Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (diy ebook reader TXT) 📕

“Hi Laura.” He smiled and gave me a package wrapped in familiar brown paper. “I brought you a pastrami sandwich from that deli you love. I told them it was for you and they put extra pickles, just the way you like.”

I smiled and sat in my chair. I stretched out my hand to him and our fingers brushed together for a moment as he handed me the sandwich. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“To tell you that I have received orders to take your place here, but also because I just started thinking that if, at noon, our world as we know it is really going to end, I wanted to be here with you.”

“So, what are you planning on doing?” I asked, unwrapping the sandwich and taking a bite. It tasted like heaven and it must have showed on my face.

“Bon appetit.”

“Thanks,” I said, my eyes closed in a moment of pleasure. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this. But what are you going to do with the command?”

“By the time you fill me in, we will be at the point of no return. It is much simpler for you to tell me how I can be of help.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He wasn’t kidding. He added, “You are commanding this operation brilliantly. I can’t see any good reason to take over. I have come to be with you and be of help any way I can.”

I rewrapped the remains of the sandwich, as if it was a hoarded treasure, and laid it down next to the pile of paper coffee cups.

“Very well. Your specialty is to coordinate different forces. That is exactly what we need right now. We have managed to crack the computers and we have the pictures of the different buildings. I still didn’t know if those were the buildings being targeted, or the snipers were inside of those buildings. We have to make sure that the files with the plans open up, to try and find what is relevant for us to stop these attacks and pass on the information to the field officers. We have...” I glanced at my watch, “just over an hour.”

I got up from my chair and Gordon joined me on my way to the computer room. “I have already put forces in the area of the Israeli consulates. They are awaiting further instructions.”

“I understand that the sniper in New York was neutralized.”

“Assuming he is the only one. It is an assumption we can’t afford to make.” I opened the door of the computer room and added, “Only Yassin knows the whole plan. When you arrived, I was on my way to try to contact his interrogators to see if they managed to get any information out of him.”

When Gordon walked into the room, there was the sense that he was stepping in front of an orchestra without a conductor. He said, “I need a split screen, the names of all the field officers and direct communications with them.” Things immediately became more coherent. Within minutes all the large screens were split to the points showing the buildings that were on Yassin Graham’s screens. Next to each building appeared a small square containing the portrait of the field officer in charge.

“I also need all the written data you have managed to crack so far and Jonathan Niava’s evidence.” Gordon was so polite, yet decisive and calm. I watched him from the side and felt that, at long last, I had been given an oxygen tank. He noticed my stare as he put on his headphones. I smiled at him and he winked and returned my smile with a hint of his own. He loosened his tie, took off his jacket and got to work.

I went to see if we had received any shortcuts to clean up the mess that was brewing, or, in other words, if Yassin Graham had started to talk.

***

The shortcut turned out to be a dead end. Yassin was prepared to sacrifice his wife and son on the altar of devastation. The interrogator promised me that “in a few days, when the drugs in his body wore off and stopped counteracting the drugs they had given him, he would break.”

To which I replied, “I really hoped that in a couple of days we won’t be forced, for political reasons, to release him…” In which case, I thought Yassin’s double could be used to our advantage. I hung on to a fragment of hope -- that at least we might get the information about the planes with enough time to stop part of the attack.

***

I returned to Gordons’ symphony hall. Reports were coming in from the field about neutralizing the snipers. Despite that, the tension in the room could be cut with a knife. It felt like walking on a frozen lake even though you know that the ice is thin and fragile. Any wrong step could bring disaster. We had to cover all our options in an extremely short period of time. If Yassin could plan all these activities in such a finely coordinated manner, we should be able to do so too.

The first was the Tesla car, which had been found in the parking lot. I saw the security forces close down the area and the bomb squad begin to dismantle the explosives. The dilemma was whether to evacuate the building or not. In the end, Gordon gave the command to evacuate them, but through the back exit of the building. The results were slower, but they had the advantage of being far from the sniper’s sights. Shooting experts calculated the optimal place where a sniper could hide, and the police force were on their way to the nearby hotel.

From New York, we received a confirmation that the hotel had been scanned and there were no more snipers. The search for two missing ambulances was still on. I reminded the agents that the ambulances were