I quickly moved the DE forward and centered it on the Silkworm. This time, I had it.
Just as I pulled the trigger, the missile swerved to the left.
“You missed!” Edwards screamed, “Get out of there before it hits you!”
Keyes looked at me, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry I got you into all this.”
Without taking my eyes off the radar, I nodded and reassured her. “If my instincts are right, we’re gonna’ be just fine.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Ten miles from the hospital, Herb Waters turned onto a scenic road that was little traveled except by weekend nature lovers. He’d thrown Keyes’ cell phone out the window, in the event it had some type of tracking device.
With the Aston Martin’s 510-horsepower engine, he could hit sixty in four seconds and quickly accelerate to speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. He’d tested the Aston on country roads in America as well as on the Autobahn in Europe.
Cruising along now at 100 miles per hour, Waters smiled at the thought of Keyes and James being killed.
He then heard a whistling sound.
Waters looked left and right and then in his rearview mirrors. It was the missile. It wasn’t headed for the hospital; it was coming at him. Hunching over the steering wheel, he pressed the accelerator to the floor. But the missile kept coming. A millisecond later, Waters and his car exploded.
We heard a distant pop.
“I think that was the Silkworm missile blowing the shit out of Herb Waters.”
Edwards’ image immediately appeared on the screen. “What’s happening? Did the hospital take a hit?”
Before answering, I quickly moved the cameras on the drone to the site of the last explosion. Then, I smiled and turned to Keyes. “That Rolex wasn’t a watch. Not exactly. It was a beacon.”
“Fa-rok,” she whispered.
I looked at Edwards, and explained, “The Silkworm hit its target, which wasn’t the hospital or the control center. It was a transmitting beacon inside a watch, which just happened to be in Herb Waters’ Aston Martin.”
“How do you know that?” Edwards asked.
I stared at Keyes sparkling eyes. “The watch kept getting slower. A good watch like that won’t lose five minutes in a hundred years. So I knew somebody had fiddled with it. That, and it occurred to me that the casing was too big. Those jewels were on there to disguise the true size of a casing big enough to handle a transponder.”
“That son of a bitch,” Keyes hissed. “He put a marker in that watch!”
“He knew you’d find Waters and the drone center. That’s why he gave you an extra day on your contract — so he could kill you and Waters at the same time.”
“I’m too old for this stuff. My heart can’t take it,” Edwards said, as he wiped the moisture from his face. Every stitch of his clothing was soaked with sweat. He chuckled a little. “Dr. James, I can get you a job, replacing Charlie. I think I’ll like working with you a lot better than that goddamn Waters!”
Edwards took a deep breath and held his hand to his headset for a moment. “We must catch Farok while he’s in the area. Ms. Keyes, or whoever you are, where were you when you last saw Farok?”
“And Jorad Hormand,” I interjected.
“Hormand? She saw Hormand?”
I looked at Keyes and asked, “You know, don’t you?”
She just looked down.
I answered my own question. I looked at the monitor and said, “Farok and Hormand are one and the same. I searched Keyes’ room when she was out and found a photograph. It was the same picture as the one circulated of Jorad Hormand. I’d seen it in several newspapers. Elizabeth, please tell us about that picture.”
She hesitated before responding. “Omar likes masquerade parties. I was with him a year ago when he tried to fool me one night with that disguise. A beard, heavy eyebrows, a plastic nose and cheeks, padded inserts for his stomach and butt, elevator shoes, the whole bit. It was so real. And, yes, the photo of Hormand is Omar in that disguise.”
I wasn’t surprised.
“I analyze the faces of people in photographs for a living, or at least I used to — before all this happened. Something was wrong with the face.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
The launch and flight of the Silkworm were plotted by Perkins’ people, and within moments the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters were in route to the Watson peanut farm.
The lead helicopter landed two miles from the farmhouse, where the terrorists were still celebrating the first strike on American soil by a Chinese Silkworm RBS-15 missile.
A second Blackhawk landed, and the U.S. combat teams assembled on the road, then moved in quietly to surround the farmhouse. Four squads of infantry breached the building at two doors. Just two captives were taken.
At the barn, where the Silkworm was launched, Michelle hid now behind a farm tractor, with two of her soldiers. Five more missiles rested in rectangular cradles on a flatbed Mack truck, with camouflage paint.
Troops entered the barn within a minute of landing.
As they advance, the two men of Michelle’s group cautiously stepped out from behind the tractor with their hands out in front of them.
Michelle had other plans. “Fuck you!” she said as she leaned out from behind the tractor and fired her M-16.
The U.S. troops returned fire. It was five to one. The bullets from the U.S. guns flattened the tires of the tractor, blew off the seat and both fenders, and tore apart the fuel tank.
As Michelle lay dying, her final words were, “Allahu Akbar.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Upon arriving at Camp Peary, Keyes and I were taken immediately to a large conference room. There were no smiles or congratulations. We were debriefed by fifteen interrogators. All were serious and to the point. For more than an hour, we were bombarded with questions. Finally, the room fell silent, except for the sound of a small balding man in a general’s uniform drumming his fingers on the table.
That has to be the ‘Perkins’ who was Pete Harris’ friend.
He stared at Keyes a full minute, his eyes steely as he studied her. He clasped his hands together and said icily, “Ms. Keyes, you are an illegal alien and you’ve been associated with known members of Al Qaeda and ISIS. As a terrorist, you pose a threat not only to the United States but also to the world. You are in trouble, big trouble, in this country. We show no mercy to terrorists. You face imprisonment for a long time, perhaps fifty years or more, depending on what charges we bring and your level of cooperation.”
Keyes looked down and did not respond. I suppressed the urge to reach out to her.
“Do you have an answer to that?”
She looked into the eyes of her inquisitor. “But you haven’t asked a question yet.”
One member of the panel chuckled. The red-faced man pounded the desk with his fist and shouted, “Don’t be coy with this panel! I demand you tell us all you know about Omar Farok and his terrorist organization!”
Keyes looked first at me and then at the floor. After a moment, she lifted her head and made eye contact with several of the panel members as she spoke. “Before today, Farok was pretty good to me. But like every other man in my life — with one exception.” She glanced at me before continuing. “Like the others, Farok used me. And then he planned my death. I see now that he intended to kill me all along, from the time he programmed my phone until he gave me that watch.”