Patriot by M.A. Rothman (macos ebook reader txt) 📕

interested in what they were doing—only to realize that everyone was too interested in what they were doing. It wasn’t every day someone interrupted the offloading schedule to focus on one container. It was like rubbernecking at a traffic accident.

One of the crewmen handed the foreman a large pair of bolt cutters. He rested them on his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Connor. “And you’re sure you guys don’t need a warrant to look inside this thing?”

Connor shook his head. “We’ve got the paperwork, and if you want to see, I can have it choppered in, but it might take another half hour before it arrives.”

“Screw that noise, I can’t afford the time as it is. But I ain’t taking the rap for this.” The foreman held out the bolt cutters. “You kill it, you skin it.”

Connor took the heavy bolt cutters and moved to the door. He was through with all the dramatics. There were only two ways this night was going to end. They’d either stop the nuke, or they wouldn’t. Simple as that.

He clamped the biting end of the bolt cutters down on the padlock, took a deep breath, and squeezed.

The lock snapped.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?” Thompson muttered under his breath.

Twelve hours after the debacle at the port, Connor was still fuming. Though he guessed he wasn’t as mad as the shipping company would be when they realized what happened to their cargo.

The container had contained nothing but olive oil.

Fortunately, their failure hadn’t become widespread knowledge. Connor attributed that to Richards’s fast response. Evidently he’d peppered all the witnesses with significant bonuses on top of legal warnings to not speak of the incident to anyone.

Now, the morning after, Connor, Richards, and Thompson stood in the corner of the operations and logistics war room for the new joint counterterrorism task force that had been set up by Homeland Security. Annie had returned to Baltimore to go through the Decklin Bros warehouse again. She didn’t think she’d missed anything, but after the wild-goose chase they’d just been on, she’d wanted to be sure. Connor couldn’t blame her, though he doubted she’d find anything.

The task force’s goal was to piece together the evidence from the Manhattan bombings and bring the perpetrators to justice. The “war room” was actually an entire floor of the FBI’s New York field office, but despite its impressive size, Connor couldn’t help but feel claustrophobic. Over fifty FBI agents, supervisors, and deputy directors, along with teams from the NYPD, Homeland Security, and the military, were packed in like sardines, stepping all over each other.

Connor had argued against the location, thinking it might be an obvious location for the next target, but his objections hadn’t made it past Thompson. It wasn’t their place to present ideas or to stand out, he said. Their job was to stand in the back and listen.

The three Outfit members wore badges identifying them as executive liaisons with the National Security Agency, which effectively made them black holes in the room. In the Intelligence Community, the NSA was typically known as the brother that didn’t like sharing his toys, and who would, whenever possible, blame the other children for any mistake he might be accused of.

Connor considered what they’d learned from Khan, and what it had led to. Khan hadn’t given up the information about the ship willingly—not by a long shot. Connor believed one hundred percent that the man was telling the truth—as he knew it. Which meant either that the plan had changed, or that Khan had never known the real plan. Hakimi had lied to him.

“If there is a bomb,” he said quietly, “it’s already here.”

“What do you mean if?” Thompson said.

“You know this entire scheme doesn’t make sense. If they’re going to rob a bank—let’s just say they’re going to try and pull a Die Hard with a Vengeance and break into the Federal Reserve—they wouldn’t go out of their way to bomb everything else. I mean, hundreds of police and FBI agents are now swarming the city looking for them.”

“Don’t forget about the National Guard,” Richards added.

“Exactly. Their attacks have done nothing but bolster our security. Not very good tradecraft if you ask me. Wherever they try to breach, they’ll immediately have a swarm of law enforcement swoop down and pick them up before they even get started.”

“So, what—are you saying we’re dealing with a bunch of incompetent international terrorists?” Richards asked. “Because if you forget the bank robbery angle for a minute, they’re doing a pretty damn good job at sowing fear and discontent, which, I don’t think I need to remind you, is a terrorist’s general purpose.”

“You’re right, generally speaking,” Connor said. “But in this case, I don’t know.”

“Have you considered that the bombs and whatever Wagner was talking about aren’t even connected?” Thompson asked. “The sheikh was pretty convinced that the bombings were just a prelude to the final act. What did he call it again?”

“The act that would seal America’s fate forever,” Connor said, remembering the line. In his drugged state, the sheikh had said many things. They wanted the people to know the police and the military couldn’t protect the people. They knew, rightfully so, that bombs in the homeland would paralyze the nation. “And yes, I have thought about the connection between Hakimi’s people and whatever the Germans were going on about. Brice said that the explosives had a chemical signature that led back to known German military suppliers, but Khan knew about the explosives set up in Manhattan. That suggests the Germans knew or at least had some idea of what Khan and Hakimi were planning. And of course, there’s that Ericka woman, who I guess works for Müller, she certainly hinted at the connection between the olive oil and the bombs being a decoy. It sure seems like we’ve got some crossed signals and confusion all over this case.”

“They’ve got us chasing our tails,” Richards said. “And