Abuse of Power (3 page)

“He’s got a Big Block tat on the back of his neck,” Beckman said. “Either he’s a member of the gang or a serious wannabe. Their initiation is blood, not a carjacking.”

“What did he say about the vic?”

“Only that he was an ‘Arab-lookin’ dude,’” Beckman said.

“Age? Clothing?”

“Twenties, well dressed.”

The kind of guy who would probably slip through spot-check profiling, which the SFPD said they didn’t do. The truth was, every metropolitan police department in the nation did it. Chances were pretty good that granny wouldn’t be blowing up a street car unless she was wearing a head scarf, and Josh or Tyler was less likely to take out a federal building than Muhammad or Omar.

Jack was about to ask if he could talk to the kid when three black SUVs pulled up to the perimeter. A moment later the area was flooded with men in suits, one of whom—a hefty six-footer with the clean, resolute look of a
Mercury
astronaut—approached Beckman. “Where’s the officer in charge?”

“Who are
you
?” Jack asked.

The suit reached into his jacket and brought out a set of credentials. Field Director Carl Forsyth, FBI. The agent in charge, by his manner. The man’s eyes were still on Beckman. “Are you gonna point me in the right direction or does this loser do all your talking?”

“Whoa,” Jack said. “What the hell is that supposed to—”

“You mean ‘loser’? I know who you are. You used to have that show on TV,
Truth Tellers
.”

Jack stiffened. “That’s right.”

“And you’re still
working
? I figured we’d seen the last of you.”

It was the kind of derision that Jack had gotten used to over the last couple years, but it had been a while since he’d encountered it. After losing his job at the network in a very public way—thanks to an orchestrated smear campaign that had pretty much destroyed his reputation and wrongfully painted him as a bigot—he had removed himself from the national stage, content to work in relative obscurity as a freelance news producer. He’d known he’d have to rebuild his reputation, brick by brick, and had spent the last few minutes feeling like he was back in the major leagues. But then a guy like Agent Forsyth came along and he sometimes wondered if it was worth it.

Beckman had caved, was pointing him in the direction of the MCC—the mobile command center—when someone near the bomb site shouted.

“Down! Everybody
down
!”

Without thinking, Jack grabbed the rookie and dove toward the blacktop as a massive explosion shook the ground, sending several tons of debris and human body parts rocketing in all directions.

*   *   *

The shock wave blew over Jack, shattering car windows and taking down anyone who had been too slow to react. He heard a low grunt nearby and, through the haze of powdered debris, saw Beckman lying facedown a few feet ahead, bleeding from the base of his neck, a long gash having been ripped by a chunk of cement. Muffled by the thick dust, the roar of the explosion faded, leaving behind a low, steady buzz in Jack’s ears.

The whole world seemed to pause for a long moment, as if to take a deep breath, and he was once again assaulted by that morning in Baghdad, his best friend’s blank stare vivid in his mind’s eye. A vague sense of panic welled in his chest, brought on by the memory, his senses, and the unexpected chaos. But he himself seemed unhurt and he forced himself to remain calm and assess the damage around him.

One of the FBI agents was sprawled on the blacktop, out cold, his suit jacket askew, as the agent in charge and the two uniforms slowly staggered to their feet.

“My God,” one of them muttered.

And that about summed it up.

Beckman stirred, groaned.

Jack got to his feet, simultaneously pulling a handkerchief from his pants and slapping it over his mouth and nose. He checked the rookie’s wound. It didn’t seem life threatening. He turned the man over, placed his head on the block that had hit him. He wanted to keep the flow of blood down, away from the wound.

“You okay?” Jack asked.

The rookie blinked several times, looking dazed. “I think so.” He touched the side of his head, then the back. “I’m bleeding, aren’t I? Feels like I blew out an ear—”

“That’s just the concussion. You got clocked in the neck.”

Jack gave him a pat on the arm. As he was turning to look back to where he had left Max he saw the door of the cruiser fly open and Leon Thomas stumble out. He was covered with a thousand tiny pieces of shattered glass but that didn’t stop him from running into the man-made mist, his hands cuffed behind him.

“Hey!” somebody shouted—

—and Leon picked up speed.

He didn’t get far. Twenty yards away a uniform broadsided him, taking him down like a defensive tackle, two more piling on for good measure. A moment later they had him on his feet, roughly shoving him toward another cruiser. One of them swatted him across the back of the head as they threw the door open and pushed him inside.

Even before the show was over, Jack turned away, shifting his attention to the center of the blast. The dust was starting to settle and through the haze he saw a crater. Half the building behind it was in shreds, a hotel that had been abandoned and was ironically scheduled for demolition. Though the spotlights had been taken out in the blast patches of fire were rising from the building and the shop beside it, lighting the night. A water main had ruptured in the center of the street and was spitting an ineffectual fountain toward the crater. Rivulets followed cracks in the asphalt, creating an odd, shimmering effect.

There was no sign of Drabinsky, his suit, or the robot.

Feeling dread, Jack scanned the perimeter, searching for Maxine. With relief that brought tears to his eyes, he saw her climbing to her feet, staring down at her battered video camera in limp shock.

As if suddenly remembering she had a coworker, she froze halfway to her feet, turned suddenly, and peered along the street. She made eye contact with Jack and, as though she had completed a minichecklist—camera, partner—she collapsed.

Dodging flaming pieces of fabric and paper that were floating carelessly from above, Jack made his way toward ground zero.

3

The line was picked up after three rings. The cell phones were encrypted using a Twofish algorithm and a 4096-bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

No one would be listening in.

“We have a problem,” the caller said. “There was an incident downtown.”

A pause. “The carjacking?”

“You heard about it.”

“It’s all over the news. Don’t tell me that was us.”

“The car was stolen from one of our assets, Abdal al-Fida. He decided to take a little trip off the reservation.”

“What’s our exposure?”

“He’s alive but he isn’t in custody, so I think we’re in the clear. He outsourced the supplies he used, but that’ll be taken care of by morning.”

“Where is he?”

“Still in the city. He’s been in contact and, to his credit, he seems remorseful. What would you like me to do with him?”

“What I’d like and what’s prudent are very different things. Can we rely on his cooperation?”

“I think so.”

“Good. I’d rather we not do this here. Wipe all trace of him and send him home. We’ll deal with him later.”

“Why not deal with him now?”

“He’s one of Zuabi’s recruits. Things could get sticky.”

“What about the investigation? The scrutiny could compromise our operation.”

“I’m aware of that, but it’s too late to pull the plug. Point Justice in another direction and hand them someone of interest. Make sure it’s homegrown. The White House will jump all over that.”

“How can you be sure?”

“It’s good PR. Better a few local crazies than some Islamic bogeyman.” A pause. “Maybe we can even work this to our advantage.”

“How?”

“Use it to tie up FBI resources while we do what has to be done. Zuabi says his man is already headed to Bulgaria to secure delivery.”

“Who did he send?”

“The one I told you about, Hassan Haddad. The imam says he’s his best soldier. Loyal, efficient, and deadly.”

“He better be right. We can’t afford any more mistakes.”

“I’m with you. If anything goes wrong, we’ll cut our losses and call it a day. Otherwise, we continue full steam and let the imam worry about this idiot al-Fida.”

“Can Zuabi be trusted?”

“A little late to be asking that question, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t worried till now. You realize however we distract them, the feds will heighten security across the board.”

“They can trot out all the security they want,” the voice said. “They still won’t see us coming. No one will.”

*   *   *

The woman in the security uniform smiled at him, but Abdal al-Fida had to wonder—was her smile genuine or was there something unspoken behind it? Something dangerous? Had someone at the terminal identified him, found something at the car, dug up a picture of him and sent it to every police department, every transportation center, every 7-Eleven?

He hadn’t expected this, the paranoia. And perhaps he wouldn’t feel it so strongly if the car hadn’t sat there so long, if he hadn’t screwed up. If he’d just done as he’d been instructed—

No,
he admonished himself.
It was a good plan
.

He had intended to park the Land Rover in the underground lot of that absurd monstrosity of a federal building downtown, then wait for morning, when the place would be filled with enough infidels to send this fat, lazy nation a resounding message from Allah.

The afternoon before, Abdal had followed one of the blind fools who worked there to an apartment near Fisherman’s Wharf—an elderly woman who wore the beleaguered look of a capitalist slave. Breaking into her car had taken him no time at all, and he’d found her electronic key card tucked into a pocket of the visor above the driver’s seat. Stupid, trusting,
and
careless. It’s a miracle the nation functioned at all.

In a way, this theft was an act of mercy. If she could not gain access to the parking lot the following day, her life might be spared.

Of course, in the end they were all spared, weren’t they
?

The black with the gun had seen to that.

Abdal cursed himself for allowing such an insignificant piece of trash to so easily take control of him. Finding the muzzle of a gun in his face as he waited for the light to change had been so unexpected that reason had fled. Ironically, his training had taken hold then: blend in. Don’t create a scene. It took time for him to get to the rooftop of an unguarded building within a thousand feet of the target, to obtain an unobstructed transmit line from his phone to the one strapped to the primer bomb.

Allah had spared him, and for that he was grateful, but he had to wonder why. He’d never had any interest in martyrdom, but the shame he felt for this failure was worse than any form of death. He knew that those he worked for, those who at this very moment were probably shocked by his impulsiveness, his impatience—his
foolishness
—would kill him. The methods were still too horrible to contemplate. Yet he resisted the impulse to disappear. He also resisted the urge to rally his wits, to take his own life in an improvised act of terror. Allah did not smile upon cowards, and willful suicide with a tacked-on purpose was still first and foremost a means to escape punishment.

Besides, if he were meant to die Abdal preferred to do it in London, where he had lived for nearly twenty of his twenty-two years, in the comfort of his own home.

Within an hour of the disaster, he sent his primary contact an encrypted text message confessing his sin and begging understanding, if not forgiveness. Several minutes later he received a reply, instructing him to fly home via Los Angeles, where a reservation had already been made in his name. He knew full well that they would consult with Hassan before deciding what to do with him. That was something, at least. Hassan might choose to spare his life so he could surrender it with dignity.

Whatever the decision, Abdal would use the time he had left to make peace with his God.

He didn’t want to risk stealing another vehicle, since the California Highway Patrol was particularly vigilant about watching for stolen cars. License-plate reading software gave them the ability to check over ninety percent of the vehicles on their freeway. So he booked bus passage down the California coast, arriving at Los Angeles International Airport at seven in the morning. He had no need for possessions but he had packed a small suitcase anyway, to avoid raising suspicion among the TSA profilers. Abdal kept a “ready bag” for that purpose, a carry-on stuffed with amenities, clothing, a nondescript novel, and a book of crossword puzzles.

A few minutes after his encounter with the security agent, Abdal was seated at the gate, his paranoia abated. If the woman had suspected anything he would never have gotten this far. She would have motioned one of the security guards over casually but with a hand gesture that indicated there was a problem, and Abdal would have been thrown to the floor, pinned there while another agent handcuffed him.

Instead, the woman went out of her way to be polite, to smile, to assure him she wasn’t profiling. And in that way she let a terrorist through her checkpoint.

But that was not his concern.

All Abdal could think about now was not his mistakes, nor his certain death, only getting home to the woman he loved.

Getting home to Sara.

4

The FBI wasted no time instituting a media blackout.

They didn’t call it that, of course. At an impromptu press conference near the blast site that night, with particles of dust still visible in the floodlights, newly appointed Mayor Daniel Maywood announced that the city of San Francisco was cooperating fully with the FBI and Homeland Security. However, due to the sensitivity of the investigation all inquiries were being routed to the FBI’s press liaison—which Jack knew from experience was a deep black hole.