Foreign Influence_A Thriller Read online

  Davidson stepped back into the kitchen and saw Vaughan with the plastic bags. “What’d you find?”

  “Do you know what the mother of Satan is?”

  “No idea,” said Davidson.

  “Triacetone triperoxide. TATP,” said Vaughan, holding up the receipts.

  “Should I know what that is?”

  “It’s also called acetone peroxide. It is an explosive popular with terrorists. Its ingredients are very easy to get. The two most important things you need to make it are hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid.”

  “Where do you get sulfuric acid?”

  “Drain cleaner,” said Vaughan, holding up the receipts. “It looks like every time he goes to the store, he picks up a bottle or two, or sometimes even three. He appears to have been doing it in small batches so as not to raise suspicion.”

  “And fly right beneath the radar.”

  Vaughan nodded. “Exactly. It’s called the mother of Satan because it is so volatile. One of the ways we could spot bomb makers when I was in Iraq was because the best ones were missing fingers, sometimes even hands.”

  “The best ones were missing fingers or hands? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “They were the ones who learned to respect their craft. Lose a finger, or two, or three and you become incredibly conscientious. Lose a hand and you’ll probably end up being an instructor.”

  “Is that the stuff that was used in the London bombings?” asked Davidson.

  “Yup. It was also part of the shoe bomber plot, the 2006 transatlantic plane bombing plot, the underwear bomber plot, and what that Afghan named Zazi they busted in Denver was working on.”

  “So Nasiri is a bomb maker?”

  “That, or he was acquiring the ingredients for someone else,” said Vaughan. “Either way, this is probably the real reason he took off after hitting Alison Taylor.”

  “So what do we do now? I’m no lawyer,” Davidson stated, drawing the word out, “but that evidence is definitely fruit of the poisonous tree.”

  Even though his metaphor was a bit mixed up, he was right. Evidence obtained through an illegal search, seizure, or interrogation was known as a poisonous tree. Any evidence later discovered because of knowledge gained from the first illegal search, seizure, or interrogation was known as the fruit of the poisonous tree. None of it would be admissible in a court.

  It would also be impossible to get any warrants based on it. This put the officers in a very difficult position. Nasiri was up to no good, but legally their hands were tied. They couldn’t share what they knew about the bomb-making ingredients.

  While the mechanic’s information had been given under duress, they probably could get a warrant with it and come back, but someone across the alley had already seen them enter the apartment. As far as the apartment was concerned, they were dead in the water.

  “We’re definitely impounding the cab. Somehow, there’s got to be a way to get it tested for bomb residue. If we get a hit, then everyone is going to climb on board this case.”

  “Let’s say you do figure out a way to bury our poisonous fruit and get them to test the cab. What if there’s no residue?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We can’t give up. We’ve got to stay on this guy. We legally obtained his name and photograph. We can put those out across the PD and I’ll reach out to a guy I know on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. I’ll have him pull all the flight records and see if Nasiri has tried to board any aircraft.”

  “And if he hasn’t?” asked Davidson.

  “Then we should assume he’s still in the city and that he’s not planning on taking his bombs back to Pakistan with him.”

  Davidson looked down at the half-eaten plate of food. “We should also assume he’s not coming back here.”

  “Agreed. So if you were him, where would you go now?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  Vaughan nodded. “Someplace with people you could trust.”

  “Like members of your terror cell?”

  “Bombers tend to need support, so I’m willing to bet there’s a cell.”

  “But how do you track it down?” asked Davidson.

  “We may not have to,” replied Vaughan. “Let’s finish up here and get back to your truck. I want to see if Nasiri will lead us to it all by himself.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Abdul Rashid’s cell phone vibrated again. He held it up so the man sitting across from him could see it.

  Rashid was in his mid-twenties with dark hair and a handsome, angular face. He was lean and stood about six feet tall. He had green eyes, an unusual feature that marked his mixed Arab descent. “The longer we ignore him, the more dangerous this gets.”

  The man gave a dismissive, backhanded wave.

  “That’s your answer?” asked Rashid. “Are you serious? You know what? Fuck you, Marwan.”

  Rashid stood up from his cushion and threw his cell phone at the man.

  Marwan Jarrah, a man in his late fifties with gray hair and a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, dodged the phone and smiled. He loved the younger man’s passion. Rashid had more than earned the right to be so outspoken. He was one of the very few true believers who could effortlessly stroll among the infidels without raising their suspicion. His methods of waging jihad were often unorthodox, but they were also brilliant. It was why Jarrah kept him close. It was also why Jarrah tolerated Rashid’s impulsiveness and foul language.

  Blessed with a Caucasian father and an Egyptian mother, Abdul Rashid possessed a mixed set of features. Those features were such that Westerners never saw him as an Arab, or as being distinctly Muslim. To them he appeared perfectly American, while to Muslims he looked Arab. Such was the magic gift of his parents’ combined DNA.

  With family scattered across the Muslim world, he had a backstopped cover for the extensive trips abroad where he studied in some of the most rigorous and extensive mujahideen camps. Marwan had personally witnessed him gun down two Jordanians who had tried to double-cross them in Iraq. Though they had known each other for only a couple of years, he was proud to call Rashid his brother, even though he was more like a son. The man’s experience and skills were beyond question. So talented was he, and so beloved, that he was referred to in Arabic as Shahab—a bright star that illuminates the heavens.

  As talented as he was, though, he often could be obsessive about details and got angered when others didn’t listen to him or follow his plans. Marwan attempted to calm him down. “The man doesn’t know enough to be a danger.”

  “Give me my phone back so I can throw it at you again.”

  “You worry too much, Shahab.”

  “It’s my job to worry,” said Rashid as he walked behind his boss’s desk, parted the blinds, and looked out the office window over the showroom floor. “You should worry too.”

  “Why?” said the older man with another wave of his hand. “You worry enough for both of us. Everything will be fine. We are in no danger. We will send Mohammed Nasiri back to Pakistan.”

  “We can’t send him back to Pakistan now. The police are looking for him. His name is going to be on the no-fly list.”

  “Then we’ll kill him.”

  It was a choice made as casually as someone ordering off a menu.

  “Wow, Marwan. You really wrestled with that decision, didn’t you?”

  “Mohammed Nasiri will be a martyr for the cause of Allah. That is all that matters.”

  “Did you ever stop to think,” asked Rashid, “that maybe Allah values success more than martyrdom?”

  Jarrah smiled again. “Are you about to give me another lecture on our duties to Islam?”

  “Consider it a lesson in management economics. We have a project to complete. This project must be completed on time. We have limited resources. If we remove Nasiri from the production line, we will miss our deadline.”

  “Not if you take his place.”

  Rashid was shocked and didn’t even try to hide it. “I can’t believe it. You want me to b
e a Shahid? After all that we have been through, you’re asking me to martyr myself?”

  “It would put to rest all of the questions about whether or not we can really trust you.”

  “Yeah, permanently. I’d rather you continue to doubt my loyalty.”

  Jarrah laughed. “We both know you’re much too valuable to become a martyr. Besides, I’d be lost without your company.”

  “What you’d be lost without is my ability to move amongst our enemies.”

  “You have been a great blessing to us,” the older man said as he raised a finger in caution, “but never underestimate our opponents. You must never believe yourself completely beyond their grasp. When that happens, you will get careless. And when you get careless, that is when you will start making mistakes.”

  “Which brings us right back to Nasiri.”

  Jarrah sighed. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to bring him in; protect him. He made a mistake, but I don’t want the rest of us to suffer because of it.”

  The older man began to speak, but Rashid held up his hand. “Wait, Marwan. Hear me out. Nasiri has been loyal to the cause. He will do whatever we tell him to do. He can still be useful. In fact, we may even find a completely different use for him.”

  That remark piqued Jarrah’s interest. “A different use? What are you thinking of?”

  “The police want him for his hit-and-run accident. Maybe we can use that to our advantage. We may be able to use him as a decoy of some sort.”

  “That is interesting.”

  “I haven’t figured the whole thing out, but I know that we can’t use him for anything if he’s dead.”

  “You’re too soft,” said the older man, baiting him.

  This time, Rashid laughed. “Listen, if I can’t figure out a use for him, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Fine. Next issue. Where are we going to keep him?”

  “Give me my phone back first.”

  “Why?” asked Jarrah. “Are you going to throw it at me again?”

  “No. I don’t want you to throw it at me.”

  CHAPTER 25

  PARIS

  Samir Ressam took another drag on his cigarette and tried to look bored as he walked down the Boulevard Saint-Michel toward the Seine. He had made his martyrdom video and knew that within the next half-hour it would be uploaded to the Internet along with the videos of seven other martyrs.

  The setting for his had been particularly brazen. A graduate student at the International Film School of Paris, Ressam had eschewed the traditional backdrop of a black Islamic flag. This was to be his final film. It would be seen all over the world and he wanted it to be special. Therefore, it had to grab people, move them.

  The introduction was shot in a park across the street from the U.S. Embassy and contained a raging diatribe about America’s imperialism as well as its moral and cultural decline.

  The film transitioned to a montage of American tourists at different attractions across the city, focusing on the heaviest and most unattractive ones he could find. He conducted man-on-the-street interviews, asking Americans their opinions about Islam and the involvement of their country in the affairs of various Muslim nations. All of the responses were then edited to make America look as evil as possible.

  In what would become a chilling reminder from beyond the grave, he spliced together a series of shots of unattended bags in churches, parks, sidewalk cafés, metro stations, and department stores.

  It ended with Ressam reading several passages from the Qur’an set to a popular jihadist tune from his ancestral home in Algeria. The picture then faded to black, and the music was replaced with the sound of French revelers counting down the final ten seconds to midnight on New Year’s Eve. At zero, there was the audio and visual of a large, Hollywood explosion. Scenes of the 2005 Bali bombings were juxtaposed against scenes of supposed American atrocities against Muslim civilians and set to the music of the American national anthem.

  Finally, the word fin appeared and the video was finished. There was a reason Ressam had never been able to find any work in the French film industry.

  At this moment, though, it made no difference. As Ressam crossed the Boulevard Saint-Germain, he had no misgivings, no second thoughts. He was about to launch his greatest production ever. It was all in the name of Allah the most merciful, the most compassionate.

  Had he been struck with a change of heart, there would have been nothing he could do about it and he knew it. He understood why the cell phone had been wired to the vest he wore beneath his clothes. If he tried to back out, his handler would complete the job for him—from a distance of course.

  Twice he thought he caught sight of the man, but each time he looked back, the figure was gone. The sensation was somewhat disquieting. Why that would bother him considering what he was about to do didn’t make much sense, and the ridiculousness of the emotion made him laugh nervously to himself.

  Ressam crushed out his cigarette on the sidewalk and lit another. He held the smoke deep in his lungs and thought about his family. As he exhaled, he banished all worldly emotion from his heart. Like the tendrils of smoke, the last vestiges of humanity within his soul were banished from his body and whisked skyward into the warm Parisian night.

  The crowd of tourists thickened as he wound his way deeper into the warren of narrow, twisting streets around the Rue Saint-Séverin. Predominantly off-limits to cars, it was one of the greatest concentrations of restaurants in all of Paris. It had almost every cuisine imaginable. Being in the shadow of Notre Dame guaranteed its popularity with tourists, particularly with Americans.

  He had wanted to detonate inside one of the city’s many McDonald’s restaurants and had argued with his handler about it at great length. While the man agreed that it would have been wonderfully symbolic, the idea was to create the largest death toll possible and to make the Americans realize that there was no place they would ever be safe.

  Firm in his belief that Islam could only prevail by slaughtering as many nonbelievers as possible, Ressam strode down the middle of the street to the busiest section of restaurants. All of the outdoor areas were packed. He checked his watch. He was right on time.

  He unslung the backpack from his shoulder and casually carried it with one hand. Near the entrance to a Greek restaurant was a large sandwich board. It had a picture of a Greek fisherman holding a blackboard upon which the evening’s specials had been scrawled. Setting the bag on the ground near the opening of the tent-like sign he read the menu from top to bottom. Then he peered around to see what was written on the other side. As he did, he used his foot to nudge his bag underneath.

  “May I help you?” asked the restaurant’s owner in a haughty tone.

  “Do you serve couscous?” Ressam asked.

  The owner dropped his voice, grabbed Ressam by the arm, and guided him off the curb and into the street. “Does this look like a fucking couscous restaurant to you, asshole? Go find someplace else to pick pockets. Get lost.”

  The owner turned back to his guests and smiled. “No problem, no problem,” he said with a laugh. “Gypsies. Very bad.”

  Ressam kept his temper in check and walked to the end of the block. Turning the corner, he stepped into a doorway, lit a cigarette, and watched the final seconds tick down on his watch.

  The explosion was deafening. From his vantage point, he saw a cloud of smoke belched from the end of the street and watched as debris from his primary device rained down from above. As soon as the ringing in his ears started to abate, he could hear the sound of people screaming.

  Leaving the security of the doorway, he walked back around the corner. His handler had been very specific about this part. He was so very close now. He needed to fight his urge to rush right in. Let it happen, he had been told. Be patient. It was much easier said than done.

  Ressam was certain that at any moment someone would point him out and yell, “That’s him! He’s the one who placed the bag at the Greek restaurant.”


  It was a foolish fear. Nobody was looking at him at all. Everyone was rushing to the scene of the blast. All of the other restaurants were emptying out as people ran to see what had happened. They were like moths, drawn to the flame. In the distance, he could already hear sirens.

  As he neared the restaurant, he could see the carnage firsthand. Tables were overturned, windows were blown out, bodies were everywhere. And there was blood. Oh, so much blood! Blood that had been shed for Allah and all of the world’s Muslims. God was indeed great. So great indeed. Allahuakbar, he thought. Allahuakbar.

  And then he began saying it. Quietly at first, but raising his voice as he moved closer to the crowd that now numbered at least two hundred people.

  “Allahuakbar!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

  People heard the Islamic war cry and screamed, but it was too late. Samir Ressam took his finger off the detonator and completed his masterpiece.

  CHAPTER 26

  Harvath had wanted to put as much distance between himself and Cannes as possible. Despite playing dumb with the man’s wife, he knew who Nikolai Nekrasov was. Considering all of his ties to organized crime, it didn’t surprise him one bit that he had a lowlife like Gaston Leveque working for him.

  At the Palais des Festivals, Harvath had pulled into the underground parking garage where he had earlier left his Citroën. After having wiped his prints from the Saleen, he had grabbed his pack, turned over the keys, and had said good-bye to Eva Nekrasova.

  At the ticket booth, she had blown him a kiss and had roared away toward the center of town. Harvath had let two cars pull out after her and had then exited the structure. Looking up, he had seen no sign of Nekrasov’s helicopter and so had pointed his Citroën toward Marseille.