Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller (15 page)

“My guess is you haven’t come up with anything pointing toward their mission’s objective.”

“No. We still come up empty. We’re hoping when we get into his house we can get the names of the other family members. That might give us a clue. If Akmed is any indication, it seems only Mustafa knows and we aren’t even sure that he isn’t getting direction from elsewhere.”

“No, I think he’s the real deal. He may be waiting for the go signal, but I think he knows what they are going after. I want to listen to the tape of the boy’s conversation with Mustafa. Who’s got the tape?”

“Follow me.” Frank led the way out of the bedroom and led Jordan down the hallway, into the family room. He walked him over to the back corner where several tape players were on the table with headphones. “Here you go. The tape is in the machine. Need anything else, just let me know.”

With that, Jordan sat down, donned the headset and pressed play.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jordan removed the headphones off and pressed the stop button on the tape player. He looked at his notepad. It contained many scribbles, thoughts and the beginnings of ideas, only to be scratched through and a new one begun but, by the end of the page, everything was scribbled over. He hadn’t gotten anything out of the tapes, other than a concerned uncle spending time with his nephew. Mustafa was shrewd, didn’t say anymore than he had to and he didn’t overplay his hand. It was going to be critical to get into Mustafa’s house. He hoped the man truly had a job, which would require him to be gone for a long period. Jordan was sure Mustafa would not leave things around for them to find so the team would have to be thorough and careful.

Jordan felt the need to talk with Frank and get updated. He wanted to ensure he was on site for the take down of Mustafa’s house. He’d originally thought he would want to spend time in the apartment across the street, while Aziz was in school but, that would have to wait. He felt Mustafa’s house could be the goldmine.

He shifted his focus from his thoughts to the people around him. There seemed to be a commotion in the room. Jordan turned to face the open room holding the command center when he saw her. He quickly turned away and, under his breath, said, “Shit. Why is she here?” But he knew it was really only a matter of time. She was the best the NSA had to offer and, his personal thoughts aside, this case needed her.

Kate Woolrich had driven up from D.C. after the Deputy Director assigned her to the case. She was the Agency’s leading expert on foreign supported domestic terrorism. She strongly believed there were cells throughout the United States, as well as Europe and Asia, just awaiting a signal from abroad to go into action. She kept a bag of clothes packed in her government Suburban and was ready to respond to the newest threat or to track down any evidence which would support her theory.

Early on in her work, she’d crossed paths with Jordan. At first, she had found some of his theories and methods unorthodox. However, as she immersed herself into the same issues, she became ever more convinced he was onto something and might be able to crack the code on how to identify and track these groups and eliminate them prior to their activation.

“I learned more about what I’m up against and it has done nothing more than embolden me to eventually demonstrate to those fools that if you keep thinking about this as just another criminal investigation, they are always going to be able to carry out their attacks and we will continue to only be able to react to them. Sometimes, I’m not sure who is the bigger enemy — the radical Islamic fundamentalists or the people who are paid to protect us. I choose not to be myopic about this. It’s real and it needs to be stopped.” Jordan had summarized in a briefing she had attended.

Kate recalled that as the moment she fell in love with Jordan Wright. She knew at the time the feeling wasn’t reciprocated. Jordan was focused. He needed to prove he was right. She felt the best she could do at the moment was to support him. Hopefully, the love would come.

She was sure on the last case they’d worked she’d pushed a little too hard. They were in upstate New York, investigating a group of Libyan immigrants who had moved to the US prior to Qaddafi denouncing terrorism. The premise was that one of two things could be happening with this group. They could be going rogue, which means they were going to go ahead with their mission and not wait for a green light from their handlers in Libya or, there was always the possibility that Qaddafi was bluffing, to prevent future air strikes to his country and was still in control of the cell.

Jordan and Kate were the only two members of the team on the ground in New York, though they had substantial support assets in their respective headquarters to process all the data and information they were gathering. It had been a tough assignment but, it also gave them downtime together. Kate fondly recalled some great dinners — not from the standpoint of food and atmosphere, since they were not near any gastronomic oasis but, rather, it was the conversation. She learned a lot about Jordan, where he’d grown up and the history of his family, along with the challenges of growing up in wealth and privilege, only to see it destroyed by his parents. It was so different from her Midwest upbringing in Ohio. Her parents both worked, her father at a local manufacturing plant making commercial food equipment, her mother a cook in the junior high school cafeteria. What they lacked in material wealth they made up in love and care for one another. Listening to Jordan made her appreciation of her parents deepen and, while she always couldn’t wait to get out of the small town of her youth, she came to feel it would be where she would want to return, to raise her own family.

One night they observed the group leaving their compound and decided to attempt to infiltrate the house. They had a warrant and moved from their observation post as quickly as possible. They had notified the command center of the suspects’ movement, but had felt it was better to take advantage of them all being gone, which was rare, versus following them to see where they were headed.

They did a quick reconnoiter of the house to ensure no one was present and also to double check there were no alarms or traps. Feeling confident that everything was how they thought it would be, they entered through the back door. The Libyans hadn’t upgraded any of the locks, so getting into the farmhouse was accomplished with relative ease. Kate moved about the first floor as Jordan headed upstairs. They uncovered a treasure trove of information about the group and its makeup. They spent over an hour looking at and photographing documents and they were able to mirror the hard drives of the five computers they found.

Before they left, they headed to the basement and found a well-equipped chemical lab. It was hard to figure out exactly how the Libyans would utilize it, but it was obvious it could be used to create any number of explosive materials and, with the right hands and mind, some simple bio-weapons.

They felt they had pushed their time limit, so they headed out the door and back to their vehicle in the woods. Not long after they had packed their gear and begun the download of the information back to Washington, the headlights of a large SUV appeared. It stopped in front of the house and two men in overalls climbed out.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s one of ours.” Kate chuckled as the men opened up the back and removed several large cases, which they carried into the house.

“We’ve never seen these guys before, but they sure seem to be on a mission.” Jordan turned around and grabbed a larger pair of night vision binoculars off the back seat. They were too big to constantly use, but came in handy if he needed a higher level of detail. He scanned the vehicle. “It doesn’t have any plates. It’s definitely been customized with beefed up suspension, larger tires. No antennas, doesn’t seemed to be armored.”

After about forty-five minutes, the men emerged from the house and left in the vehicle.

“Should we follow them?” Kate looked over at Jordan. He nodded negatively and pointed toward the house. Kate returned her focus to the house and brought her binoculars back to her eyes.

Just then the whole area lit up as bright as a summer day as the house lifted off its foundation and exploded with a force that caused the complete destruction of the structure. Soon, pieces of wood and glass and other materials rained down on their car. Secondary explosions were coming from what was left of the basement.

“We’ll go now!” Jordan shouted and he turned the key and threw the car into gear. The tires caught traction and the black Suburban jolted forward through the woods.

“Wow, that was close!” Kate shouted.

“Timing is everything.” Jordan smiled as they came out of the woods and turned onto the paved road.

They proceeded to the hotel and called into their respective chains of command. The downloaded data seemed to indicate that this cell had put them on the market and had actually taken bids for their services. A name kept consistently popping up in the data. A man named Tahir. He seemed to be interested in engaging this group in some of his plans. Nothing seemed to have developed to a point of a specific target and mission but, it seemed this group had gone from being controlled by Libya to possibly being under Pakistani leadership. Tahir was a new name to both Kate and Jordan. That was not surprising as new names were coming up all the time. Terrorists were like cock roaches; the more you exterminated the more that seem to appear.

No one had any leads on the men who blew up the house. Maybe it was other Libyans who knew of the group’s defection or it could have been Pakistani’s who didn’t want someone interfering on their turf. One step forward, two steps back.

The green light was given to take down the other sub cells identified through the data discovered as quickly as possible. Kate and Jordan were ordered to return to D.C. as soon as possible. Since it was Friday and it was going to take another twenty-four to forty eight hours for the specialists to pour through all of the data they had taken from the house, Jordan told them Kate and he would be there first thing Monday morning.

Chapter Twenty-Six

UPPER MAKEFIELD TOWNSHIP, BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

“So, you in any hurry to get back home?” Jordan looked at Kate, with anticipation.

Kate held her breath. “No, I’ve got nothing forcing me to get back. What did you have in mind?”

“Would you like to come to my place? Have a great dinner, real food, nice bottle of wine, spend the weekend combing through some antique shops.”

“Sounds great and relaxing and, after what we’ve had to eat up here, I’m not sure I’ll recognize real food.” Kate felt her whole body tingle with anticipation. “How far away are we?”

“I think we can make it in about two and a half hours. The heart of Bucks County Pennsylvania is calling.”

“Let me grab my bag and I’m ready to go.”

They headed off and Kate soon found them leaving Interstate Eighty-Four and on rolling country roads. They went through small villages with the names of Upper Black Eddy and Carversville.