Monday Night Jihad (42 page)

It might only be the first quarter, but Emrick had the feeling that today was his day.

4:05 p.m. PST

Riley, Khadi, Scott, and Hicks sat silently around the table deep in the heart of the Rose Bowl stadium; Skeeter guarded the door. Frustration was leading to desperation. Every muffled cheer from the crowd above sent a knife into Riley’s heart. He wondered how many people out there—and in here, for that matter—were going to die because of his failure. It didn’t make sense. Did I really hear Sal say what I thought I heard him say? Or was I so anxious to beat him at his own game that I read into his words?

Riley shook the doubts from his head. He had gone over his conversation with Hakeem word for word with Hicks, Scott, and Khadi, and they all agreed with him. Sal had made it very clear that his next target was the PFL Cup. But why? Why would he have been so forthright with his intentions? Did he actually intend to have me killed after al-’Aqran was released? And wouldn’t he have known that I would try to signal something to my team? He’s a smart guy. Could he have made that big of a blunder? Was it a blunder?

The silence in the room was so intense that when Riley’s cell phone rang, it caused Khadi to start, Scott to tip over in his already precariously positioned chair, and Skeeter to draw his weapon. Riley looked at the caller ID—Meg Ricci. He silenced the phone. “Sorry, guys.”

A few moments later, the phone began ringing again. Again the caller ID showed Meg Ricci. Again Riley silenced the ring.

A minute passed, and then the phone began to ring once more.

“Just answer it!” Scott and Khadi said simultaneously.

Riley picked up the phone and flipped it open. “Meg, now is not—”

“Riley, I have to talk to you.” Meg sounded frantic.

“Can it wait for a few—?”

“Riley, please!” There was fear in her voice, and she sounded like she was about to hyperventilate.

Riley got up from the table and walked to a corner of the small room. “Sure, Meg, of course. Take a breath, and then tell me what’s going on.”

Riley heard Meg take a couple of deep breaths, obviously trying to regain her composure. When she began to speak again, the frantic tone had come down a few notches, but the fear was still strong. “I . . . I was cleaning out some of Sal’s stuff. I know it’s probably too soon, but I just couldn’t handle looking at it day in and day out. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No, of course not. Everyone handles grief differently. But what’s got you all worked up?”

“Well, I was in our closet pulling out the shoes he never wore. He’d buy shoes, wear them once, and then just throw them back in the corner. Anyway, I pulled out a pair from the corner and noticed a bump in the carpet. I tried to smooth it out, because we’ve had trouble with this carpet ever since we put it in last year, remember?”

“Right, right. So what was it?” Riley asked, trying to move her along. He remembered Sal telling him once that Meg tended to ramble when she was upset.

“So, I try to smooth it out, but it won’t smooth. I feel the bump and realize there’s something under the carpet. It was a key, Riley. A key to a safe-deposit box. And along with the key were three small pieces of paper with what looks like Arabic writing on them.”

Riley felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He rushed to the table. “Meg, I’m here with some friends. I think they need to hear what you might have to say. Do you mind if I put you on speakerphone?”

Meg hesitated for a moment. “Do you have to? I mean, this is personal stuff and . . .”

“Please, Meg. This could be very, very important.”

“Okay, okay. But first I need to know. Was Sal caught up in anything bad . . . you know, before he was . . . before he passed away?”

“I’ll tell you what. When I get back to Denver, I’ll come over and tell you everything I know. Right now, I need to hear what you’ve discovered. So, speakerphone?”

“Okay.”

Riley pressed the button that changed the mode of the cell phone. “Meg, I’m here with Jim Hicks, Scott Ross, and Khadi Faroughi.”

Scott said, “Hey, Meg.”

Khadi said, “Hi, Meg. I’m so sorry about your loss.”

Hicks said nothing.

“So, Meg, you were telling me about a key to a safe-deposit box that you found and some Arabic notes.”

The others turned to Riley, shock on their faces. He nodded to them and gestured with his hand for them to keep it cool.

“Hi, everyone. So . . . well, I took this key to our bank yesterday. I’ve been up all night with this, Riley. I was trying to decide whether I should call you or not.”

“You did the right thing. So you went to the bank. . . .”

“Right, I went to the bank—I figured Sal wouldn’t have minded and all—and they took me back to the safe-deposit boxes. The key fit one of them, and they pulled it out and put me in a private room. I’m so glad they did, because . . . I mean, I couldn’t believe what I found.”

“What was it?” Riley asked.

“Money. More than $250,000 in cash. There was also some Mexican money—you know, pesos and stuff—and euros. There was also a . . . a . . .”

“Go on,” Khadi encouraged.

“There was a gun—a loaded gun. Why would he have a loaded gun and thousands of dollars in a safe-deposit box, Riley?” The pace of her words was steadily increasing.

“Keep calm, Meg. Was there anything else?” Riley asked.

“A couple of papers. They look like sketches or something. One of them was of Platte River Stadium.”

“Do you have the papers with you?” Scott called out. “Did they have any writing on them?”

“Riley, what’s going on?” Meg asked, her fear growing even greater.

“Please, Meg, I promise I’ll explain everything later. Do you have the papers with you?”

“They’re right here.”

“Are there any markings on the Platte River Stadium drawing?” Scott asked.

“Yeah, there are some Xs. . . . Let me see . . . one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven Xs. Wait a second! There were seven bombers—that’s what they said on the news about Platte River Stadium the night Sal was killed. I know because he was killed by the seventh bomber!” Franticness had returned and replaced the fear in Meg’s voice. “Riley, was Sal somehow involved in the bombings?”

“Calm down, Meg,” Riley said.

“Calm down? Don’t you tell me to calm down! How can I calm down? Was Sal some sort of suicide bomber who killed himself at Platte River Stadium? Is that what you’re saying?” Meg was shouting now.

“Meg! Stop!” Riley yelled. Meg stopped talking, but her shallow, rapid breathing could be heard clearly through the phone’s speaker. “First of all, promise me that when you hang up this phone you will gently pick up Alessandra and the two of you will go next door to Jill’s house. Do you promise me?”

Hicks was motioning for Riley to get on with it.

Riley waved him off. “Meg, promise me!”

“Okay, Riley,” Meg said softly. She was crying now, and her words came between sobs.

“Now, I’m sorry, but I need to know if there were any other papers in there.”

“Yes, I’m looking at one now. It’s got a circle in the middle, then lines going off the circle. They look like . . . I don’t know . . . like spokes or something.”

“Doesn’t sound like the Rose Bowl,” Scott said to Riley.

“Rose Bowl? Are you at the PFL Cup, Riley? Is someone planning to—?”

“Never mind that. Is there anything else on the paper?”

Riley heard a new note of icy resolve in Meg’s voice. She spoke rapidly and matter-of-factly. “There are four small Xs on the paper. One near the end of each of the lines. Each X has two letters next to it—the first has CC, the second AL, the third MT, and the fourth TL. Then there’s a pointy arrow—like a pyramid with no bottom. And then right in the middle is a square with some pointy-ended rectangles jutting out the top. The only other thing is a big X down below the square, about halfway between the square and the bottom of the last line.”

“Is there anything else? Anything at all?” Riley asked.

“No, that’s it. Please, Riley, please tell me what’s going on.” Her resolve quickly disappeared again into fear and sorrow.

“I have to go now. You’re going to have to trust me that I’ll give you all the answers soon. Now go get Aly, and go to your neighbors’.”

“Please, Riley . . .”

“Meg, I’m sorry. Now do what I asked you!” Riley hung up the phone feeling like a total jerk for speaking to her that way. He turned to Scott.

But Scott was already zoned out.

Scott’s eyes were closed as he brought up a mental image of the paper Meg Ricci had just described.

A square with pointy rectangles . . . missiles? . . . He could be planning to hit a missile silo, but what good would that do? . . . Overtaking a missile silo and launching—impossible; that stuff only happens in old Frank Zagarino movies.

Xs with initials: CC, AL, MT, and TL. AL and MT could be state abbreviations, but what about the others? “Khadi, start googling combinations of those letter pairs,” Scott called out of his haze, and Khadi quickly went to work on the Toughbook.

So, scratch missiles. . . . Pointy rectangles . . . Washington Monument . . . skyscrapers . . . turrets . . . turrets coming out of a square . . . or towers. . . . Yeah, towers out of a square . . . a castle. . . . Yeah, okay, good call; he’s probably going to hit one of the many southern California castles.

Scott took a deep pull on his Yoo-hoo without opening his eyes. Focus, focus! A church? Unlikely . . . and it doesn’t have the layout for a broadcasting zone. . . . What if it is a castle . . . maybe a replica of some kind? . . . A castle next to a pyramid . . . Las Vegas? No, that dead border coyote points to Hakeem being in L.A., not Nevada. . . . Is it a movie studio?

“Somebody call Tara and tell her to have her minions check for a studio lot that might have a castle and a pyramid on it,” Scott said as he blindly tossed his phone toward anyone who would catch it. “Speed dial 6!”

But a studio isn’t big enough. . . . Not a pyramid . . . maybe a tent. . . . A castle next to a tent? Sounds like a So-Cal used car lot. . . . Not a tent. . . . Maybe the pyramid’s a mountain. . . . A castle next to a mountain?

Abruptly Scott’s eyes opened. “Oh no,” he said out loud. “Khadi, give me the computer!”

Scott typed a couple of words, tap-tap-tapped the backspace, corrected his typing. Everyone gathered around the screen, then gasped as they saw what he had brought up.

He pointed to an illustrated map as he read off the locations. “CC . . . to the left up here; AL . . . below it over here; MT . . . up top here; and TL . . . over on the far right. Folks, Hakeem’s not coming to the PFL Cup. We were set up. He’s gone to Disneyland.”

Sunday, February 1

Rose Bowl Stadium

Pasadena, California

4:15 p.m. PST

“Li, tell the folks at Edwards that we’re taking two of their Black Hawks!” Hicks yelled into his comm system as he ran with Khadi, Scott, Skeeter, and Riley through the tunnel under the stands. “I want one with rotors spinning in three minutes on the north fairways! You and the rest of the team will take the other one! Logan, let the control tower know we’re heading out and have them plot us a course so we don’t run into some idiot news chopper! Hummel and Kruse, let Director LeBlanc know what’s going on! Tell him we need SWAT at Disneyland ASAP and have him contact security at the park to let them know what’s going down! The rest of you, get out of those scoreboards and to the helipad—I want you off the ground no more than four minutes after us!”

Skeeter led the group as they came out into the sunlight. His shoulder was like the prow of an icebreaker as it cut through the solid mass of people. Scott was on the phone behind him, asking Tara Walsh to send full schematics of Disneyland to his Toughbook. Hicks and Khadi were immediately behind Scott, and Riley brought up the rear. The run had brought back Riley’s cough, and he seemed to be having a hard time keeping up.

Hicks could hear the assault helicopter winding up as they approached. As they broke through the row of trees lining the fairway at the golf course, he spotted the Black Hawk with its rotors up to speed. Twenty yards east, another helicopter was just starting its spin. Hicks and the others finished their run in a crouch and jumped into the cargo area.

Hicks gave the pilots a thumbs-up, and immediately the wheels left the ground. All five passengers slipped on helmets, adjusted their intercom mics, and gathered around Scott’s Toughbook screen.

Scott shouted over the sound of the helicopter, “Tara just sent me this architectural map. You can see the way the park kind of spokes out from the central hub of Cinderella’s castle.”

“Sleeping Beauty’s castle,” Riley corrected, causing the three men to give him a questioning look. “What? It’s written on the map!”

“Yeah, whatever, Pach,” Scott said with a grin.

“Just shut up and show us again where Sal had his Xs.”

“Each one was near the end of one of the spokes. You got Critter Country, Adventureland, Mickey’s Toontown, and Tomorrowland.”

“What about the big X?” Khadi asked.

“That one was halfway between the center hub and the end of the lower line. That would put it right about here,” Scott said, pointing right to the middle of Main Street, USA.

“Okay, so why all the Xs? What’s he got planned?” Hicks asked.

“Scott, pull up a Google Earth view of Disneyland,” Riley said. When the image was up, Riley leaned close to the screen. “Okay, I’m thinking back to when I was there as a kid. There were shops—tons of shops lining Main Street,” Riley remembered.

“Isn’t it the first thing you come to after you enter?” Scott asked.

“Yeah. I remember thinking it was pretty boring as a kid; I wanted to get to the real rides.”

Khadi pushed her way in front of the computer screen. “So, why all the Xs? The most logical use for the markings are that they are bomb sites. But why bomb the extremities? There’s no real impact out there.”

“I hear you, Khadi,” Riley said. “The only other reason I can think of for Xs is to indicate meet points. But it really seemed to me that Sal was planning on going this alone.”