The group sat in silence. Brognola stood up. "I have a telephone call to make. Everyone please wait for a couple of minutes." Then he strode out of the lab.
By the time Lyons had introduced Deborah to the rest of the Stony Man crew, Brognola was back. He sat behind the desk and sighed.
"It's up to us," he announced. "As I said at the top of this mission, this is an election year. The President will not use the army, the FBI nor the Justice Department against HIT. He seems worried that it'll appear that he's attacking the unemployed."
"Politics," Gadgets spat. He said it as a dirty word.
No one else said a thing.
"So we have only ourselves and a strike planned from each of the HIT training centers," Brognola said. His voice was heavy.
"Not quite," Ti corrected. "Our computer is holding the command. It hasn't passed it on to the branches yet. I thought we might just not pass it along, but give phony acknowledgments.''
"Do you know the acknowledgment routine?" Brognola asked.
Ti shook her head.
"Then let's pass the command along but stagger the orders. One city every two days. That will give us time to cope."
Deborah spoke up. "It won't work. There's a daily log. The change in orders will be discovered by five o'clock tonight."
"Let's figure the minimum time spread we need," Gadgets said. "We'll send the first order to strike on schedule and spread the rest. That will give us some acknowledgments. We can use those to fake the rest."
"What cities do we have to cover?" Brognola asked Ti.
"Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and Seattle."
"All those. Start by eliminating Boston. We're standing by there already."
Ti's fingers flew over the keys. "Done," she reported.
"I think we'd better get Yakov to Seattle right away," Pol suggested. "He's the only one close enough to do anything if we don't manage a decent delay."
Brognola turned to Kurtzman. "Run me a package of all the information we have on the Seattle branch of HIT. I'll give it to Yakov as soon as I can get him to the telephone.
"The rest of you work out a schedule for covering these various branches. We can't afford to lose more computer people."
Brognola picked up a telephone and began the tedious process of placing a secure call to the head of Phoenix Force, who was a guest of the Canadian government at an antiterrorist conference somewhere in or near Vancouver.
Kurtzman wheeled up to the desk with a few sheets of printout before the call was through. The call took nineteen minutes to place and six minutes to transact, including relaying all the information that Kurtzman had summed up.
Brognola hung up the telephone, then spent another six minutes arranging arms and transportation for the Israeli terror fighter. When he was finished, he leaned back and | looked at his team.
"What have you come up with?"
"First, while you were on the telephone, the acknowledgment came back from Boston," Ti said. "It was negative. Apparently the Boston commander feels that he's already lost all those with enough training to conduct a raid."
"I'm in favor of letting the message go through and seeing what the reaction is," Brognola said.
"Can't hurt," Politician said.
Ti picked up the report on the group discussion. "We can rule out an attack here in Atlanta. There's no one to do it. We think the command should go through to sit in the untended computer in case Jishin returns."
Politician took up the report while Ti worked. "The next most difficult place for us to reach in decent time is Minneapolis. My guess is that some of those professional terrorists are going to each destination to back up the local HIT teams.
"Gadgets and I have a business there. My sister, Torn, runs it. We suggest that you arrange for the FBI to take Toni along and meet the next couple of flights from Boston. The idea is to try to find a reason to hold the terrorists and prevent them from beefing up the locals. If we schedule things correctly, Gadgets, Carl and I can take care of Kansas City and have Jack fly us to Minneapolis, and later, on to Salt Lake City. If we put a four-or-five-hour time differential in their attack orders, we should be able to handle all three cities ourselves."
"Besides," Gadgets added, "we'll have Toni keeping an eye on things in case they break wrong."
"Sounds okay," Brognola agreed. "I could get the FBI to help on a watchdog basis — as long as they weren't involved in the actual fighting. That leaves Texas and California. I can reach Texas easily enough, but California is a long way away."
"So you go straight there by military jet," Pol said. "We'll schedule it about last to give you the most time. Babette can keep an eye on the activity in their office in Santa Clara and alert you if something goes off schedule.''
"What about Houston?"
"We thought you could bring Manning and McCarter down from Boston. That will leave Stony Man without a temporary commander. We suggest that Aaron get there as quickly as possible to coordinate all our activities," Ti said.
"What about keeping this place running?" Brognola asked.
"Deborah and I will just have to manage somehow. With the Atlanta office wiped out, it's unlikely we'll have an attack to deal with. I'll stay in touch with Aaron and help with the coordination."
Brognola thought for a few seconds before deciding. "With only ourselves to rely on, you've come up with the most workable plan. Get those messages out and let's go to work. I just hope we can..."
He was interrupted by the telephone. He scooped it up and growled, "Brognola." Then he sat and listened. "Good work," he said, finally. "Stay at the airport. I'm arranging for you to be flown to Houston to stop a raid there. Stand by, Kurtzman will give you the intel."
The Bear wheeled over to the computer terminal, taking the telephone with him.
Brognola updated the rest of the group.
"Your analysis is depressingly correct. By identifying most of the bodies and finding out where they were booked to fly, we know that professional terrorists are on their way to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Los Angeles, Houston, Salt Lake City, Kansas City and Seattle."
July 13, 1602 hours, St. Paul, Minnesota
FBI agent Tim Williams looked at his partner Carlos Sanchez. Sanchez shrugged. Neither of them liked the assignment, but orders were orders. They would delay the flights from Boston and try to question the passengers. That was routine, but why was a civilian keeping an eye on them? A licensed private detective at that. It was degrading. Williams glanced at the detective. Not hard to glance at.
She was a small woman. She looked as though she was in her early twenties, but there was a poise, a sense of experience. She wore her hair long, and brushed until it gleamed. The makeup was subtle. It could afford to be; she had big dark eyes that could drive a man wild. A good figure, too. Williams tore his eyes away to get his mind back to the unpleasant assignment.
"Miss Blancanales," Sanchez said to the woman.
"Friends call me Toni," she said.
"Miss Blancanales," Sanchez continued, "we can't stop every passenger from these flights and say 'Are you a terrorist?' What do you expect us to do?"
"Well, Mr. Sanchez, you might pay special attention to anyone who doesn't wait for his or her luggage, or whohas to read tag numbers in order to identify it," Toni said.
Williams reflected that it was a solid suggestion. If the terrorists killed for the airline tickets and bookings, they would have no use for any luggage thatwas checked. He hastened to agree with the woman and save Sanchez from having to do so.