Lethal Code

CHAPTER 16

Deputy director Holmes was enduring more crises at one time than he’d ever known — and that was before Lana Elkins was ordered out of Saudi Arabia by the kingdom’s top cop. The king now knew that the U.S. was actively inserting operatives into his domain without prior approval, which violated a host of written and unwritten agreements.

But Holmes couldn’t simply pluck her out of the emirate, because planes were literally falling out of the sky. Not the commercial airliners — they were already grounded by the FAA — but two private jets had dropped like stones, killing all aboard. Both were owned by corporate titans who did not wish to be inconvenienced by a national catastrophe, and who had been assured by their cybersecurity teams that their onboard computer systems had not been tinkered with.

Holmes wasn’t even confident of the military’s aircraft. Though few knew it outside the upper echelons of the intelligence services, routine monitoring flights conducted by the U.S. around the world had been halted. Those surveillance sorties were the first line of defense.

No, not the first, Holmes corrected himself. The first line of defense was the one people never saw — cybersecurity — a word that he felt no U.S. official should use for the foreseeable future.

Defense of what? If the cyberterrorists weren’t stopped, there wouldn’t be a country left to defend.

With the countdown under way, panic had, once again, taken over much of the nation. The raw, unbridled reactions were like a volcano that had regained its force and now threatened to rain death and destruction on everyone. Rumors of a Chinese invasion spread with the speed of instant messaging — where ISPs were back up and running, that is. The rumors were false, but countering them with a fragmented national communications system proved extremely difficult. What really perplexed Holmes was how the rumors reached regions of the country that were essentially incommunicado because they still hadn’t recovered from the initial cyberattack. But the “news” spread there, too. What were those rumormongers using? Holmes wondered. Smoke signals?

Thankfully, no one outside security circles had learned that U.S. missiles were now targeting U.S. cities. But word about a potential Veepox epidemic was starting to leak, talk that appeared as difficult to contain as the disease itself.

The only “positive” development, in his view, was that it seemed a handful of America’s largest urban areas were all “rioted out,” as one of his aides put it.

Terrific, so a great mass of citizens were hiding in their homes and rationing their last few scraps of food because vast numbers of supermarkets had been plundered. And just when supply chains had started functioning again, the incremental destruction of the grid had begun anew, which immediately set off more madness in the streets. Police in New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Tacoma, Miami, and Cheyenne had walked off the job. The cops were reportedly terminally weary, understaffed, overworked, and, increasingly, the targets of armed and angry residents. For them, community service had become tantamount to suicide.

To make matters even worse, the end-of-summer weather was the hottest since record keeping began in the U.S. in 1895. The scorching heat had not helped the already sketchy national disposition. The wildfires in the West, set off by those natural gas explosions during the first cyberattack, were now raging out of control. Parts of Denver had been incinerated. Not that many miles away in the forest, smoke jumpers had become smoke hikers because there were no planes to ferry the men and women to the front lines. No aerial water tankers, either, to douse flames.

And now we’ve got to get Lana out of the kingdom.

But right then the news got grimmer: Holmes received an encrypted text message that Agent Fahim Al Juhani had been murdered on camera by AQAP — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Al Juhani was an operative whom Holmes had personally commended for outstanding bravery. The same crew had abducted Agent Candace Anders, also recorded for viewing by the faithful. Holmes’s text said the Islamists were bragging about the killing; apparently the entire abduction and murder was airing, at that very moment, on several Islamist websites. The terrorists even had it up on YouTube. Holmes watched it and felt sickened by what he saw. He found solace only in Anders’s stoicism. She remained composed throughout the ordeal. But that didn’t leave her any less abducted.

Holmes feared AQAP’s next video would feature Anders herself getting—

Teresa McGivern walked in, interrupting his dismal thoughts. The veteran analyst was trailed by Donna Warnes, his executive assistant. The latter looked flummoxed. McGivern? Unflappable.

“It’s not Donna’s fault,” she said, pushing her gray bob behind her ears. “I couldn’t stand on formality, so I barged in. We have to make a decision on Elkins. I just found out that thousands of Saudis are screaming for her head outside our embassy. Ambassador Arpen says he fears they’ll occupy it at any second. If they get their hands on Elkins, there’s no telling where she’ll end up, or whom they’ll hand her over to.”

“That would be a massive violation of international law.”

“A mob is a mob,” McGivern responded curtly, “and there are elements of the Saudi street who would love to curry favor with Al Qaeda by handing her over. As for the government, you might have already guessed that they’re saying we’re the ones who violated international law. The painful truth is—”

“We did. I know.”

McGivern went on: “The ambassador says it looks as bad as Tehran, 1979.”

“How would he know? He was in grade school,” Holmes growled. “You say there are thousands in the streets now?”

“More as we speak.”

“You’re right, we’ve got to get Elkins out of there, but we also need to keep her within easy reach of Mancur.”

“Why?” McGivern asked. “He may disappear down the Saudi shithole.”

“Not likely,” Holmes said with more assurance than he actually felt.

“You’re not thinking Yemen, are you?” McGivern asked.

“Show me a border that’s less porous,” Holmes responded.

“If we lose two people to that goddamn backwater, we’re going to end up spending the next twenty years in front of oversight committees. You know that, don’t you?”

Holmes eyed her steadily. “The sad truth is that we should have such problems.”

“Where in Yemen are we going to stick her? And how can you be so sure Mancur’s getting out, or the condition he’ll be in if he does get out? He could be a basket case. We could be risking Elkins on a hope and a prayer.”

“A hope and a prayer?” Holmes shook his head. “I’ve had to bank on less lately. If he gets out, he’ll be useless without Elkins. We have no way to resupply him with our sophisticated systems that are now in the hands of the Mabahith. Rest assured, the Saudis aren’t going to give him back his toys. They’ll have already started reverse-engineering everything Elkins put in them. And if they succeed, they’ll be generous in sharing their booty with all of our ‘friends’ in the Middle East.”

“Maybe the president should make a call.”

“No. That would make it clear that Mancur is working for us.”

“So the fact that he may well be critical to us means we can do that much less to help him?” McGivern shook her head ruefully. “But wait, they must know he’s doing something for us. He gave up Elkins’s name.”

“That’s right. But what do the Saudis know about her? What does Mancur, for that matter? That she’s a computer expert. Big deal, right? The Saudis are letting an uproar develop over Elkins to show their militants that they, too, can stand up to the Great Satan. But for all they really know, she could be a low-level embassy employee. Bring in the president, and we confirm their worst suspicions about her and Mancur. The way I see it, if the Saudis suspect Mancur is just part of a smaller effort to destroy AQAP, then they’re likely to see it as in their interest to let him proceed. They’re more threatened by AQAP than we are. But if the president begs on his behalf, they’ll know Mancur is a major player who’s privy to a great deal, and they’ll think that he’s someone we’ve been grooming for years. They’ll want to know everything he knows, and they won’t stop until they find out.”

“So what’s the cover story for Elkins?” McGivern asked.

“Like I said, low-level embassy employee. We’re getting her out for her safety and to please the king.”

“Scrape and bow?”

“Indeed,” Holmes replied. “But we need to provide a security detail for her. She absolutely can’t be taken by some Islamist extremists. If that happens, we’ll be lucky if they shoot her. More likely, they’ll extract the most advanced encryption systems in the world, then put her to work for them.”

“I’m assuming a SEAL team is already trying to find Anders.”

Holmes confirmed that. “Now I’d like you to make sure they send in another detachment for Elkins. Let’s get everybody to Sana. The lawlessness in Yemen works in our favor right now. The CIA already has a safe house.”

McGivern and Warnes left. Holmes leaned back and stared at the ceiling, knowing that Lana’s life was now in play as well as Mancur’s. But the choices were terrible. Sometimes you had to give up a great operative for the greater good. Sometimes you didn’t know if losing a life did any good at all. No matter what the outcome, you remained haunted by the death forever.

Ambassador Arpen called Lana into his lavishly appointed office, took her elbow, and led her to a wide window.

“Look at that,” he ordered, as he used a pair of binoculars.

“I know. I’ve seen it.” Thousands of Saudi protestors massing outside the embassy gates.

“The kingdom has lodged an official complaint with Washington.” He put the binoculars on the windowsill. “Seems one of our spies they’ve been ‘debriefing’ has identified you as a computer specialist of some kind. They’re saying that you’re a spy. If they come over that wall, your little charade here will have cost us deeply.”

“Have you been in touch with the king’s—”

“Of course I’ve been in touch with them,” he said dismissively. “However, I’m not sure all the king’s men are in touch with the Saudi street. But it’s safe to say that everyone beyond those walls is playing games with us because you played games with them.”

Lana had had enough: “Are you so thick that you thought the secretary of state really had sent over new technical support for the embassy at a time when every one of us is needed in the States to try to fight cyberterrorists who are systematically destroying the country? Grow up!”

He backed away, as if struck.

“You have just violated all kinds of protocol, Ms. Elkins, and you will pay for it.”

“You have no idea to whom you’re speaking, so don’t ever threaten me again. And stop playing the blame game. This isn’t a school yard, Rick.” She dropped his honorific as if it were a communicable disease. “I did not orchestrate my own targeting.”

The ambassador cleared his throat. “I was a little testy just then. I apologize.”

“Apology accepted. Look, I’m less than thrilled about leaving with that happening in the streets. Could you contact the palace and see if they’ll at least provide aircraft for us?” She looked at the teeming protestors. “A helicopter would be nice for starters, as soon as possible.”

“They’re not in the mood to grant favors, Ms. Elkins. They’re in the mood to extract teeth, if need be, to find out what we’re really up to. I’d like to know, too.”

She ignored his entreaty. “We did some huge favors for them on 9/11,” flying Saudi royalty out of the U.S. after all commercial flights were canceled. “Maybe it’s time to collect a chit or two.”

“If the king really wanted to help us, he could make those people down there go away with a snap of his finger.”

“I’m not so sure. You said yourself that his staff isn’t exactly attuned to the Saudi street.”

The ambassador turned his attention back to the demonstration. She knew what he feared. She worried about it herself. A replay of the Iranian hostage crisis. The protestors outside the embassy gates right now looked furious enough to do just about anything. Then her attention was grabbed by a huge poster starting to burn. She snatched up the binoculars, shocked by what they revealed: a close-up of her face on fire. Jesus Christ. Where the hell did they get it?

Lana had always been far removed from the blood and mud of actual struggle. To see that kind of hate, directed so personally at her from only a few hundred feet away, was alarming.

“I feel that they know something about you that I don’t know.” Arpen looked at her. “But I do know this: You’re going to Yemen.”

“Yemen? Nobody’s told me that.”

“That’s my job at the moment.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. They just snatched Agent Anders down there.”

“It’s not my decision. Take it up with Deputy Director Holmes. He’s ordering it. We have to get you out of here quickly. A SEAL team is on the way.”

She nodded, thinking that Holmes and his staff would have thought through the decision to move her south. But still, Yemen?

“You won’t be going through a formal border crossing. When you get down there, you’ll be working from a CIA outpost. Mancur will be heading to a safe house in Sana, if he’s released.”

“Do you know what they’ve done to him?”

“Everything, I gather.”

“What kind of shape is he in?” she asked.

“Ms. Elkins, I’ve never met the man. Have you?”

She lied, shook her head. Clearly Ruhi Mancur wouldn’t be in very good shape, if and when she ever saw him again.

“He gave you up. Maybe Anders, too,” the ambassador said.

“We all give up someone. He was smart to name me. At least I have some security.” Though another glance at the demonstration showed the streets leading to the embassy clogged with angry shouting men, possibly belying her hopes.

“What if they come over the fence?” she asked the ambassador. “How are you going to stop them?”

“We are not going to start shooting Saudi citizens, I can tell you that much. The preferred approach here is restraint, and getting you out of here so they can have their little victory over your expulsion.”

She looked at the swelling crowd, spotting a Saudi demonstrator atop the wall. “It had better be fast,” she said as the man jumped onto embassy grounds.

He was quickly caught by guards. But he was just the first drop in a powerful storm.

Giving up Elkins had bought Ruhi a reprieve. Not the name of an AQAP Islamist terrorist, to be sure, but Elkins represented everything that Saudi intelligence loathed about the manner in which the U.S. operated — with utter disregard for the kingdom’s borders and sovereignty. The kingdom’s power and control violated by a woman, no less.

Beyond her name, though, Ruhi could offer them little. “She worked on my computer. I don’t know what she did.”

He must have said some variation of that a hundred times.

Lennon had eased up a bit. He’d ordered an aide to pat him dry with a towel. While they swabbed Ruhi down, Lennon sipped from a water bottle.

Getting dry had eliminated Ruhi’s fear of being waterboarded again. He was still trying to recover his senses when a video screen was rolled in front of him.

Oh, no. What’s next? Ruhi wondered.

Lennon dismissed the men who brought the monitor in, then turned to Ruhi, seated across from him on the vinyl chair. “So tell me, who else is operating out of your kingdom without our express consent? You see, I’m beginning to think that you’re not Al Qaeda because no one in Al Qaeda would have known about Elkins. So that was good, Ruhi. Very good. But not good enough. Nobody would send a new guy like you out on your own. Even the U.S. isn’t that stupid. And if you are not new, if you’ve been working on your ‘game moves’ for a long time, then you have a long list of names inside your head. It’s one or the other, Ruhi. Either the list, or who’s helping you?”

“I don’t know anybody else,” Ruhi said. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

Lennon crossed his arms and said, “Okay, you told me a little something, so I’ll tell you something. We just got a report that an American was taken by AQAP a couple of hours ago. Do you know her?”

He used a remote. The screen came alive. Ruhi warned himself not to react, to silence even his body language. Even so, he shuddered when he saw a group of armed men rip a hijab off Candace. Then he startled when the dark-haired man taken with her was executed on camera. The lens followed his fall before tilting back up. Lennon worked the remote, and the screen froze on Candace’s face.

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

Ruhi was so beaten down that he almost nodded in agreement. He couldn’t even brace himself for more waterboarding. But Lennon didn’t call his thugs back in. Once more, he pressed the remote. Once more, the video played. Once more, Candace’s face filled much of the screen. But this time, behind her, a man pulled back a curved Arabian sword. He looked like a batter getting ready to smash one out of the park.

At the last second, Candace must have caught a reflection in the lens, because she tried to look back. The same instant the blade sliced through her neck and her head toppled out of frame. Not for long.

The camera tilted down one final time, and her face filled the screen.

Ruhi stiffened, stifling a groan, but he was too late. Lennon had been watching him closely and nodding.

“Thank you for your honesty.”

Emma and Tanesa exchanged a quick look. Emma imagined what Tanesa would say, if she could: “You hang in there, girl. You’re doing great.”

Why had she ever given Tanesa a hard time? She wished she could just say she was sorry.

She wasn’t the only one sending looks Tanesa’s way. Other girls were eyeing her, too, as if to take their cues from their natural-born leader. Some of the boys were doing the same thing. Even the older ones. The terrorists, meantime, had been working their walkie-talkies, bragging to their listeners, whoever they were, wherever they were stationed. They couldn’t be too far away, at least based on what Emma had learned using walkie-talkies in summer camp.

But maybe theirs are more powerful.

The leader suddenly put the walkie-talkie closer to his ear, adjusting the volume so others could not hear. Then he stormed down the aisle and dragged Emma from her seat.

She thought he’d taken offense at her glance toward Tanesa. Emma was sure she was about to watch William Sr. get killed, and that she would die as well.

But once the leader hauled her to the front of the bus, he yelled to his compatriots, “Her mother is a spy. Our brothers checked the names. They say the Elkins woman at the embassy is the mother of this girl.”

“My mom’s not a spy,” Emma said. “She’s a—”

He smacked her face hard enough to draw blood from the corner of her mouth.

Emma wanted to kill him. Right now! She glared at him. Her mouth ached. William Sr. was shaking his head at her. It looked like he was trying to tell her no, don’t do anything. Trying to calm her down, despite the gag in his mouth.

She knew she had to stay cool.

“Yes, a spy. Our brothers have checked. They are sure. The Elkins woman has a computer company in Bethesda. That is her cover. They say she has a fourteen-year-old daughter. This is the girl.”

He grabbed Emma’s hair and shook her so hard that her roots felt like they would explode. Tears ran down her face.

“They are calling for her mother’s head in Riyadh. We have her daughter right here, praise be to the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.” He said that as if he were announcing a celebration. Then he yelled right in Emma’s face, “Outside the embassy, my brothers are holding pictures of your mother. They are burning them. But we have you. And now we will tell the world.”

He forced Emma to the floor. Her head was bowed, roots still throbbing from the thrashing. He told someone on the walkie-talkie, who must have been relaying messages to and from the men on the bus, that they would murder Emma if their demands weren’t met.

What demands? Emma wondered hopelessly.

The answer came when the man shouted into his mouthpiece, “Tell them we want safe passage to Times Square. If anybody tries to stop us, we will shoot her first. And if they keep trying to stop God’s will, we will all be martyrs.”

Now he exchanged a look of his own — to the man with the backpack bomb. He was in the last row all by himself. The leader had confirmed that the pack could kill them all in less than a second, and that the trigger was at the end of the long tube, just like she’d thought.

Emma saw the bomber nod. His eyes looked glazed. She wondered if he was high.

Sure he is, she said to herself. High at the thought of blowing them all to bits so he could go to heaven and have sex with a bunch of virgins and eat a lot of fruit.

That’s so crazy.

But Emma didn’t dare give evidence of her thoughts. Without realizing it, she folded her hands like the other kids on the bus. She wasn’t praying, not exactly, but she was certainly hoping harder than at any other time in her life.