Hard Road (31 page)

“The last I checked the FBI rulebook, we serve the people as a federal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency. We have investigative jurisdiction over more than two hundred categories of federal crime. We have no moral obligation, other than as parents to our children. Look, we're expecting a
real-time
feed from the Hazmat team working in the air vents in the next five minutes. I think until then, this is all speculation.”

She pressed a button and the screen went black, the video teleconference over.

She stared out of the window at the Upper East Side skyline. Meyerstein reconsidered the thrust of where the complex investigation was heading. She heard behavioural scientists, profilers, psychologists and a whole host of others outlining what sort of person Scott Caan was.

His medical records were subpoenaed. He was in excellent health. The apartment was being worked over by forensics. The profilers said that there had been myriad reports into the psychology and sociology of terrorism. And there weren't any detectable personality traits to allow the FBI to identify a would-be terrorist. The average terrorist is also not mentally ill, although they are, to a greater or lesser extent, deluded by ideological or religious beliefs. They went on to say the potential terrorists who show signs of mental illness, or have noticeable behaviour traits, are not likely candidates to be chosen by those behind a terrorist attack.

The more she learned, the less she understood about Scott Caan. It was strange that there was no more footage of Caan in New York. Why was that? “Someone is shielding him. This is not the sort of thing that's dreamed up on the spur of the moment. So, where the hell is he?”

“God only knows,” came the muted reply from Ray Stamper, staring at the live news feed, which had flickered into life from Lower Manhattan.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Reznick was floating in a sea of darkness, a black sky above. The sound of humming like a chopper blade and then an incessant beeping. He opened his eyes and found he was sitting by his daughter's bedside, still holding her hand. He sat up and stared at her.

Her eyes were closed, face pained. She didn't look peaceful. She made the occasional moan, as if riven by nightmares in her deep sleep. He wondered if she would ever wake up. But even if she did, what state would she be in?

The sound of footsteps approaching out in the corridor. A sharp knock at the door and a nurse entered the room. “Excuse me. There's a call for you at the nursing station.”

Reznick shrugged. “Did they give a name?”

“Said they were calling from Miami. Said you were a friend of his father.”

Reznick wondered how Ron Leggett knew where he was. His gut feeling told him something was wrong. Surely the Feds hadn't passed on the information? “OK,” he sighed. He followed the nurse out of the ICU room and headed to the nursing station halfway down the corridor. The two Feds followed.

A receptionist pointed to the phone on the desk. “There you go, sir,” she said, flashing a white smile.

He picked up the phone and turned his back to the woman before he spoke, the two Feds watching him close by. “Yeah, who's this?”

A long silence on the line. But he knew someone was there.

“Who's calling?”

A long sigh came down the line. “I'm very disappointed, Jon.” It was the electronically distorted voice, which had instructed Reznick to head down to Miami “You didn't keep your side of the bargain.”

Reznick's insides tightened and heart beat faster. He turned and snapped his fingers, signalling to the Feds. He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered to one of them. “Do a trace on this call. Right now.”

The Fed nodded and took out his cell phone to make the call.

“What do you want?” Reznick said.

“Did you think you could move Lauren without us knowing about it, Jon?”

Reznick felt the anger build deep inside him, gnawing at his chest. He wondered how they knew where his daughter was.

“All you had to do, Jon, was deliver the scientist, and you daughter wouldn't have been harmed. But instead, you decided to take matters into your own hands. And now look at Lauren. Do you feel guilty, Jon? Do you wonder if you made the wrong call?

Reznick said nothing.

“I don't think she's gonna make it, Jon.”

Reznick could see it was mind games.

“We're not going to go away, Jon. When this is over, we're coming after your little girl and you.”

“You finished?” Reznick said.

“No, quite the contrary, Jon. I'm only beginning. You see, Jon, we have plans in place. Plans like you wouldn't believe. This ungrateful, bloated, filthy country, which you profess to love, is going to feel what real pain is. What real loss is like.”

Reznick kept quiet, wanting him to do the talking.

“You disrupted our plans, Jon, I'm afraid to say. Plans which took us years to put into place. You and Lauren will pay for that.”

Reznick closed his eyes.

“You see, Jon, America is going to suffer, and it's going to suffer a bit earlier than we planned.”

The line went dead.

Reznick put the phone back down on its stand, ending the call. He looked across at the Feds who were looking grim-faced, one still on his cell. “Any luck?”

“I don't think so.”

Reznick shook his head and walked back into his daughter's room. He stood at the window and looked down on the flowerbeds in the hospital grounds, a riot of colour in mid-December. He thought back over the chaotic last forty-eight hours. He thought of Lauren and the terrible last moments before Beth was killed. His mind flashed to seeing Leggett's body slumped in the shower. The nightmare had all been caused by his refusal to kill Luntz. He knew Lauren would never get peace. He had to end this. It was never going to stop until he neutralised the people behind it.

“There you are.” The voice of one of the Feds snapped him out of his reverie. He walked across to the window and stood beside Reznick. “We couldn't trace the call. They were bouncing the signal off here, there and everywhere. Very sophisticated.”

“Forget that. I want to speak to Meyerstein.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

The Fed let out a long sigh. “I'll see what I can do.” He left the room for a couple of minutes. When he came back, he handed his cell phone to Reznick. “Assistant Director Meyerstein for you.”

Reznick took the phone. “How the hell can you guys not get a trace?”

“We're still working on it.”

“Bullshit. They're running circles round us. How the hell did they know Lauren was here? Can you answer me that?”

Meyerstein sighed. “I don't know, Jon. Honest to God, I wish I did.”

“He knows Lauren was moved and knows her condition. Is there a leak in your team? What the hell is going on?”

“OK, Jon, let's back up for a moment. They, whoever they are, might know where you are, but they can't get to your family.”

“I don't think you're listening. These are no ordinary Joes you're dealing with. These guys are serious. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Trust me, your family is safe.”

“You don't know that. Look, I want in.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I want to be part of your investigation team. I want to help you get these bastards.”

“That's not gonna happen, Jon.”

“You're not listening, Meyerstein. These people are very, very serious. And when I mean serious, I mean, they are not going to go away. I want to help you.”

“Jon, you need to back up and leave this to us.”

“Listen to me very closely.” Reznick lowered his voice. “He said they had plans in place and that America was going to feel what real pain was.”

“He said that?”

“What, do you think I'm making this up?

Meyerstein let out a long sigh.

“He also said they were going to bring their plans forward.”

A long silence opened up between them. Eventually Meyerstein spoke. “Jon, you need to let this go and leave it with us. Lauren needs you now. I also want you to know that I'm going to be thinking of you and your daughter, and praying she pulls through this.”

Reznick didn't respond.

“Do you believe, Jon?”

“I don't know. Sometimes I pray. Pray for my daughter. Pray she can open her eyes and I can see her smile again.”

“You did all you could do, Jon. You got to her. You… You found her alive. That in itself is a miracle.”

“Maybe.”

“Look, I need to go.”

“Where are you?”

“What, just now?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Curious, I guess.”

“Manhattan, if you must know. Satisfied?”

“Sure.”

“Look, I can't talk now…” A long pause as if she didn't want to hang up. Eventually she broke the silence between them. “Try and move on, Jon. Lauren needs you.”

The line went dead and Reznick handed the cell back to the Fed, who left the room. When he had shut the door, Reznick went across and sat down at his daughter's bedside. He held her hand and stroked her soft hair. Then he leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “Lauren, I love you so much, honey. But I've got something to attend to. It means I'm gonna be away from you for a little while, honey. The doctors are going to take good care of you. But when I come back, this will all be over, one way or the other, I promise you.” He kissed her clammy cheek, visible through all the tubes. “Love you forever.”

Then he closed his eyes and said a silent prayer as the beeping of the machines filled the terrible silence.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The FBI's three-storey safe house on Manhattan's Upper East Side had fallen quiet as they listened to the phone conversation – retrieved minutes earlier by the NSA – between Reznick and the electronically distorted voice.

Meyerstein stood in the briefing room, hands behind her back, and stared out of the window over the houses of East 73
rd
Street's Historic District. More than one hundred experts from the NSA, CIA, Homeland Security, National Counterterrorism Center and, of course, the FBI, were all trying to track down Caan and the identity and location of Reznick's caller.

She was feeling the pressure like never before. The stakes were impossibly high. But she knew that cold logic instead of raw emotion was required.

She turned around and looked at the eerie
real-time
pictures from the cameras of the Hazmat team in Lower Manhattan. The night vision pictures were from a camera fitted to Special Agent Kevin O'Hare's bio-suit as he headed along an aluminium duct of the building's central air conditioning system.

Another plasma screen showed her team at the FBI's HQ in Washington, seven members round a small conference table.

Meyerstein stared up at the screen to the team in Washington. “OK, let's get started. I want to know more about this call. It's exactly half an hour since we got working on this. What are NSA saying about it?”

Gary Clark, an NSA computer and telecommunications specialist, said, “The GPS showed that the call to Reznick originated from Grand Cayman. But we've done our calculations, and it's not possible. It's a false location. Classic GPS spoofing, bouncing off hundreds of locations.”

“OK, interesting. What else?”

“We are ninety two per cent certain that the call was made from a moving car. We're still working on cleaning up the voice, though. They're very good.”

Meyerstein sighed. “Clearly. Any further details about the phone?”

Clark cleared his throat and leafed through a pile of papers in front of him. “Pay as you go serial number, originally part of a consignment for a store in Miami.”

“Now we're getting somewhere. What about voice analysis?”

“It's gonna take time. There are so many overlays; it's a highly sophisticated operation we're dealing with.”

“What about Caan? Do we have anything on him?”

“He seems to have disappeared off the radar, ma'am.”

“Are we scanning all cellular traffic? He must be communicating with someone. This is not a lone wolf. The level of expertise tells us this is something entirely different.”

“Fort Meade is scanning telephone, fax and data traffic, including encrypted emails, across the world.”

Meyerstein knew they had a database containing hundreds of billions of records of calls made by US citizens from the four largest telephone carriers.

“Our analysts are using the extension Caan used at the lab, his home number and cell, although both haven't been used in months.”

“It's beginning to sound more and more ominous.”

“Look, we're throwing everything at it. We're using link analysis software and neural network software to try and detect patterns, classify and cluster data. We've also got a speech recording he made at a conference last year, and we're using advanced speech recognition software to find him. But to answer your question, nothing so far.”

“OK, Gary. Get back to me as soon as we have something.”

Meyerstein cut the link to Washington. Then she called up the communications link to Assistant Director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, Professor Adam Horowitz, down in Lower Manhattan, and the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, who were monitoring events as they unfolded. “Adam, it's Martha. I'm looking for an update, if that's possible.”