Teeth of the Tiger

CHAPTER 14 PARADISE

The news crews flocked to Charlottesville like vultures on a fallen carcass — or started to until things got more complex.

The next news flash came from a place called Citadel Mall in Colorado Springs, Colorado, then came one from Provo, Utah, and finally Des Moines, Iowa. That made it a colossal story. The Colorado mall hit involved six dead cadets from the U.S. Air Force Academy — several more had been pulled outside to safety by their classmates — and twenty-six civilian deaths.

But word of Colorado Springs had gotten quickly to Provo, Utah, and there the local police chief, with a good cop's instinct, had dispatched radio cars to every shopping center in town. At Provo Towne Center, they scored. Each car carried the mandatory police shotgun, and an epic shoot-out developed between four armed terrorists and six cops — all of whom knew how to shoot. That produced two badly wounded cops, three dead civilians — a total of eleven local citizens had joined in the pitched battle — and four very dead terrorists in what the FBI would later term a bungled attack. Des Moines might have turned out the same, except that the local city police were slow to react, and the final score there was four terrorists dead, but thirty-one citizens to keep them company.

In Colorado, two surviving terrorists were holed up in a retail store with a police SWAT team just fifty yards away, and a company of National Guard riflemen — activated with alacrity by the state's governor — on the way and champing at the bit to live out every soldier's fantasy: to use fire and maneuver to immolate the invaders and set their remains out for cougar bait. It took over an hour for this to come to pass, but aided by smoke grenades, the weekend warriors used enough firepower to destroy an invading army and ended the lives of two criminals — Arabs, as it turned out, to no one's surprise — in spectacular fashion.

By this time, all of America was watching TV, with reporters in New York and Atlanta telling America what they knew, which was little, and trying to explain the events of the day, which they did with the accuracy of grammar-school children. They endlessly repeated the hard facts they had managed to gather, and hauled in "experts" who knew little but said a lot. It was good for filling airtime, at least, if not to inform the public.

There were TVs at The Campus, too, and most work stopped as the troops watched them.

"Holy Jesus," Jack Jr. observed. Others had murmured or thought much the same, but it was somewhat worse for them, since they were technically members of the intelligence community, which had not provided strategic warning against this attack on their home country.

"It's pretty simple," Tony Wills observed. "If we do not have human-intelligence assets in the field, then it's hard for us to get any kind of warning, unless the bad guys are really loose on how they use their cell phones. But the news media likes to tell people how we track the bad guys, and the bad guys learn from that. The White House staffers, too — they like to tell reporters how smart they are, and they leak data on signals intelligence. You sometimes wonder if they're stringers for the terrorists, the way they give away code-word-sensitive information." In reality, the staff pukes were just showing off to the reporters, of course, which was about the only thing they knew how to do.

"So, the rest of the day the newsies will be screaming about 'another intelligence failure,' right?"

"Bet on it," Wills responded. "The same people who trash the intelligence community will now complain that it can't do the job — but without acknowledging their own role in crippling it every chance they get. Same thing from Congress, of course. Anyway, let's get back to work. NSA will be looking for a little cheering on the part of the opposition — they're human, too, right? They like to thump their chests some when they pull off an operation. Let's see if our friend Sali is one of them."

"But who's the big kahuna who ordered this one?" Jack asked.

"Let's see if we can find out." More important, Wills didn't add at the moment, was determining where the bastard was. A face with a location attached to it was a lot more valuable than a face without one.

Upstairs, Hendley had his senior people together in front of his TV set.

"Thoughts?"

"Pete called up from Charlottesville. Care to guess where our two trainees were?" Jerry Rounds asked.

"You're kidding," Tom Davis responded.

"No, I'm not. They whacked the bad guys for fair, without outside assistance, and they're back at the house now. Bonus: Brian — the Marine — had been having second thoughts about his function. That, Pete reports, is a thing of the past. He can't wait to go out on some real missions. Pete thinks they're just about ready, too."

"So, we just need some solid targets?" Hendley asked.

"My people will be checking the feed from NSA. You gotta assume that the bad guys will be talking back and forth now. Their downtime in chatting back and forth should be coming to an end even now," Rick Bell thought aloud. "If we're ready to go active, then we can go active, and soon."

That was Sam Granger's department. He'd kept quiet to this point, but now it was time to speak.

"Well, guys, we have two kids ready to go out and service some targets," he said, using a phrase the Army had invented twenty years before. "They are good kids, Pete tells me, and from what happened today I think they will be properly motivated."

"What is the opposition thinking?" Hendley asked. It wasn't hard to figure out, but he wanted additional opinions.

"They wanted to sting us cleverly. The objective here manifestly is to strike at Middle America," Rounds led off. "They think they can strike fear in our hearts by showing us they can attack us anywhere, not just at obvious targets like New York. That was the element of cleverness in this operation. Probably fifteen to twenty total terrorists, plus some support personnel, maybe. That's a fairly large number, but not unprecedented — they maintained good operational security. Their people were well motivated. I would not say that they were particularly well trained, though, they just decided to toss a mad dog in the backyard to bite some of the kids, as it were. They've demonstrated their political willingness to do some very bad things, but that's not a surprise; also to throw dedicated personnel away, but that's not a surprise either. The attack was low-tech in nature, just some bad guys with light automatic weapons. They have demonstrated viciousness, but not real professionalism. In less than two days, the FBI will have them tracked down to their point of origin, probably, and maybe their routes of entry. They did not learn to fly or anything like that, so they probably have not been in-country all that long. I'd be interested in learning who scouted out their objectives. The element of timing suggests some preplanning, but not much, I'd guess — it's not hard to read the time off a wristwatch. They didn't plan on getting away after doing their shooting. They probably came in with their objectives already identified. At this point, I'd bet a few bucks that they've only been inside our borders for a week or two — even less, depending on their method of ingress. The Bureau will have that one nailed down pretty soon."

"Pete reports the weapons were Ingram submachine guns. They look pretty — that's why they show up in TV and the movies," Granger explained. "But they are not really efficient weapons."

"How did they get them?" Tom Davis asked.

"Good question. Figure the FBI already has the ones from Virginia, and is busy tracking them down by serial number. They're good at it. We should have the information by tonight. That will give them leads on how the weapons got into the terrorists' hands, and then the investigation will get going."

"What's the Bureau going to do, Enzo?" Brian asked.

"It's a major case. It'll have a code word assigned, and every agent in the country can be called in to work on it. Right now, first thing they're looking for is the car the bad guys used. Maybe it's stolen. More likely it's rented. You have to sign for those, leave a copy of your driver's license, credit card, all the normal stuff you do in order to exist in America. It can all be followed. It all leads somewhere, bro. That's why you chase them all down."

"How are you guys doing?" Pete asked, entering the room.

"A drink helps," Brian answered. He'd already cleaned his Beretta, as Dominic had done with his Smith & Wesson. "It wasn't fun, Pete."

"It isn't supposed to be. Okay, I just talked with the home office. They want to see you guys in a day or so. Brian, you had some qualms before, and you say that's changed. That still true?"

"You've trained us to identify, close on, and kill people, Pete. And I can live with that — just so's we're not doing something completely off the reservation."

Dominic just nodded agreement, but his eyes didn't leave Alexander.

"Okay, good. There's an old joke in Texas about why the lawyers are so good down there. The answer is, there's more men who need killin' than horses that need stealin'. Well, those who need killing, maybe you two can help them along some."

"Are you finally going to tell us who we're working for, exactly?" Brian asked.

"You will find that out in due course — just a day or so."

"Okay, I can wait that long," Brian said. He was doing some quick analysis of his own. General Terry Broughton might know something. For damned sure that Werner guy in FBI did, but this former tobacco plantation they'd been training on didn't belong to any part of the government he knew about. CIA had "The Farm" near Yorktown, Virginia, but that was about a hundred fifty miles away. This place didn't feel like "Agency," at least not in accordance with his assumptions, wrong though they could be. In fact, this place didn't smell "government" at all, not to his nose. But one way or another, in a couple of days he'd know something substantive, and he could wait that long.

"What do we know about the guys we whacked today?"

"Nothing much. That'll have to wait awhile. Dominic, how long before they start finding stuff out?"

"By noon tomorrow they'll have a lot of information, but we don't have a pipeline into the Bureau, unless you want me to—"

"No, I don't. We might have to let them know that you and Brian aren't the new version of the Lone Ranger, but it ought not to go very far."

"You mean I'll have to talk to Gus Werner?"

"Probably. He has enough juice in the Bureau to say you're on 'special assignment' and make it stick. I imagine he'll be patting himself on the back for talent-scouting you for us. You two did pretty damned well, by the way."

"All we did," the Marine said, "was what we've been trained to do. We had just enough time to get our shit together, and after that it was all automatic. They taught me at the Basic School that the difference between making it and not making it is usually just a few seconds' worth of thinking. If we'd been in the Sam Goody when it all started instead of a few minutes later, it might have been different in the final outcome. One other thing — two men are about four times as effective as one man. There's actually a study about it. 'Non-Linear Tactical Factors In Small-Unit Engagements, ' I think the title is. It's part of the syllabus at Recon School."

"Marines really do know how to read, eh?" Dominic asked, reaching for a bottle of bourbon. He poured two stiff ones, handing one to his brother and taking a pull on his own.

"The guy in the Sam Goody — he smiled at me," Brian said in reflective amazement. "I didn't think about it at the time. I guess he wasn't afraid to die."

"It's called martyrdom, and some people really do think that way," Pete told them both. "So, what did you do?"

"I shot him, close range, maybe six or seven times—"

"Far side of ten times, bro," Dominic corrected him. "Plus the last one in the back of his head."

"He was still moving," Brian explained. "And I didn't have any cuffs to slap on him. And, you know, I'm not really all that worried about it." And besides, he would have bled out anyway. The way things had worked out, his trip into the next dimension had just happened sooner.

"B-3 and bingo! We have a bingo," Jack announced from his workstation. "Sali is a player, Tony. Look here," he said, pointing to his computer screen.

Wills punched up his "take" from NSA, and there it was. "You know, chickens are supposed to cackle after they lay an egg, just to let the world know how good they are. Works with these birds, too. Okay, Jack, it's official. Uda bin Sali is a player. Who is this addressed to?"

"It's a guy he chats on the 'Net with. He mainly talks to him about money moves."

"Finally!" Wills observed, checking the document on his own workstation. "They want photos of the guy, a whole spread. Maybe Langley is finally going to put some coverage on him. Praise the Lord!" He paused. "Got a list of the people he e-mails to?"

"Yep. Want it?" Jack keyed it up and hit the PRINT command. In just fifteen seconds, he handed the sheet over to his roomie. "Numbers and dates of e-mails. I can print up all the interesting ones, and the reasons I find them interesting, if you want."

"We'll let that sit for the moment. I'll get this up to Rick Bell."

"I'll hold the fort."

DID YOU SEE THE NEWS ON TV, Sali had written to a semiregular correspondent. THIS OUGHT TO GIVE THE AMERICANS A STOMACHACHE!

"Yeah, it sure will," Jack told the screen. "But you just tipped your hand, Uda. Oops."

Sixteen more martyrs, Mohammed thought, watching a TV in Vienna's Bristol Hotel. It was only painful in the abstract. Such people were, really, expendable assets. They were less important than he, and that was the truth, because of his value to the organization. He had the looks and the language skills to travel anywhere, and the brainpower to plan his missions well.

The Bristol was an especially fine hotel, just across the street from the even more ornate Imperial, and the minibar had some good cognac, and he liked good cognac. The mission had not gone all that well… he'd hoped for hundreds of dead Americans, instead of several dozen, but with all the armed police and even some armed citizens, the high end of his expectations had been overly optimistic. But the strategic objective had been achieved. All Americans now knew that they were not safe. No matter where they might live, they could be struck by his Holy Warriors, who were willing to trade their lives for the Americans' sense of security. Mustafa, Saeed, Sabawi, and Mehdi were now in Paradise — if that place really existed. He sometimes thought it was a tale told to impressionable children, or to the simpleminded who actually listened to the preaching of the imams. You had to choose your preachers carefully, since not all the imams saw Islam the way Mohammed did. But they did not want to rule all of it. He did — or maybe just a piece of it, just so long as it included the Holy Places.

He couldn't talk aloud about matters like this. Some senior members of the organization really did believe, they were more to the conservative — reactionary — side of the Faith than were those such as the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia. To his eyes the latter were just the corrupt rich of that hideously corrupt country, people who mouthed the words while indulging their vices at home and abroad, spending their money. And money was easily spent. You could not take it to the afterlife, after all. Paradise, if it truly existed, had no need of money. And if it did not exist, then there was no use for money, either. What he wanted, what he hoped to — no, what he would have in his lifetime — was power, the ability to direct people, to bend others to his will. For him, religion was the matrix that set the shape of the world that he would be controlling. He even prayed on occasion, lest he forget that shape — more so when he met with his "superiors." But as the chief of operations, it was he and not they who determined their organization's course through the obstacles placed in their path by the idolaters of the West. And in choosing the path, he also chose the nature of their strategy, which came from their religious beliefs, which were easily guided by the political world in which they operated. Your enemy shaped your strategy, after all, since his strategy was that which had to be thwarted.

So, now, the Americans would know fear as they'd not known it before. It was not their political capital or their financial capital that was at risk. It was all of their lives. The mission had been designed from the beginning mainly to kill women and children, the most precious and most vulnerable parts of any society.

And with that done, he twisted the top off another small bottle of cognac.

Later, he'd light up his laptop and get reports from his underlings in the field. He'd have to tell one of his bankers to put some more currency into his Liechtenstein account. It wouldn't do to tap that account dry. Then the Visa accounts would be eliminated, and vanish forever into the ether-world. Otherwise, the police would come after him, with a name and perhaps with photos. That would not do. He'd be in Vienna another few days, then back home for a week to meet with his seniors and plan future operations. With such a success under his belt, they'd listen more closely now. His alliance with the Colombians had paid off, despite their misgivings, and he was riding the crest of the wave. A few nights more of celebration and he'd be ready to return to the rather less lively nightlife of his home, which was mostly coffee or tea — and talk, endless talk. Not action. Only through action could he achieve the goals set for him… by his seniors… and himself.

"My god, Pablo," Ernesto said, turning his own TV off.

"Come now, it's not that much of a surprise," Pablo responded. "You didn't expect them to set up a table to sell Girl Scout cookies."

"No, but this?"

"That is why they are called terrorists, Ernesto. They kill without warning and attack people unable to defend themselves." There had been a lot of TV coverage from Colorado Springs, where the presence of National Guard trucks made such a dramatic backdrop. There the uniformed civilians had even dragged the two terrorist bodies out — ostensibly to clear the area where the smoke grenades had started some fires, but really to display the bodies, of course. The local military in Colombia liked to do similar things. Soldiers showing off. Well, the Cartel's own sicarios often did the same, didn't they? But it wasn't something he'd point out in this setting. It was important to Ernesto that his identity be that of a "businessman," and not a drug dealer or terrorist. In his mirror, he saw a man who provided a valuable product and service to the public, for which he was paid, and to protect which he had to deal with his competitors.

"But how will the norteamericanos react?" Ernesto asked the air.

"They will bluster and investigate it like any street murder, and some things they will find out, but most things they will not — and we have a new distribution network in Europe, which," he reminded his boss, "is our objective."

"I did not expect so spectacular a crime, Pablo."

"But we discussed all this," Pablo said in the calmest of voices. "Their hope was to commit some spectacular demonstration" — he did not say crime, of course—"which would strike fear into their hearts. Such rubbish is important to them, as we all knew beforehand. The important thing to us is that it will direct their troublesome activities away from our interests.

Sometimes he had to be patient explaining things to his boss. The important thing was the money. With money, you could buy power. With money, you could buy people and protection, and not only safeguard your own life and the life of your family, but also control your country. Sooner or later, they would arrange the election of someone who would say the words the norteamericanos wanted to hear, but who would do little, except maybe deal with the Cali group, which suited them fine. Their only real concern was that they might buy the protection of a turncoat, one who would take their money and then turn on them like a disloyal dog. Politicians were all made of the same cloth, after all. But he'd have informers inside the camp of such people, backup security of his own. They would "avenge" the assassination of the false friend whose life he'd have to take in such circumstances. All in all, it was a complex game, but a playable one. And he knew how to maneuver the people and the government — even the North American one, if it came to that. His hands reached far, even into the minds and souls of those who had no idea whose hand was pulling their strings. This was especially true of those who spoke against legalizing his product. Should that happen, then his profit margin would evaporate, and, along with it, his power. He couldn't have that. No. For him and his organization, the status quo was a perfectly fine modus vivendi with the world as a whole. It was not perfection — but perfection was something he could not hope to achieve in the real world.

The FBI had worked fast. Picking out the Ford with New Mexico tags had not been taxing, though every single tag number in the parking lot had been "run" and tracked down to its owner, and in many cases the owner had been interviewed by a sworn, gun-toting agent. In New Mexico, it had been discovered that the National car rental agency had security cameras, and the tape for the day in question was available, and, remarkably, it showed another rental that was of direct interest to the Des Moines, Iowa, field office. Less than an hour later, the FBI had the same agents back to check out the Hertz office just half a mile away, and that, too, had TV cameras inside. Between printed records and the TV tapes, they had false names (Tomas Salazar, Hector Santos, Antonio Quinones, and Carlos Oliva) to play with, images of their equally false driver's licenses, and cover names for four subjects. The documentation was also important. The international driver's licenses had been obtained in Mexico City, and telexes were fired off to the Mexican Federal Police, where cooperation was immediate and efficient.

In Richmond, Des Moines, Salt Lake City, and Denver, Visa card numbers were queried. The chief of security at Visa was a former senior FBI agent, and here computers not only identified the bank of origin for the credit accounts, but also tracked four cards through a total of sixteen gas stations, showing the paths taken and the speed of advance for all four terrorist vehicles. Serial numbers off the Ingram machine guns were processed through the FBI's sister agency, the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. There it was determined that all sixteen weapons had been part of a shipment hijacked eleven years earlier in Texas. Some of their sisters had turned up in drug-related shootings all across the country, and that piece of information opened a whole new line of investigation for the Bureau to run down. At the four major crime scenes, fingerprints were taken of the dead terrorists, plus blood for DNA identification.

The cars, of course, were removed to the FBI offices and thoroughly dusted for fingerprints and also sampled for DNA evidence to see if perhaps additional persons had been in them. The management and staff of each hotel were interviewed, and also the employees of the various fast-food establishments, as were employees of local bars and other restaurants. The phone records of the motels were obtained to check out what, if any, telephone calls had been made. These turned up mainly Internet Service Providers, and the laptop computers of the terrorists were seized, dusted for prints, and then analyzed by the Bureau's in-house techno-weenies. A total of seven hundred agents were assigned exclusively to the case, code-named ISLAMTERR.

The victims were mostly in local hospitals, and those who could speak were interviewed that evening to ascertain what they knew or could remember. Bullets from their bodies were taken for evidence and would be matched with the weapons seized and taken to northern Virginia, site of the brand-new FBI Laboratory, for testing and analysis. All of this information went to the Department of Homeland Security, which, of course, forwarded every bit of it to CIA, NSA, and the rest of the American intelligence community, whose field intelligence officers were already pinging their agents for any relevant information. The spooks also queried those foreign intelligence services thought to be friendly — this was an exaggeration in most cases, of course — for feedback and information relating to the case. All of the information thus gleaned came to The Campus via the CIA/NSA link. All of the data intercepted found its way to The Campus's enormous central computer room in the basement, where it was classified as to type and set up for the analysts who'd arrive in the morning.

Upstairs, everyone had gone home for the night, except for the security staff and those who cleaned up after every day. The workstations used by the analysis staff were protected in several ways to make sure they could not be turned on without authorization. Security was tight there, but it was kept low-key, the better to maintain it, and monitored by closed-circuit television cameras whose "take" was always under electronic and human scrutiny.

In his apartment, Jack thought about calling his father, but decided not to. He was probably getting bombarded by TV and print newsies, despite his well-known practice of saying nothing about anything in order to give the sitting President, Edward Kealty, free rein. There was a secure and very private line that only the kids knew about, but Jack decided to leave that one to Sally, who was a little more excitable than he was. Jack let it go with sending his dad an e-mail that essentially said What the hell and I sure wish you were still in the White House. But he knew that Jack Sr. was most likely thanking God that he wasn't, maybe even hoping that Kealty would listen to his advisers for a change — what good ones he had — and think before acting. His father probably had called some friends abroad to find out what they knew and thought, and maybe passed on some high-level opinions, since foreign governments mostly listened to what he had to say, quietly, in private rooms. Big Jack was still somewhat inside the system. He could call friends left over from his presidency to find out what was really going on. But Jack didn't think that one all the way through.

Hendley had a secure telephone in his office and at his home, called an STU-5, a brand-new product of AT&T and NSA. It had come to him through irregular means.

He was on it at that moment.

"Yes, that's right. We'll have the feed tomorrow morning. Not much point in sitting in the office and staring at a mostly blank screen right now," the former senator said reasonably, sipping at his bourbon and soda. Then he listened to the following inquiry.

"Probably," he responded to a rather obvious question. "But nothing 'hard' yet… about what you'd expect at this point, yes."

Another lengthy question.

"We have two guys right now, just about ready… Yes, we do — about four of them. We're taking a close look at them right now — tomorrow, that is. Jerry Rounds is thinking hard on the subject, along with Tom Davis — that's right, you don't know him, do you? Black guy, from other side of the river, both parts of the building. He's pretty smart, has a good feel for financial stuff, and also the operational side. Surprising that you never crossed paths with him. Sam? He's hot to trot — believe it. The trick is picking the right targets… I know, you can't be a part of that. Please pardon my calling them 'targets.'"

A lengthy monologue, plus a tag question.

"Yes, I know. That's why we're here. Soon, Jack. Soon… Thanks, buddy. You, too. See ya sometime." And he hung up, knowing that he wouldn't actually be seeing his friend anytime soon… maybe never again in person. And that was a goddamned shame. There weren't many people who understood things like this, and more was the pity. One more call to make, and this on a regular phone.

Caller ID told Granger who it was before he picked up.

"Yeah, Gerry?"

"Sam, those two recruits. You sure they're ready to play in the bigs?"

"Ready as they need to be," the chief of operations assured his boss.

"Get 'em up here for lunch. You, me, them, and Jerry Rounds."

"I'll call Pete first thing in the morning." No sense doing it right away. It was barely a two-hour drive, after all.

"Good. You have any misgivings?"

"Gerry, the proof of the pudding, you know? We have to see sooner or later."

"Yeah, right. See you tomorrow."

"'Night, Gerry." Granger hung the phone back up and went back to his book.

The morning news was particularly sensational all over America — all over the world, for that matter. The satellite feeds from CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and every other agency that owned TV cameras and an uplink truck provided the world with a lead story that could not be buried by anything less than a nuclear detonation. The European papers expressed ritual sympathy with America for its newest travail — soon to be forgotten and retracted, in effect if not in particulars. The American news media talked about how frightened American citizens were. Not with any poll numbers to back it up, of course, but across the country citizens were suddenly buying firearms for their own personal protection, which purpose would not be served well, or at all. Police knew without being told to take a close look at anyone who might have come from a country east of Israel, and if some dumbass lawyers called that ethnic profiling, then to hell with him. The crimes of the previous day had not been committed by a tour group from Norway.

Church attendance was up, a little.

All across America, people went to work and did their jobs, with a "What do you think of all this?" aimed at coworkers, who invariably shook their heads and went back to the business of making steel, automobiles, or delivering the mail. They were not terribly fearful, in fact, because even with four such incidents, it had all happened far from where most of them lived, and such events happened very rarely, and not enough to be a seriously personal threat. But all the working men in the country knew in their hearts that somebody, somewhere, really needed to have his ass kicked.

Twelve miles away, Gerry Hendley saw his papers — the New York Times was delivered by special messenger, while the Washington Post had arrived by a normal pickup truck. In both cases, the editorials could have been written by the same clone, urging calm and circumspection, noting that the country had a President to react to these dreadful events, and calmly instructing the President to think before acting. The Op-Ed pieces were somewhat more interesting. Some columnists actually reflected the average citizen. There would be a national cry for vengeance on this day, and for Hendley the good news was that he might just be able to respond to it. The bad news was that no one would ever know, if he did it right.

All in all, this Saturday would not be a slow news day.

And The Campus's parking lot would be full, which would escape the notice of those who drove past the place. The cover story, if one were needed, was that the four massacres of the previous day had caused some instability in the financial markets — which, it turned out later in the day, was true.

Jack Jr. correctly assumed it would be a casual-dress day, and drove his Hummer 2 into work wearing jeans, a pullover shirt, and sneaks. The security people were fully uniformed, of course, and as stone-faced as ever.

Tony Wills was just lighting up his computer when Jack came in at 8:14.

"Hey, Tony," the young Ryan said in greeting. "What's the traffic like?"

"See for yourself. They're not asleep," Wills told his trainee.

"Roger that." He set down his coffee on the desk and slid into his comfortable swivel chair before lighting up his computer and getting through the security systems that protected what was on it. The morning "take" from NSA — that outfit never slept. And it was immediately clear that the people he kept track of paid attention to the news.

It was to be expected that the people in whom NSA had so much interest were not friends of the United States of America, but, even so, Jack Jr. was surprised — even shocked — by the content of some of the e-mails he read. He remembered his own feelings when the United States Army had charged into Saudi Arabia after the forces of the now defunct United Islamic Republic, and the rush of satisfaction when he'd seen a tank explode from direct fire. He hadn't thought for a moment about the three men who'd just perished within their steel tomb, rationalizing that they had taken up arms against America, and that was something that bore a price, a wager of sorts, and if the coin came up tails, well, that was why they called it gambling. Partly that had been his youth, since for a child everything seems directed to him as the center of the known universe, an illusion that takes time to discard. But for the most part the people killed the day before had been innocent civilians, noncombatants, mostly women and children, and to take pleasure in their deaths was just plain barbarism. But here it was. Twice now, America had expended blood to save the mother country of Islam, and some Saudis were talking like this?

"Damn," he whispered. Prince Ali wasn't like this. He and Jack's father were friends. They were pals. They'd visited each other's homes. He himself had spoken with the guy, picked his brain, listened closely to what he'd had to say. Okay, sure, he'd mostly been a kid then, but Ali wasn't this sort of guy. But neither had his own father ever been Ted Bundy, and Bundy had been an American citizen, had probably even voted. So, living in a country did not make you a roving ambassador.

"Not everybody loves us, kid," Wills said, looking over at his face.

"What have we ever done to hurt them?" Junior asked.

"We're the biggest, richest kid on the block. What we say goes, even when we don't tell people what to do. Our culture is overpowering, whether it's Coca-Cola or Playboy magazine. That sort of thing can offend people's religious beliefs, and in some parts of the world religious beliefs define how they think. They do not recognize our principle of religious freedom, and if we allow something that offends their closely held beliefs, then in their mind it's our fault."

"Are you defending these birds?" Jack Jr. demanded.

"No, I am explaining how they think. To understand something does not mean approval of it." Commander Spock had said that once, but evidently Jack had missed that episode. "Your job, remember, is to understand how they think."

"Fine. They think fucked-up. I understand that. Now I have numbers to check out," and Jack set the e-mail transcripts aside and started looking into money moves. "Hey, Uda is working today. Hmm, he does some of this from his home, doesn't he?"

"That's right. Nice thing about computers," Wills said. "He doesn't have the lash-up at home he has at the office, though. Any interesting moves?"

"Just two, into the Liechtenstein bank. Let me run this account…" Ryan did some mouse work and came up with an ID on the account. It wasn't an especially big one. In fact, by Sali's standards it was downright tiny. Just half a million Euros, used mostly for credit card expenditures, his own and… others…

"Hey, this account supports a bunch of Visa cards," he said to Wills.

"Really?"

"Yeah, like a dozen or so. No, it's… sixteen, aside from the ones he uses…"

"Tell me about the account," Wills ordered. Sixteen suddenly seemed a very important number.

"It's a numbered one. NSA got it because of the trapdoor in the bank's accounting program. It's not big enough to be very important, but it is covert."

"Can you pull up the Visa numbers?"

"The account numbers? Sure." Jack selected the account numbers, cut-and-pasted them to a new document, and printed it. Then he handed it across.

"No, you look at this," Wills said, handing across a sheet of his own.

Jack took it, and instantly the account numbers looked familiar. "What's your list about?"

"Those bad boys in Richmond all had Visa cards, used 'em to buy gas across the country — looks like their trip originated in New Mexico, by the way. Jack, you tied Uda bin Sali to yesterday. It looks like he's the guy who bankrolled their expense accounts."

Jack looked at the sheets again, comparing one list of numbers with the others. Then he looked up.

"Fuck," he breathed.

And Wills thought about the miracle of computers and modern communications. The shooters from Charlottesville had used the Visa cards to purchase gas and food, all right, and their little friend Sali had just pumped some money into the bank account that paid the bills. He'd probably act Monday to kill off the accounts, to drop them off the face of the earth. But he'd be too late.

"Jack, who told Sali to drop money into the bank account?" We got us a target, Wills did not say. Maybe more than one.