THE WHITE HOUSE
THE PRESIDENT OF THE United States looked over the top of his rimless reading glasses as his chief of staff, Steve Hanson, came into the Oval Office through the door on the left, which led into the staff offices area. Almost at the same moment, the door on the right opened and Secretary of State Kenneth Waring came through the visitor’s entrance. The president tossed his glasses onto the big desk. “Whatever it is, tell me outside.”
The three moved out the double French doors to the right of the president’s desk, across the narrow covered stone walkway, and into the Rose Garden. Secret Service guards shifted their stations accordingly along the columns of the walkway to the living quarters as the president moved down the few steps and onto the perfect rectangle of grass, raising his face to catch some of the bright sun after being indoors all morning. As he stretched his big arms over his head, then bent from side to side, he could see other black-clad agents on the roof of the White House. Sniper teams. Troubled times. “What’s up? Ken, you start.”
Secretary of State Waring’s eyes gave away his excitement. His manner remained formal, but his foot was poking at some grass. “Mr. President, we have good news.”
“Well?”
Waring spoke. “It looks like the whole Saladin thing has been resolved. Fizzled.” He snapped his fingers like a stage magician. “Poof and gone.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“There was a shooting in Paris a few days ago, and some gang lord took a bullet or two in the head. So did a couple of his bodyguards. Police ran his prints and identified him as an Algerian Muslim leader, a rich guy with a lot of terrorist contacts.”
“Why is that important?”
“It took some time to make the real identification. The dead gangster was Saladin himself!”
The president pumped his fist like Tiger Woods sinking a twenty-foot put for an eagle. “Awwright!” Swanson was successful.
“And the best part is that we didn’t have anything to do with it,” Steve Hanson said. “The French are laying the shooting on al Qaeda. Cops found a sniper’s lair in a sewer right across the street, beneath an abandoned car that was rented with a phony credit card and driver’s license.”
The secretary of state said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend…but who really was our enemy on this one?”
“All of them were, and remain, our enemies. We remain at war with terror as a whole, not with a specific name or group.” The president headed back to the Oval Office, taking big, confident strides, and plopped onto a sofa.
The secretary of state took a wingback chair, crossed his legs, and straightened a perfect crease in his trousers. “This started with an extremely deadly device in the hands of a crazed fanatic,” he said. “Now the fanatic himself is dead.”
“But where is the poison gas? Has it fallen into the hands of someone or some group we know nothing about?” The president was somber, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Did Swanson find the papers? Why haven’t we heard from him? “Guys, we have to make sure that monstrous thing does not reach America. If we have won some political leverage in this mess with Mr. Saladin, we need to cash it in now.”
“So go on television with an address to the nation.” Steve Hanson was already arranging the details in his mind. “No politics at all, no swipes at our critics, just a direct appeal to all Americans to pitch in and help. Better than that, make it a worldwide appeal, because the other nations also remain at risk until that poison threat is nullified.” The secretary of state nodded agreement.
“Pulpit time,” said the president. “We need to warn the people without unduly alarming them.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Steve Hanson.
“Ken,” he asked, “what’s the international community doing? Anything?”
“They are all keeping their cool right now, Mr. President. The strike in London sobered them all, and none of them want to be on the wrong side of this issue. Until that weapon is located, nobody wants to create problems. They may need the help of their neighbors in a big way if they are picked as the next target.”
“Anything new on the Saladin auction?”
“Apparently that is at a standstill. Any nation or group that entered the bidding is keeping its actions very private, but who would be around to orchestrate that show now? With Saladin dead, the auction may be dead, too.”
“Hopeful speculation,” said the president. “There is always a number two man who becomes the number one man. If he has the plans, he can just step in and run the show. How do you rate the chances that somebody else is going to get hit?”
“Honestly, Mr. President, my gut tells me that it is going to happen.”
The president nodded and went back to his desk and sat down. “Yeah. We’ll keep up the pressure. I don’t like having the United States of America in the crosshairs.”
“We are doing everything we can, sir. We will lay out all the details at the National Security Council briefing. The news of Saladin’s death will be leaking out of France by then. Pressroom will be in an uproar.”
The president put his glasses back on and picked up a pen. As always, paperwork awaited. “Thanks for coming by, Ken. See you downstairs in a little while.” When the door closed, the president touched the intercom and told his secretary not to let anyone in for the next fifteen minutes and to pass the word along to the Secret Service guards on all the doors.
Hanson stood before the big desk. “I just finished the debrief with General Middleton. Kyle Swanson got in and did the job, but the house blew up before he could grab any papers. Then he was snatched by our joint task force, brought back here, and worked over a bit, even waterboarded. He kept his mouth shut until Trident got him out. He’s okay, and the operation is safe.”
“We tortured our own guy?”
“Swanson is fine. Kyle had a brief firefight with some other guy at the house. He recognized him, but with a bomb ticking down inside the house, Swanson did not have time to pursue. Later, when he was being questioned, he was shown some photos and was able to confirm the identification. Apparently it was Saladin’s right-hand man, a British-trained sniper who goes by the name of Juba. Kind of a legend in the dirty warfare trade.”
“He may have the weapon, then?”
“Yes, sir. Or at least control of it.” Hanson paused. “We’re going to have everybody working to find him, so should I keep Trident rolling?”
“Absolutely. And tell them I said they did well in France.”
When the president was alone in the Oval Office, he looked at the paintings on the light vanilla walls: confident Franklin Roosevelt, somber Abraham Lincoln, elegant George Washington. Each had led the nation through times of crisis and into a brighter future. I’d sure like to talk to those guys, he thought. Too bad this job didn’t come with a training manual.
His shoulders slumped; he pushed the papers aside, took off his glasses again and buried his face in his hands. He rubbed his eyes hard.
That weapon of vile poison was coming this way. He could almost feel it vibrating or doing whatever the hell those things did. America was a big place, a gloriously spread-out country with more freedom for individuals to roam than any other nation in the world and a security net that had gaping holes. He thought about how previous administrations had not even been able to stop millions upon millions of poor laborers from sneaking undetected across the southern border, and he understood that the northern border with Canada, although perceived as safer, was much longer and just as unprotected. The coasts and ports were funnels for dangerous men and cargo. So what chance did he really have against a skillful and determined team of terrorists? The tragedy of 9/11 had only proven the seriousness of the problem. The president sat there with the lives of 304 million men, women, and children weighing upon him and knew that he could not guard them all.
America could never be totally protected from those who wished to do her harm. To think she could be was an impossible dream.
SAN FRANCISCO
Juba was enjoying himself in the grandstand at AT &T Park, eating salty peanuts and drinking cold beer as a cool and steady breeze sailed up the bay and spilled over China Basin Park. Canoes and kayaks floated in McCovey Cove to await the splash of home run balls. The San Francisco Giants were playing baseball against the team from Arizona, but that was not the point. He was there to recon a potential target zone.
Almost as soon as he entered the arena and walked past the monstrous, skeletal Coca-Cola bottle tilted at a twenty-five-degree angle next to a huge four-fingered old-style baseball glove, he knew he had found just the place. From the mezzanine level, Juba could see downtown San Francisco and the long bridge across San Francisco Bay. Oakland was only ten miles away. There was a medium crowd that evening, about twenty-five thousand fans, but the New York Yankees were arriving in two days and all of the stadium’s 41,503 seats would be filled. The decision made, he used his cell phone to call a number in Nogales, Mexico, and gave the man who answered a brief message.
After the game, Juba wandered down to Chinatown for a hot and spicy meal of garlic chicken before returning to his hotel and tuning in the world news on the thirty-two-inch LCD high-definition television set in his room. The news readers were still carrying on about London and the death of Saladin in Paris. Soon they would have a fresher subject. A better kill zone was being staked out at AT &T Park.
Then he turned to his laptop and transferred a retainer fee to the account of a private detective in Connecticut who was hired occasionally for discreet jobs and background checks. The detective believed the client was a major computer company that required the utmost confidentiality. When the money transfer was confirmed, Juba sent the detective an e-mail telling him to find former U.S. Marine Kyle Swanson.
THAT NIGHT, XAVIER SANDOVAL was in the confessional of a little church in the hills outside of Nogales, Mexico. The religious quandary was nothing new to him, a mysterious puzzle that had haunted him for the past three years. He was not a Muslim, and in fact didn’t believe in any organized religion, but the ancient pull of the Roman Catholic Church still tugged at him. It was difficult to give up the teachings of a lifetime.
As a younger man, he had made his way to the United States to find work only to end up in a bar fight in Texas and be arrested, deported back to Mexico, and slammed into a cell with other failed immigrants. It was shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and the government in Mexico City was eager to show common cause. Many of the prisoners, including Xavier Sandoval, were declared to be suspected terrorists, and vigorous interrogations followed in locations that were beyond prayer. By the time he was released, he really was a terrorist. He again crossed the border and this time made his way to Michigan, settling into a Muslim area with friends of friends he had known in prison. They were bound by an intractable hatred of the United States.
One day an Englishman appeared and plucked him from the crowd, and Xavier Sandoval went to work for the man everyone respectfully called Juba. He was kind and generous and quite talented at killing.
Still, there was a bit of conscience left inside Xavier, enough so that on the evening of the telephone call from Juba in San Francisco, he bathed, combed his hair, put on his best dark suit with a matching somber tie over a blue oxford-cloth shirt, and went to mass. The deep feelings of the liturgy and tradition and guilt seeped into him and drew him to the next level, staying after the service to give his confession. The priest was puzzled at the vague admissions of carnal and other little sins because it was obvious that the parishioner was greatly troubled, but Xavier knew when to stop talking. He did not expect absolution for his crimes; he had just wanted to hear the calm voice of a priest one last time. Then he walked calmly out into the warmth of the late summer night.
The next morning, he said a final prayer and asked God, if he was really up there, to grant him courage and forgiveness. It was a lot to ask, since he was about to murder several thousand people. The small man put on khaki pants and a yellow shirt and headed off to his job as a truck driver for the Diablo Gourmet Seasoning Company.
Diablo Gourmet was a maquiladoras success story, owned by Americans and operated by Mexicans. Suppliers all over South and Central America cleaned and processed their spices and seasonings and sent them to Nogales, where the company blended and packaged the finished products and sped them on to some of the best restaurants across the American Southwest.
The Diablo operation had been established more than twenty years ago as a false front, a vital part of Saddam Hussein’s Unit 999 operations in North America. The only traces of ownership were a lawyer’s name and the post office box of a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands. Years of legitimate operations had made the familiar blocky buildings of Diablo Gourmet a welcome money generator in the Nogales area and allowed Unit 999 to smuggle almost anything it wanted to across the border.
About noon, every day of the week, three yellow trucks left the loading docks carrying fresh loads of Mexican spices and herbs. The guards at the international frontier could smell them coming, for the vented cargo holds exuded the powerful odors of sweet cinnamon and ancho chile pods, pungent epazote, overpowering vanilla, chile negro, and the citrusy blast of habaneros, considered the hottest chiles in the world. All were encased in plastic bags, glass bottles, or metal containers and shipped in cardboard boxes, but it was impossible to capture all of the smells. The arrival of the spice trucks reminded the inspectors and guards it was time for lunch, and the veteran drivers regularly left samples for the guards. Everyone loved good Mexican food, and the signature company logo of a little red devil prancing on a background of yellow was synonymous with quality, hot, authentic spices from south of the border.
Three yellow trucks at noon, day after day, year after year.
The trucks were familiar, the drivers known to the inspectors, and the company owned by Americans, so there were never serious delays when the vehicles came to the border, which had every conceivable security device. Big fences, new television cameras, dozens of computers, sniffer dogs, and experienced inspectors worked both sides of the line. The dogs, however, were useless when the small convoy of yellow trucks arrived, because their sensitive noses would twist in agony if they inhaled the scents of peppers and raw chiles. They whimpered, their eyes watered as if they were weeping, and they batted their paws against their muzzles, sneezing. As a courtesy, the lead driver would use his cell phone when the trucks were about a half mile from the border so the handlers could take the dogs for a nice walk away and protect them from the intolerable aromas. Day after day.
Today, one of the vehicles, number 14, had been especially engineered to contain several ranks of high-pressure storage cylinders that stood against the cab wall in the cargo area behind the boxes and containers of spices. Some of the tanks were plugged into small pipes that fed up to and out of the roof of the truck, and at the turn of a dashboard switch by the driver, the contents would flow out of two exhaust fans. Others were sealed for later use. All were filled with the toxic gas that had been perfected in the Iranian lab. From Paris, Juba had transmitted the final formula to a laboratory attached to the Diablo Gourmet factory, and a small production run was assembled.
At noon, all three yellow panel trucks with the dancing devil logos rolled through the checkpoint unmolested. Number 14 was the last truck in the line and was driven by Xavier Sandoval. Three miles from the border, when he passed the Mariposa exit on I-19, Sandoval placed a call to San Francisco and confirmed that he was on his way.