One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [140]
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Yes. I did. Give me the thumb drive. I want to copy all the messages in the sent-and-received files.”
She passed it over, allowing me to load the new messages.
“Send that to them. See what they say.”
She did as I asked, saying, “Pike, what are we going to do? I guess I had hoped that at some point we’d figure out we were wrong, especially since nobody else wanted to believe us. Every time we find something new, it tells us we’re still right.”
“Hang on. Let’s see what the rest of the messages say. We can figure it out from there. Let’s face it, everything said so far could be for a single suicide attack into Israel. It may be nothing more than that. One bad guy is dead, and the other has no idea. We’re still on the offensive here.”
One hour later we got the answer from the Taskforce. It didn’t get any better. The man who had jumped to his death had been very sloppy with his operational security. He had saved every e-mail sent and received, allowing the analysts at the Taskforce to build a pretty good picture. In a clinical report, the analytical transcript summarized what the e-mail exchanges contained. In general, it gave the strongest backing yet to Ethan’s original take, buttressing the theory that the over-arching goal was to deploy a weapon in Israel and blame the Iranians. The report read in a clinical, unemotional manner:
a. Terrorist A, having suspected that the pair was under surveillance, fled to parts unknown as a preventative measure.
b. Terrorist A, to ensure a self-healing operation, enacted a negative tripwire, whereby a penalty would be incurred if a code is not sent. Terrorist A will immediately cease all communication, assume the plan is compromised, and conduct the event at the earliest convenience, most likely at a target of opportunity. The penalty is reset every 24 hours. The code itself is undetermined, but most likely is some combination of words within each e-mail sent.
c. Terrorist A has coordinated for explosives at his present location but has not physically obtained them. The explosives themselves are held at a safe house, exact location undetermined. Along with the explosives he has obtained a complex detonation mechanism, type unknown.
d. Terrorist B has coordinated for transportation to Israel and coordinated for evidence to implicate Iran in the attack. Exact details and facilitation measures are unknown.
e. Terrorist B is going to finalize coordination for transportation methods and routes today, and will be out of e-mail contact for 48 hours. Terrorist B asked Terrorist A for an additional 24 hours before incurring a penalty.
f. Terrorist A has agreed to the additional time, with the caveat that Terrorist B make every attempt to make contact.
It is the consensus of the analysts that together, both terrorists have the means at their disposal to introduce an explosive device inside the borders of the State of Israel. It is further believed that they have the means to blame the attack on the State of Iran, at least initially. It is impossible to ascertain from the e-mails presented whether this blame will withstand rigorous forensic and investigative scrutiny, although it is the opinion of the analysts that such scrutiny may not occur, as the politics of the event will more than likely supersede any attempt at determining the actual facts, with initial reports becoming the perceived truth.
On the question of whether the event will be WMD related, the analysts could not reach a consensus. There is no evidence that the device is a WMD, as neither terrorist refers to it as such, and a review of worldwide all-source intelligence for the last thirty days does not reveal any new indications of recent WMD activity. It may simply be a conventional terrorist operation with little second- and third-order repercussions. On the other hand, it is unusual for this much preparation, coordination, and infrastructure development be used to support a single suicide attack.
“Not good. Looks