Rick Mofina - Every Second

Kate needed to be absolutely one hundred percent certain of her work.

So much was at stake.

She stared out the nearest window to the mountains. A helicopter thudded in the distance and her thoughts went with it to the Fultons.

Is this where they die?

Her phone rang.

It was Varner.

Relieved, Kate answered while rushing out of the center, so no one would overhear her.

“What is it, Kate? You’ve got about one minute.”

She told Varner everything she had. Everything.

“I need to confirm this-all the connections, the revenge motive, the links to jihadist groups and the threat?”

A long static-filled silence passed between them.

“Who’s your source?”

“Come on, I’m not giving that up, just like I wouldn’t give up your name.”

Another long silence.

“Nick, I’m going to hit Send on my story, and in about fifteen minutes it’ll go live across the country and online. I’ve held back long enough, longer than any right-thinking reporter ever would. Is any part of my story wrong?”

Varner let another long silence pass.

“Nick? Come on!”

“Everything you have is correct. Now I’m going to be up-front with you, no BS because we don’t have the time. You’re one of the best reporters I’ve known. I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve nailed everything and you’ve been exceptional at holding back and doing the right thing. That’s why I’m putting all my cards on the table to ask you to continue doing the right thing.”

“What’re talking about?”

“Kate, if you make public what you have about a possible attack you’ll tip off the suspects about our progress and we could lose them and the Fultons. We’re close, Kate, and if you let them know how close, then you’ll be putting everything at risk.”

“That’s what you tell me every time.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Do you know the target for the larger attack?”

“I’m not revealing that. Kate, listen to me-”

“No, you listen to me. Homeland puts out vague threat warnings all the time ‘based on chatter’ and they scare us all half to death. Why is it so different when we report about it? I’m not naming any locations. I’m just sharing the information we have.”

“The difference is these suspects don’t realize how close we are to catching them, and you’re about to tell them.”

“Give me a break, Varner. Look around! The sky is full of helicopters, the forest is full of cops and dogs searching-it’s not exactly a quiet operation. They’ve shot Dan Fulton, and they know that we found the note and the cars. Be realistic here. I think they get that you’re close.”

“Kate, they know we’re pursuing them for the Dan Fulton attack, the abductions and robbery. They don’t know that we know what they’re planning next and that others are helping, unless you tell them. Do you want to be responsible for aiding them?”

“No.”

“All I’m asking is to consider holding back on that part of the story. I’ll give you confirmation on everything else. I owe you that. You’ll have way more than anyone in the press. It’s yours, you dug it up, you earned it. Okay?”

Kate was silent.

“Kate, all I’m asking is that you think this through and don’t tip them off.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Kate hung up and reread her story with her finger hovering over the send button, biting her lip and considering Varner’s plea. She already had a scoop with all of Lori’s ties to Jerricko and his family. The fear of a planned attack was a huge aspect. But the location of the attack and exactly how or when it would occur were still unknown.

Kate went back into her story and removed aspects about Jerricko’s plans “for a big operation,” replacing it with “law enforcement sources would not rule out a terrorist link to the case”-something they’d already stated publicly.

Everything else in the story was solid.

Kate sent her story to Reeka, then, as promised, alerted Ben Keller at the LA Times just as Strobic approached.

“Come on, we’ve got to go,” he said, trotting to where his pickup truck was parked.

“Where we headed, Stan?”

“I spent most of my teen summers up here. I know the back roads and I’m pretty sure I can get us closer to the action.”

“Good. We can’t let these guys corral us. But what if there’s a development here? I don’t want to miss it.”

“I can take care of that.”

He opened the rear of his Silverado, the cap and tailgate.

“Good Lord, Stan. It looks like a homeless person’s shopping cart exploded in here!”

Strobic ignored her as he rummaged through blankets, pillows, boxes of chips, crackers, canned beans, jackets, boots, tools, digging toward one of his silver metal lockers. He pulled out scanners and antennas and started adjusting them.

“We’ll be plugged in. If something happens, I’ll hear it. One of my old buddies is part of a volunteer search group-that’s who I went to talk to just now. He told me the best sectors to start with. Buckle up, Kate. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

McLean, Virginia

The staccato clicking of Shane Hudson’s keyboard was unrelenting as new data on the suspects in the Queens case streamed into the National Counterterrorism Center.

He glanced at the framed photo of his wife holding their two-year-old daughter in her arms at the beach. Emerging on the monitors before him was one of the most serious threats to the nation.

Warrants executed by the FBI and local police at the Yonkers Public Library, the Yonkers home of Walid and Omar Sattar and several other key points were yielding crucial information with each passing minute.

The FBI’s cyber experts zeroed in on Jerricko Blaine’s use of a public library terminal to determine whom he’d communicated with recently. Working with internet service providers, they’d unraveled an intricately deceptive trail leading them to accounts used by his associates. Agents were dispatched to physical addresses and executed more warrants, resulting in more information.

In California, a sharp-eyed analyst with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation retrieved a key report from a gang intelligence officer concerning an extremist prison group that called for Muslims to kill those whom they’d deemed enemies of Islam.

The group was led by Bartholomew Drum, who was serving a life sentence for stabbing a US Marine in a mall parking lot. The intelligence officer had been using inmate informants while confidentially monitoring all of Drum’s secret communications, even those he’d cryptically made through his own visitors and visitors of other prisoners who followed his teachings.

Malcolm Samadyh had been a devoted follower of Drum’s, and upon Samadyh’s release Drum had ordered him to recruit people without criminal records to carry out attacks on the enemies of Islam. But when Samadyh was killed, Drum had reached out to his grieving mother, urging her to honor her son’s death by carrying on the cause.

Nazihah Samadyh had agreed and proposed to use “powerful friends” in Afghanistan, where she’d returned, to help establish the group. She’d started by recruiting her surviving son, Jerricko, to lead the group.

Then she’d gone online, scouring postings for malcontent young Americans. The first person she’d recruited was Jake Spencer, a college dropout from Minneapolis who’d written passionately about his disgust with US actions in the Middle East. Spencer also had experience with the US Army before he left because of his growing negative views on US foreign policy. Samadyh named Spencer the group’s operations commander.