Inside Threat (22 page)

“Now take some time to prepare yourselves before Allah. Your team leaders will call you together at the proper time.”

As people began moving around him, Alavi closed his eyes and continued kneeling on his rug. A thought had been bothering him ever since the imam had begun speaking—
I wonder how Saifullah's words would have been different if this team had been raised in the Middle East instead of here in America.

His mind drifted back to his time in Somalia. During his half year there, he had witnessed only one suicide team being sent out. It was the first time he had ever experienced anything like that, and the vision of these men ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Allah had seared itself into his memory.

He remembered his own rush of adrenaline as he watched the men stand before the cameras and tape their farewells. Then they went before the imam, who had spoken words to them that had been much more centered on the wickedness of the enemy and the future support of the martyrs' families.

Here in America it was all about the martyr himself. Was he doing the right thing? Would people remember him with pride?
Here, we have been saturated in a me-centered culture. Saifullah does not fight that; he uses it in his discourse. They . . . we can't stand the thought of our family and friends being disappointed in us.

That thought opened up a sore spot for Alavi that he quickly tried to cover over with prayer. But soon enough, his mind drifted back to his family.

There's no way Dad's going to understand this—not now, not this side of Paradise. But one day he will. One day he will see the justification of my actions. In fact, he'll even celebrate it.

Oh, Allah, I know that what I'm doing is right. Please let my father see that truth. Please protect him from unnecessary shame. Forgive him if he doesn't understand your call to me. He's a broken man; he doesn't think clearly anymore. He's lost sight of all that you are. You are a God of mercy; extend mercy to him, I pray. Then I can go to my death truly at peace.

With a deep inhale, he pushed himself to his feet. Silence filled the large warehouse as each man spent time with his thoughts or his prayers or his doubts. Quietly, Alavi moved back to his cot. As team leader, he didn't have the same luxury of time. There was too much to be done. Everything had to be gone over one last time. Everyone had to be fully prepared.

For this to come off right, it would take discipline, determination, courage, and ruthlessness, and even then they'd need a large amount of divine assistance. If this were to fall apart, it could give all of Islam a black eye. However, if they pulled it off, it would shake the foundations of America, knocking it off balance for years to come.

Thursday, September 15, 9:50 a.m. EDT

Washington, DC

“Tell me about it,” Scott yelled as he charged out of his office. The Room of Understanding was a flurry of activity as everyone was busy pounding keyboards and clicking mice.

“Looks like two gunmen at a Krispy Kreme in Little Rock,” Virgil Hernandez reported from his workstation. “Opened fire as soon as they walked in.”

“Another donut shop? Are you sure they're
hajji
?”

“Don't know of any Arkansas white trash militia that shouts
‘Allahu akbar'
before they start firing.”

Scott slid in behind Hernandez and watched a CNN news report over his shoulder.

“Did they get them?”

“Come on, Scott,” Hernandez answered, aggravation evident in his voice. “It's a donut shop. Four cops dusted them before they even knew what was coming.”

“Yeah, didn't happen that way last time,” Scott grumped. On the screen a banner read
Five dead in Krispy Kreme shooting.
“Looks like the cops didn't get them soon enough, either.”

“Got another one,” Evie Cline called out.

Scott ran to her. “Report!”

“It's not even on the news feeds yet, but seems some whack-a-doo just opened fire in Caesars in Vegas.”

“That couldn't have lasted long,” Scott said, wondering to himself what connections there may have been between the two attacks. “Even this early in the morning, they've got security there that makes the Secret Service look like the neighborhood watch.”

Evie read down the flash for a moment, “One perp . . . two dead . . . looks like they took him down by hand. . . . Definitely Islamic extremist.”

Scott stood up and looked around. “What's going on?” he barked. “Why didn't we know about this? Virgil? Joey? Gooey?” Seeing the analyst's station empty, he asked, “Where's Gooey?”

Without looking up from his screen, Joey Williamson answered, “He's been in and out all morning. Bad pizza, he said.”

“Got another one,” Hernandez said. “A bus in Sacramento. Five dead, seven wounded, perp in custody.”

“Come on, talk to me! What's going on?” Scott was in the middle of the room. He was hanging on to a chair at the conference table, struggling to resist the urge to chuck it across the room. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.

“Physics class at Ball State,” Evie called out. “Don't know the numbers. Perp's dead.”

Come on, think! Think! What is this? It's obviously coordinated, but to what end?
In the distance, Scott heard something about Tampa and a diner, but he was too focused to process the details. Sweat began beading on his head; his grip on the chair grew tighter.
What are they trying to prove? This isn't a show of strength. Too much little stuff. Maybe they can show numbers with what they're doing, but not strength.

A Fort Wayne grocery store and an auto auction in Pittsburgh. . . .

It's just too much! It doesn't make sense! If they really wanted to terrorize, they'd do one a day for a week or a month—really get people looking over their shoulders. But a flurry all at once?

Another grocery store, this one in Boise—

“Stop!” Scott yelled. “Everybody just shut up!”

A hush quickly fell over the room. “Conference table—now!”

“But there's still—” Hernandez started to say until a glare from Scott shut him down.

The team quickly took their seats around the long table, including Gooey, who must have returned while Scott had his eyes closed.

“What's going on?” Scott demanded.

“Hard to tell when we're over here and our computers are over there,” Gooey complained.

“That's not what I mean. What's really going on here? I'm looking for a motive for all this—something bigger than ‘Let's make the bad Americans scared.'”

“You mean, like what Khadi said,” Evie agreed. “Is this all part of something bigger? Are they trying to distract us from something else?”

“Bingo,” Scott said, and for once no one clamored for him to drop a buck in the “Oh No You Di'int” jar.

“But what could be bigger?” asked Williamson. “It's not like these amateurs could get their hands on a nuke.”

“Word,” Gooey agreed, deciding to exploit the moratorium on the cliché jar for all it was worth. “They'd be all over a nuke like white on rice, like cats on mice, like dots on dice, but for now that's just not how they roll.”

Smiling despite himself, Scott said, “Thanks for clarifying that, Goo. I agree that we're not necessarily looking for bigger in scope, just bigger in impact. Precision, pinpoint—like a well-directed blow to the solar plexus rather than a club over the head. Think of the chatter you've processed over the last week. Any of the locations of these attacks a surprise to you? Evie?”

“None, except Sacramento—”

“Saw that one,” Hernandez said with a quick raise of his hand.

“Okay, and Ball State.”

“Muncie, Indiana.”

“Duh, Muncie,” Evie said, smacking herself lightly on the forehead. “Thanks, Virge. And judging by what else I've seen, I'd be very worried if I were in Houston, Cincinnati, Tucson, or Clovis, California.”

What's going on here? There's got to be a thread—got to be a purpose.
Scott sat silently with his eyes squeezed shut, the thumb and index finger of his right hand massaging the bridge of his nose. Everyone knew to be quiet when they saw him like this—nobody wanted to be the one who threw the wrench in his high-torque mental machinery.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Let's pull it back one more level. We've been following this line of chatter because
a
, it was related to the earlier attacks of the last few weeks, and
b
, it thus had the highest level of urgency. But what other threads have we set aside in pursuit of this? In other words, pretend none of this exists. What would you be focusing on instead?”

“Big stuff happening in Londonistan, rumors of a nasty shipment coming across the border from Mexico, and a moderate elevation of the usual rumblings here in our lovely adopted hometown,” Gooey said.

More to himself than anyone at the table, Scott said, “The Brits can take care of London. The nasty stuff on the border . . . How nasty is nasty, Gooman?”

“Sounds like some heavy weapons, but no reason to hatch this elaborate a plot.”

“Honestly, Scootie,” Evie chimed in, “I'm most concerned about the hometown chatter.”

“First of all—Scootie?” Scott said. “Second of all, how concerned are you?”

Gooey jumped in. “I'd have been spending all my time on it if these other threads weren't having us running around like a bunch of one-armed paperhangers.”

Scott asked, “So what are the specifics?”

“No specifics,” Williamson said. “We just know they're talking. It's serious enough that Secret Service has been notified, as has security at the Capitol.”

“No specifics in the chatter leaves us with the news. What's happening around the city today? What could they be trying to draw our attention from?” Even as he was saying the words, a tense fluttering was beginning in his stomach. Something was happening today. He remembered hearing about it—even talking about it—but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

“The only thing out of the ordinary I know of is the funeral at the National Cathedral,” Evie said.

The funeral—that's it! Khadi and I talked about it. But a funeral doesn't really fit the profile of a well-designed, planned-in-advance conspiracy, does it?
“A funeral's kinda hard to plan for. Remind me how Chaplain Whozit died again.”

“It's Chaplain Daniel Musman,” Evie answered. “Died Monday in his sleep. I'm pretty sure it was a heart attack.”

The details were beginning to fall into place for Scott. “He was pretty old, wasn't he? Was there an autopsy?”

“I'm not sure. I can check,” Evie said sliding her chair back.

“No, don't bother. I'd bet woodchucks to wombats there wasn't.” Tension filled Scott's body, and his leg started bouncing like a piston on hyperdrive. “I was talking with Khadi about this yesterday. She's going to be there with her senator, along with a bunch of other congressional folk. Guys, I'm getting a bad feeling about this.”

“Ditto,” Gooey said.

Jumping up from his chair, Scott began pacing. “Okay, here's how we're going to play this. Evie, you call FBI. Fill them in and get them on board.”

“Scott—” Evie said.

“Goo, you start acquiring feeds on every camera surrounding the cathedral.”

“Scott—” Evie tried again.

“Joey, you—”

“Scott!”

“What?” Scott yelled back at her.

“You realize that they scheduled the funeral for 10:00 this morning?”

“Thank you, Evie! I know that already! Your point?”

In reply, Evie just nodded to the digital clock that hung over the door to the Room of Understanding. In big red letters it read 10:09 a.m.

Scott's response would have cost him eleven dollars in the “You Kiss Your Mama with That Mouth?” jar—if they had been keeping count.