Keith Thompson arrived at J.D. Rothery’s office early Sunday morning with a thick file under his arm. His normal cheerful disposition was muted, his face showing more age lines than his thirty-three years should. His Scandinavian heritage showed through in his blond hair and blue eyes, and he wore baggy black pants and a T-shirt, his usual attire for the office. That he had a one-on-one meeting with one of the most influential men in the Department of Homeland Security meant little to him. What was in his file was all that was on his mind.
Thompson was an expert on cultures and linguistics, a product of the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He was widely acknowledged as the school’s leading expert on Arabic studies, including nuances in the Arabic language that give clues to the person’s origin. He officially worked for the Central Intelligence Agency but was often on loan to the other intelligence-gathering agencies that spent their time trying to keep America a safe place to live. Today he was on loan to DHS.
Rothery glanced up from his desk as Thompson entered. They had met before on a few occasions, and the science and technology chief greeted the linguistics expert with a casual handshake. “Nice haircut,” Rothery said. On their previous meetings, Thompson’s hair had been shoulder length.
“Kids kept pulling it,” he said, sitting in one of the wingback chairs facing Rothery’s desk. “And it hurt.”
Rothery managed a hint of a smile. “What have you got for me?” he asked.
Thompson shook his head. “This is the weirdest tape I’ve ever been asked to dissect,” he said, withdrawing two copies of a six-page report he had prepared for Rothery. He kept one and handed the other across the desk. “Straight off the top, I have no idea what kind of accent this guy is speaking with. In fact, my guess is that English is his first language.”
“What?” Rothery said, looking up from the typed pages. “What are you saying?”
“People of Arabic descent who grow up with their mother tongue have certain intonations and inflections to their speech, just as people who grow up speaking English or French have. This fellow has an Arabic accent, but his speech patterns are that of an English-speaking person who has learned Arabic as a second language, then spent time in that culture, allowing an accent to creep into his speech.”
“English was his first language?” Rothery asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“There are a lot of second-and third-generation Arabs who were born in the United States and raised to speak English, then who learned Arabic later in life. I would suspect our guy is one of those. And by his choice of words, he’s an educated man-my guess is a prominent American University.”
“He’s an American?”
Thompson shrugged. “I can’t say for certain what his citizenship is, but my feeling is that he was raised in America. In fact, I’d say he was from the eastern region of the country and schooled at Harvard or some school of similar stature.”
Rothery leaned forward, the veins on his forehead throbbing. “Tell me how you know this, Keith.”
“The first clue is the word ‘rhetoric.’ I’ve never heard an Arab use that particular word. They don’t consider their words or their message to be simply rhetoric; they consider them to be the law according to Mohammed. The second word that’s totally out of context is ‘guise.’ ‘That you have caused the death of many Arabs under the guise of branding all of us terrorists is also a fact.’” Thompson read the line from the script. “To the radical Arabs, the Americans are not acting under any sort of guise. They perceive that we act under our own set of rules, with complete disregard for anyone else. We answer only to ourselves, not to the peoples of the world or to God.”
Rothery interjected a thought. “But to an Arab sympathizer who was raised in America, that person would see the American involvement in tracking down Arab terrorists as subversive at times. Do what we can to get the bastards, and if a few innocent Arabs are thrown in the mixture, who cares.”
“Exactly. Our guy has a definite North American slant to his thinking. Then he uses a triad.”
“A what?”
“A triad. That’s when you say the same phrase, or portion of a phrase, three times for impact.” Again, Thompson consulted the text from the speech. “‘You have repeatedly stuck your noses where they do not belong. You have caused us to raise our arms against you. You have been the harbinger of your own fate.’” He looked up from the page. “I’ve heard Arabs use the same words to hammer home a point, but never with such precision. This guy uses the triad as a polished public speaker would.
“Then he goes on to say that they would prefer a peaceful solution to the issue. Since when does a terrorist cell prepare a major strike against the United States, then tell us they don’t want to hurt us? It makes no sense. And there’s more. He uses the word ‘hemorrhagic’ when describing the virus. Most radicals would simply say they are going to unleash a plague on us. ‘Plague’ is a much more powerful word. And then there’s the strangest part of the whole speech.”
“What’s that?” Rothery asked.
Thompson read from the transcript. “‘First, you will deliver one billion five hundred million U.S. dollars to a location that I will advise you of later.’” He looked up at Rothery.
“So…” Rothery said.
“He refers to himself as ‘I,’ not ‘we.’ I have never, and I stress never, heard that before. These terrorists are groups of like-minded radicals brought together to achieve a common goal. They don’t refer to themselves as ‘I.’ Never.”
“So what have we got on our hands, Keith?”
Thompson sat the file on the table next to the chair. “You’ve got an American of questionable Arab descent who doesn’t want to kill millions of Americans, but who will if you don’t meet his demands. He’s ready to do it, of that I’m sure. But capitulate to his two conditions and I think this guy will back off.”
“You keep referring to him as ‘this guy’ You think it’s just one person?”
“God, no. He’s got a network of some sort in place, but I don’t think it’s a cohesive terrorist cell in the sense that we’re used to. In this case, he’s in charge and the rest of the members of the cell are subservient.”
“How do we catch him?”
“That’s tough. He’s going to be completely invisible. He grew up in America, he’s well educated, and he can probably blend in to almost any setting. He has resources at his command and is well organized. Personally, given the time frames he’s got you under, I don’t think you can find him. I think he’s got you. And he’s given you the opportunity to meet his demands without the American public ever finding out you acquiesced.”
“So he’s smart.”
“Extremely.”
Rothery steepled his fingers and gave Keith Thompson a long, hard look. Finally, he said, “Okay, Keith, thanks for the quick work. You’ve done an excellent job.” He stood up and offered his hand.
“Good luck, sir,” Thompson said as he left.
Rothery walked to his window and looked out over the nation’s capital. The Sunday-morning traffic on Seventh Street was light. People sleeping in, going to church, spending time with their families. Normal things to do on a Sunday. But what would next Sunday bring? And the Sunday after that? If the virus was released in six days, by next Sunday morning, innocent people would be infected. And by the following Sunday, they would be dead. And countless more people would be infected.
Somewhere out there was a single person with enough hatred to put this scenario in motion. And that person was American. And invisible. Christ, this whole thing was spiraling out of control. And as things stood right now, he had almost nothing to work with.
Jim Allenby had initiated a cohesive effort within the FBI and had freed up agents for the sole purpose of working the virus crisis. The new information from Keith Thompson would be a boon to Allenby’s task force. At least they now knew that the man they were searching for was an American of Arab descent. And one with resources. The list would be long and the hunt arduous, but now they had a target.
Craig Simms was still livid over his organization’s losing the clandestine intel the labs had been providing. But the CIA had taken its kicks and survived in the past, and they would do so again. Simms was monitoring all international communications between known terrorist organizations, listening for something that might point them to the source of the virus. Now, with Thompson’s take on the DVD footage, Simms would have to realign his agents.
And Tony Warner and his staff over at the National Security Agency were suddenly of great importance. The scientists at Crypto-City were without peer when it came to deciphering codes and sorting data. Given the profile, they could search the nation’s data banks for possible suspects and forward that information to Jim Allenby at the Bureau.
As Rothery reached for the phone to call together the key personnel in his task force, he had one thought. Maybe, just maybe, things weren’t as bleak as they seemed.
It was a big maybe.