Pushed to the Edge (SEAL Team 14) (16 page)

Ms. Sanchez we have a few
more questions for you.”

Victoria looked up from
where she was sitting in an interrogation room of the Dallas Police
Department.  There were two men standing in front of her in dark suits.  She
could tell by the way that they were carrying themselves that they were federal
agents of some sort. 

Members of the Dallas Police Department had driven
her to the police station so that they could take her formal statement. 
Officers had also questioned Victoria for at least half an hour about what she
witnessed of the shooting.

“I’m agent Foster and this is my partner agent
Mills, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the older agent drawled out,
nodding to the younger man standing next to him.  Both men opened up their
wallets to flash their badges at her and then sat down in seats across from
her. 

They both had dark brown hair and eyes and were
currently wearing haggard expressions their faces.  Victoria could imagine that
investigating the attempted murder of a U.S. Congressman must have been trying,
to say the least.

“Yes.  I’m not sure what more I can add.  I spoke
with two detectives from the Dallas PD earlier.”

“Yes.  We understand ma’am, but we like to
interview witnesses ourselves.  Now you say that you had just finished a
meeting with Mr. Henning right before he was shot?”

“Yes.  The interview started at around noon at the
café at the Hotel Catalina.  We had just finished up a few minutes before he
was shot.”

“What newspaper do you work for?”

“The
Dallas Star Gazette
.”

“What was the interview about?”

“Well, I was interviewing him for a local news
article about his recent kidnapping and rescue.”  That was mostly the truth at
least.

“Did you see the actual shooting?”

“No.  I had just started to walk out of the hotel
when I heard several loud bangs.  I realized that the sounds were gunshots, and
so I rushed outside.”

The two FBI agents glanced at each other at that
statement.

“You actually ran toward the sounds?” the younger
officer asked.

“Well yes.  I am a crime reporter.  And I wanted
to see if I could do anything to help,” Victoria replied.

“Did you see anyone else around Mr. Henning and
his bodyguards?”

“No.  Well, I didn’t see anyone immediately around
them.  But I did see what appeared to be two men speeding off on a motorbike.”

“Yeah, we have your statement here and that’s what
you told the Dallas police.  Were these two men on different motorbikes?  Or
was there just one motorbike?  How do you know that they were men?  Did you see
their faces? Have you seen them before?”

“There was only one motorbike, they were riding
together.  I said that they ‘appeared’ to be men.  I’m not certain.  Everything
happened so fast.  The individuals on the motorbike seemed to have thin frames
and both had short hair.  From the angle that I was standing, I didn’t get a
look at their faces.  I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen them before, but then
I didn’t get a clear look at their faces.” 

“Did you notice what kind of motorcycle it was?”

“Umm, yeah I’m not sure the make or model.  It was
black though.  I think.”  Given how fast that everything had happened once she
walked outside, Victoria could hardly be sure of anything.  She knew that
eyewitness identifications had the reputation of being incredibly unreliable,
and now she could see why.

Victoria watched as they both furiously scribbled
information down in their notepads.  Then she remembered something, “I forgot
to mention this when I spoke to the police earlier.  It probably doesn’t mean
anything though,” she hesitated.
Both men looked up from their notepads and stared at her with two sets of
piercing brown eyes.  The older agent, Foster, said, “Ms. Sanchez, I assure
you, anything that you can remember will be helpful to us.”

“Well, like I said, it’s probably nothing, but I
did see a man standing across the street.  I mean it was odd.  Everyone else
was running away from the area.  But this guy was just standing there watching,
all calm.  He wasn’t trying to rush anywhere.  He was just looking.”

“He was looking at you, specifically?” asked agent
Mills.

“No.  Well, at least I don’t think so.  I’m pretty
sure he was there watching across the street before I got there.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I can’t be one hundred percent positive of
course.  But I think I remember seeing him out of the corner of my eye when I
rushed up to Mr. Henning.”

“What did this man look like?”

“He was white.  I guess of average height, thin
build.  He looked middle-aged.  A beard covered his facial features.  He had on
a hat, but his beard was a dark color.  Like a dark brown.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I guess a black shirt and pants?  Maybe it was
dark brown?  I’m not sure.  I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s fine.  That’s good information that we
would need to know.”

Foster and Mills took turns asking Victoria a few
more questions before she was free to leave.  They made sure to tell her that
they may have follow up questions for her and they both gave her their business
cards. 

Victoria grabbed her purse and attaché case and
walked out of the police station.  Her car was still with the hotel valet, so
she took a cab home.  It was close to six p.m. in the evening and she just
wanted to take a hot shower and put this horrible day behind her.

Someone had shot Richard Henning
. 

Victoria still couldn’t fully grasp the magnitude
of what she had seen just a few hours earlier.  As soon as she got into her
car, she checked the voicemail on her cell phone.  Her editor, Edward, had
called.  He sounded pissed off by the tone of his voicemail.  Of course, he had
a right to be.  He’d found out from the Dallas police department that his
number one crime reporter was investigating a story that he didn’t know about
and that he for damn sure didn’t authorize. 

Edward wanted to speak with Victoria first thing in
the morning—in his office.  Victoria knew she should be bracing herself for the
pink slip that she was bound to receive.  At least she had a few thousand
dollars in her savings account, which should be able to get her through a few
months with a paycheck.

When she entered her apartment, she shivered as
the cold air hit her skin.  She had left her air conditioning on earlier today,
and now her whole apartment felt like a meat locker.  Turning on her living
room lights, another shiver ran down her spine that had nothing at all to do
with the air conditioning. 

Victoria’s eyes widened as she took in the chaotic
state of her living room.  She definitely wasn’t the neatest person around, but
she hadn’t left her apartment in this level of disarray.  Someone had pulled her
chair cushions out of the sofa, and they were now lying on the floor.  Papers
that she kept in neat file boxes had been dumped out and were all over the
ground.  The drawers of her small living room desk were open, and her books had
been taken out of her bookcase and dumped onto the floor.

Walking in a daze from room to room, she saw that
each one of her living spaces were in the same haphazard condition—including
her bedroom.  As a local reporter for a small newspaper, Victoria didn’t have
many expensive items in her home for any robbers to take.  The most valuable
items in her apartment—the flat-screen television that she had splurged on last
Christmas and a diamond necklace that Joshua had given to her on their first
year anniversary—were still in their respective places. 

In fact, the only item that appeared to be missing
from her apartment was her laptop computer that she usually kept on the small
desk in her living room.  Her body tremors returning at full force, Victoria
picked up her phone to dial the police to report the break-in.

Hey Mark.”

Mark looked up from the
new round of intelligence briefings that he had received this morning on the
Haqqai network.  Standing at the doorway to his office on the base was his
superior officer, Captain Sean Cahill. 

Cahill was only four years older than Mark and the
two men had served on the same team when they were active Navy SEALs back in
the late 1980s and 1990s. 

Having been born and bred in South Boston, Cahill
still carried the thick Southie accent at times—usually when stressed.  On
those occasions he used “broad a” sounds.  Also, words ending in –er usually
came out of Cahill’s mouth sounding like they ended with an “a.”

“Hey Sean, what’s up?”

“We’re getting reports in from all over the wire
that Richard Henning and his security team were just gunned down outside of a
hotel in Dallas.” 

Shit
.  “Is he still alive?  What the hell
happened?”  This was definitely not the news that Mark had wanted to hear this
morning.

“Admiral Taylor is calling a special meeting in
one hour with all of the ranking officers and select members of the FBI’s
counterintelligence unit to discuss this mess.  So far, Henning is alive, but
barely.  Someone shot him multiple times in the chest, abdomen, leg, and arm.  The
three bodyguards that he had with him at the time of the shooting were shot to
death.  This shit is going to be all over every major and minor news station in
the next five minutes.”

“Damn.  So basically someone tried to execute
him.”

“Yeah, looks like.  It for sure wasn’t some random
‘street’ crime.  He was likely the main target of the shooting.  We’re all
going to be going over the reports your intelligence contact sent you as well
as some additional intel that has just come down.  One hour, Boardroom C,”
Cahill repeated before he exited Mark’s office.

An hour later, Mark sat around a large oval table
with five other unit commanders and senior Navy leadership.  Already seated at
one end of the table, Admiral Taylor watched as the men filed into the room. 
Sitting alongside him was Jacob Ryland, acting director of the FBI, and Michael
Gerard, the Assistant Director of the FBI counterterrorism division.

As
soon as Mark sat down, he noticed that Gerard was glaring at him.  Mark and
Gerard had bumped heads on more than one occasion on previous missions. 
Believe it or not, the two men had actually been good friends at one time, ages
ago.  However, their friendship had evaporated soon after Mark had purloined
the affections of his ex-wife Deborah from Gerard.  Deborah had briefly dated
Gerard prior to her marriage to Mark. 

Mark
returned the other man’s dark stare for a few seconds before refocusing on the
meeting at hand.  Everyone else’s eyes in the room focused in on the man who
had called the meeting, Admiral Taylor.

Taylor was an imposing man in his early sixties
with gray hair that was slowing turning white.  He was Yale educated and had
been in the military for four decades and had been integral in the
counterinsurgency strategies employed by the U.S. military in the ending of the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  In other words, the man was a legend.

“As all of you have heard by now, Richard Henning
was shot multiple times outside of a hotel in Dallas, Texas this afternoon,”
Taylor announced.  “He was transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital.  He was
still alive when arrived to the hospital via ambulance.  The trauma team
performed an emergency surgery on Henning.  Unfortunately, he didn’t pull
through.  He flat-lined after bleeding out on the operating table approximately
one hour ago.  Currently, authorities are holding news of his death from
reporters.  But the local Dallas police and FBI will have to release the
information within the next hour.  His family has already been notified of his
passing.”

Damn
. 

“Obviously, given Henning’s recent abduction
ordeal, there’s a natural concern that he was targeted and executed by a localized
cell of the Haqqai network,” Taylor continued.  “Matters are now even more
complicated because we’ve received information from the FBI counterintelligence
unit, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
that Richard Henning’s shipping company is currently under a joint
investigation by all three agencies involving potential narcotics trafficking,
involving one its clients, Nava Drug Corp, which is based out of Russia.”

What the hell
.  Drug trafficking?  That was
hard to believe.  Mark wasn’t under any illusions that the former Congressman
had been a saint, but a former U.S. Congressman engaged in the drug trade? 
That was a very hard pill to swallow—especially for a man like Mark who had a
strong sense of patriotism and civic duty for his country.  To have an actual
U.S. government official, former or not, engaged in the narcotics trade would
be a huge blow to the confidence that U.S. citizens placed in their elected
officials.

“Were there any witnesses to the shooting?”
commanding officer David Teprin asked.  Teprin was the commanding officer of
SEAL Team Eleven.  Team Eleven was an elite underwater demolition team.  Mark
had worked with some of the SEAL Team Eleven members in the past and they were
a very solid group. 

“We’re not sure at the moment,” Ryland answered. 
“Both the Dallas FBI field office and the local Dallas PD are still canvassing
the area and working to identify any possible witnesses.  Also, surveillance
tapes are being pulled from the surrounding businesses to see if the actual
shooting was caught.”

 “The most obvious direction to focus in at this
juncture is on identifying the members Haqqai network.  We’ve finally received
some credible information from our intelligence contacts in the region on that
front.  It looks like there are two main players who operate at least one wing
of the organization:  Dr. Haseem Adil and cleric Adib Malook,”  Admiral Taylor
continued, pausing as one of his assistants clicked to the right slide on the
PowerPoint that contain the photos of both of the men.

“Haseem Adil is the man who is in the photograph
on the right side of this screen.  Cleric Adib Malook is on the left.  Adil is
a chemist who is originally from Herat, Afghanistan.  He graduated from McGill
University with advanced degrees in chemistry and molecular biology.  Adil got
his feet wet in the Islamic extremist movement during the Afghanistan-Soviet
war and lent his expertise to the Al-Jaazeez network during the most recent
US-Afghanistan War.  Malook was born in Saudi Arabia; however, his ancestors
were from Kandahar, Afghanistan.  Malook is a very wealthy man.  His family
owns and operates an oil company in Saudi Arabia.  Malook moved to Pakistan a
few years ago with his wives and children.”

“How do the two men know each other?”  Cahill
asked Taylor, leaning forward in his seat.

“Three years ago, both of them contributed money
to a madrassa in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border town of Miranshah where former
Congressman Henning was kidnapped.”

So far, Ericka had been right on the money.  “Is
there anything off about the cleric?” Cahill asked.

“Apparently, five years ago in Saudi Arabia,
Malook ran into trouble when he was accused of raping the fifteen-year-old
daughter of one of his parishioners,” Taylor said.  “He was convicted on the
charges after he confessed, but per usual got off with a very light
sentence—little to no jail time.  Public sentiment, however, was against him. 
That’s when he packed up and left with his family to move to Afghanistan.”

Now that wasn’t surprising to Mark.  There had
been news of more than a few so-called men of God from different religious groups
who preyed on the weak. 

“Well other than being a pedophilic douchebag and
a complete waste of space, does he have any ties to any groups within the
extremist Jihadist movement?” Cahill asked.

“So far the information just points to a solitary
madrassa,” Michael Gerard responded.  “The teachings within the madrassa have
been largely kept secret, but an operative on the ground has recently been able
to confirm that the students of the madrassa are being indoctrinated into
extremist viewpoints.  One of the lessons given at the school is in the ‘art’
of suicide bombing.  Also, both have ties to a pharmaceutical laboratory in a
small town in Russia called Sokol in the Mtsensky region.”

Mark had been on assignment just out of Sokol a
few times in the mid 1990s.  The town was located in a very harsh corner of the
country, and mirrored the rising poverty levels within the region.  Both
narcotics and human sex trafficking were strong in the area.

“That brings us to our second and most pressing
concern at the moment: the potential of a bioterrorism attack by the Haqqai
group on U.S. citizens on U.S. territory.  We’ve finally confirmed with
officials from the Russian government that not all of their samples of the
smallpox virus are secure.  It looks like someone managed to steal three of the
smallpox specimens from a ‘secure’ facility in Moscow at least three weeks
ago.  Right now, members of the CIA and other intelligence agencies believe
that they have pinpointed the possible location of where those samples have
likely been taken.”

Damn
.  Ericka was two for two.  “Why did it
take the Russian officials so long to determine whether the samples were secure
or not?”  Teprin asked.

“The response that we’re getting from the Russian
Federation is that over the past few months their Ministry of Health had been
coordinating the safe transfer of various infectious disease agents to other
secure state-operated facilities,” Taylor said.  “Somehow three smallpox
samples were taken.  Obviously, the samples didn’t just grow legs and walk away
on their own.  The Russian officials that I spoke to believe that the theft was
an inside job.”  There was a grim expression on their leader’s face when he
finished. 

“How long would it take to weaponize the smallpox
samples and disseminate it to cause the highest amount of casualties?” Cahill
asked.

“According to our contacts at the CDC and the
National Institutes of Health, it would only take a matter of days in an
adequate laboratory facility to weaponize the samples,” Ryland responded to
Cahill’s question.  “Once the samples are weaponized then the Haqqai group will
have three main ways that they could potentially get the virus into the United
Sates.  The first would be to transport the virus via airplanes.  A lone
terrorist, or group of terrorists, could theoretically pack the samples in
luggage and then release them once inside the United States.  The second way
would be to transport the samples via shipping channels.  This avenue would be
less risky to them than to attempt the first scenario.  The third way would be
to send a terrorist to the U.S. who is already infected with the virus.  If an
infected passenger were to travel via plane, then that automatically exposes at
least 150 people to the virus.  Then those exposed persons can then transmit
the smallpox virus, unaware, as they go about their day-to-day lives.”

The third scenario would be similar to a suicide
bomber attack, and it would be much harder to prevent.  It would be an extreme
move, but Mark knew the depths that extremist Islamic groups could sink in the
name of Jihad.

“What about missiles?  Is it possible that this
group could attempt to load a weaponized version of the virus onto missiles and
then target the United States?” Mark asked, taking one of the classified
briefing documents that were being distributed around the table.

“Theoretically that’s a potential form of
transfer, however it’s an extremely remote possibility,” Ryland said.  “In
order to launch a missile effectively from either the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border or Russia to the U.S., the Haqqai group would need a long-range
missile.  From what we’ve been able to gather about them, they do not have that
capability as of yet.  In addition, we still have our cutting edge “Missile
Shatter” technology that is a highly advanced radar alert system that is
designed to detect and destroy all launched missiles before they reach U.S.
airspace.”

“Obviously, we have to move on this information
quickly,” Admiral Taylor continued.  “In the next twenty-four hours, we’re
going to start mobilizing teams into Russia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border.  Right now, we don’t have any information to believe that the suspects
have transported the virus to the United States.  Our best guess is that it is still
in Russia.  It’s possible that the Haqqai group could have built a brand new
laboratory, but it’s more likely that they are using a facility that they
already have in place.  We have counterintelligence agents who are infiltrating
both areas to gather additional information so that we can develop an effective
surgical strike plan.  We’re sending a team into the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border because we’ve identified some high-value targets in that region that we
need taken out.”

“What are the odds that this terror network is
working alone in Russia?” Mark asked.  “I mean, isn’t it likely that they have
had to employ some type of muscle to help them out on the ground?  Like a group
that is familiar with the area and who could provide the connections that they would
need to keep local officials at bay while they are following through with their
plans?”

“That’s an excellent point, Mark,” Ryland
answered.  “There are CIA agents on the ground in Russia already, who are
checking that very possibility out.  There are different organized crime groups
within that region that would likely be willing to help for a price.  Going
back to the basics, we know that the opium trade funds terrorist organizations,
particularly in the Middle East.  This could explain the heroin found in one of
Henning’s tankers approximately six months ago.”