The serving table was loaded with several side dishes, Spode bone-china dinner plates, freshly polished silverware, finger bowls, and stacks of cloth napkins the size of kitchen towels. Hartwell's chef, a large raw-boned woman with a pronounced Bostonian accent, tended the barbecue and the simmering pot of baked beans. Though Molly McCallister never attended a formal culinary school, she could match any chef de cuisine in quality of preparation and presentation.
Hartwell extracted two beers from the sea of ice, placed them on the table, and dried his hands or. a towel. He stood to greet his guests and reached for Jackie's hand. "How was the flight?"
"Great, smooth as silk," she said, with a wide smile.
Hartwell shook Scotts hand firmly. "So you're the captain of your own bird now?"
Scott chuckled. "Yeah. But the real captain is shorter than I am."
Hartwell laughed good-naturedly. "I hope you're hungry."
"Starved," Jackie admitted, surveying the abundant array of food. "Looks like we'll have enough for seconds."
"Molly never runs short of food," Hartwell said, with a hint of pride. "After one of her spreads, Zachary and I eat leftovers — at least three days' worth."
Without fanfare, Scott placed a bottle of 1987 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon on the dining table.
Hartwell opened the beers and handed the first one to Jackie.
She raised the palm of her hand. "Thanks, but I'll stick with iced tea. We have to fly home tonight."
"Nonsense," Hartwell said, handing Scott a beer. "You can stay in the guest lodge and head home tomorrow."
Scott caught Jackie's quick smile. "Sounds great," he said. "I'll call the FBO and tell them we'll be staying overnight."
Jackie handed him her cell phone while he fished the Signature Flight Support business card out of his wallet.
"Don't worry," she said, under her breath. "I packed a bag for us. It s in the backseat."
"You think of everything."
"Someone has to," she said, with an innocent look.
When Scott had completed his call, they fixed their plates and enjoyed the old-fashioned barbecue dinner. Old-fashioned that is, except for Scott's Cabernet and a bottle of Cotes-du-Rhone wine from Hartwell's private stock.
After the meal, Molly and Zachary cleared the table while Hartwell charged his guests' wineglasses. "Let's take a walk."
Scott and Jackie picked up their glasses and followed their host. Hartwell led them past the swimming pool and the tennis court and seated them on the raised deck of a large ornate gazebo. He cast a look across the pond at the two horse stables and, with his gaze still fixed in the distance, he began the conversation.
"I'll bring you up to date, and then we'll explore our options regarding Zheng Yen-Tsung. A Dallas police officer found the vehicle we believe Zheng was driving."
"Are you sure it was Zheng?" Jackie asked.
"No, but the vehicle was stolen and then abandoned at Love Field. It's a white Buick Century identical to the one witnesses described. The window on the driver's side was blown out, and there were two streaks of blood on the driver's door. We're betting it will match the blood of the Fort Worth policeman."
Scott caught Hartwell's eye. "As it stands now, we really don't know if it was Zheng?"
"True. And that leads me to the next subject. Are you familiar with the name Saeed Shayhidi?"
Jackie recognized the name. "Isn't he the billionaire shipping mogul?"
"One and the same." A smile of satisfaction crossed Hartwell's face. "We have hard evidence that he recruited terrorists from the al-Qaeda network. This came from two senior al-Qaeda leaders recently captured near Khost, Afghanistan."
"What's Shayhidi's profile?" Scott asked.
"He's a clever and cautious man who takes great pains to conduct his affairs in stealth mode, but he's made a few mistakes recently." Hartwell retrieved a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket. "Prior to the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Shayhidi was recruiting key members of al-Qaeda and key figures from other international terrorist organizations."
Hartwell's mouth quirked in wry remembrance of the secret meeting in the Canadian Maritimes. "Just before the Osama bin Laden-Taliban campaign, the Russians agreed with us on the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons near Afghanistan: actually, at the military air base in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, along with three other locations in the area."
He paused to light his cigar. "In turn, we assented to Russia's deploying several tactical nukes around Chechnya. One of our CIA retirees, a savvy Central Asian expert named Dennis Stambaugh, was recruited to oversee the Russian deployment. Stambaugh was having a late-night dinner with the senior Russian nuclear expert when the Russki, well into his cups of vodka, bragged about his former military boss selling suitcase nukes to one of Shayhidi's right-hand men.
"That was our first big break." Hartwell inhaled the aromatic smoke and slowly released it. "The National Security Agency has been using an updated version of Echelon — the name is still classified — let's just call it Echelon Two. They're using it to monitor Saeed Shayhidi's e-mail and phone conversations to three members of his terrorist network."
Jackie, who was knowledgeable in the world of electronic monitoring, was surprised by the unexpected disclosure. "I didn't know they had a new version of Echelon. Must be an incredible leap forward for NSA to keep it under such tight wraps."
"Oh, it's a quantum increase in technology," Hartwell said, with a knowing smile. "The new system is designed to deal with some of the thorny encryption problems we ran into with the earlier version. It still has some bugs, but we're slowly working them out."
Hartwell flicked ashes from the end of his cigar. "Shayhidi has no idea what we know, but I can assure you we have a major problem brewing."
Jackie and Scott exchanged a questioning glance.
"Echelon Two, our unmanned aerial vehicles, and our space-based assets have produced a windfall of intelligence about another campaign of terror aimed at America, even more ambitious than the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The primary link in the chain of evidence clearly ties Shayhidi to these planned attacks."
Hartwell reached into his pocket for a piece of paper, which he unfolded. He handed Scott a picture of Shayhidi that included his physical description and information about his ties to various terrorist-related crimes.
Hartwell finished his wine. "From what we know — again using the technology of Echelon Two, satellites, various recon assets, and unmanned aerial vehicles — his terrorist cells in the United States are preparing to embark on an all-out assault on American soil. And, we believe he is preparing to bring in hundreds of reinforcements for the sleepers who are already here."
Jackie had a question. "Cant we stop them at our borders?"
Hartwell sighed. "Were still being invaded almost daily by members of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations."
"The border problem should have been fixed by now," Jackie insisted.
"They're making progress, but it's like one person trying to plug forty holes in the dike. Its going to take a lot more people and assets. According to the CIA, hundreds of 'freedom fighters' are pouring in every month. The newcomers are distributing an 'Encyclopedia Jihad' that contains elaborate bomb-building instructions and other advice for newly trained insurgents."
"The Montreal connection?" Jackie suggested.
Hartwell nodded his head in frustration. "Yes. That's a serious problem for us. In the last few years, Canada has become a Disneyland for terrorists, estimated to be five to six thousand strong." He leaned forward in his chair. "Many of them, including female Tigresses with degrees from MIT, Stanford, Brandeis, and other prestigious schools, are arriving in Montreal. They make their way to the Canadian Rocky Mountains on the western side of the Continental Divide. From there, they filter across the border at night and disappear into Washington, Idaho, and Montana.