The Black List (33 page)

Griffin signed the evidence sheet for the phone, then stepped down the hall to call McNiel. “We have a cell phone that may belong to the man he picked up from the bus stop.”

“Anyone look at it yet?”

“No. There may be a slight contamination issue.”

“I’ll send someone from NEST to collect it. Keep your fingers crossed that we get lucky.”

Griffin returned to the interview room, watching as Sydney questioned the man, a technique with which he was becoming all too familiar. Basic description, face shape, eyes, nose, mouth, what would you change, then minutes upon minutes while she shaded in the face and the hair for the final reveal. Even though he’d seen the process several times and knew how good she was, the finished result still surprised him.

And this time was no different.

She held up the sketch for Salim to view, and Griffin got his first glimpse of the face.

He took out his phone, called McNiel once more. “It’s definitely Yusuf.”

Back at the
ATLAS office, the phone had been cloned. Griffin was in McNiel’s office reading the preliminary report when Jones from tech walked in. “Got those numbers triangulated. Your informant’s story matches up. His cell phone’s on here. We’re putting a locate on the other numbers as we speak. So far we have one in San Francisco, L.A., and New York. They’re the only numbers that come up. He called them once, less than a minute each, and that’s it. But we’ve actually matched a couple names on the Dadaab list to those locales.”

He handed the updated report to McNiel, who walked over to a wall map of the U.S. “How close can you get me to where those numbers are?”

“Very,” Jones said. “Smartphones. Makes our job a lot easier.”

“And the apartment where he dropped Yusuf off? Was there a landline number?”

“Nothing. So it must have been a prearranged drop.”

“Contact the carriers on those four cell numbers. I want ears and eyes on everything that goes in and out. I don’t care if it’s a call, text, or goddamned smoke signal, I want to know what’s being said and I want it in real time.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left and McNiel studied the map, telling Griffin, “I’ll call Pearson. We need a team sitting on each of the corresponding numbers. The intel states he was to activate sleeper cells. It looks like he’s done that.”

“What about the apartment here?” Griffin asked, picking up the photo of the place as Sydney walked in.

“No specific number, just the building. And the question is how to handle it. If they’re in the middle of putting together a radioactive explosive device, I’m not sure I want to risk storming it. Not without knowing exactly which apartment we’re dealing with.”

Sydney took the photo from Griffin’s hand. “That looks like the place we were in the other day. The one owned by the Redfern Group.”

“Same street, as it turns out. Different building.”

“He, or his so-called client,” she said, “owns the whole block and the one behind it. And if you were a terrorist, where best to hide than among legal refugees from your own country?”

“What we need,” McNiel said, “is a plan to get in, low-key, get eyes on the inside. Can Redfern get us in without any fanfare?”

“Hardly,” Sydney said. “He’s as likely to get killed from the residents as he is from the terrorist. That being said, if it is one of his buildings, I have an idea that may just work.”

56

The old man walked
into the apartment, his face looking troubled. Yusuf was on the couch, napping, still feeling sick. In the kitchen, one of the four men sat at the table hammering at the lead casing to remove the cesium 137. “They’ve arrested Salim,” the old man said.

“Salim?” Yusuf asked.

“The man who drove you here the first night.”

“For what?” the old man’s son asked.

“We don’t know,” he said. “But we must be very careful.”

The knot in Yusuf’s stomach grew tighter. He didn’t know if it was from the sickness or the thought that he’d lost his cell phone. “Should we leave?” he asked.

“Salim knows nothing. Not your name. Not even our apartment number. We stay. For now.”

Relieved, Yusuf felt his empty pocket. Perhaps he should have mentioned that the phone was missing, or pretend he only just discovered it . . . It was so hard to think these days, almost as if he lived in a fog. He hadn’t used it since arriving in Washington at the bus station. He’d pulled the phone out, made the calls to each of the sleeper cells, called for his ride, then slipped the phone in the pocket of his new leather coat.

But there was a hole in the pocket. A cheap Tijuana coat, the leather too thin, the workmanship shoddy. A slight possibility existed that the phone had been lost at the bus station. He’d gone there to look for it, had actually walked into the place to ask, but stopped when he’d seen a man and woman at the counter, one of them showing a badge. At the time, he found it merely coincidental, but decided not to mention it to the old man, for fear he’d shut down the planning. But when nothing more happened, no sudden knock at the door, Yusuf decided their presence at the bus station was coincidental. But now? He found the timing suspicious, even more so with the arrest of Salim.

He needed that phone to set the chain of events into motion. Four cities with explosions, but only one would be dirty. The discovery of radiation in that one would set panic in the locales where the other three were set to detonate.

But with no phone, there would be no call. And no call, they would not set off the bombs. Only one man knew the numbers of the different cells, for their own protection. And that man, who had entrusted the phone to Yusuf, was in Somalia. That worried feeling in his stomach grew stronger, twisting and gnawing at him. What if he’d lost the phone in Salim’s car that night? If the authorities found it, would they be able to discern anything?

He decided not. The other cells didn’t matter. So what if their bombs were not placed and detonated? The only one that mattered was this one in the capital. Everyone in America would be watching. Their leaders would be threatened, many would become sick and die.

He listened to the old man going over final details with his son, watched as the younger man carefully poured the bluish dust into the plastic zip-top bag, then placed it carefully into the backpack, using duct tape to secure it to the pipe bombs.

Say something, now, before it is too late.

But he was not that brave, perhaps because he was feeling so sick. They were all feeling that way now. The old man advised Yusuf to stay away from the dust, as he would need his strength to commit the final act.

Yusuf gathered the will to get off the couch and stand. He felt better when he was outside in the fresh air. The cold seemed to revive him. “I’m going for a walk,” he told them.

“Be careful,” the old man said. “We’re depending on you.”

They
were depending on
him
.

That thought echoed in his head as he descended the stairs, hearing a commotion down the hall toward the front entrance, someone knocking on a door, then a woman’s voice calling out that she was from the Department of Social Services. They were always in the building, helping the refugees with their food stamps and welfare.

He pulled the hood of his Giants shirt up over his head, shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather coat, then walked down the hall, careful to keep his head down when he saw the manager standing with a man and woman who seemed familiar to him. As he passed, the man and woman entered the apartment, and the manager turned to Yusuf, asking him in Somali if he had received word of the building renovation, then handed him a paper with printing on it.

Yusuf took the paper and hurried past. He saw the top word:
NOTICE.

He didn’t bother to read the rest, which would have been a struggle, since he was not schooled in written English. He’d heard from the old man that the building’s owner was being forced to renovate every building on the block and temporarily move everyone out.

He didn’t care.

When he stepped outside, the crisp, cold air cleared his head, helped him think. He crumpled up the paper, then realized why the man and woman seemed familiar. He’d seen them before. At the bus station asking questions.

She was the woman with the badge.

Somehow they’d found him.

There was a back entrance. He could slip upstairs before they even knew he was there. He’d come too far to quit now, even without the phone. And without the other cells, maybe it was not as big as they’d originally planned, but the old man didn’t need to know.

After all, when it was over, none of them would be alive to find out . . .

57

Sydney, Griffin, and Ito
Abasi, the apartment manager, were nearly finished with the ground floor of the second building, and Sydney was amazed that she was able to stand the smell for as long as she did. Mr. Abasi, being fluent in a number of languages, having been a university professor in Somalia before fleeing the country twenty years ago, translated as Sydney knocked on each door.

“Department of Social Services,” she called out. If no one answered, Griffin palmed a small wand, which he lowered to the threshold to at least get a reading of the entryway as he slipped a notice of inspection beneath the door. If it was opened, Mr. Abasi stated they were there to do a home inspection for the renovation of the building, and Sydney and Griffin walked in, Sydney with a clipboard, pretending to inspect, Griffin with the equipment, taking a surreptitious reading of the premises.

And so it went. They finished the first floor and were getting ready to start on the second when Sydney checked her clipboard. “I think we underestimated the number of flyers we’d need.”

“There’re more in the car,” Griffin said. In fact, they’d made up enough to search several buildings, not having a clear idea from Salim exactly which complex his passenger entered, only which one he dropped him off in front of.

They walked out to the car, a borrowed sedan with a Department of Social Services decal on the back of the window.

While Griffin retrieved the flyers, Mr. Abasi and Sydney stood outside, Sydney grateful to be breathing in the fresh air. The break was far too short and they returned inside, climbed the stairs, then knocked on the first door. The woman who answered was given a flyer, as Mr. Abasi translated the notice. When the woman closed the door, he told Sydney, “She says that she is surprised that Mr. Redfern has agreed to the renovations of this building so soon when the first one has not yet been started.”

“Probably not as surprised as Mr. Redfern will be,” Sydney replied, then knocked on the next door. “Department of Social Services.”

Mr. Abasi laughed, a deep rich sound. “I like your style, Miss Fitzpatrick.”

All laughter faded when, as Griffin reached down to slip the flyer beneath the door, the radiation detector alerted them with a steady
tick, tick, tick.

“They’ve arrested four
people in the cell from that apartment,” McNiel said, approaching Griffin at the NEST command center that was set up down the street. The entire road was closed off, and now, with the very real threat of a radioactive substance, they were in the process of going door to door searching, and evacuating. “Yusuf wasn’t there.”

The entire team that had searched for Salim was now searching for Yusuf. FBI agents in the vicinity were patrolling the streets, and news vans were starting to arrive on the perimeter, as they investigated what was being reported as a hazmat of a dangerous chemical.

It was, in fact, amazing how fast the incident took place. Once they’d found the apartment with the radiation source, they backed off to let the entry team take over and to get the building cleared. Now it was damage control and the hunt for Yusuf before he had a chance to activate the device, should he have it with him.

“Have we gotten any intel yet?” Griffin asked.

“On Yusuf?” McNiel clarified. “A neighbor said she saw him leave a few minutes before you arrived. The occupants of the apartment deny that he, or anyone else there, is involved in any terrorist activities. They don’t know why or how the apartment became contaminated with radiation, and the wires and bits of equipment are from a hobby.”

“Then the source is no longer in the apartment?”

“It looks that way, unfortunately. They’re going over it now. I’ll let you know if they find anything.”

Sydney walked up with two cups of coffee, handing one to Griffin. “Looked like you could use a cup.”

“What I can use is a break. They arrested the cell. Yusuf wasn’t there.”

“We’ll find him.”

“Of that I don’t doubt. I only hope we do so before it’s too late.”

58

Carillo read the text
from Tex.

Arrived at Heathrow last night. Going to take down A.D.E. Can use help. You in? Call.

Sheila, oblivious to the case going on around her, opened her guidebook, then held it up to show Carillo the picture. “That’s where I want to go. The ship.”

“A ship? They’ve got one of those in San Francisco. Only bigger,” he said, looking up Tex’s number. At the moment, they were walking from their hotel, then on to Connaught Street. Sheila had picked the route because she wanted to see where one of the former prime ministers lived.

“That must be it,” she whispered as they neared a coffeehouse. He looked up from his phone, saw two uniformed police officers holding submachine guns at the entrance to an alleyway between two rows of houses. Considering that the standard force in London didn’t carry weapons at all, that was some pretty heavy firepower. The guards gave them a quick once-over as they walked by, and Carillo glanced past them, saw it was a dead-end street.

Definitely some pricey real estate, he thought, pressing Send to call Tex. They rounded the corner onto Connaught Square, to see two more armed guards standing at the steps in front of the house, and even though Sheila wanted to walk past, Carillo decided to guide her across the street, worried that she might try to engage them in conversation. “Better view,” he whispered to her as Tex finally answered the phone. “Have a good time?” Carillo asked.