Collateral Damage (Stone Barrington 25)

“Thank you, Director.”

There was a click. “Holly?” Felicity asked. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Felicity.” She thought about adding, “Stone, too,” just to rub it in, but didn’t.

“I’m sorry to call you so late.”

“It’s not as late as it is there,” Holly said.

“Yes, well, we’ve been up all night. We’ve had a big break in the hunt for Jasmine.”

“Go ahead.”

“Early yesterday morning we got a tip from a milkman about a house on the Thames, west of London, quite a spiffy neighborhood. He said that he’s seen Jasmine there twice in the past two weeks, and after a thorough interview with him we decided that the lead was good enough for a raid. And that’s how we captured Habib Assam.”

“I know that name—he’s al Qaeda, isn’t he?”

“He is—very important. We’ve had his brother in custody in the UK for nearly a year, and we made a lot of progress in turning him, but he wouldn’t give up Habib. Now that he’s in custody, the brother is talking.”

“Wonderful. Has he given you anything on Jasmine?”

“Jasmine is part of his cell, as is Habib. He’s telling us that there’s a New York cell, too.”

“How big a cell?”

“Half a dozen people, now plus Jasmine, working from an apartment somewhere on the West Side.”

“Do you have an address?”

“I don’t think he knows that, but there’s more,” Felicity said.

Holly didn’t like the sound of that.

“There are cells in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, too, each with something on the order of four to six people. The brother says they are all well supplied with weapons and explosives and ready to move when they get the order.”

“From whom?” Holly asked.

“Ayman al-Zawahiri, since bin Laden’s death, the head of al Qaeda.”

“Go on.”

“The cell leaders in each city were sent there while bin Laden was still running things, each with a lot of money, and told to do their own recruiting and training of the recruits. Al-Zawahiri has been waiting for all the cells to reach full strength and training and to select targets, then report in. Full readiness is expected sometime soon, perhaps within a month.”

“Good God,” Holly said.

“Quite. The head of the New York cell is also named Habib. We don’t have a last name. We’ve no doubt that the arrival in New York of Jasmine was the catalyst that set things off there.”

“Were you able to get any names of the people in the other cities?”

“We’re working on that now. Something else we’ve learned: the setting off of the device in Los Angeles was meant to be the start of a new American and European jihad, but the failure of that effort has slowed things, and the killing of Dr. Kharl has, at least for the moment, stopped any large-scale attacks, the next of which was to be London. It is our conclusion that, without Kharl to make the devices, that effort is dead, because there is just no one else available to these people who has the requisite skills and access to materials.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Kate broke in. “That’s the story in a nutshell,” she said. “I’m in the situation room now with the president discussing what is to be done, and Felicity is traveling to Washington almost immediately as the prime minister’s representative. I am going to want your recommendations on how we should proceed.”

“I can give you my recommendations now, Director,” Holly said.

“I’ll put you on speakerphone. Go ahead.”