The Templar Reprisals (The Best Thrillers Book 3) by James Best (read any book txt) 📕

When Methow hung up, he smiled. “I didn’t even need to ask for the name of the public relations firm. He blurted it right out. And he also told me who manufactured the case.”

“Is that important?” Baldwin asked.

“It is if you want confirmation.”

“Spill it,” Evarts ordered.

“The PR firm is just down the street. It also does public relations for several Middle East clients. It was the PR firm’s idea, and they brought it to the CEO personally. They offshored the manufacturing to keep it secret. They wanted no pre-launch leaks. The case for the book was manufactured by Persian Gulf Fabricators in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Same city as the bombs were assembled. The books were air freighted to them and they sealed them inside those cases and shipped them back. Oh, and if they try to crack it open, there’s no acid bath inside. They joked about it, but their general counsel nixed the idea before it left the board room. Liabilities could be through the roof. Remember the recipients are VIPs. But for fun, they used the ruse to discourage snoopers.”

“Someone could still get curious,” Baldwin said.

Methow laughed. “They’re all curious.”

“That seems like a flaw in the plan,” Baldwin said. “If someone sets off the bomb early, alerts will go out far and wide.”

Wilson nearly jumped out of her chair. “Damn, they didn’t kill Johnson to deflect us away from the books, they killed him to set a precedent for small bombs killing Congress members. If one or two go off, the investigators will assume more targeted bombing. The misdirection only has to hold for a partial day, then all hell will break loose.”

Evarts was all smiles. “Doesn’t matter. We got ’em. This is enough confirmation to put the brakes on the entire attack. We can foil them.”

“I hate to be the party pooper,” Wilson said, “but the president’s butt is still hanging out in the wind.”

“I’m sure the general has that well under control,” Evarts said.

Chapter 52

Evarts felt happy. They had most likely thwarted the biggest terrorist attack in the history of the world. His pleasure faded almost immediately when he remembered how he had gotten drawn into this whole mess. The Ikhwan wanted his scalp. And his wife’s. Even if they crushed this attack, the Ikhwan would survive. The only sure way to get the Ikhwan off his back was to severely cripple their organization.

After eliminating the current threat, O’Brian’s interest would return to purging the government of Templars and their Mason sympathizers. As a law enforcement officer, he had never liked vigilantes, but beyond that aversion, Methow had revealed too much of their belief system. Evarts was repulsed, but not so repulsed that he wouldn’t use them to conquer the Ikhwan. He would have to be clever as hell to straddle the line between these two powerful secret organizations. One society wanted him dead and the other was willing to sacrifice his life to get a clean shot at the other. What a mess.

“Tell me about Jakarta,” Methow said. “No more stalling.”

“You were the one who told us that the caliph currently resided in Jakarta,” Evarts answered. “We believe his name is Ali as-Saad and he is teaching at Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif. But … something doesn’t jibe. You said you couldn’t find the caliph in Jakarta. Why not? We did it on the internet.”

“Because you’re wrong,” Methow said exasperated. “We know Ali as-Saad whereabouts, but Ali as-Saad is not the caliph. He’s a sympathizer, that’s all. He’s a campus recruiter and a fund raiser, but we don’t believe he’s even a card-carrying member of the Ikhwan. We’ve been trailing him for years, but he’s led us nowhere. A minor-league player, probably unaware the Caliph was in the same city.”

Had they been that wrong? Had they merely found what they wanted to find? That was the bane of intelligence work. An analyst should never allow himself to fall in love with a pet theory. They had assumed that Major Callaghan had spilled the beans on Ali as-Saad, and the Templars had dispatched a team to grab him. They even worried that the Templars had a five-hour head start. Instead, the Templars already knew about Ali as-Saad and dismissed the lead. Or was this the misdirection. The Templars might want Army Intelligence thrown off the scent.

“Why did you rule out Ali as-Saad as the Caliph?” Evarts asked pointedly.

“I told you, we tracked him for years. His travels don’t correspond with the Caliph. For example, when the caliph was in Alexandria, he was in Istanbul. This Jakarta thing is just coincidence.”

“I understand you ruled him out,” Evarts said, “but I’m not buying the bullshit. You have new information that caused you to take another look. What did you find?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do. O’Brian told us you have a network of spies inside the Pentagon. Masons and maybe even a few Templars. You learned through them that we mentioned Ali as-Saad to O’Brian.” Evarts gave Methow a hard look. “Now, you’re pretending to not know about our findings means that you have something and want us diverted from the hunt. Spill it.”

Methow’s expression remained placid, but his eyes gave him away. Something was amiss.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Methow said. “I told you,Ali as-Saad is not the Caliph.”

Evarts pressed. “What makes you believe he’s not the caliph. And no more bullshit … or this cooperation ends right now.”

“Okay. Relax. Like I said, we tracked Ali as-Saad. What I haven’t told you is that we also discovered their communication channel. It was code made to look like commonplace comments on a banal Facebook posting. We never broke the code, but we matched comment timing with Ikhwan activities, including their terrorist attacks.” Methow appeared pleased with himself.  “We found a direct correlation. Then we went back through our Ali as-Saad surveillance archives to discovered that he had made no electronic communication at the