Satan's Roost: Bin Laden’S Legacy

Satan’s Roost

Bin Laden’s Legacy

Lawrence D. Klausner

Copyright © 2013 Lawrence D. Klausner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Author’s photo by Martina’s Photography Vero Beach, Florida.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906318

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0060-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0061-8 (e)

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/01/2013

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

Also by Lawrence D. Klausner

SON of SAM

CONCLAVE

ONE MILLION CARATS

HAIL TO THE CHIEF

For my wife and best friend,

Mary

Ronald and Wendy Klausner

Parker and Braeden

Wendy and Alek Komarnitsky

Dirk and Kyle

Philip and Jodi Arlen

Sydney, Jordan and Spencer

PROLOGUE

The killings of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, and Samir Shan have forced a besieged 265.jpg (al-Qaeda) to slink further back into the shadowy world of international terrorism. From hiding places in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even within the United States, al-Qaeda relentlessly plots to destroy everything abhorrent to their philosophy of 263.jpg (Sharia Law).

In 2012, American-born Massachusetts resident Rezwan Ferdaus pled guilty to all charges stemming from his solo attempt to attack the government of the United States and to providing material support to al-Qaeda. Three years prior to the Ferdaus incident, the author alerted the Secret Service of the plausibility of just such an attack. Agents readily admitted that, until that moment, federal law enforcement had no contingency plan to avert an assault of that nature. This novel lays out a blueprint for a well-financed, superbly trained, and dedicated lone wolf to launch a successful attack against the government of the United States at a time of its greatest vulnerability.

While the narrative that follows is a mixture of frightening fact and fiction, the disturbing truth is that despite mammoth expenditures by the TSA, America remains inherently unsafe from its enemies, both foreign and domestic. Anti-terrorism forces labor under the premise: We must be right every time, the terrorist only once. America Beware!

Note: The Secret Service was so intrigued with this story during its development that it requested an interview with the author. The idea of a lone wolf eradicating the nation’s entire political structure was unthinkable at the time. Since that exchange, and possibly because of it, law enforcement has thwarted four similar plots against our homeland. All too often, a fine line separates fact from fiction. This novel epitomizes that line.

Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention

Act of 2004:

Lone Wolf Amendment to the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

Summary:

Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, P.L. 108-458, amended the definition of agent of a foreign power in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C. § 1801(b)(1), to add a new category of covered individuals. Under the new lone wolf provision, a non-United States person who engages in international terrorism or activities in preparation for international terrorism is deemed to be an agent of a foreign power under FISA…

Elizabeth B. Bazan

CRS Report for Congress

Legislative Attorney

American Law Division

ONE

Tuesday, November 29, 2011, House Budget Sub-Committee Hearing Chamber

Steel blue eyes stared respectfully ahead at the eleven congressional bobble heads seated upon their polished pedestals. Their mouths moved in unison, yet uttered little of substance. No surprise, Jack Warner expected as much. He had long since decided that their words mattered little. His future path was clear with or without their support. The tall, lean director, dressed in a precisely cut English suit, red and white striped power tie with a proper Windsor knot, remained stoic as he faced the assembled legislative buffoons. Once their preordained denial for the R&D funding was clear, he tuned out their platitudes. They were simply empty praises carefully scripted for the cameras that recorded every word, every gesture. With the election a month away, each politician needed all the nightly news airtime the major network and the cable news program directors would allow.

The committee chipped away at his department’s budget, finally axing the entire $150 million needed to complete his special project. Despite the fact that Jack knew where all the bodies were buried, the ingrates still refused to heed his counsel. He wanted to scream at them, You fools, you refuse to understand. This funding is vital to U.S. security!

The mountain of irrefutable facts meant nothing. The legislative puppets were playing to constituents tired of foreign wars, of run-amok government spending, of worthless 401(k) plans, of ever-higher gas and food prices, of foreclosed homes; tired of everything.

The years following 9/11 taught them little. Polls touted by political pundits indicated that after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May and that of Anwar al-Awlaki two months ago, the danger level posed by al-Qaeda had dropped to almost zero. The war on terror was effectively over. In accordance, new financial policies brought about a downward adjustment in national security expenditures. Warner took little satisfaction knowing his warnings were now clearly on record. Thirty years in the bureau had culminated in this: his carefully nurtured project nullified by a group of political hacks lacking the fortitude to do the right thing.

This was all the proof he needed. Director Warner had outlived his usefulness as head of the FBI. Disgusted, he quietly pushed away the microphone and scooped up the few papers spread before him; the very ones the politicians would not review. As he slid them back into his tooled-leather briefcase, his hand landed upon the envelope containing his signed resignation addressed to the Secretary of Homeland Security. There would be time enough tomorrow to submit the single sheet.

The director scanned the faces before him one final time. Nothing but painted smiles remained as the band of hyenas bid him a final adieu. He politely nodded, spun on his heels, and strode resolutely through the gallery of blinking camera lenses.

Passing the last row of visitor seats, Warner spied a familiar face. He looked to a hefty, well-dressed man in his late fifties with pockmarked skin and rose-tinted glasses that camouflaged his deep-set brown eyes. This was William Allen, founder of Texas Computer Works. Bill was one of the ten wealthiest men in the world with a personal fortune estimated at roughly $50 billion. Their eyes met and in that instant, each renewed his commitment to the future. One would use his unlimited funds and his uncanny ability to create most anything the mind dreamt of in the world of computer sciences. The other would continue his life’s work protecting the nation. Only now, Jack’s work would be a clandestine venture.

The two met a lifetime earlier at a political fundraiser when Jack was a minor deputy director. Their conversation was brief, yet set the tone for future discussion. As years progressed, they kept in touch, quite unofficially. Talks gained in intensity and secrecy as they narrowed causes until theirs became one mind. The super-rich, super-bright man and the decorated investigator shared a common dedication to the same end: safeguarding the American way of life.

Jack’s aide fell in step, Where to, sir?

Without looking up, Back to the barn, Denton.

The director continued across the fabled marble corridor fading into political history certain never to appear again.

A bit before nine, Jack slipped his iPhone back into his pocket and stood. His hand reached down to the small photograph of father and daughter kept on his desk. He removed the picture, then replaced the empty frame in precisely the same position it sat for the last three years. For him, nothing was ever out of place, at least until now. He spoke aloud to the image of his child caught frozen in time. Helen, I know you think the bureau always came first. If only I could have explained… I hope it’s not too late.

He turned one final time to view the National Mall. His gaze held on the obelisk monument standing stark white in the cold autumn night. He again marveled at each cut stone set precisely in place as a symbol of purported invincibility. Dry, colored leaves swirled about the walkways leaving the trees bare to face winter’s coming assault. Soon, the first sprinkle of delightful snow would blanket the capital, a sight Jack would sorely miss.

Jack retrieved a flag folded tightly into a triangle that once draped his close friend’s coffin. The agent had fallen in the Twin Tower collapse while attempting to rescue the doomed. Warner took a deep breath as he held it close and glanced around the room one last time. He would never return to this place. The room held good memories and painful ones. Right now, the painful ones overshadowed the others and weighed heavily upon his soul.

The director stopped in the outer office to issue one final directive, Denton, there’s a letter on my desk addressed to the secretary; hand-deliver it tomorrow morning.

Outside the Hoover Building’s E Street side entrance, Warner cleared the final surveillance cameras, and then continued walking on Ninth. Admittedly, he felt a bit vulnerable without his armed guards. Yet, the crisp Washington air quickly refreshed his brain. He decided that he enjoyed the feeling of freedom in his solitude.

Continuing along the illuminated sidewalk, he felt the presence of a heavy vehicle as it turned the corner behind him. Instinctively, his hand inched to his sidearm.

The limousine picked up just enough speed to come alongside him, and then slowed. The heavily tinted side window came down. Jack knew who it was without looking.

Both he and the car stopped at precisely the same moment. The rear door opened and he slipped inside. The entry closed with a heavy thud of armor plating, and then the vehicle accelerated. Bill Allen reached out his right hand. I’m glad you’re here, Jack. It is time to start the next chapter of our lives.

They left me no choice, Bill.

After today, I guess not.

The driver turned the corner and moved along Constitution Avenue soon clearing the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge. A half-mile further on, the vehicle entered I-66 and headed west into uncharted territory.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013.

A searing midday sun burst forth from behind a threatening mass of dark sky, spilling welcomed warmth onto the earth below. Winter’s premature approach had brought the city’s inhabitants indoors far too early this season. However, today’s prospect of a brief reprieve before the snow’s onslaught allowed the lunchtime multitude time to throw off topcoats and turn faces upward to the warming rays of an Indian summer day.

Men and women strode from nondescript government buildings coated in Vermont marble. Workers sought resting places on granite steps and wooden benches that lined the two-hundred-year-old avenue stretching from the Potomac to the Capitol Dome.

A muscular postman, sporting a precise, pencil-thin, blond mustache matching the locks beneath his official cap, looked at his wristwatch: 12:25. From his carefully chosen vantage point across from the old Smithsonian, his practiced eyes caught sight of the object of his vigilance. The mailman focused all his energies on a tan-skinned mail carrier, Muhammad Arifi who hefted a worn leather pouch identical to the one resting at the observer’s feet.

Unaware of this scrutiny, Arifi stopped and glanced at the ever-present security cameras that sprouted everywhere like poisonous mushrooms in a concrete forest. Muhammad dropped his head and walked on, turning left at the first intersection. Under sunglasses, his alert, coal-black eyes probed all. He learned his trade well from the best terror masters the princes of the desert could buy.

Two streets from the Mall, Arifi approached a glass-enclosed, self-serve restaurant with wrought-iron tables and bright, lime umbrellas outside. He had chosen this establishment a week earlier as an ideal place from which to observe his handiwork. Groups of young patrons sat at the small tables. They engaged in animated conversations as they devoured their quick lunchtime meals, and fed the gray and white pigeons darting at their feet. One young man in a white shirt and precisely pleated, black slacks took digital photos of his preppy, gray-suited girlfriend. The young woman impishly tried to shun his efforts with outstretched hands belying a face smiling for the camera. Obviously, they were in love, no threat.

Muhammad glanced to each side of the doorway. Good, no security cameras added since last week. He approached the building and read the menu posted in the window, another subterfuge. In reality, he used the glass as a mirror to view his surroundings. He was always careful. No, care was not enough; suspicion and vigilance ruled his every move and provided his personal safety net.

At 1:09, the patrons checked their watches and filtered away. Twenty-one minutes more and his practice strike against America would be complete. Arifi continued making mental notes of minute alterations in his plan to insure the attack’s success. Allah willing, the next time will not be a test, rather, it will be a full-blown assault against the infidels.

As Muhammad continued viewing the reflected world, a white Metropolitan Police cruiser pulled up and parked at the curb. Two black officers, deep in conversation, paid him no heed. Nevertheless, Muhammad kept his face turned from their view, another practiced behavior.

Arifi moved to the table furthest from the center and placed his brown leather satchel on one of the free seats. He then positioned the back of the chair firmly against the wall, a perfect spot to observe.

Satisfied with this arrangement, Muhammad entered the shop, made his lunch selections, and returned to his carefully chosen seat. He began eating his meal as a blond letter carrier exited the same store. Muhammad could not believe his eyes and pondered his mistake: How did I miss seeing him inside? I cannot make this sort of mistake again. I will not return.

The blond man looked to his darker compatriot and purposely made his way to an adjacent table. Hey, he offered as he placed his lunch on a separate table.

Forced to respond, Arifi uttered a hesitant, Hello.

None of my business, but, you left your pouch unattended. You’re in a world of trouble if a supervisor sees that!

A tiny shiver found Arifi’s spine. Forgot, he offered with all the indifference he could muster.

The interloper removed a newspaper from his leather bag and opened it to sports. It happens. He started his meal without further comment, disregarding a score of pigeons that suddenly materialized at his feet.

The flustered postman thought, Good thing that know-it-all would rather read sports than find something else wrong with me. Muhammad finished his meal by flushing it down with the last distasteful mouthful of sweetened carbonated water. His plan was to return within a day or two armed with a powerful biological weapon that would destroy a significant portion of Washington’s work force and, hopefully, many mid-level bureaucrats. The infidels had no defense against the new airborne plague he planned to deliver. An Iraqi laboratory cultured it quite by accident weeks prior to America’s 1991 invasion. Hastily, everything went into Syria for safe hiding only to re-emerge with the Arab Spring. This plague was far deadlier than anthrax, which American medicine could counter.

Muhammad Arifi would place the agent in unprotected air-conditioning intakes allowing the microbes to disperse into hundreds of government offices. Few humans would escape, for it would only take a single breath for the contaminant to infect their lungs.

Within twenty-four hours, the first signs of catastrophic illness would emerge. In forty-eight, the American dogs would begin their painful deaths. No magic injection would make the sickness go away. The Holy Messenger of Death quickly claims each soul once exposed. Al-Qaeda’s gold coins would prove well spent. All this death and destruction would be Muhammad’s extreme honor to deliver—yes, a very great honor. He would become the ultimate homicide bomber as the Americans say. Today is the dry run; however, tomorrow or the next day—the actual assault.

Arifi’s thoughts returned to the present and to the man at his right, still deep into the Washington Post sports pages. They were now the only two patrons remaining. Muhammad had to leave immediately or risk further conversation. He wrapped the plastic refuse around the aluminum can and stood. For an instant, the smell of fear invaded his nostrils. He shook it off and offered a weak, See ya’ around, in true American slang.

The blond man nodded, Yeah, see ya. and resumed reading.

In a single, unguarded moment, the would-be terrorist, Muhammad, turned his back to the other man and stepped toward the wastebasket. Before Arifi’s second foot struck the concrete, he was dead. A malignant silver shaft, scarcely thicker than a woman’s hairpin, pierced the back of his thin jacket, and effortlessly passed through the sky-blue shirt. The point sliced almost surgically alongside his spine, nicked a rib, and penetrated its target, his heart. The tip severed the vital muscle allowing hot blood to burst forth bathing Muhammad’s chest cavity in a sea of once life-sustaining fluid.

The fair-haired assassin withdrew the pike and eased his victim back onto the still-warm seat. A single, involuntary gasp escaped rigid lips as Muhammad’s lifeless eyes froze open seeking out Allah in a perfectly azure sky. There was no final prayer. He was one with his god and the next recipient of the jihadist promise of seventy virgins.

The assassin slipped the blade between his newspaper pages, and then deftly scooped all the debris into the leather pouch. The deceased’s wallet and key ring followed. Nothing remained to identify either victim or assailant. The dead man’s fingerprints would provide the authorities with no clue as to his identity. Those chosen to become martyrs of the New Order were untraceable.

Strong steps allowed the handsome blond mail carrier to vanish quickly amid Washington’s many pedestrians. As he turned the nearby corner, a plump Middle Eastern female employee exited the food shop with rag and broom in hand. The woman was mindful to tuck in a few errant strands of hair under her scarf. She paused briefly allowing her dark eyes to gaze upward at the delicious blue of the day. Then abruptly, a single, gray cloud drifted overhead obscuring her heavenly view.

She drew a deep breath, held and savored it, and then turned toward the tables. She spied the lone remaining patron, a postal worker at the last of the tables. She worked her way toward him hoping her activity would motivate him to leave. The employee glanced at her watch: 1:27, no time to waste. The interior needed cleaning too. Sir, I think it’s time to be going. No response. She gently nudged his shoulder, Time to get going.

The silent man failed to move. She tugged more firmly, Mr. Postman! A lifeless head rolled to one side as the man slipped from the chair. In an effort to hold him upright, she stepped forward, but his dead weight was too much for her. He toppled directly at her, his face plowing into the softness of her massive breasts. She tried in vain to back away and stumbled over a chair directly behind. As she tumbled, she failed to release her hold, which brought him atop her. They crashed to the pavement in a macabre embrace.

The woman, hopelessly embarrassed, attempted to push him off, all the while, apologizing profusely. I’m so sorry. Please… A warm sticky substance caught her fingers. She looked to her hand now wet with blood. The heavy woman tried to squirm from under his weight, a nearly impossible task. She screamed, her voice piercing the placid scene. Pigeons took flight. A beam of jaundiced sunlight broke around the single gray cloud.

Her shrieks continued as the two police officers ran toward the startled woman pushing away from the corpse. Bloodied handprints were visible on the pavement and her skirt. The officers threw aside chairs and tables as they created a path to death.

The cops stopped in their tracks as communicators beckoned: All units. Smoke at the Library of Congress, 10 First Street SE. They turned, making out a wisp of black haze escaping a rooftop a few blocks distant. Their attention quickly returned to the current situation as the panicked woman let out still another ear-piercing scream. She tried desperately to crawl from the dead man lying face down on the pavement, while holding up a blood-covered hand to the officers.

At that precise moment, the sound of a church bell striking half-past one, along with the faint taste of oxidized smog, reached them. Sirens wailed, as the first of what would be many emergency response teams raced up First Street. The dry run was successful—something Muhammad Arifi’s unseeing eyes would never register.

Late news editions printed the fact that an electrical short had drawn smoke into fifty or so offices in the Library of Congress. While it produced a number of teary eyes and some dirty clothing, there were no injuries. The incident turned into an unplanned holiday for the 555 employees ordered time off with pay for the remainder of the day. All were safe for the time being. The murder of a postal worker at a downtown café would get a bit of space on page five. Arifi’s murder was just one of three in the nation’s capital that day, nothing more.

Precisely at midnight, a uniformed employee of the United States Postal Service arrived at a rundown apartment building on Mintwood Place in northeast Washington. A colorful sign outside the entrance confirmed that soon after gutting and renovating this pre-war structure, high-priced condos would fill the space. Within six months, upwardly mobile graduates of Berkley, Stanford and Wharton would reside in the renovated apartments. Prices would start at $450,000 for a tiny studio. Obviously, the recession had bypassed Washington’s real estate market. Preconstruction sales were in progress, possession next March. Washington was rapidly becoming a disparate city of the very rich and the very poor.

The killer removed the ring containing two keys from his pocket and fit one into the lock. The lobby door creaked open. The sounds and smells of poverty, created by the handful of remaining residents living impossibly close, assaulted his senses. He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves before climbing the stairs stained with years of piss and filth. The heavy beat of rap music flowed down the peeling stairwell masking his presence. He stopped at level four. Using a LED flashlight, he searched for the door marked 4-K. The second key gained him unhindered entrance.

A bare, 75-watt, overhead bulb illuminated the scantly furnished room in harsh brightness. A disheveled bed with threadbare covers nearly filled the space. The intruder conducted his search with expert precision. As he passed by the single, soot-encrusted window, he peered outside. In the distance, high on its manmade mound dominating surrounding official structures, the stark white Capitol dome stood sentinel against a dark, ominous sky. The scene left a mental imprint. A couple of floors higher and the entire legislative structure would be visible. Enough sightseeing; he returned to the task.

Moments later, the tightly sealed cylinder he sought was in his possession. Cognizant of the plague harbored within, the assassin cautiously slid the silver flask into his leather pouch. He then retraced his steps leaving no evidence of his presence. The assassin returned to the protection of darkness, his assignment almost complete.

A little before dawn, he was in a remote section of northwest Washington far more in need of redevelopment than that of the night before. Suddenly, a parked car erupted into flame. The fire was unnaturally hot, fueled not only by its own gas tank and plastic surfaces, but also by fluid far more flammable than gasoline. The heat was searing. The frame sagged and then collapsed fusing itself to the asphalt’s black surface. Dancing flames ignited adjacent vehicles. Soon all was consumed—devil’s work.

Bathed in surreal illumination, the lone postman watched at a safe distance from the inferno. As he waited, flickering fingers of reflected light jitterbugged across his face. Suddenly, a loud pop resonated across the brick facades, closely followed by an outward burst of blackened smoke, then glaucous vapor. Contract fulfilled. All that remained was for him to vanish like the Neolithic beast he just destroyed.

As the arsonist turned away from the scene, he pressed a programmed number on a prepaid disposable cell phone. The untraceable connection took seconds and sans a verbal reply at the other end, he clearly uttered a single word, Finished. Certainly, no electronic device would track a call lasting less than a second or two.

The phone served its single purpose. He dropped it to the pavement, and then used his heel to crush it into a mass of useless plastic and shattered silicone chips. The assassin recovered the twisted pieces and deposited the electronic morsels into sewers, garbage cans, and vacant lots as he walked away. The precaution was more habit than necessity. The device itself was untraceable, purchased with cash in an electronics store two days earlier.

When the D.C. Fire Department extinguished the blaze fifteen minutes later, their investigators found a mass of charred, twisted metal melted beyond immediate recognition. They wrote it up as an act of vandalism or of insurance fraud common to this part of the nation’s capital.

Within twenty-four hours, a local junkyard would pick up the vehicle remains for disposal. None of the cars had much salvage value. That was the professional’s plan from the beginning; no evidence—a neat little package of nothingness.

The room buzzed with the sound of a thousand electronic bees hard at work. The swarming emanated from a series of tiny, yet powerful, cooling fans set into oversized banks of Texas Computer Works processors. Flashing diodes indicated that memory chips were absorbing, dissecting, cross-referencing, and analyzing seemingly unrelated facts, storing data for later regurgitation. Overhead, stainless steel fans cast a surreal pattern of moving light against the unstained, tongue-and-grove wooden ceiling.

The former FBI director, Jack Warner, was sitting at a glass-topped desk set before three wide, flat-panel monitors. Each of them flashed columns of white numerals down its face. Five-inch-high red numerals changing from 05:10:59 to 05:11:00 gave the only indication of time.

The night was uneventful until these last five minutes when something strange came across one screen. From somewhere on a Washington street, a one-second, one-word message flashed from a pre-paid cell phone to an electronic server somewhere in the city. The word was "finished." This isolated fact meant nothing, but then again, things are not always as they seem.

Without a prompt, the computer ran a trace. A cross-informational analysis scan within a series of minute timeframes revealed that the DC automobile arson and the single-word message both originated from the same location. The time of the fire department summons and the cell phone call fit exactly.

A trace of the cellular server uncovered the relay of the message to a Middle Eastern location, then its rerouting back to a secure link somewhere inside the EU. With 97 percent probability, the call finally came to rest in a Grand Cayman bank. This was exactly the type of intel that Jack looked for. He placed the information into electronic memory, another piece in a series of seemingly unrelated data awaiting further analysis if ever a pattern developed.

He sat back and thought about the mind that invented this… program and this super processor. Five years ago, a colleague developed an entirely new, yet theoretical, program for the FBI and saw to the development of these processors. Possible political consequences of illegal eavesdropping as well as congressional budgetary concerns stopped the program in its tracks.

Once retired, this unnamed colleague accepted a position at Texas Computer Works, working exclusively on a special project. He answered directly to William Allen. Free from legal and budgetary constraints, what started, as a theoretical game, soon became practical reality.

A year later and $50 million spent, the team was well on its way to its goal of spying on the world. Then, without warning, the theoretician died leaving Jack and Bill to carry on the machine’s essential work in tandem. As the duo moved forward, they realized the enormous political, military, and national security implications this massive information gathering harbored. Possessing such a tool held inherent dangers, yet, this listening in on the world also held crucial defense implications for the nation.

As Jack completed his early morning review, he was unable to purge that single word message: Finished, from his mind. As he mused about what such a communication might mean, he stood up, stretched, and caught a glimpse of himself reflected off the glass of a framed painting. The white-gray hairs at his temples were creeping upward casting a saintly halo around his head from the reflection of the glowing screens. He chuckled at the thought; he was anything but a saint! Time: 06:33:15, the mystery of the single word would have to wait. Perhaps later other words would bring meaning, perhaps not.

His eyes and thoughts turned to a photograph pressed between the desktop’s glass and the wooden writing surface. There was the picture of Helen and him that he took from his FBI office that last evening before his resignation. Jack’s heart ached as he pondered the great loss his devotion to national security brought when it came to her. He left promises to her unfulfilled and important events in her life unattended. When he missed her Sweet Sixteen, Helen said she understood. In reality, from that day forward she never again asked for his attention. Subsequent phone calls from afar meant little. The shining face caught in the photograph before him deserved more. There was no doubt in his mind that he had failed miserably in his efforts as a father. He only hoped that he could somehow explain himself and be a part of her life.

Jack turned away from the photo. Outside, hidden in the depths of the adjacent lake, fat, speckled trout awaited their destiny, a breakfast fry pan. Fingers played across the keys, expertly stroking the electronic giants to a semi-slumber. Screens flashed blank, cold blue, all the while unseen electronic intelligence continued tracking data.

Warner removed what appeared to be a credit card set on the lower front of one of the screens and placed it on a shelf. Again, he caught his reflection in one of the blank monitors. His face remained handsome with sixtyish Hollywood-like features chiseled from American Midwest stone and a tinge of Nordic heritage. A lot of good my boyish charms do me alone in the wilderness!

After closing the office door, he coded a series of numbers onto an adjoining keypad. The response was a loud beep. The proper code was the only way back into the room unless someone chose to cut his way through twenty-inch-thick solid log walls. Even then, the intruder would have to bypass still another security device set inside the doorjamb. If fifteen seconds passed without logging in the proper sequence, a cloud of lethal Halon gas would descend from hidden jets. The original purpose of the Halon 1301 was as a fire retardant designed to snuff out any blaze without destroying the precious, data-filled computers that water or another retardant most certainly would. As a bonus, Halon’s lack of oxygen would result in the immediate demise of anyone attempting unauthorized entry.

Location was the primary concern when Jack purchased this property consisting of 225-forested acres secluded from prying eyes. The log house was small yet well suited to his needs. First on the director’s list of renovations was to bury a two-thousand-gallon propane tank directly outside. According to the building permit, the propane supply was for heat, cooking, and powering an oversized generator. Unknown to anyone and quite illegally, Jack secured a sealed packet of C-4 explosive to the tank’s skin and then had the device paved over with eight inches of fiber-concrete.

As if that wasn’t enough security, Bill Allen then added his expertise. He created an innovative fail-safe system, a hybrid of a secure cyrptoprocessor or integrated circuit card. The polyvinyl chloride card, same size as a credit card, continuously displayed a series of random numbers and letters. A hidden sensor built into the middle monitor constantly received that exact code. The computer would fail to operate without the card positioned within six inches of the lower, right-hand portion of the display. It was married to a deadly doomsday device that only he and Bill knew existed. Without that specific card in place, an electric impulse would trigger the buried C-4 creating an enormous explosion, destroying a whole lot more than the machines and their sequestered information.

The data stored on those computer files and the extensive backup devices would never fall into the wrong hands. The pulse of the nation and much of the world’s electronic-based information passed through these devices and no one was yet the wiser. Allen and Warner intended to keep it that way, for this eavesdropping on the world was completely illegal and insanely dangerous in the wrong hands. The fact that Jack was a former FBI director and Bill one of the world’s wealthiest men would not protect either of them from prosecution if caught.

The sounds of nature beckoned across the crystal-clear Minnesota lake beyond. Millions of trees washed the crisp and wonderfully unpolluted air in Jack’s wilderness. The air here was far cleaner and more fragrant than what he had breathed in DC. How had he endured it all those years? As he walked to the dock, his fingers encircled a delicate, almost sensual, graphite fly rod. He had used it too few times attempting to coax silvery denizens of the deep onto artificial emerald flies skillfully crafted a lifetime earlier. Tying flies, he most probably would never live to use, carried him through the mental strain of his bureau job, the death of his wife, and the estrangement of his daughter.

Somehow, Jack survived the years of responsibility, danger, and intrigue the FBI handed him. Against unfathomable odds, the former director was now on his lake, enjoying retirement, a generous government pension, and consumed by purpose. He spent his days fishing and his nights experimenting in the illegal world of clandestine electronic surveillance. The peace he thought he craved remained elusive.

Reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting, Jack walked down the gravel path toward the water. Sharp stones crunched beneath his black rubber, fishing boots. A worn and narrow wooden dock reached outward thirty meters from shore like a delicate hoary finger piercing the sun’s golden reflection. At the end of the pier sat a barely bobbing aluminum bass boat. It sat ready to transport him to his favorite spot, the one where fat trout and giant large-mouthed bass awaited battle. He stopped and took a moment simply to look out at the scene, a privilege of age and retirement.

Seated high up from the craft’s deck in a fiberglass chair, Jack attempted to purge thoughts of that single word, finished, from his brain. It was probably nothing, but then again. There was always that, then again feeling. His entire career was a series of then agains, some resulting in worse consequences than others.

A full minute passed before he was able to push the thought back into his subconscious. When his eyes reopened, his attention turned to the pleasures at hand. He chose the two-and-a-half horsepower electric engine rather than its bigger brother so as not to disturb the fish. It hummed to life, allowing the craft to edge away from its moorings into the blue-black pristine waters. Tiny white waves grew from the bow forming a soft set of symmetric lines, disturbing the water’s glass-like surface as the boat moved through the sun’s carpet. Soon, both he and his craft were but specks against the mirrored surface.

Behind massive limestone walls at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, the J. Edgar Hoover Building remains largely unchanged since its dedication in 1975, by then President Gerald Ford. The original Hoover concept of bureau operation created a stagnant, monolithic structure inside and out. Those within operated with one basic languorous rule; agents answer to the director first, to congress and the president second, and today, to Homeland Security—a distant third.

Post 9/11 investigations determined that the bureau failed to respond to internal memos and warnings of terrorist activities written by its own agents. Alerts confirmed by the CIA, as well as at least two foreign security services that might have stopped the attack, made it into the circular file and no further. The bureau’s inability to process intelligence resulted in inaction. The attack was inevitable and sadly preventable, but in true Hoover ideology, a law enforcement response never materialized.

The government’s retort was an ill-conceived and poorly implemented attempt to catch up to both twenty-first century technology and methodology. The result fell sorely short, creating yet another department and another layer of failed bureaucracy placed between law enforcement and results. The new Department of Homeland Security became a place where the unemployed secured jobs and pensions, but did little actual detective work. The new standard rapidly became; do not make waves, just cash your paycheck and continue voting for candidates whose elections guarantee the status quo. One glaring, failed example is the ineffective TSA. The agency’s own experts routinely get weapons, narcotics, even explosives through security, yet nothing changes. Instead, great-grandparents have to tolerate strip-searches while those who fit the profile pass through unheeded. Heaven forbid we use common sense to protect ourselves. That would not be politically correct. Leave that to the Israelis who profile unabashedly.

With his back to his polished oak desk, forty-two-year-old Assistant Director Mark Goldman stared vacantly out the broad window that faced a million-dollar view of the Washington Mall. The preceding few years proved non-productive, filled with in-house haggling, meaningless conferences, and reports that invariably ended up lost in the bureaucratic wasteland that ruled the nation’s most important law enforcement agency, the FBI. He joined to fight terrorism, not to push pencils and play agency games, which were now the only things he routinely did.

Goldman was entirely out of place behind a desk, especially one as huge as this. He was a cop, a detective, not some infighting bureaucrat. No matter how he protested, the previous director promoted him into this hell as a reward for breaking an impossible case against all odds. Mark became the head of the new FCI, the bureau’s Foreign Counter Intelligence division.

Jack did all he could to give his Jewish protégé autonomy within the proliferating institution, but he did not envision the unified forces opposed to the new supervisor. The FCI degenerated into a dead end for the new AD. Sister agencies failed to share information with his. Once Homeland Security took charge, Mark’s division was completely out of the loop. His only returns were a measure of prestige, pay, and benefits, not effective police work. Mark had to get out. His place was on the street, the front lines of America’s fight against terrorism, not here.

For a while, Mark believed he could make a difference. The assistant director developed a plan to integrate INTERPOL intelligence into the bureau’s broader national terrorism defense network. The bureau higher-ups feigned interest by continually sending him back to the drawing board to work out minor glitches. They were toying with him. He was typecast, a Jewish misfit, in a hierarchy of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Goldman was not a member of their club and never would be. Only two choices remained; first, sit back and collect his pension, or second, resign and offer his skills elsewhere.

His mind drifted back to his senior year at Thomas Jefferson High School in the rapidly decaying Brownsville section of Brooklyn. At seventeen, he lost both parents in a senseless automobile accident. Mark lived out that difficult year with an aunt before entering a local college. Upon graduation, he entered Marine OCS followed by a tour in a nameless war in a God-forsaken country.

He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to drift back to happier days at NYU Law. After graduation, he chose to be a cop rather than an attorney. He took the required tests, and then entered the New York City Police Academy. After two years, he moved to the detective division, as did most cops with law degrees. Long gone were those days. Now they were only failing memories.

His thoughts shifted to a vivid image of a strikingly beautiful woman with an exquisite face. She was winding her way through, of all places, the dark foreboding back alleys of Arab Jerusalem. Through his mental haze, the woman peered directly at him with dark, haunting eyes and an alluring smile that touched his vulnerable soul. He knew he should be there at her side, protecting her, loving her; not here where he felt sterile and useless. Ruth Sachs was the only family he would ever have or need.

They were fiery lovers in true Hollywood fashion, creating passion that neither one could ever entertain with another. Their hearts, minds, and bodies were one; meant solely for each other. Yet, in the course of their history, only an unquenched longing for each other remained. Life without Ruth meant time without magic. Mark had settled for days filled with administrative boredom instead of the love of his life. He had to get out of this hellhole and somehow get back to her.

Mark’s thoughts of the past continued. His closed eyes tightened as he recalled the sudden and truly senseless death of his best friend, Ben, who was also Ruth’s brother. Ben’s death was one of the truly great losses of Mark’s life; yet, Mark may never have met Ruth had it not been for Ben’s murder. Soon after, Ruth and Mark set out on a dangerous mission to shield both America and Israel from a terrorist attack. This attack was far more ambitious than the one that sent aircraft crashing into the Pentagon, the Twin Towers, and an untilled field in Pennsylvania. The assault the duo thwarted would have resulted in economic disaster for America and the certain destruction of the State of Israel.

Now, he was here twiddling his thumbs while she was still somewhere hunting Islamic terrorists for the Mossad. The Sunni Muslim Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, formally the West’s rising star, failed to bring peace. However, his constant spilling of Arafat-inspired rhetoric at the United Nations finally got the Palestinian Authority (PA) Observer Status, whatever that meant. Before the year was out, Abu Mazen might be no more, as Hamas was exerting ever-increasing power in the PA’s West Bank. This reality left Ruth and other Mossad agents continually searching for Allah’s martyrs among thieves. Despite a tenuous internal Palestinian political accord, Hamas was running the show. Yet Ben’s sister believed she could head off the inevitable confrontation, as improbable as the task might seem.

The thought of Ruth in constant danger caused his mouth to go dry. He should be the one in constant danger and she should be the one in some cushy, safe position. Only problem with that scenario is that there are no scatheless jobs in the Mossad.

During one of their fantastic, lust-filled nights, Mark had asked her to marry him and Ruth readily accepted. He still pictured the joy in her eyes, sparkling like a thousand tiny menorah candles set along a biblical hillside. However, when they broached the logistics of living arrangements, it became obvious that Mark could not live in Israel and Ruth not in the U.S. No matter how they tried, it was all quite hopeless. Years later, all they had were interludes of passion stolen whenever their professional paths crossed.

Mark opened his eyes and shook his head; time to tuck the memories away. He returned to the present, a dull wasting reality. It was Friday with another lonesome weekend looming. The director tapped the intercom, Parker, anything new? It sounded more like a vacant plea than an inquiry.

No sir. Anything wrong, sir? She sensed something in his voice.

Composing himself, he answered, No, nothing. If there’s nothing on the fire, I’ll call it a day and beat the traffic.

A businesslike voice responded, Yes, sir.

The director stood allowing the high-backed leather chair to fall back to rest. The protesting squeak was the only out-of-place sound he heard that entire day. Mark looked to his computer screen viewing a formal letter he was composing:

To: Alan Dulles, Director

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Subject: Resignation

Mark logged off, the screen quickly going dull black. It was past time to pursue one of his professional options. He had a standing invitation to assume the position of Secretary General of INTERPOL, the International Criminal Police Organization, headquartered in Lyon, France. He resisted until now, knowing he belonged in American law enforcement, even if Mark could no longer remember why. If he took the job, he would head up an organization comprised of 190 member countries cooperatively fighting international terrorism using the Fusion Task Force (FTF). Moreover, Lyon, France would bring him an ocean closer to Ruth.

Mark raised his eyes to the ceiling and took in a tortured breath. He had been through this same dilemma a thousand times. He is Jewish, but not Israeli. He is a cop, but not an international lawman, no matter how lofty the title. There had to be a way to be an American cop again and have her in his life.

The sound of the heavy wooden door closing behind him put finality to another week’s work of shuffling over-analyzed documents already filtered through a dozen departments before landing on his desk. As he walked by his assistant, he saw that she was intently perusing an official folder. Anything I should see?

She looked up, her dark eyes not wanting to offend, I doubt it, sir. A few of us new special agents received this.

And?

Nothing, really sir.

"Nothing could be something, Agent Parker."

As he tried to look over the pages, she offered, It’s a report from the DC Fire Marshal, sir. The agent turned the folder around. Two days ago at approximately 0500, one primary and two secondary automobiles went up in flames in the far northwest section."

And… why is that so important to us? With the economy as it is, cars get torched for insurance almost every night in DC, hardly a bureau matter.

It’s not a case, sir. As I said, only new agents received copies. It’s a brainteaser for us newbies.

So what do our training officers expect you to find?

Wendy looked up hoping to impress. The fire marshal can’t come up with a motive or an accelerant. Whatever the jerk used to burn the autos is not on the marshal’s list. The individual who owned the primary vehicle leased it a couple of days earlier. He didn’t have gap insurance so he’s on the hook for about $5,000.

Mark decided to play. It would give him a bit of insight into his new assistant’s thought processes. Wendy graduated summa cum laude at Stanford and then number two in her class at Quantico. Agent Parker was bright, beautiful, black, and had the kind of drive Mark appreciated. The fact that her father was a highly decorated marine general explained her drive and polish. They were two bureau misfits: a black woman, and a Jew. Some agent in personnel most likely threw them together as a kind of joke. As far as Mark was concerned, the joke backfired. Wendy was already filling the intellectual void that Ruth’s absence created. His new assistant would be with him for at least the next two years if he stayed onboard. Mark drew a seat across from her and listened.

I think that the TOs want us to come up with a reason… and maybe an arrest.

So how do you see it? Do we get a reason or that arrest?

Right now, neither, sir. The logical suspect had no stake in burning his own car. The DC cops ran him and came up blank. He has been a schoolteacher for twenty years. He’s never even run a red light. So unless this guy is something he doesn’t appear to be, he’s out.

How about a drive-by arson, a couple of kids on a joy ride, or a gang initiation? Been known to happen.

Anything’s possible, sir. But I don’t think this one fits. Wendy gathered her thoughts, getting ready to give it the good old bureau try. The accelerant is the key. A drive-by would have used gasoline, but this fire was too hot to be gas. The fire marshal thinks something… maybe something military.

Was the teacher in the Guard or Reserve?

Not even the Boy Scouts. Personally, I believe the fire was set to hide something, sir. She offered a series of photographs.

Wendy reached across the desk to show them to him. The subtle hint of her expensive perfume briefly distracted him. As you can see in shot #5, there’s a pool of metal, maybe aluminum, right where the rear seat would have been. In shot #12, door glass shattered outward from three of the windows, but not so in #4. That glass remains inside. That screams to me that the car was broken into prior the fire starting. The explosion blew out the other three, along with the windshield and the rear. There are also keys, two of them, pretty distorted from the heat. Neither looks like it came from a car; too long and too cheap!

Good thinking, but the marshal already knows that. What do you have that he doesn’t?

I think that pool of aluminum was a container that held something the arsonist wanted to get rid of.

Looks like he succeeded; with no eye witnesses, everyone’s come up blank.

Don’t think so, sir. I plan to work on this over the weekend.

Mark stood and teased her as he left, Don’t you have a life outside the bureau?

She smiled, Well, yes sir, but I can give a weekend to show what I have to offer the bureau. You know what I mean, sir?

Mark turned; he knew exactly what she meant. It wasn’t easy for her either. See you Monday, Parker. I’ll drive myself home.

I’ll be here, sir.

Mark walked along the antiseptic corridor toward the elevator. Everything smelled of disinfectant or polish. His eyes scanned the glass-smooth marble, the powder blue walls, and likewise the properly dark-suited agents with white shirts and dark ties waiting for their ride down. Everything was so damn sanitary and sterile.

Unmarred stainless-steel elevator doors opened; the agents waited as he stepped inside. Everyone knew the pecking order; bosses first, peons second. This was not like at One PP in New York where everyone used the elevator to try out the latest and dirtiest joke, or discuss a new case, or an old one. Shake a hand or slap someone on the back for a job