As he stands in Khalid Korshidi’s back room and wraps a white turban around his head, he looks exactly as he intends to — a chilling reincarnation of al-Qaeda’s founder.
‘I am ready,’ he announces with a final adjustment of the headpiece.
‘Please, take the seat.’ Korshidi guides the bearded leader to a stool in front of a cloudy backdrop of male faces, what the terror group calls ‘The Martyr’s Wall’. It includes bin Laden, his former number two Saeed al-Shihri and renowned propagandist Samir Khan, who was killed in a US drone strike.
‘I’ll only be a moment.’ Korshidi adjusts small portable lights and returns to the digital camera he’s mounted on a tripod. He puts on a pair of headphones, lifts the sound level a little and hits a button. ‘The camera is recording.’
Bin al-Shibh’s eyes close. His head tilts down and hands raise in adulation as he starts his message. ‘All praise is due to Allah, who built the heavens and earth in justice, and created man as a favour and grace from Him. And from His Law is retaliation in kind: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed.’
The terrorist sits straight and his dark eyes burn into the centre of the lens. ‘People of the West, of capitalism, of false gods, of evil, you were warned. You were offered the Solution and you ignored it. Islam opened its doors and you turned away. You were given chances to avoid unwinnable wars and still you spilled the blood of our children. With it dripping from your infidel hands, you asked your priests to celebrate your innocence and heroism. The wise among you must have known that a Day of Reckoning was coming.’
The camera shot tightens and his bold eyes dominate the frame. ‘Al-Qaeda is the Reckoning. We are sent by Allah to destroy your false gods and false lives.’ The aggression dies from his face. ‘Take up the Koran, turn your backs on the Catholics and Jews and their lies about the Prophet of Allah Jesus. Do this and you will be saved. All praise is due to Allah, who awakened His slaves’ desire for the Garden, and all of them will enter it except those who refuse. Whoever obeys Him alone in all of his affairs will enter the Garden. Whoever disobeys Him will have refused and will perish.’
He lowers his hands and locks his eyes on the lens. ‘You were warned. You have been punished and will be punished again.’
133
Beam and his team pull together their basic Child Abduction Response Plan. While Helena Banks works on a psychological profile of the kidnappers, she has a geographical analyst map out the most likely exit routes from Ruth’s house.
Kay Podboj, a bright young academic fresh from Quantico, has been studying mileage, terrain and the location of airports and seaports. She approaches her boss’s desk with a folder full of aerial photographs and a face that says the early findings aren’t good.
Helena looks up from her own jottings and recognizes the signs. ‘That bad?’
‘Maybe worse.’ She spreads out the shots. ‘The Everett ranch is in a prime position. Must have cost a fortune. It’s remote but within striking distance of all major roads. They could have gone anywhere.’
‘Show me the most likely anywheres.’
‘Here.’ She fingers the first photograph. ‘The San Mateo Bridge is five miles away and on the other side is five thousand acres of the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve.’
‘Isn’t that just salt ponds?’
‘Mainly, but a whole lot of reclamation work’s been done. There are plenty of places to hide and miles of airstrips to fly from.’
Helena shakes her head. ‘I don’t think they’ve flown. Not yet.’
‘I agree. They could be out at West Waddell Creek State Wilderness. It’s an hour from the snatch point and has six thousand acres of dense redwood and Douglas fir to give them good cover.’ She glances at a map on the wall. ‘An hour would also get them out to Napa.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yep, the Lord himself and all his disciples could hide out there and never be found. It’s eighteen square miles of sparsely populated valley. South is bad. Within two hours they could have reached Austin Creek.’
‘How big’s that?’
Kay looks at the map again. ‘More than twenty miles of countryside, with camp sites and remote cabins all over the place. The girls were taken late at night, right?’
‘Not so late. We guess between nine and ten. They’d come back from a day at the aquarium. Their aunt had been clearing up after dinner and they were outside playing a board game when the unsub pulled up.’
‘Okay. My point is this — the kidnappers did the pro thing. They knew within an hour of the snatch they’d have cover of darkness, meaning they could drive further in a shorter period of time because there’s less traffic and fewer cops on the road. There are also fewer night flights and they would know that the authorities would be able to quickly search overnight manifests for planes leaving California.’
‘I buy all that, but so what?’
‘Well, driving far at night means you have to know where you’re going and you must already have a place to go to. One owned or rented.’
‘Not owned,’ insists Helena. ‘They wouldn’t mess on their home lawn.’
‘So, we’re looking for a rented safe house, lodge or cabin somewhere out in the wilds. Ideally, they’d go for something a good hour from the ranch but not too far from an airport.’
Helena nods. ‘I agree. Once this is finished, they are going to fly. Possibly out of the country rather than just the State.’
Kay taps several of the pictures in front of her boss. ‘Then for me, the most likely exit airports are Oakland, Half Moon and San Fran International.’
Helena makes the first cut. ‘I’d rule out Half Moon. There are a lot of private planes and hangars there, but the coast guard, air ambulance and Medevac also fly from that old strip and I think the local sheriff as well.’
‘That leaves San Fran and Oakland.’
The psychologist crosses to the map on the wall. Oakland sits almost directly across the Bay from San Fran and she knows in recent years it’s become a booming airport with hundreds of flights per day across the States, Mexico and Europe. ‘Let’s start here,’ she says decisively. ‘Give me a geo profile on where the kidnappers would hide out in this area. I’m going to recommend to Beam that this is where we centre our resources.’
134
Gareth Madoc watches a replay of the al-Qaeda footage in the office of Troy Hemmings, the chief analyst from the SSOA’s North American Watch Team.
The former Harvard graduate is a thoughtful, bespectacled man who always wears a white shirt under a brown or black jumper and matching slacks. Today is a brown day and he crosses his suede shoes under his desk as he hits pause on the remote control in his hands.
‘Well?’ Madoc is anxious for his expert opinion.
‘It’s interesting for three reasons. First, it is Ali bin al-Shibh saying this and not al-Zawahiri. It means there must have been some power shift, otherwise Ayman would have been making this keynote, not one of his more promising lieutenants.’
‘Maybe al-Zawahiri is trying to take more of a back seat. He’s old now and perhaps recognizes the need to have a younger man front the organization.’
Hemmings nods. ‘That’s very possible. He’s extremely bright and undoubtedly was the brains behind bin Laden.’
‘But is al-Shibh really ready to step up?’
The analyst takes a second before answering. ‘Yes, I think so, especially with Ayman al-Zawahiri and other grey beards behind him. Mokhtar Belmokhtar was expected to fill that void, but he got killed in Mali.’