Savas nodded. “You can't.”
“No, you can't. If you aren't government, you have to be someone with access to just amazing resources, both monetary and, frankly, military.”
“Yes, the commando training, the coded messages — it's military.”
Cohen turned to Savas, her gaze intense, her mind working quickly. “You have to be well placed financially and logistically. I don't think we're looking for a cult leader, John, not in the normal sense, anyway. I just wish I knew what we were looking for.”
Savas nodded. He understood her frustration. It was the sense when the puzzle had started to take on some kind of pattern, definition, and yet its overall shape still eluded the mind. As he processed these thoughts, his phone rang, and he reached into his pocket and answered it. The adrenaline flowed back into his body almost instantly. Cohen turned quickly to stare at him. The voice from the speaker was shouting.
“John, this is Larry! Where the hell have you been?”
“Larry, sorry, switched off for this interview. What is it?”
“Get back here now! There's been a second attack.”
Even with the sirens on, it was more than half an hour before they reached the FBI offices. People and equipment filled the buzzing Operations Room. Images flowed across giant monitors. Low-level staff darted from office to office with urgent messages. By the time Savas reached the floor, the main story had been fleshed out. He called a meeting of his staff. They convened in a conference room adjacent to the OR.
“Fearless Leader, we have been lost without you,” chirped Lightfoote as he and Cohen filed into the room.
“Damn it, Angel.” This was all he needed.
“I am a celestial being, and I will forgive your profane words.”
I'm going to have to have a talk with that girl. Savas took off his jacket, his shirt soaked in sweat from both the heat outside and the stress within. Miller and Hernandez were the last to file in. Rambo and Jesus, thought Savas, and a nutcase named Angel.
“All right, Larry's called a meeting in an hour. Fill me in, people.”
Matt King donned his glasses and read from notes. After Rebecca, he was the de facto information center for the team. His legal training always showed in his attention to detail.
“At 2:35 p.m. today, two explosions occurred in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. The explosions occurred at the Saudi and Iranian embassies, apparently completely destroying both buildings. Initial reports have the death toll in the high hundreds, and it is expected to go even higher. Injuries are worse, and the hospitals are overflowing with wounded. Caracas fire and police responders have the secondary blazes under control. The Venezuelan president has already gone on television to calm the populace. The Islamic nations have not failed to notice that there is a connection between the attacks here and in Washington and today's in Caracas.”
Miller clarified. “Basically, they're screaming bloody murder about it.”
Savas looked around the concerned faces at the table. Only Lightfoote seemed unfazed, drawing odd sketches on her notepad. “All right, in the span of less than a month, we have a new terrorist organization appear from nowhere that has blown up buildings in three different cities, and has begun to upset the global balance.”
Rideout chimed in. “Sure has, John. The UN Security Council has called a special meeting. The Arab nations are blaming the United States and allies. Stocks are plunging in all the world markets.”
“Well, we've got to keep our heads and not get sucked into this mind job they've worked on everyone else. Terrorism is most powerful when it creates fear. That's its point. Fear is death to the thinking mind. So let's take a deep breath and start looking at what we know.”
“Not much. That's the problem,” said Miller.
“OK, let's see what information we can glean from the bomb site itself. This is on foreign soil, so at best it's going to be CIA, and that will be slow. The Venezuelans aren't going to be too keen on letting us get our hands dirty down there. The explosives — those are our only lead, and we'll need to make sure we get samples for analysis. You can bet I'll take this up with Larry first thing, although he'll be on it already, I'm sure.”
“J. P., I want you and Matt all-nighting this one and monitoring every channel for information from Caracas. Tomorrow morning you get to hand me a report and then find a cot. Angel, I want you…Angel?” Savas looked over at Lightfoote staring at the door behind him.
“Leaving on a jet plane, O Captain, my Captain,” she said.
“Christ, Angel, what…” he turned around and stopped. Just inside the door stood Larry Kanter, along with three other people. One was Mira Vujanac, and where Mira was, so usually was the CIA. Standing next to her was a tall man, thin and bespectacled, stiff and awkward in his formality. He had “bureaucrat spook” written all over him. Next to him stood a man John Savas would never have expected to see and couldn't believe he was seeing.
“John, I'm sorry to interrupt. Could you please step outside for a minute?” Kanter asked, motioning with his eyes that Savas should follow.
Rising slowly from his chair, Savas apologized to his team, who watched with considerable interest as he walked outside. Kanter closed the door behind him, leading him halfway down the hall away from the conference room door and out of earshot.
Kanter stood not five feet from a black man dressed in white robes with a long and thick beard trimmed Islamic style. On his head was a white kufi; the overall impression was of some African imam touring the offices of the FBI. He had a stern face, scarred on one side from what could only have been a knife wound, and yet a strange cheerfulness seemed to imbue his every expression. He was stocky, and a thick musculature without a hint of fat gave him the look of a boxer. He nodded toward Savas.
Savas looked between Kanter and Vujanac. “What the hell is this?”
21
This is Agent Husaam Jordan, John,” said Kanter, motioning toward the white-robed man. “CIA. Mira has been in high-level coordination with Langley concerning the recent attacks.” Kanter gestured toward the tall, formal-looking man next to Agent Jordan. “Our analysis and identification of the bomb residue picked up an important connection. Husaam has been tracking a series of arms dealers and the shell games they play with foreign governments and commercial US military goods sold overseas. There's an entire black market for military goods that we sell legitimately to other nations, which then turn around illegitimately and resell them for a substantial profit to centralized mafia, weapons dealers who themselves sell the goods to the highest bidder.”
Savas looked unimpressed. He could hardly take his eyes off Agent Jordan. “Yeah, Larry, I've heard all this. What does this have to do with these bombings?”
Kanter drew a breath, clearly impatient with his subordinate's tone yet cutting him unusual slack. “Agent Jordan has infiltrated one of the largest of these groups, formerly run by Viktor Bout — you probably have already heard his name, too.”
He had. Viktor Bout was a legendary arms dealer, former KGB agent, who had run one of the largest and most profitable organizations in the world. His arrest in 2008 had slowed the trade only momentarily, as others rushed into the void, including new leadership in the organization he founded. Savas was quite aware of all this and was also attentive enough to pick up the warning from Kanter that he had better rein in his anger.
Kanter continued. “Among the many items they offer on the black market — weapons, body armor, even vehicles — are several forms of plastic explosives, including some of the newer, and extremely expensive, derivatives. Explosives with several times the power of previous forms of Semtex or C-4, and with a very high velocity of detonation.”