American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) (9 page)

“How do you keep anyone from finding out you’re stealing their research?” Rayna asked.

Barry laughed. “They’re not the enemy and neither are we. We build relationships with them all. We do business with them all. We go to each other’s parties, weddings, funerals... Of course, we don’t tell and, if they ask, we lie... but they know better than to ask. The secret to peak efficiency at CenCom is staff. People like Julio and Helena. They live, breathe and eat Fidelitas. Sure, they love the kids and each other, but that is a byproduct of their love for what we do. There’s about twenty full-time staff here. All live on premises and are available twenty-four seven. None of this nine-to-five stuff and retire when you’re fifty-five.”

“I didn’t see hardly anybody,” Rayna said, glancing around as if someone might be hiding in the open room.

“You will... eventually.”

There couldn’t have been more than ten guests in the complex, either. “This is seriously weird, Barry. You’ve got this giant place like a high-end resort and there’s no one around. The lake, the garden... I mean, I could retire here. And everything, and I mean everything, is custom-made. What gives? Everything is just so... so nice. Nice and boring.”

“Did you notice the infrared cameras that can measure the heat of everything in their sight lines as we walked? They’re sensitive to fifteen hundred feet. If you didn’t, you probably didn’t notice the air scrubbers. If we somehow came under chemical attack, new air from the outside would be siphoned in immediately while filtering out the old air. Why custom doors and walls? Inside, instead of a hollow core or solid wood, is a layer of bullet-resistant Kevlar. Still think that’s boring?”

Barry refilled the sake cups and downed his. “We don’t want a high profile. Our prices are up to five times what comparable resorts cost. Why? This is a place of privacy and anonymity.” Barry pointed to a man with a bimbo in the corner. “You know who that it is?”

“Should I?” Rayna wondered.

“Yes. That’s Arvi Hammerstein.”

“The arms dealer?” She was astonished.

“Yes.”

“He’s younger than I thought.”

“Plastic surgery. Got the surgeon to come here to do it. And that girl with him is not the plaything you’re probably thinking she is. She’s one of the highest paid assassins in the world and he’s negotiating a deal with her. We know, because we made the introduction.” He nodded in the direction of a sheikh in another corner. “He’s number twenty-one in line to be King of Saudi Arabia.”

“Why is he here?”

“He’s gay, a mortal sin among Muslims. This is one of the few places he can enjoy himself openly and freely.” Barry laughed at the look on her face. “We help make deals, we make introductions, and we provide safety for the dangerous.”

“Which gives you the opportunity for blackmail or opportunities for elimination.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re getting it.” He grinned, leaning back. “People whose privacy is so important that cost is no object.”

DING! DING! DING! Barry frowned. Three dings meant drop everything. “Urgent. Come now. Julio.”

Chapter 9
 

Barry and Rayna quickly got up and made their way through the kitchen worthy of a 3-Star Michelin chef.

“You’re not impressed?” asked Barry as they hurried along.

“Look, I can handle a microwave. A sink is a sink. A knife is a knife,” quipped Rayna with disinterest. “I hated dolls and Suzy Homemaker I’m not.”

“Remind me not to say “yes” if you invite Diana and me to dinner.”

Rayna watched as he opened the door to the huge and largely empty stainless steel walk-in fridge. After pulling her in and closing the door, he led her twenty feet to the far wall of the cold room. He put Rayna’s hand on an innocuous metal plate beside the thermometer. “Biometric recognition software.”

Suddenly, a wall dropped behind them, enclosing the couple in a small box, which then began to move—it was actually an elevator cab.
 

“Blame Julio if you don’t like this. He’s the sci-fi super-enthusiast. He probably got the idea from some movie.”

The elevator descended fifty feet and opened automatically to reveal a large windowless steel-reinforced concrete room of fifteen hundred square feet with fifteen-foot high ceilings.
 

Rayna had seen pictures of rooms like this for people like the American or Russian presidents. It was designed to withstand nuclear blasts, earthquakes and tsunamis. In the event of a major natural or man-made catastrophe, not a beat of a country’s activity would be dropped.
 

It was also heaven for any technology geek in the world. “State-of-the-art” was a meaningless term as much of the technology employed here was at the leading edge or even at the pre-prototype stage. No expense was spared in outfitting the operation with the best surveillance equipment and computer systems. There was enough electronic gadgetry to make a guest think he or she was in NASA’s Mission Control but, for the most part, this room was filled with monitors of all sizes, from those at individual workstations to a bank of six-by-ten-foot screens hanging on a wall.
 

The operator in Rayna kicked in as Barry continued to lead. A five-thousand-square-foot room with doors probably leading to other rooms. Fifteen-foot ceilings. Twelve people. No one over forty. African. American. African-American. Hispanic. Asian. Middle Eastern. Caucasian. Short hair. Long hair. Casual. Dressed to kill. Slobs. Formal.
 

Before Rayna could finish her assessment, she and Barry were sitting with Julio and Helena. Without kids or other distractions, they were focused on what was on the monitor. The others sat at various work stations, each grimly staring at their screens. Right now, all screens had major American news broadcasters plus pirated video streams from the FBI and Homeland Security.

Barry spoke into his cell and the room’s sound system kicked in. “Listen up, everyone. This is Rayna. She’s our latest operative. Rayna?” Barry waved his arm over the room. “These people are who are going to make you look like a genius. More important, they are going to do their damnedest to keep you alive. You’ll probably never talk to them because Helena, Julio and myself are the main contacts. Meet the “Geek Freaks.”

Geek Freaks? Sure, why not?
Rayna smiled slightly.

The geeks, for the most part, looked up briefly, then went back to work.

Julio motioned Barry and Rayna to watch a big video screen showing a news reporter standing in front of a subway wreckage. “This is breaking news. Fifteen minutes ago, there was an explosion on the tracks of a New York subway station. There were no casualties because the explosion happened a hundred feet into the tunnel away from the station and did not detonate until twenty seconds after the train left. At this point, it is unknown whether this was intentional or not. It is also unknown whether there is any connection with the bombing of the Washington Monument.”

Julio flicked to a news feed of a reporter pointing at the Washington Monument. The top part of it had been sheared off.
 

“Fifteen minutes ago, twenty drones, each equipped with explosives and coming from all directions, attacked the top third of the Washington Monument. Washington security forces were able to intercept seventeen of the explosive-carrying aerial devices but three of them made it through and crashed into the historic monument. They exploded simultaneously, resulting in the top third of the monument being blown off. While there seems to be no obvious connection, the timing of this attack with the explosion in the New York subway is highly suspicious and authorities believe there may be a connection between the two events. As of now, no person or organization has claimed responsibility.”

Julio turned to Barry and Rayna. “Our friends at Homeland, FBI and the CIA have gone into overdrive, trying to find any morsel of info but, as of now, there’s absolutely nothing, which is scary, scary. All available resources are being thrown at these situations, which makes what I’m about to show you even more dangerous. This is actually the reason I called you down, but then the bombings happened in New York and Washington.”

Julio hit a button on his keyboard and a video appeared. “The picture quality, editing and sound effects are excellent. Whoever put this together knew what he or she was doing. It’s actually a mini-movie. The first few shots are jerky and unstable. Probably shot while traveling in a vehicle.”

***

Dawn. The brilliant orange sun was breaking in the dark blue horizon, illuminating flat desert terrain with little vegetation.
 

A small town emerged in the distance. The camera panned across the town, which appeared small from a distance. Might even be too small to have a name.

As the vehicle got closer, different buildings came into focus and there were single shots of each. Like most towns, religious buildings were the tallest. Many churches featured the Syrian Cross, with clover-like shapes at the top, bottom and the extremities of the crossbar. There was also a brown brick building with two towers, each with its own cross; a bombed-out brick domed building with a cross on top of the dome; a smaller church that was part of a fortress wall; rubble, broken stone, bombed-out cars in the street; and several one-room churches, seating maybe sixty people.

The town itself was like so many Syrian villages—brick or clay buildings, the majority of which were in a state of disrepair or suffering from bomb, artillery or grenade damage.

There was a switch in perspective. The camera showed a twenty-year-old ubiquitous Japanese pick-up mounted with an anti-aircraft weapon. The engine clattered loudly and the shocks were completely shot. Every vibration jogged the unsteady weapons of six armed terrorists. All of them wore masks or balaclavas.

***

Julio hit the pause button. “Okay, I want to show you something here. Look at the vehicle. This is not your typical radical Islamic terrorist driving a bunch of fancy Toyota Land Cruisers. This is a Japanese beater that’s older than the kids it’s carrying.”

“What makes you say they’re kids?” asked Rayna.

“I’m looking at body types. These guys, except for the one I’ll come to in a moment, all have
the lithe bodies of young men in their teens or early twenties.”

“Something you never had, Julio,” Helena quipped.

Julio ignored the jibe. “But check out this guy. He’s the leader. Even though his face is mostly hidden, you can see his beard is full, his arms muscular, and you only get that dark leathered skin with years of exposure to sun. I’m pretty sure this guy’s a Middle Eastern man in his late twenties, thirties or possibly early forties. If you look at his and the kids’ body language, there’s some kind of father figure image going on. Now check this out.”

Julio zoomed in on the rocket launcher. “See anything unusual?”

Barry answered instantly. “It’s not hooked up. Hell, it might not even be operational, the way that thing looks. And the guns? Some are Chinese. Some are old Russian. I think one of them is from the old Vietnam War.”

“Exactly. And look at the clothes the kids are wearing. Holes in the elbows of the shirts and rips in their pants. This is no fashion statement. Cheap car, cheap clothes, cheap weapons, and busted rocket launcher... what does it mean? These guys don’t have any money. Let’s go on. This is probably an hour or two after the last section.”
 

Julio hit “play” again.

***

The town was starting to wake up. Children and women carried large blue plastic bottles to refill with water. In the small marketplace, vendors started to unpack their vegetables, spices, baked goods and clothes. Men and women in their long robes began to leave their homes. There were a few goats bleating and one person even rode a bicycle.

Then, from behind a bombed-out wall, the men jumped off the pick-up and dashed into the awakening market. The thunderous barrage that followed was powerful... astonishing. Screams of the wounded and dying regaled the smoky air. Tables were upturned and merchandise strewn all over as everyone tried to find protection. Shells exploded like hideous popcorn.

The barrage ended and five men followed the leader as he strode confidently through the town.

The camera picked up a turbaned man in a brick house peering out his window. He thought he saw an open gap and did a quick double check to confirm no one was around. It appeared he was trying to quickly and discreetly get his family to evacuate their home of a dozen generations and hurry to freedom at an abandoned, ramshackle shack down the street.

No such luck. The bearded leader spotted them running. He chased after them and took out a couple of grenades. When he saw where they were headed, he slowed his pace. With the arm strength of a professional baseball outfielder, he threw three explosive miniature pineapples two hundred and fifty feet—right at the family.

 
“No!” The father saw the first grenade land in front of his wife. Pushing her aside, he threw himself on it. There was an explosion loud enough to rupture eardrums. The father’s body was blown to bits. Milliseconds later, the second little bomb landed in front of his daughter and wife. Another deadly, deafening blast. The body parts of his wife, young daughter and two sons permeated the air. Blood and carcass fragments showered down.

The cacophonous detonation sent a group of children to fearful wailing of tears. The leader spotted them. He barked out orders in Arabic and a phalanx of bullets ended their fear and crying. The young bodies hit the ground in random puddles of crimson.

One brave, or stupid, soul surged from behind the earthen wall of his home, firing bullets from his barely functioning weapon. The leader launched another incendiary grenade. A billow of black smoke and sky-piercing scream indicated he’d scored a bull’s eye. The leader thrust up his fists in triumph before returning to his march of destruction.

Spotting a one-room schoolhouse, the leader and his cronies marched in to see five children huddling with their teacher, praying and no doubt hoping they would be considered too inconsequential for anyone to pay attention to. No such luck. Six men opened fire. The children screamed as they tried to hide behind desks and each other. All were cut to ribbons.