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

of the Bureau, and the moment this meeting is over I will have you escorted out into the street.’

Morgan didn’t respond immediately, just glanced slightly sideways at Grant Rogers, who replied with the faintest possible shrug of his shoulders and a facial expression that somehow seemed to convey irritation, an apology and a sense of resignation all at the same time. Charles Bouchier, a black haired, somewhat jowly and thick-set man, particularly around the waist, an indication that he was more of a seat-shiner than a front-line agent, a man who probably spent most of his time attending committee meetings and consuming large working lunches rather than chasing down bad guys on the streets, was Rogers’s immediate boss. He was the SAC, the special agent in charge, of the operation designed to provide continuing surveillance of Ganem and to locate the other three suspects. He had been incandescent with rage when Rogers had admitted that Ganem had slipped the leash and was on the loose somewhere in DC or maybe even further afield, and the man he apparently blamed for this situation was, bizarrely enough, Ben Morgan, who at no time had had anything to do with the surveillance operation.

And Bouchier was really just getting started, his loud and hectoring voice filling the briefing room where the three men were standing, Morgan on one side of the table and the two FBI officers on the other.

‘And what evidence have you brought us to support this preposterous claim that a disorganised ragtag band of Arab terrorists are intending to launch an attack on Washington D.C. today? Hmm? An attack that you can’t even describe because you have no idea what form it might take. We’re well aware that the streets of the city will be full of people today, all celebrating the day this country finally achieved independence from the likes of you. We have ample police and security forces out on the streets with them to ensure that the chances of anybody being able to plant a bomb or drive a truck into a crowd of pedestrians or do anything else are nil.’

Morgan nodded. ‘Are you interested in what I’ve got to say, or do you want to just throw me out into the street right now and have done with it?’

‘Don’t be impertinent.’

‘I’ll be as impertinent as I fucking well please. I don’t answer to you or anybody else out here in the colonies. I was sent over the Pond to try to help you, get that, to help you attempt to stop this attack. It was only thanks to a colleague of mine, who’s also British, by the way, that you even know about these four Arab comedians who might – or who might not – be planning to mount some kind of an attack here.’

Bouchier’s face had flushed dangerously red and Morgan guessed it had been a long time since anybody in the Bureau had actually stood up to his bully boy tactics. Before the SAC could respond, Morgan ploughed on. He, after all, had nothing to lose.

‘Now we can sit here and trade insults for the rest of the day if you want, but I’ve got things I need to do and you’ve probably got a big lunch heading your way, so let me just say this. This isn’t some ragtag bunch of terrorists. This operation, whatever the hell it is, has been planned for years, maybe as long as a decade, and the last thing these guys are going to do is try and mow down a few pedestrians in a stolen truck or plant an IED on Capitol Hill or anything like that. Planning that kind of attack would take about twenty seconds. Based on what we found out from the surviving jihadists who carried out the failed attack in London, this will be much bigger and much more subtle than anything like that.

‘My guess is that it’ll come in stages, and very probably start with attempts to shut down your utility providers, your electricity-generating companies and distributors, based on what Grant has told me about the cyberattacks you’ve had over here. I don’t know what the next stage is likely to be, or what they hope to achieve by creating a temporary blackout in DC, but I do think that will only be the first step. But the attack, the real attack, will come from the air. And it will happen today. So you do whatever the hell you want, but I want on record that I’m here to try and help, not hinder. That’s why the mobile phone in front of me is recording everything said in this room and uploading it to the cloud.’

‘You have absolutely no right—’

‘Oh, give it a rest, Charlie. You’ve said your piece. Now it’s time to let people like Grant here, people who actually give a shit, do what they can to find these guys and stop whatever they’ve got planned.’

Before Bouchier could respond, the lights in the briefing room flickered twice, then went out completely for a couple of seconds before switching on again.

‘I told you so,’ Morgan said with impeccable timing and a straight face. ‘That’s it. It’s started. I’m doing no good sitting here listening to this brain-dead sack of shit, Grant, so I’ll get back out on the streets and see if I can find out what’s going on. I’ll call you.’

Chapter 44

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

‘I sure hope you’ve got a nice easy one for us today, Sammy, bearing in mind it’s Independence Day and we’ve all got families to get back to.’

Major Sami Dawood, a stocky, solid-looking man a little under six feet tall with black hair, a tanned complexion and a somewhat bulbous nose centred in his otherwise regular features, looked up from his notes and grinned at the speaker, one of the 138th Attack Squadron’s MQ-9 pilots and part of the 174th Attack Wing based at