Full Black - Brad Thor [136]
Nicholas studied it for several minutes and then connected one of the many hydra-headed cables near his work station to it.
“What did the Russian say the password was?” he asked.
Harvath repeated it to him and Nicholas rolled his chair over to another keyboard and punched it in.
“Do you mind?” asked Harvath, gesturing at the minifridge.
“Help yourself.”
Opening the door, he reached inside and withdrew an energy drink. Popping the top, he grabbed a chair and sat down. “How many other airport attacks were there?”
“Based on LAX, they were able to prevent attacks at Denver, Miami, JFK, DFW, Boston, and San Francisco. The FAA and the White House have shut down the entire commercial air system. United, Delta, Southwest, American, none of the airlines will be flying tomorrow. Not until a new set of security procedures is developed.”
Harvath had long been worried about how vulnerable Americans were in airports. They were incredibly soft targets. It was only a matter of time before the terrorists zeroed in on them. In fact, they already had, and the one thing everyone in the antiterrorism communities knew was that today’s terrorists learned from yesterday’s mistakes. No one responsible for airport security could claim they didn’t see this coming. There had been more than enough warnings.
The 1972 attack by the Japanese Red Army at the airport in Tel Aviv had killed two dozen people and wounded seventy-eight others. That should have been the wakeup call. The only people who woke up were the Israelis. The rest of the world stayed asleep.
Then came the Rome and Vienna airport attacks by Muslim terrorists in 1985. In 2002, an Egyptian-born, green-card-carrying gunman, employed as a limousine driver, and living in the United States for ten years, opened fire at the El Al ticket counter at LAX. In 2007, a Muslim doctor and a Muslim engineer tried to drive a bomb-laden Jeep Cherokee into one of the terminals at Glasgow International Airport. Would America wake up now?
Harvath had no idea. What he did know was that when Muslim doctors, Muslim engineers, as well as Muslim green card holders in the most prosperous nation in the history of the world committed acts of terrorism, it wasn’t because of economics. It was because of ideology.
What Harvath also knew was that airline travel was going to become even more of an aggravation than it already was. With each terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Americans gave up more of their rights. Harvath was reminded of the line, paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin, that those who trade some of their liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither and will lose both. The wisdom of the founders never ceased to amaze him.
Nicholas pointed to a stack of reports on the foiled attacks and Harvath wheeled himself over to them.
As he sifted through them, he asked, “Any progress with Mansoor in Iceland yet?”
Nicholas shook his head. “He’s not bouncing back as fast as they would have liked. Riley’s last report says they’re afraid that they may have to take him back into surgery, or that he does have some low-level brain damage that they can’t nail down. It’s been very slow going.”
“We’re also going to need to look into James Standing, the hedge fund guy. When you’re done with the drive, put him in that TIP program along with Ashford and see what you can find, okay?”
“I’ll add it to my list,” the little man replied, without looking up from what he was doing.
Harvath could tell he was distracting his friend, so he stopped talking and paged through the rest of the reports. DHS, TSA, and law enforcement at every airport across the country had gone on high alert. Based on the information they had been supplied from the attack at LAX, they had known what to look for and had been able to move quickly to take the terrorists down. It was a win for the United States, one it desperately needed. It had also saved thousands of lives.
Setting aside the last report, Harvath leaned back and watched Nicholas work. Regardless of how rapidly his fingers moved across his keyboard or how many times he clicked and double-clicked