LeMay’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why take such a risk?’
Victor turned to Mitchell, ignoring the Director’s question.
‘You will ensure that Abrahem Nassir achieves his goal,’ Victor said. ‘I will obtain you direct access to the target, once we know for sure who it is. The assassination of our President will both clear the path for a presidency more in line with the objectives of Majestic Twelve, and will generate suitable public outrage to justify both a new president with an active war — footing policy and further military intervention in rogue states and other overseas interests. Agreed?’
Mitchell said nothing, staring at LeMay as the limousine pulled out of the airport toward Washington DC.
XXXV
‘This is it,’ Lopez said.
Ethan slowed their car and pulled into the sidewalk alongside the river as they saw a police cordon raised around the jetties, a Coast Guard vessel moored nearby around which swarmed Homeland Security officers.
They got out and hurried down to the jetty, Ethan feeling somewhat more important than usual as he held up his DIA identification badge along with Lopez and they were allowed to cross the line into the crime scene.
A Homeland agent by the name of Briggs, stern faced and with short — cropped blond hair, intercepted them.
‘You been sent down from DIA?’ he asked.
‘Jarvis sent us,’ Lopez confirmed and then added: ‘We’re running point for the White House.’
‘Ain’t you the thing?’ Briggs replied with a raised eyebrow. ‘Homeland’s been ordered to bring you up to speed. Three Coast Guard officers pronounced dead at the scene, which was out there in the bay. Got another vessel moored up nearby, a tug that we figure was used by Abrahem Nassir to get ashore.’
Ethan looked to where the rusty tug sat at its jetty, two more officers guarding it.
‘How long ago did this happen?’
‘Four this morning, which makes it two hours ago,’ Briggs replied. ‘They’ve got a good head — start on us. Local law enforcement blocked all routes out of the town within a half hour of the call coming in, but that was more than enough time for Nassir to high tail it out of here along with any accomplices he may have had with him.’
Ethan eyed the tug again. ‘Too small for long distance sailing and too slow to have brought Nassir here from South America. Was there another ship involved?’
‘Coast Guard’s looking into it and has record of a trade vessel out of the Dominican Republic passing the shore headed north in the small hours. If Nassir jumped ship, he could have been picked up here and brought ashore. Coast Guard was already on the lookout for him so they likely pulled this tug over and that was it.’
‘He’s taking big risks,’ Lopez said as she observed the sight of the three bodies being loaded into body bags and pushed away on gurneys toward waiting ambulances. ‘Not hesitating to kill in cold blood.’
‘He’s enjoying it,’ Ethan guessed. ‘Nassir’s no Islamist, but he’s taking as many lives as he can between here and wherever he’s headed.’
‘We figure DC,’ Briggs said. ‘He’ll hit the highest profile target he can with maximum punch, take out as many bodies as possible before he gets ventilated. He’s sure got nothing to lose now with pretty much every law enforcement body in the country out looking for him.’
Ethan turned to Lopez as they walked toward the battered old tug further down the shoreline.
‘He’s going to a hell of a lot of trouble to kill as many people as he can,’ Lopez said as she walked alongside Ethan.
‘Yeah,’ Ethan replied. ‘That’s what bothers me. He’s virtually screaming at us that he’s here, massively increasing the chances that he’ll get captured. It only takes one lucky break for us to pin him down and I can’t believe that he’s come this far only to take such a huge gamble with his plan.’
Lopez frowned.
‘You think that he’s got something else up his sleeve?’ she asked. ‘We know he doesn’t have to go in directly if he’s managed to implant somebody close to the President but he has to be in the general vicinity of his target, right? Just like the guys who hit General Thompson. The District’s only a hundred miles from here.’
Ethan nodded.
‘Yeah, he’s landed in just the kind of place that you’d expect him to. But if he’d simply gone quietly ashore we’d be none the wiser. I don’t get why he’d hit a bunch of Coast Guard officers just to provoke us when he could likely have slipped away quietly instead. They were near the shore by all accounts. He could have made it.’
‘Maybe he’s not much of a swimmer,’ Lopez countered. ‘Maybe the Coast Guard went in a bit heavy and spooked him?’
Ethan climbed aboard the dirty tug, little more really than a wheelhouse atop a rusting hull with some cluttered ropes and jerry cans in the stern, some lashed into place, others loose.
‘Not experienced seamen,’ Ethan said as he observed the mess. ‘Coast Guard said that the boat’s unregistered and probably was abandoned here. They must have stolen it and then used it to pick Nassir up.’
Lopez crouched down alongside the wheelhouse and looked closely at a large, blackened blood stain on the deck.
‘Throat cut,’ she murmured.
Ethan watched as her eyes tracked a series of bloody foot prints that tracked to the stern and she speculated on what had happened.
‘Barefoot, so he’d probably removed his clothes and slipped off the tug, then attacked the two guys on the patrol vessel….’
‘Before coming back aboard and finishing off the last guy,’ Ethan agreed, ‘which means he’s a pro, able to kill silently. But that’s my point — if he was already in the water he might have got away.’
Lopez looked at the junk in the boat.
‘Unless he wants us to follow his trail,’ she suggested.
Ethan thought about that for a moment.
‘Nassir wants revenge and he probably likes the idea of us panicking over his arrival in America. The bigger the trail of carnage he manages to achieve, the worse we’ll look when word finally gets out.’
Lopez nodded as she stood.
‘And it all leads up to the attack in Washington DC. The media will examine the chain of events and deem the intelligence agencies to have again failed to protect America.’
‘Maximum embarrassment for the administration,’ Ethan said, ‘even if the President survives any direct attack.’
Lopez was about to reply when Ethan’s cell rang. He answered it and set it immediately to speaker phone
‘Ethan, it’s Doug. We’ve got a trace on the company that hired the jet that flew Nassir to South America. They’re based in DC, Vantage Aviation Hire.’
‘You got any names?’ Ethan asked.
‘Nothing yet, and they’re likely an intermediary acting as agents for whoever needed the flight. If we send Homeland in they’ll bust the joint and the FBI are out of the game until we can corner LeMay. You need to get over there and see what you can find out.’
‘We’re on it,’ Ethan promised. ‘Nassir’s here, we’re certain of that.’
‘I know,’ Jarvis replied. ‘There’s one more thing. We just got information from Homeland that several Chinese agents were detected entering the country through JFK last night. There are at least eight of them all on different flights in from Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing. Homeland couldn’t arrest them due to lack of evidence, and they had no reason to detain anybody. They placed a watch team on four of the men but lost track of them when they reached DC on connecting flights.’
Ethan glanced at Lopez. ‘You think they’re in on the act too somehow?’