"I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear that we had a lieutenant on scene. I can't go into details, but I need the scene preserved. I'm sending one of our crime scene units and several investigators out to the pump station. Right now I need to know if the suspects looked Arab."
"The only way these three could look more Arab was if they had wrapped towels around their heads. They look like stand-ins for the 9/11 hijackers. Why wouldn't they look Arab?"
"I can't talk about that right now. Thank you, Lieutenant. I wish we could have headed off this attack. I feel terrible for the families of the men lost tonight."
"Men and women. One of the Mount Arlington officers was married with three kids. She and her partner were riddled with bullets sitting in their cruiser. Fucking savages," McKay said.
"Savages indeed. It's going to be a long night. Thank you in advance for the hospitality out there. I wish it were under better circumstances."
"Me too. I'll keep an eye out for your people."
The call disconnected, and Sharpe patted Hesterman's right shoulder.
"How are we doing?"
"Moriarty is assembling the team as we speak. She hopes to have them out there before 10:30. She's keeping Demir in Newark to continue working Al Qaeda."
"Good. Mount Arlington might generate a lead, but it will likely direct us right back to Newark. I still haven't heard a word from Justice about getting people inside the mosque. My biggest concern right now is that this attack may have just made our jobs even more difficult. There's no way the White House will be able to contain this. They'll have to declare Morris County a disaster area and go door to door to keep people from drinking the water. I don't know how they're going to figure that out."
"Kind of makes our job not seem so bad," O'Reilly said.
"Except we'll be the ones that get blamed for not stopping the attack, or any future attacks," he said.
Salvador Guerrero had managed to sneak beside them unnoticed. His voice startled Sharpe.
"They can shove the blame right up the administration's ass. One car with two officers guarding the pump station? What the fuck do they expect?"
"They're looking at too many points of vulnerability to guard. Water towers. Pipelines. Some towns have multiple pump stations. Every law enforcement officer in America would be occupied. The president activated the National Guard and Army Reserve, but the attack came too fast," Sharpe said.
"They could have directed state and local authorities to properly defend these sites while the Guard and Reserves mobilized. Wait until you see what happens next. Once this hits the media, they'll start stationing infantry platoons at each site. Standby for operation knee jerk. This is going to be a complete fiasco by the time we wake up tomorrow."
"Who said we'd be going to sleep?" Sharpe said.
"Good point. Let me know if there's anything I can do on my end. The best we can do is figure out how to stop the next imminent attack. There's still one more terrorist cell missing," Guerrero said.
"We're still missing fifty-five canisters. I hate to say it, but one missing Al Qaeda cell is the least of our problems," Sharpe said.
"True. But I get the feeling we'll have some time before we have to worry about the majority of those canisters. The cell that hit Mount Arlington either panicked and struck early, or was given last minute orders based on the near elimination of the entire network. My money is on the latter option. The remaining cell could be out there right now casing their target…or targets."
"Hopefully, we'll get something from Mount Arlington that will put the last Al Qaeda cell out of business, so we can concentrate on the extent of True America's involvement," Sharpe said.
"You know that group better than anyone in this room. If True America is involved, we have an even bigger problem. Only God himself knows what they might have planned for those canisters."
"My hope is that they plan to hand the canisters over to the government. The best-case scenario is that they orchestrated this as a huge publicity stunt to show the American people that they are truly America's new heroes. We have an election year coming up, and the word on the street is that they are consolidating political power to make a move in 2008."
"What's the worst-case scenario?" Guerrero said.
"The worst-case scenario is they are planning to destabilize the country through terrorism."
"Which one is your money on?"
"Somewhere between the two, leaning toward the worst-case scenario. True America's spin-doctors have done a great job distancing the movement's public face from the group's original founders. Just five years ago, Jackson Greely and Lee Harding regularly took to the streets decrying government tyranny and demanding a quick, violent overthrow. We found literature published by these two going back decades. They've been on Uncle Sam's radar for a long time as domestic terrorist threats. Over the past three to four years, the two have faded into the sunset, orchestrated by the more savvy visible leadership currently cruising around the country in their True America tour buses."
"Why would they agree to step down if this was their movement from the beginning?"
"My sources say they haven't stepped down from anything, aside from the podium. True America's political action arm takes in millions of dollars in grass-roots donations every month. There's a sea of people hungry for the kind of change at the core of True America's manifesto, but Greely and Harding's visions of a violent overthrow kept the organization pinned to the ground. Wallets have a tendency to snap shut when either of those two appears in front of the True America banner. If Greely or Harding is behind the theft of the virus canisters, I wouldn't expect True America to hand them over in an expression of good will."
His cell phone buzzed in his hand, and he glanced at the message on its screen.
"Any word on the mosque request?" read the message sent from Callie Stewart.
Sharpe glanced up at the black metal catwalk and saw Stewart leaning on the rail, smiling down on him from a distance and waving with her phone. He shook his head and typed a quick response. He hadn't heard anything from Justice. Two additional requests had been sent up through their NCTC liaison, but nothing had come back. Maybe the recent attack on the Mount Arlington pump station would loosen their interpretations of the Patriot Act. He looked up at Stewart again, secretly wishing he could authorize her to send some of Sanderson's operatives into the mosque. He hated himself for thinking this, but he had an extremely bad feeling about the next few days. Mount Arlington had the potential to be the very beginning of a national nightmare.
He felt slightly lucky at the moment. There was little they could have done to prevent the attack, and the emergency response was out of his hands. He didn't envy the task lying ahead for the state and federal agencies responsible for safeguarding the lives of the citizens who might have been exposed to the contaminated water from the Mount Arlington station. His job was to prevent the next attack.
Chapter 11
Aleem Fayed remained seated long after the last of the mosque's devoted had left the modest building. He raised his head and glanced casually in the direction of the Mihrab, a small, curved alcove in the northeast wall, indicating the direction of Mecca. The Mihrab appeared modestly decorated in comparison to some of the larger mosques he had visited, adorned with paint instead of expensively arranged mosaic tile. Everything about Hamid Muhammad's mosque emphasized simplicity. The small prayer hall could hold roughly eighty worshippers, shoulder to shoulder on the dark hardwood floor. He didn't see a separate prayer area for women, which didn't surprise him. Hamid Muhammad's brand of Islam didn't accommodate women, or most Muslims for that matter.