Purpose of Evasion Page 20

  With all the action and munitions just 300 yards away, the big swinging dicks from every local, state and federal agency left junior agents and traffic cops guarding the quasi-prisoners. Sami flashed a credential with attitude and a minute later he was overseeing an effort to quantify – by registered room guests – who was and was not accounted for among the guests.

  By the time Andy Rizzo located him, the task was nearly complete.

  “This isn’t what I told you to do.”

  “I know, but I did it because I know what you’re going to tell me next.”

  “Which is?”

  “Now that the bomb is gone, they’re letting people in.”

  Andy jerked his head and walked away, indicating Sami should follow so they could continue at a distance from the guests.

  “These people aren’t guilty of anything.” Andy offered. “We can’t keep them out here forever— “

  “Not forever, but they could clear the building.”

  “We’re not going room-to-room!”

  “What about dogs? At least send them in, see if they signal.”

  Andy rolled his eyes. “Finally, our plan is to your satisfaction. That is happening right now.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we let them back in.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m not. And neither is the White House. They got involved an hour ago. This is the third real bomb and three-hundredth threat this week. The country is shitting a brick, Dost. Big businesses might stop corporate travel. The White House wants this normalized.

  The White House wants…Sami wondered how far Gerald Seymour was from that directive. Instead, he asked, “How much time do I have?”

  “An hour, maybe two.”

  “I need to grab this list.” Sami took the list from a cop guarding the prisoners. “Get me to a phone.”

  Andy breathed a sigh of pre-regret. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  Sami texted Yoda, Emily, and Alexa. Ten minutes later all three were in the makeshift Alexandria ops center. He called back on a secure phone Andy provided, with the list in front of him.

  “I have some names. I need you to run them on every database.”

  “For?” Yoda asked with a conference room’s echo.

  “Anything weird.”

  “Can you be more specific?” It was Alexa.

  “I am most interested in names that get zero hits.”

  “Aliases?” Yoda echoed back.

  “That’s what I’m thinking. But not well worked. Cheap aliases. Unprofessional. Disposable.”

  Sami read names and the team frantically typed and clicked through windows.

  At the end of the exercise, Sami had four names highlighted on the sheet. A combination of two criteria merited highlighting. First, the identity had no hits on any database. Second, they were not present in the guest corral.

  “Meaning that either they did not evacuate, or when they did, they didn’t stay,” Andy said when Sami explained the criteria.

  “Or, they weren’t here to evacuate,” Sami added. “They checked in with an alias, dropped a bag in the room, and left. Look at the room numbers, all on different floors. Two are near the center of the building, one on a high floor and one on a low floor. Each of the others are on opposite wings, mid-height of the building. This hotel allows pre-registered guests to check in with an app and choose their own room. I’ll bet you my car that if we check with the hotel, these guests used online checkin and chose these rooms themselves.”

  Andy breathed deep, a sign of impending action. “I don’t want your fucking car.”

  “Double or nothing with my condo that all the rooms were registered and paid with the same credit card. It’s like you said, this isn’t Hezbollah. What Rebel Creek had was access to the munitions and some training in building them. Otherwise, they’ve been sloppy from the beginning. That’s the only way we caught on.”

  “I can make the case,” Andy said. “What am I asking for? Make it quick!”

  “Evacuate the hotel.”

  “For good?”

  “Until we can go in with trained people. Like this was in theater. Military munitions experts. Room-to-room.”

  Andy turned in a slow circle and rubbed the meat of his palms deep into tired eyes. He gave a mirthless chuckle when he noticed the bench where he met Sami less than two weeks ago, only 200 yards away. Neither man was happy, but they smiled at each other.

  “You’re right, you know. I think you’re right,” Andy said. “Committing career suicide is going to be easier since I am doing the right thing.” He walked toward the command center. Sami followed.

  “Coach.”

  “Dost?”

  “One more thing.”

  The chuckle was a snort this time. “Yeah, what?”

  “Get me someone from the hotel.”

  “What do you need? Breakfast?”

  “Maybe later. I have one more question about the list.” Sami showed Andy the paper, placing his thumbnail below a room number and scanning across to the name, listed as Hotel Comp – Conference Organizer. “I need to confirm who is in this room.”

  Sami said “confirm” because he already knew. Andy’s eyes radiated no censure for how long it took, only gratitude that Sami had gotten there.

  ***

  Standing outside the RV-cum-command center, Sami watched through a window as Andy Rizzo explained, then cajoled, and now shouted. He wasn’t getting buy-in. The men and women in the command center were post-9/11 homeland security pros. They knew the directive: minimize risk. But when the White House sent specific instructions that the risk was understood and would be taken, the job description changed. There were few government officials who would have risked pushing back.

  Sami was glad he worked for one, but rather than ponder his luck, Sami found the hotel manager that Andy cornered moments ago and approached without introduction.

  “That room is reserved for the conference organizer,” she said, before adding a ceremonious but uncertain “Sir!”

  “I know that, that’s what it says on this paper, but who is staying there?”

  She frowned. “Well, it’s weird.” And then to herself, “I guess this whole thing is weird though, so who knows— “

  “Ma’am! Who is in there?”

  “It’s just…see, this is not the group comp room.”

  “The list says it is.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m nervous. I mean it isn’t usually.”

  “You’re doing fine. Just explain what you mean.”

  She took a deep breath, shook her hands before her, and then continued. “The room we comp for groups of this size is on the top floor. It’s a large suite. It’s perfect for that purpose because it has a sitting room and a dining room. Conference organizers often use it for receptions or to host smaller meetings.”

  As she explained, Sami looked down at the list and checked the room number again. Center of the hotel. Mid-level floor.

  “He didn’t want that room. He said he would seldom use it anyway. Only for ‘emergencies’ was what he said, so…”

  “And ‘he’ is? Abu Muhammad?”

  “That’s weird, too. Usually, we deal with an executive assistant or something, but— “

  “Yeah, weird.” Sami cut in. It was the final piece of the puzzle. His grandfather was in there. He hadn’t just come up with this entire sick campaign, he was the final bomber.

  Sami made one more request, which the hotel manager obliged uncomfortably but without hesitation, and then he left her standing there muttering to herself. He walked back over to the command center. Through the window, he saw things had calmed, but the tension was still visible. Andy Rizzo’s jaw was set in a bulldog expression. The group was listening to a speakerphone. Without the benefit of hearing the voice, Sami knew it was Gerald Seymour.

  Unless the dogs hit on something, the scene commander would have no choice but to let people in. Because TATP was so volatile, there
were no dogs that had sufficient training to detect the explosive. The scene commanders didn’t realize they were running down a clock they controlled. Sami had already memorized the important room numbers and he tucked the list into the back pocket of his jeans, next to the pistol he had never fired in anger.

  Sami was going in. He did not share the rest of his plan with Andy, or anyone else on scene. But someone knew. Across the river in Alexandria, listening through the app she had uploaded onto Sami’s phone, Emily heard him running.

  ***

  Though the hotel was presently the world’s most famous crime scene and surrounded by cops and Feds, the building was not entirely locked down. Inside the perimeter that authorities had established – which Sami breached with Andy’s authority – credentialed personnel enjoyed freedom of movement. This augmented everyone’s ability to move about and do their job without the constant need for security checks and clearances.

  Still, Sami did not plan to waltz right through the front door of the hotel. He made his way down a sidewalk that circled the building away from the command center’s line of sight and the throng of high-ranking lookie-loos. There would be a perimeter guard, and so as he walked, he pantomimed looking up at the building as though examining something. It wasn’t much of a cover but if someone asked, he would report that command ordered a “visual inspection.” Leave it at that. Sounded official and reasonable. Elaborate only as needed. The Spy had learned that the ambitions of a lie should be narrowly-tailored to just do the job, and no more.

  He did not need the cover story. Standing at the corner of the building to cover two sides, an FBI agent cradled an M4 rifle. Sami couldn’t see his eyes behind the shades, but when he gestured to say “just looking,” the FBI man returned a thumbs-up. Sami saw what he was looking for: a side door, accessible only by hotel card key. The kind of card key he had taken off the hotel manager’s lanyard and stuck into his back pocket. He held the card to the magnetic reader, saw red change to green, and was inside.

  There was a stairwell adjacent to the outside door. He started up and the realization dawned that he was following the route guests had taken out of the building in the early morning hours. The exit door and stairwell were for evacuation of the property. In an emergency. He was following the other route. Going up, into danger. As he climbed past the third floor, he thought of the firefighters on 9/11, doing the same. Climbing up into danger. They were heroes, which was their job. He wasn’t sure what his job was anymore.

  He intended to save this building and these people, but not with the consent or support of the people who employed him. He wasn’t sure who those people were anymore. He had not been for a while.

  Nations and armies and laws were powerful. But they were abstract. They were symbols. A person needed to accept them to appreciate their significance. Everyone in a society had to accept them for their power to be meaningful. The consent of the governed. That was what this plot tried to undermine.

  He was employed to preserve those ideals, but that was not his mission today. He had been involved in counterterrorism for a decade, fought heinous terrorists, uncovered ingenious attacks; and yet he had never taken it upon himself until today. He climbed the final flight of stairs and came to terms with the facts he uncovered back in college and the suspicions that had swirled since he confronted his grandfather. Never had he placed himself face-to-face with evil, a gun in his hand.

  There was only one difference on this mission. It was personal. But why? Was he motivated because his grandfather was threatening violence against the country? Or was it that his grandfather had been complicit in his parents’ death? Whoever he worked for, the first conclusion equated to him doing his job. Serving his country. Protecting the ideals.

  The other conclusion amounted to revenge. The thought had been swirling through his thoughts and dreams for weeks, and he could reach no conclusion. Only one person could confirm the truth. He confronted a tailor-made villain. He undertook a struggle inseparable from whether he bore some responsibility for the evil himself. In countering the threat with lethal force, would he end it or just subsume it? If he pulled the trigger, was he a good Spy? A good son? Either way, was he just a murderer?

  Ya Allah! I am Prince Hamlet and Grandfather is King Claudius!

  Only his grandfather knew. It sickened him that the man still had power over him. Not patriarchal power over a child, but power over his soul. Control of his destiny.

  He reached the floor where he knew he would find his grandfather and scanned an emergency escape diagram hanging on the wall. It showed the floor plan and he determined which way to exit from the stairwell and how many steps it would be to the door of the room.

  The hotel manager’s key card should open the door. Sami hoped that he would not walk into a hail of gunfire. His grandfather was not the type to be standing behind the door with an automatic and he was confident that there was nothing behind that door that could hurt him. But as he pressed the key card to the door, he had never been so scared.

  ***

  Tom Tinker met Abu Muhammad in 1989, in the private dining room of a Washington restaurant. A future President was there. And a half dozen present, past and future Cabinet officials. And Gerald Seymour. Seymour brought them together then and they hoped he would save them now.

  Tom Tinker met Abu Muhammad for the last time in a gas station parking lot near the Navy Yard at 3 AM. It was only hours before Sami would arrive at the hotel in National Harbor and only hours after he left Abu Muhammad and Gerald Seymour in Virginia.

  The bombs were delivered to the hotel the afternoon before, long before the raid. Seymour delayed the raid on Tinker’s compound by hours when Tinker said he needed time. When there were no more clarifications or briefings for the White House to request, Seymour texted Tinker that SOG was coming.

  Tinker carried the detonators. He and the imam drove together from the Navy Yard. After he called in the bomb threat, Abu Muhammad threw the burner phone into the Potomac as they crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The old friends entered the hotel together in the quiet predawn.

  The sun was up, and they were drinking coffee now. They watched TV news. They peered out the window. Tinker brought earplugs for the time when the hotel alarms were screaming. Someone stopped the sirens an hour ago.

  Soon after they arrived, they discussed the plan if there was an infiltration. When they heard Sami’s key card in the door, and the electronic lock cycling open, Tinker grabbed his gun and entered the bathroom to the left of the room’s entrance. As Sami walked in, the gun was trained on his head. Tinker flipped off the safety switch. Red. Dead.

  ***

  “These dramatic entrances are a growing annoyance, Samir.”

  “A distraction, you mean.” But Sami spurred himself. He didn’t need snappy repartee. Andy was right. Today, Sami needed to be the man of action.

  Abu Muhammad, the great intellectual of American Islam, his grandfather, sat on a couch and gestured to the coffee table before him.

  “In either case, it is a trend that will be short-lived.”

  Sami’s training fired his instincts and for a moment the emotion was subdued. Four cell phones sat in a neat row on the table. Four detonators. This affirmed his assumption about the phantom guests from the ledger, the number of bombs, and their placement. He needed to get that information to Andy.

  Did his grandfather intend to detonate the bombs? It would only take one phone for a trained operative to detonate all four bombs, so the presence of four phones suggested that the plan had always been for Abu Muhammad to detonate the bombs. A specific number would be pre-programmed into each. Click SEND twice to redial it and the corresponding bomb detonated. That could be done by anyone, with little training.

  “You’ve crossed a line,” Sami said. “Again.”

  “A line?” Abu Muhammad looked over his shoulder. Ever the literalist, he pretended to scan behind the couch for evidence. “Was it a red line? Or a ‘line in the sand?” Sami had nev
er seen his grandfather use air quotes until the speech on CSPAN yesterday but now he did them again. Uncharacteristic behavior. Manic. The suspect was emotional. Maybe unhinged.

  “A few favorite metaphors of American presidents. An imaginary line for brown people to cross before the artillery rains down.”

  “You are the one with a direct line to the White House.” Grandfather. The last word almost escaped his lips. He hadn’t spoken the word as a form of address in years. Sami cursed himself. Forget the emotions. Forget the personal connections. That was history and now it was a distraction. And yet, he couldn’t forget.

  He was an intelligence analyst. A cog in the American spying apparatus. He wasn’t James Bond. No one’s trained killer. No assassin. Then, even assassins weren’t assassins. All of them were just human beings, like him. Like his grandfather. Flawed. Emotional. He could no more set aside the emotions coursing through him now then he could have set aside the emotions that coursed through his teenage body. When he realized that he didn’t like girls. Very much the opposite, he liked boys. He was gay. Apostate. Outcast. Embarrassment.

  He swung his hand to the weapon holstered at the small of his back.

  “Gerald Seymour knows nothing about this.” Abu Muhammad lectured with a pointed finger.

  The comment seemed out of place, the rebuttal to an argument Sami had not made. And didn’t intend to make. Seymour knew something. It wasn’t Sami’s job to piece together intel anymore. Nor to analyze it. Nor to advise action. He needed to take action.

  “There’s a sickness in this place,” Abu Muhammad began. “Within a week, that is all anyone will be interested in. ‘What did the White House know and when did they know it?” Again, the air quotes. “This city, this country, would rather focus on its own fetishes. The arguments reverberating in its own echo chamber are more important than the reality outside the window. The rest of the world. The real world. There is no real world. There is America, and everything else is for tourism or target practice.”