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

need to do. If he can’t issue his orders then maybe the others involved will stop whatever they’re doing. My guess is that they won’t, because of the mindset of the kind of people we’re dealing with. But whatever you decide to do, I think you need to do it quickly, before the cell phone system dies.’

Rogers nodded, pulled out his own mobile, opened his contacts list and selected William Clark’s mobile number. ‘Bill, we’ve got a good solid lead on these suspects but we need to move real fast. First, get onto the Baltimore Field Office and tell them to prep their SWAT team to take out a confirmed target in a district called Fairview. The type of property and number of hostiles is unknown, so we’ll need overkill, probably double whatever number of agents they’d normally use. Tell them this is an unfolding emergency situation in response to the blackouts in DC and proper authorisations will follow. Any problems, give them my number.’

There are 56 FBI field offices, and each one has its own Special Weapons and Tactics team. The Baltimore Field Office is located at 2600 Lord Baltimore Drive in the city and is also responsible for eight smaller offices, known as resident agencies, located at Annapolis, Bel Air, Frederick, Rockville, Salisbury, Dover and Wilmington.

‘We’ll need a chopper on standby just in case the suspects run, but the SWAT team should prepare to approach by road, no sirens, no lights, until we know what we’re dealing with. We’ll need a chopper to pick us up in DC ASAP and fly us out to somewhere in Bel Air. We can use the resident agency there to brief the SWAT guys and decide on tactics. What? No, the chopper will have to pick up you and me, along with Ben Morgan, because he’s the guy who unravelled this particular ball of string. Bring a couple of satellite phones along with you just in case the mobile network goes down. And don’t tell Bouchier, obviously. I’ll sort that out when this lot’s over.’

Morgan’s mobile rang at that moment. ‘Yes, Natasha?’ he said.

‘Two things you need to be aware of. First, the mobile out at this Fairview place has been switched on all morning, which is not typical of the way it’s been used up to now, so I think the user was waiting for a message or messages. Second, about an hour ago he sent a one word SMS to the mobile up in Syracuse, just asking for the ‘Estimate’, and the response was ‘ETD 1330’. Our intercept system put the Syracuse mobile at the Hancock International Airport there, so maybe he’s just waiting for some associate of his to fly out of the country. What we can assume is that whatever flight he’s talking about is not one that Sadir plans on catching, because there’s no way he can get to Syracuse and go through the shuffling horror of check-in within the time he has left. So that’s a minor mystery.

‘Third, in the last twenty minutes he’s had one call from each of the three mobiles out to the west of DC. Each conversation was more or less the same, again in Arabic, and each caller just told him that they’d completed their task. More significantly, each caller also finished their message with just two words.’

‘The Takbir?’ Morgan suggested.

‘I’m pleased you’ve been paying attention,’ Natasha said. ‘Exactly. Each of them said Allāhu akbar – ‘God is great’ – and the man they were talking to repeated it before ending the call. And a few seconds after each of these three men had finished the conversation he switched off his phone and it’s been off ever since.’

‘Got it, Natasha, and thanks.’

Morgan looked across at Rogers, who was waiting expectantly. Morgan explained what Natasha Black had told him. ‘At the end of the call they each said Allāhu akbar and then they switched off their mobiles. I don’t like the sound of that. The obvious implication is that they’ve done their bit in this attack, and the obvious conclusion is that these are the three guys who’ve been orchestrating the blackouts and outages here in DC. So they might well be packing up ready to leave any time now.’

Rogers nodded. ‘I’ll get Dave Nicholls – he’s another member of the team I’ve been using for this – to get the wheels turning. The fastest way to reel them in is to let the police out at Woodstock and Harrisonburg handle it. If these three perps aren’t in the wind yet the local boys in blue should get them.’

He dialled another number on his mobile and crisply issued a series of instructions, including the precise lat and long figures the GCHQ tracking had provided.

‘Get them moving immediately, Dave,’ Rogers instructed, ‘and as soon as you can send them ID photos and the best of the pictures we took when these four guys met out at Tysons. And keep me in the loop.’

‘Where do we pick up the chopper?’ Morgan asked, when Rogers finished his conversation and stood up. ‘The roof of the Hoover building?’

Rogers shook his head. ‘Only in The X-Files,’ he replied. ‘These days you need a whole bunch of top-level senior seat-shiners to approve something like that, plus there’d be the problem of sorting out permissions and getting you into the building and up to the roof while Bouchier is on the war path. We’ll use the South Capitol Street Heliport. Much more discreet and a lot fewer questions will get asked.

‘We’ll get a cab and fight our way through this gridlock. Bill will meet us there and by the time we arrive the chopper should be ready.’

Chapter 48

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

‘Is there somewhere you need to be, Sammy?’ Nagell asked, glancing behind him at the training officer, who was pacing about behind the control position. ‘You keep looking at your watch.’

Major Dawood shook his head. ‘Just