Cyberstrike by James Barrington (best memoirs of all time TXT) 📕

an international terrorist needs to use genuine travel documentation, and it’s difficult to obtain multiple genuine passports. So we do know that for at least the last three years the Arab male who flew out of Beijing with the two Chinese hackers has been travelling on the same passport. And the important thing is the name inside that document.’

Rogers looked interested. ‘And the name is?’

‘Mahdi Sadir. The same name as the man Bill Clark here thinks is the leader of this bunch of four terrorists here in DC. The one calling himself Abū Tadmir.’

Chapter 38

Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York State, United States of America

The following morning Sadir didn’t get on the road until three hours after he had knelt down to face Mecca and said his dawn prayers, the salat al-fajr, because he wanted to wait until the level of traffic increased, when he would become just another anonymous commuter or shopper. Following the directions on his windscreen-mounted satnav, he headed south along US-11 rather than the interstate because of where he was going. When he reached North Syracuse, he drove down Brewerton Road and turned left onto E Taft Road at the busy intersection to track east. That would take him just to the north of the Syracuse Hancock International Airport, his target.

Once he drove east of the interstate, the level of traffic diminished considerably, and by the time he reached the right turn he needed to take – William Barry Boulevard – there was only one vehicle on the road in front of him and two cars heading in the opposite direction. He took the turn and drove south on a country road dotted with industrial units. At the T-junction at the end of the road he turned left onto Stewart Drive and about a hundred metres further on he swung right down the unmade road, checking his mirrors and looking in both directions as he did so. But at that moment, Stewart Drive was deserted.

He reduced his speed on the narrow road, which ran straight as far as he could see. The left-hand side of the road was bordered by trees and undergrowth, with an open field to his right beyond which he could see another industrial unit, this one a distribution company. Ahead of him the road, which bore no name but which he had learnt from one website was called Presque Isle Road, a somewhat exotic name for what amounted to a gravel track, climbed gently and was bordered by more trees, making it almost ideal for his purposes.

He passed a turning on his left – another unmarked road which he thought was called 2nd Street – and slowed the car as he approached what he thought was a good location, about as close to the airfield boundary as he wanted to risk going. He was surrounded by trees and undergrowth with plenty of places to pull off the road where his car would be out of sight unless somebody actually stopped and looked into the treeline.

Sadir steered the Honda off the road and stopped it behind a patch of heavy undergrowth that rendered it completely invisible. He got out and walked back towards the tarmac road, checking for tyre marks. But the ground was dry and solid and although he could see a few patches of crushed vegetation there was really nothing to suggest to anyone that a vehicle had driven that way.

He stood beside the car and for a few moments just listened. The only sound he could hear, apart from the slow ticking noise as the Honda engine cooled, was birdsong and the distant sound of automobile engines from the roads that more or less surrounded him. Satisfied, he opened the boot of the car and lifted out the steel casing of the weapon and placed it on the ground. He’d fashioned a sling which went around his shoulders to help him carry the object and he quickly assembled it and then stood up. With most of the weight now being carried by his shoulders rather than his arms he found it much easier to manoeuvre it.

He walked deeper into the woods, looking for a suitable location to assemble and prime the weapon. In less than two minutes he found a spot that seemed ideal, away from most of the larger trees but with undergrowth so thick that he doubted if anybody had even tried to walk through there in the past decade. He lowered the casing to the ground, released the sling so that he could use it to carry the stator, and retraced his steps to the car.

In less than ten minutes, all the components were laid out on the ground in front of him. He listened again for any noise that could indicate a human presence nearby, then quickly began the assembly, which was simply a matter of bolting the stator into the steel casing and making sure it was pointing in the correct direction. Then he connected the wiring to the heavy-duty twelve-volt battery that would supply the current for the detonation when he rang the mobile phone that formed part of the circuit Ramli had constructed. It was an old Nokia from the days when a mobile phone only needed charging about once a month and he had no doubt that the battery would hold more than enough charge to ensure that the explosion would take place exactly when he wanted it.

He checked the wiring and all the other components to ensure that he had missed nothing and had made no mistakes in the assembly, then took the camouflaged tarpaulin and laid it over the top of the device, pulling it tight so that it wouldn’t flap if the wind started blowing because that noise might attract attention. Finally, he forced the steel pegs into the ground to hold the tarpaulin securely in place, the strength of his legs being enough to drive them all the way home so he