The Meeting
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After the funeral, Mike returned home to find that his lawn had been mowed. He stepped out of his car and looked at the freshly mowed grass. There were still bald patches that constituted an eyesore, but the lawn was improving. It was the first time he had been home since the morning of the attack on the mall. He had expected to see newspapers spread over the porch and mail billowing out of the mailbox. Instead, everything looked neat.
Bob came over with a stack of mail in his hand. Not really knowing what to say, he said, “I brought your mail over.”
“Thanks, Bob. Thanks for everything,” Mike said accepting the mail with his good hand. He slipped the mail between his left arm and body to hold it while allowing him to use his right hand.
“I’m really sorry about Karen and Robert,” Bob said in a sad voice.
“Thank you,” Mike said. He dimly recalled that Bob and his wife had been at the funeral.
Bob looked at the bandages around Mike’s left hand thinking that the whole story about him being in the hospital was a fabrication. He’d have known if Mike was going into the hospital. There was no way that he was going to ask about it though. There were times when Mike’s knowledge about what was going on scared him.
He asked, “How’s your hand?”
“It hurts,” Mike answered looking at it. The dull throbbing pain of his hand was the one constant in his life.
“The pain pills aren’t helping?” Bob asked concerned.
“I’m not taking any pain pills,” Mike answered.
It was his hope that the dull throbbing pain would keep his mind from the other problems in his life. It wasn’t working.
“Oh,” Bob said frowning at the news. Bob licked his lips and started to say something, but stopped before the words came out. Nervous, he said, “Mike, I know you’ve had a horrible loss, but you do need to take care of yourself.”
Appreciating the concern, Mike gave his neighbor a weak smile and said, “Don’t worry about me. I am taking care of myself. I just don’t want the painkillers.”
Nodding his head, Bob said, “If you need anything, I’m just next door.”
“Thank you, Bob,” Mike said. He appreciated the offer, but couldn’t think of anything that he would need. That didn’t diminish the value of the offer though. He said, “You’re a good man, Bob. I appreciate your concern.”
After Bob returned home, Mike went into the house and looked around at it. There were a few of Robert’s toys scattered around on the floor. There were other little signs that Karen had left the house fully intending to return home before Mike. There was the trace odor of rotten meat in the air. He was sure that his mother had thrown away some meat that Karen had put on the kitchen counter after she had taken it out of the freezer to defrost. Some dirty clothes were on the bed where Karen had changed before heading out to the mall.
It seemed that no matter where he looked, there was something to remind him that Karen and Robert were no longer in his life. He dumped the mail he had been carrying around on the dining room table. Sorting through it took a few minutes. For the first time in his life, he was pleased to see bills. They distracted him for a few seconds and reminded him that life had to go on.
He went into the living room and sat down in his chair. The rocking chair across the room from him reminded him of how he had watched Karen breastfeed Robert. It reminded him of how he had felt at the time.
The tears that followed didn’t stop for hours.
The situation screen at the head of the room showed a map completely covered by a complex array of colored dots of various sizes. More than a week away from the Internet Café had brought about some changes. It was obvious that the other analysts had made some progress in mapping out the terrorist network.
Mike stared at the screen for a full minute and then asked, “Would someone explain to me what I’m seeing?”
“We’ve taken the ideas that you had to their logical conclusion,” Jack McElroy answered. He rose from his chair and walked to the front of the room. Pointing at the screen, he said, “The yellow dots are Muslim owned gas stations. We replaced the out-of-date census data with telephone data that we got from the NSA. The brightness of the green areas shows the density of people with the name Mohammed. By doing that we came up with a few more clusters of Muslims that didn’t exist in 2000. The orange dots are locations with major Islamic schools.”
“The red dots show locations of major terrorist attacks. We’ve redefined what constitutes a major attack. It now requires a level of organization behind it rather than a minimum death toll. That changed the map significantly by discounting the attacks by individuals who are working alone,” Shirley Holbrook said. That particular idea had been hers and she was quite proud of it.
“There isn’t a pattern to the major attacks,” Mike said staring at the screen.
“We think that is a pattern in itself,” Shirley said getting excited. She shifted in her chair to look at Mike directly.
“Why?”
Shirley ran her fingers over the keyboard and the static display was replaced by a time lapse replay of major attacks.
She said, “We figure they are using two teams to provide surveillance of a target. The first team is charged with identifying one or more targets. This team works for the primary mission planner and are considered indispensable. They are highly trained to know what kinds of things to look for in a target. However, they have to focus on one effort at time. That wouldn’t let them attack too many high value targets. So they have a second team that goes in and fills in the details.
“The second team doesn’t know anything about the first team. They just receive some preliminary data about the target. They go through and do a detailed surveillance of the target area. They are expendable so that if they are caught it’s not a great loss. They don’t know much about the true organization beyond some low level messenger.”
“So what does that mean in terms of a lack of a pattern?”
“The first team goes onto another location. They can’t hang around in case the second team is caught and brings attention into the area. The result is that the first team is busy at work two or three sites ahead of the next attack,” Shirley explained.
Looking at all of the green dots, Mike asked, “Where in the hell did all of those people come from?”
“From all over the world,” Jack answered.
Jim Donnelly said, “There has been a lot of conversion to Islam in the prisons. Unfortunately many of the Imams that have been visiting the prisons are radicals.”
“Have we made any progress in getting information about those isolated gas stations?” Mike asked.
Jim answered, “We’ve been in contact with local law enforcement. They are watching the gas stations and providing weekly reports of activities there. The larger yellow dots are places where visitors have stayed for a day or two before moving on. We’re able to track the movements of people through the network now.”
Nodding, Mike studied the situation board for a full minute thinking about the detail of information presented in it. They had the populations mapped out and the movement networks identified. That was a significant result, but it wasn’t enough. It still didn’t identify the critical individuals who were planning the operations. It didn’t give them insight into what was going to happen next. He asked, “What are you working on now?”
“We’re stuck,” Jack answered.
Mike said, “Let’s do one thing more. I’d like to see what happens when we add INS data detailing the destination cities specified on visa applications over the past year. I want to concentrate on individuals from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, and Syria.”
Shirley said, “We don’t have anyone from INS here.”
“I’ll correct that situation,” Mike said moving over to the telephone. Five minutes later an agent from the INS had been assigned to report to their location the following morning.
Mike sat down at his chair focused entirely on the problems facing them. There was one problem that no one had reported upon. He asked, “So what is going on with respect to the two missing rail guns?”
“We think they are in the Washington DC area,” Charlie answered.
“Why do you say that?” Mike asked.
Charlie brought up a map of the Maryland, Virginia, and DC area on another screen. There were half a dozen places marked on the map with crosses. He answered, “We believe that all of the rail guns were in the area on the morning of the attack on our locations. We think there was a problem that morning and two of them were unable to make it to their assigned locations. We’ve identified a number of businesses owned by Muslims that have facilities where they could hide the rail guns.”
“Is that it?” Mike asked thinking it was pretty flimsy thinking.
“Well, we did discover that four Muslim males were arrested for drunk driving the night before the attack. We think they were the reason that the rail guns didn’t make it to their targets. With all of the attention by the police, I’d say it’s a pretty good bet that the terrorists have not had a chance to move the rail guns,” Charlie answered with a grin. He waited for the next question.
“Where did they work?” Mike asked.
“At the businesses marked with the two largest crosses,” Charlie answered.
Jim said, “We’ve got people watching all of those locations. If they try to move out, we’ll see it and nab them.”
Shaking his head, Mike said, “You say they were arrested for drinking. That isn’t exactly what we’d expect of good Muslim men. Maybe we can get them drunk and they’ll tell us what we want to know.”
“We can’t,” Charlie said.
“Why not?” Mike asked. He hadn’t been serious about getting them drunk, but Charlie’s comment required clarification.
Charlie said, “They turned up dead two days after they had been arrested.”
“Shot?”
“Their heads were cut off,” Charlie answered.
The ringing of the telephone woke Mike from his afternoon nap. It seemed to him that he was sleeping all of the time that he was away from work. He staggered out of his chair and answered the telephone with a gruff, “Hello.”
“Hello, Mike. This is Sanjay.”
Mike shook his head to jump start his brain. Trying to sound a little more cheerful, Mike said, “Hello, Sanjay. How are you doing?”
“I am fine, Mike. Teva found some very nice Angus beef steaks that are cut an inch and a half thick. Would you like to come over for Barbecue tomorrow night?” Sanjay asked.
To say that Mike wasn’t tempted to answer yes would be a lie. For the past week he had not had any interaction with anyone outside of work. Instead, he answered, “I’d like to do that, but I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be very good company. I’m really sorry, but I have to refuse. Thanks for the offer, though.”
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