Intercept (49 page)

Ibrahim was on the verge of becoming desperate when Mr. Jed Ridley, a sixty-eight-year-old local bank manager and lifelong resident of Bangor, came walking slowly toward them. He stopped at one of the two parked cars, unlocked the doors, and packed his shopping bags into the trunk.

Ibrahim watched him settle himself behind the wheel of his dark red Chevrolet. He started the car and tapped on the driver’s side window.

“Sir,” he said, “I think your back tire . . . ”

Mr. Ridley opened the window and Ibrahim shot him dead, straight between the eyes. “Pull him out of the seat, and we’ll load him into the back,” he said. “Come on Yousaf, pull and lift.”

Yousaf was stunned. He was surprised the shot had made so little noise, and amazed at the cold-blooded daring of his leader. He was also thrilled there were no other shoppers anywhere near.

They hauled the late Mr. Ridley to his feet, as if he were merely feeling faint, and walked him the two steps to the rear door. They shoved the body into the back seat, rolled it forward on to the floor, and began to pile the contents of the trunk on top of it.

Mr. Ridley thus disappeared, under the salad and off the map. Ibrahim got behind the wheel and headed for the nearest exit. Mr. Ridley’s Chevrolet headed out toward Main Street and then south down the road to the coast. It was, by now, afternoon, and soon it would grow dark. The Chevy needed gas and the roads, off season, up here in sparsely populated Maine were lonely.

 

BACK IN THE SUPERMARKET
, the police had the area sealed off. No one could come in. More importantly, no one could get out. There was a duty officer at each of the rear doors and the automatic main doors were all
locked. The police spent the first half hour separating the women and children and releasing them right away, since none of them fitted the descriptions of Ibrahim and Yousaf.

There were then obviously innocent men, guys the police knew by name or even by sight. They were released immediately. The officers then proceeded to march each person individually to his vehicle, watch him unlock it, and then drive away.

But at the end of it all, the muddy old Dodge was still out in the parking lot, alone, and basically without an owner.

It was already seven o’clock, and Mrs. Barbara Ridley was among several dozen people who had called the police department wondering after their their family members and friends. She, like the others, was told there had been a major police delay at the supermarket, and no one should be overly concerned. It was all a little time-consuming, but routine.

By 9 p.m., however, eight hours after Ibrahim had shot Mr. Ridley, there was no doubt, the man was missing. He was not even on the police list of people who had been checked out at their vehicles. Two officers drove around to his house and found his wife distraught.

At 10 p.m. they launched a statewide hunt for the Chevy, which had, by this time, been dumped in a dense pinewood, way out of sight of the road, at the northeast end of Mount Desert Island, three miles from Bar Harbor, and forty-four miles from Bangor. The car would not be found for two days.

Ibrahim and Yousaf had decided to walk into the dark town and find the ferry port. Luckily for them, the weather this year on the northeast coast had been a real Indian summer, so much so that the ferry company that runs the world-class supership “The CAT” had decided to operate until the end of October. This was a life-saver for Ibrahim and Yousaf, who otherwise would have been stranded in North America.

But the ferry didn’t leave until morning, and they had nowhere to sleep. And Indian summer or no, it was still damned cold at night on the coast. Still, it wasn’t snowing and it wasn’t blowing, which was excellent news since neither terrorist had anything warmer than a leather jacket.

They walked down the hill of Main Street and reached the waterfront, where they found the ferry terminal. As far as Ibrahim could tell, their best chance for a place to sleep would be a moored boat they could try and get inside.

All he could find was a thirty-eight-foot lobster boat, up on blocks outside a small boat workshop. That would do, if its cabin door was open, but it would be a real pain to climb up and find it was all locked, and colder than it was at ground level.

Also, they’d have to be out at 7 a.m. in case the workshop guys started early. A light but very cold wind was gusting in from the east, and Ibrahim decided they would take their chances, climb up into the lobster boat, and hope to find shelter.

Luck was still with them. The door to the cabin was open, and inside it was surprisingly less cold than standing on the jetty. There were two comfortable seats and the two men from the Middle East crashed out immediately on Bar Harbor’s dry dock.

And in a deep and absolutely unknown irony, Mack Bedford was also sleeping in a chair on the Maine coast. He had reached home eighty-nine miles to the south that afternoon and had now fallen asleep on the sofa, in front of the fire, watching the Red Sox. He’d played baseball with Tommy for almost an hour before dinner, and he was just as tired as Ibrahim and Yousaf. But Mack was warmer than the terrorists. Definitely warmer.

Anne had gone to bed, leaving her husband snoring gently. For now, Mack was at peace, for there was nothing else he could do except to wait for the two hit-men from the Hindu Kush make another mistake.

Ibrahim and Yousaf were up and out of the lobster boat before 7 a.m. and made their way to breakfast at a nearby diner right on the jetties ten minutes later. Afterward, Ibrahim purchased tickets, taking their passports and student visas with him. No one asked to see Yousaf separately, and no one recognized that the passports had been the work of skillful forgers.

They filed in with the substantial morning crowd, boarded the huge dark blue CAT, and took their seats on the ship, which in high summer coped with 775 passengers plus 250 cars. Today it was not full to capacity, but it still had plenty of people among whom Ibrahim and Yousaf could get thoroughly lost.

The local police had been requested to keep a close eye on the ferry terminal during the day in case the two missing drivers of the Dodge truck showed up. But because this still was not yet considered a murder hunt, the state police sent only one already-busy officer to check out the ferry terminal fifteen minutes before the 9 a.m. departure. Except Ibrahim and Yousaf had left at eight.

They had boarded separately. On the way to Nova Scotia, they tried not to be too startled by headlines such as those in the local coastal Maine newspaper that read:

Or, on an inside page,

And then:
BANGOR BANK BOSS GOES MISSING
, followed by three paragraphs about the missing Mr. Ridley.

 

 

SEA CONDITIONS
on the Gulf of Maine were choppy but not rough as they ploughed across the long swells, which form out here where the Atlantic washes up into the wide, 120-mile-long Bay of Fundy, which divides Nova Scotia from the eastern coast of New Brunswick.

Yarmouth, their ultimate destination on the southwest headland, stands adjacent to Dennis Point, the largest commercial fishing wharf in Atlantic Canada. Over a thousand fishermen and women make their living there, fishing for a variety of ground fish and shell fish, most notably lobster. It is also home to a fine trawler fleet.

Other large sport recreation boats cater for the tourist industry. And heavy tonnage foreign vessels are often brought here for servicing and repairs. Because out beyond the safe harbors of Nova Scotia, in the great waters of the North Atlantic, conditions can be very rugged, even for the best-built commercial boats.

Halfway to Nova Scotia, Yousaf finally appreciated that he hadn’t been much help so far, but he now ventured to ask Ibrahim if he had a plan. He was unsurprised by his colleague’s irritatation. “I do not have a precise strategy,” Ibrahim said, rather grandly, “except to get off this ferry, and get through Canadian customs and immigration.

“Ports like this are used to dealing with a large number of cars and passengers, and they are not very strict, simply because so many people are going back to the USA tonight. That’s why I bought us return tickets on the five o’clock ferry, to show them, if they ask.”

Yousaf was forced to agree that had been a bit of a master stroke. “And you remember, Yousaf,” Ibrahim said, “our passports are perfectly in order. They both have legal stamps showing where and when we entered the United States. Also when we must leave. Our student visas are also valid. They both specify our Western degrees, mine from Harvard, yours from London University. Now you should go and sit somewhere else.”

Yousaf wandered off, and for a while stood at the rail, gazing into the distance off the south-facing starboard beam. He had to admit it. Ibrahim had been a very fine leader, although he had no idea how he could have been so careless as to allow the bomb to go off three hundred yards before the school bus reached its destination. And the more Yousaf thought about it, the more troubled he became. Ibrahim had said the bombs would explode when he himself detonated them.
It was not just one bomb it was many, to be laid by our men all over the school. How come they all went off at once? I know Ibrahim did not explode them, because I was sitting next to him. I also know there were no timed-charges because I helped to make every one of them. And I know they do not go off on impact. Even if the bus had crashed, the bombs would not have detonated.

Yousaf was puzzled. Something had set them off. He understood that. But it surely was not a member of his team. Because there was nothing to set them off, except for Ibrahim’s remote control, and he himself had been holding that from the time they left the farm.
So what was it?
Yousaf did not know.

The problem exercised him so greatly, he waited another half-hour, and with the Nova Scotia coastline well in sight, he went back and sat next to Ibrahim and asked him quietly, “Do you know what it was that set off our bombs so long before we intended them to detonate?”

“I have thought of little else since it happened,” replied the terrorist leader. “And all I know is, there’s nothing we constructed or fitted to the bomb-boxes that could possibly have set them off. Nothing. They were made to explode when my remote controller sent in the electronic pulse for which they were built. If you’d dropped a building on that bus, the bombs would not have gone off.”

“Well, what could it have been?” asked Yousaf, vacantly.

“They must have been exploded by another device.”

“You mean someone else exploded our bomb?”

“I do, because there cannot be any other explanation if we didn’t do it.”

“You mean someone must have dropped a bomb on our bus?”

“No. That would be impossible, because it would have required a low-flying fighter plane, and we’d have seen it.”

“Then someone fired a guided missile across the academy park, and it went straight through the side of the bus and blew the boxes of ammonium nitrate?”

“No. That’s almost, but not quite, impossible. Although the American authorities could have achieved that very easily. They only needed to call in their all-powerful military. But they would not have done that. They’d have dealt with the whole problem at the farm, charged in with a hundred troops, blown the bus, and the barn, and the house, and then shot all of us.”

“Bastards,” muttered Yousaf, “Damn bastards.”

The huge CAT superboat, with its aerodynamic swept front end, continued racing across the water, and she ran smoothly, even with the short chop to the surface as there was today. Yousaf returned to his own seat and sat down thoughtfully, understanding there was one more barrier to cross, Canadian immigration, and they were home free, out of the United States.

By now he could see the coastline, and the headland of Yarmouth, jutting out, hiding the port from the ships making entry from the west. The CAT ferry with its shallow draft came roaring up to the jutting point of land and swerved hard to port for the ten-minute run up to the harbor in calm waters.

When it docked, there were long lines of passengers disembarking and a long line of automobiles trying to crawl out from the bowels of the ship. Because there was so much congestion, those holding U.S. or Canadian passports were usually waved through swiftly, especially those who were obviously returning that evening.

Ibrahim was among the first in line, and handed over his Pakistani passport and his student visa.

“Returning today?” asked the immigration officer.

“Yes, sir,” replied Ibrahim, offering his ticket.

The officer stamped the passport, and waved him through. It was the same with Yousaf eight minutes later. “Have a nice visit,” said the official. With that, the two terrorists had officially left the United States of America.

Ibrahim knew their destination was ultimately the fishing docks at Dennis Point, where he hoped to buy a couple of passages to Greenland or Iceland or somewhere else halfway across the north Atlantic. He still had a few thousand dollars tucked in the bottom of his leather bag and
decided to board a very crowded bus headed that way. Yousaf only just managed to get on.

The docks were busy, with trawlers coming and going. Two large freighters were moored in the harbor, and Ibrahim learned they were in for repairs but couldn’t pay the bill; everyone was awaiting money from the shipping company’s Moscow headquarters.

The ship with most activity was moored alongside:
Odessa
, a two-hundred-foot Russian trawler from the Murmansk Fleet, characteristically rusty, in need of paint. Ibrahim went to see the captain, a heavyset, lifelong trawlerman named Igor Destinov. He spoke chronically broken English, but understood this Arabian-looking character was trying to hitch a ride to somewhere. To him it sounded like anywhere, and such men were dangerous. Igor, however, was not concerned about that. He was concerned only about the price.