The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel (22 page)

National Geospatial Agency (NGA) Springfield, Virginia September 22, 2003

T
he first hint had come after five years of monitoring electronic chatter of the Iranian trade group. Nothing was unusual in the e-mail communiqué—just a routine intelligence intercept, one of billions a day. The trade group wanted equipment from South Africa. The negotiated materials were never mentioned.

A subsequent e-mail confirming a significant deposit of deutsche marks in a Maldivian bank triggered more scrutiny. Linked to the account was the name of a former senior member of the South African nuclear organization who was fired for corruption. The man’s niche trade—dealing in maraging steel used in the construction of high-speed centrifuges for uranium enrichment—was not sanctioned by the International Atomic Energy Commission nor looked on with any favor by the US government.

The final e-mail noted the shipping date, manifest, and the physical description of the containers. The National Security Agency (NSA) published its report electronically to authorized government customers. The recipients—the military, the Defense Intelligence Agency, CIA, and the NGA—were looking for clandestine nuclear activity. The request was implicit with the report: determine the container contents and their final destinations.

“We keep looking the wrong way!” Glen Sorenson said in a tone louder than his normal voice. In frustration the junior analyst pushed his desk chair away from his computer and pulled off his rimless glasses. Rubbing the inside corners of his eyes, he added, “Damn it!”

He put his glasses back on and looked around to see if his superior overheard him. The Middle Eastern Nuclear Division office worked under her strict rules, and she didn’t accept even minor profanity.

Certain he hadn’t been overheard, he went back to work.

Son of a bitch! I wish we looked at Africa more!

Despite their increasing numbers, the constellation of spy satellites was used for more important searches than what was considered the irrelevant continent of Africa. Sorenson had reviewed the data from subsequent passes and still could not find the freighter. The last satellite picture taken two days earlier showed the containers on their trailer trucks next to a ship—their violent overland journey concluded.

Where did you go? You sneaky little bastard!
The analyst was irked. Pausing to think, his hand left the keyboard so his fingernails could comb the sides of his relaxed ash-brown hair.
Bet you turned northwest…

Unable to resolve his assertion, Sorenson bought a day-old satellite images from a French company. His growing smile confirmed his suspicion.

Hi, guys! You can’t hide from me!

The ghost freighter had docked at a rarely used port on the western coast of Yemen. Viewed from three hundred miles above, the distinctive scratches on the two offloaded cargo containers were telltale tattoos—and identical to those a Crystal spy satellite saw in South Africa earlier in the month, then outside a refugee camp at Mogadishu, and finally at the port. If the other two containers were still aboard, Sorenson was yet unable to identify them.

When Sorenson switched to thermal imaging, he knew the errant freighter was up to no good. He paged his supervisor to come to his workspace.

“Ma’am, remember that freighter I’ve been looking for? The one that loaded those containers in Barbera?”

Commander Elaine Jericho nodded.

“I’ve found it,” he said.

The naval officer grimaced. A ship was a
she
; even a scow like the one undergoing scrutiny, but her new analyst was so determined Jericho just said, “What have you discovered?”

“This is from Yemen yesterday. Check it out.”

She glanced at the satellite’s name and coordinates, its orbital orientation, downlink data rate, and frequency. Glen enlarged the image until the freighter filled the frame.

“Commercial,” she said. “Why?”

“No other images are available,” replied Sorenson. “Lucky I found this one. The Saudis are conducting a Red Sea coastal erosion study.”

“At least somebody got a picture.” She said quietly. “Anyway…there’s no legitimate reason for
her
to be at Mukha.”

“I agree. My assessment is that the freighter’s dimensions make it a
handy-size
,” Sorenson continued, “Less than thirty-thousand tons with a deadweight draft maybe ten meters. It was high tide down there when this was taken. Please look at this IR image.”

A simple click, and varying shades of gray blossomed to a garden of magenta expanding from a red core. The hot rainbow flowed forward through the bulkheads then streamed up the stack to a colossal plume.

“Ma’am, those engines are acting like an agitated bull waiting for the rodeo gate to open. Slipping that puppy in and out left no margin for error. They were in a hurry.”

Whatever activity the ship and its crew were engaged in, it was clear they couldn’t risk running aground. Getting trapped would make it suspect to the patrols in the Red Sea. The Egyptian navy was full of badasses, the Saudis worse.

“The captain must have planned this to the minute,” she noted. Her fine eyebrows arched as full lips shaped the familiar pleasant yet firm smile. “Do you see the containers?”

He scrolled out to show her the trucks.

“The visible markings on these two are the same as in Berbera,” he said sitting back to briefly rest his eyes. “The other containers—I can’t identify them in this image, but they
should
be there. With the time interval between Berbera and Mukha, it’s difficult to imagine another stop in between.”

She leaned forward, bringing her jade green eyes closer to the screen. Sorenson tried to avoid looking at the profile of her eye-catching face. The taut bun pulling her deep jasper-hued red hair tight accentuated her petite nose and scattered freckles. A starched white military blouse offered nothing but a slight distortion of her breasts, and her creased regulation slacks almost concealed the outline of her hips. Sorenson smelled no perfume, hairspray, or body soap. Although she had left her officer’s cap on her desk, not one of the analysts was ever fooled by this frequent yet trivial lapse of formality. The blue and gold epaulets had been duly earned. Jericho was in charge of managing the complex affairs of collecting and analyzing nuclear Middle East satellite intelligence for the Department of Defense.

Don’t screw with me
, her persona warned.

Nobody did
.

From a pocket Jericho extracted a pen and pointed at the LED screen. “Glen, what do you think that thick black-and-white thing is that man is holding?”

Sorenson expanded the image to the maximum resolution, showing details in objects larger than eight inches. The picture degraded little between the satellite’s camera and the surface. With no clouds, the angle of the late-morning sun made whatever the line was glow intensely.

“A fishing pole?” His hasty speculation came with an unsettled grin. She wasn’t one for flippancy.

“Pointing it like one, but it’s too short,” she said, letting the comment go.

“A walking stick, I think.” Sorenson did what he could to enhance the image. “The man holding it seems to be standing a little lopsided…In one of our images, I think I saw the end of a similarly patterned stick jutting out from under a roof line in Berbera.”

“Show me,” Jericho said.

Sorenson minimized the current image and opened the other picture from a file. Using the cursor, he drew a box around the tip of the stick and expanded it to the resolution of two inches.

“Maybe the same,” the naval commander said.

“I’ll see what I can do, Commander,” he said.

“Let’s go back to the other picture,” she requested. Her head angled sideways as she looked again at the man on the quay in Mukha. “He has to be in somebody’s database…”

“I’ll work on it,” Sorenson replied.

In time he’d understand each element. He had been trained to collect, exploit, and analyze. His ability to solve such paradoxes was one of the key reasons people like Sorenson were sought after graduate school. If need be, he’d work with the other analysts.

“There’s someone who looks like the captain and another who looks like a sheik.”

Sorenson focused on the car. “That’s an older Mercedes, an SEL. Can’t see the plates. The windows are tinted, and infrared shows”—he made a sucking sound through his cheeks—“it’s air-conditioned, ‘cause it’s searing hot outside.”

He continued. “As you can see, somebody’s working the cargo crane.” The dense megapixel snapshot caught the second container in the process of being loaded on a flatbed truck.

The cursor moved back to the freighter.

“There’s a man on the bridge deck, with a straw hat, probably one of the lackeys…got some really sunburned arms.” Sorenson shook his head. “Can’t see inside the bridge, but somebody’s got to be holding that ship tight to the pier.”

The cursor raced over the screen while Sorenson tallied the number with his fingers. “I count maybe twenty-one people…maybe seven or eight of them are landlubbers, so the remaining twelve are crew, plus there have to be a few more we can’t see.

“That sounds about right,” Jericho said.

More mouse movements.

“Considering the consistency of our intelligence about those container boxes, that stuff needed to get somewhere,” said Sorenson, “and we know it’s not refrigerators. That they skedaddled like this assures it.”

She frowned. “Why Yemen? I don’t suppose you can generate a three-dimensional image to see if the other containers are aboard?”

“No, sorry, ma’am...not from this.” Sorenson tried not to let his exasperation show.

“They might have been taken off after this image, but with only two trucks present, I think we should assume they were still onboard, especially with the timelines I noted.”

Jericho’s tacit nod suggested agreement.

“There’s another issue,” he said. “Their transponder’s been off since Berbera.” That made the freighter more invisible, but with bribes to the port authority that violation of maritime law wouldn’t even be noticed.

“Illegal, but I’m not surprised,” Jericho replied.

“Fortunately,” Sorenson said, “after several orbits we were able to radar-paint surface traffic exiting the Red Sea since yesterday.”

Sorenson single-clicked on the toolbar. Radar profiles of ships appeared.

“This one,” he pointed, “too small, probably a plump fishing trawler.” The cursor seemed to move in all directions at the same time. “This one’s an ARAMCO tanker southeast bound.”

The cursor swept another erratic loop until he highlighted an image.

“This one was on a…70.819
true
heading that would fit the timeline,” he said with grin.

“Toward Iran…or Pakistan…” Jericho said. “Hmm…”

Sorenson looked at her. “The signature matches the one in Yemen.”

It was clear Glen was excited by his first serious engagement as an imagery analyst.

“What will it take for you to find
her
?” she asked. The woman’s demanding nature expected nothing but results if her analyst continued to invest resources. She scorned wasted time.

“Ma’am, if we can cue some assets to hunt for this bogey—I can ascertain a lot more about its ports of call, and those containers.” He looked at her confidently. “I bet I can even get the name on the stern.”

“
If
always rules,” she replied, knowing targeting satellites wasn’t an insignificant request. Billion-dollar space vehicles were engaged based on hierarchy of need and reliable data—not fungible information.

“I’ll write up the report immediately,” he said.

“Good work, Glen.”

Jericho gave her usual precise nod but felt unsure. Finding the ship many hours later would still be difficult, even with satellites directed to hunt. She’d review his report and make any corrections before publishing it, along with the targeting request, under both their names. Requesting an immediate satellite search for a freighter, especially departing a country beneath suspicion like Yemen, had to be labeled properly. That was
her
job.

Jericho sighed.

America had been attacked and people had died. Despite political rhetoric to the contrary, the frustrations of working through the silos of a fragmented bureaucracy with egotistical vanities hadn’t quelled.

Jericho would be resolute. If the request were denied, she’d call the director. The admiral would push the CIA so Glen could get his satellite survey and she’d help him find his ship.

September 23, 2003

T
ensing his core muscles, Morgan gripped a pipe with buckets of water hanging from each end and squatted. His legs pushed the load back to vertical.

Beards suck
…

Squat.

Up.

Damn pimples…

Down.

Jamil…helpful…

Up.

Squat.

Up.

He knows more…

Squat.

Squat.

One hundred eighty squats a day—every day.

Drenched in perspiration, Morgan stowed the equipment and got on his knees. Edging his toes up the bulkhead, they came to rest on the flat ledge. He forced his torso into a frozen push-up with his Koran open in front on the white cotton. As he read, the sweat collected in the dimple of his lower back. When the depression was full, the puddle would trickle to the deck.

When he finished exercising, he held the Koran in his hands for a while.

“Damn, if I’ve not learned to understand this,” he said.

He had studied its verses for two years. When he was young, he had read the Bible in Sunday school with the same intensity.

“Another faith hijacked by a few,” he sighed.

Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you,
Luke’s Gospel said.

Repel evil with goodness and enemies will become the closest of friends,
as said in the Koran 43:34.

Morgan wasn’t surrendering to either notion.

Cay was dead.

He wrapped the Koran in the cotton, placed it in his backpack hanging beneath the hatch, and walked aft. Jamil and the engineer were standing outside the door of the crew quarters as he approached.

“Barif, I continue to admire your discipline and devotion,” Jamil said, “considering your upbringing.”

“You are infected with a desire to fight,” the engineer said, taking a drag from a cigarette, the filtered end glued to his lower lip, allowing both hands the freedom to exaggerate his words. “You slipped through the fingers of the American stooges but will return to them someday and cause much fear.”

“My friends, thank you,” said Morgan.

Jamil nodded but said nothing, pointing with his head toward Hamid, who stopped to greet them before ascending the stairs to the bridge. Arwan followed him less than a minute later, grunting when he passed.

When he was gone, Jamil said to Morgan, “Barif, my brother, Omar, and I will speak soon. I know he will help you in your journey…Inshallah.”

Paul Cotsworth tipped back from his desk to put his feet up. The police report filed the year earlier by Ross Merrimac couldn’t be found. Cotsworth doubted there would be much in it anyway. The man wasn’t missing then—only misplaced, and only to his friends. Morgan wasn’t the usual ‘he’ll turn up dead’
story.

Cotsworth’s interview with Henrietta revealed only that until Morgan released her with a large severance check, she had watched him grow more reclusive…finding him at home often wearing just underwear. Many guys did that.

“Doesn’t look like you decided to take a vacation,” the agent said reviewing his notes. “No cell phone…no credit card activity for…eighteen months. So you went to cash…”

Cotsworth jiggled his head in disbelief, recalling his useless phone call to Morgan’s attorney. The attorney cited client privilege but nonetheless confided he hadn’t had contact with the surgeon for many months.

“So you cleaned up all the bills, sold the townhouse, and paid all the taxes,”
Cotsworth had said to him.

No comment.

“Fucking lawyers…”
Cotsworth said after hanging up.

Next he had checked with the IRS. Morgan had posted no income for that year.

“Where’s the money?” The agent unconsciously chewed on a pencil gripped across his teeth. “Bet the lawyer’s holding it in a trust fund, along with other assets.”

Another thing to research… It just went on and on.

Cotsworth studied the pictures Brosinski had given him.

“Man! We learned that shit at Quantico.” The two men sprawled on the ground were seriously injured. Their medical records confirmed that. “That took big cojones.”

How did a doctor go from saving kids’ lives to kicking the shit out of thugs?

“Not
how
.
Why
is the question.”

Cotsworth’s finger rubbed his lip while he again opened the glossy brochure about Pruitt’s architectural firm stopping at the section Merrimac had paper clipped.

Caroline Pruitt received her master’s degree in architecture from the University of Virginia. After contributing to many successful projects in our New York office, Ms. Pruitt eagerly accepted the opportunity to grow our Chicago presence. The energetic Windy City, with its strong tradition of architectural firsts, a cornucopia of imaginative designs and visionary styles, offers many exciting…

“My God!”

Each time Cotsworth saw Pruitt’s photograph, he reacted with the same intensity. The woman’s face was daunting, her eyes unimaginably robin-egg blue as she stood in the back row with her taller male associates.

“What was she…five eight, without heels?” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know architects looked like that! I bet Morgan just…”

Of course, he did…

Cotsworth opened the file on the BMW, frowning when he read the forensics report. The three-year-old automobile had forty-six thousand miles—much more than expected from daily commuting in Chicago. There were no recent repair records, but the oil was clean and the tires had deep treads. The serial numbers might tell him where Morgan bought them.

“I don’t think so,” Cotsworth muttered. “Not a chance.”

Maintenance had been off the books, and there were no fingerprints.

“Wiped clean…just like the apartment…”

But, then, why leave the box?

DNA analysis of the items inside was underway. The specifics would be entered in the CODIS database to help identify his body—if it was ever found.

“Ain’t happening in a million years,” said Cotsworth.

Pulling the stopper from the Scotch, he took a long whiff, passed on the temptation for a taste, and recorked the Macallan. The pair of crystal brandy snifters rested on his desk while he picked up a magnifying glass and examined the diamond setting. The center stone had to be over two carats and was flawless.

“This wasn’t cheap…”

The framed photograph of the couple in formal wear confirmed again why cost was no object. He removed the CD from its plastic sleeve and played the short message several times.

“Sexy voice,” he said. “He must have lost his mind listening to this…”

Then he read the letter…

Jon and Connie,

Please keep these for Cay and me.

With love, your son

“Maybe you killed yourself…Had every reason to, I guess.”

Cotsworth rubbed his forehead, wrote
suicide
on his pad, paused and scratched a line through the word.

“I’m not going there…not yet, anyway.”

He scrounged through his desk for a ruler. Across the horizontal side of a piece of paper he penciled
Timeline,
then he drew perpendicular lines and placed pieces of information where they fit the best. The gaps were plentiful, but one thing was clear: beginning months earlier, the physician’s life was heading off the grid. Unless Morgan left subsequent evidence, the BMW was probably his last contact point. In Cotsworth’s line of work, the recent two-month gap was a colossal vacuum of lost data.

The phone interrupted his meditations.

“Agent Paul Cotsworth,” he answered.

“Morning. Jerry Horowitz, DNA Forensics.”

The guy’s accent was instantly recognizable. He had to have grown up in Brooklyn.

Cotsworth jotted the name and number. “What’s up?”

“Processed both of those hair specimens.” He read the letters and numbers of the file code. “Labeled Morgan, right?”

“Yes,” Cotsworth said—
Brosinski’s crap.
“I guess they didn’t get lost in transit.”

“Who collected this material?”

“A third party,” answered Cotsworth.

“Reliable?”

“Certainly.” Cotsworth’s response was the opposite of what he believed.

“Interesting,” admitted Horowitz. “Positive it wasn’t contaminated?”

“Why?”

“I’ve done some preliminary DNA evaluations of both particle types before digging into the MT and STR analysis.”

“I know how it works.” Cotsworth didn’t remember, but it was no matter.

“Okay. From what I’ve analyzed, the subject is a mammal and male,” said Horowitz.

“That’s reassuring.”

“There’s a problem,” said Horowitz. “The chromosome count is wrong.”

The FBI agent sat forward. “How so?”

“I count thirty-eight, nineteen pairs, including XY.”

“Humans have…”

“Forty-six.”

“Both specimens?” asked Cotsworth.

“Right again,” said Horowitz.

“So what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Probably an animal contaminant,” said Horowitz.

“Like what? A cat?”

“No.”

“How about a dog?”

“No, they have seventy-eight.”

Do they need that many?

“So what the hell is it?” Cotsworth was fuming. Brosinski had to be playing a joke on him.

“To tell, I’m going to have to outsource the specimens.”

“Where?”

“Purdue has the most complete animal database. It’ll take two weeks, maybe less.”

“Crap, that long?” Cotsworth couldn’t wait. The director personally called him every other day.

“I’ll let
you
know when
I
know,” said Horowitz. “Have a nice day.”

Cotsworth slammed the phone. “If you’re screwing with me, Brosinski…”

Sliding his notes in a folder, he dropped the sleeve in a drawer and pushed back his chair. The bar at the Berghoff was two blocks away and he wanted some sauerbraten—and a beer.