“Great work, Mr. Secretary; score one for us,” said Hicks, whose sarcastic tone drew a sharp look from Porter.
Secretary Moss, who after years of various elected and appointed offices had trained himself to hear only what he wanted to hear, replied, “Thank you. Now, would you like to view the video?”
Hicks and Scott answered by taking two chairs at the far end of the table from the rest of the group and facing the television. Undersecretary Blackmon pressed Play on the remote. A silhouetted figure appeared from the chest up on the screen. After a moment, he began:
“People of America, I am the voice of your pain today. I planned and I executed this attack. I am Hakeem Qasim. I am the Cheetah. I am the Hammer.”
Scott felt himself shudder when he heard the name Hakeem. The guy they had been hoping to find had instead found them. As the words went on, Scott listened with half his brain, while the other half went into process mode.
First, the setting-judging by the furniture, it was obviously a hotel room. The quality of the lamp in the background and of the desk next to the man showed that it was not just a Motel 6 this guy was staying in. He had been careful about not leaving anything on the desk, and he had covered the one visible print on the wall with a sheet. It looked like there might be a bit of a pattern on the walls that, with work, could be brought out.
Second, the man himself-his silhouette didn’t show anything outstanding. He seemed to be a well-built individual-someone who took care of himself. Close-cropped hair with no hat or headdress of any kind. The ridges at his sleeves and collar indicated that he was wearing a T-shirt. The man was very careful in his words and pronunciations. However, a slip here and there told Scott that English was not his first language. He affected a straight nonregional American accent.
But something’s not completely kosher with his accent, Scott thought. It’s extremely well practiced and extremely well executed… but… but a different feel’s coming through. What is it? It’s not Middle Eastern-not Arabic-based. It’s more… European. But not like the growing-up-in-England-or-part-of-the-U.K. kind of highbrow accent. It’s more of a center-continent, English-as-a-second-language feel. C’mon, what’s the country? Work your way top down: It’s not Scandinavian. It’s not Germanic. It’s not French… or is it? It’s got the romantic feel, but it’s not pure French. It’s not-
A hand on his shoulder shook Scott from his thoughts. He looked up and saw that the video was over and everyone’s eyes were on him. Porter was glaring at him, and Secretary Moss had a bemused look on his face. For the second time since walking in, Scott’s face reddened.
Hicks, who had shaken Scott out of his reverie, said, “The secretary asked what you make of the recording.”
“Right… sorry. Well, good luck getting anything from the room, except possibly doing major enhancement on the wallpaper. But even that would probably only give us the chain of hotels the guy recorded in-NIH.”
“NIH?” Undersecretary Blackmon asked.
“Sorry, needle-in-haystack. A lot of work for little payback-although we could get lucky. Occasionally, a hotel chain will go with something regional. But when they do, the pattern is rarely so subtle.”
“Go on,” the secretary said.
“Okay, the guy’s not American, though he’s trying hard to sound like he is. He’s also not Arabic-but then again, that name… Hakeem Qasim. Well, if he is Arabic, that part of his life is way in the past. I think he’s southern European-Iberian, southeastern French, non-Germanic Swiss, possibly even all the way across the mid-states to Turkey-although Turkic is probably too harsh.
“He inadvertently gave us the benefit of having the lamp offset to his right, which allows us a little more detail in appearance. Short, tight hair-probably razored. When he turned slightly right, you can see that he is clean-shaven. The roll of his shoulders shows that the guy works out. When you balance him in proportion to the furniture, he stands six-two to six-three. And judging by the timbre of his voice, I would put his age at twenty-five to thirty-five-max of forty.”
“Wonderful; that narrows our suspect list down to five digits,” the secretary complained, drawing glares from Hicks and Scott. Even Porter, who knew good analysis when he heard it and recognized a stuffed suit when he saw one, shot him an angry look.
Porter jumped in. “What can you tell us about the Cause? I know that’s the group that Abdel al-Hasani and the rest of his gang at the Mall of America were part of.”
“Well…,” Scott began.
“If I may, Scott,” Khadi Faroughi said, lightly touching his arm-a touch that rocketed through his whole body. She must have slipped in unnoticed during the viewing of the video.
Scott nodded for her to take the floor, and she continued. “When I wrote my master’s thesis five years ago, I focused on up-and-coming expatriate terrorist organizations-in other words, groups that are actually leaving the Middle East and basing themselves in heavily Muslim populations in the West. At that time, the Cause only warranted about four paragraphs. But since then, their chatter has grown exponentially to the point that they have been considered one of the second-tier players. I think in these last two weeks, they’ve forced themselves into first tier.”
“What’s their issue?” Porter asked.
“The organization grew up in the late eighties, then really expanded during the first Iraqi conflict. It’s a revenge/honor-based philosophy: the West hit us, so we’re going to hit back harder. Because of the Iraqi-Ba’ath tie-in, they’re not all radical Islamists. You do have plenty of religious fanatics, but you also have a lot of angry people who just want to hit back to restore family honor. It’s basically a hodgepodge of ticked-off Arabs-‘You want to kill Americans? Have we got a bomb for you!’ That kind of thing.”
“Okay, okay, enough,” Secretary Moss said, waving his arms in an attempt to bring a halt to the discussion. “What I want to know is what you’re going to do about it.”
“Well, Mr. Secretary,” Hicks answered, “so we don’t bore you with any more details, let me tell you what I want to do. I want to put together two teams-teams that will be able to operate freely without having to ask permission.”
“Black ops,” Porter said.
“Black ops. We’ll probably be doing some things that no one will want to know about, let alone take credit for. I’ll send one team to Italy, because-correct me if I’m wrong, Khadi-that’s where the Cause has one of their main operation bases.”
Khadi nodded.
Hicks continued, “I’ll be taking the second team to Paris.”
“Paris? What, do you think the French are behind this?” Secretary Moss asked.
“No, sir,” Hicks replied.
Scott marveled at the older agent’s ability to keep to himself the snide comment he undoubtedly wanted to make about how this idiot could have been put in charge of anything, let alone something as important as national security.
Hicks continued, “Both Abdel al-Hasani and our new guy traveled through the suburbs of Paris on their way stateside. In 1998, the International Civil Aviation Organization mandated that all plastic explosives have a taggant, or identifier-usually some chemical that gradually evaporates out of the explosive material that allows dogs to smell it or machines to pick it up. When the lab boys examine that undetonated football, I think they’ll find the explosives are loaded with French detection taggants.”
“You’re saying that these bombers carted their explosives all the way here from France?” the undersecretary asked. “Why not just make them here?”
Khadi responded, “We don’t think their infrastructure is that strong here in the States yet. Abdel al-Hasani told us that although he was supplied with all the materials, he and his brother had to make up their own vests. The sophistication of the football bomb was something that probably had to be put together elsewhere. Agent Hicks is guessing the Paris suburbs because of our guys’ travel itineraries.”