Cloudburst

Five SAINTS AND SINNERS

The door slammed. It must have. He heard the sound of wood on wood and the rattle of the latch, but it should have been louder. Shouldn’t it? Who was it? Who? Who?

“Art,” the familiar female voice called to him.

Art’s eyes flickered open. He reached up, rubbing the sleepiness away as best he could. There was a heavy aroma of fresh coffee… and vanilla. But… “Carol?”

She was there, with the coffee only she could brew. Not that packaged foofoo crap that smelled like cake. It was her recipe. Art used to laugh at that: She had a recipe for coffee. “Your pot was cold, Arthur. Jerry tells me there’s a report to get ready.”

He pulled himself up, first on his elbows and then to a head-hanging sitting position. His shirt back was wet and his mouth was heavy with a filmy taste. “Guess I dozed off for a while.”

“A while?” Carol set the glass pot on the desk blotter. “You, young man, did more than doze off — it’s almost two A.M.”

“What?”

Her hands found their familiar position on her hips, which, along with the twisted look, signaled her displeasure. She was gruff and caring, much like Art’s grandma. “Listen.” A single finger aimed at his nose. “You were asleep. Jerry looked in and saw you and decided to call me. He thought you might need some help, so don’t start fussing.”

“Jesus, Carol.”

“Don’t ‘Jesus’ me, young man.”

Young man, hah! Only in comparison, though her sixty-three years had been kind to her. He would tell her, and she thought jokingly, that she didn’t look an hour past fifty.

“Now drink your coffee.” She poured the first cup and handed it to him. “Jerry’s already gone home and Eddie’s taking a nap at the Hilton. I spoke to him about ten and he said he’d call and wake you if the information came in. I typed up what you already had — and corrected your spelling — so you can just pick up where you left off.”

“Ehh!” Art coughed. The vanilla coffee was hot. And it did give him that kick he needed. Getting to his feet was easy after four sips.

“I’ll be at my desk — awake — when you need me,” she said, giving Art a wink as she pulled the door.

Art took stock of himself. “I must look like shit,” he mumbled aloud. A quick check of the pedestal mirror behind his desk confirmed the suspicion. He had left the file drawer half open before pausing. Why change shirts now, he wondered. Before him, neatly arranged, were the typed pages of the report and a fresh legal pad. He smiled and softly chuckled.

“Okay, Arthur,” he said aloud, “from the top.”

Number 8601 had raced across the sky at eight thousand miles per hour to a point over the North African coast where the Gulf of Sidra reached its farthest point inland, roughly above the town of Al-Uqaylah. Along its path it gradually dove from its previous altitude of 450 miles to a position in near earth orbit—108 miles above sea level. The position was practically perfect for photoreconnaissance, weather permitting, but uncomfortably close to the dense atmosphere closer to the earth. Already sensors on the surface of the KH-12 ENCAP — Enhanced Capability — had detected a rise in temperature as the huge satellite skirted the upper reaches of significantly measurable atmosphere. The friction with the heavy — compared to the vacuum of space — gases created heat. Several pumps were alerted to the buildup of heat and began sending additional amounts of cryogenic coolant to the heat-sensitive photoreceptors — the infrared eyes of the spacecraft.

When it reached its destination it was slowed, then stabilized, by tiny but powerful hydrazine rockets that aligned the “barrel” of the satellite at a predetermined reference point. Controllers at the Consolidated Space Operations Center in Colorado Springs then passed control of the KH-12 ENCAP, the first in its series, to the technicians at Fort Belvoir. In one relatively small room in the windowless cube-shaped structure that was the Keyhole ground station, two technicians sat at their control consoles. They were in control of the ‘bird,’ as they called it, though any maneuvering would still need to be done from CSOC.

“How long?” one of the National Security Agency officials asked. He was actually an Army colonel. His companion was a civilian officer of the NSA.

The senior technician did not look at the two ‘suits’ who sat behind. He was moving a computer mouse, directing a cursor as it danced across a secondary CRT, which was dwarfed by the wall-mounted seventy-inch monitor. “A minute, sir.” Sir! These guys expected a bird to do a speed run, slam on the brakes, and start transmitting wedding portraits. And they wore the suits.

A tunnel view of atmospheric haze and distant ground clutter filled the high-resolution monitor. The two NSA officials sat slightly higher than the technicians, bleacher style, giving them a comparable view. The room was much like a large closet in size. One wall was covered by the large viewing screen, below which was the instrumentation that controlled the sensors aboard the satellite. The walls, ceiling, and the single door to the room were covered with an indigo-colored fabric paper to eliminate glare and reflected light, enemies in a room where visual acuity was required for proper analysis.

“Okay, Chief,” the junior technician said. “I show a pos on the RPL. That’s a catch!”

“Stability?”

A look at another section of his display. “Set.”

The chief let out a breath. This rushed shit, especially the altitude dives, made him nervous, considering the bird was one of a kind. There were three of the originally planned four KH-12s in orbit, the fourth having suffered a rocket motor explosion as it climbed to its 550-mile area observation altitude. Right now it was tumbling away from earth. An expensive piece of space junk. One KH-12 ENCAP, three standard KH-12s, plus a handful of the older, less capable KH-11s in orbit was stretching the thin minimum needed. And none of the 11s or 12s had the capabilities of the 12 ENCAP, whose most important feature was its ability to ‘hover’ over the same point in low earth orbit, giving continuous surveillance of that spot.

“Hmm,” the bearded suit grunted. “Fuzzy.”

Just hang on. “It’ll clear up. We’re focusing down slowly. Got to, otherwise the lens motor might cause gyrorotation.”

“I see,” the suit lied. He had no idea what it meant. Hurry.

“Chet, start VDI and recorders. Do you guys need one copy or two?” the chief asked, turning to see the single finger in response from the colonel.

“VDI up and nominal. Recorders nominal. Running…now.” The junior technician engaged the two high-resolution recording devices. The Video Data Interface was another story. As the signal came down from a Milstar relay satellite in geosynchronous orbit it was broken down into microseconds of digitized information. These bits of imagery were then stored on computer disk for later enhancement and retrieval. It was basically a high-tech file cabinet, though the pictures could be pulled up on the data terminals, in their original form, at will.

The picture began to twist and roll as the optics oriented themselves and began to focus down. The ‘target’ was Benina International Airport, miles outside of Benghazi. It would be a low oblique shot from the south, approximately forty-three degrees above the horizon — not an ideal angle of view, but one necessitated by the moist air directly over the target.

“We have visual definition,” the junior tech announced. The picture became clearer. Objects took on a somewhat familiar appearance, at least to the techs: They were accustomed to overhead views.

“Okay, Chet, float the op-pac and sync with a three-point burst. Do you reconfirm reference lock with VDI?”

“Yep. Ready to synchronize.”

“Do it.” The chief saw the picture flutter, then appear to lock down solid. The optical package, a fancy name for the lens array, was ‘floating’ in a gel-encased bearing ring and was stabilized against minor shaking by a short burst of narrow radar beams directed at three points around the airport. The beams, fired every two seconds, gave precise information as to the satellite’s position in relation to the target, allowing the gyrostabilizer to precisely calibrate itself with the optics and compensate for unwanted motion.

“We have capture. Solid.” The young tech, thirty years the junior of his chief, always got excited at this point. “Ready for focus down.”

“Good. Take it down to a three-mile start.”

Now the NSA men were able to make out details, the most prominent being the ten-thousand-foot east/west runway. At the extreme west end, on the picture’s left, were the buildings and spacious surrounding tarmac. But…

The chief saw it, too, or rather didn’t see it. He shifted the glasses on his nose, scrunching his face in a conscious effort to better his vision. “Simple grid.”

A white line grid system overlay appeared on the screen, angled to the perspective of the lens and parallel with the ground features. Letters denoted columns; numbers were rows.

“Center on G-twelve,” the chief directed.

The junior tech placed a light dot on the grid and the lens moved smoothly, centering on that area.

“Grid off.” It disappeared. “Zoom down three-oh. No more.”

“Right.” The picture grew, and for the first time the aircraft they were looking for was visible, roughly in the screen’s center. “Strange, Chief. No other planes…anywhere.”

There was no response. The chief didn’t analyze like his young partner. It had been too many times early on that he’d spoken out of turn, or the wrong thing. Times were different then. Openness was supposedly promoted now, from what he’d heard.

“Okay, let’s move on in.” He was all business now. “Align west, Chet, say, point-five, and take it down another ten.”

“Right.” The picture went down farther. Now the aircraft filled half the screen, the tail at the left (west) and the nose at the right (east). A hundred feet or so to the front of the 747 was a building. Shadows from it were becoming shorter as the sun rose higher in the sky.

“Chet, what’s that structure?”

“Just a sec.” He typed something on his keyboard, calling up the data catalog on Benina from the VDI. The airfield had received a great deal of attention before the 1986 raid, resulting in over ten thousand stored views. The junior tech scrolled through the data, cross-referencing the known landmarks with the view before him. “Warehouse. Spares and stuff.”

The civilian NSA man scratched his beard. “Damn, that’s clear.”

“This? This is a wide view, mister. Snapshot stuff.” The junior tech was beaming. “Hell, we can take it down and look in a window, especially at this angle. We might get some glare, but that’s no prob. Minor adjustments.”

“Label those buildings,” the colonel said. “But don’t obscure anything.”

“Right.” Like I’m an idiot, suit.

The hint of sarcasm was apparent to the chief, who flashed his partner a warning look.

“Movement,” the junior tech announced. “We have movement.”

They watched for nearly two hours before the senior NSA official left with a recorded copy of the events and two Marine guards. Their destination was the White House.

A rough thud signaled the connection of a passenger ramp to the forward port cabin door.

Captain Hendrickson loosened his tie and sat ramrod straight in the seat to stretch his back. It was aching like hell. He couldn’t stand the lumbar supports, and the stress of the situation wasn’t helping. That was all right. He would make it home, and when he did the overstuffed armchair, neglected for so long, would find itself with a permanent user. He could fish and hunt in the stream and hills of his beloved Maine, and spend the rest of his quiet retirement with his even more beloved Anita. For now, though, he would endure the nightmare that was unfolding around him through the cockpit windows. Endure and conquer.

‘Tell them to open the door,” Hadad commanded from behind.

Buzz chewed on his lip. The captain saw this, knowing that it was hard for his first officer to accept what was happening. He was not a man who accepted the thought of captivity with glee, having evaded the Vietcong for weeks after his F-4 was downed.

“Cap-tan… The door. Now!”

Hendrickson lifted the cabin phone and waited for the buzz to be answered. “Who is… Millie? Open the port number one. I know. I know. Just go ahead. It’ll be okay.” He hung up.

Seconds later there was a minor vibration and an annunciator signal as the door was opened. Other than that it was quiet. The four engines were idle, the aircraft receiving system power from a GPU — Ground Power Unit — whose distant hum was negligible.

Michael Alton craned his neck to see over the seat before him. The occupant of that seat was also trying to see.

“Michael… what is it?” Sandy Alton’s voice was hushed.

He didn’t answer right away, but what he could see made his neck hairs stand on end. Why? he asked himself. Unconsciously, he squeezed his wife’s hand.

“Sweetheart…” Her tone was now almost pleading.

He lowered his body back into the seat. “Men with guns.”

“Oh God.”

He eased his touch on her hand. Her voice was almost a whimper, very soft and breathy. He wanted to say something, but what? There was nothing he could do.

Wael was first in. The two flight attendants recoiled at the sight of him. Arabic men were smaller in stature, at least those that they had seen. Not so Wael. His build was that of a tank and reached six feet five inches. In green fatigues, replete with black infantry boots, he looked especially menacing, the Uzi in his hand completing the picture. His most terrifying trait, though, was yet to be made apparent.

The barrel of his weapon directed the two attendants back toward the galley. One of them said something, but Wael spoke only Arabic. He continued to wave them back.

Abu followed Wael in and went directly to the stairs, giving the passengers to the rear only a quick look. They were surprised, he thought, not frightened. The eyes of one woman near the door caught his, asking a question without words. She was older, yet pretty in the way American women were. He could have communicated well with her, if he had wished, thanks to his three years at the American University in Cairo.

At the top of the stairway he found an empty lounge. Each of them had flown on identical aircraft as part of their training for the mission. The Americans, like most Westerners, were fascinated with their own comfort. Huge planes with two levels. And the furnishings! Spacious chairs and tables between them with holders for the glasses of alcohol they always seemed to need. Abu wondered if there was a bath or — what did the Americans call them? — a hot tub. It would not surprise him.

Abdul must be downstairs now. The shouts were echoing up the staircase in his throaty voice. Abu smiled, but it faded quickly. It was really happening.

He went to the cockpit door, its face similar to the wall around the frame. He knocked gently, as if on a friend’s door.

Hadad opened it. Abu stepped in, crowding the cockpit. He flashed a look at the two pilots, the one on the right not turning to face him. The other, a blond man, met his look.

“Soldiers, Hadad?” Abu asked in Arabic.

“Yes, of course,” the answer came in rapid Arabic. “Old soldiers,” Hadad finished in pronounced English.

Abu, impressed by the size and opulence of the aircraft, was not so affected by its electronic gadgetry. It was a jumble of things which he did not understand. Flashing lights and…televisions? Abu found himself shaking his head.

“I am glad you are here, my friend,” Hadad said, reaching into one of the Velcro-closed pockets on the vest. There was an audible click, and he released the thumb switch, letting it drop and hang by its short connecting wire.

“Cap-tan, Number Two…stay in your seats.” The Uzi was trained on them as a warning as the hijackers left the cockpit. The door made a metallic sound as it closed.

Hadad unfastened the two hook closures on the front of the vest and leaned back. The weight of it made it slide easily off. He set it on one of the lounge seats near the cockpit door.

“Is it heavy?” Abu’s brown eyes were fixed on his comrade.

“Very.” Hadad let the mini Uzi drop awkwardly on its strap to his elbow as he reached up to rub his neck and shoulder. The muscles were not sore, but the skin was. “The loading went well?”

“Perfectly.” Abu waved his friend’s hand away and reached, straight-armed, to massage both of his shoulders. Hadad let his head fall back and roll in a circular motion. The kneading felt good on his aching flesh. It had been less than three hours and already the weight was a bother. That angered him. He realized that he should have been more physically prepared for the mission. He could relax now, though. He was among friends.

“Thank you.”

“Is it better?” Abu pulled away and slung his own Uzi, a full-size model, on his left shoulder.

“Yes, much.”

Abu motioned to the cockpit. “Will they cooperate?”

“They will. The number two is arrogant…a Marine. But he will do as I say.” Hadad swept his hand before them, looking around. “Look at the power we have over them. All of the pitiful souls below are ours.” He almost laughed. “And, my friend, the Great Satan will do as we wish.” His confidence in his performance was high. Not only his enemies required convincing.

A scream was heard from below, and shouts in rapid-fire Arabic.

“Abdul and Wael are moving the passengers back, out of the first-class section,” Abu explained.

A thin smile formed on Hadad’s face. “It sounds as though Wael is himself.”

“He is motivated,” Abu commented, knowing that Wael’s massive frame was matched by his sometimes maniacal demeanor. “How long will we stay?”

The men had not been together for a month. “We will leave here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Is there any word on the colonel?”

Hadad wiggled his shoulders, bringing his weapon back up. “I have not heard anything.”

“So, it has begun,” Abu declared.

“Yes, my friend, and there is much to be done.” Hadad went to the stairs, then turned. “Remember, we have a funeral to attend.”

Abu nodded. Indeed we do.

Not quite two days ago.

So much had happened in such a short time. Art knew his agents were working their asses off to keep the answers coming in. The picture they had painted so far was an accurate representation of the assassination, and Art’s report was faithful to their efforts.

The two shooters, Harry Obed and his still unidentified co-conspirator, had come in on separate flights to LAX from New York early Thursday past, and before that from Paris. Passenger records identified the partner as Benny Obed, but that was slim. Harry was fingered by the use of his American Express card to rent the car, and confirmed by the clerk who had rented it to him. She remembered him as friendly, comfortably well dressed, and Middle Eastern-looking. Fortunately she was good at labeling accurately. His friend was Middle Eastern, too, she had recalled. He was quieter, but still seemed nice.

From the airport they went to a motel in Pasadena, the Squire Inn. It was a nice place; Art had checked. No hourly rates or fresh sheets at check-in. Apparently the men had left Friday and made a stop somewhere before heading downtown. It was this trip that puzzled Art, warranting a ‘reasons unknown’ tag where it was mentioned in the report. Mileage records from the rental agency and the car’s odometer narrowed the trip’s distance down to within a five-mile corridor from LAX to Pasadena. The side trip might have been to pick up the weapons, or they might have been waiting for them at the motel. The latter was unlikely, though. It would have provided too direct a connection since someone, presumably Marcus Jackson, would have needed to rent the room in advance and place the weapons there. The charge slip itself negated part of that supposition, showing that Obed had rented the room. Art silently thanked his maker for credit cards and the ease of tracking their use.

The rest was educated conjecture, supported by the available physical evidence and eyewitness accounts. The shooters had obliterated most of the evidence with themselves. Forensics and ATF had determined the type of explosive and the presence of a timing device. A one-centimeter piece of metal was all they needed to prove that. Art thought those guys were witch doctors.

“You guys were bold little bastards,” he said aloud. The report was finished. He drove the last period on the paper with purpose. Carol would pick that up, as she always could. His anger or frustration always manifested itself with deeply embedded punctuations in his writing. She would tell him to stop stressing himself out, then pinch a fleshy cheek. Carol reminded him of his grandmother, who had died many years before. She was a sweet and gentle old woman, originally from Boston, who had moved south to Alabama early in life. Later she raised Art when his mother left. He was only three at the time, hardly old enough to remember what she looked like. That was a step up on his father, who hadn’t even stuck around for his birth. By all rights he should be in prison, or himself an absentee father. But he wasn’t. His grandma taught him fairness, and right from wrong. Some people might take those lessons for granted, figuring that it was a given that all children were taught similar lessons. Maybe most were, but in the South when Art was growing up the lines between these beliefs were sometimes foggy, and often nonexistent. Learning violence and hate by example would have been easy had it not been for her.

He smiled to himself, still staring at his legal pad and remembering. She had pushed him hard. Oh, so hard! Hard with words, and pointed fingers, and sometimes, with a switch. She had made him work hard in school, and play with equal energy with his friends. And when it came time to think about college her words were simple, poetic, and straightforward. “Arthur,” she had said, “I have never told you you were ugly, but you are certainly not pretty. And I have never, ever called you stupid, but most assuredly you are not a genius. No one is going to make your way for you.”

That old lady, Art thought.

The phone buzzed. “Yes. Thanks, Carol.” Art pushed the finished report aside. “Eddie, g’morning.”

“Ungodly hour to say something like that. Get some sleep?”

The lack of it reminded Art that he felt like shit. “Not enough. I don’t know if there is such a thing as enough right now.”

“Well, boss, it’s my turn. Bingo! Shari came through. We’ve got a whole new barrel of pickles now.”

“Lay it out, Ed.”

“Harry Obed is one Mamir Khaled, a Palestinian. And we’ve ID’d his partner: little bro Nahar Khaled. Shari faxed photos of both and we ran the pictures by the rental agency clerk. Let me tell you, boss, she was not a happy camper being roused out of bed at one A.M. Anyway, she confirmed that Nahar was the second guy.”

“So that puts them together at the airport.”

“And the motel,” Eddie added. “The desk clerk was certain it was both of them.”

“I guess we can expect confirmations from the airlines in Paris, here, and New York on the second ID. But what about before that?”

“Nothing. Interpol, Brits, Frenchies…zippo. Israeli intelligence had to go through their national police.”

“Huh?”

“Punks, boss. That’s what Shari called them. They were picked up a few years back for throwing stones and shit during the West Bank uprising. Intifada, they called it. They weren’t real troublemakers, just followers. Lots of kids were doing it. It just happened the Israelis decided to come down hard on the protests that week, so it was a quick trip across the border to Lebanon.”

Art tapped the desk. “Deported. That could piss one off.”

“Yep. So we’ve got two young brothers forcibly removed from their family and their home. Shari says the latter is sometimes more devastating to the West Bank Arabs than having to leave their families. It’s the same thing the whole Palestinian culture has been subjected to. You know, that Israeli friend of yours is a smart fella. He looks at reasons for what he’s supposed to help prevent.”

It was good info, but not enough for a complete picture. “It’s more than we had before, but aside from America being responsible for all the world’s ills, what was their motive? Hell, there are hundreds of people — whole families — deported every month since the Intifada began. Why attack us? Why not do something against the Israelis? They could have done more damage in a suicide attack there. I saw a tape a while back of a suicide attack in southern Lebanon. The terrorist had his car filled with five hundred pounds of TNT and another hundred pounds of nails. So this guy had his pals film him with a video camera from a rooftop as he drove by an Israeli army truck loaded with troops and blew himself up.”

“Boss,” Eddie interjected.

Art paused. “Yeah?”

“They had a motive. Remember the picture?”

“Sure.” No…

“The little girl. About a month after the Khaled brothers were deported there was another protest… a big one. An American cruiser made a port call at Haifa and a whole slew of demonstrations broke out. Some were pretty violent, Shari said. American ships have stopped at Israeli ports before, so who knows why it was that one to cause an uproar. The West Bank, Gaza, even Jerusalem. Anyway, the Khaled boys’ mother and little five-year-old sister just happened to be near one of the demonstrations near their home when the Army moved in to break it up.”

“Oh Jesus,” Art said softly.

“The troops used rubber bullets to break up the crowd. One of them hit the little girl right in her mother’s arms. She was trying to get out of the middle of the thing, but there were too many people. The bullet caught the kid in the head. Killed instantly. How’s that for a motive?”

“In their minds, yeah. Okay, where from here, Ed?”

“Well, like you said before, these guys were the trigger pullers, but someone put them up to it.”

Art wasn’t sure about that. “Exploited their grief would be a better way to put it. Now we’ve got to pick up the hot trail.”

“Jackson,” Eddie said.

“Right. He is the link. I don’t know. Maybe the trail in Paris can be picked up, but our best shot right now is trying to find Jackson and figure out what he did to help the shooters. Then we can find the head of this monster.”

“I better put a push on Jackson’s trail.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve got to do.” They were moving, Art knew, but there was a long way to go. “Is there anything new on him yet?”

“Not much,” Eddie answered, no discouragement whatsoever in his voice. “His neighbors confirmed that he does have some relatives in Chicago, but the employment records don’t jibe. According to them he’s an only child or an orphan, but then he filled them out. It’s not like he had a security clearance.”

This end of the investigation, only two days old, was already reaching its peak, a reality that convinced Art that the conspiracy had tentacles of as yet unknown length. There was little left to do in the Los Angeles area without some information from or about Jackson. Or was there? “Ed, I’m going to finish up here and step out for a while. You at the Hilton?”

“Yeah. Where are you going?”

“Out and about.”

It was Herb Landau’s turn to visit Bud’s office.

The hastily called NSC meeting had just wrapped up after two hours of discussion and analysis of the situation, and fifteen minutes spent viewing excerpts, prompted by a National Security Agency official, of real-time satellite imagery.

“How long until we can get some enhanced stills?” Bud asked.

“An hour… maybe,” Landau answered.

Bud grimaced. “We’ll have to go to the boss before that.” He looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes. So, you thought we should talk alone. I don’t know, Herb. You sprang a doozy on me the last time we did this.”

“Are you prepared for another?” the DCI asked. After a few minutes he was sure by the look on the NSA’s face that he wasn’t.