Traitor (32 page)

“Yes, Mr. Secretary, sir,” replied Travers. Carson would have sworn he heard a salute as well.

Carson still had some concerns, though not related to the unmanned vehicles. Those, he felt sure, would perform admirably. The controllers were about to be thrust into a role none of them had signed up for. Trained for the most dangerous missions imaginable, nobody could ever predict how some men would react in certain situations and it was that fallibility that could threaten the success of the mission. Computer-controlled vehicles, as had been proven many times, did exactly what they were told, every time.

Frankie tried to grab some much needed sleep. She and Reid had worked around the clock to track down every possible card that Nick may have purchased. A second hit had proven her theory even further – a card had purchased a ferry ticket from Marseille to Algiers. At the time, they knew that Nick was in Marseille and that the ferry’s arrival coincided with the timing of Nick being in Algiers.

He had done exactly what he didn’t do; Nick had slipped up. He hadn’t connected the cards with the cash and he was now just a purchase away from being tracked down.

The single biggest problem they had was where that purchase would be and how they would react. With a finite resource of Special Operations teams and equipment, there were only so many places that were reachable in a short time. If Nick surfaced in Europe or the Middle East, they’d be on him in minutes. Asia, depending on where, could be minutes, hours or days. South America and Africa were also sparsely covered across the vastness of their continents but well covered in the major cities. It had been the largest mobilization of Special Forces in US history and an absolute nightmare for the mission planners and logistics experts. There had been some positives as well. Flynn and Barry were pulling together and working as a team rather than counterparts.

Frankie jumped when her phone rang. Her head had been lying right next to it since she had fallen asleep at her desk. She grabbed the receiver, expecting a notification of a purchase. Her phone had only recently been installed and its number remained unpublished. Reid wheeled her chair over in anticipation. She too had woken up when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Frankie, can you pop up and see me? And bring Reid too,” said Carson, one of very few people who knew her desk extension.

“Of course, Mr. Secretary,” she said, as much for Reid’s benefit to let her know it was a false alarm.

“It’s Harry, just Harry, okay?!” replied Carson irritably and hung up.

When they arrived, Turner was already there. The room was silent and Frankie could only assume it was because Carson only wanted to say what he had to say once.

“We’ve just had a call into the Pentagon from the Albanian Deputy Minister of Defense. They’ve an incident that they believe may be related to Nick Geller.”

“Albania?” asked Turner, trying to picture where it was.

“Just north of Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean,” offered Carson helpfully, before continuing. “A fire has swept through a villa complex killing in excess of twenty people. From local reports, they were all devout Muslims and kept to themselves, at least until recently. A car was seen leaving just prior to the fire and from everything they’ve pieced together, it drove to the airport where three men dressed in Arab robes boarded a jet and left the country.”

“Nick?” asked Frankie.

“We believe so. The jet landed shortly afterwards on a deserted runway in Northern Italy where it was also torched.”

“All of this points rather ominously to the conclusion of at least some part of their planning, if not the complete conclusion.”

“Any way to track them from Italy?” asked Reid.

“We’ve no idea if they picked up a car, a train, or even another plane. He could be anywhere but I believe Europe is most likely to be the jumping off point for them and so I’ve moved a number of assets into place, including two Carrier Groups to cover the Atlantic on the European side and another two on this side. A further two groups will cover the Pacific.”

“You really think he’s going to do it?” asked Frankie. Up until that point, she really had thought there would come a point when Nick would see sense.

“I have no doubt in my mind,” replied Carson. “I have advised the President to begin enacting any recommendations that Colonel Barnes and FEMA deem appropriate to minimize the risk of the Ebola Virus in the mass populous. An emergency broadcast is going out this evening.”

“Oh my God, you think it’s that imminent?” asked Turner.

Carson nodded. “At least twenty men have been executed. I can only assume this was to ensure they did not disclose what they knew. From the positioning of how they were found, they died without a struggle, while praying. As for timescales, I think we’re down to hours, maybe days away from their attack. I’ve advised Homeland to double their checks on all US bound flights and particularly all non-US citizens boarding flights bound for the US. We’re effectively closing our borders to non-US citizens. The Coast Guard and Navy will be checking every boat that enters US waters. Anything they don’t like the look of will be turned away and they have orders to shoot first and ask questions later, if need be.

“What can we do?” asked Frankie.

“Pray that he uses one of those pre-paid cards,” said Carson. “I’m afraid that’s probably our last hope.”

Frankfurt

Germany

Friday August 1st

After months of preparation, the day had finally arrived. Plans put in place as promised to the Caliph were about to become a reality. Those promises had been cemented with Allah, and Nick was just hours from making them come true. Despite the knowledge that his life would soon end, he was elated. The legacy he would leave behind would create a new and better world.

The image of a laughing Frankie lying on the bed flashed into his mind. It was a beautiful memory that he couldn’t and had no intention of erasing. It remained his only regret. He could never forget the first time he had seen her, sweeping through a corridor in the White House with the President. Her beauty shone across the room, her piercing blue eyes clashing with her Arabian looks. Looks that only ever seemed to exist on TV shows or on the movie screen. Her command of the area only added to his captivation. Her eyes scanned constantly, checking positions, people, her colleagues, while never taking her eyes off the President.

Despite their eyes only connecting for a fraction of a second across the length of a corridor, he knew there was something there. She had paused just slightly longer on him. It was then that a hint of recognition had sparked in his mind. He recognized something familiar about the eyes. The devastation of that recognition came many weeks later. Long after the consummation of their relationship, the image of the eyes of a much younger Frankie suddenly visited him. A photo that had been shown to him by the Caliph as he shared the deepest darkest secrets of his son, the victims that the Caliph had been aware of and had managed to suppress. Frankie, a much younger Frankie, had been the victim of a pedophile.

Nick had lain awake that night, questioning his motives, his desires, his actions towards the victim Frankie. Had he subconsciously wanted to protect her, keep her safe? Those feelings had grown over time, not immediately. They were feelings that were futile in any event. Frankie could more than look after herself. She had never once acted like a victim. She was a strong, career-orientated woman, the poster woman for positive attitude and desire. She was captivatingly beautiful. It was that simple. He had fallen for a woman for her looks, personality, courage and strength. Not one day had he ever felt sorry for her. He had asked himself a question: If Frankie hadn’t been a victim of the Caliph’s son, would he still have made a move?
Hell yeah.
Would he still have fallen in love with her?
Hell yeah,
he thought, realizing for the first time that he had in fact fallen in love. It was the best and worst moment of his life, a life he knew was coming to end just as the potential for a new life had begun.

Nick opened his eyes with the image of Frankie’s flawless body seared into his eyelids. It was not the time to reminisce, he chastised himself. A cold shower revitalized his body and mind for the task ahead.

After disembarking from the plane in Northern Italy a few nights before, they travelled by car across the Italian border through Switzerland and soon entered Germany. The racetracks, known as autobahns, were a wondrous motorway system. Nick had been on them before but never in a car that could cruise at almost one hundred and ninety miles an hour legally. The first two hundred miles of the journey took almost three hours as they stuck religiously to the speed limits to avoid unnecessary attention. The second half of the journey, once they crossed into Germany was covered in half the time, as Walid was keen to show them what the Porsche Panemera Turbo S could do. Not that Nick or Larbi were in the least bit interested.

Over the previous two days, his army was mobilizing across Europe. The first instructions sent each jihadist to a hotel in one of many European cities. Each would travel alone, unaware of his compatriots’ or leaders’ whereabouts. Were they intercepted, they would know nothing of their final destination or the whereabouts of any other jihadists. Nor would they have any idea of the numbers involved. Even the leaders knew only of their own individual group’s input. Even then, they did not know how many of those Nick would ultimately use in his plan. Those details would only be made known to the individuals in the final hours before their flights.

Over ten thousand hotel rooms had been rented across the various cities that would be used as the departure points for Nick’s army. Over ten thousand jihadists ready to fight and die for Allah. They were the most vehement supporters of the various sections within the Islamic faith. Sunni, Shi’a, Wahhabi, Sufi, amongst many other smaller factions had joined as one force, sending their most devoted and devout followers to fight for the cause. Those prepared to die for their cause, Allah’s cause, were waking up on a day that would change the world for Islam and the infidel.

Each of the ten thousand would log in to an email account and receive their e-ticket and learn their ultimate destination. The emails were pre-set to be delivered at 7:30 a.m. Central European Time (CET). The logistics of the operation were mindboggling but had been expertly carried out by the Albanian bookers. Ten thousand passports had been sent to ten thousand separate locations. Ten thousand hotel rooms had been organized and allocated to ensure men who knew each other were separated and unaware of each other’s locations. It was vital to ensure that the compartmentalization of the plan was followed through until the last moment. If any man were an impostor, his knowledge of the plan and of others involved would be minimal. Ten thousand cell phones had been pre-delivered to each of the rooms for use on arrival at their destination, along with Western style clothing. All the jihadists would be dressed from head to toe in American made and branded apparel. Messages were pre-set to be delivered on arrival at their destinations, detailing the next steps to meet up with their fifty-man strike team or to maximize the delivery of the virus they carried.

Nick checked the time, 8:03 a.m. CET. The couriers that had been sent out across Europe would be delivering the special containers that housed forty-nine vials of Ebola Zaire virus. Those who would carry the virus would discover their fate with the arrival of the vial. Their fate would be sealed before the operation commenced but with the knowledge that they would be responsible for more infidel deaths than any other Muslim in history. Their suicide would be greater than any suicide in history.

Nick, like every other member of the jihadists, had received his email at precisely 7:30 a.m. CET. However his email information was incorrect. He had changed his destination but the booking still showed the destination he had originally planned: Washington, D.C. As much as he wanted to take the fight to the heart of the infidel and Washington, he had decided against it. Even with the best disguise, the security at Dulles Airport would be far greater than at any other target airport. Even though he wanted to lead from the front, the dangers of him never even arriving were too great. Washington, New York, Chicago and L.A. were too high profile and his arrival at any of those was too great a risk to the operation.

Nick logged into a travel website and looked for alternative routes from Frankfurt. The nearest to Washington and New York that he could use to meet up with others was the Frankfurt-Philadelphia route. Another less obvious but slightly further route was to Charlotte, North Carolina. He tried to remember which flight Walid was on. He knew Larbi was definitely on the Washington Dulles flight. Walid was flying into Charlotte or Philadelphia. Not wanting to be on the same flight, he booked both while there was space and he’d use whichever one Walid wasn’t on. He used a separate pre-paid card to ensure as much anonymity as possible for each purchase and thinking what the hell, he went for business class tickets. First class was, as far as he was concerned, just a step too far, no matter whose money it was.

Nick Geller had just made his second mistake.

1:35 a.m. EST (7:35 a.m. CET)