters were at stake. Daniel had no doubt that the electronics team had been given orders to go deeper than just the terrorist databases. Sanderson never passed up an opportunity to expand his influence, and if the CIA let their collective guard down for a second while linking with Luke's team, the general would take full advantage of the situation. Sanderson never ceased to amaze and disgust Petrovich.

"There's the apartment block. Lots of shady-looking faces around here. Are you sure the van won't disappear? That would pose a real fucking problem," Farrington said.

"It's not like the States. You don't find the same level of crime. There are plenty of rougher, all-white neighborhoods further west," Hubner said.

"I don't want to have to walk him to the nearest U-bahn station if our van disappears," Farrington replied.

"It won't be a problem," Hubner muttered.

"I still think we should deal with him in his apartment. Fewer variables," Klinkman said.

"This is a tightly knit immigrant community. Word will get around fast and eventually make its way to the real police, who will be quick to respond. There's no federal police bureaucracy working in our favor. We need to get Sahil into the van as quickly as possible," Hubner said.

Hubner was right. No broad federal law enforcement agency existed in Germany, so they couldn't flash federal badges and buy time like in the U.S. or Russia. Nearly all law enforcement tasks fell under territorial German State Police, which were administered separately by each region. The only federal police apparatus in Germany was the Bundespolizei (BPOL), which didn't include any specialized units that would typically conduct an urban-based raid. Most BPOL units served federal internal security or border supervision roles.

They had thought about posing as members of Germany's counterterrorism forces, GSG-9, a specialized branch of the BPOL, but decided against the idea. The mere suggestion of a GSG-9 operation would raise every law enforcement alarm in the region. Their hastily provided identification badges indicated that they were members of the Hesse Landeskriminalamt (LKA), or State Investigative Bureau, which made enough sense to silence most curious onlookers. The LKA specialized in investigating and preventing politically motivated crimes. Four bulky LKA investigators dragging a young Muslim man into a van wouldn't be the most unusual law enforcement spectacle seen in this neighborhood.

Daniel glanced around at his surroundings as the van pulled into an empty space next to a large, green, graffiti-covered dumpster on Idsteiner Strasse. The northern Gallus neighborhood was dominated by rows of long, nondescript, three-story apartment blocks, each extending at least one hundred meters from Idsteiner Strasse. If Sahil's apartment was at the end of one of these blocks, they might have to reposition the car. The van was parked in front of a low hedge between two of the buildings. Beyond the hedge lay a grassy courtyard, which was outlined by a continuation of the hedge and covered with rectangular clothes-drying poles. Spaced closely together, the poles resembled crudely erected, miniature soccer goals. Only a few were still adorned by drying laundry this close to sunset and presented another possible complication upon exit with their man. Entrance doorways to both buildings were visible on the outer edges of the long courtyard, spaced evenly down the entire block.

He shifted nearly all of his attention to the apartment building on the left side of the courtyard. 85 Idsteiner. Upon arrival, he had noted that the target building featured no balconies on either side, just bare-faced walls containing small windows. They wouldn't have to post someone in the adjacent courtyard to prevent a jumper. The target's apartment designation was 2F, which they had presumed to mean second floor. Counting doorways, the apartment was most likely located halfway down the building, which meant a long transit dragging a feisty terrorist. They didn't have much time to spend in the apartment, but he wasn't opposed to spending a few precious moments convincing Sahil that resistance would be met by severe, unthinkable pain. He glanced behind him into the cargo hold area at a large black nylon bag. He wouldn't need the contents of this bag to convince Sahil. The bag could wait for later, when they had more time.

Farrington patted Klinkman on the shoulder and turned to face Daniel and Hubner.

"All right. Let's do this. I want to be out of here within five minutes. Daniel and I will handle any law enforcement interference."

He locked eyes with Daniel.

"Use your compressed air pistol first. You'll have five separate shots. Each dart will instantly paralyze your targ—"

"I'm familiar with the effects," he interrupted bitterly.

"The darts will not penetrate a ballistic vest. Your best bet will be to hit an arm or leg," Farrington said without changing his expression.

"Or the face," Petrovich added.

"Don't shoot for the face. You'll puncture an eye. At twenty-five meters, the air pistols are extremely accurate. Don't shoot for the neck either," he said, maintaining the emotionless face.

Petrovich had at least expected a smile considering the fact that Farrington had zapped him with the same neurotoxin two years ago in the middle of Georgetown University, but this was Farrington's first operation as team leader. Petrovich would play a support role and observe. If Farrington performed as expected, Sanderson would detach Petrovich, leaving Farrington in charge of European operations. Daniel had every intention of making sure Farrington succeeded. He wanted to put as much of this behind him as possible and get back to Jessica.

"Let's hit it," Farrington said.

The four of them simultaneously opened their doors and stepped onto the pavement. Walking briskly, they scanned the courtyard and street for any signs of trouble. Nothing raised any sort of internal alarm for Daniel as they turned onto the narrow sidewalk running parallel to 85 Idsteiner. The first doorway confirmed the apartment-numbering scheme. "Apartments 1-3A." Five more doorways to the entrance for 1-3F. 2F would be on the second floor. Upon a casual glance at the first door, Klinkman turned his head to Farrington.

"Ten seconds to pick the lock," he said casually.

They filed down the sidewalk until arriving at the door marked "Apartments 1-3F." Hubner walked past the doorway, leaning against the wall just short of the nearest first-floor window. Farrington took a few steps into the courtyard, through a break in the hedgerow, and examined the opposite building's facade. Klinkman immediately went to work on the door with a tool extracted from a small kit he had kept concealed under his black leather jacket. Petrovich concentrated on the street, particularly the area around the van. So far, he hadn't detected any unwanted attention. One pedestrian crossed the opening between buildings, but never glanced in their direction.

Unfortunately, interested pedestrians posed the least of their problems. The real threat came from paranoid neighbors peeking through windows. It didn't take a master's degree in criminology to figure out that Daniel's team was attempting an unauthorized entry. Klinkman was fast, but few citizens kneeled down to insert their keys. A quick scan of the balconies revealed that they were empty, which surprised him given the warm temperature. Then again, most of the working-class denizens of the Gallus didn't have time to lounge around mid-week and breathe in the spring air.

"We're in," Klinkman said.

The team disappeared into 85 Idsteiner with one purpose: to extract Sahil Mazari from the apartment. Mazari worked as a computer network programmer at Deutsche BioMedizinische, assigned specifically to support DBM's distribution department. Mazari had been the only employee at DBM's Frankfurt facility flagged in the CIA database, which made him their most logical starting point. A Pakistani-born immigrant, he had taken several trips back to Pakistan within the past year, which raised red flags given his previous association with Al Qaeda extremists. The sudden, increased number of visits to Pakistan fit a pattern identified by the CIA. A dangerous precursor for escalated participation in extremist activity. Similar patterns had been identified prior to hundreds of attempted or completed terrorist attacks in the past.

Even more condemning, he had twice travelled back with known Al Qaeda extremists based out of Hamburg. Both of these suspected operatives had attended Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) with Mazari, and one of them had even completed the same computer information technology degree. Dubbed "Terrorist U" by the CIA's Middle East analysts, former TUHH students could be found at the top of every "known terrorist" watch list around the world. A claim to fame that did not appear as a selling point on any of the university's marketing brochures.

Hamburg continued to serve as a hotbed of Muslim extremist activity, long after the infamous "Hamburg Cell" had changed the world on 9/11 under the leadership of Mohamed Atta. Atta had also been a "student" at TUHH, disappearing from Germany for extended periods of time to travel to Afghanistan. He continued his studies at leisure, while plotting the most diabolical terrorist attack in history. The CIA had no intention of letting any more TUHH "graduates" conduct attacks against the United States. Mazari's web of connections in Hamburg barred him from entering the United States and put him on a growing list of "likely terrorists."

Farrington approached the door marked 2F, and the rest of the team fanned out along the walls of the cramped stairway vestibule. Each apartment had its own small landing. Two old, rusted bicycles were stacked against the far wall, causing Petrovich to squeeze by to get behind Farrington. They all withdrew HK P2000 SK (subcompact) pistols from their waistline holsters and stood silent, taking in any noise from the apartment and stairway. Laughter vibrated from 2F. They would soon put an end to that.

Petrovich took a six-inch suppressor out of an inside pocket on his jacket and started screwing it onto the custom-threaded barrel. He would be first in the door, tasked with neutralizing any threat that stood in the way of abducting Mazari. They didn't have a wealth of information about his roommates, but couldn't discount the possibility that this could be a den of extremism.

Farrington tapped his right ear and nodded at Hubner, who quickly gave him a thumbs-up. Hubner was the only member of the group wearing an earpiece, connecting the assault group with the mobile surveillance team. Luke and his group were scanning local police channels, searching for any indication that the team might have unwelcome visitors. Apparently, the police channels were still clear. Farrington pointed at the door, which put Klinkman into action.

Klinkman placed a small electronic device at the top right corner of the door, next to the frame, and slid the device down to the doorknob. The device displayed a green LED, which turned red about halfway down the door. He pressed a small button on the device with his thumb as it turned red, leaving a small black dot on the white door. He repeated the process under the doorknob, moving the device to the floor without a break in the green LED color.

He reached down into a small bag attached to his waist and pulled out a small thumb-sized charge called a "popper." He placed the malleable charge over the small black dot and pressed it against the frame. If affixed correctly, the low-grade plastic explosive would "pop" the deadbolt identified by Klinkman's device. The noise level created by the small explosion would sound like a very angry husband slamming the door to an apartment. He pushed a small, preset timer into the charge and started to work on the doorknob with his toolkit.

Seven seconds later, he glanced up at Farrington. A quick nod was all it took to start the countdown. Klinkman flipped a small switch on the side of the timer and pressed the single button on its face before clearing to the side of the door.

Immediately following the sudden, explosive crack, Petrovich delivered a strong frontal kick to the weakened door. Klinkman turned the doorknob just in time to ensure that the kick knocked the door open with enough force to embed the inner doorknob into the drywall. Petrovich raced into the apartment with his gun raised, followed by Farrington. Within a second they had identified their target, who was holding an Xbox controller in his hand, flanked on a small green couch by two dark-skinned men, each holding a paper plate containing a partially eaten slice of pizza. One of the young men held an amber beer bottle frozen to his lips. A fourth roommate stood frozen over an open cardboard pizza box on a table behind the couch. All of them had frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at the men holding pistols aimed at their heads. Klinkman yanked the door out of the wall and slammed it shut. A science-fiction fantasy game displayed on the forty-inch flat-screen TV mounted on the wall behind Farrington made the only sound in the room. Mazari paused the game, and the room quieted. Hubner broke the deathly silence with a calm, authoritative voice.

"Sahil Mazari. Drop the controller and place your hands high above your head. If anyone moves, they will be shot in the head," he said in German.

"We don't really speak much German," Mazari said in broken German.

"Do you speak Russian?" Petrovich asked.

"Is he speaking Russian? Why would the police use Russian?" said the man holding the beer to the left of Mazari in Indian-accented English.

He had purposely used Russian to add another layer of confusion to the situation. Now these terrorists would be even more stressed about their fate. Russians operating in Germany spelled bad news for a Muslim extremist, though Petrovich had to admit that the beer and pizza scene seemed completely out of place. The three roommates looked distinctly Indian, and all of them looked "soft," especially Mazari. He was at least forty pounds overweight and had an extremely slack look on his face. He looked nothing like any of the criminal element Petrovich had seen in his notorious career. Somehow this guy spent several months training in the hills of Afghanistan?

Klinkman restated his request in English, and Mazari dropped the Xbox controller and moved his hands high.

"I think this is a mistake of some kind…officers?" Mazari said.

"No mistake. Stand up from the couch and walk forward, keeping your hands above your head," Farrington stated.

"Can we just talk about this first? We're all here on work visas," Mazari persisted.

"Can I move?" the man holding the beer bottle said.

His arm was already shaking from keeping the position for several seconds. Petrovich started to get the distinct feeling that Mazari was not their man.

"Nobody moves but Mazari. Stand up and walk toward me slowly, or we'll kill your three friends and grab you ourselves," Farrington said.

"The neighbors won't hear a thing," Petrovich said, aiming the suppressed pistol at the young man to the right of Mazari.

"Dude. Get up from the couch. He's fucking aiming that thing right at my head," the man to Mazari's right said, barely moving his lips.

"You need to go with them," the man frozen over the pizza box piped in.

All of their English was Hindi accented, including Mazari's.

Mazari complied with their request and found himself zip tied with a bag over his head within seconds. He was out the door and on his way down the stairs a few seconds after that, escorted by Klinkman and Hubner.

"What about the rest of them?" Petrovich said, lingering in the doorway to speak with Farrington in private.

"I don't think they pose a threat. Something's off here. Make sure they don't fuck with us. Grab Mazari's laptop," Farrington whispered.

Petrovich was relieved that Farrington had sensed the same incongruity. If Mazari was involved in the plot to ship the virus to the United States, he may have been an unknowing accomplice. Petrovich took a few steps back into the room. They were still frozen in place, which would make his job easier.

"Let me keep this as simple as possible. If you call the police, we will kill your friend and then kill you. We're monitoring all police channels and have another team watching the building. Don't leave your apartment either. You didn't see a badge tonight because there are no badges. Your friend may be involved in something really nasty. Something you want to stay as far away from as possible. Mazari will likely end up floating in the Main River tomorrow…without a head. You do anything to alert the authorities and it'll be a busy day for the Frankfurt central morgue. Understood?"

They all nodded, and he had little doubt that the message was received.

"Does Mazari have a laptop?"

They all nodded, and their eyes shifted toward the counter separating the kitchen from the family room. Four laptops were stuffed onto the crowded Formica counter.

"Get his laptop. Does he have a security token? Something that generates a password?"

"It's on his key chain. In his pocket. Can I put the beer down?"

He grabbed the laptop out of the man's hands, aiming carefully at his head.

"I'd finish the beer first. Remember what I said about ending up in the river."

Petrovich stepped out and closed the door, listening intensely for movement inside. Nothing. Perfect. He sprinted down the stairs to rejoin the team.

Chapter 5

Audra Bauer paced through the "Fishbowl" in the CIA operations center, anxious to hear from Sanderson's team in Germany. Mazari's abduction had gone smoothly. The team hadn't attracted any law enforcement attention grabbing him from the apartment, and they were now on the way to a small, privately accessed home north of Frankfurt. She was always amazed at how easy it was to make someone disappear, especially an enemy of the United States. She couldn't say for sure what would happen to Mazari, but one thing was certain, if he was connected to the virus canisters, he would never taste freedom again.

The operations center's watch officer turned her head and nodded to Bauer.

"The director is inbound. Just passed through ops center security."

"Thank you, Karen. Is Manning with him?"

"No. Just the director."

The last thing she needed was the director watching over her shoulder. Whatever Farrington and Petrovich had in store for Mazari was very likely not on the CIA's menu of acceptable prisoner handling techniques. Then again, the president himself had sanctioned the continued use of these assets to prosecute the leads uncovered in Stockholm, so perhaps a little high-level visibility would help ease some of the tensions in the operations center. She had a full complement of analysts and technicians rotating through the center in twelve-hour shifts. Too many eyes and ears in her opinion. The director's presence during this critical phase might reinforce the fact that this operation came from the very top.

She saw Director Copley's face on one of the screens near the watch officer's station. The watch officer typed a code into a small keyboard, which was immediately followed by a pneumatic hiss from the door cut into the center of the obscured glass wall separating the "fishbowl" from the rest of the operations floor.

"Director Copley, glad you could join us," she said, walking over to meet him.

"No, you're not, but I figured with Berg on a field trip, you could use some extra company. For a few minutes at least," he said.

Berg's mission to retrieve Anatoly Reznikov was a secret shared by very few at this point. The scientist's miraculous survival at the hands of Petrovich and Farrington had been kept offline. As far as she knew, everyone within the operations center thought Reznikov had died in the Stockholm safe house. Petrovich and the attending physician had confirmed his demise to the entire operations center via satellite phone, leaving little doubt that Sanderson's team had killed Reznikov while torturing him for information. Despite the value and importance of the information gained, they were all well aware that the House and Senate Intelligence Oversight Committees were unlikely to sweep aside the methods used to gain the information. She had seen a few tense looks when Farrington announced that they would start Mazari's interrogation in the van, on the way to the safe house. Twelve long minutes had passed since that report.

"What's the status of our team?" Copley asked.

"Sanitary pickup of Mazari. The team is transporting him to the safe house. Interrogation in progress."

Copley nodded. "Good. The team understands the stakes?"

"Without a doubt. This crew works fast. Very efficient," she said, resisting the temptation to look at one of the more nervous analysts.

"So I've heard," Copley said.

"Call coming through from the team in Frankfurt. Speaker or private?" the watch officer announced.

"Speaker," Bauer said.

"You're connected," the watch officer said into her ear microphone.

"I think we have the wrong guy," Farrington's voice said over the line. "Mazari's been crying like a bitch ever since we stuffed him in the van. He says that the frequent travel to Pakistan was to visit his sick grandfather. Congestive heart failure. He traveled back with his cousin on two occasions to visit. He's scheduled to travel again in two weeks, without the cousin. He said that they don't get along very well, mainly because the cousin is…I quote…'pushy with the mosques.' If Mazari's an extremist, he's at the very low end of the totem pole."

"Can he provide information to help us verify his story?" Bauer asked.

"I just fired off a secure email with everything he provided. I got tired of typing. He was about to provide his entire life story. When we busted into his apartment, he was playing video games and drinking beer with three other equally soft-looking techies. My gut says he's a dead end. I think we should cut his throat and dump him on the side of the road. Minimize our losses."

Farrington's voice rose as he made the last statement, turning nearly every head in the operations center, including Copley's.

"If you think he's a dead end, then dump him in the river," she said.

"Understood. We'll snip his fingers and cut off his face to buy us some time," Farrington said.

"What the fuck?" one of the analysts near Bauer said.

Bauer held out a finger to the analyst and cocked her head. They could all hear some pleading and fast-talking from the Frankfurt end of the connection, followed by an angry, muffled voice. Ten seconds later, Farrington's voice echoed through the operations center.

"He thinks he knows the group we're looking for at DBM, and I don't think he's connected with them. He seems more concerned that the group will retaliate against him," Farrington said.

"You can assure him that the group won't be a problem. Give me some time to verify Mazari's story. Can your team work with Mazari to identify the others?"

"Affirmative. We have full access to DBM thanks to Mazari's laptop…hold on a second…we have an address. All four of them are listed at the same location."

"How far away are you?" Bauer said.

"Not far. Ten minutes," Farrington replied.

"Excellent. Do whatever it takes to secure information regarding the shipments. Keep in mind that the FBI has tracked down two of the shipment batches, accounting for thirty-eight of the fifty-eight canisters Reznikov claims to have produced. Reznikov used two canisters in Russia, leaving eighteen shipped to an unknown location. You might be able to leverage the fact that several Al Qaeda cells in the U.S. were terminated by an unknown group. No canisters were recovered at any of the locations," Bauer said.

"Understood. I'll advise when we are in position. What do you really want me to do with Mazari?" Farrington said.

"Let me verify enough of his story to justify his release. I'm not sure how our system missed the fact that one of the Al Qaeda travelling companions is his cousin. Be prepared to drop him off with cab fare."

"Sounds like a plan. We're headed to the new target location," Farrington said, ending the call.

Copley muffled a laugh. "You had me worried there for a few seconds."

"I'm starting to gain a better understanding and appreciation for how Sanderson's people work," Bauer said, wondering if that statement would ever resurface in a congressional hearing.

"Keep a tight leash on that crew. Get the information required and pull them out. Their presence on foreign soil is a major liability for us, and it's only a matter of time before Stockholm catches up to them…and us," Copley said.

"I understand, sir."

Copley nodded his approval before turning to the watch officer, who quickly authorized his departure from the "fishbowl." Bauer let out a sigh of relief. She could feel the tension ease in the room as the door hissed shut, sealing them off from their director. His visit had been perfectly timed, leaving no doubt in her mind that it had been purposely planned. She constantly updated the director's digital feed from her computer terminal, so he would have known that Manning was in a separate meeting, and that the operation was in a critical phase requiring an enhanced level of accountability.

His presence had assured everyone in the room that he directly approved the methods employed by Sanderson's team, thereby diverting the undercurrent of doubt that had started to rise within the operations center. Like static electricity, this undercurrent would slowly build up again and be discharged by another well-timed visit. Even as the deputy director of the National Clandestine Service, she didn't have the clout or seniority to diffuse it herself. She just hoped that her boss, Thomas Manning, could do it. She didn't relish the prospect of frequent visits from Copley.

Chapter 6

Reinhard Klinkman turned the van off Goldstein Strasse and eased into a parking space just past the corner of Schwarzwald Strasse.

"Drop him off here," Farrington said, glancing behind them at the intersection.

Petrovich opened the right-side sliding door and gestured to the open pavement.

"Here? We're south of the river?" Mazari said, hesitant to step out of the van.

"Would you prefer we dump you in the river?" Petrovich said.

"Fuck you guys," he said, hopping out of the van. "I don't suppose I'll be getting my laptop back?"

Petrovich slid the door shut in the middle of Mazari's sentence.

"I'd get as far from here as possible. Remember, the river is always an option if you decide to contact the police. Take the train back to your apartment and stay there until it's time for work tomorrow. Fuck with me on this and you're a dead man. Got it?" Farrington said through the front passenger window.

"Yeah, I understand," Mazari said, barely raising his head to display a combined look of contempt and fear. "Not every Muslim is a terrorist."

"No. But every terrorist seems to be a Muslim," Farrington said, tossing Mazari's wallet out of the window onto the sidewalk.

The van sped away toward the new target building a few blocks west, which would prove to be a more complicated operation than Mazari's abduction. They now possibly faced an organized, highly trained Al Qaeda cell. Using Mazari's laptop as a breach point, the electronics warfare team based out of the second van had gained full, permanent access to DBM's computer network. Database records showed that the three men identified by Mazari lived in the same apartment on Jugenheimer Strasse. Two of them worked in the same department. Shipping. The third held a late-shift job in the medical specimen packaging department.

One of the two men, Naeem Hassan, worked in a supervisory role within the shipping and distribution department, which identified him as the most likely leader of the suspected terrorist cell. Of the three Egyptian men, he was the only one that had finished college, earning an engineering degree in Cairo. Six years later, he moved to Hamburg and started work on an advanced degree in construction engineering at "Terrorist U," but discontinued studies upon accepting his current position at Deutsche BioMedizinische.

Hassan's travel pattern didn't raise the same red flags as Mazari's, but a search of Egyptian databases showed that Hassan had bounced around from one unemployment line to the next during his six years in Egypt. Six long years of social humiliation, no doubt blamed on the West by the dangerous proliferation of radical Mullahs preaching jihad. Plenty of time to be radicalized by Al Qaeda recruiters and sent forth into Europe.

At this point, Hassan had been in Germany for nearly three years, while the other two men had been issued student visas last summer to attend Frankfurt Technical College. A quick search through the college's registrar database showed that the two had been dropped from student rolls after they failed to register for classes by mid-September. Notifications had been sent to German immigration authorities, but little would be done to track them. Petrovich wondered how many of these thirty-year-old college "students" simply disappeared into Europe, never to attend a single class. Too many, according to Audra Bauer.

Based on the information available, they would focus on Hassan. Ozier el-Masri worked in the same department as Hassan and would serve as their secondary focus. That left them with Hanif Akhnaten, who worked in the medical specimen packing department, which was a subsidiary of the Laboratory Group and a separate department altogether. His role had likely been limited to providing the appropriate packing supplies and medical labels to properly camouflage the shipments.

Working together, Hassan and el-Masri were perfectly situated to manifest and hide the shipments among the thousands of deliveries transported daily to the FedEx hub on the outskirts of Frankfurt International Airport. Nearly two thousand shipments had been delivered to the United States on the day in question, and FedEx delivery records for the seven known Al Qaeda cell locations didn't provide the FBI with a discernible package manifest pattern. Each of the addresses had received four separate shipments over the course of the day, giving them twenty-eight shipping records to examine.

Unfortunately, the twenty-eight shipments had originated from twenty-eight separate batches, which had been received by the Frankfurt FedEx hub over a forty-eight-hour period. The deliveries had been scheduled to leave DBM's shipping facility in a manner that had kept most of the canisters on separate planes while crossing the Atlantic, which appeared to be no easy task. FBI investigators concluded that this kind of timing would require a detailed level of information only available within the FedEx hub, suggesting the presence of another Al Qaeda conspirator.

Given that neither FedEx nor the FBI could discern a pattern in the shipments, Task Force Scorpion would rely on "overseas assets" to help them connect the dots. Petrovich glanced back at the black nylon bag sitting against the wheel well. He could definitely see using the contents of this bag within the next thirty minutes. He reached back and pulled the bag closer. Once again, they wouldn't have much time on-site, but he would make that time count. Whoever left the apartment alive with them would be taken to the safe house, where they could go to work extracting detailed information. He wasn't hopeful that they would unravel the entire shipping pattern.

So far, the task force could officially account for the suspected delivery of only twenty-eight out of fifty-eight canisters, but they had no further leads. They just needed to extract enough information to get the FBI into the game. Even one more shipment location might tip the balance. It was all a numbers game. One link leads to the next. So far, the FBI had no links, which was an extremely frightening thought.

The team drove in silence for several minutes, arriving in front of 31 Jugenheim. Petrovich found himself once again staring down a long courtyard at what seemed like an endless sea of apartment blocks. Unlike Mazari's Gallus residence, the trees and shrubs on the street and in the courtyard blocked much of their view. Farrington talked with the surveillance team as Klinkman found a questionable parking space one building down from their target building. Farrington disconnected the call as Klinkman wedged the van into a parallel spot on the Jugenheim.

"What are we looking at?" Petrovich said.

"Luke says all three of our guys are inside. They ran traces on cell phone numbers recorded in DBM's HR database. GPS trace confirms that the phones are located about 70 meters from our current position. Fifth floor," Farrington said.

"Not good. We'll have to drag at least two of them down to ground level, and I doubt either of them will come along willingly," Petrovich said.

"Maybe we should tranquilize them upon entry. Klink can move the van up to the door through the courtyard. There's plenty of room to maneuver the van on the grass," Hubner said.

"If we drive the van up, we're going to attract a lot of attention, and Herr Klinkman will not be able to help with the takedown. We're talking about three guys up there, all likely Al Qaeda operatives. If we hit them with the neurotoxins, we'll have to wait a few hours to start the interrogation. We'll need some immediate shock and awe to impress this crew. From my experience with interrogations, the most useful information comes in the first few minutes, before the subject gets their shit together. It's either that or weeks of isolation and subtle mental games. We don't have a big window of time here. We go in hot," Farrington said.

Daniel couldn't have said this better himself. He agreed completely. They needed to jar the information out of them within the next few minutes. Even taking them to the safe house would decrease the likelihood of producing timely, accurate information. Daniel had witnessed some terrifyingly cruel torture-based interrogations during his two years in Serbia, but most of these sessions had been designed to force a confession. Easy work compared to extracting truthful information.

"We'll need Klinkman in the apartment. If we decide to move them, we can send him down for the van. It won't take more than three of us to get these assholes down to the ground level. We'll have gravity on our side. Just don't get the fucking van stuck in the courtyard," Petrovich said.

"A little more credit for my driving, please? I can pull the van through the opening between those trash dumpsters. It'll be a tight fit, but I can get this thing up into the courtyard. Straight shot down the middle. Looks clear on the other end. The only problem I see is that I'll have to turn us around in the courtyard. The other end looks blocked. It would be very easy for the police to bottle us up in this courtyard," Klinkman said.

"It's our best option at the moment. We'll know if the police are alerted and can adjust accordingly. I'm hoping to get what we need inside the apartment," Farrington said.

"Don't count on it. If Al Qaeda trusted this crew with the virus shipment, they're likely to be among the best operatives in the Al Qaeda inventory," Petrovich said.

"Agreed. We hit their door in exactly six minutes. They're about two minutes from settling in on their mats for maghrib. Sunset prayer. Luke's team will confirm that they are deeply into reciting their verses before we hit the door. If they try to resist when we bust inside, Petrovich will use his pistol to disable or kill Hanif Akhnaten. That'll give us a two to one ratio to get the others under control. Stay alert inside the apartment. We need to keep Hassan and Ozier el-Masri alive for interrogation under any circumstance. The FBI is missing a big piece of the puzzle. This crew might be the only hope of piecing the whole thing together. Any questions?"

"Suppressors for everyone?" Hubner asked.

"Negative. Just Petrovich. He's the only shooter unless something is really off in the apartment. Are we good?"

They all nodded and waited to hear from Luke's team.

Luke Fortier sat on the edge of a cheap plastic folding chair and listened intently to the array of police scanners arranged on the makeshift desk bolted into the back of the Ford transporter van. The entire cargo area behind the driver and passenger seat had been hastily converted for their use during this operation. A thick padded curtain separated the two areas, providing the team with complete privacy from anyone staring through the windshield or front side windows. From the outside, the van resembled every other compact van found throughout Europe, with the exception of the unique antenna array located toward the back. A trained observer would note that this very average van had an enhanced Wi-Fi and satellite communications capability, in addition to a combined UHF/VHF landmobile radio system. Fortier's job was to communicate with Farrington's team and scan every possible police frequency for any indication of a law enforcement response to the team's entry to the target building. The other two members of the team got to do the fun work on this operation.

He turned his head toward Ramish "Mish" Banergee and Alvaro "Alvin" Batista, who were huddled around three laptop computers sitting on the metal table jammed into the left side of the van. Wires poured down the back of the table, splitting into thick tentacles that snaked off in several directions along the carpeted floor, sending information to various electronics components buried in shock absorbent foam cases designed expressly for the purpose of mobile surveillance. Mish kneeled at the desk and typed a string of commands into the leftmost laptop. The middle screen changed to a view of the brightly lit, sparsely decorated room. Three men appeared near the bottom of the screen, facing away from the door. They all bowed in unison and stood back up, before dropping to their knees and prostrating with their heads touching the floor.

"Look at this shit. I'm a genius," Mish crowed.

"You got lucky. One in a thousand that they'd leave a laptop open for us. We have eyes and ears on target, Luke," Batista said.

"Looks like they're into a rhythm. Are they faced away from the door?"

"Yep. Facing southeast. Pointing directly at our van, ironically."

"I think they're planning on taking a trip. I see a few suitcases along the far wall. Check it out," Banergee said.

The screen zoomed in on three pieces of luggage stacked along the wall leading to a different room.

"The team is at the door. I'm clearing them for entry. Do you see anything on the screen that might get in their way?"

"I don't see any weapons or furniture obstructions. No unusual RF activity from the building or surrounding area. The team is clear," Mish said.

"Give me an identification line up," Luke said.

Banergee typed furiously and worked the mouse, isolating images and sending them to Batista's laptop on the right side of the table. Batista matched the pictures taken from the hijacked laptop with employee identification photos taken at DBM. The entire process took five seconds.

"From the team's frame of reference. Left to right. El-Masri. Hassan. Akhnaten.

"All right. I'm clearing the team. Keep your eyes glued to that screen," Luke said.

He pressed a small button attached to a wire connecting his earpiece to a handheld VHF radio clipped to his belt.

"Room looks clear for entry. No obstructions. Three targets facing away from door. All identities confirmed. Upon entry you'll find el-Masri on the left, Hassan in the middle and Akhnaten on the right. Police channels are clear. They're roughly four minutes into prayer. Do you want to breach while they're on the floor?" Luke said.

"They're praying, right?" Hubner whispered.

"Yes. But the prayer cycle involves standing, kneeling, prostrating. Your choice," Luke replied.

"We'll take prostrated. Charges are set. Ready to go when they hit the floor," Hubner said.

"Stand by."

Fortier moved from his chair to a position directly behind Banergee and Batista, cramming himself against the side of the van behind their chairs and leaning forward until he could see the middle screen between their heads. Watching a live operation was an extremely rare event, and he had no intention of missing this one. Petrovich's reputation for ruthless brutality far preceded him, and given this terrorist cell's intentions, he hoped Petrovich wouldn't disappoint them.

"Put this on speaker," he said to Batista.

He watched the three men stand up as Quranic verses suddenly filled the van. He pressed the talk button for his handheld radio.

"Five seconds estimated. Three. Two. Breach!" he hissed.

The apartment door exploded inward just as the three terrorists touched their foreheads to the floor. Petrovich slid into view first, with a suppressed pistol extended forward. Luke heard the distinctive pop of the suppressor as the screen became a tangle of human bodies vying for physical dominance. When the action settled, the three suspected terrorists were arranged neatly in a line, secured tightly to chairs taken from the kitchen table. One of them, possibly Akhnaten, was bleeding profusely from a shoulder wound. A thick line of silver duct tape crossed each of their mouths.

"Christ. That was quick. I wouldn't have wanted to be on the wrong side of that door," Luke said.

"This crew doesn't fuck around," Batista said incredulously.

Petrovich glanced back at the door, which remained open. Hubner caught his glance and quickly slammed it shut, relocking the knob. They hadn't detected a deadbolt, so it turned out to be one of the easiest breach jobs yet. A simple lock-pick exercise and a kick. They had considered using a charge just to further disorient the three men, but given the fact that the men would be deep in prayer, they had opted for the quietest entry possible to avoid a call to the police. The apartment building on Jugenheim was different than Mazari's. The hallway extended the length of the building, giving them less privacy.

Once the door was shut, Farrington nodded to Hubner, who would lead the interrogation. Neither Farrington nor Petrovich could speak German, which was the only language beyond Arabic that was listed on their human resources files at DBM. Farrington suspected that their German would be rough, but given the fact that nobody on Farrington's team spoke Arabic, German would be their only common ground. Luke's team had a sophisticated translation program, but they wanted to keep this a secret from the men for now. Huebner addressed Hassan in German.

"Naeem Hassan, I will make this very simple for you. You have been betrayed by those you trusted. They led us directly to your apartment."

Petrovich studied their eyes. Hassan and el-Masri kept the same defiant sneer. Akhnaten's grimace of pain didn't shift, though he didn't exude the same purposeful menace as his co-conspirators. He was slowly bleeding to death from the bullet that shattered his shoulder.

"Your brothers in America have all been killed, and the virus canisters that you shipped to them have been stolen. This had been their plan all along. You were pawns in their game. Your leadership made a grave mistake trusting this group. Trusting anyone outside of Al Qaeda. Even the scientist who created the virus betrayed you."

Farrington nodded at Klinkman, who ripped the tape away from Hassan's mouth.

"Your brothers' plan for the virus in America is finished. All of them are dead. I can help you to avenge your brothers. I need to know the destinations for all of the shipments. I can account for twenty-eight of your shipments. Dr. Anatoly Reznikov assured us that there were fifty-eight."

Hassan's eyes just barely betrayed his surprise at the mention of the total canister count. Petrovich caught this and winked at Farrington, who tore the tape from el-Masri's lips, followed by Hassan's.

"I need an answer from you, Mr. Hassan. Will you help us? If you make this easy for us, I'll personally ensure that you get to meet the men that betrayed your brothers. I'll make sure that you are all sent to the same prison. You'll have the chance to avenge their deaths with your own hands. All of you. What do you think about this offer?" Hubner said.

"Infidel pigs. You are lying through your teeth," Hassan spat.

With Luke feeding him the information through his earpiece, Hubner recited the list of known FedEx shipment addresses for each of the terrorist cells in the tri-city New York area. El-Masri's eyes widened, and he spoke in rapid Arabic. He was instantly silenced by an order from Hassan, who barked at Hubner, "My brothers will not fail."

"Hassan, they've already failed. I'm not making any of this up. We may only know seven of your brothers' addresses, but I think it's pretty clear that the rest are dead and probably rotting as we speak. The bodies recovered by the FBI will be given a proper Muslim burial. You should honor the rest of your brothers with this courtesy," Klinkman said, in a calm, friendly tone.

"Your people will rape their corpses and defile them. This is what my brothers can expect in America."

Klinkman stepped forward within a few feet of the seated men and brought himself to one knee. He stared at el-Masri and spoke in the same soft tone. "Last chance, gentlemen. If you don't cooperate, you will be tortured, killed and desecrated in a manner that will prevent you from entering paradise. You will be cremated and your ashes will be mixed with hot pig lard to coagulate and sit in a jar until reheated and served to the next group of Jihadis that we catch. I have a funeral home waiting for your bodies as we speak."

"Nothing can prevent us from entering paradise. We are pure," el-Masri said.

"You don't sound convinced," Hubner hissed.

"Do it," Farrington said.

Everyone moved at once. Petrovich raised his silenced pistol and shot Akhnaten once in each shoulder. The man screamed, but the duct tape turned the sound into a muffled, high-pitched moan. Hubner flicked open a four-inch serrated blade, which had been concealed in his right hand. He pounced on el-Masri as Klinkman yanked the man's hair down from behind, causing him to scream in agony and buck in his chair. Hubner braced el-Masri's head and started to cut off his left ear.

Hassan growled and tried to stand with the chair, but Farrington pistol-whipped him across the temple, collapsing him back into the chair. Hassan turned to look at Akhnaten, who was struggling wildly. He watched Petrovich fire a third bullet between Akhnaten's eyes, spraying the gray wall and flimsy window curtain with a mosaic of bright red clumps.

Luke couldn't believe his eyes. Everyone in the van turned away from the screen, but the screams echoed through the van, providing a grim reminder of the work they ultimately supported on behalf of General Sanderson. When he finally decided to look back, the view provided by the hijacked computer webcam had been partially obscured by what he could only assume was splatter from Akhnaten's head.

"Turn the volume down at least," Luke said. "Focus on your jobs."

He turned around to keep a close eye on his own laptop screen, which monitored every local law enforcement radio signal they could find scanning UHF and VHF frequencies. The software he used would monitor and detect keywords inputted by Luke. He could also listen to the primary channels himself through his headset, which provided a split feed that he could control from the computer. One feed connected him to the team in the apartment and the other filled his right ear with police chatter. He turned up the volume for the primary police dispatch channel. Hubner's channel was silent, but that didn't surprise Luke at the moment. The crazy German was busy slicing off el-Masri's ear. He'd be shocked if someone didn't report this to the police.

"Shit. He just tore off the rest of the ear and tried to jam it down Hassan's throat," Batista said.

"Can I cut the feed to the webcam? We can do our jobs without it," Banergee said in a disgusted tone.

"Cut it. Keep the cell phone live."

Luke wondered what they had gotten themselves into with Sanderson. He had been approached thirteen months earlier by Klinkman, with an interesting proposal. Klinkman would facilitate the immediate funding of their startup computer security business, in return for discreet cyber services. They were told that the team would be used for "off the books" clandestine work related to EU security. Klinkman had been upfront about the legal issues raised by the kind of service required of the team, but this didn't bother Luke's crew. Even Banergee, who had started out working as a "white hat" hacker for computer technology powerhouse SCC Global, had no issue with the work. He had traded his "white hat" status for the less defined "gray hat" to join Luke and Batista in their startup venture.

The entire team had been flown out to the training compound in Argentina, to meet Sanderson and receive two weeks of intensive personal defense and firearms training. Luke had been extremely impressed by Sanderson's operation and the operatives chosen to fill the ranks. Research into Sanderson's past gave them no pause. As computer security specialists, a polite term for hacker, they were considered rogues by outsiders. Aligning with Sanderson further reinforced this notion. If Sanderson were a hacker, he would be the king of all "gray hats."

For the first time since initially meeting with Klinkman, Luke could tell they were all having serious doubts about their involvement. They had expected to violate multiple cyber laws in support of Sanderson's team, along with some basic privacy violations, but nothing could have prepared them for what they had all just witnessed. They could only hope that Sanderson's crew would get everything they needed out of Hassan, and that this would be their last stop in Frankfurt.

Hubner backed away from Hassan after delivering a stiff punch to the terrorist's solar plexus. The man moaned in an attempt to regain his breath. Petrovich aimed his pistol at Hassan's right shoulder and fired, grazing the top and splattering el-Masri's face with blood. Klinkman brought a closed fist down on Hassan's wounded shoulder, causing the terrorist to scream and buck in his chair. Everyone backed away and let the situation settle for several seconds. Hassan raised his head with defiant eyes, and Petrovich could tell that they wouldn't get any information out of him in this apartment. Hassan was a long-term project. El-Masri was their only hope of an immediate payoff.

El-Masri whimpered and rocked in his chair. The entire left side of his head was a gory mess from Hubner's crude ear amputation. Blood covered the side of his neck and saturated the shoulder of his white collared shirt. He wouldn't raise his head to look at them, which told Petrovich that they were close to breaking him. They needed to do it fast, before he became emboldened by Hassan's stoicism.

"Cut off his other ear," Petrovich said.

Hubner repeated the order in German and raised the knife. El-Masri protested in Arabic and German, begging them not to cut him again. Hassan stared lifelessly at Petrovich, while Hubner explained their situation.

"This keeps going until one of you gives us the addresses."

Hassan spit at Petrovich, hitting him in the leg.

"I guess your friend loses the other ear," Hubner said.

While Hubner removed el-Masri's remaining ear, Farrington slid the chair with Akhnaten's lifeless body in front of the two terrorists. He stepped behind the chair and reached into Petrovich's black nylon bag, removing a hacksaw. He nodded at Hubner, who explained what they planned to do next.

"Before we cremate your bodies, we're going to saw them into pieces to ensure there is no way for you to reach paradise and your seventy-two virgins."

This comment caused Hassan's eyes to narrow, which Petrovich noted with some satisfaction. This could be useful if they needed to continue the interrogation later.

"Mr. Hassan, you can stop his pain by giving us the address. I don't see why you're doing this to him on behalf of the people who betrayed you. Give us the information, and I'll carry through on my promise to let you avenge your brothers."

"I will never betray my brothers. Allahu Akbar! You will all die!"

"Wrong answer. Hit his ears," Hubner said.

Klinkman simultaneously slapped both hands against the sides of el-Masri's head. The man writhed in pain, and Klinkman repeated the process. After the first few hits, El-Masri started to growl more like Hassan. He screamed angry Arabic phrases, which Hubner ignored.

"You're not going to have much of a face left in a few minutes. I want the addresses!" Hubner bellowed.

El-Masri growled words back at him. Whatever he said caused Hassan to break eye contact with Petrovich and turn his head.

Batista leaned his face into the computer screen.

"Check this out. Translation of what El-Masri just screamed: 'Hassan will shit the addresses down your throat.' Do you think Hassan ate the address list?"

Luke spun in his chair and read the screen. The translation software was a top-shelf program, leaving little to question about the substance of El-Masri's comment. He typed a few search strings into his own computer, looking for context. A few seconds later, he contacted Hubner.

"Fritz, El-Masri just screamed…and I quote, 'Hassan will shit the addresses down your throat.' I think he may have eaten the list. I can't find any Arab insults specific to defecation. This may have been a literal comment," Luke said.

"Only one way to find out," Hubner said.

The channel went silent, but they could all hear the verbal exchanges through Akhnaten's hijacked cell phone.

"Did Hassan eat the list?" they heard Hubner ask.

The van remained silent for a few seconds. None of them could see the response from Hassan or El-Masri, but judging by Petrovich's sinister laugh, Luke was very glad that they had stopped the webcam feed. He just hoped they would show some mercy and kill Hassan before they started cutting him open.

Chapter 7

Karl Berg drummed his fingers on the top of his armrest, staring at Anatoly Reznikov. The scientist sat upright in a hospital bed, his wrists and ankles restrained by thick plastic straps bolted to the metal bed. Two IV drips hung over his right shoulder, clipped into the bed so they wouldn't roll with the movement of the Gulfstream V. A portable diagnostic machine and defibrillator had been attached to the cabin near the foot of his bed, monitoring his vitals. A Langley physician sat in the row nearest to Reznikov, keeping an eye on the man's pulse and occasionally checking his blood pressure. Reznikov was in poor shape to travel, but Berg wanted get him out of Sweden as soon as possible. Russian intelligence services were extremely well connected in the northern countries of Europe, and he couldn't take any risks that could connect the U.S. to his abduction.

Part of him wished the Swedish doctor hadn't managed to revive the scientist. Reznikov had enabled terrorists to pursue one of the most twisted conspiracies in recent human history, all for his own gain. According to his most recent conversation with Audra, U.S. authorities had made little progress in their efforts to recover the virus canisters. If released by Al Qaeda, or whoever planned to use them, dozens of U.S. cities would suffer the same fate as the Russian city, Monchegorsk. Another reason to jettison Reznikov over the Atlantic and be done with him. The thought of U.S. taxpayers footing the bill to keep this psychopath alive didn't sit well with him, but for some odd reason, he couldn't order the man's execution. Berg couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to Reznikov's story, and he intended to hear the rest of it before putting this mad Russian down.

"No drink service on an agency plane?" said the woman sitting diagonally across from him.

"Agency policy," he said and paused before continuing. "But I've been known to violate procedure from time to time."

He pulled his dark brown leather satchel down from the overhead compartment and unlatched the thick straps holding the cover flap securely in place. He reached in and raised a bottle of light brown liquid from the depths of the leather sanctuary.

"I hope you don't mind expensive whiskey."

"I'd drink moonshine at this point. It's been a long twenty-four hours floating around Stockholm like a refugee."

He studied Erin Foley's features for a moment. Her straight shoulder-length hair showed signs of waviness. He imagined she spent a significant part of her morning flattening and styling her uncooperative blond locks. She was attractive, in her early thirties, with soft facial features that wouldn't draw second look on the streets of Stockholm, or any Scandinavian city. Exactly what the CIA looked for in an active operative. No second glances. She'd been silent until now, which had suited Berg fine. The last thing he needed on this flight was a chatterbox. This one displayed a reserve he admired, especially given the bragging rights she had earned.

"Sorry about that, but we couldn't leave you in circulation. Not after you killed a Zaslon. The Russians will put this one together pretty quickly. He was the only one knifed on the street. It screams CIA," Berg said, removing two short crystal tumblers from a compartment along the aircraft's inner hull.

"I can't imagine the Russians could hold any leverage over us. It would put them in an awkward position," she replied, eyeing the glasses.

"Very awkward, but the Zaslon group is different. They won't let this one go so easily. Your image was recorded on at least two security cameras leaving Bondegatan Street. If you had stayed in Stockholm, they would have found you," he said.

Berg poured two fingers of the whiskey into each tumbler and set the bottle on the seat next to him. He handed her one of the glasses and raised his own for a toast.

"To a job exceptionally well done."

She raised her eyebrow at the toast, and the two glasses clinked together. She downed half of her tumbler in one swallow, showing no sign of the whiskey burning her throat on the way down. She stared at the drink, clearly contemplating doing the same with the rest of it.

"You do realize that you just fired down one of the finest whiskeys ever made. This particular single pot still was distilled at the B-Daly Distillery in Tullamore, which closed a long time ago. Not many bottles of this lying around anymore," he said, taking a measured sip.

She raised the glass again and threw back the rest of her $200 drink before staring out of the window into the darkness. "Sorry. I never really acquired the taste."

Berg could see that she had finally realized what this plane ride back to the states meant for her career.

"You're not the first field agent to suddenly change career tracks. It's not an easy pill to swallow, but most covert agents find themselves sent home for mundane reasons. Blown cover, a misspoken word to the wrong foreign national…not many are sent home for taking out a Zaslon operative. You could have walked away from that street. Your job was done."

"I didn't see it that way," she said, placing her glass back down on Berg's faux wooden seat tray.

He poured her another drink and leaned back in his seat.

"I guess we got lucky. The one black-ops trained agent assigned to the Stockholm embassy finds herself in the middle of the blackest op in recent history. Drinks are on me," he said and raised his glass again.

"I'll take one of those," boomed a Russian speaking voice.

"Looks like our friend is awake. Please excuse me for a moment," Berg said.

The doctor barely glanced at Reznikov's vitals as Berg made his way down the cramped aisle. The scientist pulled at his restraints a few times and smiled.

"Where could I possibly go? This is uncivil," he said.

"I wanted to make it easier to wheel you out of the door over the Atlantic," Berg replied, dusting off his fluent Russian.

"Such harsh treatment at the hands of my new friends. I assume we are friends?"

Berg shook his head, wondering if the doctor would protest if he slammed his fist down on Reznikov's stomach.

"How's my new friend looking?" he said to the doctor instead.

The gray-haired, tired-looking physician opened a small black notebook and looked up at him. "He appears stable. His heart's electrophysiology is back to normal, though I wouldn't recommend giving him a drink. I predict a successful delivery."

"Delivery? What am I, a slab of meat?" Reznikov said and pulled at his restraints again.

"That can be arranged if necessary. Enjoy the sunrise, if you get to see one during the trip. It'll be your last. I've arranged a dark cell for you. Well off the grid. You're about to disappear forever, after a lengthy visit from your new friends," Berg said.

"I told them everything," Reznikov said.

"They were working under a timeline back in Stockholm. They won't be in any rush this time."

"You already know everything. I sold the virus to Al Qaeda. The distribution center in Germany, the lists of addresses….everything. You stopped the plot, I assume. What the fuck else do you want from me?"

Reznikov's heart rate had nearly doubled in the past fifteen seconds, indicating that Berg had hit a nerve.

"We stopped the plot in Europe, but most of the virus canisters made it to the U.S. Your twisted ego and blatant insanity has put millions of American lives at risk. This doesn't put you in a good position. My superiors want to make sure you aren't hiding anything."

"I'm not insane," Reznikov said.

Berg could see that this was another raw nerve to be played. Reznikov didn't see himself as deranged. If he had any intention of discussing what Reznikov did to Monchegorsk, he was certain that the scientist would provide a "rational" explanation. The fact that he treated the sale of the virus to Al Qaeda so flippantly was a sure sign of his detachment from reality. He'd be sure to pass these observations to the interrogation team assigned to tear Reznikov apart mentally and physically.

"Tell it to your interrogators," Berg said.

He started to walk back to his seat to enjoy the rest of his drink, but Reznikov's next comment stopped him in his tracks.

"The program isn't dead."

He turned around slowly, pretending not to care. "What program?"

"The Russian bioweapons program. Weaponized encephalitis is just the tip of the iceberg."

"Are you saying that VEKTOR labs has a full-scale, active bioweapons program?"

"Why do you think they wanted me dead so badly? Why they're doing everything in their power to cover up Monchegorsk and blame the city's demise on an insurgent uprising. That's pure nonsense."

"What else are they working on?" Berg said, realizing that he sounded way too eager.

"I think we need to discuss my future living arrangements before I go into any more detail."

"A deal? You want some kind of a deal? We can torture the information out of you. It would be a lot less expensive and wouldn't leave me with a bad taste in my mouth," Berg said.

"You can't torture that level of detail out of me, and you'll want the details. I can deliver the entire program. The major players, the facility, history, current programs…everything. All I ask in return is a comfortable place to live out my remaining years and access to vodka. Good vodka, not the cheap shit. I've always wanted to live in the mountains."

Berg noticed that Reznikov's heart rate had almost returned to normal, which struck him as pure irony given the fact that he could feel his own heart through his throat. This confirmed what one of the Edgewood scientists had suspected, but only hinted about. There was no way that Reznikov had genetically modified basic encephalitis samples in a makeshift laboratory on Kazakhstan soil. The laboratory site discovered in the middle of the former Semipalatinsk nuclear testing grounds had been used to grow a virus Reznikov had stolen from VEKTOR. No wonder the Russians seemed willing to stop at nothing to kill Reznikov and keep samples of the virus out of western hands.

Berg suddenly felt exposed in the private jet. The Russians hadn't hesitated to shoot down the last private CIA charter to depart for the United States. He fought the urge to look out of the small oval window over Reznikov's head. They were as safe as possible over the United Kingdom, escorted by two Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets. The high-performance fighter aircraft would accompany them as far as possible over the Atlantic, before returning to their base. They would fly unescorted for several hundred miles until met by a pair of F-15 Strike Eagles launched from Langley Air Force base.

He looked down at Reznikov, who wore a smug look on his pale face, wondering if they could torture this out of him. He certainly deserved to endure some serious discomfort for engineering the tragedy in Monchegorsk and exposing the rest of the world to his madness. Unfortunately, Reznikov was right about the details. Just knowing the basics about the Russian bioweapons program wouldn't be enough. They needed actionable intelligence, the kind of information that would require a comfortable setting and legal assurances.

"I have an idea that might agree with you," he muttered.

"No prison cells," Reznikov stated.

"No. This is a very different kind of place. More of a house arrest type of situation with a view. Small population. Clean air. If I swing this, you have to give me everything."

"You might not want to hear everything. How about that drink? Vodka is more of my drink, but I'm not feeling picky right now," Reznikov said.

"Sorry. I need to deliver you alive. Doctor's orders. Plus, I have no intention of sitting here and putting a cup to your lips like you're a nursing home patient. If the right people buy off on what I have in mind, you'll be swimming in vodka."

"I expect the good stuff. Smirnoff doesn't count."

Berg returned to his seat without acknowledging Reznikov's comment. He moved next to the window so he couldn't see the man's disgusting face while he tried to process the next move. Foley continued to stare out into the darkness, giving him a moment to himself. He'd have to contact Audra immediately to see if the Agency would trade a "retirement package" at Mountain Glen for Reznikov's information. He couldn't imagine the director turning down the deal. Until moments ago, even the CIA had no idea that the Russian bioweapons program still existed. He let his mind wander for a moment, performing an "all possibilities" assessment of the situation. A faint smile began to form as he delved deeper into one of the ideas. He grabbed his glass of whiskey and downed the contents. He felt the burn in his throat, followed by the warm rush that spread upward to his head. Maybe Ms. Foley had the right idea.

"That's a dangerous-looking smile," Foley said.

"You have no idea. You speak fluent Russian, right?" he said.

She barely nodded.

"I need to make a private phone call," he said, suddenly getting up from his seat.

He walked toward the front of the jet and took a seat in a small alcove designed for privacy. He wished it was enclosed, and briefly considered taking a seat in the lavatory. The thought of sitting inside the cramped space for this phone call didn't last very long. He had enough privacy here, as long as he kept his voice low. He used the cordless phone to dial a number he had memorized and waited for the Gulfstream's MCS-7000 Satellite Communications System to connect the call. He purposely did not utilize the CIA's secure channel to route the call. He liked to maintain plausible deniability until the very last moment, and what he was about to suggest would require an incredible amount of deniability. Until the time was right, he didn't want any record of this call to exist. The line connected.

"Karl. I hadn't expected to hear from you this soon. Everything proceeded according to plan in Frankfurt. I just spoke with Farrington, and they were able to extract a working list of shipping addresses for the virus canisters," General Sanderson said.

"That quickly? Maybe I should recommend that we send a few of our interrogators down to Argentina for some training. I expected this to take a few days," he said in a hushed tone.

"They got lucky. Let's leave it at that. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call? I have a feeling this isn't a social call."

"I wish this could be a friendly chat between two veterans of the war on terror, but I've just been told some very disturbing news. Reznikov claims that the Russians never really stopped their bioweapons program at VEKTOR. He alluded to the fact that he had been a part of the program before he went rogue. We had it all wrong. We thought Reznikov had been banned from VEKTOR for trying to informally revive the bioweapons program. I think he stole fully weaponized viral encephalitis samples that he helped them create. He said this was just the tip of the iceberg at VEKTOR labs."

"Jesus. Is there any way he might be bluffing? I assume he's looking for a deal in exchange for information," Sanderson said.

"Of course. We can't let him walk, but I have something in mind that should be acceptable to him. He won't give me any more details until the deal is finalized. If what he says is true, I might need you to loan us a few more 'Russians.'"

"How many are you thinking?" Sanderson said.

"Enough to penetrate VEKTOR, permanently destroy their bioweapons program and kill everyone directly involved in the program."

"This is going to take time. I'll start assembling a team on my end. I have two deep-cover operatives within Russia that can start surveillance in Novosibirsk. They've been with me since the beginning. I can send five more trained 'Russians,' in addition to Farrington. I gather that Farrington's current team will do us little good on this job?"

"Unless they speak perfect Russian and can blend into the population. I don't think Novosibirsk is a melting pot of Europeans."

"Then I can send some of my greener operatives to augment the team," Sanderson said.

"It might not be necessary. Let's get a report from your operatives in place. Eight operatives might be enough. Plus I have an agent that I can loan you. She's proven herself to be quite resourceful and deadly. She might be an asset for taking down laboratory personnel outside of the facility," Berg said.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll get everyone moving in the right direction. The Russians have really served us a shit sandwich here. The investigation stateside is about to intensify. The addresses acquired by the Frankfurt team will likely correspond with the assassinated Al Qaeda cells, and maybe give us a few that nobody has uncovered. We're working behind the scenes to augment the FBI's intelligence gathering efforts."

"Are they aware of your behind-the-scenes help?"

"Not exactly. Some of our methods are not on the approved FBI tactics list," Sanderson said.

"I don't envy your tightrope position over the FBI. One wrong step and you could find yourself back on the shit list," Berg said.

"Who's kidding who? My name is still on that shit list. They just won't admit it to my face. I just hope our covert assistance will be enough to help them stop this nightmare plot before it becomes a reality like Monchegorsk."

"Well, you're not on the CIA's shit list, I can guarantee that. Without your help, I'd still be trying to push a crazy theory up the chain-of-command, while our government remained blissfully unaware of the looming terrorist threat. Be careful with the feds, you can't afford a misstep with them. None of us can afford that misstep."

"Thanks for the warning, and the kind words. I'll watch my back with the FBI. Apparently, I've made the FBI director's personal enemy list again."

"Not a good list to be on. That man has a long memory," Berg said.

"Tell me about it. I'll keep you posted on our progress. Will you be able to leverage any more help from your contact in Moscow?" Sanderson said.

Berg didn't like hearing Sanderson casually reference his contact. It was no secret that someone on the inside had given them Reznikov's location, but he didn't like to hear any speculation or assumptions regarding Kaparov's identity.

"I'll reach out and see what they can do for us."

"Understood. One of these days, I hope we can sit down and sip a good scotch. We both lost good people in this fight," Sanderson said.

"I look forward to it. Watch your back, General," he said and disconnected the call.

He returned to his seat and met Erin Foley's suspicious gaze.

"How would you feel about taking a trip to Russia?" Berg said.

"I was afraid you'd ask me that. Do I have a choice in the matter?"

"There's always a choice, but I really need your help."

"What happened to the Zaslon group that would stop at nothing to find and kill me?" Foley said.

"We'll have to drastically change your look and give you a false identity. I think the work I have in mind will suit you," Berg said.

"Dare I ask?"

"You have no idea exactly how critical your actions were yesterday. Killing that Zaslon operative enabled a chain of events that could prevent one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in history. If you agree to help me with this, I'll give you the whole story. We still have a long flight ahead of us," Berg said.

"I'm in."

Chapter 8

Special Agent-in-Charge Ryan Sharpe stood ready to address Task Force Scorpion on the ground level of the National Counterterrorism Center's watch floor. NCTC's director, Joel Garrity, had made significant changes to the floor's configuration for the purpose of accommodating Sharpe's task force. Garrity integrated his own personnel into the task force to ensure a smooth transition for the multi-agency team working under Sharpe's direction, but still retained enough space and manpower to carry out the terrorist intelligence and analysis functions assigned to him by the director of National Intelligence. Given the scope of the potential terrorist threat posed by the Zulu virus, most of the center's energy and resources would be committed to Task Force Scorpion.

Sharpe looked up at the second-floor scaffolding that ringed the entire watch floor. The second floor mostly contained offices that would be occupied by the various liaisons assigned to the task force, giving each separate agency a reasonable modicum of privacy. Despite the overall spirit of cooperation and transparency fostered by the open NCTC layout, each liaison would be given the privacy to communicate freely with their parent organization. In addition to a massive FBI contingent, his task force was comprised of representatives from the Department of Defense, CIA, Homeland Security, White House, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, National Security Agency and the Department of Justice. Garrity had run out of offices to house each separate entity and had modified a few of the smaller conference rooms to suit their purposes.

Keeping this task force focused would prove difficult at best, but Director Shelby had made it clear to him that the president wanted "all hands communicating" for this one. "No secrets." Sharpe had been kept in the dark about the attempted raid on Sanderson's compound; however, he now understood how close the raid had come to possibly derailing the CIA's efforts to track down the Zulu virus in Europe. As much as he despised Sanderson and didn't trust the CIA, their work had uncovered and stopped the first phase of Al Qaeda's twisted plan. But had it been Al Qaeda's plan from the beginning? Information passed to him minutes ago by Phillip Duncan, the task force's CIA liaison, suggested otherwise.

"Do we have everyone? Mobile HQ?" he said to Special Agent Mendoza.

Mendoza nodded and pointed to an immense projection screen to their right, as they faced the group assembled in the middle of the watch floor.

"Mobile HQ is up. Everyone is present."

The screen showed a grainy, live image of the Task Force Scorpion's mobile HQ leadership team. The screen was one of several mounted to the second-floor decking. The largest screen, twice the size of the others, loomed directly above and behind their heads. It contained a map of the east coast, featuring the New York tri-state area to the far right. All of the known Al Qaeda cell locations within the tri-state area were mapped in red, along with several yellow markers indicating locations of interest. He'd explain these to the group. A lone red marker suddenly appeared on the far left edge of the screen, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Sharpe was about to begin, but instead focused on an admiral standing to the far right of the group. Next to him stood an intense-looking blond woman wearing a dark gray suit.

"Who's the pair on the far right? The admiral and…"

"They just arrived. The woman is Sanderson's liaison to your task force. Callie Stewart. The Navy SEAL is Rear Admiral Mark DeSantos, director of the DIA's Strategic Services Branch. He's accepted full accountability for the integration of Sanderson's people into the task force," Mendoza said.

Sharpe kept his gaze focused on Admiral DeSantos, receiving a quick nod from the SEAL, which he returned.

"Damn it, I'm not comfortable with Sanderson's people on the task force. Especially someone right in the nerve center," Sharpe muttered.

"How do you think O'Reilly feels? She nearly lost an arm thanks to these assholes," Mendoza replied.

"Keep O'Reilly and Ms. Stewart as far apart as humanly possible. You know how O'Reilly can get."

"Better than anyone. I'm not too worried. None of the operatives provided by Sanderson had any involvement with the events two years ago. Agent Demir was seriously impressed with the team assigned to Mobile HQ. Moriarty liked what she saw too."

"I'm less concerned about the field operatives. Let's keep a tight watch on Ms. Stewart. I find it odd that Sanderson would insist on placing a liaison with us. Call me paranoid," Sharpe said.

"I feel the same way. I'll make sure they understand the ground rules when your briefing is finished."

"I want to talk to her myself," he said, turning his stare toward Mendoza.

Mendoza nodded as Sharpe addressed the group. As soon as it was apparent that he would speak, the entire watch floor quieted.

"We have a few new developments. Intelligence provided a few minutes ago by the CIA has identified and confirmed all of the addresses that received canisters of the Zulu virus. Eleven in total. Ten of the addresses are located in the tri-state area. We already knew about seven of these locations. The eleventh address is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. FedEx. Agent Moriarty, I want FBI rapid-response teams at the three remaining tri-state area locations immediately. The data just went live on your feed. I'll coordinate a response for the Harrisburg location."

Kathryn Moriarty, special agent-in-charge of Task Force Scorpion's Mobile HQ, acknowledged Sharpe's order with the word "understood." She didn't waste words or time like so many other agents of her tenure, which was one of the primary reasons that Sharpe had chosen her as Field Lead for the task force. Like Agent Mendoza, she was also one of the most capable and decisive agents he had ever met. He had considered sending Mendoza out into the field to lead the team, but felt his skills would be better served helping him run the show at NCTC. He had worked extensively with Mendoza on Task Force Hydra and had grown comfortable with the agent's unflappable sense of guarded optimism. Mendoza had talked him off the ledge more than once. If the Zulu virus conspiracy was about to take the turn he suspected, he'd need Mendoza more than ever before.

"At this point, we haven't recovered a single canister of the virus. We know that four canisters were shipped to each location around New York and that the rest were likely sent to Pennsylvania. Let's get with our FedEx contacts and confirm this," Sharpe said.

"Already on it, sir," Special Agent O'Reilly replied.

"It appears that forty canisters went to Al Qaeda cells clustered in the tri-state area. Seven of these cells were already under FBI surveillance. A coordinated strike by an unknown force took down six of them. No canisters were recovered. One cell is missing and presumably retained their canister. We'll see what we find at the other three locations. Surveillance records have provided us with a possible avenue to investigate. One of the killers removed his ski mask at the wrong time, and we captured an image of his face. This person has just been identified as Julius Grimes, a member of the fringe political group True America. A connection between True America and the virus is speculative at this point, but I want to dig deeper into this organization. True America is one of several groups that my team has tracked for the past year, and I don't believe this is a coincidence. They've been stockpiling high-end weaponry and recruiting ex-military types. Apparently, Grimes is a Best Buy manager by day and an assassination team leader by night."

"What is his status at the moment?" asked Jason Volk, NCTC watch floor supervisor.

"Missing. He didn't report for work this morning. I have a feeling we won't catch any easy breaks on this one, ladies and gentlemen."

"Will we be putting other possible True America militants under surveillance? How extensive is the list that you've developed?" asked Salvador Guerrero, Homeland Security's primary liaison to the NCTC.

"Yes. That'll be one of our primary tasks. We'll start to break down these assignments immediately. My list of possible militants is a short one. As a legitimate political movement, True America has rapidly expanded over the past three years, with political action offices in every major city and thousands of volunteers. The early extremist views and calls for a government overthrow were quickly moderated as its popularity grew. Lee Harding, one of the group's founders, used to give speeches every week, espousing a violent overthrow of the government. Same with Jackson. As it stands, we rarely ever see True America's original leadership council. They've been replaced by a growing number of governors, legislators and public sector types that have pledged to support the movement to retake America in 2008."

"This is a vast, well-connected organization. We'll need to move cautiously in the direction of True America," added Dan Moreno, counsel for the Department of Justice.

"Mr. Moreno is right. True America is a multi-faceted organization, with over twenty million supporters and thousands of grassroots volunteers. We'll need more than Grimes' involvement to take this outside of the task force. Currently, there is no detectable nexus between the militant arm and the mainstream political movement. We tried to tie the two together, but the sidelining of Greely and Harding severely hampered our efforts. We don't know if their vanishing act was purposely orchestrated to draw attention away from the extremist elements of the organization or if it was a forced 'retirement' imposed by mainstream leadership. Either way, it doesn't matter. The militant arm has been stockpiling sophisticated weaponry through several known arms dealers. They're up to something. Grimes' appearance at an Al Qaeda safe house wasn't a coincidence. More like an extremely bad omen. We'll start with the list my team has cultivated and see where it takes us. Special Agent O'Reilly will take the lead on this and provide tasking," he said, nodding to O'Reilly.

"The majority of this task force will continue to investigate leads related to the confirmed Al Qaeda network in the New York tri-state area. At least three of the cells are connected to Imam Hamid Abdul Mohammed, the radical founder of Masjid Muhammad, his own mosque right in the heart of these neighborhoods. Hamid Mohammed is without a doubt connected to Muslim extremists and has been under surveillance for years. He's been preaching to young Muslims since he arrived in the U.S. from Saudi Arabia six years ago, and he is suspected of recruiting at least one of the men involved in plotting to blow up a police station in Philadelphia. The White House has been looking for a reason to send him to Guantanamo Bay ever since he landed on U.S. soil."

"This should be more than enough to bring him in for questioning," said Guerrero from Homeland, glancing over at the representative from the Department of Justice.

"We'd love to bring him in, but he never returned to his apartment after leaving his mosque on the night of the killings. According to the Newark field office, he vanished without a trace," Sharpe said.

"Has the FBI searched the mosque?" Callie Stewart yelled from the back of the room.

Agent Sharpe glanced sharply in her direction and responded. "On what grounds? I would need a warrant to authorize a search of the mosque, and as it stands, I don't think there's a judge out there that would issue one based on my strong suspicion that Muhammad is connected to some of the men killed yesterday. The men attended his mosque, but beyond that, we have no evidence that the men are directly connected to the Imam. Quite frankly, we had no evidence that the men under surveillance in the houses were connected to Al Qaeda."

"Then how could the FBI authorize the surveillance?" she persisted.

"The Patriot Act provides us with an expanded range of options for intelligence gathering, with fewer restrictions. However, it does not give us the right to search Hamid Muhammed's mosque. Unless Justice can find me a judge that will approve a warrant to enter one of the most controversial mosques in the country," Sharpe said.

Before Dan Moreno from the Department of Justice could answer Sharpe's rhetorical question, Stewart continued. "What if you suspected that some of the canisters might be hidden in the mosque? Are any of the missing cells connected to Hamid Muhammed?"

"None of them directly. The three cells with solid ties were eliminated last night. Special Agent Moriarty and her crew will turn Newark inside out to find Mr. Muhammed. If he's alive, we'll find him shortly," he said, not exactly sure why he was answering to one of Sanderson's lackeys.

"Unless he's hiding in his own mosque. I'd keep a close watch for anyone bringing takeout orders to 38 Jay Street," she said and whispered something to Admiral DeSantos.

"Since a warrant to raid any of the area mosques is off the table, we need to focus on finding Hamid Muhammed and the missing cell. Like Mr. Muhammed, the cell under surveillance on Sherman Avenue never returned to their apartment after sunset prayer at the Islamic Cultural Center. We have three additional addresses to investigate, which will add more names to the list."

"I have SWAT assets headed to each site. They should all be secured in under ten minutes," Agent Moriarty said through the teleconference feed displayed on the large screen to his right.

"We'll hit a good lead if we keep adding more data to the crunch pile. Any last questions? Good," he said, without really waiting for anyone to respond.

"I want to give Agent Moriarty something solid to pursue by tomorrow morning. It's going to be a long night."

Sharpe watched the crowd of agents, analysts and technicians head to their assigned stations on the floor. He was amazed how nearly seventy people could be swallowed whole by the vast watch floor. Once the group assembled in front of him had dispersed, the room fell silent again, giving him the false sense that nothing would be accomplished here. He missed the crowded, poorly ventilated operations rooms at the J. Edgar Hoover building, where he couldn't yell across the room and expect to be heard above the din of activity and voices.

Everything was different here. Everyone wore Bluetooth earpieces, which connected each person to both their desk node and NCTC issued touch-screen phone. Using the NCTC application on the touch-screen phone, they could access the approved external and internal directories from anywhere inside NCTC, allowing them to quickly communicate with any other station in the building or place a secured call outside of NCTC. The level of activity in the room would soon rival the New York Stock Exchange trading floor, yet he still felt like he might be interrupting someone's concentration if he used a normal voice to talk to Agent Mendoza, who stood right next to him waiting for his marching orders.

"Frank. Get O'Reilly moving in the right direction with True America and stand by to hit the ground running with any new leads from the three new Al Qaeda locations. We need to turn something over quickly," he said, glancing in Callie Stewart's direction.

"You could have just texted me that message with your new gadget," Mendoza said.

"You know damned well I don't know how to send a text message. And I have no intention of looking like one of those idiots talking to himself," Sharpe said.

Sharpe's earpiece emitted a soft electronic tone, which only he could hear. His touch phone vibrated at the same time.

"Looks like you have a call," Mendoza said.

Sharpe pulled the phone out of his NCTC issued holster and read the screen. "Special Agent O'Reilly." A green button on the screen said "Press to Accept."

"I just press the button on the screen?" Sharpe said.

"Jesus. Haven't you seen an iPhone before? How old is your daughter?"

"Fourteen. She has my wife's old phone," Sharpe said.

"Getting a little old for hand-me-down phones," Mendoza said. "Better get that call," he added.

Sharpe pressed the button on the screen. "How can I help you, Dana?"

"No. I don't need anything. Just wanted to say hi," she said, waving from her station fifteen feet away.

"Are you kidding me?" he yelled across to her, attracting everyone's attention.

"You don't need to speak that loudly. The earpiece is really sensitive," she said.

"I can hear you talking at your station," he said, directing the comment at her crescent-shaped work area.

"Frank, square her away. I need to speak with our new friends before they disappear," he said, brushing past Mendoza.

Stewart and Admiral DeSantos had started walking with an army colonel to the closest staircase, most likely with the intent of disappearing into the Defense Intelligence Agency's office to discuss their apparent non-role in the task force. As far as he was concerned, Department of Defense (DoD) assets would be used as a last resort. He hadn't been comfortable giving them full access to the NCTC watch floor and their data stream, but the order to fully integrate DoD assets had trickled down from the very top.

Still, he needed to establish a few ground rules with Stewart and her minders. Director Shelby had given him a positive appraisal of the admiral, but was suspicious of the DIA's involvement. Shelby was suspicious of everyone, which was probably why he had survived the administrative and political game at the bureau long enough to be named director. He had good reason to be wary of DeSantos.

The SEAL admiral ran the Defense Intelligence Agency's Strategic Services Branch (SSB), which was essentially a legalized, "on the books" version of Sanderson's original Black Flag program. The SSB rose from the ashes of Sanderson's disgraced Black Flag program, allowing the Department of Defense to retain their own field intelligence gathering capability. Strict legislative oversight ensured that the SSB would never morph back into the black hole of misappropriated funding and undocumented intelligence activity that defined the Black Flag program. Old habits died hard, and Shelby didn't want Sanderson's people infecting Task Force Scorpion. The director already suspected that Sanderson had some key allies inside the Beltway. Allies that appeared enthusiastic about his return.

"Admiral DeSantos, Ms. Stewart, may I have a quick word with you in my office?" he said, before they started to ascend the stairs.

"Absolutely. I wasn't sure how you wanted to handle introductions, so we thought we'd sneak off and seek you out a little later when everything had settled down," DeSantos said.

"I appreciate your understanding of the situation, Admiral, but we need to go over a few things before the investigation starts to build momentum. My office is right here," Sharpe said.

He walked past the staircase to a wall of glass under the second-floor catwalk. The glass spanned the entire back wall of the room, only interrupted by four evenly spaced handles protruding gently from the shiny surface. Upon first glance, the handles looked misplaced, but as Sharpe approached the wall, the vague outlines of doors became apparent.

The first level of the NCTC watch floor contained only four offices, two of which were permanently occupied by NCTC staff. The watch floor director, Karen Wilhelm, occupied one of these offices. She was directly supported by six watch floor supervisors, who maintained stations on the floor and alternated shifts to keep the floor running twenty-four hours a day. In reality, she was the only senior level NCTC employee that required an office here, however, Joel Garrity, NCTC director, also maintained a rarely used office.

Even today Garrity wouldn't spend much of his time on the floor. For the most part, his center would continue with business as usual. Hundreds of offices and cubicles forming the rest of NCTC would have no direct involvement in Task Force Scorpion's desperate mission. Garrity's watch floor had been essentially commandeered to house the multi-agency task force, which was neither unusual nor unwelcome for Garrity. Upon their arrival, he'd admitted to Sharpe that they needed to host more operations like this to justify the continued existence of their high-tech center. For most of the year, he said the watch floor served as one of the most expensive offices in the country, with most of the analysts and techs working on tasks that could just as easily be accomplished in the cubicle blocks of the main building.

The third office was reserved for the president or members of the National Security Council. This room remained locked and empty most of the year, since visits to the watch floor by anyone from this senior group seemed limited to the occasional speaking event that needed a high-tech background to impress upon the world that the United States took terrorism seriously.

That left one office for the task force leader, which could be reconfigured in any way to accommodate the person who would briefly occupy the space. He had asked that the office be configured for two people — himself and Mendoza, though he suspected that Mendoza would spend most of his time on the floor managing the task force. He felt that it was important for Mendoza to share the office. Though Sharpe was technically the task force leader, they had been called in together to form the task force, and Sharpe wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if Shelby had given command of Scorpion to Mendoza. Mendoza had recently been promoted to a position within the Terrorist Operations Division that clearly outranked Sharpe's sidelined assignment to the Domestic Terrorism Branch, but the FBI still informally followed a set of antiquated rules that often rewarded seniority and favors over performance. He wanted to send a clear message to the task force that Mendoza was just as much in command of Task Force Scorpion as himself.

He swiped his NCTC key card over a faint blue light that materialized in the glass by the handle as he neared. The light turned green, and he pulled the door open for his visitors, who filed inside the office and stood to the right of the door as he entered. Sharpe moved past them and pressed a button on his desk, which brightened the lighting in the room, while simultaneously clouding the windows. Stewart noticed the change, glancing furtively at the windows while raising an approving eyebrow.

"I bet you don't have anything like that back in Argentina," Sharpe said, wondering how she would respond.

"It turned out to be a little more rustic than I had anticipated. This is more my style," she replied, smiling.

He eyed Stewart for a brief second, before the admiral could introduce them. Callie Stewart returned his gaze with deep brown eyes that blazed with warmth and intelligence. He had expected the same cold, emotionless stare perfected by the rest of Sanderson's rogues’ gallery. The interrogation videos and surveillance shots collected two years ago still haunted him. Munoz never changed his expression once during his short stint in captivity. Images of Farrington and Petrovich proved even more disturbing, betraying no emotional response to murders committed minutes before.

Despite her slightly disarming smile, he suspected she was just as lethal and unreadable as the rest of Sanderson's crew. He could tell by the cut of her suit and the way she carried herself that she had an athletic, well-toned physique. Her blond hair was cropped just above the light blue, starched collar protruding from her gray blazer. Instead of suit pants, she wore a conservative length matching skirt. She was by far the most sharply dressed, attractive woman on the watch floor. He surmised it to be a carefully crafted look. She was already turning heads on the watch floor. He'd have to keep a close watch on her to figure out exactly why Sanderson had sent her. He still didn't buy off on Sanderson's sudden goodwill mission.

"Agent Sharpe, this is Callie Stewart. Former Marine Corps counterintelligence officer. She'll serve as our direct liaison to assets provided by General Terrence Sanderson. I've already gone over the ground rules," DeSantos said.

"Welcome aboard, Ms. Stewart," he said, extending his hand. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go over them again. Please take a seat."

Stewart spoke as she moved one of the chairs closer to Sharpe's desk. "I completely understand, Agent Sharpe. My role is limited to interaction between your task force and the operatives assigned to work with Special Agent Kerem Demir."

"Perfect. Everyone is extremely impressed with your team…"

"Thank you, sir. They're capable of undercov—"

"And everyone is extremely wary of exactly how this will work."

Stewart's expression changed slightly. He couldn't tell much from the shift, but she certainly didn't appreciate being interrupted with a vague accusation.

"Understandable. This is untested ground for both of our organizations, and given the history between Sanderson and Task Force Hydra, I can't imagine this sits well with anyone here. We're onboard to augment your street-level investigative and intelligence gathering capabilities. The team we have provided to the mobile task force is impressive on many levels. Please don't let your reservations sideline them. Get them out on the streets. Get them into that mosque and—"

"I can't put your people into that mosque. I can't put anyone in that mosque right now, especially operatives that I am not yet comfortable with. Your people are part of an official law enforcement operation targeting Islamic extremists in the area. We'll work on getting a warrant that could enable this, but I wouldn't raise your hopes too high. Welcome to my world, Ms. Stewart. As much as I'd like to march into Hamid Muhammed's mosque and tear the place apart looking for him, we have laws to obey and procedures to follow. I get the distinct feeling that General Sanderson doesn't place very much emphasis on these concepts."

She regarded him carefully and he could sense that she would restrain her response.

"It's a different world for us, yes," she conceded, "but we'll play by your rules."

"As long as your people understand that, this joint venture should be a success. I have a few more ground rules for you. No weapons of any kind."

"For me or the field team?" she immediately responded.

"For either."

"That's unacceptable for the field team. If they're put into harm's way, they need to be able to defend themselves."

"This is non-negotiable. I have agents on this task force that have been shot by Sanderson's people. If we use your operatives, their involvement will be strictly limited to undercover work alongside real law enforcement agents. My agents will ensure their safety, and if they can't…then your people will not be utilized."

"I'll have to speak with Sayar about this. He's the team leader, so this will be his call," Stewart said.

Dressed to blend in with the local Arab immigrant population, Abraham Sayar and three operatives from Sanderson's Middle East team sat ignored in a corner office at the Newark Field Office, having tried unsuccessfully to interject themselves into Task Force Scorpion's Mobile Investigative Team. So far, Special Agent Kerem Demir had been highly impressed with their potential for undercover work, expressing an early interest in deploying them near Hamid Abdul Muhammad's mosque to start working the locals, but his enthusiasm had apparently been quelled by someone higher up in the food chain. Sayar suspected that the task force's commander, Special Agent-in-Charge Moriarty, didn't share in Demir's excitement. She had read him the same ground rules upon their arrival at the field office from Newark Liberty International Airport.

"As long as he understands that it's not his call to procure weapons for this operation. If they are found with any weapons, they will be arrested," Sharpe said.

"Even if they have legal permits to carry the weapons?" Stewart said.

"I'm well aware of your organization's seemingly epic ability to procure documents, but that isn't the point. If I say they don't carry weapons, then they don't carry weapons. Period. If I banned a special agent from carrying a weapon on an operation, then the same rules would apply," Sharpe said.

"I know your back is up against the wall on this. I saw the looks cast in my direction and yours when I walked onto the watch floor. Everyone will be keeping a close eye on how you handle the rogues. I get it. Will you at least promise to personally review the roles our operatives may be assigned, and see if carrying a weapon can be allowed? Just keep the option open. My people can be very discreet."

"I'll consider this request. Either myself or Special Agent Mendoza will review the circumstances surrounding their field deployments and make the call. You've been awfully quiet, Admiral. What do you think?"

"I think Ms. Stewart's suggestion makes sense. No weapons as a general rule. Each field situation could be proactively reviewed and the policy reassessed. I do think they should at least be allowed to carry discreet knives at all times in the field. A knife can be a great equalizer for an undercover operative if a situation takes an unexpected turn."

"I've seen firsthand what Sanderson's people can do with knives. No weapons unless approved by Agent Mendoza or me," Sharpe said.

"Understood," Stewart said.

"The second ground rule regards communications. All contact with the outside is subject to strict monitoring. No exceptions. I assume they confiscated your cell phone upon check-in and transferred all of your contacts to the new phone?"

"Yes. That was very nice of them," she said.

"If you want to talk to Sanderson or your field team, you'll have to route through a special channel that has been created just for you. One of my agents will monitor all of your calls. You'll pass no operational information to Sanderson. He's not part of the task force. Special Agent Demir will pass information to your field team, so there really isn't a need for you to do that either," he said.

"That's fine. I may check in once or twice with Sanderson, but I'll probably do this via email, which should make it even easier for your techs to monitor. As for the field team, Sayar is in charge of executing whatever tasks they are given. If he's not getting the information he needs, he'll let me know, and I'll bring it up with you or Agent Mendoza," she said.

"Why exactly are you here?" Sharpe said.

"Because someone at a much higher pay grade than either of us thinks that Sanderson's assets could prove decisive to the task force's success. I'm here to make sure they're employed at these decisive moments."

"Which brings me to ground rule number three. I don't want you walking the floor and sticking your nose into everyone's business. These people still see you as an agent of the enemy, presidential pardon aside. Barely two years ago, Sanderson crippled the most promising counterterrorist investigation in FBI history, severely injuring dozens of FBI agents and police officers in the process. On top of that, his agents ruthlessly killed an off-duty police officer, several civilian military contractors and a loyal DIA employee in the process of accomplishing Sanderson's mission, which turned out to be little more than a cover up of information," he said, turning to DeSantos.

"The less time you spend out there, the better. You can access all posted workflow from the Department of Defense's office on the second level. I expect you to stay close to that office. If we need your expertise in a planning session, I'll teleconference you into the meeting. I need to keep the task force focused on the investigation, and your presence here is already enough of a distraction. Stay out of sight."

"I hope to find bathrooms on the second floor, where I will be sequestered. I don't want to have to use the office waste can out of desperation. I've used worse in the field, but this is such a nice place," she said.

Admiral DeSantos stifled a laugh, but couldn't suppress a sly smile.

"Figures. All of the women assigned to my task force are professional comedians."

"I thought they beat that out of probationary agents in Quantico," Stewart said.

"And I thought the same about the Marine Corps," he said.

"Some personality traits can't be removed, no matter how hard they try. I won't get in your way here. If it makes a difference to your team, you can let them know that I joined Sanderson's crew four months ago as a consultant. I've spent about three weeks at his compound, where his planning staff brought me up to speed on their capabilities, and I briefly joined teams in the field to make a firsthand assessment. I was contacted yesterday regarding this assignment."

"Where do you currently work? I didn't see that in your background," Sharpe asked.

"A small think tank right here in D.C. That's all I can say," she said.

"Great. More secrets. Are we clear on the ground rules?"

"Crystal clear, Agent Sharpe."

"Perfect. Admiral DeSantos, will you be staying with us for the duration?"

"Negative. Colonel Hanson, the Special Operations liaison, will remain on-site to represent the Department of Defense. I'll get her settled in upstairs before I leave. I'll be back and forth as my schedule permits," he said.

"Very well. I'll get to work on a snack station with coffee for you on the second floor. Toilets are up there, to the right of the staircase you were about to use," Sharpe said.

Stewart nodded and smiled, before following DeSantos out of the office. Sharpe was surprised that she agreed to his stipulations so easily. He had expected more resistance to this demand. In truth, the entire conversation had played out more smoothly than he had envisioned. He had secretly hoped that she would refuse to abide by his rules, giving him solid ground to remove her from NCTC. Instead, she had been agreeable, almost pleasant even.

He had been surprised to learn that she wasn't a permanent part of Sanderson's entourage and still wasn't sure what to make of this disclosure. Her current employer was a mystery that a basic background check hadn't resolved, though her security clearance had sailed through without issue. She had provided his administrative personnel with a phone number that had apparently satisfied all of their requirements, without disclosing any information. He'd asked O'Reilly to dig further, but she came back with the same results. She'd never seen anything like this before, but agreed that it was completely legitimate. Callie Stewart, former marine counterintelligence officer, worked for a highly secretive, extremely well-connected private group within the Beltway. He didn't like it.

He activated his computer screen and selected O'Reilly's name from the communications directory. His earpiece came to life with the sound of a ring tone.

"Panera Bread. Will this be for pickup?" he heard.

"I'm sorry. What the…I think…"

"Just messing with you, boss. What's up?" she said.

"Do you see the two walking up the stairs by my office?"

"The snake charmer and his cobra?"

"Don't worry. Admiral DeSantos will make sure she stays in her basket," he said.

"Good. Because if I run into her in the bathroom down here, I might not be able to restrain myself."

"She'll be using the second-floor bathroom."

"You better keep the ladies’ room down here clear for me. You don't want me wandering upstairs."

"She's under orders to steer clear of the task force personnel, and you're now under orders to stay away from her. Are we clear on that?" he said.

"Yes. Is that why you called, sir?"

"No. I need you to personally track her communications. I don't trust her any more than you do. You can tap into her communications node. I don't expect you to monitor her calls and emails live, but I want you to review them as soon as possible. She's not to pass operational information to Sanderson. If she violates that rule, she's out of here. I also want to know what she's telling the field team."

"Easy enough. I'll brief you as soon as I review any outgoing communications."

"Thank you, Dana. I'll be out on the floor in a few minutes," he said.

"Sir, I think the whole purpose of this communication system is to keep you in your office."

"Am I really that bad?"

"Better than Mendoza," she admitted.

"I presume he's standing right next to you?"

"Of course. I just texted him the context of our conversation. He looks confused. This is too much fun for me. Technology is like old guys' kryptonite. You should see him fumbling with his phone, while trying to interpret my veiled insults. How long are we going to be trapped in this room?"

"Too long. Now get back to work."

Callie Stewart walked along the second floor catwalk with Admiral DeSantos. Neither of them said a word until they had entered the Department of Defense's assigned office and closed the door. The office had been configured with two sparse inward facing workstations that occupied the rear half of the space. One of the workstations had been labeled with a placard reading "DIA," which she would share with DeSantos, and the other read "SOCOM." A small couch had been pushed up against the floor-to-ceiling window at the front, crowded against a small wire and glass end table. She stepped several feet into the crowded office and turned to the window, hoping the glass had been equipped with the same privacy feature as Sharpe's office.

"How was my performance?"

"Convincing. I think he expected more of a fight, but that would have given him a reason to boot you off the task force. I think you skirted the line appropriately with a few well-placed, sarcastic comments. I guarantee they'll be watching your calls closely."

"Our people have full access to their system, so they won't be able to spy on me unless I want them to," she said.

"Already?" he said, staring at her with a look of disbelief.

"I'm pretty sure Sanderson's people had full access even before we went into Sharpe's office."

"I probably don't want to know how you pulled that off."

One of her first acts of subterfuge upon arriving was a little sleight-of-hand trick. She knew about NCTC procedure better than most of the members of the task force, having spent plenty of time here in the course of her duties at Aegis Corporation. Of course, nobody assigned to Task Force Scorpion was aware of this, and any of the duty personnel assigned to NCTC would be strictly forbidden to mention it. She knew that the NCTC check-in technicians would kindly transfer all of her cell phone contacts to the "loaner" phone provided by NCTC. She also knew that this would be one of the last parts of the check-in process, which would provide her with the opportunity to pull her trick.

The cell phone she brought with her had been equipped with a sophisticated bar code scanner, which she used to scan her security pass card. Prior to surrendering the phone, she insisted on placing one call to her office, to give them her "loaner" cell phone number. She told NCTC personnel that her office colleagues might not answer a strange number and the task force couldn't afford to waste time squaring away the situation in the middle of this crisis. Everyone at NCTC knew what was at stake on the watch floor, so her request drew no attention from the technicians. Her call transmitted the security pass card's data to a Black Flag cyber-operations team that had set up shop within a small office in nearby Merrifield, Virginia. The team wasn't sure if this would be enough for them to hack into NCTC's system, so they had given her other options.

One of the "contacts" transferred from her phone to the NCTC "loaner" contained a designer virus engineered to access NCTC's computer network. The virus would install a backdoor into the system for the waiting cyber-ops team, while covering its own tracks with the latest generation rootkit software. Once the team had access to the system, they would download a more sophisticated and robust kernel-mode rootkit to conceal their direct access to the operating system. Since kernel-mode rootkits operated at the same security level as the operating system itself, they were difficult to detect and nearly impossible to remove without rebooting the entire system.

Activation of the virus had been simple. Before walking onto the watch floor with Admiral DeSantos, she placed a quick "check in" call to General Sanderson on her new phone, which was digitally routed through NCTC's computer system. Once her "loaner" phone started negotiating NCTC network protocols, the virus took off for its destination, and her job was done. She chatted with Sanderson for less than thirty seconds, which was twenty-nine seconds longer than necessary.

She had checked the contact list on her NCTC phone upon leaving Sharpe's office, noticing that the contact containing the virus had disappeared. The cyber team had told her that they would erase the contact once they had full access. At this point, she could place and receive calls on her phone, which would remain invisible to Sharpe's surveillance efforts. She could also access Sharpe's desktop, eavesdrop on his calls and "attend" all of his videoconferences. She wouldn't have to do any of this, of course, since Sanderson had over a dozen operatives tracking Task Force Scorpion from his own operations center at the headquarters lodge in Argentina.

At this point, her job was to maintain a semblance of legitimacy for Sanderson's organization. She'd push the envelope a few times, as would be expected by Sharpe's team, but overall she'd demonstrate respect for his ground rules. Ground rules that had been rendered meaningless by Sanderson's cyber-warfare operations, but would appear to remain intact.

"Sorry. Trade secret. And you never know when I might have to pay the DIA a little visit for Sanderson."

"I'll make sure we confiscate your cell phone before issuing a security badge."

"You saw that? Impressive."

"I'll be back later tonight with some dinner. The food here sucks, and I'd hate to think of you eating alone. I'm not even sure Colonel Hanson will want to be seen with you. Looks like he's made himself at home in one of the conference rooms."

"And you don't mind being seen with me?"

"Well, it's too late to save my reputation. I was seen escorting you into the building," he said.

"Poor you."

"Someone has to take the dirty jobs," he said.

"They really hate Sanderson that badly?" she said.

"With a passion. All they remember is what he did two years ago. Fucking over the FBI was bad enough, but that's not what everyone remembers. He made a huge mistake killing Derren McKie inside the Pentagon. McKie had sold him out to General Tierney, who in turn blew the lid on the Black Flag program, so I can understand the feeling of betrayal…but he had the man killed right inside the Pentagon. Pretty high profile to say the least.

"Then one of his operatives accidentally killed an off-duty police officer the same night, in the middle of massacring several Brown River contractors at a grocery store in Silver Spring. Not a good public relations night for Sanderson. He's back in the fold because they need him. Beyond that, nobody will touch him."

"I think they'll always need someone like Sanderson," she said.

"You're absolutely right, but I don't think the general will ever get to point where he can put a for sale sign up in Argentina. He's stuck there. So, I'll be back around 7 p.m. with some Thai food."

"I can't wait," she said.

"Stay out of trouble."

"That's what I do best."

"We'll see," DeSantos said and left.

As soon as the door closed, Stewart searched her desk for the controls to obscure the window. The last thing she needed was for someone suspicious like O'Reilly to glance up and see her talking on a call that didn't show up in the NCTC system. She looked around the room until she spotted a second light switch near the door. She flipped the switch down, and the glass fogged, leaving a translucent screen to cover the front of her office. Satisfied with her privacy, she dialed Sanderson's number, which was instantaneously masked within the system. Her call was connected within seconds.

"Nice job. I have full access to the system. I saw a request go to the Department of Justice to authorize surveillance at Muhammad's mosque."

"Sharpe and I had a little talk about putting people on the inside. He didn't seem optimistic about the chances of securing a warrant."

"At least he's not opposed to the idea. We can still get a head start on finding Muhammad with the two operatives working outside of the task force."

Sanderson had wisely chosen to send two of his best Al Qaeda group operatives ahead of the Sayar's group, traveling under their flawlessly crafted false identities, well below FBI radar. Aleem Fayed, of Saudi descent, was the head of the Middle East-Al Qaeda (MEAQ) group. A former army intelligence officer, he had been marginalized for years until 9/11 brought the war on terror into focus. Fortunately for Sanderson, Fayed had resigned his commission in May 2001, opting to help a forward-thinking Sanderson recruit operatives for the Middle East group.

Tariq Paracha, a native-born Pakistani, was the second operative to join Sanderson, recruited by Fayed while still in college. Paracha's family had moved to the U.S. when he was ten, leaving Pakistan behind to put their engineering degrees to work, while removing their son from the ever-tightening clutches of the Pakistani madrasa system. Tariq had been approached by Fayed in 2002, during the spring of his senior year at the University of Colorado Boulder. By July he was back in Pakistan, attending madrasa school for six months to bring back everything he learned.

"I'll put Fayed into the mosque for now and keep the mobile surveillance team close by. Paracha is with the surveillance group and can join Fayed at a moment's notice if necessary. Unmask your phone and contact Sayar to explain the official situation to him. He'll put up a fight, you'll agree, but in the end, everyone will respect and observe the FBI's lead on this one."

"I know the drill."

"I'm sure you do. We'll keep you posted through emails to your phone. They'll look like basic updates to anyone that grabs the phone out of your hand, but one of the words will be linked to the real message. Anything that requires immediate attention will be preceded by an innocuous check-in call from me or someone at my ops center. Other than that, have fun on your little vacation."

"This is what I do for a living, General."

"Until I can convince you to join us full time down in Argentina," Sanderson said.

"Offering a full-time paycheck would be a good start. I'll be in touch," Stewart said and hung up.

She had a good feeling about Sanderson. Everything about his group was run professionally, leaving nothing to chance, and she liked his philosophy. He was a rogue, a fallen angel thrown out of paradise for refusing to sacrifice his ideals in a world that rewarded compromise. He wasn't afraid to bend the rules to make the hard decisions that everyone else avoided, or tell the truths that needed to be heard to make progress. He told her from the very start that he "makes a living in that gray area where the best decisions rarely sit well with anyone."

She liked the idea of working on the "outside" and secretly hoped that Sanderson would make her an offer she couldn't refuse. She worked on a consulting basis for the Aegis group, so she could most likely fit her work for Sanderson into that schedule, but eventually she would run into a conflict. She'd risk her job with Aegis every time she stepped into Sanderson's world. D.C. was a small world, especially among private contractors working the counterintelligence circles. Worst-case scenario, she would be "outed" to the Aegis group, and they would blackball her in D.C., forcing her to join Sanderson's merry band of outlaws living in the pristine wilderness of western Argentina. She could think of worse outcomes.

She turned her attention back to the task at hand and dialed the six-digit prefix that would "unmask" her call to Abraham Sayar from the watchful eyes of Task Force Scorpion.

Chapter 9

Abdul Mohammed Abusir drove the stolen Honda Odyssey minivan down Howard Boulevard searching for the turn onto Old Drakeville Road, which would lead them to the service road that reached the Mount Arlington pump station. They had driven past the entrance to the service road earlier, but couldn't make any sort of assessment about the level of security guarding their target. The Mount Arlington pump station was one of four targets originally assigned to his cell. It wasn't his primary target, but a drive by the Morristown pump station left him feeling uneasy.

The pump station had been located in a busy section of the township, well within sight of regular traffic. They could see a police cruiser parked inside the gate leading to the complex, which was a new development. This was not the standard procedure in America, and they had never seen a law enforcement presence during any of their previous reconnaissance visits to the four targets assigned to their cell. His two remaining cell members agreed that they should choose a more secluded target. All of them immediately suggested Mount Arlington, located in the thick woods off Lake Hopatcong.

When Ghazi Hamar failed to show up for evening prayer at the Islamic Center, Abusir had placed a call to Hamid Muhammad's mosque and listened to the prerecorded message on the answering machine. The message contained none of the emergency code words he had memorized, but he still felt that something was wrong. Hamar had left the el-Halal variety store, one of their usual hangouts, in the middle of the afternoon to visit a nephew that lived in Elizabeth. He'd done this before on several occasions, successfully rejoining them for evening prayer. He had never missed Maghrib before. This was the one time they gathered without fail to pray together as brothers for the strength and wisdom to strike a devastating blow to their sworn enemy, the United States.

That evening's Maghrib was to be their most significant. Earlier that morning, Abusir had received a call on his cell phone that he had anticipated for months. He immediately recognized the number, which he had memorized in the hills of Kandahar several months earlier. The caller simply told him that the package would arrive at his apartment before noon. He knew what this meant for his team.

They would each take one of the canisters and hide it in a location unknown to the rest of the cell. This would ensure the continued survival of their plan if any of them were captured. As far as he was concerned, the arrival of the virus canisters signified the imminent destruction of America. He would take no chances with the weapons provided by Allah himself.

Hamar's failure to show up that night had been too much of a coincidence for him. He ordered the rest of his cell into hiding, to be contacted the following morning. He gave each one of them an envelope of cash and told them each to take a taxi to a motel and await instructions. In the morning, he called Hamid Muhammad's mosque and listened to the pre-recorded message on the answering machine. Something had definitely gone wrong the night before. The code words imbedded in the message told him to execute his plan immediately. He could only assume that the sudden order was somehow related to Hamar's disappearance.

It didn't matter. They would succeed regardless of the obstacles placed before them. They had been chosen by Allah to carry Jihad straight into the heart of enemy territory, and it was God's will that they would succeed. This much had always been clear to Abusir, even if their directions from Imam Muhammad had been murky at times. The Imam had served as a conduit of information from their network overseas, directing them through files imbedded in links accessible through the mosque's website or more urgently through the answering machine.

The recent slew of messages and activity gave him the sense that the timeline for their mission had been compressed. Two days ago, he had been instructed to retrieve an Internet document detailing several methods they might employ to deliver the virus at each target site. Over the past three weeks, they had familiarized themselves with the areas around each pump station, but beyond that, they knew very little about what they would find at each site. Specific details seemed nearly impossible to acquire. They had a black nylon gym bag filled with tools that they might need to access the water supply and would have to rely upon the use of generic schematics to determine the type of system they might find at the site. Once they agreed on the system, they could trace the right schematic to determine the easiest points of access to deliver the canister's deadly contents into the water supply.

He turned the car onto Old Drakeville Road and slowed. Old Drakeville Road was an unlit side road, and the service entrance came up quickly on the right side. He wasn't sure they could easily see the Morris County Municipal Utility Authority sign in the dark. The sign had been difficult enough to find in broad daylight.

"Watch for the sign," he commanded.

He had full faith in his brothers, but as soon as he received the attack order, he ceased to be their friend. He was their commander, to whom they had sworn their undying loyalty, and as such, he didn't ask them to do things. He commanded them. A few tense moments passed as they cruised slower than the speed limit. Fortunately, Old Drakeville Road was a little used side road running roughly parallel to Howard Boulevard and providing access to several smaller businesses that were closed in the evening. They were lucky in this regard. The area along Howard Boulevard was packed with restaurants and retail outlets, all doing a brisk business. Interstate 80 was less than a full kilometer away providing them with a quick escape, if Allah willed it. Abdul was not afraid to die on this mission. He had long ago prepared himself for this eventuality. There was no uncertainty regarding his place alongside fallen brothers in paradise, where a blissful eternity awaited the faithful.

"There it is!" Ibrahim Salih yelled, pointing toward a small, unlit sign partially obscured by thick bushes.

Abdul Abusir applied the brake and took the turn slowly, feeling the crunch of the minivan's suspension as they dropped off the well-maintained blacktop road onto an uneven gravel surface. Google Earth satellite photos showed him that the pump station was located roughly one hundred and fifty meters down the service road, which wound forty-five degrees to the right approximately two thirds of the way to the station. Allah had smiled upon him again. He would be able to use lights up until the turn, without alerting anyone at the station. They would cruise the last fifty meters of the road relying upon the ambient light provided by the station. They would emerge into the pump station's parking lot without warning, achieving complete surprise. He couldn't imagine that the Mount Arlington pump station would be more heavily guarded than the Morristown water complex. Even if there were three cars instead of one, they would cut through these infidel defenders with ease.

"Prepare for heavy contact in the parking lot. When we start shooting, I want it to be over in seconds. A prolonged firefight will attract unwanted attention and alert any pump station duty personnel."

"Allahu Akbar. We cannot fail," Fahid Atef said from the back seat.

Abdul glanced back into the minivan's darkened passenger compartment and saw Fahid cradle the shape of a compact AK-47 assault rifle. Upon returning his attention to the dusty gravel road, he heard Fahid retract and release the rifle's bolt mechanism, seating a 7.62mm round in the weapon's chamber. Fahid passed the rifle to Ibrahim in the front passenger seat and repeated the process with two more rifles. Whatever waited for them at the pump station didn't stand a chance. He was excited to the point of delirium that their final mission was at hand.

"Allahu Akbar!" he yelled.

Miguel Estrada watched the minivan turn off Old Drakeville Road onto the Mount Arlington pump station service road. Once the minivan's taillights disappeared into the trees, he opened the driver's door of the Explorer and stepped out into the cool air. The area was silent except for the distant symphony of spring peepers. He rested an arm on the open door and remained perfectly still.

"Do we call it in now?" his partner asked.

"Negative. We give this a minute or two," he said.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Abusir's team had been slightly craftier than they had expected, almost evading his surveillance team in Parsippany. Estrada's team had planted a GPS tracking device on the car Abusir had secretly kept in a storage facility on the outskirts of East Orange. They had discovered the car three months ago when surveillance teams started following Abusir's group. In Parsippany, the team drove into a corporate parking garage and ditched their Nissan Sentra. The move had been planned in advance, since entry into the business park's garage required a pass card. Estrada's team covered both possible exits and waited. Ten minutes later, they spotted Abusir driving a dark blue Honda Odyssey minivan. He couldn't express how relieved he had been to hear that they had reacquired Abusir. Losing him would have put Estrada in a tough situation.

They had little doubt that Abusir's group had been activated to carry out their mission, but knew nothing about their specific target selection. Figuring out Abusir's target was critical to his organization's plan. They had watched him investigate a pump station in Morristown, but nobody had been surprised when the terrorist cell passed on the opportunity. The pump station was located on a busy road, highly visible from every direction, with a police cruiser parked inside the gated facility.

Estrada had put his money on the Mount Arlington pump station, after Abusir had conducted his own surveillance run down Old Drakeville Road two hours earlier. He had been so confident in his guess, that he had returned at dusk and backed the Explorer into a spot twenty feet into the trees and bushes, where he could observe the service road entrance without being detected by cars coming from either direction.

"What are we waiting for? We need to call this in and get the fuck out of here," his partner said.

"Patience, my friend. Just another minute."

They had chosen Abusir's cell for a reason. The Egyptian-born terrorist ran things differently than the other terrorist cells they had uncovered. He insisted that they all live separately and take daytime jobs. Many of the other cells lived together in the same apartment and did nothing but wait around and draw suspicion from the FBI. Most importantly, Abusir's cell had not been detected by the FBI. Leadership had figured correctly that Abusir would take immediate action to preserve his cell when Ghazi Hamar didn't show up for evening prayer.

This had been important to leadership, since they had little intelligence regarding the interconnectivity between terrorist cells, or the FBI's penetration of the tri-state area Al Qaeda network. They had determined that most of the cells were under routine twenty-four-hour surveillance, but they didn't know if the greater network had been penetrated. They were almost certain that Abusir's cell hadn't been discovered, but they couldn't take even the slightest chance. Once the FBI woke up to discover their handiwork throughout the tri-state area, any surviving cells under immediate surveillance would be locked down. They needed at least one cell to remain operational and receive Imam Muhammad's inevitable orders. This was critical to a plan that had been set into motion nearly a year ago.

Estrada's thoughts were interrupted by staccato bursts of distant gunfire. No doubt he was hearing AK-47s. He knew their sound all too well. The automatic gunfire echoed through the trees, distinctive enough at this distance, but unlikely to attract any serious attention from someone waiting for a table outside of the Cracker Barrel back toward the highway on Howard Boulevard. He'd have to make sure the local authorities took notice.

He reached into one of the pockets on his jacket and produced a disposable cell phone, which he used to dial 911. The call was immediately connected.

"I just heard automatic weapons fire coming from the Mount Arlington pump station! It sounded like a fucking invasion!" he yelled at the dispatcher.

Within thirty seconds the call was complete, and he was headed back to Howard Boulevard. Both of his additional surveillance teams placed a similar call to 911. As he turned south toward the interstate, he dialed the News 12 New Jersey Tip Line, which would be the first of several calls placed to the media to make sure every American knew that their country was under attack again and that business as usual in Washington wouldn't be enough to protect the public from their greatest fears. This would be the first step on a long, difficult journey to bring this once great nation back to a position of power and respect both here and abroad. Back to the True America our founding fathers had envisioned.

Chapter 10

Sharpe sat in a chair next to Special Agent Hesterman, vying for room to examine his screen. Even with three wide-screen monitors at the station, there was little room for him to see around Hesterman. He wasn't even sure how O'Reilly could see the screens through the massive agent. He must have been a linebacker at Michigan.

"Eric, can you shift about thirty feet to the left? I can't see the screen on the right."

O'Reilly immediately laughed. "How do you think I feel?"

"I feel like I'm being harassed again," Hesterman said, staring intently at the screen.

"Bring it up with the director if you're not happy. I hear he's looking for an agent-intern to work out of his office. Be a great career move," Sharpe said.

"Shit. I'd rather lick one of these crime scenes clean than hang out in his office for the day," Hesterman said.

"Speaking of crime scenes. Anything new with any of the addresses?"

"Well, I might have something. One of the new addresses is different. It's a small apartment with only one occupant listed on the lease, and Mr. Abdul Mohammed Abusir was not found with his brains adorning the walls."

"That makes two missing terrorist cells," O'Reilly stated.

"And still no sign of the virus canisters. Wonderful," Sharpe muttered.

"Whoever hit Al Qaeda didn't leave a trace, beyond Mr. Grimes removing his mask in front of our cameras," O'Reilly said.

"Still no sign of Grimes?"

"Negative. We're watching his house and the Best Buy in Union, New Jersey. I think half of the customers in the Union store right now are federal employees. The phone tap on his house hasn't produced anything useful. His wife has placed several worried calls to friends and family, but nothing that would indicate that she knows his current location. We're checking out anyone she called for a possible connection to True America," O'Reilly said.

"This is not good. Shelby's been all over me to make some progress here. If we don't shake something loose soon, I might consider…"

One of the screens at the workstation suddenly displayed an incoming high-level alert, which stopped him from completing his sentence. The appearance of the message coincided with the buzzing of the NCTC mobile phone on his hip. He could hear several nearby phones buzzing, especially O'Reilly's, which was sitting on the workstation desk. Oddly enough, the buzzing was almost equally as annoying as the ring tones he had forbidden within the watch floor. Another damn "emergency alert," the thirtieth of the day that the White House situation room had relayed, containing information they already knew or didn't need to know. At least they were actively participating, instead of simply demanding updates all day.

"It's started!" yelled one of the NCTC analysts at a nearby station.

"Homeland Security just received an alert from the Morris County Sheriff's Department. The pump station at Mount Arlington was attacked by three suspects at roughly 8:45 PM. The suspects killed two Mount Arlington police officers stationed in the parking lot and one Morris County SWAT officer before they were gunned down and killed by SWAT. Two Morris County Utilities technicians were found shot inside the pump station. They found three of the canisters at the scene."

The room burst into a hectic cacophony of questions and phone calls as Sharpe read the rest of the report.

"The canisters were empty. Jesus," he said, turning around to face the Homeland Security station. "The canisters are empty!" he said to Salvador Guerrero, Homeland's NCTC liaison.

"They know. Everyone's already moving on this. DHS, FEMA, Homeland…everyone," Guerrero said.

"Eric, inform Agent Moriarty immediately. I want one of our investigative teams out there as soon as possible. Dana, put me in touch with whoever is in charge at the scene. We need to make sure they know this is our show. They've lost officers, and emotions will be running high. I need them to preserve the evidence for our own crime scene techs."

He reread the dispatch on the screen, but didn't see any reference to the suspects' physical characteristics. O'Reilly spun her chair to face Sharpe.

"I have Lieutenant David McKay on the line. You can pick up the call on your phone," she said and spun back around.

He took his phone out of the holster on his belt and pressed the green button to accept the transferred call.

"Lieutenant McKay, this is Ryan Sharpe with the FBI. I'm in charge of the task force responsible for finding the rest of the canisters and preventing more attacks. I'm really sorry for the loss of your men. I can't imagine how devastating this will be to the families involved. Let me know if there is anything I can do in the future to make sure they're taken care of. This is technically a federal operation, and I want to make sure they get the proper recognition. I don't know what to say beyond that," Sharpe said.

"Thank you, Agent Sharpe. I'll take you up on that offer if necessary, and I appreciate the fact that you didn't start off the conversation telling me how I'm no longer in charge here."

"I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear that we had a lieutenant on scene. I can't go into details, but I need the scene preserved. I'm sending one of our crime scene units and several investigators out to the pump station. Right now I need to know if the suspects looked Arab."

"The only way these three could look more Arab was if they had wrapped towels around their heads. They look like stand-ins for the 9/11 hijackers. Why wouldn't they look Arab?"

"I can't talk about that right now. Thank you, Lieutenant. I wish we could have headed off this attack. I feel terrible for the families of the men lost tonight."

"Men and women. One of the Mount Arlington officers was married with three kids. She and her partner were riddled with bullets sitting in their cruiser. Fucking savages," McKay said.

"Savages indeed. It's going to be a long night. Thank you in advance for the hospitality out there. I wish it were under better circumstances."

"Me too. I'll keep an eye out for your people."

The call disconnected, and Sharpe patted Hesterman's right shoulder.

"How are we doing?"

"Moriarty is assembling the team as we speak. She hopes to have them out there before 10:30. She's keeping Demir in Newark to continue working Al Qaeda."

"Good. Mount Arlington might generate a lead, but it will likely direct us right back to Newark. I still haven't heard a word from Justice about getting people inside the mosque. My biggest concern right now is that this attack may have just made our jobs even more difficult. There's no way the White House will be able to contain this. They'll have to declare Morris County a disaster area and go door to door to keep people from drinking the water. I don't know how they're going to figure that out."

"Kind of makes our job not seem so bad," O'Reilly said.

"Except we'll be the ones that get blamed for not stopping the attack, or any future attacks," he said.

Salvador Guerrero had managed to sneak beside them unnoticed. His voice startled Sharpe.

"They can shove the blame right up the administration's ass. One car with two officers guarding the pump station? What the fuck do they expect?"

"They're looking at too many points of vulnerability to guard. Water towers. Pipelines. Some towns have multiple pump stations. Every law enforcement officer in America would be occupied. The president activated the National Guard and Army Reserve, but the attack came too fast," Sharpe said.

"They could have directed state and local authorities to properly defend these sites while the Guard and Reserves mobilized. Wait until you see what happens next. Once this hits the media, they'll start stationing infantry platoons at each site. Standby for operation knee jerk. This is going to be a complete fiasco by the time we wake up tomorrow."

"Who said we'd be going to sleep?" Sharpe said.

"Good point. Let me know if there's anything I can do on my end. The best we can do is figure out how to stop the next imminent attack. There's still one more terrorist cell missing," Guerrero said.

"We're still missing fifty-five canisters. I hate to say it, but one missing Al Qaeda cell is the least of our problems," Sharpe said.

"True. But I get the feeling we'll have some time before we have to worry about the majority of those canisters. The cell that hit Mount Arlington either panicked and struck early, or was given last minute orders based on the near elimination of the entire network. My money is on the latter option. The remaining cell could be out there right now casing their target…or targets."

"Hopefully, we'll get something from Mount Arlington that will put the last Al Qaeda cell out of business, so we can concentrate on the extent of True America's involvement," Sharpe said.

"You know that group better than anyone in this room. If True America is involved, we have an even bigger problem. Only God himself knows what they might have planned for those canisters."

"My hope is that they plan to hand the canisters over to the government. The best-case scenario is that they orchestrated this as a huge publicity stunt to show the American people that they are truly America's new heroes. We have an election year coming up, and the word on the street is that they are consolidating political power to make a move in 2008."

"What's the worst-case scenario?" Guerrero said.

"The worst-case scenario is they are planning to destabilize the country through terrorism."

"Which one is your money on?"

"Somewhere between the two, leaning toward the worst-case scenario. True America's spin-doctors have done a great job distancing the movement's public face from the group's original founders. Just five years ago, Jackson Greely and Lee Harding regularly took to the streets decrying government tyranny and demanding a quick, violent overthrow. We found literature published by these two going back decades. They've been on Uncle Sam's radar for a long time as domestic terrorist threats. Over the past three to four years, the two have faded into the sunset, orchestrated by the more savvy visible leadership currently cruising around the country in their True America tour buses."

"Why would they agree to step down if this was their movement from the beginning?"

"My sources say they haven't stepped down from anything, aside from the podium. True America's political action arm takes in millions of dollars in grass-roots donations every month. There's a sea of people hungry for the kind of change at the core of True America's manifesto, but Greely and Harding's visions of a violent overthrow kept the organization pinned to the ground. Wallets have a tendency to snap shut when either of those two appears in front of the True America banner. If Greely or Harding is behind the theft of the virus canisters, I wouldn't expect True America to hand them over in an expression of good will."

His cell phone buzzed in his hand, and he glanced at the message on its screen.

"Any word on the mosque request?" read the message sent from Callie Stewart.

Sharpe glanced up at the black metal catwalk and saw Stewart leaning on the rail, smiling down on him from a distance and waving with her phone. He shook his head and typed a quick response. He hadn't heard anything from Justice. Two additional requests had been sent up through their NCTC liaison, but nothing had come back. Maybe the recent attack on the Mount Arlington pump station would loosen their interpretations of the Patriot Act. He looked up at Stewart again, secretly wishing he could authorize her to send some of Sanderson's operatives into the mosque. He hated himself for thinking this, but he had an extremely bad feeling about the next few days. Mount Arlington had the potential to be the very beginning of a national nightmare.

He felt slightly lucky at the moment. There was little they could have done to prevent the attack, and the emergency response was out of his hands. He didn't envy the task lying ahead for the state and federal agencies responsible for safeguarding the lives of the citizens who might have been exposed to the contaminated water from the Mount Arlington station. His job was to prevent the next attack.

Chapter 11

Aleem Fayed remained seated long after the last of the mosque's devoted had left the modest building. He raised his head and glanced casually in the direction of the Mihrab, a small, curved alcove in the northeast wall, indicating the direction of Mecca. The Mihrab appeared modestly decorated in comparison to some of the larger mosques he had visited, adorned with paint instead of expensively arranged mosaic tile. Everything about Hamid Muhammad's mosque emphasized simplicity. The small prayer hall could hold roughly eighty worshippers, shoulder to shoulder on the dark hardwood floor. He didn't see a separate prayer area for women, which didn't surprise him. Hamid Muhammad's brand of Islam didn't accommodate women, or most Muslims for that matter.

His Friday noon sermons were widely known as the most anti-Western tirades on the east coast, often packing the mosque to twice its advertised capacity in the afternoon. According to FBI and police intelligence, Friday wasn't the only day he conducted a sermon. Two or three times a week, he would hold a more private sermon in one of the back rooms for potential terror candidates. Young men attending Muhammad's mosque had a propensity for appearing on the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq, or in many cases, joining the ever-growing population of Jihadist prisoners rotting in Guantanamo Bay. All the U.S. government could do was try to catalogue the men coming and going from the mosque, in the hopes of alerting allied authorities to the potential trouble headed in their direction. Unfortunately, too many of the young attendees had simply vanished into thin air over the past few years

Tonight, all of that would change, if his hunch proved correct. He had attended all the day's prayers so far, from dawn to sunrise, trying to get a feel for the mosque's regular attendees. Attendance had surprised him at Fajr (pre-sunrise), consisting of a few dozen men who had clearly been there for some time. The number of worshipers increased drastically for Zuhr (noon prayer), but dropped off considerably for Asr (afternoon) and Maghrib (sunset) prayer. He overheard grumblings about the absence of Imam Hamid Muhammad, who had never missed noon or afternoon prayer unannounced, since anyone could remember. He attributed the lower numbers to their Imam's absence.

He had lingered in the mosque after Asr and noticed a group of three men waiting near an open door on the left side of the prayer hall. He saw a few desks inside the room, indicating that this could be the mosque's Quranic study room. A true believer would never put their Quran on the floor, and he had no doubt that the men Hamid allowed in that room were "true believers" in the most literal sense of the word. Of course, he doubted the men had come for Quranic study.

They looked edgy and impatient, continuously stealing glances past the minbar, the traditional raised platform for sermons, at the door on the right side of the prayer hall. He assumed this door led to the Imam's office. Their glances started to shift in his direction, taking on more of an angry impatience. The disdainful looks gave him the distinct impression that their new master didn't plan to make an appearance until the mosque was cleared. He gladly obliged the men and walked out of the front door, taking a left on Irvine Turner Boulevard. He doubled back ten minutes later to find the mosque's front doors locked.

Aleem stood up from the prayer sitting position and started to roll up his prayer mat. He glanced at the door in the far right corner of the room. In a few seconds, he would take the day's fight through that door, directly to the enemy. First, he needed to take care of a few impediments that had unwisely chosen to stay past Mahgrib.

"You forgot the final rakat," issued a voice from behind him.

"And you forgot your manners," Aleem replied in an Arabic dialect that would identify him as a connected member of a Saudi society.

He turned to face the three men he had seen waiting for the Imam earlier in the day. Through their loose fitting clothes, he could tell that the men had not undergone any serious physical training in their lives. A fact that would soon change when they reported to whatever training camp Hamid Muhammad arranged for them. Three to six months of intensive mental and physical drills would transform these raw recruits into lethal instruments for Al Qaeda. Slightly more lethal, at least. Aleem Fayed stared at them, waiting for a response.

"Your family name means nothing here," the tallest of the three spat.

"And your family name means nothing there. It'll never mean anything, anywhere. I'd rather feast on a pig than shake your filthy hand," Aleem replied, stepping closer to the man.

He could tell that his comments had cut straight to this young fundamentalist's core. His ego was still in a fragile state, having most likely come from a lower-class family in Riyadh. The incredible disparity between classes in Saudi Arabia fueled the fire that forged angry, bitter young men like the one standing before him. The Imams of the Kingdom had become experts in harnessing that anger and turning it against the West, blaming all of their ills on America and its allies. They preached their own ultra-conservative form of Islamic doctrine, known as Saudi Wahhabism, as the one true path for Islam to rise above corrupt Western influences and regain dominance. On sermon days, the mosques overflowed into the streets with disenfranchised young men listening to the Imams blame America and Israel for all of their troubles. Frighteningly, this phenomenon was not limited to Saudi Arabia. Similar scenes proliferated throughout the Middle East, extending along the Indian Ocean to Southwest Asia.

"Watch what you say here! You can't hide behind the corrupt police and your inbred family here. This is our mosque. What do you want here?"

The two men behind the leader started to spread out slowly, in an attempt to intimidate him. The man to his right looked slightly overweight, wearing khaki pants and an off white, cotton, button-down shirt. His black hair was longer than the others', giving him a slightly unkempt look. Aleem wondered what the Imam thought of that. Aleem, however, was more concerned with the man approaching him from the left side with a murderous glare and a modicum of caution. Cautious confidence. It probably wouldn't matter in the end, but it was something for him to consider.

"I want the same thing you want," Aleem said.

"And what is that?"

"I need to speak with Hamid Muhammad."

"The Imam doesn't speak with pigs like you," the man said.

"Is that any way to treat a fellow Muslim? The Quran commands you to treat people of all beliefs and cultures peacefully and with kindness. I bet your false Imam didn't focus on that aspect of Islam," Aleem said.

The three continued to stare him down, moving slowly into what they perceived as the best position to attack him.

"Paradise awaits us as a reward for our faith."

"Oddly enough, I think you might still reach paradise. I think the Prophet will make an exception in your cases. This really isn't your fault," Aleem said, gesturing to the prayer hall.

The man on his right lunged forward in a terribly timed attempt to grab Aleem for his compatriots. Aleem dodged the initial attack, snagging the man's left arm and twisting it into an extremely painful position that he could use to maneuver the hefty kid to block the others. The leader sprang forward at a perceived gap that Aleem had purposefully allowed to exist, only to be slammed to the ground by the useless weight of his friend's spiraling body.

Aleem pounded his elbow into the fixed arm of the first attacker, cracking his elbow inward and eliciting a blood-curdling scream. He pivoted around the incapacitated man and delivered an upward sweeping kick into the leader's throat while the man was still on all fours from the sudden collision with his overweight friend. The sheer force of the kick crushed his larynx and dislodged his upper vertebrae, rendering him paralyzed. He would asphyxiate within minutes, unable to bring his hands to his neck.

He kept a close eye on the remaining attacker, who proved to be cautious as well as confident, staying out of Aleem's immediate hand-to-hand combat range. Taking advantage of the man's hesitation, he briefly turned his attention back to the screaming man on the floor clutching his elbow. A quick stomp to the man's knee brought both hands downward, exposing his upper body to extreme violence.

Aleem collapsed onto the man, bringing his right elbow down on the man's neck with the full force of his own body, instantly killing him. He was back on his feet within a fraction of a second, in time to see the third and final assailant back out of a halfhearted attack. The man had just witnessed the near instantaneous death of his friends at the hand of an enemy that spoke perfect Arabic. Aleem could tell the man's confidence had evaporated, replaced by utter confusion.

"Smart move. The Imam has betrayed the cause. You can't even begin to comprehend the level of his betrayal. My orders are to return him so we can learn the true extent of the damage. Can you help me with this? If not, you will join your friends."

The man stuttered, clearly in complete shock at the sudden turn of events. He saw the doubt flash across the man's face. His world had unraveled too quickly for rational thought. The next few moments would be critical for Aleem.

"What do you need?"

"Is Hamid here at the mosque?"

In the background, they could both hear the group's leader struggle to force air through his destroyed windpipe, an involuntary and useless attempt by the man's body to survive.

"Can he be saved?" the man asked.

"He won't be saved. Where is Hamid?"

"Through that door somewhere."

"Did you copy that? Any movement at the side exit?" Aleem said aloud, waiting for a response in his earpiece.

"Copy. Tariq is en route. Thirty seconds. Negative movement. If the Imam was in the building, he's still there. Sensors detect a cell phone within the confines of the building. Low-level emission."

"Who are you talking to?" the man demanded.

Aleem smiled at him. "My colleagues. Who else?"

He saw the final realization flash in the terrorist recruit's eyes. When presented with another conflicting batch of information, his confused psyche had simply fallen back on what he wanted to believe, which in this case was completely correct — that Aleem worked for the enemies of Allah and had tricked him into betraying the Imam. He burst forward, quickly engaging Aleem before a sharp pain to his solar plexus dropped him to his knees with a sudden thud. Aleem kicked him in the back, pushing him down to join his friends on the floor. A pool of bright red blood spread rapidly underneath the pile. Aleem leaned over to wipe a small, serrated blade clean on the back of the dying man's, crisp white shirt before walking over to unlock the front door for Tariq.

Tariq Paracha slipped through the door, carrying a black nylon duffel bag. The pair immediately locked and bolted the door to prevent any unwanted guests.

"Allah won't be pleased," Tariq said, pulling a silenced pistol from the duffel bag and tossing it to Aleem.

"He'll get over it. Through that door. Did Graves find schematics for the building?" Aleem said.

"No. But one of the businesses a few doors down submitted a plan that required a zoning change, so he was able to download the scanned document. Looks like a similar layout from the front. We can expect a basement," Tariq said.

"Good. I'd prefer to do our work in the building. I hope it's a deep basement. If our Imam doesn't feel like chatting, we'll need to compel him."

Tariq hefted the bag up and down, shaking the assortment of metal tools contained within. "I brought everything we should need."

"Let's find this missing Imam, shall we?" Aleem said.

They approached the closed door on the far right side of the cramped prayer hall, ready to do whatever was necessary to produce a viable lead for Task Force Scorpion. Given the fact that Aleem and Tariq could proceed unhampered by legal or moral restrictions, they stood an excellent chance of success.

Chapter 12

Julius Grimes had long ago lost track of where his van was headed. They had turned off Interstate 87, headed west on I-84 in Pennsylvania. The van had exited the interstate deep in the Pocono Mountains region, taking several obscure paved roads that eventually led to unmarked gravel roads travelling deep into the rolling foothills. He had been told by the driver of the van that they were headed to one of True America's most closely guarded sites, which added to his already highly elevated anxiety level.

He knew that he'd seriously fucked up at the target site. He hadn't taken his mask off on purpose, but it didn't matter to his team leader, Kathy Nadeau. She didn't say a word until they were several miles away from the scene. Even then, she simply turned in the front passenger seat of the car and suddenly extended the business end of her silenced pistol against his forehead. He had carefully weighed his options in the milliseconds that followed.

He could have slammed her hand against the headrest, likely dislocating her elbow and disarming her, but that would have put him in an even worse situation. Instead of becoming a fugitive from both the U.S. government and the most powerfully connected shadow network in America, he did nothing as Nadeau hissed a few berating words and removed the pistol from his face. She placed a quick phone call and announced that he would have to go into hiding until they could determine the extent of the damage he had caused. She never looked at him again, which gave him an uneasy feeling about his future in True America.

His fears were somewhat eased early the next morning in one of True America's tri-state area safe houses. He received instructions to await pickup by one of the delivery vans that would deliver a consolidated shipment of canisters to a secret location out of state. He was told to take a few days off from work, while senior leadership decided how to handle his situation. They made it clear that he couldn't contact his family, since his identity might be compromised. He felt terrible as he thought he might have possibly dragged his family into a potential nightmare by his carelessness. However, the risks had always been clear to Julius. He had made a conscious decision to play a critical role in reshaping America, understanding that revolution often came with a hefty price tag.

He just hadn't expected to start paying so early. He'd made an adrenaline-filled, rookie error back at the target site. The mask he had been given for the operation had been a few sizes too small, squeezing his head and causing him to sweat profusely. Stepping back into the cool night air, his first instinct had been to get the damn ski mask off his head. The cocktail of natural stimulants flowing through his system had dampened his common sense. One little mistake and his life had been permanently changed. In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't matter. He was part of a more important change, and when the transformation was complete, he would be rewarded. He had been assured of this.

The van bumped along a pitch-black road, eventually stopping at a large, neglected wooden gate placed across the road. In the harsh glare of the van's headlights, the gate looked ancient, yet formidable. Rising six feet high and joining the thick forest on either side of the van, the fence looked out of place for such a remote location. A simple fence would have drawn less attention, but Julius had to remind himself that it would be highly unlikely for anyone to stumble on this location by accident.

The driver lowered his window and turned on the interior lights. Julius glanced back at their precious cargo. Twenty canisters, seated in two specially designed crates, were hidden in compartments nestled underneath several pallets of bottled water. He felt exposed in the light, presuming that a camera was confirming their identities at this very moment. Several seconds later, the rickety barrier in front of the van started to slide out of the way. He suspected that there was more to the fence than rotten wood. His nervousness started to give way to excitement at the prospect of being exposed to more of True America's plan for "The Rising."

The van's rough transit smoothed out just past the gate, and they travelled for several minutes until Julius could see lights ahead. He leaned forward and watched as they approached a long, one-story, flat-roofed structure. From what he could tell, this was the only structure within sight. The sheer darkness surrounding the building swallowed up the meager glow cast by a small light fixture to the right of a single loading bay. The van pulled up to a point roughly ten feet from the building. When it stopped, the loading bay door rolled open, exposing the inside of the facility.

Through the window, Julius could see several hundred pallets of water bottles stacked inside the bay, which appeared much deeper than he had initially estimated. Based on what he saw, the building must extend at least a hundred feet back. A few men appeared in the bay and hopped down from the concrete loading platform. He could barely believe he was now a part of an even more secretive arm of True America.

"Everyone out. They'll take over from here," the driver said.

Julius opened the van door and was immediately greeted by an intense glaring Caucasian man he had never seen before. In the faded light, he could see that the man had a military-style tattoo on his right bicep, partially visible underneath a black polo-style shirt.

"Mr. Grimes, my name is Michael Brooks. Head of security. Your identity has been compromised, so it looks like you'll be joining us here. This site will be extremely busy over the next few weeks, and we can use another set of hands."

"How long will I have to stay? I was told that my family might be able to join me; I didn't really have this in mind," Julius said.

He was starting to feel like more of a prisoner than an elite member of True America's militant arm. He could be stuck here indefinitely without seeing his family.

"We know that your family is under surveillance. Since the FBI hasn't approached them, we can only assume that they are waiting for you. We suspect that you may be their only lead at this point. Consider yourself lucky."

"Lucky? To be imprisoned here indefinitely?"

"To be alive. Work hard, and keep your mouth shut here. You won't be given another warning. Understood?"

Julius thought about the pistol he still had tucked into his jeans. Nobody had suggested that he surrender the Beretta, so he'd kept it near him at all times. He wasn't sure what he'd do if they asked for it.

"Understood. Where exactly am I?"

"At our lab, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Let's head inside and get you situated."

Julius followed Brooks to a door on the right side of the loading bay. Two more men jumped down onto a concrete strip below the bay's lip. The security man opened the windowless door, exposing a well-lit room. He gestured for Julius to enter and stood back a few feet. A small set of concrete stairs led Julius to the door and into the room. When he saw his team leader standing inside the empty space, his heart sank. He knew exactly why they had brought him to the middle of nowhere. He remembered back to the beginning. One of True America's key tenets was "we take care of our own." The saying had more than one meaning. He had been constantly reminded of this in the early phase of his recruitment, when the question of his loyalty had yet to be fully answered.

He turned and leapt out of the doorway, landing on the moist, root-infested dirt with two feet. He reached for the Beretta secured against the small of his back and started sprinting toward the darkness. If he could make it to the woods, he could hide until he figured out his next move. His only thought at the moment was to just survive. He cursed himself for not trusting his earlier instincts.

Looking around as he ran, Julius extended the pistol toward Brooks and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He faltered in his run, pulling the pistol's slide back to chamber another round. He did this flawlessly, watching the unfired bullet eject from the pistol before he depressed the trigger again. Brooks stared at him and shook his head. Julius stopped running in the middle of the dirt field. He repeated the process, aiming at Karen Nadeau, who had appeared in the doorway, blocking most of the light from inside. The hammer fell, but the pistol failed to discharge.

"We took the liberty of replacing your Beretta while you were deep in a drug-induced sleep at the safe house!" Brooks yelled.

Julius tried one more time, aiming at Brook's head. He wasn't sure how they drugged him, but sleep had come easily enough. He had no reason to doubt what the man had said, so he tossed the pistol to the ground.

"This is your version of gratitude, Mr. Grimes? Fuck up one of the most important jobs we can give you and shoot your way free when the terms of your punishment aren't acceptable?" Brooks said.

"Should I have dug my own grave for you too? Or is a pre-dug hole part of the 'we take care of our own' motto."

"Grave? Kathy's not here to kill you, Grimes. I took your entire team out of circulation to minimize the damage. Ward Young is here as well. I can't take the risk of the possible connections."

Both of his teammates stepped down from the building and stood near Brooks. He whispered something to them, and they started walking over to the loading bay. Julius stood there, stunned by the revelation.

"Now I have a real problem, Julius. I can't trust anyone on this team anymore."

Kathy Nadeau and Ward Young stopped in their tracks and turned their heads toward Brooks. Before either of them could protest, suppressed automatic weapons fire erupted from the loading bay and smaller doorway, puncturing their bodies and dropping them to the recently cleared forest floor. Aerosolized blood mist from their exit wounds lingered in the air above them, illuminated by the door's light fixture.

"Go fuck yourself. I get the distinct feeling nobody is going to leave this compound alive. Good luck to the rest of you! This is how True America rewards loyalt—"

A single gunshot passed through his head, putting an end to a line of reasoning that Michael Brooks didn't want him to continue in front of too many people.

Chapter 13

Aleem Fayed sat in a chair they had dragged down from the classroom attached to the prayer hall. He faced Hamid Abdul Muhammad, who sat unharmed on a small wooden stool they had found in the basement. His hands and feet were tied to the stool, to prevent him from doing anything more than hurt himself if he should try to stand up. The basement had proved to be the best possible location they could have secured on short notice. They could have rented a hotel room by the hour in one of the seediest sections of town, where strange noises and even screams wouldn't raise any eyebrows. Or they could have used the rental house that had been secured this morning in an equally questionable part of town. The house had a basement and might become their only option if the Imam proved resistant to their accelerated mental and physical torture routine.

He suspected that they would have more success with physical torture. The Imam had grown soft in America, having expanded his waist at a rate that must have alarmed his handlers in the Middle East. When he arrived to preach hate and recruit terrorists eight years ago, he looked slim and fit in his traditional white garments. Now, he more closely resembled a bearded version of the late John Belushi. His white prayer robes must have gone through several alterations to cover the man sweating in the chair in front of them.

They hadn't spoken a word to him since finding him jammed into a cabinet in his upstairs office. He had left the basement door open, hoping to trick them into hastily plunging down the stairs, but Tariq had noticed two formidable slide bolts on the back of the door. If they had thoughtlessly rushed into the basement, Hamid could have easily barricaded the door and tried to escape. The single, bare light bulb in the basement was controlled from a switch inside of his office, which would have compounded their problem. They would have been locked inside an unfamiliar, pitch-black basement with the success of their mission now hinged upon the three technicians sitting in a van two blocks away. Sanderson would have never forgiven them if they had lost the Imam.

Tariq called down from the office above. "It looks like we're ready to go."

Aleem smiled at Hamid and started phase two of their plan to get him talking quickly. He hoped to have this wrapped up in under two hours. The silent treatment was just a short tension builder. Done properly, they would isolate Hamid for as long as it would take to get him to initiate contact. Tonight, they didn't have that kind of time.

"Imam Muhammad, As-Salaam Alaikum. You're in a deep pile of shit right now. You understand that, right?"

Hamid didn't respond in any way. His expression remained the same, and his gaze focused on an indeterminate point beyond Aleem. Tariq descended the stairs with their black duffle bag and walked behind the Imam. He dropped the bag to the ground and unzipped it.

"Eventually you'll talk. They all do."

Silence penetrated the room, and the Imam didn't waver. Aleem nodded imperceptibly to Tariq, who had removed a can of hair spray, a lighter and a black cloth bag. Less than a second later, Hamid Muhammad's head was engulfed in flames from the aerosol can. He immediately panicked and screamed, trying desperately to stand. Tariq had anticipated his sudden movement and forced the black bag down over his head, pulling down on the sides of the bag.

The bag served two purposes. The first was to extinguish the flames and the second was to keep him from tipping over. Tariq held the bag in place while Aleem beat the sides of the hood to ensure the fire had been stopped. Hamid stopped thrashing and started to recover his composure, just as Tariq pulled the bag's drawstrings tight.

The calmness slowly morphed back into desperation, as Hamid struggled to breathe what little oxygen had slipped into the bag. He gave it another twenty seconds for him to take in the stench of his own burnt hair and singed skin before giving Tariq the signal to remove the hood. When the hood was yanked off his head, the Imam's smug look was gone, replaced by sheer panic. Besides some burnt hair that still smoldered, there appeared to be little physical damage from the fire.

"Do I have your attention now, or do I need to light your head on fire again? This time I'll start with your beard."

"You're not the police!" he gasped.

"No. I'm about as far from the police as you can get."

"Then who are you? Mossad?"

"You might wish we were the Mossad at some point tonight. Even the Mossad has a few rules," Aleem said.

Hamid regarded him with a concerned look, which gave Aleem some hope that they might be able to wrap this up quickly. They had quickly broken the impassive wall the Imam had erected to stall them.

"You have a big problem, Hamid," Aleem said.

"And what might that be?"

"You betrayed your own cause. Shameful really. An entire network of Al Qaeda sleeper cells wiped out because of your greed and immorality."

"What are you talking about?" Hamid said, trying to glance behind him.

"Let's not fuck around here. We know that the European network shipped fifty-eight canisters of a very nasty virus to the United States. Originally, there were several targets in Europe, but the Russian scientist went rogue and panicked your colleagues overseas. Forty of them went directly to your cells and eighteen went to True America, who then turned right around and betrayed you. Two of your cells survived, but one was just slaughtered trying to deliver the virus to their target. America is on high alert. The only targets you might have left are a few lemonade stands in your very own Muslim neighborhoods because I think the tolerance level for sweaty Arabs in most neighborhoods just hit an all-time low."

Hamid looked surprised at the level of information provided by Aleem. "What does this have to do with greed?"

"You're the one that fucked over your own people. How else could the FBI roll up the conspiracy so quickly? Facing charges of collecting and disseminating child pornography, you tried to strike a deal with True America to finance your disappearance to a comfortable compound in Mexico. In exchange for the remaining virus canisters, three million dollars appears in a Cayman Islands account with your name on it, but is suddenly seized by the same agency that made the deposit. Surprise. You made the deal with undercover FBI agents posing as members of True America. Imagine the FBI's surprise when suddenly confronted with Al Qaeda's conspiracy to poison U.S. cities. And they just thought you might be running some kind of child trafficking ring with domestic extremists. This is going to be a hard story to explain to your colleagues in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Especially with all of the sordid details we can selectively leak into your cell block."

"The True America pigs are the ones that betrayed me. This is a fact," Hamid spat.

"Fact. Fiction. Details really. We can make this look like whatever we want. We have all of the addresses for your sleeper cell network. We'll publish this list. Trust me, your friends will wonder how in the hell we could have acquired this. Of course, the cell responsible for shipping the virus in Frankfurt disappeared without a trace, as they had no doubt been instructed."

"It won't matter. The faithful will never believe what you throw into your false media."

"You'll spend so much of your time explaining these amazing circumstances that I doubt there will be any time left for your duties as an Imam. You'll meet some of your former recruits, who will remember you as a defiant firebrand Imam. Imagine what they'll think when you show up to join them. They'll see you as a soft, corrupted traitor that capitulated to Western excess and sin."

"When my plan succeeds, I will be hailed as the greatest hero. The one who struck the most vicious blow against the Great Satan. You have no true idea how many canisters are still in circulation. Your government can't protect everyone."

"Would you like me to show you the actual list? I have a picture of it on my phone. It's a little hard to read. One of my operatives cut it out of Naeem Hassan's stomach. He swallowed the list. Can you believe that? Completely unexpected. This left us wondering how many other Al Qaeda operatives carried secrets to their graves. Disembowelment and an invasive stomach search is now part of our standard operating procedure. You can thank Mr. Hassan for that."

Hamid sighed, which Aleem knew was a subtle sign of resignation. Aleem had been watching him closely.

"Hamid, eight out of the ten sites were taken down by True America. Turn on the news and you'll see what happened to the ninth team. Give me the tenth team and any information related to your contact with True America, and I will arrange your immediate transit to Saudi Arabia, where you can start over. You have been betrayed by True America. Frankly, we don't know their motivations for stealing all of the virus. I need links to the group, contact information. Some kind of way to set up a meeting to deliver the remaining virus canisters. I need the last cell to make this happen. I need their identities so we can pose as this team and resurface. I also need to be able to report to my people that we are only facing one threat. You'll have to sacrifice this team."

"I'll never betray my brothers," Hamid said.

"They've already been betrayed. If you don't help us with this, you'll go to Guantanamo as a filthy child pornographer and traitor to your own cause. We'll put together a scenario that will be impossible for you to explain. Trust me on this."

Hamid remained silent.

"This will be easy for you. You'll report that the ninth cell was killed trying to accomplish their mission and that the final cell has been killed by True America. We'll make it look like the other attacks. Nobody will know the difference, and you'll vanish, only to reappear at some later date. We'll keep you hidden from the government until we can verify your information. Once verified, we'll start the process of getting you out of the country. Wherever you choose."

"It won't be that easy. I can't just go running back to the mosques in Saudi Arabia. It would make no sense. And I can't simply appear in Pakistan or anywhere for that matter. If the plan failed, they'll be looking for me."

"That's not my problem. I can only guarantee to get you to your chosen destination."

"How do I know you won't shoot me in the back of the head after I tell you what you want to know?"

"I swear by Allah."

"And your friend?"

"I swear by Allah as well," Tariq said.

"This is no coincidence, Hamid. I'm not the most faithful Muslim, but I am a Muslim. The Prophet has given you another chance. Before we arrived, you had nothing. Your last remaining operational cell is useless given the circumstances. All is lost, and I guarantee there is no way you could escape the country without our help. Maybe you'll disappear and never be heard from again, or maybe you'll continue the fight. That's not for me to decide. It is His will, and we are all given different paths."

"It is truly His will," Hamid conceded.

"We'll need to move you to a more secure location. The FBI is working on a warrant to enter the mosque. Right now it's under surveillance from the outside. We've identified two vans and an apartment with a view of the front and back doors," he said.

"How will you get me out of here?"

"Easy enough, I hope. Just follow our directions without question. Understood?" Aleem said.

Hamid nodded. He directed Tariq to join him in the upstairs office to coordinate the escape, which would require the surveillance team to earn their paycheck. When they arrived at the top of the stairs, Tariq turned to Aleem and whispered, "What was that speech all about?"

Aleem grabbed his arm and moved him toward the back of the office, away from the stairwell.

"Hope. Without hope, he'll put up another barrier. We don't have time for that."

"Well, my hope is that you don't really plan to let him go free," Tariq said.

"Of course not, he's dead as soon as we confirm the information needed to move the investigation forward."

Ten minutes later, Special Agent Janice Riehms stared through her binoculars at a van approaching Masjid Muhammad's side entrance on Sussex Avenue. The white Dodge Sprinter van drove at a normal speed as it neared the last remaining stop sign separating it from the mosque. From her observation post in the front window of a third-story apartment at the intersection of Jay and Sussex, she had a clear view of the mosque's front and side entrances. Since Hamid Muhammad had become the center of the FBI's attention, four additional agents had been assigned to the two-bedroom apartment, shrinking the space considerably, but ensuring that they could accurately screen every person coming in and out of the mosque.

Attendance had dropped considerably throughout the day, making their jobs slightly easier. The facial recognition software tied to their surveillance cameras gave them an initial "probability of match" analysis within a second of a face appearing at the door. If any of the faces were obscured from sight, back-up cameras installed on the roofs of two additional locations along Jay Street would ensure they could capture a digital image. Failing that, undercover FBI agents mobilized along Jay and Sussex during prayer times could approach the suspect and confirm their identity. They had coordinated three on street "interactions" today, which likely explained the shrinking number of attendees at the mosque. Word travelled quickly throughout the Muslim community.

"I have a van approaching from the west on Sussex. White with no rear windows. Looks like a cargo van," she said to the two agents watching the flat-screen monitors.

Two additional agents appeared in the doorway to observe. Tensions had been heating up all day, but sunset prayer put them all on high alert. The three young men that always stayed behind in the mosque had been joined by two additional men. One of them had entered for sunset prayer and failed to emerge an hour later. The other appeared two blocks away on Jay Street and waited outside of the front door for a few minutes before entering. Nearly three hours later, none of them had exited the mosque, which gave Special Agent Riehms the impression that they were plotting to help the Imam escape.

"Notify mobile SWAT units," she ordered.

"Got it. Units notified. I have the van leaving the stop sign. We'll be watching closely," replied one of the agents in front of the monitors.

The entire internal bedroom wall had been occupied with long folding tables and computer equipment. Four flat-screen monitors showed the separate surveillance feeds, and one larger monitor held their command and control interface. The agent who had just responded typed the SWAT notification, which was instantly transferred to both of the Suburbans. The SUVs were parked one block away, effectively sandwiching Jay Street. Each vehicle carried five SWAT agents, including the driver, and could move into a blocking position to prevent the escape of a vehicle leaving the mosque.

"Confirmed. Van is approaching the mosque," Riehms said.

She watched the van pass the side entrance and suddenly stop. Three figures darted from the mosque's door, disappearing behind the van.

"Fuck! They're loading him into the van!" she said, continuing to watch.

"I have the van stopped at the intersection of Jay and Sussex, turning left onto Jay. I didn't see it stop," said the agent watching the screen.

Another agent mumbled agreement. Through her binoculars, she saw the van speed through the intersection and turn right onto Jay Street. She ran from the window to the computer monitor.

"What the fuck are you talking about? I just watched it pick up three men and turn right onto Jay. Get SWAT moving south to intercept!"

"The van turned left. Take a look. Nobody left the mosque," the agent said.

"I saw it with my own fucking eyes. We're going to lose the Imam. Send SWAT south. The van has to turn on Central Ave. Either way, one of our teams can intercept!"

There was a two-second delay as puzzled agents traded glances. She didn't like the fact that they were questioning her judgment, but she could understand their confusion. The computer monitor playback clearly showed the van turning left. Something was wrong here.

"Open a channel to SWAT," Riehms said as the agent typed her initial intercept request into the computer.

"I just fired off the order. They'll have plenty of time to intercept if the van went right. Should I notify non-tactical units to proceed north, just to cover our asses?"

"Fine. Send them north," she said, grabbing the headset offered to her by the agent. "SWAT Mobile this is Overlook. Proceed south to intercept a white Dodge Sprinter van. No back windows. Minimum of four onboard, possibly including our target. How copy, over?"

A static-filled voice responded, "This is SWAT Mobile. My unit has just passed Dickerson Street. Less than five seconds away from a blocking position on Central Avenue. Sister unit is approaching Central along Hudson. Stand by for visual confirmation."

A few tense seconds passed as they waited for the truth. Agent Riehms thought about contacting the non-tactical units, but decided against it. She had seen the van turn right; there was no point contacting them, unless the van didn't show up on Central Avenue. There was no way for the van to break through Jay onto one of the adjoining streets and double back. They had confirmed this during a tactical assessment of the neighborhood. If the van didn't appear on Central, the only possible explanation was that it had stopped.

"Can you call up a map that shows our units' positions? We might need to guide them if the van tries to double back."

"One second," the agent replied, typing away.

All of the agents assigned to the stakeout were huddled around the computer monitor, blocking her view of the larger, central screen. She moved to a more centralized location to view the map.

"Agent Bedford, take these and make sure the van doesn't come back down Jay Street," she said, giving the binoculars to the newest agent to join her team.

"Yes, ma'am."

When the agent reached the window, her headset came to life.

"Suspect van just turned left onto Central Avenue. Moving forward to block. My second unit is less than fifty feet behind them. Send back-up units! The van just slowed and is now turning into oncoming traffic! Unit two just rammed them from behind. Stand by. Out."

The line went dead.

"Send FBI and police units to their location, Central Avenue between Norfolk and Hudson. Give them one of our radio frequencies for coordination. What the fuck? Why does this map show all of our units headed north? You ordered SWAT south, right?"

"Yes! You just talked to them! Where did they say they were?"

"On Central Avenue," she muttered, utterly confused.

"SWAT Mobile, this is Overlook. What is your status, over?"

"Overlook. This is SWAT Mobile. I just turned left on Orange. No sign of the suspect van. Approaching Jay Street. Do you want me to turn down Jay and start searching? I can keep unit two at the top of the street to prevent an escape."

"SWAT Mobile. You just reported to me that you had engaged the suspect van on Central Avenue? Confirm your location again?" she said.

"I'm at the top of Jay Street. I've been taking my orders from the mobile tablet. I haven't sent an update since we started driving north," the voice replied.

"They drove north? Shit!" she yelled.

"His GPS location matches. According to the system, both SWAT Mobile units are at the northern end of Jay Street."

"Something is wrong with the system. Can you play back my conversation with SWAT Mobile?" she said.

"Which one?"

"The one supposedly on Central Avenue. Put it on speaker," she ordered.

Three seconds later, her conversation echoed through the room, filling her with dread. There was a stark difference between the two voices and the quality of the transmission. Her conversation with the SWAT leader on Central Avenue had been full of static, and there was something off with the voice.

"What do you hear in that conversation?" she asked the other agents.

"I don't mean this to sound like a racial comment, but it sounded like you were on a bad connection with Dell technical support in Bangalore, India."

Nobody laughed at his comment.

"Is it possible for this system to be hijacked or hacked?" Agent Riehms asked.

"It's not impossible," conceded the agent sitting in front of the command screen.

"Shit. Communicate with cell phones only, until we figure out what happened. I want all units headed south. We have to assume they're already on Central Avenue. I want blocks set up at every entrance to Interstate 280 for ten miles in either direction. Can you give us a directory of cell phone numbers for everyone assigned to our group?"

The agent typed a few commands, and a list appeared. He ordered the computer to print several copies. Agent Riehms entered the numbers for the SWAT team leader's cell phone and pressed send. A second later, she heard a buzzing sound coming from Agent Bedford, who was dutifully watching Jay Street through his binoculars. He reached for his belt and took out his Blackberry. When he read the screen, he lowered the binoculars and held up the phone so she could see the screen.

"I think it's safe to assume that our system was hacked," Agent Bedford said, "unless you misdialed an entire cell phone number."

Aleem Fayed hit the van's sliding door and toppled to the carpeted floor, keeping a grip on Hamid Muhammad's arm. Tariq had fared better during the wild turn, having immediately grabbed the only permanently affixed passenger seat available in the back of the converted van. Tariq had expressed his concern about using the surveillance team for this kind of a precision timed maneuver, but they really didn't have a choice. If he had left the mosque at midnight to join up with the van, there was a solid chance that the FBI would follow him. The van took another sharp turn, which elicited a few excited hollers and sent Aleem careening into Tariq and Hamid.

"Take it easy, Graves! We're clear! The last thing we need is to attract any local police attention. Cars speeding around corners at midnight attract a lot of attention! Slow the fuck down!"

"All right! All right! I just wanted to get us off Central Avenue. We're fine. Right in the middle of Rutgers University. I'll cruise us through campus, and we'll head south," Timothy Graves said.

Graves was the leader and default driver for the team, which had fallen short by one over the course of the past week. They had lost their secondary hacker, Benjamin Weindorf, to a startup computer security company that had just secured several million dollars of funding from the U.S. Navy. Tariq had personally visited Weindorf upon arriving in the States, to impress upon the young man that any mention of his previous "benefactor" would result in an early burial. Graves had been unable to find a trustworthy replacement in such a short period of time, but they might not need one in the future. Their primary systems hacker seemed more than capable of handling the excess workload.

Anish Gupta raised his hands above his head, palms facing upward, and slowly pumped his arms up and down. "Raise the roof, bitches! Those motherfuckers have no idea what just hit them. Watch this!" he said, typing a command on his keyboard.

"All mobile units, this is over watch. Suspect van spotted heading north on Mount Prospect Ave. Local units in pursuit. Proceed down Clifton Avenue to Bloomfield Avenue for intercept. Set up a block at intersection of Clifton and Bloomfied."

Through the speaker, they all heard several units responding affirmatively to his command.

"I'm tracking them by individual cell phone. Every FBI unit is headed north on Clifton. Local police are a different story. Agents at over watch successfully made several calls to 911," Gupta said. "He doesn't look too badly burned," he added, nodding at Hamid.

The Imam lay flat on the van floor with a fresh band of duct tape over his mouth. They had kept the duct tape off while transporting him to the van, in order to maintain the appearance that his escorted departure was an escape. Aleem sat on his chest, keeping him pinned to the floor until they were far enough away to risk propping him up in a seat.

"How long until they get their shit together?" Aleem asked.

"Not long. They'll unscrew the cell phone issue shortly. I just scrambled their directories, so if they didn't have a number memorized, they'd dial the wrong number. I didn't mess with their back-up system at the field office, so they'll probably get a data refresh. Depends on who's working IT at the field office. If it was me, I would sever all connection to the mobile site. I'd order them to physically cut the fucking cable modem wires. Not that it would matter. I already have full access to the field office. This was more fun than I had anticipated."

"He's going to drive me crazy, isn't he?" Aleem asked Graves.

"You get used to it. He's one of the best in the business…and he actually seems to enjoy this cloak and dagger shit," Graves said.

"Good. Because this looks like the very beginning of a long operation. We'll need to do something with this van before we reach the safe house. How portable is all of your equipment?"

"Thirty minutes to strip it down, including the antenna and satellite rig. We'll probably have to burn the van," Gupta said.

"Really? Now our friend here is operational?" Aleem said, eliciting a laugh from everyone in the van that didn't have his mouth taped.

"Just saying," Gupta responded. "Our fingerprints and DNA are all over this biatch."

"Where did you find a gangsta Hindu computer hacker?" Tariq asked.

"He found me, and this is nothing, by the way. He's actually behaving for you guys," Graves replied, turning the van gently onto a crowded urban street.

"Wonderful," Aleem said.

Tariq and Aleem watched the traffic around the van closely for signs of unwanted law enforcement attention. Aleem spotted a three-story parking garage coming up on the opposite side of the road, which appeared to be connected to the Sheraton hotel towering over it.

"Graves, let's pull into that parking garage and find a new ride. We won't last much longer on the road if they successfully issue an APB. There's too much traffic out here," Aleem said.

"I can take care of the APB. I'm tapped into the State Police and local Newark Police network," Gupta said.

"Forget it. You'll lose satellite as soon as we duck into the garage. Start disassembling the gear," Aleem said.

"Can I call you Aleem G? It's so close to Ali G. You know who I'm talking about, right? HBO series?" Gupta said.

Aleem regarded the young Indian man strapped into a swivel bucket seat that had been bolted into the middle of the rear cargo compartment. Both of his hands typed away at one of the keyboards on the metal cargo table. He could see that the heavy-duty table had been welded to the left side of the van at several points. All of the equipment had been secured in custom-made metal holsters and strapped down with industrial-grade Velcro straps. The entire set up, Anish Gupta included, looked like it could survive a multiple rollover accident. It was hard to get mad at someone who looked so ridiculous and so serious at the same time.

"No. To all of your questions," Aleem said.

"Maybe I can just call you G?"

"How about you start getting all of this equipment ready for transfer and I'll think of a name. It'll probably sound a lot like Aleem."

"No sense of humor. Fuck. I get it. Mouth shut," the young man said.

Aleem continued to stare past Gupta, examining traffic through the rear window. He knew the young techie understood the stakes up front, but from behind his computers, this was still more or less a game to him. He didn't see the dead bodies in the mosque, and he wasn't there when they engulfed Hamid's head in flames. And he wouldn't be there when they put a bullet in the terrorist's head. Hopefully, this would continue to feel like somewhat of a game for him. A game at this point that would land him in federal prison as an accessory to murder, among dozens of additional charges related to interfering with a federal investigation and hacking federal databases…and this was only the beginning.

Chapter 14

Special Agent Sharpe hung up the phone and stood up from his desk. Frank Mendoza gave him one of his patented raised eyebrows looks. For a moment, he stared past his friend at the NCTC watch floor. All of the displays full of information, maps and charts gave the impression that they were on top of the situation. Analysts and technicians moved back and forth between stations, trading conversations, which to the untrained eye would appear to be a good sign of productive activity. Sharpe knew better.

The watch floor had been designed to keep analysts and agents at their well-separated workstations, where they could work relatively undisturbed, while still maintaining the critical "we all sink or swim" aura. Most of the agents filling temporary stations were tech savvy and figured out how to make use of the NCTC system within the first few hours of taking their posts. The fact that even the NCTC analysts were out of their chairs meant they didn't have enough to propel the investigation forward. The information passed to him through several phone calls would only make matters worse.

"It's not good, Frank. They lost the van. Disappeared into thin air along with Hamid Muhammad. All right in front of the FBI team assigned to watch the mosque," Sharpe said.

"We had people on that team?" Frank said.

"The Newark field office ran the stakeout. I just spoke with the senior agent at the site, Janice Riehms. Top-notch agent. Sounds like she ran it by the book, but they suffered from some kind of major cyber-electronics attack during the breakout. Completely compromised their communications and digital feed. She said they've never seen anything like this before. All of their vehicles were sent in the wrong direction. She mentioned something about their cell phones being rerouted too. Headquarters is sending a cyber-operations team to Newark to investigate their systems for further evidence of a breach. They're concerned about the level of sophistication demonstrated by this attack."

"Any good news?" Mendoza said.

"Three dead terrorist suspects were found in the mosque. The Newark field office suspects that this was Hamid Muhammad's next batch of recruits."

"Any chance this was the missing cell?"

"No such luck. This is a major setback. Now we have the most radical Imam in America loose with his last terrorist cell. Unfucking real. I need to brief the team. We may have to concentrate more on our True America leads."

"What leads?" Mendoza asked.

"We'll have to start turning over information on every member of True America associated with their militant arm. Anyone ever seen in public or private sector with Jackson Greely or Lee Harding. Maybe we can find a connection to the delivery address in Harrisburg. Right now all we have there is a burned-down house in foreclosure. The owners moved to Florida over a year ago and don't appear connected in any way."

"This is all very thin," Mendoza remarked.

"Tell me about it. If we don't produce something by tomorrow morning, we'll start to have visitors. High-ranking visitors."

Chapter 15

Special Agent Damon Katsoulis opened the front passenger door of the suburban and stepped out into the chilly air. A stiff breeze from the Upper Bay rustled through the young trees across the street, carrying a hint of saltiness over the pollution spewing into the air from the industrial wasteland that defined Bayonne's southeastern tip. Task Force Scorpion's Tactical Group sat quietly in several positions within the neighborhood, waiting for agent Katsoulis's command to pounce on apartment #2B at 98 Hobart Ave. He jogged over to the street corner and joined two tactical agents leaned up against a gray brick storefront that looked like it had been boarded up for years. Weeds poked through the concrete on both sides of the store.

"Anything unusual?" he asked.

"Negative," the agent closest to the corner said. "My only concern is the lighting situation for the approach. There are several industrial-grade sodium lamps directly across from the target building at the back entrance gate to Hamm Brands. Nothing we can do about those, unless we try to contact security at Hamm and get them to douse the lights."

"No. We have an hour until dawn and even less time until civil twilight. We need to hit them now. They'll be up for prayer in thirty minutes or so," Katsoulis said.

"We won't be exposed for long. I'm just concerned that they might have a lookout posted. Two of the apartment windows face the street. Luckily, we have two healthy trees on the street corner in front of the building that partially obscure those windows."

"All right. Two-minute warning," he said.

Katsoulis reached up to his vest and depressed a button that opened his communication channel to the team leaders.

"Back Door, this is Lead. Two-minute warning for the approach. Advise when in position, over."

A clear voice replied in his headset, acknowledging the warning order. Katsoulis peeked around the corner and saw what the team leader had described. The entire street corner formed by the intersection of George and Hobart was bathed in an artificial orange glow from several lights set along the gate and two-story structure. He could imagine that the residents loved having twenty-four hour daylight compliments of Hamm Brands.

He pulled his head back and swung his M4 Carbine around to a ready position along his chest. He started to check all of his equipment, while the three SUVs double parked along East 4^th Street emptied ten additional SWAT agents into the quiet neighborhood. The agents started assembling near the corner, checking their own weapons and communications gear, while making sure they had unhindered access to flashbang grenades and spare ammunition magazines. A similar scene would unfold somewhere down George Street, putting over two dozen heavily armed tactical agents at his command for the takedown.

Finishing his personal check, there was only one more thing to do. Katsoulis checked his weapon's safety, ensuring that it was engaged, and chambered a round with the charging handle. The sound of his rifle's bolt slamming home echoed against the concrete, signaling for the rest of the team to do the same in rapid succession. "Front Door" was ready for action.

He saw several investigative agents exit their cars and start to wander toward the corner, keeping their distance. They would stand guard over the cars and wait for him to give the "all clear" signal over the communications net. At that point, the tactical team would be charged with transporting the prisoners back to the field office, where legendary FBI interrogator Gregory Carlisle would start the long process of extracting useful information. Katsoulis imagined that Carlisle would start with the fact that people from their own community had turned against them.

The Newark field office had received an extremely detailed, late-night tip regarding three young men who just recently moved into an apartment that had remained conspicuously unoccupied for thirteen months. Three dark-skinned men, "definitely Arab and new to the community," had arrived yesterday morning, wearing only backpacks. The caller requested to remain anonymous, in fear of possible retribution by more conservative members of "their community." Caller ID at the field office and FBI phone tracing efforts placed the call to the apartment directly above the suspects.

Investigative agents quickly pieced together what the caller meant by "their community." Bayonne, New Jersey, was home to a small but robust Muslim community that had successfully integrated with the rest of the immigrant groups in the area years before 9/11. The last thing any of them wanted was a group of suspected terrorists to tarnish the community's reputation, though the caller pointed out that not everyone in the community shared the same view. The field office also suspected that the call was motivated by the late-night coverage of the "possible terrorist attack" in Mount Arlington. Media coverage of the safe house attacks had so far been successfully avoided, but word of what happened in Mount Arlington was quickly spreading. It was a little hard to conceal the fact that authorities were trying to keep nearly one hundred thousand citizens from drinking water provided by the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority.

He glanced at his watch and saw that nearly two minutes had elapsed.

"Back Door, Lead. Proceed to breach position," he said, receiving an immediate response.

"Let's go," he whispered to the team leader standing next to him, slapping the man on the back.

He watched the twelve men file past, carrying a variety of weapons and breaching gear. They all wore full Level IIIA body armor, fitted with hardened ceramic plates capable of stopping armor-piercing rounds. Despite the impression of invulnerability, the body armor couldn't protect the men from every type of round at every angle. There were plenty of gaps and seams for mindless bullets to penetrate, leaving the wearer severely wounded or dead. The plates were designed to intercept the most probable center mass hits in the back or chest and would do little to stop an impact outside of these zones. Still, the ceramic plates remained a statistically good bet, since data supported the fact that most shooters under stress will aim for center mass and hope for the best.

When the last agent turned the corner, he joined the line, which snaked down the cracked sidewalk under the harsh orange glow cast by the overpowering sodium vapor lights. The tactical team traversed the distance between the two street corners, arriving at the front door in less than twenty seconds. The agents stacked up against the front wall of the apartment, crouched below the barred first-floor windows, and waited for the breach team to analyze the front door. He monitored their hushed conversations over the tactical net. Both the front and side doors were locked. Katsoulis walked up the line of agents pressed against the vinyl siding and kneeled behind the team leader. He didn't say a word.

A tense minute passed while the agents tried unsuccessfully to pick the lock. The team leader discussed options with the agent manipulating the tools for a few seconds. He whispered orders into his headset, bringing one of the agents out of the stack with their portable battering ram. The agent trying to open the lock felt confident that the door would give in with a low intensity hit from the battering ram. Katsoulis wondered if they might be better off with a full strike, leaving nothing to chance.

The target apartment was on the second floor directly above them, so any level of impact might alert the suspects, which would leave them with little time to reach the apartment and gain entry. Unfortunately, the last minute nature of the "anonymous" tip had prevented them from setting up the best possible surveillance of the target building. They had agents with powerful night vision equipped optics watching the windows from cars on the street, but beyond that, they had no way to tell what was going on inside the apartment.

The team leader turned to him and whispered, "Upon hitting this door, it'll take us less than ten seconds to get flashbangs into the target apartment. This team will reach the apartment first, based on the location of the stairs. We won't have any time to assess the apartment door. We'll use shotgun breach loads and the ram at the same time. I don't see a way around this. It's a gamble on which door to use. My assumption is that the windows right above us are for a common area. They're bigger than the side windows above my other team. Based on that assumption, hitting this door will put the impact sound furthest away from the bedrooms."

"It's your call. Sounds like a solid plan based on what we were given. As long as they hit the door upstairs fast and furious, we'll surprise the shit out of them," Katsoulis said.

The team leader wasted no time continuing the conversation. He had over twenty agents exposed on the street.

"Back Door, this is Lead. Front Door will breach using the ram. Your breach will be delayed to keep the element of surprise. We suspect that the bedrooms are right above your door. Send four men around to secure the front entrance and have the remaining eight ready to immediately breach the side door to back up the primary assault team."

"Lead, this is Back Door. We just got the door open."

"Roger. Forget that plan. Proceed with entire team to target door and wait for me to arrive. I'm sending a backup team around the side to cover the entrance and street," he said and turned to face Katsoulis.

"We caught a break. We'll have the element of surprise on the target door. Agent Pruitt, I'm taking the last three from your stack to cover the side door. I'll open your door from the inside prior to the main breach. Keep half of your team here to secure the door and send the rest up as backup. Got it?" the team leader said.

Pruitt acknowledged the team leader's order by immediately briefing his team. The three agents from the end of the line along the building jogged to meet Katsoulis, who was already around the corner.

Jafal el-Sharif had finally fallen asleep in the extremely uncomfortable wooden chair that he had dragged from the kitchen table to his bedroom. His head leaned precariously against the paint-chipped window framing, half shaded by the orange light that invaded his family's apartment. His head twitched within moments of his eyes closing, slamming his head against the sharp edge of the wood frame and causing him to briefly cry out in pain. Fortunately, his wife and children were not in the apartment to hear him. He had sent them to stay with her sister after receiving a strange request from a member of his mosque.

He had been asked to watch the street around his apartment for any suspicious law enforcement activity. With the recent discovery that the New York City Police department had been profiling local Muslim communities, activists within the Bayonne Muslim society had started to vocalize their opposition to further cooperation with local police. The man had told Jafal that his assistance was critical to proving that the federal and local law enforcement agencies were illegally targeting Muslims for discrimination.

"They" suspected that a major operation was underway in Bayonne, possibly in his own neighborhood, and they wanted to send the media down to intercept the police at the scene. He had been warned to be especially vigilant at night, when the police liked to terrorize members of the community, before disappearing back into the night. Some members of the community had supposedly vanished in these raids, only to reappear behind bars in Guantanamo Bay. Something had to be done to stop this harassment, and Jafal would be their first line of defense. He had a cell phone number to call if the police showed up on his street.

He shook his head from the impact and cursed himself for falling asleep. He figured he had only been out for a few seconds. He took a deep breath and leaned forward to take in more of the street. His eyes caught movement to the far right, and he immediately inched forward in the chair. What he saw nearly caused him to fall onto the floor in front of the window. Two heavily armed police officers disappeared into the side door of the apartment building on the opposite side of George Street. They were right! They moved so quickly and quietly that he had almost missed them. Allah had woken him at just the right moment! He grabbed the cell phone resting on the windowsill and dialed the number he had programmed into his phone.

"Allahu Akbar," he whispered gleefully, hoping to strike a small blow against the oppressive American regime.

"We have a possible problem," Anish Gupta said.

He leaned forward, staring at a lone laptop screen set on a folding table at the safe house in New Brunswick. They had moved all of the computer equipment from the van into the house, where it would remain until they acquired a new van with the required internal configuration to continue mobile field operations. Anish had been confident that they could carry out the necessary surveillance from the small house. Once Graves and Tariq had positioned themselves on the roof of a nearby Hamm Brands warehouse, all he claimed to need was uninterrupted high-speed internet access and his decked-out laptop.

The surveillance post was close enough for their wireless signal mapper to detect and pinpoint passive cell phone transmissions within the vicinity of the target building. It could also transmit enough power to perform a few highly classified snooping tricks. Thanks to Hamid Muhammad's confession, they had been able to turn one of the terrorist's cell phones into a bug. Hamid didn't think any of the previously known numbers would be active, but one of the men had apparently violated strict security procedures and kept his old phone. This had been one of the ways they had corroborated Hamid's information. One of the cell phone numbers matched an active phone located at 98 Hobart Avenue, which was where Hamid swore they would find the missing terrorist cell.

"What's up?" Aleem muttered, physically exhausted from the evening's activities.

"I have two cell phones operational within fifty feet of each other. I can hear one of them ringing from our co-opted phone in the target apartment. The other is located across the street. I think it's a lookout. We're live with Tariq and Graves," he said, pointing to a microphone mounted on the table.

Aleem sat up at the dining room table, his mind scrambling to figure out what they could do to covertly assist the FBI SWAT team. Hamid didn't think they would be armed with much more than knives and pistols, but he also wasn't sure to what extent the cell would be supported by his loyal followers within the Bayonne Muslim community. The apartment had been secretly rented by Hamid a year earlier and kept vacant for the purpose of temporarily hiding a cell in plain sight. He had given the apartment key to one of his followers to deliver to the cell's leader, with sealed instructions. This had been followed by another sealed message to be carried to his contact in Bayonne. He had been forthcoming with this information, clearly wanting to avoid a sudden inferno engulfing his head again. Aleem had no reason to believe that Hamid knew about the lookout in the adjacent apartment. In any event, he would use this information to further terrorize the Imam.

"Tariq. Can you see any movement on infrared? You should have a clear line of sight to the apartment's front door," Aleem said.

Aleem had wanted the surveillance team to transmit the feed to their safe house, but Graves didn't want to overcomplicate the communications rig they needed to erect on the warehouse roof in order to support mission essentials. The anonymous tip to the FBI had been placed before the surveillance team had figured out how they would get into Hamm Brand's sprawling complex and onto the roof of the massive building. The trip back to Bayonne from the safe house in New Brunswick had put them on a tight schedule.

"Nothing yet. SWAT teams are in the front and side doors. Hold on. Shit, I have multiple heat signatures in the common area. They're up. I have no way to engage," he heard on the speaker.

"There's nothing you can do. Anish, can you provide a distraction? Ring their phones?"

"I can ring the number we have…or I can activate the camera's flash."

"Do both. Coordinate the flash with SWAT's countdown," Aleem said.

Gupta had scanned all active VHF frequencies before and after the FBI SWAT team's arrival, quickly determining which frequencies were used for the tactical team's P25 Digital Encrypted radios. He had access to an extremely proprietary brute-force key-recovery program that could provide him with the encryption key, and in an act of sheer desperation, he could try to "rekey" all of the radios using a program that Graves had acquired from sources that Gupta had worried about more than Sanderson. Neither of these methods had been necessary, since their illicit access to the multiple FBI networks provided them with the "key" used by Task Force Scorpion's tactical units. He had enjoyed using the same technology to co-opt the Newark field office's radios during their escape with the Imam for Masjid Muhammad.

Gupta typed furiously at the keyboard, while monitoring the SWAT team.

"Three second countdown. Damn they moved fast. Two, one…"

"I just saw a flash," Tariq said.

"The phone should be ringing too. Wow! I just lost my hearing," he said, snatching the headphones from his head.

"Three flashbangs. Windows shattered. No gunshots. Lots of yelling," Tariq reported.

"You just heard the bang part of the flashbang," Aleem said.

"Thanks for the warning."

"Imagine what it's like on the receiving end."

Gupta replaced the headset and listened intently to the radio chatter. He didn't hear any transmissions indicating a "man down." He started to hear reports of "clear" from several team members.

"I didn't hear any gunshots, but they could have been mixed in with the flashbangs," Tariq said.

"From what I can tell, no shots were fired. They recovered four canisters. The HAZMAT truck should be pulling up any second," Gupta said.

"Looks like it just arrived," Tariq added.

"Nice job, Anish. You probably saved an FBI agent's life today," Aleem said.

"Maybe. But that life would have never been in danger if we didn't place the call in the first place," Gupta said, obviously mulling over his own logic.

"I'm not getting into another logic trap debate with you. This day has been long enough. Good work. Leave it at that. Let's send everything we have to Insider," Aleem said.

Insider was their codename for Callie Stewart within the NCTC. Sanderson's plan to accelerate the investigation on behalf of the FBI had only just begun. The next phase sounded dicey in Aleem's opinion, but might help them skip a few steps and bring everyone closer to finding the remaining virus canisters. Hamid Muhammad might live to see another day.

Chapter 16

Daniel Petrovich took his new passport from the smartly dressed customs agent and tucked it into the interior breast pocket of his black wool pea coat.

"You can proceed to the waiting lounge, or if you prefer, a private room. All areas are fully equipped for your business needs. The aircraft just arrived, so it may take a few minutes to refuel and re-inspect. Enjoy your flight, Mr. Petrovich."

"Thank you. The crew can find me in the lounge," he said.

He pulled his carry-on luggage to a comfortable seating area at the front of the private terminal lobby. The three serious-looking operatives stood in unison as he approached.

"I guess this is goodbye. No tears, please. Look at the positive side of my departure. One less smelly body driving around Europe in a rental van," Petrovich said.

"And just as I was starting to get used to you," Farrington said.

"My infectious charm rubs off on everyone," Petrovich said, extending his right hand.

The two men shook hands vigorously.

"Take care of this guy. He's Sanderson's protégé," he said to Hubner and Klinkman.

"That's a relief. We were worried you might be his protégé," Klinkman said.

They all laughed at Klinkman's rare display of humor.

"What now, Mr. Petrovich? Sounds like there's plenty of unfinished business back in the States. You might be better off vacationing somewhere else. Plus, you're a little overdressed," Farrington said, pulling Daniel's left collar.

"Rest and recuperation. Jessica's choice. I'll follow her wherever she chooses. Gentlemen."

He exchanged firm handshakes with Hubner and Klinkman.

"Don't drink the water," Hubner added.

"That's what you say for Mexico," Klinkman said.

"Not anymore," Hubner replied.

"I'll stick to bottled water for now," he said, turning to Farrington.

"Good luck with the German comedy duo. I foresee long, painful car rides in your future," Petrovich said.

"See you around," Farrington said.

"No offense, but hopefully not."

Farrington smiled and slapped him on the shoulder. "I hope you're right."

Petrovich nodded to the group and made his way to the door leading to the private terminal's lounge. He fought the urge to glance back at them, as if doing so would catapult him back into Sanderson's world. He had been disturbed to learn that Farrington, and presumably Sanderson, knew where he was headed. He had booked the Gulf Stream V with his own funds and had expected his destination to remain a secret. Maybe Farrington had taken a stab in the dark. If so, he had fallen for the oldest trick in the book and confirmed the destination. Then again, if Farrington had been fishing for information, he'd have to assume that anything Daniel said would be a subterfuge. He could go on and on with this logic, until he came full circle.

He couldn't wait to be out of this business. He'd spend a week or two relaxing with Jessica on the beach before they started to make plans to vanish again. This time, they'd fully cover their tracks. Daniel and Jessica Petrovich would cease to exist in the eyes of General Terrence Sanderson and the rest of the world, leaving them at peace to live normal lives. The kind of normal that more than thirty million dollars can buy.

He took a seat in the empty lounge and stared out of the window at the shiny, sleek Gulf Stream V taxiing to rest fifty meters beyond the glass. Roughly eight hours from now, the jet would land in Charleston, South Carolina, where he would meet Jessica and drive to a rental villa on Fripp Island, just outside of Beaufort. He couldn't imagine that Al Qaeda had any plans to poison the water supply of a private beach resort community on the South Carolina coast. He checked his watch. It was still a little early to call Jessica.

She had arrived in Charleston yesterday afternoon, promptly checking into a suite at the Charleston Place, the most luxurious hotel within the city's historic downtown district. He'd call her from the aircraft and coordinate his arrival. He'd rented a four-door, soft-top Jeep Wrangler for the upcoming weeks. He couldn't wait to drive through the warm Atlantic air with the top down, taking in the simplicity of the low country with Jessica.

They had spent a considerable amount of time vacationing in Hilton Head while they lived in Maine, taking full advantage of the warm weather and southern hospitality. For this trip, they had opted to steer clear of their usual resort in Hilton Head due to their recently erased celebrity criminal status. They had become regulars at some of Hilton Head's finest restaurants, similarly establishing their presence in nearby Savannah. This time, they would explore new territory in Beaufort and Charleston, while anonymously enjoying the same ocean on Fripp Island. Two weeks to enjoy one of their favorite stateside refuges for the last time. They'd make the best of it, before Daniel reached out to some of his past acquaintances. Acquaintances in the business of finding new identities for wealthy clients.

Chapter 17

Special Agent Sharpe finished giving his pep talk to the exhausted task force personnel and started to make his rounds to all of the stations. Special Agent Mendoza would start making arrangements to have the personnel rotate through mandatory rest periods, where they would make use of the limited on-site sleeping quarters. NCTC designers had assumed correctly that certain operations might keep watch floor users tied to the building for several days; however, they had grossly underestimated the possible size of these groups. Sharpe would likely have to authorize the use of several rooms at a nearby Marriott.

The investigation's pace had picked up over the past few hours and would likely build more momentum as the day unfolded. They now had full access to Hamid Muhammad's mosque and apartment. Both qualified as federal crime scenes when Agent Janice Riehms found three dead bodies in the middle of the prayer hall. Riehms had carefully crafted her request to enter the mosque on the premise that the Imam's sudden departure more resembled an abduction than an escape. Two men pushing another man into the back of a van at midnight. Sharpe authorized her to search the mosque for signs of foul play, which they immediately discovered. In many ways, the loss of the Imam opened investigative avenues previously blocked by the Justice Department's restrictions.

The biggest break came from the "anonymous" tip that led to the successful capture of the missing terrorist cell. Four virus canisters had been recovered from a cooler in one of the bedrooms. From what Homeland's bioweapons team could tell, each of the canisters appeared to contain their original payload. Removing four canisters from terrorist hands signified a major win for Task Force Scorpion; however, fifty canisters still remained at large, which was not a comforting thought. Sharpe figured he'd better have someone make the Marriott arrangements immediately. They had just scratched the surface of this investigation.

He could feel Callie Stewart's eyes following him as he worked his way through the last few stations. So far, she had proved to be unobtrusive, simply observing the action from her perch. He had expected her to frequently descend the stairs to share her thoughts, but she only seemed interested in pestering him with text messages about putting undercover agents in the mosque. Those messages had mercifully stopped after the Imam's spectacular escape.

Callie Stewart watched Special Agent Sharpe disappear under the catwalk. She was a little nervous about what General Sanderson wanted her to do. Sharpe might arrest her on the spot, though he had no real charges to levy against her, or he might simply ban her from NCTC. Either option would render her mission incapable. Even if she were to convince him to follow Sanderson's plan, he might change his mind at any moment and exercise his options to have her removed.

Her boss felt confident that Sharpe would bite at the proposal. This wouldn't be Sharpe's first walk into the gray area. He'd taken a step out onto that ledge earlier tonight, when he had authorized Agent Riehms to enter the mosque. Sanderson had assured her that the FBI agent had other skeletons hidden in his closet and fed her the lines she would need to sway Sharpe. He expected her to improvise the rest to earn her exorbitant fee for this job.

She made her way down the stairs, drawing a few stares from both NCTC and task force personnel. She could sense a combination of enmity and pure attraction. She locked eyes with Special Agent Mendoza and flicked her head, hoping he would understand this subtle gesture. She needed him in the room with Sharpe when she made her proposal. If Sharpe went along with it, she needed Mendoza's approval to seal the deal among the rest of the task force. A one-on-one meeting would raise too many suspicions, especially with Special Agent O'Reilly.

Sanderson's cyber team had already defeated several attempts by O'Reilly to electronically eavesdrop on her office. She didn't blame the agent for her suspicion and anger. Sanderson's operatives had severely wounded three agents assigned to Sharpe two years ago, including O'Reilly. She had spent several weeks in recovery, trying to regain full use of her left arm. A 5.56mm bullet had separated the forearm muscle from the bone. From her perch on the catwalk, she could clearly see that O'Reilly had not fully recovered; she frequently removed her left hand from the keyboard, continuing only with her right hand while she gave the left forearm a break.

Stewart reached Sharpe's door, which was open, and knocked on the frame. Agent Mendoza closed in on her from behind.

"Come in," Sharpe said, without looking up.

She stepped inside his office, and when he finally lifted his head, she could tell that he wished it were possible to rescind the invitation. Agent Mendoza squeezed by her without any sort of pleasantry and stood near the left front corner of Sharpe's desk. Mendoza swept his right hand back slightly, clearing enough of his jacket to ensure quick, smooth access to his service pistol.

"How may I help you, Ms. Stewart?" Sharpe asked.

"May I close the door? You can keep the windows transparent, so O'Reilly doesn't get too worried," she said.

"Sure," Sharpe conceded.

Once the door was shut, she wasted no time getting to the point.

"Now that you've more or less neutralized the Al Qaeda side of the threat, we need to focus on the real problem. True America…"

"We? The task force is doing just fine without your help. We'll let you know when Congress, the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court and the president have authorized us to ignore the laws of the land, thereby approving the methods your organization might employ. If that's all, I'm a little busy processing all of our new leads."

"No word on the warrants from Justice?" she prodded.

"I don't need the warrants anymore. The mosque is a federal crime scene."

"That's right. The Imam was abducted," she said flatly.

"We found three bodies inside the mosque. Arabs. Turns out one of them was on the watch list with ties to known Al Qaeda operatives in Europe."

"But you found them after you conspired with Agent Riehms to classify the Imam's departure as an abduction."

"Agent Riehms applied sixteen years of FBI experience to reach that conclusion. I trust her judgment."

"Especially since it allowed you access to the mosque you've been begging Justice to let you enter. And I'm sure Agent Riehms had every reason to make a sound, objective assessment, given the fact that she just lost the primary focus of the task force's investigation. Put the two together, and it sounds like a compelling reason to break a few rules."

"That's your interpretation," Sharpe said.

"Let's just hope it stays that way."

Sharpe simply stared at her, shaking his head. "I'm really not worried about it."

"Which is exactly why you need to hear what I'm proposing, Agent Sharpe. You've made some gains stepping over the line, but you'll have to do it again to break into True America. We need to start working our way up their human network; capture personnel on the ground. Right now, all you have is a tenuous link to True America with Julius Grimes. He's disappeared, and I can guarantee that you'll never see him again."

"The Imam made contact with True America at some point to coordinate the specifics of the delivery to Harrisburg. It looks like Al Qaeda was keeping their end of the bargain, so there's bound to be more. I guarantee we'll find something at the mosque or in his apartment that will give us the jumpstart we need," Sharpe said.

"You won't. Our people have scoured his computer and the mosque. There's nothing useful in his apartment either. And Al Qaeda had no intention of keeping their end of the bargain. I can give you an address in Middletown, Pennsylvania, that contains five decomposing Middle Eastern men. This was the hit squad assigned by Al Qaeda to recover the Harrisburg delivery. Both of these organizations were running a double cross from the start," Stewart said.

"Really? And exactly how do you know this?" Mendoza interjected.

"Because we have the Imam."

Agent Sharpe rose swiftly, and for a brief moment, Stewart thought she might have to physically defend herself. Mendoza's hand flashed to his gun, pulling it three quarters of the way out of its holster.

"You're in way over your head here, Ms. Stewart. I hope you're fucking with me right now because if you aren't…I'll have your ass dragged off in handcuffs."

"Sanderson wants to use the Imam to draw True America into the open. Whether you arrest me or not, the Imam will start placing calls this morning to his True America contacts," she said.

"He'll never be able to convince them to come out of hiding. True America is done with Al Qaeda."

"Maybe. According to the Imam, True America tipped him off about the FBI raids," Stewart said.

"This morning's raid?" Mendoza said.

"No. He claims to have received a call at about 3:30 in the morning, on the night that most of his teams were hit by True America. He was told to go into hiding at the mosque, where the FBI couldn't touch him," Stewart said.

"This doesn't make a lot of sense. How confident are you in the Imam's information?" Sharpe said.

"His babysitters are fairly certain he's telling the truth, though I agree that something doesn't add up."

"Either way, Ms. Stewart, by now True America has to realize that Mr. Muhammad uncovered the truth. I doubt very much that they would agree to meet with him," Sharpe said.

"You're absolutely right," she said and paused before continuing. "He's not going to try and set up a meeting. He'll threaten to expose Al Qaeda's collaboration with True America. The Imam hasn't coughed up any big picture details, but I think it's fair to assume that True America had a hand in funding this operation from the very beginning. He can use Grime's name to establish some credibility. Say that he has additional assets that have managed to track some of their operatives. You'll release news of the last cell being captured, so the Imam's desperation will make sense. He has no more virus in his possession, so he'll expose them if they don't give him ten canisters to continue his mission against the Infidels. Something convincing like that."

"They'll never give him the canisters. He's dead if they can draw him out of hiding," Sharpe said.

"Huh," Mendoza muttered, drawing a strange look from Sharpe.

"You're starting to get the picture, Agent Mendoza. The calls will be traceable. The location is a logical fit for where the Imam might hide. We sit and wait for them to send a team to eliminate the Imam," Stewart said.

"Since I haven't been arrested yet, is it fair to assume that you're interested?"

"Intrigued is a better word. I can't put undercover FBI agents in a situation where they are guaranteed to be attacked," Sharpe said.

"You don't have to. Our undercover team will cover ground zero. Trust me, they're a lot more convincing undercover than your people. The FBI can provide sniper support and SWAT backup. If True America takes the bait, you'll be able to start pulling at True America's threads. Sooner or later, you'll start to unravel their cover."

"What do you think, Frank?" Sharpe asked, turning to Mendoza.

"I was really hoping you wouldn't ask me that," Mendoza replied.

"All of your bases will be covered on this one. How well do you trust Kerem Demir, your investigative lead?" Stewart asked.

"Implicitly. He's a loyal agent," Sharpe said without hesitation.

"I'm not talking about loyalty. I'm talking about doing you a favor and keeping it quiet."

"I don't like where this is going," Mendoza said.

"All I'm suggesting is that you have him prioritize the analysis of the cell phones recovered in Bayonne. A few calls were placed to a market on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. Several dozen shops on that street cater to the massive Muslim community in Kensington. If I were the Imam, this would be a decent place for me to hole up and plan the next move."

"These guys are careful. Why would they make a call to a physical location that could jeopardize the safety of the Imam?"

"Why would the original World Trade Center bombers try to get their deposit back for a rental van that they exploded in the attack? I think you might be giving these people a little more credit than they deserve. One of the terrorists in Bayonne was carrying a cell phone that should have been destroyed prior to arriving at the safe house. Not to mention the fact that eight out of the ten terrorist cells associated with this plot were taken down by True America."

Sharpe shook his head slowly as his eyes narrowed. He sat down at his desk and typed a message.

"Done. The cell phones have been given the highest priority. What else does Sanderson have up his sleeve? I assume the anonymous tip about the safe house in Bayonne was graciously provided by your organization?"

"The Imam gave us the location, which we immediately passed on to your task force. Sanderson's efforts are focused on helping you move the investigation forward."

"As you can well imagine, I don't trust him any more than I trust the Imam. He's a master manipulator and an engineer of chaos. If I sense at any point that he's playing a game here, I'll pull the plug on your organization's participation and detain everyone until I sort it out. Is that understood?"

"Perfectly. Just think of where your investigation stands right now compared to last night. This is the kind of progress you can expect to continue making with Sanderson's support."

"When can we expect the Imam to fall into our lap?" Mendoza asked.

"When he's no longer useful to the investigation," Stewart said blankly.

"Very funny. Why do I get the distinct impression that Hamid Muhammad will never be seen again?" Sharpe asked.

"Do you really want to see him sipping tea in an interrogation cell?"

"Not really," Mendoza mumbled.

"Neither does Sanderson. You don't need to worry about the Imam. He's our problem. It's better that way. How long until Agent Demir comes up with the Brooklyn location?" Stewart said.

"I have a videoconference with the White House situation room in two hours. I'd like to include this in my briefing. He'll send the data directly here for analysis. If I haven't seen anything in thirty minutes, I'll have O'Reilly request it, if she hasn't already."

"Why didn't you send the request directly to O'Reilly in the first place?" Stewart asked.

"Because if I had sent her this request while meeting with you, she'd put two and two together before you walked out of the door."

Callie Stewart nodded. "I'll notify Sanderson. He'll contact our team at the field office in Newark and—"

"And the rest of the team you concealed from me?" Sharpe said.

"They'll get to work scouting the location before this becomes official. Lines of sight for your stakeout teams, optimal sniper positions, avenues of approach, all that. They should have most of it figured out by the time your first units arrive on the scene. The Imam should place his first call by mid-morning at the latest, so your people will need to hustle. If True America traces the call, they could have people on the scene within minutes."

Mendoza started to say something, but stopped before uttering a word. Sharpe flashed him a look, which she recognized immediately.

"Don't get any crazy ideas, gentlemen. The Imam will not be present at the site."

"I never said—" Mendoza started.

"You didn't have to," Stewart interrupted, heading toward the door. "Woman's intuition. Which reminds me…you might want to consider bringing O'Reilly in on the secret sooner rather than later. She'll become a liability if she discovers that you cut her out of the loop."

"O'Reilly isn't your concern," Sharpe said.

Stewart raised an eyebrow in response to his comment and exited the office, displaying a half smirk. Upon leaving, she stared up at one of the larger flat-screen displays near O'Reilly's workstation. Through her peripheral vision, she could see Agent Hesterman tracking her movement toward the stairs, which meant that O'Reilly was trying to be discreet. O'Reilly had the potential to become a massive problem if not handled correctly. They needed to bring her in at the ground level on this one.

Sanderson had identified O'Reilly as the other potential player on the task force. She had conspired with Sharpe two years ago to pass highly classified information to a less than scrupulous field agent, in an ill-fated attempt to turn Jessica Petrovich against her husband. Jessica had played Special Agent Edwards in order to steal the agent's computer and password, granting Sanderson's crew full access to the task force's database. What she did to Agent Edwards afterward went down in FBI history as a textbook case of how not to interact with a witness under any circumstance.

Sharpe's only luck that day stemmed from the fact that Edwards had been given a relatively high dose of a date rape drug, and couldn't remember much beyond his alcohol laden, expensive dinner with the femme fatale. The uproar surrounding Edward's thoroughly incompetent and embarrassing screw up lasted long enough for O'Reilly to remove the incriminating emails from the inside. In Sanderson's opinion, O'Reilly would support Sharpe on a slight divergence from procedure, or a major one if the end justified the means and it didn't directly endanger other agents.