In the middle of what seemed like their tenth time through the plan, Ghullam’s cell phone rang, and he answered. Yes, he would be there he said. He would get a taxi. He turned to the six. “You must stay here. Do not talk. Do not leave. Wait for me.”
Vijay met Ghullam at one of the many airport hotels in the vicinity of LAX. He had already checked out and was waiting by the hotel’s front doors. They didn’t delay, but went first to Ray’s apartment, then to Hank’s, and then to Sam’s. Ghullam had equipment for picking the locks and gaining access to each apartment. Vijay marveled at Ghullam’s almost magical skills when it came to entering almost any apartment. In a way, Vijay thought, those skills were similar to his own abilities to break into computers and networks of any sort. He and Ghullam plied the same trade, albeit in different domains. Ghullam’s role was to gain entry to the apartments of Hank, Ray, Sam, and Ted. Vijay’s was to gain access to their computers. His job was to rework the computer hard drives of each of the four men. Ray and Hank’s apartments had posed no problems. The break-ins were quick and easy, and the computers they found had off-the-shelf set-ups. Nothing quirky. All he did was slip a CD into the appropriate bay and let the programs load. It took less than ten minutes to sabotage Ray’s computer, a 20-minute taxi drive, and a similar process at Hank’s small home. A brief reference to Nooshkatoor in one email, to various members of the Karachi government and police force in others. Occasionally, mention of one or two Afghani drug lords — rivals of Yousseff’s. Messages that were encrypted, but not too highly.
He was in the middle of repeating the same steps at Sam’s house when the front door opened and Sam’s girlfriend, a vivacious, high-striding beauty named Julie, appeared. She was carrying a bag of groceries, which she dropped in shock when she saw them.
Ghullam pulled out his gun, a small copy of the Silenced Mag Ruger, modified by the gunsmiths of Darra Adam Khel. He looked at the girl sternly, and placed a finger across his lips, motioning for her to be silent. He smiled when she nodded in compliance, as she stood, rooted to the ground. Then he approached her and, unencumbered by conscience, and a broadening smile, shot her twice in the head and once in the heart.
He turned to Vijay as though what had occurred was as inconsequential as swatting a fly. “Reconfigure the computer,” he ordered. “Then we go to Ted’s home. Quickly.”
“Yes, Ghullam. Let me work here,” replied Vijay, feeling a little faint at what had just occurred. He had witnessed Ghullam in the act of murder. What was particularly chilling was the calm, almost serene manner in which the assassin had done it, and the smile that appeared to be playing around his lips afterward. Vijay shuddered and continued with his work, hoping never to be on the wrong side of Ghullam’s gun.
He quickly gained access to the operating system and loaded the contents of his CD onto the computer. Ghullam busied himself with wiping the door handle clean of all fingerprints. He left the body where it was. It would confound the investigation that was to come.
Within minutes, the job was done, and they were off to the last apartment. Ghullam had the lock open in under a minute, and they entered. Another 15 minutes passed, and the fourth computer was reconfigured. Ghullam had Vijay call a cab.
“Day’s Inn, Glendale,” was all Ghullam told the taxi driver. “Hurry.”
The driver eyed them nervously in the rearview mirror. Ghullam was weighing the pros and cons of killing him too, just for being nosy, but he thought it best to leave the matter alone. The driver dropped Ghullam off at the Day’s Inn, and was instructed to take Vijay on to LAX. He would be taking a transatlantic flight to Schiphol later that day. From there, he would catch a connecting flight home to Karachi. His work was done.
It was 9PM before Ghullam returned to room 237 at the motel. Ray, Sam, Hank, Ted, and the two teenage jihadists were waiting anxiously. Ghullam extended a gloved hand toward Ted, giving him the Mag Ruger. “You may need this. Hang on to it,” he said.
“Sure, Ghullam. Not a problem.”
“Watch it. Keep the safety on. It’s loaded,” added Ghullam, watching Ted place his fingerprints all over the weapon.
The plan was for the six of them to head out in two vehicles. Ray was to drive one, Sam the other. They took cabs from the motel, and by 11PM they had reached a series of warehouses just off the I-15. Two vehicles were parked in one of the warehouses — a five-ton van and a large semi. A number of unusual modifications had been made to the vehicles while they had been in storage at the PWS facility at Long Beach. The van had, stashed inside, a satellite uplink station, set to an NBC carrier frequency, compliments of Kumar and his technicians. The van also carried the Ark, while the semi carried the modified submersible. The men were not told what the equipment was for, or who had provided it; it was not their place to worry about such details. Sam slid behind the steering wheel of the smaller vehicle, while Ray stepped into the cab of the semi, still thankful that his role was only that of transporter. Ghullam stayed behind in the warehouse. His job was to sanitize.
40
At TTIC, the members of the team were working 24 hours a day. It was 2AM, and most of them were still at their desks, tracking down whatever information they could find. Before long, Turbee made the next break in the case. He was happy to let Dan continue to fret and foam about the apparent impending nuclear attack on an American port city. For his part, Turbee was hot on the Semtex chase. While Wharfdog Charlie was clearly lacking in presentation, and likely intelligence, he had been very clear about some of the technical aspects of what he had seen of the submarine-to-truck reload. The curious scissors lift systems and the self-loading pallets he had described sounded similar to those they’d seen in the pictures of the ship-to-ship transfer near the Maldives. It had the same feel. For Turbee, that was enough. He hacked his way into the RCMP internal communication system and began searching.
Before long he found the electronic residue of Izzy’s speeding ticket. A dirty white box van. Two occupants, apparently of central Asian descent. And a license plate that began with the letters DGO. It was a hit.
“Look at that, George,” said Turbee to his neighbor. “Same truck. Has to be. Heading east from Kamloops, moving toward the Rockies on Highway 1. Put the whole track, from Stewart to the speeding ticket, on the Atlas Screen. Let’s see where they’re going.”
Turbee lowered the lights a bit (Johnson was still trying to figure out how he did that) and pointed to the map, where George had plotted the coordinates he’d asked for. “A few hundred miles from the border, Dan,” he said. “That’s where it was at four this afternoon. I doubt very much that they’d go through all this trouble to hit a Canadian target. Nothing truly valuable or important up there in any event. They’re coming to the States. They have a route. They have a plan. We just haven’t figured it out yet.”
Dan grumbled and telephoned Admiral Jackson.