“The one thing that doesn’t make sense to me,” said Johnny, speaking for the first time since the meeting started, “is the drive. Why leave it in his pocket?”
“Everything was still in his pockets,” said Johansen. “His wallet, money — it looks like there was an argument, and he fled.”
“That doesn’t sound like Ghadab,” said Chelsea. “He’s very methodical.”
“Granted. We can’t rule out that this was a misdirection play. We’re looking into other possible targets. But we would be foolish not to put Boston on high alert. The FBI is trying to track him down.”
“Maybe he tied Chelsea to Palmyra,” said Johnny. “But what about the rest of us?”
“Everyone who was on the mission may be a target,” said Johansen. “But we found her personal information on the drive.”
“What do you think, Chelsea?” asked Massina.
“He’s definitely in the U.S.,” she said softly.
“We can have a dozen marshals from the U.S. Marshals Service watching you around the clock,” said Johansen.
“I don’t think I need that,” said Chelsea.
“You need some protection,” said Johnny.
“A whole army?”
“We can make it as unobtrusive as possible,” said Johansen.
“I agree, she has to be protected,” said Massina. “As does Johnny. We welcome the assistance — our head of security will work with your people.”
“The attack is going to be made against nuclear plants,” said Chelsea. “That’s what they were researching.”
“That may have been his original plan,” agreed Johansen. “But now — this data is different. And power plants, they are very hard to hit.”
“There’s always the fear factor, though,” said Massina. “Even an unsuccessful attack would panic a lot of people.”
“True.”
Chelsea’s attention drifted as Johansen outlined the precautions they would take. It seemed unreal. She doubted she was really the target.
He figured out that the dead man was a CIA agent somehow. He’d use that.
What’s the real target?
Boston again?
No terrorist had ever hit the same target again, at least not so quickly. But sometimes the most obvious solution was the right one.
Johansen signed off. Massina stood up.
“Everyone will be guarded,” Massina said. “We will provide a safe house — safe houses. Beef is in charge.”
Bozzone nodded.
“No unnecessary risks for our people,” Massina said. “For anyone.”
“So what are you going to do?” Johnny asked her as they left the Box.
“I’m going back to work,” she said. “What else can I do?”
97
In the days that followed, Boston became something of an armed camp. Homeland Security issued a blanket warning, saying an attack was imminent and that Boston appeared to be “high on the list” of potential targets.
A deluge of news reports — most wildly speculative — filled the web and airwaves. National Guard troops moved onto power installations in every state, not just Boston. Police forces suspended vacations. People suspected of terrorist leanings were brought in for questioning or put under surveillance. Police officers, many armed with AR-15s and shotguns, guarded every notable building in Boston, and much of the Northeast.
Boston’s mood was defiant. People went about their business with a definite edge. Even though the Red Sox were out of town, thousands of young fans showed up at Fenway every afternoon to keep vigil, staying well into the night. Other citizens gathered spontaneously at the city’s landmarks. The police didn’t like this — they argued, with some logic, that the presence of so many civilians increased the danger, presenting rich targets of opportunity.
But who could take issue with the attitude? Who would have expected less?
Massina understood: You don’t mess with Boston. You don’t mess with America.
But he was frustrated. He knew far more than the kids who slept on the grass at the Common, but he was just as impotent. Socrates churned through millions of leads, yet produced nothing tangible. The chat rooms Massina had lurked in buzzed, but the identities he had linked to terrorists had disappeared.
Johansen — who’d come up to Boston as part of the task force — claimed to be sharing everything he knew, but Massina still had doubts.
On the morning of the third day after the general alert had been sounded, the FBI staged a series of raids in the Burlington area, along with smaller actions in Minneapolis and Portland, Maine. Twenty-five would-be terrorists — several of whom had been first identified by Socrates — were arrested; two caches of weapons and material that could be used to make bombs were seized. A similar raid in the Montreal area by Canada’s Mounties yielded ten terrorists and a small armory’s worth of weapons.
The news media exhaled.
But Massina didn’t. Ghadab wasn’t among those arrested, and until he was found, the danger remained.
Six hours after the raids were completed, a liaison at the FBI forwarded the names of the suspects and what was known about them to Smart Metal. By that time, Chelsea and her team — augmented by a dozen other Smart Metal employees and two “loaners” from the NSA — had fed the names to Socrates.
The results were very disappointing. As Chelsea put it in her 6 p.m. briefing to Massina: “Aside from the geography, we’ve found no link between any of the people who have been arrested and Ghadab.”
“Does that mean there is no connection?” Massina asked. “Or we just haven’t found it?”
“Hard to know at this point.” Chelsea was talking to him via a secure link they had established between the Annex and the main building. “I have something else I thought we should try. The identities of the people in the bunker — Johansen never shared that with us.”
“Do they know who they are?”
“I’m sure they do.”
“I’ll ask. That may just send us on some wild-goose chases,” added Massina. “I’m sure the CIA has already checked into them.”
“We have to keep trying. And Socrates is better at teasing out connections than they are.”
“Or at least that they let on,” said Massina. “I’ll talk to them.”
Chelsea had the profiles within an hour. The AI program thrashed away, exploring their profiles and plotting possible links. Unlike the first few days where she’d constantly been tweaking the program, there was now little for her to do aside from occasionally looking at what Socrates was probing. The connections it found seemed fairly random, even to the computer: 50 percent probabilities and less. Nothing pointed back to the U.S., and even the connections to Ghadab and the rest of the Daesh hierarchy were tentative.
Hours passed. Chelsea felt her eyes closing; the next thing she knew someone had jerked her leg.
“What?!” she yelled, bolting upright.
“Hey, relax,” said Johnny, standing over her. “I was just checking to see if you were awake.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking after you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to be working the rest of the night.”
“Good,” said Johnny. “I rotated in to supervise the security team. You’re part of my mission.”
“Well, then, get me some coffee.”