Black Flagged Apex (23 page)

"They'll never give him the canisters. He's dead if they can draw him out of hiding," Sharpe said.

"Huh," Mendoza muttered, drawing a strange look from Sharpe.

"You're starting to get the picture, Agent Mendoza. The calls will be traceable. The location is a logical fit for where the Imam might hide. We sit and wait for them to send a team to eliminate the Imam," Stewart said.

"Since I haven't been arrested yet, is it fair to assume that you're interested?"

"Intrigued is a better word. I can't put undercover FBI agents in a situation where they are guaranteed to be attacked," Sharpe said.

"You don't have to. Our undercover team will cover ground zero. Trust me, they're a lot more convincing undercover than your people. The FBI can provide sniper support and SWAT backup. If True America takes the bait, you'll be able to start pulling at True America's threads. Sooner or later, you'll start to unravel their cover."

"What do you think, Frank?" Sharpe asked, turning to Mendoza.

"I was really hoping you wouldn't ask me that," Mendoza replied.

"All of your bases will be covered on this one. How well do you trust Kerem Demir, your investigative lead?" Stewart asked.

"Implicitly. He's a loyal agent," Sharpe said without hesitation.

"I'm not talking about loyalty. I'm talking about doing you a favor and keeping it quiet."

"I don't like where this is going," Mendoza said.

"All I'm suggesting is that you have him prioritize the analysis of the cell phones recovered in Bayonne. A few calls were placed to a market on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. Several dozen shops on that street cater to the massive Muslim community in Kensington. If I were the Imam, this would be a decent place for me to hole up and plan the next move."

"These guys are careful. Why would they make a call to a physical location that could jeopardize the safety of the Imam?"

"Why would the original World Trade Center bombers try to get their deposit back for a rental van that they exploded in the attack? I think you might be giving these people a little more credit than they deserve. One of the terrorists in Bayonne was carrying a cell phone that should have been destroyed prior to arriving at the safe house. Not to mention the fact that eight out of the ten terrorist cells associated with this plot were taken down by True America."

Sharpe shook his head slowly as his eyes narrowed. He sat down at his desk and typed a message.

"Done. The cell phones have been given the highest priority. What else does Sanderson have up his sleeve? I assume the anonymous tip about the safe house in Bayonne was graciously provided by your organization?"

"The Imam gave us the location, which we immediately passed on to your task force. Sanderson's efforts are focused on helping you move the investigation forward."

"As you can well imagine, I don't trust him any more than I trust the Imam. He's a master manipulator and an engineer of chaos. If I sense at any point that he's playing a game here, I'll pull the plug on your organization's participation and detain everyone until I sort it out. Is that understood?"

"Perfectly. Just think of where your investigation stands right now compared to last night. This is the kind of progress you can expect to continue making with Sanderson's support."

"When can we expect the Imam to fall into our lap?" Mendoza asked.

"When he's no longer useful to the investigation," Stewart said blankly.

"Very funny. Why do I get the distinct impression that Hamid Muhammad will never be seen again?" Sharpe asked.

"Do you really want to see him sipping tea in an interrogation cell?"

"Not really," Mendoza mumbled.

"Neither does Sanderson. You don't need to worry about the Imam. He's our problem. It's better that way. How long until Agent Demir comes up with the Brooklyn location?" Stewart said.

"I have a videoconference with the White House situation room in two hours. I'd like to include this in my briefing. He'll send the data directly here for analysis. If I haven't seen anything in thirty minutes, I'll have O'Reilly request it, if she hasn't already."

"Why didn't you send the request directly to O'Reilly in the first place?" Stewart asked.

"Because if I had sent her this request while meeting with you, she'd put two and two together before you walked out of the door."

Callie Stewart nodded. "I'll notify Sanderson. He'll contact our team at the field office in Newark and—"

"And the rest of the team you concealed from me?" Sharpe said.

"They'll get to work scouting the location before this becomes official. Lines of sight for your stakeout teams, optimal sniper positions, avenues of approach, all that. They should have most of it figured out by the time your first units arrive on the scene. The Imam should place his first call by mid-morning at the latest, so your people will need to hustle. If True America traces the call, they could have people on the scene within minutes."

Mendoza started to say something, but stopped before uttering a word. Sharpe flashed him a look, which she recognized immediately.

"Don't get any crazy ideas, gentlemen. The Imam will not be present at the site."

"I never said—" Mendoza started.

"You didn't have to," Stewart interrupted, heading toward the door. "Woman's intuition. Which reminds me…you might want to consider bringing O'Reilly in on the secret sooner rather than later. She'll become a liability if she discovers that you cut her out of the loop."

"O'Reilly isn't your concern," Sharpe said.

Stewart raised an eyebrow in response to his comment and exited the office, displaying a half smirk. Upon leaving, she stared up at one of the larger flat-screen displays near O'Reilly's workstation. Through her peripheral vision, she could see Agent Hesterman tracking her movement toward the stairs, which meant that O'Reilly was trying to be discreet. O'Reilly had the potential to become a massive problem if not handled correctly. They needed to bring her in at the ground level on this one.

Sanderson had identified O'Reilly as the other potential player on the task force. She had conspired with Sharpe two years ago to pass highly classified information to a less than scrupulous field agent, in an ill-fated attempt to turn Jessica Petrovich against her husband. Jessica had played Special Agent Edwards in order to steal the agent's computer and password, granting Sanderson's crew full access to the task force's database. What she did to Agent Edwards afterward went down in FBI history as a textbook case of how not to interact with a witness under any circumstance.

Sharpe's only luck that day stemmed from the fact that Edwards had been given a relatively high dose of a date rape drug, and couldn't remember much beyond his alcohol laden, expensive dinner with the femme fatale. The uproar surrounding Edward's thoroughly incompetent and embarrassing screw up lasted long enough for O'Reilly to remove the incriminating emails from the inside. In Sanderson's opinion, O'Reilly would support Sharpe on a slight divergence from procedure, or a major one if the end justified the means and it didn't directly endanger other agents.

BLACK WATER

Chapter 18

7:00 AM

The Jacksons' Residence

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Darryl Jackson took a bite out of his meticulously prepared English muffin and savored the melted butter that oozed from the perfectly crisped top. Sweet juices from a thin slice of warmed tomato competed with the butter and perfectly contrasted the sharp taste of sprinkled asiago cheese. Cheryl had created another masterpiece. Damn, he loved that woman.

"Liz will be finished with her finals on May 10
^th
. It'll be nice to have her around here for the summer. Sounds like most of her friends are coming home too," Cheryl said.

His wife was dressed in dark gray slacks and a light pink blouse. Her matching gray jacket hung neatly over the back of a low-backed chair pushed up against their kitchen island. This would be her second year as deputy superintendent of Fredericksburg's Public Schools. He always marveled at her energy level. She had effortlessly balanced the demands of parenthood and an ambitious career within the Fredericksburg school district. She had started off teaching high school English, while simultaneously pursuing a master's degree in school administration. Five years later, she had secured a position as principal of Walker-Grant Middle School, beating out candidates from all over the region.

Nobody had been surprised that she would seek the big position, and serving as deputy superintendent was the only way to eventually secure the superintendent position without an education doctorate. She faced long odds without the coveted doctorate, which was considered a resume requirement for most superintendent positions nationwide, but she felt confident that her work on the ground as a teacher, principal and deputy would overshadow the proliferation of education doctorates acquired by out-of-work teachers.

"The sooner the better. I wish we could convince Emily to postpone her trip to France," he said, watching the television mounted under a row of kitchen cabinets visible from the table in their breakfast nook.

"It was either one month in the French countryside during the summer, or an entire semester right outside of Paris. I think we dodged a bullet with the summer program," she said.

He looked at her and smiled. "I know you're right, but things seem unsettled out there…do you mind if I turn this up?"

The television in their kitchen was small and mainly viewed from the kitchen island, but Darryl had incredibly acute vision at longer distances, a genetic gift that had fortunately saved his life more than once in the field. They normally kept the volume down for breakfast, relying on his hawk eyes to spot anything important to them. What he saw on the screen made him lunge for the remote and raise the volume. As the newscast unfolded, they both listened intently…

"…area around the Mount Arlington station is sealed off for nearly a mile, and authorities are keeping a tight lid on any information flowing to the media. Local hospital officials also declined to comment on the nature of the emergency. Witnesses standing outside of a nearby restaurant said they heard distant gunfire at around 8:30 last night, but dismissed the sound as fireworks. A large police response, consisting of SWAT units, descended on the access road to the pump station at 9 PM.

"Local and federal law enforcement officials would not comment on the nature of the police action in Mount Arlington, but affiliate news correspondents have confirmed that a widespread government effort to stop citizens from drinking public water began at 10:15 PM last evening and continues at this very moment. The efforts appear concentrated on Morris County Municipal Utilities customers, who are served by a series of pumps and wells located in northern New Jersey. Townships served by water pumped by the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority include Denville, Jefferson, Mine Hill, Mount Arlington, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Randolph, Roxbury, Wharton Borough and Southeast Morris County. Citizens in these affected areas have been warned not to drink water from any public source until further notice. Anyone that drank public water after 9 PM is encouraged to immediately call 911 or report to the nearest hospital."

Darryl lowered the English muffin to his plate and stood up from the table. Liz lived in a dormitory at Princeton University, located less than fifty miles from Parsippany. He didn't need NBC to connect the dots for him. This sounded like a terrorist attack on the water supply, and he wasn't naïve enough to hope that it was an isolated attack. He grabbed his cell phone off the kitchen island and had dialed his daughter before his wife reached his side. While the phone rang, he listened to the rest of Matt Lauer's report and heard him speculate about a link between recent police raids throughout Europe. He also raised the specter of a possible connection to the mysterious tragedy in Monchegorsk. Mention of the Russian city grabbed Darryl's attention, and he listened intently while he waited for Liz to answer her phone.

"…and international news agencies have made little progress in the Kola Peninsula. Restricted to St. Petersburg, foreign correspondents and diplomats have been unable to gain even the foggiest picture of what has unfolded in the northern city. Russian internal security forces have reportedly used heavy-handed tactics to keep foreigners from seeking information beyond the city. Located 750 miles north of St. Petersburg along a single highway, the Russian government has effectively sealed off all access to Monchegorsk. Only military vehicles have been seen heading north into the Kola Peninsula, casting serious questions about the Russian government's assertion that the situation in Monchegorsk is under control."

His daughter wasn't answering her phone. He speed dialed the number for the resident assistant on her floor. She was going to flip out when she discovered that he had acquired this number on a visit to her dorm, but he had a bad feeling about the news coming out of Mount Arlington.

"…the release of shocking video footage acquired by the Reuters news agency from a source deep within the city, Russian officials acknowledged the deployment of armored military units to wrest control of the city from an insurgent group. Officials declined to give any details regarding the insurgency, only sharing the fact that insurgents had caused significant damage to the city's critical industrial infrastructure. Norval Nickel, the world's leading producer of nickel and palladium, maintains an immense mining and smelting operation in Monchegorsk.

"Russian area experts have cast serious doubts on the likelihood that an insurgency could develop so suddenly without warning signs. Aspects of the Reuters video suggest a massive medical crisis, resulting in a widespread pattern of bizarre behavior in the city. Watch groups here at home have demanded immediate transparency in the handling of the Mount Arlington situation, suggesting the possibility of a biological attack on our nation's water supply that may be linked to Monchegorsk."