Full Black (29 page)

R
eed Carlton walked into the SCIF. He was a tall, fit man in his midsixties with a prominent chin and silver hair.

Harvath stood up and greeted him.

“We got our asses handed to us in Sweden,” the Old Man said as he grabbed a chair and wheeled it over. It was late, and he was tired and not in a good mood. “I don’t care what it takes. We’re going to nuke these bastards. That’s the word from on high at DoD as well.”

Harvath knew the Old Man was speaking figuratively about nuking the terrorists. It was his term for complete and total victory. Nuke ’em, he would often say before Harvath left on assignment.

There were times, though, in anger over the loss of lives, he would suggest nuking the entire Middle East region. The Arabs, he’d rant, were ungovernable and immune to civilization. As international terrorism sprang almost exclusively from the Middle East, and the Middle East refused to curtail it, why not put an end to it once and for all? Why allow a single additional American to be killed by the fanatics? “The last time I checked,” he would say, as people who didn’t know he was exaggerating listened aghast, “we can still drill through glass.”

He didn’t mince words, and Harvath admired that about him. He had the type of take-no-prisoners, get-the-job-done, and to-hell-with-political-correctness attitude that the United States needed a lot more of.

Nicholas had a mug in front of him. Picking it up, he looked at Carlton and offered, “Coffee?”

“It’s a little late for coffee,” the Old Man replied. “Why don’t you pour me a glass of wine?”

“Wine?”

“Son, I know every single thing that goes on here,” Carlton said.

Nicholas liked being called “son.” He turned his eyes to Harvath, who was the closest to the fridge.

Harvath rolled over to it in his chair and withdrew the bottle. Grabbing three cups, he rolled back.

“I thought you didn’t want any,” said Nicholas, as Harvath poured what was left in the bottle into the three cups.

“Changed my mind,” he replied, as he passed out the cups. “It wouldn’t be right to let you two drink alone.”

Carlton accepted his cup and held it up. “To those who have fallen.”

Harvath and Nicholas repeated the toast together and drank from their cups. They then waited for the Old Man to take charge.

“This isn’t a book club,” he finally said. “You don’t need me to kick things off. Just pick up from wherever you were when I walked in.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Nicholas as he set down his cup and pulled up another image on the closest screen. “As I was explaining, the Chinese had created a sophisticated Islamic terror network as part of their unrestricted warfare plan for the United States, but this network was stolen from them.

“In fact, as best we can tell, it wasn’t just the network that was stolen, it was everything.”

“Everything? What do you mean, everything?” asked Harvath.

Nicholas brought up a satellite photo. “The Chinese military’s unrestricted warfare planning took place exclusively at this outpost in Mongolia. The project was so classified, the base didn’t even have a name. They referred to it with a three-digit number, Site 243.

“As we’ve learned, the sole purpose of this base was to allow the Chinese to study America and plan their unrestricted warfare package. The operatives there spoke only English, ate only American foods, read American books, watched American TV, played American video games, studied American politics and financial markets, and surfed nothing but American and Western websites. It was as close to America as you could be without leaving China’s umbrella.

“The operatives there were steeped in American culture and the American way of thinking. Most of them had previously worked or studied abroad in the U.S. Their job at Site 243 was to study America and to find its weaknesses. Under the supervision of their military handlers, they were then charged with developing the most unusual and devastating attacks they could come up with.”

“Attacks from the side,” said Harvath.

“Yes,” replied Nicholas as he put up another image. “Someone discovered what the Chinese were up to and hired an extremely adept hacker to steal the unrestricted warfare plans. Then they launched an attack on Site 243, making sure no one was left alive and no copy of the plans was left behind. But they didn’t stop there.

“Any Chinese military or intelligence officer who had any knowledge of the program, regardless of where he was, was hunted down and killed. Whoever stole the plans wanted to make sure that they had the only copy and that they were the only ones who could activate it.”

“But we don’t have any idea who stole it or why, do we?” asked Harvath.

Nicholas shook his head. “At this point, no. We have the hacker who helped steal the unrestricted warfare plans. She has been interrogated and is still being held at an offshore site. She claims she never knew the identity of the person or persons who hired her. The interrogators believe she is telling the truth.

“What we were able to get from her, though, is that despite her clients’ warning against it, she opened the package she stole. What’s more, she copied some of the data onto a separate drive.”

“Which you were able to recover,” said Harvath.

“And which you tried to sell back to the United States government rather than doing the right thing and turning it over,” added Carlton.

Nicholas put up his hands. “I eventually saw the error of my ways and delivered the drive to this organization.”

“What was on it?” asked Harvath.

“As you’ll recall, you and I spoke while you were in Yemen. Just before—”

Harvath held up his hand. He didn’t need to be reminded. The call had come in just before his car and Aazim Aleem had been hit by the RPG.

“What I had shared with you,” continued Nicholas, “was that there was some pretty interesting information on that drive. That was how we learned that Aazim had a nephew in London who was a digital courier for him. I also discovered that the drive held some highly encrypted data. From it, we began to get a better handle on what unrestricted warfare was. The problem, though, was there weren’t any specifics. I was able to figure out that the recent attacks we had seen in Europe and in Chicago were only a small wave preceding a giant tsunami, and that the tsunami was meant to crush the United States, but that was all. At least I thought it was all, until I came at the encryption from a different angle and found this.”

Harvath watched as Nicholas pushed a key and all the screens showed the same image, a map of the United States. A black dot popped up in Chicago, followed by one in New York and one in Los Angeles.

“What are we looking at?”

“Based on what Chase learned inside Aazim’s network, we believe we are looking at—”

“Target cities?” interrupted Harvath.

“Exactly. We know Aazim had been in Chicago and that he wanted Chase to handle an attack in New York while he went to oversee one in L.A. We think these represented the first wave.”

“First out of how many?”

Nicholas looked at Carlton, who nodded. “See for yourself,” said the little man as he pressed another button on his keyboard.

Instantly a dot appeared in Dallas, followed by Houston and Miami. Then Philadelphia had a dot and then Newark and San Francisco. Next came Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle, and Denver. The dots were multiplying so fast, Harvath couldn’t keep track. Some cities had more than one dot.

In addition to major American cities, there were smaller ones, ones not immediately thought of when considering potential terrorist targets. There were dots next to Madison, Wisconsin; Casper, Wyoming; and Wichita, Kansas. Bloomington, Indiana; Hartford, Connecticut; Johnson City, Tennessee; Springfield, Missouri; and Billings, Montana, had also been marked.

“My God,” Harvath said. “How many are there?”

“Over two hundred,” replied Nicholas.

“Cells?”

“That’s what we think. The scope is amazing. But now watch this.”

Nicholas pressed another button and Harvath watched as all of the dots changed color.

“Why are they doing that?”

“We think the colors represent the style of attack,” said the little man. “You can see Chicago is lit up red, blue, orange, silver, and brown.”

“You mean there may have been five different kinds of attacks planned for Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“And we only disrupted two?”

“Unfortunately.”

Harvath studied the map, looking at the different colors. “Chase was inside the Chicago cell and he only uncovered the suicide bomb and active shooter plots. You think they kept things that compartmentalized? Aazim Aleem had three other types of attack planned for Chicago that Chase never learned about?”

“It’s very possible,” replied Carlton. “Especially if the actors were working alone and didn’t need the support of the overall network. It’s the way I’d do it.”

Five different attacks was a large number to throw at one city like Chicago, but there were plenty of cities on the map that appeared to have been targeted for multiple attacks. Harvath was looking for some sort of pattern. “Orange dots seem to be pretty randomly dispersed. Any idea what those represent?”

Nicholas leaned back in his chair, took a sip from his cup, and studied the map. “No idea.”

“Not even a guess?”

“Guesses are something I’ve got plenty of. Honestly, orange could be anything. There are orange dots in New York City, San Jose, Dallas, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and a bunch of other locations. Silver and gold seem to be just as random.”

“What about purple? I’m only seeing those in a few places. All of them port cities. New York again, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle.”

“We noticed that, too,” replied Nicholas, “but those are also major urban centers with large populations, and there might be another factor they have in common that we’re not seeing. That’s the problem. There’s just so much we don’t know.”

Harvath looked back at the Old Man. “Any other thoughts, if you were behind this?”

Carlton was studying the monitors. “I’ve been looking at this map until my eyes bleed. Without some additional piece of information, it’s nearly impossible to unlock.”

“What kind of warning are you giving the cities that do have the dots?”

Carlton shrugged. “The FBI will quietly inform local and state law enforcement of a nonspecific terrorism threat to their jurisdictions and they’ll raise their internal alert levels accordingly.”

“No mention of this to the public, then?” asked Harvath.

“Not right now. We don’t want to tip our hand. If we go public with this, it could speed the attacks up. Whoever is pulling the strings could give the cells the green light.”

The Old Man was right, but they couldn’t just sit and do nothing. “If this map is accurate,” said Harvath, “at least we know the cities where they’re planning to strike. How do we filter it down even more?”

Nicholas waved at all of his computer equipment. “I’m doing everything humanly possible. I’m looking for any data points I can find, no matter how small. I’m turning over every single digital rock you can imagine. We’re leaving nothing unturned. The ops tempo was already very hot, but with Chase saying he felt something was about to kick off, we’ve kicked everything on our end into overdrive.”

“What about the names Chase gave us? Karami? Sabah? Some Sheikh from Qatar?”

“It’s all in the blender. We just have to see what we get out.”

Harvath turned to Carlton. “How about any IDs of the cell members Chase took out in the safe house?”

“We’re working on that,” said the Old Man. “We’re also working on seeing if their forensics teams uncovered anything from the apartment building across the street where the explosion happened. For the moment, the Swedes are being very tight-lipped. They suspect the involvement of a foreign intelligence service and until they feel they’ve figured out who it was, they’re not talking with anyone.”

“I assumed you would have already helped them out with that.”

“It’s in the works. Trust me. Subtlety is a delicate art. It requires patience.”

“These guys, though, could begin lighting up American cities this morning,” replied Harvath. “There’s got to be something else we can do.”

“What you can do is go home and get some rest,” said the Old Man. “I want you ready to move as soon as we do hear something.”

Harvath was wiped out. He knew he needed sleep. Draining what was left of his cup, he stood up. “As soon as we hear from Iceland with the medical assessment on Mansoor, I want somebody to call me. They need to start interrogating him as quickly as possible. We have to access his cloud.”

“In the meantime,” said Carlton, “we’re working every other angle we have.”

“We still don’t have anything on who targeted my car in Yemen with that RPG, though, do we?”

The Old Man shook his head. “No. Not yet.”

“Obviously,” interjected Nicholas, “someone didn’t want the U.S. interrogating Aazim Aleem.”

“Obviously,” replied Harvath. “Whoever was responsible for having Aazim killed didn’t want him revealing either who he worked for or what the scope of his operation was.”

“There’s one thing that bothers me about all that. Whoever hijacked the unrestricted-warfare plan was running Aazim via whatever cutout the Chinese had established, ostensibly the Sheikh from Qatar. We don’t know if the Sheikh is a real person that members of the network have ever met with, or if he’s some disembodied figure who only communicates through emails or telephone calls.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Harvath.

“I don’t think Aazim was taken out to prevent him from revealing who gave him his marching orders. He couldn’t give away intelligence he didn’t actually possess.”

“So then he was targeted to prevent revealing the scope of his operation.”

“That’s what bothers me,” said Nicholas. “You and Chase were sitting at an outdoor café within sight of your car when it exploded. You said the RPG came from a rooftop a block or two away?”

Harvath nodded.

“Why silence Aazim? Why not simply aim the RPG a couple of degrees in the other direction and take out you and Chase at the café? In the ensuing chaos, Aazim could have been released from the trunk and then spirited away, disappearing yet again.”