Every Second

62

McLean, Virginia

The staccato clicking of Shane Hudson’s keyboard was unrelenting as new data on the suspects in the Queens case streamed into the National Counterterrorism Center.

He glanced at the framed photo of his wife holding their two-year-old daughter in her arms at the beach. Emerging on the monitors before him was one of the most serious threats to the nation.

Warrants executed by the FBI and local police at the Yonkers Public Library, the Yonkers home of Walid and Omar Sattar and several other key points were yielding crucial information with each passing minute.

The FBI’s cyber experts zeroed in on Jerricko Blaine’s use of a public library terminal to determine whom he’d communicated with recently. Working with internet service providers, they’d unraveled an intricately deceptive trail leading them to accounts used by his associates. Agents were dispatched to physical addresses and executed more warrants, resulting in more information.

In California, a sharp-eyed analyst with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation retrieved a key report from a gang intelligence officer concerning an extremist prison group that called for Muslims to kill those whom they’d deemed enemies of Islam.

The group was led by Bartholomew Drum, who was serving a life sentence for stabbing a US Marine in a mall parking lot. The intelligence officer had been using inmate informants while confidentially monitoring all of Drum’s secret communications, even those he’d cryptically made through his own visitors and visitors of other prisoners who followed his teachings.

Malcolm Samadyh had been a devoted follower of Drum’s, and upon Samadyh’s release Drum had ordered him to recruit people without criminal records to carry out attacks on the enemies of Islam. But when Samadyh was killed, Drum had reached out to his grieving mother, urging her to honor her son’s death by carrying on the cause.

Nazihah Samadyh had agreed and proposed to use “powerful friends” in Afghanistan, where she’d returned, to help establish the group. She’d started by recruiting her surviving son, Jerricko, to lead the group.

Then she’d gone online, scouring postings for malcontent young Americans. The first person she’d recruited was Jake Spencer, a college dropout from Minneapolis who’d written passionately about his disgust with US actions in the Middle East. Spencer also had experience with the US Army before he left because of his growing negative views on US foreign policy. Samadyh named Spencer the group’s operations commander.

Then she’d recruited Adam Patterson, a despondent arts student from Chicago, and Doug Kimmett, a part-time mechanic out of Binghamton, New York, who wanted to be “part of something big.”

All were clean-cut young Americans who, through bloodlines or marriage had relatives overseas in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya. Spencer, Patterson and Kimmett had become disillusioned with their country and had converted to Islam, ignoring the peaceful teachings and gravitating to extremism. Nazihah Samadyh had further radicalized them, convincing them to take action. She’d arranged for the group to communicate online with commanders in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan who’d indoctrinated them and helped them adopt Arabic names. They became members of the YLOI, the Young Lions of Islam, an ultraviolent group. After swearing allegiance to the black flag of the extremist movement, they’d sought opportunities for a mission inside the country.

As Hudson paused to question why this intelligence was not acted on earlier, he found his answer in a supplementary note from the analyst in California.

“The report was in its draft stages and never finalized. It was found on the officer’s computer after he’d died of a heart attack.”

Hudson took a breath, shook his head and resumed working just as a new, updated alert concerning NSA intercepts on a potential attack came in from the US base in Menwith, England.

After breaking down the new information on the Queens case, the NSA analysts at Menwith linked Jake Spencer to a satellite phone purchased online and shipped to a post office box in Minneapolis.

Analysis of newer intercepted chatter between senior leaders of the YLOI in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Kuwait showed that they were discussing an impending attack within the US. Intercepts of recent conversations showed the phone used by Jake Spencer was involved in these discussions.

The chatter had made cryptic references to a wedding with many gifts and guests, resulting in “a glorious celebration,” but now there was heightened and excited discussion concerning the “most beautiful gift,” and how it would come from “the clock maker.”

The analysts translated that to mean bomb maker.

“He’s finished,” one of the intercepts stated.

A new alert from Menwith flashed on one of Hudson’s monitors.

The bomb maker was an American living somewhere in the eastern United States.

Who? Where?

Identity and location were still to be determined, the NSA responded.

Hudson continued working as fast as he could.