He placed a call to the NYPD’s anti-terrorist division and asked them to check up on the brothers. If he was wrong, he would find out very quickly — and innocent people would not be swept up in a police dragnet. But if he were right, he was confident the brothers would not be at home and, indeed, their wives and children would be wondering what had happened to them. Terrorists these days were advised not to confide in their wives and families, not after quite a few had been betrayed by their relatives, who didn’t see death in the cause of jihad as a worthy aspiration.
While waiting, he uploaded the details of the van into the cameras and scanned through the thousands of eyes watching New York. Hundreds of matches came back at once, most of them wildly out of place; thankfully, the traffic snarl would have made it harder for the terrorists to make their escape. But which one was the terrorist van? Or had the terrorists already abandoned their vehicle? There was no way to know.
Not yet, he told himself.
The phone rang. “Yes?”
“This is Captain Aldridge,” a voice said. He sounded brisk, mercifully professional. “All three of the suspects are missing, sir.”
“I see,” Jürgen said. It wasn’t conclusive proof of anything — the DHS had tracked men it had believed to be terrorists before, only to discover that they’d been having affairs — but it was suspicious. “Take their families into custody, gently. Have them interrogated, then explain to them that their menfolk may be in serious trouble.”
He winced as he put down the phone. Maybe the families did know what was going on, maybe they were guilty as sin — at least of keeping their mouths shut — but it was quite possible that their lives were about to be upended through no fault of their own. They’d be held as suspects, then treated as pariahs, idiots too stupid to realise there was something wrong with their relatives. As always, the terrorists left a trail of broken lives and shattered souls behind them.
Pushing the thought aside, he looked back at his computers. There had to be a clue somewhere, buried within the records. All he had to do was find it.
“Maybe put out a full alert,” he muttered. “Let the public know what we’re looking for.”
He shook his head, a moment later. A simple white van… there were hundreds of thousands of the vehicles within the State of New York. They’d be utterly overwhelmed with false positives. The terrorists had played it smart, so far. But their flight would be frantic enough for them to make mistakes. And he’d be there to pick up on them.
“You will have my full support,” the President said. “We will do everything within our power to look for her.”
Steve nodded, bitterly. Mongo had told him, in no uncertain terms, to sit down, shut the hell up and wait. There was nothing else he could do, despite increasingly unpleasant suggestions concerning random bombing of terrorist-supporting countries. The NYPD investigation was proceeding slowly, far too slowly. They had too many other problems to deal with right now.
He wanted to take action, he wanted to do something, anything. But there was nothing to do.
“All traffic in and out of New York is being stopped by the National Guard,” the President continued. “The airports have been placed on alert. Everything will be searched, no exceptions. We’re working on inspecting shipping too, Steve. We will find her.”
Steve gritted his teeth. New York’s National Guard had been a military disaster until after 9/11, whereupon they’d managed to redeem themselves and perform excellent service in Iraq, but he had no illusions about the sheer difficulty of the task facing them. Searching every single vehicle that might want to enter or leave the city would be immensely complicated, while it would cause huge traffic jams and considerable bad feeling. Hell, he had a feeling the Mayor would find himself caught between the President’s orders and the very real risk of losing his job.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” he said. The cynical part of his mind wondered if the President was genuinely concerned or if he was worried about the looming diplomatic disaster. Or both. Meeting the President in person had convinced Steve he wasn’t quite the liberal idiot Steve had believed him to be, before the world had turned upside down. “Everything you can do will be welcome.”
He paused. “Have you heard anything diplomatically?”
“Just a protest from Chad’s Ambassador to the UN,” the President said. “He wanted to fly out, but his plane was grounded in the wake of the bombings.”
An ass in ambassador, Steve thought. He’d met several diplomats on military service and most of them had been conceited assholes. Or was it something more sinister? Did the terrorists plan to sneak Mariko out on a diplomatic plane, relying on diplomatic immunity to keep her hidden?
“I want diplomatic planes searched,” he said, and explained his reasoning. “Feel free to blame us for the imposition.”
“It will be more than just an imposition,” the President said, after a moment. “It will be seen as an attack on diplomatic formality itself.”
Steve sighed. The President’s concern was understandable, but he wasn’t about to let someone sneak away under the cover of diplomatic immunity.
“Make it clear to them, Mr. President, that we consider this an act of war,” he said, firmly. He had no intention of showing weakness to anyone. “If a nation or a group of nations is implicated in this act, we will crush them like bugs.”
In Washington, the President rubbed his eyes as soon as the connection closed, feeling suddenly very tired.
Few people truly realised it, but the power of the Presidency was hedged around with a series of checks and balances. The President was powerful — the most powerful man in the world — yet he was far from all-powerful. He couldn’t bomb a country back to the Stone Age because he’d had a bad morning and wanted to take it out on someone. Nor could he grossly overreact to terrorist attack, no matter how vile. In the aftermath, he would have to deal with the mess.
But Mr. Stuart…
The President honestly wasn’t sure what to make of him. Power seemed to have matured the man, at least to some degree, as he tackled the problems in forming a government. But he still enjoyed a certain immunity from blowback, from repercussions from his actions. What would he do with the vast power at his disposal if he had definite proof that a foreign nation was behind the attack on his partner? The President knew what he’d be tempted to do — and he knew what the system would prevent him from doing.
But who would stop Mr. Stuart if he decided to take brutal revenge on the terrorists?
Abdul let out a sigh of relief as they finally made it down to the shipping company and pulled into the giant warehouse. He’d anticipated some delays, but he hadn’t realised just how many Americans would act like headless sheep and drive somewhere — anywhere — rather than remain at home. The radio talked of martial law, of blockades on the roads and endless delays at airports. It was far too likely, he knew, that they would be caught even after changing the van.
He climbed out of the vehicle and nodded to the four men waiting for them. Like Abdul and his brothers, they were long-term sleeper agents, among the handful in the Greece-registered shipping company who knew it’s true function. Most of the workers were East European, men and a handful of women who provided cover through their sheer ignorance. They knew nothing they could betray.