True Faith and Allegiance

55

Adara and Dominic arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Saturday afternoon, rented a car, and drove east toward downtown. They booked a room at the Chicago Athletic Association hotel just a few blocks from Lake Michigan, and then immediately climbed back into their rental for the fifteen-minute drive to the Roosevelt Road building that housed the Chicago Division of the FBI and the local branch of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Adara held no classified access, so she dropped Dom off while he waited to meet with a supervisory special agent named David Jeffcoat who’d agreed to brief him on the situation here on the ground. Dom was taken upstairs to the JTTF floor, where he walked by desks manned by high-ranking representatives of most every government law enforcement, emergency management, and intelligence agency in America.

They stepped into an unused office, and Jeffcoat asked Dom about his interest in the case. It was odd, Jeffcoat explained, that Caruso was just a special agent tasked to the D.C. Bureau, but had shown up after a call from the director’s office asking him to be briefed about anything he wanted to know.

Dom said, “I understand the question, Special Agent Jeffcoat, but I can’t go into a lot of details. Suffice it to say I’m just on a fact-finding mission for interested parties in D.C.”

Jeffcoat said, “I hope this doesn’t come off the wrong way, but some guys were wondering if the fact that your uncle is the President had anything to do with you getting your assignment.”

Dom just shook his head, thinking the man a bit of an ass for his comment. “No, this isn’t a nepotism thing, and I’m not sure there was a right way to suggest that it was.”

The supervisory special agent considered this a moment, then said, “Well, as you can imagine, we’re pretty busy since three of the cell members who went to El Salvador lived around here.”

“Right,” said Dom. “And the fact the killer from Brooklyn flew straight here.”

Jeffcoat said, “We think he might have been passing through.”

“Oh?”

Jeffcoat gave a thorough but rather boilerplate briefing about the JTTF’s operation and setup here in Chicago. Dom was pleased to see the JTTF locally was keenly aware that at least three of the attendees of the Language School came from the area, and that the man from New York traveled to O’Hare, but it was clear to Dom halfway through the briefing that the local authorities didn’t think it likely that any of the ISIS cell members were still in the area.

Dom said, “Why don’t you think Chicago faces any particular threat, especially in light of the fact several cell members have been tied to the area in one respect or another?”

“Look,” the FBI man explained, “the three locals who went to El Sal just flew back into O’Hare because it made sense for them to book roundtrip tickets. We’ve canvassed all the known associates of these three, and nobody has seen or heard of them. We think they’ve gone to ground in some other part of the country. Plus, the guy from the New York attack might be here in the area, but that’s unknown. We’ve spent the past day checking hotels from here to Aurora. We’ve shown pictures around, and have come up with zip. He could be on the West Coast or in Canada by now.

“Chicago doesn’t have any major military bases, it’s not exactly a hub of CIA activity, so there is a dearth of good targets for al-Matari’s men. The D.C. area is a better bet for where to find these guys. You should focus your attention there, or maybe around some big military base somewhere.”

Dom couldn’t argue with the man, although he thought the lack of activity in this area had a significance of its own.

He asked, “Is this top-down thinking around here?”

“Absolutely. Special Agent in Charge Thomas Russell runs the entire JTTF in Chicago. He is of the belief O’Hare was just a transit station. These guys had cars nearby and they skipped town.”

Dom asked, “Is Russell in the office?”

“Yeah. I’d introduce you, but he’s a busy man and, again, I am not exactly sure just who or what you are. I was told to take care of you, so that’s why we’re talking. I wasn’t told to pass you on to the boss, so the only guy you get to bug today is me.”

Dom let the snipe roll off his back. He understood this guy was confused as to why his busy day was being taken up talking to some random agent from another part of the map.

Dom shook the man’s hand, and Jeffcoat said, “Hate that you came all the way out here for twenty minutes of spiel I could have delivered over the phone. Call next time and we’ll save the government a few bucks.”

Dom said, “Oh, I’m not just here for the briefing. I’m going to stick around, sniff into the situation a bit more. I’m not as convinced as you there’s nothing here ISIS would find worthy of attacking.”

“Not what I said, Caruso. But if you’re from D.C., I do think an ISIS shithead and his goons will find that to be a more target-rich environment.”

Dom turned for the door. “You may be right. Good luck to you.”

Once he was out of the building, Adara picked him up. He filled her in on the supervisory special agent’s churlishness.

Adara said, “Do you want me to go beat him up for you, honey?”

Dom just laughed.

“What do you want to do now?” she asked.

“Let’s see. A sunny afternoon in Chi-town? I want to take my girl to go see a Cubs game. But I think we’d better keep at it, because the JTTF here doesn’t think there is any real threat, and they are concentrating their efforts on digging into the pasts of the three local terrorists. Personally, I’m more concerned about the near future.”

“So… what’s our plan?”

Dom shrugged. “Honestly, I think the only thing we can do until we get more to go on is work on threat assessments. We’ll go through lists of events in town, lists of places where military and senior government LE agencies congregate.”

Adara said, “Why don’t I just make a U-turn and we can go back to the FBI building. If the JTTF is there, then that’s where all the bigwigs in LE and intel are in the city.”

Dom conceded the point. “Very true, but they’re well protected. I passed multiple sets of X-rays and scanners, bulletproof glass, and security armed with body armor and rifles. Al-Matari is too smart to hit that building. At best, his people might kill a secretary and a couple of lobby guards before they got slaughtered. We have to think like he does. Try to find exposed targets here in the area. Something akin to what we’re seeing in attacks in other parts of the country. Intelligence agency folks, special operations troops, pilots, that kind of stuff, but out in the open. If we can determine where they will hit, we might be able to make ourselves useful.”

Adara said, “There could be a half-dozen or more cell members in the area, so the scope of their attack could be larger than any of the al-Matari hits we’ve seen so far. Let’s get to work.”

The first news of a fire at the ARTD building reached the Campus detachment working in Bucharest when Gavin called his IT office at Hendley Associates in Virginia and got one of his subordinates to hack into the security camera of a hardware store across the street from the ARTD building.

It took a few minutes for the intrusion to take place, and when the image from the camera showed up on Gavin’s computer, he was surprised to see a row of fire trucks.

Felix Negrescu was asked to look into the situation, and he opened an app on his phone that had a local police and fire department scanner. In no time at all he relayed to the rest of the team that a fire had started in some trash in the building’s basement, but it had been extinguished by firefighters in twenty minutes. There were no injuries, and other than some smoke and water damage, the building was fine.

None of the guys had any indication this small fire had anything to do with their target here in Romania, and they continued on with their plan for the afternoon, which included making entry of Dalca’s apartment to plant listening devices and remote-access tools on any computers, phones, pads, or other devices they could find there. Before they could initiate the break-in, however, Chavez decided they would surveil the building for the afternoon and evening to get a baseline for the location. This way they would have some idea of the patterns and habits of Alex Dalca and the men and women who lived around him.

It was a decision that would cost them some time, but Chavez had done this sort of thing for long enough to know this was a worthwhile expense, considering the alternative could have involved one or more of his team being compromised.

The afternoon passed slowly, especially because the men were all suffering the effects of jet lag to one degree or another. Midas made an afternoon coffee run for the team, and around seven p.m. Jack broke off his surveillance, sitting in the van up the street with Felix, so he and the team’s local contact could pick up dinner for the group.

Gavin Biery was eating his dinner of chicken paprika at the desk in the little closet in the fading light when a yellow Porsche Panamera pulled into the key code — access parking lot next to Dalca’s apartment building. He focused his camera on the sports car when it parked, and recognized his target as soon as he climbed from behind the wheel. The man carried a backpack over his shoulder, and several large bags under his arms.

Gavin touched the transmit key on the wire to his headset. “Target has arrived. He’s alone. His vehicle is a yellow four-door Porsche. Pretty sweet.”

“Roger that,” Chavez replied. He and Midas were in the apartment on the other side of the building. They could see the feed from all the cameras via their iPads, but at the moment they were in the middle of their dinner. “Report his movements.”

Gavin said, “I lost him when he went into the lobby. I’ve got the laser audio transmitter ready if he makes any calls, but if he just sits around and works on his computer, we could be in for a long night.”

Chavez said, “We already knew we’d have more opportunities bugging his devices than we would hoping he meets with someone face-to-face.”

Jack came over the net next. “Yeah, computer nerds don’t get out much.”

It was directed at Gavin, but Gavin was focused on his work. Through his headphones he could hear the sound of the front door of the apartment opening.

“Subject is in his place. No conversation, still seems to be alone.”

Gavin watched the monitor showing the view of the camera positioned on the desk in front of him. In just seconds, he saw the door to the balcony open and Dalca step outside, a liter bottle of beer in his hand.

“He’s on the balcony getting some fresh air. I’m going to tighten on him and get some good pics we can use for the facial-recog software.”

Gavin zoomed in as tight as he could to the young man’s face, then adjusted the focus of his cameras. As he did this he saw Dalca peering down into the street, looking carefully in both directions, and then across the street to the building where Gavin now sat.

Chavez came over the net. “He looks concerned.”

Gavin felt like the man across the street could somehow see him, even though he was invisible in a darkened storage space forty yards away with only a four-inch-wide slit exposing him to the outside. He spoke softly. “I think he knows I’m here.”

Chavez replied, “Relax, Gavin. You’re fine.” Then he said, “Hey, Jack. Is it possible he’s onto us? Someone tipped him off at the airport maybe?”

Jack replied, “I don’t see how. We don’t have any reason to believe he’s sniffed out Hendley Associates as being part of the IC, so the Gulfstream’s arrival in Bucharest wouldn’t have set him off.”

Gavin said, “Trust me, Ryan. He’s definitely worried about something.”

“I can’t see his face like you guys can, but I trust your judgment. Maybe it’s just nerves. He is conspiring with terrorists to kill Americans. There’s probably a little anxiety that comes along with that.”

Chavez said, “Hey, I look at it as good news. I came all the way to Central Europe to watch over a guy I didn’t personally know was really involved in anything illicit. But just looking at him right now, I’d say he’s guilty as hell.”

Gavin panned his optics up and down the street. He switched to the thermal view, trying to pick up anyone loitering in the evening shadows. “Well, if he thinks someone else is watching him, he’s wrong. This street is quiet.”

Jack said, “I can confirm that. Felix and I are about the only two people around tonight, and we’re just hanging out in the van.”

Gavin got his photos; Dalca finished his drink, and then headed back inside. The laser audio transmitter picked up the sounds of television for a while, and then it stopped, and the lights went off.

At ten p.m. Midas took over for Gavin in the closet, so Gavin could get a few hours’ sleep on a cot in the safe house. It seemed clear Dalca wouldn’t go anywhere for the evening, so Felix and Jack drove back to the safe house and crashed themselves.

Chavez told Midas he’d relieve him at three a.m., and he went to bed as well, confident it would be a quiet night.