Brad Thor - Takedown

“Nikomak,” the man growled.

Harvath ignored the suggestion of what he should do to his mother and toyed with the phone as he continued posing questions. “Since at least one other bomb went off in the PATH tunnel, we’re assuming you were either a primary or a contingency operative, or was the plan to wreak as much damage as possible?”

The man remained silent.

“How were you recruited for this job? Who contacted you?”

Nothing.

“When were you first contacted?”

Still nothing.

“What else do your colleagues have planned? More bombs? Something with an airplane? Other cities? What is it?”

At this, the prisoner smiled.

Bob was about to reach out and strike him again, when Harvath stood up and stated, “I’m going to post a flyer over at the World Trade Center site to see if there are any lawyers willing to represent you.” Turning to Herrington he said, “Let’s go.”

Once outside the interrogation room, Bob stopped Harvath and said, “We were just getting started in there. The fear was absolutely wafting off that guy. You could smell it.”

“I was definitely smelling something, though I don’t know if it was fear. Listen, we’re both fans of the art of not-so-subtle persuasion, but we don’t have the time to work this guy over the way we’d like to. Even the NYPD is going to have a limit as to what they’ll let us do to a terrorist suspect in their custody.”

“So let’s remove him from their custody,” said Herrington. “We’ll take him back to 26 Federal Plaza, or to a quiet hotel room, an abandoned building, wherever. It doesn’t matter. He knows something. You could see it in his face.”

“What he knows is that we’re desperate. If we put the testicle clamps on him maybe he’ll tell us something of value, maybe not. We’d need to have psychological leverage-have his family in custody or something like that. But at this point, we don’t even know his name.”

“Give me five minutes with him and you’ll have it.”

“This guy could turn out to have been nothing more than cannon fodder for al-Qaeda-a means to get a bomb into the PATH train tunnel. I don’t want to waste any more time on him. Besides, he may have already helped us out without even knowing it.”

“How?” asked Herrington.

Harvath held up the cell phone and said, “With this.”

“Are you going to tell me this moron was dumb enough not to erase his call log?”

“Nope. In fact I don’t think his phone was used for calls at all.”

“So what’s it for, then? Text messaging?”

“Let me ask you a question. You’ve been in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. How many people does it take to detonate a suicide bomb?”

Most people would have thought it was a trick question, but Herrington knew better. “One, plus a handler nearby with a remote detonator in case the bomber chickens out. You think that is what this is all about? Backup detonation?”

“Not necessarily. There were too many bombers to have had handlers physically following each one of them. I think this is a coordination issue. These phones work on a combination of cell phone towers and GPS. I’ve got a very similar setup on my BlackBerry. If all of the bombers had these phones, they’d have access to maps of New York City that would allow them to always know where they were. A good feature if you’d just been brought in from out of town.”

“And provide their handler a way to keep track of them at all times,” added Herrington.

“Exactly. If one of them got pulled over driving into a tunnel, the handler would be able to see that they were stopped and either call or text the operative to see what the holdup was, or automatically warn the other bombers and put a contingency plan into effect. It’s a pretty clever way to coordinate multiple attacks on a large scale.”

“Do you think you can backtrack the signal?”

“That kind of stuff is way beyond my ability,” replied Harvath. “But I think I might know somebody who can.”

I’ll put it next on my list-right after finding the cure for cancer. Are you nuts?” asked Kevin McCauliff from the other end of Harvath’s cell-phone call. The two were members of an informal group of federal employees who trained together every year for the annual Washington, DC, Marine Corps Marathon. In addition to being a fellow runner, McCauliff also held a position within an important government agency that Harvath had turned to once before for help-the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA was a major intelligence and combat support subsidiary of the Department of Defense. And in this situation, that was potentially one of its biggest drawbacks.

“So what you’re saying is you can’t do it,” replied Harvath.

“No,” returned McCauliff, “What I’m saying is that I don’t want to do it. Not if you’re asking me to hide it from my superiors.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.”

“I could get fired, Scot. What would I do then?”

“If you get fired, I’ll make sure you get work over at Homeland Security.”

Even though he was all the way down in Bethesda, Maryland, McCauliff laughed so loud, it sounded like he was standing on the street right next to them. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather collect unemployment.”

“For Christ’s sake, Kevin, this is serious. Have you seen what’s happened up here?”

“Of course I have. It’s all over the place. Worse than 9/11, they’re saying.”

“And it could get worse still if you don’t help.”

“Scot, you’re going to have to tell me what I’m doing this for.”

“For me, Kevin.”

“We’re close friends and all, but that’s not good enough.”

“I’ll take your sister to dinner again, okay? How about that?” said Harvath. He knew the analyst’s sister had a thing for him. After the last time McCauliff had helped him out on a hush-hush case, that had been the payment he’d asked for in return.

“We weren’t in the middle of a national crisis that time. We’re not supposed to be diverting any resources right now. If I get caught, I’m going to need a cover story.”

“And I don’t have one for you,” said Harvath. “You’re going to have to come up with one on your own. Please, Kevin. We think the people behind the attacks today may have something else planned. I need you to do this for me so we can stop them.”

“And the reason you’re not doing it out of your department?”

“Is because nobody in my department can do this stuff as well as you.”

McCauliff remained silent so long, Harvath felt he had no choice but to let the other shoe drop, “And because this morning, before the bridges and tunnels blew, I was involved in a covert operation with what I thought was the Manhattan Joint Terrorism Task Force. It turns out they were actually DIA agents posing as JTTF. Whatever they’re up to, word somehow leaked. Terrorist chatter intercepted today shows that they already know all about the op.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. We’re all on the same side. Why wouldn’t these guys work with you and tell you they were DIA?”

“That’s what I hope to find out, but none of it matters unless I can figure out what the terrorists are planning to do next. Are you going to help me or not?”

McCauliff thought about it for a moment and then said, “A lot’s going to depend on the cell phone data. If it’s transmitted in a clear format, we can grab it. If it’s over a secure channel like SSL, I’m going to need some time to work on decoding it.”

“We may not have time.”

“You said these phones were on Nextel network?”