Mary relocated to the meeting room, something that she usually did when handling sensitive or high profile applications. Her colleagues wished she worked on sensitive and high profile applications permanently. Mary’s constant hushing of her colleagues when they tried to engage in general conversation throughout the day was tiresome and a cause for regular complaint. They were pleased to see her and her parcel disappear into the room.
Mary cut the parcel tape carefully and withdrew the pile of applications for US passports. They all needed to be expedited and sent overseas. Sorting the applications into alphabetical order, she was surprised at the number of them. Her first estimate was over four hundred. It was more than had been suggested at the meeting she had had a number of months earlier but she had a job to do and Mary Williams was not going to let her country down.
Mary had been selected as a member of the top-secret elite in the Passport Agency. Her diligence and hard work for her country had been recognized at the highest levels. Promotions had passed her by because patriots like Mary were needed on the frontline to protect the country. She had never been more proud. Her country needed her. Her skills would help protect the nation. She had been approached by a man from the government at her home several months earlier. He was the Under Secretary of State responsible for a special division of the Diplomatic Security Service, the agency responsible for passport security. He asked her to sign a top secret clearance agreement prior to their conversation, thereby securing her absolute discretion about the processing of passports which he might require her to issue at some point in the future. They would be issued to individuals who would be working to protect America in the fight against terror and having them issued at the regional offices, rather than head office, added a level of legitimacy that ensured even greater protection for the men and women who spent every minute of their lives in danger to protect the American people.
Nick Geller had selected Mary Williams carefully, just as he had selected similar candidates at the twenty-four other branches of the US Passport Agency. His disguise was worthy of Hollywood. He had transformed himself into a sixty-year-old man, the stereotypical WASP, dressed head to toe immaculately in Brooks Brothers. His air of authority had added greatly to the pretense. He looked exactly as you would have expected a very senior member of the State Department to look. The chauffeured Executive Town Car that waited for him outside each house, added further to the charade. Each of his candidates was a loner, each one was a patriot and each one would do whatever they could for their country. Each one would remain true to their promise to keep their work for Nick a secret. Each one could issue legitimate US passports for his army. All he needed to provide were the names and photos.
With his own exclusive US passport agency, Nick felt sure that his plan would go without a hitch. The consequence of any recruit discussing their actions would be treated as treason, punishable by execution. All he had to do now was the small matter of arranging transport for over ten thousand soldiers.
Chapter 65
Nick unlocked the door to his domain. His office was in a villa that nobody was allowed to enter. He had made it abundantly clear to all within the confines of the grounds that to do so would be construed as an attempt to retrieve information about the plan. The only reason this would be done would be to foil the plan and so anyone who entered the office would be shot as a traitor. The threat was all encompassing. Nobody, not even Walid or Larbi, was exempt from the threat.
Compartmentalization was key to the security of the plan. If nobody knew all the details, no matter what, no one could stop the plan. Even if ten percent of his men made it to America, the devastation they could cause would be overwhelming. In theory, they only needed one man infected with Ebola to cause chaos. Ten percent would still be over one thousand warriors. Although Nick had no intention for all of his warriors to be infected, a small portion would carry the virus while the vast majority would terrorize the civilian population, taking the fight to the streets of every major city and town in the continental US. The scenes of death and violence that had plagued their TVs from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan over the years were about to get local.
Nick sat at his desk and pulled the map of the US from under the paperwork. A number of crosses marked the locations of weapons depots that he had arranged over the last year. The crosses were located close to the major airport hubs that served the continental US. The volume of guns, ammunition and explosives in each depot would more than satisfy the needs of his ten thousand plus warriors. He pulled out the corresponding flight timetables. Hundreds of flights from across Europe and the Middle East fed into the airports. Getting the men in place was not going to be a problem. Nick even had the benefit of choosing almost exclusively from American airline companies — United, Delta, American or US Airways. With his men carrying US passports, their passage would be even easier, particularly when they landed in the US.
Across the villa complex, Nick had a number of individuals arranging travel. They were working independently and were separately housed. They were each given lists of bookings but were unaware of any of the other lists. Again, a threat had been made. Any attempt to discuss or find out what others were doing would be for no other reason than to scupper the plan. As a result, they all remained quiet and did as they were asked. They spent their days booking individual flights and preparing instructions for over ten thousand men. Only Nick knew who was on which flight and where each man would depart from and the time at which they would arrive.
Travel plans were only required for fighters and infectors. The infectors were the Ebola carriers and the fighters were the jihadists who would take the fight to the streets of America. The infectors’ job was far simpler. They would infect hundreds of people on the plane so a large part of their job would already have been done. However, once they landed, they were to visit as many mass population facilities as possible and to draw little attention to themselves. They were to visit shopping malls, train stations, subways, churches, wherever they could go to spread their germs to the maximum number of Americans.
The fighters’ tasks were a little more complex. Nick wanted them to form fifty-man strong teams. Each team would have a number of key targets to hit in their assigned geographical area. The destruction of hospitals, schools and transport hubs were to be their top priorities, along with the elimination of any law enforcement establishments. Nick planned to have almost two hundred of these teams striking at exactly the same time across America. It was no small task but with months of preparation behind him, it was a simply a case of putting the plan into operation.
The passports were on their way. The tickets were almost all booked and the instructions for each man were ready to go. The final instructions would only be available to them on their arrival in America. Each man would receive a cell phone with his passport. His instructions would be sent by SMS on his arrival in the US. The most any one individual could compromise would be one fifty-man team or one flight, of which there were potentially hundreds.
Nick tried to think of any areas he had failed to consider. He evaluated the risks many times. The passport issuers were a risk but extremely low. In their minds, they were helping to make their country stronger, not destroy it. His flight bookers knew at least a portion of the flights. But none would be allowed to leave the complex before the attack was underway and all communications were restricted to hardwire, thanks to Walid having installed a scrambler that would ensure nobody was sneaking messages out and exposing their position. The bookings themselves were being charged to hundreds of different and legitimate credit cards, whose billing dates were after the flights were due to depart. This was another brainwave of Walid who had stolen the details of the cards, once again thanks to his computing skills. They were all company credit cards with high credit limits, further minimizing the likelihood of them being queried.