Protocol One Read online

  “Dad, it’s early,” she said through a grin.

  As Stone walked into the cramped studio apartment, he said, “You’re really going to call me that?”

  “I’m just messing with you, Stone,” she said, this time yawning. “Why are you here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Well, I could. Until now, that is.”

  “Sorry to wake you. Look, we have to talk about tonight. Tonight is Friday and you are about to walk into the penthouse apartment of someone who’s just graced the terror watch list. And there’s more you need to hear about. My surveillance team has been scoping his penthouse apartment, and there’s a problem.”

  “Besides the fact that you think he’s going to drug then sexually assault me?”

  “His apartment is surrounded in mirrored glass. The surveillance team pointed a laser microphone at it.”

  “A laser microphone?”

  “Yes, we use laser mics to listen in on conversations where we don’t have a listening device planted inside. The mic focuses on a window pane, and interprets the vibrations it picks up as a conversation takes place inside. We can hear the voices that way. We have access to an office suite across the street which we’ve been using to surveil him. At any rate, the laser mic isn’t going to work in this case.” He put his hands on his hips and leaned closer to her face. “There’s a stick-on composite film on the exterior of the glass, similar to the way a car window gets tinted. But this is no window tinting. This is countermeasure film. It’s designed to interrupt the pattern of vibrations coming from voices inside the apartment. In short, it’s designed to thwart laser mics.”

  “You are sounding paranoid.”

  His volume escalated. “Paranoid? What kind of a person puts countermeasure film against their apartment windows? I’ll tell you what kind. The kind of person that wants to make sure the feds are not listening. Jana, no one has countermeasure film like this. It’s not something you order off Amazon. Am I paranoid? Damn right I’m paranoid. The federal government pays me to be paranoid. He’s got to be a much bigger terrorist than we believed. In fact, we’re definitely getting a clearer picture that it’s Jeffrey Dima, and not so much Rune Dima, that is the ringleader here. Rune may be the CEO of the company, but where these terrorist connections are concerned, Jeffrey is calling the shots.”

  “We went over a lot of this last night. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

  “You aren’t getting it!” Stone blasted. “When we detected the countermeasure film, my team looked further. And they discovered something else we didn’t foresee.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Jeffrey has a maid that comes to clean up about every other day—”

  “Oh no!” Jana blurted, her hands finding her face. “Not a maid! Oh, the danger!” The sarcasm was not well received.

  “You are like a daughter. A teenage daughter,” Stone said.

  “Very funny.”

  “We were suspicious, so we hid an electronic mic, a bug, in her cart yesterday. When she went into his apartment, the listening device transmitted and recorded nothing.” He let the statement hang in space a moment to see if Jana would pick up on the significance. When she held up her hands, he said, “Do you know what that means? It means his apartment is equipped to jam electronic transmissions. Almost undoubtedly, he’s blocking all frequencies outside of the normal cellphone range, which means you won’t be able to wear a wire. Any wire you wear will be jammed. We won’t be able to hear what’s going on in that apartment.” He shook his head. “No. You are five feet, three inches tall. He’s a foot taller and seventy pounds heavier. You’d be all alone in there, and I won’t allow it.”

  Jana looked at the ground then into his eyes. “Stone, we’ve talked about the dangers. I know about the Rohypnol, I have a plan, and I can take care of myself.”

  “Oh, can you?” Stone said as he suddenly spun Jana around by the shoulders, wrenched her arm behind her back, and placed a thick forearm around her neck in a choking position. “What about now? Can you take care of yourself now?” he said, exasperation oozing from the edges of his voice. “What are you going to do if he does this to you? Huh? If he wants to hurt you, we wouldn’t know about it, and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing to stop him.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she gurgled from under the choking pressure on her throat. “Well what if I did this?” She raised her knee into the air and slammed the edge of her bare heel into the top, right edge of his foot, impacting the dorsal lateral cutaneous nerve.

  Stone recoiled and his grip abated as the shockwave of pain rocketed up his foot and into his leg. He knelt down and sat on the ground as his hands gripped the foot. “Oh shit, that hurts.”

  She knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Stone, you think I’ve never taken a self-defense class? Look, I’m vulnerable, okay? But I’m not a little lamb. You and I both know this investigation is going almost nowhere. Right now, all we have are records of financial transactions. There’s no crime there. You told me earlier, it’s the reason for the investments that is at question, and the fact that there’s a known terror connection.”

  “Okay, let’s say you are able to get into his apartment, pull off the plan we’ve discussed, then you are able to rifle through his laptop and we find clues. What then? Do you realize you might have to testify in open court against him and Rune Dima, against Al-Qaeda itself? You’d have to enter the witness protection program. You’d have to disappear from your life.”

  They both stood. “What life? Stone, I have very few friends, and the ones I do have aren’t even there for me. I have no family, and my life here in Manhattan just started. If anyone is in a good position to start their life over, it’s me. I’m ready, and I’m not backing down from this.”

  “You’ve got guts, kid, and guts is enough. Where is this chip on your shoulder coming from? What is it you think you have to prove to somebody?”

  “Not to somebody, Stone, to me. I can’t name one thing I’ve ever done in my life that’s truly important. Most people never get this opportunity. I’m going to prove to myself that I can do this.”

  “One tough kid,” Stone said with a half smile. The phone in his pocket vibrated. “Stone,” he said into it. “Who? Who’s coming up here?” Stone’s right hand found the firearm on his hip as though a magnet had attracted it there. “Okay, get everybody on alert. I want three units out of their position and into the stairwell. Do it now.”

  “What’s going on?” Jana said as she backed away.

  “Get behind the bed. Lay on the ground. Someone’s coming up.”

  “At this hour?” Jana said.

  Stone held his hand on his weapon and peered out the peephole in the door. A man wearing a ball cap came into view, holding a long, tall, white box, then glanced at a clipboard as if confirming he was at the correct address. Stone stepped aside, fearing the box might contain a weapon—he did not want to be in the line of fire. He removed his Glock from its holster. The doorbell rang and Stone held a finger to his lips, signaling Jana to stay quiet. After a moment, the bell rang again. Stone waited, then heard footsteps walking away from the door. He glanced out the peephole to find the hallway empty. He opened the door and glanced in either direction. The white box had been leaned against the door frame.

  “Flowers,” Jana said as she peered over the bed. “Looks like a box of flowers.”

  “Don’t touch it,” Stone said as he held a hand up.

  “Stone, give me a break. You think the terrorists are going to drop off a bomb at my house? It’s flowers, for God’s sake.” Jana picked the featherweight box off the floor and opened it. Inside lay a single, long-stem, white rose nestled in white tissue paper. “See? I told you. Try not to be so paranoid.”

  “No card? A white rose? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, Stone. Don’t you know anything about women?”

  “Of course I do, but my ex-wife would beg to differ.�
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  “A white rose symbolizes new beginnings, or it can mean thinking of you.”

  “It’s from the slimeball, isn’t it?”

  Jana nodded. “Yeah, he’s thinking of me; thinking of separating me from my panties, that is.”

  “Nice,” Stone said.

  “Come on, Dad. I’m going to his place tonight and you know it. Now, did you bring what I asked you to bring?”

  “Yes, dammit. Here it is.” He handed her a prescription bottle. “Rohypnol, just like you wanted. And here,” he said as he opened an envelope and withdrew a thin square of paper, about two inches across.

  “What’s this?” Jana said as she held it to the light.

  “It’s like litmus paper, only this type is made to detect the presence of Rohypnol. Hide this on your person and be sure you discreetly dip it into anything you drink. If it detects the drug, it will turn pink.” He wagged a finger in her face. “Don’t underestimate this guy, Jana. He’s bad news. Don’t drink anything unless you’ve tested it first.”

  “Really? Well what if he puts it in my food?”

  Stone rubbed his temples. “You’re going to give me a heart attack. And don’t have more than one alcoholic drink. You’ll need all your faculties if you expect to pull off what you have planned.”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  18

  Virus of Destruction

  Office of the CEO.

  Jeffrey sat in a chair in front of Rune Dima’s desk and smiled.

  “It’s in place,” he said. “The software build containing the virus was uploaded to the cloud environment servers an hour ago. It will take a little while to filter down to all the customer’s systems. An admin at each location will need to first log in to their environment. After that, the virus acts like a Trojan horse. We’ll have complete autonomy at that point.”

  “Brilliant work, Jeffrey, really. You might be a cocky son of a bitch, but I have to hand it to you, this is going to be unbelievable.”

  “Cocky? Oh, come on, cousin. I’m not cocky, I’m confident.”

  Rune shook his head and laughed. “You think you’re Allah’s gift to women, right? You’re cocky.”

  Jeffrey joined in laughing. “Well, women do adore me.”

  “I think I’m going to puke,” Rune said as he looked out the wall of windows toward an approaching thunderstorm. “What’s the update on our investments? Are all the funds in place?”

  “Cousin, how you doubt me. Yes, all the funds have been dispersed to banks across the globe. And eighty percent of our planned transactions have already been executed. We now own more oil futures contracts than the Saudi government.”

  Rune leaned forward in his chair. “How about our paper trail? After we carry out the attack, will there be any way for authorities to track this back to us?”

  “You underestimate me, cousin,” Jeffrey said as he stood and walked to the bank of windows. “We’ve set up so many shell corporations and offshore accounts, they’ll never weave their way through.”

  Rune leveled a stern gaze. “Is that right? Then what happened to John Cameron?”

  “John Cam . . . oh, you mean the Securities and Exchange Commission investigator that had a recent car accident on the turnpike?” Jeffrey said through a grin. “Is that the John Cameron you mean?”

  “You killed him, didn’t you?”

  “Accidents happen, cousin. And what more fitting end to an investigator that had gotten too nosy. He was a liability.”

  “I knew it,” Rune said as he squared off in front of Jeffrey. “You were careless, weren’t you? The SEC had gotten suspicious. I told you to spread out your stock transactions so you wouldn’t raise attention. But you wouldn’t listen.”

  “The purchases had to be made,” Jeffrey snapped. “I told that little bitch to spread her buys across the different institutional accounts slowly. But when I looked at her transactions, she had placed too many buy orders with the same institution in a row. When I confronted her about it, she started asking questions. Kept spouting off about how this purchasing practice was highly unusual.”

  “Is Jana Baker the only one involved in the actual transactions?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “So,” Rune said, “the intern starts making purchases at the same institution too many times in a row and that causes a red flag to trip at the SEC. So now the Securities and Exchange Commission puts eyes on us and that puts the entire jihad in jeopardy. Why were you not monitoring her more closely? Why were you not auditing her buys two or three times a day, for that matter? In fact, what makes you think we can trust her at all? What if she is working with the SEC on this? Did you ever think of that?”

  Jeffrey poked a sharp finger into his cousin’s shoulder. “You hired the little cunt. You hired her and knew what we had planned. Is she working with the SEC, you ask? Not a chance. I had been watching the SEC investigator, even listening in on his office phone calls. I had him tailed. He had no contact with Jana Baker or anyone else in this company. As you well know, we have a contact inside the walls of the SEC, and he was most effective in helping me. John Cameron was the only person in the entire organization that had suspicions about Petrolsoft and now he is dead.”

  “So you’ve tied off all the loose ends? Is that what you are saying?”

  “Rune, you know as well as I do that no matter what intern we hired, that person would have too much information. When we flip the switch and this operation swings into full gear, she is our one remaining liability. Are all the loose ends tied off? No, not yet.”

  “So you intend to kill her?”

  Jeffrey smirked. “Of course, what did you think we were going to do? Just walk out of the office and let federal authorities find her and use her as a material witness against our cause? No, she cannot survive.”

  “You are a coldhearted son of a bitch, Jeffrey. Do you know that? When do you intend to do it?”

  “We still have twenty percent of our investments to make. It’s a full-time job, and she’s gotten good at it. Besides, I have other plans for her.”

  “Other plans?” Rune said as he crossed his arms. “And what might those be?”

  “She has taken a bit of a liking to me. I have invited her up to my apartment. You know, for cocktails?”

  “Cocktails? You make me sick, you know that?”

  “Rune, you have become too Americanized. You have lost your path from the old ways. If you and I had stayed in our homeland of Syria, you would not be speaking like this. You would be patting me on the back and laughing at the way I intend to use her. A woman, just a woman. Women are meant for one thing cousin, and you and I know what that is. It is just that you have forgotten.”

  “Don’t tell me I’ve become Americanized.” He spat the words like venom. “I am a jihadist, and a jihadist to the core. But I am more focused than you are. I am focused on targets, governments, institutions, or people that represent all that is evil and wrong with this filthy Christian nation. You, however, believe anyone in your sight is fair game, collateral damage no matter whether they were part of our target or not. I can see the lust in your eyes. Drug her, rape her, kill her, then dispose of the body. Am I right? You know what I am starting to wonder, Jeffrey? Whether it is you that is the liability.”

  Jeffrey jammed his hands into Rune and shoved him back. “Don’t get cocky with me, cousin. Al-Jawary will be none too pleased to find you are growing beyond his control, growing beyond my control. I’d hate for an accident to happen to you.”

  Rune started to launch at him, but stopped himself short. “You just get the job done, Jeffrey. Finish all of our financial transactions, tie off all the loose ends. But do it in such a way that no one knows. Now get out of my office.”

  19

  A Tension You Can Taste

  By 7:50 a.m. Jana was already seated at her desk outside the office of Rune Dima.

  Agent Chuck Stone, however, sat in the coffeehouse across the street and wrung his ha
nds. His star witness, Jana Baker, was in a situation far more dangerous than she believed. With over twenty-three years serving as a field agent, Stone had seen situations like this go bad. Jana would be walking into the Manhattan penthouse of a known terrorist, a terrorist with a history of violence against women.

  NSA Section Chief William “Uncle Bill” Tarleton had called Stone ten minutes prior and explained in terse verbiage that something big was coming down, and it was coming down immanently. NSA, in coordination with CIA field operatives, had made the connection between Jeffrey and Rune Dima. Both identities were false, but their paper trails were impeccable. They’d been raised in Syria but as early teenagers relocated to the United States with their father whose work visa enabled him entry into the country. They had blended into American society even to the point of shedding their telltale accents. To Uncle Bill, both Dima men had all the markings of sleeper agents, terrorists that had been planted inside the United States at an early age. And now that they sat in powerful positions inside an American-owned corporation, their status in society had elevated.

  What that meant to Stone was that the stakes were higher. Yet proving the two were involved in a criminal act would require strong evidence, evidence he did not yet have.

  FBI Agent Larry Fry walked into the corner coffee shop and said, “We’ve got a problem.”

  “Just one?” Stone said. “What is it this time?”

  “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. But they just found the body of John Cameron.”

  “John . . . the SEC guy that’s been investigating this case from their end?”

  “Yes. It appears he died in a hit-and-run auto accident on the turnpike. They just pulled his body from the river.”

  “No wonder I haven’t been able to get ahold of him. That’s terrible, did he have a wife and kids?”