End Days Super Boxset (32 page)

Craig stood back, impressed. Perhaps the boisterous Benson was worthy of his reputation after all. Just as Craig felt they were getting there, Benson dropped his head and sighed.

“What?” Kessler asked. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Just annoyed, that’s all. The files are encrypted to high heaven. It’s going to take longer than usual, that’s all.”

Benson moved the cursor wildly and opened several different folders. “When I do a search for the words, ‘plan,’ ‘targets,’ ‘strikes,’ ‘ISIS,’ and ‘America,’ I get literally hundreds of results. So we’re dealing with a lot of information here.”

“That’s good, right?” Calderon asked.

“Yes and no,” Benson answered.

McMillian cut in. “What he’s saying is that we’re going to have to separate what’s valuable from what’s worthless.”

Benson nodded agreement. His eyes locked on the screen.

Kessler sighed again. “We don’t have time for that. This country is on the march to war, trust me. The president wants answers.”

Craig stepped forward to address Benson. “We’re looking for information about two particular attacks. Ma’mun’s men spoke of two additional phases. There’s got to be some kind of code word they have the files under.”

Benson shook his head, seeming overwhelmed. “Look, breaking encryption code isn’t my strongest suit. Lutz is much better at it than I.” He stood up, took a step back from the table and looked around. “Lutz!” he shouted. “Come here and do your magic.” Lutz had been standing next to him the entire time. He tapped Benson on the shoulder. “There you are,” Benson said, surprised.

Lutz pulled up a chair, dragged the laptop closer, and started moving boxes around on the desktop screen and typing a mile a minute. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll try.”

All eyes were on the television screen. The operations room staff comprised twenty-three men and women who had been working to piece together the terrorist conspiracy to take down America. Few of them had even had a moment to check in on their families. And there seemed to be no end in sight.

“I’ve got something!” Lutz yelled. The room exploded in cheers. People stood up, clapping, unable to contain their excitement.

“What is it?” Benson asked. He leaned in closer as several different images opened on the screen.

“Three hundred forty files found.”

“So what does that mean?” Kessler barked. “Are we getting closer?”

Lutz continued on and ignored the question. “So if we try some other words, like ‘plan,’ and ‘attack,’ ‘targets,’ and ‘America,’ that can help us narrow it down.”

After clicking through some results Lutz suddenly stopped. “Interesting…”

Craig looked up at the television. There were a dozen JPEG images in a folder titled Power Plants. “Click on those,” he said, walking over to the laptop.

Lutz opened the folder, which showed pictures of unidentified power plants taken from all angles. He clicked on several other images. Blue prints. Maps. Even congressional reports on the terrorist threat to power plants nationwide.

The FBI director took a hard look at the files on the TV screen, stood, rapped on the table to get everyone’s attention, and addressed the group. “I think it’s pretty obvious what all that means. But how can we differentiate between ideas and the things they actually plan to do?”

Craig spoke up. “We need to gather enough information to find out their main area of operations. It’s the only way.”

Kessler interjected. “Look. Just find out where the next attack is going to take place, send a team out there and catch these bastards before they blow up a theme park or something.” He turned to his female aide. “Any word from the CIA?”

“Not yet, Mr. Secretary.”

He looked at McMillian. “I want to see the detained terrorist. Maybe we can make a deal with him. Get him talking.”

Calderon spoke up. “Most power plants are already at a high-alert status, so the sleeper cells are going to find them difficult to attack… if that’s what they plan on doing.”

Craig moved closer to the laptop and saw a folder that caught his interest.

“Let me have real quick look, here,” he said to Lutz.

Lutz moved out of the way as Craig opened another folder on the desktop—even stranger than the last one. All eyes returned to the screen just as phones at the workstations began ringing off the hook, but went unanswered. Everyone was too transfixed by what they were seeing on the screen to be interrupted.

The first image to grab Craig’s attention showed a map identifying FEMA sites for evacuated personnel. The information seemed sensitive in nature, making him wonder if it had been leaked or stolen. The next picture was a scan of a technically-worded formula, a mixing solution for twenty-ounce bottles, with H20 and liquid VX nerve agents as the ingredients.

“What is that?” Calderon asked, leaning in closer. “Is that some kind of plan to poison the water supply?”

“Water utilities have been put on high alert as well,” Walker said, as if the formula represented nothing more than a pipedream.

Craig sifted through each document, trying to put together the pieces. “There’s something more to it than that, sir,” he said.

There was a scanned copy of the deed to a plastics factory, with a Detroit address. Craig was certain it was the plant he had escaped from.

“That’s the place!” he said. “This is where they had me.”

He opened another file containing a series of contracts and legal paperwork for a place called, “Hudson Valley Natural Spring Water.”

“Has anyone else heard of this company?” Craig asked. No one answered and he continued reading the document. Upon closer inspection he could see what looked like business proposals and contracting paperwork. The client listed on the top gave everyone in the rooms chills: Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“What is this all about?” Kessler demanded. “Why is FEMA listed as a purchaser for this water company?”

“It’s a government contract,” Craig answered. “This Hudson Valley company made a bid and it looks like they got the contract.” Craig read the financial statement: A thirty-million-dollar contract with Hudson Water for the next five years. Things got even more interesting from there. Craig opened pictures of the Michigan factory and of thousands of plastic bottles manufactured and packaged for delivery.

Then came pictures of another factory: a bottled water plant three times the size of the plastics factory. Craig scrolled down and found the name of the owners: a Dubai company called “Emirates Integrated.” The pieces of the puzzle were startling, but he hadn’t pieced together the entire picture yet. The plant’s address indicated that it was located in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Everyone studied the documents as the phones continued to ring incessantly.

The FBI director looked away from the screen and turned to his team of analysts. “Would some of you answer those phones please? Not everyone needs to be here.”

Ten or so people scrambled and moved back to their workstations, putting their headphones back on.

Kessler seemed overwhelmed, studying the images on the screen. “So. Where… What does all of this mean?”

Craig, confident that he had figured it out, stepped in to solve the puzzle before anyone else could respond. “The water plant. That’s where Omar Allawi is running his operations. They don’t plan on poisoning the water supply. Only this Hudson Valley Spring Water. They’re going to have the government distribute deadly water.”

The room went quiet except for the people answering the phones as everyone was trying to figure out the answer to the secretary’s question.

Seeming to fully grasp the situation, Calderon added, “This way, they have FEMA transporting the water for them all across the country. In effect, the government will be poisoning its own people.”

Craig thought to himself:
the port explosions, the radiation, the evacuations. Evacuees in FEMA camps. Military personnel and government officials, all drinking from the same bottled water.

The FBI director spoke. “This is an easy one, ladies and gentlemen. We just need to stop shipment of this water dead in it tracks.”

Craig turned to the director to make a direct plea. “Sir, I’d like to request a field team to investigate this factory.”

“Screw that,” one burly and balding official shouted out. “Shut that plant down immediately!”

Kessler again turned to his aide, frantic. “Get me the president on the line!” He then looked to the FBI director. “I want to speak to that captured terrorist immediately.”

One of the analysts then ran from his work station to the group crowded around the table. “Mr. McMillian! Mr. McMillian, sir!”

The FBI director looked at him, startled. “Yes, what is it?”

Another analyst came running over with his wireless headset still affixed. “We’ve got a serious problem.”

The atmosphere in the room quickly shifted. Something was up. More bad news.

“Power plants and electrical grids have been reported compromised in at least ten different states,” the first analyst shouted. “No one knows how they did it, but word just came through that some heavily armed militants stormed the grounds of power plants around the country and shot down anything in their way.”

Then attention switched to the television news. The live video flashing on the screen verified everything that the analyst was saying. A group of analysts ran over from their workstations in a panic to join the others. “More power plant explosions confirmed only three minutes ago!” one of them announced.

Officials shouted out collectively in dismay. Their hands covered their faces, the sting of another attack too much to absorb. Aerial images of smoke and fire consumed the screen. The news cut to cities and towns without any power and frightened residents walking around their own neighborhoods looking stunned.

“No…” Kessler said. “This cannot be happening.”

Craig had the same sinking feeling in his gut that he was sure everyone else had. Their enemy’s unquenchable desire to inflict chaos and death seemed to have no end.

Phase two
, Craig thought.
Son of bitch…

Overwhelmed, Secretary Kessler turned and stormed out of the room with his entourage, who were taken off guard and attempting to catch up with him.

Once Kessler left, McMillian spoke. “So now we see they had every intention of carrying out the attacks on our power infrastructure. We have to believe that the poisoned water distribution is a certainty.”

Craig, like everyone else, was nearly too shocked to speak. He tried his best to look away from the breaking news updates on TV and think of a solution before the next attack.

“I can stop them, sir,” he said with brazen confidence.

McMillian stopped and looked at Craig doubtfully. “With all you’ve been through, Agent Davis, I don’t think it would be wise to send you into such a dangerously volatile environment. This has become a military operation.”

“Just let me lead the team. I can do this. I
have
to do this.” Craig projected absolute conviction.

McMillian looked down and then back to the TV news. The multiple shots of fire and smoke, taken from high overhead looked as if the world itself was on fire. After a slight pause, he looked at Craig and nodded. “Start pulling together a field team, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Confirmed
reports soon poured into the operations room as officials watched the barrage of news on the latest series of attacks. Five power plants had been bombed, their main generators cut out, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without power.

The areas affected included, strangely enough, not large cities, but those where more rural populations lived. Some speculated that the plan was to strike the areas to which people from the big cities were fleeing. Moments after the power plant attacks were initiated, one thing was made clear: no one was safe, no matter where they resided.

Jonesboro, Arkansas. Louisville, Tennessee. Birmingham, Alabama. Columbus, Georgia. Jackson, Mississippi. There was something strategic about the locations, but no official could pinpoint anything beyond the obvious fact that they were southern states in close proximity of one another.

Hurricane Francis exacerbated the situation even more, as emergency responders and state and local officials scrambled to try to control outbreaks of looting and random lawlessness. ISIS had effectively brought much of the country to its tipping point.

More and more, it seemed the government had little control of the situation. Vigilantism was on the rise. Churches did their best to take in the frightened, overwhelmed, and helpless. National Guard and Reserve soldiers were called up, leaving their families on their own for an undisclosed amount of time. In a matter of hours following the power plant attacks, it became more evident that all-out war was on the horizon.

From their limited vantage point in the operations room, the FBI and State Department officials tried to comprehend how another attack of such magnitude could have happened, given the high-alert advisories all over the country.

But it was as real as the charred bodies scattered along the ports only two days prior. Now they were facing a new onslaught from an enemy that still remained faceless and still hadn’t taken any credit. What would the next attack be? Where would it be? And could the government prevent it? Questions on everyone’s minds that had no real answers. The scope of the terrorists’ ambitions was unprecedented, and given that, hard decisions were going to have to be made.

“We need to get the president on the line!” McMillian shouted as officials scrambled to maintain their focus and deal with the crisis at hand.

“Anyone know where the secretary went?” Calderon asked.

Questions and demands flew left and right as Craig tried to make sense of everything. His family came to mind. He had to leave and see them. Whatever was happening around the country, he could no longer assure them that everything was going to be okay. It was time to prepare for the worst.

Cross-chatter took over the room as live-feed aerial shots appeared on television of fire and smoke rising from the aftermath of the plant explosions. Then they cut to street shots where mass chaos had taken over. Crowds descended on stores, pillaging them. Lines of cars were stopped dead at gas stations. Oceans of vehicles were gridlocked on the highways, trying to escape town.

Movement, however, had grown next to impossible. The government began to implement its authority through its agencies—all gathered in operations rooms similar to the one Craig was in.

The door banged open and Agents Thomas and Keagan burst into the room, looking as if they had come from another meeting.

“FAA is grounding all flights. Airports are shutting down!” Thomas announced to the room in disbelief.

All eyes turned to him, but after what they had seen on the television, not much surprised them anymore.

“Oh no…” Calderon said, placing his head in his hands.

“Why now and not two days ago?” one official asked.

“There are close to seven thousand power plants in this country,” McMillian said into his headset, pacing around. “We don’t have enough agents to cover each one.” He paused for a moment while the other person on the line spoke, then said, “I don’t know. Set up a military perimeter.”

“They’re blocking all travel,” Keagan repeated.

Craig approached Thomas and Keagan. “What else?” he said.

Keagan continued, “Just got off the phone with the national transit. Commuter rails are being shut down. Transportation administration is blocking roads everywhere.”

“Massive checkpoints are being established on all major highways,” Thomas said. He turned to Craig. “Oh, and Homeland is on their way here, and they’re not happy.”

“I got the CIA on the line. They want to know where we’re holding the terror suspect!” an analyst announced from his workstation.

“White House has been evacuated. President is set to address the nation soon,” another voice shouted out.

Walker approached Craig, pale in the face. “I-I think we need to discuss the potential of this water poisoning plan ISIS has in store next.”

“I agree, sir,” Craig answered. “They’ve been biding their time for years, and these attacks are going to keep coming unless we obliterate their entire organization.”

Walker whipped his head around after being momentarily distracted by the news.
Alleged ISIS-inspired attacks sweep the South
appeared as a banner across the TV as a harried-looking female anchor tried to keep up with the latest reports.

“Where would we even start with this?” Walker asked, lost in a daze of overwhelming fear.

“We have to go after the sleeper cells,” Craig said. “Find them, wherever they’re operating. Let me have a team, and we’ll stop them and end this madness. We can give this country a moment to breathe.”

Walker looked at Craig with a hint of skepticism. “I don’t think you’re in any condition to lead such a team. At this point we need to bring in other agencies and get them on board. The FBI can’t do everything.” Walker tried to placate Craig’s disapproving stare. “How about an advisory role?”

Craig shook his head. Angered, Walker pointed at him. “What are trying to do, get yourself killed? You need to think about your family here.”

“My family knows, as well as I, that we have to do everything we can to stop these terrorists. We’ve seen what they’ve done. We know what they have planned. There could be thousands of sleeper cells all around the country waiting to strike…” Craig paused. “If we go after Allawi, they’ll be leaderless. Killing him won’t be the end, but it will shake them up, maybe even stall their plans.”

Walker stood back. “You really think such a thing is possible?”

“Why not?” Craig asked. “Did you ever think
any
of this was possible? This is the second time they’ve hit us in two days and this country has yet to fight back. This is war, and so far, we’re losing.”

“Homeland’s on its way,” an agent announced from his workstation.

Craig sighed, gearing up for another confrontation with his favorite agency.

“Who from Homeland?” McMillian asked.

“Not the secretary,” the agent answered. “Some representatives and their deputy assistant director.”

Craig knew exactly who they were talking about. The blond-haired epitome of smugness, Deputy Jenkins. Their paths had crossed many times over the past couple of days—and years, for that matter.

Both were around the same age and had similar ambitions, and Jenkins had found the best ways to interfere with Craig’s investigations however he could. But Craig was willing to put the bad blood between them aside if it meant stopping the terrorists. His good intentions, however, dissipated within moments of Jenkins’s arriving with his entourage.

“Where are you holding Ghazi Al-Shehhi?” he asked as the doors flew open, addressing everyone and no one.

McMillian, offended by their abrupt entrance, lashed out. “This is a highly secure operations room. You can’t just come barging in here, no matter who you represent.”

Disregarding the FBI director, Jenkins walked to the meeting table with six other men in suits, all dangling I.D. badges. Jenkins hadn’t yet seen Craig, as there were so many other people in the room. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “I want to see Mr. Al-Shehhi.”

“Why?” Craig asked loudly. Anyone not wearing a headset and deep in their own conversation looked up.

Jenkins turned and smiled, brushing away a curl of blond hair that hung over his forehead. “Agent Davis…” He scanned Craig’s face and dirty attire. “You’re looking…not so well.”

Craig said nothing.

“How can we help you, Deputy Jenkins?” Walker asked, and stood next to Craig.

Calderon cut in from nearby. “We’re very busy here and under a tremendous amount of pressure. Is there something
you
can help us with or are you here just to make trouble?”

“I am here on official business, rest assured,” Jenkins continued. “Now I revert back to my earlier question. Can someone tell me where you’re holding Mr. Al-Shehhi?”

“Mr. Al-Shehhi is currently being held in our intensive care unit,” McMillian answered.

Craig finally spoke up. “And he’s not going anywhere until he’s answered
our
questions.”

Jenkins took a few slow steps, then stopped in front of Craig. “He is not yours to interrogate. He belongs to us.”

“The hell he does,” Craig said, adamantly.

Walker was more respectful in his tone. “Exactly what are you talking about, Deputy Jenkins?”

“I mean that Mr. Al-Shehhi has been working with us. Providing us information. He’s what you might call a double agent.”

They could not have been more startled if ISIS had set off a bomb in the center of the room. The FBI men look astonished. McMillian seemed to gasp.

“That’s impossible,” Craig said.

“Why?” Jenkins asked, oblivious.

“Because he tried to kill me and my entire family. Are you suggesting that somehow Homeland
knew
about that?”

“Of course not,” Jenkins said. “We know nothing about that. Mr. Al-Shehhi is no boy scout. We understand that. But he possesses valuable information.”

“About what?” McMillian asked with skepticism.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss all of that right now. I need to speak with him, and that’s that.”

Craig sprinted across the room and lunged at Jenkins as other FBI and Homeland agents rushed to hold him back.

“You son of a bitch!” Craig yelled as five others pushed against him. Startled, Jenkins stood safely and calmly between two of the largest men in his entourage. Craig tried to push forward but couldn’t break away.

“That’s enough, Agent Davis!” Calderon shouted.

Walker turned to Jenkins and took the job of censuring him. “Why are you trying to rile him up? Do you have any idea what he’s been through?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jenkins said. “He always seems to lose his temper whenever I’m around, no matter the circumstance.”

The men released Craig as he slowly regained his composure. Jenkins was about to make another demand for Ghazi when suddenly, Secretary Kessler burst into the room with his own State Department entourage, expressing similar interest and frustration about Ghazi.

“I’ve been all over looking for this detainee, and we can’t find him anywhere. Now enough bullshit! Where is he?” He stopped when he noticed the Homeland group. “What are they doing here?”

“Looking for the same thing as you,” Jenkins answered.

“CIA chopper just landed on the roof!” an agent announced while pressing his headset against his ear.

“Enough!” McMillian shouted. The room went nearly silent. “This country is under attack, and unless you’re here to help, I’m going to ask you to go back to your respective agencies at once.”

Both Jenkins and Kessler looked stunned by the FBI director’s outburst. “I would choose your words more carefully,” Jenkins said.

Craig still looked angry. Thomas placed a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, man. We need to be fighting
them
, not each other.”

“No one is talking to the detainee right now, period. Got that?” McMillian said defiantly.

Jenkins and Kessler looked ready for a showdown, displaying no hints of backing down.

McMillian continued, “And I want you to explain exactly how a terrorist who tried to kill one of
my
agents and his family is some kind of informant for the government. And I want to know why we weren’t told of this.”

Calderon stepped forward with his own questions, pointing at the television. “Could this have been prevented? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jenkins said. “All we knew was that he was closely working within a sleeper cell as our informant. Haven’t heard from him in four weeks. He must not have known.”

A voice then loudly called out from one of the workstations. “Presidential address coming live in thirty seconds!”

Everyone in the room gathered around the meeting table and stared at the television on the wall. The news anchor on screen said that they were soon going to go live to the president, who was going to address the nation from an undisclosed location. In the room, several side arguments briefly followed among officials over whether the president should be addressing the public out in the open or in a secret place.