Black Flagged Apex (20 page)

Anish Gupta raised his hands above his head, palms facing upward, and slowly pumped his arms up and down. "Raise the roof, bitches! Those motherfuckers have no idea what just hit them. Watch this!" he said, typing a command on his keyboard.

"All mobile units, this is over watch. Suspect van spotted heading north on Mount Prospect Ave. Local units in pursuit. Proceed down Clifton Avenue to Bloomfield Avenue for intercept. Set up a block at intersection of Clifton and Bloomfied."

Through the speaker, they all heard several units responding affirmatively to his command.

"I'm tracking them by individual cell phone. Every FBI unit is headed north on Clifton. Local police are a different story. Agents at over watch successfully made several calls to 911," Gupta said. "He doesn't look too badly burned," he added, nodding at Hamid.

The Imam lay flat on the van floor with a fresh band of duct tape over his mouth. They had kept the duct tape off while transporting him to the van, in order to maintain the appearance that his escorted departure was an escape. Aleem sat on his chest, keeping him pinned to the floor until they were far enough away to risk propping him up in a seat.

"How long until they get their shit together?" Aleem asked.

"Not long. They'll unscrew the cell phone issue shortly. I just scrambled their directories, so if they didn't have a number memorized, they'd dial the wrong number. I didn't mess with their back-up system at the field office, so they'll probably get a data refresh. Depends on who's working IT at the field office. If it was me, I would sever all connection to the mobile site. I'd order them to physically cut the fucking cable modem wires. Not that it would matter. I already have full access to the field office. This was more fun than I had anticipated."

"He's going to drive me crazy, isn't he?" Aleem asked Graves.

"You get used to it. He's one of the best in the business…and he actually seems to enjoy this cloak and dagger shit," Graves said.

"Good. Because this looks like the very beginning of a long operation. We'll need to do something with this van before we reach the safe house. How portable is all of your equipment?"

"Thirty minutes to strip it down, including the antenna and satellite rig. We'll probably have to burn the van," Gupta said.

"Really? Now our friend here is operational?" Aleem said, eliciting a laugh from everyone in the van that didn't have his mouth taped.

"Just saying," Gupta responded. "Our fingerprints and DNA are all over this biatch."

"Where did you find a gangsta Hindu computer hacker?" Tariq asked.

"He found me, and this is nothing, by the way. He's actually behaving for you guys," Graves replied, turning the van gently onto a crowded urban street.

"Wonderful," Aleem said.

Tariq and Aleem watched the traffic around the van closely for signs of unwanted law enforcement attention. Aleem spotted a three-story parking garage coming up on the opposite side of the road, which appeared to be connected to the Sheraton hotel towering over it.

"Graves, let's pull into that parking garage and find a new ride. We won't last much longer on the road if they successfully issue an APB. There's too much traffic out here," Aleem said.

"I can take care of the APB. I'm tapped into the State Police and local Newark Police network," Gupta said.

"Forget it. You'll lose satellite as soon as we duck into the garage. Start disassembling the gear," Aleem said.

"Can I call you Aleem G? It's so close to Ali G. You know who I'm talking about, right? HBO series?" Gupta said.

Aleem regarded the young Indian man strapped into a swivel bucket seat that had been bolted into the middle of the rear cargo compartment. Both of his hands typed away at one of the keyboards on the metal cargo table. He could see that the heavy-duty table had been welded to the left side of the van at several points. All of the equipment had been secured in custom-made metal holsters and strapped down with industrial-grade Velcro straps. The entire set up, Anish Gupta included, looked like it could survive a multiple rollover accident. It was hard to get mad at someone who looked so ridiculous and so serious at the same time.

"No. To all of your questions," Aleem said.

"Maybe I can just call you G?"

"How about you start getting all of this equipment ready for transfer and I'll think of a name. It'll probably sound a lot like Aleem."

"No sense of humor. Fuck. I get it. Mouth shut," the young man said.

Aleem continued to stare past Gupta, examining traffic through the rear window. He knew the young techie understood the stakes up front, but from behind his computers, this was still more or less a game to him. He didn't see the dead bodies in the mosque, and he wasn't there when they engulfed Hamid's head in flames. And he wouldn't be there when they put a bullet in the terrorist's head. Hopefully, this would continue to feel like somewhat of a game for him. A game at this point that would land him in federal prison as an accessory to murder, among dozens of additional charges related to interfering with a federal investigation and hacking federal databases…and this was only the beginning.

Chapter 14

12:57 AM

National Counterterrorism Center

Washington, D.C.

Special Agent Sharpe hung up the phone and stood up from his desk. Frank Mendoza gave him one of his patented raised eyebrows looks. For a moment, he stared past his friend at the NCTC watch floor. All of the displays full of information, maps and charts gave the impression that they were on top of the situation. Analysts and technicians moved back and forth between stations, trading conversations, which to the untrained eye would appear to be a good sign of productive activity. Sharpe knew better.

The watch floor had been designed to keep analysts and agents at their well-separated workstations, where they could work relatively undisturbed, while still maintaining the critical "we all sink or swim" aura. Most of the agents filling temporary stations were tech savvy and figured out how to make use of the NCTC system within the first few hours of taking their posts. The fact that even the NCTC analysts were out of their chairs meant they didn't have enough to propel the investigation forward. The information passed to him through several phone calls would only make matters worse.

"It's not good, Frank. They lost the van. Disappeared into thin air along with Hamid Muhammad. All right in front of the FBI team assigned to watch the mosque," Sharpe said.

"We had people on that team?" Frank said.

"The Newark field office ran the stakeout. I just spoke with the senior agent at the site, Janice Riehms. Top-notch agent. Sounds like she ran it by the book, but they suffered from some kind of major cyber-electronics attack during the breakout. Completely compromised their communications and digital feed. She said they've never seen anything like this before. All of their vehicles were sent in the wrong direction. She mentioned something about their cell phones being rerouted too. Headquarters is sending a cyber-operations team to Newark to investigate their systems for further evidence of a breach. They're concerned about the level of sophistication demonstrated by this attack."

"Any good news?" Mendoza said.

"Three dead terrorist suspects were found in the mosque. The Newark field office suspects that this was Hamid Muhammad's next batch of recruits."

"Any chance this was the missing cell?"

"No such luck. This is a major setback. Now we have the most radical Imam in America loose with his last terrorist cell. Unfucking real. I need to brief the team. We may have to concentrate more on our True America leads."

"What leads?" Mendoza asked.

"We'll have to start turning over information on every member of True America associated with their militant arm. Anyone ever seen in public or private sector with Jackson Greely or Lee Harding. Maybe we can find a connection to the delivery address in Harrisburg. Right now all we have there is a burned-down house in foreclosure. The owners moved to Florida over a year ago and don't appear connected in any way."

"This is all very thin," Mendoza remarked.

"Tell me about it. If we don't produce something by tomorrow morning, we'll start to have visitors. High-ranking visitors."

Chapter 15

4:22 AM

Corner of East 4
^th
Street and Hobart Ave.

Bayonne, New Jersey

Special Agent Damon Katsoulis opened the front passenger door of the suburban and stepped out into the chilly air. A stiff breeze from the Upper Bay rustled through the young trees across the street, carrying a hint of saltiness over the pollution spewing into the air from the industrial wasteland that defined Bayonne's southeastern tip. Task Force Scorpion's Tactical Group sat quietly in several positions within the neighborhood, waiting for agent Katsoulis's command to pounce on apartment #2B at 98 Hobart Ave. He jogged over to the street corner and joined two tactical agents leaned up against a gray brick storefront that looked like it had been boarded up for years. Weeds poked through the concrete on both sides of the store.

"Anything unusual?" he asked.

"Negative," the agent closest to the corner said. "My only concern is the lighting situation for the approach. There are several industrial-grade sodium lamps directly across from the target building at the back entrance gate to Hamm Brands. Nothing we can do about those, unless we try to contact security at Hamm and get them to douse the lights."

"No. We have an hour until dawn and even less time until civil twilight. We need to hit them now. They'll be up for prayer in thirty minutes or so," Katsoulis said.

"We won't be exposed for long. I'm just concerned that they might have a lookout posted. Two of the apartment windows face the street. Luckily, we have two healthy trees on the street corner in front of the building that partially obscure those windows."

"All right. Two-minute warning," he said.

Katsoulis reached up to his vest and depressed a button that opened his communication channel to the team leaders.

"Back Door, this is Lead. Two-minute warning for the approach. Advise when in position, over."

A clear voice replied in his headset, acknowledging the warning order. Katsoulis peeked around the corner and saw what the team leader had described. The entire street corner formed by the intersection of George and Hobart was bathed in an artificial orange glow from several lights set along the gate and two-story structure. He could imagine that the residents loved having twenty-four hour daylight compliments of Hamm Brands.

He pulled his head back and swung his M4 Carbine around to a ready position along his chest. He started to check all of his equipment, while the three SUVs double parked along East 4
^th
Street emptied ten additional SWAT agents into the quiet neighborhood. The agents started assembling near the corner, checking their own weapons and communications gear, while making sure they had unhindered access to flashbang grenades and spare ammunition magazines. A similar scene would unfold somewhere down George Street, putting over two dozen heavily armed tactical agents at his command for the takedown.

Finishing his personal check, there was only one more thing to do. Katsoulis checked his weapon's safety, ensuring that it was engaged, and chambered a round with the charging handle. The sound of his rifle's bolt slamming home echoed against the concrete, signaling for the rest of the team to do the same in rapid succession. "Front Door" was ready for action.

He saw several investigative agents exit their cars and start to wander toward the corner, keeping their distance. They would stand guard over the cars and wait for him to give the "all clear" signal over the communications net. At that point, the tactical team would be charged with transporting the prisoners back to the field office, where legendary FBI interrogator Gregory Carlisle would start the long process of extracting useful information. Katsoulis imagined that Carlisle would start with the fact that people from their own community had turned against them.

The Newark field office had received an extremely detailed, late-night tip regarding three young men who just recently moved into an apartment that had remained conspicuously unoccupied for thirteen months. Three dark-skinned men, "definitely Arab and new to the community," had arrived yesterday morning, wearing only backpacks. The caller requested to remain anonymous, in fear of possible retribution by more conservative members of "their community." Caller ID at the field office and FBI phone tracing efforts placed the call to the apartment directly above the suspects.

Investigative agents quickly pieced together what the caller meant by "their community." Bayonne, New Jersey, was home to a small but robust Muslim community that had successfully integrated with the rest of the immigrant groups in the area years before 9/11. The last thing any of them wanted was a group of suspected terrorists to tarnish the community's reputation, though the caller pointed out that not everyone in the community shared the same view. The field office also suspected that the call was motivated by the late-night coverage of the "possible terrorist attack" in Mount Arlington. Media coverage of the safe house attacks had so far been successfully avoided, but word of what happened in Mount Arlington was quickly spreading. It was a little hard to conceal the fact that authorities were trying to keep nearly one hundred thousand citizens from drinking water provided by the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority.

He glanced at his watch and saw that nearly two minutes had elapsed.

"Back Door, Lead. Proceed to breach position," he said, receiving an immediate response.

"Let's go," he whispered to the team leader standing next to him, slapping the man on the back.